Sorry for the delay, it took me a week or so to figure out where I was going with this. Now I have a rough plan and am about up to chapter four.

Jack quickly pulled up the TARDIS database, searching for some mention of what had happened to its occupants and how exactly to fix it. What would be handy was a complete A to Z for when things go wrong. From simple run of the mill Alien Attacks through to the Zephyrs of the wild Zebu in the skies of Zerania.

Yet remember, life doesn't like Captain Jack Harkness so there was no self help guide saved onto the TARDIS's memory for easy access. Instead fifty percent of its information was a pile of mumbo jumbo in the Doctor's native Gallifreian that the TARDIS apparently didn't like to translate and was impossible to make sense of if you weren't anything but a nine hundred year old Timelord.

It was while trying to decipher both the Gallifreian and the nonsensical English that Jakc's eyes drifted across the console and he spotted a mobile phone in amongst what looked to be the insides of a VCR. Looking from the phone to the console monitor, the realisation that human knowledge was, gasp, sometimes more helpful than a machine's, finally hit him.

"Ianto," he said slowly, looking up at his own companion for a moment, a million other thoughts swirling through his head, none of them all that positive.

Ianto dragged his eyes away from the looming coral ceiling begrudgingly, "Sir?"

"Call the first speed dial number for me." He had a good hunch as to who was on the other end and Jack suddenly felt a lot calmer as he held the phone up with one hand, the other continuing to type, his eyes returning to the monitor.

Ianto glanced at Gwen with raised eyebrows but did so.

"And put it on speaker," Jack added, never looking up.

Ianto and Gwen continued to share a look as the dial tone rang throughout the TARDIS, a silent battle being fought between them as they rallied to understand what Jack had got himself into this time.

Ianto was quite happy just to take a step back, to have half a chance to marvel at everything around him and let it all play out. Gwen, on the other hand, wanted in on the secret, wanted to stop feeling so very frustrated as Jack's past pushed itself into their lives once again. Of course, Gwen couldn't hold onto these thoughts much longer, not even to pause and be awed at the fact that they were standing in a police box that was quite plainly bigger on the inside than outside, so, as the dial tone continued to ring, she finally burst out, "Jack, please, what's going on, who are you call..."

But the phone picked up before she could finish and there was a crackle before a familiar female voice spoke, "Doctor?"

Ianto stared down at the phone in his hand in shock, quite nearly dropping it.

"Martha?" Gwen exclaimed without a second thought, staring from Jack, to the phone, to the spot the Doctor had just occupied and back at Jack as the revelation hit her.

There was a split second silence down the other end of the line before Doctor Martha Jones responded, hesitant and immediately worried, "Gwen...what, where's the Doc...is Jack with you?"

"I'm here, Martha." Jack spoke with a wary smile, finally glancing up, smiling warmly at the phone in Ianto's hand.

"Jack?"

Her voice was cautious and worried, the bustle of UNIT HQ in the background, questions fighting to make their way out of her mouth, "I didn't expect you to go with….you're with the team?" she trailed off as her mind caught up with her mouth, finally demanding quickly, "What's happened, where's the Doctor?"

Jack sighed, only now letting the worry show on his face, "I don't know, Martha, I'm completely in the dark. The TARDIS just materialised in the Hub and...the Doctor is gone."

There was an intake of breath as Martha took in the context of Jack's tone, "What do you mean, gone?" she exclaimed.

Jack stood, gazing around the console room, a sad smile on his face, "The TARDIS is empty, Martha, empty."

There was a pause then all of a sudden the background noise behind Martha vanished and she demanded in one fast breath, "Where's Donna?"

"Who?"

"Donna," Martha repeated quickly, "Donna Noble, she travels with him."

Jack turned back to the console, bent and brought up what you could roughly call the TARDIS's travel log. The last entry before the TARDIS had found itself in the Hub was a transmat, recorded only two minutes before.

"I think I know where she is, I'll find her. Then I'll find him."

He paused for a moment, standing and taking the phone off Ianto, turning it off speaker and putting it to his ear, "Are you…" he bit his lip and glance across at Gwen and Ianto, wondering whether it was entirely fair to ask her to drop everything yet again and take one more trip in the TARDIS. Nevertheless it had to be asked, "Are you...game?"

Both Gwen and Ianto met his eyes squarely and Martha snorted, her response immediate, "Oh yes, I'm game." A black laugh escaped her, "Off to save the Doctor? Oh, it does make a change."

Jack grinned and turned back to the monitor, hitting enter, the transmat location details appearing on the screen, "You're in London, at HQ, at the moment, aren't you? I can send the TARDIS to Donna's coordinates. Can you get to..." he froze as he read the exact location, his throat suddenly dry, "...get to the Powell Estate as soon as possible?"

"Done, see you there." and she hung up.

Jack took a breath and snapped the phone shut.

The Powell Estate.

The last time he had spent time there he had seen a frantic Jackie Tyler, a depressed Mickey Smith, and what seemed to have been half of the London police asking questions and handing out missing persons flyers. Unable to resist meeting the infamous Jackie Tyler and taking the surrounding chaos as cover, Jack had flashed his ID to the DI in charge and had actually sat down with Jackie, assuring her that her daughter would be fine and listening intently as the worried mother told the strange, kind man in the military coat the escapades of her daughter, a young Rose Tyler.

Jack had lost track of the timeline after that, unsure where Rose was after the Doctor had regenerated, so didn't dare risk going back, afraid of challenging the unknown and bumping into them by accident.

Regardless he'd gone back once more, after reading Rose and Jackie's names on Canary Wharf's list of the dead, and had just stood there in the children's playground for a moment, crying freely, before wiping his eyes and turning back to help clear up the mess at Torchwood One.

It was fitting that the emergency transmat was fixed on the Estate, the Doctor had intended on keeping her safe, of sending her home. Of course, it was too late to save Rose; but maybe not for this Donna.

Captain Harkness was lost in these thoughts for only a moment before the phone began to ring and vibrate in his hand. Rather surprised, he quickly flipped it open and immediately heard a crude female voice holler down the line, never pausing for breath, "Now, before you start rambling and giving out lame excuses that nobody else understands, could you possibly pause for a moment, draw a breath and please try just to logically and simply explaining to me...WHAT THE HELL I'M SUDDENLY DOING HERE!"

Jack could only blink, more than slightly taken back, glancing at Gwen who raised her eyebrows at him. It took him a moment to respond, "Ahh...Donna? Donna Noble?"

There was silence then, "Who are you?" the woman spat, "Where's the Doctor?"

Jack breathed a sigh of relief, "Listen, Donna, my name is Jack, Captain Jack Harkness…."

"I don't care if you're the captain of the flipping Vatican guard….where's the Doctor? You shouldn't have this phone, nobody else should have this phone so I'll ask again; what have you done with him?"

Jack felt his temper flare, "Look..."

"What. Have. You. Done. With. Him?" she demanded, cutting him off before he had even had a chance to explain.

"Donna, I haven't done anything. Look, I'm a friend, I'm in the TARDIS but…"

"So was I!" she interrupted yet again and even though Jack had never met the woman she was more than slightly getting on his nerves, "One minute he's going on about undefined nuclear partisional thingys and I was trying to pay attention…I really was, when all of a sudden….poof….and here I am. It's like last Christmas all over again!"

Jack sighed and leant against the console, rubbing a hand over his eyes, "Okay, okay. Donna, do you know where you are?"

"London." She said flatly

Jack sighed, resisting a roll of the eyes, "Okay; yeah, that's a pretty big city, Donna. You wanna give me a bit of help here, whereabouts?"

"Oh, I dunno." she responded impatiently, "Listen where's the Doctor? No offence to you mate, but I have no clue who you are, just put him on and…."

"Are you in an Estate?" Jack demanded, his temper getting the better of him, "Powell Estate?"

A pause, then, "Yeah, yeah, I suppose I am. 'Dunno about Powell, but it's definitely an Estate."

"Good, listen, just please, stay where you are and the TARDIS will come pick you up."

"Fine, FINE! But you tell mister high and mighty Timelord that I'm not finished with him yet! I do not appreciate being teleported without consent!"

And she hung up.

Jack simply stared at the phone for a moment before throwing it back down on the console and giving his head a shake.

He made to turn back to the monitor but the feel of Gwen and Ianto's glares on his back stopped him. Mid-turn he faced them, feeling rather guilty for leaving them in the dark, "I'm sorry, you deserve an explanation."

"Yes, I think we do." Gwen snapped.

Jack smiled at her, wondering whether wording it differently would lessen her reaction, "I know I said I'd never leave you like that again. But this is important."

"We're coming with you." Ianto said immediately.

Jack shook his head sadly, "Cardiff is a mess, somebody has to..."

"UNIT's good at city wide disasters," Gwen said bluntly, "We just need to send their clean up team in. Like you said, it's not like you actually want to bother reasoning with the Mayor."

Jack ignored that very good point and tried again, "It's our city, Gwen and honestly; I don't really trust some of the idiots at UNIT to..."

"The Doctor needs saving." Ianto cut in, "He's the priority. We're coming with you."

"Look, Martha and I will handle it. I need you two to..."

"No, Jack, no." Gwen interjected, giving him a long, hard look, "It's time we were in on the secret."

She shrugged, hugging her arms against her body, "Plus, by the sounds of it, if we don't find this Doctor, you won't ever come back."

Her eyes dared him to argue the point as Ianto crossed his arms and leant on the handrail, his eyebrows raised at Jack, "He left you the TARDIS, the whole of time and space. Don't think we don't realise what that means."

"We're coming." Gwen repeated.

Jack looked from the sheer determination on Gwen's face; the stubborn need to protect and help shining through her angry facade, to the smooth calmness on Ianto's, the manservant showing an inner authority and finality that was far beyond his job description.

Jack Harkness looked across at his remaining team members and didn't have enough anger left in him to fight them, "I...I don't..." he sighed, his facade crumbling, finally giving them a half shrug and a heartfelt smile, "Thank you."

Gwen looked pleased with herself, "So that's settled then. What can we do to help?"

Jack frowned, glancing from her to the console, a sense of dread filling him as he took in the many buttons and levers to choose from.

Taking a breath, he rubbed his hands together and motioned to Gwen "Right, you take this dial here. Ianto, hover over this button. If everything goes dark, press it or we'll simply tumble out of the time vortex and you'll experience a rather horrible death." he paused and gave a nonchalant shrug, "I'll probably experience several."

Ianto glanced at him with an astounded expression, quickly demanding, "You do know what you're doing, don't you?"

Jack snorted, "No, not really." He took hold of a lever and turned to look at them with a crazed grin, the sudden spirit of a TARDIS trip infecting him once again, unable to do anything but laugh at their horrified faces, "And here we go!"

And he pulled the lever down.

Chapter Three is finished, it just needs editing. Hopefully you'll see it this time next week. R&R!