All the Stars in the Sky by Shane Mayhem (PG13)

[ficwize.livejournal.com]

Title: All the Stars in the Sky
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Jack/Diane
Author on LJ: shane_mayhem
Author Website: Fic
Why this must be read:

This is set after Children of Earth and in the words of the author, "Some time after the end of Jack's world, he realizes that things just keep going."

This is a very clever tale that utilizes a character that appeared only briefly in Season One, but is so skillfully developed and interwoven here that it becomes not only plausible, but inevitable.

Also, this is not a fix-it fic. This is a harsh reality and deals with broken people who still have to function.

Excerpt: Someday, he will know all their names.

Someday, he will speak those names as they all burn out before him, one by one.

That day is not today, though. The stars are still mysteries, most of them, though he's visited the systems of more of them than he cares to remember. Today--although he knows from personal experience that one day all of the stars and the currents between them, the winds of the vacuum of space and the gravitational pull of black holes and nebulae, will be mapped and named like the streams and currents of Earth's oceans-- today he can still feel a desolate ache when he looks at the vastness of space. Like a limitless horizon, it calls to him. Old sailor.

All the Stars in the Sky