Chapter Text
It was a very odd time to be moving halfway across the country and starting a new job. This was what Katie mused on as she reclined on the grass in front of Cardiff Castle. The sun was bright, and it was quiet in the square, the rough wool of the picnic blanket beneath her scratched at Katie’s bare arms.
Peaceful. That was the word she would use to describe sitting here, sunning herself without a care in the world. She was disappointed not to get to have a look inside the castle, but she supposed that a global pandemic was a fairly good reason to keep it closed to the public. Reaching up to her face, Katie scratched at the still unfamiliar feel of elastic around her ears where her face mask was secured. She was a little disappointed that her new employer had instructed her to wear only black masks while at work as she felt her patterned home-made creations were much more fun to look at. Still, she wouldn’t complain. This was her dream job. She had risked everything to move to Cardiff for the chance to be an assistant curator at the museum here. It was not an offer she had expected so early in her career, straight out of university no less.
Sighing as the unpleasant memories of her departure from Edinburgh arose, Katie sat up abruptly, pushing them back into the recesses of her mind. She turned to watch the people she could see across the green enjoying the summer sun as she was. There was a couple sitting on a bench near one of the castle walls, leaning against each other. She couldn’t see their mouths under their masks, but Katie imagined they were smiling. The spark of happiness in their eyes just as familiar as it was another painful reminder of Katie’s loss. No, she couldn’t stand to look at them anymore.
There were other people there too. Walking around or sitting in the grass like her. It took a few minutes of staring mindlessly at those strangers for Katie to regain her previous sense of calm. It wasn’t to last long.
Katie would later recall that she had been watching a young man typing on his laptop when she had heard the rage fuelled snarl, tinged with madness, from behind her and felt the rough grasp of the hand on her shoulder squeezing painfully. There was no time for her to even let out a breath, let alone the scream of agony that stuck in her throat as the sharp point of a knife was driven into her stomach and torn back out again.
Over and over it was plunged into her body but Katie could only stare in horror as the blossoming stain of bloody gore spread across the front of her body and her blood spilled onto the fabric of the rug beneath her. Distantly she could hear screaming as she realised that the hand was no longer gripping her shoulder. With that grasping presence gone, Katie slumped and fell to the ground, her mouth open in a silent scream and her hands pressed tightly to the blood-soaked mess of her t-shirt.
No thoughts intruded on her mind now, the shock taking over to such an extent that even pain was only a distant nightmare. Unseeing, Katie stared at the massacre continuing in front of her on the grass of the square. People were running and screaming as several bodies writhed and moaned on the ground clutching at their own wounds. There was a struggle between some of the strangers as the knife was wrestled away from the madman, for surely he must have been mad. Others began to tend to the wounded, but Katie knew it was too late.
She had lost too much blood already. The shock was gone but there was still no pain. ‘Too far gone’ she thought but she wasn’t afraid. There was passing regret at the knowledge that her life was coming to an end but there had been so much pain in it recently that she couldn’t bring herself to be melancholy about it or to try and hold on. What was the point? She had lost almost everything that mattered to her anyway. Only her new job was a light in the darkness that constituted her existence these last few weeks and if she was honest with herself, Katie knew she hadn’t been happy for a lot longer than that.
So, an aura of tranquillity settled over Katie as she closed her eyes and simply let go.
. . . .
It was a cold morning as Tosh walked along the Plass towards the tourist office that was the entrance to the Torchwood hub. She pulled her scarf tighter around her neck as she clutched the bag of fresh croissants she had just bought for herself, Jack and Ianto. It had become a weird little ritual for them most days since the camping trip from hell. Tosh felt like she was a lot closer to Ianto now, after all, he had sacrificed himself to try and save her life. Though she knew that he still held a lot of himself back and that Jack was probably the only one who might be able to see the real Ianto. She had suspicions about the two of them. They had been different around each other. The tension that lingered after Ianto’s cyber girlfriend had nearly killed them all was gone now, and Tosh suspected there was more than the professional in their relationship.
As Tosh walked into the tourist office, she spied Ianto himself behind the counter and waved with her pastry bag, a small smile and a good morning. Receiving a good morning in return and the promise of coffee in the near future, she continued on into the hub to feed the bottomless stomach known as Jack Harkness.
“Anything on the monitor overnight Jack?” Tosh asked after sitting the bag down on his desk. Taking a bite of her own croissant and sitting in a chair opposite him, she looked at Jack with curiosity.
After savouring his first bite, Jack replied, “Not much. There were a few minor spikes around the castle, but nothing seems to have come through. Might be worth keeping an eye on it today. Will you take a look at your rift predictor after this and see if there’s been any updates? I’ve got a feeling we’re going to be busy.”
Ianto then walked in with three cups of coffee as Tosh nodded at Jack’s request. They then settled into a companionable silence to consume their breakfast, broken only by the occasional loud sip or small moan as they drank the deliciously warm liquid. Tosh was the first to break the silence, sighing and telling the others that she’d go check the readings for the rift and get back to Jack once she had something. She had only reached her desk when the cog door alarm screeched out its warning of Owen’s entrance into the hub. It was unusually early for Owen be arriving but Tosh shrugged it off and greeted him with a friendly smile and a hello.
“Alright Tosh? What’s a guy got to do around here to get a cup of coffee? Oi, tea boy!” Owen yelled out for the archivist/world’s best coffee maker as he headed past Tosh on his way to the autopsy bay, throwing his jacket onto the beaten-up old sofa in the process.
Tosh ignored the surly tone of the medic and turned to her computer screen, bringing up the rift predictions for the rest of the day. She had to take a second look as the results momentarily stunned her. Usually spikes that big showed up a few days in advance, the program she had been working on normally only having issues dealing with small and moderate anomalies in rift activity.
She turned around and shouted in the direction of the office she had just left, “Jack I think you better come and see this! We’ve got a major spike predicted at the castle in the next 10 minutes.”
Jack appeared moments later, “Show me what you’ve got.”
Continuing Tosh sat down and pulled up a more detailed analysis of the activity spike in question. “It’s a pretty big energy signature but it appears to be very focused in the one spot. Maybe a couple of meters square at most. My guess would be a single entity or a decently sized object. The rift energy though is predicted at extremely high levels, higher than anything I’ve ever seen. I’ll re-calibrate the equipment and double check, but I think you should head out there pretty quickly.”
“Right. Ianto you’re with me. We’ll be back in no time, but Tosh, tell Gwen I want the paperwork from the last case on my desk this afternoon if she gets in before we’re back.”
While he spoke, Ianto had materialised at his side and helped Jack into his coat and the pair breezed past Tosh and out of the hub before she could even mutter an acknowledgement. Her concentration was already back on the problem in front of her and she was on the verge of losing herself in it when her peace was disturbed by a grouching Owen.
“Hey! Where the hell do they think they’re going? I haven’t gotten any coffee yet!”
. . . .
There was so much pain in every cell of her body that Katie began to question her sanity. She couldn’t remember what had happened or where she was. There was nothing but a searing fire in her veins that flooded her brain with half remembered agony that had been somehow more physical, and she couldn’t understand what that thought was supposed to mean. Despite the pain, she felt somehow disconnected from her body, floating in a void of nothingness where only her consciousness and the pain existed until that simply wasn’t true anymore.
She awoke in a swirling blaze of golden fire that burned through every fibre of her being and left her in a confused mess of tears and screaming agony. Nothing could break into her mind except the remembrance of the pain that was so strong it still felt as if it scorched her body.
Long minutes passed and Katie screamed until her throat was raw and no sound could pass through her lips. Eventually, she became dimly aware of hands holding her down as she tried to thrash against them. Slowly her senses started to come back, one by one. First the touch of the strangers, pinning her down into cold wet grass that she could feel beneath her. Then came the sound of voices from far away that suddenly rushed up towards her and assaulted her ears. People shouting out, telling someone – no, telling her – that she had to calm down. Finally, she regained her sight when she realised that her eyes were squeezed shut against that remembered torment.
Opening them quickly was a mistake. Bright light flooded in, piercing right through her causing a sharp ache that made Katie aware that she wasn’t in that endless agony anymore. Had it been real? Did she imagine it? Why was it so cold?
Shivering, Katie pulled her arms and legs in against herself and felt the hands that held her down fall away. “Are you okay miss?”
A question.
A part of her brain supplied Katie with that helpful acknowledgement but could not summon up any words to answer the question posed by the man hovering over her with bright green eyes. Nothing would have come out of her mouth now even if she did have the words, as she could feel a dull throb in her throat where it had been made raw by her tortured screams.
“Do you think you could sit up?”
Nodding, Katie obeyed the stranger and gingerly pushed herself up and out of the ball she had curled into. Again, she could feel the chill of the grass beneath her hands and the dampness made her long for the sunshine that had poured down on her earlier that afternoon. That thought gave her pause. Where had the sun gone? It was a beautiful summer afternoon not that long ago. The forecast was for bright sunshine and high temperatures all week. What had happened?
Dumbly she followed behind another man, as the green-eyed man and a woman, who had also been holding her down, pulled her to her feet and half carried her along. Confusion raced through Katie and she began to shut out the voices of the people around her and focused on her surroundings. She was still on the green at Cardiff Castle, that much was certain. The walls rose up around the edges of the grassy area and she was walking right towards the castle itself and a dark door marked as a staff entrance.
But how could she still be in Cardiff. It was so cold. Far too cold for the heat wave and lovely summery weather that had brought her and her picnic here in the first place. Hang on a minute. Where were these people’s masks? They should be wearing face masks right now. And then another thought. Where was hers?
Katie was led along several twisting corridors until she was brought into what she presumed was the first aid room as basic medical equipment lined the counters along the walls. The green-eyed man and the woman helped her up onto an examination table and she lay back, closing her eyes against the disorientation of suddenly finding herself where she hadn’t been but still being in exactly the same place.
It was more than confusing for Katie. It was completely baffling.
That confusion only got worse for her in the next few moments as she opened her eyes to see two eerily familiar men walk in. One had a bright grin plastered across his face. “It’s okay, you’re safe here. I’m Captain Jack Harkness, it’s nice to meet you.”
A beat. Katie’s mouth dropped open in shock and she started to splutter incoherently. Her eyes tracked a rapid path between the increasingly worried expressions of the self-introduced Captain Harkness and the other man who Katie's brain assumed was called Ianto Jones. But that couldn't be right and nothing looked like it should and why was it so damn cold? Before Katie could make her mouth move past the insensible mutterings, she was falling back onto the table in a dead faint.