A/N My first Torchwood fic! I'm afraid I haven't watched many episodes so if there's anything, absolutely anything, wrong with this fic BLAME ALICHAY! She's my main supplier of info for the show and the beta so...sorry l'Alice.

Disclaimer: points at self mine? laughs hysterically no.

"So, you want to come?"

Jack's surprise was transparent. "With you?"

"Yeah! We can see the universe, party, have a good time - I think we deserve it after what we've been through. We can visit..."

But Jack wasn't listening. He examined the Time Lord in front of him with shrewder eyes than he ever had previously. A year ago he would have jumped at such an offer, but now he had his doubts. Time Lords really weren't all they were cracked up to be.

He cut through the Doctor's ramblings. "I think I'm going to have to decline your offer."

Stopping mid flow, the Doctor blinked in surprise. "Are you serious?"

Slowly nodding his head, he replied in a more serious tone that the Doctor had ever heard from him. "I'm afraid so, at least for a while..."

"Why?"

Jack thought; why indeed? Maybe because for the first time in his overly drawn out life he wasn't making the mistake of not appreciating what he already had instead of trying to attain more.

He had this great team, who he had just run off on and abandoned without a second thought. And to think, it had only taken a year of constant torture to make him rethink his personal policies. They were his comrades, his friends. They stuck by him when the going got tough. And they, unlike him, weren't going to be around forever.

That thought was like a bucket of liquid nitrogen over his head. Every second their lives ticked away, vanishing quicker than he could contemplate. He'd already wasted a year of enjoying them, didn't matter that he wouldn't have remembered it, it was still a whole extra year of their precious, too short lives.

It was too late not to get attached. Hell, he'd practically soldered his heart to them. So he was just going to have to make the most of them before death permanently took them from him. They didn't have forever. He did. It was time to face some harsh realities...

"Well I've got this great little Welsh tea boy and an ass kicking team I need to get back to, though if you could swoop by and pick me up in 50 years...?"

A/N Please be nice and review, I might even get around to writing a follow up...