I Were The Heavens; Torchwood, PG

[cblj_backup]

Sam's fanfiction archive has moved. The story formerly found here may now be found at:

http://sam-storyteller.dreamwidth.org/137901.html

Thank you for your patience!

Comments

[luvinthe88and20.livejournal.com]

Great Job, I love Jack influencing his earlier life.

[humantales.livejournal.com]

Splendid as always. I love the way you use the facts of Jack's immortality to wind the story around. And I'm a real sucker for Young!Jack.

[daizy2k2.livejournal.com]

I love Jack back story. And you do it so well.

And Ginger!Doctor!

[offer-of-hope.livejournal.com]

Lost track of the number of references but v v nice indeed

[alba17.livejournal.com]

Fascinating. Timey wimey to the nth degree. The Doctor doesn't seem to carry much authority at this point.

[sam-storyteller.livejournal.com]

Well, to Jack the Doctor is now quite the young'un. He might be smarter than Jack will ever be, but Jack's picked up a lot of wisdom in his five thousand years of living...

[jeonggam.livejournal.com]

Oh, lovely! Twisty and smart and JACK YAY. I'm a sucker for a bit of Jack backstory.

I enjoyed this VERY MUCH. It has quite a BSG-feel to it, to me, too, which was wonderful. You know you're amazing, right?

[sam-storyteller.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I thought it might be somewhat reminiscent of BSG or Babylon 5 -- it's that same military-spaceships vibe. :D

[iambickilometer.livejournal.com]

Now that was just cool. Jack backstory, I think, is something that doesn't turn up nearly enough in fandom. And it makes sense, that he'd do something like that - though I'm interested to know how he knew he had to do it.

And hey, looks like the Doctor got his ginger hair at last. :D I like this version of him. Rather dry, somber fellow.

[thenines.livejournal.com]

I am... just amazed by the coolness of this. Damn.

[pure-entropy.livejournal.com]

Oh this was wonderful! I when it turned out that Levy was Jack and Jack was Lo, I squealed a bit. Okay, a lot. I just adore your writing, it flows so nicely. The humor is great - not too much, just enough to make reading it enjoyable. Well done :)

[laughingacademy.livejournal.com]

After reading your synopsis I thought, Omigod, Ender Wiggin grows up to be Jack Harkness and Orson Scott Card's head exploded.

Then I realized that no, Jack Harkness grows up to be Sam Vimes/John Keel, which is even better!

[sam-storyteller.livejournal.com]

Really it's some unholy alliance of Ender Wiggin and Sam Vimes. :D

[sanura.livejournal.com]

Genius. God, I love space opera.

You've got one blockade without a k, and then I'm not sure of military assignment titles, but I've heard strategist more often than strategian.

Ginger Doctor! For the win! Also, omnipotent Jack. So much yay.

[sam-storyteller.livejournal.com]

Ah! Fixed the blockade, thanks. :) The titles are for a futuristic military so I played fast and loose, but strategist was the word I was groping for there and just couldn't think of, so I've fixed that too :D

[thaddeusfavour.livejournal.com]

Oh joy! I adore space opera! I've always been a rather fanatical reader of military fic. Hornblower and Sharpe's for sure, as well as sci-fi based stuff.

Love the view of Jack as the unsung hero of the war, and really love Jack helping himself. With all the "poor future Jack" out there, it's nice to read a fic with Jack still living large in the universe and keeping the Doctor on his toes. Now, couldn't you just turn this into a whole series of young Jack fic? Better than Harry Potter I'm thinkin'! :P

[sam-storyteller.livejournal.com]

LOL! Jack at Quantico Station, at the Time Agency, on assignment with his buddy John...

I would rather like to write a scene where Lo first encounters swing music. Can you imagine a very young Jack Harkness walking into a room and hearing "Ain't Misbehavin'" for the first time? He'd be entranced.

[melayneseahawk.livejournal.com]

The Doctor finally gets to be a ginger!

[adina-atl.livejournal.com]

Time travel gives me a headache. This was worth it. *grin*

[sam-storyteller.livejournal.com]

It gave me a headache too :D

[kesomon.livejournal.com]

Awesome tale. I especially like the interaction between Jack and the Doc.

[fuzzyboo03.livejournal.com]

Your Torchwood is my canon. This is fantastic.

[onyxtwilight.livejournal.com]

IAWTC. Sam, you're the only one I read consistently and would never think of missing. As far as I'm concerned, it all IS canon. Better than half the actual canon anyway, and it always fits so neatly in the spaces the actual canon leaves, it might as well be. :-)

[darthhellokitty.livejournal.com]

Oh, delightful! I didn't guess the twist til Levy revealed it, although I should've. What a Jack thing to do, creating his own backstory...

As soon as you said the visitor was (a) eccentrically dressed and (b) ginger I knew exactly who he was. :-)

[sam-storyteller.livejournal.com]

Well, you weren't designed to get the twist till Levy revealed it, so no worries :D

Ginger and weirdly dressed generally is a good indication of a Future Doctor, I think!

[iamshadow.livejournal.com]

Can I just say that I adore Lo? He's so wonderfully young, and vulnerable, and yet utterly made of steel at the same time. He's very obviously the boy who will become the man, Jack, and yet he's different, too. It's apparent that it's the years of schooling to come, and possibly his partnering with John, that teaches him how to laugh again, because right now he's very bristly and hurt.

[sam-storyteller.livejournal.com]

Yep, that's it exactly -- damaged wee Lo has a road to take before he can become Jack Harkness. I don't think he really would come into his own until the Time Agency, and I think John will probably have something to do with that. If I were to work with Lo as a part of canon I'd probably say Lo's the only one who can control John because of the particular way he's broken, but also because John has a weird paternal feeling for him, since he'd be the one to draw him out of his shell.

Which makes Jack growing up and John just growing older all the more poignant...

[beadattitude.livejournal.com]

OOOoh, lovely, and I totally didn't get what was going on until Ginger Doctor showed up.

Also, young Lo just crackled and practically leapt off the page.

[altorogue.livejournal.com]

Oh God, Jack makes my head hurt. I literally had to sit here and let my brain spin for a minute before I could read that sentence again.

And ooh, a ginger Doctor!

[kayloulee.livejournal.com]

Oh wow, that was just fantastic. One thing: you've spelled venomously with an extra e - as venemously.

[sam-storyteller.livejournal.com]

Thanks! Fixed now :)

[cleversimon.livejournal.com]

Does it mean I'm getting old that I liked everything about this except the causality loop?

[sam-storyteller.livejournal.com]

Yes. Yes it does. *grins*

I hesitated about it, actually, for precisely that reason -- but I felt like to give the story punch it needed a twist at the end, plus bringing the Doctor in gives it more street cred as a fanfic than it would otherwise have had (as opposed to a short story where I stole some names :D).

[annemjw.livejournal.com]

Dude. Awesome. I am a fan of the space opera, and that mixed in with Torchwood, mixed in with timey-wimey Jack? I am very impressed.

And little!Jack was just right - cocky, but had been through enough, even at (lordy) sixteen to be aware of the position he put himself in. Does make me regret that Jack doesn't get much of a childhood, but then again he does spend quite a lot of his time as we know him going through various debaucherous (as it were) situations, so I guess in that he's managed to act immaturely when he's felt like it :)

Reminded me a bit of Ender's Game - not so much the psychological side as the alien-presence-not-really-understood stuff, plus the bringing in young men from all over the galaxy. Very neat.

Not sure where you'd go from here with this one, but it's a fun backstory, it'd be neat to see young!Jack's adventures.

And perhaps oddly enough this is the first time I've read a Torchwood fic and it's felt like the Sci Fi Space Opera type stuff you get, it was a really nice change.

[sam-storyteller.livejournal.com]

Yeah, poor damaged Lo has a road to travel before he can be Jack Harkness, definitely. Although also, at this point he's only a few weeks out from having been tortured, so there's that. I think John will probably take him a good long way towards being himself -- I kind of picture him learning to have fun at Quantico Station but not really learning to enjoy himself until the Time Agency.

There are probably a lot of Ender's Game echoes -- I didn't like the rest of the series but I loved that book :D

[drgaellon]

The Doctor finally got to be ginger! :)

[viverl.livejournal.com]

Very good!
I love it!
Actually I didn't recognize Levy before the Doctor arrived. Very well done!