Unsurprisingly, I don't own Torchwood, or Doctor Who. Because if I did, You Know Who would be coming back...!
On the last day, came two men who didn't grow old. Two men who couldn't grow old, couldn't live a normal life, and couldn't die. And neither of them could do anything but stand and helplessly watch, as they heard the reports on the news. At the inches-thick glass doors of Thames House, the bodies were ten-deep. No one had survived. Save for Harkness, of course, but he wished he were dead. The man who couldn't die was suicidal.
The old Torchwood 1 warehouse was silent and blacked out. The deserted space was full of the company that Harkness wanted. Beside the steel sliding doors was a set of pegs. Reaching blindly out, he hooked the blue woollen coat securely onto one. His left hand deep in the pocket of his black trousers, the belt securely tightly just below his narrow waist, he half-heartedly flicked a switch. Beams of artificial light shot from the rafters, cold, unfeeling and unnatural. He thought he was the only one there. The solitary survivor of the microbiological attack, launched at the whim of the 456 could not bear to return to the building. Gwen had identified the body of the other man, and Jack had run.
The man who couldn't die had nothing to fear, and everything to lose.
He started in surprise at the figure standing before him. Younger looking, blue pinstripe suit, and his regular sneakers, he bore an identical expression to Harkness. The long, brown jacket was hung on the makeshift pegs by the door, beside Jack's own army surplus coat. The Captain was surprised he had not noticed it earlier. But he had. He had thought it to be Ianto's jacket.
What was most noticeable about the pair of tall, dark males was the identical expression they wore: Both sets of eyes, one pair brown, the other scorching blue, were awash with guilt for what they had done; yet an overwhelming hatred to the race that had done this – Had turned Earth into a planet that could not fight back.
"You're late." Harkness practically whispered, his voice cracked and breaking. Whether he could hide it or not, he had been crying.
"Nice to see you too, Captain."
They had met years ago, and formed an unlikely friendship. Where the Doctor handled the threats that came his way with a reasonably calm composure, Harkness took the first possible course of action. Harkness could, and would, instigate genocide, which was something the Doctor could never condole.
"It's been a while, whatever-" Harkness brushed aside anything else the Doctor was going to say, although he knew that the message he had sent must have made some sense to him, must have made him think, if he had come back. "-But can you help?"
Anything to bring him back, Jack had decided. He would do anything at all. One hundred years ago, he never would have dreamed he'd think like that about anyone.
"I take it you were the one to breach the TARDIS?" He didn't answer the question. Harkness nodded. The Doctor stood there, hands in pockets, feet slightly splayed. Harkness felt as though he was about to faint. "Because those wavelengths really didn't do her any good…"
Wavelengths. If that had been the answer to everything else, then why not try calling the man who could never be located? It had been cruel, so heartbreakingly cruel, to use his grandson as he did – He would have nightmares of that moment for evermore – But, as his sinuses had imploded, the same signal had been broadcast across the galaxy, spanning the whole universe. Calling the Doctor.
He was alone, with no companion. Maybe he had finally worked out that attachments to human beings only ended in tragedy. And tragedy was the one thing that Harkness had been trying to avoid, especially in this last hectic week. He was nifty with a computer, a bit of additional peripheral hardware, and a gun…
"Where is she?" Harkness asked quietly, changing the subject for a moment, although it was all in his interest. The Doctor always liked talking about his beloved TARDIS.
"Didn't know if they were still looking for you – Or me – So better safe than sorry. Left her round the back of the Nightingale Inn. Made sure to lock the doors tight."
Harkness nodded.
"Wise idea." The clear twang in his voice was not quite so emphasised when he made a point of speaking quietly. That topic over and done with, the cruel, strong hands of the present dragged Harkness back to the overwhelming issue at hand. "I didn't know how else to call you." He said, admitting a weakness. "No one else knew how I could contact you, not even the government, listening in on the wire. They all wanted to know where you were, with the planet in this state." He shrugged. "I improvised; so shoot me."
"Some people might want to. Waste of a good bullet in my opinion." The Doctor muttered with a weak smile, before Harkness speaking again interrupted him.
"You never answered me: Can you help Ianto?"
He understood what was wrong with the strong soldier that he had previously known. Emotional ties affected everyone in a different way.
"I can't do anything. I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry…" The words were solemn, and clearly so apologetic. Hidden tears formed in the Captain's eyes.
"Please, there's got to be something – Anything! There's nothing left for me here. I don't want to go on without him, Doctor…"
"And you know that can't happen, Jack." The Doctor's voice was soft, so heartfelt and diffident that Harkness felt his heart breaking then and there. "You became a fixed point in time and space after the Dalek attack, and that hold that the age has on you, it's not likely to let up any time soon; at least, as far as I know."
"Then I want to go somewhere else. Somewhere I can forget that this life ever existed. The 51st century didn't want me, and now the 21st is shot of me as well."
"Anywhere you like, Jack. If it helps. Anywhere, anywhen – Did I mention it travels in time?" He laughed weakly, his own pathetic joke to fill the silence that had reigned over them while Harkness thought. And he had a plan.
Did I mention it travels in time? That was all the prompt that Harkness needed. One hand slipped out from within his pocked, his right hand clasping a tight grip around his left wrist, slipping the thin, pale cuff of his shirt up, to expose the teleport device strapped tightly on. Found in the blast radius, Gwen had told him, when he had pretended to run away from the whole planet, just so he could come back here to find the Doctor. Indestructible, just like Harkness himself. He couldn't even be blown up, because he'd grow a new goddamned body…
He flicked the lid up, his eyes burning into the Doctor's as he called upon his perfect memory for the coordinates of the nearby pub, fingertips punching the soft keys with each digit he could recall.
A moment later, he reached out, stumbling carelessly against the makeshift pegs just behind him, and hesitating, standing there for a moment, back to the Doctor, before gripping his floor-length coat in long, strong fingers, and slinging it over his shoulders.
"Oh, I know it does…" Harkness muttered, barely taking his eyes off of the man before him, so much older and wiser than the ex-time agent, although he refused to believe that. If the Doctor wouldn't save Ianto, then Jack would do it himself.
"No, Jack… Don't you dare even thi-!" The Doctor began, although had no time to continue, before Harkness input the final digit, and looked Heavenward, as the iridescent blue light swallowed him up. "No!" The other man yelled, practically screamed, dashing to the spot where the Captain had been, just seconds previously. But he was too late to stop him. Jack was gone, flitting through the atmosphere above the Doctor, defying his human shape and all forms of reasonable logic, instead just a streaming beacon of sapphire light.
Pounding his fists on the wall, the Doctor was steaming. He knew exactly what Jack planned to do; it wasn't exactly hard to guess. A second later, he pulled back. There was the perfect possibility that Jack's coordinates were wrong, and that would give the Doctor a head start to the TARDIS. Providing he could get there before the Captain, he might have a fleeting chance of stopping him before he inadvertently caused the implosion of the entire universe – And every parallel one besides. Spinning on the rubber heel of his sneaker, squeaking faintly on the polished floor, the Doctor turned and began to sprint.
Touchdown was as smooth as ever; Captain Jack Harkness was the epitome of perfection. He appeared on the grille floor firmly on both booted feet, and all in one piece. Leaving something behind would have been dreadful. He'd heard the story of the woman who'd left her ear hanging in mid air one time too many… Nasty stuff. Looking up, Harkness grinned, ear to ear. He was exactly where he wanted to be: Inside the hub of the TARDIS – The last one of her kind remaining, and Ianto Jones' final lifeline.
"Yes!" He cried out loud, practically ecstatically, his voice echoing around the huge, metal-plated walls, and reverberating off the central core of the TARDIS, right at its heart. It really was bigger on the inside.
Now, for time travel…
He'd never fully operated the complex, Galifreyan machine by himself; it had always been under the Doctor's watchful eye, although he was sure that he understood the basic principle. Harkness was from the 51st Century, an ex-time agent, and head of the Torchwood 3 Institute - And he was bloody good at his job.
The tall man whacked a couple of switches, turned a single dial on the left hand side of the console to the right, yanked up, and then pushed down the plunger, and skidded to a fevered halt before the key pad. He depressed the carriage-return. The screen, matte black as it was, flickered into life, with a set of swirling symbols, rotating around a central point. Hypnotised by the spectacle and unblinking, Jack pressed the same key again. Instantly the transfixing patterns were replaced with an image. It appeared holographic, although even the most powerful of technology could not have created a 3-dimensional holographic image inside a clearly 2D monitor. It spoke emotionlessly.
"System task manager four-thirteen initiated, at presence of unknown personnel." After a moment, the robotic voice changed tone, to something far more recognisably human. The Doctor's holographic image spoke from inside the screen. "If I've been activated then I can only assume you aren't supposed to be here. Target having breeched entrance, triggering electrical shutdown of all systems-"
"Oh, shut up." Harkness muttered, reaching into a deep pocket to withdraw a ten-centimetre metal rod, a bulbous head with a glowing blue light emitted from the top. Holding down the small red button and raising the device aloft, Harkness aimed it at the monitor and a beam of sonic energy zapped the Doctor's bodiless image into nothingness almost instantly.
"Foiled by your own gadget…" He laughed softly, more to himself than the empty, swirling screen, as he pocketed the stolen sonic screwdriver once again. "Once a conman…" The rest was left unsaid.
He flexed his fingers over the main body of the console, the keyboard inscribed with Galifreyan digits and letters, although Harkness could read the dead language as easily as English. Of course, it helped that the TARDIS translated everything for him. The time, date and locative coordinates of the Torchwood hub were plugged into the internal system in but a moment, a slow grin, a parody of his usual pleasant smile, stretching out across Harkness' face like a lazy cat as the faint trilling sound announced the transition was completed.
As a final measure, the soldier withdrew the rubber mallet that he had discovered below the circular control panel, and brought it crashing down upon the big red button that would send the contraption hurtling through the very vortex of time. He staggered to find his footing, clinging onto one of the metal bars surrounding the central platform as the sockets and sprockets whirred with practical excitement, and the neat piston rose and sunk, the ensuing wailing sound fluctuating and echoing through the whirling machine. Harkness whooped with the phenomenal adrenaline rush the feeling of flying gave.
The Doctor, skidding around the corner, could only stand and mournfully watch as the flashing light atop the ancient police box flickered in and out of sight.
And then, it was gone, and the Captain with it.