A/N:

I was disappointed myself not to have Gibbs in the last chapter, but I felt the need to end it where I did. However, as promised, Gibbs was up to something important… he still isn't in this one as much as I might like, but we should see more of him after this… this one has some big personal moments going on for Jack and Ianto.

CelticHeiressFiona: Thank you! Wow, what a review ;-)

Of course I'm glad of all the reviews this one has gotten… I also think I'm glad it's almost over! It has been seriously emotionally draining for me as a writer.

Quick note: I have absolutely no idea how many people would be working at Thames House on any given day, it just looks like a fairly large building and that for the most part they were carrying on as usual, trying to keep up the "everything is fine, just ignore the pillar of fire and strange things your kids are saying" line Greene seemed to be trying to feed the people of Great Britain. At any rate, I'm guessing about the numbers when it comes to causalities for the day, assuming that the room where Gwen found Jack and Ianto's bodies was only one of many rooms where bodies were being housed, probably to make it easier for relatives to identify and claim them later. If anyone has any better idea on number of people who may have been trapped, I welcome the input ;-)

Likewise, please forgive me for flubbing a few details regarding the building Greene's meeting was in. Suggestions and corrections welcome, I did the best research what I could, but let's face it, typing in "how would a prisoner be escorted out of a high level cabinet meeting" into Google wouldn't yield much ;-)


Chapter Twenty Three:
Day Four, Part Four &
Day Five, Part One

"The greatest test of courage on earth is to bear defeat without losing heart."
Robert Green Ingersoll


"I hope you're satisfied," Brian Greene, Prime Minister, said in Lois Habiba's direction. His tone was dark; he made no attempt to his contempt for her, for Torchwood, or the resentment he felt at the moment over the position he'd been put in. But she barely heard his voice. Captain Harkness was dead. She'd never met him, but Gwen had been so sure that he would be the one fix everything and he'd been so brave, so gallant when he charged into that room confronted the alien. He was absolutely fearless!

And now he was dead, along with hundreds of other people, everyone in Thames House, and all because of her. Because she had allowed herself to believe that one woman could be a revolutionary, that one woman could seriously have a hand in saving the world. Her gran would have told her she shouldn't think so highly of herself, she was, after all, just a temp, an office girl. She was nobody important.

"Get her out of here," Greene ordered one of the guards outside the door to remove Lois from the room.

"But…I…" she stammered. Green wasn't the only one looking at her that way, they all were, especially John Frobisher.

"This is exactly why I tried to keep Torchwood out of it, Miss Habiba." he told her in a quiet, angry tone. He was obviously the sort of man who rarely raised his voice. "There were over three hundred people in that building. They're all dead. All because of Jack Harkness. Because you helped him."

In Sarah Jane's attic, Ianto felt his jaw clench. It wasn't Jack's fault, if Frobisher had called them sooner…

"No!" Abby said aloud what he was thinking. "If they hadn't shut us out, this never would have happened! It's his fault, not Jack's or Lois's! They should be taking him out in handcuffs!"

"I know, Abbs," Bobby told her gently.

"What about Lois?" Sarah Jane asked. "She risked so much…"

"I'm sure I can get her released," said Harry calmly. "I just have to get down there—"

"No need," Ianto told him with a wan smile. He leant forward and typed a message to Lois into the keyboard. Keep your eyes open and be prepared to act fast. We haven't abandoned you. Lois had been willing to put her neck on the line for them, the weren't about to leave her to the mercy of the likes of John Frobisher and Brian Greene. "Abby, you need to make that call," he reminded her.

"Right."

"Ianto," Gwen's voice came through the other computer's speakers. He shifted so he could see her better. "Ianto, this is agent Johnson," she introduced the woman sitting next to her. "She has a… a proposition."

Although the sight of her made his blood run cold, he nodded. He would listen. He would listen because they were running out of options as well as out of time.

……………………………………………………………

Waiting, while it was a regular part of his old job, wasn't something Jethro Gibbs especially liked. Oh, he was a patient man. A very patient man. He could sit on a stake-out all night long waiting for some scumbag to make his move. No, what he hated was feeling like he was camped out on the sidelines while other people rolled up their sleeves and got their hands dirty.

He, McGee and Martha Jones Milligan were sitting in a coffee shop, attempting to look inconspicuous. Waiting. "So what really happened last Christmas?" he asked McGee, his tone casual; mostly he was looking for a way to pass the time, although it did happen to be something that had plagued his curiosity the last few days.

"What d'you mean?" McGee countered his question with one of his own; he sounded nervous.

Gibbs smiled. "DiNozzo visited you and Abby last Christmas. Only he said he got so drunk he couldn't remember half of what happened while he was in Cardiff," he drained his cup. "Not really like him to get that drunk," he set the cup down in front of him and turned to face the younger man.

He cleared his throat. He turned to Martha, but all she did was give an inquisitive look and a shrug, like she was waiting to hear the answer herself. "There erm…there was an incident," Tim told them. "Jack thought it might be better if Tony didn't remember what happened," he admitted.

"What did Jack do this time?" their female companion asked, teasing to try and lighten the mood.

Tim smiled in response, mostly because he appreciated the effort. Just the same, under the circumstances, there didn't seem like to be any point in denying what had happened or trying to lie to Gibbs. He wasn't sure he could pull the latter off anyway. "He was killed by blowfish in a café where Abby and Tony were having dinner. It was pretty gross."

"God, I hate those things," Martha moaned. "Smelly, obnoxious, foul mouthed…and that's when they're dead," she gulped down the last of her latte. "Live they're even worse."

Before Gibbs could ask (or even decide if he actually wanted to know) what a Blowfish was, the phone Gwen had given him rang. It was Abby.

………………………………………………………..

"It looks like they're taking her out the east side of the building," said Harry, looking over Abby's shoulder and wishing it hadn't been so long since he'd been in London. "If I'm right, your people are going to have to move fast."

Abby smiled—Gibbs was good at fast—and relayed the information to him over the phone, while Ianto typed in a message for Lois to get ready.

………………………………………………………….

Ready for what? She wondered as four armed guards escorted her, handcuffed like a common criminal, out of the building. Did they really think she was that dangerous? She was just an office girl… an office girl responsible for the deaths of hundreds of people.

Everyone at Thames House… Captain Harkness. And tomorrow… tomorrow millions of children were going to be sacrificed to those aliens and nobody could stop it because surely by now all the calls, everything, had been traced and wherever Torchwood were hiding, they must be in custody, or at least they would be soon.

"Excuse me…?" A female voice called out to one of the guards.

He turned and was about to say tell her she didn't belong there, when a man's fist came seemingly out of nowhere… The next few seconds passed by in a blur for Lois… she was pulled back out of the way when another guard hit the ground. Moments alter, all four were being dragged back around the corner to the service entrance she'd been escorted out of.

They're with us, Gwen typed to her. You're saef. SaFE, sorry.

"Are you all right?" one of the men asked her; he was young and clean cut and had an American accent.

"I think so, but… Captain Harkness…" she looked from one to the other and back again, wondering if they knew. "He…he's dead. He died, in Thames House."

"I have the feeling he's down but not out yet," the other man told her; he was American, too. He was picking the locks on the cuffs.

"What else can you do?" Martha asked him when he had Lois freed.

He smirked in her direction, without answering. "We need to get out of here," he said, leading the way towards the street.

"Hang on," Lois told them. "Gwen says to come back to the warehouse…something's happened…she'll explain when we get there…?" She gave her rescuers a questioning look.


Day Five, Part One


Alice Carter looked up when the cell door was opened; it was the woman, Johnson, the one who had practically kidnapped her and her son from their home and brought them there.

The two women eyed one another a long moment. Finally, Alice broke the silence. "Something has changed, hasn't it?" she could see it in Johnson's eyes.

"Yes. I'd like you to come with me…your son will be safe, I promise," she added.

"None of them are safe," Alice told her, bitterly, but she turned to Steven anyway. He looked frightened. No matter how many times she told him that they would be all right, they'd be home before he knew it, he didn't believe her. He didn't say so, he always said he knew they would, but she could see in his eyes he that knew better. "Do you think you can manage on your own for a bit? I won't be long, I promise."

"One of my men can look after him if you like…maybe get him something to drink?" Johnson offered. The attempt at what seemed like kindness didn't seem to come naturally to her.

Alice eyed her with suspicion, but agreed. "Nothing with too much sugar," she added.

The other smiled, just a little. Just for a moment. "Come on then… we'll go to the mess first, and then I'm just going to have a quick word with your mum, all right?" she tried very hard to sound personable when she spoke to the boy, but it just wasn't in her nature. It never had been, not even when she was a child herself. She gave orders. She took orders. She didn't have conversations.

Alice walked next to her in uneasy silence wondering what had changed in the last twelve or so hours, knowing it had to have something to do with her father. When they reached the mess she saw a group of about a dozen people setting up heavy equipment on the opposite side of the large room. They were all wearing civilian clothing and stopped to see what was going on when they came in the door.

Alice stopped short at the sight of them, a cold knot forming in her stomach. "Who are they?" she asked Johnson quietly. In one word, the other woman confirmed her worst fears:

"Torchwood."

She took s a step back, protectively hanging onto her son. "What are Torchwood doing here?"

"Mum, what's Torchwood?" Steven wanted to know.

"It's…it's nothing, Sweetheart, just a… a group, an organization," Alice told him quickly, her gaze still riveted to Johnson.

"Like a club?" Steven persisted.

"Yes, Sweetheart, very much like a club," she lied.

"It's not what you think," Johnson began, trying to calm her if only because she didn't want some sort of incident on her hands. But one of the Torchwood team was already on their way over.

"What's going on here?" the young Black woman inquired as she approached. There was unmasked hostility in her tone.

"Mrs Carter and her son have been…guests…here for the past couple of days, that's all," she met the other's tone with one that she hoped was less hostile. For the moment, Torchwood had agreed to cooperate in exchange for getting their Captain's body safely out of Thames House, but she had no doubt that things would get ugly fast after Harkness resurrected himself if she made enemies of his team. His family. "It's nothing for you to worry about, Dr Jones. We were just getting the boy something to drink, that's all."

She turned to the woman standing next to Johnson; she was a civilian and she appeared to be frightened out of her wits. "Are you all right? Have you been hurt?" she asked.

"No, we're perfectly all right," Alice lied again. "Thank you."

Martha gave Johnson an appraising look; she'd heard what she did to Jack. None of them trusted her. But as much as she didn't believe that Mrs Carter was all right, she didn't appear to be injured, either. She conjured up a warm smile for her and her son. "My name is Martha," she held out her hand.

"I'm Alice. Alice Carter. This is my son, Steven," she said; she accepted her handshake, but continued to clutch onto her son with her other hand.

"You're absolutely certain you're all right?" Martha asked a second time.

"Yes. We are. Thank you." She looked at Johnson, silently pleading with her.

"I'll just get one of my men to keep an eye on the boy and then we can go talk…"

"We can keep an eye on him," Martha offered in a friendly tone. It seemed to her like a better option than giving the poor kid over to some soldier to watch him.

"Aren't you busy, Dr Jones?" said Johnson, her tone sharp.

"Not all of us. Steven, how would you like to see a really, really cool computer?" she held out her hand to the boy.

"Really I—" Alice began, but her son cut her off:

"My Uncle Jack knows all about computers! He said he might get me a laptop for my next birthday. If Mum says it's ok."

Martha blinked…Uncle Jack… as in Jack Harkness…? she forced another smile. Jack was a fairly common name, after all…but the boy did have a set of dimples on him that looked awfully familiar, and those eyes… "He must be some uncle," she said. She looked up at the mother, "We'll keep an eye on him, I promise. If… if that's all right with you?"

"Mum, please?"

"All right," she relented, still visibly terrified of something Martha didn't understand. Unless it had something to do with her relationship with Jack… she took Steven by the hand and led him over to the rest of the team. She didn't voice her suspicions.

Alice watched her set Steven up away from their work area, leaving him in the care of an older man with an easy going smile and a dark skinned woman with long curly hair. Her son looked more at ease than he had in days.

"I'm sorry," Johnson surprised her by saying, drawing her attention away from him. "I really hadn't expected…I didn't do this on purpose," she insisted.

She regarded her a moment. No. She wasn't lying. She wasn't subtle enough to have manipulated the meeting. "Where's my father?" she asked very, very quietly.

"Come with me," Johnson motioned her to follow back down the hall.

Alice cast a quick last glance over her shoulder; Steven looked up and waved at her. She waved back and blew him a kiss. Then she turned back to Johnson repeating the question about her father.

"Captain Harkness is dead."

"That's impossible."

"I'm under the impression he won't stay dead for long, but for right now, he's dead," she said tersely, plainly feeling out of her element when dealing with men who died and came back to life on a regular basis.

"Can I see him?" Alice asked.

"Follow me," Johnson led the way down a long corridor that led to what appeared as if it might at one time have been an infirmary. She stopped just outside the door, allowing the other woman a moment look in through the door's small glass window.

"Who's that with him?" she asked. While she was sure the primly dressed young man was a member of the current Torchwood staff, there was something intimate in the way he was sitting in the chair next to her father's bed. He was holding his hand and seemed to be speaking to him, but too quietly for her to make out much more than a murmur of sound, a lilting Welsh accent. He stroked his cheek with uncommon tenderness and ran his fingers through his hair. Lovers, Alice thought.

She wasn't surprised by that. She knew her father played for teams… any team, her mother had once told her. If it breathed and was willing, he would shag it. Those had been her mother's exact words when, at age fifteen, Alice asked her why she and her father had never married. She never brought it up again, with either of them.

"His name is Ianto Jones-Harkness," Johnson's voice brought her back to the present.

"I'm sorry…what did you just say?" Jones-Harkness…?

"Civil union."

"No." Her father would have told her... wouldn't he? After all, he had his own life, had done for a long time. A very long time, in fact. Her mother had been dead for several years and anyway, they hadn't been together in so long, it wasn't as if he didn't have every right to move on and at the very least with a man there would be no children for him to hurt, but…but even in profile Ianto Jones-Harkness looked so very young. "He's younger than I am, isn't he?" she asked quietly.

Johnson frowned. "What difference…?"

"Because I want to know," she snapped, keeping her voice down so as not to be overheard by the man on the other side of the door. "Because I know you know and because it's hardly a national secret," she added when the other continued to hesitate.

"He's twenty six."

She closed her eyes. Her mother hadn't even been that young when…

"Do you still want to go in?"

Alice turned away from the door, away from her father and his… "I want to know what's going on," she said.

Johnson nodded and led the way a little further down the hall, away from the infirmary. "The alien released a virus into Thames House," she said. "It killed everyone inside the building. Including your father."

"Why did you bring him here?"

"The alien demanded that ten percent of the world's children be given to it. Tomorrow. It seems as if the governments of the world have agreed to go along, albeit secretly."

"How on earth can they keep something like that a secret?"

"They'll claim they were duped by the aliens, tricked right along with the rest of us—victims just like everybody else. Your father is the only person who has a chance of stopping them."

"Forgive me for saying so, but you don't seem like the sort of woman who gives a damn," Alice's tone was cold. Harsh.

"I suppose not. But if we give into them this time, what's to prevent them from coming back in forty more years—in twenty. In ten, demanding more children from us?"

"What are you going to do?"

"Wait until your father wakes up and hope to God he has an answer because we're running out of time."