Author's Notes - This is definitely not Jack's Torchwood, as you're about to see. While the idea of registering aliens is pretty benign, the implementation leaves a lot to be desired. There's a good reason for the differences, which should become clear in the next few chapters.

Thanks to TheOnyxRose, dwatlaskrhtcm, Mrs. 11th, and Way Worse Than Scottish for reviewing the last chapter. And, thanks to everyone reading and putting the story on alert and favorites. By the way, I'll try to update regularly on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, although the Wednesday will definitely depend on how well my week is going. Hope the chapter makes sense.


Bouncing uncomfortably in the back of a van, his head encased in a black hood, the Doctor calculated the relative speed of the vehicle and the direction they were travelling. After leaving the city, they headed almost due west, most likely the M4. After forty minutes, he had a suspicion about where they would end up. Bored, he adjusted his position, hoping to bump into Melissa.

She was lying on the floor, and as soon as his leg brushed hers, they made contact. He found her choice of scenery interesting; they were in his bedroom on the TARDIS. She was curled up on the bed reading The Deathly Hallows.

"Matthew's favorite," she said with a smile.

Ignoring her choice of books to recall, he joined her in bed. Immediately, she snuggled next to him, putting her head against his chest. Stroking her hair, he asked, "How are you feeling?"

A sheepish expression stole over her face. "Well, I'm trying very hard not to throw up, because I don't think that's such a good idea when there's a sack over my head. And, I could really use the loo, but I don't think they'd stop if I asked. But, other than that, I'm fine. You?"

"I'm trying very hard to remind myself that if we cooperate, we'll be released. Because, I'm starting to get a little peeved."

The cloister bell sounded ominously in the distance, and Melissa threw him a look. "Are you sure you're just a little peeved?"

"Hardly," he admitted, trying to regain some control. "I'm furious. I don't know who I'm angrier with, Pete for being an insufferable ass, or me for stranding Jackie, Rose and Fred here without making sure they'd be safe."

"They're safe. I think it was just us who upset the apple cart." Amused that he was playing along by calling the other Doctor something silly, she gave him a mental kiss on the cheek. Then, she went back to reading her book.

He kept up the contact for several minutes, wanting to make absolutely sure that she was as serene as she seemed. Eventually, her tranquility suffused through his mind, and he calmed considerably. They were in an uncomfortable situation, but so far, they hadn't been hurt. And, they'd both been through much worse. It did no good to dwell on what might happen. Closing his eyes, he meditated until the van pulled into a multistory car park and stopped.

They were in Cardiff; he already knew that much. And by the length of the ride on the lift, he could guess that they were going directly into the Hub. He wondered how closely Torchwood III resembled its counterpart on Pete's World. Knowing all the exits ahead of time would be very beneficial if they found themselves in need of escape.

He didn't have time to wonder for very long. The Hub sounded surprisingly familiar, although there were many more voices. But then, they were being led through a long tunnel that didn't exist in their own universe. The floor was made of stone, slippery and wet, and he could hear water dripping down the sides. After a few minutes, the floor changed to concrete, and then finally to an industrial grade carpet.

It was when the concrete turned to carpet that they were both pushed into chairs and their hoods removed. Melissa sat across the table from him, looking extremely green and sucking in large gulps of air. He stood instinctively, only to be pushed back down.

"Don't move unless you're told to."

The order came at the end of a pistol, and he had no choice but to obey. They hadn't said anything about being quiet, however.

"Can't you see she's not well? Untie her now!"

"After we get you two into the system."

Looking at the woman seated at the head of the table, the Doctor was struck by two things. One, she didn't resemble Gwen Cooper at all, which was somewhat irrelevant. And two, she had responded so emotionlessly to his demand that it was apparent she was inured to complaints. It didn't look like she was going to be swayed to make an exception now.

Catching the Doctor's eye, Melissa gave him her best smile, which wasn't very good at the moment, but it was still better than the grimace on his face. "I'm okay. I'll be perfect once I can visit the ladies' room.

He could see by her subsequent glare that she wanted him to shut up. Begrudgingly, he did just that.

Twenty minutes later, Torchwood had them registered in their computer as John Smith and Melissa Morgan, Time Lords. The printer spat out a very long roll of labels with their names on them, and the Doctor had a sinking feeling that Torchwood's idea of quarantine was not a passive one of wait and see.

Finally, they were told to stand, and the plastic restraints were cut from their wrists. The Doctor's wrists were rubbed raw. Looking at Melissa's, his jaw clenched in anger. Her wrists were covered in smudges of dried blood. Whoever had fastened hers had pulled them too tightly.

"Jack's not going to like that," she said conversationally as she stared at her wrists. "Too many bad memories."

He didn't like it, either, having seen those memories for himself when he had been forced to enter her mind to save her life only a couple of months ago. He knew she didn't like reminders of his trespass, however, so he kept quiet as a woman wearing a white coat sprayed something on her cuts.

It immediately foamed and started eating away at the dried blood. Then, the foam ate away at itself, until nothing was left but a clear film on top of her broken skin. Some sort of antiseptic and invisible plaster, the Doctor decided. It wasn't nearly as good as nanogenes or even a tissue regenerator, but it was adequate for the task.

As soon as the spray had done its job, they were both led in opposite directions. The Doctor's jaw was beginning to hurt-he was clenching it that much. They were going to be examined separately, and there was nothing he could do about it. Unexpectedly, he had only one thought in his mind. If anyone hurt her, then he was going to kill them all. Shoving his hands in his pockets, he fingered the sonic screwdriver while trying to control his primitive urge to protect his mate.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Melissa finally got to use the loo, although it was for the convenience of the Torchwood medics rather than her. She seriously considered vomiting just so they'd have more things to test, but decided she wasn't ready to be that petty. Sitting in a drafty hospital gown an hour later after a very thorough examination, she was beginning to wish she hadn't taken the high road. The phlebotomist wasn't very good at her job, and it took three sticks in the crook of her left arm before blood started flowing. She had a suspicion that the woman had gone through her vein the second time; she could already feel the bruise forming deep in her muscle tissue.

As they took a pint of blood for testing, she thought of the last time she'd been in a similar situation. No matter what a mess she'd made of it, she wouldn't have changed a thing. Well, maybe one. She should have told Martha what she'd done. Martha, she was sure, would not have protested too much, and then she could have avoided the crack on the head that had followed.

Cracked heads were much like cracked eggs. They were cracked. Like Humpty Dumpty. Silly name for an egg, really, and why would the king's horses be able to help in the first place? And, WHAT THE HELL WAS SHE THINKING? Forcing herself to open her eyes, she saw the phlebotomist and another woman peering intently at her.

"Don't worry," a wiry, middle aged blond woman wearing green hospital scrubs assured her with a too cheery smile. "Not everyone can stand the sight of their own blood. You might feel a little shaky for a while."

Blood—they'd been taking her blood. She remembered now. She didn't like them taking her blood, or any of the other tissue samples and fluids they'd extracted from her. In fact, she was getting quite annoyed with Torchwood. And, sparing a glance behind the phlebotomist, she could see that they'd taken two pints instead of one. No wonder she'd zoned out.

Woozy, she missed what the woman in front of her face had been saying, and had to shake her head a little to clear it. "I'm sorry, what?"

"That's alright, Melissa. You don't have to apologize. I just wanted to tell you that I'm Betty and I'll be taking care of you during your stay here. As soon as the attendant comes with a wheelchair, we'll get you to your room. Is there any type of Earth food that you can't eat?"

Melissa did a slow burn as the woman who was certainly not named Betty made use of her name without permission and then spoke to her like she was a child. She almost insisted on walking to her prison cell, which was a more accurate description of where she would be staying than the hotel like atmosphere Betty was trying to conjure. She managed to quell that urge, however, choosing instead to seem as weak and compliant as possible.

"Can I have some tea, maybe, when we get to the room? I feel so cold and tired. I'm just so cold."

Patting her hand, Betty said in surprise, "You must be cold; your hands are like ice. We don't usually fulfill requests after eight, but seeing as how you got here late, I'm sure we can get you some tea. You take anything in it, dearie?"

Shaking her head, Melissa did her best to remain passive while she thought of various things she could do to her keeper for calling her dearie. When the wheelchair arrived, she found to her chagrin that she needed it. It was all she could do to stand to sit in it.

Damn, damn damn—damn the Bad Wolf, damn Pete Tyler, and damn Rassilon for that matter. She should not be pregnant in some alien detention center in the wrong universe. The only good thing about any of it was that the Doctor was with her. When she was wheeled to a tiny cell containing a single bed, toilet and sink, however, she realized that she wasn't even going to have the Doctor. Not bothering to see if Betty would really return with tea, she curled up on the bed, morose.

The Doctor underwent a similar experience in another wing of the underground facility. He'd protested a bit more than she had, especially when they'd taken his clothes and therefore his sonic screwdriver. Since all of his protesting had been verbal, however, the men poking and prodding him had pretty much ignored it.

Sitting on the edge of the bed in his cell, the Doctor continued to protest as he worried about Melissa. "Oi! Surely you're not going to make me wear this drafty gown that doesn't even fasten all the way down the back for three days, are you? The prison cell's bad enough, and while I haven't tasted it, I'm sure the food's worse."

When no one answered, he continued to make demands, wanting his invisible guards to become accustomed to ignoring him. "How about some trouses? I'll wear the gown if you just give me the trousers. Mine should be available. After all, a man should have some dignity, shouldn't he?"

He spoke in a similar vein for another hour before giving up. Lying on the bed, he let his feet hang over the end and put his arms underneath his head. Staring up at the obvious surveillance camera for a while, he finally feigned sleep.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Waking with a start two hours after she'd fallen asleep, Melissa slowly sat up, cradling her head. She'd been dreaming that she was in Rassilon's tomb again, doing something that she couldn't even comprehend anymore. And all the while, she could feel Jack slowly slipping away from her. She'd woken up when she'd lost the grip on his hand.

She hated that nightmare, hated all that it implied. She'd not been willing to sacrifice Jack to save Gallifrey, and yet in the end she'd let him do just that so he could save the Doctor and herself. She shouldn't have let him go in the first place.

Idly looking around, she spied the tea that had been left in a thermos near the door to her cell. Immediately, she retrieved it to take a sip, thankful to find it nice and hot. She wished she had something to eat to go along with it, but she didn't have anyone to ask.

Pacing as she drank, she tried to focus on the positives, but it was difficult. In fact, it was impossible. She was in a cell, and it didn't look anything like a hotel room. It looked like a cell. All of a sudden, she remembered all the reasons why she didn't like being in a cell. Bad things happened when you were locked up. People could do bad things to you. People had done bad things to her when she was a prisoner of the Time Agency.

That reminder gave her a massive headache. The headache exacerbated the nausea to the point that she was kneeling over the gleaming metal toilet, unwillingly giving back the remains of the roast she'd eaten at dinner. Finished, she rested against the wall near the sink, waiting for someone to appear, but no one did. That was significant, she knew, but she couldn't quite work out how.

Hours later, the Doctor wondered why he hadn't been fed breakfast. He'd seen two men in green scrubs carrying a total of eight covered food trays that he could only hope were for the prisoners. He'd loudly asked why they hadn't fed him, but again, received no reply. Promptly at eleven, two very large, very muscled men arrived to lead him out of his cell and back to the room where he'd been examined twelve hours ago.

More samples were taken, including three vials of blood. Annoyed, he started to protest, but he was led into a new room and left alone before he could do more than sputter. It was not a cheery place to be. The walls were grey as was the industrial carpet on the floor. A large Attique scanner dominated one side of the room, and three posts with leather restraints ominously stood opposite it near the far wall.

He wasn't that impressed. The bulky equipment was from the twenty-fourth century. While it was better than a modern day CT scanner, it wasn't half as sensitive as the medical device installed in Jack's Torchwood Hub. He wondered at the restraints, though. Attique medical technology was designed with the patient's comfort in mind, even a nonhuman one.

He didn't have long to wonder. Less than a minute later, the same beefy attendants that had taken him from his cell strapped him to the posts. Standing with his arms painfully outstretched, the Doctor watched as they silently left the room and the medical scanner began to hum. He could tell by the sensation that they had only scanned him from the chest up, and he impatiently waited for someone to let him out of the restraints so he could complain about his treatment once again.

Only, no one came. Forty-eight minutes and thirty-six seconds passed before two different men in green scrubs and white coats entered the room. He was about to protest his treatment when he saw what they had rolled into the room with them. It looked like a fifty-first century mind probe. Pulling against the restraints, he glared while a hulking Viking of a man firmly attached the mind probe to his head. He wasn't worried about himself; he knew several tricks to fool such a device. However, in her diminished state, his bond mate would have no such advantage.

"You're pulling my hair," he whinged, as if that was the most troubling thing about the entire situation.

The thinner man who was bent over the control box sniggered at his complaint, so the Doctor focused his attention on him. "Well, he is. You don't think my hair looks this fantastic on its own, do you? I don't want your goon here ruining its shape."

"Hear that, Victor? He called you a goon. I'd be insulted if I were you."

Victor the Viking smiled, and it wasn't a pleasant smile. When he spoke, his voice had a hint of a Scandinavian accent and was overflowing with arrogance. "Goon's don't have three doctorates. I do."

The Doctor couldn't help himself. Taunting his foes had become second nature by now. "One of those wouldn't happen to be in ethics, would it?"

Again, the man by the cart found his humor amusing, but sadly, Victor did not. He balled up his fist and punched the Doctor in the stomach. Bending over as much as the restraints would allow, the Doctor tried to catch his breath. Maybe insulting the goon hadn't been such a great idea.

"Cut it out, Victor. You know Dr. Harper doesn't like anyone mistreating the prisoners."

"Quiet, Neil, or I'll tell Owen what really happened to that yellow furry thing you said drowned itself in the toilet."

Hiding his reaction, the Time Lord pondered the fact that Owen Harper had a doppelganger in this universe. He remembered the medic fondly through Melissa's memories. If this one was remotely close to the Owen she had known, perhaps he might find a way out of this for her after all.

They started with general questions first, asking if he intended to harm anyone on Earth. He had to dodge that one. By now, he was so angry at Pete Tyler that he would be happy to see the man keelhauled, but he answered in vague terms and the machine believed him. It was also easy to answer why they had come to Earth. He had been curious about the other Doctor's welfare, even if it wasn't the main reason they had made the trip.

As the questions became more specific, however, it became more difficult to fudge the answers. And then, they started asking questions that he was simply unwilling to answer at all. He was not about to tell them his species' weaknesses, only to have them turned against him, or worse, Emma. And, he wasn't about to implicate Jack or Donna in being anything but standard humans.

The session ended badly, but after two hours, it did end. Blood streaming from his nose, the Doctor sank wearily to the ground after Victor punched him one last time before loosening the restraints. Spent, the Time Lord leaned against one of the posts pinching his nose until his two personal guards showed up to escort him to his cell.

Leaning heavily against them, he pleaded earnestly as they dragged him down the long corridor. "I know we're just aliens to you, but I'm begging you to stretch your imagination and think of us as people, because that's what we are, people. I have a wife, and I'm terrified that something's happened to her, because I haven't seen her since we arrived last night. And I know she won't be able to tolerate that machine those cretins just used on me."

They were as responsive as a pair of Judoon, but he didn't give up. "Please, I need to speak to someone in authority, someone who can help her. You can do whatever you like to me, but she can't go into that room. They could kill her! Please, let me speak to Dr. Harper. That's all I'm asking for, a chance to state my case to someone with a higher authority."

He had to stop then because they were pushing him back into his cell. Incredibly, there was a tray on his bed that held a thermos of tea, sandwiches, fresh fruit and crisps. Moreover, a new set of clothes, soap and a washcloth had been placed atop a folded blanket.

Left alone, he washed himself as best he could before changing into orange scrubs. He didn't understand Torchwood's aims here at all.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

At the same time the Doctor had been escorted into the grey room, Melissa had been taken to the examination room. Once again, they took blood, this time three vials. Blond Betty was at her side, giving her another false smile and promising she could have something to eat once the tests were over. The pregnant Time Lord was struggling to maintain her outward composure. She was famished, and thought she could feel her body burn muscle as her metabolism tried to keep up with the developing embryos.

She might have drifted off in the chair because the next thing she knew, Betty was talking in low tones to someone on the phone. As soon as her guard noticed she was awake, however, the mobile was snapped shut and the bright expression was back on her face.

"They're running behind on the tests today. I'm afraid you'll have to wait your turn. I promise it will be over soon. You look a little peaked. How are you feeling?"

"Perfect."

She lied unconvincingly and the woman suddenly looked uncomfortable. Hoping to get some kind of concession, Melissa asked, "Can I eat now?

For some reason that made the woman look even more ill at ease. "You've got two more tests to go, and you won't want to take the second on a full stomach."

Hiding her disappointment because she was past hungry, she asked, "Then, can I wait in my room? I am a little tired."

"'Fraid not, dearie. You just close your eyes and take a nap in the chair. I'm sure they won't be too long."

So much for stretching out. She'd almost made it back to sleep when she felt that something was horribly wrong with the Doctor. She could feel his pain piercing the bond, and she bolted out of the chair with a gasp.

"Something's wrong. I've got to get out of here. Please, you've got to let me out."

Betty asked her what was wrong, but she didn't hear the question. Every nerve in her body jangled, and she ran to the door, banging on it and begging that she be let out. No one answered her, however, and the door remained stubbornly locked.

Either Betty was much stronger than she looked, or Melissa was much weaker than she felt, but the woman had her sitting in the metal wheelchair with her wrists cuffed in thin plastic once again. She spent the next two hours whimpering while she struggled to free herself from the restraints. Abruptly, she felt the Doctor's agony evaporate, and she sagged in the chair.

A few minutes after that, they had her tied to the posts in the gray room. As the Attique scanner swept from her torso to her head, she began to suffer the same feelings of hopelessness she had felt after her emotional encounters with the human Doctor and Rose. Her body had been pushed past its restricted limits, and neither Jack nor the Doctor was close enough for her to use as an emotional stabilizer. Alone in the room, hot tears streamed down her face as she wondered if she'd ever see either one of them again.

The Doctor could feel Emma's growing anguish, but he couldn't do anything about it. Pacing like a caged tiger in his cell, he banged his tray furiously against the Plexiglas door. It soon broke and he hurled the pieces at the wall in frustration. Then, all of a sudden, he felt her despondency abruptly transform into absolute terror and agony. Enraged, he threw himself repeatedly at the door.

After a while, it became apparent even to him that all he was doing was hurting his shoulder. Drained, it took a moment for the Doctor to realize that someone had opened the door. Looking up, he saw Dr. Owen Harper, gingerbread man, staring guardedly at him from the hall.

"You have three minutes to convince me why it would be dangerous for the female to submit to the lie detector."

Staggering upright, the Doctor shouted indignantly, "How can you call that torture device a lie detector? It's a mind probe; it gets in your head and rummages around your thoughts, and it hurts whether you're lying or telling the truth. The only difference is in the degree!"

Pointedly, Owen looked at his watch. "You now have two minutes, twenty-five seconds to tell me why she specifically would be adversely affected by that machine."

Feeling her pain abruptly intensify, the Doctor pleaded with Dr. Harper. "You have to stop the probe now. Please, I'm begging you. She has a brain injury. The machine will be unable to determine whether or not she's telling the truth. When that happens, it will attempt to compensate by intensifying the scan. Her mind could literally be ripped apart through no fault of her own."

"What sort of injury?" he asked suspiciously.

Barely able to think straight, he answered as quickly as he could. "Her temporal lobe is severely damaged. She can no longer sense or comprehend the passage of time except on its most basic level. For her, there is only now, before and after. Any question asked of her that is time sensitive would only confuse her and the probe."

As Owen considered his argument, the Doctor pressed. "Please, you have to make an exception! The damage should be apparent on the Attique scans. For Time Lords, the temporal lobe is the largest area of the brain. All you have to do is to look at scans to see I'm telling the truth. Please, they're hurting her!"

Pulling up the scan of Melissa's brain on his PDA, Owen swore softly under his breath. "Come with me," he said curtly, and finding the door unguarded, the Doctor raced out of his cell, ignoring the guards in his desperate need to reach his wife. Owen was forced to run behind him.

When the Time Lord burst into the scanning room, the two technicians were stunned to see him. However, he only had eyes for Melissa. The restraints were the only things keeping her upright, and she was past the point of answering questions even if she'd been able to understand them. Incensed, he freed her from the restraints and gently eased her to the ground.

Taking in the scene, Dr. Harper was livid. "You two!" he shouted at the two technicians. "Get the hell out of here. You know you're only supposed to use the equipment on healthy subjects, and it's clear that this woman isn't! Brenda, I want the results of every test and scan we've got for the two of them available on my PDA, and I want it now."

Once he was sure his orders were being obeyed, Owen crouched beside the Doctor. "Is she responsive?"

"No." As he tersely answered Dr. Harper, he reluctantly dropped the fleeting mental contact he'd made with his bond mate. She was far from perfect, but she was determined to do something that might help them escape. They'd quickly decided to push Owen as far as he'd go, hoping that he would respond in much the same way as his counterpart.

Taking out a sophisticated stethoscope, Owen checked both her hearts. "What's a normal heart rate for your species?

Hundred forty to hundred sixty beats per minute.

"Shit."

"What?"

"Acute tachycardia in both hearts. Her rates are two hundred fifty and two hundred eighty-six respectively."

The Doctor didn't have to feign his concern. "Her body can't tolerate that for long. She'll go into arrhythmia. What the hell have they done to her?"

"I don't know! They were only supposed to do routine tests."

The Time Lord's voice became coldly sarcastic. "You mean routine tests like the mind probe?"

He saw Owen's lips tighten into a thin line as that barb hit home. Then, the physician frantically checked her test results on the PDA. Nothing matched the standard result a human would have, and he quickly became frustrated.

Just then, Melissa's eyes fluttered open. "Doc?" she called weakly.

"I'm here," he promised with a catch in his throat. He knew what she'd planned next, but it was impossible not to be affected by what she'd endured. He should have been able to save her from the ordeal entirely. The fact that he hadn't would make this all the more difficult to watch.

"I'm so cold."

Taking her hand, he realized that she wasn't lying about that. She was chilled, and it had nothing to do with the stunt she was about to pull. Vainly, he looked around for something to cover her with, noting that Owen was raptly watching the two of them.

"I'll get you blanket. Just stay with me, okay, Em? You've got to stay with me. They're not going to hurt you again. I promise. Just stay with me."

She struggled to keep her eyes focused on his face, and in that instant, he would have awarded her an Oscar because his own hearts were hammering in his chest with unadulterated terror. Before he could completely prepare for it, her eyes rolled into the back of her head and her entire body went limp.

"Emma!"

"Fuck!" Elbowing the Doctor out of the way, Owen again checked Melissa's vital signs, only this time, she wasn't breathing; one of her hearts had stopped beating; and the other one was in arrhythmia.

Tapping his earpiece, he barked, "I need a crash cart to the scanner room!" Then, he desperately began to perform CPR.

By the time the crash team had arrived, she'd gone into total cardiac arrest. It took three charges of the paddles to get her hearts pumping again, but when they did, her breathing started with a strangled gasp. They soon had her transferred to a hospital bed and were wheeling her down several long corridors before they ended up in what looked to be a state of the art intensive care unit.

The team of three doctors and a nurse hooked her up to every machine available in the room. Suddenly there was a cacophony of beeps as the medical equipment monitored her vital signs. All the while, the Doctor hovered over her, trying to remind himself that she was not a death's door as she appeared. It was an extremely difficult task.

As Owen watched his team do their jobs, he continued to scan through the test results, hoping to find something to explain her tachycardia and subsequent arrest. Finally, he thought he'd found it.

"Bloody fucking hell, how did that fall so precipitously?"

Startled, the Doctor crossed the room to peer over his shoulder. "Show me."

"Her hemoglobin levels started out a bit lower than yours, but look at the difference in the blood samples that we took when you first arrived and the ones that were taken twelve hours later. Somehow, she's developed a marked iron deficiency in less than a day."

The Doctor looked, and then he swore softly under his breath. She'd not shown any symptoms of anemia when he'd checked her with the sonic screwdriver before she'd played football with Tony. It wasn't going to last long enough to impact the embryos, but this was precisely the thing he'd been concerned about when she'd announced she was carrying twins.

"Can you start her on oral supplements?"

"Considering her condition, I'd rather administer Dextran."

He considered. Hooking her up to an IV would immobilize her for several hours. If they needed to run, they wouldn't be getting very far. On the other hand, neither of them was in any condition to attempt an escape. He was hanging on to consciousness by a thread; resisting the mind probe had been more debilitating than he'd first thought.

"She should tolerate that." Then, just to remind Owen that they were still prisoners, he asked apprehensively, "You will let me stay with her, won't you? I promise not to attempt an escape."

Owen looked like he'd swallowed something sour. "You can stay. This shouldn't have happened. Someone fucked up royally."

The Doctor repressed a grin. In either universe, Dr. Harper was descriptive. Instead, he replied harshly. "She almost died. I'd say this goes beyond a simple mistake. Just what type of facility are you running?

The Owen in their universe would have angrily exploded at the Doctor's accusation. This one managed to bottle it. "It won't happen again."

Pointedly, the Doctor looked at his bond mate. "You'll have to excuse me for being skeptical about that, Dr. Harper."

This time, the medical director bristled. "I can't change the got damn past, and I'm doing everything in my power to make sure it doesn't happen again. I don't consider you a prisoner, no matter what Control thinks. So if you can stop with the recriminations long enough to listen to me, I was going to suggest we test her hemoglobin levels in another twelve hours to determine what would be the best course of treatment. The mind probe's never sent anyone into cardiac arrest before. It's supposed to have a failsafe built in to stop just such an outcome."

Quietly, the Doctor poked holes in his argument. "A failsafe for human minds?"

The physician looked pained. "Like I said, someone fucked up royally." Watching Melissa's still form, he finally vowed, "I'm not going to let her die. You have my word." Then, he walked out of the room, already yelling at someone in the hallway to send Neil and Victor to his office.

There was no chair in the sterile room, and the Doctor knelt tiredly beside the hospital bed, holding her hand. To the casual observer, he looked to be no different than any other frightened, exhausted man concerned about his wife. However, there was much more occurring than a casual observer could perceive.

Melissa paced around a mental image of the TARDIS console as the Doctor tried to calm her down. "It's fine. The iron deficiency isn't going to last long enough to impact the developing embryos. That's why I agreed to the Dextran. You can start taking supplements once we get out of here, but the injection should be sufficient for now."

Trembling, she let him comfort her. She trusted him, much more than she trusted herself at the moment, but she was terrified that something would go wrong with the pregnancy. She did not want a repeat of Joy. "You promise?"

There was only one way to answer that. "Of course I do. Everything's going to be fine."

Reassured about the pregnancy, she quickly turned her attention to him. "They hurt you; I can feel it. It was the mind probe, wasn't it?"

"It didn't hurt half as much as feeling your pain, Em. I should never have consented to coming here."

"We didn't have much choice," she reminded him. Then, because she could sense his turmoil, she asked anxiously, "Are you sure you're alright?"

"I'm always alright," he answered before he remembered that she could sense he wasn't. "I have a nasty headache, but no permanent damage. It's you I'm worried about, although I must say that you are an accomplished actress. When you went into cardiac arrest, I thought my own hearts would stop for a second."

"It certainly gave Owen a scare. It looks like he hates losing patients in Pete's World as much as he did at home." Then, because she could still sense his blistering anger, she offered, "I don't think they meant to hurt me."

"The mind probe would have killed you," he stated flatly, not willing to exonerate Torchwood in the slightest.

"Yes, I think it would have," she finally agreed after giving the matter serious thought.

Hating to burden her further, he reluctantly admitted, "We can't stay here hoping that Dr. Harper will be able to protect us. As soon as we're able, we should escape."

She responded far more placidly than he'd expected. "I know. I was hoping we could get our clothes before escaping, though. Orange is not your color."

He responded with a smirk, hoping she would catch the reference. "If you don't like it, I can take it off."

She did, and couldn't help but smile. Jack had looked ridiculous in that orange velour track suit the TARDIS had provided him with after he'd rescued her from Bad Wolf Summit.

"You two flirted outrageously. Admit it; you loved him even then."

"I flirted with everyone in that body," he answered smugly.

"Except me."

He thought about her assertion for a moment before saying, "You know, I don't think I did. 'Course, by the time I thought about it, you had the Captain wrapped around your finger."

She was too tired to protest that Jack had been the one to seduce her. "Do you think he'll try to rescue us?"

"Jack must be half mad with worry by now. I hope he doesn't talk Donna into doing anything foolish." Knowing what he'd just said, he gave her a sheepish grin. "I suppose it would be polite to wait for them. We wouldn't want to make them come all this way only to find us gone, eh?"

He briefly sensed her amused agreement before he was forced to break the connection. A nurse had entered the room to insert Melissa's IV. He stood stiffly to watch her work. Everything seemed to be routine, and soon, the woman left. Reaching out to take Melissa's hand again, the Doctor realized that she'd fallen asleep in the few minutes they'd been separated.

Sleep definitely wasn't a bad idea. His own head felt like someone had taken a mallet to it. There wasn't a chair in the room, but at that point he didn't care. He sank to the floor next to the monitors, resting his head against the wall. Before he could even get comfortable, he realized that he was losing consciousness. With his last coherent thought, he hoped Jack would hurry.