Fic: And So He Ran
Title: And So He Ran
Rating: K+
Word count: ~590
Characters: Jack, mention of the Doctor, OCs. Mostly just Jack though.
Timeline/spoilers: Set post-Children of Earth. That means there are spoilers for Day Five.
Summary: What Captain Jack Harkness did next.
Notes: Not actually incredibly spoilery, but don’t read it if you’ve not seen the end of Day Five.
And so he ran.
He ran out of the solar system, out of the galaxy, as far as he could go in one direction and then as far as he could go in another.
He ran to the past, to before humans started recording time. He ran to the future, as far as he could go with his Vortex Manipulator.
He ran from his clothes, leaving the greatcoat and the braces and the blue shirts and the Webley. He ran from the food, from pizza and takeaway and coffee industrial strength, just the way you like it.
He ran as far and as hard and as long as he could, but even when he was running he couldn’t outrun the reminders. Blue eyes, brown eyes, green eyes, dark hair, fair hair, brown skin, pale skin, faces and names and all reminders of stop it!
He ran from parents, from husbands and wives, he ran from partners and lovers and I love you. He ran from children Dad, no! No!, oh god he ran from children.
He ran away from people, spent a dozen years starving to death over and over and over again in the middle of a desert. He ran away from responsibilities, ran away from leading people you can’t just run away!, ran away from needing anyone at all.
He ran into the Doctor, a linear Doctor of his own time, and the Doctor looked at him and understood but didn’t offer him a space on the TARDIS. He ran from the Doctor and the TARDIS and the reminder of his immortality.
He ran across wars, fought in some and fled others, being the soldier that he had been for too long, not long enough, following orders and running whenever he failed.
He ran through planetary disasters, and if he stopped to help a few people he tried to forget about it as soon as possible. He ran from helping people, determined to be selfish if only for a while.
He ran from time, from clocks, from stopwatches always at the ready, from video games and football Uncle Jack!, from white coats and badges and from green tea and jasmine scents.
He ran from metal gauntlets and from the colour orange and from corseted women and from muddy trenches. He ran.
He ran into a sea, into many seas, and drowned and ran, drowned and ran. He ran into snowstorms, into sandstorms, ran into his own past and ran from the paradox he almost caused when he almost saved his brother.
He ran for years, dozens of tens of years, ran until his name was a thing of the past and he no longer knew who he was.
He ran aground at last, ship crashing into the earth with flames and explosions and deaths. He ran from the wreckage, ran in a daze, ran up against a gun and a woman and a man, and stopped.
He stopped.
“Running retinal scan,” said the man, and then he paused for a moment, incredulous. “Captain Jack Harkness? You disappeared years ago!”
He frowned. “Who are you? Where am I?”
“Earth,” said the woman. “It’s twenty-one oh-three.” She stepped towards him; her hair was dark, her eyes wide and brown. He tried to think who she reminded him of; he couldn’t remember. He didn’t want to remember. He had spent years trying not to remember. “Captain Harkness. We’re Torchwood.”
He stood still, stared at them, let the word sink in. The name. The memories.
He smiled.
“Hello, Torchwood,” he said. “Good to see you.”
Comments are love.
An additional note: I will be writing fics to 'fix' Day Four, but this was first. Somehow.