I do not own Torchwood, Dr. Who, or associate characters, they are copyright of the BBC. I'm just a fan with a few ideas and some spare time. If you would like to see the banners that go along with the story, mad for me by the awesome Chris, please just visit the link on my profile page that goes to my Livejournal. Thank you, I hope you enjoy the read and reviews/constructive criticism are greatly appreciated by the author.
A Father
Prologue: Hate and Love, Flesh and Blood
If nothing else, Jack Harkness' life, long as it was, was full of situations that had him lost with the varying emotions involved. To make that short: his heart never learned to stop searching for the love that always ended up shattering it. Being roughly two-thousand years old one would think that he would have stopped torturing himself long before the 456 forced him to become his own worst nightmare.
Ianto and Gwen would both forever say that he had no choice when he talked about it in later years. Gwen, even while holding a then month old RJ, said that if their situations had been reversed and it was her boy that was the only option she would have made the same choice he did. It would have killed her, she admitted, but even as a mother she realized that millions came before one. Ianto had tearfully agreed, saying even as much as he loved David and Mica he would have given one of them up had it come down to it, backing Gwen's thesis of millions before the individual. That's why they worked at Torchwood, after all, they understood all to well—particularly after the deaths of Tosh and Owen—just what sacrifice meant.
He had thanked them but their words, kind as they were, meant little to Jack. The price, this time, had been almost too much for him to bear. All that kept him from running were his obligations to his teammates, the institute and, most importantly, to the daughter he knew would never willingly speak to him again. He owed Alice so much more than the money he dropped into her bank account each month and certainly so much better than to have her watched as he did but Jack did both just the same. Even if neither gave him as much as a second of relief.
Jack wouldn't even tell anyone his real name so it couldn't be a surprise that he never told anyone how he really felt, especially if he loved them. If he were to make a list of people he loved Alice would have been at the very top of it, and Jack doubted he had ever said the phrase to her more than twice. He was a wretched excuse of a father just for that, he couldn't deny it.
Lucia and he had never been in love, not even for a moment, and they had never pretended to be. The times they spent together were best likened to a Roman candle, easily sparked and quickly finished. Still, when Lucia had told him that she was pregnant Jack had felt thrilled for a moment before the worry of his child inheriting his "problem" surfaced. It was almost funny, the way he'd worried about his unborn baby having too much life while other fathers were concerned with the infant mortality rate. This unease had been interpreted by Lucia as dislike and at once what trust the two Torchwood employees had held in one another faded. Things between them moved from awkward to tense more quickly than he'd ever anticipated, so the night she disappeared he wasn't awfully surprised.
The mother of his child had been clever woman and it took even Torchwood's finest months to find out just where Lucia had gone. By the time they located her new home in Surrey Jack was the father of a baby girl and hadn't even known it. Angry he had stormed off to meet with Lucia at once and demand his rights as a father be respected. That anger, however, fell to pieces when, as his voice became louder and Lucia's protests turned into pleas for him to leave, his daughter had made the first sound he was ever to hear from her: a wail. The first reaction Jack's voice had brought to his girl was a cry. He had hurt her, scared her mother, and in a moment of crystalline clarity Jack Harkness could see that this was all he was ever going to bring her.
Jack was going to bring his little Melissa—as that was her birth name—pain, he knew that for certain. No matter how hard he tried or how much he loved her, he would eventually only do to her what he seemed to do to everyone who ever came into his life, he would hurt her. His intentions didn't matter; in the end Melissa would carry scars and all because half of her came from him.
He'd resolved, as he watched Lucia soothe and cradle their daughter, that he would do whatever he had to to protect her. Jack also knew the most obvious way to do that even before Lucia suggested it moments later. If Melissa were to live well at all she would have to be far away from him. So after holding her for a moment and praying to a God that he was sure wasn't there that she would somehow remember his voice, he agreed to stay away.
It was, at that point, the hardest thing he'd ever had to do. Even though over the years he broke the agreement and popped back into his daughter's life, each time he walked away it killed him a little more. Worse than that, he knew it hurt his girl as well. Jack missed out on many things during that twenty-year battle with himself, or rather, cheated her out of many things. He wasn't there when she learned how to talk, or walk, he missed the first day of school, he never taught her how to ride a bicycle, and his daughter had no father to tell her she was beautiful during those awkward teen years. He had offered to walk her down the isle when she and Joe announced their engagement but by then Melissa was Alice and the gap between father and daughter was too wide. His one consolation over that whole event was that they eloped; though after the marriage fell apart he was allowed to bear part of the blame; Alice had pointed out how his lacking paternal skills contributed to her fear of letting anyone get close. Jack had missed every really important event in his daughter's life with the exception of one and that he would have been happy to have been a million miles away for.
There were no words to describe the pain Jack felt while he watched Alice weeping with Steven's small body in her arms. He had never seen her cry before, not since the day that his voice had startled her as a newborn, and it broke his heart irreparably. And the worst part was that he had done this to her, just as he had always known he would. Jack had broken his little girl and there would never ever be a way for him to fix her. There was no longer a gap between father and daughter because a gap espoused the possibility of a bridge. Not any more, though, Jack had burnt all of that away, losing his daughter just as surely as he had lost his grandson.
It was bad enough that the survival of the human race had cost an innocent life, let alone the life of his grandchild, and he couldn't blame Alice for hating him. Jack knew there was no atonement to gain her absolution, she could have buried him in the center of the earth for a million years to burn and that still wouldn't have covered a fraction of due penance. No, there was nothing in the universe that would ever earn Jack Alice's forgiveness—but that didn't mean he didn't dream of it. And it would be that dream that primarily pushed him forward over the next few years.
Many, many, many things happened between the "456 Fiasco", as those five days in September would be called and the next phase of the man called Jack Harkness' life. Jack, of course, found himself with Torchwood at the eye of all the major ones. He may have committed prolicide and died a good deal inside but the world went on, had to go on, and with the chaos that erupted in the wake of Early September there was plenty to keep him busy. Never too busy to lose tabs on his little girl, though.
Alice became Annette Comber and moved to Saint-Raphaël as he, Ianto, and Gwen welcomed Martha Jones, Andy Davidson, Mickey Smith, Louis Habiba, and Liz Johnson—along with several men loyal to her—into the Torchwood fold during November. Personally he approved of the move; France had refused to comply with the 456 so their government wasn't turning to hell. And besides that his little girl had always been quite brilliant when it came to the local language. Jack looked through the special box where he kept all Melissa/Alice-related memorabilia during those days, taking particular time to smile over all the A's and gold stars she'd received in her French modules.
This was between excavations of what remained of the Hub, of course, where they found the bottommost level, which held most of the bodies and important safes-and Myfawny, no less-had not been destroyed. In a simultaneously sweet and macabre gesture he taped a picture of Alice and Steven to Gray's cryogenic pod. Jack later joked to his friends that now he only had to make one trip to see all the family members who hated him; not even Ianto ever knew that he sobbed like a baby with a bottle of bourbon the night he did it.
While Jack was working with his new team as well as some "out of town" friends to expand and revolutionize the Torchwood Institute during the next few months, Annette Comber purchased a small villa. It was a buy that she wouldn't have long to enjoy since the June of 2010 saw the most trouble Earth had been in for a long time, though, this round aliens had nothing to do with it. No it was the Cromwell Group, an organization affiliated with UNIT, which almost carelessly allowed a canister of biological devastation out into the world. The moment that the Sanguine virus was detected Jack decided that since his relationship with his daughter could not get any worse, kidnapping her to a secured location for protection was as good an idea as any.
Annette's ensured survival became the one real comfort Jack had as he watched helplessly while the virus took roughly three billion lives in the course of just a few months. The team took heavy losses as it always did during these crises. Gwen lost all her family, save the baby, to the virus, Ianto his brother-in-law and for Martha only her husband would survive. Just under half of the world's population was wiped out in four months before Martha—with a little help from Torchwood—developed a cure/vaccine. Along with what was left of the world's military the institute spent from December 9th of 2010 to July 17th of 2011 just doing cleanup around the globe with the governments hanging on by the barest of threads even with Shadow Proclamation assistance. All the while, Annette Comber sat in an underground facility, safe from the madness that consumed everything else. Around the same time that Jack authorized his daughter's release from the Torchwood safe house in May the captain found himself in a new and surprising position.
Looking back he was always sure that it could somehow be linked to the game of naked hide-'n-seek he and Ianto started after the first good day to be had in months. Gwen had come in on them and for whatever reason his invitations to join their "game" disguised as jokes hit home that time. Three hours later they were all curled under the same blanket sharing a tub of chocolate ice cream. When June 2011 rolled around and the Torchwood staff finally found it safe to move themselves and their family from the Hub the three of them found a nice house in the suburbs. There was plenty of real estate to pick from, considering roughly half of the city's inhabitants were gone and all. At the same time that Jack, Ianto, Gwen, and little RJ moved into the big white house upon Coch Glyn, Annette Comber took in several children orphaned by the virus. She, along with her foundlings, would make a fresh start from the ashes of the world. The pictures Jack's "friends" took of her and her new charges as they worked in the gardens of her French villa warmed what was left of his heart. Father and daughter seemed to be pushing out of their respective cocoons at the same time.
He found himself almost happy as he worked to fix the world and make a new, better Torchwood. His sins were never forgotten, of course, not matter how long he lived Jack would always find that wound upon his heart made by the look on the then Alice's face as she held her dead boy fresh and stinging. Nonetheless he did find a way to bear that pain and he knew it was all because of Gwen, Ianto, and the life they were sharing. Annette Comber built a new life with a new family on the French Riviera while Jack constructed his own and oiled the gears of a new Torchwood Institute in Wales. She was never far from his thoughts, though, and became especially prominent amongst them all over again in May of 2012.
Somewhere between helping to cremate the masses of the dead, setting up vaccination units, and making sure that the whole world didn't just topple into chaos Ianto, Gwen, and he had become a little careless in other areas. No one suspected anything for the longest time, partially because they were all so busy but also, Jack had to admit, because the three of them could be more than a little thick when it came to matters that didn't specifically concern Torchwood anymore. The really bad part was that it wasn't until Gwen complained about her clothes not fitting right that a light bulb had gone off for either man. An hour later the ball of fear that had begun to form in Jack's stomach nearly exploded and stopped his heart after a grinning Martha gave them her congratulations on the twins expected in late December.
He kept all the terror he felt completely to himself this round, though it was definitely still there. Jack showed Gwen and Ianto nothing but the happiest of faces while inside he was fairly well retching with fear. He just knew he was going to ruin an innocent life all over again.
Gwen didn't want to risk checking paternity in-womb; Ianto agreed with her and so did Jack once they'd submitted their opinion. He laughed along with his two lovers as they agreed it would be a lovely Christmas surprise; Jack even said he'd put bassinets beneath the tree that year with great big bows on them. In truth, though, he was planning to be gone long before she went into delivery. Jack Harkness knew what kind of father he was and the farther away he was from these children the better off they would be, whether they shared his genes or not.
He wanted a carefully planned absence though; Gwen, Ianto, RJ, the institute, not to mention the twins would deserve so much more from him than the usual disappearing-dad act. He'd done that to Alice—repeatedly too—and if nothing else Jack wanted closure for those he'd be leaving behind. A lie was still a lie but that was so much better than vanishing and leaving a thousand loose ends.
So, as Jack assisted with the Earth-Shadow Proclamation negotiations at work and picked out decorations for the new nursery at home he also plotted his own "death". There were salt traders from the Braxas nebula who owed him a favor who and they agreed to hover over China for a few days at the end of December to pick him up. It was the perfect way to tactfully disappear from the life he'd built in Cardiff; an alien abduction. Poetic justice, or at least fairly close to it.
As all best laid plans do, however, Jack found his escape went to pieces in the end, quite literally the end. It was odd looking back how until the fateful December afternoon nothing managed to sway him. Jack spent eight months pretending to be an eagerly waiting father and/or foster-father, buying baby things, and attending to Gwen's every hormonal whim with Ianto, yet in all that time his faith in running away didn't waver a bit. Not even the truly intimate things like hearing the twins' heartbeats for the first time had fazed him and, side by side with Ianto, Jack followed Gwen into the delivery room the morning of December 21st, still intending to go off radar in ten more days. He held the mother-to-be's hand, allowing her to practically break his bones while Ianto played support, reminding her of breathing exercises and that it was all going to be just fine. Jack went through the motions flawlessly, playing all the appropriate appearances with style and grace just as he'd been doing—until he heard the cry.
It was a wail unlike anything he had ever heard before, Jack had even been ready to label it as inhuman until he realized—thankfully—a nanosecond later why he felt that way. It was not like the first time he'd heard a baby girl cry, a series of frightened keens because he'd been shouting at her mother in frustration; not in the slightest. The sound that this little girl—and how he knew it was a girl before even seeing her or hearing the doctor's announcement Jack would never fathom—made as she was pulled screaming, red, and slimy from her mother was one of zeal. How that was the discernable emotion Jack couldn't say but that was what he believed he heard coming from those tiny lungs all his life. She was alive, healthy, aware and there and she was happy to be that, so very happy.
And so was Jack. He hadn't thought he could be happy, honestly happy, after what he'd done to Alice and Steven, after all of his too-long existence started to weigh down upon him. Jack had done so many things, good, bad and that grayness in between, that such a simplistic, warm, emotion barely even registered in his head anymore. All along he had been aware that he was shutting down on the inside; that was simply an inevitable part of the plan, if he was going to protect anyone he would have to become numb. The transformation to an immortal, emotionless hunk of meat, however, came to an abrupt stop with the first cries of that newborn baby girl and everything hit him like a mac truck. Plans and running away no longer mattered; Jack Harkness was staying right there on Earth. He needed to be a better father to his second daughter and, even though Jack would never be able to so much as meet her face-to-face again, he still had to look after his first.
Eve Jane Harkness was born right at noon on December 21st, 2012 with Owain John following about three minutes later. It was a twinning that the doctors called heteropaternal superfecundation, a fancy term that meant the newborns had different fathers. Owain belonged to Ianto, of course. Jack cried as he became the first to hold the still squalling Eve, and, much to his elation, the first get her to quiet down. To little Owain Jack became the first person whom he would ever spit up on, and, quite frankly, the immortal was elated with that too.
The day passed quickly from then on out with many of their friends and colleagues stopping by to give congratulations. Even Johnson, stony soldier that she was, let a coo or two slip at the babies before she gave the three of them her report on the treaty signed earlier that day which placed Earth in the Shadow Proclamation Alliance. She hadn't been gone ten minutes when the last person Jack expected to ever see in a maternity ward showed up. Though, at first he really didn't recognize him and almost lost his temper with the young looking man gazing too intently at his sleeping family.
Luckily for them both the Doctor gave himself away fairly quickly by saying, "Well, Jack, I do believe this is the first time I've come around that you didn't try to hug me." The pale youth smiled. "Twelve hours of fatherhood have obviously worn you down quite a bit." The slight—unintentional—condescension in the voice coupled with eyes that were too old for a twenty-something face solved the puzzle for Jack and after jumping out of his chair quietly as he could, he rushed over to embrace the newest form of his oldest friend.
"Doctor," the captain said in a voice that was still mindful of the sleepers behind him yet still breathless with glee at the sight of the Time Lord. "Doctor, I am glad to see you."
The Doctor chuckled, patting the Captain on the back as he let him go. "I thank you for the sentiment, Jackie, but I find it hard to believe you've had enough time to think of me." The Time Lord's eyes twinkled mischievously as they darted to Gwen and Ianto who were peacefully snoring in the background. "Looks to me you've been very busy."
It was Jack's turn to laugh softly as he agreed. "You have no idea," he told him. "No idea at all."
There must have been a shade of melancholy or bitterness in his voice that Jack hadn't meant to let slip, but slip out it did and The Doctor, being The Doctor, caught onto it. The former Time Agent saw something shift in those too-old hazel eyes, something he would later believe to be a combination of guilt, sadness, and possibly anger too, before the younger looking man touched his arm and suggested they go grab a cup of coffee. Jack was taken slightly aback by the suggestion but knowing The Doctor's way of veiling his points until the proper time, he went along with it. After jotting a quick note which was left on Gwen's tray-table, Jack followed The Doctor down into the canteen.
In the few, almost tranquil moments that existed between the maternity ward and the purchasing of two cups of mediocre Arabica brew, Jack had some time to gauge this "new" Doctor. He found the youngness of this form overall a tad surprising, the previous incarnations he'd known both seemed in the same age group so the gap was interesting, to say the least. Personality wise he felt that there was an even mix of Time Lord he'd known as a mortal and as an immortal this round. Calm without that biting edge, and cheerful enough without the chattiness, was perhaps the best description. Overall, in the little time they actually spent together that day, Jack would say he was as fond of this Doctor as he was of the previous two.
They sat together for sometime in a nice, quiet corner conveniently blocked by one of those tacky wax trees that hospitals always seemed to stack about. For any two other men the silence between sips of coffee would have been uncomfortable, but not for them. The Doctor and Jack Harkness were two men who had lived far too long and seen far too many things to be put off by the quiet of a 3 AM hospital canteen.
"So, I spoke with the Brig today after the ceremony in Geneva," The Doctor broke the silence, his tone was casual. "Well, technically it would be tomorrow, considering I've traveled back but," he shrugged, as if the noncommittal gesture finished the statement. "But, anyway, he told me all about how UNIT fell to pieces." A slightly bitter light passed through his hazel eyes before they darted to his hands. "He said that Torchwood found the labs that Colonel Harris oversaw."
Jack made a noise of disgust. "Not bloody soon enough," he said. "We didn't figure out the virus was human made until at least a billion people were dead. We didn't even trace it back to Harris until the middle of last year." The immortal took a long drink before continuing. "I'm just sorry that UNIT's paying for that sociopath's mistake."
Another vague shrug of the shoulders came from The Doctor. "It's probably for the best," he said. "UNIT was too…army, you know? They got a little reckless." There was a very brief pause. "A bit like Torchwood One, wouldn't you say?"
That was a loaded question if ever there was one and Jack knew that a simple, honest answer wasn't going to cut it. The captain stared at the faux granite tabletop, blue eyes following random patterns made up by the grains as he searched for the best response. He wasn't sure just how much time had passed before he was finally ready to reply, but it felt like a good chunk. Jack licked his dry lips and took a deep, nearly shuddering, breath before he began.
"We won't be like them," Jack said in a voice that was so clear and firm he almost doubted it to be his own.
"You can't promise that," The Doctor reminded him. "Immortal or not, Jackie, you won't be able to account for Torchwood's actions forever and you know that."
"Yes, I do," he agreed. "And I do know I can't promise, either. But—" as The Doctor's left eyebrow flagged, "—I believe we will do good. Real good, something the human race can be proud of."
A wry smile graced The Doctor's lips. "You believe that another military—"
"Semi-military," Jack cut in.
The Doctor rolled his eyes before continuing. "Right. You believe that another semi-military organization will really be able to do good for humankind? For the universe?" A startling darkness flickered in those hazel-eyes and for just a moment the young face showed all nine-hundred odd years of its hard won knowledge. In that moment Jack was also more frightened than he could ever recall being. Luckily, like most of The Doctor's secrets, it disappeared back beneath his skin quicker than the blink of an eye.
Still rattled, Jack took a moment and another, definitely shaking, breath before he replied. "No, Doctor, I don't believe that Torchwood is going to do good for humankind or the universe." Jack raised his eyes from the table finally daring to meet the Time Lord's once more and this time his gaze was square and unyielding. "What I believe is that the people who make up Torchwood will do good for humankind and the universe. I don't believe that we can be perfect but I believe we can try. I mean, that's what the human race is best at, isn't it? Trying? Falling is just a part of flying, Doctor; you know that better than anyone."
Jack was somewhat breathless at the end of his little speech and he felt no shame in tearing his eyes from The Doctor's as he inhaled a few fresh lungfuls. The no longer comfortable silence that popped up gave the former Time Agent time to debate on whether or not his words were impassioned or simply hot air. He was leaning towards the thought that he'd sounded like a blithering idiot when The Doctor finally let his opinion be known.
"Hmm, fair enough," the younger looking man said right before downing what was left of his coffee. Jack stared at him, caught in limbo between annoyance and amazement at the reaction as The Doctor swallowed then made a face at his empty mug. "Bleh, terrible stuff, they have in here isn't it? But then again, it's a canteen in a hospital, there's not much to expect." He smiled suddenly and stood. "So, do I get to see the little ones?"
A few seconds passed with Jack lost in the abrupt change of mood and subject with the other man but he came out of it quickly enough. "Yeah," he said standing. "Yes, of course. They're—they're upstairs." And he led The Doctor to the nursery without another word.
The twins were sleeping, as he knew they would be, peaceful behind the glass. Looking down at the two with The Doctor he hoped that they were having good dreams, that they would always have good dreams. More than that, actually, Jack hoped that he would never give them cause for any nightmares.
As he looked at Eve and listened to The Doctor make cooing noises at the babies, Jack found many of his most unwanted memories finally rushing forward. How he'd allowed Gray to become so warped. How he'd failed to save Owen and Tosh. Steven and how, like the children in front of him, he was so innocent, disbelieving as the light left his bright blue eyes. And of course Alice. Alice whom he failed as a father and as a human being. Alice who paid for his own shortcomings with her innocence. Alice whom he loved more than anything and therefore always hurt the most.
He didn't realize he was crying until The Doctor had taken a hold of his arm and nudged him to sit down on a nearby bench. Jack sobbed out the whole story of the last three years into a handkerchief provided by his oldest friend. No details were spared, he told The Doctor everything from what he'd been forced to do to Steven, to the dissolution of his relationship with Alice, the fears he had for his new daughter, and even the escape he was teetering upon. As the story came out with an ample accompaniment of tears, snot, and saliva The Doctor remained very quiet and the few times Jack's eyes weren't blurred, he found the Time Lord's expression utterly unreadable. He was grateful for that, just a little, as the immortal didn't think that the feelings would be very pleasant once shown.
"I look at her and I see the both of them," Jack said after the tears dried up, though his body still shuddered as it had when he wept. He clenched the sodden handkerchief between his hands, pulling at it until his knuckles were nearly as white as the surrounding walls. "I want to stay with her. I want to do everything I never let myself do with Alice but I just don't see how I can. If I stay I'll hurt her." He lifted red, puffy eyes to the glass where Eve still slept peacefully beside her twin. "And I can't do that. I already ruined Alice's life; I'm already a monster, so I could at least save her from me. Not to mention little Owain and Ianto and Gwen, I've never had much luck with family I don't see how it should change now."
Jack paused to breathe, feeling the weight of every year rattle within his chest as he exhaled. His eyes caught Eve once more and his throat tightened immediately, so much so, that he was surprised further words could eek out. "But I don't want to leave," he admitted hoarsely. "I never want to leave…"
The advice offered next, after a few more quiet moments, was as sage and appropriate as all guidance offered by the legendary Doctor. Putting a hand lightly in the middle of Jack's back he patted the spot absentmindedly for a moment or two, hazel eyes locked in space. When he spoke his voice was again touched with his age but warmer than Jack ever remembered it being before, the same of which could be said for his eyes.
"Do what your kind is best at, Jack," The Doctor told him. "Because—and I really do think that you should believe me on this one—you, despite a couple thousand years and one overblown ego, are thoroughly human." A very small, practically undetectable smile graced that too-old face. "But I think you already knew that."
The wisdom radiating from the Time Lord's eyes was palpable and Jack, not for the first time, couldn't speak. The Doctor always knew the right path, he was The Doctor, after all, and there he was handing Jack the answer he so desperately craved. Maybe, just maybe, Jack thought as relief, joy, and even a little hope began to well inside, he wouldn't be a monster—not completely, anyway.
That answer was reaffirmed when the captain caught the barest hint of a wail in the air. The most primal of instincts had him on his feet and heading toward the glass that separated the nursery from the cheerful onlookers, where, just as he knew, Eve was awake and crying. Impulse again ruled his actions and, after a bit of arguing/flirting with the nurses who were watching over the ward's ten newborns, he was given a bottle of formula along with the squirming pink bundle that he called his second daughter. Eve's instincts, he decided, were more solid than even his own, as she calmed a bit the moment she was in his arms. The Doctor slid to the far end of the bench to give Jack plenty of sitting room while he fed the girl.
"Tip the bottle a little less," the Time Lord advised after a quiet moment or two. "She doesn't need too much help, you know."
Jack chuckled. "You want to do this?"
Admittedly the former Time Agent only half expected the answer he received, but it still made him laugh when his old friend moved a little closer and, quite deftly, plucked both baby and bottle from him. Also it gave him the slightest twinge of resentment and he made a note to at least try and refrain from becoming an overprotective git. If Alice hadn't appreciated it then he didn't think her little sister would either. Eve surprised him a bit by staying quiet in The Doctor's arms but he reasoned it was the girl's good instincts coming through again; she had simply perceived a good friend was feeding her now instead of Daddy.
"You're better with babies than I honestly thought you would be," Jack told The Doctor. It wasn't a meant as a joke or a slight, simply the truth.
"I had the same thought about you, Jackie," The Doctor said with a small smile.
Another soft laugh escaped him and Jack looked down at his hands, fiddling with the wrist-strap. "Yeah, well, I had a little practice—not much—but a little," he admitted. There was a slight pause before his tongue pushed out the next sentence without running it past his brain. "I've had two before her." He could actually feel The Doctor's eyebrows go up as those hazel eyes shot to his face. Maybe it was the hope he'd been given that night, that tiny sliver of partial-redemption, but Jack continued despite the warnings of his bruised heart. "Alice and..." Jack swallowed hard, remembering a smile not unlike his own, bright brown eyes, and blonde curls that every human female envied; his son had been quite the charmer. "And Darius." He forced the name out if only to make sure he still remembered it, though, Jack honestly didn't see how he could forget his any of his flesh and blood. "Not that I was ever much of a father to either of them but I remember…"
"I know what you mean," The Doctor said, so softly that Jack almost didn't hear him. The Time Lord rocked Eve lightly as his eyes once again shifted into the distance, to a time and place that only his memory could reach. Jack felt sorrier for him than he ever had in those moments. "You don't forget the little things. The right temperature of a bottle, what sound means hungry or scared or tired, or how good they smell after a bath…" His eyes closed for a second while he cleared his throat, in less than a second the weary old man inside was locked away once again as he smiled down at Eve. "Little things are always the most important, aren't they...?" The Doctor shot a meaningful glance to Jack.
"Eve," he supplied, reading the question correctly.
"Yes, the little things are always the most important, eh, Eve?" The Doctor spoke to her as if she were an adult while her small digits curled around one of his and his smile deepened.
The slightest bit of apprehension resurfaced in Jack's stomach as, while watching The Doctor holding his youngest, he remembered the biggest fear he had for her.
"She's not like me, is she?" Jack asked, trying sincerely not to let the worry dominate his face. "You know…She won't…"
The Doctor smiled kindly. "No, Jack, she's very normal. She'll be a riddle, but a mortal one."
Jack let out a sigh of relief he didn't know he'd been holding back and tried to cover it with a laugh. "A riddle, huh?" he chuckled and looked at Eve in feigned thoughtfulness. "Well, hopefully not a big one. I've always been rubbish at puzzles."
"Not big just good," The Doctor said. He flagged an eyebrow at Eve as she began to fuss a bit. "Hmm…I think I may have offended the lady's delicate sensibilities. Only one way to fix that." And he held her out to Jack. Laughing, the immortal took the proffered bundle back, cooing at his daughter to assure her that yes, Daddy was there and it was all still all right.
The Doctor stood after he had returned Eve to Jack though he didn't wave and rush off as Jack expected him to. No, The Doctor remained for a few moments looking down at father and daughter with that unreadable expression he so often donned. Jack thought that sadness and maybe a little bit of envy flickered in his eyes but he could never be sure, they were gone so quick. Finally, though, the Time Lord smiled and gave Jack one final pat on the shoulder.
"I'll tell the Braxan salt traders that they can keep the favor and go on, shall I?" The Doctor stated more than asked.
Jack nodded vigorously. "Yeah, that would be nice. Thank you."
"Don't mention it, Jack," he said. "Just keep up the faith in the good old human try, eh? It's your best feature."
"Not the smile or the eyes?"
The Doctor rolled his eyes but laughed anyway. He put his hands in his pockets and started to down the hall. "Goodbye, Jack." He turned and gave a quick bow. "Mademoiselle Riddle, I wish you luck—you'll need it with the cur you've got for a father." And he disappeared through the ward doors, Jack's laughter ringing in his wake.
Still chuckling Jack looked down at Eve, who seemed intent on getting back to sleep after the excitement of her meal. Jack rocked her, promising not only her, but also her twin and the older half-siblings she would in all likelihood never so much as hear tell of, that he was going to take The Doctor's advice. There would be no more running away.
"Riddle, huh?" Jack mused as she yawned. "Hmm…well, I suppose there are worse nicknames."