It was hours later when he happened upon Jackie. She was in the upstairs lounge, television on, watching something mindless enough that she was paying little attention to it. Her gaze seemed to be focused somewhere in the dusky evening, watching the sky turn a pearl color. Pete cleared his throat as he entered, earning her attention as she turned towards him.

"Wondered where you'd gotten to," he murmured, leaning against the back of the couch. "House is big, but not that big."

"Went off for a bit of a wander," she admitted absently, shrugging. "Found the wine cellar. Didn't know you had one of those. Great big casks of the stuff."

"Surprised you didn't help yourself," he teased. She didn't laugh.

"Needed to think," was all she said as she turned again to the telly she wasn't watching.

"Ahh," he murmured, saying no more. Silence grew between them as an advert droned inanely from the telly, something about biscuits or tea, he couldn't care less. He didn't like it, this quiet from Jackie. That was one of the few of the things he'd learned quickly about this woman, she rarely stayed quiet, and if she did she was either sleeping or dead. Since she was neither, her stoney silence unnerved him. He decided to take the proverbial bull by the horns.

"Chatted with Rose about Torchwood." He was matter-of-fact about. No reason to beat about the bush. "I'm arranging for her to go in tomorrow, meet with Miles. Told her she'd get no favors, just because she's now my daughter. Made that clear. We'll see how she does."

Jackie didn't so much as flinch or shrug. He might as well have said nothing. Pete bit back a swell of irritation as he continued. "Might be good for her. I think she has needed something to ground her a bit."

Not even that observation elicited a response. He sighed. "She's not doing this to spite you, you know. It's her nature. She's been cooped up at my place in London so as not to show her face, now out here for a week. Think it's been the longest she's been tied down to anywhere in forever. Anyway, anything to make her happy, I guess, give her purpose. Know something about that, myself."

He trailed off. Jackie still hadn't even looked at him, not in anger, not in defiance, nothing. Pete's jaw worked against angry retorts. This wasn't his first wife. This was a different woman. And if he wanted her in his life, he had to treat her as such.

"Thought you'd like to know." He didn't know what to say further. Sensing the dismissal from her, he meant to leave her with her trash telly and her anger, but a sad, soft murmur stopped him.

"You know, I saw him die."

He stopped, turning to look at her. She was still staring at the telly, but he didn't think she was watching it. "I know," he replied simply. He'd heard the story enough times by now, in a macabre sort of way he could almost imagine it.

"It was Rose what held his hand while he died. Grown up Rose, I mean. Time travel mixes it all up." She sniffed, half turning over her shoulder towards him. "You know what I'd been yelling at him about all day? How he still didn't have a job and how he was flirting with women and brought one to church. My own daughter, only I didn't know it. All I could think about was how was I supposed to pay the rent and take care of our daughter while he was out frittering it away on health tonics and whores."

Pete didn't know what to say. He hadn't lived that moment, didn't know that argument, but he knew many like it. "Like as not, he probably deserved it, judging from past experience."

Jackie finally turned, something of a laugh choking past tears. "Oh, I don't know. Maybe I was just an idiot so caught up in being scared about what might happen I wasn't noticing the good thing right in front of me."

"Could be that, too." He wandered back slowly to the couch, shoving hands into his trouser pockets as he went. "I mean, you always overreacted, can't help yourself."

"Shut it," she sniffed, chuckling past tears. "It's always been so easy for you, you know. You and Rose, you are cut out of the same cloth, you are. She's always been more like you than me. Couldn't keep her off roofs or away from prats, she'd run head first into any old thing. And she'd come home scraped up, or broken-hearted, and it was just me there, all by myself. Trying to put my daughter back together. And no sooner I'd patch her up then she'd do something else mad."

"Well, if she is my daughter, she comes by it honestly. Genetics."

Jackie only rolled her eyes. "She's more you than me. She can draw, She's smart. She wanted to see everything, do everything. I was so scared when she disappeared with the Doctor. And when she came back like nothing happened, I was so angry with her. Didn't even have the decency to tell me the truth! Not at first, anyway. Sound like someone you know?"

Pete only felt partially guilty for that. "Don't know what you are talking about."

"Right," she snorted. "Then she barely survives some other mad adventure with him, and if you please, she packs her bags and runs off with him somewhere else. Ten seconds, she says, I'll be back in ten seconds. I don't see her for months. And all the while I'm mad because she's run off and left me. She's off seeing the universe and doing things and living a life, and where does that leave me?"

Tearful blue eyes looked up at Pete through thick mascara. "How awful of a mother does that make me sound, huh? But it's true. After you died, all I had was her. All I did was for her. I mean, yeah, I'd go out with the girls, go to the pub, but at the end of the day, it was always Rose. And when she left, I just didn't have anything."

And now the truth came out. Pete didn't know what to say. In so many ways it was so different from his wife, who'd had too many things going on beyond herself and no time for him or their relationship. He sighed, rounding the couch, gently settling beside her as he carefully chose his words.

"Doesn't make you an awful mother, Jacks. Just makes you a normal one, I think. All parents have problems letting their kids go. And so maybe you hold on a little tighter. Doesn't make you horrible."

"I don't know. Small wonder she ran away with the Doctor. If nothing else, she had to get away from me."

"But she always came home, right?" Pete wasn't about to allow Jackie to wallow too much in her sorrows. He gently nudged her trainer with the point of his wing tips, trying to lift her mood. "Rose loves you. At the end of the day, that won't change."

Jackie didn't looked as convinced. "How awful did I sound down there?"

"Well, a bit on the hoyden side, but not so bad. I think she'll forgive you."

"She usually does." Jackie replied, sadly. "That's you, too. Always putting up with me."

"I think it goes both ways, Jacks." Gingerly, he reached across the space between them to take her hand. "I wasn't a picnic to live with on a lot of levels, even when I did get rich."

"I can imagine." She didn't move her fingers from his grasp. In fact she kept them there, squeezing gently. They were warm and slim, and felt so very good there. "Just, promise me you'll keep an eye on her when she's at Torchwood. I mean, I know, you can't stop her from doing anything if she gets a mind to do it, but just make sure she doesn't do anything too mad."

"I'll do my best," he reassured her. On impulse he lifted their joined hands, brushing her knuckles gently against his lips. He wasn't sure why he did it, perhaps out of a long remembered habit, the gesture of reassurance he had with his wife. It was only when he felt her stiffen beside him that he realized really what he'd done.

She met his wide eyes evenly, just as shocked as he was.

An apology was trying to bubble to life in his brain, attempting to formulate enough to be stuttered in utter and profuse embarrassment. Something about not thinking, and not meaning to push her, and please forgive him. But before he could even manage to flush hotly or even drop her hand and pull away, she threw herself at him, wrapping arms around his neck as she kissed him so fiercely it took what remaining breath he had away.

Frankly, he was too stunned to do much else but go along with it.

Seconds later, or perhaps hours, she pulled away, staring at him with just as much shock as he had her when he'd kissed her hand. Neither of them spoke or dared to breathe for a long, pregnant pause.

"Oh, bloody hell," Pete finally managed, throwing all caution to the wind and pulling Jackie against him. Rough as it was, she didn't complain, as lips met and hands grasped. The telly shouted at them about the mystery that was Jackie Tyler's reappearance, but neither cared. It was long minutes this time before either pulled away, leaving Jackie gasping and Pete breathless.

"That was," Jacked whispered, voice shaky as she panted softly for breath. "Nice!"

He smiled, tentatively, reaching to push a tumble of blonde out of her eyes gently. "Is nice good?"

"Yeah," she nodded, gaze following his fingers as they trailed from behind her ear, down her jawline. "It is very good?"

"Good enough to keep going?" He didn't like the tentative hitch that cracked his voice like he was a seventeen-year-old kid.

"Whose room is closer?"

"Yours," he murmured, leaning over to follow his fingers with his mouth. Jackie shivered and sighed.

"Right, let's get there before this gets too much further."

She didn't seem eager to move. Pete smiled, pulling away to grin at her dazed expression. "You aren't going too fast."

"Shut up and start moving, else I'm not going to."

Giggling and stumbling like teenagers, they finally made it to her room. It had been years for Pete, he had no idea how long it had been for Jackie, though he highly doubted she'd been any celibate. Still, it felt as no time had passed at all, the way they worked, clothes flying while still managing to keep as much contact as possible. Perhaps her body bore the marks of motherhood, perhaps he cared more about his appearance now as a spokesperson and business man than he had when he was younger. Still, in the end it didn't seem to matter. They just fit, the two of them, just as they always had, for all that they were essentially different people. He still knew that particular place just at the crook of her neck that made her groan. She still knew just the perfect way to rock against him that seemed to make everything just that much sweeter. An hour later, as they lay in the large bed, limbs entangled, with Jackie's hair loose across Pete's naked chest, her face firmly snuggled there as they both struggled to catch their breath.

"Lord, we aren't kids anymore," she muttered sleepily, snuggling tighter, if possible. Pete rumbled low in his chest, and he could feel her grin against his skin.

"Best workout I've gotten in a while."

"That's a lie, I seen you down in that gym."

He laughed, pulling her up towards him and kissing her soundly. "Best workout you've gotten."

"That's for sure." She smirked, settling her head on his shoulder. "Still, not as bad as that one time in Tommy Mullen's car. You remember that?"

He knew what she was really asking is if it happened in his world, with his wife. It should be a strange statement, and maybe it was the afterglow or the exertion, he just couldn't bring himself to feel weird about it. "Yeah, I remember. In the back seat, had my feet out the window, and you hit your head on the roof so hard I thought you'd given yourself a concussion."

"You made me see stars for more than one reason that night," she snickered, tracing a hand down his chest.

"Tommy screamed at the pair of us for ruining his upholstery and smelling up his car."

"Oh, we did nothing, and he was always pissing and moaning about that pile of junk."

"Classic, he called it," Pete recalled earning a rather indelicate snort of Jackie.

"If by classic he meant it had cig burns in the leather and you could hear the tranny a mile away, sure." Her arms wound around him tighter at the joy of a shared memory. "Whatever happened to him here, then?"

"Don't know. Lost track of him after things changed."

"Yeah. Same in mine. He disappeared after everything, never heard from him again."

"S'alright. He was a wanker anyway."

The fell into pleased silence, still riding the hormonal high as they cuddled together. Sleep was just tugging at Pete when Jackie's voice floated to him in a rather lazy murmur. "Rose is going to wonder where we are at."

"Don't think she'll worry too much," he replied drowsily. Still, a niggle of guilt rose within him, knowing that he'd just shagged the girl's mother silly. "Do you think she'll mind that we...well…"

He trailed off, uncomfortable with just blurting out that he'd just had sex, as if Rose was standing at the door, listening. This seemed to endear him to Jackie, however, who only looked up at him under her fringe of hair as if he'd cutely dribbled all over himself.

"You plum, it's not like she's not had to deal with me and boyfriends before." She flushed, slightly, realizing what she'd admitted to. "Besides, she at least likes you."

"Well, I guess that's a relief," he replied cheekily, as she swatted his side gently. "I know, I mean, I guess in a way, I'm her father, and perhaps it's not as strange to her."

"No, maybe not."

"She's still going to give me hell, isn't she?"

"She does take after you, like I said."

Pete couldn't bring it in himself to feel worried about that. "Suppose I have it coming to me."

"Pete," Jackie sighed, nuzzling close once again. "Shut it for now, you've gone and knackered me."

"Right," he replied, yawning. He didn't even have time to wonder at the joy it was to have Jackie back in his arms again. He simply drifted off, the sound of Jackie's soft breathing lulling him to sleep.