The details had been a bit rushed and confusing as the Doctor didn't seem to want to share much, but Jack didn't often ask him too many questions. Asking the Doctor for answers was like trying to milk a cat and he had long since given up trying. He had decided long ago that it best just to trust him and do what he asked.
"Keep an eye out, Jack," the Doctor had warned. "Keep this to yourself . . . I think something is looking for us. I don't know who it is, or what kind of technology they have, but I do know they are dangerous. You know the sort of thing to look for."
He stopped in the driveway to check his reflection in the window, straightening out his jacket and making sure that it properly concealed the weapons he was carrying. He hadn't yet seen anything to raise suspicion of alien activity or surveillance, but he needed to be ready just in case.
The door was opened by a kindly looking old man who smiled widely upon seeing him. "You must be the Captain!"
"You can call me Jack," he answered, shaking the man's hand. "And you must be Wilfred."
"I am, I am," Wilfred said happily, opening the door wide and stepping aside to let him aside. "I'm Donna's grandfather. Another friend of the Doctor's."
"He has a lot of those, doesn't he?" Jack said with a smile as Wilfred closed the door behind him.
Wilfred smiled kindly back, but his eyes looked eager with question. "If you don't mind my asking, did the Doctor seem alright?"
"I think so," Jack shrugged.
"Did they seem like they'd been fighting? I have been worrying about them."
"Who's 'them'?"
Wilfred looked at him with a confused look on his face. "Well, the Doctor and Harry."
"Who's Harry? He never mentioned anyone called Harry."
The confusion cleared up and Wilfred smiled at him again. "Ah, well, the Doctor tends to call him the Master."
"The Master? You mean Harry Saxon?"
"Well, yes, but he doesn't call himself Saxon anymore either. He's a Mott now. Just this way, if you please," Wilfred gestured towards a doorway and led him into a sitting room. "Do you know him?"
"I know him," Jack answered with his mouth open in disbelief. "I watched him die. Or at least I thought I did."
Wilf bustled about, moving aside some throw cushions on the sofa to offer Jack a place to sit down. "Ah, yes, the poor boy—shot by his own wife. He's had quite a difficult time moving past that you know, but he seems to be doing much better. He seems to be getting along much better with the Doctor too, but oh can they fight! But they didn't seem to be fighting to you?"
He couldn't believe what he was hearing. He sat on the sofa and blinked at this little old man tidying up and felt absolutely astonished at the wealth of information that had just come out of him. The Master was not only alive, but apparently travelling with the Doctor and gaining sympathies from the Doctor's other friends.
"Sorry, but I didn't actually see him," he answered after a moment. "The Doctor just called me on the phone and asked me to come here. Sorry, I just need to ask—when exactly did he start travelling with the Master?"
"Harry," Wilfred corrected.
"Right, Harry. How exactly did that happen? I mean, the guy's a lunatic."
The look Wilfred gave him told him that perhaps he should have refrained from that last comment. "Harry is not a lunatic," he said a little stiffly. "He was very ill for a very long time. He went through a lot of terrible things that would drive any man mad, and we're lucky that he's even still here. He saved the Doctor's life and mine, and now we're helping him get better. And you should know that he's lovely."
"I'm sure he is," he said quickly, still not quite believing what he was hearing. "I didn't mean any offense, Wilfred. I guess the only time I spent with him he was still ill, and it's not exactly a fond memory."
"Of course," Wilfred smiled kindly. "He's made lots of mistakes, but he's working hard to make up for them now. This cure we've got for Donna was his doing you know. Can I fetch you some tea?"
"Yes, thanks, I would love some."
Jack sat patiently in the sitting room as Wilfred went off to make some tea. He would like to think that something drastic had happened to make the Doctor take the Master on as a companion, but he had seen the desperation on the Doctor's face when Lucy Saxon fired that gun. There was some history there that he could only guess at, and he could tell that the Doctor might be a little more forgiving than he should be with someone he was that attached to.
He suddenly wondered if this medication Wilfred was giving to Donna was such a good idea after all.
After a couple of minutes Wilfred returned with a couple of mugs and a pot of fresh tea. As they waited for Donna to arrive, Jack tried to get as much information as possible about the situation.
Wilfred told him about a lab in the TARDIS that belonged to the Master—Harry, as Wilfred kept insisting—a long time ago and that the Doctor had decided to let him go back to work. He created the cure and the Doctor checked and approved it to make sure that it was safe. Occasionally Wilfred would get distracted as he spoke and go on about some funny little story that happened, like how he was certain that Harry would purposely lose at crib sometimes, or some story about the gravity fields turning strange and the Doctor getting jostled about. The old man's eyes shone with a kind of paternal pride as he spoke about the two Time Lords and the advances they had made together.
"They really don't fight very often anymore," he added at the end of his story. "But when they do, it really can be awful. And even then I don't know everything that's happening because they talk to each other in their heads sometimes when they're angry, so that I won't think they're fighting, but I can tell by their faces. I can't help but worry about them."
As interesting as this new development for the Doctor was, Jack had to steer the conversation back towards the purpose of his visit. Wilfred began to tell him about the symptoms Donna had shown over the last couple of days. It began with some dizziness and a headache, but both seemed to have passed within a few hours. By the second morning she seemed to get lost in thought and stare into space for minutes at a time, and occasionally would begin a sentence but then stop herself and say she was just thinking of something silly. On the third day she called Wilfred at five in the morning, sobbing and saying that she'd lost something but she couldn't remember what it was. It was very important and she couldn't possibly leave it behind, but she couldn't remember what it was.
Then later that day, just a few hours ago, Wilfred heard an undeniable proof that Donna's memory was coming back.
"What's a TARDIS?"
She had come by the house, the way she often did, to collect any mail that wasn't yet going to her new address and check up on things, when the question simply slipped out. She had looked at Wilfred with a genuinely confused face and shook her head.
"A what, dear?"
"A TARDIS," she repeated. "What's a TARDIS? Is it like a computer or something? One of those fancy coffee makers?"
Wilf said that it took everything he had to stop himself from rushing over and hugging her, but somehow he kept up the game. "Don't know. Where did you hear it?"
Donna shook her head again, seeming confused. "Something the Doctor said."
"Dr. Gubbins?"
"No, just the Doctor."
Jack had been taking notes as Wilfred spoke, but he paused now. "That's exactly what she said?"
"That's exactly what she said!" Wilf replied excitedly. "And I even asked her 'what do you mean, just the Doctor?', and she said she didn't know, that that's just what he said! And that is what he says, isn't it? Oh, it can be so irritating but I've never been so happy to hear those words in all my life!"
Wilfred went on to chatter about strange quirks of the Doctor's behaviour that Donna shared for a few more minutes before they heard a car pull up in the driveway. Wilf rose from the couch to greet her at the door as a key turned the lock and the door pushed open with a loud creak.
"Macey's bloody cat is in the garden again," Donna's voice was loud enough to demand attention from anyone in the house regardless of where they were, and Jack could just see the edges of her coat moving about at the edge of the doorway. "I've told her not to keep letting it out. If that bloomin' menace leaves another dead animal on my car I've half a mind to take it down to that dodgy Indian restaurant down the road—no questions asked! Maybe bring Macey a lovely curry with some funny tasting chicken and—Jack!"
Donna had glanced into the sitting room as Wilfred was helping her take off her jacket and she stopped dead. She stood there, as if completely paralyzed, just staring at him with her mouth open.
"Sorry," she said suddenly, with a bit of an embarrassed laugh. "Didn't know there was any company. And I was just kidding! You know, about the cat thing. I wouldn't—I mean, I wouldn't actually take it to a restaurant. Only crazy people do that sort of thing, you know, especially the bit about feeding it to her—I just wouldn't!"
"I believe you," Jack said with a polite chuckle, rising from the couch and stepping forward to shake her hand. "Coincidentally, my neighbour's annoying dog that keeps me up all night has mysteriously vanished and I had a curry that was surprisingly satisfying."
Donna laughed and Wilfred chuckled a little awkwardly, stepping back a bit as if he hoped that Donna would forget he was there.
"I'm Donna, by the way," she said, looking a little too pleased as Jack delivered a kiss to the back of her hand. "Donna Noble—well, Temple, I mean Temple-Noble actually. Because you see I just got married. Newly wed—ring and everything!" She quickly raised her left hand to show off her wedding band and laughing in an awkward and nervous way.
"I see I've come too late then," Jack answered with a smile.
"Ohh, aren't you a charmer!" Donna grinned, fanning herself a bit with her hand in such a way that her ring glittered with the movement. "What was your name again?"
"Captain Jack Harkness," he said with a little bow of his head. "At your service."
"Oh, of course, Jack!" Donna suddenly exclaimed, and grabbed a hold of his arm as though she suddenly realized who she was talking to. "Haven't seen you in a long time, eh? When was it? High school reunion or something, right? There was a whole bunch of us together."
"That's right," Jack smiled. "Just last year. Who all was there again?"
"Well, let's see, um, there was you and me," she began, counting them off on her fingers. "There was that one woman there I didn't really know, Martha something. Was Suzanne there? I thought Suzanne Hillsden was there, wasn't she? She'd done her hair all blonde . . ."
"You're thinking of Rose," Jack corrected. "Rose Tyler, remember?"
"Oh, yeah, you're right! It was Rose. You know, I don't remember if we ever gave her that jacket back. She'd left it behind and he was just holding onto it forever! Did she get it back? Must have had a bit too much to drink that night or something—can't really remember."
"Yeah, it was a pretty wild night."
Wilfred had slowly made his way back to the couch and sat down, sipping at tea as the two of them spoke. Donna seemed too distracted by the conversation to take any notice, and Jack could see her eyes shifting in and out of focus. It seemed like her mind would slip to some far away place and then come rushing back over and over again as she spoke.
"I remember John tried to pull some kind of silly prank with this weird, rubber hand thing, remember?"
"Oh, yes."
"How did the trick go? I just remember the hand, and I think he made move or something. Oh! And then he was naked!"
"Naked?" Jack heard Wilfred splutter on his tea behind him.
Donna laughed and shook her head as if she was remembering it all as some hilarious story. "Yeah, that's right! Don't you remember? I don't know what he was doing, but then again I'm not even sure what I did. I do remember hugging you though," Suddenly she flashed him her ring again and added quickly. "Course, I wasn't married then. Just got married a week ago. Going on my honeymoon in a couple weeks too."
"Yes, dear, we've all seen your ring and it's lovely," Wilfred said with a chuckle. He patted the empty seat on the sofa beside him and Donna walked over to sit down, reaching for the tea pot to pour herself a cup.
"Actually, your grandfather and I were just talking about you when you arrived," Jack said carefully, watching her for any physical signs of trouble. "He said you weren't feeling too well the other day. Are you feeling any better?"
"Oh Gramps, what did you go telling him about that for? Just an off day, that's all. Didn't get enough sleep or something."
"But you feel alright now? Anything strange?"
"Yeah, I'm fine," she took a sip of tea and shrugged her shoulders. "Well, I mean, I keep dreaming about going to space, but I think I've just been spending too much time with Grandpa in the yard with that telescope of his. What's it to you anyway? You're not the Doctor."
"So you remember the Doctor then?"
Donna paused for a moment, the smile on her face melting into a strange look of confusion. "And then I forgot."
"You did," Jack nodded, watching her carefully. "But you remember me, and the TARDIS, and space, Martha, Rose . . . do you remember Mickey or Sarah Jane? Do you remember Jackie? They were there too, remember?"
"Everyone was hugging each other," she said, her eyes glazing over in the distant memory.
"That's right. Everyone was in the TARDIS and we were all cheering and hugging each other. Remember the Daleks? Everyone was happy because you had beaten the Daleks."
"But I remember . . . my head hurt so badly, but I didn't want to say anything. I knew it would upset everyone but I don't remember why."
"Does it hurt now?"
Her eyes came back, and she looked at him clearly again. "No. No, I'm fine."
"Do you remember the Doctor?"
She paused again, and a frown appeared on her face. "Who is he?"
Wilfred suddenly gave a hearty chuckle and put his arm around her. "We don't know, dear, he's just the Doctor."
"It's so weird. It's like . . . I remember, but it's all kind of fuzzy," she shrugged her shoulders a bit and smiled. "Must have had too much to drink."
Jack agreed and made a joke about having had too much himself, while his eyes scanned her thoroughly. There was no sweat, or paleness, or twitching. Her pupils did not dilate or contract in any way unusual and her speech was not stuttering or repetitive. She could clearly remember more than she would safely be able to if the medication wasn't working.
He asked her several questions to make sure that her brain was still functioning normally after processing that much information about the Doctor. She gladly told him about her wedding and husband in full detail, and then chatted about their amazing luck in winning the lottery and the kinds of things they planned to do with the money, including the honeymoon that they could now afford. All the while Jack was watching for any sign of malfunction, but saw none.
"Well, it's been really nice seeing you again Donna," he announced after nearly an hour of flawless conversation. "But I really must be going. Thank you so much for your hospitality, Wilfred."
The normal pleasantries and farewells were exchanged. Donna surprised him by giving him a hug, and then Wilfred did the same. He made sure to mutter to Wilfred that he hadn't seen anything of concern, just to calm the worry in those old eyes, and made his way out the door.
As he walked back down the driveway he pulled his little notepad from his pocket to check it. The Doctor told him that he had landed the TARDIS in a nearby park and to come find it when he finished.
"I might need to peek in your head a bit, if that's okay," the Doctor had explained on the phone. "I really just can't be too careful in this situation."
He followed the instructions he had written down to find the park and wandered along the path. He replayed everything he had seen and heard in his head and he felt absolutely certain that he hadn't seen anything troublesome. He felt it would be safe to move on to the next step, and bring the Doctor to Donna.
Finally he saw it, standing in the middle of the park without a care in the world for all the strange looks it got as people passed by—the TARDIS. Jack felt his heart swell a little bit when he looked upon it, realizing how much he had missed the odd blue box and the crazy man that lived inside it. It would be good to see the Doctor again and he was very much looking forward to it.
Then he remembered that the Doctor had a new companion—the infamous 'Harry'. That was a story he was looking forward to as well.