A.D. 5072

"The defendant will stand," intoned the judge. It had been a very short trial; that had been helped along by the defendant's humble guilty plea.

"Agent 2034, current alias Jack Harkness," the judge continued once the accused had complied in standing, ignoring his wince at the court's continued refusal to give back to him his true name, "you have been charged with one count of Timeline Displacement. One count of Aggression with Intent to Kill against a fellow agent. One count of Unauthorized Use of Agency Property. One count of Attempted Genocide."

Jack, from his position in front of the judge's seat, bowed his head. He had royally screwed up, that much he was willing to admit to himself.

"Your plea to all of these counts was that of guilty. Your acceptance of responsibility and apparent remorse at your acts has been taken into consideration and the board has handed down your punishment. Effective now you may consider yourself demoted in rank to private. Furthermore, you have been sentenced to fifteen years remedial service in the Alpha Sector. Reassignment to your new sector will occur at 0800 hours tomorrow. Do you understand?"

"Yes, your honor."

"Then this session is dismissed. Next!"

Jack sighed as he was led out of the courtroom and to the cell he would be spending the night in once again. He knew he was lucky that they hadn't just led him out back and shot him—or worse, taken the rest of his memories—but that didn't mean he had to like where he was going. He knew the score. It would be a penal colony or worse, and to add insult to injury he was going to be stuck under the Time Agency's thumb for a long, long time.

Captain Jack Harkness—no, make that Private Jack Harkness—figured he was in for a long stretch of very bad days.

xxxxxxxx

Private Reese Lonson, on the other hand, was living a stretch of mostly mediocre days. The modifier "mostly" was, of course, due solely to the existence of his superior officer.

"Beats!"

His superior officer who refused to get his name right.

"Beats! Get up here, you worthless ape!"

"I'm comin'!" he snapped at the hologram emerging from his wristcomm, and continued to grumble under his breath after he cut the connection as he hopped onto the nearest junk lift and held on tight, balancing on one foot as it started to rise. "Damn Time Lords and their damn superiority complexes—one of these days I'll show him who's an ape…"

Five minutes later, Beats stepped off of the still-ascending junk lift and into the heart of their operation, the Doctor's workshop.

The Doctor, to Beats' annoyance, was too absorbed in something on one of his many vidscreens to acknowledge him immediately. That meant that he had to deal with—

"HELLO BEATS."

-Epsilon. "Eps. Why don't you tell your pops that if he's gonna call me all the way up here he oughta at least gimme the time of day when I get here."

The Doctor brought his fist down on his input board, effectively cutting off whatever he had been looking at as he stalked around the central control panel.

"I am not his pops, his dad, or his father. Say it again and I'm throwing you off the rig," he snapped. His once-gray jumpsuit was smudged and stained to an unpleasant brown color that clashed with his pale complexion and quarter-inch of black hair; fortunately, his fashion errors went unnoticed as Beats' jumpsuit was in precisely the same shape.

"I didn't say nothin'. Maybe you should get those giant ears o' yours checked, yeah?"

"Yeah, I get it. You don't wanna take this field trip to civilization I'm about to offer you. Duly noted—"

"Woah! Woah, Doc. Come on. Who brought you the old-Earth bicycle pump yesterday, huh? That was me. That shit is rare. You gushed over it. I'm good for a trip to the real world, you know I'm just kiddin' around with ya."

The Doctor scowled, but they both knew he was going to give in. "Right. We're finally gettin' a replacement for what's-his-name. You're gonna pick him up at headquarters in the mornin' and bring him straight here. Straight here, understand?"

Beats grimaced. It was depressing, the way the Doctor acted like he had forgotten the agents who worked with them before. Beats had been around long enough for four partners to come and go; he had five years of experience working with the Doctor, but he had no doubt that he wouldn't last a day in the alien's memory once he was gone. The first agent he had worked with here in the junkyard, after all, had been there for ten years before Beats showed up and the Doctor hadn't given him any regard after he was reassigned.

But a trip to the outside was a trip to the outside, and Beats wasn't inclined to turn it down.

"You got it, boss. Should I bring back souvenirs? Something for Kid Tentacles over here?"

"I AM NOT A CHI-ILD," Epsilon protested haughtily. "I WOULD LIKE A NEW COOL-ING PAD."

"I don't care what you do as long as it's done with before you pick up the new meat," the Doctor said dismissively. "Now get back to work."

"I'm goin', I'm goin'. Sheesh."

Epsilon remained perched on his rail—it was just a series of pipes welded together by the Doctor years previously to give him access to all of the workshop, but it served its purpose—until Beats started his descent back to the ground level. Once the rowdy Time Agent had disappeared below them he shimmied along the rail to the edge of the Doctor's input board, where he hopefully extended a single gray tentacle.

The Doctor grudgingly held out his arm, and Epsilon happily transferred himself from the rail to the Doctor's upper arm.

"WE WILL HAVE A NEW HU-MAN?" he asked, voice rising into a hopeful tone at the end.

"Yeah, another ape. 'S boring if you ask me."

"IT WILL HAVE A COOL-ING PAD?"

"Before long, I expect."

"I LIKE HU-MANS WITH COOL-ING PADS."

"I know," the Doctor said dryly. "You love bein' spoiled."

He indulged Epsilon with a little rub behind his head mass, then held out his arm so the smaller alien could go back to his rail.

"Now it's back to work. Finish your coding and I'll let you go ground level to meet your new human tomorrow," he instructed, then turned back to his display.

It was good timing, he thought. His time itch had been especially fierce lately, so it stood to reason that a person whose personal timeline could scratch it was coming his way.

He might not be able to travel anymore, but time and space had a way of bending to bring its problems to him.

xxxxxx

Whatever Jack had been expecting his escort to be like, it certainly wasn't anything like the man grinning like an idiot in front of his cell. Tall, bald, and covered in grime, he looked more like a ship mechanic than a time agent. He even had white lines around his eyes, the only clue to his actual skin color that could no doubt be attributed to the equally grimy goggles that were currently resting around his neck.

"Howdy," the man said through his grin, ignoring the looks of obvious distaste Jack's guards were giving him. "I'm your new partner."

Jack let his eyes drift to the man's wrist. He was wearing a standard-issue wristcomm.

"Hope you're ready, buddy, 'cause we're late for an appointment in hell and the Doctor's gonna be pissed."

The guards opened the door to his cell. Jack stepped forward. Beats gripped his arm and tapped his wristcomm—and they were off.