When Everything Changes

[madimpossibledreamer]

*Main Points:*
Torchwood/Edge of Tomorrow crossover
Summary: Captain Jack Harkness had a past once.
Word Count: 625
Rating: Gen
Notes: This has kind of been my headcanon ever since I first saw the movie.  May be confusing if you haven't seen said movie.

                The Captain doesn’t remember his formative moments, the part of his life that made him who he is today.  His origin story, as much as he would have laughed to hear that.  That was taken away from him a long time ago, but not in such an obvious manner.  No, he remembers bits and pieces, but it’s the more natural sort of handiwork, the kind that says ‘you don’t remember much of this period of your life because you didn’t want to remember’.

                He remembers letting go of his brother’s hand once the invasion began.  He remembers-barely, but it’s there-the destruction of the Boeshane Peninsula.

                He doesn’t remember the rest, being lauded as a hero from the backwater, the one who survived.  He doesn’t remember being the face of the military, charismatic even for someone from the fifty-second century.  He doesn’t remember the first name he had gone by, because as the time passed, he’d have gone through and discarded so many like candy wrappers.  They’d had no idea what the aliens were, how to fight them.  Not at the beginning.

                There were some who waited for the myth called the Doctor to come, to save them.  The Captain didn’t believe in heroes.  All he believed in was saving his own skin, and doing the advertising, urging others to risk their lives, well, that wasn’t so bad.  Willing to stoop even to blackmail if it’d keep him out of the war.

                And then she came, the Angel of Verdun, new fighting technology.  And his name, his face, didn’t keep him out of the war.  He’d ticked off the wrong guy.  Stripped of rank, title, treated like just another faceless, unimportant deserter, willing to lie, to do anything to stay out of it.  Well, they’d gotten part of it right.  At least they’d given him something that would be important later.  The jacket.

                He never really quite forgot the jacket, though it was like a hazy dream unconnected from reality.

                He doesn’t remember his first death, before he was even immortal.  At least, not by means of the Heart of the TARDIS.  It was a temporary, fading safety net, but he couldn’t appreciate the difference, even later.  Not when he doesn’t remember.

                He doesn’t remember the blood, the time travel that was the aliens’ greatest weapon.  He did know that he’d taken to the Time Agency remarkably well, maybe even better than anyone else ever had.  That pretending you belonged in the time you were in with advance knowledge was something he could do without thought.  Like he’d done it a hundred times before, and yes, in fact though not in memory, he actually had.

                He hadn’t dealt well with it even back then, but, well.  If they hadn’t wanted broken Agents, the Time Agency would never have gotten a certain ‘John Hart’ among its ranks.

                He remembers battle.  He remembers learning to fight, thinks that all the battles were similar, not that it was the same exact battle.  The fighting skills, however much the Doctor despises them, kept himself and a lot of people alive.

                What’s ironic is that the Time Agency deals with a number, if not all, of the asteroid traps left out there in the cosmos. It’s a revenge story, really.

                The sad thing is that he doesn’t remember his journey.  He doesn’t remember slowly becoming a better person, going from cowardly con man to hero.  He doesn’t remember because the Time Agency doesn’t need heroes, so he has to lose what he was.  He relives the same journey years and years later.  He doesn’t even remember her, even though she might be the first love he ever has in his long, long life.

                And of course, her middle name was Rose.