FIC Torchwood - "As Time Goes By"

[fajrdrako]

Title: As Time Goes By
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Jack/Jack
Challenge: at_the_ritz weekly challenge #06: Remember Me
Rating: G
Disclaimer: Not mine, no claims, all property of the BBC.
Notes: Spoilers for "Captain Jack Harkness". Cross-posted to my LJ and at_the_ritz.


As Time Goes By

On a planet of crystalline trees and amber sunsets, Jack taught history and sang songs. The children called him the Pilot and the Old Ones called him Young Jack, since he looked half their age - they never tired of the humour of it. They said his memory was better than all the records in their libraries.

He told them about Pompeii, and the Blitz, and the day Earth's moon exploded. He told them about Homer and Shakespeare and Star Trek. He taught them a a song about angels dancing at the Ritz, and then he had to explain about angels, and nightingales, and city squares, and it was all part of that old world long passed away.

Later, he stood on a balcony overlooking the bay and the silvery water which caught the light of double moons. Petrin came to stand beside him. The song Jack had been teaching them all was being played in the room beyond the doorway on instruments of the thirty-first century, with its whispered intertwined harmonies and elusive counterpoint. "Jack? This music makes you sad?"

"Not at all," said Jack. "It reminds me of someone. We danced to that song once... only once. It's a memory that makes me happy. To love so deeply - to find someone worthy of such love - that's rare in any lifetime, regardless of its length. Love should be measured by its quality, not by the time we're given."

"They're good memories, then?"

"The best."

Petrin smiled. "Dance with me, then, and remember the person you loved. Remember your love."

Jack danced, smiling, heart and mind filled with thoughts of Captain Jack Harkness and that evening long ago. Cardiff, January, 1941. In all these centuries he had forgotten nothing: the texture of Jack's uniform, the touch of his fingers, the smell of his skin. He remembered the pain he had felt to know that Jack would be dead the next day, and equally he remembered the joy within him, that Jack was alive and real and right there in his arms. He remembered the timbre of Jack's voice when he said his name: Captain Jack Harkness. The name they shared. He remembered Toshiko's words: "He would have been so proud, that you took his name." Centuries passed, and the memory was as clear as yesterday, clearer than today.

He didn't need music to remind him.

Comments

[msp-hacker.livejournal.com]

Captain Jack Harkness, teller of tales. I love this version of future!Jack.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Jack Harkness, teller of tales

So he is, and it's an aspect of him that I love.

I love this version of future!Jack.

Thank you!

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

Love should be measured by its quality, not by the time we're given
*melts* What an absolutely lovely little ficlet

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the lovely comment!

[raissad.livejournal.com]

Lovely, very lyrical. :)

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Thank you. It's easy to focus on the sad aspects of the Jack/Jack relationship, like its brevity and the fact that Jack died, but it was in itself a happy encounter, and I wanted to emphasize that.

[laurab1.livejournal.com]

I like that :)

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

So glad to hear it.

[shane-mayhem.livejournal.com]

There is something so incredibly poignant about the juxtaposition of our past (1941) with the far future---the thought that even in a time and place so alien and strange, what is nostalgic and familiar to us will be remembered.

"...that Jack was alive and real and right there in his arms."

Yes.
That visceral feeling, hard to describe, yet you've nailed it.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

There is something so incredibly poignant about the juxtaposition of our past (1941) with the far future

One of the things I love about Jack is that he doesn't just live in two dimensions, past to future, the way we do. He came from the far future, went to the far past and presumably points in between, made himself a place in different points in time and space - and associated himself with 1941 specifically because of Captain Jack before he even knew what significance the man would have for him.

Most of us have a timeline, but it's usually a straight line; Jack's timeline is a complex drawing of experience in time and space.

Jack says "our memories define us" and I wanted to illustrate that. We don't know how significant some of his past loves have been to him - the Executioners, the acrobat, Estelle - we don't even know many specific details about those we know he loves in our present - the Doctor, Ianto, Gwen. What we do know is that he remembers these people and the memories are important to him, and I wanted to show that carrying on as true centuries or millennia from now. Jack lives in the present, but doesn't discard the past.

Of all his lovers we have seen onscreen, I think the most explicit - not graphic but explicit - love has been his relationship with Captain Jack Harkness. There are no mysteries about it: we know what he felt and why he felt it and what happened and how he felt about it afterwards. It was one of his life-defining moments, like knowing the Doctor. With similar effect of making him what he was from that point afterwards.

Er... am I rambling? I just love the subject, is all. (Both subjects. Both men. Them together.)

Thanks for commenting, and I'm really glad you enjoyed my story.

[shane-mayhem.livejournal.com]

"a complex drawing of experience in time and space."

Yes. Of all of the elements of sci-fi, I think that time travel speaks most deeply to us. We live in a linear way--our emotions, our experiences, are all bound by linear time, and defined by it. We regret and feel sorrow because we move forward and leave things behind, and can't ever get them back. Jack's story rearranges these emotions, but makes them all the more poignant, because although he can travel in time, we find that time retains its nature--he can live forever but he cannot reverse the process of losing that we all undergo.

Ever since I saw "Captain Jack Harkness," I have thought that there, we see the truest love Jack has ever felt--of one equal to another, of a man to his hero, a lonely immortal to the man who in more ways than one has given him his identity. You are right; in no other relationship do we see him surrender, really...give in to inevitability. I'm thinking specifically of the moment when real!Jack comes up to him and takes his hand, to take him to the dance floor. Jack sits there, and doesn't even look up until he's already standing. It's a beautiful, incredibly expressive moment that shows us just how much these feelings are out of Jack's control. He is smitten; he has no choice. It sweeps him off his feet and surprises him.

It is such an immensely powerful, if short, relationship. That's what I love about your fic--that it's the quality of the relationship, and not it's length, that defines its meaning. What a wonderful, and true, observation. I maintain, and always will, that had real!Jack lived somehow, and been able to be with Jack, it would have been a really profound love.

LOL. So much for not rambling...but you've got me rolling on one of my favorite subjects, ever.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

you've got me rolling on one of my favorite subjects, ever.

It's one of my favourites, too.

Jack's story rearranges these emotions, but makes them all the more poignant, because although he can travel in time, we find that time retains its nature--he can live forever but he cannot reverse the process of losing that we all undergo.

In fact, it multiplies for him - the longer he lives, the more he experiences; the more he experiences, the more he loses because "everything changes". There's a lot of pathos to that, but a lot of strength to it, too.

Ever since I saw "Captain Jack Harkness," I have thought that there, we see the truest love Jack has ever felt--of one equal to another, of a man to his hero, a lonely immortal to the man who in more ways than one has given him his identity.

All of that. With the ironic contrast - that 1941-Jack is proving himself a hero by doing the one thing our Jack can't do: by dying. Extra level of irony: Jack already did that, in "The Parting of the Ways", by dying for the Doctor's sake when facing the Daleks - a heroic feat he can never reproduce again. So here he sees the other Jack going to his death and he wants to save him (as Rose saved him) but he's helpless.

in no other relationship do we see him surrender, really...give in to inevitability.

I think he does, with the Doctor, in a subtler way.

I'm thinking specifically of the moment when real!Jack comes up to him and takes his hand, to take him to the dance floor.

It's one of my favourite moments of the episode. Our Jack is letting the other Jack set the tone, lead the way. Not something our Jack often does. He likes control. There aren't a lot of people he wants to cede control to - whom he trusts that much.

It's a beautiful, incredibly expressive moment that shows us just how much these feelings are out of Jack's control.

He isn't even trying to get control back. He's just... going with it. Because he can't do anything else.

It is such an immensely powerful, if short, relationship.

Its brevity makes it all the more intense. It is, however, hard to work though the cracks to canonical fanfic.

I maintain, and always will, that had real!Jack lived somehow, and been able to be with Jack, it would have been a really profound love.

Absolutely. It was a profound love even as we saw it - but they got so little time together.

I love it that you're happy to talk about this - I never get enough talk about Jack and Jack!