They nearly walked straight past each other.
The streets were crowded, as well they might be, it being festival night on Jarsus five, and the Dalangalang singers in town for the last ever performance of their career. The Doctor had wangled seats directly overlooking the proscenium, and they were in a hurry to reach them, dodging in and out of the partying populace and smiling at the offers of drink or food or company.
Rose had just dragged Jack away from the most recent one of those, and they were hastening after the Doctor’s lanky stride when he stopped. Just like that, stopped. As if he’d hit a brick wall. The crowd swirled and danced around him, and he was standing there, staring, with his eyes wide and his mouth open in shock.
"Watcher?" Jack heard him murmur, then: "Watcher?", a word yelled at the top of his voice and loud enough to pierce the night music and set the streets ringing with its desperate sound. Somewhere in the heaving crowd an equally lanky figure stopped short, pulled to an abrupt halt by the cry that was both hope and prayer and terrified howl. Someone actually ran into him, so sudden was the cessation of motion.
He was a tall man with short dark hair, peppered with a hint of gray, and he was wearing a long dark coat over what looked like a pair of jeans – which was quite impossible on Jarsus Five. As impossible as the Doctor’s leather jacket, or Jack’s Kalinthian combat boots.
"Doctor?" The question was soft, but the sound of it carried. The speaker turned, bringing his square cut profile into better view. Jack – who’d been alternately admiring the small blonde, the stunning redhead, the youthful brunette and the tall guy with the dashing eyepatch who’d joined the momentary traffic jam – immediately forgot all the other players on the field.
Wow.
There was a moment of utter silence – silence despite the deafening celebrations and the start of the fireworks which lit up the sky. There was nothing but two pairs of eyes, staring at each other across a sea of heaving humanity. Old eyes. Eyes which had seen centuries; the heights of ecstasy and the depths of despair.
"Doctor!"
The stranger moved first, ploughing forward, pushing his way through the intervening crowd as if they didn’t exist. His young posse tagged on behind him, sharing startled glances and doing their best not to get left behind. In a beat, the Doctor had matched the advance - and Jack quickly grabbed Rose so that they could surge after him, two bits of flotsam bobbing in the wake of a behemoth as it raced towards its destiny.
They met in the middle of the street, two long limbed figures draped in dark sorrows and each wearing a smile that lit up the world. The Doctor didn’t stop his advance; he walked straight into the other man’s arms, wrapping him in a hug that threatened to pull him inside the Time Lord’s skin. The stranger hugged back, just as fiercely, just as feelingly.
"Great Rassilon," the Doctor was murmuring, pressing himself into the stranger’s embrace, trembling from head to foot. "I thought I was the last. I thought – Time and Space, I thought …"
"I didn’t know you’d made it out." The stranger’s voice was husky with emotion. "I barely did. Skin of my teeth and all that …"
Words trailed off. Hands clenched convulsively on shoulders that shook and would regret the bruises come the morning. The two men pushed apart for a moment, seeking each other’s eyes, needing the confirmation of reality; then they closed again, lips meeting in a deep and devouring kiss.
Rose’s mouth fell open.
Jack’s heart did a double flip of want and need and stupid irrational jealousy – and he couldn’t say about whom for whom, but it was there all the same. Because that was the sexiest thing he’d seen in centuries.
Right in the middle of the street too.
Damn!
A distraught voice drifted over from the equally stunned group that had trailed in the Watcher’s wake.
"Uh, Buffy?" it requested faintly. "I think perhaps you’d better pinch me – ow!"