Exhausted, death-weary and caked in blood and dirt, Jack Harkness
Title: Survivor
Rating: K+
Disclaimer: Not mine, never will be.
Timeline/spoiler warnings: Some knowledge of the First Doctor serial 'The Dalek Invasion of Earth' needed – but only of what happened, and of who Susan is.
Notes: In the twenty-second century, Jack Harkness endures.
Exhausted, death-weary and caked in blood and dirt, Jack Harkness clambered over a pile of rubble that had once been a shopping centre in the heart of Cardiff. Other survivors were around, ranged across a few hundred metres as they searched for anyone buried under the debris, under concrete and metal, under burnt wood and stinking human remains.
It had been a long, hard few years, and it had taken its toll on Jack. Even with fore-knowledge, the invasion had been a devastating blow. He had not been prepared for how it would feel to see the world fall, the country, to see Cardiff fall before the onslaught of the Daleks. To see Torchwood, the organisation he had spent most of his life with, fail so utterly.
Not that he had allowed himself to think much of the chances of success. History was history, and the Dalek invasion of the twenty-second century was part of every human child's history lessons by the time Jack had been born, or would be born, in the fifty-first century. Torchwood could not stop the invasion. Jack could not stop it. It happened. It was fact, one of the things he knew he had to endure. There would be other invasions, other battles, and he would endure them all for the sake of the timeline.
He had fought, of course. Oh, of course he had fought, long and hard, often alone and sometimes with others. He had saved those he could, abandoned those he could not, and died a hundred deaths at the end of Dalek weaponry.
He had feared and hated the Daleks before. Now he loathed them with a passion only previously reserved for the Master.
The rescuers – salvagers – made their way through the centre of the ancient city, silent for the most part. They had little hope of finding anybody, but Jack refused to give up. He would search for days, months if he had to, just to rescue one more person. To give him that one tiny morsel of salvation. He had to search. There was no other choice.
The bay was deserted, the wind chill as it swept in from the sea, and the rescuers huddled together between the remains of the Millennium Centre and the twisted plinth of metal that had once been a statue. Jack crouched over the old hub, and wondered whether anything remained below. He had taken precautions, so long ago before he had left to lead resistance cells across the world. Would the hub still be there? The tunnels and passageways, the alien mainframe computer? Were the dead still resting in Torchwood morgue? Alice and Emily, Gerald and Harriet, Philip, James, Terry, Alex, Suzie, Toshiko, Ianto…names stretching back to the nineteen hundreds, and forwards until the invasion in 2157.
It was a job for another day. He rose and sighed. Perhaps his greatcoat was still down there. He missed it, at times. He'd stopped wearing it long before the invasion, too painful a reminder of love lost, but it remained a kind of security. A relic from a time when things had been – dare he think it? – easier.
Something caught his attention – a young woman stumbling across the remains of the Plass towards him. He moved towards her and offered a hand when she tripped, falling to her hands and knees.
"Careful," he said.
"Thanks," she smiled, brushing dirt from her knees, tutting over the scrapes. She was pretty, dark hair and large dark eyes, and reminded him of someone. He wasn't sure who. "Captain Harkness?"
"Yeah," he nodded. "And you?"
"Susan. Susan Foreman. I've been helping out in London, but David Campbell and I – well, I thought I'd better check on the rift, and –"
"You know about the rift?" Jack demanded sharply, gripping her wrist almost too tightly. "Who are you?" She looked at him, eyes impossibly wide, and he let her go with a muttered apology. "Still," he said then, "who are you? There's nobody left alive that knows about the rift."
"Except you."
"Except me," he allowed. "So. Who are you?"
"I'm just…a traveller," Susan said. "I've seen a lot of things, Captain." They looked at each other, trying to discover secrets. "Is it stable?" she asked then. "I mean, as much as a rift in space and time can be stable?"
"For now," he said. "I've monitored it throughout the invasion. The Daleks were pretty good at killing Weevils, though, and they weren't bothered about temporal disturbances."
"No, they wouldn't be," said Susan with a scowl. "Well, since I'm here, can I help at all?"
It hit him suddenly, who she reminded him of, and he inhaled sharply. The world rushed by for a long moment, and he shook his head.
"Time Lord," he said at last. "You're a Time Lord."
Susan's mouth opened to deny it, but then she gave a soft smile.
"Not exactly. Gallifreyan. I never attended the Academy, so I can't regenerate. But yes, I'm from Gallifrey. How do you know that? This century has had so little extra-terrestrial contact."
"It's my job," he heard himself say. Then he shook his head again. "And I – I travelled with the Doctor." Her face brightened. "It was a long time ago, for me. His future, for you, I think."
"How do you know?" she asked, all innocence. Jack's mouth curled in a frown. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to –" She cut herself off, took a breath. "He's my grandfather," she told him. "I haven't seen him in a while. I fell in love, you see, so I stayed on Earth."
"Right," Jack nodded, as if it made sense to him. It had been so long since he had allowed himself to fall in love. He could remember all their names and faces, a long line stretching back to before Rose and the Doctor. Claire. Stephen. Estelle. Michael. Gwen. Ianto. Thomas. Alicia. Jim.
"I'd better make sure he's not getting into trouble," Susan said then with a laugh. "We'll be staying in Cardiff for a while, I think. If you wanted to talk about the Doctor, I mean, or…"
"I might do that," Jack said, knowing he never would. "Good luck, Susan Foreman." He put his hands on her shoulders and kissed her forehead. She smiled, turned, walked away. Jack watched her go, heart heavy with sadness. He watched as she climbed over the rubble, watched as she faded into the nothingness of time.
"Jack? What was that?"
Jack turned to the young man, Chris, half a head shorter than he was but equally dirty and war-torn.
"Nothing," he said quietly. "Just an echo of someone who shouldn't exist anymore." He took a deep breath. "Let's keep going. Lot of ground to cover before nightfall." Chris nodded and headed back to the others; Jack looked at where Susan had disappeared for a long moment, and then sighed.
Sometimes, he thought, the victims of war were not just those you could see, but those you could not. He wondered if he would ever tell the Doctor, knew that he never could. He wondered how this broken Earth would ever be able to rebuild itself to become the Earth he knew.
He wondered how many centuries would go by before he would start to forget.
Exhausted beyond the telling of it, Jack returned to the other survivors and began searching again. Just one more, he told himself. If he could find just one more, he might be able to find some peace.
Finis. Comments are love.