Title: Fall To the Ground
By: angstytimelord
Pairing: Tenth Doctor/Jack Harkness
Fandom: Doctor Who/Torchwood
Rating: R
Table: doctorwho_100
Prompt: 56, Want
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 leaned back in his chair, his feet up on the console of the Tardis, his fingers laced together behind his head. He closed his eyes, letting his mind drift, contemplating the question that he'd been asked the last time he'd seen Jack.

Why was it that Jack could always ask him things that made him look back over his life and feel that he wasn't satisfied with so much of it? He scowled at the ceiling, his brow wrinkling, his lower lip thrusting out in a pout.

"What is it that you want, Doctor? Just tell me that."

He almost snorted as the memory of Jack's voice came back to him. What kind of a question was that? Hadn't he explained to Jack enough times what he wanted? They might not have been together for very long, but they'd certainly discussed that subject enough.

Someone who would always be with him. Relief from the constant loneliness. Just a little bit of security, stability -- at least emotionally, if not anywhere else in his life. He hadn't really been able to put all of that into words, but Jack should know.

Unfortunately, this was the one thing that Jack seemed to run into a brick wall on when it came to understanding a Time Lord's needs.

Did he really need to go over all of this in his mind again? The Doctor sighed, closing his eyes and shaking his head in a negation of his own inner question. No, he didn't. It had been quite a while ago, anyway. What he'd had with Jack was over.

Of course, they still saw each other, once in a while, when his need for more than a casual, fleeting connection with someone took him to the Hub -- and to Jack's bed for a night or two. And usually, the subject of what he wanted didn't come up.

Until now.

Why Jack had chosen last night, after a long evening of enjoying each other's bodies, to bring up that particular thorn in his side again, he had no idea. But it had certainly put him on the defensive, more than he'd needed -- or wanted -- to be.

He'd felt so damn naked when Jack had asked him that. He'd felt vulnerable, as if the other man was laying bare everything about him, quickly and easily stripping him to the bone, tearing down all the walls he'd spent so long building up.

Those walls had come down in a matter of seconds. And it shouldn't have been surprising that he felt naked -- because he literally was.

He had clutched the sheets of Jack's bed around himself, knowing that the other man didn't need any kind of special x-ray vision to see through him and wishing that he had an immediate answer he could fire off and that would be the end of it.

But he didn't. He hadn't been able to formulate an answer, either. He'd just sat there, staring at Jack with his mouth open and feeling helpless. With those few words, the immortal had thrown down a gauntlet that he couldn't pick up.

It might have been easy to answer that question at any other time. But now .... this wasn't the best time for him to answer anything, not when his defenses were down and he had to scramble to make sure that they were back in place again.

Only he couldn't put them back up that quickly. And Jack knew it.

What was he trying to get at? Did the other man want him to say that he needed Jack in his life? He wasn't going to do that. Jack had hurt him too badly by walking away; and now he had turned the tables by doing it himself.

Over and over and over again. Each time he left, each time he walked out of the Hub and didn't come back for long periods of time, he scored a victory -- at least in his own mind.

Yes, it was petty. It was vengeful. But it was the only way he had of assuaging the hurt that still ate away at a part of his soul. It was the only thing he could do to show Jack without words just how much it had hurt to be walked out on.

But at least Jack had a knowledge that he'd never had, and that he still wasn't sure of. Jack knew that, no matter what happened, he would always be back. He couldn't stay away, and the immortal was all too aware of that fact.

He had no idea if the immortal would ever have come back to him. And, truth be told, he didn't want to know. It would hurt unbearably to find out that Jack had found it easy to leave him behind; he didn't want to hear those words out loud, or see the proof of them.

Maybe Jack didn't have a hard time with them just being casual lovers, carrying on as they were now for an undetermined amount of time into the future. He'd never asked.

He'd just shown up here at the Hub, making polite conversation, and making excuses to be here after the rest of the team had long since gone home. And that night, he'd found himself in bed with Jack -- where he'd known that he would end up.

If that made him a whore, he didn't care. He had what he wanted -- for the time being, at least.

What Jack thought of him and his actions, he didn't know. He didn't ask, and Jack didn't offer an opinon. For all he knew, Jack thought less of him for coming to his bed so readily; and if he did, the Doctor didn't want to hear it.

They were both getting what they wanted, he reasoned, frowning up at the ceiling again. What did it matter if they were scoring points off each other in a game that they weren't even consciously playing? From what he could see, they'd been playing that game for longer than either of them realized.

But Jack had caught him off guard with that question. Oh, he knew the answer to it. That question could be answered so simply, so easily. If he let what he wanted to say come out, maybe it would finally knock down all the barriers they'd both taken such care to build up.

He'd never say it. If he did, he'd be laying himself open to more heartache than he was willing to expose himself to. Because he knew that Jack would only walk away again.

He knew it. There was no need to ask himself if the other man would stay; it was impossible. All they could do was go on like this. Jack had condemned them to it, even if the Doctor would never accuse him of that out loud.

The Doctor sighed, swallowing and squeezing his eyes tightly shut against the flood of emotion that threatened to break free of those walls he'd struggled to keep so tightly closed around himself -- walls that he knew he'd never let fall to the ground.

"What is it that you want, Doctor? Just tell me that."

"You," he whispered, the word sounding hollow and empty even as he said it aloud.

***