Student Housing, London, Friday Morning

[bitten_notshy]

The portals were booked: Jack and Sebastien were scheduled to go to 1901 Boston early the next day. Kevin had been informed he'd need a new flatmate for the spring, and the university had been told Jack was taking a leave of absence. (Neither, it must be said, seemed exactly broken up to see him go.) Jack had made excuses to his London friends, something about a sick relative that was deliberately dull enough to discourage further questioning.

All that was left were the calls to people from Fandom.

Sebastien, being a wise man, had taken himself elsewhere to handle some paperwork, so Jack had privacy as he started dialing.

It was possible he was calling in ascending order of difficulty.

[OOC: NFB due to distance, but open for calls and the like.]

Comments

[bitten_notshy]

"Well," Jack said, relieved she hadn't started with the explosion, "I couldn't be quite that predictable, could I? Though I will need to take some time off from University."

[icecoldfrost]

"Yes, well, I can see how deliberately getting yourself shot at repeatedly might put a damper on your class attendance." Oh, Jack, you didn't think you were getting off that easy, did you? "Are you utterly out of your mind?"

[bitten_notshy]

"Would you really have me sit a hundred and ten years away knowing men I respect are getting shot at in my place?" Jack asked archly. "I'm not a coward. I need to live my politics."

Sulkily, he added, "I'm not enlisting, anyhow."

Spy, not soldier.

[icecoldfrost]

"Are you even listening to yourself?" Emma snapped. "One, it's a war, Jack. They shoot everyone; spy, soldier, and civilian who looks at them funny."

"Besides, you know they win. You're living now with a free America. What, exactly, does going back to 1901 accomplish besides feeding your ego and getting yourself killed?"

[bitten_notshy]

Jack didn't have a very good answer.

"I don't think I asked whether you thought it was a good idea," he shot back. "I could help, even if it's only a tiny bit. That's all I need."

[icecoldfrost]

"You called me," Emma retorted. "If you didn't want my opinion on the matter, you would have just left."

And then she would have tracked him down and hurt him. Details.

"This is stupid, immature, and selfish, and you know it. If you wanted to actually be useful, you'd send money and medical supplies from 2011, not run off into a warzone."

[bitten_notshy]

"I wouldn't have just left no matter what, not after what we all just went through," Jack argued. "And there's no reason money and medical supplies can't come with me."

As for immature, Jack was barely 20, and had strong beliefs. He was not precisely operating with the wisdom of Solomon.

"Look, you aren't talking me out of it, and I would prefer we not spend this conversation fighting."

[icecoldfrost]

"Then you called the wrong person to have a conversation with," Emma replied, her tone utterly cold. "Because you cannot possibly believe I would even remotely approve of this foolishness, or urge you to go."

"You are talking about going to a place and time period that doesn't want you to exist - that discriminates against everything that you are - and you are going to go to war for them. You are going to kill people, get people killed, and possibly not come back at all."

"Don't be stupid, it doesn't suit you; of course I'm going to argue with you to keep you where you belong. Which is Not There."

[bitten_notshy]

"I'm working with the people trying to stop the discrimination," Jack answered tightly. He couldn't be quite as cold as Emma, but he was close. "And I've never killed anyone and don't mean to start -- if I do my work right, I'll save lives."

He sighed. "You can call me stupid all you want. Should I write and let you know I'm not dead anyhow?"

[icecoldfrost]

"Don't be naive, Jack. You claim to spy and spy alone, but a spy does not decide what to do with his information. Your friends may not die, but many others will. Do not delude yourself."

"And write, if it so pleases you," was the bored answer, although inwardly Emma was screaming and resisting the urge to smash the poor, much-battered phone against the wall. "I won't be writing back."

"I can't handle wondering if it's going to come back to me with a condolence letter from your Sebastien."

At which point, all Jack would get was dead-air. Emma had hung-up.

[bitten_notshy]

Jack stared at the phone for a good long minute before calling her back. He'd expected the anger; he just hadn't thought through to realize what it might mean -- that she might be scared, too.

So now he was patiently listening to the ring, hoping she'd pick up.

[icecoldfrost]

Emma threw her phone in her dirty laundry bin and tossed herself on her bed, pulling a pillow over her head. "Dun wanna talk to you ever again," was the only muffled (hiccuped) response, although there was no one else to hear it.

...which didn't stop the ringing. At all.

Finally, after the third omgmodded call, Emma hauled herself up and rooted around until she found it in the pile of clothes. "What, Jack?" she asked, sounding exhausted. "I have a final in three hours."

[bitten_notshy]

Jack would have called twice more, and then figured it was her loss.

Luckily, things hadn't gotten to that point.

"It might be a year before I talk to you again," he said. "More. I can leave with you hating me, if I have to. But on the whole I'd rather not."

A pause. "I'll do my very best not to get killed. Promise."

[icecoldfrost]

Since Coping Mechanism One: Disconnect had not worked, Emma was going to need to go with Option Two. Inappropriate sarcasm.

"What do you want me to say?" she asked. "Gee, have fun, bring me back a bullet with your name on it?"

[bitten_notshy]

Jack bit back his urge to quip at her in return, reasoning the best way to disarm the sarcasm was with utter sincerity.

"I hoped for 'I don't like what you're doing, but it's your choice and we're still friends,'" he said. "At this point, I'll take anything that acknowledges you'll still be willing to talk to me once this ends."

[icecoldfrost]

"You already know I don't like what you're doing," Emma pointed out. "I think it's unnecessary, short-sighted, egotistical, and inappropriately dangerous. I could go on, but I'm rather sure you can guess the rest of the adjectives I plan on using."

Because you know it's stupid, Jack.

[bitten_notshy]

"I know," Jack said, a bit sing-song as he reminded himself to keep his temper under control. He couldn't actually jump through the phone line and shake her.

"I disagree, but I respect your right to feel that way -- and all of that therapy talk. You know, I suggested you leave your world, both because of your family and because of the way it treats mutants. When you didn't want to I said almost nothing else, as it's not my choice to make. You owe me that much basic fucking respect, whether you think you do or not."

[icecoldfrost]

"Staying here and keeping my head down and mouth shut--" Mostly. Because while Emma tried, she wasn't always good at holding her temper in class. "--is a far cry from you deliberately throwing yourself into a war zone, Jack! For one, no one is trying to put me down using weapons!"

Well, no one wanted to kill her personally, but the number of students on the ESU campus who harbored nebulous ideas about 'killing muties' was, steadily, growing.

"As much as you dislike my choices, you at least understand why I'm making them. I don't understand why you feel like you have to do this, when it's already a done deal."

[bitten_notshy]

"Yet," Jack muttered, at the comment about weapons. He didn't trust Emma's world to stay safe in that way in the least.

Still, her not understanding was something he could at least try to fix.

"First, the fighting's in America now," he said calmly. "I'll start out there, but it's likely I'd be far more useful in Europe, where I can put bugs in the ears of the powerful to get them on the rebel side. I stand out less here; people trust me more."

He drew a breath, kept talking. "The fact we succeeded in the world I live in now doesn't mean we succeeded in every version of my world; I don't know how exactly time travel works. And for all I know -- and you're going to call me egotistical again -- I might make the change that permits victory, or one that shortens the war by months or years. I don't think it's a foolish risk to take given how much is on the line. And, finally, I can portal home if this turns out to be the wrong choice. All right?"

[icecoldfrost]

"You'll ask Ronan for a Gate home, because with our luck, you'll run into my handsome mariachi player, get shot at some more, and end up making out with him," Emma replied absently. "And then get shot at again."

She didn't want to see any logic in this. She wanted Jack to stop and agree she was right and stay in 2011 where he belonged. Where he was happiest. Where people were not actively trying to stop him from doing anything, possibly by lethal means.

"Why go into the thick of it at all?" she continued, trying to organize her thoughts into something rational. "You're clever, Jack. You could do amazing things for them while in 2011, decoding things or transferring money in untraceable ways, or whatever manner your tricksy mind could come up with."

"I understand about not knowing how things turn out in every version of a world, I do. I constantly have people watching me, expecting things out of me, and holding things against me that I haven't even done yet, or might not even do. I know how it feels if you're constantly wondering if you're going to live up to what they want out of you, knowing your now is their past, and sometimes I want to scream."

"But you can't live your life worrying about keeping things on track, Jack. Are you going to end up in every major conflict? How many times am I going to get this phone call from you?"

Yes, fine, she was scared. Both in Jack's prospects for coming back alive, and for what sort of precedent this was going to set. "Do you understand why I'm worried?"

[bitten_notshy]

"We don't have phones," he reminded her. "Or Internet. I could hunch over a telegraph and a mail drop in 2011 all day, but I'm not so important that people would go out of their way to hunt me down and ask for my words of wisdom. And even if they wanted to, it would take way too bloody long to have a conversation. I have to go there; this isn't some Arab spring where I can fire people up on Twitter."

"And," he added, "for what it's worth, this will likely be the only time. The first world war was vicious and I'll be almost 40. I'd be older yet for the second one, and that one actually was specifically about killing people like me. I don't want to die of dysentery in some camp. My sense of duty isn't so great that I'd parachute in just to fight either of those wars, and I don't plan to become some time-traveling hero. This fight, though ... this is mine."

"But yes," he admitted. "I understand why you're worried."

[icecoldfrost]

"You don't have phones," Emma admitted, twisting a lock of hair between her fingers. "Which means you're on your own, Jack. Which means that unless you have a telegraph right there, then there's no way I could organize the Fandom cavalry if something goes wrong for you."

No back-up besides his vampire, and Sebastien had limited hours of operation.

[bitten_notshy]

"I know that," Jack said. It was the one part of the whole operation that gave him pause. "We'll most likely have Professor Garrett on our side, and Ronan's working on a bracelet with a few spells woven in for me. But in a sudden crisis, it'll be me and the people there."

He scruffed his hand over his hair. "All I can promise is to be careful."

That was the most he could offer.

[icecoldfrost]

"If you were Careful Jack, you wouldn't be going," Emma answered, with a slight hysterical giggle. "Promise me you'll be Tricksy Jack, instead, with no unnecessary risks."

"If you ask yourself 'is this going to make Emma mad at me when she finds out,' then don't do it."

[bitten_notshy]

"Apart from how you're mad at me about the whole enterprise?" Jack asked, some slight amusement in his voice. "Tricksy Jack, then. Sneaky and sly and not calling attention to himself any more than he has to."