Ficlet: In The Afterlife
Oct. 1st, 2026 05:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
badly_knittedTitle: In The Afterlife
Author:
badly_knittedCharacters: Jack, Tosh.
Rating: PG
Word Count: 805
Spoilers: Set post-Children of Earth. Fix-it.
Summary: Jack dies and finds himself somewhere he shouldn’t be, where a friend is waiting with an important message for him…
Written For: The prompt: any, any, in the wrong afterlife, at
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threesentenceficathon.Disclaimer: I don’t own Torchwood, or the characters.
Jack knew the instant he opened his eyes that he shouldn’t be here, because in all the many times he’d died, he’d never been here before, never seen anything like this. He stood in a beautiful green, grassy valley on what felt like a warm summer’s afternoon, the air around him filled with birdsong and the lazy buzzing of bees, bumbling from flower to flower.
A narrow, crystal-clear stream burbled along over smooth, water-worn pebbles a few yards away, a neatly paved path running along beside it, past homely cottages painted in pretty pastels, and small stone bridges that spanned the stream. Tall, leafy trees provided shade here and there, and each cottage had its own tidy little front garden, crammed to bursting point with sweetly scented flowers in every colour imaginable. Everywhere he looked, smiling people were wandering around as if they didn’t have a care in the world, talking with each other, dancing, drawing, painting, singing, knitting, gardening… Everyone seemed busy doing something that made them happy. There wasn’t a sad face among them.
Every time he died, Jack always found himself in the same no-place of heavy, cloying, featureless blackness where he could see nothing, feel nothing, hear, taste, and smell nothing, where as far as he could tell, he had no physical form at all, and time passed in a kind of never-ending instant as he waited to be dragged back into life again. And all the time he was there, he was aware, despite the complete absence of sensation, that there was something intangible in the darkness with him, something stalking him, gradually drawing closer to whatever part of him, his soul, his spirit, the essential essence of himself, still clung to existence after death.
That was what being dead meant to him, the end of everything, a complete absence of anything at all, the absolute and undeniable proof that nothing existed after death, and yet… Now he was here, standing beside the path, out of the way of the people passing back and forth along it. He looked about himself, confused and bewildered, blinking in the bright sunshine, until he saw among the passers-by someone familiar approaching.
It took him a moment to find his voice, but then… “Tosh?”
She smiled up at him, apologetically.
“You shouldn’t be here, Jack, you shouldn’t be seeing any of this, it isn’t your time, not yet, not for a very long time. I’m sorry. You wouldn’t be here now, except that you needed to be told, and this was… well, maybe not the best way to do it, but the only way that had any chance of getting through to you. We’ve tried to reach you in the black so many times; a lot of other people have too, I think, wanting to tell you things they didn’t get to tell you in life, but it never works. There’s never enough time, and… you can’t hear us, so I figured out a way to bring you here, just for a short while, just long enough to tell you.”
Tosh was the only one of the people not smiling; she didn’t look unhappy, just… intense, focused, urgent, the way she always had when imparting important information. It made Jack want to hug her, it was so good to see her, but if whatever she had to say was important enough to find a way to bring him here, he knew he should listen.
“Long enough to tell me what, Tosh?”
“That you have to go back to earth, Jack. Ianto needs you. He came back to life a few days after you did, in a body bag in the morgue, and now he’s on the run because there are people, scientists and medical experts, who want to know how he did it, how he could have recovered from a lethal virus when no one else did. If they find him, they’ll take him prisoner, treat him like a lab rat, experiment on him, trying to learn the secret to immortality. You have to get to him first, get him away from earth, or he’ll never be safe. Help him, Jack. Please… He’s my friend, and I can’t bear the thought of what they’ll do to him if they catch him.”
Jack felt the familiar tug, knew that he was about to be pulled back into life, that mere seconds remained…
“I will, Tosh, I promise. I’ll find him, I’ll protect him. I won’t let anyone hurt him…”
And with a strangled gasp, Jack revived, sitting bolt upright, everything he’d just seen and heard already fading from his mind. As he struggled to his feet, only one thought stayed with him: Ianto was alive and in danger! No matter what it took, Jack had to get back to earth, find Ianto, and save him…
The End?
A narrow, crystal-clear stream burbled along over smooth, water-worn pebbles a few yards away, a neatly paved path running along beside it, past homely cottages painted in pretty pastels, and small stone bridges that spanned the stream. Tall, leafy trees provided shade here and there, and each cottage had its own tidy little front garden, crammed to bursting point with sweetly scented flowers in every colour imaginable. Everywhere he looked, smiling people were wandering around as if they didn’t have a care in the world, talking with each other, dancing, drawing, painting, singing, knitting, gardening… Everyone seemed busy doing something that made them happy. There wasn’t a sad face among them.
Every time he died, Jack always found himself in the same no-place of heavy, cloying, featureless blackness where he could see nothing, feel nothing, hear, taste, and smell nothing, where as far as he could tell, he had no physical form at all, and time passed in a kind of never-ending instant as he waited to be dragged back into life again. And all the time he was there, he was aware, despite the complete absence of sensation, that there was something intangible in the darkness with him, something stalking him, gradually drawing closer to whatever part of him, his soul, his spirit, the essential essence of himself, still clung to existence after death.
That was what being dead meant to him, the end of everything, a complete absence of anything at all, the absolute and undeniable proof that nothing existed after death, and yet… Now he was here, standing beside the path, out of the way of the people passing back and forth along it. He looked about himself, confused and bewildered, blinking in the bright sunshine, until he saw among the passers-by someone familiar approaching.
It took him a moment to find his voice, but then… “Tosh?”
She smiled up at him, apologetically.
“You shouldn’t be here, Jack, you shouldn’t be seeing any of this, it isn’t your time, not yet, not for a very long time. I’m sorry. You wouldn’t be here now, except that you needed to be told, and this was… well, maybe not the best way to do it, but the only way that had any chance of getting through to you. We’ve tried to reach you in the black so many times; a lot of other people have too, I think, wanting to tell you things they didn’t get to tell you in life, but it never works. There’s never enough time, and… you can’t hear us, so I figured out a way to bring you here, just for a short while, just long enough to tell you.”
Tosh was the only one of the people not smiling; she didn’t look unhappy, just… intense, focused, urgent, the way she always had when imparting important information. It made Jack want to hug her, it was so good to see her, but if whatever she had to say was important enough to find a way to bring him here, he knew he should listen.
“Long enough to tell me what, Tosh?”
“That you have to go back to earth, Jack. Ianto needs you. He came back to life a few days after you did, in a body bag in the morgue, and now he’s on the run because there are people, scientists and medical experts, who want to know how he did it, how he could have recovered from a lethal virus when no one else did. If they find him, they’ll take him prisoner, treat him like a lab rat, experiment on him, trying to learn the secret to immortality. You have to get to him first, get him away from earth, or he’ll never be safe. Help him, Jack. Please… He’s my friend, and I can’t bear the thought of what they’ll do to him if they catch him.”
Jack felt the familiar tug, knew that he was about to be pulled back into life, that mere seconds remained…
“I will, Tosh, I promise. I’ll find him, I’ll protect him. I won’t let anyone hurt him…”
And with a strangled gasp, Jack revived, sitting bolt upright, everything he’d just seen and heard already fading from his mind. As he struggled to his feet, only one thought stayed with him: Ianto was alive and in danger! No matter what it took, Jack had to get back to earth, find Ianto, and save him…
The End?
(no subject)
Date: 2026-10-01 10:47 pm (UTC)