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meteorfireTitle: What Doesn't Kill You...
Rating: PG
Word Count: 813
Characters: Jack, Death
Summary: Death has been waiting for this day for a very, very long time.
Death tapped its nonexistent foot impatiently. It had been several millennia, but it had finally happened. That pain in the arse Jack Harkness, or whatever he was calling himself now, was finally dead. Millennia of blood (belonging to Jack, aliens, demons, and other miscellaneous beings), ectoplasm (belonging to everyone but Jack), screams of frustration (mostly on Death’s part), and nine replacement scythes (all broken on various inanimate objects, including Jack’s temporarily deceased body), and that bastard was finally dead! He just had to ‘give up the ghost,’ so to speak.
The large head that was now Jack Harkness lay still on the floor, carefully cleaned by Novice Hame, who had left to prepare for last rites. He had given up his life to save New New Earth, for the very last time. Oh, this had happened before, but that was during his younger days, while he was an active member of Torchwood and more reckless with his deaths.
Death tapped its scythe impatiently on the floor. The older ones were usually the quickest to leave their bodies, but not Jack Harkness, no, of course not Jack Harkness. Did he honestly like the darkness that souls still in their former vessels endured? That darkness was always the reason that those still in their dead bodies eventually left, even Suzie Costello. Of course, Costello had to actually die twice before she left her body, and wasn’t that a mess? And Owen, well…Death didn’t like to talk about Owen.
Time passed, and Death was about ready to break another scythe. Jack Harkness had better not turn out to be another Suzie; he’d been behind on his work for years after that little debacle. Took him about three centuries to finally straighten things out, and prune out those who should be dead and any children born after their parents’ assigned death date (or dates).
Finally, a bright golden glow emanated from the Face of Boe’s large mouth, and Death relaxed. From here on out, it was easy as pie. The glow continued…and continued…and continued…until finally a man-shaped apparition appeared from out of the glow to coalesce in the form of a handsome man wearing a RAF greatcoat. The man took a step forward, a relieved smile on his face, before speaking as if he was in a long tunnel, far away and with an echo.
“Do you know how long I thought that death would be only darkness? That I was leaving my friends and loved ones—my Ianto—to this cold unforgiving darkness? You think you know your afterlife, and—” Jack Harkness cut off, and suddenly bent over in pain. He threw back his head and screamed, long and hard.
This was…unexpected. The dead did not experience pain, and damn that man had a set of lungs. Also, he had taken a suspiciously long time to form; it took most spirits several seconds to form, at most a minute.
Jack’s glow increased to blinding proportions, and the voice of a long dead woman spoke, repeating what she had said all those years ago on Satellite Five. I bring life.
Jack screamed harder, no longer bent over in pain, but now bending and writhing on the floor. He flickered between solid and not repeatedly, the flickers occurring faster and faster in a ghostly version of Russian Roulette, until finally he solidified and his screams cut off as he came back to life with a violent gasp.
Death sighed, and walked away. It didn’t even try to bother; Jack Harkness was—improbably, impossibly, irrefutably—alive once again. It didn’t even try arguing with the Bad Wolf anymore, no one did. Hell, Rassilon even claimed that Her meddling was the reason why the tenth version of the Doctor didn’t regenerate during that little run-in with the Daleks in the Medusa Cascade.
Maybe it’d have better luck during the End of the Universe…? After all, that’s when all existing life forms are set to die. Until then, it wouldn’t even bother with Jack Harkness; Death couldn’t afford to break another scythe. Wood was basically nil, and who would respect Death with a titaniusteeril mock wood scythe?
-----
An untold amount of years later, at the End of the Universe…
Death stared around in what would have been despair, if it had been capable of facial expressions. Around it on a barren world, little giggling metal balls zoomed around frenetically.
One of the Toclafane buzzed over to investigate the dark be-scythed figure. It floated up, down, and sideways, curious about the new visitor, and was therefore unprepared when it moved in a flurry of motion, using its scythe to pry it open.
Death looked down on the face of the man once known as Jack Harkness. It promptly threw its scythe away in disgust, where it promptly broke. Of course Jack had to become a whirling ball of death. Of course.
Rating: PG
Word Count: 813
Characters: Jack, Death
Summary: Death has been waiting for this day for a very, very long time.
Death tapped its nonexistent foot impatiently. It had been several millennia, but it had finally happened. That pain in the arse Jack Harkness, or whatever he was calling himself now, was finally dead. Millennia of blood (belonging to Jack, aliens, demons, and other miscellaneous beings), ectoplasm (belonging to everyone but Jack), screams of frustration (mostly on Death’s part), and nine replacement scythes (all broken on various inanimate objects, including Jack’s temporarily deceased body), and that bastard was finally dead! He just had to ‘give up the ghost,’ so to speak.
The large head that was now Jack Harkness lay still on the floor, carefully cleaned by Novice Hame, who had left to prepare for last rites. He had given up his life to save New New Earth, for the very last time. Oh, this had happened before, but that was during his younger days, while he was an active member of Torchwood and more reckless with his deaths.
Death tapped its scythe impatiently on the floor. The older ones were usually the quickest to leave their bodies, but not Jack Harkness, no, of course not Jack Harkness. Did he honestly like the darkness that souls still in their former vessels endured? That darkness was always the reason that those still in their dead bodies eventually left, even Suzie Costello. Of course, Costello had to actually die twice before she left her body, and wasn’t that a mess? And Owen, well…Death didn’t like to talk about Owen.
Time passed, and Death was about ready to break another scythe. Jack Harkness had better not turn out to be another Suzie; he’d been behind on his work for years after that little debacle. Took him about three centuries to finally straighten things out, and prune out those who should be dead and any children born after their parents’ assigned death date (or dates).
Finally, a bright golden glow emanated from the Face of Boe’s large mouth, and Death relaxed. From here on out, it was easy as pie. The glow continued…and continued…and continued…until finally a man-shaped apparition appeared from out of the glow to coalesce in the form of a handsome man wearing a RAF greatcoat. The man took a step forward, a relieved smile on his face, before speaking as if he was in a long tunnel, far away and with an echo.
“Do you know how long I thought that death would be only darkness? That I was leaving my friends and loved ones—my Ianto—to this cold unforgiving darkness? You think you know your afterlife, and—” Jack Harkness cut off, and suddenly bent over in pain. He threw back his head and screamed, long and hard.
This was…unexpected. The dead did not experience pain, and damn that man had a set of lungs. Also, he had taken a suspiciously long time to form; it took most spirits several seconds to form, at most a minute.
Jack’s glow increased to blinding proportions, and the voice of a long dead woman spoke, repeating what she had said all those years ago on Satellite Five. I bring life.
Jack screamed harder, no longer bent over in pain, but now bending and writhing on the floor. He flickered between solid and not repeatedly, the flickers occurring faster and faster in a ghostly version of Russian Roulette, until finally he solidified and his screams cut off as he came back to life with a violent gasp.
Death sighed, and walked away. It didn’t even try to bother; Jack Harkness was—improbably, impossibly, irrefutably—alive once again. It didn’t even try arguing with the Bad Wolf anymore, no one did. Hell, Rassilon even claimed that Her meddling was the reason why the tenth version of the Doctor didn’t regenerate during that little run-in with the Daleks in the Medusa Cascade.
Maybe it’d have better luck during the End of the Universe…? After all, that’s when all existing life forms are set to die. Until then, it wouldn’t even bother with Jack Harkness; Death couldn’t afford to break another scythe. Wood was basically nil, and who would respect Death with a titaniusteeril mock wood scythe?
-----
An untold amount of years later, at the End of the Universe…
Death stared around in what would have been despair, if it had been capable of facial expressions. Around it on a barren world, little giggling metal balls zoomed around frenetically.
One of the Toclafane buzzed over to investigate the dark be-scythed figure. It floated up, down, and sideways, curious about the new visitor, and was therefore unprepared when it moved in a flurry of motion, using its scythe to pry it open.
Death looked down on the face of the man once known as Jack Harkness. It promptly threw its scythe away in disgust, where it promptly broke. Of course Jack had to become a whirling ball of death. Of course.