dw100 | #407 Forever

Title: Forever
Characters: Jack; Ian (but not together. Sorry Jack).
Word count: 100 x 3
Rating: U
Warnings/Spoilers: No warnings. No spoilers for anything more recent than "Utopia".

1.

"A fixed point in time", the Doctor had called him. Unending, unchanging, for as long as time itself might exist. Was that a prison sentence or a blessing? Jack watched galaxies fall and rise in his search for an answer to that question. Meanwhile he saw friends die, saw others born, in an endless march onward through life. There was a beauty to it, and a terror; and there was no escaping it by any means. That, he knew, was the greatest challenge he must face. It was his life, forever. He just had to learn how to live it.

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Slightly cheating, but Jack, as you might expect, didn't know when to shut up. So there's a part two as well:

2.

The answer, perhaps predictably, came not from the stars, but from those creatures that he met along the way. Jack might be an accidental hero, but he was never an accidental lover; and if he could not save the lives of his friends, he could certainly make them happier. He could make himself smile with every smile of theirs. It might not be the ultimate answer, but for the man who would see every tomorrow, there was always time to look for something more. In the meantime he could love. Perhaps that had always been his reason for being alive.

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And something from rather longer ago:

3.

I used to teach science in a London school. Planning lessons. Marking homework. Trying to get home in time to catch the football scores, or perhaps a film. Now it’s Monday afternoon – I think; my body clock is a little confused these days – and I’m standing on the largest of twin moons, orbiting a giant, blue planet, watching as an alien sun begins to rise. I didn’t choose this life, but I live it gladly; every second, right on the edge of forever. And although it’s sometimes terrifying, I still believe that no man was ever more fortunate than I.

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