Title: Understanding
Summary: Jack doesn't understand the Doctor's compassion towards the Master at the end of the Year that Never Was.
Spoilers: "The Last of the Time Lords" (Doctor Who season 3) and "Exit Wounds" (Torchwood season 2)
Disclaimer: I'm still living paycheck to paycheck, so Doctor Who, Torchwood, and any characters, concepts, or places therein, must not be mine.
As I watched you cradling the dead body of the Master in your arms, the tears streaming from your eyes, I couldn't understand why you felt such grief for that psychopath.
Why did you forgive the man who tortured and humiliated you?
How could you cry at his passing when you knew he was torturing me to the point of death and beyond nearly every day of that year?
How could you stop Francine from shooting him, knowing the suffering that the Jones family endured?
Why did you grant him the courtesy of a ceremonial cremation when you knew that our Martha had walked the Earth for an entire year in the hopes of defeating him?
But, as I prepare to place my brother, Gray, into a vault where he will sleep forever, my thoughts wander to you, Doctor, and to that moment on the Valiant.
And now I understand.
The End