"Yeah, well, Jack Harkness, you still aren't the boss of me." Turning on her heels, Rose marched past her desk and back into the TARDIS, huffing and flustered.

This whole argument had started over her passing out again. Well, it wasn't like they could prove she'd passed out. So she'd been asleep at her desk, holding the box? So what? It wasn't like she'd had another massive seizure or had stopped breathing again (that they could prove). So what the hell were they so worried about?

It had been three weeks since the first incident. Couldn't they just let the whole thing go?

Apparently not.

She stroked the console for a moment, sending soothing thoughts its way, trying to reassure the ship that everything was all right, even if it kind of wasn't. "He just…marches in here and starts telling me what to do. What am I? Twelve? He thinks I'm twelve."

It might have been her own addled brain (which seemed to be failing her more and more these days—sometimes she thought she heard the ship in her mind, sometimes she thought she saw the Doctor out of the corner of her eye) backfiring, but the sound from the ship seemed to change to a sympathetic hum. Was it wrong for her to think of the ship as her best friend? It seemed like the TARDIS was all she had left right now.

The TARDIS… and the dreams. "You understand. I know you do."

Sighing with frustration that Jack would be so… so… the way Jack was being about it, she gave the console another reaffirming stroke, and then slowly clomped across the catwalk, across the chamber and into the hallway, intending to go back to her room.

Somehow, though, she found herself curled up on a familiar bed, holding a familiar-smelling pillow to her chest. The feeling of loneliness had been ever-present this last half year. But it hadn't stung like this. It hadn't bit at her because she hadn't let it. With Jack back in her life it seemed that some new capacity for emptiness had opened up. It wasn't because of Jack's presence. When things were going well between them, it was like a warm, sunny day. When things were like this…it was like something stabbing her in the chest.

More tests would be a waste of time. If she had learned anything lately, it was effective time and resource management. It was stupid; if it had been anyone else, Jack wouldn't be pressing for endless scans every time she had a 'spell' as she liked to call it. He wouldn't have left for Cardiff last week when nothing new turned up, then come rushing back down just to lord over her and act as if she should listen to him for some reason, just because he was Jack Harkness.

Closing her eyes, she buried her nose in the pillow. Life used to be so much simpler. There'd been the Doctor and the TARDIS. Laughing and running. Holding hands and knowing that even if she was alone, lost or captured, she wasn't going it alone.

How had Jack found out about her…incident?

Well, that was quite simple when she thought about it, really. Ianto.

In any other case, she'd think that it was time to check her man's loyalties, except that he probably saw himself as fulfilling an obligation to her. Rose was pretty sure she'd just about never figure the man out. What kind of person would give that type of loyalty and care to her, after what she'd done to him?

Pulling the blanket up to her chin, she wondered how often the Doctor had slept in this bed? She shouldn't be here, she knew. But she kept finding herself drawn back to this room, over and over, now that she'd found it. To sleep some nights, sometimes just to enjoy the companionable hum of the ship and stare at the now overly familiar infinity symbols. A few times to pick through the bits and pieces lying about. There was something comforting about turning the little lead soldiers in her hands over and over, or running her fingers along the miles and miles of twisted up scarf on the dresser. There was something normal about it that she couldn't quite put her finger on.

This bed seemed as good of a place as any to hole up against the world for a moment, even if she wasn't tired.

That wasn't true. She was tired—physically exhausted. But she wasn't sleepy. She'd recently become intimately acquainted with the difference. Physical and mental exhaustion seldom had anything at all to do with getting sleep. Sometimes the mind would just not stop spinning.

Despite all of this, she snuggled her head closer to the pillow, remembering his arms around her, under the ribs crushing her as he swung her around, just after they'd escaped the planet outside the black hole. Oh to have him carelessly crush the life out of her again. Even to just have a hand to hold.

Closing her eyes she imagined the feel of his thin fingers on her hair. It was so vivid she could almost smell the cotton of his shirt.

Ghosts.

Everything about him haunted her lately, in ways they never had before these dreams had started. Maybe Jack was right. Maybe she needed more medical attention—drugs to keep the dreams at bay, monitoring of her vitals to figure out why her breathing frittered off and would not start again without intervention when the images of the Doctor came.

If she was finding some new level of madness, then she really ought to be treated. Insanity couldn't be good, could it? And it certainly wasn't healthy that she was alright with having near-death experiences if it meant she could see the Doctor for a few moments. It was all very fleeting, so terribly ephemeral… but it was all she had.

Perhaps she'd see him now, if she could manage sleep.

Perhaps she'd stop breathing again, and no one would find her in time. What would happen then? Would she find peace? The rest her tired body so desperately craved? Would she be trapped…seeing him but not being able to touch him, forever?

The thought jarred in her chest, causing something painful to catch just below her heart. She needed to talk to Jack. It wasn't that she feared death, it wasn't that at all. It was that she was seeing death as some sort of solution to her exhaustion that was disturbing to her. Even more disturbing than being stuck in some sort of limbo.

These last months had been tiring, but it seemed within the last week or so she'd managed to find some new level. When she did have a dream, she was more tired when she woke than when she'd fallen asleep. It could have been anything—the oxygen deprivation, the weird brain activity they'd seen after her one and only seizure. But it wasn't that. It was something else. She didn't know what—but it was important.

Everything was important. Everything was something. Unless it was nothing. Not everything was something. Just the things that were something…

She must have drifted off, because for a moment, she'd been swimming in a golden light, feeling like she knew the answer to everything. There was no way of telling how long it had lasted—it seemed an instant and a lifetime. But it ended the moment Jack slid in behind her on the bed, wrapping his arm tightly around her waist.

Placing her arm over his, she brushed her fingers along the leather exterior of his wrist computer. "I'm still mad at you, you know."

He kissed her neck, just behind the ear. "I know."

Drifting back off, she tried to slide back into that golden dream. It had been warm and comforting, like the hum of the ship, but penetrating all of her senses. "Jack…once upon a time, I knew everything in the world. Why didn't I know this was coming?"

Before the other Torchwood head could answer, she was asleep.

XYZ

When Pete came into the bedroom to retire for the night, she saw Jackie standing at the far window between the heavy mostly-closed curtains, arms crossed over her chest. She had the haggard look he'd come to expect from her the last week or so, and the same distant look. "Go to bed, Jackie," he urged. It was practically a beg. But he didn't care if it got her away from the window, looking at the open expanse of grass like she was…lost. It wasn't a good look on her—she usually acted like she knew exactly what the hell was going on, even if she didn't.

Sighing, she turned slightly away from the glass. "He's up there talking to himself again."

Crossing the room, he grabbed her arm and gently dragged her toward the oversized bed. "Maybe it's his way of dealing with things. Maybe he just needs to talk them through."

Jackie tried to slide her arm out of his grasp, but he was quite firm with her. She probably thought he was being a brute, but he felt fairly certain he had the moral high ground on this one—she'd exhaust herself again and it wouldn't be good for the baby. "He's not talking to no one, though. He's talking to her. To Rose."

With a sigh, he sat on the edge of the bed, still holding on to her. "Jacks… some people do that, to work through grief." The G word was a bad word in their household. It wasn't one Jackie would subscribe to—Rose was alive, she kept telling him. They had nothing to grieve for. She just refused to believe that any sort of loss could have grief with it. Grief was for death and dying, she'd told him.

He turned down the blankets for her and waited until she'd crawled into bed, maneuvering her larger body into a comfortable position before he covered her.

She sighed, something far away and thoughtful causing her eyes to leak just a bit. "What if I've driven him to it? What if I've driven him around the bend. All over vegetables. Rose wouldn't forgive me for that."

Climbing in beside her, he kissed her forehead. "The man made a time travelling toaster, then threw it off the roof because he thought it was rubbish. If he has lost it, I don't think it had anything at all to do with you. Just this once." She looked away from him, frowning in concentrated unhappiness. "Jackie, you'll both be OK."

"Granted he doesn't do something stupid."

Snuggling closer, he put a hand on her belly. It seemed the baby was sleeping for a change. It certainly didn't understand the day/night cycle just yet, and that had certainly contributed to Jackie's bout a few months back. "Stupid like what?"

There was the distant sound of breaking glass, coming from the same wing, but further above and possibly on a different corridor in the house. A second of silence, then something thudded to the ground painfully, and possibly with broken bones. "Oh, maybe like that," she muttered with sweet sarcasm. "Betcha he just threw himself out of the attic window."

XYZ

She was in his bed. It was a little weird. It wasn't like he spent tons of time in his bedroom. But what was Rose doing there? It wasn't exactly something he'd imagined or would imagine. It seemed logical enough. Rose in his bedroom. On the surface. But beneath it all… well, just why had the thought never entered his head before?

Then there was Jack, with his arms around her, holding her firmly until she fell asleep, and then watching her draw in each breath.

That was something his tired little mind wouldn't have thought of on its own. Well, working under the assumption that he wasn't totally stark raving mad. He had just jumped through a window, after all, and for what could be termed as a lousy reason.

Jack was dead. He'd yelled out that he was the last man standing, and then there'd been the sound of death rays, coupled with the Daleks' assured attitude that everyone but the Doctor was dead.

Well, that didn't make him feel very good. Not that he was having dreams about Jack being alive. That was OK. It happened. It was the part where Jack was kissing Rose's neck, watching her breathe like it was… his place or something. It wasn't Jack's place. Not to have his arms around Rose, not to be in his bed.

Even if they did look cosy there. Cosy and comfy, like they belonged there, together…

Oh just commit, he told himself. Either they needed to get out of his bed, or they didn't. Who knew what else they did. In his bed. "Well, it's not like I'm using it at the moment. I suppose," he muttered, looking around the room.

Everything was as he'd left it. A stack of books he'd never gotten to, possibly from his seventh or eighth lives, old clothes and costumes strewn about over chairs, brick-a-brac on the dresser…

The dresser…

No box. The box should have been there. It was always there—he'd been using it as a paperweight. Had she moved it? Had she done something to it? Why do something to the box, but nothing else? Even his dirty clothes were still in a corner. What was she playing at, really?

Pacing back and forth frantically, he glared at the couple in the bed. "What would possess you to move the box? It didn't have hardly anything at all in it. It was just baubles and such. I mean, was it a fascinating box? But now you've got me worried, because I have the box but there's nothing in it…and the box has been in that world longer than me, but it's still in that world. How did it get off my dresser? What're you two doing?"

Perhaps the better question was…what was he doing, behaving as if this…event was real, when it was clearly not?

Well, his hallucinating had started this whole thing anyhow. He'd seen her, he'd seen his ship, and just… well. Yeah.

Going through that window really hadn't been… well, the brightest thing he'd ever done, had it? Sighing, he ran a hand through his hair and turned back to the couple in the bed. Rose usually wore such a peaceful face when she slept. It was very odd to see her lips pressed together and her forehead muscles clenched, as if she was thinking through some big problem. And Jack…

The man gently pulled his arm from around Rose and pressed a button on the headset around his ear. "She's asleep again Ianto. Thank you for calling me." He pulled the hair from her neck, inspecting her as he listened to the party on the other end. "I'm going to watch her. If she stops breathing again, or anything happens, I'll be on the horn to you immediately. If you see any spikes in the readings from the box again, let me know. No…but she's Rose. She's stubborn beyond belief. She won't back down. I hate to say it, but if we can prove a correlation between her health problems and the readings from the box, I'm going to have to take her off active duty."

Rose was having health problems? They had the box? Just what was going on here? More importantly, he supposed he should be asking just what his addled mind was conjuring up.

Jack sighed, relaxing further into the pillow behind her. "I know. I don't want to. But I think the most troubling part of all this is that she doesn't see anything as being wrong. I know she's tired, exhausted…worn down. But that'll only account for a few of the things we've seen so far. Not all of it. Exhaustion doesn't throw you into near-death experiences whenever you hit REM sleep. Or at least Owen says it shouldn't. Especially without some prior condition of this kind." He listened for a moment, then raised his hand to the headset. "Right. I appreciate it, again." Then he shut the thing off.

Near-death experiences.

Well, he had just thrown himself out of a fourth story window, over the fleeing glimpse of something in the glass. Not only did it make him not the poster boy for sanity, but it also made him wonder just how much of a dream this was. And would he wake up if he regenerated?

Sighing, he sat next to Rose on the bed, reaching out for her. There was no feeling in this strange limbo. There was the perceived scent of her shampoo, but that was it. All he could do was brush his fingers against her cheek and wonder just what the hell all of this meant. "Rose—I'm sorry."

In her sleep, her hand came up toward her face, almost clasping over his. Then her eyes snapped open, something dangerous and liquid flickering in them, and she sat up abruptly. She seemed to look through him and his heart leapt. "Rose. Can you see me?"

Jack sat up with her. "What is it?"

She reached a hand up, as if to caress his cheek, then slumped against her bedmate, going a bit slack. "It was just a dream."

With a tenderness that actually made the Doctor feel indebted to Jack, he slid his other arm around her and pulled her into a tight embrace. "What kind of dream?"

Rose tried to blink it away, but whatever 'it' was, it wouldn't go away. "There was a garden, and a path. And my mum was there."

Giving in to the warmth of Jack's arms, she relaxed a little. "Jack—you're right. Something is wrong with me." Sighing, she slid her hand up his neck. "I don't know what happened when I opened that thing." She pulled him towards her, and then kissed his lips tenderly.

With the casual assurance of long-time lovers, he slid his hands under her shirt, pressing her close to him by the small of her back as her fingers undid the buttons.

The Doctor knew he should look away, and yet he was fascinated. She slid the braces from his shoulders, he tugged her shirt away. It was so practiced, it was nearly a coordinated event. How long had they been...

And a few minutes later, when she was gasping Jack's name, the Doctor wondered what version of hell he'd drifted off into. They all moved on, he told himself. But here? With JACK? In his room?

Sighing, the Doctor closed his eyes, unable to watch more. Running a hand over his mouth, he shoved it into his pocket, marveling slightly at the odd, disembodied feeling that accompanied the actions. "Oh Rose. I've lost you all over again, haven't I?"

TBC…