Oh don't start!

It had hurt. More than anything he could've actually imagined. That time in Axia IV with the teeth? Hardly a pin prick compared to the feeling of a Dalek vaporizing you from the inside out. He went down with a fight, but never the less, he did go down. Then, by some miracle, he was up again. Pulling in the breath of life, feeling everything get put back the way it was meant to be. His lungs expanded and he was alive again. If he had been a bit quicker, maybe taken less time to breathe in oxygen into the once again useful lungs, he might have caught up to the TARDIS before it left him behind.

Ironic actually, the first time in a few years that he actually wanted to be part of the team, and he got left behind. Hell of a thing.

There in the room where he'd been a few minutes too late he sat among the wires and cables, trying to hot wire his wrist cuff. One last trip, just to find where the Doctor was, lock onto his time signature and he'd catch up with them. Didn't have to be accurate, just slightly reliable.

Except it was.

It was so reliable that it hadn't locked onto the Doctor's time signature at all. So reliable that when he stood up he found himself in a cell, as a matter of fact a very familiar cell.

"Welcome back, glad to see you've joined the land of the conscious."

Rubbing at his eyes he smirked a bit, "Honestly Topher, you're the last person I wanted to see."

"Avoid a place for five years, bound to end up on the short list of people we'd throw in here without asking questions."

Clenching his jaw, he flicked his gaze toward the man on the other side of the bars, "Let me guess, Recall." His hand absently went to his wrist, where the leather strap had grown to feel like part of him, it was now bare.

"And he's a winner. Figured you'd done it on purpose, fried that time circuit on purpose. Not many'd know to do that, but I reckoned it'd have been just like --"

"Chauncy. First year of training, nearly sent himself twelve feet in the air. Division got wind of it and then we all have new updates with Recall implanted. I remember, I just didn't think I had overloaded it, not by that much at least."

"Here you are though."

"Here I am," Jack smirked at the man. "Why am I here?"

"Awaitin' review of your case. Seems the counsel's been in there for hours tryin' to figure you out. Special case it seems. Not sure what to do with you."

"Well they could let me go."

Topher smiled, "You'd like that, yeah? Free to go, off on your way?"

"Actually wouldn't be too bad," the smirk widened into a grin.

"We'll see 'bout that." Topher lifted his chin a bit, "Oi, look alive, they're comin' to fetch you."

Turning around Jack looked down the hall, seeing the counsel heading his direction. Topher pressed to the wall, saluting them as they passed him, watching with alertness as they stood in front of Jack's cell.

"Jack Harkness-"

"Captain Jack Harkness," he replied with a shrug of his shoulder. "Well, if you're going to use my taken name, you should really put the title in there as well."

They stared at him, even tone about their faces, as they continued without restating his name. "You have been reinstated within the Time Agency. All previous debts forgiven, and you are hereby assigned to Protocol Forty-Two."

"Oh no, you don't get off that easy, you took two years! I don't want whatever it is you're offering me, you can kill me."

"No, we can't. It seems, whatever happened along your timeline, whatever event you've been involved in. It cannot be reversed, it cannot be changed. You exist. Singularly. There shall never be another, there shall never be a need. You are him."

"Why does that sound creepier than you're saying it, which trust me, is somewhat difficult."

The bars opened and they handed him his wrist cuff, "We can initiate Recall at any point. You will maintain the cases we assign, you will not divert from the path. If you complete what we request, we will reinstate your memories. Do you agree to our terms?"

"If I say no?"

"We will place you in the rift. You will exist forever in nowhere."

"Go team!" Jack grinned, but they found no humor in his response. "Fine. Protocol Forty-Two... can't be too bad right?" Buckling his wrist strap on he pressed the mission details, and viewed them as they scrolled by. A long list of events that he'd have to nudge the other way. It was a hard job fixing time so that the future existed. All of the rest of the world, poking around in time, thinking they weren't actually hurting everything by just reliving one grand day... open one small portal, take care of one little parking ticket.

It all added up and it eventually, somewhere down the line, would change everything. The dates and times and places all listed off in front of him, and most of them he'd worked on before. People never did learn.

"Wait a minute..." Jack paused as he pulled up the details on one of the missions, "Where the hell's Pylea?"