Title: Cardiff Sunday
Author: bigtitch
Rating: AO
Pairing: Jack/10
Disclaimer: I don't own these guys. And anyway, it's all RTD's fault. If he hadn't created Captain Jack I wouldn't be writing this.
Note: Spoilers for S2 - AOG and Doomsday, and Torchwood. Speculation for S3. Thanks to Sonia and Chris for the great betaing. I'd be lost without you guys.
Summary: When Ten returns to Cardiff, he finds that Jack is decidedly unhappy.

***

The engine noise died away and the Doctor checked that they had arrived at the planned destination and time. He gave a little nod of satisfaction. "Well done, old girl," he said. "Cardiff again." He moved to a different side of the console. "Now let's get you refuelled."

The Doctor had not wanted to be in Cardiff at all, but sending a message to Rose and the business with the bride had drained the fuel reserves more than the Doctor had planned for and the rift was the nearest source of compatible energy.

The Doctor was also aware that he was talking to the TARDIS far more than he had even before he met Rose. But what else could he do when Rose inhabited every bit of it, when she stood beside him an invisible, but almost tangible, presence? When he felt he could just reach out his hand and have her slip hers into it?

He shook his head to clear it of unwanted thoughts and turned his attention to the console. There were a lot of delicate adjustments to be made. He pulled out his sonic screwdriver and set to work.

+++

Jack's bedroom was in nearly complete darkness when his wrist unit starting beeping. His arm stretched out to the bedroom table and his hand pawed at the clock, the phone, the mobile phone, before finally settling upon the wrist unit as the source of the noise. He pulled it down to the pillow and stared blearily at it.

"What the -- ?" Jack sat up, adrenalin jolting him awake as he realised just which automatic alarm had gone off. "It can't be," he muttered as he pushed back the covers and headed for the living room.

His laptop was sitting on the table and he winced at the bright light from the screen as he switched it on. Logging onto the secure Torchwood network seemed to take even longer than normal, but eventually he was in. After that it was only a few mouse clicks to access the cctv network feed. "Millennium Centre," he said to himself, as he made the choice on the screen. "It's got to be."

A picture appeared of the concert hall, the tall fountain and a blue police box.

Jack sat back in the chair staring at the screen. He'd known this would happen one day. He'd hoped for it, planned for it. What he hadn't been able to plan for was how he was going to feel. And now it was here, he found he couldn't decide — relief, anger, happiness, grief all swirled and boiled within him. He closed his eyes and tried to sort through for the dominant one, but they were too confused.

He sighed and rubbed his face with his hands. It was 4:35am by the laptop clock. Far too early on a Sunday morning to be making sense of anything, let alone what he felt about the Doctor reappearing in his life. He stood up, went back to bed and lay there staring up into the darkness with the image of a blue box before him.

+++

The Doctor tweaked the final knob, flicked a switch and smiled in satisfaction as a line on a display started to rise.

"There you go, old girl," he said, patting the console. "Dinner!"

He straightened up and patted his own stomach. "And breakfast for me, I think." Picking up his coat, he headed for the door, considering options. "Sunday papers," he mused, "and a nice greasy spoon to read them in. Builders' tea and bacon, sausage, egg, beans, fried bread — the full English." He turned suddenly and wagged a finger at the TARDIS console. "No! No! It's Cardiff. It'll have to be the full Welsh. Why do I get the feeling this will involve laverbread?" He headed back to the door. "Oh well, I've had worse," he grinned and stepped out into a sunny February morning.

+++

Jack drove into the underground car park at Torchwood, acknowledging the guard at the gate with a nod, but without his customary smile. He took the lift to the Bat Cave, as the team generally called it, and sat in his office.

He could, he supposed, just take his TARDIS key, open the door and going in and wait. Maybe fly her to the next street if the TARDIS would let him. That idea had possibilities. His lips curled into a nasty smile as he imagined the look on the Doctor's face when he came back to find it gone. It would almost be worth the Doctor's fury to do it, to let him know what it was like to be abandoned.

Then he shrugged and turned to the cctv feed again. The Captain Jack who would just jump in on an impulse wasn't gone exactly, but the leader of Torchwood Cardiff had learned the value of reconnaissance and planning.

He checked that the TARDIS was still there, unable to stop himself glancing up at the ceiling as though he could see through it to the square above, then went through the recent archive checking for any movement.

There he was! Jack rewound back until the moment that the TARDIS door opened and a solitary stranger came out, squinted at the sunshine and walked off across the square.

So the legends were true about the Time Lords. Regeneration. Jacked zoomed in on the new face. The Doctor had lost the nose and ears and gained big eyes. He looked a bit weaselly with that nose, Jack thought dispassionately, but not an unattractive face, all things considered. "Sideburns are a mistake," he told the figure on the screen.

He highlighted the Doctor's face on the screen and clicked on the 'Track' icon. He got up in search of coffee. Torchwood's alien-tracking software would follow him through the cctv network now. After all, the Doctor was an alien, for all he looked human.

+++

The problem with Cardiff, the Doctor decided after breakfast, was that it was at once too strange and too familiar. He'd been here, in Earth terms, little more than two years before and, before the little Slitheen problem, had enjoyed a day exploring it with Jack, Mickey and Rose. So he'd already seen some of it, but not enough to be able to have favourite bits to revisit. And then Rose was following him. He could see her behind him in that very short skirt and the silly scarf. A laughing, flirting ghost, all the more real because she'd actually been there. He gave himself a mental shake. Cardiff was a big enough place that there had to somewhere worth going. A nice municipal park would be good. Yes. With a municipal boating lake, and municipal ducks, municipal flower beds and statues of municipal Victorians. That would do for a start. He set off along the waterfront with renewed energy.

And stopped as he saw a ghost walking towards him. A very real ghost, with dark hair, blue eyes, cleft chin, a dazzling smile and an open RAF greatcoat flowing as he strode towards the Doctor. Jack. Alive and in Cardiff. The first bit the Doctor knew about, the last one was a complete surprise.

"Jack," he said in wonder as his former companion came up to him, forgetting that he had changed and Jack might not know him.

Jack's smile grew brighter. "Doctor," he said and punched him hard.

The Doctor staggered back holding a hand to his right jaw and gaping in surprise. He kept to his feet somehow and he stood upright checking for blood on his hand.

"Hello!" he said. "Nice to meet you too!" He dabbed at his lip, amazed that he wasn't bleeding. His attacker just stood there, no longer smiling, shaking his right hand against the pain of the punch. "What was that for?" the Doctor demanded.

"That," Jack said, "was for leaving me behind on the Game Station."

"Well, I was a bit tied up regenerating," the Doctor explained.

"Keep it," Jack snarled. "You have a time machine. You could have come back."

"I'm sorry," the Doctor mumbled, unable to articulate his conflicted emotions and thoughts about Jack's resurrection, which lay at his decision not to return for the man standing in front of him.

Jack leaned against the railing, his hands in the greatcoat pockets.

"You know you left the delta-wave device armed and primed," he said conversationally. "Just as well for humanity it was me who found it and not some numbskull who'd try it out just to see what it'd do."

"Yeah, well," the Doctor shuffled his feet as he stood opposite Jack. "How'd you get off the station?" he asked, hoping to turn the subject.

"You don't wanna know," Jack replied. "You do not want to know what I had to do to get here, because you would not approve."

"What are you doing here?" the Doctor had not felt so uncomfortable since he had returned Rose to her Mum a whole year late. And even then the look in Jackie's eyes had not made him feel as guilty as the hurt in Jack's did now. That was because he did not care as much for Jackie as he did for Jack.

"I work here," Jack said.

"In Cardiff?" The Doctor struggled to think of anything that the ex-Time Agent could find to in the city.

"Yeah," Jack said. "You parked on top of my office. I work for Torchwood," he gestured with his left hand in its direction.

The Doctor followed his gaze as though the TARDIS was suddenly going to be visible through the shops and restaurants. When he looked back, Jack was pointing a small gun at him.

"What's that for?"

"To shoot you," Jack said as calmly as he might have explained what the weather was going to be like.

"You want to kill me? Why?"

"Oh, not permanently dead. Just enough to cause regeneration. That is the way it works, isn't it?" Jack's voice was deadly calm.

"Because I left you behind?" the Doctor looked into Jack's eyes and saw the hurt and loss in them. They were cold those eyes, so very cold. The Doctor shivered. "What happened to you, Jack?"

"No," Jack shook his head. "This one isn't for me. This one's for Rose. You see, I've seen the death lists from that thing at Torchwood Tower. Rose Tyler and Jackie Tyler. You finally did it, didn't you? You finally got her killed. And her Mum, too. Well I reckon you owe her a death for that." Jack pressed a button with his thumb and the gun gave an electronic whine. A blue light appeared on the Doctor's chest.

"Jack," the Doctor spread his hands in an appeasing gesture. "Rose isn't dead."

Jack's expression became even harder, colder. "Oh and I reckon that makes it two deaths."

"What?" This behaviour was so unexpected that it flashed through the Doctor's mind that Jack had to be possessed by an alien.

"You never lied to me before," Jack explained. "Rose would never leave you. If she isn't dead, then where is she? I've had a watch on the TARDIS since it arrived. If she's still inside it then that's the longest she's been able to resist a shopping trip by a wide margin."

The Doctor sighed and put his head in his hands, trying to find the words. "Jack," he said. "You said once you'd never doubt me. Well, believe me now. Rose is alive. She in another universe." He looked at Jack, whose expression was still sceptical. "I don't know how much is recorded about what happened at Torchwood, but the Cybermen came from Earth in an alternative universe. They were defeated, thanks to our Mickey to a large part, and they escaped to this Earth in this universe. Rose and I sent them back to the void between the universes, but it went wrong and Rose was being sucked into the void too. Her father in the alternate universe made the jump across and dragged her back with him. So she's alive, not here, but there."

The Doctor stared at Jack and let some of the pain at that loss come to the surface. "She's not dead, Jack. But I can never see her again. I know she's alive, but it doesn't feel like it here." He looked at the gun in Jack's hand and then back up to the man who was holding it. "She's alive, but I didn't save her. Do you still want to kill me for that?"

Jack held his eyes for a long moment and then put the gun away in the pocket it had come from. He turned and faced out into the bay. The Doctor followed suit and stood beside Jack, shoulder to shoulder in shared memories of Rose.

The Doctor stirred and checked his watch. "Is it too early for a drink in this town?"

The earlier version of Jack would have come back with a flirtatious remark. This one just looked at him sideways without smiling. "Not if you know where to go," he replied.

"How about one?" the Doctor asked. "I'm buying."

"Why not," Jack said and levered himself away from the railing. "It's this way." He turned and walked back the way he had come.

The Doctor gave a rueful smile as he followed the blue-coated figure. He hadn't anticipated taking this journey when he'd come here, but at least it was a start.

The End

***

Next story in series - TARDIS Sunday.