The Doctor hung on the doorframe of the infirmary. "We're about to come out of the Void." He looked down at the figure asleep on the examination table. "What about her?"

If that was the Doctor's way of asking how she was doing, he was making a really lousy job of it. He was becoming more distant with each minute. Soon he'd fail to acknowledge her existence. "She's out like a light. No new news." Except for one thing, that had come up when he was scanning her thoroughly, checking for anything, injury-wise, that they'd missed.

It was probably what Owen had meant when he'd said 'something else,' but he wouldn't know without a physical examination, which he wouldn't chance without Violet's consent. He wasn't sure he should tell the Doctor. Poor damned stupid kid.

Sighing impatiently, the Doctor stood up straight. "Well, I'm dropping us out of the Void, then another minute or two to get out of the Vortex, so hold on to something. Then I need you to come with me." Without waiting for a response, he departed.

Probably his nice way of saying he needed backup.

A few moments later, the ship rocked uncomfortably. A virtually non-existent vibrating grew until Jack's teeth rattled. He threw an arm over Violet to keep her from falling off of the cot. As the trembling made everything in the room shake, he pressed Violet's head to his shoulder to keep it from snapping to and fro.

There seemed to be a moment of freefall, and then everything stopped abruptly. The body beneath him jangled like a dead weight and he had to hold onto her tight to keep anything bad from happening.

And then it was still. Still holding on to his unintentional charge, he let out a sigh. Travel between dimensions sucked. Was probably crappy on the gas mileage too.

"Jack," Violet mumbled into his shoulder. "Where's Saul…"

It took him a moment to process that he could let go of her. Giving her some breathing room, he looked her over.

Eyes fluttering, she scratched the red, fresh skin on her forehead. "You said you'd hide him." She focused on him for the first time, and her head dropped back onto the pillow. "Shit. Wrong timeline."

"You must be feeling better."

Clenching her eyes shut, she licked her dry lips. "You had a moustache. Said your girlfriend liked it."

Ignoring her statement, he tried to find a gentle way to ask the question. "Violet…I need to know about Saul. Is he your--" he stopped short when the Doctor appeared again in the doorway.

"We're here. Leave her." He didn't even look at Violet. Like he was consciously trying to ignore her.

God. What a total asshat. "Don't you want to ask Violet what's coming for the boys, and who?"

"No," the Doctor began patronizingly. "I want to get out there and STOP it."

As Jack stood up, Violet grabbed his sleeve, even as she eyed the Doctor suspiciously. "Jack… don't tell anyone," she whispered. "He is."

XYZ

His face scrunched in thought, Rom watched his brothers sleeping on the daybed from the cab's uncomfortable kitchen chair. It could have been worse. There was food. Stuff he could actually make, even—cereal, milk, stuff for sandwiches. Juice to drink. A couple of books to read. It could have been a lot worse, as far as captivity went. But still…

This whole thing was weird. The man in the dark hood was like some kind of dead zone to him. It wasn't so much that any attempts to probe psychically were refused—it was as if the man wasn't there at all.

"You're just wasting your time with the scans," someone said from behind him.

Rom turned, looking up at his kidnapper, standing in the doorway he hadn't heard open. "What's WRONG with you?" Even if the guy had no latent psychic ability, Rom should have felt him at least…existing.

The man's thin lips pulled back in a smile, his eyes still hidden by the leather hood. "Little trick I picked up from some monks on Estis Three." He leaned against the doorway and crossed one ankle over the other, arms folded across his chest. "You don't block the mental contact, you just…funnel it elsewhere. It's simple, really."

Rom frowned. "And you're telling me this because…?"

The man never flinched. "Valid question, I suppose. I'm not the enemy."

"Scuse me if I don't believe that." On the bed, Branden began to stir, rubbing his eyes, his cheeks still swollen and flushed with sleep. The younger boy moaned, sounding like he was about to cry, even before he was completely awake. "Bran…shh, its ok."

Before Rom could hug his brother, the boy started crying. "Want the Doctor…" he whimpered. "Want mum."

Glaring at the man, the older boy ground his teeth. "You'd better take us back. Cos if the Doctor hasta come looking for us, you won't like it." He once blew up a whole prison colony to get mum back. Rom had no doubt the Doctor would come for them, and when he did, it wouldn't be pretty. In light of that, he felt it was decent of him to give the bloke fair warning.

As Rom patted Branden's back in consolation, Arten started crying.

The man stood up, entirely unfrightened of the threat. Stalking over to the daybed, he scooped up the baby and held him in one arm like he was a cat or something, head supported with his hand. He opened a small cupboard concealing a temporal food preservation unit and took out a pre-made baby bottle, then plugged Arten's mouth with it, stopping the inconsolable sobs. "Nah. I don't think it would come to that. All the same, I'd like to meet him."

Branden stopped moaning long enough to make a face at their captor. "Yeah. You'll meet him. Right 'afore he kicks yer a--"

The man tisked. "Language, children. Language."

XYZ

Rose scribbled down what her daughter was saying as quickly as possible. She tried not to look at Violet; that'd just make this so much more difficult. Her child was sitting in the big leather chair in Jack's office, intermittently spewing off random memories, being sick and passing out. It was a vicious cycle that Rose was contributing to.

Every time Violet would come to again, she'd start reading everything off the notepad from the beginning, refreshing the young woman's memory of where she'd left off, and she'd make herself ill remembering, until her eyes rolled back in her head and Gwen Cooper had to catch her before she went face-first into Jack's desk.

The recovery time was getting longer and longer.

Gwen would just look at Rose, and she'd clench her eyes shut when Violet moaned as she came back around.

Around the fifteenth or sixteenth time the residual Retcon caused Violet's memory of her lost years to reboot, she woke, but didn't seem to have any awareness of the things that Rose was rambling off. Finally she pushed the pad away from her and looked at Gwen. "I can't do this any more, I just can't." Even if Violet said that this was the only way she'd be able to remember what had happened with Greg and the car. What more was there to remember, if Violet was a virtual catatonic?

Slowly, Gwen leaned Violet back in the chair, making sure she was propped up against the armrest enough not to slide out. "We were almost there."

Rose rubbed her temples. "I think I can guess what happened. I don't need to torture her any more—mentally or physically. She WAS in the car with Greg. The later her. Maybe she did prevent the crash. Or she was there, and he died anyway."

The other woman nodded, leaning back against Jack's desk. "Which means we want someone to check the grave, see if there's a body in it."

Gesturing her ascent, Rose yawned in sadness as much as exhaustion. "And she paid for that opportunity at a second chance with the knowledge of how to jump universes and navigate the Void. And she gave that up to an organization with… questionable-at-best motives." Rose's eyes grew wide and the pen dropped out of her hand, clacking dully against the carpet. "Oh god. The boys."

XYZ

He really should have let Jack do this, except Jack was checking the string of unconscious security, looking for signs of Retcon. Because the second he removed the gag from the Jackie Tyler tied to the hard-backed chair in the kitchen, she was off and running.

"You stupid bastard!" she yelled. "I don't know what you're up to, or what you're involved in, but you get those boys back! You get them back, I don't care what you have to do, you…" the moment her hands were untied, she whipped around and slapped him.

He didn't react, other than to grab her wrist when she pulled back again. "What happened? Who took them?" Didn't she know that he couldn't help, if he didn't have any information?

Jackie scowled at him. "Do you think I know who it was? It wasn't as if I could ask his name after he taped my mouth shut!"

The Doctor looked at the unconscious men in the kitchen—obvious security detail. All the lights were out, phones were dead, both land and mobile. The adhesive on the tape used to bind Jackie up was a twenty-fourth century brand with several half-lives, until eventually the tape would give way entirely. "One man did this?"

He was a time traveller that was for certain.

Out of breath, Jack made it into the kitchen. "No visible signs of what knocked them unconscious. Could have been a gas or something, but then Mrs. Tyler would be out too. No signs of the Time Agent base for Retcon, either."

Jackie spun around in the chair, making it more difficult for the Doctor to undo the tape around her ankles. "Who the hell're you? Where's my daughter?"

The Doctor sighed. "With your 'favourite' granddaughter. That jolting of the time line I felt? Yeah, that was her. Doing something really stupid. So if we could focus here—what did this fellow look like?"

Jackie frowned, concentrating. "Leather jacket with a hood, I couldn't see his face. He was awful polite about the whole thing, for being a dirty-rotten kidnapper."

"I told Greg about this…" Violet muttered from the next room. I told him to be ready… for something. He was coming back for Saul…"

The Doctor sighed, his chin hitting his chest as she came into the doorway, her clothing a bloody and charred mess, holes torn through it and her skin still raw. "Violet, quit wrecking time lines and get back in the ship."

She squinted, seeming to really concentrate on him. "Oh hell. The time line…"

His head bobbed in a patronizing manner. "That's why you have to get back in the TARDIS."

Looking to Jack for something, she put her hand on the wall for support. "Missed you, gran."

The old woman shot the Doctor a dirty look. "I don't see why she has to--"

Before Jackie Tyler could continue further with that statement, Jack nodded to Violet. "Why don't you go back into the TARDIS. We'll straighten this out."

Violet looked torn for a moment, glancing at all three of her elders absently. "Yeah. Time lines. Stuff."

"We'll be having a talk about this, later," the Doctor announced, practically shooing her away, then turned back to Jackie after Violet stumbled back toward the ship. "She can't stay here. The more interaction we have, the worse this whole situation is going to get." He grabbed her upper arms. "Is there anything else you remember about the man that took the boys?"

Jackie rubbed her forehead. "I don't know. The coat was so…odd. It was…scaley, maybe. Brown and sort of green. He kept tugging the hood down over his eyes. Like he wasn't sure it'd stay in place." Rather suddenly, everything caught up with the woman, and she bit her lips as tears welled, catching in her mascara-caked eyelashes. "What happened to them?"

Jack and the Doctor glanced at each other. It was Jack that spoke up. "I don't think it was a time agent, that isn't their standard issue. More like a freelancer. The kind of guy the Time Agency usually goes after and puts down. But who the hell knows what's been going on there since I left."

The Doctor squeezed Jackie's shoulders again, and the woman yelped until he loosened his grip. "Did he look familiar to you, in any sort of way?"

For some reason, Jackie looked away. "He did. But I don't know how."

"Could it have been Greg? Maybe he was older?"

Shrugging out of the Doctor's grip, the older woman took a few steps away, glancing around the kitchen as she wracked her brains. "No. His skin was lighter. He had long hair, straighter." She gestured with her fingers, indicating where the hair had stopped, over his collar.

Grabbing the Doctor's arm, Jack pulled the Time Lord away from Jackie Tyler. Leaning in, he hesitated, and then just came out with it. "I think the boys are ok," he whispered, not sure what to say to the lady rubbing her hand over her mouth, trying to swallow back panic for three small children forcibly removed from her care.

"Why? Because he didn't hurt anybody? That could mean anything."

Jack slid his hands into his pockets, searching for some sort of distraction. "Violet would have to tell you that. She doesn't want me to say anything, but…I know what she was going on about before."

The Doctor turned away from Jackie slightly. "I don't have time to pry it out of her. Just tell me what you know." There was something so cold and calculating in his voice. Jack knew it well; the Doctor could be quite the bastard when the need arose. But this was his own… what? Family? He didn't seem to acknowledge them as such. He behaved as if they were all some sort of entourage that just so happened to (quirkily enough) include an infant and a whole assortment of people who just so happened to share portions of his biological material. A whole slew of people who were, culturally, much more human than Time Lord, despite what their genetics may say.

For Christmas, this year, Jack was going to buy the Doctor a few new ties, and a FUCKING CLUE. Usually around the holidays they sold them at ASDA in the bargain bin.

Jack didn't have time to make a snide comment to that effect, though, because of the yawing sound coming from the floor above them of a TARDIS departing.

Without caring for Jackie's feelings, he and the Doctor both made a dead run for the steps.

XYZ

It took a while, but Violet's eyes seemed to focus again. She pulled her knees to her chest and stared at the papers on Jack's desk, some new sadness had overcome her, and she wasn't inclined to share.

Since she wasn't going to open up willingly, there really was very little to do for her. Gwen had offered to find Ianto and get some coffee started while Rose sat in the over-sized chair on the opposite end of the desk as her daughter, looking over the legal pad and the pages of notes, trying to figure out what had lead them all to this point. She was worried for her sons, if her terrifying suspicion was correct, but her modified super phone couldn't contact the Doctor or Jack.

She hoped that was because they were already on the case, and were returning to the dimension where they'd left the boys. WHY had she left them alone? What in the hell had she been thinking? Run off with the Doctor for a few hours' for old times sake, have a few minutes alone…

The imaginary point that Violet seemed so obsessed with in the middle of the desktop seemed to dissipate and she licked her lips, eyes beginning to roam the room. "I know what they wanted me to forget," she whispered.

Rose put her pen down. "What is it?"

Her eyes were glassy, but nothing leaked out. "My—my…" she couldn't say it. Whatever it was. It was something too personal. She had that same panicked look about her that the Doctor got when trying to broach the topic of just what their little TARDIS band meant to him. "They wanted me to forget him. They wanted me to forget…"

Blinking rapidly, Violet shook her head and got to her feet. "And…and I remember where I hid FRED."

Before Rose could ask—Violet was out the office door, and it slammed shut behind her.

TBC…