one eighty one

(the year that never was)

It's the first day, and there are four terrified Torchwood employees in the western Himalayas.

There was something suspicious about the call that brought them there. They weren't quite invisible to the government, but they were largely treated as if they were. It was strange that the Prime Minister- on his first day on the job, no less- would call them and not UNIT. But with no Jack and no real voice of reason, they'd decided that it was just as well that they go check out the mysterious Dalek sightings.

They had not expected chaos to fall at precisely 8:02 A.M.

The way Tosh sees it, they're lucky to have all four of them alive. There are families, even around the desolate mountains they're in, with members decimated by the Toclafane. The Torchwood team isn't quite a family, but it's as damn close to one as they'll probably have for a long time.

Unfortunately, being in a country thousands of miles from Cardiff and the Hub, they're not exactly at premier ability to function. Gwen's almost lost in hysteria since it happened, because she's so worried about if Rhys is alive or not. And even though it's not really, really what they want, they do want a goal, and Gwen's frantic search seems to be one.

So the team begins to make their way down the mountains. It's a treacherous path, filled with Toclafane and people who will kill anybody to please them. But they're determined.

Determination should not be underestimated.

=O=O=O=

It's the sixth day, and the team is beginning to think it was a mistake to leave the mountains.

It wasn't exactly a big mountain, but it was a mountain. It took three days to get down the mountain, and two more to find a city where they can truly see the chaos. But after the five days it's taken to get back to civilization, they're wondering if they made the right choice. Their tiny corner of the world seems to have been devastated, and if it's this bad there, Tosh hates to think what it's like everywhere else.

The city where they've arrived in Nepal is called Simikot, and it's in chaos. Everybody is in fear of the Toclafane. However, one thing interests Tosh, possibly more so than her teammates: while many people have been killed, none of the living ones have been harmed. It's as if they're trying to make sure they don't hurt the living. She wonders if they'll need them for something.

The team is afraid.

Tosh is the only one who's a little bit fascinated.

=O=O=O=

It's the eleventh day, and the team can't leave Nepal.

They did try; they tried all the ways they could think of. Owen hijacked a truck and tried to pass as someone who was employed by the Master; that one was the best of them all. It didn't work, though, just like Gwen's attempt to leave on foot, or Ianto's idea that they could sneak in a cargo truck, or Tosh's idea, which was a play off Owen's, and involved hacking into the Master's records and "employing" them.

But after five days of the most creative, most desparate tries to leave, the team has finally resigned to being stuck in Asia for who-knows-how-long.

Tosh feels truly bad for Gwen, who's gotten into the habit of crying whenever someone suggests something that could help, or when she thinks of Rhys, or even in her sleep. She feels truly bad for all of them, because they're in a very tight spot.

She can't deny, though, that she's still just a little interested by how they won't let them leave.

=O=O=O=

It's the twelfth day, and Tosh's fascination has vanished.

The Toclafane have forced some of the citizens to build barracks. This is where they will live when they are not working. A random few citizens- miraculously, the whole team amongst them- have been granted temporary pardon from work. All four of them live in a barrack together. It's not a particularly interesting life; it's actually one where all they can do is talk or get lost in thought.

The team has molded into a perfect family dynamic at this point. Tosh understands everything they're feeling. She's the one who gets out of bed in the middle of the night and strokes Gwen's hair when she cries in her sleep. Holds Ianto in her arms when he's sobbing over something that he refuses to tell them. Makes sure Owen doesn't say anything stupid that makes it all worse. And eventually, everyone does it for each other.

(Tosh doesn't know that she screams in her sleep until she wakes up on the fourteenth night to find that Gwen, tears shining on her cheeks, has taken hold of her and is rocking her back and forth, like a child, and stroking her hair.)

They all need to help each other.

=O=O=O=

It's the seventeenth day, and Gwen has invented a game that they all play.

The game is probably bad for their mental health. It's a game devised on a whim, made of what if's and wishful thinking. But it's also keeping them sane. It keeps them going.

It's called "I Would Tell Jack."

At first, everyone gives banal, similar answers. "I would tell Jack I miss him." "I would tell Jack that I wish he was here." "I would tell Jack that I'm mad that he vanished on us." Tosh doesn't think that's what they would tell Jack at all. Those are just facts. This isn't doing anything for them.

She needs to shake it up a bit.

=O=O=O=

It's the eighteenth day, and Tosh has finally broken through the banal answers.

Ianto's just finished saying that he would tell Jack thank you for the job. Tosh takes a deep breath, crosses her legs on her bunk, and says, "I would tell Jack thank you for saving me from being trapped for the rest of my life."

This gets attention from all three of the others. Tosh had joined Torchwood before all of them, but they'd never questioned how she'd gotten the job. The story isn't one they've heard before, and obviously, they're all interested, because they lean forward, eyes sparking with interest.

For the first time in eighteen days, Tosh gives her surrogate family a real smile. "Do you want to hear the whole story?" They nod.

She tells them, about how Jack saved her from being a lifelong prisoner of UNIT and how he gave her a job, because he was impressed. Everyone's quiet for a moment, and then Owen says quietly, "I would tell Jack thank you for trying to save Katie."

After that, it doesn't take long until they're spilling their darkest secrets. The ones that make them laugh; the ones that make their hearts ache; the ones that they can't say without tearing up. Ianto makes them do all three when he tells them how really, he's always loved Jack. Not even Owen's sniggering at this bothers him; he just keeps going until he's told them everything. And then all of them, together, break down, because at one point they've all felt that way, but for Ianto it's real.

Tosh falls asleep with her head full of things she never knew about her teammates. They're closer than ever.

=O=O=O=

It's the twenty-first day, and it's time for them to go to work.

Tosh is just a little amazed that they've gone this long without needing to do a job. Nine whole lucky days of just sitting in the barracks, learning things they wouldn't have needed to know about each other if this whole thing hadn't happened. But it's just a little unfair. The people who have been working have been working hard.

There are two jobs available. Tosh, Ianto, and Owen all get essentially the same job: making rocket engines in the assembly line. They're in line next to each other, a few feet away. Owen attaches a part to the engine, Ianto adds another, and Tosh makes sure that they did it right. She's supposed to send them to the Toclafane if they get it wrong too much. She could never do that, so she fixes it.

Gwen, on the other hand, gets a more exciting- and potentially more dangerous- job. She's one of the seven local "runners." She goes between factories in nearby towns and gets their progress. She's already done it once, and confides in her surrogate family later that she just met with a runner from the town she was supposed to be going to, and they swapped progress. The Toclafane were impressed by her speed; Tosh is impressed by her luck.

She really hopes the luck doesn't run out anytime soon.

=O=O=O=

It's the thirty-first day, and Gwen is sick.

Owen's been doing his best to figure out what's wrong with her, but he can't quite understand it. It's some Nepali disease, not one that he's used to. She can't even stand up, she's so exhausted. Owen compares it to mononucleosis, but Ianto, who had it, says that's not what it is. Gwen says she doesn't blame him for not knowing, and it's not his fault, so he shouldn't beat himself up. It takes Tosh a minute to figure out why she's talking like she's given up.

She's supposed to do a run every day. If she doesn't report, she will be decimated.

With absolutely no regard for the fact that she could be infected by some strange Asian malady, Tosh flings her arms around Gwen. She feels her friend choke up around tears in her throat, and suddenly has them sparkling in her eyes, too. Tosh pulls back and looks Gwen right in the eyes. "I love you," she whispers, and she means it. Gwen isn't her friend anymore, she's her sister. And it looks like she understands what Tosh means, because she smiles, a sad, heartbreaking smile. "I love you too, Tosh."

Then, as Tosh stands up straight, she looks at Owen and Ianto. They look awkward, like they want to do the same as Tosh, but are a little too embarrassed. Luckily, Gwen seems to understand, because she just smiles again, sad and tired. "You three don't blame yourselves," she says quietly. "Especially not you, Owen. It's not your fault." There's a pause for a huge yawn, and then she continues, "Don't any of you go and get sick and die, either. If you ever find Jack-" all of them exchange skeptical looks at this, but that doesn't deter Gwen- "tell him I'm so glad I met him. And..." she looks like she's going to fall asleep now, but says quietly, "if you see Rhys, tell him I love him... and sorry." And suddenly, Gwen's fast asleep.

The tears in Tosh's eyes spill over, and she clamps one hand over her mouth. This is it, she thinks, not dismal, and not sad, but hollow. This is going to be the last time I see Gwen.

She feels Ianto put a comforting arm around one shoulder, and suddenly- if not surprisingly- Owen is doing the same. The former has a few quiet tears dripping down his cheeks; the latter, dry-eyed but sympathetic. "Come on," Owen says quietly. "We can't be late."

=O=O=O=

It's the thirty-first night, and none of them are surprised that Gwen isn't there when they get back, but Tosh knows that all three of them cry.

And then it's some indeterminable time between days thirty-one and thirty-two, and Tosh is sobbing in her sleep, screaming for Gwen, and it breaks Ianto and Owen's hearts just a little bit more, because both of them help, but they know it's not the same, and not quite enough.

Suddenly it's the thirty-second night and they have a new bunk-mate. He's quiet, and kind, and not Gwen. He doesn't fit with them like she did. Tosh hates him.

=O=O=O=

It's the forty-seventh night, and Tosh is having the best "what-the-hell-is-going-on" moment of her entire life.

Rhys is there.

In Nepal.

Alive, physically unharmed, but probably just as mentally scarred as the rest of them.

And none of them quite understand it, but he's their new bunkmate.

This is too good to be a coincidence, but it has to be.

(He's asleep when they get there, and they won't wake him, but they're all going to attack him with questions the next day.)

=O=O=O=

It's the forty-eighth night, and Rhys is just as surprised to see them as they are to see him, maybe even more.

Tosh knows they would've caught him in the morning, but work got in the way. Now that they're free, though, they're pelting each other with questions so fast that one is barely out when the next one comes, making it impossible to answer. Finally, when they've slowed down, they begin to repeat them.

"What happened to Chang? Do you know?" Owen asks. Tosh thinks that Chang is their bunk-mate of about seventeen days. He was a runner, too. Like Gwe- and she quickly heads of that train of thought before she starts sobbing.

"Got shot in the back," Ianto mutters. Nobody questions how he knows this.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Rhys demands of all three of them.

"Work," Tosh answers, purposefully vague, even though she doesn't need to be. Not anymore. "What about you?"

"Gwen said something about coming to Nepal, and I caught a flight here to surprise her. I didn't- are you all right?"

Tosh, who's clamped a hand over her mouth and is trying very hard not to cry because he said her name, dammit, she can't hear it without crying, nods. After she chokes down the worst of the sobs, she manages to lower her hand and mumble, "It's normal. Wh... what were you saying?"

Casting a doubtful look towards her, Rhys continues carefully, "They landed the plane somewhere else, a camp a little ways away from here, and I was a runner there. Then the guy here got shot, and they just told me, 'Okay, you're at the Simikot camp now,' and I couldn't argue. I just wanted to surprise her... I didn't think... you know..." he gestures around them.

Owen smiles sadly. "None of us thought..."

"What happened to Gwen?" he asks suddenly.

Tosh quickly claps her hand back over her mouth, but it's not before a strangled sob pops out of her throat. Ianto moves over to her, and she buries her face in his shoulder, just like she'd been trying to not do. She did not want to need anybody, not after Gwen. But it comes crashing down on her in that instant that she still needed Ianto and Owen- maybe even Rhys, in time.

Owen tries not to watch them, instead quietly talking with Rhys. The former seems apologetic; the latter keeps shooting furtive glances at Ianto and Tosh until he finally understands what he's being told. She can feel the change in atmosphere around their newcomer as it sinks in that Gwen is gone. Instead of the simple curiosity and fear, there's heartbreak.

Shoulders trembling, she looks up and smiles sadly through the salty wetness pouring from her eyes. "The very last thing she said..." Rhys turns and faces her. He looks simply broken, just like the rest of them. His face breaks Tosh's heart, but instead of trying to offer sympathy, she just swallows hard and starts over. "The very last thing she said, before she told us we had to go and not to die-" or was that after? The details are blurry- "she said, 'If you see Rhys, tell him I love him... and sorry.'"

That does it. Rhys's expression crumples, and suddenly his shoulders are shuddering with sobs that he's probably been holding back for all forty-eight days without his girlfriend. None of them question it as he leans against Tosh and weeps like a child.

(Seventeen days without Gwen have broken Tosh. Forty-eight without her have taken Rhys, bent him, twisted him, broken him, and hurt him beyond compare. Tosh can't compete with that.)

She cries with him.

=O=O=O=

It's the eightieth day, and Owen is in trouble.

In all honesty, Tosh is just a little, tiny bit surprised that it's taken him the two months since they've started working to get in the amount of trouble that he's in. And while she's being honest, some gnarled, twisted part of her is pleased that something is breaking the monotony, even if it's the impending death of her teammate. No, not teammate. He's her brother. She's still in love with him. He is so, so much more than just a teammate.

Owen had been trying to doctor the girl next to him in the assembly line after she burned herself trying to weld something. This had caused a hold-up. The Toclafane, who did not like hold-ups, promptly tried to get Owen to go back to his station, and replace the girl.

After a very long back-and-forth, which involved Owen politely suggesting several rather rude things that Tosh did not think the Toclafane could or would ever do, let alone anyone human, the former Torchwood doctor was quickly deemed no longer good for working. He was given until that night to say goodbye to any loved ones and report for decimation as soon as he was done.

(Tosh has the sneaking feeling that their Toclafane are being particularly nice to them, although she can't figure out why. And why would anybody want to report to decimation, anyways?)

So that night, just after they get to the barracks after dinner, Owen looks at them all seriously. "I just want to say that although I'd rather avoid the apocalypse, there's nobody I'd rather be forced into labor with." None of them laugh, even though it seems just a little funny. Undaunted, and picking up speed, he continues, "Thank you, all three of you. You've made these last couple of months bearable- even you," he adds, glancing at Rhys, "even though you've been here for half as long."

He turns back to face Tosh and Ianto. "If you ever find Jack, tell him thank you for everything, but he should not have vanished like that." That earns tiny, wry smiles mingling with tears. "And... I love you. All of you." He leans in and gives them a hug so fast they think they might've imagined it, and suddenly Owen's gone for good.

=O=O=O=

It's sometime between the eightieth and eighty-first days. Tosh is crying in her sleep again, and Ianto and Rhys can't help. They watch as she screams for the two teammates that can never answer, and they wonder just why she's so broken.

(They wonder if maybe it's all just a little too much for her, and she went insane.)

And suddenly it's the eighty-first night and there's someone in Owen's bed. Horror fills Tosh- won't he be livid, why is this woman doing this?- but it fades to exhaustion.

He's gone.

=O=O=O=

It's the one hundred first day, and Rhys is missing.

Tosh doesn't know what happened. She doesn't want to know. But he's been on runner duty. Probably the Toclafane didn't know he was a messenger and shot him, like Chang. Or maybe he just hasn't found the other runner yet, and he's waiting. Maybe he got lost in the mountains. Maybe he's just waiting for a safe time to come back.

(She wants to drown in the maybes so she doesn't need to face the reality that's screaming that he's gone too, and he didn't even get to say goodbye.)

There's someone in Rhys's bed, too. The one that used to be Gwen's. Now it belongs to a grumpy black man who shouts at Tosh when she cries. She wishes he wouldn't. She wishes he were Rhys or Gwen, or even Jack, or maybe Owen, too. Just not him.

=O=O=O=

It's the one hundred seventh day, and Tosh does not want to believe it.

Ianto is sick. Not just a cold, or a fever, or something he can work around. It's the same sickness that, seventy-six days ago, stole the first of their number. The tired, sluggish sickness. The Toclafane will come for him. To know why he didn't report.

Tosh almost decides to refuse to report- that way, when they kill Ianto, she won't have to deal with being alone- but he insists that she stays alive. He just doesn't want her to die for no reason.

"Please," she tries one last time, "please, I can't, you know I can't-"

"I know you can," Ianto insists for the thousandth time. "You've been on your own before, right?" He gives her a sad, sleepy little smile. "Tosh, one of us needs to escape and find Jack somehow, right?"

That makes tears spring to her eyes. Jack. She wishes she could give Jack a piece of her fucking mind, for leaving them alone to deal with all this, but she also knows that she wouldn't be able to. She would be relieved beyond relief that he's alive. Still, she nods, because the odds are that Jack is gone for good, even if he can't die.

"And Jack," Ianto slurs, beginning to fall asleep. "If... if you see'im, say I love'm, will you, Tosh? Tell'm I love him."

Tosh nods vigorously. She would find Jack, if only because he has to know that.

"I love you too, Tosh," he murmurs, eyelids fluttering closed. "I love you too."

Trying not to cry, she presses her lips to his forehead and whispers, "I love you too, Ianto."

=O=O=O=

It's the one hundred seventh night. A mousy woman is in Ianto's bed. Tosh takes one look at her, flings herself into her bed, and tries not to cry until she's asleep. Then she's sobbing and screaming, her whole body shaking, and she's begging for all of them to come back, please, because she can't handle not having anyone. The mousy woman is scared, and wondering what's wrong with her, but the other two tiredly tell her that she'd better get used to it. It's a nightly thing.

(And all the while, Tosh has started screaming for Ianto and Jack, too.)

Some time in the middle of the night, the mousy woman comes down and starts stroking her hair just like Gwen did. It hurts like hell to know that it's not Gwen, and at the same time it's good to have somebody. It becomes a nightly routine.

It stays that way for sixty-six nights.

=O=O=O=

It's the one hundred seventy-third night, and Tosh is the hero of the Nepali Toclafane.

She didn't exactly mean for it to happen. But the night before, she'd heard people talking about the Delta Movement. Not knowing what this was, she'd asked them, and suddenly she's learned that the runners don't just trade information. They plan to stage a revolt with all the other camps all at the same time, and the Delta Movement is the name. The big black man is the runner- the crucial person in the group- and he knows everything about it.

Tosh said that maybe she would help- after all, revolts mean freedom- without ever meaning to. Instead, she goes straight to the Toclafane the next morning with as much courage as she can muster and tells them everything she knows.

As it turns out, the Delta Movement was one of four branches: Alpha, Beta, Delta, and Epsilon. The rebellion was slated to go across all of northwestern Nepal, and then travel south and east, so the whole country would fight. Before long, the plan was that all of southeast Asia, and then all of southern Asia, and then just all of Asia would rebel. Maybe even the world. And by revealing what she knew, Tosh saved the biggest planned revolt in the last one hundred seventy-three days.

And then, it gets even better: the Master, Harold Saxon himself, heard about it. He heard that a Torchwood employee, one of the alleged rebels, saved him from a lot of trouble. He gave Tosh one free, limitless request.

It takes a minute to think of it- food, water, freedom, a flight back to Cardiff so she could lock herself in the Hub until hell has passed- but she knows what she wants. A minute of thinking and working up her courage later, she swallows hard and looks into the projection of the Master.

"I want to see Jack again. Just... just once, and you can ship me back."

He doesn't ask who Jack is, or what she means, but instead lets a jubilant grin break across his face, like he'd be happy to do anything for the girl who saved him some trouble. She catches the hints of insanity and malice in the smile, but lets them go in desperation. The Master says, "Of course, my dear Ms. Sato. It may take a while, but I will definitely allow you to see him." His smile is genuinely psychotic now.

Suddenly, Tosh is a little scared of what she's done.

(That night, none of her bunkmates are there, and there's no little mousy woman to stroke her hair at night. She screams and wonders why she never asked her name.)

=O=O=O=

It's the one hundred eightieth day, and Tosh is boarding a plane.

She's flying to see Jack. She almost doesn't believe it. Jack. It actually worked. I'm going to see Jack. I can't believe it. It worked... and I can tell him everything.

The plane flies, and Tosh falls asleep and wakes up on the one hundred eighty-first day in an unspecified location. There's someone standing over her. He's saying that for security purposes, she will be blindfolded, so she does not discover the secret, specific location of Her Lord and Master, but she will get to see Captain Harkness, and right this way, ma'am.

Tosh agrees. She just wants to see Jack.

=O=O=O=

Jack Harkness has stopped trying to count the days, but he suspects that they're nearing two hundred or something. Maybe it's been a year already. Hell, maybe it's been three years. Being chained up in an oversized airship tends to mess with your perception of time.

He does know this: for the first time in however-the-hell-many days, as Tish Jones comes in to serve him his daily dose of mush, she seems almost nervous.

"What's the problem, beautiful?" he asks around the second or third mouthful. "You seem wound up."

Tish shoots him a terse look, then casts a nervous glance around, like she's about to say something so forbidden she could get thrown over the edge of the Valiant as punishment or something. In the end, she decides that it's worth it and, as she shoves another mouthful of mush in, says quietly, "You're getting a visitor."

Immediately Jack chokes on the mush. Visitor? What does that mean? The Doctor? Oh, God, not Martha, they can't have Martha. Someone else?

Noticing his disbelief, Tish adds, "I didn't see their face, but it looked like a woman. With black hair." With that, she shovels the last of the mush in his mouth, and walks away, knees shaking.

Jack stares after her, not caring that the mush is slopping out of his mouth. A woman with black hair? Who...

Gwen? The thought explodes inside his head, and suddenly for whatever reason he's certain that it's Gwen. What the hell is Gwen doing on the Valiant? That can't be good...

The door, which Tish must've closed behind her, swings open. Two men dressed in official-looking gray uniforms step in, a blindfolded woman with black hair between them. The woman isn't Gwen, though, he doesn't think. In fact, as the men take the blindfold off, he's almost certain that it's...

Tosh's mouth falls open in a perfect O. She falls forward in shock, landing roughly on her knees, and doesn't even seem to care that she just bruised them.

"J... Jack..."

=O=O=O=

It's the one hundred eighty-first day. Tosh has been given half an hour to talk with Jack. Neither of them are willing to ask for any more time. Both of them are in shock.

They spend maybe ten minutes just staring at each other in shock, and at one point or another Tosh runs forward and hugs him, around his chains. He seems to strain to put his arms around her, too, because he probably thought that she was long dead and would never see her again.

Finally, she steps back and examines him. He's lost a little weight- no doubt because whoever's holding him is starving him- and he seems filthy. Worse, he seems sort of broken, hollow, like he thought he would never see anything good again in his life.

She's finally found someone who understands.

Finally, when the tears have been cried- not just her tears, to Tosh's ever-so-slight surprise- Jack manages to say, "Tosh, how the hell did you get here?"

"I think I saved an entire continent from revolt," she answers with a grimace. "I thought it was just Simikot-"

"Simikot?" Jack repeats. "Where's Simikot?"

"Nepal," she answers quietly. "We got called down to Nepal, and it..." The lump in her throat chokes her, and she quickly stops talking before she sobs. Recovering as fast as she can, Tosh quickly finishes by saying, "There was a rebellion planned in northwest Nepal, and I stopped it."

"You saved a continent from rebellion?" he says, seemingly shocked. "All of Asia?"

"I guess," she mumbles. "I was just trying to keep things the way they were, he said I shouldn't die-"

"He who?" Jack asks, picking up on what she'd hoped was her drifting into silence.

Tosh, eyes burning bright with tears, looks up at Jack. "Ianto," she says quietly. "He said it right before he was killed."

The look of loss on Jack's face could only rival one thing she'd seen before: the look on Rhys' face when he found out Gwen was killed. She stares at Jack's face and can only formulate one real, sentient thought: Maybe Jack loves Ianto, too.

"All of them," she adds, not about to skirt around it. "Gwen, and Owen- even Rhys, he came on a plane to see Gwen, and got stuck with us..." Words fail her as she sees everything she's felt so much, too much over the last six months reflected on Jack's face.

Finally, with some strangled, forced control, Jack chokes out, "How do you live with it, Tosh? With none of them..."

Tosh shakes her head, heart sore. "I don't live with it," she sighs, the tears blossoming on her face. "I can't. I just go through the motions."

Suddenly the doors bang open, and in strides both of the gray-clad guards that brought her in, flanking none other than the Master himself. Half an hour already? Tosh thinks dismally. Not possible.

"Well!" the Master says loudly, clapping his hands together. "This has been lovely, hasn't it, friends and friends catching up, eh?" He glances from Tosh to Jack and back again. "But, unfortunately, I'm afraid you'll have to say goodbye. For good." He snaps his fingers, and a Toclafane flies in.

"I don't understand," Tosh says mechanically, cold creeping up her spine. She can feel Jack look at her in horror, but doesn't care. It was bound to happen.

The Master raises an eyebrow. "Oh, Ms. Sato, I believe you understand all too well. You have exactly sixty seconds to say your last words. Starting now."

It's not her own last words that leap to mind, however. The first thing that she can think to say is, "Well, I would love to tell you up yours, Mister Master-" she shoots him a dirty look- "but I have more important things to be saying." She turns to Jack, who has this horrible look on his face, like he's trying not to kill the Master bare-handed or something. Tosh's face stays calm. She knows what she has to do.

"Jack, I want to say thank you, thank you for everything you've ever done. I can't say it enough." He gives her a strained look, but she presses onward, picking up speed. "That's not all. When Gwen died, she got sick- she knew it would happen- but she said that if one of us ever found you, she's so glad she met you. And Owen, he argued with the Toclafane, so they were going to kill him, but he said thank you for everything, and it was the worst time for you to vanish on us."

The same wry, tearful smile that she, Ianto, and Rhys wore that day appears on Jack's face. Tosh almost chokes on even more sobs, but forces herself to go on.

"And Rhys- he got shot in the back. But I know what he would've said: thank you for making Gwen better. Because she is- was," she corrects herself brutally. "And Ianto, he got the same sickness as Gwen, but..." The tears are about to overtake her, and behind her, the Master shouts, "Time!" but she presses on. "Ianto says he loves you. Really, really loves you. We all love you, but not like that, not like he does-"

Red, ripping pain sears through her. The feeling of the Toclafane, slicing through her.

Toshiko Sato crumples to the floor. She does not move. She does not breathe. She does not live.

(It's the one hundred eighty-first day hovering over England, and she's finally gone.)

Jack stares down at her body, his face unreadable. Hints of pain, sadness, fury, and something that looks strangely like pride all flicker across his features. He swallows hard, and looks up at the Master. There's something in his eyes that makes the Time Lord step back. Jack is sort of like a toy to him- he likes to think of ways to kill him, creative, painful ways- but all the times he smashed his skull or dismembered him or did whatever he did, there was never anything like this. It's pure, unadulterated hatred, and he understands it. This stupid woman, by announcing everything that he meant to his teammates, by explaining what they had been through- what he, as their overlord, put them through- had awakened something that was almost terrifying in this impossible man.

"What now, Saxon?" the captain snarls. "Are you going to throw her over the edge? She told me what she did for you. She saved Asia, and I bet you don't give a damn." His voice is beginning to rise to a shout, absolute fury clear in it. "I bet you're just going to throw her carcass over the edge to the vultures, you fucking bas-"

"Burn her." The Master flicks his hand towards the soldiers, and they move to pick up the body. Jack shouts, "Don't you touch her!" He strains against the chains, but is ultimately helpless as they pick up the corpse of the woman who was with him for four years. As the soldiers carry her out, their leader continues, "Burn the body, and then dump the ashes out. It's like she's flying," he adds, glancing over his shoulder at Jack. "Because you're right, I really don't give a damn about some old friend of yours, but I do care that she saved Asia. Just a little, just enough to give her this." He walks out.

The moment the heavy doors slam shut, Jack slumps over in defeat. He'd really thought that Tosh could be safe. He'd really thought that the Master might care enough to spare her. And his idea of gratitude was to burn her before they threw her over. Then he had the absolute fucking gall to say it was like flying?

And then there was everything she'd said. Well, he'd have time to think about it, the ugly pictures that she'd painted. The ones that the Master's dictatorship made her paint. He'd have an eternity. With no chance of seeing them ever again.

(It's the one hundred eighty-first day, and for the third time in all of these days, the third time on this day, Jack Harkness cries. And for the first time, he's sobbing and screaming because he knows it's all real.)

=O=O=O=

It's the three hundred sixty-sixth day. Martha Jones is being led to die. And as Jack watches her, he doesn't see her- not really. He sees Tosh, telling him that everything had fallen apart. He can see Owen's smirk, and Gwen's hair, and Ianto's eyes, and it's all too fucking much and he has to STOP YOU CAN'T LET YOURSELF CRY.

(Before long, it's just a couple of months after nothing happened, because that year never was, right? And he's found his team again. But he sees something haunted around one of them. He sees that one of the members has aged beyond belief.)

(He doesn't exactly let himself think it, but somehow he knows that Tosh never forgot those one hundred eighty-one days that were never supposed to happen.)

A/N: Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God. I can't even begin to describe this. It's dark, particularly for me. I'd just like to say, no, I don't believe there's Nepali mono out there, but Simikot is an actual Nepali city. I spent an hour picking a city from a map so it'd be real. And yes, my characterization is about as good as it would be if a peanut were writing. But I just love this. It took... uh, I dunno, a little over a month to write? I kept hitting blocks, but these last few days I just sort of went "Screw it, I am going to f-king finish this."

Uh... I also know that it might not be particularly Torchwood-y. Sorry. I just had this idea, and even though I don't watch Torchwood too much, I've seen enough to think that maybe my characterization is decent... and yes, just for the record, I swore repeatedly in the story and then censored this A/N. Call it a Mari thing.

Now, I know that I think this is my literary masterpiece of the month, but I want to know if you agree. And please don't just say "OMG poor (insert name here) sux to b him/her D:" I want feedback. "Well, it would be better if..." So please, GIVE. ME. REAL. CRITICISM. Thank you. Love, Mari!