Well...What Now? [Luffy/Open: Aqures Tosf]

[theendiswherewestartfrom]

August 14 - Aqures Tosf
[Luffy:]

Once Jack comes out of the Crystal Stasis, it doesn't take him long to figure out what's happened. The vortex manipulator now reads the "right" date again. City destroyed, them, what, removed from time?

Jack sighs deeply, and the first person he approaches is Luffy. He slides the treasured straw hat off his head and offers it over.

"Well. That didn't work."

Pause.

"You owe me a new sword, you know."

[Open:]

There is a principle at work here, one that Jack swears used to even be in the Torchwood handbook. Everything has gone wrong: somehow Jack's partly to blame.

This isn't a surprise or even something that is a problem. But Jack will wait for his fellow Heroes to come to him. They'll be expecting answers, either on the stunt he pulled at the Temple, or on what has happened to them, now. He had the answers last time, didn't he? In the meantime, though, there's a laboratory, no, a whole island to explore. Twenty eight years. How much has changed?

Comments

[not_most_days]

Kidd takes her sweet time in making her way over to Jack. Getting her bearings takes priority, taking a headcount and trying to figure out all of what just bloody happened. She's able to pull a few clues together but nothing to her immediate satisfaction. What she knows for sure is they suffered a pretty hard loss, and it seems Jack's stunt certainly didn't do anything for or against it.

Eventually she wanders over to the man, leaning her shoulder against a nearby wall and looking him over with a disappointed look on her face. Her arms cross as her eyes linger at the point where Logen had stabbed him and then slowly her gaze trails back up to his own eyes.

"I've seen a lot of men with a death wish out there. A lot of them go to sea trying to run from something or hope that they'll find some sort of divine punishment. Even if they claim not to believe in god. So tell me mate: I'm glad to see you back up on your feet but why are you so eager to throw your life away?"

[theendiswherewestartfrom]

Kidd is one of the more reasonable people that Jack has met. In a way, he's surprised that the man cares so much, but he should have realized that this was one of the people he was going to owe an explanation to. Kidd- gets it. In a way, as he proves by what he says first. Is that really what it is?

"Divine retribution..." It's a funny thought. "There's only one higher power I believe in, and he's not here to judge me." Even as he says it, his own words make him question. Is he looking for the Doctor's judgement?

"I thought it would work. It's worked before, my life for a lot of other people's." Jack shakes his head a little. "The full explanation's a long story." He raises his head, he always has to look people in the eye when he says this. "Maybe it's not so uncommon here. But. I can't die. Ever. Or couldn't, before I came here. Always come back to life."

[not_most_days]

Kidd's eyebrow goes up at Jack's words. They sound like mad ramblings, or they would if it wasn't for everything else she's experienced in this world. If he says that he can't die, that he's done this before, perhaps there's something to it but...

"So you just throw yourself onto your sword without even giving anyone else an explanation? Like some sort of parlor trick? And what if you died for real and all of this was still the same? We might have liked to know what you were thinking."

Her face hardens as she turns to face him directly. "It's one thing to make a sacrifice, but death should not be courted so casually. That's the mark of a man who thinks he needs to be punished for his life. I know a man who was a scallywag just because he didn't think he was worthy of his wife. He was always out searching for the big treasure that would turn his life around. All it got him was landed in prison. And if it hadn't been for the man coming to rescue me, he would have been left there to rot."