Sunset, Long Awaited
Disclaimer - All characters are the property of BBC TV and I am making no profit from their use.
Jack finally understands how much he's travelled, lived, done one day in the 63rd Century, when his Doctor steps slowly away from the Tardis controls and grins at him.
It's a slow walk for effect, not because he's struggling – Jack's learning to tell the difference.
'Every planet and timeframe around here appears to have a Harkness shaped set of bio-rhythms there already.' His voice is stern, with a slight Highlands lilt in this incarnation – Jack can't imagine why. Keen blue eyes of a shade he can never quite determine. And copper hair now streaked with silver that seems to multiply every time Jack looks. It's a fresh shock, every time, to realise that his Doctor is getting old.
'And?'
It's occurred to him that this might be a rebuke, so he starts apologising and is rescued by the Doctor giving him a gentle shove. Horseplay. He shoves back and they both laugh, Time Lord and Timeless alike.
'Are you saying we've already done all these planets?' Jack asks once he's got his breath back.
'Yes. And my dignity won't survive being around two of you at once.'
'Dignity?' Jack snorts and makes a grab for the luminous purple flower that the Doctor's taken to wearing as a buttonhole. 'Nothing to miss there.'
The Doctor goes to shove him down onto the nearest seat; Jack reaches up and grabs him, and they're both on the floor before he remembers all those years when the Doctor was too aloof, too alien, to play. This, he thinks, is better.
The Tardis senses the mood of her passengers and skips well out into a different sector of the universe where the Doctor has an encounter with a talking forest and Jack ticks six new, sapient, species off his dance-card. They laugh, and they talk, and Jack can hear the seconds spilling past.
Another four hundred years pass, in no kind of order. The Doctor's hair turns from silver streaked to silver with streaks of white, bright as fresh snowfall. More and more often, the planets they want to visit are full of their past selves; twelve Doctors and one Captain who have made the stars their home. Quite often, it amuses them both.
Other times, Jack's suffocated by the sense of time bolting away and he shadows the Time Lord as closely as he dares. He can feel the ache of a loss yet to come; every night they sleep is a night closer to the end of their time. He feels feverish, restless.
But there are benefits. With the Doctor already having attending most of the crisis points in the universe, life slows down. One war / uprising / natural disaster a week becomes one a month, one a season until they realise an entire year's eased past and neither of them have been injured, threatened or imprisoned. The planets they can visit are limited to those they've previously ignored.
The Doctor takes him across such beautiful landscapes that he thinks he might weep. Worlds where ice hangs in the air like flowers, and a river that runs with water the shade of moonshine, and wonders that even the Doctor can't name. Places where they've never needed the Doctor.
They rush less. The Doctor's hair is all snow white and his walk changes. Jack notices it gradually; he no longer strides out as though he wishes to challenge the world. Instead, he walks steadily, peacefully, by Jack's side.
He smiles more often.
The words that he brings to mind now are things like 'accepting. Content. At peace.'
On one planet, he finds they've lingered for three months, and that the Doctor's as content as he is. All of their losses seem so very, very far away and the pain is dulled by millennia. The Doctor tells him that he's no longer scaring the locals, that he no longer seems to be on the edge of violence all the time.
It's a change that he can't accept, until he realises that he lost his pistol some time ago and hasn't noticed it. He never replaces it.
Eventually, he realises that he's grown old as well as his guardian. He will slow down; the Doctor, who seems to burn with life still, will not. Those flames will burn as brightly at the moment of his death as at any other moment in his long lives. That thought gives him comfort.
They talk and they travel, meandering from one wonder to another. They laugh a great deal, and on one endless afternoon when they're waiting for the Tardis to refuel and the Time Lord's whinging about being bored, he buys him a drink and they dance. It changes everything and nothing.
Their life is one of peace now, and deep, quiet joy. He thinks it's the Universe's reward for his Doctor. The Doctor says 'that's rubbish' and adds some speculation about just how far back in Jack's bloodline the apes are, before pointing out a passing comet trailing diamonds behind it.
He comes to believe the Doctor will outlast the Tardis, which now requires care that even her beloved pilot can't provide. Their flights seem to be made possible by a mixture of willing and luck; several times, he's sure that he hears the Tardis apologising, but the Doctor never appears to mind if they land off course.
But, they are happy.
Sometimes, they even admit it to each other.
Very happy. Very lucky.
The last thing Jack remembers is the Doctor's wide-eyed, teeth bared grin of excitement. He sees his stern Northern guardian in that smile, and his excitable, floppy-haired friend, and the impossibly young fez-wearing maniac who took him back on the Tardis and the big-framed ginger haired man who he'd loved even more ardently than the ones who went before, all in the face of the white haired, smiling old man. All the love, compassion, pride, bravery, intelligence, beauty of all his Doctors in one quick glance.
And why not? This last ditch rescue will, he knows, turn the tide in favour of the rebels. Trust the Doctor to find a bunch of them even out in a God-forsaken desert. He'd always wondered what stopped the war here. A madman and a box of course – what else? What better sort of God could they expect?
Jack's never doubted him. Never has, never will; he remembers saying that once before.
They've won.
Jack's not sure what shatters first; the Doctor's hearts after his last ditch bolt to the Tardis, or the Tardis after her leap towards the Vortex, or his own link to the Time Vortex. Whatever, he feels three quick breaks and sees the Doctor's wondering, beautiful smile.
There's calmness and nothing to call him back this time.
Around the three of them, ahead and behind them, before their births and after their deaths, across galaxies and light years, the Doctor and the Captain live on forever.