I'm not sure it's such a bad position to be in, to be fairly honest. Fandom after CoE was, and still is, in places, not that much of a happy place, so it must be an interesting time to enter into this and start reading. The discussions of, "Gwen should have lost her baby, if we're really talking about consequences here" are a bit hard to stomach for anyone, so, I'd say it's not a bad thing to have missed the height of that.

I agree about the parallel with Alice actually. Both women have lived through what Torchwood could do and walked away, and in Alice's case, she got drawn back in by pure association to Jack, and that, to actually see what you feared would happen and fought against, happen -- that must be an additional layer of heartbreak. It's one of my favorite scenes in CoE, actually, Alice walking away from Jack again, and probably permanently that time.

Humans are social beings, so I'm sure he actually tried not connecting to anyone, but I doubt he managed for more than 20, 30 years at a time, maybe 50, but much like the Doctor, I think, Jack loves people, he couldn't stay away.

Thanks again, and hope you'll be enjoying your time with Torchwood fic, and such.