A/N: Takes place after the final scene in 'Exit Wounds' so spoilers for the episode as well as 'Everything Changes', 'They Keep Killing Suzie', and 'Sleeper'. Also since it deals with 'Exit Wounds' it's not a happy fic so don't expect to feel all fuzzy and warm after reading this. You have been warned so no flames to that affect. Also I don't own anything in this...I just play in the Torchwood sandbox. Review please!
Jack had seen too many Torchwood employee's die in the line of duty but none had affected him as had Tosh's and Owen's. Maybe it was because he had recruited them himself and had gotten closer than he normally allowed himself over the years.
But whatever the reason all it came down to was that he missed them.
"You never know how much someone means to you until after they're gone." Jack thought to himself as he climbed up the stairs to his office. It was a lesson he kept on learning as time went on but the heartache never went away.
It never got easier to watch people he loved and trusted turn grey and old while he looked the same.
As had become his ritual he put on a piano concerto and sat behind his desk staring into space, brooding. After watching Tosh's message he had sent Gwen and Ianto home, there was nothing more that they could do; everything could wait until the next day.
Ianto had offered to stay the night but Jack declined; they needed time to grieve by themselves and in their own way.
Clean up was going to take a long time and they had to come up with a reasonable cause for the explosions, the city hadn't even finished dealing with the ones from the Sleeper Agents all those months ago.
Then there was the matter of finding new recruits.
As much as Jack didn't want to do it, he knew it had to be done because life went on. But he wouldn't start right away, give it some time and then he'd start poking around here and there.
Jack also had to figure out what to do with Gray, but the wounds were just too fresh for him to think about that. Deep down he knew that some part of Gray forgave him for everything but the rest of him was just so full of hate that it was eclipsed.
Closing his eyes Jack listened to the slow melody of the piano playing and felt that it was fitting given what had just happened. He had done the same after Suzie had been killed (the first time), then again after he killed her the second time, and after all the others had met the same fate as far back as he could recall.
It had become sort of a soothing tradition, where he didn't have to worry about what was going to happen next; he could just live in the moment and let the music carry him away.
As Ianto had said awhile back; the good always die young.