Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who, and I don't own Torchwood.
I knew I was going to die. It was obvious – one man versus God knows how many invincible killing machines. It was hardly going to take a genius to work it out. It was strange, though. You'd think that if you were facing certain death, you'd be shitting yourself with pure white-faced terror. But it isn't like that at all. I guess I was high on the adrenaline, 'cause I just remember wanting to blow every one of those Daleks to hell, and stuff the consequences. Even when I was backed against a wall, knowing it was only a matter of seconds before it was all over, I still had time for a smart remark. But then, Captain Jack always has time for a smart remark. Had time.
I can't tell you what dying was like, because I don't remember. There was just a millisecond of sharp, white-hot pain, like nothing I'd ever felt before, and then…nothing. Complete and utter nothingness, emptiness. And then waking up, pain in my chest as my heart jolted back into action, and a gasp of air that left me reeling from the sheer sensation. That must be what your first breath feels like, I suppose.
And then I heard that sound. That familiar, friendly sound. The TARDIS. I was so happy, in that moment, because I knew you were alive. But then I got there just in time to see the panelling dematerialising, just in time to know that you were there, you were alive, and you left me. You've no idea how that feels, to be left behind, stuck among the bodies, knowing that your friends, the only people you have left, have abandoned you. Or maybe you do. I don't know much about you, Doctor, so private, so secretive. Perhaps you do know how it feels. A part of me hopes so, hopes that you've felt that empty, terrible loss. But maybe I'm just being vindictive.
I still don't know how it happened, that one minute I was dead, the next living. It had something to do with you, I'll bet. But why resurrect me to leave me here? In a way, I wish I'd stayed dead. It would be better than this emptiness that gnaws away at my insides.
You did this to me, you and Rose. I cared about you, in a way I hadn't done since…since a time that's too far away and too painful to remember. I used to be a cold-blooded conman – 'Heartless Harkness', but you changed that. I can't go back now, can't carry on with the 'love 'em and leave 'em' mentality, 'cause every man I see is you, and every woman is Rose. I sometimes wish that I could forget you, like you've forgotten me, but not for long. You were something new, something special, and I could live off the memories for a long time. But I need the reality – I need to see you, hear you, touch you, to know that you're real, both of you, and that we won't be separated again.
Oh God I miss you.
