A Saviour No More
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Arms resting, defeated, by his sides and face stained with drying tears, transfixed by the empty space before him, Jack Harkness was staring intently. There was nothing – the building had completely disappeared. There was no chasm, no rubble - not one single brick; just a wide expanse of finely milled dirt. And in marking the spot with an abhorrent neatness, the scene seemed to be mocking him personally; seemed to appreciate that it was successfully portraying the complete antithesis of what his life had now become.
Momentarily dark and ominous; now a luminescent shade of bright red, the sky overhead was alive; shimmering as though reflecting a Wales below consumed by fire. But curiously there was no sign of a sun, nor clouds or wind.
Every bird muted or flown, the atmosphere was thick with an unnatural silence - Heavy and claustrophobic it was screaming a suffocating path around the Captain and with it overwhelming his senses he began to make his way forward; instantly stumbling as his jumbled synapses caused one foot to trip over the other.
As his knees hit the dirt, his devastation complete, he began to cry again, and head tipping back he offered the gods a watery laugh. Fate had certainly been earning her keep with this particular soul of late - why else would she have allowed him to lose his heart to the most stubborn of Welshmen ever to have lived, though, all things considered, what else should he have expected from Ianto today? Of course he would have wanted to do the right thing; would have wanted to close the Rift once and for all. And of course he'd have thought to put the lives of others before his own - Because that's what Ianto Jones did.
But beyond the bravery; beyond the selfless acts and quick dry wit, there was a private man to be found; a quiet man.
Well that quiet man was still the bravest human this sorry excuse for a hero had ever known. Out in the field, time and time again Ianto had earned his Captain's respect. But today, filled with guilt and selfishness, that very same boss had been hoping to see a show of cowardice from his employee. He'd even begged Ianto to change his mind; would have begged him for forgiveness had there not been so damned much to forgive. A lifetime of getting things wrong had seen chasing absolution become second nature to Jack, though in choosing to come to this place he hadn't been looking to serve a penance - today he'd merely been praying for a miracle – that the most important person in his life should be returned.
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Blinking quickly he opened his eyes; they began to sting - But in washing away the film of dust, his tears were already doing their job.
He stared down at his hands. They were balled, clenched tightly around fistfuls of crumbling earth that he had no recollection of clawing up, and flattening his palms he watched as each individual piece of loosened dirt began to make its gravitational way back home.
Was this all that was left of Ianto - just dust ... and a memory?
No ... ... of course it wasn't - Ianto Jones would live on forever – literally forever, in his heart. The promise to never forget had been made long ago … and Jack knew he never could.
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Staring into the distance, he could just make out an approaching vehicle. It was time to go; there was nothing left for him here. Today, the powers that be had let him down in more ways than one, though, to be fair, maybe it was time to finally accept his own fallibility. Enforced or not, he'd been killing time on this planet for far too long, and in the process had managed to convince himself that he was the resident saviour for the whole of mankind.
Well he wasn't a saviour any more - the events of today had more than proven that. And maybe he never really had been. For all his daring do; his endless show of courage and the cocky 'Captain's swagger', he'd let this planet down, but thankfully its occupants had spent over a century living in ignorant bliss; had been totally unaware of his existence. Well now the vestiges of that existence had all but disintegrated. Ianto was gone (again), Gwen was off on another, more challenging, adventure (trying her best to play happy families), and ironically, as a father himself, Jack had quite rightly lost the love of the only person he'd truly been able to call family.
Forcing himself up onto his feet, uncaring that his knees were now covered in dust, he turned to where he'd left his car. Parked in a hurry to the right of the main entrance, along with everything else in that area, it'd been sucked into the Void.
Along with ….
Shuddering, he forced the memory of the horrific moment from his mind, and starting along the road he studied the car drawing ever closer.
He wiped at his eyes. He wouldn't allow himself to be consumed by grief just yet. That he'd lost Ianto all over again was a fact he was just going to have to accept, though, in truth, it would be a long time before he could accept any of the events from today. Okay, the Rift had needed to be closed, that was a given, but nothing remotely positive or satisfying could be gained from knowing that the outcome had been achieved at the expense of yet more innocent lives.
There was only one thing he'd offer up thanks for today: that he'd been able to show Ianto just how much he really did love him. All those months ago, trapped in that soul destroying situation, Ianto had been dying in his arms, and to accept the words 'I love you', knowing that they were really intended as a 'goodbye' - knowing that it would be the first and only time he would ever get to hear Ianto say them - had been just too painful an option to consider. And at that very precise moment, he would have damned every other living soul to hell rather than say the same words as a farewell in return.
He hadn't been ready to say goodbye back then ….. and for one brief and glorious moment, he'd all but believed he wasn't going to have to today.
He'd felt sure that pity had been taken on him; that he'd earned a certain amount of forgiveness from Ianto since arriving, and walking out of that building he hadn't felt half the coward that he really was. During the aftermath of the attack on Thames House he'd begged Ianto not to leave him …. … but the young man had. This time it was going to be be different, this time he'd been planning on taking his love as far from this godforsaken planet as he possibly could - from now on it was supposed to have been Ianto Jones and nothing else for Jack Harkness … ... No more saving of worlds, no more being the hero - Just the two of them, spending the time they had left, traversing the galaxies - hitching a ride from starship to starship.
And then Ianto had been …..
Well he'd just been Ianto, hadn't he- the brave, honourable and courageous fool that he was – A selfless, kind and caring man.
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As Ianto's voice came back to haunt him, repeating those same three words all over again, Jack knew this was to be his punishment for the rest of time.
Tears falling once more, with the approaching vehicle almost upon him, he wiped at his cheeks - for one final time he would assume the guise of Captain Jack Harkness, - a man for whom it seemed no sympathy would ever be spared - a man who no longer considered himself to be the saviour of every soul …. ...
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Just the seeker of one.
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Thanks for reading …... bwb.