kali

wow. I really really loved this chunk a whole lot. All the dichotomous diploid themes I love - memory/forgetting and death/immortality and betraying oneself/sharing oneself and explaining/concealing and change/constancy and corporeality/transcendence - all done so beautifully. Excellent writing and pace. I was especially fond of the cuts between Jack torturing himself and the team during Ianto's absence WOL and the weirdness/rightness of Ianto telling his story and then Jack's story as he knows it to FoB. I had suffered some initial dubiousity regarding Maeve/Ravi/Andy (who is PC Andy, apparently, which is a nice touch...) but they worked beautifully and you did a terrific job of delineating them enought that they didn't feel like a thin patch in the world, but not so much that too much weight was placed on them. And Jack being dragged home for dinner with Gwen and Rhys and eating Gwen's tough chops - awesome. But most of all really Ianto - I caught onto what was about to happen with him and FoB just a little while before his own realization, and it was so heartwrenching that he wasn't remembered (but he was! sortakinda in spirit...), and reading his heart being wrenched and then repaired - first by Boe, and then by TW-era Jack... ok, am babbling. The role of the Doctor played here, as deus ex machina to Ianto's physical journey to FoB and to the emotional journey Jack & Ianto have separately (somehow, even when Jack is the god, it's the Doctor who pulls the strings...), was also very interesting - he comes through very brittle and cryptic with a superficial grin, removed from Ianto's emotions but understanding them, just not in a *useful* way. I love the Doctor when he's all force-of-nature-ish.

This is all to say: it was worth waiting for and thank you. (and Racheline - we definitely should meet up some day in our work neighborhood. hopefully on a more chill day than xmas eve proved to be...)