FIC: Torchwood drabble: Image

[fajrdrako]

Title: Image
Author: fajrdrako
Characters: Captain Jack Harkness
Challenge: tw100 challenge #17: Free for all.
Rating: G
Words: 100
Notes: Spoilers possibly for Doctor Who, "The Parting of the Ways", by implication. Cross-posted to my lj and to tw100.



Image

He lost his RAF uniform with the TARDIS, fallen into the timestream. He had to create Captain Jack Harkness all over again.

How to become this man he had never met? He could imagine the Captain: strong, heroic, probably a pipe-smoker. No, strike that. No pipe, but get the right shoes and braces. Assemble himself from bits and pieces: David Niven, Clark Gable, Gregory Peck. A certain way of walking. A certain way of smiling – but the smile too had been left behind on the TARDIS.

He found the greatcoat in a consignment shop. Good condition.

Clothes make the man.

~ ~ ~

Comments

[kikibug13.livejournal.com]

Awww... I *heart* it!!!

My heart just goes out to him in that period when he was trying to recover from being left alone. Aaah Jack...

(just note, the tw100 challenge 16 is crossovers; the current is 18 or 19...)

[kikibug13.livejournal.com]

Oh you covered it :) *hugs*

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Belatedly. Now tell me to stop fiddling with it!

[kikibug13.livejournal.com]

It is OK now. If it will make you feel better, I found I had misnumbered mine as 16 (it's actually 15)... *shakes head* you know, the story about seeing the straw in another's eye better than a board in one's own...
So true.

Anyway. I did get sniffly at the smile too had been left behind Oooh...

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I have trouble remembering the numbers of the drabble challenges, but I don't think it really matters - most of them are identified by tag, anyway. Still. I like to get it right.

I'm glad you liked my climactic line.

[fandom-me.livejournal.com]

I am so glad I am not the only person who does this. Drabbles, somehow, drag me into constant editing like Nothing. Else. In. The. World. I can't leave the things alone.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I can't help it. The thing is done, it's finished, it makes sense, it's posted, and then I keep going back and 'fixing' stuff. A word here, a word there. If I don't stop myself I'll have switched every one of those 100 words with 100 synonyms. Help! I'm normally a nice balanced person, but give me a drabble and suddenly I'm obsessive-compulsive...

Especially where Captain Jack is concerned.

[fandom-me.livejournal.com]

Yep, it's like a great big game of find and replace. I don't think I've ever posted a drabble and not switched at least a couple of things.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I might have... I'm not sure. I keep hoping no one will notice that the words keep changing! There's always a better one.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I *heart* it!!!

I'm so glad. Writing it made me all secretly sniffly at work. Perhaps I shouldn't admit this. I'm sure no one noticed.

Re the numbering: I can write. I can't count. (Sigh.)

[fandom-me.livejournal.com]

This is wonderful. I love, love, love, the idea of Jack remaking himself from the bottom up.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I'm delighted that you liked it. I think that after the Game Station Jack must have really had to start from scratch again... totally from scratch, in just about every way imaginable. Plus pulling himself together emotionally.

[walkingowl.livejournal.com]

Every time it crossed my mind that Jack had lost even the clothes that composed his persona, when the TARDIS left without him, it gave me the same quiet sadness all over again.

I'm wondering. Do you think the real Jack even smoked at all? I doubt that he did. Something of the maverick about him -- defy the stereotypical "cowboy pilot" image that the Eagle Squadron had, eh?

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Every time it crossed my mind that Jack had lost even the clothes that composed his persona, when the TARDIS left without him, it gave me the same quiet sadness all over again.

Yes. I don't think we can even imagine the scope - he lost everything except (in my estimation) the clothes on his back, his wristband, and his TARDIS key.

We don't see the real Jack smoking, and it seems to me likely that if he did, he would have at the Ritz. I'm not sure how he could have been anything other than a smoker in that era - but then, some people defy stereotypes (even if it's common in their time) and it would be nice to think the real Jack did, too.

[damalan.livejournal.com]

I feel guilty about saying this, but we do see the real Jack smoking in the Ritz. At least once on the stairs, in the company of George, he has a classic wartime Woodbine in hand. Like you say, it was a common habit of that era. Of course, our Jack can smoke with impunity - no lung cancer or pneumonia is ever going to take him out!

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

No, it just shows you have a better memory than I do. I'd forgotten that scene till you mentioned it, and I've seen it - how many times? I have no memory. Faugh. I will have to punish myself for that lapse by watching the episode again. Yes, that's what I'll do....

[damalan.livejournal.com]

Yes! You bad person, you! Watch it and watch until until you properly appreciate it, or until your video melts at a certain late point in the episode. ;)

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Watch it and watch until until you properly appreciate it

It's a hard job but it's my duty...

until your video melts at a certain late point in the episode. ;)

That'll be me doing the melting, not the video.

[damalan.livejournal.com]

It's a hard job but it's my duty...

Bravo!

*claps appreciatively*

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Couraeously into the breach. Or the living room. Whichever.

[walkingowl.livejournal.com]

We don't see the real Jack smoking, and it seems to me likely that if he did, he would have at the Ritz. I'm not sure how he could have been anything other than a smoker in that era - but then, some people defy stereotypes (even if it's common in their time) and it would be nice to think the real Jack did, too.

Think, also, about how he "defied the stereotype" at the Ritz by not drinking alcohol. He does (as you and I have talked about) seem to have some intentional reason for not drinking alcoholic beverages except when he thinks he's about to die, no? Drinking alcohol can have many metaphorical purposes, both in real life and in fiction... and so can smoking, and I hope some fannish writer does not now get the notion to let Jack smoke only after Really Really Good Sex ;-]

I'm thinking more about the "water for me, please"... think about his painful history, with the two lost years: isn't it possible that he woke up those two years later with his last memory being accepting an alcoholic (or otherwise pleasantly-intoxicating) drink from someone he thought he trusted? And the Time Agents slipped him a mickey in it, and bam, here he is two years later, afraid to drink anything that has a flavor strong enough to mask the taste of a drug.

Uh-oh. Just came to the inescapable fact of Ianto's industrial-strength coffee. Oops.

Well, it's part of a good notion, anyway!

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

He does (as you and I have talked about) seem to have some intentional reason for not drinking alcoholic beverages except when he thinks he's about to die, no?

In the novel Another Life he says he doesn't drink alcohol because he needs to be hydrated to move into action at any time. It isn't that he only drinks when he thinks he's going to die, he drinks when someone else has died - specifically Estelle and Jack. I don't remember if he had a drink after John Ellis died.

The only time he has a drink when he's about to die is in Doctor Who "The Doctor Dances", and his drinking patterns are quite different there - he drinks champagne with Rose, and says he never does business on a clear head. So the 'stay away from alcohol' thing seems to be a later development.

[damalan.livejournal.com]

What a lovely piece! And very clever. An astute observation both of Jack's situation and his way of thinking. I mean, he was a conman, and a conman knows he needs the right gear to pull off the con. In a way it helps explain the loss of the remade Jack, as a reversion to an older template.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much for the comments.

a conman knows he needs the right gear to pull off the con.

And it's all in the details.

Jack's situation and his way of thinking

Jack is very emotional, but also very practical. Sometimes the two facets fit with a sort of tragic dissonance.

[damalan.livejournal.com]

Jack is very emotional, but also very practical. Sometimes the two facets fit with a sort of tragic dissonance.

Yes, I adore this side of Jack. In many ways Jack is a classical tragic hero. Of course he knows who Philoctetes is... it's him!

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Of course he knows who Philoctetes is... it's him!

What a brilliant observation. Yes, of course. Which is precisely why he could send Mary into the heart of the sun with such certainty. That, and disapproval of serial killing, and protectiveness of Tosh, and knowledge that Mary was another form of the Enemy. All that.

[damalan.livejournal.com]

What a brilliant observation.

It is?! Oh, yes, it is... I agree. ;-)

But to share out this accolade, I shall gladly allow you to explain your reasoning for the subsequent remarks... :-)

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

It is?! Oh, yes, it is... I agree. ;-)

Uh-huh. Sometimes these remarks just pop out of us from nowhere, with truth written all over them. They are to be treasured when it happens.

My subsequent remarks were supposed to mean... That it is in the nature of the tragic hero to viscerally understand the tragedy of the villain, which is only one step removed from his own. So punishing a crime is not just punishing the crime, or punishing the villain, it's also a vicarious self-punishment. A "there but for the grace of god" kind of thing which made sense when I first thought about it.

I think I am trying to say Jack can understand and identify with someone, and then offer forgiveness (if it's Owen) or destruction (if you are Mary, or a Dalek) - all facets of his 'tragic hero' way of thinking.

[damalan.livejournal.com]

Sometimes these remarks just pop out of us from nowhere, with truth written all over them.

Sometimes I am so sharp I could cut myself! But in truth it was your comment 'tragic dissonance' that made me suddenly realise the significance of the Philoctetes reference in episode 7. Which, considering they even label it Greeks Bearing Gifts, goes to show how dim I can be.

I think it also fits with End of Days and him turning on Owen. A tragic hero demands proof of fidelity by action. All Owen does is ignore that he's at fault, and demand Jack do something. he can't accept that shirking of blame.

If I knew my classics better I'd love to drop Jack into the Trojan war (and maybe an encounter with Achilles and Patroclus!), see how he'd fair.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

considering they even label it Greeks Bearing Gifts, goes to show how dim I can be.

There are several times in Torchwood where I think remarks made about various characters can really be taken as referring to Jack. Like "You cross the universe for good sex, and end up dying alone" - which is what happened to Jack in "The Parting of the Ways", and then again, now I think of it, in "End of Days", so it was foreshadowing too. And yes, Philoctetes. And in "Small Worlds", being a Chosen One, but he wasn't chosen by the fairies - he doesn't know who "chose" him, made him different, made him immortal - and though it was literally Rose who did it, I'd say it was the Doctor who "chose" him and turned his life on a whole different path.

Good point about Owen.

I'd love to drop Jack into the Trojan war (and maybe an encounter with Achilles and Patroclus!)

Eeeee! what an incredibly sexy idea. All those half-naked warriors in armour.

[damalan.livejournal.com]

Jack's remark about being Chosen really interests me. He assumes that if he is made immortal, it must be for a reason - and so he spends eternity trying to find what that purpose might be.

But in a way, in End of Days he answers his own question: "You people love anything that denies the randomness of existence." I regard Jack's resurrection by BadWolf Rose as being an example of a random action (the way it's handled in Parting of the Ways gives me the impression that even she didn't know what she was doing - it was a visceral reaction).

But Jack can't see that - he assumes he's Chosen. More he assumes he's chosen by The Doctor. It would really fit with the Tragic Hero motif to find that the gods have no great purpose for him. It's up to him to define his Quest (as he really has done with Torchwood Three). The Jack who returns in season 2 could well be sadder but a good deal wiser.

Or maybe I am talking bollocks! :)

All those half-naked warriors in armour.

And don't forget the naked oiled wrestling under the blazing sun, sweat dripping, and...

Sorry about that (again). ;-)

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I regard Jack's resurrection by BadWolf Rose as being an example of a random action (the way it's handled in Parting of the Ways gives me the impression that even she didn't know what she was doing - it was a visceral reaction).

There are several ways to interpret that event - I see three primary ways: (1) that the motivating factor was Rose alone; (2) that the motivating factor was the TARDIS; (3) that the motivating factor was the 'time vortex' within the TARDIS, which is pure energy. It is unclear to me excactly where the sentience of the TARDIS lies... Depending how you interpret the 'time vortex', it could be that this contradicts Jack's assumption of randomness, that the 'time vortex' reflects some sort of fate or god. The same force that turned Margaret into an egg, to give her another chance at life.

My preferred interpretation is that it was Rose's thought, that she wanted Jack to live, so he lives, and lives, and lives.

But Jack can't see that - he assumes he's Chosen.

And is left to wonder why.

More he assumes he's chosen by The Doctor.

Ahe he's still left to wonder why... Or why, being chosen, he didn't get an explanation to go with it. Or why the TARDIS didn't come back for him. Until the end on "End of Days", when it did. But we don't know yet how that turns out.

And in a way, the Doctor did choose him, and chose not to go back for him - perhaps because he knew something about what Jack would do and how he'd help the world, or maybe because the timestream had been messed up to a point of stress by Rose's interference anyway, or maybe for motives we just don't know yet. Or maybe (as some fans interpret it) he really did think Jack was dead, and lied to Rose about it, but I find that extremely unlikely, out of character, and implausible. (In other words, I don't buy it!)

The Jack who returns in season 2 could well be sadder but a good deal wiser.

Or happier and wiser? That would be my hope. There would be a certain relief in knowing that his fate was in his own hands, after all.

don't forget the naked oiled wrestling under the blazing sun, sweat dripping, and... Sorry about that (again). ;-)

Aaah, cheerful thoughts for a Wednesday morning. Oh yes....