TW: Ghost Story (PG-13) 2/18
Title: Ghost Story 2/18
Author:
mad_maudlin
Rating: PG-13
Pairing and Characters: Jack/Ianto, The Doctor, Torchwood, the other Torchwood, OCs, A THOUSAND ELEPHANTS, et cetera.
Length: 70,000
Spoilers: Oh, let's say the whole Rusty era of DW+TW, just to be safe.
Ghost Story
by Mad Maudlin
2. the child ephemeral
My name is Eiron, though at first I didn't know it; as a child, I was scarcely aware of Jack as a different person. Time Lord I may be, but all small children think the same small thoughts, and we were, after all, as close as two people can get and remain two travelers. Jack was no more aware of the difference than I was, perhaps less so-it's hard to remember so far back, and harder to put into words how we could once criss-cross a boundary so blurred as to be meaningless. At least in the beginning, we were almost an I, who sometimes dazzled our parents with small acts of brilliance or alarmed them with mentions of Other Mom and Other Dad or amused them with stories about a flame-colored sky. It was always innocent, of course, and unintentional, and as one.
We lived like this for some time before I realized that I was we, before it became clear that there was something about us-well, me-that was profoundly different from the other little boys on the Boeshane Peninsula. Jack, of course, never noticed a thing.
-\-\-\-\-\-
Early morning, before Mom and Dad were awake, Jack slipped out of bed and crossed the room to the crib. The baby's name was Gray, which was stupid because he was clearly pink, except for the little curl of dark hair that came up from the crown of his head. "Hi," Jack tried saying, but Gray didn't stir, even though he was up over and over again during the night. "I'm your brother," Jack tried adding, but that didn't help either; maybe because it still wasn't real, like a shoe that he hadn't broken in yet.
He watched Gray sleep for a while, the little bitty fists and the little bitty feet and the little bitty rosebud of a mouth that was just barely parted for breath. He even tried poking the soft little baby tummy, but it didn't wake him, and after about five minutes Jack was already bored. What was the point of a brother if he didn't even do anything? He could hear the seabirds on the beach, and they would at least react if he poked them in the tummy-in fact, they'd react if he got anywhere near them, which was the fun part. He could sneak outside before Mom and Dad woke, run down to the beach and watch the waves come in and out, and try to chase the seabirds away from their breakfast.
Except his legs didn't want to move. He wanted to step away from the crib, but his legs wouldn't bend and his head wouldn't go up and his hands wrapped around the rail even tighter. A thought went in his head, I should stay in case Gray does something, but that was stupid because Gray wasn't doing anything.
And just like that, his body worked again. He bent his knees and waved his arms and poked Gray again just to prove it. And this time Gray woke up with a howl like the air-raid siren, and Mom came in to ask what Jack had done, only Jack didn't do anything, and when he tried to explain about the freezing she just scolded him for bothering the baby.
-\-\-\-\-\-
It took me a while to figure out who this strange Other in my thoughts was, as he began to surface with greater frequency, partly because I had to figure out who I was first. It wasn't just that the Other sometimes usurped our body or our voice; it was the way he did it, how he struggled with the simplest tasks and seemed barely aware of the spinning of the planet beneath us, the motions of the stars. I was certain I could do so much better than him at so many things, but more and more our thoughts fell into parallel lines, and every time I was the one left mute and motionless, while the Other lumbered forward in his own oafish way.
It's a terrifying thing, to feel your body, your life slipping away, to observe with intact senses while someone else handles all the action. It is more terrible still to realize that it was never yours to begin with. Because I was aware of the Other's every thought, every action, observing all with perfect clarity; but he was barely cognizant of me. He did not remember Other Mom and Other Dad, he knew nothing of the orange sky, he was blind and deaf and stupid to things I understood with ease. It was around then I began to realize there was a division between me and we and him, and it was growing deeper every day. That there had always been that division, even if I couldn't remember how that came to be.
Everyone called us Jack, but I have a faint memory of Other Mom-my mother-holding me close and calling me Eiron. Sometimes I think she was saying, I love you, Eiron. Sometimes I think she said, I'm sorry. Either way, it was memory the Other didn't share, and so that's what I called myself, Eiron, the ghost in the machine.
-\--\--\--\-
Jack stared in dismay at the test that flicked up on his screen. The numbers seemed to crawl around by themselves, and it wasn't like he was stupid or anything, he just didn't understand this division thing. Why did he have to know division, anyway? What did they have calculators for if he had to do division!
The teacher was giving him the stink eye, because he was the only kid who hadn't picked up his stylus yet, so he picked it up. Okay. First problem. 64÷4. Who cared about stupid 64÷4? He tried counting it, but he didn't have enough fingers. Now the teacher was really glaring at him, like its eye diodes were trying to burn out. Stupid robot teachers. He hated them almost as much as he hated division. He could just put down any random old number and it wouldn't make a difference, like five, or eighty, or--
Sixteen. He wasn't sure why that suddenly made perfect sense, but he wrote it down anyway, and it looked right in the space. He wasn't even sure what he meant by look right, but it was one question down, twenty-four to go.
Next up, 72÷3.
Stupid division.
-\-\-\-\-\-
I never hated him. Let me make that clear. I hated my silence, I hated my paralysis, and Jack was stupid and slow and reckless, and as he got older he went deaf to all but the most general nudging on my part; but I never hated him. We were too close for that; I could see too clearly the convoluted workings of his little brain. And as I could only live vicariously through him, with the rarest act of redirection, I suppose I grew to see things his way, governed by the same influences, watching from the same perspective.
I even came to love him, or as much as you can love someone you can't escape from. Perhaps it was just a peculiar form of Stockholm Syndrome. I was with Jack for his first loves and first losses and greatest achievements and darkest hours, and for lack of anything better I made them mine as well. The more important thing is, I forgave him: for being the real boy, for living and moving while I watched and waited, for never even noticing I was there. After all, it wasn't as if either of us ever had a choice in the matter.
-\-\-\-\-\-
Mom hadn't talked for days, not until the soldiers came around in trucks to notify everyone about the evacuation. The countryside was too exposed to the enemy, they said; everyone was to relocate to Boe City, where it was possible to put up a shield.
Jack tried to help her with the packing, but there was only so much room on the trains to Boe and only so much they could carry, a boy and a woman bent with grief. They left so many things behind, Dad's books and Gray's toys and the cream-colored china plates and the broomstick bushes that bloomed in fiery color every spring; they left behind the house and the school and the beach. Mom brought pictures, and said those would have to be enough: they had to take only the things they could carry.
The night before they left Mom fell asleep on the couch, crying, watching picture after picture flicker inside the screen, and so Jack went into his parent's room and opened Dad's side of the wardrobe. He pulled down a jacket that still smelled like him, like building fires on the beach to watch the stars, all smoke and salt. It smelled like home felt, only they were leaving home, the house and the bushes and the hill above the beach where they'd buried all their dead.
Jack laid down on his parents' bed and cried for a while, for Dad and Gray and Mom and himself and all the dead people he'd helped roll into the trench. Unlike Mom, he didn't fall asleep.
Instead he crawled out of bed and went looking through the wardrobe again, digging through the old socks and cracked belts and the ties Dad never wore, touching everything one last time. Then his hands closed over smooth metal. A pocket watch, like something from a tall tale, was buried in the bottom of the drawer, a little tarnished and warm to the touch. He couldn't ever remember seeing the watch, though it seemed familiar; and it must've been Dad's because it was with Dad's stuff, and it must've been important because he'd never seen anything like it before. More importantly, it was something he could take.
He went back to his room, ignoring Gray's empty bed so he could slip the watch into his suitcase. Now he'd always have something to carry.
Chapter One
Chapter Three
Author:
mad_maudlin
Rating: PG-13
Pairing and Characters: Jack/Ianto, The Doctor, Torchwood, the other Torchwood, OCs, A THOUSAND ELEPHANTS, et cetera.
Length: 70,000
Spoilers: Oh, let's say the whole Rusty era of DW+TW, just to be safe.
Ghost Story
by Mad Maudlin
2. the child ephemeral
My name is Eiron, though at first I didn't know it; as a child, I was scarcely aware of Jack as a different person. Time Lord I may be, but all small children think the same small thoughts, and we were, after all, as close as two people can get and remain two travelers. Jack was no more aware of the difference than I was, perhaps less so-it's hard to remember so far back, and harder to put into words how we could once criss-cross a boundary so blurred as to be meaningless. At least in the beginning, we were almost an I, who sometimes dazzled our parents with small acts of brilliance or alarmed them with mentions of Other Mom and Other Dad or amused them with stories about a flame-colored sky. It was always innocent, of course, and unintentional, and as one.
We lived like this for some time before I realized that I was we, before it became clear that there was something about us-well, me-that was profoundly different from the other little boys on the Boeshane Peninsula. Jack, of course, never noticed a thing.
-\-\-\-\-\-
Early morning, before Mom and Dad were awake, Jack slipped out of bed and crossed the room to the crib. The baby's name was Gray, which was stupid because he was clearly pink, except for the little curl of dark hair that came up from the crown of his head. "Hi," Jack tried saying, but Gray didn't stir, even though he was up over and over again during the night. "I'm your brother," Jack tried adding, but that didn't help either; maybe because it still wasn't real, like a shoe that he hadn't broken in yet.
He watched Gray sleep for a while, the little bitty fists and the little bitty feet and the little bitty rosebud of a mouth that was just barely parted for breath. He even tried poking the soft little baby tummy, but it didn't wake him, and after about five minutes Jack was already bored. What was the point of a brother if he didn't even do anything? He could hear the seabirds on the beach, and they would at least react if he poked them in the tummy-in fact, they'd react if he got anywhere near them, which was the fun part. He could sneak outside before Mom and Dad woke, run down to the beach and watch the waves come in and out, and try to chase the seabirds away from their breakfast.
Except his legs didn't want to move. He wanted to step away from the crib, but his legs wouldn't bend and his head wouldn't go up and his hands wrapped around the rail even tighter. A thought went in his head, I should stay in case Gray does something, but that was stupid because Gray wasn't doing anything.
And just like that, his body worked again. He bent his knees and waved his arms and poked Gray again just to prove it. And this time Gray woke up with a howl like the air-raid siren, and Mom came in to ask what Jack had done, only Jack didn't do anything, and when he tried to explain about the freezing she just scolded him for bothering the baby.
-\-\-\-\-\-
It took me a while to figure out who this strange Other in my thoughts was, as he began to surface with greater frequency, partly because I had to figure out who I was first. It wasn't just that the Other sometimes usurped our body or our voice; it was the way he did it, how he struggled with the simplest tasks and seemed barely aware of the spinning of the planet beneath us, the motions of the stars. I was certain I could do so much better than him at so many things, but more and more our thoughts fell into parallel lines, and every time I was the one left mute and motionless, while the Other lumbered forward in his own oafish way.
It's a terrifying thing, to feel your body, your life slipping away, to observe with intact senses while someone else handles all the action. It is more terrible still to realize that it was never yours to begin with. Because I was aware of the Other's every thought, every action, observing all with perfect clarity; but he was barely cognizant of me. He did not remember Other Mom and Other Dad, he knew nothing of the orange sky, he was blind and deaf and stupid to things I understood with ease. It was around then I began to realize there was a division between me and we and him, and it was growing deeper every day. That there had always been that division, even if I couldn't remember how that came to be.
Everyone called us Jack, but I have a faint memory of Other Mom-my mother-holding me close and calling me Eiron. Sometimes I think she was saying, I love you, Eiron. Sometimes I think she said, I'm sorry. Either way, it was memory the Other didn't share, and so that's what I called myself, Eiron, the ghost in the machine.
-\--\--\--\-
Jack stared in dismay at the test that flicked up on his screen. The numbers seemed to crawl around by themselves, and it wasn't like he was stupid or anything, he just didn't understand this division thing. Why did he have to know division, anyway? What did they have calculators for if he had to do division!
The teacher was giving him the stink eye, because he was the only kid who hadn't picked up his stylus yet, so he picked it up. Okay. First problem. 64÷4. Who cared about stupid 64÷4? He tried counting it, but he didn't have enough fingers. Now the teacher was really glaring at him, like its eye diodes were trying to burn out. Stupid robot teachers. He hated them almost as much as he hated division. He could just put down any random old number and it wouldn't make a difference, like five, or eighty, or--
Sixteen. He wasn't sure why that suddenly made perfect sense, but he wrote it down anyway, and it looked right in the space. He wasn't even sure what he meant by look right, but it was one question down, twenty-four to go.
Next up, 72÷3.
Stupid division.
-\-\-\-\-\-
I never hated him. Let me make that clear. I hated my silence, I hated my paralysis, and Jack was stupid and slow and reckless, and as he got older he went deaf to all but the most general nudging on my part; but I never hated him. We were too close for that; I could see too clearly the convoluted workings of his little brain. And as I could only live vicariously through him, with the rarest act of redirection, I suppose I grew to see things his way, governed by the same influences, watching from the same perspective.
I even came to love him, or as much as you can love someone you can't escape from. Perhaps it was just a peculiar form of Stockholm Syndrome. I was with Jack for his first loves and first losses and greatest achievements and darkest hours, and for lack of anything better I made them mine as well. The more important thing is, I forgave him: for being the real boy, for living and moving while I watched and waited, for never even noticing I was there. After all, it wasn't as if either of us ever had a choice in the matter.
-\-\-\-\-\-
Mom hadn't talked for days, not until the soldiers came around in trucks to notify everyone about the evacuation. The countryside was too exposed to the enemy, they said; everyone was to relocate to Boe City, where it was possible to put up a shield.
Jack tried to help her with the packing, but there was only so much room on the trains to Boe and only so much they could carry, a boy and a woman bent with grief. They left so many things behind, Dad's books and Gray's toys and the cream-colored china plates and the broomstick bushes that bloomed in fiery color every spring; they left behind the house and the school and the beach. Mom brought pictures, and said those would have to be enough: they had to take only the things they could carry.
The night before they left Mom fell asleep on the couch, crying, watching picture after picture flicker inside the screen, and so Jack went into his parent's room and opened Dad's side of the wardrobe. He pulled down a jacket that still smelled like him, like building fires on the beach to watch the stars, all smoke and salt. It smelled like home felt, only they were leaving home, the house and the bushes and the hill above the beach where they'd buried all their dead.
Jack laid down on his parents' bed and cried for a while, for Dad and Gray and Mom and himself and all the dead people he'd helped roll into the trench. Unlike Mom, he didn't fall asleep.
Instead he crawled out of bed and went looking through the wardrobe again, digging through the old socks and cracked belts and the ties Dad never wore, touching everything one last time. Then his hands closed over smooth metal. A pocket watch, like something from a tall tale, was buried in the bottom of the drawer, a little tarnished and warm to the touch. He couldn't ever remember seeing the watch, though it seemed familiar; and it must've been Dad's because it was with Dad's stuff, and it must've been important because he'd never seen anything like it before. More importantly, it was something he could take.
He went back to his room, ignoring Gray's empty bed so he could slip the watch into his suitcase. Now he'd always have something to carry.
Chapter One
Chapter Three