Torchwood: Fanfic: A promise kept

[m_findlow]

Title: A promise kept
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Jack
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 1,079 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for m_findlow's prompt "Torchwood, Jack, he has nothing but fond memories of his mother" at fic_promptly
Summary: Jack needs to dig deep if he's going to get out alive.

Jack threw himself behind the corner of the disused barracks, panting hard and checking his gun. It was completely out of juice and wouldn't recharge for another ten minutes. In the distance he could hear more laser fire, headed in his direction. Keep running, he told himself. You can't shoot your way out of trouble, so you're going to have to run.

He pushed away from the crumbling concrete wall and ran, feeling the muddy ground suck his tired legs down into it, making each step even more unbearably hard than the last. Forty-eight hours on his feet, without sleep, and now he was running for his life without a drop left in the tank. One boot became trapped in the thick mud and caused him to stumble forward on hands and needs. His hands became encased in the mud, sucking them down. He bowed his head, knowing and didn't have the energy to move another inch, let alone fight his way out of the mud.

'Promise me you'll be careful.' Why those words came back to him now, he couldn't say. He'd been in plenty of scrapes before this one, but something in his subconscious was suggesting that perhaps this time he'd bitten off more than he could chew.

'I promise.' Those had been the last words he'd exchanged with his mother before he'd boarded the shuttle that had whisked him off into the world of the Time Agency. He'd had to go, he knew that much. He was fifteen and bored. School couldn't hold his interest, no matter how much the tutor tried to challenge him. Jack made the work look easy, but he didn't enjoy it. The only time he could feel like he was free and be himself was when he went trekking off into the desert dunes. He'd take his foil with him and go climb up the tallest dune he could find, sledding down it as fast as he could go. The world around him would rush by so fast that it felt like he was flying, or maybe able to travel through time itself. Perhaps if he sped fast enough, he could break through that time barrier and go back to a time and place where everything had been right in the world. Where his dad and Gray were still alive and with them.

He loved his mother with every fibre of his being, but they both knew things weren't the same now that it was just the two of them. They'd grown close out of necessity, but the cheery woman who's always had a smile for him sometimes disappeared for days on end, dropping into a silent stupor where she barely even noticed he was there. He noticed it happened most on dates around festivals and birthdays. She was remembering the husband she'd lost, and her youngest son.

When she got like that, Jack did his utmost to help out, trying to cheer her up, yet knowing she was perfectly entitled to feel sad and despondent. Then she'd snap out of it, just as suddenly as it had descended, and wrap him up in a hug, stroking a hand through his sandy hair and kiss him. 'I love you,' she'd say. In the days and weeks that followed, things would go back to normal, and they'd laugh and cook together, attend the markets and read stories.

It made his decision to leave all that much harder. He was all she had left in the world, and here he was, asking to go with the people who'd promised him adventure and a career. This was what he was meant to do, he was sure of it, but it didn't make the leaving any easier.

After dinner on his last night before he was due to leave, they went for a walk down towards the beach. They lit a fire and sat there in the crackling firelight, the sand still warm beneath them, listening to the waves crash on the beach. He didn't know what to say so he hugged her tight to him and clung to her like he was eight years old again. If she sensed his reticence to go, she didn't say anything to persuade him.

He'd fallen asleep in her arms that night, waking to find the sun slowing beginning rise over the waterline, and their campfire nothing more than a few tendrils of smoke curling up over blackened wood. It was too soon. They needed more time together. Last night he'd been lost for words, but now he was overbrimming with things he wanted to say and questions he wanted to ask. They silently buried the ashes of their fire in the sand and walked slowly back to the village. Jack's things had already been packed before they'd left the house the night before. It was a meager little rucksack with just a few clothes in it. He grabbed it and opened the top, slipping in the seashell his mother had found on the beach last night. He wanted to have something with him to remember her by.

Standing there in the doorway, his mother watched as he slung the pack onto his shoulders. The men from the Time Agency were already waiting at their door. He didn't want them to see him hug his mother, though it was the only thing he wanted to do. Instead, he took her hand in his, noticing that it was no longer larger than his, and giving it a reassuring squeeze.

'Promise me you'll be careful,' she said. She slipped her other hand up to his face and stroked his cheek.

'I promise.'

The thought that someone might write to his mother and tell her that her son had been killed in action was more than he could bear. In the top breast pocket of his jacket he could feel that seashell burning away against the rapid beating of his heart. Get up, Jack, he commanded himself. You are not dying here today. You promised.

Finding a reserve of energy he didn't know he had, he yanked one arm out of the heavy sludge, pushing up against his knee to force himself upright. He pulled with two muddy hands at his trapped foot, finally dislodging it as bolt of laser fire missed him by inches. He staggered for a second, before breaking into a run. He'd make it out of here alive if it was the last thing he ever did.

Comments

[bk_forever]

Run, Jack! You've got an important promise to keep!

We now he survives, but he must have been in serious danger countless times before becoming immortal.