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He had never seen him like this before.
He had seen him drink hypervodka in calm resignation as he steered a doomed ship to oblivion. Another hypervodka later, and it was all just another funny story to tell at parties to him.
He had seen him lead with confidence and even flair and stand with grim determination as he, the final barrier, faced his own death.
He had abandoned him for centuries, believing him dead.
And he had taken Torchwood, he claimed, and shaped it to resemble him. Like some sort of living monument in his honor.
After a year- a year- spent under the Master's thumb, a terrifying, excruciating, nightmare of a year, he had emerged shaken. But not broken.
He didn't blame anyone for what had been done to him, but he had lots of questions. And he ran towards the one person in the Universe who could answer those questions. He had clung, and he had never let go of the hand- because he was human after all, even if he was in the wrong century. And his human intuition told him that if that hand ever fell into the wrong hands, it could be very bad for the Doctor. And so he had held on to it all that time, only to give it to him as a humble offering.
Yes, as he had often admonished him, he was possibly the biggest flirt in the Universe, possibly in Time itself, but Jack would shrug, and he'd turn his back for a fraction of a second, and he'd be doing exactly the same thing the next glance he spared in his direction- albeit perhaps with someone different.
And as more than one of their captors had discovered, divest him of his guns and he'd divest you of your clothes if you gave him half a chance.
That was just Jack.
Time and time again he had been pushed, had been knocked to the ground. And time and time again when another might have huddled in a corner, instead he sprang to his feet with a wink and a come-on.
Jack was the most resilient human he'd ever met.
And right now he was broken.
So even though his entire being reverberates with the sense that Jack is just wrong, even though he knows it's risky bringing someone whose very existence defies every single law of space and time to the most malleable areas of time and space, he takes him in anyway.
And suspecting what he does about the Face of Boe, he offers what solace and mercy he can. In someone else's arms.
Because as wrong as Jack's existence is, it is more wrong to cage such a free thing.
May he live and may he love as fully as he can, because someday he may be The Face of Boe, and even though he hasn't always deserved it, right now he's his friend. And right now, he is broken.