Ficlet: Before The End
May. 18th, 2026 05:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
badly_knittedTitle: Before The End
Author:
badly_knittedCharacters: Ianto.
Rating: PG
Word Count: 735
Spoilers: Set in my Through Time and Space ‘Verse.
Summary: Ianto makes a pilgrimage to a deserted earth, far into the future.
Written For: The prompt ‘any, any, white lightning, sky to earth’, at
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threesentenceficathon.Disclaimer: I don’t own Torchwood, or the characters.
Nothing lasted forever, except perhaps himself and Jack, and Ianto had never expected the universe to continue on as it was when he first found himself out in space in a TARDIS that had grown and developed around him while they both drifted in the void. Planets died, suns burnt out or went nova, civilisations rose and fell, entire species evolved and eventually died out, many without ever leaving the planet of their birth.
Ianto himself had died, twice, before being resurrected as an immortal. Death was part of life, and it was now an integral part of his own existence. He’d died on several occasions since his first death in Thames House, what seemed like forever ago. At the present moment, millions of years beyond his own time, forever ago was a reasonably accurate assessment when applied to the year 2009. The universe had moved on, and he’d moved on with it. That, in a way, was why he was here, now, making a pilgrimage to the world that had once been his home.
All around him, a violent storm was raging. Ianto had seen countless storms before; it had always rained a lot in Wales, and with Cardiff being right on the coast, they got storms sweeping in off the sea fairly often. But while this was earth, it wasn’t the earth he’d grown up on. This was the earth of the future, so far into the future, in fact, that visiting his home planet at any time past this point would be most unwise. Even being here right now wasn’t the most sensible thing to do, and he knew it, because according to all the information his TARDIS had been able to acquire, in a few short decades earth would no longer exist. The sun would go nova, and that would be that: The end of the birthplace of humanity, and yet…
Call it morbid curiosity, but he’d wanted to see the old planet. Not for the last time, because with his TARDIS he could visit earlier times whenever he wanted, and he intended to do so as soon as he left here, but he’d wanted to know what earth was like after the last humans left, taking with them every living creature they could.
So here he was, standing a few yards away from his TARDIS on a vast, empty plain somewhere in the middle of what used to be Africa in his time. A plain that had once been populated with herds of zebra and wildebeest, hunted by prides of lions, and lone cheetahs, and there was nothing moving at all except for a hot wind blowing the grass about, and the lightning, streaks of brilliant white spearing down from a sky the ugly purple-black of a bruise.
Another lance of dazzling whiteness split the air with a loud, sharp crack, struck the dry grass a mile or so off, and Ianto smelled smoke in the air, drifting towards him on the wind. He knew that soon he’d see flames rising, reaching up towards the storm clouds, but he wasn’t worried, because in just a few minutes the rain would start, and in moments everything would be far too wet to burn.
This was the beginning of the planet’s death throes, weather more extreme than humanity have ever known, even in his own time when climate change had made it so erratic… Thunder boomed, lighting flashed, the heavens opened, rain sweeping across the plains in a solid sheet, and with a sigh, Ianto retreated inside, knowing he shouldn’t linger here any longer. He’d seen what he’d come to see, now it was time to go, time to step backward through the aeons and visit his homeworld in its prime, see earth as it was better to remember it, as a thriving world full of beauty and variety, not this empty, abandoned, used up and discarded husk.
Earth could not escape its fate, but it had birthed a sentient race that had spread out across the milky way and made a place for themselves in the wider universe. The planet had served its purpose, and though humanity in time might forget where they had come from, Ianto Jones never would. In time, he would become the last son of earth, the last person to have been born and grown up there, and he would hold his homeworld in his heart forever.
The End
Ianto himself had died, twice, before being resurrected as an immortal. Death was part of life, and it was now an integral part of his own existence. He’d died on several occasions since his first death in Thames House, what seemed like forever ago. At the present moment, millions of years beyond his own time, forever ago was a reasonably accurate assessment when applied to the year 2009. The universe had moved on, and he’d moved on with it. That, in a way, was why he was here, now, making a pilgrimage to the world that had once been his home.
All around him, a violent storm was raging. Ianto had seen countless storms before; it had always rained a lot in Wales, and with Cardiff being right on the coast, they got storms sweeping in off the sea fairly often. But while this was earth, it wasn’t the earth he’d grown up on. This was the earth of the future, so far into the future, in fact, that visiting his home planet at any time past this point would be most unwise. Even being here right now wasn’t the most sensible thing to do, and he knew it, because according to all the information his TARDIS had been able to acquire, in a few short decades earth would no longer exist. The sun would go nova, and that would be that: The end of the birthplace of humanity, and yet…
Call it morbid curiosity, but he’d wanted to see the old planet. Not for the last time, because with his TARDIS he could visit earlier times whenever he wanted, and he intended to do so as soon as he left here, but he’d wanted to know what earth was like after the last humans left, taking with them every living creature they could.
So here he was, standing a few yards away from his TARDIS on a vast, empty plain somewhere in the middle of what used to be Africa in his time. A plain that had once been populated with herds of zebra and wildebeest, hunted by prides of lions, and lone cheetahs, and there was nothing moving at all except for a hot wind blowing the grass about, and the lightning, streaks of brilliant white spearing down from a sky the ugly purple-black of a bruise.
Another lance of dazzling whiteness split the air with a loud, sharp crack, struck the dry grass a mile or so off, and Ianto smelled smoke in the air, drifting towards him on the wind. He knew that soon he’d see flames rising, reaching up towards the storm clouds, but he wasn’t worried, because in just a few minutes the rain would start, and in moments everything would be far too wet to burn.
This was the beginning of the planet’s death throes, weather more extreme than humanity have ever known, even in his own time when climate change had made it so erratic… Thunder boomed, lighting flashed, the heavens opened, rain sweeping across the plains in a solid sheet, and with a sigh, Ianto retreated inside, knowing he shouldn’t linger here any longer. He’d seen what he’d come to see, now it was time to go, time to step backward through the aeons and visit his homeworld in its prime, see earth as it was better to remember it, as a thriving world full of beauty and variety, not this empty, abandoned, used up and discarded husk.
Earth could not escape its fate, but it had birthed a sentient race that had spread out across the milky way and made a place for themselves in the wider universe. The planet had served its purpose, and though humanity in time might forget where they had come from, Ianto Jones never would. In time, he would become the last son of earth, the last person to have been born and grown up there, and he would hold his homeworld in his heart forever.
The End
