The door slammed shut with the kind of unpleasant finality that suggested my buddy Robert wasn't coming back. No, even with that fantastic rapport we had built in the two minutes of time we had been together, he was going to leave me here. In this mostly dark storage closet. In a cage. With some other nut-job.

Was there any way this was going to end well for me?

What should have happened, was I should have fought harder. You know, when I was still on the safe side of the cage bars. But all of the hurt I was feeling was making me too big of a sissy. Way to pony up. Now I was going to have to bite some guys face off just so I could survive long enough to figure out what the hell to do. And, frankly, I wasn't sure I was up for that.

The dark stranger stood up, every bit as tall and muscular looking as I feared. One of these days, I was going to find myself confronted with a leprechaun, and I was going to beat the pants off that little bastard. It was gonna be great. I would sing songs about how I had kicked that stumpy little ginger straight back to rainbow hell. Unless he had magical powers. Then I was probably screwed. But even that seemed more appealing than dealing with my current ogre sized fellow inmate.

Don't panic. It's fine. We're both prisoners. We're technically on the same side. Maybe we'll be friends. We can share stories, whine about the food, and then miraculously be saved by Batman. Crazier things had actually happened to me. I guess I hadn't really met any superheros. But some superheros were aliens, and I had met a shit ton of those. That was basically the same thing, right? We were going to be best buds for life!

Wait. No. Now I'm remembering every prison movie I had ever seen.

Damn. Back to face eating.

"Listen guy," I tried not to stammer as he took a step toward me, still existing solely in the shadows, like he was the most cliched villain to exist ever. I'm surprised he didn't have an evil little cat to stroke as he marched forward. "I'm in a shit mood right now, so if you wanna keep your eyeballs where they are, you should probably stay put." Standing up a little straighter, I jutted out my chin. Hopefully he could see the blood spilling down. It would either make me look totally bad-ass, or completely deranged. Either one of those would work for me right now. "Also, I know Kung Fu." That was a little excessive, and an outright lie. But I had watched the hell out of every Bruce Lee movie, and I could make those noises in my sleep. That was half the battle, right?

"Oh, feisty. I like that in a woman." He took another step forward, apparently not believing my claim to be an eyeball removing Kung Fu master. Dammit. "Get that from Donna, did you?"

…What?

Who the hell-

The last step he took forward brought him fully into the light, I should have backed up, but I was just too damn confused about how I had managed to get locked in a cage with someone who knew Donna. Or with someone who knew I knew Donna. His pearly whites gleamed in a cocky smile and I didn't need to see the rest of him to know exactly who it was.

"Jack?" Relieved. Shocked. Annoyed. My emotions were always in a blender. Also, he had looked bigger in the shadows, so I was a little pissed that I had been so scared.

"That's Captain Jack, ma'am." He corrected, giving me a mock salute. "You uh…you look like hell." He said, the grin melting into a frown.

"Gee, thanks Captain Windbag." I rolled my eyes. Glaring, or even smiling, would have put far too much pressure on the muscles in my face. The muscles that were screaming for me to kill them, kill them now. So I just kind of stared at him in a dull way. He actually didn't look so great himself. Well, he was still breathtakingly beautiful. That was annoying. But he also look strained, frayed around the edges. Not quite the plucky and cheerful adventurer I had met before.

"Of course, still as charming as ever." He winked. I blushed. Well, the parts of my face that weren't already covered in bruises and blood, blushed. I wasn't proud.

"Yeah, the guy who brought me in agreed with you. Except instead of 'charming' he used the word 'mouthy'. I'm sure it's just a cultural difference."

"And you let him live?" Jack asked with an arched eyebrow. I was flattered that he thought I might have been capable of killing someone. Or at least inflict enough bodily damage that it sort of looked like I killed someone.

"Not willingly." I lifted my chained wrists.

"Yeah, got a pair of those myself." He nodded.

"So…what the hell are you doing here?" Because, really, what the hell was he doing here?

"Oh, you know. Uncovering illegal organ harvesting clinics. Breaking up crime rings. Putting a stop to injustice throughout the universe."

"How's that working out for you?"

"Well," he shrugged. "Not so great right now. Hey, now that you're here, we should come up with some kind of escape plan."

"That's a great- Wait, were you not working on one before?" I gave him a curious look, but instead of answering, he held up his wrists.

"Got a bobby pin on you?"

"Sure, let me just pull one out of my ass." I sighed. My one, and only useful talent, which would have been really useful just then, was basically dead to me, unless I put my hair up. I patted my jacket just for show, but one of the pockets gave off a metallic rattle. Well…I had thought my pockets were empty. It took some twisting but I managed to get my hands into the pocket, only to find a handful of the stupid things. "Or…I have several…" I stared at them for a long time. Maybe one, okay. On accident. Maybe, maybe two. But this was like…seven. This was probably more hairpins than I actually owned. It was deeply unsettling.

"Well, give em here-" Jack had his hands out, ready to undo both our cuffs. But he could just sit there and wait a bit until I was done. If I was going to see that pig man again any time soon, I wanted to make sure I could properly throttle him. I dumped the cuffs on the ground and handed Jack a pin of his own and then headed for the cages gate, the padlock looked simple enough, even with its super special transforming key. That probably had more to do with Robert wanting to carry fewer keys and less to do with real security.

It did take some swearing on my part, and a few minutes. But I managed. As it popped open it slipped from my fingers and fell to the ground with a loud clang. Fortunately, no one was around to hear it and I swung the door open wide.

"Ta-daa!" I smiled at Jack who was regarding me carefully.

"So, uh, where did you pick up that little skill?" Something in his tone was just a little too smug for my liking. And I recognized the look he was giving me from the last time someone had watched me undo a pair of handcuffs.

"Honestly, what is it with men and thinking this somehow relates to…I don't know, promiscuous activity?" I shook my head, "You managed just fine. I'm not over here judging you."

"Well," Jack shrugged, his easy grin returning. "I am a conman by trade. At least, I was. And definitely promiscuous. So what's your excuse?"

"My brother." I answered a little sharply. "This is about as far as I can get us. So what's your plan?" I asked him. Hopefully, it would be something other than just running back the way I had come, fists swinging. Mostly because I didn't really think that had any chance of working. Also, because there was actually no way to escape, even if we managed to get past the doctors. At least, not one I had seen. Maybe there was a secret passage I had missed.

"Well," Jack stepped past me and opened the door just a crack, surveying the area. "I don't really plan. I improvise." He said with an alarming grin. He pulled something out of his pocket, or several somethings. They were small and metallic, and I wondered what the hell they had let him keep an excessive number of zen balls for. He opened the door wider and chucked them all outside and then slammed the door shut, leaning against it with all of his weight.

That can't be a good sign.

"What are-" before I could finish the thought a loud BOOM pounded against my ears and the floor. The door flexed into the room, almost knocking Jack down, but he held his shoulder against the metal firmly and it remained shut. So if I were to take a wild guess, I would have said he'd just thrown grenades out the door.

"Jesus." My ears were still ringing and it seemed like maybe I had yelled instead of just speaking in my normal tone of voice. "Maybe a little heads up next time?"

"Sure thing," Jack didn't even sound remotely sorry. "You ready? We're going to have to run."

"What a shocker." I sighed, even without the Doctor, that always seemed to be the case. You'd think I'd gradually get better at it, but you'd be wrong. Just as soon as they invented those hover-boards, I was totally set. I'd just glide along while everyone else was a pile of flailing arms and legs. That was going to be a really great day. Soon. For now though, I was terrible at running.

Jack gave a reassuring smile as he pulled open the door, but I'm not sure even he was prepared for the heat blast that hit us. We both stood there, struggling to breathe against the boiling wall of air that had come from nowhere. Of course, it hadn't really come from nowhere. It had come from throwing four grenades inside of a building. It wasn't just that though, it was the blue liquid. It was very very flammable.

Instead of some general structural damage, the 'chop shop' was now a raging inferno. Each tub of suspended organs was a bath of fire, until the heat grew too great, and the glass shattered. Sending the burning liquid to the floors down below. The screams of the few survivors could just be heard above the crackling and groaning metal that was starting to melt beneath us.

"Oh shit…" I whispered. It had only just now occurred to me that maybe I wasn't quite ready for this much fire after my last experience on the holodeck. But, to be fair, this was an insane amount of fire. I'm not sure I would have been alright even if I'd only had a happy tranquil picnic that day. But it definitely didn't help, and I felt every muscle in my body freeze. Petrified. Like wood. Except petrified wood wouldn't burn. I definitely would.

"We have to move!" Jack was shouting at me, marching out the door, into the oven-like factory. Thick green smoke was rolling up from the fires below us, already coating my nose and mouth, gumming up my lungs. When I hadn't moved, he latched onto my arm and yanked me forward.

I can do this. No big deal. There definitely aren't zombie time lords waiting to kill me this time.

The screams grew louder.

"There's people down there," I don't know why I said it. I knew it was unhelpful just as soon as it left my mouth. But he was trying to make me run out into that fire, where I was going to die. Maybe I just wanted to acknowledge that I had heard the screaming. Maybe I hoped they wouldn't hunt me down and haunt the ever loving shit out of me as long as I noted their passing. I don't know. I was freaking out.

"There isn't time. Dammit Fitz, move!" He dragged me another step forward. Sweat was starting to bead across my skin and my glasses started to fog up.

"But-" That woman was out there somewhere, the annoyingly useless, but ultimately well-meaning one. She was trapped in a tub somewhere, just as scared shitless as I was. And I couldn't fucking move.

"I've rigged this place to blow. We've got four minutes. We need to get out of here." He said, his fingers digging painfully into my arm. Four minutes? Four minutes and I was either going to burn or explode to death? Finally I felt life return to my limbs. But neither of us saw the lamp swinging down from the rafters until it caught Jack full in the chest. He lost his grip on me as he stumbled back, and it wouldn't have been too bad except he stumbled all the way to the railing. And then flipped right over the back of it.

"Jack!" I screamed, sucking in way more of the powerful smoke than I should have and instantly giving myself asthma. And then the lamp swung back and crashed into me. Or really, it landed on me. Crushing me on my back against the metal grating that was slowly heating up to an unbearable temperature. I'd have a nice little cross hatched brand in my back. A friendly reminder of the time I burned to death. I was too busy coughing so violently I wanted to throw up to try and shove the lamp off. My worthless little t-rex arms couldn't have budged it anyway, the thing was weighing on my chest like a crate.

God dammit. This was the end. I was going to get crushed to death by a lamp, and half my lung was going to be spewed out next to me. My eyes were burning with the heat and smoke, so I almost thought I was hallucinating when a dark figure appeared above me. Or maybe I was actually going to meet death.

'Not this time, Fitz' he's say with a jovial chuckle. 'You sure gave me a run for my money'

Oh death, that funny little man.

But then he was lifting the lamp off my chest, and helping me to stand.

"Professor?" I asked, pushing my glasses off my nose so I could wipe away at my eyes.

"Are you alright?" He was holding my shoulders, glaring down at me with an intense brand of fury. Like this was somehow my fault. Like I had thrown the lamp down on myself.

"Jack!" I babbled at him. "Jack fell down below!" I was pointing, and coughing, and crying. Mostly coughing. And trying to blink so the smoke wouldn't hurt my eyes so badly. "We have to get-" But I was interrupted by a tremendous crash. The heat had proved too much for one of the support beams and the whole top floor listed sharply to the side, taking us along for a ride. We both fell to our knees, hoping to ride it out instead of tumbling to our fiery deaths. The gangway slammed against the wall and ceased to fall any further. I looked back over my shoulder, half of the floor below us had crumbled, collapsed completely. And the flames were only growing higher. I searched frantically for Jack, he had rolled with the tilted floor, but he was still above the flames. That was something of a relief.

"We have to-" Now I was just choking on all the smoke in my lungs. God my throat burned.

"I'll get him." The Professor said, his lips in a thin stern line. He dug into the pocket of his wool coat and pulled out a dark scarf, wrapping and tying it quickly around my face before I could scream 'Ouch, that hurts you fucker'. Which I wanted to do, just as soon as I could stop coughing. "Get back to the TARDIS." He said, hoisting me to my feet on the uneven ground. "Back that way," he pointed. "Straight on until you see a yellow door. The TARDIS is just inside."

I shook my head, looking back to where Jack was sprawled down below. This had been my own damn fault, when I had turned into the worlds biggest chicken. I had to make sure he was okay. The Professor shook me once, violently enough to remind me of every little pain I was feeling. "You need to go. Now." He didn't raise his voice. But what he lacked in volume he certainly made up for in tone. There was a very grave threat in it. The kind of threat that said if I didn't get moving, I was going to be sorry I had ever heard of the Professor. "Do you understand?" He asked, slightly less intimidating, as though he was afraid I had actually lost my shit. Which was probably the case.

I nodded.

"Go." He said, shoving me backward. And then he turned and ran for the stairs, leaving me to make my own way. There was only a second where I hesitated, but my instincts kicked in. Burning to death was not the way to go. Not at all. My first few steps were slow, because the bottoms of my sneakers had started to melt. But once they were free, I was flying. My feet hammering out a beat almost as fast as my heart. The scarf made it hard to breathe, but it also blocked the worst of the smoke and already I was feeling less like choking to death. The air cooled as I ran and I only slowed down when I saw the yellow door, with the Doctor standing just outside of it, scratching his head.

"Blimey!" He jumped as he saw me coming. "You're a sight." He said with none of his usual exuberance, in fact, he sounded a little worried. It was a relief to see that the blue box really was just inside, sharing the space with an unused mail room. I felt so much safer the instant my feet hit the TARDIS floor.

"Oh, of course you came from the burning part. Why wouldn't you, ya big idiot." Donna was shaking her head, scolding me even as she pulled me to the chair, helping me to sit down.

"Where's the Professor?" The Doctor asked intently, his enormous forehead creased in frown lines.

"Getting Jack," I tugged the scarf down from my face so I could speak and breathe the clean sweet air at the same time.

"Jack- Fitz, you're bleeding, are you alright?" Donna hissed in a tight breath as the Doctor prodded at my swollen face gently.

"I'm fine." I said, pushing his hand away so he wouldn't do something stupid like poke me until it hurt more. Of course, I wasn't fine. Not by a long shot.

"So who's Jack?" The Doctor asked.

"Jack. Our Jack. The same idiot Jack who thought grenades were a good-" I jumped up from the chair, even as Donna was trying to wrap a blanket around me. For the love of god, why? I was boiling. Not important. Not even remotely important just then. "Oh shit. He doesn't know."

"Doesn't know what?" The Doctor gave me the same look one might give a very deranged mental patient.

"About the explosives." My throat, which had been pretty parched at that point, practically turned to ash. Four minutes, he had said. How many minutes ago was that? Three? Three and a half? Oh shit shit shitshitshit. I ran for the door, knocking past the Doctor. I almost made it too, ready to dive back into the factory that had turned into a living nightmare, because I had forgotten to tell that idiot that he was going to explode any minute. But two shadows were blocking my path. I should have been relieved to see them, but I didn't get the chance, because the world behind them exploded, throwing them forward into the TARDIS, and directly into me. The sound was so loud that I think my eardrums burst instantly. A cloud of fire and concrete followed them in, and we might have just imploded with the rest of the building if the Doctor hadn't slammed the door shut.

Whatever parts that I still had that hadn't been hurting, were now crushed into the TARDIS floor, or being jabbed by Jack's elbows.

Jack groaned as he rolled to the side, but not really off me. Of course it didn't matter that he was still crushing me, he could take all the time in the world. It was totally fine.

"Off." I slapped feebly at his shoulder, but my argument wasn't very convincing. Not until the Professor finally got up from the floor and dragged Jack off me by his coat.

"Thanks." I was still breathing shallowly, anything deeper than that was going to set off the foot of ash I had inhaled and I'd never stop coughing.

"I was gonna move." Jack said, his face pressed into the glass of the TARDIS floor. "Just after everything stops feeling like burning…" He did look quite a bit pinker than when I had seen him last.

"You alright?" The Professor was standing above me, offering a hand to lift me up. Ugh. I was with Jack on this one, I didn't want to move ever again. But I was pretty sure if I just ignored him, I'd look ungrateful. He had, after all, saved me from a lamp. And death.

"No." I said, petulant to the last. I grabbed his hand, but I didn't make a real effort to stand. Instead I let him use all his effort to hoist me up from the floor. For a scrawny fellow, he seemed surprisingly capable.

"Well, you're not dead." He said curtly.

"And you didn't fall off a bridge." Jack said, mostly into the ground. He seemed to lack the energy to turn his head.

"Thanks guys, that makes me feel loads better." I felt like falling right back down and never getting up again. "Jack, maybe don't improvise so much next time."

"What are you talking about? It worked perfectly."

"If I hold him down," I turned to the Professor. "Will you beat him for me?"

The corner of his mouth just barely curled into a smirk. But then I got all woozy and stumbled sideways. Whoops, guess I really wasn't ready to stand up. The railing, and the Professor, were there to catch me before I completely collapsed, but I'm not sure either of them would be able to stop me if I really blacked out.

"Perhaps we should make sure you're alright, first." The Professor suggested.

"Might not be a bad idea." I nodded slowly. "But then the beating, right?"

"Absolutely."