1pm. Almost 5 hours later and the Doctor hadn't even twitched. Owen sighed, collected his papers, and stood up. He had been putting it off as long as he could—using the full extent of the "few hours" (and then some) he had told Jack the scans would take.

Files in hand he climbed the two flights of stairs between his lab and Jack's office and hesitantly knocked on the door before letting himself in. "Uh, hey, so I reviewed the scans…"

Jack's eyes snapped to meet his immediately, "And?"

Owen inwardly winced at the slightest hint of hope he saw in Jack's eyes; he didn't want to be the one to extinguish it. "And I have bad news," he answered anyway, shutting the door behind him. Not telling him could only make it worse.

He saw Jack's face drop and harden into something unreadable, and Owen looked down at his papers if only to get away from the penetrating stare. "I did a full internal and external examination...these are the results," he said, handing Jack the files.

He waited a few moments to let Jack skim through them before summing up what it all meant. "The external damage he came in with has improved, but not by much. If what you said about him regenerating is true, then it's possible his body can heal faster than a human's; but it's also possible he was just healing it while we were operating." So, basically: Yes, he could potentially still be alive; but, God, Jack, please, don't get your hopes up; I don't want to be the one that has to tell you he's dead. "Same goes for the internal damage. Internally there's little change than I can see; but I didn't scan him before we started, so I honestly can't tell you what his baseline is." (Was) "I have no idea what his brain should normally look like—'cause it sure as hell isn't human—, but he said he was healing it before we...operated, so he may have been able to finish before we were done. Honestly, Jack, I can't give you a deeper answer. I don't know anything about him, or his species, or what he normally looks and acts like. I'm sorry, but I have never seen anything like him before."

He sighed heavily and leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling, "Yeah. People rarely do." A silence fell upon the room as Owen had no idea how to respond to that and Jack wouldn't look at him. Yet just as Owen opened his mouth, Jack stated, "I'm going out."

He stared at him solemnly, "That isn't going to—"

"It can't hurt, though, either, can it?" he said, sitting up and watching Owen.

He was going to argue that going out, getting drunk, ignoring the problem, (being by himself) was possibly the worst thing Jack could do right now, but in the tone of his voice and the look in his eyes was a challenge that made Owen back down. "Fine. But tell the others before you go; I'm going back downstairs." He walked out, leaving Jack to collect his thoughts and possessions before he too opened the door and left.

He found Tosh and Gwen at their desks, working on—well, whatever it is they were working on—and walked to the middle-ground between them, "Where's Ianto?"

Tosh glanced at Gwen who shook her head and shrugged. "Not sure. I think he's in the archives, but we haven't seen him."

"I'm going out for a while, so if you see him, let him know?" They both nodded.

"Thanks. Call me if something happens." He immediately left, and—after looking at each other, then at the medbay—they both knew he wasn't really interested in anything that would happen outside of the Torchwood building.

He came back well after 9 o'clock and the hub was quiet once again save Owen's footsteps against the concrete floor. "Hey, how are you doing?"

Owen watched him as he came down, and, after a few moments, his appropriate expression matching the expected, "Fine," was replaced with a strange look like he was examining Jack. And apparently he was. There were less stress-lines drawn across his face; less tension built up throughout his whole body; he still remained solemn, but he didn't seem as… Old. "You seem different."

Jack was slightly taken aback by the statement, but should have known better—he was a doctor, after all. "Do I?"

"Yeah... Kind of like after you revi—What did you do?" he asked, his voice suddenly turning cold and accusatory.

Jack tilted his head with an innocence they both knew was fake. "I don't know what you mean."

"Jack," he drew out, warningly.

He shrugged casually, "What's it matter now?"

"Jack. What. Did. You. Do."

"I think it makes…" his face scrunched up in concentration, "1,394?* I dread to think how 1,395 feels."

"And do you feel better, now, Jack?" he demanded viciously, "Did you really think that would solve anything? What if it worked this time, hm? What if he woke up only to hear that you'd died—"

"Stop. You have no idea what will happen if he dies—if he's dead. I don't even want to be around. There is no planet in the universe that will be safe if he's gone—Earth will be conquered, scavenged, or burned within the week without his protection. You wanna know who he is, Owen? He's the only reason this planet and our species still exists." He tried to control his breathing, tried to control the anger and pain and fear that he felt. Because he believed that what he said was true: no one would be safe if there wasn't at least one (well-meaning) Time Lord looking out for them.

Within a month the entire galaxy would erupt into chaos; within a year, the entire universe. And what kind of a life is this? To protect and live on a planet so primitive, 80 percent of the population won't even accept that alien life forms exist.

"Did everyone go home?"

"Yeah. Thought I'd wait till you came back before leaving—glad you did," he said, still slightly bitter. Jack looked away from him and at the Doctor, "You want me to stay overnight?"

"No, Owen, go home. Sorry to keep you here all day," he said, checking his watch.

"It's fine. Call me if you need me." Owen stared at him a moment longer, noticing that Jack was making no effort to leave the alien's side, "Jack, you need to sleep."

Jack shook his head, not looking up, "Nah, I'll be fine; I don't usually need much anyway."

"Regardless of what you did earl—" he sighed, "Look, being immortal doesn't mean you don't have to take care of yourself. Even if you don't think so, your body needs the rest—at this point, your mind does too."

"Goodnight, Owen."

"Jack, I'm serious."

"I'll see you tomorrow."

TBC

So did you know that you can't use the same chapter names twice? Please, explain that to me if you can; I can only come up with they don't want writers to do a half-assed job at picking titles ;) Anyway, I worked around it lol

*So let's say this story takes place after "Fragments," but before "Exit Wounds" (yes, it was a hectic week), because we know from S2E12 (Fragments) that Jack's died 1,392 times (I'm assuming excluding that episode), but God only knows how many times he died after that.