fandomweekly | [#026] A Matter Of Perspective (Torchwood)

Theme Prompt: #026 – Miracle
Title: A Matter Of Perspective
Fandom: Torchwood
Rating/Warnings: PG / Talk of suicide/canon character death.
Bonus: Yes
Word Count: 1000
Summary: Ianto hardly knows what to do when he finds Jack dead in the car alongside John Ellis.

On finding his car keys missing, Ianto had telephoned Jack to tell him. He’d just… had a bad feeling; John wasn’t adjusting to the twenty-first century as well as the other two and Jack, for whatever reason, seemed to be the only one who somehow understood how he was feeling.

“He’s gone home,” Jack had said, then… “I’ll go talk to him. Stay here and mind the shop?”

As if Ianto was likely to say no.

“Fine. Just bring my car back in one piece, okay?”

“You worry too much.”

“Too much? You must be joking! I’ve seen the way you drive.” Ianto had also experienced Jack’s driving as a passenger; it wasn’t for the fainthearted. “Let John drive my car back. Either that or call and tell me where it is and I’ll get it myself.”

“Sometimes I get the feeling you don’t trust me.”

That was fair enough; sometimes Ianto didn’t.

Jack had left, Ianto had settled in to wait, but it had been hours and Jack really should have been back by now. At the very least he should have called.

Ianto’s bad feeling returned with a vengeance; something was wrong. He called Jack’s phone, but it just kept ringing. He didn’t answer his comm. either.

It wasn’t difficult to figure out where John had gone; Jack had left his computer running, the location still up on the screen. A search on the SUV’s current location had it outside the same address. Ianto left the Hub, flagged down a taxi, and had it drop him around the corner.

He could smell the exhaust fumes even before he reached the closed garage doors, could hear the engine running inside, and he swallowed hard. They’d all known John was having a difficult time, but Ianto had never imagined he’d do something like this. He tore the garage door open, went around the side and opened the other door too, letting a through draft carry some of the fumes out and away before battling his way inside, tugging the driver’s side door open and turning the engine off.

That was when he realised John wasn’t alone in the car; Jack was there too, face flushed pink with carbon monoxide poisoning, just as still, and just as dead, as John.

His heart sank; John he could understand, more or less, plucked from his own time, dumped somewhere he didn’t belong, his wife dead and his son senile, but Jack? Larger than life with his wide, white smile, flirting with everyone, living each day like there was no tomorrow… It made no sense, or maybe Ianto didn’t want it to make sense. He knew Jack was older than he looked, a great deal older if everything he’d read in the archives was to be believed, but even so, why would he choose to take his own life?

Maybe he hadn’t, maybe John had overpowered him somehow… Ianto shook his head; he couldn’t believe that, Jack was too strong, too good a fighter. Anyone who could take on a fully-grown Weevil alone wasn’t likely to go down without a fight and there wasn’t a mark on him. Ianto could see that as he wrestled Jack out of the car, then out of the garage, slumping to the ground beside him, coughing to clear his lungs. He checked for a pulse, but wasn’t surprised he couldn’t find one.

What was he supposed to do now? What would he tell the team? Sorry, but our boss went and offed himself. They’d want to know why, and Ianto didn’t have an answer.

First things first though; he had to get John out the car, then get both bodies into the SUV and back to the Hub. Okay; break it down step-by-step. Get his car out the garage, put the SUV in its place, load it, drive his car a few streets away, then come back for the SUV. He could do that.

Just as he went to get up, Jack suddenly drew in a huge gasp of air, his arms flailing, hands clutching at nothing. Ianto fell backwards, scrabbled away, eyes wide. This wasn’t possible! People didn’t come back from the dead! He must have been mistaken, maybe Jack hadn’t been quite dead after all, maybe dragging him from the car had jump-started his heart or something, except… Already Jack’s skin had resumed its normal colour, and he sat up, scrubbing his hands through his hair, wrinkling his nose in disgust at the small clinging to him.

He looked at Ianto. “Thought I told you to wait at the Hub.”

“You were dead!”

“And now I’m not. Don’t you ever do as you’re told?”

“You were dead!” Ianto’s brain was stuck on that one fact. “There was no pulse, I checked, but now you’re… alive! You are, aren’t you?” He reached to check for a pulse again, but drew his hand back at the last second, eyes full of uncertainty.

“Yes, I’m alive.”

“How? I mean people don’t just… It’s like some kind of miracle!”

“Not a miracle; more like a curse. I die, but I don’t stay dead. I can’t. I‘ve died so many times, but…” Jack’s shoulders sagged. “I’m still here. Nothing ever works.”

“Why would you even want it to?” That was beyond Ianto’s comprehension. “Life is precious!”

“It wasn’t so long ago you didn’t know if you wanted to live.”

“I’d just lost Lisa,” Ianto tried to explain.

“And I’ve lost people I’ve loved, over and over, for more than a hundred and fifty years. Can you even begin to imagine what that’s like, knowing no matter what happens, I will always be the one left alive? I have no choice.”

Ianto stared at Jack for a long moment, taking in what he’d said. “I’m sorry. If I’d left you…”

“I still would’ve come back, and died, and come back again, over and over until your car ran out of petrol and the air cleared.” Jack smiled faintly. “Maybe this is better.”

The End

[#026] A Matter Of Perspective (Torchwood)

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