Rated for language and discussion on death. Mild spoilers (quotes) taken from "A Day in the Death", "They Keep Killing Suzie", and "Utopia".

There's this plant on Segria Nine. Birds and insects are drawn to it more than any other flower on the planet. I don't know if it's the color or the nectar or what draws them in; all I know is that it kills them pretty amazingly quickly.

That's what we are, Doctor, isn't it, you and me? Beautiful poison.

What do you do when you can't take it anymore? Drawing them in, killing them, losing them. Every time it feels like dying, and I'm the man who can never fucking die.

I believed people, I believed them when they said it would get better! So what do you think, doctor, d'you really think it's gonna get any better?

What if I left? Withdrew. Kept myself away from them. Couldn't hurt them. Could I do that? I don't think I can. I know myself. Other people make this life I have no choice in worth living, just a little bit. Just for a little while. But then they go, one way or another, always leaving me alone and there has to be a time when a human being just can't fucking take it anymore.

Maybe that's your secret, Doctor. Oh, I know you care. But at the core, you're not human. I am. I have all their beauty and failings in me always. But you and I do have something in common: we're toxic to them. To all of them. Even to each other, now, because I'm wrong and you said it. Because now that we've each lost so many people we love we've reached the point where we can't remember the good times together anymore, because of all the sorrows in between and everything we blame each other for.

You're right. I could have been there to save Macie, and Adrian, and Kaityl, and that lieutenant whose name we never figured out. I could have been in London to save Rose.

I'm still bitter. Where the fuck were you the days when I lost everything that mattered to me? Sworn to observe, never to interfere. You liar. Don't give me shit about fixed points in time. You could have saved them.

But then, I guess we all say that to you, by the end. Save them. Save me. Been a long time since I've said that to you. Maybe after last time, I gave up. And never really noticed.

I keep getting it wrong, don't I? It's always my fault, it never bloody stops being my fault.

So how much can we blame each other for? How much can we forgive each other? How can I keep loving these beautiful mortal creatures when I'm going to bury every single one of them? Even you, damn it. Even you.

Do you want to die, Jack?

Yeah, Doctor, sometimes I do.

~fin~

AN: just a slightly strange thing that demanded to be written at midnight after reading some of Nancy Brown's lovely, intriguing "Intersections" series. Jack Harkness and the Doctor are the intellectual property of someone other than myself. I just... dabble :)