Closet Idealists by ChicaFrom3 (PG)

[drakyndra.livejournal.com]

Fandom: DOCTOR WHO
Pairing: Jack/various
Author on LJ: chicafrom3
Author Website: fandomfrom3
Why this must be read:

Ah, Jack Harkness. Everyone's favourite time-travelling omnisexual conman. The character who managed to get his own spin-off after only five episodes. And who has a truly fascinatingly mysterious past, and is rather more complex than an awful lot of fandom seems to characterize him. (Here's hoping Torchwood can live it to it's advertising, and show a bit of that)

This fic takes a few brief snippets of different stages of Jack's life, and manages to do a great job at summing up who he is, and how he sees the universe in each. And in doing so, we can see just how he has been changed by the things that happen to him. It has a rather dark take on Jack at points - but then, Jack has always been a little nastier than fandom tends to see him. And it is, in places, so very painful.


Jack Harkness was twenty-eight (but should've been twenty-six) and he didn't remember what love felt like.

One minute he was in Matthew's office and everything was fantastic and they were flying high, and the next minute he opened his eyes and he was in a dark cramped room that smelled of pain and anaesthetic and his lips were swollen but not with kisses and he'd been screaming and Matthew stood over him, older and tired and blank.

"Sorry, Jack," Matthew said. "But it had to be done."

It took three weeks of pressing through official channels before he could accept that his memory was gone and nobody was going to tell him why. Once he'd accepted that, he quit the Agency, making a huge and very public scene, and slugged Matthew quite hard before leaving for good.

There were a lot of things he didn't remember, love included, but hatred - that was a very strong memory.


Closet Idealists