ANOTHER WORLD

By the time Jack reached the little coffee shop that Bobby had taken him to just a few days ago, Ianto had caught him up and ushered him smoothly into a corner booth before going to order coffee for them both. He was still sitting there, wondering just what he'd done to deserve having someone like Ianto in his life, when Bobby and Alex walked in. They spotted him straight away and he waved them over, motioning to the empty seat opposite him.

“We won't insult you by trying to tell you that we weren't following you,” Bobby said.

“Good,” Jack murmured. “I hate being insulted. Any particular reason you're following me now? Because in case you missed the bulletin, we are actually working together now.”

Bobby and Alex smiled at each other, and Alex replied in an amused tone.

“We didn't think it was too bright for you to wandering around alone,” she said simply. Jack laughed softly at that.

“That's actually kind of sweet, but stupid. You saw what happened this morning.” He looked to Bobby grimly, but also not unkindly. “You took it by surprise once, Bobby. It won't let that happen again, and I would hate for anything to happen to you because you don't know when to step back.”

“We're pretty good at taking care of ourselves, Captain,” Alex told him quietly in defence of her partner. Jack sighed and shook his head.

“Enough of this 'captain' business. It's just Jack.”

“All right, then, Jack,” Alex responded agreeably. Before she had the chance to say anything further, though, Ianto returned to the booth.

“Hello, Detectives,” he greeted them, showing no surprise at their presence. They, however, were surprised when he set a cup of fresh, steaming coffee in front of each of them. “There we go,” he went on in a pseudo cheerful tone. “Black and three sugars for you, Detective Eames? And a latte with one sugar for you, Detective Goren?”

“How did you...?” Alex started to ask, baffled. Jack laughed softly, amused by her confusion.

“Don't ask. It's a closely guarded secret that he won't even divulge to me. Just enjoy it.”

Alex took a sip, and then sighed contentedly.

“Mm. Thankyou.”

Jack smiled affectionately at Ianto as he accepted his own cup, allowing his fingers to brush indulgently over Ianto's hand as he did so. Bobby and Alex couldn't help but notice, and exchanged bemused looks.

“The detectives seem to think it's a bad idea for me to go anywhere alone at the moment,” Jack went on, speaking directly to Ianto. The Welshman raised an eyebrow in a quizzical gesture.

“Are you expecting me to tell them it's not?”

Jack shook his head, rolling his eyes.

“What isn't a good idea is for people to be following me everywhere with some noble, if misguided idea of protecting me.”

“Well, at least there are no weevils involved this time,” Ianto remarked lightly.

“Weevil?” Alex echoed. “That's what that thing was?”

Jack shrugged.

“That's what we call it. We don't really know what they are, or where they came from. They just sort of slipped through into this world. Although, how one ended up here in New York is anyone's guess. We have them in Cardiff because there's a rift in time and space running through the city. It's going to make life very interesting for you lot if it turns out that there's a rift opened up here in New York.”

Again, Bobby and Alex exchanged glances, this time in mild trepidation, but opted not to comment on it. Both detectives were strongly of the same opinion that if they never saw another of those creatures again, it would be too soon. Anxious to change the topic of conversation, Bobby blurted out the first thing that entered his mind.

“Have you two been together very long?”

Jack and Ianto both looked at him like a pair of startled rabbits, while Alex rolled her eyes in exasperation.

“Sorry,” she apologised. “My partner has no tact.”

Jack smiled then, amused.

“It’s okay. And in answer to your question, Bobby… It’s actually a little complicated, but I guess about… eight months.”

Ianto nodded his agreement.

“That’d be about right, Sir.”

Alex blinked at the young Welshman in astonishment.

“Eight months? You’ve had a relationship for eight months, and you’re still calling him ‘sir’?”

“Only when he wants to manipulate me,” Jack answered, eyeing Ianto wryly. “But yeah, we’ve been together since…”

“Since the stopwatch,” Ianto reminded him lightly, and a big grin promptly lit up Jack’s face.

“Oh yeah. The stopwatch. Whatever happened to that thing, anyway? You haven’t brought it out once since I’ve been home.”

“It’s tucked away safely. Behave yourself, and I might dig it out when we get home.”

“You have the most bizarre relationship I’ve ever seen,” Alex remarked dryly. Jack grinned right back at her.

“Maybe, but nothing about us, or what we do, is standard.”

“I suppose it’d never be boring,” Bobby mused.

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Ianto said. “We still have to deal with the joy of paperwork, and then there’s the political side of the job.”

“Political?” Bobby echoed, not quite able to keep the distaste out of his voice.

“What Ianto means,” Jack explained, “is that we still have to kiss political ass to get the funding we need.”

“Which you left me to deal with the last time,” Ianto told him reprovingly. Rather than responding with a typical cheesy remark, though, Jack actually paled very slightly.

“I’d only been home a week and a half, and the new Prime Minister demanded to meet me on the goddamn Valiant. I can’t go back there. Not ever.”

Ianto closed one hand over Jack’s, and lifted the other to gently rub his back.

“I know. It’s all right, Jack. I understood why you couldn’t go back on that ship.”

“The Valiant?” Bobby queried. “You mean the UN sky ship?”

Ianto nodded, his gaze still fixed on Jack as he spoke.

“It’s all rather complicated, but quite a bit more went on besides our Prime Minister engineering the assassination of your President, and the disappearing. An entire year’s worth of events happened, as a matter of fact, and Jack is one of the few who remember it.”

“How is that possible?” Alex asked, feeling hopelessly confused. “If a whole year had gone by, I think we’d remember it.”

Jack shook his head.

“Time was reversed. No one remembers what happened except for those of us who were on the Valiant at the time. The eye of the storm, he called it. That was us, in the eye of the storm.” He sighed softly and gently detached his hands from Ianto’s grip to rub them harshly over his face. “It’s too long and too complicated to explain properly here and now.”

“But that’s where you first met up with this creature, isn’t it?” Bobby asked suddenly, realisation dawning on his face. “On the Valiant, during the year you say no one else remembers.”

Jack stared at Bobby, torn between responding to the detective’s deduction, and giving in to a powerful urge to simply get up and walk out. He eventually gave in and decided on the former.

“Yes,” he answered softly. “Although, ‘met up’ isn’t exactly how I’d have put it.”

“What happened?” Alex asked, utterly serious and completely believing. In her mind, there was no room for doubt. The pained and haunted look in Jack’s eyes was one that she recognised only too well.

Jack glanced at Ianto who, in turn, squeezed his shoulder lightly in a reassuring and supportive gesture. Taking a deep breath, Jack spoke softly.

“The year that no one remembers – the year that never was – started the moment your President was killed. Harold Saxon wasn’t who he claimed to be, and I don’t have the time to explain it to you now. Just… think of the most evil and insane criminal that you’ve ever had to deal with, and triple it. He had a thing called a paradox machine, and it let him bring this race of creatures from the far future into our present. It slaughtered the people all over the planet. So many died… Whole countries were wiped out.”

“And you were on the Valiant the whole time?” Alex asked, barely able to stop herself from making a biting remark about being safe and cosy. Instinct told her that Jack was not the sort of person who would sit back and do nothing unless he really had no choice in the matter. By that time, Jack was looking thoroughly ashen-faced.

“I went to the Valiant with two others to try and stop him. We failed. One of us escaped, but my other friend and I didn’t get away. We were captured. I was chained up in the bowels of that damned ship for a whole year, Detective Eames. The Master… That’s what he called himself… He was a sadist of the worst possible kind. He loved seeing people suffer, so imagine how excited he was to have his hands on someone who can’t be killed, not permanently.”

He knew his words were finally sinking in by the pale shades of green and grey that Bobby and Alex had both turned.

“He set the Grysliaak onto you,” Bobby guessed.

“Yes,” Jack replied simply. “He did. He set it onto me, and let it drain me at least twice a day. It went on for a long time before the Master finally got bored with it. I thought he’d put it off the Valiant, but either he hadn’t, or it found a way back on board and it was there somewhere when the paradox machine was destroyed and time reversed itself. It had to have been, because it’s the only explanation.”

“Only explanation for what?” Alex asked, baffled. Jack looked genuinely sick as he spoke.

“For how it was able to remember me.”

“It really did hurt, didn’t it?” Alex asked in the gentle tone that she normally reserved for victims. When Jack looked up at her, both she and Bobby were struck to see tears in the other man’s eyes.

“Yes, it hurt. I won’t say it hurt worse than anything else that was done to me, but I died so many times, and in so many ways. The Master delighted in finding the most agonising ways for me to die. It wasn’t just to hurt me, either. It was meant to hurt anyone that he knew cared about me. The Doctor… Tish… Francine and Clive... and even Martha. He broadcasted me being tortured a lot, although I don’t know how much of it Martha ever actually saw. A fair bit, I guess, because afterwards she apologised for not taking me with her when she escaped.” He shook his head, and uttered a soft, bitter laugh. “She had nothing to be sorry for. I gave her my manipulator so she could escape. If I was worried about myself, I would have teleported the two of us out of there together. If it weren’t for Martha, we would never have defeated the Master, and the planet would have been caught in a hell that nothing could have freed it from.”

“Why didn’t you go with her?” Bobby wondered.

“I couldn’t leave him,” Jack said. “He needed me. He needed me more than he ever had. I couldn’t abandon him.”

“So you stayed in a situation where you knew you were going to suffer horribly,” Bobby said softly, “for the sake of someone who abandoned you? Because this is the same person we’re talking about here, isn’t it? The one who abandoned you on that satellite?”

Jack shut his eyes, trying to compose himself before answering. The last thing he needed right then was to have to validate himself… and the Doctor… to someone who really had no understanding at all of the situation. He looked back at Bobby with a grief-stricken stare.

“What do you think I should have done, Bobby? Left him behind, like he left me? I couldn’t do that. I don’t abandon people that I love.”

“You admitted that this guy left you behind like you meant nothing to him,” Alex said incredulously. “But you still say you love him? That doesn’t make sense. How could you be so blindly loyal to someone who even you admitted doesn’t give a damn about you!”

Abruptly, Jack reached across the table and held out a hand to each of the detectives.

“Take my hands,” he told them. “Let me show you something.”

“Jack…” Ianto spoke up in a soft, warning tone. Jack ignored him, his focus completely on Bobby and Alex.

“Take my hands,” he told them again when they both hesitated. “I promise you’ll be safe. They’re memories that I have to show you. Only memories.”

Exchanging wary looks, Bobby and Alex reached out slowly and took Jack’s hands in their own. At the last possible instant, Ianto reached out as well and closed his hand over Jack’s and Alex’s, just as they were pulled into the darkness of Jack’s mind.

One moment they were sitting in the warm security of the café, and then the next…

“Where the hell are we?” Alex whispered as they all peered around at their unfamiliar surroundings. She flinched as she spoke. Her voice sounded hollow and brittle in her own ears.

“I believe we are inside the Valiant,” Ianto said sombrely. “Or at least, the Valiant from Jack’s memories.”

“Well… where’s Jack?” Alex asked, confused. Ianto shrugged.

“Somewhere here, I imagine. These are his memories.”

Oblivious to the discussion between Alex and Ianto, Bobby turned slowly, taking in everything that he could – not only in terms of their surroundings, but also the realisation that they were, indeed, inside Jack’s mind. He imagined briefly how it probably looked to anyone else in the café – four people sitting and holding hands, completely unresponsive to everything around them…The harsh sound of engines and other mechanics broke through his thoughts, and he turned back to look at Ianto.

“We’re in the engineering part of the ship,” he guessed, and Ianto nodded, taking on the role of reluctant guide.

“Yes. I believe this is where Jack was held. The Valiant doesn’t have a brig as such; just a few storage cages that the Master had fitted out with beds and converted into cells, according to Jack. But he didn’t get that luxury. The Master had him chained up between two pillars. Always on his feet, never allowed to sit down or rest.”

“Where is he?” Bobby asked tensely, echoing Alex’s earlier question. Ianto hesitated, and then pointed down the corridor as an unpleasant sound reached his ears.

“That way. Can you hear him?”

“Hear what…?” Alex started to ask, only to freeze a moment later as a new sound reached them above the noise of the engine. “Oh my god…”

Slowly, they became aware of the sounds of muffled, agonised sobs coming from down around the far corner of the corridor. They rapidly escalated into anguished screams of pain, only to fade away again into pitiful moans. Bobby started walking towards the sound, to be stopped only briefly by Ianto’s hand on his arm.

“It’s not going to be a pleasant sight.”

Bobby gently detached himself from Ianto’s grip and walked down the corridor and around the corner, with Alex right behind him. After just a moment’s hesitation, Ianto followed in heavy silence.

The sight that met them was worse than any of them could have imagined – even Ianto, who had been better prepared for what was awaiting them than either Bobby or Alex.

Around the corner, chained up between two pillars and locked securely behind a cage door, was Jack. He was a mess, and there didn’t seem to be any part of him that didn’t display evidence of the violent abuse he’d suffered. Behind Bobby, Alex gave a strangled sob at the terrible vision, while both Bobby and Ianto appeared fixed to the spot in horror.

“He was beaten and tortured within an inch of his life, literally,” Ianto explained softly once he’d found his voice, even as he recalled Jack’s story from just a few nights ago. “But instead of letting him die, he said the Master healed him just enough so that he wouldn’t die. He discovered that as long as his injuries aren’t life-threatening, he heals at a slower rate. Faster than average, but still slower. So he was left alive, like this… but worse than that, the Master ordered him to be completely isolated. No contact at all with any living thing. He wasn’t allowed to see another person, or hear another voice… nothing. In the end, that’s what truly broke him.”

As they watched Jack lifted his head a little and moaned again. This time, words were audible, though slightly garbled by lips that were little more than bloodied pulp.

“Please… someone… anyone… Please, just talk to me… Please… Let me hear a voice.”

But there was nothing. The silence was overwhelming.

“Please…” Jack whispered again before the despair overcame him once more and he broke down, sobbing wretchedly into the oppressive silence.

“Oh god, Jack,” Ianto said, overcome with horror. Before he could say anything more, though, their surroundings suddenly blurred and shifted, and when it cleared again, they were presented with another view of the imprisoned Jack.

Apart from the blood and grime that was evident on his face and body, he seemed to be completely healed, but it wasn’t the lack of injuries that their collective attention was drawn to. It was his utter lack of life. As they watched, Jack simply stood there, head slightly bowed and eyes glazed and unseeing.

“He’s catatonic,” Bobby said.

“He told me about this,” Ianto told them heavily. “He said that above all else, he couldn’t take the isolation. That in the end, his mind just snapped.”

Footsteps drew their attention, and they looked around as a new figure strode around the corner and up to the locked cage.

“Isn’t that Saxon?” Alex asked hoarsely.

“Not Saxon,” Ianto corrected her. “The Master. Harold Saxon was a fabrication. He never really existed.”

“Open it up,” the Master demanded impatiently, his eyes fixed on the unresponsive figure of his prisoner. “Now! Get it open!”

A guard rushed to unlock it, and the Master strode up to his prisoner and peered at him.

“Jack? Wakey wakey, handsome Jack.”

Nothing. The Master frowned and grabbed hold of Jack’s face in a vicious grip that would have made anyone else cry out. There was no reaction at all from Jack, though. He just continued to stare blankly ahead, unresponsive and lost.

Still frowning, the Master activated his laser screwdriver and fired it into Jack’s shoulder. Still no response. He adjusted the setting and held it up to scan Jack’s forehead.

“Minimal brain activity,” he murmured. “You’re not faking it. You really are gone, aren’t you?” After a long moment, the Master snapped his fingers. “Bring him in here.”

A moment later a guard appeared, pushing an old man in a wheelchair.

“That’s him, isn’t it?” Bobby asked softly. “That’s Jack’s friend.”

“The Doctor, yes,” Ianto confirmed. “The Master apparently aged him by a hundred years to render him helpless.”

Silence fell again as they watched the unfolding scene.

“Jack…” the Doctor whispered, stricken by the sight of his friend. The Master looked solemn enough, but the glee in his voice was unmistakable as he spoke.

“See what you’re responsible for, Doctor? Your precious, immortal Jack, reduced to nothing but a shell.” He reached up and rapped his knuckles none too gently against Jack’s head. “What is it that humans say? The lights are on, but nobody’s home.”

Tears spilled down the Doctor’s face. Seeing Jack in this state was more than he could bear.

“I know,” the Master purred delightedly, in a deceptively gentle and sympathetic tone. “So much loss, and now I’ve managed to take one more thing away from you.” He laid a hand briefly on the Doctor’s shoulder and squeezed, causing the Doctor to wince in pain. “I’m feeling generous today. You can have five minutes alone with him.”

The Master strode out, signalling the guards to follow. Left alone, the Doctor struggled out of the wheelchair and shuffled slowly towards Jack. As soon as he was close enough, he reached out to cradle Jack’s face tenderly in his frail, trembling hands.

“Come back. Come back to me, Jack.”

He shut his eyes and concentrated, delving deep into the mind of his friend, searching for some sign of consciousness. He pulled out again only moments later, filled with dismay. Jack’s mind was empty. There was nothing there to come back; nothing left for the Doctor to reach.

Tears flooded the Doctor’s eyes, and he stumbled backwards and collapsed into the wheelchair, sitting down with a heavy and unceremonious thud.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, grief-struck. “I’m so sorry, Jack.”

The Doctor sat there for another minute or so before he regained some semblance of control, and got to his feet once more.

“I’m so sorry, Jack,” he said again. He reached out to gently thumb away some of the grime that was caked onto Jack’s face. “But wherever you are now, he can’t hurt you anymore… and neither can I.” The Doctor paused, remembering another goodbye between Jack and himself, so long ago now. Leaning in close, he pressed his aged lips to Jack’s blood-caked ones in a chaste but still tender kiss. “You are worth fighting for, Jack Harkness. Be at peace, wherever you are.” He paused, and then added in a choked voice, “I love you, Jack.”

He waited, hoping irrationally that somehow his words might have broken through, and that Jack might blink, or do some small thing to show that he was still in there somewhere, but there was nothing. Not a single flicker.

The Doctor had just enough time to cup Jack’s cheek tenderly once more, and whisper a heartbroken goodbye before the Master returned and took him away from Jack again.

“How the hell did he recover from this?” Alex wondered as she stared at Jack’s passive and unresponsive features. As she spoke, though, their surroundings blurred again, and then cleared to reveal a new figure in their midst. Neither Bobby nor Alex knew who she was, but Ianto did. He had never met her, never seen her before, but he knew who she was, all the same.

“Tish,” he whispered, and silence fell as they watched this new scene unfold before them.

Tish approached Jack slowly, taking in his empty eyes and slack features with quiet grief. It had been three days since the Doctor had told her and her parents that Jack’s mind was gone, apparently beyond any hope of recovery. That the man that the Master still kept cruelly chained up in the bowels of the ship was only a shell, and nothing more.

Her mother had been the first to see what the Master’s cruelty had wrought when she’d been sent to feed him. She had come back in tears, confirming what the Doctor had said. Jack was gone. The man still chained up in the Valiant was only an empty shell.

Then her father had been sent down there, to clean up the mess left by some drunken guards who had decided it was good sport to belt into a man who wasn’t even aware he was being beaten. His report had been the same. Jack was unaware and completely unresponsive. He was, indeed, gone.

Tish had subjugated herself the very next morning, begging the Master for the favour of letting her go and spend some precious time with the Captain. The Master had let her beg for close to an hour before refusing and ordering her back to her cell.

And so, in the end, she’d come in stealth. In return for a promised favour, the night duty guard had taken her from her cell and down to where Jack was. He could promise her half an hour at the most, and then she would have to return to the cell. She’d tried to kiss him, to show she meant to keep her side of the bargain, but the guard had gently refused.

It was reassuring to him, he’d told her quietly, that she cared enough about Jack to take a risk like this for him. He’d witnessed the nightmare that Jack had been forced to endure, and anyone wanting to offer him any help and comfort was worth taking a chance on.

Now, Tish walked up to Jack and stared up at him. His eyes were open, but staring sightlessly ahead. Tish stared at him sadly, considering her options. In the end, though, she could think of only one thing that she could do. Stepping up close to him, Tish slipped her arms around Jack’s inert form and hugged him tightly.

“We love you, Jack,” she whispered even as the tears came in a flood. “Please don’t leave us. Not like this.”

Minutes ticked by. Tish continued to hold him while she sobbed out her own grief. She was so lost in her own despair that she almost missed it when Jack suddenly drew in a shaky, ragged breath and shifted his weight just slightly from one foot to the other.

Slowly, she pulled back from him and looked up, hardly daring to hope. When her eyes were met by a pair of pale blue ones that reflected a renewed life, though, she didn’t even try to contain the relieved sobs that were fighting for release.

“Why the tears, beautiful?” Jack asked hoarsely.

“Thought we’d lost you,” she said, her voice sounding muffled against his chest. Jack craned his head down so that he could place a soft kiss on the top of her head, before resting his cheek there.

“Not going anywhere,” he promised softly. And then, after a long silence, “Thankyou.”

Tish looked genuinely puzzled.

“For what?”

It was then that she felt something dampen the top of her head, and when she looked up at him, she was startled to see tears rolling down his cheeks.

“For holding me,” he told her. “Just for holding me.”

Helpless to stop her own tears now, Tish wrapped her arms around Jack once more, and held him tightly.

“I’ve got you,” she whispered. “I’ve got you, Jack…”

Ianto felt a wetness on his cheeks, and started to brush the tears away self-consciously until he saw that Bobby and Alex were in much the same state.

Their surroundings blurred once more, and this time faded entirely. It seemed Jack was not done with them yet, though, for when they looked around them, it was at entirely new surroundings.

“Where are we now?” Alex wondered. Ianto thought he knew, but said nothing of his suspicions. As open-minded as the detectives were, he suspected it might be stretching the limits a little to tell them they were currently on a spaceship belonging to an alien life form.

Gradually, voices filtered down the corridor to them, and together they walked towards them, eventually coming out into what looked like a control room of some sort.

There was Jack, along with the woman that Ianto had identified as Tish, and four others.

“Him there,” Bobby said suddenly, his gaze fixed on a tall, somewhat lanky man in a long coat. “That’s him, isn’t it? The one that Saxon… I mean, the Master brought to see Jack?”

Ianto nodded, his breath quickening at the sight of a man on whom he had laid eyes only once before.

“Yes. The Doctor. I’m not entirely sure, but I think that woman there is Martha Jones. She travelled with the Doctor for a year… and those are her parents, Clive and Francine.”

They fell quiet, watching as the Jones family indulged in one big group hug, while the Doctor and Jack stood back and watched. The Doctor, more specifically, was watching Jack, while Jack watched the Jones family.

Eventually, the family broke apart and Martha walked over to hug the Doctor fiercely. Jack shifted uncomfortably, and was just starting to back away when Francine approached him.

“Jack, look at you,” she said with gentle affection. “You’re a mess, honey. What you need is a good long bath.”

“Are you offering to scrub my back?” he asked with a cheeky grin. Francine smiled back at him sadly. She took no offence at his words, for behind the grin and the flirtatious comment, there was a world of pain that was clearly visible to anyone who bothered to look. Reaching up, Francine patted his cheek gently.

“Come here, sweetheart.”

And then she pulled him into a long and affectionate embrace. When she finally released him, her eyes were red once more with unshed tears.

“Go on, now. Go and wash off that dirt. I want to see that handsome face of yours all lovely and clean.”

Jack blinked, and looked down at his hands in sudden bewilderment, as though he was seeing the filth that covered him for the first time.

“See?” Clive joked lightly with him. “Better go before the ladies decide to turn the hose on you, boy.”

Even through the grime that covered him, they were able to see the ashen colour that his face had turned. Without a word, and with a genuinely anguished look on his face, Jack turned and stumbled from the room.

“I’m sorry,” Clive stammered in dismay, though he didn’t understand what he had said or done to garner that reaction. “I didn’t mean to…”

“It’s okay, Dad,” Martha told him gently. And then, to the Doctor, “Go after him. He needs you. We’ll be okay.”

For once, the Doctor didn’t argue. He knew she was right. Looking grim, the Doctor went after the Captain.

And then, suddenly, they found themselves no longer in the control room, but in a bedroom of sorts. Jack was sitting on the floor with his knees drawn up tightly to his chest, and he didn't seem to be consciously aware of anything around him.

The door slid open, and the Doctor walked in, his gaze quickly finding Jack. For a long moment he just stood there, observing Jack in silence. Finally, he walked over and crouched down in front of the Captain.

“Jack. Look at me, Jack.”

Slowly, Jack responded and he lifted his head to meet the Doctor's gaze.

“Why?” he asked, his voice barely a whisper.

“Why what, Jack?”

“Why do we have to remember?”

The Doctor was still trying to decide how best to answer that when Jack went on in a broken voice.

“I asked him... The Master, I mean... I asked him if I could have some water to clean up. This was early on. He sent men down to me with a high-powered hose. F... First time I'd ever died from suffocation and drowning at the same time. I never asked again.”

“I'm sorry...”

“Stop saying that!” Jack exploded. “Stop saying you're sorry! It wasn't your fault, and I'm sick of hearing you apologise for him!”

“What do you want me to say?” the Doctor asked, feeling so horribly tired all of a sudden. Jack stared back at him pleadingly.

“Tell me it wasn't all for nothing. Please... just tell me there was a reason for it all.”

Gently, the Doctor slipped his arm around behind Jack, and pulled him in close, speaking softly into his ear.

“For you personally, Jack, I can give you four very good reasons. Gwen Cooper. Toshiko Sato. Owen Harper. And most of all for you, Ianto Jones. Because of what we went through, they're all still alive. Is that enough of a reason for you, Captain?”

Jack broke down, then, sobbing heavily into the Doctor's shoulder.

“We saved their lives, Jack. You saved their lives. They may never know it, but that's not what's important. What is important is that you know it wasn't for nothing. It was for everything.”

Though Jack continued to weep into the Doctor's shoulder, the tone of his sobs changed just slightly, losing the guttural tone. The Doctor continued to cradle Jack to him, at times placing feather-soft kisses of reassurance on Jack's hair. Then, once his sobs finally began to ease, the Doctor spoke again.

“I am going to say sorry for one more thing, Jack, and I want you to hear me out before you argue with me. I am sorry that I left you behind on Satellite Five. I am sorry that I never went back for you, and I so sorry for leaving you alone through all those years. I've failed my companions before, but I'd never betrayed any of them until you, and I am so, so sorry for that.”

Jack was quiet for a moment, wondering how to answer that. Finally, he could think of only three words, and he spoke them in a trembling whisper.

“I forgive you.”

It was the Doctor's turn to shed a tear or two, then.

“Thankyou,” he whispered gratefully. Then, “I said something to you on the Valiant, Jack, but you weren't exactly lucid at the time. I'm going to say it again now, and I want you to look at me so that you know I'm telling you the truth.”

Slowly, Jack pulled back enough so that he could look the Doctor in the eye.

“What did you want to say?”

“I love you, Jack,” the Doctor told him softly. “I always have, right from the moment you stopped that bomb from dropping on us during the London Blitz. And I love you even more for know you were willing to die for me... On Satellite Five, but also during that year. I know you could have escaped with Martha, and I would not have thought worse of you if you had. But you didn't, you chose to stay, for me. You knew what he was likely to do to you, but you still stayed. I loved you so much more for that. So whatever happens from now on, I don't ever want you to doubt how much I love you. Do you undestand me, Captain Harkness?”

A weak but genuine smile lifted the corners of Jack's lips.

“I love you, too, Doctor,” he whispered tearfully. “Always have, always will.”

The scene faded out, and the last thing they saw as it went black was a touching image of Jack being held tenderly in the embrace of his Doctor.

Bobby, Alex and Ianto emerged back into the present with simultaneous gasps. While Bobby and Alex sat in stunned silence, Ianto turned to Jack with swollen, red-rimmed eyes. Jack stared back at him, his expression pained.

“Now do you...”

Whatever he had been about to ask was lost as Ianto all but dove forward in and thrust his mouth against Jack's, in an emotion-charged kiss.

“I never realised,” Ianto whispered when they finally broke apart. “I mean, you told me, but I don't think I understood until now how terrible it really was. Jack, I'm sorry...”

“Please, don't apologise,” Jack pleaded with him. “I'm so tired of hearing people say they're sorry.” He reached out and brushed his fingers lightly against Ianto's cheek, and allowed them to trail over his lips before smiling sadly at the younger man and turning his attention back to Bobby and Alex. “What about you two? Do you understand now?”

“Yes,” Bobby answered for them both. His voice sounded hoarse and not entirely steady. “We understand. Thankyou for letting us see that. It can't have been easy for you.”

A bitter smile touched Jack's lips. That was a very big understatement, but he chose not to say anything in reply. Instead, he shifted in the booth, suddenly anxious to get moving again.

“I think we've beengone long enough. What say we head back before someone else gets sent after me?”

The other three nodded their agreement and, together, they got up and exited the cafe.

“This Doctor,” Alex said as they headed back to One Police Plaza. “Could he help?”

Jack was silent for a long moment before responding.

“I'm really hoping we don't find ourselves in a situation where we have to ask, Detective Eames.”

“So... he could help,” Alex pressed. “Why don't you contact him?”

He swung around to face her, his expression hard.

“It's not ego, if that's what you're suggesting. Getting in touch with the Doctor isn't as easy or as simple as that, and for the record, I do have a back-up plan, if things don't go to plan.”

Alex raised her eyebrows, waiting for him to explain. Jack stared at her for several seconds before looking at Bobby in frustration.

“Is she always this persistent?”

A grin broke out across Bobby's face.

“Worse, and I wouldn't want her any other way.”

Shaking his head in aggravation, Jack conceded and exlained.

“I've given instructions to Ianto. If things go wrong...”

“And by that, he means if the Grysliaak takes him, rather than us taking it,” Ianto put in blandly, deliberately ignoring the exasperated look that Jack threw in his direction.

“If things don't go to plan,” Jack went on, “then Ianto has instructions to call a friend of mine, Martha Jones.”

“Martha...” Bobby murmured. “The same Martha from your memory?”

Jack nodded curtly.

“Yes. He's to call her and give her a message.”

“And what's this message?” Alex persisted. Jack frowned, but Ianto spoke quietly in her defense.

“It's actually quite sensible, sir, to tell someone else. You know... in case something goes wrong.”

Jack favoured Ianto with a look that quite clearly said 'I'll deal with you later'.

“I told Ianto to tell her 'the Captain needs his Doctor', and also 'Grysliaak'. She'll know what to do from there. She'll know how to reach the Doctor.”

“You can't just call him?” Alex asked, and Jack had to resist the urge to roll his eyes.

“You ask a lot of questions, Detective.”

She smiled tightly at him.

“That's what I do, Captain.”

He couldn't help but smile in response to her attitude. As annoyed as he felt, he was also starting to like her immensely. She was tough and smart, but still connected to her own humanity, not unlike Gwen. He decided to answer as they began to walk again.

“No, I can't just call him. You might say that's Martha's privilege. No, if we need him... If we need him, Martha will contact him. Please don't ask me anything else, because I can't tell you.”

Alex appeared on the cusp of arguing, but Bobby's hand on her shoulder silenced her.

“It's okay. We trust you, Jack.”

He nodded.

“I hope so.”

They turned down the laneway that would take them through to One Police Plaza, walking in silence. They were nearly halfway along when Jack slowed to a halt, and looked around tensely.

“Jack?” Ianto asked quietly. “What is it?”

Jack turned around slowly, not responding to Ianto's question. Instead, he spoke in a soft, tense and increasingly fearful voice.

“Can't you feel it? In the air... all around...”

Bobby looked around at Alex, and his breath caught a little. Her hair was starting to lift up with rapidly building static electricity.

“It's here...” he said.

“Run!” Jack yelled, but before any of them had the chance to do just that, Jack and Ianto's earpieces suddenly blew, causing both of them to shout in pain and shock. Simultaneously, Bobby and Alex's cell phones and radios burned out from an overload of electricity, forcing both detectives to throw the devices away in pain.

Frightened and disoriented, Jack spun around, at the same time reaching for his gun. As he turned, though, a shadow reared up before him and something semi-solid collided with his body and face. The force of the blow lifted him clean off his feet and sent him flying through the air and into the brick wall on the other side of the lane. He felt something go in his back as he hit the wall, and crumpled to the ground in a useless heap.

“Jack!” Ianto shouted, and ran to the Captain's side, as Bobby and Alex drew their weapons and circled around to place themselves squarely between Jack's prone body, and the monster that was advancing on him.

“Stop,” Bobby demanded in a steady voice that belied the fear he was feeling. “Stay where you are, or we will shoot you.”

The Grysliaak laughed cruelly.

“You can't stop me. Get out of my way, or I'll take your energy as well as Jack's.”

“You're not taking anyone's energy,” Alex snapped. “Now, back off!”

“Feisty,” it hissed. “I like that, but I don't have the time to deal with you now.”

It swept towards the detectives, and Alex found herself thrown through the air much like Jack only seconds before. She landed on concrete, her head striking the ground with an ugly crack, knocking her out cold.

Bobby barely had time to register the fact that his partner had been taken right out of the equation before he too was struck and sent flying. He landed virtually next to Jack, and was still recovering from the shock when the Grysliaak's shadow fell over himself, Jack and Ianto.

“I know what you're planning,” it told them. “It's not going to work. I'm here to offer you a deal, Jack, a deal that will save the lives of all your team... of all those police. Come with me, Jack. Come willingly, and I'll let them all live.”

Jack stared up at the Grysliaak, unable to reply for the blood that was welling up in his throat from the lung that had been punctured by a broken rib. The monster bent down towards him, grinning hideously.

“What do you say? Your life for theirs?”

“No!” Ianto burst out. The Grysliaak snarled inhumanly at Ianto.

“Stay out of this. It's his choice.”

Ianto glared balefully back at it, his hands still protectively on Jack.

“You take him, then you take me as well.”

Jack's body jerked, and he opened his mouth as though to protest, but all that came out was thick, red rivers of blood. A vicious grin spread across the Grysliaak's semi-formed features, creating a grotesque countenance that made it look like it belonged in a Freddy Kreuger film rather than a nondescript laneway in present day New York.

“Emergency rations. I like that...”

Ianto had no time to utter a sound as the monster lunged towards them, arms outstretched.

Alex awoke with a groan, and a pounding head. For a while she lay still, not sure that she had either the strength or the inclination to even attempt to move. Before too long, though, instinct kicked in and her somewhat muzzy thoughts slowly began to put themselves back in order. What had happened, she wondered, and got her answer a moment later as she recalled the ominous and monstrous shadow that had attacked them. It had sent her flying, and after that, there was nothing.

She groaned again, and started to push herself up. Nothing seemed to be broken, thank God for small miracles. She could taste blood in her mouth, though, and she suspected that she'd bitten her tongue on impact with the ground. If that was the worst of it, though, then maybe this Grysliaak wasn't as tough as Jack had made it out to be...

Her thoughts derailed as she finally staggered to her feet and looked to where she had known her three companions to be. There was nothing there now except for blood, three guns and a gold detective's shield.

“No,” Alex whispered in sudden, biting panic. “No... Please, no...”

She staggered over for a closer look, but it only confirmed her fears. The Grysliaak was gone, and it had taken Jack, Ianto and Bobby with it.

Driven by fear and adrenalin, Alex scooped up Bobby's badge in trembling hands, and stumbled back towards One Police Plaza to get help.

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