Spook_me 2020 - Haunted - Chapter 29

[m_findlow]

Title: Haunted
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Jack, Gwen, Ianto, OCs
Author: m_findlow
Rating: M
Length: 50,847 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for spook_me 2020 Prompt - Ghost
Summary: The team investigate rumours of a haunted house in rural Wales.

Jack felt his frustration rising inside him, about to boil over. He'd entertained Gil, heard his story, felt his own guilt at the part he'd played in it, but now it was time to stop playing games and get to the bottom of this whole situation. He wanted out of this madhouse, so that he could go back to his life in Cardiff and leave his past behind him.

‘Where are they?’ Jack repeated. ‘Gwen and Ianto. I need to know that they're okay.’

Gil came to stand before him, his almost monochrome face leaning down to become as close to Jack's as he could. ‘They are here. Unharmed. I may have given them a little fright, perhaps. It's hard sometimes,’ he explained. ‘The dark thoughts that I used to have manifest themselves in strange ways. You might call them a haunting experience.’

Jack felt himself coil like a spring, alert to the heightened sense of danger all around him. He didn't doubt for a second that Gil wasn't in control of his… abilities. He'd proven to Jack that he could manipulate anything he wanted. If he wanted to cause pain and fear, he could. Were his schizophrenic tendencies really to blame, or just a convenient excuse?

‘Your lover. You are quite fond of him. As you were me once. I've been watching you all night long.’ The words made a chill run down Jack’s spine. They were so innocent and yet malicious at the same time.

Jack's fists balled at his sides. ‘What have you done with him? I swear, if you've hurt him at all…’

‘That is not my intention,’ Gil assured him. ‘I merely wanted to give you a second chance. A chance for us.’

‘You left me, remember?’

‘I did all this for you, Jack.’

‘What? Killed someone? Terrified dozens more? Lead us out here so you could what?’ He pointed an accusing finger at the spectre. ‘You strangled me to death inside this house and you call that a test to see if I'd changed? That's not the man I knew. You're dead, Gil. The man I knew - that I loved - is dead.’

Gil seemed to grow in stature, towering more and more over Jack and filling the room. ‘I'm not. I can't ever die. I tried. I wanted it. But now I know I was meant to be with him, like I was meant to be with you. All those beautiful theories on particle causality that we used to debate. Tonight is the proof that we were right. You were meant to come here and find me and be with me again.’

Jack shook his head. ‘No. If you'd wanted that you'd have come and found me before. Not holed yourself up here to live out your days in loneliness.’

‘Don't you understand? It was the loneliness that killed me. I never stopped thinking about you. I knew you loved me.’

‘I did. But you killed someone. I don't understand why. Maybe it was the schizophrenia or maybe it was just you being scared to accept who we were and what we meant to each other. You can't change who you are. Having people know is the way to free yourself to live the life you want, not to perpetuate secrets and lies. I thought things between us were getting better, that you were having less dark thoughts. I hoped that we could finally be open about who we were. Now I know you would have never accepted it.’

Gil chuckled, but it was a mirthless, hollow sound. There was no joy in it, no humour. ‘You had more secrets than anyone, Jack. Torchwood tried to destroy us by keeping us apart with all those secrets. I tried to get you away from it but you wouldn't leave. I begged you, don't you remember?’

‘I wanted you to stay and be with me. Torchwood needed someone with your brilliance. Your talent was wasted on those stuffed shirt professors at the university, writing papers that would never be read. We could have been a team. A partnership.’

‘No. They would have used me, like they were using you. They wouldn't have understood me. I… I needed time to be alone and think. The voices…’

‘There were no voices, Gil. Whatever you imagined in your head wasn't real. I could've helped.’

Blue eyes blazed out from a haze of black and grey. ‘But you didn't! Torchwood always came first.’

‘I couldn't leave. There are things you don't know. Things that meant I had to stay there. Answers to questions. A way to make me properly human again.’ He only wished that those had been the answers. Facing up to the truth was so much harder than imagining a reality that was a fantasy. ‘Living and not dying isn't right. Everything has to die eventually.’

‘Like me?’

‘You chose it for yourself. I don't get that freedom.’ Jack dropped his head in sullen resignation. ‘I've killed myself so many times and it doesn't change anything. Now you know it too.’

‘This is better than death, better than living.’

‘It's neither. You get to rattle around this place forever.’

‘Not for much longer… Stay with me. Now we can both have forever.’

Jack shook his head sadly. ‘You're dead and I'm alive. It can never work like that.’

‘But you have already seen what I can do. I can make you see or feel anything I want. I could make you feel all the things you always wanted us to be. No more trying to ensnare me in my office at the college. I've got you ensnared now.’

‘No.’ Jack didn't know how to be any more assertive. ‘You and me, we're done.’

Gil grew small again, an attempt to appear less threatening. ‘I could keep you here. Your friends would never find you if I didn't want them to.’

The undercurrents of the threat didn't pass by Jack unnoticed. They angered him. ‘Do what you want, but a hundred years, a thousand… Keep me here and I will never acknowledge you. Not once. You will be as dead to me as you are now. If I have to burn this place to the ground, that's what I'll do. You chose death, so go and be dead. Go find the peace you couldn't find in living. Death is the only way out.’

Gil looked shaken by the admission. ‘That would kill me. Truly. Since the moment you walked into this house all I wanted was for you to see me again.’

Jack drew in a weary breath, letting it out slowly. ‘I see you, Gil. And I wish there was more I could do, but our paths were decided for us long ago. If I could change things I would, but I can't. No more than you can take back the choices you made.’

Gil nodded despondently. ‘I understand.’

Jack's heart broke for the man's plight. ‘So, what happens now? I mean, is there a way for you to… I don't know, pass over? I can't bear the thought of you stuck here forever.’

‘There is a way. There has always been a way when the time was right. Tonight shall be the last night I haunt these halls.’

‘Well, that's… good.’ Jack felt ambivalent about it. Gil was suddenly so calm, but then hadn't he always been when he'd grasped firmly onto the solution to a problem that had been bothering him. ‘And I am sorry.’

Gil bowed his head. He already seemed less defined, like he was fading, or dispersing. ‘Maybe someday you'll find that death you've been waiting for. At least we will get this one life together before you do.’

Jack nodded. ‘Maybe.’ But he didn't think so.

‘Then this is goodbye, just for now.’ Gil’s form continued to ripple and spread, becoming thinner and thinner until he was almost totally transparent, and then he was gone, vanished into a billion ghostly atoms. The temperature in the room dropped in an instant and Jack shivered, feeling more alone in the world than he ever had.

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