Fic: Strangers When We Meet (4/7)
Feb. 7th, 2011 08:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
azn_jack_fiendAuthor:
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
azn_jack_fiend Characters/Pairings: Jack/Estelle, Alex Hopkins, OCs
Rating: R for violence, death and mature themes.
Warnings/Spoilers: Specific violence-related warnings for later chapters: cruelty to senior, cruelty to animal, amputation
Categories: gen, mystery, backstory
Summary: It's 1999, and Jack is back in Estelle's life as his own son. Something waiting inside the mind of her friend at the nursing home has finally stopped waiting, and Jack's attempts to protect Estelle will reveal painful secrets kept buried for decades.
A/N: Written for
aeshna_uk. Many thanks to betas canaana and heddychaa. This is a completed fic, and I will be posting one to two chapters every day.Disclaimer: Characters do not belong to me.
Chapters: One - The Garden | Two - The Home | Three - The Hospital | Four - The King | Five - The Knife | Six - The Deal | Seven - The Ruins
When the raid was over she uncurled like a new fern. He stoked the fire dressed her in a red silk chemise stroked her long brown hair popped black market chocolates in her mouth her sweet soft tongue curling around his fingers her hard little fingers popping his buttons and just then just then dammit just then her mother came and threw rocks at their flat door screaming it was a crime and a shame and Estelle burst through the door in her chemise screaming go away Mummy I hate you you horrid bitch go away and Jack lifted her up lifted her bare feet up from the snow and carried her back staggering as he yelled fundamentally incoherent promises over his shoulder into the night.
As they left Cardiff on the carriageway, the spires of Castell Coch came into view, rising from the green-forested hill. Estelle's fairy castle, the path there lined by copper beeches. Before meeting her, he'd never liked the thing, and he still wasn't crazy about it. The product of an obscenely rich Victorian man's craving to re-enact the middle ages, Castell Coch was as stupidly nostalgic as the current fad for 80s retro dance nights, as — Come on, look who's talking about nostalgia, he told himself.
But I make it look cool, he told himself right back.
"Why are you grinning like that?" asked Myrna, pillowed in purple velvet on the passenger side. "Fond memories? I went to a wedding there a few years ago."
"Just remembering how a friend of mine asked me if 'I'd gone up Castle Cock,' once."
"The spelling is a bit of a pitfall," she mused, with a mischievous turn of her head. A soft sparkle of reflected sunlight danced across her mirrored sunglasses. "But what did you answer? I've been up it, down it and all around it? That's what I'd say."
What an opening. Though it was probably best if they could keep the flirting at a low flame. Not that he wasn't attracted, but there was an uncomfortable quasi-incestuous edge to it: Estelle was obviously a surrogate mother for Myrna, which made Jack her surrogate fictitious... what-the-fuck-ever.
Jack suddenly recalled (with regret) a potentially illuminating Time Agency seminar on paradoxical sexual etiquette he'd skipped out on as soon as he'd realised it was all lecture, no porn, not even any helpful pointers on how to have sex with yourself.
Myrna was still glancing at him sideways, eyebrow arched.
"I bet I've climbed up the castle more times than you have," said Jack, arching back.
"Oh I don't know, I've had quite the head start," quipped Myrna.
"Maybe, but that's not as important as the head finish."
"Have you ever heard of the saying, don't teach your grandmother to suck eggs?"
"Isn't there a version involving grandfathers and sausages?"
"No! And how on earth did we get so far from castles?" she asked in between convulsive giggles.
"Castles? I don't know what you were talking about, but me, I was talking about blow jobs," said Jack, keeping some semblance of a straight face while nearly redlining the Aston Martin to pass a poky lorry.
"You're going to kill me, aren't you?" she gasped out. He eased up on the accelerator and joined her laughing.
The carriageway soon began to bend in almost liquid curves as it conformed to the dramatic landscape of the Brecon Beacons. Jack wanted to hurl the car through (the asteroid scene in The Empire Strikes Back often coming to mind along this stretch) but for the sake of Myrna's nerves, he kept a light hand on the wheel. Their conversation stayed lively, settling into a rhythm of jokes and gossipy stories mixed with subjects more often reserved for darker conversations.
"I'd hate to end up like Pinkie," she said at one point, tone more thoughtful than mournful. "I'd rather go out kicking and screaming than just... wander off in a fog. It wouldn't be so terrible if she were lost in the good memories, but from what I've heard, it's often the worst times that come back."
They were driving straight towards one of those times, for her.
"Seemed like she was reliving a few of the good times when I met her," he said. "The plays. She was smiling."
"Estelle told me her mood's been much better for the last six months. And that's wonderful, because she doesn't have that much longer. I hope it lasts. I really do."
The road took a sharp curve winding clockwise up a steep hill, and Jack gripped the steering wheel a little tighter than he needed. He didn't want to think about the increasingly baroque architecture of his own memory, how far it could sprawl, when and where it might start crumbling into ruins, not from disease but from the brutal volume of it. He'd get himself fixed before then.
"I think I'd take that bargain," said Jack. "If I could just fade out, but it'd only be the good times. I mean, my number one choice would the blaze of glory, but doesn't everyone say that?"
"You're right," said Myrna. "At least, it's usually what men say. The blaze of glory bit. But yes, I'd take it too." She turned to look out the window. Streaks of sandstone broke the surface of the lush green hills on either side of the road.
"I remember when I was a schoolgirl, and we first started learning about the human body. All the marvellous complexity of it, every interlocking system that had to work together just exactly so... so that we could do the slightest thing, or think the slightest thought. And my first reaction was awe. And the second was terror, sheer bloody terror, because of how very fragile it all suddenly seemed. Quite an eerie feeling, really. Of course, I went back to thinking of my body as a solid thing. But I'll never forget that feeling."
"Kids are morbid little bastards, aren't they?" remarked Jack.
"They certainly are," agreed Myrna. The conversation took another sharp turn; soon she was telling stories of a son from the seventies and two stepdaughters from the eighties. He wanted to throw in a few of his own parenting war stories, maybe spin a daughter loosely based on Melissa — no, not even Melissa anymore, Alice, remember — but knowing anything he said might get back to Estelle, he kept his comments vague.
They stopped at a petrol station in Llandovery, fuelled up, and studied over a map. As Myrna traced the blue squiggle of road that led to the farm, her arm stayed stiff, trembling almost imperceptibly, finger like a seismograph needle tracking a baseline. Her face stayed calm.
"What's his name?" asked Jack, as gently as he could. "You never told me."
"Oh! I suppose you're right. He used to be called John. Then he called himself Math. But we weren't supposed to ever... use it, even." She chuckled nervously.
The blue squiggle turned out to be a gravel road that curved around a low hill, and then up through the shadow of a little valley, and then down again into a nearly flat expanse of fields and copses. Jack had to drive at a crawl, and if he'd paid any money for the car, the incessant sound of pinging gravel punctuated by loud thumps would have terrified him.
"We're here," said Myrna. "Thirty years, and I remember. I remember planting leeks in that field." She stared at her hands, at the filigreed silver rings on long manicured fingers.
The trailer in the middle of the clearing seemed too new and too shoddy to have lasted thirty years. There was a tin-roofed shed leaned up against it and a woodpile to the other side. Jack stopped the car at a cautious distance.
"I think you'd better stay here with the doors locked," he said. "I'll come back and get you after I check the place out."
Myrna nodded.
A woman came at the car, walking briskly, almost bouncing, her long grey hair streaming behind her, the seams of her face set in rage. Jack had a sinking feeling in his stomach at the sight of the mattock she cradled. He'd have to get that away from her, keep her from—
"It's me, Carol, it's me!" called out Myrna, slamming the car door shut and walking towards the woman, arms outstretched.
Jack sprung forward, reached for Myrna's arm and spun her behind him. They all collided in front of the car, the massive steel head of Carol's mattock only half-raised. He bent his knees, kept his centre low, tried to be the eye of the storm and let the chaos of clutching arms and shrieks swirl around him and break against him, hyperaware that Carol could be playing the role of sacrificial pawn, distracting them from some other attack.
"I'm not with the police," he shouted at her. "I'm not here to take you away." He tore the mattock from her and let it fall, ringing harsh against the ground.
"Listen, Carol, please, it's me, it's Myrna. Calm down, darling, it's all right," pleaded Myrna. Her sunglasses had fallen off. She was crying.
"Go away. We cursed you." Carol's voice creaked as harsh as the sound of the mattock. Harsh and hollow. She clasped her arms in front of her breasts, rocked her head from side to side and made a low keening noise, an old woman becoming a child.
Myrna reached out and touched Carol's arms. "It's all right, everything's all right, shh. Sit down. Oh God, I've missed you." Carol slowly sank to the grass, and Myrna knelt beside her.
"Go on, Jack," said Myrna. "She couldn't ever... please, I'll be all right here."
Jack nodded at her. He turned and walked straight to the trailer, hand close to his gun, level of frustration about halfway to boiling. Dealing with this kind of situation — too violent for charm, not quite violent enough for violence — was not his strong point, dammit.
He caught a glimpse of a hand at the curtain of the front window.
"Mister Druid," he shouted, then did his best to forget how stupid that sounded. "I'm from an agency that starts with a T. Get it? Now open the door, or I'm kicking it in."
The door swung open to show a robed man sunk into a chair, white-bearded and withered, a dingy cast on his right leg. He had pale grey glaring eyes and pale skin that sagged in folds like crumpled paper. A woman who must be Harmony held the door open; she could have been Carol's sister, dressed in almost the same drab sweatshirt and jeans.
Jack gave the man his widest smile — the "I'm going to kill you" smile — held up his right wrist and tapped his wrist strap.
The immediate onset of full-body trembling told Jack almost everything he needed to know.
"Go back," croaked the man. Harmony bowed her head, robotically, and faded into the interior.
The trailer was slightly raised; Jack found that he was staring up into the man's eyes. He didn't feel like a supplicant, though. More like the bad cop.
"Century?" he asked, still smiling. "Remember, I could always scan you. But let's make this quick."
"You first."
"Excuse me, did you think we were speed dating? You're the man with the answers. I'm the man with the gun."
"35th." He'd given up his attempts to stare Jack down. His eyes were unfocused, gone to water.
"I guess cashing in on the moon landing date was harder than you thought. What'd you use to brainwash the women? Sprays? Artifacts?"
"I showed them the truth. They submitted to be reborn."
"Sure. So you're conning yourself, too. Now tell me what happened thirty years ago. When two of your... wives ran off."
A rattling, coughing laugh crawled its way up his throat and out into the air between them.
Malice-eaten wreck, thought Jack, his face tightening.
"I told Pinkie she was getting too old for me," the man cackled. "I was going to make Myrna my head wife. Pinkie didn't like it when I told her she was getting demoted, oh no. Touchy bitch. She thought she'd get to come back after getting rid of Myrna. But we cursed her, and she died." He twisted his lips into a leering grin.
"Did you come to take me back?" he added, face and body untwisting, suddenly plaintive, a weird light of hope flashing in his eyes.
"No. You'll probably die right here in this trailer," said Jack, quite happy to be honest. "The 21st century is as far as you'll get."
There was an answering soft keen of loss, but it soon ratcheted into barking outrage. "You will die. You! You! Die!"
"Nice to meet you too! Bye!"
Jack turned his back on him and walked away, not too concerned about any further attacks from this quarter. Pathetic.
Jack's long shadow pointed the way back toward the car. As he fell in line, following, his mind wandered back to a time before Torchwood, when a brief false hope had dawned on him: if he couldn't bring back his glory days with the Doctor, well, he'd find some way to live with what he'd lost. Get a family. Get old. Eventually, die.
Then he fell into a dark hole for another few years once he finally understood that he couldn't even compromise. There was no choice but the waiting.
The ruined king had a choice, and Jack's skin crawled as he imagined the making of it. Sucking the others down with him, trapped, rotting.
Time to go back to Cardiff, get things done. That last bit of information might have been worth the travel.
Carol was still sitting on the ground, staring at her hands. Myrna was back in the passenger seat, armoured in her sunglasses again. Jack climbed in, looked to her, held her hand.
"We can go now," she said, softly. "Carol won't leave. She'll never leave."
"I'm sorry," said Jack.
"They came out here several times. Social workers. They took the children until they stopped having them. Carol's mother raised hers, and Harmony's went to her brother. But they still won't leave. Sunk costs, you know. Something else I remember from school. Economics. Once you've put enough of yourself into something, you feel like you have to stay to make it good, even when it all goes to hell. It's illogical. Something to do with redemption. Did you learn anything?" She squeezed his hand, sighed, then let go to reach for her seat-belt.
"No," said Jack. "I didn't learn anything. The guy was a wreck." He started the car and turned it back onto the gravel road.
"Pinkie saved me from all that. Because of what she did, I only lost two years. You know they're both younger than me?" said Myrna, mind obviously still back in the clearing.
"Hell no," said Jack. "And I'm not saying that to be flattering to you, I'm saying that because I'm shocked about how he must have put them through the wringer to look that way. And there's nothing we can do, I guess. But I'll try something else later this week. See if some friends of mine can come out with a social worker." Someone needs to scan for tech anyway, he thought.
"Thank you," said Myrna. The delightfully sharp edge to her voice seemed to be returning.
"And when I said I wasn't flattering you? When I'm flattering you, I promise I'll be a lot more obvious. I'd start off with some hairstyle compliments, eyes, cheekbones, work my way down..." He winked at her.
The tone went right back to its breezy, comfortable beginning. More than comfortable, in fact, because that stretchy quasi-incestuous thing had flown out the window as far as Jack was concerned, and if he wasn't in such a rush to get back to Cardiff, stopping at a hotel along the way and helping Myrna work off some adrenaline tension would have been an absolutely irresistible plan.
Then, halfway through the Brecon Beacons, the dark hills outlined in sunset's magenta, Alzheimer's resurfaced. This time Jack had a story ready.
"My grandmother had it. She died in '92. She seemed as if she was pulling out of it, near the end. Stopped snapping at people. Smiled all the time. Didn't seem confused at all. Then one day she told us she'd just seen the most perfect flowering pear tree — it was the middle of winter in Colorado, though — and she could die happy now. That was the night she went to bed and never woke up."
"That's beautiful," said Myrna. "Thank you for telling me that. Thank you for everything. Bloody hell, I'm going to start crying again."
"She'll be all right," said Jack.
Chapters: One - The Garden | Two - The Home | Three - The Hospital | Four - The King | Five - The Knife | Six - The Deal | Seven - The Ruins
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2011-02-08 02:31 am (UTC)Ahh, one of my favourite Jack smiles :)
Excuse me, did you think we were speed dating?
*snort*
Parts 5 and 6 tomorrow yes? :D
no subject
Date: 2011-02-08 02:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-11 02:22 am (UTC)I love this bit. It's so very Jack. :-) I also love Jack's flirtations with Myrna. They really are two of a kind.
no subject
Date: 2011-02-11 02:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-13 07:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-20 04:51 pm (UTC)