Fic commentary: Coming Back (Part 2)
Aug. 20th, 2007 04:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jadesfireContinued from here
See, this is where my POV switches get me into trouble – it's not until well into this section that we know we're in Jack's POV.
Jack, Hugh and Jock sat up late after the rest of the staff had gone to their beds, taking the remaining coal with them.
“If we’re still like this in the morning,” Jack said, “we’ll have to go down to the village for the nights. This place will freeze and us along with it.”
“What do you think it is?” Hugh asked. The three men were sitting close round the fire together, sharing the last of the heat from the fading coals. Huddled in a tartan rug, sitting on the floor at Jack’s feet, Hugh looked rather like a student come to learn from the master. Jack just wished he had an answer for him.
“I’ve no idea. We’ve had four alerts since I’ve been here, but each one was down to a piece of alien tech. This time, I don’t think that’s the answer. It hasn’t really attacked anyone.” He waved Hugh’s objections away. “What happened earlier didn’t feel like a serious attack, more like a reconnaissance. It could have done a lot worse than put a few holes in my hand. So all we know so far is that it’s fairly weak and likes to steal odds and ends. It’s taken pencils, coal, milk, matches and the steak that should have been tomorrow night’s dinner. If you can tell me what links all those together, I’d love to hear it.”
INFO DUMP ALERT!
“It’s not about food,” Jock mused, “and they’re not all organic things, not if the matches aren’t just mislaid.”
“The matches and the pencils have both got wood in them,” Hugh pointed out. “That’s organic.”
With a glance at the clock, Jack shook his head. “If either of you have strange dreams tonight, I want to know about it. There’s something going on at the psychic level as well here, I’m sure of it.”
“Well, I guess we’d better turn in,” said Jock, also looking at the clock. “Are you coming, Jack? You were the one who said none of us should be alone.”
“I said none of you should be alone.” Jack gave Jock a half-smile. “But someone’s got to keep an eye on the place. I’ll wake you if anything happens.”
“Jack-” Any protests were cut short by Jack’s serious expression.
“I can holler pretty loud when I need to. Go on. You’re no use to me exhausted.” He waited until they were at the door, before calling to them. “Fellas? You might want to sleep in something you don’t mind wearing in public. We could be in for a lively night.”
I don't really want to interrupt this bit, so I shall just say I love writing telepathy and see you at the end.
Jack sat by the fire as it finally died and the cold crept around the edges of the room again. Wrapped in his coat as well as the blanket Mrs Garrow had insisted he take, he could only feel it against his cheeks and exposed hands. Inside, he was on fire. There was something here, he was sure of it. He couldn’t locate it or define it yet, but he knew it was there, pressing at the edges of his awareness. His psi-training was way out of date, and had never been his strongest area anyway, but he knew a probe when he felt one. He had some lingering doubts about what he was about to do, but still couldn’t come up with any better ideas.
He supposed he shouldn’t have been surprised. A place like this would have ghosts practically built into the stones. What did surprise him was how long it had taken one to surface. Sarah knew about them of course, which was why she hated spending too much time here. For someone whose ancestry was at the heart of the castle, the ghosts would have felt all too present.
Settling back, he tried to latch onto what he’d felt earlier, to recreate the sensations in his mind. He pictured the chess men, held in a hand that he didn’t know, but would have given anything to touch. He’d been left with no souvenirs from his time in the TARDIS, nothing physical that he could hold. He clenched his still-sore fist, trying to imagine what he would have taken.
His mind was wandering, and he forced it back to the subject at hand, trying to conjure the face in his mind. Instead, the one that came first was Rose, smiling up at him as they danced on the roof of his spaceship, with bombs dropping all around them. The sound of explosions was replaced with that of the TARDIS dematerialising and he felt the sudden, sickening feeling he’d had at that moment. True, he was alive and apparently unharmed, but the moment of abandonment still hung heavy in his mind, as did the question.
Why did you leave me?
Jack felt his stomach clench with that sudden fear again, the momentary, uncharacteristic refusal to accept what he could see in front of him. He dropped his head, squeezing his eyes against the tears. He didn’t have a problem with crying, not when there was good cause, but he was too angry for that. The feelings were rushing faster now, overwhelming and crushing him. Falling from his seat, he dropped to his hands and knees on the floor, unable to stop his fists from clenching again, pounding the carpet. The tears came and he couldn’t stop them as the face came into focus in his mind. He wanted to howl, scream, do something break the impassive calm of the eyes that finally met his.
It was that contact that snapped Jack back into reality. Momentarily disoriented, he staggered to his feet, brushing the tears from his cheeks. It was close now, he knew it, drawing on the strength of emotion that he’d fed it to tempt it out.
Then he heard the scream.
This part came all in a rush and didn't need too much editing, I don't think (Chrys?). One of the big things that we didn't know at this point in canon was why the Doctor hadn't gone back for Jack, and I knew I needed to tackle how he felt about that. The thing is, I don't like writing emotional drama, mostly because I'm not very good at it. So this is my way of doing it – give Jack a damn good reason for delving into that part of himself. My favourite bit is almost certainly the middle part, where the image of Rose becomes taken over by the sounds which lead him back to his abandonment. I like the dream-like quality of it.
It was also important that the reader could see what he was doing, rather than just being inside his head, hence the whole 'pounding the floor ' part.
And it's not until the end that we find out why he's doing it, that it's not just indulging himself or being morbid, it's actually part of a plan. Sort of.
Taking the stairs two at a time, he nearly ran into Hugh on the landing.
“This way,” Hugh said, producing a gun from under his jacket as they ran.
There was only one door at this end of the passage, and Jack stopped to check that Hugh was ready before he kicked it in. All was silent inside. Moving together, the two men crept slowly into the room.
The bedroom was dark, curtains closed against the howling gale outside. Lit by the dim glow from the corridor, Jack could make out a shape on the bed. It looked like someone had decided to disobey him after all. He also recognised something else in the room: the smell.
Apparently Hugh recognised it as well.
“He’s dead, sir.”
“I hope so.” Jack was closer now, able to make out the torn flesh and blood smeared across the sheets. “It’s – it was Doug.” The face was still intact, sitting atop what seemed now to be a horrific parody of a human body. Jack felt sick, more from guilt than the sight or smell. He’d told the kid to trust him. It didn’t matter that the circumstances were beyond his control, he’d still broken a promise. Telling himself that he’d deal with that later, Jack forced himself to look at the scene properly. To look at Doug properly.
Something had cut him open, exposing organs and bones, which still glistened in the low light. There was blood soaking into the sheets; they’d got more from Doug than they had from him. He took a step closer to the bed, a horrible suspicion rising in his mind as he leaned over the ruined body.
I hoped that this was enough detail to be horrifying, without tipping over into gross. I have a rather weak stomach…
Doug’s heart was missing.
“Jack?” That was Jock, standing in the doorway of the room.
“Keep everyone away,” Jack called. “Get them out of here.”
“What?”
“Tell them to put their clothes on if they haven’t already, get them into the vans and get them out of here. Hugh, see that they all go. Take them down to the village. Now.”
“Jack, what’s going on?” Jock asked, stepping aside to let Hugh past.
“It’s trying to build itself a human.” Jack was still staring down at the body as Jock came into the room, face pale in the half-light.
“What are you talking about?”
“It’s trying to build itself a human,” Jack repeated, holstering his gun. “The pencils, the coal, they’re carbon. It can get all the water it needs from outside. Matches and steak; sulphur and protein. The milk’s the calcium. It’s trying to build itself a human, but it doesn’t understand how. So it came to learn. It tried to take blood from me earlier on, but it wasn’t strong enough. It needed more flesh so it took his heart. It must have been having too much trouble trying to construct one for itself so it just took him apart.” He drew the sheet back over the ghastly tableau. “And I gave it the strength to do it.”
I had loooong and strange conversations with my biochemist husband about the constituent parts of a human being. Again, research matters.
“My God.” Jock turned away, swallowing hard. “What is it?”
“I don’t know. But this place is thick with ghosts. Maybe one of them got clever.”
“Ghosts?” Jock couldn’t keep the disbelief from his voice. “You’re not telling me that you, of all people, believe in ghosts.”
“In a place like this, it’d be hard not to.” Jack propelled Jock out of the room, closing the door behind them. “I’m not talking about people in period costume, looking like they’re covered in flour, wandering about the place going ‘boo’. I’m talking about the emotional echoes of hundreds of years. And for most of them, this was not a healthy place to live.”
This is straight from Jack's explanation to Gwen in "Ghost Machine". I saw no reason to argue with him.
“Sarah Franklin’s father.” Jock remembered Peter's words over breakfast. “He fell from the battlements.”
“Is that what you were told?” Jack hurried back downstairs now, herding Jock into the hallway and exchanging his coat for a heavy waterproof. “Sarah told me that, and more.” He finally looked the other man in the eye. “He jumped. He stood up there, and he jumped, leaving his wife and daughter to look after themselves. And he wasn’t the first. Can you imagine what that does to the emotional resonance of a place like this?” Jack was moving again, helping Jock into an overcoat as he talked.
“All those echoes, all those wasted souls. For so long, this was just an archive, a quiet little place where Torchwood likes to dump things. Then I show up, breathe a bit of life into the place. All that activity bleeds back into the walls, the bricks and mortar that this place is made of. It woke them up. I did this, Jock.”
I don't think I intended there to be guilt in this. Regret, yes, that he couldn't do anything else, but Jack doesn't strike me as the guilty type. He does what he can, when he can. If it goes wrong, he takes the consequences. And he regrets it when others are hurt. But gut-wrenching guilt? Rarely, I think.
“You’re being melodramatic.” But Jock couldn’t hide the fear in his eyes.
Jack flung open the door, raising a hand to protect his face from the wind and rain. As Jock followed him out the door, he pulled it shut behind them.
One thing I was quite pleased about in this part was the storm all around them. Again, we're deep in cliché territory with it, but it just worked, so I left it in.
“Maybe it’s not just one,” he yelled above the driving storm. “Maybe they’ve all got together and decided it’s time to come back. Maybe being trapped together has given them a kind of low sentience. Whatever it is, we’re not going to be able to stop it here and now.”
This is an incredibly vague non-explanation, but no-one seemed to notice. Like with Housefic medical details, you just have to put enough in, without being exhaustive.
“Jack!”
Even above the wind, Jack could hear the panic in Jock’s voice. Following the trembling finger, he looked up to the tops of the walls. There were figures up there, darker outlines against the black sky. Despite the rain, the moon cast a dim glow, showing movement along the walkways.
Jock staggered closer, grabbing Jack’s arm.
“Are they our people?” he asked, pushing back his hood.
“I don’t know.” Jack turned his head so that the two men were nose to nose. Jock’s eyes were wide and frightened. “We need to go find out.”
Nodding, Jock followed as Jack led the way to the main tower. They took the spiral staircase two steps at a time, emerging at last into the fiercer wind on the battlements. Some of the dark forms dissipated as they appeared, others drew back, as though waiting to see what would happen.
“They’re just,” Jock hesitated, and Jack finished the thought for him.
“They’re ghosts, Jock.” Jack was looking from side to side, blinking against the driving rain, trying to keep his hair out of his eyes. “They’re trying to come back, but they’re just echoes of memories.” He raised his voice further, trying to be heard over the elements. “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry! But there’s nothing here for you. Not any more.”
I try to use the 'I'm sorry' refrain as often as possible, because it's such a theme through TW and DW. And I think Jack's genuinely sorry for them.
“Yes, there is.”
Both men turned, seeing something moving towards them. It was more solid than the other shapes, more real somehow and Jock gasped as the face became recognisable. It was Peter, his eyes wide and blank, walking slowly and purposefully towards them. Jack took a step forwards, steadying Jock as his foot slipped on the wet stones.
“They’re using him,” he said quietly, then louder, “Let him go. You can’t use him to come back. It can’t be done.”
This part is heavily influenced by Sapphire and Steel 'Adventure Two', which should not be watched late at night in a dark room.
“Yes, it can.” Peter was still coming, walking as though they were on a city street, rather than a narrow ledge fifty feet up in the middle of a driving storm. “We can use him. We can use you. We can use the others who come.”
“No-one else will come. Not now.” Jack took a step towards Peter, who stopped. “I told the others to go and never come back. Never. It’s over.”
“No.” Peter’s voice was fading now, his face still a blank mask. “No.”
The words seemed to be on the wind, carried on the storm itself.
“NO!”
With a final scream, Peter launched himself at Jack, hands lunging for his throat.
“Jock, get out of here!” Jack was struggling to stay upright, hands gripping Peter’s wrists. “Make sure the others are ok.”
The blocking of this doesn't work quite as well as I'd hoped, but there's enough for the reader to know what's going on. There should be something about Jack grabbing Peter's wrists, so that it doesn't just come out of the blue here.
“I can’t!”
“You have to.” Jack broke off as Peter forced him back a step. “Otherwise they’ll use you to come for the rest of them. Go. Please.” Twisting in the choking grip, Jack met Jock’s eye. “Go,” he mouthed, then pushed back, throwing Peter off balance. The cold hands that had been around his neck lost their grip, and they both staggered a little, trying to get their balance back. Jack knew his pistol was still in its holster at his waist and he resisted the urge to draw it. Peter would still be in there, somewhere, and he wasn’t going to shoot one of his own staff. For one thing, it was bad management.
Because Jack's not Jack without just a touch of humour.
Instead, he took the initiative, launching himself at the smaller man so that they both fell, tumbling along the walkway. Peter screamed, pounding at Jack, who was trying to get a secure grip on an arm or a sleeve, anything to give him some advantage. He lost the race. Peter’s hands locked round Jack’s wrists, and he started to drag them both upright again with surprising strength. They stumbled against the battlements, only the low wall preventing their fall. Glancing down, Jack could see Jock finally making his way out of the front gate, pausing to look back up at the fight silhouetted against the sky. For a horrible moment, he thought his friend was going to try to come back and help.
I absolutely loved this as a mental image, and originally conceived it from Jock's point of view, just because I thought it would look so cool. But all that's left of that is the 'silhouetted against the sky' part, because it had to be from Jack's POV.
The moment was all that Peter needed. Getting a fistful of Jack’s coat, he tried to tip him over the edge, down into the ditch below. Jack held on, one hand on Peter’s arm, the other braced against the stone work.
“Alright!” he yelled. “Alright! Use me instead. Let him go, and use me.” Despite himself, and the danger, he grinned. “I’ve got a lot more to offer you than he has.”
At this point, in the way I'd worked it out, Jack doesn't know he can't die. Canon's kind of blown me out of the water there, but the rest of the story holds up and these things happen. It works anyway, I think.
There was a frozen moment, where the sounds of the storm and the rain seemed to fade a little, retreating as Jack looked into Peter’s face. He could see the indecision there.
“Come on,” he said, “you know this is a better deal, for all of you.”
Peter’s expression faded again, returning to the blank mask. He and Jack were still holding onto each other, their fierce grips the only thing preventing Jack from falling.
“Done,” Peter said, and Jack felt the hold on his arm start to loosen.
Then he felt the ghosts. They’d been all around him, the whole time he’d been at the castle, pressing at the edges of his awareness. Now they came into focus. He could feel the energy swirling and dancing, forcing its way in. He tried not to fight it, shifting the hand beneath him, feeling it tremble as Peter let go and it supported all of his weight. The ghosts were inside him now, he could feel them pushing, consuming, trying to suffocate him as they invaded his mind.
Did I mention how much I love writing telepathy? I loved writing this part, getting as many 'muffling' words in there as I could.
“Jack?”
Peter’s voice came from a very long way away as Jack’s vision blurred. He knew from the confused, human tone that the other man would be alright. Sounds were fading now, too, as access to his senses was blocked. Soon he wouldn’t be able to feel the cold or the wet or anything, ever again.
He needed to act now.
With a final effort, he turned to Peter.
“Tell the Doctor, it’s alright,” he said, and let go.
That's the only time in the narrative that the Doctor is mentioned by name. I thought they made fitting last words, because (as Utopia proved), Jack wants answers rather than bearing a grudge. I don't think he could hate the Doctor if he tried.
There had been pain. More than he’d expected, actually. There had been a rushing sensation, then an explosion of pain, bright agony flaring, before fading into black.
He drifted in nothingness, aware of the ache of his body, but detached from it. He was cradled in light, surrounded and swathed in the warmth. His mind was blissfully empty, full of overwhelming peace and rest.
"Cradled in light" is possibly my favourite phrase in the story. The way I constructed it in my head, the Time Vortex, which we saw as a golden glow in 'Parting of the ways' is what keeps bringing Jack back, and so when he dies, this is where he ends up before being sent back. It was also strongly influenced by Buffy Season 6, because yes, I am a sponge.
There was a rushing, and he struggled in the embrace of the light, feeling it slip away from him. He wanted to cry out, reach out, take hold of anything that would keep him here.
With a gasp, Captain Jack Harkness began to breathe again.
“Easy, old man.” Someone put a hand on his shoulder, pushing him back down onto a soft surface. He recognised the voice, and its reassuring tone allowed him to slip back for a moment into the welcoming dark.
He awoke again, more gently this time and more aware of the room around him.
“Jock?”
“You’re safe, though God knows how.” Jock still had his hand on Jack’s shoulder, as though unwilling to let go. “You fell from the battlements, broke your neck. You were dead.”
I wanted Jock to get straight to the point. It drives me insane when characters who've just woken up from a traumatic experience aren't told what's going on right away. Doctors always give information as soon as the persona wakes up, but characters tend not to. It's very annoying.
Without thinking, Jack reached up a hand towards his head, noticing the unblemished skin of his palm as he did so.
“It’s healed.” Jock’s voice was restrained, as though talking to a child. “It’s all healed, Jack. You’re fine. Not a scratch on you.”
Finally able to focus, Jack looked into the face above him. There were dark circles under Jock’s eyes and his expression wavered between relief and confusion.
“Don’t ask me,” Jack said, pushing away the hand and sitting up. “Cos I’m damned if I know.” He swung his legs off the bed. There was no dizziness, no pain, nothing to indicate that he’d plunged to his death hours before. He turned to Jock. “I really don’t know, Jock. You’ve got to believe me.”
I decided that Jack's dying changes over time, becomes less comforting, and he recovers less completely, so that by the time we get to 'End of Days', he's still staggering when he wakes up. But this first time, I needed it to be bafflingly complete.
“You were dead, Jack,” his friend repeated. “Hugh and the others came back from the village around dawn, once the storm had died down. I helped them carry you in. Mrs Garrow is hysterical, and Mary can’t stop crying. Peter shut himself in his room and won’t talk to anyone. What the hell happened up there?”
“I’ve got to see them,” Jack headed for the door, but Jock got there first, barring the way.
“You’ll send the rest of them into hysterics too. You were dead, Jack.”
“You know, it doesn’t get less true the more you say it.”
“Can you even begin to understand what it’ll do to them if you go back out there? No-one could survive a fall like that and here you are, looking like you’ve just been for a pleasant stroll across the moors!” Jock was nearly shouting, and he stopped, swallowing hard. When he spoke again, it was in a more normal tone of voice. “I’ve spoken to Harding. He wants you in London, as soon as possible. We’re going to disperse the staff. Some of them want to go anyway; others can have new posts across the country.”
“Jock,” Jack began, stopping at the look on the other man’s face.
“This is not up for negotiation, Jack. This is what is going to happen.” Taking a deep breath, Jock went on, “The place will be closed down as an active Torchwood site. Torchwood London will be the new Torchwood One. We’ll just use this place as a safe archive, for papers and non-active artefacts. You’ll travel to London with Hugh and myself later today. No-one will see you.”
Mind still reeling, Jack retreated to the bed, sitting down hard. He was barely listening as Jock outlined the rest of the cover-up. Mrs Garrow would go back to her family in Inverness, Peter would go to a new Torchwood office in Glasgow. The staff would be given the choice of joining other Torchwood offices around the country or being helped into different employment. No-one would ever see Jack again and none of this would go on file, anywhere. Torchwood was good at things like that.
Jack put his head in his hands.
Again, this sets up the rest of the series. How Torchwood House stopped being the principle Torchwood site, how the Torchwood office in Glasgow came about, all of that.
“Please, Jock. You’ve got to believe me. I didn’t know this would happen. I thought I was going to die.”
“You did.” Jock’s voice was hard. “And now you’re better. And I think, somewhere in there, you know why.” Before Jack could form an answer, Jock had turned back to the door. “We’ll be leaving in a couple of hours. Gather up anything you want to bring.”
“I want the chess set.” The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them. For a long moment, Jock stood still, staring at the panelled wood of the door. Then he nodded.
“I’ll have Hugh put it in the car. Be ready to leave, Jack.”
This scene needed to be cold and awkward between them. Jack's resurrections are seriously freaky, and I couldn't just have Jock go along with it. It would spook most people, and I wanted that to show in Jock's reaction.
This scene is really just to tie up loose ends. Peter's going to become the 'very strange man' at Torchwood Two, I wanted some kind of closure for the ghosts and to give Jack some reassurance at the end. Also, I thought the reader deserved a proper epilogue, which in this kind of story, acts as a kind of fuzzy blanket after all the drama.
It was nearly three hours before the door opened again. It had taken Jack less than thirty minutes to put his few things together, and he’d spent most of the rest of the time staring out of the window across the bleak Scottish landscape.
He didn’t turn when the door opened, not looking round until he heard his name.
“Jack.”
“Peter.” Jack started to his feet, hurrying over to draw the other man into the room and close the door. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“I had to come. I knew you weren’t dead. They told me you weren’t dead.” Peter’s eyes were wide and staring and his face hadn’t lost the pallor of the night before.
“Who told you? Not Jock.”
“No. They told me.” Peter shivered, looking round the room. “They’re still here.”
“They always will be.” Jack led the frightened young man to the bed, sitting him down and crouching on the floor in front of him. “But you’re going to be alright. They’ll let you leave now.”
“I know. They said…” Peter stopped, as though listening to something beyond Jack’s hearing. “They said that you had too much life in you. There wasn’t room for them.”
“Too much life?” Jack sat back on his heels, some of what he’d been thinking about for the last three hours coming together. “What else did they say?”
This is news to Jack and suitably cryptic. I avoid explaining things wherever possible, as the reader is usually much better at making things up than I am. You just have to give them a rough sketch and let them fill in the details.
“They said thank you.” Peter looked down at Jack, then reached out and put a hand on his cheek. “They said that you shared your life with them. That, that it was enough for them for now. They said thank you.”
Not knowing what to say, Jack nodded, leaning into the hand against his face. Then he stood, helping Peter to his feet.
“You need to go back to your room. Jock’ll hit the roof if he finds you here.”
“They’re sending me to Glasgow.”
“I know.”
“Do you think we’ll meet again?”
“I don’t know,” Jack said honestly. “But you’ll do good work there, Peter. I just know it.”
Peter turned in the doorway, smiling over his shoulder.
“You too, Jack. The thank you is also from me.”
Then he was gone too, and when Jock arrived ten minutes later to outline how they were going to slip out of the back door, Jack was ready to leave.
He's got his closure. And hopefully, to a certain extent, so do we. The thing with this series was to create stand-alone stories that also worked together. So there's enough here that can be carried into the next part, but it also stands complete as is.
A/N: 'Turings' in this story is a reference to Alan Turing, the father of modern computer science. He was convicted of "acts of gross indecency" in 1952 and died in 1954 after eating an apple laced with cyanide.
See, this is where my POV switches get me into trouble – it's not until well into this section that we know we're in Jack's POV.
Jack, Hugh and Jock sat up late after the rest of the staff had gone to their beds, taking the remaining coal with them.
“If we’re still like this in the morning,” Jack said, “we’ll have to go down to the village for the nights. This place will freeze and us along with it.”
“What do you think it is?” Hugh asked. The three men were sitting close round the fire together, sharing the last of the heat from the fading coals. Huddled in a tartan rug, sitting on the floor at Jack’s feet, Hugh looked rather like a student come to learn from the master. Jack just wished he had an answer for him.
“I’ve no idea. We’ve had four alerts since I’ve been here, but each one was down to a piece of alien tech. This time, I don’t think that’s the answer. It hasn’t really attacked anyone.” He waved Hugh’s objections away. “What happened earlier didn’t feel like a serious attack, more like a reconnaissance. It could have done a lot worse than put a few holes in my hand. So all we know so far is that it’s fairly weak and likes to steal odds and ends. It’s taken pencils, coal, milk, matches and the steak that should have been tomorrow night’s dinner. If you can tell me what links all those together, I’d love to hear it.”
INFO DUMP ALERT!
“It’s not about food,” Jock mused, “and they’re not all organic things, not if the matches aren’t just mislaid.”
“The matches and the pencils have both got wood in them,” Hugh pointed out. “That’s organic.”
With a glance at the clock, Jack shook his head. “If either of you have strange dreams tonight, I want to know about it. There’s something going on at the psychic level as well here, I’m sure of it.”
“Well, I guess we’d better turn in,” said Jock, also looking at the clock. “Are you coming, Jack? You were the one who said none of us should be alone.”
“I said none of you should be alone.” Jack gave Jock a half-smile. “But someone’s got to keep an eye on the place. I’ll wake you if anything happens.”
“Jack-” Any protests were cut short by Jack’s serious expression.
“I can holler pretty loud when I need to. Go on. You’re no use to me exhausted.” He waited until they were at the door, before calling to them. “Fellas? You might want to sleep in something you don’t mind wearing in public. We could be in for a lively night.”
I don't really want to interrupt this bit, so I shall just say I love writing telepathy and see you at the end.
Jack sat by the fire as it finally died and the cold crept around the edges of the room again. Wrapped in his coat as well as the blanket Mrs Garrow had insisted he take, he could only feel it against his cheeks and exposed hands. Inside, he was on fire. There was something here, he was sure of it. He couldn’t locate it or define it yet, but he knew it was there, pressing at the edges of his awareness. His psi-training was way out of date, and had never been his strongest area anyway, but he knew a probe when he felt one. He had some lingering doubts about what he was about to do, but still couldn’t come up with any better ideas.
He supposed he shouldn’t have been surprised. A place like this would have ghosts practically built into the stones. What did surprise him was how long it had taken one to surface. Sarah knew about them of course, which was why she hated spending too much time here. For someone whose ancestry was at the heart of the castle, the ghosts would have felt all too present.
Settling back, he tried to latch onto what he’d felt earlier, to recreate the sensations in his mind. He pictured the chess men, held in a hand that he didn’t know, but would have given anything to touch. He’d been left with no souvenirs from his time in the TARDIS, nothing physical that he could hold. He clenched his still-sore fist, trying to imagine what he would have taken.
His mind was wandering, and he forced it back to the subject at hand, trying to conjure the face in his mind. Instead, the one that came first was Rose, smiling up at him as they danced on the roof of his spaceship, with bombs dropping all around them. The sound of explosions was replaced with that of the TARDIS dematerialising and he felt the sudden, sickening feeling he’d had at that moment. True, he was alive and apparently unharmed, but the moment of abandonment still hung heavy in his mind, as did the question.
Why did you leave me?
Jack felt his stomach clench with that sudden fear again, the momentary, uncharacteristic refusal to accept what he could see in front of him. He dropped his head, squeezing his eyes against the tears. He didn’t have a problem with crying, not when there was good cause, but he was too angry for that. The feelings were rushing faster now, overwhelming and crushing him. Falling from his seat, he dropped to his hands and knees on the floor, unable to stop his fists from clenching again, pounding the carpet. The tears came and he couldn’t stop them as the face came into focus in his mind. He wanted to howl, scream, do something break the impassive calm of the eyes that finally met his.
It was that contact that snapped Jack back into reality. Momentarily disoriented, he staggered to his feet, brushing the tears from his cheeks. It was close now, he knew it, drawing on the strength of emotion that he’d fed it to tempt it out.
Then he heard the scream.
This part came all in a rush and didn't need too much editing, I don't think (Chrys?). One of the big things that we didn't know at this point in canon was why the Doctor hadn't gone back for Jack, and I knew I needed to tackle how he felt about that. The thing is, I don't like writing emotional drama, mostly because I'm not very good at it. So this is my way of doing it – give Jack a damn good reason for delving into that part of himself. My favourite bit is almost certainly the middle part, where the image of Rose becomes taken over by the sounds which lead him back to his abandonment. I like the dream-like quality of it.
It was also important that the reader could see what he was doing, rather than just being inside his head, hence the whole 'pounding the floor ' part.
And it's not until the end that we find out why he's doing it, that it's not just indulging himself or being morbid, it's actually part of a plan. Sort of.
Taking the stairs two at a time, he nearly ran into Hugh on the landing.
“This way,” Hugh said, producing a gun from under his jacket as they ran.
There was only one door at this end of the passage, and Jack stopped to check that Hugh was ready before he kicked it in. All was silent inside. Moving together, the two men crept slowly into the room.
The bedroom was dark, curtains closed against the howling gale outside. Lit by the dim glow from the corridor, Jack could make out a shape on the bed. It looked like someone had decided to disobey him after all. He also recognised something else in the room: the smell.
Apparently Hugh recognised it as well.
“He’s dead, sir.”
“I hope so.” Jack was closer now, able to make out the torn flesh and blood smeared across the sheets. “It’s – it was Doug.” The face was still intact, sitting atop what seemed now to be a horrific parody of a human body. Jack felt sick, more from guilt than the sight or smell. He’d told the kid to trust him. It didn’t matter that the circumstances were beyond his control, he’d still broken a promise. Telling himself that he’d deal with that later, Jack forced himself to look at the scene properly. To look at Doug properly.
Something had cut him open, exposing organs and bones, which still glistened in the low light. There was blood soaking into the sheets; they’d got more from Doug than they had from him. He took a step closer to the bed, a horrible suspicion rising in his mind as he leaned over the ruined body.
I hoped that this was enough detail to be horrifying, without tipping over into gross. I have a rather weak stomach…
Doug’s heart was missing.
“Jack?” That was Jock, standing in the doorway of the room.
“Keep everyone away,” Jack called. “Get them out of here.”
“What?”
“Tell them to put their clothes on if they haven’t already, get them into the vans and get them out of here. Hugh, see that they all go. Take them down to the village. Now.”
“Jack, what’s going on?” Jock asked, stepping aside to let Hugh past.
“It’s trying to build itself a human.” Jack was still staring down at the body as Jock came into the room, face pale in the half-light.
“What are you talking about?”
“It’s trying to build itself a human,” Jack repeated, holstering his gun. “The pencils, the coal, they’re carbon. It can get all the water it needs from outside. Matches and steak; sulphur and protein. The milk’s the calcium. It’s trying to build itself a human, but it doesn’t understand how. So it came to learn. It tried to take blood from me earlier on, but it wasn’t strong enough. It needed more flesh so it took his heart. It must have been having too much trouble trying to construct one for itself so it just took him apart.” He drew the sheet back over the ghastly tableau. “And I gave it the strength to do it.”
I had loooong and strange conversations with my biochemist husband about the constituent parts of a human being. Again, research matters.
“My God.” Jock turned away, swallowing hard. “What is it?”
“I don’t know. But this place is thick with ghosts. Maybe one of them got clever.”
“Ghosts?” Jock couldn’t keep the disbelief from his voice. “You’re not telling me that you, of all people, believe in ghosts.”
“In a place like this, it’d be hard not to.” Jack propelled Jock out of the room, closing the door behind them. “I’m not talking about people in period costume, looking like they’re covered in flour, wandering about the place going ‘boo’. I’m talking about the emotional echoes of hundreds of years. And for most of them, this was not a healthy place to live.”
This is straight from Jack's explanation to Gwen in "Ghost Machine". I saw no reason to argue with him.
“Sarah Franklin’s father.” Jock remembered Peter's words over breakfast. “He fell from the battlements.”
“Is that what you were told?” Jack hurried back downstairs now, herding Jock into the hallway and exchanging his coat for a heavy waterproof. “Sarah told me that, and more.” He finally looked the other man in the eye. “He jumped. He stood up there, and he jumped, leaving his wife and daughter to look after themselves. And he wasn’t the first. Can you imagine what that does to the emotional resonance of a place like this?” Jack was moving again, helping Jock into an overcoat as he talked.
“All those echoes, all those wasted souls. For so long, this was just an archive, a quiet little place where Torchwood likes to dump things. Then I show up, breathe a bit of life into the place. All that activity bleeds back into the walls, the bricks and mortar that this place is made of. It woke them up. I did this, Jock.”
I don't think I intended there to be guilt in this. Regret, yes, that he couldn't do anything else, but Jack doesn't strike me as the guilty type. He does what he can, when he can. If it goes wrong, he takes the consequences. And he regrets it when others are hurt. But gut-wrenching guilt? Rarely, I think.
“You’re being melodramatic.” But Jock couldn’t hide the fear in his eyes.
Jack flung open the door, raising a hand to protect his face from the wind and rain. As Jock followed him out the door, he pulled it shut behind them.
One thing I was quite pleased about in this part was the storm all around them. Again, we're deep in cliché territory with it, but it just worked, so I left it in.
“Maybe it’s not just one,” he yelled above the driving storm. “Maybe they’ve all got together and decided it’s time to come back. Maybe being trapped together has given them a kind of low sentience. Whatever it is, we’re not going to be able to stop it here and now.”
This is an incredibly vague non-explanation, but no-one seemed to notice. Like with Housefic medical details, you just have to put enough in, without being exhaustive.
“Jack!”
Even above the wind, Jack could hear the panic in Jock’s voice. Following the trembling finger, he looked up to the tops of the walls. There were figures up there, darker outlines against the black sky. Despite the rain, the moon cast a dim glow, showing movement along the walkways.
Jock staggered closer, grabbing Jack’s arm.
“Are they our people?” he asked, pushing back his hood.
“I don’t know.” Jack turned his head so that the two men were nose to nose. Jock’s eyes were wide and frightened. “We need to go find out.”
Nodding, Jock followed as Jack led the way to the main tower. They took the spiral staircase two steps at a time, emerging at last into the fiercer wind on the battlements. Some of the dark forms dissipated as they appeared, others drew back, as though waiting to see what would happen.
“They’re just,” Jock hesitated, and Jack finished the thought for him.
“They’re ghosts, Jock.” Jack was looking from side to side, blinking against the driving rain, trying to keep his hair out of his eyes. “They’re trying to come back, but they’re just echoes of memories.” He raised his voice further, trying to be heard over the elements. “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry! But there’s nothing here for you. Not any more.”
I try to use the 'I'm sorry' refrain as often as possible, because it's such a theme through TW and DW. And I think Jack's genuinely sorry for them.
“Yes, there is.”
Both men turned, seeing something moving towards them. It was more solid than the other shapes, more real somehow and Jock gasped as the face became recognisable. It was Peter, his eyes wide and blank, walking slowly and purposefully towards them. Jack took a step forwards, steadying Jock as his foot slipped on the wet stones.
“They’re using him,” he said quietly, then louder, “Let him go. You can’t use him to come back. It can’t be done.”
This part is heavily influenced by Sapphire and Steel 'Adventure Two', which should not be watched late at night in a dark room.
“Yes, it can.” Peter was still coming, walking as though they were on a city street, rather than a narrow ledge fifty feet up in the middle of a driving storm. “We can use him. We can use you. We can use the others who come.”
“No-one else will come. Not now.” Jack took a step towards Peter, who stopped. “I told the others to go and never come back. Never. It’s over.”
“No.” Peter’s voice was fading now, his face still a blank mask. “No.”
The words seemed to be on the wind, carried on the storm itself.
“NO!”
With a final scream, Peter launched himself at Jack, hands lunging for his throat.
“Jock, get out of here!” Jack was struggling to stay upright, hands gripping Peter’s wrists. “Make sure the others are ok.”
The blocking of this doesn't work quite as well as I'd hoped, but there's enough for the reader to know what's going on. There should be something about Jack grabbing Peter's wrists, so that it doesn't just come out of the blue here.
“I can’t!”
“You have to.” Jack broke off as Peter forced him back a step. “Otherwise they’ll use you to come for the rest of them. Go. Please.” Twisting in the choking grip, Jack met Jock’s eye. “Go,” he mouthed, then pushed back, throwing Peter off balance. The cold hands that had been around his neck lost their grip, and they both staggered a little, trying to get their balance back. Jack knew his pistol was still in its holster at his waist and he resisted the urge to draw it. Peter would still be in there, somewhere, and he wasn’t going to shoot one of his own staff. For one thing, it was bad management.
Because Jack's not Jack without just a touch of humour.
Instead, he took the initiative, launching himself at the smaller man so that they both fell, tumbling along the walkway. Peter screamed, pounding at Jack, who was trying to get a secure grip on an arm or a sleeve, anything to give him some advantage. He lost the race. Peter’s hands locked round Jack’s wrists, and he started to drag them both upright again with surprising strength. They stumbled against the battlements, only the low wall preventing their fall. Glancing down, Jack could see Jock finally making his way out of the front gate, pausing to look back up at the fight silhouetted against the sky. For a horrible moment, he thought his friend was going to try to come back and help.
I absolutely loved this as a mental image, and originally conceived it from Jock's point of view, just because I thought it would look so cool. But all that's left of that is the 'silhouetted against the sky' part, because it had to be from Jack's POV.
The moment was all that Peter needed. Getting a fistful of Jack’s coat, he tried to tip him over the edge, down into the ditch below. Jack held on, one hand on Peter’s arm, the other braced against the stone work.
“Alright!” he yelled. “Alright! Use me instead. Let him go, and use me.” Despite himself, and the danger, he grinned. “I’ve got a lot more to offer you than he has.”
At this point, in the way I'd worked it out, Jack doesn't know he can't die. Canon's kind of blown me out of the water there, but the rest of the story holds up and these things happen. It works anyway, I think.
There was a frozen moment, where the sounds of the storm and the rain seemed to fade a little, retreating as Jack looked into Peter’s face. He could see the indecision there.
“Come on,” he said, “you know this is a better deal, for all of you.”
Peter’s expression faded again, returning to the blank mask. He and Jack were still holding onto each other, their fierce grips the only thing preventing Jack from falling.
“Done,” Peter said, and Jack felt the hold on his arm start to loosen.
Then he felt the ghosts. They’d been all around him, the whole time he’d been at the castle, pressing at the edges of his awareness. Now they came into focus. He could feel the energy swirling and dancing, forcing its way in. He tried not to fight it, shifting the hand beneath him, feeling it tremble as Peter let go and it supported all of his weight. The ghosts were inside him now, he could feel them pushing, consuming, trying to suffocate him as they invaded his mind.
Did I mention how much I love writing telepathy? I loved writing this part, getting as many 'muffling' words in there as I could.
“Jack?”
Peter’s voice came from a very long way away as Jack’s vision blurred. He knew from the confused, human tone that the other man would be alright. Sounds were fading now, too, as access to his senses was blocked. Soon he wouldn’t be able to feel the cold or the wet or anything, ever again.
He needed to act now.
With a final effort, he turned to Peter.
“Tell the Doctor, it’s alright,” he said, and let go.
That's the only time in the narrative that the Doctor is mentioned by name. I thought they made fitting last words, because (as Utopia proved), Jack wants answers rather than bearing a grudge. I don't think he could hate the Doctor if he tried.
There had been pain. More than he’d expected, actually. There had been a rushing sensation, then an explosion of pain, bright agony flaring, before fading into black.
He drifted in nothingness, aware of the ache of his body, but detached from it. He was cradled in light, surrounded and swathed in the warmth. His mind was blissfully empty, full of overwhelming peace and rest.
"Cradled in light" is possibly my favourite phrase in the story. The way I constructed it in my head, the Time Vortex, which we saw as a golden glow in 'Parting of the ways' is what keeps bringing Jack back, and so when he dies, this is where he ends up before being sent back. It was also strongly influenced by Buffy Season 6, because yes, I am a sponge.
There was a rushing, and he struggled in the embrace of the light, feeling it slip away from him. He wanted to cry out, reach out, take hold of anything that would keep him here.
With a gasp, Captain Jack Harkness began to breathe again.
“Easy, old man.” Someone put a hand on his shoulder, pushing him back down onto a soft surface. He recognised the voice, and its reassuring tone allowed him to slip back for a moment into the welcoming dark.
He awoke again, more gently this time and more aware of the room around him.
“Jock?”
“You’re safe, though God knows how.” Jock still had his hand on Jack’s shoulder, as though unwilling to let go. “You fell from the battlements, broke your neck. You were dead.”
I wanted Jock to get straight to the point. It drives me insane when characters who've just woken up from a traumatic experience aren't told what's going on right away. Doctors always give information as soon as the persona wakes up, but characters tend not to. It's very annoying.
Without thinking, Jack reached up a hand towards his head, noticing the unblemished skin of his palm as he did so.
“It’s healed.” Jock’s voice was restrained, as though talking to a child. “It’s all healed, Jack. You’re fine. Not a scratch on you.”
Finally able to focus, Jack looked into the face above him. There were dark circles under Jock’s eyes and his expression wavered between relief and confusion.
“Don’t ask me,” Jack said, pushing away the hand and sitting up. “Cos I’m damned if I know.” He swung his legs off the bed. There was no dizziness, no pain, nothing to indicate that he’d plunged to his death hours before. He turned to Jock. “I really don’t know, Jock. You’ve got to believe me.”
I decided that Jack's dying changes over time, becomes less comforting, and he recovers less completely, so that by the time we get to 'End of Days', he's still staggering when he wakes up. But this first time, I needed it to be bafflingly complete.
“You were dead, Jack,” his friend repeated. “Hugh and the others came back from the village around dawn, once the storm had died down. I helped them carry you in. Mrs Garrow is hysterical, and Mary can’t stop crying. Peter shut himself in his room and won’t talk to anyone. What the hell happened up there?”
“I’ve got to see them,” Jack headed for the door, but Jock got there first, barring the way.
“You’ll send the rest of them into hysterics too. You were dead, Jack.”
“You know, it doesn’t get less true the more you say it.”
“Can you even begin to understand what it’ll do to them if you go back out there? No-one could survive a fall like that and here you are, looking like you’ve just been for a pleasant stroll across the moors!” Jock was nearly shouting, and he stopped, swallowing hard. When he spoke again, it was in a more normal tone of voice. “I’ve spoken to Harding. He wants you in London, as soon as possible. We’re going to disperse the staff. Some of them want to go anyway; others can have new posts across the country.”
“Jock,” Jack began, stopping at the look on the other man’s face.
“This is not up for negotiation, Jack. This is what is going to happen.” Taking a deep breath, Jock went on, “The place will be closed down as an active Torchwood site. Torchwood London will be the new Torchwood One. We’ll just use this place as a safe archive, for papers and non-active artefacts. You’ll travel to London with Hugh and myself later today. No-one will see you.”
Mind still reeling, Jack retreated to the bed, sitting down hard. He was barely listening as Jock outlined the rest of the cover-up. Mrs Garrow would go back to her family in Inverness, Peter would go to a new Torchwood office in Glasgow. The staff would be given the choice of joining other Torchwood offices around the country or being helped into different employment. No-one would ever see Jack again and none of this would go on file, anywhere. Torchwood was good at things like that.
Jack put his head in his hands.
Again, this sets up the rest of the series. How Torchwood House stopped being the principle Torchwood site, how the Torchwood office in Glasgow came about, all of that.
“Please, Jock. You’ve got to believe me. I didn’t know this would happen. I thought I was going to die.”
“You did.” Jock’s voice was hard. “And now you’re better. And I think, somewhere in there, you know why.” Before Jack could form an answer, Jock had turned back to the door. “We’ll be leaving in a couple of hours. Gather up anything you want to bring.”
“I want the chess set.” The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them. For a long moment, Jock stood still, staring at the panelled wood of the door. Then he nodded.
“I’ll have Hugh put it in the car. Be ready to leave, Jack.”
This scene needed to be cold and awkward between them. Jack's resurrections are seriously freaky, and I couldn't just have Jock go along with it. It would spook most people, and I wanted that to show in Jock's reaction.
This scene is really just to tie up loose ends. Peter's going to become the 'very strange man' at Torchwood Two, I wanted some kind of closure for the ghosts and to give Jack some reassurance at the end. Also, I thought the reader deserved a proper epilogue, which in this kind of story, acts as a kind of fuzzy blanket after all the drama.
It was nearly three hours before the door opened again. It had taken Jack less than thirty minutes to put his few things together, and he’d spent most of the rest of the time staring out of the window across the bleak Scottish landscape.
He didn’t turn when the door opened, not looking round until he heard his name.
“Jack.”
“Peter.” Jack started to his feet, hurrying over to draw the other man into the room and close the door. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“I had to come. I knew you weren’t dead. They told me you weren’t dead.” Peter’s eyes were wide and staring and his face hadn’t lost the pallor of the night before.
“Who told you? Not Jock.”
“No. They told me.” Peter shivered, looking round the room. “They’re still here.”
“They always will be.” Jack led the frightened young man to the bed, sitting him down and crouching on the floor in front of him. “But you’re going to be alright. They’ll let you leave now.”
“I know. They said…” Peter stopped, as though listening to something beyond Jack’s hearing. “They said that you had too much life in you. There wasn’t room for them.”
“Too much life?” Jack sat back on his heels, some of what he’d been thinking about for the last three hours coming together. “What else did they say?”
This is news to Jack and suitably cryptic. I avoid explaining things wherever possible, as the reader is usually much better at making things up than I am. You just have to give them a rough sketch and let them fill in the details.
“They said thank you.” Peter looked down at Jack, then reached out and put a hand on his cheek. “They said that you shared your life with them. That, that it was enough for them for now. They said thank you.”
Not knowing what to say, Jack nodded, leaning into the hand against his face. Then he stood, helping Peter to his feet.
“You need to go back to your room. Jock’ll hit the roof if he finds you here.”
“They’re sending me to Glasgow.”
“I know.”
“Do you think we’ll meet again?”
“I don’t know,” Jack said honestly. “But you’ll do good work there, Peter. I just know it.”
Peter turned in the doorway, smiling over his shoulder.
“You too, Jack. The thank you is also from me.”
Then he was gone too, and when Jock arrived ten minutes later to outline how they were going to slip out of the back door, Jack was ready to leave.
He's got his closure. And hopefully, to a certain extent, so do we. The thing with this series was to create stand-alone stories that also worked together. So there's enough here that can be carried into the next part, but it also stands complete as is.
A/N: 'Turings' in this story is a reference to Alan Turing, the father of modern computer science. He was convicted of "acts of gross indecency" in 1952 and died in 1954 after eating an apple laced with cyanide.
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(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-20 06:45 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-20 06:51 pm (UTC)Watch yourself. It's not a series, it's the ficverse that ate my life. The main page for it is here (http://heretoutopia.livejournal.com/25127.html), if you're feeling brave...
Really glad you enjoyed - it's fascinating to go back to these things after so much time, and see what I'd do differently now. Thanks :D
(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-20 10:03 pm (UTC)Funny how that happens! I've just finished The Waiting Years, and it was just fabulous. Wonderful Jack, wonderful OCs. I think I fell in love with Hugh in the middle of part III, and have just liked him better and better ever since. (Ouch, Jack running into Three--I can see why Australia suddenly sounded good.)
(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-21 05:10 am (UTC)Unfortunately, I think I've had a much better day than you have! Hope the dissertation goes quickly and smoothly!
(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-21 11:05 am (UTC)Thank you so much - Hugh and Marion are just wonderful to write, and I'm so glad everyone else loves them too!
*bounces off to work*
(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-20 07:39 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-20 07:43 pm (UTC)a jolly good, wholesome experience!
I may have to nick this as a tagline at some point... :)
Glad you enjoyed!
(no subject)
Date: 2007-08-21 11:32 am (UTC)I would be ecstatic if you did! It's always be good to quoted by others **is immensely flattered**
I hope you commentate some other of your fics (sometime when you're less busy) **hints** 'cos it makes my day :)