[fic][dp] Balance (part 3)
Title: Balance
Part: 3 of 3
Author: magistrate (draegonhawke)
Sliding Scale of Slash: Onscreen, Jack Harkness/Sam Tyler
Rating: T
Beta Warning: Unbeta'd.
Fandoms: Life on Mars; Torchwood; Avatar: The Last Airbender; Final Fantasy XII; Pirates of the Caribbean
Summary: The Strahl crash-lands on a lovely little planet, complete with wildlife and bazaar. Naturally, the boys find their own trouble.
Author's Note: RIGHT. ON WE GO.
-
Sam vanished so fast it was hard to say he wasn't practicing magic of his own.
At that point, he didn't care what Jack was thinking, or how Jack would react to his disappearance. Even the scant few clues they'd picked out of the cell were of secondary importance to not being anywhere around the man in the light of day.
He pushed on through the bazaar, past its boundaries, into the Strahl, taking turns based on what would separate him from Jack the fastest - and as a result he ended up in a corridor he hadn't tried before. One which led him directly to the engine room where Fran was working.
He'd come up behind her as she was crouched in front of something that could have been a decorative pillar or a computer bank - it was difficult to identify. For a moment, Sam thought he'd be able to back out without her noticing, but both of Fran's ears were rotated back, trained on him. "You should not be here."
"Sorry," Sam said. "I should-"
Go, was the end of that sentence. Somehow, he didn't quite get around to saying it. Instead, he found himself taking a step in.
"That's the time-travel system, isn't it?" At the very least, he reasoned, he should be able to feel if the air were getting cold.
Fran didn't answer.
Sam hesitated. "...if you're worried that I'm stealing secrets, I should... I haven't understood anything since Jack grabbed me." He tried to ignore the way his voice turned bitter on grabbed. "I'm not exactly a threat to national security." Or the integrity of the timeline. So far as he knew.
Fran turned to look at him for a moment, and it was difficult to tell whether her eyes were naturally narrow, whether she was scrutinizing him, or whether she had taken offense. After a moment she turned back to her work.
"You must not discuss what you see here with anyone," she said, pulling something from the engine pillar which looked far too fine-spun and delicate to constitute wiring. "Especially not with Captain Harkness."
Captain Harkness. Sam grimaced, watching Fran's claws as they undid a snarl in the... whatever it was. "Not much danger of that, is there?"
The closer of Fran's ears turned, singling him out for a moment in the room. Sam shook his head.
"Sorry."
"You may have a seat," Fran granted.
Sam found one.
For a while he just watched; Fran apparently didn't mind having an audience, and he didn't have much to say. At some point his life had become a science fiction novel - a fractured one, admittedly, written by someone with a sense of humor he didn't appreciate at all, and staffed with protagonists, if he flattered himself into thinking he was a protagonist, who were lucky if they found their way out of one mess in time to grab a drink and a biscuit before the next. There was a time, back when he'd been significantly younger than the DCI catapulted back to 1973, when he would have jumped at the prospect of time travel, aliens, and watching someone put together a starship core. This should have all been amazing.
Given the way his life was going, he was beginning to think that he could be dropped in the engine room of the Enterprise and it would seem like one more unwanted stopover, rife with problems waiting to jump out at him. Given his luck, he'd probably drop in just in time for Romulans and a warp core breach.
"Time travel," he caught himself saying. "It can't all be like this."
Fran didn't answer.
Sam cleared his throat, looking away. She was hard to read, but the silence was loud. Just the attempt at smalltalk couldn't hurt.
"Maddest world I've been on yet," he said. "Beats out the ship with the picture of Elvis."
Fran's ear flicked as she pulled a crystal from the pillar it had resided in, turning it over to inspect. "Elvis," she said, with foreign articulation. Sam swallowed. You really wouldn't have any reason to know, would you?
"He was a singer. A pop culture icon... never mind." He rubbed the back of his hand across his mouth. "Point is, the entire place is mad. Avatars and wars and free trade bazaars and there's been a crime, and I should be able to solve it, and - it's just mad. That's all."
"It is in a process of becoming," Fran said.
Sam blinked. Even with her, he had no idea what was going on. That rankled, though not as much as he expected. "Sorry?"
"All living creatures seek balance," Fran said, weighing the crystal in her hands. "It is why we experience seasons of increase and decrease, cycles of night and day. This is a world which has fallen out of balance, and now it must remake itself or go mad." She replaced the crystal without seeming to have done anything to it. "And all times of remaking are uncertain."
Sam raised an eyebrow. He hadn't been expecting that much, though what he had been expecting was still unclear. "You haven't stepped off the Strahl, have you?"
Fran's right ear flicked. Again. Sam was beginning to wonder if that was how she communicated, and if so, how he could learn what it meant.
"...I should go," he decided, and stood. "Thank you for letting me see the engine."
"Murrh," Fran sub-vocalized. Sam turned to the door, and was interrupted by footsteps and voices down a further hall.
Even when he couldn't hear the words, the cadences were easy to make out: Bathier, sounding as though the world had let him in on its own private jokes; Jack, pretending he hadn't orchestrated them. Sam ducked back inside the engine room, and waited until they faded.
When he looked up, Fran was looking at him. He froze without good reason to.
He was doing that more often these days. It was something he would have examined, were it anyone other than him.
"You will become accustomed," Fran said, and then she turned back to her work. "I agree; you should go."
-
Jack was, thankfully, not in the hall when Sam stepped out. Nor in their cabin when he retreated there. Sam poked around the shelves, pulling out scrolls and small handbound manuscripts, most of which discussed things which sounded fascinating if only one had a working knowledge of the world they came from. After half an hour of this, he gave up and walked outside again.
The outside air was still hot, though a breeze had picked up. From the position of the sun he guessed it was wearing on into evening, and he headed toward the bazaar. On one of the main roads he turned a corner to see the guard who had come to let them out of the cell standing in front of a jewelery stand. He was being dressed down for something by a red-faced official, while the stand's apparent owner looked on with a scowl.
Sam ducked his head and hurried on.
Sparrow was leaning over a stall a few metres down the road, and Sam approached him. "Was Jack - Harkness - around here?"
Sparrow grinned, displaying an impressive array of teeth in an impressive array of colors. "Neither hide nor hair," he said.
Sam snorted. "You're not very helpful, are you?"
"My good man," Sparrow said, indicating Sam with all the fingers on his right hand. "I do my very best not to be." He turned again, picking up a vase and examining it. "Shall I send him your way if he does make his way my way?"
"No," Sam said, too forcefully. "That's all right. I'm just going to... go... look at the exhibits."
"Enjoy that," Sparrow said. "And if you see one half of an interlinking jade pendant on the ground by one of the major thoroughfares, pick it up for me, would you?"
Sam shook his head and wandered on.
The market lanes were busy, but mercifully Jack-free. Sam wandered past a few stalls, and finally happened on someone strumming an instrument he'd never seen before. Six or seven people, two of them children, were already clustered around, and Sam joined them. He listened to the man croon for a while about birds returning to the spring forests and love that bloomed like the lotus-roses when the rains came, then turned and wandered down the lane. He wondered how easy it would be to get lost in the growing bazaar.
Not nearly as easy as it was to get lost in thought.
The Iron Gull kept circling around the periphery of his mind, dark and warped and strange. He felt stable out here - more or less - and couldn't comprehend what the hell had happened back there. Somewhere in the halls reality had come just a little unhinged, like he'd been wandering through the place drunk and drugged, stumbling into walls and-
No.
And other... indiscretions.
He increased his pace. Not that it was going to help him - you couldn't outwalk your own mind, no matter what he'd thought in 1973 - but there was no telling gut instinct that, and at that, he winced. He had a feeling gut instinct was responsible for a lot of his problems at the moment. His gut, Jack's gut, whichever. And he'd like an alternative to that, really, but from everything he remembered from 1973 and from Maya before that, the alternative usually made things worse before they made things better.
All it was doing now was making him re-examine everything. The increased security. The wind coming into the armory. The deference with which Jack had-
...deference. Something had happened, yelling in the halls, something had happened, and Jack had deferred.
He stepped out of the way of an adolescent boy, running down the street with a basket piled high with bread.
He couldn't think about this. Didn't want to think about this. Just couldn't push it all away.
He passed between two carts piled high with bright cloth and caught a glimpse of the bay, and the long blue swath of ocean reflecting the evening sky. He crossed his arms, glimpsing a sliver of black iron where another Fire Nation ship was sailing out or in, and shook his head.
No distress on the inside of the door. Scorch marks on the rear wall and ceiling.
Jack.
Sam looked away from the water. Away from the ships, and away from the pale smudges of far-off islands. Sokka was probably on one of those, or returning, but Sam had no particular desire to see him.
Odd, how he'd managed to think all of this could be so easy.
He moved on. Past singers, carts creaking under the weight of metal ingots in various shades, three boys performing some small play, an old woman begging. He was heading toward a stand selling bright birds in small cages when someone's hand landed on his shoulder, and he spun away so fast one would think he was getting nicked.
Jack.
Arrest might have been more pleasant.
Sam forced himself to go through a physical approximation of relaxing, if for no other reason than not wanting to give Jack the satisfaction of seeing him so jumpy. The assumed satisfaction. Jack was looking anything but satisfied.
"Jack." Sam glanced at the bazaar, half-turning away but unwilling to let Jack out of his peripheral vision. "...I though you'd have found something to do by now."
Jack did not follow his gaze. "Well," he said, with a theatrical shrug, "you know, bazaars, people hawking their wares, puppet shows and fire eaters and fire sausage and fire... they seem to like doing things with fire around here," he said. "All kinda loses something when you don't have anyone to go with, and what with Balthier having a prior commitment with a lady named Strahl..." He exhaled. "Look, we can't keep doing this."
Doing what?, Sam would have liked to ask. Unfortunately, he thought he knew too well what Jack was referring to. Before he responded, he turned to examine the nearest stall - a stand of thumb-sized ivory pendants, decorated in blue, white and green. "Trust me, it won't happen again."
That gave Jack noticeable pause. "...all right, I think we're not talking about the same 'this', unless you're making some kind of argument about things happening again when they haven't stopped in the first place. What I'm talking about - Sam." He grabbed Sam's shoulder again, the heat of his hand, the strength of his grip, spinning Sam around to face him. "We're doing this right now."
Cue one conversation Sam didn't want to have.
"I'm looking at ivory," he said.
That didn't work.
"This isn't still about the Hall," Jack said.
Sam noticed his jaw aching before he realized he'd clenched it. He didn't notice the acid in his voice at all. "Then what is it about?"
"This-" And there it was again, the sick lurch Sam's heart gave. See? He doesn't know. "This is about the night after Lusuosa," Jack said, "it's about the Xracsis Bar and Post, it's - look, I've done this sort of thing before, and it usually ends up with one of us shooting the other. And I don't know about you, but that really ruins my day."
The lurch resolved into a stagger. Sam stepped back, and Jack let him go. "We're not going to end up anywhere."
"Sam."
And that was too much. His heart kicked, and out shot anger. "All I ever wanted to do was to go home! From 1973, from any of these worlds you've put me on-!"
"Yeah, I know," Jack said. "Believe it or not, trying to get home was what started this mess for me, too."
"You had a choice," Sam said. "You never had to leave. I-"
"What?"
Jack looked as though someone had just accused him of eel smuggling. Sam regrouped. "You never had to leave Earth," he said.
Jack's face darkened. "Home isn't Earth, for me."
Sam stared. In seconds, though, the clues fit themselves together - the arguments they'd had, rationales given, the entire catastrophe of Manchester. "...the TARDIS," he said, and managed an injured laugh. "All of this; the pub, getting credits off Lusuosa, sending the message back from Gaen - you were just trying to drop me off on Earth so you could go looking for the Doctor again."
Jack looked hurt, and then a moment later he didn't any more. Just neutral. Sam wondered if he'd imagined the hurt to begin with. "Isn't that what you wanted?"
Yes. It had been. He was certain that it had been. So he shouldn't be thinking of an argument in a hotel on some alien world, with Jack saying I told you. We have these experiences in common. I need you. Shouldn't be feeling slighted that he was being sent home.
"Has it ever mattered, what I wanted?" Sam asked, and turned to walk away.
Jack didn't let him. This time he didn't grab him, but he stepped around and put both hands out to block his path. "Do you want an apology?" The question was almost a demand. "I'm sorry. Yeah, a better person might have had you back home by now, but a worse one would have left you to die in Manchester, and it looks like the only guy around is me. And I'm sorry if that's not good enough, but it's all I can offer. I'm doing what I can."
Down the street, something with a mule's body and the head of a ram brayed and was reprimanded. Sam spread his hands as Jack dropped his. "Then what are we supposed to do?"
Jack set his jaw. For a moment when he didn't respond, the bazaar stumbled into the gap in conversation: disconnected phrases of music, the snorts and protests of performing animals and beasts of burden, strange spices in the air, men hawking wares. Here they stood, on the latest alien world and alien time in a long, long string, and Sam couldn't even conjure up a sense of novelty.
"Try harder," Jack said, and his voice was restrained enough that the bustle of the world threatened to mow it under. "We're supposed to try harder the next time."
Sam exhaled, trying to edge off a laugh of frustration. "Ever since-" he started. "Around you-"
Jack quirked his head.
Sam brought a hand against his mouth again, an angry pressure working its way through his jaw. "I don't even know what I'm trying for."
This time, Jack didn't have a snappy answer. He looked away. "That's always the problem, isn't it?" He watched a couple setting up a stand near the end of the latest row, angled to catch the light from the lowering sun. "But I didn't make a mistake," he said. "I mean-"
He turned back, putting both hands in his pockets.
"Yeah, I made plenty of mistakes. And you're just going to have to believe that I'm sorry. Pulling you out of that paradox? That wasn't one of them." He leaned forward. "So maybe we're not supposed to be here, whatever 'supposed' means. Too bad. We're here. Now we get to deal with it."
Sam nodded, but he also grimaced. "Easier said."
The bazaar closed in around them again. This time, it felt terribly isolating.
A man in flared red costume passed by, calling to anyone who would listen. "Small showing, only for you early arrivals! See the Avatar take on the elite soldiers of the Fire Nation, great Earth Kingdom gurus, and wiley Water Tribe masters, in a martial display you won't find anywhere else in the world. Limited seating, so get yourselves to the ampitheatre! Refreshments available for a reasonable charge..."
Jack watched him walk past, then shook his head and looked back. "You want to go?"
Sam looked up at him. "Go where? The Strahl's not fixed, and your teleport-"
He trailed off when Jack started laughing. "To the exhibition, Sam. To see something we might never have a chance to see again." He spread his hands inside his pockets, widening his coat out into an odd, landbound kite. "It's a festival."
Sam questioned how he'd managed to pull exhibition out as an answer to that conversation, but not for long. This was like Gene turning to the department and announcing "Pub" after they'd been at each others' throats: it was what they did, when it'd been a long day and they still had to live with each other tomorrow.
He could understand that.
"You couldn't have found football," he said, and a smile crept onto his face. "All right. Let's go."
-
The sun was touching the horizon when they filed into their seats, giving everything a golden tinge deepened by the men lighting torches around the periphery. Concession sellers heckled the crowd, with a variety of foods smelling spicy or pungent. The fried-fish fruits were thankfully not in evidence.
Jack leaned over as they sat, nudging Sam's shoulder with his own, and Sam startled. Jack straightened up, then relaxed back into his seat. Sam turned to look at him; he was looking straight down toward the stage, expression quiet, and he didn't turn to look back.
After a while, Sam looked away.
He would have asked, but he had an idea what this was: a wordless negotiation of boundaries. A way of finding a middle ground where words were insufficient. It hadn't worked well, the last time Jack had tried.
Maybe this time they'd try harder. It would work out better.
On the stage, three people in blue tunics were gathering, talking amongst themselves. Their words couldn't be heard from the seating, but their postures and gestures were genial. "They'd be the Water Tribe," Jack said. "From what I can tell, green means Earth Kingdom, red means Fire Nation, and blue means Water Tribe. Color-coded for your convenience."
"One convenient thing about this world," Sam said.
Jack shrugged. "I dunno. I've always kinda liked barter economies."
On the stage, an announcer stepped up and brought a paper cone to his mouth. "Ladies and gentlemen," he called, voice wafting up into the stands. "Boys and girls, foreigners and citizens, merchants and noblemen..."
"You know how to navigate them," Sam groused. Jack shrugged.
"It's always about what you have and what you need," he says. "Places like this have more than one way to get one with the other."
And if you don't know what you need? Sam was tempted to ask. He didn't, though. Just shifted, unconsciously, a degree or two toward Jack, then settled back again.
Applause rose from the stands as the three waterbenders took the stage, and Aang made his entrance from the sky. The announcer stepped back, hoisted a flag - and the fight began.
Waterbending was mesmerizing. Sam had seen it in the healing tent, of course, and could still remember the Water spell on Gaen, but his mind still half-refused to accept what was going on - the water was like an entity, a living thing, dancing into tentacles and whips, crystallizing into ice, shattering and melting and entangling again.
"Octopus form," Jack said, leaning in and indicating an array of fluid tentacles surrounding one of the waterbenders. "One of the more advanced defensive techniques. Looks simple, but you try tacking on eight extra appendages and see how coordinated you are."
"You like seeming to know everything, don't you?" Sam said, and Aang spun, and in a gust of wind blew past the water and threw the waterbenders back. One caught his footing, but the water around him turned to ice, then to a wave, throwing him off the stage. The crowd went wild. Jack cracked a grin.
"In my line of work, it's useful," he said. "Con is short for confidence. And arguments about what makes a good person aside, when something happens, people look to emergency response for reassurance. They want us to know everything, even if we don't."
"I thought you said Torchwood was special intelligence," Sam said, and the announcer below hoisted a flag of a different color. Thre men in green stepped onto the stage. Jack shrugged.
"Column A, Column B."
Earth was steady. The stage beneath the earthbenders seemed to reach up and hold them, bracing them against the buffeting winds. Aang called up fire and they called up rock shields; Aang braced himself to tear the shields down and the ground beneath him turned to quicksand.
A roar went up as Aang leapt, swung his staff, and the earthen stage split in two with a tremor that could be felt in the stands. As the earthbender called up a jag of rock to save him Aang called up a long snake of water, sucked straight from the watertable of the land, which twisted around his opponent, unbalanced him, and tossed him from the stage. The crowd surged to their feet and the earthbender bowed, stretched out his hands, and put the stage back in order as two men in Fire Nation uniform stepped up so the final fight could began.
Air against fire seemed almost too easy, though Sam knew enough not to be fooled by the apparent effortlessness. Aang was able to dispel most of the attacks without touching any of the other disciplines - and something seemed familiar, as he did.
Sam frowned. "But you don't always have the answer, do you?"
Jack's face was lit strangely with the glow coming up from the stage. It made his expression almost canny, as he tilted his head and pulled his lips into a sidelong smile. "Who do you think I am?"
Sam wasn't watching him. He leaned forward, staring down into the exhibition; at a particularly bright flash of fire, he jabbed his finger forward. "There! Watch what happens when Aang-"
On the stage below them, one of the firebenders had called up a great arc of flame. Aang ducked beneath it, staff spinning, and the arc arched back - billowed up and outward by a gust of wind.
"Imagine that backlash," Sam said, "in an enclosed space. Like a hall, or a cell. With Aang standing in the doorway."
Jack's brow furrowed. "It'd hit the walls," he said. "Soot the ceiling."
"With no accompanying marks on the door behind the airbender," Sam said, sitting back. He crossed his arms. "You know, someone told me something, when I started this investigation."
"What?" Jack asked.
"'No one's ever broken out of a Fire Nation prison except the Avatar and the Avatar's friends.'"
-
They found Aang at the edge of the stage, with Sokka already gushing about the exhibition and apparently re-rendering it in interpretive dance. "Li was all, fwarsh! and you were all, whoosh! and Li was all, 'Gyaaaah~!'"
"Heh, yeah," Aang said, rubbing the back of his neck and giving every impression that he'd been headed to a tent to cool down but had been ambushed on the way. "That was pretty neat, huh? I totally didn't realize that Akluik could do that thing with the water in the air. Think Katara's been teaching her?"
"Well, you know Katara," Sokka said. "She's - oh, hey, look!" He dropped what he was doing - saying - and bounded up to Sam, pulling the monocle from his tunic as he did so. His voice dropped into an affected accent. "Why if it isn't Sam Tyler, my right-hand detective!"
"Sokka," Sam greeted, and glanced to Aang. "Do you have a moment?"
"Is this about the case?" Sokka asked, accent gone. Aang glanced toward the tents. "What did you find?"
"I - not here," Sam said, and looked to Aang. "I'd also like to speak to the Avatar. Could we go somewhere quieter?"
"Um," Aang said. "Yeah? Sure. Over there good?"
He gestured to a makeshift alley behind another set of tents - dressing rooms for performers, Sam guessed. They moved over, and Aang glanced up and down the narrow path.
"So, what did you need me for? Is it creepy spirit stuff going on? I heard that the guards heard rattling and all sorts of noises..."
The rattling of wind coming in through the armory windows, Sam thought. "I think I know what happened to Princess Azula."
It wasn't his imagination. Aang looked green at that, though he tried to hide it. "Really? That's great news! If you write it down on something I'll get to it as soon as-"
"...Avatar Aang," Sam interrupted.
Aang trailed off.
Sam motioned to Sokka. "Would you like to tell him, or should I?"
Aang turned away. He hunched down, wrapping his arms around his knees. He looked a lot closer to thirteen than a hundred and thirteen.
Sokka gave a confused look to Sam, then approached the Avatar. "Aang?"
"I... I guess I kinda let her go," Aang said.
There was half a beat of silence.
And, as predicted, Sokka exploded. "What! You what? Aang! Why would you do that? She could be out there doing anything! What if she goes after Zuko? What if she's after my sister!"
"No, she's not hunting Zuko or Katara or Iroh or anyone else." Aang shook his head. "I listened to her. All she wants to do is to find Fire Lord Ozai, and I sent him into exile, so as long as she doesn't find him, she shouldn't come back, okay?"
"But what if she does find him!" Sokka cried out. "Look at Zuko! This family is obsessive!"
"But she won't!" Aang jumped up to thump his staff on the ground. "It was a really good exile! I exiled him really far away in a place no one ever-"
"You killed him," Sam said.
Everyone turned to look at him.
Sam was staring at Aang, realization shocked onto his face. "That's right, isn't it? You killed him, but you lied because you felt guilty. Convinced everyone that you'd sent him into exile. And then-"
"Sam!"
Sam stopped, looking to Jack. Jack gave him a warning look, jaw set. It didn't matter. Aang was already turning away. He thumbed a catch on his staff and two wings spring out, like a collapsible hangglider, and with a leap, he vanished into the air.
Airbending, Sam suspected.
The somewhat less charitable thought crossed his mind that at least there was someone on this planet with coping strategies as bad as his own.
Sokka watched him go, then slumped a little, himself. When he straightened up again, he looked at Sam and groused, "Next time you couldn't come up with a good answer?" Then he walked off.
"I'm sorry," Sam said after him.
Sokka raised one hand in a backwards wave. "I'll talk to him," he called back, turned a corner, and was gone.
An uneasy weight settled into the bottom of Sam's stomach. He'd managed to forget how rarely solving a mystery, in his profession, was met with triumph or joy. Murders and kidnappings, drug trails and blackmails. Sometimes all the answers were bad, and you just had to accept that it was better to know. If it was better to know.
"Well," Jack said, looking after them. "Congratulations, Sam. Less than a day on the ground, and you solved it."
"...yeah." It was the victory he'd been looking for. Sam turned, and headed back for the Strahl.
After a long, empty moment, Jack followed.
-
When they walked into the Strahl again, Balthier was putting the finishing touches onto a console by the airlock. He looked over at them, raising an eyebrow.
"Ah. There you are. I was about to see if I could rent a scenthound," he said. "As I'd hoped, the damage was mostly superficial. Fran's taken care of all the trouble the paradox gave the engine; we can depart as soon as you've got yourselves secured."
Sam made a noncommittal noise and trudged past him.
"Well. There's a long face," said a voice from down the hall, and Sam looked up to see Sparrow lounging against a wall. His pockets were bulging more than they had been. "That's a pity. Bazaars should be places of profit and revelry, not - whatever the two of you were doing."
"You could share your haul," Balthier suggested. "They did do half your work for you."
Sparrow grinned. "Finders, keepers," he said, and turned to leave down the hall.
"Hold on." Sam had paused, staring after Sparrow with a fleet of lights going on inside his head. "Half his - when we were stuck in - he used us as a distraction so he could steal-"
Balthier was laughing. Sam looked back to him as he closed the airlock and headed toward the bridge, jewelery and armor glinting in the light from the portholes. "Of course he did," Balthier said, as though this were only to be expected. "He's a pirate."
Jack chuckled. Sam turned to look at him, then at Sparrow, and finally to Balthier again. Pirates on two sides, con man on another, and one displaced detective in the middle. He had no idea when this had become his life.
"Just to be on the safe side, we'll make a series of stops before actually attaining Earth," Balthier said, glancing back toward Jack. "At which point you'll go on to meet us at some point in your future, and we'll eventually be glad to have you. Feel free to find us when the time arises." He paused halfway up the ladder, inclining his head toward Sam. "Mind, I'm not sure your friend can come back with you. He's entirely too honest."
Jacks hand clapped Sam's shoulder. "Oh, I'm sure we can find something for him to do. Come on."
He pulled Sam down the hall, past the sauntering Sparrow and his collection of ill-gotten gains, toward the cabin again. Sam didn't protest.
"Congratulatons," Jack said. "Of all the people with an agenda, I wouldn't have guessed it'd be Avatar Aang."
"If we're honest, I still don't understand it," Sam admitted. "Azula hunted him. Tried to kill him. And she was one of the people trying to conquer the world."
"It's how he was raised." Jack shrugged. "'All life, even down to the tiniest spider-fly caught in its own web, is sacred.' Nice philosophy; doesn't so much hold up in times of war, but try telling that to a thirteen-year-old kid raised by monks, who already thinks he's failed them."
From the direction of the engine room, the machines hummed to life. The floor pushed against their feet as the hover systems engaged, and Sam shook his head. "Still wasn't a terribly wise thing to do."
Jack laughed. The sound bounced off the walls, and Sam jumped, staring at him.
"Humans aren't particularly wise," Jack said. "A few of us can fake it from time to time."
He pulled the cabin door open, and Sam stepped through.
"Oh, and," Jack said, and wandered in after him.
Sam motioned him on.
"Not too long after alien contact becomes a normal thing, interspecies marriage becomes one of the markers of a progressive society. In case you were still curious," Jack said. "You know, you start off with systems of law and restitution, representation in government, personal freedoms, move on up through the diversities and sentient rights..."
Sam was staring. Jack shrugged.
"Species, in most cases, was recognized as falling victim to the same gut morality as all the other miscegenation laws - race, sex, national origin, those. It just took a while."
"How did you-?" Sam asked, and then shook his head. "Did Balthier-?"
Jack chuckled, with a flash of too-white teeth and a tone that was suspiciously knowing. "You didn't think you were the only one with deductive reasoning skills, did you?" He crossed his arms, leaning back against the wall. "Yeah, Sam, Balthier told me."
Sam didn't answer for a while. Jack eventually raised his eyebrows.
"What?"
"I don't understand you," Sam admitted.
Jack cast him an odd look, with confusion and recognition tangling in it. "I think you'll find the converse is also true," he quoted.
Sam blinked. The source filled itself in not long after - he started to respond to it, but couldn't quite find the words.
Jack picked up the slack instead, finishing the script just as he had before. "What are we doing, Sam?"
And, just like he had before, Jack could watch Sam trying to navigate through the labyrinth of his own thoughts. But this time apparently he had a thread to follow out, because when he came to a decision he disregarded language altogether, stepped in close, reached up to Jack, and kissed him.
And that was it. He could revel in the implication of it - that even with no interest in going further just then, neither alcohol nor shock nor anger had precipitated this. It was just a choice he could make, and the power to choose was everything.
He stepped back, and Jack let him. A curious half-smile was on his lips, but there was something else too. Not satisfaction. More like familiarity, or negotiation, or fondness.
After a moment, Jack raised his eyebrows. "I could close the door."
Sam looked to the doorway. He hadn't realized the door was open - and he discovered that he was grinning. "Yeah," he answered. "Why not?" Sparrow and Fran and Balthier were nowhere to be seen and likely had their own private observations anyway, but those didn't matter here. Maybe, just maybe, as the ship pushed itself out of conventional spacetime, being nowhere might work.
Jack reached past him, and pulled the door shut.
The Strahl sailed on.
Part: 3 of 3
Author: magistrate (draegonhawke)
Sliding Scale of Slash: Onscreen, Jack Harkness/Sam Tyler
Rating: T
Beta Warning: Unbeta'd.
Fandoms: Life on Mars; Torchwood; Avatar: The Last Airbender; Final Fantasy XII; Pirates of the Caribbean
Summary: The Strahl crash-lands on a lovely little planet, complete with wildlife and bazaar. Naturally, the boys find their own trouble.
Author's Note: RIGHT. ON WE GO.
-
Sam vanished so fast it was hard to say he wasn't practicing magic of his own.
At that point, he didn't care what Jack was thinking, or how Jack would react to his disappearance. Even the scant few clues they'd picked out of the cell were of secondary importance to not being anywhere around the man in the light of day.
He pushed on through the bazaar, past its boundaries, into the Strahl, taking turns based on what would separate him from Jack the fastest - and as a result he ended up in a corridor he hadn't tried before. One which led him directly to the engine room where Fran was working.
He'd come up behind her as she was crouched in front of something that could have been a decorative pillar or a computer bank - it was difficult to identify. For a moment, Sam thought he'd be able to back out without her noticing, but both of Fran's ears were rotated back, trained on him. "You should not be here."
"Sorry," Sam said. "I should-"
Go, was the end of that sentence. Somehow, he didn't quite get around to saying it. Instead, he found himself taking a step in.
"That's the time-travel system, isn't it?" At the very least, he reasoned, he should be able to feel if the air were getting cold.
Fran didn't answer.
Sam hesitated. "...if you're worried that I'm stealing secrets, I should... I haven't understood anything since Jack grabbed me." He tried to ignore the way his voice turned bitter on grabbed. "I'm not exactly a threat to national security." Or the integrity of the timeline. So far as he knew.
Fran turned to look at him for a moment, and it was difficult to tell whether her eyes were naturally narrow, whether she was scrutinizing him, or whether she had taken offense. After a moment she turned back to her work.
"You must not discuss what you see here with anyone," she said, pulling something from the engine pillar which looked far too fine-spun and delicate to constitute wiring. "Especially not with Captain Harkness."
Captain Harkness. Sam grimaced, watching Fran's claws as they undid a snarl in the... whatever it was. "Not much danger of that, is there?"
The closer of Fran's ears turned, singling him out for a moment in the room. Sam shook his head.
"Sorry."
"You may have a seat," Fran granted.
Sam found one.
For a while he just watched; Fran apparently didn't mind having an audience, and he didn't have much to say. At some point his life had become a science fiction novel - a fractured one, admittedly, written by someone with a sense of humor he didn't appreciate at all, and staffed with protagonists, if he flattered himself into thinking he was a protagonist, who were lucky if they found their way out of one mess in time to grab a drink and a biscuit before the next. There was a time, back when he'd been significantly younger than the DCI catapulted back to 1973, when he would have jumped at the prospect of time travel, aliens, and watching someone put together a starship core. This should have all been amazing.
Given the way his life was going, he was beginning to think that he could be dropped in the engine room of the Enterprise and it would seem like one more unwanted stopover, rife with problems waiting to jump out at him. Given his luck, he'd probably drop in just in time for Romulans and a warp core breach.
"Time travel," he caught himself saying. "It can't all be like this."
Fran didn't answer.
Sam cleared his throat, looking away. She was hard to read, but the silence was loud. Just the attempt at smalltalk couldn't hurt.
"Maddest world I've been on yet," he said. "Beats out the ship with the picture of Elvis."
Fran's ear flicked as she pulled a crystal from the pillar it had resided in, turning it over to inspect. "Elvis," she said, with foreign articulation. Sam swallowed. You really wouldn't have any reason to know, would you?
"He was a singer. A pop culture icon... never mind." He rubbed the back of his hand across his mouth. "Point is, the entire place is mad. Avatars and wars and free trade bazaars and there's been a crime, and I should be able to solve it, and - it's just mad. That's all."
"It is in a process of becoming," Fran said.
Sam blinked. Even with her, he had no idea what was going on. That rankled, though not as much as he expected. "Sorry?"
"All living creatures seek balance," Fran said, weighing the crystal in her hands. "It is why we experience seasons of increase and decrease, cycles of night and day. This is a world which has fallen out of balance, and now it must remake itself or go mad." She replaced the crystal without seeming to have done anything to it. "And all times of remaking are uncertain."
Sam raised an eyebrow. He hadn't been expecting that much, though what he had been expecting was still unclear. "You haven't stepped off the Strahl, have you?"
Fran's right ear flicked. Again. Sam was beginning to wonder if that was how she communicated, and if so, how he could learn what it meant.
"...I should go," he decided, and stood. "Thank you for letting me see the engine."
"Murrh," Fran sub-vocalized. Sam turned to the door, and was interrupted by footsteps and voices down a further hall.
Even when he couldn't hear the words, the cadences were easy to make out: Bathier, sounding as though the world had let him in on its own private jokes; Jack, pretending he hadn't orchestrated them. Sam ducked back inside the engine room, and waited until they faded.
When he looked up, Fran was looking at him. He froze without good reason to.
He was doing that more often these days. It was something he would have examined, were it anyone other than him.
"You will become accustomed," Fran said, and then she turned back to her work. "I agree; you should go."
-
Jack was, thankfully, not in the hall when Sam stepped out. Nor in their cabin when he retreated there. Sam poked around the shelves, pulling out scrolls and small handbound manuscripts, most of which discussed things which sounded fascinating if only one had a working knowledge of the world they came from. After half an hour of this, he gave up and walked outside again.
The outside air was still hot, though a breeze had picked up. From the position of the sun he guessed it was wearing on into evening, and he headed toward the bazaar. On one of the main roads he turned a corner to see the guard who had come to let them out of the cell standing in front of a jewelery stand. He was being dressed down for something by a red-faced official, while the stand's apparent owner looked on with a scowl.
Sam ducked his head and hurried on.
Sparrow was leaning over a stall a few metres down the road, and Sam approached him. "Was Jack - Harkness - around here?"
Sparrow grinned, displaying an impressive array of teeth in an impressive array of colors. "Neither hide nor hair," he said.
Sam snorted. "You're not very helpful, are you?"
"My good man," Sparrow said, indicating Sam with all the fingers on his right hand. "I do my very best not to be." He turned again, picking up a vase and examining it. "Shall I send him your way if he does make his way my way?"
"No," Sam said, too forcefully. "That's all right. I'm just going to... go... look at the exhibits."
"Enjoy that," Sparrow said. "And if you see one half of an interlinking jade pendant on the ground by one of the major thoroughfares, pick it up for me, would you?"
Sam shook his head and wandered on.
The market lanes were busy, but mercifully Jack-free. Sam wandered past a few stalls, and finally happened on someone strumming an instrument he'd never seen before. Six or seven people, two of them children, were already clustered around, and Sam joined them. He listened to the man croon for a while about birds returning to the spring forests and love that bloomed like the lotus-roses when the rains came, then turned and wandered down the lane. He wondered how easy it would be to get lost in the growing bazaar.
Not nearly as easy as it was to get lost in thought.
The Iron Gull kept circling around the periphery of his mind, dark and warped and strange. He felt stable out here - more or less - and couldn't comprehend what the hell had happened back there. Somewhere in the halls reality had come just a little unhinged, like he'd been wandering through the place drunk and drugged, stumbling into walls and-
No.
And other... indiscretions.
He increased his pace. Not that it was going to help him - you couldn't outwalk your own mind, no matter what he'd thought in 1973 - but there was no telling gut instinct that, and at that, he winced. He had a feeling gut instinct was responsible for a lot of his problems at the moment. His gut, Jack's gut, whichever. And he'd like an alternative to that, really, but from everything he remembered from 1973 and from Maya before that, the alternative usually made things worse before they made things better.
All it was doing now was making him re-examine everything. The increased security. The wind coming into the armory. The deference with which Jack had-
...deference. Something had happened, yelling in the halls, something had happened, and Jack had deferred.
He stepped out of the way of an adolescent boy, running down the street with a basket piled high with bread.
He couldn't think about this. Didn't want to think about this. Just couldn't push it all away.
He passed between two carts piled high with bright cloth and caught a glimpse of the bay, and the long blue swath of ocean reflecting the evening sky. He crossed his arms, glimpsing a sliver of black iron where another Fire Nation ship was sailing out or in, and shook his head.
No distress on the inside of the door. Scorch marks on the rear wall and ceiling.
Jack.
Sam looked away from the water. Away from the ships, and away from the pale smudges of far-off islands. Sokka was probably on one of those, or returning, but Sam had no particular desire to see him.
Odd, how he'd managed to think all of this could be so easy.
He moved on. Past singers, carts creaking under the weight of metal ingots in various shades, three boys performing some small play, an old woman begging. He was heading toward a stand selling bright birds in small cages when someone's hand landed on his shoulder, and he spun away so fast one would think he was getting nicked.
Jack.
Arrest might have been more pleasant.
Sam forced himself to go through a physical approximation of relaxing, if for no other reason than not wanting to give Jack the satisfaction of seeing him so jumpy. The assumed satisfaction. Jack was looking anything but satisfied.
"Jack." Sam glanced at the bazaar, half-turning away but unwilling to let Jack out of his peripheral vision. "...I though you'd have found something to do by now."
Jack did not follow his gaze. "Well," he said, with a theatrical shrug, "you know, bazaars, people hawking their wares, puppet shows and fire eaters and fire sausage and fire... they seem to like doing things with fire around here," he said. "All kinda loses something when you don't have anyone to go with, and what with Balthier having a prior commitment with a lady named Strahl..." He exhaled. "Look, we can't keep doing this."
Doing what?, Sam would have liked to ask. Unfortunately, he thought he knew too well what Jack was referring to. Before he responded, he turned to examine the nearest stall - a stand of thumb-sized ivory pendants, decorated in blue, white and green. "Trust me, it won't happen again."
That gave Jack noticeable pause. "...all right, I think we're not talking about the same 'this', unless you're making some kind of argument about things happening again when they haven't stopped in the first place. What I'm talking about - Sam." He grabbed Sam's shoulder again, the heat of his hand, the strength of his grip, spinning Sam around to face him. "We're doing this right now."
Cue one conversation Sam didn't want to have.
"I'm looking at ivory," he said.
That didn't work.
"This isn't still about the Hall," Jack said.
Sam noticed his jaw aching before he realized he'd clenched it. He didn't notice the acid in his voice at all. "Then what is it about?"
"This-" And there it was again, the sick lurch Sam's heart gave. See? He doesn't know. "This is about the night after Lusuosa," Jack said, "it's about the Xracsis Bar and Post, it's - look, I've done this sort of thing before, and it usually ends up with one of us shooting the other. And I don't know about you, but that really ruins my day."
The lurch resolved into a stagger. Sam stepped back, and Jack let him go. "We're not going to end up anywhere."
"Sam."
And that was too much. His heart kicked, and out shot anger. "All I ever wanted to do was to go home! From 1973, from any of these worlds you've put me on-!"
"Yeah, I know," Jack said. "Believe it or not, trying to get home was what started this mess for me, too."
"You had a choice," Sam said. "You never had to leave. I-"
"What?"
Jack looked as though someone had just accused him of eel smuggling. Sam regrouped. "You never had to leave Earth," he said.
Jack's face darkened. "Home isn't Earth, for me."
Sam stared. In seconds, though, the clues fit themselves together - the arguments they'd had, rationales given, the entire catastrophe of Manchester. "...the TARDIS," he said, and managed an injured laugh. "All of this; the pub, getting credits off Lusuosa, sending the message back from Gaen - you were just trying to drop me off on Earth so you could go looking for the Doctor again."
Jack looked hurt, and then a moment later he didn't any more. Just neutral. Sam wondered if he'd imagined the hurt to begin with. "Isn't that what you wanted?"
Yes. It had been. He was certain that it had been. So he shouldn't be thinking of an argument in a hotel on some alien world, with Jack saying I told you. We have these experiences in common. I need you. Shouldn't be feeling slighted that he was being sent home.
"Has it ever mattered, what I wanted?" Sam asked, and turned to walk away.
Jack didn't let him. This time he didn't grab him, but he stepped around and put both hands out to block his path. "Do you want an apology?" The question was almost a demand. "I'm sorry. Yeah, a better person might have had you back home by now, but a worse one would have left you to die in Manchester, and it looks like the only guy around is me. And I'm sorry if that's not good enough, but it's all I can offer. I'm doing what I can."
Down the street, something with a mule's body and the head of a ram brayed and was reprimanded. Sam spread his hands as Jack dropped his. "Then what are we supposed to do?"
Jack set his jaw. For a moment when he didn't respond, the bazaar stumbled into the gap in conversation: disconnected phrases of music, the snorts and protests of performing animals and beasts of burden, strange spices in the air, men hawking wares. Here they stood, on the latest alien world and alien time in a long, long string, and Sam couldn't even conjure up a sense of novelty.
"Try harder," Jack said, and his voice was restrained enough that the bustle of the world threatened to mow it under. "We're supposed to try harder the next time."
Sam exhaled, trying to edge off a laugh of frustration. "Ever since-" he started. "Around you-"
Jack quirked his head.
Sam brought a hand against his mouth again, an angry pressure working its way through his jaw. "I don't even know what I'm trying for."
This time, Jack didn't have a snappy answer. He looked away. "That's always the problem, isn't it?" He watched a couple setting up a stand near the end of the latest row, angled to catch the light from the lowering sun. "But I didn't make a mistake," he said. "I mean-"
He turned back, putting both hands in his pockets.
"Yeah, I made plenty of mistakes. And you're just going to have to believe that I'm sorry. Pulling you out of that paradox? That wasn't one of them." He leaned forward. "So maybe we're not supposed to be here, whatever 'supposed' means. Too bad. We're here. Now we get to deal with it."
Sam nodded, but he also grimaced. "Easier said."
The bazaar closed in around them again. This time, it felt terribly isolating.
A man in flared red costume passed by, calling to anyone who would listen. "Small showing, only for you early arrivals! See the Avatar take on the elite soldiers of the Fire Nation, great Earth Kingdom gurus, and wiley Water Tribe masters, in a martial display you won't find anywhere else in the world. Limited seating, so get yourselves to the ampitheatre! Refreshments available for a reasonable charge..."
Jack watched him walk past, then shook his head and looked back. "You want to go?"
Sam looked up at him. "Go where? The Strahl's not fixed, and your teleport-"
He trailed off when Jack started laughing. "To the exhibition, Sam. To see something we might never have a chance to see again." He spread his hands inside his pockets, widening his coat out into an odd, landbound kite. "It's a festival."
Sam questioned how he'd managed to pull exhibition out as an answer to that conversation, but not for long. This was like Gene turning to the department and announcing "Pub" after they'd been at each others' throats: it was what they did, when it'd been a long day and they still had to live with each other tomorrow.
He could understand that.
"You couldn't have found football," he said, and a smile crept onto his face. "All right. Let's go."
-
The sun was touching the horizon when they filed into their seats, giving everything a golden tinge deepened by the men lighting torches around the periphery. Concession sellers heckled the crowd, with a variety of foods smelling spicy or pungent. The fried-fish fruits were thankfully not in evidence.
Jack leaned over as they sat, nudging Sam's shoulder with his own, and Sam startled. Jack straightened up, then relaxed back into his seat. Sam turned to look at him; he was looking straight down toward the stage, expression quiet, and he didn't turn to look back.
After a while, Sam looked away.
He would have asked, but he had an idea what this was: a wordless negotiation of boundaries. A way of finding a middle ground where words were insufficient. It hadn't worked well, the last time Jack had tried.
Maybe this time they'd try harder. It would work out better.
On the stage, three people in blue tunics were gathering, talking amongst themselves. Their words couldn't be heard from the seating, but their postures and gestures were genial. "They'd be the Water Tribe," Jack said. "From what I can tell, green means Earth Kingdom, red means Fire Nation, and blue means Water Tribe. Color-coded for your convenience."
"One convenient thing about this world," Sam said.
Jack shrugged. "I dunno. I've always kinda liked barter economies."
On the stage, an announcer stepped up and brought a paper cone to his mouth. "Ladies and gentlemen," he called, voice wafting up into the stands. "Boys and girls, foreigners and citizens, merchants and noblemen..."
"You know how to navigate them," Sam groused. Jack shrugged.
"It's always about what you have and what you need," he says. "Places like this have more than one way to get one with the other."
And if you don't know what you need? Sam was tempted to ask. He didn't, though. Just shifted, unconsciously, a degree or two toward Jack, then settled back again.
Applause rose from the stands as the three waterbenders took the stage, and Aang made his entrance from the sky. The announcer stepped back, hoisted a flag - and the fight began.
Waterbending was mesmerizing. Sam had seen it in the healing tent, of course, and could still remember the Water spell on Gaen, but his mind still half-refused to accept what was going on - the water was like an entity, a living thing, dancing into tentacles and whips, crystallizing into ice, shattering and melting and entangling again.
"Octopus form," Jack said, leaning in and indicating an array of fluid tentacles surrounding one of the waterbenders. "One of the more advanced defensive techniques. Looks simple, but you try tacking on eight extra appendages and see how coordinated you are."
"You like seeming to know everything, don't you?" Sam said, and Aang spun, and in a gust of wind blew past the water and threw the waterbenders back. One caught his footing, but the water around him turned to ice, then to a wave, throwing him off the stage. The crowd went wild. Jack cracked a grin.
"In my line of work, it's useful," he said. "Con is short for confidence. And arguments about what makes a good person aside, when something happens, people look to emergency response for reassurance. They want us to know everything, even if we don't."
"I thought you said Torchwood was special intelligence," Sam said, and the announcer below hoisted a flag of a different color. Thre men in green stepped onto the stage. Jack shrugged.
"Column A, Column B."
Earth was steady. The stage beneath the earthbenders seemed to reach up and hold them, bracing them against the buffeting winds. Aang called up fire and they called up rock shields; Aang braced himself to tear the shields down and the ground beneath him turned to quicksand.
A roar went up as Aang leapt, swung his staff, and the earthen stage split in two with a tremor that could be felt in the stands. As the earthbender called up a jag of rock to save him Aang called up a long snake of water, sucked straight from the watertable of the land, which twisted around his opponent, unbalanced him, and tossed him from the stage. The crowd surged to their feet and the earthbender bowed, stretched out his hands, and put the stage back in order as two men in Fire Nation uniform stepped up so the final fight could began.
Air against fire seemed almost too easy, though Sam knew enough not to be fooled by the apparent effortlessness. Aang was able to dispel most of the attacks without touching any of the other disciplines - and something seemed familiar, as he did.
Sam frowned. "But you don't always have the answer, do you?"
Jack's face was lit strangely with the glow coming up from the stage. It made his expression almost canny, as he tilted his head and pulled his lips into a sidelong smile. "Who do you think I am?"
Sam wasn't watching him. He leaned forward, staring down into the exhibition; at a particularly bright flash of fire, he jabbed his finger forward. "There! Watch what happens when Aang-"
On the stage below them, one of the firebenders had called up a great arc of flame. Aang ducked beneath it, staff spinning, and the arc arched back - billowed up and outward by a gust of wind.
"Imagine that backlash," Sam said, "in an enclosed space. Like a hall, or a cell. With Aang standing in the doorway."
Jack's brow furrowed. "It'd hit the walls," he said. "Soot the ceiling."
"With no accompanying marks on the door behind the airbender," Sam said, sitting back. He crossed his arms. "You know, someone told me something, when I started this investigation."
"What?" Jack asked.
"'No one's ever broken out of a Fire Nation prison except the Avatar and the Avatar's friends.'"
-
They found Aang at the edge of the stage, with Sokka already gushing about the exhibition and apparently re-rendering it in interpretive dance. "Li was all, fwarsh! and you were all, whoosh! and Li was all, 'Gyaaaah~!'"
"Heh, yeah," Aang said, rubbing the back of his neck and giving every impression that he'd been headed to a tent to cool down but had been ambushed on the way. "That was pretty neat, huh? I totally didn't realize that Akluik could do that thing with the water in the air. Think Katara's been teaching her?"
"Well, you know Katara," Sokka said. "She's - oh, hey, look!" He dropped what he was doing - saying - and bounded up to Sam, pulling the monocle from his tunic as he did so. His voice dropped into an affected accent. "Why if it isn't Sam Tyler, my right-hand detective!"
"Sokka," Sam greeted, and glanced to Aang. "Do you have a moment?"
"Is this about the case?" Sokka asked, accent gone. Aang glanced toward the tents. "What did you find?"
"I - not here," Sam said, and looked to Aang. "I'd also like to speak to the Avatar. Could we go somewhere quieter?"
"Um," Aang said. "Yeah? Sure. Over there good?"
He gestured to a makeshift alley behind another set of tents - dressing rooms for performers, Sam guessed. They moved over, and Aang glanced up and down the narrow path.
"So, what did you need me for? Is it creepy spirit stuff going on? I heard that the guards heard rattling and all sorts of noises..."
The rattling of wind coming in through the armory windows, Sam thought. "I think I know what happened to Princess Azula."
It wasn't his imagination. Aang looked green at that, though he tried to hide it. "Really? That's great news! If you write it down on something I'll get to it as soon as-"
"...Avatar Aang," Sam interrupted.
Aang trailed off.
Sam motioned to Sokka. "Would you like to tell him, or should I?"
Aang turned away. He hunched down, wrapping his arms around his knees. He looked a lot closer to thirteen than a hundred and thirteen.
Sokka gave a confused look to Sam, then approached the Avatar. "Aang?"
"I... I guess I kinda let her go," Aang said.
There was half a beat of silence.
And, as predicted, Sokka exploded. "What! You what? Aang! Why would you do that? She could be out there doing anything! What if she goes after Zuko? What if she's after my sister!"
"No, she's not hunting Zuko or Katara or Iroh or anyone else." Aang shook his head. "I listened to her. All she wants to do is to find Fire Lord Ozai, and I sent him into exile, so as long as she doesn't find him, she shouldn't come back, okay?"
"But what if she does find him!" Sokka cried out. "Look at Zuko! This family is obsessive!"
"But she won't!" Aang jumped up to thump his staff on the ground. "It was a really good exile! I exiled him really far away in a place no one ever-"
"You killed him," Sam said.
Everyone turned to look at him.
Sam was staring at Aang, realization shocked onto his face. "That's right, isn't it? You killed him, but you lied because you felt guilty. Convinced everyone that you'd sent him into exile. And then-"
"Sam!"
Sam stopped, looking to Jack. Jack gave him a warning look, jaw set. It didn't matter. Aang was already turning away. He thumbed a catch on his staff and two wings spring out, like a collapsible hangglider, and with a leap, he vanished into the air.
Airbending, Sam suspected.
The somewhat less charitable thought crossed his mind that at least there was someone on this planet with coping strategies as bad as his own.
Sokka watched him go, then slumped a little, himself. When he straightened up again, he looked at Sam and groused, "Next time you couldn't come up with a good answer?" Then he walked off.
"I'm sorry," Sam said after him.
Sokka raised one hand in a backwards wave. "I'll talk to him," he called back, turned a corner, and was gone.
An uneasy weight settled into the bottom of Sam's stomach. He'd managed to forget how rarely solving a mystery, in his profession, was met with triumph or joy. Murders and kidnappings, drug trails and blackmails. Sometimes all the answers were bad, and you just had to accept that it was better to know. If it was better to know.
"Well," Jack said, looking after them. "Congratulations, Sam. Less than a day on the ground, and you solved it."
"...yeah." It was the victory he'd been looking for. Sam turned, and headed back for the Strahl.
After a long, empty moment, Jack followed.
-
When they walked into the Strahl again, Balthier was putting the finishing touches onto a console by the airlock. He looked over at them, raising an eyebrow.
"Ah. There you are. I was about to see if I could rent a scenthound," he said. "As I'd hoped, the damage was mostly superficial. Fran's taken care of all the trouble the paradox gave the engine; we can depart as soon as you've got yourselves secured."
Sam made a noncommittal noise and trudged past him.
"Well. There's a long face," said a voice from down the hall, and Sam looked up to see Sparrow lounging against a wall. His pockets were bulging more than they had been. "That's a pity. Bazaars should be places of profit and revelry, not - whatever the two of you were doing."
"You could share your haul," Balthier suggested. "They did do half your work for you."
Sparrow grinned. "Finders, keepers," he said, and turned to leave down the hall.
"Hold on." Sam had paused, staring after Sparrow with a fleet of lights going on inside his head. "Half his - when we were stuck in - he used us as a distraction so he could steal-"
Balthier was laughing. Sam looked back to him as he closed the airlock and headed toward the bridge, jewelery and armor glinting in the light from the portholes. "Of course he did," Balthier said, as though this were only to be expected. "He's a pirate."
Jack chuckled. Sam turned to look at him, then at Sparrow, and finally to Balthier again. Pirates on two sides, con man on another, and one displaced detective in the middle. He had no idea when this had become his life.
"Just to be on the safe side, we'll make a series of stops before actually attaining Earth," Balthier said, glancing back toward Jack. "At which point you'll go on to meet us at some point in your future, and we'll eventually be glad to have you. Feel free to find us when the time arises." He paused halfway up the ladder, inclining his head toward Sam. "Mind, I'm not sure your friend can come back with you. He's entirely too honest."
Jacks hand clapped Sam's shoulder. "Oh, I'm sure we can find something for him to do. Come on."
He pulled Sam down the hall, past the sauntering Sparrow and his collection of ill-gotten gains, toward the cabin again. Sam didn't protest.
"Congratulatons," Jack said. "Of all the people with an agenda, I wouldn't have guessed it'd be Avatar Aang."
"If we're honest, I still don't understand it," Sam admitted. "Azula hunted him. Tried to kill him. And she was one of the people trying to conquer the world."
"It's how he was raised." Jack shrugged. "'All life, even down to the tiniest spider-fly caught in its own web, is sacred.' Nice philosophy; doesn't so much hold up in times of war, but try telling that to a thirteen-year-old kid raised by monks, who already thinks he's failed them."
From the direction of the engine room, the machines hummed to life. The floor pushed against their feet as the hover systems engaged, and Sam shook his head. "Still wasn't a terribly wise thing to do."
Jack laughed. The sound bounced off the walls, and Sam jumped, staring at him.
"Humans aren't particularly wise," Jack said. "A few of us can fake it from time to time."
He pulled the cabin door open, and Sam stepped through.
"Oh, and," Jack said, and wandered in after him.
Sam motioned him on.
"Not too long after alien contact becomes a normal thing, interspecies marriage becomes one of the markers of a progressive society. In case you were still curious," Jack said. "You know, you start off with systems of law and restitution, representation in government, personal freedoms, move on up through the diversities and sentient rights..."
Sam was staring. Jack shrugged.
"Species, in most cases, was recognized as falling victim to the same gut morality as all the other miscegenation laws - race, sex, national origin, those. It just took a while."
"How did you-?" Sam asked, and then shook his head. "Did Balthier-?"
Jack chuckled, with a flash of too-white teeth and a tone that was suspiciously knowing. "You didn't think you were the only one with deductive reasoning skills, did you?" He crossed his arms, leaning back against the wall. "Yeah, Sam, Balthier told me."
Sam didn't answer for a while. Jack eventually raised his eyebrows.
"What?"
"I don't understand you," Sam admitted.
Jack cast him an odd look, with confusion and recognition tangling in it. "I think you'll find the converse is also true," he quoted.
Sam blinked. The source filled itself in not long after - he started to respond to it, but couldn't quite find the words.
Jack picked up the slack instead, finishing the script just as he had before. "What are we doing, Sam?"
And, just like he had before, Jack could watch Sam trying to navigate through the labyrinth of his own thoughts. But this time apparently he had a thread to follow out, because when he came to a decision he disregarded language altogether, stepped in close, reached up to Jack, and kissed him.
And that was it. He could revel in the implication of it - that even with no interest in going further just then, neither alcohol nor shock nor anger had precipitated this. It was just a choice he could make, and the power to choose was everything.
He stepped back, and Jack let him. A curious half-smile was on his lips, but there was something else too. Not satisfaction. More like familiarity, or negotiation, or fondness.
After a moment, Jack raised his eyebrows. "I could close the door."
Sam looked to the doorway. He hadn't realized the door was open - and he discovered that he was grinning. "Yeah," he answered. "Why not?" Sparrow and Fran and Balthier were nowhere to be seen and likely had their own private observations anyway, but those didn't matter here. Maybe, just maybe, as the ship pushed itself out of conventional spacetime, being nowhere might work.
Jack reached past him, and pulled the door shut.
The Strahl sailed on.