Author's Note: Sorry for the delay. I'm in my last semester of college, and things have been kinda crazy. Hope you enjoy!

Chapter Eleven

"Do you suppose that's her?" Rose asked, peeking out of the door of the Tardis and across the street.

Jen's face appeared below hers and Jack's above. All three of their eyes were trained on a young, redheaded woman across the street who hesitantly approached men as they passed her by. "She certainly fits the description," Jen replied. "And the time frame is just right."

"Well then," Jack said, pushing past the two women and smoothing his dark hair, "I guess it's time to go to work."

Rose chuckled. "Don't work too hard!" she said, mischievously.

Both of them missed the sudden serious and far away expression that fell over Jen's features. "Jack," she suddenly called after him, a troubled look in her eyes. He turned and met her gaze curiously, a feeling of dread falling over him when he caught her expression. "Hurry," was all she said, an undercurrent of urgency in her voice.

He paused in his stride and stepped back to her. He wasn't sure what she had seen or sensed, but it was genuine fear he saw in her eyes. Gently, he rested a palm against her cheek. "I'll do my best," he promised, and then turned to approach the young woman.

"What is it?" Rose asked, stepping back. "What's wrong?"

"It's…" Jen hesitated. She straightened to a full standing position, but avoided Rose's gaze. "It's nothing."

"Tell me," Rose insisted, stepping closer.

Jen still hesitated, but finally brought her green eyes up to meet Rose. "I don't know where he is," she said, gently, "but he's in pain."

Rose felt as if a sudden vice had clamped around her heart. "How much?" she asked, weakly.

A bitter smile tugged at Jen's lips. "It would have to be quite a bit to project to me the way that it did."

Slowly, Rose turned away and walked back into the Tardis. A mix of emotions churned inside of her. Worry. Fear. Jealousy over a connection that Jen had with him that she couldn't share. A sudden desperation to find him as quickly as possible, and extreme annoyance at the slow, tedious methods that they had to undergo in order to accomplish that.

"Hey," Jen said, softly, "he's tougher than he looks. Worse comes to worst, he'll simply enter a regeneration cycle." A thought suddenly occurred to her, and she glanced up at the ceiling. "Tardis, exactly how many times has he regenerated?" The bleeping reply had her eyebrows lifting. "Yeah, we definitely want the regeneration cycle to be a last resort."

"Why's that?" Rose asked. "I mean, I know it's not exactly easy on him, but give him some rest and a good cup of tea…"

"He's regenerated nine times," Jen pointed out, folding her arms over her chest and leaning back against the Tardis console in such a Doctor-esque manner that Rose nearly laughed. "The most that any Time Lord has ever been able to regenerate is thirteen. I can't imagine that he'd have too many more regenerations left in him. Better to conserve if possible."

"The way he described it to me," Rose said, "it sounded like he could go on regenerating forever."

A soft, sad smile blossomed on the corners of Jen's lips. "Nothing lasts forever, much as we might want it to." She paused and looked thoughtful. "Then again…" she mused. "Considering all that he's been through, I can't help but wonder if he doesn't feel like it does go on forever."

"Come on, Mary," Jack coaxed, following the young woman down the street. "I just want to talk to you for a minute."

"Unless you're paying, buzz off," she replied, quickening her pace and ducking her head. It occurred to Jack that she wasn't entirely cut out for this business. If she were, she'd be doing her best to land him as a customer, not brushing him off.

"Look, I'll pay you the regular hourly rate," he said, reaching for his wallet, "but not for what you normally do. I just want to talk."

The girl halted in her steps and lifted her gaze up to him. Christ, she can't be more than 18… Jack thought as he looked down at her young, earnest face. Way too young to be mixed up in this kind of thing.

"You mean to tell me that you'd be willing to pay me a hundred quid just to talk to me for an hour?" she asked, skeptically.

He inwardly winced at the price, but nodded. "Yes. Because what I have to ask you is that important to me."

Jack could see her inward debate for several moments before she finally relented. "Alright," she agreed. "Let's talk."

Gallantly, he led her into a nearby bar and to a quiet booth in the back. The two of them settled down and ordered their drinks. When they were both nursing a quiet cocktail, Jack looked across the table at her with a serious expression. "A few days ago, a friend of mine was kidnapped from the corner right across the street from the one that you work," he began, conversationally. "Your coworkers thought you might have seen something."

Mary stiffened and dropped her eyes to her drink. "They're wrong," she replied, her eyes fixated on the glass in front of her. "I didn't see anything."

Jack raised an eyebrow and took a casual swallow of his drink. "You sure, Mary?" he asked. "Something tells me that you did."

"I didn't!" she insisted, lifting defiant, dark eyes up to his.

Slowly, he swirled the liquid around in the glass and gazed at it. "Think really hard, Mary, and make sure you didn't. It was three days ago, around about this time." He took a sip of the drink. "It's really important that we find my friend," he went on, earnestly. "He's a good man, not involved in any activities on this planet. He'd just stepped out for a bite to eat and someone knocked him on the head." Jack heaved a heavy, sad sigh. "He's got a kid, you know. A daughter." His eyes had a sad look about them. "Jen really misses her dad."

He could tell that Mary was beginning to crumble. Her eyes shifted around the bar. "I might have seen something…" she murmured, biting her lower lip.

"Tell me what you saw, Mary," Jack pleaded, reaching across the table to grasp her hands. "Help me bring Jen's dad back to her."

The girl fell silent for several minutes, silently toying with the glass in front of her between her hands. "It was Rooney's goons," she finally spoke, softly.

"Rooney?" Jack asked, leaning forward.

She nodded, slowly. "He owns about half of the west side of the city, but the center of his… operations is the Club 48. It was definitely his men," she went on. "They're frequent… customers." Her dark eyes suddenly flew up to his. "Please don't tell them I told you," she pleaded. "They'll kill me, and that's no exaggeration."

Jack smiled charmingly at her and squeezed her hands. "Don't worry, Mary. Your secret's safe with me."

"The Club 48, eh?" Jen mulled it over inside of the Tardis a bit later. "What kind of a place is this?"

"It's a pretty high-class joint on the other side of town," Jack replied. "There's rumors that it's a high-class way of laundering Rooney's money, but no one has a way of proving it. And no one cares about it enough to try and find a way."

"High class…" Rose murmured. "It'll mean dressing up a bit…"

"Dressing up?" Jack asked.

"So we don't blow our cover when we slip inside," she explained a cheeky grin on her lips.

A slow grin of her own began to slide over Jen's face. "Well then," she replied, lifting a brow. "I suppose a trip to the wardrobe room is in order."

A soft groan escaped his lips as he fought his way through the thick darkness that clouded his mind. As he fought closer and closer to the surface of consciousness, the overwhelming pain threatened to overtake him more and more. His head ached, ribs throbbed, and shoulder felt as if someone had ripped his arm out of it's socket and jammed it carelessly back in.

Slowly his eyes slipped open and then blinked against the harsh, cruel light from the single bulb in the middle of the room. He was in the same dank, cold room that he'd been in for days. Wrists bound to the stone wall behind him, stripped to the waist, and without his sonic screwdriver, the Doctor had absolutely no way of wrangling an escape. He'd tried reasoning with his captors, and even craftily tricking them, but they staunchly refused to let him go.

And he still had no idea why he'd been taken prisoner in the first place.

He wasn't fed much, but he was fairly certain that what he was fed was drugged. His mind was in a constant state of fuzziness so that even the most basic of thoughts required a tremendous amount of effort to focus on. As a result, he quickly tired in the rare instances that he woke up. Most of the time, it was simply easier to sleep the time away.

But he had to believe that Jack was looking for him. Oddly, that gave him some sense of comfort. Whatever arrogant and debonair attitudes Captain Jack Harkness had, the Doctor knew that beneath the casual surface lay a steely resolve and hard determination. The man had worked for Torchwood for years, and was a well-respected member of the organization. Jack would find him. But, how long would it take?

Somewhere in the recesses of his clouded mind, he remembered that all Torchwood employees had a minimal level of psychic training. Which meant that if he tried hard enough, he just might be able to help Jack along. Closing his eyes, the Doctor stretched out as far as the fuzz around his mind would allow, seeking out his friend in hopes that it would help the man find him. Beads of sweat began to pool on his feverish brow as he strained against the murky restraints on his mind and struggled to reach his friend and lead him there. Eventually, the strain became too much and he had to break off his struggle, collapsing back against the cold, unforgiving stone wall.

As he felt the beginnings of unconsciousness begin to overtake him once more, a strange sensation began to wash over him. It was a feeling that was so warm, so impossibly familiar that the Doctor had to believe that he was either dreaming or hallucinating. Just before unconsciousness hit, he could swear he heard a soft, sweet voice in the back of his mind telling him to relax, and that everything would be fine.

"Jen..?" he murmured drowsily. And then everything went dark.