Fic: "All the Last Words" (2/2) Monthly Challenge: "Last Words"
Title: All the Last Words
Author: Sgt. Mayhem
Rating: still PG-13...
Notes: Same as pt. 1...it was just a bit too long to post all at once!
Gasping, Jack woke up to a very familiar humming sound. He flailed, remembering his own death throes (or was that a dream?), sitting bolt upright in the small sleeping compartment on the TARDIS.
"Look who's finally awake!" A cheerful voice said, echoing somewhat as Jack shook the memories away. The Doctor came to lean in the doorway, hands in pockets.
"Where--"
"Are you? I think the answer to that one is fairly self-evident, so I'll give you a moment to come up with the answer. --are we? Well, that's another story. Currently I think it's somewhere around..." The Doctor darted back out to the control room, leaving Jack to stagger to his feet and follow. "...the year 5347. Give or take. On Earth."
Jack ran his hands through his hair, groaning.
"No, no, no...this isn't right! I was dying...back in 2008...Torchwood..."
"Hmmm, is that so?" The Doctor didn't sound particularly interested, as he poked around in a small cupboard below the TARDIS mainframe.
"Yes, that's so! What have you done? What happened to---"
"Your team?"
"--if you'd stop interrupting me, that'd be great. I meant him! Captain Jack Harkness. The real one!" Jack felt a rising sense of panic. Was he dreaming? Some kind of strange death hallucination? It had never happened before. Before, there had just been...nothing.
The Doctor's expression darkened at the mention of the name. Jack watched him straighten up and adopt a dangerously casual stance, brown eyes staring holes into him.
"Suicide, actually." His voice was light, flippant. Jack felt his stomach clench.
"What??"
"You took him out of his time, Jack. That was never supposed to happen." The Doctor's voice was calm and stern, like a schoolmaster talking to an errant child. Rage welled up in Jack's chest, suddenly and ferociously, dizzying him. He had to clutch the door frame for support.
"NO! You took me! After you said...after those things you told me...I'm wrong, remember? So leave me! Why couldn't you have just left me there, left me alone? He died alone, in despair! Alone, because I wasn't there to stop him! Take me back!"
The Doctor didn't move, although by the end of that slightly confused diatribe Jack was shouting at him. He merely raised one dark eyebrow.
"What was the last thing he said, Jack? The last thing you remember him saying to you?"
"He said, maybe..."
"Maybe some things shouldn't be changed." The Doctor nodded once, as the conversation came round to its prescribed end--the lesson neatly dispatched, the paradox illuminated. But Jack could no longer remember where it had begun or ended. He thought that perhaps if he could dream again, he would be back at the Ritz dance hall, and he could choose to stay...just stay.
"You can't do that," the Doctor said softly, stepping closer to him. "You have a team to lead. You have a mission."
Jack wiped a hand angrily across a face wet with tears.
"And since when do you care about me or my mission? You hate Torchwood as much as you hate me, simply because they don't let you go gallivanting around Time doing whatever the hell you want--"
"That's not true!"
"--while we have to abide by these stupid rules!"
The Doctor's brown eyes were blazing, his jaw clenched and his skinny frame tight with furious energy. "We all have to abide by the rules, Jack! Just because you think you fell in love doesn't change that!"
"And what do you know about falling in love?"
There was silence after that, the Doctor giving him a long, hateful stare. The hum of the TARDIS beat endlessly on Jack's brain, in his organs, like a reminder of the trap he was in. He closed his eyes, feeling exhausted. Just once more, he thought. Let me try one more time.
Before the Doctor knew what he was doing, he keyed the coordinates into his wristband, and the hum got louder, the light brighter.
The Doctor startled, looked up, and jumped towards him. "NO! You don't know what you're doing, Jack!" But it was too late. The Rift was taking him.
***
He will have taken the long way around.
Watching as the revolutions of 1848 erupted in every country except Germany, he will have noticed keenly, but not touched, the circumstances, the long strains of history's convoluted melody that will lead to the creation of Captain Jack Harkness. He will have waited, having found, somewhere in the 1910's, a patience he never knew he possessed. Perhaps the Doctor, in his long and enthusiastic ramblings about the human race and time, will have instilled some sort of fascination in him, some kind of observer mentality.
Mostly, however, he will have always known that he has been waiting. That the future has been waiting for him, patiently in line, for the light of the living moment to inhabit it.
Germany's stalled revolution will have been played out in the end, after all, strung out along a greater timeline and breeding even more fervently the Sturm und Drang which will have led to its eagerness in the First World War. Jack will have seen it all before, at some point--the trenches and the maggots, the rotting corpses and the rotting living bodies, the gas and the tanks and the terrible machine guns and the funny little wood-and-cloth airplanes like children's toys that so viciously shot each other out of their tenuous hold on the sky. He will have witnessed the unbearable defeat and the not-quite-killable ideal of the sad, proud Freikorps, and he will have watched the rest of the world struggle on through cultural revolution and economic depression until the whole mess was more than ready to blow all over again, and then he, having earned the wings he will wear on his chest, will have taken to the sky, part of the 133rd Squadron of American volunteers, during the height of the Blitz.
He will almost have forgotten why he has come, by the time he hears the familiar name. He will have been promoted to Squadron Leader, and a successful one, at that; he will have discovered he has a particular brand of ruthlessness that serves a fighter pilot well. It is a strange satisfaction--he will have pushed the memories of his past lives away, in favor of the here and now. Now, he is a hero. A real hero.
Then he will meet Captain Jack Harkness, and after all this time, he will feel that Time is not an enemy, but a lover, gently welcoming him home. The feeling will be powerful; it will nearly sweep him off his feet.
"Have we met before?" Captain Harkness will ask, extending a hand to shake it.
"I don't think so, sir," James Harper will say with a grin. "I would have remembered."
This time, he will swear to himself, nothing will make him let Jack Harkness go. Not falling bombs, not jealous lovers, not the hatred of men, not arrogant, time-travelling Doctors. And not the goddamned Luftwaffe.
Becoming lovers will be at once easier and more challenging for being posted to the same Squadron. They will be more physically available to each other, yet more closely scrutinized as well. Jack will sense the fear in the Captain, and he won't push...won't let them do anything too dangerous, despite the way he yearns for him, the way his body begins to physically crave his touch. Even if all they ever get are stolen moments, Jack will think, it will be worth it. They'll make it through the war, they'll get away to somewhere, where they can be together. In the meantime, he will discover a closeness he never could have imagined. He is Captain Harkness' wingman...flying second position behind him when they go on sortie. Watching the elegant little Spitfire just ahead and to his right, the sun gleaming on its wings, its swift sure movements all controlled by those hands he knows so well...will give him an illicit, physical thrill. Even in the midst of war, he will feel a deep, strong peace within himself, unlike he's ever known.
Until the day that the blue police box will appear out of nowhere, while they are on 48-hour furlough in London. Hissing through his teeth, Jack, who has gone outside the club for a leak, will watch it warily. Is the Doctor appearing to him, now, he'll wonder, or is he accidentally running across the TARDIS in another timeline? The question will be answered when the Doctor emerges, in his previous incarnation, the one that Jack has [did, will, will have, would have] met with Rose. Not long from now. Or will it have already happened? The Doctor, holding a small funny-looking device (they're all funny looking, Jack will realize...he's gotten used to the machines of this day and age), will look up at him in unpleasant surprise.
"It's you," he'll say.
"Me what?" Jack will ask, warily. He doesn't know if this Doctor knows [has known, will know, knew] him, and so he keeps quiet on that.
"You're causing it! The Rift in space and Time!"
Jack will have an unpleasant feeling in the pit of his stomach at those words, and he'll back away, escaping, returning to the life he now wants. "I don't know what the hell you're talking about. Are you nuts, or what?"
The Doctor will glare at him, those stern green eyes he once [adored, will adore, would have adored?] boring holes into him. "James Harper. Or is it Jack Harkness? You've been running in and out of Time like a...a needle in cloth!" The Doctor will wave his hands erratically to illustrate. "Only you're not stitching anything together, you're tearing it apart! Always 1941...why always 1941? What is it you want here?"
"Is there a problem?" Captain Harkness' voice will cut smoothly across the Doctor's, as he comes up behind Jack, arms folded lightly on his chest. Jack's expression will say it all, and the Doctor will lean in closer to him, almost threatening.
"You can't do this, Jack! Everything's falling apart! You can't save him!"
"Hey, pal...I think you'd better lay off..." Captain Jack will say, that smoky voice starting to sound threatening, itself. And Jack, taking his tense arm by the elbow, will steer them away.
"Come on. He's obviously crazy." He'll ignore the Doctor's warning shouts behind them.
It will shake him, though. When next on sortie, when they scramble in the early morning and race towards the southern coast to intercept a squadron of encroaching Me-109's, he'll be distracted. Two Messerschmitts flying in a two-man weave will get him in their crosshairs before he knows what they're doing, and he'll feel bullets chew at the rudder of his Spitfire.
"James!" The voice on the radio will be filled with a tightly controlled panic. Captain Harkness will break formation and do a tight reverse-Immelman, barrel-rolling onto the tail of one of the 109's, above and behind Jack's plane. Pumping it with a prolonged five-second burst, the Captain will send the enemy spiralling out of control to his death, only to be caught by the 109's wingman as they both flash past Jack, the 109's cannon ripping chunks out of Captain Jack's Spitfire. Jack will curse, throw his plane into a high yo-yo, zooming higher than, and around back behind the enemy, and hit the trigger, hoping to rake the 109 as he passes across its axis. Captain Jack has already split to the deck, smoke trailing, diving low so he can gain speed to help his ailing plane climb back into the fight. Jack will pursue the Messerschmitt with a vengeance born of panic, and even when the German's plane bursts into flames, he won't stop shooting for several seconds.
He won't stop shaking until much later that night at the Officer's Club, putting back the fourth whiskey that Captain Harkness buys him.
"You could die at any time," he will tell his concerned lover later, in his quarters.
"I think we both know that's a possibility," Captain Jack will concede, his voice soothing, leaning against the door frame still in his flight jacket. "What's got you thinking of it all of a sudden? Just what happened up there today?"
"Yeah. I guess so." Jack's eyes will plead with him; he'll want to tell him all about the fear of losing him, about all of the last words he's had to hear before Captain Jack dies. But he won't; he'll let his kiss convey it instead. "I have to hold onto you," he'll tell the Captain. "I can't let you go." His hands will grip the Captain by the jacket as their breath mingles.
"You have to let go sometime," Captain Jack Harkness will say, joking gently. He'll be meaning his coat, backed against the wall as he is, pinned securely in the half-darkness of Jack's wartime quarters, but years later, in May of 1945, Jack will think of those words again, and they will burn him.
The official notice will have all the standard wording. Regret to inform. Died in captivity. It will have been nearly a year since Captain Jack's Mustang plunged into the earth. Jack will have held out hope, because he saw the 'chute. Flew his own plane in ever-tightening, grieving circles above where the white silk deployed: a message. I'm still here. I won't give up. I won't let you go. Now a Lieutenant Colonel, commander of the squadron they will both have transferred to once America's Army Air Corps needed them, it will be Jack's job to sign the paper that goes to Major Harkness' family. He will wonder, as he does so...was it enough? Three and a half years in wartime...flying nearly wing-to-wing...was it enough for him? And he'll also think, what were the last words they spoke this time? Never I love you...never you are everything to me. Something mundane. "Check your six." "Break left." "How about another drink?" You have to let go sometime.
But no, Jack will think. Not yet.
***
Space and Time, fragmenting. It actually looked quite beautiful. Like the sun flashing on the wings of a Spitfire, like the light through the Perspex canopy. He knew that even though he was leader of Torchwood back [forward] in 2007, fighting the monsters that came through on occasion, everything was ending, really. That's how the story went: "...and then Time ripped itself to pieces, the end." He knew that because he'd been there at the start and at the finish, hundreds of times. He was a fixed point, threading back and forth through unfixed Time. The Rift revolved around him. It revolved around doomed love. If he were more of a Romantic (with a capital R), Jack might have thought that was pretty poetic. A worthy end to the universe. But all he could feel was a regret, a bitterness that got grimmer every time he couldn't save Captain Jack Harkness from death.
He could think of it all, even now, if he closed his eyes and let logic be done away with:
They danced at the Ritz, countless times. Each time just as poignant, each time just as desperate. It was always the young Captain's first dance, his first kiss. Sometimes the first time he'd had sex with a man.
A couple of times they were in the same squadron, wingmen. Those times Jack cherished, particularly--that closeness that was more than being lovers, more than being friends. A bond of war.
There was even a time when they survived, and the war ended, only for Captain Jack to be killed by a memento the Germans left behind--some UXB buried in the ground outside of their Paris hotel. "I'll only be gone a minute," Captain Jack had said. They'd been celebrating the end of the fighting.
Jack looked out of the blacked-out window. Any second, he knew, the TARDIS was going to appear on this spot, in London during the Blitz. He could only hope that the Doctor was caught in the snare of Time, stuck in a previous incarnation and not aware of the now-murderous relationship between himself and Jack. At the end of the Universe, the Doctor and the Master, teamed up together in desperation against the force of entropy that Jack had become, tried to find a way to kill him. It had hurt, a lot. But it hadn't ended him. He had used to think that the gift of eternal life Rose had inadvertently given him was for some purpose, some great Reason. Now, he knew that there were no such things as reasons, and that love made people do very stupid things, and that he didn't care. He was immortal; why should he care? Maybe if he fucked everything up enough, the entirety of existence would end, and he would finally die.
And then he could go wherever the dead go...where Captain Jack had gone. Or at least, he'd never have to see him die again.
Like he had just a week ago. Jack, wearing full RAF uniform but without a name, [except in his mind. The only name that mattered. The one he hadn't even taken yet] had walked right up to the young Group Captain, gazed into those eyes that hadn't yet turned sad, and asked if he could buy him a drink. Captain Harkness had smiled, Jack remembered oddly, as though he'd been expecting him. "Sure, Captain," that rough-soft voice had said. And, with a peculiar curiosity, "Where do I know you from?"
"Whiskey neat?" Jack had asked, fingers almost touching the Captain's as they rested on the bartop. That earned an amused smile, a quick glint in the green-gold eyes.
"Now how did you know that?"
"It's the same every time," Jack had said, his laugh wistful.
"We've met before." It hadn't exactly been a question; the Captain's eyes gazed into Jack's with an intensity that men who have just met each other do not tend to exhibit. Not in 1941, anyway. Jack had swallowed a bit hard, handing Captain Jack his drink.
"Hundreds of times," he'd said, and sitting at a table on the upstairs balcony, he'd told Captain Jack everything. The Captain had blown out a slow breath, gaze never leaving Jack's, and leaned back in his chair.
"You've travelled through time...you know what happens?" His face, serious, holding onto this knowledge, turning it in his mind. Jack could see every cell of him absorbing it: a kenning that went beyond concepts of belief or disbelief.
"Time isn't like that...things can change. I've known you.....I've...I've loved you....so many times. But no matter what I do, you die."
He hadn't been able to hide the tremor in his voice or the tears in his eyes. He didn't know why he'd told Captain Jack, really; it didn't matter, would make no difference. The next time he saw him--if there was a next time--the Captain would not know him, or know that he'd said any of it. The Captain watched him, watched his face caught between fresh pain and resignation, and then he had leaned forward and taken Jack's hand, gently.
"That's quite a love story," he'd said, his voice low. "And...I'm glad I got so many chances to know you, even if I don't know it." The grin had been the same-soft, kind, accepting. Jack's heart had seized up for the millionth time (but who was counting?) and he'd lowered his head to hide his tears. Clinging to that hand, he'd felt something new...a warmth of acceptance. It was like breaking a limb, or being shot. It was like that tingle just before the pain got too deep to hurt. He'd scarcely been able to breathe because of it.
They had danced.
Jack had held the Captain tight, eyes closed in the music of that beating heart, and as he felt it thump away so innocently, so finitely, he had suddenly known what he had to do.
He had to let this be. He had to let Captain Jack die as a hero.
Now as he waited for the TARDIS, for the roar of Time's fragmentation, for the end, or the beginning, he didn't know which--Jack thought back to that night a week ago, when he'd finally been able to choose the last words that they would say.
"I love you."
And Captain Jack had only paused a moment, to look into his eyes, searching briefly for something he finally found there.
"I love you, too."
***
The last time that Jack goes back to 1941, Time itself is ending. It's weird, he thinks, that this is everything he's been taught to fear--the be-all, end-all of Things That Are Not Supposed To Happen. Yet, he doesn't feel particularly bad about it, even though it's really all his fault, as the Doctor explained. He doesn't care. He's seen the end of the Universe, and he's paid his price in spades.
He waits now, listening to and feeling the hum of the TARDIS around him as she materializes in the air. It was a long shot to try and talk the Doctor into doing what he's going to do, but Time is ending, after all, so what does it matter?
He sees on the viewscreen, watching as though it's a movie, as the Messerschmitts congregate on that Spitfire. He is taken again by its beauty, the way it dances in the hands of Jack Harkness. Two of the enemy planes pound it with cannon fire, and the slim little machine shakes and screams. The "JH" designator on the fuselage is ripped apart as great chunks of the Spitfire fly through the air. Jack watches as it is destroyed. He watches Captain Jack die a hero.
And just at the right moment, with a nod from the Doctor, sitting across the console, he uses the energy of the TARDIS to reach out, to gently pluck the dead pilot from the fireball of his plane as it plummets, like Pegasus, to earth. He feels the energy, like a huge hand, closing around that stilled heart, that shattered body. And he holds the Captain close.
There are some benefits, Jack now realizes, to never being able to die. One of them is that no matter how much life you give away, you won't run out.
So when Captain Jack Harkness, now lying on the floor of the TARDIS swaddled in a pulsating light that heals his broken body, opens his eyes and looks up, Jack knows two things.
He knows that the whirring silence around them is the sound of Time not ending.
And he knows that there won't be any last words this time.
He gasps slightly as the power of the TARDIS ebbs from his body, leaving his nerves singing. He looks down into Captain Harkness' wondering face, those dark-lashed eyes the color of sunlight on water, gazing up into his own as though for the first time, and he grins down at him.
"Hello, stranger."
Author: Sgt. Mayhem
Rating: still PG-13...
Notes: Same as pt. 1...it was just a bit too long to post all at once!
Gasping, Jack woke up to a very familiar humming sound. He flailed, remembering his own death throes (or was that a dream?), sitting bolt upright in the small sleeping compartment on the TARDIS.
"Look who's finally awake!" A cheerful voice said, echoing somewhat as Jack shook the memories away. The Doctor came to lean in the doorway, hands in pockets.
"Where--"
"Are you? I think the answer to that one is fairly self-evident, so I'll give you a moment to come up with the answer. --are we? Well, that's another story. Currently I think it's somewhere around..." The Doctor darted back out to the control room, leaving Jack to stagger to his feet and follow. "...the year 5347. Give or take. On Earth."
Jack ran his hands through his hair, groaning.
"No, no, no...this isn't right! I was dying...back in 2008...Torchwood..."
"Hmmm, is that so?" The Doctor didn't sound particularly interested, as he poked around in a small cupboard below the TARDIS mainframe.
"Yes, that's so! What have you done? What happened to---"
"Your team?"
"--if you'd stop interrupting me, that'd be great. I meant him! Captain Jack Harkness. The real one!" Jack felt a rising sense of panic. Was he dreaming? Some kind of strange death hallucination? It had never happened before. Before, there had just been...nothing.
The Doctor's expression darkened at the mention of the name. Jack watched him straighten up and adopt a dangerously casual stance, brown eyes staring holes into him.
"Suicide, actually." His voice was light, flippant. Jack felt his stomach clench.
"What??"
"You took him out of his time, Jack. That was never supposed to happen." The Doctor's voice was calm and stern, like a schoolmaster talking to an errant child. Rage welled up in Jack's chest, suddenly and ferociously, dizzying him. He had to clutch the door frame for support.
"NO! You took me! After you said...after those things you told me...I'm wrong, remember? So leave me! Why couldn't you have just left me there, left me alone? He died alone, in despair! Alone, because I wasn't there to stop him! Take me back!"
The Doctor didn't move, although by the end of that slightly confused diatribe Jack was shouting at him. He merely raised one dark eyebrow.
"What was the last thing he said, Jack? The last thing you remember him saying to you?"
"He said, maybe..."
"Maybe some things shouldn't be changed." The Doctor nodded once, as the conversation came round to its prescribed end--the lesson neatly dispatched, the paradox illuminated. But Jack could no longer remember where it had begun or ended. He thought that perhaps if he could dream again, he would be back at the Ritz dance hall, and he could choose to stay...just stay.
"You can't do that," the Doctor said softly, stepping closer to him. "You have a team to lead. You have a mission."
Jack wiped a hand angrily across a face wet with tears.
"And since when do you care about me or my mission? You hate Torchwood as much as you hate me, simply because they don't let you go gallivanting around Time doing whatever the hell you want--"
"That's not true!"
"--while we have to abide by these stupid rules!"
The Doctor's brown eyes were blazing, his jaw clenched and his skinny frame tight with furious energy. "We all have to abide by the rules, Jack! Just because you think you fell in love doesn't change that!"
"And what do you know about falling in love?"
There was silence after that, the Doctor giving him a long, hateful stare. The hum of the TARDIS beat endlessly on Jack's brain, in his organs, like a reminder of the trap he was in. He closed his eyes, feeling exhausted. Just once more, he thought. Let me try one more time.
Before the Doctor knew what he was doing, he keyed the coordinates into his wristband, and the hum got louder, the light brighter.
The Doctor startled, looked up, and jumped towards him. "NO! You don't know what you're doing, Jack!" But it was too late. The Rift was taking him.
***
He will have taken the long way around.
Watching as the revolutions of 1848 erupted in every country except Germany, he will have noticed keenly, but not touched, the circumstances, the long strains of history's convoluted melody that will lead to the creation of Captain Jack Harkness. He will have waited, having found, somewhere in the 1910's, a patience he never knew he possessed. Perhaps the Doctor, in his long and enthusiastic ramblings about the human race and time, will have instilled some sort of fascination in him, some kind of observer mentality.
Mostly, however, he will have always known that he has been waiting. That the future has been waiting for him, patiently in line, for the light of the living moment to inhabit it.
Germany's stalled revolution will have been played out in the end, after all, strung out along a greater timeline and breeding even more fervently the Sturm und Drang which will have led to its eagerness in the First World War. Jack will have seen it all before, at some point--the trenches and the maggots, the rotting corpses and the rotting living bodies, the gas and the tanks and the terrible machine guns and the funny little wood-and-cloth airplanes like children's toys that so viciously shot each other out of their tenuous hold on the sky. He will have witnessed the unbearable defeat and the not-quite-killable ideal of the sad, proud Freikorps, and he will have watched the rest of the world struggle on through cultural revolution and economic depression until the whole mess was more than ready to blow all over again, and then he, having earned the wings he will wear on his chest, will have taken to the sky, part of the 133rd Squadron of American volunteers, during the height of the Blitz.
He will almost have forgotten why he has come, by the time he hears the familiar name. He will have been promoted to Squadron Leader, and a successful one, at that; he will have discovered he has a particular brand of ruthlessness that serves a fighter pilot well. It is a strange satisfaction--he will have pushed the memories of his past lives away, in favor of the here and now. Now, he is a hero. A real hero.
Then he will meet Captain Jack Harkness, and after all this time, he will feel that Time is not an enemy, but a lover, gently welcoming him home. The feeling will be powerful; it will nearly sweep him off his feet.
"Have we met before?" Captain Harkness will ask, extending a hand to shake it.
"I don't think so, sir," James Harper will say with a grin. "I would have remembered."
This time, he will swear to himself, nothing will make him let Jack Harkness go. Not falling bombs, not jealous lovers, not the hatred of men, not arrogant, time-travelling Doctors. And not the goddamned Luftwaffe.
Becoming lovers will be at once easier and more challenging for being posted to the same Squadron. They will be more physically available to each other, yet more closely scrutinized as well. Jack will sense the fear in the Captain, and he won't push...won't let them do anything too dangerous, despite the way he yearns for him, the way his body begins to physically crave his touch. Even if all they ever get are stolen moments, Jack will think, it will be worth it. They'll make it through the war, they'll get away to somewhere, where they can be together. In the meantime, he will discover a closeness he never could have imagined. He is Captain Harkness' wingman...flying second position behind him when they go on sortie. Watching the elegant little Spitfire just ahead and to his right, the sun gleaming on its wings, its swift sure movements all controlled by those hands he knows so well...will give him an illicit, physical thrill. Even in the midst of war, he will feel a deep, strong peace within himself, unlike he's ever known.
Until the day that the blue police box will appear out of nowhere, while they are on 48-hour furlough in London. Hissing through his teeth, Jack, who has gone outside the club for a leak, will watch it warily. Is the Doctor appearing to him, now, he'll wonder, or is he accidentally running across the TARDIS in another timeline? The question will be answered when the Doctor emerges, in his previous incarnation, the one that Jack has [did, will, will have, would have] met with Rose. Not long from now. Or will it have already happened? The Doctor, holding a small funny-looking device (they're all funny looking, Jack will realize...he's gotten used to the machines of this day and age), will look up at him in unpleasant surprise.
"It's you," he'll say.
"Me what?" Jack will ask, warily. He doesn't know if this Doctor knows [has known, will know, knew] him, and so he keeps quiet on that.
"You're causing it! The Rift in space and Time!"
Jack will have an unpleasant feeling in the pit of his stomach at those words, and he'll back away, escaping, returning to the life he now wants. "I don't know what the hell you're talking about. Are you nuts, or what?"
The Doctor will glare at him, those stern green eyes he once [adored, will adore, would have adored?] boring holes into him. "James Harper. Or is it Jack Harkness? You've been running in and out of Time like a...a needle in cloth!" The Doctor will wave his hands erratically to illustrate. "Only you're not stitching anything together, you're tearing it apart! Always 1941...why always 1941? What is it you want here?"
"Is there a problem?" Captain Harkness' voice will cut smoothly across the Doctor's, as he comes up behind Jack, arms folded lightly on his chest. Jack's expression will say it all, and the Doctor will lean in closer to him, almost threatening.
"You can't do this, Jack! Everything's falling apart! You can't save him!"
"Hey, pal...I think you'd better lay off..." Captain Jack will say, that smoky voice starting to sound threatening, itself. And Jack, taking his tense arm by the elbow, will steer them away.
"Come on. He's obviously crazy." He'll ignore the Doctor's warning shouts behind them.
It will shake him, though. When next on sortie, when they scramble in the early morning and race towards the southern coast to intercept a squadron of encroaching Me-109's, he'll be distracted. Two Messerschmitts flying in a two-man weave will get him in their crosshairs before he knows what they're doing, and he'll feel bullets chew at the rudder of his Spitfire.
"James!" The voice on the radio will be filled with a tightly controlled panic. Captain Harkness will break formation and do a tight reverse-Immelman, barrel-rolling onto the tail of one of the 109's, above and behind Jack's plane. Pumping it with a prolonged five-second burst, the Captain will send the enemy spiralling out of control to his death, only to be caught by the 109's wingman as they both flash past Jack, the 109's cannon ripping chunks out of Captain Jack's Spitfire. Jack will curse, throw his plane into a high yo-yo, zooming higher than, and around back behind the enemy, and hit the trigger, hoping to rake the 109 as he passes across its axis. Captain Jack has already split to the deck, smoke trailing, diving low so he can gain speed to help his ailing plane climb back into the fight. Jack will pursue the Messerschmitt with a vengeance born of panic, and even when the German's plane bursts into flames, he won't stop shooting for several seconds.
He won't stop shaking until much later that night at the Officer's Club, putting back the fourth whiskey that Captain Harkness buys him.
"You could die at any time," he will tell his concerned lover later, in his quarters.
"I think we both know that's a possibility," Captain Jack will concede, his voice soothing, leaning against the door frame still in his flight jacket. "What's got you thinking of it all of a sudden? Just what happened up there today?"
"Yeah. I guess so." Jack's eyes will plead with him; he'll want to tell him all about the fear of losing him, about all of the last words he's had to hear before Captain Jack dies. But he won't; he'll let his kiss convey it instead. "I have to hold onto you," he'll tell the Captain. "I can't let you go." His hands will grip the Captain by the jacket as their breath mingles.
"You have to let go sometime," Captain Jack Harkness will say, joking gently. He'll be meaning his coat, backed against the wall as he is, pinned securely in the half-darkness of Jack's wartime quarters, but years later, in May of 1945, Jack will think of those words again, and they will burn him.
The official notice will have all the standard wording. Regret to inform. Died in captivity. It will have been nearly a year since Captain Jack's Mustang plunged into the earth. Jack will have held out hope, because he saw the 'chute. Flew his own plane in ever-tightening, grieving circles above where the white silk deployed: a message. I'm still here. I won't give up. I won't let you go. Now a Lieutenant Colonel, commander of the squadron they will both have transferred to once America's Army Air Corps needed them, it will be Jack's job to sign the paper that goes to Major Harkness' family. He will wonder, as he does so...was it enough? Three and a half years in wartime...flying nearly wing-to-wing...was it enough for him? And he'll also think, what were the last words they spoke this time? Never I love you...never you are everything to me. Something mundane. "Check your six." "Break left." "How about another drink?" You have to let go sometime.
But no, Jack will think. Not yet.
***
Space and Time, fragmenting. It actually looked quite beautiful. Like the sun flashing on the wings of a Spitfire, like the light through the Perspex canopy. He knew that even though he was leader of Torchwood back [forward] in 2007, fighting the monsters that came through on occasion, everything was ending, really. That's how the story went: "...and then Time ripped itself to pieces, the end." He knew that because he'd been there at the start and at the finish, hundreds of times. He was a fixed point, threading back and forth through unfixed Time. The Rift revolved around him. It revolved around doomed love. If he were more of a Romantic (with a capital R), Jack might have thought that was pretty poetic. A worthy end to the universe. But all he could feel was a regret, a bitterness that got grimmer every time he couldn't save Captain Jack Harkness from death.
He could think of it all, even now, if he closed his eyes and let logic be done away with:
They danced at the Ritz, countless times. Each time just as poignant, each time just as desperate. It was always the young Captain's first dance, his first kiss. Sometimes the first time he'd had sex with a man.
A couple of times they were in the same squadron, wingmen. Those times Jack cherished, particularly--that closeness that was more than being lovers, more than being friends. A bond of war.
There was even a time when they survived, and the war ended, only for Captain Jack to be killed by a memento the Germans left behind--some UXB buried in the ground outside of their Paris hotel. "I'll only be gone a minute," Captain Jack had said. They'd been celebrating the end of the fighting.
Jack looked out of the blacked-out window. Any second, he knew, the TARDIS was going to appear on this spot, in London during the Blitz. He could only hope that the Doctor was caught in the snare of Time, stuck in a previous incarnation and not aware of the now-murderous relationship between himself and Jack. At the end of the Universe, the Doctor and the Master, teamed up together in desperation against the force of entropy that Jack had become, tried to find a way to kill him. It had hurt, a lot. But it hadn't ended him. He had used to think that the gift of eternal life Rose had inadvertently given him was for some purpose, some great Reason. Now, he knew that there were no such things as reasons, and that love made people do very stupid things, and that he didn't care. He was immortal; why should he care? Maybe if he fucked everything up enough, the entirety of existence would end, and he would finally die.
And then he could go wherever the dead go...where Captain Jack had gone. Or at least, he'd never have to see him die again.
Like he had just a week ago. Jack, wearing full RAF uniform but without a name, [except in his mind. The only name that mattered. The one he hadn't even taken yet] had walked right up to the young Group Captain, gazed into those eyes that hadn't yet turned sad, and asked if he could buy him a drink. Captain Harkness had smiled, Jack remembered oddly, as though he'd been expecting him. "Sure, Captain," that rough-soft voice had said. And, with a peculiar curiosity, "Where do I know you from?"
"Whiskey neat?" Jack had asked, fingers almost touching the Captain's as they rested on the bartop. That earned an amused smile, a quick glint in the green-gold eyes.
"Now how did you know that?"
"It's the same every time," Jack had said, his laugh wistful.
"We've met before." It hadn't exactly been a question; the Captain's eyes gazed into Jack's with an intensity that men who have just met each other do not tend to exhibit. Not in 1941, anyway. Jack had swallowed a bit hard, handing Captain Jack his drink.
"Hundreds of times," he'd said, and sitting at a table on the upstairs balcony, he'd told Captain Jack everything. The Captain had blown out a slow breath, gaze never leaving Jack's, and leaned back in his chair.
"You've travelled through time...you know what happens?" His face, serious, holding onto this knowledge, turning it in his mind. Jack could see every cell of him absorbing it: a kenning that went beyond concepts of belief or disbelief.
"Time isn't like that...things can change. I've known you.....I've...I've loved you....so many times. But no matter what I do, you die."
He hadn't been able to hide the tremor in his voice or the tears in his eyes. He didn't know why he'd told Captain Jack, really; it didn't matter, would make no difference. The next time he saw him--if there was a next time--the Captain would not know him, or know that he'd said any of it. The Captain watched him, watched his face caught between fresh pain and resignation, and then he had leaned forward and taken Jack's hand, gently.
"That's quite a love story," he'd said, his voice low. "And...I'm glad I got so many chances to know you, even if I don't know it." The grin had been the same-soft, kind, accepting. Jack's heart had seized up for the millionth time (but who was counting?) and he'd lowered his head to hide his tears. Clinging to that hand, he'd felt something new...a warmth of acceptance. It was like breaking a limb, or being shot. It was like that tingle just before the pain got too deep to hurt. He'd scarcely been able to breathe because of it.
They had danced.
Jack had held the Captain tight, eyes closed in the music of that beating heart, and as he felt it thump away so innocently, so finitely, he had suddenly known what he had to do.
He had to let this be. He had to let Captain Jack die as a hero.
Now as he waited for the TARDIS, for the roar of Time's fragmentation, for the end, or the beginning, he didn't know which--Jack thought back to that night a week ago, when he'd finally been able to choose the last words that they would say.
"I love you."
And Captain Jack had only paused a moment, to look into his eyes, searching briefly for something he finally found there.
"I love you, too."
***
The last time that Jack goes back to 1941, Time itself is ending. It's weird, he thinks, that this is everything he's been taught to fear--the be-all, end-all of Things That Are Not Supposed To Happen. Yet, he doesn't feel particularly bad about it, even though it's really all his fault, as the Doctor explained. He doesn't care. He's seen the end of the Universe, and he's paid his price in spades.
He waits now, listening to and feeling the hum of the TARDIS around him as she materializes in the air. It was a long shot to try and talk the Doctor into doing what he's going to do, but Time is ending, after all, so what does it matter?
He sees on the viewscreen, watching as though it's a movie, as the Messerschmitts congregate on that Spitfire. He is taken again by its beauty, the way it dances in the hands of Jack Harkness. Two of the enemy planes pound it with cannon fire, and the slim little machine shakes and screams. The "JH" designator on the fuselage is ripped apart as great chunks of the Spitfire fly through the air. Jack watches as it is destroyed. He watches Captain Jack die a hero.
And just at the right moment, with a nod from the Doctor, sitting across the console, he uses the energy of the TARDIS to reach out, to gently pluck the dead pilot from the fireball of his plane as it plummets, like Pegasus, to earth. He feels the energy, like a huge hand, closing around that stilled heart, that shattered body. And he holds the Captain close.
There are some benefits, Jack now realizes, to never being able to die. One of them is that no matter how much life you give away, you won't run out.
So when Captain Jack Harkness, now lying on the floor of the TARDIS swaddled in a pulsating light that heals his broken body, opens his eyes and looks up, Jack knows two things.
He knows that the whirring silence around them is the sound of Time not ending.
And he knows that there won't be any last words this time.
He gasps slightly as the power of the TARDIS ebbs from his body, leaving his nerves singing. He looks down into Captain Harkness' wondering face, those dark-lashed eyes the color of sunlight on water, gazing up into his own as though for the first time, and he grins down at him.
"Hello, stranger."