Torchwood: Fanfic: The last goodbye

[m_findlow]

Title: The last goodbye
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Jack, Lucia
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 991 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for badly_knitted's prompt "Any, any, You deserve better" at fic_promptly
Summary: Jack is forced to say goodbye to the one good thing in his life.

Jack felt his chest tighten as he watched Lucia shut the boot of the car, fully packed with all of their belongings bar one last box in her arms that was destined for the back seat. It seemed a paltry amount of objects for a life made together. In the end, he supposed the only important things couldn't be packed away in boxes.

He frowned at her, trying to keep his expression neutral. 'I don't suppose there's anything I can say that'll make you change your mind.'

She fixed him with a firm look in those brown eyes. 'What do you think, Jack?'

He nodded, casting his own gaze at the ground. 'You deserve better. I know.'

Lucia slammed the box down on the ground, making him jump. 'You always think you know what's best, don't you? This isn't about what I deserve or what you deserve. This is about what that little girl deserves,' she fumed, pointing at the inside of the car. 'Our daughter deserves better than you. Better than the life you're going to give her.'

Jack clenched a fist by his side. 'I love her more than anything. You're the one that's taking her away.'

Lucia stifled a laugh. 'Well, at least you got one thing right, didn't you? You love her more than you love me.'

'I do love you,' he insisted, trying not to get angry or upset, both extremes of the emotional spectrum vying for his attention. 'Stay. Walk away from Torchwood, that's fine, but I can't.'

Lucia folded her arms across her chest. 'Why not? You used to say you'd do anything for me, but you can't do this one simple thing.'

Jack bit down on his tongue. 'You know why.' His Doctor was still coming for him. He still had questions that needed answers. He needed to know if the Doctor could fix him so he could live out a normal life. He wanted that for them, his beautiful wife and daughter.

'I couldn't care less if you can't grow old with me, and that your daughter will have learn to understand why her father is the way he is. But I can't have you bringing danger home with you every single day. She needs a father, not someone who's just going to flit in and flit out whenever it suits.'

'I can do that.' Jack reached out and gripped the car door. 'Just don't go. Please.'

'I don't love you anymore, Jack!' she cried, wresting the door back away from him, using it to come between their bodies. 'Don't you understand that? I've seen too much. I've seen... I've seen the darkness inside you and it scares me.'

Jack shook his head. 'That's not who I am.'

She leveled her gaze at him, boring into the blue eyes she'd fallen for so long ago. 'It is. No matter where you go, it will always be there.'

Jack reached out and placed his hand over hers on the door. 'At least let me visit.' He couldn't bear the thought of not seeing her grow up.

Lucia shook her head. 'Martin arranged papers for us. New identities. No backlash for anything we did at Torchwood. A chance to start fresh. Away from here.'

'Without me,' Jack added, trying to keep the resentment out of his voice.

'Daddy!' There was a tiny little pounding of a hand on the back window as his little girl giggled and tried to get his attention.

A vice griped his heart so tight he thought it might implode on itself and kill him right there and then. He opened the door and unclipped the straps that held her in the car seat, despite knowing how much of a battle it would have been to get her in there in the first place. He picked her up and held her close, pressing his nose into her hair. She smelled like apples and honey as she reached out and tugged his fringe in her tiny hand. Her shock of dark hair was just like her mum's. There wasn't a single thing about her that didn't look exactly like her mother, yet Jack knew she was his. It didn't matter that she didn't have his nose or his eyes, she'd always be his. 'I love you so much,' he said, planting kisses on her tiny cheek. He meant to give her one for every birthday and Christmas he'd miss, and every other day in between.

Lucia watched him with an exhausted look, running a hand through her hair and down the back of her neck. 'Am I a bad mother for wishing we'd never had her? That things would have been easier?'

Jack brushed the soft dark curls back and gave her another kiss. 'Tell her every day that I love her, yeah?'

'For all the chance she might believe it,' Lucia said, plucking her back from Jack's arms, her expression growing hard again.

'You know where to find me if you want to come visit.'

'For now,' she countered, calling him out on the truth. Would he really stay in Cardiff once he got his answers? Even he didn't know the answer for that one. If they left him, what more reason did he have to say here?

He knew he couldn't stand here and watch her pull away in the car with everything he cared about. It was always breaking his heart more than anything ever had. He pulled the collar up on his coat and shoved his hands deep inside his pockets. 'I have to go,' he said.

Lucia gave him a disgusted look. 'Of course you do. Always somewhere more important you have to be.'

He turned kept walking, trying desperately to block out the sound his little girl calling out "daddy" and "bye bye". The only place he wanted to be was at the bottom of a very deep bottle where he might lose himself permanently.