Merlin/TW: Once and Future 2/2
Title: Once and Future
Author: Mad Maudlin
Fandom: Merlin/Torchwood (with one tiny reference to Sanctuary in there)
Pairings: Merlin/Arthur, Jack/Ianto, Merlin/Jack
Rating: PG-13
Length: 11,300
Summary: Four times Merlin Emrys met Jack Harkness (and one time he met Jack Harkness)
A/N: Thanks to misscake for the beta!
Link to Part One
(1941 A.D.
Harkness watched his boys cross the airstrip, chatting and joking with each other as if this were any other training flight and not their last qualifier. Only a couple of them were shooting him backwards glances, awkward or sneering or just plain wary. He'd known what he was doing at the dance last night, he'd known-and done it anyway, just for the chance to feel safe for a moment in Captain Harper's arms. He may have destroyed his career in the process, but he knew deep down that he'd do it again in a heartbeat.
"Excuse me," a voice called, and he turned to see a tall, thin man in civilian attire approaching from the other side of the airstrip. His face was mostly hidden by a large scarf and a hat turned down against a light rain, but Harkness could see high cheekbones and striking blue eyes. "Excuse me, Captain, sorry to bother you, but are you with the 133rd?"
"That's right," Jack said. "Can I help you?"
"Perhaps, perhaps not," the man said. "I'm looking for someone-two someones, actually, but one is rather more likely to be here than the other."
That seemed cryptic, but Jack shrugged. "I'm about to take off, but if you talk to the secretary inside that building there--" He pointed, and the man followed his arm with a nod-- "she can do a review of personnel files."
Nod, nod; the man was wearing a greatcoat and clean trousers, like a business man, but it occurred to Harkness that he'd approached from the end of the airstrip opposite the entry gates. It didn't look like he'd hopped a fence-guys dressed like bankers aren't the fence-hopping sort-but he filed it away for future reference. The secretary would make sure the guy wasn't some Kraut spy, but it never hurt to be prepared. "Thank you," he said. "Thank you, Captain....?"
"Harkness," he said, and extended a hand. "Jack Harkness."
Surprisingly, the stranger blinked at him, and then peered closely at his face. "Seriously?" he blurted.)
2009 A.D.
They'd cleaned up the Hub, carefully gathering all the fragments of the shattered Dalek, tagging them for the archives or the morgue freezers as appropriate. They'd sent Martha and Gwen home to their husbands, and set up Mickey with a place to stay for a few days while he considered his options. They'd both showered and shaved, then had vigorous thank-god-we-survived sex on Jack's desk, and then showered again.
"I want to cook for you," Jack declared as he toweled himself off.
Ianto-already buttoned back up and listening to the police band, probably in case of any stray Dalek parts turning up-raised an eyebrow. "Cook, sir?"
"Cook. Yes." Jack dropped his towel back down the hatch and shrugged into his shirt. "I'm feeling domestic and I want to cook."
"Need I remind you of the Cheese Omelet Incident?" Ianto asked, fighting down a smile.
"That was one time," Jack said. "I can do better. We can run to Tesco's and get something that comes in a packet."
Ianto switched off the radio. "That doesn't sound very domestic at all, actually."
"Hey, in the future everything comes in packets," Jack said defensively. He got behind Ianto and crossed his arms around his waist, nuzzling his still-damp hair. "Some of my fondest childhood memories involve food from packets, actually. Just like Mom used to reheat."
"Well, far be it from me to disparage anyone's mum," Ianto said, catching one of Jack's hands in a squeeze. If he was surprised to hear Jack mention anything of his past, he didn't say anything-maybe he thought Jack would spook like a horse if he drew attention to the slip.
Jack wished he could assure him it wasn't a slip at all. That he was finally ready to talk about some things. Too many events had cut too close to the bone lately, and Jack was more worried than ever about holding on to what he had for as long as he could. It was more than worth the cost.
"Tesco's," he said instead, because he couldn't say the other part. Not just yet. "We'll go to Tesco's and buy horrible processed foods and then go your place and heat it up. First one to eat his weight in preservatives wins."
"That's disgusting," Ianto said without much ire. "And my place is a mess. It's unlivable."
Jack knew that by Ianto's standards a single sock on the floor could render a place unlivable, so he wasn't afraid. "I'll vacuum for you," he promised.
"You are feeling domestic, aren't you?" Ianto said with a small laugh, and turned around to kiss him. "All right. Just let me set the remote alerts on the Rift monitors."
The tourist office was in shambles-blown apart by the Daleks on their way into the Hub-so they took the invisible lift up to the Plass. Jack expected it to be empty, with people staying in their homes after yesterday's chaos (Yesterday? Already? He probably needed to sleep eventually.) Businesses and offices were closed, after all, and curfews were still in place. So he was a little surprised to see a single tall, thin figure standing near the water tower, watching it glitter in the summer sun.
Ianto, clearly, had developed equally paranoid instincts. "Think that's a problem?" he asked quietly, leaning slightly away from Jack without stepping out of the lift's protection.
"Probably just a really confused tourist," Jack said, though it was more a hope than an objective evaluation. He really, really wanted to go to Ianto's flat and spend the day playing Naked Chef; it just wouldn't be fair for another crisis to start right on top of the other.
As he spoke, the confused tourist turned around and looked straight at them, even though they were still on the lift. In case it wasn't completely obvious, he waved a little. Fairness, as usual, had very little to do with reality.
"Go get the SUV," Jack said quietly. "I'll talk to him." Ianto nodded, and started walking at a controlled pace towards the garage. As he crossed the Plass, Jack quickly checked out their visitor: humanoid, tall and thin, Caucasian with dark hair and a neat Van Dyke beard. He was dressed like any tourist, in khakis and a button-down shirt, and he had a red cardigan slung over his arm, and sunglasses. His posture was calm and still, neither threatening nor threatened, and he faced Jack as he approached. "Hi there," Jack called out once he was a few yards away.
"Hello, Jack," the man said, and removed his sunglasses.
The problem with time-travel, Jack reflected-not to mention immortality-was that deja-vu got to be a bitch. He looked at the man's face and his brain momentarily stuttered; he saw clearly, in his mind's eye, the same man without the beard, thousands of years ago, limned in gaslight, and at the same time the sightless sense-impression of an awkward, lonely youth who'd grown into a figure of unthinkable power. And there was something else, something even further back in the murk of years, one of those memories he hadn't repressed so much as chosen to let fade.
He reeled, only for a moment, though it felt like a lifetime, and when he pulled himself together he realized he was grinning. "Merlin," he said, and impulsively drew him into a hug.
"I go by Martin now," Merlin said in his ear, but returned the hug just as enthusiastically. "Martin Ambrose, actually. The old name was getting a bit too, ah, memorable."
"I know the feeling," Jack said. He pulled back and studied Merlin's face. He still had that timeless young-old look Jack remembered, though of course for him that liason had only been about a century ago; for Jack, the more recent memories were of silent conversations in his grave, whenever Merlin happened to be passing through the region that would become Cardiff. They had been rare, but they'd done wonders for reinforcing his sanity during his long and painful wait.
Merlin was studying him, too, but then his eyes shifted over Jack's shoulder. "So is that your Doctor, then?" he asked.
Jack glanced back at Ianto, who had stopped when he noticed the embrace, and laughed. "Oh, god, no. And don't let him hear you ask that or you'll give him a complex. I found the Doctor already."
"Get what you wanted?"
"In a way." Jack waved Ianto over, and-also in the interests of not giving him a complex-stepped back from Merlin's personal space a bit.
Merlin didn't seem to mind. "So who is he, then?"
"The one with the robot in the cellar," Jack said. "Not that you should mention you know about that, either, it's still...touchy subject."
"Huh," Merlin said. "And all this time I've been thinking they were the same person."
Jack snorted; their conversations had always focused more on Merlin's life, of course, but he couldn't believe he'd been that vague. "Clearly, we've got some catching up to do." Before Ianto got any closer, he added softly, "What about you? Find yours yet?"
Merlin sighed and shook his head. "I thought if anything would've qualified as Albion's darkest hour, it would have been yesterday...but of course, I thought that about Cromwell and the Blitz, too, and we all know how those turned out."
"Earth had someone better on the case this time," Jack said. Merlin raised an eyebrow at him. "Not that I'm disparaging the team you and Arthur make, of course, but...this one was better. So much better."
"Because you were involved?"
"I won't deny a significant contribution...."
Ianto was in earshot by then. "You know this man, sir?" he asked, folding his arms behind his back like he did when he was nervous.
"Oh, yeah, he's an old friend," Jack said. Then, catching Ianto's widened eyes, "The good kind of old friend, not the blow-up-all-Cardiff kind."
Merlin blinked. "Definitely need to catch up," he said.
"I never did give you all the details, did I?" Jack put his hand on Ianto's shoulder, and was rewarded with an incremental relaxation of his posture. Not that Ianto was ever actually relaxed (at least, not if he was fully conscious and upright) but it was better than nothing. "This is Ianto Jones, Torchwood's chief archivist, public relations officer, and human resources specialist. Ianto, meet Merlin."
"I wasn't aware I had some of those titles, sir," Ianto said, but he shook Merlin's hand with only a little hesitation.
"Well, you do now. I'm making them your titles," Jack said.
"I'm charmed to finally meet you after all this time," Merlin said.
Ianto glanced at Jack, and then Merlin, and Jack again, but he was too polite to say are you fucking shitting me? What he did say, with some hesitancy, was, "So...when you say you're Merlin...you mean..."
"Merlinus Ambrosius, court magician to King Arthur Pendragon, long may he reign," Merlin said, and even bowed slightly. "I ran into the Captain on a diplomatic visit to Glywysing about fifteen hundred years ago."
"Stepped on me, actually," Jack explained. "Luckily one of us scored higher than Basic 7 in telepathy, and we managed to strike up a conversation."
"I see," Ianto said, but he shot Jack a look that meant you are going to be explaining this later. "If you don't mind me saying, sir, I was under the impression you were sleeping in a hollow hill at present."
"And I heard you got turned into a tree by your girlfriend," Jack added with a wink.
Merlin sighed, and his eyes rolled briefly heavenward. "This is why I don't use my real name anymore. If they're not throwing me in a mental institution, they think my definitive biography came from Marion Zimmer Bradley."
"Oh, the price of fame," Jack said. "So what exactly brings you to the Plass today? You haven't exactly been seeking me out over the years..."
"You were the one who put the fear of ontological paradox into me," Merlin said. "But I'd noticed you'd gone missing when I stopped by in 1941, and I remembered that this year was the year you were waiting for...and the light show yesterday made it rather obvious where to look."
"It's already being incorporated into the general cover story," Ianto said, before Jack even had to ask. "It's quite amazing what you can get away with blaming on atmospheric disturbances."
Merlin laughed. It was still a nice laugh. "'Atmospheric disturbances,' right. I should've tried that one on Uther back in the day."
There was a moment of comfortable silence, there at the foot of the tower, and Jack was torn between two equally selfish impulses-to invite Merlin out somewhere, maybe for...whatever meal was temporally appropriate. (Lunch? Possibly lunch. His watch had stopped when the Dalek shot him.) Or to blow him off and go vacuum Ianto's flat. "How long are you going to be in Cardiff?" he asked, hoping to find a compromise.
"Not long," Merlin said. "I just wanted to check you up. Make certain you hadn't gone back to falling out of pubs."
"Oh, I outgrew that phase years ago," Jack said, aware of another quick look from Ianto. "Look, do you have email? Mobile phone?"
Merlin snorted. "For all the good it does me, yes. I still suspect the Luddites were on to something."
Jack rolled his eyes. "If you have trouble with mobiles, you're going to be tearing your hair out by the end of the century," he declared in his most dire voice. "Look, give me your number and the next time you're in Cardiff, we should get together for lunch or something."
"Sounds lovely," Merlin said, digging out a mobile that was at least six years old and liberally scratched and battered. "We could make a proper old-timer's convention of it and invite the Wandering Jew, as well. And I know this lovely young woman named Helen Magnus--"
Jack let out a bark of laughter. "Magnus? How do you know her?"
"How do you?" Merlin asked, looking bemused.
Jack rolled his eyes as he snatched Merlin's phone. "She's only been trying to collect me since 1903..."
5086 A.D.
The ISC Camelot was, from Merlin's point of view, the very definition of grasping at straws, but when one had a multi-galactic empire to search and only a matter of decades to do it in, thoroughness flew out the window. Certainly the census bureau's computers hadn't helped, as no conceivable variation on "Pendragon" had yielded results, while "Arthur" alone gave him twelve billion. And that didn't even count all the breakaway states and star-roving nomads and conquered worlds in lost galaxies. The remains of the Second Great and Bountiful Human Empire were a complicated place to be looking for a single man, even one with a destiny.
He had bought the identity of an agent of the Ministry of Secrets from a thoroughly disreputable demihuman in the Vegas Galaxies and talked his way aboard Camelot; this far from a core world there was little risk of being discovered, and it let him ask whatever he wanted without offering any complicated explanations. The captain was more than eager to help-- "Anything for the Empire, Dr. Emrys, anything-I'm an old Union man myself, and my father before me-anything for the Empire--" he kept saying, and insisted on giving a guided tour of the ship from docks to drives. Since Merlin still wasn't entirely sure what he was looking for, he went along with it, and prayed to the old, dead gods to show him what he needed to see.
Of course, he still didn't know what he'd do when he found him-Arthur was past twenty now, if Merlin was right about when the gates of Avalon had opened again, and there was no way to know for sure whether he'd recognize Merlin or not when they met again. It was too much to hope he remembered everything of his old life, and even if he remembered some of it-subconsciously, maybe, or on a spiritual level-he was still unlikely to react well to a strange old man declaring their intertwined destinies out of the blue.
And Merlin was old; or at least older, and after a thousand years of an unchanging face it was a little difficult to bear. He suspected he'd started to age again the day Arthur was reborn, as a matter of fact, as whatever part of him was bound to his king returned to normal space and time. His temples were painted with wings of gray, and his beard was salt and pepper. (He'd grown it out again-a full one, this time-despite the number of times he'd been told it made him look like Satan. He no longer had to worry about looking too young to be taken seriously, but he also had an image to live up to, five thousand years of stories, and the beard was thematically appropriate.)
As the captain nattered on about Camelot's medical facilities, Merlin paused at a window to look at himself, at the new-old lines around his mouth and eyes. Would Arthur see anything here but a man old enough to be his father? Would Arthur even want him this time around, or did he have a Gwen (or even a Lancelot) who had already claimed his heart? Hell, would Merlin even want him, after five thousand years of waiting? He couldn't imagine Arthur being reborn as anything other than fundamentally himself, but he'd have a different upbringing this time, different influences...and he was going to be so damn young. It wasn't going to be like the first time, when they'd been nearly of an age. What were they even going to talk about? Girls?
Breathe, Merlin, he told himself. You'll figure something out. Destinies don't change just because of a...slight difference in maturity.
A movement startled him, and Merlin realized with an embarrassed start that the window he was peering through opened into a patient's room, and the room was occupied. A young man had just thrown himself on the narrow bed, even younger than Arthur. (Gods, Merlin was awful, already comparing people to him and he hadn't even found him yet.) He had the horrible thinness of a dying man, and poked awkwardly out of some thin pajamas that had clearly been meant for someone taller. A shiny silver plaster covered most of one side of his face, but when he turned to look idly at the door, a shock of recognition hit Merlin like a punch. The face was younger, and thinner, and the eyes for all their thousand-yard brokenness were still more innocent, but he could swear...
"Is there a problem, Dr. Emrys?" The captain had finally realized Merlin was no longer following him. "Can I help you with something?"
Merlin glanced at the name on the door, but didn't recognize it-of course he'd figured out long ago that the other one was a pseudonym. "This man-tell me about him."
"Ah. Terrible case, this one." The captain shook his head. "From the 401st Boeshane irregulars-some volunteer outfit from the Algophage border, and if he was eighteen when he signed the papers I'll eat my Long Service medals. Got himself captured by those things and...well, look at him." He shook his head. "The Imperial Marines mounted a rescue, but he was the only target who didn't come back in a body bag. Or a shoebox."
Merlin agreed the young man in the room barely looked eighteen now, though the ravaged face made him uncertain about his guess. If he'd noticed Merlin staring at him through the window, he didn't care; his gaze dropped to his lap, where he fiddled aimlessly with the long, dangly drawstring around his waist. "Do you know his prognosis?" Merlin asked.
The captain drew up a chart on the adjacent wall screen-Merlin was constantly forgetting about things like that, it made him look senile. "Well, he's not dying," the captain said. "As it stands, he's on recommendation for psychiatric discharge, though. Lock him up somewhere nice and calm and inject him with Lethe until he forgets to be unhappy. It'd probably be a kindness."
Merlin looked at the boy who would become Jack Harkness and wondered if it would.
"Can I talk to him?" The question was out of his mouth before he even realized he was thinking it. Old, exaggerated warnings about ontological paradoxes flashed through his mind, but then again, he'd asked the Old Religion to put him where he was meant to be. It wouldn't be the first time those dry dead gods had willfully misinterpreted his wishes.
The captain bit his lip. "Normally I'd have to get permission from out medical officer, but...anything for the Empire, you know."
He entered a code into the screen, the door released, and Merlin slipped inside. He tried not to be alarmed that the door locked again behind him. Jack didn't react to the intrusion, or to Merlin sitting down on the small stool in the corner, but after several long minutes of silence (because Merlin had become quite good at silences) he did look up to study his visitor. "Hello," Merlin said when he was sure he had Jack's attention. "You look rather terrible."
Jack gave a small snort and looked down at his drawstring again.
"My name is Merlin," he continued, knowing that in the language of the present that form of the name signified nothing. "I'm terrifyingly old and boring, but that makes me an excellent judge of character. Are you telepathic?"
The non sequitur seemed to grab his attention. "No," he murmured hoarsely--voice probably damaged from screaming, Merlin thought grimly. The Jack he knew claimed to be no more than a Basic 7, though Merlin had long suspected it was higher, or else they'd never have met. Perhaps the Imperial Army wasn't doing psychic trainings anymore, or perhaps someone had decided that an underage recruit from an impoverished planet didn't deserve any. It wasn't like Jack didn't have plenty of career changes ahead of him, after all.
"Good," Merlin said. "You can talk. That's an excellent skill to have. Now, why am I here?"
It took Jack a moment to recognize the question as genuine. "I don't know," he said. "Are you a doctor?"
"Not the pokey-proddy sort, no," Merlin said. "But I am very odd, which I think is better. How many people do you suppose I've killed?"
"I...couldn't tell you, sir," Jack said warily.
"Two thousand, one hundred twelve," Merlin said, and that was a conservative estimate-he hadn't stopped to count the corpses at Badon Hill. "How many do you suppose deserved it?"
Now Jack was really looked at him-looking and seeing, paying attention, his mind in the present time and not whatever horrible memories he collected in captivity. "Most of them, I hope," he said.
"Gods, I hope so, too." Merlin studied Jack's bloodshot blue eyes, thinking of everything they hadn't yet seen. "I don't know if you joined up for laughs or revenge or what your reason was. But you should know that it stops."
"What stops?" Jack asked, leaning forward slightly.
"Everything." Merlin suddenly thought of a line Ahasver was fond of quoting to him-something from a psalm, probably-and tried to translate it as best he could. "To everything there is a season, and for everything a time under heaven. Lives, wars, planets-they all go away. We can't save them, but we can remember them."
"What if I don't want to remember?" Jack asked, sneering a little. Oh, teenagers-Merlin once again marveled that Gaius hadn't killed him in his sleep when he was this young.
"Then they're just as gone," Merlin said. "It's your choice. To bear witness to the past or the bury it. But it remains the past, and meanwhile, you're still here."
Jack squeezed his eyes shut and exhaled, and Merlin knew he was back there again, wherever there was; the knuckles of his hands were turning white where he'd fisted his drawstrings. "I don't--" he started to say, and then bit down on his lip, easily breaking the fragile skin there. Whatever he was about to say, he held inside, while blood began to well around the wound.
Merlin leaned forward and reached out a hand. "Open your eyes," he said, and when Jack did Merlin reached in-slowly, very slowly-and ran his thumb over the bleeding lip. Jack shut his eyes again, and it took just a small flicker of magic to heal the damage. Would that it was all so easy. "Open your eyes, son," Merlin said, almost using a name this boy wouldn't wear for decades yet. "Look at me. What happens next?"
Jack opened his eyes and glared. "I don't know."
"What happens next?"
"Fuck you, man."
"Is that an offer?" And how satisfying it was to know that once upon a time, Jack had been able to be shocked by something. Merlin smiled a little while the boy's eyes popped. "I'll ask you once more: what comes next?"
Jack inhaled noisily and looked away. "I...they're going to medically discharge me." He waved a hand vaguely at his face, though that could hardly be the worst of his injuries-Merlin already knew it would heal without a scar.
"And what will you do?" Merlin asked. "Will you remember or forget?"
Jack shrugged. "I...I just wanted to..." He bit his lip again, but didn't draw blood this time.
"I don't have to know what you want," Merlin quickly said. "All that matters is that you do. That's how you'll find your way again."
Jack studied him, and for a moment he looked a little more like the man he'd grown into. "Who are you, really?" he asked. "You don't sound like a shrink."
"I'm an immortal wizard," Merlin said, feeling reckless-as reckless as he'd been in 1898, and for much the same reasons. True to form, Jack snorted at him. "All right, don't believe that. I'm an anti-Imperial spy. Would you believe a spy?"
"I'd believe you were a professor of something," Jack said, and his eyes flashed up and down Merlin's body.
"Really? You think professor?" Merlin studied his own clothes. "I wasn't going for that, honestly. I was going for spy."
"You're...kind of crazy, aren't you?" Jack asked.
Merlin smiled. "When you get to be my age, it's almost required."
Jack was just looking at him now, and looking tired-no one that thin should even be sitting upright, so Merlin didn't blame him. He had no way of knowing if any of his words had changed anything, if it even mattered, if someone from the Time Agency was going to come around the corner in a day or two or ten and change everything. But he could hope. He stood up and smoothed out the crease in his jacket (which was not at all professorial, to his eyes, but he'd never been good at keeping up with fashions, either). "Good luck. I hope I'll be seeing you again."
Jack just shrugged, and on another impulse, Merlin leaned over and kissed him on the forehead. Jack didn't really react, and Merlin didn't know if he should've. But it was better than doing nothing. And between his knock on the door and the ship's captain letting him out, he thought he heard a whisper like Thanks.
"Is that what you were looking for, Dr. Emrys?" the captain asked eagerly once Merlin was out and the door was locked again.
"Not exactly," Merlin said. "It was more of a favor to an old friend. Please, carry on with the tour--"
But just as he was speaking, a young man came running down the corridor towards them. A tall, fit young man, with blond hair that had grown shaggy from a regulation cut and startling blue eyes that took Merlin's breath away. The captain sighed before the young man even spoke. "What is it now, Ensign?"
"Sir, we've just had a communique from the Intelligence Department regarding Algophage movements. It's marked for your eyes only, highest urgency."
The captain's eyes bulged. "Terribly sorry, Dr. Emrys, I need to-that is, if you'll excuse me-Ensign, please show our guest to his quarters while I--" Without ever finishing that sentence, he bustled off. Merlin could not have cared less.
"Hello," he croaked, and immediately felt like a fool. "You, uh, and what would your name be, Ensign?"
"King, sir. Arthur King," he answered, of course, of course, and he was looking at Merlin like Merlin had lost his mind. Probably because Merlin was grinning at him, smiling like a simple-minded fool, and didn't care enough to stop himself; and as Ensign Arthur King stood awkwardly aboard the Camelot, Merlin said a prayer of thanks to the dead gods of Albion and the friend who'd advised him to wait five thousand years.
Author: Mad Maudlin
Fandom: Merlin/Torchwood (with one tiny reference to Sanctuary in there)
Pairings: Merlin/Arthur, Jack/Ianto, Merlin/Jack
Rating: PG-13
Length: 11,300
Summary: Four times Merlin Emrys met Jack Harkness (and one time he met Jack Harkness)
A/N: Thanks to misscake for the beta!
Link to Part One
(1941 A.D.
Harkness watched his boys cross the airstrip, chatting and joking with each other as if this were any other training flight and not their last qualifier. Only a couple of them were shooting him backwards glances, awkward or sneering or just plain wary. He'd known what he was doing at the dance last night, he'd known-and done it anyway, just for the chance to feel safe for a moment in Captain Harper's arms. He may have destroyed his career in the process, but he knew deep down that he'd do it again in a heartbeat.
"Excuse me," a voice called, and he turned to see a tall, thin man in civilian attire approaching from the other side of the airstrip. His face was mostly hidden by a large scarf and a hat turned down against a light rain, but Harkness could see high cheekbones and striking blue eyes. "Excuse me, Captain, sorry to bother you, but are you with the 133rd?"
"That's right," Jack said. "Can I help you?"
"Perhaps, perhaps not," the man said. "I'm looking for someone-two someones, actually, but one is rather more likely to be here than the other."
That seemed cryptic, but Jack shrugged. "I'm about to take off, but if you talk to the secretary inside that building there--" He pointed, and the man followed his arm with a nod-- "she can do a review of personnel files."
Nod, nod; the man was wearing a greatcoat and clean trousers, like a business man, but it occurred to Harkness that he'd approached from the end of the airstrip opposite the entry gates. It didn't look like he'd hopped a fence-guys dressed like bankers aren't the fence-hopping sort-but he filed it away for future reference. The secretary would make sure the guy wasn't some Kraut spy, but it never hurt to be prepared. "Thank you," he said. "Thank you, Captain....?"
"Harkness," he said, and extended a hand. "Jack Harkness."
Surprisingly, the stranger blinked at him, and then peered closely at his face. "Seriously?" he blurted.)
2009 A.D.
They'd cleaned up the Hub, carefully gathering all the fragments of the shattered Dalek, tagging them for the archives or the morgue freezers as appropriate. They'd sent Martha and Gwen home to their husbands, and set up Mickey with a place to stay for a few days while he considered his options. They'd both showered and shaved, then had vigorous thank-god-we-survived sex on Jack's desk, and then showered again.
"I want to cook for you," Jack declared as he toweled himself off.
Ianto-already buttoned back up and listening to the police band, probably in case of any stray Dalek parts turning up-raised an eyebrow. "Cook, sir?"
"Cook. Yes." Jack dropped his towel back down the hatch and shrugged into his shirt. "I'm feeling domestic and I want to cook."
"Need I remind you of the Cheese Omelet Incident?" Ianto asked, fighting down a smile.
"That was one time," Jack said. "I can do better. We can run to Tesco's and get something that comes in a packet."
Ianto switched off the radio. "That doesn't sound very domestic at all, actually."
"Hey, in the future everything comes in packets," Jack said defensively. He got behind Ianto and crossed his arms around his waist, nuzzling his still-damp hair. "Some of my fondest childhood memories involve food from packets, actually. Just like Mom used to reheat."
"Well, far be it from me to disparage anyone's mum," Ianto said, catching one of Jack's hands in a squeeze. If he was surprised to hear Jack mention anything of his past, he didn't say anything-maybe he thought Jack would spook like a horse if he drew attention to the slip.
Jack wished he could assure him it wasn't a slip at all. That he was finally ready to talk about some things. Too many events had cut too close to the bone lately, and Jack was more worried than ever about holding on to what he had for as long as he could. It was more than worth the cost.
"Tesco's," he said instead, because he couldn't say the other part. Not just yet. "We'll go to Tesco's and buy horrible processed foods and then go your place and heat it up. First one to eat his weight in preservatives wins."
"That's disgusting," Ianto said without much ire. "And my place is a mess. It's unlivable."
Jack knew that by Ianto's standards a single sock on the floor could render a place unlivable, so he wasn't afraid. "I'll vacuum for you," he promised.
"You are feeling domestic, aren't you?" Ianto said with a small laugh, and turned around to kiss him. "All right. Just let me set the remote alerts on the Rift monitors."
The tourist office was in shambles-blown apart by the Daleks on their way into the Hub-so they took the invisible lift up to the Plass. Jack expected it to be empty, with people staying in their homes after yesterday's chaos (Yesterday? Already? He probably needed to sleep eventually.) Businesses and offices were closed, after all, and curfews were still in place. So he was a little surprised to see a single tall, thin figure standing near the water tower, watching it glitter in the summer sun.
Ianto, clearly, had developed equally paranoid instincts. "Think that's a problem?" he asked quietly, leaning slightly away from Jack without stepping out of the lift's protection.
"Probably just a really confused tourist," Jack said, though it was more a hope than an objective evaluation. He really, really wanted to go to Ianto's flat and spend the day playing Naked Chef; it just wouldn't be fair for another crisis to start right on top of the other.
As he spoke, the confused tourist turned around and looked straight at them, even though they were still on the lift. In case it wasn't completely obvious, he waved a little. Fairness, as usual, had very little to do with reality.
"Go get the SUV," Jack said quietly. "I'll talk to him." Ianto nodded, and started walking at a controlled pace towards the garage. As he crossed the Plass, Jack quickly checked out their visitor: humanoid, tall and thin, Caucasian with dark hair and a neat Van Dyke beard. He was dressed like any tourist, in khakis and a button-down shirt, and he had a red cardigan slung over his arm, and sunglasses. His posture was calm and still, neither threatening nor threatened, and he faced Jack as he approached. "Hi there," Jack called out once he was a few yards away.
"Hello, Jack," the man said, and removed his sunglasses.
The problem with time-travel, Jack reflected-not to mention immortality-was that deja-vu got to be a bitch. He looked at the man's face and his brain momentarily stuttered; he saw clearly, in his mind's eye, the same man without the beard, thousands of years ago, limned in gaslight, and at the same time the sightless sense-impression of an awkward, lonely youth who'd grown into a figure of unthinkable power. And there was something else, something even further back in the murk of years, one of those memories he hadn't repressed so much as chosen to let fade.
He reeled, only for a moment, though it felt like a lifetime, and when he pulled himself together he realized he was grinning. "Merlin," he said, and impulsively drew him into a hug.
"I go by Martin now," Merlin said in his ear, but returned the hug just as enthusiastically. "Martin Ambrose, actually. The old name was getting a bit too, ah, memorable."
"I know the feeling," Jack said. He pulled back and studied Merlin's face. He still had that timeless young-old look Jack remembered, though of course for him that liason had only been about a century ago; for Jack, the more recent memories were of silent conversations in his grave, whenever Merlin happened to be passing through the region that would become Cardiff. They had been rare, but they'd done wonders for reinforcing his sanity during his long and painful wait.
Merlin was studying him, too, but then his eyes shifted over Jack's shoulder. "So is that your Doctor, then?" he asked.
Jack glanced back at Ianto, who had stopped when he noticed the embrace, and laughed. "Oh, god, no. And don't let him hear you ask that or you'll give him a complex. I found the Doctor already."
"Get what you wanted?"
"In a way." Jack waved Ianto over, and-also in the interests of not giving him a complex-stepped back from Merlin's personal space a bit.
Merlin didn't seem to mind. "So who is he, then?"
"The one with the robot in the cellar," Jack said. "Not that you should mention you know about that, either, it's still...touchy subject."
"Huh," Merlin said. "And all this time I've been thinking they were the same person."
Jack snorted; their conversations had always focused more on Merlin's life, of course, but he couldn't believe he'd been that vague. "Clearly, we've got some catching up to do." Before Ianto got any closer, he added softly, "What about you? Find yours yet?"
Merlin sighed and shook his head. "I thought if anything would've qualified as Albion's darkest hour, it would have been yesterday...but of course, I thought that about Cromwell and the Blitz, too, and we all know how those turned out."
"Earth had someone better on the case this time," Jack said. Merlin raised an eyebrow at him. "Not that I'm disparaging the team you and Arthur make, of course, but...this one was better. So much better."
"Because you were involved?"
"I won't deny a significant contribution...."
Ianto was in earshot by then. "You know this man, sir?" he asked, folding his arms behind his back like he did when he was nervous.
"Oh, yeah, he's an old friend," Jack said. Then, catching Ianto's widened eyes, "The good kind of old friend, not the blow-up-all-Cardiff kind."
Merlin blinked. "Definitely need to catch up," he said.
"I never did give you all the details, did I?" Jack put his hand on Ianto's shoulder, and was rewarded with an incremental relaxation of his posture. Not that Ianto was ever actually relaxed (at least, not if he was fully conscious and upright) but it was better than nothing. "This is Ianto Jones, Torchwood's chief archivist, public relations officer, and human resources specialist. Ianto, meet Merlin."
"I wasn't aware I had some of those titles, sir," Ianto said, but he shook Merlin's hand with only a little hesitation.
"Well, you do now. I'm making them your titles," Jack said.
"I'm charmed to finally meet you after all this time," Merlin said.
Ianto glanced at Jack, and then Merlin, and Jack again, but he was too polite to say are you fucking shitting me? What he did say, with some hesitancy, was, "So...when you say you're Merlin...you mean..."
"Merlinus Ambrosius, court magician to King Arthur Pendragon, long may he reign," Merlin said, and even bowed slightly. "I ran into the Captain on a diplomatic visit to Glywysing about fifteen hundred years ago."
"Stepped on me, actually," Jack explained. "Luckily one of us scored higher than Basic 7 in telepathy, and we managed to strike up a conversation."
"I see," Ianto said, but he shot Jack a look that meant you are going to be explaining this later. "If you don't mind me saying, sir, I was under the impression you were sleeping in a hollow hill at present."
"And I heard you got turned into a tree by your girlfriend," Jack added with a wink.
Merlin sighed, and his eyes rolled briefly heavenward. "This is why I don't use my real name anymore. If they're not throwing me in a mental institution, they think my definitive biography came from Marion Zimmer Bradley."
"Oh, the price of fame," Jack said. "So what exactly brings you to the Plass today? You haven't exactly been seeking me out over the years..."
"You were the one who put the fear of ontological paradox into me," Merlin said. "But I'd noticed you'd gone missing when I stopped by in 1941, and I remembered that this year was the year you were waiting for...and the light show yesterday made it rather obvious where to look."
"It's already being incorporated into the general cover story," Ianto said, before Jack even had to ask. "It's quite amazing what you can get away with blaming on atmospheric disturbances."
Merlin laughed. It was still a nice laugh. "'Atmospheric disturbances,' right. I should've tried that one on Uther back in the day."
There was a moment of comfortable silence, there at the foot of the tower, and Jack was torn between two equally selfish impulses-to invite Merlin out somewhere, maybe for...whatever meal was temporally appropriate. (Lunch? Possibly lunch. His watch had stopped when the Dalek shot him.) Or to blow him off and go vacuum Ianto's flat. "How long are you going to be in Cardiff?" he asked, hoping to find a compromise.
"Not long," Merlin said. "I just wanted to check you up. Make certain you hadn't gone back to falling out of pubs."
"Oh, I outgrew that phase years ago," Jack said, aware of another quick look from Ianto. "Look, do you have email? Mobile phone?"
Merlin snorted. "For all the good it does me, yes. I still suspect the Luddites were on to something."
Jack rolled his eyes. "If you have trouble with mobiles, you're going to be tearing your hair out by the end of the century," he declared in his most dire voice. "Look, give me your number and the next time you're in Cardiff, we should get together for lunch or something."
"Sounds lovely," Merlin said, digging out a mobile that was at least six years old and liberally scratched and battered. "We could make a proper old-timer's convention of it and invite the Wandering Jew, as well. And I know this lovely young woman named Helen Magnus--"
Jack let out a bark of laughter. "Magnus? How do you know her?"
"How do you?" Merlin asked, looking bemused.
Jack rolled his eyes as he snatched Merlin's phone. "She's only been trying to collect me since 1903..."
5086 A.D.
The ISC Camelot was, from Merlin's point of view, the very definition of grasping at straws, but when one had a multi-galactic empire to search and only a matter of decades to do it in, thoroughness flew out the window. Certainly the census bureau's computers hadn't helped, as no conceivable variation on "Pendragon" had yielded results, while "Arthur" alone gave him twelve billion. And that didn't even count all the breakaway states and star-roving nomads and conquered worlds in lost galaxies. The remains of the Second Great and Bountiful Human Empire were a complicated place to be looking for a single man, even one with a destiny.
He had bought the identity of an agent of the Ministry of Secrets from a thoroughly disreputable demihuman in the Vegas Galaxies and talked his way aboard Camelot; this far from a core world there was little risk of being discovered, and it let him ask whatever he wanted without offering any complicated explanations. The captain was more than eager to help-- "Anything for the Empire, Dr. Emrys, anything-I'm an old Union man myself, and my father before me-anything for the Empire--" he kept saying, and insisted on giving a guided tour of the ship from docks to drives. Since Merlin still wasn't entirely sure what he was looking for, he went along with it, and prayed to the old, dead gods to show him what he needed to see.
Of course, he still didn't know what he'd do when he found him-Arthur was past twenty now, if Merlin was right about when the gates of Avalon had opened again, and there was no way to know for sure whether he'd recognize Merlin or not when they met again. It was too much to hope he remembered everything of his old life, and even if he remembered some of it-subconsciously, maybe, or on a spiritual level-he was still unlikely to react well to a strange old man declaring their intertwined destinies out of the blue.
And Merlin was old; or at least older, and after a thousand years of an unchanging face it was a little difficult to bear. He suspected he'd started to age again the day Arthur was reborn, as a matter of fact, as whatever part of him was bound to his king returned to normal space and time. His temples were painted with wings of gray, and his beard was salt and pepper. (He'd grown it out again-a full one, this time-despite the number of times he'd been told it made him look like Satan. He no longer had to worry about looking too young to be taken seriously, but he also had an image to live up to, five thousand years of stories, and the beard was thematically appropriate.)
As the captain nattered on about Camelot's medical facilities, Merlin paused at a window to look at himself, at the new-old lines around his mouth and eyes. Would Arthur see anything here but a man old enough to be his father? Would Arthur even want him this time around, or did he have a Gwen (or even a Lancelot) who had already claimed his heart? Hell, would Merlin even want him, after five thousand years of waiting? He couldn't imagine Arthur being reborn as anything other than fundamentally himself, but he'd have a different upbringing this time, different influences...and he was going to be so damn young. It wasn't going to be like the first time, when they'd been nearly of an age. What were they even going to talk about? Girls?
Breathe, Merlin, he told himself. You'll figure something out. Destinies don't change just because of a...slight difference in maturity.
A movement startled him, and Merlin realized with an embarrassed start that the window he was peering through opened into a patient's room, and the room was occupied. A young man had just thrown himself on the narrow bed, even younger than Arthur. (Gods, Merlin was awful, already comparing people to him and he hadn't even found him yet.) He had the horrible thinness of a dying man, and poked awkwardly out of some thin pajamas that had clearly been meant for someone taller. A shiny silver plaster covered most of one side of his face, but when he turned to look idly at the door, a shock of recognition hit Merlin like a punch. The face was younger, and thinner, and the eyes for all their thousand-yard brokenness were still more innocent, but he could swear...
"Is there a problem, Dr. Emrys?" The captain had finally realized Merlin was no longer following him. "Can I help you with something?"
Merlin glanced at the name on the door, but didn't recognize it-of course he'd figured out long ago that the other one was a pseudonym. "This man-tell me about him."
"Ah. Terrible case, this one." The captain shook his head. "From the 401st Boeshane irregulars-some volunteer outfit from the Algophage border, and if he was eighteen when he signed the papers I'll eat my Long Service medals. Got himself captured by those things and...well, look at him." He shook his head. "The Imperial Marines mounted a rescue, but he was the only target who didn't come back in a body bag. Or a shoebox."
Merlin agreed the young man in the room barely looked eighteen now, though the ravaged face made him uncertain about his guess. If he'd noticed Merlin staring at him through the window, he didn't care; his gaze dropped to his lap, where he fiddled aimlessly with the long, dangly drawstring around his waist. "Do you know his prognosis?" Merlin asked.
The captain drew up a chart on the adjacent wall screen-Merlin was constantly forgetting about things like that, it made him look senile. "Well, he's not dying," the captain said. "As it stands, he's on recommendation for psychiatric discharge, though. Lock him up somewhere nice and calm and inject him with Lethe until he forgets to be unhappy. It'd probably be a kindness."
Merlin looked at the boy who would become Jack Harkness and wondered if it would.
"Can I talk to him?" The question was out of his mouth before he even realized he was thinking it. Old, exaggerated warnings about ontological paradoxes flashed through his mind, but then again, he'd asked the Old Religion to put him where he was meant to be. It wouldn't be the first time those dry dead gods had willfully misinterpreted his wishes.
The captain bit his lip. "Normally I'd have to get permission from out medical officer, but...anything for the Empire, you know."
He entered a code into the screen, the door released, and Merlin slipped inside. He tried not to be alarmed that the door locked again behind him. Jack didn't react to the intrusion, or to Merlin sitting down on the small stool in the corner, but after several long minutes of silence (because Merlin had become quite good at silences) he did look up to study his visitor. "Hello," Merlin said when he was sure he had Jack's attention. "You look rather terrible."
Jack gave a small snort and looked down at his drawstring again.
"My name is Merlin," he continued, knowing that in the language of the present that form of the name signified nothing. "I'm terrifyingly old and boring, but that makes me an excellent judge of character. Are you telepathic?"
The non sequitur seemed to grab his attention. "No," he murmured hoarsely--voice probably damaged from screaming, Merlin thought grimly. The Jack he knew claimed to be no more than a Basic 7, though Merlin had long suspected it was higher, or else they'd never have met. Perhaps the Imperial Army wasn't doing psychic trainings anymore, or perhaps someone had decided that an underage recruit from an impoverished planet didn't deserve any. It wasn't like Jack didn't have plenty of career changes ahead of him, after all.
"Good," Merlin said. "You can talk. That's an excellent skill to have. Now, why am I here?"
It took Jack a moment to recognize the question as genuine. "I don't know," he said. "Are you a doctor?"
"Not the pokey-proddy sort, no," Merlin said. "But I am very odd, which I think is better. How many people do you suppose I've killed?"
"I...couldn't tell you, sir," Jack said warily.
"Two thousand, one hundred twelve," Merlin said, and that was a conservative estimate-he hadn't stopped to count the corpses at Badon Hill. "How many do you suppose deserved it?"
Now Jack was really looked at him-looking and seeing, paying attention, his mind in the present time and not whatever horrible memories he collected in captivity. "Most of them, I hope," he said.
"Gods, I hope so, too." Merlin studied Jack's bloodshot blue eyes, thinking of everything they hadn't yet seen. "I don't know if you joined up for laughs or revenge or what your reason was. But you should know that it stops."
"What stops?" Jack asked, leaning forward slightly.
"Everything." Merlin suddenly thought of a line Ahasver was fond of quoting to him-something from a psalm, probably-and tried to translate it as best he could. "To everything there is a season, and for everything a time under heaven. Lives, wars, planets-they all go away. We can't save them, but we can remember them."
"What if I don't want to remember?" Jack asked, sneering a little. Oh, teenagers-Merlin once again marveled that Gaius hadn't killed him in his sleep when he was this young.
"Then they're just as gone," Merlin said. "It's your choice. To bear witness to the past or the bury it. But it remains the past, and meanwhile, you're still here."
Jack squeezed his eyes shut and exhaled, and Merlin knew he was back there again, wherever there was; the knuckles of his hands were turning white where he'd fisted his drawstrings. "I don't--" he started to say, and then bit down on his lip, easily breaking the fragile skin there. Whatever he was about to say, he held inside, while blood began to well around the wound.
Merlin leaned forward and reached out a hand. "Open your eyes," he said, and when Jack did Merlin reached in-slowly, very slowly-and ran his thumb over the bleeding lip. Jack shut his eyes again, and it took just a small flicker of magic to heal the damage. Would that it was all so easy. "Open your eyes, son," Merlin said, almost using a name this boy wouldn't wear for decades yet. "Look at me. What happens next?"
Jack opened his eyes and glared. "I don't know."
"What happens next?"
"Fuck you, man."
"Is that an offer?" And how satisfying it was to know that once upon a time, Jack had been able to be shocked by something. Merlin smiled a little while the boy's eyes popped. "I'll ask you once more: what comes next?"
Jack inhaled noisily and looked away. "I...they're going to medically discharge me." He waved a hand vaguely at his face, though that could hardly be the worst of his injuries-Merlin already knew it would heal without a scar.
"And what will you do?" Merlin asked. "Will you remember or forget?"
Jack shrugged. "I...I just wanted to..." He bit his lip again, but didn't draw blood this time.
"I don't have to know what you want," Merlin quickly said. "All that matters is that you do. That's how you'll find your way again."
Jack studied him, and for a moment he looked a little more like the man he'd grown into. "Who are you, really?" he asked. "You don't sound like a shrink."
"I'm an immortal wizard," Merlin said, feeling reckless-as reckless as he'd been in 1898, and for much the same reasons. True to form, Jack snorted at him. "All right, don't believe that. I'm an anti-Imperial spy. Would you believe a spy?"
"I'd believe you were a professor of something," Jack said, and his eyes flashed up and down Merlin's body.
"Really? You think professor?" Merlin studied his own clothes. "I wasn't going for that, honestly. I was going for spy."
"You're...kind of crazy, aren't you?" Jack asked.
Merlin smiled. "When you get to be my age, it's almost required."
Jack was just looking at him now, and looking tired-no one that thin should even be sitting upright, so Merlin didn't blame him. He had no way of knowing if any of his words had changed anything, if it even mattered, if someone from the Time Agency was going to come around the corner in a day or two or ten and change everything. But he could hope. He stood up and smoothed out the crease in his jacket (which was not at all professorial, to his eyes, but he'd never been good at keeping up with fashions, either). "Good luck. I hope I'll be seeing you again."
Jack just shrugged, and on another impulse, Merlin leaned over and kissed him on the forehead. Jack didn't really react, and Merlin didn't know if he should've. But it was better than doing nothing. And between his knock on the door and the ship's captain letting him out, he thought he heard a whisper like Thanks.
"Is that what you were looking for, Dr. Emrys?" the captain asked eagerly once Merlin was out and the door was locked again.
"Not exactly," Merlin said. "It was more of a favor to an old friend. Please, carry on with the tour--"
But just as he was speaking, a young man came running down the corridor towards them. A tall, fit young man, with blond hair that had grown shaggy from a regulation cut and startling blue eyes that took Merlin's breath away. The captain sighed before the young man even spoke. "What is it now, Ensign?"
"Sir, we've just had a communique from the Intelligence Department regarding Algophage movements. It's marked for your eyes only, highest urgency."
The captain's eyes bulged. "Terribly sorry, Dr. Emrys, I need to-that is, if you'll excuse me-Ensign, please show our guest to his quarters while I--" Without ever finishing that sentence, he bustled off. Merlin could not have cared less.
"Hello," he croaked, and immediately felt like a fool. "You, uh, and what would your name be, Ensign?"
"King, sir. Arthur King," he answered, of course, of course, and he was looking at Merlin like Merlin had lost his mind. Probably because Merlin was grinning at him, smiling like a simple-minded fool, and didn't care enough to stop himself; and as Ensign Arthur King stood awkwardly aboard the Camelot, Merlin said a prayer of thanks to the dead gods of Albion and the friend who'd advised him to wait five thousand years.