Eye Witness

Author: Soledad

For disclaimer, rating, etc. see the Introduction.

Author's notes: This tale has now come to an end. Look out for "Coffee Breaks", a series of loosely connected Tosh-Ianto friendship stories that might be seen as some kind of sequel.

Epilogue

As promised, Jack arrived with the first available UNIT-helicopter on the next day to help secure the Archives. UNIT, too, had called in even more squads to deal with the aftermath, and Jack did have the one or other confrontation with various UNIT officers about ownership and jurisdiction when it came to the accumulated research data and all kinds of technology.

Most frequently with a certain Captain Marion Price, who – as a member of the Royal Engineers – was understandably interested in every piece of alien tech her subordinates came across. She was a lot less cooperative than Captain Magambo, and even got serious support from her superior, the commanding officer of UNIT's London headquarters, a Colonel Mace.

Things got so tense so quickly, that in the end, Jack saw no other solution than to call the Brigadier and ask him to tell Mace and her pet captain to back off – something that he did only reluctantly, because one's big gun was only effective when used very sparsely. But he was not going to let the obviously trigger-happy Captain Price play around with a particle cannon or any of the dangerous, alien-originated weapons under use or examination at Torchwood One.

Since Torchwood Three had no real use for such weapons, he ordered all of it to be put into storage, sealing said storage with a time lock. One that would only release them when the crucial moment of the twenty-first century – the one in which everything was going to change – would arrive.

Even with the additional help, clean-up took weeks. Jack sent Suzie back to Cardiff to maintain the base with Archie's help (and to pray for a nice, quite time, without any considerable Rift activity). Tosh, Owen and himself remained at what was left of Headquarters to salvage what they could.

Which almost turned out more than they had bargained for.

There had been no need for Tosh to lock down the physical Archives as well, since Jack had arrived just in time to keep UNIT out of them. But the cataloguing system was insanely confusing (unless one knew the basics upon which it had been built, which they did not), and they could not make heads or tails of it.

It would have been helpful to find a surviving archivist, but with that, they had no luck. Only twenty-seven of the eight-hundred-and-some Torchwood One employees had survived, in various stages of injury, shock and mental breakdown. And the only archivist among them, Ianto Jones, had vanished from the radar, right after having his injuries patched up and helped with the identification of the victims. As preliminary psychology tests had found him remarkably stable and coping well enough – which in itself should have been suspicious, but the medical staff had been overworked and glad to have him off their hair – the shrinks saw no reason to keep him under observation… and no-one could tell where he had gone.

"Well, that can't be helped now," Jack decided with a frustrated sigh. "We'll have to load all this stuff on a truck – well, on several trucks as the case may be – and ship everything off to Cardiff. There we'll see it through, boy by box, and eventually transfer whatever we don't need to Torchwood House."

"And we should take the trucks and the drivers from … where exactly?" Owen asked with an ironically raised eyebrow.

"We can confiscate the remaining vehicles of Headquarters," Tosh suggested, "and if you're nice enough to Captain Magambo, Jack, she might allow you to borrow a couple of drivers from UNIT. She's a little more reasonable than Captain Price."

"She won't stay that way much longer; not after she realizes we've Retconned those drivers," Owen prophesized darkly.

"We'll have to dose the Retcon very carefully," Jack agreed. "Use a very mild dose that would allow them to remember that they delivered to us, but not the location itself. It wouldn't do if they suddenly developed a memory loss worth an hour or so. As long as they forget where exactly they had brought the stuff, I'll be content."

"Fortunately, Suzie is the best of us at Retconning," Tosh said. "Where do you want the Archives to be brought anyway?"

"We've got a couple of half-empty warehouses all across Cardiff," Jack explained. "There's nothing but a few personal items of deceased Torchwood members in each. That would serve well enough as camouflage. Still, it's better when the drives don't remember where each of them is."

"What will become of the survivors?" Owen asked.

Jack shrugged. "They're not my responsibility. Once we've disposed of those alien bodies in the cells, I'm gonna wash my hands over Torchwood London."

"I think you're being a little too cavalier about the whole issue," Tosh said quietly.

Jack whirled around and gave her an incredulous look. "I beg your pardon?"

Tosh paled considerably but did not back off. This was the first time ever that she would stand up to Jack – until now, she had always avoided any possible confrontation, out of gratitude towards Jack, who had, after all, saved her from that UNIT prison; and also out of a healthy amount of fear, as she knew all too well how dangerous Jack could be. But this time she felt she could not remain silent.

"I think that they are your responsibility all right," she said with a barely trembling voice. "With Yvonne gone, you are the de facto leader of Torchwood; Archie is a good guy, but he clearly doesn't count. You're the only one who could and should take care of those twenty-seven people… well, only twenty-six now, as Mr. Jones has obviously taken matters into his own hands."

"I don't want to have anything to do with Yvonne's leftovers," Jack said harshly. "They've always despised me, and let me tell you, the feeling was mutual."

"I understand that," Tosh replied steadily. "But Jack, these 'leftovers' as you call them, are people. Young and brilliant people who gave their absolute best for Torchwood, and what happened wasn't their fault!"

"Yeah, we all saw where their best had got them… and the rest of the planet," Jack returned. Tosh rolled her eyes.

"You're being unfair, and I think you know that. I cannot speak for all eighth-hundred-and-some people working for Headquarters, but I definitely know that Rajesh and Trevor, at the very least, were not driven by any fanatic dreams about a new British Empire. They were scientists who wanted to learn – they worked with what was considered to be all the necessary precautions for handling unknown technology. I've seen their lab; I know they were careful."

"Well, apparently not careful enough," Owen commented dryly.

"Sure," Tosh agreed. "The only way to be safe without knowing all possible dangers that might be involved would be – not to handle the stuff at all."

"Then that's what they should have done," Jack said.

"But that's simply not feasible when your purpose is scientific discovery, and we both know that," Tosh pointed out. "Big disasters are always happening in areas where scientific or technological innovations are tested."

"Not in this magnitude, they aren't," Jack countered.

"True," Tosh allowed. "But no-one has ever worked with such completely alien technology before. They didn't have your knowledge of future tech, but it doesn't mean that they would have wilfully ignored known and understood dangers. They did their best working with insufficient data – and they screwed up big time, I won't deny that. It didn't happen because of blind ignorance, though."

"Look, Tosh," Owen interfered, "we all know you've had a bit of a thing running with Singh, but…"

"My… thing with Rajesh, as you call it, has nothing to do with the facts how scientific headway is achieved," Tosh said icily. "Whatever we had, and it's in no way your business, doesn't influence my opinion about Headquarters any more than Jack's personal hatred towards Yvonne influences his. I'm a scientist. I work with facts."

"And the fact is that One fucked up royally and we should never allow anything to go so terribly wrong ever again," Jack said. "Which is why I would never hire anyone who used to work for One."

"Fine," Tosh replied tiredly. "Be an ignorant fool. I'm sure UNIT and other government agencies, not to mention various universities, will see the situation in a more reasonable light. Trevor and the others will be offered the best possible jobs, and I'm glad about that, because they deserve it. But that still doesn't release you from the responsibility towards those who need our help. Torchwood's help."

"I happen to see it differently," Jack said coolly.

Tosh shrugged. "That's your choice; it still won't change the facts. Now, if you don't need me here any longer today, I'd have a few personal things to deal with."

"And they would be?" Owen inquired with a crooked grin.

"Private," Tosh answered coldly; then, with a glance at Jack, she added. "It will be in my report."

Jack nodded. "Go. But I'll need you back in Cardiff by tomorrow."

"That's all right," Tosh said. "I'll take the night train."

She picked up her laptop and left, without even looking back.

Trevor Howard had spent almost a fortnight in the hospital. The doctors wanted to be certain that his concussion, combined with several hairline fractures of the skull, a couple of bruised ribs and a dislocated shoulder, wouldn't lead to any lasting damage. He tried to kill his time with reading, but the splitting headaches did not let him do it for any longer than twenty minutes, tops. Watching the telly was even worse. So he simply lay in his darkened room and tried to sleep the days away.

It was incredibly boring, with his recurring nightmares being the only distraction… and not a pleasant one.

The visitors represented some more welcome distraction in the monotony. The UNIT counsellor came and left after two sessions, since he knew how to give the right answers to get rid of her in the shortest possible time. With basic psychic training all Torchwood employees had received, it wasn't really hard, and he was glad to see her go. He hated when people tried to poke around in his head; besides, she couldn't really help him in any way.

On the second day, Jonesy slipped into his room for a short visit, but did not stay long. Trevor didn't blame him for wanting to vanish from the radar. Had he been capable of leaving, he would have escaped the unwanted attention as well. An archivist had even more reason to take dive in the faceless masses; especially the only remaining one.

The third visitor was the young cousin of Adeola; a lovely medicine student by the name of Martha Jones. Now that was a visit he had most appreciated. Not only was Martha a pretty and kind person, she was also the first outsider with whom he could talk about the tragic events without feeling the urge to go into defensive mode. They hit off at once, and from that day on, she came back every morning to see him.

He also received a visitor from UNIT: a pretty blonde officer in the rank of a captain, with the badge of the Royal Engineers on her collar – Marion Price. She had come to offer him a job at a UNIT's engineering research facility, and Trevor, after about a day of consideration, accepted it. What other chance did he have? With the amount of confidential knowledge that he possessed, a job outside of any government agencies would only have been possible for him if ha had accepted a massive dose of Retcon. Which, considering that he had worked for Torchwood One for almost eight years, would have reduced him to vegetable state, so it was not an option. So he chose to flee forward.

Captain Harkness from Torchwood Three, now the unofficial leader of the whole organization, did not pay him a visit, and frankly, Trevor was thankful for that. He had only met the 'freak from Cardiff' once, but he was fairly sure that they would never get along too well. Trevor was not fond of people with the personality of a steamroller. He preferred to work with people like the late Doctor Singh, or like his immediate superior at Cybernetics – sadly, also deceased.

But he was very happy when Torchwood Three's Doctor Sato had come to see him, right before his release from the hospital. He had only known her for a short time, as the not-quite-girlfriend of Doctor Singh, but he had come to like her very much… on a completely platonic level. She and Doctor Singh would have been a good match, both being quiet, reserved, friendly and brilliant – if only they would have got the chance to make it work.

How someone like her could work with Captain Harkness was a mystery beyond Trevor's understanding.

Nonetheless, he was glad that she could find the time to visit him – and not only because they could speak of Doctor Singh and the others and come to some sort of closure. There was one more thing he needed to take care of; an important thing that was beyond his current ability to handle, but he hoped it was not beyond hers.

"There's something I want to give you," he said in a low voice, so that eventual listening devices wouldn't pick it up, and handed her a small data storage device; and advanced one, developed by Torchwood One and used only there. "Jonesy has come by and dropped it off, but I think you'll be in a better position to use it."

"What is it?" Toshiko asked suspiciously.

"Nothing that could get you in trouble, or at least I hope so," Trevor answered. "Access codes of passwords to certain Torchwood funds, selected for Human Resources. The few of us survivors still capable of working will do well enough for ourselves, I think, but the rest – and the families of those who've died at Canary Wharf – will need help. I'm not good with finances and organization, especially not with UNIT looking over my shoulder, which they certainly will do in the first times, and those are the times people will need help most. Do you think you can handle it? At least for a while, until I find the right person to deal with it permanently?"

"I can try," Toshiko said. "But why me?"

"I heard that Torchwood London is going to be shut down," Trevor replied grimly, "which means that everything will be swept under the carpet and we will be forgotten. The government or UNIT can't touch the Torchwood funds – not even the Crown can. They've been invested well and placed securely in banks beyond the influence of the UK, so encoded that only the archivists can gain access to them. Which is one of the reasons why Jonesy wanted to go underground, I guess. He's the only one of them who survived; and since he was officially listed as a junior researcher, no-one outside of Torchwood will discover that he's actually the key to everything left behind by Headquarters… unless someone babbles."

"I won't," Toshiko promised solemnly.

"I know," Trevor smiled up to her," which is why I'm asking you to take care for Human Resources. Forgive me, but I don't trust Captain Harkness to give a rat's arse about what's gonna happen with us… or with our families."

"He wouldn't," Toshiko admitted. "He and I just had a major spat about the issue. He's hopelessly prejudiced against Headquarters, I'm afraid."

"I can't really blame him," Trevor said fairly. "I liked Yvonne, we all did, working for her was absolutely inspiring, but… she could be a real bitch if she hated someone. And she did hate Captain Harkness with a passion."

"According to Jack, the feeling was mutual," Toshiko grinned tiredly.

"I can imagine," Trevor grinned back. "They're – were – both stubborn, headstrong, ruthless people with diagonally opposite visions of how things should be done. Not the best combination for people who are supposed to work together. So… are you going to do this? Will you be able to do this, with him breathing down his neck?"

"For a while, yet, but not infinitely," Toshiko clarified. "Sooner or later, Jack will realize that I'm up to something, and I won't – can't – lie to him. I owe him too much: my life, my sanity… everything that I am now."

"For a while only," Trevor agreed. "I promise I'll do my best to find a replacement in the shortest possible time," he paused. "I've added my personal contact number to the data; it's a secure phone, Torchwood issue. I'd like to keep in touch, if possible."

Toshiko smiled. "That can be arranged. I do have a personal life… well, sometimes. Rift permitting."

Trevor nodded. He knew how unpredictable the Cardiff Rift could be and how small the Cardiff outpost was. That did not leave the individual members much of a personal life.

"When are you going back to Cardiff?" he asked.

"With the night train," Toshiko answered. "There is one more visit I have to make before I leave London."

Soraya Singh had been following the news about the terrorist attack on Canary Wharf with growing anxiety. Unlike her brother, she was a simple woman, not interested in science or in politics, who found total fulfilment in raising Rajesh's children, as she had no family of her own. They were nice kids, pretty and well-behaved; she could not understand how their mother could have given them up. No matter what might have happened between her and Rajesh.

Soraya loved her brother but was not completely blind towards his faults. She knew Rajesh could become so absorbed in his work that he would completely forget about everything else around him. But was that a reason to abandon one's own children? She simply could not understand that. Shanti and Rajeev certainly filled her life with joy.

She had tried to call her brother several times when the first news had appeared about the terrorist attack. Mobile phones did not work within Canary Wharf, she knew that, but Rajesh had given her an emergency number through which she should have been able to contact him in extreme cases. Some kind of secure landline.

Only that she could not contact him. No-one answered her calls.

Around noon, on the same day, the telly started showing horrible pictures of Canary Wharf: pictures of the burning tower of One Canada Square; of dead bodies littering the pavement; of strange-looking robots marching on the streets in closed, endless column. She ran to the school to get the children back; got nearly shot by the same soldiers wearing those strange red caps who were shooting at the robots; then again by weird, floating devices that looked like oversized pepper pots.

She was certain that the world was going to end.

And then it all ended in a moment. The robots and the pepper pots were gone, and people slowly, reluctantly emerged from their homes. She reached the school, found the frightened children, took them home, fed them, tried to clam them down and put them to bed when they finally passed out from exhaustion.

And then the waiting began again.

For weeks, there was no news from Canary Wharf. Rajesh still had not answered her calls. Neither the police, nor the government had released any information, beyond the short statement that Canary Wharf had been destroyed by an extremely violent terrorist bombing and most of the eight hundred employees were dead or missing.

There were no casualty lists, however, no information about whether or not the bodies would be released to the families, and if yes, when. The entire Canary Wharf area was still sealed off and declared off-limits for the public.

Anxiety was killing her.

Finally, more than two weeks after the attack, it was almost dark in the outside, the doorbell rang. She went to answer it with a very bad feeling. Rajesh had a key to her house; would he be, by some miracle, returning, he would not have to ring the bell. And she had already talked on the phone to everyone from the family, assuring them that she did not need any help at the moment, so they had no reason to come over.

She opened the door and saw a petite, elegant Asian woman standing on her doorstep.

"Ms Singh?" the woman asked in a gently, almost child-like voice. "I'm Toshiko Sato. I am…was… a colleague of your brother. Well, sort of. I work for a different branch."

Soraya nodded. "I know who you are, Miss Sato. Raji has told me about you," suddenly, she realized that the other woman had used the past tense and blanched. "You mean… is he…?"

Toshiko nodded. "I'm very sorry, Ms Singh. He was one of the first to die. He tried to stop the… the terrorists, and they shot him on the spot," she closed her eyes for a moment in obvious pain. "He was…. he died almost immediately."

Soraya gave her a searching look. "You were there?"

Toshiko nodded again. "There was nothing I could do to help him. I'm so very sorry."

"At least he didn't die alone," Soraya's tears started to flow freely but she ignored them. "Can we… will we be allowed to bury him? I know that the government sometimes… sometimes insist on incinerating the bodies after terrorist attacks…"

"Not in this case," Toshiko replied. "The bodies of all identified victims will be released to the families shortly. But I have to warn you: it will have to be a closed-coffin funeral. He… he burned badly after his death. The face is still recognizable, but the rest of him is in a bad shape. Perhaps it would be better if the family could remember him the way he used to be."

"Better for the children perhaps," Soraya said, "but I need to see him. He was my brother, and I must be sure that we'd be sent the right body, even if we'll have it cremated, according to our tradition. Forgive me, but I… I don't trust the government completely."

Toshiko nodded. "I understand that. And don't worry about the costs; Torchwood will cover them. There will also be funds for the children, so that they can receive a proper education. What's happened was horrible, but we take care of our own.

It hurt her to know that we did not include Jack in this particular case, but Rajesh's sister did not need to know that. Wouldn't even understand.

"He loved you, you know," Soraya said quietly. "He used to talk about you sometimes; hoped you two could make this relationship work, despite the distance between London and Cardiff."

"I was just coming to learn how to love him," Toshiko admitted, her eyes dry but terribly sad. "We might even have found a way to make it work. Your brother was a wonderful man. I'll miss him terribly."

"So will we," Soraya sighed. "You won't be able to come to the funeral, though, will you?"

Toshiko shook her head in regret. "I don't think so. I'll take the night train back to Cardiff right away, and I'm unlikely to come back to London any time, soon."

"But if you do," Soraya said, "try to find the time to drop by. You're part of our life now. Don't be a stranger."

"I'll do my best," Tosh promised, hoping that she would be able to keep that promise.

She did not want to forget Rajesh. And the future of his children was part of her responsibility now. A responsibility Trevor had entrusted to her, even if only temporarily.

~The End~