"You aren't meant to be here, Jack."

"Yeah, I know, Doc. Look, it's our anniversary. 59103 years. Just a little walk down memory lane, that's all. We're keeping back."

"You don't belong here, Jack."

"We probably should get on, if we're visiting Metebelis," Ianto said. "Haven't packed yet."

"And you, especially, shouldn't be here."

"What's the problem with me being here?" Ianto retorted.

"The problem is none of you should be here!"

"Doctor!" Jack hissed. "Keep it quiet – they'll notice us. I don't need my wedding day rewritten…."

"They won't notice anything because they aren't there and we aren't here and none of this ever happened."

Jack and Ianto looked at one another. "I think your mind is still regenerating, Doc. You might want to have a holiday until it's done." Jack hoped this latest regeneration wasn't going to finish up as dotty as he seemed by the time he was done 'cooking.' "Anyway, come on, Yan. Blue-planet anniversary awaits."

"Only it doesn't," the Doctor insisted. "It's only in your head. He's dead, you're vegetative and hooked up to technology that should never have been approved for little human minds, and I'm only here because I'm fantastically clever and managed to hack myself into your subconscious 'dream-world' experience."

Jack eyed the Doctor carefully. This was barking, even for the Doctor. Best to get the hell away from him, Jack decided. "Let's go, Yan," Jack said, reaching for Ianto's hand and flipping open his manipulator to press the "Home" button.

"His regenerations take more of a toll every time, I think," Jack said sadly. It wasn't easy to see someone so brilliant in decline like that. "Well, let's get packed. I'm dying to show you Mete-"

"It's not real!" the Doctor shouted, appearing in the doorway to the kitchen. "He's dead. He's been dead for millennia and you refuse to cope with that! You're lying there now, in some sensory pod, having some 'experience' that you've paid handsomely for – and don't think it's lost that you've been doing the same thing at every intergalactic pleasure-center you've passed since fleeing earth in 2010. Your 'coping mechanism' is an addiction, a damn pathetic one."

Jack's face darkened. "Get out," he demanded lowly. "Get out of our home, right now. I'm sorry if this is the result of your regeneration going poorly, but that gives you no right to stand here and put your delusions on me – on us. Get out, Doctor. You've never done a solitary thing for either of us, we don't owe you. Go!"

"Jack…."

"I'm sorry, Ianto, but I'm not going to let him talk to us like -"

"Something's wrong, Jack. Something's…. What does he mean I'm dead? How can I be…?"

"Of course you're not. You're fine, obviously. He's sick, it's the regeneration or he got unlucky on the mind of this one or something."

"But something feels wrong, Jack. I never realized it before, but now I think it's always felt that way. Something about me… isn't right. I don't feel… I don't know who…."

"That's because You're. Not. Real," the Doctor said, pointing at Ianto. "You're a creation of his mind, based on memories and dreams and wishes and regrets. And guilt. Mostly guilt."

"Don't you dare!" Jack hissed, only just holding himself back from beating the Doctor into another regeneration. "Don't you dare ever talk to my husband like that! He is the only thing in my life that has always been real – and he's a lot more real than you, especially at this moment."

"Jack…? I'm not… we haven't really been…. We don't have an always, I've only existed… a few years – when you signed up for that pod thing."

"No! He's nuts, don't listen to him. Everything he says is a lie – and always has been! Don't ever listen to him, he's a monster who tears peoples' lives apart and never stays around to deal with the aftermath."

"But it's true, Jack," Ianto whispered. "Look at me. Look into my eyes. I'm not him, I've no soul, no animus. All I am is what you remember loving. Not all your memories, not even all the love in you for him can make him real again."

"Stop. Just stop it…. Please, stop…," Jack begged as Ianto sank into the nearest chair, looking somehow grainy and indistinct, like an old half-memory.

"What have you done?" Jack roared at the Doctor.