WOTD fic: Who Am I?
WOTD: Quondam
quondam \KWAHN-duhm; KWAHN-dam\, adjective:
Having been formerly; former; sometime.
Story: Who Am I?
Author: WMR
Rated: PG
Character: Jack Harkness (Rose/Ten)
Summary: "He knows who he was. A whole history of Jack Harkness is there for the telling, but it is not who he is."
Who Am I?
He has no idea who he is.
Oh, he knows his name. He is Jack Harkness. But that isn’t who he is. That’s just a label, something people can call him. Something he can call himself, for want of any other term or explanation.
He is Jack Harkness. But that tells him nothing.
He knows who he was. A whole history of Jack Harkness is there for the telling, but it is not who he is.
He was a citizen of the fifty-first century, only child, brilliant student, recruited by the government, sent to the best university.
He was a Time Agent. Promoted to captain after only four years, given his own ship, with responsibility for his own corner of the galaxy and partition of time. Legendary for his audacity, his narrow escapes, his ability to charm and seduce his way out of any situation, his skills with electronics and machinery, his way with a blaster. Spoken of as one of the Agency’s future leaders. Until that nasty business with a couple of years’ worth of memories.
He was a lover, a seducer, a flirt. Flexible, he’s been called; he was that all right. Either gender, almost any species. He’s not that any more, though. He’s been ruined for that. He can still flirt, but sex as nothing but sensory pleasure is not who he is any more.
He was a conman. Perfected the idea of the ‘self-cleaning con’, practised it over and over to extract petty revenge on the Time Agency. Until the day it wasn’t so self-cleaning and he was almost responsible for genocide.
He was a Time Lord’s companion and friend. Taken in when he had nowhere else to go, cleaned up, given a second chance, moulded into the man he always wanted to be but never knew he could. Learned what it really meant to travel the universe, to be one with Time. What it meant to hold the fate of the universe in his hand. And how to make a difference. All lessons he’d thought he learned in the Time Agency, but now knows that the Agency understood none of this.
He was loved by Rose Tyler. Loved in a way too complex for description or analysis. Not as a brother. Not as a lover. Not as a best friend. But some combination of all of these, even though they never made love and they only kissed once.
He was loved by the Doctor. Never expressed, there only in the most fleeting of moments, but he knew the love was present nonetheless. It wasn’t shown in the flirting; that was a game between them and, though he still wonders if anything would ever have come of it had he had time to buy the Doctor that drink, he knows that sex would have been something apart from the love the Doctor had for him. It was there in the unbelievable reality that the Doctor trusted him. Had his back. Believed in him.
He was all of those things once upon a time. But not any more.
He stopped being the last few things in one single moment, when he staggered through a doorway in time to see his home flicker and vanish before his eyes. When he realised that he’d been abandoned. Dumped. Alive or dead, left to rot.
Never doubted him. Never will.
He was a man who trusted too easily. Who believed in love. He is not that man any more, either.
Who is he?
He can only define himself in terms of the past. He is abandoned. He is lost. He is drifting.
He has found his way off the satellite. Hitched a ride on a time-ship, made his escape when it became clear that payment in kind was expected for the favour, bounced around a few planets, ended up on the forty-fifth century Jupiter colony. And now he is... Jack Harkness, nobody at all.
***
Who am I?
It’s the first question in his head every morning. He gets up, dresses in borrowed clothing, goes to work at a job he finds boring and unfulfilling, finishes work, spends a couple of hours at a bar he hates but hey it’s better than sitting around alone doing nothing, walks for hours, goes to bed.
Who am I? Who do I want to be?
What he wants is in the past. The future is a distant country. The present... just is.
He almost misses it. The familiar sound, one he once knew almost as well as the sound of his own voice. But he refuses to believe that it’s more than an unwanted memory until he almost walks into the blue wall that’s suddenly in front of him.
A door bursts open. A blonde tornado erupts from within. He stands, stunned, as she hugs him.
A movement from inside makes him stiffen, bile rising in his gorge. A man emerges. But it’s not a man he knows.
“You could have stayed in one place, you know. Would’ve made it a bit easier.”
He stares. Who is this handsome young stranger in the Doctor’s TARDIS?
He holds onto Rose, part of him wanting to believe that one of his was has become is once more.
“It’s me, Jack. Remind me later to explain about regeneration,” the stranger says, and suddenly he knows.
“You left me,” he says, his tone harsh, angry, unforgiving.
“And we went back, as soon as I was better.” The Time Lord is standing a few feet from him, hands in the pockets of his long trenchcoat, so different from the black leather jacket he remembers.
“We’ve been following you around for the past couple of weeks.” Rose steps back, looks anxiously at him, reaches for the Doctor’s hand. “We kept missing you by days.”
There’s a lot more to the story. He knows that.
He also knows that he has a choice. A decision to make, between was and is.
The Doctor holds out his hand. Jack places his in it. Rose reaches for his other hand. He is drawn to them, into their embrace. Back to where he belongs.
He knows who he is.
He is Jack Harkness, companion and friend of a Time Lord and Rose Tyler, loved by the Doctor and Rose Tyler, time traveller and soldier. He is home.
END
x-posted to new_who_wotdfic