Disclaimer: Not mine, it all belongs to Aunty Beeb, please don't set the Daleks on me.

A Gift From a Rose

He hardly remembered what it was like to have a real body, to have hands that could feel, touch, caress. A couple of ice ages ago, the idea of what he would become would have disturbed him, he who had traded on his good looks for so long. But then it would have also bothered him that he would be measuring his life in ice ages. Now, neither mattered so much.

Now, as he watched the Doctor mend circuits and pull levers. Not his Doctor, but close enough, and he wished for the first time in an age that he could touch again, touch him again, one last time.

He knew this was the end. Martha had inadvertently told him so, before the year that never happened. He chuckled to himself, amused to think that she was below him somewhere and that soon she would meet him for the first and last time.

He had no regrets. His was a life well lived, he was ready for this. He wanted to say something significant, something that would let the Doctor know who he was, but he knew what his final words must be. The timeline would play itself out, and soon his earlier self would let slip the truth to the Doctor.

He wanted to tell the Doctor how he felt, still, after all this time, but he couldn't find the words. Besides, the Doctor knew. They had parted so many times, said so much over each other's long lifetimes that the Doctor must know.

With a final effort, Jack let go of the last of the energy from the heart of the TARDIS that had given him his long and extraordinary life. The second life that had been a gift from Rose. He gave it now to save the lives of the people of New Earth, and to save Martha.

As the Doctor and Martha stood over him, ignorant for now of who he was, he breathed his last.

"But know this, Timelord. You are not alone."