Author's note: There is one scene in this story that's shared with the one before it. That scene appears in this chapter. Except this time, focusing on Alison's activities.

This is also a chapter that will probably make most readers do a double take, in terms of Buffy. Yes, I know what you're going to say. I wrote it this way deliberately.

Enjoy!

"I'm sorry? Not necessary?" Alison said. "It's absolutely necessary!"

Alison had been shadowing Buffy since she'd gotten back to London — hadn't let up for a moment. Which would have been fine, normally, and Buffy did enjoy the company, except…

Well, except that it was pretty obvious why Alison was sticking near her this time.

And it had nothing to do with children.

"My baby brother is here alone," said Alison. "And I need you to look after him."

Buffy knew Alison had sent her parents away on purpose.

"And after your parents come back," Buffy sighed, "I'm guessing you want me to stick around here and just make sure everything's okay?"

"Well, you are the Slayer," Alison explained, calmly. "Which means that if any great big nasties show up, you can protect my family."

Translation?

The best thing you can do for the world right now, Buffy, is to stay here and be pitied by everyone, while Alison rushes off to Cardiff and Torchwood manages to save the day.

Without her.

"Alison," said Buffy, with her best knowing-Mom smile, "think this through. If anything happened to me — how would your parents be able to help? Half the alien experts in the world are trying to figure out what's wrong with me, and they've got no clue."

Alison wasn't about to back down.

"I haven't had an attack for a while, now," Buffy reminded Alison. "I'll be fine in Cardiff. Really, I—"

Alison stepped in closer, glaring right into Buffy's eyes. "You. Look. After. David," she demanded. "Now."

Her voice had an edge to it. One that made you want to shudder and just agree.

Which sucked, because Buffy had been the one to teach Alison how to do that voice in the first place! Really, how much karma could one universe throw at you?

But Buffy backed off.

Truth was… she wasn't completely sure Alison was wrong about this.

"Go to Torchwood," Buffy instructed. "They've got footage of what happened to the children. From across the world. I want to know anything you see out of the ordinary. Got that?"

Alison gave a mock-salute.

"Get a move-on, then," said Buffy, turning around. "I've got some serious baby-sitting to do."

It was 2:30 pm, when Alison Korjensky left for Cardiff.

And Buffy was standing around, in the Korjensky's kitchen, trying Giles' number over and over again, and getting nothing. Maybe he wasn't picking up because Seo had gone mega-paranoia on Buffy's phone and made it completely untraceable — even by caller ID.
Yeah, that could be it. If Giles' phone kept ringing, and he didn't realize it was Buffy calling.

So… Buffy left a message.

"Hey, Giles, it's Buffy," she said. "Sorry you can't get my caller ID number. Guess who's still paranoid someone's gonna build another brainwashing psychic phone network?" Buffy ran a hand through her hair. "Anyways, gimme a call back. Let me know what you found. Hope the Jack thing worked — if not, I'll let you in on some of his secrets. Maybe we can embarrass these Home Office guys into letting us talk to them."

She'd only just hung up, when little David came barreling into the room and collided with her legs, sending her crashing down to the floor. Just barely managing to hold onto her phone.

"Sorry," David said. Then his eyes lit up, as he recognized her. "It's you! The grown-up who fights monsters!"

Point to David.

Pretty accurate description.

"I wanna do that when I grow up!" said David. "Either be a monster-fighter. Or a robot. That'd be brilliant!"

"A… robot," Buffy double-checked, stuffing her phone away.

David looked around, and then whispered, "I think I'm secretly becoming a robot. Mum and Dad said I sounded like one this morning."

Oh.

"So… you know about that?" Buffy asked. Maybe there was something to this whole babysitting thing after all. "What do you remember? Can you remember how you screamed?"

"Not really," said David. "But I wish I could." He jumped around, skipping across the floor in excitement. "I've tried it a few times, but I could never get it right. See?" He demonstrated, with a number of ear-piercing shrieks that made Buffy think child services was gonna rush in any moment and arrest her. "But I don't think that's right. I think it's a sound like… you know! In the stories Alison tells!"

"Stories?" Buffy asked.

"Yeah!" said David. "From when she went back in time!" He darted around, shouting, "Ya! Ya!" and doing karate chops and kicks and things. Then he grabbed up a pencil, pointed it at Buffy, and shouted, "Vroooo!"

Buffy blinked.

"And then all the monsters disappeared!" said David. "That's what Alison said."

It took Buffy a while to realize… the pencil was supposed to be a sonic screwdriver. And the person David was trying to act like… was the Doctor's third incarnation.

"Oh, when Alison was with the Doctor!" Buffy said, laughing. Shook her head. "Yeah, we could definitely use his help around here, now."

David vrooed his 'sonic screwdriver' at different items in the kitchen. Then grabbed them up and threw them through the air.

"Whoa, whoa, David!" Buffy said, doing a number of flip-jumps to catch all the flying fruit before it could impact. "Don't make a mess! Your parents will kill me."

"But that's what it does!" David insisted. He showed her the pencil, his face serious. "The screwdriver makes a noise. And that noise makes other things happen." His eyes lit up. "I wonder what I made happen! When I made my noise!"

Buffy felt her jaw drop.

As she realized… David was right.

"The sonic screwdriver affects the world around it," Buffy said. "Using sound. Sonic vibrations. What if this is the same thing? What if all that screaming was doing something? Activating something, or…?!"

Her mind was awhirl. Possibilities opening up to her, all at once. It was so obvious, suddenly. Why hadn't she seen it before?

She grabbed David by the hand, and flew out of the room. "We have to find some electronics and stuff," she said. "We're going to build our own sonic screwdriver." Grinned down at David. "What do you think about that?"

David squealed with excitement.

And so they got to work.

"I don't understand," said Frobisher, in his office. "You must be able to trace the call to Giles' phone. Even if it's from Torchwood, our technology is more advanced than theirs."

"I'm sorry, sir," said the technician. "But we can't trace it. We've tried everything."

Frobisher let this absorb. Worried.

"She… did leave a message," the technician offered.

Frobisher heard the message. And realized it was just confirming more and more of his fears. For a few long minutes, after the message ended, he sat, just trying to decide what to do.

"And… who is she?" Frobisher said.

"Buffy Summers," said the technician. Gave him her file. "Looks like she's been on our watch-list before. The name red-flagged."

Frobisher took this in.

Thinking about her message to Giles. Flipping through her records and becoming more and more concerned by the second.

Buffy Summers.

A friend of Jack Harkness. And one who knew his secrets.

Frobisher didn't make his decision easily.

But he did make it.

"Find her," he said. Got up from his desk. "Deal with her."

At 6:00 pm, Alison arrived at Torchwood.

And realized that no one else was there. Alison took out her mobile, made a few calls. Turned out, all the other Torchwood agents were off trying to work out what was going on. Following up on leads.

While Alison was here looking for those leads in the first place.

"Bet you lot have already done this," Alison muttered. As she sat down, and began opening up the data from the Torchwood computer, regarding the children-talking-in-unison thing. Flipped through it, played it over and over again. Always different children. Across the world. All saying the same thing.

"We are…" they said. "We are… we are… coming."

Right. Find something out of the ordinary, Alison. That was what Buffy had said. Out of the ordinary!

She watched the footage again.

And sighed.

"Yeah, because kids freezing in place and getting possessed like this is completely normal," Alison muttered, clicking on another footage clip. "Thanks, Buffy."

She flipped through a few more, then…

Wait a second.

On a whim, Alison pulled up the camera for just outside Buffy's flat. At 8:40 am. Rewound the CCTV footage just a bit, and watched.

There was Buffy. Coming out of her flat.

And then… she wavered. Clutching the railing for dear life, hand against her head, grimacing. Another one of her dizzy spells, it seemed…

Except that the moment Buffy's reactions had stopped…

Was the very moment the children had frozen.

"No," Alison breathed. But she was already pulling up the footage for just outside Home Office, at 10:30 am. Remembered that Giles had called her, around then, to let her know about Buffy. Alison rewound it. Kept going until she saw Buffy, standing outside.

Having another attack.

10:26 am.

Four minutes before the children had stopped.

Alison checked her phone. The call from Giles had been right afterwards. The attacks were affecting all the kids around the world… one bloke Gwen was checking out, who was in a mental institution…

And Buffy.

Always before the fact.

And never at the same time.

"She's connected to this, somehow," Alison realized. "But… how? And why her?"

"Good question," came a voice.

Alison jumped.

Spun around, found herself face-to-face with… well, some stranger wearing heels, a pair of stylish sunglasses perched on her head.

"Who are you?" Alison demanded, getting up. "How'd you get in here?"

The woman laughed. "Alison," she said, softly. "I was the one who taught you how to break into Torchwood in the first place."

Which when Alison realized… this was Seo.

A future incarnation of Seo.

The Future-Seo came up to her. "Listen, I don't have much time. But I have to tell you about the 456." Placed hands on the sides of Alison's head. "You trust me?"

What else could Alison say?

"Yes. Always."

There was a flash in Alison's mind. A burst of information. Future-Seo had given her everything she'd need to know. Who the 456 were, why the children were talking in unison, what was happening and how and how it was connected to the larger universe — and what would happen, if Alison didn't stop it.

As the connection was broken… Alison realized. She had to.

"The… the 456," Alison panted, stepping away. Hands clutching her head, as she struggled to absorb it all. "That's whose coming. They're going to take human kids and use them as… as… drugs!"

"And you're not supposed to know that, yet," came another voice.
Alison spun around. Saw the other intruder. Listened as the two quibbled, learning that this was a future incarnation of Jenny, Seo's sister — except Seo and Jenny didn't seem too pleased to see one another, and were squabbling like mad, and…

Oh, who bloody cared?!

The entire world was at threat! And Alison knew it! Knew everything about these monsters, and all the others like them out in the galaxy! She knew whom the 456 supplied, how their drug trafficking was going to spark some sort of massive war in the future, one that Seo and her sister would both wind up fighting. She knew how many people would suffer and die, knew Ianto would suffer and die, just because…

"I have to tell Jack," Alison said, grabbing up her jacket and racing towards the Hub door. She knew where Jack was, too — at that hospital. Seo had given her everything she needed, and Alison could see it — see it so clearly. "I have to stop all this."

"No, Alison, wait!" Jenny cried.

But Alison was already out the door and on her way. Time to get to the hospital. Time to find Jack.

She stepped out of Torchwood Cardiff at 7:15 pm.

It would be the last time she ever set foot on the Plass.