RP for mrsharker

[quitehomoerotic]

It's early evening and in the half light the Bay has a comfortable quiet. Jack sent the team off to have a little social time. They've all worked so hard lately and they could do with it. He went for a walk, somewhere with a high roof and a vantage point for him to look over the city.

He's back on his way home now, taking a slow stroll down Lloyd George Avenue and back towards Butetown and the Bay. Outside the Millennium centre are couples and people milling around, all preparing for an evening of entertainment. It makes Jack smile as he seems them all, all safe in this city he loves so much.

On his way across the Plass he takes a slight de-tour to one of the poster boards, to take a look at just what these people are waiting to see. The sight before him though is not one he expects, and one he's far from prepared for.

The face is familiar, oh so familiar, and his breath gets caught in his chest, taking him a moment or two to realise he isn't breathing at all.

"It can't be," he whispers, but there's nobody there to listen.

Jack's eyes are swimming and he's glued to the spot. This can't be right, he's sure this can't be right. Just an odd co-incidence. Someone who happens to look similar. It has to be. It can't be her.

But it doesn't hurt to make sure. So instead of back to the Hub, Jack heads into the Millennium center and with the aid of the word 'Torchwood', he goes backstage.

Comments

[mrsharker.livejournal.com]

She sips her wine, "And he's been so many different men over the years, for all the sense that makes. He usually goes by John Smith in polite company, but he prefers to be called Doctor."

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

If Mina could see Jack's face she'd see him pale and watch his expression fall from his face. He feels winded, like the moments after he wakes from death. He tries to answer, but his throat is dry, raw.

"What does he look like?" He finds himself asking after a pause. Which regeneration, he wants to know. He needs to know.

[mrsharker.livejournal.com]

She can hear that all is not well at her words, that he's turned inside out. Is it possible that he knows her old friend?

"He's worn so many different faces in the time I've known him."

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

Jack feels practically sick. He's not sure how to cope with this new information.

He finds himself pushing his chair back and standing. He turns, covers his face with a hand, trying to calm himself.

The Doctor is the undercurrent of Jack's life. The man that changed him, that shaped what he is and who he became. The man that took him and turned his world inside out, and that he spent a hundred years looking for.

He doesn't know what to say.

[mrsharker.livejournal.com]

She hears him rise and almost panics. "Jack?" she asks, "what's wrong?"

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

He spins back to her, his voice not quite raised, but still full of emotion. "The man I told you about? The one I travelled with. The one that left me stranded? The Doctor. The man I waited over a hundred years to find. The Doctor. The man I changed my life for. Mina, it's the Doctor."

[mrsharker.livejournal.com]

Oh.

Oh, she thinks, oh, god.

No wonder he'd reacted so poorly. No wonder his voice was so strained. To have been searching for so many years, only to find out that the wife he'd kept his secrets from had been maintaining a long-term friendship with the man he sought.

She catches his hands and draws him to sit back down at the table; she didn't need her sight to know that people would be staring. "Jack," she says softly, "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

Jack sits back down with a flop, allowing her to guide him. He still can't believe it, can't process it. "And he must have known, he had to know..." Suddenly his attention is on her again. "Which regeneration. Back then, when I was with you, back when I was there. What did he look like then, which face did he wear, which regeneration?"

[mrsharker.livejournal.com]

"The him that I first knew him as was not the him that he first knew me as. When we were married, even before then, when I first knew him, he was tall and scruffy." Mina's half-smile is equal parts concern for her husband and affection for their mutual friend.

"He said he'd known me for a very long time, and ultimately when I met him when he was tall and grey-haired in the 1970's, I knew him but he didn't know me."

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

That's the bit that matters to him, how he looked when he was around. Tall and scruffy. Jack feels heat in his throat. "Did he wear a suit? A brown or blue suit and a big coat? When I was around, is that what he was like then?"

If he's right, and he thinks he is. Then this adds a whole new dimension to everything.

[mrsharker.livejournal.com]

"Yes," Mina nods. "A thin sort of a suit with stripes and messy hair and freckles." She wishes she could see him, the better to figure out what was going on in his head.

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

Jack's hand falls down against the table as he shakes his head. "I'll kill him," he suggests. "He had to know I was there. He had to." He knows too that the Doctor in that guise used to avoid him, back before they met again. It must have been then, he considers. Before the Master, before the year that never was. "Next time I see him I'll kill him!" Of course, he won't, but it makes him feel better to say it. "I'll get Martha to call him," he says, half to himself.

He shakes his head. Can't believe any of this. He half wonders if tonight is perhaps just some alien induced hallucination.

"None of this makes any sense."

[mrsharker.livejournal.com]

She's fallen silent, letting him wrestle with his memories, with the complicated emotions that had nothing to do with her. Mina sips her wine and chooses not to intrude into his processing: he'd always needed his own space from time to time, and she'd always trusted that he would come and find her when he was ready to join her and their life all over again.

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

Jack sighs to himself, trying to piece it all together in his mind. It doesn't fit together, seems so impossible. It'll take a long time to sink in.

He realises, after a while, that he's stayed silent for far too long. This was supposed to be a reunion, not this. He reaches his hand back out and covers hers again. "I'm sorry," he sighs. "This is just... unexpected. The Doctor... he- he means a lot to me."

"Why did you never mention him?"

[mrsharker.livejournal.com]

She's surprised when he touches her hand out of nowhere, almost jerks it away -- she's been alone too long. After a beat to pull herself out of her own thoughts, she turns her hand palm-up and clasps his.

"Evidently." Her half-smile is deeply rueful -- this was going to be just another if-only between then, she thinks. "I suppose simply because it was not precisely appropriate for women to have male friends without a chaperone, for one."

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

"The Doctor's no normal friend." Jack laughs slightly and shakes his head.

"Looks like we have more in common than I realised. Mina you never fail to blow me away."

He moves to speak again, but just then the waiter arrives with their food, setting out the bowls in front of them. He gives Jack a cautious look to check that everything is okay.

When he's gone, Jack looks back to Mina. "When we're done here, what would you like to do?"

[mrsharker.livejournal.com]

Her first thought isn't a human reaction: it's a vivid flash of taking a bite out of him and seeing if he's right and she can't really hurt him. Mina takes a sip of wine and shakes it off, all too used to such urges but still uncomfortable with them.

"It's your city, Jack. What is there to do?" she asks, taking a forkful of pasta. The food smells incredible: fish of some sort, with cream and garlic and basil.

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

Thought he might not be able to read quite what she's thinking, he can still see she's thinking something. Something that she doesn't voice. He doesn't question what.

Truth is if he knew she was thinking that, he'd likely suggest she tries it. Always impulsive, Jack Harkness.

"Well, at night there's always the groups of women being chased by the seagulls for their chips, but that's not so fun." He laughs, smiles. "We could go somewhere and talk. I'd take you to my base but... it's a bit hazardous, and some of my team might still be around."

[mrsharker.livejournal.com]

So, he remains a man of secrets. Mina is more curious about said base than offended he wants to avoid introducing her to his team. She half-smiles and sips her wine and then says what she knows he wants her to say:

"Well, there's always my hotel room."

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

Jack nods, brief.

"We could, if you want to." He takes a drink from his own glass now. "That's entirely up to you."

[mrsharker.livejournal.com]

"Well, given that I don't really sleep as much as a normal person, I'm reluctant to say 'goodnight' immediately following dinner."

And she was still wrestling with the urge to allow her savage side a little rein for the sheer joy of seeing him again. It was a huge risk, but the longer she was around him, the more tempting it seemed. Maybe just the once...

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

"I don't either," he smiles, finding some comfort in the familiarity there. "I mean I sleep, but not as much as I should. When I sleep I dream, and that's no better than being awake." He stops. The last thing he need is to talk about his dreams. Nobody needs to hear about those.

He glances over towards her and smiles, reaching his hand out for hers again. Should she voice her urges, Jack would be only too eager to tell her to go ahead.

[mrsharker.livejournal.com]

"Me, too." Mina clasps his hand.

She sighs and hesitates, a long-kept secret weighing heavy upon her chest. "We discovered, ooh, about forty years ago now... that a stake through the heart doesn't actually kill a vampire."

With Dracula being so strong, and that having been their method of dispatch... She knows Jona-- Jack will fill in the gaps. Will understand a large part of why she has nightmares...

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

It seems to take a moment for her words to settle over him. To dawn on him, but they do. His eyes widen a little, and his grip on her hand tightens. "Oh Mina..."

The guilt for not being there just rises. He should have. He should have been her protector. "I should have been looking after you." He voices. "I should have never left."

[mrsharker.livejournal.com]

"You did what you felt you had to, Jon-- Jack. I don't hold it against you." She squeezes his hand back.

"Once.... once, I might have. I might have hated you for it, but I suppose I've lived long enough that I understand having to make terrible choices sometimes." Her sightless dark eyes are full of a genuine compassion.