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bitten_notshyJack scowled as he returned to Sebastien's hotel room and dropped his cap on the table.
"It's official," he announced. "Every bloody professor at the University of London is a moron."
"Hmm?" Sebastien asked. He was still distracted by the day's mail, but Jack's expressed anger was unusual enough to command his full attention.
Jack sighed, dropped into a chair, and ran his hands over his curls as if that would accomplish something. "One of the lecturers won't accept late papers for any reason short of hospitalization. The world almost ending doesn't rate, and the departmental adviser says I used up his goodwill with my 'family emergencies' last year."
He tapped an impatient hand fretfully against the arms of the chair. "I've no choice but to take the incomplete, and that bollixes things up for next term."
An annoyance, no more. He gave Sebastien a peculiar look, as it became increasingly clear the man had something more on his mind than the intricacies of Jack's schoolwork. "Out with it," Jack commanded.
"I was thinking," Sebastien said, very precise as he unfolded a crisp sheet of newsprint that had been resting on his lap, "that it might not be a bad time for you to cut back on your coursework. Abigail Irene Garrett has been in touch."
Little more needed to be said: The headline said it. It read WAR under a date of Dec. 13, 1901.
***
Jack's Irish revolutionary friends had been busy in the eighteen months since he moved to the 21st century for good. That movement for the American colonies to break away from English rule had grown, helped by a Home Rule sentiment among the colonists, before attracting French government funding. And now: War. The American Revolution, a hundred and some years later than in most worlds Jack knew about.
Along the way, Lady Abigail Irene had gotten rousted from the government -- a victim of her own impudent affair with a royal. The gossip she'd attracted when Sebastien was in her time and her town hadn't helped, either. She was, to go by her letters, halfway swayed to the rebel side.
It wasn't Sebastien's first war, and in some ways it wasn't Jack's either. But it was the first either felt much personal stake in.
"We have to go back," Jack said, after the explanations were out of the way. He didn't sound pleased by this; he didn't sound displeased, either. He sounded like a man who was stating a fact. He thought sitting calmly in 2011 when there were rebels to assist in 1901 would be all but treason against himself.
Sebastien hesitated, not wanting to take Jack away from his friends, from his classes, from the thousand signs of progress this time meant. But he saw the stubborn tilt to Jack's chin and nodded. He, too, wanted to help as he could in his own time more than he wanted to stay in the present.
"But not for a few days," he said. "To pack and say our goodbyes."
"A few days," Jack agreed. He loathed goodbyes, but lacked the cruelty to slip away without saying them.
If he was brave enough for war -- and Jack firmly believed that he was -- he was brave enough to explain he was going to war. Even if the latter prospect frightened him far more.
[OOC: And so Jack's final canon catch-up begins. NFI, NFB.]
"It's official," he announced. "Every bloody professor at the University of London is a moron."
"Hmm?" Sebastien asked. He was still distracted by the day's mail, but Jack's expressed anger was unusual enough to command his full attention.
Jack sighed, dropped into a chair, and ran his hands over his curls as if that would accomplish something. "One of the lecturers won't accept late papers for any reason short of hospitalization. The world almost ending doesn't rate, and the departmental adviser says I used up his goodwill with my 'family emergencies' last year."
He tapped an impatient hand fretfully against the arms of the chair. "I've no choice but to take the incomplete, and that bollixes things up for next term."
An annoyance, no more. He gave Sebastien a peculiar look, as it became increasingly clear the man had something more on his mind than the intricacies of Jack's schoolwork. "Out with it," Jack commanded.
"I was thinking," Sebastien said, very precise as he unfolded a crisp sheet of newsprint that had been resting on his lap, "that it might not be a bad time for you to cut back on your coursework. Abigail Irene Garrett has been in touch."
Little more needed to be said: The headline said it. It read WAR under a date of Dec. 13, 1901.
***
Jack's Irish revolutionary friends had been busy in the eighteen months since he moved to the 21st century for good. That movement for the American colonies to break away from English rule had grown, helped by a Home Rule sentiment among the colonists, before attracting French government funding. And now: War. The American Revolution, a hundred and some years later than in most worlds Jack knew about.
Along the way, Lady Abigail Irene had gotten rousted from the government -- a victim of her own impudent affair with a royal. The gossip she'd attracted when Sebastien was in her time and her town hadn't helped, either. She was, to go by her letters, halfway swayed to the rebel side.
It wasn't Sebastien's first war, and in some ways it wasn't Jack's either. But it was the first either felt much personal stake in.
"We have to go back," Jack said, after the explanations were out of the way. He didn't sound pleased by this; he didn't sound displeased, either. He sounded like a man who was stating a fact. He thought sitting calmly in 2011 when there were rebels to assist in 1901 would be all but treason against himself.
Sebastien hesitated, not wanting to take Jack away from his friends, from his classes, from the thousand signs of progress this time meant. But he saw the stubborn tilt to Jack's chin and nodded. He, too, wanted to help as he could in his own time more than he wanted to stay in the present.
"But not for a few days," he said. "To pack and say our goodbyes."
"A few days," Jack agreed. He loathed goodbyes, but lacked the cruelty to slip away without saying them.
If he was brave enough for war -- and Jack firmly believed that he was -- he was brave enough to explain he was going to war. Even if the latter prospect frightened him far more.
[OOC: And so Jack's final canon catch-up begins. NFI, NFB.]
