The depth of loneliness. He had faced that chasm thousands of times. It's gaping mouth opened up a little too often to be even considered comforting. It always swallowed him a little bit. A toe, an ankle, his leg, his hips, his chest. Once he was consumed almost all the way to his forehead before he found a way to make it spit him back out again.
He remembered innocence. It was never considered heavenly at the time. He doesn't crave it now like he used to. Innocence was that shiny, sometimes annoying reflection from the sun seen out of the corner of his eye that never went away. Every person he had met had that reflection. It blinded him sometimes. Certain reflections he would wind up staring at unconsciously. They were the ones who had that reflection with all of the possible colors. He'd turn his head one way and it would change to red, and the other direction would give him a blueish-green.
And then the chasm would bite into him again. His muscles would freeze. They had stopped fighting back decades ago. The surface where the reflection would originate from always vanished one way or another. The abyss never ever consumed him whole. It did not have the ability to. It was impossible. He would somehow find the strength to tell it, or ask it, to release him. Or in some cases he was forcefully pulled back by the forces of the universe. He remembered a Greek…or may be Roman?...no, Greek…..legend about a god that carried the world on his back. Atlas. He wanted to get to know Atlas. How did Atlas do it? He faced the endless void of space every day, with the reflections of trillions of stars hitting him in the eye, all whilst carrying an entire planet on his back. He couldn't compare himself to Atlas, though. He shouldn't. He was the shadow of a man. Never could he be worthy to compare himself to that legend. Every one of his own confident stares, every one of his screams of pain, drew him farther away. Back to the gorge. Back to the cliff.
The stars should all shun him. Turn their backs on him so he could never look upon their beauty again. That was what he deserved. He was not human. How could these human stars bare to look at him? Never had they turned away. Where was the sense in that?
Then it came to him. The most amazing revelation that killed the chasm from time to time. They still loved him. They loved him. Whatever face he wore, whatever words he said, they loved him. A kiss, a hug, a hand. Love. And he was grateful. Jack Harkness was grateful.
Disclaimer: Torchwood and Who aren't mine.
Author's Note: Inspired by a Youtube video entitled "Captain Jack Harkness – All That I'm Living For".
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