"The bloody sky's on fire!" Rhys cried out. He was right.

"My dad," I said "is so cool."

"Your dad ignited the atmosphere?" Ianto asked me. Jack had allowed me to interface everything we were monitoring, including the news, into the boardroom TV screen. I was sitting in Ianto's lap, feeling very safe in spite of everything.

"Yep," I told him. "Atmospheric conversion. He's reversing it. Terraforming the Earth, I guess you could say. I doubt he built it, though. Somebody has some very cool toys... Look! Skies are clearing, see? Oxygen, nitrogen, everything... going back to normal. Jack," I said, tossing over my wrist strap. "Get Laura."

He kissed me as he passed, rumpled Ianto's hair, and went to his office to open the lockdown enough for my VM's signal to pass.

"Is it safe?" Ianto asked me.

"Not quite. Not yet. Safe enough for Jack, though. I'm better off staying behind this rather convenient deadlock seal for the moment." John was staring at me. "My dad doesn't know I'm here. I don't want him to just yet."

"Do you think Laura survived?" Gwen changed the subject. I nodded.

"Look. Her signal's moving. Has been for about a minute now. And there's Jack, see? Come on, everyone. Downstairs. I doubt she's in very good shape," I said, rising and pulling Ianto behind me.

Jack teleported exactly where I'd expected him to: the same gurney where I'd very recently been laid out. "Sage, get over here!" he shouted. I let go of Ianto's hand and ran.

"Laura?" I ventured. She had her eyes open, but it took her a moment or two to recognize me. She reached out for my hand. I remembered just in time to give her the left.

"Don't you dare," Jack warned me.

"I won't," I promised him. "How bad?"

"She locked herself in a closet, so not as bad as it could have been, but bad enough. She needs a respirator, and frankly, I don't know how to run it."

"I do," Ianto spoke up. "I watched Owen enough times. Only thing is I've never... I don't know how to intubate," he admitted, embarrassed.

"I do," I said. "I was a nurse for a while in the seventies. Long story. Come on, Ianto. Let's save a life."

We took turns sitting with Laura through the rest of that day and into that night, as the world was getting back on its feet and dusting itself off. Part of the east coast of the US had been evacuated by ship. A sizeable portion of Tokyo had died in the street. It was a nightmare that made the devastation of Cardiff seem small by comparison. The Sontaran ship had been destroyed, though. We'd finally gotten through to UNIT, officially, and made certain of it. Martha Jones, interestingly enough, had gone missing. Jack was curious that I wasn't surprised, but I wasn't about to tell him that she hadn't left with my father of her own accord.

John could have left the moment Jack disabled the lockdown protocols, but he didn't. At first I thought it was because he didn't know where to go next; New York had been hit nearly as hard as Tokyo; but then I realized he'd simply decided to stay for a while. Jack didn't ask him to leave, and when I asked him why he said "Because he's helping. I think it's good for him."

Jack was right. When Ianto had taught me how to work the respirator, John had paid close attention. He spent more time at Laura's side than any of us, talking to her, or simply holding her hand, keeping an eye on her vitals... It was kind of sweet.

Gwen's family was fine. I'd insisted on checking on Tosh's family as well, posing as a Health and Safety representative over the phone. I'd even had Gwen call Owen's mother, and that old bat was fine as well. Jack called Martha's sister, Letitia, and made sure the Jones family was okay. They'd been less surprised than most of London and had come through the crisis fine. "Shaken, but fine," Tish had said.

The same could be said for us, I suppose. A crisis of that magnitude on the heels of our losses was bad enough, but we'd also nearly lost Laura, and had brought John Hart back into our lives and right into our inner sanctum soon after he'd tried to kill us, albeit not of his own accord.

I gravitated back toward Ianto. It wasn't that I loved Jack any less, or that I had any intention of coming between them. I knew something, more than one something, and Jack had a way of seeing right through me.

John might have been amused that the two secrets I was keeping were blonde. Jack probably wouldn't have cared much whether I kept one of them to myself, but the other was something he'd have wanted to know. She'd only been there for a second, though... and I had no idea how she'd done it. The other... well, she was stronger than anyone knew.

I'd wanted to warn Martha, but I couldn't. All I could do was have her promise not to say. After all, the two most important women in my father's life had tried to reach him, one of them succeeding... and neither one was me.

[April 21, 2008 – May 4, 2008]

Continued in "Torchwood: Roses and Thorns"