Most of what I've thought through and most of the ruminations and explorations I've done in the last couple of years has been out loud to myself. There's no record of it but memory. Put to its essence, and very much condensed: Mom wouldn't admit that something was confusing to her so she simply said it was confusing, as in by nature. That no-one would understand my breaking conventions of writing by starting a story in the middle of the conversation or in something other than the first scene. But that's a common part of writing. It's not breaking tradition it's not only not usual to write stories that way, it is how stories are commonly written. When I avoid breaking conventions I absolutely flat out refuse to break them. And I stammer, like they don't know what they are asking me to do, to break those conventions. It led to the understandable misconception that I was autistic. That I was so adherent to formulas and prescriptions you would have to convince me it would be worth it to try to break them. Or if I am autistic, this is not the right evidence of it.
But my mom wouldn't read my stories without asking me why I'm writing them this way. Or worse, demanding I rewrite my stories in a way that made sense. On her next visit she would say with surprise “well where was my mind on that one isolated incident on that one visit.” Without anger she was laughing about it and sincerely. She didn't realize or accept that this was her norm. And it was. It got to the point of having her object to how I wrote a line, insisting borderline demanding I rewrite a line to make it clear I mean ASSA 'because right now it sounds like I mean BCCA'. When what it sounded like is what I meant. I did mean BCCA and she told me to change it top make it clear I meant ASSA before even asking me which I meant. And I would have to rewrite my stories according to her understanding before showing them to her. And so it became a labor for me to write according to college creative writing fiction class or according to my own style and understanding. Instead of writing according to what my mom understood, what she expected. Even typing things I don't particularly intend anyone to read, I still fought internally to go with what I knew was right, i.e. what I was trying to say and what sounded effective to convey my meaning rather than what she...enforced, encouraged, expected.
This is my first sincere attempt to start writing a story according to what I know, which is in line with what Susan Carpenter and Cynthia Bandish, -my professors at Bluffton University- taught me, and what I learned as I wrote for myself, and not what I was taught and what my mom enforced as the proper way the clear, less ambiguous, prescriptive way. Flowing writing, was actually frowned upon with my mom. She insisted my writing needed more structure an more predictability. This is me writing, following the rules and being the unpredictable, fluid, natural writer I was taught to be. And was so good at.
“You did live through the war?” Rogers asked in a tone of which Jack could make nothing.
“Yes. Next question?” Jack's stare turned cool and detached. A warning to a soldier's mind.
Steve Rogers leaned back in his chair. “Do you really gallivant around the universe?”
Jack sat bolt upright in his chair. “Who told you that?”
“A friend of yours dropped in on us. We don't know who she was. She saw I'd met you. She tried to set the record straight. But honestly left more questions for us than we'd had before.”
“I take it she is why you are here now as opposed to any other time. I have an idea who this is. Light, shoulder-length blonde hair, clothes probably didn't fit the season much less the temperature of the room? Old soul type with a face like a glass of water?”
“Pretty much. She chose her words too carefully for the youth on her face that's for sure. She mentioned your 'Doctor', that you were a genuine solider type, and Torchwood had basically the same mission we did. I came here to see what she meant and if she was right.”
“Fair enough I suppose. But how do you intend to answer your own doubts?”
“What do you mean?” Captain Rogers asked thoroughly caught off guard.
“If my answering your questions isn't enough for you...I'm not assuming it is or isn't, but IF it isn't, how would you assuage your own lingering suspicions?”
“I'm not super-curious about your past. I'm a little curious on a personal level. But it wasn't the history of 'Captain Jack' that drew me here. Fury wants to know if this Torchwood you're a part of really is on our side...and how much of what Sarah told us you can actually verify.”
“No offense Captain, but that would have been a good place to start.”
Rogers looked up with mixed sadness and sternness. “It would've. Prove HER right.”
“I don't think in those terms. I don't try to understand her mind. I spent most of my time this past 100 years trying to be a better person than I was so I could be a good person in the Doctor's eyes. The only way to prove her right about Torchwood is for an alarm to go off within the next few minutes and I actually bring you along. Which I am not against, I just don't want to tempt fate here. Can we PLEASE stop treating each-other as enemy aliens? We're on the same side far as I can see, or care.”
“On that much we agree...Yes we can.” Steve replied in a quiet voice. He was genuinely embarrassed by the quiet dressing down. “I don't have any official business to discuss. You're not inclined to talk about Sarah or I'd ask you some stuff about her explanations and assumptions. Kind of a 'how'd she know about that?'. Do you have a soda or something in that cooler?”
Jack Harkness smiled, walked to the refrigerator and brought out a small bottle of ginger ale. He handed it to Rogers without a word and sat back down behind his desk.
“It's strange.” Jack said, as though to himself.
“What is?” Steve asked of his friend.
“Last time we got along great then it ended cold. Seems this is the reverse.”
“Jack...Can I go ahead and call you that?”
“I welcome it.” Harkness replied easily, a small hope forming in his mind.
“Then yes, it's the reverse. And I'm up for anything.”
“What are you psychic?”
“...I just meant there's a lot I can take in stride that most would consider ridiculous science fiction. Sorry Jack I didn't mean anything by it.”
“Are you going to answer it?” It was only then Rodgers saw the true cause and meaning of Jack's original question. His cell phone was ringing.
“Rogers.” Steve said into the receiver. “Yeah, I'm sitting right across from him. Why?” Jack hid a smile behind his hand. “Would you mind repeating that?” Jack's back straightened; his eyes widened in expectation. “Alright I'll ask him, but something tells me we won't...Yes ma'am.”
Captain Steve Rogers closed his cell phone and stared his friend in the face. His gaze hardened and his eyes narrowed. Jack didn't flinch. Seeing from their time together that the direct approach probably was the best way to go. Steve relaxed and sat up straight.
“How well do you know Sarah, and how well does Sarah know you?” Rogers asked coolly.
“I know Sarah from the 3 or 4 times she dropped in on us. She knows me cause she watched over Smith's gallivanting for a while now and I was part of that story. What changed?”
“She knows things she hasn't been there for, about your life?” Steve said without reserve.
Jack looked up at the ceiling and sighed. “She always wanted people's first impressions of her to be from her. I hope your having already met means it's okay for me to answer these questions. Otherwise I'll feel like a Quisling.”
“Jack, I need to know. Rather a partner of mine needs to hear it or something might get even more screwed up than it already is. And in no way shape or form am I messing with you.”
“I shall have to take your word on that.” Jack Harkness rubbed his face with his right hand and waved his left hand in front of his eyes. “The way she explained it to me, she keeps an eye on our adventures from…wherever she's from and falls through time somewhere along the, she calls them 'sequences' that she sees from there. She doesn't look into people's lives or histories...only their discoveries and adventures, and how the stories interact with each-other.”
“So it shouldn't mean much that she's able to quote my encounters with the rest of the Avengers to Black Widow.” Rogers stated succinctly.
“She proved to me that she knew who I was by quoting something I said to myself that no one else was around to hear. So yes and what's going on for that?” Jack's tone left little doubt the conversation was over if that question was left unanswered. Steve saw no reason to keep silent.
“Natasha Romanov is at a mental hospital in DC and a patient there keeps quoting what sounded to the nurses like pretty random stuff. Until Romanov, arrived and the girl started quoting meetings between the five of us...Including how Stark figured out Loki's plan.”
“I would trust her to know stuff like that, and when to say it. It doesn’t surprise me that her supposedly random nonsense isn't so random. My life on its own taught me to listen for it. I want to clear one thing up before we go ANY further. One misconception a-lot of people make about me is that I'm an alien who looks and acts as human as anyone. I've lived a very long time because of a freak accident while traveling. I Am Human. Just a CHANGED Human.”
“And traveling with Smith...you fell through time as well as space?”
“Essentially yes.”
“Wow.”
“Again, essentially yes.” Harkness quipped.
“I'm going to assume the expression on your face is pained as it is for a damn good reason.”
“I'm wondering how Sarah ended up in a mental asylum.” This wasn't a question so much as an assumption. A fact of which Steve was keenly aware after staring into Jack's eyes a moment.
“Honestly that's a question I had as well. But presumably for a slightly different reason.”
“If her own self-care-and-control failed, if her mask of happiness broke or her emotional storm of a personal history caught up with her, no one would question that she was literally mental. The problem, is how she ended up in a mental hospital anywhere but in her hometown.”
“You mean that she's literally crazy and no one else would notice?”
“No. I mean she's close to senseless to some people's eyes. Whether that would happen where she's from on a regular basis is beyond me. I know she has no common mind and that back home -wherever that is- she might be considered 'nuts'. But around here it only happens when she stays around for too long, and usually even her closest friends wouldn't be able to keep her here. I'm wondering why she'd hang around long enough to be literally if not descriptively 'arrested' ...and how it's even possible.”
“She mentioned she started traveling again and that if she didn't have her T.C. on her when she what was the word Phased again she'd be non-responsive. Apparently the two coincided.”
“What's she even doing hopping around again?” Jack Harkness stated in a queer voice.
“Why do you sound like you expect ME to know the answer to that?” Rodgers demanded.
“Because the last time I saw her face she told me her time and strength for bouncing around again were almost spent...that she'd have to go back to where she's from and stay there for...a really long time. If she broke that train of thought, which she herself created to avoid a mental system failure, to talk to your team you must be pretty damn important or pretty damn lost.” Harkness' terse voice and tense face were all the message and demand that Rogers needed. He knew to start making perfect sense. “I didn't come here to talk about her. I came here to figure you out. She is the catalyst, not the inciting incident. Fury wanted me to come here anyway, figure you out as best I could. From what I saw, she sent herself to the base with the express purpose of answering my questions about who and what you were. But she had a similar concern about betraying your trust.”
“Or robbing me of my chance to tell you all of this in person.” Jack stated glumly.
“Affirmative.” Rogers stated curtly.
“Thank you. Now that we are back on the subject of me, I DO age, but I can't die from aging... or any other way really. That's the second and equally vital reason I know World War II so well. The other being: I first met the Doctor during the London Blitz. He picked my up from there...for the first run.”
“Okay I'm listening.” Rogers replied, in a prompting voice.
“No offense, but listening to my words and paying attention to what I'm saying? Not the same thing.”
“Well I can't argue with that. It's just...it seems you're giving half-answers to everything.”
“I just do better answering specific concerns. But you obviously don't know enough about me to ask specific questions. Here's the highlights: I'm from the future. I was a con-man when the Doctor met me. It was somewhere between this time and the end of the universe that I got fried, re-charged and jolted back far enough that I lived through the entire twentieth century waiting for him to come back. He did. We fought out of a few scrapes together. He's picked me up and dropped me off a few times since then. Unlike him I have a life of my own with people who care about me. Actually the difference is, I come back to my people when I can. He runs off in the wind. I can't die. Torchwood, the original Torchwood that is, noticed...and conscripted me to fight and defend the earth against alien invaders like the doctor. I'm using nonspecific language but they counted the Doctor as an enemy alien in the most passionate sense of the phrase. Since Canary Wharf...our NYC battle... I've tried to prepare us for alien invasions...and to be ready to help MY Doctor save our skins.”
“All your names had the same face. He had different faces for the same name...I'm sated.”
“His kind regenerate when near death. Same face and soul. The rest is window dressing.”
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