FIC: Torchwood (drabble) - Twice Dead

Title: Twice Dead
Author: fajrdrako
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Owen Harper
Challenge: tw100, challenge: episode tag
Rating: G
Disclaimer: Not mine, no claims, all property of the BBC.
Notes: Episode tag for Torchwood series 1, episode 8, "They Keep Killing Suzie". Cross-posted to my lj, and to tw100.

( Twice Dead )

Writer's Block: Miss Manners

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It's an oddly negative question. I hear a lot of people complain about public behaviour for one reason or another, but on the whole, I don't think people behave worse than they used to, or that new technology gives them the opportunity for new unplumbed depths of rudeness. It's just too easy to complain about other people. And I'm tired of hearing it.

That being said, I can answer the question: cell phones, by a long shot. There are the people who have loud, intimate conversations in public. The people who interrupt one conversation to pursue another. The people whose phones ring in cinemas and theatres. The people who talk on the phone while driving their cars - and I've heard the argument that they drive no worse than people having conversations with a passenger, but I don't believe that. I've seen how they drive.

All those signed first editions...

From February 26, 2009:

• Hardcover? Or paperback?
  
• Illustrations? Or just text?
  
• First editions? Or you don’t care?
  
• Signed by the author? Or not?

Are these either/or choices? I don't do either/or. Tends to be 'both'. But I can talk about these things...

I buy hardcover only in special cases. Favourite authors - Dorothy Dunnett, Guy Gavriel Kay, maybe Mary Doria Russell or Meghan Whalen Turner. I usually buy paperbacks for easy of carrying and shelving.

Illustrations if it's a graphic novel (by definition), or occasionally if it's an illustrated work by a favourite artist, like Ernest Shepard or Charles Vess. Otherwise illustrations are not necessary, and are often detrimental. My mother's grandfather's editions of Charles Dickens had terrific illustrations. Etchings. And the first Jane Eyre I ever read had woodcuts, ugly things, but part of the ambience.

First editions if they are new and the authors excite me. Otherwise it doesn't matter in the least.

Signed by the author if they're favourite authors. I have a small collection of autographed books by my favourite authors that I cherish. Again, Dorothy Dunnett and Guy Kay; I have autographed copies of almost all their books. Karin Lowachee. But not the aforementioned Turner or Russell. I have autographs of Frank Miller, Neil Gaiman, Chris Claremont, Keith Giffen, and many other favourite comic book writers; but not Alan Moore or Warren Ellis.

I have one autograph from an author I've never read, though I cherish the autograph just because I so enjoyed meeting him: Theodore Sturgeon. An interesting man.

Another cherished 'special case': I have a copy of Anything Goes by John Barrowman, signed by the author, and I feel very lucky to have it.

Torchwood: Jack's lovers...

One of the things I've been wanting to do is to see - or make - a list of Captain Jack's Harkness's known lovers.

Easier said than done. It isn't that Jack doesn't talk about past lovers, he does. In very vague and general terms. Acrobats, executioners.... But Estelle? Rose? He's like a clam.

A list, from memory, of Jack's known lovers:

1. Algy, an RAF officer in World War II (seen getting his butt patted in Doctor Who 1:09, "The Empty Child")
   
2. two executioners, identity and gender unknown (mentioned to Jack's computer in Doctor Who 1:10, "The Doctor Dances")
   
3. Estelle Cole (seen in Torchwood 1:5, "Small Worlds")
   
4. a boyfriend with a stormy temper (mentioned to Gwen Cooper in Torchwood 1:08, "They Keep Killing Suzie")
   
5. that person's acrobat brother (mentioned to Gwen Cooper in Torchwood 1:08, "They Keep Killing Suzie")
   
6. Captain John Hart, another Time Agent (seen in Torchwood 2:01, "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang", and 2:13, "Exit Wounds")
   
7. an unspecified alien (mentioned in Torchwood 2:04, "Meat")
   
8. a boyfriend whose nostrils flared when he lied (mentioned to Dr. Aaron Copley in Torchwood 2:06, "Reset")
   
9. Jack's wife, name unknown (seen in a photograph in Torchwood 2:22, "Something Borrowed")
   
10. Ianto Jones (seen in Torchwood, all episodes)
    
11. Greg, a Torchwood operative who appears in the novel Twilight Streets
    
12. Brendan, one of the the two alien gods from the novel Almost Perfect
    
13. Jon, the other alien god from the novel Almost Perfect
    
14. Professor Len, in the novel Something in the Water
    
15. Michael Bellini, time-displaced in the novel Trace Memory
    
16. Sam (seen in the novel Trace Memory)
    
17. a Cardiff girl in the Tretarri area in 1922 (mentioned in the novel Twilight Streets)
    
18. a sailor and a showgirl in 1902 (mentioned in the novel Twilight Streets)
    
19. a Boston chorus girl in the early 1970s (mentioned in the novel Trace Memory[?])
    
20. A repair man mentioned in the Doctor Who novel Only Human
    
21. Christopher Isherwood (mentioned in Torchwood 2:06, "Reset")
    
22. Marcel Proust (mentioned in Torchwood 2:07, "Dead Man Walking")
    
23. "a guy with no mouth" (mentioned in Torchwood 2:12, "Fragments")
    
24. the flight crew on a trip from Venus to Mars (mentioned in the radio play Lost Souls)
    

...Am I forgetting anyone?

Then there's a whole other category of people Jack is known to love but either hasn't had sex with, or hasn't explicitly has sex with; or whom he is known to have been attracted to:

• the original Captain Jack Harkness, whom he loved, danced with, and kissed;
  
• Gwen Cooper.
  
• Should I also list Owen and Tosh? He often acts lovingly towards them, talked about "coming back for you - all of you". I'm unsure what limitations to put on this list.
  
• the Chula captain from whom he stole his ship, whom he described as 'gorgeous'
  
• Alice Guppy, the Torchwood operative who found him, tortured him, and seemed attracted to him, in Torchwood 2:12, "Fragments". Possibly also her boss/lover, Emily Holroyd.
  
• Melody White, a Torchwood operative mentioned in The Torchwood Archives, p. 40, in tiny print

It doesn't look like such a long list, really. Not when you consider Jack must be around 200 years old at the beginning of "Exit Wounds".

Another category of people Jack has loved: the Doctor and his connections. Central core: the Doctor and Rose. More peripherally: I'd say he cares about Martha and Tish Jones, and even in a brief meeting, Donna Noble and Sarah Jane Smith. But Nine and Rose were central, and of course they overturned his life. Twice.

[With thanks to rm, sevendayloan, kaylamds, alhanna, la_esmeralda_, immora, wraithkeeper, lionessvalenti and iceglitterati for having better memories than I do and coming up with some delicious additions.]

Cross-posted to my lj and torch_wood.