Part one; An Invitation
He was standing in a hallway.
Alone, he thought distantly, always so very alone.
It was dark. So very, very dark.
Someone, somewhere, was screaming.
It was a horrible, harrowing scream. Terror, panic.
He was dizzy.
The ground felt like it was moving beneath his feet.
There were voices, echoing along the thin corridor, bouncing off the walls.
He couldn't make out the words.
Just disembodied voices calling out at him from nowhere.
His head was hurting.
000
Jack jerked awake. He was still sitting at the same bar he had been in for the last eighteen hours. He sighed, rubbed his eyes. His head was hurting. His heart was racing, and he felt like he had just fallen from a forty story building. Not the most pleasant of feelings, and it wasn't even a metaphor.
It was a hypnic jerk, he told himself. That's all. Just a random sleep phenomenon.
He felt an instant pang of something, dulled by the alcohol but still sharp enough to hurt - guilt maybe - and downed what was left of his drink.
Ianto had taught him the name for it. Felt like a lifetime ago, now, but he could hear an echo of Gwen's voice as she mocked the Welshman; You're the first person I've met that wouldn't just call it 'that jerky sleep thing'.
He wasn't nearly drunk enough, he decided, and waved down the barmaid.
She was a pretty young thing; humanoid with pale skin that glowed ever so slightly in the harsh, luminous light of the club. She smiled a sultry smile at him, and blinked down at him with huge purple eyes.
' What'll it be, gorgeous?'
She leant against the chipped wooden bar, crossing her arms beneath her amble bosom and making sure her chest was at his eye-level. He didn't look at her.
' Whatever this piss-water was,' he waved his empty glass.
The girl was obviously hardened to the abuse of drunk and bitter customers, and barely shrugged before turning to the taps behind her.
' Pretty girls not your type?' a gruff voice off to the right asked.
Jack turned to face a huge, lime green face framed by tentacled hair. A species he wasn't familiar with, and he wasn't in the mood to take attitude.
' Why? You hitting on me?'
The creature scoffed, affronted, and grumbled in what sounded suspiciously like a west Yorkshire accent, ' No bloody chance, mate.'
' Oh, right,' Jack said grinning a huge, false grin. ' Twenty first century. Always forget. It's not just the Earthlings that're frigid, huh?'
He got a meaty, ham sized, seven fingered fist to the face for his trouble.
000
He was standing in a hallway. Alone.
It was dark. Someone was screaming.
He was dizzy. The ground felt like it was moving beneath his feet.
There were voices, echoing along the thin corridor, bouncing off the walls. He couldn't make out the words. Just disembodied voices calling out at him from nowhere.
His head was hurting.
The light flickered on, reflected around the room, blinding, then it was gone again.
The ground was moving, he realised. He was on a ship, all metal and cold and clinical to the point of assaulting cleanliness.
The light flickered again, a bit longer this time and his eyes had time to adjust. The walls were metal, but coloured. Lavender, peach and soft baby blue all vying for his attention.
Then it was just the darkness again.
He was on his knees, he realised, and stood up.
The ship swayed, throwing him against the wall. It felt like metal - smooth and joined flawlessly by small, circular bolts at even intervals - but it wasn't cold.
Light again, whiting out his vision for an instant and taking a lot longer to clear back into colour.
There was a shape, now, dark and obscuring the pastel backdrop.
It was a person.
A figure.
' Hypervodka?' it asked.
000
Jack groaned as he came to.
He was in the alley at what he assumed was the back of the bar. His nose ached, and he could taste blood on his tongue.
He hadn't died, he knew that. There weren't dreams when he was dead. There was just the darkness. That might have been preferable.
Jack was a man who didn't often sleep, and even less often dreamed. He didn't like it.
He dragged himself to his feet, and found he had to use the grotty wall for support.
His head was spinning, stomach churning. He couldn't recall the last time he had felt quite so bad. Then again, it had been a very long time since he had allowed himself a proper drink. Perhaps several hundred years of water had weakened his resistance to a nice stiff measure of a hard spirit.
He felt his eyes roll back into his head, and slumped back against the brick.
He felt the rough stone and the slimy damp of it through his shirt, and managed to think few more minutes before he passed out.
000
Hallway. Alone.
Dark. Screaming.
Dizzy. Ground moving.
Voices, echoing. Corridor.
Head hurting.
Light flickered, reflected. Blinding, gone again.
He was on a ship, all metal and cold.
The light flickered again, a bit longer.
Then it was just the darkness again.
He was on his knees, and stood up.
The ship swayed, throwing him against the wall.
Light again, whiting out his vision. Cleared, there was a person.
A figure.
' Hypervodka?' it asked. It sounded very far away.
He blinked, rubbed at his eyes. The brightness died down a bit more, the world focused again.
The figure was nearer than he thought it had any right to be.
It was a girl. Twelve? Maybe thirteen.
She was wearing a dolly dress, bright and floral, fitted around the bust then dropping into a wide a-line skirt which fell to her mid-thigh. Her legs were covered in pristine white tights, making her skin look like porcelain.
Dark hair fell to her shoulders, straight but tangled and knotted like she'd spend a day running around a garden.
Her eyes were big and bright, liquid mercury and unnerving.
He could hear crying. The girl was crying.
No, wait, she was grinning. A beaming, pearly white grin.
But someone was crying.
His face felt wet.
' I know what'll help,' she cooed, offering her hand.
He took it, it was rough and callused. Not a little girl's hand. He tried to pull back, but she held on tight.
' I can help,' she said, more quietly. ' I want to help.'
She fisted her hands in the fabric of her skirt, inching it up her legs.
She licked her lips, full and red and enticing. Her bright metallic eyes were hooded, half closed in ecstasy.
The tights were hold-ups, the cold antiseptic white melting into soft, warm pink just under the hem of the pretty dress. She ran a finger across the white, the pink and up to the softness above. She wasn't wearing panties.
He wanted to pull back, knew he should, but he couldn't move.
' I can help,' she repeated, huskily.
000
Another day, another bar.
Same situation.
Same seedy people, same slightly disconcerting smell. Same pretty barmaid with the same fake smile and the same resigned shrug when he turned her down for more of the same cheap, nasty alcohol.
His face was swollen, bruised. He pressed the side of the cool glass to his cheek, and relished in the sensation before downing the dregs of his whiskey.
It wasn't really whiskey, of course, but he didn't know the local name for it and the nearest reference point the had for the smoothness on the tongue and the burn down the throat was good old Earth whiskey.
The barmaid set down a refill for him without a word of request, and snatched away his empty glass.
Even in a bar full of all the unsavoury noises of revelling peoples, the silence of the exchange grated on him.
One thing Jack missed was company. Good company. Well, decent, at least.
He let his eyes drop to his wrist, fingers automatically stroking the leather of his vortex manipulator. It was worn, tatty; and just as old as he was.
It was also essentially useless. He didn't have anybody to contact anymore.
He'd spoken to Hart only once since the whole Grey debacle, during his time in Australia. He'd never been there before, and spent two months relishing in the lack of visual memories, ghosts. The alien clubs were always fairly easy to find, if you knew where to look, and, while he didn't stand out any less there than in a regular pub, they asked fewer questions.
He'd heard rumours of a small rift in Mexico, and a jackass of a man salvaging the scrap that fell through it. It wasn't hard to connect the dots, and find a phone number.
He had sent John his co-ordinates and a message reading only; Drink, fight, fuck. That order.
It hadn't been a question, or even a request, and he had expected a quick and enthusiastic response. All he got was a no-nonsense; I'm nobodies rebound.
Jack had gone to bed desolate and alone, and sobbing like a child, and when he woke it was with a fresh resolution to get off of the insignificant, ghost ridden rock that was Sol 3.
000
' I can help,' she repeated, huskily.
He closed his eyes, tried to think of as many reasons not to let her as he could.
She's a little girl. She's a little girl.
Except, when he opened them, she wasn't a little girl anymore.
She was a grown woman, in the same dress.
Tights laddered, scuffed and dirty; make-up streaked and smudged across her suddenly older face; her hand stroking her accentuated breasts.
000
Hypnic jerk.
Again.
That pang of… something.
Again.
He needed sleep, proper sleep. He just could bring himself to try. He could do without the nightmares.
He could hear giggling, and turned to find it. There was a woman - sort of - chatting up a genderless gelatinous mass. Some sights you never got used to.
The woman was quite clearly a harlot. Harlot? What, was he still in the 1900s?
He sighed and turned back to his drink.
Jack had considered whoring, at first. Back when he had just re-emerged in the stars, full of vain hope that all his problems would be instantly forgotten. He'd convinced himself that he wanted it, another body to lose himself in.
He'd gone as far as being pressed between a wall and the purple skin of a fellow drunkard before he'd backed out. He couldn't go through with it.
Memories weren't so easy to leave behind as people were.
Planets were, though, and he decided it was time to move on.
He found himself the first ship to Anywhere-but-here, and paid in cash.
000
Not a girl anymore.
She was a grown woman, in the same dress.
Scruffier, dirtier.
Sexier.
He blinked, out of pure shock, and when he looked she'd changed again.
She was shorter, younger and blonde with big kissable lips and a Union Jack T-shirt.
Blink.
A man in a dirty red jacket with too many buttons and the sad, distant look in his eyes, the look of someone desperately and hopelessly in childish love - the kind of love that's only expressed through sex and violence.
Blink.
A woman in her twenties, all dolled up in her jet setting 1920s outfit, loose and cool cotton and a huge hat to maintain her pale British complexion even in the hot, beating sun of an exotic country.
Blink.
A pretty, fair man at the end of the world. Blink. A woman, Lynda, with a 'y'. Blink. A handsome soldier, all made up in his World War II uniform. Blink. A hopeful young lady, full of belief in the unbelievable. Blink. A writer, in Berlin, chasing boys and evading bombs. Blink. A gorgeous Italian woman in Wales. Blink. A man, irradiated and chased across time, seen only twice; once in 1967 and again in 2008, but with a reversed temporal role for them both - somebody's past and somebody's future. Blink. A woman, young a pretty and drowned. Blink. Her husband, guilty and ashamed, hands covered in blood.
Blink.
And then it was a man. A man in a leather jacket and a cashmere jumper, armed with only a screwdriver and sheer gall. A man with an unremarkable face, but ears like a Nostravarian Elephant. A man with eyes so much older than they should be, the most beautiful eyes, hardened by time and experience.
Then the man changed, even without a blink. He's taller, thinner, with more hair and more teeth. He wears suits now, and a childish, excitable grin. The gall is still there, as is the screwdriver, accompanied now with enough techno-babble to fell a Cyberman. His eyes are bigger, brown and puppy-dog and sad, but still the same intensity and experience.
The man doesn't move, or say anything. Just stands, and stares accusingly.
He stared back, all concept of time fleeing him. It could have been hours, or months. In the silence. And the gloom. Staring.
Then, though the mouth doesn't move, the unmistakable voice of the man in the suit.
' You're wrong.'
000
New planet.
Not that different.
Jack found himself another bar, more alcohol that didn't really help anything in any way, and started knocking it back like water.
He deliberately didn't think about the fact that he was still hovering in the mid-regions of the Milky Way. Not actually any further that Earth rockets could take you. It was, of course, entirely coincidental, after alll.
He found a comfy spot, and tried very hard not to think about anything beyond his next measure of pseudo-whiskey.
This proved to be immensely difficult when his useless leather wrist watch started beeping.
He valiantly managed to ignore it for the whole of two drinks. Then his curiosity got the better of him. Perhaps John had reconsidered his… offer sounded better than demand.
It wasn't.
It wasn't even a video.
Just numbers. Co-ordinates.
No message at all, no sender ID.
He grunted into his glass, and ignored it.
000
' You're wrong, Jack.'
The way he said that name. Elongating the vowel and adding a sharp finality to the K. It wasn't his real name, but when it was said like that he wanted it to be. Desperately.
' Jack. Wrong, Jack.'
' Jack?'
A different voice, gorgeous rounded vowels.
A three piece suit, silk tie.
' You'll forget. A thousand years, you won't remember me.'
Then another, smaller voice.
' Why, Uncle Jack? Why me?'
He couldn't speak, could make a sound. He was choking.
No, he was literally choking, mouth full of dirt, the heavy wetness of soil pressing down on his chest, wriggly creatures moving against his skin.
And the darkness again.
He screamed, but it made no noise.
He didn't know what to do.
So he screamed again.
000
Hypnic jerk.
Guilt.
' You alright there, love?' a busty barmaid asked, leaning over Jack . ' Look like you've seena ghost.'
' Yeah,' he said, trying not to make it sound like They're everywhere.
' Another drink, ease your sorrows?'
He almost said yes, then stopped himself.
If he fell asleep on another bar his head might explode. He needed to do something, distract himself. His eyes caught a glint of leather.
' No,' he said, pushing himself up and off the table.
He checked the numbers again, punched the co-ordinates into his manipulator. It might not work, but it could still give him a location.
He considered his choice.
Stay here and drink himself to death by nasty whiskey, suffering nightmare after nightmare and unable to find any peace anywhere, or take a risk, walk into a trap and be killed by a very innovative assassin.
' Fuck it,' he muttered, and pressed enter.
Quick warning; I am a Briton and, thus, can't watch Miracle Day for another harrowing six days. So, please, if you review, keep it series four spoiler free. Thanks. Along the same vein, this story is canonical up to the end of series three, so sorry if Miracle Day spoils that.
I've had this story as a WIP for months, and never posted it. I figure I probably should now, while series four is looming.
And, in case anyone was wondering who the people in the dream were, here they are, in appearing order;
Rose, as in The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances; John Hart, as of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang; Eleanor, Duchess of Melrose, from the Radio Play Golden Age; The refugee Jack flirts with in Utopia; Lynda from Bad Wolf/The Parting of The ways; Algie, Jack's soldier "friend" from The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances; Estelle, from Small Worlds; Christopher Isherwood, as mentioned in A Day in the Death; Lucia Moretti, Alice's mother, as mentioned in Children of Earth; Michael Bellini, from the Torchwood Novel Trace Memory; And then Miles and his unfortunate wife from the Torchwood Novel The House that Jack Built.
This is my first Torchwood fic, so reviews are appreciated. Thank you for reading, hope you enjoyed!