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

[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."

[capj_harkness]

He raised a curious eyebrow at that. It was something he hadn't really known. "Is that so?" he said. "You know, he took all the credit for that." The Doctor hadn't told him outright whose idea it had been, but he had (no doubt intentionally) implied that it had been his own. "But I do appreciate it," he added. He had been starting to smile again, but it faded as something occurred to him. "Maybe that's why there was really no dilemma for him when he did leave me behind," he supposed. "Maybe he never really wanted me there."

[the-blaidd-drwg.livejournal.com]

"He did, Jack," she immediately protested, "he wanted you there. I don't know what went on in that daft Time Lord mind of his, but I know he wanted you there." She took a deep breath and looked away for a moment, her throat clenching up. "He missed you... When it was just me," she said quietly. "We used to talk about everyone, wonder how they were doing. We made bets once on how many people you'd managed to shag in your long life," she admitted with a laugh. "His numbers were always higher than mine."

[capj_harkness]

The ghost of a smile passed over his features for just a moment. "The real numbers were probably a lot lower than either of yours," he said with a small, sad laugh. "There were some notable exceptions," he said with a fond, nostaligic smile, "but I... I tended to keep to myself a lot more." He shrugged. "It just wasn't the same as it had been... before you."

[the-blaidd-drwg.livejournal.com]

Smirking, she teased, "Why, Jack Harkness, I think that's the best compliment you've ever given me." She didn't know if he had meant before them or before her personally, but it had been an opportunity she simply couldn't pass up.

[capj_harkness]

A small, but more amused, smile appeared on his face as he returned his gaze to hers. He pretended to think about it. "Are you sure?" he teased back. "I seem to recall coming up with some pretty good ones back then."

[the-blaidd-drwg.livejournal.com]

She looked up, as if in really deep thought as she recalled the many compliments he truly had used on her. "No...," she started slowly, then shook her head and grinned. "No, I think insinuating that I was the shag that changed your life is pretty much the best compliment ever."

[capj_harkness]

He laughed. "Well, in that case, that's exactly what I was saying," he assured her, patting her leg.

[the-blaidd-drwg.livejournal.com]

She laughed loudly, tossing her head back and putting her hand to her forehead. It was so Jack that it was absolutely perfect. Perfect and just what she'd needed.

[capj_harkness]

"That's more like it," he said softly. "That's more like how I remember it."

[the-blaidd-drwg.livejournal.com]

Still smiling, she looked back at Jack with bright eyes that defied the sadness curled around the edges. "'ve missed this, Jack," she said just as softly. "'ve missed you."

[capj_harkness]

He only smiled slightly in response. He didn't know how to answer that sentiment. He'd told her once already that he'd missed her, but the context was a little different. It was broader.

He'd suffered for a hundred years. To say that he'd missed her in the personal, intimate way that she was saying it now... he couldn't. The words were too hollow for what he'd felt. It had taken him a century to get over the feelings of betrayal and anger and loneliness that he'd been left with on that dead, empty space station. They hadn't even said goodbye. They just left. Just when they were everything to him, they'd simply left him behind without so much as a glance over their shoulders. He hadn't missed them, he'd ached for them. He'd raged and wept and yearned for them. Then, when he was finally okay with it, here she was telling him that she'd 'missed' him. He wanted to point out that he wouldn't have been hard to find, if they had missed him so much. It was possible the Doctor had even known where Jack would go to wait, but the Doctor hadn't wanted to find him. Jack knew that with absolute certainty, because the Doctor had told him so.

"I'm glad to hear I crossed your mind once or twice," he finally said.

[the-blaidd-drwg.livejournal.com]

That smile and those words... It felt like he'd reached out, grabbed hold of her heart, and given it a good twist. Suddenly the progress they'd made in that conversation was completely washed away and they were twelve steps back from where they'd started. She closed her eyes for a moment, then slid off his lap so she could stand, putting the same physical distance between them as there now was emotionally.

"Maybe you've forgotten, Jack," she said quietly, "or maybe you never knew in the first place, but I only had a few months in that universe after we left you there." She used his words, throwing them back at him because she was hurting too. "Just a few more months and then I had to spend three years just trying to get back to it. Maybe 's hard for you to believe, but I thought about you every day I was there, knowing I'd probly never see you again. Then these past five, after 'd seen you and knew there was something he wouldn't tell me..." She took a deep breath and told herself firmly that she wasn't going to cry. "Maybe eight years is really nothing compared to the hundred I made you live through, but that doesn't mean it hurt any less."

[capj_harkness]

He resisted slightly when she slipped out of his grasp, but he wasn't going to hold her there if she didn't want to be there. His gaze shifted to the ground at her feet. He was silent until she finished speaking.

"I thought you were dead," he said numbly. "I worked for Torchwood Cardiff when Canary Wharf happened. We had to clean up the mess. I saw the list of the dead. I thought you were dead for a year. Then I found the Doctor and he told me what happened." He looked up at her face, his expression had become a little miserable at the thought that she'd misinterpreted his previous hesitation. "I can't say that I missed you, Rose. The word is too small."

[the-blaidd-drwg.livejournal.com]

His expression told exactly how she felt as she realized how wrong she'd been in her interpretation of his response. Absolutely miserable. She returned to her place on his lap, wrapping her arms around him because she so desperately wanted to be close to him again, and she quietly admitted, "Part of me never wants to leave this place, 'cause then I'll lose you again." Just the thought of it made her arms tighten around him. "I need you in my life, Jack. 've lost everything else that used to make sense."

[capj_harkness]

He gave her a little reassuring squeeze. He looked up at her face. "You don't need me," he told her. "The pain does go away eventually." He offered her a smile next. "And if it makes you feel any better, I'm having my doubts about us being able to get out of here anyway."