Torchwood/Doctor Who: Fanfic: Contemplating Eternity

[badly_knitted]

Title: Contemplating Eternity
Fandom: Torchwood/Doctor Who
Author: badly_knitted 
Characters: Jack, the Doctor, Ianto, Team.
Rating: PG
Word Count: 983
Spoilers: Nada.
Summary: Back in Cardiff after returning from the Year That Never Was, Jack contemplates his endless future.
Content Notes: None needed.
Written For: Challenge 215: Stretch at fan_flashworks.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Torchwood, or the characters.




Lying on his back, Jack stares up through the darkness at a ceiling he can’t see, thinking about the recent past and everything that still lies ahead. It’s a daunting prospect.

Time stretches out in front of him, an endless progression of seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, centuries, millennia, all piling one upon the last, weighing him down.

Immortality is a heavier burden than anyone should be expected to bear.

An unasked for gift, and one unwanted by its recipient, still he can’t hate the one responsible. He knows this wasn’t what she’d intended; she’d merely wanted him to live, and through youth and naiveté, had neglected to impose a time limit. An easy enough mistake to make, but the consequences…

He’s already died so many times that he’s lost count, yet by his own calculations he’s barely more than a century and a half into eternity. Already he’s tired. Death can’t hold him, but it’s his only respite from his endless life, providing a much too brief escape. The black nothingness of death, with the creeping, unseen presence lurking at the edges of his awareness, is no more pleasant than the prospect of endless life, but it breaks up the monotony of living. He can’t help wondering sometimes, if he could only stay dead, would he see something different, or is the nothingness all there is? Not that it matters for his own sake, but…

He’s loved, and he’s lost, and he’d like to think that the souls of his departed loved ones have something better awaiting them than the nothing that is all he’s ever experienced.

Loving people and knowing he’ll inevitably lose them hurts, and yet love is the best reason he has to keep living. Not that he has any choice in the matter, but to have the years and centuries and millennia stretch out before him without the warm glow of love to give him a sense of purpose and belonging would be beyond unbearable. Especially since the one person who could reasonably be expected to be present in his life throughout the aeons can’t even stand to be near him. To think he’d once believed the Doctor, in his enlightened superiority to other races, would be immune to prejudice.

Rejection hurts, though he’d hidden the pain as best he could at the time. Loneliness would hurt worse, so Jack is willing swallow his pride and tolerate the Doctor’s indifference if the Doctor can only learn to tolerate him. He can wait; he has plenty of time.

In the meantime, or for the present, he has a team to lead, people he hopes he can still call friends, even though he abandoned them to chase after the one person he’d mistakenly believed could fix him. They haven’t exactly welcomed him back with open arms, but they haven’t turned him away either. It’s a start, and perhaps a better one than he deserves under the circumstances, but he knows them well enough to be fairly sure they’ll forgive him in time.

Most importantly, he has the man stretched out beside him, sound asleep in the big hotel bed. Of all his team, Ianto has the most reason to be angry with him, and Jack is under no illusions; he knows full well he’ll have to work hard to regain his lover’s trust. He might, in the end, even have to tell him some of the truth about where he’s been and what he’s endured. Ianto might not be much of a talker, but he’s remarkably astute, and he’s already made it clear he knows Jack’s devil-may-care act is just that: an act, designed to keep the team from asking too many questions, and to make them believe he’s fine when in truth he’s anything but. Not that Ianto will ever ask him, not outright, but he’ll wait, in that patient, imperturbable way of his, to be taken into Jack’s confidence, and in the end, Jack will be the one to give in; it’s happened before. It’s just a matter of how much he should say. Timelines have to be preserved, but Ianto won’t push for more than Jack’s willing to tell him. The rest of the team are another matter entirely.

What to tell them is a problem for the future, not something he needs to decide right away. For the moment there’s nothing he needs to do but just rest here, allowing his immortal body to recover from the abuses of a year of torture, and from a fall from a building that came close to snapping him in half. The worst of the pain has passed by now, but there’s still a dull ache in his back. That’s only to be expected; overstretched and torn muscles always tend to tighten up at first, needing a few hours to regain their elasticity and flexibility. The soft but firm hotel mattress beneath him is an unexpected luxury, as is the warmth of the man sleeping against his side, one arm thrown over Jack’s chest.

Jack can’t sleep after everything that’s happened, he’s wide-awake, but not for all the world would he disturb Ianto by getting out of bed. It’s a moot point since he’s far too comfortable and relaxed to consider moving anyway. Much better to just lay here, listening to Ianto’s peaceful breathing, and relishing the closeness of another warm body. He’s missed this more than he cares to admit. Morning will come soon enough, and then he’ll have to get up, gather his team, and return to defending his adopted home from the sundry dangers that fall through the Rift. It’s something to pass the time, and a job he’s uniquely suited to.

Eternity. It’s still there, stretching out before him, farther than even the Doctor can hope to see.

Perhaps if he takes it one day at a time it won’t be so bad.


The End