Title: Five Minutes
By: lilithangel
Pairings: Jack/real Jack Harkness
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Five minutes can change a life.

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It sometimes seems that the fate of the universe waits on five minutes. Too late or too early, five minutes could change the world or just a single life.

Five minutes earlier and the TARDIS wouldn’t have left without him and he wouldn’t have ended up in Victorian England except maybe to visit. Or he might have found out then just how wrong he was in the Doctor’s eyes and been abandoned somewhere else. At least he wouldn’t have waited then.

Five minutes later and Gwen would have been dead and Suzie would have been dead, because he would have still hunted her down and put a bullet in her brain. How much of the following months would have still have happened was anybody’s guess.

Five minutes earlier and Estelle wouldn’t have died alone and he could have kept his promise to her. He never wanted to be the one who left, he knew how much that hurt and yet he kept on doing it to the ones he loved.

Five minutes earlier and he would have left again without a proper farewell. Instead he had dragged the real Jack out of the room and kissed him properly where nobody could watch and comment. He’d retained enough sense to do that at least. He heard Tosh’s voice calling for him but he had his mouth wrapped around Jack’s cock and wasn’t about to stop until he’d shown the other man how good it could be.

Five minutes later and he wouldn’t have got there in time to say goodbye and at least bear witness to Jack’s death and then take his place in London. He owed the man a decent footnote in history, the hero he was rather than the deserter created.

Captain Jack Harkness died many times but only one of them made it into dispatches with a commendation for bravery going back to his family in America with the telegram regretfully informing them of the death of their son.

Five minutes was all it seemed to Tosh and Gwen before he stepped out of the building, but it was another lifetime lost for him.

END

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