| Date: 18 December 2007
Characters: Gwen Cooper, Jack Harkness Location: hotel bar Link to IJ: thread #13011 |
 Owen had the right of it. They needed--she needed--to talk to Jack and figure out what was going on. More, what they were going to do about it. She just...didn't know where he was, exactly. So she wandered toward the bar, calling, "Jack Harkness. Captain Jack Harkness? I'd like a word with you." |
 He leaned back in his barstool and looked at her. "Gwen, hey. Have a seat and a drink while you have a word." He was drinking water, of course but that didn't stop him from being in the bar in the first place. |
| "There you are." Yes, that was relief in her voice. She headed toward him, claiming the stool next to his. |
| He gestured vaguely. "Orange or green?" |
| She. Well. Stared. Then lifted her eyebrows. "Pardon me?" |
| "Do you want orange or green?" |
| "Orange or green what, Jack?" She'd learned enough that she wasn't going to blithely answer. |
| "Your drink." |
| "It's." She paused. "I'm fine with water, thanks." |
| "Suit yourself," he said, and when the bartender came by got a refill for his own drink. "Now, about that word." |
| Gwen kept her voice down, just in case. "What is going on, Jack? What is this place? What happened?" |
| "This place is an island in time, and between realities. People come here intentionally or accidently, then return or are returned to the moment they left, without any memory of it." He paused. "Well, at least as far as I can tell. What's the last thing you remember?" |
| "Talking to Owen who was looking for you because he'd met himself," she told him dryly. |
| "I can imagine our Owen didn't think much of his alternate self, but I meant before you ended up here." |
| "That's just it. I was home. I think I was home, at least, and then I was here. I hadn't done anything special." |
| "All right, you were home. Had Rhys been dead recently?" |
| She'd picked up her water glass. Big mistake. She choked on the mouthful and croaked, "What?" |
| "I take it that's a no. Fairies?" |
| "I've met Estelle, yeah," she said somewhat gently. |
| He tried to think, and keep placing the timeline. "Cannibals?" |
| And she was just skipping to the end. "Suzie tried to kill me." |
| "Lost plane flew through the rift?" |
| Wry: "Not that anyone's told me. So you're not our Jack." |
| "Sounds more like I'm your Jack and I happen to be further along the timeline than you. Not your Jack is the one from the universe where you walked in to Ianto jerking off over Jack's corpse." |
| "I." There was nothing to say to that. She blinked, grabbed her water and took a long drink. |
| "Don't you just wish you'd let me order you that drink now?" |
| She wrinkled her nose. "A bit, yeah." |
| He leaned back and grabbed a glass of something green and silver. "Try that." |
| Her eyebrows lifted. "Do I want to know what it is?" |
| "I'm not even entirely sure what it is, but it's sweet, clean and has the kick of a mule." |
| Gwen lifted the glass by way of toast. "Cheers." She sniffed it before she drank, then took a healthy swallow. |
| He met the lifted glass with his water and clinked. "To Torchwood." |
| To her credit, she didn't fall off the chair. Her eyes were a little bright. "Speaking of. We can just go back whenever we like?" |
| "Uh. No." He said, a little sheepishly, but just a little. "We can go back when we, deliberately or accidently, find a way back." |
| "Ahh, and there's the catch." |
| "Try not to worry about it, too much. There's not much that can be done, and we'll get back sooner or later."
Jack was perhaps a tad bit overly mellow about this. |
| "People are going to notice we're gone, Jack." |
| He sighed, heavily. "No, they're not Gwen. We'll go back the second we left. I'm not even convinced we'll remember it." |
| "You're going to tell me I'll get used to this, aren't you?" |
| "Do I need to?" he asked, smiling faintly. |
| "No." She said it like a chastened school girl, and ruined it with an eyeroll and a little smile. |
| He laughed. "Good. This place is a hotel. There are a lot of rooms upstairs. When you leave here, find one. Other things you need can be found in the shops around town. They're mostly unattended, so you shouldn't have many problems." |
| "Oh, I know," she promised. "I came out of one." She arched an eyebrow. "Just take things? Jack..." |
| "Just take things," he agreed. Paused and frowned. "Gwen?" |
| "Stealing?" |
| "It's not stealing. This place doesn't exist." |
| "...How does it not exist if we're here, Jack?" |
| "It only exists while we're here. As soon as we're not, it won't. If a tree falls in the forest and no one's there, does it make noise, e=mc&2sup;, etc, etc. "
He wasn't even trying. |
| She laughed. "So Schroedinger wouldn't mind if you stole his cat?" |
| "And if you pop back in the exact instant you showed up here, then you were never gone. If you were never gone, you were never here. If you were never here, you didn't steal anything. Exactly." |
| "It's good to see you, Jack," she said fondly. |
| He smiled, brief and warm but a little tired. "It's good to see you, too. Things will be fine."
Except the whole opening the rift, nearly ending the world, punching him, dying and demons and - oh, screw it. Things would be fine after that, too. He hugged her. |
| She held on for a moment, then let go. "Right. Time for some petty theft, I suppose. Oh. If you see our Owen, don't tell him that bit about Ianto..." |
| He let her go, and started to say something about her stealing, but stopped. "Why not?" he asked, instead. |
| "I think he might cry on you." She wrinkled her nose again. |
| He looked really, really confused. "Owen might." He stopped. "Right. I won't say anything, and thanks for the warning." |
| She nodded. "He's not quite himself." He'd kissed her. In public. She still wasn't sure how to take that one. She stood, |
| "I'll keep a close eye on him," he promised. "Go steal underwear, Gwen." |
| She flushed, but she waved and went. |
| He watched her go, smirked and chuckled and then slid off his stool and went back to. Patroling, is actually what he was doing, much as it pained him to admit it. |