Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who or Torchwood, both belong to the BBC and their respected writers. But I do own Gaia! :b

A/N: I HAVE A JOB! WOO! But... unfortunately that means I'll have slightly less time to write, but meh. I also finish school on friday, woo!

"Okay guys, we're all done here." Jack stated to the team. They had just come to the close of a rather disgusting investigation, well mentally disgusting. It was these types of cases that Gaia was ashamed of the human race. Sex trafficking alien aphrodisiacs that caused human users to well... pleasure themselves into oblivion, wasn't exactly an achievement for her human creations. But thankfully, as per usual, Torchwood had stopped the trafficking and was left with the clean up.

Jack took charge in these incidences, he was much better at it then Gaia. So, like the clean up to every other case, Jack dished out duties. "Owen, gather all the people outside and have them take a retcon pill. Gwen, go and get the SUV and get the safe box out. Ianto, collect the remaining aphrodisiacs and put them in the safe box. And Tosh, we're going to need fake alibis for all of them." Jack instructed and everyone got to work, bar Tosh who seemed a little dazed. "Tosh." Jack called, wondering if Tosh had been listening. Tosh shook her head.
"Right... yes, alibis." She muttered and walked to the SUV with Gwen to get out her laptop. Jack rolled his eyes at Tosh's retreating figure and went to help Ianto.

Gaia on the other hand stood there a soft sympathetic smile on her face. Gaia had noticed a change in Tosh, ever since Tommy had left. She had become much more quiet and subdued than normal. Tosh was a quiet girl anyway, but her eyes would empty sometimes, her mind going adrift and Gaia knew it was because she was thinking about a certain soldier. Gaia had had this suspicion for quite some time, even before leaving to see River she had noticed Tosh's some what changed behaviour and after seeing the CCTV footage of the manipulated Tosh and Adam together, it had only confirmed it. Tosh's mind, although manipulated, had used Adam as a replacement for Tommy. It had been almost heartbreaking for Gaia to realise that; it seemed all Tosh wanted was to be loved and Gaia was going to make it happen.

Later that evening back at the Hub, after everyone had gone home and Jack was far off in the land of nod, Gaia sat in her office looking through old war documents and memoirs trying to find the exact place where Tommy went to his apparent death. It was proving harder than she first expected. The First World War was fought on so many fronts, on so many battle fields that it was incredibly hard to find any detailed or accurate reports or accounts of where they were. Yes, she did have the memoirs, but they weren't the originals; they were the government edited watershed ones, the originals had been rewritten and destroyed in the matter of apparent national security. She was almost at wits end, she had no idea where he was or when he `died`. She couldn't exactly go wondering around the no man's land in every battle field in France looking for him. She wouldn't be able to withstand being there that long. All that death, all of them before their time... her body certainly wouldn't be able to take that.

Gaia flopped back in her chair in defeat; she was at a loss on what to do now. She closed her eyes and rubbed the bridge of her nose; she relished the sound of silence in her office it was a nice reprieve from her day to day life. Gaia let herself be immersed into the silence, let its stillness wash over her and she could feel herself start to drift of into sleep.

BUZZ!

Gaia's phone went off causing her to jump up in shock. Her hearts were racing; she could feel the triple staccato rhythm drumming against her rib cage. Taking a few deep breaths, she grabbed the offending buzzing item off her desk and opened the text from the unknown number. Reading it her brow knotted in confusion.

"Look under the paper work idiot."

Gaia gave a quick darting look around her office before gingerly lifting the mass of paperwork off her desk. Amazingly, lying underneath it was a small leather bound diary. Gaia picked it up and examined its cover. It was worn and battered, the page edges were ruffled and sticking out quite a bit at the books edge, not to mention the books spine that was verging on non-existent. Gaia's hand then buzzed once again and she opened another text from the same unknown number.

"Read it!"

Gaia shrugged and placed her phone back on her desk. She then sat down once again and opened the book. She gasped as she read the messy handwriting. It was Tommy's. Not having the patients to read the whole thing, she flicked, gently, to Tommy's final entry.

"7th June 1918, it's getting harder now. The war, it's... I don't know what it is. When you're up there, firing at God-knows-what, all rhyme and reasoning escapes you. You just shoot; knowing that if you don't you'll be shot yourself. What do you call that? I guess some would call it patriotism, King and Country and all that, but honestly... none of that matters anymore. I guess it's just an excuse, something we tell ourselves to make it alright, to make the mindless killing okay. Yeah, as I said, it's getting harder.

We're helping the Americans now, we're at Belleau Wood. The German's have over run the original US occupiers and it's our job to take it back. They say it should be easy, that we're attacking the Germans when they're at their weakest, but... you can hear them, the artillery fire, wave after wave of men screaming as they fall to the ground. I don't know a single man whose gone up and returned for briefing the next morning. I'm going over tomorrow. I'd like to say I'm not scared, that I'm not in fact quaking in my boots, but my Mother had brought me up too well to lie.

I guess this will be my last time to say it, well write it at least. My dreams. The dream I have every night even in this God-forsaken place, my dream of another time, decades in the future where I'm in love with a beautiful girl. She's not British, I know that; I don't know where she's from, but that doesn't seem to matter when I'm there, with her. Now though, it's funny, there's a part of me that misses her and I don't even know if she's real.

If she is real and she's some angel up in heaven waiting, then I'm coming soon and really can't wait to meet her."

Gaia was crying as she read Tommy's last entry. She was crying not only at the horrible truth of Tommy's ordeal, but the fact that a part of Tommy, however small, still loved Toshiko. That meant he was still in there, the Tommy that had been frozen for the last century, the Tommy who saved the world. Thankfully Tommy's diary told her everything she needed. With the knowledge that Tommy's final station was at Belleau Wood, she could check the role call of those trenches and get a more accurate area of where Tommy might have been. Tear trails still glistening on her cheeks, Gaia got to work, burying her head in the mass of paperwork.

An hour later, after checking and double checking everything was correct Gaia started to programme the coordinates into her manipulator. He hands were shaking as she slowly entered each digit in. She closed her eye and took a deep breath to calm her nerves. She then gave her office a final once over, before she slammed her hand down on the manipulator and disappeared in a crackle of electricity.

For once Gaia landed on her feet and for once she wish she hadn't. She had teleported directly into the middle of no man's land and had become a target as soon as she appeared. Although not physically painful, Gaia could feel the ripple of the disintegrating bullets as they neared her skin, so like every other man on the field- she dropped. Lying on her stomach she started to crawl across the wasteland trying to find Tommy. She didn't really have much to go on; she mainly had her sight and recognition of the young man. She had slightly numbed some of her planetary senses in preparation for the onslaught she'd feel on a battlefield. Even doing this though, she could feel her body start to weaken from the deaths.

"Tommy!" She yelled out in a vain hope of finding the boy. Not only was her voice just above a whisper, but she was hopelessly drowned out by the artillery fire and the explosions. Her limbs were getting heavier by the second, not just through pure exhaustion of her body's reaction to human death, but because of the tar like mud that congealed on the skin and clothing. Her vision became tunnelled as she seemed to either not notice or simply blank the bodies of other dead soldiers around her, most of them only boys. Now all she could think about was finding Tommy and getting the poor boy out of there.

But at some point she stopped, her body too weak to continue and her head lolled, falling into the mud. "Tommy." She slurred, trying vainly to call out to the boy, but it was of little use. Her eyes drifted shut and her world went dark.

Tommy sucked in a breath as he waited at the base of the ladder. There were several other men behind him, all with the knowledge of what their own fates would be and all of them looking terrified with the burden of their horrid foreknowledge. Tommy clutched the ladder rung tightly, wishing that he'd wake and be back at home in Wales. But it seemed fate wasn't kind and Tommy was abruptly snapped out of his day dream by the sound of a piecing whistle, signalling them to begin their ascent over the top.

Tommy's whole being seemed to slow down as he climbed each rung of the ladder. It seemed the gap between each rung was giant, like he was child trying to get up the stairs. It seemed his metaphor was accurate, he was just a child, they all were, all of them fighting in a war that seemed never ending. When Tommy's feet finally reached the soil of no man's land, he kept his head down and ran. He ran towards the spluttering machine guns, the point accurate assassins and the young men like himself, fighting for a well rehearsed lie, but instead of King and Country, it was in the name of Deutschland.

Tommy dived as bullets seemed to skim his helmet, any longer running and he'd be a dead man. He could hear the strangled sobs and cries of his companions, their deaths apparently not blessed with being quick and instant. They didn't dive and avoid the gun fire like Tommy, their wailing of unimaginable pain the evidence of that. Tommy tried to calm his laboured breath; he was firm in not looking back. If he looked backed, he would never move forward and the truth was that there was nothing he could do for them now. He didn't have to the bullets to spare to put them out of their misery.

Using his elbows and legs, he crawled across the wasteland, manoeuvring from the shadow of a mound to the crater of an explosion. He could feel the adrenaline running through his veins, his fight and flight reaction begging him to run and never look back. He couldn't though, he couldn't run. If he did, those men, his friends, they would have died in vein and he may not be able to save them now, but like hell was he going to avenge them.

That was when he saw her. Her tangled hair encrusted with mud, her clothes soggy and unrecognisable under its thick grey coating and her face, so impossibly calm and serene. It was a woman unconscious in the middle of a man's war. Tommy positioned himself next to woman and heaved her up on to his back. She didn't stir. He then began his long crawl back to the trench.

Every muscle in Tommy's body was against him as he finally flopped back into the allied trench. He gave the remaining soldiers a shock that's for sure. "What in the ruddy hell are you doing back?" One of them asked, shocked that Tommy had managed to return to the trench without being shot. Gasping for breath, Tommy pointed at the woman he had pulled out of the firing line.
"Good God, a woman. Quick get her inside." Another soldier said and between them they lifted the unconscious woman into the barracks. Tommy slowly and shakily followed them in, wanting to see that his effort to save the woman hadn't been in vain.

They laid the woman on one of the cots, they weren't overly bothered by the fact that she was caked in wet mud, everything was in the barracks. Tommy slumped down on the end of the bed out of exhaustion as the soldiers left having to get back to their duties. One soldier remained, he was American that much Tommy could tell and he also had a feeling that he should know the man, but his name seemed to escape him. The American soldier looked genuinely shocked at the woman, the look on his face conveying that he was surprised she even existed. "Thank you." The American said in relief, not turning to face Tommy. Tommy nodded and watched as the soldier caressed the woman's face.
"Do you know her?" Tommy asked after taking a drink of water from his canteen. The soldier nodded.
"Yes, I have no idea how she got herself here though." The American replied. Tommy didn't reply; that was a question playing on his own mind.

The woman seemed to stir and Tommy could hear the American take in a deep breath. Painfully slow the woman's eyes fluttered open and a small smile fell on her face. "Hello Jack." She sighed softly.

The first time Gaia felt her body again, she could tell she was no longer on the battlefield. She was lying on her back and she could feel someone's hand on her face. Gathering as much strength as she could muster she pried her eyes open and was greeted by the fuzzy outline of none other than Captain Jack Harkness. "Hello Jack." She managed to whisper and was met with a very watery smile from Jack.
"Hello Princess." Jack replied just as soft.
"You haven't called me Princess in centuries." Gaia replied softly letting her eyes drift back closed. It took her a second to realise what she had just said and her eyes reopened wide with a start and she sat up in the bed. "And this isn't the hub." She stated. She looked back at Jack, who had a very confused look on his face.
"Hub? What's the hub?" He asked. Gaia looked at Jack in shock.
"It's, it's..." She began but then shook her head. It was then she noticed the third person in the room. "Tommy!" She said happily.
"How do you know who I am?" Tommy replied scared. In an instant Gaia had pieced it together and she turned back to face Jack.
"You lied to her." Gaia accused, pointing a figure at him.
"Who did I lie to?" Jack spluttered shocked.
"Toshiko." Gaia replied slightly angry.
"Who's Toshiko?" Jack asked confused.

Gaia's mouth formed an O shape as she realised she gotten her tenses confused. "Right, 1918. Okay, better start at the beginning..." Gaia sighed. "I'm not your Gaia." She began and Jack interrupted her.
"Not my Gaia, then who are you?" Jack argued taking a step away from her.
"No, I am Gaia, just not yours in a linearly sense. I'm a future Gaia, who's been with a future version of you." Gaia explained. Jack nodded and relaxed a little. He had been a time agent long enough to know that time wasn't a straight line as most people believed.
"Okay so how do you know him?" Jack asked nodding to Tommy. Tommy's eyes widened akin to a deer in a headlight.
"About 3 weeks ago Tommy was taken by an organisation called Torchwood. They froze him in their cryo-freezers and every year for the last, no next century they awaken him to check he is still working. In my time, quite a way in the future, there were these rips in time and we had to send Tommy through them. His life of being in the cryo-freezer became like a thread and he stitched the rips closed. Tommy was returned to his own time with no memory of his heroism and was sent to the front lines, which is right here, right now." Gaia explained.

Jack's eyebrows had progressively raised as Gaia had told her tale, as unbelievable as it sounded, with the life that he had had it did seem possible. He didn't remark anything to Gaia but turned to the man in question to see his reaction. Tommy was sat at the end of the cot, his skin even more pale than when he had arrived. Tommy so wanted to call the woman a liar, say that what she was saying was impossible, but... he couldn't. A part of him knew it to be true, a part of him knew that he had memories missing, what they truly were though were a mystery to him.

"Tommy, are you alright?" Gaia asked softly seeing the conflicting emotions play across Tommy's face.
"I... I don't know." Tommy stuttered. "I mean everything you just said... it's impossible. But, there's a part of me that knows it's true and, and I don't know why." Tommy continued. Gaia gave the soldier a soft smile.
"I know, it just means somewhere in there is those memories, some where deep in your subconscious." Gaia explained.
"Oh..." Tommy said, his tone sounding slightly defeated. "Is there any way of getting them back?" He asked softly. Gaia nodded.
"Yes, there is." Gaia began. Tommy looked up at her in shock.
"There's a `but` isn't there." He stated it wasn't a question. Gaia smile sympathetically at the soldier, Tommy never missed a trick.
"But I would need to get them." Gaia finished and was met by a sceptical glare from Tommy.
"How? How could you possible get in my head?" Tommy argued he was starting to feel like he was being made a fool of.
"Tommy calm down. I wouldn't need to go in your head." Gaia answered and Tommy seemed to relax a little at her words. "I... well it's not overly important what I need to do, but the real question is do you want me to do it?"

Tommy looked up at the woman, who only a few minutes ago had been unconscious and on no doubt at death's door. She was offering him a whole other life, a life that seemed impossible, but... maybe she was there- the woman from his dreams. Maybe that's where he had seen her, maybe... but Tommy stopped his train of thought there. It was always a maybe, never a definite.

"Would I still be me?" He asked her. Gaia nodded as she ran through the principle in her head.
"Yes, you'll still have all the memories of now, but you'll have extra's as it were of Torchwood." Gaia explained, but what Tommy said next shocked her.
"I don't want to be me." He stated, he sounded tired and defeated.
"Okay..." Gaia replied confused.
"I don't though, I... why would I want to remember this?" Tommy stated defending his decision and as if to back him up an explosion from outside shook the small room they were in.
"Tommy are you sure? Experiences good and bad in our lives define us, are you sure you really want to forget?" Gaia asked. Tommy sighed and looked at Gaia with a tired glint in his eye.
"If you were in my position, would you want to forget?" Tommy said. Gaia looked down, her mind racing to her last day on Starnet. Those screams, her baby girl dead in her arms... oh how she wished she could forget and quite often she had begged for it. No, if Tommy didn't want to remember the atrocities he had faced here then Gaia was going to let him, it was the least she could do.

"Okay, if you're sure." Gaia replied and Tommy nodded his head. "Close your eyes, it'll be easier." Gaia ordered and Tommy did as he was told. Jack, who had been crouched beside Gaia, took a few steps back slightly worried at what Gaia was going to. What he didn't expect was for Gaia to start speaking a strange and beautiful language. It seemed to have little effect on him, but for Tommy... his hands which had been shaking in nerves- stopped; his previous posture of being slightly bent over out of fear was replaced with a straight back and broad shoulders. Whatever Gaia was telling Tommy, it was clearly changing him.

As the last words left Gaia lips, Tommy's entire posture slipped a little, his shoulders now sagging a little. Slowly he opened his eyes and he blinked to allow his eyes to adjust to the light. "Gaia." The Soldier said his voice much more soft than it had been previously. His whole persona seemed to be softer as he was apparently no longer a man hardened by the cruelty of war.

"Hello Tommy." Gaia replied with a slightly watery smile. She had done it. Tommy squinted as his eyes adjusted to the light.
"This isn't the hub." Tommy noted and Gaia chuckled at his observation. "What?" Tommy asked confused.
"Don't worry and no, this isn't the hub. We do need to get back there though." Gaia said and revealed the vortex manipulator on her wrist. Jack looked at her in shock.
"How did you get one of those?" He asked incredulously.
"Spoilers." Gaia chimed, her mind instantly jumping to River as she said it.
"Spoilers?" Jack questioned.
"I can't tell you, it's your future." Gaia replied.
"Oh... so no chance of a lift then." Jack said dishevelled. Gaia shook her head.
"I'm sorry, it's a no Jack. There's a you there already." Gaia replied with a weak smile. She then turned back to Tommy. "Come on, we need to be getting back." She said and got to her feet, pulling Tommy with her.
"Wait, what is that?" Tommy asked at the same time Jack asked:
"What am I meant to do?" Gaia decided to answer Tommy's question later, she answered Jack's instead.
"You'll think of something." She said with a wink, she then grabbed Tommy's hand and they disappeared in a crackle of light.

Jack was left, in the barracks of a World War 1 trench, on his own. Outside he could hear the heavy artillery fire resume, it almost seemed the entire battlefield had came to a halt as Gaia spoke that alien tongue, but now it was to normal... well as normal as war got. To him these wars were history lessons, to actually be living it was horrid, even for an immortal such as himself. The soldiers who carried Gaia in had too much to think about at the moment, if asked he'll just deny it ever happened. Thankfully there was only few months left of this war; Armistice Day was soon approaching, although no one knew that but him. He was looking forward to the parties, the joy of the allied countries and the escape of not being shot and returning from the dead near on everyday. The 21 year gap would be a nice reprieve, plus he had seeing Gaia again to look forward too. He'd missed her so much and with the knowledge he'd see her again... yeah, that was enough to get him through the next century at least.

Gaia and Tommy landed in Torchwood with a jolt. Gaia now slightly use to the form of travel managed to stay on her feet, Tommy on the other hand fell right into Gaia, knocking them both to the floor. Tommy groaned as he collided with the hard flooring, as did Gaia. "That was horrid." He exclaimed, clutching his head.
"You get use to it." Gaia admitted. "Although young men falling on you, not so much." Gaia finished and forever the gentlemen, Tommy was up in an instant helping Gaia to her feet. Gaia thanked Tommy and looked at her surroundings.
"Where are we?" Tommy asked, looking at the room. It had the same sort of design as the hub, but he didn't recognise the room.
"We're in my office." Gaia explained. "In the hub." She added. Tommy nodded.
"I don't think I've ever been in here. I've been here a century, so that must be an achievement." Tommy said and Gaia chuckled, now checking the time and date on her computer monitor.
"Well, not people get to come in here to be quite honest." Gaia replied, watching Tommy in the corner of her eye as he looked around her office. Tommy looked fascinated at the assortment of alien objects Gaia had scattered around her office. Picking up one of the stranger objects, he started to fiddle with what he presumed to be a moving piece. It wasn't and it broke in 2. Sheepishly he placed the object down and turned around, slightly red faced, to an amused Gaia.

"Come on." Gaia said happily, amused at the sight of a World War 1 veteran, still in uniform, breaking a piece of alien recycling. Gaia opened her door and walked out into the main hub, Tommy of her tail. "It's still an hour or 2 before the others arrive for work. You must be hungry." Gaia explained as she headed towards the kitchen.
"God yes, I'm starving. It feels like I haven't eaten a proper meal in months." Tommy joked as he went to raid the fridge. Gaia smiled at his comment although her smile didn't quite reach her eyes. Tommy probably didn't realise the truth of his words.

Gaia walked over to the coffee machine and set herself a brew; she couldn't help but anticipate the moment Tosh returned to the hub. First though, there was the slight issue with Tommy's attire.

At exactly 8 am, the same time she arrived at the hub every morning, Tosh walked through the large rolling door of the hub. Unsurprisingly she found the place deserted, it wasn't uncommon for her to be the first in. Sitting down at her workstation she began to flick through the night's news reports, dismissing any `normal` ones and highlighting ones that she may need to look further into. It was then she heard a laugh, a laugh of a man who couldn't be here. Stopping her typing on the keyboard she listened to see if the laughter would come again. It did.

Now on her feet Tosh made her way down the corridor towards the kitchen. The smell of coffee and sugar hung in the corridor, signally someone or people had been drinking quite a bit of the stuff. Peaking her head around the door, she gasped at who she saw.

"Tommy!"