Late Night Loss Chapter 12

[galadriel1010]

Jack took a moment to look around him again, eyes traversing the tall book cases and long corridors easily as he took in every detail, then turned fully to Thursday, “Pleasure to meet you Ma’am, I’ve read so much about you.”

She put her hands on her hips and glared at him, “Who are you and what are you doing in the middle of a scene?”

“Erm… My name’s Jack, I’m looking for your help, should I…”

She was looking at him oddly, “We don’t get many visitors… You’re not from the book world are you?”

“No, I’m an outlander.” He was getting confused, “Are we actually in the book?”

“You’re in a version of the book, not the original thank God, or you’d be messing things up completely. What do you want?”

“Well,” he began, “My husband’s trapped in a copy of Lord of the Rings, and I need to get him out.” He shifted uncomfortably and looked around again, feeling out of place and almost scared. Everything hinged on this moment, if Thursday said it couldn’t be done… If he were trapped in here as Ianto was trapped in there, would he ever see his lover again? He swallowed back the fear and looked to Thursday and was surprised to find that the Cat was now behind her, watching him with the same grin he always wore. It was quite scary, disturbing almost.

Thursday seemed to have come to a decision because she nodded and turned to the Cat, “Cat, you need to go to the original, I’ll take Jack to the original library, you bring original Thursday to the statue, we’ll meet you there. She can deal with this.”

“Gotcha Thurs.” The Cat’s tail twitched and vanished one ring at a time before the Cat himself faded from view, the grin the last thing to go as always.

Jack shuddered, “That’s a bit creepy… And trust me, I’m good with creepy.”

“Are you ready?” Thursday asked, brushing over his thought trail, “We should go. Take my arm and I’ll jump us to the original, then Original Thursday can take you from there. Have you got the copy that he’s trapped in?”

“Yeah, big pockets.” He pulled out the worn copy of Lord of the Rings and traced a finger down the spine gently, “Is it possible, can I get him back.”

“Buggered if I know.” She replied bluntly, “Now come on.” He linked arms with her and felt a sensation like water rushing over him and they were suddenly standing…

Exactly where they were before. Jack blinked; they were in a long, dark, wood-panelled corridor lined with bookshelves that reached from the richly carpeted floor to the vaulted ceiling. The carpet was elegantly patterned and the ceiling was decorated with rich mouldings that depicted scenes from the classics, each cornice supporting the marble bust of an author. High above them, spaced at regular intervals, were finely decorated circular apertures through which light gained entry and reflected off the polished wood, reinforcing the serious mood of the library. Running down the centre of the corridor was a long row of reading tables, each with a green shaded brass lamp…

“Hang on.” Jack looked around and ran the description through his mind again, “I just read that. That was the last bit I remember reading before I was here, or there… Have we moved at all?”

“Of course we’ve moved, we’re in the original now, so you have to be more careful. And yes, this is where you came in; it’s the standard description of the library, really easy to jump into even with no experience.”

“Oh, OK… So what are we doing here?”

She strode ahead of him and led the way to one of the spiral staircases, running her left hand down the balustrade as they descended to one of the lower floors, “We’re going to find the real Thursday, the original Thursday if you like. We’ve never had real outlanders before, just fictional ones. Are you sure you’re not fictional?” She swung round and glared at him

“I’m real, or at least I’m fairly certain I’m real…” He shook himself, “You’re making me doubt now, stop it. I’m real, I’m definitely real.”

“Suit yourself.” She turned and continued

“You know, you’re really reassuring.” He snapped, worried about Ianto and annoyed by her cold attitude, “So what should I do?”

“Wait here. Cat will be here soon, I’m going back to my book.” And with that she was gone, fading back to her home.

Jack sighed and looked around. She’d left him at the foot of a statue of an open book where a stonemason was carving a name into the page. It was a surreal place and a surreal experience, even for a man who had seen as much as Jack had.

A familiar female voice hailed him and he thought that Thursday had returned, but he realised that this was a different Thursday. She was more detailed, more solid; more real almost. It was like the difference between the first library and this one, the difference between a photo or memory and the actual thing; a perfect copy, but a copy none the less. He remembered the Doctor’s words, ‘a fluctuation in reality’, hadn’t he said that?

Original Thursday reached him and he set aside his thoughts for the moment, extending a hand to her, determined to make a strong impression, “Captain Jack Harkness, Miss Next. Or do you prefer Parke-Laine?”

She smiled warmly but grudgingly and shook his hand, “Thursday’s fine Captain.”

“In that case it’s Jack. Has the Cat told you why I’m here?”

“Yes, your husband’s in a book. And you need to get him out.”

”Yes I do.” He nodded again and pulled the book from his pocket, reflecting that if he’d come in the clothes he was wearing, then Ianto had probably come in the clothes he had been wearing, which was…He swallowed back the memories and focussed on Thursday again, “He’s in here.”

“This is surreal, may I?” She took the book and sniffed it, then opened it to the page where Ianto had appeared, skimming quickly through it. “This is serious, really serious. Lord of the Rings is a dangerous novel, as dangerous in the back-story as it is with any of the main plots. We’ll have to make sure the original’s not been compromised but… Come on, floor 19.”

They practically ran up the spiral staircase to the T section where Thursday hurried to an entire row of shelves devoted to the works of J.R.R. Tolkein. Countless reprintings, reissues, and rewritings of the legends of a fictional world in ink and paper, reaching several feet above his head and for yards in either direction. He gaped in open astonishment t the array of books and she smiled, “One of the biggest sections in the library because of the huge number of redrafts he did, not to mention the different pressings and things. This is the first text,” she pointed to a bright manila wallet standing at one end of what appeared to be the definitive shelf, “That’s a scrap of a story he wrote when he was twelve years old. And this,” she pulled out a huge, leather-bound book that looked like an old bible, complete with embossed gold writing, “This is the final version as it would have been if he’d finished it.”

“And this version?” He held Ianto’s copy out and realised that there was an entire shelf of identical copies the row above his head, “Oh, bugger.”

“Yeah.” She grabbed a ladder and climbed up, running a finger along the pristine spines, “What’s the ISBN number?” He read it out, recalling the incident with Susie (the second incident with Susie) as he did so, drawn from his retrospection by a cry from above, “Gotcha!”

She slid down the ladder to the ground and they both pulled chairs up to one of the reading desks. Together they flicked through the library copy, relief evident on their faces as the story continued as intended, “The original’s safe.” Thursday leant back and watched him, “I didn’t think it would be compromised, but there’s always a chance if he’s got a strong enough personality.”

She was worrying her lower lip and he sighed, “There’s more, isn’t there?”

Thursday nodded, “If he’s just in one copy, it’ll revert after one reading and he’ll be boojummed.”

“Pardon?”

“He’ll get lost in the back story and have to live the rest of his life in there. The back story in middle Earth is so large that that’s possible, if we don’t get him out before the story ends then he’s got over one hundred years until the mythology finishes, at least, some novels end at the end. Middle Earth goes on and on and on, and we’ve been developing the back-story to make it a more realistic experience… If he got lost in there, I don’t know how we’d ever get him back.” She tugged her ponytail out and put it back up slightly higher up on her head, “Add on to that the fact that he’s in the middle of a war…”

Jack’s face paled and he felt sick, a common occurrence at the moment, “I have to get him out.”

“Yeah. We need to think about the best way to do this.” She scrambled back up the ladder to return the library copy and rejoined him on the floor, “Come on, we need to find Commander Bradshaw. I just wish Lady Havisham were around still, she’d know what to do.”

“You fill me with confidence.” The captain sighed

Mrs Bradshaw set a tray of tea things down on the table and smiled warmly at Jack. She liked him instantly because he hadn’t even batted an eyelid when introduced to her, merely pointing out, when asked, that he was, by many definitions, an alien searching for his husband and had no room to comment, even if he’d wanted to, on the fact that Mrs Bradshaw was, in actual fact, a gorilla. “It’s all relative really.”

Jack took a sip of the tea and returned her smile. The room was full of Jurisfiction agents attracted by the mystery and Melanie’s cakes. “Thursday old girl,” Commander Bradshaw began, “I propose a three-three formation, three to search the back story and three to follow the plots. Current information indicates that he has been separated from the plot at Eomer’s arrest, so the back-story team should start there. If we do that we can hopefully eliminate the possibility that he’s been executed before sending agents into a dangerous situation.”

“Is that a possibility?” Jack asked in horror

“There is a war on old chap, but I doubt it.” The Commander reassured him, “I would recommend a preliminary scouting party of myself, Thursday and Mrs Tiggy-Winkles to sounds out the back story and hopefully locate him. Once that’s been ascertained we can develop a further plan.”

Thursday forestalled Jack’s objections with a raised hand, “Sorry Jack, but you can’t be in the first incursion, it’s too risky and difficult for a beginner. I mean, Lord of the Rings is a well explored novel, but an individual book can be very different from the original.”

He sighed and hung his head, “I understand, I don’t like it but I understand.”

“We know, and we’re sorry it has to be like this.” Mrs Tiggy-Winkles covered his hand with her paw, “When we go in for real, you’ll be there, but you have to wait it out for the moment.”

He rubbed the heels of his hands into his eyes and sighed heavily, “I know, it’s picking the right tool for the job. I’m just not used to someone else making those decisions.”

Mrs Bradshaw had offered him a place to stay whilst they waited for and he gladly took her up on the offer. The group had been gone hours now and it was just about to clock round to five days since he woke alone; five days of fear and pain and loneliness. He read some more of the book, half nervous of slipping into it, half desperately wishing that he could. A timid knock drew his attention and he looked up to find Melanie watching him in concern, “Mem sahib.” He saluted her casually and she advanced into the room

“It must be so hard, how long has it been?” She looked at the book in his hand and sat next to him on the bed

He sighed and pulled out Ianto’s pocket watch, running his thumb gently over the engraving on the back, a simple “With love, Jack” before he turned it over to check the time, “Ask me again in… thirteen minutes and it’ll be five days since I woke alone, a little longer than that since he jumped.” The double entendre of the phrase hit him forcefully and he struggled to push it from his mind.

She squeezed his hand, her soft leathery pad and coarse hair a strange but reassuring sensation in his hand, “They’ll get him back, Thursday won’t stop until he’s safe and sound and back with you.”

He smiled at her gratefully, “I’d do anything to keep him safe, which makes it worse when it’s out of my hands.”

Sudden voices from downstairs distracted them and they hurried down to the parlour to greet Thursday, Mrs Tiggy-Winkles and the Commander. Mrs Bradshaw made tea for them as they settled down and toed off their ‘period’ boots for something more comfortable.

Thursday leant back against the cushions and met his eyes with a soft smile, “We’ve located him and we’re got a plan. Captain, you’re going in.”

“To the Battle of Helm’s Deep.” Commander Bradshaw finished.