m_findlow

Title: Filed away
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Jack
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 1,105 words
Content notes: Spoilers for episode 2.13 Exit Wounds.
Author notes: Written for juliet316's prompt "Any, any, loss report" at fic_promptly
Summary: Jack is confronted by the worst paperwork of all.

Jack disliked paperwork after the best of times, but there was one aspect of it he hated above all others. The loss report. Once upon a time it had been called the certificate of final service, but somewhere along the line it had been renamed, trying to dull the harsh edges of what it really represented. It was the last piece of paper that went on any personnel file before it was sealed forever down in their archives.

He wished he could say that most loss reports were a result of people moving on from Torchwood. Sadly though he knew that wasn't true. In the top right hand corner was a small box that had sat there for over a hundred years. Inside it were three more boxes: departed, deceased and terminated. He couldn't recall any having the word terminated ticked, though back in the early days he was sure Emily would have terminated a few employees, and London would have most certainly had no qualms in ridding themselves of undesirables.

If they had any sense they'd have departed, a nice was of saying they'd resigned. There were a small handful of those, people who'd seen what would happen if they stayed and chosen to walk away from it. They were the lucky ones. Ones like his beloved Lucia whose heart he'd broken, and who'd left Torchwood to escape him. She'd escaped so much more, taking their daughter far away where they could both live their lives away from danger. Those who'd been terminated by Torchwood would have been retconned so far back that they'd be lucky if they still remembered their own names. Perhaps they didn't, the only record of them now sitting in a filing cabinet beneath Cardiff Bay. He'd never done it himself, and didn't think he'd ever find cause to. Everyone deserved a chance at redemption.

The loss report was the duty of the commanding officer of any Torchwood facility. It was the one thing that couldn't be delegated or reassigned. As leader you were responsible for your people, and their final actions were yours alone to report. He'd had plenty of practice, having penned the six loss reports in the days following the new year's eve incident, forced to learn how to do them the hard way. He'd hoped it would be the only time he'd need to write them, choosing to go things alone for a long time afterward. It was one thing to be in charge, but it was another thing entirely to have to be responsible for the lives of others. He couldn't die. His risk profile wasn't like anyone else's. He could put himself into dangerous situations and it didn't matter.

Then of course, loneliness had seeped in. He couldn't stand the emptiness of that hub and all the ghosts that haunted it. It needed a new life blood and energy, and someone to keep him from self destructing. And so he'd slowly recruited his team: Tosh, Suzie, Owen. Just the three of them for such a long time, then Ianto had found them after the fall of Canary Wharf, a lucky survivor. The loss reports from London numbered in their hundreds. He'd barely done more than sign them off. All of them were the same, death or conversion. He hadn't known any of them, and met a handful only in passing. Their reports didn't impact him emotionally except in anger at the foolish arrogance of their leaders. All these people were dead because of the few.

The hardest part came when he was faced with compiling the report for one of his own. Suzie Costello had been more than a teammate. She'd become his right hand, his girl Friday, and yet he hadn't seen the toll the glove had taken on her. He felt at fault, ticking that box that marked her deceased. True, the report would confess to her having shot herself, but it wasn't the gun that had truly killed her. The guilt of knowing he should have kept a more watchful eye on his team ate away at him for a long while. It was only worsened by a repeat of events a few months later, this time having dropped the ball with Ianto. He'd been right to do this on his own for so long. It was too dangerous a job for others, yet he persisted against all judgment. Now he was paying the ultimate piece for his selfishness.

The two personnel files sat in front of him on the desk. He knew every page in them, having put them there himself. From their background checks, to their academic records, medical history, commendations and reprimands, every leaf was marked in his own penmanship. He wanted to despair at the thought that there would be no more pages to add, just this last one, before the files would be closed forever. It wasn't enough, just one page to remark on all that had been and might have been had they lived. There was no room in the report for thoughts of the future, and what it meant to the people left behind. It was cold and clinical, one part of Torchwood that hadn't changed in over a hundred and fifty years.

He cringed as he opened the first of the files. It was his task to complete the report, yet he found it already there, completed in an immediately recognizable script. Ianto didn't have to do it, yet he had. Jack couldn't tell what hurt more, that he no longer had to face the task, or that it must have broken his lover's heart to pen those terrible words. That was Ianto through and through, trying to spare him pain without giving a thought to his own.

He forced himself to read them, tears welling in his eyes. He didn't want to change a word of it, out of respect, but also because he couldn't bring himself to find anything more to say. They'd died so bravely, but there was nowhere in the report to pass judgment on their deaths, only that they had died in service to their country. That had to be enough.

He ran the back of his hand across his eyes, hoping he hadn't marked the pages with tears, before unclipping the lid on his finest pen and signing the bottom of each page. With that one signature he was taking the blame for their deaths. He had begun these files, and now with a flourish or black ink, he was ending them. They were too short, their contents too brief, just like the lives they had represented.