I had been in the lower levels of Cardiff bay, inside the hub of the secret organisation 'torchwood' for roughly five days. It is hard to tell when you hardly sleep, and when there is no sunlight or even a clock. In fact the only reason that I knew even roughly how long I had been here is because I could feel the turn of the earth beneath me, the revolution of a water-based planet upon it's tilted axis.
For as long as I have resided in this place, I have often wondered how the humans could truly call this their home, when they couldn't even feel it turn.
I have been visited in my cell twice a day, for three days by a woman named Gwen, she has brought me food and water, and I haven't the heart to tell her that I find human food revolting. I don't know whether it is bitterness at the destruction of my home, or at my containment, but I am beginning to hate these humans. No…hate is too strong. I hate the Daleks. I hate myself for being so cowardly, but I cannot hate irrationally. I heard the soft footfalls of Gwen before she had even reached the second corridor that lead to my cell; along with them were hard, clunking steps or military-issue boots, Jack Harkness.

"Rise and shine kid!" his manipulatively cheerful voice called

Sighing to myself, I shifted my body so that I sat upright, and glared at him. "How long have I been here?"

"What? No 'hello'? No 'thanks for the hospitality?'" Jack said sarcastically

"Only three days today." Gwen answered

I ran my hands through my dark hair, I must be losing it, mistaking three days for five, and my sense of time was all messed up.

"Are you ever going to let me go?" I asked

"see, there's the problem, we have an unknown alien who claims to be someone I know, someone very important to me, but I don't quite believe him, so what to do? I can't just let you go, but I can't keep a kid locked up forever, you claim to be a time lord. So prove it. Let Owen do an assessment, after that you'll be sent to school for five days a week, in your spare time you will work unofficially for torchwood. You get a good idea of human life from your time in school, where you can also be watched by the UNIT officials who will be placed at your school. We keep an eye on you, and if after five years we are satisfied you are safe, then you go on your merry way." The man's face was hard as steel, there was no offer of negotiation, merely fact and an underlining threat.

"Do I even have a choice in the matter?" I asked, already well aware of his answer.

"Nope."

I merely nodded in affirmation, and waited whilst the see-through cell door swung open, my eyes did not miss the vortex manipulator strapped to his wrist, unfortunately his did not miss my gaze. The captain just laughed "sorry to disappoint you kid, but this thing hasn't worked the way it's supposed to in years, in fact it got me stuck in the nineteenth century once."

"What's your name?" Gwen asked me, making me jump as if just remembering her presence.

"I told him. I am The Doctor."

"There's no way in hell I'm calling you that." Jack's eyes were fierce "besides, you need a name for school."

"You pick." I said coolly "you're the one who seems to hate my name; you choose who I will pretend to be."

"John?" Gwen suggested

Jack laughed "John Smith?"

Gwen laughed a little, but it was a weak and forced one.

"I don't care." I muttered

"Fine, it's settled!" Jack said boisterously "you're John Smith"

For the rest of the day I was told to stay with Gwen, she showed me all around the hub, and all of the things that they had collected.

An impossible thing caught my eyes, lying upon a work bench was a small silver item with thin lines about half the width of a humanoid finger running across one half. At the top of the objects there were four cylinders of different lengths, all about the same breadth of a pencil. I cautiously picked it up, my hands gentle as I placed it in my palm.

"Jack said he found that a while back, not even he knows what it is." She explained "he said it just fell through the rift one day."

I smiled nostalgically and ran my fingers in a specific pattern along each line, after about five seconds or so the object began to replay music, not just any music, but Gallifreyan music…a lullaby to be specific. I clenched my fist, systematically shutting off the music.

I turned to Jack who was sitting at a desk not too far away from us "can I keep this?" my voice was barely legible but he seemed to have heard as he nodded his acceptance. Gently, as if the object was made of glass, I placed it in my backpack.

"Jack!" a woman whose name I believed to be Toshiko, called desperately. "Reports of 17 people missing in the same 20-mile radius in the Brecon Beacons, the last victim managed to use a mobile phone from this point here." She pointed to the computer screen which held a map of the area. "Before being cut off."

"right." Jack nodded "we'll head out, Ianto, Owen you pack the weapons and supplies, Tosh you sort out the route and liaise with the police, Gwen, john, with me." I jumped at the mention of my new name, I had almost forgotten it.

Jack for some reason packed two large tents, Gwen was reading over the police reports and for the first time I felt genuinely clueless.

"John, do you know of any species of alien that has a hunting pattern like this?" he asked me quietly "have you ever come across anything like this?"

I frowned "Jack, I have only traveled in time and space roughly thirty times, and I have never owned my own TARDIS. I'm sorry to disappoint you but I will not have all the answers. He and I are two very different people."

"Will I ever be able to die?" he asked me in a low tone so that Gwen would not hear.

"I don't know." I replied honestly "but your timelines are completely fixed, there is absolutely no fluctuation at all it's like every law of the universe, every single thing that I have know to be true has been turned upside down by your mere existence. I'm sorry Jack, but I think you're stuck like this"

He laughed "you know, despite saying that are completely different you rant exactly the same, and have the puppy eyes!" he laughed and ruffled my hair, to which I responded by huffing indignantly and turning away from him.

"I'm sorry." He said softly "about you're planet." His slow speech had overtones not of thought, but of understanding beyond thought, almost as if…

"I'm sorry too, for yours."

His eyes widened "what? How did-"

I ignored his question, and went looking for confirmation to my own suspicions. "My friend and I, we were more like brothers than anything else, we were the closest two people could be in a purely plutonic way, we were like two sides of the same coin. Though we had our differences we were unstoppable when together, out intellect matched only by our thirst for knowledge. When the daleks took the citadel I ran. I ran so far and so fast that I forgot about him, my own brother. The only reason I survived the time war, Jack, is because I am a coward."

I could see it in his eyes, my telepathic abilities unmatched by any other; I could see the past play beneath his sight. He too lost a brother, in much the same way.

AN- please, if you are reading this, REVIEW! This is my firs crossover fanfic, as well as my first time writing for Torchwood and Doctor Who. Please let me know whether it's good or bad and whether I should continue. Thanks!