![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eldabeTitle: I’ve Sewn A Patchwork Life
Author:eldabe
Fandoms: Torchwood, Doctor Who
Rating: Older Teen.
Betas: All of the thanks tosariagray and 51stcenturyfox who looked over this for me while I dithered on it. Any remaining issues are my own.
Characters: Toshiko, Ianto, Owen, Gwen, Jack, The Master
Warnings: Character death, torture, field surgery, gore.
Contains: Minimal understanding of human biology, drugs, and geography.
Summary: Jack is long gone and the world is falling apart. Trapped far from home, Torchwood pieces together a plan of action.
(Bonus Note: This was written well before the Avengers film came out, but I would like to thank Disney and Marvel Studios for ensuring that people will get the one reference that worried me.)
*
They never made it back home from the Himalayas.
They were already trekking back to civilization, the four of them and their hired guides. They abandoned most of their useless equipment on the mountain when they realized they were on a wild goose chase with dummy electronics. Owen had a low-grade fever he couldn't shake and Gwen's left hand was wrapped in an extra layer of cloth ripped from her shirt. She had sliced it open grabbing a rock to stop herself from falling.
The swarm of metal balls looked like insects, like a biblical plague of locusts descending on the world. Still too far to see detail, they were far enough to escape notice. None of them thought it would be good news that greeted them.
They reached civilization to find it a burning chaos.
Between the four of them, there wasn't one who could speak any of the local languages. Money was useless now, or soon would be. It was Owen who saved them from eventual starvation, sewing together a little girl's arm while cursing his lack of painkillers and Jack all at once. Suddenly people would talk to them, trade with them.
Gwen suggested going home, her voice still holding a trace of bright-eyed optimism. She was greeted by blank looks. The trip to Nepal had been laughably simple in comparison. They were barely scraping by.
Tosh started teaching herself Nepali from the back of their guidebooks, and Gwen made friends with all the local children. Ianto sorted out their assets, and then organized food, technology and supplies. He started making connections with some local teens and he started bringing them a inconsistent collection of rumors and myths. When Ianto found out that doctors could apply for special passes to travel, Owen left to see how to qualify.
Owen didn't use his real name for his medical staff license, but they were Torchwood and he had a half-dozen fake IDs. Gwen got a license as well, and they were suddenly mobile.
They travelled south, following broken roads into India and then followed the flow of people toward Kanpur. There was some sort of base being built on the edges of the city, sapping resources and worker from the surrounding countryside. They decided to stop in Kanpur, hiding themselves in the influx of new people. Ianto started establishing connections and building a reputation underground. Owen would stitch anyone up without asking questions, and Tosh offered to repair broken iPods and laptops. She was the only one who stayed in their tiny basement, and the rest spread out to gather her requested bits of technology, dead batteries and spare pieces of wire. She could use anything to make what she needed.
Radios were the first thing banned, so Tosh kept theirs hidden, and she started building spares, just in case. She would huddle over them at all hours, switching between stations, hunting for the infrequent spotty broadcasts.
It was a haphazard, messy life, Gwen and Owen passed as doctors and traveled miles away to connect to the underground and gather information. Owen sometimes saved lives. Ianto stayed in Kanpur, but even he was sometimes gone overnight, trading newly-recharged batteries for food and information in the fringes of the city. His network of contacts was extensive, and he started getting first-hand accounts of the situation in the new, massive factories springing up outside all the major cities. Most of his runners were teenagers, moving between the factories, the schools and the streets with equal ease. Tosh saved them any sweets or chocolates Gwen brought back.
Gwen and Owen were out of the base as often as they were in it, and sometimes when Ianto left too, Tosh was left alone for days.
It was Ianto who brought back the confusing information about the floating city, but it was Tosh who remembered the UNIT airship. (It was Owen who joked about SHIELD and American superheroes, but only Ianto got the joke enough to crack a smile.)
They filled in the missing pieces slowly, spottily.
"Whoever is leading this thing, he's there, on that ship."
"The master?"
"The Master.”
And then Owen came back one day with a rumor of a rumor, unconfirmed and faint. "The Doctor could be a prisoner on that ship."
Ianto, when he came back, believed it immediately. Tosh found it hard to picture, and to Gwen it was impossible.
"That's who the Doctor is." Ianto explained, with the certainty of one with hundreds of files of evidence to back up personal experience. "He shows up in the biggest disasters and the worst situations imaginable. And he can't save everyone." Just yesterday one of Ianto's runners had been ripped apart by one of those metal balls, not even enough left for a funeral. "But he never loses either."
"Yeah, so what does that mean for us then?"
Ianto blinked, but it was Tosh who answered.
"We have to help him, of course. We're Torchwood."
It was the first time any of them had heard that word in weeks. They were miles and months from home, and their mission of trying to contain the rift seemed like another life. But Ianto straightened at the word, and Gwen lifted her chin. There was a moment of silence.
Owen spoke first. "We need to get on that ship."
***
But no one got on the Valiant. Or off of it, it seemed. There had to be shipments of food at the very least, but from their hideaway, they heard nothing.
There were other rumors, though, about a woman traveling through Russia; rumors that supported their theories about the Doctor, but they were confusing at best. Ianto focused on the ship and Tosh recalibrated her radios and Gwen started scouting further and further, bringing back snippets of information whenever she could.
"They're looking for us," she said, throwing down a WANTED poster in Greek. Tosh recognized her own picture from UNIT's files. "They've started tracking down alien hunters around the planet. Area 51 has been taken, and a whole city in Pakistan disappeared last month. They say that a territory in Northern Canada has been blocked off."
"Torchwood Five," Ianto murmured, but didn't elaborate. He hunched over the poster for hours with the three dictionaries he could find, none of them Greek to English, and he pieced together what it meant.
"We're wanted alive," Ianto confirmed, four days later when Owen returned and heard the rest of the story.
"So we can hand ourselves over then," Owen said, "and get on that ship."
"Suicide mission," Gwen protested, her hands flying out and down as if trying to keep them all on the ground.
"We'd need to be able to send a message back." Tosh said quietly, not denying Gwen's objections, instead ignoring them. "And if UNIT is handling this, no one will be able to carry anything aboard that ship without them knowing about it."
Two days later, Owen came back from a horrific surgery, a sixteen-year-old boy who had been nearly crushed in one of the monstrous factories now dominating the countryside.
"There's an awful lot of room to hide things in the human body," Owen said, "if you know what to do with it."
Gwen objected immediately. "You're suggesting field surgery. For what, a recorder? How will you even get it out on the ship?"
"How will you get it back to the people on the ground?" Ianto asked.
Tosh was already thinking, already turning the problem around in her mind, looking at all the different angles. Recording was useless. There would be no way to get the recording off the ship. Tosh looked at her radio collection. She would talk to Owen later.
***
Owen theorized that it could be done. But the plan was put on hold when Gwen disappeared on one of her missions. It was always dangerous for her to pass as a doctor, because sometimes doctors were dragged to the factories to fix people who couldn't be fixed. Owen had once pulled a miracle from nowhere, and had come back to them nearly a week late, dazed and exhausted. But Gwen's training was field training, given by Owen back in Cardiff. She was more qualified to perform alien autopsies than she was to treat smog-induced cancer, and she made it farther on her wide eyes than her medical skills.
But she was driven, and determined to get news from home. When she got her first copy of the French underground newspaper, it was as if she had found a new hope suddenly. France was so close to Britain, and Gwen was convinced she would be able to get news across the Channel.
It was nearly a week before Ianto went after Gwen, against Tosh's objections, leaving her alone. When Owen came back they waited together. Silent days of bated breath, and trickling rumors. Tosh didn't realize how cut off she was without Ianto's stream of information, and she made friends with his runners, with her neighbors. She hosted two or three people at a time, and they brought milk for her weak tea as they huddled around the radios together, translating the international mess of transmissions for each other. Owen made her wear a gun at all times, and at nights they started casting their own bullets.
When Ianto came back, he looked like he hadn't eaten since he left, and he wouldn't tell them exactly what he found. He did confirm that Gwen was dead, in a hollow voice before Owen made him lie down. He only slept two hours before he staggered back into the main room, and revived the old plan.
"Someone has to get on that ship," he said. "We need the Doctor more than ever."
***
It was Tosh who figured out the idea, but Owen had to make it work. It was possible to put a radio transmitter in a human chest if she dismantled some of their old Torchwood tech to boost the signal. They discussed one night if it was better to transmit a closed signal, but a real broadcast would be safer. Anyone would be able to listen, but it would be impossible to find Tosh and Owen among the people tuning in. Tosh picked the old wavelength from BBC International. They hadn't broadcast anything in months.
Tosh was trying to sort out if she could use human motion to charge the batteries, just in case it took a long time to get on the ship, but Owen vetoed it and Tosh started sorting her batteries with Ianto.
"Is there a way to make it only use power when necessary?" Ianto asked. Tosh tapped a battery against the table as she thought.
"Maybe."
Owen was starting to get a permanently worried look about him, brows furrowing at Ianto whenever they were in a room together. Tosh asked Owen to draw her a diagram of the human body, and she planned how many wires she would need and where they would go. Owen quietly looked it over and made recommendations. Ianto got her anything she needed, and he passed on information as usual, but Owen bullied him into eating more and sleeping more, even while Owen plotted with Tosh long into the night.
They were nearly done when Tosh started to explain one of her ideas to Owen and Ianto over breakfast.
"-and so it can be turned off and on, to conserve battery power."
"I'm not sure I could do that, Tosh." Ianto said. Tosh started.
"What?"
Ianto rubbed his eyes. "I don't think I could learn how to do that quickly enough. Do you think there's a simpler way to turn it off?"
Tosh shook her head slowly. "Ianto, you're not going to be the one to go up there. I have to be able to manipulate it."
Owen put a hand on Tosh's arm. "I need you to help install it, Tosh. You can't put it in yourself."
"Besides," Ianto added. "You need to be able to work the equipment from here, in case the signal isn't very strong."
Tosh hadn't really thought hard enough about this. It was supposed to be a puzzle to figure out, a way to get information from the sky to help them down here. Without Gwen they were running in circles, not doing anything, not doing enough. But the thought of stuffing a bunch of wires in Ianto and sending him up there alone left Tosh feeling numb.
"A few more days should do it," Owen said, spearing a piece of egg (traded for setting a broken ankle two days ago) and eating it.
Ianto nodded, and didn't meet Tosh's stunned gaze.
***
Tosh had sterilized everything to the best of her ability, but some things couldn't be immersed in boiling water, and they didn't have the sterilizing gel they kept back at the Hub. Tosh settled for cleaning everything carefully with the last of their old soap supplies and alcohol. Owen raided his own supplies for anesthetics and painkillers. He paid off a few kids with some of Tosh's spare wires to get his hands on stuff that would have been illegal back home, once.
Ianto protested that Owen needed to save it, that he was doing this voluntarily and people were getting hurt every day. Owen told him to shut up and lie down and put the goddamn rag between his teeth. This was killing Owen, Tosh could tell. Ianto's odds of surviving this surgery weren't great, even though Owen was getting very, very good at field surgery. But they were operating on Ianto to send him to die, and it was backwards for Owen, who checked all of his ad hoc equipment with a tight face and steady hands.
They didn't have enough drugs to knock Ianto out and keep him supplied for the hours Owen estimated the surgery would take. So they dosed him with opium and the rest of the local anesthetic Owen had and Tosh held Ianto's hand while Owen lined up his cut. Owen had set up a sheet to block Ianto's view of his own body. Ianto complained. Owen left it there.
And now Ianto's eyes were huge as Owen made the first cut.
"We're right here," Tosh crooned, and Ianto closed his eyes and clenched his jaw.
Owen looked over and then back again. Tosh couldn't see what he was doing, but she held Ianto's hand and told him it was going to be fine. He was gripping her hand tightly. Both arms were tied down to keep him from moving too much. She wasn't sure how long she murmured to him, giving him hits of opium whenever he looked too terrified.
"Tosh? I need you."
"I'll be right back," she promised, and Ianto gasped, and twisted when she started to pull from his grip. Then Owen was next to her, and he was holding Ianto down.
"She's not doing anything to you, I just need her to look at something. Breathe, Ianto."
Ianto was taking shuddering gulps of air now, and Owen held him steady.
On the other side of the sheet, Ianto's chest was open and exposed, and Owen had lied. Some of the tech was already nestled in his body, the battery tucked between two pulsating organs and some wires snaking around what Tosh thought might be his stomach. His whole body moved when he writhed, and Tosh fought down the urge to vomit.
She checked to make sure all the wires were connected properly, and then picked up the resound switch. It had been ripped out of one of their sensors that they had brought with them from the Hub, and Tosh had played with it for a while. Nestled in Ianto's vocal chords, it should work. Owen hadn't cut up that far yet, was still laying wires.
Owen came up next to her. "Just put it in?"
Tosh touched the little purple oblong piece. It was highly flexible, and it responded directly to vibration. Connected to the battery and the transmitter cable, it should be perfect.
"Yeah, put it in. Can you, I don't know, put it somewhere less sensitive?"
Owen huffed, and took a scalpel to Ianto's throat, continuing his cut from further down.
Tosh went over the wires, checking the connections, checking how the radio transmitter and the alien booster were tied together. Ianto twitched, and Owen walked over to his head, muttering something and giving Ianto another puff.
Tosh sniffed, and Owen handed her the wire from the switch. She twisted the pieces of metal together, and he handed her another one. They were putting in more wires than strictly necessary, just in case something was knocked loose by accident.
Owen watched her, and took wires out of her hands and tucked them in different places, gently laying them down. Each wire was wrapped in tape, so the edges didn't threaten to cut anything. Tosh concentrated on the tech, trying to ignore the blood Owen was blotting away.
"I think that's it," Tosh whispered, and Owen nodded, taking the last wire from her hands.
"Let him smoke enough that he doesn't have a panic attack," Owen said, and Tosh went back to Ianto, who was breathing in quick bursts. Sweat was pouring down his face.
"Almost done, Ianto." she said. "Just hold on."
He whimpered, and she bit her lip, looking over at Owen.
"S'okay!" he called back.
Tosh held the pipe to Ianto's lips. "It's fastest, Ianto, come on."
Ianto was in a drugged haze long before Owen finished up his careful stitches.
***
They didn't have time to wait for Ianto to heal. Owen and Tosh had a bag packed with drugs, some fake tech and food by the time Ianto woke up.
Tosh was there immediately after his first gasp.
"Don't talk, remember,” she said, and Ianto nodded, his head arching back into the pillow in pain.
"More drugs in a minute, Ianto." Owen said. "Everything's nearly ready. We're waiting for a sweep nearby, and one of your kids is going to get back to us. Blink twice if you understand."
Ianto blinked quickly.
"Good. Back to sleep with you."
Owen only checked the bandages when he was sure the Ianto was unconscious. Tosh only came when Owen opened a few stitches to check some of the connections. It didn't look good.
"It's infected already," Owen scowled. "Goddammit."
"Owen?"
"We're racing the clock now. Shit."
It was little more than a day before Poonam knocked on the door and told them that a uniform sweep was coming through the next night. Military sweeps picked up people off the streets for the factories, and terrorized civilians into obedience. They were also the best bet for getting Ianto onto that ship.
Ianto could walk, a little. He held his arms away awkwardly, and seemed almost repulsed by his own body. He wouldn't touch his chest, and Owen and Tosh helped him put on a jumper with a high enough collar to hide his neck. The UNIT staff would see the scars, but the plan was for Ianto to be caught in one of the more dangerous areas. Hopefully UNIT would assume he had been in a major fight. They would have to rush to get him up to the ship before the infection got worse, if he was still wanted alive. It was a fragile plan, but they had nothing better.
Owen made Ianto sip water slowly. "Don't smoke so much that you're too out of it to remember what you're seeing." Owen warned, and Ianto rolled his eyes.
Ianto practiced moving, shuffling and sitting until he could do it without looking too noticeably awkward. His silence was eerie, so different from his normal sarcasm, strained as it had been since Gwen.
Ianto had chosen a few of his own contacts to hand him over, hoping that it gave them some more inside information. The kids all liked Tosh, and tolerated Owen, so Ianto's absence wouldn't be a total information blackout.
Owen made one of the boys carry Ianto’s bag, to put the least amount of strain on his chest.
"Remember," Tosh said, right before Ianto walked out the door, "the transmitter is going to turn on when you start talking. But they'll probably be able to track the signal to you, so just...choose when you decide to start."
Ianto nodded, and grabbed her hand, meeting her eyes. Tosh bit her lip, and then raised herself on her toes to kiss his cheek. "Be careful."
Owen took Ianto's other hand. "Good luck."
Ianto held both of their hands for a second, and squeezed. He walked out the door slowly, with little Soyeb. Months ago, his kids started out at sixteen, seventeen. These days, most of them were ten if they were lucky.
Tosh didn't cry until he was already gone.
*~*~*
Jack stood quietly between two guards. It wasn't often that the Master bothered to bring him out of the engine room, but sometimes the Master liked to play with all of them.
But it hurt far worse, seeing the Doctor shriveled up in that wheelchair, to watch Tish and Francine and Clive cower. The Master didn't even bother to chain Jack up when he was brought up to the bridge, leaving a handful of guards over him. Jack wouldn't do anything anymore. The Master took out his anger on people who couldn't heal.
The Master entered the room. "I found one!" he announced gleefully, and he spun Lucy once, before beckoning to someone beyond the doors.
"He's been quiet, this one, but I thought you should all get to see him when he finally starts talking, hmm? I think you might even know him, Captain."
The guards marched someone else in, someone in badly-fitting jeans and a filthy shirt. The person looked slumped, exhausted and he moved slowly. Jack's eyes flickered to the Master and back, and he jerked in shock.
It was Ianto, who was turning his head away from Jack slightly, looking over the whole room piece by piece.
Oh, god, it was Ianto, looking haggard and too-skinny and unshaven. Jack wanted to say something, to draw his attention to apologize and save him. And he wanted to hide, to shrink to the ground and wither away. Jack had chosen to leave them, all of them, and for all he knew, Ianto was the only one left.
Ianto's eyes kept moving, and the Master was saying something, but Jack just watched Ianto register the Doctor and freeze. Ianto read all the files, he had been at Canary Wharf, of course he knew what the Doctor was supposed to look like. But the Doctor was so very aged, Jack wouldn't be surprised if Ianto didn't make the connection.
And then Ianto turned his head and their eyes met. Ianto's jaw dropped, and before Jack could say anything, Ianto let out a hoarse, "Jack!" in surprise.
Jack took an involuntary step forward as Ianto's eyes went wide and all the blood drained from his face. The Master turned to him, gleeful, and then Ianto started talking. Mumbling actually, like he didn't want to be heard, and he was breathing hard.
The Master's eyes narrowed.
"-three hundred soldiers guarding, on an hourly rotation. The Toclafane are everywhere on the base, and they are clearly moving in a pattern, but I couldn't figure it out before-"
The Master took a step towards Ianto. Ianto's eyes flicked toward him, then back to Jack.
"Sir!" one of the soldiers called.
The Master turned, angry, but Jack kept watching Ianto, who was visibly shaking at this point.
"Sir, there's a radio signal broadcasting from the Valiant. It's not one of ours."
Of course. Of course they wouldn't just be able to pick up one of his team. All of them would go down fighting, and some probably had. Ianto had let himself be taken.
But this was the stupidest moment he could have chosen to start transmitting a message, and he had to know that. Jack tried to catch his eye, but Ianto's focus darted around the room, taking in information. He was limp in the guards' grip as they jerked him forward, as the Master began scanning him with the laser screwdriver.
Jack strained forward, trying to hear what Ianto was saying.
"They have the Doctor. Again, the Doctor is on the Valiant, captured. I don't know if there's very much he can do from here. Again, Saxon has captured the Doctor."
Ianto's eyes met Jack's. "And Jack. Saxon has Jack."
Jack's mouth went dry. Ianto was talking to the team. Somewhere, somehow, they were still alive. He wanted to cry with relief and fear.
There was no reason for Ianto to trust him. But if there was any way to communicate to the team...
"Martha Jones!" Jack blurted. "Tell them to find and help Martha Jones!"
Francine gasped, and one of the UNIT guards slammed the blunt end of a rifle into Jack's stomach. He staggered, and the Master turned towards him, eyes furious.
Ianto repeated the message, broadcasting it to the planet below.
*
When they cut Ianto's jumper off, Jack had to keep himself from being sick. Tish turned away. The flesh was infected, bloody and bruised. It was like a butcher had carved Ianto from neck to navel in one long slash.
And then sewed him back up and sent him walking.
Ianto didn't stop talking, even when the Master slapped him across the face. But Ianto's voice wobbled, and he winced when one of the guards poked his chest with a police-issue truncheon.
Jack tried to take another step forward, but the two guards stopped him. The Master frowned at Ianto's chest. He pointed to one of the soldiers.
"Well? Open him up!"
The guard had a boot-knife, and gripped it tightly as he shoved it in the disgusting flesh. Ianto's knees gave way, and the other two guards had to hold him up while Jack watched his skin open. Blood and pus seeped out, but Ianto was still getting out words in stuttered gasps. Jack realized he was shouting Ianto's name, pushing forward, straining to do something, anything
And then Jack saw it. The gleam of a wire, and then another. There was a whole mess of them, and a box that might have been a battery and another one that might be transmitting. Jack gagged. The wires went up Ianto's throat.
Ianto's eyes were closed, his whole body spasming weakly in the guard's hands. His words were a mumble, but he was forcing them out, between involuntary animal sounds of pain.
"SHUT UP!" The Master screamed. The Master strode back to Ianto angrily.
"No, no!" Jack yelled. He wasn't aware of anything else now, just Ianto and the Master. The UNIT guards weren't people, they were immovable bars, trapping him, trapping Ianto. Jack's whole world narrowed down to two people, and he fought to get another few inches closer.
The Master stopped in front of Ianto, face contorting in anger.
"Only a few UNIT planes left." Ianto managed to gasp, opening his eyes halfway to stare up at the Master. "Lots destroyed taking America."
The Master reached into his chest, grabbed a handful of wires and pulled. Ianto's words cut off into screams, and his body pitched forward. The guards dropped him face-down, muffling Ianto's cries.
"Sir?" the UNIT commander looked nervous.
The Master nudged Ianto's side with his gleaming shoes.
"Sir, it's-he's still transmitting. Sir."
The Master pulled back his leg and kicked viciously. Ianto turned over with a moan, and it was like his guts were falling out of his body. Jack couldn't hear, couldn't move. He knew how long it took for the body to run dry, for something vital to slide painfully out of place.
Ianto couldn't even scream anymore, choking and coughing on his own blood. Jack took desperate, aching breaths, trying to breathe for him, push air into his lungs from across the room.
Ianto twisted his head awkwardly. There was blood everywhere, dripping around his neck, in his hair. But his eyes blinked blue towards Jack, rolling in pain.
Jack held Ianto's gaze, as his body stopped twitching on the floor, as his eyes unfocused and went dark.
The Master didn't kill Jack that day.
*~*~*
Tosh recorded everything they could hear, monitoring her equipment to distract herself. Owen sat huddling next to her, fingers buried in his hair and his eyes closed. He jerked at every scream.
When there wasn't anything else, Tosh turned off her recorder and they sat in silence for a few moments. There was only a small window of time for them to use Ianto's information, to stage an attack using his numbers and timing for their local base. And then they were going to have to run, because their discovery would only be a matter of time afterward.
Tosh pulled out their hand-drawn map, and spread it out between them.
"After this," she said, pinning the map down to start planning their attack, "we're going to have to find this Martha Jones."
***
They hadn't been on the run -- really on the run, with no contacts and no leads and nothing but their nerve and the few supplies they could hold – since the beginning of this hellish reality. Now they were chasing the barest hints of rumors, tracing the trail of Martha Jones from patched-together stories into China.
They left behind a burning ruin that was once a missile factory, and they stripped their tiny base down and gave away any supplies they couldn’t carry. Tosh told Ianto's runners to put the blame on him and them. Hopefully it would be enough to save some lives.
Owen died only days after they crossed the border into China.
Tosh followed the underground whispers for weeks to Liupanshui, only to find that Martha Jones wasn't there. Tosh finally collapsed, exhausted. She didn't know where to go next.
Tosh gave herself a day, to try and gather more information, to trade her skills for food and supplies. She offered to repair radios, using euphemisms and passcodes, and she was given things to fix by people with their faces hidden.
"You are looking for Martha Jones?"
It was a stranger, and Tosh reached for her gun before she looked up. The woman looked tired and dusty. Tosh recognized her own aura of a traveler off the grid.
"Perhaps." Tosh responded. Her Mandarin was awful, but she blended in better than she had in India.
The woman hesitated, looking at Tosh's handful of contraband wires. It was a few minutes of silence before the stranger cleared her throat.
"Japan," the woman said. "Martha Jones travels to Japan."
Tosh wanted to weep. Japan would be easy, Japan was home, but Nagoya was so very far away. Weeks of travel, more if she had to walk the whole way. And she was so tired.
"Thank you, " Tosh said. At least in Japan she wouldn't be struggling in a mental mess of foreign languages.
That night Tosh was invited to an underground gathering, over a hundred people crammed into a windless, suffocating space. The still-unnamed woman sat in the center, and softly told a story.
First she opened with the familiar tale of forced labor, of fear and metal balls of death. And then she told of a visitor, a woman with a message. She had met Martha Jones.
And Tosh finally heard a story from Matha Jones. It was fantastic and amazing and full of alien elements Tosh had nearly forgotten. It was a story about the Doctor.
When the woman finished, there was silence. Tosh, a stranger with the wrong accent, didn't want to speak first. But she understood now, what Martha Jones was doing. She had a sudden, new energy. Tosh stood.
"Once," Tosh began, unable to resist invoking fantasy to describe her life as it used to be. She remembered the news reports, the rushed drive with Owen, the uncertainty of lying to UNIT. "A space ship crashed into a tall tower in London."
*
Afternote: I don’t normally add anything after a story, but both of my betas, independently of each other, pointed to places in this fic and said they would be interested to hear more. I have no idea if my muse will strike twice, but I wanted to let anyone reading this story know that I have an open remix policy. If this fic sets you thinking in any way, please feel free to create and ponder and share I only ask that you link back to this fic (on LJ on DW or AO3). :)
Author:
eldabeFandoms: Torchwood, Doctor Who
Rating: Older Teen.
Betas: All of the thanks to
sariagray and 51stcenturyfox who looked over this for me while I dithered on it. Any remaining issues are my own. Characters: Toshiko, Ianto, Owen, Gwen, Jack, The Master
Warnings: Character death, torture, field surgery, gore.
Contains: Minimal understanding of human biology, drugs, and geography.
Summary: Jack is long gone and the world is falling apart. Trapped far from home, Torchwood pieces together a plan of action.
(Bonus Note: This was written well before the Avengers film came out, but I would like to thank Disney and Marvel Studios for ensuring that people will get the one reference that worried me.)
*
They never made it back home from the Himalayas.
They were already trekking back to civilization, the four of them and their hired guides. They abandoned most of their useless equipment on the mountain when they realized they were on a wild goose chase with dummy electronics. Owen had a low-grade fever he couldn't shake and Gwen's left hand was wrapped in an extra layer of cloth ripped from her shirt. She had sliced it open grabbing a rock to stop herself from falling.
The swarm of metal balls looked like insects, like a biblical plague of locusts descending on the world. Still too far to see detail, they were far enough to escape notice. None of them thought it would be good news that greeted them.
They reached civilization to find it a burning chaos.
Between the four of them, there wasn't one who could speak any of the local languages. Money was useless now, or soon would be. It was Owen who saved them from eventual starvation, sewing together a little girl's arm while cursing his lack of painkillers and Jack all at once. Suddenly people would talk to them, trade with them.
Gwen suggested going home, her voice still holding a trace of bright-eyed optimism. She was greeted by blank looks. The trip to Nepal had been laughably simple in comparison. They were barely scraping by.
Tosh started teaching herself Nepali from the back of their guidebooks, and Gwen made friends with all the local children. Ianto sorted out their assets, and then organized food, technology and supplies. He started making connections with some local teens and he started bringing them a inconsistent collection of rumors and myths. When Ianto found out that doctors could apply for special passes to travel, Owen left to see how to qualify.
Owen didn't use his real name for his medical staff license, but they were Torchwood and he had a half-dozen fake IDs. Gwen got a license as well, and they were suddenly mobile.
They travelled south, following broken roads into India and then followed the flow of people toward Kanpur. There was some sort of base being built on the edges of the city, sapping resources and worker from the surrounding countryside. They decided to stop in Kanpur, hiding themselves in the influx of new people. Ianto started establishing connections and building a reputation underground. Owen would stitch anyone up without asking questions, and Tosh offered to repair broken iPods and laptops. She was the only one who stayed in their tiny basement, and the rest spread out to gather her requested bits of technology, dead batteries and spare pieces of wire. She could use anything to make what she needed.
Radios were the first thing banned, so Tosh kept theirs hidden, and she started building spares, just in case. She would huddle over them at all hours, switching between stations, hunting for the infrequent spotty broadcasts.
It was a haphazard, messy life, Gwen and Owen passed as doctors and traveled miles away to connect to the underground and gather information. Owen sometimes saved lives. Ianto stayed in Kanpur, but even he was sometimes gone overnight, trading newly-recharged batteries for food and information in the fringes of the city. His network of contacts was extensive, and he started getting first-hand accounts of the situation in the new, massive factories springing up outside all the major cities. Most of his runners were teenagers, moving between the factories, the schools and the streets with equal ease. Tosh saved them any sweets or chocolates Gwen brought back.
Gwen and Owen were out of the base as often as they were in it, and sometimes when Ianto left too, Tosh was left alone for days.
It was Ianto who brought back the confusing information about the floating city, but it was Tosh who remembered the UNIT airship. (It was Owen who joked about SHIELD and American superheroes, but only Ianto got the joke enough to crack a smile.)
They filled in the missing pieces slowly, spottily.
"Whoever is leading this thing, he's there, on that ship."
"The master?"
"The Master.”
And then Owen came back one day with a rumor of a rumor, unconfirmed and faint. "The Doctor could be a prisoner on that ship."
Ianto, when he came back, believed it immediately. Tosh found it hard to picture, and to Gwen it was impossible.
"That's who the Doctor is." Ianto explained, with the certainty of one with hundreds of files of evidence to back up personal experience. "He shows up in the biggest disasters and the worst situations imaginable. And he can't save everyone." Just yesterday one of Ianto's runners had been ripped apart by one of those metal balls, not even enough left for a funeral. "But he never loses either."
"Yeah, so what does that mean for us then?"
Ianto blinked, but it was Tosh who answered.
"We have to help him, of course. We're Torchwood."
It was the first time any of them had heard that word in weeks. They were miles and months from home, and their mission of trying to contain the rift seemed like another life. But Ianto straightened at the word, and Gwen lifted her chin. There was a moment of silence.
Owen spoke first. "We need to get on that ship."
***
But no one got on the Valiant. Or off of it, it seemed. There had to be shipments of food at the very least, but from their hideaway, they heard nothing.
There were other rumors, though, about a woman traveling through Russia; rumors that supported their theories about the Doctor, but they were confusing at best. Ianto focused on the ship and Tosh recalibrated her radios and Gwen started scouting further and further, bringing back snippets of information whenever she could.
"They're looking for us," she said, throwing down a WANTED poster in Greek. Tosh recognized her own picture from UNIT's files. "They've started tracking down alien hunters around the planet. Area 51 has been taken, and a whole city in Pakistan disappeared last month. They say that a territory in Northern Canada has been blocked off."
"Torchwood Five," Ianto murmured, but didn't elaborate. He hunched over the poster for hours with the three dictionaries he could find, none of them Greek to English, and he pieced together what it meant.
"We're wanted alive," Ianto confirmed, four days later when Owen returned and heard the rest of the story.
"So we can hand ourselves over then," Owen said, "and get on that ship."
"Suicide mission," Gwen protested, her hands flying out and down as if trying to keep them all on the ground.
"We'd need to be able to send a message back." Tosh said quietly, not denying Gwen's objections, instead ignoring them. "And if UNIT is handling this, no one will be able to carry anything aboard that ship without them knowing about it."
Two days later, Owen came back from a horrific surgery, a sixteen-year-old boy who had been nearly crushed in one of the monstrous factories now dominating the countryside.
"There's an awful lot of room to hide things in the human body," Owen said, "if you know what to do with it."
Gwen objected immediately. "You're suggesting field surgery. For what, a recorder? How will you even get it out on the ship?"
"How will you get it back to the people on the ground?" Ianto asked.
Tosh was already thinking, already turning the problem around in her mind, looking at all the different angles. Recording was useless. There would be no way to get the recording off the ship. Tosh looked at her radio collection. She would talk to Owen later.
***
Owen theorized that it could be done. But the plan was put on hold when Gwen disappeared on one of her missions. It was always dangerous for her to pass as a doctor, because sometimes doctors were dragged to the factories to fix people who couldn't be fixed. Owen had once pulled a miracle from nowhere, and had come back to them nearly a week late, dazed and exhausted. But Gwen's training was field training, given by Owen back in Cardiff. She was more qualified to perform alien autopsies than she was to treat smog-induced cancer, and she made it farther on her wide eyes than her medical skills.
But she was driven, and determined to get news from home. When she got her first copy of the French underground newspaper, it was as if she had found a new hope suddenly. France was so close to Britain, and Gwen was convinced she would be able to get news across the Channel.
It was nearly a week before Ianto went after Gwen, against Tosh's objections, leaving her alone. When Owen came back they waited together. Silent days of bated breath, and trickling rumors. Tosh didn't realize how cut off she was without Ianto's stream of information, and she made friends with his runners, with her neighbors. She hosted two or three people at a time, and they brought milk for her weak tea as they huddled around the radios together, translating the international mess of transmissions for each other. Owen made her wear a gun at all times, and at nights they started casting their own bullets.
When Ianto came back, he looked like he hadn't eaten since he left, and he wouldn't tell them exactly what he found. He did confirm that Gwen was dead, in a hollow voice before Owen made him lie down. He only slept two hours before he staggered back into the main room, and revived the old plan.
"Someone has to get on that ship," he said. "We need the Doctor more than ever."
***
It was Tosh who figured out the idea, but Owen had to make it work. It was possible to put a radio transmitter in a human chest if she dismantled some of their old Torchwood tech to boost the signal. They discussed one night if it was better to transmit a closed signal, but a real broadcast would be safer. Anyone would be able to listen, but it would be impossible to find Tosh and Owen among the people tuning in. Tosh picked the old wavelength from BBC International. They hadn't broadcast anything in months.
Tosh was trying to sort out if she could use human motion to charge the batteries, just in case it took a long time to get on the ship, but Owen vetoed it and Tosh started sorting her batteries with Ianto.
"Is there a way to make it only use power when necessary?" Ianto asked. Tosh tapped a battery against the table as she thought.
"Maybe."
Owen was starting to get a permanently worried look about him, brows furrowing at Ianto whenever they were in a room together. Tosh asked Owen to draw her a diagram of the human body, and she planned how many wires she would need and where they would go. Owen quietly looked it over and made recommendations. Ianto got her anything she needed, and he passed on information as usual, but Owen bullied him into eating more and sleeping more, even while Owen plotted with Tosh long into the night.
They were nearly done when Tosh started to explain one of her ideas to Owen and Ianto over breakfast.
"-and so it can be turned off and on, to conserve battery power."
"I'm not sure I could do that, Tosh." Ianto said. Tosh started.
"What?"
Ianto rubbed his eyes. "I don't think I could learn how to do that quickly enough. Do you think there's a simpler way to turn it off?"
Tosh shook her head slowly. "Ianto, you're not going to be the one to go up there. I have to be able to manipulate it."
Owen put a hand on Tosh's arm. "I need you to help install it, Tosh. You can't put it in yourself."
"Besides," Ianto added. "You need to be able to work the equipment from here, in case the signal isn't very strong."
Tosh hadn't really thought hard enough about this. It was supposed to be a puzzle to figure out, a way to get information from the sky to help them down here. Without Gwen they were running in circles, not doing anything, not doing enough. But the thought of stuffing a bunch of wires in Ianto and sending him up there alone left Tosh feeling numb.
"A few more days should do it," Owen said, spearing a piece of egg (traded for setting a broken ankle two days ago) and eating it.
Ianto nodded, and didn't meet Tosh's stunned gaze.
***
Tosh had sterilized everything to the best of her ability, but some things couldn't be immersed in boiling water, and they didn't have the sterilizing gel they kept back at the Hub. Tosh settled for cleaning everything carefully with the last of their old soap supplies and alcohol. Owen raided his own supplies for anesthetics and painkillers. He paid off a few kids with some of Tosh's spare wires to get his hands on stuff that would have been illegal back home, once.
Ianto protested that Owen needed to save it, that he was doing this voluntarily and people were getting hurt every day. Owen told him to shut up and lie down and put the goddamn rag between his teeth. This was killing Owen, Tosh could tell. Ianto's odds of surviving this surgery weren't great, even though Owen was getting very, very good at field surgery. But they were operating on Ianto to send him to die, and it was backwards for Owen, who checked all of his ad hoc equipment with a tight face and steady hands.
They didn't have enough drugs to knock Ianto out and keep him supplied for the hours Owen estimated the surgery would take. So they dosed him with opium and the rest of the local anesthetic Owen had and Tosh held Ianto's hand while Owen lined up his cut. Owen had set up a sheet to block Ianto's view of his own body. Ianto complained. Owen left it there.
And now Ianto's eyes were huge as Owen made the first cut.
"We're right here," Tosh crooned, and Ianto closed his eyes and clenched his jaw.
Owen looked over and then back again. Tosh couldn't see what he was doing, but she held Ianto's hand and told him it was going to be fine. He was gripping her hand tightly. Both arms were tied down to keep him from moving too much. She wasn't sure how long she murmured to him, giving him hits of opium whenever he looked too terrified.
"Tosh? I need you."
"I'll be right back," she promised, and Ianto gasped, and twisted when she started to pull from his grip. Then Owen was next to her, and he was holding Ianto down.
"She's not doing anything to you, I just need her to look at something. Breathe, Ianto."
Ianto was taking shuddering gulps of air now, and Owen held him steady.
On the other side of the sheet, Ianto's chest was open and exposed, and Owen had lied. Some of the tech was already nestled in his body, the battery tucked between two pulsating organs and some wires snaking around what Tosh thought might be his stomach. His whole body moved when he writhed, and Tosh fought down the urge to vomit.
She checked to make sure all the wires were connected properly, and then picked up the resound switch. It had been ripped out of one of their sensors that they had brought with them from the Hub, and Tosh had played with it for a while. Nestled in Ianto's vocal chords, it should work. Owen hadn't cut up that far yet, was still laying wires.
Owen came up next to her. "Just put it in?"
Tosh touched the little purple oblong piece. It was highly flexible, and it responded directly to vibration. Connected to the battery and the transmitter cable, it should be perfect.
"Yeah, put it in. Can you, I don't know, put it somewhere less sensitive?"
Owen huffed, and took a scalpel to Ianto's throat, continuing his cut from further down.
Tosh went over the wires, checking the connections, checking how the radio transmitter and the alien booster were tied together. Ianto twitched, and Owen walked over to his head, muttering something and giving Ianto another puff.
Tosh sniffed, and Owen handed her the wire from the switch. She twisted the pieces of metal together, and he handed her another one. They were putting in more wires than strictly necessary, just in case something was knocked loose by accident.
Owen watched her, and took wires out of her hands and tucked them in different places, gently laying them down. Each wire was wrapped in tape, so the edges didn't threaten to cut anything. Tosh concentrated on the tech, trying to ignore the blood Owen was blotting away.
"I think that's it," Tosh whispered, and Owen nodded, taking the last wire from her hands.
"Let him smoke enough that he doesn't have a panic attack," Owen said, and Tosh went back to Ianto, who was breathing in quick bursts. Sweat was pouring down his face.
"Almost done, Ianto." she said. "Just hold on."
He whimpered, and she bit her lip, looking over at Owen.
"S'okay!" he called back.
Tosh held the pipe to Ianto's lips. "It's fastest, Ianto, come on."
Ianto was in a drugged haze long before Owen finished up his careful stitches.
***
They didn't have time to wait for Ianto to heal. Owen and Tosh had a bag packed with drugs, some fake tech and food by the time Ianto woke up.
Tosh was there immediately after his first gasp.
"Don't talk, remember,” she said, and Ianto nodded, his head arching back into the pillow in pain.
"More drugs in a minute, Ianto." Owen said. "Everything's nearly ready. We're waiting for a sweep nearby, and one of your kids is going to get back to us. Blink twice if you understand."
Ianto blinked quickly.
"Good. Back to sleep with you."
Owen only checked the bandages when he was sure the Ianto was unconscious. Tosh only came when Owen opened a few stitches to check some of the connections. It didn't look good.
"It's infected already," Owen scowled. "Goddammit."
"Owen?"
"We're racing the clock now. Shit."
It was little more than a day before Poonam knocked on the door and told them that a uniform sweep was coming through the next night. Military sweeps picked up people off the streets for the factories, and terrorized civilians into obedience. They were also the best bet for getting Ianto onto that ship.
Ianto could walk, a little. He held his arms away awkwardly, and seemed almost repulsed by his own body. He wouldn't touch his chest, and Owen and Tosh helped him put on a jumper with a high enough collar to hide his neck. The UNIT staff would see the scars, but the plan was for Ianto to be caught in one of the more dangerous areas. Hopefully UNIT would assume he had been in a major fight. They would have to rush to get him up to the ship before the infection got worse, if he was still wanted alive. It was a fragile plan, but they had nothing better.
Owen made Ianto sip water slowly. "Don't smoke so much that you're too out of it to remember what you're seeing." Owen warned, and Ianto rolled his eyes.
Ianto practiced moving, shuffling and sitting until he could do it without looking too noticeably awkward. His silence was eerie, so different from his normal sarcasm, strained as it had been since Gwen.
Ianto had chosen a few of his own contacts to hand him over, hoping that it gave them some more inside information. The kids all liked Tosh, and tolerated Owen, so Ianto's absence wouldn't be a total information blackout.
Owen made one of the boys carry Ianto’s bag, to put the least amount of strain on his chest.
"Remember," Tosh said, right before Ianto walked out the door, "the transmitter is going to turn on when you start talking. But they'll probably be able to track the signal to you, so just...choose when you decide to start."
Ianto nodded, and grabbed her hand, meeting her eyes. Tosh bit her lip, and then raised herself on her toes to kiss his cheek. "Be careful."
Owen took Ianto's other hand. "Good luck."
Ianto held both of their hands for a second, and squeezed. He walked out the door slowly, with little Soyeb. Months ago, his kids started out at sixteen, seventeen. These days, most of them were ten if they were lucky.
Tosh didn't cry until he was already gone.
*~*~*
Jack stood quietly between two guards. It wasn't often that the Master bothered to bring him out of the engine room, but sometimes the Master liked to play with all of them.
But it hurt far worse, seeing the Doctor shriveled up in that wheelchair, to watch Tish and Francine and Clive cower. The Master didn't even bother to chain Jack up when he was brought up to the bridge, leaving a handful of guards over him. Jack wouldn't do anything anymore. The Master took out his anger on people who couldn't heal.
The Master entered the room. "I found one!" he announced gleefully, and he spun Lucy once, before beckoning to someone beyond the doors.
"He's been quiet, this one, but I thought you should all get to see him when he finally starts talking, hmm? I think you might even know him, Captain."
The guards marched someone else in, someone in badly-fitting jeans and a filthy shirt. The person looked slumped, exhausted and he moved slowly. Jack's eyes flickered to the Master and back, and he jerked in shock.
It was Ianto, who was turning his head away from Jack slightly, looking over the whole room piece by piece.
Oh, god, it was Ianto, looking haggard and too-skinny and unshaven. Jack wanted to say something, to draw his attention to apologize and save him. And he wanted to hide, to shrink to the ground and wither away. Jack had chosen to leave them, all of them, and for all he knew, Ianto was the only one left.
Ianto's eyes kept moving, and the Master was saying something, but Jack just watched Ianto register the Doctor and freeze. Ianto read all the files, he had been at Canary Wharf, of course he knew what the Doctor was supposed to look like. But the Doctor was so very aged, Jack wouldn't be surprised if Ianto didn't make the connection.
And then Ianto turned his head and their eyes met. Ianto's jaw dropped, and before Jack could say anything, Ianto let out a hoarse, "Jack!" in surprise.
Jack took an involuntary step forward as Ianto's eyes went wide and all the blood drained from his face. The Master turned to him, gleeful, and then Ianto started talking. Mumbling actually, like he didn't want to be heard, and he was breathing hard.
The Master's eyes narrowed.
"-three hundred soldiers guarding, on an hourly rotation. The Toclafane are everywhere on the base, and they are clearly moving in a pattern, but I couldn't figure it out before-"
The Master took a step towards Ianto. Ianto's eyes flicked toward him, then back to Jack.
"Sir!" one of the soldiers called.
The Master turned, angry, but Jack kept watching Ianto, who was visibly shaking at this point.
"Sir, there's a radio signal broadcasting from the Valiant. It's not one of ours."
Of course. Of course they wouldn't just be able to pick up one of his team. All of them would go down fighting, and some probably had. Ianto had let himself be taken.
But this was the stupidest moment he could have chosen to start transmitting a message, and he had to know that. Jack tried to catch his eye, but Ianto's focus darted around the room, taking in information. He was limp in the guards' grip as they jerked him forward, as the Master began scanning him with the laser screwdriver.
Jack strained forward, trying to hear what Ianto was saying.
"They have the Doctor. Again, the Doctor is on the Valiant, captured. I don't know if there's very much he can do from here. Again, Saxon has captured the Doctor."
Ianto's eyes met Jack's. "And Jack. Saxon has Jack."
Jack's mouth went dry. Ianto was talking to the team. Somewhere, somehow, they were still alive. He wanted to cry with relief and fear.
There was no reason for Ianto to trust him. But if there was any way to communicate to the team...
"Martha Jones!" Jack blurted. "Tell them to find and help Martha Jones!"
Francine gasped, and one of the UNIT guards slammed the blunt end of a rifle into Jack's stomach. He staggered, and the Master turned towards him, eyes furious.
Ianto repeated the message, broadcasting it to the planet below.
*
When they cut Ianto's jumper off, Jack had to keep himself from being sick. Tish turned away. The flesh was infected, bloody and bruised. It was like a butcher had carved Ianto from neck to navel in one long slash.
And then sewed him back up and sent him walking.
Ianto didn't stop talking, even when the Master slapped him across the face. But Ianto's voice wobbled, and he winced when one of the guards poked his chest with a police-issue truncheon.
Jack tried to take another step forward, but the two guards stopped him. The Master frowned at Ianto's chest. He pointed to one of the soldiers.
"Well? Open him up!"
The guard had a boot-knife, and gripped it tightly as he shoved it in the disgusting flesh. Ianto's knees gave way, and the other two guards had to hold him up while Jack watched his skin open. Blood and pus seeped out, but Ianto was still getting out words in stuttered gasps. Jack realized he was shouting Ianto's name, pushing forward, straining to do something, anything
And then Jack saw it. The gleam of a wire, and then another. There was a whole mess of them, and a box that might have been a battery and another one that might be transmitting. Jack gagged. The wires went up Ianto's throat.
Ianto's eyes were closed, his whole body spasming weakly in the guard's hands. His words were a mumble, but he was forcing them out, between involuntary animal sounds of pain.
"SHUT UP!" The Master screamed. The Master strode back to Ianto angrily.
"No, no!" Jack yelled. He wasn't aware of anything else now, just Ianto and the Master. The UNIT guards weren't people, they were immovable bars, trapping him, trapping Ianto. Jack's whole world narrowed down to two people, and he fought to get another few inches closer.
The Master stopped in front of Ianto, face contorting in anger.
"Only a few UNIT planes left." Ianto managed to gasp, opening his eyes halfway to stare up at the Master. "Lots destroyed taking America."
The Master reached into his chest, grabbed a handful of wires and pulled. Ianto's words cut off into screams, and his body pitched forward. The guards dropped him face-down, muffling Ianto's cries.
"Sir?" the UNIT commander looked nervous.
The Master nudged Ianto's side with his gleaming shoes.
"Sir, it's-he's still transmitting. Sir."
The Master pulled back his leg and kicked viciously. Ianto turned over with a moan, and it was like his guts were falling out of his body. Jack couldn't hear, couldn't move. He knew how long it took for the body to run dry, for something vital to slide painfully out of place.
Ianto couldn't even scream anymore, choking and coughing on his own blood. Jack took desperate, aching breaths, trying to breathe for him, push air into his lungs from across the room.
Ianto twisted his head awkwardly. There was blood everywhere, dripping around his neck, in his hair. But his eyes blinked blue towards Jack, rolling in pain.
Jack held Ianto's gaze, as his body stopped twitching on the floor, as his eyes unfocused and went dark.
The Master didn't kill Jack that day.
*~*~*
Tosh recorded everything they could hear, monitoring her equipment to distract herself. Owen sat huddling next to her, fingers buried in his hair and his eyes closed. He jerked at every scream.
When there wasn't anything else, Tosh turned off her recorder and they sat in silence for a few moments. There was only a small window of time for them to use Ianto's information, to stage an attack using his numbers and timing for their local base. And then they were going to have to run, because their discovery would only be a matter of time afterward.
Tosh pulled out their hand-drawn map, and spread it out between them.
"After this," she said, pinning the map down to start planning their attack, "we're going to have to find this Martha Jones."
***
They hadn't been on the run -- really on the run, with no contacts and no leads and nothing but their nerve and the few supplies they could hold – since the beginning of this hellish reality. Now they were chasing the barest hints of rumors, tracing the trail of Martha Jones from patched-together stories into China.
They left behind a burning ruin that was once a missile factory, and they stripped their tiny base down and gave away any supplies they couldn’t carry. Tosh told Ianto's runners to put the blame on him and them. Hopefully it would be enough to save some lives.
Owen died only days after they crossed the border into China.
Tosh followed the underground whispers for weeks to Liupanshui, only to find that Martha Jones wasn't there. Tosh finally collapsed, exhausted. She didn't know where to go next.
Tosh gave herself a day, to try and gather more information, to trade her skills for food and supplies. She offered to repair radios, using euphemisms and passcodes, and she was given things to fix by people with their faces hidden.
"You are looking for Martha Jones?"
It was a stranger, and Tosh reached for her gun before she looked up. The woman looked tired and dusty. Tosh recognized her own aura of a traveler off the grid.
"Perhaps." Tosh responded. Her Mandarin was awful, but she blended in better than she had in India.
The woman hesitated, looking at Tosh's handful of contraband wires. It was a few minutes of silence before the stranger cleared her throat.
"Japan," the woman said. "Martha Jones travels to Japan."
Tosh wanted to weep. Japan would be easy, Japan was home, but Nagoya was so very far away. Weeks of travel, more if she had to walk the whole way. And she was so tired.
"Thank you, " Tosh said. At least in Japan she wouldn't be struggling in a mental mess of foreign languages.
That night Tosh was invited to an underground gathering, over a hundred people crammed into a windless, suffocating space. The still-unnamed woman sat in the center, and softly told a story.
First she opened with the familiar tale of forced labor, of fear and metal balls of death. And then she told of a visitor, a woman with a message. She had met Martha Jones.
And Tosh finally heard a story from Matha Jones. It was fantastic and amazing and full of alien elements Tosh had nearly forgotten. It was a story about the Doctor.
When the woman finished, there was silence. Tosh, a stranger with the wrong accent, didn't want to speak first. But she understood now, what Martha Jones was doing. She had a sudden, new energy. Tosh stood.
"Once," Tosh began, unable to resist invoking fantasy to describe her life as it used to be. She remembered the news reports, the rushed drive with Owen, the uncertainty of lying to UNIT. "A space ship crashed into a tall tower in London."
*
Afternote: I don’t normally add anything after a story, but both of my betas, independently of each other, pointed to places in this fic and said they would be interested to hear more. I have no idea if my muse will strike twice, but I wanted to let anyone reading this story know that I have an open remix policy. If this fic sets you thinking in any way, please feel free to create and ponder and share I only ask that you link back to this fic (on LJ on DW or AO3). :)
