silver_sun | Fic: Beneath the stains of time.

Okay I know this isn't part eleven of a Song as old as Time, it is mostly written up now and should be posted by tomorrow afternoon and apologies for the delay.

This ficlet came out of nowhere while I was listening to my music player on random, and demanded to be written before I could get on with anything else.

Title: Beneath the stains of time.

Characters: Jack
Rating: pg13

Summary: His life is nothing but an existence measured in death.

Spoilers: Indirectly for Exit Wounds.

Writers note: Although not a song fic per se this was inspired by the Johnny Cash song Hurt.

Wearily Jack strips off his torn and blooded shirt, feeling the snag and pull of the material where it’s dried and suck against his skin.

It’s the only thing that feels real.

Gwen had shouted at him today, had called him a fool and asked him if he ever though before charging headlong into the fray. While Ianto had just given him one of his tired, hurt looks that manage to convey so much more than mere words ever could before turning slowly away. He knows what they mean, both of them saying the same in their own way, that they think he’s being too careless with his life.

He doesn’t know how he could even begin to explain to them that it’s only days like this, the chase, the fight and if he’s honest even the dying and that first pain bright gasp of life returning that reminds him that he’s still alive at all.

And even if he could find the words he knows that he would not speak them. That he would lie with a smile on his face because it is the least he can do, they already know how wrong he is, they don’t need to see just how much further he’s fallen, or what he’s become: Nothing but a shell that goes on living because he doesn’t know how to die. His life nothing but an existence measured in death.

Naked, he stands in the shower, palms pressed flat against the wall, his head bowed, he lets the water wash over him. Not that it will help, there’s not enough water in the world to wash away dirt and blood and regret that stains his hands and soul.

No, he’s stained by time itself, and nothing can erase it, nor will anything make it better, because there is nothing that can. Too much time had passed, and everyone and everything has moved one, and only he remains. Even the Doctor isn’t the same.

There is no change for him, no going back, no ending happy or otherwise, just the constant ever changing present which he’s been condemned to live without end, watching years and friends pass, wither and turn to dust.

He tilts his face into the shower’s spray, denying the existence of any wetness there but the fast flowing water, and tries to forget what he’s let himself become.

Fic: Beneath the stains of time.

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