wojelah: A Fading Land (Nine/Jack) [G] - SUMMER HOLIDAYS, PROMPT 6
Title: A Fading Land
Author: wojelah
Pairing: Nine/Jack
Rating: G
Spoilers/warnings: None.
Summary: “Nothing's ever done.... No matter what you do, or what you pretend, the past is there. You can't ignore it.” JOHN SAUL, When the Wind Blows. (Title is from Henry Abbey’s Invocation to the Sun: “Our yesterdays/ Are like a lonely and a ruined land/ Wherein a breeze of recollection sighs--/ A fading land to which is no return.”)
Prompt: Apuk, Ninth Year after the Storm, Flaming Bay, ships
---
There is a stretch of shoreline on the planet Telos, a day’s transit from the capital of Apuk, of spectacular beauty. They call it the Flaming Bay. The skies there are legendary - they have been since the first colonists arrived nearly six hundred years ago.
That first ancient ship hadn’t actually been looking for Apuk. Blown astray by forces too subtle for its crude equipment to understand, the ship’s cryo-pilot had engaged the emergency sequence, searching for a friendly atmosphere. The first colonists stumbled onto the bridge and stood staring. The captain hadn’t remembered to log the Awakening in real-time, but his evening entry managed to convey the moment.
Such colors - the reds, the golds, the streaks of living white - after so long asleep, they burnt the eyes and made us weep. We knew then that we would stay. Of course we would. How could we leave such brilliance for the cold, bleak depths of space-sleep?
Captain Jacobs, Jack Harkness reflected, might have been overwhelmed, but he wasn’t exaggerating. Jack himself can’t stop staring.
That, actually, might be a problem, since Jack’s here on business. Agency business, and he's on a sort of unspoken quasi-probation, so he’s got to stop gawking and get on with it.
Because the thing is, Captain Jacobs’ entry didn’t exist until two standard galactic days ago, according to the Agency’s static clock. Two days ago, Apuk was just another podunk town under ordinary skies. Today, Apuk is a bustling metropolis with a major tourism base, thanks to those splendid streaks of red and yellow and orange, and as far as anyone not tied to the static clock knows, it’s been that way forever.
Suffice it to say, the Agency’s curious.
Not so curious as to wage a full-scale intervention - not yet, and certainly not immediately. There’ve been an awful lot of eddies in the timestream in the last two days. Apuk’s the mildest of a lot of extremely chaotic changes.
Jack’s under no illusions. He’s here because he’s good. But he’s also here because he's in deep shit - because of the way his last mission had backfired spectacularly. They won’t be pairing him with Hart again, that’s for damn sure. Jack’s not entirely sure he’s not going to be tied to a desk for the next sixteen shift-turns. Only Jack’s good, setting the extremely rare, if epic, disaster aside. And although Jack’s disasters are hard to miss, even then, he’s always managed to accomplish the goal. So when Time went to hell and They needed anyone with any experience out in the field, Jack had just waited for orders. And he got them - even if They managed to put him in the least interesting location possible, and under strict marching orders: investigation only. Don’t interfere.
So Jack’s sitting at a small tourist bar on the shoreline of the Flaming Bay, pretending to sip at an alcoholic drink colored a spectacular shade of purple, watching data flow by on his ocular implant, and finding absolutely nothing.
“Y’ won’t find anything,” someone slurs behind him. “Nothin’ there your tech knows how to read.”
Jack stiffens and turns. There’s a brief impression of someone tall and dark, a suspicion of black leather and a battered face, and then Jack Harkness literally forgets himself.
---
Jack wakes up gasping. The Doctor’s pulled his hand away, but the feeling of cool pressure lingers at Jack’s temples. Jack closes his eyes again and tries to process.
“That was you.” Jack’s not asking. It’s the vaguest of impressions - not anything he would have caught at the time, or even now, if he hadn’t been immersed in his memory, watching himself, thanks to the Doctor’s intervention.
The Doctor jams his hands in his pockets and looks away. “Sort of, yeah.”
“What -” Jack stops. Tries to think. “That was you, and that was... after.”
“Yeah.”
Jack shoves himself up till he’s sitting, holding his head in the hopes it will keep it from feeling like it’s going to fall off. “Those skies. That was...”
“The aftermath. Yeah. It still is. Always will be.” The Doctor doesn’t move.
Jack doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t know what he could say. Doesn’t know what he doesn’t remember. Doesn’t know what happened next. There’s something jagged caught in his throat. He just watches the Doctor. Watches, and waits, and eventually the Doc looks back at him. “It’s okay,” Jack says at last. “I don’t need to know that badly. Not badly enough to drag you back to then.”
The Doctor doesn’t say a word. He just stands there, looking at Jack, his face unreadable.
Jack's not tied to the static clock any longer. Even if he were, he's in the middle of the Vortex with a being out of legend. He's pretty sure standard galactic doesn’t apply. So Jack has no idea how long it takes until the Doctor reaches out a hand and touches his temple, until the two of them are standing again in the past, staring at a bleeding sky.
Author: wojelah
Pairing: Nine/Jack
Rating: G
Spoilers/warnings: None.
Summary: “Nothing's ever done.... No matter what you do, or what you pretend, the past is there. You can't ignore it.” JOHN SAUL, When the Wind Blows. (Title is from Henry Abbey’s Invocation to the Sun: “Our yesterdays/ Are like a lonely and a ruined land/ Wherein a breeze of recollection sighs--/ A fading land to which is no return.”)
Prompt: Apuk, Ninth Year after the Storm, Flaming Bay, ships
---
There is a stretch of shoreline on the planet Telos, a day’s transit from the capital of Apuk, of spectacular beauty. They call it the Flaming Bay. The skies there are legendary - they have been since the first colonists arrived nearly six hundred years ago.
That first ancient ship hadn’t actually been looking for Apuk. Blown astray by forces too subtle for its crude equipment to understand, the ship’s cryo-pilot had engaged the emergency sequence, searching for a friendly atmosphere. The first colonists stumbled onto the bridge and stood staring. The captain hadn’t remembered to log the Awakening in real-time, but his evening entry managed to convey the moment.
Such colors - the reds, the golds, the streaks of living white - after so long asleep, they burnt the eyes and made us weep. We knew then that we would stay. Of course we would. How could we leave such brilliance for the cold, bleak depths of space-sleep?
Captain Jacobs, Jack Harkness reflected, might have been overwhelmed, but he wasn’t exaggerating. Jack himself can’t stop staring.
That, actually, might be a problem, since Jack’s here on business. Agency business, and he's on a sort of unspoken quasi-probation, so he’s got to stop gawking and get on with it.
Because the thing is, Captain Jacobs’ entry didn’t exist until two standard galactic days ago, according to the Agency’s static clock. Two days ago, Apuk was just another podunk town under ordinary skies. Today, Apuk is a bustling metropolis with a major tourism base, thanks to those splendid streaks of red and yellow and orange, and as far as anyone not tied to the static clock knows, it’s been that way forever.
Suffice it to say, the Agency’s curious.
Not so curious as to wage a full-scale intervention - not yet, and certainly not immediately. There’ve been an awful lot of eddies in the timestream in the last two days. Apuk’s the mildest of a lot of extremely chaotic changes.
Jack’s under no illusions. He’s here because he’s good. But he’s also here because he's in deep shit - because of the way his last mission had backfired spectacularly. They won’t be pairing him with Hart again, that’s for damn sure. Jack’s not entirely sure he’s not going to be tied to a desk for the next sixteen shift-turns. Only Jack’s good, setting the extremely rare, if epic, disaster aside. And although Jack’s disasters are hard to miss, even then, he’s always managed to accomplish the goal. So when Time went to hell and They needed anyone with any experience out in the field, Jack had just waited for orders. And he got them - even if They managed to put him in the least interesting location possible, and under strict marching orders: investigation only. Don’t interfere.
So Jack’s sitting at a small tourist bar on the shoreline of the Flaming Bay, pretending to sip at an alcoholic drink colored a spectacular shade of purple, watching data flow by on his ocular implant, and finding absolutely nothing.
“Y’ won’t find anything,” someone slurs behind him. “Nothin’ there your tech knows how to read.”
Jack stiffens and turns. There’s a brief impression of someone tall and dark, a suspicion of black leather and a battered face, and then Jack Harkness literally forgets himself.
---
Jack wakes up gasping. The Doctor’s pulled his hand away, but the feeling of cool pressure lingers at Jack’s temples. Jack closes his eyes again and tries to process.
“That was you.” Jack’s not asking. It’s the vaguest of impressions - not anything he would have caught at the time, or even now, if he hadn’t been immersed in his memory, watching himself, thanks to the Doctor’s intervention.
The Doctor jams his hands in his pockets and looks away. “Sort of, yeah.”
“What -” Jack stops. Tries to think. “That was you, and that was... after.”
“Yeah.”
Jack shoves himself up till he’s sitting, holding his head in the hopes it will keep it from feeling like it’s going to fall off. “Those skies. That was...”
“The aftermath. Yeah. It still is. Always will be.” The Doctor doesn’t move.
Jack doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t know what he could say. Doesn’t know what he doesn’t remember. Doesn’t know what happened next. There’s something jagged caught in his throat. He just watches the Doctor. Watches, and waits, and eventually the Doc looks back at him. “It’s okay,” Jack says at last. “I don’t need to know that badly. Not badly enough to drag you back to then.”
The Doctor doesn’t say a word. He just stands there, looking at Jack, his face unreadable.
Jack's not tied to the static clock any longer. Even if he were, he's in the middle of the Vortex with a being out of legend. He's pretty sure standard galactic doesn’t apply. So Jack has no idea how long it takes until the Doctor reaches out a hand and touches his temple, until the two of them are standing again in the past, staring at a bleeding sky.