baptizer: (pic#10478006)
elizabeth "daddy kink" comstock ([personal profile] baptizer) wrote2016-08-26 08:13 pm

week 12 | when Jack is deda

I will simply put my faith in you once more.
One last time.



[ Fridays were rolling together far more quickly than she would have imagined. Two had passed and now, Elizabeth feels alone. She was in the dark, completely with what had happened. Loved ones on the ship as the final hours began ticking. Everything had shut off like little stars dimming themselves goodnight before the sun rises.

Elizabeth knew Rhys was gone and she feels a burden on her chest. She doesn't want anyone to worry about her - no one at all. Adelina, Hancock, hell - even Bull probably took a worry with her after her untimely death and she doesn't... want that. She wasn't a little girl, not anymore.

She sits on the springy, dry cot that situates itself in the corner of her cabin. It was lonely, but then again - was she ever really not lonely? Her whole life can be summed up to people leaving her or people living her alone.

Elizabeth hadn't the heart to venture out - to ask who joined them in the graveyard. One? Two? Who knew how many could be slaughtered as long as those creatures still roamed free. She had requested one thing - a notepad to draw lazily against. Her pencil drags in abstract shapes, blossoming flowers and flying birds daring to jolt off the page.

She was fine with this, she thinks. She served her purpose to help the others and she prays, oh, as her head lays down and she murmurs to herself - she prays for everyone aboard the Pygmalion. ]
refactor: (the son of an Appalachian Turd Miner)

[personal profile] refactor 2016-08-28 09:32 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Jack nods understandingly, but it turns to a short, soft laugh as she asks if something happened. There's a silence between them that lingers quite a bit longer than normal. Whatever it is, that silence makes it clear that it's something that weighs heavily on Jack, but the silence itself is largely for Jack to be able to collect his thoughts here. It's both been on his mind and not at all, because every time he's thought back to what he'd been shown, to what he experienced, he pushes the feeling away.

He half wants to reach out to hold her hand again, as if that would help him to explain this, but-- Something about that feels wrong now. The very fact that it feels wrong is what gets him to start speaking. ]


Liz— That thing? It-- I don't know. It's hard to explain, 'cause it was like the same kinda shit Alice did to me. One second, you're yourself, the next, you're... It's like watching from a stage. You're seeing a scene play out before you. You're seeing it like, like you weren't a part of it at all? I—

[ He runs his hand through his hair, but his head bows forward slightly with the motion. It's almost like he's hiding his face from her. ]

Look, I- I actually always wanted to be a dad. Which, yeah, I know, friggin' weird for guy like me, ha ha, heard it a million times. But y- y'see, my family was shit. Never knew my dad, mom dumped me off with grandma, and you and every-goddamn-one saw what grandma was like. So always thought if I had a kid of my own, I'd never treat them the way my family did me. God, I— [ He laughs, but even at this point, it's clear to hear the pain in his voice as he rambles. ] The day Angel was born... That was the happiest day of my life. I'd never felt that kind of immediate love, and I don't think anyone but a parent can. Just looking at her face, I knew I'd do anything to make sure she'd be happy.

[ He sighs out a heavy breath, but it's shaky as his head dips further into his hand. ]

That's... That was the problem, I guess.

[ With that, Elizabeth might get a sense of what point Jack is meandering towards, and as such, it's clear why he's taking such a winding path to get to it. ]

Because— [ Jack laughs, but it edges on unhinged, though the laugh itself is soft and distant. ] Because it was-- It must have been how you felt, kiddo. When you heard Rhys saying all of that? When you heard me explain? I watched, god, I watched everything I, I'd done to Angel, but it wasn't... I always knew what I was doing, but this time, it was like I was a stranger. Just seeing things for what they were. It's why my wife, why you, why everyone—

[ He gets more frantic as he continues, but he breaks off abruptly with the beginning of another syllable, but it's because as he tries to explain, he remembers one part in particular. Every justification he had could be built back up in the face of what the Queen had shown him, surely, because it was still true that perhaps people didn't understand. But the reason he couldn't was just one small event in particular. It was just a little girl crying as she clung to her father, asking when she could go home. Jack had remembered how his heart ached as it did every time Angel cried, how he embraced her warmly to comfort her, and how she hugged him in return with her small arms when he'd soothed her.

But as a stranger, without his ego, he realized it for what it was. "This is your home now, baby," he'd said, and for the first time, he'd seen the fear on Angel's face. She'd never complained. She never tried to defy him. Because just as he had been of his grandmother, she was afraid. She'd always been afraid. But he'd never been able to see it, because every justification was something so neat and so perfect that surely, he hadn't become what he feared the most.

He starts again, but his voice is thick by now. ]


You—

[ Jack looks up at Elizabeth with a smile, but it's not the kind of smile that seems to suit Jack's unwavering confidence in himself. It's not just sadness on his face, but from his expression alone, the reason he'd wanted to tell Elizabeth this at all is clear. It's not the sadness of grieving for his daughter. It's the despair of understanding that what he had done to her was wrong. ]

You were right, Elizabeth. You were always right, but I— I couldn't see it.

[ At this point, there's another surprise, because tears start to spill over from his glassy eyes, but this time, he makes no effort to hide it. He's not sure why, really. He doesn't have to share any of this with Elizabeth. It truly wasn't as if he would find any solace or comfort in it. But perhaps... Perhaps part of him is hoping that by telling her, he can convey what he can no longer express to his daughter. ]

She's not just dead because of me. She— God, I never gave her the chance to live in the first place.
Edited 2016-08-28 21:37 (UTC)
refactor: (got a little freaky like Marvin Albert)

[personal profile] refactor 2016-08-30 09:16 pm (UTC)(link)
[ In truth, Elizabeth is probably the only person that will ever hear this confession.

It's not for any malicious reason, but it's not as if the truth of why is much better. It's the sort of painful humanity that makes Jack so complicated a person for people to deal with. There's so much madness and unforgivable evil in who he is, and truly, it's beyond anyone's ability to drag him out of that. But there are glimmers like this where the man he was shines through like a false hope that he could appear again. It would be easier if Jack didn't want to ever share this again because withholding that information was manipulative. Instead, it's simply genuinely agonizing for him to do so.

As soon as Elizabeth accepts his words in some way, that's almost like some kind of sign he almost seemed to be waiting for. Her hand comes up to his face, and Jack is quick to grab her wrist, but it's not quite to pull her hand away. There's a light tremor in his hand, shaky because of whatever he's still trying to hold back here, but he still closes his eyes under her touch all the same. He's vulnerable in a way that he lets very, very few people see, but for better or for worse—

He trusts Elizabeth with this. ]


Liz, I-

[ He starts to interrupt, because it's rare for him to not get a word in, but that seriousness inherent in her grip quiets him. His eyes stay shut for a few moments as she speaks, and his expression twists up into some reflection of whatever complicated, messy emotions he's feeling, but it doesn't last long. His eyes open again as she pulls him closer, but he hesitates briefly at how she holds him. It strikes him as strange, backwards, because he so badly wanted to be the one providing this sort of comfort. It always made him feel good when people relied on him so, but he never quite allowed the opposite for himself. In truth, no one could quite handle shouldering Jack's sins, since they were far too numerous and so, so many were beyond his view in the first place. But for this one?

He listens to her verse, and talk of wrath and anger are when he clings back. Maybe that's just a coincidence, or maybe he understands himself well enough to know that it was these two things that twisted him up so much worse than other emotions. His wrath would cover Pandora in fire for the slights of a few, and his anger would leave innocent people dead whose only crime was standing against him. And to those, he was still blind. Yet even so, Jack returns the embrace. His arms wrap around Elizabeth so tightly that it might almost make it hard to breathe, because he's strong, but he's clinging to her with a desperation as if she were some sort of anchor for what he was feeling.

And that was-- Still complicated to him. It's muddy and confusing in a way that's difficult for him to parse through, because even if he feels such guilt and pain over what he'd done, there's still that one part of him whispering about a dissonance. It wasn't truly him, so maybe he had no right to be upset about this in the first place, but that disconnect is something he hides from even more than most of his illusions about himself. So, it probably doesn't matter, he decides. The pain he feels is real enough, and while he doesn't express the sort of raw, open grief that he had when he had read her letter, it's still here in some capacity.

Jack holds her for a long time, probably as long as she'll let him without it being weird. He's quiet, not saying hardly anything at all, but there is at least one thing said just softly enough for her (or perhaps not her at all) to hear: ]


I'm so sorry.