(Just a heads up, this is the last chapter I currently have written, so updates may slow down a bit. I'll try to keep them fairly frequent, though.)

In which the Doctor is oblivious, Jack asks questions he might not want to know the answers to, and Gwen is incredulous.

-DW-

When Jack returned to the library, an Eluthian age advancer under his arm, his found Owen looking slightly ill. Theta, of course, was peacefully oblivious as only a fourteen-year-old boy could be, a gigantic tomb balanced on his knees as he absently ate his way through the pack of Jammy Dodgers.

"Everything alright?" he asked, keeping his tone carefully neutral.

"What? Yeah," said Owen, shaking himself. "Yeah, he's fine. Get him to eat something besides biscuits, but other than that . . . he's perfectly fine. I'll just go . . . do something. Somewhere else." He hurried out, and Jack was left frowning at his back.

"What was that about?" he asked Theta, setting the age advancer on the only end table which wasn't covered in books.

"What was what about?"

". . . never mind. Have you found anything yet?"

"Working on it," said Theta around a mouthful of Jammy Dodger. He swallowed. "Looks like I was wrong."

"About what?" questioned Jack, settling down beside the boy and peering over his shoulder. It was no use – the book was in Gallifreyan.

"I said that the reverse-aging thing didn't make any sense. I thought that once we got past our first regeneration we wouldn't have the information for childhood in our genes anymore, since our DNA changes and we wouldn't need it anymore, but it looks like it hangs around anyway. Stabilizes the rest of the structure."

"Alright. How does that help get you back to adulthood?"

"It doesn't. I just thought it was interesting."

Jack bit his tongue. Hard.

"What's the rush, anyway?" asked Theta, not noticing Jack's irritation. "It's not like I have anywhere to be, is it?"

"It's –" Jack stopped. What was the rush? They were in the TARDIS, in Torchwood, perfectly safe. There were no apocalypses to avert, as far as he knew. Theta didn't seem particularly aggrieved by the circumstances – in fact, he was happier than Jack had ever seen his older self.

"You're right," he said at last. "There is no rush. Take all the time you want."

Ianto arrived a few minutes later with a pair of jeans, a jacket, and several t-shirts, and Jack was presented with the rather surreal task of explaining a zipper to a young Time Lord.

"Think of it this way," he said to a bemused Ianto as Theta retreated into the wardrobe, clothes in hand, "would you know how to put on a toga?"

"I suppose not," Ianto conceded. He glanced sideways at Jack. "Care to tell me why Owen looked like he was about to cry, or should I just assume that he was suddenly crushed by the realization that he'll never be as smart as the Doctor?"

"And here I was thinking that it was he'll never be as sexy as me," said Jack, with a teasing grin. "But really, I have no idea. I guess seeing the Doctor like this just messed with his head."

"And it's not messing with yours?" questioned Ianto, raising an eyebrow.

Jack was saved from having to respond when Theta reappeared, staring down at his outfit.

"It's so . . . simple," he said, tugging at his shirt – TARDIS blue, Jack noted with amusement, though he did wonder why Theta had chosen it, given that he had never even seen the exterior of the TARDIS. "Dr. Harper was wearing clothes like these, but yours our different," he noted, running his gaze over Jack's suspenders and Ianto's suit. "Does it have something to do with rank?"

"Just personal preference," said Ianto. "People your age don't generally dress like I do, and people in this century don't generally dress like Jack does."

"I thought you liked the retro look."

"I do," replied Ianto, his eyes running up and down Jack in quite a different way than Theta's had. "I was just pointing out that it's very distinctive."

"Well, I'm a distinctive guy," said Jack, with leer which communicated exactly what was 'distinctive' about him.

Ianto's lips curved into an answering smile, undoubtedly with his own double entendre on his tongue, when they were interrupted by a very soft "oh".

They turned.

Theta was watching them with wide eyes, his mouth slightly open. He closed his mouth when the turned, his face slowly but surely flushing bright red. It occurred to Jack that he had no idea what sort of taboos Gallifrey had surrounding sex. Probably quite a few, judging by the older Doctor's many hang-ups.

Ianto, suddenly very pink himself, cleared his throat.

"I'll, um, go and brief Gwen and Toshiko, shall I?"

"Yeah, that's a good idea," Jack agreed, then turned back to Theta. "We'll get back to work."

"Sure," said Theta, swallowing hard. He avoided Jack's eyes as they settled onto the couch again.

Jack sighed internally. Was it messing with his head, seeing the Doctor like this? Maybe it should have been, but it wasn't. This wasn't really the Doctor, after all – except that it was. The Doctor before he had been carved up inside, before his brilliance had been sharpened into a weapon and his enthusiasm had become a shield. Before his childhood ended (whatever that meant) in a fight with . . . Koschei.

Jack shot a sidelong glance at Theta, who was once again oblivious to his presence as examined the complicated patterns of circles and lines, occasionally turning the book this way and that to get a better angle.

Jack had a suspicion already, a horrible suspicion gnawing at the back of his mind like acid. ". . . something broke . . ." But he had to know. He had to.

"So," he said, keeping his voice carefully casual. "Who's Koschei?"

"He's my friend," answered Theta absently, not even looking up. "We're in the same year at the Academy."

"Just friends?" Jack questioned, trying to sound as offhand as he possibly could. Only idle curiosity. He didn't care about the answer at all; of course he didn't. It certainly wasn't something which lurked in the vault of his nightmares, ready to emerge, cackling, in the lonely, silent hours just before dawn . . . .

"'S complicated," Theta muttered, the tips of his ears turning pink.

Well that was the understatement of the century.

"What was your fight about?"

"Scientific ethics," Theta answered promptly, looking relieved at the change of topic. "Well, more just regular ethics, actually. Kosch developed this new sedative he wanted to test out. We usually use insects, initially, especially because his first attempts tend to kill things – not on purpose!" Theta added hastily, when Jack gave him a sharp look. "It just takes a while to get the proportions right.

"Anyway, there's this older student who's been messing with us lately –" His hand went to the back of his neck in a distinctly Doctor-like gesture of discomfort. "—well, him, mostly, because his family's not very prestigious, as these things go – but Kosch managed to get a hold of this person's –" He said something in Gallifreyan.

"It's a pet," he explained at Jack's blank look. "A baby pet. All sort of . . . soft and fluffy. And it hums when it's happy."

"Like a kitten," said Jack, starting to get a sick feeling about where this story was going.

". . . sure," agreed Theta, though he obviously had no idea was Jack was talking about. "Anyway, Kosch stole this pet and he was going to test the sedative on it. You have to understand," he said quickly, almost desperately. "This other student – he'd been really horribly to Kosch. Really horrible. And Kosch hates it when anyone treats him like he's inferior. I know I should have done something, but he gets really tetchy when I meddle in his business, and I thought he'd sort it on his own, which . . . I guess he did, technically . . . but he was going to kill his pet. His baby pet, which is fluffy and cuddly and hums. I mean, who does that?"

A budding psychopath, Jack thought, but didn't say aloud. The Doctor always and probably always had wanted to think the best of everyone, particularly his friends. While in his older self that instinct was tempered by experience and suspicion and even a hint of bitterness, it was still strong in this younger, more naïve version.

"I should have talked to him," said Theta, and Jack hated the self-deprecating twist of the young Time Lord's lips, hated those first seeds of the self-loathing which would grow and warp and eat away at his soul, hated knowing who it was who planted them. "I understood why he was so upset, I really did, I just –" He shook his head. "I should have helped him. We could have some up with a different plan to get revenge, something that didn't involve killing. He doesn't have any other friends – neither do I, really – I didn't realize – I just yelled at him. He needed me, and I – I let him down."

Jack opened his mouth.

He closed it again.

What the hell was he supposed to say to this kid? Lie that he had done everything right? Recite some trite line about how everyone made mistakes? Tell him that it wasn't the end of the world, knowing full well that it was, a thousand years and a million complexities later?

Theta's single fight with fourteen-year-old Koschei had not turned his brilliant-but-strange friend into a sadistic, obsessive madman. It had, however, been the first step on the long a twisted road which led up to the (perhaps inevitable) final confrontation between the Doctor and the Master and all the heartbreaking, soul-crushing events surrounding it.

Theta seemed to conclude that Jack would not be spouting and words of wisdom, and stood with a small sigh.

"I need some air," he said, and was gone.

Jack heaved a sigh and let his head drop into his hands.

-DW-

"De-aged? Seriously?"

Despite Ianto's sober explanation, Owen's slightly shaken confirmation, the TARDIS standing in Jack's office, and the daily basis on which she saw insane things, Gwen was have difficulty accepting this new turn of events.

"Seriously," Ianto said for the third time from his place behind Jack's desk. All four of them were crammed into the cluttered room, not even trying to pretend that they weren't waiting for someone to emerge from the large blue box which was wedged into one corner.

"How?" asked Toshiko. She kept shooting glances at the ship, obviously intrigued. It had been parked on the Plass last time the Doctor was here, and Jack had always hurried them along if they loitered to examine it more closely.

"I don't know. I don't think Jack knows, either. The Doctor probably would, but seeing as he's . . . incapacitated –"

"That's one way to put it," said Owen with a snort. He was leaning against the doorway of Jack's office, obviously trying to look nonchalant while staying as far away from the TARDIS as possible.

"Aw," Gwen cooed teasingly, leaping upon his discomfort. "Is Owen afwaid of the widdle baby Time Lord?"

"I'm not afraid," snapped Owen, glaring. "It's just weird, okay? You'll see when you meet him."

"Ianto met him, and he seems fine," Toshiko pointed out.

"It is pretty weird," Ianto conceded.

"Thank you!"

". . . but not as weird as Owen thinks it is."

Gwen laughed as Owen scowled.

"And he doesn't have any of his memories?" questioned Toshiko. "He really thinks he's fourteen?"

"Not exactly. Jack explained what happened, so he knows he has amnesia . . . but functionally, yes, he's fourteen."

The questioning was abruptly put to an end by the creak of the TARDIS door, and Gwen found herself face-to-face – literally, he was about her height – with a very, very young Doctor.

Good lord, he was adorable. The Doctor had always been rather cute, if caught at the right moment, but now – unruly chestnut hair fell down into huge brown eyes, giving him the look of an inquisitive fawn as he peered at her with startled curiosity. The resemblance was only reinforced by his fine, pale features and gangly limbs.

"Hello," she said, smiling.

"Hello," he replied, an answering smile spreading across his face. If that smile could be bottled and sold, Gwen was certain, it would be more addictive than crack cocaine, but no one would care because all the dealers would feel so damn good that they'd just give it away for free.

He stepped out of the TARDIS, and the smile dropped off his face. He turned grey, then white, then fell to the ground with a terrible, strangled whimper.

Dropping to her knees behind his crumpled form and feeling desperately for a pulse, Gwen did the only think she could think of.

"Jack!"