Jack lay on his bunk, staring up at the ceiling.
He didn't want to be here.
Jack hated being tied to one place. It just wasn't him. He was Captain Jack Harkness. He'd been a Time Agent. He'd travelled through time and space... and that was one reason he could never let himself be tied down.
He closed his eyes and prayed for them to leave him alone, but they never did. People often say it's comforting to see the images of loved ones when you're trying to sleep, but they didn't have the same ghosts crowding into their minds.
Jack was doomed to see the face of every single person he'd ever lost; doomed to feel every emotion he'd ever felt for that person.
They always started as being quick flashes, so he didn't feel anything for longer than a few seconds. But those few seconds felt like agony when forced onto him in such quick succession. He'd see Grey, John Hart, the old Torchwood teams, Lynda, Estelle, the real Captain Jack, the friends he'd made in the travelling shows... he'd see Rose, Toshiko and Owen. He'd see his daughter and grandson.
Then it would always slow down, and Jack would silently scream as he recognised the change in pace.
He saw the Doctor. He'd see both his Doctor's really. The first one, with his cropped hair and wary expression; the battered leather jacket. He'd feel the sense of belonging, a yearning. He felt the chapped lips on his... then the image faded, and changed into a younger man, with scruffy hair and a broad grin. He saw every expression pass over this Doctor's face. It was true, Jack had fallen in love with the Doctor. He'd fallen for him absolutely on Satellite 5. And even though he could see that the Doctor had fallen for Rose, Jack's heart still broke when the TARDIS left him behind after the Daleks were destroyed.
When he found the Doctor again, Jack had been overjoyed. The Doctor wasn't just his love, but also his hero. The Doctor was everything Jack wanted to be. Jack wanted the Doctor to fix him, to make him mortal. But deep down he knew the Doctor wouldn't even if he could. Some things are meant to be, and Jack was meant to be immortal. However much it pained him to be so.
The images stopped briefly, allowing Jack time to register that the bitterness he tasted on his lips was his own tears. Just when he thought the last images wouldn't be shown, the nervous smile of Ianto Jones filled his mind.
Jack screamed loudly as the image grew clearer. He saw Ianto being the dutiful tea-boy, and saw the agony break him when they'd had to shoot his cyber girlfriend. Jack had known what Ianto was feeling, but he couldn't tell him that. Ianto couldn't know. When Jack first kissed Ianto, he himself was surprised by how it made him feel. Jack had to force himself to push the feelings away. He couldn't allow himself to fall in love again. Too many people got hurt. Too many people always got hurt.
His memories jumbled, skipping events to key moments. He saw the time he asked Ianto out on a date; he saw the date...the tentative handholding, the stolen kisses. Jack's bitter tears trickled over his smile when he remembered Gwen walking in on him and Ianto...
Then all the memories blurred until the final moments. The 456 bargaining. The toxic gas being released. Ianto falling to his knees, and into Jack's arms. The tears that fell on Ianto's face as he begged Jack not to forget him. Not that Jack could ever have forgotten Ianto- even if he'd wanted to. Jack remembered kneeling over Ianto's dead body with Gwen, and fighting not to break down. Ianto was the one person Jack had known he couldn't bear to lose. He had thought his heart would break a hundred times over. He was wrong. His heart was crushed to dust.
Jack remembered trying to get to the Doctor. The Doctor he loved. He wasn't trying to betray Ianto, he just needed to feel. Jack was numb. He needed someone to give him back emotion. Only when Jack got there, it was happening all over again. A battle; the Doctor being the hero the world needed, and in so doing the Doctor surrendered another regeneration. Jack's second Doctor was gone and replaced by a third.
And even thought he was the same Doctor, Jack didn't feel anything. Right then, Jack needed familiarity. This new Doctor, he knew everything about Jack, was someone Jack didn't know. Jack had returned to the Torchwood base to find Gwen heavily pregnant.
Everything Jack knew had changed. There was nothing he could rely on anymore, except sleep. And even his sleep had now betrayed him, forcing him every night to visit the ghosts of his past. Everyone he had loved had found happiness. None of them were crowded with the ghosts of their relationship with Jack, as Jack was haunted by the ghosts of what he'd had. What Jack swore he would never find again.