*account blocked*
I swore under my breath, holding the 1,000 pound in my hand from my bank account. The bank advised me to use a cash machine and check the balance had sorted itself out, only for my account to be blocked. Usually, I'd just come back later, knowing it would sort itself out, but seeing the red patterns swirling across the screen, there was nothing I could do. Bloody Shadow Proclamation. The bastards had started hacking into my personal life. The universe was now aware that me and The Doctor had been seperated from each other, leaving anywhat, where or who to go after him or me. Of course, before, aliens had always been more careful, seeing as I had an "important timeline" which worried me more than ever... as it hadn't been mentioned in a long time. So now I was really on my own. I hadn't seen Mum and the kids in a couple of days, and I'd now withdrawn from my bank the only money I had left in the world. The money was for Jack, seeing as I'd borrowed it from him in 1969 and promised him it back in 2007... well, it was 2009 now, I was a bit late. But, better late than never. And I refused to go back to Mum, I couldn't drag her into the danger heading my way. Originally, I was meant to go to Martha first which I did, only for a few hours to be her maid of honour as she married Mickey. Mickey. Mickey the Idiot, the Tin Dog. She married him. Bless, I was happy for her though.
After, I was meant to go see Amy, Rory and Mels, and quickly to Wilf, to check Donna was ok, before realising that things were coming after me a lot quicker than expected. Jack and Torchwood could handle themselves though, and I knew Jack would pass on my messages to everyone.
So now I stood on the edge of the curb on the busy road, watching as the black Torchwood SUV came hurtling down the road, as usual. As it was seconds away from me, I stepped in front of the car casually, making it screech to a halt, and the members of the public look over in shock. Inside the front seats of the car, sat Jack and Ianto, looking rather pissed off, but not shocked.
"Twat." Jack shouted out of his window at me as I walked up to the car and jumped in the back. Without anything but an eye roll from Ianto, the car carried on driving.
"Where are you coming from?" I asked, picking up the tuppaware box sitting on the back seat, holding a hitch hicking organ inside.
"The hospital." Jack replied back as I nodded, putting the box back down. "What the fuck are you doing here?"
"Oh, y'know." I muttered, watching the road intently. "Staying out of trouble."
"Badly?" Ianto asked.
I breathed in sharply, nodding. "Yep."
"Nightingale told me what happened with The Doctor." Jack sadly, looking back at me through the wing view mirror.
I frowned, "How does Martha know?"
"Um, UNIT told her, I believe." Ianto said.
"Well how the bloody hell do UNIT know? And why? Why would they care?"
Ianto held his hands up defensively, "Don't ask me."
"Anyway..." I said, smirking between Jack and Ianto. "As one relationship ends another begins... Well a long time ago. I was a bit busy last time we met."
"You know about that?" Ianto asked feebly.
"Of course. I do talk to Gwen, you know." I laughed.
...
"You are gonna get us killed!" Ianto said as we walked into the hub. I looked around the hub with a fond smile. The water tower, the pterdactyl and the messy desks were still around, nothing had changed. Except 2 out of the 5 desks were empty. Tosh and Owen were gone. It didn't seem the same. They were both such amazing people. I'd only visited Torchwood once, just before I met Donna again, I had to pop in and see Jack, just to see how he was recovering from the year that never was. But Jack being Jack, he was fine.
"No, you get killed, not me." Jack replied. "You'd die like a dog, like an ugly dog!"
"Oi, Chuckle Brothers." Gwen called from one of the computer. "I found something." She looked over at us and grinned at me. "Hello stranger."
"Yeah well I want a check on St Helen's Hospital." Jack said, taking off his jacket and handing it to Ianto. "Specifically the morgue."
"Well there's a computer, do it yourself." I said, pushing him towards one of the computers, making Ianto laugh.
"Meanwhile," Gwen began as I walked up to one of the computers. "I've been getting reports this morning of 17 road traffic accidents, happening right across the country, all the way from Glasgow to St Ives."
"Is that above average?" Jack asked as he approached one of the computers.
"Well, they all occurred between 8.40 and 8.41. 17 road traffic accidents happening in exactly the same minute? And Every single one of them involving children."
"That'll be the school run." Ianto said, standing at his computer. I smirked, looking between the four of us standing in a row.
"All of them were just standing in the road. Not crossing the road, just standing. I saw it myself, Jack. Two kids on Market Street. Well, they just stopped."
"Same reports from France." Ianto called, reading from his computer. "15 road traffic accidents. All timed around 9.40. They're an hour ahead, so it was simultaneous."
"All involving children?"
"Yup. Hold on. Still Cross-referencing." He said, pressing a few more buttons. "Here we go. Reports coming in, RTAs in Norway. Sweden. Denmark. Luxembourg. Germany. India. Egypt. Guyana. Spain. Portugal. Bosnia. Tokyo. Singapore."
"Seen anything like this before, Jack, Flo?"
"No way." Jack said, shaking his head. "Kids?" The three of them looked over at me. "Flo?"
"No." I frowned.
...
"Of all the times for Martha Jones to go on holiday." Jack said, hanging up his mobile as I stood in his office with him and Gwen. "I get Sergeant Grunt. I'm talking to a sergeant!"
"Don't you dare phone her, she's on her honeymoon." Gwen said.
"What did they say?" I asked.
"UNIT base in Washington has run some tests on a couple of kids." Jack sighed. "Brain scans, blood sugar, checking for radiation. Nothing."
Suddenly, Ianto ran into the office. "You were right! He's back!"
"Ha! Ha!" Jack cheered, getting up. "I said so!" He pushed past us and ran back into the hub, with me and Gwen trailing after.
"Who's back?" Gwen asked as we approached the computer. On the screen showed the CCTV outside by the plasa, and trailing around outside was the doctor that had been bothering Jack and Ianto earlier.
"What's he doing?" Jack asked.
"Waiting. Just like you said." Ianto said. "He's been there 20 minutes."
"Persistent."
"Good sign."
"Dogmatic."
"Always a plus."
"Oh, Christ, never work with a couple." Gwen said to me with a smirk before looking back at Ianto and Jack. "You two talk like twins! Now tell me who he is."
"Rupesh Patanjali. He saw the hitchhiker, he's the bodies-going-missing man."
"Dr Patanjali." Jack shrugged as Gwen gave him a questioning look. "We need a doctor."
"What you let just him follow you?" Gwen asked before backtracking and glancing between them and me. "You let him follow them? You know what they're like!"
I held my hands up in defence, "Ask about Torchwood, and most people point towards the Bay." I said quickly.
"Oh." She said, looking back at the screen then Jack and Ianto. "You bastards, that's exactly what you did to me the first time we met! Well, sod that, I'm promoting myself to recruitment officer!" She turned on her heel and walked off and with a smirk I followed after her.
...
"Hey." Gwen said, as we approached Rupesh up on the plasa. "Rupesh, isn't it?"
"Yeah." He replied nervously as Gwen held out her hand to him.
"Gwen Cooper. Flo Smith. We're Torchwood."
Oh. So I was Torchwood and UNIT now. The Doctor would've loved that.
...
The three of us sat at one of the tables sitting round the plasa as Gwen flicked through a white folder, "Three of the bodies were Chinese? Were they related?" Gwen asked.
"No, one was 27-years-old and the other two were in their 50s." Rupesh replied. "But not from the same family."
"Bit odd, though, statistically." I frowned. "In a city this small."
"That's what I thought. Mind you. Nothing compared to that hitchhiker."
"Freak you out?" I laughed.
"Oh, yeah!"
"Yeah, me too." Gwen said in agreement. "Apparently, anyone could have one." Rupesh's jaw dropped, staring at her. "Don't! I know!"
"This place! Ever since I moved here, it's just weird."
"Where you from then?"
"Me? I'm from Chesterfield. Came down here, 18 months back."
"Enjoying it?"
"Very much, yeah."
"I bet it doesn't pay you much though."
"Not at first. Could be worse."
"Torchwood's paid by the Crown."
"Sorry." I winced. "My fault. We had a run in with Queen Viccy the 1st and a werewolf. The house was called Torchwood, that's how it came about. We upset her quite a bit."
Rupesh gave me a strange look and Gwen shook her head before carrying on, "First pay cheque, I almost fell over. Had to hide it from my boyfriend. I was buying clothes, had to stash them under the bed."
"What's it like, inside Torchwood, I mean, what do you do?" Rupesh asked.
"Why are you so interested?"
"Well. From what I've heard, just sounds... I dunno."
"Exciting?"
"I suppose."
"Glamorous?" I asked sarcastically.
"No, more, sort of..." He began. "The thing is, we've all seen it now, the past few years. Alien life. Even though half the world's still denying it. For me... OK. It's the suicides. The past few years, suicide rates have doubled, and that's ever since the first alien. My first case, my first death, was a suicide. D'you know why she did it? Cos she'd written all these letters, she'd been a Christian all her life, and then alien life appears. She wrote this bit, she said, 'It's like science has won.'."
"Lost her faith." Gwen said.
"More than that. She said she saw her place in the universe, and it was tiny. She died because she thought she was nothing."
"3 years of time and space, I've never seen anyone in the universe who wasn't important." I said with a smile.
"I went through that." Gwen said in agreement. "Even now, I get terrified. But at the same time, it is brilliant, and, and beautiful, and completely bloody magic. It's bigger, y'know? It's like... It's like the whole wide world is bigger. My life is bigger." She grinned at him as I looked past, watching a young girl standing in school uniform, stock still as her mother tugged on her arm.
"Shit!" I exclaimed, getting up and running over with Gwen and Rupesh following.
"Jack!" Gwen said into her comm. "Get up here! Right now! It's happening again! The children!"
"Are you all right?" I asked the mother as we stopped abruptly next to them.
"We're fine," The mother replied, looking back at us. "She's just playing a game." She turned back to her daughter. "Now come on, sweetheart, people are staring at you! Sasha, stop it." Suddenly, the young girl let out a non stop, high pitched scream, sending shivers down my spine as Jack and Ianto ran across the plasa to us.
"What's she doing?" Jack asked. "What's that noise?"
"I don't know!" Gwen spluttered.
"Sasha! Stop it! Sasha!" The mother begged the girl before looking up at us. "Please help her!"
"There's another one!" Rupesh said, nodding off into the distance at two kids in grey jumpers, also screaming, a few metres away. "It's all right, it's all right, I'm a doctor." He said, kneeling down by the girl as Ianto got his camera out and began to film the two boys. Suddenly, the screaming stopped.
"We. We. We." The children began. "We. We. We. We. We. We."
"Whoa!" Ianto exclaimed as Jack and I shared a calm, but worried look.
"We are. We are. We are. We are. We are. We are coming. We are coming."
"Oh, my God!" Gwen gasped.
"We are coming. We are coming. We are coming."
"Sasha, please, my God!" The mother begged her daughter tearily.
"Who are you? Who's coming?" I asked.
Suddenly, there was silence and the girl blinked, before looking up at her mother. "Come on then." She said to her mother before walking off.
"Why is that man filming us?" One of the boys asked, looking at Ianto. "Are we gonna be on telly?"
...
The four of us made a dramatic dash for the office, stopping outside the tourist entrance.
"Gwen, I'll get on to the Home Office." Jack said. "This thing has gone public. They're gonna need us." He looked round and noticed Rupesh had followed us. "Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa! Where'd you think you're going?"
"Um. I dunno." Rupesh replied feebly. "I could help."
"Doing what?"
"You're bleeping." Gwen said, nodding at his pager.
"Shit, yeah, sorry." Rupesh muttered, looking down at the pager attached to his belt.
"Whole city's coming to a standstill, they're gonna need you in A&E." I said, before running into the tourist office.
...
"Listen up." I said as the phone picked up on the other end. "Listen up UNIT Washington because this is what you're going to do."
"Uh, ma'am-" Someone began, in the middle of the loud crisis I could hear in the background.
"Ah, ah no!" I snapped. "Listen. My name is Flo Smith."
"Putting you through." I smirked as they put me through.
"Flo, sweetheart." I heard the voice of the Brigadier say.
"Alistair, darling!" I replied. "What are you doing there I thought you were in the UK?"
"Well, they needed me out here, I should be back home during the current crisis."
"Oh, no, no. I need you there. I need you to get Maria in for me ok?"
"Of course." He replied. "You, get our top blokes on getting a father and daughter in, Maria and Alan Jackson, protect them with your life!" He called to someone.
"Brigadier, don't let her be part of any experiments."
"Of course not."
"And Alistair..."
"Yes?"
"UNIT might have to fight off the government for the sake of a Time Lord child." I said, breathing in sharply. "Are you prepared for that?"
"Without another thought, Flo."
I smiled, "Thank you." I put the phone down and turned back to Jack, Gwen and Ianto as we stood round one of the computers.
"So I think it's a transmission, a pulse, a broadcast." Jack said.
"Like the Mosquito alarm – the one that only kids can hear." Ianto said.
"Something Unique to prepubescents."
"Maybe testosterone interferes with the signal, and oestrogen..."
"Oh, no, no, no, hold on." Gwen said quickly. "We're being dumbos, we're missing the bleedin' obvious here, look." She pressed a button on the computer, showing a clip of a Taiwanese child chanting like the rest of the world's kids. "Recorded in Taiwan. The point being, anyone?"
"It's English." Jack said.
"They're speaking English." Ianto said also.
"Exactly!" Gwen said. "And all the footage is the same. So every single child in the whole wide world is speaking English, so why's that?"
"I guess if you scanned the Earth from the outside, you'd register English as the dominant language." Jack suggested.
"Actually That would be Chinese - well, Mandarin." Ianto corrected. "There's about a billion people speaking Mandarin. That's three times more than English."
"That doesn't mean anything." I said, shaking my head as Gwen turned back, fiddling with the computer. "Jack and I can speak over 5 billion languages, that doesn't mean anything." Ianto looked between the two of us, giving a strange look. "What, we can?" Jack nodded in agreement.
"Oh, my God." Gwen gasped, turning our attention back to her.
"What?" Jack asked.
"OK, ready? So every single child in the world is talking in unison, yeah?"
"Yeah."
"Yup." Ianto said in agreement as I nodded.
"Every single child... And one man." She turned the monitor round to show us a clip of a man in a grey jumper with grey hair and a matching scruffy bear.
"We are coming. We are coming." He chanted.
"What the hell?" I asked. "Who's he?"
"Name's Timothy White." Gwen said. "He's a patient in a psychiatric ward at the Duke Of York Hospital, East Grinstead."
"How did you get this footage?" Jack asked.
"Staff e-mailed it to the police. But every police force is swamped with mums and dads going absolutely mental, so it's just waiting in line. I reckon no-one else has noticed him yet."
"East Grinstead." Ianto said.
"That's what, two hours?" I mumbled.
"I'm on it!" Gwen said, grabbing her car keys off the desk.
...
The three of us sat on the steps of the plasa, looking round at the emptiness.
"Lunch time." Jack said. "This place should be buzzing with kids."
"Everyone's taken them home." Ianto muttered.
"We need a child."
"Well I'd offer you mine but you'll have to wait over a year." I said as Jack raised an eyebrow at me. "I'd rather have you poke and prod him then the British Government."
"Cos we need to test those frequencies." Jack said, shaking his head at me. "Find the right frequency, and we can find out who's transmitting."
"Where d'you get a child, though?" Ianto asked. "I could find you lasers and weevils and hitchhikers. But kids..."
Jack blinked and looked round as I stared at him. Because I did hold some secrets about Captain Jack Harkness, one being his daughter Alice and grandson Steven. I'd seen her from afar, keeping an eye on her because I know Jack would've appreciated it, but I'd never spoken to her in person. Jack stared back at me, knowing we were both thinking the same thing. I gave him an apologetic smile and took his hand and we both stood up.
"See you later." Jack said.
"Where are you going?" Ianto asked.
"Now who's a couple?" Jack asked, pulling me off as I nudged him in the side.
"He's your boyfriend." I whispered. "Don't be rude."
...
"Do you want me to wait outside?" I asked as we stood outside Alice's door.
"No." Jack said, knocking on the door. "Stay with me."
Through the glass door, we saw Alice walk towards us, shouting up the stairs before opening the door and looking at Jack. She was a pretty woman, must have been in her 30's, with black curly hair.
"Oh, I thought so." She commented.
"Good to see you." Jack said. "How's things?"
"Terrifying."
"Uncle Jack!" A young, blonde haired boy cried, Steven, running through the hallway and towards Jack. Jack scooped him up and held him so he was taller than him.
"Steven! Hey, soldier, how you doing?" He asked, carrying him through the hallway.
"I was talking like an alien!" Steven cheered. "Everyone was! It was brilliant!"
"You'd better come in." Alice said sarcastically back to Jack before politely letting me in and swinging the door closed.
"Flo." I said with a smile, hugging Alice, who responded with an odd smile, before following after Jack.
...
Jack and I sat at the breakfast bar, as Alice busied herself round the kitchen, the sound of Steven playing in the garden echoeing through the glass doors.
"They said on the news that we should send them back to school tomorrow." Alice said, looking back at us. "D'you think it's safe?"
"Well, I don't know any more than you." Jack said.
"Oh, come on."
"I don't." Alice looked back at him, not believing him, as she poured some tea into three mugs. "Any word from Joe?"
"In Italy. With her. They finally got married. But he, er... He phones every now and then, and sends Steven postcards. Remembers his birthday. There are worse fathers."
"How are you off for money?"
"Don't worry about that. You give me enough. Kind of easy, writing cheques, huh?"
"Alice, you're the one who asked me to stay away. I'd come round here every week, if you wanted me to. Every day."
"Yeah." She paused, looking away from him. "I just can't stand it, Dad. I look older than you do and it's never gonna stop. I get older and older and you stay the same. One day, you're gonna be standing at my funeral. Looking just like you did when you were standing at Mum's. No wonder she was so furious. You make us feel old."
There was a long pause before I said something.
"Actually, I found a grey hair." I laughed, pointing at Jack's head and he pouted back at me.
"Oh! Well, that is the end of the world." Alice laughed as Jack looked out of the window at Steven, playing.
"You ever gonna tell him?" Jack asked.
"What do I say? That you're his grandfather?"
"He's too young to notice, right now. That I don't age. But one day, he's gonna realise."
"And that's another reason for you to stay away."
"I suppose. I could make the most of it while he's still young. Take him out. Buy him stuff. Me and him, sort of thing."
"You mean today?"
"While I'm here, may as well."
"Ah you bastard." She laughed bitterly. "Something happens to kids, and you want to spend time with him on the same day. You are not experimenting on that boy, Dad. Not ever. That's why I want you to stay away, because you're dangerous."
"It was my fault." I said quickly. "I knew about you and Steven and-"
"Are you a mother?" She asked me.
"Soon." I said quietly, putting a hand on my stoumach.
"Would you give your child up to this man?" She asked, violently pointing at Jack. "To be proked and prodded?"
"Yes." I replied without a thought.
She relaxed a little, looking at me curiously, "Why?"
"Because I don't know how much you know about your father, Alice, but I've seen him do amazing things. I've seen him die constantly for the sake of the Earth, climb through ventilation shafting to stop Daleks, protect my mother who is one of the most bad-ass people I know, and he looked after my daughter without me even knowing she was there. So yes. I do trust him to look after my child."
...
"Comm." I muttered to myself, picking one of the comms off the desk and putting it in my ear as Ianto walked in. Jack had buggered off to find Rupesh to get a child from him.
"Ianto," Gwen said in the comm as Ianto approached me and we stood at the computer. "I need a search on Clement MacDonald, could be M-C or M-A-C, and try the words "Holly Tree" and Scotland. We're looking at the 1960s, got that?"
"Yeah." Ianto said, typing in the info.
"Then try the words Timothy White, with the option of Timothy White's, apostrophe S, like the shop."
"I lost the car." Ianto said, making me sigh, placing a hand on his shoulder.
"Yeah, and if you find anything, let me know straight away, don't wait for me to get back." Gwen said, not listening to Ianto.
"These kids nicked it."
"Yeah, I'll see you later." Gwen said before cutting off.
"On my sister's estate." He said to me, seeing as I was the only one listening.
"Don't worry." I said with a smile. "It's only a car."
"What do we do now?"
"Wait, I guess." I shrugged.
...
"Result!" Ianto cheered as Gwen walked into the hub. "There was a Holly Tree Lodge just outside Arbroath. It's a hotel now, but, up until 1965, it was a state-run orphanage. And they had a Clement MacDonald!" Gwen walked past up without a speck of attention, walking into the med bay.
"He was taken into care, April 1965, after his mother died." I said, carrying on reading from the screen me and Ianto stood by. "No father on record. In November 1965, he was transferred, along with... Oh."
Then Jack walked in.
"We need damage control at St Helen's." Jack said, striding over. "One body. Dr Rupesh Patanjali. Shot in the back."
"What happened?" I gasped.
"I don't know. He was just left there right beside me. Like someone's gloating."
"Did they kill you?" Ianto asked softly.
"Yeah."
Ianto moved in and hugged him.
"Maybe we're being targeted." Jack said, pulling back. "Whether it was him or me, we should be careful, better tell Gwen."
"She's back, she's in the med bay."
"Gwen!" Jack called over, running over. There was a mumbling conversation before someone called back to us. "Ianto! Flo!" Jack called. "We're having a baby!" Ianto and I ran over, looking down into the bay as Gwen stood with her hand on a scanner.
"Have you told Rhys?" I asked.
"I've only just found out myself." Gwen whispered, staring at the projection on the screen.
"Oh, you told me before you told him, he is gonna love that." Jack muttered.
"Congratulations." Ianto said happily. "Would now be a good time to tell you I lost the car?"
"You did what?!" Jack exclaimed, looking back.
"That is just bloody spectacular!" Gwen gasped, looking back at us. "But what about this place, and my job?"
"We'll manage." Jack said, reassuringly putting his hand on top of Gwen's. "We always do."
Suddenly, a siren blared.
"What the hell is that?"
ALERT flashed across the screen as it showed a scan of Jack with a big red ball over his hips.
"Oh, my God." Jack said.
"There's a bomb, there's a bomb inside your stomach." Ianto said.
"Get out,"
"No!" Gwen shouted.
"The three of you."
"No!"
"Right now!"
"It has a blast radius of one mile!" I gulped.
"Right now! Get out! "
"Look there must be something we can do." Gwen begged, looking around at the equipment. "Look we can stop it. We can fix this OK, we can rip it out of you."
"I'm telling you. Get out!"
"It's active. Two minutes!" Ianto said as Jack pulled Gwen up the stairs and pulled the three of us into the main area of the hub.
"I can't just run, Jack." Gwen said.
"You're pregnant." He said before looking back at me. "The both of you." Gwen stared back at him before stepping back and running out of the hub.
I bolted over to one of the computer's suddenly, typing away at the security protocols.
"Lockdown." The computer announced as Ianto ran over, helping me.
"Ianto, Flo, you're going to get locked inside." Jack exclaimed as the cog door rolled over, closing solidly and locking. "Ianto, Flo! Then you…" He grabbed onto us and began to drag us away.
"There must be a way to override the mechanism." Ianto said.
"For God's sake, get out!"
"There'll be nothing left of you!"
"I can survive anything." He pushed us onto the invisible lift and kissed Ianto ferociously before hitting on some buttons. I stumbled and Ianto grabbed me as the lift began to move and the both of us looked down at Jack. "I'll come back. I always do." He called up.
A/N - I'm so sorry for such a long update, originally when I was meant to post it I got concussion so I couldn't, and I've had so many exams and essays I've had to do lately! But here we go! Please review because then I know you guys are reading! x