A/N: I apologise in advance for this chapter, it's extremely un-fluffy and depressing but it had to be written! I hope I have provide sufficient fluff prior to this in order to soften the blow a little... and I hope I've done the story justice. Hannah xxx
This isn't real.
It can't be.
There's absolutely, categorically no way that any of this can be real, it must all be some horrible nightmare, the worst one I've ever had, and all that I need to do for it to be put right again is to wake up, to snap out of this horrific trance, sit down and have a nice strong cup of coffee and thus return to normal. Or perhaps something happened with the rift manipulator, and we've struck upon an alternative time line where everything is warped and dystopian and wrong, and we will find out how to get back. Because there's no way that this world can be real, there's just no way that Tosh and Owen could be dead.
I thought turning to this diary, like I did after Lisa, like I did after Jack left, would help me process everything, but I don't want to process it – I can't bear to. How am I supposed to face up to the fact that two of my best friends are… dead…Oh god writing it down makes it seem so… so final, I just can't do it.
It's three days now since… since it happened, since everything went wrong and the life that we've all been living for what seems like forever, the life that was happy and made complete and utter sense, was shattered to pieces. Nothing seems to matter anymore, not protecting the rift, not carrying on with normal daily activities like hovering and doing the washing up, even Torchwood itself has ground to a halt and I wonder if we'll ever pick it back up again. Jack's refusing to speak about any of it yet, which I can't decide if that's a good thing or a bad, and whatever he may have said about beginning again from the end he shows no signs of heading back to Torchwood in a hurry – I don't blame him, we've all had our spirits utterly crushed and right now I'm finding it difficult to see a way in which to move forward.
We haven't seen Gwen for days, as neither Jack nor I have been back to the hub since, it's just far too soon for us to cope, and I doubt very much that Gwen feels differently. Jack and I have spent the past three days just shut away inside my apartment doing absolutely nothing; I've stopped getting up early and shaving religiously and dressing in a suit, and Jack's stopped dressing altogether, there just seems to be no point in any of it anymore. I don't even think there's any point with continuing to write in here if I can't bear to write about Tosh and Owen yet, and obviously have nothing else to put n here anymore, I can't bear to get rid of this book though – I don't want to lose the memories of Tosh and Owen that it contains.
It's been a week now, and I think I might just be ready to write it all up. I still can't quite come to terms with the fact though, that just under a week ago, my biggest concerns were that I might be crushed to death by rubble in that deserted warehouse without having had one last kiss with Jack, or introduced him to Rhiannon, or without having ever been to Rome… it all seems so selfish, because right now I can't think about worrying about anything other than the loss of two such dear friends, I can't remember a time when I didn't think about this constantly.
Oh god, well, I'll give this my best shot as I owe it to them both to record this as fully, and as in as much detail, as possible, here goes…
It all began when she, when Tosh, picked up some unfamiliar signals which she thought may have been a result of some form of rift activity, out in a warehouse in the middle of nowhere, so we set off to investigate. We tracked the signals that Tosh had been picking up to just on the outskirts of the East side of the city and as soon as we got there we straight away split off into pairs (Jack and Tosh, Owen and I) to begin searching the different floors of the building.
We were all starting to get suspicious about the lack of noise, the entire two floors of the old warehouse were completely silent save for our own conversation, which seemed more than a little odd, and then simultaneously we noticed the explosives devices. Four of them, scattered around the building one for each of us, ready and waiting to go off in five seconds. And then they did.
There was an almighty bang as the four devices exploded together, amplifying the sound of a single device by four, and causing surrounding structures in the building to crumble and windows to smash – everything adding to the deafening noise which is still ringing in my ears now. I'm not one hundred percent how long I was lying there, attempting to reach out and pull myself up from underneath all of the broken concrete and shattered glass, crying out in agony with every slight movement, until I heard Jack's voice calling my name, and then I in those moments of ignorant bliss I really felt that I was going to be fine now.
While I'd been lying there in so much pain, I genuinely though that I might die, out in the middle of nowhere, all alone…. I never thought to consider at that moment the possibility that just a couple of days late Owen, our dearest Owen, would suffer such a lonely death. I was in so much pain at the time that selfishly, I just couldn't think of anyone but myself, not of Jack or Gwen… or Tosh… or Owen. It just wasn't conceivable at that minute that he, our most resilient and defensive member, who had survived death once before, would come to such an undeservedly, painful, lonely end or that we would be left here without him, and her. If I'm honest I genuinely thought, back in that warehouse, it would be me who was going to end up stored away in the morgue, with their files and employee login details deleted.
And in those moments when I was stuck there trapped and hurting and a little scared, and feeling as though things were finally coming to an end, memories started to flash through my mind. Memories of Rhiannon and I as little kids… that time our Dad took us to the park and there was that… accident… by the swings… the other things that Dad did… when Mum died while we were both still so young… leaving us alone with him… and happier memories too, of me and her in the garden together in the summer, of visiting our Nan, of university and the early days back at Torchwood one. And then more recent memories, brilliant recent memories of the days that I began stalking Jack Harkness – desperate for him to notice me, think of me as worthy Torchwood material, and desperate for a job. How we first fought off that Weevil together, the first time I brought him coffee, how despite my coat complements he always refused me, and then how suddenly Myfanwy was my gateway in… I remember how I felt in that moment, lying on top of him laughing for the first time in months after Canary Wharf. I never thought that we would end up where we are now, I never thought then that I would fall in love with him, and I never thought that in almost two years from that date I might be lying in a deserted, broken building reminiscing about how we met. I was glad to remember, but I was also glad to hear his voice pulling me out of my subconscious and into reality once again.
He, along with Gwen who I assume eventually discovered all of our missed calls, helped lift everything off me so that I could stand, and once I was clear of rubble I realised that my shoulder was dislocated, and so Jack… relocated it for me. It bloody killed. I mean, it felt a hell of a lot better afterwards, but at the time… Jack did apologise later as we were leaving, even kissed my shoulder better and everything, but it's not as if he did it on purpose, and besides I couldn't have walked around with my shoulder hanging out of its socket – let alone helped them recover the others.
As a team we managed to get Tosh and Owen both out safely, and in my state of post shock and near death experience relief, I remember clearly thinking that I wouldn't have known what we would all do if either of them had been killed in that explosion; it just wouldn't be Torchwood if one of them was missing. I was right, I don't know what we're doing, I don't know what we'll do in a few weeks, or months, or years' time yet either – whether there still will be a 'we', whether Torchwood will still exist, whether we will have put the past behind us and moved on (though I can't see that happening any time soon) or whether we'll still all be in this strange state of depression and denial.
When we stepped outside of the building, filled with naïve relief, I noticed that SUV was gone, and then we received another charming holographic message, filled with violent threats, on Jack's wrist strap from none other than Captain John Hart. None of us were thrilled, to say the least, to be seeing his face again and all of us were immediately filled with dread for what he might want this time, and what he'd be willing to do to get it, but little did we know then that it was the man he was stood with in the message, Jack's brother Gray, who was truly responsible for everything that's happened.
Frantically we all went our separate ways, each of us wandering into a different one of Captain Hart's traps; Toshiko and I to the Central Server building in order to investigate the sudden random rise in the level of rift activity that was rapidly spreading out widely across the city, while Jack set off back to the hub where John had driven with our stolen SUV to try and reason with him.
Initially when we arrived at the Server building - the house for servers to the military, the Police, the NHS and most importantly the servers for the nuclear station at Turnmill - there was no sign of foul play, not a single indication of any rift activity… until we came across three incredibly odd, other timely, religious men in robes threatening to kill the pair of us, but we soon saw to them. At the Police Station Gwen had discovered a targeted Weevil attack upon the four most senior officers in the building which had led to their collective deaths and at the Hospital Owen had discovered a single Hoyx. From first glance things seemed a little chaotic, but ultimately manageable, and then bloody John Hart (instructed by Gray) took over the comms to deliver his second chilling message of the day – he was holding Jack captive as his prisoner and doing goodness knows what to him, Jack's still refusing to talk about anything properly yet so I can only guess, and was continuing with his threats of extreme violence towards all of us. He commanded us all to run to the rooftops of our respective buildings, and as much as we all hated to follow Hart's orders we couldn't risk missing witnessing whatever on Earth he meant by carnage, so Tosh and I headed up to the roof of the Server building.
Bombs exploded all over the city, proper, massive, chaos incurring explosions – far more powerful than the ones he had used against us in the warehouse – committing houses and schools and hospitals and shopping centres all to rubble and fire, taking hundreds of the first lives to be lost that evening. We took temporary refuge in the fact that we were all alive, if not well, after John's first bout of terrorism but the city was in meltdown, and these feelings of false relief didn't last long. The bombs had been strategically placed, cutting off all major routes in and out of the city, all connection networks were down, as were all TV and radio networks, the hospital had lost all power and the servers which controlled the Turnmill nuclear plant had all gone offline.
Toshiko and I prioritised regaining control of the nuclear power station, well I say Tosh and I, it was mostly her she is always… was always… the very best of us with computers, but nothing she was trying would work and the system was threatening to plummet into meltdown. Knowing that there was nothing we could do back there at the server building, I offered to go directly to the site of the nuclear station, hoping that there was something I could do there… she wouldn't let me go alone, even though she knew how dangerous it was she wanted to be there too and that's what I love so much about Tosh, that she was never willing to stand back and allow her friends to face a threat alone – she would do her upmost to try and protect them and I wish so badly that we could have done more for her.
Once we'd left the Server Building Tosh began picking up signals on the rift monitor, indicating flare activity at the hub but neither us, nor Owen, were able to leave where we were to attend to the situation so Gwen left the Police Station with Rhys and Andy in charge. John Hart was there and he revealed the truth of the situation; he'd found Gray chained up back on Boshane by the evil creatures who had invaded the planet, he was the only survivor and was wasting away amongst the corpses of his friends and family, and had completely given up hope of ever finding Jack again. John saved him from that nightmare and brought him to safety, but this action provided Gray with the means to carry out the revenge upon Jack for his abandonment that he had been planning for years, he had buried him alive
As I've said, Jack is still refusing to talk about any of this – whether it's out of guilt, or denial or sheer sorrow I do not know – and hasn't expressed how he feels about any of it. But to be buried alive for two thousand years… trapped under metres and metres of earth, constantly dying and healing and dying again… feeling so useless and alone and frightened… I can't even begin to imagine how that must have felt. Physically, Jack's eerily the same as he ever was, judging by appearance alone it's impossible to tell that he is any older than he was yesterday, but I have no idea of the effect it's had on Jack mentally. He's lived for over twenty more long life times, he's been tortured by his own brother consistently throughout this time, he must be feeling so disconnected with life at the moment. I want to ask him about it, but I'm worried about how he might react – whether or not he'll be angry or get upset – but mostly I'm anxious about what he'll tell me when we eventually do talk about it, worried that in such an impossibly long time away from here, that he will have forgotten all the little things about his personality, all the quirks and sayings and gestures which make him Jack, that he will have forgotten about me, about the things we've experienced together and the conversations we've had together. And, most importantly, I'm terrified that he will have forgotten about all the very best moments that we've had with Tosh and Owen, all their brightest moments… perhaps that's why he's refusing to talk about anything, because he doesn't know where to start…
Anyway, Gray in his suddenly powerful and revenge hungry state had blackmailed John Hart into doing his bidding by molecularly bonding a bomb to his wrist which could be set off at any minute he stopped doing as Gray asked. Which is what had provoked him into burying Jack… I can't honestly contemplate what it must have been like for him, being forced into doing such a things to someone he loved and I'm not sure whether or not I might have been able to manage it had our positions been reversed. I've never liked John Hart, not from the moment that I laid eyes on him on the day of Jack's return from the 'year that never was', and I liked him even less when he began flirting with Jack and calling me eye candy, and far far less when he began hurting my friends. And I was no happier to see him appear again now than I was when we first met. But I do have a great deal of sympathy, and even a little respect, for him now after what he had to do and the way that he came back to help even when he could have run a mile.
He completed the wretched task whilst slipping a ring containing a tracking device into the grave so that Jack could be found thousands of years later by us and dug up once again after years of suffering the revenge of his brother. As we were making our way back to the hub, John asked us to track down a signal which he said would lead us to Jack and as dubious as I was to believe him, prior to hearing all about what was really going on, Tosh and I gave it our best shot but had no joys – once again we started thinking that our day had reached its lowest point, and I guess in a way, for me at least, if Jack really had been buried forever it's quite possibly the only situation which would have been even worse than the one we are in now, but it's so hard to imagine anything worse than this.
Although John, post completing his final task of burying Jack, was now free of Gray to go where ever he had pleased none of us were truly free of Jack's younger brother as all of a sudden he released a crowd of rowdy, riled up Weevils into the streets of the city, leaving Tosh and I unable to make it to the nuclear power plant. Meanwhile Owen however, the King of the Weevil's as he called himself, was at the hospital and was confident that he would repel the Weevil's enough to make it to the power plant. He shouldn't have been there when the reactor went into meltdown, he wasn't the one who was supposed to go there to try and put things right, it was me who first suggested trying to solve the problem on site, and me who should have been the one there. I keep wondering that, if I had never suggested the idea in the first place, would anyone else have thought of it? Would Owen not have gone? Would Owen still be alive…?
The streets of Cardiff weren't the only places to receive visits from unwanted pests as John and Gwen shortly found out when a raucous group of Weevils, released from our cells by Gray, encircled them in the centre of the hub. Tosh and I re-entered the building to the sight of the two of them about to be ravened to death by the awful creatures, but thankfully already had our guns drawn and were able to half sedate them, if not kill them. Gwen, John and I dragged their bodies back down to the cells together, while Toshiko remained upstairs, trying to guide Owen through the futile process of attempting to control the meltdown. That was our second mistake leaving her there by herself… exposed and available for Gray to come and attack her… She'd offered to help carry the Weevils but the three of us, thinking of her potentially broken arm, and thinking that we were doing her a favour, insisted that she needn't carry anything downstairs. We should have all stuck together, we shouldn't have left Tosh by herself, and vulnerable
While we were down there in the cells, completely unaware of Toshiko's impending death upstairs on the main floor of the hub, all of us having given up hope of finding Jack again, of stopping Gray and saving the city and ourselves, suddenly had our hopes falsely renewed as Jack waltzed down into the cells and set us free. I'd never been so glad to see him, I was so shocked in fact that I could do little else but stand there as Gwen rushed to greet him with a hug, I was far too overwhelmed and temporarily overjoyed and completely perplexed as to how on earth he could be standing there before us. He did tell me, one of the few things he has told me, later that he was 'dug up' back in the Victorian era and cryogenically frozen by them with today's date as his set time for defrosting, so that he could come back and help us.
And he did help us, he set us free and we went back upstairs to the hub, feeling for the briefest of moments that maybe, just maybe, things might all work out. But then we saw the trail of blood, and followed unwillingly to wear a struggling, wounded Toshiko, struggling to keep a grip on her life, lay there dying. We were too late, far too late, to save her and all we could do was stand back and watch, and be with her as she took her last breaths. She explained to us what had happened about Owen, how she had re-routed the blast of the meltdown to be contained within the building itself, but that he hadn't made it out before an unexpected power surge which had sent the building into lockdown.
With one of, if not the, best of my friends ling there dying with us unable to help her, right there in front of me, I could hardly take in the enormity of anything that she said. It was too much to cope with the idea that one of my colleagues was about to die, let alone attempting to get my head around the possibility of two of them dying, it just didn't seem comprehendible. Despite the fact that we had already had so many scares with Owen, and despite the fact that we all knew that his time left with us now was finite, it still came as so much of a shock. Even when I came to catalogue his belongings ready to be placed in the archive and complete the final logout process for his Torchwood employee username, none of it felt real. I'm not even one hundred percent sure that it feels real now, even though I know that it is, part of me just expects to wake up as normal, get into work as normal and be greeted by a late and grumpy Owen demanding coffee. And even when I came to do the same for Tosh, and she was there in her final message to us confessing her love, unknowingly, to her dead colleague it hadn't fully registered that any of this had happened. All three of us stood their collectively watching her video as we shed confused and bitter tears, attempting to will everything undone.
And, whatever Jack said about the end being where we start from… I don't know how we'll move on from here. I can't see a future anymore, not one without Tosh and Owen in it, I can't even see forward to a point where we might all be able to talk about what's happened, never mind talk about starting up Torchwood again. Throughout my whole life I have survived through my ability to plan rigidly, and stick to these plans, carrying out set actions in an ordered manner – even when Lisa was converted back at the battle of Canary Wharf I made plans as to what I was going to do to help her, and I stuck to them. But right now, for the first time in my life, I have no plan – and no idea what I'm doing. And it's frightening.