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It is on days like this, sorrowful and mourning, when the weight on his shoulders becomes too much to bear and his memories all conspire against him, that the sun is the brightest.
It is days like this, when he sits down and thinks of everyone he's lost, everyone that was lost because of him, that shine the most brilliantly; and today, the hottest day of the summer, he considers Ianto’s cryostatic corpse, its neutral expression, its sheet-white skin.
He put him in cryostasis as soon as he could, because he realised that this way, he could open the chamber, and the cold air hitting him would make him think Ianto is merely waiting, frozen until the time is right. As Jack smooths the already perfectly placed tie, the well-tailored suit, he thinks that maybe, that time has come.
Gwen comes to drag him off the body, whispering something about letting the dead rest with a sad look in her eyes, and he leaves with a newfound purpose in life, and this time, he will succeed.
Because here's the thing: Jack is tired of losing. He's tired of this ugly, permeating grief, the sorrow and the pain, tired of being victim to devastating biological functions. He won't be a mere watcher in the game of life, anymore, and he is determined to take circumstances under his control- because he will bring Ianto back, and this time, it will be forever.
It cannot be that hard. What does it take to make the blood rush through the veins, the soft and fragile brain to produce electricity? What does it take to be God?
It is on days like this that the skies are clear and the trees all sing their passive music. Nature does not care for what its children have to suffer, Jack is sure of that, so why should he care about its rules?
Jack opens up his vortex manipulator for the first time in years. The technology inside is delicate and strange, so far beyond this time, but he pokes through it and with sheer willpower alone he thinks he manages to reconfigure it, reprogramme it past its intended purpose. He shouldn't be able to, usually, but the grief of an immortal man is strong, the stubbornness produced unkillable, and Jack has all the time in the world, and then some.
Gwen finds him while he puts the contraption back together, its ability to work uncertain, and there's a fear in her eyes he knows is reserved for him only, his sudden and impulsive decisions. She brings a hand to his shoulder as he sits behind the table, and considers her words before speaking them.
“Is everything alright?” She asks, eventually.
“Sure. Just bringing this back together, and then I'll be good to go.”
Gwen looks worried. “Good to go where?”
Jack looks at her, really looks, and realises that her eyes are young, and despite everything, she still has her family. She cannot understand, and if he tells her she will try to stop him, but there's no point in lying, either. He stands up, grabs her hands, and whispers:
“I'm bringing Ianto back.” One breath in, one breath out.
She doesn't understand, at first, what he's getting at. Then, realisation strikes.
“No. No, no, no, Jack, please. You remember what happened to Owen, how he hated you after- is this what you want? And, and what happens if you also bring out something else, some demon, if-” she is gesturing wildly, trying to get her desperate point across, when Jack grabs her face to calm her. When she does so enough to gaze into his eyes, she sees infinite life and infinite suffering painted in every shade of blue.
“I’m so tired, Gwen,” he says, and with a movement on his vortex manipulator he's gone from the room, off among the stars.
----
Some parents, when trying to explain death to their children (how do you explain that sorrow that eats you alive from the inside out, daily, to the ones you love most?) will simply say that the dead are actually just the stars, watching down on them and shining ever so brightly.
Jack does not believe these stories, and he thinks he never did. But he nevertheless finds a young, just-born star, and steals its heart with melting fingers. He burns alive, time and time again, disintegrates and boils alive, but he manages, eventually.
He tries to return with the bright little thing to Earth, where everything seems so distant from reality, now, but the little device on his wrist malfunctions. Instead of bright, warm Earth, he finds himself in white halls, where Time doesn't matter and where it never will. The vortex manipulator did not malfunction- it sent him here on purpose.
There are gigantic pillars that begin from the metaphorical floor, and end somewhere beyond comprehension. A power ebbs and flows through the nonexistent place that sends him to his knees and makes him grit his teeth. Strange figures stare down at him, large as the pillars themselves, unexplainable and incomprehensible, and he might be immortal but he is still human. He cannot look at them.
What are you planning, child? Ask the old gods in unison.
“You know damn well,” Jack says.
You know better than this, son. You are better than this.
“No, I am not,” he replies, a little louder this time, hoping to somehow become equal to the Vastness. He feels pushed together and pulled apart at the same time.
The rules of nature are not yours to break.
Jack can feel the bones in his head breaking and cracking, his legs becoming one with the floor, but he holds the burning heart of the star close to his chest, still.
“I do not belong to nature, anymore”
The pain abruptly stops, and the heavens stay silent for about half an hour, or a minute, or a thousand years.
We do not like to control you. You do not take well to criticism.
“Correct.”
So go, but be warned- you will regret this.
----
He arrives on Earth twelve days after he left, the perfect mourning period. Gwen has stood guard where she knew Jack would return, intent to stop him, or, at least, try to protect him. She rushes to him, when she spots him, but the burning star core burns her and she stays as far away as she can. She's as helpless as the corpse in the chamber.
Jack opens it, the freezing air a striking contrast to the burning fire of the sun. He pets the body's cold brown hair, runs his hand along the lifeless cheeks, and he smiles- the time is finally here. The time is now.
“Jack. Please, don't. He doesn't deserve this,” says Gwen, her expression grim, but he won't listen.
He forces the dead heart in the soft human body, watches as it lights from the inside out to the screaming of Gwen somewhere behind him. As soon as it's off his fingers she drags him backwards, her desperation an angry thing- what has he done?
“Tell me how to stop it!” She yells at Jack, and he shakes his head.
“There's nothing to be done, now,” he says.
They take to watching the body, no, Ianto, to figure out what has happened. No one has tried this before, and maybe for good reason.
When the once blue eyes open, twelve seconds later, they shine a blinding yellow gold. Gwen staggers backwards, the light pushing her, and before Jack has a chance to do the same, two pale hands reach up to grab his hair, pull him down to eye level, burn his retinas. He screams out in pain, but he cannot stop staring.
When the dead eyes blink, they start to cry, bright ichor that burns the skin and leaves charred flesh behind. When the mouth opens, blood spills out and a thousand voices yell: what have you done?
Gwen is terrified, but she is trying to stay brave. She is reminded so vividly of Owen and metal gloves and death- but this is different, Jack can tell, this is something else entirely.
“I brought you back. I brought you back. I brought you back,” whispers Jack, three times, like a prayer, like a psalm. He stares into the burning sun behind his dead love's eyes, intending to find a trace of what once was.
The reanimated being in front of him lifts itself from the cold slab, sits haphazardly like it has forgotten how, and grabs Jack once again, this time from the lapels, to spit blood and ichor and mucus in his face. Did I ask you to?
“No,” says Jack. He's a selfish man. He's always been so. There's no point trying to fix that now.
Then why? Gold ichor, red blood, and a face Jack so loves burned and melted, but with the same sad expression the man tended to wear when alive, too.
“I love you.” It takes his breath away, but he says it, even if he should have done so much earlier. Much, much earlier.
The heavens scream, the clouds above darken, the promise of a storm. Three crows watch the building from a shrieking tree outside, and the body of Ianto keeps crying ichor, digs its fingers in its skin in desperation.
No, you do not.
Gwen steps forward, because she's always been so much better at communicating and dealing with people's problems that it comes instinctual to her now. The head turns to face her and she flinches.
“Who are you?” She says, plain and simple.
Gold ichor, red blood, blinding sun.
Who else could I be?
“You have the face of Ianto,” she tries.
And the core of a sun for a heart, the screaming of a thousand stars for a voice.
There's a bit of that old mischief there, beneath heavy layers of sorrow, pain and suffering, the dreams of a dead man.
“What are you, then?”
A corpse.
The being who was once Ianto stands up, walks over to Jack and harshly cups his face. The ichor on the hands burns the immortal skin, with scars that will heal within the hour. Rivers of red and gold run from the dead eyes and mouth to stain the once meticulous suit, the army boots.
You have cursed me, Jack,
Bloody teeth, golden blood, a grimace of pain.
How could you say you love me?