Essence of Time

Jack watched them from a distance, the length of parking lot and a street the closest he would allow himself. Even that was too close. Three guys and a girl, eating in a quiet restaurant as they reminisced about their adventures, having not a care in the world. It was both painful and comforting at the same time, watching his past happen in his present.

He could remember every moment he'd spent with the Doctor and Rose, each day inscribed in his memory with a vividness and clarity he'd never experienced before. All his other memories seemed to pale in comparison, growing hazy and malformed, just out of his reach. But not those six months he'd spent in the TARDIS. Six months that were more real, more indelible than the decades before or since.

Jack watched from his post as one of the men left his companions, moving out of his sight, but Jack had more than enough to hold his attention. He knew he couldn't talk to them, or let them see him, no matter how much he wanted to. And oh, how he wanted to. Every cell in his being was straining towards them, demanding that he return to where he belonged. But he knew he couldn't; that to do so would be a mistake of epic proportions.

It didn't stop him from wanting to, though.

If he concentrated, he could almost hear Rose's laughter, as he watched his past self tell some outlandish tale just to watch her face light up. She was talking, and even though he couldn't hear what she was saying, his mind replayed the words as if it were happening to him - the 'now' him - right this minute.

"-you did not! You were on the other side of the ballroom, trying to talk the Handmaidens into giving you a kiss!"

"Rose, you wound me. I was simply explaining to them that in some cultures, a handshake was considered an insult, but a kiss showed you had the most honourable of intentions."

"Right. That's why that poncy Duke followed me around all night, demanding to show me he had 'honourable intentions'! I had to resort to drastic measures to get him to lay off."

He remembered that planet, Alvus VI in what would be their regency period. It had been one of the first adventures he'd had after being invited to travel with the Doctor and Rose. It was one of many he'd had, and he never once regretted travelling with them, even at the end and all the years since.

"Find something interesting in there, have you?" asked a familiar voice from behind him, causing Jack to tense up. He'd been so caught up in remembering the past, that he'd failed to pay attention to the present. Not that he was certain it would have done any good. The Doctor had a way of sneaking up on people, metaphorically and physically.

"More than you could imagine." Jack said back, not looking behind him. It would hurt to much to see those eyes, in the face that still haunted his dreams. And his nightmares.

He'd long since gotten past his anger and resentment at being left behind on the Game Station - a couple of decades wandering through time and even more stranded in the past would do that.

"You shouldn't be here." the Doctor said, moving to stand next to him.

"I know all about paradoxes, Doctor. I wasn't planning on doing anything to mess with the time line, especially my timeline." Jack told him. "I just...needed to be here. Needed to see you, if only from a distance."

"So I'm guessing there's not another Doctor and Rose waiting around the corner, or back in the TARDIS." he said after a moment of silence.

"No." was all Jack managed to choke out.

"I shouldn't ask, but..."

"You're fine. You're both fine." And it was true. He knew the Doctor had sent Rose away in the TARDIS, and he knew that Rose had to have come back, because he'd watched the TARDIS disappear. The logical conclusion was that Rose had come back with the TARDIS. Logical, or simply his own desperate wish that Rose had come back to save them. Save him. "As far as I know."

"How long has it been?" asked the Doctor.

"I don't know." Jack answered. And it was true. He honestly had no idea how long - for him - it had been since the Game Station. He didn't age and he didn't really die - and time travel messed with your internal time sense - but he knew it had been a long time. Too long to be alone, waiting for not only the 'right kind of Doctor', but also the 'right' Doctor. "Long."

"You still shouldn't be here, not crossing over your own timeline like this." he said, censure colouring his voice.

"If I had a choice, I wouldn't be." Jack told him. "I've been trying to find you for years, but I had to use a second-rate time ship to get here and it overshot the date by a bit."

There was an understatement, unless by 'a bit' Jack actually meant 'a century, give or take'. And by 'second-rate time ship' he meant 'piece of ancient junk that didn't hold together through the landing'. If he hadn't been 'special', Jack wouldn't be around today having this conversation with the Doctor.

But still, not the 'right' Doctor. However, it was still his best chance and he was going to take it, even if he had to be cryptic and annoying to do it.

"Something happened to me, but it hasn't happened to him yet." Jack said, nodding his head in his past-self's direction. "But when it does, I'm hoping that you'll come find me." It would have to be here - in Cardiff - sometime after this date, because he knew as well as the Doctor, that once the TARDIS lands in a time period, it becomes part of that timeline. And they'd landed smack dab into Jack's timeline, though they didn't know it. He would love to tell the Doctor to come find him in the year 200,100, stop him from living those years of hell on a planet covered in death and destruction, but he knew it didn't work that way. Jack would have to wait until both their timelines caught up to one another.

"How do I know I didn't toss you off into this timeline for some reason?" the Doctor asked, challenging in his own way.

Jack just turned to look at him, seeing the familiar form of the Doctor for the first time in more than a century. His heart clenched and his chest felt tight, but Jack forced himself to look the other man in the eyes, hiding nothing.

"You know me - him - to well. You know what I'd do for you and Rose, or what I wouldn't do." And the Doctor knew, though he wouldn't willingly say it. He never had said it, either - not even on the Game Station, surrounded by Daleks - but they'd both known.

"How long, Jack?" asked the Doctor again, and this time Jack could see the brain spinning and calculating, trying to put the pieces of a puzzle together when he didn't know what the picture was.

"I'll be around Cardiff, keeping an eye on the Rift." was all Jack said; was all he was willing to say.

The Doctor seemed to accept that, nodding his head in acceptance.

"I should get back to them." he said, twisting slightly in the direction of the restaurant. Jack held his breath and clenched his hands. He felt the nails digging in to his palm as he forced himself to nod in agreement, when all he really wanted to do was beg the Doctor to take him with him, let him back into the home and family he'd lost so long ago.

"Hey, Doctor." Jack called out after a second, causing the Doctor to turn and look at him. "Don't make Rose wait too long. She's crazy about you."

Jack simply grinned in the face of the other man's unreadable look, before the Doctor continued back to the restaurant and his earlier self.

It made a kind of twisted sense now, when he thought about it. He remembered sitting in the restaurant with Rose and Mickey, waiting for the Doctor to return from wherever he'd been. And when the Doctor had returned, he'd given Rose an intense look, just for a second, as if considering something. Rose and Mickey both had missed it, but he hadn't. He also remembered that that was the day that everything changed between the Doctor and Rose. After their trip to drop off Margaret the Slitheen, they'd disappeared for a solid day, and when Rose finally emerged from somewhere hidden by the TARDIS, the glow about her had been unmistakeable.

As he watched the four of them leave the restaurant on a mission, Jack finally found the strength to turn away and head back to Torchwood. He knew he wouldn't be even attempting to sleep that night, or any night for the foreseeable future, but that was okay. He was one step closer to finally having some answers, and he had the bonus of being able to see them again, for the first time in so long.

But there was no use dwelling on that now. He had a crisis to prepare for and a cover up to plan.

Because of course the Doctor would park the TARDIS right in front of Torchwood's surveillance cameras, right on top of the 'secret, underground' base of the organization that was founded to deal with him and other alien threats.

Of course. Because he was the Doctor.

It was part of his charm.

END

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