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batsutousaiTitle: Dust in the Sky
Part: 6 of 6
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
batsutousai
Beta:tsuki_no_suzu
Rating: R
Pairings: Harry Potter/Tenth Doctor (Rose/Tenth Doctor, Martha/Tenth Doctor, Jack/Ianto and Jack/Tenth Doctor)
Warnings: Slash, minor Ginny!hate, brief slash scene near the end
Summary: Sequel to Hanging by a Thread. Harry has a life to live now with a wife and children, but he can still find time for the Doctor, no matter what he looks like.
Disclaim Her: Nope.
Sixth Part, first half
-0-
-0-
Once the government decided on which ten percent of the nation's children they would be giving to the aliens, Torchwood, Harry and Rhys put their own plan into effect: Rhys took a copy of the recordings they'd made with the contacts and ran for it. Jack and Ianto made their way towards Thames House, intending to lead the woman who'd taken Harry and Jack hostage to where Gwen, Clem and Harry were waiting with the continued recording by letting them trace their calls. Lois was asked to inform the government that Torchwood had them so Jack and Ianto could get in to talk to the 456.
As expected, the woman – Agent Sarah Johnson, according to the files they'd pulled up – and a team of men practically burst into the warehouse, guns at the ready. Harry moved quickly to one side as one of the men took up a position a little too close to where he'd been standing under his cloak. Clem was so surprised at the entrance he gave a shout and turned to face them, a little scared.
Gwen just smiled and looked around, completely confident in the reactions they'd expected, as well as the knowledge that Harry was about, somewhere, willing and able to pop in and protect her and Clem, if need be. "We’ve been expecting you," she said to Johnson.
"On the floor! Face down, hands on your head!" Johnson demanded.
Clem knelt and placed his hands above his head, but Gwen just kept smiling."You traced Ianto’s calls, did you?" she asked.
"On the floor!" Johnson shouted and Harry moved so he was between her and Gwen, since the bloody woman still had her weapon aimed at Gwen's head. Johnson couldn't see him, and neither could Gwen, which made Harry the perfect guard for the Welsh woman.
"And now that you’re here, you can take me to Alice and Steven Carter," Gwen commented, ever so calm, as if she didn't have a gun pointed at her head.
"You’ll be in the very next cell," Johnson said hotly. "On second thought, maybe I’ll just have you shot while resisting arrest."
"That would me a mistake."
"Why?"
"Take a look at what we’ve been recording."
Prime Minister Green's voice echoed as he insisted that Torchwood had been destroyed. Johnson stepped forward a bit, gun lowering to watch, and Harry stepped off to one side, keeping his eyes trained on her and his wand trained on the men around them who had yet to lower their weapons.
Gwen smiled. "What she’s telling them is my gorgeous husband has recordings of them all secretly agreeing to sacrifice millions of innocent children to the aliens. Now, him and his laptop, at this very moment, are in a secret location. And he’s ready to press send and tell the whole world what’s been going on, unless you do exactly as we say."
Johnson looked a bit surprised and not a little bit interested.
Gwen stood up from her chair. "Take a seat, maybe you’ll learn something about the people you’ve been working for." She took Clem's arm to help him to his own feet. "Come on, Clem."
Gwen pulled over a few chairs while Johnson took her's, waving for her men to stand down. They all sat – or, in Harry's case, stood behind the chairs, still invisible – and watched as Jack and Ianto spoke to the 456, telling them they couldn't have the kids, and that the 456 needed to get off the planet.
"You yielded in the past," the 456 said again and again, as if expecting that would change their minds.
Jack and Ianto suggested the 456 look at what they know of Earth and see how humans would react to the 456 taking their children. When the 456 laughed at it, Jack said, "We’re making this a war."
"Then the fight begins," the 456 replied.
"We’re waiting for your reply," Jack said when the aliens didn't say anything more.
"Action has been taken," the 456 said and the alarms of the building went off.
"What have you done?" Jack shouted.
"You wanted a demonstration of war. A virus has been released. It will kill everyone in the building."
Gwen turned to Johnson, looking panicked. "Can we override it?" she asked.
Johnson shook her head. "I don’t know."
Gwen turned back towards the room at large. "Harry, get them out of there!" she called.
Harry pulled off his cloak, making Clem and Johnson both jump in surprise and Gwen shake her head. "On it," he said and apparated into the room they could see from the camera.
When he got there, Ianto and Jack were both shooting at the glass cage the 456 was in. Harry threw a massive bubble charm over all three of them, cutting them off from the air in the rest of the building. "Bullet-proof glass," he commented, casting a spell to clear the air inside the bubble. "Now stop shooting or you'll let in more of the virus."
"You are dying, even now," the 456 said, then let out a horrible screeching noise.
Harry turned to Ianto and started scanning him for any virus, since Jack and Harry himself would be fine if it kept in their systems. He was vaguely aware of Jack ordering the 456 to stop the noise. Then Harry found the traces of the virus and, frowning in concentration, burned it away with magic.
Ianto gasped and clutched at his throat. Jack hurried forward and grabbed his arms. "Ianto?" he whispered.
Harry scanned Ianto again and nodded. "He's clean. Come here, Jack." When Jack stepped forward, Harry cleaned the virus out of his system as well, then cleaned himself, hissing at the burning pain that came with the healing. Silently, he thanked the Department for insisting they all be kept up to date on the newest in alien viruses and a good way to combat most new ones.
"Can you save anyone else?" Jack asked Harry, leaning against Ianto as the mortal wheezed a bit. Jack had recovered from the magic burn far faster than Ianto, and since it had been Harry's magic, it hadn't hurt him as bad.
Harry considered his scans. "Should be able to save one or two more," he agreed, handing Ianto a pain potion. Then he called a bit of the bubble charm around himself and carefully cut it away from the bubble protecting the other two. Once he was sure they'd all be okay, he ran from the room and out into the hall, looking for someone he could help.
Two floors down, he found a woman crouched in the stairwell, sobbing and hugging herself. He quickly threw up the bubble charm around her and cleared the air, then knelt, touching her shoulder. "Hey, look at me." She looked up at him, eyes bloodshot and filled with terror. "I can help. I can get rid of the virus in your body, but it's going to burn a bit. I need you to trust me."
She swallowed. "Who... Who are you?" she whispered.
"Harry Potter," Harry replied, flashing her a winning smile he may have stolen from Jack. When she nodded, eyes wide with something like disbelief, Harry pointed his wand at her and carefully burned the virus away. It took longer, since it had gotten further in her system, but he managed to get it all and handed her a pain potion, directing her to drink it, then continued down the stairs.
Everyone else he came across was dead and he leaned back against the wall in the lobby, pulling out his mobile. He rang Ianto's mobile.
"Tell me some good news," Jack asked.
"I saved one," Harry replied, running a hand through his hair and tugging on it. "The rest are dead. You two?"
"We're fine," Jack said. "Well, as fine as we can be while staring at a monster in a glass cage. It still seems to think we're about to die."
Harry nodded. "Might as well leave it to gloat, then," he said a bit drily. "The woman I found was about two levels below you in the stairwell. If you want to collect her, I'll see about clearing the air and unsealing the building so the cleanup teams can get in here."
Jack sighed. "You realise this means we've lost, right?" he said, and he sounded so, so very tired.
Harry smiled, staring down at the pile of dead bodies in front of the glass doors. "Oh, I don't think we've ever, really lost. Just a minor setback, really."
Jack laughed and it sounded hollow. "We'll meet you downstairs."
"I'll phone Gwen. Let her know we survived."
"Okay."
Harry hung up and dialled Gwen's number while he picked his way over to the security desk, winding between bodies with a heavy heart.
Gwen picked up on the second ring. "Harry!"
"Hey, Gwen. Jack and Ianto and I are alive. I'm going to try and clean the air in here."
"Can you do that?" Gwen asked.
"I've got a sonic screwdriver," Harry replied with a laugh as hollow as Jack's had been. "I can do anything. Are you lot okay? No funny moves from Johnson and her band of merry men?"
Gwen laughed. "No. But..." she trailed off.
Harry paused, sonic pointed at the controls, but not on. "Gwen?"
"Clem is dead. That sound from the 456 killed him."
Harry hissed out an angry breath. "Bastard." He turned the sonic on angrily and turned off the alarm. "You know, just once, I'd like to meet an alien not set on world destruction. Other than the Doctor, I mean. So bloody tired of aliens thinking they can shove us about and demand things and kill people..."
"I know," Gwen whispered. "I know."
Harry rubbed at his face, then used the sonic to fix the flashing red lights, since they were starting to give him a headache and he'd rather save his pain potions for an emergency. "I'm going to attack the air, then. We'll see you soon enough, I suppose. Yeah?"
"Yeah."
Harry hung up and turned his full attention to the controls. "Right. Fresh air without a bloody virus. Let's try that..."
-0-
"You're just going to let them take all those children?" Harry demanded, disbelievingly. "Use them as drugs? Have you no fucking hearts?"
"Major, you're not so important that I can't have you removed from here," General Pierce replied a bit sharply. He was American and not of UNIT, but he still held rank over both Harry and the highest-ranking UNIT man on the case, Colonel Oduya, so both answered to him.
Harry glared at him. No, he was, by no means, important to the operation, but when Jack and Ianto had been dragged off to prison and Gwen and Rhys had gone to protect Ianto's sister's children – a favour from their captors – Harry had turned to the UNIT soldiers who'd come to clear Thames House of the bodies and flashed his credentials, demanding he be allowed to see the commanding officer in charge of the mission. When he'd threatened to tell his own people the truth behind the 'inoculations' for the children if he wasn't allowed to sit in on the proceedings, he was told to sit in a chair in the corner and shut up, since no muggle really wanted to face an angry witch or wizard, guns or no guns.
Harry had never actually intended to shut up, though he'd made a good show of it until Colonel Oduya had asked the 456 what they used the children for and they found out the aliens treated them like some sort of drug.
"Don't you have any children of your own?" he asked, looking around the room. "Don't you have family you would want protected?"
Pierce turned to him, eyes cold. "And what would you have us do, Major? Fight an enemy that has so many advantages over us?"
"Better than letting our children be used like some alien plaything."
Pierce opened his mouth to retort and Harry's mobile went off. Glaring, Harry answered it, "Potter."
"Harry, I need your help to save the world," Jack said on the other end.
Harry smiled nastily at the room. "Good to know not everyone on this vile planet has given up hope," he said, then stalked from the room. "What do you need, Jack?"
Jack took a deep breath, then, "I need a child that won't be missed."
Harry stopped, balanced awkwardly during the process of taking a step. He stared ahead of him, thinking. A child that wouldn't be missed. A child that could be killed without anyone the wiser...
"Harry?" Jack said.
Harry started walking again. "You're sure this will work?"
"It's all we've got."
He nodded. "Where are you?"
"Where we were... detained," Jack offered distastefully. "Someone will meet you at the main entrance."
"No more forklifts?" Harry replied.
"Afraid not. And, Harry?"
"Yeah?"
"Please hurry."
Harry nodded and snapped his mobile closed, then apparated to an orphanage he knew of just outside London proper. A magical child had shown up there a few years ago and Harry had been a member of the auror team sent to deal with the damage caused by the child's temper once or twice. The living conditions weren't bad, but a few of the children had various disabilities that couldn't be fixed with the orphanage's budget as it was. And nobody wanted a damaged child.
"Miss Freeman?" Harry said, poking his head into the office of the orphanage's keeper.
A wide-eyed woman looked up at him. "Oh, it's your lot," she said tiredly. "Come to deal with the talking children?"
Harry nodded. "Something like that. A friend of mine is working on it, something different from these bloody 'inoculations' the government is yapping on about. But he needs a child to work with. Could I borrow one?"
"I suppose this would be the place you would come when trying to find a child no one cares about," Freeman agreed, pulling herself to her feet. "Keith would be the best choice, I think. He's been a bit crazy from the start. Likes to bite anything that comes in range, just to warn you. He's drawn blood more than a few times."
Harry nodded and followed the older woman up the stairs to a door. "Thank you," he said as she stopped outside the door. "I think I can manage Keith." He smiled.
Miss Freeman shrugged. "Suit yourself. And feel free to lose him or some such on your way back." She walked back down the hall, towards her office.
Harry took a deep breath and stepped into the room. A boy sat on the worn bed, smiling in a way that made Harry wonder why he hadn't been 'lost' yet. Miss Freeman wasn't known for her fondness for children – Harry had always wondered why she'd taken the job, but never asked – and it wasn't uncommon for a particularly difficult child in her care to go missing.
Harry shot a stunning spell at the boy, not willing to waste time talking to the child, then apparated them to the base. There, he was hurried through to a large space where Jack, Ianto and Johnson stood. "Found you a kid," he said with a forced smile.
"Put him on the platform," Jack ordered. "And can you wake him? I don't know if it's actually important, but..."
Harry nodded and set the boy on the platform. He bound him in ropes, then woke him, stepping quickly out of range. The boy immediately started biting the ropes, trying to get free. "She wasn't joking," he muttered to himself as he walked over to stand behind Jack. "I'd do it quick, if I were you. This kids is known for chewing through anything."
"This won't be pretty," Jack warned him, then hit a button.
The boy stopped chewing and started to scream an impossible sound. It was almost like the scream Harry had once heard over the phone, but, somehow, so much worse, because the sound shouldn't have been possible to come from a child's throat.
Then the boy started to vibrate. He vibrated with the horrible sound and blood ran from his ears and his nose. It was a horrible sight.
It looked like Harry would be 'losing' Keith, no matter his intentions.
When it was all over, when Keith had fallen silent and keeled over, they were quiet, staring at the child's body as if they expected it to get back up again and start gnawing at the ropes. But he never would. He was dead.
Torchwood and Harry Potter had killed one unwanted boy to save millions of children the world over. Harry wasn't sure who got the better deal.
-0-
"So, now what?" Gwen asked as they all sat down in her and Rhys' living room with tea or coffee. "We've saved the world and the Crown is perfectly willing to give us as much money as we'd like to rebuild." She waved about her mobile, which had received the call from said Crown.
"Aren't you tired of living underground?" Harry asked, considering them all over his mug. "I know I get sick of it after a while. But, hey, we've got magic windows out into the park or wherever."
"Secret organization," Jack replied automatically.
"And that necessitates an underground base?" Harry replied.
"Your own government does it," Jack pointed out.
"Hmm..." Harry considered his tea, then shrugged. "Magic people aren't ready to play around on the surface, and we tend to keep more quiet about ourselves. You lot sticker everything with a 'T' and drive around in a great big SUV with 'Torchwood' stamped on the sides. Everyone in Cardiff knows who you are. And they seem to have a pretty good idea about what you do, too. You're not particularly 'secret'."
"He's got a point," Ianto helpfully joined in.
Jack rolled his eyes. "That doesn't solve the problem about where our new base should be. If not under the Plass, then where? It needs to be somewhere close to the Rift."
"Does it?" Gwen asked, cocking her head to one side. "Tosh's Rift predictor program was saved, and most things come through away from the Hub, anyway."
"Might be good to move away from the Rift, anyway," Ianto commented. "Lest we get another member who decides to use the manipulator to open the Rift."
"Why not somewhere near the Plass, but not under it?" Gwen said thoughtfully. "Maybe connected to the tunnels under the Plass, so we can still get to the manipulator if we need to, but have a secure lock or some such on it. Use it only in emergencies."
"Is there a building near the Plass that's got enough space for us?" Jack asked, looking a little bemused.
"Aren't they building a new centre down Pierhead Street?" Rhys offered. "Lots of office space and everything. Bit of a high-rise, yeah? Supposed to be done in a couple months."
They all sort of stared at the man for a long moment before Jack jumped to his feet. "Show me."
Rhys sighed, but got up anyway. They all piled into the two cars they had and drove out past the Plass and down past Pierhead Street to where a building was being built. It was about four storeys high and had some impressive office space, as Rhys had said it did.
"This is posh," Gwen commented, considering the shiny exterior. "How hard would it be to take over a couple of offices and claim them as Torchwood?"
"How many offices are already bought?" Ianto replied and they all walked over to the listing on the side of the fence surrounding the building.
After some brief discussion and a lot of guesswork, they figured that about half the building was bought.
"So we buy the other half for Torchwood," Jack decided, clearly warming to the idea.
"We're going to put 'Torchwood' on the business label?" Gwen replied drily.
"It would look suspicious if half the building was owned by one company," Ianto commented.
"So buy it under a bunch of different names," Harry suggested. "Fake names, mind. Names that have something to do with Torchwood, but which people in the know might not catch."
"Like what?" Jack asked, leaning back against the fence and looking between the three others – Rhys had gone off to buy them all some lunch a few minutes into their guesswork.
"What was the name of the man who owned the Torchwood Estate before he died?" Harry asked, casting back to his memory of Rose telling him about the adventure. "Sir Robert MacLeish?"
"How do you know that?" Gwen demanded, looking a little impressed.
Harry glanced at Jack. "A flower told me about it," he said and Jack smiled. "Dame Rose?" he added as another suggestion.
"A flower shop?" Jack replied, though something in his face suggested he liked the idea.
"Yeah. Why not?" Gwen agreed.
"Who would staff it?" Ianto asked.
"We'd need more staff," Jack agreed, eyes firmly on Harry. "Know anyone looking for a job?"
"Well, there was that girl... Lois, I think? The one you lot got thrown in prison?" Harry suggested, grinning. "And you might finally be able to talk Martha and Mickey into joining when they get back from their honeymoon."
Jack nodded. "I seem to recall making that same offer to another member of UNIT."
Harry blinked in mock confusion. "Really? But it was only the four of us that day. Unless you mean Sarah Jane, but she doesn't like you..."
Gwen giggled and Jack rolled his eyes. "UNIT, also known as the Department," he offered, circling his hand as if waiting for Harry to finish his sentence.
Harry chuckled. "Jack, are you asking me to quit another job in the Ministry?"
"Yes," Jack deadpanned, tone turning a little serious. "Harry, if you hadn't been there, Ianto would be dead. Stephen would be dead. That woman in Thames House would be dead. That's three lives you saved."
"And one unloved boy died instead," Harry replied quietly.
"How many others would have died in his place if UNIT had been left to handle things alone?" Ianto offered gently.
Harry considered the hopeful look on Ianto and Gwen's faces and the pleading look on Jack's. He sighed and rubbed at his face. Sometimes, working in the Department was more paperwork than fun, he knew. Chasing Weevils with Jack on his days off had always been fun, and he'd almost started to live for those days, when he wasn't waiting for the Doctor.
He nodded. "I have conditions, however."
"Name them," Jack replied while Gwen cheered and Ianto smirked a bit.
"First, I'm not using a bloody gun," Harry said, waving his finger in Jack's face.
Jack sighed. "Well, it's not like you're not already armed."
Harry grinned and took out his wand. "Oh, this?"
Jack chuckled and waggled his eyebrows.
Harry rolled his eyes. "Second, unless it's the apocalypse, I get Saturday mornings off. Until about two. I'll come in for the apocalypse."
Jack nodded. "I think I can do that."
"Can I call a day to have off every week?" Gwen asked, taking a hot dog from Rhys.
"Sure," Jack agreed with a smile that screamed danger. "What do you plan to do with it?"
Gwen considered that, then looked at Harry, who was thanking Rhys for his own hot dog. "What will you use that time for?"
"Visiting my kids," Harry replied promptly, eyes dark. "I lost what little family I had because I loved my job too much; I'm not losing the rest of them to run around Cardiff, chasing Weevils."
"Oh." Gwen blinked in surprise. "I'm sorry, Harry."
Harry shrugged. "I see them every Saturday. And, really, it's true that you never know what you have until you lose it. I treasure them a lot more knowing that they don't live in the same house with me." He sighed and nodded to Gwen's stomach. "Don't let yourself get so caught up in your job that you lose what's really important in this world."
Gwen nodded, wide-eyed.
Jack cleared his throat. "Just two conditions?"
Harry smirked, then. "One last one," he promised. "If you try getting into my trousers, I reserve the right to use whatever spell comes to mind first on you."
Jack blinked once, then nodded very, very slowly. "Right." He coughed and rubbed at his chin. "Mental note made. Welcome to the team."
After they got a bit of glee out of their system, Jack asked, "Have any more names for Torchwood to go under, Harry? You seem to be on a roll."
Harry grinned. "I think I can come up with a couple more."
-0-
As far as anyone, even the builders, knew, six different companies moved into the empty offices in the building. The only thing the offices had in common was that they signed on within days of each other and, once the building was open for business, were rarely open. Both Dame Rose, the flower shop, and Koh-i-Nor, the jewellers, would open occasionally. But the shops on the upper floors, such as the law office and the gay services office, never seemed to be open, but they also seemed the sorts to do private business. The computer repair shop on the third floor, Sir Doctor, was open every Saturday morning, but never seemed to get any real business.
And as for 'The Hub'? Well, no one knew what it was for, and few were willing to ask any questions of the sharp-eyed woman with a cold smile that sometimes sat the reception desk.
In reality, the group of offices had all been interconnected by Harry after he, Jack, Ianto and Gwen poured over building schematics for two weeks. Before they even invited the rest of their new team in after the building opened – including Mickey, Martha, Lois and Sarah Johnson – Harry took to it with his magic. He'd completely cut out the centre of the building on the bottom three floors, so they could see down into the first floor, where the conference table sat. Along the back wall was a switch that operated the lift up to the fourth floor and down to the basement that Harry had added on, which housed the cages for aliens and the secured door to the tunnels that led to the old Hub. (The secured door required the retinal scans and pass codes of everyone on the staff, and Harry had worked with Mickey after the rest of the team had gotten to the Hub to make sure that not even his sonic screwdriver could by-pass the lock.)
Everyone had their workstation in the same general area as their supposed business: Harry's desk sat just behind the door into the flower shop he "owned". A bit of magic had given him something of a see-through wall, so he was able to keep his shop open without actually being in the shop. He'd surrounded his desk with the flowers he sold, and had added various alien and magical baubles next to the computer monitor so it felt a bit more like home. A door off to the side of his shop opened into another room filled with plants, but those were alien, and Harry was forced to weekly assure Jack that no one had been sold any alien plants.
Lois Habiba worked next door to Harry at her jewellery shop – it turned out that making jewellery was one of her passions – and a magic window like Harry's had allowed her to also keep her shop open as often as possible. Her own desk was mostly covered in papers, but Harry kept her stocked with a bouquet of yellow roses every week, to add a bit more colour. To the side of her shop was the kitchen, which Lois and Harry took weekly turns keeping stocked with snacks for their co-workers. Ianto frequented it to make coffee for the group, but Harry always made his own tea. (He'd almost converted Lois back to tea, as well, much to his delight. It helped that Ianto threatened horrible things to anyone who touched his coffee machine.)
On the second floor was 'The Hub', which was run by Martha, Johnson – Harry could never bring himself to call her by her first name – and, when she wasn't on maternity leave, Gwen, with their three desks. The second floor contained the closed-in autopsy bay for Martha and the armoury and shooting range, which Johnson was in charge of. (Harry had gone all out on silencing wards on the shooting range, which allowed them to practise at all hours without a worry about who else might be in the building. Most of the team appreciated the ability to practise at all hours, though Harry, Lois and Martha never used it – Harry was the only one who had never had to learn how to use a gun, though not from a lack of trying on Johnson's part.) The second floor also housed the toilets, showers and locker rooms for the female members of the team.
The third floor housed 'Sir Doctor', Mickey's shop, and 'The Host', Jack's shop. Since Jack's shop was never really open, he'd been able to use his entire shop as his office, as well as his quarters, and he'd managed to talk Harry into making the walls of said office glass, so he could always keep an eye on his people. Between his office and Mickey's technology-heavy workstation was the Rift monitor, which had been hooked up to a silent alarm of flashing lights and a quiet buzz that went off at each person's computer. The men's toilets, showers and locker rooms were up there, as well as the interrogation rooms and a second, closed-in conference room.
The fourth floor was Ianto's office, under the name 'MacLeish and Sons'. The fourth floor was also the archives, and Harry had used a number of strengthening spells on the floor to keep it from bowing under the weight. There were also some spells to make the archives bigger than they looked from the outside, which had made Ianto too happy for words.
Harry enjoyed his new job far more than he ever had his old one. He bonded with Lois on the first day over a box of doughnut holes and a thermos of tea, and spent evenings around the first floor conference table with Martha, Jack and, occasionally, Mickey, talking about people they'd met through the Doctor – both Martha and Jack had been a bit shocked to hear that the Doctor was travelling alone for a while, and had, almost in unison, berated Harry for holding on to his anger with the Doctor for so long. Every other day or so, Gwen would wander downstairs and ask Harry about parenting – he'd pointed out once that Jack had also been a dad, if she was looking for advice, but Gwen had just laughed at him – and they were joined at times by Martha and, surprisingly, Johnson. Mickey came down every Tuesday and sat with Harry for two hours, showing him things on the computer, since Harry hadn't grown up with computers and occasionally found himself confused about something.
Saturdays evenings, barring Rift spit-ups or Weevil sightings, the entire team went out to the pub and made a nuisance of themselves. Jack would tell them bad stories about his sex life with various beings in various time frames and the rest of them would talk about their home lives or whatever they spent their free time doing. Inadvertently, someone would get up to sing some really bad karaoke or there would be a pub quiz and their team would trounce everyone else.
Sunday dinner, Harry usually tried to spend at the Burrow, since he no longer saw any of his family at work. Even though only Hermione had even the faintest idea of what he did for a living anymore, everyone seemed to agree that Harry's new job was good for him, even if it was all the way down in Cardiff and had worse hours than the Department had.
-0-
Harry wasn't quite sure he knew what he was doing in front of the Rift monitor. Last he'd remembered, he'd been helping a customer in his shop.
Jack poked his head out of his office, looking horribly confused. "Harry? When did you get up here?"
"That's what I'm trying to figure out," Harry replied, shaking his head and considering the display in front of him. It looked like the Rift monitor had always looked, but there was also something ever so slightly wrong about it. "Is it just me, or had the Rift monitor gone wacky?"
Jack hurried over to look and cursed under his breath. "That's three times the Rift has opened in the past..." He froze, staring at the numbers on the screen that Harry hadn't been able to decipher. "Shit. Forget everyone missing three Rift openings, how have we lost seventeen hours?"
"Jack?" came the terrified voice of Lois over Jack's comm., which was in his pocket for some inexplicable reason.
Jack shoved it back into his ear. "Lo, what can I do for you?"
"Look outside," Lois replied.
Harry and Jack traded worried looks, then made for the roof access in the archives, since it was closer than the backdoor on the first floor.
They came across a frowning Ianto in the archives, files everywhere. "Someone messed up my filing system," the young man complained, shaking a folder at them. "Did one of you two do it?"
"We don't even know where we've been for the past seventeen hours," Harry replied drily, grabbing Ianto's arm and leading him after Jack to the roof access. "Unless you know otherwise, we could very well have been up here, playing with your toys."
Jack leapt out onto the roof and let out a string of curses in about ten different languages. When Ianto and Harry got out there, they followed suit by cursing in as many languages as they knew – four for Harry, six for Ianto.
Up in the sky, pulling ever closer to the Earth, was a giant red planet which looked to be made of molten lava.
"Which planet is that?" Ianto asked, turning to Jack.
"I don't know," Jack replied. And he didn't know everything – he admitted it often enough over mysterious alien tech – but he felt as though he should have known that planet.
"That's Gallifrey," Harry whispered, bile in the back of his throat. He'd once seen a picture of the planet in one of the books in the Doctor's room. He hadn't been able to read the book, but he'd seen the planet and had asked the Doctor about it.
"But, how can Gallifrey be here?" Jack hissed. "It's been time-locked!"
Harry turned to him, eyes wide. "I don't know!" He pulled at his hair. "Both of you, what do you remember before waking up moments ago? I was helping a customer pick out some flowers for her mother, who's in hospital for the holidays with a nasty head cold."
"I was doing some last-minute work on my computer," Ianto supplied. "Reading through the reports from yesterday. Or two days ago, now. I was getting ready to go by Rhi's house," he finished, meaning his sister's home, which he visited every other holiday or so, work depending.
"I was reading a book and listening to a vinyl Tosh got me a few years ago for Christmas that we recovered in the old Hub," Jack said, frowning. "And then... there was this..."
"This face," Ianto said, pale with remembering. "It was laughing."
Harry's eyes widened as he, too, remembered the face. The terrible, laughing face. He turned around and dry-heaved on the roof, mind filled again with that horrible laugh and that face that shared space in his nightmares with dementors and the Daleks.
"Harry?" Jack whispered, gently touching his shoulder. When Harry looked up at him, he saw the knowledge in his too-old eyes.
"The Master," they whispered together.
"Jack? Harry?" Ianto knelt on Harry's other side, looking worried. "Who is it?"
"Another Time Lord, like the Doctor, except so much more cruel," Jack answered while Harry forced the face from his mind. "We met him, once. He should be dead."
"You said Time Lords could regenerate," Ianto whispered.
"He chose not to," Harry supplied, standing and staring up at the red planet above them. "And his face would have changed if he'd regenerated, but that was the same Master. But how could he have made us loose seventeen hours?"
"CCTV?" Ianto suggested.
"There's nothing we can do about the planet," Jack agreed.
Harry nodded and they all hurried back into the Hub. They went to Ianto's computer, since it was the nearest, and replayed the CCTV from the past seventeen hours.
"I don't know which is more terrifying," Harry said when they were done, "the idea that he was able to turn us into him, or the fact that I can't remember anything I did during that time."
"Just be glad the stupid drumbeat didn't stick," Jack suggested tiredly.
Harry shuddered. "The Master's drums in my head. Now there's one mental problem I certainly don't want."
Ianto looked at them oddly, then glanced back towards the roof access. He blinked in surprise, then said, "It's leaving."
They all hurried to the doorway and watched as Gallifrey left back to the Time War. Jack solemnly saluted it and Harry did the same, thinking that it was the best he could do for his old friend's home world. The world that could never be again.
"Will you ever forgive him?" Jack asked, and Harry knew he meant the Doctor.
"I don't know," he replied. "Perhaps if he comes to me and apologises." He smiled sadly. "I'm not holding my breath." He turned back inside. "Well, I'm going to see if I can figure out what all I did to my computer. Also, see if there's anything to eat in the kitchen."
"Don't forget to make sure your shop is closed!" Ianto called after him and Harry waved his understanding.
-0-
The following section differs, depending on where you're reading this. There is a lemon if you're reading on HPFandom Net or LiveJournal. On FFN, there is only a kiss.
-0-
Harry heard the sound behind him, but he didn't bother looking to see. It had been four days since Gallifrey had filled the sky and the Master controlled all of Earth. Since then, Martha and Jack had both admitted to having seen the Doctor, and he'd heard a rumour that the blue box had shown up near Sarah Jane's house, but he and Sarah Jane weren't really on good enough terms for him to ask her – they talked less since he'd joined Torchwood.
The Time Lord leaned against the railing next to him and they both stood there for a long moment in silence, watching the boats in the Bay. Harry had come to enjoy visiting Cardiff Bay during his lunch breaks, and since he could cast a decent warming charm, the cold never bothered him.
Harry was just getting ready to head back towards the Hub – he didn't have an unlimited time for lunch, after all – when the Doctor whispered, "I'm sorry."
Harry glanced over at him and took in the exhausted appearance. The strain around his eyes. "You're dying," he realised, heart in his throat.
The Doctor offered him a faint, tired smile. "Radiation poisoning. Slow but explosive, I've been told."
Harry sighed and rested his head against the Doctor's arm. "Will you visit again? Once you've changed."
"Of course I'll visit!"
Harry cocked an eyebrow at him and the Doctor turned away.
Harry closed his eyes. "I'm sorry," he said.
The Doctor wrapped an arm around his shoulders. "Come inside for a bit?" he asked. "It's cold."
Harry nodded and let the Doctor led him into the TARDIS. Everything was just as he'd remembered it and he followed the Doctor back to his bedroom. There, next to the bed, the Doctor stopped them and turned and kissed Harry.
The kiss was somehow just like every kiss before, and yet nothing like a single kiss yet. It was filled with all the love and pain and wonder that was this Doctor, and Harry knew this kiss meant his time with the Doctor would soon be over. Soon, there would be a new face to get used to. New quirks.
But Harry wasn't ready to let go yet, and he reached up to slip the Doctor's jacket off. The Doctor seemed to understand – he always understood – and he helped Harry undress them both until they were naked and falling back onto the bed together. Their lips met again and Harry's hands roamed, wanting – needing – to remember the man beneath him. Because, soon, this man would be gone.
This Doctor's right ear had always been terribly sensitive and Harry nibbled it, breathing into the shell. The Doctor gasped and sighed, muted responses because he was already tired.
Tired, but not done fighting. Never done fighting.
Harry had learned a lubrication spell years ago, back when he first realised that the Doctor didn't keep such things in the TARDIS. (Harry had always guessed that there would be plenty of lube in Jack's room, but he'd never checked. Never asked – Jack would claim to have hordes of the stuff and Harry would forever wonder if he'd been telling the truth or not.) He cast the spell now and the Doctor leaned up, helped him centre his opening over the Doctor's cock. He slid down, somehow never needing any stretching to fit the Doctor, as if it was a perfect match.
Harry sometimes wondered if the spell helped in any way with that. He's never checked after looking it up the first time, never dared enough to go back to the bookstore and pull the book out again. He didn't need everyone wondering about his sex life.
The Doctor is content to let Harry set the pace, and Harry sets it slow. He wanted to hold on to this moment forever. He wanted to keep this man with him until the moment they both can die. He wanted to spend eternity with this man, who can break his heart with his lonely smile and make him wait forever for his touch.
The Doctor reached up, took Harry's arms and oh, so gently, pulled him down. They kissed again and it's just as terrible and wonderful as the last.
Slow and steady, but never slow enough. It seemed like no time at all had passed and Harry was whispering his Doctor's name against lips soon to be gone. His own name whispered back.
They laid there for a time – Harry lost track, but the Doctor never would – and then they finally crawled out together and got dressed and walked back out into the sunshine glinting off the Bay.
Harry wondered how much overtime his lunch had taken.
"Here." The Doctor held out a box wrapped in a red ribbon.
Harry smiled. "What's this, then? You've already missed my birthday, you know."
The Doctor smiled back and it didn't seem quite so tired. "A Christmas gift. Slightly late, I know..." He shrugged, hands in his coat pockets like they'd protect him.
"Should I open it now?" Harry asked.
"If you like," the Doctor agreed.
Harry took the ribbon off carefully and stuffed it in a pocket – he'd always taken care with his gifts, never wanting to be quite like Dudley had been as a boy. He opened the lid and stared inside at a gentle silver leaf on a cord of leather. An impossible shatter of diamond seemed stuck in the leaf, making it glint even more in the sun. He looked up at the Doctor and whispered, "What is it?"
The Doctor gently took it from his hands and slipped it around Harry's neck, letting it hang safely inside his shirt. "Gallifrey was called here using a Whitepoint Star. A diamond. When I sent it back, I had to destroy the diamond. That was all that was left."
"Is it safe, then?" Harry asked, touching the leaf under his shirt.
The Doctor smiled at him. "Yes. They'd needed the Master, too, but he's gone. It's nothing but pieces of a pretty stone, now."
"Stuck in a silver leaf," Harry said, cocking an eyebrow. "A leaf just like on Gallifrey. Doctor."
The Doctor's cheeks looked almost pink for a moment, as if he'd been blushing. "It's something my people give as a promise," he admitted. "Usually, the diamond isn't broken, but I didn't have a lot to work with."
Harry nodded, considering him. "And what's this promise, then?"
The Doctor shrugged and spoke that phrase in Gallifreyan and, for the first time, the phrase was translated in his mind. Harry gave the TARDIS a surprised look and could have sworn, for just a moment, that the light piece on her top winked at him.
"I should go. Couple more places to go," the Doctor said.
Harry nodded and took his tie, pulling the taller man down for a kiss. A last kiss full of goodbyes. An ending.
"I'll be back, Harry Potter," the Doctor promised, then turned and hurried back into the TARDIS.
Harry smiled to himself and touched the leaf under his shirt, trying out the Gallifreyan words that the Doctor always managed so flawlessly. His tongue stumbled over them and he sighed, shaking his head. He settled for the translation the TARDIS had given him, whispering it after the fading blue box, "Forever and throughout time, I will love you."
-0-0-0-
-0-0-0-
A/N: Fluff... *headkeyboard*
I don't know where the bloody necklace came from. It just sort of wrote itself.
Also, wrote that bit while rather exhausted. Any lack of sense can be blamed on that.
I'm probably going to wait to start the eleventh Doctor's series until the end of this season, at least. (End in the UK, specifically.) *le sigh* On the other hand, I might be willing to do a bit of an in between sort of fic, if I get enough requests for it. (And don't ask how many enough is, because I haven't the faintest.) Sort of a fic about Harry working for Torchwood. Could be fun. XD
LASTLY! I'm currently in the middle of a move back to the other side of the States. *headkeyboard* We're about half done with packing, and I've still got a pile of homework due this week. So, updates on ANYTHING will be slow in coming. Just so you know.
And, yes, I know. Most people waiting for updates don't read this fic. -.-
~Bats ^.^x
Harry & the Doctor Series:
Hanging By a Thread
Dust in the Sky Chapters:
One | Two | Three | Four | Five |Six
The Future Doesn't Scare Me Chapters:
One | Two | ???
The Perfect Sky is Torn Chapters:
One | Two | Three
DISCONTINUED
Adrenaline Rush
Part: 6 of 6
Author:
batsutousaiBeta:
tsuki_no_suzuRating: R
Pairings: Harry Potter/Tenth Doctor (Rose/Tenth Doctor, Martha/Tenth Doctor, Jack/Ianto and Jack/Tenth Doctor)
Warnings: Slash, minor Ginny!hate, brief slash scene near the end
Summary: Sequel to Hanging by a Thread. Harry has a life to live now with a wife and children, but he can still find time for the Doctor, no matter what he looks like.
Disclaim Her: Nope.
Sixth Part, first half
-0-
Once the government decided on which ten percent of the nation's children they would be giving to the aliens, Torchwood, Harry and Rhys put their own plan into effect: Rhys took a copy of the recordings they'd made with the contacts and ran for it. Jack and Ianto made their way towards Thames House, intending to lead the woman who'd taken Harry and Jack hostage to where Gwen, Clem and Harry were waiting with the continued recording by letting them trace their calls. Lois was asked to inform the government that Torchwood had them so Jack and Ianto could get in to talk to the 456.
As expected, the woman – Agent Sarah Johnson, according to the files they'd pulled up – and a team of men practically burst into the warehouse, guns at the ready. Harry moved quickly to one side as one of the men took up a position a little too close to where he'd been standing under his cloak. Clem was so surprised at the entrance he gave a shout and turned to face them, a little scared.
Gwen just smiled and looked around, completely confident in the reactions they'd expected, as well as the knowledge that Harry was about, somewhere, willing and able to pop in and protect her and Clem, if need be. "We’ve been expecting you," she said to Johnson.
"On the floor! Face down, hands on your head!" Johnson demanded.
Clem knelt and placed his hands above his head, but Gwen just kept smiling."You traced Ianto’s calls, did you?" she asked.
"On the floor!" Johnson shouted and Harry moved so he was between her and Gwen, since the bloody woman still had her weapon aimed at Gwen's head. Johnson couldn't see him, and neither could Gwen, which made Harry the perfect guard for the Welsh woman.
"And now that you’re here, you can take me to Alice and Steven Carter," Gwen commented, ever so calm, as if she didn't have a gun pointed at her head.
"You’ll be in the very next cell," Johnson said hotly. "On second thought, maybe I’ll just have you shot while resisting arrest."
"That would me a mistake."
"Why?"
"Take a look at what we’ve been recording."
Prime Minister Green's voice echoed as he insisted that Torchwood had been destroyed. Johnson stepped forward a bit, gun lowering to watch, and Harry stepped off to one side, keeping his eyes trained on her and his wand trained on the men around them who had yet to lower their weapons.
Gwen smiled. "What she’s telling them is my gorgeous husband has recordings of them all secretly agreeing to sacrifice millions of innocent children to the aliens. Now, him and his laptop, at this very moment, are in a secret location. And he’s ready to press send and tell the whole world what’s been going on, unless you do exactly as we say."
Johnson looked a bit surprised and not a little bit interested.
Gwen stood up from her chair. "Take a seat, maybe you’ll learn something about the people you’ve been working for." She took Clem's arm to help him to his own feet. "Come on, Clem."
Gwen pulled over a few chairs while Johnson took her's, waving for her men to stand down. They all sat – or, in Harry's case, stood behind the chairs, still invisible – and watched as Jack and Ianto spoke to the 456, telling them they couldn't have the kids, and that the 456 needed to get off the planet.
"You yielded in the past," the 456 said again and again, as if expecting that would change their minds.
Jack and Ianto suggested the 456 look at what they know of Earth and see how humans would react to the 456 taking their children. When the 456 laughed at it, Jack said, "We’re making this a war."
"Then the fight begins," the 456 replied.
"We’re waiting for your reply," Jack said when the aliens didn't say anything more.
"Action has been taken," the 456 said and the alarms of the building went off.
"What have you done?" Jack shouted.
"You wanted a demonstration of war. A virus has been released. It will kill everyone in the building."
Gwen turned to Johnson, looking panicked. "Can we override it?" she asked.
Johnson shook her head. "I don’t know."
Gwen turned back towards the room at large. "Harry, get them out of there!" she called.
Harry pulled off his cloak, making Clem and Johnson both jump in surprise and Gwen shake her head. "On it," he said and apparated into the room they could see from the camera.
When he got there, Ianto and Jack were both shooting at the glass cage the 456 was in. Harry threw a massive bubble charm over all three of them, cutting them off from the air in the rest of the building. "Bullet-proof glass," he commented, casting a spell to clear the air inside the bubble. "Now stop shooting or you'll let in more of the virus."
"You are dying, even now," the 456 said, then let out a horrible screeching noise.
Harry turned to Ianto and started scanning him for any virus, since Jack and Harry himself would be fine if it kept in their systems. He was vaguely aware of Jack ordering the 456 to stop the noise. Then Harry found the traces of the virus and, frowning in concentration, burned it away with magic.
Ianto gasped and clutched at his throat. Jack hurried forward and grabbed his arms. "Ianto?" he whispered.
Harry scanned Ianto again and nodded. "He's clean. Come here, Jack." When Jack stepped forward, Harry cleaned the virus out of his system as well, then cleaned himself, hissing at the burning pain that came with the healing. Silently, he thanked the Department for insisting they all be kept up to date on the newest in alien viruses and a good way to combat most new ones.
"Can you save anyone else?" Jack asked Harry, leaning against Ianto as the mortal wheezed a bit. Jack had recovered from the magic burn far faster than Ianto, and since it had been Harry's magic, it hadn't hurt him as bad.
Harry considered his scans. "Should be able to save one or two more," he agreed, handing Ianto a pain potion. Then he called a bit of the bubble charm around himself and carefully cut it away from the bubble protecting the other two. Once he was sure they'd all be okay, he ran from the room and out into the hall, looking for someone he could help.
Two floors down, he found a woman crouched in the stairwell, sobbing and hugging herself. He quickly threw up the bubble charm around her and cleared the air, then knelt, touching her shoulder. "Hey, look at me." She looked up at him, eyes bloodshot and filled with terror. "I can help. I can get rid of the virus in your body, but it's going to burn a bit. I need you to trust me."
She swallowed. "Who... Who are you?" she whispered.
"Harry Potter," Harry replied, flashing her a winning smile he may have stolen from Jack. When she nodded, eyes wide with something like disbelief, Harry pointed his wand at her and carefully burned the virus away. It took longer, since it had gotten further in her system, but he managed to get it all and handed her a pain potion, directing her to drink it, then continued down the stairs.
Everyone else he came across was dead and he leaned back against the wall in the lobby, pulling out his mobile. He rang Ianto's mobile.
"Tell me some good news," Jack asked.
"I saved one," Harry replied, running a hand through his hair and tugging on it. "The rest are dead. You two?"
"We're fine," Jack said. "Well, as fine as we can be while staring at a monster in a glass cage. It still seems to think we're about to die."
Harry nodded. "Might as well leave it to gloat, then," he said a bit drily. "The woman I found was about two levels below you in the stairwell. If you want to collect her, I'll see about clearing the air and unsealing the building so the cleanup teams can get in here."
Jack sighed. "You realise this means we've lost, right?" he said, and he sounded so, so very tired.
Harry smiled, staring down at the pile of dead bodies in front of the glass doors. "Oh, I don't think we've ever, really lost. Just a minor setback, really."
Jack laughed and it sounded hollow. "We'll meet you downstairs."
"I'll phone Gwen. Let her know we survived."
"Okay."
Harry hung up and dialled Gwen's number while he picked his way over to the security desk, winding between bodies with a heavy heart.
Gwen picked up on the second ring. "Harry!"
"Hey, Gwen. Jack and Ianto and I are alive. I'm going to try and clean the air in here."
"Can you do that?" Gwen asked.
"I've got a sonic screwdriver," Harry replied with a laugh as hollow as Jack's had been. "I can do anything. Are you lot okay? No funny moves from Johnson and her band of merry men?"
Gwen laughed. "No. But..." she trailed off.
Harry paused, sonic pointed at the controls, but not on. "Gwen?"
"Clem is dead. That sound from the 456 killed him."
Harry hissed out an angry breath. "Bastard." He turned the sonic on angrily and turned off the alarm. "You know, just once, I'd like to meet an alien not set on world destruction. Other than the Doctor, I mean. So bloody tired of aliens thinking they can shove us about and demand things and kill people..."
"I know," Gwen whispered. "I know."
Harry rubbed at his face, then used the sonic to fix the flashing red lights, since they were starting to give him a headache and he'd rather save his pain potions for an emergency. "I'm going to attack the air, then. We'll see you soon enough, I suppose. Yeah?"
"Yeah."
Harry hung up and turned his full attention to the controls. "Right. Fresh air without a bloody virus. Let's try that..."
"You're just going to let them take all those children?" Harry demanded, disbelievingly. "Use them as drugs? Have you no fucking hearts?"
"Major, you're not so important that I can't have you removed from here," General Pierce replied a bit sharply. He was American and not of UNIT, but he still held rank over both Harry and the highest-ranking UNIT man on the case, Colonel Oduya, so both answered to him.
Harry glared at him. No, he was, by no means, important to the operation, but when Jack and Ianto had been dragged off to prison and Gwen and Rhys had gone to protect Ianto's sister's children – a favour from their captors – Harry had turned to the UNIT soldiers who'd come to clear Thames House of the bodies and flashed his credentials, demanding he be allowed to see the commanding officer in charge of the mission. When he'd threatened to tell his own people the truth behind the 'inoculations' for the children if he wasn't allowed to sit in on the proceedings, he was told to sit in a chair in the corner and shut up, since no muggle really wanted to face an angry witch or wizard, guns or no guns.
Harry had never actually intended to shut up, though he'd made a good show of it until Colonel Oduya had asked the 456 what they used the children for and they found out the aliens treated them like some sort of drug.
"Don't you have any children of your own?" he asked, looking around the room. "Don't you have family you would want protected?"
Pierce turned to him, eyes cold. "And what would you have us do, Major? Fight an enemy that has so many advantages over us?"
"Better than letting our children be used like some alien plaything."
Pierce opened his mouth to retort and Harry's mobile went off. Glaring, Harry answered it, "Potter."
"Harry, I need your help to save the world," Jack said on the other end.
Harry smiled nastily at the room. "Good to know not everyone on this vile planet has given up hope," he said, then stalked from the room. "What do you need, Jack?"
Jack took a deep breath, then, "I need a child that won't be missed."
Harry stopped, balanced awkwardly during the process of taking a step. He stared ahead of him, thinking. A child that wouldn't be missed. A child that could be killed without anyone the wiser...
"Harry?" Jack said.
Harry started walking again. "You're sure this will work?"
"It's all we've got."
He nodded. "Where are you?"
"Where we were... detained," Jack offered distastefully. "Someone will meet you at the main entrance."
"No more forklifts?" Harry replied.
"Afraid not. And, Harry?"
"Yeah?"
"Please hurry."
Harry nodded and snapped his mobile closed, then apparated to an orphanage he knew of just outside London proper. A magical child had shown up there a few years ago and Harry had been a member of the auror team sent to deal with the damage caused by the child's temper once or twice. The living conditions weren't bad, but a few of the children had various disabilities that couldn't be fixed with the orphanage's budget as it was. And nobody wanted a damaged child.
"Miss Freeman?" Harry said, poking his head into the office of the orphanage's keeper.
A wide-eyed woman looked up at him. "Oh, it's your lot," she said tiredly. "Come to deal with the talking children?"
Harry nodded. "Something like that. A friend of mine is working on it, something different from these bloody 'inoculations' the government is yapping on about. But he needs a child to work with. Could I borrow one?"
"I suppose this would be the place you would come when trying to find a child no one cares about," Freeman agreed, pulling herself to her feet. "Keith would be the best choice, I think. He's been a bit crazy from the start. Likes to bite anything that comes in range, just to warn you. He's drawn blood more than a few times."
Harry nodded and followed the older woman up the stairs to a door. "Thank you," he said as she stopped outside the door. "I think I can manage Keith." He smiled.
Miss Freeman shrugged. "Suit yourself. And feel free to lose him or some such on your way back." She walked back down the hall, towards her office.
Harry took a deep breath and stepped into the room. A boy sat on the worn bed, smiling in a way that made Harry wonder why he hadn't been 'lost' yet. Miss Freeman wasn't known for her fondness for children – Harry had always wondered why she'd taken the job, but never asked – and it wasn't uncommon for a particularly difficult child in her care to go missing.
Harry shot a stunning spell at the boy, not willing to waste time talking to the child, then apparated them to the base. There, he was hurried through to a large space where Jack, Ianto and Johnson stood. "Found you a kid," he said with a forced smile.
"Put him on the platform," Jack ordered. "And can you wake him? I don't know if it's actually important, but..."
Harry nodded and set the boy on the platform. He bound him in ropes, then woke him, stepping quickly out of range. The boy immediately started biting the ropes, trying to get free. "She wasn't joking," he muttered to himself as he walked over to stand behind Jack. "I'd do it quick, if I were you. This kids is known for chewing through anything."
"This won't be pretty," Jack warned him, then hit a button.
The boy stopped chewing and started to scream an impossible sound. It was almost like the scream Harry had once heard over the phone, but, somehow, so much worse, because the sound shouldn't have been possible to come from a child's throat.
Then the boy started to vibrate. He vibrated with the horrible sound and blood ran from his ears and his nose. It was a horrible sight.
It looked like Harry would be 'losing' Keith, no matter his intentions.
When it was all over, when Keith had fallen silent and keeled over, they were quiet, staring at the child's body as if they expected it to get back up again and start gnawing at the ropes. But he never would. He was dead.
Torchwood and Harry Potter had killed one unwanted boy to save millions of children the world over. Harry wasn't sure who got the better deal.
"So, now what?" Gwen asked as they all sat down in her and Rhys' living room with tea or coffee. "We've saved the world and the Crown is perfectly willing to give us as much money as we'd like to rebuild." She waved about her mobile, which had received the call from said Crown.
"Aren't you tired of living underground?" Harry asked, considering them all over his mug. "I know I get sick of it after a while. But, hey, we've got magic windows out into the park or wherever."
"Secret organization," Jack replied automatically.
"And that necessitates an underground base?" Harry replied.
"Your own government does it," Jack pointed out.
"Hmm..." Harry considered his tea, then shrugged. "Magic people aren't ready to play around on the surface, and we tend to keep more quiet about ourselves. You lot sticker everything with a 'T' and drive around in a great big SUV with 'Torchwood' stamped on the sides. Everyone in Cardiff knows who you are. And they seem to have a pretty good idea about what you do, too. You're not particularly 'secret'."
"He's got a point," Ianto helpfully joined in.
Jack rolled his eyes. "That doesn't solve the problem about where our new base should be. If not under the Plass, then where? It needs to be somewhere close to the Rift."
"Does it?" Gwen asked, cocking her head to one side. "Tosh's Rift predictor program was saved, and most things come through away from the Hub, anyway."
"Might be good to move away from the Rift, anyway," Ianto commented. "Lest we get another member who decides to use the manipulator to open the Rift."
"Why not somewhere near the Plass, but not under it?" Gwen said thoughtfully. "Maybe connected to the tunnels under the Plass, so we can still get to the manipulator if we need to, but have a secure lock or some such on it. Use it only in emergencies."
"Is there a building near the Plass that's got enough space for us?" Jack asked, looking a little bemused.
"Aren't they building a new centre down Pierhead Street?" Rhys offered. "Lots of office space and everything. Bit of a high-rise, yeah? Supposed to be done in a couple months."
They all sort of stared at the man for a long moment before Jack jumped to his feet. "Show me."
Rhys sighed, but got up anyway. They all piled into the two cars they had and drove out past the Plass and down past Pierhead Street to where a building was being built. It was about four storeys high and had some impressive office space, as Rhys had said it did.
"This is posh," Gwen commented, considering the shiny exterior. "How hard would it be to take over a couple of offices and claim them as Torchwood?"
"How many offices are already bought?" Ianto replied and they all walked over to the listing on the side of the fence surrounding the building.
After some brief discussion and a lot of guesswork, they figured that about half the building was bought.
"So we buy the other half for Torchwood," Jack decided, clearly warming to the idea.
"We're going to put 'Torchwood' on the business label?" Gwen replied drily.
"It would look suspicious if half the building was owned by one company," Ianto commented.
"So buy it under a bunch of different names," Harry suggested. "Fake names, mind. Names that have something to do with Torchwood, but which people in the know might not catch."
"Like what?" Jack asked, leaning back against the fence and looking between the three others – Rhys had gone off to buy them all some lunch a few minutes into their guesswork.
"What was the name of the man who owned the Torchwood Estate before he died?" Harry asked, casting back to his memory of Rose telling him about the adventure. "Sir Robert MacLeish?"
"How do you know that?" Gwen demanded, looking a little impressed.
Harry glanced at Jack. "A flower told me about it," he said and Jack smiled. "Dame Rose?" he added as another suggestion.
"A flower shop?" Jack replied, though something in his face suggested he liked the idea.
"Yeah. Why not?" Gwen agreed.
"Who would staff it?" Ianto asked.
"We'd need more staff," Jack agreed, eyes firmly on Harry. "Know anyone looking for a job?"
"Well, there was that girl... Lois, I think? The one you lot got thrown in prison?" Harry suggested, grinning. "And you might finally be able to talk Martha and Mickey into joining when they get back from their honeymoon."
Jack nodded. "I seem to recall making that same offer to another member of UNIT."
Harry blinked in mock confusion. "Really? But it was only the four of us that day. Unless you mean Sarah Jane, but she doesn't like you..."
Gwen giggled and Jack rolled his eyes. "UNIT, also known as the Department," he offered, circling his hand as if waiting for Harry to finish his sentence.
Harry chuckled. "Jack, are you asking me to quit another job in the Ministry?"
"Yes," Jack deadpanned, tone turning a little serious. "Harry, if you hadn't been there, Ianto would be dead. Stephen would be dead. That woman in Thames House would be dead. That's three lives you saved."
"And one unloved boy died instead," Harry replied quietly.
"How many others would have died in his place if UNIT had been left to handle things alone?" Ianto offered gently.
Harry considered the hopeful look on Ianto and Gwen's faces and the pleading look on Jack's. He sighed and rubbed at his face. Sometimes, working in the Department was more paperwork than fun, he knew. Chasing Weevils with Jack on his days off had always been fun, and he'd almost started to live for those days, when he wasn't waiting for the Doctor.
He nodded. "I have conditions, however."
"Name them," Jack replied while Gwen cheered and Ianto smirked a bit.
"First, I'm not using a bloody gun," Harry said, waving his finger in Jack's face.
Jack sighed. "Well, it's not like you're not already armed."
Harry grinned and took out his wand. "Oh, this?"
Jack chuckled and waggled his eyebrows.
Harry rolled his eyes. "Second, unless it's the apocalypse, I get Saturday mornings off. Until about two. I'll come in for the apocalypse."
Jack nodded. "I think I can do that."
"Can I call a day to have off every week?" Gwen asked, taking a hot dog from Rhys.
"Sure," Jack agreed with a smile that screamed danger. "What do you plan to do with it?"
Gwen considered that, then looked at Harry, who was thanking Rhys for his own hot dog. "What will you use that time for?"
"Visiting my kids," Harry replied promptly, eyes dark. "I lost what little family I had because I loved my job too much; I'm not losing the rest of them to run around Cardiff, chasing Weevils."
"Oh." Gwen blinked in surprise. "I'm sorry, Harry."
Harry shrugged. "I see them every Saturday. And, really, it's true that you never know what you have until you lose it. I treasure them a lot more knowing that they don't live in the same house with me." He sighed and nodded to Gwen's stomach. "Don't let yourself get so caught up in your job that you lose what's really important in this world."
Gwen nodded, wide-eyed.
Jack cleared his throat. "Just two conditions?"
Harry smirked, then. "One last one," he promised. "If you try getting into my trousers, I reserve the right to use whatever spell comes to mind first on you."
Jack blinked once, then nodded very, very slowly. "Right." He coughed and rubbed at his chin. "Mental note made. Welcome to the team."
After they got a bit of glee out of their system, Jack asked, "Have any more names for Torchwood to go under, Harry? You seem to be on a roll."
Harry grinned. "I think I can come up with a couple more."
As far as anyone, even the builders, knew, six different companies moved into the empty offices in the building. The only thing the offices had in common was that they signed on within days of each other and, once the building was open for business, were rarely open. Both Dame Rose, the flower shop, and Koh-i-Nor, the jewellers, would open occasionally. But the shops on the upper floors, such as the law office and the gay services office, never seemed to be open, but they also seemed the sorts to do private business. The computer repair shop on the third floor, Sir Doctor, was open every Saturday morning, but never seemed to get any real business.
And as for 'The Hub'? Well, no one knew what it was for, and few were willing to ask any questions of the sharp-eyed woman with a cold smile that sometimes sat the reception desk.
In reality, the group of offices had all been interconnected by Harry after he, Jack, Ianto and Gwen poured over building schematics for two weeks. Before they even invited the rest of their new team in after the building opened – including Mickey, Martha, Lois and Sarah Johnson – Harry took to it with his magic. He'd completely cut out the centre of the building on the bottom three floors, so they could see down into the first floor, where the conference table sat. Along the back wall was a switch that operated the lift up to the fourth floor and down to the basement that Harry had added on, which housed the cages for aliens and the secured door to the tunnels that led to the old Hub. (The secured door required the retinal scans and pass codes of everyone on the staff, and Harry had worked with Mickey after the rest of the team had gotten to the Hub to make sure that not even his sonic screwdriver could by-pass the lock.)
Everyone had their workstation in the same general area as their supposed business: Harry's desk sat just behind the door into the flower shop he "owned". A bit of magic had given him something of a see-through wall, so he was able to keep his shop open without actually being in the shop. He'd surrounded his desk with the flowers he sold, and had added various alien and magical baubles next to the computer monitor so it felt a bit more like home. A door off to the side of his shop opened into another room filled with plants, but those were alien, and Harry was forced to weekly assure Jack that no one had been sold any alien plants.
Lois Habiba worked next door to Harry at her jewellery shop – it turned out that making jewellery was one of her passions – and a magic window like Harry's had allowed her to also keep her shop open as often as possible. Her own desk was mostly covered in papers, but Harry kept her stocked with a bouquet of yellow roses every week, to add a bit more colour. To the side of her shop was the kitchen, which Lois and Harry took weekly turns keeping stocked with snacks for their co-workers. Ianto frequented it to make coffee for the group, but Harry always made his own tea. (He'd almost converted Lois back to tea, as well, much to his delight. It helped that Ianto threatened horrible things to anyone who touched his coffee machine.)
On the second floor was 'The Hub', which was run by Martha, Johnson – Harry could never bring himself to call her by her first name – and, when she wasn't on maternity leave, Gwen, with their three desks. The second floor contained the closed-in autopsy bay for Martha and the armoury and shooting range, which Johnson was in charge of. (Harry had gone all out on silencing wards on the shooting range, which allowed them to practise at all hours without a worry about who else might be in the building. Most of the team appreciated the ability to practise at all hours, though Harry, Lois and Martha never used it – Harry was the only one who had never had to learn how to use a gun, though not from a lack of trying on Johnson's part.) The second floor also housed the toilets, showers and locker rooms for the female members of the team.
The third floor housed 'Sir Doctor', Mickey's shop, and 'The Host', Jack's shop. Since Jack's shop was never really open, he'd been able to use his entire shop as his office, as well as his quarters, and he'd managed to talk Harry into making the walls of said office glass, so he could always keep an eye on his people. Between his office and Mickey's technology-heavy workstation was the Rift monitor, which had been hooked up to a silent alarm of flashing lights and a quiet buzz that went off at each person's computer. The men's toilets, showers and locker rooms were up there, as well as the interrogation rooms and a second, closed-in conference room.
The fourth floor was Ianto's office, under the name 'MacLeish and Sons'. The fourth floor was also the archives, and Harry had used a number of strengthening spells on the floor to keep it from bowing under the weight. There were also some spells to make the archives bigger than they looked from the outside, which had made Ianto too happy for words.
Harry enjoyed his new job far more than he ever had his old one. He bonded with Lois on the first day over a box of doughnut holes and a thermos of tea, and spent evenings around the first floor conference table with Martha, Jack and, occasionally, Mickey, talking about people they'd met through the Doctor – both Martha and Jack had been a bit shocked to hear that the Doctor was travelling alone for a while, and had, almost in unison, berated Harry for holding on to his anger with the Doctor for so long. Every other day or so, Gwen would wander downstairs and ask Harry about parenting – he'd pointed out once that Jack had also been a dad, if she was looking for advice, but Gwen had just laughed at him – and they were joined at times by Martha and, surprisingly, Johnson. Mickey came down every Tuesday and sat with Harry for two hours, showing him things on the computer, since Harry hadn't grown up with computers and occasionally found himself confused about something.
Saturdays evenings, barring Rift spit-ups or Weevil sightings, the entire team went out to the pub and made a nuisance of themselves. Jack would tell them bad stories about his sex life with various beings in various time frames and the rest of them would talk about their home lives or whatever they spent their free time doing. Inadvertently, someone would get up to sing some really bad karaoke or there would be a pub quiz and their team would trounce everyone else.
Sunday dinner, Harry usually tried to spend at the Burrow, since he no longer saw any of his family at work. Even though only Hermione had even the faintest idea of what he did for a living anymore, everyone seemed to agree that Harry's new job was good for him, even if it was all the way down in Cardiff and had worse hours than the Department had.
Harry wasn't quite sure he knew what he was doing in front of the Rift monitor. Last he'd remembered, he'd been helping a customer in his shop.
Jack poked his head out of his office, looking horribly confused. "Harry? When did you get up here?"
"That's what I'm trying to figure out," Harry replied, shaking his head and considering the display in front of him. It looked like the Rift monitor had always looked, but there was also something ever so slightly wrong about it. "Is it just me, or had the Rift monitor gone wacky?"
Jack hurried over to look and cursed under his breath. "That's three times the Rift has opened in the past..." He froze, staring at the numbers on the screen that Harry hadn't been able to decipher. "Shit. Forget everyone missing three Rift openings, how have we lost seventeen hours?"
"Jack?" came the terrified voice of Lois over Jack's comm., which was in his pocket for some inexplicable reason.
Jack shoved it back into his ear. "Lo, what can I do for you?"
"Look outside," Lois replied.
Harry and Jack traded worried looks, then made for the roof access in the archives, since it was closer than the backdoor on the first floor.
They came across a frowning Ianto in the archives, files everywhere. "Someone messed up my filing system," the young man complained, shaking a folder at them. "Did one of you two do it?"
"We don't even know where we've been for the past seventeen hours," Harry replied drily, grabbing Ianto's arm and leading him after Jack to the roof access. "Unless you know otherwise, we could very well have been up here, playing with your toys."
Jack leapt out onto the roof and let out a string of curses in about ten different languages. When Ianto and Harry got out there, they followed suit by cursing in as many languages as they knew – four for Harry, six for Ianto.
Up in the sky, pulling ever closer to the Earth, was a giant red planet which looked to be made of molten lava.
"Which planet is that?" Ianto asked, turning to Jack.
"I don't know," Jack replied. And he didn't know everything – he admitted it often enough over mysterious alien tech – but he felt as though he should have known that planet.
"That's Gallifrey," Harry whispered, bile in the back of his throat. He'd once seen a picture of the planet in one of the books in the Doctor's room. He hadn't been able to read the book, but he'd seen the planet and had asked the Doctor about it.
"But, how can Gallifrey be here?" Jack hissed. "It's been time-locked!"
Harry turned to him, eyes wide. "I don't know!" He pulled at his hair. "Both of you, what do you remember before waking up moments ago? I was helping a customer pick out some flowers for her mother, who's in hospital for the holidays with a nasty head cold."
"I was doing some last-minute work on my computer," Ianto supplied. "Reading through the reports from yesterday. Or two days ago, now. I was getting ready to go by Rhi's house," he finished, meaning his sister's home, which he visited every other holiday or so, work depending.
"I was reading a book and listening to a vinyl Tosh got me a few years ago for Christmas that we recovered in the old Hub," Jack said, frowning. "And then... there was this..."
"This face," Ianto said, pale with remembering. "It was laughing."
Harry's eyes widened as he, too, remembered the face. The terrible, laughing face. He turned around and dry-heaved on the roof, mind filled again with that horrible laugh and that face that shared space in his nightmares with dementors and the Daleks.
"Harry?" Jack whispered, gently touching his shoulder. When Harry looked up at him, he saw the knowledge in his too-old eyes.
"The Master," they whispered together.
"Jack? Harry?" Ianto knelt on Harry's other side, looking worried. "Who is it?"
"Another Time Lord, like the Doctor, except so much more cruel," Jack answered while Harry forced the face from his mind. "We met him, once. He should be dead."
"You said Time Lords could regenerate," Ianto whispered.
"He chose not to," Harry supplied, standing and staring up at the red planet above them. "And his face would have changed if he'd regenerated, but that was the same Master. But how could he have made us loose seventeen hours?"
"CCTV?" Ianto suggested.
"There's nothing we can do about the planet," Jack agreed.
Harry nodded and they all hurried back into the Hub. They went to Ianto's computer, since it was the nearest, and replayed the CCTV from the past seventeen hours.
"I don't know which is more terrifying," Harry said when they were done, "the idea that he was able to turn us into him, or the fact that I can't remember anything I did during that time."
"Just be glad the stupid drumbeat didn't stick," Jack suggested tiredly.
Harry shuddered. "The Master's drums in my head. Now there's one mental problem I certainly don't want."
Ianto looked at them oddly, then glanced back towards the roof access. He blinked in surprise, then said, "It's leaving."
They all hurried to the doorway and watched as Gallifrey left back to the Time War. Jack solemnly saluted it and Harry did the same, thinking that it was the best he could do for his old friend's home world. The world that could never be again.
"Will you ever forgive him?" Jack asked, and Harry knew he meant the Doctor.
"I don't know," he replied. "Perhaps if he comes to me and apologises." He smiled sadly. "I'm not holding my breath." He turned back inside. "Well, I'm going to see if I can figure out what all I did to my computer. Also, see if there's anything to eat in the kitchen."
"Don't forget to make sure your shop is closed!" Ianto called after him and Harry waved his understanding.
The following section differs, depending on where you're reading this. There is a lemon if you're reading on HPFandom Net or LiveJournal. On FFN, there is only a kiss.
-0-
Harry heard the sound behind him, but he didn't bother looking to see. It had been four days since Gallifrey had filled the sky and the Master controlled all of Earth. Since then, Martha and Jack had both admitted to having seen the Doctor, and he'd heard a rumour that the blue box had shown up near Sarah Jane's house, but he and Sarah Jane weren't really on good enough terms for him to ask her – they talked less since he'd joined Torchwood.
The Time Lord leaned against the railing next to him and they both stood there for a long moment in silence, watching the boats in the Bay. Harry had come to enjoy visiting Cardiff Bay during his lunch breaks, and since he could cast a decent warming charm, the cold never bothered him.
Harry was just getting ready to head back towards the Hub – he didn't have an unlimited time for lunch, after all – when the Doctor whispered, "I'm sorry."
Harry glanced over at him and took in the exhausted appearance. The strain around his eyes. "You're dying," he realised, heart in his throat.
The Doctor offered him a faint, tired smile. "Radiation poisoning. Slow but explosive, I've been told."
Harry sighed and rested his head against the Doctor's arm. "Will you visit again? Once you've changed."
"Of course I'll visit!"
Harry cocked an eyebrow at him and the Doctor turned away.
Harry closed his eyes. "I'm sorry," he said.
The Doctor wrapped an arm around his shoulders. "Come inside for a bit?" he asked. "It's cold."
Harry nodded and let the Doctor led him into the TARDIS. Everything was just as he'd remembered it and he followed the Doctor back to his bedroom. There, next to the bed, the Doctor stopped them and turned and kissed Harry.
The kiss was somehow just like every kiss before, and yet nothing like a single kiss yet. It was filled with all the love and pain and wonder that was this Doctor, and Harry knew this kiss meant his time with the Doctor would soon be over. Soon, there would be a new face to get used to. New quirks.
But Harry wasn't ready to let go yet, and he reached up to slip the Doctor's jacket off. The Doctor seemed to understand – he always understood – and he helped Harry undress them both until they were naked and falling back onto the bed together. Their lips met again and Harry's hands roamed, wanting – needing – to remember the man beneath him. Because, soon, this man would be gone.
This Doctor's right ear had always been terribly sensitive and Harry nibbled it, breathing into the shell. The Doctor gasped and sighed, muted responses because he was already tired.
Tired, but not done fighting. Never done fighting.
Harry had learned a lubrication spell years ago, back when he first realised that the Doctor didn't keep such things in the TARDIS. (Harry had always guessed that there would be plenty of lube in Jack's room, but he'd never checked. Never asked – Jack would claim to have hordes of the stuff and Harry would forever wonder if he'd been telling the truth or not.) He cast the spell now and the Doctor leaned up, helped him centre his opening over the Doctor's cock. He slid down, somehow never needing any stretching to fit the Doctor, as if it was a perfect match.
Harry sometimes wondered if the spell helped in any way with that. He's never checked after looking it up the first time, never dared enough to go back to the bookstore and pull the book out again. He didn't need everyone wondering about his sex life.
The Doctor is content to let Harry set the pace, and Harry sets it slow. He wanted to hold on to this moment forever. He wanted to keep this man with him until the moment they both can die. He wanted to spend eternity with this man, who can break his heart with his lonely smile and make him wait forever for his touch.
The Doctor reached up, took Harry's arms and oh, so gently, pulled him down. They kissed again and it's just as terrible and wonderful as the last.
Slow and steady, but never slow enough. It seemed like no time at all had passed and Harry was whispering his Doctor's name against lips soon to be gone. His own name whispered back.
They laid there for a time – Harry lost track, but the Doctor never would – and then they finally crawled out together and got dressed and walked back out into the sunshine glinting off the Bay.
Harry wondered how much overtime his lunch had taken.
"Here." The Doctor held out a box wrapped in a red ribbon.
Harry smiled. "What's this, then? You've already missed my birthday, you know."
The Doctor smiled back and it didn't seem quite so tired. "A Christmas gift. Slightly late, I know..." He shrugged, hands in his coat pockets like they'd protect him.
"Should I open it now?" Harry asked.
"If you like," the Doctor agreed.
Harry took the ribbon off carefully and stuffed it in a pocket – he'd always taken care with his gifts, never wanting to be quite like Dudley had been as a boy. He opened the lid and stared inside at a gentle silver leaf on a cord of leather. An impossible shatter of diamond seemed stuck in the leaf, making it glint even more in the sun. He looked up at the Doctor and whispered, "What is it?"
The Doctor gently took it from his hands and slipped it around Harry's neck, letting it hang safely inside his shirt. "Gallifrey was called here using a Whitepoint Star. A diamond. When I sent it back, I had to destroy the diamond. That was all that was left."
"Is it safe, then?" Harry asked, touching the leaf under his shirt.
The Doctor smiled at him. "Yes. They'd needed the Master, too, but he's gone. It's nothing but pieces of a pretty stone, now."
"Stuck in a silver leaf," Harry said, cocking an eyebrow. "A leaf just like on Gallifrey. Doctor."
The Doctor's cheeks looked almost pink for a moment, as if he'd been blushing. "It's something my people give as a promise," he admitted. "Usually, the diamond isn't broken, but I didn't have a lot to work with."
Harry nodded, considering him. "And what's this promise, then?"
The Doctor shrugged and spoke that phrase in Gallifreyan and, for the first time, the phrase was translated in his mind. Harry gave the TARDIS a surprised look and could have sworn, for just a moment, that the light piece on her top winked at him.
"I should go. Couple more places to go," the Doctor said.
Harry nodded and took his tie, pulling the taller man down for a kiss. A last kiss full of goodbyes. An ending.
"I'll be back, Harry Potter," the Doctor promised, then turned and hurried back into the TARDIS.
Harry smiled to himself and touched the leaf under his shirt, trying out the Gallifreyan words that the Doctor always managed so flawlessly. His tongue stumbled over them and he sighed, shaking his head. He settled for the translation the TARDIS had given him, whispering it after the fading blue box, "Forever and throughout time, I will love you."
-0-0-0-
A/N: Fluff... *headkeyboard*
I don't know where the bloody necklace came from. It just sort of wrote itself.
Also, wrote that bit while rather exhausted. Any lack of sense can be blamed on that.
I'm probably going to wait to start the eleventh Doctor's series until the end of this season, at least. (End in the UK, specifically.) *le sigh* On the other hand, I might be willing to do a bit of an in between sort of fic, if I get enough requests for it. (And don't ask how many enough is, because I haven't the faintest.) Sort of a fic about Harry working for Torchwood. Could be fun. XD
LASTLY! I'm currently in the middle of a move back to the other side of the States. *headkeyboard* We're about half done with packing, and I've still got a pile of homework due this week. So, updates on ANYTHING will be slow in coming. Just so you know.
And, yes, I know. Most people waiting for updates don't read this fic. -.-
~Bats ^.^x
Hanging By a Thread
Dust in the Sky Chapters:
One | Two | Three | Four | Five |
The Future Doesn't Scare Me Chapters:
One | Two | ???
The Perfect Sky is Torn Chapters:
One | Two | Three
DISCONTINUED
Adrenaline Rush
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no subject
Date: 24/5/10 06:00 (UTC)You made me like Dr. Who!!!! That is simply amazing and I was waiting with bated breath for each update. You should be very impressed with your writing ability because when I first saw this I dismissed it and was not going to read it (goodness knows that I have enough in my to-read folder without reading any additional Dr. Who crap). Then I was like "Wait this is Bats!, I should at least give it a try." Then poof here I am at the end of all things. XD
Thank you so much for sharing this and your ideas! ^_^
btw:
There's even a faction that thinks I should be getting it on with Voldemort! Voldemort I tell you!
lol! Brillant as always, I have missed you and your humor so much.
Good Luck Moving!
no subject
Date: 24/5/10 06:52 (UTC)But I guess you can tell how much I liked this if you converted me into watching a scifi show.
The ending here is really nice, in a sad way (the necklace was like a proposal, right? that was the impression I got from it).
I see you poked fun at yourself. That made me giggle. I wonder how many ffn people will get the joke.
good luck on the move, but please try to not take too long keeping us hanging.
no subject
Date: 24/5/10 07:34 (UTC)no subject
Date: 24/5/10 14:39 (UTC)no subject
Date: 25/5/10 18:41 (UTC)OH!! And here's a request for the Harry working with Torchwood fic~ XD
no subject
Date: 31/5/10 17:12 (UTC)no subject
Date: 25/6/10 19:30 (UTC)no subject
Date: 1/6/11 13:25 (UTC)(and as you gave us pictures of the new hub as you see it, i thought it would be interesting to do it in 3d with a game like sims3 or something. sooooo here we are: i have to try it to stop myself to thing about it all the time . i almost finished and going to post the link to the house here with your permission when i upload it on sims3 site)
no subject
Date: 1/6/11 17:22 (UTC)That sounds super duper exciting. You'll have to link me when they're up. Might actually get me to download Sims 3 on this computer. (Or, erm, wait. That could be a bad thing... ^.^")