ten_fwd | The Captain, in the bar

Current Location: Deck Ten, Forward: Bar

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The Captain, in the bar

Nobody's seen much of Jack lately. He's been quieter, more subdued, more prone to keeping to himself, shoving his hands in the pockets of his coat and ....

Rose would have called it brooding. Gwen probably would, too.

Rose is gone. Gone back to her time, perhaps. But who knows? She'd just disappeared. He should know better than this, now, to be so attached to people, but Gwen would say that's what keeps people human, and human is something he doesn't always feel. And Rose Tyler was one of the best people he'd known in so many lifetimes' worth of living. She'd taken a con-man and helped show him how to care again, how to live, how to love. She'd had adventures with him across time and space, been his best friend and his best girl though nothing more than friendship had ever officially passed between them, at least not in the confines of 21st century Britain's understanding of relationships.

Rose is gone, and he doesn't know if he's sent her to her death by not warning her.

To anyone who truly knew Jack, the sight of him in his Second World War era coat perched on a barstool with a glass of brandy might seem ... out of place.

He's not breaking his self-imposed not-drinking-unless-he-really-needs-to rule, though. It's synthehol.

He'd probably be better off talking to someone.

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A blonde woman steps into Ten Forward and glances around, clearly looking for someone. Not seeing whoever she's looking for, she sighs and storms to the bar.

She glances over to see Jack -- she'd seen him once before.

"You're with that older Doctor, aren't you?" she asked. "The one with the trainers? Jack, wasn't it?"

"With, not so much," he says, turning on his stool to look the woman up and down. If she hadn't caught him at just precisely this moment, when he's lamenting the loss of Rose, Rose who'd been there, ready to jump to his defence, the last time he and Lucie had met, that would have come with a suggestively raised eyebrow.

As it is, he just sets his drink down on the bar.

It's true. Even if that particular Doctor knows him, even if he's the next incarnation from the one he knew, it's not like Jack came here with him. Or had seen him for more than a century (in linear time, thank you, universe) before they wound up here.

"But yeah. I know him. Captain Jack Harkness. Lucie, right?"

Edited 2015-05-24 10:35 (UTC)

"Yeah, that's me," she nodded. She slumped into the seat next to him.

"He drives you bonkers sometimes, doesn't he?"

Jack snorted.

"Yep. Kinda think that's something he shares across all his incarnations."

It wasn't just personal experience that told him that, either. He'd talked. To Rose, to Amy, and in passing to Lucie. Besides. He knew enough meddling time travelers, Doctors aside, to know that any of them could drive a person bonkers, really.

He glanced sidelong at Lucie, then took another sip.

"He been driving you particularly bonkers lately, or is that just a general observation?"

"I really want to know what genius thought fake alcohol up," Noriko murmurs, taking a seat by Jack. "And more importantly why nobody talked them out of it."

Noriko's hair is loose again--she needed to dye it again and thus take it out of the braids--and pinned up with a screwdriver in a messy knot to keep it off her neck. "Or am I the only one that wonders that?"

"Either a genius or an idiot."

A genius, perhaps, if Jack considers the fact that it allows him to be sitting here, in a bar, drinking and not running the risk of winding up with a massive hangover tomorrow. Thanks, fixed point whatever it is, for not healing that.

Probably, too, if he considered the impact drinking among the crew might have on a ship like this, but that thought's lower in Jack's priorities. For one, it sounds like that prissy idiot of a CO he'd once had who liked to punish soldiers for drinking. After the things they'd seen?

"Having this as the only stuff available?" He grimaces at the glass. "That I'm not so sure about."

"I say genius with the strongest kind of sarcasm available," she says. "So it's closer to the lines of idiot than it would appear. I'd assume it's to cut down on crew drunkenness, but really if you can't trust your people to not be shitfaced on shift...you got a bigger problem than booze."

Her gait is easy, and there isn't nothing about her presence which seeks to either conceal or to the demand the announcement itself. She does not attempt to stand too close, but walks up between two stools to the left of him. Voice calm and yet kind. "Good evening, Jack. Is that as interesting as it looks?"

The drink in his hand. The one that doesn't look like it has his attention. Not with the waves of emotion rippling off him.

"Counselor Troi." Jack takes a deep breath.

He's not, it's true, overly fond of counselors. Nothing against Troi, whom he's sure does excellent work for the Enterprise and who sure did more than her bit down on that planet. But you probably couldn't blame a guy for being a little wary around anyone trying to dig too deep into his head when they have the sort of stuff Jack's got hidden away in there.

He shifts in his seat, glancing over his shoulder at her.

"It's interesting that synthehol is the beverage of choice here. Or is that by Starfleet mandate?"

He wonders what the Starfleet personnel here make of the people who disappear, if they've done anything to figure out what happens to them? Or is it a case of once off their hands, not their problem?

He'd like to think that Starfleet, with its highly proclaimed ideals, would care, but ... idealism has its limits.

Deanna returns the congenial smile. He wouldn't be the first person to look at her easily, while every emotion read wariness and suspicion, sharp edged self-protectiveness. She steps up to the bar and places her hands at rest on the bar. Her own was easy through and through, made of calm and even judge-less acceptance. Understanding. "Deanna, please. I'm off duty for the night."

"It's a chemical variant," she explains. "The same taste, the same smell. But the metabolizing of it is different, removing the harmful effects that might affect duty or passenger interactions. Intoxication, addiction, and alcohol poisoning, all a thing that the imbiber not need to be prey to."

"But if you are seeking those qualities from it--" And, perhaps, this one does come with its own look of both concern and curiosity. But just as possibly some more understanding for it. It was hard to be stuck in this situation, and there were a myriad number of paths people could use to walk through it. "--Guinan does pride herself on being irreproachable in her chosen duties, and stocks a selection of drinks made of the older, archaic fashion, too."

"Deanna," he says, accepting the correction easily, though he does find himself wondering if she can ever really be off-duty. Certainly it's something Jack struggled with, at Torchwood, once he took over: the work was all-consuming and if he saw something that needed him, he did it.

"Actually, I prefer it this way," he says, lifting the glass and giving her a tiny toast before he takes a sip. "I don't drink."

Not anymore, at least. And it sounds ridiculous coming from a man who just took a deep sip of brandy, but hey. Sometimes he misses the taste of alcohol as much as the thing itself. Good old Time Agency rehabs and how they never really worked all that well.

"But it still tastes good enough to almost make up for that."

Deanna considers him for a second, not trying to hide at all her surprised about that revelation. It's not as though some of the people here, new and unknowing of Starfleet hadn't ended trying quite a number of things they either never did or never thought they'd ever have the chance for. But it does lead itself to an obvious question.

Deanna asks with a frank curiosity, "Did you know what it was before you ordered it?"

Todd has only met Jack Harkness once before, and it was some time ago. Though it was a meeting that the old Wraith won't soon forget. Partially because the fact that he is still alive is in part owed to that meeting. And, because, what manner of human can survive to fully feed a Wraith and not only still live, but remain in perfect health?

Simply put, Harkness is a strange one, and Todd remains as intrigued to this day as he was on that first meeting.

Seeing the man out and about, the Wraith isn't slow to approach him, stepping over to the bar but remaining standing rather than taking a seat. "Harkness," he greets with a slight bow of his head. "How are you this day?"

Now, there's somebody to make Jack wary. The Wraith is something of an unknown quantity: he'd heard enough from Sheppard to be wary, but also to trust that, if he were fed, Todd would not actually pose a particular threat to members of the ship's complement or passenger roster.

If Jack just happened to have the ability to feed him, then that was lucky for everyone. Except, perhaps, Jack.

As ways to die go, it had hurt like hell. Even knowing, now, far more than he ever did about how he became what he is, he's not entirely thrilled with the concept of acting as an all you can eat buffet for an alien that feeds on human life force, but better him than someone who wouldn't be able to get up and walk away again later.

He's got life to spare.

"Still here and still alive."

It sounds a little more bitter than he'd intended, and he shrugs as he turns to face Todd more fully.

"Guess we've got that in common."

Though, right now, he almost wishes they didn't: with Rose gone, he could wish he were elsewhere were it not for the Doctor.

The last time the Doctor saw Jack in a bar with that kind of look on his face it they were somewhere in the fifty first century, Jack just watched an Adipose totter across the bar, and met a man named Alonzo.

Even though Eleven wasn't one for bars, he decided to settle in a seat next to Jack. He looked like he needed to talk to someone, and if anyone could understand what it was like to be a man that lived for thousands of years, it would be The Doctor.

But he wasn't going to say anything. That he planned on leaving up to Jack.

It was the Doctor.

Sometimes, he wanted to say damn the Doctor, but the impulse never lasted long, because without the Doctor, Jack would still have been the irresponsible rogue who tried to con the Doctor and Rose thinking they were Time Agents. And he wouldn't go back on that. Not on meeting the two people who are among the dearest to him in all the galaxies he's traveled.

Jack's shoulders, usually straight and tall as befitted the officer of the Royal Air Force that his coat proclaimed him to be, slumped, a little.

"She's gone, you know. Rose."

That explained it. This face didn't have the same kind of attachment to Rose as the previous two had, but Eleven knew that without her, he wouldn't have been this Doctor.

"I didn't even really speak to her much when she was here. Though I doubt the other me is taking it well."

And it didn't look like Jack was either, "She gets the chance to be happy back home."

Rose had been the start of it all. A pretty girl hanging from a barrage balloon looking like she needed someone to swoop in and save her. And he'd done it, and in sweeping her off her feet, she'd swept him off hers, with her goodness, her heart, her life, her ... energy, everything about her that was Rose.

"You know what he's like," Jack said, though ... he didn't go into detail.

It would, he thought, have been simply stating the obvious.

What did make him pay attention, though, was what the Doctor said next.

"The lists said she died at Canary Wharf."

His voice, traitorous thing that it was, caught, a little, on the name of Torchwood One's base. He wanted it to be wrong. He'd wanted it ever since he'd heard it, and having the Doctor and Rose here and not knowing if that really was the future, if it could be changed, maybe by being here, while he did know that it shouldn't be changed, had been driving him mad.

Eleven would agree with all of Jack's feelings on Rose. Without her, he certainly wouldn't be the man he was today, nor would he have been the one that he was before, or even before that. She showed him it was possible to move on from the Time War, from what happened, from burning his planet.

"Yes, I do." He hadn't met his tenth self yet, but he knew what he was like, and he knew how far he'd go to do pretty much anything.

But Eleven shook his head at the mention of Canary Wharf. It was a terrible fight, that much was for sure, but at least things turned out somewhat okay for Rose.

"She disappeared then. Didn't die. It was easier to explain that way though."

He also knew telling Jack any of this had the potential to mess up the timelines, but Jack looked like he needed to know something worked out okay at that battle.

Rose had, in many ways, held them together. Rose was the heart of them, back in those days when they'd traveled time and space seeking adventure, before it had gone wrong and he'd found himself abandoned, immortal and not knowing it, on the Game Station. And even that, he'd understood, when he'd been told it was because Rose was in danger. To save her, he'd have given up so much, and said it was worth it.

Including what he did give up: traveling with her and the Doctor.

He was about to take another sip of the brandy that wasn't brandy when the Doctor spoke again, and Jack stared. Stared at the face that was so familiar and yet not familiar, because it wasn't his Doctor, but was still a Doctor.

Then he grinned.

"She's alive? She's still alive?"

"She is."

Rose, as far as he knew, was living happily in Pete's world with Jackie, Pete, and the Meta-crisis Doctor. She finally had everything that could make her happy. Eleven couldn't think of anyone else who deserved that more than Rose.

"The other me can't find out about that . It might not have happened for him yet."

For a moment, Jack was too happy to care about temporal implications. Years. It had been years he'd spent blaming Torchwood, Yvonne, himself, and even, sometimes, the Doctor, for Rose's death. Wondering, if he'd been there, if he could have saved her from that mess. Grieving, for so much brightness, so much light and joy gone from the world.

He stared, as though studying the Doctor's face would tell him something, confirm or deny what he was being told.

"I know," he said, eventually. "I haven't told him anything."

He'd wanted to. He'd wanted to ask. He'd wanted to rail against him for letting anything happen to Rose. But he didn't need to, now, and all he could do was stare, still grinning.

But that wasn't enough. It was awkward, to hug a man sitting next to him at a bar, but Jack did his best, because Rose was alive. Disappeared, whatever that meant, but alive.

"I was so sure she was dead."

Eleven hugged Jack back as best he could, then shook his head one more time, "She's happy."

He knew, just what the meta crisis Doctor said to her at Bad Wolf Bay, and he was glad for it. She needed to hear it, and the part of that man that was him needed to say it. Really, properly, say it. To this day, he still had difficulty with that word.

"She deserves it."

She did. More than anyone he knew, Rose Tyler deserved to be happy. And they'd been happy, once, the three of them. It had been belonging, family, things Jack had thought were never going to be his again.

It had hurt, to have that back, to lose it again. But there he was, with a Doctor who could hug him, could set aside that prejudice against what he'd become.

"Thank you, Doctor."

For telling him. But, more, for whatever part he'd played in making her safety the truth, rather than her death.

"Yes, she does."

Especially after everything she unknowingly did for him. Without Rose, the Doctor was sure he'd have spiraled down some long dark path.

As far as Jack went, maybe this Doctor was a little less sensitive to the 'fixed point' part of him. He was, after all his friend. And Eleven did stop by one or two of those stag parties over the years.

"You're welcome. Just don't tell the other mes."

There was maybe more similarity in that reasoning than either of them knew. It had been Rose, Rose's spark and light that drew Jack in, until he was where the Doctor could take him and teach him and the two of them could show him how much wonder he'd been missing.

"It'll be our secret."

After all, the fact that she'd been on that list of the dead was a secret, too, one he'd hated not sharing with the other Doctor, the one who'd been here with Rose, but ... that was the trouble with time travel. Some things, you couldn't share.

"I can live with thinking I'll never see her again if I just know that."

Eleven wasn't going to tell Jack that he would see Rose again, assuming he managed to get off of this ship. They all save the world together again and it was fun.

He was choosing to forget what happened afterward. For those few moments it was fun and everyone was happy.

"It's what happened. Rose and her family are all happy."

"And her family, too?"

Not that he'd ever had the pleasure of really meeting Jackie Tyler. But he'd heard enough about her to have an idea how much of London she'd have torn apart if she'd thought Rose had died.

(As much as Jack wanted to.)

"A happy ending for the Tylers, then."

He smiles into his glass, because it reminds him of a night long ago, when the Doctor had shouted that just this once, everybody lived. He hadn't been there to hear it, but in the giddy euphoria afterwards, he'd heard about it.

He can handle a happy ending for Rose.

Eleven wouldn't call meeting Jackie a pleasure per se, but she was Rose's mum so he could deal with it (most of the time, if he had something to eat beforehand.)

"When was the last time you saw me?"

It was best to get a handle on timelines now.

"Well, somebody looks broody," says the redhead walking to the bar, right before she turns around and leans back against it, elbows propped and ankles crossed.

He's not the only one. Rory's been gone for months now, and even if she shows it in a different way, she misses the idiot. He went looking for the Doctor, and true to their luck, the Doctor showed up not moments later.

She eyes up his ensemble and his drink, arching one brow.

"Did you actually fight in that war?" she asks.

"Don't believe everything you see," he says, before he turns on his stool to face her. Amy Pond. Companion to the Doctor. He'd recognized her Scottish burr before he'd turned: he hasn't heard another like it on this ship in the many months he's been here.

She's not the person he's missing, but she is someone with whom he has the sort of automatic bond that nobody who hasn't travelled with the Doctor could really understand. They're set apart, even in this place where being marooned in time and space is common.

"But as it happens," he goes on, as he lifts his glass, one elbow planted firmly on the bar, "I did. Twice." His smile is wan, but it's there, at least. Or trying to be.

"Try explaining that one to someone who doesn't know our mutual friend."

She smiles at him, though it's the kind of slow, knowing smirk that suggests the amusement might be covering up for something else, like the way her bright eyes are quietly picking him apart.

"I've met Churchill, you know," she says, tipping towards him a bit.

It's the very definition of a humble-brag.

"Nobody here will ever see the things we've seen," she goes on, voice softening; "so what's eatin' you, then?"

There is a bond there, automatic or not. But maybe that's just because the Doctor has this way of making families, and spreading them out all across the universe.

To Bucky, glimpses of the coat from his original time era are some of the rare real moments in this surreal world. He hasn't spoken much to the Captain since his arrival and this is typical with how he treats everyone, he prefers to keep things simple. Despite the lack of talking, he's been aware of the others movements.

"You look lost." He studies people, he learns their emotions, ~~and the keys to destroying them~~. "Something has happened."

Kaylin's permission post/trigger warning

Kaylin strode in and sat at the bar. She needed them to hire her as security already. It wasn't just that she felt she had to do SOMETHING to justify being fed and housed - though that was part of it - it was mostly that she had learned that complaining was the hard earned right of those who were doing something useful and she wasn't.

Didn't stop her from complaining, though. Which made her a hypocrite. As she hated hypocrisy, this just gave her more to complain about, and the whole thing made her wish she had Teela or Tain here... someone she could get drunk with.

"If you have anything that even vaguely resembles booze, I have two of those, a tray of meat buns, one of those pizza things, and some meat. I don't care what kind so long as it's dead and I can eat it and it isn't sentient." Sad the life that forces her to tag that last bit on. Happy the life where she can actually order food and expect to get it.

She swore quietly but with some heat at the dichotomy.

She was in leather pants - the armor sort of leather more than the tight and clingy sort of leather - a linen shirt, a tabard with a flying Hawk, a translucent dragon looking thing around her shoulders and around her wrist - a very expensive looking archaic bracelet. Antique gold, deep set gems; it was probably older than the doctor. The thing looked older than some universes, though it was in good shape.

The bracelet clinked as she rested her hands on the bartop and closed her eyes. The side of her face turned towards him had a delicate tattoo of deadly nightshade. A pretty little flower that went more with the bracelet than with the daggers at her hips, unless of course, one presumed the daggers were poisoned. Which they were not.

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The Captain, in the bar

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Sorry for the super late tag-in