Fandomweekly Challenge 76 - The end of everything

[m_findlow]

Title: The end of everything
Fandom: Torchwood
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG. Spoilers for 2.13 Exit Wounds.
Length: 1,000 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for Challenge 76 - Closed doors at fandomweekly
Summary: Jack feels the door closing on a chapter of his life he wished wouldn't end.

Jack's footfalls echoed around the cavernous halls of the morgue. The tiles and the victorian age brickwork made every sound reverberate so that Jack felt he wasn't coming down here alone, but with an honor guard following behind him.

He flipped a switch by the wall and a long five foot wide walkway moved from its perpendicular position to face north south, allowing him to step across it. Like a railway turntable the central floor rotated as needed to access whichever of the three walls of tiny doors that rose twenty feet up to the roof. Why it had ever been designed that way, Jack didn't know. Perhaps it was to give the dead some peace, so that people weren't encouraged to come down here. That or it was designed for precisely the opposite purpose, so that the dead could never escape, trapped inside by the empty pit that replaced the floor, which dropped God only knew how many feet down into nothingness. Much of the design of the Torchwood Three base perplexed him, with its constant ohmages to the railways and that brutal macabre the Victorians were so well known for. This place, more than any other, reminded him that little about Torchwood had changed in a hundred and fifty years. It was still brutal, and death still came for the people who worked here, far more often that Jack could often bear.

A gentle hum from the entryway announced the arrival of his two companions for this terrible affair. He let them wait as he thrust his hand deep into his pocket to remove the heavy set of keys, slipping a small one into the aged brass padlock on the door marked 017. It was an ironically auspicious number, the same date as his birthday, which made him unlikely to ever forget which of the dozens of doors lining the wall would belong to this occupant. It was also the same unit he'd occupied for nearly two thousand years, waiting to be released so that he could finish what he'd started so long ago.

A small cloud of chilled air puffed out as he pulled back the door. This place was a crypt for the dead and the living in equal proportions, though the living might as well have been dead. He returned to the entrance and tugged the trolley across the turntable floor. The wheels squealed their protest, one last desperate plea from the soul riding on it for Jack to reconsider what he was about to do. Jack hardly had a say in the matter. He was out of options and killing was no option at all.

The cryogenic unit lying on the trolley was already frosting up and Jack could only just make out the face beneath the forming icicles. He hadn't seen his little brother since he was thirteen yet the minute he'd seen him, almost the same age gap between them now as before, he knew it was Gray. The face was older and squarer, but he still had their mother's eyes, even if they'd been full of hate and loathing.

Jack lined up the trolley with the edge of the morgue door, slowly pushing the cryo-unit until the rollers found purchase and slid into the gap. He didn't want to think about how cruel it was to be so close to his brother and know that this was the last time he'd ever see that face. He'd spent a hundred and fifty years trying to do everything he could to find his brother, from Boeshane to the Time Agency, and beyond. He supposed he'd always hoped that his time stuck on Earth, waiting for his Doctor to return, would give him that real chance to find and save Gray. If anyone could help him it was the Doctor. But someone else had found him first, and he'd brought every kind of vengeful horror down on Jack as punishment for having let go of Gray's hand when he'd needed his big brother most. It was agonising to have come this close to being reunited and have it go so terribly wrong. For the first time in his life, Jack realised he couldn't save his brother. All he could do was freeze him in time, whilst Jack was forced to keep on living forever. It broke his heart that a hundred and fifty years of living and dying and sacrifice had amounted to nothing. This chapter of his life was finally done and what lay beyond it felt completely unknown. What was his purpose now?

He braced his hands against the wall until the wave of pain and hurt overwhelmed him. His left hand grabbed for the door and slammed it so hard that the room echoed from the sound for several seconds. He spun and leaned his back against the wall, sliding down to the floor as the hopelessness of it all engulfed him. Tears that refused to come earlier now streamed down his face. He buried his head in his hands and sobbed for all he was worth. He'd failed so many people in his life but he'd always thought that if he could just save this one person - this one last link between his life now and the one he'd left behind as a child - that he could somehow salvage who he was. He'd never been Jack Harkness the hero, only Jack Harkness, the wolf in sheep's clothing.

He sniffed loudly as his tears finally abated and his head lifted to look across the empty expanse of the room. There was still one more trolley waiting for him, but on this one there was no body capable of being woken back up from stasis. There should have been two but there wasn't even a body for him to mourn over. Whilst Tosh had been bleeding and dying in his arms, Owen had simply ceased to be. All of them dead because Jack had let go of a scared little boy’s hand.