"I won't lie to you," the Doctor said slowly, tinkering sedately with the TARDIS controls. "It won't get better, everyday, you'll see a child on the street, a family living their lives, the world ticking past before your eyes. But you won't feel it, even now your heart's as cold as ice, because no matter how much you care or how hard you try… you break the world. Doesn't it break your heart to have to be the one, the only one, who can make the choice? Who lives and who dies."

"I don't have the right to choose."

"No one ever does, but still we must."

"I won't, not again." Jack argued hotly. "I won't be the cause of any more pain."

"I used to say the same thing, repeat it after every night terror, every time I found blood on my hands, but it never works out that way, not for people like you and me."

"I'm not like you."

"That's all I can hope for." the Doctor sighed. Silence reigned in the control room for a long time after that short razor conversation.

"It never gets better, does it?" Jack whispered minutes later. The tall mans head was down, his posture guarded against the words he knew were coming. Turning softly on his feet the Doctor sighed and rubbed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. This wasn't the best time for him personally but he knew without a doubt that Jacks cold corpse would wake him screaming every day if it wasn't settled. It was only so long until Jack threw himself into a xenon star or found a path into hell directly.

"I don't know." He said honestly. "Once upon a time that silly little planet gave me something I thought would save me. Save us both if she got the chance."

"Rose." Jack whispered. Chuckling the Doctor shook his head.

"She was never just Rose Jack, after all your years you must know that." with a snort Jack nodded. "I thought maybe the universe had forgiven me finally, I destroyed my world, my people and a galaxy…"

"To save the universe!" Jack argued.

"As you chose to save a planet." the Doctor countered. "But Rose, she was… she was brilliant Jack. She healed me, slowly, I was horrible to her for months, all that time we were together, it wasn't till the end that I realised it was her and her silly little human ways that had saved me. Maybe saved the world and changed my path through it irreversibly."

"She was an amazing lass."

"She was human," the Doctor stated without emotion. "That's all she was in the end Jack, just human; but it was what I needed. That planet, it tears people like us apart Jack, it always has. Even in the beginning, she's always been screaming at the stars, and now the stars are screaming back and she needs people like us who are willing to do what needs to be done. But it gives us what we need to go on. And takes everything else."

"Ianto." and the Doctor had once thought that it was his eyes alone who would hold so much pain, so much regret, so much loss; Jack always had been a surprise.

"He was your Rose, I saw that, even in the beginning. He was beautiful you know. Not my thing really, but he shone." and if Jack had lifted his head from his shame he might have seen the glow in the Doctor's eyes as he said that.

"Yeah, he did." Jack smiled, happy memories assaulted him. "He was straight when we met, absolutely, Torchwood One originally." twitching the Doctors smile sunk a little and his eyes grew heavy.

"They weren't all bad Jack."

"I thought they'd killed Rose, I hated him, the idea of him, the sight of him. I didn't want to know; would have shot him had it not been for that stupid pterodactyl."

"What happened to her when the Hub went up?"

"She was out for the night, Gwen feeds her now, I think she's trying to restart Torchwood. She's got a lot of money under her belt, Ianto's Torchwood money can't be reclaimed by the crown and it can't go to his family. Gwen has Ianto's pay as well as Tosh and Owen's. An even bigger bonus from me for those last months. She's not shy for cash and she's made a lot of friends. Wales… Britain; won't be unprotected for long."

"I never liked her you know, just something about her."

"I thought she might be the one for me once, so did Owen. Think he might have married her if she hadn't met that lummox Rhys."

"You like him."

"I did eventually. She's got a baby now. Its not mine. It might be Owen's. It doesn't matter."

"Ianto." the Doctor reminded. "He was your Rose."

"He was." Jack said slowly, there were tears in his eyes but he wasn't broken, not yet, his history holding it together for now. "I loved her Doctor, as much as I loved you and maybe more near the end there. She was… she was phenomenal Doctor, wasn't she?"

"Yes." the Time Lord croaked.

"How do I live without him?" Jack sobbed. For once, the Doctor had reason to pause, reaching out he wrapped his arms around the shattered time agent. Burying his face in the mans shoulder as he was clutched in return.

"You don't." he whispered softly. "You go on as you always did, you suffer and you cry and you scream and you get a little harder with the world. But people like that don't die Jack, not like others do, they aren't forgotten, and they never fade away."

"But he's gone."

"Yes he is." the Doctor murmured. "But when you live as long as we do Jack, you'll learn, no one is ever truly gone."