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]

"What are you sorry for?" she murmurs, moving closer as he draws her in. It occurs to her that if he can't die, she can't be the only wife he's ever left behind.

"Tell me one thing: was it ever real to you? Our marriage..."

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

"For everything," he whispers, quiet and sad. "For leaving you. For ever lying to you. For not being there when I should."

The words spear Jack through the heart, and he reaches out for her hand, squeezing it tight. "Always. It was always real. Every moment of it."

[mrsharker.livejournal.com]

She can almost smell his distress at her words -- one of those eerie vampiric senses that has come in handy over the years. It makes her next to impossible to lie to.

"I suppose I finally understand how you survived breaking out of his castle and fleeing his brides," she murmured, squeezing his hand right back.

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

"I wanted to live a normal life," Jack sighs, looking down at their hands together. "Not that our life was ever really normal. I thought maybe I could do it. Maybe it would be okay. But I realised if I stayed any longer you'd start to notice. My youthful good looks? Not just good ageing. I mean, not like a face cream can do that, right?" He tries to make light of things, act like it wasn't one the the hardest decisions he ever made.

"I should have explained it to you then."

[mrsharker.livejournal.com]

"Jonathan, shush." She presses her bare fingers to his lips. "I trust that you had your reasons. I had my own for asking Doctor van Helsing not to share the full extent of my condition with you."

It's so very ironic: if they had both been honest, perhaps their lives would have been so very different. So much happier...

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

He quietens himself, dutifully, at her request.

"I can't believe it's taken this long to find out. That I've never seen you before. I suppose I stayed away. The house, I never could go there. I avoided it. Too hard to remember. To see you grow old. Or well, as I thought."

[mrsharker.livejournal.com]

He's going to ask about Quincey any moment -- she can just taste it and the bile is rising at the back of her throat. Mina draws his head down and presses her lips to his forehead. "Perhaps we weren't ready to know yet..." (It's been lifetimes since she's been that philosophical: she blames his presence.)

"I wish I could see you," she murmurs, settling in to rest her forehead against his own. "My Jonathan."

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

It's a question he's been putting off. Part of him wants to know so much it hurts, but another part, that pain is too much to unleash. So he avoids it, just a little bit longer. "Perhaps not."

He sighs slowly, releasing tension in his shoulders. "I wish you could too." He turns his head a little and lifts a hand to touch her cheek. "You look so beautiful, Mina. You always did. You know I could never believe you were mine."

[mrsharker.livejournal.com]

She leans into his touch and smiles a little bashfully: she was never the great beauty nor the coquette -- that was Lucy. Mina was the sensible, practical dependable sort of young woman... who had fallen head over heels for the handsome young solicitor with the unbelievably blue eyes and warm smile.

"You flatter me, Jonathan, my love."

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

"I only say what I see, and you're beautiful to me. You always were." He's honest about that. She was never anything but beautiful to him.

He can't leave it any longer though. Try as he might, and the question is there, and must be said. "Mina..." he starts, hard to get the words out. "Our Son.. what happened to him?"

[mrsharker.livejournal.com]

Mina gets up from the sofa. It had to be asked -- he adored Quincey, and Quincey had adored his father -- and she knew it was coming. Distantly, it half-occurred to her to lie, but that, after all the other secrets were finally out... would be unforgivable.

"Josef enlisted to fight in the Great War," she told him quietly, keeping her back to him. Dear, brave Josef -- Abraham's grandson and Quincey's dearest friend. "He died at Ypres, Jonathan... and when word came, Quincey enlisted."

She swallows hard and bites her lip: even as long as it's been, the memories hurt. The loss of Jonathan, Josef and then gentle Quincey's decision to enlist. "He fought at Amiens and was terribly, terribly injured. They brought him home to England to a hospital. Septasemia set in.... they said it was only a matter of time before it killed him."

In some ways, it's a blessing that she can't see him. Can't see the way he's going to look at her when she chokes out her next words: "I couldn't let that happen."

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

Each word is like another stab to the heart. One quick after the other. He expected it really. Expected the war would take him, just as it took so many boys back then. Boys who had hardly any time at all to live their lives.

Maybe he was there, maybe he was close and knew nothing about it. The wave of guilt rushes over him like a tsunami. Too much to cope with, to imagine.

He looks up at her, his cheeks lines with tears, but then she speaks again. And his heart sinks.

He stands, rushes over to her and grabs her by the shoulders. "What did you do? Mina, what did you do?"

[mrsharker.livejournal.com]

"At the time... I thought I could save him. That it would be fine. That he'd learn to cope... just like I did." Her voice is a hoarse whisper and she almost almost wishes she could see him now, to read his face. "But he was so bitter and angry after the war -- all that death..."

She's pleading, pleading with him to understand that she'd betrayed everything they'd ever fought against -- but that she'd done it out of love.

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

Jack shakes his head. He wouldn't wish it on anyone. A life less than human, less than normal. He pushes his hands from her shoulders and takes a couple of steps away, turning away from her. He doesn't want to see her, not for a moment. It's too much.

His hand reaches up and rubs over his face. He rubs away tears and just holds his head in his hands. Too much to take.

"And now?" He asks finally. "Where is he now?"

[mrsharker.livejournal.com]

"I don't know," Mina admits, wrapping her arms tightly about herself. "I don't know."

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

"You don't know?" Jack's voice raises, a higher pitch, more irate. "And you just what? You just let him go? And what is he now? Who is he now? Do you know any of that, Mina?" It's hypocritical of him to ask and to criticise her for leaving him when he did just that to the both of them, but he can't help it. A family he thought dead, now appearing, and appearing like this.

[mrsharker.livejournal.com]

"He's a vampire, Jonathan," she snaps. "He's a monster, probably feeding on the blood of the living and no, I don't know where he is now. I last saw him... eight years ago? He almost killed a friend of mine and I told him to just go -- to get out of London and never, ever return."

It's weak and selfish and wrong, but he was always her darling, beautiful son and she couldn't bear the thought of smiting him. (Rupert had been so furious with her..)

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

Jack shifts over to the chair again and slumps down, his body limp and loose. He can't compute this, can't process any of it.

He wipes his hand over his face again and shakes his head. "This is too much," he says weakly, after a pause that feels like an eternity. "I don't know what to say."

It's a rare occasion for Jack to be speechless, but now is one of them. He's struck to his very core, his world torn apart.

He looks up at her, his vision blurred from the tears. "All these years and I never knew." He shakes his head. "But I'm no better than you. Look at me. I lied to you from the moment I met you."

[mrsharker.livejournal.com]

If she could look at him, she would -- but Mina can hear his tears. She crosses back to his side, cradling his face in her hands: a lifetime of habit from a lifetime or two ago. "Well, to be uncharacteristically optimistic for a moment: we have now. We now know that we're both still alive. And it's so good to find that out."

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

Despite it all, from the moment he feels her touch, he's once again undone. It brings back so many memories. So many thoughts from so long ago. Once buried but now unearthed.

"We do," he sighs, and slowly smiles. "And it is. It really is." He reaches up too, mirroring her actions, his thumb brushing just beneath her eyes. Oh how he wishes she could see him like he can see her.

Slowly, he breathes out. "Do you really have to go back to London after tomorrow?"

[mrsharker.livejournal.com]

Being around him again, something long-frozen in Mina is starting to thaw -- and that's a terrifying concept, it really is. It's been a very long time since she has changed her plans for anything less than an impending apocalypse... and there's the fact that London is ill-defended in her absence...

"There's no active van Helsing right now," she explains. "Jay died and his son is only fourteen. I know we used to start training them young, but his godfather wants Luke to have a little bit of a normal life at first. It's kind, really."

She closes her unseeing eyes to just savor his touch. In all the years she has believed herself a widow, there's never been anyone else. Not really. A flirtation here and there, and she and Rupert are, on occasion, very close... but there's never been anyone to take Jonathan's place. Her hands move from his face to rest on his chest -- she can feel his heartbeat and it makes her smile.

"I suppose I can make a phone call, see if I can stay a few more days. I just worry about leaving London unguarded."

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

"London can wait." Jack whispers to her, completely selfishly of course. "And so can Cardiff." It's been so long for him, so long for both of them, that Jack doesn't care. Jack doesn't care about Weevils and the rift. He deals with that enough as it is. His team dealt without him for months while he was gone. The four of them can cope without him for a couple of days.

"I want to spend time with you," he admits. "As much as I can. We can't make up for what we've lost. But we can try."

[mrsharker.livejournal.com]

Jonathan had always been better than she was at making sure they both took time for themselves. She'd been a good wife, but he had taken care of her, too, and made sure she didn't run herself ragged. It's been... a long time since she slowed down.

"I've missed you so much," Mina breathes, and she touches his hands on her face with her own small hands, one still gloved, the other bare.

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

"I've missed you too," Jack whispers, "so much." His thumb brushes delicately over her lips. He's desperate to kiss her, to hold her in his arms until the world around them just melts away.

"Where are you staying tonight?"

[mrsharker.livejournal.com]

She places a delicate kiss to the pad of his thumb, parting her lips just a little to allow him his explorations. (He was always a very sensual man, her husband...)

"Jolyons," she tells him. "Just off Bute Crescent. It's a tiny little quiet sort of place. Quite lovely, and they've been very helpful in accommodating my, ah, special requirements."

There's a reception going on that she's supposed to attend. In the back of her mind, Mina's expecting Carolyn to trot into the dressing room to find out what the hell is taking her so long.