A/N: I got a prompt from copperspider005 (Eleven, Amy and Rory meeting Jack who asks about Rose). I'm not sure this is what they meant... but this is what I conjured up. It's very hurt/comfort which admittedly isn't my normal genre and to some may even seem pre-slash between Jack and the Doctor, but I think Jack is the only male alive (now that the Brigadier is dead in the Doctor's timeline) that the Doctor could trust with his vulnerability about Rose (Mickey is her ex-boyfriend and now married...) so he's been bottling it all up since Bad Wolf Bay 2.0.

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Jack found the Doctor many times over the century he waited for him in Cardiff. He just never found one that recognized his. Except once.

Well, the Doctor found him.

And the meeting lasted less than a minute.

("Hi Jack!" "Excuse me? Do I know you?" "I'm the Doctor… oh, wait… blimey, wrong Jack. How many times are you going to live through the 20th century? I surely hope the you we're meeting is on his last round. What if I needed you in 49th century? Honestly, you and your team…" "Doctor, you said this was Jack? How can you not tell if he's the right one? Doesn't he age?" "Not physically, no… Ah! There's our Jack! By Jack! Once you catch up to the right me, he'll explain! Come along, Clara!")

It had been very confusing.

But after the 27 planets, he once again dropped off Jack's radar. Completely. Well, there were the encounters in 2009 as well as the false funeral for him in 2010 when he turned up according to Sarah Jane Smith, but beyond that, nothing.

The TARDIS wasn't caught on any CCTV until early autumn 2011, leaving a young couple on their doorstep. In 2013 the TARDIS was caught around one particular house nearly every Wednesday. Then, on December 25th '13, the TARDIS was back again at the door of the young couple the Doctor had let off a few years earlier, and this time Jack was ready.

He knew he had to hurry, the Doctor never stayed long, but since it was Christmas, Jack hoped he had the decency to stay at least the night.

At 10 a.m. on 26th Jack knocked on the door after making sure the TARDIS was still across the road. It wouldn't do to disrupt the young couple's life if the Doctor wasn't there anymore.

The young man of the house opened the door.

"Good morning," Jack greeted. "Is the Doctor here?"

"Doctor who?" the other man tried to play dumb.

"The TARDIS is across the street and your door is the same shade, the connection wasn't hard to make," Jack shrugged. "You're not the first ones to cling to that particular box."

"Yeah, he's here," the man admitted reluctantly. "What do you want with him?"

"Just want to talk with him, make sure he's alright," said Jack. "I can wait here if you could go get him. Tell him it's-"

A delighted "Jack!" came from the doorway leading to the living room, and there stood the Doctor who had mistaken him for his future self. In a few seconds Jack had his arms full of a joyful Time Lord babbling away. "I knew it was you! No one else feels like you do, you know, in that way that aggravates my time senses! That's a good thing, I can always tell where you are!"

Jack laughed and lifted him off his feet, hugging him tightly. "I'd kiss you but I don't think the Missus would approve!"

The Doctor let go. "How'd you know I got married?" he asked.

That gave Jack a pause. "Wait, you actually got married? And I wasn't invited? I thought Rosie at least would have invited me!"

"Who's Rose?" the man who owned the house asked.

Jack froze. "Doc, what'd he mean "Who's Rose?" What did you do?"

The Doctor's shoulders hunched and he bowed her head. "She's home, in the other universe, with the metacrisis. She's happy," he said quietly, voice breaking.

"Why?" demanded Jack loudly. "When I met you, you were head over heels for her, when I found you again, you were still head over heels for her, and last I saw you, you were completely in love with her. She searched through God knows how many universes for you!"

"Do you think I don't know that?" the Doctor said, lifting his head and looking Jack in the eyes, tears in his eyes. "What could I have given her? An unstable life of running and constant danger? We're not even genetically compatible, I couldn't have given her children. Eventually she would have wanted to settle down, get a house with doors and carpets and a garden. And she would have had to give up her family! Her family, Jack! She had just gotten a little brother. She had her mum and dad and a life in that other universe! It was better for her to… to have her family… and job and… the metacrisis…" The Doctor was full out crying now. "I couldn't even say it! I couldn't EVEN TELL HER I LOVED HER!"

Jack watched numbly as the Doctor sat down on the stairs in the hallway and buried his face in his knees, shoulders shaking. He felt… empty was the word. If the universe couldn't let the Doctor, her eternal defender, have the love of his life in his life, what chance did he have of ever again finding the happiness he'd once felt as part of Team TARDIS? His long future opened bleak and empty ahead of him. Once there had been hope that he might see Rosie again one day, along with the Doctor, maybe share another adventure or two with them, tease them about their incessant flirting and mooning, maybe walking in on them in the TARDIS control room. Now to have that taken away from him… because the Doctor had to be a martyr…

He walked over to the crying Doctor, forced his face up from his knees and punched him, eliciting a scream from the ginger who had come to investigate what the earlier shouting had been about and a blank look from the Doctor, eyes red and tears still streaming. "That's for breaking her heart," he growled before pulling the Doctor closer and guiding his face to his neck, sitting down next to him and rubbing soothing circles on his back while he cried.

Jack didn't know how long he sat there, comforting and drawing comfort from the Doctor. He didn't notice if the couple who lived in the house came and went, didn't notice time ticking by. Eventually though, the Doctor fell asleep.

"He must trust you to fall asleep on you like that," said a voice from his left. Jack turned, covering the Doctor with his body (his life was infinite, the Doctor's was not). The speaker was a woman with a mane of curly hair and Stormcage appointed prison garb. She had high heeled boots, a digital relay gun and a vortex manipulator. Time traveler then.

"I've only seen him asleep once before," answered Jack, "back when I was traveling with him. Rosie said he supposedly slept once a week, but I only ever saw that once." He looked down to the sleeping Time Lord. Last time he'd seen him asleep, he'd been all big ears and nose and no nonsense and he'd had Rosie snuggled up to him, arms protectively around her, having fallen asleep during a movie marathon. Now he was a tired looking young man in Jack's arms, bereft of the woman he obviously still loved, married to someone else. "Don't suppose you could open the doors to the TARDIS? He needs to go to bed."

"I don't have a key," she denied. "None of us do. Only the Doctor has one."

Jack looked sadly down at him. What had his life become? He stood up, took his TARDIS key from his pocket and lifted the Doctor into his arms. "I have a key. I'll need your help once we're outside."

"You have a key?" the woman questioned him as she opened the front door.

"Rosie's spare one," he nodded as he carried the Doctor across the street. "Hey there beautiful," he greeted the TARDIS. He put the key to the lock. "I know you cut the connection to this key years ago, but the Doctor needs to go to bed. Could you just this once let it work?" In answer to his question the key turned by itself and then disappeared in a golden haze as the door opened. Jack hefted the Doctor a little to get a better grip on him and then carefully maneuvered through the doors to avoid hitting his head. "Could you also lead us to where he sleeps?" he asked the TARDIS.

Lights flickered in one of the new hallways and Jack took it as a sign to follow her lead, the curly haired time traveler following him. The first door on right was a light pink color with a yellow rose and the golden words Bad Wolf written on it. When Jack went to walk by it, the TARDIS' lights flickered again. Jack turned to the door with a chuckle. "Really, Doctor?" he asked softly, motioning for the woman to open the door.

"No one's allowed in there," the woman said as she opened the door.

"I've been before," answered Jack and strode into Rosie's room. It had changed remarkably little. There were more photos and knick knacks on the shelves but there were also converse and bow-ties strewn around. The bed was made which was something Rosie never did, and the old Doctor's leather jacket was on the back of a chair.

The woman drew back the comforter and Jack laid the Doctor on the bed before taking off his shoes and bow-tie and opening a few of the highest buttons on the Doctor's shirt. The woman the tucked him in and motioned for Jack to follow her. Once the door was closed she turned to him.

"Who are you?"

"Captain Jack Harkness," Jack introduced himself. "And you?"

"Doctor River Song," the woman, River, introduced herself back. "How did you get him to show so much emotion? Normally it's like bathing a cat, painful to you and still nearly impossible."

"I just asked about Rosie, but then, she's always been a big emotion inducer in him," answered Jack started wandering deeper into the TARDIS in search of the kitchen. "I didn't know he was going to go off like that. He must've been bottling it up for a long time. Do you know where the kitchen is?"

"Down the hall, up the stairs and third door in right," said River, taking lead. "Who's Rose?"

Ah… now came the interrogation. "If you don't know, I think you should ask the Doctor. It's not my story to tell and I only know a part of it."

"Rule one: the Doctor lies," River told him, making Jack arch his eyebrows.

"To me rule one was: hands off the blond," he chuckled. "And Rosie said hers was: don't wander off. I think rule one depends on the person. Because I know only of three instances in which the Doctor intentionally has lied to Rosie: one was before I met them, one was to trick Rosie to safety and one was about my whereabouts after he'd left me behind. He may have kept things from her, but never intentionally lied."

They came to the kitchen and it was the kitchen Jack remembered from his day of traveling in the TARDIS but from River's way of inspecting it, it was new to her. A collage of photos was taped to the fridge (most were of Rosie and the Doctor before and after Jack but there were a few of with him in them) and a list of rules on a cabinet door (The Doctor can only have three bananas before lunch. Jack has to taste new things, eating only steak is unhealthy. Rose is limited to 1 lb. ice cream per week.). Jack started scouring the kitchen for food, finding some dry noodles, frozen veggies and honey marinade chicken. "Unfreeze those," he told River as he took out a kettle and two different pans.

They worked mostly in silence, River watching more than helping but following orders when directed to.

They were about to dig in when they heard shouting from where they'd left the Doctor to sleep. Jack shot out of the kitchen faster than River got out of her chair and was in Rosie's room in twenty seconds. The Doctor was trashing on the bed in throes of a nightmare, screaming, crying and pleading, each in turn.

Sitting on the edge of the bed Jack shook the Doctor, trying to wake him. After a few minutes the Doctor bolted upright, looking around wildly before settling on Jack and bursting into tears again. He clutched Jack tightly, head once again buried in Jack's neck.

"I miss her, Jack," he cried. "I miss her! She saw all of time and space, why didn't she stop this? She could have stopped this, she could have! I know she could have… she promised me forever…"

"I don't know Doc, I don't know," Jack cooed comfortingly. "I wish I knew so I could tell you everything's going to be okay but I have no idea. But she loves you, that I know. She loved you when we met and I bet she hasn't stopped loving you since."

"I love her, I love her, I love her, I luv her, Iluvher, Iluv'er, Iluv'er…" the Doctor muttered, slurring the words. He took a huge lungful of air, calming down slightly. "I don't love River. I like her well enough but she kept the universe hostage until I married her. I should have married Rose when I had the chance. I should have bonded with her. I'm a coward, Jack, a fucking coward. I could have had seventy, eighty more years with Rose, but I was a coward and didn't tell her I love her."

Jack inched his head slightly to the door where River stood, pale and shaking. With trembling hands she closed the door, leaving Jack alone with the emotionally compromised Doctor.