There is much to do at night.
When they've all gone home, when it's just Jack alone in the Hub, when Gwen has gone to salvage the wreckage of her relationship, when Tosh has gone home to sleep, when Owen has swanned off to drink away his woes and when Jack sends Ianto off back to his flat for some shut eye, there is much for an immortal man to do at night.
Sometimes he hunts, hunts things that crawl through sewers and slither on nineteen legs, things with a hundred flicking tongues, things that even he gags at in disgust.
Sometimes he sits alone in the Hub, puts on a Dusty Springfield album (a guilty pleasure, a secret shame) and catalogues monsters, or plays with cool stuff he keeps locked up in the vault.
Other times he watches the weevils as they worry and rub at their cell doors, howling and growling to each other as they pace the four walls of their cages. Sometimes Jack swears he's one of them, stuck in a cage, memorizing the number of steps before he turns around again.
But other times, oh, other times, the cage walls simply fall away. Sometimes, when he sure the others won't miss him, he goes to the country, finds a field, sits cross legged in the grass with a bottle of whiskey and watches as the ebony night and the crystalline stars ripple above him.
And these nights, are his favorites. Of all the things he could do alone, he is happiest like this, enveloped in the playful darkness, below a sky he knows is endless.
And there, he talks.
He whispers 'Bad Wolf' over and over again like it's an ancient prayer, smiles and laughs as he confesses his hopes and his heartaches to the stars he knows by name, to a Rose who could be in a field just like this, but is unreachable.
He toasts all his travelling friends, strides around in knee high grass reminiscing good times and old memories.
He talks to a Doctor who is absent, has a one-sided conversation with himself, like a child, like these people he holds so dear are just imaginary.
And at the end of each night, he sighs, the bottle gone, the first rosy fingers of day seeping into the underside of the night, like colored ink, at the end of these nights…
… he cries…
A tear leaves a salt trail on his cheek, a tear leaves a diamond promise down his face. This tear promises loneliness, heartache, promises Jack that he is alone, that the Doctor will never come, that he will always be forgotten.
"Take me with you God dammit!" He calls to the stars, where he knows somewhere, a Police Box bounces around, "Take me with you…"
But nothing ever comes.
And even so, these nights are welcome gifts in the soot smeared monotony of his life, of his cage.
Because as long as there are stars, there is hope.
So Jack returns to Torchwood, places a brittle glass smile back on his face, kisses Ianto passionately, pokes fun at Owen and Gwen cheekily, reassures Tosh of the loves of life playfully, and all at once returns to his pacing.
He has long since memorized how many steps before he turns around again and he has given up rubbing at the cell door.
The Doctor does not come.
And now, now they are all long gone. Now Tosh decays in a morgue, now Owen is simply ash to be disposed of, now Ianto is a reflected memory of perfect coffee and Gwen is living with Rhys, she is unattainable.
Now there is no hope in the field Jack sits in.
A tear falls. The grief is too much.
"Hey Bad Wolf… Hope you have your listening ears on, Doctor…" He says, fondles the empty bottle, chokes back sobs and lumps in his throat.
"Everybody died, Doc. I'm the only one left." He manages out.
And then the grief is like a solar flare in his heart, a miniature sun, a super nova and all his protective walls are turned to ash, and he sobbing, pulling his hair and pounding his chest with a fist trying to stamp out the fire that eats away his insides.
They are dead.
"Take me with you Doc, please…"
There is much to do at night.