Before the Doctor could bring himself to leave New New York, he wanted to make sure that the mood sellers he'd threatened had taken his warning to heart.

Brannigan had kindly offered him and Martha a ride back towards the slums of the undercity, but he'd refused, instead guiding Martha through the plains of apple grass and back towards the parked Tardis.

Luckily for the sellers, they'd closed down their stands, and he glanced around the area, nodding in relief when he checked each stall to find them empty of sellers and products.

"All closed down," he announced, a slight smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

"Happy?" Martha asked, grinning, and the Doctor laughed despite himself.

"Happy-happy! New New York can start again, and they've got Novice Hame," he stepped back from another stall and rolled his eyes, shoving his hands deep into the pockets of his coat, "just what every city needs. Cat's in charge. Come on, time we were off," he added, nodding in the direction of the Tardis and turning, expecting her to follow.

Hoping she would.

He sighed silently when he heard nothing. No steps against the pavement, no creak of leather as she tugged on her coat, and he could feel the hum of the questions he'd been expecting for a while now, hovering in the air unspoken.

Honestly, he'd half expected her to ask him as they strolled through the apple grass. She'd held out longer than he'd expected, and he turned back to her as the first of them left her lips.

"But... what did he mean? The face of Boe," she clarified as if the Doctor didn't know exactly who she was talking about. As if he hadn't been asking himself the same question ever since the words had been spoken. "You are not alone..."

"I dunno," he answered her honestly, letting himself study her for a moment. This young human girl, standing on a street so very far from home, arms crossed as she demanded answers.

He had his suspicions about what the Face of Boe's final messages could mean, but that's all they were, suspicions, and he'd never been one to admit to something without empirical proof.

"You've got me. Is that what he meant?"

There was that soft emotion in her eyes again that made the Doctor's hair stand on end, but her words evoked a sharp memory that spun around his mind and brought a soft smile to his face.

"I'm the only survivor. I'm left travelling on my own 'cos there's no one else"

"There's me"

"I don't think so," he told Martha gently, and he realised it had been the first time he'd been able to bring a smile to his face with memories of Rose floating through his mind. It helped that it was a memory from his previous regeneration, but it still surprised him and softened his expression, even as he noticed the smile slip from Martha's face.

"Sorry," he offered.

"Then what?" the young woman asked him, and he sighed, shaking his head and letting his eyes skitter away from her and around the deserted street again.

"Doesn't matter. Back to the Tardis, off we go," he turned and started walking again, hoping against hope that she would let the matter drop, but a part of him knew that if she did then she wouldn't be the kind of person he would have invited along as a companion, and he was proven right when he heard the sound of metal against the stone street.

He turned back to Martha, a frown on his face this time, only to see her sitting on a filthy abandoned chair, one leg crossed over the other, and her arms folded tightly across her chest.

"Oh, right, are you staying?" he demanded, trying not to lose the tenuous control he'd wrangled over his temper. He might have expected this minor confrontation, but that made it no more welcome.

"'Till you talk to me properly, yes," Martha answered simply and he blinked at her in surprise. "He said 'last of your kind', what does that mean?"

"It really doesn't matter," he repeated, almost desperate now for the woman to drop the issue. If she asked about this, then she'd ask about the war. About how it ended. Those were well-worn paths within his mind that the Doctor didn't want to go down again without Rose there to light the way.

"You don't talk! You never say!" Martha snapped, "Why not?"

He could see the muscles in her neck tense. She was angry and, he supposed, she had the right to be. He'd taken her so far from home, in both space and time, and she knew nothing about him.

As the citizens of New New York began to sing above them, another memory hit him and he raised his eyes to stare at the upper city as a way to avoid Martha's piercing gaze.

"Who are you, then, Doctor? What are you called? What sort of alien are you?"

"I'm just the Doctor."

"From what planet?"

"Well, it's not as if you'll know where it is!"

"Where are you from?"

"What does it matter?"

"Tell me who you are!"

"This is who I am, right here, right now, all right? All that counts is here and now, and this is me."

"Yeah, and I'm here too because you brought me here, so just tell me!"

"It's the city," Martha said, and the Doctor lowered his eyes from the skies and back to her face. "They're singing."

He stared at her for a long moment, and Martha stared back. Rose had been right to demand answers, so how could he stand there and even think that Martha didn't deserve at least some of those same answers.

He opened his mouth a little and pressed his tongue against his teeth as he considered where to start, and after a long moment, he said four small words on a long exhale of breath.

"I lied to you." He watched her face crumble into a confused frown and forced himself to continue, "'Cause I liked it. I could pretend..."

He swallowed hard and let his eyes settle somewhere behind Martha, avoiding her gaze and sinking into memories that welcomed him with darkness and screams.

"Just for a bit, I could imagine they were still alive, underneath that burnt orange sky..."

Flicking his eyes back to hers and clawing his way out of the memories, the Doctor delivered the line he was so very tired of saying. The line he wished wasn't the truth with every beat of his hearts, "I'm not just a Time Lord, I'm the last of the Time Lords. The Face of Boe was wrong, there's no one else."

"What happened?"

The question he'd dreaded. So simple, just two words, and he knew the misery was plain to see on his face.

His last self had been built of cold steel and leather armour. He'd been made for these kinds of conversations, but this body had been born of emotions, and love, and had no defence against this kind of pain. Rose had been his analgesic, and now she was gone.

He couldn't hold Martha's gaze and moved instead to grab another battered and filthy discarded chair, placing it in front of Martha's and slowly sinking into it.

"There was a war," he began softly, still only able to meet her eyes for very brief periods. After every other sentence, to judge just how much to tell her. Where and when to stop talking.

"A time war. The last great time war. My people fought a race called the Daleks, for the sake of all creation... and they lost."

It sounded so simple when he was forced to speak of the war. We fought, we lost. Words could not contain or describe the atrocities committed during those years, and so the Doctor didn't even try, but it also meant that no one would ever truly understand the devastation that had been wrought throughout the universe.

"We lost, everyone lost. They're all gone now," he told her softly, his voice lowering to just above a whisper as once more memories rose in his mind to capture him in their grasp, and he knew that the next time he slept the nightmares would be vicious.

He could feel his throat closing and let his eyes lose focus again. Let himself see blonde hair and smell the vanilla of Rose's soap as he let the words flow past his lips.

"My family. My friends. Even that sky. Oh, you should have seen it, that old planet. The second sun would rise in the south and the mountains would shine."

He could feel his eyes burning with tears and longed for Rose to curl her arms around him, but he held back the grief because the blonde he was speaking to was only in his mind, and accepting such an embrace from Martha would only make things worse.

"The leaves on the tree's were silver, and when they caught the light every morning it looked like a forest on fire... and when the autumn came, the breeze blew through the branches and it sounded like a song."

It would have been easy to sit on the abandoned street and talk about his planet forever. It would have been easy for the Time Lord to lose all sense of time, wrapped in his memories, but eventually, his words faded when he couldn't force another syllable past his lips, and silence descended.

He didn't know when the city had stopped singing, or when the sun had set, but the cool evening air was seeping through his coat, and when he glanced at Martha he could see her rubbing at her arms for warmth.

"You should have said you were cold," he told her, his voice still quiet but raw from the hours he'd spent talking and Martha jumped at the change in topic. "Come on, we've been here long enough. The Tardis is waiting," he said, standing and offering her a hand to help her up.

They moved through the dark streets in silence, the song of his ship guiding their path, and before long they could see her welcoming blue doors and the Doctor pulled his key from his pocket, a soft smile settling on his features at her gentle, comforting brush against his mind.

As he closed the doors behind them and threw his coat over a coral strut, Martha stood by the console waiting for him, and when he turned to face her she offered him a smile.

"Thank you," she said gently, and the Doctor paused, frowning.

"What for?"

"For telling me," she explained, and he found he suddenly didn't know what to say, so simply nodded.

"The Tardis should have a room ready for you if you want to sleep," he offered instead, and Martha nodded, a yawn escaping her at the mention of sleep and a row of lights began flashing down the nearest corridor, leading the human towards somewhere she could freshen up and recuperate.

She shot him one last smile before leaving, and the moment the Tardis told him that Martha was far enough away the Doctor sent the Tardis into the vortex and let his shoulders slump.

The fine trembling he'd barely been holding at bay started to build in his hands as he surrendered to the pain in his mind.

His ship was all but purring her comfort over their telepathic bond, but the wounds his words had reopened could only be sewn shut by a small blonde human.

His ninth self might have been able to hold himself together with leather and dark glares, but he wasn't made for this kind of pain this time around and all he wanted to do, right at that moment, was hide beneath the Tardis console and cry into her circuits.

He couldn't let himself do that though, couldn't allow himself to shatter. Somehow he had to find a way to stay in one piece without Rose's help so he waited until he was sure Martha was sleeping, and carefully guided the Tardis into London.

He couldn't risk seeing Rose, but he found himself seated at a window booth in her favourite chippy with a carton of those deep-fried potatoes she'd loved so much.

Surrounded by happy humans and East London accents he watched the rain pour down outside, and as he sat there and soaked in the blatant humanity, something tight in his chest came loose and the Doctor was able to breathe deeply again.

Sure, his wounds were still raw and open, but when he closed his eyes he could almost hear her laugh and that sound staunched the worst of the bleeding in his hearts. Without his pink and yellow human on this side of the void, it was the best the Doctor could do.

Hours later, he quietly returned to the Tardis and slipped them all back into the vortex. With still hours to spare before Martha awoke, his newest companion remained blissfully unaware of his self-help pitstop into London.

When Rose and Ianto had returned to the main hub, Jack had sent him home with instructions to not come back for forty-eight hours. To take the time to grieve.

Ianto hadn't said anything to the Captain in response, merely collected his belongings, handed in his weapon, and left with one last grateful squeeze to Roses' hand.

There wasn't much said between the rest of the team once Ianto had left the building and everyone seemed to be moving on autopilot. Owen and Gwen moved the bodies to the Torchwood morgue, Tosh went to work hiding any connection Torchwood had to the doctor Ianto had hired, and the delivery girl that Lisa had murdered.

Jack seemed to be distracting himself by cleaning up blood and checking Myfanwy for injuries, so Rose retreated back to the lower storeroom to dismantle the Cyber conversion unit, knowing that he'd find her if he needed her.

It took a couple of hours for Rose to reduce the conversion unit to nothing more than a pile of scrap metal. Knowing it was designated for a furnace, to be melted down into nothing was the only thing that eased her still thrumming anxiety enough to go looking for Jack.

As she returned to the main level, she realised that everyone else had gone home for the night, and Rose carefully weaved her way through the destruction, scattered papers were still floating in the moat and someone had forgotten to dispose of the dropped pizza boxes.

She grabbed a portable medkit that looked mostly intact as she passed Owens desk and kept going. Clean up was for later.

She found Jack in his office, one of the only rooms that had been unlocked and yet still avoided any serious damage, but he didn't look up at her when she opened the glass door, just remained sitting in his chair, arms resting against his legs with hands hanging loosely between his knees, staring at the floor and lost in his thoughts.

She stilled for a moment, and bit at her lip, before stepping closer.

"Come on, Captain, let's check you out," she said softly, breaking the silence and watching Jack's head whip up as he stared at her in surprise.

"Rose..."

"I bet you didn't let Owen near you with a medkit," she continued, ignoring the broken note to his voice as she moved to stand beside him, and lifted the case of medical supplies in her hands.

Jack let out a small choked laugh before standing and pulling her into a crushing hug and she let him, placing the medkit onto his desk blindly, before returning the embrace and drawing her own measure of comfort from the warmth emanating from the ex-time agent.

Rose didn't bother keeping track of how long the hug went on, and she had a feeling Jack had also let himself get lost in the comfort, but eventually, his arms loosened slightly and she let one hand pat against his back gently before she released him.

"Come and sit down, let me take a look at that lip, if nothing else," she requested, indicating the sharp split that Ianto's punch had put on his face.

Jack sighed, but nodded and returned to his chair while Rose cracked open the medical supplies. She perched herself on the edge of his desk and used her feet to pull the wheeled chair closer, and it was a strong sign of her friends' state of mind that the motion didn't pull a flirtatious comment.

He calmly let her angle his head and clean the wound on his upper lip without comment, and when Rose checked she could see that he was lost in thought again. A few medical strips to stop the injury from splitting open any further and Rose released Jack's jaw and let her hands fall to her thighs.

"What are you thinking?" she asked simply, and Jack blinked at her before offering a weak smile.

"I'd forgotten how good you are at that," he said, and Rose raised her eyebrows. "At getting me to drop my guard. It always worked on the Doctor too, you know."

Rose laughed dryly, "Never well enough. I could never get a straight answer out of him about why you didn't come with us on Satellite Five."

It was the coldness that suddenly filled Jack's gaze that made Rose pause, and she blinked at him startled.

"What? What's wrong?"

"He never said?" Jack asked, and Rose shook her head.

"Never said what?"

"I didn't stay behind, he left me there," Jack told her, voice quiet and filled with an age-old echo of pain. "I woke up surrounded by Dalek dust and heard the Tardis engines... I made it just in time to watch her disappear with the Doctor inside. I don't know what happened."

"He sent me home," Rose said, and Jack raised his head to meet her gaze and nodded.

"Right, so how did the Tardis get back?"

"I flew her," she answered and Jack's jaw dropped.

"What?"

"I... I couldn't just leave you both there so I tried to get her to go back, but she wouldn't... and it took me a couple of days but mum got a tow truck and I forced open her heart—"

"Rose—"

"I remember looking into the heart of the Tardis," Rose continued, unable to stop now she'd started, "and I was determined to have her help to save the Doctor, to save both of you, and there was this bright, golden light and singing and... that's the last thing I remember."

She brushed her hair back over her shoulder with a sigh, "The next thing I remembered was waking up on the floor of the Tardis and the Doctor was there, flying her, and we'd left Satellite Five and... then he regenerated," Rose finished softly.

"I've got some tiny bits, fragments, that come to me sometimes, in dreams... things that feel real, sound like they make sense, but without the Doctor to ask... I don't know. Maybe I'm just dreaming them."

"You never said..." Jack murmured, eyes wide, and Rose frowned.

"You never said you can't die," she shot back and Jack flushed, surprising her. "Did you think I'd have left you there by choice?" Rose asked suddenly, wondering if this had been the reason for the man's reticence with her since her return and she had her answer when Jack looked away.

"I didn't think the Doctor would either, but..." he let the sentence trail with a shrug of his shoulders, but Rose could see the hurt in the way his lips pressed together.

"When I said we should go back for you, he told me you were busy. 'Rebuilding the Earth' were his exact words, if I remember correctly," she told Jack firmly, and she was relieved when he glanced back at her, cautious hope building behind his eyes.

"You were going to—"

"Of course I wanted to go back for you!" she snapped, slapping his arm, "And trust me, I'll be finding out why he lied to me when we eventually find that bloody alien again!"

Rose was angry now, her breathing heavy and she could feel the burn of tears in the back of her eyes at the pain their abandonment must have put Jack through, but his warm smile surprised her and she shook her head.

"What are you grinning about?" she demanded, still furious with the absent Time Lord, but Jack's smile was cutting her anger off at the knees.

"Nothing at all, Rosie."

"Oh shut it," she grumbled, sighing and letting her frame relax as she let go of the anger, for the time being. She glanced over Jack, scanning across him for a moment before adding, "So, can you really not die?"

Jack sighed, and leant back in his chair, putting his feet on the desk beside her, ankles crossed as he shook his head.

"Not yet. Been killed a few hundred times now, I always wake up."

"Never been killed by a Cyberman before, I'll bet. How did you know that wouldn't be it?" she asked, and the long moment of silence answered for her. "You didn't know. You just guessed."

"I hoped," Jack corrected softly, "I didn't want to leave you alone, before you found the Doctor after all," he teased but sobered quickly. "I thought you'd been killed by a Cyberman or a Dalek for far too long, Rosie, I wasn't about to let it happen again. You're the sister I never had. If it's the last thing I ever do, I'll keep you safe so you can find the Doctor again," he promised and Rose shook her head in disbelief.

She could feel tears in her throat, and her love for Jack bursting in her chest, and when he let his gaze settle on her again she let herself beam at him.

"My hero," she teased gently, but with just a dash too much honesty hiding behind the words. Just enough to make Jack laugh.