onlysayinghello | Entries tagged with [written for]: theatrical muse

He can't even begin to understand how far it reaches, or how many are already there. Looking the woman in the eyes he sees the pain in her, the sorrow that she feels because to her it's all real, to her this is life and it's crumbling around her. He's done what it took to get the answers, pushed her body to those limits, and didn't even flinch when he did it. The machine hummed and she screamed bloody terror, the sound of it still echoed a bit in his mind. A response that it was programmed to feel, a response that once it was pushed past seemed to make her less real.

She believed she was real though. She had loved, and lived and made memories that were her own. This was just another part of her, deep down beneath the surface that she wasn't supposed to know about. Hidden and tucked away because if they knew the truth, if they even thought something was off with themselves how would they even explain it? Not knowing was better, not knowing gave them time to accomplish whatever it was they were sent for. Not knowing meant that they didn't have to feel as if they were sacrificing part of themselves to some cause that wasn't even known to them.

That was how it went regardless of the end game. Sent in ahead of the folly, ahead of the onset of whatever grand plan would be put into place. He knew that all too well, the blind faith at which it was so easy to just say that you were doing it for the right reasons. Going in and seeking out the information just to save others the time and skill needed to actually act in a real situation. Making the effort for others easier -- lessened in a fashion.

In the end though it didn't seem to really matter. Not that it was all for nothing, but it did seem like an effort... an effort beyond really anything he'd thought to count on. This was a long process, seeding the population alone was a task, but making it believable? Jack was astounded and borderline impressed for a moment, until he realized what it all meant. There were people out there willing to go to that much trouble just to bring that sort of destruction to the world. It was startling to think of, and the more Jack let it sink into his mind the more it took hold of his thoughts.

Who else was out there? Waiting? Watching? What other plan had been put into action, how much information had they all been able to gather, and to what purpose? The questions hung around his neck and they wouldn't leave him easily. In a sense he could feel sympathy for the woman, even as she forced their hand, even as she made Jack take that final step... as he watched her fall at the gunshots that met her threat to someone important to him.

It was how it was going to be. More than one life taken, more than one choice made... and still even as he offered a hand to Gwen, seated beside the body he knew she wouldn't take it. Leaving the Hub left a pang of guilt as he knew Ianto was there cleaning up the mess, but he knew that staying there wasn't going to help ease anything. It was one thing to make a choice that ended a life because the danger was clear, proved right before his eyes... it was another when it was forced upon him. If it had been him... if he had been sent for some other reason, to retrieve intel, to betray the ones he had loved... he would've done the same.

Once upon a time, in a time probably further off than your mind can imagine, there lived a boy who would be named, at some point closer than you think, Jack. He had a normal life until bad men came to his town and made him very sad. His hands were too small and his little brother vanished never to be seen from, until much later, and sooner than you might realize. In fact even the boy who would be named Jack would never have believed it then, if you told him that he'd run into his brother not in the future but in the past.

Yet that is what would happen.

Of course that's a story for another day, for the tale of the brother is much much longer and far more confusing, and has parts that make even the bravest of hearts crack and crumble, and even the soundest of mines wonder where common sense goes.

Though most stories with the boy would would be named Jack seem to be lacking the notion of common sense. In fact perhaps I should have simply told you that the only way to truly realize there is a happy ending in store for the boy who would be Jack would be to tell you that he's never going to die.

But that's not an ending at all.

In the back of his mind it's somewhat of a joke really. Some distant reminder of a death that should've stuck in place but instead literally stuck him in time. One single moment fixed forever. Forever is a long time too he's learning, but he's had all those years to try and forget. He doesn't though and he relives it on Canary Wharf, and again... the silliest of phrases strike fear deep into his heart. He knows this part though. Recalls it from the archives, from the logs and even then it's still a bit odd how the fragments of time overlap in his mind and things are fine at the time.

Now though it's different. This is his Hub, and his life being lived for at least the thousandth time, and his people and there is no answer in his mind as to just how this is supposed to go. This isn't a memory relived this is today and it's never felt more linear as it does right now.

Right now it drops his stomach and it would make his heart nearly still in his chest if it would take a moment to stop beating so damn rapidly. He's lost so much and now he feels as if he's going to lose it all again. Another path of darkness left for him to walk alone until he can work up the habit to even start it again. It feels wrong and it feels dangerous and all he can do is think to cling close to those he has left, to those he wishes he could've given so much more to.

It's a silly phrase, but it echoes in his dreams, and it reminds him that once upon a time he wasn't so permanent, once upon a time he went down fighting and wasn't supposed to get up.

It's a silly thing to hear, so nearly bold and laughable but it strikes fear into him and a moment of doubt the he knows could last as long as it takes for everyone to be killed. Because that's what they'll do.

That's what they'll do, and there's nothing he can do to stop it.

Not this time.

It's a silly phrase, but he knows it... and he knows it's the truth.

A series of hand signals. A plan in the works for almost a year. A woman, tirelessly crossing the world to spread a single word. All of it adding into one single moment that even Jack thought he'd never see the likes of again. Of all the things he's seen, through the lives he'd lived and taken and lost... he was positive this was a moment that would forever last with him.

Though truthfully to watch it all as some sort of spectacle he expected something far different. He wanted to see the Doctor make the choice no one else felt they had the right to. He wanted the man that had killed part of the population to at least be apologetic for his wrongs, to see that he was wrong. He wanted the man that had chosen a fate for the rest of the world and placed his ideals into them to be shown that it wasn't the way. He wanted the man that had kept him in chains for a year killing and rekilling him over and over again to suffer the way he felt he had. The thousand lives he'd lived over a year never even scratching the surface of just how angry this all made him.

Jack wanted a vengeful Doctor. He wanted that man that he often disagreed with the choices of to finally make the one that was right. Jack wanted to see the suffering of humanity soothed with the retribution of a single choice. It would've been fair. It would've been just.

Instead though the unkind act is repaid upon the one man who didn't do any of that at all. He didn't seek revenge on the acts of the man before him. He instead forgave. He gave a second chance, only to watch the last connection he had to a world he'd lost fade away by choice. It was the most unfair part of the entire event, because Jack knew that he could've acted differently. He could've seen the man the way the rest of them did, as a representation of the year they'd all suffered through. He could've been forceful and no one would've faulted him for it.

Instead he forgave. Instead he set a precedent and left the one thing that Jack has kept with him all this time now. It wasn't the sight of the Doctor lifted into the lights of hope and faith... it was the thought that even the Master deserved forgiveness. It wasn't that a single word could change the fate of a world, it was that an offer of forgiveness... after everything... could be so unwanted.

It would've been fit to make him suffer, to put upon him the same fate that Jack had been sent to, and Jack wouldn't had any issue with that at all. Now though he knows that he also has no issue with the forgiveness, because in that moment the Doctor lost more than Jack had with all the deaths he was forced to live through.

His hand is gripping to the pipe, nearly a foot over his head. Palm pressing hard against the small button that was supposed to be keeping the release valve open nearly three blocks down the hallway. The cramping in his arm wasn't so bad really, he'd figured that if he was going to get a cramp from this it might as well be from holding something hard in his hand for an hour.

It was also a far cry from being hung up by chains. That was getting old.

His other hand shifted into his line of sight, wrist twisting around so that he could check the time. "Come on!!" Jack shouted down the long span of hallway hearing his voice echo against itself and finally fading into nothing. Shaking his head he checked in on his comms, "Ianto... do we even know if this is gonna happen?"

"It's on record of occurring at least three other times. I'd like to guess that the answer would be yes."

Jack growled at the reply nearly beneath his breath. He was frustrated, and he was tired of this sort of thing being 'his role' on the team. Oh he understood the why of it, and really it usually made perfect sense. It just didn't mean he actually had to like it. In fact of all the things he could be doing at almost two thirty in the morning, really... this was not it.

"Jack? You okay down there Jack?"

Gwen's tone cut in briefly and he nodded as if maybe his head rattling could pass through the comms and ease her mind, "Just peachy Gwen. Things still clear up there?" Gwen had been sent to the bridge over the damn, and he was hoping that she was still a good safe distance away from anything.. should anything happen.

"Rift activity in two... one... it's opening now."

"Finally," Jack intoned as he heard Toshiko coming in from the Hub. Jack let go of the release and sure enough the ground started to shake above him. Silt from between the crevices shifted down into his hair, his hand instantly going to shake it free. "Anything up there?"

"Negative Jack. It's clear here."

Jack shook his head. It was just another hoax. The rift was opening every so often sure... taking people maybe, leaving things behind perhaps... but sometimes it just opened and that was that. This was probably that. "Gwen?"

Jack waited for the reply but heard nothing. His steps paused and he heard her name repeated by Owen, in his ear. "Jack... I'm going to her."

"Dammit!" Jack cursed himself as he started to head toward the opening in the tunnels, but there was something else coming. Quickly too and he wasn't even sure if he was hearing it right. The low hiss of air... maybe a push... or a slosh of sound.

Before he could even turn around to look he knew what it was, the flood gates were being opened and the spill over was flooding through the tunnels. Which was exactly why he was the one down there.

That whole.. just in case factor. Shaking his head he stopped running, "Guys... give me a minute. Ianto you head to Owen, Toshiko? Track where this tunnel I'm in lets out... just in case."

"Got it Jack."

But by then the water had already taken out his comms and flooded into his lungs. He took in deep gulps of it. Trying not to fight it. Trying not to make it to the surface to breathe it in. Die now and take the ride, or fight and struggle for however many minutes. It was never a choice he liked, never a choice he even wanted to even think of, but if was his choice to make.

His body carried with the water, lifeless and limp until it slammed into the metal grating near the over flow lake that wasn't too far from the dam. His coat waterlogged and his lungs coughing up fluid that he really didn't want to taste in the morning he reached up to grab a hold of the lever to let himself out.

His team still had a good fifteen minutes before -

"What just happened?" Jack asked, his arm once more raised above his head, cramping up... holding that release valve. Which well... did nothing. He knew that now... now because... it...

"Status?" His comm was working again... and he was dry?

"Sorry Jack? We just had rift activity? I- I don't know what else I should monitor."

"Where's Gwen?!"

"Here Jack. Nothing's gone on here though."

"Okay... uh..." Glancing to his watch he noted the time... almost fifteen 'til three in the morning. Same time. Letting go of the valve release he flipped open his wrist strap and compared the times. "Three-oh-two..." the words breathed just below his breath.

"Time loop," he relayed to his team. "We've got five minutes, I'm coming to where you're at Gwen." Dropping the open line he shrugged it off. He hated time loops, and he hated the Rift even more because of them. But if it gave him a second chance... one that actually meant he could fix something, he'd take all the repeating three am's he could have.