Ficlet: Ghosts

[badly_knitted]

Title: Ghosts

Author: badly_knitted

Characters: Jack

Rating: PG

Spoilers: Fragments.

Summary: The Hub is haunted by the ghosts of the past.

Word Count: 330

Written For: juliet316’s prompt ‘Torchwood, Jack Harkness, all he sees is ghosts these days,’ at

Comments

[akawho]

Poor Jack, he's at a low point and has no idea that his future will be so much better...

[badly_knitted]

He's having to start his Torchwood from scratch, which isn't a bad thing in itself. What makes it hard is the reason he has to re-build.

Thank you.

[too_beauty]

Even though he had a rough beginning, he will create something much better; unfortunately he won't be able to stop more ghosts appearing ....
sad but beautifully written, as usual!

[badly_knitted]

That's really the tragedy, because the job has to be done - for as long as the Rift exists - but that means more people must put their lives on the line. No one except Jack lives forever.

Thank you!

[owensheart]

This is really heartbreaking in so many ways.

great ficlet

[badly_knitted]

Losing the entire team, everyone he worked with, all in one evening must have been devastating for him, especially when they died at the hands of someone they should have been able to trust completely. It was the last thing any of them could have expected.

Thank you.

[rose_cat]

Nice!

This has to have been a serious low point for Jack, having to deal with the shock of losing the whole team at the same time being saddled with the burden of completely rebuilding Torchwood 3, all on his own. You've described the experience in a way that feels right.

...every phantom sound cuts him right down to the bone, like the sharpest of the knives Alice and Emily used to derive so much pleasure from...

A marvelously creepy detail there (as well as a really good metaphor).

All of Torchwood’s dead walk the tunnels and caverns that make up the underground base. Their bodies are still here as well, stowed away neatly in the drawers of the morgue...And so many of them to remember. What must it have been like to walk through the Hub -- which he must have done a lot, since by his own admission he didn't sleep much -- through the corridors and rooms and different levels, and past the wall of drawers, with memory evoking ghosts at every turn

[badly_knitted]

Thank you!

Jack's been there so long that I'm sure he remembers them all - their names, faces, little quirks, these who were friends and those who weren't, even a few lovers. It's not surprising that they haunt him, really.

The explosion may have caved in the upper level, but everything below that surely still exists - morgue, vaults, archives, so many places where the ghosts still walk.

[rose_cat]

I like your theory about the Hub. Maybe Janet and the other inhabitants of the cells are OK too. (Although I'd like to see them released somehow. I have considered a fix-it fic in which the Doctor helps find them other homes. After giving Jack what-for, of course.)

And the snipers were too busy missing Gwen to notice Myfanwy flying away. (Although I mostly see Children of Earth and Miracle Day as depressing AUs, in any case.)

[badly_knitted]

I never watched Miracle Day, so I have no opinion on that beyond 'It's not MY Torchwood', but CoE (when I'm not writing fix-its) is definitely AU - a badly written one at that.

I believe that when Ianto was frantically working at the computer before Jack threw him onto the invisible lift, he was locking down the lower levels and opening the vault doors and sewer access points so whatever was caged down there could get out. Myfanwy had already been released for her evening exercise, so she wasn't in the Hub.

Truthfully, in my Torchwood, Jack would never have returned to the Hub after waking up on that table, he would have made for a safe house (Torchwood MUST have them) and contacted the Hub from there to tell them that he may have been compromised. The whole 'bomb in stomach' plot made no sense to me at all. Blow up the Plass, yeah, way to keep the public from panicking! *rolls eyes*