Fffc Bingo Card - Isolated

[m_findlow]

Title: Isolated 
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Jack
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 1,000 words
Content notes: none 
Author notes: Written for Bingo Card Prompt 48 - Invisible at fffc
Summary: Jack wishes he could make himself and Flat Holm Island disappear. 

Jack climbed up to the highest point on the island. It wasn't an easy climb by any stretch. There were no trails to mark the way, no well worn paths, even from his boots. The grasses were long and straggly, stray rocks everywhere, any one of which could turn an ankle and send you tumbling back down the often steep sides of the cliffs in a heartbeat. It was a weather beaten and inhospitable place, and that suited him just fine. When he came here the place made him feel weather beaten, and hospitable was one thing he didn't see himself as. His moods were dark and brooding and this place has plenty of spots that were suited to the job of brooding, but his favourite spot was up here. 

From here he could see all of it, every windswept tuft of grass, every rock worn away by the wind and the rain and the salty air. He could see the vast grey green ocean that surrounded the tiny patch of rock and the way the breeze and the currents whipped up little specks of white on the water's surface. Gulls and other seabirds were plentiful, squawking and weaving overhead on the updrafts, making their nests on those same tall grasses, and picking over small fish that might have washed up on the stony beaches. Their cries were the soundtrack to this place, along with the winds that buffeted him and the waves that lapped the shores on a good day, or crashed against them on a bad day. 

Today was mild and the sky overcast. The small lighthouse on the other side of the island didn't have enough light to cast a shadow. There were plenty of shadows here, though. Most of them lay beneath the grass, hidden away in the old World War Two bunkers that had been repurposed. It suited him that they were invisible. Even up close you could almost walk straight by them. Only the odd corner of the old structure still jutted out between the grasses. From a distance, the island looked like nothing more than an outpost for seabirds. 

Even up here, on the island's highest point, Jack imagined himself as being invisible. Nothing and no one came out here except him. Nothing and no one knew what went on out here except him and the people who lived here. How anyone could want to live out here, isolated from the mainland was a mystery to him, but he'd found them. Those dedicated souls who gave up their weekly trip to Tesco, who didn't have cosy kitchens and comfy sofas and televisions to curl up with at night. They lived and worked here with just the fundamentals, just as he usually did at the hub, the difference being he could escape back to normality whenever he wanted. 

He hated this place with every fibre of his being. He hated what it stood for and he hated that he was responsible for it. Because he couldn't control the rift, because he couldn't stop it from taking innocent people. That was worse than anything the rift could dump here that threatened the lives of the people he was charged with protecting. He couldn't stop it, couldn't know when or where it would happen, couldn't even warn people of the danger. You just never knew when you stepped out your front door, or even if you stayed inside where you thought you were safe, that the rift wouldn't come and take you. There were days when Jack wished the rift would come and take him. At least if it did, all of this would no longer be his responsibility. He would be somewhere else, and however awful that might end up being, the only person he'd have to protect would be himself. The burden of so many lives would be lifted from his shoulders in an instant. 

That was what he did out here. He hid away the awful burden of what the rift was capable of - the people who it brought back from God alone knew where, broken and damaged beyond fixing. It would be nice to think that maybe some people who were taken ended up in a better place, but he'd yet to meet anyone returned by the rift who confirmed that hope. He'd been a lot of places in the universe, most of them nice and some of them terrible. How was it that the rift only ever transported people to those awful places, the places that Jack himself had only gone out of duty to the Time Agency, and some of which he wished he himself could erase from his memories. A lesser person untrained in battle and survival, would never survive those places. They would be forever broken. 

That was his job, whether he wanted it or not. To take those broken people and make them disappear, like they were invisible. All of it was swept under a colossal rock. Even his team didn't know the extent to which he was concealing the terrible truth. If they knew, they'd never be able to look at him the same way again. All they'd see is the failure he was instead of the great captain they looked up to. 

If he didn't hate this place so much, he could imagine coming here and never coming back, just like falling off that face of the earth. Of course his team would never stop looking for him. They'd find him here eventually. One of those blessed women who cared for the residents here would call them out of concern despite his instructions that they should report only to him. Broken and helpless as he was, he couldn't hide himself out here forever. More people would be taken, more people returned, and more terrible truths would need to be made invisible, and only he could do that. It was his job and this island was his. His secret, and that was how it would stay.