The TARDIS kitchen was conveniently just across the hall when Jack exited his room after what seemed like a two hour shower. He had forgotten what it felt like to be properly clean. It just hadn't seemed important anymore after Ianto's death, nothing had. Now he was pressed and dressed well enough for a military inspection. His clothes, which he had thought were good enough, were waiting, freshly laundered or replaced, he was never completely sure with the TARDIS- shirt starched, pants creased, even his coat looked as new as when he first put it on.
There was a dark haired woman in the kitchen laying the table. She looked up and smiled as she saw him. "Hello," she said. "We didn't really get much of a chance for introductions earlier."
"Captain Jack Harkness," he said holding out a hand with a smile.
The Doctor looked over from where he was making the tea just in time to see him. The smile was a little thin, and the usual flirtatious tone seemed a bit perfunctory but he was definitely better. "Stop it," he said, more out of habit that anything else. Familiarity, that was what Jack needed right now.
"I was just saying 'hello'," he responded as usual.
"I don't mind, Christina," she said with a smile. The doctor just rolled his eyes and carried over the tea.
"No coffee, Doc?" he said, though the word almost got stuck in his throat. Every time he drank a cup, it was like acid burning down his throat, but it was just another penance he put himself through.
"You know how rubbish I am at that stuff, and the last time you made coffee in here it ate the pot. The way you like it would melt Sontaran deck plating."
The meal passed pleasantly enough. He tried to focus on the food and not what the Doctor had said. It wasn't that he didn't trust him, he did, but he was afraid to believe completely. When dealing with time, anything could happen. At first he approached his food cautiously, unsure what his stomach would do. Then hunger overtook him. He managed to eat all his meal, plus seconds, and then some pastries that the Doctor produced from somewhere, like all the food, he wasn't a hundred percent unless it was something they specifically bought while they were out, where it came from. Finally, full for the first time in what seemed like ages, he leaned back in his chair. "So what's the plan?" he asked.
"Well," the Doctor said. "First, you finish that mug of tea and get some sleep."
"Doc," he started to protest, but suddenly the mug in his hand started to feel heavy. "What the… Why?" Suddenly he felt like he was made of lead, his eyes wouldn't stay open and he tried to drag himself up, but the Doctor caught him.
"Sorry Jack, can't have you running around disrupting things as I am fixing them," the time lord said, catching him under the arm as he handed the mug off to Christina. "Besides old friend, some things you don't need to remember." Jack opened his mouth to protest, but everything had gone black.
"What did you do that for?" Christina asked as she helped him lever the tall man across the hall to his room. "And couldn't you wait til he was back in his room?"
"Two reasons, first, Jack wants desperately to help." They put the unconscious man down on the bed, and the Doctor started to drag off his customary flight boots.
"And we couldn't use the help?"
"Not Jack's help. We are going back in time, to a time when at least one version of Jack is already there. The closer he is to himself in the time stream, the more chance of a paradox, especially when the fabric of time is already weak there. When you add the Cardiff Rift to that, the situation is dangerous enough as it is."
"OK, so he's just going to sleep it off here?" she said, pulling a blanket over the sleeping man.
"Actually no, I need to find a place to stash him on Earth."
"OK," she said slowly, obviously waiting for the rest of his plan, arms crossed, head cocked to one side.
He took a deep breath and explained. "Jack is unique. He is a fixed point in Time, accident, long story, but the point is, he is immortal, or as near too as it is possible to be, or well at least until and unless something comes up that requires him to use his life force to keep an entire planetary population alive, but that doesn't matter, this is what does. Something horrible happened to him down there and with any luck we are going to fix it. If he is on Earth, then when the time line snaps back into place, none of it will ever have happened to him."
"So, if he's there, he won't remember?" she said.
"Well, I wouldn't say won't remember, exactly. Jack's been a time traveler for a long time, was a time agent once, he's sensitive to fluctuations in time. He will know something happened, but what and how much it is difficult to say, and it'll fade pretty quickly, nothing but a bad dream. It's the least I can do for him, I owe him my life, or ate least one of my lives, at least, possibly two. Now, let's find a place in Cardiff to stash him. I wonder if his lover's address is listed in the directory…"