Fic: 924/B
So, it's been months since I've been on here, but as usual, real life has been kicking my ass. I started in a new department at work, and we've basically been doing crazy overtime for months now. Add in some new friends who won't accept, "I feel like staying home and hanging out on the internet instead of going out tonight" as an answer, the craziness of trying to apartment/house hunt with three future roommates who are on completely opposite schedules and (of course) family drama, and yeah, I haven't had a lot of time/energy to post.
But I come back with fic! For Eureka, a show I got addicted to while I was away. It's just a tiny ficlet, and it is rough and unbetaed, but it wouldn't leave me alone after I rewatched a few episodes last night.
Title: 924/B
Fandom: Eureka
Pairing: Jack, Nathan
Rating: PG13
Warnings: Spoilers for 3x04, I Do Over
Summary: Jack has been putting off filing some necessary forms.
There was no body to bury. Jack wished he could say that this was a rare case, but unfortunately he lived in Eureka, and having no body to bury because the person died by being ripped out of the stream of time, or flash frozen, or--in one truly disturbing case--by being cannibalized was fairly common. And every time it was hard, Jack knew. Losing someone was bad enough even when you had a body, a gravestone to say goodbye to; it was even more difficult when there wasn’t. Back when Beverly was around there was always more people seeking her council when they were denied that way of getting closure.
So Jack got it. He really did. He understood why these days when Allison was under stress she would reach up and grasp the diamond necklace she now often wore around her neck, why when Fargo seemed to be missing he could usually be found in the memorial hall he’d designed for Stark, why Vincent had officially named the deceased man’s favorite meal after the former head of Global Dynamics.
Everyone usually had something like that. They had their tokens and their tributes and their personal monuments to help them grieve. They had those, and Jack had paperwork.
Form 369/A: Accidental Death. In triplicate. Followed by form 563/C: the Please-Explain-How-the-Hell-Someone-Was-Flash Frozen/Eaten/Dematerialized-and-Now-There’s-No-Body-to-Process form. Also in triplicate.
Jack often wished that these forms weren’t such a common necessity of his job, but never had he wished it so fiercely as he did now: staring at the filing cabinet he’d been avoiding for weeks as he procrastinated doing what he was at this very moment trying to build up the will to do.
“You know,” Jo said from her desk, looking from Jack to the filing cabinet he stood a firm ten feet from and back to Jack again, “those forms have to be done by tomorrow.”
“I know.” Jack didn’t move.
“Should have been processed several weeks ago, in fact.”
“You’re right.” He stayed leaning against his desk, eyes locked on the top drawer of the gray cabinet.
Jo was silent for a moment. When she next spoke, her voice was much softer. “I could fill them out. You don’t have to be the one to do it.”
Jack dragged his eyes away from the other side of the room to meet Jo’s concerned gaze. There was a slight crease between her eyebrows and her lips were turned down in the slight frown that meant she was worried about him.
Jack forced himself to shoot her a small smile, shaking his head. “Nah, it’s fine. You know how I am, always putting off any kind of paperwork ‘till the last minute.” Jo nodded, but the crease didn’t disappear. “Besides,” he added quickly, “don’t you have a date with Zane or something to go to? I know it’s going to take you longer than you’ll admit to get ready for that. I’ve seen the beauty products you try to hide.” The grin he shot her this time was teasing, and genuine.
The worried expression finally eased from his deputy’s face as she quirked her lips. “And you know what will happen if you ever mention them to anyone.”
Jack raised his hands in surrender. “My lips are sealed. As long as you go ahead and get ready. I can lock up here. Don’t want you to be late, after all.”
She nodded and stood up, gathering her things and preparing to leave. He watched her for a moment before his gaze went involuntarily back to the filing cabinet, not even looking away as Jo passed him to head toward the door.
“Carter?” Jack turned towards the door, where Jo had paused, one hand on the door frame. “You gonna be okay?”
Jack smiled and shrugged. “When am I not okay?”
The deputy hesitated for one more moment, the crease back between her eyebrows, before she gave a short nod and walked out the door.
Once she was gone Jack let out a breath and slumped back against his desk, rubbing a hand along his face. Of course he was okay; he was just being ridiculous. It’s not like he and Stark had even been friends. Hell, they could barely work together most of the time. And wasn’t that expected? After all, the man had been about to marry the woman Jack-possibly, maybe-loved. There was no reason for Jack to have put this off as long as he did.
Except, sometimes, every now and then, it seemed like he and Nathan Stark could have been. Friends, that is. Times like when they were rushing in shoulder to shoulder to fix some crisis at GD-
“Magma. It’s magma.”
--times when they were so dizzy with success and relief that they forgot all the antagonism they held towards each other-
“Good job, Carter. Wow, that didn’t even leave a bad taste in my mouth.”
“Give it a second.”
“Yup, there it is.”
--and those even rarer times when they were suddenly forced to acknowledge something they had in common after all.
“I don’t expect you to understand.”
“I’m a father. Of course I understand.”
It was these little instances that had sometimes made Jack wonder if they could be good friends if they tried. Now they made him wonder if the two of them hadn’t already been on the way to becoming exactly that.
“See you around, Jack.”
Jack groaned and moved from the desk with a great lurch. “Enough,” he muttered to himself, walking determinedly to the filing cabinet and wrenching open the top drawer. It was filled to the brim with various blank forms Jack knew he’d need at one point or the other, but Jack didn’t have to search long to pull out the two he was looking for now. He’d dug through the cabinet for them far too often, after all. He gathered all the papers into a depressingly thick stack and headed back to his desk, sitting down and pulling out a pen with a sigh.
It was almost an hour later when he finished, tossing the pen down roughly on the finished stack. He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes for a moment, suddenly feeling exhausted, but he couldn’t linger that way for long. The forms had taken longer than he thought and he was already late for dinner, and SARAH hadn’t gotten out of the habit of locking him out of the bunker whenever he’d done something to make her mad. He only hoped Zoe managed to talk her out of it again tonight.
Jack set aside two copies of the forms to be filed with the proper departments tomorrow and gathered the station’s copies in his hands as he made his way back to the filing cabinet. He opened the second drawer and slipped them inside the proper folder, closing it again with a final thud before turning around and stretching his back, ready to head out of the station and back home, but on a sudden thought he paused, just a few feet from the cabinet. Slowly he went back to it, opening the top drawer again.
It took him longer to find the form he wanted this time. He’d only needed it twice before, years ago. Finally though, after reaching into the very back, Jack pulled it out: form 924/B. It wasn’t completely out of the realm of possibility, Jack thought as he stared at the paper in his hand. After all, despite having the best minds in all the country located here, no one could come up with a definite reason why Stark had dissolved (Dematerialized. Whatever). All they had were theories, and it wouldn’t have been the first time that someone had come back from the dead from a time related accident. Besides, this was Eureka: stranger things had happened in this town.
Decision made, Jack swiftly went back to his desk to pick up the pen. Not bothering to sit, he just leaned down, neatly printing out Dr. Nathan Stark in the correct fields. He’d already done that six times today, but this time he finished with a small, wistful smile, pulling away from the desk to examine his work with satisfaction. He had to leave the rest blank, and he might never fill it out, but it was there.
Just in case.
Jack slid the form into a fresh manila folder and was just about to place it carefully at the bottom of the last desk drawer, where it was least likely to be disturbed, when he remembered.
There was no hesitation when he went to the cabinet this time, opening the top drawing and pulling two more copies of the form out. Maybe it was silly, Jack thought as he carried them back to his desk, but then again, Nathan Stark was an impatient man when he was alive. It made sense that if he ever did come back Jack would need to be ready to file this particular form right away.
In triplicate.
But I come back with fic! For Eureka, a show I got addicted to while I was away. It's just a tiny ficlet, and it is rough and unbetaed, but it wouldn't leave me alone after I rewatched a few episodes last night.
Title: 924/B
Fandom: Eureka
Pairing: Jack, Nathan
Rating: PG13
Warnings: Spoilers for 3x04, I Do Over
Summary: Jack has been putting off filing some necessary forms.
There was no body to bury. Jack wished he could say that this was a rare case, but unfortunately he lived in Eureka, and having no body to bury because the person died by being ripped out of the stream of time, or flash frozen, or--in one truly disturbing case--by being cannibalized was fairly common. And every time it was hard, Jack knew. Losing someone was bad enough even when you had a body, a gravestone to say goodbye to; it was even more difficult when there wasn’t. Back when Beverly was around there was always more people seeking her council when they were denied that way of getting closure.
So Jack got it. He really did. He understood why these days when Allison was under stress she would reach up and grasp the diamond necklace she now often wore around her neck, why when Fargo seemed to be missing he could usually be found in the memorial hall he’d designed for Stark, why Vincent had officially named the deceased man’s favorite meal after the former head of Global Dynamics.
Everyone usually had something like that. They had their tokens and their tributes and their personal monuments to help them grieve. They had those, and Jack had paperwork.
Form 369/A: Accidental Death. In triplicate. Followed by form 563/C: the Please-Explain-How-the-Hell-Someone-Was-Flash Frozen/Eaten/Dematerialized-and-Now-There’s-No-Body-to-Process form. Also in triplicate.
Jack often wished that these forms weren’t such a common necessity of his job, but never had he wished it so fiercely as he did now: staring at the filing cabinet he’d been avoiding for weeks as he procrastinated doing what he was at this very moment trying to build up the will to do.
“You know,” Jo said from her desk, looking from Jack to the filing cabinet he stood a firm ten feet from and back to Jack again, “those forms have to be done by tomorrow.”
“I know.” Jack didn’t move.
“Should have been processed several weeks ago, in fact.”
“You’re right.” He stayed leaning against his desk, eyes locked on the top drawer of the gray cabinet.
Jo was silent for a moment. When she next spoke, her voice was much softer. “I could fill them out. You don’t have to be the one to do it.”
Jack dragged his eyes away from the other side of the room to meet Jo’s concerned gaze. There was a slight crease between her eyebrows and her lips were turned down in the slight frown that meant she was worried about him.
Jack forced himself to shoot her a small smile, shaking his head. “Nah, it’s fine. You know how I am, always putting off any kind of paperwork ‘till the last minute.” Jo nodded, but the crease didn’t disappear. “Besides,” he added quickly, “don’t you have a date with Zane or something to go to? I know it’s going to take you longer than you’ll admit to get ready for that. I’ve seen the beauty products you try to hide.” The grin he shot her this time was teasing, and genuine.
The worried expression finally eased from his deputy’s face as she quirked her lips. “And you know what will happen if you ever mention them to anyone.”
Jack raised his hands in surrender. “My lips are sealed. As long as you go ahead and get ready. I can lock up here. Don’t want you to be late, after all.”
She nodded and stood up, gathering her things and preparing to leave. He watched her for a moment before his gaze went involuntarily back to the filing cabinet, not even looking away as Jo passed him to head toward the door.
“Carter?” Jack turned towards the door, where Jo had paused, one hand on the door frame. “You gonna be okay?”
Jack smiled and shrugged. “When am I not okay?”
The deputy hesitated for one more moment, the crease back between her eyebrows, before she gave a short nod and walked out the door.
Once she was gone Jack let out a breath and slumped back against his desk, rubbing a hand along his face. Of course he was okay; he was just being ridiculous. It’s not like he and Stark had even been friends. Hell, they could barely work together most of the time. And wasn’t that expected? After all, the man had been about to marry the woman Jack-possibly, maybe-loved. There was no reason for Jack to have put this off as long as he did.
Except, sometimes, every now and then, it seemed like he and Nathan Stark could have been. Friends, that is. Times like when they were rushing in shoulder to shoulder to fix some crisis at GD-
“Magma. It’s magma.”
--times when they were so dizzy with success and relief that they forgot all the antagonism they held towards each other-
“Good job, Carter. Wow, that didn’t even leave a bad taste in my mouth.”
“Give it a second.”
“Yup, there it is.”
--and those even rarer times when they were suddenly forced to acknowledge something they had in common after all.
“I don’t expect you to understand.”
“I’m a father. Of course I understand.”
It was these little instances that had sometimes made Jack wonder if they could be good friends if they tried. Now they made him wonder if the two of them hadn’t already been on the way to becoming exactly that.
“See you around, Jack.”
Jack groaned and moved from the desk with a great lurch. “Enough,” he muttered to himself, walking determinedly to the filing cabinet and wrenching open the top drawer. It was filled to the brim with various blank forms Jack knew he’d need at one point or the other, but Jack didn’t have to search long to pull out the two he was looking for now. He’d dug through the cabinet for them far too often, after all. He gathered all the papers into a depressingly thick stack and headed back to his desk, sitting down and pulling out a pen with a sigh.
It was almost an hour later when he finished, tossing the pen down roughly on the finished stack. He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes for a moment, suddenly feeling exhausted, but he couldn’t linger that way for long. The forms had taken longer than he thought and he was already late for dinner, and SARAH hadn’t gotten out of the habit of locking him out of the bunker whenever he’d done something to make her mad. He only hoped Zoe managed to talk her out of it again tonight.
Jack set aside two copies of the forms to be filed with the proper departments tomorrow and gathered the station’s copies in his hands as he made his way back to the filing cabinet. He opened the second drawer and slipped them inside the proper folder, closing it again with a final thud before turning around and stretching his back, ready to head out of the station and back home, but on a sudden thought he paused, just a few feet from the cabinet. Slowly he went back to it, opening the top drawer again.
It took him longer to find the form he wanted this time. He’d only needed it twice before, years ago. Finally though, after reaching into the very back, Jack pulled it out: form 924/B. It wasn’t completely out of the realm of possibility, Jack thought as he stared at the paper in his hand. After all, despite having the best minds in all the country located here, no one could come up with a definite reason why Stark had dissolved (Dematerialized. Whatever). All they had were theories, and it wouldn’t have been the first time that someone had come back from the dead from a time related accident. Besides, this was Eureka: stranger things had happened in this town.
Decision made, Jack swiftly went back to his desk to pick up the pen. Not bothering to sit, he just leaned down, neatly printing out Dr. Nathan Stark in the correct fields. He’d already done that six times today, but this time he finished with a small, wistful smile, pulling away from the desk to examine his work with satisfaction. He had to leave the rest blank, and he might never fill it out, but it was there.
Just in case.
Jack slid the form into a fresh manila folder and was just about to place it carefully at the bottom of the last desk drawer, where it was least likely to be disturbed, when he remembered.
There was no hesitation when he went to the cabinet this time, opening the top drawing and pulling two more copies of the form out. Maybe it was silly, Jack thought as he carried them back to his desk, but then again, Nathan Stark was an impatient man when he was alive. It made sense that if he ever did come back Jack would need to be ready to file this particular form right away.
In triplicate.