THE LIGHTHOUSE _ 1/?
Title: The Lighthouse (1/?)
Characters: Jack Harkness
Pairing: Eventual Janto
Rating: Open
Spoilers: None - completely AU
Disclaimer: Not mine; the original characters belong to the BBC
Summary: Jack Harkness, star of stage and song, goes to live in Wales after an accident and finds his path crossing that of a fascinating younger man.
Jack Harkness finished putting away the last of the groceries into the cupboards of his new kitchen and listened to the wind howling around outside. He was thankful now that he had decided to go to town and get supplies earlier rather than later because it looked as though the forecast of an extremely bad spring storm had been an accurate one. With the road to and from Porthseren still prone to becoming impassable when there was a high rainfall it might be another couple of days before he could get out again. There were a few disadvantages to coming to live in a dilapidated lighthouse in the middle of nowhere.
He set up the percolator for the coffee, figuring he deserved a pick-me-up. He’d been pleasantly surprised to find a small shop in town which, in addition to selling fresh bread and a wickedly decadent range of cakes, also carried a small but select range of fresh coffees. Jack had long since exhausted the supply he had brought down with him from London and he was too much of a coffee snob to enjoy instant, so he had been delighted to discover Sweet Stuff and had spent an enjoyable quarter of an hour chatting with the proprietor while she had ground him several different selections for him to try. Heulwen had assured him that she would be happy to make up a recipe to his specifications and he was looking forward to tasting the ones he had bought and coming up with something unique to himself.
“Score one for the locals,” Jack murmured as he went through into the living room.
He still remembered the consternation amongst his friends when he had decided to sell up his London home and move down here to south-west Wales. The way they had reacted a person could have been forgiven to thinking that Jack was going to live in Outer Mongolia instead of somewhere that was only a few hours drive away from London. Jack had liked that idea of distance, to be honest. He knew that everyone meant well but he had grown tired of the over-solicitous questions, the intrusive press attention and the barbed comments of less friendly acquaintances and colleagues.
Normally he would accept the attention as a consequence of being a well-known star, but he’d been in no mood for anything like that when he had been recovering from an accident that had claimed the life of his long-term lover and had nearly left him crippled for life. He’d refused to accept the statement that he would always walk with a limp and would never dance again. Physiotherapy had been a choice slice of hell but he had persisted, even when there had been nights when he had lain wakeful and tearful through the night, and gradually he had confounded the sceptics. He still couldn’t dance and he limped whenever he over-reached himself but he was convinced that it would only be a matter of time.
In the meantime he had grown increasingly irritated at being stalked by paparazzi who wanted a photo showing him in pain or tired so his critics could snipe about how his star was fading. In a strange way the enforced rest had made him stop and consider his career in a way he had never done before the accident had brought everything to a shattering halt. Before the accident he had been too busy to think about anything, too taken up with being Jack Harkness, international singer and star of Broadway and the West End. He’d also been the long-term lover of fashion designer Robert Newton whom he had met ten years ago during the opening night of the smash hit musical Love Go Gently for which Newton had done the costume design. They had hit it off from the very beginning and had become a permanent fixture of the party scene.
Jack sighed as he stood gazing out of the picture window into the storm-lashed darkness. He hadn’t been able to go back and live at the high-rise apartment that he and Rob had shared. Rob had been the one to design the look of the place and he had chosen most of the furnishings and paintings. Being there had made it impossible to grieve properly since Jack had always felt Rob’s presence and expected to see him every time he turned round. He’d put the apartment on the market and put all the furniture in storage while he had moved into a furnished flat close by the hospital where he was being treated.
It had felt so strange at first. He and Rob had been joined at the hip for ten years. Rob had never liked the concert tours but he had always travelled with Jack and enjoyed himself arranging the parties and press conferences. He’d always been the cannier of the two when it came to projecting an image. Even though he had been in the business since he had been twenty three, Jack was still a bit of an innocent when it came to the press, and if it hadn’t been for Rob he would probably have made some disastrous choices. As it was he had a respectable back catalogue of work and even the odd award to grace his shelves, not to mention more money than he had realised. It seemed that Rob had been investing his money and had managed to create an amount that made Jack’s eyes widen when the lawyer had told him.
In a way the operations and physiotherapy had been blessings in disguise since they had distracted Jack and he had initially missed the storm of controversy which had blown up around the accident. Certain sections of the press had decided to make some veiled accusations about just who had been driving that night and whether or not it had been Newton who had been responsible. Jack’s family and close friends had done their best to shield him from what was happening but he had found out eventually. The worst shock had been the news that Rob’s blood had tested positive for cocaine. Jack had known that there had been a time when Rob had been a user but he had promised Jack that he was clean and Jack had believed him. To have lost his lover and found out that he had been lying to him at the same time had been a double blow and Jack had become withdrawn, shunning the limelight he had always accepted as part of his world.
In the end it had all been too much. Jack knew that he was nowhere near strong enough to take on any kind of stage role and the record company was leery of releasing a CD with the artificially-generated scandal so fresh in the public’s mind. He could do the physio unsupervised now and he had wanted to be just get away. An evening spent idly surfing on the Net had thrown up a small article saying that the dilapidated but almost unique property that was the Swn-y-Gwynt Lighthouse was for sale. He had gazed in fascination at the grimy, ivy-choked building and had fallen a little bit in love. Two days later and he had been standing in front of it and had fallen harder and further. It had been an easy sell for the estate agent, who had seemed refreshingly ignorant as to who Jack was.
It had taken a week to finalise the sale and a month for the builders Jack hired to make the lighthouse structurally safe. Jack had moved down and stayed in a small holiday cottage he hired further up the coast while he had concentrated on making the place a home. It had been a strange task since Rob had made the decisions for so long that Jack had almost forgotten what his own personal tastes were. It had felt a little like a betrayal at first and Jack had started to decorate the way Rob had done their apartment, but then he had stopped, knowing that he was chasing a ghost. In the end he had painted everything white and concentrated on getting the kitchen and bathroom the way he wanted them. He kept a few pieces of furniture and sold the rest, wanting a clean break, and moved down while the press were distracted by another celebrity scandal. So far no-one had been interested enough to track him down.
He jumped as lightning tore open the sky and thunder boomed. The storm was working itself up to be one of the worse he had ever seen. Jack loved the wildness and immediacy of the elements but was relieved that he was on the inside looking out. With a smile he went over to the small control panel and switched on the lights in the upper gallery. On a night like tonight, it felt appropriate that Swn-y-Gwynt stood tall and bright.
OOO
Next chapter is here.