**Trigger warning: death, abuse.**

Earlier tonight Jack and I started talking. I told Jack it was time that I finally spoke to him about some things that had been on my mind for weeks now.

Jack and I talked about how one day he'll have to become the host. Johann is replacing him, but Johann is a facade personality whom Jack intentionally created a long time ago. Jack is the one whom all things process through before reaching the rest of the system. Even when Johann is in possession, Jack is always playing 'backseat driver' (which he half-admitted to). But Jack is afraid to be host - he doesn't want the world to see him.
(Jack) 'I can't become the host. My personality would shift into this...anti-social...jerk. That's not Johann.'
(Me) 'Well, Johann's personality is happy-perky, apologize every five seconds, be optimistic, ask what you can do for others ALL the time...'
(Johann) 'I genuinely like to help people!'
(Me) 'Yes, but it comes across as fake, honey...it's waaaaay too cheery, and it just...sounds phony.'
(Jack) 'Oh, I forgot you Americans just corrupted the pleasantries of conversation...'
(Me) 'ExCUSE me?? YOU'RE American too! I don't care if your father was German and your mother was Venezuelan! YOU were born here, YOU are American.'
(Jack) 'Don't remind me...'
(Me) 'You think you're German, don't you?'
(Jack) 'I'm half German.'
(Me) 'You think you're German. You make it perfectly clear that you have pride in the fact that you're German.'
(Jack) '...yeah?'
(Me) 'It's because your father was German.'

I asked him why next to seven and a half different alters...why was he the one most like their father. The only one really like him. Jack was "born" in 1993 along with Chibi after Luke's 'death', as opposed to what I had originally assumed - that he was "born" in 1997 after their father's death. Chibi was born to replace Luke as the body's host, HIM, as Jack was then known, was created to protect him.

Jack, both in his mental physical appearance and his personality are much like he describes his father. And heck, Johann even carries a photo of his father in his wallet (he claims it's been sixteen years, and he'll forget what he looks like if he doesn't), and will at times pull it out to me and go, 'See? I have my father's face. I have his nose, I have his eyes...' (He honestly does. The physical body's eyes are normally a gray-blue, but the right eye has a brown spot in the right corner of it where the eye should be blue-gray instead. Apparently it was inherited from his father - every alter in their head save for Dante has it. (Instead Dante's right eye is the human-colored one and the other is demonic red, which was caused by his viewing of the memory of their father's death))

Jack responded, 'Not enough time with him.'
I looked at him, puzzled.
'How long was I with him?' He asked me.
'...1993 to 1997.'
'Four years...not enough time.'
'And Chibi was out for the majority of it.'
'Yes, Chibi got to know him...I didn't. But I don't begrudge him. I just wish I had known him longer.'
'So you took to acting like him...'
'I copied his mannerisms...' (Including his voice, as Chibi has claimed their father had a pretty low voice. Jack's voice is the lowest their vocal chords can manage, and the others, even Johnny, aren't capable of imitating him.)

Jack and I continued to talk. I told Jack I thought he was a half-introject. Part of him was, for the other personalities, precisely what they remembered of their father - the protector, the older figure who looked out for them, but still had some sense of chauvinism. But at the same time, while fathering the other personalities, Jack maintains his own name and separate thought process and personality.

Jack went on to tell me that he missed his father, but realized he was long-dead. And all Jack wants to do now is to finish growing up and start a family of his own so he can be just as good a father as his was.
'Did you think your father was a good father?'
'He was a damn good father...'
'Well then...you will be too, Jack. Because you're just like him.'
'...you really are going to be a psychologist one day, Shawna.'

Shortly after our conversation, Jack claimed he felt emotionally overwhelmed by the revelations about himself, considering Jack is the least social and most secretive of the alters. He claims he likes to be unpredictable and he doesn't want anyone to know how his mind operates. He is the only alter thus far that hadn't allowed me to talk to him about why he thinks or feels the way he does about situations. Realizing that Jack was probably still recovering from the incident with his mother days prior, I told him I would back off.

Jack told me he wanted to calm down and watch a movie, and as much as I dislike TV and movies, for his sake feeling as though I owed it to him, I agreed. Jack wanted to watch the movie Suckerpunch because apparently it had gotten good reviews.

...needless to say we only got through the movie's introduction before I was crying in a heap in Johann's arms.

(MAJOR TRIGGER WARNING - abuse and death (movie))
Now, for those of you who haven't seen Suckerpunch (and after what I saw, I don't recommend it) the movie begins with a little blond haired girl. She's probably in her early to mid-teens, but judging by actors you can't always tell. She gets up in the middle of the night to find the body of her now deceased mother covered by a sheet on a bed. Her little sister (who is probably at least 7-9 years old) is also watching as the sheet is pulled back to reveal their mother's body. She tries to comfort her little sister, while they father stands by.
Flash ahead as their father is in his study one night. He opens their mother's 'last will and testament' to find that everything she owned was left to her two daughters, and none to him. Furious, the father goes after the older daughter who happened to been out of bed to see him open the will, and she runs away from him into her room. Once inside, he locks her in there before proceeding to go after the younger daughter's room. The older daughter witnesses this through the keyhole, and realizing her father has a gun in his hand, climbs out her bedroom window using the drainpipe, and runs back into the house with a gun in her hand as well. Her father is already in the room and her sister is hiding against the back wall of her closet (I think?) with the door open. The older sister fires the gun at her father which nicks his ear and flies supposedly into the wall behind her sister. As the father slumps forward in pain, the older sister lowers the gun and runs over to her sister, pulling her into her lap...only to discover blood. Her sister is dead. (Jack had to explain to me that the bullet had ricocheted and hit her sister.)
(MAJOR TRIGGER END, normal triggers again)

I couldn't understand why this was bothering me so much, to the point that I practically had a panic attack, and in order to calm myself down I had to run outside and be alone for a bit. Eventually Johann convinced me to come back inside. The two of us went to cuddle, but I was still freaked out and Johann grabbed me by the shoulders and insisted, 'You have to calm down. It was a MOVIE. The actors are fine, nothing really happened to them.'
(Me) 'It isn't the actors I'm worried about...'
(Johann) 'Then what is?? You NEED to calm down. It's JUST a movie...'
(Me) 'I KNOW it's just a movie...'
(Johann) 'Then you need to calm down. Just keep telling yourself 'it's just a movie...'
(Me) 'IT'S NOT THE MOVIE I'M WORRIED ABOUT.'
(Johann) 'THEN WHAT IS?'
(Me) 'YOUR SCREAMING AT ME AND INSISTING THAT IT'S JUST A MOVIE ISN'T HELPING.'
(Johann) 'THEN WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO DO?'
(Awkward silence)
(Me) '...Jack. I want to talk to Jack. Why the h*ll did you switch??'
(Jack) '...because, Johann jumps in whenever an emergency situation happens. Are you okay?'
(Me) '...Johann handles whatever you can't.'
(Jack) '...yeah.'
(Awkward silence)
(Me) '...I think...I think I get it, Jack...I think...'
(Jack) 'What? What is it?'
(Me) '...tell me something. What does a child's mind do when it sees death?'
(Jack) '(looks upward thoughtfully) Well, the first thing is to examine what damage was done. Access the situation. Tell yourself there's nothing that could have been done differently. But in reality understand that what you've seen is just a movie. That's how I deal with it.'
(Me) 'I'm NOT talking about the movie! Will you two stop that???'
(Jack) 'Then what ARE you talking about?'
(Me) '(stares at him sincerely for a moment)...I'm talking about YOU, Jack. And now...I'm asking you...what did your mind do when you were a child. That's all I could grasp from that movie. A child witnessing death...and I can't...fathom how a child could witness death...and survive to be sane. What did your mind do, Jack?'
(Jack) '...don't...ask me that...'
(Me) 'I know, I know...you don't...want to talk about it. But I think...that's it. That's why...I can't watch it. Because I can't fathom how a child can witness death and survive...'
(Jack) '...my mind split.'
(Me) '...your mind split before then when Luke "died". You and Chibi were there. What happened when your father died, Jack...
(Silence)
(Jack) '...my heart stopped...my brain stopped...time just...stopped. Everything just...stopped. I couldn't do anything. Everything was just on autopilot - running back and forth from the payphone to our room...but I already knew it was useless. But it felt like I was just...in a bad dream. That I would wake up and everything would be okay again. And when it wasn't...'

At this point I had to pull him tightly into my arms because he was shivering and whimpering like the age at which it had happened. He clung to me and insisted I could never leave him, that I had to promise I wasn't going to leave him, that I would never let him go. Of course I told him that I had long ago promised him (the moment Johnny put that silver promise ring on my finger) that I would be with him until the day we die, I intend to keep that promise.

Due to Jack's emotional breakdown the system temporarily went into a chaotic frenzy, none of the others knowing what to do or say. Jack admitted, 'That's it...that's the secret to my power...my emotions. I feel things...you claim that I don't. I just can't...'

Johann took over shortly after claiming it would be best if both of us went to sleep, which we ended up doing.