For the past six months Jack had heard names being repeated over and over again in his head: Ianto, Steven, Owen, Tosh, Suzie, Gray, Jack, Tommy, Estelle, Adam, Clem, Lisa, Beth, Alex, Diane: so many names echoing over and over again. However, as he boarded the transport cruiser bound for the outer regions of the Andromeda galaxy, his mind was clear and focused despite being followed by a chattering Captain John Hart.

"So, since I was the one who gave you this brilliant idea, do you think you could give me your immortality thing too when you bring eye-candy back to life? No? I didn't think so, but you do owe me something and this would definitely cover your debt along with the debt you owe me for saving your little team during the Gray fiasco. Okay, I guess I caused that fiasco, but I'm helping you get eye-candy back so you do owe me for that. I came up with the plan… what exactly is the plan? Jack?"

Jack rubbed his temple in irritation. He could feel the faint vestiges of a headache fading as his "immortality thing" kicked in. A male Malmooth was collecting fares at the top of the gangplank, "Aran-credits please-tho."

Jack gestured that John would pay and he continued down the through the hold of the ship. A huffing John caught up with him shortly, "I'm sure she shafted me. Bloody ungrateful lot the Malmooth: you get them in bed and they spend half the time shouting their own name."

Jack chuckled slightly but then froze: "I met a Malmooth once; at the end of everything."

John tilted his head slightly and looked up at Jack, "You really are a drama queen aren't you? And a boring one at that: Time was you'd make a comment about how you're so good in bed that your name followed by raucous moaning would be the only thing a Malmooth would say during shagging."

Jack grinned rakishly, "Well, I figured that would go without saying."

"Hello handsome. You look like you're leaving someone planet side. Would you like to send them a beautiful flower arrangement to help ease the pain of your departure?" A cybernetic humanoid tortoise interrupted, brandishing an electric catalogue. Jack's face fell immediately.

"Fuck off." John sneered and pushed the pacifistic Chelonian to the ground. He then rubbed his hands together, "Okay, back on track Jack. What's the plan?"

"The plan is find The Doctor."

"Find the Doctor? Can't we play just play doctor? I think you're in need of a physical."

Jack continued as if he hadn't heard John speak: "More specifically, we need to find his little Blue Box."

John snorted disdainfully, "You want to steal a TARDIS from a Time Lord?

Jack smiled; showing every single one of his gleaming white teeth: "Not steal: I have a key."

The two ex-time agents made their way to the mess hall and sequestered themselves in an empty corner to iron out the details of the plan. Jack took a bite of a succulent piece of Kow (An alien species distantly related to the earthen cow. Unbeknownst to the humans of earth the cow species didn't develop until far in the current timeline. A few thousand years later a clan of cows tired of the opulent existence and traveled back in time where peaceful living devolved them to the simple non-speaking creatures humans digest today ) and spoke with his mouth still full: "So we know two things and we have two options."

John wrinkled his nose in disgust, "Will you tell me what those two things are after you've chewed your food properly."

Jack took a swig of banana juice and apologized, "Okay. So, the Doctor is a wanderer, but his traveling isn't exactly random. Major events or people and danger are the two primary factors in tracking his location. Since we're from later in the timeline we know when all these major events are going to occur so we have those two options I mentioned. One: we can use your vortex manipulator and hop around time hoping to chance upon one of those times or we can stay linearly on this time line and travel to all the events we know about until we find him. "

When John didn't speak up right away Jack glanced over at him curiously. John was busy making eyes at a blushing mechanic. After a minute John seemed to notice that Jack had stopped speaking and turned to meet raised eyebrows: "What? Just because you're not getting any doesn't mean I'm going to behave. It just means more for me."

"Tosh was right. You are worse than me."

"Tosh was that pretty little Asian girl right? I liked her. I like technical geniuses as a whole, except that Bitch that tried to kill me, diamond my arse. Anyway, technical gods: nimble fingers."

"Bloody hell. Do I really sound like you?" Jack groaned.

"You're worse actually," John stood and took a swig of Jack's banana juice. He gave a wolfish grin before stalking after his prey and calling over his shoulder to Jack: "See you at breakfast."

Jack digested the rest of his meal ruefully and headed off to his rented room in silence. Mechanically he slid off his coat and hung it on a conveniently located pull-out coat rack. He then pulled out that same familiar well worn tie he used every night to help him rest. He rubbed the fabric across his jaw before looping it around his neck. He sank down onto the bed, closed his eyes, and pulled.

A puff of air escaped Jack's lips as he came back to life and opened his eyes to meet the shocked face of John Hart, "That's just sick."

Jack calmly unwound the tie and went to replace it in the inside pocket of his coat. He walked over to the mirror to fix his hair and asked John: "How was your night?"

"How was my night?" John asked incredulously, "A lot better than yours it seems. I never knew you were one for asphyxiation."

"Well I did have a girlfriend once who every Thursday liked to-"

"Are you talking about Lydia Palmer? I partnered with her for about two days with the Time Agency before she tried to strangle me. If I knew that it was in pursuit of pleasure I wouldn't have pushed her off of that cliff."

"What's with you and pushing time agents off of high places? I would have been more careful on that rooftop if I knew about Lydia," Jack winked as he swung on his military coat.

John snorted, "I would have killed you no matter how careful you were. When will you accept that I'm better than you?"

"Do I have to remind you which one of us nearly got blown up after chasing after a diamond that didn't even exist?"

"I knew you would throw that back in my face. I would bring up the Gray fiasco, but my finding him doesn't really outweigh getting you buried in the ground for thousands of years."

"No, no it doesn't."

"That's what I thought. Now, we're headed towards the outskirts of Andromeda and taking into context the year and date does that mean we're headed to Buzz-fest?"

Jack nodded, "It's a slim chance that The Doctor will show up at the biggest drinking festival in the galaxy since he's child-friendly, but we might as well try since we're in this time line and it's on the way to the destruction of Antiope and I could have sworn that he played a part in that."

"Brilliant." John said hopping to his feet. He opened the latch and called over his shoulder, "Hungry now."

Jack followed him out of the door: "You do know that normal people speak in complete sentences right? Sentences that have subjects and verbs"

"My subject and verb were implied. I hope that there is bacon at breakfast: Bacon from an elliptical galaxy. Elliptical galaxies make the best bacon for some reason."

"It's odd that of all the different types of food it's bacon that is almost universal."

There was no bacon at breakfast causing John to give a huge sigh of disappointment, "At least I had plenty of sausage last night."

Jack smacked him upside the head. John turned forcefully, brought his face within an inch of Jack's and said coldly, "If I wasn't in such a good mood then I would shove this poisoned dart in my hand straight into your cock. Don't forget that. Don't forget that with a single press of a finger I could end your pitiful existence."

Jack quickly and subtly grabbed the hand in which John held the dart and bent John's finger backwards, "Then don't forget that I am far more dangerous than you: Especially now."

John stumbled away from Jack once his finger was released. He straightened his collar, glared at Jack and huffed off to an empty table to lick his wounds. Jack narrowed his eyes at John and gripped his hand in a tight fist causing the muscles in his arm to ripple pleasantly. He counted to five in his head and then slowly relaxed his fist.

A year later Jack was ready to form that fist again and to drive it straight into John's solar plexus. They had acquired a spacecraft of their own by this point and John insisted on filling it with items he had obtained by various means of variable legality. The reason for Jack's current anger could be traced back to a beer hat capable of holding twenty four beers. It had been 'given' to John at their first stop (Buzz-fest) and he had managed to hold onto it since. Jack could not comprehend how John had kept a hold of this garish hat since he seemed to insist on leaving it in troublesome locations: currently the floor of a cramped corridor.

John laughed uproariously at seeing Jack sprawled spread-eagle on the ground, "I see you've found my hat."

Jack glared at John and was about to start insulting John when a flashing blue light filled the corridor along with John's voice over speakers saying: "John is sexier than Jack" over and over again. John raised an eyebrow at Jack, "Really?"

John shrugged, "You had it set to say 'TARDIS alert'. How boring is that?"

The mention of The Doctors ship seemed to jerk Jack into action as he took off towards the control room. John followed him at a more relaxed pace and leaned against the doorway with his elbow against the frame and his forearm on top of his head. He smirked to himself as he watched Jack rush around the cramped compartment. Jack was muttering frantically to himself, "This is it… bloody fuck this is it… flip this switch…calibrate longitude…Yes! Locked on to the TARDIS…please don't jump timelines Doctor, not now that I've found you at last…wait…where is he going?... there's nothing on our maps…we aren't getting any readings…"

The ship gave an almighty lurch as it crashed into…nothing. The movement jarred John out of his casual position and resulted in him falling straight onto his arse: "Bullocks."

Jack chuckled; feeling justified in doing so since the situation had been reversed not ten minutes ago, and said rather pointlessly, "We just crashed into nothing."

"Thanks for that Captain Obvious."

"You're welcome Sergeant Sarcastic."

"Bloody hell we spent too much time on 21st century Earth."

Jack looked away from what looked like splotches of paint being brushed onto a blank canvas forming a sandy hill with a bit of a hole in the side that contained their ship and faced John, "You do know that I'm going back there, once I get Ianto back, and if you help me there will always be a space on my team for you."

John's eyes lit up and once he realized this he covered it by brushing his nose, "Yeah, well I knew you'd be begging for me to be on your team eventually. If I do take you up on your offer then we have to rethink the name. Personally I'm quite fond of Excalibur."

"Don't make me regret extending you an invitation already," Jack grinned.

"I had to take the piss about something. I was afraid you were going to start crying on me and recounting 'the good times' or some other shit like that."

Jack rolled his startling blue eyes, "Well it looks like the land is finished painting itself. Let's go find us a time vortex."