m_findlow

Title: Unearthing the dead
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Jack, John Hart
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 2,664 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for oneill's prompt "Any, any, that most sinister of graveyards, where not a single grave is to be found" at fic_promptly
Summary: John Hart takes Jack on a quest that will test him to his limits

Jack sighed as the familiar stomach twisting sensation of travelling through space eased, the bright orange glow also fading away as their new location slowly came into view. The sigh he suspected was more to do with the warm arms that had unwrapped themselves from around his waist. It was totally unnecessary since they both had their own vortex manipulators, but John Hart was just one of those tactile kind of guys, and Jack didn't mind it one bit.

The sky was a pale, dirty blue as wispy grey clouds drifted overhead, threatening light rain. The air was clean and fresh, and he sucked it in deeply, relishing that pure unspoilt atmosphere.

There was nothing special looking about this place; not as far as he could see, anyway. It looked like any one of a hundred sleepy little country idylls he'd seen, scattered across the universe, with its maize and green coloured fields and hills rolling away for miles in every direction.

John hadn't told him very much about where this place was or why they were here except for the fact that they could find some valuable technology here. It wasn't that he didn't trust John, hell, after five years together that was the one thing he knew he really shouldn't do, but as things went, he was still reasonably good fun to be around, and was up for pretty much anything. If anything, it was more likely that John was going to lead Jack into trouble, but after the Time Agency had left them both pretty well high and dry, trouble was a good way to pay your way across the universe, keeping them well fed and watered off the proceeds.

They trekked easily down the gently sloping gravel track, enjoying the quiet, with the exception of the birds chirping nearby.

John was full of concentration, ignoring the pleasant scenery, his eyes constantly fixed on the handheld scanner in his palm, tracing what he claimed was an energy signature unique to their quarry.

Jack was happy for the silence that sat between them. John could be so intense, and was always there with a quick witted reply to anything, usually laced with a good dash of innuendo; something that he and Jack shared. Perhaps that was what happened when you grew up alone. You learned to entertain and protect yourself and to keep the rest of the world at arms length through outlandish jokes, satire and outright lies. Even after all this time, he felt as if he'd hardly scratched the surface of what made John tick.

Twenty minutes later and the path descended down into a small township full of squat one and two storey brick buildings. As they got closer, Jack expected to see the farmers tilling fields or carting their wares down the same cobbled road they were travelling. He looked for grazing animals and small children running around and playing, but everywhere it was still and quiet.

'Where are all the people?' he asked, wondering if something was amiss.

'Long gone,' John replied, barely looking up.

'Why?'

'See that up there?' he said pointing to the tall round mountain looming over the town.

'It's a mountain,' Jack said stating the obvious.

'No, it's a slag heap on top of a mountain. This is mining country. Can you believe people still actually dig holes in the ground and pull stuff out? How archaic,' he muttered disfainfully. 'Anyway, about a year ago, that big old slag heap came tumbling down the mountain and wiped out most of the town.'

Jack looked up, staring at the hillside, seeing nothing more that a gently undulating peak, covered in pale grass. It looked tranquil and not at all deadly. It certainly didn't look like any slag heap he imagined.

'You know they say that over four hundred people died that day,' John mused. 'Most didn't even know it was coming. The slag moved down the mountain at such a speed that no one had time to raise the alarm or escape. As much as fifteen terametric units of slag piled over the town, burying the people alive.'

Jack tried to picture it, but his brain couldn't comprehend it. He'd grown up surrounded by the seas and shifting sands. Mountains and mines were as foreign as anything he'd seen in his travels.

'See that's the problem with these little mining outposts,' John continued lecturing, 'too many laymen, and not enough brains to know that they were creating their own death trap.

According to these readings,' he said, consulting the handheld scanner again, 'there's been two weeks of solid rain out in these parts. Perfect conditions for it to go again. In other words, let's not hang around too long.'

Jack considered the mountain warily but kept his mouth shut. There was no offhand remark or clever reply that suited the occasion, feeling unusually sobered by the revelation.

He'd always had some empathic skill but never managed to hone it properly. John had been little help on that front. He'd always shirked the Time Agency training they'd received. What was the point in subtle? He was a direct "say what you mean" kinda guy and that was it.

Jack would have largely agreed with him, except now, thousands of years of evolution had ingrained in him a default sense of foreboding. He'd never really taken much notice of those tiny little niggling thoughts in the back of his mind, but here, they seemed to grow and multiply exponentially, filling his head with all sorts of powerful emotions and feelings. The more he looked around at the empty desolation, the more it began to weigh down on him.

The closer they got the the foot of the mountain, the more he saw evidence of what had once been there. To his left was a stark stone facade with a large pointed edifice. The back was completely gone, and the sides had all but crumbled away except right near the front, still attached to the main face. It would have been a massive building, probably a church of some kind, now left in ruin.

Further down the track, a row of old housing, farther away from the mountain, still standing, overgrown and windbeaten. Behind it was another row, their ruddy brick and cream coloured edges stark against the grey sky and pale yellow verge.

'Can you feel that?' Jack said.

'Feel what? Don’t tell me you believe in ghosts now,' John scoffed.

'I don’t,' he said, but feeling unsure.

'Bawk! Bawk! Bawk!' John said, parading around with his arms tucked under him, clucking like a chicken.

'Please don’t do that, 'Jack begged. 'I still can’t get those memories out of my head.'

'But you made such a nice chicken! Eggs will never be the same to me now.'

'My arse will never be the same to me now,' Jack joked back, trying the ease the nervous tension.

The place was just so empty and abandoned. It was as if everyone had left en masse.

He left John to go about on his ramblings and drifted away to investigate the town more closely. He pushed open one of the house doors, curious, finding it stiff and hard to move. Inside it was like a museum. All the furniture was just left where it was, as if the owners had only stepped out for a few minutes, and yet it had the smell of abandonment and decay. Across the floor lay a thick layer of mud, caked around the feet of everything inside. These had been the lucky ones, just on the cusp of the landslide, yet still close enough that the raw power had forced the slag under the door to coat the room. He jogged up the narrow staircase, finding everything just the same. In one small room was a tiny bed carefully made with a well loved rag doll perched on top of the small pillow. He picked it up, stroking the wooly hair. Jack couldn't help but wonder why it would have been left behind. Even if the township had left in a rush, no child would leave behind their favourite doll, no matter what the urgency.

'Oi, quit sightseeing,' came John's voice. 'We've got a job to do.'

Jack put the doll carefully back on the bed, and left the house.

They continued up the long main street, ever rising upward to meet the mountain, Jack following behind John who was leading the way, scanner in hand. He couldn't remember when he'd let John take the lead. Somehow these off the books jobs just seemed to necessitate someone being in charge. Jack wasn't opposed to a bit of cash on the side, but some of their jobs were far less than above board. This wasn't looting, John had said, this was acceptable recovery of flotsam. Finder's keeper's and all that jazz.

Further up the hill, the sense of heaviness began to descend on Jack again. Eventually the buildings stopped completely and all was leafy hillside, standing in the wake of the mountainside.

'Okay, we're getting close,' John announced.

Jack didn't need John to tell him that. He could feel it. He wished now that he'd paid more attention back in the early days whe they'd tried to teach him how to focus his thoughts. He hadn't thought he'd ever need it, but this place gave him the creeps in the way that nowhere else ever had.

John stopped and began circling a grassy knoll, trying to find the exact spot. Whilst he was still wandering, Jack caught sight of something unexpected. A tiny bunch of bright scarlet posies tied to a worn old bronze plaque with twine. He brushed over the dirt and muck, trying to read what it said.

"For the children. Loved, not forgotten," it said. What was that supposed to mean?

'It's here,' John cried, breaking him from his thoughts. Jack barely registered him.

'Oh, come on,' he said spying Jack several yards away. 'At least take a little bit of interest.'

Jack remained fixed in place, so it was John who huffed loudly and marched over to join him,.

'What is it?' he asked, sounding annoyed, more than interested.

Jack pointed at the sign. 'What do you suppose that means?'

'Oh, didn't I tell you? The landslide completely wiped out the local school.'

'School? You mean?' he said, looking down.

'Yep,' John replied, tapping the ground with his foot. 'Right here. Now, if you'll follow me five yards to the left, we can start digging.'

He blinked a few times before his brain locked into gear.

'Here?'

John rolled his eyes. 'No, back where we came from,' he replied sarcastically. 'Yes, here.'

'But, the school,' Jack stuttered.

'Yes, yes, we might upset a few bones along the way, but who cares? They won't.'

Jack couldn't believe what he was hearing. Yes, he'd done a lot of ignoble things in the name of a quick profit, and most of them with his new pal John, but digging up the unmarked graves of murdered children? He couldn't do it; wouldn't do it. He'd never be able to live with himself. He'd felt the sinister air of the place long before he knew its story, and now he understood why it had him so ill at ease.

'Come on,' John said, thrusting the shovel at him. 'Dig.'

Jack shook his head. 'No way.'

'Stop being precious,' John complained.

He couldn’t. In his head he saw images of scared children, being buried alive by a torrent of sludge, and how terrified they must have been. Had they heard it? Had they known it was coming? Would they have died quickly, or been slowly choked to death? Then he imagined the parents, those who somehow survived, digging desperately through rubble and muck, trying to find their children. It reminded him of a time not so long ago when he’d been the terrified child, how scared his little brother must have felt being taken away by the monsters, and how his mother had never been the same afterward. If it had been his little brother buried under there, he would never have let anyone touch that site.

Grave robbing was what they called it on many planets. Apparently it was an old Earth term, though not all species across the galaxy buried their dead, and some even considered it an insult to desecrate the body, or to abandon it to the earth. Either way, grave robbing as it was known, was a crime on those planets. There might not have been anyone left here, but it felt like a crime. More than that, it felt reprehensible. This whole place was just one big graveyard.

He fixed John with a firm look. 'No.'

John gave him a coy smile. 'Dig, or I shoot you,' he said producing his very nasty looking gun.

Jack chuckled at him, trying to hide the slight nervousness he felt.

'That's not exactly motivating,' he said, playing along with John's game. 'You're usually much better at promising something worthwhile.'

'Well then, perhaps thirty thousand galactic units might incentivise you, or had you forgotten the price we agreed? You and me, sixty/forty split. I bring the brains and you bring the amazing sex.'

'This is grave robbing!'

'No, it's not. The device was here first, the graves just came later. Unfortunate, but there you go. Now dig,' he said, pressing the gun right against Jack's temple.

'No,' he repeated.

John smiled, readjusting his grip on the gun. 'Don't tell me you've come over all high and mighty. I know you. You'd rob your own grandmother given half a chance.'

Jack met his threatening smile with one of his own. John could be dangerous, but so could Jack. He'd done things he'd never even told John about. Things that would make his skin crawl, and things that had kept Jack awake many a night.

He'd been with John long enough to know that he wouldn't shoot. John and he had a thing, not a relationship, but a relationship of sorts, and as egotistical as he was, John wasn't about to give that up just yet. He needed Jack more than Jack needed him, and Jack knew it.

Jack dropped the shovel, and calmly pushed the barrel of John's gun away from his face.

'You dig. And you can keep your thirty thousand galactic units.' He turned his back on John and began walking away.

'Don't you walk away from me!' John yelled, pointing his gun directly at the back of Jack's head, shaking violently. If there was one thing John couldn't stand, it was not getting his own way.

Jack didn't turn around. 'Shoot me if you want.'

'I will!'

Jack took several more firm strides away, knowing that John would be fuming at this point, oscillating in his indecision to put a bullet in Jack's brain. This place had already seen too much death.

'You can't do this without me! You and me are a team!' he wailed desperately, opting to throw the shovel instead, heaving it as far as he could, landing it uselessly well short of Jack's position.

'I can,' Jack replied, feeling the weight of all those souls lifting from his shoulders as he put distance between them. He hadn't ever realised it would be this easy to walk away. It had been all too easy to get sucked into John's worship of him, and the zero commitment, sexual nature of their pairing had left him giddy and spoilt, even if none of it had any meaning.

He knew that their paths would cross again someday, but not for a long time he hoped. John was broken. He'd somehow known that all along, but Jack couldn't fix him, no matter how hard he'd tried.

It was time for a new adventure. One without John Hart.

He might lie and cheat, but he'd be doing it on his terms from now on.