Jack Harkness

Title: Consequences
Song: My Violent Heart by Nine Inch Nails
Character: Jack Harkness
Rating: R for language
Pairing(s): none specified this time
Fandom(s): Doctor Who/Torchwood
Disclaimer: He's not mine -- if he was, he'd have joined the Ninth Doctor earlier, and they'd all still be around.
Word Count: 533 per MS Word
Author's Note: Jack leaves the Time Agency

You and I, we may look the same
But we are very far apart
There's bullet holes where my compassion used to be
and there is violence in my heart
Into fire you can send us
From the fire we return
You can label us a consequence of how much you have to learn

You can try but you'll never understand
This is something you will never understand
can you hear it now
hear it coming now
can you hear it now...

These days, I'm a lot more subdued during meetings, sitting back and observing everyone, reading every little nuance of expression and body language; listening for every change of emphasis.

I'm not surprised in the least when Davies volunteers me. "I say we send Jack. After all, his talents are uniquely suited to the case."

Read: We'll whore him out, and if he can't fuck the information out of him, he can torture it out of him.

There's some lewd joking around the table and I join in, just to keep them from wondering what's wrong with me. The meeting breaks up and I'm on my way to prep my ship. My ship. This is the break I've been waiting for, ever since the Time Agency fucked me over.

Because I'll be damned if I play the whore and the torturer for these bastards after the way they screwed me. And believe me, it's not the nature of the job that bothers me -- I signed up to help the Agency protect the timeline. To keep history or the future from being destroyed by those who think they can meddle with this stuff. Sometimes, you have to resort to extreme measures to accomplish that, and I'm okay with that.

(Ignore those screaming nightmares of people with flesh flayed from their bones, begging for mercy and not finding it. They mean nothing.)

No, that's not it at all. I gave those bastards my blood, sweat, tears, and most important, my trust. And they turned around and used me -- betrayed my trust so completely I can never forgive them.

Imagine waking up one morning and finding out you've lost two years. Two fucking years of your life. Gone, overnight.

Now, imagine that when you ask your friends and coworkers what happened, they give you vague excuses of an accident, an injury. Horrible trauma, Jack, you're lucky to be alive. And you believe them. After all, they're your friends.

Except that as you continue on doing your job for them, you start to realize things don't quite add up. The records of the accident are incomplete, the medical records can't be found, there's no news report. You start to think something funny might be going on, so you dig into it further.

And you discover that they did it to you.

For whatever reason, they wiped two years of your life.

Your friends and coworkers stole two years of your life.

You'd be pissed off, right? Fucking furious, even. So then you'll understand why I'm planning to take a ship and get my ass out of here. I'm gonna be the one screwing them for a change. I may not ever find out what happened during those two years, but I'm sure as hell gonna make them pay for taking them from me. They made sure I learned these skills, and I fully intend to make them regret it.

(Ignore that little voice in the back of my mind that wonders if I really want to know what I did in those two years, considering the things I do know I've done. It means nothing.)

Somehow, somewhere, somewhen, they're going to pay for what they've done.

Title: Alone in the Rain
Song: "Raining In Baltimore" by the Counting Crows
Character: Jack Harkness
Rating: PG
Pairing(s): Jack/Ninth Doctor
Fandom(s): Doctor Who/Torchwood
Disclaimer: He's not mine -- if he was, he'd have joined the Ninth Doctor earlier, and they'd all still be around.
Author's Note: 336 words. Jack's a tad moody...

He stands atop the building again, looking out over Cardiff. It's cold and rainy, the wind blowing the raindrops against his cheek and his coat billowing out behind him. Anyone seeing him up there would probably think he was going to jump, and he won't deny the thought has crossed his mind.

Except that he's already tried that and all it succeeded in doing was breaking his body sufficiently that when he revived it hurt like hell. Physical pain may take away the other pain, but honestly, all that did was just hurt. Not one of the better ways to go...

He sighs again, water dripping into his eyes now; shakes back his hair and peers into the grey and roiling clouds. He used to be able to find companionship wherever he wanted -- in a city the size of Cardiff it should be easy. But despite the clubbing and the one night stands, none of it satisfies any more. Ever since he lost him, it's all been wrong.

It's been a long and lonely road, but he's stuck with it all in the hopes of one thing -- and the only time it happened so far he couldn't even let himself go out and see him, because he was already there. Crossing one's own timeline is just asking for trouble, and he had to watch the whole damned thing from down in the Hub, half mad with despair by the time the TARDIS left again. It was a bad time, and he's still surprised to this day that Susie hadn't discovered his secrets then...

But the Doctor doesn't seem inclined to return to the Rift -- maybe the TARDIS doesn't need recharging any more. Maybe he's figured out how to fix her up right and he won't ever come back again. But Jack clings desperately to the hope that he will -- he needs to see him; needs to talk to him. He needs the right kind of Doctor to save him from this emptiness.