Author's Note: So…first foray into the 'Whoniverse.' I've been thinking about writing a short piece for a while now, and the ideas finally came together. The title comes from an Anchor & Braille song, titled "Summer Tongues." I might write a second part, but we'll see.
Disclaimer: I do not own Torchwood, Doctor Who, etc., and am writing purely for enjoyment.
Warnings: COE spoilers, some mild language, mentions of Jack/Ianto, and Gwen/Jack if you're looking for it.
Somewhere Outside
Just because you can run forever doesn't mean that they won't catch you in the end. The guy that wants your money, the guy that wants your head, or maybe just the bad memories and ghosts with earnest smiles, refusing to place blame where it rightly belongs—eventually something or someone is faster. Captain Jack Harkness has tried to outrun them all, and while he might have escaped the former two, those ghosts are a damned sight faster than he is. Six months travelling, running up tabs he had no intentions of paying and chasing men and women alike in an attempt to lose himself in mindless, physical oblivion—and still those eyes (his own grandson) are staring back at him in his sleep. Sometimes he thinks he hears Ianto's watch and waves of guilt and grief wash over him. Guilt because he let his lover down in so many ways; unable to love him like he deserved and unable to save the quiet Welshman from a death they should've been able to prevent.
Other times, when he isn't trying to lose himself in a sea of crowded people shopping, drinking, even just walking, Jack sits on empty rooftops, wondering if another fall will do him in, but the silence is crushing in ways that a mob would envy, and the thought of compounding that with the cold and utter darkness is so unappealing that he stops himself (usually). Although he tries not to think about her, reminders of the only other surviving Torchwood member come unbidden, one of two living ghosts that occupy his dreams (how could he ever face Alice again?). Ultimately, Gwen is the reason he comes back at all, even after six months are clearly proving too short to make things better.
He's forgotten how far the pregnancy will have progressed, and is torn between feeling bad for making her run up that hill and being amused by how funny she looks, half-waddling away from Rhys and towards him, the look in her big, trusting eyes all too familiar and all too painful. When she begs him to stay, he considers telling her that he only managed to stick around this long for her. He considers being cruel and reminding her that she has Rhys and a baby, and isn't that enough? In the end he goes for smiling bravado, and even though she knows he cares and uses that to try and make him stay, it is all he can do to remain long enough for a goodbye, because he needs to go somewhere, somewhere outside of this tiny planet and outside of the home he created and destroyed. Not that he would ever say it that way.
'Watch me!'
A year passes. A year of bars and brawls, ecstasy and overwhelming grief. To even begin to recount the stories seems impossible, because they have all blurred together in a stream of emotions, like many of the years of his impossibly long life. He even spots the Doctor once, running like a madman past him on the street, but Jack feels no inclination to chase after him again—he doesn't want to see the Doctor like this, clouded in misery. Still the ghosts remain, ever-so-trusting, and he is slowly realizing that he doesn't want them to go, like all of the others he has loved and lost. The pain, after all, is what keeps them so much more vivid in his memory than all the others. He promised to remember Ianto, and had vowed to himself not to forget Stephen, Tosh, and Owen. But after a year and a half, the ghosts are starting to lose their vividness, and when he sleeps a night without them, he wakes up the next morning with tears in his eyes.
So he returns, reluctantly, to Gwen and Rhys and baby Elen, because as long as they live and he is with them, with her, the ghosts will never abandon him. Captain Jack Harkness has told a lot of lies, but this moment of morbid inspiration sure as hell doesn't feel like one. Gwen clings to him, crying, forgiving her former boss when he would prefer condemnation, and Rhys stands aside awkwardly, holding a quiet baby with dark hair and eyes almost as big as her mother's. Rhys is as uncomfortable with this reunion as Jack is, but Jack cannot help but hold Gwen as tightly as she holds him, enjoying the first embrace with any real feeling behind it in ages.
With Rhys's help, they slowly rebuild Torchwood, as partners, recruiting a few brilliant men and women along the way. Martha Jones sends a few recommendations their way, and Jack is disappointed and relieved that she chooses to stay with UNIT.
"Jack, take a look at this," Gwen says one day, as she tinkers with one of the computers inside their new headquarters. She points to the screen monitoring rift activity, and Jack wishes Toshiko were there to help, even though their new computer tech (a nice guy named Neville, that Jack chose after the kid said something uncannily like Owen) is perfectly capable, if not quite the genius that she could have been.
"Well, doesn't look like much, but if you're worried we can—"
"I'll start the car," Gwen interrupts, and Jack finds that he is still taken aback by how much he likes having her equally in charge. They leave the others behind this time because it seems relatively innocuous, and Jack hasn't really trusted them much beyond the occasional Weevil capture.
They ride in silence, following the instructions of the GPS, and unsurprisingly, find themselves near some industrial storage.
"What is it with alien life forms and dark, deserted warehouses?" Gwen quips, attempting to make him smile, and he does, a little.
"Probably just lonely. We can always provide some quality company…unless you don't like to share," Jack replies evenly, and Gwen ignores the comment, used to suggestions he would (probably) never follow through on. The 'probably' rises from curiosity, which is quickly squelched. She has Rhys and her daughter Elen to think of now, after all.
It is this distracted train of thought that is her mistake, and when the alien, all claws and horns, comes rushing at them, she draws her weapon far too slowly, suffers a (mostly) harmless blow, meant to incapacitate, before Jack is able to fire enough rounds to knock the creature down. As Gwen pushes herself up, testing the state of her head, Jack is already there, one eye still watching the motionless being.
"Sorry, Jack, I…"
But Gwen doesn't get any farther than that, because once Jack is sure she's unharmed and the alien is down, he is clinging to her like a child, but scolding in a tone so sharp that she shivers,
"How could you not see that coming, Gwen? I trained you better than that!"
He pulls away and the glint in his eyes is unrecognizable. She hopes it's only because he's worried, and so she nods mutely and hugs him back. She's used to his fifty-first century pheromones by now, but Gwen cannot help but feel a little lightheaded as he helps her to her feet, still holding her hand while they inspect the fallen creature.
"Clean-up in aisle 8," she murmurs, and Jack is reminded of Ianto's sarcasm for a brief moment, but this is Gwen, who is so very alive. He is reluctant to release contact with her, but the alien isn't going to cart itself into the vehicle and back to Torchwood.
Those are the days when he feels settled.
But other days are difficult. He forgets the names of Neville, Robert, and Emma, the names of fallen friends almost spoken before Jack can correct himself. He sends them all home on restless days, but Gwen almost always stays regardless of his orders. Only once does he break down, and she holds him, stroking his hair and murmuring soft words as though he's Elen, and after a few minutes they're back to 'normal,' and he's challenged her to a game of naked Hide-And-Seek, which she of course refuses. Usually, though, he sits and stares at old pictures and letters, trying not to notice how the ink and paper have deteriorated with time. Sometimes Gwen sits with him, asking questions about this photo or that, and he tells her, because how else will he remember the dead? Sometimes she tells stories too, and as they sit together, perhaps too close even for the boundaries of friends, he listens, drinking in the stories of a normal life. He asks about Elen, but never about Rhys.
Jack knows he is being selfish, but he needs Gwen to keep the memories alive and maybe he just needs her. So he doesn't say anything when Rhys stops visiting. If he thinks about it, the visits really stopped after Elen's fourth birthday party. Robert died six months later, and they hire a new medic, a blond named Catherine who reminds Jack of Rose. Three months after that, when they're driving back from a failed Weevil capture, just the two of them, Gwen tells Jack that Rhys has divorced her. Torchwood has killed her marriage, and Jack is strangely relieved, and thinks it is because Gwen doesn't blame him. Her only regret, she says, is that she hasn't spent more time with Elen. Jack gives her the weekend off, and keeps to himself the whole time, uncharacteristically repulsed by the thought of drinking or having a meaningless fling with whomever he happened upon first.
It has been six years of running, fighting, and clinging to what he can, and Jack is still weary. But slowly, he is learning to accept some of the forgiveness that the ghosts and Gwen are constantly extending him. This new team is holding together better than the others, and laughter is becoming more and more frequent. Jack, almost always gregarious and charming as a front, is beginning to feel some of that happiness more deeply. After thousands of deaths and a couple hundred years of living, he's starting to believe Gwen's sweet reassurances, if only because his heart cannot hold out on her any longer.
He cannot outrun the dead or the living, and he doesn't want to.