A/N: OH MY SWEET LORD, IT'S AN UPDATE OF THERE'S A TIME AND A PLACE. Happy three year anniversary since the last update! I wrote the whole thing in the early hours of the morning, so it's no good. But thanks for caring. ENOUGH! ON WITH THE DWing!

DW

There is blood everywhere, it covers everything, dyeing everything it touches an eternal red. This all-encompassing colour permeates his five senses and he drowns. He chokes on the coppery smell of death and decay, his ears full of the sounds or war.

His hands are stained with crimson. A battle made up of consequences that had once seemed so justified wages behind him. The nightmare never ends. His eyes are red and he tells himself that it is only a reflection of blood.

DW

Jack wakes up alone, in an unfamiliar room. The walls of the Time Agency seem all too close together, and he finds himself breathing heavily in the dim light of the room.

This place brings back memories. Too many memories, Jack thinks to himself. His joints are stiff and pain flares up his body as he attempts to sit up. Ouch. A knock at the door surprises him, and he looks up as the Doctor enters the room.

'I thought I heard you moving around,' the Doctor says as he moves a chair closer to the bed and straddles it.

'I've been awake for a whole two seconds, so I find that unlikely.' Jack tilts his head and smiles tiredly.

'You're right,' teases the Doctor. 'But your tossing and turning was loud enough to hear from the next room, and I'm surprised Rose didn't wake up from your breathing—'

'Alright, alright.' The captain coughs into a fist while holding up his other hand to silence the Doctor. 'Humans are tiny, your ego is huge. I get it.'

'It's not that humans are--- hey.' The Doctor responds affrontedly.

'No, it's fine Doc, after all it goes so well with your enormous ear—'

'Okay, don't finish that if you want to live.' Growls the Doctor.

'Oh but what a sweet death it would be,' sighs Jack, only half joking. 'But what's the deal? They march us to a suite in the middle of the Agency before leaving us to our own devices?' He continues talking before the Doctor can comment on his melancholy tone of voice.

'I suppose they don't really expect us to go anywhere,' he frowns. 'They're using their knowledge of your plight to their advantage for the moment. It effectively keeps us here.'

'Keeps me here, you mean.' Jack groaned. 'Even though you may be extremely self-important, the Agency doesn't seem to care much that you dropped in for a house call. And don't say plight, Doc, it makes me sound like a poor kid in a famished country.'

'What do you want me to say, your almost ridiculously lethal intolerance for the passing of time?' the Doctor raises an eyebrow. 'But you're right, they seem to have completely overlooked mine and Rose's presence here. It almost hurts my feelings'

'Don't feel too bad, Doc. They never much cared for beings that they couldn't oppress or exert either control or influence over. They believe they're too big for that.'

'Really? That's a farfetched way to live. Who do they think they are, the Beatles?'

'Don't be stupid Doc, even in the 51st century, no one is bigger than the Beatles.'

'Oh? I'm glad the Beatles survive. I should tell Rose. She thinks they won't last another hundred years. 21st century youths. Pah.'

'You should take her back to see them.' Jack smirks. 'Get some appreciation for the arts.'

'Oh, don't think I haven't thought about it.' The Doctor sighs theatrically. 'But knowing her luck---'

'You'd probably end up being the ones who shot John Lennon,' laughs Jack. 'Or worse-'

'The ones who introduced him to Yoko,' they say with a collective groan.

Jack laughs again, so hard that tears almost come from his eyes. But the light mood is broken when he breaks into a fit of racking coughs, drawing the conversation short.

'Here,' the Doctor says. He hands him a glass of water, his demeanour completely serious within a second. 'And what do you mean, take her? We're not going without you.' He continues quietly.

'Ha, I don't know, Doctor.' There is no humour in Jack's voice. 'There are two ways that this situation can work its way out, and neither of them result in me going with you.'

'Just two, huh?'

'That's the way I see it.' Jack counts them off on his fingers. 'One, either there's nothing that can be done, in which case my body will get weaker and weaker until it can't defend itself from the increasing strain of accelerated chronon particles anymore, and let's face it, that's a high level of stress considering the amount of atron energy I'm saturated with—'

'I get it,' the Doctor interrupts brusquely . 'It's not an option.'

'---or;' Jack continues, ignoring the Doctor. He counts to the next finger. 'There is something that can be done. But I can't accept it.'

'Why not?' Yelled the Doctor, his eyes flashing as he stood up and the chair clattered to the floor. 'You don't want to live if it's at the cost of having the Agency help you? They have the answers! If not, they would have just left those people to die on that planet! Does your pride mean that much to you that you won't let them help you?!' The Doctor drops to his knees, a defeated expression on his face. ' That you won't let us help you?'

Jack reaches out and places his hand on the Doctor's shoulder.

'You don't understand.' He smiles sadly. 'I want to live more than anything.'

'Then why?'

'The Agency doesn't do anything for free, Doctor. They won't help anyone if they can't use the product to their advantage. Working here for so many years, the main thing I learned was that everything has a price to them. The only way that they would ever help me, and I'm sure that they could, is so that they could use me.

'That used to be okay with me, I thought that I was using the Agency, but it was actually the complete opposite.' Jack heaves a sigh, and looks up at the ceiling so that the Doctor might not notice the unnatural shine that in his eyes.

'And at the time it suited me just fine that the Agency thought they were the biggest thing to have ever existed, because by being a part of that I could fool myself into thinking that I was a big person as well, and that my actions were justified and that I could make a substantial difference to the tiny universe I lived in.'

'Oh Jack,' the Doctor said sorrowfully.

'But it's all a farce, Doctor. The actions that we undertook at the will of the Agency that once seemed good and right and just are the hollow whims of an authoritarian society.. And now that I've realised that, I don't want to go back.'

And I won't go back. Because I've found something bigger.

DW

A/N: OH MY GOD TOO MUCH DIALOGUE. I hate dialogue, by the way. Oh I'm sorry, were you expecting plot development? An end to the horrible cliffhanger I left you with for three miserable years? Well, sorry. Maybe next time. Will the Doctor talk Jack into accepting help? Is there any help even available? What happened between the end of the last chapter and the beginning of this one? And where is Rose anyway, who seems to be mysteriously absent. ALL WILL BE CONCLUDED! But hopefully it won't take another 3 years. Thanks for your never ending patience.