Jack had heard many things about Gallifrey. It was the stuff of legend. It was spoken of in his youth, like fairytales told at bedtime. Whispers told on different words, stories that had passed from one to another and been twisted. Through all the stories though, there was one consistency; it was beautiful. A perfection. This wasn't quite what he expected.

He'd only ever asked the Doctor about his planet once. It was a respect he kept, a pain he knew the Doctor held and a barrier he didn't want to broach for fear of stepping where he shouldn't tread. Ironically, perhaps, that one conversation had been happening in a warehouse in London somewhere while in a flat in Cardiff Jack was stepping over other lines. 'The Shining World of the Seven Systems', Jack had remembered him call it, and remembered too the way he spoke, that distant sadness and fondness in his tone.

"Right," Jack said quietly, still looking around him. "Death Zone? Really?" he felt nervous here, in no small part because of things the Doctor had mentioned before, off hand things that never really mattered knowing the Time Lords were gone. Things like how someone like Jack would never be allowed to exist.

But here they were, home of the Time Lords.

He wanted to ask questions, to ask who had put them in that maze? Had it been Time Lords? Did that mean they were out there? Could the Doctor feel them? Why had they put the Doctor in there if he's one of their kind? Maybe he wasn't alone? Maybe he'd been wrong?

But he didn't ask. He just stepped behind him and nodded, "Lead the way, Doctor."