Things happened quickly.

Once upon a time, Harry felt that he was in control of every situation he ever walked into. A calculated look, a well-constructed phrase, a little telepathic manipulation—the world was clay in his hands and every person was a tool to shape it. There was a reason he had been called the Master.

Now he was Harry. His son was impossible to control, his stepdaughter was barely speaking to him, his husband was keeping secrets, and beings as powerful as gods were using them like pawns on a board. He'd let go of a lot of things in his life and made compromises. It was the price of having a domestic life, married with children, working a 9-5 with weekends off, keeping house and mowing the lawn. It had been worth it for nearly three decades. But now the universe might come to an end and his will might not be his own and somehow he had been the last one to know.

This was not the life he had paid for.

Ganbri had wandered off on his own the second the meeting was over, but the Doctor was hurrying beside him, trying to keep up the pace. He was talking quickly, some nonsense about everything being okay and him being sorry. It didn't matter. They were all only words. The Doctor didn't know how to face this, no more than he knew how to face Kahlia. He would either kill himself with worry or unleash Hell in the form of a fanged and clawed Beast and kill everyone else instead.

Some very old scars on his back burned and ached to life with the memory, and Harry felt his hearts harden.

"Listen," he interrupted the Doctor's incessant talk. "You can keep on lying to me to try to make me feel better or you can make yourself useful."

The Doctor's eyes instantly took on that look they got when his feelings were hurt. "Harry—"

"I don't want to hear it," he interrupted again, ignoring the pained look. "We are not at home and this is not the time to get emotional. I don't want this thing to kill me, so stop wasting time and go get the job done. I'm gonna get Edmund out of my head. You need to figure out how to find the Bad Wolf and then tell me how to kill the bitch."

He walked away before the Doctor could say anything else. Yes, he'd be upset and he'd probably have that stressed out, worn look he got sometimes by the end of the day, but this was not the time. This madness had only been going on for a day and he was already done with it. He was done with the War and the Beast and Edmund and this Bad Wolf shit was just the cherry on top of a cake he didn't order. And he was done.

"You can't, Harry. I can't allow you."

How long had Kel been pestering him? The Zumecki doctor was practically running to keep up with him, frantically trying to talk him out of whatever he thought he was going to do. He was clutching his clipboard to his chest with one arm and holding some kind of tablet in the other, checking the screen every three seconds as he spoke.

"I don't remember asking for permission."

"Oh yes, very impressive," Kel answered sarcastically. "You're so intimidating, Harry. But I still can't let you do it."

"I have never met a telepath more powerful than me since I was a kid. If anyone can do this, I can."

"But you can't do that sort of thing without the security clearance. You're not authorized, Harry."

Zumecki were notoriously difficult to hypnotize, but he was beginning to wonder if he could do it when Kel suddenly stopped dead in his tracks. He was staring down at the tablet in his hand, eyes wide and his mouth hanging open slightly.

"Shit," he breathed.

That caught Harry's attention. Not much threw Kel off. He paused to see what would happen and Kel looked up at him again, eyes still wide.

"Harold Mott, you stay away from that hallway!" Kel suddenly shouted at him. But the threat in his voice meant nothing when his face looked worried and his feet were quickly carrying him elsewhere. Whatever he saw on his tablet was something that couldn't be ignored for the moment.

Harry watched with smug satisfaction as Kel hurried off, shouting a few more warnings as he went.

Harry didn't care.

So many things bubbled to the surface as he stormed down that hallway. His back was alive with fire, the vicious claw marks seeming to sear with pain as they did the day they were inflicted. He could almost feel the blood dripping on the backs of his legs. He could see the stumps on the Doctor's hand where his fingers had been cut off. He could smell the burning flesh from the wound in Ganbri's chest as Harry tried to drag him to safety. He could feel Kahlia's last, jerking movements when she finally died. He could hear a vicious snarling and a very old, familiar drum beat.

No more.

Edmund was waiting for him in the hallway, his skin still glowing and translucent from when he walked through his cell wall.

"Harry."

He didn't speak. He didn't wait. He marched right up to Edmund, feeling the tiniest flash of triumph when he watched the creature shrink back a little. He reached his hand out, moving quickly in an attempt to take away any chance for Edmund to react, and placed a single finger on the Ghost's forehead.

Every nerve on his body was set on fire and the impact on his mind was severe enough that he knew immediately that damage had been done. He felt a hundred emotions that weren't his own, rushing in on him. He felt the joy of a million memories that he never experienced, mourned the loss of people he never knew, and writhed in the pain of injuries he never sustained. A universe rushed past his eyes, and then another, and another. He felt eternity in an instant, feeling time in a way that even a Time Lord was not used to. The entire galaxy looked like nothing more than a petri dish—one of countless billions.

He suddenly felt Edmund's frustration—staring down through a microscope at creature's too small to even comprehend his existence and then trying to communicate with them. Trying to understand their primitive languages and navigate their nonsensical world with no eyes or voices or hands—nothing but cilia and light sensors.

He felt the world around him stabilize slightly and became aware of Edmund's presence. He was trying to help, trying to let Harry see his mind in a way that he could understand. It hurt to look. His mind felt like it was being pushed in from all sides, threatening to collapse in on itself—a tiny microbe in a petri dish, trembling and threatening to rupture beneath the gentle push of the tools being used to manipulate it.

He used the image Edmund was giving him and turned his eyes away from the petri dish to look at the world around him, and Edmund presented him with a lab that stretched on forever. People in hazmat suits walked everywhere, carrying or working on the little petri dishes that lined every surface. They helped each other silently, moving carefully, every feature obscured behind their protective equipment and yet Harry felt his mind burn just to look at the conjured image of them. He turned away from the beings, clutching at his head and wishing the pain would stop. The fabricated world began to close in on itself, cracking at the edges and crumbling away.

He heard laughter somewhere, sweet and familiar. When he looked up he saw Ganbri standing in the lab, three years old and proudly holding out his very own petri dish. He felt blood rushing from his nose and his knees gave way. He landed on his hands and knees while Ganbri's tiny feet ran past him and disappeared. He stared down at the floor, watching the blood splatter against the front of his helmet and saw that there was a tear in his glove.

"Harry?"

He was on the floor, gasping for breath. The blood gushing from his nose had not been a part of the hallucination and he could hear it splattering on the floor as it continued to flow. Neither was the pain in his head. His hearts were beating so fast and hard that he knew he was at risk of them giving out, and his entire body was trembling from a state of shock.

Edmund was standing over him, his large eyes round and wide.

"Help Harry."

A thin, pale finger stretched out towards him and Harry's mind screamed at him to get away, but he couldn't move. It was all he could do to keep his hearts beating. Edmund's finger touched him lightly on the chest and some of the pain began to immediately fade away. His hearts slowed to a pace that wasn't life threatening and he gulped in air, feeling like it was finally reaching him.

Edmund pulled his hand back and returned to his usual crouching position, watching Harry with a little frown on his face.

"There," Harry gulped, wiping some of the blood from his nose with the back of his and pointing a finger at Edmund. "Not so nice when someone else does it to you, is it?"

Edmund smiled. Harry suspected that the experience of an unwanted telepathic invasion had somewhat less of an impact than it had had on him. He let himself drop back against the floor again, chest heaving. He couldn't feel blood rushing to the back of his throat like it had before, so he supposed that meant the bleeding had stopped.

He found himself chuckling. Still fighting for breath and wiping the blood from his face onto his shirt while some unnaturally powerful thing watched him curiously, and something about it was just hilarious.

He heard his mother calling his name. She was worried about why he was bleeding.

"It's fine," he answered her dismissively. "It stopped."

"Can you stand up?" she asked next.

"Yes, yes, I'm fine."

"You're lying on the floor, covered in blood, and laughing. You're not fine."

"Mother, I told—"

"Mother?"

Harry blinked and looked up. Kel was staring down at him, eyes wide and nostrils flaring. Harry smirked at him. It wasn't often that anyone got to see Kel looking stressed out. That was twice today now.

"Have you lost your goddamn mind?" Kel snapped at him. "I was gone for two minutes! What did you do!?"

He felt Kel's hand grip him tightly around the arm, yanking him to his feet. Harry was surprised by the strength behind it. Kel was angry—a rare sight—and yelling at him for being disobedient. Harry felt annoyed listening to him, and annoyed further that Kel seemed to think that he had a right to scold him like a child.

Without much thought, he threw a punch. Only half his heart was in it, so it was slow and a little lazy. Kel sidestepped it easily, eyes growing wide with shock.

Before Harry had even pulled his arm back, Kel had a stun gun gripped firmly in his hand and held it up threateningly. "Try it again, Mott."

Harry narrowed his eyes. "I could kill you with my bare hands."

Kel scoffed and quickly switched his stun gun for the pistol that he kept on his belt and pointed it at his face. "I could kill you with a finger, pet. And then take your body, wear it like a suit, and throw it away once I've played with it enough. You don't know what sort of person I am. Do you really want to test me?"

His voice was high and stressed. His eyes were wide and pupils dilated. He'd spread out his feet and kept enough distance between them to keep Harry from being able to grab the gun. He meant it, Harry realized. Perhaps Kel was more than just a lot of talk and attitude.

Harry relaxed his stand, forcing his shoulders to ease back down, and smiled. "You seem stressed, Presley," he sneered. "You should get yourself a fern. I hear they're calming."

Kel glared at him for a moment, his face not moving or changing in the slightest when he answered. "You should clean yourself up before your son sees you, pet," he said in what was barely more than a whisper. "Or did you forget he was here?"

He didn't realize how bad his head hurt until he was far enough away from Kelevra to stop feeling angry at him. He should have thrown a real punch at the little bastard. He forgot how much it could hurt to experience a telepathic fracture; it had been so long since a link had been beyond his ability. He had no doubt that if Ganbri or the Doctor had done what he just did, they would not have survived it. He wasn't even certain he would have survived it if Edmund hadn't helped him.

"Oh my God, Harry. Are you okay?"

He glanced up and saw Declan standing with Rose, staring at him with his mouth open.

"Yeah. Fine," he grunted in return.

Rose stepped forward, her hand moving like she was going to touch him. "You're bleeding."

"No shit. Am I?" he barked back.

She pulled her hand back quickly and moved her mouth like she was going to speak, but didn't. He shouldn't yell at her like that, he thought. She was trying to be nice. And he only felt more irritated for feeling guilty.

He was supposed to be home. He was supposed to be tending his garden and teaching Ganbri how to adapt to his new body. He was supposed to be making dinner with his husband and settling in for lazy movie nights with his family. He was supposed to be repairing things with Jenny and mourning Kahlia again when he was alone.

Instead he was picking fights with a Zumecki maniac, his husband's exgirlfriend, and what was essentially a god.

He turned a corner, headed towards the gym, and he immediately wished that he had stopped somewhere closer and washed a little first. Ganbri and Annie were standing in the middle of the hall, building something that looked far too complicated for a boy Ganbri's age.

He might have had a chance to sneak back around the corner but Annie spotted him and gasped.

"Uncle Harry?"

He shut his eyes and turned his face downward, immediately feeling his headache get worse. He expected to feel Ganbri reach out for his mind, bracing himself for the sharp pain that it would cause. But it didn't come.

He looked back up to see Ganbri looking at him with hollow, sunken eyes. His face was devoid of expression, simply looking him up and down as if he weren't even a person.

"What happened?" Annie asked, rushing over to him. She kept looking back and Ganbri, her hand half reaching to him before changing direction and grabbing hold of Harry's shirt instead. "Ganbri!"

"It's fine, Annie," Harry said quietly, trying to brush her hands away from him. "It's stopped. I just need a wash."

"It doesn't matter if it's stopped. Why did it happen in the first place!?"

Harry smiled a little. Sometimes, Annie sounded so much like her mother.

And, sometimes, Ganbri looked so much like his father.

He stood off to the side. He hadn't taken a step forward. If anything, Harry was sure that he'd taken a step back. However stoic he wanted to look, Harry could see his throat bob up and down as he swallowed hard. His eyes had that dark, burdened look that he'd seen on the Doctor far too often, and his lips were pressed tightly together.

Ganbri made no attempt to connect. He didn't ask what was wrong. He didn't try to get a better look. Annie yelled at him again and he shifted, as if only noticing for the first time.

He pushed his hands into his pockets and cleared his throat. "I'll get Banni." And he left.

Annie started going off about how she didn't know what was wrong with Ganbri but that she was sure it was just stress. She assured him repeatedly that she was looking out for him, repeatedly interrupting herself to ask him where all the blood had come from and not waiting long enough for him to answer.

"Annabelle," he said loudly enough to catch her attention. "I need to go."

He moved to walk past her, but she put a hand on his arm. "But you have to wait for Uncle John. You've gotta let him look at you."

"He'll find me."

He ignored her protests and walked off. He just wanted to get clean before anyone else could see him. He didn't need the situation any worse than it was. Besides, he needed the steam to help clear out his airways. All the clotted blood was making it hard to breathe.

He managed to make it to the gym without running into anyone else. Everyone on the team kept a bag of extra clothes in the locker room at all times ever since Doug overworked himself and threw up all over Nista. A man of Doug's size could produce a lot of vomit . . .

He didn't bother to look at himself in the mirror before getting into the shower. The state of his clothes and the colour of the water going down the drain told him enough. He didn't care for particularly hot showers, but he blasted the heat anyway, hoping that the steam would help clear him out.

His head throbbed and his nose briefly started bleeding again. He hadn't felt this angry or frustrated in a long time and he wasn't even entirely sure where it was all coming from. He decided that he could take a little comfort from the fact that, at least for the moment, Edmund didn't seem to be influencing him.

"Lahrre?" A soft tapping sound came from the shower booth's door. "It's me."

He'd been waiting for the Doctor but, now that he was here, he almost didn't want to see him. He didn't want to look at and see those unbearable mixtures of worry and sadness and guilt. He supposed that was selfish of him—he knew how hard these things were on the Doctor—but he just couldn't do it today. He didn't have it in him to be kind and supportive at the moment. He didn't have the strength to push his own feelings aside. Not right now.

But, still, he gritted his teeth and tried.

"I'm not talking through a door," he answered, loud and clear. "If you want to talk to me, you're going to have to come in here."

There was a long pause. The Doctor would be considering it now, trying to figure out if he was being told to go away or not and then deciding whether he would wait. Harry knew that he wouldn't want to come in the shower. The situation they were in was scary to say the least, and the Doctor was the sort of man who preferred to hide behind masks when he was scared. Coming into the shower meant he would have to undress, leaving him unable to hide, naked and vulnerable.

"Stop overthinking it," Harry suddenly snapped irritably. "If I really didn't want you in here, I would have told you to bugger off. I really don't care what you do, so either get in here or go back to work and I'll see you later."

Just don't make that face. He couldn't look at that face right now.

The Doctor didn't say anything, but Harry managed to catch the sound of his shoes dropping to the floor. He was getting undressed, apparently. Harry found himself rolling his eyes as he listened, knowing that his husband would be undressing painfully slowly, carefully folding and placing everything in neat little piles.

After an eternity, the door to the shower booth finally popped open. The Doctor stepped inside, eyes cast downward and body language suggesting that he already felt uncomfortable. Harry decided that he didn't have the energy to play games. He gave the Doctor a nod and a word of acknowledgement and turned his attention back to the water, focusing on washing his hair.

There was another lengthy silence, in which he was far too aware of the way the Doctor was fidgeting behind him. He started to feel irritated by his presence. Apparently, it was noticed.

"Ganbri said you were bleeding," the Doctor began cautiously. "He said it was a lot."

"It was," Harry answered. He kept the edge from his voice, trying to sound as casual as he could. "I was trying to get information from Edmund and gave myself a fracture. Don't try to link with me for a while."

He saw the way the Doctor's eyes widened slightly, mouth hanging open a little. He'd been holding onto one of his arms, looking like a wounded and frightened animal, but the hand slipped carelessly down.

"A fracture?"

"Yeah. I can't remember the last time that happened to me. Edmund really is something else."

And there it was. That look of worry. He couldn't stand it.

"I'll take it easy for a few days," he continued as though he hadn't noticed the change in the Doctor's facial expression and put his head back under the water. "As long as I avoid linking with anyone, I should heal up just fine."

"Harry . . ."

Not looking at him wasn't enough. It was in his voice. Even shutting out all telepathic signals wasn't helping. It was like a scent in the air that he couldn't ignore—a fog of anxious guilt that hung around his husband like a curse.

"He helped guide me a little," Harry kept talking. "I'm sure what I saw was helpful but it's all a bit of a blur. I need some time to think it over, but I got something."

"You could have been hurt."

"I wonder what that's like."

He glanced back just in time to see the Doctor's brows locking together. "This isn't funny, Harry."

"Trust me, I know." Harry stepped out from the water, trying to resist the urge to roll his eyes. "Just shut up and wash your hair."

"I don't want to wash my hair," the Doctor answered quickly in that snippy little voice he used when he was irritated. Harry grabbed him by the arm and gently pushed him towards the water, ignoring the way the Doctor's hands swatted at him. "I'm trying to talk to you, Harry!"

"I'm bored of the conversation," Harry answered, running his hands through the Doctor's hair to help the water get through it. "I linked with Edmund. I learned some things but it caused a fracture. In a few days, I'll heal. I don't really care to explore the topic any further than that when I could watch you taking a shower instead."

The Doctor stared at him for a moment with a facial expression that showed he was completely unimpressed. "The universe is about to end, a being we know nothing about has an unknown amount of influence over you, and you almost cracked your skull in half trying to link with it and you want to watch me shower?"

"Do any of those things stop me from being your husband?"

"Of course not but, Harry, if something had happened—"

"Do I need to get in a fist fight with Jack to make my point again?" Harry cut in sharply.

The Doctor stopped short, blinking at him in surprise. Water was trickling down the sides of his face, plastering his hair to his head and dripping off of his nose and ears. Harry didn't understand how he was still confused.

He placed a hand on either side of his husband's face, turning it downward to make sure the Doctor was looking him in the eye. "You are not my caretaker," he explained slowly. "It is not your job to monitor my actions for safety or to manage me like I'm some ill patient of yours. It's not your job to stop me from feeling stressed or angry or sad—I'm an adult and I'm allowed to feel those things. You are my husband. Your job is to love me, especially if I have to suffer the presence of someone like Rose Tyler. Your job is to worry about our children and whether we're helping them enough. And your job is to remember that we have lives outside of this mess."

The Doctor swallowed hard. His eyes still looked sad but it was better than the worried-half-to-death look that he had before. He brought his hands up and gently grabbed hold of Harry's wrists. His mouth moved a little, but he looked at a loss for words. Harry decided to help him.

"I need you to do your job," Harry said clearly. "Will you do that for me?"

"Of course," the Doctor answered quickly, his hands gripping eagerly at Harry's wrists, nodding his head slightly. "I'd do anything for you, Harry."

Harry smiled slightly and let one of his thumbs sweep across the Doctor's cheek. "Then tell me you love me."

"I love you," he answered without hesitation and a little too eagerly. "I do, Harry. I love you."

He was still trying. Harry needed him to stop trying so hard.

"Alright, now get down and your knees and open your mouth."

And there it was. That old, familiar grin cracked across the Doctor's face and the worry in his eyes was immediately replaced with an amused twinkle. One hand let go of Harry's wrist to take a swipe at him but didn't get the chance. The moment Harry saw his husband's real face again, he couldn't resist him. He pushed himself forward, bringing their lips and bodies together, pushing the Doctor against the shower wall.

"Tell me you love me," Harry whispered between kisses.

"I love you, Harry," the Doctor breathed. And, that time, it sounded real.

Narin flooded his senses and, though he knew that he ought to block it out, he didn't want to. His hands were in the Doctor's hair again and the Doctor's arms were wrapping around him, pulling him tight, one hand venturing towards his shevra. It felt good to explore him, to feel his hands and his tongue and his skin. It was good to feel something hard pressing against his hip and to hear the way the Doctor gasped when he grabbed hold of it.

"My neck," the Doctor said with a stutter, his arms coming up and his fingers tangling into Harry's hair. Harry obeyed and latched his lips to the Doctor's neck, using his teeth to gently nip the flesh there while his hand worked below. The Doctor let out a soft moan and arched his body forward, his grip on Harry's hair tight.

The Doctor's body kept arching towards him, shifting in an almost bizarre way. It took Harry a moment to realize that he was raising one of his legs, trying to get some firm footing on a small shelf that was cut into the shower's stone wall. Harry quickly released the flesh in this teeth to get a better look while the Doctor was wrapping his arms around Harry's neck and shoulders.

"I know you were just kidding," the Doctor said breathlessly, using his new foothold to start raising himself up. "But I'm not." One arm reached up to grab hold of the shower head while the other remained around Harry's shoulders, and the leg that wasn't holding him up began to wrap around Harry's waist, pulling him closer. "Hold me up, Harry."

He'd be lying if he ever claimed that it wasn't a difficult thing to do. The Doctor might not have weighed much but he was a tall man and his long limbs could be awkward to handle. Still, Harry would never complain about what was asked of him. He grabbed hold of the Doctor's hips, helping to raise him up and holding him long enough for him to get his leg wrapped comfortably around Harry's waist.

When he was ready, the Doctor gave a quick nod and bit down on his lip in anticipation. Harry pushed inside, letting gravity help him get in deep. The Doctor shuddered and moaned, his body quickly moving and adjusting to his new position.

"I want it hard," the Doctor instructed him in a voice that already sounded too excited. "Go."

Harry did as he was told and drove upward. He moved his hands from the Doctor's hips to his backside, grabbing a handful of meat in each, simultaneously supporting some of the Doctor's body's weight and spreading him open wider. He went fast and hard, as he had been asked to, pushing the Doctor into the wall and earning a symphony of rewarding sounds from his husband's mouth.

It got more difficult the longer they went. The Doctor was beginning to lose concentration and shifting around in ways that made it harder to hold him up. Harry pushed him hard against the wall as he thrust and tried not to lose concentration himself. But it was so hard to concentrate when he could feel the Doctor's body responding to him so eagerly.

The showerhead had begun to creak and groan, threatening to give way, so the Doctor released it and returned his arm to Harry's shoulder, both wrapping around him tight again. The loss of support meant that the Doctor's body dropped a couple of inches and earned Harry a sound somewhere between an excited moan and a pained shout while the Doctor's muscles tightened around him.

It felt so good. Even with the Doctor's fingers clawing into his back, tracing against old, vicious looking scars and waking up the pain beneath them, it felt too good to care.

"I want to see you," Harry panted. "I want to watch."

The Doctor nodded his head quickly and began bringing his legs down. Harry gripped his arms and pulled him down to the floor. The shower floor was just big enough for the Doctor to lay on his back as long as his legs weren't straightened. And Harry didn't want them straightened.

He put a hand under each of the Doctor's thighs, guiding his legs open and up, exposing everything and giving him easy access. He took a moment to savior the way the Doctor squirmed with longing, eyes clamped shut, mouth parted and eager, hands grasping at the floor and the air, desperately searching for something to anchor to. The Doctor's hips were moving, even without Harry inside him, trying to recreate the feeling of being filled.

Harry slid inside again, intentionally going slowly just to hear the sounds of complaint that escaped the Doctor's lips. He pushed in to the hilt, one hand gripping the Doctor's hip firmly to keep him from moving too much, and leaned forward, over top of the other body.

He watched with glee as the Doctor began to open his eyes and arch his back in frustration. His hands grabbed at Harry's body, squeezing his arms, gripping his shoulders, clawing at his back. The Doctor even grabbed hold of his head to pull him down for a fevered kiss before he broke away with another frustrated groan.

"Harry!" he complained loudly.

Harry grinned and pulled out slowly. "Yes?" he asked innocently.

"Stop teasing me."

Harry began pushing inside again, going painfully slow. "Oh, did you still want me to give it to you hard?"

"Yes!" the Doctor moaned loudly, pushing his body downwards against Harry. "Harry, please!"

Harry grinned and pecked a quick kiss on the Doctor's eager lips before sitting straight up. He pulled the Doctor's body a little closer and then placed his hands on the inside of the Doctor's thighs, holding them down. At this angle, he had an excellent view for watching himself sink deep into the Doctor's body and for watching every twitch and muscle spasm he got back for it.

He didn't give a warning before he thrust forward this time, just so he could hear another one of those shouted moans when he entered with force. The shout was immediately followed by a satisfied sounding, shuddering moan. The Doctor's hands reached up to the wall above his head, biting his lip as he pushed against the wall and tried to force Harry deeper inside of him.

Oh, it was a beautiful thing to watch.

He took the Doctor's length in his hand, gripping tight and pumping in rhythm with his own movements. Hard and fast, just as he'd been asked, and Harry loved watching how much the Doctor loved to be ridden.

He was getting close and he decided not to fight it. He grabbed both of the Doctor's hips tightly and held him as close as he could, thrusting with abandon as that marvelous pressure built up in him. He moaned loudly when he finally released, holding the Doctor tight against him. It took him a few seconds to realize that the Doctor had opened his eyes and was watching Harry eagerly as he came inside of him.

Harry pulled out of his husband and shifted positions before the Doctor had a chance to give any input. He put a hand on the insides of the Doctor's thighs, holding them apart again as he moved downward and took the Doctor into his mouth. The Doctor moaned out some words of appreciation and his body seemed to melt into the shower floor as Harry's tongue worked.

One of the Doctor's hands gripped at Harry's shoulder and pulled at it eagerly. He stammered over his own moans before finally managing to grunt out, "Inside me."

Harry pulled his head back for a moment while he moved his hand into position. "Only if you look at me," he ordered firmly. "I want you to look at me while you come."

"Okay," the Doctor panted.

Harry slid two of his fingers inside of the Doctor, fingers massaging while his mouth set back to work. The Doctor moaned and strained and his eyes closed several times as he begun to lose himself, but he always forced them back open to look at Harry.

Before long, his body was beginning to tremble and his breaths were coming in more ragged than before. "H-Harry," he gasped, one of his hands grasping at Harry's hair so that he could try to force himself deeper into his mouth. "Harry, I—" His voice dissolved into a series of incomprehensible gasps and moans, his fingers pulling a little too tightly at Harry's hair.

Harry responded by increasing the speed in which he was thrusting his own fingers and sinking his head lower, taking the Doctor in as far as he could. The Doctor's back arched up, an odd strangled sound escaping his throat, but his eyes kept watching. Harry watched as his husband lost control of himself, until even the point that he couldn't hold eye contact anymore. His eyes closed, his head tilted back, and Harry's mouth filled with a familiar, bitter taste.

The Doctor kept his grip on Harry's hair for a moment longer, small gasps escaping as Harry's tongue worked around him to swallow. He was watching again, watching with a sleepy and satisfied look as he slowly moved his hips, savoring a few last movements in Harry's mouth before finally withdrawing.

Harry smirked as he watched the Doctor relax completely onto the shower floor. "I think you needed that a little more than I thought you did."

"Mm, I didn't get much sleep," the Doctor answered simply. He was pulling his legs in and shifting to sit up, trying to make himself a little less exposed. His eyes were already drooping.

Harry gave him a light slap on the thigh. "Get yourself cleaned up and then you can stow away somewhere for a nap." He wouldn't have minded a nap himself. His head still hurt from the fracture and he felt like he'd lost most of the energy that he'd started the day with. The thought of finding some little cot in the dark to curl up with husband and sort through the images in his head sounded marvelous.

He helped the Doctor to his feet and gave himself a quick wash. He stopped to give the Doctor a lingering kiss before leaving him to do his own washing. He wrapped a towel around his waist, grabbed a second to scrub at his hair with, and wandered towards the locker room in search of fresh clothes.

He hadn't expected to find Kevin there.

Kevin looked just as surprised to see him.

"Hey," he said simply, clearing his throat.

Harry nodded in return, eying the other man up as he walked to his locker. Kevin was there for fresh clothes too, it seemed. He'd taken his shirt off already but Harry could see that there were blood smears on it, despite Kevin's attempts to hide it. His eyes were reddened and his face looked a little more worn than Harry was used to seeing.

"Everything alright?" Harry asked.

"Yeah," Kevin answered with a quick nod, bunching the dirty shirt up in his hands and tossing it into his locker. "You know, just, not exactly an easy day so far."

Harry nodded again and took a slow, deep breath in through his nose, trying not to look too obvious. Some of the blood reeked of time energy—Jack's—while the rest was clearly Alreesh. He could smell J.J.'s sweat as well.

"What happened?"

Kevin dug through his gym bag but he didn't seem to be seeing any of it, picking up and putting down the same items over and over again. "Ask the Captain," he muttered in return.

"Or you could just tell me," Harry said in a way that he hoped sounded gentle. He turned around to open his locker and pull his gym bag out.

"Not my business to tell," Kevin answered. He glanced over at Harry and frowned slightly. "What the hell happened to your back, mate?"

Harry waved a hand dismissively. "They're from a long time ago. Long story."

"No. No, I've seen the scars before. I'm talking about those new scratches. Really, it almost looks like—"

"You don't suppose Jack has any full sized beds around this place, do you?"

The Doctor's voice announced his presence before he strolled around the corner from the showers, a clear new spring in his step as he dried his hair. Before the Doctor even realized what had happened, Kevin was looking at Harry in pure disbelief.

"You guys just had sex?" he blurted out, face a mess of confusion. "After everything you just found out, you went to the showers to have sex?"

The Doctor had completely frozen where he stood, his hand still holding the towel to his hair. "Hi, Kevin," he said weakly.

"Wow." Kevin simply blinked. "Well, that's one way to react to finding out you might die."

"Looks like it was better than how J.J. reacted."

"Yeah. No, that would have been easier on everybody," he agreed quickly.

The Doctor was rushing forward now, face red and words coming out a bit jumbled. "We were just—Harry got a nosebleed, Kevin. He just had to get wa—"

"You scratched the hell out of my back, Doctor," Harry interrupted with a roll of his eyes. "He knows what we were doing."

The Doctor glared at him in annoyance and continued talking anyway. "I really just wanted to check on him. You know, with the—"

"Yeah, I know," Kevin interrupted next, finally pulling a clean shirt from his locker. "Listen, it's not my business. I don't care. Though, I actually was wondering if you could do me a favour, Doctor."

"Yes, of course," the Doctor perked up immediately at the chance to change the subject. "What do you need?"

Kevin gestured to the scars on his chest from his surgery a few years back. "I've been meaning to get this removed forever," he explained, pointing out an extra little flap of skin that stuck out along the scar line on one side. "Kel said he'd do it but I can never catch him at a good time and I can't be bothered to go through the fuss with a hospital. Do you think you could help me out?"

"Oh, um, yes. I should think so." The Doctor stepped forward timidly to have a look. He felt self-conscious wearing nothing but a towel and his cheeks were still burning with the embarrassment of being caught but he was trying his hardest to hide it.

Harry got dressed and listened to the Doctor chat about what options Kevin had but it sounded like it would be pretty straight forward. He'd slice the extra skin off with a laser—no bleeding, very little pain, and only a day or two to heal fully. Kevin slipped a shirt on and asked if it could be done immediately and the Doctor agreed.

A moment later, the Doctor wandered off with his clothes to get dressed in private, leaving Harry and Kevin alone for a moment.

Harry watched the other man shift uncomfortably a few times. He kept hooking his fingers around his wrist and gazing up at the ceiling as though deep in thought. Harry didn't need telepathy to understand.

"What are you gonna do with the skin?" Harry asked.

Kevin looked a little startled by the question. He scratched at the back of his neck and his eyes moved about, as if looking for an answer. Harry held his hand up to silence him before he said something stupid or untrue.

"You think he needs you?"

Kevin frowned slightly, his back straightening a little. "No."

"You think you need him?"

Kevin frowned a little harder. "It's not about needing."

Harry smirked. "It is." He walked towards the exit, clapping a hand on Kevin's shoulder has he passed. "Trust me on that."

He left Kevin to wait alone and headed off to find somewhere quiet to rest until his headache eased up a little. There were sleeping cots in several areas around Torchwood and Harry went to the one he knew to be furthest from where Doug worked. He left the lights off, shut the door, and crawled into a cot.

It all had to be connected somehow, he thought. It wasn't a coincidence that Edmund knew Rose's name or that the people who'd thought it was a good idea for the two to meet happened to be the ones who were infected. There was a plan behind it or, at the very least, some sort of thought process.

The first and easiest solution was that the Bad Wolf was the friend that Edmund was always talking about, but it just didn't sit right with Harry. Edmund, as creepy as he could be, didn't feel sinister—he never had. He supposed that was where the infection came into place, establishing a sense of calm and trust where there had been none, but it was hard to look past.

He remembered the images of the infinite lab he'd been given, trying to remember every single detail. It made his head hurt worse just to attempt to remember and he wiped a trace of fresh blood from his nose more than once while he thought. There was something there, he was sure of it. Edmund wouldn't have constructed that image for him for no reason.

But his head ached and throbbed and his body was still tired and satisfied. The dark and the cool and the quiet were all so very inviting. He just needed some time to rest and process.

Harry closed his eyes.