Would Have Wanted

[loveronhermione]

                Jack was lying, bleeding onto the snow.  Slowly the white around the left side of his chest turned pink and then red.  He’d been shot in the heart.  Again.  It had happened while he was protecting his team.  Again.  The combat was still going on around him, but the fading of his vision told him that he would be of no use.  He only had a few more seconds left.  But a few more seconds at this stage of dying felt like hours.  His mind raced.  Would they be able to survive until he revived?  Would his team emerge from this altercation relatively unharmed, or would he not be the only casualty that day?  He hated dying in situations like these.  It made him feel helpless.  He couldn’t do anything for his team as he bled out.  All he could do was wait for the darkness to come, and the eventual light upon revival.

Dying is like winter, Jack thought.  Or winter is like dying.  Endings.  Things fade.  Everything is in shades of black, white, and gray.

Jack wondered if everyone paid this close attention to their death, or if it was just him because of his prior experience with the subject.  It was his last thought before finally succumbing to the wound in his chest.  Around his body, team Torchwood fought with aliens firing weapons that resembled guns.  And although each of them hurt in their own way at the sight of Jack’s death, they forced themselves to not pay attention to it.  He would be back.  They had to look out for themselves.

That’s what he would have wanted, Ianto thought.  Right?