A.N.: In this story, I use a concept that hails from my other fic, Just A Number (but that fic isn't part of the Angel!Verse, and this story can still be understood without having read that one).

Warnings: One use of strong language, Jack Harkness being a perv

Series summary: The TARDIS doesn't always take the Doctor where he wants to go, but it always takes him where he needs to go; Time Lords hold a secret behind their backs, and they have a duty to follow.

Disclaimer: Don't own Doctor Who

Jack attacked the door mercilessly, desperate to find out for certain what that ominous thud had been; after all, he had heard the sound of enough bodies hitting the floor to be at least seventy per cent sure that Rose Tyler was no longer on her feet in that room.

"Come on!" he implored of the TARDIS, begging the ship to give him access to the infirmary. It seemed an age – but was, in reality, probably no more than a few seconds – before the old girl capitulated to his desperate raving and slid the metal door to the infirmary open.

Jack flung himself inside, transfixed by the still form of Rose on the floor next to the bed that the Doctor was lying on, unconscious but with a slightly less sickly pallor than before. Jack still had no idea what had been wrong with the Doctor, yet the sight of Rose trying to support the bulk of his weight as the two of them hobbled back into the control room had proved to be an almost instant hangover cure – not that suffering from a hangover could possibly be worse than the sight of the Doctor like that, pale and barely conscious.

Yet Jack was not that concerned over the Doctor's safety at that moment, for it appeared that whatever Rose had been doing while he had been pacing outside had done the trick, and the Time Lord was no longer in any immediate danger. Rose, on the other hand, was.

He knelt down by her side, pressing his first two fingers against the pulse point on the side of her throat. It was there, strong, but unnecessarily fast. Sighing exasperatedly, he looked up from the girl's serene face, to see that the TARDIS had expanded the infirmary, and added an extra bed. The ex-Time Agent scooped Rose up in his arms – thankful that she weighed considerably less than the Doctor had when he had been supporting the Time Lord to the infirmary a little while ago – and passed the extra table which, for some reason, had been set up next to the Doctor, so as to deposit her on the second bed.

Not knowing what else to do, Jack placed the back of his hand on Rose's forehead, noting that she was a little warm but not necessarily feverish. He had no medical training, and was ill-equipped to diagnose the girl. He looked upwards, ready to beg the TARDIS to conduct some kind of scan on her.

"What's wrong with Rose?" he asked out loud, desperately wanting the ship to hear and understand. He was answered with a beeping to his left; he turned in that direction to see a screen that he hadn't noticed before mounted on the wall. Words were appearing in swirly writing that he assumed to be Gallifreyan, before they were translated into English for the American to understand.

NAME: ROSE TYLER
AGE: 19 EARTH YEARS
SPECIES: HUMAN
SYMPTOMS: INCREASED HEART RATE, INCREASED BRAIN ACTIVITY, UNCONSCIOUSNESS
DIAGNOSIS: PERCEPTION OVERLOAD

Jack's brow furrowed as he read over the words that the TARDIS had offered him. He decided to gloss over the fact that, for some reason, the TARDIS had initially translated the words for 'Rose Tyler' in Gallifreyan into 'Bad Wolf' before correcting itself, and instead focused on the diagnosis – for how was he supposed to tend to her if he didn't understand what was wrong with her in the first place?

"'Perception overload'?" he asked, shaking his head slightly. "What does that even mean? How do you treat it?"

The words on the screen faded away, to be replaced with more information originally given in Gallifreyan and quickly translated.

TREATMENT: CONNECTION SEVERENCE – MUST BE COMPLETED BY THE DOCTOR

Jack sighed, looking over at the Doctor's still form in the bed over from Rose. "How long until he wakes up?" he asked the screen, waiting patiently for the reply to be formed.

NAME: THE DOCTOR
AGE: 6000 GALLIFREYAN YEARS
SPECIES: TIME LORD
DIAGNOSIS: RECOVERY
PERIOD OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS: TWO EARTH HOURS

Jack took a deep breath. Two hours wasn't that long; he could wait that out until the Doctor woke up and could sever the connection that was causing Rose's perception overload – whatever that in fact entailed. He did not ask the TARDIS if Rose would be able to wait that long before something terrible happened to her – finally understanding the meaning behind ignorance being bliss.

Jack wasn't sure how he got through those two hours. He couldn't remember how he had passed the time; whether he had played endless games of solitaire with a deck of cards provided by the TARDIS, or sung songs to himself that he remembered from his childhood, or spoken to his two companions even though they slept on and couldn't hear him.

All he truly remembered about those two hours was the moment that they had ended. By this time, he had been sitting between the two beds, his back to the wall and the screen. His attention was drawn by a loud gasp from his right; he turned to see the Doctor's eyes fly open, as the Time Lord sat up abruptly on the bed.

"Doc?" Jack asked, rushing from the chair to the Doctor's bedside, though the Time Lord was less concerned with either himself or the ex-Time Agent once he had seen that there was another bed in the infirmary, which was occupied with his pink and yellow girl. The Doctor rushed passed Jack, walking round the bed that Rose was lying on, before finally addressing the American on the other side of the bed.

"How long have I been out?" he asked, his voice desperate and urgent.

"Two hours," Jack supplied immediately, though he wasn't sure why that information was relevant; there had been no changes in Rose's condition since Jack had begun his vigil, yet the Doctor seemed frantic that so much time had passed.

The Time Lord leaned over the human, placing his hands on either side of her face and closing his eyes. Jack wondered if this was the connection severance that the TARDIS had prescribed, and he trusted that that is what had been done when the Doctor straightened up again, running a hand worriedly across his hair and keeping his concerned gaze on Rose's face, even though nothing seemed to have happened. Knowing that the Time Lord would be unreachable as he looked down at his companion, Jack followed his eyes to Rose's face.

Rose Tyler was the most incredible woman he had ever known. Who else would have thought to shoot his sonic blaster down when they were about to be turned into faceless gas mask zombies? He certainly hadn't. In light of everything that they had been through since their meeting back in 1941 – approximately six weeks ago – he almost regretted hitting on her the first time that they had met. After all, though neither of them said anything of the sort, he was sure that the Doctor was going to leave him to explode with his stolen ship, and the only reason that he was still alive was because Rose Tyler had convinced the Doctor to go back and rescue him.

Yet, at the same time, he couldn't really have helped hitting on her; she was hot. Then again, Jack thought that everyone was hot; even the Doctor was hot – to an extent – with his muscles and his accent and that awful weathered leather jacket that would most definitely look better on his bedroom floor…

But Rose; Rose was something different. Rose wasn't just hot – she was beautiful. The spark within her that had infatuated the Doctor so shone through so brightly that Jack almost couldn't believe he hadn't seen it from the moment that he had first laid eyes on her – although, admittedly, the first time he had laid eyes on her, he had been a little preoccupied with ogling her bottom as she hung precariously from a barrage balloon.

Rose wasn't merely the kind of person that Jack could hit on and then spend the night with, only to discard in the morning with a quick goodbye and the knowledge that they were never going to see each other again; Rose was the kind of person that he could, frighteningly easily, fall completely head over heels for.

Yet he didn't, and he didn't believe that he ever would; for, if he knew his companion – and, after six weeks travelling with him, then he thought that he at least had a bit of an idea – then it was abundantly clear that the Doctor had got there first.

Jack had observed the protectiveness that the Doctor extended over Rose even in 1941; the Time Lord's desire to keep her from harm, fuelling the exasperation he felt at her tendency to wander off, was obvious from the start. Jack doubted that the Doctor would have trusted him had he met him while travelling alone, but his distrust of the ex-Time Agent was, without a doubt, exacerbated by the fact that Jack's actions could put Rose's safety in jeopardy.

Indeed, most of the danger that the Doctor had placed himself in since Jack had been taken aboard the TARDIS was in aid of preventing that same danger from having any chance of harming Rose. He certainly didn't care as much if anything happened to Jack.

The ex-Time Agent had intended to wait for the Doctor to be convinced that Rose was okay and finally look up from her before he spoke, but it seemed to take an age and he was far too impatient to not have the information as soon as possible.

"Doc," he began cautiously; having seen what it was like to be on the receiving end of the Doctor's wrath – and having had experienced it first hand – he was thoroughly unwilling to inspire it against him once more.

For a moment, the Doctor did not acknowledge that he had been addressed; then, slowly, he tore his gaze from Rose's serene, sleeping face, and turned to the American standing on the other side of the bed. He wore his usual emotionless and steely expression, impossible to read and incredibly infuriating.

Taking his silence as permission to continue, Jack finished his question: "What happened?"

The Doctor took a deep breath then sighed. He seemed to be wrestling with himself over something, presumably whether or not to explain to Jack exactly what had happened to him during those two hours when he had been held captive by the wharl, and why Rose's solo mission to patch him up had her collapsing from perception overload.

Jack was rather angry at that; while he had only met the Doctor through trying to con him and woo the person he was in love with and basically fuck up an entire town in wartime London (though that had been more accidental than intentional), the ex-Time Agent felt that he had done more than enough to prove himself worthy of the Doctor's trust since he had been allowed onto the TARDIS. Why, then, was the Time Lord so reluctant to tell him what had happened over the past few hours?

"Okay," the Doctor finally nodded, "I'll explain." Stepping back from Rose's bedside, the Doctor made to leave the infirmary, gesturing with a slight inclination of his head for the American to follow him.

The door slid open to let them pass, then slid closed again once they were in the corridor outside. The Doctor crossed his arms over his chest and rocked slightly on the balls of his feet, somehow staring Jack down despite being virtually the same height as him. He seemed to be contemplating how to word his explanation.

"How much do you know about Time Lords?" the Doctor asked, lifting his chin and jutting out his jaw as he furrowed his brow in a questioning expression.

"Uh…" Jack chuckled, "they have two hearts?" He was smiling, but he wasn't really sure exactly what the Doctor was trying to ascertain. When the Doctor said nothing in response, he decided to continue; he cleared his throat and adapted a more serious countenance. "They are humanoid and hail from the planet Gallifrey, have the power to regenerate when mortally wounded-"

"And what about time travel?" the Doctor interrupted. "Why do Time Lords travel through time?"

Jack shrugged slightly. "Because they can?"

The Doctor smiled, but it somehow didn't reach his eyes. He dropped his chin so that his gaze was level with Jack's.

"Time Lords travel through time to fix things. Strictly speaking, having adventures is a side-effect. We are in charge of the timelines, and have divine instruction to prevent any harm from happening to them. We don't do it to control time; we do it to keep it on track – to make sure it doesn't get so damaged that all reality crumbles into dust."

Jack nodded along with what the Doctor was saying, unsure of why he was telling him this; what did this have to do with what had happened with the wharl, or why Rose was currently lying unconscious on a bed in the infirmary?

"There's something about Time Lords," the Doctor continued, lowering his arms to his sides, "that humans can't see. Looking at them would be like looking at the sun, if you perceive them for too long."

The pieces of the puzzle were beginning to slot into place in Jack's head. "Rose perceived them for too long?" he asked, before the Doctor could elaborate on his last point. The Time Lord nodded. "What are they? Why did Rose have to see it?"

"Because that's what was wrong with me," the Doctor explained, his voice growing softer and quieter. "One of my wings was injured."

Jack's jaw dropped, his eyes widening. "One of your wings?" he gaped, looking at the spaces either side of the Doctor, not believing that there could be anything there other than the emptiness that he could currently perceive. "You have wings?"

The Doctor nodded once, and Jack laughed. "Wow," he breathed, still grinning; he had been a little thrown by the Doctor's mention of 'divine instruction', but he found it somehow more plausible with this extra piece of information.

Yet his smile faded when he saw the serious expression on the Doctor's face. Jack shifted slightly, somehow unable to quite meet the Time Lord's intense gaze. "Is she going to be alright?" he gestured to the door of the infirmary with a flick of his head.

The Doctor's expression didn't change, but he offered a stiff nod. "She will now," he explained, a touch of relief hinted in his voice; "but she's lucky I wasn't out for much longer. Because the other end of the bond was connected to me, I was the only one who could break it, and if it hadn't have been done in time…" the Doctor trailed off, but the silence that hung between them in the moments that followed explained all too well what the consequences of prolonged perception to the wings would have done to Rose.

When the oppressive quiet became too much – broken only by the occasional clang or whir from the TARDIS as it hung suspended in outer space – Jack decided to take the Doctor's thoughts off of his pink and yellow girl; at least, as much as the ex-Time Agent thought was possible.

"Could I…?" he asked vaguely, lifting his hand to indicate the spaces next to the Doctor which, to him, appeared completely empty; he'd always been a more seeing-is-believing kind of a person, and that someone as grumpy and sassy as the Doctor could have had angelic qualities was something that he was definitely going to need to see to believe.

The Doctor seemed to understand his meaning, but he said nothing for a moment, the only indication that he had heard Jack at all being the slight furrowing of his brow and the almost audible turning of the cogs in his head.

Jack was almost about to give up and turn away, figuring that the answer would be a resolute 'no', when the Doctor suddenly spoke.

"Okay," he said, with a slight nod.

Jack felt his expression drop, stunned into shock. Although he had been hoping to see the Time Lord's wings, he had firmly believed that he would be denied; after all, with two years' worth of memories gone, during which time he could have done anything, Jack didn't think that he had any reason for the Doctor to trust him with something so obviously personal. He chuckled slightly as the Doctor raised his hands, reaching out to take Jack's head as he had done with Rose's in the infirmary.

Jack stepped forward so that the Time Lord could reach, instinctively closing his eyes when he was in the alien's grip. Inside his head, he saw a door opening, and he walked through it. In the external world, he was aware of the hands on his head being removed, and opened his eyes again.

He was amazed.

Two massive black wings, tipped with red, stretched out on either side of the Doctor – they were too big to fit in the corridor properly, and were pressed up against the walls. Their tips reached around Jack, so that he could have reached his hands out to the sides and touched them as they lay almost flat against the walls of the corridor. He noticed that the left one was broken slightly, and crude but effective stitching had been administered to the injury. A few specks of blood were littered around the stitches, but for the most part, Rose's handiwork seemed to be holding up.

The Doctor seemed even more powerful now, even more larger than life, though Jack knew that he was no more impressive than he usually was; he had tried, over the past few weeks, to remind himself that nothing about life with the Doctor would ever be surprising and that everything should be taken in its stride, yet he kept finding himself amazed at the next wonder they stumbled across – and this was certainly a wonder.

The Doctor reached up his hands again, to break the connection, and Jack almost protested; the wings were so fascinating, he wanted to study them for as long as he could before he collapsed just as Rose had.

He was about to tell the Doctor this, when he looked back up at his face, and saw how pale the Time Lord had become during the couple of minutes since he had revealed the wings to the ex-Time Agent. Surely, Jack realised, being kidnapped and held hostage – while injured – for two hours, then sustaining a mental connection with two humans, one after the other, must have been incredibly draining. The Doctor was always careful to show no signs of weakness, yet they were there nonetheless; he couldn't keep this connection up for long without collapsing himself.

Jack nodded slightly, knowing that he couldn't be as selfish as to ask the Doctor to allow him to bask in the wonder of the wings for any longer. Closing his eyes, he let the Doctor break the connection between the two of them. When he opened his eyes again, there were no wings on either side of the Doctor, and the spaces they had occupied were empty once more.

They said nothing as they silently agreed to go back inside. The door to the infirmary slid open as the Doctor turned towards it, allowing them passage through. Rose was lying exactly as they had left her, still and serene, as her restful state mended the damage done to her mind.

Two stools had appeared during their absence – one on the right-hand side of the bed, the other on the left. The Doctor walked around the bed to sit at Rose's right, while Jack took the seat on Rose's left.

In the quiet that followed, the Doctor asked if he could explain to Rose what had happened in private once she woke – for she would certainly be asking about it. Jack agreed that he could, knowing how important it was for the Time Lord to have a moment with her after she had saved his life.

And then, in silence, they waited.

A.N.2: The next story in the Angel!Verse has already been written, but I'm not sure when it will be published. It is a re-write of the ending of Parting of the Ways; but with a crucial difference.

UPDATE 27/06/14: The next part of the Angel!Verse, Bad Wolf Howling, is up now.