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Thu-thump.
Thu-thump.
Thu-thump.
Jack gasped aloud, his entire being practically vibrating. He’d been dead a second ago, he’d been dead and now he was here, and his body was flooded with light and panic and warmth and all he knew was that he wanted it to last forever and needed to stop it right this moment.
He ran.
Blindly, he followed the source of it, sprinting up the stairs with superhuman speed (he’d never been this fast before, what was going on?) and the doors barely opened in time to allow him to barrel into a room full of wires and shimmering gold.
Goddess.
Choking on the power that poured from the TARDIS, from Rose, Jack stumbled forwards, grabbing the Doctor’s arm. The Daleks were gone. They were safe. They were safe and yet—
(Too much light, too much light in the darkness his world had once been, the one that had gone from black to twilight to verging on partly cloudy skies, but this was pure, searing white in his mind.)
“The power's going to kill you and it's my fault.”
“I can see everything. All that is, all that was, all that ever could be.”
“That's what I see. All the time. And doesn't it drive you mad?”
“My head. It's killing me.”
But the Time Lord moved towards her, and somewhere within him, Jack knew that this would be the end, this would be someone else standing there, so different even in sameness, someone who… might not want him there.
He was an abomination of time now.
He could feel that in his bones too.
So he lurched forward, knocking the Doctor out of the way, and brought his own forehead to hers, holding the woman he’d fallen in love with years ago, and soaked her into his skin. B a d W o l f carved itself through space and time, but nowhere deeper than under his ribs and onto his muscles and through his veins. There was no kiss this time, only eyes that burned.
Jack barely caught her as she collapsed, found himself kneeling on the ground looking at her, wondering if it was enough, wondering if it was too late, she wasn’t responding, her eyes were closed, her body limp—
The Doctor rushed to their side, and the captain handed her over before roaring pain overwhelmed him yet again. Death by the Daleks had been like an electric shock, a painful tension that ripped through him and collapsed him from the inside, but this was like sitting in too-warm water, hotter and hotter until he was boiling, until he could practically explode with the energy inside of him, he could barely breathe and this had to be the end, this had to be his final sacrifice.
Faintly, he felt lips pressed against his own as he swayed and fell.
Strong arms, leather, faint perfume, gumdrops?
And then darkness, and peace.
When he woke, he was tucked in bed, in their bed, two bone-tired but worried lovers curled around him protectively. Through a haze of teary sentiment, Jack couldn’t help but think that maybe they could make it through this after all.