melodiesoflife | I Can Run Forever [Open]

I Can Run Forever [Open]

What: Shadow Log for Jack Harkness
Who: Anyone is welcome, but specifically, Jack would have told Chiaki, Mary/Kidd, Sparks, K'pandolu, and Ramza that he was about to do this.
Warnings: Spoilers for all of Torchwood, mention of child death, probable mentions of more death, torture, violence, and some not-nice opinions of the Doctor.

After seeing a few other people face their Shadows, Jack has actually become less certain about facing his own. But time is running out, if Jack doesn't want to possibly become a liability in this final fight against Garland or the Calamity, itself. And he knows that his friends will have his back, as he had theirs. He is wearing no Job equipment, just his normal clothes, and the coat he came here wearing, but a pistol belted to his side. He looks up at everybody who chose to be here.

"Thank you. For risking yourselves to be here. I've lived a very long time. Hundreds or thousands of years, depending on how you count it." A tiny smirk of an inside joke. "Done a lot of things I'm not proud of. So I have no idea what's going to come up here. It could be...literally anything," Jack shakes his head and holds his hands out to the sides in a shrug. "Be ready for anything."

He nods to Mogwen, who takes his crystal. "I'm keeping Time Agent. If I'm facing this down, I'll do it as myself."

The machine turns on, and a ghostly Shadow forms, like a humanoid figure pressing at the fabric of this reality, leaving an imprint of itself. Finally, it coalesces into an exact double of Jack, but in full Royal Air Force uniform, complete with an officer's hat on his head. A slow, flirtatious smirk spreads across the Shadow's face.

"Captain Jack Harkness, and who are you?"

The look on Jack's face matches that of his Shadow, and the two of them walk towards each other, circling slightly as if to size the other one up.

"I mean, really. Wow. You never quite notice the effect-" "-until it's right here in front of you. Mmm." "Do we really have to do this here? We could just take this somewhere more private." "I dunno, people like Nevada might appreciate a show." "Hah! Might teach him a thing or two?" "You know, I've always been curious." "If you're as good as you think you are?" "No, I know I'm as good as I think I am." "But you've always wanted to try this." "No potential for paradoxing myself out of the timestream." "It's certainly one way to solve your problems."

A pause, and both figures stop. The amused look doesn't leave Jack's face, but Jack tactically shifts. "And here I thought you were supposed to be everything I was repressing, not shouting from the rooftops."

The Shadow's shoulders sag in mock disappointment. "Ugh. You never used to be business before pleasure. When did you stop being fun?"

"Oh, right, I remember. It was when you killed your grandson."

Dead silence. It seems Jack's Shadow is as good as he is at turning the conversation on a dime. Jack's jaw clenches tight. "I had no choice-"

"You and the Doctor love that phrase, don't you? Washes your hands of so many consequences. You had a choice and you made your choice. At every step of the way. 1965 and 2009. You made the choice to kill Steven Carter."

"To save the world."

"His life wasn't worth it."

Right as Jack might be starting to get his balance back, he takes in a deep breath, but the Shadow continues, sensing an opening.

"Ooh, how about this one? You knew how to close the Rift for decades! Everything that happened to Cardiff from that point forwards? Was on your hands. Because you wanted to see your precious Doctor again."

"If the Rift was closed, the Doctor never came back in 2007. It had to stay open until that point. Any time paradox involving the Doctor-"

"Has a tendency to resolve itself. The version of the Doctor that caused Torchwood to get created was traveling with Rose Tyler, therefore it was one of the two regenerations that you saw. Previous versions of the Doctor who had no idea who you were popped up in London practically once a week, Torchwood right there in the background keeping an eye on him, even though he hadn't created it yet, and it never paradoxed a thing. His timeline is more variable than anyone else's."

"But mine isn't! I still had no idea what I even was, what I am! I needed my answers."

"Damn the world and the consequences, you getting answers is more important. You learned that lesson from the Doc well." The Shadow leans in closer, as if to whisper a secret, but his voice stays just as loud. "That's why you're hoping Kalki is still alive. You want your answers and you want your conscience absolved. Damn the danger that she is to everyone else. You're willing to risk it if it gets you the answers you think you want."

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K'pandolu's inclined to roll her eyes at the two Jacks complimenting each other, because really. Admittedly, the two of them getting along- however it is- might be better than the alternative…

Which they'll see soon enough, apparently, and she straightens in response to Jack's shift, ears up to attention. What she hears isn't good, and she frowns, her expression deepening as the conversation goes on and her tail starting to flick quickly. "You let family die for the world?" she asks, voice tense. The rest she assumes the others will probably pick up on- but family is important.

From the Shadow confrontations Ramza has witnessed before, he has learned to let the Hero and the Shadow meet and assess the situation before interfering. He watches as the twin Jacks drag their eyes up and down the others.

For the most part, flirting usually flies straight over Ramza's head, but this predatory circling has all the subtlety of a coeurl's mating dance. Ramza's cheeks color a little, watching it happen, and he wonders if perhaps he should not have come.

Thankfully, Jack changes the subject, and the real heart of the matter begins to see light. Kinslayer. Ramza knows what it is to bear that title as well. It's a serrated blade thrust into one's body that can never be removed, no matter how righteous or justified one was. The only thing Ramza can do is try to stop the Shadow from twisting the knife further.

"If Jack chose to kill his grandchild, or let open a Rift, or seek out Kalki, he did so believing it to be the best option available. We humans can do no more than play the cards we are dealt, and we are neither prescient nor infallible."

If Jack was paying attention to the comings and goings of the people facing their Shadows, he'd note that despite her common presence the pirate had yet to encounter her own as well. She'd also not been at the encounter with the Knights, but he still received a quirked eyebrow for what she'd heard about his recklessness there. No lecture. No hard judgement. Just a quiet reminder about his habit of throwing his life away.

But his choice to face the Shadow as his custom job, as himself as he said, earns a nod of respect from her. A shame she couldn't go into her own encounter as an Assassin when the time comes.

As with the others it was a bit hard to take Jack flirting with himself, though she had to admit it would be amusing if the situation wasn't as serious. If it wasn't so clearly about to turn as it did. Her eyes narrowed as she listened, she didn't interrupt. That Jack had family was unexpected as she never heard him talk about them, but not a shock as such.

Her hands moved, shifting from crossed over her chest to one slipping down to touch at her own belly. She believed the Shadow that the choices were made and Jack was responsible, none had lied in this regard before, but she trusted it was not a choice he made lightly, perhaps not even willingly in the end. That the shadow said the sacrifice wasn't worth it meant that was how he felt deep down but...

"Jack...what was at stake? What would have happened if it wasn't him?"

Shadow Jack leans out to look past Jack at K'pandolu's words. He holds up a single finger. "Killed his grandson, not just let him die. Had his finger on the button. Fine distinction."

Jack shoves his own Shadow aside. "Shut up." He turns to the others, himself, and there is an utterly lost look on his face. "He's right. I'm right."

Jack can look up again at Mary's words. He hesitates, but he answers, very softly, almost automatically. He's gone over these words a lot. "One tenth of the children in the world. Total planet population of 6.8 billion. Anybody pre-puberty, cut that population down by one tenth. They were going to be taken by an alien race, or the entire world's population would be killed, instead. Even letting them have all the children? Decimating an entire cohort of the population would have put all of humanity's survival at risk down the line."

Jack's head falls again. "I had a way, to wipe out all the aliens at once. But it needed a focal point. If I could've-"

"If I could have taken his place, I would have, because I know that my own death is always a meaningless sacrifice. Oh, we've heard that one before, too." Jack's Shadow casually folds his arms.

"Jack, tell us, please. Was your grandson anything like you?"

Ramza's voice is soft, not casting judgement. He knows the feel of the weight pressing down on Jack's conscience.

"Because I know nothing of him, other than he was yours. Was he the type to have demanded children die for his sake, or the world perish that he might live?"

He looks down at his boots. The other two in the room know, even though Jack does not, what Ramza did to his brother. Turned his blade upon his own blood, because Zalbaag would rather have died than been made to serve an evil hand.

"I think you grieve because he was good, and because you loved him, not because you chose wrong."

She'd hoped to- avoid a little of the pain, perhaps. She made a face, ears flattening, and then hissed at Jack's answer to Mary's question, tail lashing. "That's- cruel. Unfair." It made a little more sense, but all the same- "A foul choice indeed," she muttered.

She gave Ramza a thoughtful look, and nodded slowly. She didn't feel it was quite the same- but it was, in a sense, still making the best of what they could. All the same, there was a bitter taste in her mouth.

She frowned at the Shadow for a moment instead, and looked to Jack. "It's… certainly something you seem to have made an unpleasant habit of," she said, eyebrows lifted slightly.

Mary nodded at Jack's words. The bargain offered was reprehensible, and as an Assassin and as a Hero she felt her first instinct to reject it. But she believed that the alternative that Jack posed wasn't being overstated. She didn't know if she could make that choice herself, but she could understand why he would. It wasn't a good choice, certainly not one to be lauded, but for the sake of the world she could understand.

Palitutu wasn't right either, but she still felt the Tarutaru had options. They had both given up and surrendered, but one to fate and one to an invading force. Jack's choice, she assumed, was made with the hope of not repeating it again in the future. Palitutu's was to continue the repetition forever.

But when he said 'focal point' she understood. One life. One life for all. She glanced at the Shadow as it spoke and she didn't disagree with it. Jack was all too eager to throw his life away. Was this the reason why? But that one death was fair payment based on one simple question, "Did he know?"

"Was he possibly immortal, you mean," Jack frowns in response to Ramza's question. "Was there a chance it wouldn't take for him? No. We already knew that it wouldn't-"

"That's not what Ramza was asking and you know it. Because you think the fact you cant die is all there is to you, and that's the bigger problem here, isn't it?"

Jack's hand clenches at his side, bristling in fury, but is it aimed outwards or inwards or both? "No." In response to just about everyone's questions. "Steven- didn't know. Anything. That I couldn't die, that he was going to die, that his death would save the world. And I don't know what he would have been like. He hadn't grown up enough yet. Don't have a clue what sort of man he would have become."

"He didn't even know about me. Thought I was his uncle, not his grandfather. How do you explain that his grandfather looks younger than his mother?" It's an honest question. How. Was there anything that he could have actually done differently, in regards to Steven, at any point?

"We can't sacrifice innocents to save this world, there are some among us who want us to compromise our principles, but damn it, I have made that mistake before. And I'm going to stand in their way because it's the right thing to do. Not just because I know how heavy that burden is."

Jack's Shadow tilts his head to the side in a mockery of the curious, intrigued look that Jack sometimes gets. "But why, then, are you so willing to give some people a pass on that. You never stood in his way. Are you so sure that you're going to stand in hers? Kalki. Since you still think she's alive."

Edited (.) 2017-02-20 15:20 (UTC)

Jack is right, at least about one thing. Sacrificing innocents, compromising principles...it is not the right thing to do. Sometimes the blacks and whites of the world meld into complicated grays, but it never makes it right.

Ramza crosses his arms and tries to think over everything the two Jacks are saying. Jack is rejecting his selfishness, and the guilt of not having died to atone for his sins. The ghosts of his past weigh him down, but not enough for him to change his ways.

"...The greatest sacrifice most men can make is to give their lives for a cause. You cannot. It as like the sacrifice you are being called to make is of your pride, living knowing there are things you yet do not know. Only you can decide if you can pay that price."

Ramza wants to think Jack is the type of man who will give whatever is needed to save the world...but perhaps he has only succeeded so far because the stakes have never been too high for him.

"No man is one thing alone," K'pandolu says, reaching out, tail flicking. "You're clever, and this- all sounds like the words of a man who considers the world, moreso for knowing the weight of it."

She nods firmly to the talk of principles- she's not fond of the thought of sacrifices herself, but she frowns when Jack's shadow mentions Kalki. "… Was there something you wished to ask of her?" That… doesn't sound entirely unreasonable, after all.

Mary has her opinions on the sacrifice of innocents and she's never kept them quiet. Her business may be the bloody sort, but she's always carefully picked her targets, as the Brotherhood has for centuries before her. Mistakes get made and innocents have died, but they were never considered to be acceptable losses.

But there have been necessary ones. She's not happy about what Jack did to his grandson. Very far from it. But she can understand his position, and she sees it's not a choice made lightly. But it was still made and perhaps made poorly.

And then there's the mention of the Doctor. Her frown is more directed at him. The man seemed far too flippant about the games he seemed to be playing. He may have done much for Jack's world and beyond, but he seemed to have lost sight of the individual lives he touched, far too eager to jump to some new fancy.

"I would talk to Kalki as well. You're not the only one that wants to try to understand her. Perhaps it's not too late for her to do good. There's no shame in that hope." Her eyes then darkened a bit, as did her tone, "But her sins can't be forgotten either. And as far as I've seen hers far outweigh your own. She may want to do good, but there's a difference between sacrificing one's own child, and with torturing confused people torn from their worlds only to tell them that they have to sacrifice themselves to gain victory. And the fact that you blame yourself so is the greatest difference between you two. You, more than possibly anyone else, understand the weight of life and death."

K'pandolu's question is a good one. Jack looks down, but his voice is steady when he answers. "I want to apologize. Whether it's true or not. I want to apologize for creating her. She'll say it would always have happened that way. But I am still sorry for what she experienced inside the Crystal. For what turned her from the woman she was into the woman she is now."

"I want to ask why she helped us. And I want to know if she really understands what it is to have an existence beyond life and death." He looks at Ramza when he finishes. The knight has hit the nail right on the head.

Jack looks back at his own Shadow. "She's going to die. Not by my hand. It's not my right. But I'm not apologizing for hoping she is alive and hoping that there is some putting this right by her being alive. So long as there is life, there is still some hope."

"Because you always give them a chance."

"Those are the rules."

"Can you hold yourself to the same standards as you hold your worst enemies? As he holds his worst enemies. Even with the deaths that you've caused, the deaths that have happened around you? What if you gave yourself one more chance?"

Jack looks between the faces of each of his friends. Ramza, K'pandolu, Mary. Even the ones who are not here, Chiaki, Chrom, Sparks. What they've got in common is that they will be the ones to tell him when he is making a mistake. But they haven't turned away from him.

Even Gwen, Owen, Toshiko, Martha....Ianto. Even they didn't, in the end.

"Maybe I still deserve a chance to set it right, too."

Jack's Shadow bows its head and nods with a sense of finality. There's a pause, and then it looks back up with a look that Jack recognizes, but has never seen aimed at himself. Without warning, the Shadow takes two strides to close the distance between himself and Jack, and his hands reach up...

...clamp on either side of Jack's head and pull him into a kiss. As the two of them make contact, the Shadow dissipates, absorbing back into the Crystal from where it came.

The moment when a Hero and their Shadow reconcile is intensely personal, and Ramza has done his best, during the various ones he has witnessed, to make himself as unobtrusive as he can during this part.

He sits back and nods to himself as the Shadow approaches Jack, proud of his friend for what he has accomplished today. And then he catches sight of the intense gaze the Shadow has fixed on Jack, and the way he is leaning in.... Ramza averts his eyes, flushing. Apparently, Jack's reconciliation is to be even more personal than Ramza expected.

Mary's eyebrow went up faster than a drunken sailor being foolhardy near the rigging. She was happy to see this turn to a peaceful resolution, but the manner of it caught her a bit by surprised. Not that she was opposed to it, but it was still something she'd not expected to see.

She's quiet for a long beat before finally speaking up, "If you want to have a few more words with your Shadow I'm sure we could turn the machine back on and leave you be."

K'pandolu settled back on the heels of her feet, satisfied that Jack and his Shadow had reconciled. Everyone deserved a chance, even if- well. Even if there was a good chance it might backfire. She blinked as the Shadow stepped towards Jack, ready to move- and then that happens. Her ears flicked straight up, and she brought a hand to her mouth, eyes wide.

"That's… certainly a way to reconcile," she said, and glanced at Mary, with a quick nod.

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I Can Run Forever [Open]

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