Chapter Two
**flashback to the days before Christmas**
"Jack! Oh my god. It's perfect."
Martha snatched the suit from Jack's hands and held it to the lights pouring down from the store's high, oddly claustrophobic ceiling.
Jack was smiling, grinning even as he watched her enjoy the thing.
"I should think so, Mrs. Milligan. That's the same ensemble David Tennant wore to Billie Piper's wedding."
Martha's eyes shot toward Jack.
"No! Are you serious? The very one? That guy is adorkable! That impeccable fashion sense of his has kept the British clothing industry going single-handedly in the face of US economic crisis."
The captain was fanning himself…
"You're telling me. He's steady in love with the endearing Miss Moffat, but he was kind enough to pull a prank at the con by kissing me on stage. My heart wanted to fly out of my chest."
"Eh? What were you doing onstage at a con?"
"Impersonating John Barrowman. But just between you and me, I think David knew. I mean, he looked right at me with those luscious chocolate eyes of his and just… "
Martha watched Jack's shoulders shake visibly, as though he'd caught a sudden… chill.
"Yeah…" she said as she cuffed the Time Agent lightly and then hooked her arm in his for the walk back to her new house, "… and Tom's my uncle. But Tennant does have the strangest look of age about him, and that presence he pours into everything when he's acting, it spills over into his real life. He's really something."
"Oh, that is such an understatement, Doctor Milligan. That man makes me wish I was Georgia Moffat."
She kicked at Jack then, and he nearly tripped over some kid's forgotten snowman.
"Hey! I thought you only had eyes for Ianto and the Doctor!"
Jack sighed.
"Yes, but one of them's not coming back, and the other one doesn't bat for my team, so… "
"And David Tennant's probably going to marry the Moffat girl. Where does that leave you, Jack? Are you going to stay on Earth for a while, or hitch your star to a freighter or something?"
The smile on Jack's face… for the first time in a while, it was genuine, and before they both knew it, they were outside in the snow.
"Well, I thought I'd tag along with the Doc in secret, you know? Heheh. Just like old times. Remember the end of the universe?"
Martha pulled her red coat close and shivered. But at least he'd made her smile more broadly.
"You bet I do, Mister. How could I forget? The Doctor, me, hurtling through space and time… you all desperate and clinging like roadkill to the outside of the TARDIS… "
"I am not desperate."
"Are too!"
"Am not, Martha! And you should talk! You were head over heels for him before you met Tom! Take this!"
And Jack reached down, tossing the first snowball into her hood.
"Mickey Smith! I am a military man, not a shoe salesman! How would I know which kind of adolescent footwear an old goat like him would fancy? I was in UNIT for lord's sakes… I can only imagine what Sergeant Benton would say to me now… Alistair Gordon Leithbridge-Stewart, caught in the sights of a Christmas present."
"Eh? They're only shoes! I have to get the Boss something he'll like! Now come on, Sir! I'm no good at this!"
Mickey was fuming. If Alistair squinted rather tightly, he could almost see the anxious steam coming from the boy's ears.
"It's all well and good, Smith. The Doctor will like whatever you give him, in the end. He's a generous man, to a fault."
Mickey ran a hand over his head.
"You haven't seen him cross over a girl, then."
The Brigadier nearly snorted his coffee with that one.
"Oh you think so eh? You should have seen one of his epic battles with Jo Grant! Oh, that row in the office was a real firestarter!"
Mickey reached for a napkin and wiped at the old soldier's chin. There was a bit of mustard…
The Brigadier stared at him for a moment, neither of them speaking.
"Sorry. It's jus'… I used to do that for my gran. It came sort of automatic, like."
With a dignified sniff, Alistair just laughed and reached to pat him on the back.
"Ah, good man, Smith, good man. I say… look there."
He pointed to a shoe rack behind Mickey. On the opposite side of the walk above them, a pair of green chucks stood out like a garden thumb in the window.
"Does the Old Thing have a pair of those green ones?"
As his eyes found what the Brigadier was looking at, Mickey felt a smile creep up despite himself as they both rose from their table and headed for the lifts.
Trust th' old war hound to reason out what the Doctor would like, even if neither of them could do to begin with.
"Nope, not that one."
I looked down at the offerings they'd given me, eyes perusing each corner of fabric, each tuft of fur, each ornate piece of costume jewelry.
Nothing was good enough for the woman I adored. Oh, the salesgirls were trying hard enough, but well… I remembered the extonic sun as it sank below the diamond shores of Midnight. And I had watched as several celestial presences, stolen orbs thought castaways, one of them the lost moon of Poosh, had returned by the aid of my hand, on the day I chose to cause the true and final twilight of the Dalek race. I had watched my double, the man my lover truly deserved and needed, disappear after the final ungoodbyes, back to his Ship, his Life, his Universe. His insufferable and all consuming loneliness.
Even I couldn't be good enough, after what he'd shown her. How could I be?
Molto Bene, indeed.
But I was all that was left. And that was why I was standing now, in a Henrick's building directly opposite to where, in another plane of spatial reference, I knew, I remembered, –his ninth self- had saved the woman who was to be my Girl Friday from the ashes of her former existence in another Henrick's, minus one Jackie Tyler, her flat, a spinning Christmas tree and a few strands of bleach blonde hair. And my favorite mechanic.
Immediately, as I thought of her, my mobile rang, twittering away in the back pocket of my jeans like a rabid gerbil.
"Nessun Dorma… Nessun Dorma… " it sang, in heavy tones that belied the end of the song. Somehow, it was all that other man's sadness that made me such a happy man, in spite of my own failings.
A page from Her; it was time to meet up and take lunch.
I cherish every picosecond I spend with her, and my newfound family.
And so, for my wife, my lovely family, and my one short life, every night and day, I thank Good for Him, and our Donna Noble.
OF course I'd think of something to get my Rose. It was only a matter of Time. Then, as I looked down for only a moment, I spied it.
There it was, the present. Right there in front of me.
It- was a large Rhodesian diamond as blue as the TARDIS, hand cut and lovingly displayed on a fantastic silver ring carved with Victorian leaves and twining roses.
She'd get me something just as wonderful, certainly.
But we both knew what the real present was, because every night and every day, she is right there beside me, the both of us thanking Good for Him and Donna.
I will not tell her what he did. Not yet, anyway.
I'll explain later.