This is a reply, reaction, interpretation (call it what you will) to gernumblies Hub Life: Inbetween Alerts (chapter 14, Heaven and Hell). So make of it what you will, it is what I thought of. Apparently the prompts are taken from a table on livejournal, but I don't know it so contact gernumblies if you want the link.
Heaven:
If you'd asked him, before he became immortal, before he'd never know, Jack would have told you there was a heaven. Not because he was religious - the concept of a higher power had faded out sometime in the mid 37th century – but because everyone, no matter what they claim, has to believe there is something after death, what is the point of life otherwise?
He had always thought, no, always assumed he would go there someday, find that perfect place – now he would never know; and it hurt. In some way a part of him had always been waiting to find a place where all the hurt, all the pain and grief life caused, disappeared. It was ironic really. His life had held more pain, more regret, more suffering then anyone else, and yet his was the one that would never find release.
That was why he did it. All those shags, those one-night stands, because in them he found heaven. There was none of the pain of loving someone only to watch them grow old and die, only the physical pleasure of being with another, and that one, perfect moment of happiness, when all that pain, all that fear was forgotten.
It was the closest Jack Harkness would ever get to heaven.
Hell:
Hell wasn't a burning pit full of screams, it wasn't ruled over by monsters with pointed tails and pitch forks, and hell wasn't for the dammed. Even the dammed were mortal.
No. Hell was watching everyone you ever loved, would ever love, die. Hell was reaching the end of the universe, and going back to watch them die again. Hell was the complete loneliness of immortality, the realisation that you will never have release, and after a time, realising that you don't deserve it.
Hell was hurting people and remembering it for the rest of your life; hell was waking up 10463 deaths later, and knowing that 5000 of them were by your own hand. Hell was seeing the pain behind a person's eyes and resenting them for it. They would find a way to end it, somehow, some day, it would leave them, but yours would stay on forever.
Hell was seeing a person give their whole heart, their whole life to you, and knowing you could never do the same. And hell was what Jack Harkness lived with, would always live with, until the end of time itself.
As always drop me a review and tell me what you think.
Was I completely off the mark or did I get some of it right? You choose.
x