Prologue/Epilogue

Captain Jack Harkness receives a Helping Hand

From the episode: The Christmas Invasion

There was shouting in the streets of London and, for that matter, all over the planet Earth. It was Christmas morning and, instead of waking up to a stack of presents underneath the Christmas tree, the world was waking up to an invasion. The alien sort.

There were no lasers, yet, but there was about a third of the world's population, dressed in pyjamas and bathrobes, standing on top of all of the Earth's tall buildings, waiting for the order to jump.

Captain Jack Harkness was standing in the shadows, looking down from the safety of the second story of the Powell Estate, watching what was going on bellow him. Rose and Mickey had just approached the TARDIS which was parked in the middle of the courtyard. Upon first seeing it there, Jack had rolled his eyes. The Doctor, no matter how much anyone else tried to reason with him, always assumed no one would ever notice that big blue box of his. Still, Jack thought, parking it in the middle of the Powell Estate was going too far even for the Doctor. He'd make sure to tell him that once their timelines could cross again.

That was the reason why Jack only ever watched Rose and Mickey these days. He could never be quite sure if they'd met him yet, let alone if they'd left him dead on Satellite Five. Unfortunately, he hadn't died permanently. Dying was easy, living and dying over and over again was something else. Something that he'd been living with ever since.

Jack peered down at the courtyard now, his head tilted to one side in confusion. Rose and Mickey were hauling an unconscious someone over to the TARDIS. That someone had brown hair and was wearing a bathrobe and pyjamas just like almost everyone else in London. Perhaps they'd decided to take him and run a few tests on him or something, but Jack really wasn't sure. Knocking people out and kidnapping them wasn't, in his experience, the Doctor's usual style. He wanted to investigate further, but if the Doctor was having a P.J. party, as fun as it would be to join in, it still wasn't his business yet.

He watched Rose and Mickey enter the TARDIS, then Rose's mother as she went in as well and then came back out, shouting something about getting supplies. The TARDIS door shut and, moments later, the blue box disappeared.

This was more surprising than the Doctor having a P.J. party. The TARDIS never just disappeared. It flashed in and out and made noises worse than an asthmatic Chihuahua. This was soundless, like teleportation….

Captain Jack looked up to the sky where the alien invader's landmass of a ship was situated. Whatever had happened likely involved them. Perhaps they'd done a scan of the Earth and discovered that there was some sort of alien technology parked in the courtyard of the Powell Estate.

He quickly found the flight of stairs that led down into the courtyard and began running off just as Rose's mother came out. As Jack sprinted away, he could hear her shouting out Rose and Mickey's names, excitement filling his being. For the first time in hundreds of years of waiting for the Doctor, this was something different. Something new! Something that would bring him that much closer to returning to the TARDIS!

The people in the streets were too busy staring up at the one-third of their friends, family and other such relations who stood on the rooftops to take much notice of one man running past them. Or for that matter two….

Jack had been trying to shove his way through the crowd, towards an open area to get a better view of the ship when another man pushed past him. The man was a bit thinner and didn't need to force his way through a crowd so much as to merely navigate through it instead. He wore a trench coat, which Jack thought was nice, and a brown suit which was very nice.

In the clearing, the man in the brown suit turned around and looked up at the sky towards the ship. The glasses were a nice touch, but there was something familiar about the hair, and the face for that matter as well….

And then Jack's mouth fell open. It was the man Rose and Mickey had taken into the TARDIS minutes before. Jack allowed himself to be partially absorbed by the crowd to prevent the man from seeing him.

The man in the brown suit was looking about him wildly now, talking to no one in particular. "I'm going to need some more space. Don't know where exactly here it's going to land."

There was a collective gasp from the crowd, who were still watching the roofline. Jack looked up at the people standing on the tops of the buildings. All of them were moving, with varying degrees of shock and terror on their faces at discovering themselves to be within inches of certain death. The crowds of people down below were now rushing to the buildings to retrieve their loved ones. Jack allowed himself to be carried away by the crowd, and when it had brought him to a convenient side street, he broke off and hid in the shadows to watch the mystery man.

"Convenient." said the man in the brown suit, who was now standing in the abandoned street. He shook his head and laughed to himself. "Blood Control, that never works! Ahh, the look on Rose's face when I pressed that red button was priceless…."

The man in the brown suit became serious in a flash, eyeing the ship expectantly.

"Come on…." he muttered to himself. "Shouldn't be much longer…."

The someone reached into his trench coat and pulled out a glass canister which he, against every known law of dimensions or tailoring, had managed to stuff into a pocket. The canister was filled with some type of clear liquid. The man hurriedly twisted off the black lid, pocketing it without once allowing his eyes to leave the sky.

"Here it comes…." he breathed.

Jack looked from the man up to the sky where something was indeed falling, rapidly. It was small, just a black dot, but it was coming their way. The man in the brown suit positioned himself in the street and then –

There was a splash, followed by a shout. Jack felt his jaw drop as the man held up the glass canister which now contained a severed hand. As he replaced the black lid on the canister, the hand began to glow and the clear liquid inside started bubbling.

"Oh," breathed the man happily, "you still remember me. Hello!"

He waved his right hand at the encased one. Even from Jack's vantage point he could tell that they were identical. The man was beaming. "Meet your replacement. Still has a slight weakness in the dorsal tubercle, though."

The current right hand went inside the man's trench coat and pulled out a small metal device. Jack stared at it numbly. It was the Doctor's Sonic Screwdriver.

"Remember this old thing? No, of course you wouldn't. Never had time for a proper introduction." said the man, who was now pointing it at the hand from every angle he could think of. "Looks like none of the tissue has died yet and the DNA is -"

The man put the contained hand into the crook of his arm and scanned his right hand with the Screwdriver. When finished, he looked at his device. "An identical match. Oh, that's brilliant. That means that you'd be able to hold Regenerative energy, the same as me, so I wouldn't have to change if I died. A bio-matching receptacle, well, at least I hope so. Rose would kill me if I changed faces on her again."

The liquid seemed to bubble more as the hand continued to glow, mirroring the man's excitement.

"Haven't said this in a while, but," the man said, looking at the hand in awe, "you are fantastic!"

Jack's heart almost stopped as the word 'fantastic' rang in his ears, calling back old memories.

"No." he whispered, staring from the man to the Sonic Screwdriver and then back again.

"Brilliant." repeated the man who Captain Jack now realized could only be one person. It wasn't the brooding form in the leather jacket that he remembered, but there was no doubt now who this man was.

"Doctor?" he breathed.

The Doctor seemed to reawaken from his musings over the hand and pocketed his Sonic Screwdriver. "Better not be late for the start of term. I don't think the headmaster would like that very much. Come on, now," he added to the original hand, "best be off! This could be the start of a beautiful friendship, eh?"

The Doctor began to run off, back down the street. Captain Jack hesitated for a moment before reasoning that this new version of the Doctor must surely be outside of his timeline, so, why not follow? He ran out of the shadows and into the road. There, he quickly scanned the street and caught sight of the hem of the Doctor's trench coat as the Doctor darted around a corner. Jack began running after him with everything he had, reaching the corner, turning and –

There was a loud popping noise just behind him. Jack spun around in time to see the glass canister, which he'd watched the Doctor carry off, appear in midair from a source of golden light. It fell, hitting him on the head and knocking him down to the concrete road.

The blow was powerful enough to kill a man, but Jack tended not to stay dead for long. He opened his eyes and blinked. There, in front of him was the encased hand, which cast the faintest of golden glows on the surrounding pavement. The liquid inside the canister was still bubbling, though more faintly than it had while the Doctor held it.

Vworp, vworp.

Jack quickly looked up from the canister and helplessly watched as the TARDIS, which was only a few feet in front of him, phased in and out. The glowing and bubbling in the canister began to subside. Then the Doctor was gone.

Captain Jack Harness stood up slowly. After all these years, the Doctor had been right there and Jack had come up short. He had been five feet from returning back to life in the TARDIS.

As Jack hit the side of a building, cursing in frustration, the glow of the hand stopped entirely. It had used the regenerative energy which the Doctor had placed inside of it to transport back to where it was always meant to have been. It was vaguely aware that it would be rejoining its master soon enough, when the Captain's timeline and the Doctor's would finally reunite.

Though the hand wasn't exactly sentient, it knew that all was truly well now.