Jack hated chains. Other forms of restraint could be enjoyable (if the right person was doing the restraining), but chains were decidedly unfun. They chafed.

Jack wondered if there was even any point to yelling. His captors were cyborgs; they might not even understand the meaning of any of the colorful names he might call them, much less comply with his demands to be let go.

This didn't stop him from yelling anyway.

He was held just high enough off the ground that his feet couldn't get purchase on the floor. It was making his shoulders ache, which was only compounded by the lingering pain of his earlier injuries.

He sighed. He supposed he ought to resign himself to his fate. He didn't have a weapon, and of course, his vortex manipulator didn't work, so there was no way he could escape. The Doctor would probably never find him again, if he even wanted to find him. Being immortal kind of precluded the need to contemplate one's own death, but it had never occurred to Jack that he might spend the rest of his life in a zoo.

"I hope they feed me regularly," he said thoughtfully. "Maybe they'll give me one of those big balls to play with. That might be fun."

"Thinking about balls at a time like this? You've sure got a one-track mind, Jack."

Jack started. "Doctor?" Or was his mind playing tricks on him?

"In the flesh," said the voice on the other side of the wall. "If you'll just–Melody, that was my foot!"

"Sorry!"

"Where are you guys?" asked Jack, craning his neck towards the sound of their voices.

"We're in the vent," said the Doctor. "Hello." He wiggled his fingers through the grating.

"I can't get up," said Jack. "I'm chained."

"Oh, you do know how to play hard to get. Hold on." Jack heard the sound of the sonic screwdriver and the grate fell away, striking him on the head.

"Ow!"

"Sorry." The Doctor followed a second later, landing right in front of him. "You stay up there," he instructed Melody. "I'll hand him up to you." The Doctor pointed the sonic screwdriver at Jack's manacles. "Hold still!" he ordered.

"I'm trying," protested Jack. "I don't want you to sonic my hand off."

"Hurry!" hissed Melody. "Someone's coming."

The Doctor had freed Jack's left hand from the manacle and was working furiously on the right. Jack could her metallic footsteps in the corridor. They were coming.

"Doctor!" he hissed, trying not to let his fear show. Now that the Doctor was here, they would try to capture him, too. He'd be even more valuable than Jack: the last Time Lord. "You should go, they'll–"

"I know," said the Doctor. He wiggled the pin that was holding the manacle closed. "I've escaped them once. And I'm not leaving you." Jack did not have time to process this pronouncement, as the Doctor gave a great yank and the pin came away, freeing Jack.

"Come on," said the Doctor, pulling Jack to his feet. He was rather unsteady. "We've got to–"

"Additional life forms detected."

Panicked, the Doctor shoved Jack toward the wall. "Pull him up!"

The door slid open and two trap runners entered. One of them held a scanner out. The Doctor froze.

"Subject: Time Lord."

Jack reached for Melody's hands but she couldn't get to him.

The Doctor raised his arms above his head. "Let him go," he said evenly. "Let my friend go."

"We are not in a position to make deals." One of the trap runners grabbed Jack; the other restrained the Doctor.

"How do we get out of this?" asked Jack, as the trap runners began to frog-march them down the hall.

The Doctor shook his head. "We don't," he said quietly. "If we try to run, they'll find us. That's why I had to use the chameleon arch. I had to get away from them."

Jack blinked. In all the confusion, the Doctor had never told him what it was the he had been hiding from. "It was them?"

"The very same patrol." The Doctor glanced at Jack out of the corner of his eye. "Where are the other two? There were four of them, there are always four."

"That was me," said Jack. "I, uh, sort of shot two."

The Doctor looked at him incredulously. "You shot two?"

Jack looked down at his feet. He knew the Doctor didn't like guns.

"Oh, Jack, you're a genius! Not as big a genius as me of course, but you're certainly gaining. Lead! We need lead! Their tertiary circuits go anti-magnetic when they're brought into contact with a lead alloy! Can you get to your pockets? Anything in there that might have lead?"

Jack frowned. There was a pencil in his coat pocket, but he couldn't reach that. His hand crept toward his trouser pocket... the watch?

"I've got the watch," he said quietly.

The Doctor's expression remained impassive; if the reminder that Jack still had it bothered him, he didn't show it.

"Give it here," he said quietly. Jack handed it over. As soon as he had it, the Doctor turned, wrenching himself out of the trap runner's grasp.

"You will be restrained."

"Oh, no," said the Doctor quietly. "I really don't think that's a good idea." He shook the broken glass out and popped off the face of the watch, jabbing his sonic screwdriver at the mass in his hands. "You wouldn't hit a man with lead, would you?"

The trap runners didn't have time to respond before they started sparking.

"Come on!" The Doctor grabbed Jack's hand and took off down the corridor. Jack stumbled; he hadn't stood for hours. The last thing he remembered was taking the full brunt of the explosion.

**

Melody was waiting by the cell door when the Doctor stumbled up, Jack held limply in his arms.

"Is it always like this with you two?" she asked.

"Help me," he panted. "Help me get him back to the TARDIS."

Together, the Doctor and Melody managed to half-drag, half-carry Jack all the way back to his own bed.

"Will he be all right?" she asked.

"Yeah," said the Doctor, not looking at her. "He's always all right."

"What about you?"

The Doctor looked at her. "Me too. I'm always all right, too."

Melody frowned. "Are you sure?"

"Sure I'm sure!" said the Doctor brightly. "Now, Melody. I hope you'll be joining us. Me. Whatever."

Melody raised an eyebrow.

"Come on!" he crowed. "It'll be fun. I mean, if Jack… if Jack wants to go home, it could just be you and me."

Melody took a deep breath. "I'm sorry, I just… I don't know. I mean, today… today was just so… I don't know."

The Doctor nodded. He certainly hoped one of them would stay, but it was looking increasingly unlikely. He'd plucked Melody out of her ordinary life, as he seemed to do to all his companions. Likewise, he'd treated Jack badly; he would be totally justified if he wanted to return home.

When Melody had gone to the bedroom the Doctor had directed her to, the Doctor sat on the edge of Jack's bed. Jack was still unconscious, his breathing shallow. The Doctor idly reached out to brush his hair back from his forehead.

"Rough day, we've had," he said. "Though I guess it's not the roughest."

He stood up and paced the room, hands in his pockets. "Thanks, by the way. It was good you were still carrying that thing around." He sighed. "Oh, I knew I'd be rubbish at this. I guess you're okay," he said. "I mean, you're alive. No visible injuries." He sat down again next to Jack's head.

"Just sleeping." He sighed. "You know, when you're sleeping, you look almost cute." Silence. "I guess you really are asleep. Either that, or you're really having me on."

He stood up and stuck his hands in his trouser pockets. "Listen, Jack. I've been... well, I suppose I haven't exactly been nice to you lately. I mean, you don't get off the hook, mind, but... Look. I'm just going to, er, move the TARDIS. This ship we're parked on is still going wherever it's going to go and I'd really rather not be on it when it gets there. Don't wake up while I'm gone."

The Doctor crept out of Jack's bedroom and back to the console room. He debated about where to take the TARDIS–maybe it would just be simpler to stay in the Vortex, but he decided to go back to Catalonia. He had an idea.

**

Jack's dreams were short and fitful, but John Smith was a constant presence in them, holding him close. Jack couldn't remember any of the things that he said, but for a few lingering moments after he woke, he could still feel long fingers running soothingly through his hair.

He tried to hold on to the dreams as long as possible but eventually wakefulness overcame him fully. He sat up slowly and was surprised to see the Doctor sitting in a chair by the bed.

Jack slumped back down. "How long have you been there?"

"The whole time," said the Doctor gently. "How are you feeling?"

"Been better. How's Melody?"

"She's fine. She's resting. Next stop: Cardiff."

Jack groaned and slumped back against the bed. So here it was. The end. He was getting dumped in favor of the new model.

"Oh, here," said the Doctor suddenly. "I bought you something." He reached into the pocket of his suit jacket and brought out a gaily-wrapped parcel. "Sorry about the paper saying Happy Birthday. It was either that or pink ponies."

Jack stared.

The Doctor shook the package under his nose. Finally, Jack took it and unwrapped it. It was a gold pocket watch.

"It's a watch," said the Doctor unnecessarily. "A real watch. And look, it automatically calibrates itself to local time. Isn't that neat? You step out of the TARDIS, and bang, it knows what time it is." He grinned. "It even gets weather, look."

Jack tossed the watch onto the bed in front of him. "Why did you give me this?"

The Doctor looked at him incredulously. "A simple thanks would have sufficed."

"What are you trying to do, bribe me?" Jack spat.

"What?" the Doctor sputtered. "I gave you a present, Jack. I was rude back there at the bazaar and I wanted to apologize." He stuck his hands in his pockets and looked away. "Plus, I sort of broke your... the old one."

"And to make the transition back a little easier, hm? Isn't it a watch they always give the guy before he retires?"

The Doctor's mouth dropped open. "Retires? What are you on about?"

Jack jerked his head to the doorway to indicate Melody. "You're retiring me, aren't you?"

The Doctor's eyes widened. "Ohh.... You thought.... Jack, you thought... no. No. I thought you wanted to go home... after the way I treated you."

Jack shrugged and looked away.

"Do you?" the Doctor prompted.

Jack looked down at the watch, which proclaimed the time to be ten forty-five in the morning. He wondered how it reckoned that.

"Because…" the Doctor continued. "There's a lot we could still do. You don't have to go just yet. I can take you back right after you left; you can run down the street after Martha and Gwen. Time machine, remember?

"And plus." The Doctor sat on the edge of the bed. Jack stiffened. "We've still got to meet Euclid. You want to do that? For old times' sake?"

"For old times' sake," repeated Jack. He wasn't sure where this was going.

"Yep. Good old Euclid, now there's genius. Shame I never got to write that book."

"Doctor…" said Jack warningly.

"I mean it, Jack," said the Doctor hastily. "I want to try." He reached out and took Jack's hand. "Please?"

Jack looked up at him. "Okay," he said, trying to smile. "We can try."

"Brilliant!" exclaimed the Doctor. He leaned forward and brushed his lips against Jack's. It was a chaste kiss, but Jack got a little thrill out of being able to kiss John's lips once again. He's not John, he reminded himself, and really, that wasn't hard to forget, given the difference in body temperature. It was jarring: cool, but not unpleasantly so, and there was that taste again, something he'd always sensed in John's kisses, but it was stronger now.

When they broke apart, the Doctor was still smiling and Jack found himself smiling back. It was a start, at least. That was certainly something.