Don't they know? [fic]
Title: Don't they know?
Author:
shadowbyrd
Rating(s): R
Pairing(s): Jack/the universe. No really.
Prompt: 30. Death for
fanfic100
Warning(s): Lots of death, side of torture. Spoilers for Dr Who series three.
Summary: They've spent a long time avoiding each other, but it can only go on for forever. Birthday fic for
laligin, who was also gracious enough to loan me Dai.
Jack was a beautiful child. Not so much in appearance - this did not come until later, when he won the lottery and puberty worked its miracles. No, Jack was beautiful because he believed in things, and was willing to believe in people. It was a rare thing to come by in an age when even childhood was shot through with cynicism and a reluctance to trust. Of course, this was also an age where there was sadly very good reason for it; an age when they were at war and children were being pulled out of their last years of school to be taught more worthwhile things. How to use a gun, how to defuse a bomb, the weak points in Dalek armour.
Jack was one of those who managed to finish school without being drafted - they hadn’t come to the Boeshane Peninsula yet - and enlisted the day after he graduated. His Mom cried and his Dad hit him, his brothers told him he was stupid, but he didn’t back down. They fetched his best friend around to try and talk some sense into him, only for him to enlist too. For all his innocence Jack had a shiny silver tongue.
It didn’t quite go according to plan. True, they fought the Daleks, they had adventures, but it was supposed to have a contented ending at least if they couldn’t have happy one. They left two bright-eyed boys and came back one cracked but not quite broken man.
His friend was shot as a traitor, even though they escaped the torture chambers before he gave anything away. For a long while after Jack had himself convinced that it was all a mistake - they had him confused with someone else, didn’t realise that he hadn’t told the enemy anything. It kept him going, until the next mission.
He gets captured again. The whole group this time. It’s not the fuck ugly guy who had Jack before (thank God), but this guy seems even worse; to fuck ugly it was business. This guy is enjoying every minute of it as he looks them up and down in the tiny cages they’ve been placed in, dragging out the apprehension as they wait and wonder who’s going to be his first victim.
He pauses at Jack and laughs. “When are you lot going to get it into your heads, eh? Sending your precious little kiddies off to war. Have you run out of real men? Is that the problem?”
“And women,” says Jack. Bastard’s hit the nail on the head, but there’s no reason to let him know that.
“What’s that little ‘un?” he asks, bending over and cupping his ear.
“You were asking if we’ve run out of “real men”. I was pointing out that our army enlists women too.”
He straightens, the better to stare down his nose at Jack, and then smiles.
“I like you, boy,” he tells Jack. “I’ll kill you last.”
This time half the unit manages to escape, though only Jack and the unit leader survive the journey back.
Once they’ve ascertained that Jack, whilst slightly psychologically scarred, is fit for duty (rumour has it they’ve lowered standards so they can bring in more of the sick and invalided to fatten the ranks) he’s put to work in the interrogation unit. He’s seen so many torture techniques, they reason - who better to conduct interrogations?
People who have withstood interrogation themselves, Jack thinks. “The healthy man does not torture others, it is the tortured who become torturers” and what have you. But he doesn’t drop a word. Because while Jack’s not been tortured (he’d be dead if he had been - they shoot most of those who are caught and tortured. As punishment for revealing anything or as a deterrent for others Jack has no idea; neither makes any sense) he’s hardly healthy.
The first job is hard because Jack’s been in the other place, tied down to the table trying so hard to be strong even before anything happens. He wonders, careful to project every scrap of invulnerability he has (and then some), if his shadow cuts an intimidating figure as he crosses the room to where they’re being held, the CO already laid out on a slab for him.
He leans over the table, staring the man in the face. “You know who I am?” he asks, hoping to mysterious, unsettling at the very least.
The man doesn’t answer, just stares back at him tight lipped and full of hatred.
Going to have to work on the tight lipped bit.
He turns away and surveys the tools prepared for him, remembering their applications on his comrades whilst his twisted imagination tries a few other combinations.
Then, behind him, “For God’s sake get on with it! You’re not going to fool anyone here you’re anything more than some stupid kid who skipped out of school early so you could wear a gun by dragging it out.”
Jack turns. Easy to tell who’s spoken, even if all the others weren’t turning and glaring at her. And Jack feels it’s a bit rich being called kid by someone who, if she is any older than him, it’s only by a year or two. Jack drift over to her and cocks his head. There’s plenty of fight in her. Still some hope too. That means plenty of fear.
Jack thinks about all this and then smiles a cold, slow smile, a hard glint lighting up his still eyes.
“I like you,” he tells the prisoner. “I’ll kill you last.”
The stories Jack tells are select and very few of them are actually his. They’re stories he’s picked up from friends and acquaintances, people he’s conned. His own tend to be maudlin, if not dull. He doesn’t particularly care; he uses then to loosen people up, entertain them, make them feel good. It’s one of the reasons he’s a colossal flirt - that and he is a child of the 51st century; so long as they’re not related pretty much anybody’s fair game. In this 21st century when everyone is so unsure, finding themselves in the music blasting out of their cars, the “right” clothes and black varnish he’s a reassuring presence; he knows who and what he is and is comfortable with it.
At least, that’s what he looks like.
He’s not quite comfortable (except about this “leaning” thing almost everyone who meets him in these times seems so obsessed by)…more he’s settled. Too set in his ways to get any better and he knows it; he’ll always shoot first and ask the questions later, always leave one too many hats on the ground if it gets the job done. He still does things the bloody way, but he’s doing it to achieve the hero’s end. So he tells himself. He’s one big ball of necessary evils these days. But he doesn’t explain himself or make excuses; he knows there are other ways, probably better ways to do things. This is just the way he knows that works. Those around him seem to understand and most of the time will stand by him.
This doesn’t just go for the arming the human race against the future, because this century is when it all kicks off.
Contrary to popular belief he can count on one hand the number of times he’s slept with Ianto. The boy is growing up and, more importantly, growing into himself. Which means he has less and less need for Jack. Which is fine by him - Ianto hadn’t been getting what he needed out of it and Jack, aside from some great sex, hadn’t been getting much out of it either. He doesn’t get what he needs from anyone anymore.
He kisses his own fingertips, gasps and moans into his own hand and closes his eyes and tips his head back, murmured “I love you”s tumbling from his mouth to keep him company in the dark. It’s not about sex or sensation. He can have that any time. It’s about being held and understood and treasured for who and what he is. Jack’s only ever had it fleetingly (most make up their minds about who he is, or rather who they want him to be before he’s even opened his mouth. He’s not entirely blameless, changing clothes and colour to fit the mood, but he does get tired of the slaps and insults when he doesn’t live up to his “image”) and now will never have it again. There will be people who understand parts of him. Someone who sees the boy soldier, someone else who sees the lone wanderer, yet another someone who sees the hopeless romantic. But not everything. Not even close.
And even if he did, if he ever did find someone to really love, it’ll only bring him grief in the end. He’s not quite caught up to the Doctor, but he will one day. One day, he’ll overtake him and human lives will seem as brief as butterflies - here today, gone tomorrow. That was the real heartbreak of his namesake; it was fate bending over backwards on itself, the name he’d stolen from the past showing him what would one day be his future. Not that there would be many like Him. When Jack first caught Him staring He claimed to be trying to place his face, sure He’d met Jack somewhere before. Jack had felt the same. Like there was some kind of connection between them…
Never again will he meet anyone who makes him this soppy. No matter how long he lives.
He’s barely hit one hundred-and-fifty. Not like the Doctor who is, if sources are to be believed, closer to one thousand than the nine hundred he kept pushing in their faces. And he will go on - longer than the Doctor. Perhaps for always. And that is a thought that terrifies Jack more than he could ever express; that he might be there as one by one the stars fail and the planets die, the universe slowly collapsing, getting smaller and darker…it’s too terrible to contemplate. But contemplate it he does (there’s only so long you can avoid not thinking about things, really) and it’s probably the only thing except the safety of his team that would ever induce him to kill himself. The idea he will be there to witness the final deaths, to see the last lights go out…It is pointless to try and prevent it this way - it can’t work. He knows it. But every time he squeezes the trigger, jumps from the ledge, walks into the fire he hopes that this time it will be different.
It never is.
The years go on. After a lot of work on Owen’s part they make some interesting discoveries about the Weevils. They all wear the same dark boiler suits because it is a uniform. A prison uniform. Many of the Weevils that come through the rift do so by choice, making one last desperate bid for freedom. Many of those who come through are on death row. It’s useful to know, not to mention interesting, but they paid for it, as they do most knowledge they acquire. Owen proves difficult to replace, even with the list of possibles Jack drew up in those days after Diane when it looked like Owen was either going to get himself killed or quit. Tosh tries to fill in for him, taking care of the team’s injuries (in the case of Jack’s more serious injuries this can require stabbing him and waiting for him to resurrect. Even after a few goes Tosh remains squeamish about doing this, and so Jack takes over), but her knowledge is rusty and she never actually practiced after leaving med school and so Jack endeavours to find someone.
It’s around this time that whilst on a recon mission Jack and Gwen are called back to the Hub by Ianto, reporting an intruder with prior knowledge of Torchwood (he’s managed to escape the brig twice - Tosh is fitting a new lock to the cell door as Ianto brings them up to date). Jack returns to the Hub in a flurry of coat and finds his prayers have, for once, been answered.
Sitting behind the glass walls and looking very confused is Dai.
Jack gives him a big hug and kiss and then explains himself to the rest of the team, aiming a lot of it at Ianto who is glaring at Dai through narrowed eyes.
Jack has his suspicions too, but he keeps them quiet, for the sake of building camaraderie and keeps his eye on him. Gwen passes comment on this a few times, until Jack explains that he always keeps a closer eye on the newbies - which is what Dai is, even if he was formerly employed by the Torchwood Institute; it’s been nearly fifty years since Dai was snatched and Tosh is having to show him the wires, so to speak. Ianto throws him a questioning look, which is fair enough because it was a complete lie, but he has no clue why Gwen’s suddenly looking so hurt.
A few weeks pass, and things start to work like they should again. Dai is starting to get the hang of all the medical equipment again, and is going out with them on field work often. Ianto seems to be a little insulted by this, but makes use of the time alone (as Jack knew he would) changing codes and generally tightening security (especially around the archives). But more weeks pass and still nothing happens and Jack begins to let some of his suspicions go.
Naturally this is when it all goes to shit; some alien programming kicks in and Dai uses Gwen as a hostage to try and persuade them to grant him access to the archives. Jack refuses, Dai shoots Gwen. Jack shoots Dai.
He sends Toshiko around to break the news to Gwen’s boyfriend - he’s never met her and she can muster a suitably sympathetic expression - and then gets down to work performing Dai’s autopsy.
They bring in two new replacements from Torchwood One, who also dress formally and refer to Tosh, second in command since Owen bought it, as “Ma’am” and him as “Sir”, which was kinda cool when Ianto was the only one doing it, but now it’s a bit much.
She gets taken a year or two later, just like Dai was, and Jack can’t help but wonder if in another few years’ time they’ll have a happy reunion, broken up by the need to shoot her.
Ianto manages to stick it out another seven years. For all the self-preservation the battle of Canary Warf had left him with there are some instincts that can’t be quelled. It doesn’t matter that he knows that Jack can’t die, will re-animate in a matter of minutes, given that they remove whatever he’s impaled himself on, there is still that urge, a Myoclonic jerk that’s meant to make it all better, but when the time comes turns out to be quite useless.
Jack gets shot. Or rather Jack’s meant to get shot, but Ianto gets in the way, forgetting for five seconds why Jack’s the one who does anything necessary and suicidal. He crumples right there in front of Jack, the life sliding out between Jack’s fingers and in a matter of minutes he’s not holding Ianto anymore, but a dead body. He uses it as a shield, firing back over the shoulder and when the enemy lies dead around him he drops it, fingertips strangely cold.
And still time passes and the years go on, faster and slower than they should. He remembers word for word one of the last conversations he had with Toshiko, only to remember she’s been dead at least ten years. It can’t have been that long, and yet it is.
He doesn’t wear black for any of them, doesn’t go to the funerals and attends the services only to offer condolences to the family. He simply adds them to the list of people to think about and miss for that half an hour of Remembrance Day he sits in quiet. Two minutes doesn’t really cut it.
This November 11th he’s too busying thinking of himself and of the sky to remember anyone else.
The stars are dying. The moons are crumbling. The planets are burning. All is coming to dust.
What this means for him Jack has no idea. He’s moved with the rest of humanity from ailing planet to ailing planet, desperate to find somewhere that was just sick, not dying, somewhere that could recover and where they could flourish again. No one dares say what’s on everyone’s minds; that there is no such place anymore.
The uncertainty of it all was scary at first, but he’s too tired now and has no desire to be there when it finally hits home that this is the end and so has chosen to stay behind on this particular planet. It’s the nearest he could get to home.
The Utopia project leaves the planet, as it does numerous other weak, unstable planets. Jack stays behind and watches the atmosphere fail.
The people who have left realise there is nowhere left to go, but this doesn’t stifle their survival instincts, or their creativity.
While Jack coughs and gasps and slowly suffocates, the lack of o-zone starting to burn his skin red raw and twist his vision into a more colourful apocalypse, they eat their own flesh, replacing it with strong, shiny metal.
As Jack freezes and goes blind a few hours after each revival they cut away more of their skin and bone, dizzy on their genius. They’re beating the universe at its own game.
The gravity fails and Jack spirals away from the ground into the unforgiving sky, unable to see or smell or taste or feel whether he’s on fire or turning to ice. They hide their withering, decaying forms behind more metal, ripping each other apart, because it’s fun. Fun is good. Fun is what happened when the universe was theirs and didn’t have any funny ideas. Funny is not fun.
But they’re trapped in a collapsing tunnel and with no visible light at the end there’s no way they’re getting out. They kill each other to kill the time until their precious pretty metals fail them and they become so much rotted meat.
And as the planets crumble and the last stars die there is Jack, cold and naked floating like some stray dust speck, there one minute, dead the next - switching between the two like a faulty light bulb.
He’s missing all his toes, one of his hands and so it goes, the flesh falling away faster than it can regenerate. Until he comes back and finds there isn’t actually any of him there. Except the energy, drifting through space like a tiny dust cloud.
He doesn’t see the end, nor hear it. He is part of it, rushing in to join the rest of the energy and the gases.
There is a moment of absolute darkness.
And then sheer brilliance.
Author:
shadowbyrd
Rating(s): R
Pairing(s): Jack/the universe. No really.
Prompt: 30. Death for
fanfic100
Warning(s): Lots of death, side of torture. Spoilers for Dr Who series three.
Summary: They've spent a long time avoiding each other, but it can only go on for forever. Birthday fic for
laligin, who was also gracious enough to loan me Dai.
Jack was a beautiful child. Not so much in appearance - this did not come until later, when he won the lottery and puberty worked its miracles. No, Jack was beautiful because he believed in things, and was willing to believe in people. It was a rare thing to come by in an age when even childhood was shot through with cynicism and a reluctance to trust. Of course, this was also an age where there was sadly very good reason for it; an age when they were at war and children were being pulled out of their last years of school to be taught more worthwhile things. How to use a gun, how to defuse a bomb, the weak points in Dalek armour.
Jack was one of those who managed to finish school without being drafted - they hadn’t come to the Boeshane Peninsula yet - and enlisted the day after he graduated. His Mom cried and his Dad hit him, his brothers told him he was stupid, but he didn’t back down. They fetched his best friend around to try and talk some sense into him, only for him to enlist too. For all his innocence Jack had a shiny silver tongue.
It didn’t quite go according to plan. True, they fought the Daleks, they had adventures, but it was supposed to have a contented ending at least if they couldn’t have happy one. They left two bright-eyed boys and came back one cracked but not quite broken man.
His friend was shot as a traitor, even though they escaped the torture chambers before he gave anything away. For a long while after Jack had himself convinced that it was all a mistake - they had him confused with someone else, didn’t realise that he hadn’t told the enemy anything. It kept him going, until the next mission.
He gets captured again. The whole group this time. It’s not the fuck ugly guy who had Jack before (thank God), but this guy seems even worse; to fuck ugly it was business. This guy is enjoying every minute of it as he looks them up and down in the tiny cages they’ve been placed in, dragging out the apprehension as they wait and wonder who’s going to be his first victim.
He pauses at Jack and laughs. “When are you lot going to get it into your heads, eh? Sending your precious little kiddies off to war. Have you run out of real men? Is that the problem?”
“And women,” says Jack. Bastard’s hit the nail on the head, but there’s no reason to let him know that.
“What’s that little ‘un?” he asks, bending over and cupping his ear.
“You were asking if we’ve run out of “real men”. I was pointing out that our army enlists women too.”
He straightens, the better to stare down his nose at Jack, and then smiles.
“I like you, boy,” he tells Jack. “I’ll kill you last.”
This time half the unit manages to escape, though only Jack and the unit leader survive the journey back.
Once they’ve ascertained that Jack, whilst slightly psychologically scarred, is fit for duty (rumour has it they’ve lowered standards so they can bring in more of the sick and invalided to fatten the ranks) he’s put to work in the interrogation unit. He’s seen so many torture techniques, they reason - who better to conduct interrogations?
People who have withstood interrogation themselves, Jack thinks. “The healthy man does not torture others, it is the tortured who become torturers” and what have you. But he doesn’t drop a word. Because while Jack’s not been tortured (he’d be dead if he had been - they shoot most of those who are caught and tortured. As punishment for revealing anything or as a deterrent for others Jack has no idea; neither makes any sense) he’s hardly healthy.
The first job is hard because Jack’s been in the other place, tied down to the table trying so hard to be strong even before anything happens. He wonders, careful to project every scrap of invulnerability he has (and then some), if his shadow cuts an intimidating figure as he crosses the room to where they’re being held, the CO already laid out on a slab for him.
He leans over the table, staring the man in the face. “You know who I am?” he asks, hoping to mysterious, unsettling at the very least.
The man doesn’t answer, just stares back at him tight lipped and full of hatred.
Going to have to work on the tight lipped bit.
He turns away and surveys the tools prepared for him, remembering their applications on his comrades whilst his twisted imagination tries a few other combinations.
Then, behind him, “For God’s sake get on with it! You’re not going to fool anyone here you’re anything more than some stupid kid who skipped out of school early so you could wear a gun by dragging it out.”
Jack turns. Easy to tell who’s spoken, even if all the others weren’t turning and glaring at her. And Jack feels it’s a bit rich being called kid by someone who, if she is any older than him, it’s only by a year or two. Jack drift over to her and cocks his head. There’s plenty of fight in her. Still some hope too. That means plenty of fear.
Jack thinks about all this and then smiles a cold, slow smile, a hard glint lighting up his still eyes.
“I like you,” he tells the prisoner. “I’ll kill you last.”
The stories Jack tells are select and very few of them are actually his. They’re stories he’s picked up from friends and acquaintances, people he’s conned. His own tend to be maudlin, if not dull. He doesn’t particularly care; he uses then to loosen people up, entertain them, make them feel good. It’s one of the reasons he’s a colossal flirt - that and he is a child of the 51st century; so long as they’re not related pretty much anybody’s fair game. In this 21st century when everyone is so unsure, finding themselves in the music blasting out of their cars, the “right” clothes and black varnish he’s a reassuring presence; he knows who and what he is and is comfortable with it.
At least, that’s what he looks like.
He’s not quite comfortable (except about this “leaning” thing almost everyone who meets him in these times seems so obsessed by)…more he’s settled. Too set in his ways to get any better and he knows it; he’ll always shoot first and ask the questions later, always leave one too many hats on the ground if it gets the job done. He still does things the bloody way, but he’s doing it to achieve the hero’s end. So he tells himself. He’s one big ball of necessary evils these days. But he doesn’t explain himself or make excuses; he knows there are other ways, probably better ways to do things. This is just the way he knows that works. Those around him seem to understand and most of the time will stand by him.
This doesn’t just go for the arming the human race against the future, because this century is when it all kicks off.
Contrary to popular belief he can count on one hand the number of times he’s slept with Ianto. The boy is growing up and, more importantly, growing into himself. Which means he has less and less need for Jack. Which is fine by him - Ianto hadn’t been getting what he needed out of it and Jack, aside from some great sex, hadn’t been getting much out of it either. He doesn’t get what he needs from anyone anymore.
He kisses his own fingertips, gasps and moans into his own hand and closes his eyes and tips his head back, murmured “I love you”s tumbling from his mouth to keep him company in the dark. It’s not about sex or sensation. He can have that any time. It’s about being held and understood and treasured for who and what he is. Jack’s only ever had it fleetingly (most make up their minds about who he is, or rather who they want him to be before he’s even opened his mouth. He’s not entirely blameless, changing clothes and colour to fit the mood, but he does get tired of the slaps and insults when he doesn’t live up to his “image”) and now will never have it again. There will be people who understand parts of him. Someone who sees the boy soldier, someone else who sees the lone wanderer, yet another someone who sees the hopeless romantic. But not everything. Not even close.
And even if he did, if he ever did find someone to really love, it’ll only bring him grief in the end. He’s not quite caught up to the Doctor, but he will one day. One day, he’ll overtake him and human lives will seem as brief as butterflies - here today, gone tomorrow. That was the real heartbreak of his namesake; it was fate bending over backwards on itself, the name he’d stolen from the past showing him what would one day be his future. Not that there would be many like Him. When Jack first caught Him staring He claimed to be trying to place his face, sure He’d met Jack somewhere before. Jack had felt the same. Like there was some kind of connection between them…
Never again will he meet anyone who makes him this soppy. No matter how long he lives.
He’s barely hit one hundred-and-fifty. Not like the Doctor who is, if sources are to be believed, closer to one thousand than the nine hundred he kept pushing in their faces. And he will go on - longer than the Doctor. Perhaps for always. And that is a thought that terrifies Jack more than he could ever express; that he might be there as one by one the stars fail and the planets die, the universe slowly collapsing, getting smaller and darker…it’s too terrible to contemplate. But contemplate it he does (there’s only so long you can avoid not thinking about things, really) and it’s probably the only thing except the safety of his team that would ever induce him to kill himself. The idea he will be there to witness the final deaths, to see the last lights go out…It is pointless to try and prevent it this way - it can’t work. He knows it. But every time he squeezes the trigger, jumps from the ledge, walks into the fire he hopes that this time it will be different.
It never is.
The years go on. After a lot of work on Owen’s part they make some interesting discoveries about the Weevils. They all wear the same dark boiler suits because it is a uniform. A prison uniform. Many of the Weevils that come through the rift do so by choice, making one last desperate bid for freedom. Many of those who come through are on death row. It’s useful to know, not to mention interesting, but they paid for it, as they do most knowledge they acquire. Owen proves difficult to replace, even with the list of possibles Jack drew up in those days after Diane when it looked like Owen was either going to get himself killed or quit. Tosh tries to fill in for him, taking care of the team’s injuries (in the case of Jack’s more serious injuries this can require stabbing him and waiting for him to resurrect. Even after a few goes Tosh remains squeamish about doing this, and so Jack takes over), but her knowledge is rusty and she never actually practiced after leaving med school and so Jack endeavours to find someone.
It’s around this time that whilst on a recon mission Jack and Gwen are called back to the Hub by Ianto, reporting an intruder with prior knowledge of Torchwood (he’s managed to escape the brig twice - Tosh is fitting a new lock to the cell door as Ianto brings them up to date). Jack returns to the Hub in a flurry of coat and finds his prayers have, for once, been answered.
Sitting behind the glass walls and looking very confused is Dai.
Jack gives him a big hug and kiss and then explains himself to the rest of the team, aiming a lot of it at Ianto who is glaring at Dai through narrowed eyes.
Jack has his suspicions too, but he keeps them quiet, for the sake of building camaraderie and keeps his eye on him. Gwen passes comment on this a few times, until Jack explains that he always keeps a closer eye on the newbies - which is what Dai is, even if he was formerly employed by the Torchwood Institute; it’s been nearly fifty years since Dai was snatched and Tosh is having to show him the wires, so to speak. Ianto throws him a questioning look, which is fair enough because it was a complete lie, but he has no clue why Gwen’s suddenly looking so hurt.
A few weeks pass, and things start to work like they should again. Dai is starting to get the hang of all the medical equipment again, and is going out with them on field work often. Ianto seems to be a little insulted by this, but makes use of the time alone (as Jack knew he would) changing codes and generally tightening security (especially around the archives). But more weeks pass and still nothing happens and Jack begins to let some of his suspicions go.
Naturally this is when it all goes to shit; some alien programming kicks in and Dai uses Gwen as a hostage to try and persuade them to grant him access to the archives. Jack refuses, Dai shoots Gwen. Jack shoots Dai.
He sends Toshiko around to break the news to Gwen’s boyfriend - he’s never met her and she can muster a suitably sympathetic expression - and then gets down to work performing Dai’s autopsy.
They bring in two new replacements from Torchwood One, who also dress formally and refer to Tosh, second in command since Owen bought it, as “Ma’am” and him as “Sir”, which was kinda cool when Ianto was the only one doing it, but now it’s a bit much.
She gets taken a year or two later, just like Dai was, and Jack can’t help but wonder if in another few years’ time they’ll have a happy reunion, broken up by the need to shoot her.
Ianto manages to stick it out another seven years. For all the self-preservation the battle of Canary Warf had left him with there are some instincts that can’t be quelled. It doesn’t matter that he knows that Jack can’t die, will re-animate in a matter of minutes, given that they remove whatever he’s impaled himself on, there is still that urge, a Myoclonic jerk that’s meant to make it all better, but when the time comes turns out to be quite useless.
Jack gets shot. Or rather Jack’s meant to get shot, but Ianto gets in the way, forgetting for five seconds why Jack’s the one who does anything necessary and suicidal. He crumples right there in front of Jack, the life sliding out between Jack’s fingers and in a matter of minutes he’s not holding Ianto anymore, but a dead body. He uses it as a shield, firing back over the shoulder and when the enemy lies dead around him he drops it, fingertips strangely cold.
And still time passes and the years go on, faster and slower than they should. He remembers word for word one of the last conversations he had with Toshiko, only to remember she’s been dead at least ten years. It can’t have been that long, and yet it is.
He doesn’t wear black for any of them, doesn’t go to the funerals and attends the services only to offer condolences to the family. He simply adds them to the list of people to think about and miss for that half an hour of Remembrance Day he sits in quiet. Two minutes doesn’t really cut it.
This November 11th he’s too busying thinking of himself and of the sky to remember anyone else.
The stars are dying. The moons are crumbling. The planets are burning. All is coming to dust.
What this means for him Jack has no idea. He’s moved with the rest of humanity from ailing planet to ailing planet, desperate to find somewhere that was just sick, not dying, somewhere that could recover and where they could flourish again. No one dares say what’s on everyone’s minds; that there is no such place anymore.
The uncertainty of it all was scary at first, but he’s too tired now and has no desire to be there when it finally hits home that this is the end and so has chosen to stay behind on this particular planet. It’s the nearest he could get to home.
The Utopia project leaves the planet, as it does numerous other weak, unstable planets. Jack stays behind and watches the atmosphere fail.
The people who have left realise there is nowhere left to go, but this doesn’t stifle their survival instincts, or their creativity.
While Jack coughs and gasps and slowly suffocates, the lack of o-zone starting to burn his skin red raw and twist his vision into a more colourful apocalypse, they eat their own flesh, replacing it with strong, shiny metal.
As Jack freezes and goes blind a few hours after each revival they cut away more of their skin and bone, dizzy on their genius. They’re beating the universe at its own game.
The gravity fails and Jack spirals away from the ground into the unforgiving sky, unable to see or smell or taste or feel whether he’s on fire or turning to ice. They hide their withering, decaying forms behind more metal, ripping each other apart, because it’s fun. Fun is good. Fun is what happened when the universe was theirs and didn’t have any funny ideas. Funny is not fun.
But they’re trapped in a collapsing tunnel and with no visible light at the end there’s no way they’re getting out. They kill each other to kill the time until their precious pretty metals fail them and they become so much rotted meat.
And as the planets crumble and the last stars die there is Jack, cold and naked floating like some stray dust speck, there one minute, dead the next - switching between the two like a faulty light bulb.
He’s missing all his toes, one of his hands and so it goes, the flesh falling away faster than it can regenerate. Until he comes back and finds there isn’t actually any of him there. Except the energy, drifting through space like a tiny dust cloud.
He doesn’t see the end, nor hear it. He is part of it, rushing in to join the rest of the energy and the gases.
There is a moment of absolute darkness.
And then sheer brilliance.