Ghosts of a Forgotten Past

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Title:  Ghosts of a Forgotten Past
Author: Aviv_b
Originally posted at torchwood_fest For Bingo/Prompt/Exchange: Bingo
Prompt: Ghosts
Word Count: 1690
Rating: PG
Contains: Character illness, possible PTSD symptoms

Summary: Time resets following TYTNW, but the team members appear to be  remembering bits of their trip to the Himalayas.  Last of several related stories about the Team during/after TYTNW.  May be read as a stand-alone but follows Snow Blindness  (http://aviv-b.livejournal.com/145664.html), Avalanche (http://aviv-b.livejournal.com/146068.html ) and Mountain Madness (http://aviv-b.livejournal.com/146179.html ).

Disclaimer: Not mine; Aunty B's and RTD's

A/N: Horizontal bingo, yay!

Owen had thought a lot about the strange symptoms he and his teammates had been exhibiting. Tosh and Gwen had complained of not feeling well and being cold. He seemed to have developed a fixation on Gwen and a pronounced dislike for tea. Not that he ever liked tea, but he couldn’t even stand the sight of the canister that Ianto stored Tosh’s special blend in.  And Ianto, he seemed so sad, and guilty just like he has after the cyberwoman had been discovered.

Somehow these behaviors were all related. Owen was sure of it. He had eliminated any virus or other infection from consideration. After testing Tosh and not finding anything, he ran the same test on himself with the same results. Nothing was physically wrong with either of them.

He wondered if it might be some type of group hysteria. There were numerous cases reported in medical journals of groups of people exhibiting physical or emotional symptoms that had been linked to a common traumatic event.  But while Jack leaving and then suddenly reappearing was unsettling, he didn’t reckon that anyone except maybe Ianto would find that traumatic.

Owen snickered. The look of shock on Ianto’s face when Jack made that ‘I came back for you’ declaration was priceless. Like a deer caught in headlamps. It wasn’t often that the tea-boy got caught up short.

The only common element he could see to everyone’s different symptoms was Jack. Jack came back, they all started behaving unusually. Maybe Jack had brought some new infectious agent with him from ‘his Doctor.’  Owen didn’t have a clue, but he knew it was time to have a talk with Jack.

The next day everyone was behaving much the same. Ianto spent most of the day hiding in the archives and avoiding the team, especially Tosh. Tosh was drinking Tesco brand orange soda, and Gwen was wearing a heavy coat and gloves. Jack would occasionally leave his office and walk around just looking at each member of the team in turn.

Lunch was worst of all. They ate in total silence, while both Jack and Ianto looked like they were going to start crying any moment. He thought to tease Ianto to ease the tension, but he never seen Ianto look so fragile. Not after Lisa was killed (then he was defiant as hell), not after the cannibals (he was so stoic that Owen almost missed how bruised and beaten he really was), not even after Jack left.

“Alright, I was going to wait to talk to Jack privately, but something very strange is going on and as the medic around here, I think we need to sort this out.”

The others glanced at each other uncomfortably, except for Jack who seemed to be lost in thought.

“So, can we at least acknowledge that we are all acting a bit strangely the last week or so?”

In retrospect, Owen had to admit that he hadn’t really approached the problem as diplomatically as he could have. Everyone denied that anything strange was going on, and began to bicker.

“So I’ve decided I don’t like tea anymore, I don’t see how that’s any concern of yours, Owen,” Tosh said defensively.

“Well, when you accuse me of poisoning your tea, that kind of delusional thinking is certainly Owen’s concern,” Ianto spat back.

“Your tea has always turned my stomach,” Gwen added.

“What? You’ve never even drank my tea,” Tosh replied.

“I did so,” Gwen retorted.  “I drank so much of that tea and I couldn’t get warm.”

“I only gave it to you because you were dying,” Ianto blurted out, his voice stumbling over the last part of the sentence.

“Just listen to Ianto,” Tosh said, “if anyone is delusional, it’s him.”

Jack had been sitting quietly during the argument, lost in his own thoughts. The last exchange, however, caught his attention. There was something terrifyingly familiar about what Ianto had said. Something the Master had taunted him with during his long year of torture.  “Ianto, what did you say?” he asked.

“I didn’t say anything.”

Gwen didn’t know whether to be angry or frightened. “You did so, and I’m not dying.” 

Tosh burst into tears.

“I think we’re all going bonkers,” Owen said in frustration.  “Something is affecting the whole team, and everyone seems in denial. Cold feet, tea, getting lost; they all have something in common.

Jack spoke. “The Himalayas.  I’ve not being paying enough attention to what’s been going on here.  Owen is right. You’ve all been through something together, something traumatic, but you shouldn’t even know about it.”

“Did you retcon us?” Owen asked suspiciously.

“I wish. We’ve talked before about parallel timelines. Those are real.  What I don’t think we’ve ever discussed is time being reset. It doesn’t happen often, but sometimes events in the future prevent events in the past from ever happening.”

“How can that be?” Tosh asked.  If it could, people could take knowledge from the future and then change the past to their advantage.

“You’ve all seen that people can fall through the rift from the past or the future. Thousands of years from now, traveling through time, through a type of rift will become possible. It will start out as a curiosity, but it doesn’t take long for people to do exactly what Tosh has suggested.”

“So history could change? Like Hitler never being born?” Gwen asked.

Jack nodded. “Or Hitler winning.”

“But if the past was changed, you’d never know it existed.”  Ianto said. “All we know is the reality we live in, right?”

“That’s how it should work,” Jack agreed. “But sometimes if the events that are changed are large enough and the effects are immediate, those closest to the events will carry the memories of the event…”

“..that never happened,” Tosh said finishing Jack’s thoughts.

“Exactly.”

With sudden clarity Owen understood. “So you are saying that something bad happened to all of us, and somehow time was reset, and we shouldn’t remember, and we don’t, except for little bits and pieces.”

Jack nodded. “And it’s not just because it happened to all of you, but that the whole universe was affected that makes the echo of the events so strong.”

Jack didn’t tell them everything that had happened, just enough to help them to understand about time resetting. He couldn’t talk about what had transpired on the Valiant in any detail, it was too raw and painful, and they didn’t need to know how great a burden he was carrying. Not just of his own physical deaths, but the Master’s pleasure at telling him about the mission he sent the team on, how they failed and how they all died while Jack was helpless to aid them.

No one asked, but the team understood that Jack had been near the center of the storm and was carrying many terrible memories. What he had told them, from the enslavement of mankind, to the destructions of numerous planets and the glee of the Master as the universe was brought under his control, was horrible enough.

Ianto felt a wave a nausea wash over him as he began to realize that so much of what he had been dreaming lately might have actually happened. “I’ve been having some terrible nightmares. Are they real?”

“They might have been, but remember you don’t have the context for them.”

“I have as well,” Gwen whispered.  “Horrible dreams of being lost in a snowstorm.”

“That’s called ghosting. The echoes of the past leave an imprint on the brain. You’re brain doesn’t know what to do with the information so it plays it over and over trying to figure out what to do with information that doesn’t fit with your current time construct.”

“Will it ever stop?” Gwen asked.

 “I’m hoping that since now you have some context it will. You will each keep track of your symptoms and report their frequency to Owen on a weekly basis. He will monitor our progress and inform us as to whether they are decreasing overall.  We’ll see how it goes.” 

Silently Jack added, “And I’ll be reinforcing my mental shields now, so my memories of your mission aren’t bleeding over into your consciousnesses. That should get the problem under control.”

Owen had been thinking the whole idea of ghosting through. “You know, when I was a teen I had a year where I had these horrible nightmares. Every night, the same dream. People and places I didn’t recognize,” Owen said. “As hard as I tried, I could never make any sense of them. They did stop eventually, but once in a while, a memory from them seems to pop into my brain without warning. Is that the same thing?”

“It could be. Ghosting is fairly common.  In the future there’s an agency that was created to prevent people from changing the timelines. But despite their best efforts to prevent changes in the first place, sometimes all they could do was reset the timeline back on track as best they could.” Trace memories are always created when time is reset.”

“What? So there’s a Time Police or something in the future running around fixing time and giving everyone weird dreams?” Ianto snarked.

“Pretty much.”

“Oi, here’s a thought. How do the Time Police know if they haven’t been successful?” Owen said. He smiled and continued, “They don’t, 'cause they never existed.”

Tosh wasn’t confused very often, but this whole time reset concept was playing havoc with her very orderly brain. “But if they never existed, then how could they go back in time…”

“It’s a joke, Tosh, just a joke,” Owen said rolling his eyes.

“But seriously, I can’t figure out how the whole Time Police thing can work.”

Jack smiled. Ianto noticed that Jack looked a bit smug and amused. “It’s complicated.”

“I’ll bet,” Ianto said.

“You have no idea,” Jack thought. “And if I have my way, you never will.”

Owen sighed. “So much for a little humor to lighten the mood.”

“Funny thing,” Tosh said smiling and shaking her head in bewilderment, “I’m in the mood for a cup of tea.”