"What?" Mickey said incredulously. He shrugged uncomfortably in Jack's bear-like hug. "What did you say?"
"Oi! Boss! Geroff me!" He weaselled his way out of Jack's arms, just to fall into Gwen's tight embrace.
"We thought you were dead. We thought you've burnt to a cinder! Bloody hell, Mickey, we thought you were a goner!"
"Well, apparently, I'm not," said Mickey with important airs. "What didya think that for, anyway?"
"What...?" Gwen pulled back, still holding Mickey's shoulders in a strong grip, as if afraid that a gust of wind from over the Cardiff Bay could grab him and carry him away. "We saw it! I saw it!"
"Where?" He pulled a face.
"On the screen, Mickey, not on the news," Gwen finally let go of him and turned to Martha, who was standing next to workstations, arms crossed on her chest, eyebrows arched questioningly. "I saw that... that creature... using the Manipulator... just like you could use a gas pump. And then it noticed Mickey, and then it shot that ray of light, sort of like an electric arch, and then... Well, that was it, basically. He burnt. He died."
"Not in this life," Mickey grumbled. "Or in this world."
"So, there was nothing going on here?" asked Jack, his voice low and harsh. "Nothing out of ordinary?"
"Just energy fluctuations," Martha answered. "And the dam is leaking really badly, you should see to those boxes you've put aside, Ianto, I think they look a bit soggy."
"No, but..." Gwen gazed at everybody in turn, her eyes wide. "I saw it. Don't you believe me? Jack? Ianto?"
"Well, I, for that matter, can see no reason for you killing me off in your hallucinations." Mickey shrugged again. "I know I wasn't welcome here, but..."
"We believe you, Gwen," Jack said. "Ianto heard it as well."
"But what was that?"
Martha drew a deep breath, tightening her lips, as her eyes met Jack's stare.
"An anomaly," he answered. "Just another flux."
"An anomaly?" Gwen repeated angrily. "What does it even mean: an anomaly?"
"It's what a paradox causes," said Martha slowly, her arms still crossed in a defensive gesture. "There are paradoxes in time and space; endless paradoxes. They can rip the world apart. And they cause waves, ripples. What Donna presented earlier – her visions, her precognitions, her memories – those were anomalies. Our little weather quirks. Our funny energy fluctuations. Our wonderful finds. Anomalies, Gwen, echoes of some event in time-space continuum."
"The Doctor." Ianto stopped fussing over damp cardboard boxes to look at Jack with a sort of accusation. "What'd'you bet it was him?"
"That's possible," Jack muttered.
"Bloody meddler."
"Now wait a minute!" Mickey spat furiously, turning to Ianto. "He's no meddler! You don't even know him, do you? So don't you call him names!"
Jack sighed and walked across the Hub, taking in the desolate walls and ruined mirrors of the water fountain.
"Let's just calm down," Gwen said. "We're all alive and kicking, which is good, right? An anomaly? Fine. I'll take ten of them over what I saw on that bloody screen. Let's just focus on the things at hand, shall we? There's a big, bad nest of Weevils down in... Jack?"
"Yes, carry on." With a dismissive wave of his hand Harkness climbed the stairs to his office.
"Now, that's..." Gwen gasped.
"He seems worried." Martha tilted her head, looking up at Jack's windowless little room.
"We all are," noted Ianto, a bit of dripping wet cardboard in his hand. He kicked the remains of the box which had fallen apart at an attempt of lifting it from the floor. "It's just we don't have such nice offices, have we? Would somebody, please, give me a hand with it? It may not look like it, but these are important files."
"He seems more worried than ever," Martha corrected.
Mickey snorted and walked over to Ianto, to help him with files and folders splashed on the concrete floor. Gwen nodded towards Martha. They took the stairs to the physician's kingdom – the autopsy room, with its yellowish tiles and mismatched equipment. Gwen jumped up gingerly and sat on a metal autopsy table. After a second of hesitation Martha followed suit. Their legs dangled in the air now, and they looked like two little girls sitting on the bridge.
"He's an odd bird, our Jack," Gwen said quietly. "You work with him and you think you know him, but then he just turns and does something, and you're completely lost again. Cause you know nothing about him. He talks, and he laughs, and he makes those silly jokes, and he pulls best blokes in the club, but he never says a thing about his past. Never. He worked for Torchwood in the nineteenth century, you know?"
"He's from another time, Gwen," Martha whispered back. "He's ok. Big flirt. But ok. It's just... I don't think this place is good for him. Outside Torchwood he's a different man. This place changes him, and not for the better."
"And yet here you are." Gwen shook her shining mane.
"Yeah. Trying to change things from the inside." Martha smiled. "Again."
"And how do you plan to do that?"
"Just like you did."
Gwen shifted uncomfortably. "I did? What did I do? I was just stubborn and stupid, and I landed myself in the middle of that mess... and who am I kidding, I wouldn't change it for the world!"
They both laughed.
"It's better for you, though," said Gwen after a while. "Cause I think the world is a bit kinder when you're with that Doctor of yours. A bit more well mannered. More civilised."
"My parents were tortured." Martha turned away, darkness crossing her face, frost in her eyes. "And I was completely alone, almost invisible, safe, but made to watch others die. His world only looks civilised. Or maybe he tries very hard to make it such. I fancied him, a long time ago. Oh, I was in love with him, completely, head over heels. But then I looked into him, Gwen, and I saw the deepest darkness, and it scared me so much I walked away. I still love him. But..."
"That's why I married Rhys," Gwen muttered. "Because Jack... he..."
"Yeah," Martha sighed.
They were silent for another while.
"He's with Ianto anyway," Gwen said finally.
"It's the worst office for romances ever!" Martha added and they both burst into laughter. And in that precise moment the Hub went dark. There was no alarm, emergency lights didn't switch on automatically, the massive, circular door didn't roll shut with its ominous clang. It just went dark and silent.
"Wha...?" Martha felt Gwen's hand closing on her forearm.
"I don't know. Something's wrong."
"Wait." With a clamour of medical equipment Martha started rummaging blindly in metal cupboards. "There!"
There was a glimmer of pale light, just strong enough to encircle both women and the small autopsy room.
"A laryngoscope," Martha said, weaving the medical item like a magic wand. Or a sonic screwdriver – Gwen thought. "Mickey? Ianto? Jack?"
"Ow, you have light, bloody..." Mickey's voice faltered in an exclamation of pain. "What's that?!"
"Just a table," Ianto's voice explained. "There should be a torch somewhere."
"Yeah, seeing as how we are in Torchwood..." Mickey chided.
"Very funny. What happened?"
A strong beam of light pinned them down. They all squinted, words of protest combining in an excited hum. Jack directed the beam at the Rift Manipulator.
"It's dead," he said.
"Yeah, but why?"
"I don't know why, Mickey."
"Yeah, but you've expected it?"
"What?"
"The torch."
"What about the torch. I always have a torch. Just like Ianto always has a stopwatch." There was irritation in Jack's voice. He walked down the stairs carefully, just as Gwen and Martha emerged from the autopsy room.
"Did anybody touch anything?" Gwen asked.
"Such as?" Mickey snorted.
"Such as anything that could cut the power off..."
Jack stopped dead at the bottom of the stairs. "Power," he whispered.
And then he was running, his coat fluttering behind him, his heavy boots banging on the floor, the beam of torchlight jumping madly on the walls. Martha made a move as if she wanted to follow him, but Gwen tightened her grip on her forearm.
"No," she said. "Armoury first. There's no power and the locks are electric. The cells will be open. And there are weevils."
"Shit!" Ianto rushed towards the armoury. "Shit! Shit!"
"No, but..." Martha wreathed her hand from Gwen's grip. "Don't you get it? No power! Donna's sarcophagus! There's no power to the stasis chamber, and there's no backup power as well. She's dying there. Just as we are having a laugh, she's dying!"
"There's a generator," Ianto said quickly. "We've put it there a week ago. Just an ordinary, diesel generator. Jack's on it, don't worry."
"But..."
There was light and at first they thought it was Jack coming back with his powerful torch. But the beam of light coming from the side corridor wasn't quite normal. It twisted and wriggled like no ordinary shaft of light ever could. It was a living spiral of blue energy, and many others followed it in a second, crawling into the central room, casting glimmering reflections in the shards of mirrors and in the puddles of water. Gwen gasped, petrified. Martha stopped dead, holding her tiny laryngoscope candle against the writhing and pulsating storm of brightness. They had to screw their eyes to see anything. And there they were; walking with a gait, hunched a little, dirty and dark. Weevils. They rushed into the room, their clawed hands dangling at the height of their knees, black eyes glimmering in electric blueness of light. They growled and bared their fangs.
Ianto's never-used-before Glock clicked when reloaded. The man's hands shook badly. He tried to point the gun at the Weevils, but they were all close, and they were all moving fast, encircling them. The light increased to an unbearable level, there was a sound accompanying it, not unpleasant, but way too intense. The Weevils cowered, bowed, went down to their knees, as a bright entity entered the room. It was made of light, or so it seemed – a beautiful, yet dangerous, lightning sort of light. Swirly beams spread in front, behind and over it, like multiple wings, and Gwen mistake seemed now obvious. The creature looked like an angel – but not a caring, protecting angel that may watch over somebody's sleep. It was a Seraphim, a wild God's beast in all its glory – one that burns you as you watch it in awe.
They all stepped back, petrified. The creature's blank and eyeless face turned towards them without any emotion. It seemed to look at them for a while – long enough to make them freeze. Then it turned towards the Rift Manipulator.
"Shit!" Gwen whispered. "Oh, shit! It's happening!"
An arch of lightning shot towards the Manipulator. Within a second the machine, along with the whole water sculpture, started glowing bright blue light. There was a discordant sound and the walls shook. The Weevils sang harshly; or maybe they just howled in fear. Ianto's Glock clattered on the floor as the man pressed his hands to his ears. Gwen screamed. Mickey went to his knees. Martha was backing away, step by step, certain she would faint at any moment.
A rift opened. It wasn't huge; just about seven feet high and pretty narrow. It looked like an aurora borealis, tipped vertically, all emerald and purple and ice-cold blue. The remaining mirrors blazed with its light and trembled with its sound. The earth shook.
The Weevils crawled towards the rift. They seemed to be enchanted, or maybe hypnotised by it – paralysed with fear as she was, Gwen thought nonetheless, that it must have been the reason they arrived in Cardiff in the first place – they just spotted the rift and they couldn't resist its call. Now they were diving into the tear in reality, one by one, until the rift swallowed the last of them.
The creature looked back at them again. Its swirling light rays retracted a little, and its shape was almost recognisable – it seemed human enough – just a slim man, surrounded by intense glow. It was watching them.
"No, Mickey, no!"
Gwen started at Jack's roar, and looked at Mickey, getting up from the floor, Ianto's Glock in his hands. She wanted to shout her warning as well, but her throat was tight and dry, and it was much too late anyway. Mickey lifted the gun. An arch of lightning shot from the creature. All become incandescent white.
And then dark.
And then red with a glow of emergency lights and the rift and the creature was gone.
Jack's corpse lay smouldering on the concrete floor. Mickey stood over him for a while, shock twisting his face in a terrible mask. Then he slumped on the floor with a sob.
"Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my..."
"Congratulations, Mickey," Ianto said, his voice faltering. "You've just killed the boss."
"Don't worry, though," Gwen added. "We've all did at some point."
"Oh my God!"
"You're incredible," Martha gasped. "You lot, you're just mad!"
"Oh my God!"
Jack jerked and sat up, his face blackened with soot. He blinked wildly.
"Is it gone?" he croaked.
"In a flash," Ianto said.
"What was it though?" Gwen inquired.
"It came for the Weevils," said Ianto quietly. "The King of the Weevils maybe?"
In the silence they looked at each other questioningly.
"It was weird," Martha said. "Gwen, you had a precognition. Or rather, you've received a pre-transmission. What's weirder, we've been able to change it. We've changed its outcome. Mickey is alive. Well, somebody's still had to die, but luckily he's got more lives than a cat." She smiled at Jack. "What about Donna?"
"She'll be all right," he said curtly. "It was a touch and go, but everything's within normal parameters now."
"That's good. I'm cooking for Wilfred tonight; if anything happened to Donna, it would put a cramp in all our date."
"Will it be back?" Ianto asked.
"There's a lot more Weevils to collect this side of the rift, and somebody found a way to catch a ride on its currents." Jack nodded heavily. "So, I guess you have your answer. The King of the Weevils will be back."
"Oh my God!" Mickey said.