"Jack," said Evie through chattering teeth, "are you cold? I'm cold." He could feel her shivering beneath him and cursed inwardly. It wasn't cold in here, not at all, so it looked like her panic this time was manifesting as chills. Which - all things considered - was better than screaming terror, but maybe they could cut this attack off before it started.

"OK, sweetheart, let's find... you need sensory input, right? Listen to my voice, focus on my voice, Evie. You can't see, but you can hear, focus on my voice..." Jack kept talking quietly to her, hoping that if he got her listening before the panic attack was full-blown it wouldn't hit her quite as hard. Her trembling subsided just a little and Jack kept talking, just reminding her that she wasn't alone, she was safe with him there, she should listen to his voice... and finally the tremors stilled, with just the occasional shiver.

That was when Evie started to move, sliding her hands out from underneath him and around his neck. "Jack?" His reassuring murmurs trailed away as she blindly sought his mouth and brushed her lips - oh so lightly - across his. She sighed his name into his mouth and traced his lips with the tip of her tongue, and it was his turn to shiver, though not with cold or fear. He swallowed.

"Evie." His voice was low and rough-edged.

"Hush," she whispered, and joined her mouth to his, stroking his tongue with her own. Her hands slid slowly - god, so slowly, thought Jack wildly - from the back of his neck down to his hips, and she used them to pull him even closer and lifted her hips to meet his. "Need you, Jack, touch me, please..." she whimpered into his mouth, "Please."

Jack groaned. "Evie, I can move one hand and my head. I can't touch you the way you need - you deserve - to be touched."

"I can move," she said, and demonstrated with her hips. He noted that her voice was still high and strained, and figured she was using the flirting and the touching to keep herself from falling apart. Sensory input, he thought, touch is a sense, and he groaned again.

"OK, baby, you move, you touch," he said hoarsely, "and I'll keep talking." She whimpered and rolled her hips into his again, and he hissed at the sensation. "I can't promise coherent speech though, if you keep doing that. Evie."

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

The Doctor held her elbow as they approached the team of rescue workers. "Can we help?" River called to them, "we've got friends in there and we'd like to help." She patted her kit. "We've everything we need to supply ourselves, medical scanners, all that."

The woman in charge of the rescue team looked at her tiredly. "Go for it," she said, "but I need your names so if you get lost we can find you too." She took out an electronic pad as River gave their names. "Right, John Smith, Harmony Rivers. Good luck finding your friends." She turned away to the next task.

"Harmony Rivers?" said the Doctor incredulously into her ear, and River smiled at him, tucking her hand back into the crook of his elbow. He squeezed it with his other hand and kissed the ear.

"I'd thought about the visual, honey," she admitted, indicating the perception filters they wore, "but I forgot about the names - and we can't very well go by 'River Song and the Doctor' in this place and time, can we? They might even know 'Melody Pond'. So I improvised."

"I love when you improvise," he muttered, and nibbled at her ear. For one moment she contemplated dragging him off somewhere and having her way with him, but then she sighed and pushed gently at him.

"We've hapless friends to rescue," she said regretfully, "but hold that thought."

"Thought?" He tried to look innocent and failed.

"Yes. That thought."

He sighed too. "Thought held, my River. Let's go find Jack and Evie. Can you find them with that med-scanner of yours?"

"Maybe. Have to be close though. No more than a couple dozen meters." Her voice was steady, though she had tears in her eyes. "If they're alive."

"River. I..." he shivered a bit... "I can feel Jack if I try - his factness - in the back of my mind. He's nearby. If he is with Evie, Evie is alive. I don't have a... a direction to go by, but I do know Jack is here on this moon, within a mile or two. And you can refine it from there." He beamed at her, proud of himself, although the idea of actively searching for Jack using the timelines converging on him obviously unsettled the Doctor a bit. River smiled at him and reached up to stroke the nape of his neck, then pecked him lightly on the lips and took his hand.

"Let's go," she said simply, and started toward the ruined building complex.

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

Evie was calmer now, not so panicked, but still wound tight with irrational fear. Jack could only reach the top of her head unless she did the moving, because she was so tiny. "Evie," he said gently, "let's try again, OK?" He felt her nod under his cheek. "Alright, sweetheart, tilt your head up, good, just like that." He smiled against her upturned lips and kissed her, long and slow and sweet, and felt her relax. "So beautiful, my lovely Evie," he murmured into her mouth, and she laughed, a short, sharp, mirthless chuckle.

"I'm not that pretty."

"It's not mere prettiness, Evie. You're lovely."

"You can't even see me, Jack."

"I have a very good memory," he assured her. "Would you like to hear how I see you?" At her hesitant - was it embarrassed? - nod he continued, voice low and affectionate, "Short and sassy copper hair, soft as silk, slipping through my fingers..." It was the one place he could reach with his imprisoned hand, so he suited action to word and combed his fingers gently through her hair. She sighed under his touch and relaxed a bit more. "Huge blue eyes that only a few get to see, because they're usually crinkled up with laughter or concern for others... a little sweep of gold-dust freckles..." he kissed the tip of her nose, "...and full and generous and kissable lips..." His lips slid to her mouth and fastened themselves there, swallowing the little sigh that escaped. "Mmm..." he hummed into her mouth, and then it was all tongues and lips and teeth for a while, and he ached to touch her.

"God, Evie," Jack breathed, finally, "so beautiful... listen, sweetheart, and I'll show you the rest..." Evie moaned and arched her back so her body molded against his, her hands snaking around to pull him in closer. Jack's breath caught and he strained toward her as best he could. He had to swallow hard several times before he could speak again. "Little pointed chin, like something out of a fairytale. Soft, soft skin of your throat, with your pulse beating so fast for me. Compact little body, with creamy skin and little dips and warm rounded curves in all the right places." Christ, he thought, from the sounds she's making, she's getting off on my voice alone... and I'm not that far behind her. "Damp coppery curls, so wet for me Evie, so beautiful, and-" Jack broke off as Evie's hips canted sharply into his, and he struggled for control as she lost her own.

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

The Doctor was making completely inappropriate little skips and hops around the ruined buildings. River was fully aware that it was nervous energy on his part and not disrespect for the seriousness of the situation or lack of concern for their friends, but she was still a bit annoyed at him for it. "Doctor," she hissed at him, "this is not the place nor the time for this!" He grinned at her... but then he noticed the look in her eye, and he settled down immediately, stepping over a gap in the concrete underneath them and putting his long arms gently around her.

"Sorry," he murmured into her ear, and she hoped it looked to others like she was being comforted, "I got carried away."

She leaned back and gave him a look. "Oh, really? You? Never happens." She waited until he looked like he meant the apology, and then she leaned back into his embrace, gazing up at him. "Got anything?"

Now he really did look contrite. "I... Yes, right, must focus... sorry..." He frowned in concentration for a moment and then his boyish face cleared. "Around here somewhere," he crowed, "I can feel him nearby. Try your scanner."

River stepped back, and took out the scanner and turned it on, rotating slowly in place until the beeping noises sped up to blend into one long tone. "There they are!" she cried, and flung her arms around the Doctor's neck, "Both of them, about ten meters that way!" She gestured with one hand and kissed him hard on the lips, and he staggered to keep his balance as his arms went automatically around her waist. They stood there holding each other for a long moment, tears of sheer relief welling in River's eyes, and a certain little lump in the Doctor's throat. Must be the look on River's face, he thought, certainly not any concern for Jack Harkness of all people. He broke away, embarrassed.

"Right," he said with that little manic twirl, "let's find us a fact."

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

"Do you hear something?" Jack asked after he recovered enough control of himself to speak.

"Does the pounding of my heart count? Thank you, Jack, for everything you've done for me today." He felt Evie smile under his cheek, and then she giggled at her own innuendo.

She giggled.

And it wasn't that hysterical laughter of earlier that day either. Just a normal, Evie-style girlish giggle, and Jack felt tears prickle behind his eyes. He hadn't realised until just now how afraid he had been that she wouldn't recover from the traumas of the day, that he had made her worse in his ignorance. Don't break down now, Jack my boy, he thought, she still needs you.

And then he heard the sound again, barely audible, as though it was coming from very far away, or through solid rock.

Through solid rock.

"Jack..." came a familiar voice, faintly, "Evie..."

"Cover your ears, love," said Jack and once he felt Evie do so, he bellowed, "Hey, you big goofy alien, in here!" over and over with amusing and insulting variations to distract himself. Suddenly and with no warning at all, a shower of gravel poured down on Jack, and his hands and one of his feet came free. He tugged the other foot out from under the beam now that there was more space, and once the sandy bits of masonry had stopped falling, he looked up to the tiny lit square a few meters above them. "Mr. Spock, Mrs. Doctor," he said in his best faux-posh English accent, "Smashing - ha ha - to see you again."

And then Captain Jack Harkness, intrepid explorer of time and space, began to cry.