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1.
The first time Javic finds himself in the Blitz, it’s on a mission for the Time Agency. He’s still learning his way through this new job, so the task he’s set isn’t difficult. Wipe out some Drogots that were starting to infest ruins of bombed buildings.
He has some fun with it. As a kid, he’d read about this place. His mother used to read him tales of Earth history to send him to sleep, dreaming of Angleland, and its courageous battles against Deutschvince. How atomic bombs were dropped on cities across the land but thanks to the brave work of the overlord of the country, victory had prevailed.
The real thing was just as dynamic and exciting. He goes undercover, taking the name of a dead pilot. The operation goes smoothly.
And he likes the name. Captain Jack Harkness. Javic keeps it.
2.
The second time he winds up in the Second World War, the circumstances are entirely different. He’s spent roughly a decade (time travel making it difficult for him to keep track), traveling through every corner of the universe, learning what he can.
He understands Old Earth now. How things came to be. How what he learnt as a kid was more of a romanticized version of human history. He learns he has an american accent. He learns about America. He learns he hates being associated with it, feeling more kin with the indigenious people of the country. But, despite all his moving throughout space, picking up on different languages and culture and picking up different lovers, he can’t shake his Boeshane accent. He grows used to its connotations.
The Time Agency is behind him now. He stopped trusting them, often waking up with several weeks of his life missing. When two years were gone, he confronted them, and they sent him packing. He doubts he’ll see John or Kaz or the others again. None of them are the type to settle anywhere. There’s always still so much to see.
So, he’s stumbling his way through life now. Conning people, or throwing himself into bed with them.
This time, he has a Chula medship. He’s found a buyer, just has to time the deal right so that it will be destroyed before she can ever inspect it closely.
And then he sees a girl hanging from a barrage balloon. And wearing jeans. Not from around here. So he saves her.
She’s gorgeous. Her friend is too. Jack knows then that he will fall in love with both of them. The kind of love that will be immortalized, long after they all cease to be.
3.
It takes him until the third time round to actually fight. Be on the front line. He’s playing the long game here, and apparently Torchwood freelancer isn’t a job that prevents conscription.
He’s fought before. War, all it is death. It’s about claiming as many of your opponents’ lives so they are forced to concede. Forced to sit down and give you what you want. If Jack being there, suffering through, it means less young men’s lives are wasted, he will endure it. Maybe the Doctor will see what he’s doing. Maybe he’ll come back.
Or maybe he won’t. He hated war. Hated anything to do with the word ‘armed’. Seeing Jack fight, maybe that will make him beyond saving.
But he’s not here. People depending on him are.
Estelle’s here. She’s beautiful. She’s a fantastic lover. He would settle down with her given the chance. Have a kid or four. He lets himself get carried away in that vision. Whispers it to her sometimes. When he gets carried away and forgets he’s not mortal anymore.
One day she tells him that he looks the same as the day they met. He tells her he has to leave that night.
Lovers get torn apart by wars. He should know that by now. He can’t have anything forever, except this cursed life.
4.
He falls in love again this time. Maybe love is a strong word. But they have the same name. The same identity, bounding them together. He has nice strong hands and pretty eyes. It won’t last, and he knows it. He’s going to die tomorrow.
He’ll settle down with Tosh and do the long way round thing again. Maybe this time he can have a normal life. She’ll die before they can be reunited with the team. He’ll look a day older. But what other choice does he have?
As the bright light appears in the dance hall, he remembers the other choice. That he has people fighting for him.
Jack, the other Jack, doesn’t. So he takes him into his arms and kisses him slowly and hard. Last kiss for the condemned man. He doesn’t care who sees. Maybe this time, when he gets back to his regular time, they’ll finally be more okay with men kissing.
But that’s a fantasy. He’s lived through social change and it’s a labourious process.
He returns. He’s saved by people who care. Every so often, he wishes he could step back to him.
5.
This is the closest Jack will ever come to death.
+1.
He feels old now, but he knows he’ll get older. No longer Jack Harkness, not yet the Face of Boe. Javic Thane is long since buried. He’s still wandering. These past millennia have been taxing on him. He used to walk into a nightclub, and glance through all the faces, smiling as he saw how happy and free they were, and wonder which one would take him home tonight. Now he trails over every person, and he knows how all of them will die.
He’s tired of this. He has been since it started. His mind goes back to the same question. Would I have chosen this?
When he was young, he’d never believed he could die. Now he’d give anything to.
Some days he blamed Rose. Most days he blamed the Doctor.
The Doctor talked to him now at least. For a time she’d avoided and abandoned him. Now he was the only person who could begin to understand her, so she kept him around.
He loved her, but could ever stick to travelling with her. She understood, and gave him back his vortex manipulator.
He liked visiting his past selves. If he was going to live this life, he wasn’t planning on forgetting anything.
World War Two was the obvious place. It was death and horror for everyone else, but it was home for him, as long as home meant the place you’ve lived the longest.
He watched over the stumbling Time Agent, the enamoured conman, the lonely soldier and the leader.
He sneaks into the Hub, to check his frozen body. It’s slightly softer than the hard lines he sees in the mirror.
The Hub is different, but recognizable, even through the forties design choices. He hasn’t been here in aeons. Those last moments, Gwen becoming a mother, kissing Ianto. Maybe it was the other way round. Time blurs together. He loved them both fiercely, and that’s what matters more.