For V. I know Torchwood wasn't on your list, but I got this plot bunny after reading your beta profile. If you hate it, I'm sorry.
Centuries that man had been alive and somehow he'd never managed time to think.
"I'm trying Uncle Jack," hissed Alice, having the same argument they've had a hundred times before. "This is hard."
"I know," he said, using the voice he reserved just for keeping others quiet because he thought his torment was so much weightier than anyone else's.
"No," she said flatly. "You don't."
"Then explain," he pleaded. He stepped toward her.
She stepped back, and shook her head. "I have. Steven's getting older. You need to decide when's the last visit."
"Does it have to be now?"
She got the door for him. "They'll always be another Christmas, another birthday. It's never going to get any easier."
She waited for him to say something, or to go, but instead he stood there, staring.
"I tried," she whispered now, her throat so tight it felt like she were forcing the words through a straw, "but I don't want to him to have to. He doesn't need to know everything that's out there. It's all aliens, and death, and darkness with you."
Jack blinked rapidly. "Just give him this?" He handed over a wrapped package.
She nodded. "Goodnight, Dad."
It broke her heart when he smiled before he left, but it shattered it to throw the box in the bin before she headed off to bed.