Disclaimer: I don't own anything except the plot. BBC owns the rest.

Author's Notes: Sorry for the delay, I had a large NaNo distraction, and then Muse turned her back on this story for ages. And a certain McAngrypants had to be hit with a bag full of cunning. And another one of patience. Not to mention I apparently have to be in a bad mood to write Emo McAngrypants... anyway...I am so, so sorry for your wait! Not to mention, it's a bit of a couple awkward time skips, but whenever I could focus on this chapter, doing it any other way was...well, not pretty.

Anyway, on with the show! Hopefully chapter 3 we'll have some actual action :D

Chapter 2: Step 1: You say 'We need to talk'

The morning after the revelations in Rose's journals was difficult for Jason. Yes he now knew what was going on, and he did have plans to deal with it - and hopefully considering how Donna would approach matters would help keep those plans from going awry. But now he had to go down and have breakfast with Jackie, and Pete, if he was still home. And he had to explain things from his point of view, which meant he'd have a twisted stomach and not get much to eat. Again.

Still, he put a good face on and ambled downstairs to the dining room - and had to make it a much better 'good' face, very quickly, because Tony was there too. "Morning Jackie, Pete. Heya Tony, how's things?" He dished up a decent breakfast from the sideboard and sat down to the cheeriness only a child could manage on a daily basis, and his parents' greetings.

Thanks to Tony being there, he managed to eat half his breakfast. Unfortunately, one of the servants (a nanny, he supposed) took Tony off with her, which left him without a cute shield against appetite-destroying emotions. Still, he had his plan to enact, so he altered his posture to give the impression that he was scraping up his courage, then looked up through his drooping hair at Jackie and Pete.

"I didn't want to talk about this earlier, because of Tony, but I really want to apologize for how...noisy...things have been between Rose and I. It's just..." He trailed off with an honestly heartfelt sigh and shook his head. "I'm still trying to adjust to...well, not having everything I'm used to, especially the TARDIS, and Rose...as near as I can tell, she doesn't care about how hard adjusting to everything is. She just wants what she wants, when she wants it, and I'm...I'm not ready for it. Any of it."

Jackie opened her mouth, but Pete put a hand on her wrist and shook his head slightly. 'Don't say anything until we're sure he's had his say', he meant, as one of the fights -he'd- been privileged to overhearing had been about Rose never letting the Doctor have a word in edgewise.

Jason noticed the interruption, and decided to do something useful for Pete before he left, to thank the man for being observant. "You see, the TARDIS was more than just a ship...she was my home, and my oldest friend. And now I've not only lost my oldest, dearest friend, but I'm homeless, except for the roof the two of you offered, I can't just go anywhere or anywhen on a whim like I'm used to, and...well, on top of that deeply painful loss, I'm...well, frankly I'm bored to tears. Sorry Pete, but there just isn't enough around the mansion for me to mess around with - certainly nothing that needs fixing."

"Other than the holes you put in your walls. Which," Pete tilted his head in acknowledgment. "You do seem to be fixing on your own. But that's a problem in itself, Doctor." Pete either didn't notice the barely-perceptible flinch, or chose not to acknowledge it. "You've got an anger management issue, and it needs to be dealt with."

"I know I have...issues...with being angry. It's...being half-human, it makes all my emotions so much more immediately intense than they used to be, and I'm not used to that either. I'm trying to learn other ways of dealing with it." Again he sighed, and pulled puppy-dog eyes on Jackie. "I just...I'm sorry, Jackie, I really am. But Rose is...she's...well, she's just not the girl I remember. The girl I..." The pause to actually spit the words out worked well, he thought, to make the moment just a touch more emotional. "...the girl I love." Jason choked off a bitter laugh at having to say those words and shook his head. "The way she's constantly on and on at me and refusing to see my side of anything, refusing to let me do anything, I'm...well, I'm starting to wonder if that should be past tense."

Jackie had shut her eyes and taken a deep breath, then let it go as she opened her eyes and gave the Doctor a wan smile. "She'll be better soon, you'll see. She just needs a bit more time to realise that she's got you now. I'll talk to her, she'll settle down in a few weeks."

"I don't think that's quite right, Jacks. Rose got very...determined during the years she was trying to get the dimensional cannon to work. And it's going to take more than just time to get her to settle down and see what she has." Pete shook his head and took a gulp of cooling coffee. "We're going to have to do something to get her to see that she's attained her goal and doesn't have to keep looking. You'll have to help too, Doctor."

Jason couldn't keep himself from flinching, that time, but it fit the subject well enough, and let him quit toying with food he wouldn't be able to finish. "Pete, right now it's all I can do to promise to walk away when she starts up again, instead of trying to get through to her with yet another fight."

"That's all I want right now." Pete said and finished his coffee. "Now, it's going to take a bit for me to see if there's somewhere in Torchwood that could use your talents...it'd be faster if we knew what those actually were. In the meantime, I just want you to work on not letting yourself get dragged into arguments. Walk away when she starts getting up your nose. Jacks and I will talk to her and make her see what she's doing, and hopefully we'll all be better off in a week."

"Oh Pete, still dreaming," Jackie sighed and gave her husband a fond smile. "I do know my own daughter. It'll be longer than a week - we just have to keep at it and not give up, is all. And then she'll realise she's got what she wants, and we'll all be fine." She turned and smiled at Jason and reached over to pat his hand. "Doctor, I know you need your time to get used to all the changes in your life...would it be easier if you had your own place? Not living with us?"

Oh, if only he could - he'd be less agitated all the time, he'd have peace when he wanted it, and most important, a place Rose didn't have control of any sort in. But...there was the problem of her journal, and whether she'd update it with anything useful for him to know - torn between the choices, he simply looked at his plate and shrugged. "I dunno. It would cut down drastically on the fighting if I wasn't here to be fought with...but I'd miss you, Jackie. You," He paused and flashed Pete a crooked smile. "and you, Pete, and Tony. The three of you are a big draw to stay."

Pete had one last bite of toast, then wiped his mouth with his napkin and laid it on the table. "Time enough for that when we've got you a way to support yourself, Doctor. Why don't you take today and list everything you can do, and tomorrow I can start seeing where we could use you?"

"If you can wait fifteen minutes, I can get you that list before you go." Jason smiled thankfully at Pete, and mentally counted his blessings. Whatever powers there were, they were working in his favour at the moment.

Pete glanced at his watch, then nodded. "I think I can spare fifteen minutes. The sooner you're not bored to tears, the sooner you'll have something extra to help you manage your temper."

"I'll get on it then." Jason used his napkin, then pushed away from the table and stood. "See you in fifteen, Pete." One of his brighter smiles was flashed at the balding man, and he dashed off to figure out how to write Pete the list he wanted in something under fifteen sheets of paper.

"I do worry so about him," Jackie said, once the Doctor was out of the room. "Thank you so much for offering to find him something to do, Pete. I've seen a bored Doctor before, and it's not a pretty picture. As bad as this has been, it's...well, at least he's not been taking apart the appliances and trying to make them more efficient. Which would run the risk of them exploding." She sighed and drooped a bit, remembering. "Seems like that was the last time I saw them happy together, he and Rose."

"I just wish I'd thought of it sooner, Jacks." Pete hugged his wife and kissed her cheek, then headed for the door. "I suspect things would have been a lot more peaceful if we'd given him something to do to get settled in weeks ago."

The next few months were a real test of patience for Jason. Oh yeah, he got to go to work for Torchwood - but because he was half-alien, it wasn't like he was really trusted. And therefore, wasn't allowed into the areas he really needed to get into to escape this wretched universe, much less snaffle anything to fix Donna with. Still, he got to identify artefacts - mostly broken junk, but still putting his brain and memory to use. And there was that one encounter with an actual peaceful race - the Silfaya - that either didn't exist in his universe of origin, or hadn't made themselves known yet.

Still, the Doctor, whom most of his memories were from, admitted himself that he didn't know everything. It would be nice to think that the Silfaya existed back home - a truly peaceful race of beings was very rare. And to think, without him and his advice, the humans would have gone in guns-first and ruined any chance of straightening out the mess they'd made of the planet.

It just remained to be seen whether his advice and aid would buy him access to the deeper parts of Torchwood. Those being the more valuable (and working) artifacts...and the big prize, the Dimensional Cannon. Supposedly disassembled by now, he'd seen enough memos even at his low rank to suss out that it was only in mothballs, waiting for the next time it was needed. Hopefully not for invasionary purposes - he didn't think he could handle that, nor, really, could his own Earth. But the very idea just refreshed his goal to use the cannon and begone from this universe - he now had to figure out how to completely eradicate it from existence while using it to escape, instead of just using it to escape.

Six months further spent in this hell-hole, and all he had to show for it was a greater degree of access, but not quite access to the dimensional cannon. Oh, and a most embarrassing Christmas party where Rose had tried to drape herself over him like tinsel. Jason shuddered in his lab as he forced himself to not relive that memory. Bad enough he'd had nightmares for a solid week about a tinsel-clad Rose, he didn't need to relive the utter humiliation of everyone about trying to force him into intercourse with her. It was enough to make him ill, especially because Jackie thought he was still trying to make things work, so now he had to play the 'she sleeps around too much' card, rather than the 'I'm still settling in' card...well, he did if he wanted to keep Jackie on his side, anyway. Which he did - it was exponentially much more peaceful with Jackie on his side rather than Rose's.

Still, it looked like he was just going to have to turn his attention to doing things the slightly more fun way. He'd spent too much time anyway trying to play by the rules laid out...and when did he or (really) his brother ever play by the rules? Not so much, yeah. So why was he doing it here? Oh yeah, right. No TARDIS. It was amazing, how much his brother could get away with because of the Old Girl. Yeah, he had a Baby Girl all his own, or she would be if he could ever get her set up to grow, but oh, he missed the Old Girl as much as he missed Donna.

He sighed as he used a stealth 'weasel' program to steal everything he needed to run the dimensional cannon and shook his head. He'd be gone from here by next week if he was lucky. And then he could see about growing his Baby Girl, and fixing Donna, and then getting life back to a real and true normal. Him and Donna Noble, in the TARDIS, next stop anywhere.

If she could ever forgive him for what his brother did, of course.