"It's bigger on the inside!" Tosh couldn't help herself. And it was. The blue box, so small on the inside that she wondered what sort of a spaceship it was, how can anyone possibly fly in time and space in it — and made of wood, of all things — turned out to be a real alien spaceship — a huge alien spaceship on the inside. Shining in a golden and green light, the main room seemed to have some sort of a console. How come they never get any cool spaceships, she wondered for a second — after all, plenty of aliens came to Cardiff. But no, all the spaceships, UFOs and cool transportation methods ended up in London. All they had was the rift.
She could have stood there, gaping in amazement, forever — but Jack was already running inside, and she remembered her original plan and rushed in after him.
"Jack!" she called, but he didn't stop, just walked along corridors, twisting this way and that, and Tosh hoped as hell he knows where he's going in here, because she was disoriented after the third turn.
"Jack!" she tried again, and this time he stopped, stopped and faced her. "What are you trying to do here?"
"Bilis must have lied to us. The Doctor was fine, he was getting better, you saw him — and all of a sudden he crashes like that? I'm not buying it."
"Well it does seem suspicious, but what could we possibly do about it?" she asked.
"I'm hoping there's something about Time Lord physiology in here," he said and took her hand. "Come on, Tosh, we're going to the library."
It was definitely a library. An alien library, more like it, as Tosh couldn't read any of the books — no, that's not true. Every once in a while she recognised something. Shakespeare's complete works, facsimile edition. The Catcher in the Rye, some 14 different copies. A whole stand dedicated to Isaac Asimov's writings. Gon gitsune and other Japanese stories for children, she smiled at reading the Kanji. And more and more in languages she couldn't read or have never seen before — and most of them were written in that same weird, drawing-like writing the Doctor used all the time, writing little notes to himself as he worked on things.
"Can you read this stuff?" she asked Jack as he pulled one of the alien books.
"The Tardis is translating for me," he said absent-mindedly.
"Oh," Tosh said, disappointed. A shame this translation didn't work for Tosh, too. She would have loved to spend hours in this place, reading and —
"There!" Jack's call had snapped her out of her musings. "Time Lord physiology. Come on!" and he darted out of the room again, Tosh following him, too afraid she'd get lost and never see the light of day if she didn't.
X
Jack's plan turned out to be quite, quite simple. The book said a Time Lord never completely lose consciousness. That is, the Doctor might be lying there, unmoving and non-responding, but somehow, somewhere inside his brain there should still be activity. And they would need to take advantage of it fast, because one of his hearts had already failed and the other was beating slowly, and getting slower by the minute. He needs to regenerate, Jack had concluded, give the order to his body to do that exact same thing that got him trapped inside a container for so long with tubes sucking out his blood and inserting drugs into his system in the first place — let himself rejuvenate, become a new man, and flush all those nasty things away.
Only he has to know he has to do it, Jack reasoned out.
So Jack would use the knowledge inside the book, connect his own consciousness to the Doctor's with electrodes — with thanks, of course, to several alien gizmos he's had Tosh dig out from their boxes, use the exact right drugs and the right electrical shock at the right moment, and find himself inside the Doctor's head, able to talk to the Time Lord and explain the situation.
A very simple, straight forward plan. Considering you're an insane, suicidal idiot, was the point the rest of his team were trying to make as he hooked the Doctor to the electrodes.
"Jack! For the last time, there's no guarantee he can do that when he's not fully conscious."
"It's worth a try, Owen."
"How are we supposed to get you back? Huh? What if you're stuck in there, forever?"
"Never going to happen," Jack smiled.
"Jack, listen to me," Gwen tried invoking reason in him. "It's too dangerous. We can't take that risk."
"The Doctor needs me," he answered.
"We need you, too," Ianto said quietly.
Jack stopped his preparations of plugging himself into the machine, and walked towards Ianto. "I'm coming back," he said quietly. "Don't worry."
Two things were obvious once they broke their kiss and Jack went back into injecting himself with the substance made out of something he was reluctant to confess to Owen about: Jack's team members were still unconvinced, and that fact was not going to stop Jack himself from going through with it.
"Wish me luck," he finally said, lying next to his alien friend, ready to press the button.
X
"What are you talking about?" Gwen demanded.
"But my dear, you seem quite upset," Bilis answered.
"What the fuck are you talking about? I never asked… I never wanted… You did this! All of this!" Gwen shouted at him, her gun in her hand, aimed at Bilis.
"But of course, you wouldn't remember. In a way, it has never happened."
"What didn't?"
"Your request," he smiled at her.
"I never asked for him to die. I never asked for any of this," Gwen suddenly sat down, tired, and afraid, and so, so alone. "When he died… that's when everything went wrong," she said quietly.
"I could not have predicted this," Bilis said.
"What do you mean, what results did I want? What happened?"
"Tell me, my dear," he asked her, "are you familiar with the concept of alternate realities?"
X
The Doctor never actually accepted Jack's offer to be an official part of the team. Jack told her he never thought he'd take it, but decided it was worth a shot anyway. He's not going to admit he's stuck here, Gwen, Jack said.
Martha also had a suggestion, to go back to work for UNIT in the meantime. Just until he gets everything straight, until he figures out what went wrong and how to fix it. The Doctor flatly refused. Oh, it's not that he prefers Torchwood over UNIT, of course not. But he's been sucked into working with UNIT once and ended up staying a lot longer than he intended to. Something in his eyes when he told Martha that made Gwen ask Jack later what exactly did he mean, and it was Jack who told her the Doctor, who stayed for several years on Earth, could have left sooner than he initially did. It's just for his assistant he ended up staying.
He makes connections with humans, even if he acts as if he doesn't care or doesn't want anything to do with us sometimes. And I'm getting the feeling he knows that if he starts working with Martha, he'll stay.
The Doctor made sure they know he's not on the team. But he did start going off to missions with them more and more. The day Gwen woke up late and found the rest of the team had survived another attempt on their lives by Captain John, he was there with them — and he soon took control. He made sure they all knew where to go as he went back with Jack to the Hub, to capture the rogue Time Agent and stop whatever his destructive plan was this time. What even Jack and the Doctor didn't know was that Captain John was not working on his own plan and out of his own accord. When the Doctor stopped John from transporting Jack back to the past, back to his brother, all hell broke loose. Jack died once, when the bomb on John's wrist went off after he did not follow the orders he was given. The Doctor didn't even have time to feel guilty about causing Jack's death once again, because all of a sudden Jack's psychopath of a brother showed up and almost killed the both of them.
Gwen didn't know what Jack took harder — that two of his team had died in the line of duty, following the orders the Doctor gave them, or that the Doctor, in the heat of the moment and despite his best efforts, ended up killing Jack's brother, the only thing he had left of his family and his past.
She did know what she took harder though. And she couldn't forgive the Doctor for Owen and Tosh. It should have been someone else. She knew they knew what they were doing when they joined Torchwood, they knew what they signed up for. They were all in danger. But there had to be something. Something else. Some way out of this that didn't end with Tosh bleeding to death and Owen being vaporised into ashes.
But she didn't say anything. She knew Jack was in enough pain without her pointing out at the alien he adored, who also happened to be the killer of his brother, as the source of his trouble. It was an agreement in silence between her and Ianto.
She felt guilty about it. Not so guilty when she remembered Owen and Tosh and missed them like hell. Not so guilty when they were locked inside the base and Jack was sent outside to help a past version of the Doctor while the Doctor of their own timeline just sat there and let the people of Cardiff die by Daleks. Not so guilty when the tension between Jack and Ianto became more and more unbearable. They were still trying to hold onto some sort of a relationship, but it was obvious it was a pretense that didn't have a chance of holding for much longer. Jack had the tendency of looking at the Doctor in the same way the Doctor looked at his Tardis. It was longing, longing and misery, and the only person in the room who didn't seem to notice it was the Doctor himself.
But the tension didn't last too long. It was one of these days the Doctor decided he wasn't a part of Torchwood and stayed behind, and only the four of them went after the alien terrorist cell — Jack, Gwen, Ianto and Jeannie. Jack told the Doctor that they needed his help, maybe if he was there this would not end as that same bloodbath they both knew it was bound to be. The Doctor still refused. He thought he found something that might help him, even after a couple of years he still had that dream of going away one day, into the stars and all the way up.
And besides, that snide remark he threw about the alien terrorist cell and Torchwood made it clear he was sure it was going to be a bloodbath either way, and didn't care much to be a part of it. Yeah, he had a point, Gwen had to admit. He just didn't have to be so self righteous about it.
It turned out it was a bloodbath. Just not the one they were expecting. The Doctor's smile and whatever it was that made him happily bounce at them as they came back turned to shock and regret when he saw Ianto's body in Jack's hands. He just didn't make it. And for just those several minutes, stricken with grief, Gwen had the vindictive pleasure of seeing him ridden with guilt over Ianto's lifeless body. Yes, that's right, you son of a bitch. You could have stopped that, had you come with us. Now he's dead, and it's all your fault.
She didn't want to go to work the next morning. She hugged Rhys all night long, and didn't know how to face Jack's pain, Ianto's empty working space, Jeannie's tears, and that blue box.
When she finally dragged herself outside of bed and into the hub, she was struck with shock. There was no blue box there. Yes, the Doctor had something exciting to tell them before he realised the horror of their news. He figured out what it was, he managed to undo it. He was free of them, and they of him. But now the Hub was empty, the box was gone — and Jack was nowhere to be seen. It took Jeannie three hours to find the note. The explanation. How Jack couldn't take it anymore, needed a bit of a way out.
So they were stuck there, on Earth, right now, just the two of them. Team Torchwood, preparing the human race against the future, because everything was changing.
Jeannie died next. They weren't just the two of them anymore, they had others. But Jeannie died next. And at some point Gwen just stopped going back home. So then, when she saw Bilis years afterwards, when she knew how everything went wrong — and why — she couldn't help but take the way out she was offered. The way to make sure none of this happens. None of the Doctor's destructive influence — and yes, she's read in the meantime the files about him, the trail of dead bodies and broken hearts he left behind — she took it. It took her a while to agree to Bilis' proposal. It took her ages to make up her mind, decide to end the life of such a being in such a way. But then Chris died, and she knew this would be the only way to stop it. To bring Jack back.
"But he didn't, he just left us sooner," she told Bilis. "He might as well be dead. The same day the Doctor died, we lost the both of them. Things are so much worse than what you're telling me now, not better."
"I cannot account for all the variables," Biis said quietly, calmly, apparently unimpressed.
"He's — can we do it again?" she suddenly asked him.
"I beg your pardon?"
"Not kill the Doctor. Owen and Tosh, the way they died, what you're describing sounds fast and easy compared to how they died after the… But there has to be a way. Isn't there a way? A way it doesn't end like this, a way they all live and - ?"
"I don't know," said Bilis, and if he ever seemed honest to her, this was the time. "It's hard to account for everything. There might be a solution — but it might make things worse."
"Worse. It can't be worse than this. What's your solution?"
"The drug I gave the Doctor. There is a way to counter it."
"So we're back to square one," she said. "What you told me. The Doctor stays on Earth, Tosh and Owen die, and then Ianto, and then — "
"No," said Bilis. "He won't stay on Earth. Curiously, that same drug can counter other things, too, so that — "
"So that he gets his telepathic abilities again," Gwen stared at him, eyes open wide. "He leaves Torchwood. When Captain John comes — "
"It won't be the same," Bilis said.
"They have a chance. We all have a chance."
"Yes."
It didn't take her long to decide. "Do it," she told that alien, the one she never trusted but was now her only hope. "Do it, save him, let him live and then leave us and then everything would be back the way it should be."
Bilis just smiled at her. "As you wish," he said and disappeared.
It never occurred to Gwen that, just like in Bilis' story, this was the day they buried Chris.
X
"Good luck," the team gave up and said in the end, and Owen administrated both Jack and the Doctor the electrical shock. For just a second, Jack screamed — and then turned quiet.