A/N: Despite the chapter title, there really aren't any spoilers for the actual show...well except through S2. But what are you doing reading this if you haven't seen S2 yet? *shakes head*

Chapter Eleven: Spoilers

The usually quiet lab was filled with curses as the Strain materialized. Gnashing his teeth, he paced furiously across the room, the Doctor's smug face burning in his mind. Stupid man just waltzed right in and waved off what it had taken both him and his host years to accomplish.

Forcing himself to calm down, the Strain considered the possibilities the infuriating foreigner presented. On one hand, if he and the girl managed to disable the viral beam and free Harkness, then three strangers – well, two strangers and a traitor – were wandering the building. Thanks to the lockdown, all the agents normally at the Strain's beck and call were out of reach in the cafeteria and a few other rooms.

Well, there were a couple people still available. The security girl should still be on duty…

On the other hand, the possibility that they had managed to disable the viral beam or free Harkness was nearly impossible. He'd locked the controls, after all, and they had no weapons and very little time. With luck, the beam had managed to infect all three of them – well, the two humans at least – and transported them to the cafeteria, where a mass of unsuspecting Time Agents were effectively trapped. With less luck, only Harkness had gone, leaving only the two strangers to wander the building. With the building in lockdown, neither of them would be able to do much damage, so he could proceed as he had planned. Watch the security footage until everyone was infected, then end the lockdown.

Either way, he was on his way to the security office to view the tapes.

The Doctor poked his head out the execution chamber door. "Still on mauve alert?"

"That teleport beam was supposed to transport me to the cafeteria," Jack explained, stepping out behind him. "Which is where all the field agents go during lockdown."

"Ah. Infecting everyone at once. Clever move." The Doctor started down the right hallway. "This way…" He abruptly spun around, knocking into Rose. "No, sorry, that way," he nudged her in the right direction.

"What are we doing then?" Rose asked as they half-jogged down the corridor. "TARDIS is that way. Shouldn't we try curing you?"

"Except while I'm trying to find a cure for Time Lords, the Strain will have plenty of time to come up with a backup plan for infecting all the humans in this building."

Rose frowned, and Jack cut her off, "So the faster we stop the Strain, the sooner we can cure you."

"That's about the size of it, yes."

"Then how do we stop him?"

"With this beauty!" the Doctor gestured grandly as they turned the corner. They'd returned to the main atrium, still empty but spacious, with the teleport platform in the middle. "Two can play the repurposing-the-teleport game."

All three tensed as a clatter echoed from across the chamber. The man standing there had dropped his blaster and gawked back at them.

"Jack?" Rose exclaimed in recognition.

"You're – you're not dead?" the past Jack stammered.

"They'd have a hard time killing me at any rate," present Jack replied. "You believe me now?"

The past Jack nodded. "You're me." He picked up his blaster, returned it to his pocket, and strode over, eying his future self curiously. He looked him over as if checking himself in a mirror and smirked. "And I still look good."

"Glad to have you aboard, then!" the Doctor beamed. "Don't wander off, don't touch your future self, and do exactly what I say, and the universe should stay in one piece." He thought a moment. "Hopefully."

The past Jack blanched. "Hopefully?"

"Now," the Doctor continued, peering at the teleport platform thoughtfully, "I need something lethal, something with extreme levels of radiation! Jack?"

Past Jack shook his head. "Haven't got anything like that here."

Present Jack shrugged. "He knows more about this place than I do."

"Why's that?" Past Jack frowned in confusion.

"Hold on," interjected Rose, "What about that glowy stuff in the cave? Didn't you say it was radioactive?"

"Relkan!" the Doctor smacked his hands together and pointed at Rose, "That's it! Enough of it should be able to stop the Strain – not just stop it, fry it!" He waved his hands in circles enthusiastically, "I'd need a bunch of it…Channel it through the teleport – I'd have to modify it a bit, of course – lure the Strain under it, and Bob's your uncle, no more virus!"

"What about Yenson?" past Jack asked. "I was on my way to find him…"

The Doctor's enthusiasm popped. "Yenson's already dead. His body's been taken over by a sentient virus. The human brain wouldn't have been able to stand that level of psychic overload much longer than a few hours. And this level of radiation would very likely kill a human anyway."

The past Jack deflated; the future Jack merely grimaced.

"Now, first job!" the Doctor snatched the past Jack's wrist and held it up. "Vortex manipulator, excellent. Go to Aloria and fetch as much relkan as possible." He dug around in his pockets and produced, to the past Jack's shock and the present Jack's amusement, an empty bag, a pickax, and an absurdly large shovel. He handed these to the past Jack as he continued babbling, "You'll recognise it – shiny, green, glows a bit? It's all over that cave where you found us. Fill the bag, should hold about enough. You," he spun to face the present Jack, "Help me dismantle this thing," he waved up at the teleport beam. "And you…" he turned to Rose uncertainly.

"I'll go with him," Rose volunteered, pointing at the past Jack, who was staring at the items in his hands as if afraid they might sprout wings.

The Doctor scowled, apparently unhappy with that arrangement.

"Well, it's not like I'll be any use here," Rose pointed out.

"You can hand me tools and…things," the Doctor finished lamely.

"You're just afraid he'll try to steal her," present Jack teased.

"That's what you did the first time you met her!" the Doctor protested.

"I wasn't stealing! She said she was available!"

Rose rolled her eyes and took the large shovel before grabbing past Jack's arm. "Guess we'll just go then. Honestly."

"But – " past Jack protested, eagerly watching the back-and-forth accusations.

"Just go," Rose ordered.

With a sigh, past Jack pressed the button, and let the blue light spirit them away.

"Did I really steal you?" he asked as they landed in the dusty half-collapsed cave. As Rose's eyes adjusted to the dim light, Rose could tell he looked immensely pleased with himself.

She fluttered her eyes back at him, tongue stuck out. "Big Ben, the Blitz, and dancing on top of an invisible space ship? A bit, yeah."

"Gotta remember that," he muttered to himself.

The smile froze on her face as her stomach dropped. "We'll have to dig a bit to get to the relkan," she said, keeping her voice level.

"Yes, ma'am," he playfully saluted, tossing her the empty bag and nonchalantly swinging the pickax at the mound of debris.

Rose dug into the dirt with guilty fervor.

"So how'd the Doctor end up with us then?" asked Jack as they reached the cave wall.

"He…" Rose bit her lip, wondering how much she could tell him. "I was already with him, actually. You joined us."

"Huh. Third wheel on your bicycle, or," he grinned widely, "Are we a tricycle?"

Rose shook her head.

Jack's grin faded. "What's wrong? Am I not supposed to know too much of the future?"

"No that's not it. Jack, there's something…something you need to know." She took a deep breath. "You don't remember."

Jack dropped some of the relkan chunks into the empty bag. "What're you talking about?"

"When the Doctor and I met you, you didn't know us."

"Well, I was probably pretending to avoid confusion, wasn't I?" Jack said confidently. "The Blitz? Must have been on assignment. That means this all turns out okay – I get to keep my job, I don't get executed – "

Jack's excitement only made the pit in Rose's stomach deepen. "You…weren't working for the Agency."

Jack blinked. "Why would I ever leave the Agency? I mean, this mess isn't the Agency's fault, it's the thing that's taken over Yenson, right?." He dumped another chunk of relkan into the bag.

"They took two years of your memory."

Jack dropped his pickax. "They – they what?" he roared. "Two whole years?"

Rose bit her lip and nodded.

"This is part of it, isn't it?" Jack waved a hand around the room. "This. I'm not going to remember any of it."

She shook her head.

Jack let out a frustrated yell and slammed the pickax into the cave so hard it remained embedded in the rock. Rose watched him nervously as he breathed hard, chest heaving as he clenched his eyes shut.

A few long moments later he opened his eyes. "Well, then," he said calmly, "I know I'm not supposed to know my future, but if I don't remember…tell me something. Anything. I…need something to hang onto."

Rose smiled a bit as she resumed scratching at the wall with her shovel. "I was dangling from an airship during a German raid…"

Irina tugged uselessly at the handcuffs as she tried to rub some feeling into her numb ankles. She didn't really expect them to come loose. But with the key on the other side of the room, what else was there to do?

The door lurched open, and Irina's eyes lit up as her boss entered the room. "Sir!" she cried in relief.

Yenson's lips pressed together as he glanced around the room. "What happened here?"

"Harkness, sir," Irina replied, shaking her handcuffs to advertise her predicament.

"Harkness," Yenson said flatly. His nostrils flared ever so slightly, and Irina cowered.

"The present one," she continued timidly, "He was here. Handcuffed me here at gunpoint and stormed off."

Yenson pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. "And disintegrated the computer, I see. I needed that."

"I'm sorry, sir, I tried to stop him," Irina pleaded, "There's a backup!"

At that, Yenson perked. "Get it up then! Where's the key to those?" He waved at the handcuffs.

"In that drawer right behind you."

He snatched the key and bent close to her to unlock the cuffs. "Now get that backup," he snarled in her ear. "Or you'll have a lot worse to deal with than Harkness will."

Irina hastily complied.

"Primitive," declared the Doctor as he and Jack set to work detaching the panels on the floor of the teleport enclosure, "Absolutely primitive. I take it all back. This thing's not beautiful – it's a monstrosity."

"There are worse ways to travel," Jack shot back, "And at least it doesn't knock you around like another sort of transportation I know."

"Beam shoots out of the floor, shatters your very being, transmits each individual atom elsewhere, and then rearranges them, and you think that's better than getting jumbled a bit in the TARDIS?" The Doctor pried off a panel and set to work sonicing the wiring.

"All I'm saying is there are definitely cruder methods of traveling." Armed with only a pocketknife and his fingers, Jack managed to get part of his panel detached. Truth be told, only half of his mind was on his work. Rose might fall for those big brown eyes, but Jack wasn't buying that the Doctor was truly "fine." Sure enough, he'd noticed that the contagious grin had slipped off the Time Lord's face the second Jack turned his back, replaced by tightened lips and deep breaths. The moment the Doctor caught him looking, though, any sign of pain on his face vanished.

"Doctor," Jack called.

"Busy now!"

"I've been wondering," Jack started, succeeding at prying off his panel, "Back in the cave with the Vine. If you could only save one of us, that means you had to choose between me and Rose. You chose to save me. Why?"

The Doctor's lips pressed together as he soniced a wire off the teleport. "I saved both of you. The Vine wouldn't have traded three lives for eternity, but it might've done it for one."

Jack scowled, unable to focus on what he was doing. "See, there's that word 'might.' You didn't know, and you still picked me over Rose."

The Doctor paused in his sonicing, then turned to face him. "Logically, I had to save you. The Vine could have lived forever, feeding off you. And Rose…" he trailed off, not really looking at Jack. "I threw a missile at her once. It was before we met you. We were trapped in Downing Street with the future Prime Minister and a bunch of Slitheen. I realised I could save the world, but lose her. And I told her that. And she said to do it anyway."

"Sounds like her."

The Doctor returned to his tinkering, then paused and looked up again. "Jack, just because I love Rose doesn't mean I don't love you too, in a way. Even if – " He yawned. "Even if you're disgustingly wrong."

"Thanks," Jack said sarcastically. "You tired?"

"What? No," the Doctor scoffed, returning his attention to the depths of the wiring in the floor. "Me, tired? Rubbish."

"Right," Jack retorted. "Because obviously Time Lords don't sleep."

"I don't!" the Doctor said defensively, twisting off a wire. "Not much, anyway."

"Sure," Jack nodded as he replaced a panel on the teleport beam.

"Really – " the Doctor broke off, abruptly dropping his sonic screwdriver and clutching at his stomach.

"Doctor?" Jack reached out a hand in concern.

The Doctor bolted past him down one of the halls. Jack dashed after him, following him down the hall until the Doctor finally collapsed to all fours and emptied the contents of his stomach on the floor.

Jack patted the Doctor's back until he'd stopped heaving, then helped him back towards the teleport platform.

"Virus?" Jack guessed when they returned to their work.

"Yes," the Doctor said grimly, rubbing at his eyes. "Do my eyes look a bit yellow to you?"

Jack frowned. "Yeah. What's that mean?"

The Doctor took a deep breath, blew it out, and then picked up his screwdriver. "Means my liver's failing."

"Is that fatal?" Jack asked, alarmed.

"Is if you're human," the Doctor said off-handedly as he resumed his work on a particularly tricky component. "Lucky for me, I've got two livers."

Jack raised an eyebrow and grinned. "Two hearts, two livers. Anything else you've got two of?"

The Doctor glared.

"—And we just made it to the TARDIS in time," Rose finished, cheeks flushed from the memory of Kyoto.

"Aww…" groaned Jack in dismay. "I was hoping that ended a bit differently."

"Not every story ends with you in bed with our executioners, you know," she laughed as she stuck another chunk of relkan in their brimming bag.

"So what happened right after that?" Jack laughed. "Ancient Greece, volcanic aliens in Kyoto, then what?"

"Right after that?" She thought for a moment, "Oh, Satellite Five! And…" She broke off. How was she supposed to tell the ending of that adventure? The Doctor had died and left him? Not to mention what she did to him…

Rose's stomach churned. Her Jack had forgiven her, but this Jack looked at her with such hope that her throat ran dry just thinking about explaining what had happened on Satellite Five.

She couldn't tell him. Even if he didn't remember, he'd be living with that knowledge until he did. She just couldn't do that to him. Hadn't she already told him enough?

"Think we've got enough of that stuff now," she said lightly, "Let's head back."

Jack swung the heavy bag of relkan over his shoulder and offered an arm. "After you, ma'am."

She swallowed her guilt, gave a little smile and sauntered towards him, wrapping an arm around his. "Off we go, then."

And a moment later, the cave was empty.

Tingles shot through Irina's asleep ankles as she rushed to hook the backup computer to the large monitor. Yenson tapped his foot impatiently.

"There!" Irina declared proudly as the program sprung to life. "Most of the programs should still work. Won't be able to track Harkness' wristcomp, but we could try tracking him with the genetic scanners."

"Forget Harkness. Show me the cafeteria footage. Live."

She tapped the proper commands in and anxiously watched as Yenson's eyebrows rose, then drew together. "None of them are there," he muttered.

"Sir?" she questioned, inspecting the screen and finding nothing amiss.

He frowned and peered at her. He wasn't undressing her with his eyes or anything – she was used to that, welcomed it even – but for some reason his scrutinising gaze made sweat glisten on her palms.

"There's something in the execution chamber you need to see," Yenson finally said gravely.

"S – Sir?" she choked. "You're not going to – "

"Oh, of course not," he scoffed. "I'm afraid I haven't exactly told you everything. There's something you need to see."

The Strain expertly deflected her questions as he led her back to the execution chamber. So what if Harkness had escaped infection? Plenty more humans where he came from. He'd just have to infect someone else instead.

A/N: Reviews = love. *nods*