They couldn't have been gone for longer than twenty minutes, but by the time they came back to the cell, Dr. Roberts wasn't there anymore. In her place Lisa Jones was sitting at the unconscious Doctor's side.

The Time Lord's head had been placed on a pillow, apart from that he was laying on the cold, hard stone floor. His hands were cuffed now, and there was a guard standing beside the door.

"There's nothing physically wrong with him," the nurse informed them. "Dr. Roberts said he'll wake up any moment."

"And where did she go now?" The irritation was back on John's face. "For all her enthusiasm about working with the Doctor that woman seems to be making an effort to never be around when he's awake."

"She'll be back in a moment," Lisa said tensely.

"Well, she'd better! After all —"

The Doctor kept John from finishing the sentence by opening his eyes. For a moment he stared at the ceiling, then he blinked and his eyes were on John. His expression darkened.

"Good to see you awake again, my friend," the leader of Torchwood said sweetly. "I think it's time we have a little chat."

He gestured for the guard to close the door. Jack had expected him to send Lisa out first, and possibly even him, but John seemed to ignore their presence. Feeling nervous all of a sudden Jack exchanged a glance with the nurse who obviously shared his unease.

"What exactly just happened?" John asked the Doctor, who was being helped to his feet by Lisa. "What's going on with you and Saxon?"

"Saxon?" The Doctor's face was blank. "The man who was just here? He's called Saxon?" The seriousness in his eyes did nothing to ease Jack's feelings. "Who is he?"

"You tell me," John insisted. "I got the impression you know each other."

The Doctor didn't answer.

John stepped closer — his posture was threatening but all Jack could think was that the Doctor was a lot taller than him.

"I want to know what's going on between the two of you, and you'd better tell me before I lose my patience. Because, believe me, if he gets elected Prime Minister and I don't know how he's connected to you he's not going to find you if he ever comes here again. At least not in one piece."

John was feeling threatened by the politician, Jack suddenly realised. The Ministry of Defence already had some influence over Torchwood — Once he ran the country it would be within Saxon's power to take the institute over completely.

And if he was connected to the Doctor somehow, if he could in any way influence the man who was such a precious scientific and technical adviser for them even as a prisoner, how could they be sure that the politician hadn't been leaving his mark on Torchwood's work for years?

"Prime Minister?" The Time Lord seemed even more troubled than before, almost shocked. "He's going to be Prime Minister?"

"You don't know?" John snorted.

"How could I? It's not like you'd let me watch the news channel." Even as he spoke the Doctor seemed distracted. He appeared to grow more distressed with every second.

"But you do know him." It wasn't a question.

"Yes," the Doctor admitted. "I thought he was dead."

"Right…" John tapped his lips with his finger. "Somehow I don't believe you. I think you've had contact before."

Jack noticed that he never asked how the Doctor could have seen the other man through the mirror. He looked at it, briefly, and found his own reflection glancing back. It seemed to have little in common with the man he saw in the bathroom mirror this morning. Funny how here, in a cell with an abused prisoner and a psychopathic man he called his friend, he looked like a stranger.

Only after a moment did he remember that the Doctor had some telepathic abilities. Jack hadn't expected them to be strong enough to work without at least visual contact.

"Who is he?" This time it was John who posed the question. He got no answer.

John sighed exaggeratedly, turned around and ordered the guard to give him his gun. The man did so, after a second of hesitation. Instead of pointing the weapon at the Doctor John just said, "Thank you," and shot the guard in the leg. With a scream of pain and surprise, the man fell to the ground. It mingled with Lisa's shocked gasp.

"No!" the Doctor yelled. "Why did you do that? He's done nothing wrong!" To Jack, used to the prisoner speaking quietly, the volume of his voice was almost as much a shock as John's action. The Time Lord fell to his knees beside the guard, pressing his bound hands against the wound. Jack moved to help him, but John held him back.

"No, he hasn't," he agreed. "But you have. And now you'd better behave or someone else will get hurt." The Doctor looked up, his eyes following John's gaze to rest on Lisa. She stared at them, her eyes full of fear.

'John has always planned to kill her eventually,' Jack thought numbly. 'And she knows. Hell, she knows it!'

And so did the Doctor.

"Don't," he begged quietly.

"Then answer me!" John demanded. "Who is Saxon to you? What are you planning?"

"I'll tell you everything," the Doctor promised. "If you swear not to hurt her, or anyone else in this room."

For the first time Jack got the idea that this also included him. As John's old friend and part-time lover he had felt excluded from his homicidal tendencies but as John looked at him now he wasn't so sure anymore. The look the Doctor threw him said that the Time Lord worried for him as much as the nurse and the wounded guard. Somehow this concern made Jack feel worse than he ever had, and yet…

"All right," John agreed. "They'll be fine. But you should hurry up, before our friend here bleeds to death."

"He calls himself the Master," said the Doctor, while applying pressure to the guard's wound. "He's an old enemy of mine. He looks human but he's an alien, and if he wants to become Prime Minister, he needs to be stopped." His gaze was intense. "Whatever he has in mind, it's definitely not 'the best for this country'."

"What are the two of you up to?"

"Nothing! Until half an hour ago I was sure he'd died." There was real desperation in the Doctor's eyes, but Jack wasn't sure if it had anything to do with the gun or the fact that John would never believe him.

The guard had stopped whimpering. He was staring at John, at the gun, with fear and disbelief etched over his face — maybe finally realising who was the true villain here.

"I don't believe you," John declared, turning and shooting the guard in the head. Blood splattered over the floor, the wall. Lisa screamed.

The Doctor didn't show any reaction at all. After a second he uselessly felt for the man's pulse, and when he rose to his feet, Jack saw barely restrained fury in is face.

John had his back turned to Jack. He should grab him, get the gun, Jack thought, because there was no way he'd let the girl go to tell everyone what had happened here. But John's reflexes were quick, and he'd shoot Jack if he attacked him. Jack knew it and did nothing.

"Again," John said with long suffering patience. "What are you planning? How long has he been in contact with you? The truth, please."

"You don't want to hear the truth," the Doctor spat. "You want to hear a confirmation of the facts you have made up in your mind. Nothing else will satisfy you." He moved slowly, until he was standing between Lisa and the gun.

Jack knew it wouldn't save her.

John suddenly changed the topic. "Can you fix Jack's vortex manipulator?"

"Theoretically," the Doctor admitted reluctantly and John turned to throw a quick grin at Jack.

"See? Interrogation is so much easier if you spice it with a little violence." Jack glared at him.

"Why not practically?" John addressed the Doctor again.

"I don't have the right tools."

"And if you had?"

"Then I wouldn't do it."

This time Jack couldn't keep himself from speaking. "Why not?" He took a step forward.

"Because the energy of the vortex manipulator would serve Mr. Hart here as a power source for a weapon that could completely destroy the human mind at the touch of a button" the Doctor informed him. "He didn't tell you?"

Jack turned sharply, but John completely ignored his stare.

"Annoying me is more important to you than poor Lisa's life?" he asked. "Because I'm gonna shoot her if you don't help me."

"What part of 'I don't have the right tools' didn't you understand?" the Doctor sneered. "And you're going to shoot her anyway. You've just proven once again that your promises are worthless."

For a second his eyes met Jack's and the conman read the unspoken plea in them. There was only one way to keep Lisa alive: Taking out John. But for that the Doctor needed Jack's help. The alien would keep the armed man's attention on himself, giving Jack a chance to grab him from behind.

Jack desperately wished he hadn't had all his weapons taken away when he first entered the building. Pointing a gun at John's head, forcing him to think twice about this would have been easier than to physically attack him and hope he wasn't shot first. And John would hardly accept his apology afterwards. No, he would have him killed just like Lisa. Even if they managed to get out of this room, they'd never leave the building, and no one would believe them if they told what had really happened to the guard. Who was the Doctor fooling? Fighting John would at best buy them time they couldn't use for anything. Jack hated the idea of Lisa dying but he wasn't going to die with her.

The only way to escape John's wrath would be to take him out of the picture permanently.

The thought came unbidden and inevitably. The Doctor glanced at him again and Jack found himself unable to move. This was the moment where he determined what kind of man he was. This was where he chose his side: The right one (an old lover and his own safety) or the good one (a kind-hearted woman and the most heroic man he had ever met).

He came to a decision half a second before John lifted his other arm and suddenly had a second gun pointing right at Jack's face.

"Sorry, Doctor," he said. "I couldn't help noticing how you tried to make dear Jack act against me. And since he's a bit soft at times, he'd feel awful later for doing nothing. So I thought I'd spare him the torment by taking the decision away from him. I hope you don't mind."

According to the look on the Doctor's face he did mind. He also appeared to believe John to be lying, that Jack would have helped him. And a part of Jack wanted to live up to his expectations, prove himself worthy of that trust, given to him by the only person who'd ever thought highly of him despite having no reason to do so. But the gun pointed at his face made remain still.

There was desperation in the Doctor's eyes when he realised he couldn't do anything, and Jack was struck with the irony of the fact that the alien, despite his situation, was the only one in this room not in danger of losing his life.

All three men were surprised when Lisa suddenly stepped out of the Doctor's shadow. On her face Jack saw fear but also acceptance as she said, "You won't always get away with murder, Hart."

"That's 'General' to you," John corrected her. "But as last words go, it wasn't so bad, if a bit cliché." He fired.

And managed to move the gun the very last second so the shot went astray and only hit the Doctor's arm as he knocked Lisa to the ground. The second shot followed a second later and then Lisa was laying in her own blood, the back of her head a destroyed mess.

"I thought you'd do something like that," John said coldly, looking down at his prisoner. "Though I'd like to know what exactly you were hoping to archive by that. For being such a genius, you are incredibly stupid sometimes."

Jack's growing dislike for his former partner turned to hatred as he gave him an arrogant smile.

The Doctor was curled up on the ground, not even able to clutch the wound right below his shoulder, due to his cuffed hands.

"Bastard!" he gasped. "She's done nothing to you!" He looked at the still body of the nurse lying beside him and started to cry, helpless, silent tears running down his face.

"It's what happens to the people who get involved with you: they die." John turned briefly to leer at the alien. "This is your fault, Doctor. And after we've found the right tools for you to work with, we'll see how many more have to be killed before you finally show some cooperation."

The Doctor let out a broken half sob. Jack could see he really did blame himself for what had happened to Lisa.

"I told her to get out," the conman heard him whisper, almost inaudibly, as he knelt down beside him. "I told her…"

"Hold still," Jack murmured, not knowing what else to say. "Let me look at that wound."

The Doctor glanced up at him with tears in his eyes, so hurt and desperate, but not broken. Not yet completely broken.

His lips formed a name and Jack found himself nodding ever so slightly. He'd had the same thought.

"You're not looking at anything." Suddenly John was standing beside Jack, pulling him to his feet. "And you're not telling anyone what really happened here." He led Jack to the door and contacted the guards outside over his earpiece to make them open the lock.

"We can't just leave him lying there!" Jack protested. "He'll bleed to death."

"Oh, he'll be taken care of, don't worry," John assured him. "But not by you."

The door opened and John gave a surprisingly convincing performance for the two guards even as he shoved Jack outside. He gestured at the bloody mess inside the cell, told the shocked men his version of how their colleague had died. Then he cursed the dead man, ranted how he had reminded the guards over and over again they should keep in mind how fast the Doctor could be, and that he would kill whenever he got the chance — even people who had been nothing but kind to him, like poor Lisa. It was pure luck that made John take him out before he could shoot him and Jack as well.

Jack hadn't known he could act this well. He saw the two men's expressions change from disbelief to fury as they looked at the injured alien on the floor. The urge to tell them the truth was strong but he knew better than to do so. They wouldn't listen to him, and John would never let him see the Doctor again, if he didn't simply kill him.

(It made perfect sense but Jack failed to convince himself that it was common sense that made him act this way, and not cowardice.)

To make matters worse Dr. Roberts still hadn't come back. Jack didn't like her but she would at least care for the Doctor's wound properly. And with her presence the guards wouldn't touch the alien, no matter now angry they were. Jack was sure of it.

His heart sank when John ordered the two men to take care of the Doctor's injury themselves.

"Make sure he lives," he added, and Jack knew his words didn't just refer to stopping the bleeding.

"They'll kill him!" he exclaimed once the guards had closed the door of the cell after them.

"Uhm, no," John replied. "I just told them not to. They're too smart to go against my orders. Won't even cripple him. Well, maybe a little."

Alone in the corridor, Jack had no reason to hold back. John stumbled backwards after Jack's fist hit his face.

"You murdered them!" he hissed. "There was no need for that!"

John rubbed his jaw, though Jack could tell he didn't mind the violence. "Our friend might think twice about being stubborn next time." He grimaced. "Though he has failed to learn that lesson before…"

"When you killed Dr. Roberts' predecessor and blamed him for it," Jack suspected. "You asshole! You've completely lost it!" He didn't say 'I don't recognize you anymore' because John had always been like this. In the old days it had just never such an impact on Jack.

A shadow moved at the end of the corridor, cast by a person staying wisely out of sight. Jack had to keep John from spotting it, to prevent him from killing anyone else.

"And about my vortex manipulator: when exactly did you plan on telling me you just wanted to turn it into a weapon? I thought you wanted to go home!"

"I do! Though I have to say I've grown fond of this place." To Jack's relief John's eyes stayed on him. If he turned around, he'd just have to hit him again.

With pleasure.

"No need to worry though," the other man continued. "There'll be enough energy left for a few jumps when I'm finished with it."

"If the Doctor ever fixes it for you," Jack pointed out. He didn't say 'for us'. And somehow the fact that he wouldn't get away from here this way didn't seem so important at the moment.

"Oh, he will. Eventually."

"How can you be so sure? You'll just keep killing people no matter what he does. And he'll know, because he can read your mind. How did you ever think he would trust me, if he could see my — and your — intentions clearly in our heads?"

"He can't read our minds. Don't worry."

"Then why did you say he was telepathic?"

"Because he is."

"You're not making sense here, John, and right now I'm not feeling particularly patient."

John sighed. "His telepathy only works if he touches you, but we're suppressing it with drugs anyway. Sometimes he still senses things, though. That's how he knew about Saxon, I guess. Makes sense if they know each other."

"Ah, yes, Saxon." Jack snorted. "You know, if they had regular contact, the Doctor would hardly have given it away by his reaction."

John only shrugged. "There are many ways of contact. I'm not taking any risks."

"What are you going to do about it?"

"Leave that to me." John seemed ready to go.

"You're going back to your office?" The question was completely unnecessary. It only served to warn whoever was lurking around the corner to get away now.

"Yep. Things to organize. You'd get bored. I'd advise you to find something to keep yourself occupied until I'm done. Some of my employees are good in bed — you have my permission to distract them for work. I think you need to blow off some steam."

"Right," Jack said. Keeping an employee from work was exactly what he had in mind.

With one last look at the closed door, he turned around and followed John out of the complex.

-

Dr. Roberts finally showed up just before they reached the main base. When asked about her absence, she told them she'd been running a test on the Doctor's blood to find an explanation for his sudden fainting spell and Jack silently cursed her for her timing. John ordered her to get back to whatever she'd been doing and don't go to the cell before she was called there. She just shrugged in response and walked away.

As he hurried through the base, Jack couldn't stop wondering why the Doctor had pushed Lisa out of the way — he couldn't have really believed that would save her. In the end he came to the conclusion that the Time Lord just couldn't help himself. A friend was in danger and he had to do something. No matter how useless. He wasn't the kind of man who'd just watch, even if it were hopeless.

Unlike Jack.

Eventually the ex-time agent found a large hall full of desks, and he stole a pen and a piece of paper to scribble a short message. It took him a moment to spot Ianto Jones, sitting on a desk in the last row. Poor bastard. He didn't know yet.

The speaker in the wall cracked to life as Jack approached him, and he suppressed a shudder when John's voice asked Mr. Jones to come to his office immediately. Now his wife was gone Ianto wouldn't live for much longer. The Doctor knew that just as well as Jack — for that reason he'd mouthed Ianto's name to him earlier.

This was one thing Jack could do for the Time Lord.

Ianto's eyes widened when he left his working place to find Jack standing in front of him.

"Let me walk with you for a bit," he said.

Once they were in the corridor and no one was in hearing distance Jack whispered, "Don't go to the General. Leave here at once before he has a chance to grow impatient and alerts the guys from security. He's finally decided to kill you."

Ianto paled. He opened his mouth to reply but Jack stopped him.

"Your wife has already been warned. She'll meet you at the airport. It's best for you to leave the country for a while. Don't go home to pack. Empty your bank account, you're going to lose it anyway." He slipped the folded note into the younger man's pocket without him noticing. "Good luck."

Jack waited only long enough to see him nod before he turned and walked in the other direction. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ianto heading for the lift — quickly, but not quick enough to look suspicious. He might actually stay alive for a few days.

Eventually he'd find Jack's note. It would tell him that his wife was dead, and that he should never come back here — Jack would take care of John. It was a blatant lie, but he had to stop them young fool from getting killed attempting to take revenge on Lisa's murderer.

The note also said that the Doctor had tried to protect her. Somehow Jack wanted him to know that.

He turned around a corner and ran into Dr. Roberts.

"We have to talk," she said.

-

It wasn't going to be just any talk. It was going to be a top secret no-one-shall-hear-this talk. Jack could tell because she led him to her laboratory, send out the assistant and locked the door.

He looked around with fake interest.

"So… this is where the bits cut out of the Doctor end up, is it?" he asked lightly.

"No," the medic said impatiently. "My job is to keep him alive and moderately well. I have nothing to do with the experiments."

"You seem to know a lot about them, though."

"I have to, if I want to treat him correctly." She pulled a plastic chair out from under a table. "You might want to sit down." When he declined, she sat down herself without further reaction.

"What's this about?" Jack asked suspiciously. He'd been feeling strangely numb, too emotionally exhausted to care much for her mysterious behaviour but now curiosity was taking over. "Why this secrecy? If you want into my pants you just have to say so."

"I know you warned Mr. Jones to get away," she told him.

Jack let his head fall back. "Ah."

"And," she continued, "I heard your argument with Hart."

"That was you around the corner." Jack realised.

"Yes. And you didn't tell him." For the first time the hint of a smile appeared on her face. It made her look younger and a lot gentler. "Why not?"

Jack shrugged uncomfortably.

"I didn't want him to kill anyone else, I guess," he admitted.

"Well, you can prevent him from killing me by keeping this conversation a secret."

It wasn't a hard promise to make.

-

If there had still been any doubt to Jack that there was more to this woman than he had thought, he would have learned better now.

As it turned out the Doctor had a lot of friends here on Earth. Friends who knew about his situation and were determined to get him out of here. He was quite surprised to learn that the little group that had worked out a plan to rescue the Time Lord was supported by UNIT.

"They tried to get Torchwood to hand him over years ago, but they refused. A mission to break in and free him also failed."

"And you think you can succeed where UNIT failed?" Jack had his doubts, and a voice at the back of his head was warning him that maybe this was a trick, that John had sent her to test his loyalties. If that was true, Ianto was dead by now.

"I'm here, aren't I? I'm the first of us who has even seen him since his capture."

"Right. So they got themselves an ally inside the Institute. Always handy. How did they win you over?"

She shook her head.

"I was the one who found them. The Doctor's life isn't linear. He keeps showing up out there, a younger him… Without me no one would ever have learned what happened to him."

Jack hadn't expected that. He looked at the doctor in her white coat and wondered who she was.

"It took me a while to find Torchwood and even longer to get employed by them," she explained. "My experience with alien life forms helped, though. But I worked at the wrong Torchwood. There's a branch in Cardiff, watching over a rift in time and space. Eventually I found out where the Doctor was, but I couldn't do anything. For years I could only watch from a very long distance."

He winces inwardly at the bitterness and pain in her voice.

"And then you got transferred here, as his personal doctor," he continued her story. "Very convenient, wasn't it?"

"It would have been convenient had it happened twenty years sooner," she points out.

"I suspect Dr. Roberts isn't your actual name then?"

"Yes, it is. I'm just not really called Samantha." She didn't seem inclined to explain further, so Jack asked the question that was burning on his tongue:

"I suppose now you've finally got to him, you have some grand plan to get him out of here. Why are you telling me this?"

"Because I'm a good observer who's also good at reading people," she replied. "I didn't think much of you at first, but I noticed that you felt sorry for the Doctor. You didn't seem to dislike him and according to what Lisa Jones told me, you seemed genuinely interested in his fate. Then I heard your argument with the General and saw you help Lisa's husband. I think out of all people here you're the best person to ask for help."

"You trust me?" His eyebrows rose, quite significantly.

"No," she said honestly. "You're Hart's friend. But I need you and have to take the risk."

Jack thought back to the bloody cell, to the Doctor's silent plea. "The Doctor trusted me."

It didn't seem to surprise her.

"He's like that. Always thinking people to be better than they are."

He had to be, yes. But perhaps he was making those people better through his belief.

"Lisa is dead," Jack told her. For a second Roberts closed her eyes.

"I know."

"What do you need me for?"

Jack did trust this woman, he found out. She wasn't lying to him — the Doctor mattered to her, more than he could imagine. He saw it in her eyes, heard it in her voice when she spoke of him.

"The escape is planned for this morning, half an hour before the regular staff moves in. I don't know exactly what's going on in that cell, but I don't think he'll be able to walk by himself once they are done with him." There it was again, the pain in her voice. "I can't carry him."

"So I'm the muscle," he realised.

"Yes, you are," she confirmed, before adding: "Or the traitor, telling your friend and having me shot. Destroying the Doctor's best chance of freedom."

He looked her in the eyes and saw hope there, determination, but no fear. She was brave, heroic even — she was what he'd wanted to be, once. Maybe that was what happened to the people who touched the Doctor.

Maybe that was what had happened to him, because he found out that he still wanted to be like that, that he still wanted to be a hero. He'd disappointed the Doctor when he'd let Lisa die, had had no other choice then. Jack needed to prove he was better than that if given the chance.

"John isn't my friend," he said.

-

She didn't tell Jack the details of the plan — he couldn't blame her for not fully trusting him and didn't try too hard to find out.

In the end, she sent him away with the instruction to wait in his room and come when she called for him. Jack could imagine John showing up tonight, because Jack was pissed at him and John liked it when he was aggressive and violent. He wouldn't let him in, though. Play the sulking lover if he had to. Eventually the other man would give up.

As he left the laboratory, Jack asked one more thing he wanted to know:

"How long have you been trying to get to him?"

Roberts smiled her bitter little smile.

"Since the very beginning."

-

As expected, Jack didn't find any sleep but the adrenaline pushed him forward even after three days without sufficient rest. Dr. Roberts called him on his mobile at half past four in the morning and he met her in the hall.

She'd just gotten an order to get to the Doctor, she told him. Jack would get into the restricted area with her, sporting a special allowance from the head of the organization. He was quite surprised to see the psychic paper she handed him — he'd lost his when his spaceship exploded.

They found the Doctor in his usual cell but not on the bed as Jack had expected, but kneeling folded up in the middle of the room. His ankles were chained to a hook in the floor, his wrists to another one, leaving his arms stretched forward and his forehead resting on the floor.

He didn't move when they entered. Roberts told the armed man waiting outside to close the door.

"You stay there," she ordered Jack. "Until the security cameras stop functioning, I'm just here to take care of him and you're just here to watch."

"What's going to take out the cameras?"

"The same thing that will take out everything else here." Her answer was suitably vague.

With his face hidden by his arms, it was impossible to see if the Doctor was awake. He had to be unconscious, though, because otherwise he would have reacted to their conversation by now.

Jack became aware that Dr. Roberts had so far only been called when the man was out, and had been gone before he woke up — probably to keep him from accidentally giving her away in his confusion. He didn't know she was even here.

Once he woke up and recognized her, Jack would have the final proof that she wasn't lying to him.

If he even recognized her, a persistent part of his mind whispered. After all, forty years had passed since he'd last seen her.

The medic set down the large case with her medical supplies and knelt beside the Time Lord. She opened his shackles and carefully rolled him onto his side. Jack was surprised, shocked even, to see him awake after all. Tears were shimmering in his eyes as he looked up at the old woman now cradling his head in her lap.

"Martha," he whispered. "I'm so sorry."

-

They had almost an hour before they could leave (or attempt to). Enough time for the Doctor and his friend to do some talking. Jack did his best not to feel left out.

"So, it's Martha Roberts then," he said after he had helped her get the Time Lord onto the narrow bunk.

"Yes," She nodded, and when she noted the Doctor's questioning look, she added, "I was married."

She didn't offer any further information and the Doctor didn't ask.

He'd been dressed in clean clothes. At Martha's request Jack turned away while she quickly checked him over and treated to his injuries. It was blatantly obvious already that she had been right: he wouldn't be able to walk on his own.

Staring at the wall, Jack heard her tell the Doctor her story with little more detail than the version she'd told him.

"You knew they were going to get you," she finally said, after a long pause. "I knew the moment I found your psychic paper and the other thing in my pocket."

"Yes. I'm sorry." The Doctor's voice was even quieter than before. The conversation was enough to exhaust him and Jack began to worry he wouldn't be able to move at all when the time came. "They could track me, and without the TARDIS, there was no escape. No point in keeping that stuff, they would have taken it from me right away."

"That's why you sent me the other way." There was accusation in her voice.

"They wanted me, so I knew if they got me first they'd probably ignore your existence — no offence. But if they had caught you along with me, they wouldn't have let you go."

Dr. Roberts was done with her work and Jack was allowed to turn around again. The Doctor's clothes were neatly in place — the only change Jack could make out were the bandages around his hands and the fact that the bruised cuts on his face had been cleaned.

"I had hoped you'd find the TARDIS before Torchwood could collect it. There would have been an emergency program…"

"But I didn't," Martha cut off her friend. "And I wouldn't have wanted to leave. They had you, and I wasn't going to leave you behind."

"And you didn't," the Doctor whispered, lifting one thin hand to cup her face. "I'm so sorry. You wasted your life looking for me. All those years trying to get here…"

"…weren't wasted," Martha finished his sentence. "I didn't live in the time I belonged in. I didn't have the life I was supposed to have, but I did have a life. You're acting like I was robbed of thirty-eight years, but I've lived every single one. I've seen things I wouldn't know about if I'd never met you. And all this time I've had a goal. Now I have reached it. How can you say my life was wasted?"

"If that goal you're talking about is getting the Doctor out of here, I wouldn't say you reached it before we see the sky." Jack decided it was time for them to remember his presence. "And I don't mean lying on our backs while our blood is soaking the earth. Don't you think it's time to fill us in on your plan?"

"Right." Dr. Roberts sat on the bunk, her back against the wall. Somehow she seemed younger now she had dropped her act, even though Jack could tell from her story that she was older than she looked. Definitely hot for her age, but now was not the time for thoughts like that.

"During my stay here I have placed a number of transmitters around the complex. The security systems won't detect them." She glanced at her watch. "In about five minutes friends outside will send a signal that kills every system. Once the signal comes through, it'll all have to happen very fast. First of all we'll have to deactivate the chip. That will hurt."

"I can take it." The Doctor sounded confident for someone who couldn't stand on his own.

"What chip?" Jack asked.

Martha explained it to him: "There's a chip implanted in his neck that responds to the signal of a transmitter nearby. Once the signal doesn't reach it anymore, like when he manages to escape from the building, the chip knocks him out cold."

"Stopped me from getting away twice." The Doctor gave them a slightly embarrassed smile.

"We need to time it perfectly," Martha told Jack. "The chip needs to be taken out before the signal it responds to is cut off by our attack, but so shortly before that even if it is spotted on the CCTV, they don't have time to react anymore."

"If the systems are killed all the doors will lock," Jack pointed out. "And what about the armed guards out there? I can't imagine they'll just let us walk out."

He looked at his companions: An old woman and a weak and injured alien. His optimism wavered.

"We've actually considered that, thank you," Martha replied, slightly irritated, before she made Jack help the Doctor to kneel so she could access his neck. Half a minute to go.

"Is that a sonic screwdriver?" Jack's eyes widened when he saw the tool the medic pulled from her case.

"The Doctor's." She nodded. "He gave it to me just before he was taken. It's surprising just how much you can get through the security controls by claiming it's a medical tool. Brace yourself." The last words were spoken to the Doctor.

About ten seconds before the lights went out, Martha pressed the tool against the Doctor's neck and activated it. He didn't scream, but his body jerked violently before it fell forward and for a moment he stopped breathing.

Jack caught him before his head hit the floor.

A strong flashlight provided illumination in the darkness that followed.

"This is the first place they'll send their soldiers in the case of a total power failure," Jack said even as he gently stroked the shaking Doctor's hair. He resisted the urge to whisper — the darkness didn't make the room any less soundproof.

"Don't worry." The way Martha said those words they sounded like an order. She took another thing out of her case, small and circular.

"Is that a Doolan Mind Buster?" the Doctor gasped breathlessly. "Martha Jones, you are brilliant!"

"I know," she replied with a smile. "A present of Torchwood Three. Well, not really. Now, nobody moves." She pressed the button and a red wave of energy spread through the building unhindered by walls. Knocking down everyone further than two metres away from the source, letting them sleep for an hour without causing any lasting damage.

They still had to worry. Ten minutes at best before the reinforcements showed up, Jack estimated. He helped the Doctor to his feet and supported him while Martha used the sonic screwdriver to open the door. Outside the guard was lying soundly asleep.

The Doctor stopped Jack from taking his gun.

They hurried through the corridors, the Time Lord leaning heavily on Jack. It would have been easier to simply carry him but Jack didn't want to rob him of the pleasure of walking out of his prison on his own.

More unconscious bodies in the corridors. Jack kept expecting them to jump up and shoot them, even the ones who weren't armed.

This early in the morning the main area was nearly deserted. As they reached the lift, the ex-time agent hesitated.

"I don't suppose there's time for me to go up and kill my dear old friend, is there?" he asked grimly. He didn't understand how attraction had turned to hatred so quickly, but right now John Hart was a part of his life he wanted to sever all contact with. Quite ultimately. (Maybe if John was gone he could forget he had ever been a man who'd seen the Doctor only as a ticket home.)

"We won't kill anyone!" the Doctor hissed, and Jack realised that murder was not the way to go here.

"With even Harold Saxon taking an interest in the Doctor, losing him is probably going to have consequences for General Hart anyway," Martha tried to console him.

"Saxon?" The Doctor looked at her, his voice alarmed. "You saw him?"

"Yes, we met in the corridor. Why do you ask?"

The Time Lord didn't answer, but he looked deeply troubled in a way Jack didn't like.

Jack suspected this was not the best time to inform Martha about the politician's true nature.

Naturally the lift didn't work. They had to take the stairs, and now Jack did carry the Doctor in his arms — he was already on the verge of collapse. Just before they reached the large doors leading outside he set him back on his feet and just kept him from falling as they walked out into the early morning sunlight.

-

Outside the building they found a number of people gathering on those spots where passing men and women had fallen to the ground unconscious. The early hour had reduced the number of victims of Martha's mind buster device, and apparently no moving car had been inside its range at the time. The Doctor still had a worried frown on his pale face.

If anyone had seen the wave of energy emerging from the building they'd just walked out of, they didn't think anything of it. The only thing that raised the interest of one or two passers-by was Jack lifting the Doctor off the ground to carry him like a child. They needed to get away quickly now.

"There'll be a car to pick us up a few metres down the road," Martha informed them. Jack hurried after her, the Doctor a paperweight in his arms, until the Time lord suddenly said, "Stop."

They stopped.

"Doctor, what's wrong?" Martha asked. "We don't have time. They might be after us already!"

The Doctor was staring unblinkingly down the narrow road they were just about to cross, his head tilted as if listening for something.

"Turn left," he said.

"Why? What's there?" Jack wanted to know.

"Do it!" The alien spoke with such urgency that Jack found himself obeying without protest. "There! Around the corner, between the buildings."

Jack saw nothing but followed the Doctor's instructions until they entered an alley blocked by a large blue thing that looked a bit like a phone box.

"The TARDIS!" Martha exclaimed. "How did she get here? I thought they took her!"

"They did," the Doctor confirmed. "And last year she was taken from them."

"By who?" As if the Doctor had any chance of knowing, thought Jack, not sure what use this large wooden piece of junk would be to them.

"By Saxon," the Doctor said grimly.

Martha stared at him. "Harold Saxon? Future Prime Minister Harold Saxon?"

"Yeah. He's an alien. Not a nice one."

"And he just parked it here for us to find?" Martha sounded sceptical.

"Yes. He knew we were going to escape."

"How could he?" Jack asked.

"Because he saw Martha," the Doctor explained darkly. "If he's been here for months he's seen her and me running around in this time. He knew she was my friend."

"Maybe he didn't recognize me," Martha offered. "I'm not exactly as young as I used to be."

"He recognized you," the Doctor claimed.

"If he's your enemy, why did he let us get away?" Jack wondered aloud. "You think it's a trap?"

"No." The Doctor shook his head. "We're safe with her. I'd know if we weren't."

"Then what is he planning?"

"I don't know." The Time Lord's head fell against Jack's shoulder. He was breathing harder now. "But I have to stop him."

"Right," Jack said sourly. "I think you should leave the stopping of villains to someone else for a while."

"No! It has to be me!" The harshness of the Doctor's voice was a surprise. "I'm the only one who can."

"I think we'll discuss that once we're somewhere less exposed," Martha decided.

Jack asked, "What is this thing anyway?"

"It's the Doctor's ship."

"That?" Jack frowned. "I bet it's all nice and cosy but I doubt it's the right vehicle for someone in his condition. There wouldn't even be enough room to lie down if there weren't three of us." He worried, briefly, about getting left behind.

Martha ignored him. "How did you know she was here?" she asked her friend.

A tired smile graced the Doctor's face that made Jack fall a little bit in love.

"She called for me," he whispered. Then his face fell. "They took my key."

Martha grinned and pulled an utterly normal looking key on a chain out of her pocket.

"You didn't think I'd ever let go of it, did you?"

She unlocked the door and the Doctor let out a chocked little sob as Jack carried him over the threshold, at any moment expecting to bump into a wall.

-

As it turned out the ship was bigger on the inside. The Doctor flicked a few switches on the console in the middle of the first room, causing the column in its centre to move. They were in the vortex now, the Doctor told them. Going nowhere.

The Time Lord seemed reluctant to leave Earth and the evil called Harold Saxon behind but even he had to accept that in his current state, he wouldn't be able to fight anyone. By the time they reached a bed to put him in, he was barely conscious.

Once Jack had laid him down on the soft surface he just rolled to his side, curled up and passed out. Jack thought Martha would use the opportunity for a more thorough check-over but she shook her head when he mentioned it.

"There'll be time for that later. He'd not in immediate danger. I think it's best to just let him rest for a while." She opened her medical case anyway and pulled out a neatly folded, long brown coat to drape it over her sleeping friend.

"There," she murmured. "That's better."

-

Given the strangeness of this place and everything he'd seen and done in the past few days, Jack was surprised how quickly sleep came to him. He'd lain down in a plain little chamber that contained only the bed and a dusty closet and woke up in a room that looked a lot like that hotel room on Vegas Prime in Fornax, where he'd once spent a rather fantastic weekend.

Martha had fallen asleep on the couch in a living room he hadn't seen the first time he came this way. As he looked closer, Jack saw traces of tears on her cheeks. He did his best not to disturb her.

In the maze of corridors the room they had left the Doctor in was surprisingly easy to find. Jack stopped in the open doorway, just watching him for a while.

The Time Lord hadn't moved at all — Jack needed a moment to figure out what had changed in the picture presented to him:

It was as if the man had sunken into the mattress. It was engulfing him, as if trying to absorb him. Jack frowned a little, but he didn't get the impression that anything was wrong. The Doctor looked safe there, cradled in the warmth of this place.

He also appeared to be sleeping peacefully. From the scientists working for Torchwood, Jack had learned that he often had horrible nightmares — it didn't exactly surprise him.

He imagined waking up from a terrible dream to find himself in a reality that offered no relief.

The ex-time agent sighed softly as he wandered over to the Doctor. His steps were slow and so he registered only after a little while that he didn't seem to get any closer.

He looked back: the doorway was still around him. Feeling slightly freaked out, Jack took a few large steps forward and found that he hadn't moved at all.

"I think it's the ship."

Martha was standing behind him suddenly, taking hold of his arm. "The dimensions are a little twisted here. I already tried to get to him. It won't work."

"What do you mean, 'it's the ship'?"

"It's alive. And right now she's keeping us from getting to the Doctor. We can see him so we know he's all right, but this is as close as we get. Don't worry, if anything's wrong she'll let us reach him."

"Why would the ship keep us away?" Jack tried to wrap his mind around the idea of a living time-space-ship that read his mind and manipulated its own internal dimensions.

Martha shrugged.

"I guess she just wants him for herself for a while."

Jack glanced at her. "You're used to this kind of stuff, aren't you?"

She shrugged again. "Life with the Doctor is a bit weird. But you get used to the TARDIS quite quickly." Finally taking her eyes off the sleeping Time Lord, she gave him a little smile. "Thank you. For helping us get out."

"I'm the one who has to thank you." The words left Jack's mouth before he had a chance to think about what he was saying. It was true, though. He couldn't remember when he'd last felt this all right with himself. Pulling a con had left him feeling self-satisfied, clever and superior to his victims, but there'd always been this little, ignored voice asking him if this really was the person he wanted to be.

"I'm from the fifty-first century," he explained to Martha. "I used to be a time agent, and have lived a pretty exciting life myself. But this is the first time I really feel I've done something good." It was hard finding the right words to express himself. "As a child I've had so many dreams, but when I grew up I gave them up one by one. I wanted to be a hero and ended up always helping only myself. I entered the time agency because I wanted to save the universe, but I soon learned that they don't need heroes but self-serving, cold-hearted bastards, and so I just followed the easiest path and betrayed myself in the process. The two of you have given me the chance to discover that I'm not really like that."

Martha's smile turned wistful.

"You just needed someone to believe in," she guessed. "The Doctor is good for that."

She was right. It was very easy to believe in the Doctor. Especially since the Time Lord had been the first person to believe in him.

"This exciting life of yours," Martha changed the topic. "Tell me about it."

-

They ended up in the living room with Jack entertaining his new friend with stories about monkeys lost in time, underwear lost in space, and lovers lost in confusion. Martha suddenly became serious when he mentioned the trouble with running into himself, and how to avoid it.

"I left this time with the Doctor only a few days ago," she told him. "For more than twenty years I had to move very carefully, always trying to recall where I was at the time. There were two of me, and one had no idea what was to come."

"Did you ever consider warning yourself not to go with the Doctor when you met him?" Jack wanted to know.

Martha frowned. "I'm not stupid: I know you can't change your own history like that. And I meant what I said to the Doctor — I wouldn't have missed it for the world. Besides, if it wasn't for me, no one might ever have learned what had happened to him and he'd be a prisoner of Torchwood for another thousand years."

Jack had to admire her ability to see the good side of things. Then, however, her eyes grew sad.

"I missed my family so much. The last time I called my mother was on election day — that's in less than a week," she said quietly. "After that mum will never again hear from me, the normal me. The younger me. If I ever see her again I'll have to explain why I'm older than her now. It'll break her heart. I've already considered to never seeing her again."

"That's stupid," Jack told her, matter-of-factly. She looked at him in surprise.

"Do you really think your mother would be happier if you just disappeared and she never found out what happened to you?" he continued. "Okay, it will be a shock to see you at this age, but at least she'll know you've had a life, somewhere. And she can learn all about it. Usually parents can only speculate how the rest of their children's life will go once they're dead. How many mothers get the chance to know what becomes of their daughters?"

His words made Martha smile again. "You're right. It was a stupid idea to begin with. But before we face my mother the Doctor will have to get stronger. She doesn't like him, and this is not going to help."

Jack looked over at the door leading to the corridor and the Doctor's room.

"Do you think he will be all right?" he asked quietly.

Martha leaned back, her eyes suddenly fixed on a point far in the distance. But her voice was firm.

"Yes," she said. "One day."

-

The Doctor slept through another day. Jack and Martha did some exploring of the ship she hadn't seen in almost forty years, got lost five times and finally got the message when every path they took led back to their bedrooms.

This time Jack slept just as well, but he dreamt of his family's house on Boeshane Peninsula and when he woke up his room looked like the room he had shared with his little brother during the first years of his life. (Later he'd had the room to himself.) Jack left quickly, not without kicking the doorframe as he walked out.

This time it was not the living room he found first but the kitchen. Jack helped himself with a large portion of pancakes, roasted bacon, eggs and a lot of coffee. When he was done he left the kitchen and found himself in the control room five steps later.

The Doctor was sitting on the worn couch in front of the six-sided console. He'd exchanged the light grey clothes he'd worn at Torchwood for a dark blue suit that didn't go along with the black turtleneck he was wearing beneath. The brown coat was thrown over the back of the couch.

When he noticed Jack's presence, the Time Lord grinned at him. He looked well rested, if not particularly healthy.

"Jack!" he greeted him happily. "Do you still want to go home? I need to know the exact year."

His words took the former conman by surprise. In fact, they shocked him so much he needed a few seconds before he could think of an answer.

"Home is overrated," he said.

The Doctor looked puzzled. "Really? I love being home!" He stroked the console fondly and Jack thought he was very strange and fell in love a little more.

"I don't really have anywhere I belong," Jack admitted. "My wish to leave was more of an 'anywhere but here' kind."

"And I always thought that century was a particularly lovely one." The Doctor looked at Martha, who, as Jack now saw, was standing on the other side of the console. "Don't you think?"

"It's lovely," Martha agreed. "Although I'd like to see another one for a change."

"The fifty-first it is, then?"

"If we could postpone that for a bit?" Jack tried rather hard not to sound pleading. "It's not that much fun, compared to some others."

"Are you sure?" The Doctor was suddenly very serious. "It's your only chance — the next trip goes straight back to 2007. I've got work to do."

"Ah, that Saxon business," Jack recalled. "I can help you."

The Doctor smiled, but it looked a little sad.

"That's a generous offer, but I don't think it's a good idea. The Master is very dangerous. You wouldn't be safe."

"All the more reason to stay with you," Martha replied. "After I waited so long to see you again I won't let you out of my sight so soon."

"And I don't have anything better to do." Jack had to admit his reason didn't sound as good as Martha's, but it was still better than kneeling in front of the Time Lord and begging him to let him stay.

There was something about the Doctor and Jack couldn't tell exactly what it was, only that he didn't want to lose it.

Ever.

For a moment the Time Lord was very, very still. Then, suddenly, he beamed.

"All right!" he said, flicking a switch on the console and the next second Jack was lying on the floor while the ship shook and twisted around him. Something exploded in a rain of sparks.

"Oh, no, no, that isn't good!" he heard the Doctor cry. "This isn't supposed to happen!"

-

When the shaking stopped the Doctor was clinging to the back of the couch, looking unhappy but adorable. At least he hadn't fallen to the ground — Jack would have hated for him to get hurt any worse, and he looked so fragile in the suit that was too large.

Like Jack, Martha hadn't been so lucky. She was sitting on the floor, her greying hair in disarray. Jack offered a hand to help her up and she took it gladly.

"What happened?"

"Something's interfered with the coordinates. As if there were two orders at conflict in the TARDIS' programming." The Doctor's face was dark. "It must have been the Master. He wanted us to get here."

"But what for?" Martha asked. "Where are we? Still on Earth?"

"Uh, no," the Doctor confessed, looking at his screen. "We're actually quite far away from Earth. Very, very far away. Ah… make that a hundred trillion years away from Earth." He turned the screen around so the two humans could see a bunch of alien symbols that didn't make any sense to them. "We're at the end of the universe," he added helpfully.

"End of the universe?" asked Jack. "You mean, the stars burning out, galaxies collapsing, and there's nothing there to take their place? The end of everything?" He whistled between his teeth. "I've never been this far in the future."

"No, me neither," the Doctor said thoughtfully. "It's not a place a Time Lord would usually visit."

"What did that Master guy send us here for?" Martha asked, sounding slightly nervous.

The Doctor stared at nothing for a second, his face hard. Then he said, "Only one way to find out!" He grabbed his coat and jogged over to the door leading outside with a lightness that seemed to mock his weakened state. When he looked back to his companions, he sported a grin Jack was beginning to learn not to trust.

"Aren't you coming?" the Time Lord called. "End of the universe. Alons-y!"

- end

July 27, 2008