Hello after few days off. We're back to Ianto's POV some angst ahead. The story had breached 90th chapter, and has 50 reviews, so I'll settle for that and just assume you're enjoying it, I am. Welcome new subscribers, hope I'll live up to it.

Minor spoilers for The Last of the Time Lords

Beta-ed: TattoedLibrarian wonderful as ever

Ianto was dazed. He walked down the corridors and into the service ship, he sat down beside Gwen and Owen engaged the engines. Tosh didn't lift her eyes from the screen. He looked at them all tired and broken and thought about what Jack had said. He said all this time will be deleted, that they wouldn't remember this. It was hard for Ianto to imagine that abyss where all of them, them with this experiences will be gone. He rolled back events from last month's under the Master, in the paradox, and he decided that it wouldn't be a great loss. He would give it up in no time.

It would probably all go back to the moment they realized that there was nothing alien in the Himalayas and started to pack for home. Owen grumbled, Gwen tried to get reception on her phone, Tosh sorted her data, and Ianto packed equipment. That was the moment when the flying balls filled the sky and ripped it open. They went for cover not waiting to receive the message of peace, they rarely received those, but what saved them weren't their wits but the desolated place where they were. After that all went into shut down, vehicles, gadgets, even basic electricity. It wasn't easy to reach England from there, but it was the goal they could understand, and there was a hope that they would be able to think of something in the Hub; or, which none of them would admit, that Jack would be there waiting with a solution of all this.

They kept it together during their voyage. Isolated as they were they had no information about how bad it all was. They had a purpose and Ianto wasn't in charge in that time. Gwen and Owen were a good team and Ianto contributed in planning routes, thinking about covers, and keeping an eye on supplies. On their way, on foot, sea and rarer in car, they met people in hiding and made contact promising that something would be done about this. Communication was surveyed so they used radio waves and avoided modern technology completely. It wasn't easy for Tosh to adjust but she did.

Only problem that bugged them constantly was the flying balls, or damn flying balls as Owen had named them, rest of them were fine without that damn, it seemed like they were searching for them. It seemed paranoid that they would be tracked down through all the Asia and Europe, they weren't so important or known, but they decided that it was a plausible theory so they dealt with it. Funny enough after they placed similar bodies to their own in their clothes and some of their items and identifications all interest in them disappeared. It made them feel better, maybe they were important, and maybe there was something they could do. It took them half of the time for the rest of the journey.

They found the Hub deserted, devastated and without power. Tosh's computers were dead, morgue was empty, and Rhys was nowhere to be found. Missing Rhys was beginning of disintegration. Gwen went mad looking for him investigating, yelling, accusing, she didn't stop until she found his body buried underneath a pile of bodies scattered by those damn balls. She went into shut down; a trail of unending tears was the only sign of life.

Then Tosh managed to get a secondary power source in motion together with a shield they weren't sure would work. She searched the transmissions of the scattered resistance trying to determine damage just to discover that the state was the same everywhere. That didn't get to her, she was efficient, fast fingers on the keyboard, steady voice, but then she froze. She couldn't look away from burning Japan. It was probably something buried in her collective subconscious, terror of atomic bombs that couldn't be erased but now ten times worse. Nothing was left of the islands, just black soil. She didn't cry but she didn't speak anymore, there wasn't announcing of her successes or failures. She had only had eyes for the monitor.

Owen persisted convinced he could defeat the flying balls, he felt a personal vendetta for everything, they weren't aware of the Master, he was just a name, they missed all his transmissions. So they worked together as a team, because even in their distress the work was too deep in them to be extinguished. Tosh came up with an electric wall and they got themselves an alien. Owen worked for days frantic. When he opened it he wouldn't let anyone near. They waited but only to smell burning flesh in the air when he burned the alien body. Owen was terrified and after that he lost all interest, reducing himself to an ordinary doctor who would patch wounds and gave stitches, nothing could be gotten out of him.

Ianto worked around the Hub cleaning, collecting, feeding them and collecting sharp objects from out of reach. Others continued to work but without hope, automatic. Then there was their first live stream of the Master, he was talking to the nations but no one in the Hub was listening to him. They just watched in silence, not breathing, looking at the cuffed man behind him. It was Jack; he stood there dirty, defeated and tired. His eyes were closed. Maybe that was the worst part, to see him submitted like that at the mercy of the man that enslaved the Earth. Ianto's hands were trembling, he started to shake but rest of them were to numb to notice.

"Our fierce leader" murmured Owen and turned towards medical bay "wouldn't be him right now."

"It's all my fault" said Gwen with a whisper and went on the sofa squeezing herself into a ball. "Everyone is gone."

Tosh's hand went over and tapped the keyboard turning the screen off.

"No" Ianto jumped forward and turned it up again.

"Why do you want to see that?" it was the first thing Tosh had said in awhile.

"We need to know where they are holding him" said Ianto angrily "we can't just turn off the screen and pretend he's not there."

"Tea boy a hero" Owen snorted like everything was as usual "you're going to save your big daddy?"

It took all of Ianto's self control to stay put and not punch him, which would be a pointless effort, besides Owen was just step away from leaving one way or another.

"Tosh, you need some rest" he said gently to Toshiko who stared at the screen "let me do this." She nodded and left towards the archives searching for bed. Beds came in handy, not in the way Ianto expected, but still, it helped them to be unnoticed. Dragging beds in midst of all this would be suspicious.

Ianto clenched his jaw and started his research. It wasn't easy because the data wasn't so easily attainable. Luckily the Master had narcissistic persona so all his videos were out there. Ianto looked every one of them. Jack would rarely appear, but the Doctor was always there. Sight of the Doctor made Ianto's heart sink, that rescue option was out of order. Finally he got the first footage when Prime Minister Saxon revealed himself. Jack was there, out of camera but Ianto knew he was there fighting.

"And the good thing is, he's not dead for long, I get to kill him again" said the Master and Ianto closed his eyes knowing what the Master was using Jack for. He counted the days and months from when it all started and he felt sick.

Ianto ushered them all in the boarding room which was functional in difference to their destroyed greenhouse. He briefed them.

"He's held on the Valliant so we'll have to get something that flies. We need Jack's exact location, surveillance cameras to jam, opening locks wont' be a problem. They need to eat too, in the footage it's seen that the Master has full staff there, which means there must be frequent line of supplies, even if he doesn't eat people must be fed."

"It seems" Owen said with a smile "that our Ianto here has finally gone mental."

Ianto's spine stiffened at that.

"Would he do less for you" Ianto said coldly "we can't just let him die there!"

"Ianto" said Gwen with her now weak voice "honey you know he can't die?"

Ianto looked at them in disbelief.

"Don't you know what that means?" his voice was hoarse "It means he has the honour of dying every day, maybe even every hour. Didn't you see how that hurts?" he leaned forward supporting himself with his hands on the desk unconsciously mirroring Jack "When we killed him" even through their stupor they winced under his hard words "didn't you notice that he died for real not just for show? When he lay in the morgue, didn't you notice his flesh was stone cold? You think that doesn't hurt, or is that what you tell yourselves?"

"Ianto, even if we managed to pull it off" said Tosh tiredly "don't you know it's a suicide mission?"

"Yeah" Owen supported her "and we only get to die once."

Ianto smiled.

"Do you have anything better to do?" no one looked at him.

"I'm with you" said Gwen finally "let's bring him home."

"I can tap into security system" Tosh tapped her fingers on the table like her pad was there "get us some passes, ids, even the vehicle but who would fly it, we can't trust an outsider with this one."

"I'll fly it, just give me instructions" said Owen suddenly mad "I'll fly it through the Rift and out of here if it's necessary."

"I'll make cover stories" said Ianto and they went to work.

As they planned and prepared Ianto noticed that they all looked better, focused on a joined purpose. There was even a glimmer of hope. When Tosh found a surveillance camera that was focused on Jack they all gasped. He stood there same as on footage from day before but stretched and chained to the walls. After that there wasn't any hesitation left. Tosh recorded Jack so she could have cover track, she'd done it with the rest of corridors they could need. They looked for the best time to infiltrate. That's how they witnessed Master's visit to Jack. After few moments of stunned silence Ianto reached over Toshiko and turned off the screen. They worked with more severity.

Finally they found the appropriate ship and crew, sent out orders that dismissed them for the evening, and there was an empty freighter waiting for them.