Title – Don't Try to Stop Me
Rating – PG-13
Fandom – Doctor Who
Warnings – M/M relationship, spoilers for CoE and EoT
Genre and Themes – Angst, love and a little fluff thrown in.
Pairing – Jack/10
Summary – It was time for the Doctor to say goodbye.
The Doctor got up, glancing back at Jack, still so peacefully asleep and ignorant of what was going on around him. He was smiling gently, and the Doctor wondered what had made him so happy, half-hoping it was the idea of them being together, but knowing it probably was a dream about someone else.
He buttoned his shirt, and still Jack didn't stir, dreaming on with that queer smile on his face still, and the Doctor quirked a grin in response, suddenly doubling up as he was reminded why they had had to rush so much. "I've got a time machine, and yet I don't have enough time," he muttered, waiting until the pain subsided, before hurriedly finishing getting dressed, still as quietly as he could manage.
He'd got to his suit jacket before Jack woke, not saying a word, but the Doctor knew he was being watched. "Gonna sneak out before I could get all upset?" Jack asked, voice still thick with sleep and eyes struggling to focus through the gloom. The Doctor froze in sorting his collar out and turned slowly to face Jack. The look on the Timelord's face brought home the gravity of the situation, and all thoughts of weariness left Jack instantly.
"Never," was all the Doctor said, loosely tying his tie but maintaining eye contact with his lover. "I'd never run away." Jack could almost taste the unsaid words at the end of that sentence, and knew that this was the zenith of where they'd been heading since the Doctor picked him up in that bar last night.
Jack disentangled himself from the bedsheets, walking up to the Doctor who was still studying his shoes as though they were inherently more interesting than anything else. Jack knew it was a cover for what he was really feeling, and when he finally stopped in front of the Doctor, his Doctor, he lifted the Timelord's head and smiled at him. "I'll miss you." The Doctor didn't think he could answer that, so was grateful when Jack removed any need for further words by kissing him hard and needy, fingers tangled in the Doctor's untidy hair.
They pulled back from one another, touching foreheads. "You have to go, don't you?" Jack whispered, feeling the Doctor nod. There was a pause, nothing uncomfortable, just both of them remembering what it felt like to hold the other in their arms, the way they kiss and the way they smell. Then the Doctor pulled away, grabbing his coat and putting it on, going to the door as quickly as he could before his nerve broke – again. "I love you," Jack called suddenly, spontaneously, and heartbreakingly, that was the first time the words passed between them.
The Doctor turned, and saw Jack, still completely naked, standing in the middle of the room, looking as forlorn and tragic as the Doctor had ever seen the immortal, and, for the first time in a long time, the Doctor felt his hearts break. "I love you, too," he said, then turned and was gone, leaving Jack to return to the bed and stare out of the window.