Notes: Takes place shortly before Waters of Mars. Part of a series, and honestly, at this point? It probably can't stand alone. But if you insist, all you really need to know is that the Doctor has been popping in and out of Torchwood since just after Voyage of the Damned, everyone in Torchwood is alive, and the rest of Doctor Who went more or less according to canon.

This is more or less an outsider POV, and therefore the angst is rather more removed than is typical for this series. Never fear, however; I have much longer, chaptered End of Time fix-it on the way which is just dripping in angst. It's not even close to done though, and I'd like for it to be at least halfway finished before I start posting it, so it may be a while.

Warnings: None? I'm pretty sure none, but be sure to let me know if I missed something.

Disclaimer: according to the Wiki, it has been implied in an audio drama that Gallifrey may be (have been) in the Milky Way. That said, it was only implied, and it was important for an exchange in this story that it be elsewhere.

As always, enjoy, and tell me what you think!

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Rhys shifted uncomfortably, eying the object which sat on the desk beside him. It looked like a gun. Guns, he was certain, should not be left lying about like old socks, any more than he should be standing around in Torchwood headquarters waiting for Gwen to retrieve her keys. He glared accusingly at the offending object, shivering slightly. The place sure was drafty.

. . . except that wasn't a draft, he realized with growing horror as a wheezing roar filled the room and something large and blue began to materialize in front of him.

"Gwen!" he shouted desperately, snatching up the gun and silently thanking Torchwood for its lax safety policies. "Gwen!"

It was no use. She either couldn't hear him, or whatever it was that was coming into existence had already trapped her somewhere. His shaking fingers tightened at the thought as the object solidified into a tall blue box.

"I'm warning you!" he called, as threateningly as he could manage, which he was afraid wasn't very. "I'm armed!"

The door creaked open, and he took an involuntary step back.

"Yeah, well, I'm not, so I'd appreciate it if you didn't shoot me." The speaker was a tall, thin man in a rumpled pinstriped suit. He held up his hands as if in surrender.

"Don't move!" said Rhys, still slightly panicked. The man looked human, but from what Gwen had told him, that didn't necessarily mean anything. Also, he had just appeared out of nowhere in a big blue box. It was more than a little suspicious. His exasperated expression wasn't all that reassuring, either. "I'll use this! I will!"

The man sighed, actually rolling his eyes, as if being held at gunpoint was a mere inconvenience.

"Really?" the man inquired irritably, apparently of the Universe at large. "Really?" He sighed again, lowering his hands a stepping forward, completely ignoring Rhys' flinch. "Look, A, I'm not going to hurt you. Two, I'm allowed to be here. And . . . C or three or . . . oh, bugger all. The point is, that's a hairdryer."

Rhys faltered, glancing between the device in his hand and the man in front of him.

"You're lying," he asserted, though he wasn't too sure of that.

"I'm really not. But, you know what? Never mind. I was just dropping in. Obviously, it was a bad idea." He turned on his heel and moved back towards his box, still talking, though it didn't seem like it was to Rhys. "That's it; I'm done. Let it never be said that I can't take a hint."

"Doctor?"

Of course now Gwen chose to reappear, keys in hand.

"Hello, Gwen," said the man with a forced smile. "Don't mind me; I was just leaving."

"What – I –" Rhys sputtered, while Gwen surged forward and seized the man's arm.

"Oh no you don't!" she said fiercely, pulling him away from his box. Rhys sputtered some more "Are you alright?" Gwen questioned as she backed off, examining him worriedly. "Jack told us about Donna . . ."

The man glanced away, swallowing hard, and the concern in Gwen's expression deepened.

Rhys cleared his throat pointedly.

"Oh!" said Gwen, stepping back completely. "I'm sorry. Doctor, this is Rhys, my husband. Rhys, this is the Doctor."

"The Doctor?" Rhys repeated, doing a double-take. "Jack's Doctor?"

"Yeah, that's me," the Doctor agreed, with another thin imitation of a smile. He was not at all what Rhys had imagined. Admittedly, Gwen hadn't told him much, but from her brief descriptions of the Doctor's childish enthusiasm and battered emotional state, not to mention Jack's fierce protectiveness, Rhys had pictured someone young, small, and soft around the edges. The Doctor was none of those things. Everything about him was sharp and hard, from his tense posture to his spiked hair. Even his eyes, large and dark though they were, put Rhys more in mind of a starless sky than the puppy Gwen had compared him to.

"Were you here to see Jack?" Gwen asked. "I can call him."

"I have a phone," said the Doctor, an edge of exasperation in his voice. "Really, it's fine; I'll just come back later."

"And I'm the Queen," Gwen shot back. "Look, why don't you just come to dinner with me and Rhys?"

"What?"

"Oh, come off it, Rhys," said Gwen, shoving him. "You're always on about wanting to know more about my work."

"That's not what I –" Rhys began, at the same time as the Doctor said,

"I really couldn't –"

They stopped, eyeing each other. Gwen rolled her eyes.

"Would you both just come on already? I'm starving."

They went.

Rhys had read somewhere that humans actually had more than five senses. That they had ones for things like knowing when another person was in the room, or knowing how their own body was positioned even in pitch blackness. Subtle, vital things beyond the basics of sight and sound and smell. Maybe it was one of those senses that made the Doctor's presence beside Rhys feel like standing next to a deep, deadly pit, something which swallowed heat and light and people and broke them to pieces at the bottom.

Rhys shifted uncomfortably in his seat and tried to focus on the menu in front of him.

It didn't work.

Rhys had had awkward dinners before, mostly involving the family of secondary school girlfriends. This was . . . not like that. If anything, it was closer to some of the dinners with Gwen from back before he knew about Torchwood, tension hanging heavy in the air, a row lurking just beneath their forced conversation. But it wasn't like that, either. Whatever was brewing beneath the skin of the man on his left, it wasn't anything as safe and simple as a shouting match.

At least Gwen seemed to notice it, as well. She frowned at the Doctor worriedly, and after they placed their orders she cleared her throat.

"Is everything alright, Doctor? No imminent invasions or anything?"

The Doctor raised his eyebrows.

"Not that I'm aware of, no. Why do you ask?"

"Nothing, it's just – usually when we're not in a crisis you seem more – human."

"Oh, I'm just a bit out of practice, that's all. Haven't been spending much time around you lot lately. Blimey, are you alright?"

This last was to Rhys, who had choked on his beer. In all his worry, he had completely forgotten about the Doctor's odd arrival and all that it implied.

"You're not –" He began, sputtering. Gwen kicked him under the table, and he lowered his voice to a furtive whisper. "He's not human?"

"Not remotely," said the Doctor. He shot Gwen a quizzical look. "Would've thought that would have come up, in all this discussion about 'Jack's Doctor.'"

"It was a mention, not a discussion," said Gwen, rolling her eyes. "We don't spend all the time you're gone talking about you, you know."

"You don't?" asked the Doctor with mock surprise. "And here I thought you just pined away without me."

"Not even Jack's that bad."

"Hang on," said Rhys, whose brain had stalled several moments back. "You're an alien, but you help them catch other aliens?"

"Sometimes," answered the Doctor lightly. "Sometimes I help the aliens. I don't work for them."

Rhys nodded. The Doctor was watching him, eyes glittering and eyebrow quirked in what, for all its superficial similarities, was not a human expression. Rhys dropped his gaze and took a gulp of his beer. He didn't think he could picture this otherworldly creature working for anyone, not even Torchwood.

The food arrived, and they fell into an awkward silence. It was broken by the Doctor requesting marmalade from their server, and then by Gwen's noise of disgust when he began spreading it on his greens with his fingers.

"What?" the Doctor questioned, stilling halfway through the motion. "Oh, right, sorry, being rude," he answered himself without giving Gwen a chance to respond, and licked the sticky condiment off his fingers before picking up a knife and continuing the process.

"What planet did you say you were from?"

Rhys meant the question flippantly, but evidently it hadn't been the best idea. Across from him, Gwen froze, eyes wide, and the Doctor's eyes snapped to him.

". . . you wouldn't have heard of it," said the Doctor at last, after a long pause during which the silence hung in the air like a bomb about to drop.

"I might have done," said Rhys, a tad defensively.

"No, you really wouldn't have," the Doctor clarified, and some of the tension seemed to retreat. "It's beyond what humans are capable of observing in this time period."

"That speed of light stuff, yeah?" said Rhys with an understanding nod. "Scientists can only see however many million light-years away because any further and it's before the Big Bang. What?" he added at Gwen's startled look. "I do occasionally watch things besides the football."

"It's more like billions of light-years, but yes, that's more or less it."

"So, uh. Nice place, is it? Your planet?"

The Doctor was staring at him, fork frozen above his plate, face pale and stricken.

". . . beautiful, yeah," he said, and he sounded oddly choked.

Thankfully, Rhys was saved from having to take another step across the minefield he had apparently stumbled into by Gwen's phone ringing.

"It's Jack," she said with more relief than reluctance as she put the phone to her ear. "Jack, what – yeah, we're right around the corner, why? . . . In pursuit of what?"

She was already halfway out of her chair, but the Doctor was five steps ahead of her, pulling on his coat as he darted for the door. Rhys scrambled to follow them, and emerged onto the street just in time to see a human-shaped figure pelt into view. Closely behind it followed another person, the flapping greatcoat marking it as Captain Jack even before his striking features came into view, and standing in their path, face cast in harsh whites an pitch blacks by the fluorescent light pouring off the storefronts, was the Doctor.

"Rhys!" Gwen caught his arm and tugged him back towards the restaurant. "Stay back; they'll handle it."

Jack was slowing down, shock flashing across his face. The other figure – a young man in a rugby shirt – was not, hurtling on a crash-course towards the Doctor.

In one smooth movement, the Doctor caught the back of his collar, brought a hand up to his temple, and yanked him close.

"Go. Home."

The Doctor's voice rumbled across the empty street like an executioner's footfalls. Rhys shivered, and Gwen's hand tightened on his arm. The young man went white, then green, and something red and squirming – gas, or liquid, or maybe both – squeezed out of his ear and dissipated.

The Doctor let go. Dr. Harper jogged up from a side street to lead the young man away, spouting automatic lies as his gaze kept darting back to the Doctor.

Jack stepped forward.

"Doctor."

Rhys had never heard that tone from him before and never wanted to again. He sounded . . . raw. Vulnerable.

"Captain."

"C'mon." That was Gwen, at his elbow, gesturing back towards the restaurant and their dinner, eyes still on the Doctor. She looked sad and tender and loving, and if she had been looking at anyone else Rhys probably would have been jealous. But there was something cold and remote about the Doctor, untouchable. She couldn't reach him if she tried.

As they returned to the light and the warmth of their date night, he glanced over his shoulder.

Jack was pulling the Doctor into an embrace.