Have pity on the general, the king, and the captain. [Locked]
Two weeks. Two weeks.
Somehow in two weeks, he's managed to find himself in a completely different version of a world that wasn't his own in the first place, reacquire an awkward relationship with his daughter, and somehow deeply upset a psychic girl, because somehow she's overly fond of a person who probably isn't worth being that upset over, but ( Read more... )
Somehow in two weeks, he's managed to find himself in a completely different version of a world that wasn't his own in the first place, reacquire an awkward relationship with his daughter, and somehow deeply upset a psychic girl, because somehow she's overly fond of a person who probably isn't worth being that upset over, but ( Read more... )
And as for April... The Vesmier has proven that Sark never manipulated her and given her reactions... Well, whatever the two of them is clearly genuine and given that description of April and what he already knew, it almost makes sense- young and dangerous, shaped into weapons by unfeeling hands. If he were capable of feeling sympathy for people like Sark, he almost would.
"It makes sense," he admits. "In my years of knowing Mr. Sark, he's always been one to keep situations in his advantage." And he knows Romana and Harkness both- Sark would have been torn to pieces by either of them if he had made it a point to actively stand against them. "However, this doesn't prove that, were Sark to be presented with an option to oppose the powers here with no immediate threat to his own life, he'd take the option."
Then again, throwing against this lot, he'd have to find himself an extremely powerful ally to succeed in that endeavor, but it doesn't change the fact that he could.
"That, however, is not important to the issue at hand. Sark will prove himself one way or the other and that bears no relation to what he's already done."
Even though Jack would be content not to let him commit any future crimes, but clearly that's not going to happen.
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And then, this is a topic whose complexity far exceeds that of Sark's previous actions, even as it's one he understands on a deeper level. Having access to to the thoughts and minds of most of the important players helped with that.
"John Thane," he says, "is a name I'm sure you've heard referenced. If not, then you have been deprived knowledge of perhaps the most important recent occurrence concerning Mr. Sark and Torchwood."
And the Doctor. And himself. And April.
"Some time ago, for reasons I will not discuss, Captain Harkness had cause to suspect that there was something latent in his subconscious which concerned him immensely. He went to Elashte, the local Neqa'el demon who had proved himself an ally to Torchwood in the past, who discovered a buried packet of memories, sealed off and safeguarded. At Captain Harkness' request he brought the memories to the surface, inadvertently suppressing the original consciousness and allowing the packet to become its own conscious entity, a Time Agency Instagur who called himself John Thane."
His tone dips. Not much, barely perceptible, but for a man with the iron self-control the Vesmier so normally displays, it's an indication of how deep his antipathy for this entire chain of events runs.
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He was, for that period of time, the party exerting the most control over the situation. Granted, he was unpredictable and insane, but operating against him was likely the most dangerous of all options. More dangerous than avoiding the conflict entirely, certainly.
"Mr. Sark came to me when it was clear that April had been captured. I recommended him to the TARDIS, and tey made their first, unsuccessful, rescue attempt. When that failed he asked to assist Torchwood in the rescue efforts, gaining what intelligence he could in exploring the area around Instagur Thane's station."
He exhales.
"The crux of the issue," he says, and he's seen this from more than one side, now - his own perceptions when Sark came to him, what he gleaned from being so totally in Thane's head when he was, "is, I imagine, what happened when he went to retrieve April on his own. A separate variant of the Doctor had developed a psychic amplifier which we hoped to deliver into Thane's presence so that I could remotely undo the damage Elashte had caused. Mr. Sark wished to be the one to deliver the device, believing that his Rift-given ability to become invisible might give him a greater tactical advantage. I recommended him to Torchwood for the role."
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"We did not adequately anticipate the safeguards Instagur Thane had at his disposal. Mr. Sark was captured, the device destroyed before I could complete my part of the plan, and because-"
Because the driving impetus beneath Thane's experience of the world was hatred, and jealousy, and rage...
"-Instagur Thane operated under the assumption that he had some claim to April and because April sought to protect Mr. Sark from his retribution, Mr. Sark became the immediate target of Instagur Thane's ire, and narrowly escaped being killed and having his dismembered corpse sent back to Torchwood as an object lesson."
His voice, strange as it is, is still calm. He will not lose that calm. Tis is hardly the most distasteful thing he has ever had to explain, and Mr. Bristow is hardly as trying as the Gallifreyan Senate.
"Thane injured him and left him with fourteen hours to present a plan by which Torchwood would be discouraged from further rescue attempts, with the ultimatum that if he could not, he would suffer more grievous injury than had earlier been threatened. At the end of this time Mr. Sark presented the scenario that Instagur Thane kill one of the other prisoners, Dmitri Lang, and Thane refused to accept it. In part to remove all reason for Mr. Sark to stage another rescue attempt and in part as a gesture of revenge against both Mr. Sark and April, Instagur Thane put forth a scenario by which he killed April and let Sark go free to carry the news of the rescue attempt's disastrous outcome. Mr. Sark unhappily accepted."
And thus found himself in the situation he's in now.
"He returned to Torchwood after securing the escort of your daughter, Sydney Bristow, and made a compelling argument for his own incarceration. There he has remained since. I spoke with him once, between then and now; even after learning of April's survival, he preferred to remain imprisoned. He said that he was not prepared to return out of his self-imposed exile."
And there he pauses, for a moment.
"While I cannot absolutely discount the idea that this is part of some deeper strategem, I find myself unable to convince myself of any semblance of logic therein. It is true that I would not be eager to place him in a situation which might again strain his control to the point where a third party would be substituted for him in retribution, but I am more inclined to regard his imprisonment as a gesture of guilt and contrition. Then, all I know is what I have observed or come to know since his arrival in Chicago. Certainly, you are free to form your own conclusions."
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And there's what he's missing- what no one ever said, but might have been deeply insinuated. What Jack refused to believe, because it was just so unlike everything he knew about Julian Sark, but somehow makes a certain amount of sense in this context. Sark did something for April that he, himself, would have done for Sydney and part of him won't let that sway his decision and the other part almost understands, but a strong bias and the fact that Sark didn't live up to his own bravado keeps the latter emotion from winning out. If Jack's going to insert himself into this scenario, he knows that he'd have sacrificed a great many people to keep Sydney alive, but his own life would have been the very first to be forfeited.
So the understanding is held to only certain degrees and maybe if he analyzed Sark's mental state, considered everything he noted when he went to visit him, and pulled that together with what he knows about Sark, he might come up with a valid psychological excuse for his actions that wouldn't forgive anything, but it would at least be better than just assuming that Sark was too much of a coward to follow through on his own bravado and take responsibility for his own failures.
And that explains Sydney's involvement, which removes some level of suspicion and he half-wonders if maybe Sark was telling the truth about keeping his daughter out of this entire affair. Knowing what a stubborn woman she can be, it's almost hard for him to imagine her being able to keep herself out of it, and... God, if she had fallen in with that..
...Not the important thing here.
And those are words he's never heard in conjunction with Sark before: guilt and contrition. And, oh, he'd love to explain to the Vesmier in great detail how much guilt Sark felt when he was holding Neil Caplan's wife and son hostage or how much absolution he sought after he murdered hundreds of people for profit and personal gain, but that almost doesn't apply anymore, does it? He keeps using that as the basis of his opinion, but Sark's not an agent of any organization anymore, really, and somewhere in all this, it's finally hit him that he's villainizing and well-trained dog with no master whose sole problem is that he's never learned not to bite.
Does that mean he trusts him? Absolutely not. Does that he mean he wouldn't still love to be rid of him? No. All it means is that he's gained a perspective he didn't have before, which means he really doesn't know what the proper course of action in this circumstance is. He's not inviting Sark back into his fold just yet- not unless Sark can prove himself worthy of that much trust.
And then there's Dmitri.
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Which is a fucking understatement if he's ever heard one.
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"There is no survivor of this ordeal," he says simply, "whose actions, inactions, or circumstance provide for a resolution of the various issues of concern considered palatable to all parties. What we can do now is to attempt a resolution. I am under no illusion tat it will be easy to obtain."
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"I suppose we'll just have to bring all the parties together and go from there in the most diplomatic manner possible."
Dear God, when did he start sounding like Barnett? The fact that he's in this situation at all is becoming moderately surreal to him. Psychology is something he has enough of a grasp on to be a good manipulator, but he's nowhere near the type to be able to fix something like this. And diplomacy is something he has only has enough of a concept of to get by. Really, his involvement could end here, but someone has to stand on Dmitri's side of things- might as well be him and he's already involved anyway.
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Not even all other Time Lords can claim that tendency.
"If all parties are amenable to diplomacy, I offer my services to mediate." It may or may not do any good, but he's bound to try.
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