HEY LISTEN: If you have not read up through chapter 55 of With Starlight in Their Wake then turn around and go read that first because this WILL NOT make sense without prior knowledge. I'm not even kidding, you will be so lost without it. And so spoiled. Just click my username and scroll down to my stories. With Starlight in Their Wake. Purple cover. Hard to miss.

To my WSITW readers: Yooooooo! :D Well here we are, then. The novella. You can thank Kryalla Orchid for this being posted. YOU KNOW WHY KRY.

Now, without any further ado, may I present With Starlight in Her Eyes.

Rose wasn't sure how she was still moving. She'd gone past the point of pain, her limbs working on automatic, fueled by adrenaline, and she focused on drawing in air and navigating through the busy streets of Cardiff. The air was cold, stinging her cheeks, a sign of winter fast approaching. People wisely moved out of her way, almost as if they could sense how important her flight was. She wanted to find someplace isolated and pass out but she couldn't stop. Time Lords had better senses than humans (as the Doctor so loved to point out) and the Master could be tracking her like a hound this very moment.

She recalled what the TARDIS had shown her regarding the psychotic Time Lord that had stolen them both. They'd been friends once long ago when they were young but had grown into archenemies. The Master was a psychotic killer and he would take great pleasure in killing her.

She stopped only long enough for get to directions to the Road Dahl Plass from a pair of startled locals then resumed running, her legs pumping in an endless tandem. Her throat craved the relief of water, her shoulders had begun to ache even though her backpack barely had anything in it, and she wanted nothing more than to drop to the ground and wait for the inevitable arrival of paramedics. Or stop and hail a taxi, but she had no money, and she couldn't risk the Master hurting some poor cabbie to find her.

The TARDIS gave her a firm nudge in her mind, urging her on.

She was close now. Almost there, almost to Jack; he would hide her from the Master, help her rescue the others from the end of time.

Rose literally wept with relief when she saw the familiar Plass ahead of her. Memories of her first Doctor, Mickey, and Jack, of laughter and happiness, and fear and Slitheen swam to the surface but she pushed them back, lifting her hand to wipe tears from her eyes.

She raced through though the Plass, careful to avoid the remainder of what must've been some very large cracks in the ground, heading for the docks. She stumbled on the way down, her hands and knees slamming into the wood, but she pushed herself up and kept running. She could see it ahead of her, an indiscreet door in the wall next to a sign that proclaimed it to be an info center.

She grabbed the handle, wrenched the door open, then slammed it shut behind her. It was just a block of metal, but at the moment it felt like as much of an impenetrable barrier as a door of the TARDIS was. That monsterwas on the other side and Jack was somewhere on this side. She slumped against it in relief and closed her eyes, gasping down breaths of air, as tears leaked from her eyes.

"Can I help you?"

Rose's eyes opened and she lifted her head. She was in a small room with several racks of information pamphlets and magazines, a bulletin board with papers pinned to it, a few pictures and single clock on the wall. Apart from a doorway leading to a side-room there didn't appear to be any way out of here. A man with narrow eyes, short brown hair, and a wide mouth stood behind the counter, looking at her with concern. She pushed herself off the door, her head spinning suddenly, and she stumbled towards the counter, catching herself on it.

Her entire body was beginning to shake from exhaustion and her heart thudded erratically as she gasped down air. "Jack," she managed to wheeze. "I…need…Jack!"

The world around her seemed to tilt, her fingers losing their grip on the counter, and her legs gave out beneath her. She crumpled to the ground as the man let out a shout of alarm. She must've blacked out for a second, because the next thing she knew, the man was leaning over her, and she was on her back, and he was speaking, but his words were garbled. She strained her ears.

"Come on, luv, speak to me! My name's Owen Harper, I'm a doctor. Can you tell me your name?"

"He's after…me…." she panted. "Need Jack…"

Owen Harper reached into his pocket and pulled out a mobile. He spoke into it quickly and Rose struggled to hear him over the blood roaring in her ears. "You need to get up here. There's this girl, she's just run in and collapsed…looks like someone attacked her. She's…blonde, ah, about twenty? I don't know, Jack, she hasn't told me but she's said your name—"

"Jack!" she cried, hoping he would hear her through the phone.

Owen's eyebrows shot up and flipped the phone shut, slipping it back into his pocket. "I guess he's coming. Can you tell me your name?"

"Rose. Water…please…"

Owen jumped to his feet and returned a moment later with two cups of water from the cooler. He put his hand under her head and helped her sit up enough so she could drink. She swallowed the first cup greedily.

"Easy," he soothed, holding the second cup to her lips. "Don't choke."

"Thank you," she told him as he lowered her head back to the floor.

"What happened to you?"

Her head flopped from side to side. Couldn't risk it, not yet.

Behind her she heard something like a door opening and for a moment she panicked, thinking the Master had found her. A new wave of adrenaline coursed through her veins and she rolled, pushing herself up, ready to fight if she had to. An opening appeared where there had been a wall before and in the new doorway stood a certain handsome ex-Time Agent. She felt her stomach tighten and that nagging instinct hissed at her to get away, and she knew it was him, well and truly him.

"Jack!" she gasped.

His wide eyes swept over her in disbelief. "Rose?"

She nodded vigorously, which turned out to be a bad idea because the room spun again and she collapsed back onto the floor. She felt the vibrations in the wood as he ran over to her, kneeling down, and put his hand on her head.

"Oh my God, Rose," he murmured. "What happened to you? Where is the Doctor?"

She opened her eyes. "What'sthedate?"

"4th of November, 2006," Jack said quietly.

Rose closed her eyes once more. So he hadn't encountered them in his timeline yet. No wonder he'd warned her to come here if she ever needed him—it'd already happened for him.

Huddling in a ball in the ground, Rose Tyler finally allowed herself to really cry. Anguished sounds ripped their way out of her bruised chest as she hugged herself. Jack slid his arms underneath her and scooped her off the ground, holding her against his chest. She wrapped one arm around his neck and fisted her other hand into his shirt and buried her face into his shoulder. He felt wrong, so wrong, but she wasn't a Time Lord and she knew it wasn't in her instinct to hate, so she was able to ignore the parts of her screaming to get away, and revel in the familiar presence of her Captain, the man she'd bent the rules of reality for so he could live.

"Let's get her down to the Hub," Jack's voice rumbled in his chest. "Lock the door."

"Who is she?" she heard Owen Harper ask.

"An old friend," he said quietly, ducking his head to press a kiss to her hair. "Don't worry, Rose, it's gonna be okay."

Jack carried her into the hidden hallway. She heard the hidden door click shut and another one opened ahead of them, then close once they passed through. She heard the gentle hum and swift descent of a lift then more doors opening, bars clanking, the beeping of technology, and trickling water. It all echoed so the room had to be sizeable. She didn't look up from his shoulder to check.

She thought she heard someone gasp.

Her body was jolted almost violently and she recognized the sensation of being carried up a flight of stairs. Things smoothed out for a few more strides then she was being carried down another set of stairs.

"I'm going to put you down now," he told her. "There's a table right here."

Rose loosened her grip and allowed him to lower her onto the hard flat surface. Her arm slid from around his neck, down his arm, and latched onto his hand, gripping as tightly as she could, but she was so tired. He maneuvered her arms out of the straps of her pack and she let go of his hand just long enough for him to get the strap past.

"Rose, what happened to you?" he asked softly, kneeling down next to her, and held her hand between both of his.

Rose opened her mouth and closed it again.

"Where is he? Oh God, he's not…he's not dead, is he?"

She thought of the Doctor, Martha, and future-Jack, trapped at the end of the universe without the TARDIS, a broken vortex manipulator, and the Futurekind in the compound with them, hungry for flesh.

Tired…

"I dunno," she whimpered.

"Who did this to you?"

She shook her head.

"Is someone after you?"

She nodded. Tired. So, so tired. Tired and beaten and hungry and thirsty and she wanted her Doctor and her TARDIS.

"Is it alien? Rose, come on sweetheart, talk to me. Is it an alien?"

"Yes."

"Toshiko!" Jack barked, his voice growing distant. "Run a ten-mile sweep for any non-terrestrial life forms. If it's not from this planet want to know where it is! Owen, get your ass down here now!"

"Jack…I'm so…so sorry," she whispered.

"For what?" Jack waited for an answer that never came. She exhaled once and her hand went limp in his. He swallowed and pressed two fingers to her throat to make sure she hadn't gone and died on him—he had a feeling his immortality wouldn't matter if that happened, because the Doctor would kill him until he stayed dead—and was relieved to find a pulse beneath his fingertips. It was weak, but there. She was alive. Dirty, sweaty, makeup ruined, hair tangled and windblown, pale and beaten half to death, but she was alive and she was here.

"Rose Tyler," he murmured.

He'd always hoped he'd see her again. That when he found a version of the Doctor that would coincide with him she'd be there, too. Mere weeks ago he'd watched through the CCTV as the Doctor, Rose, Mickey, and a younger version of himself gallivanted around up on the Plass. He'd ached to run up there and warn them all of what was coming, but he knew he couldn't. He'd watched his younger self with envy. That him was in one of the happiest times of his life, with two people he loved, and it would be over all too soon. Rose glowing in the sunlight, smiling and laughing and loving, he hadn't known what her fate was until now.

Last he'd known, the Doctor had sent her home in the TARDIS—oh, God, was this the date he'd sent her back to? Was she here for help getting back to the Gamestation? But how had she known to come to Cardiff to find him?

He studied her face intently. No, that's not it, he realized. The image of her last time he'd seen her on the Gamestation was forever burned into his mind. This Rose did not look like that. This might have been close to the date, but she was not the Rose that had been with him on the satellite. This Rose was older, by a year at the very least, her hair was shorter, and the muscles in her arms were more defined. She'd grown up since then, hopefully with the Doctor by her side. But he wasn't with her now and she didn't even know if he still lived, which meant somewhere in time, something was seriously wrong. She looked like she'd been in a fight already.

But how did you even know I was here?

Owen slipped on his white coat and stood on the opposite side of the table. "So you do know her, then?"

"Like I said, she's an old friend."

Owen gave him a considering look. "Alright, I need to have a look at her, and get some x-rays and blood work. She's human, right?"

Jack nodded and because he knew she would feel more comfortable knowing he'd done it and not some stranger, he removed her dirty, bloodstained clothes, leaving her only in her bra and knickers, and the chain that held her TARDIS key. Rage boiled in him at as he took in the damage to her body. She was a patchwork quilt of injuries. Her feet were swollen and red, and as for the rest of her, if it wasn't bruised, it was cut or scraped. Her arms had several discolorations shaped very distinctly like human hands. Someone had grabbed her. Jack clenched his fists so hard his entire arms shook and he swore violently. He hoped he found whoever had done this before the Doctor did, because he wanted a crack at the bastard before the vengeful Time Lord annihilated him.

He waited tensely as Owen examined her battered body and provided his own colorful commentary in regards to the state that some bastard had left her in. "She'll live," he finally announced and Jack very nearly dropped to his knees in relief. "That," he pointed to her TARDIS key, "needs to come off."

She'd always worn it around her neck, but this chain was new, shining and polished silver. He lifted the key from her chest and held it in his hand for a moment. It was warm so the TARDIS was at least somewhere nearby, but no Doctor. He hated to do it, but he slid his hand along the chain, looking for a clasp. Frowning, he looked again, feeling all long the chain, pulling it so the length behind her neck was visible, but there was no clasp. His frown melted into a smile as he recognized the object beneath his fingers.

"It's not going to come off. It's got a bio-lock on it and completely unbreakable. She's the only one that can remove it," he laughed and shook his head once. "Oh, that's so like him."

"So what are we supposed to do?"

"It's not magnetic and it's not even from Earth. It should be fine."

"And the key?"

Jack snorted. "I don't even know what this key is made out of. Just run the scans and if it interferes we'll think of something."

He was able to supply Owen with her basic medical information, immensely grateful that the Doctor had insisted he learn it in the event Jack had to get her to a hospital by himself. And that he'd managed to remember it this long. Owen ran the scans and took a sample of her blood. She was clean of any toxins or poisons, but she had a broken arm, a concussion, about a dozen pulled muscles and sprained tendons, and mild dehydration. It was a miracle she'd made it to them.

"Oh, God, I don't even know where to start," he muttered to himself.

"I don't care where you start just do something!" Jack snapped. "If she dies we're all dead."

"She's not going to die, Jack," he told him. "Not while I'm here. Now shut up a minute and let me think."

Jack gritted his teeth but kept quiet. Nearly two hundred years old but he was still horrible with medicine. Owen made up his mind and started to clean the blood and dirt off her cuts. She'd managed to get some dirt and gravel in a few of the deeper ones that he had to use tweezers to remove. While he worked on her arms and legs, Jack cleaned her face, patting tenderly around the discolored areas, and removed the blood and grime and the remains of her makeup.

"There's nothing much, Jack," Tosh said from above. Jack looked up, almost surprised to see Suzie and Toshiko standing there, watching. "Just some weevils underground and that baker fifteen blocks over."

"Alright, but keep the sweep going."

"Already done." Tosh leaned forward over the railing to get a better look. "Who is she?"

Jack swallowed. "Her name's Rose Tyler. She's an old, old friend."

Tosh peered at the blonde girl passed out on the table, making a note to look her up in a few minutes. She looked so young, no older than a student. She'd never heard Jack mention anyone named Rose—not that he ever mentioned anything about his past that wasn't a load of nonsense. She'd always assumed he had a dark history he could never explain and so he never bothered. This girl, though, she didn't look like she belonged in such a past at all.

"Did she come through the rift?" Suzie asked. He looked stricken at the idea so she didn't press it. Instead she asked, "Why'd she come here?"

"Probably because she couldn't go home," he guessed. "Whatever did this is probably still after her. She wouldn't risk her mum or Mickey."

"But she'd risk us?"

"No, she'd risk me," he corrected. "She knows I can handle it. We've been through a lot. Hell, when we first met we—" he stopped abruptly and looked down.

"Were the two of you…?" Tosh asked.

He laughed openly at that. "Unfortunately no, and not for lack of trying. She's got someone."

Some of the cuts were serious enough to require stitches. He didn't even want to know what had caused them because he was sure if he did, he would probably go out and search all of Cardiff until he found the son of a bitch. His control was slipping steadily by the minute. Rose had been silent up until Owen started stitching up a gash on her side.

"Doctor," she whimpered.

Owen blinked, startled, and leaned towards her. "Um, yes?"

"She doesn't mean you," Jack told him quietly, ghosting his fingers across Rose's temple. "It's alright, Rose. Don't worry. We'll find him."

"Doctor," she breathed once more then fell silent. Jack remained near her head, gently stroking her forehead and hair, soothing her.

On top of her numerous injuries, she was also moderately dehydrated so he had to put her on an IV. Before hooking her up, Jack dug around in her bag for something that would be easy to get her into. He found a pair of sweatpants and an Oxford shirt that definitely wasn't hers. Jack held it up, rubbing the material through his fingers. Had the Doctor swapped jumpers for dress shirts or was this something special? Though it certainly didn't seem big enough for him. This shirt was meant for a much lankier man.

The Doctor wouldn't just leave her like this, broken and alone, if he had any other choice. Jack's hands curled into fists, almost ripping the shirt in his frustration, but he realized what he was doing and released his hold.

Owen held her up while Jack dressed her, carefully buttoning the Oxford, and rolled one of the sleeves up past her elbow. Once Owen got the IV going in her arm, Suzie descended the stairs with a blanket she'd procured from somewhere and spread it across Rose's body.

"Do you love her?" Suzie asked softly.

Jack only smiled, though it faded when Rose called softly for the Doctor again. He swallowed past the lump in his throat and pulled the TARDIS key out from beneath the shirt, setting it in the space between her breasts. The key and chain gleamed in the fluorescent lights.

"Who's this doctor, then?"

"The same one I'm looking for," Jack murmured. "He's her…well, I don't even know what those two are. But they're disgustingly in love and have more unresolved sexual tension than Mulder and Scully."

"Yeah, well," Owen folded his arms and nodded to the unconscious girl. "Face, ribs, stomach, legs, forearms and biceps—she was grabbed and kicked several times at the very least. Those handprints, based on the size and shape, I'd say they're from a fully grown human male."

"I figured that part out myself."

"I think things might have changed since you last saw them." Owen said softly. "She spoke to me after she collapsed. She said, 'He's after me.'"

When he realized what Owen was implying, Jack was incensed. "No," he said firmly. "He would never, ever hurt her."

Owen wisely backed off.

Jack pulled chair near the wall over to the table and sat down beside her. He held her hand and prepared to wait here until she woke. He was well aware of his teammates upstairs. Owen and Suzie were no doubt exchanging theories about Rose and him. Tosh was probably on the computer, monitoring the sweep and doing other "official" work while discreetly looking up information about Rose Tyler. Jack knew she wouldn't find much. Just some school records, her medical history, a few news stories about Henrick's blowing up, and the case information from the year Rose went missing because she'd gone with the Doctor and he'd miscalculated their return.

When Owen returned several hours later to check on her, Suzie and Tosh came with him. The women remained above, leaning against the railing to observe. They'd seen him comfort people before, but not like this, never like this. Tosh had found absolutely nothing in the records that linked them together.

Rose was just a kid from a council estate in London, fatherless, jobless, with nothing remarkable about her whatsoever. He was a mysterious Torchwood agent, easily ten years her senior, with a secret past. There was no indication that they'd ever crossed paths, he'd never mentioned her, his trips to London were infrequent and someone from her background couldn't just afford a jaunt to Cardiff, and yet he stood guard over her now like she was the most precious thing to him.

"Hold on a tick," Owen murmured, holding up her right arm. "Now that's odd."

"What?" Jack asked sharply.

Owen put his fingers on the edge of her blackened eye. "This is better than it was a few hours ago," he explained. "Look, see, it's faded."

Jack's breath caught in his throat and his eyes flicked across her body. He was right. Her bruises were fading, the wounds on her body already well on their way to being mended. She was healing almost as fast as him.

"That's impossible," he said aloud.

"Yeah, well, tell that to her."

Jack smiled, his eyes crinkling. "We have. Multiple times."

Owen frowned, biting the inside of his lip thoughtfully, then went over to the table where her test results were strewn. "I got some odd readings earlier, might explain it. She's got some weird alterations inside her. Can't really identify them all, we don't have the right technology, but her lymphocytes are mutated."

"Mutated?"

"I've compared all of the readings to our known records, and one of them seems to be artron energy. According to the file, artron energy is absorbed when someone—"

"Travels through time," Jack finished. "Yeah, I know. It can also be absorbed through contact with someone who has travelled through time. I think you'll find we all have had exposure to it."

Owen raised his eyebrows. "She's barely out of school. How could a kid be exposed to that kind of radiation on this scale?"

"She runs with a strange crowd," he said. "Let's just leave it at that for now."

Rose remained asleep throughout the night. Jack sat beside her in the infirmary even as the others left for their respective homes. When Suzie, Owen, and Tosh came back in the morning they found her still unconscious and Jack dozing in the chair with his head near hers. It was as vulnerable as they'd ever seen him and Tosh loathed herself for having to wake him up.

He jumped, surprised, but she'd been careful so she hadn't completely startled him, and he immediately looked to make sure Rose was still there. Her bruises had faded even more, her cuts and scrapes scabbed or pink.

"Jack, go. Wash up, use the loo, grab a bite." Tosh ordered.

"I'm not leaving her."

"G'on," Owen said as he jogged down the stairs. "I'll keep an eye on her."

After he'd gone, Owen stood over Rose Tyler for a minute or so, just looking at her and her faded wounds, and wondering how bad they'd been when she first got them if they'd already been healing when he'd first seen her. He gave his head a shake and adjusted the blankets around her, checked her IV, then went to give her scans another look.

And because the universe likes to be cruel, their sleeping guest chose that moment when no one was looking to stir.

The first thing Rose realized was that she was not in her bed. It was far too uncomfortable for that. It wasn't even a bed at all. The surface under her fingers was cool, smooth metal. Her heart sped up almost immediately and she forced herself to calm down, peeking her eyes open to get a clue of her surroundings. She was in a white, stone room, with an overhead light glaring down at her. It smelled sterile, like a hospital, but this didn't look like any hospital she'd ever been in.

She raised her head to the side just enough so she could see to the left and right. There appeared to be two sets of stairs on either side of the circular room, and at least six numbered doors underneath. Several tables and carts carried various medical supplies—including syringes, scalpels, and one scary looking saw—and she spotted a man in a white coat standing on the stairs looking at an x-ray.

She licked her lips and did a quick survey of her body. She was still sore and it felt like she had stitches in a few places, plus a cast on her arm and an IV in the other.

She looked at the man again, wondering if she should get his attention, when a folder on one of the tables caught her eye. Or, rather, the word stamped on the folder in bright red ink.

TORCHWOOD

Rose made up her mind then. Whoever that man was, he was not her friend. She had no idea how she'd gotten here, but she was not going to let them use her to get at the Doctor. Keeping one eye on the man, she reached over with her good hand and carefully pulled the IV from her arm, biting back a hiss of pain.

The man turned around and saw her awake. She froze and they stared at each other for a silent second. "Oh," he said.

Flinging the blanket off of her, Rose leaped off the bed, catching herself on the closest cart. She grabbed the nearest thing that looked like a potential weapon, a decent-sized scalpel (the saw was unfortunately on the other side of the bed), as the man in the white shouted for her to stop. Shoving the cart out of the way she jumped, pulling on the railing above her, and swung her legs up onto the stairs. Ducking underneath, she pushed herself to her feet bolted upwards.

"Wait!" the man shouted, racing up the other set stairs.

Rose was fast, but he'd been closer to the entrance and he beat her there. She slowed, catching herself on the wall, and raise the scalpel threateningly. Two women appeared behind him a moment later, wide-eyed, and Rose gritted her teeth. She wasn't going down without a fight.

"It's all right, Rose, we're not going to hurt you," the Asian woman said.

They knew her name, even worse. What else did they know?

Rose's body positively hummed with energy, eyes bright yellow, and her hand tightened around the scalpel while the other one curled into a fist. They watched her with trepidation. If these people thought they could keep her here then they had another thing coming, especially if it was the Doctor they were after.

They were at a stalemate, a wild thing ready to fight for her freedom and three humans who didn't dare strike at her or let her leave lest they bring Jack's wrath on them.

"MOVE!" Rose snarled at them.

"Please, calm down," the Asian woman pleaded again.

"Last chance," she warned, coiled to spring.

"ROSE! Stop!"

Rose's entire body froze as an achingly familiar voice echoed through the building. Her eyes widened as she spotted him over their shoulders sprinting towards them, wearing a t-shirt, slacks with suspenders, and a pair of boots, looking so much like the man she remembered that it hurt. No, wait. It actually did hurt to look at him.

Suddenly memories from the last forty-eight hours came rushing back and the scalpel slipping from her fingers. The heat in her body faded, her eyes lost their primal gleam, and she was left a trembling girl, separated from everything and everyone one she loved, save for the man shoving past the three blocking her exit. With a small cry, Rose threw herself at him, wrapping her arms around his neck, and hid her face in his shoulder as his arms encircled her.

"It's okay, Rose, you're safe now. I promise," he murmured. One hand pressed firmly against the small of her back to keep her upright and the other rubbed soothing circles on her back.

After a minute of silence she leaned her head back to look at his face and smiled. "Hello."

"Hello," he replied.

"Hello…"

"I thought we weren't going to start that again."

She laughed and Jack grinned at the lovely sound he hadn't heard in so long. He leaned down and pressed a kiss to her forehead. "It's good to see you, Rose."

"You too, Jack—no, wait, hold on." She held up her hand. "What is this place? And why is the word Torchwood stamped on a folder down there?"

"This is Torchwood," he said.

Rose jerked sharply and shoved at him, breaking his grip and backing away until she hit the railing on the stairs. "You're with them?!"

"You didn't know?" Jack asked.

"Of course not!"

"Then how'd you even know to come here?"

"Because you told me to," she retorted. "You said if I was ever in a pinch in this decade to go to the tourist office by the waterfront on the Plass. You just forgot to mention the whole Torchwood thing. Although," she folded her arms and looked away from him, "considering what Torchwood is, I can see why." Rose shook her head. "I thought you'd changed, Jack."

"I have!" he insisted.

"Oh yeah?" she snapped. "Because it looks to me like you're working for the same bloody organization that nearly destroyed the—" she slammed her lips together, realizing what she'd nearly revealed. "The Torchwood at Canary Warf nearly killed us," she said through her teeth. "I lost my mum because of them."

Something like fury flashed in Jack's eyes but he kept his face smooth and voice pleading."That's not us, please Rose, believe me, we're not like that. Look at me, Rose, please."

Of course this Jack wouldn't be used to her being reluctant to look at him yet. She drew in a long breath through her teeth and raised her head. He nodded once.

"I cut as many ties as I could with Torchwood One in London years ago. They do their thing; we do ours. We're different."

"'If it's alien it's ours?'" she quoted.

"Ah…" He rubbed the back of his neck. That bit remained the same, then.

"And what about that special bit of the charter, eh?"

"Rose," he sighed. "If we were going to go after him, we'd have got him the last time he was here. And, obviously…"

She nodded, "Good. Otherwise, I'd have to slap you."

Jack grinned.

"Okay, excuse me!" the other man, Owen Harper, interrupted loudly. Rose was grateful for the opportunity to look at someone other than Jack. "Will someone please explain to me what the hell is going on?"

"Good question," Jack said. "We have a lot to talk about, don't we?"

Rose nodded.

"Alright, then, first things first, meet the team. You already met Owen and you can thank him for patching you up. This is Toshiko Sato, our computer specialist, and she's probably already looked up every single bit of official information that still exists about you." Jack smiled at the suddenly embarrassed Asian woman. Rose narrowed her eyes. "And, finally, Suzie Costello, second-in-command and our weapons expert. You can thank her for the blanket."

She regarded each of them carefully. "You trust them?"

"With my life."

That was good enough at the moment. "Alright, then. Hello, my name's Rose Tyler."

"Yeah, we know." Owen walked towards her. "Perhaps you could explain something to me. You were hurt pretty badly when you got here. Several broken bones and sprains, mild dehydration, and more cuts and bruises than I care to count. But you're rate of recovery…" he gestured up and down her body, shaking his head. "It's off the charts. By all accounts you shouldn't be even able to be standing."

"Well, 'm tough," she replied nonchalantly. Like hell she was going to start explaining that to a stranger who worked for Torchwood.

Owen glared. "No, this is not anything to do with being tough. Your body's healing capabilities—they're unprecedented. You were black and blue when you arrived, and now you're—"

"Pink an' yellow? Yeah, I get that sometimes."

"For a human body to heal that quickly on its own…it's impossible," he said through his teeth.

"Well, I like impossible." She smiled at Jack, expecting a smile in return, but all she received was that frown that meant he was worried and expecting trouble. Her smile faded and she looked down.

"The scans picked up traces of several different types of energies in you. We recognize the artron energy—it's a basic sort of background radiation absorbed from travelling through the Vortex—but there's two other types that we didn't recognize." Jack said. "Artron improves the immune system but it doesn't effect the body's regenerative abilities. It's one of the others, isn't it?"

She bit her lip. "Yeah."

"Do you know what it is?"

"Yeah, 'course I do." she raised her head. "Soon as we realized somethin' was off he ran every sort of test he could think of."

"And?"

Rose pressed her lips firmly together and glanced at the three people behind Jack. He put his hand on her shoulder and she covered his hand with hers. "What happened?"

"Whatcha mean?" she asked. "A lot of things have happened…will happen…"

"Who hurt you? It wasn't…please tell me it wasn't him."

Rose hesitated and glanced over his shoulder again. Jack nodded, turning. "Alright, people, party's over. Owen, clean up in here then order some pizza. Sausage and pineapple for her. Tosh, run that sweep again, anything not human. Suzie, you're on desk duty."

They didn't seem too pleased at being dismissed, but none of them complained, except for Owen who grumbled irritably under his breath. Jack smiled at Rose, took her by the hand, and led her towards his office.

The Review Monster says, "Feed meeeee."