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Title: "If I Am Missing or Dead"
Disclaimer: Being a bloke who likes to slash pretty men doesn't make me RTD, I don't work for the BBC, and as much as I might like to, I don't own Jack or Ianto or any part of Torchwood. I do, however, order pizza under that name on principle.
Pairings: None
Rating: PG
Notes/Summary: A letter Jack Harkness took but never sent. (Yep, it's my WiaD entry for the "Letters From the Rift" prompt.)
Shameless Plug: We're down to the final three at![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
writerinadrawer. It's the end of Round One! Stories are up, and voting runs until 2 PM Central Time (-6 GMT) on FRIDAY. Please read and vote! This week's prompt? Someone's crawled out of a drawer...
Mum,
I'm writing you this because if I am missing or dead it means that everything worked out for the best. I know that if you read this you'll be scared or sad or angry, but you have to believe me when I tell you it's okay, and that I've been hiding something from you these last few months since the accident.
I've tried everything – hanging, electrocution, drowning, suffocation – everything. All I want to do is lay down and stop. It hurts, and I know it's wrong for me to be here, because I can't die. That's how I met him.
I'd jumped off a bridge and sucked in as much water as my lungs could hold until the world went black. If I'd been smart I'd have filled up my jacket pockets with stones like Virginia Woolf did, but I was too nervous that someone would try to stop me, or that I'd have trouble climbing over the edge if I was weighed down. So I jumped, knowing I'd float up eventually, but hoping I'd get lucky this time. I woke up soaking wet on the shore of the river, and there he was.
He asked me my name. He had the prettiest eyes I'd ever seen, so I told him the truth. Betsy Flag, I said. He asked why I was jumping off of bridges, and I told him the truth about that, too. He asked a lot of other questions, like how I'd found out about my problem, and why I wanted to die. I didn't have answers for some of it, but he was nice and let me wear his great big coat and took me to a little cafe where he bought me coffee and a sandwich and let me talk.
I told him about the time with the hair dryer where I blew all the fuses in the house, and the time where I tried hanging myself with a belt, but it took so long that I almost gave up partway through, except by then I couldn't stand up or reach the closet rod. I suppose I didn't really want to die that time. All the other times, though, I meant it.
The car crash was how I found out, by the way. The one where Lloyd and Jimmy and I went off the road and over into the ravine? You remember how the doctors were all amazed at how I came out of it without a scratch. Little Betsy Flag all fine and dandy, but her brother and his friend all dead, dead, dead. I was dead too, though.
Well, until I got up.
He listened and drank a glass of water and ate a piece of pie. He didn't say much, but his eyes just got sadder and sadder while I talked about the time with the rat poison, or how I'd been too scared to slit my throat and had to settle for my wrists instead, or how I'd like to try a gun except don't know how to get one.
He told me he could get me one. He told me that if I wanted him to, he'd help me find anything I needed. Laser, blast furnace, acid. Anything. He said that if I wanted him to, he'd fix me, but that Ihad to be sure. I was a little bit scared then. I mean, what sort of person goes around in a big coat and has things like guns and acid and stuff?
Then he gave me this big smile and his eyes twinkled, and I'm telling you, Mum, he's pretty. He could shoot me any day of the week!
I told him yes and he took me down to this place by Mermaid Quay. It was like some sort of secret base! I got scared again, because I thought I might be in trouble, or that he was going to kidnap me and sell me to some kind of medical company for experimentation, but then he introduced me to this curly haired lady and a doctor and an Asian lady, and they were all were really nice (except for the doctor), and one of them brought me a cup of milky tea to drink.
The doctor took me down into a little room and took my blood. He also listened to me with a stethoscope and looked in my eyes and ears and mouth. He used this little thing that he said was like an X-Ray except he could hold it in his hand and see things right away. The Asian lady used this funny little box on me while the curly haired one took notes. After that, I got to sit and read magazines while they all went up and had a meeting.
After a while, the curly haired lady came back and asked me a lot of the same questions the pretty man in the coat did. She seemed a lot more interested, and a lot less sad, and when she was done she went back to the meeting again. It was like being at the doctor's office because after a while you've read all the good magazines, but you're still waiting, and you have to read them over again.
So then the man in the coat came back, except he wasn't wearing his coat anymore because I was, and he sat down next to me and held my hand and tried to explain how somehow I'd got stuck, and all they had to do was give me a little nudge, and everything would go back to normal. He asked me if that's what I really wanted, and if there was anything I wanted to do before they unstuck me. I told him I wanted to write you a letter.
Don't be sad, Mum. I'll miss you.
Your Betsy
Disclaimer: Being a bloke who likes to slash pretty men doesn't make me RTD, I don't work for the BBC, and as much as I might like to, I don't own Jack or Ianto or any part of Torchwood. I do, however, order pizza under that name on principle.
Pairings: None
Rating: PG
Notes/Summary: A letter Jack Harkness took but never sent. (Yep, it's my WiaD entry for the "Letters From the Rift" prompt.)
Shameless Plug: We're down to the final three at
writerinadrawer. It's the end of Round One! Stories are up, and voting runs until 2 PM Central Time (-6 GMT) on FRIDAY. Please read and vote! This week's prompt? Someone's crawled out of a drawer...Mum,
I'm writing you this because if I am missing or dead it means that everything worked out for the best. I know that if you read this you'll be scared or sad or angry, but you have to believe me when I tell you it's okay, and that I've been hiding something from you these last few months since the accident.
I've tried everything – hanging, electrocution, drowning, suffocation – everything. All I want to do is lay down and stop. It hurts, and I know it's wrong for me to be here, because I can't die. That's how I met him.
I'd jumped off a bridge and sucked in as much water as my lungs could hold until the world went black. If I'd been smart I'd have filled up my jacket pockets with stones like Virginia Woolf did, but I was too nervous that someone would try to stop me, or that I'd have trouble climbing over the edge if I was weighed down. So I jumped, knowing I'd float up eventually, but hoping I'd get lucky this time. I woke up soaking wet on the shore of the river, and there he was.
He asked me my name. He had the prettiest eyes I'd ever seen, so I told him the truth. Betsy Flag, I said. He asked why I was jumping off of bridges, and I told him the truth about that, too. He asked a lot of other questions, like how I'd found out about my problem, and why I wanted to die. I didn't have answers for some of it, but he was nice and let me wear his great big coat and took me to a little cafe where he bought me coffee and a sandwich and let me talk.
I told him about the time with the hair dryer where I blew all the fuses in the house, and the time where I tried hanging myself with a belt, but it took so long that I almost gave up partway through, except by then I couldn't stand up or reach the closet rod. I suppose I didn't really want to die that time. All the other times, though, I meant it.
The car crash was how I found out, by the way. The one where Lloyd and Jimmy and I went off the road and over into the ravine? You remember how the doctors were all amazed at how I came out of it without a scratch. Little Betsy Flag all fine and dandy, but her brother and his friend all dead, dead, dead. I was dead too, though.
Well, until I got up.
He listened and drank a glass of water and ate a piece of pie. He didn't say much, but his eyes just got sadder and sadder while I talked about the time with the rat poison, or how I'd been too scared to slit my throat and had to settle for my wrists instead, or how I'd like to try a gun except don't know how to get one.
He told me he could get me one. He told me that if I wanted him to, he'd help me find anything I needed. Laser, blast furnace, acid. Anything. He said that if I wanted him to, he'd fix me, but that Ihad to be sure. I was a little bit scared then. I mean, what sort of person goes around in a big coat and has things like guns and acid and stuff?
Then he gave me this big smile and his eyes twinkled, and I'm telling you, Mum, he's pretty. He could shoot me any day of the week!
I told him yes and he took me down to this place by Mermaid Quay. It was like some sort of secret base! I got scared again, because I thought I might be in trouble, or that he was going to kidnap me and sell me to some kind of medical company for experimentation, but then he introduced me to this curly haired lady and a doctor and an Asian lady, and they were all were really nice (except for the doctor), and one of them brought me a cup of milky tea to drink.
The doctor took me down into a little room and took my blood. He also listened to me with a stethoscope and looked in my eyes and ears and mouth. He used this little thing that he said was like an X-Ray except he could hold it in his hand and see things right away. The Asian lady used this funny little box on me while the curly haired one took notes. After that, I got to sit and read magazines while they all went up and had a meeting.
After a while, the curly haired lady came back and asked me a lot of the same questions the pretty man in the coat did. She seemed a lot more interested, and a lot less sad, and when she was done she went back to the meeting again. It was like being at the doctor's office because after a while you've read all the good magazines, but you're still waiting, and you have to read them over again.
So then the man in the coat came back, except he wasn't wearing his coat anymore because I was, and he sat down next to me and held my hand and tried to explain how somehow I'd got stuck, and all they had to do was give me a little nudge, and everything would go back to normal. He asked me if that's what I really wanted, and if there was anything I wanted to do before they unstuck me. I told him I wanted to write you a letter.
Don't be sad, Mum. I'll miss you.
Your Betsy
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