Jack and Ianto spent the night back on Earth (the original one). It was the late 1930s and London was bustling with a classic charm that had been missing in 2009 when last they left. The Strand Palace Hotel however, looked much the same, from the outside at least. The interior was decorated in the contemporary (for the time anyway) Art Deco fashions. When they woke the next morning, Jack again took Ianto to a new location, but this one was nowhere near as exciting as the previous two. Cardiff, Wales. Early October 2006.

"But we're in bloody, Cardiff, Jack. What are we doing here?" Ianto said looking around him. They had landed on a grassy hillside just outside the city and Jack was pulling out another one of his micro-packaged blankets.

"This is one of the first places I came with the Doctor and Rose Tyler," Jack said. He sat on the blanket and patted a spot next to him for Ianto to join. Ianto begrudgingly sat down next to him.

"Why here though? It's just Cardiff."

"The Doctor needed to refuel his TARDIS," Jack said with a smile.

"What?"

"It feeds on the time energy. That's why he's been here so often over the years. The rift provides the perfect fuel source," Jack said point to the bay. "You know our secret lift?"

"Yeah," Ianto said, swallowing hard. He was trying very hard not to remember the last time he was forced to use said lift.

"The perception filter that allows us to use it was accidentally left behind from the TARDIS on one of the Doctor's many visits. He seems to always land in the exact same location," Jack said, dropping his hand to the ground. "This time was no different. At least not at first. We had lunch with Rose's boyfriend, Mickey. He'd taken the train over from London."

"Rose had a boyfriend?"

"Yeah," Jack said with a smirk. "I was as surprised as you are."

"But she was," Ianto paused. "Dancing with the Doctor."

"And with me, but I do seem to have that charm." He winked at Ianto as he continued. "Everything was going fine and well until the Doctor spotted a poster of the newly elected mayor."

"Margaret Blaine?"

Jack nodded. "Turns out, the Doctor recognized her."

"But how?"

"She wasn't human, Ianto. Just a skin she was borrowing."

"She wasn't human?" Ianto said gaping. "What was she then?"

"Raxacoricofallapatorian. From the planet of Raxacoricofallapatorius."

"Raxa-what-a-who-a-who?" Ianto said looking up.

"Raxacoricofallapatorius. It's right at the edge of the Mutter's Spiral. Has a twin planet, Clom. It's got a purple atmosphere that can be seen from very far away. Gorgeous. Beautiful in fact," Jack said with a smile. "But even the Raxacoricofallapatorians have their bad eggs." He laughed to himself as he continued. "The Slitheen family, to which the Raxacoricofallapatorian residing inside Miss Blaine's form belonged, was one of the most noted criminal families of the whole species. They bribed their way into government and proceeded to crash the planet's economy, causing them to eventually be ousted by their own people in an uprising. They were tried as a family and were all sentenced to death."

"So how did one of them end up inside Margaret Blaine?"

"They escaped. The Judoon forced them off the planet, but never executed them."

"Judoon?"

"Think of them as rhino-like Space-Cops. Anyway, they escaped and they infiltrated Earth. In March of this year. 2006 that is. They took up disguising themselves as humans," Jack said with a smirk. "The attempted to seize control of the British government, because they wished to start a nuclear war so the Earth would turn into an oversized Nuclear reactor which they would then sell off the remains of as starship fuel. The Doctor stopped them of course. He and Rose's boyfriend, shot down Downing Street with a Missile, killing all of them. Or so they thought." Jack paused and looked at Ianto's face. "That's what brings us to the current time and place. Blon Fel-Fotch Passameer-Day Slitheen survived that attack by teleporting herself to the Isle of Dogs. She came back soon after in her human suit and managed to get herself elected Mayor of Cardiff."

"I voted for her," Ianto mumbled.

"Don't worry. A lot of people did." Jack patted Ianto's shoulder comfortingly. "She had a grand plan. She was going to destroy the nuclear reactor and with its meltdown the rift would amplify the results, destroying the Earth and sending her away on her tribophysical waveform macro-kinetic extrapolator. She attempted to teleport away from us several times, but the Doctor used his screwdriver to reverse the affects. The Doctor decided it was time for Blon to return to Raxacoricofallapatorius and face punishment for what she had done. Meanwhile, I took the extrapolator back to the TARDIS. I knew I could use it to speed up the recharging cycle and I began trying to wire it into the main frame." He looked at Ianto. "That's when the Earthquake happened." Ianto nodded.

"I remember that. Rhia and the kids almost got trapped," Ianto said, staring off into the distance.

"Not long later, Rose and the Doctor came back to the TARDIS. We realized then that the extrapolator was a trap. It was designed to lock onto the nearest alien power source —the TARDIS — and send that energy to open the rift. We desperately tried to disable it, but failed. Blon took Rose hostage then and demanded her extrapolator returned. In that moment however, the heart of the TARDIS opened, revealing the whole of space and time. Blon looked into it and disappeared with the light. The skin of Margaret Blaine was left behind. The Doctor noticed something peculiar. An egg."

"An egg?"

"An egg," Jack said simply. "A Raxacoricofallapatorian egg to be exact. The TARDIS had recognized that Blon desperately wanted a chance at a new life and had given her just that. We then prepared to take the egg back to Raxacoricofallapatorius. We would give her to a different family in hopes that she could be a better person in her second life. But that's when Rose realized something. Her boyfriend, Mickey, had left without saying good-bye. The Doctor offered to wait, but she said not. I later found out he had told her that due to her prolonged absence while adventuring the whole of space and time with the Doctor, he had begun seeing another girl."

"Oh," Ianto gasped. "Poor, Rose. She sounds like such a lovely girl."

"She was. She really, really was." They were quiet for a long time. Just looking out over the city.

"On our way to Raxacoricofallapatorius," Jack continued. "We were intercepted in a way. The year was 200,100. The three of us were randomly transmatted into three different game shows on Satellite Five."

"Hold up, what?"

"In 200,100, Satellite 5, better known as the Gamestation had some pretty interesting versions of some 21st century television shows going on. They picked their contestants randomly and teleported them into the scenarios using transmat. Short for Matter Transmission," Jack eyed Ianto who nodded and Jack continued. "I was put into some sort of 'What Not to Wear'-esque makeover show. The Doctor was on 'Big Brother' and Rose was on 'The Weakest Link.' The androids in charge of my show zap all my clothes off and well I was naked on public television."

"Now that I'd like to see," Ianto said with a smirk.

Jack laughed. "Their view figures did quadruple with that episode. But anyway. I had my fashion fun with the lovely robotic ladies, until they decided they didn't like my face. They were going to cut my face off and replace it with a dog's head. They pulled out chainsaws and various other sharp objects, but they didn't know I was armed."

"How could you be though?" Ianto said in astonishment. "Armed that is. You were naked weren't you? Where'd you keep your weapon?"

"It was a compact laser deluxe pistol and you really don't want to know where I was keeping it." Jack laughed to himself.

"But you wouldn't!" Ianto said, realizing what Jack was insinuating.

"Not anymore," Jack said with a smile. "Back there though. I was never unarmed. I promptly blew off both their heads and redressed in my own clothes before modifying their defabricator gun into a ray gun and left the studio, in search of the Doctor and Rose. When I found the Doctor he was with Lynda, a girl he'd met at 'Big Brother.' He was hacking into the computer system in an effort to locate Rose. Floor 407, 'The Weakest Link.' So we went. Got on the lift and burst into the studio just as the final round ended and Rose was declared the weakest link. She ran towards us but only half-way across the space separating us, the Anne Droid zapped her into a pile of dust."

"Shit," Ianto said. "That is so not good."

"No. The Doctor was in shock. He was silent. I however threatened the stage manager and the guy who had beaten Rose in the game, but guards arrived and took all three of us for questioning. They were about to use the transmat to send us to a Lunar Penal Colony when the doctor gave the sign and we both sprang into action. It's something we'd discussed as a last resort on the way to find Rose."

"What did you do?"

"Knocked them out and took their weapons. Then we ran back to the lift and went up. All the way up to floor 500. The offices." Jack looked at Ianto. "We got there and waved our weapons as the programmers who skirted to the sides of the room. The 'controller' they called her was a woman. She had wires coming from every which part of her, hooking her into the station itself. The Doctor asked her who was in charge, but she didn't respond. One of the programmers was nervous about the size of the Doctor's gun, but of course being the Doctor he was never really going to use it, so he tossed it to the man and he explained. The programmer told us that the 'controller' was 'installed' when she was only five years old."

"That's barbaric! Why would anyone let that happen to their child?" Ianto said in disgust.

"I don't know," Jack shook his head. "But then he told us that there had been unauthorized transmats for years, including of course ours and that he couldn't get into Archive 6 which is where those records are kept." Jack laughed. "I didn't have any problem though. Shot the lock right off the door and went inside. And do you know what I found?"

"What?" Ianto's eyes widened.

Jack laughed again. "The Doctor's TARDIS."

"No. Seriously?"

Jack nodded with a small laughed. "I went in and got the console activated, but just as I was reading some remarkable news on the screens, they went fuzzy from a solar flare and the 'controller' called for the Doctor. He ran to her and she explained that during the flare her 'masters' could not control her mind as they had for many years. They had genetically altered her to not say be able to speak their names, but she had seen him in her transmissions and hid him in the games, so that he would find her. Her 'masters' she said had been hiding and shaping Earth for centuries, growing in numbers as they did, but they fear the Doctor above all else." Jack paused and smiled. "The TARDIS had figured something out and as the flare passed I ran out to tell the Doctor. The disintegrator guns they were using were only a secondary transmat system. Rose wasn't dead, only placed somewhere else. The controller shouted out the coordinates of where they had taken Rose only to be teleported away a second later since her 'masters' could control her once more."

"So you went and got Rose then?" Ianto said, suddenly happy.

"Yeah, but first we had to find her."

"What do you mean? The 'controller' gave you coordinates, didn't she?"

"Yeah, but they weren't specific enough. We went back into the TARDIS and traced the teleport to a point on the edge of the solar system which appeared empty at first, but the Doctor realized there was a shielding signal being sent out from the satellite, blocking whatever was there. He deactivated the signal and we were both in shock." Jack gulped suddenly. "Two-hundred Dalek Saucers each with thousands of Daleks on board. More than half a million in total. They opened communications. The leader of the Daleks spoke to the Doctor telling him to not mess with their plan or that he would exterminate Rose, who was in the background."

"What did he do?" Ianto said, barely believing his ears.

Jack smiled. "He said 'no.'"

"What?"

"He said, 'no.' and told them that he was going to rescue Rose, save the Earth, and then knock every last one of them out of the sky. The Dalek pointed out that he had no weapons, defenses, or plans. He knew that, but he also knew, that's what was scaring them most and he cut the transmission."

"What did you do? Half a million Daleks and two of you. That doesn't sound like a very good scenario," Ianto said, clearly concerned.

"This," Jack said finally. "Is the story of how I died (for the first time), but more on that later." Jack laughed. At the time of its happening, laughing wouldn't have been the right response at all, but after living for a couple of millennia, dying wasn't so scary any more. "I used the tribophysical waveform macro-kinetic extrapolator we'd taken from Blon to rig up a force-field around the TARDIS, protecting us from the missiles the Daleks sent at us on our approach. The TARDIS materialized on the ship where they were keeping Rose. He managed to land with her inside. There was a lone Dalek guarding her, which I destroyed with a gun from Satellite 5."

"So you rescued Rose then?"

"Yeah," Jack said with a smile.

"But what about the rest of those promises? Saving Earth? Destroying the Daleks?" Ianto said. He fiddled with his tie and Jack smiled. Jack kissed Ianto's forehead before he continued the story.

"Don't worry. I'm getting there. The Doctor inspected the Dalek wreckage and then we exited the TARDIS and were immediately fired upon by the surround Daleks, but the force-field was still protecting us. He taunted the Daleks with their own legends of his power before asking how they survived only to be answered by the Dalek Emperor himself."

"The Daleks have an emperor?" Ianto asked. "Seriously?"

"Yeah," Jack nodded. "He was a mutant by this point though, suspended in a large glass tank of fluid. Other Daleks floated all around him. He explained that his ship had fallen through time after the Time War. And the Daleks on board spent centuries in 'the dark space' rebuilding. They infiltrated Earth and used human genetic material, converting it into Dalek. Rose said that made them half-human. The Daleks called it blasphemous. The emperor proceeded to call himself 'the God of all Daleks.' After the Doctor realized how insane they had been driven by the human DNA, we went back into the TARDIS and returned to floor 500."

"Why?"

"To save the world of course," Jack smiled. "Lynda was still there, waiting for our return. The Doctor sent the programmers to work blocking all further transmats into the Satellite. The Doctor I then started work on a Delta Wave to be transmitted via the Satellite which would fry every brain in its way, including all of the Daleks. I attached the extrapolator to the Station's system so it couldn't be blasted from the sky. I made sure they'd have to enter at floor 494 and work their way up from there. Then I kissed them both good-bye and went to help the others gather volunteers to stand against the Daleks from floor zero (that's where the lobby was). We could only gather a few, but I told the rest to stay quiet and maybe the Daleks wouldn't find them. Most of them didn't believe the Daleks still existed."

"Why didn't they listen when you told them?"

"Humans are stubborn, Ianto." Jack laughed. "They didn't want to believe it so they didn't. I contacted the Doctor on floor 500. He told me he had sent Rose back to her own time in the TARDIS. I asked how long till the wave was ready, but the Emperor interrupted the transmission reminding him that the wave would kill not only the Daleks, but every human in its range. He knew that, but by 200,100 there are human colonies all throughout the universe, they would survive, but every race would be at risk if the Daleks were allowed to live. I told the Doctor to keep working and told the Daleks that I have never and would never doubt the Doctor. He asked about the words 'Bad Wolf.'"

"Bad Wolf?" Ianto asked.

"The Bad Wolf Corporation is what they'd been calling themselves. The words had been scattered throughout history. The Daleks however informed him that the words were not their own. The Dalek ships lowered into orbit and they came streaming from them towards the station. They entered at floor 494 as I had planned and easily turned off the internal lasers and exterminated the first line of defenders. The guns which I heard were effective against Daleks apparently were not. The bullets merely melted at their force-fields. They moved to floor 495 and encountered Anne Droid who destroyed three, before one blew her head straight off."

"This is keeps getting worse," Ianto said hiding his eyes against Jack's chest.

"Do you want me to stop?" Jack asked, kissing the top of Ianto's head as he wrapped his arms around him. "I don't have to tell this story in so much detail. It is rather important in a broader sense though."

"No, no," Ianto said. "Keep going. It's already happened, so I know you're going to make it out alright in the end." Ianto looked up and smiled. "Doesn't mean it's not going to be sad. I'm still sad every time you die, Jack. You know that? Even though I know you're going to come back in a little while, I still get sad every time. Because what if, one day, you don't come back?"

Jack kissed the top of Ianto's head. "I actually, don't think that'll ever be possible. The Doctor once told me that I was a fixed point in time. I can't be erased. This is permanent."

"But how can you be sure?"

"I can't be," Jack said honestly looking at Ianto. "But don't you worry about it." He kissed Ianto's forehead and pulled him tight against his chest. "I'm sorry it makes you sad." Ianto smiled and kissed Jack's forearm that was in front of his mouth. "Anyway. 2002nd Century. After Anne Droid, they didn't go up, but to Lynda's horror (She was watching the monitors for us.), they went down to floor zero and exterminated every single person left alive. Meanwhile, the rest of the Daleks had descended onto Earth below and started bombing. I was on floor 499. We organized ourselves as a last stand against the Daleks. I told them to fire directly onto their eyestalks. It's a weak point in their armor and it worked. We killed one Dalek before they killed everyone except me. I retreated to floor 500, still firing at the oncoming squads. They tried to enter the room where Lynda was, but as they did this another squad approached from the outside and blasted the window out, killing her in the vacuum of space. I ran out of ammunition not long after that and they exterminated me in the hallway of floor 500, just as the Doctor finished the Delta Wave."

"They," Ianto could barely say the words. "They exterminated…you?"

"Yeah. That's the first time I died. That time it would have been permanent, too."

"Would have been?" Ianto asked curiously.

"Should have been."

"What do you mean?"

"The next part I've only heard from the Doctor in stories and from Rose. Back on Earth, Rose looked into the heart of the TARDIS and absorb the whole of the time vortex into herself, which is really quite dangerous. She brought the TARDIS back to the station and deemed herself the Bad Wolf, spreading the name throughout history. She killed all of the Daleks by sheer willpower and then, without telling the Doctor what she was doing. She brought me back to life in the hallway. The first time I ever woke up from dying and why I can't ever die again at least not permanently."

"Rose. She saved you? And that's why you can't die?"

"Yes. And the Doctor kissed her, sucking the vortex from her, killing himself in the process. As he began his regeneration cycle, Rose collapsed on the floor. He carried her back into the TARDIS and I got back into the room, just in time for them to leave without me."

"They left you there?"

"The Doctor didn't know I was alive and Rose was unconscious. What can you expect?"

"Wow," Ianto said, laying his head against Jack's shoulder. Jack smiled towards the bay.

"That's when I ended up here," Jack smiled at Ianto. "I knew the Doctor would have to go back to Cardiff sometime to refuel the TARDIS again, so I used my vortex manipulator to come back to Cardiff. I was shooting for the early 21st century, but the time was off and I ended up in 1869. The vortex manipulator burnt out and I was stuck."

"Oh," Ianto said looking up at Jack's face. "That's sort of rubbish."

"I thought so at the time, but I wouldn't be working for Torchwood if it hadn't happened, so you know. I think it might have been all worth it in the end." He kissed Ianto's forehead again. "If only because that means I have you." The two kissed for a while. And Jack was finished telling stories at least for now. The day ended and they were off on another adventure.