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fangrrl_squeesAnother long-meeting special, and one of those I had to write down to get out of my head, dammit.
This could be more complete, as I stink at scene description, but the dialog, plot and pacing is pretty much where I want it. This is, hrm, about 95% angst-free, for those who are worried. No shippiness, either, no matter how much Jack sulked and whined.
Title: Reunion
Pairing: None
Setting: Post End of Days and Post Aftermath (original fic).
Summary: The first meeting between Jack Harkness and the Tenth Doctor surprises both of them.
Length: 1,068 words (according to MS Word)
Rating: PG - very bland PG at that.
Disclaimer: Torchwood, Doctor Who and all those associated bits belong to Auntie Beeb. To quote another ficcer around here, if the characters were mine, they'd be naked a lot more often...
***
Jack Harkness ran into the TARDIS, feeling like a kid at Christmas. Sheer surprise and joy blotted out any potential regrets at what he left behind. Time enough to feel bad about that, later…
Jack barely noticed the minor changes to the interior – some of the controls looked a bit wobblier, there seemed to be a few more rubber mallets strewn about than was strictly necessary and the lighting had changed somewhat. But the décor didn’t matter, what mattered was-
“What the hell have you been doing?”
That stopped Jack in his tracks. The slender, short-haired man in an admittedly eye-catching geek-chic ensemble was not what he expected to see. Nor was the clipped, angry tone and squared shoulders the cheerful mien he’d hoped for.
If Jack couldn’t think fast on his feet, he would have been dead a long time ago. “You’ve regenerated.” He looked more closely at the Time Lord. “Not bad,” he admitted with approval. Not bad at all.
The Doctor ignored the comment. “What on Earth – and never has that been meant so literally – have you been doing in Cardiff?”
Oh, crap. “Looking after the rift in the middle of town,” Jack dredged up a winning smile. “It sorta gets the hiccups from time to time and that can cause a bit of mayhem, so-"
“You’ve been working for Torchwood.” The Doctor interrupted. “One of the grandest cases of badly executed good intentions that I’ve ever encountered.”
Jack frowned. What’s this?
The Doctor sighed and ran his hands through his hair. “Still, it wouldn’t be all that bad, if you – it had to have been you – weren’t determined to meddle with the rift. What made that seem like a good idea?”
“What?” Jack looked confused. Where’s the ‘how are you?’ Where’s the welcome-back, hug? Where’s- “Where’s Rose?”
Again, the Doctor ignored him. “A rift manipulator, Jack? You, better than anyone else, know what the rift could do, and yet you wanted to…” the Doctor gestured fruitlessly, searching for the right word. “Use it? Do you know what you could have done? You could have dropped the entire planet into the temporal equivalent of a Klein bottle-”
That hurt. “That wasn’t the plan!” Long-accumulated frustration boiled forth. “My so-called team decided to turn it on before it was ready but, hey, at least it got your attention!” If I’d known you’d come so fast, I’d have done it years ago.
The reply came slowly. “Got. My. Attention?”
Jack disregarded the warning signs. “Yes!” He adopted the pose of one reciting a remembered conversation. “By the way Jack, just how long has it been? Nearly three hundred years, as near as I can reckon, thanks for asking. Oh, my goodness Jack, that’s unusual, isn’t it? Yeah, well, after I came back from the dead about a thousand years from now – and that’s a story right there - I started showing some weirdly Gallifreyan traits and so I decided to get the attention of the only Gallifreyan I’d met, the only way I could think of!” Jack was shouting and didn’t give a damn about manners. It felt quite good, actually.
Silence reigned for a few seconds as the Doctor’s apparent ire faded. “Three hundred years?” he asked in a small voice.
“Yeah.” Something fell off the console, seemingly made for kicking, so Jack kicked it.
“Gallifreyan traits?”
Jack nodded and explained his strange state to the Doctor. “And how the hell do you get by without sleeping?” he concluded. “I almost went insane before I figured out a workaround.” He paused. “Actually, I did go insane for a while. Wow,” he winced at the memory. “That was a bad month.”
The Doctor shook his head. “That’s not right. I mean it is, sort of. But it isn’t.”
“That’s really unhelpful.” Jack grumbled.
“Oh, Rose, what did you do?” The Doctor asked the thin air.
“And that’s another thing,” Jack declared, irritably. “Where’s Rose?”
Suddenly, the Doctor wanted to look at anything but Jack. “She’s…She’s gone.” He muttered.
The blood drained from Jack’s face. “What?”
“She’s alive!” The Doctor added quickly. “But she’s not here anymore. Not in this universe.”
Jack might have been unhappy, but the Doctor’s sad – devastated – expression trumped his feelings. He stared at the Doctor and, after a moment’s indecision, Jack closed the distance between them and wrapped his arms around the Time Lord. A dozen questions begged asking, but this wasn’t the time. Jack bit his tongue and just held the Doctor as tight as he dared. Some things mandated a quiet hug. “I’m sorry,” he said, some indeterminate time later.
“Me too,” sighed the Time Lord. “We were at Canary Wharf. It could have been worse, but…” he took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I think she’ll be happy.”
“Yeah? That’s good.” Jack tried to do the right thing and suppress any thoughts as to how nice it was to have The Doctor this close, with only moderate success. His arms around Jack’s waist weren’t helping much, he realized.
The Doctor sighed again. “It is. It’s better than… nothing.”
“Still stinks, though.” Jack said wanly. He had become fond of Rose, in that favorite kid sister sort of way, but Jack had a good idea how the Doctor felt. Family didn’t enter into it. I keep hanging around the broken hearted. Shame I don’t ever get the benefits of the rebound.
“Jack...” The Doctor interrupted his irreverent reverie. “You’re, um, stroking my hair.”
“What? Oh! Force of habit.” He apologized, dropping his hand. “And, hey, you have hair, again.” Jack said flippantly, trying to cover a suddenly awkward moment.
How uncanny, Jack could hear the Doctor’s smile. “Yes, that’s true. But not ginger.” He untangled himself from Jack without further comment. “So!” He declared with the hearty air of someone changing the subject. “As I was trying to say earlier, I think Rose went a little overboard when she looked into the heart of the TARDIS when we were up to our neck in Daleks and-”
Jack’s jaw dropped. “When she what?”
The Doctor pushed a few buttons on the console and gave it a good-natured thump. “It’s a long story. I’ll tell you on the way.”
Jack’s heart beat faster. “Where are we going?”
“That’s another long story. I hope you don’t mind staying for a while... and Jack?"
"Yes?"
"There are better - safer - ways of getting my attention." He chided.
"Oh really?" Jack grinned. "Do tell..."
***
Postscript: The whole scene was pretty much built around the hug, which fell into my head when I brainstormed potential reactions (by Jack) to the news about Rose that didn't involve shouting. Shouting would have been too obvious, y'know? And, yeah, I think I channeled a bit of the Doctor and Zach in The Impossible Planet with it, too.
Please, oh please, don't ask me to follow this one up, as I really have no freakin' clue what could happen. Feel free to adopt the plot bunny. Vaya con dios and all. I've got a sulking![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jack_harkness_ to deal with, as he is quite disappointed about the lack of smuttiness in the above tale. Just because a person could slash a pairing doesn't mean one should. Naturally, rpg!Jack doesn't want to hear it...
This could be more complete, as I stink at scene description, but the dialog, plot and pacing is pretty much where I want it. This is, hrm, about 95% angst-free, for those who are worried. No shippiness, either, no matter how much Jack sulked and whined.
Title: Reunion
Pairing: None
Setting: Post End of Days and Post Aftermath (original fic).
Summary: The first meeting between Jack Harkness and the Tenth Doctor surprises both of them.
Length: 1,068 words (according to MS Word)
Rating: PG - very bland PG at that.
Disclaimer: Torchwood, Doctor Who and all those associated bits belong to Auntie Beeb. To quote another ficcer around here, if the characters were mine, they'd be naked a lot more often...
***
Jack Harkness ran into the TARDIS, feeling like a kid at Christmas. Sheer surprise and joy blotted out any potential regrets at what he left behind. Time enough to feel bad about that, later…
Jack barely noticed the minor changes to the interior – some of the controls looked a bit wobblier, there seemed to be a few more rubber mallets strewn about than was strictly necessary and the lighting had changed somewhat. But the décor didn’t matter, what mattered was-
“What the hell have you been doing?”
That stopped Jack in his tracks. The slender, short-haired man in an admittedly eye-catching geek-chic ensemble was not what he expected to see. Nor was the clipped, angry tone and squared shoulders the cheerful mien he’d hoped for.
If Jack couldn’t think fast on his feet, he would have been dead a long time ago. “You’ve regenerated.” He looked more closely at the Time Lord. “Not bad,” he admitted with approval. Not bad at all.
The Doctor ignored the comment. “What on Earth – and never has that been meant so literally – have you been doing in Cardiff?”
Oh, crap. “Looking after the rift in the middle of town,” Jack dredged up a winning smile. “It sorta gets the hiccups from time to time and that can cause a bit of mayhem, so-"
“You’ve been working for Torchwood.” The Doctor interrupted. “One of the grandest cases of badly executed good intentions that I’ve ever encountered.”
Jack frowned. What’s this?
The Doctor sighed and ran his hands through his hair. “Still, it wouldn’t be all that bad, if you – it had to have been you – weren’t determined to meddle with the rift. What made that seem like a good idea?”
“What?” Jack looked confused. Where’s the ‘how are you?’ Where’s the welcome-back, hug? Where’s- “Where’s Rose?”
Again, the Doctor ignored him. “A rift manipulator, Jack? You, better than anyone else, know what the rift could do, and yet you wanted to…” the Doctor gestured fruitlessly, searching for the right word. “Use it? Do you know what you could have done? You could have dropped the entire planet into the temporal equivalent of a Klein bottle-”
That hurt. “That wasn’t the plan!” Long-accumulated frustration boiled forth. “My so-called team decided to turn it on before it was ready but, hey, at least it got your attention!” If I’d known you’d come so fast, I’d have done it years ago.
The reply came slowly. “Got. My. Attention?”
Jack disregarded the warning signs. “Yes!” He adopted the pose of one reciting a remembered conversation. “By the way Jack, just how long has it been? Nearly three hundred years, as near as I can reckon, thanks for asking. Oh, my goodness Jack, that’s unusual, isn’t it? Yeah, well, after I came back from the dead about a thousand years from now – and that’s a story right there - I started showing some weirdly Gallifreyan traits and so I decided to get the attention of the only Gallifreyan I’d met, the only way I could think of!” Jack was shouting and didn’t give a damn about manners. It felt quite good, actually.
Silence reigned for a few seconds as the Doctor’s apparent ire faded. “Three hundred years?” he asked in a small voice.
“Yeah.” Something fell off the console, seemingly made for kicking, so Jack kicked it.
“Gallifreyan traits?”
Jack nodded and explained his strange state to the Doctor. “And how the hell do you get by without sleeping?” he concluded. “I almost went insane before I figured out a workaround.” He paused. “Actually, I did go insane for a while. Wow,” he winced at the memory. “That was a bad month.”
The Doctor shook his head. “That’s not right. I mean it is, sort of. But it isn’t.”
“That’s really unhelpful.” Jack grumbled.
“Oh, Rose, what did you do?” The Doctor asked the thin air.
“And that’s another thing,” Jack declared, irritably. “Where’s Rose?”
Suddenly, the Doctor wanted to look at anything but Jack. “She’s…She’s gone.” He muttered.
The blood drained from Jack’s face. “What?”
“She’s alive!” The Doctor added quickly. “But she’s not here anymore. Not in this universe.”
Jack might have been unhappy, but the Doctor’s sad – devastated – expression trumped his feelings. He stared at the Doctor and, after a moment’s indecision, Jack closed the distance between them and wrapped his arms around the Time Lord. A dozen questions begged asking, but this wasn’t the time. Jack bit his tongue and just held the Doctor as tight as he dared. Some things mandated a quiet hug. “I’m sorry,” he said, some indeterminate time later.
“Me too,” sighed the Time Lord. “We were at Canary Wharf. It could have been worse, but…” he took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I think she’ll be happy.”
“Yeah? That’s good.” Jack tried to do the right thing and suppress any thoughts as to how nice it was to have The Doctor this close, with only moderate success. His arms around Jack’s waist weren’t helping much, he realized.
The Doctor sighed again. “It is. It’s better than… nothing.”
“Still stinks, though.” Jack said wanly. He had become fond of Rose, in that favorite kid sister sort of way, but Jack had a good idea how the Doctor felt. Family didn’t enter into it. I keep hanging around the broken hearted. Shame I don’t ever get the benefits of the rebound.
“Jack...” The Doctor interrupted his irreverent reverie. “You’re, um, stroking my hair.”
“What? Oh! Force of habit.” He apologized, dropping his hand. “And, hey, you have hair, again.” Jack said flippantly, trying to cover a suddenly awkward moment.
How uncanny, Jack could hear the Doctor’s smile. “Yes, that’s true. But not ginger.” He untangled himself from Jack without further comment. “So!” He declared with the hearty air of someone changing the subject. “As I was trying to say earlier, I think Rose went a little overboard when she looked into the heart of the TARDIS when we were up to our neck in Daleks and-”
Jack’s jaw dropped. “When she what?”
The Doctor pushed a few buttons on the console and gave it a good-natured thump. “It’s a long story. I’ll tell you on the way.”
Jack’s heart beat faster. “Where are we going?”
“That’s another long story. I hope you don’t mind staying for a while... and Jack?"
"Yes?"
"There are better - safer - ways of getting my attention." He chided.
"Oh really?" Jack grinned. "Do tell..."
***
Postscript: The whole scene was pretty much built around the hug, which fell into my head when I brainstormed potential reactions (by Jack) to the news about Rose that didn't involve shouting. Shouting would have been too obvious, y'know? And, yeah, I think I channeled a bit of the Doctor and Zach in The Impossible Planet with it, too.
Please, oh please, don't ask me to follow this one up, as I really have no freakin' clue what could happen. Feel free to adopt the plot bunny. Vaya con dios and all. I've got a sulking
jack_harkness_ to deal with, as he is quite disappointed about the lack of smuttiness in the above tale. Just because a person could slash a pairing doesn't mean one should. Naturally, rpg!Jack doesn't want to hear it...
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-01-12 09:05 am (UTC)“What? Oh! Force of habit.”
Brilliant! You've got the voices spot on and I love Jack's recited conversation and the Doctor's reaction to talking about Rose. Emotional without going over the top. You've really caught the overtones and undertones of the relationship - great stuff!
*fights off plot bunny with a carrot*
no subject
Date: 2007-01-12 07:10 pm (UTC)*whimper*
I could understand having a 51st century bisexual time traveller stuck in my head, that made sense. And the dandygoth master of man!pain and coffee, he made sense, too. But as for why Owen-bloody-Harper has set up camp, I don't know... *whimpers more*
And then a certain someone (who will remain nameless) mentioned the idea of a Ten/Owen dialogue (well, she mentioned slash, specifically, but my slashometer ain't pinging at that one) and oh dear god, another sleepless weekend looms ahead...
*pauses for breath*
Hello! Nice to meet you! Been here long? Feel free to rummage. There's lots of Torchwood and Doctor Who squee around here, and some B7 stuff in the earlier entries, too.
no subject
Date: 2007-01-13 10:23 am (UTC)The only good thing about having to work on a Saturday is that I get to sit at a computer all day. A computer that has no problems downloading large numbers of pictures. Not that I'm thinking of any post in particular *thud* ;)
I'll rummage away, thanks! I've been fairly active in the House fandom for a while, but since it's not on TV at the moment, I switched my writing allegiance to TW. At which point the plot bunnies ate my life (as my journal shows), but what a fun way to go. :D
no subject
Date: 2007-01-13 05:05 pm (UTC)Oh.
My.
God.
That makes a horrible amount of sense, you know... I've actually not seen *much* of House, but what I've seen, I liked. ;)
no subject
Date: 2007-01-12 03:01 pm (UTC)Absolutely bang on the money.
cheered me and my grumpy uterus up no end
no subject
Date: 2007-01-12 05:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-12 05:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-28 06:38 pm (UTC)