Aftermath

Jack felt as if his cheeks would split from the size of his grin as he watched the Doctor solidify before his eyes. "Ha...look at that!" He exclaimed, distracting Adam from his consideration of the Dalek invasion.

The English teenager turned and watched in horror as the Doctor lost his transparency. "NO!" he shouted, trying to wrench free of Jack's grip.

Jack's eyes hardened and without a second's span of regret, he hit Adam over the head with the butt of his weapon. He, and the Doctor, would deal with him later. Leaving the crumpled teenager behind, he headed to the bed and looked at the cables that connected his two friends together. "Hmmm...looks like Firian technology. Where the hell did you get this, Adam?" he asked as he carefully moved one of the tubes to see what lay beneath. Adam, of course, did not answer.

"Doctor? Rose? Come on, guys, time to wake up," he encouraged as he tried to make heads or tails of the device that they were wired into. He could make an educated guess on how to disconnect them, but he would much rather see if they would wake up naturally before he started cutting wires. Besides, he had no idea of what Adam had actually planned other than it involved Rose and having the Doctor get wiped from time. Not much to go by, admittedly, but he had been through worse.

Really.

"Well," he announced to the room, "Looks like I've got a long night ahead of me."

There were some days where he had it in him to be patient. He could stalk a possible target for a con for days with little more than a few cups of coffee, a hyper vodka, and a few stolen moments of shut-eye to live by. Today was not one of them. Jack stalked between the bed and Adam's prone form, alternating between glaring at the source of his current tension and glancing worriedly at the Doctor and Rose. It was strange to see the two of them so still – like him, they were too full of life to simply stop without gesturing excitedly about some fantastic discovery. "Great," Jack said with a sigh, "You've got me saying it too, Doctor. Or, rather, thinking it."

After another ten minutes of pacing, Jack stopped in front of Adam's unconscious form and considered it, "You know, Adam. A nice man wouldn't hit you while you're down. A nice man wouldn't want to kick you several times until you bleed because of what you had done to his friends. Sadly for you, I'm not a nice man." A solid kick in the stomach was Adam's first reward for almost destroying time itself. Another was Jack's revenge for Rose. A harder one was for the Doctor.

He released a whistling breath through his teeth as he stepped away. To be truthful, it wasn't much fun to kick someone while they were unconscious. There was no satisfaction – and Jack definitely liked satisfaction. Leaving Adam behind again, he considered the device that connected his two friends together. If he could find the Doctor's sonic screwdriver, maybe he could figure out some means of disconnecting them. Maybe.

"If I were the Doctor," Jack said, looking at the subject of his wonderings, "Where would I hide my sonic screwdriver?" Both the Doctor and Rose were fully clothed, the only evidence of their trauma was the device and yellowing bruises on the side of their skulls. "Ah, if only you were awake to enjoy this, Doctor," Jack commented as he fished through the Doctor's leather jacket. He found the screwdriver inside one of the interior pockets and he set it aside before pulling the Doctor's jacket more firmly around his friend's shoulders. He justified the gesture by assuming that it might get cold later – which reminded him of his own current state of undress.

To Jack, it truly did not matter if he walked around naked. However, there were some advantages to clothing – such as pockets. However, he had no intention of leaving the room with Adam-the-idiot still alive. Shrugging slightly, he decided to forego the clothing and turned on the sonic screwdriver. He needed to do some tinkering.

It took him ten hours, hitting Adam over the head twice, and fifteen cups of coffee but he finally managed to disconnect the Doctor and Rose from the Firian machine. However, neither one of them seemed to be in any hurry to wake up. To be truthful, he was rather worried.

"Time to come back to the real world, guys. Please?" Jack said as he brushed his hand against Rose's cheek before repeating the gesture with the Doctor.

Jack sank down onto the bed and sighed. What would he do if they never woke up? He sincerely hoped he would not have to find out.