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Jack was having a relaxing read of the tabloids when someone pounded at his office door. "Come in!" he called.
"Sir! He parked in my bloody office!" Ianto shouted. Jack blinked and looked up, trying to remember the last time Ianto had raised his voice.
"Who?"
"Who do you think?" Ianto gestured behind him. When Jack stood, he saw the Doctor looking through the alien bits and bobs on Toshiko's desk. "I don't ask for much, sir!" Ianto said firmly. "But my office upstairs is my office. I cannot do my job without a quiet space to myself."
"I'll talk to him." Jack squeezed his shoulder.
"The bloody TARDIS blew the entire day's work off my desk! I don't know where all the papers ended up," Ianto growled.
"I'll talk to him! Sit down and have a biscuit," Jack said. He loosened Ianto's tie and sat him down in Jack's chair.
"Jack! Why do we have feet, anyway?" the Doctor asked. He sat down in Tosh's chair and wiggled his bare toes in the air. The soles of his feet were black with dirt.
"We have a car park, you know. And miles and miles and miles of underground tunnel."
"But then I wouldn't know if you were in," the Doctor said. "Look, feet are useless. Can't do a thing with them." He swiveled in the chair and reached toward Tosh's keyboard with his toe.
Jack grabbed his foot and swiveled him back around. He looked down at the Doctor's foot--dirty but well-kept--and up at his grinning face. "You know my team has a fit every time you show up," Jack said.
"Yeah, well. Keeps them alert."
"No. Keeps my favorite archivist on the verge of stabbing you and me both with a paper knife, that's what it keeps. What do you want?" Jack asked.
"Just popping by," the Doctor said. He wiggled his toes in Jack's hand.
"Do you realize how many alarms you set off when you pop by?"
"I don't hear any," the Doctor said.
"They're not the loud kind," Jack said. "Where's Martha?"
The Doctor's smile slipped. "London, I expect," he said. "Loving family, real life, all that."
Leaving the Doctor terribly, oceanically lonely. Jack rubbed the Doctor's instep lightly with his thumb. "That's good that she's home."
"Course it is." The Doctor smiled. "Anyway, I lost my shoes, so I thought I'd pop by."
"You didn't have other shoes?"
"Not proper shoes!"
Jack raised any eyebrow.
"Shoes like that, you feel the ground under your feet. They let you know where you are," the Doctor said.
"I have some flip-flops in my closet." Jack jerked a thumb at the office door.
"No, no. Shoes you can run in. You'd be surprised how much time I spend on my feet."
Jack laughed. "No, I wouldn't!" He let the Doctor's foot go and wiped off his hand with sanitizer from Tosh's desk. God only knew where the Doctor had been walking.
He crossed back to his office with the Doctor following him at a saunter. Ianto was sipping a brandy, looking mutinous. "I'm going to get the Doctor a new pair of shoes," Jack said. "Call me if any other aliens invade."
"I'll go," Ianto said, tossing back the rest of the brandy. "Low-top trainers, size ten. I'll be back in half an hour."
"I can buy shoes," Jack said, grinning. He wondered for a moment how Ianto knew the right size, but really, Ianto always knew those things.
Ianto gave him a glare that threatened to shred flesh from bone. "I. Will go." Ianto took his keys out of his pocket and glared at the Doctor as he walked to the door.
"Lovely boy. I adore the Welsh," the Doctor said.
Jack pointed his finger right in his face. "You can't have him."
The Doctor widened his eyes. "For what?"
"Your traveling companion went home and you want a new one. You can't have Ianto. He's mine."
"No!" the Doctor protested. "It's good to be alone. Builds character. Besides, humans are just a bunch of fuss. Breathing oxygen, needing food all the time, more trouble than you're worth."
Jack sighed, hooking his thumbs in his pockets. "Come on. There's leftover vindaloo in the fridge."
After vindaloo and six glasses of Guinness, the Doctor told him about the refugees and the explosions, and Martha having to have her leg regrown, and how that made her realize she was a doctor at heart, not a time traveler, and that it wasn't as though the Doctor could really argue with that. Jack hugged him, resting his cheek on the Doctor's back, and didn't comment as the Doctor snuffled into his beer.
The Doctor shifted and blew his nose. "Care for a slap and tickle before your young lad comes back?"
"Ianto got back an hour ago," Jack said, straightening up. "And don't you think he's pissed enough at you as it is?"
"Oh? No? I don't know, how angry can a young human be?"
"He has the combination to the arsenal," Jack said, "and there are plasma rifles in there."
"Oh, yes, that would sting a bit." The Doctor frowned.
"Rain check. Catch me in fifty years or so."
"Oh, I'm sure he'll live longer than that," the Doctor said. He patted Jack's thigh.
"A century, then." Jack stood up and gave the Doctor a hand, even though the Doctor seemed to be perfectly sober now. "Let's see what he bought you."
What Ianto--who was up in the conference room, cataloging a box of heavy explosives--had gotten were lavender sparkle vinyl sneakers with a Mayan print in gold across the heel. "Fantastic!" the Doctor crowed. "Oh, look at these!" He slipped them on without bothering with socks. They fit perfectly, of course. "And spares!"
The spares were a blinding chartreuse canvas with rainbow laces. Ianto, Jack reflected, wasn't half expert at passive-aggressive revenge.
"Oh, these are smart. See, he wasn't so angry after all! Go give him a kiss for me," the Doctor said, nudging Jack with the shoe box. Jack looked up into the conference room. Ianto smiled down beatifically.
"Hello! Look who I found!" Gwen called from the door. Jack whirled and saw Emma Louise Cowell, the girl from 1953, standing behind her.
Of course. Of course. These things always happened when the Doctor stopped by.
"Hello," Emma said, waving shyly.
Gwen spotted the Doctor and her face fell. "Oh, this is a bad time," she said, putting out her arm to shield Emma from the room.
"No! Any friend of Jack's--ow ow ow," the Doctor said, as he stepped forward with his hand extended and Jack caught the shell of his ear between his two fingers. "Jack! That's a bit savage!"
"Don't you dare," Jack said.
"I was going to shake her hand! Show her my new kicks! For heaven's sake, Jack!"
"He's an alien. Not a good influence," Gwen said to Emma, rushing her out. But Emma broke away and ran back for a better look, because this was the Doctor and that was how these things happened.
"An alien!" Emma cried. "A real alien from outer space?"
"Yes! I have a ship upstairs. Love to get going, actually, if Jack will let go of my ear." The Doctor scowled horribly, bent sideways in Jack's grip.
"Can I see your spaceship?" Emma asked, both hands to her mouth with delight. Jack sighed and let the Doctor go.
The Doctor straightened up, one hand clapped to his wounded ear, and smiled. "Of course! It's a beauty."
Jack caught Gwen's waist in his arm as he followed the Doctor and Emma upstairs. "I'm so sorry. I had no idea," Gwen whispered.
Jack shook his head. "Not your fault. That's how these things happen. You're at work, minding your own business, and something ridiculous happens, and before you know it, you're on the TARDIS. The man bends space and time just by standing there. If it wasn't here, it would have been somewhere else," he said, sighing.
Gwen smiled. "Do you really believe that?"
"It's a comforting thought on cold nights." He squeezed her waist and they all walked upstairs to see the Doctor off.
The End.