"Reunited" sequel: Children's Crusade [10/J/R | T]
Title: Children's Crusade (4/10?)
Author: aibhinn
Pairing: Ten/Jack/Rose
Rating: PG-13 (may go up for later chapters)
Spoilers: For my chaptered fic Reunited. (Link goes to Teaspoon.)
Summary: Jack's past-including his missing memories-comes back for another go…but it's not quite what he expected.
Disclaimer: Not mine. Everything belongs to Auntie Beeb. I'm stuck here on the far side of the wrong continent, playing in her sandbox.
Author's note: This story begins roughly a year after Reunited ended. Many thanks to measi, dameruth, sensiblecat, and invisible_lift for the beta-fu. Don't forget, this is a sequel to Reunited, so it's A/U for post-s2 Doctor Who and post-s1 Torchwood.
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 5
The TARDIS library had always served as a sort of living area for the three of them. Back when he'd first travelled with Rose and the Doctor's leather-jacketed self, Jack had always seemed to find them in here, lounging together or separately. It wasn't long before the TARDIS moved a television in, much to the Doctor's disgust, though he'd not been loath to join them at least two evenings out of five, watching movies or mindless telly from either Rose's time or Jack's own. It was the place where everyone went to unwind, to relax, to spend time together.
Now, it was the place where Jack sat his partners down and told them about his past with Karen.
Despite Jack's assurances, Karen hadn't been willing to say much to the Doctor and Rose. After Jack had introduced them-a very brief introduction-Karen had gone off with Gwen to the same hostel where Rose had stayed when she'd first come through the Rift, and Jack had gone back to the TARDIS with the Doctor and Rose. Without needing to consult each other, the three of them had automatically headed for the library.
They moved the coffee table out of the way and pulled the furniture into a loose circle. The Doctor and Rose each sat in Queen Anne chairs tucked in close to where Jack sat on the sofa-close enough that their knees almost, but not quite, touched. They were giving him space, Jack knew, letting him tell his story in his own time. Taking a deep breath, he leant forward, elbows on his knees and gaze directed somewhere towards the floor as he dredged up memories he'd tried hard to leave behind.
"James Harper was my best friend from the time I was a kid," he said. "We went through school together, hung out together, lived just down the beach from each other. His parents became my second mom and dad, as mine did for him; he was as close as my brother. Closer, sometimes. And when he met Karen, I was happy for him; he was head-over-heels in love, and so was she. They were a good match."
"Sounds familiar," Rose interjected.
He glanced up, saw her grinning at him, and couldn't help but grin back. "Yeah," he said. "But when we turned eighteen, I got hold of some information about the Time Agency from a local recruiter. The war with the H'rissth wasn't going well, and I thought, if we joined up, we could help. Karen didn't want us to go, but James was all for it; he wanted to do something to stop the H'rissth from invading any more planets. They were spreading like a disease by that point, and once they reached a planet, it seemed nothing could stop them. The only place they were vulnerable seemed to be in space, so that was where we wanted to attack them-and the Agency was on the front lines in getting the Navy where they needed to be, when they needed to be. So we enlisted, and off we went to Basic. Six weeks, then home on leave for a week, then off to our first posting.
"But then, while we were on leave between Basic and our first mission, Karen and James broke up-one of those messy, loud, emotional rows that nobody means and usually get cleared up a few days later. But they never got the chance to make up. James and I left the next day-and he was killed on our first mission. We were captured by the H'rissth, and they tortured him to death right in front of me, because he was the weakest of us."
Even after all these years, the memories brought tears to his eyes, along with the bone-deep hatred he still held for the race that had taken so many lives for so little gain. He blinked rapidly and blew out a breath. "And then they let us go," he said quietly. "I carried James's body almost three miles before a patrol found us and brought us back to base."
"Oh, Jack," the Doctor said quietly. Jack glanced up to see compassion and sadness in those deep brown eyes. In Rose's, too, and he smiled softly at both of them in gratitude, but forced himself to carry on with the story.
"I was sent home on compassionate leave for his funeral. I blamed myself, of course. I still do, I guess. He'd never have joined up if it hadn't been for me talking him into it."
"Sounds more like you suggested and he jumped on the idea," the Doctor said softly.
A corner of Jack's mouth quirked upward ruefully. "Yeah, well," he said. "Maybe. But still, I suggested it. He was always more interested in school than I was; I did enough to get by, he excelled in everything. Especially history-he was an expert on the Second and Third Diasporas and the founding of the First Great and Bountiful Human Empire. I always pictured him as a professor at some university somewhere." He sighed and released Rose's hand, leaning back into the sofa. "Karen was devastated, of course. The night of James's funeral, we went out and got thoroughly pissed. Somehow in the course of the evening, we made it back to her flat. Both of us drunk, both of us mourning. Not a good combination."
"You slept with her," Rose said. Her tone wasn't in the least condemning; if anything, it was understanding and kind. But it still made Jack grimace.
"Yeah," he said again, his voice low. "Not something I'm very proud of, that. Slept with my best friend's girlfriend on the day of his funeral?"
"But James was dead," the Doctor said. "You needed comfort. She needed comfort. Do you really think he would have objected?"
"No," Jack admitted. "Not any more. But at the time I did. I woke up about dawn, sober enough to realise what I'd done, and feeling like I'd just betrayed my best friend's memory in the worst possible way-and betrayed my friendship with her, too. I couldn't face her, couldn't face the guilt, so I got up, got dressed, sneaked out, and returned to base. I was probably on the transport back to the front lines by the time she woke up."
Both the Doctor and Rose winced. Jack sighed. "I know," he said. "I know. But I was young and terrified. I didn't know what to do, I didn't know how to face her. I left a note telling her I had to get back, but she could call me any time and I'd be there as soon as I could. Not surprisingly, she never did." He felt a wrench of guilt yet again. He hadn't ever betrayed James, he knew now, but he had certainly betrayed her.
"Not until just recently," the Doctor said, and leant forward, looking at Jack. "Why'd she contact you after all these years? How long has it been for her?"
"About fifteen years. And this is where the story gets…well, terrifying." He told them about Karen discovering she was pregnant and moving to Liracula, the attack on Dennis's school, Karen joining the Agency, and her discovery of where the children-including her own-had been taken.
"So she was pregnant with James's child all along," Rose mused. "Sad, that he never got to know he was a father. She wouldn't have been showing, I guess. She was what, four weeks pregnant at his funeral?"
"Something like that," Jack said. "She said she didn't find out until after I'd left. They'd been sleeping together for some time, of course, and they didn't quarrel and break up until near the end of our post-Basic leave, so she must have gotten pregnant sometime between our getting home on leave and her row with James."
"Do you believe her?" the Doctor asked, his eyes serious. "About the children being kidnapped?"
Jack ran a hand over his face. "Yeah," he said quietly. "I do. I'm not sure why, really, but it feels . . . like I should know everything she's saying. Like it should be familiar." He chuckled, but with no humour. "Unlike everything else from the mind-wipe. She called me by my real name, and I didn't even recognise it."
Rose's eyebrows rose. "What is it?"
"Mark," Jack said. "Mark Hutchins. Means nothing to me. Whoever wiped my memories did a thorough job."
"Or it's not really your name," the Doctor said. His voice was pensive, his gaze indrawn.
Jack sat up, brow furrowing. "What do you mean?
The Doctor shook his head, frowning. "It doesn't add up," he said. "There's a piece missing somewhere. She searched you out just to help her find your dead best mate's child? Why didn't she go to someone she knows from her own time? Why come looking for you?"
"Because I was the one who blew the whistle in the first place," Jack reminded him.
"So she says," the Doctor agreed.
His meaning wasn't hard to decipher, and Jack was surprised by the odd feeling of relief it gave him. "You think it's a trap?" Jack asked, though it was almost more a statement than a question. He'd felt something similar.
"I don't know if it's a trap, per se, but I do know I've got some unanswered questions here. We don't know why they wiped your memories, beyond what Karen has said, and we can't judge the truthfulness of her statement. The best evidence she had was the photographs she showed you, and they could have been of any child."
Jack shook his head, sure of this point if of no other. "No, Doctor. That was James's son. I'd recognise him anywhere."
"There are a lot of dark-haired, blue-eyed men in the world, Jack," Rose said, logically. "Can you really be sure?"
"Yes," Jack said firmly. "I told you, we were like brothers. I know his face as clearly as I know my own."
The Doctor tilted his head to the side in both acknowledgement and appeasement. "All right, then. He's James's son. That doesn't mean any of the rest of it is true-though it doesn't necessarily make it false, either."
"Are you saying we shouldn't help her?" Jack asked. He'd already promised his help and wasn't about to go back on it, and if Dennis was James's and Karen's son, he owed the boy a debt for his father's sake; if it weren't for Jack, James might still be alive.
"Not at all," the Doctor said. "But I do think we should be careful, and do some research on our own. If there's even a chance that she's a danger to you, she doesn't set foot on this ship."
Jack blinked, surprised at the steel in the Doctor's gaze-surprised and a bit touched. Rose was nodding vigorously, her face just as set as the Time Lord's; clearly they were on the same page. "She can't hurt me," he told the Time Lord.
"Oh, yes, she can, Jack," the Doctor said, leaning forward intently. "She already has, just by contacting you. There are so many ways she can make this go wrong. It could be a trap, leading you to the Time Agency and the people who wiped your memory in the first place. It could be an attempt to get us to do the dirty work for her. Or, of course, it could be that you're right, and she's being completely honest with us. We just don't know."
"I agree with the Doctor," Rose said. Jack turned to face her, taking in her troubled expression. "It's far too simplistic. There's something else going on here, something we're not seeing."
Jack sighed, settling back in his seat. "Yeah, I think you're right," he said somewhat reluctantly. "I don't like the thought that Karen's lying to me, but I'm fairly sure there is something she's not telling us. But I also know that somewhere, in whatever tiny shreds of memory they left me after they stole those two years, something is telling me that this is familiar. The kidnapped children, the assassin training camp-I think it really does exist. Whether the rest of it is true or not I've no idea, but I do know that there are potentially hundreds of children being held captive by the very people who are supposed to be keeping them safe." He met their gazes in turn. "Can we really turn our backs on them? Even if it was a trap and we were being led deep into trouble, can we just refuse to do anything?"
The Doctor sighed and leaned back in his chair again. "Of course we can't," he said.
"No chance," Rose agreed. "But I still don't know that we can trust her."
The Doctor's expression turned considering. "I could ask the TARDIS to give her the Adam treatment," he suggested.
"The what?" Jack asked.
Rose chuckled. "You remember I told you about that bloke who travelled us with us just before we met you?" she said. "The one who went to Satellite Five with us the first time?"
"Oh!" Jack remembered now. "The guy who-" He clicked his fingers in illustration.
"That's the one," the Doctor agreed. "When he first joined us, I didn't really trust him-correctly, as it turned out-so I had the TARDIS wrap the corridor outside his room into a loop. He couldn't get anywhere but the loo and the kitchen until I told her otherwise."
Jack raised an eyebrow and smirked. "How long did it take you to take the loop off my door when I first got here?" he asked.
The Doctor's eyes glinted with amusement. "How long do you think?" he asked.
Jack pursed his lips, pretending to think. "A week?" he asked.
"Thereabouts," the Doctor allowed with a grin. "Long enough for me to work out that you weren't after my ship, Rose, me, or any combination of the three."
"Doesn't mean I wasn't interested," Jack reminded him. "Just that I had grown fond of breathing, and back then I wasn't likely to come back once I'd stopped for more than a couple of minutes."
"Back to the point of all this," Rose interjected, though she was smirking as well. "I think I'd be all right with her on board if you did put her into an Adam loop, Doctor. I know I don't want her wandering about unsupervised."
"Certainly not," the Doctor agreed. "If she's a Time Agent, she may well know what a TARDIS is-and, for that matter, what I am. I don't want to give her any leeway at all until we're certain she's trustworthy." He turned to Jack. "Not that I don't trust your assessment of her, but-"
"-but we weren't talking for fifteen years and I've no guarantee she wasn't one of the ones behind my mind wipe, or at least working for them and on their side," Jack finished. "I understand, Doctor. We don't dare take the risk that she can be trusted, any more than we dare take the risk that she's not lying to us."
"You sure, Jack?" the Doctor asked soberly. "She's an old friend of yours; you sure you're all right with this?"
Jack leant forward and cupped the Doctor's cheek with a hand. "I made my choice when I left Torchwood to travel with you again," he said. "I chose you."
The Doctor smiled and took hold of Jack's hand once more. "All right," he said. "We'll retrieve her from the hostel in the morning. I assume she's under surveillance there?"
"Yeah," Jack said, letting his free hand drop from the Doctor's cheek and taking Rose's once more. "Twenty-four hour. My team's on it."
"Good." Unexpectedly, the Doctor shifted from his chair to sit beside Jack on the sofa. "Because I've got the definite feeling that you shouldn't be alone tonight."
"Me too." Rose also slid from her chair to the sofa. They bracketed Jack now, warm softness pressed along one side of him and cool solidity along the other.
Jack grinned. "No?" he said. "What did you have in mind? Monopoly? Tiddlywinks? Scrabble, perhaps?"
"Oh, something much better than that," the Doctor breathed.
Author: aibhinn
Pairing: Ten/Jack/Rose
Rating: PG-13 (may go up for later chapters)
Spoilers: For my chaptered fic Reunited. (Link goes to Teaspoon.)
Summary: Jack's past-including his missing memories-comes back for another go…but it's not quite what he expected.
Disclaimer: Not mine. Everything belongs to Auntie Beeb. I'm stuck here on the far side of the wrong continent, playing in her sandbox.
Author's note: This story begins roughly a year after Reunited ended. Many thanks to measi, dameruth, sensiblecat, and invisible_lift for the beta-fu. Don't forget, this is a sequel to Reunited, so it's A/U for post-s2 Doctor Who and post-s1 Torchwood.
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 5
The TARDIS library had always served as a sort of living area for the three of them. Back when he'd first travelled with Rose and the Doctor's leather-jacketed self, Jack had always seemed to find them in here, lounging together or separately. It wasn't long before the TARDIS moved a television in, much to the Doctor's disgust, though he'd not been loath to join them at least two evenings out of five, watching movies or mindless telly from either Rose's time or Jack's own. It was the place where everyone went to unwind, to relax, to spend time together.
Now, it was the place where Jack sat his partners down and told them about his past with Karen.
Despite Jack's assurances, Karen hadn't been willing to say much to the Doctor and Rose. After Jack had introduced them-a very brief introduction-Karen had gone off with Gwen to the same hostel where Rose had stayed when she'd first come through the Rift, and Jack had gone back to the TARDIS with the Doctor and Rose. Without needing to consult each other, the three of them had automatically headed for the library.
They moved the coffee table out of the way and pulled the furniture into a loose circle. The Doctor and Rose each sat in Queen Anne chairs tucked in close to where Jack sat on the sofa-close enough that their knees almost, but not quite, touched. They were giving him space, Jack knew, letting him tell his story in his own time. Taking a deep breath, he leant forward, elbows on his knees and gaze directed somewhere towards the floor as he dredged up memories he'd tried hard to leave behind.
"James Harper was my best friend from the time I was a kid," he said. "We went through school together, hung out together, lived just down the beach from each other. His parents became my second mom and dad, as mine did for him; he was as close as my brother. Closer, sometimes. And when he met Karen, I was happy for him; he was head-over-heels in love, and so was she. They were a good match."
"Sounds familiar," Rose interjected.
He glanced up, saw her grinning at him, and couldn't help but grin back. "Yeah," he said. "But when we turned eighteen, I got hold of some information about the Time Agency from a local recruiter. The war with the H'rissth wasn't going well, and I thought, if we joined up, we could help. Karen didn't want us to go, but James was all for it; he wanted to do something to stop the H'rissth from invading any more planets. They were spreading like a disease by that point, and once they reached a planet, it seemed nothing could stop them. The only place they were vulnerable seemed to be in space, so that was where we wanted to attack them-and the Agency was on the front lines in getting the Navy where they needed to be, when they needed to be. So we enlisted, and off we went to Basic. Six weeks, then home on leave for a week, then off to our first posting.
"But then, while we were on leave between Basic and our first mission, Karen and James broke up-one of those messy, loud, emotional rows that nobody means and usually get cleared up a few days later. But they never got the chance to make up. James and I left the next day-and he was killed on our first mission. We were captured by the H'rissth, and they tortured him to death right in front of me, because he was the weakest of us."
Even after all these years, the memories brought tears to his eyes, along with the bone-deep hatred he still held for the race that had taken so many lives for so little gain. He blinked rapidly and blew out a breath. "And then they let us go," he said quietly. "I carried James's body almost three miles before a patrol found us and brought us back to base."
"Oh, Jack," the Doctor said quietly. Jack glanced up to see compassion and sadness in those deep brown eyes. In Rose's, too, and he smiled softly at both of them in gratitude, but forced himself to carry on with the story.
"I was sent home on compassionate leave for his funeral. I blamed myself, of course. I still do, I guess. He'd never have joined up if it hadn't been for me talking him into it."
"Sounds more like you suggested and he jumped on the idea," the Doctor said softly.
A corner of Jack's mouth quirked upward ruefully. "Yeah, well," he said. "Maybe. But still, I suggested it. He was always more interested in school than I was; I did enough to get by, he excelled in everything. Especially history-he was an expert on the Second and Third Diasporas and the founding of the First Great and Bountiful Human Empire. I always pictured him as a professor at some university somewhere." He sighed and released Rose's hand, leaning back into the sofa. "Karen was devastated, of course. The night of James's funeral, we went out and got thoroughly pissed. Somehow in the course of the evening, we made it back to her flat. Both of us drunk, both of us mourning. Not a good combination."
"You slept with her," Rose said. Her tone wasn't in the least condemning; if anything, it was understanding and kind. But it still made Jack grimace.
"Yeah," he said again, his voice low. "Not something I'm very proud of, that. Slept with my best friend's girlfriend on the day of his funeral?"
"But James was dead," the Doctor said. "You needed comfort. She needed comfort. Do you really think he would have objected?"
"No," Jack admitted. "Not any more. But at the time I did. I woke up about dawn, sober enough to realise what I'd done, and feeling like I'd just betrayed my best friend's memory in the worst possible way-and betrayed my friendship with her, too. I couldn't face her, couldn't face the guilt, so I got up, got dressed, sneaked out, and returned to base. I was probably on the transport back to the front lines by the time she woke up."
Both the Doctor and Rose winced. Jack sighed. "I know," he said. "I know. But I was young and terrified. I didn't know what to do, I didn't know how to face her. I left a note telling her I had to get back, but she could call me any time and I'd be there as soon as I could. Not surprisingly, she never did." He felt a wrench of guilt yet again. He hadn't ever betrayed James, he knew now, but he had certainly betrayed her.
"Not until just recently," the Doctor said, and leant forward, looking at Jack. "Why'd she contact you after all these years? How long has it been for her?"
"About fifteen years. And this is where the story gets…well, terrifying." He told them about Karen discovering she was pregnant and moving to Liracula, the attack on Dennis's school, Karen joining the Agency, and her discovery of where the children-including her own-had been taken.
"So she was pregnant with James's child all along," Rose mused. "Sad, that he never got to know he was a father. She wouldn't have been showing, I guess. She was what, four weeks pregnant at his funeral?"
"Something like that," Jack said. "She said she didn't find out until after I'd left. They'd been sleeping together for some time, of course, and they didn't quarrel and break up until near the end of our post-Basic leave, so she must have gotten pregnant sometime between our getting home on leave and her row with James."
"Do you believe her?" the Doctor asked, his eyes serious. "About the children being kidnapped?"
Jack ran a hand over his face. "Yeah," he said quietly. "I do. I'm not sure why, really, but it feels . . . like I should know everything she's saying. Like it should be familiar." He chuckled, but with no humour. "Unlike everything else from the mind-wipe. She called me by my real name, and I didn't even recognise it."
Rose's eyebrows rose. "What is it?"
"Mark," Jack said. "Mark Hutchins. Means nothing to me. Whoever wiped my memories did a thorough job."
"Or it's not really your name," the Doctor said. His voice was pensive, his gaze indrawn.
Jack sat up, brow furrowing. "What do you mean?
The Doctor shook his head, frowning. "It doesn't add up," he said. "There's a piece missing somewhere. She searched you out just to help her find your dead best mate's child? Why didn't she go to someone she knows from her own time? Why come looking for you?"
"Because I was the one who blew the whistle in the first place," Jack reminded him.
"So she says," the Doctor agreed.
His meaning wasn't hard to decipher, and Jack was surprised by the odd feeling of relief it gave him. "You think it's a trap?" Jack asked, though it was almost more a statement than a question. He'd felt something similar.
"I don't know if it's a trap, per se, but I do know I've got some unanswered questions here. We don't know why they wiped your memories, beyond what Karen has said, and we can't judge the truthfulness of her statement. The best evidence she had was the photographs she showed you, and they could have been of any child."
Jack shook his head, sure of this point if of no other. "No, Doctor. That was James's son. I'd recognise him anywhere."
"There are a lot of dark-haired, blue-eyed men in the world, Jack," Rose said, logically. "Can you really be sure?"
"Yes," Jack said firmly. "I told you, we were like brothers. I know his face as clearly as I know my own."
The Doctor tilted his head to the side in both acknowledgement and appeasement. "All right, then. He's James's son. That doesn't mean any of the rest of it is true-though it doesn't necessarily make it false, either."
"Are you saying we shouldn't help her?" Jack asked. He'd already promised his help and wasn't about to go back on it, and if Dennis was James's and Karen's son, he owed the boy a debt for his father's sake; if it weren't for Jack, James might still be alive.
"Not at all," the Doctor said. "But I do think we should be careful, and do some research on our own. If there's even a chance that she's a danger to you, she doesn't set foot on this ship."
Jack blinked, surprised at the steel in the Doctor's gaze-surprised and a bit touched. Rose was nodding vigorously, her face just as set as the Time Lord's; clearly they were on the same page. "She can't hurt me," he told the Time Lord.
"Oh, yes, she can, Jack," the Doctor said, leaning forward intently. "She already has, just by contacting you. There are so many ways she can make this go wrong. It could be a trap, leading you to the Time Agency and the people who wiped your memory in the first place. It could be an attempt to get us to do the dirty work for her. Or, of course, it could be that you're right, and she's being completely honest with us. We just don't know."
"I agree with the Doctor," Rose said. Jack turned to face her, taking in her troubled expression. "It's far too simplistic. There's something else going on here, something we're not seeing."
Jack sighed, settling back in his seat. "Yeah, I think you're right," he said somewhat reluctantly. "I don't like the thought that Karen's lying to me, but I'm fairly sure there is something she's not telling us. But I also know that somewhere, in whatever tiny shreds of memory they left me after they stole those two years, something is telling me that this is familiar. The kidnapped children, the assassin training camp-I think it really does exist. Whether the rest of it is true or not I've no idea, but I do know that there are potentially hundreds of children being held captive by the very people who are supposed to be keeping them safe." He met their gazes in turn. "Can we really turn our backs on them? Even if it was a trap and we were being led deep into trouble, can we just refuse to do anything?"
The Doctor sighed and leaned back in his chair again. "Of course we can't," he said.
"No chance," Rose agreed. "But I still don't know that we can trust her."
The Doctor's expression turned considering. "I could ask the TARDIS to give her the Adam treatment," he suggested.
"The what?" Jack asked.
Rose chuckled. "You remember I told you about that bloke who travelled us with us just before we met you?" she said. "The one who went to Satellite Five with us the first time?"
"Oh!" Jack remembered now. "The guy who-" He clicked his fingers in illustration.
"That's the one," the Doctor agreed. "When he first joined us, I didn't really trust him-correctly, as it turned out-so I had the TARDIS wrap the corridor outside his room into a loop. He couldn't get anywhere but the loo and the kitchen until I told her otherwise."
Jack raised an eyebrow and smirked. "How long did it take you to take the loop off my door when I first got here?" he asked.
The Doctor's eyes glinted with amusement. "How long do you think?" he asked.
Jack pursed his lips, pretending to think. "A week?" he asked.
"Thereabouts," the Doctor allowed with a grin. "Long enough for me to work out that you weren't after my ship, Rose, me, or any combination of the three."
"Doesn't mean I wasn't interested," Jack reminded him. "Just that I had grown fond of breathing, and back then I wasn't likely to come back once I'd stopped for more than a couple of minutes."
"Back to the point of all this," Rose interjected, though she was smirking as well. "I think I'd be all right with her on board if you did put her into an Adam loop, Doctor. I know I don't want her wandering about unsupervised."
"Certainly not," the Doctor agreed. "If she's a Time Agent, she may well know what a TARDIS is-and, for that matter, what I am. I don't want to give her any leeway at all until we're certain she's trustworthy." He turned to Jack. "Not that I don't trust your assessment of her, but-"
"-but we weren't talking for fifteen years and I've no guarantee she wasn't one of the ones behind my mind wipe, or at least working for them and on their side," Jack finished. "I understand, Doctor. We don't dare take the risk that she can be trusted, any more than we dare take the risk that she's not lying to us."
"You sure, Jack?" the Doctor asked soberly. "She's an old friend of yours; you sure you're all right with this?"
Jack leant forward and cupped the Doctor's cheek with a hand. "I made my choice when I left Torchwood to travel with you again," he said. "I chose you."
The Doctor smiled and took hold of Jack's hand once more. "All right," he said. "We'll retrieve her from the hostel in the morning. I assume she's under surveillance there?"
"Yeah," Jack said, letting his free hand drop from the Doctor's cheek and taking Rose's once more. "Twenty-four hour. My team's on it."
"Good." Unexpectedly, the Doctor shifted from his chair to sit beside Jack on the sofa. "Because I've got the definite feeling that you shouldn't be alone tonight."
"Me too." Rose also slid from her chair to the sofa. They bracketed Jack now, warm softness pressed along one side of him and cool solidity along the other.
Jack grinned. "No?" he said. "What did you have in mind? Monopoly? Tiddlywinks? Scrabble, perhaps?"
"Oh, something much better than that," the Doctor breathed.