A/N: This is my entry for the quotechallenge livejournal community's new challenge. Enjoy! And please review. All feedback is welcomed and read over and over again.
Disclaimer: I don't own Torchwood
Cold and Dead
"Exalt oh shores, and ring oh bells!
But I with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead."
-Oh Captain My Captain by Walt Whitman-
They managed to get his body back to Torchwood without looking at it. They laid him carefully in the back of the SUV and then piled in themselves. The drive to the Hub was made in silence, no one daring to speak of what they had done. Ianto wound up driving, and he found himself focusing on each of the team members' silences.
Owen was stoic. His face was set and his jaw was tight as he gazed forlornly out the window. Gwen wept. Every few moments a small sob broke through the silence as she tried to hold back her tears. Tosh, sitting in the passenger's seat, was in shock. She stared out the window at the world around them, but Ianto knew she wasn't taking any of it in. Ianto himself was focused. He gripped the steering wheel tightly as he drove and watched the people they passed.
The people were happy. They were dancing. They were celebrating the death of the monster, the end of their nightmare. And while they danced, Jack lay pale and still in the back of the SUV. Ianto wanted to open the window and yell at them. He wanted to tell them what their happiness had cost, to make them mourn the loss of Captain Jack Harkness.
But he knew they wouldn't listen. They wouldn't understand. All that mattered to them was their own safety, their own lives. They and their loved ones were safe, and that was all they needed.
"We're here," Ianto said when they reached the Hub. He knew it was obvious, but he had to break the silence before he went insane. They climbed out of the car on automatic and Owen and Ianto hoisted Jack's body-bag out of the back and followed Gwen and Tosh into the building, a pathetic excuse for a funeral procession.
"He can't die," Gwen muttered as they laid him down in one of the Freezer's drawers. Owen gave her an incredulous glare and Tosh's breath hitched in the beginning of a sob. Ianto just stared down at the formless bag.
"He can't," Gwen insisted.
"He is," Owen snapped. "He is, and it's our own bloody fault." Owen stormed off, heading to survey the damage to his work station. Ianto looked from Tosh to Gwen, and then carefully unzipped the bag to reveal Jack's face. It looked unreal, like a figure in a wax museum, pale and empty.
"He can't," Gwen repeated, laying her hand on Jack's forehead. Ianto laid his hand on top of hers and looked into her eyes.
"There's nothing we can do," he said. She stared at him and slowly began to shake her head.
"You saw," she cried, drawing Owen back from his moping. "Owen shot him and he lived. You saw it!" Tosh draped a comforting arm across Gwen's shoulder.
"He's gone," she said.
"No," Gwen whispered. Ianto glanced at Owen then at Tosh, and then slipped his had from Gwen's and walked away from them. He didn't even glance back at Jack; he kept his eyes straight ahead and weaved his way through the wreckage o the hub to Jack's office.
As he walked past Owen, he saw that the other man had found a working monitor. As he stepped inside, he heard a news anchor talking about the "miraculous disappearance" of the "mysterious monster." Ianto sighed and closed the door, shutting out the sounds.
As Gwen sat by Jack's side, clutching his hand and pleading for him to wake up, as Owen and Tosh began to pick up the pieces of the Hub and discuss putting it all back together, and as the news should clips of people celebrating and people mourning; Ianto took Jack's coat from its hanger and lifted it to his face, finally letting his own tears fall.