Farewell To A Friend

The Doctor stood silently for a moment, consumed by grief, and in mourning. Hefelt the lump begin to form in his throat, but he wasn't going to give them the satisfaction of seeing him cry!

He'd known the kind of fate that Jack would have endured. The pain would have felt like ten-thousand volts of electricity shooting through his body - pain the likes of which Jack was unlikely to have ever felt In his life before. Still Jack hadn't given them the satisfaction either - the satisfaction of seeing him suffer, in what he must have realised were his last few moments of life - not a whimper of his inevitable distress.

He'd been brave - braver than himself the Doctor thought. Hed sent one companion to his death, and the other home because he couldn't bare the prospect of losing her too. Jack however had proven himself worthy with his one selfless act of self sacrifice.

The Captain – a con-man turned hero – had given his life so that others may have the chance to live, and the Doctor couldn't have been more proud of the man - nor indeed more overwhelmed by the knowledge that he'd just lost a very dear and true friend.

He'd suspected that Jack had seen war before, but never like this. The Doctor had heard Jack's plight, listened to the last words of a doomed and dying man, but had known that there was nothing he could do to save him. Jack had been alone, facing a ruthless and merciless enemy - perhaps from the moment he'd said goodbye to the Time Lord and Rose he'd been doomed to die. He should have got them both out whilst he'd had the chance. But he knew that neither of them would have wanted that. Rose would never have accepted the plan had she realised the Doctor's true intentions - before he'd locked her in the TARDIS and sent her home. Jack wouldn't have let him send him away either.

In that moment the Doctor wanted to scream, he wanted to get down on his hands and knees, fists clenched, and curse the very planet he'd been fighting to protect, the very planet which they'd all been fighting to protect, fighting with their lives - that Jack had died protecting. He wanted to wipe every last stinking Dalek out of existence. The race had not only destroyed his planet, his home, obliterated his people, taken his own family away from him, but had now also taken a close and trusted friend! No truer man had the Doctor ever had travel with him - no lesser hero.

Even though Jack hadn't himself managed to defeat the Dalek's - single handed that would have been some feat - he'd managed to buy the Time Lord the few extra minutes he'd needed to finish the Delta Wave, which was required to finish the Dalek's off!

He'd have to be strong like Jack, go against everything he'd ever believed in! If not he'd let the Captain down, and Jack's death would be in vein! He'd have died for nothing! He owed it to him more than ever now to see this through! After all had this not all been his suggestion? Was it not therefore his fault?

As the doors slid open and hundreds of Dalek's flooded into the control room, surrounding him, he saw Jack's face in the reflection of every one of the repulsive weapons they now had aimed in his direction… not that his life meant very much to him anymore.

He was alone again, with nobody to care what happened to him and nobody to fight for. There was nobody to anguish over whether he were to win or lose, live or die! But as he looked over at the computer screens submitting the live image feed from deep space, of planet earth itself, he thought of all of the millions of people he would be condemning to death, innocent lives lost through no fault of their own. Their blood would be on his hands, and the Doctor realised that he couldn't do it! He couldn't allow the human race to die! Perhaps they really were better off living their lives as a Darlek than not at all, and if this really was the end for him then he was ready to embrace his death.

He would no longer be here to concern himself with picking up the pieces! He was fed up of picking up the pieces, always of someone else's war, when he was always left empty and alone himself by the end of it all! Jack and Rose would be the last two companions he'd ever lose. He'd saved the best for last… together they'd made the Time Lord the happiest he'd ever been… and at least his memories would remain intact!

He was sorry for Rose, sorry that she'd never know - sorry that neither of them would ever know how much they'd meant to him and how much he'd loved them. The Doctor knew that he didn't have long.

The Dalek's wouldn't keep him talking for much longer, he only had minutes to spare at the most - and in those final last few minutes the Doctor said one last silent and final farewell to a friend!