Written at the end of the Doctor Who/Torchwood crossover episodes, when Rose is trapped in other dimension, presumably forever. Doctor/Rose, Doctor/Jack. Sorta open-form.
JACK ≠ ROSE
by vernajast
There used to be a sign above the door—"For the protection of the realm."—and there were rumors Queen Victoria carved it out herself. That she insisted on it instead of her embroidery, sitting beside the newly widowed Lady Torchwood in the firelight of the very study in which he vanquished some great beast of folklore.
All in a day's work for that pair, right, Jack? (Your hand in blonde hair...)
Once, you slid your hand across that word, 'protection,' and felt a hundred years of history pass as whispers through your fingertips, suddenly so very aware of the way time flowed around you, but never through, never with you or you with it.
You wondered if that was the way of him, and if that was why he didn't—You never touched it again, though the urge was always there.
Because it had to be the same with him, and you knew without a doubt that he wasn't just away. He was avoiding you. Is avoiding you.
What you represent is too poignant, utter and stark against the backdrop of history and a million Jack Harknesses. The reminder that he is alone in the universe. In all universes.
You're a fact, Jack, and Rose Tyler is anathema.
You are here, Jack, and Rose, Rose is just gone.
Rose, gone. Rose.
You break his hearts, Jack, because you're the answer to his loneliness, but he knows knows, with every glance, that she made you, and in you lies the crux of his pain and his joy and he'll have nothing of it. A good doctor knows, 'moderation in all things,' a good doctor knows when to stop, and he is a very good doctor, indeed, the best, even if he is starving himself in the process.
Moderation in everything, and the next time he sees you, you'll know better, and some will call it wisdom. He won't recognize you, and that dull ache he hides not-so-well will be buried behind his smiling eyes. The Jack-bloody-Harkness he knew, Jackie-boy, Jack, Jack you won't have it in you to wrench it out of him, that sorrow, by confessing the way you traded one name for another and suggesting one last go 'round the universe.
Some will call it wisdom. Some will even call you wise.
But it doesn't matter what they call you, and you know it. Captain, John, The Face of Boe, the serial number you were born with...failure...it doesn't matter at all.
You are a fixed point, a wrongness in time and space, a fact. And this is a fact, too:
JACK will never spell ROSE will never spell JACK will never be ENOUGH.