YANA

Author's Note: This is my first "official" Dr. Who story. Written in about ten minutes as it ate my brain while trying to sleep at 2 in the morning. I blame my two friends, for getting me addicted to the show in the first place. Inspired by Jack's offhand comment at the end of Season 3.

Please let me know what you think.

Disclaimer: I own nothing, and I'm already 30,000 in debt due to student loans, so there isn't much you can get out of me.

He had seen many things in his long lifetime. For so long, he had simply just been the Face of Boe, a thing of legends. None knew where he had come from, how he had become this almost-mythical creature, said to be immortal.

But he had been human, once. He had lived and breathed and loved, just like so many others. He had been a person—not necessarily a good person, but a person none-the-less. He had made something of himself, after his simple life in the country, the first one ever to be signed up for the Time Agency. Then his time spent with Torchwood, his team. He had been a con-man, once, until he had met the Doctor, and her. Rose Tyler.

It took him a good, long time to realize what he would become. He had heard the legends himself, had helped spread some of them, back when he had been known as Captain Jack Harkness. But here he was now, a million lifetimes away from everything he had once known and cared about. He had sent himself a message, to remind the world that, when it came to his end, one like him would be there.

He had been close to giving up, when the Earth was due to be destroyed, but something drove him to be there, to witness it. Cassandra had flouted being the last human, but he wouldn't say anything to spoil it for her. And then they had arrived, and if he had still had a heart then, instead of just his face, the face, it would have stopped. The Doctor and Rose. Beautiful, sweet Rose, who had been lost to them for so very long, and he ached to wrap her in his arms and twirl her around and flirt with her shamelessly. But she was so young, so new, so innocent, that he knew he couldn't say anything to her without ruining it all.

And how much longer did he wait after that? He was close to giving up, again, there on New Earth. He had seen every incarnation of New York, all fifteen 'New's included. He had almost given up again, but the Doctor and Rose—not his Doctor, the one he had first met in the war-ridden London, but the Doctor still—they had showed up again, had saved humanity, just as always. And he was given hope once more, and one last chance to see Rose.

Enough to last one more lifetime. He had almost wished to tell the Doctor the truth, had ached to share everything with this poor, lonely man. To share his pain. But the Doctor had simply called him 'Old Friend', almost as if he had known anyway, known that this was the Impossible Man, the man who couldn't die, finally giving up everything to save a thousand people he had never even met. Oh, how the Doctor would have laughed! But that was not to be. He had a warning to issue, one he knew the Doctor wouldn't understand until it was too late.

But maybe it wasn't just a warning. "You are not alone," he told him, and he meant it. Jack had stayed with him, through all the years, shared in his pain as they both mourned the woman who had saved them both, time and time again. Rose had given them both life. And now, with his dying breaths, he had to remind the Doctor, and himself, one last time…

"You are not alone."