Chapter Two
He sits in his office, surrounded by the medals and plaques of his service. Two years, and this is what it has brought him. He protects the planet from the big bad wolf. Any big bad wolf, really. An alien incursion, an alien visitation, even alien technology that falls into untrained hands. He does it all.
But he remembers gold.
He remembers a time when there was more to his life than a desk and the rare excursion in the field. He remembers a time when he travelled through time and space with the Doctor and Rose. He remembers a time when life meant so much more than this.
He remembers gold. He remembers the first few rays of golden sunlight upon the rebuilt cities of Earth after the Dalek attack. He remembers the sudden knowledge that he had reached the end of his time in the future. They were on their own. He needed to come back. Back to the twenty-first century. Back to a time when he might be able to find Rose again. Might be able to find the Doctor again.
They left him behind, but he did not leave them.
He remembers gold, and it haunts him. Haunts his thoughts, his days and his nights. He misses them. More than he thought possible. He misses her laughter, his manic grin, and the way it felt to truly belong.
He sits in an office, a little king of his own little clandestine organisation, but it is not enough. He's alone more than ever. Surrounded by agents, surrounded by people, but still alone.
Sometimes, he remembers the sound of the TARDIS' engines. The high-pitched wail of her arrival through the vortex would tease him; make him think that maybe this time they had come for him. Each time he was wrong.
He hears it again.
At just the barest edge of his senses, he hears it. Rising and falling as the fabric of space and time is ripped asunder. It sounds real. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't, but he has teased himself far too often with hopes. He is not strong enough to deal with another disappointment. Surrounded by the relics of his years in this time, he sees how shallow it truly is. This life is shallow without them. It is only natural to hear the TARDIS again. False hope, false desire. He wants to leave but must remain.
Too many promises to keep and too many people relying upon him. This is the curse of command. This is his curse and his duty. He is ever the soldier.
He looks up from his desk as a faded blue box appears in the corner. Impossible. Improbable. He sees what he wants to see. Now, even the shape of the TARDIS haunts him. Is this how he will live out his life? Seeing the TARDIS around every corner, in every room. Hearing the sound of her engines at all hours of the day?
He even imagines the doors opening.
He imagines Rose, maybe a little older than when he last saw her, stepping into his office. He imagines her joyful expression as she runs toward him, shouting his name.
He does not imagine her hug. Does not imagine the feel of her arms wrapped securely around him as she sobs into his suit jacket.
This is not his imagination.
This is real.
"Rose?" he asks.
"Jack, I missed you. We missed you." Her words are faint, but he can hear them all the same.
"How did you? Why did you? What did you?" He seems to have lost the ability to ask sensible questions. His thoughts are jumbled with memories of gold and the feel of her within his arms.
"By TARDIS. 'Cause it's time to come home. And as for what, well, it's a long story," an unfamiliar man says from just inside the blue box as he smiles benignly at them both.
"Who're you?" He is suddenly suspicious, ever mindful of the girl wrapped in the security of his embrace.
A flicker of hurt passes over the other man's face before he grins. "It's me! Honestly, Jack, I can't have changed that much. Admittedly I'm not ginger, and I am a bit thinner, mind. Oh, and there is this mole that I didn't have before and sideburns. And I am sort of brown on top, but its okay. It's still me."
He blinks, trying to resolve the manic tone and the seemingly familiar look in the other man's gaze. Is it? Could it be? "Doctor?" Impossible.
A grin is his answer. "Yup! Got it in one."
"But how?" He feels Rose shift in his embrace and he lets her go.
"It's a sort of Time Lord trick. I was dying and to live I had to change. So, this is me now. I kinda like it, really. I think Rose does too."
He watches Rose flush, and suddenly realises more has changed than just the Doctor's appearance. He knows that he has become distracted. They are distracting him. There is more to it than a reunion. While he is glad to see them, he needs to know.
"Why?" The summation of the past three years both in the future and in the past in a word.
"Historical fact," the Doctor replies, running a hand through his hair and leaving it far more mussed than before. "History has you in the future and now. And, much as I'd like to, I can't argue with that nor could I tell you." The Time Lord's face flickers with pain and sorrow. "I'm sorry, Jack."
"Then why come back now? If history has me here now, why come back? Why tell me this? Why not leave me here to my 'historical destiny?'" He remembers gold, and pain, and death, and life. He remembers watching them leave and thinking that this was what his life had become. Alone.
"Because Time's had its due. The duty's up. It's time to come home."
He can't. Even as he watches Rose's expression lift in hopeful joy, he can't. Duty is a hard cross to bear, but he must do it. There is no one else. After the Sycorax, after the destruction, after the firing of the laser, he can't. He has to be here. It's his duty.
"I can't."
He remembers gold, but this is what he will remember the most. He was offered the world, everything that he had ever hoped for, everything that he had ever desired and he said no.
He remembers his dream. The three of them, together again, travelling through time and space just like before. He might've changed externally, but that's all. Nothing more. Nothing changes. Except for this. Jack's said no and the dream disappears like the gold.
"Why?"
Jack's expression looks pained as he replies. "I've made promises and I've got duties that I didn't have before. I wish I could go with you, you've got to believe me, but...I can't. There's no one else. Not yet. I've got to stay because they need me."
Need. Want. Desire. They intermingled with the gold once before. He kissed Jack, but that was a goodbye mingled with want and desire. He kissed Rose, but that was all three. He remembers gold, but he remembers duty far more. Duty to the Earth, duty to Rose, duty to the universe. He understands. But it is not easy.
"Yet?" Rose asks.
"She's not ready. Not really. Not for this level of responsibility."
He has a choice, always had a choice. In the gold, he could live or he could die. It was a loop-hole, a way out. Two choices: to live or to die. He sees the same in this. "There are other options. There are a few people in UNIT that I know can be trusted, as well as a few former UNIT members. Colonel John Benton would be a good choice. Had experience in dealing with a few cantankerous aliens, various incursions, and the Yeti. Might be able to watch over things until your choice is ready to take over."
"I'd have to meet him, and he'd have to be willing," Jack warns. But, in his eyes, he can see that hope has returned. In his eyes, he can see a flicker of gold.
"Of course."
He remembers his dream and hopes.
She remembers gold. She remembers the soft golden glow of the console room, and the shadows that it cast upon the two most important men in her life. She remembers watching the meeting between Jack and this Colonel Benton but what she remembers the most was the handshake at the end. She knew what that meant. Knows what it means.
Jack is coming home.
A short hop on the TARDIS later and a message is left – signed and sealed – on Harriet Jones' desk.
This is it.
Jack is home.
And she feels like she could burst from joy.
"Happy?" the Doctor asks, grinning at her from behind a lock of brown hair.
Brazenly, or perhaps not so brazenly, she leans upwards and brushes her lips against his. The feel of gold intensifies and she smiles. "Yeah."
His grin brightens. "Fantastic. How 'bout you, Jack?"
"What about me?" He looks uncertain, she realises. As if he doesn't know what he means to them, to her. He watched them kiss, yes, but there is more to it than that.
"Happy?" The Doctor repeats his earlier question, and Jack nods. But she thinks he's hiding something.
It's only a few short steps to cross to his side, and she pulls him into her arms. "Good, 'cause you should be happy, Jack. I want you to be happy."
She feels his astounded stare more than she sees it and she gives him a little shake. "It's true. You deserve it." She kisses him, too. Tentatively, perhaps, but a kiss all the same. She wants there to be no doubts between them. He should be happy, just like she is.
"An' you know why you should be happy?" she hears the Doctor ask from somewhere close behind her.
"Why?" Jack asks.
She feels the Doctor's arms wrap around them both, tucking the two of them securely against him. "'Cause you're back where you belong. Home."
And she knows a moment later that the Doctor has just kissed Jack.
She remembers gold, and in that moment she also remembers a future that she had seen woven within the temporal strands. Three travellers, three lovers, moving through space and time. Together, ever together, until the end. Sharing adventures, sharing their lives, sharing their destinies. No one set home, not for them. Their home was the gold of the vortex, the gold of their connection, the gold of each other.
She remembers the gold, and she smiles.
She remembers gold. She is gold. Golden heart, golden joy. Entwined with the lives of those who live upon her, she remembers it all.
She remembers companions past and companions present. She remembers Doctors past and present, just as she remembers how she had changed with each version of her Doctor.
She remembers gold. She remembers Rose, Jack, and the Doctor. She remembers giving Rose her gold for a brief moment and in that moment they were one. She remembers the last battle of the Time War just as she remembers how she and Rose protected him.
Her Doctor.
Their Doctor.
She remembers gold. Jack's death and rebirth. Rose's forgetting as she was pulled away. The Doctor's regeneration.
Their lives are so transient and fleeting. Humans grace her halls for such a brief time, but she remembers them all. These, however, these are special. Special to her and special to the Doctor.
She remembers gold, but she will always remember them.
FIN