for ambitious_woman The Bastille

[quitehomoerotic]

Relaxed.

Relaxed was something Jack Harkness rarely felt. In fact the concept of relaxation seemed an alien one to him. But yet here he was, that was how he felt. The muscles in his body were looser than they'd felt in far too long, and pains that had held there through stress and worry had, at least for now, melted away to nothingness.

It was morning, and he opened his eyes to a world he'd come to find he liked. A place that while it was nowhere that he belonged, he'd been surprised to discover that there was a space for him. A welcoming space with a welcoming face. He wasn't sure if it was something he deserved but for once, for a time, he wasn't going to worry about that.

When he woke, beside him he saw Reinette sound asleep. It made him smile and he pressed a delicate and small kiss to the skin at her shoulder. He stayed there a moment, just smiling and watching, and he whispered to her, "I'll be right back."

And so he rose from the bed. His intent was to find food. He'd take a morning walk, just a short one in the pleasant summer morning that he could see filtering through beyond the window, and then he'd venture to the kitchens and procure themselves something.

His clothes were near, and he dressed in them, item by item and then his coat (as if he'd go anywhere without it), and out into the corridors and halls of Versailles he went.

He wasn't on his guard, of course, why should he be? Short of clockwork what need he worry about right now? And really, should he encounter clockwork, he'd merely turn it off. No, here he felt happy, he felt safe, and so that guard he had learnt to keep up, was down.

And so it was his downfall.

He found his way to the rear gardens, nodding politely to footmen on his way (people that usually he made no effort to even acknowledge). But they had noticed him. In fact they had noticed him long before he noticed them. They had been noticing him for quite some time. They had noticed him in gardens and they had noticed him behind closed doors. And Jack had no idea.

And he wasn't prepared.

Entirely unprepared for the troupe of guards that met him in the gardens. It was as though they had been waiting, as though they had sought him out (and they had, of course). And as strong as Jack could be, he was not prepared, and so he could do nothing when he was met with a blow to the head, and another blow that knocked him to the ground. Another and another until he felt metal shackles on his wrists held behind his back and a tear of fabric between his lips to quiet his shouts.

And he was taken away.

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[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

"Neat," she repeated precisely, understanding. "Yes."

Reinette watched Jack manage the odd belt and was able to mimic him easily enough, bringing it about her tightly. It was bracing, but not in an unwelcome way. She was a woman accustomed to corsets after all.

She did not hold on, of course. She was not the sort to so that Reinette was not completely prepared for the swift manner in which Jack navigated his way to the road. It was nothing like London. Not remotely.

It was like she was driving her curricle at home. Only this, of course, was Jack. But beneath the speed and the wind there was no denying that delicate dance on the edge on control.

Reinette recognized it, and pushing her hair back from her face she laughed.

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

It was all Jack could do not to entirely turn his attention over to Reinette beside him. She was utterly captivating, and he wondered if she had any idea just how much.

Her laugh warmed him, and warmed him more than he could possibly explain. More really than he could possibly even understand himself.

"Enjoying it?" he asked, calling over to her.

He'd slowed down a little (just a little), a steady pace along a pleasant road. Around them there were fields, the odd house and the odd truck coming the other way.

Reaching over, Jack pressed a button on the panel in front and the speakers echoed into life with gentle music from the radio. Just something else to fascinate her with.

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

Reinette had not faced such an onslaught on new information since she first walked into the Doctor's mind. And even then, that was guided by the pace of her own footsteps and the force of her own curiosity. Even London held the familiar.

"Jack --" It was all she managed in reply before thought and sound were swallowed up in mutual distraction.

The air very nearly stung her eyes but she could not bring herself to close them. Every so often another vehicle would press up fast until she was certain they would hit only to pass peacefully by.

And then there was music. Soft, but there. She pulled towards it only to be caught by the belt. But still her fingers moved over the speakers. Reinette could feel the music has it pushed through her skin, coming from a single small point.

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

He smiled to himself at Reinette's quiet wonder. It was special. Very special. Though he could hardly pinpoint why.

"You know the first time I came to this planet I was fascinated," he said to her. Perhaps for the first time letting on that he was, even if human, somewhat alien.

"To me it was all so old. Out of date technology and strange customs I didn't understand. I loved it though, all of it. Good job really considering how many years I've been forced to stay here, wouldn't you agree?"

The car turned a sharp corner and pulled along a side street where the field beside opened up on a slight hill and groups of people sat on the ground on blankets.

"Here we are," he said as the car pulled up with a little flair. "Lunch."

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

Reinette pushed her hair free from her face, countering the havoc caused by the wind so that she might better see Jack. She had always known he was not of her world, which was rather narrow despite the freedoms her role afforded. But now that truth was stretched even further. It also served as yet another reminder of how little she truly knew about him.

"What you much think of France," the words were lightly said with obvious humor. And there was truth in them. After all, she had seen inside the Doctor's mind. And now Jack's London and even this place.

She also wondered why she was seemingly always drawn to those that were so far apart from everything else. The Doctor, the imaginary friend of her childhood. Louis, the king of all of France. No matter what was predicted for her, there was still the fact that he was a king. It was not what one normally reached for.

Then, of course, Jack.

"Is that how you think of it? Forced?"

In light of recent events she might have censored the question. But that was not the way between them.

Reinette reached for the door, curiosity overtaking her and a need to see it for herself. After only one mismanaged attempt she was able to open it and step out of the car.

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

"Oh France," Jack said, looking over with a half smile. "Full of French."

He shot her a small wink before opening his door and stepping out. He reached in for the picnic basket and took hold of it. He pulled it back out and looked over the car at her, squinting slightly in the light.

"Well that's what it was. I was stuck. Stuck with nobody I knew and nowhere I knew and I couldn't get out. This thing burned out and I couldn't get away. That and he'd left me. So pretty much, yeah, forced is about right."

He stepped around the car then and offered his arm out for her to hook onto.

"I'm not bitter about it," he said. "It's just how things went. Doubt I'd be who I am now if they didn't."

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

"The slow path."

It was her only observation at Jack's words, brisk and brief but even some warmth there as she pressed her door closed. A satisfying click followed, and her fingers lingered there again briefly.

But like Jack, Reinette found she was not bitter. Or angry. For all the path was slow it had afforded her a great deal of opportunities and experiences she would not have known otherwise. And like Jack again, she would not be who she was now without them.

She walked around the car to join him.

"That is most opportune, then. As I do seem to have an affinity for you, as you are."

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

Jack smiled at Reinette and as she took his arm he reached his other hand to cover hers.

"Course you do," he said, with some flippancy. "You're a clever woman, you know a good thing when you see it."

He shot her a wink then and started walking with her over to the field. He nodded up ahead. "Pick a spot."

He smiled at her then, and it was all a little freer, slightly less forced and put upon. It was a degree of change though that Jack himself wasn't noticing.

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

"Only a good thing Jack? I think you discredit yourself." There was teasing there, of course. A careless warmth that was perhaps easier found out in the sun and the day. And it was a far cry from her unwillingness to allow that he was interesting. But it was the truth. And it he needed to hear it, she thought.

"Of course, I could be mistaken."

There was an ease about Jack that had not been there before. Reinette wondered if he was even aware of it. She suspected not. If he was she rather thought he would begin to try, again. To push. To push himself that much further and then, hopefully, past it.

Critically Reinette surveyed the scene. It was remarkable in its own way. In France there could never have been such a gathering. People were all together completely careless in the way they presented themselves. Children playing and sprawled on blankets and even to one side a woman exposing herself to the sun in rather large amounts.

Still she found a spot that seemed quieter than most but still afforded a view of the people about them.

"Here, I think."

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

Jack smirked, almost imperceptibly, and he glanced over at her, giving her a look that really required no words; knowing and a little laughter beneath the surface.

"As if I'd ever do such a thing," he said with a wink.

As they arrived at her chosen location Jack nodded. He nodded and placed down the basket, opening it and pulling free a chequered blanket. He lay it down on the grass and offered out his hand to assist her down.

"We've got sandwiches, bits and pieces. Help yourself," he said, being none too helpful with his descriptions.

He sat himself then and pulled from his pocket a pair of sunglasses, propping them up onto his face.

"All these people," he said, "and none of them have any idea. You know that never really grows old."

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

"Of course not," she answered, far too much innocence in her tone. "Never, Jack."

Reinette accepted Jack's hand and found it quite simple to settle onto the blanket with out her usual hoops and skirts. It also startled her to realize she had not once longed for them of late. Not in the way she did in London. It was a strange thought.

At Jack's direction she explored the basket briefly, filling a small place and setting it next to her on the blanket. For the moment she did not eat, her gaze instead returning to Jack. She had seen glasses like his once before. They made it difficult to see his eyes but she found she did not mind.

"If you are not from here, Jack, where are you from?"

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

When Jack heard the question, it was perhaps the first time that he realised exactly what he'd already told her. That fact alone surprised him somewhat. When had he given that information away? And furthermore how had he done so without it being something he remarked on himself?

Funny.

"Bit of everywhere," he answered almost dismissively. "Nowhere."

And while that in a sense held quite a lot of truth, it wasn't the truth.

He watched her a moment longer and nodded.

"Long time from now," he said, "and a long way too. Tiny little place. Golden beaches as far as the eye could see. The Boeshane Peninsula, it was called."

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

She collected it all, of course.

Reinette wondered if he even suspected.

Every word. Why that word might have been chosen over another. The tone in Jack's voice. They way they settled in lines about his mouth. What was said and what was not. And she held it all, piecing it together into something that accounted for the man before her."

"The Boeshane Peninsula," she repeated, tasted the way it sounded.

The place where the posters were from, she suspected. But those were mentioned in a moment of distress and she would not mention them now. It remained as it was before. Just another piece.

Reinette allowed herself a small portion of her sandwich.

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

"It was beautiful," Jack said with a nod. "A real community. Everyone knew each other, and there was no getting away with anything," he winked. "Because if you did something, rest assured it'd be around the city in five minutes."

He laughed, glancing off, caught in nostalgia.

"Long time ago," he said, shaking his head.

"Where was home for you, Reinette?" he asked. "Back before Versailles."

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

To Reinette's ears, it all sounded rather like court. Word never spread faster than there. But there was a warmth in Jack's answer that suggested it was somehow not the same at all.

She wondered what that much be like.

"Paris," she answered after a moment. "It has never been anything but Paris. It is all I knew, all I have ever known."

Even after her father left they remained there, despite the scandal that it caused. Her mother refused to leave.

"I was sent to attend school, briefly. At a convent some distance away. But I was not allowed to remain there long."

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

"Oh I spent some time at a convent once," Jack said with a glint in his eye. "Met a lovely woman. Lovely man too. Who knew priests could be so adventurous!"

He laughed, just gently. As always never clear if his teasing were merely that, or held a little more truth.

"Guess you've got a lot of time to make up for then, eh?" he said. "Sightseeing."

Still diverting from himself to some degree, perhaps. But better than he was before. Mere conversation as opposed to hiding.

"There's so much out there to see, Reinette. And you should see it all."

Some children were playing a short distance away, kicking a ball back and forth. One of them gave a somewhat more powered kick, and the ball came careering in their direction. Jack leaned forward in just enough time for it to narrowly avoid hitting Reinette in the back.

One of the boys ran over and looked at them, "Can we have our ball back please?" he asked.

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

"Of course Jack," Reinette countered, willing to share in his humor. "So many narrow hallways and dark corners in which to get lost in. Of course there was adventure."

And school. And children her own age. The one time in her life Reinette had truly been allowed her youth. She could still remember the letter she penned, after her first true bout with illness, going so far as to bed her mother to allow her to remain.

Some things could not be regained. But she knew Jack understood that as well.

"I would see it all, Jack," she allowed, still conscious of saying his name as much as possible. "If I could."

The conversation was interrupted by children and play and still she could herself laughing quietly despite the inelegance of it all. She reached for the ball and returned it to the child's hands.

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

"It wasn't the hallways I was getting lost in," he said with a knowing smile and a wink off in her direction. He obviously needed no explanation of exactly what he was.

His smile faded though at her next words, and his eyes glanced down and aside. It was on the tip of his tongue, the very tip, to say that she could. Two words that sounded so innocuous of course, but meant so very much. It was innocent, of course, how he'd looked into it. And he had looked into it.

Just idle curiosity, of course.

Of course.

"How's yours?" he asked, gesturing off towards the kids. "She doing well?"

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

At that she laughed. Full and unexpected and yet nothing truly remarkable in that it was just laughter. It should be the mundane. Of course it was not.

"No Jack, I imagine that is true."

Reinette set her plate aside then, following the direction of Jack's gaze towards the children. Boys and girls both played together, and she wondered again at how normal it must be to everyone else around them. It was so far from what she knew.

"Alexandrine?"

Her thoughts came back, organizing themselves at the sound of Jack's voice.

"Well enough. She certainly takes pleasure in speaking her mind, of late." And, of course, using that voice to inquire after Jack's absence. "It will be time to arrange for her marriage soon."

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

Jack was in the middle of taking a drink from a bottle of water when Reinette' last sentence settled in. He coughed, spluttering his water out.

"Oh you French," he said, recovering himself. "Married? Already? You lot, live life away before it's done!"

It was wrong of him to say that though, he knew. He knew what would happen to her daughter. He Almost let himself forget. But he didn't, no. He didn't.

"You know I went to this planet once where everyone got married off at birth."

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

"Already Jack? Many marriages are arranged already. If I am to see to her future must be soon." She did not expound on the many reasons why. She expected Jack knew them well enough.

But the truth was the painting had confirmed what she already suspected. Yes, she would usher her daughter into womanhood, but only just. She would need to be cared for.

"I was very nearly ancient, you know. Almost twenty when I finally married. By husband had to be bribed to the alter."

Yet Jack was not completely inaccurate in his observations. They were French, and it was their way.

"Birth," she laughed softly. "Was it to good results?"

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, oh you're ancient. How're you holding up, Grandma?" he teased her, just a little. Teasing felt right.

"Well, they thought so," Jack said with a shake of his shoulders. "But then everywhere thinks their customs are right, don't they? Never met a king or a prince or a head of state who honestly thought he was doing the right thing. I mean come on, you're in politics, you know how these people get."

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

"Politics is ruined by politicians."

The words were brief, firm and direct. Obviously something to which she had given a great deal thought before. If anything an opinion that had only become more narrowed in the recent months and through her altered role at court.

Reinette arched an eyebrow and glanced at Jack, though it was imporssible to meet his gaze with the glasses.

"You do know I am one of those people?"

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

"I've known politicians," Jack said, "the last lot had an order to kill put out on me and put a bomb inside me that exploded my home and my work, and before that it was a guy masking as a human but who was secretly a Time Lord and kept me captive for a year. Can't say I'm too fond of them. In general."

His words were spoken utterly flippantly, but their content of course was anything but.

"Of course I know," he said with a half smile. "Why do you think I said you'd know?"

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

Her hands sat neatly folded on her lap, the fingers curling slightly inward that the observant eye would recognize as something almost protective.

"But you got it out, Jack? The bomb? You got it out?"

The idea that he was sitting before her now should have presented Reinette with her answer. But Reinette knew that was hardly enough. And something in Jack's gaze? Not now, of course. But when they walked or spoke or when night fell? Something in the darker, deeper corners gave her an answer she did not want to consider.

Still, she asked all the same.

It was all rather ridiculously naive.

"Not those people," she finally amended. "I am not one of them."