[EcM] 08.08 - Explain
Aug. 27th, 2008 04:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
onlysayinghelloMaybe it was wrong of him to be a bit excited about the stolen car tearing through the streets of Cardiff so late at night, but Jack was trying to put a lighter spin on things. It had been a while since they actually had something worth really looking into, and a blowfish stealing a sports car seemed... well it seemed fun. Except that Jack had missed most of the fun on account of not being in the Hub when the activity on the rift came up. For more than a few months now he'd been living at the flat with Adam and that meant that when something went wrong in his city, he wasn't always right there at it's beck and call.
To say that it was creating a bit of tension in the group would be stating it lightly. The fact of it all though was that deep down Jack was trying to do what he could to keep himself together. A year had gone and rewound around him as easily as nothing at all had happened. He wasn't getting any older, and everything that happened to him wasn't something that many could understand. He had Adam though, and for once he felt like he didn't have to explain everything about his past with some shade of vagueness. The cost though was that he had someone else in his life and that meant he couldn't live and breathe the job the way he had for so long. He'd waited for more than a lifetime to get answers from the Doctor, and getting them hadn't made him feel any more or less sure of just what his purpose was. All that waiting for an answer that in the end almost didn't matter.
He didn't go home then, and even now he wasn't sure if home was exactly where he felt like he'd been living. Instead he took a chance for selfish reasons and met Adam. Finding an answer in him seemed almost too easy, to think that he wasn't alone, that watching a world suffer around him hadn't gone unnoticed by the rest of humanity. Adam had seen it and Adam had lived through it the same as he had. Returning to the Hub with that answer gave him a new point to his purpose there, and when he ended up in Japan facing off with a man that thought he knew better when it came to altering time and the lives of others Jack knew that the world needed someone like him to continue working to ensure that when everything did change... that the world would be ready.
Jack, that evening just hadn't been ready enough for what was about to come.
John Hart wasn't a force to be reckoned with, he was just a force to get the hell out of the way of. It had taken Jack years of dealing with him, being with him, and getting away from him to figure out that when it all came down to the bottom line there wasn't anything lower than John Hart. Unless you were under him at the moment, then there was a good chance that the ground or a table... maybe a staircase were lower than him.
Over thinking came easily in that moment, and Jack took the Torchwood vehicle and headed to the coordinates not really caring that he had left his team behind. His life, his past really were still something that he clung to as his own and John Hart was as much a part of his past as he felt Adam was a part of his future.
It was just complicated.
It remained complicated as they met in the bar.
It was further complicated as tension between them escalated into a kiss.
It got more complicated when his team arrived.
Then there were diamonds, bombs, people getting shot, people being drugged and left for dead in shipping containers, and then Jack had been pushed off a rooftop and nearly broken in half. Lies and more lies and most of it was just because this was John Hart and this was how he operated. Out for himself, and damn the consequences.
Truth be told Jack knew that he was the same way for a while. Things were different now, and the complications he welcomed in his life were far more acceptable than the complications that John Hart seemed to flood into everything. John had let himself into the Hub, and done it all for the one thing that maybe he could've actually had... if he hadn't attempted to go up against this Captain Jack Harkness.
The one that couldn't die.
The one that wouldn't give in.
The one that might not be there when the call came in... but was always going to be there when it mattered.
The one that at the end of the day watched John Hart slip into the rift, but not before turning Jack's life upside down again with a single word. A single word that needed no more explanation than a single catch of his breath before he pushed it away from him. A single word that once more was going to force him further away from his team because of the secrets he couldn't share, because of the memories he had of a little boy who's hand couldn't quite hold tight enough in the end.
A single word that he might never get a chance to explain the meaning of, and still some part of him was praying for the chance to do just that; explain.
To say that it was creating a bit of tension in the group would be stating it lightly. The fact of it all though was that deep down Jack was trying to do what he could to keep himself together. A year had gone and rewound around him as easily as nothing at all had happened. He wasn't getting any older, and everything that happened to him wasn't something that many could understand. He had Adam though, and for once he felt like he didn't have to explain everything about his past with some shade of vagueness. The cost though was that he had someone else in his life and that meant he couldn't live and breathe the job the way he had for so long. He'd waited for more than a lifetime to get answers from the Doctor, and getting them hadn't made him feel any more or less sure of just what his purpose was. All that waiting for an answer that in the end almost didn't matter.
He didn't go home then, and even now he wasn't sure if home was exactly where he felt like he'd been living. Instead he took a chance for selfish reasons and met Adam. Finding an answer in him seemed almost too easy, to think that he wasn't alone, that watching a world suffer around him hadn't gone unnoticed by the rest of humanity. Adam had seen it and Adam had lived through it the same as he had. Returning to the Hub with that answer gave him a new point to his purpose there, and when he ended up in Japan facing off with a man that thought he knew better when it came to altering time and the lives of others Jack knew that the world needed someone like him to continue working to ensure that when everything did change... that the world would be ready.
Jack, that evening just hadn't been ready enough for what was about to come.
John Hart wasn't a force to be reckoned with, he was just a force to get the hell out of the way of. It had taken Jack years of dealing with him, being with him, and getting away from him to figure out that when it all came down to the bottom line there wasn't anything lower than John Hart. Unless you were under him at the moment, then there was a good chance that the ground or a table... maybe a staircase were lower than him.
Over thinking came easily in that moment, and Jack took the Torchwood vehicle and headed to the coordinates not really caring that he had left his team behind. His life, his past really were still something that he clung to as his own and John Hart was as much a part of his past as he felt Adam was a part of his future.
It was just complicated.
It remained complicated as they met in the bar.
It was further complicated as tension between them escalated into a kiss.
It got more complicated when his team arrived.
Then there were diamonds, bombs, people getting shot, people being drugged and left for dead in shipping containers, and then Jack had been pushed off a rooftop and nearly broken in half. Lies and more lies and most of it was just because this was John Hart and this was how he operated. Out for himself, and damn the consequences.
Truth be told Jack knew that he was the same way for a while. Things were different now, and the complications he welcomed in his life were far more acceptable than the complications that John Hart seemed to flood into everything. John had let himself into the Hub, and done it all for the one thing that maybe he could've actually had... if he hadn't attempted to go up against this Captain Jack Harkness.
The one that couldn't die.
The one that wouldn't give in.
The one that might not be there when the call came in... but was always going to be there when it mattered.
The one that at the end of the day watched John Hart slip into the rift, but not before turning Jack's life upside down again with a single word. A single word that needed no more explanation than a single catch of his breath before he pushed it away from him. A single word that once more was going to force him further away from his team because of the secrets he couldn't share, because of the memories he had of a little boy who's hand couldn't quite hold tight enough in the end.
A single word that he might never get a chance to explain the meaning of, and still some part of him was praying for the chance to do just that; explain.
