Dawn is breaking in my soul

Disclaimer: I don't own Torchwood, it belongs to who it belongs to, but it sure isn't me.

Author's Note: I just watched the best episode of "Army Wives" and was inspired by the song at the end, I think it's called "Dawn is breaking in my soul" or "Morning Stars are Rising," anyway it was beautiful , raw, and painful, and sparked something in my brain.

Beta: cookielaura, you are amazing, and I've moved so something nice will be on it's way to you soon.

Dawn is breaking in my soul…

The sun bears down on his tired shoulders as he hears the religious figure deliver one more platitude about the deceased's "noble sacrifice." Jack can recite this speech and the countless variations that it has, in his sleep with the quantity of funerals that he's attended in his long life.

It angers him to know that in 200 odd years, the condolence speech has yet to change. Just once he'd like to hear honesty: the truth might be painful, but it gets you farther than lies – THIS, he has finally learned.

He would like to stand and tell everyone in his proximity that the deceased was far from perfect, and that it wasn't nobility that led him to make a final stand; it was much, much simpler. What led him to stand beside Jack at the end was love, honest love.

He knew that Jack would need him, and that whatever was going to happen was predestined, really since Canary Wharf, but the fact that Jack would need him took precedence over his fate.

And that Jack knew this was, in reality, all that mattered.