A/N: Anyone who gets the references to previous stories gets a fictional cookie.

Chapter 11 – Happy Together

Jack took him to the meeting room and sat him down at the table whilst he went to retrieve something from his office. He came back a mere two minutes later, a laptop under his arm and a file in his hand.

He took the seat next to the Doctor, and steeled himself with a breath.

"I didn't want to show you this 'cause I wanted you to remember first," Jack began, rooting around in the file. "But here they are." He drew out a photograph, and held it in front of the Doctor. "Martha took this photo a few Christmases ago."

The Doctor stared at the picture. There were three people sitting in a place he didn't recognise, a pretty blonde woman was sitting on the left, he was on the right and a little brown-haired girl was on his lap, beaming away. "... That's me," the Doctor realised, astonished.

"Yeah," Jack said, and pointed at the smiling blonde woman on the left. "That's your wife, Rose, and that's Leah in your lap."

The Doctor took the photo into both hands, staring at their faces intently. He focused every single cell of his brain into trying to recognise their faces – his wife, his daughter – both beautiful and sitting there with him as a happy, loving family...

"When this picture got taken Rose was stressing a bit because she wasn't wearing any make up, and you told her she looked beautiful without it. Leah jumped on your lap, you all said silly sausages and Martha took the picture. Then you looked at it and Leah told you that you looked funny. She was two when this got taken. After this I had to put Leah to bed because you two had eaten too much and couldn't be bothered to get up."

Jack waited, just watching the Doctor stare at the picture. The Doctor didn't say a word, so Jack continued.

"You've also got a son, Alex." He produced another photograph, handing it to the Doctor. It was a picture of him again, lying in a bed asleep with a small brown-haired baby on his chest.

"When Rose is pregnant you feel the contractions in labour. You nearly died trying to get him in the world. You went into a coma from the severe pain you were feeling and your life-signs started dropping, just from the pain of the contractions. Alex's life-signs were falling too so we had to get Rose in for an emergency c-section. You didn't wake up until the next morning. When Martha gave him to you, she said the first thing you said was that he was beautiful and it had been worth every second. Then you didn't let him go for anyone. I took the picture when you fell asleep holding him. You had no idea."

The Doctor remained silent.

"You have a third child, called Kiana. She's not genetically yours or Rose's, you adopted her. You remember the Master, right?"

The Doctor nodded.

"He abandoned her at our doorstep. You tried to reason with him but he wouldn't listen. You took her in and made her part of your family because you were scared he would have neglected her."

The Doctor still didn't make a sound, just staring at the pictures together, holding one on top of the other.

"And there's one more thing," Jack added, turning around his laptop screen to face the Doctor. "Martha and Tom, Tom is Martha's ex-husband, they had their reception in London and we were all invited. I had a video camera with me so I recorded for a bit. You and Rose are in it. Do you want to see it?"

The Doctor looked up from the photos, his eyes wide. "You... you have a video?"

"Just the one. It's in the first couple of months of yours and Rose's relationship. Would you like to see it?"

The Doctor could only stare at Jack for a moment, his jaw agape. This was it.

"... Yeah," he croaked.

Jack just nodded, and hit play.

It was the middle of the party, Happy Together by The Turtles was pumping out loud and Jack was panning the camera around at the milling people.

"Some covert spying..." Jack's voice came from behind the camera zooming in on Martha and Mickey getting slightly intimate. "Whoa Martha, you're married to Tom now!" he joked, and moved off across the room to pick out the Doctor and Rose.

The Doctor was sat on the side in a chair, Rose tugging his arm to try and pull him up. He was refusing to budge, shaking his head. Jack moved closer, the camera microphone just about able to pick out their voices.

"Come on," Rose was saying, still pulling on his arm.

"No," he answered seriously.

"Just five minutes," Rose begged.

"Five minutes too long."

She sighed. "You're so boring."

"I am not!" the Doctor protested.

"Yeah, you are."

"Because I don't want to dance?"

"Yeah! Come on, this is our song."

"How is this our song?"

"The Kronids."

"Technically not, as this song was playing when the Kronids were..."

"Oh, shut up," she chastised. "I thought you were more fun than this."

"Fine!" the Doctor said, throwing his arms in the air and getting to his feet.

Rose grinned, mission obviously accomplished, her tongue between her teeth. She took his hand, pulling him to the centre of the designated dance-floor. Jack followed with the camera as Rose wrapped her arms around his chest, pulling him close.

"I can't see me loving nobody but you, for all my life..."

"Come on, move," she demanded.

"I'm not a dog," the Doctor insisted.

She laughed, linking her fingers in his and holding them up. "You sleep like one."

"What?"

"It's cute. You know like how dogs run in their sleep? That's what you do."

He tried to look insulted but it turned into a laugh very quickly. "Says the snorer."

Rose instantly turned bright red, letting go of him to put hand over her mouth. "I so don't!"

"It's fine; your nose twitches too like a bunny rabbit so it's quite cute," he assured her, grinning.

She shoved him lightly, torn between being insulted and laughing. "You're so mean!"

"What?" he protested. "I said you're cute."

She rolled her eyes, pulling him into an intimate hug. "You're impossible. And you're still not dancin'."

"Me and you, and you and me... No matter how they tossed the dice, it had to be..."

"I'm not much of a dancer in this body," the Doctor insisted.

"You've never tried."

"Don't you remember your birthday?" he asked seriously.

"That doesn't count."

"I over-spun, fell over and nearly broke the table."

"That was on the Wii and you had an ear infection so you could barely stand up anyway. It doesn't count."

"I'm not dancing."

She sighed. "Fine," she said, reaching up his neck to bring him down to kiss her, tongues and all. When they needed to take a breath around thirty seconds later they finally drew back, both just absorbed in each other's eyes.

"I love you," he whispered, utterly sincere.

"I love you too. And I will get my dance."

"Not likely."

"Ba-ba-ba bah, ba-ba-ba bah..."

Finally Rose looked up, realising Jack was standing there with the camera. Instantly she looked aghast. "How long have you been filmin' us?"

"Good few minutes!" Jack replied happily, and stopped recording.

The video ended, and Jack didn't even need to look at the Doctor. He was crying. Jack almost dreaded what would come next.

"They're so happy," was all he said.

Jack's heart sank. "You don't remember that."

The Doctor just choked another sob. "Not a word."

Jack swallowed, feeling quite numb as leant forward to close the laptop. He then moved back to resume his seat, gazing at the Doctor. Silence reigned for a very long time.

"... I'm really ill, aren't I," the Doctor finally said, not as a question.

Jack sighed. "Yeah."

"I'm not going to get better."

"No."

"... Oh god," the Doctor croaked.

Jack sighed again, reaching out to take his hand. He knew what he had to say next, but he had to take a few deep breaths to manage it. "Maybe... Maybe we should stop, Doctor. Just stop trying to remember. 'Cause... I don't think there's anything in there."

It felt more like he was confirming to taking someone off of life support. The Doctor didn't say a word, just sat there crying.

"Maybe..." Jack began, but now he was forcing the words out – every syllable felt like the whack of a hammer on the head of a nail in his best friend's coffin. "Maybe we should... We should stop calling you Doctor."

The Doctor looked at him, a wounded puppy, a child whose granddad had just died – his eyes wide and wet. "... What's my name?"

"I don't know," Jack said softly, reaching out to rest a hand on the Doctor's arm. "I'll call you Doctor until you find a new one. For yourself."

"Okay," the Doctor croaked, and quickly got up. "I'll... I'll go now."

Jack nodded. "We'll figure something out. I'm not giving up on you. Not this time."

"Okay," was all the Doctor replied, getting up and leaving out of the door about a minute later the Hub door opened and closed, but Jack wasn't paying attention. He was staring at his desk, his hands tangled deep in his hair.

He was trying not to cry. His best friend was dead. There was absolutely no denying it now. The Doctor was not the Doctor. Not anymore. And there was no telling if he'd ever come back.

Then he realised the Hub door had just opened and closed with no intruder alarm. Someone had gone out.

The Doctor had gone out.

Jack got up instantly, his chair flying to the floor with a crash, He sprinted to the door, practically flew down the stairs and took the lift, slamming his hand on the contraption repeatedly to try and make it go faster though he knew it wouldn't make a blind bit of difference.

It felt like an age until it reached the top, bursting out of the hole-in-the-ground to meet a bitterly cold night with the rain pouring down. He didn't even bother waiting until the lift had met the concrete, jumping the last few feet to the surface.

He looked around desperately, and saw a figure running off across the Plass to a crowd of buildings.

"Doctor!" Jack yelled, and started after him through the puddles of collected water on the ground. The Doctor was incredibly fast and Jack nearly lost him, until he heard the clangs of someone running fast up a stairwell. He followed the noise up some access steps, all the way up what felt like a million flights until he ended up on the roof, completely out of breath.

He saw the Doctor instantly, standing there in the pouring rain in a white shirt and jeans, almost completely soaked. He was facing Jack with one of the guns from the drawer in his hand, the rain running down his face... or was he crying?

"Doctor..." Jack began, his emotions torn between confusion and just plain terror. "Come here."

The Doctor didn't answer him, just raising the gun at Jack.

Jack's breath caught in his throat. He raised his hands defensively. "Doctor, don't. Please. You don't know what that does; the hurt it causes..."

"Guns make people do what you want," the Doctor replied, almost robotically.

"... What do you want?" Jack croaked.

"Stay away. Let me do this."

"Do what?"

In a form of reply, the Doctor took a step back to the edge of the roof.

"No!" Jack yelped, stepping forward. The Doctor reaffirmed the grip on his gun and Jack stopped dead.

"I'm sorry," the Doctor said, taking another cautious step back. "But I have to."

"You don't, you don't need to," Jack said desperately. "Why are you doing this?"

"I can regenerate... Which means if I'm sick or injured to the point I can't get better I can regenerate into a new body to fix myself," he uttered, copying Sarah's explanation word for word. "I have to kill myself, Jack. I have to regenerate. Please, please let me regenerate."

"No! You don't know what you're talking about!" Jack cried in desperation. "This won't solve anything!"

"But it'll fix me."

"That's... That's not a guarantee, all right? You've only got thirteen bodies, please don't do this!"

"I have to."

"No, you don't!"

"I need to... I need to get better. I need to remember my family. I need to find them. He'd thank me."

"Who!?"

"The Doctor. He'd thank me."

"What!?"

"The Doctor... the one you love," the Doctor clarified, sniffing and wiping his nose with the back of his hand. "The one I'm not. The one on the video, you know? He's got this life, this really happy life, with these people who are kind and considerate. He looks at Rose like she's the answer to everything. All those diary entries, about Leah; those artefacts you and him looked through; all those stories you have and the way you talk about him like he's... Like he's your world. I'm not him. I can never be him. I'm... I'm sick and I'm not going to get better.

"All these people I've met that were part of his life, Rose's Mum, Sarah, Martha, Mickey, Gwen, Ianto, you, everyone, you're his friends, you're not mine. You all just look at me and cry. You're all crying because you're remembering him. Everyone remembers him. Everyone except me. I can't exist like this. You want him back, and I want him back. Thank you for trying, Jack."

He dropped the gun, and dropped over the ledge.

A/N: Well, I did say whump.