Fate had a way of carrying Jack around, lulling him into a reluctant but all too tempting state of security until it dropped him unceremoniously over a cliff.
He'd spent the last fifty years jumping from one point in space to another, enjoying anonymity and freedom to do what he wanted and be who he wanted to be on his terms alone. He'd stay in one place only for as long as he could enjoy himself, but never longer. He took on lovers, but never loved ones. Friendly acquaintances, but never friends. People who trusted him for a good time, but never trust him. No one blinked when he left them. No one cried when he turned his back on them. Including himself. He was just another life who for a brief moment entered someone else's, leaving soon enough so that soon he'd be nothing more than a faint memory and then nothing at all.
But soon even the entire span of the universe seemed too small for him. And it was around then that Fate tossed him toward a man who knew a woman who knew a man named Ebris who had a Crosser.
It was a fairly simple looking device. Almost comically designed as just a plain box the size of a cigarette case with a single dial and a single button. But it allowed for its carrier to transport through reality and all its possible parallels.
"Hasn't been tested, really," Ebris had cautioned. "For all I know it just fries up a couple of eggs. Or turns you inside out."
Jack didn't worry about things like that. It wasn't like anything could kill him.
"Go easy on it, Harkness. Don't go nuts with it."
**
The first Alternate Cardiff in the year 2009 was fairly different. For one thing it wasn't called Cardiff, but rather New Belfast. There was no Rift, no history of alien invasions, and bowler hats for men were still in style. Their mayoress was Susan Costello, the very pillar of leadership and family values. Jack watched her along with the rest of the citizens of New Belfast when she'd made her public speech at the opening of a new university. She was flanked by her family, her children and her father who kissed Susan on the cheek after she'd cut the rope. Even when there hadn't been any photo ops, they'd linked arms, admiring the new building.
They looked happy. Suzie…Susan looked happy.
**
The second Alternate Cardiff in the year 2009 was a bit more similar. It was still Cardiff and kids still wore their hoodies. Jack found a paper that had an article talking about the latest advance in cancer research St. Helen's Hospital was conducting in liaison with Dr. Owen Harper of St. Reginald's Hospital in Old London. In the accompanying photograph, Dr. Harper wore a pair of glasses, a wedding ring visible on his finger. Jack couldn't tell if he was happy. But he was alive.
**
At the third Alternate Cardiff, Jack attended a party. It didn't matter that he didn't have an invite seeing as how there had yet to be a single gatekeeper who could resist his charms. He wasn't sure why the party was being thrown, just that it was being thrown by a Toshiko Sato.
He'd watched by the bar as the small woman in a bright green dress and killer heels had glided her way around, laughing with women and winking at men until one and all seemed to have fallen in love. Jack danced one dance with her. And possibly was out flirted by this Toshiko. When he kissed her once on the cheek it might have been too desperate, his hug a little too tight to be casual.
**
He never could find another Alice. Or another Stephen. Or for that matter, another version of himself. He wondered if it was even possible for him to exist in other parallel worlds during 2009 if he'd never been made immortal. He supposed that might have been for the best.
One of him was enough.
**
In one universe, Gwen was a man. A strapping young lad named Gareth, born to Mary and Geraint Cooper. Jack couldn't believe it and almost wished he could go back to his Gwen, just so that they could laugh about it.
But she…he, was still Gwen. Still empathetic, still brave, still ready to help anyone who needed it. He rescued Jack from another death at the hands of a drunk with a broken beer bottle. Jack thanked him with a pint and tried to ignore that he had the same hazel eyes.
**
Jack crashed a wedding, got too drunk at the open bar, but managed not to make a scene.
The next day, Ianto Jones and his new wife Bethan puzzled over who'd gotten them the coffee machine, nestled amongst the other gifts.
**
In one universe, Rhiannon Jones had been an only child. In another, Owen Harper's parents had never met. But in others…in others they were there, alive.
Each time he spun that dial, Jack could hear a familiar voice that was so obviously the Doctor, tsking him for being so reckless with opening slices to parallel worlds. But it hardly seemed to matter. He never stayed long and he never got involved.
Besides, it wasn't like he could top what he'd done in his own Cardiff in the year 2009.
**
Toshiko Sato, second in command of Torchwood Three nearly shot him on one trip.
Suzie Costello, a solicitor tried to pick him up at a restaurant on another.
Gwen Cooper, a female Gwen Cooper served him a sandwich during another.
Owen Harper was in the band that played at the pub he was in during another.
Ianto Jones manned the shop where he went to buy a new shirt during another.
**
Oddly, there never seemed to be parallel world where his team…his original team were all together. There never seemed to be a Torchwood Three that was comprised of all of them. They might have an Owen or a Toshiko. But never all five.
**
"You look like hell."
"You're talking nonsense, Ebris. I always look good."
"I told you not to go nuts with it. How many places have you been?"
"A thousand covers the cost of the new dial. Another thousand covers you shutting up."
**
He spun the Crosser's dial like a child with a toy, bouncing from universe to universe. Seeing all former members of his team leading different lives or no lives at all. It was getting easier to just observe and as long as he could do just that, what did a little parallel universe hopping matter?
**
Ianto was the proud father of three.
Owen raced bullfrogs and wrote novels.
Toshiko had a science award named after her.
**
The cybermen marched through Earth, deleting the few remaining human survivors.
Jack took a look. And spun the dial.
**
Gwen and Rhys had two daughters. One died of leukemia.
Jack put flowers on her grave and didn't think about the fact that in the 51st century, the cure for leukemia was common knowledge.
**
Then one day, Jack landed in an Alternative Cardiff in the year 2009, having lost count of the trip numbers.
The water tower looked the same, though Jack was fairly certain the Welsh written on the Millennium was different. He stood underneath, trying to remember when someone called out.
"Jack?"
Before his mind could tell his body that it was a bad idea, Jack turned around.
There was Ianto, standing a few steps away, a puzzled if bemused look on his face. Not Ianto, a Ianto. Because this one had on a suit but the tie was loosened halfway. And there had never been a single day that Jack had known Ianto to be that disheveled in public.
"What're you doing here?" Ianto asked, now walking toward him. "I thought we were meeting later at home?"
Through the surprise Jack realized that he was being recognized. And suddenly a fist clenched at something inside his chest at the familiarity and affection being directed at him. Not for him, but for a version of himself. This Ianto's version of Jack.
"Nice coat. You going to themed party? Keep it on for later though."
Ianto was smiling that smile whose meaning Jack recognized so well that it almost made him fall over. Made him want to grab the other man and wrap him inside his coat to keep safe forever.
"Jack?"
Home. There would be a Jack waiting for Ianto at home.
But there was a Jack standing in front of Ianto now, realizing that the other man was reaching out to him. The smile now a frown of concern that soon blurred as Jack forced his feet to take a step back.
And then he turned and ran.
**
He shot the Crosser into several fragments after that. Ebris was less than pleased and ranted for a good hour about craftsmanship now ruined.
But it had all been for a good cause, Jack had assured him. Because he couldn't trust himself not to one day go back there. To go back to that universe where somehow a version of himself had found a version of Ianto and had made it work.
He didn't trust himself not to rush to Ianto's home, their home where he would kill the version of himself waiting for Ianto. Kill him so that he could be there in his stead, waiting with open arms and a desperate embrace that Ianto would find confusing, but no doubt accept.
Around them reality would scream and paradoxes would cackle into existence. But Jack knew he would barely notice.
He would make love to Ianto, tell him things that had been on his mind for the last fifty years, beg for forgiveness and use every skill he had to show the sentiment behind those three words he could never say, but still feel with every beat of his eternally beating heart.
Only it wouldn't happen.
THE END