Cardiff As It Ought To Be
Title: "Cardiff As It Ought To Be"
Disclaimer: I'm not RTD, I don't work for the BBC, and as much as I might like to, I don't own Jack or Ianto or any part of Torchwood. I do, however, order pizza under that name on principle.
Pairings: Jack/Ianto, albeit from quite a distance
Rating: PG
Notes/Summary: In which Jack experiences regret. Written for the January 2 prompt at redismycolour.
"I should know
Who I am by now
I walk
The record stands somehow
Thinking of winter
Your name is the splinter inside me
While I wait
- Joshua Radin, "Winter"
“The century will turn twice,” she’d said back in 1895. Twice. And it was horrible, because he’d already been wandering for decades just sure that he’d get lucky, and then some horrible child-who-wasn’t-a-child pinned him down and pulled him open with a handful of words.
There’s something about immortality, though, and the unwelcome knowledge that he’ll be waiting through not one but two centennials that’s kind of liberating. It’s possible he goes a bit native, and by the time Alex kills himself and the others on New Year’s Eve, he’s gotten attached to this rock and her people. Even Cardiff feels like home more than it doesn’t.
Not that it’s going to keep him here. No, he makes ready. He waits and climbs roofs not to watch the sky but to see as much of the ground as possible. The stars are nice, and they’re what he’s reaching for, but little blue boxes tend to appear at ground level.
Problem is, that little blue box doesn’t show up right away. He gets restless. He wonders if maybe something is making him wait until he has something to show for all this time stuck in the dark ages. And so, as much out of a sense of duty as a sense of shame he goes off and recruits a team. Because the Doctor isn’t going to be best pleased if there isn’t an Earth to come back to, and the Rift hasn’t quit spitting out surprise nasties just because four fifths of Torchwood Three is sleeping it off for eternity in the vaults.
Plus, if he’s stuck here waiting, maybe he owes it to The Doctor to make this thing better than it was. Proof to sweeten the deal. A practical demonstration that no, he really is bigger on the inside. Still. After everything.
He should have known that the thing would take on a life of its own. That if he did things right (and he had) that it would be bigger than him, and good.
That it would be worth missing.
In chains, far above the Earth, there’s no way for him to make marks on the walls, but Tish tells him if he asks when it is. Not that it means very much, but the changing of the seasons is comforting to him. It’s a point of reference that The Master still hasn’t got control over.
And so, when the tannoy is silent long enough, he closes his eyes and he dreams. Doesn’t sleep exactly, but rests as much as he can and lets his mind wander, imagining what he’d do in Cardiff if he were still there with that beautiful team he’d made. He remembers the little crises and late night emergencies. The small heroisms. Watching their faces when he let something slip. More and more, though, he dreams of Ianto Jones.
Who, incidentally, is probably dead on that burned-out missile silo of a planet because of him.
He’s done Ianto terribly wrong by running away in the first place, but the funny thing about hanging around like this is that it’s the Twentieth Century amplified. Nothing to do most of the time but to sit around and think, and Jack’s pretty good at tracing paths of causality. He’s just shit at knowing a good thing when he’s got it.
And so, as the Valiant glides over Britain and its work camps and blankets of acid snow, Jack Harkness closes his eyes and imagines Cardiff not as it is, but as it ought to be, and him and Ianto Jones in it.
Disclaimer: I'm not RTD, I don't work for the BBC, and as much as I might like to, I don't own Jack or Ianto or any part of Torchwood. I do, however, order pizza under that name on principle.
Pairings: Jack/Ianto, albeit from quite a distance
Rating: PG
Notes/Summary: In which Jack experiences regret. Written for the January 2 prompt at redismycolour.
"I should know
Who I am by now
I walk
The record stands somehow
Thinking of winter
Your name is the splinter inside me
While I wait
- Joshua Radin, "Winter"
“The century will turn twice,” she’d said back in 1895. Twice. And it was horrible, because he’d already been wandering for decades just sure that he’d get lucky, and then some horrible child-who-wasn’t-a-child pinned him down and pulled him open with a handful of words.
There’s something about immortality, though, and the unwelcome knowledge that he’ll be waiting through not one but two centennials that’s kind of liberating. It’s possible he goes a bit native, and by the time Alex kills himself and the others on New Year’s Eve, he’s gotten attached to this rock and her people. Even Cardiff feels like home more than it doesn’t.
Not that it’s going to keep him here. No, he makes ready. He waits and climbs roofs not to watch the sky but to see as much of the ground as possible. The stars are nice, and they’re what he’s reaching for, but little blue boxes tend to appear at ground level.
Problem is, that little blue box doesn’t show up right away. He gets restless. He wonders if maybe something is making him wait until he has something to show for all this time stuck in the dark ages. And so, as much out of a sense of duty as a sense of shame he goes off and recruits a team. Because the Doctor isn’t going to be best pleased if there isn’t an Earth to come back to, and the Rift hasn’t quit spitting out surprise nasties just because four fifths of Torchwood Three is sleeping it off for eternity in the vaults.
Plus, if he’s stuck here waiting, maybe he owes it to The Doctor to make this thing better than it was. Proof to sweeten the deal. A practical demonstration that no, he really is bigger on the inside. Still. After everything.
He should have known that the thing would take on a life of its own. That if he did things right (and he had) that it would be bigger than him, and good.
That it would be worth missing.
In chains, far above the Earth, there’s no way for him to make marks on the walls, but Tish tells him if he asks when it is. Not that it means very much, but the changing of the seasons is comforting to him. It’s a point of reference that The Master still hasn’t got control over.
And so, when the tannoy is silent long enough, he closes his eyes and he dreams. Doesn’t sleep exactly, but rests as much as he can and lets his mind wander, imagining what he’d do in Cardiff if he were still there with that beautiful team he’d made. He remembers the little crises and late night emergencies. The small heroisms. Watching their faces when he let something slip. More and more, though, he dreams of Ianto Jones.
Who, incidentally, is probably dead on that burned-out missile silo of a planet because of him.
He’s done Ianto terribly wrong by running away in the first place, but the funny thing about hanging around like this is that it’s the Twentieth Century amplified. Nothing to do most of the time but to sit around and think, and Jack’s pretty good at tracing paths of causality. He’s just shit at knowing a good thing when he’s got it.
And so, as the Valiant glides over Britain and its work camps and blankets of acid snow, Jack Harkness closes his eyes and imagines Cardiff not as it is, but as it ought to be, and him and Ianto Jones in it.