Chapter 2
"Unsealed on a porch a letter sat.
Then you said, "I wanna leave it again."
Once I saw her on a beach of weathered sand. And on the sand I wanna leave it again. Yeah.
On a weekend I wanna wish it all away, yeah.
And they called and I said that "I want what I said" and then I call out again.
And the reason oughta' leave her calm, I know.
I said "I know what I wear not the boxer or the bag.
Ah yeah, can you see them out on the porch? Yeah, but they don't wave.
But I see them round the front way. Yeah.
And I know, and I know. I don't want to stay.
Make me cry..."
- Pearl Jam, "Yellow Ledbetter"
I put a Zojirushi Coffee Maker in Jack's office to make it easier for me to make him feel special. I have a cup brewing regularly at this time of day, set by a timer arranged when I first get in – grinding then brewing at my command. I am a good servant.
I walked over to the tall end table and poured a cup for both of us. We both like it black but he needs a hint of Splenda to "match the sweetness in my eyes while maintaining his girlish figure," he says. I walk back over to him with both our mugs, putting one cup on the desk in front of him. He looks up at me with a grateful smile until I took the shot glass overflowing with hypervodka out of his hand and poured the contents into the coffee cup. "Evil bitch," he said while taking a sip.
"Tell me about Richard and Anna," I said sitting back down and pulling my chair close to his desk. "Start with Richard." He raised an eyebrow and looked at me sideways, like he often does. I took a large swallow of the sweet, Colombian Supremo and waited - something else I am good at.
Jack sighed, giving in, "The war was winding down but the grunts didn't know that yet." I didn't bother asking him how he knew that then, "as the commanders in the front acted like there was a fight to finish and set up orders like tomorrow's group wasn't as tired as yesterday's." He took another sip and, finding it satisfying, went on again but this time with gusto. "Like I said, they billed me for risky missions."
"Is that how you ended up in the war?"
"Naw, Aliyah got me in."
"Rabbi Teelbaulm?" She is Jack's mother figure and mentor – an immortal from the planet Jershun Prime who Jack met at the time agency and probably one of the only bipeds who hasn't succumb to his charms. "Pulling you out of what depression?"
"I had lost a wife to the Spanish flu the year before." He spoke in a hushed volume. The sadness in his voice would have stilled walls during an earthquake. "I went off, off world for 10 years on a bender."
I didn't present the obvious time question – how did you go off-world in 1917, be gone ten years and come back early 1918? "What about Torchwood?"
"I said I was running, didn't I?"
"Ah, yes. So how did the Rabbi get you to come back?"
"Really, Ianto!" he laughed. "You know how she is."
"Yes, quite," I said thoughtfully. Unbeknownst to him, she was the one who convinced me to stick it out with Jack. She convinced me that this was good for both of us – that there was more than just sex between us – and was still teaching me how to be with him. "But what specifically brought you back?"
"It was one of the few times Torchwood reached out to me without a painful stick being involved. By this time, The Doctor had given me limited time/space travel capability through my vortex manipulator. I guess he got tired of me whining." He took a satisfying gulp, "I could escape when I wanted to within reason and return to the 20th Century."
"That's where the limits lay?"
"Precisely." Another gulp and he sat it down on the coaster, smiling at me generously, hinting that I'd have to do the legwork to get specifics on the mission – I'll take care of that later. For now, he settled back in his dark blue rolling office chair, hands interlaced atop his head, ready to tell the human interest part of the story, "By the time I returned, the idea that the war would only last a few months was washed away in sea of blood and blown apart in tides of mustard gas until there was fear everywhere but America that all of Europe would splinter into tiny, little pieces. Mutinies and desertions were commonplace in France, Canada, Britain, and of course Russia. The real reason the war ended wasn't so much that the allies won as that everyone refused to fight anymore and lay the blame for it all at Germany's feet."
"You'd better watch it, Jack Harkness. You're sounding dangerously close to being a sympathizer!"
His voice became serious, hush, "You didn't see it, Ianto. The pictures don't come close to conveying the carnage. I've seen many wars on many planets – warrior peoples whose whole life is nothing but murder and conquest. But this was different. Earth wasn't ready for this."
His eyes got tearful and distant. I touched his arm to bring him back, "How did you and Richard meet again?"
"Ah yeah, he was back from the German front around New Year's, 1918. He was making trouble after the debacle the previous November where the British generals failed to take advantage with their secret weapon."
"Ah, The Battle of Cambrai, where we introduced the tank," I said, proud of my off the cuff memory from my 10th year European Wars class.
"Yes," he said, cackling at my nerdiness. "Richard was something of a ramble rouser, rageful at the unnecessary death around him. He complained so much that he caught the attention of the upper brass and someone wanted payback or just to have him out of the way. I, on the other hand, was back from the Ottoman theater where I was fighting with British forces. I had been causing my own kinda of headache but that's for another story. Anyway, between battles, us lucky ones got time in gay Paris and spent nights gambling, drinking, and screwing away the stench of death. I was in this little café many of us went to. Richard caught me at my favorite pastime."
"Whoring?"
"No," he frowned, "gambling, at that time. I was holding shitty hand and bluffing this 6'3" beefy, blowhard French lieutenant whose English was even worse than his poker. Out of nowhere, Richard blasted in the door, drunk with a bleached blonde French girl on each arm and shouting the inadequacies of the France army – declaring that this spoke to the size of their penises. Needless to say, this irritated my poker partner, who eventually got up screaming in French which for all accounts probably detailed the various ways he was going to disembowel someone. Now, I don't mind a scam now and again but I usually like my gambling straight forward and honest."
"Really?" I said incredulously.
"Really. So I began to intervene, trying to get Richard to be quiet and back off. Let me tell you, this lieutenant was his regimental La Savate champion and rumor had it he nearly killed his last opponent."
"La Savate?"
"It a French form of kickboxing, founded in the poorer sections of Paris around the mid 1800s. It's brutal but highly effective and this guy was a bit drunk himself as well as more than a bit of a nationalist. I could see this was going to have a bad ending. Plus, I was winning and I couldn't have my success if my partner gets called off to a brawl." I gave him another "you have to be kidding look" but self-less sensibility was a foreign concept to Jack Harkness. "Well, as other folk were trying to just get out the way, including the blondes," he continued, "Just as I was walking in-between the two of them, Richard, a tall but rather lanky fella, landed a powerful, missile guided right kick meant for the lieutenant that landed instead right at the base of my forehead. I was out cold and if I didn't regenerate, I'd probably have been left a babbling idiot living out the rest of my life drooling in someone's asylum. When I came to, Richard was leaning over me apologetically and a couple of medics were trying to figure out they were going to lift my former poker partner into the ambulance. Turns out Richard learned an adaptation of what was now called 'Bartitsu' from a famous teacher, Henry Lang, when he first entered the army and trained in India. What he didn't have in bulk, he made up for in speed – several patrons who actually witnessed the fight said my French friend never saw the second blow coming."
"And you?"
"I got points for being such a sport about it. Richard said, 'Sorry mate. You know I was aiming to kill him and would have felt like bloody shit if I'd hurt you instead.' When he saw how I just shook it off, I guess I gained some modicum of respect in his eyes. We became fast friends after that, spending most of the summer drinking and womanizing our way throughout Paris."
"I thought you'd said there was a relationship of sorts."
"Not at first. Things happened accidentally actually. All Richard talked about was girls and never gave me any indication that a pass from me would illicit anything but another blow, so it was a surprise when one night after dropping off a couple of ladies he asked me if I ever 'knocked around with any men'. I had never shared any of those experiences with him nor did he know about Torchwood – seemed too much for a guy who had come straight to the military from a small Welsh town. But the war had widened the eyes of many a solider, Brits and American doughboys alike. Suddenly, a world they had only heard about in hushed voices and dime novels was right in front of them and offering an easy taste."
"So how did you answer his question?" Despite the heat from my coffee cup, I clinched the sides reveling in its warmth.
"He asked at first while we were still walking but I put it off to drink and ignored him. It so happened that it was near curfew and we weren't going to make it back to base so we held up in an inn on the edge of town for the night. Rooms were expensive for a foot soldier's salary, so we shared a room that really was no bigger than two closets glued together. I was going to take the chair since I didn't sleep much anyway but before I could get settled in he asked again. 'Come on, Harkness, I'm you're mate. I mean, this is France, right? I've seen all rounds of things since I left Cowbridge.' I normally I avoid virgins, especially male ones – they either fall in love with you out of gratitude or wanna fight you cuz you've just shattered their macho-man masculine meta-fantasy – like an organism for an ass fucking is any different from that coming from your dick."
"So you kissed him?"
Jack looked at me like I'd lost my mind. "No, I fucked the hell outta him the whole night!" I rolled my eyes. "Hell, he encouraged me – every night our assignment in September."
"Nobody noticed?"
"Nay, we were mates and mates getting drunk together then passing out in the same rooming house was common. Besides, by that time things were so bad, so many dead, the commanders didn't care as long as you didn't mutiny or go AWOL," he answered before taking another gulp. He looked off like replaying some old photo album, "Sex let him talk about other things – his fears that the war wouldn't end or would end badly and we'd be back at it again and his dreams as he wanted desperately to return home and take over his father's locksmith business, marry some great girl and have a shit load of babies."
"A bit strange, wouldn't you say? I mean to talk that while lying in some man's arms?"
"It was how things were done back then – well before Stonewall and gay rights in America, men didn't consider civil unions and cohabitating. You may love men but you still did your duty."
"And you?" I said with more jealousy leaking between my words than I would have liked.
"That was a good time, that summer – one of the best," he flashed me one of his classic, reassuring grins, "But I couldn't say I was in love with Richard nor would I believe he loved me that way, I've known the difference."
Emboldened, I asked, "And where did Anna fall into this idyllic picture of Roman romance?"
Jack guiltily rubbed the back of his neck, "Well, that on the other hand is the other third of the story."