Resolving Issues

[the_blaidd_drwg]

Who: Rose Tyler, Jack Harkness
When: Afternoon, after Jack spends the morning with Martha
Where: Lounge
Summary: Rose is still irritated at Jack's attitude in the lobby and it turns out they have some issues to work out between them.



Rose was still grumbling about Jack that afternoon, completely unable to understand where his bout of attitude had come from. It was completely beyond her comprehension no matter how many times she analyzed the situation. Of course, her irritation at the entirety of said situation probably didn't help matters any, and, as predicted, she did feel bad about how she'd reacted to the new arrival's insistence on knowing what was going on, but with everything else that had been going on lately, she just couldn't take it anymore.

Normally these things wouldn't have continued to bother her so much, especially the bit with Jack, but she had very few acquaintances in the hotel, and even fewer of them were what she could consider friends. Martha didn't know her, just of her, and Rose could easily tell what the other woman's opinion of her had been before they'd met. Jack was the only one who really knew anything, the one she'd been close with so long ago. It mattered to her that he'd acted that way at all, and that she may have helped to cause it.

She needed to do something was what it came down to. She had all sorts of pent up energy from just milling around the damned hotel and there were only so many banana daiquiris a girl could drink before she really started to just look pathetic.

So she forced herself out of bed, where she'd been alternately moping and seething, and got dressed in jeans and a t-shirt that, like all the other clothes the hotel had swiped from her TARDIS, was just slightly too big for her. Her sonic screwdriver went in her pocket like always, along with her assortment of keys, and then she pulled on her boots and set off. A good bit of wandering never hurt anyone.

Comments

[capj_harkness]

Jack was sitting in the lounge, sipping a coffee from his blue and white striped mug. He had a book in his hand, but he'd barely glanced at it in the last half hour. He was mostly lost in his thoughts. His mind seemed to be running wild, alternately touching on Torchwood, on Ianto, on Kate, on The Doctor being missing, on Martha... on Rose. Actually, Rose had barely entered his rambling stream of thoughts when she walked in the door. He blinked for just a second, briefly wondering if he was imagining her. No, he thought as she glanced around. She was real. He didn't move from his seat. He sipped his coffee and watched her over the rim of his mug.

[the-blaidd-drwg.livejournal.com]

Not finding anyone of interest in the bar or even the billiards and games rooms, Rose had moved on, wandering into the lounge with the hope that someone would be there, someone to talk to and reassure herself that she wasn't completely alone in this place. Her hand stilled on the door as her eyes landed on the infamous Captain Jack Harkness, complete with coffee mug accessory. For a brief moment she almost considered turning right around and pretending she'd not seen him. Finally, though, her fingers trailed down the wood of the door and she took those careful steps forward, slowly making her way toward him until she could drop into a chair across from his.

[capj_harkness]

He nodded a greeting as she sat down. "Can I buy you a coffee?" he asked with a bit of a smirk, setting his book on the table beside his chair.

[the-blaidd-drwg.livejournal.com]

She smiled slightly and shook her head, nearly rolling her eyes at herself. "Can barely sit still as it is," she explained in a mellow tone. "Think the last thing I need is caffeine right now." She didn't know what she needed... Not what she needed and could actually have anyway.

[capj_harkness]

He shrugged in an 'oh well, I asked' kind of way and took another sip from his own mug. "I don't suppose you've made any significant developments towards getting out of here lately," he ventured. "Because every avenue I've explored has been a deadend and I'm about out of ideas."

[the-blaidd-drwg.livejournal.com]

Slumping back into the plush leather of the big chair, Rose's expression turned exceedingly glum. "Still can't get into my TARDIS," she informed Jack with complete unhappiness, "so nope, no 'significant developments' on this end." Was she pouting? Yes, Rose Tyler was pouting. It wasn't like she was used to being locked out of her own home, after all.

[capj_harkness]

"Sorry," he said sincerely. He rotated his mug absently in his hands. He smiled self-deprecatingly. "Is it really bad that I'm starting to get just the littlest bit concerned that we'll never get out of here?" he asked. "This place is just... far too unfathomable." He looked at Rose. "Maybe it's a test to see how far we can get before we give up," he scoffed.

[capj_harkness]

"Don't apologize," Jack told her quietly. "That's not what I was after. I know how distracting he can be. I just wanted to know why." He reached over and gave her knee a reassuring squeeze. "In 1899, Torchwood found out about me. I hadn't been terribly... discreet. I was sort of raging, back in those days. I'd been heard talking about The Doctor. They wanted to find him. They thought he was the enemy." He shook his head. "They really were sick at Torchwood back then. Do you know how I ended up working for them? One night, after I'd refused their offer of 'freelance' work, I was sitting in a tavern and this girl... she's sort of a fortune teller. It's hard to explain. I've never found her to be wrong, though. She came up to me and said that the one I was looking for was coming, but that the century would turn twice before I saw him again." He looked up at Rose. "I suddenly had a hundred years to kill. I didn't know what else to do."

[the-blaidd-drwg.livejournal.com]

Rose didn't even realize what she was doing until she was suddenly sliding down onto Jack's lap and wrapping her arms around him, her heart demanding that she get as close to him as possible in order to offer whatever comfort he needed and would accept. It may have been a hundred years ago for him, but pain often refused the boundaries of time, as she knew all too well. "Oh, Jack," she murmured in a thick voice, "I wish I could've been there to help you. You shouldn't've had to go through that alone."

[capj_harkness]

He returned her embrace, burying his face in her hair for a moment, before pulling his head back, just a bit, to look at her with a little smile. "You know I'd never object to your company, but if you were there all that time, you'd have to be like me and I wouldn't want that for you." He smoothed his hand over her hair. "Anyway, I had some good decades and some bad decades. I found a family for myself, in the end. Then I found him and I made peace with myself. And with him. I don't have any regrets, Rose, I really don't, so don't you go feeling bad about any of it."

[the-blaidd-drwg.livejournal.com]

She bit her lip for a moment, then leaned in close to set her forehead against his. "Still sad you had to be alone until the end," she told him, truly grateful that he didn't blame her for the way she'd essentially helped to just leave him out there on his own. She could have insisted, should have made him go back for Jack, but she hadn't. "I know you Jack. You need people, you're a people person. You were so much better when you were with us than before on your own."

[capj_harkness]

He smiled. "I don't know how much that says about me," he noted. "Everyone's better when they're with him."

[the-blaidd-drwg.livejournal.com]

She smoothed her hand over his cheek and smiled in return. "I was included in that 'us', you know," she informed him. "It was me who insisted we save you from going down with your ship, after all, dear Captain."

[the-blaidd-drwg.livejournal.com]

Eventually? He was one to talk. He'd had a long time to make it through eventually. "Maybe being stuck here forever would be a good thing for me," she pondered quietly. "I can't go back to Earth, Jack, there isn't a home for me there anymore. So what am I supposed to do, just wander the universe in my TARDIS, picking up people like he did?" She didn't think there was any way she could manage that.

[capj_harkness]

"You could come with me," he suggested casually. He couldn't put any more of his heart into it than that, because he didn't honestly believe she would want to. "I have jobs going spare," he added. "I hear you have some experience with aliens."

[the-blaidd-drwg.livejournal.com]

She smiled at the joke, then her expression turned serious again. Shifting position a little, she leaned her head against his shoulder. "What would I do about him?" she asked quietly, not turning down the idea of returning to the other universe with Jack. She'd miss her family, of course, but she'd barely seen them for years as it was.

[capj_harkness]

"I guess that would depend on what you want from him now," Jack replied. He turned his head so he could look at her, even though her head was on his shoulder. "What do you want from him now?" Jack asked curiously. "If he asked, would you go with him?"

[the-blaidd-drwg.livejournal.com]

She didn't even have to think about it. "No," she answered without hesitation, "I wouldn't. I... I couldn't go with him. It would be too painful." She wanted to hide against him, but resisted the urge. "He's not my Doctor, anymore. My Doctor's gone."

[capj_harkness]

"Then that answers your question," he said, his tone brightening slightly because they'd entered territory where he was much more sure of himself. "If you meet him and he asks you, you walk away. I did it. Martha did it. It hurts and it's hard..." his voice trailed off. "It's so hard," he breathed, "but you feel better afterwards." He looked at Rose. "I wouldn't trade traveling with the Doctor for anything," he confessed, "but I think the trick to it is knowing when to stop. Sometimes you don't get a choice, but when you do... you have to walk away with what he taught you and just be a better person than you were when he found you. Know what I mean?"

[the-blaidd-drwg.livejournal.com]

Rose just shook her head at the memory, knowing Jack really never would let her live that down. "Well, that sort of thing 's always been more you than me," she said, giving him a pointed look. "And you turnin' right around and flirting with it didn't help!"

[capj_harkness]

"Well, it's not like it would've been my first time with a sentient non-humanoid," he retorted. "We tend to be a little more... well-travelled in my century," he said, his tone full of implication.

[the-blaidd-drwg.livejournal.com]

Rose snorted and let her head fall back. "Oh, I think I got that memo a long time ago," she informed him. Yes, she'd definitely gotten it when he'd flirted with aliens of all shapes and colors during their travels.

[capj_harkness]

He frowned thoughtfully. "We never went to the 51st century," he mused. He looked at Rose. "We should go some time. You'll like it."

[the-blaidd-drwg.livejournal.com]

She combed her fingers through his hair, it was such a different style than when they'd first met, and nodded. "As long as I've got my personal tour guide, I know I will," she told him with a small smile.

Glancing around the room, she hadn't really spent much time in the lounge, she sighed and said, "I should probly go... Leave you to that book and plotting your next conquest."

[capj_harkness]

Jack smiled cryptically at her comment. He and Kate weren't really common knowledge yet. "Look after yourself," he told her. "Remember what I said: Don't be a stranger."