Redux: Jack/Yana, R
Title: Redux
Author: Becky_H
Character(s): Professor Yana, Jack.
Genre: Gen
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Utopia, the Sound of Drums, Last of the Time Lords.
Warnings: Nope.
Word Count: 650
Prompt: DoctorWho_100 Prompt 41: Human
Summary: End of the universe, take two. Jack gets a reminder about what being human really means. Stream of consciousness.
Author's Notes: Written fast, furious, and ridiculously early in the morning.
Jack's old. His hair's liberally streaked with gray, there are lines etched around his eyes and mouth, and his knees ache when it's cold. He's winding down. So is the universe.
He's been here before. He's seen this before. He remembers the Doctor's remark about finding himself out there. The only man you'll be happy with, he'd said. It hadn't been true. It still wasn't.
The Master's been here, for a while. Soon the Doctor will arrive, and with him Martha and a younger, stupider, version of himself. Jack thinks about stopping it all here, before it starts. What harm's it going to do? That year never happened, anyway.
It's a rhetorical question, meant to distract him from the real one: What will happen to me? There's an echo of an earlier question there, and another answer. Live as a Dalek, or die as a human. He's not answering for all of humanity this time. Humanity's dead, either way.
He still doesn't know if he'll ever have that mercy.
He goes in search of the Master, and finds Professor Yana. With the benefit of having lived it once already, he knows the Professor is nothing more than a construct, a disguise and a way to survive the Time War.
He thinks he knows, anyway.
It takes him days to get to the compound, and even longer to get to the Professor himself. Jack's still thinking he's going to kill the man, break his neck like he should have all those centuries ago, and save - .
Jack stops lying to himself, abruptly. He can't save the world, humanity, or the universe. It's out of his control. He probably can't even save himself more than a few memories. What difference does it make? None of it happened.
He's determined. He's still going to do it. He'd rather end with the universe than take even the risk of surviving it as a creature from a Gallifreyan fairy-tale and the Master's nightmares.
He stays committed to action right until he's back in that room and watching Yana bullshit what's left of the human race into hope. He watches the earnest determination, the desperation, and imagines he can see despair beneath it. The Professor knows he's lying, Jack realizes. He tries to tell himself there's sinister purpose - that it's meant to keep them under his control.
Jack can't even convince himself. That man's not lying, he just can't take away their hope. The human need to believe, the drive to act, and the fight to survive. In this wasteland hell at the end of everything, the man who has been, and will become, the Master, is preserving the very essence of humanity.
Jack waits for his opportunity, watches for it and in the end helps manufacture the moment alone he needs to do what he's sure is the right thing.
He follows the Professor, with the practiced silence of millennia and a predator. Yana's back is to Jack. He has no idea that he's not alone. Jack watches him rummage around a drawer and then stop and rub a hand over his face.
"Professor," Jack says, and touches his shoulder.
The Professor turns at his name, and lets his hands fall. He doesn't look guilty. He doesn't look sinister. He looks as old and tired as Jack feels, and more human than Jack can remember being. Jack looks at him for a long moment, the Professor steadily growing more confused as he waits for Jack to go on.
Jack doesn't know what happens next. He doesn't know what's going to happen to him. He'll take his chances. He's not going to stop being human today.
"Let me help you," Jack finally finishes, with a grin that time has creased, but not dimmed.
_______________
Continues in Worst Case Scenario
Author: Becky_H
Character(s): Professor Yana, Jack.
Genre: Gen
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Utopia, the Sound of Drums, Last of the Time Lords.
Warnings: Nope.
Word Count: 650
Prompt: DoctorWho_100 Prompt 41: Human
Summary: End of the universe, take two. Jack gets a reminder about what being human really means. Stream of consciousness.
Author's Notes: Written fast, furious, and ridiculously early in the morning.
Jack's old. His hair's liberally streaked with gray, there are lines etched around his eyes and mouth, and his knees ache when it's cold. He's winding down. So is the universe.
He's been here before. He's seen this before. He remembers the Doctor's remark about finding himself out there. The only man you'll be happy with, he'd said. It hadn't been true. It still wasn't.
The Master's been here, for a while. Soon the Doctor will arrive, and with him Martha and a younger, stupider, version of himself. Jack thinks about stopping it all here, before it starts. What harm's it going to do? That year never happened, anyway.
It's a rhetorical question, meant to distract him from the real one: What will happen to me? There's an echo of an earlier question there, and another answer. Live as a Dalek, or die as a human. He's not answering for all of humanity this time. Humanity's dead, either way.
He still doesn't know if he'll ever have that mercy.
He goes in search of the Master, and finds Professor Yana. With the benefit of having lived it once already, he knows the Professor is nothing more than a construct, a disguise and a way to survive the Time War.
He thinks he knows, anyway.
It takes him days to get to the compound, and even longer to get to the Professor himself. Jack's still thinking he's going to kill the man, break his neck like he should have all those centuries ago, and save - .
Jack stops lying to himself, abruptly. He can't save the world, humanity, or the universe. It's out of his control. He probably can't even save himself more than a few memories. What difference does it make? None of it happened.
He's determined. He's still going to do it. He'd rather end with the universe than take even the risk of surviving it as a creature from a Gallifreyan fairy-tale and the Master's nightmares.
He stays committed to action right until he's back in that room and watching Yana bullshit what's left of the human race into hope. He watches the earnest determination, the desperation, and imagines he can see despair beneath it. The Professor knows he's lying, Jack realizes. He tries to tell himself there's sinister purpose - that it's meant to keep them under his control.
Jack can't even convince himself. That man's not lying, he just can't take away their hope. The human need to believe, the drive to act, and the fight to survive. In this wasteland hell at the end of everything, the man who has been, and will become, the Master, is preserving the very essence of humanity.
Jack waits for his opportunity, watches for it and in the end helps manufacture the moment alone he needs to do what he's sure is the right thing.
He follows the Professor, with the practiced silence of millennia and a predator. Yana's back is to Jack. He has no idea that he's not alone. Jack watches him rummage around a drawer and then stop and rub a hand over his face.
"Professor," Jack says, and touches his shoulder.
The Professor turns at his name, and lets his hands fall. He doesn't look guilty. He doesn't look sinister. He looks as old and tired as Jack feels, and more human than Jack can remember being. Jack looks at him for a long moment, the Professor steadily growing more confused as he waits for Jack to go on.
Jack doesn't know what happens next. He doesn't know what's going to happen to him. He'll take his chances. He's not going to stop being human today.
"Let me help you," Jack finally finishes, with a grin that time has creased, but not dimmed.
_______________
Continues in Worst Case Scenario