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]

It was one thing for her to be so undignified as to fail to manage her meal. It was quite another for Jack to actively take note of it. Reinette felt hot color come to her cheeks as he reached to blot the stain on her gown.

Her fingers itched to press his away, but on some level she recognized how inopportune that might be so instead the caught on silk as she willed them not to move.

"Truly, Jack." Reinette closed her eyes briefly on the idea that when she opened them this particular embarrassment might have passed. "It is fine. It is just a gown and I suspect hardly suited to this place anyway."

Reinette reached past him to place the food down, not accounting how awkward it might be. She only wished to prevent any more incidents.

"And I will master it soon enough."

That was directed towards her offending dinner, now matter how pleasant it tasted.

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

"Well maybe it doesn't," Jack said, "but it's suited to you, so I'll get it cleaned anyway."

He might have taken her out of her time, far away, but he didn't expect her to be anyone other than her, and he wouldn't take everything from her like that.

He leaned himself back into the sofa then, relaxing somewhat.

"Tomorrow," he said with a nod, "I'll go out, drive out and get you a few things to wear. Just a couple of outfits, then you can go to the shops and pick some more for yourself. I can take you out if you like. See the countryside."

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

Reinette nodded slightly, the action brief and precise. She was privately thankful he would see that her gown was cleaned. She was particularly fond of it for no particular reason she could discern. But it was why she had chosen it the evening before while Jack healed.

There was something about it that pleased her, and put her at ease.

Some words of thanks very nearly passed through her lips before Reinette recalled her own instance they put such words away. So she swallowed them down.

"I would like that." She reached, then, for humor to distract from her own unsettled feeling after once last glance at the stain. "Is a bin bag among the current fashions of the day?"

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

Comfortable.

The sofa was very very comfortable. Ridiculously so, really. Perhaps that was just in contrast to the circumstances he'd lived in for so long, but either way, it was rather pleasant.

He settled into it and because it was comfortable he allowed his eyes to drift closed.

He was aware of her speaking, and was even certain he was going to reply, but then by the time she'd finished, he wasn't altogether there, and instead of reply, all he did was make a muffled noise in the back of his throat.

He was already asleep.

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

She had thought herself to be rather witty. But instead of the sound of Jack's laughter, Reinette found herself greeted with silence. Followed by even more silence. She turned to better see his expression, and any mild irritation she felt fell away as she examined his face in repose.

Jack, it seemed, had chosen that moment to fall asleep.

She could not fault him that.

Reinette sat for several moments, considering her options. She could always explore more. Jack's tour had been brief at best. She could eat more. She did take a moment to try the beverage Jack had presented her with, and did not bother to disguise her grimace. He was hardly awake to see.

It was then that it occurred to Reinette she was exhausted herself. She did not sleep well before. Despite her knowledge otherwise, there was no disputing the fact that however briefly Jack had indeed been dead.

She stood, taking a moment to gather Jack's coat and place it carefully over him like a blanket. The windows were still slightly open and the air was growing cooler. Then she left him to rest, making her way through the boxes and various stacks that peppered the second bedroom. The majority of the bed was clear, enough to allow her to easily slip beneath the sheets.

Then she too slept.

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

It was an hour, maybe two, when Jack opened his eyes. The room had grown dark but there was still a light breeze through the open window. He blinked a few times at first, confused as to his surroundings and his location, but then it soon dawned.

He wondered, for a moment, where Reinette was. But then logic caught up and he was certain she must just be asleep. Were he more awake, he'd have deemed checking an important issue, but as it stood he was still mostly asleep, and so he could do little but drag himself from the sofa, leaving his coat in his wake, and carrying himself up the stairs and to his bed there.

As soon as his head hit the pillow he was fast asleep again.

Fast and deeply asleep. And though usually he might have woken as soon as light began to filter through the closed curtains, this day was an exception, and he slept long and deeply.

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

Reinette had fully understood the depths of her own exhaustion. If it was simply a reflection of the past two days with Jack, or something deeper and aged fourteen months she was not entirely sure. But when she finally woke, her room was fully lit with a strong morning light. It was well past dawn.

She wondered then how Jack was, and how he had passed the evening. She sat up briskly, intending to check on him. But her foot caught on a small box at the end of the bed. She vaguely recalled navigating it when she fell asleep the evening before.

It tumbled to the floor then, overturning. Small bits of paper scattered everywhere. Paper like she had never seen. These were not paintings, carefully orchestrated portraits. These were real. There was nothing planning in them. They seemed to catch the people within them at the most absurd moments that were both honest and compelling. At times vaguely uncomfortable.

And scattered amongst them was Jack. As she had never seen them.

Reinette went so far as to forget herself as to settle onto the floor, the paper scattered about her like a fan as she looked over each one in turn.

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

After waking, Jack moved lazily. He found himself some clothes; just jogging bottoms and one of his darker blue undershirts, but clothes nonetheless. A step further than standing around in his dressing gown, at least.

His limbs felt a little slow, but he tugged them into response, and he took himself downstairs to find Reinette.

He didn't, however, find her where he expected. And so he moved from the lounge to the second bedroom, pushing the door gently aside to stand in the doorway.

The last place he expected she would be was the floor.

"You comfy down there?" he asked, vaguely amused. But then he frowned, and realised what she was looking at.

His voice dropped to a whisper. "Where did you get those?"

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

Reinette was so lost in the images she did not initially hear Jack approach. But something in his tone sent her eyes immediately up in search of his own. What she saw there did not ease the vague discomfort that had been pooling in her core for some time.

Whatever this was, whatever they were? It was intensely personal. That much was clear. Her fingers closed over one image that contained Jack and two other people.

She also battled the need to apologize.

"The box was on the bed, I believe. I knocked it over accidentally."

She did not look away from his gaze.

"What are they?"

She might have been inquiring of the physical images, or the people within them. It was difficult to say.

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

Jack paused, at first, for a while that was almost too long. Just watching, just staring. He hadn't opened that box in quite some time.

"Photographs," he said eventually, still in that soft voice. "They're like... moments, captured on paper." His attempt to explain was vague, his attention was elsewhere.

He stood there a moment, before his decision was made, and he stepped forward and shifted down to the space beside her, down to the floor.

"My team," he said, adding a little more. "They're photographs of my team."

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

She did not think he was looking at her.

It was mostly suspicion, as it was difficult to discern from her angle on the floor. But was particular with his gaze, and one could not help but feel it when he looked at someone. This was almost, but not quite.

The moment shattered as he moved to sit on the floor next to her, and she was vaguely aware of his odd dress. Something else that was less precise.

"Photographs," she tested the word quietly.

And then she took several of the pictures, and spread them carefully out before both of them. For a woman that did not like cards, it seemed oddly similar.

And a gamble of her own, after a fashion.

"The ones you spoke of, before."

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

"Yeah," Jack said with a soft nod, "yeah that's them."

His face was sad, and for a moment it looked almost like he might cry. But then that faded and there was a smile instead, but a sad sort of one.

He reached his hand forward for one of the pictures. It looked almost formal, posed. They were all in it, the camera set up on a timer. Ianto, Tosh and Gwen sat on the couch that had been pushed forward, and Jack and Owen standing behind it.

"Here," he said. "This is us." And one by one, he pointed out each of them. "Owen, he hated that about as much as I did. You can practically see him trying to get away. I think there's another shot somewhere where he'd walked off. Tosh, oh she was a genius. Ianto..." his voice trailed at that, and then cleared before continuing, "And Gwen. She took all these. Forced us into it."

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

"She wished to remember."

Reinette was not entirely certain where the statement originated from, as her fingers continued to trace the edges of the photographs. She could not say any more, or even be precisely certain what it was the other woman wished to capture. But she did know that.

She wished to remember.

Reinette glanced at Jack, her gaze soft, before looking back at a particular picture. Her next sentence was incomplete and quietly encouraging.

"Ianto..."

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

"Yeah," Jack agreed. Nothing more than that; one word, agreement. Yes, she did. He could understand that.

He wanted to remember too.

Almost as much as he wished he could forget.

But Ianto. He'd spoke to her of him before, though it was in nothing more than passing. Discreet and nonchalant. But it wasn't the truth of it.

"When he died," he said quietly. "As he was dying. He told me he loved me. He asked me not to forget him."

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

Her fingers continued to trace over the edges of the photographs, careful not to conceal the faces in any way. In the muted morning light the colors captured in them seemed especially bright. She could not say precisely why.

Ianto.

They had spoken of him before. Of his death and of their differing views when it came to choice. It had very nearly escalated to an argument. There were many ways in which she might identify him. But instead Reinette merely trusted that was not needed. That he made coffee seemed a trifle in the moment.

Though when collected into days and hours her acquaintance with Jack was not all that long, she knew him well enough to know that forgetting would never be an option. In some ways Reinette suspected Jack remembered too much. His mind was always active, always thinking. It was something she understood.

But the rest left her curious. About this Ianto. And more about Jack himself. Her gaze lifted to meet Jack's. Her words were quiet but carefully pronounced.

"Did you love him?"

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

For a while, Jack didn't want to respond. It wasn't so much an active decision that it was simply he got lost in his own thoughts. The past, how things were. He'd done a lot not to think of that time. Tried hard; he simply couldn't at times. It was hard, and it was painful.

And it made him feel just that little more alone, when he recalled how for a while he was something almost happy.

But then the realisation dawned, the question she'd asked him, and so he spoke, answering but only indirectly.

"I couldn't say it back. I wasn't ready to let him..."

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

Reinette could sense that Jack was lost in his own thoughts and memories, proof again that the distant Ianto should never had worried about being forgotten. But perhaps it was something universal, as acceptance and understanding came. Certainly she was always aware of what she would leave behind. Reinette suspected that would only grow with passing time.

But this man, this Ianto, surely he could have seen that forgetting was not what Jack did.

She could offer him no easy answers. Reinette knew words, and she could have spun them now. About having seen the stars and everything that sits between them in the Doctor's mind. How he taught her to believe that all things were possible, and reason was something to be set aside. That if Jack was ever ready to say it in return, when he was ready he need merely say the words aloud. That the universe would find some way of ensuring the message was heard.

But even in her mind the words rang bright and false. And she respected Jack too much to say them. She would care for him, however she could. But she would not lie to him.

It was what was unsaid that resonated now. Jack's answer that was not.

"Words are not always required Jack. And it was not what I asked." Her smile offered an end to the question. "But then, words are not always required."

True in both instances.

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

Jack loved Ianto. Yes. Jack loved Ianto. He knew that, really. He hoped Ianto knew that too. It felt painful to think he suspected he didn't. He never wore his emotion on his sleeve, and he never told people what he thought.

Perhaps he should have.

He took a deep breath then and reached his hand forward, covering one of the photographs.

"It doesn't matter," he said, glancing down. "Gone now. All gone. Nothing lasts, stupid to ever think it would."

Another breath and he shook his head, reached his hand up to pinch his brow.

"Breakfast," he said. "I think, yeah? You want breakfast, because I'm starving."

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

"What would we eat Jack? I must confess that idea does make me curious. There is very little inside your box with a light."

The lightness in her words tasted false on Reinette's tongue.

She watched him then, processing the words that were said alongside the many that were not. She knew it was in both of their natures to protect what mattered most. She knew it was hardly unusual. But something about the past year? Something about how the words settled over Jack's body suited him even less than his ill fitting clothing.

She had held herself in check for several days now. But for Reinette it felt much longer. Perhaps because it was unlike her. Or perhaps because it was Jack, and if they shared anything? Anything at all, it was honesty.

With very little preamble Reinette reached across the photographs to catch Jack's face and guide him to look at her.

"It does matter, Jack. We can argue every other point. Or we can hide them away in a box like you did these pictures until you are ready. But it does matter."

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

"Good point," Jack said and tried to laugh with it, but it reached nothing but a slight hitch in breath. "I'll have to go get something. Nothing in, like I said, wasn't expecting guests."

He thought that was it. Hoped, maybe. He could brush it off then, stand up walk off and pretend it never happened. But then maybe he'd been away from her too long to remember.

And so her hand on her face was almost a shock and the way his body stiffened was very nearly a withdrawal. It wasn't though, and there was a subtlety in that. He didn't move away, even if his body tried to make him.

"Don't," he said. "Just don't. They might be in a box but at least they're here. That's the best I can do."

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

Reinette was not to be swayed.

She had lost Jack for fourteen months. She was not at all prepared to lose him fully to this malaise as well, or risk that he might not come back from it. And it felt dangerously close to that.

Was it selfish? Perhaps. But that was to be examined later. Now her attention remained on Jack. Her fingers still resting under his chin, her thumb traced the line of his jaw with slow, even pressure meant to guide his eyes up fully to her own.

"That is not what I said, Jack. I respect keeping things close, even hiding them away. I am just as capable of it. They are here and that is a great deal."

Her eyes remained unwavering on Jack's features.

"But it does matter. They mattered. He mattered." And in case he had forgotten inside that place? "You matter."

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

He should have known that his words would not alone be enough to make her back off.

"Stop it," he repeated again, a little sharper.

He felt the way her hand moved, the way it coaxed him. And he recognised it. That, perhaps, meant more than he could truly understand. He was noticing, and noticing was good. It was moving forward.

"I know what you're doing, and don't. You can't play my tricks back at me, Reinette."

And it wasn't so much that he thought she was, merely pointing out that he could see.

And then again, perhaps revealing too? "I don't need you to tell me what I already know."

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

Reinette wanted nothing more than to argue his point. Not to play coy or feign ignorance at his accusation but to fully counter it. That they were not his tricks. That she had countless of her own and did not require any of his.

But even more, that they did not play at tricks between them. Her mouth parted slightly to share just that.

Except that they did. The majority of their first days together were passed sharing tricks and trading laughter in an unspoken competition. It not tricks, then definitely a game. But Jack was right that they did play them, and willingly.

There was no was she could deny the truth in his words. Instead she offered different ones.

Truths. Words.

"This is not a trick."

She defined it no further than that. She pressed him no further than that.

[quitehomoerotic.livejournal.com]

"Then what is it?" he said back. Was it that he didn't wish the subject to drop? Anger? A plea? Maybe a little bit of everything. His tone certainly leant towards that, asking, shouting, pleading.

"You tell me, Reinette. Because I don't know."

He didn't. And that, that loss, that loss of so much of what he was, was what made him just so nervous.

[ambitious-woman.livejournal.com]

Her hand remained stubbornly on his face. Perhaps because he challenged her. Perhaps because it both seemed and felt important. Perhaps still because she simply did not wish to let go. Reinette was accustomed to knowing her own mind more.

Her only initial response was the gentle curling of her fingers against his skin. Subtly, quietly looking for her own answers.

She would be strong for Jack. Reinette was quite firm on that point and he deserved no less. But that did not make in infallible.

"Neither do I."

It was honest. Far more honest than she intended, and not even disguised as something light or flippant. But truthfully she did not know. And had she not just been demanding honesty between them?

But knowledge did come then, quick and fast if of a different sort. And completely unexpected.

She had to kiss Jack, then.

Not want to or wish to. Or kiss him because the game -- or tricks -- between them demanded it. She had to kiss him. There really was not a choice. Her fingers still beneath his chin pulled him closer by degrees so that Reinette might meet him to lift her mouth to his own. It was a great deal more than the kiss on his sofa the evening before, for all that it was a great deal less than many other embraces they had shared. But as her mouth teased gently over his own it was not the act that defined the kiss, but the thought behind it. That she had to.

Reinette pulled back then, sensing perhaps for all that it was unavoidable in her eyes it still was not the ideal moment. She disguised her own thoughts with a smile.