Hello, I know that I've left this for a long time as a one-shot. Part of me really wanted to leave it that way. But I couldn't. I wrote out an entire story way back when and it still haunts me to put it out in the world.

There are couple of things that I would like to say about this though: First is that I love Jack and Ianto together. I will always wish that Ianto lived and I started reading fanfiction in large part because he didn't but this just caught me and pulled me in. Still. Ianto, I love you.

Second: I don't know if I will be typing the last parts of this out but it was a story that had to do with demon's run and Jack's ridiculously long life. If you don't want to read about that, then please take the first chapter into your heart and keep it as a one shot.

Third: Standard disclaimers... I don't own anything. Just playing around with other people's ideas in a safe little sandbox.

Sally Sparrow woke up to Jack coming into her room. She smiled. They hadn't made rules about knocking and from just the few hours that she'd been in his company she'd learned that he didn't have the normal inhibitions. He wasn't at all shy. It was soothing, really.

"Hey sexy, Sally."

Yep, no qualms there.

"Hi Jack. What's up?"

"The doctor arrived while you were asleep. The man doesn't exactly follow the standard sleep schedule. Martha is talking to him now. Apparently, he's travelling around asking people for help and cashing in favors so that he can save a friend named Amy."

Jack leaned against the door frame and didn't seem to think that there was anything awkward in talking to a woman while she was lying in bed. Not that there should be. It wasn't like she was naked, or even in pajamas, but most people would have offered privacy for a moment so that she could get up. Seeing as he wasn't, she pulled herself out of bed and wandered over to the bag that she'd packed. She pulled out a new shirt and pulled it on over her tank top while he was talking.

She nodded at the end of his speech to acknowledge that she was listening and that she'd heard him, "If I could help I will, I want to."

When she turned after a sigh at looking down at herself she was surprised to see Jack standing much closer to her.

"You're beautiful and he will recognize you." He grinned like it was a secret that he knew and it comforted her somehow.

She had been afraid that the Doctor wouldn't recognize her. She shook her head at how obvious that fear must have been to Jack. She smiled at him lightly, letting him know, she hoped, that he had helped her face something that she hadn't been able to voice.

"It's easy to feel nervous around the Doctor," he shrugged.

Instead of responding her took his hand and led him out the door toward the main area where she assumed the doctor would be. She marveled at how easily her hand glided into his and how simple a gesture it seemed. The last person that she'd held the hand of… it had meant something profound. She wasn't sure what this one meant, if it meant anything. But, if she was honest with herself, she wanted it to mean something. She wanted Jack to like her. It was a strange feeling, especially since there hadn't been a connection like that since she had spoken with Billy. Not quickly anyway.

As they made their way back toward where the other would have congregated, she felt the nerves coming back. Despite Jack's assurance, she still felt inadequate. She still felt like since the Doctor had only seen her in passing when he was busy that she wouldn't be someone that he'd immediately remember. She hoped but she was ready to be dismayed. She also tried to remember that technically she would be meeting someone new as well. She wouldn't recognize him either. He had a new face. She steeled herself for someone that she wouldn't recognize, like they'd warned her and powered on.

When Sally came into the room she immediately knew the Doctor more by process of elimination than by anything else. Martha was talking to him and Mickey was leaving against a desk behind his wife. Sally grinned because the Doctor easily held the attention of everyone in the room without any posturing.

His sandy blonde hair was shaggy and uneven. His suit had changed to a quirky almost ill-fitted and mismatched pant suit with a red bowtie. It still somehow radiated power, even though it didn't have the same class as she remembered. Or maybe that was just him. Maybe the casing didn't matter. He wasn't wearing the same converse that he was before, nor did he have the same serious collegiate air around him. Despite the stark difference between the two versions of him she recognized something and it made her smile. If you hadn't told her who he was, she would have walked right past him. However, because she knew that this was the Doctor, she could see the similiarites between the two men.

That's when the Doctor saw her. He turned to face her, while he finished answering Martha's latest question.

"Well she was kidnapped, kind of, tomorrow, which was… sort of… four days ago. Like a century or something from now."

He seemed to be taking in her appearance and she waited. When he was quiet for a little too long for comfort her nerves doubled.

Sally took a small step toward him, "Doctor?"

It was a greeting more than it was a question, but the lilt at the end still came out in question because she was asking if he remembered her more than she was trying to get his attention away from whatever it was about her that was keeping it.

A wide goofy grin settled over his face, "Sally Sparrow."

His gaze slid over her and Jack still holding hands and grinned even wider like he knew something that they did not. Like the interlocking of their hands answered a question that he'd had for ages.

Before she had long to think about that Jack laughed and stepped forward, easily planting a kiss on the Doctor's lips. It didn't last long, but the Doctor didn't recoil either. He'd seen it coming and hadn't gotten out of the way.

When he pulled back he said, "Doctor…" like they'd been lovers once.

Sally gasped silently, but Jack just stepped back and went right back to holding her hand like she'd just imagined the whole encounter and as she looked around the room no one else seemed like they were surprised. She started to doubt her initial thought that Jack might be attracted to her until the Doctor spoke.

"Sill sexually ambiguous. Kissing is practically your version of saying hello, or 'how's the weather', or 'I missed you,' or-"

"Yes. He kisses nearly everyone. I'm pretty sure that someone has told him that before," Martha interrupted.

Jack sent her a look of thanks and said, "Why mess with what works?"

The Doctor looked sad for a moment before he shook his head and turned his attention back to Sally. The gaze that settled upon her seemed to invite her to speak, so she did.

Sally felt like she missed something but dismissed it because it was either something that Jack or the Doctor would tell her, or that she didn't need to know because it was private.

Instead she focused on what was in front of her, "You look very different, Doctor."

Mickey laughed, "That's the third face I've seen on him… he always looks very different. Still like tea?"

"Blag, no tea. And no apples either. Definitely not. Champagne either. It's just wrong. Plain wrong. But anyway. I need your help," he looked back toward Mickey and Martha then around the Jack, "All of you."

When he turned his attention toward Sally he said, "You remember the TARDIS, right?"

"Yes." She said it in answer to both the questions that he seemed to be asking and the grin returned but this time it didn't reach his eyes.

"Good. It's settled. We're all going."

Sally opened and shut her mouth a few times but everyone else, including the person no pulling on her hand had already started to follow him. The Doctor practically power walked to the TARDIS which was parked in the closet. Sally smiled when she saw it. The 'telephone box' was still the same. She had some not too fond memories of it, but ultimately this little box had changed her life. It had saved her as much as the Doctor had, as much as she had. And though she hadn't seen it since that night, she felt like she was seeing a friend. As everyone entered they sighed, almost like they were coming home and Sally felt that moment of belonging again. These were here people. The people that walked into danger and figured that the world was far more mysterious and wonderful than most. She belonged with the people that seemed to take in the energy around the TARDIS and feel like they were home.

The Doctor pushed on the door and it opened and Sally grinned because police box doors usually open out, but then the TARDIS wasn't, really, a police box was it? As Billy had said. It was just slightly not right for the design. She remembered the small doors, she remembered the color. She remembered everything about this fascinating ship that she'd sent back to the Doctor. But most of all, she remembered how big it was inside. The words 'a whole world inside' trickled into her mind but as she walked in she abruptly stopped as she looked around.

"The TARDIS has changed too."

"Yeah, forgot to mention that," the Doctor stated offhandedly as he flipped a switch and then pulled a lever, "Still makes the same sound though."

He turned toward the console and mumbled, "Come on, Sexy."

And only Rory understood who he was talking to. Sally was too mesmerized by the new appearance to take in the presence of another man in the control room. She stared in wonder at the machine that had changed so much in what seemed, to her, like so little time. But even as she thought it, she realized that she was putting constraints on a TIME MACHINE. Anything that she deemed impossible had come back in the realm possibility the moment that she'd let herself believe that Billy had gone to the past, statues could move, and a blue box could save her life.