Kitzinger v Danes

Chapter Three: Part II

Miracle Day?

A/N: Thanks for reading this far! Also, a big thank you to anyone who's read my other Miracle Day fic, You Called My Name, which focuses on Gwen, Jilly, and how they view themselves and those around them. Mostly Angst, I think, with a small Hurt/Comfort element. Takes place during The Blood Line. But anyway, we're not here to talk about that! On with the Disclaimer!

Disclaimer: Sorry, still don't own Torchwood: Miracle Day. I'm just borrowing it. I'll give it back, honest! *fingers crossed*…

Oh, sorry, one more thing…the title of my last chapter (An Alliance Is Formed) may not have made sense. The way I see it is that there's this sort of divide between Torchwood and Jilly- they're kinda working together on the court case, but there isn't really anything connecting them until Amelia comes in, points a gun at Jilly, and almost unconsciously, they're all 'Oh no you don't' and this thing just clicks and falls into place because suddenly they're united against this person. And then (even if it did backfire), Jilly warns Amelia not to harm the others or else she'll basically knock her unconscious, and that's sort of like the last country signing the defence treaty or something. Basically, they're all allied now. Even if some of them still don't like eachother. *cough* Rex and Jilly *cough*

Previously

"We're here under orders from Oswald Danes, and he wants us to kill you."

The others took a step closer, almost in a protective fashion. "If you don't get outta here, I'm gonna make sure you end up Cat. One."

"Fine. But don't think this is the last time you'll see me." Amelia turned and marched out of the door.

Gwen was the first to speak. "What the bloody hell just happened?"

"Guys, some help here?" Esther called. Thanks to Oswald and Amelia, Jilly could hardly stand up, and Esther was having to support most of her.

"Hang on; I'll give you a hand." Gwen said, and between them, they managed to help Jilly onto one of the mattresses without hard springs poking out if it.

"Are you okay?" Esther asked, knowing full-well that after that, none of them were ok, but she felt obligated to ask all the same. Jilly gave her a Look.

"My ankle is killing me, our apartment got broken into at 4 in the morning and I've just had a gun pointed at me. How do you think I am?"

Gwen looked almost sympathetic. "Welcome to Torchwood."

"Y'know, Gwen Cooper, that might just become your catchphrase." Jack grinned, striding over from where he had been talking to Rex. "But seriously, though, this kinda thing happens a lot in Torchwood, so don't dismiss it as a one-off."

Gwen laughed. "Remember the time you called me and Tosh in at ten past two to tell us you, Owen, and Ianto were sure there was a burglar in the Hub 'cos all the food had gone, and I said 'What kind of burglar takes your food but not the expensive equipment?', but you were all panicky so I go and take a look, and yeah, all the food's gone. So I go back to Jack's office and Toshiko's in there with the others, laughing her head off, so I say 'What's so funny, Tosh?', and she says…she says…" Gwen stopped speaking for a moment in order to control her laughter, "…she says 'Owen, tell Gwen where the food is.' and he looks at me really matter-of-factly, and he says to me 'We ate it.' They ate it! Honestly! Some burglar! Wake me and Tosh up at ten past two when we've hardly slept for a week, and all for that!"

Esther gave Jack a disbelieving look. "Seriously?"

Jack looked sheepish. "Uh…yeah."

"And yet you consider it offensive when I call you a nutcase?" Jilly asked, her expression mirroring Esther's.

"What Jack considers normal, we consider illegal. A lot of things don't make sense in Torchwood, and Jack makes up most of them." Gwen explained. They sat in silence for a few more minutes, until the soft buzzing of a mobile phone started up.

"Oh, that's mine." Jilly said. "Could someone pass it over?"

"Rex, throw me the phone!" Jack called, and Rex did so.

"Careful with that! BlackBerrys don't come cheap, you know!"

Rex did nothing to indicate he had heard Jilly, but Jack, being Jack, made a great show of carefully passing the phone over to her. Gwen raised her eyebrows at him, as if to say 'Really, Jack?" Meanwhile, Jilly had answered her phone.

"Hello? Oh, hi Andrea! How are you? Good. Yeah, I'm ok, thanks. No, actually, I'm…uh…I'm staying with friends right now. Why? No, nothing's wrong, I just fancied a vacation, is all. You did? Ah. Well then, that's 3 seconds of thinking up a good cover story down the drain! Really? Thanks, Andrea. Yeah, ok. Just get some rest and I'll call you tomorrow, alright? Right. Bye, Andrea." She hung up. The others were staring at her, shamelessly eavesdropping on her conversation.

"Who was that?" Jack asked. Gwen elbowed him in the ribs, having the good grace to be embarrassed about listening in.

"That," Jilly told him, "was my sister Andrea. She heard about….what happened and wanted to see what was going on."

This explanation seemed to satisfy the others, because they quickly moved on to discussing more anecdotes from Torchwood, pre-Miracle. Jilly listened for a while, but eventually tiredness got the better of her and she slept for a bit.

When the team plus Jilly later tried to explain what exactly had woken them at a quarter to six in the morning for no apparent reason, the best explanation they could come up with was;

"Like something was inside my head."

"The Miracle." Jack said grimly. "The confusion, the terror. After a while it gets to you, starts to creep inside your mind, keeps you awake all through the endless nights until you go mad."

"Cheerful thought." Gwen commented. "But it kind of makes sense. Even if 'Miracle Day' doesn't seem to be such a miracle anymore."

The others agreed.

"There was something else, too." Esther said. "I was looking down into…I don't know what, like a big…sort of a canyon, and inside it…" she trailed off, not sure how much more she ought to tell them.

"What was it? What did you see in there?" Jack asked, leaning forward ever so slightly like an eager child requesting a much-loved bedtime story.

Esther shook her head. "I can't describe it. It was like…."

"Like looking at your worst nightmare?" Jilly supplied. Esther looked at her.

"You too?"

Jilly nodded. "Yes. It was like I was a kid, stuck in one of my nightmares again. It felt so real….I'm sure I was underneath a city…somewhere far-off…" she thought for a moment. "Shanghai! That's it, I was somewhere underneath Shanghai! Where were you?"

"I dunno. I don't think it was Shanghai. Just a minute…now you mention it, it did have a name…I think it was Buenos Aires."

"Buenos Aires?"

"Yeah."

"Interesting."

I wonder what that was that Esther and I saw. Jilly thought, her mind straying to the mysterious canyon and what lay inside.

A/N: I know, I know, it was short, but I PROMISE to make my next chapter at least seven pages long!

'What the bloody hell just happened?' seemed like a good place to end the last chapter, so Parts I and II were born!

Au revoir! I'm off to work on Chapter Four! Really, I just can't stop writing!

Oh, and I suppose I must add a bit to the summary: *cue dramatic music*

Just what is this strange place in Shanghai Jilly keeps dreaming about? Could there be something going on that's even above PhiCorp…? Or is it all a trap?