Funding for the search is rescinded. All Torchwood personnel go back to work at their own desks, wherever they may be, and go back to working on their own projects. The help from elsewhere stays for a few hours longer - UNIT, the CIA, RETIU and GIG - but then their higher-ups rein their agents in too, knowing a fruitless search when they see one. Even the media starts to drop the story, with one, and then two channels, diverting to a different event - an oil spill just off the island of Florida.

The fourth day ends.

Rose and the Doctor go home in the same car as Pete, and they part from him as soon as they're through the door. It's not really Pete's fault that the funding got cut, but he's the closest person they can blame. He's the one that's supposed to advocate for them to the government. The Doctor and Rose step into the eerily silent TARDIS - now humming sadly and consolingly to them as they enter. The Doctor's eyes remain downcast and sullen, and Rose is slightly more excited.

Denial, the Doctor thinks - the first stage of grief. He's past denial already - already somehow in depression. Rose's lips move, and though he doesn't hear her mouthed words, he knows what she's repeating to herself on instinct. 'There'sgottobesomethinggottobesomethingsomethingh avetodosomething'.

He physically winces when he feels Jack's presence dropping off the grid in the back of his mind.

They sleep in the same bed, but stay as far from one another as possible. The ship is silent, bar for the hum of its engines. Rose peers over the foot of the bed and sees the open doors at the end of the room, into Jack's bedroom. She sees his toys, his things, his bed, and as her eyes fill with tears, glances over to the Doctor, who stares at the ceiling with heavy-hooded eyes, deep in thought. She rolls to her side, her back to her husband, and weeps as silently as possible. He doesn't move to comfort her - maybe because he knows she doesn't want him to, or maybe because he's too lost in his own grief.

Neither of them sleeps that night.

Jack is sick.

He's hungry most of the time, because the people moving him don't remember, often, to feed him. That's okay, though. When they do give him food, it's McDonalds food, and that's nice. He likes McDonalds. Mum and Dad wouldn't let him have it everyday, he's sure of that, but they would feed him more often, and that would be nice, too. He doesn't like it when his tummy rumbles.

He's also got a headache, but he thinks that's his own fault. He keeps reaching out, in his head, for Dad, whenever he can't feel him, and it's hard. He must not be doing it right. When he looks for Dad's mind, sometimes, he can't find it. And sometimes, when he does find it, it's like when you stare at the sun and there's a spot on your vision, blocking you from seeing exactly what you're trying to look at. And his head hurts.

The people moving him let him out every so often to take him to the bathroom at a petrol station, and once, Jack tried to shout out that the man holding his arm wasn't his dad, but that just got him a smack in the face as soon as the man tugged him out of the station.

He's also really very tired, a lot. It's probably because he hasn't been eating much, and he knows that there isn't much body fuel in fast food - Mum said that, once, to grandma. And he doesn't know whether or not he's sleeping at the right times, because where he is, it's always, always dark.

Plus his arms and legs keep cramping, and that hurts a lot. He knows what Dad would say. 'Should have a banana! Potassium, little man, is what stops that from happening! And bananas are packed with potassium!'

And then, he's car sick - on top of everything else.

He feels like he's in a car, even though everything around him is a bare, dark, black room with a few pillows and a bottle of water inside. Sometimes it's nice and warm inside - but then he gets sweaty - and other times, it's really cold, and that's horrible. It never seems to be the right temperature. Through the metal walls and ceiling of his room, Jack can always hear the rain.

He doesn't think it's stopped raining since he last saw Mum.

Poor mum. He wonders how she's doing. If Dad is worried, then Mum is probably going mad with panic. Actually, Dad doesn't feel worried anymore. He just feels sad. And that makes Jack sad. Is Mum sad? Does she cry over not seeing him anymore? Maybe mum and dad got sick of him and decided to send him away, he thinks sometimes, but then he feels how upset Dad is, and he knows that that isn't what happened.

Mum and Dad would never send him away. They love him, always and forever - they say it all the time.

"Goodnight, Jack - I love you."

"Hand 'im here, Rose, you hold him all the time. There we go. Hi, pudgy, give us a smile. Aww, look, he smiled at me! I love you too, Jack!"

"Shh, sweetheart, it's alright. I love you, alright? Drawing on the wall isn't gonna make me stop loving you."

"I love you, Jack! You're brilliant! You are, you're absolutely fantastic- ooh, haven't said that in a while- Rose! Jack found the sonic screwdriver! It was down the back of the jump seat!"

"I'll be back in a few days, alright, boys? I love you two. See you when I get back. Jack, keep your dad out of trouble, yeah?"

"It's okay, Jack. Mum'll be back before you even know it. I've got you. I love you."

Jack isn't bored, though. He's too uncomfortable and too upset to feel bored. He's hungry again. It's been exactly five hours, forty-six minutes and eighteen seconds since he last ate; surely there's some food coming soon. He can taste it already. Thinking about food leads him to thinking about fish and chips - Mum's favorite food ever. He remembers the last time they had fish and chips as a family - him, mum, dad, grandma, granddad and Tony, all sitting in the kitchen at the mansion. He wishes he was at home right now, eating fish and chips with mum and dad, in the TARDIS.

He misses the TARDIS, too. He misses falling asleep to the sounds the ship always makes - the gentle humming, like the breath of a giant. The TARDIS is a telepath, too, like him and Dad. But he's not linked to the TARDIS the way Dad is - he can't feel it, now. Dad said he would teach him that when he got older.

Jack lurches to one side where he sits in the dark metal room, and puts his hands out to catch himself when he falls down. The room suddenly stops moving. Maybe he was right, and someone's coming to give him some food. He doesn't need the bathroom - he's just very hungry. His stomach growls insistently. He hears the doors of the cab opening, and the people moving him climbing out onto the tarmac.

Suddenly, Jack feels a warmth in the back of his head, the same kind of warmth as Dad's, except stronger. Twice as strong, in fact. It's close. It's a presence, another telepath like him - he knows it. But it can't be Dad. Are there other telepaths like him? Other people who can feel that feeling in the back of their head? Mentally, Jack reaches out for the source of the warmth, looking for emotion, but he doesn't find anything there. It's just a presence.

And then there's an explosion - like a gun firing - and Jack jumps in his skin, eyes wide and his teeth on edge. Straight after the shot, Jack hears something heavy falling down, and someone shouting. Jack clambers to his feet and goes to the front of the room, away from the doors at the back. He doesn't like this. He's worried. He's scared. He's so scared. There's another shot, and something else hits the ground with only a groan.

A voice he doesn't recognize speaks, and Jack's face scrunches in unease. That's not dad. Then there's a buzzing noise, sort of like the sonic screwdriver, but more high-pitched, like how Jack imagines a laser would sound. The bolts on the doors of his room break away, and one of the doors is slowly pulled open. A man looks in.

It's bright outside, though still raining, and Jack's eyes hurt as soon as the door opens, but he squints through it at the man. His expression is blank, but that warmth at the back of Jack's head changes slightly; through it, Jack can feel something, like a song, with words in a language he doesn't understand. He's heard songs like this one before - his dad used to sing them to him when he was younger - but this feels different. The man suddenly gives Jack a big smile.

The man has short blonde hair, and is clean-shaven, with dark brown eyes and salt-and-pepper stubble. His smile seems genuine, but Jack still doesn't know if he should trust the new stranger. He has a bad feeling about him. "It's all right now - you're safe," the man suddenly says, smile not wavering.

Jack frowns at him, uncomprehending. The warmth in his head spreads, though, and the man, the other telepath, starts giving off waves of soothing emotion. Maybe he should go with this man. Anything's better than sitting in the dark all the time. Maybe the man will take him home.

The man pulls open both doors and Jack can see that the man is in a crisp suit. In one hand, there's a gold tube thing that Jack very clearly wants to think of as a sonic screwdriver. The man gestures with his hands for Jack to come over. "Come on, I'm not going to hurt you," the man suggests, still smiling.

Jack's brows tilt worriedly. He opens his mouth to speak, then stops and screws up his face. Slowly, reluctantly, Jack takes a few steps toward the doors, still frowning at the man. The man stays still, not moving to grab him like the other people did, and so Jack comes closer. The man extends his hand up into the truck, and Jack takes it as he approaches the edge of the truck.

"That's it," the man says calmly and soothingly, as he plucks little Jack out of the truck, under the arms with both hands. "Come to uncle Harry," he chuckles lightly under his breath, placing Jack on his hip. The rain pelts them both, but the man doesn't seem to notice it at all, turning away from the truck and walking away from it, carrying the squinting, malnourished quarter-Time Lord child out of the side-street that the truck is parked in.

On the seventh day, the president offers them a lavish, state funeral for their baby boy. Jack can't yet be declared legally dead, but Pete explains that it would be the president's way of telling the country to stop thinking about it. He'd rather Jack Tyler be remembered as a national tragedy than an unsolved mystery. The Doctor refuses immediately. Jack isn't dead. He won't have anyone say that his son is dead, because he knows it isn't true. He can feel Jack's life force.

They've been all but banned from Torchwood Tower since the investigation stopped - placed on forced leave. Rose is desperate to throw herself into work, but all she can do is sit around the house trying not to think about Jack. She's read four books since the end of the search, lost countless hours of sleep staring at the ceiling and run a total of twenty-three miles in laps around the grounds. She needs to busy herself with anything and everything.

The Doctor is doing the opposite. He walks aimlessly around the mansion and the grounds and the TARDIS throughout the day, cataloguing his memories of Jack, reliving them one-by-one. He spent three hours alone sitting and staring at the scribbles under the wallpaper in Jack's room - after he tore up the paper to find them - and breathing in the lingering, slowly fading scent of grass-stains and no-tears shampoo that still exists in the toddler's bedroom. He doesn't know how many times he's caught himself staring at the little footstool in the control room, the one he built himself so that Jack could climb up onto the jump-seat.

On the eighth day, the president calls again, and tells them, quite firmly, that he has an uproar on his hands - people who are not happy with Torchwood giving up the search for little Jack Tyler. There has to be a funeral, or a ceremony, or something. The country needs closure.

When Pete tries to talk to Rose about it, he gets an evasive reply like 'talk to the Doctor' or 'I'm in the middle of something', before she jogs away to busy herself some more. When he tries to talk to the Doctor, he either gets a dry, bitter and simple 'No', or he gets shouted at. Things are going downhill all over Britain - the stock market has been affected, and the economy has slowed down, just a fraction. Jack's disappearance has been bad for morale all over this damp little island. So Pete asks Jackie to try to talk to them.

Jackie initially refuses, but when Pete tells her how broken the two people in question are, she gives in.

She sits them both down at the table in the kitchen - and they barely even look at one another, because when they do, they see all the little features that Jack has inherited from them. Rose sees where Jack got the shape of his mouth, and that funny-shaped ear that father and son share on the left side. The Doctor sees Jack's golden brown eyes, and the button nose that Rose passed on to their son.

"We won't have a funeral," Jackie says plainly, hands cradling a cup of tea identical to those in front of her daughter and son-in-law. They look momentarily relieved, but then she goes on, "But for the sake of the country, we 'ave to do something. Give them a service, some kind of memorial."

"No," the Doctor says simply, taking a small sip of his own tea.

Rose says nothing.

On the tenth day, Pete accepts the president's offer without consulting with Jack's parents. Not a funeral - just a memorial at the Buckingham Estate.

The Doctor loses all remaining semblance of sanity and unleashes the very essence of the Oncoming Storm on Pete Tyler. His language is colorful and multilingual, from where he stands at one end of the living room in the Tyler mansion, shouting bloody murder at his father-in-law for accepting the president's stupid offer. Rose ambles into the room behind him, seeming a little bit unsteady on her feet, and Jackie deduces that her daughter is at least slightly drunk.

"Well what was I supposed to do?" Pete yells back at the Doctor. "You and Rose have been completely useless! When I talk to you, it's a non-negotiable 'no', and when I talk to Rose, she's too busy running circles around the house to give me a straight answer!"

The Doctor launches himself at Pete at this point, grabs him by the lapels and slams him up against the wall. Even Rose, whose eyelids are heavy and whose footsteps are uncertain, jumps in surprise. Jackie is upon the two men at once, hands on the Doctor's shoulder, trying to yank him off of Pete.

"What if it was Tony?" the Doctor growls out viciously, eyes wide and threatening, "What if it was Tony that was missing, and your good friend the president made you give up on him? Would you let him tell the country your boy was dead, Pete? Is that what you'd do? Just to take all this bloody 'uproar' off his hands?"

"Doctor, get off him!" Jackie shouts, batting him hard on the back. He pays no notice.

"He's not dead, Pete," the Doctor tells him, voice ragged, "I can feel him in my head, and he's not dead. Please, Pete, please," the Doctor babbles out, unable to stop himself, as saltwater leaps to his eyes, "We need Torchwood to find him. We'll never find him without … Pete, I can't lose him."

And then the Doctor is crying into Pete's jacket, and both of his parents-in-law are holding onto him and speaking words of apology. Rose watches the scene with blank fascination for a moment, before turning and silently leaving the room. She moves to go to bed, sure that she shouldn't have had even a sip of that red wine she found on the counter, let alone the whole bottle, but stops when she sees Tony sitting on the stairs.

"Hey," she says quietly.

"Hi," Tony answers simply.

She sits down next to him and breathes a sigh. "You okay?" she asks.

"It's all my fault," Tony replies, looking over to her with wet blue eyes. "I was supposed to look after Jack."

Rose slides her arm around him. "No, sweetheart," she exhales, pulling him closer and kissing the top of his head. "You couldn't have done anything," she murmurs quietly, both to him and herself. She blinks her eyes shut and unbidden tears roll down her cheeks, but she hasn't the energy to really cry. "In the end, none of us could."

"Is he really still alive?" Tony asks, pulling back from her, referring to what the Doctor said in the other room. He must have heard him - the Doctor certainly had been loud enough. "What the Doctor said … he said Jack's still alive. Is that true?"

Rose nods slowly and sadly. "Yeah," she answers.

Tony's eyebrows tilt in confusion. "So why is everyone giving up?"

Rose almost laughs at how simply he sees the world. He's right, she thinks. She tells him the only thing she can think to say. "Mum once told me … a long, long time ago, when I was a lot younger, that sometimes it's easier to give up than to risk trying and failing," she replies slowly. She doesn't want to give up, of course, but it seems like the only thing left to do.

"It'll be okay," Tony suddenly says, standing up and frowning at her. "You and the Doctor, you always save the day in the end. Jack's still alive, that means you can save him," he sniffs hard, trying to be strong.

Rose smiles sadly at him from where she sits on the stairs. "Not this time," she croaks back.

Tony sniffs again, bringing down his brows and glaring at her through his tears. Then he storms away from her, up the stairs.

Between them, Pete, the Doctor and the President all set the date of the memorial for the first non-rainy day all week. The grey clouds move away from London, and the rain finally stops, but the white overcast of March still remains. The sky occasionally growls in displeasure, much like the TARDIS, lately. It's been exactly fifteen days since Jack didn't come home from school. Two weeks. The most important thing that Rose and the Doctor ever did together, all undone in two weeks.

The Doctor stands in front of a full-length mirror in their bedroom aboard the TARDIS, in a plain black suit, his tie hanging undone from his crisp white collar. He's never owned a funeral suit before, but he hates it. He looks older than he's ever looked before, he thinks - and he's looked like a seventy-something-year-old human man before. It's a loss of light, in his eyes. He lacks the ability to quirk up the corners of his mouth.

"Come here," Rose speaks up from behind him, and he realizes that he's been staring at his reflection in the mirror for near-on ten minutes now.

He turns to face her, and sees her smart black sweater, over a black suit shirt, and plain black slacks. She's not wearing makeup, he notices, as she comes closer and takes the two lengths of his black tie in her hands. Her long hair has been tied back in a simple low ponytail, and without it framing her face, he can see all the lines that he knows weren't there before Jack disappeared.

"I love you," he says softly, hoping to comfort her. It's the only thing he can think to say, at this point. There's no 'It'll be alright', no 'There's still hope'.

Rose doesn't smile, and wraps one side of the tie around the other. "I love you too," she says simply, no warmth in the words they both remember waiting so long to say aloud.

They say it because all they have left is each other. And already, they need to be able to tell themselves that there's still that - that there will always be that love left to carry them through. But after Jack, they don't know if being Rose and the Doctor, together in the TARDIS, is enough. There's a gaping, bloody, Jack-shaped hole in their hearts.

Rose ties his tie perfectly, pulls it snug to his collar, and slides her hand down his chest until it falls away. Briefly, she meets his eyes, and immediately feels her own eyes stinging with tears. She swallows thickly. "Take my hand?" she asks, her voice a hushed whisper.

The Doctor sniffs hard at the tears that well up in him, and slides his hand into hers. Together, they leave the TARDIS.

Today is the day they say goodbye to their son.

It's as they pull open the front door of the Tyler mansion that a long black sedan pulls up before them. They step out, fully expecting it to be the car that Pete has hired to take them to Buckingham - but Pete stops short behind them, with Jackie beside him, and Tony beside her. The Tyler family stops, a band of five, all in smart black suits, all of them with barely hidden grief on their faces.

The Doctor is at the front of the group, with Rose at his side, and he suddenly squeezes her hand tightly, pulling up just as quickly as Pete.

"What is it?" Jackie asks worried, fearing he's having some kind of emotional crisis, now of all times.

The Doctor draws a sharp breath, eyes fixed on the car as its engine dies. "I feel …" he swallows.

Rose's eyes widen at him. "Oh, god," she whispers.

The back door of the black sedan swings open, and out comes a shiny polished shoe, crunching the pebbles as it hits them. A man climbs out of the car, blonde head first, and the Doctor squeezes Rose's hand a little bit tighter, which shouldn't be possible. The man stands up, and he's shorter than the Doctor by a few inches, but makes up for it with intense brown eyes that could turn embers to ice. He smoothes down his tie, looks to the doorstep and glances among the people stood there, all staring at him. His eyes finally settle on the Doctor.

Then he reaches back into the open back seat of the car.

And guides out a groggy, four-year-old boy by the hand.

"Jack," Rose suddenly says, around the same time as the little boy realizes where he is, and the matching brown eyes of mother and son widen at once, as soon as they lay eyes on one another. "Oh my god, Jack!" she shouts, grabbing with her free hand for where the Doctor holds her other one. She forcibly pries his hand from hers, and rushes forward.

"Mummy!" Jack squeals loudly, surging forward on his short legs. "Mummy!" he shouts, energy flooding him, and begins to slip his small, sweaty hand from the larger one enclosing it.

The Doctor's brow is furrowed hard, and his jaw clenched, though his own eyes are wide, flickering from his son to the man holding his hand. He reaches, for a moment, to stop Rose, then drops his hand again. He watches as the man with the familiar face releases Jack's hand, and as his son potters into his mothers arms, as Rose's knees hit the pebbles and her arms wrap around their little boy. He hears Jackie starting to cry, and Pete speaking in tight-throated awe. Tony rushes forward too, to join Rose and Jack.

"Oh my god," Rose sobs into Jack's little shoulder, and Jack's little fingers grasp handfuls of her black sweater, and he starts to cry, "I've got you," she gasps, tears slipping down her cheeks as she stares with wide eyes at nothing in particular. "I've got you, Jack," she repeats, and the Doctor can almost read her mind. She's never going to let him go again, he thinks - good.

Jack manages to get his small arms around Rose's neck, and he starts crying too. "M'sorry, mummy!" he apologizes through his tears, his lower lip rolling over and his face turning red as he scrunches his face. "Sorry, sorry, sorry," he continues, burying his face in her shoulder. His tiny hand finds her ponytail and clumsily strokes it. "S'okay, mummy," he soothes. She laughs weakly into him.

The Doctor's eyes dart between the reassuring image of Jack nestled safely in Rose's arms, and the dark eyes of his old friend. His face clouds over warily, and his bristled posture relaxes marginally when Tony taps Rose on the shoulder, bringing her to look up and notices the calm but clear standoff between her husband and the man that brought her baby home. She quickly lifts her son from the ground and hastily carries the little boy back toward the Doctor, away from the stranger. She quickly deciphers the stormy expression on his face, and moves to a long familiar position near him - just safely behind his shoulder.

Tony takes a position right in front of her, beside the Doctor. He forces his expression to match the Doctor's.

Slowly, the Doctor opens his mouth and says, "Thank you," before even considering saying anything else.

The man by the black car gives a sort of placating smile. "Anyone else would do the same," he begins amicably and charmingly.

There's a pause.

"Rose," the Doctor says suddenly.

"Yeah?" she answers quickly.

"Take Jack inside," he tells her gently, his voice serious but soft.

"Daddy," Jack says quietly, and the Doctor tears his eyes away from the Master, to look over his shoulder to the tear-streaked face of his son. A smile immediately threatens to overtake his face. Jack is home, he thinks. Finally, finally home. "Love you," the little boy sniffs.

The Doctor ducks in and puts a kiss on Jack's cheek. "I love you too, Jack. I love you so much," he replies at a whisper, before pulling back and giving Rose a stern look. "Now go inside," he tells her again, before glancing to Rose's parents. "All of you. I'll be in shortly." Tony tenses up at the Doctor's side, and he gives the boy a slightly more tentative expression. "You too, Tony," he adds, placing a hand on Tony's shoulder.

The Master waits patiently, the smile remaining on his face, as Rose fixes the Doctor with a warning look, and hesitantly turns away. Pete puts his hand on his daughter's back and guides her back into the house, opening the door for her. As she goes, Jack watches the Doctor over her shoulder, his tears still on his cheeks, but his crying momentarily ceased. He looks worried, to the Doctor's eye. Pete holds the door open as Rose steps in, and then as Jackie follows. Tony reluctantly follows his mother, frowning disconcertedly. Pete gives the Doctor an understanding look, pressing his lips into a thin line, and nods finally, before going inside and shutting the door.

The Doctor turns again, to see the Master standing in the same spot, hands tucked behind his back. He draws a slow breath, tired from the last fifteen days. "Long time no see," he says tightly, tucking his hands into his trouser pockets, still standing on the dull porch, his head tilted back somewhat.

He's wearing actual suit shoes for a change - he just couldn't bring himself to wear trainers today, to go to his son's funeral - and they are placed shoulder-width apart, because he's afraid that a strong wind could just knock him over, for how lightheaded he feels.

"It is you, then," the Master replies, one half of his mouth turning up slowly, but the expression doesn't quite look right on him. It's almost a bittersweet look. "Doctor," he adds, tilting his head expectantly. The Doctor nods slowly, and the Master's smile widens for a beat. "Not quite the same telepathic signature," he notes thoughtfully.

The Doctor manages a weak smile of his own. "Yeah … instantaneous biological human-Time Lord metacrisis," he explains with a flippant nod.

The Master momentarily looks surprised, if not impressed, then pushes up his lower lip, mulling this over. "I thought I was the last one," he furrows his brow, looking away briefly.

The Doctor's brow goes up suddenly. "Oh," he blurts, face softening. "Right. Of course. Well, technically you still are," he goes on casually, thinking about this.

He doesn't need to ask what happened to the rest of the Time Lords - he's always thought, before, that there simply weren't any survivors of the Time War, in this universe, but now he sees that that could never be the case. Someone would have had to survive; someone would have had to put the war in a time lock.

"Is this where you hid?" the Master asks slowly. "You hid here, on Earth, from the war? That's not very like you," he smiles easily.

"No," the Doctor says quickly. "No, it's not," he agrees, "And I didn't hide. I wasn't here. I was in another universe," he simplifies - not that he's ever simplified for the Master before; his old friend is brilliant, a genius, in fact, but he doesn't really want to go into details right now.

The Master catches on anyway. "You mean you're from another universe," he deduces calmly.

The Doctor immediately smiles. "How'd you know?" he manages.

"You died in the war. You told me you were going to time lock the war, but you wanted to go back for Arkytior," he explains slowly, looking down, his expression momentarily a mixture between nostalgia and grief. "All temporal travel was disrupted, and your TARDIS was destroyed before you even hit Gallifrey's atmosphere."

The Doctor nods with a sigh. He laughs sadly. "Sounds like me."

The Master laughs too, through his nose. "Always the martyr," he agrees.

Then something occurs to the Doctor, and hesitantly, he clears his throat and rocks on his feet. "You, er … you don't hear these drums, sometimes, do you?" he queries carefully.

The Master arches a brow at him, curiously. "No. Never," he brings up that one side of his mouth again. "You always were on about drums. Why, what kind of drums?" he shakes his head.

The Doctor's eyes widen momentarily and he gives a weak laugh. "Er, nevermind. Forget I asked," he pulls one hand from his pocket and rubs the back of his neck. "So how …" he gets a bad taste in his mouth just thinking about it, "How did you find Jack? Where was he?" he licks his lower lip, his features setting harshly. "Who took him?" he adds meaningfully. He wants to know. He wants to find out who did this and make them suffer.

The Master appraises the Doctor with a sudden cold look in his eyes. "It's not important," he replies stiffly. "They've been dealt with."

The Doctor doesn't know what it says about him that his mind immediately supplies, whatever the Master did, they deserved. He draws a shaking breath and nods slowly, looking away.

"He's a clever boy, your Jack," the Master supplies casually, "he was sending out distress wavelengths you could pick up all the way from Rio."

"Rio?" the Doctor blurts, furrowing his brow again and fixing his eyes on the Master. "What were you doing in Rio?"

The Master is momentarily taken aback. "I live in Rio," he answers defensively.

The Doctor shakes his head at his old friend. "You're the last of the Time Lords," he thinks aloud. "And you just … live on Earth? Doing what?" he presses.

"Bit of this, bit of that. Got a wife, got a house - several houses, in fact. It's all very domestic," he shrugs. "On Thursdays I go bowling," he adds teasingly.

The Doctor's eyes nearly bug out of his head. He sputters helplessly for a moment, before bursting out with, "But what about the cybermen? You saw that, a few years ago? Why didn't you step in? You've got that, that, what's-it, laser screwdriver, haven't you?" he stammers out.

The Master rolls his eyes, as if he's heard this from the Doctor a hundred times already. "What am I, humanity's babysitter?" he gives the Doctor a perplexed look. He chuckles, then turns his back to the Doctor and waves a hand over his shoulder. "Anyway, I'd best be off. Things to do," he adds vaguely.

There's a screech of tires, and the Doctor flinches, throwing his gaze toward the source of the noise - and sees several more paparazzi trucks pulling up by the front gates of the Tyler Estate. His jaw goes slack and awe washes over his face, as he wonders exactly how the media could know that something was up this soon.

The Master goes on, sounding smug, "And I'm sure you have other … guests … to keep at bay," he chortles out. The Doctor returns his gaze to the Time Lord, just in time to see him putting one leg into the back seat of the still-running car. The Master gives a self-satisfied smile.

Suddenly, the Doctor stumbles forward, down off the porch and onto the pebbles. He stops and blurts out, "Wait," and his hands fall from his pockets, to dangle at his sides. The Master appraises him patiently. The Doctor swallows, and then asks, "Why? Why did you bring him home? Why would you do that?" he asks tersely, his face suddenly deathly serious.

The Master thinks about it for a beat, then shrugs. "Because I could," he replies. Then he grins at the Doctor. "Oh, by the way, Doctor," he says, swinging himself into the back seat of his car. His eyes flash mischievously, and the Doctor immediately gets an anxious feeling in his stomach.

The Doctor brings his brow down again, tilting his head and waiting.

"Vote Saxon," he chides happily.

The Doctor's face begins to fall, but the Master shuts his car door with a quiet thump - and the car slowly turns, then peels away up the drive. The Doctor stands there for a long while, blinking in confusion and worry. Then it occurs to him that he's sick of worrying. Finally, Jack is home. Maybe he should take a page out of the Master's book. He isn't humanity's babysitter; he's Jack's father. He manages a weak smile, before he turns and barrels into the mansion to see his son.

The paparazzi sit like squatters outside the main gates of the Tyler Mansion. A few of them climb the wall, but are quickly escorted off the property by the security staff. One photographer has to have an ambulance called for them, as they break their leg upon falling from the wall. None of them get pictures.

Jackie takes a photograph of little Jack sitting between the Doctor and Rose on a couch in the room where their TARDIS lives, all in their disheveled states - with the Doctor's tie yanked loose with Jack's snot on it, and half of Rose's hair pulled loose from her ponytail by pudgy hands, and Jack still in his rumpled school uniform, and all of them with blotchy faces from crying - and sends it to each and every newspaper and magazine in the city, with a nice email telling everyone to just piss off and leave us alone for a few days, thanks.

Tony wraps Jack up in hugs for exactly forty minutes straight, before Pete comes and pries the older boy away, to give Rose and the Doctor some time with their son after the past two weeks. The Doctor steps out of their TARDIS with two mugs and a plastic beaker of sugary tea for them all, to see Rose sitting on one couch, watching the other couch with fascination on her face. He moves over to her, follows her line of sight, and sees Jack sprawled on his stomach on the other sofa, one arm dangling off the edge.

The Doctor puts the tea down, forgetting it, and smiles at Rose. Quietly, he asks, "What are you thinking?"

She doesn't take her eyes from Jack. "I'm thinking he must be exhausted. I don't know where he's been, or what happened to him … or who that man was," she pauses poignantly, because she suspects that it has something to do with the Doctor's past, but doesn't want to know the specifics, "but he must be absolutely exhausted."

The Doctor exhales slowly, his smile fading as he looks to Jack as well. They watch him sleeping for another ten minutes, just taking in the fact that he's finally home, before Rose gets up, goes over, and gently picks him up from the couch. He stirs a little bit, but immediately moulds to the familiar shape of Rose's body as she holds him, his chin fitting perfectly into the space between her shoulder and neck, his legs wrapping instinctively around her waist. She carries him to the red telephone box at the back of the room, and pulls the door open with one hand.

The Doctor follows her into the ship, through the console room and straight into their bedroom, as the ship hums in relief, moving their room so that they walk right into it from the control room. He begins to understand Rose's meaning when she yawns loudly and toes off her shoes. He follows suit, shedding any attire that will be uncomfortable to sleep in, as exhaustion begins to take its toll on him too.

They lie atop the duvet, sinking down into the softness of the mattress, with Jack lying comfortably between them, protected on both sides by their bodies.

Below Jack, Rose situates one ankle between the Doctor's calves, and he drapes one leg over both of theirs, just as he throws one arm over both his son and his wife. They are his to hold, his to protect.

And they're here in his arms, just where they should be.

The End