He stared at his watch in disbelief. The chronometer read 2007, one day exactly after he'd dropped Rose off, but it hadn't looked like this yesterday. It would take one hell of a paradox to bring about this sort of shift in the timeline, and besides, he'd have felt something if that were the case.

Then what in hell was going on?

He looked at his watch again, flicking it in irritation with his other hand. As he did so, the numbers began spinning. Oh, fantastic…he was wrong, afterall. His watch had been stuck, of all the stupid…

The thought broke off as the watch finally settled on a date. January the 18th, 2074.

Oh, shit.

Well, he'd just have to book it back to the TARDIS and get out of here before he got locked into events. He wanted Rose back, but somehow he felt she'd rather come along at age twenty-one rather than eighty-seven. Humans and their vanity.

Thankfully, the Powell Estate seemed long vacated, so he could at least get out of here without seeing anyone who would recognize him.

"Doctor?"

Or not.

A familiar, though hesitant, voice had spoken his name. Turning, he looked over his shoulder at the frowning and confused figure of none other than Jack Harkness.

"Jack," he said, for lack of anything better to say.

Hi, Jack, how ya doin'? How's life? Sorry I left you for dead back on Satellite Five, but y'know…proper timestream and all that. You know how it goes, mate.

Yeah, that wouldn't quite work, would it?

Jack was still frowning at him. "It is you, isn't it, Doctor?" he said, taking a small step towards him, brown leather jacket flapping in the breeze.

Why…? Oh. Regeneration, right. "Yeah, it's me."

"Right," Jack said quickly. "Well…"

"Yeah."

They stared at each for other for a long moment. The Doctor wasn't entirely sure what to expect; there seemed to be a full range of emotion behind those enigmatic eyes of Jack's. Finally the other man seemed to lose some sort of inner battle and just began to laugh.

Well, out of all possible reactions, laughter wasn't so bad.

"You look," Jack waved a hand, trying to find an appropriate word. "Well, you look good. Hell of a change."

"No joke there," the Doctor shrugged. "You look fit as always."

"Well…rebuilding the Earth after centuries of Dalek control does wonders for one's girlish figure," he quipped, and there was only the slightest undercurrent of steel to his voice.

"I'm sorry about that Jack, I am. But I couldn't come back for you."

Jack opened his mouth, but then closed it again, studying the Doctor for another long moment. "Did you want to?" he said finally.

"Want to what?"

"Come back for me."

"Oh. Yes, of course I did," he said. "But you were already locked into events, I couldn't-"

Jack cut him off. "I know. By resurrecting me, Rose altered the timeline and accidentally made me integral to the survival of the human civilization."

The Doctor blinked. "What? How did you know that?"

"She told me."

"What?!" The Doctor strode forward until he stood face to face with the other man. "How did she know that? And when did you talk to her?"

Jack winced. "It's going to take a bit of explaining."

"Then you'd better start. Actually, no, I'm sorry, start with why the hell you're here, and then let's go from there, shall we?"

The former Time Agent rocked back on his heels and seemed to consider his next words carefully. "Rose sent me."

The Doctor closed his eyes for a moment, and sucked in a deep breath. Before Jack could continue, he held up a hand. "I think I'm beginning to understand how humans feel all the time. Now, you say Rose sent you?"

"Yep."

"Is this Rose from the current timeline, Rose from an earlier timeline, or Rose from a later timeline?"

"Current."

The Doctor paused. Well, now he new for certain that Rose at least lived to eighty-seven. Then a thought occurred to him. "Right, current," he repeated. "So would that be a Rose here in London or a Rose traveling with you?"

"Here in London," Jack clarified. "She hasn't traveled with me in….oh, five, maybe six years? She got a bit upset after the whole rocket incident. I think I'm still in the doghouse for that one."

"Spry for an old lady is she, then?"

Jack outright grinned. "Best looking eighty-seven year old you'll ever meet."

The Doctor raised an eyebrow. At least that was answered. "Obviously, since she's not really eighty-seven, if you've been jumping her around time tracks."

"I'm good at jumping."

"So I hear. Alright, let's get to the part where you and she knew I was coming. I'm guessing you've met up with me already and I told you?"

Jack swallowed a bit nervously, and looked anywhere but in the Doctor's face. Odd behavior for Jack. He'd never have pegged the brash American as the submissive type. "You could, ah…you could say that. In a manner of speaking."

That got his attention. For all his training, all his skill, Jack was still an amateur compared to the Doctor. And an amateur messing around with his own personal timeline was never good. And by 'never good' he meant 'extremely bad'.

And by 'extremely bad' he really meant 'extremely bad in catastrophic proportions'.

"Jack," he said, a warning tone in his voice. "Explain. Now."

"I can't."

Angrily the Doctor pointed a finger and edged closer, nearly nose-to-nose with Jack. "Don't give me that. You do not get to be enigmatic on me. I wrote the book on enigmatic."

Instead of arguing back as he would have expected, Jack merely took a step backwards and raised his hands in another submissive gesture. "I didn't say I wouldn't explain…but I can't. I really can't. I'm not exactly sure how everything happened. You need to see Rose."

Oh, no. It wasn't even Jack messing with his timeline, it was Rose. That could be doubly bad.

"Look," Jack said, finally giving up. "I just showed up here yesterday for my godkids' birthday party, and Rose told me to go here and collect you because Sarah Jane had some press conference thing and couldn't do it. And she warned me that it might not be a you I'd recognize, and that's about all I've got to work on right now."

The Doctor gaped. Just a tiny bit, but still…it was a gape. "I don't often say this," he said, "but I think I'm more confused than I ever have been in my entire life. And that's saying a lot."

"Let's see if I can clear that up a bit. I've met Sarah Jane Smith. Lovely woman, hung around with Rose a lot until she got that job as an interplanetary ambassador." Jack ticked off his fingers as he spoke. "What else?"

"Godkids?" the Doctor squeaked out.

"Right," Jack nodded, looking just a bit too gleeful. "I'm a godfather."

"Rose's?" he asked, and tried valiantly not to let a bit of himself die when Jack nodded in confirmation.

"Yep, Mama Rose. Firstborn son Jamie Tyler, just turned eleven and baby girl Gwyneth is a lovely little six year old. And by 'lovely', I mean 'slightly demonic'."

Jamie and Gwyneth. The miraculous boy who survived the gas mask plague and the remarkable young woman who saved the world. Good names.

Rose had kids. Why did that hurt so much? He should be happy for her.

"Where is she?" the Doctor asked in a small voice, swallowing past the sudden and completely illogical lump in his throat.

"Picking up the kids from school. We're supposed to meet her. You game? You look a little green, Doctor."

"I'm fine," he lied.

Jack swallowed. "Look, I'm a time traveler by profession and these kinds of things still give me headaches. I know it seems like a long time since you've seen them, but it's only been a day for them, I think. Longer for Rose, but that's because…well, that's a long story, and I told her she needed to stop trying to repair the quantum drive on the S75 Slipstream without the manual."

"Can we just go see Rose now?"

"Yeah. Transmat okay with you?"

"I don't care at this point. Trans-away."

……………………………………………………………………………….

"I swear," Rose said, exasperated. "I swear this bleedin' thing worked last time when I did this."

"Mum, I don't think you should be messing with it anymore. Jack said not to."

"Jack's a git."

"Mum!" Jamie Tyler rolled his eyes. He sat cross-legged against the hull of the family S75 Slipstream. "Do you not remember what happened last time?"

"Don't get smart with me. And hand me that wrench. No," Rose pulled her head out of the engine, "not that one, the sonic one."

"Honestly, who needs a sonic wrench?"

"We do."

"We do not," Jamie argued. "You're such a liar, Mum."

"Yeah, well, you won full marks in applied science for that, so quit your whinging."

"I'm not whinging," he sniffed. "I'm just saying, it took you six full months to track down Jack, and it's not like he can just nip off and save you every time you screw up 'cause you think you're smarter than you really are."

"Oi," Rose glared at him. "The mouth on you!"

"Got it from you. Point is, Mum, you don't know how to fix the quantum engine on an S75 Slipstream, and you should just take it to the mechanic like everyone else does. You're only working on it now because you're nervous and you want something to occupy yourself with until he gets here."

Rose sighed. Insightful little bugger, her son. She put down the sonic wrench and reached out, pulling Jamie into a firm hug.

"Mum!" he protested, but didn't move away from her. "I could fix it, you know," he said after a moment, his voice muffled against her arm. "I know how to fix it."

"I know you do. And I know you haven't yet because I haven't asked you to. And I know you let me tinker around with it because I like having something to tinker around with. You know what else I know?"

"What?"

She kissed the top of his head. "I know I love you very much."

"Mum," he protested again, and this time did wiggle away from her, cheeks burning.

Rose grinned. "Go get your sister from her classes. I'm going to go get this grease cleaned off me."

She watched him walk away and smiled when he turned around. "Mum?" he called.

"Yeah?"

"Iloveyoutoo," he said quickly, then darted through the hangar bay doors.

……………………………………………………………………………….

The school Jack had mentioned had turned out to be some sort of gigantic satellite installation. Wonderful. They had such good track records with satellites.

As they stepped out of the transmat chamber, the Doctor paused, looking up at the large sign hanging above the door.

"Torchwood," he said. "I've heard that before."

"Institution started by Queen Victoria to research, investigate, and if need be, contain any and all situations pertaining to extra-terrestrial and/or paranormal activity. One of Great Britain's most covert operations for most of the twentieth century," Jack explained. "I worked for them at one point."

"They were involved in the Sycorax incident," the Doctor frowned. "If I'm not mistaken, and I'm not, then they were responsible for adapting the alien technology that destroyed the retreating Sycorax ship."

Jack shrugged and motioned him to keep walking. "Before my time," he said. "Torchwood moved out of the shadows after the attempted Tirranial Invasion of 2014. That was mostly Rose's fault, though Sarah Jane Smith's insider report got broadcasted on every single television station. You should have seen the look on the Prime Minister's face."

"Sarah Jane?" the Doctor asked, surprised.

They turned down a brightly-lit corridor. The Doctor sidestepped a decorative fern. This was a posh satellite, he had to admit.

"Sarah Jane Smith," Jack rattled off, "worked with UNIT as a press liason until 2008 when she went missing for a year."

"Where'd she go?"

Jack gave him a look that he couldn't read. "The wedding," he said, as if that explained everything. "At any rate, when she came back to Earth she got involved in the Farristellian Incident and wound up helping Harriet Jones negotiate the first draft of the Earth-Farristell Pact of Alliance."

The Doctor grinned. "Good for her."

"Hell of a woman," Jack smiled. The Doctor looked at him quickly, but Jack studiously avoided his gaze. "At any rate, Sarah Jane then accepted a position as ambassador to Farristell. She's lived there ever since, though she comes to Earth once every five years to formally re-sign the Pact."

"Farristell," the Doctor mused. "That's about halfway past the Pleiadian Sector. Good bit of distance. And from what I remember, the Farristellian environment is very condusive to good health for humans."

"That's an understatement. Advent of the Farristellian technology and medicine derived from the Farristell biosphere has nearly tripled the expected lifespan of the average human being. You should see Sarah Jane, she looks fantastic."

"She always has."

As they rounded another corner, the Doctor found himself colliding with a fast-moving, brown-haired boy. He helped the boy to his feet and brushed him off. "You alright?" he asked.

"Ow."

"Jamie!" Jake cried.

The child grinned back. "Jack!"

"Where are you going in such a hurry?" Jack frowned.

"Got to pick up Gwyn from class. Need to hurry. Mum's fiddling with the ship again." And with that, the boy took off down the hallway, leaving the Doctor and Jack to stare after him.

"I think we're a bit early," Jack said.

"That…that was Rose's son?" the Doctor asked, wishing he'd gotten a better look at the boy.

Jack looked confused at something. "Guess he didn't recognize you," he shrugged and continued walking.

"Recognize me from when? Jack, if it's something that hasn't happened yet, you know you can't tell me!"

"Don't worry," Jack said enigmatically, ignoring the Doctor's previous warnings about enigmas. "It's not from your future."

The door they stopped in front of swooshed open. The Doctor looked around himself at the vast space and the rows of parked space shuttles and ships. "Gorgeous," he said.

"What's gorgeous is over there," Jack pointed. "Go say hi before she vanishes in another puff of quantum tunneling. I told her to stop messing with it." He muttered the last part pretty much to himself as the Doctor walked away, captivated.

Rose.

She was turning around from the spaceship engine she was evidently trying to repair. He remembered all her mishaps from trying to repair the TARDIS with him, and smiled. It's a wonder the spaceship was still in one piece.

Rose caught sight of him and froze. His pace slowed, and his steps nearly faltered. Would she be angry? The row they'd separated over hadn't been pretty. Could she be angry that he'd shown up now, but not before?

How long had she waited for him to come back?

He stopped in front of her and just stood, looking at her. Rose, his fantastic Rose. She looked amazing. She…

…still looked the same.

That was odd.

………………………………………………………………………………….

TBC