for shewalks_away Journey's End missing scene.

[quitehomoerotic]

How long does it take to tow the Earth home? Quite a while actually.

The TARDIS was full. Really full, full of people who had all touched the Doctor in some way. There were smiles and laughter and people talking. Two Doctor's rushing around the console. Two! People that had never met and people that knew each other well. It was remarkable.

Jack could feel eyes on him when he stood, and when he turned he'd notice those eyes belonged to one Donna Noble who waved at him with a little coy wave (or at least he suspected she thought it was coy). It was an occurrence that repeated itself no less than three times. It was somewhat unnerving.

As time went on people seemed to spread out, filling the halls and corridors of the familiar TARDIS in ways Jack had never seen. It felt right in a way Jack couldn't truly describe.

He watched. Watched Martha and Donna and Rose.

Rose.

Rose who he'd expected never to see again. Rose who over all those long years he'd thought of just as much as he'd thought of the Doctor. Rose who he'd watched as a little girl, falling off her bike and scraping his knee.

Rose who in all the flurry, he'd been unable to catch even a moment with.

Ad so when he saw her take her leave from the console room and turn down a corridor, he followed, and when there was fair distance he stopped and he cleared his throat from behind her.

"So do I get a hello?"

Comments

[shewalks-away.livejournal.com]

People aren't meant to come back from the dead. It wasn't meant to happen. It's why she couldn't save her dad all those years ago. It's why time lines can't be messed with and all that. But it wasn't any use counting the things that aren't meant to be, there were too many to count. She wasn't meant to be in this universe, there weren't meant to be two Doctors running about...and people weren't meant to come back from the dead.

She had seen it though, seen it with her own two eyes. He had been shot by that Dalek. He was dead, really properly dead. It all happened so quick, he was dead and taken away and now here he was alive all over again.

Rose watched him as he became flustered with Donna's flirting. Who would've thought someone could actually go and unnerve Captain Jack Harkness. She bit her lip, suppressing a laugh as she watched him try to navigate around Donna, around all this chaos.

And then there was Sarah Jane who somehow had a son now. Rose resisted the urge to ask Sarah Jane if she was a bit too old for all that. After all, Rose was meant to be more mature than that now. She forced herself to smile as she watched the Doctor and Martha have a chat. It was good he found someone to take care of him for a while. Even if she was gorgeous and smart and brave and ...

"..bloody hell," she mumbled under her breath. All these years and she was still just as bad as she was when she first met the Doctor.

She took that moment to make her exit, wandering who knows where. A walk would do her good.

She stopped as she heard a familiar voice. She turned around, and impulsively she wrapped her arms around Jack and gave him a tight hug. She had wanted to do that for so long. She had missed him for so long. She pulled away to take a look at his face. She saw him die...but here he was, same face, same voice, he even nearly smelled the same as she remembered. Even the Doctor couldn't hold onto that much when he died.

"It's you? It's really you?"

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

Jack's arms wrapped tightly around Rose. It was a reaction from somewhere deep within his gut, and it seemed to wrench something tangible.

It was a moment he'd held out for in ways he hadn't quite even realised he had. But here it was, and for that moment, he let himself indulge in it, and he held her there in the hug, taking the time while he had it.

Only when she spoke did he move his head back to look at her, and he smiled wide. It was an easy smile. Looking at Rose, how could it be anything else?

"It's me," he confirmed with a small nod and a soft tone.

And then he laughed. "The one and only."

He reached a hand up and brushed her hair back behind her ear.

"Good to see you, Rose."

[shewalks-away.livejournal.com]

And when he smiled at her with that smile she knew it could only be him. She smiled back, then hugged him again, burying her face in his shoulder for a moment. He smelled almost like she remembered, but there was something else there as well which she couldn't place.

She pulled away to look at him again, taking him in. There were so many questions she was almost afraid to ask because she didn't want to break the moment, but she needed to know.

"But I saw you, you died out there, that Dalek killed you. So how can you be here now?"

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

He could stay this way, Jack thought. He could stay there for a while, just with her. He could feel young beside her, remembering how they used to be. It was so long ago now, but not for her, just years for her and it seemed within reach.

It wasn't, of course. He knew that really. He knew too that Rose would go home and again he wouldn't see her. But for now, just now, he could pretend. And he'd allow himself that.

She questioned though, and a little of that shine faded from his eyes. It was the weight of the truth and how would he deliver that? He did his best to cover any difference that might show, a wider smile and a gentle laugh, and he hoped that was enough.

"What, you think I'm gonna let some Dalek see me off?" he smiled and shook his head. "No chance." But then that was no explanation at all, so he dropped his head slightly, thought a moment and lifted again.

"Guess you could say I've had some modifications since I last saw you." He shook his head. "I can't die, Rose. Not ever."

[shewalks-away.livejournal.com]

He looked and sounded so much older when he smiled like that, when he laughed like that. Something older than she could imagine almost. She remembered seeing it before on the Doctor too, when she asked the wrong thing and he would change the subject with that same kind of smile.

She looked at him in confusion. Where she was now modification meant something compltely different. It meant metal parts and emotion removed and becoming less than human, but that couldn't be Jack.

She pulled her hand up to touch his face, almost questioning and confused and searching for someone she used to know. It was still him, no matter what, but still she needed to know. If she just stopped asking questions it would be so much easier, but she needed to know.

"How do you mean modifications? If you can live forever, does that mean you're like the Doctor now?"

Her hand ventured down to his chest. Left side heart beat...right side nothing.

"But you still got just one heart, haven't you? So it can't be like the Doctor, can it?"

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

Again Jack's head ducked down. He wasn't one attuned to explaining himself. Why would he? He was who he was and that was private. Who he is and who he was and the lives he has lived, all unique to what they were and are and they didn't cross. He made it that way, built up walls in ways he never used to.

But he was never that man with Rose, and the last thing he'd intend to do would be to alienate her now, and so an effort had to be made.

"Ohh I'm no Time Lord," Jack said with a shake of his head. "And I'm not like the Doctor. I'm way better looking for a start," he winked. "Though his current regeneration? He really traded up there didn't he?"

Another laugh. Warmer this time, something more natural in it, playful and more... Jack.

"I'm one of a kind," he said to her, his tone back to something more serious. "Nobody quite like me, Rose. Never has been never will be. Fixed point in time, that's me."

He didn't really want to explain that it was her that did it. He didn't want to taint the moment with that explanation.

[shewalks-away.livejournal.com]

At Jack's comment about the Doctor's newest look she couldn't help but laugh, and possibly blush as well.

"Hope you haven't gone and told him that one. He all ready has an ego on him, doesn't need you to go around inflating it for him."

She felt like a weight had been lifted that she hadn't even realized was there in the first place.

"But, that uh, fixed point in time though, what's that then?"

The question this time was less seeking any important answers and more just genuinely curious and conversational, like asking what a Time Agent was or why a squareness gun was square instead of triangular or circular. She had heard the Doctor use the term about events that couldn't be changed, but she never heard him use it to describe an entire person.

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

"Oh he doesn't need me to tell him," Jack laughed, "he knows."

Her laughter warmed him from somewhere deep inside. He'd missed that. Missed it as much as anything, the way she smiled and the way she laughed. It was that sparkle that made him like her in the first place. The one that made his interest pique and got him embroiled in her world with the Doctor. A world that spiralled in ways he never really could have imagined.

"What is this?" he asked, amused, "20 questions? Do I get something at the end of it?"

There was more teasing in his voice now, and even if his words were still avoiding the answer to a degree, it wasn't that he minded. It was hard, really, he hardly had all the answers himself. What he was and what that meant. He knew what the Doctor had told him and even that was thin.

"It means," he said, "that I'm always gonna look just this handsome."

[shewalks-away.livejournal.com]

She gave him a playful punch in the shoulder, and then grabbed his hand.

"Yeah, you get to take me to the kitchen to find something to eat. Forgot how saving the universe can leave you famished. Come on then!"

She tugged him forward to get him moving, falling back into a normal pace after a moment as she tried to remember her way to the kitchen.

"And I knew that part all ready, you'd never go and let yourself be anything less. Still, bet you'll look handsome when you start getting grey, distinguished like and very...Sean Connery."

He seemed to be avoiding something, but maybe some tea and food could fix some of that. Right now he was here though, and that was good.

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

Jack allowed himself to be pulled. Allowed himself to indulge in the playfulness of it. He wasn't being Jack the leader. Jack the man with Torchwood to worry about. Jack with the fate of so many people relying on him. He was just Jack. Jack that used to travel. Jack that used to smile.

Jack.

And that felt good, just for now.

"Sean Connery?" he echoed with surprise. "Really? You think so?"

He arched his head back a little, as if trying out the thought. That's all it ever would be, of course, a thought. Jack wouldn't age, he'd always be this. And as for grey he expected little else than the odd one he'd find (and swiftly dispatch) every now and then.

"Wait," he said, "you don't think I look distinguished now?"

Finding the kitchen he made immediately for a cupboard to busy himself with sifting through while he continued to talk.

"Well I'd better, because it's not going to change." He looked up at a shelf and then back over to her.

"I'm not gonna age, Rose. I'm not gonna get... Sean Connery."

[shewalks-away.livejournal.com]

She smiled at him, watching him working around the kitchen. She sat down at the table. This felt normal again, like it did all those years ago. Before she found out the Doctor could change, before Jack left, when it was just the three of them, on the TARDIS, hopping about the universe.

"Wouldn't say you're Sean Connery material just yet," she said, biting her tongue a bit, her tone teasing.

Rose stopped short though as he looked back at her, his words hitting her hard. Her smile turned to a confused frown.

"How do you mean you're not gonna age. Everyone's got to, even the Doctor would have to if..."

She stopped short. If the Doctor wasn't the Doctor and didn't do something daft and get himself killed before he got the chance. The Doctor looked older even now, and she would never know if it was only a few years like it was for her, or if he had been living decades or centuries since she last saw him.

But he wasn't important now. Jack said he wasn't going to age. What did that even mean?

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

Jack ventured his way over to the table with a plate and bread and some sort of unidentifiable jam. He gestured out for her to help herself, and as he sat down opposite, he began to do the same.

He ate rather quickly, and spoke around mouthfuls. Really his habits there hadn't changed.

With a half eaten bread roll in hand he gestured out in her direction. And without much preamble, he announced something that had sat silent.

"It's been 141 years since I last saw you, Rose. For me, I mean."

Another mouthful of bread, and he focussed on that as though it were the most important thing and not just taking his mind off everything else.

"Still. Look good for my age, right?"

[shewalks-away.livejournal.com]

Rose stared at him, dumbfounded. She pulled a piece of bread onto her plate, but merely toyed with it, too distracted to actually eat.

She tried to process what he was saying. That was...it couldn't be, could it.

"One hundred and forty-one years?" she repeated, dazed and confused by this newest revelations.

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

Jack gave one emphatic nod in response. "Yep." He pointed a finger at her, "And don't you dare say I look it."

He laughed. That's what he did now, make light of things. How he coped with it. Well, it always was really.

"These stripes," he said, pointing to his shoulder, "they're real now. World war two? Fought in that. And world war one for that matter."

He shrugged his shoulders, just once. "See after Satellite Five I got sort of stranded in 1869. Lived straight through since then. Kept my eyes peeled for him, and for you. But... well, took a while."

[shewalks-away.livejournal.com]

Rose scooted her chair around closer to Jack, hesitant for a moment, and then reaching out a hand to feel the stripes on his shoulder. He had gone through so much, but why and how and...

"Was that the business you had to go and take care of?"

She never got a straight answer about what happened to him. All she knew was she woke up and Jack wasn't there anymore.

"What happened to you? You had just gone and you didn't even say goodbye or anything. If you'd said something, we could've known where to look for you, we could've come back and found you."

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

Jack let out another laugh and shook his head. He sighed. Ahh of course she didn't know. Of course the Doctor didn't explain any of that. As if he would have. Once it might have annoyed him, but not now. He was way past that point now.

He tucked his head down and smiled to himself a moment before shaking his head and lifting it again, turning to look at her more fully.

"I died," he said. "And I mean really died. Exterminated by Daleks. Sayonara Jack Harkness."

He paused, a breath. "But... I came back. First time. And--" he sighed.

"Rose, he knew. He knew I was alive and he left me there. He was running away from me." He shrugged his shoulders, acting as though it were nothing. "And come on, he was too busy having a facelift to think of me."

[shewalks-away.livejournal.com]

"He was running away from you? But that can't be right, cause he said, he said you had business you had to take care of and..."

Rose bit her lip, folding her hands on her lap and wringing them idly, trying to make sense of what Jack just told her.

"The Doctor, he wouldn't do that," she said, more to convince herself than anything else. "He's better than that, he wouldn't just leave someone like that."

It's why she went back for the Doctor in the first place all those years ago, wasn't it? You don't run away, you stand up and fight and save the things that are really important.

She looked up at Jack earnestly, searching his eyes and hoping they would tell her something she wasn't understanding. There had to be a reason, he wouldn't just leave Jack. Not like that.

"He really did that, he really just...left you?"

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

While he listened to Rose process what he'd said, Jack almost smiled. It was funny because he could understand it. Understand the questioning. The Doctor wouldn't do that. The Doctor would look for him. He'd said and thought the same things so many times.

But truth won out, and he couldn't ignore that.

"I thought he could answer my questions," Jack admitted. "I thought that he'd understand what had happened to me. But the truth is? He didn't, not really. You know when I first saw him again even the TARDIS tried to get away from me. Went right the way to the end of the universe and I clung on to the outside," he laughed. Though really, a trip through the vortex like that was hardly pleasant.

"He told me that I'm wrong. That that's how it feels to him. His instinct was to run and so..." he threw his hands in the air.

"So he did."

And then he smiled. "But hey, come on. I'm doing pretty okay."