Part I:  Unforeseen Complications

“Rose, wake up.”  A hand shook her shoulder.  She tried waving in its general direction to swat it away, but it didn’t leave and shook her again.  “Rose, you need to wake up.”

“G’way.”

She heard a man chuckle.  “I’m afraid I can’t do that, Rose.  I have to talk to you.”  The hand shook her shoulder again.  “Wake up.”

She cracked open an eye to find Jack sitting on the edge of her bed.

“Why?” she growled.

He drew his legs up until he sat cross-legged next to her.  It was a position most men would not sit in, but one she never thought twice about finding Jack in.  “Have you noticed anything different about the Doctor since we left Cielace?”

Rose sat up and rubbed the sleep out of her eyes.  Once upright, she yawned, covering her mouth with one hand and dragging her other hand through her hair.  She hadn’t been sleeping well since they left Cielace three days ago, partly due to the nightmares that woke her at all hours, but partly due to physically missing the presence of Jack and the Doctor next to her.  Starting her monthlies, despite the physical trauma of the Verlona incident, as she called it in her mind, had further drained her.

Jack looked down and quirked a smile at the custom-made sleep shirt she wore bearing the phrase, “I like mine sonic.”  She’d picked it up the last time they were on Earth.

“Don’t you have any tea, or even coffee, for me?” she grumbled.

Jack shook his head.  “The Doctor’s in the kitchen and I didn’t dare go in.”

Rose drew her knees up under the blankets and wrapped her arms around them.  The Doctor had changed since they left Cielace.  For the better portion of that first day, he was so on edge that she thought he was going to take her back to her mum.  Yet when she had asked, he had only given her a long look, then walked away.  She asked Jack about it later, but he didn’t have any further insight into the Doctor’s behavior than she did.

Jack shifted on the bed and winced.  Rose lifted her head from her knees and narrowed her eyes at him.  He met her gaze steadily, then ticked an eyebrow upward.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Nothing.”

She blinked.  There was something wrong.  Now that she studied his body language, he was holding himself more stiffly than normal.  Jack’s posture normally was very relaxed and open, inviting even.  In the last three days, it had become more closed off, just as hers had, but nothing as stiff and uninviting as his current posture.

She climbed out from underneath the blankets, amused when his eyes lingered on her bare legs.  She knelt atop the bed, her sleep shirt falling to mid-thigh, and watched Jack carefully.  He inched backwards slightly, but couldn’t hide his wince as he twisted his torso, shifting his weight from his arm to his hip.

Rose pounced and pinned him to the bed, stretching his arms above his head, entangling their fingers.  Jack lay still beneath her, barely breathing, eyes dark as they met hers.  Her hair curtained their faces, stirred by their mingled breath.  Though their position reminded her distinctly of riding him during their Verlona-induced haze, the position now was anything but sexual.

“What’s wrong, Jack?” she asked again.

He closed his eyes and slackened his grip on her fingers, allowing her to explore his body at will, but refusing to verbalize the problem.

She was disconcerted by his completely uncharacteristic behavior, but nothing in the last several days had been ordinary.  With a deep breath, she slid off him to one side.  Now that she knew there was something wrong and she’d been given permission to look, she studied him.

His face was the same but for lines of tension around his eyes.  Those were understandable.  She ghosted over the lines with her fingertips, drawing a smile from him.  Looking further, she noticed a dark shape just at the edge of the collar of his t-shirt.  Shifting until she was sitting upright, she pulled the edge of the collar back to reveal a bite mark.

Jack hissed as the backs of her fingers brushed against it.

Since all the bite marks she had inflicted upon him had healed, including the ones initially not able to be healed, she knew this one was new.

“Oh, Jack,” she murmured.

She didn’t realize she was crying until he turned onto his side and brushed away a tear.  “It’s all right.”

“No, it’s not.”

“Rose,” he began softly, “I never said no.”

“But did you say yes?”

“That was already implied.”

She sighed.  The entire situation was too complicated.  Was consent already implied?  If she initiated something now, with Jack or with the Doctor, would that be all right?  There was so much they needed to discuss; so much they had avoided talking about.

“Even so, that doesn’t mean – ”

Jack cut her off with a finger over her lips.  His eyes were dark and serious as they held hers.  “Rose, I never said no.  I don’t mind it rough.  I didn’t mind you marking me and I don’t mind being marked by the Doctor, either.”  He closed his eyes briefly and, when he reopened them, there was less certainty there.  “What I mind is being used.  There’s something strange going on.”

Rose blinked furiously, trying to stem her tears.  Used?  Her mind stuttered over the word.  The rough sex, yes, she understood, because she thought she might like it just as much given the opportunity to explore, but used?

“What do you mean?” Rose whispered.

Jack sighed.  “We were working in the auxiliary service corridor yesterday when it was like something overcame him.  He pushed me against the wall and, well . . . .”

Under any other circumstances, Rose would have teased him for trailing off into a stammering blush.  These were not normal circumstances.

“Where else are you bruised?” she asked softly.

He waved off her question.  “I healed the worst of it yesterday on my own.”

She backed up slightly so she could meet his gaze fully.  “He didn’t think to heal you at all?” she asked, shocked.

Jack shook his head.  “Are we really sure the Verlona had no effect on him?  He really hasn’t been himself since then.”

Rose brought her right hand up to chew on the side of her thumb.  It was a habit she’d tried to break herself of, but in times of stress she reverted to it.  Jack grabbed her forearm and pulled, tugging her thumb free and earning himself a glare.  He smiled.

“If he was affected,” Rose thought aloud.  “How can we prove it and how can we fix it?”

Jack released her and sat up, hands beside his knees on the edge of the bed.  He gave her a sidelong look.  “I don’t know.  Can you talk to him?  Ask him to run some tests on himself?”

She nodded.  It was the least of what she could do after essentially hiding for three days.  She glanced at the bite mark at the juncture of Jack’s neck and shoulder and felt guilt lance through her.  She wanted to ask if the time in the corridor had been the only time, but was too afraid, both of the answer and of her reaction.

Jealousy, resentment, fear and arousal were tied in a knot in her belly.  She wanted to be the one pressed to the wall, just as she wanted to watch Jack and the Doctor, just as she was afraid of the entire scenario, just as she resented the fact Jack and the Doctor had been alone together.  There was no easy solution, no right answer.

“Let me shower and get dressed, then I’ll talk to him,” Rose said finally.

She climbed off the bed and was halfway across the room before Jack spoke.  “Wanna share?”

She froze, then turned.  He was giving her the faux-shy up-through-the-eyelashes look again, apparently knowing all too well what that look did to her self-control.  The contrast of his blue eyes and dark hair never failed to send her stomach into somersaults and her libido into overdrive, despite everything.  She imagined that if the Doctor ever gave her such a look, she’d be just as helpless before it.

Well aware of the conflicting signals she was sending him, she licked her lips and murmured, “I have my monthlies.”

He tipped his head up, sensing victory, or, more likely, a predator who just spotted his prey’s weakness.  “Why, Miss Tyler, are you implying I might want to do something other than to assist in your bathing?  Maybe I merely want to massage your scalp as I wash your hair.”

“Mmm hmm,” she murmured.  She didn’t want to be alone any longer.  She’d given herself three days of self-imposed exile and Jack was the first to seek her out.  Despite that, she wasn’t ready yet to be alone that way with either Jack or the Doctor.  Her body was – her body wanted her to agree to Jack’s request despite her monthlies – but her mind wasn’t.

She sighed as she replied, “No company now, but you can wait for me.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he replied, saluting her.  She laughed.

She wasn’t surprised to find him lying on her bed waiting for her when she exited the shower.  It took a large degree of self-control not to hide herself as she dropped her towel and dressed, treating him as part of the furniture despite being hyper-aware of his eyes on her.  He said nothing, though, until she was dressed.

“He’s in the control room tinkering with things,” he said as she slipped on her trainers.

She looked up.  There was lust in his gaze, arousal, but not in his voice.  She admired his restraint even as she missed his flirtatious tone.  He slid off the bed and crossed the room to her.  With a small smile, he cupped the back of her head and ducked in for a deep kiss.

She willed herself not to react too much, but it was a lost cause.  She knew he was gentling her with the kiss, knew it was deliberate, but she fell just the same.  When he released her, she whimpered softly, making him laugh.

“For luck,” he said.

She backed away and blinked up at him.  “Right.”  Her voice cracked.  She cleared her throat.  “Right.  Luck.”  He laughed again.

Rose found the Doctor half-under the console of the TARDIS.  She took a seat and waited until the Doctor felt her eyes upon him and climbed out from under the console of his own accord.

It took ten minutes, which was longer than usual.  She couldn’t tell, though, if he was deliberately ignoring her, hoping she’d go away, or if he was truly unaware of her presence.  She wasn’t sure which behavior worried her more.

He pulled himself to a sitting position on the floor grating beside the console, methodically wiping the oil from his fingers.  She sat in silence, spinning slightly in the chair as she watched him.  He was tense, as if bracing for a fight.  Jack was right; she had left this conversation for too long.

She startled, lost in her thoughts, when he barked, “What do you want, Rose?”

“Are you sure the Verlona didn’t affect you?”  There was no point in dancing around the subject when making small talk would just annoy him further.

The Doctor’s head shot up, hands stilling, and he glared at her.  She shivered under the coldness of his gaze.  He narrowed his eyes.  “Yes.”  He tipped his head to one side, and began methodically cleaning his hands once again.  “Why do you ask?”

He’s so certain he’s unaffected, but it’s also like he’s a different person.

She bit her bottom lip, uncertainty wracking her.  Finally, with a sigh, she said, “Just wonderin’.”

He kept her pinned with his gaze long enough that she nearly squirmed, uncomfortable under his scrutiny.  At last, he turned away, but left Rose with the sensation she was a butterfly with a stay of execution.

“Was there something else?” he asked when she didn’t move.

She nearly bit through her bottom lip this time.  In her three days alone, she had debated with herself about asking the next question, deciding finally that she should because not knowing was worse than the answer, whatever the answer might be.  “Why didn’t you take us to Cielace?”

Once again, he turned to her, slowly this time.  He stood, nearly vibrating with something not quite anger, but not entirely himself as well.  His boots were heavy on the grating, dull thuds vibrating through the metal, as he closed the short distance between them.  Bracing one hand on either arm of her chair, he leaned down until his face was inches from hers, looming over her.

She knew he was trying to intimidate her.  It was working, though she was doing her best to try not to show it.  She knotted her hands together in her lap so they wouldn’t tremble and crossed her feet at the ankles so she wouldn’t be tempted to swing her legs like a child.  As fearlessly as she could, she met his eyes.

“I thought I had,” he growled.

“You took us into orbit.”  She licked her lips and swallowed.

His eyes flickered downward at her involuntary movement, his nostrils flaring.  With a start, she realized intimidating her aroused him.  If this interaction were merely domination, she could understand, but this was a deliberate attempt at subjugation.  She stifled a gasp.  There was most definitely something wrong with him, but he couldn’t see it, only she and Jack could.  Bugger..

“I fail to see the difference.”  His tone was cold and clipped and entirely unsuited to him.  It was . . . pompous.  He could be pompous while teasing, but when he did that, it was intentional.  This tone was unconscious and all the more disturbing for it.

She flicked her eyes downward, unable to hold his gaze any longer.  His expression had become too remote to see her Doctor there; she could see only a stranger at the moment.

“Normally we land on a planet and explore,” she began softly.  “It’s an adventure.”

He scoffed, the harsh sound making her jump.  Pushing himself away from her violently, he stalked across the control room, boots slamming against the grate once again.  As if protesting, the TARDIS emitted a brief whine.  The Doctor stopped, sighed, and turned to the console.  He murmured something in that musical language that did not translate, laying a hand on the time rotor simultaneously.  Rose would have sworn she heard the TARDIS hum in contentment.

Apparently satisfied he had appeased his ship, the Doctor braced his hands on the edge of the console and leaned heavily against it, head down, tension still in every muscle.

“Doctor?” Rose ventured when the silence weighed too heavily.

“Yes?”

“You haven’t said anything.”

“An’ I should say what?”  The words sounded torn from him.

Because she had done nothing but dwell on her thoughts for three days, she knew she needed the answers.  The thoughts she had walked away from Jack and the Doctor with three days earlier were borne from pain, not rational thinking.  She needed his answers now, not her lashing back at him.  It was why she was pressuring him, despite all the bright red “keep away!” signs he was flashing.

“Why didn’t we land on the surface of Cielace?”

Though she didn’t understand the language, she knew the next string of words from his mouth were curses.  She thought she would be prepared for his expression when he lifted his head and turned to her.

She wasn’t.

Part of her finally understood why the Daleks were afraid when they saw him.  And yet, juxtaposed in his eyes, was the love he held for her and for Jack.  Both extremes took her breath away.

The Doctor jerked his head back down to his white-knuckled grip on the edge of the console when she gasped.  She wanted rationality from him, and was receiving emotional upheaval.  If nothing else, that confirmed there was something wrong with him, something almost certainly to do with the Verlona.

“I couldn’t,” he rasped, voice low and nearly guttural.

Rose wanted to cross the distance between them and wrap her arms around him.  He sounded so nearly broken that it tore at her.  Instead, she dug her fingernails more deeply into the arms of the chair and took a deep breath, pressing forward.

“Why couldn’t you?”

The fingers of one of the Doctor’s hands loosened from the console to clench into a fist and rest there.  There was no other response from him.

“Doctor?”

A muscle in his jaw twitched, but he was otherwise still and silent.  Rose contemplated staging a mutiny and enlisting Jack’s help to interrogate the Doctor.

Then she noticed the drops of blood.

He had clenched his fist so tightly that his fingernails were digging into his palm and drawing blood, enough to now pool beneath his hand and drop to the grating below.

Frozen, she watched another drop fall. She decided to wait him out rather than push more, afraid of what might happen if she pushed him further at this point.

Before they went to New York, she would have been able to say with certainty that, at this point in the conversation, he would have teased her, he might have been annoyed and he might have insulted her, but it would have been within the bounds of friendship and camaraderie.  But now?  Now she didn’t know, and there was a part of her that was terrified by that.

The ironic thing about the situation was that it wasn’t sleeping with him that had made her uncertain of where she stood with him like it had with her previous boyfriends – though she’d never call either the Doctor or Jack merely her boyfriend.  In fact, deepening her relationship to a sexual one with them had made her more certain of her relationship with them.  The ironic part was that the uncertainty was the side effect of the drug he was being influenced by; the very drug that had brought them together in the first place.

She wasn’t sure if she should get up and find a cloth or bandage for his hand, or if she should stay put; and, if she stayed put, whether she should ignore his wound or point it out to him.  In the end, she merely whispered his name again.

He uncurled his fist, laying his palm flat on the edge of the console with a soft, wet sound.  With a deliberate shuddering breath, part sigh and part something else, he stepped away from the console, crossed his arms over his chest and looked down at her.  His eyes were dark and hooded, nearly unreadable.

Alien, Rose thought, and barely restrained her snort of inappropriate laughter.

His body language warned her to back away, but that had never stopped her before.  She slid down from her chair and crossed the control room to stand before him.  Though he didn’t meet her eyes, she looked up at him, laying both her hands on his arm.

“Doctor, please,” she began softly.  “Why?”

He was silent for so long that she was certain her question was going to go unanswered.  However, he did answer and when he spoke, his voice sounded rusty and choked.  “I was afraid.”

Rose blinked, startled.  “Afraid?  Of what?”

“Myself.”  He shook her off and stomped across the control room once again.

She followed.  It was like trying to deal with a wounded animal, Rose realized, but one that didn’t know it was wounded yet tried to hide anyway.  The Doctor was being inundated with something from the Verlona – some sort of hyper-emotionalism at the very least – but was in complete denial about it.  Add to that the newness and strangeness of his feelings for Rose and Jack, and was it any wonder he wanted to lash out?

Lost in her thoughts, she was unprepared when the Doctor spun and grabbed her by the upper arms.  “What do you want, Rose?” he growled.  “You keep demanding answers, but I don’t think you really want those answers.”

She said nothing even though his grip hurt.  She would have bruises, but they’d heal; she wasn’t sure her Doctor would heal if she interrupted.

“Fine,” he hissed, shoving her backwards.  She stumbled slightly, but stayed on her feet.  “I was afraid of myself.  I would have destroyed them all for what they did to you and Jack, but mostly you.”  His last words were through clenched teeth, breath forced through his nostrils in an effort to hold onto his control.  “If you had asked, if you had said one word, I would have killed them all and not regretted it.”

He took two steps forward, forcing her to take one step backward, her back against the wall of the control room.  Bracing an arm against the wall beside her head, he leaned down.  “I didn’t trust myself.”

It wasn’t the answer she expected.  She didn’t know what answer she’d expected, but she knew it wasn’t that.  He was still breathing heavily, tension riddling his posture, and she wanted to look away, wanted to run away, wanted to hide.

She owed him more than that, though.  She owed him the strength to meet his eyes – he trusted her in this regard more than he trusted himself, so the least she could do was prove herself worthy of that trust.  She tentatively reached up to cup his cheek.  He shook off her touch the first time.  And the second.  The third time, however, he allowed it, and she brushed her thumb over his cheekbone as she cradled his jaw with her fingers.

“I thought about it,” she admitted in a whisper.  She had been close to asking for the death of the Intash in that lab, but couldn’t bring herself to do so.  To find out that she had been the only thing standing between their life and their deliberate destruction was beyond disturbing, but she couldn’t dwell on it while the Doctor needed her.  She pushed it to the back of her mind to consider later.  “But the lab had people like Jack an’ me in it.”

She heard a scraping sound above her head she couldn’t identify.  Frowning, she looked up.  He had clenched his fist, scraping his fingernails along the coral as he did so, exacerbating the damage to his hand.  She bit her lip to hold back a cry of distress.  He could be treated later in the medical bay.

“What do you mean?”  His voice was curiously flat.

She swallowed hard to suppress the bile that threatened.  No matter how many times she remembered the destruction of the lab and knew that P’roc would not be coming for her, it was hard to live with the memory of that computer-generated voice demanding her slavery.

“Other slaves, Doctor,” she said softly.  “Others who were dosed with Verlona and had no free will.  They were there, too.”

Rose heard a noise to the right just beyond the Doctor, and her eyes darted there.  It was Jack, of course, and he looked stricken.  She wondered if he hadn’t realized, in the confusion of those moments and since then, that here had been anyone in that lab but P’roc.

The Doctor didn’t hear Jack, so Rose jerked her eyes right in an effort to wordlessly tell Jack to leave.  He didn’t move.

“I . . . I’d not realized,” the Doctor said at last, his words forced.  Rose shot her gaze back to his face.  “I was so focused on what they’d done to you and Jack that I forgot there would be others.”

By his reaction and Jack’s, she had guessed that.  It didn’t make their decision any easier to deal with, and confused the issue even more in some ways since they both should have thought it through and not gone for the gut reaction.  It was a moot point now.  The lab had been destroyed, though not deliberately by the Doctor despite his and Jack’s need for vengeance.

Changing the subject, Rose asked, “Doctor, did you mean to hurt Jack?”

The Doctor startled, shaking her hand off his arm.  She saw Jack, hands on hips, glaring furiously at her from beyond the Doctor, warning her off, but she ignored him.  The Doctor frowned down at Rose.

“What do you mean?  When did I hurt Jack?  How?”

“Yesterday in the auxiliary service corridor.”

The Doctor continued to frown at her, clearly not remembering the incident at all.  Rose glanced briefly at Jack.  He was now slouched against the console, arms crossed over his chest, ankles crossed to brace himself, as he glowered at her.

“The two of you were working there.”

“I remember that, and I remember him leaving in a snit.”

Rose blinked, startled.  Not only was he having violent emotional swings, but blackouts, too?

Jack cleared his throat, startling the Doctor, whose attention had been focused entirely on Rose.  “It was more than a snit, Doc.”

The Doctor turned far enough so he could swing his gaze between his two companions, then scowled.  “You think there’s something wrong with me.”

“Do you remember sex with me in the corridor yesterday?” Jack asked, dropping his arms to his sides and stalking closer.  The Doctor backed away an equal number of steps.

“You just admitted to me you would have killed millions without regret,” Rose said.  “That’s not you, Doctor.”

The Doctor gritted his teeth and closed his eyes, holding up one hand to get them to stop, both their words and their physical advance on him.  Rose looked over at Jack.  She was surprised he’d emerged from hiding and confronted the Doctor before she convinced the Doctor to head into the medical bay, but there was no way to ask him about it until later.

“Do you two think that because I called you my mates that you can order me about?” the Doctor growled.

Rose gasped, distressed by his cruelty, even as Jack shot back, “That’s out of line, Doc.  We’re concerned because your behavior is erratic and you’re having blackouts.”

“Do you regret claiming us?” Rose asked before she could stop herself.

The Doctor shifted his eyes to hers and held them for a long time.  At last, he said, “No, I don’t.”  Rose let out the breath she didn’t know she’d been holding.

“Can we please scan you, Doc?” Jack asked pleadingly.

“We need to heal your hand anyway,” Rose added.

The Doctor blinked and looked down at his hands, surprised to see himself injured.  He sighed.  “Fine.”

It was all Rose could do not to erupt in a dance of joy.  From the expression on Jack’s face, he felt the same way.

They ushered the Doctor to the medical bay, flanking him so he had no opportunity to escape.  He put up little fuss as Jack strapped him to an exam table, though at any other time he might have made a lewd comment about bondage games.

“Do you have any other neural scans I can use for comparison?” Jack asked, tone now all business.

“Yes, on a data chip in the cabinet over there,” the Doctor said, indicating a bank of cabinets opposite with a jerk of his head.  “Where did the bruise on your hip come from?”

Rose glanced up at Jack from her healing of the Doctor’s hand.  He had a series of abrasions on his hip trailing back to his spine that had been hidden by his clothing until his shirt rode up when he reached for the box of data chips.

Turning back to them, Jack blushed, reminding Rose of their earlier conversation and just how out of character the color was on Jack’s cheeks.  Jack was rarely embarrassed by anything.

“You gave them to me, Doc,” he murmured.  He rummaged in the box, then pulled a chip out.  “This the one?”  Rose and the Doctor were staring at him.  “What?”

“Jack, let me heal you before we scan the Doctor,” Rose said quietly, mentally berating herself.  She’d forgotten how stiffly he moved that morning, and felt terrible for not insisting earlier on healing him.  She should have known he would be more injured than he would allow her to see at first glance.

“Rose, you don’t need to,” Jack began, but was cut short by the Doctor.

“Yes, she does.  I want to see what I did.”

“He healed some of it already,” Rose reported.  The Doctor shot his gaze to hers briefly before turning back to Jack.

Jack sighed, resigned.  He asked again if it was the right neural scan chip and, when the Doctor confirmed it was, set it aside.  Rose divided her attention between healing the Doctor’s hand and watching Jack set up the medical bay for the neural scan.

There was something about watching a competent man confident in his element that was deeply satisfying.  And, if she were honest with herself, arousing.

The dermal regenerator beeped, indicating its cycle was complete.  Rose removed it from the Doctor’s hand and inspected his skin.  There were no traces of the damage he’d inflicted upon it.  She undid the restraint on his forearm and brought his hand to her mouth to kiss the palm.

“Rose,” he growled.  “You need to heal Jack.”

“I know, but I wanted to make sure your hand was good first.”

“She likes your hands,” Jack added, laughter lacing his voice.

Rose snorted.  She did like his hands, but that wasn’t why she’d felt the need to kiss his palm.  She’d needed to reassure herself that he could be healed physically to give her hope he could be healed mentally.  Laying his arm back down, she refastened the restraint, wisely biting back her own bondage comments, then turned to Jack.

“Off with the shirt, Jack,” she murmured.

He quirked an eyebrow upward.  “Do I get a drink first?”

“Jack,” she growled.

“Right, no drink.”

He pulled his shirt off, unsuccessfully hiding a wince as he raised his arms over his head.  In addition to the bite on his neck and the abrasion on his hip, there was a faded bruise coloring his ribcage on the right side.

What must he have looked like if this is after he healed some of it? Rose thought in horror.  Why didn’t I insist on healing him earlier?  She scoffed mentally.  Because I bought Jack’s self-deprecating routine all too well, just as he wanted me to, damn him.  He wanted to make me more concerned about the Doctor than him and it worked.

“I did that?” the Doctor asked.

“Sort of,” Jack replied neutrally.

“Trousers off, Jack,” Rose ordered.  Jack made no snide or lascivious comment when he unfastened and dropped his jeans.  To the Doctor, Rose said, “He told me he healed what he could himself yesterday.”

Only Jack’s pained hisses and gasps broke the silence between them as Rose healed him, interspersed with the beeps from the machinery.  On his back, there had been another abrasion between his shoulder blades that hadn’t been healed at all due to its location.  He was also suffering a bruised shoulder, making Rose wonder if it had been dislocated and the bruising was the remnant.

As Jack dressed with far more ease than he’d undressed, the Doctor whispered, “I don’t remember doing any of that.”

“I don’t mind it rough, Doc, but I like to be remembered,” Jack teased, trying to lighten the mood.  Rose noticed, though, that while his tone was light, his expression was quite sober so long as his back was to the Doctor.  He only smiled when he turned to face the Doctor.

The Doctor closed his eyes and lay back on the exam table silently.  Rose moved to Jack’s side and took his hand, entwining her fingers in his.  He glanced down at her hand and smiled.  She wanted to gather him in her arms and comfort him in ways she hadn’t known he had needed.  She was going to have to be more intuitive when it came to Jack, relying even more on her emotions than she would normally, to suss out when he needed her rather than listening to his words.  Rather like the Doctor, she sighed to herself.  He didn’t seem to hold it against her that she’d not offered any comfort or solace before now, but she couldn’t be sure.

“Scan me,” the Doctor said at last, making Rose jump.

“You’re sure?” Rose asked.  Though she knew it was necessary, she didn’t want him to regret it, make him feel like they had pressured him into it.

“Yes.”

Jack released Rose’s hand to take up the scanner in a firm, two-handed grip.  The restraints weren’t, strictly speaking, necessary – the scanner didn’t cause pain – but movement during the scan could cause unreliable results.  Jack aligned the scanner above the Doctor’s head and turned it on.  A blue grid illuminated his face, pulsing three times before shifting to a diagonal grid pattern, pulsing three more times, then shutting off.

“That’s it?” Rose exclaimed.

“Yep,” Jack said, pulling the data chip from the machine.  He carefully labeled it before laying it next to the control scan.  Only then did he return to the Doctor and release him from the scanner and restraints.

Before either Jack or Rose could say anything, the Doctor gathered Jack into his arms.  Startled, Jack hugged back.  Rose felt tears dampen her eyes, but she didn’t cry.

The Doctor released Jack, pushing him far enough away to look him in the eye.  “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t – ”

The Doctor cut him off with a hand across his mouth.  “It was something.  I’m sorry.  Now let’s look at the scans.”

Rose could see Jack’s Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed.  She bit her bottom lip, willing him to accept the apology, to acknowledge that what happened wasn’t exactly right.  Jack’s gaze swept downward and froze for a long moment.

Finally, he looked up, meeting the Doctor’s eyes, and nodded.

“Right then.”  The Doctor slid off the exam table, holding his hand out for the data chips.

Jack handed them over silently.  The Doctor bounded across the medical bay and inserted one each into a pair of juxtaposed monitors.

“Which one is the control scan?” Rose asked.  She didn’t know what she was looking at, but she wanted to know which one was supposed to be the baseline.

“On the left,” Jack murmured.

The display on the left was a regular pattern of oscillating waves that reminded Rose of a fractal set to music, though there was no music currently playing on the TARDIS.  In contrast, the display on the right was chaotic.  There was some attempt at an orderly pattern to match that on the left, but then a jagged spike would cut across the pattern or jut out the side, sometimes several simultaneously, cutting across each other.  Even Rose could see something was wrong.

“It,” the Doctor began, then stopped and cleared his throat.  “It seems you two are right.”

Neither Jack nor Rose felt it appropriate to tease him about the admission.

“What do we do now?” she asked quietly.

Jack rubbed the back of his neck, still staring at the screens.  “Dealing with this is way beyond my medical knowledge.”

There was a beat of silence before the Doctor snorted.  “It looks like you’ll get your wish, Rose.”

“What?” she asked, frowning as she turned to the two men.

The Doctor pulled the data chips from the displays and slid them into his pocket.  He said nothing further until he reached the doorway of the medical bay, where he turned and said, “We’re going to Cielace.”

Part II:  Dark Matter

Rose felt the blood drain from her head as she sank to her knees.

Jack paled, eyes darting between the Doctor’s retreating form and Rose.  “What do you mean, Doc?” he called.

“Ask Rose,” the Doctor yelled back.

Jack sighed, then bent to help Rose up.  Once she was sitting on a bed with a light blanket across her lap, he took her hands.

“Rose, what did he mean?”

She blinked, looking up.  She needed him to help her, even more than the Doctor, if they were going to Cielace.  He would understand her terror.  She didn’t notice her shivering until Jack moved the blanket from her lap to her shoulders and pulled her close, insinuating himself between her thighs so he could hug her tightly.

She tried to burrow into him, clutching at his shoulders.  The feel of his hands running through her hair was soothing and helped to stem some of her sudden panic.  She felt humiliated by falling apart.

Jack continued his gentle motions until Rose was breathing normally and no longer holding his shoulders in a death-grip.  He eased back and tipped her head up with one finger under her chin.

“Rose?”

She sighed.  “I asked why we didn’t visit the surface, like we normally do.  He . . . when you found us, he was telling me he was afraid.”

Jack’s eyebrows shot upward, but his voice was even when he asked, “Afraid?”

Rose nodded.  “After seeing the scan, I think I understand.  He’s not in his right mind.  He said he was afraid of his reaction.”

He nodded encouragingly.  “What do you mean?”

She snorted.  “He implied that the conversation with P’roc was a mild annoyance compared to what being seriously hacked off on-planet would be.”

Jack closed his eyes, wrapped his arms around her and muttered, “Fuck.”  She didn’t disagree with the assessment.

They both felt the TARDIS shift as the Doctor brought them out of the Vortex.

“Jack,” Rose whispered.

“Yes?”

“I’m terrified,” she reluctantly admitted.  It was irrational to be so fearful given everything they’d already encountered, but losing control of herself under the Verlona then finding out it was so she could be enslaved to always be some mindless sexual slave, apparently was a primal fear.  Jack’s arms tightened around her.  “What if they still want to make us slaves?  What if we’re dosed with Verlona again, but separately?  If it were with you, I could go through that again, but not with anyone else.  What – ”

Jack pulled back and cut off her words with a finger across her lips.  She willed back the panic as she met his calm blue gaze, matching his soft smile.  “We’ll protect you, Rose,” he said with such confidence that she wanted to believe him.  “I programmed the chemical composition of Verlona into my wrist comp.  If it’s in any of our food ever again, I can either neutralize it or transport us away.”

“Really?” she asked against his finger, hope blossoming.  The Doctor so often forestalled Jack’s use of his wrist comp that Rose usually forgot he had it.

“Really.”

She took a shaky breath and nodded.  He pulled his hand away from her mouth.

“Better?”  She nodded.  “Good.  Let’s go find the Doc.”

She was better, she thought, climbing off the exam bed, but still not good.  She took Jack’s hand as they left the medical bay, and it was warm and comforting.  The idea of going to Cielace was still terrifying, but she was better able to deal with it knowing the Doctor and Jack would help her through it.

In the meantime, she would work to silence in the inner voice in her head that screamed at her for relying on a man.

The Doctor looked up from the controls only briefly as they entered, smirking at their interlaced fingers.  Rose raised her chin challengingly while Jack tightened his fingers around hers.

“We’ll be there in a mo’,” the Doctor said.  “You might want to hang on.”

Rose and Jack split apart to grab the struts of the TARDIS just in time for the teeth-jarring landing.  There was a small groan from the time rotor and a wheeze from the console as the ship settled with a soft sigh.

“We’re here,” the Doctor said, straightening from where he was half-thrown across the seats upon landing.

Rose peeled her hands from the strut and shoved them into the front pockets of her jeans.  Jack’s posture mimicked hers, though his hands were in his back pockets.

“Well, Doc?” Jack said.

The Doctor rolled his eyes and strode to the doors of the TARDIS.  Rose fought down the urge to scream at him to not open the doors, to run away, that they’d find another way to help him.

Hand on handle, he said, “C’mon.”

Rose took a deep breath, glanced back over her shoulder at Jack, and then crossed to the Doctor.  She still wanted to run, to hide in the darkest corners of the TARDIS where the Intash couldn’t ever find her, but that wouldn’t help the Doctor.  She fell in behind the Doctor, smiling when she felt Jack behind her, all body heat and reassurance.

The Doctor pulled open the door and stepped out.

Nothing happened.

Rose and Jack followed.

They had landed at the edge of a park in the middle of a city, reminding her of Hyde Park in London or Central Park in New York if either had had blue grass and trees with a pale purple sky.  There was a body of water not far away that could be classified as a small lake with red water.

The colors disconcerted Rose.  It was a bit like a mad toddler had taken a crayon to a picture and created a new color scheme without consulting anyone.

“Have you ever seen red water before?” Rose whispered to Jack.

His voice was subdued, eyes shadowed, when he replied, “Not without blood in it.”

Before she could apologize for bringing up bad memories, even accidentally, the Doctor said, “We have company.”

Rose began trembling.  Though she told herself it was stupid and that she really should get control of herself already, that she wasn’t going to be kidnapped within feet of the Doctor, Jack and the TARDIS, absolutely none of that mattered to her irrational mind.

Jack drew her close again.  She kept her eyes on his face – well, on his chin, actually – as the Intash approached, and especially once they began to speak.

“You are the Doctor?”  The voice was the same computer-modulated voice that P’roc had used.

Rose turned in Jack’s arms until her back was against his front.  She wanted to see the creatures attached to the voices haunting her dreams.  Jack wrapped his right arm around her shoulders, making sure his wrist comp was easily accessible against her shoulder and his left hand was free.  He made sure she fit snugly against him.

The Intash were nothing like the Daleks.  The Intash were humanoid, for one.  Their computer-modulated voices came from a series of biomechanical implants, including across their throats and voice boxes.  If anything, she thought, they reminded her vaguely of the Borg from Star Trek, though not as obviously integrated, either with each other or their biomechanical implants, at least as far as she could tell.  No Intash Collective to be assimilated into, she thought wildly.

The Doctor crossed his arms over his chest, feet braced wide.  “I am.”

A chittering broke out amongst three or four of the Intash arrayed behind their leader.  A quick glance over the shoulder quelled them instantly.

“Then we owe you thanks.”

“What?” Jack burst out in shock before either the Doctor or Rose could say anything.

The Intash turned as one to Jack and Rose.  Rose shuddered, terrified and surprised and more than a little freaked out to be under such scrutiny.  Some of the Intash had biomechanical implants replacing either one or both their natural eyes, which was nearly as disturbing as their voices.

“Your mates?” the leader asked.

The Doctor dropped his arms and moved to stand equidistant between the Intash leader and Jack and Rose, physically providing a barrier.  “Leave them alone.”

“We do not intend to harm them,” the leader said, the calm notes in its – his?  her? – voice in distinct counterpoint to the rising tone of worry in the Doctor’s voice.  “We wish to examine them to verify there is no lasting damage from P’roc’s experiments, but we do not intend to harm them.”

The Doctor crossed his arms again, leather creaking.  Jack was still, but Rose could feel the thundering of his heart and the tense readiness in his muscles.

“What are you talking about?”  The Doctor’s voice had dropped dangerously, a risky proposition even when he was in control of his emotions.

The Intash leader blinked.  Then smiled.  Rose realized most of its face was still human, though the skin was nearly the same golden shade as the biomechanical implants.

“Forgive me.  I am Praetor Q’lun.  These are my staff.”  The Praetor gestured to the half-dozen Intash there and motioned one forward.  “This is Legate L’sec.  He will escort your mates wherever they wish to go, after they have been examined.”

The Doctor didn’t move.  “You assume, Praetor, that I will allow it.”

The Praetor took a step back in surprise, arching one delicate eyebrow upward.  “Why would you not?”

The Doctor took a step forward, pressing his advantage.  “Because the last time I talked to one of your kind, I was told that my mates belonged to him to use as mindless slaves!”

Rose twitched, but said nothing.

“I see,” the Praetor murmured.

“I’ve already helped them clear the Verlona in their systems,” the Doctor said.

Most of the arrayed Intash, as well as the Praetor, who had been consulting with Legate L’sec, turned sharply back to the Doctor.  “How did you do that?”  The Doctor said nothing.  Rose got the impression the Praetor was female when its eyes narrowed and voice was cold fire when it said, “I assure you, Doctor, we have long experience cleaning up after the renegade P’roc’s experiments.  If you assisted your mates in clearing the Verlona from their systems, as a non-human, it could have had detrimental effects to you.”

Rose snorted under her breath.  Jack shook her lightly.

Silence reigned long enough for several people to shuffle their feet anxiously.  At last, the Doctor admitted, “Telepathically.”

The Praetor sucked in a breath in shock.  “And you have not collapsed?”

The Doctor glanced back over his shoulder at Rose and Jack, then turned back to the Praetor.  “No.”

“How long has it been?”

“’Bout four days, Earth days, so ’bout 75 of your hours.”

The Praetor paled despite the golden skin.  “Doctor, you are risking mental breakdown.  Have you noticed behavioral changes?”

He looked back at his companions again.  If he answered positively to the Praetor, though that was why they had returned to Cielace, then they were going to be entrusting themselves to the place where they were nearly enslaved.  Rose looked up at Jack, then back at the Doctor.  Despite the fact she wanted to vomit from nerves, she nodded.  She felt Jack echo her nod.

The Doctor turned to the Praetor and said, “Yes. ’S why we returned.”

“Will you allow us to help?”

“Yes, on one condition.”  The Praetor nodded for him to continue.  “My mates stay together at all times.  You don’t separate them for any reason, even to go into opposite gender areas.”  The Doctor’s tone was hard and uncompromising, though Rose worried the Praetor wouldn’t recognize it as such.

The Praetor’s face remained impassive for a long moment until a nod signaled compliance with the Doctor’s wishes.  Rose expelled a breath she hadn’t known she was holding.

She wouldn’t be alone.  But the Doctor would be alone.  She spun.  “Jack!”

“He’ll be fine, Rose,” he said.  “And, if he isn’t, we’ll rescue him.”  He grinned, drawing a small smile and laugh from her at the idea of rescuing the Doctor.

“You two stay out of trouble, yeah?” the Doctor murmured, startling them.  He had returned to them while they weren’t paying attention.

“Us?” Jack said, attempting miserably to portray himself as innocence personified.

The Doctor scoffed.  “You two might as well have ‘jeopardy friendly’ tattooed on your arses.”

Jack’s grin turned wolfish.  “There are other things I’d rather have on my arse.”

Grinning, Rose slapped his arm.  “Later.”  Turning to the Doctor, her grin slipped a little.  “You stay out of trouble, too, yeah?”

“Me?” he said dismissively.  “Always good.”

They stood in an awkward triangle until Jack huffed and wrapped his arms around each of them.  Rose sobbed once, but there was no evidence of tears when they pulled apart to each give the Doctor a lingering kiss.  And if she murmured “I love you” against his temple and felt him smile before gruffly shoving her back, they could pretend that didn’t happen either.

Rose blindly groped for Jack’s hand as they watched the Doctor leave with the Praetor and a group of four other Intash.  He was nearly a head taller than the tallest in the group, making it and odd procession hiking over the hill.

Legate L’sec and two others, who followed at a discreet distance, approached Jack and Rose.  The Legate’s military-style uniform gleamed in the diffuse Cielacean sunlight, the multitude of buttons a dull bronze.

Jack leaned down to Rose.  “If you like a man in uniform, I have a few I can wear.”  She didn’t say anything in reply – too focused on stifling her laughter at his irreverence and not moaning at the mental picture of Jack in full uniform – but did roll her eyes.

The clothing of the other two was as ruthlessly regimented as the Legate’s.  Minus the ties, their clothing reminded Rose of Mormon missionaries who had come ’round the Estate once when she was a child.

Is everything on Cielace so rigid? she wondered.

L’sec sketched a small gesture in the opposite direction of the Praetor and Doctor.  “Shall we leave now?”

Jack held Rose’s hand firmly, silently taking charge.  She let him.  Not only was she still dealing with her own fears, but he also had much more experience with alien cultures than she did.  It would make no sense for her to take the lead.

“Where are we going?” Jack asked.

L’sec turned and consulted with one of those behind him, giving Rose the impression they were his assistants.  L’sec nodded, then briefly reviewed a data pad the assistant produced.  A heated discussion followed for several moments until the data pad was removed.

To Jack and Rose, L’sec said, “We wish you both to be examined first.  P’roc’s drug had unfortunate side effects and we wish to verify it is clear from your systems.”

Jack gave her hand a squeeze.  “Very well, so long as we’re examined one by one and not separated.”

“We can do that.”

A shuttle arrived, surprising Rose.  “Did the Praetor and the Doctor take a shuttle?” she asked.

L’sec almost smiled.  “The Praetor prefers the health benefits of walking.”  There was a dry tone in his voice Rose thought might be sarcasm, but she dismissed the idea.

Jack handed her into the shuttle and followed closely behind.  She wanted to enjoy the scenery since the colors were so different than any other planet she’d been on, but was too anxious.  Jack didn’t seem to mind either the tight grip she had on his hand, or the fact she was practically sitting in his lap.

The trip to the Intash compound was short, less than five minutes, but felt much longer to Rose.  The shuttle landed with a soft thump inside a sterile hangar, sending her nerves jangling again.  Jack gave her hand a comforting squeeze as he helped her out of the shuttle, but could offer no other comfort as they were led down a green-striped hallway.  She willed herself not to hyperventilate.  The scents reminded her of nearly every Earth-based hospital she’d ever been inside, but that wasn’t reassuring.

This is ridiculous, she told herself.  You’ve faced aliens that wanted to possess you, aliens that wanted to eat you, aliens that wanted to kill you, and Daleks.  Why do the Intash scare you so much?  You’ve been to the end of the world and fought homicidal pepper pots.  Get hold of yourself!

They turned into what she would, on Earth, call a doctor’s exam room.  The lights were at half-illumination, but the room was still lit well enough.  Two beds with monitors were arrayed along the right-hand wall.  Cabinets, a sink, counter and instrument trays were along the left and rear walls.

L’sec gestured to the beds.  “Please.”

Jack turned fully to Rose, waiting until she looked up at him.  “Do you want me to go first?”  She nodded.  He pressed a kiss to her forehead, then turned back to L’sec.

“If you would please lie down,” L’sec said.

Jack swallowed once, the only sign of his own nerves, then climbed atop one of the exam beds.  Rose moved to the head of the bed and took his hand, glaring at the technician who might have requested her removal until L’sec laid a hand on his arm and said a few words.  The technician gave her an annoyed look before turning to an instrument tray.  For Rose, it was one of the first relatively normal things she’d encountered since arriving on Cielace:  arrogant medical staff.

“This is Medic B’mot,” L’sec said, pointing out the most arrogant of all the staff in the room.  “He will be performing the examination.  If you would prefer a female Medic, please advise such.”

Jack declined as Rose closed her eyes and took a deep breath.  Did she want a female?  “I’m not sure yet,” she answered quietly.  When she heard the staff bustling about, she reopened her eyes.

Several medical staff whom Rose assumed to be the equivalent of nurses were carrying devices between the counter and bed under the watchful eye of Medic B’mot.  One nurse attached several things to Jack’s forehead that reminded Rose of EEG leads; another ran a hand-held scanner over his chest while another ran a scanner over his groin; and yet another supervised what seemed to be a head-to-toe scanner embedded in the ceiling.

Rose hadn’t realized she was biting her lip until she tasted blood.  She released her lip, licking it to ease the welt.  She wasn’t sure if male or female medics would make a difference at this point.  She didn’t want to be examined by either.  She didn’t want to be there at all.

Her fingers tightened around Jack’s.  He gave her a responding brief squeeze, but it wasn’t long enough for her peace of mind.

She was going to have a full-blown panic attack in a moment, she realized.  Maneuvering herself so she was sitting on the floor beside the exam bed and not twisting Jack’s arm too badly, she held his hand palm-open against her face, breathing in his scent, as she closed her eyes.  Forcing herself to take deep, even breaths, she blocked out sound rather than succumb to the sensation of falling down a tunnel.  Jack shifted so his fingertips caressed her temple and she kissed his palm in response.

The Intash and this situation bother me because it’s sexual, Rose finally realized.  Everything else that had happened since I took the Doctor’s hand was merely because I’m human and the fact I’m female never mattered.  This situation is centered around sexual violence, even if there was no physical violence.  That’s why I’m having a such hard time with it.

Though she didn’t like the answer, she was pleased she’d finally figured it out.  The Doctor had used the word rape during his exam the morning after when he had healed both her and Jack, she’d blocked it out.  She’d been angry then that he’d mentioned such an ugly word, an ugly concept, associated with their first time, but it was true.

And it was why she was near panic now, surrounded by Intash despite the fact P’roc was dead.  She hadn’t realized the idea had lingered and festered.

When arms surrounded her, she nearly screamed.  Only after she felt cotton and heat under her cheek, smelled the unique scent of Jack’s sweat, heard the thump of Jack’s heart under her ear, did she realize Jack had gathered her in his arms.  She didn’t know when Medic B’mot had released him from the monitors, but didn’t care.  He stroked her back with slow, steady strokes as if calming a skittish animal.

She felt useless, a liability.  If she was going to panic in situations like this, she was a liability.  Were they going to leave her behind?  Would they take her back to Earth?  No, the Doctor wouldn’t do that, nor would Jack let him if he tried.

Slowly, she calmed.  Shivering she didn’t know she had been suffering ceased and she sat still within Jack’s arms.

“We are not done,” Medic B’mot said.

Jack shifted.  “Rose needs me.  You can wait.”  His voice was just as cold as the Doctor’s had been when talking to the Praetor, and it reassured Rose.

A distressed chittering not unlike that in the clearing filled the room.  Rose raised a hand to cover one ear as she buried the other against Jack’s chest to drown the noise.  Jack pressed his lips to the top of her head, then spoke to the Intash.  She couldn’t hear the words, but could feel the rumble of vibration in his chest.  There were pauses in the conversation, which continued for longer than she would have expected.

Finally, Jack pressed his lips to her hair once again.  Pulling her hands down, he eased her back until he could look her in the face.  “They’ve done a preliminary scan of both of us, enough to mollify them that we’re clear of Verlona.”  A smirk graced one corner of his mouth.  “They didn’t want to take my word for it.”

“No, I imagine not,” she replied.  She’d rather enjoyed the way the Verlona had been cleared from their systems, despite everything.

“Legate L’sec has generously offered to give us a tour of some of the grounds.”  His eyes were cold and hard as he shared the offer.  He was suppressing most of his own anger at their treatment in order to help her, but it still showed in moments like this one, Rose thought.

“Do you want to go?” she asked quietly.

He ran a hand through his hair, eyes sweeping down and away from hers on a heavy sigh.  “I don’t know.”  He brought his gaze back to hers.  “I’m more worried for you.”

She bit her bottom lip, wincing as her teeth hit the spot she’d nearly bit through earlier.  The facilities where she and Jack would have been taken and held had been destroyed and Praetor Q’lun implied P’roc was a renegade and not part of the main government, so that also implied that the grounds they would be touring would be vastly different.  Maybe.

“What exactly would we be touring?”

His lips twitched as an eyebrow quirked upward.  “I don’t know.”  He turned to L’sec and asked Rose’s question.

There was a note of contrition in L’sec’s voice when he replied, “There are groups of arman from P’roc’s experiments who survived, either by luck or design.  The Praetor felt that the Doctor and his mates might wish to meet with . . . others.”

“Arman?” Jack asked.

“Unmodified humans,” L’sec replied.

Rose blinked, then jolted in shock.  “There were survivors?”

“Not everyone was at P’roc’s compound when it was destroyed,” L’sec explained.  “Nor was everyone there killed.”

A curious relief flooded Rose to know that they hadn’t, however accidentally, killed everyone.  It was also oddly reassuring to know that Jack wasn’t the only other human to have suffered under Verlona.  That twin relief was followed swiftly by guilt.  She didn’t want to wish that suffering on anyone.

“Rose?” Jack murmured.  She met his gaze steadily this time.  There was confusion and a touch of fear in his.  She smiled softly, reaching up to lay a hand on his cheek.  “Do you want to meet the others?”  His voice caught on the last word.  She wondered if he didn’t consider himself a survivor, considered only her one.  In her three days of thinking, it had occurred to her that he might consider what happened to him just a consequence of travel.  Though they both had been victimized by their experience, it had been a different experience for each of them.

Yet another thing to discuss later, Rose thought with a frustrated sigh.  To Jack, she nodded and said, “Yes, I do.”

Her fear of the Intash and of Cielace was the very reason she wanted to meet others who had suffered under Verlona; she wanted to know there were others like her.  It was the same reason she had kissed the Doctor’s newly-healed hand:  to know he could be healed.  She wanted hope for herself.

Legate L’sec spoke at length to his two assistants and Medic B’mot.  Several nurses ran scans of Rose and Jack once they were standing.  Rose forced back her initial reaction, which was to scream and kick, by gritting her teeth and gripping Jack’s hand tightly enough to grind bones together.  He said nothing.

“They are clear,” Medic B’mot pronounced at last.  “I do wish they would commit to a longer scan.”

“No,” Jack said uncompromisingly.

“Why?” Medic B’mot asked plaintively.

Jack turned on the Medic, shaking loose Rose’s hand.  He stalked forward, making Rose regret he’d left his duffel coat on the TARDIS.  It would have added to his presence.

Voice vibrating with anger, he growled, “I’ve put up with enough out of all of you.  We solved your problem with P’roc and you want to make us guinea pigs again.  No.”  He took another step forward.  “The only reason I’ve put up with as much as I have is for her.”  Without turning, he pointed unerringly at Rose.  “Now, we would appreciate being able to talk to other humans.”  A pause.  “Now.”

The chittering became a squeal as half the medical staff fled the room.

Legate L’sec stood impassively beside the door while Medic B’mot fumed.

“Then we shall leave,” L’sec said quietly, turning.  He exited, followed closely by his two assistants.

Jack gave a final glare to Medic B’mot, before spinning on his heel to follow L’sec.  Rose was torn between shock, awe and amusement as she hurried to follow.  Well, and a bit of arousal, if she were perfectly honest.  There was just something about watching him take charge of the situation that made her want to push him into a cupboard and have her way with him.

Not entirely lost to fear and anxiety, then.  I can still be aroused.

She considered herself lucky to be following behind Jack so she could watch him stalk down the corridor and into the hangar.  The only thing that surpassed watching him would be watching the Doctor.  She sighed, wondering how he was doing.  She hoped he was faring better then she and Jack were.

Jack climbed into the shuttle behind L’sec, reaching back to help Rose inside.  Before she could consider sitting elsewhere, he pulled her into his lap, stifling her protests with one hooded look.  She swallowed nervously and nodded, settling against him.

L’sec and his assistants, sitting on the opposite side of the cabin, looked uncomfortable.  Rose couldn’t remember if they had been uncomfortable on the trip to the medical facility or not since she had been too preoccupied with her own misery.  She relaxed further against Jack, resting her head against his left shoulder, and her left hand flat against his chest.  This blatant physicality made the assistants even more uncomfortable, though L’sec’s expression remained unchanged, still disapproving.

Shifting slightly, she brought her right hand up to the back of Jack’s neck.  He blinked, startled, and looked down at her.  Pulling his head down, she adjusted their positions so her lips were against his left ear.

“Didja notice that th’ more we touch each other, the twitchier they are?” she asked.

Jack shuddered at the sensation of her breath against his ear.  She smiled, feeling him harden against her thigh.  Even if it were strictly a biological reaction, she wasn’t above enjoying the power she had over him.  The irony of the situation didn’t escape her either:  she trusted Jack and the Doctor implicitly.  It was the Intash and everyone else she didn’t trust.

His eyes flicked upward to look at L’sec and his assistants.  The assistants were trying to look anywhere except at Rose and Jack, but the interior of the shuttle was so small that it was nearly impossible.  L’sec kept his expression disapproving.  It was a strange combination on his partially-mechanical face.

Jack turned, pressing his lips to her ear, sending a shiver down her spine in response.  “You’re right.  I wonder just what level of public displays of affection will send them running.”  Rose pulled back to look him in the eye.  Seriousness, arousal and dark challenge was mixed in his expression.  “Are you game?” he whispered against her lips.

Her emotions had undergone a crack-the-whip from panic to arousal and she was left light-headed from the change.  She smiled.  Jack slid his right hand from her thigh to her hair, holding her head still, as he coaxed her mouth open with his tongue.

It had been several days since they’d kissed, really kissed, and she found she missed it.  She missed the taste of him, the feel of him.  The only thing she might have wanted more would be to kiss the Doctor.  Her hand tightened on the back of his neck, scratching him inadvertently with her fingernails and eliciting a moan.

L’sec cleared his throat in a polite effort to break them apart.

Rose and Jack ignored him.  It felt like it had been years since she kissed him like this, not three days.  She felt starved for him.  He swept his tongue through her mouth, swallowing her guttural moan of response.  When she made the attempt to turn in his lap and straddle him, he brought his arm down, locking it over her thighs and pinning her in place.

The shrill alarm from his wrist comp had the dampening effect Legate L’sec’s throat clearing had not:  Jack broke the kiss.  Panting, he cursed, using language the TARDIS didn’t translate, and shoved Rose onto the seat next to him.  She felt too dazed to comprehend what was going on initially until she saw Jack glaring at the display of his wrist comp.  He hit several buttons, cursed again, then glared at L’sec.

“I programmed the chemical composition of Verlona into my wrist comp.”

Rose felt light-headed not only from kissing Jack, but with incipient panic.

He stood, as did the Legate, despite the jolting of the shuttle as it landed.

“It’s in the air, you bastards,” Jack hissed.

The shuttle door opened.

“Give me one good reason I shouldn’t transport Rose away from here.”  Rose reached up to take Jack’s hand, forcing herself not to wince when he gripped it tightly.  “One.”

L’sec smiled, the expression almost maniacal on his partially-mechanical face.  He moved his right arm out toward the open shuttle door in a broad sweep more like a showman than a formal military escort.  “There are answers there.  Scan.  We have not blocked transmats or transports.  You may leave if you think it unsafe outside.”  The assistants chittered, quelled by a beatific, over-the-shoulder look from L’sec.

Rose watched Jack grind his teeth together in frustration.  He turned and knelt before her, taking her face in his hands.  “Up to you, Rosie,” he whispered, searching her eyes.  She couldn’t read any answer in his and knew he was just as torn as she was.

Her initial reaction was to run.  So were her second and third reactions.  Then she stopped to think, not panic despite knowing the drug was in her system again.  Legate L’sec, however smarmy a bastard he’d suddenly become, had said there were answers outside the shuttle.  Since she didn’t intend to release Jack’s hand, a transport shouldn’t be a problem.

The problem would be the Verlona.

She swallowed.  “What’s the concentration of Verlona?”

Jack blinked, surprised.  Shifting, he brought his arm down between them and hit a few buttons on the comp.  “About one-fiftieth what we ingested in New York.  Enough to distract, but not enough to overwhelm.”

Rose nodded.  “Then let’s go.”

Jack’s eyebrows shot up even as he smiled.  “You’re sure?”

She nodded sharply, decisively, this time, before standing.  It forced him to stand as well, and she was within his embrace.  The feel of him against her was distracting, just as he said it would be, but she could handle it now that she knew the influence was there.  “Have to do it sometime.”

His smile turned to a proud grin that warmed her.

They ignored L’sec and exited the shuttle.  The Legate and his assistants followed closely behind.

Part III:  Swept Away

The sun had set while they were in the medical complex.  Cielace’s moon cast the same pale shade of yellow-white light as Earth’s moon, but the strangeness of colors Cielace had begun with created a palette Rose found distracting once again.  In the moonlight, the blues of the grass and trees had become the purple-black she was more accustomed to seeing as shades in the night sky.  The sky itself was a dark pastel blue, a shade she would have never thought natural.

Jack’s wrist comp beeped again.  He moved her hand from where it was entwined with his to his forearm so he could check the reading.  The numbers made him bite off another curse.

“Are you piping in Verlona into the air?” he demanded, rounding on L’sec.

L’sec paused his discussion with the security guard and turned to Jack and Rose.  He genuinely appeared to be surprised for the first time.

“Of course we are,” the Legate replied.  “We thought you knew that.”

Rose tightened her grip on Jack’s arm.  What the hell?

“We didn’t know,” Jack growled.

L’sec tilted his head to one side, the motion quick enough to seem like mechanical failure for a full machine and strangely human on a partial machine.  “How could you not know?  Verlona is clear from both your systems.”

Rose frowned up at Jack, not surprised to find him looking down at her.  Without a word, he led her away from the shuttle and the security checkpoint.  She didn’t dare let go of him.

If she concentrated, she could feel the urges the Verlona were sending through her system.  Now that she knew Verlona was there, she could recognize it for what it was and push it aside.  So far.  If – or when – the concentration increased, she’d be helpless again.

Jack shoved his free hand through his hair.  “I can’t figure out what they’re up to,” he muttered.

“Should we leave?  Rescue the Doctor an’ leave?” Rose asked.  “Can we trust them?”  She jerked her head toward L’sec and the rest.

He made a noise somewhere between a growl and a huff, a sound of pure frustration.  “I don’t know and that’s what scares me about this whole thing.  It feels like a set up, but I don’t know why.”

“The Doctor?”

“They have him already.  Why keep us around if they only want him?”  Jack stopped his frustrated tics and stood perfectly still.  “Unless . . . .”  He turned to face the building the Legate had brought them to, raised his right arm and ran several scans.  Then he cursed.

Rose bit back a brief smile of amusement.  “Scan didn’t show what you expected?”

“No, damn it!”

She turned to face the building, leaning against his side.  “What if they’re on the up-and-up?  L’sec did seem shocked.”

“Shocked by what, though?”

Rose considered.  “That we didn’t know about the Verlona in the air.”

He turned to look down at her, eyebrows rising.  “Because we should have known.  Why should we have known?  The Praetor was horrified when the Doctor mentioned telepathy to cure us, so . . . so what does it mean?”

“Does your wrist comp pick up any Verlona here?” she asked.

He blinked, then quickly checked.  “Less than in the shuttle and even less than by the security post.”  He closed his eyes, but she could see them moving behind his eyelids, as if jumping to see the patterns.

When his eyes shot open, a fanatical gleam in them, she was reminded sharply of the Doctor.  “They have to wean humans off Verlona.”

Rose jolted back in shock.  “It’s addictive?”

He quirked an eyebrow sarcastically before his entire demeanor changed and he became the consummate seducer.  She wasn’t immune to the heat in his gaze, the promise of pleasure there.  He leaned down and murmured breathily in her ear, “Wouldn’t you want nothing more than mind-blowing sex all day?”

She shuddered in distaste, not for the memory of making love to Jack and the Doctor, but the memory of being in thrall to the Verlona.  Closing her eyes, she whispered, “Only with you and the Doctor.”

After a moment’s silence, he gathered her in his arms, pressed his lips to her hair and murmured an apology.  The feel of his warm, cotton-clad chest under her cheek reassured her.  Navigating the minefield between now and what might pass for normal was going to include a lot of inadvertent hurt.

“S’okay, Jack,” she said, wrapping her arms around his waist.

“I promise you that when we leave this damned planet, we’ll spend the entire day in my bedroom,” he said into her hair.  “The three of us, even if all we do is play cards.”

The image of the three of them in Jack’s bedroom on the TARDIS playing poker made Rose laugh.  “Jack, the only card game you’d play is strip poker.”

“Hey, I know other card games!”

“Do any of them involve keeping clothes on?” she teased, pulling back and looking up at him.

He grinned his devil-may-care grin.  “One or two.  It’s good to see you smile, Rose.”  He slid his hands up into her hair, holding her head still, and gave her a lingering kiss.

Now that the Verlona was definitely in the background, she could tell how much of her arousal was drug-induced and was amused to note that, this time, not much of it had been drug-induced.  It was all her.  She sighed against Jack’s mouth, returning the kiss.  They kept the kiss close-mouthed, but the full-body contact made it just as erotic as their fully open-mouthed kisses were earlier.

When Rose broke the kiss, she dropped her head to his chest to take a few gasping breaths.  “Let’s go find out how much longer the Doctor will be, figure out what’s going on, talk to some other survivors, then leave this place.”  She looked up and smiled.  “I want to play cards.”

His blue eyes gleamed with a multitude of emotions.  “I like that plan.”

They walked hand-in-hand back to the security post.  As they did so, something the Doctor had said when telling them about the Verlona in the aftermath of their “cure” flitted through her mind.  It was what she got for letting her mind wander at the sight of the compound.  The single building was dark and windowless, yet surrounded by Cielace’s equivalent of chicken wire, the fence peppered by security posts like the one where Legate L’sec awaited them.

Rose pitched her voice to carry only to Jack and said,  “Jack, the Doctor said the Intash found humans to use as slaves.  I haven’t seen any slaves here.”

He glanced down at her but kept walking.  The difference in him now was that she was walking with Soldier Jack.  “Keep your eyes open and don’t let go of my hand.”  She nodded.

“Are you ready for your tour now?” Legate L’sec asked as they approached.  Though no sign of it was in his voice, the crossed arms and arched eyebrow on his human side screamed disapproval of their detour.

Jack smiled affably, though Rose knew it didn’t reach his eyes.  “Lead the way, Legate.”  Jack slowed his pace to keep Rose by his side rather than two or three steps behind.

When his arm vibrated, he glanced down at his wrist comp, then at Rose and shook his head slightly.  From this, she understood he’d changed the warning to a vibration if the concentration was in moderate levels.  She didn’t feel any different than a contact high from clubbing with Shireen.

Legate L’sec led them into a cafeteria area.  Turning to face them, he made an expansive gesture with his arms.  “This is our dining area.  Outside dining times, this is our recreation area.  Our patients are welcome at all hours to visit and relax.”

Rose noted the term “patient” as Jack gestured toward the kitchen area.  “May we look?”

“Of course.”

Rose studied the pictures on the walls while Jack performed scans.  Though it was awkward to hold his hand while he scanned, they both refused to let go.  They were silent, though they hadn’t discussed a plan of any sort.

All the pictures on the walls were of humans, full humans, arman as L’sec had called them.  Rose blinked in surprise.  She hadn’t expected the Intash to allow such pictures on the walls.  A quick glance into the kitchen showed the kitchen staff were full humans as well, but the explanation for that could be as simple as comparing it to staffing a prison.

Jack lowered his arm and looked down at her, as shocked as she’d ever seen him.  He glanced into the kitchen, then at his wrist comp and shook his head almost imperceptibly before schooling his features into an impassive mask again.

She was shocked herself.  There was no Verlona in the food?  None at all?  The only Verlona around was in the air and that was a minute fraction of what they’d ingested in New York?

It didn’t make any sense.

But, in a twisted way, it did.  L’sec had been surprised – no, shocked – they were surprised it was in the air.  What if P’roc had been making it much stronger and ingestible?

“Jack,” Rose whispered.  Jack obligingly bent so his ear was next to her mouth.  She shared her thought about P’roc.

He backed away slightly, grinning, then kissed her.  In her ear, he murmured, “And, if that’s what he was doing, that could be why he earned his ‘renegade’ label.”

“Part of a mystery solved?”

“Maybe,” he cautioned.  “It’s only a theory.”

L’sec chose then to interrupt them, probably because patients were beginning to filter into the dining hall and Jack and Rose were being much too familiar for the comfort of the Intash.  L’sec cleared his throat, loudly.

Jack straightened slowly and looked over.

“Perhaps you would wish to visit a patient or two,” he offered.  The words were polite but it was clear to Rose that the continued public displays of affection between her and Jack were driving L’sec round the twist.

“Please,” Rose answered.

L’sec inclined his head and led the group of five out of the dining hall.  Rose observed that all the humans appeared drugged, listless.

Was it not a case of weaning humans off Verlona but sedating them into submission? Rose wondered.  And why?  This dosage is mild compared to what Jack and I went through.

All the patients kept their eyes down as the group passed, but some did so only after a look from one of the assistants.  On a hunch, Rose glanced back over the shoulder just before they turned a corner.  Two women were staring at hers and Jack’s clasped hands with open-mouthed astonishment.  Rose filed it away as they completed the turn around the corner.

Three corridors later – and one repeat of the same behavior from the patients – they came to their destination.

“Within this room lies our most complicated case,” L’sec began.  He gestured to an assistant, who then handed him a data pad.  “Human female, mid-twentieth century Earth.  One of P’roc’s experiments, unfortunately.”

Rose exchanged a sharp look with Jack.

“We have been at a loss to help her.”  He handed the data pad back to his assistant.  His next words sound strained, even with the computer-modulated voice.  Clearly, the offer wasn’t one he wanted to make.  “If you have any ideas about how to assist her, the Praetor and I would welcome them.”

Rose was torn between wanting to run and wanting to help.  Taking a deep breath to quell her suddenly queasy stomach, she tightened her grip on Jack’s hand, and pushed open the door with her other hand.  The woman on the bed was in her mid-thirties and average-looking all-around, but that wasn’t what caught either Rose’s or Jack’s attention.  What caught their attention were the restraints around her wrists and ankles.

“Get her out of those,” Jack growled, biting off each word.

“She attacks staff and fellow patients when she is free,” one of the assistants protested.

“Of course she does!” Rose said.  “It’s all she can think about if she has P’roc’s drug in her system!”

Jack scanned the woman.  The levels of Verlona in her system tripped the minimums he’d reset for the audible alarms.  He punched a button to silence the alarm.

“About two-thirds ours,” he said quietly to Rose.  Then, loudly enough for the others to hear, he said, “It’s about thirty times more than what’s in the air.  That’s why they can’t deal with it.”  Jack rounded on a person Rose had missed in the corner dressed in medical scrubs.  “What’s she been treated with?”

The terrified Intash technician, both human eyes wide and staring at Jack, trembled.  He glanced briefly at L’sec, who shook his head.

Rose was furious.  She stalked over to the technician and snatched what she assumed to be the chart from his hand.  One glance at it told her she couldn’t read it, so she handed it to Jack, who took it eagerly.  L’sec made an attempt to grab it.  One glare from Rose had him backing away.

Jack’s voice was low and even colder when he spoke, his tone as glacial as the Doctor’s just before he became Very Angry.  “You’ve been giving her more Verlona?  Are you fucking insane?  I thought P’roc was the worst of your kind!”

He threw the chart in L’sec’s general direction, causing loose papers to flutter free, and moved to the woman.  Looking back over his shoulder as he knelt by the bed, Jack asked, “Is there anyone, any human, she’s formed an attachment to?  Does she have a mate here?”

Rose stood guard at the foot of the bed, her arms crossed.  She knew only too well what this woman was feeling, but to release her into the arms of someone she knew and loved would be so much easier on her than releasing her into the arms of a stranger.

L’sec and his assistants turned to the technician, who trembled again, this time setting up a faint metallic echo.  His eyes darted between the Legate’s group and the humans.  Rose was worried he would short-circuit before answering, but he finally squeaked, “Yes.”

“Find that person,” Jack said flatly, his tone absolutely uncompromising.  It was almost comic how quickly the technician fled, though no one laughed.

Jack straightened to his full height, which towered over everyone else in the room.  Crossing his arms, he glared down at L’sec.  “Why are you keeping the humans drugged?”

Rose, startled, looked over.  “Not weaning?”

“No,” he replied shortly.  “Deliberately keeping them under the influence, but not letting them have any physical contact with each other.  In fact, the Intash find physical contact abhorrent.”  Jack turned on L’sec.  “Don’t you?”

The sneer looked out of place on the half-mechanical face.  “Humans think they are so smart.”

“You’re human,” Rose pointed out.

“My inferior half!” L’sec shouted.

Rose flinched as Jack snorted.  “Now we get to the bottom of things.”

The technician returned with a middle-aged man who, upon one look at the woman in the bed, cried, “Louise!”  He tried to race to her side, but was stopped by Jack before halfway across the room.  The man glared.

“Louise has been drugged and is going to need you to help her,” Jack said quietly.  The man glanced between the bed, Jack and the technician.  Jack leaned down to explain the rest quietly in the man’s ear.  The man’s eyes widened so much that Rose wondered if they’d figuratively fall out of his head.  Eventually, he closed them, shuddered and swallowed.

“You’re sure?” he asked.  Jack nodded.  “You and her really?”  Jack’s lips quirked into a small smile, but he nodded again.  With that, the man took a deep breath and, sounding determined, said, “If you two can, we can.”

“She’s not going to be herself exactly,” Jack warned, a hand on the man’s arm.  “Be sure you stay hydrated – I’ll have them provide plenty of water – but she needs you.”  The man nodded nervously.

Jack ushered the protesting Intash out of the room.  Rose leaned against the closed door, watching as Jack removed the medical paraphernalia from Louise.  Louise began to stir as the intravenous tube was disconnected, but she would still be groggy for several minutes until the worst of the sedative cleared her system.  Jack watched her closely, but not exclusively, working instead to secure the room, taping down anything that might injure Louise and her significant other.

“What’s your name?” Rose asked.

The man, who had been sitting in a chair between Louise’s bed and the wall, startled.  “What?”

“What’s your name?”

He glanced at Jack, who had his back to them, then at Rose.  “Douglas.”

Rose smiled.  “Jack told you about us?”  Douglas nodded.  “Louise will be fine once this drug is out of her system.  An’ Jack told you you’re the only one that can help her with this?”  Douglas blushed bright red, but nodded again.  Rose’s smile widened and she caught Jack grinning out of the corner of her eye.  “Don’t let any of the Intash drug either of you again, though.”

“What’s going to happen to us?” Douglas asked.  He finger-combed Louise’s sleep-tangled hair.

She glanced at Jack, who was pretending to be deaf, then back at Douglas.  “What do you mean?”

“Louise and I belong in 1954.  We know we’re certainly not in 1954 now.”

Jack looked up sharply at that and cursed.  They’d both forgotten their sojourn in New York had been in the 1980’s, which meant the Intash were shopping for humans across time.

“We’ll sort you out,” Jack said, taping off the last of the cabinets.  “We’ll make sure everyone can get back to when they need to be.”

Douglas nodded.  “Thank you.”  Louise stirred, moaning restlessly, and Douglas looked down at her.

“Just remember that she’s not exactly in control of herself,” Rose said.  “The drug is in control.”

Louise moaned again.

Jack took Rose’s arm.  “Good luck, Douglas.”  Douglas looked up, smiling nervously.  Jack bent to whisper in Rose’s ear, “You realize he comes from a very repressed era.  He’s not used to women taking the lead.”

Rose looked up at him.  “He’ll learn, won’t he?”  Jack laughed once, then led her out the door.

Rose was not surprised to see L’sec and his entourage waiting for them in the corridor.  L’sec was furious and ready to remonstrate against them as soon as the door was closed.

Jack took control of the situation before the Legate could utter a word.  He grabbed the technician first, taking his arm and pulling him gently aside.  “You’re in charge of this room.  The Verlona should be through her system in several hours unless the two of them fall asleep.  They’ll need plenty of water and any food Douglas requests.  You are the only one to go in and out until the Verlona is free of her system.  We’ll be back in the morning.  Is that clear?”

The technician nodded, clearly confused by the orders from a mere human, but responding to Jack’s attitude.  Jack, having obtained what he wanted from the technician and still holding Rose’s hand, spun on his heel and stalked away toward the dining hall.

“Halt!” Legate L’sec shouted.

Jack stopped and looked down at Rose.  Between the two of them, his expression was amused.  She was beginning to wonder if he was channeling the Doctor.  Then again, at this point, the Doctor would be not only grinning madly but possibly even laughing.

“Where are you going and what right do you have to order about my staff?” L’sec called, catching up to them with a metallic stomping noise.  She was grateful his pseudo-military uniform didn’t appear to have weapons other than a wicked-looking knife in a scabbard at his right hip.

Rose wasn’t exactly sure what happened next – she thought L’sec might have reached for her in his frustration – but it ended with Jack pinning L’sec to the wall with a forearm across his chest.  Given their height difference, L’sec dangled at least three inches off the ground.  And, despite the fact L’sec had to outweigh Jack due to added weight of the mechanical enhancements, Jack made holding him look effortless.

“Don’t.  Touch.  Rose.”  Jack’s lips barely moved with the words.

L’sec blinked.

“I want answers.”

L’sec sneered.  Jack slipped his arm higher.  Despite L’sec’s enhancements, the only thing in his throat that was mechanical was part of his voice box; the remainder was frail human flesh.

“Why are the Intash harvesting humans from Earth in the twentieth century?”  Rose looked on nervously.  Here was Soldier Jack again, the side he rarely let her see, the side that had bonded with the Doctor on a level she never could.

L’sec’s assistants shuffled their feet but said nothing.

Rose tilted her head to the side and studied L’sec.  There was a look in his human eye that said he was bracing himself for physical torture – it was a look she’d seen in Jack’s eye, and even the Doctor’s, a time or two on various planets.  If Jack was going to strangle him, L’sec wouldn’t resist.  She bit her lip, then smiled.

Moving behind Jack, she pressed herself against his back and wrapped her arms around him, splaying her hands, one each, over his chest and stomach.

“What – ” Jack began before stopping himself, whether because he remembered the Intash distaste for physical contact or due to the noise of disgust L’sec made, Rose wasn’t sure.  He leaned into L’sec and repeated his question.  L’sec tried to shy away from both Jack and Rose.  Apparently suffering contact when it was physical torture was acceptable physical contact; suffering contact under other circumstances was abhorrent.

Rose flicked open the top buttons of Jack’s shirt.  She looked around Jack’s side at L’sec.  The more skin she exposed, the more L’sec looked like he wanted to vomit.  She felt Jack tremble when she slid her hand under one side of his shirt and scratched him lightly.  Resting her cheek against Jack’s back, she continued moving her hand against Jack’s skin.

L’sec’s voice trembled when he replied, “Fertility.”

She felt Jack’s heart trip-hammer like her own at the word, but didn’t stop.  What was L’sec talking about?  She slipped her fingers upward until they fanned across the hollow of Jack’s throat, clearly visible against his skin.

“The Intash are sterile.  We cannot reproduce biologically.”  She heard the tremble in L’sec’s voice when she dragged her fingernails down Jack’s chest and under his shirt again to rest against one pectoral muscle.  “We can harvest biological material from humans and pod them.”

Jack’s arm slipped and dropped L’sec to the ground as Rose froze.  The Intash really were harvesting humans, but not in any way they’d expected.  She quickly peeked around Jack’s side as L’sec tugged his clothing straight in a very human motion, annoyance in every line of his body.

“That’s what the Verlona is for then?” Jack said, voice low and cold.  Rose buried her face against the back of his shirt again, cheek flat against his back.  “You administer it so the humans you steal stay in a hypersexualized state.  That way you can take eggs and sperm at will.”

Rose trembled.  Jack reached up with his left hand and stroked her hand once, reassuring her.  All these humans weren’t being enslaved, exactly, for themselves but for their parts.  Did it mean that the Intash were, at the core, essentially twentieth century humans?  L’sec’s descriptions of the pods reminded her of something from the movie The Matrix and she could only be horrified.  Had she and Jack been successfully kidnapped, they’d be made into breeding machines, though nothing like what she had originally envisioned.  She wasn’t sure if having her eggs harvested rather than being kept pregnant was better or not.

Wait a moment . . . .  Rose pulled back from Jack, sliding her hand free of his shirt, but leaving her other loosely at his waist.  Moving to his side, she demanded, “Where does P’roc fit into all this?  You called him a renegade earlier an’ we know he created a much stronger version of Verlona meant for ingestion.  Why?”

The Legate glared at Rose, whether strictly because he didn’t want to answer or because she had been the one to ask, she didn’t know, though it was probably some combination of both.

“He wanted to reintroduce physical . . . relations in my people.  He wanted to be more human.”  L’sec seethed, venom coating each word until they were nearly visible in the air and toxic.

Jack turned to her, pushing her backwards and away from the Legate and his group.  Once on the other side of the hallway, he leaned over her to whisper in her ear.  “I think we’re finally getting the truth from them.  What do we do with it?”

She looked up.  “We have to wait for the Doctor.  They have to be stopped, but we should wait and coordinate, yeah?”

Jack grinned.  “What makes you think he hasn’t already done something?”

“The alarms haven’t gone off,” she said wryly.

“Isn’t that usually our job?”  She shoved him.  “Hey!”  He pressed a quick kiss to her forehead, chuckling softly when she yawned.

“’M tired, Jack,” she said.  “Do we really need to stay or can we come back in the morning?”

He drove a hand through his hair.  “I don’t like the thought of leaving the Doctor to the mercies of the Intash.”

“I don’t either.  He’s not human, though.  Would they be interested in him?”

“He’s a novelty.”  Jack muttered a pithy curse that didn’t translate.  “I wish we hadn’t needed to come here.  Damn them all.”

Rose laid a hand on Jack’s arm.  “Maybe we can ask for a room for the night.”

He nodded and turned to L’sec and his group.  “Do you know when the Doctor’s treatment will be completed?”

The Legate glared in return before gesturing to the assistant who appeared to be the youngest, a slight figure barely out of a human’s teenage years.  The assistant tapped a data pad several times, then handed it over.  L’sec read it, grimaced, and handed it back.

“Mid-day tomorrow.  We will prepare rooms for you – ”

“Room,” Jack interrupted.

“Excuse me?”

“Room.  One.  We’ll share.”

Excited, horrified chittering arose among the Intash assistants yet again as L’sec regarded Rose and Jack with unconcealed hatred.  Rose rolled her eyes.  The chittering was becoming annoying.

“Very well.  A room will be prepared for you to await your companion until tomorrow.”  With that, L’sec spun on his heel and stormed away, followed by most of his entourage, leaving behind only the youngest assistant to sheepishly lead them to another room in the compound.

The room itself was decently appointed, more like a standard hotel room than a hospital room.  In any case, Rose thought, it had the basics of a toilet and a sink and a bed large enough for the two of them, though barely given that Jack was not a small man.  Rose brushed her teeth, grimacing at the version of toothpaste provided and kicking Jack in the shin when he laughed at the expression on her face.  He rinsed his mouth with some purple liquid they’d been provided, but which she didn’t trust.

She stripped down to her knickers, cursing the fact she still had her monthlies.  There was no way she was going to sleep in her bra, though, no matter where they were.  She considered pulling her shirt back on, even grabbed it from her pile of clothing, until Jack laid a hand over hers and shook his head and softly said, “Please don’t.”

“Okay,” she replied, just as softly.

He dimmed the lights for the night, then took her hand and led her to the bed.  She noticed then he was still wearing his boxers.  He was obviously aroused, and made no effort to hide it, but also made no effort to do anything about it.  He climbed into bed first, taking the side against the wall and angling himself to maximize the space for her.  Then he patted the mattress.

Deciding to be as nonchalant as he was, she climbed onto the bed, allowing him to pull her against himself, spooning her against him as he tugged the blankets up.  The only thing missing – the only person missing – was the Doctor.

“I’m scared, Jack,” Rose said.

He slid one arm under her head and the other around her waist, before resting his head on the pillow directly behind hers, his breath stirring her hair.  She could feel the heat of his body radiating against her back and wanted to sigh, frustrated by the accompanying lack of cooler body spooned in front of her.

“The same scared as before we arrived?”

She considered the question.  Her fears then had been of being kidnapped the moment they landed, of being enslaved as P’roc had threatened.  Those fears had since been supplanted by anger and a need for justice for the humans unfortunate enough to be caught.

“No, different.”  She thought about turning to face him, but decided against it on the assumption the conversation would be easier if she wasn’t looking at him despite the fact his erection was still pressed against her arse, distracting her.  He splayed his fingers against her stomach, the heat of his palm welcome after a shiver of cold rocked her.  He said nothing, though, allowing her to gather her thoughts.  “The Intash scare me because they’re human but they’re not,” she began.  She knew he hadn’t seen much twentieth century television, so she couldn’t use the Borg as a cultural reference.  “Like L’sec hating his human half, but he’s more’n half human, I’d guess.  How can a race survive if they hate what they are?”

Jack had been idly stroking her stomach.  He stopped.  Suddenly, he propped himself up on his elbow, rolling her to her back, to look down at her.  She blushed self-consciously at the admiration in his eyes.  He said nothing and bent to drop a kiss on her forehead.

She huffed.  “When you do that, I feel like I’m twelve.”

He backed away and raised his eyebrows.  “You aren’t twelve and I certainly don’t see you that way.”

She rolled onto her side once again, her back to him.  “I know.”  Sighing, she added, “Sorry.  I just want to be out of here and back on the TARDIS.”

He didn’t move for several moments.  Just as she opened her mouth to apologize, he lowered himself to the bed, pulling her flush against his body once again.  If anything, he was harder than before.  Her breath caught on a low moan.  His voice was a low and rough whisper when he said, “Definitely not twelve, Rosie.”

She was smiling when she answered, “I can tell.”

They lay quietly for a long while, but she couldn’t sleep.  Worry about the Doctor was at the forefront of her mind, but worry for their own situation also distracted her.  The background arousal from the Verlona in the air certainly didn’t help matters either.

She knew Jack was still awake by his breathing, but thought that if he wanted to talk, he would.  She had mixed feelings about how she’d interacted with him over the course of the day, alternately acting like a wilting flower and a strong, independent woman.  They needed to get off the damn planet so she could find a sense of self again.  She didn’t want to have to rely on Jack or the Doctor to be strong for her.  She wasn’t that type of woman, it wasn’t the type of woman Jackie Tyler had raised.  Then again, she wasn’t sure this situation fell within normal parameters.

“Go to sleep, Rose,” Jack said softly.

“Wha’ time is it?” she murmured, her words nearly slurring.

“Late.”  He stroked her hair, pulling it back from her face and pressing a kiss to her temple.  “Get some sleep.  I’ll be awake for a bit yet.”

Part IV:  Imperfect Ricochet

The next thing Rose was aware of was waking alone to an empty room.  Panic shot through her – Jack had said he wouldn’t leave her – before she quashed it and actually noticed her surroundings.

The lights were up full now.  On the opposite side of the room, on the counter between the sink and the door, was a breakfast tray.  Two servings were laid out, both still steaming, so they couldn’t have been there long.  Jack was nearby.

She swung her feet over the edge of the bed and sat up, dragging a hand through her hair to pull the tangled mess back off her face.

The door opened and closed quickly and quietly, admitting Jack, who was obviously trying to keep noise to a minimum on the assumption she was still asleep.  When he saw she was awake and sitting up, he smiled and held up the two mugs in his hand.

He crossed the room and handed her one of the mugs, murmuring, “Good morning.”

She sniffed deeply.  It was a local version of tea.  “Thanks.”

“Don’t I at least get a kiss?”

She raised her eyebrows over the edge of the mug as she took her first sip.  The “tea” wasn’t too bad, but it wasn’t real.

“Not this morning,” she replied finally.  “We can save it all for when we rescue the Doctor.”

Jack snorted a laugh and straightened.  “Then get dressed and stop taunting me with your brazen near-nakedness before I ravish you.”  She tipped her head to the side and continued to sip her faux tea.  He sighed a put-upon sigh.  “You’re going to torment me, then.”

She shook her head, drained the faux tea, then slid onto the floor.  “Not intentionally.”  She shook out her clothes before dressing, sneaking bites of toast between articles of clothing.  Waving a piece of toast, she said, “Thanks.”

Jack, seated in the chair matching the one housing her clothing, grinned.  “You’re welcome.”  He continued to watch her dress, waiting until she was done to rearrange the single table and two chairs so they could share breakfast.

“I followed up on Louise and Douglas,” he began, sipping his coffee, voice deliberately casual.

Rose raised her eyebrows.  He was almost too casual about something that had been a significant event the day before.  Taking her cue from him, she used the same tone when she replied, “Oh?  And how are they?”

His fingers tightened around his mug.  “Dead.”

Her breakfast turned to ashes in her mouth.  Swallowing quickly, she pushed her plate away.  “What happened?” she whispered.  “They were fine when we left.”

Jack stared into his coffee pensively, rolling the mug between his palms.  “L’sec happened.”  He looked up at her, misery eking through his hardened expression.  “I left here just before dawn to do recon and grab breakfast.  Douglas and Louise made it through the night fine, if sore and exhausted.”  He stopped.

Rose considered rising and hugging him, but didn’t think he’d appreciate it at the moment.  It was something else she filed away under later.

He dragged a hand down his face with a sigh, then continued.  “The nurse technician had just given me his report when L’sec and a half-dozen guards showed up.  The guards killed them in their sleep while L’sec smiled at me.”

She was at a loss for words.  He tipped the mug back to finish his coffee, then slammed it to the tabletop.  Standing abruptly, he took her hand and dragged her up from the chair.  Startled, she allowed him to pull her into a tight embrace.

His voice was muffled by her hair, but she still heard him when he growled, “I know he wasn’t in his right mind, but I understand even more now when the Doctor wanted to destroy P’roc.”

Rose said nothing, even to remind him he had agreed to destroying P’roc at the time.  In truth, she understood what he meant.  It was hard to show compassion and empathy to someone – or something – who mocked you for it.  L’sec seemed determined to mock them.

At last, she pulled back slightly and looked up.  “What did you do?”

His lips curved in a half-smile.  “After they let me go, I found their manufacturing area.  They’ll discover their Verlona is now inert.”

Her laughter began as a shocked snort, then morphed into an all-out belly laugh echoed by Jack.

“This is what I come back to?” a sardonic voice asked from the doorway.

Rose and Jack both turned.  Under the circumstances, the Doctor looked like a dark angel as he filled the doorway, leaning against one side of the open frame, arms akimbo.

“Doctor!” Rose shouted happily, releasing Jack and rushing the door.  The Doctor barely had time to open his arms before Rose leapt at him.

The Doctor eased her down after returning her hug, pushing her far enough away to look at both she and Jack in the same line of sight.  Jack shoved his hands into his pockets and rocked forward on the balls of his feet, nodding slightly to acknowledge the Doctor.  The Doctor seemed amused by this because he smirked, eyeing Jack from head to toe.

Suddenly, the Doctor narrowed his eyes, straightened and crossed the room, all teasing and amusement fled from his expression.  He pulled the edge of Jack’s shirt up to reveal bruises marching up his ribcage.  Jack snarled and backed away, shoving his shirt down.

“Jack?” Rose began.  The bruising wasn’t there last night.  L’sec . . . he said L’sec’s guards held him this morning.

“I’m fine,” Jack retorted.

“Are they broken?” the Doctor asked in a chilly tone.

“I don’t think so, but I’ll be more than happy to have you look once we’re back on the TARDIS.”  Jack crossed his arms over his chest, almost able to stifle his wince at the pain the motion caused.  “Speaking of which, please tell me we’re leaving soon.”

The Doctor shifted his gaze from Jack to Rose and back again.  “What’s going on?”

As much as she wanted to have the Doctor swoop down and fix everything, he couldn’t.  He wouldn’t be able to bring Douglas and Louise back to life.  Add to that the fact she couldn’t bring herself to tell him everything that had happened since they parted in the city park, she was at a loss.  She collapsed into a chair with a defeated sigh.

“If . . . if we invited you in,” Jack began softly, “would you be able to read yesterday’s events from our minds?”

The Doctor looked startled, which was unusual enough.  He glanced between them again, clearly disconcerted.  Slowly, he replied, “I could.  My control won’t be the best, right now, though.”

Jack nodded and closed the distance between them.  “Normally I wouldn’t let you poke about in my head, Doc – ”

“You let me poke about in other places, though,” the Doctor interjected with a grin.

Jack’s responding grin was a pale echo of itself.  “Yes, in other places.  What do you need me to do?”

The Doctor cupped Jack’s jaw.  Though she knew the circumstances were wrong, a thrill ran through Rose at the sight of those large, rough hands gently holding Jack’s face.  The Doctor slid his fingers to Jack’s temples, hovering over the skin, not quite touching it yet.

“Picture what you want me to see,” he murmured, voice low and almost hypnotic.  “Anything you don’t want me to see, you can deflect me or shut me out with a door.”  He took a deep breath, matched by a shuddering one from Jack.  “Ready?”

“Yes,” Jack whispered.

Rose watched nervously, chewing on the side of her thumb, as the Doctor touched his fingertips to Jack’s temples.  Jack jolted and gasped, stiffening in the Doctor’s grasp, their eyes locked together, though the locking of gazes was a side effect.  Sooner than she would have thought, they broke apart with a gasp, the Doctor’s hands falling away and Jack slipping to his knees.

“Doctor?  Jack?”

Jack opened his eyes and looked over at her.  “I’m fine, just feeling a little sick.”

“That’ll pass,” the Doctor said, voice still rough.  He blew out a breath then reached down to help Jack up and into one of the chairs beside the breakfast table.

Rose moved to perch on the arm of the chair and took Jack’s hand while the Doctor alternately paced and stood still, staring into space.  Jack hunched forward, shoulders rounded.  Rose released his hand and began rubbing his back lightly, now mindful of his injuries.

“I’m sorry,” the Doctor said finally, turning to Rose and Jack.  Rose raised her eyebrows in surprise.  He didn’t often apologize, especially without prompting.  “I got you two into this in the first place and now you’re in even deeper.”

“All for one, Doc,” Jack teased.

“D’Artagnan you’re not, Captain,” the Doctor retorted dryly.

“What are we going to do?” Rose asked.  She wanted to go home – to the TARDIS.

“What I should have done after purging the two of you,” the Doctor began.  He fell into more than sat down in the chair Rose had abandoned.  “Report Cielace to the Shadow Proclamation.”  Jack hissed through his teeth in reaction.  “They’re in violation of so many rules that they’ll be under interdict for a very long time.”

“Seems like a slap on the wrist,” Rose complained.  She wasn’t sure what she wanted to have happen to L’sec and the rest, but reporting them to someone else didn’t seem like much punishment.

Before the Doctor could reply, Jack said, “No, it’s a brilliant solution.”

The Doctor grinned.  “See!  I’m brilliant!”

Rose rolled her eyes.

“The Shadow Proclamation is a bit like your United Nations but with really big teeth,” the Doctor explained.  “What the Intash are doing violates at least a half-dozen treaties, starting with kidnapping and enslaving humans from Earth.  They’ll get what they deserve.”

She closed her eyes and dropped her head, her hand curling into a ball on Jack’s back, fingernails digging into her palm.  “And neither of you want revenge?”  She couldn’t be certain yet she didn’t want revenge, so if the Doctor and Jack wanted it, she couldn’t blame them.

“This isn’t the place to talk about it,” the Doctor said sharply before Jack could reply.  “It’s time to leave.”  He stood and tipped his head to the side.  “In fact, right about . . . now.”

The door crashed open, revealing an enraged Legate L’sec.  Praetor Q’lun stood passively behind him, hands folded primly together in front of her.  L’sec stormed the room and stood in front of Jack, who merely lifted his head but didn’t rise.

“What did you do?” L’sec demanded, computer-enhanced voice quivering with rage as much as his body.  A faint metallic hum emanated from him.

Jack leaned back in the chair and shifted to rest one booted foot on his opposite knee, left arm loose on the arm of the chair and right hand on his upraised ankle.  Rose looked up at the Doctor.  His expression was carefully neutral, but he was tense.  She stood, hands loose at her sides.  No reason she shouldn’t be ready to run.

“I’m afraid you’ll have to be more specific,” Jack replied.  “I’ve done many things.  Always like to know what I’m being accused of.  Cuts down on the confusion later, especially if it involves women.”  He glanced up at Rose.  “Sorry, honey.”

She waved a hand negligently.  “Don’t worry.”

L’sec took a step forward toward Rose, hand twitching upward.  “I tolerated you yesterday – ”

“Whatever you’re thinking about doing next, I wouldn’t,” the Doctor warned at the same time Jack stood, ignoring his injuries as all insolence fled his posture.  He shifted into pure intimidation mode.  He moved between Rose and L’sec to serve as a shield and to glare down at L’sec, once again taking advantage of the height difference.

“Touch her and nothing will save you,” Jack said, voice low.

Rose flushed, but said nothing.  It was nice having two men defend her.

“Whatever you think I did, I probably did,” Jack added.  By the shift in his body language, she could tell he was grinning.  “And I would do it again.”

“How dare you,” the Praetor snarled.  “You have ruined everything.”

“You ruined yourselves,” the Doctor corrected.  He pulled the sonic screwdriver from the pocket of his leather jacket.  “And I think we’ll be leaving.”

“How?  You cannot leave this room.”  The Praetor sounded smug.

Rose wanted to smack both L’sec and Q’lun.  It was true they had the door physically blocked, but that didn’t mean the three of them couldn’t leave.

“Rose?” the Doctor said, wagging his fingers at her.  She moved out from behind Jack to the Doctor’s side.  He seemed to deliberately touch her much more than necessary – a hand on her waist, fingers dragging along the skin of her neck – as he pulled the chain holding her TARDIS key from under her shirt.

She licked her suddenly-dry lips and looked up.  Arousal – now unaided by Verlona thanks to Jack – thrummed under her skin and she was encouraged to see that desire reflected back at her in the dilation of the Doctor’s pupils.

Looking down again, he held the sonic screwdriver to the key.  After a moment, the low, cyclical grinding of the TARDIS’ materialization sounded in the room.

Rose nearly cried at the welcome note in that sound.

The TARDIS materialized immediately behind Jack between him, the wall and the bed, in the only unoccupied space large enough to house it.  She briefly wondered what would have happened if there hadn’t been a large enough space.

That thought fled her mind when L’sec snarled in incoherent rage and lunged at the Doctor.  The Doctor raised the sonic screwdriver and flashed it once.  All the lights in the room went out, leaving everyone illuminated only by the glowing blue screwdriver.

The Intash were strangely slumped over, or, in the case of those mostly mechanical, on the ground.

“What did you do?” Rose asked.

Jack moved toward L’sec, who was one of those slumped sideways, as if his mechanical side had been benumbed.  Jack studied L’sec from the front and back, then looked up at the Doctor.

“EMP?”  The Doctor nodded, smiling.  “Handy.  Localized?”

“Just this room,” the Doctor confirmed.  “I think.”

“Then we should go, yeah?” Rose said.  She didn’t want to still be there when the Intash arrived to investigate the EMP.

The Doctor nodded.  “Yes.  And no running this time.”

“I think I’ll survive,” she replied dryly.

“C’mon!” Jack called.  Rose and the Doctor looked up to see Jack leaning out the door of the TARDIS, beckoning them with his free hand.

“It’s a good thing the TARDIS likes him,” the Doctor growled under his breath.

“You do, too, Doctor,” Rose said teasingly.

The Doctor gave her a look that clearly said so what?  “You go on.  I’ll just be a mo’.”  When she hesitated, he repeated, “Go on.”

She glanced at L’sec.  He was unable to speak since his voicebox was mechanically enhanced and computer-controlled, therefore inoperable, but he could still mouth words.  The TARDIS made no effort to translate reading his lips and for that she was grateful.  She turned and gave the Doctor a quick kiss before heading into the TARDIS.

Part V:  Come Together

The coral struts hadn’t seemed so welcome in a very long time.  She walked up the ramp and laid a hand on one, closing her eyes.

“Sometimes your mannerisms are just like the Doctor’s,” Jack observed from the jump seat.

She raised an eyebrow at him, opening her eyes and crossing her arms over her chest.  “Oh?”

There was an evil smirk on his face.  “I’ll bet you he does the same thing when he walks in.”

“What would I win?”

He rose from the jump seat and closed the distance between them, invading her personal space without touching her.  “Think you’re going to win, Rose?”  She raised her eyebrows in question.

She gave him a slow smile.  “I might, Cap’n.”

She needed both the Doctor and Jack with a ferocity that shocked her, needed them to give her reassurance, needed them to reinforce the fact there were good people in the universe despite how the Doctor and Jack each felt about themselves.  She wanted them.  She missed them.  The simultaneous desire for both of them was still new enough to disconcert her.

The flirting with Jack was second nature, though.

Jack bent his head to whisper in her ear, “If you win, I will be at yours and the Doctor’s not so tender mercy for one hour.”

Rose shuddered at the image of Jack at her not so tender mercy, and bit back a moan.  Swallowing, she managed to ask with an even voice, “And if you win?”

He straightened and looked down into her eyes.  “There’s this club I know on Ripax I’d like to take you to.”

“An’ you only can on a bet?”  She was confused but intrigued.  Normally Jack was much more up-front about these things.

He grinned and it was his I’ll get your clothes off in two seconds grin.  “Well, Rosie, I don’t think you’ve ever been to this type of club and I didn’t want to scare you.”

“S & M?  Bondage?  Something else?”

She delighted in the way his eyebrows rose in surprise.  “Not that innocent, are you?”

She rolled her eyes.  “’m nineteen, not a nun.”

“Should hope not,” the Doctor interjected, amused.

Jack and Rose jumped apart, startled.  The Doctor stood at the console, watching the two humans with amusement as he adjusted levers and knobs.  While Jack and Rose had been negotiating the terms of their bet, the Doctor had entered the TARDIS and guided them away from Cielace.

Jack cursed.  Neither he nor Rose had seen the Doctor enter the TARDIS, so they had no idea if the Doctor had done the same thing Rose had done or not, and therefore no idea who had won the bet.

Rose laughed.  “Call it a draw, yeah?”

“We both win?” Jack asked hopefully.  Since she was both curious about that club and wanted Jack at hers and the Doctor’s mercy, she nodded.

“Do I need to know?” the Doctor asked, moving to the far side of the console.

“Not yet,” Jack said, settling into the jump seat again.  “How do we go about reporting to the Shadow Proclamation?  The Time Agency provided no guidance there, telling us only to avoid them.”  There were no shadings in his voice this time when he mentioned the Agency, only a statement of fact.

“We don’t do anything,” the Doctor said with a warning glance at each Jack and Rose.  “We will go there.  I will report.  You will stay.”

“Like pets?” Rose retorted, stung, before she could stop herself.

The Doctor leveled his gaze on her.  It was a charge P’roc had made.  “No.  I expect you two to listen when I tell you to stay.”  He kicked a lever, but Rose thought it was more from frustration than necessity.  She shared a quick glance with Jack, but turned back to the Doctor when he growled, “You listen when I tell you to run, but not when I tell you to stay.”

Rose opened her mouth to argue, closing it when Jack cut her off by stating, “We’ll stay.”  Rose looked over at him.  His expression told her not to argue any further.  She didn’t like it and glared at the Doctor, but kept silent.

The Doctor made adjustments to their flight path with a few knobs.  The TARDIS landed softly, more softly than usual, with a sigh.  The Doctor turned from the console and crossed his arms over his chest.

“We’ll stay, Doc,” Jack said before any warnings or threats could be issued.  The Doctor raised his eyebrows.  “We said we would.”

“You said you would.  I want to hear it from Rose.”  The Doctor glowered at Rose.

Still sulky, Rose sighed.  “I’ll stay.”  She knew she was being unreasonable and childish, but that didn’t seem to help.

With a quick nod, the Doctor spun on his heel and bounded down the ramp to the doors.  Before exiting, he stopped.  Looking back over his shoulder, he smiled.  “Thank you.”  Without waiting for a reply from either Jack or Rose, he left the TARDIS.

Into the silence, Jack said, “Alone again.  Whatever will we do?”

Rose rolled her eyes.  “I’m gonna take a nap.”  Jack caught her wrist.  She looked down and sighed.  “Jack, I’m tired, not angry.”

“You’re sure?”

She wasn’t sure about anything but the fact she was suddenly exhausted, the stress and worry of the last several days finally taking their toll.  Now that she was safe, she felt sluggish and like her brain was moving at half-speed.  “Yes, Jack.”

He released her wrist, turning the chair to follow her as she headed for the hallway.  Just before the hall, he asked, “Do you want company?”

One hand on the wall, she looked back at him.  If she didn’t know better, didn’t know the TARDIS belonged to the Doctor, she could easily assume the TARDIS was his given the ease with which he sat in the jump seat, the closest thing to a Captain’s chair the TARDIS had.  His gaze was hooded, expression neutral.  She had no idea what he was thinking.

It seemed every time she thought she had Captain Jack figured out, he changed again.  She thought he was her knight in shining armor, a man to stand up to slavers, a man to defend her though not necessarily himself against those who might oppress her.  While he was those things, that wasn’t all he was, and she had to remember there was more to him than just one event.  If that had been the case, the Doctor would have condemned him for what he did with the Chula ambulance – the absconding with it, not the blowing it up and nearly sacrificing himself.

“Not right now,” she replied.  “You’re more than welcome to join me later.”  He nodded, which she took for acceptance, and she continued to her room.

The Doctor was gone for three days.  True to their word, no matter how reluctantly given, Rose and Jack stayed in the TARDIS.  She wished she could speak to the ship like the Doctor did, if only to reassure herself that the Doctor was fine.  She tried to bring her worries up to Jack, but he waved off her concerns, telling her that no one would dare do anything at the Shadow Proclamation.

When she realized she was tempted to smash the back of his head with a pair of pliers on the second day the Doctor was gone, she knew the tension was getting to her.  Collapsing in the hall in tears, she asked the TARDIS for a place to rest, a place to escape the men in her life.  She felt a gentle mental nudge and opened her eyes.  That was how she found the room she termed the Garden Room.  The TARDIS might not be able to talk to her, exactly, but she could talk to the TARDIS.

Jack apologized when she emerged several hours later – the TARDIS had refused to allow him in the room – and explained about neutral territory and how it applied at the Shadow Proclamation.  Then he ruined it by asking if she was still having her monthlies.  The TARDIS shocked him via the hand he had been resting on the wall as Rose stormed off.  He apologized for that as well.

They were sharing dinner on the third day when the Doctor appeared in the doorway of the galley.  Rose looked up, raising her eyebrows in silent question.  Jack turned and smiled.

“Doc, you’re back.”  He glanced once at Rose before turning back to the Doctor.  “I’m glad you’re back.  Your ship and Rose teamed up to outnumber me.”

The Doctor smirked and leaned against the doorframe.  “I’d think two on one was right up your alley, Cap’n.”

Jack flushed and admitted somewhat sheepishly, “I might have met my match in Rose and the TARDIS.”

The Doctor laughed even as Rose snorted.  “The TARDIS agrees, Cap’n,” the Doctor said, then added grudgingly, “but she still likes you.”

They fell into silence, which then stretched into tension.  Rose poked at her salad.  She didn’t have much of an appetite and hadn’t since New York.

“This is ridiculous,” Jack said finally, tossing down his napkin.  “Rose, if you could clean up the kitchen.  Doc, take us somewhere we can be for a long while.  Then the both of you get your asses into my room.”  When neither Rose nor the Doctor moved, Jack clapped his hands and barked, “Now!”

The Doctor pushed off from the doorframe, shaking his head and muttering under his breath, but heading down the corridor in the direction of the console room.  A moment later, they felt the additional vibration as the TARDIS entered the Vortex.  Jack turned to Rose, who then sighed and began clearing dishes.

“I have to find a deck of cards, Rosie,” Jack said with a wicked leer, then left the galley.

“I promise you that when we leave this damned planet, we’ll spend the entire day in my bedroom.  The three of us, even if all we do is play cards.”

She stopped, his plate in her hand a few inches from the tabletop, nearly dropping it when she remembered his words, a smile on her face.  That’ll be one way to reduce the tension in here.  She hurried through the rest of the cleaning, amused when the TARDIS helped her along by filling the sink – and rearranging the corridors so Jack’s room was directly across from the galley.

Unsure of what to expect, she was still surprised when Jack’s room was normal.  There weren’t any bizarre additions since the last time she’d seen it, the only real difference being the three decks of cards and various chips and other types of betting devices lying on the bed.

Jack emerged from the bathroom, already changed into a clean shirt and jeans, feet clad in slip-on shoes rather than boots.  He was toweling his hair dry, implying he’d quickly managed a shower.  She wondered how he’d done that so fast.

She smiled and some of the tension fled his shoulders . . . only to return when the Doctor entered the room.

The TARDIS contributed her part by closing the door behind the Doctor.  Before he could even turn to try the door, the Doctor glared up at the ceiling and snarled, “How long?”  He closed his eyes and sighed.  Shifting his attention to Jack, he said, “It seems, Captain, you made a promise to Rose that the TARDIS is insisting we fulfill.”

Rose snickered.  If she needed anything to prove to her that the TARDIS was female, this would go a significant way toward doing so.  The ship delighted in frustrating the Doctor, if for no other reason than she could, and seemed to have a fondness for Rose.  The Doctor had already admitted the ship liked Jack.

“Is it really so difficult, Doc?” Jack began, dropping the towel to the floor and stalking across the room like a panther with prey in his sights.  “Can’t you think of anything to do being locked up with us for at least a day?”

“At least?” the Doctor repeated darkly.

Rose climbed atop Jack’s bed and pulled one deck of cards from its pack.  One of Jackie’s boyfriends had been a card sharp and taught a too-curious eleven-year-old Rose how to deal professionally.  She might as well prep cards.

Jack stood within the Doctor’s personal space, but didn’t quite touch him.  Pitching his voice low, he challenged, “I thought you said mates.  That might imply we expect certain behaviors.”

Rose felt a visceral pull deep within her as she watched them.  She kept her hands busy with the cards.  The sexual dynamic between them was something mostly lost in the haze of her Verlona-colored memories, blurry and not crisp.  Certainly she’d forgotten how erotic she found it to see Jack challenge the Doctor, the beta wolf antagonizing the alpha.

The Doctor backed him against the wall with a few steps, but didn’t touch him.  “I did say mates,” the Doctor responded.

Rose bit her lip, some of the cards slipping from her hand as the alpha wolf figuratively held his teeth to the neck of the beta.  The memory of watching them several nights earlier made her shift on the bed.  Part of her considered herself a “bad girl” for what she’d done, for what she was now involved in, but then she would remember a conversation with Jack not long after he arrived on board about fifty-first century sexual mores:  if you enjoy it, it’s good.  There weren’t any limits on gender, number of partners, species or race.  Therefore, when that part of her piped up, she tried to ruthlessly quash it and enjoy the beauty of watching the Doctor and Jack together – and open her mind.

She needed something new to erase the horrors of Cielace – and the fleeting memory of Jack’s pseudo-rape in the corridor that triggered the trip to Cielace in the first place.  She needed a distraction.  Clearing her throat, she smiled when Jack startled.  The Doctor merely looked over at her as if well-aware she was aroused.  She wondered if he could smell her arousal.  He certainly had been able to when she was under the influence of Verlona.

She held up the cards.  “Game?”

“Poker, I think you said,” Jack murmured, slithering away from the wall.  “Strip poker, actually.”

“Oh no – ”  She hadn’t meant it that way and Jack knew it.

“That’s a fantastic idea,” the Doctor interrupted.

Rose and Jack both turned wide eyes on him.  He grinned, knowing exactly what he was doing to them.

Jack recovered first.  Climbing onto the bed, he made a gesture for the Doctor to do the same.  Noting Rose had already shuffled the cards, he asked, “What’s the game?”

She swallowed hard, unable to meet either brilliant blue gaze.  “Five card draw, nothing wild.”

Twenty minutes later, Rose threw down her cards in disgust.  “I lost again.”

Jack waggled his eyebrows.  “But what did you really lose?”  He gestured at her from head to toe.  “You’ve only got on your shirt.  We get an eyeful.”

She crossed her arms and glared, though it carried no heat.  He’d lost his shirt and shoes along the way, but nothing else.  The Doctor was still fully dressed, of course.  She glanced between them.  Jack’s smirk was too knowing.

“You rotten gits!”  The Doctor raised an eyebrow as Jack protested.  “You cheated!”

“Why would we do that?” the Doctor asked coolly, laying his cards face-down.

“Aw, Rosie, we don’t need to cheat,” Jack murmured.  “You lost fair and square.”  Then he laughed.  “Mostly.”

She leapt up to her knees and grabbed a pillow.  “You rotten . . . .”  She smacked Jack in the head with the pillow.

“Hey!”  He threw his arms up and batted down the pillow, mock-glaring at her.  “You’re in trouble now.”

“Oh, really?” she sneered, grinning.  Now that she knew they’d been conning her out of her clothes, it was easier to take losing the game.  After the first hand, the Doctor had taken over dealing some complicated game only he and Jack understood, which she realized now was probably the point.

She slid across the bed, away from Jack, who followed, stalking her on all-fours.  She’d forgotten about the Doctor until he snagged her by the waist, pulling her flush against his front in a kneeling position and pinning her arms against her sides.  Her shocked gasp was cut short by the Doctor ducking his head and capturing her mouth in a kiss.

Her head swam.  Arching upward, she kissed him back.  The days without him had been too many.  Jack knelt before her and eased her shirt upward and, between her two men, had her out of it in moments.  The Doctor’s jumper felt coarse against her back.  The denim of Jack’s jeans rubbed the sensitive skin of her stomach, his skin hot against hers.  She broke the kiss and dropped her head back against the Doctor’s shoulder.

“Is this the sort of expectation you had, Cap’n?” the Doctor teased.  Jack grinned.

There was a part of her mind telling her she should be rejecting this after what had happened, after the virtual rape under the effects of Verlona.  But, as she had told the Doctor, what had happened was something she had wanted and the Verlona merely sped things along.  She may not have wanted all the baggage that came along with being drugged, but if that’s what it took to get the Doctor to open his eyes to see both her and Jack, she was willing to accept it.  There might still be nightmares – there would be no recovery that quickly, especially after finding out about Praetor Q’lun and P’roc and L’sec and what they had been doing on Cielace – but the recovery would be beside her two men.  This was what she was craving to help her recover.

“I don’t think she’s with us,” the Doctor murmured.

“You might be right,” Jack answered.  “I can fix that.”

And, before Rose could protest, Jack dropped to the bed and twisted his body so his head was between her thighs.  There was no protest she was going to lodge at that point.  One hand on each inner thigh, he pushed them further apart and licked.

She shuddered, her wandering mind now completely with them.  The Doctor released her arms and she leaned forward slightly to brace one hand on Jack’s chest even as she reached back with her other to wrap it around the Doctor’s neck.  The Doctor pressed light kisses along her upper back and shoulders in direct contrast to everything Jack was doing.

Jack held her legs firmly apart, not allowing her to bracket his head at all.  She didn’t know if it was because he wanted to hear her moans and pleas or merely because he could, but it didn’t matter.  Her hand curled against his chest as he flicked the tip of his tongue over her clit, toying with her, teasing her.  When she whimpered, he changed to using the flat of his tongue in several long strokes over her clit.

“Jack,” she cried, voice shaking as much as she was.  The Doctor shifted his hands to her hips and pulled her backward against him, letting her feel his own denim-clad erection against her arse.  Jack dragged his tongue back from her clit to slide it inside her, twisting and thrusting.

She rather thought she should last longer, but dissolved instead, the tension of the last several days melting with her climax.  With a shaky moan, she fell forward atop Jack, trembling in orgasm.

The Doctor gently rolled her onto her back and covered her with a blanket.  She smiled but didn’t open her eyes until she heard a moan.

Cracking one eye as she turned her head, arousal burst through her again at seeing the Doctor leaning down to kiss Jack, knowing they were sharing her taste.

She wondered if they should talk first, before things progressed further.  What she’d originally intended was a talk over a game of cards.  Then Jack mentioned strip poker and the fewer clothes she wore, the less talking there was.  She smiled.  That wasn’t such a bad thing, was it, to have Jack and the Doctor, the playboy and the alien, staring at her?

“She’s thinking too much again,” Jack stage-whispered.

He and the Doctor were staring at her.  The Doctor had since lost his jacket, jumper and boots, leaving both he and Jack in only jeans.  Rose licked her lips, only slightly disappointed she hadn’t been paying attention when the Doctor stripped off.

“What happened to make her think when there are two half-naked blokes in bed with her?” the Doctor teased.

Rose blushed brightly.  Jack crawled across the bed, scattering cards and chips, then across her legs until he was on her other side.  Pulling her against him, he said to the Doctor, “We can talk about it afterward.  For now, I need to know what we had wasn’t just drug-induced.”

She glanced back over her shoulder, not surprised to see the serious expression on Jack’s face, then turned to the Doctor.  Opening her arms to him, she smiled.

“Stupid apes think the cure for everything is sex,” he muttered as he crossed the bed into Rose’s arms.

“Yet here you are,” Jack said, pulling the blanket down to Rose’s waist and pressing kisses to her shoulder.

“An’ what does that say ’bout me?” the Doctor replied.  He bent and captured Rose’s mouth in a kiss, sweeping through her mouth with his tongue.

She wrapped her arms around him, her shocked gasp dissolving into his mouth.  She’d forgotten about his lower body temperature, which wasn’t noticeable enough in their day-to-day activities, but in bed like this, it was obvious.  The hazy memory of his first entry into her, his cool cock into her warm and wet heat, made her moan.

Jack pulled the blanket away entirely.  When she felt his cock against her bare skin, she wasn’t surprised to find he’d stripped his jeans without breaking contact with her.

“Go ahead, Cap’n,” the Doctor said.  “More tension to work off between you two, I think.”

Rose smiled softly at the Doctor, then at Jack when she caught the edge of his grateful glance.  His expression when he looked at her, though, was a mixture of feral desire and devoted tenderness.

She rolled him atop her, noting his surprise.  “I’m not looking for fancy, Jack, I just want you.”

He swallowed, bending to kiss her.  Entwining their fingers, he entered her on the second thrust.  He caught her gasping moans in his mouth until he broke their kiss, whispering that he wanted to hear her.

“I wanted this in that hospital room on Cielace,” she admitted in a broken voice.  She’d needed something more than just his presence, despite the comfort he’d offered, but had known she couldn’t have it because of her monthlies.  After the scan and meeting Louise, she’d needed Jack and the Doctor, but could have only Jack.

“God, Rosie,” he groaned, thrusting and stilling.  Staring down into her face, he asked, “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I thought you two had been having sex since we parted,” the Doctor said, his tone one of discovery.  “You haven’t?”

“Not since the Verlona, Doc,” Jack murmured, then groaned and hissed as Rose clenched around him.

“Talk later, yeah?” she said.

Jack laughed, but the sound was pained.  “Yeah.”

“Good.”  She clenched around him again to encourage him to move, moaning and arching upward when he began thrusting in earnest.

He dragged the flat of his tongue down her neck and collarbone to one breast, encircling the nipple and tugging.  She cried out incoherently.  Panting, she shifted and brought her ankles to the small of his back, encouraging him to thrust deeper.

“Rose,” he breathed.  “Please.”

She felt a cool hand slide between them.  The Doctor’s long fingers found her clit easily, toying with it as Jack’s thrusts became increasingly erratic.

Then she shattered.  With a breathless scream, she clenched around Jack – his fingers, his waist, his cock – and came.  Distantly, she realized the Doctor pulled his fingers away and she heard a sound it took her a moment to identify:  the Doctor licking her taste from his fingers.

“Rose,” Jack said, voice strained.  She opened her eyes.  “Relax, please.”  His teeth were gritted, sweat beaded on his forehead and she realized she was clenched so tightly that he couldn’t move.

With an “oh!” she forced herself to relax.  Four thrusts later, Jack came inside her with a guttural groan.  His climax made her see stars a second time – well, were she to be technical, a third time – but since the initial edge was off, her climax was more like a finishing touch than main course.

Jack slid out of her and rolled onto the bed between her and the Doctor.  He lay there panting, eyes closed, for long enough that the Doctor teased, “Out of practice, Cap’n?”  Jack made a rude gesture and the Doctor laughed.

Rose stretched, drawing the Doctor’s eyes.  He skimmed her from head to toe in a dispassionate way rather than a lover’s way, disconcerting her.  She knew he played both the role of lover and of doctor, but the instantaneous switch was going to take some getting used to.

“Why haven’t you two been – ”

“ – shagging?” she interrupted.  He snorted but nodded.  Jack opened his eyes and propped himself up on his elbows.  She flushed, but answered, “I had my monthlies.”

The Doctor and Jack shared a look, then Jack said, “That’s the reason?”

“What do you mean ‘That’s the reason?’”  Her voice rose in agitation.  “Yeah, that’s the reason!”

She scrambled off the bed and stomped into the bathroom.  She knew a relationship with two men would be difficult, but didn’t know something so basic – no shagging once a month – would be an issue.  Sniffling, she ran cold water over her face.

“Rose, tell the TARDIS you’re fine,” the Doctor shouted through the door.  “She made it bloody freezin’ in here an’ hid our clothes.”

Through her tears, she laughed.  Unsure exactly of what to do, and feeling a little silly for it, she looked up at the ceiling and said, “Thanks.  You can warm it up, but, um, keep their clothes.  Serve ’em right to be naked.”  She felt a ripple through her mind just before the Doctor called his thanks.

Sighing, she exited the bathroom.  Jack sat on the bed, predictably unconcerned with his nudity, while the Doctor paced, unfortunately still wearing his jeans.  “So what did I do this time?” she asked, crossing her arms over her breasts.

Jack looked up and the Doctor stopped mid-step.  It was Jack who answered, despite the medical nature of the subject.  “There are ways to get around that, Rose.”

She blinked, feeling stupid.  By the fifty-first century, there had to be something better than what she knew in the twentieth, let alone whatever better things the Doctor knew.

“I . . . I didn’t know,” she whispered.

The Doctor gathered her in his arms, his cool skin still a shock.  He stroked her hair.  “Sorry.  I shoulda thought to offer something when I knew about your cycle starting.”

“You weren’t exactly in your right mind, Doc,” Jack said.

“True.”  The Doctor fell silent for a long moment, then said, “Your experience on the surface wasn’t the same as mine?”

Rose snorted, pulling back and wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.  “Only if you call being drugged, taunted, mocked and Jack beaten, the same as yours,” she said.

“Rose.”  Jack’s tone held a low warning.

“But you saw all that, Doctor, in Jack’s mind,” she reminded him.

He cupped her cheek with one hand.  “That doesn’t mean I experienced it.  When I looked, it was like watching a movie.”

She closed her eyes and leaned into his hand.  She’d already admitted he couldn’t make everything right, but there was still comfort to be taken and given.  Shifting in his arms, she took his hand and brought him back to the bed.

“No, Doc,” Jack said.  “Jeans off.  Only naked in bed.”

The Doctor rolled his eyes, but complied.  He was half-aroused, smirking at her when she brought her eyes to his face.

“Lie down, Rose,” Jack directed.  She raised an eyebrow at him, amused by his high-handedness, but complied.  “On the other side of her, Doc.”

The Doctor lay down, body flush the length of Rose’s, one arm around her waist.  Jack matched his pose on the other side.

“There, now we can talk,” Jack said.

She wiggled experimentally.  The feeling of the Doctor’s arm heavy across her ribs and Jack’s arm heavy across her hips was distracting.  More distracting to her were the two erections now pressing into either side of her after her experimental wiggle.  Her nipples hardened.

How am I supposed to concentrate on any sort of discussion in this condition? Rose muttered in her head.

“Pay attention, Rose,” the Doctor admonished teasingly.  She nearly growled at him.  “What happened when I first left?”

Rose tensed at the memory, arousal dissipating immediately.  She understood now why Jack had done this.  Jack tightened his arm in reassurance.

Jack explained about the exam room and Rose’s panic attack, which had led to the offer of meeting others suffering from P’roc’s experimental Verlona.  Jack turned to Rose and asked her if she wanted to pick up from there.

“You can summarize it better ’n me,” she declined, then kissed him.  Twisting and turning, she pressed her face against the Doctor’s chest.

Jack snorted.  “I think you just like listening to my voice.”

“You like listening to your voice, Cap’n,” the Doctor said dryly.

Jack laughed, then continued.  When he came to meeting Louise, Rose shuddered.  Jack moved his hand from her hip to her back, but continued dispassionately, a soldier giving a report, and told the Doctor of Louise and Douglas’s murders at L’sec’s hands.

“I’m so sorry,” the Doctor said.  He moved her back to her original position between the two men, dragging Jack’s arm around her and wrapping her tight from either side.  “I’d hope it would be a better experience for you.”

“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” Rose joked, sniffling.

“In that case, I should be able to leap buildings in a single bound,” the Doctor said.

Rose laughed, but Jack looked startled.  “That’s not a Time Lord thing, is it?”  Rose reached up to kiss Jack even as she laughed harder, the Doctor joining her.

“We need to give you a crash course on the twentieth century, Cap’n,” he said.  “Beyond World War II.”

“What about your experience, Doctor?” Rose asked when she sobered.  She was starting to feel a bit dizzy with the ricocheting of her emotions from arousal to stress to distress to amusement and back to arousal.  At the moment she was hovering between amusement and arousal and distress again, wanting to comfort both the Doctor and Jack, but also wanting their conversation to be over and done.

The Doctor was silent long enough that she thought he wasn’t going to answer.  When he spoke, she startled, as did Jack, who had been tracing idle circles on her stomach.

“It was quite pleasant compared to yours,” he said.  “But I’m not human and was of no use to them.  I was a curiosity, nothing more.”  He propped himself up on one arm to look down at both Jack and Rose.  “Humans preying on other humans is a terrible habit.  I’m sorry you were caught up.”

“There’s enough blame to go around, Doctor,” Jack replied softly.  “I could take the blame because I suggested the restaurant in New York at that specific time and place.”

Rose turned to him.  “How can you know about that restaurant in 1988 but not about Superman?”  The Doctor and Jack stared at her for the non-sequitur.  She grinned, blushing.

“Anyway,” the Doctor continued, ignoring Rose.  “I should have been in greater control afterward.”  He shifted uncomfortably, then laid a hand on Jack’s cheek.  “I am sorry for the corridor.”

Jack quirked an eyebrow upward.  “Why?  The sex was amazing.  The rest you can apologize for if you wish.”

Rose bit her lip, swinging to aroused again.

The Doctor looked from Jack to Rose then to Jack again as if his human companions had utterly confused him.  He stared at Jack.  “Domination excites you?”

Jack licked his lips and shifted.  Rose felt his cock throb against her hip and she had to stifle a moan.  “Domination by you excites me, by both of you.”

“Ah.”

Rose whimpered, her imagination run wild.  The Doctor dropped to the mattress so his mouth was next to her ear.  “I can smell your arousal, Rose,” he whispered.  “Do you want to watch?”  She didn’t trust her voice, so only nodded.

Jack leaned over Rose to kiss the Doctor, capturing his mouth in a heated kiss that fired Rose’s arousal even more.  The part of her that said she should find this wrong, that she should be disgusted tried to speak up, but then she heard Jack’s voice at the back of her mind telling it her it was her repressed twenty-first century notions of sex.  She hadn’t realized she’d slid her hand to the apex of her thighs until the Doctor pulled her hand away and Jack’s fingers replaced hers over her clit.

“We’re going to take care of you first, Rose,” the Doctor said, pressing a kiss to the hollow of her throat before trailing those cool lips over her collarbone.

“There’s still a lot to talk about,” she murmured, dissolving into a moan as Jack slid two fingers into her.

“We can talk later,” Jack said, kissing the underside of her jaw.

“M’kay.”

She knew she should protest more, but the Doctor moved between her knees and slid them apart.  His fingers trailed cool paths up her thighs, a sharp contrast to the two fingers Jack was still thrusting inside her.  She squirmed under the Doctor’s scrutiny, arching in silent plea for something more.

Jack bent his head to suckle her.  Angling his head so he could meet her eyes, he held her gaze, a wicked smile in his expression that only excited her more.  He worried her other nipple with his free hand, gently pinching and rolling it, kneading her breast with his hand as much as he was with his mouth.

She trembled.

Jack slipped one finger from her, which was then replaced by one of the Doctor’s.  The contrast, cool Time Lord and hot human, ripped a shocked moan from her.  Panting, she hissed each of their names.

“Ah, Rose,” the Doctor murmured.  He pulled his finger and Jack’s from her.  Before she could protest, she felt his hand at her hip to steady her and his cock at her entrance.

“Please,” she moaned.

She felt Jack smile and do that terrible trick with his tongue as the Doctor entered her.  Sensory overload stunned her for a moment, making her blind and deaf.  Slowly she became aware of Jack and the Doctor again.  They had stopped when she froze.

“You okay, Rose?” Jack asked.

She smiled, knowing the smile was a little goofy.  “Oh, yeah.”

Jack snickered, moving away from her and the Doctor.

She frowned.  “Where are you going?”

Jack looked at the Doctor, then at Rose.  “This can be for you two.  I really don’t mind watching.”  He stretched out on the bed, head propped in one hand, his other hand idly stroking his cock.

“I’m sure,” the Doctor replied.

When the Doctor turned his full attention back to Rose, she shuddered.  It had been a long time since she’d been the recipient of his undivided attention.  He slid his hands from her thighs to her hips, then around to her back, pulling her upward.  He shifted them until she sat in his lap, burying him more deeply inside her, but also allowing him to caress her more easily.

“Doctor,” she whispered, cradling his head against her shoulder.  He flexed inside her, using the motion to thrust, and suckled the skin of her neck just below her ear.  A shudder rippled through her.

“Talk to me, Rose,” he growled, voice low.

She wanted to laugh at the irony – he wouldn’t shut up sometimes – but couldn’t.  Glancing quickly at Jack, she moaned to see him still leisurely wanking as he watched them.  She bent to kiss the Doctor’s head, noting with surprise that he was sweating.

“I wanted you when you first took my hand and said, ‘Run’,” she murmured, dragging her fingernails over his scalp.  He bit her earlobe in return, making her shudder.  “I’ve loved you nearly as long.”

He pulled back, gripping her hips tightly.  “You shouldn’t love me, Rose.”

She smiled.  “I know.”

Jack laughed.  “We both know, but can’t help it.  Mates and all.”

“Stupid apes,” the Doctor said fondly.  He lifted Rose enough to thrust into her.  “Good thing I shouldn’t love you either.”

“Good thing,” Rose answered.  She clutched the Doctor’s shoulders to brace herself, shifting positions slightly so that her nipples would drag over his chest with each thrust.  “Doctor, please.”

He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her flush against him, then lay her back on the bed.  Wrapping her legs around his thighs, she used that as much to encourage him as to brace herself.  His pace increased until he was panting, breath hot against her ear.

“Rose,” he growled.  “Come.”

She dug her fingernails into his shoulders, holding on.  Closing her eyes and arching upward, she whimpered.  She wanted to come, to release the knot of tension.  Then she heard Jack groan – and she pictured what he might be seeing, and that was what it took to drive her over the edge.

Scoring her fingernails down his back, she clung tightly to the Doctor, trembling and moaning.  His release followed hers almost immediately.  He collapsed atop her for a moment, then rolled onto his back between her and Jack.

Jack slid over the Doctor, not giving the Doctor a chance to rest, tangling his legs between the Doctor’s and pinning his hands to the bed.  Rose sighed as Jack took the Doctor’s mouth in a hard kiss, one much more aggressive than either man had been with her except when they’d been under the influence.  The Doctor allowed Jack to take the initiative for a minute, then shifted one leg to lever Jack onto his back under the Doctor, pinning Jack to the bed.

“I thought you wanted to be dominated, Captain.”  The Doctor ducked his head low to nearly purr the words in Jack’s ear.

Jack tried to move, but the Doctor had him pinned, both by sheer weight and type of hold.  He smiled, pushing back out of sheer stubbornness.  “I do.”

“Do I have to restrain you?”  Rose didn’t miss the shudder that ran through Jack.  It had nothing to do with finding restraint exciting and everything to do with a bad experience in his past.  The Doctor forestalled any verbal response by saying, “No restraints.”  He readjusted his position until he was straddling Jack, leaving Jack’s legs free, their cocks aligned, the Doctor’s hard again.

“Doc – ” Jack began, only to be cut off by a hard kiss.

“Did I say you could speak?” the Doctor demanded when he released Jack’s mouth.  Rose moved up the bed until she was sitting with her back against the headboard so she could see them both more easily.  The motion caught the Doctor’s eye and he grinned.  He released Jack, backing away and kneeling on the bed.  “Roll over onto your hands and knees, Captain.”

Jack scrambled to comply, making Rose bite her bottom lip.  The Doctor’s voice was hard and uncompromising, though as soon as Jack couldn’t see him, he grinned at Rose.  It was all she could do not to laugh, despite being aroused by the power play, the alpha and beta wolf scenario again, though this time the beta wolf wasn’t challenging the alpha but voluntarily submitting.

“Assume the position.  Hands on either side of Rose.”  Rose met the Doctor’s eyes and raised her eyebrows.  He smirked in response.  She couldn’t say anything because Jack was there, crawling up to kneel between her legs and grab the headboard on either side of her head.

He kept his head down, but gave her a look up through his lashes before the Doctor shoved his head down, one hand against the back of his head.  Rose bit her lip.  Between Jack’s look, the Doctor’s control and the heat of Jack’s body, her arousal was waxing again.

“Keep your hands there, Captain,” the Doctor ordered, sliding his hands up Jack’s back to his shoulders, then up his arms until he lay flat against his back.  “And don’t let go.”  He brought his right hand from Jack’s head down to a tube Rose hadn’t seen before beside him on the bed, squeezing a bit of gel from it onto his fingers.  He sucked on the junction of Jack’s neck and shoulder at the same time he slid first one, then two, lubed fingers into him.

Rose shifted uncomfortably.  She wanted to touch herself, but was embarrassed.  She was beginning to wonder just how much of last time had been her and how much had been the Verlona.

“Having a problem, Rose?” the Doctor asked.

She looked up sharply, not even aware she’d been staring down the length of their bodies to where the Doctor was readying Jack.  Shaking her head, she said, “No, no problem.”  She was mortified by the higher pitch to her voice, but the Doctor thankfully made no comment about it.

Instead, he turned and said in a low voice in Jack’s ear, “I wanted to hear Rose, which means I want to hear you, too, Jack.”

“Doctor, I’m ready,” Jack moaned through gritted teeth.

Rather than argue, the Doctor took him at his word.  He pulled his fingers from Jack, using a rag Rose hadn’t seen before either to wipe them clean.  He held Jack’s shoulder with his other hand and aligned himself, entering with one sharp thrust, before gripping Jack’s hip tightly enough to bruise.

Jack gasped and moaned, making Rose shudder sympathetically.  She wanted to reach down and stroke herself in time to the Doctor’s thrusts, but wasn’t sure if it would be allowed.

The Doctor shifted his grip so both hands were on Jack’s hips, then bent forward to cover his back once again.  He pressed a kiss to scratches left earlier by Rose, then broadly licked the marks with the flat of his tongue.

“Doc,” Jack panted.  “I . . . fuck . . . I want . . .”

“What do you want, Jack?” the Doctor purred, twisting slightly with his next thrust.  Jack’s arms trembled ominously, his head dropping further.  The ends of his hair brushed her nipples with the motion and she blew out her breath sharply in reaction, trying not to distract him with a full moan.

“Bite me.”  He sounded almost embarrassed, which was odd under the circumstances, but he also sounded close to breaking.

The Doctor stopped.  “You’re sure?”  Rose could hear the scrape of Jack’s fingernails against the wood of the headboard where he gripped it more tightly.  He grunted in agreement, thrusting back against the Doctor and dropping his head even more, baring his neck in an act of utter submission.  Rose shivered.  “Very well.”

The Doctor snaked his left hand underneath Jack to grip his cock, making him moan the Doctor’s name.  The Doctor slid his right hand up to cup Jack’s head, tangling his fingers in Jack’s hair, pulling his head even further to the side, taking control.  Ruthlessly, he sank his teeth into the back of Jack’s neck as he began pounding into him again, simultaneously stroking his cock.

“Rose,” the Doctor began, “I know you’re aroused again.”  She blushed but met his gaze steadily.  “I want you to touch yourself, then let Jack taste you.”

It hadn’t crossed her mind what Jack was able to see until she reached down to slide a finger between her thighs – his view was everything from her navel to her knees.  She made a show of dragging two fingers upward through her slit, gathering moisture.  She missed his mouth at first, hitting his chin, but he ducked his head and caught her fingers, sucking them deep into his mouth.

Then the Doctor bit him again.  It was too much for Jack.  He tensed his arms, holding them utterly still while the rest of him shuddered in climax, spilling over the Doctor’s hand.  He murmured something around Rose’s fingers in a language Rose didn’t understand and the TARDIS didn’t translate, but which the Doctor understood because he replied in the same language, groaned, and followed Jack into orgasm.

Several moments later, the Doctor pulled out of Jack with a sigh, flopping onto his back.

“Can I let go now?” Jack asked.  The Doctor grinned despite his obvious exhaustion and nodded.

Rose squealed when Jack wiggled down, parted her thighs and feasted upon her.  Any protest died a quick death as he brought her to an almost immediate climax with that terrible, wonderfully wicked tongue.  She tangled her hands in his hair, tugging him upward so she could kiss him.  Though tasting herself on any man’s lips was something she wasn’t fond of, she might be convinced to become a fan of it if all her orgasms were like those Jack and the Doctor had given her so far.

Jack lay down, pulling Rose next to him between himself and the Doctor.  “Talk or sleep?”  A soft snore made both of them stare at the Doctor, then look at each other.  “Sleep, then.  We’ll ask about the Shadow Proclamation when he wakes up.”

Turning to face him, Rose cupped Jack’s cheeks, cradling his face and looking into his eyes.  “Jack, I . . . thank you.”

“For what?”

What could she tell him?  Thank you for being you?  Not only would he reject that, but it sounded stupid to boot.  She knew she’d thought about it too long when he raised his eyebrows and shifted.

“Thanks for looking after me on Cielace,” she answered at last.

“I think that was a mutual thing,” he protested, flushing darkly.

Fine.  She leaned forward and kissed him gently.  “Thank you.”

He smiled, a real smile, not any sort of Captain Jack clothing-optional grin.  “Welcome.  We jeopardy-friendly humans have to stick together.”

She snorted, amused, and flipped over within his arms, snugging her back to his front so that she was facing the Doctor.  “I love you,” she murmured, to both of them.  Jack murmured it back in her ear while the Doctor only grunted in his sleep.

Part VI:  Bad Wolf

When Rose awakened, she expected to find herself still in bed, naked, with Jack and the Doctor.  Instead, she found herself lying on the floor of a darkened room, fully clothed.  Stretching, she pushed herself up.  The only light she could see for the moment was the bright one shining directly on her.

“What happened?” she asked, hoping the Doctor or Jack would answer.  Why did the TARDIS let them out of Jack’s bedroom?  Why was she dressed?

She was startled when a young man crouched next to her.  “It’s all right,” he murmured.  “It’s the transmat.  Does your head in.”

She looked around, even more confused.  What was going on?  Where were the Doctor and Jack?  Where was she?