The End Is Where We Start From

by Telynaur

CoE fixit. Instead of dying at Thames House, an alien being who owes Jack a favour sends Jack and Ianto to another reality where they have a chance to rebuild their lives. Rated T to begin with but will rise to M in later chapters

6. Interregnum

Interregnum

Patterns of power meshed and flowed across space and time. They passed through all things, including a specific time and place just outside Cardiff. Ancient mechanisms counted down as previously commanded. The race that had created this place had been masters of space and time, manipulating it the way an artist used oils or wood or stone. They had created a masterpiece and made a promise and they were beings of their word.

Time was passing, like grains of sand passing through an hourglass. It had no power over the beings that had once been here but they understood how it bound the younger races. External sensors marked the cycles of human civilisation. They marked the appearance of man-made hydrocarbons in the atmosphere, the sharp taint of fissionables, the resonance of fusion. They felt the caress of radio emissions generated by satellites as they passed overhead. The mechanisms noted all of this and began the final countdown. Soon it would be time to begin. Soon it would be time to awaken their charge.

Deep beneath rock and earth, Ceridwen dreamed and stirred.