Thank you for all the reviews, and for adding this story to your alerts or your favourites. I'll do my best to let the following chapters live up to your hopes and expectations. Enjoy the second chapter :-).

When Jack stepped into his office early in the morning, the Hub looked empty and abandoned. Of course, Suzie hadn't spent the night on the sofa after working on her latest project until he forced her to stop. Even Toshiko had left early. Unable to stand the oppressive silence after the others had disappeared, she'd given up at six and gone home. He glanced around once more before dropping heavily into his chair. Who was he kidding? The Hub was always this empty at five thirty in the morning, except when they were pulling an all-nighter. On other days the team didn't come in before ten, because for some reason aliens liked to invade in the evening or at night. The only thing wrong in the Hub at the moment was the insane nervousness coursing through his veins, which had finally made him abandon all attempts to fall asleep after three hours of staring at the dark ceiling.

His mood went even further down when he gave up on the paperwork only to discover that the kitchenette's small fridge and cupboards were completely empty. He was about to call Suzie and beg her to bring something in with her, when he remembered that his second was angry at him and would be leaving for London, on his orders. Getting out of the Hub to buy some breakfast himself was out of the question. This was the day… No don't go there. The feeling to run and hide was growing stronger by the minute, but he was stuck in the Hub until sunrise the next morning. As far as he could remember - and his memories weren't that clear after more than a century - they had arrived around nine o'clock and left Cardiff after less than twenty-four hours. However, he had no idea when Mickey the Idiot's train had pulled in and he couldn't afford to meet him before they had left again.

But reminiscing and worrying won't keep my stomach from grumbling.

The only thing he could do was to call Tosh before she came in and ask her to bring some food with her. She'd been praising some café in the bay for their heavenly croissants for weeks and he was quite certain she wouldn't mind bringing him some. However, Tosh wouldn't come in before ten. Dejectedly he turned back to his office. If he was awake he could just as well start on that report...

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Somehow the sound of his cup smashing to pieces had a calming effect. The paperwork had long been abandoned and was lying in a corner of the office. He had thrown it there after rereading the few lines he had written and realising that he had mixed up the actions of the Ryepsrokitygh and Owen. If anyone had wanted to consult his report later on, they would have found that upon arrival at the scene Owen had tried to jump Suzie, had almost bitten her arm off and had then led them on a chase around the bay area, but was stopped by Toshiko stunning him.

Since he had been forced to find something else to keep him busy he had tried to clean out his office, but he'd given up on that as well when he caught himself looking at his computer screen for the seventh time to check if nothing suspect had happened on Roald Dahl Plass. To distract himself he had then decided to move his cleaning to the Archives, but after half an hour of moving dusty old boxes of reports from one corner to another he realised he wasn't accomplishing anything and returned upstairs. Once there he found it was finally late enough to call Tosh and ask her to bring some croissants. He'd been snappy and his request had been closer to an order, but he really couldn't bring himself to care when hunger and nerves were tearing his stomach to pieces.

But Tosh is the only one of them left in Cardiff and she'll have to tolerate you and your jumpiness all day.

So he had tried to calm down, and after scrounging the kitchenette once more, he had found the last remnants of some coffee beans and had tried to make a decent cup of coffee. In the process he had almost managed to forget what all the nervousness was about. And then Mainframe had ruined it all by declaring that alien activity had been detected above the Hub, right before he heard the distinct sound of the TARDIS landing. Yes, the sound of his shattered cup had been satisfying, even if the walls and floor were now covered in shards and coffee.

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By the time Tosh came in, Jack was ready to climb the walls. Mainframe had taken it upon herself to monitor the Plass and had projected CCTV footage in the board room. Powerless, the Captain had watched how Mickey arrived and stepped into the TARDIS, and how the four of them had exited a few minutes later. He hadn't needed sound to hear their conversation about the Chameleon Circuit, his memory was surprisingly clear about that moment. 'Yeah, what's with the Police Box, why does it look like that?'

The youthfulness of the fourth man surprised him. Jack rationally knew he still grew older even if the process was slowed, but to see that was something else. The man on Roald Dahl Plass did not only look younger, but he was more at ease, more sure of himself, almost more naïve. This was a man who had struggled through a difficult childhood, but had moved on to become an officer in the Universe's most elite agency. He had proven himself time and time again before deserting and travelling as a successful conman. He knew he could talk himself out of a lot of situations, and when he failed he fought his way out. He had found great friends in the last of the Time Lords and a twenty-first century girl and was enjoying his life. He would never have suspected that in a week's time he would find himself left behind on a destroyed space station, betrayed by those same friends and unable to die.

Jack realised that the man on the screen lacked that weariness he saw in the mirror every morning, and the hard shell which he had built to protect himself. The Captain Jack Harkness living in the Hub still flirted with anything that moved, still went out at night to shag whoever he could find, but he never let anyone get close. He liked his team well enough and they got the job done, but none of them knew anything personal about him. And while he knew they talked about it, trying to find out how he had gathered all his alien knowledge, they never asked him, because they were well aware that the only results their questions would lead to were several weeks of having the dirtiest chores in the Hub. No, Jack Harkness had lost that naivety he could see in the other man, but at that moment he yearned for it.

He wanted to run outside and scream at them. Get him to turn around and give a rational explanation, and then hug them all – even Mickey the Idiot – and follow them to that stupid café where he had told his stupid stories and where they had been having fun. He barely remembered the time where he had felt so free, had spoken about his own past without reservation, had laughed without holding anything back.

Caught up in his own thoughts he barely noticed that some part of him had decided to turn the projection off and hide all traces of what Mainframe had found that morning. It wouldn't do for Tosh to find out there was something going on. That there was actually a TARDIS on top of the Hub and that he was quite unable to approach it without bringing about a violent time paradox. Or he would have been able to approach it, if only his memories were clear enough to remember whether anyone had gone back to it before going to City Hall. As it was, the risk of meeting one of them on the Plass was just too great. But that didn't stop him from craving its calming presence, or from cursing his own memory for not being more useful to him.

He was still in the board room when Tosh arrived with her bag of croissants. She was obviously looking for him, scanning the Hub while she walked to her desk and put down her small backpack. When she noticed him, he raised his hand half-heartedly and she quickly walked up the stairs.

'You wouldn't believe who I just saw, Jack!' She obviously didn't blame him for being curt on the phone before, or maybe she had forgotten it in her enthusiasm.

'I was walking back from the café I told you about...' Probably forgotten, because she seemed to be so caught up in her story that she hadn't even noticed his bad mood yet. Which was all the better, since he really didn't want to Tosh to become the victim of it.

'... and I wondered, do you have a brother?' Uhoh. Apparently while he had been dreaming, she had been telling him how she had met his past self in the street.

'Because one of them looked exactly like you, although he was slightly younger and more...,' Tosh paused and searched for the word. 'More soldier-like maybe?'

'Soldier-like?' That caught him off-guard. He was younger, certainly, about a hundred and fifteen years at that, and he had noticed that he'd been more naïve, but he hadn't seen that last part.

'Yes, you know, his hair was shorter and he carried himself differently. More self-consciously, like someone who is used to giving orders.' She handed him the bag, but he ignored it. His hunger had disappeared when he heard the TARDIS landing and it hadn't yet returned.

'And I'm not? You did notice that I usually give the orders around here, didn't you?' Toshiko laughed and shook her head.

'I don't mean that, I mean... I don't know. You seem more relaxed. There's only three of us, remember? You don't need that much discipline with only three people following you. He wasn't like that. He seemed more like someone who had been on battle fields not too long ago, who had ordered large contingents of men, and had been obeyed.' He felt surprised at her insight. Yes, a century of being stuck on earth would change a former Time Agent, even if he had never realised it. Tosh was still talking. 'But I was wondering if you knew him? He really looked a lot like you.' She seemed to pick up on his hesitation. 'At first I was alarmed and I thought those shape shifters from last month were back, but since he didn't look exactly like you, I thought he had to be family of some sorts... Was I wrong?'

'No.' Because of his nervousness he had completely forgotten about the shape shifters. Looking back, he was lucky he had changed that much, or Tosh might have reacted badly when she saw his look-alike. 'No, you were right, he's...' He's what? Me a century ago? Yes, that would fit well with not giving away personal details. My brother? 'He's... It doesn't matter, Tosh. We won't have to go out today anyway, and he will be gone by tonight. For now, I want you to research the mayor. Suzie should have left some notes.'

Without another word Jack left the board room. He hoped his answer would suffice. Although she seemed more open and enthusiastic now that Owen and Suzie had left, Toshiko was usually quite shy and she knew that he didn't give out information about himself, so she wouldn't try to ask further. Her timidity was one of the reasons he had chosen her to stay behind and sent the other two away. He shoved back the pang of guilt at the knowledge that he had cut her off so abruptly while she had finally come out of her shell and tried to make conversation. Instead of regretting things he couldn't change, he should start fabricating an excuse for tonight, because he had a feeling she wouldn't be brushed off that easily anymore when lightning started striking the Plass.

TBC

Not much action in this one, but I wanted to portray Jack and his emotions clearly before attempting to let the characters out to play... Did you like what you read? Review and tell me, reviews and knowing that people are reading and appreciating this mean the world to me!

The next chapter is under construction. We finally get some action, and I wanted to get that just right, so it might take some more weeks (as classes will be starting again), but it is definitely coming. See you soon!