Title: Caught in the Rain
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Tenth Doctor/Jack Harkness
Fandom: Doctor Who/Torchwood
Rating: PG
Table: 100_tales
Prompt: 4, Rain
Disclaimer: This is entirely a product of my own imagination, and I make no profit from it. I do not own the Tenth Doctor or Jack Harkness. Please do not sue.

***

It had been raining like this the night Jack had left him.

The Doctor stood in the doorway of the Tardis, looking out at the rain pouring down to puddle on the concrete. Rain always made him feel melancholy, but for some reason, he felt even more so looking out at the rain that was falling now.

It was probably only because he was in the same place, the same city, that Jack had walked away from him in. Why had he decided to torture himself by coming back to Cardiff? It wasn't as though he could turn back the clock and have Jack by his side again. That was over. It had been for quite a while now.

Yes, it was over and done with, part of the past. A past that he shouldn't want back as desperately as he did. But he couldn't keep that longing from filling him, making him ache with the desire to bring back the past, to cling to it and never let it go.

Jack would hate that. He'd never been a clingy person himself, and he certainly wouldn't appreciate the Doctor having that sort of attitude with him. It would do him no good even if he felt that he could go back into the past and make things turn out differently for them.

It was best to leave things as they were, to push his heartache and loneliness to the back of his mind and try to focus on the future. A future that didn't include Jack Harkness.

Why did it always seem that rain played such an important part in his goodbyes to people? He'd said farewell to so many who he'd cared about with rain pouring down around them. Maybe that was why it had the power to make him feel so melancholy, the Doctor reflected.

He wasn't really seeing the rainy landscape that he looked out on at the moment; he was seeing Jack's eyes, the look on the handsome Captain's face when he'd told the Doctor that he was leaving -- not just for a few hours, or a few days, but for good.

The pain in his hearts had been indescribable, but he wouldn't let Jack see just how much he was hurting. No, he would keep that pain inside, no matter what the cost. He couldn't let the other man see just how those words had affected him, a knife thrust to his hearts that left him reeling and breathless.

Jack hadn't meant to hurt him so badly. Of course not. He hadn't known just how deeply the Doctor loved him -- he'd been careful not to let the immortal know that. Perhaps too careful.

How many times had he ached to tell Jack exactly how he felt, to spill out his emotions in a flood of words? But he'd never been able to make himself do it. Whenever he'd felt that the time was finally right, he'd let the chance go by -- unable to force himself to say the words.

Every fiber of his being had screamed at him to let Jack know his feelings, but the truth was, he'd been afraid to do it. Afraid that Jack wouldn't feel the same. Afraid that the man he loved would let him down easy, back away from him, and that he would lose everything that held so much meaning in his life.

Well, that had happened, anyway. Was it his silence that had pushed Jack away, made the immortal decide to leave him? He would probably never know the answer to that particular question.

And what did it matter, in the end? The Doctor sighed, closing his eyes and raising his face to the night sky. The rain couldn't touch him, here in the shelter of the Tardis' doorway, but a light mist touched his skin, tiny droplets of water glimmering in his hair.

Even if he'd said those words, Jack would still have left. He had no idea if the immortal had mirrored his feelings -- but he was sure of one thing. If Jack had loved him, he wouldn't have left. He would have searched his heart and found it within himself to stay.

Maybe that was a selfish way of looking at things, the Doctor told himself, looking out into the darkness beyond the Tardis again. Jack had felt that he was needed here, on 21st-century Earth. He'd thought that he could do some good here, that there was some call he needed to answer.

The Doctor hadn't begged and pleaded with Jack to stay; he hadn't done what his hearts had clamored for him to do. He'd merely accepted Jack's decision, trying desperately not to let the other man see just how badly he was hurting.

And when Jack had walked away from him, turning away on a rainy night just like this one, he hadn't let himself shed a tear. He hadn't wanted Jack to turn around and see him crying.

Tears were a luxury he no longer allowed himself. Oh, they slipped out sometimes. There were nights when he'd awaken in his bed on the Tardis, tears streaming down his face, and he'd let them flow unheeded. Silent tears that he didn't want to acknowledge, not to another living soul.

His emotions were kept to himself. The Tardis knew -- but it wasn't as though she was going to reveal his deepest, darkest secrets to anyone, even if she could. His secrets, his emotions, were safe with her.

The night Jack had left him seemed so long ago .... and yet, so close. It had been a night exactly like this one -- the velvet-dark sky, sprinkled with stars, the rain coming down in a light mist that soaked everything around him, the melancholy that seemed to press down into his hearts.

Was that why he was walking out into the rain, standing there and letting it soak him to the skin? Was that why he was raising his face to the sky, letting the saltiness of the tears spilling down his cheeks mingle with the raindrops that pattered softly against his upturned face?

This night was so much like the one he held in his memory -- the one night of his life that he most wanted to foget. He wanted to bury the pain of that night, put it behind him forever, lock it away until it was nothing but a dim memory that had no power to hurt him any more.

But he couldn't do that. It was his last memory of Jack, the last time that he'd ever laid eyes on the man he knew in his hearts that he was meant to love. He couldn't lock that memory away, no matter how badly it hurt. It would hurt more to pretend that what they'd had never existed.

He couldn't stay here. It had been useless to come back to Cardiff, to torture himself with memories of what could have been. He had to leave, had to try to let those memories fade, no matter how painful that would be for him.

The Doctor turned back towards the Tardis, unmindful of the tears that were still flowing down his face, not wanting to wipe them away. If only he'd been able to cry in front of Jack, to let the immortal know how he'd felt. How differently things might have turned out for them if he'd been able to show his emotions.

How differently he might be feeling now, with someone he loved beside him instead of standing here in the rain alone and filled with regrets.

He took a step towards the Tardis, then another. And stopped short, gasping, when a hand came down on his shoulder, a touch that stopped him in his tracks.

"Doctor."

That touch, that voice. They could only belong to one person.

No. It wasn't possible. It couldn't be.

The Doctor took a deep breath, turning around slowly to face the person behind him. If it had been possible for his hearts to burst out of his chest, he was sure that they would at this moment.

He never would have expected this. Of all the people he might have thought would be standing there, this was the last one his mind could possibly have conjured up.

But it was. He wasn't imagining things; it was true. This wasn't some phantom from his dreams, a visiion brought about by his own yearning. It was real. More real than he'd ever have thought.

His voice shook as he said the one word he could manage to get out; the single word trembled with disbelief and suppressed yearning.

"Jack."

***

Next story in series - Second Choice.