Torchwood: Fanfic: Star crossed

[m_findlow]

Title: Star crossed
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Jack, the real Captain Jack Harkness
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 720 words
Content notes: Spoilers for episode 1.12 Captain Jack Harkness
Author notes: Written for fhionnuisce's prompt "Any, any, Barenaked Ladies, Lovers in a Dangerous Time" at fic_promptly
Summary: They only have this one night.

Jack knew it was wrong but he couldn't shake the feeling. Here was this man, this incredible man, who was his namesake, right there in the flesh. He'd never given any thought to that man whose name and identity he'd stolen. Now he was forced to confront it.

The captain was everything he'd hoped for, and more. He was charming and affable, a good leader and commander, popular with the ladies - and the boys - and really cared about the duty he had to his country. He was basically a hero, even if he didn't know it yet. Perhaps that was what made Jack feel so attracted to him, like a moth to a flame. He didn't want to think it was simply as shallow as him being so ridiculously handsome, though that was a definite bonus.

The more time he spent in the captain's company, the more he felt a connection with him, as if they'd been waiting their whole lives for their paths to cross. The captain understood the brutality of war and what it meant to suffer and sacrifice. He could take Jack's own experiences and understand them in a way no one else he'd ever met could. It was a meeting of minds that Jack had never known.

The rift had stolen him and Toshiko and dropped them here in 1941. He had to believe that there was a reason for it. As much as he wanted to return to his own timeline, part of him yearned to stay here. He knew it would get worse before it got better, the war dragging on for more years to come, and the full horror of its atrocities yet to play out, yet there was a longing to spend as much time with the captain as he could. Perhaps he could even change the future. The captain might not die tomorrow. That would be the greatest loss of the entire war as far as Jack was concerned. He couldn't let this incredible human being be slaughtered in what should be a safe training exercise. He could do that, prevent that one death, and warn the captain somehow.

In truth they might be a stuck here permanently. He wanted to think Tosh could help get a message to the others back in 2006, but for now they were here, in this dance hall, and there was Captain Jack Harkness, in the flesh, alive and well, laughing and drinking with his men. They could still have this one night together.

It was madness of course. Homosexuality just as much a crime as murder or theft. All across Europe the Nazis were persecuting those people, and though the Allies would fight them to their dying breath, no one wanted to accept that a man could love another man. He didn't have to know that the captain was taken by him, his Welsh female companion for the night long forgotten. He could see it in his eyes that he'd finally met someone who understood him completely.

Tonight was the last night, however. Tosh had gotten her message out. He knew his team back in Cardiff would find it. They never gave up on anything. He would have to accept that tonight would be the only night he would share with the captain. He intended to make it count, drawing the captain by the hand to the dance floor.

He barely registered the silence that fell over the room as they stood there arm in arm, swaying to the music that was now only in their heads. It broke Jack's heart to know that there was nothing he could do to stop events happening now. The captain could be arrested just for dancing with him, court-martialled and sent to prison. Not that any of that would happen. He wasn't going to live long enough for the rumours from the dance hall to filter back to his unit command. Tomorrow he'd get up, get into his plane and undertake their training exercise, never knowing that before it was over, the Messerschmidt would blast his plane out of the sky, killing him.

Tonight was all he had left to life for. Let it at least be a night for love, whatever the consequences. Jack might have stolen his name, but the captain had stolen his heart.

Comments

[bk_forever]

Sweet and sad. I always worried what kind of backlash there'd be for the captain from that dance though. It was very ill advised.

[m-findlow.livejournal.com]

I think Jack knew and also knew that because he would die tomorrow it was better to experience it rather than have lived his whole life without doing so.