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

[vanillajello]

Now that Kate had talked to Bod in a thread yet to happen, she was maybe frowning at Jack's voicemail a little less in confusion, and a little more just... frowning in general.

Also, she was calling him back now.

[bitten_notshy]

"You didn't get eaten," Jack said, once he spotted the caller ID. He sounded pleased. "Hi, Kate."

[icecoldfrost]

Emma had her human development final with Professor Mason in three hours. It had taken a bit of a psionic nudge to get the woman to accept the 'mono' note from Hank as legitimate and 'remember' that Emma's doctor had called her earlier, so she very much did not want to blow this. On a normal day, she'd already be sitting outside the class room, going over her notes and reviewing like mad.

Considering the message that had been on her phone when she'd gotten back from the showers? This was not a normal day.

Jack's phone would be ringing; Emma had her poor battered Blackberry set to speaker. Christie had never returned, apparently, and Emma felt slightly bad that she hadn't know the girl well enough to bring her back.

"Pick up, dammit."

[vanillajello]

"Hi, Jack," she replied, a little more subdued. "Yeah, sorry 'bout freaking you out or whatever. Multiversal time hijinks. It seems I've missed like two weeks of Fandom time."

[chosehumanity]

Yeah, there had been some squinting in the direction of Jack's message, and after a few minutes of going back and forth on whether this was his problem or not, Mitchell just dove right in and called.

[bitten_notshy]

Jack picked up, dammit, albeit a bit warily.

"I'm glad you called," he said. "I want to go home for a while."

[bitten_notshy]

"If you had to miss two weeks, they were good ones to miss," Jack informed her, still quite relieved. "We ended up camped under toadstools in special collections. And then there was a luck dragon."

It wasn't why he called, but it seemed worth filling her in on the background.

[icecoldfrost]

"You aren't home yet?" Beware the deceptively mild tone, Jack. "I thought you would have booked the first Gate that Ronan could hook you up with to get back to London. Why are you still in Fandom?"

[bitten_notshy]

It wasn't his problem! .... ish.

It wasn't something Jack could be talked out of, anyhow.

"Hi, Mitchell," Jack said, wondering if he was going to get a lecture. "I just didn't want to disappear on people."

[chosehumanity]

"Yeah, I get that."

Mitchell rubbed his forehead. "Look, are you sure this is what you want to do?"

Not a lecture. Just an honest question from a guy who didn't just know terrible plans, he lived them.

[bitten_notshy]

"...1901 home," Jack admitted, after the briefest moment of considering whether he could lie to Emma. "Our version of the American Revolution is starting. I have friends on the rebel side I want to help."

[vanillajello]

"... Right. Just another basic Fandom adventure."

She couldn't say she was terribly sad to have missed it, no.

"Everyone pulled through okay in the end though, I gather?"

[bitten_notshy]

"I think I'd regret it more if I don't go than if I did," Jack said, because the honest answer would have been no. "We still have friends there. Irish, actually. I don't want to go the rest of my life knowing I didn't help."

A pause. "I wouldn't be a soldier."

Not at first, anyhow. Jack deliberately wasn't contemplating the high odds he'd get dragged in eventually.

[bitten_notshy]

"After we remembered the world back into existing," Jack nodded. "So yes. Usual Fandom fare, I'm afraid, just a bit more frightening than usual."

He wouldn't have minded missing it, come to that.

[chosehumanity]

"It's a revolution, Jack, not a fight in the pub 'round the corner."

Yeah. Those odds were blindingly high.

"Unless you're planning to take your friends and hide in the cupboard..."

[vanillajello]

"I gathered." You know, as people and universes disappearing tended to be. Kate paused for a bit, then asked, "So, uh, what's this about you going back into ye olden times?"

[bitten_notshy]

“I don’t think they’d want that even if I liked the idea,” Jack said, in a tone that suggested he was halfway admitting Mitchell was right. People were going to die, and likely many of them. There was no way around that.

He sighed and made the case he’d assembled in his head.

“Look, it would take some time for any government to figure out what to do with me even if there was a draft – which there isn’t, yet. I could do a lot of good as a spy before it would happen, and there are portals if I absolutely need one.” Jack’s size, his unclear citizenship, the fact he had money backing him: He was bargaining that all would help keep him out of any army until it was absolutely necessary.

More quietly, he added, “And even if I have to go fight, that’s better than the alternative. I couldn’t look myself in the face if I sat this out.”

[bitten_notshy]

"It's not ye olden." That was kneejerk.

Jack ran a hand over the scruff of his neck as he contemplated how to phrase the rest of what he had to say. "Anyhow, er, there's a war starting, and I'd have a hard time sitting it out a hundred and ten years away. I'm going to go back and see if I can do any good."

[icecoldfrost]

Oh, he could lie to Emma over the phone! ...it just probably wasn't worth the explosion when she found out about the lying.

There was silence on Emma's end of the line, broken only by the sounds of her rummaging in a drawer for pants and shimmying into them. "Here I thought you were going to tell me you'd decided to drop out of college and do something typically collegiate and self-indulgent, such as travel the world or work in a soup kitchen for a year or go build houses in South America."

[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."

[vanillajello]

"Uh, no." That... may have been another kneejerk reaction. "Why do you have to go back?"

[bitten_notshy]

"I don't have to," Jack answered, easily. "But I already know my side wins. If I can help them do that, how can I not go?"

Even winning sides in wars lost people. But that was beside the point.

[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?"