The Golden Boy
Series: Mosaic
Word Count: ~46.000
Summary: Jack is determined to find his lover Matthew, who went missing in the 30s. He invents a dangerous plan to reach his goal: a trip to the past. Meanwhile, the events of the past few months catch up with Ianto, while Gwen finds herself struggling with her feelings for Owen after their one night stand.
Characters: Jack Harkness, Ianto Jones, Owen Harper, Gwen Cooper, Toshiko Sato, Rhys Williams, Myfanwy, OCs
Pairing: Jack/Ianto, Jack/OC, Gwen/Rhys, Gwen/Owen, Tosh/Owen (unrequited), Owen/Suzie (hinted)
Rating: NC-17
Spoiler: Everything Changes, Cyber Woman, Countrycide, Random Shoes, To The Last Man, Fragments / Doctor Who: Boomtown, Doomsday
Setting: after Countrycide
Warnings: Thoughts and talk about cannibalism, hints of suicide, Mpreg of an OC (in the past), sex, language
Author's Note: This is a sequel to my story This Crying Earth. There will be characters in this story I introduced in that prequel, so you should have read it if you want to be able to grasp The Golden Boy from the first chapter onwards. This story would've never been written if the sub-plot about Matthew in This Crying Earth hadn't started to get so huge. Originally, I wanted to merge This Crying Earth and The Golden Boy, but it was just too much, so I split it. Special thanks to those of you who wrote they were interested in the story about Jack and Matthew. This is for you.
Beta: Frankly, I would have really been lost without my betas this time around. I was way too focussed on something that just wouldn't work out and they told me to drop it. danian and alt_universe_me did the English version and Vistin did the German one. Thanks to all of your for hunting down typos and awkward phrases. Most of all thanks for your comments on the plot. It helped me to really improve the story.
Disclaimer: I'm not making money with this fanfic. The tv-show Torchwood and the characters appearing within it belong to their producers and creators. Any similarities to living or dead persons are purely coincidental and not intended.
Please read This Crying Earth before starting this story.
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Prologue
Everything in the Torchwood Hub was as it should be: Tosh's computers beeping away, Owen and Gwen's computers displaying screensavers, all the whirring and clacking and humming sounds that were so typical for the underground base echoing through the cavernous main Hub, bouncing off tiled and concrete walls. The sounds of the Hub were the loudest at night, when no laughter or chit-chat was penetrating the air, when no steps were heard on the metallic spiral stairs leading up to the second level of the base. The conference room's lights up there were dimmed, the greenhouse's harsh neon lamps on the other side of the gantry seeming so much brighter in comparison.
Jack Harkness, sitting on the metal steps leading towards the entrance door, didn't pay any attention to any of these things. He was staring at the door where the Fairies had painted their message to him a few nights ago. The paint was long gone, its red streaks forming letters on the steel of the door had vanished after an hour of scrubbing. Jack could still see them.
He's alive. Look closer.
He'd been furious at the Fairies at first, for coming into his base, for invading his memories and for meddling in his affairs, but after a night from hell in the Brecon Beacons, after three days of watching his traumatized team, the small hope that the Fairies were trying to help him had grown and now, he was determined to do something about that message. The Fairies knew a lot about the world, so who was he to say that they were lying this time? Maybe they'd really seen something over seventy years ago, when Jack's lover Matthew had vanished without a trace. Maybe Matthew was alive, somewhere in this base, waiting for someone to find him.
Jack had spent the last three days searching the base for some sign that Matthew was still there – hidden in a walled-off room or somewhere else. He'd studied plans of the base, spent hours walking the underground complex, without success. A new idea was needed.
Jack let his gaze travel through the huge main Hub, up to Myfanwy's nest just under the ceiling, down over the water tower in the center of the room to the Rift manipulator hidden within. And all of a sudden, he found inspiration.
XXX
Waking up felt like he was struck by lightning. He wanted to scream but his voice failed him. When he opened his eyes, he saw strange things. At first, there was a wall in a light blue colour directly above and next to him. When he made an effort, he could see the blurred outlines of a room bathed in a weak light. He was only ever awake for a short time and he could never tell just how much time went by between his moments of lucidness or how often he ripped from sleep.
He was tied up. He could feel broad restraints holding down his hips, his knees, his feet, his elbows and his wrists.
There was always a soft hum after he woke up, followed by a deep click, then silence. Not long after that, the hum sounded again, something touched his shoulder and he fell asleep again until the next time.
At the beginning, he hoped that they would rescue him. That hope slid away fast, like melting ice. Then he tried to save himself but he was too weak to get free of the restraints. After he'd given that plan up, he cried a lot of times, at first because he couldn't remember who and where he was, then because he did and the memories made everything so much worse.
Then he gave up, just lying there when he was woken, staring at the blue wall and his weak reflection, trying to hold on to the most important memories of his life.
'My name's Matthew York. I'm twenty-six years old. I have a son named Michael and a lover named Jack Harkness.'
He felt the touch at his shoulder again and got tired. His last thought before darkness claimed him was always the same.
'Why won't you just let me die?'