This was originally meant to be a short drabble but as you can see it got out of hand. I've been desperate to write this for a long time so it was a long time in the making. Please read and review xx
Jack rubs his eyes tiredly before looking down at his hands, feeling the headache building at his temple. He considers shooting himself in the head - that generally fixes the problem, but right now he doesn't have time to clean up the mess afterwards.
There is already so much mess. Far too much mess.
He needs to get into contact with what is left of Torchwood One - formally Yvonne Hartman. Apparently she is dead. He's never liked her but he hasn't wanted her dead. He knows what that feels like - and it isn't at all pleasant. He doesn't wish that feeling on anyone.
But still, death happens to everyone, even Jack Harkness. His problem is staying dead. And now that there seems to be complete lack of control in the London Torchwood branch, understandably, Jack has to clean this up himself. And there are bodies to organise and condolences to send out and therapists to pay. He has to find the Torchwood workers who had survived and then make sure that they keep silent and that they didn't attempt to interfere with anything that had happened. And what if the press gets wind of this? They'd have a field day. It was bad enough with just the government sticking their noses in.
He really, really hates Daleks.
Well, there is no time like he present, he thinks. He might as well get on with it. He'll have to do it eventually and putting it off won't help anyone.
He'll look at the security tapes later though. Much later. No matter how old he is, it never gets any better watching people die. The Doctor is proof of that.
And where was the Doctor? Why hadn't he helped them? Perhaps he had. It was his kind of style - to disappear when he'd finished dealing with the chaos and not stick around afterwards for clean up. Cybermen and Daleks don't exactly vanish on their own after all. Still, no matter how excited the thought makes him feel, he'll look into it later.
Right now he has a job to do.
oOo
He starts on the list of personnel. The list is alphabetical and he searches through the records to find out whether that particular person's body had been found. If they have, he writes DECEASED next to their name in their files with yesterday's date and adds their name to the steadily growing list on his Excel spreadsheet.
He is only at C and there are already over seventy names.
And this is only the confirmed deceased. There are bodies all over Canary Wharf that are still to be found and now Jack will have to organise a search for every one of them as well. The people that had survived have to be found and silenced, particularly before they go anywhere near The Sun or The Daily Mail.
He slumps down in his seat, fingers at his temples, willing the headache to go away. He is working.
He needs to work.
Because whilst he is working he is thinking of the facts and the statistics and not the people and their names and if he has known any of them or had known their parents. He can't think like that now - put his emotions into the job. Because emotions on a job like this got you killed - not that Jack could care less about that. But emotions could also make you bleed and sometimes, what with as old as he is, Jack thinks he might one day cry tears of blood.
People are dead.
And at what cost?
He really hates the Daleks. And the Cybermen.
oOo
It isn't until he finished the list of personnel that he starts reading the eyewitness testimony of the few survivors of Canary Wharf.
The total list. so far, is five hundred and thirty nine people long. That is five hundred and forty too many people.
And people are still to be found, and civilians are still to be counted. Too much death, even for Captain Jack Harkness.
Reading the testimonies is difficult. He can tell which of them were in shock, how long they had been working at Torchwood, how many of them would still be alive at the end of the month.
Some of them spoke of the terror they felt, of seeing their friends and colleagues die. Some of them spoke of the lack of blood and the too clean floors and too much metal and their reflections. Some spoke of their confusion and the panic seizing their hearts. Some didn't speak at all, their transcripts left with nothing more than stage directions, as a puppet master.
And some of them spoke of a man.
The Doctor.
The Doctor had been there.
As he reads the testimonies, he begins to piece the evidence together. But he hates guessing.
Maybe it is time he watched the security tapes.
For reasons that he can't quite pinpoint he thinks the maybe he'll hate that more.
oOo
The first time he catches sight of a flash of blue on the recordings of that day he almost falls out of his chair in excitement. It hadn't been him - of course it hadn't. It is far too early (the Doctor only really turned up after the crisis began) and far too cylindrical. He recognises it as something that had fallen from the sky a while back and landed somewhere near Coventry..
After the third false alarm Jack forces himself to stay in his seat.
It is because of that he almost doesn't notice when he caught the flash of blue, the right blue. Almost.
As it is he notices and holds his breath and turns up the sound, awful though the recording may be, so that he can listen to it once more. He closes his eyes tightly and counts to three before opening them
Stepping out of the TARDIS is a completely unfamiliar man, who looked to be on a sugar high and smiled as though his teeth are hurting him when guns are pointed at him, and a woman he faintly recognises as Rose's mother. A bundle of anxious worry starts to build in his chest and he stares at the screen hungrily, scanning it for any sign, any at all.
Where is the Doctor?
Where is Rose?
He knows the Doctor can take care of himself but both of them worry about the little blonde human who is far too into danger and he see already see her hanging from a barrage balloon in his mind's eye.
She must still be inside. She must be. She has to be. For all their sakes. He continues to stare and as the TARDIS is taken away, he catches a hint of yellow hovering between the door and his heart rises in his chest at the faint shadow of blonde in the darkness.
Now, where is the Doctor?
He watches the scene unfold. It is after a few minutes that he realises that the messy haired, conversed man must be the Doctor.
And he'd thought regeneration was only a myth.
Even as solemn as the mood is, Jack can't help but whistle appreciatively at the sight of the Doctor in the suit, never mind when he ran his hands through his hair. It looked like he'd been electrocuted. He looks happier, freer. More alive. He is younger and seems to dash around and an awful lot of what he's saying that Jack can hear is bordering on flirtatious. He laughs out loud.
He bets Rose loves that.
The Doctor is rushing around and there are ghosts everywhere - and Yvonne Hartman, ignorant and idiotic as she is, seems to be actively interfering and then actively trying to help. Jack loos to the monitors which are showing the rest of the building and spies the TARDIS, the door wide open. As the Cybermen burst in the Doctor looks panicked, realising he doesn't know where Rose is. Jack doesn't know either - the feed can't find her - and the pressure starts to build again. This means she is most likely with either the Cybermen or the Daleks.
And knowing Rose's tendency for jeopardy friendliness he knows where she'll be.
She is.
There is just enough of a view from the open door as the Doctor strides in to catch sight of her blonde hair and the edge of Mickey Smith? What on Earth was he doing there?
There also appears to be people jumping around in flashes of light that look awfully like his teleport and Rose's mother - Jackie? - is hugging a man Jack thinks he vaguely recognises as Rose's father from his trips to see her as a child.
Who is also dead.
What on Earth was going on here?
He watches the battle fought below, from odd and ever changing angles as the security cameras are blown out. The Cybermen and Daleks seem quite content to fight it out between themselves and the Torchwood personnel seem to just be caught in the crossfire.
It doesn't make it any easier to watch them die.
The whole group - The Doctor, Rose, Mickey, Jackie, Rose's dad and the spiky blonde haired guy who likes to teleport - disappear into the Ghost Shift Room. His heart starts to beat faster for reasons he can't explain and the pressure in his stomach increases as though he will burst from the tension.
There are no cameras in there. They interfere too much with the Shifts.
He sits there and watches and waits.
The Daleks and the Cybermen are pulled through the door, screaming and he's glad. He really hates Daleks after all. Suddenly, there seems to be a slow in the pulling and he can hear shouts from inside the room; wishes there was a camera inside so that he could see this. Just as suddenly the Daleks are dragged through the door again and there is a loud slam as the door closes.
He can hear nothing.
The Doctor exits the room alone, a single tear track running down his cheek and his eyes showing every year of his thousand.
Jack grips the computer table.
The Doctor does not look back as he walks away.
oOo
Heart pounding furiously, Jack lunges for the list of the confirmed dead - all of them, civilians and Torchwood personnel.
At 'S' he finds Smith, Michael.
At 'T' he finds Tyler, Jacqueline.
And then Tyler, Rose.
The computer goes smashing through the glass.
oOo
Tosh and Owen run up the stairs looking worried, but he can't bear to look them in the eye. Tosh lays a gentle hand on his arm, knowing what he is doing, but slightly confused as to what is upsetting him so. He's done this before after all.
Jack can't answer through his sobs, the first in almost sixty two years.
Owen, who is always discomforted by public displays of emotion practically runs from the room knowing that there is no invasion at the minute, leaving him and Tosh alone.
"Jack?" she asks, hushed.
"No. No, no, no." He can't say anything else.
"What's wrong?"
"Rose. Rosie. Rosie's gone," he's whimpering but can't bring himself to be bothered by his sudden loss of dignity. He has to be the strong one all the time and he just can't do it anymore, not today. Tomorrow, when he rebuilds his walls he will pretend today never happened because if it happened then he will never stop crying and there are still things to do and bodies to collect; time doesn't wait for anyone, not even the Doctor and Jack knows that now more than ever.
Jack knows that the second Tosh leaves she will hack into his computer history to find out who Rose is.
He doesn't care.
She pats his arm, the only grip that's tethering him to Earth and he grips her hand tightly because if he lets go he will be spinning off into the memories and Time and Space and Rose.
He can't do that. He can't let himself.
He won't.
Rose is gone. Rose who showed him he could be a better man and proved it to the Doctor. He isn't stupid - he knows it was only at Rose's insistence that Jack was allowed along for the ride.
What is left?
He'd hoped they would meet again, all of them travelling in the TARDIS through time and space.
But with Rose dead and gone he knows he will be lucky if he ever sees the Doctor again.
His heart breaks twice.