"I'm here to see Faith," I told the bodyguard, who stepped aside. Anyone else would have been stopped, but not the one who knew her name. Not even Jack knew the Seer's name... or if he did, he pretended not to.

"It's good to have you back, Sage," the little girl said as she shuffled her Tarot deck. It was a special deck, and she was a special little girl... Far older and wiser than I was. I climbed the steps slowly. "It's been a long battle, and you've awoken in the City of Ruin," she said when I was still behind her. "Sit, please, Sister Seer," she said. I moved around the table and took a seat. The last person she'd allowed in was Jack. He'd come after Owen died, the first time Owen died, when there was still enough of Owen to resurrect. Death had come back with Owen, just as it had with Faith centuries before. She was the one person whose mind I could never read. "The cards, Sister? Or shall we talk? It's been forever." The last time I'd come to her had been in 1999, just before I had turned myself into a human. I had asked her if it was the right thing to do. She had said it was what I must do. Terrible things had come of it, but even in the City of Ruin I still trusted her.

"Let's talk," I said.

"How is the Captain? I know of your losses," she said.

"Worried," I told her. "Blaming himself."

"Yes. That's the Captain," she sighed. "And you? The same as he. Blaming yourself. It was another who made the choices, not you."

"I wasn't here. I could have—"

"Died," Faith said plainly.

"What?"

"If you had been here, Sister Sage, you would have died. Do you really think the Gray One knows no ways to kill the Lady of Time?" she said rather serenely, turning the Tower card 'round and 'round on its corner. "Your friends would still have died, and so would you. That's why I told of the House of Blue."

"You called Ianto about my father?" I blurted, astounded.

"He did," she gestured with her thumb over her shoulder. "But yes. I gave you the choice. A chance. You're still needed here. You know that."

"Yes, I know that, but why? What for?"

"Cards?" she offered again.

"Not yet," I said. "My father... should I try to see him again?"

"One day," Faith said softly, "he will come to you."

"Then I shouldn't go with Martha?"

"She has her own path," she said, putting the Tower card in her pocket.

"What does that mean?"

"Love," she said. "Love your friends while you still can. 'Time doesn't end'," she echoed something I'd said to Jack, long ago. "'We do.'"

"I got a message from John," I told her. "He's in Spain."

"The Lonely Wanderer," she murmured. "You still don't trust him... Cards?"

"No, Faith. I want a straight answer. Should I go speak to John, or is it a trap?"

"Life is a trap," she said, "and so is Death. He needs you, though. It's not his trap."

"He's in trouble, then?" She nodded. "That's what I thought. That's what I felt."

"He has answers for you," Faith told me. "Help him, and he will help you see."

"And if I don't?" She pulled the Tower card back out of her pocket and placed it in front of me. "I wish you'd had better news for me, Faith," I said, standing.

"So do I. How about you? Any news for me?" she ventured.

I shook my head. "Maybe my father knows."

"Ask him when he comes for you," she said with a smile. "And Sage... good luck."

"Thanks," I said, then teleported out.

"You'll need it," she said in my wake, turning The Lovers off the top of her deck, then laying The Tower over it. She turned another card over and laid it atop the other two. It was The Star, the beacon of hope, and the girl on the card resembled me. "You, Sister Sage," she whispered "are Hope. Tell them. Tell John. Tell them all."

Inside the Vortex, I saw and heard this, as she'd known I would. It gave me strength. When I'd reached the point of origin of John's signal, I needed that strength.

Meanwhile, back at Torchwood...

"Barcelona," Laura told Jack.

"What's in Barcelona?" Martha asked her.

"Somebody or something very important, or she wouldn't have taken pains to hide it," Laura pointed out.

"She wouldn't have tried to hide it unless she wanted you to find it," Ianto told them all. "She did it to draw attention to it."

"He's right," Jack agreed. "Ianto knows how she thinks."

"Did she say or do anything that was unusual? Something that might have been a clue?" Martha ventured.

"She said 'Remember that I love you'," Jack said, "and she also said 'Don't follow me.' As if I could. She's the only one with a working Teleport."

"John," Ianto said.

"Huh?" Jack blurted.

"That's what you said when he first came back. 'Don't follow me.' And he said that about remembering he loves you right before he—" Jack made a noise in his throat to cut him off before he could say anything in front of Laura. "Also, she's got her voicemail working. She must have been tracing his signal."

"Which would mean he left her a message, but he wasn't able to complete it, or he's luring her into a trap," Gwen voiced.

"Trap," Ianto and Jack said simultaneously.

"No, no, I don't think so," Gwen murmured pensively. "John stopped her as he was leaving. I saw it in the CCTV from that night. She was waving her sonic thing at him like a sword or something... He said something to her, and he kissed her. I think he was apologizing for blinding her. You don't stop to say somethin' like that unless you mean it, especially to someone who's in a great bloomin' hurry to get past you."

"So John's in trouble," Jack mused. "Why would he call Sage?"

"She was his friend, Jack. He saved her life," Ianto said. Jack just stared at him, dumbfounded. "You never asked her where she got a Vortex Manipulator?"

"She said her friend Johnny. I never thought of John Hart," he admitted. "John never told me he'd been to Gallifrey, or that he'd ever had a friend there. I'm an idiot," he decided.

"I'm lost," Laura voiced. "Will somebody please speak English?"

"Suffice it to say that if John Hart was calling for help, he's in big trouble. He's the sort of person who'd cut off his nose to spite his face. And if he called Sage instead of me... it's legal trouble of the Intergalactic kind. Probably the Shadow Proclamation," Jack mused.

"That's like a board or something?" Martha ventured. "Judges? I heard the Doctor mention them more than once. This or that was in violation of the Shadow Proclamation. Oh!" she suddenly gasped.

"What?" Jack asked her.

"Judoon."

"They only interfere when it's an alien incursion, and then only for pay," Jack told her.

"Oh. Well, the Doctor never mentioned anyone else involved in this Shadow Proclamation."

"It's more like an understanding among certain peoples than a board per se," Jack attempted to explain. "At one time Gallifrey and Skaro were both a part of it."

"Isn't Skaro the planet of the Daleks?" Martha asked, surprised.

"It was. It burned with Gallifrey."

"Anyone else?" Ianto prompted.

"The Arterans, Castus Six, The Sycorax... well, up until they went rogue and Torchwood One blew up one of their mother ships... Restus Three—" (1)

"Sycorax?" Laura interjected. "Isn't that Shakespeare?"

Martha snickered. "Probably the Doctor's fault."

"The Doctor?"

"Sage's father. He and I've met Shakespeare," Martha said. "If I got him to say 'Expelliarmus', I'm sure the Doctor could have made him say Sycorax."

"You're weird," Laura stated.

"Thanks," Martha tossed back coolly.

Just then, Jack's wrist strap beeped. He pressed a button and my voice said the following: "Jack, I'm sorry I ran out on you like that. I thought if I told you what's happening, you might try to stop me. The Shadow Proclamation sent representatives to investigate the Adipose situation, and it seems they heard about the Cardiff bombings; how most of the damage was caused by rift storms enhanced and focused by alien technology. Jack... they're blaming it on John. Worse yet, they've sent the Arteran Seek. I'm the only one on this planet with the authority to deal with this, Jack, but it could get ugly. I'm tracking John's signal, and I'm hoping to get to him before they vote him guilty. You know what that would mean, I'm sure. Tell Ianto I love him. And Jack... I love you, too. I want you both to know that. Tell the girls 'chin up'. If anyone can out-think an Arteran, it's me... I'll see you soon."

"Of all the races in the known universe—"

"Jack," Ianto inquired, "what are Arterans? What does a guilty sentence mean?"

"Arterans are highly psychic. Their idea of justice is the death penalty," Jack said. The girls gasped. "But it's no ordinary death. They blank your mind, empty it of all thought and reason, and then they leave your empty shell alive, starving, thirsty, and filthy, until you just stop breathing."

"I think that's the worst thing I've ever heard," Martha murmured.

"Jack, what's she going to do?" Gwen inquired.

"Give testimony."

"How?"

"By opening her mind to them," he said, swallowing hard. Ianto blanched and fell to his knees. "Whoa! Hey," he went to him, kneeling in front of him, "Sage can handle it."

"You don't know that for certain, Jack," he moaned.

"I know a girl, a Seer, who calls Sage 'The Shining Star'. Do you know what the Star is in Tarot, Ianto?" Jack said. "Hope. Sage is hope. She's doing exactly what you said she would."

"What did I say?" Ianto asked him.

"She's being strong on her own."

1) I made all of these up, except for the Sycorax, the race who used blood control to attempt to dominate the earth by threatening to make all the A-positives jump off their roofs. It was a bluff, though. You can't hypnotize a person into killing themselves.