Fanfic: "And Seven for a Secret"

[aeshna_uk]

Yay! The 2009 TARDIS Big Bang site is now live, with many hefty Who-verse fics and lots of artwork!

For anyone who has been wondering what the heck happened to my usual semi-regular fic posting schedule over the past few months... er, this did. What do you know – apparently I can write long! Novel-length long, as it turns out. There will now follow a lot of catching up with various bits and pieces that have been neglected over the past three months or so....

Title: And Seven for a Secret
Author: Aeshna
Fandom: Torchwood
Rating: R for violence and language, gen
Word count: 58,327
Characters: Jack Harkness, OCs
Summary: If you are reading this then I am dead, and with my death dies a promise I made a long, long time ago... When Ben Haldane is left a cryptic note in his grandfather's will, it leads him to a story far stranger than he could ever have imagined.
Disclaimer: Not mine, no matter how many DVDs and toys I buy! Everything here belongs to RTD and to Auntie Beeb, who already has my licence fee.
Archive: Sure, whoever wants it – just let me know where it ends up!
Notes: This was written for the 2009 tardis_bigbang challenge – the link below goes to their website – and is easily the single longest thing that I've ever produced. The basic idea was one that had been floating around in my brain for a while, but it really took form as I researched the era I was playing with – I had been planning to invent a mad Nazi version of Torchwood, but then found that Himmler had rather beaten me to it! Well, if it was good enough for Indiana Jones.... ;)

Thanks as always to mimarie for sterling beta work, and also to kris4n6 and sffuzzywriter for read-throughs and much-needed encouragement along the way – any remaining weirdnesses (and there are probably a few in my mangling of the German language!) are all mine. Thanks also to neth_dugan and wihluta for the illustrations! Feedback of any variety is much appreciated but not compulsory – I'll post anyway! I've suffered for my art, now it's your turn....

~ And Seven for a Secret ~

Comments

[madder-rose.livejournal.com]

That was a damned brilliant read. I loved it. It's one of the best outside-looking in Torchwood stories, and one of the best TW stories I've read, and it also tickles my WW2 funny bone. Great fleshed out OC's, wonderful beginnning and the way it segued into the action.

[aeshna_uk]

Wow, thank you! :D I'm a sucker for the outside viewpoint with this sort of thing - sometimes it's nice to be able to take a step back from the guys who know what's going on and see the chaos that they leave in their wake. :) And I'd wanted to write a WW2 fic for ages....

Glad you enjoyed it! :D

[eumenidis.livejournal.com]

Just finished reading, & I am wrung out. Very intense; it's been a very long time since a fanfic has elicited that level of emotional involvement from me. I also appreciate the unflinching portrayal of the necessities of war. Ingenious explanation of the why as well as the how of mind-sucker's power as well, though on the three-eyed deer's side I suspect the arrangement originally mostly benefited the bucks that otherwise wouldn't have had much chance with the does.

Basically, "Seven" is going onto my list of all-time favorite fics. But that said, I do have one quibble, & I'm afraid it's a big one: the bit about the mind-sucker draining Jack's mind & leaving him in a literally eternal vegetative state. I would think that since he can come back from his brain tissue literally splattered around, he could come back from brain suckage with no problem.

[aeshna_uk]

Well, Jack does say that he doesn't actually know what would happen if the thing got hold of him and, given his general sense of uncertainty regarding how his immortality works, it seems a valid concern! He can, after all, form new memories that he doesn't forget when he 'dies', so there does seem to be some flexibility there. And it's one of those things that you don't really want to try out if you can possibly help it.... ;)

(plus, of course, the main concern wasn't so much Jack losing his knowledge as it was Gentner gaining it)

So glad you enjoyed it - it ate my brain for three months, never mind Jack's! I'd had the idea of someone being left a grandparent's wartime TW story in a will for a year or so, but it wasn't until I sat down and started writing that things started to really click into place, and having the tardis_bigbang deadline hanging over me helped to sharpen the mind wonderfully. As for the not-deer - I can never resist playing with the biology of these things!

[eumenidis.livejournal.com]

That's true--& he *certainly* wouldn't want to reset at a point of a permanent vegetative state.

(Actually, I rather wonder how--if--Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS would have coped with the memories of a man from an era as far from contemporary times as we are from the Bronze Age; not too well, I'd imagine, as she was into the the whole Nazi amalgam of pseudoscience & occultism.

The story ate your brain, huh? Well, gee, I wonder why--it was exhausting *reading* it, though in a good way. Play away with the biology, it only strengthens the story. I have to say I loved it that Gentner just plopped the thing on her head, no idea why the creature had such abilities, how they worked, or the consequences of trying to use them to her benefit, just lalala, away she goes...

Since Jack is wearing the name of a fallen WWII hero along with the coat, it seems a natural milieu. (Actually, I've an idea, if I can ever get it off the ground, where the real Jack Harkness's family shows up demanding explanations...) You handled the lead-in excellently, the reality of family dynamics, aftermath of a loved one's death, with at first tiny little glimpses into the extradinary, gradually getting deeper & deeper into the strange, till, blink, you're all the way in.

I could go on & write a whole review telling you how good "Seven" was, but I'll just say "Damn, girl, you're good!" & "More stories, please?"

[lyorn.livejournal.com]

Just read it and loved it.

I was a little sceptical about the lead-in, because I was looking around for the story to begin, but I completely loved the lead-out, so all in all it was worth it.

I liked the outsider's perspective (I always do), and the way you made a large cast of halfway similar people (you know, male, human, British) into easily distinguishable characters in very short time.

The war scenario gives a very good screen for larger-than-life stories to play out in, and those are the ones where I feel Jack is most at home.

Great storytelling, great plot, and an alien monster with all-too-scary possibilities.

I had been planning to invent a mad Nazi version of Torchwood, but then found that Himmler had rather beaten me to it

*g*. Some of the Nazis were so out there, you couldn't make it up. I really like that used in fiction, for all the bad reputation its likely to get me if it comes out.

BTW, if you ever want someone to unmangle your German, drop me a note ;-)

[aeshna_uk]

Thank you! :D Yes, I needed the lead-in in order to get to the pay-off at the end, and to be honest the framing device, with someone being left a hidden TW tale in their grandfather's will, was what came to me first. Glad it all worked out for you in the end! :)

Jack is a natural for war stories - one of the things I most like about the character is that he has a ruthless, dangerous edge that is rather fun to play with in the right storyline. And you're right - some of the Nazi stuff was so utterly weird that you just couldn't invent it! I did a lot of research for this story and some of the bits I found out seemed far more suited to a Torchwood (or Indiana Jones, who also borrowed rather heavily from the same source) script than to reality. There's a lot of potential for more Torchwood vs Ahnenerbe storylines, but I really need to get through some of my other bunnies first!

Someone has already given me some pointers on my mangled German (one day I'll post up a Director's Cut of this fic to my LJ) but thanks for the offer! I'll certainly bear you in mind if I get back to Jack's wartime exploits! :)

Thanks again - glad you enjoyed it! :D

[michaelchance.livejournal.com]

Am adding this to Torchwood Slash (http://www.chance.popullus.net/torchwoodslash/index.html), thanks :)