[Cardiff] The solace and the silence.
Dec. 6th, 2007 04:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
onlysayinghelloDistracted was putting it mildly, and he knew that everyone at the Hub could see it too. Of course it wasn't as if he had much to divulge to them. There were the glances though, burning gazes at the back of his head that the moment he turned to face them snapped away as if caught doing something they knew they shouldn't be doing.
He thought for sure that Gwen would question him, all her needing to know just what made him tick, it had to be eating at her to see him so out of his element. Yet there he was seated at his desk in the Hub trying not to think about the fact that there was a four hundred year old man at his flat, that had been buried alive... and that Jack had grown a bit more than fond of him. Of course all the unanswered questions were inching up in his conscious as well. None of it made any of it any easier.
Still he'd just taken off. Flight to Japan and back again without so much as an explanation as to just what had gone on. It was routine for Jack, they should have been aware of it by now, that not every thing he did had an answer available to give, even to them. It was better for them, or at least that was what he convinced himself of. Glancing to the clock he was relieved that it had been a slow day, well relatively slow at least. Owen was off looking into something or another and the rest of the cases had been tied up for a few days now. Jack could have taken time off, he could have just rested up, stayed in bed and taken care of things for Adam.
Instead he felt torn... because he wasn't sure what to even think, and having Adam in his flat... around him all the time wasn't helping him keep a clear head on it all. So the time apart was something he needed, and he knew Adam needed it as well. A time to just be alone and not with anyone around him to ask questions that Jack knew wouldn't be easy to answer. Questions Jack knew he had more than a few of.
Standing up he grabbed his coat off the rack and said his good nights to Tosh, telling her not to stay too late. He stopped and picked up something for dinner and then headed up to his flat. Keys slid into the door and his toe pushed it open, hands still holding the food. A few steps into the room and his foot nudged the door shut behind him before the food was placed on the counter. The chill in the room surrounded him, even with his big coat, but he didn't actually mind. Temperatures didn't seem to phase him these days, and he could see the slight flush to Adam's cheeks proof that once more he had been standing in the cold. It was the moments like this, where Jack saw something he hated seeing in anyone, and it was that exact reason why Jack knew he was right going into work.
It pulled at him, tugging him in so many different directions he wasn't even sure which way was up, let alone right. All he saw was the despair and the half empty gaze from across the room. Jack let his eyes meet Adam's and in that silence Jack wished he already had all the answers, but he knew he was far from that moment... so far he couldn't even think what the horizon looked like.
"You didn't have to shut that," Jack's words cut across the cold of the room before he started to move toward Adam. "The window, I mean."
He thought for sure that Gwen would question him, all her needing to know just what made him tick, it had to be eating at her to see him so out of his element. Yet there he was seated at his desk in the Hub trying not to think about the fact that there was a four hundred year old man at his flat, that had been buried alive... and that Jack had grown a bit more than fond of him. Of course all the unanswered questions were inching up in his conscious as well. None of it made any of it any easier.
Still he'd just taken off. Flight to Japan and back again without so much as an explanation as to just what had gone on. It was routine for Jack, they should have been aware of it by now, that not every thing he did had an answer available to give, even to them. It was better for them, or at least that was what he convinced himself of. Glancing to the clock he was relieved that it had been a slow day, well relatively slow at least. Owen was off looking into something or another and the rest of the cases had been tied up for a few days now. Jack could have taken time off, he could have just rested up, stayed in bed and taken care of things for Adam.
Instead he felt torn... because he wasn't sure what to even think, and having Adam in his flat... around him all the time wasn't helping him keep a clear head on it all. So the time apart was something he needed, and he knew Adam needed it as well. A time to just be alone and not with anyone around him to ask questions that Jack knew wouldn't be easy to answer. Questions Jack knew he had more than a few of.
Standing up he grabbed his coat off the rack and said his good nights to Tosh, telling her not to stay too late. He stopped and picked up something for dinner and then headed up to his flat. Keys slid into the door and his toe pushed it open, hands still holding the food. A few steps into the room and his foot nudged the door shut behind him before the food was placed on the counter. The chill in the room surrounded him, even with his big coat, but he didn't actually mind. Temperatures didn't seem to phase him these days, and he could see the slight flush to Adam's cheeks proof that once more he had been standing in the cold. It was the moments like this, where Jack saw something he hated seeing in anyone, and it was that exact reason why Jack knew he was right going into work.
It pulled at him, tugging him in so many different directions he wasn't even sure which way was up, let alone right. All he saw was the despair and the half empty gaze from across the room. Jack let his eyes meet Adam's and in that silence Jack wished he already had all the answers, but he knew he was far from that moment... so far he couldn't even think what the horizon looked like.
"You didn't have to shut that," Jack's words cut across the cold of the room before he started to move toward Adam. "The window, I mean."
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no subject
Date: 2007-12-08 08:35 am (UTC)How could you argue with what someone from the future knew, ever? It was too familiar, always pulling him against every natural inclination. First toward action, now toward patience, struggling for some sense of autonomy of self from the vagaries of a history he couldn't ever seem to find.
"It could be there," he said, softly. "Utopia, I mean...." But it had slid through his fingers, again. He huddled into the shirt, pulling it on with numb fingers that couldn't quite find the buttons. It was something against skin, though, even if the cold went deeper than just skin and bone and nerves.
He touched Jack's cheek, just briefly, sliding fingers down his jaw before he turned back to the food. "I can't...have this debate now, Jack. The right the wrong, the way to do it, the things to come. I told you what I did. I told you why I did it. Can we...save the rights and wrongs of the whys for after we've both slept? Facts I can give you, answers to questions, but I can't...I haven't the fight in me for the rest."
no subject
Date: 2007-12-08 09:12 am (UTC)Running his hands through his hair he exhaled a breath he wasn't sure he'd been clinging onto for so long. Slight frustration and exhaustion had washed over him, and he knew that Adam was right, and they couldn't just get this all done and over with quickly. If it was going to be that cut and dry he'd be upset with himself for not giving Adam the same chance he'd have wanted for himself.
"You're right, it's a lot... it's too much in a lot of aspects, but it's a lot to try and sort through in one night. I told you in Japan that there was always time, and I meant it. So let's just eat and maybe tonight at least one of us will actually be able to sleep."
Jack met his eyes again, trying to give him that slight look of reassurance, to let him know that despite the trust not being there completely, it was worth looking for in case he needed it.
no subject
Date: 2007-12-08 09:56 am (UTC)He needed that reassurance more than he could say, more than he could pull in and process for the moment.
"I'm not going anywhere," he promised with a slight frown. "We can talk...I imagine we could talk about this over and over and again and again for a very long time and not hit the bottom of it all. I..."
He picked up one of the take out boxes blindly, not caring what it really was at the moment. "Let's...you had a full day at work. Let's eat, maybe you can tell me something of popular culture I've met and why there are quite so many channels on the television now...and we can just...be."
He wanted to be, wanted to find his center again, to get back from Kensei to Adam and shake off some of that until he knew who he was again, to have that talk, to find that certainty, somewhere back inside of him.