Into the Dark

Captain Jack Harkness is alone. The darkness surrounds and suffocates him – if he couldn’t already feel his body then he wouldn’t have known it was there. He can see nothing, smell nothing, taste nothing … but he can hear something. It’s circling him slowly in the dark, moving closer with each round, a tight spiral tightening ever closer in the dark.

Jack knows better than to call out to it. It would not answer.
He knows better than to try and run. It would only advance faster.
He doesn’t know how much longer he has, how many more times he can find himself alone in the dark, before the thing that lives inside of it finally stops playing and attacks.

Jack closes his eyes and draws in a deep shuddering breath. He wonders how he died this time. All he felt was an explosion of pain behind his eyes, and then he was alone.

For a long time, in the beginning, Jack would pray in the dark. Pray to something, anything, that this would be the last time. That he would just stay in the dark, alone. He would goad the thing circling him, yell at it, beg it to come for him – get it over with. He would go to it, try and find it. He would stumble after it, falling and crawling on his hands and knees, blind and helpless, suffocating in the dark. But no matter how close he seemed to the thing, it was always just a hairs breadth away. Close enough to feel its breath on him, close enough to hear its heartbeats, close enough to taste the heady metallic scent of it on his tongue, but too far away.

Jack could feel the familiar hopelessness settling in his stomach. He hadn’t known he was standing, until his legs collapsed underneath him and fell to the ground. The darkness shifts around him, collapsing around itself to fill his mouth and nose, and coat his eyes. The thing ceases its spiraling for a moment and he feels it shift a side step away, before continuing on its journey to him.

Jack brings a hand to his face and feels it trembling. He knows that his time here lasts only a few minutes to them, but to him, lost here in Death, it feels like eternities are passing him by. He only realizes he’s crying when the tears trickle onto his trembling hands. He bows into himself on the hard surface, and presses his hands, curled into fists, into his eyes. He swallows the sobs that threaten to erupt from his chest.

He hates what he is.
They all thought it was a blessing.
The man who can’t die, can’t age – he will always be there.

He will always be there. He will always be here. He will always be alone in the dark.

The empty hole inside his stomach threatens to swallow his heart whole. He gasps out a wordless plea into the empty blackness, knowing it’s futile. There’s no one to hear him cry.

“Please…,” his own hoarse voice rasps out into the silence, “Please let me go.”

He doesn’t know who he’s pleading with or what he’s pleading for. This hopelessness inside of him is eating everything. He squeezes his eyes shut and takes a breath, “Please…,” he whispers, “Let this be the last time. I can’t do this anymore…”

There’s nothing for him here, and there’s nothing for him there.
Jack is so tired – so very tired.
Jack’s older than he can remember, and the decades just keep marching by, leaving him reeling in their wake. He can’t see the point in his existence anymore. All that he loves fades, bright spots in an endless dark – stars blinking, and winking out in the vast black solar system of his life.

They all die eventually.
Tosh and Owen.
Gwen and Rhys.
Ianto.

“Ianto,” Jack spoke the name aloud, startling himself. The taste of the name on his tongue is sweet, and Jack feels a smile cross his lips.

In that moment, Jack begins to feel the darkness around him lessen. He knows what it means. The thing in blackness beyond growls and begins spiraling in tighter and faster. Jack pulls himself to his feet once more, and smiles. He’s found his hope. He’s found a reason to come back to life. His body begins to tingle and he feels himself become lighter.

Suddenly, the thing in the darkness leaps forward, snarling jaws unimaginable at Jack’s face. Instinct has him closing his eyes, and raising one hand to protect his face while the other wraps around to where his gun should be. Just as it registers that he has no weapon in this place, he is sitting up on the medical table in the Torchwood hub, gasping for breath, and Gwen is gripping his arm with a vice-like grip.

“Jack!” she yells, trying to force him to lie back again, but he shakes her off.

He shuts his eyes tight against the bright lights and runs a hand back through his hair, “What happened while I was gone?”

He opens his eyes to look at Gwen. She looks at him as though she’s about to ask if he’s alright, but thankfully goes into an explanation of recent events. He jumps down off the medical table, and pulls his coat on, listening as Gwen explains about the accomplice they weren’t aware of who snuck up behind Jack while he was talking down the petty smuggler with the alien goods.

“It happened so fast, Jack. You went down and Ianto caught you before you hit the floor. He broke Owen’s wrist and pushed Tosh into me, and then, in the confusion, they both jumped out the windows and were off.”

He sighs, but gives Gwen and ‘devil-may-care’ grin, “Well, then. Have Tosh run a search and we’ll get back out on the chase.”

He turns and is about to head up to his office when Gwen calls his name, “Jack.”

He turns, eyebrow raised, “Gwen?”

She opens her mouth to ask, then thinks better of it, “Nothing. We’ll let you know when we find anything.”

He nods, then turns and takes the step to his office two at time. He steps in and lets the smile fade from his lips. He slips out his long coat and tosses it over his desk, before sinking down into his chair, propping his feet up on the only unoccupied corner of the dark wood surface. He brings a hand up to his lips, running a finger along the lower one as he thinks.

His last moments in death flash before his eyes, and he closes them tightly, shutting it out. He doesn’t want to remember those ravening jaws so close t his face in those moments. It’s as though the moment he found a reason to return to life, it made a move to keep him in death.

A shudder runs through his body and he knows he won’t be sleeping for a while.

“Jack?”

Jack smiles. It’s the way he says his name, he thinks. He says it so differently from the others. He turns Jack’s name into a special word. The inflections, his accent, the pitch - all wrapping the words into an embrace. Jack sighs and opens his eyes, turning his gaze to the man in the doorway.

“Come in Ianto, please.”

Ianto steps in and shuts the door behind him. Jack motions to the desk and pulls his boots off so that Ianto can sit near him. Ianto obliges, and for the first time Jack notices that his suit is covered in dust and blood. His jacket has been discarded, and there are scorch marks along the side of the dress shirt. Ianto has loosened his tie and unbuttoned the first button of the shirt. Jack can see his pulse fluttering there and keeps his eyes on it.

Ianto swallows slightly and clears his throat. He runs a hand through his hair nervously, then looks at Jack. Jack feels as though the man can see through him. See all that he’s thinking, all that has happened to him, and shuts his eyes to stop the young Welshman from seeing too much. It’s because his eyes are closed that he doesn’t see Ianto reach out his hand to brush Jack’s hair off of his face.

At his touch, Jack feels the tenseness drain from his body. Involuntarily he feels himself turn into the palm of Ianto’s hand. Jack hears the desk creek slightly as Ianto leans forward, and then he’s pressing his lips against Jack’s, comforting. Jack brings his hand up off the arm of the chair to grip Ianto’s tattered dress shirt. He needs this comfort now, the primal need to feel touched and know he is not alone in this life overwhelms him and his other hand grips the hair on the back of Ianto’s head, pulling him deeper into the kiss.

After a moment they break from the kiss for air, and Ianto leans his forehead against Jack’s. Clear blue eyes, meet iron gray. Suddenly, without warning, Ianto pulls Jack up out of his chair, and embraces the Captain.

“Ianto…” Jack murmurs. He doesn’t have to say anything else. He understands.