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He'd been avoiding his previous selves. His previous selves and his ninth self--he reminded him too much of the heretofore amnesiac fellow who'd started the whole thing.

Eight hid--near the centre of the TARDIS, usually, or in areas close to. He contemplated going home. Home home. Just giving it all up and hiding there. Bollocks to the timestream. But it wouldn't work. No, if anything, that'd do more to ensure it happened than anything else he could possibly try.

And yet he ached to return, now. He'd hated the place for centuries and now, thanks to a revelation he never should have had, something pulled at his hearts to return home. To Gallifrey.

He hadn't slept for seven days. Couldn't.

And now he paced, nearing the end of what shred of strength he had, snared in an indecision. Go home or not?

Go home?

Stay?

Change history?

... This last possibility chilled him. It was remotely, ever so remotely, possible. With the presence of this Nexus of realities, it was possible. Dangerous, perhaps fatally so, but possible. He could ensure that the Time War never came to this conclusion. Could ensure that the Time Lords survived.

Would he do this thing?

On and on he paced.

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Jack Harkness, for all intents and purposes, had been haunting the TARDIS. Between attempting to poke food into the amnesiac Doctor with the ears and worrying over the Doctor's eighth regeneration, there hadn't been time for much else. Under normal circumstances, he might have spared a little thought for the state of the Hub and his team at Torchwood Three (mostly pertaining to whether or not they'd managed to kill each other during his less than inconspicuous absence), but these weren't normal circumstances. Not normal at all.

For a man who claimed he didn't need to sleep, Jack was looking well-worn and nervous after so many days spent on edge without any. He'd done little more than lurk near the center of the TARDIS and watch the Eighth Doctor not sleep either, but sometimes ventured out (after fighting a few times with the TARDIS, which seemed to like leading him to rooms with comfortable beds instead of where he intended to go) to check the current time, date, or state of his own sanity. It was on the most recent of such trips that he realized how hungry he was - and, as a natural conclusion, how hungry the Doctor must no doubt be - and returned with tea and chips, apparently not sparing a thought for how natively British he'd actually gone.

Jack found his way back to the center of the TARDIS - though not without a few wrong turns finding him in a few very inviting rooms with what looked to be very comfortable beds - and lurked in the doorway, just watching the Doctor pace for a few minutes. "Doctor?" he asked at last, wondering what the Time Lord was thinking so intensely about and whether or not he should interrupt. "...I brought tea." It seemed like a more graceful thing to say than chips, after all.

It took him a moment to remember to look up and reply. "Hmm?" He blinked rather owlishly and hummed and mumbled in the same incomprehensible Gallifreyan for a moment before he found his linguistic bearings.

"Tea?"

Jack was patient. Or slowly driving himself insane with worry. He couldn't tell which, but general consensus might have been for the latter. There was little other explanation for the fact that he could almost swear to being able to pick out certain words in the Gallifreyan gibberish (so Ears claimed it was) that the Eighth Doctor had taken to mumbling - like sitting through the Welsh programming on S4C for too many hours.

"Yes, tea." He held up a thermos (which apparently contained tea), as if to punctuate his reply properly. Then, after a pause, he did the same with the styrofoam container. "And chips." Somehow, just somehow, Jack managed to project exactly how worried he was about the Doctor into four little words on the subject of food. The Doctor hadn't slept in days, probably hadn't eaten either, and Jack was afraid he was slowly pushing himself to and beyond a point of no return - pacing himself to death, wrought with a distress and sadness that could hardly be fathomed for an event not yet come to fruition but certainly set into motion by the resolute workings of time and space. Jack loved the Doctor, it seemed impossible not to, and sitting idly by - just watching and feeling useless - was killing him in a way he'd never died before, heart-wrenching and awful.

"...Please, Doctor."

He blinked some more as Jack spoke, and looked at the tea and chips. "Please what?" He murmured, a little cluelessly, before it dawned on him that he was being asked to eat--how long had it been?

And then it hit him. His time sense. It'd fogged itself, slipping from his consciousness. He had to think back and figure out how long he'd been wandering aimlessly about. Too long.

He poured a cup of tea, and walked a few paces away with it, his gaze distant again. His thoughts certainly weren't in the present.

"Please eat something. You're going to start looking like Ears soon." The unspoken part of that was, of course, all gaunt and awful. If he'd stopped to think about Time Lords and regeneration, he might not have said something like that, but that clearly wasn't what he meant by the statement.

Jack watched the Doctor pour himself a cup of tea - which was normal to the point of shocking, compared to the pacing and mumbling and gibberish - and opened the container to offer him some of the chips. "Do you...want to talk, Doctor? It's been days. A whole week, I think." Jack kept losing track of time, but that was just him being human and inside the TARDIS for a whole long stretch of time without going anywhere or doing anything but trying to look after the Doctor. Plus not sleeping, it did a number on his internal chronometer.

He paced about a bit more, shaking his head. "Talk ... maybe. You might understand what I ... what I'm facing ...." He looks up at Jack, though it's unclear if he's looking at him or through him. "I could stay. Or I could go home. Something calls me to go home." He shakes his head again, and resumes pacing. "I could change time. I haven't done it yet--I could change my own future...." He stopped again, looking at Jack again. "I don't have to tell you what could possibly happen if I do that."

Jack just nodded. He didn't understand any of what the Doctor had been mumbling lately - nevermind the fact that he couldn't even begin to fathom what the Time War would and had done to him - but, in his more egotistical moments, Jack enjoyed thinking that he was, at least, knowledgeable about time and space (and certain technologies) on a level conducive to 'talking shop' with the alien. So he stood, with chips, and just listened for a long moment.

"I know what could happen," he answered, serious but - he'd nevertheless been thinking long and hard about this these past few days. "But I also know that this place - this Nexus - is different somehow. The rules don't apply here like they do in our universes, there's a chance, a small but statistically significant chance, that you could - " Jack stopped himself just there, a little disturbed by what he was saying and why he was saying it and where it would lead. There was a distinct and very real chance that it would all just end badly, that it would be fatal and accomplish nothing, and he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that if the Doctor decided to go, decided to try to change the future, that there was no way in hell that he'd let him go alone.

After a steadying breath and a moment spent trying to find a thread of logic, he spoke again. "As far as I'm concerned, we're already changing things just by being here - just by interacting - just by the things I've said and the things you've heard." God, was it possible for a single man to feel and look and be as guilt-ridden as Jack was at that moment? "Doctor, I know what will happen if we fail, but what if we don't? What if somehow being here and connected to this place makes it possible? It might be the smallest chance in hell, but trying - even against all odds - is always better than just doing nothing."

And, yes, Jack had interjected himself into this changing the future idea with that use of 'we' rather purposefully. Now, more than ever, he understood why the Doctor's older regenerations didn't want the Time War mentioned - this, trying to change the future, seemed suddenly like the only logical course of action. And he felt horrible for it.

If Jack was guilt-ridden, the Doctor was even more so. The destruction of Gallifrey was something that, to all evidence, destroyed the Daleks, as well--the single most virulent conquering force in the Twelve Galaxies. All of known space would be rid of them with this action that also takes Gallifrey with it.

And he couldn't bear it. He would insure that the universe and the vortex would still have this scourge because he couldn't bear to lose his home and his people, though they'd disowned him countless times, used him, persecuted him, shackled him with honour and responsibility, and then disowned him once more, and then grudgingly acknowledged him again. He would violate the laws he'd sworn, in varying capacities, to uphold. He would betray his people in a selfish effort to save them. And he saw no other alternative.

"It would mean averting the destruction of the Daleks ... again," he said breathlessly, pacing again. "Violating every law of time in an effort to make sure they continue to remain intact..." He wrapped his arms around himself, looking chilled despite the hot tea he'd just drunk. "No other way," he finished. The quiet string of syllables he followed that with had the sound of being the same phrase repeated, perhaps. His gaze wandered again.

Jack could not, in good conscience, contribute to further emotional damage of the Doctor by telling him on no uncertain terms that despite the sacrifice of Gallifrey and his people the Daleks endured. It was - too much - too big - a task of honesty he would leave up to the Doctor's older regenerations, should they ever choose to inform their younger selves of it. He thought, fleetingly, of what would happen to the Doctor's ninth and tenth regenerations should the attempt to alter the future succeed. Would they endure, thanks largely to the Nexus and its lack of normal space-time rules? Or would they disappear, erased from the timeline with the altered future? He was honestly unsure how he felt about either of those options.

The chips were - forgotten, somewhere, as Jack made a spontaneous movement to the Doctor, his gesture relegated to a light hand on the Time Lord's shoulder, perhaps just a little hesitant (given that the snogging of traumatized Time Lords was still fresh in his mind as a Very Bad Idea). And, yet, he was open - to embrace his friend, to provide warmth and comfort where hot tea could not - just by the way he stood, by the non-verbal communication of his stance and his body language and the concerned look that didn't want to ever leave his face. "No other way," Jack agreed. If it had been as simple as allowing the destruction of Gallifrey to ensure the destruction of the Daleks - the needs of the many, the universe, outweighing the needs of the new - it would not come down to this moment or this decision. But the Daleks endured, negating the sacrifice of Gallifrey entirely, and that painted a grim picture of the future, in Jack's opinion.

After an almost stilted little pause, he added in quiet, serious question, "You know I'm not going to let you do this on your own, right?" Just in case the Doctor hadn't been following his previous line of thought with the use of 'we' in regards to the plans being made.

Almost as though he'd forgotten Jack was there, the Doctor looked up at him. "It isn't just a case of going off and saving a planet...." He took several deep breaths, as though pulling disordered thoughts together yet again. "It isn't a normal planet ... isn't a normal war...." Again, his gaze shifted onto something that wasn't here and now.

Jack didn't mind almost being forgotten, at least not in the face of the current situation, really. "I know," he answered seriously. It was Gallifrey, it was the Time War - that was stuff from legend where he came from, stuff of awed perfection and epic myth. Gallifrey always sounded for perfect, the Time War always sounded so utterly devastating and surreal. "I understand." He had clearly given thought to the enormity of what he was saying.

"And I'm not a normal guy." He wasn't. He had absolutely no idea what was wrong with him, only that it was wasn't 'normal.' "You're not going this alone, Doctor."

There was a long pause as the Doctor looked at him. A very long pause. The usual objections popped to mind. He couldn't possibly bring a human into this. It was too much for any human. Any non-Gallifreyan, at that matter. What he was doing was his responsibility and his alone. His decision, his fate, his death if it came to that. No-one else's. The standard line he'd run through his head so many times. Humans couldn't handle it, couldn't survive it, couldn't...

He couldn't do it alone.

The objections collapsed and he almost did as well, but managed to at least stay upright. "... thank you," he he said quietly, and leaned against Jack. He seemed about to say more, but ... couldn't.

He could almost feel the objections forming, like the smell of ozone before a storm, and was preparing counter arguments of his own - the most obvious of which being that he clearly wasn't just any human, that if there was a single human in the universe who could face the enormity of the situation being suggested it was going to be him. Maybe, just maybe, this was why...

Jack reached out to catch the Doctor as he almost collapsed - pulling him closer as much as he leaned - and held him. He tried to comfort away the inability to say any more by stroking his hair and speaking softly. "Wouldn't have it any other way, Doc." That's what companions were for, wasn't it? To keep from facing the impossible alone.

He wasn't sure why--maybe because he was so drained after all of this, maybe because of the enormity of the situation--but it got him, right between the hearts, and he was silent for a moment, unable to speak. He nodded, leaning heavily.

"Can't do it alone," he murmured, exhausted.

"You don't have to," Jack answered immediately, then reassured with something more solid, more fixed and definite: "You won't." It was a promise, from the sound of his voice, and he meant to keep it. After a moment, however, his attention shifted to something more immediately pertinent than the topic at hand. "C'mon, Doctor, let's get you to bed. You're exhausted. You haven't slept for days."

"Sleep," the Doctor repeated. "See futures in my dreams..."

But whatever his mind's objections, his body seemed to have different plans, and he slid slowly to the floor with a quiet mumble, his eyes almost closed.

"Really? We're a pair, then. I always see the past in mine," Jack replied, equal parts comfortingly witty and too-serious. He understood not wanting to sleep for fear of dreams, but that didn't make the Doctor's need for sleep any less vital.

He sank under the weight of the Doctor sliding to the floor, made a grunt of a protest, and struggled momentarily to pull the Doctor into his arms and haul himself back to his feet. Sleeping on the floor wasn't an option, so Jack would just have to carry the Doctor to his bed. Wherever that was. He sent an inquisitive thought to the TARDIS for a nudge in the right direction.

Eight was light--almost worryingly so. Which was odd, because he didn't seem as thin as his later incarnation. Still, he was very light and very warm.

Jack really didn't even need to let the TARDIS know he was looking for someplace to put the Doctor. Corridor lighting and door placement guided him quickly enough to a room that looked and felt ... restful. Not terribly personalised, holding only a bed of esoteric design and insanely comfortable construction, but restful nonetheless. Airy and peacefully lit for an indoor room.

Jack had a habit of letting the TARDIS know a lot of things, though, like he had a habit of fiddling with wires under the central console or stroking bits of wall or railing in a loving sort of way. Magnificent time ship, all telepathically linked to his brain, how could he not?

He worried over the very light way the Doctor felt in his arms as he followed, from sheer force of habit, the corridor lighting and door placement to the peacefully lit, but mostly bare, room. There, he laid the Doctor down on the bed and went about removing his shoes (and other such uncomfortable attire) before pulling a blanket up around him.

The bed looked comfortable - really comfortable - and the Doctor was a cause for worry, so was it any wonder Jack settled himself down, as well? He was just going to watch over the Doctor until the ridiculously comfortable bed lulled him to sleep.

He woke slightly, eyes flickering open, seeing he wasn't the only one there and strangely, that was comforting. Nonetheless, he tried to speak, possibly to get that across, or maybe simply a request not to let anyone else know what he was going to go and do, but he was too sleep-laden. It came out another mumble of Gallifreyan.

Jack, close at hand and halfway wound around a very comfortable pillow, tensed with sudden alert awareness when the Doctor woke, however slightly, and mumbled something in Gallifreyan. He wasn't entirely sure what the Time Lord meant by that - he had very little experience with Gallifreyan beyond the days he'd spent in the TARDIS lately and probably couldn't even dream of ever learning the alien language - but he had a half-formed idea and the attempt at speech made his heart twinge a little. He gave the Doctor a reassuring smile and reached over to grasp his hand, leaning across to press a light kiss to his lips. Mumble of Gallifreyan? Meet a murmur of Earth English, soft and reassuring and warm. He wasn't going anywhere, it was quite safe to sleep, and everything would be all right.

He returned the kiss gently, but by the time Jack pulled away, he was asleep again, still and quiet, but looking very relaxed, now. Actually content.

The room felt content too.

Jack sighed - relieved and rather content himself - as he pulled away, though he didn't go far at all. He watched the Doctor for several moments longer, perhaps attempting to commit the relaxed, content expression to memory after so many days of the Doctor wearing a distraught one. Then, because the bed was too comfortable and the room felt so very content, he dropped off to sleep himself, still holding the Doctor's hand.

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