Title: The Sound of Silence
Author: Captains Cariad
Pairing: gen
Rating: PG
Author's Notes: Had the Simon & Garfunkel song 'The Sound Of Silence' going round and round in my head - just thought it fitted Jack quite well.
The lyrics are 'The Sound Of Silence' (Paul Simon - 1964)
Disclaimer: They're definitely not mine, but the boys like to play and so do I.
Summary: When Jack is buried alive in "Exit Wounds" what does a 'living-death' mean for him?

***

As the earth rained down on him, Jack tried to resist the urge to struggle and scream; all his instincts told him to fight, but he knew it would do no good. The heavy, dampness of his grave enveloped him, pressing down to suffocate not just his respiration, but his movement too — not that he had much due to the metal shackles fastened around his wrists and ankles. Any attempt to escape was futile, so he didn't bother.

He'd abandoned his little brother; this was his punishment. Jack blamed himself for all the torture Gray had endured, so if this was his penance, so be it. He closed his eyes and concentrated on staying calm — asphyxia had never been one of his preferred ways to die, but he knew that unconsciousness would, at least slip over him like a warm blanket if he surrendered to his fate.

Mud quickly filled his airways, choking the life from him, focussing his senses down to the sound of his own heartbeat as it slowed, wavering and hesitating between beats, pausing for longer each time until the darkness swept over Jack like an old friend and took him into the sound of silence.

***

"Hello darkness, my old friend
I've come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping and the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains within the sound of silence"

***

Death. Jack found himself suspended in silence and alone in the dark. This was always the peaceful time before the spark of life at the core of his being reignited. He was floating in stillness, devoid of pain and fear, cocooned in velvet blackness. He remembered a time when he'd longed for this, prayed to remain in this state; death had been his ultimate goal — to die and stay dead, to be able to escape his endless existence.

Over time it had become glaringly obvious that, for Jack, death was not an option; well at least not a lasting one and when he'd finally caught up with The Doctor only to discover that there was no way to fix his immortality, he was surprised to realise that he didn't actually want to die anymore. Now, he willed the habitual tingling to start deep down in his centre and spread through his body, leaving all his nerves and synapses glowing with vortex energy. He wanted to live. Torchwood had given him a purpose, a sense of belonging, a family — he had so much to live for. He had Ianto.

***

"In restless dreams I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone
'Neath the halo of a street lamp
I turn my collar to the cold and damp when my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light
That split the night and touched the sound of silence"

***

Jack's soul drifted into dreams as his body began prickle with pins and needles that spread gradually from somewhere hidden right at his very centre. These visions always disturbed Jack, flashes of his past haunting him interspersed with a recurring image of walking down narrow, cobbled streets in search of something...illusive — a way out perhaps.

Here it was cold and damp. The kind of cold that gets right into your bones, gnawing away from the inside out allowing the damp to penetrate and fester, numbing the senses. As he walked he could feel a presence just on the edge of his peripheral vision, taunting him from the gloom, making his heart hammer in his chest and his breath come shallow and fast. Every time he turned, it would skitter away, sidestepping into the fog. Straining to see clearly through the haze Jack stumbled on, desperate to find whatever it was he was looking for, but also terrified of what might be waiting for him in the darkness.

Eventually lurching between shadows and the feelings of dread and disorientation made Jack cry out in frustration and as usual he found himself under a street lamp; casting an eerie silhouette against its washed-out light. Knowing what was coming next he stood and waited for the loop to begin again as his body fought to revive whilst buried twenty feet under Cardiff. He only hoped that Torchwood would somehow find a way to rescue him from his living grave.

***

Several lifetimes later, Jack found himself once again under the familiar street lamp; a fine mist of rain glittering in the shaft of watery light. However, this time was different. The atmosphere around him grew dense and thick with energy, humming with tension and anticipation - the calm before the storm. He turned up the collar of his great coat to stop the drizzle finding a path down his neck, wrapped his arms tightly around himself to stave off the chill air and waited.

Suddenly, he was torn unceremoniously from the inky blackness; every inch of his skin raw like it was being hauled over shards of broken glass.

"Please let it be Ianto pulling me from the earth. I need to touch him, hold him..."

Searing light and pain stabbed at his eyes as his body and soul were dragged screaming back into life.

"I need to convince myself he's real and not just a figment of my fevered imagination..."

A gasping breath ripped from his lungs as two pairs of hands heaved him up from under the ground and back into the light, but Jack still had another hundred and seven years to go before he'd be able to put his mind to rest.

***