Title: What is Forever?
Author: Jedi Princess Clarrisani
Fandom: Doctor Who/Torchwood
Pairing(s): Doctor/Jack
Prompt(s) used: moments in time; Death-fic - Doctor or Jack, your choice; "Better to have loved and lost."; Funeral Blues by W.H. Auden; TARDIS key; The lapping of the waves.
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers/warnings: Character death, very angsty. Keep the tissues handy. Does allude to a spoiler in Last of the Time Lords, but doesn’t go into detail so should be safe. Only those who have seen that episode will know where and what it is.
Summary: It was amazing how short 'forever' is when you can never die.
A/N: Written for [info]wintercompanion. Cross posted to [info]wintercompanion, [info]doctorslashjack, and the Torchwood Australia Forum

It was amazing how short 'forever' is when you can never die. Time was nothing, just a short spark on a never ending plain, and even the longest lives were nothing. The years had shot by, companions had come and gone, loved but never forgotten even as a millennia disappeared behind them.


He'd never stopped to think that the Doctor wasn't immortal, that he simply regenerated at the end of each life. That the Doctor would just become another moment in time, each regeneration so brief in the eyes of the universe. It had never crossed his mind that there was a limit to the number of times the Doctor could rise up like a phoenix with a new face and personality, yet still remaining enough the same for Jack to always love him.


Now, as he sat gazing out over the calm waters of an ocean of a distant planet, listening to the gentle lapping of the waves along the shore, he couldn't help but feel the sharp stab of loss, leaving him weak and nauseated. He swallowed hard to force down the lump in his throat, fighting back tears that threatened to spill.


He reached into the pocket of his greatcoat, pulling out the TARDIS key and turning it over in his hand. It was still glowing, a gentle pulse that warmed the metal but never burned. He could still feel the pain coming from her, fuelling his own. She was in so much pain. He had always thought that she would die when the Doctor... left them, but still she lived on. He had felt her connection as the Doctor lay in Jack's arms, his thirteenth incarnation weak and frail with age, his final words reassuring Jack it hadn't all been in vain.


"Better to have loved and lost, dear Captain. You of all people should know that."


Jack drew in a sharp breath and curled into a ball, drawing his knees to his chest and burying his head into his arms, rocking himself gently. His shoulders shuddered as the tears finally broke free at the memory of those words. It wasn't fair. It just wasn't fair. This wasn't how it was meant to be. They were supposed to be forever. Forever wasn't meant to be so short.


He remembered the Doctor's tenth incarnation, probably the most energetic of the five incarnations Jack had loved, finally explaining the other reason he had feared Jack so much. Curled in Jack's lap here on this very beach, gazing out toward the same sky, his voice had been so smooth and serious. He was scared of leaving him. All his life the Doctor had loved and left his companions, saying that he wanted them to have real lives but in truth fearing losing them to the eternal darkness of death.


Suddenly, here the Doctor was, with a companion whom he loved that would live longer than him. He feared being the one to leave someone behind. Jack had reassured him that it was alright, that they should cherish the time that they had. The last trip to this planet had consummated with days and nights of lovemaking, enjoying the peace and each other.


Jack was ripped from his memories as his body lurched, quickly untangling himself as he leaned to the side, his stomach emptying itself violently. He squeezed his eyes closed, forcing his breathing to slow as he regained control. He'd been with the Doctor so long now it was killing him thinking he'd have to be alone. Wake up, not having the Doctor there by his side.


The last few years, as they'd realised that the Doctor was nearing the end of his current life and the Doctor had broken the news to Jack that he wouldn't be able to regenerate this time, they'd gone in search of some way, some possibility, that they could break the rules. That the Doctor could still regenerate. The Master had, so why not the Doctor? But there had been no way. Even at the ends of the universe there hadn't been an answer.


And now he was gone – three days now – and it was finally starting to sink in that Jack was alone. That the Doctor wasn't coming back this time. No matter how much he screamed, how much he cried, how much he willed and dreamed and tried, there was no bringing him back.


Dropping back onto the beach, Jack stared up toward the sky. Out the corner of his eye he could see the blue police box outlined by the glow of the setting sun. The TARDIS key pulsed again, still clutched between his fingers. Jack opened his mind to her, feeling her willing him back inside, not wanting to lose another 'master'.


The Doctor had left her to him. His last wish was for Jack to keep her safe until the end of time. All those years ago, so far back it was distant memory, the Doctor had prevented Jack from travelling through time. But his team, Torchwood, the whole planet, were long gone now. He could always go visit, but in his lifetime they were gone.


He remembered joking to the Doctor about what he would become in a millennia. He had ended up succeeding in making the Doctor paranoid enough to keep visiting him every couple of years, just to 'check up on him'. In the end, after his beloved Ianto had passed away an old and happy man in Jack's arms, Jack had finally 'given in' and agreed to travel with the Doctor again. It hadn't been until the Doctor's twelfth incarnation that Jack had finally confessed that it had been his plan all along.


Sighing heavily, Jack closed his eyes, pushing himself to his feet and waiting for himself to regain his balance. He was so old now, cursed into the body of a young man. The weight of the universe now rested on his shoulders, and he had no one to share the burden with. Well, maybe not no one.


He cast a look back at the TARDIS, feeling her shared grief and anguished, but also her support. It was just him and the TARDIS, til the end of the universe. Them, and the lingering memories of the Doctor. Jack closed his eyes, willing himself to never forget, to never let the memories fade. Even when the end of the universe came, he would welcome it remembering the man, the last of the Time Lords, until there was nothing. There was nothing after death.


Shoving his hands in his pockets, he frowned as he felt his fingers brush against the piece of folded paper. He frowned, pulling it out and gazing at it. He'd almost forgotten. Unfolding it he gazed down at the words, feeling something inside him shatter as he read them.


He'd once made the mistake of introducing the tenth incarnation to the movie 'Four Weddings and a Funeral' and the Doctor had fallen in love with the poetry of W.H. Auden all over again. He'd been sprouting Auden poetry for months to the point Jack was ready to strangle him. But even after the Doctor had grown tired of that obsession and moved onto the next one – Ian Flemming as it was, which had been amusing – there was still one poem that he kept coming back to. One poem he had made Jack promise to read, here, now, when he was gone.


Drawing a deep breath, Jack set himself, feeling the support of the TARDIS in the back of his mind. Swallowing hard, he began to recite the words he knew by heart, but didn't trust himself not to forget within the grief. “Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone./ Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,/ Silence the pianos and with muffled drum/Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.”


Jack paused, willing himself to go on. “Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead/Scribbling in the sky the message He is Dead.” He had to stop as his voice broke over those last three words, and closing his eyes for a moment he composed himself before he continued. “Put crêpe bows round the white necks of the public doves,/Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.


“He was my North, my South, my East and West,/My working week and my Sunday rest/My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;/I thought that love would last forever, I was wrong.” Tears were once again streaking his cheeks, Jack feeling the warmth of the TARDIS in the back of his mind as he set himself. He would finish. He would.


“The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,/Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun./Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;/For nothing now can ever come to any good.” He folded the paper, reaching up to brush away the tears with the back of his hand. His shoulders were trembling again as he turned, moving toward the TARDIS. He had to get away from here. The memories… they hurt.


Nothing mattered anymore. The universe could end and he wouldn’t care because it would mean that his life ended as well. It had been him, him and the Doctor, for so long now. What else was there? There would never be another. Even as the funeral pier coughed up its last wisps of pale smoke, the pain didn’t fade. What was left for him?


What ever happened to ‘forever’?

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END
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