Title: Smile Empty Soul
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Tenth Doctor/Jack Harkness
Fandom: Doctor Who/Torchwood
Rating: PG-13
Table: Connect 3, Graph 2, in 5_prompts
Prompt: 8, Smile like you mean it
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.

***

The Doctor wasn't happy. No, he wasn't happy with this at all.

But he had no choice other than to hide his feelings, as he usually did. It wasn't as though he hadn't been through this before, after all. It was a given with Jack; the other man didn't seem to know when enough was enough, or when he'd gone too far.

There he was now, whispering something in that man's ear, throwing back his head and laughing, flashing those white teeth in a grin. Completely ignoring the Doctor as though he didn't exist, intent on some new conquest that would give him pleasure for one night.

The person who he'd sworn only the night before he loved was forgotten, alone, relegated to watching Jack seduce someone whose name the immortal would have forgotten by the next morning.

The Time Lord picked up his glass, throwing back the contents in one swallow. How much more of this was he going to take before he ended it?

As much as he could take, was his silent answer. Because no matter how much it hurt to sit here and watching Jack flirting with someone else, someone he didn't care about other than as a conquest for one evening, it would hurt even more to not have Jack in his life.

So he would live with the flirting. He would grit his teeth and smile when Jack walked over to him with his arm around that young man's shoulders and told him not to wait up for him; he'd go back to the Tardis and wait for Jack to show up the next morning.

It was what he'd always done, wasn't it? Ever since they'd first met and Jack had begun traveling with him as his companion, he'd never made the other man feel that they had an exclusive relationship, not even after they'd become lovers.

He'd have to smile through the pain, that insincere smile that told the world there was no problem with what Jack was doing, that it didn't affect him in the slightest to see his lover walking off with another man. A smile that was as bereft as the bleeding soul that it hid.

The walls that he'd built up around himself were crumbling down slowly, his internal protections going up in flames, leaving him with nothing but ashes.

He had let those walls come down when he'd allowed himself to fall in love with Jack. The smile on his face when he'd first told Jack that he loved him had been sincere, a smile that came not only from his lips, but from his hearts. That seemed so long ago now.

His smile covered nothing more than an empty soul.

***

Next story in series - Missed Opportunity.