Jack drove back to the hub in a depressed silence, the hum of the SUV engine too loud in his ears. He parked it up quickly and had to straighten it up, cursing to himself as he did so. He slammed the door and locked up the vehicle, making his way into the hub and ditching the keys on Ianto's desk as he went by.
It was so quiet compared to the footsteps and gentle mumbles from before; the only noises now being his own breathing and his footsteps that seemed all too loud as he made his way to his office. He sat down, resting his feet on the desk and sighing. He could tell already that it was going to be a long night.
He sat like that for a while before swinging his feet down. He opened the top draw of his desk, pulling out an A4 sized case that was locked. He felt around the back of the drawer for a minute before withdrawing his hand with the key in his fingers; not exactly a well thought out hiding place, but he had yet for someone to get into it.
He clicked the lock open and opened the case with care. Inside were newspaper clipping, bad resolution photos that looked as if they had been printed from CCTV camera stills, and a Polaroid photo. He pulled everything out and set it on his desk, flicking through the papers with his fingers, his eyes scanning over each image and each newspaper clipping.
All the images had something in common; the older ones, of a man dressed in a leather jacket with sharp eyes, accompanied by a blonde girl who looked no older than nineteen or twenty. Jack was in some of the pictures, but not all. Most he'd pulled from CCTV stills of when the group had been on earth, and the Polaroid was of the three of them pulling faces at the camera. His colleagues would probably kill to see this, he thought with a sigh. They would wonder what happened to that Jack though, the one who flirted with everything in sight and pulled faces at cameras. He shook his head, placing all of those images back into the case and looked at the very few things there were left - a newspaper report on the sycorax invasion at Christmas, a small announcement by a local school somewhere about their new physics teacher, John Smith, and a picture of said teacher.
On the top of the pile was a copy of the list of the dead from the battle of canary wharf. One name in particular was highlighted, but Jack didn't need the highlighter for him to pick out the name. Rose Tyler. Missing; presumed dead. The man from the later pictures; tall, with brown hair, a long brown trench coat and pinstriped suit had been inside Torchwood One the day of the battle with Rose by his side and she'd not come out.
Jack suddenly grabbed all the remaining papers and shoved them back into the case, the careful way he'd moved the others having vanished. He locked it up and shoved it back in the door, which he slammed shut. He stood up and ran his hands through his hair. He looked at those pictures almost every night, but each time it was like new anger, new emotions. He sought peace, he sought answers, but he never got any.
Moving to another drawer on the other side, Jack pulled out a large bottle of a swirling green liquid which he popped open, putting the bottle to his lips and drinking deeply. One he'd drunk enough, he placed the bottle down on the desk with a dull thump, shaking his head and gasping at the strong taste. It never mattered what he drunk, how much… there was nothing that could ease the pain for Jack. Even when things got so bad, there was nothing he could do but traipse along on his journey of life; because that was the only choice that he had.
He thought back to the days events. He knew it had unsettled the others deeply; he'd not been there for a lot of what they'd seen, but he'd seen the remnants and just that was enough to make even him turn away. He felt sick for a moment, remembering the body Gwen had found on the house. Shaking his head, Jack took another deep drink from the bottle.
It was going to be a very, very long night.