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

[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.

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

Jack leans himself over the table. Shifts his hand from hers and to her cheek. He understands. He understands completely, and having someone else that does would be overwhelming at the best of times, but it being Mina just makes that emotion all the more potent.

He's hardly touched his food, but then he's hardly hungry. His mind so focused on everything else.

"Do you want to get out of here?" He whispers.

[mrsharker.livejournal.com]

"Yes," she whispers back.

Right now, she'd follow him to the ends of the Earth...

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

"Good."

Jack swipes his wallet from his pocket, pulling out an assortment of notes before laying them down. His hand shifts back down to hers and he stands, gently tugging to motion her to do the same.

"Come on." His heart starts to race again, and he's not even sure why.

[mrsharker.livejournal.com]

Mina takes his hand and gathers her coat, hand-bag and cane. She follows his lead out of the restaurant and tugs her coat on outside in the cool evening air.

"Your heart's pounding like a rabbit's," she remarks.

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

Jack gives her a sidelong glance and laughs a little. "That's cheating, you know. You're not supposed to know that."

He guides her back out and along the way they walked earlier, not moving too quickly, back to a stroll.

"You know I half think I'll wake up soon and this will have all been a dream."

[mrsharker.livejournal.com]

"If it's a dream, it'll be the best one I've had in decades," Mina remarks.

A slightly smug smile pulls at her scarlet lips from his 'cheating' remark: frankly, she considers that sort of thing to be one of the few perks to her condition.

"I'm real: I promise."

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

"Yeah? Well I might just have to ask you to pinch me to prove that."

If she's reading a little insinuation in those words, it's entirely intended.

They walk past the water tower again and Jack glances up towards it. There'll be nobody down below now, or there shouldn't be, so he feels somewhat more relaxed at that notion.

He pauses as he walks, just to confirm. "Back to yours then?"

[mrsharker.livejournal.com]

Oh, Mina may be blind, but she's by no means stupid. And she can remember only too well just how wicked a mouth her husband had on him when they were alone.

"Yes. Do you know the way from here?" It occurs to her that she really, really doesn't.

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

"I do," he smiles. "In fact I can see it from here."

He grips her hand again, looking at her with eyes full of love, and takes her the short distance to the boutique hotel, just around the corner.

He opens the door for her and ushers her inside, mindful to be careful of the step. "Here we are. I'll just wait while you get your key."

[mrsharker.livejournal.com]

She unlocks the door and heads into the room before him, briefly toying with the terrible old enter freely and of your own will puns -- but he was the first to have lived through that and it seems tasteless.

"Come in," Mina smiles, setting her cane down in the corner by the armchairs. She's mapped the room out in her head and feels confident enough making her way around without its aid -- back over to the wardrobe near the entrance to hang up her coat, for example.

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

Jack steps in, his hands in his pockets. He looks around the room, nice as it is. At the neatly made bed and at the dresser in the corner. He wonders, for a moment, just what he's doing, but that fades.

Gently, he shirks his coat off older his shoulders and hooks it on the back of the door before going over to her to assist her with her own. "Let me get that for you," he smiles, reaching his hands to her shoulders.

[mrsharker.livejournal.com]

"Thank you," Mina turns her back to him and slips out of the arms of the unbuttoned coat.

Coat off, she feels self-conscious. It's been lifetimes since she was his wife and she can't even see him now and everything they had ever shared is either dead and gone or in London. Everything but each other -- and they're such different people now...

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

The coat gets discarded over the back of a nearby chair and Jack's hands go to Mina's shoulders. He brushes her hair back, back away from her neck, exposing the soft skin there, his fingers just delicately brushing over it. He looks at her in the mirror in front of them, looking at her face as he stands behind her.

For Jack, feelings have become something so hard to admit, but being with her now, he's shot right back, years seeming to disappear. He whispers. "I've never stopped loving you, you know."