onlysayinghello | Entries tagged with [written for]: eclectic muses

Maybe 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... )

"So tell me Jack Hark-"

"Captain Jack Harkness," he cuts in with the impish grin beaming brightly back at the man in the suit and tie with the microphone.

"Very well then, Captain Jack Harkness, tell me just what do you do for fun?"

"For fun? Oh... I guess you could say I save the world... you know, 'for fun', " is his reply. Still with that grin of near perfection and the slight cocky glow about him that even those all the way in the back row don't have a single doubt in.

"Saving the world? Well that has to get tiresome I'm sure. Seems every time we turn around something or another is happening, that ATMOS fiasco I'm sure no one saw coming. Did you have anything to do with the fire in the sky?"

The grin fades for a moment, nearly a slight narrow of his eyes as he shakes his head, "Unfortunately that little... well I say little because clearly it was seen from space, but still that display was no doubt the work of a friend of mine, The Doctor."

"So one might say that He saves the world for fun as well."

"You might say that."

"Well then Jac- Captain Jack Harkness, get ready for today because this is..." the dramatic build up is great. Really Jack is back to grinning as the man in the suit gestures to the live studio audience and gets them all to chant.

"READY! SET! SAVE!"

"That's right, and today Ja-Captain Jack Harkness, your job should you accept it is to save the world... with this ball of string, a hair pin and the lovely assistance of Miss Loretta Lynn!"

Lorette Lynn comes out from backstage waving to a crowd that once more is on their feet. Jack just shakes his head standing up from his stool and shaking Loretta's hand and kissing the back of it as well. A lovely chorus of 'ooooh' comes from the crowd and Jack simply waves them off.

"Oh there's one more catch... you have... ONE HOUR!!!"

The climactic drumroll is great, the cymbal crash though killed it for Jack.

"Can we see... THE CLOCK please!"

On the far wall the curtains pull back and the clock face is there, numbers and all but no hands.

"It's a clock with no hands!" declares Loretta Lynn.

"That's right. A clock with no hands. An impossible thing you might say... right Captain Jack Harkness?"

Captain Jack is stunned into silence for a moment, but when a secondary clock drops down in front of it with the digital display reading out with sixty minutes he's back on track.

"Jack, sweetheart tell me you gotta plan, cause all I'm seein' is a bunch a'nonsense not even MacGuyver could work with."

"MacGuyver was a tool," Jack teases before turning to the host of the show, "I'm sorry but what's the crisis? I mean you said save the world, but no one told me what exactly the problem is."

The host just shrugs his shoulders, "You should be able to figure it out, right?"

"Not in an hour!"

"Aren't you Torchwood though Sweetie, can't you just figure it out?"

"Loretta how do you know about Torchwood? You're not even from Cardiff?"

"Well I'm no Coal Miner's Daughter either, but I still got my way of finding things out."

Shaking his head at that Jack moves toward the ball of string and hair pin trying to see if there is something different about it. Of course it's too late and the buzzer sounds.

"What? There is no way that was an hour!"

"Oh I'm sorry, did we forget to tell you? We're on Vortex Time. It's been five days! We gave you a head start?"

"So did I not save the world?"

"Judges?"

Jack turns around placing his hand above his eyes to look at the Judges from behind the bright lights.

"We'd like the Captain to pull a Listen. Listen. for our final call... with Miss Loretta Lynn."

Jack's body twisted around to face Loretta who simply shrugged at him, "I'm not even sure what a Listen. Listen. is to be honest."

Jack returned to the judges, "Fine I'll do the Listen. Listen, but I want to know will this affect my final results?"

"This is the tie-breaker Captain."

"Wait... I tied?? With who???"

The second wall spun around and there was The Doctor with his ball string wired all over the stage, the hair pin skating down on some sort of molecular forcefield with Shania Twain perched on his lap.

"Oh he got Shania? Who said you could use molecular forcefields???"

The Doctor winked and the stage turned back around again. "Fine! Loretta come here, I'm going to say a word... I want you to repeat it back to me. Whatever happens I need you to just go along with it.. Ready?"

Loretta nodded, standing right before the Captain.

"Listen."

"Listen."

"Listen..."

"Listen?"

"Listen."

"Listen!"

"Listen..." Jack repeated before he leaned in and snogged Loretta. She went with it. Of course, and she went for it.

Pulling back from her his arms still around her Jack turned to the judges, "So?"

"We're sorry we were looking for the word... Chicken. The win goes to The Doctor!"

Jack quirks an eyebrow, "You asked for Listen. Listen, that was Listen. Listen!"

"Well... now Jack, no need to get angry," the Doctor replied as he came from backstage to congratulate well... himself on the win. "You always knew I'd save the world in the knick of time!"

"But... I don't understand!"

"Right, right... here, Listen."

"Listen?"

There isn't a doubt in his mind that this is going to be horrific. The weight of the dirt keeps piling onto his chest heavier and heavier and each shovelful brings up the question again. Is this the breath I take? Is this the big gulp I need?

He doesn't need it, but the question is all the same. Even when he's drowning. When the water is flooding up against his sides and the space between the water line and his mouth is shrinking, the question pushes to the front of his mind. Is this the last breath to take before the flood? Do I hold it in now? Alive for so many years and he still can't remember that it doesn't matter what he does, it never really will because he'll just survive it again.

It doesn't change the fact that he knows this is going to be the worst of them all. The earthy smell floods his nostrils, the dull walls of the grave will just commit him to darkness eventually.

The final breath comes too quick for his liking. The dirt already weighing against his throat and chest, pressing with all that it has in it to leave him no room to take in the air he really believes he needs. It shifts despite him trying to stay still, spilling against his chin and mouth and against his nostrils once more. Shutting his eyes comes next and then the darkness.

It would be easier if this was the Darkness coming for him, but he knows all too well that sort of name isn't fitted for a shallow grave. This is just time passing for now.

It takes him twenty revivals to finally get his body to slow. He thought the panic would be easier to overcome, but after a year in chains, he's not fond of his body being unable to move. That weight of earth upon him though makes it impossible to move. The feeling of insects burrowing alongside of him expecting the rotted flesh, and the decay of clothing only to find him still living tissue no doubt is a disappointment.

He's disappointed too.

Each time he awakens the need to take in air comes and is stifled because he knows opening his mouth will simply flood it with more dirt. Each time he comes back he's forced back into stillness. His heart rate so slow that truly it's any wonder he can still hear it echo in his ears. His lungs barely able to expand to pull in the lack of air, now sit weakened by lack of use and no longer hold anything of worth at all. The thoughts he has are few and far between all of his mental capacities focused on simply not trying to live that he's pretty sure that if he makes it out of here, if John actually comes through, that he won't have to be heavily medicated just to cope with the presence of others around him.

Madness might set in, but the lack of oxygen to his brain is a bigger battle. Keeping that alive, keeping that the way it's meant to be seems nearly impossible. But he manages it because each time he's dragged back from death over shards of sharp glass and the broken bodies of those he never could have saved, he remembers not to open his mouth. He remembers what he has to do should he get out, and he remembers their faces.

Still he knows that time is passing out there without him once more, and despite knowing all the things he would've loved to see... he knows that at least this time he can't mess anything up.

( Post Exit Wounds Content - Canon Interpretation Only - Not RP Binding At All )

"All say, "How hard it is that we have to die" - a strange complaint to come from the mouths of people who have had to live".

- Mark Twain

He's going out in a blaze of glory. Truthfully ever since meeting the Doctor it seems the only fitting way to go. Guns blazing, taking down as many Daleks as he can possibly even see. Then it takes them but a second and he's taken down. No more life to live, no more breath to pull in. He won't kiss another single mouth again and even in that moment lying on the floor the darkness surrounds him. Takes him in and the chill of that darkness beckons him onward. Still something feels right... and even though he's not sure what it is he can still feel a slight buzz of something against his skin. That warmth pulling him away from the darkness and into a glow of yellow light because the words he's just heard whispered to him feel like they're a mile away even though they press the hairs on the back of his neck upward.

"I bring life..."

It's still echoing in his mind when he pulls that first breath back into his lungs and he's alive once more. Even that sudden shock of his heart beating once more doesn't shake that darkness off of him. Standing up his arms brush against bare forearms trying to shake that feeling of death off of him as he realizes there are no more Daleks... no army waiting... no invasion imminent on the front lines... nothing at all.

Nothing except that sound. That all too familiar sound of the TARDIS getting ready to leave and he could've sworn that he had sent her and the TARDIS back... back to safety... back to...

Where he couldn't remember what song was playing. He's not even sure why he's thinking about it, or what even triggered the memory but he's pretty sure that the Doctor's left him behind and now all he can think of is that night at the club. All three of them had gone out, just to unwind to celebrate a job well done.

He'd seen him there, and not just seen him there in the usual sense, but it wasn't a simple answer to have in his mind either. Because now Jack realizes how important that day was to the Doctor... how it must have fit into the grand scheme of things because that was the last time all three of them were together.

His back hits the wall behind him suddenly as if he hadn't even realized that he was taking those small steps in retreat from the truth. He had been left behind, and the Doctor knew it would happen... Not only did he know it was going to happen but that it would happen so soon that the night he visited meant something to him... something enough that he had to draw back on it, even risking a paradox to do it.

Jack had died... he'd been brought back by some unknown force... and that Doctor knew... and this Doctor still left him behind. All the thoughts swirled into his head and tried to sort out their own insane theories, but all he knew was that somehow... somewhere was a Doctor that had the truth about what had just happened, about why he was back... and why he got left behind.

Still leaning against the wall he let his back slide down until he was seated on the floor, his finger tracing against he leather swatch covering his Vortex Manipulator. It was a shot in the dark and he knew it... the damn thing hadn't been working right for the past month... ever since... ever since he met the Doctor.

It couldn't be that simple, and still he had a feeling it was all too complicated as well. Shutting his eyes he risked it all for a single answer... for the single thought that he wasn't about to let that dance be the last one he had. He wasn't going to become a memory that lived on while everyone else died... because he was still alive.

Really my first holiday memory feels so far away right now that I can't even remember what my father's face looked like when he smiled. He hasn't been born... my family tree is probably barely a seed at this point so instead of going with my actual childhood, I'm going with the earliest date in the timeline I can stretch to. When you wake up not entirely dead and then make a one shot attempt to rejoin the party you thought you'd be with for a while, and end up in Cardiff 1869? It tends to change your priorities a bit. Now the thing of it is, that the Doctor was in Cardiff around this time. Not one that would actually have known me at all, but he was there. Rose and him... I saw them in Cardiff. Christmas Eve and I was trying to still track down the Doctor because I figured the Time Vortex Manipulator had sent me there for a reason. It had to be tuned to the Doctor, and it had found him... just the wrong one. Sort of.

So there they were, a few feet away from me just walking through the town. Rose, smiling up at the falling snow watching her feet press into the powder on the ground, and the Doctor. Leather Jacket... that same scowl that most times was only a split second away from a grin of such pride. It was them and I really wanted to think that maybe they'd just gone onto their next stop, but there was something in Rose's eyes that I wasn't going to forget... it was still new to her. That wonderment, and the smile... she hadn't seen the Daleks threaten humanity, she hadn't watched a small child change everyone in a small town during the London Blitz.

I couldn't go up to them now, what use would it have been? To rush up to two people that didn't know me from Adam, and ask questions of things that hadn't even happened yet. It was the best present to see them again... happy... before they had ever ran into me. At the same time it was the worst present because there they were, just a few yards off and I could have warned them... told them about what was going to happen... but I knew I couldn't. Just like the Doctor couldn't have warned us the day at the dance hall... that the mission to Satellite Five would be our last together.

It was my very first Christmas... if you look at my timeline as a straight line, but most everyone knows that with me you just can't do that. Still 1869 seems pretty early to me.

Nothing is impossible. Some things are just less likely than others. - Jonathan Winters

He's hearing the words, right from the source, from the one that would know this sort of thing, and it feels like it should have been a relief.

"Nothing I can do. You’re an impossible thing, Jack."

So why did it feel like an untimely death sentence? Why was it that hearing the actual truth about just what had happened, had made him feel so absolutely lost? It wasn't as if he hadn't heard the words before, but they were never an actual fact before. Here it was though, his hand twisting the levers in a room flooded with radiation, listening to the Doctor tell him that no matter what time threw at him, no matter what happened along any and all the timelines... Jack would still be there.

Jack the Fact.

He had wondered if Rose could help him, but truly was there anything worth helping at this point? A man without a time, without a timeline technically... yet to be born, yet to really live he knew that this wasn't such a bad sentence after all. Everything he knew, everything he'd seen over those years he spent searching for the Doctor... it was preparing him for this. Not this exact moment, but one yet to happen. He'd be ready. He'd be prepared for it all because in some way or another he knew what was to come, and that was near an impossible thing as well.