Post Its and Tears

by McRaider

It was his legacy, and he had to keep it going, he had to do all that he could to keep it going, even if he wanted to collapse to the ground sobbing at the thought of all his friends and family dead.

Post Its and Tears
McRaider
Summary: It was his legacy, and he had to keep it going, he had to do all that he could to keep it going, even if he wanted to collapse to the ground sobbing at the thought of all his friends and family dead.
Author's Note: This is sort of a prequel to teachwriteslash piece: Want, Need and Things in Between. This piece, thus, is dedicated to her and her beautiful writing; I only hope I can do it justice. Also as we don't know the names of the previous members of Torchwood I gave them names—correct me if I'm wrong. Also after watching this horrible scene several times I've decided it's impossible to tell if the first body Jack sees is a woman or not as it appears the body doesn't have boobs but has a very feminine face.

"…"Do something? You mentioned it needs organization, but that is a relatively simple task. They deal with aliens, how frightening can it be?" Ianto followed Jack into the main Torchwood Three Archive.

"Jack Harkness, what the bloody hell have you done?"

Jack just sighed. It was going to be a long two days.

"Color coding, Jack? With post its? Dear God. What were you thinking?" Ianto asked for about the tenth time after several hours of attempting to find somewhere, anywhere to start bringing order to the chaos.

Jack finally gave up. As he drove into the car park of the hotel he had booked them into through the weekend, he snapped. "I was thinking I had no help and I just needed a system, any system. Since I had four dead teammates and an active Rift, it was not really priority." He closed his eyes for a second…." Want, Need, and Things in Between (6/10)

I stood there, horror written all over my face, blood splattered across left side, watching the body of Alex slide of the barrel, onto the ground, blood pooling from his head, where he'd shot himself in the temple. This couldn't have happened, couldn't be happening. Anything but this, anything--, I dropped to the ground beside Lyssa's side, my face crumbling at the sight of the bullet hole in her stomach and temple. My hands shook as I hovered just above the wound.

Sweet Lyssa, what had she ever done to anyone. My beautiful Lyssa, she'd been so bright, so full of life. She reminded me of Rose when she was with the Doctor. She had a giggle like nothing I'd ever heard, like spring personified. She deserved so much better than this, so much better than this death, and by Alex, her trusted friend. What was am I supposed to do without her personality in my life, poking fun at me for my latest sexual endeavor, turning down all my playful remarks. She'd been so brilliant with the computers, as if it was just an extension of her body, sometimes I thought perhaps it was by the amount of time she spent on it.

I looked back at Kyle; another good one, our archivist who spent more time in the hub than in the archives. Bless him he was such a fool, probably didn't actually have a clue about archiving, but then that's what was so fun about him. We'd teased him mercilessly about his boyfriend of the week.

My eyes finally drifted up to Caleb, our Doctor and trusted friend. The prankster of Torchwood Three, images flashed through my mind of Alex last April Fools finding salt in his coffee instead of sugar, or the day Caleb decided they should play naked spin the bottle. Naturally the only person who'd ended up naked was Caleb.

My face was wet—and not with blood. When had I started crying, started sobbing? Reaching out I gripped Alex's gun, turning it over in my hands. I wanted to blame my boss, tell him he was foolish—but most of all—I wanted him back. Thos arms that had once hugged me when I was forced to die a painful and horrible death, those eyes that looked at me full of so much more wisdom than I'd ever have. My team was gone, my beautiful team, each so very different and coming together to be so very strong.

I put the gun against my temple—it wouldn't matter, I'd die and come back equally as terrified as I was now, and just as alone. My hand shook as I lowered Alex's weapon. Suddenly I found myself unable to do it. I had to clean this mess up—I had to do something—anything.

I spent the next three hours carrying them all down to the morgue, placing them in respective drawers, marking each, lamenting over all. By the time I closed Alex's drawer I sank to the ground, weeping. It hurt so badly, why? The twenty-first century is when everything changed—Alex had said Torchwood wasn't ready—what Torchwood? I'm the only one left.

o0o

It's another three days before I've managed to overcome the alcohol poisoning I subjected myself to that night. I wandered into the archives, my eyes going wide at the mess before me, files, papers, devices and other alien objects were scattered everywhere. I chuckled sadly for a moment, Kyle really didn't work on the archives in the three years he'd been here. With fluorescent pink, green, yellow, red, blue and purple post it notes I made my way over to the mass mess of paper work—I'd be buried down here for the next two years, Torchwood Three would never be functional again, because I'd die of a billion paper cuts.

I'd decided sometime the night before that I had to go on, like Alex said this was the century when everything would change. I had to support what wasn't left of Torchwood. I had to protect this planet from the horrors to come. As I stepped closer to the piles of files, I suddenly felt a pang of sadness for the sucker who was going to have to organize the mess I was no doubt about to create—hopefully I could repay him somehow. Then I dove in, making a mental note that I was going to need more post its and more colors.

The End