Title: The Many Deaths of Captain Jack Harkness
By: nixa_jane
Pairing: gen
Rating: R
Warning: Some parts are based on spoilers, so don't read if you're staying completely spoiler free.
Summary: Jack was never afraid of death. Not until it was out of his reach.

I.

It's not the dying that hurts. He knows that's coming, he's prepared. It's only one quick deep sting as the Dalek fires and he's only got enough time to think one last thought, to hope the Doctor has the time he needs now.

And then nothing.

It's not like he was expecting pearly gates but the absence of just about anything at all is still a little startling, or maybe there was more he hadn't seen, because he's not there for long. There's a feeling like someone punching him in the gut, starting him breathing by force, and his eyes fly open as the air comes rushing back in.

Coming back...now that's the part that hurts.

II.

He's on Earth, in some century too close to his own, and the Daleks are gone but there's still the trouble of what they left behind, and who they took with them before they left. Jack's pretty sure they're dead and not just gone somewhere else, but the people on the surface are still alive.

So the Doctor didn't do it. He got him time to do something better, though, so he won't complain.

He's standing on a building in the burning sun--so much hotter than it was a few centuries back, and he looks down and spreads his arms and steps off. It's fifty storeys before he hits the ground. This time he can actually feel the bones break.

Falling isn't really like flying, the way people say. There's no peace in it at all. It's what comes after that makes people jump.

III.

Arieillian poison; the best in two galaxies. One sip is all it takes to do it. Jack drinks the whole bottle down and then stands there and waits.

It starts slow, like someone's rubbing away at the skin inside his throat, pulling things out, not putting them back, and it travels down fast. Soon he's almost incoherent, down on his knees, waiting for it to stop.

And it doesn't.

It takes two hours that time before he feels it stop, go dark. The poison's supposed to be fast, but Jack's body had been fighting it off, repairing things it broke as fast as it could before the poison finally won out.

Jack comes back screaming that time. Doesn't stop for awhile.

IV.

It wasn't that long before he ended up tumbling through a rift with a batch of Weevils on his tail right into the 21st Century, another day or two and he found himself in charge of Torchwood. He kind of gave up after that, didn't really have to try anymore, because there were enough other people more than happy to do the job for him.

Still, sometimes, when he's lying there trying to sleep, it sneaks up on him, this urge to end it, this longing for where he's supposed to be.

He opens his wrists up one night with a long, wicked looking knife from the arsenal, one after the other, drains his blood into the bathtub, and watches it slip away. He passes out eventually, it's almost peaceful, and when he wakes up all that's left is a pink tinged ring around the porcelain tub, and not so much as a scar on either wrist.

He hears his heart stutter and beat, takes in air like actually needs it, and feels anything but alive.


V.

"You can't be here."

It's not exactly what he's expecting for a hello and Jack's got his hands on his knees, breathing in, breathing out, the Vortex nearly took his skin off but it's growing back. The Doctor's in the doorway, only he's not, not the Doctor he knows. Doesn't look anything like him, and the girl standing behind him looks even less like Rose.

He probably shouldn't have grabbed onto the Tardis like that, and he thinks it's a nice bit of irony that they crash-landed right back in Cardiff. The Doctor hated it here and it was the closest thing Jack had to home, and there was irony in that, too, because the Doctor was the second closet thing.

"Who are you?" he asks, standing up straight, crossing his arms, he's not that off balance. He's not the same broken con man he was before.

"I'm the Doctor," he says. "I just died and came back a bit different."

"What a coincidence," Jack says. "So did I."

The Doctor still looks startled, but not with that delighted fascination he remembers, or that bright goofy grin. He's wearing glasses low on his nose and sneakers with a suit and Jack would find it really hard to believe he was the same man if he hadn't been around as much as he had. "You can't be here," he says again. "You shouldn't, it's not--"

"Doctor--" Jack starts, but the Doctor shakes his head, steps back.

The Doctor says "Goodbye, Jack, I'm sorry, but--goodbye, Jack," and then slams the door of the Tardis. Jack doesn't hold onto it this time when it disappears.

But his heart never actually stops. So maybe that one doesn't count.