TEN

"Well, what is it?" Tanagirid asked the underling. "What have you found out, Drobbus?"

"I was in the mailroom earlier today," Drobbus told him. "And I overheard one of the young ones, Feeno, boasting to his friends..." he trailed off, embarassed.

"Yes?"

"Boasting that he had spent the night in copulating with Captain Jack Harkness."

Tanagirid was intrigued. He glanced over at Jack and his friends. "Really? Do you think that this information is reliable?"

"Feeno has never been known to tell a falsehood, sir," Drobbus insisted. "I believe he can be trusted."

"That is very interesting," Tanagirid said with a smile. "I have heard of humans mating with their own gender before, but I have never known a human being to be so open-minded concerning mating across intelligent species."

"Yes, sir, that's why I'm telling you this."

"Why, exactly?"

"Because I reported it to my superior in the correspondence department, and he felt that the Captain's most unusual behavior indicates an angle," Drobbus said stiffly

"An angle?"

"Yes, a ploy. He feels that the Captain must be using us somehow, trying to gather intelligence for malevolent purposes," said Drobbus. "That is why he suggested I bring this information to you, the Director of Operations."

Tanagirid was amused, but unconcerned. "It will be duly noted, Drobbus. Thank you for taking time out to let me know. You are dismissed."

"I think our talents could be put to better use if we split up," the Doctor announced to Tanagirid, Jack and Martha.

Martha tried to quash the feeling of hurt. She wondered if he was just trying to get rid of her... but she always wondered things like that. She was now to the point where she was sensitive to everything the Doctor said, and every move he made in her presence. And until earlier today, she had assumed he was oblivious to all of it.

She sighed. "What do you need from me?"

"I think I can solve this," he said. "But if I can't, we're going to need a way to solve it medically. That's your arena. Try to work out ways to do it without using the TARDIS to transport technology... but if that ends up being our only recourse, then it's what we'll have to do."

Martha was shocked at this revelation, but she assented. She was determined not to let him down, even though she knew he could probably end this thing on his own.

"What about me?" Jack asked. Martha thought he looked remarkably child-like at that moment, since it was so rare that Captain Jack wasn't sure what to do.

"You can help me, I think," the Doctor told him. "You're good with emotions. I think that's just the sort of expertise we're going to need here, if we're going to triumph over this blasted machine."

Jack smiled. Finally – a nod toward his strengths, in something that the Doctor wasn't so great at.

"Do you have a laboratory or something? A computer, maybe?" Martha asked Tanagirid. He nodded and motioned for her to follow him. The two of them left the room, as the Doctor began to fiddle with the Attribute Outsource Facilitator.

Jack went to work on the Zed wave digitizer, but he didn't get very far.

"Is there a rhyme or a reason to this thing? I mean, is there a logical order in which the attributes appear in the digital sequence, or is it all screwed up?" Jack asked the Doctor.

"Emotions are always all screwed up," the Doctor said without looking at him. When he said 'screwed,' it was forced, exaggerated, agitated.

For once, Jack was unaware of the Doctor's emotional undertones. "I just mean, you were able to look at the numbers and know what they represented. How did you do that? Is there an order? Is there a manual for these emotions... attributes or whatever?"

"No, Jack, there's no manual for emotions," the Doctor answered. Now, no one could mistake his animosity.

"Oh, I get it," Jack said. "You kept me here so you could scold me for pointing out that Martha likes you. And kind of vice versa."

"Well, it was bloody arrogant of you," the Doctor said, peeking at Jack over the top of his glasses. "Laying open all that... feeling just to show how clever you are. You could really hurt someone that way."

"You never treat me like an equal," Jack complained. "You just think I'm in it for the shag, and that's it."

"I don't think that, Jack, I never have. Not even remotely. Besides," the Doctor reminded him, taking a wrench from the toolbox, tossing it in the air and catching it. "I'm not the one who challenged you. It was Martha."

"Well, she treats me like a dog who humps your leg," he said.

"That's a bit on-the-nose, I'd say," the Doctor said with a smirk, loosening further the floor panel.

"I'm serious, Doctor."

"I know you're serious. But it was irresponsible. Not to mention the fact that you acted like a superior twit," the Doctor said, stopping his work to look Jack in the eye.

"All right, I apologise for being arrogant. But I won't apologise for laying open your emotional wounds, or hers. It needed to be said. You are both my friends, and you are both languishing out in no-man's-land when you could be enjoying the fruits of the vine together! It hurts me to see that. The two of you have got to stop tiptoeing around each other. Stop stargazing and start..."

"Being more like you?" the Doctor asked with one eyebrow cocked.

"Well, no," Jack conceded. "Being more like sentient beings. You have feelings and so does she – embrace them!"

"I can't embrace them. You claim to know why. End of discussion."

"That's a cop-out, Doctor. Everyone is scared. But what makes it great is when you can get beyond that! When you can get past the fear and see how great love and sex and emotion can be, and that there was nothing to be afraid of!"

There was a long pause while the two men looked at each other. Then the Doctor lay down on his back, sticking his head in the hole in the floor. Jack had seen him many times this way with his head in the heart of the TARDIS.

"I didn't ask you to stay here so I could scold you, Jack," the Doctor said, his voice muffled beneath the floor. "I just want to point out to you that... there is no manual for emotions. Some of us aren't as lucky as you... some of us don't know exactly what to do with them at any given time, and we aren't always comfortable when our dirty laundry is hung out for the world to see. You shouldn't do that to people – it's juvenile. Especially when it comes to..." he stopped short.

"I know," Jack said. "Why don't you let me help you?"

The Doctor pulled his head up and looked at the Captain. He seemed reflective. "Fine. If we can save humanity from the Black Death, you can help me work out what to do about..." he gestured blindly.

"Martha?"

"Yes, Martha."

"It's a deal," Jack promised, knowing full well that the plague would eventually be erradicated. The Doctor knew it too. His agreeing to let Jack help him showed progress.