[#057] Sacrifice (Torchwood)

[badly_knitted]

Theme Prompt: #057 – Martyr
Title: Sacrifice
Fandom: Torchwood
Rating/Warnings: PG.
Bonus: Yes
Word Count: 991
Summary: Jack is the only one who can face Abaddon with any hope of defeating it. Maybe this is the reason he’s the way he is.



Clinging to Ianto’s shoulders to stay upright, Jack stares in horrified disbelief at the towering demonic form overshadowing the city of Cardiff. The sight of it is enough to chill him to the bone with the kind of primal fear that has likely been passed down through the generations ever since primitive humans first developed the concept of evil.

Jack wasn’t the one who let this thing loose upon the earth; that was his team’s doing, and yet he can’t bring himself to place all the blame on them, he must own some of it himself. He should have done more to stop them; he might not have been responsible but he was complicit, if only by inaction. Gwen, Owen, Tosh, Ianto… they’re young, and despite all they’ve seen since joining Torchwood, they’re still naïve enough to be taken in by a suitably elaborate con.

Bilis Manger manipulated them all with a skill Jack might have admired, once upon a time when he was still living the life of a conman, but not now, not with the lives of every living creature on the entire planet at stake. Abaddon is death incarnate, sucking the life out of anything its shadow touches, and it has to be stopped because if it isn’t, the human race will cease to exist. The future Jack was born into will never happen, all of humanity’s many advancements over the coming millennia wiped out of existence before they can even be thought of, never mind achieved.

He can’t let that happen.

Jack may not have set this sequence of events in motion, but the responsibility for facing the demon and attempting to stop it before it can destroy everything he’s spent almost a century trying to preserve inevitably falls to him. There’s no one else who might have even the slightest chance of succeeding.

“How do we stop it? Tell me what to do, Jack.”

Gwen’s voice drags Jack’s attention away from the Devourer and he shakes himself out of his paralysed stupor. It’s no use just standing here with his mouth open; he needs to act.

“Just you get me to an open space.” Gwen was the one who urged the others to open the Rift so if any of his team is going to accompany him into danger it should be her. She can drive; it will give him a few more precious minutes to recover his strength from his recent death. He closes his eyes and tries to calm his racing heart.

He’d wanted an open space, and this patch of all but lifeless wasteland seems an oddly fitting choice of venue for the coming encounter. Jack tells Gwen to leave him, to drive as fast as she can, but doesn’t bother looking back to see if she obeys. All his attention is focused on the immense demon trampling Cardiff beneath its feet. Getting Abaddon’s attention is easier than he’d thought it would be and it crosses the River in a single stride; its shadow falling across Jack, it begins to draw the life force from his body.

The pain is indescribable and Jack screams his agony to the skies as he falls to his knees, arms flung wide.

‘Is it still martyrdom if you willingly sacrifice your own life knowing that you’ll probably just come back again?’ he wonders dimly. He’s died so many times already, usually for no good reason, but this time what he’s trying to do truly matters. If he fails, everyone dies, but if he succeeds, no matter what happens to him it will have been worth it, because maybe this is the reason he hasn’t been able to die, maybe the universe made him the way he is so he would be here to carry out this single act and save the world.

Maybe, just maybe, this is how he atones for all the sins he’s committed in his long life, for letting go of Grey’s hand…

He’d thought the pain was unbearable at the start, but as the seconds tick slowly by, each one lasting a million years, pain builds upon pain, never ending, doubling with each desperate gasp for air, and although Jack has never been a particularly religious man, in the depths of his agony he finds himself praying.

“God, I don’t know if you exist, but if you do… Please, I need your help; I can't fight this forever.” He’s not sure whether he means this battle, or this demon, or this pain; maybe all of it equally. It hardly matters. He can feel the life being drained from him and yet the more that’s sucked out of him the more there seems to be inside him, as if he’s merely a conduit, siphoning off the life force of the universe and channelling it into Abaddon’s gaping maw.

Jack can’t see anymore, he can’t hear anything other than the blood rushing through his head, can’t feel the hard ground beneath his knees. There’s nothing but the pain coursing through him, like acid running through his veins and searing every nerve. He’s no longer screaming, can’t draw enough air into his lungs to do more than whimper; his breath is coming in shallow, tortured gasps, and his overstrained heart is faltering in his chest. Time has become meaningless; there has never been anything other than this and there never will be again, but it doesn’t matter, not if his sacrifice defeats the demon.

When the end comes Jack is too far gone to be aware of it. He doesn’t see Abaddon fall to its knees, then collapse face down on the ground, doesn’t see the moment it ceases to exist. The last of his life is already extinguished by the time he crumples to the rough, stony ground, free of pain at last. He’s given everything he had to give and it was enough; now perhaps he can finally rest.

Surely he deserves that much.


The End









 

Comments

[mxcatmoon]

Love this introspective piece! I can see Jack wondering if this was truly the end. It was a situation and foe he'd never gone up against before, and also before he'd seen the Doctor again. It wouldn't have changed what he did though. He was a hero even before he became immortal. I also agree with why he had Gwen go with him. I remember some people complaining that he was playing favorites or something. I never saw it that way. She was the most responsible, and the least likely to understand the consequences of her actions without a direct lesson.

[badly_knitted]

Thank you! I discarded so many ideas for this prompt before settling on this one. Jack knew he was the only hope anyone had, if he couldn't destroy Abaddon no one could.

Gwen was the ringleader, and in a way the team's weak link. Manger had her from the first and she reacted just the way he anted her to. For that reason she would have to be the one to accompany Jack into danger and witness Jack's harrowing death.