20,000 years later:
His skin was waxy now, the lines deeper, and it had an odd pallor. Jack ignored it as he ignored his iron-grey hair.
He idly tapped his fingers on his communit, glancing at the time, a habit that had always amused his lovers. What need had he, they teased, to know the time? It was the last thing he should think about.
The war dragged on and on, and it was all Jack could do to organise the supply dumps and the weapons as every resource on the little planet of Phennik Three was stretched to breaking point. He smiled ruefully — and being a resistance fighter always sounded so glamorous.
The siren cut through the air with a shrill wail and Jack sighed heavily, before pulling on his polycarbide helmet and striding into the corridor. "At ease, corporal," he called to the pretty young fellow at the main doors, "Enemy bombardment at the Eastern flank, as expected?"
"Yes sir, Captain Harkness, sir," the corporal barked, and Jack winced.
"With the..." he waved his hand dismissively, "yes sir no sir business... just, no. How many times, just call me Jack. Captain Jack if you really must. I more or less recognise the name."
"Yes, si-," the young man stopped. "Jack. Um. They're getting further in, must have hit the depot areas. They'll be on their way here."
"Terrific," drawled Jack, "just when I'd got my desk how I like it."
"Shouldn't you be making plans to evacuate, si... Cap... uh, Jack?"
"Probably." Jack inhaled loudly, feeling his lungs expand slowly. "Buuuut... there are two villages out there, totally unprotected and the Sontarans will be sending in ground troops after the bombardment's over. They'll be expecting no opposition."
"But... the villages won't be attacked, ah, Jack. There's nothing there. Just people. No strategic positions, no storage facilities - nothing the Enemy wants."
Jack cocked his head. "But they'll go there anyway. Just for kicks."
"What are you going to do?" The young soldier's voice was full of trepidation.
Jack Harkness, sole remaining custodian of the Torchwood Archive and by now an intergalactic legend, grinned and pocketed the boy's gun. "I fully intend to disappoint them."
"Where are you going?" the corporal demanded in alarm. Jack span back on his heel, his coat flying and grabbed the beautiful blue tentacles that fluttered delicately around the young fellow's face.
"Wish me luck," Jack murmured, kissed the Phennik harshly (so young, so fresh), revelling in the feel of the fronds curling around his wrist. "Going out for a walk."
The Phennik Corporal landed against the doorjamb in a daze, and focused just in time to see a long coat swish out the door, and hear the words, "I may be some time!" float back.
The energy weapons sizzled and spat through the murky air and the heady scent of ozone filled Jack's nostrils and made him feel a trifle giddy. "C'mon, c'mon, c'mon, now, now, now!" he yelled, pushing the stumbling civilians one by one into the supply truck he had 'borrowed'. Behind them, the screams of the dying floated eerily in the dirty mist. "Go, go, go!"
Jack helped the last clamber into the truck, a child of about seven, the fronds he so admired in the adults just stubby fins under her ears. He paused slightly before closing the door, turning to face them.
"I am getting you out of here," he said in a steely voice, meeting frightened, fervent eyes packed into the gloom. "That is a promise."
"Mum?" the little girl asked hopefully with a hitch in her voice, her green eyes enormous.
Jack hesitated, and then looked away. "Sorry, kid," he mumbled, and abruptly closed the door on her thin wails. He leaned against them heavily for a second, feeling his ancient, steady heartbeat push his thickening blood through his body. The panic in the truck battered against his mind's defences, and for a moment he considered contacting the Doctor.
But no, he decided. It had only been 1,948 years, three months and two days Earth Standard since the Doctor had dropped in on Jack, and it had become an almost unspoken rule now — any and all scrapes they got themselves into were their own affair. The Doctor's visit wasn't due for another 51 years and eight months (and 29 days, Jack's mind added treacherously).
There were one or two natural exceptions to the rule, obviously — Daleks or Gallifreyan artifacts or the Time Agency or Torchwood. But beyond that, as the Doctor said, he was a big boy now. Twenty-two thousand years was plenty old enough to learn to fix his own problems.
Jack shook himself and strode around the truck to the front cabin, pulling out the young soldier's gun as he started the engine. He'd already ferried three truckloads of civilians to the dubious safety of the supply depot, and fully expected to keep driving back and forth all night.
The truck bounced and clattered over the crude gravel supply line, and Jack's eyes darted at the rocky scree bordering the upcoming turn. He had been ambushed by a Scout party of twelve the second time and he'd had to die twice before the two surviving Sontarans got the message and teleported back for further instructions.
The jolting of the truck made a small silken bag bounce up and down on Jack's chest where it hung from his neck. He fingered it idly as he turned the truck into the covered bend, his other hand tightening on the wheel.
Just because Phennik Three is close to Rutan homespace, he thought quietly and sadly. All these people — a tribal, farming civilisation. Even if we win, we've introduced weapons and technology that will destroy their way of life forever.
His foot slammed down as the truck cleared another turn and a line of squat, blocky figures raised their energy blasters at him. "Oh, fantastic."
"You!" one of them strode out and narrowed his deep-set eyes at Jack. "Get out of that transport!"
"You don't want me to do that," Jack called back, fumbling in his pockets. "Dammit," he hissed as his modified Fargins-Blecker Immobiliser caught in the lining of his pocket. He ripped it free and picked up the Corporal's ballistic rifle in his other hand. "I hate getting my boots muddy!" he hollered out the window, fumbling with the safety.
"Then this will not be a day you are particularly fond of!" barked the squad leader.
"No shit," Jack muttered to himself. "Who are you?"
"You have no need of my name."
"I feel that it is only polite to tell a valiant enemy your name before sending him on, don't you?" Jack yelled.
"You have a point." The Sontaran drew himself up to his not-terribly-impressive height. "I am Squadron Leader Strell of the Fourteenth Sontaran Battle Fleet. And you are?"
"Only the 14th? I think I'm insulted," Jack tensed his muscles. "I'll complain, see if I don't."
"Who are you, warrior?" The Sontaran insisted. Jack's boots hit the mud and he slammed the cabin door shut.
"Oh didn't I say?" He grinned. "Captain Jack Harkness."
The Sontaran's jaw dropped infinitesimally, but he rallied magnificently. "Hold firm, men," he snapped at his squad. Jack enjoyed their discomfiture probably more than he should.
"Oh, please do, I like being held firm." Jack's grin turned wicked.
"Is this some sort of... innuendo?" the Sontaran wheeled back to face Jack, his lumpen face twisted with distaste. Evidently they knew all about him.
Jack regarded him pityingly. "Y'know, that's what's known as a leading question, Strelly-boy."
"You will not call me that!"
Jack threw his head back and laughed. "Or what? What can you possibly do to me?"
"Or... and the Sontaran gestured to his men, "we destroy the transport." Eleven energy blasters re-aimed at the truck. Jack's two weapons jumped in his fists.
"You will not harm them," he said slowly and evenly.
"Or what?" hissed Strell.
Jack's mouth tightened. "Or this." And nine of the twelve Sontarans dropped like puppets as Jack, the strongest psionic power the universe had known for three millennia now, smashed into their minds.
"Squadron... Leader!"
"Don't look so hurt, they're only asleep," Jack cocked his head. "And I left you two."
Strell gaped at his two remaining soldiers, who gaped back, before all three energy weapons were blasting holes in Jack's nice new shirt.
Being dead was always so relaxing, Jack decided, like sleeping in on Sundays. If this dirtball actually had Sundays. He stood slowly and stiffly, and brushed himself off, noting with distaste the burns on his clothes. On the downside, less shirt, on the upside, more chest, he grinned. Then he grasped at his neck in panic.
The string had been cut. On his pouch.
He span on the spot frantically, and then noticed that the truck was also gone. Dropping onto the ground, he scrabbled about in the mud for a moment, then shook his head and stumbled towards the tire tracks leading along the road.
"They're fine," said a voice behind him cheerfully.
Jack span on his heel, his hand automatically reaching for an immobiliser that wasn't there. The young woman before him tutted slightly.
"Interesting," she mused. "You're the strongest psi-talent I've ever seen, and you still reach for a weapon."
Jack tried to get his fast breathing under control. "Force of habit," he drawled, his eyes studying her stance critically. Strong, light, fast — she was a fighter. A dangerous one.
"Looking for this?" She held the pouch up by its broken string. Jack lunged forward slightly, and stopped when she held out a delicate finger. "Ah- ah- ah... first I'd quite like to know who you are."
"Captain Jack Harkness," he said. "Can I have my pouch back, now?"
She threw it to him. "Don't know why you're so panicked about a little bag of white dirt."
Jack caught it with trembling hands. "You wouldn't understand," he turned his back on her and knotted the broken string with shaking fingers, replacing it around his neck. "Where are they?"
"Who?" The woman sat down lithely on a rock, her legs swinging idly.
"The Sontarans, the Phennik farmers... take your pick," he said, a slight edge in his voice.
She waved a hand airily. "The Phenniks are back at the supply depot, and the Sontarans got their arses handed to them."
"By you?" Jack was sceptical.
"By me," she said levelly.
"Then, thanks," Jack allowed the tension to bleed out of his shoulders. "So who are you?"
"A friend," she shrugged. "Just passing through."
Jack laughed — ironic that he should be thinking of the Doctor today, and then those words were said once more. "No, really."
"You're a bit fascinating, though," she continued, ignoring his sarcasm. "They say you're going to live forever."
"So you have heard of me, and God, I hope not," Jack said drily. "You can only hear the same joke so many times."
She stood and walked towards him, her birdlike head cocked to one side. "You say 'God', still," she mused quietly.
Jack sighed, looking down at his mud-spattered boots. "I'm old."
Her long-fingered hand, familiar in some strange way, hovered uncertainly over Jack's torn shirt, his waxy, statue-like chest. "How old?" she breathed.
"Very."
Her fingers brushed his collarbone, dragged over the string of his pouch. "How old... exactly?"
Jack caught her hand gently. "Next September, Standard Earth time, I turn twenty-two thousand, four hundred and eighty-three."
Her breath hitched slightly. " You must have seen so much."
"Yeah. Sometimes I think... but nah. There's always more. The universe is so damn big. A hundred million lifetimes wouldn't be enough — even for a provincial boy from Boeshane." Jack grinned reflectively, turning her strangely familiar hands over and over in his. How vital hers looked against the marble-deep cuts of the wrinkles on his knuckles, that pallid, odd sheen.
"What was that," she asked suddenly, "when you were dead, and then you were alive, and time stopped around you?"
Jack's head jerked up and he searched her eyes. "Ah. That's when I die, come back, and time stops."
"I mean it."
"So do I. Not everyone can sense it." He held his fingers to her temple, waiting for permission. "May I?"
She backed away from him slightly, her eyes suspicious, and Jack rushed to reassure her. "Look, I just want to know where you got this time-sense. I won't look at anything you don't want me to look at. Believe me, I'm an old-fashioned kind of guy."
That made her smile, and she closed her eyes. Jack delved into her mind.
"That was quick," she said in surprise.
"There was remarkably little you actually wanted me to look at," he said with a smirk. "Don't trust me?"
"I think," and she grinned then, a full beaming smile, "I think I could trust you with my life, Captain Jack Harkness, but never with my body!"
He pulled at his lower lip. "I resent that totally true implication," he said finally, and her laugh tinkled like that of another blonde girl's - dead millennia ago. "Will I see you again... Jenny?"
"If you're lucky," she said archly, her eyes glittering as they roamed over him. Then she threw her little arms about his neck and her soft warm mouth moved over his, and for a minute, Jack Harkness was very, very lucky.
"Hope I'm that lucky next time," he said, as the blonde cleared her throat and pulled what looked like one of the Sontaran long-range field teleports from her back pocket. "God-speed, Jenny."
"See ya, Jack," she readied herself, and then stopped. "One more thing..."
"Hmm?" Jack turned back to the lithe, vibrant little thing.
"Why the white dust in the bag?"
Jack snorted softly. "Because, twenty thousand years ago, I was the World's Sexiest Boss."
She stared at him, and then nodded. "You must have loved them, whoever they were," she said, a sad half-smile tugging her lips. Before Jack could say anything in response to this... extraordinary statement, she had actually started to babble. "Well, I gotta get running! Things to do, people to see, not the other way round, naughty man, better get a move on, ally-oop! Sontarans don't kick their own arses, you know!" And her hand slammed down and she disappeared in a flash of blue light and the smell of ozone.
Jack almost loved her, this strange girl, in that moment.