Pictures Of The Life I Lived

[nothing_rhymes_with_ianto]

Title: Pictures Of The Life I Lived
Author: qafkinnetic
Characters/Pairings: Jack Harkness, pre-Doctor Who Jack
Rating: PG
Summary: A man wanders the Universe with memories in his pocket.
Authors' Notes: Written for the "orphans" square of my hc_bingo card. Title from Life I've Lost by Parallel Truth.

A man wanders the Universe. A disk sits in his pocket, snug and safe. Small. He checks it often, always handling it with care. It holds dear things.

He can remember when Jack Harkness—before he was ever Jack Harkness, when he was still Jaiikve—fought with him, punched at him, lunging, crying, shouting, angry and devastated at what he’d done. Had begged someone, anyone to take his mind from him, to rid him of this pain.

He had. Because he knew what was to befall the man who would soon be Jack Harkness. He knew the pains to come. And he knew that it would be better for him to never have to face these two years of mortal pain.

Jaiikve had been terrified to see his own face, older, sadder, more weary and pained than he’d ever seen in a man, but he’d accepted the offer immediately. Jack Harkness had held Jaiikve in his arms, comforting the weeping man, petting his hair and kissing the side of his face. Jack had known immortal pain. He had not remembered this mortal agony, the sadness and fear and guilt of a mortal man who had only just realized what he’d done, the lives he’d destroyed.

Jaiikve had sobbed himself asleep. Jack had taken the memories then, silently and quickly, sliding the disk into his pocket. Jaiikve, he remembered, would wake a few days later in the infirmary at the Time Agency headquarters.

Now Jack walks the Universe with orphaned memories, displaced from time and their owner. He can no longer look at them; they overlap his own memories and seem so very small in comparison. He can no longer understand or comprehend the selfishness or pain of his young mortal self.

And so the memories stay tucked inside his pocket, the lost children of a man who no longer exists. Jack sometimes takes them out and stares at them, wishing to be that man again, just to taste the fear of death.

Sometimes, too, he contemplates giving the memories a home. Sliding them into his brain, somewhere between the Doctor and his father. But both are so faded and scrambled, and it pains him to remember that so much of his life has been lost by life that something like those two tiny years will change nothing.

He remembers Jaiikve, so small, so young, so shocked and hurt. So guilty. So selfish. So naïve. There are things he will always thank the Doctor for, and things he will never forgive. He cannot decide which the change the Timelord made in him should be. The orphan memories could not tell him.

The lost images and thoughts hum softly in his pocket, a reassurance that he had once been a man, that he had once been real.

“Who are you? Why do you look like me?” Jaiikve asks.

The man’s eyes become cold and hard. “I am not you. I will never be you. Don’t ask questions, because I won’t answer them. I’m here to help you. I can take them away.”

“Take what away?”

“The last two years. That pain. Your guilt. You know now that it was your fault but I can make it so that you will not live with that knowledge.”

Jaiikve stares at him for a moment before his face crumples in anguish and he curls in on himself. “Please. Please just take it. I can’t stand it. Those people…what I did.”

The man embraces him. His hold is strong, but gentle. His voice murmurs reassurances in Jaiikve’s ear. His hands rub Jaiikve’s back, stroke his hair. His eyes are sad. Jaiikve trembles and shudders in his grip, shoulders heaving with sobs. The man seems to be torn between tears of sadness and tears of longing.

“It’s all right, Jaiikve. I’ll take those two years. I’ll hang on to them. They’ll be safe with me. You won’t have to know them anymore. You won’t have to hold them. The pain will be gone.”

“Please.”

And in its place will be someone new. Someone ready to be moulded. Someone who will become him.

The man walks the Universe with memories in his pocket. Memories that belong to no one. Memories that belong nowhere. Memories that are useless but to remind him of what is long gone and what he once was. Memories that remind him that he is Time’s child and Life’s orphan.