"What are you doing, Jack?" the frighten child began pleading for an answer, from the moment he was placed on the pedestal, by the soldiers. "What's happening?" The boy asked... But Jack refused to look at him... he couldn't look at him... all he could do was click buttons and fiddle with dials...

Jack heard his daughter, banging against the glass, locked out of the room... to stop her from doing what any mother would...

He finished tracking the signal, tracing it through the boy... then forced himself to look at the child... looking at the frighten face of his own grandson... then Jack did what he always did... what the Doctor taught him to do... He saved the world... by sacrificing something he loved...

###

Jack sat up with a start, panting and sweating... and crying... he hadn't cried in decades... but now he weeped like the small child he was.

His heart crushed...

"Jack?"

"Why..." Was all Jack could get out.

The Doctor sat on his bed. "Why what?"

Jack suddenly leaped out of his bed and tackled the other boy. The moment they hit the floor, Jack's fist flew on it's own, Striking the Doctor's face. Jack paused only temporarily, to scream at the pain in his hand.

Hitting the Doctor's denser body was like hitting living marble. How Snape actually managed to SPANK the boy, he couldn't figure.

Regardless, Jack took only a moment to wallow in that pain, before striking the Doctor again... and again, and again... his hands broke against the Doctor's solid face, but Jack only growled in irritation that he couldn't hurt the boy. The Doctor's face was bloody... but it wasn't his blood that stained his night gown. That only enraged Jack more. HE COULDN'T EVEN HURT THE BASTARD.

After a solid 3 minutes of punching, Jack found himself being lifted into the air by an invisible force.

The 7th year Prefect, Flint or something, was restraining Jack with his magic. Meanwhile, Snape was looking over a stunned Doctor... Snape was even more stunned to find that none of the blood he was wiping away from the boy's face was his own... he didn't even have a single bruise or busted lip.

"You can put Jack down..." The Doctor rubbed his jaw. Snape could hear a clicking sound coming from it so there was SOME kind of damage after all. Snape would have to contact Madame Pomfrey. "I don't doubt that I deserved that."

Snape was about to assure the boy he didn't... but then he caught sight of the boy's eyes... and remembered how the Sorting Hat screamed in fear.

The Doctor calmly got up from the floor, dusted himself off, and looked... not human... there wasn't a trace of humanity in the way the boy carried himself. It is said the eyes are the window to the soul... and his... The Doctor's eyes were enough to cause whole armies of the most nightmarish creatures imaginable, to run in fear, to beg for mercy... only to find the boy had not an ounce left within him.

His young face looked so impossibly tired, and completely comfortable with the knowledge that he could burn the world to it's very atoms...

"So which of my long list of atrocities did you dream about?" asked The Dark Lord, no... this child went beyond that, he was a Dark God.

Jack, after being in the air for a bit, managed to calm himself. He simply answered, "All of them..."

The Doctor just shrugged it off, then looked at Snape, "You can't be my friend for as long as Jack has, and not get the occasional urge to thump me." He said it with a cheeky grin... but his eyes showed no humor.

Snape did his best not to shiver at the expression in the boy's eyes. He refused to show weakness in front of such a monster.

"Let's get you two to the Hospital Wing."

###

Jack sighed, as his hands had already fixed themselves by the time they got to the infirmary... yet the med witch was still fussy.

"You want to tell me what caused this little tantrum?" She asked.

Jack looked around, the curtains had once again been pulled around them.

"Privacy wards are up," The med Witch assured, "No one can hear you, but me."

Jack stayed quiet.

"It might ease you to know such outbursts are expected of De-aged wizards. Especially those who were in high stress fields. Adult traumas are hard to process for a child's brain."

That actually did make him feel a little better.

"The Doctor..." Jack began, but lost the nerve. "I don't like-like losing control of myself... Spent the first hundred years of my life in a dark place... so I try my best to focus on the present... but I'm damned by the past... but the Doctor..." He took a deep breath, "He taught me to help people. To do what is necessary to protect the world... whatever the cost... I have... done a lot of bad things in the name of global peace... But whenever I need the Doctor the most... he is never there... I have to handle it on my own... which I always do... I do what I have to... but sometimes... I just wish he would come..."

The med witch frowned, "I imagine you're so adamant about the fact John should see your horrors, because Time Lords are so inclined in divination."

Jack hesitantly looked down at his hands. The Med witch was cleaning the now dried blood off them. It really did surprise him how much this woman knew.

"I hate to burst your bubble, but not even Time Lords can see everything. True, they get more then vague impressions, but for them. Looking at time is like reading a history textbook. They get the general idea, but the details are lost on them... then, when something that so distorts reality, such as a Boekind... they see nothing."

Jack's head jerked back up to her, "What?"

"The Doctor simply cannot see any future where you are involved. He might not even be aware of that himself. At worst, he would know of anything to happen to you, AFTER the fact... he doesn't come, because he doesn't see, not because he doesn't care."

"He... he doesn't know?..." Jack stared, as if that possibility had never occurred to him.

"Time Lords and Boekind have been feuding for generations." Madame Pomfrey noted, "Your very biologies rage against the other's presence... The fact your friends at all, is a miracle... you shouldn't expect any more. Like John showing up whenever you need him, when he has no way of knowing anything is wrong until after the fact... when it comes to you, he is as blind to the future as anyone else."

###

The Doctor and Jack were sitting on opposite sides of the infirmary. While the Med witch talked with Snape, in her office.

Jack hesitantly got off his bed, and walked over to The Doctor. The scrawny boy was playing with his jaw, attempting to get it to click... but unfortunately Madame Pomfrey was too good at her job.

"How's your jaw?" Jack hesitantly asked, fiddling with his own knuckles.

"You'd be happy to know it hurts quite a bit." The Doctor informed, though Jack wasn't sure if that was a lie. "You knocked it a bit loose from the socket, and the healer had to shove it back it and cast a mending spell."

"Good," Jack accidentally said.

The Doctor eyed him, "Time Lord nerves are actually a lot more sensitive then humans. Especially at this age." The Doctor maybe lied again... but it was equally possible he was telling the truth, "Just cause it's harder to actually injure me, doesn't mean I don't feel it... if anything it hurts MORE then what a human would have experienced..."

Jack continued to fiddle with his knuckles. He felt a bit of phantom pain, but they were fully healed

"Sorry..." Jack got out.

The Doctor blinked in confusion. Obviously thinking he was comforting Jack, by telling him he had been hurting him... he really was far too alien, in his thinking, sometimes.

"Want to tell me what you dreamed now?" The Doctor tried a different route. One more universal to children across the galaxies.

"There was... an incident..." Jack informed, "Aliens came to Earth, and demanded we give them millions of children."

The Doctor's eyes widened... he could be lying again... but something in his eyes assured Jack he wasn't. He hadn't lied about anything.

"When?" The Doctor glared, and the Jack was reminded what a soft spot he had for children. Even knowing it create a Paradox, the Doctor had every intention of charging in and burning their entire race from the stars.

"It's been handle." Jack assured.

The Doctor looked him up and down, as if to see if it was Jack's turn to lie. Then smiled, "Should have known you could have handled it."

Jack couldn't stop the tears from leaking out.

The Doctor stiffened, "Jack?..."

"Oh I stopped them all right!" Jack cried, his immature body a wreck with emotions. "I traced the signal they were using to control the kids, and used that to blow up their fucking ships."

The Doctor paled, understanding the implications, "Who... who did you use?"

"... My grand... my grandson..." Jack forced out. "The whole time I was praying you would come. You would stop me. YOU WOULD FIND A BETTER WAY!"

The Doctor's eyes lowered, "Not even I can see everything Jack... especially when you are involved. I only know about your future children, cuz I ran into a future you, living happily in the past... a little village of Boekind around you..."

Jack hung his head.

"I'm so sorry, Jack." The Doctor insisted, "You know I would have come if I knew..."

Jack couldn't resist asking, "Would you? You've never come before. You knew what Rose did to me... and you just left me there..."

The Doctor looked away, "I'm sorry Jack. At first, I really thought you were dead... then, when I realized what the Bad Wolf had turned you into... I was scared... you're a living manifestation of a fixed point... the idea terrified me... but as you said, all those centuries ago, I was just being prejudice... I should never have turned my back on you... and, if you called, I would always come for you..."

The Doctor stood up and fished through his pockets, until he pulled out a key. He handed it to Jack, "You can use this to send me a message to my psychic paper... I will get it, and I will ALWAYS come."

Jack hesitantly took the key, staring at it, "A TARDIS key... You never trusted me with this before..."

The Doctor frowned, "Which is one of my deepest regrets." Then gave a cheeky smile, "And you know how many of those I have."

"Boys?" The former adults looked up to find their head of house walking over. "I'm glad to see you have made amends. Now let us return to the dorm. Regardless of this incident, I expect you fully rested for your second day of classes."

Jack sighed, "It feels like it's been years." but followed Snape without further complaint.