Chapter Text
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For most creatures in the universe time is a rather simple concept, what’s done is done, what’s happening matters and what’s to come is uncertain. That’s how it works for animals, plants, bacteria and the likes. The self-aware species however, complicate matters. They start to think about how time works, what it is. They theorize on how to stop it, how to travel through it and how to change it after it has flowed past them.
The real question is: what happens when you reach those individuals who believe that they’ve truly mastered time? How powerful is someone who can go back and rewrite all his mistakes or can go forward and influence what he’ll become.
It began, or rather continued because nothing ever truly ends or begins, with a man who grew old but didn’t age. Who stood in a building that wasn’t ever built and looked out to a world that would never turn.
“Do you think it matters?”
“I’m sorry sir, does what matter?” the woman answered, wearily eyeing her boss. She knew him well enough to realize that this wasn’t just the babbling of a senile old man, it was probably some sort of test hidden beneath vague words.
“Whether or not we can go back to fix our mistakes.”
“Well, of course. What’s the point of this whole organisation if we can’t go back and fix the damage we’ve done?” She still didn’t know where this was going.
“Fix one mistake, make another. How do we know that the history books we have here are correct, perhaps we’ve shaped them, erased parts of them before we even knew that they were vital to our future.” The man didn’t even need to look at her to realize he was egging her on.
“Sir, these books were taken outside of the timeline to make sure they wouldn’t change when it does!”
“But they were a part of it once, how do we know we didn’t change anything before we took them away?”
“Are you saying that our entire control system is bullshit?” Had she not been so busy trying to figure out what the teacher had meant, she might’ve noticed an orange flare on the horizon. As it was, the woman was still trying to wrap her head around supposed flaws in a bulletproof system of measuring the past.
“I’m saying that perhaps we’ve been relying on the written word to much. We keep trying to preserve the past as if it’ll shatter if we shift it, regardless of the damage we do to keep it in place. To ourselves, to others. Hell, entire species have blood on their hands because they weren’t supposed to know something.” He sighed and began to walk away from the window, the woman quickly following him down the corridor.
“So then what? We just mess around in the time stream willy-nilly, accidently destroying everything in the process?”
She never got her answer.
Leadworth, 2011.
“Rory! Where did we put the transfoma- mirror-thingy?!” Amy was storming down the stairs, through the living room, to the kitchen only to then turn around and hurry back up.
Honestly, sometimes Rory imaged being married to a nice girl who simply baked cherry pies in her spare time.
“I put the electric toothbrush in the bathroom cabinet.” That earned him a glare. “Oh, you meant the transdimensional mirror-reflection scanner?” The last boxes had been emptied just a few hours ago, finishing the move into their new home. It was a nice place, two streets down from his parents and three from hers. A renovated house which, despite all the work he’d put into it, still refused to heat the bedroom.
“It’s in the desk drawer!”
Rory thought there might be a draft somewhere; Amy was convinced there were tiny aliens in the walls. He supposed that domestic answers just weren’t logical for someone who’d lived all her life next to a crack in time and space. So he let his wife play around with what her once-but-absolutely-not-imaginary friend had called an exceptional wedding-gift and a first class warning system for the unusual.
A red blur alerted him to the fact that Mrs. Williams had entered the kitchen once more and a kiss on his cheek told him that she’d found the scanner.
“Thanks love.”
“How’s the alien hunt going?” it still surprised Rory that he could say that with a straight face.
“One of these days, this thing will show me what is lurking in that room and then I’ll find a way to exterminate every last one of them.” She missed it, the running around, finding new species, visiting alien planets. Ever since the Doctor had dropped them off after a rollercoaster ride of a honeymoon Amy had been trying to find the extraordinary in regular places. Which reminded him, he still needed to call the mayor about that incident with the duck pond last week.
It wasn’t permanent, the playing house. He knew that. The Time Lord could pop up at any moment and then it’d be running, jumping and sword waving again. Strange really, but he didn’t mind. Being a nurse was fine and he loved his job but even he was beginning to miss the quantum-physics and extraordinary devices.
“Huh, that’s odd.”
“What is, dear?” By the time he turned around, his wife had disappeared from the surface of the earth.
Cardiff Rift, 2009
It was over. Done. The rift was closed and the beast wouldn’t escape. Now though, he supposed he’d best get used to hanging around in space, because that was what his life would be like from now until doomsday. It wasn’t all bad though. Jack had said he’d loved him and that out of all the people he’d known, had wanted to see Ianto the most. On top of that, he’d choose eternal oblivion over losing Ianto. That the selfish bastard hadn’t even thought about the consequences for his mortal partner was less fortunate.
It’s not like the man is known for his planning skills. He thought, while something uncomfortable stirred in his chest.
But those feelings would have to wait until, well, until he figured out what to do with them.
The entire pub was destroyed and all the ghosts, along with Seriath, had disappeared, leaving him behind. How did that happen? Why wasn’t he wherever they were? Or perhaps he was and just couldn’t see or hear them.
Apparently, Ianto had died. Now that the chaos had blown over, he could properly think about those blanks in his memory. He’d died in Jacks arms as one of the first victims of an alien plague.
That did not ring any bells.
Jack said that it’d been six months, but since he seemed to be missing the last bit of his life, that statement was useless. He should’ve asked for the date. What had happened to the diligent Ianto of old? That guy, at least, would’ve asked if the entire human race hadn’t been wiped out by said plague.
It was settled then, being dead was shit for his work attitude.
God, he wondered what Rhi would’ve thought, her little brother dead at age twenty-six. Questions were flashing through his mind. Did she know how he died? Had they told her about Torchwood? Did she arrange the funeral? Did she bring Johnny and the kids to it as well?
Wait.
Kids…
That did ring a bell.
Why did that ring a bell? Why would his niece and nephew be important? Jesus, he hoped they hadn’t contracted the plague too.
No, that wasn’t it. It was broader than just Mica and David. It was kids as a whole, all the kids on earth. Including a little blond boy he’d only seen on a computer screen, why did he remember that kid? Then it struck him, a single sentence:
“We are coming.”
And there it was, him dying rather pathetically in Jack’s arms after being too stupid to bring a bloody gasmask. It seemed his recent slacking off was not just a by-product of being dead.
He panicked a little at the thought of Jack waking up alone, probably next to his cold body and that Gwen, of all people, would have to help him. He didn’t mind Gwen, even liked her at times, but she was not fit to deal with this sort of thing. She’d either scream at him or try to absolve him from the blame and Jack, not ready to hear any of that, would run for the hills immediately.
Well, it didn’t matter now anyway. Jack was gone and he was dead, forever floating around in a place that wasn’t really a place. Dying to close the rift? He wasn’t that lucky. Because everything Ianto Jones did had severe repercussions that were guaranteed to haunt him for the rest of his life…
Or death.
Whatever.
Except he wasn’t really floating anymore, he was being pulled. Something was taking him away from the dark non-place.
Looks like you’re not quite done yet, Jones.