melodiesoflife | Hidden Truth [Log]

What: A log for everyone to gain the information in the Hidden Truth video tape.
Where: The Observatory.

There had been a flurry of letters sent out from Jack and Chiaki, first to Zelda to ask to borrow the Observatory, and then to every Hero of Light, alerting them that they had uncovered some intelligence received in the Heran Empire before the Capital had fallen to Crystal, and that everyone needed to see it immediately.

Jack, Chiaki, and a few others brought in a screen connected to a machine that some would recognize as a VCR. "With our peace mission to the Imperial Capital over Christmas, we returned with a recording made on 20th-century Earth technology, the kind that doesn't have an analogue on Crystallis. It took us time to build a machine to be able to play it. This information comes from Kalki, recorded what appears to be years ago. We obtained it from the Imperial Spy, Jenni. As of right now, we still have no reason to believe that Kalki is alive. But this comes from her, and I apologize to everyone who might be upset by seeing her again."

With that, Jack plays the recording. He stands by the screen and repeats the words for everyone to hear, for those who cannot understand English. Since Kalki's first words are to explain why she is recording it this way, it makes sense why he has to do this. He keeps his own emotions in check throughout, until the explanation of the Bard song that everyone gets to hear. That seems to upset Jack.

Once the recording is over, Jack pauses. "We will need some help from any other English speakers to create a written transcript of the recording so that anyone can access this information at any time. The tape and player will remain here for any Heroes to review. We ask that you please be careful with the machine."

Finally, Jack sits down to let the room descend into the inevitable chaos.

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Kidd stared back at Jack in that silent moment, chewing over her words. In the end she decided to not bother sugarcoating them. "Aye, it was your fault. She was looking for help and instead you threw yourself on your sword. I know you expected it might help, or that you'd be protected somehow but you didn't for a moment stop to consider the consequences outside of what you hoped there would be. Seeing someone killed, let alone volunteering to be killed is not a pleasant sight. You can only steel yourself against it over time."

She herself was a killer. She was an Assassin. She was a pirate. She'd taken many lives, and many without any time to consider them after their passing. But she never took those deaths for granted. She never took them lightly.

She slipped her crystal from her pocket, turning the white gemstone over in her fingers. "I don't know if I can still battle the Calamity within me, but I'll stand by you. I think you need to take on this 'shadow' she mentioned. If not for this world then for your own sake. You keep mentioning this Doctor like you're hoping for him to show up and fix everything for you." He sounded like a good man, but clearly the Calamity's wasn't the only 'shadow' Jack was shrouded by.

"I'm not!" Oh, because that didn't sound defensive at all, Jack. "I just-" How can he even explain all of the everything that there is between him and the Doctor?

"He made me the man I am today. In every way you could think of. He showed me a better way to live my life, when I was squandering my talent on stupid cons that almost got a lot of people hurt. Showed me that I didn't deserve the power I was holding on to. Showed me something worth dying for. I died." He holds Kidd's gaze seriously. "I came back, the power of Time and Space and all the parts in between funneled into me, but I died."

"Was it for him, was it for Satellite Five, Earth, the Daleks? I still don't know. But it was the right thing to do."

There's a very long pause, almost as if Jack isn't going to keep talking, but then he alights and straightens his back. "And then he runs off! I died, came back, even I had no idea what was going on, or what I even was, and he runs from me!"

It's too late, it's all coming out now, Jack can't hold it in. "I spent the next century trying to do his job. Doing what he'd shown me how to do. Protect the Earth. With more or less success rates, but, hey, the planet was still standing, I had to have been doing something right. Even if it never worked out like it would have for him. But I was trying, damn it."

"So I know. He's not coming to pull my ass out of the fire. Because he doesn't. Sometimes he does, but most of the time, when you actually truly need him?" Jack closes his fist, and blows a breath into it, "Poof! He's nowhere to be found."

"I get it. Okay? He's not coming." The words are tinged with a tone of betrayal, and a feeling of utter solitude hits Jack like he wasn't expecting.

Mary was quiet for a time, processing the entire story. The Heroes brought to this world all had their own tales to tell and a good many more fantastic than others. There were some words that Jack said in his story but the meaning and weight of them were easy enough to suss out from his tone and the desperation he wore on his face.

And as the anger built and he admitted to her how weak and aimless he was she couldn't help but hear the words echoed by Edward. Their stories were vastly different but the beginnings were the same. She had no doubts the two would get along if they met. That or hate each other more than anyone else for all they could see of themselves in the other.

She gave Jack a moment to collect himself, to catch his breath. She wasn't going anywhere and she wasn't going to let him run off either. A soft smile formed on her face as she stepped closer, placing a hand on his shoulder.

"Then if there's one good thing he's ever done it's to make a better man of you. Better even than himself by the sound of it. I've never known you to run from responsibility. If anything you could do to remember that the rest of us are here to help you shoulder it as well. A ship can only sail by the efforts of its whole crew after all, else it will soon sink." She gave his shoulder a squeeze and a shake before releasing it.

"But I tell you this, if I ever meet him I plan to pop him one for your sake. After you get yours own in if you care to." It wasn't merely what happened to Jack that had her making this promise. From the way he made it sound this Doctor was a man who tried to do good without any idea of the long term. That he'd do what he thought was right without any regard for those left in his wake. He didn't sound like the sort of man that Mary would like in the slightest.

Hidden Truth [Log]

Re: Captain Jack Harkness

Re: Captain Jack Harkness

Re: Captain Jack Harkness