Jack Harkness

Title / Prompt: 11/07 - Rose
Character: Jack Harkness
Warnings: none
Pairings: none
Your character's fandom: Doctor Who/Torchwood
Word count: 262 per PocketWord
Rating: G
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters or the situation. If I did, he'd have come in much earlier...
Crossposted to licenseartistic

He was pretty sure if she had ever seen him, she would have called the cops and reported him as a peeping tom or a creepy stalker, but he had only the best of intentions. He had done this a few other times as she was growing up, wandering around the neighborhood while she rode her red bicycle around. He couldn't help but laugh as she whooped and giggled, speeding down a hill, blonde ponytail streaming out behind her. It made him happy to see her so carefree and joyful.

Then there was the time one of her girlfriends from school had a screaming fight with her, leaving her in tears. He wanted so badly to comfort her, to tell her it all works out all right in the end, but that would break his own self-imposed rules -- not to mention at least sixteen Time Agency codes and another five laws of time travel in general.

But the worst time was when he realized what day it was, and knew that a certain lanky Gallifreyan would be showing up to save her from the Autons. No, that was the day he knew he had to head back to Cardiff and stay away from now on, because as much as it broke his heart, preserving the timeline was far more important than his feelings.

Instead, he watched her head off to work; smiled sadly and whispered, "Goodbye, Rose Tyler," and disappeared into the foot traffic. He never saw her turn and look around in confusion before shrugging and going into the shop.

Title / Prompt: 10/07 - "Fear is an emotion indispensable for survival" --Hannah Arendt
Character: Jack Harkness
Warnings: none
Pairings: none
Your character's fandom: Doctor Who/Torchwood
Word count: 214 per PocketWord
Rating: G
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters or the situation. If I did, he'd have come in much earlier...
Crossposted to licenseartistic

He wasn't ashamed to admit that there were times when he was afraid. Terrified, even. But it was fear that fired the adrenal glands and sharpened the reflexes, fear that kept him from getting too complacent. It was quite true that he didn't stay dead, but killing wounds usually hurt, and wounds that didn't kill him wouldn't kick his whole not-dying thing into action.

One of his commanders in one of the very first wars he'd served in told him that there was nothing wrong with being afraid -- that things only went bad when you were sure everything was going to go right. It sounded like a superstition, but he'd seen too many overconfident, cocky people die on the battlefield to not put at least some stock in it.

And certainly, he was cocky -- he was downright arrogant and he knew it. But no one else knew how much or how little of that was for show, and how afraid he might be at any given time. Because now that he was the commander, it was his job to lead his people; to show the confidence that would encourage them to fight through their fear and face the kinds of things that no one should ever have to face even in their worst nightmares.

Title / Prompt: Picture prompt - Purple time masks by selenak

Character: Jack Harkness
Warnings: just general creepiness
Pairings: none
Your character's fandom: Doctor Who/Torchwood
Word count: 267 per MSWord
Rating: G
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters or the situation. If I did, he'd have come in much earlier...
Crossposted to licenseartistic


They're actually quite a work of art, the clockwork robots that perform so many duties on 51st century ships. When he's being objective about the whole thing, he marvels at the workmanship that goes into creating a mechanism so complex and still perfectly timed.

But sometime in the past few decades, people started dressing them up, and he finds something disturbing in that. They're not human -- they're not even capable of the more complex reasoning that advanced computers can perform. So why gussy them up in fancy dress and show them off like some kind of rich man's livery?

He can understand on the more expensive ships, when some rich owner is showing off his vast sums of money by prettying up everything including his staff and his maintenance robots. But even then, it leaves him cold.

There's just something disturbing about a mechanical man, ticking around in clockwork perfection, wearing the costume of a living being. Even the ones who wear masquerade masks are disturbing to him, and this pair, in their velvet finery and Dali-esque clock faces, each one showing half of a split timepiece -- he shudders to look at them, something in the back of his mind crying out that this perversion of Time should not be. It's not rational, it's a silly thing to be unsettled by, and he knows without a doubt that it really is just him. Because Jack would rather that time paradoxes sorted themselves out neatly, and that the sense of deja vu that he feels every day at the Time Agency would go far, far away...

Title: Consequences
Song: My Violent Heart by Nine Inch Nails
Character: Jack Harkness
Rating: R for language
Pairing(s): none specified this time
Fandom(s): Doctor Who/Torchwood
Disclaimer: He's not mine -- if he was, he'd have joined the Ninth Doctor earlier, and they'd all still be around.
Word Count: 533 per MS Word
Author's Note: Jack leaves the Time Agency

You and I, we may look the same
But we are very far apart
There's bullet holes where my compassion used to be
and there is violence in my heart
Into fire you can send us
From the fire we return
You can label us a consequence of how much you have to learn

You can try but you'll never understand
This is something you will never understand
can you hear it now
hear it coming now
can you hear it now...

These days, I'm a lot more subdued during meetings, sitting back and observing everyone, reading every little nuance of expression and body language; listening for every change of emphasis.

I'm not surprised in the least when Davies volunteers me. "I say we send Jack. After all, his talents are uniquely suited to the case."

Read: We'll whore him out, and if he can't fuck the information out of him, he can torture it out of him.

There's some lewd joking around the table and I join in, just to keep them from wondering what's wrong with me. The meeting breaks up and I'm on my way to prep my ship. My ship. This is the break I've been waiting for, ever since the Time Agency fucked me over.

Because I'll be damned if I play the whore and the torturer for these bastards after the way they screwed me. And believe me, it's not the nature of the job that bothers me -- I signed up to help the Agency protect the timeline. To keep history or the future from being destroyed by those who think they can meddle with this stuff. Sometimes, you have to resort to extreme measures to accomplish that, and I'm okay with that.

(Ignore those screaming nightmares of people with flesh flayed from their bones, begging for mercy and not finding it. They mean nothing.)

No, that's not it at all. I gave those bastards my blood, sweat, tears, and most important, my trust. And they turned around and used me -- betrayed my trust so completely I can never forgive them.

Imagine waking up one morning and finding out you've lost two years. Two fucking years of your life. Gone, overnight.

Now, imagine that when you ask your friends and coworkers what happened, they give you vague excuses of an accident, an injury. Horrible trauma, Jack, you're lucky to be alive. And you believe them. After all, they're your friends.

Except that as you continue on doing your job for them, you start to realize things don't quite add up. The records of the accident are incomplete, the medical records can't be found, there's no news report. You start to think something funny might be going on, so you dig into it further.

And you discover that they did it to you.

For whatever reason, they wiped two years of your life.

Your friends and coworkers stole two years of your life.

You'd be pissed off, right? Fucking furious, even. So then you'll understand why I'm planning to take a ship and get my ass out of here. I'm gonna be the one screwing them for a change. I may not ever find out what happened during those two years, but I'm sure as hell gonna make them pay for taking them from me. They made sure I learned these skills, and I fully intend to make them regret it.

(Ignore that little voice in the back of my mind that wonders if I really want to know what I did in those two years, considering the things I do know I've done. It means nothing.)

Somehow, somewhere, somewhen, they're going to pay for what they've done.