Disclaimer: Everything to do with Torchwood belongs to Russell T. Davies and the BBC and stuff.

Notes: Written for the 2007 Rat_Jam. The prompt was: Captain Jack, lost.

Feed(back) etcetera-cat.

Two hundred thousand and one hundred years, one month, six hours and fifteen minutes in the future, Captain Jack Harkness dies. Fourteen minutes and seven seconds later, he lives.

Nine months, twenty two days, eleven hours and fourteen minutes ago Captain Jack Harkness finished his first day of work for the Torchwood institute. He spent the day sitting behind a desk, making up the answers to the questions on a variety of official documents.

Six months, one day, five hours and two minutes ago, Torchwood Four vanished right in front of Jack’s eyes. He was pouring himself a coffee in the staff room, trying to think of reasons why he shouldn’t punch the branch director and then—

—he was lying on a windswept hillside, his left hand enclosed in the solidified remains of the coffee pot like some strange glass glove. It was raining and there was heather in his hair. Jack stood up, stared at his glass and plastic coated hand and walked down to the entrance of Torchwood Four.

The cave was just a cave; weird rock formations, pools of icy-cold water and a profusion of stalactites. The fake visitor centre and displays were gone. The doorway hidden behind them was gone.

Torchwood Four seemed to have lost itself.

Five months, twenty eight days and seven hours ago, Jack became the branch director of Torchwood’s Cardiff office. Looking around at the underground base; all mock-gothic tiled Victoriana cut with industrial scaffolding and beyond-modern technology, Jack thinks it looks… uneasy, cobbled together.

The plentiful amounts of pterodactyl shit all over the place reinforce this.

No matter what Jack tries, the pterodactyl doesn’t get lost.

One month, twenty nine days, twelve hours and fifty three minutes ago, ghosts began appearing all over the world and Jack really began to scour the Torchwood data streams.

Nothing screams The Doctor will come! like the whole planet suddenly becoming a ouija board.

As far as Jack’s concerned— as he reads the data bursts and runs search after search for blue box, doctor, rose— the rest of the world can get lost.

Five hours and thirty one minutes ago, Jack nearly caused a multiple car pile up on the M25, just outside of Heathrow when a ghost appeared in the outside lane and suddenly became a Cyberman.

Three hours and fifty nine minutes ago, Jack crawled out of the totalled remains of the SUV and up the grassy embankment to the road.

He stands up and he stares. There is not a whole vehicle left on the road. There are fires. There are bodies. There is a Cyberman laminated over about 500 yards of tarmac.

One hour and two minutes ago, Jack introduced a Dalek to the reason why Network Rail are adamant that you Stay off the tracks— live rail in use at Lewisham’s DLR station. He then spends a further twenty minutes unsuccessfully looking for survivors.

A little known fact about Time Agents is that they have to learn how to drive practically anything from any time period from at least twenty of the major civilisations this side of Alpha Centurai.

Twenty three minutes ago, Jack crashed a DLR train into the barriers at Canary Wharf DLR station.

Earth was not one of the twenty civilisations Jack picked.

Nineteen minutes ago, Jack ran into the ground floor of the wreckage that had been Torchwood One.

Four minutes ago, Jack found a dazed looking Torchwood operative with a clipboard. He had dark hair and was bleeding heavily from a wound on his forehead. His eyes were reddened.

One minute ago, Jack relieved the man of his clipboard and found himself staring at a smudged, roughed out attempt at a list of the dead.

Twelve seconds ago, Jack read two names in a row.

Right here, right now, Jack is losing himself.