ten_fwd | First entrance

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First entrance

[Torchwood Three, Cardiff, during episode 1.07, Greeks Bearing Gifts.]

Tosh is going to have to learn to believe in humanity herself. Nobody can instill that faith. However hard she's going to find it to learn, at least it won't be as hard -- or as costly -- as Jack's own lesson.

He shoves his hands into his coat pockets as he strides across Roald Dahl Plass, the breeze bringing the smell of the ocean in off the bay, ruffling in his hair and at the hem of his vintage RAF greatcoat.

Until suddenly, it isn't.

Jack's footsteps pause in mid-stride and he spins, hand going automatically to his holster to draw the Webley. The dim, warm light of the plaza at night is gone, just like the salt air and that playful little breeze. The sound of running water from the tower, the shape of the Millennium Centre with its hybrid verse spelled out in windows across its front.

Instead, he's in a bar.

A bar.

"What the hell?"

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There are some things a person just needs a drink in hand for. For Zinda herself, that list is about as long as her leg, written in type so small she'd need a magnifying glass to read out the words, but for most people, it boils down to only a few really pertinent things: surviving life or death situations, dealing with a break-up, losing a friend.

Or, hey. Getting pulled onto a stalled spaceship in the middle of nowhere. Now that seems like a likely contender. "Naw," she says, pushing away her empty tequila glass and going back to her martini without batting an eyelash. "Well, they've said a few things, but it doesn't seem to me like the people in charge here have any real hold on this particular situation, if you know what I mean. Seems the thing that brought us all here could probably snaps his fingers and send us all back again, but til then, we're sittin' pretty with nothin' to do."

It doesn't bother her like it would bother some of her pals: Oracle would be in their systems already, figuring out how to get this boat moving again; Dinah would have befriended each and every visitor and found the connection between them all.

Huntress? She'd be climbing the darn walls, and probably have gotten herself tossed in the brig to boot. "Long story short? We all got put on this boat, but she's stalled and goin' nowhere fast. Consider it somethin' like extended liberty."

He knows that game. And he doesn't particularly like it. He's spent most of his life being at the whim either of his fate or of somebody else, and even if he's finally got himself off Earth in the 21st century, he doesn't like that it's at someone else's whim, and a someone who appears to be very powerful and not particularly interested in what happens to the people he messes with.

"So. We're pieces in his cosmic game."

That reminds Jack a little too much of a long-ago version of himself to be an entirely comfortable prospect. He's of the opinion that the sort of power this must take -- whatever the hell sort of creature is doing this -- ought to be treated with at least a little responsibility.

But he'd spent too long at the whims of Torchwood to not feel like that.

"Nice bar. Nice company." He flashes her another smile and winks as he takes another sip of the tequila. "I can think of worse places to spend some liberty."

Once upon a time, he'd have gone looking for a place like this.

"Well, sure, I guess you could think of it like that," she admits, but she's pulling a face as she does so, scrunching it up into deep skepticism. "If you wanna be all conspiracy theory about it. 'Sides, it doesn't so much like chess as it does like one guy just continually whoopin' the other."

Well, it's not personal, that's for sure, and Zinda found long ago that the best way of dealing with a situation she didn't expect is simply to roll along with it until the opportunity for change presents itself -- and that hasn't happened yet, so instead, she's dealing with it by having a pretty damn good martini at a pretty damn good bar with a seriously handsome man.

Life could be far worse, is what she's saying.

At least he relaxes enough to flirt a little -- after Creote, she's always a little wary until she starts getting signals back -- and she beams at him like a floodlight just got plugged in and decided to shine every watt off her smile. "Oh, you flyboys sure know how to sweet talk a gal."

Boy, but she misses those fellas. "But I can tell you're a curious kind, Captain. You got anymore questions, you go ahead and ask 'em; I'll answer whatever I can."

"Conspiracy theory is a habit it's kinda hard to break," he admits, with a laugh that comes very easily because it's shared with a hell of a bombshell over a drink. Even if it is in a bar in space he never intended to be in.

"But maybe I could try."

There could be worse places to find himself.

He's spent the past 138 years learning some of them.

And Zinda Blake has got a hell of a smile, one he can't not return, winking at her over his drink.

"They teach us that in training." He pauses a beat. "But I already knew."

One finger strokes the side of his glass for a moment before he leans across to her, smiling again; just because she's offered to answer questions is no reason to break off the flirtation, after all.

"You know just where it is that we've got this liberty, then? Looks like a spaceship to me."

"No conspiracy I can see," she says, swiveling in her seat so she can lean one arm on the bar, uncross and re-cross her legs. She's not delighted about being dragged out of her own time and place -- again -- but it's not so bad, here, and if she really is stuck, well --

Either Bab's'll figure out a way to come get her, or she'll just have to start all over. Again. Which is a tiring thought, but not one that's gonna keep her down for long. "Mind, I'm not exactly thrilled to be used to prove a point: I got a life and a job back home and this is gonna be hell to explain to my friends -- but it could be worse. Nobody's even pointed a gun at me."

Her smile is sparkling, all good fun and teasing. "'Cept you, Captain. Anyway, here's what I know: you're right about it bein' a spaceship. We're currently aboard the USS Enterprise, commanded by Captain Jean-Luc Picard, which is seems some folks know and others have never heard of."

She peers at him over the brim of her martini glass. "Sound familiar to you?"

He doesn't fail to notice the way she re-crosses her legs. Any guy with a pulse would, and for all the things Jack might or might not be, he's definitely that.

"But at least I know how to make an entrance. I only point my gun at the best-looking girls." She's got a hell of a smile, and he's returning it with one of his own, sly and teasing and threatening to burst into a grin at any moment.

Besides. It did turn out to be quite the conversation-starter, and as conversations go, it could get a lot worse than this one with Zinda Blake.

"Enterprise." He glances around, thoughtful for a moment. "The name's familiar, but I can't place it."

"I bet you say that to all the gals back home."

She's grinning to beat the band, though, over the rim of her martini glass, before sipping it with a shake of her head. "It wasn't somethin' I knew, either, but from what I can tell, there are folks here from Earth after my time who say it's a whole lot like some science fiction show that used to be on the TV. If it is, it's nothing I've been able to catch up with, yet."

Well, shoot. Sixty-odd years takes a heck of a lot of catching up, and she doesn't have time for everything.

"Only the ones worth saying it to," he says, because she clearly doesn't mind the flirtation, even if she can see straight through it. That has its own sort of fun, too, talking to a girl who knows it's a game but plays it anyway.

For Jack, it's a game he's played in full awareness that is just what it is for a very long time.

But it's what she says next that interests him, because he's not been paying overmuch attention to science-fiction TV shows himself. He prefers classic books if he's looking for a bit of futuristic escapism.

(Because that's not entirely escapism for him, ever.)

That's not even the really interesting part, though, and the look he gives her is appraising, even if his voice is casual.

"So what's a resistance pilot doing 'catching up' on old TV shows?"

She shrugs, toying with the stem of her martini glass, spinning it 'round and 'round in the small puddle of condensation it's leaving on the bartop. "You how you leave for a week and when you come back there's a pile of things for you to take care of or watch or read? Well, take that, times sixty years, and you got my life. My to-do list would probably fill this whole damn bar if I wrote it down."

It's actually not so bad, getting used to a different time period. Things have changed plenty, sure, but you don't worm your way into the Blackhawks without being quick and smart and adaptable and -- most of all -- resilient. "So I'm still a little behind on things like TV shows -- except for the moon landing. You can bet I watched that the first night I could."

"That's a hell of a to-do list," he agrees, though he laughs, heartily, at the thought of her catching up on the moon landing as soon as she found out about it and could.

Yeah.

He can see that. Of course she did. She's a pilot.

"It made good watching," he agrees, watching her, taking a moment to admire her profile.

Jack's so mixed up in time and space that he barely even knows which time he should really feel like he belongs to now, after so long stranded in a world and time that weren't his. He's had a long time to live in them, to watch the years pass, to become really familiar with things he'd only learned enough about to dip into and out of.

"So how did that happen? Winding up sixty years in a different time?"

"One real bad day."

She's not shutting him down, or anything, but it's nothing she particularly feels much like talking about, either, so she just shrugs it off and tips the rest of her martini down her throat before setting the glass back down and motioning to the bartender for another. "So what's your story, good-lookin'? You always walk into a room with a gun drawn, or are we just a special case?"

He knows how to recognize a deflection of something someone doesn't particularly want to talk about. Hell, he should, he's practically the king of them himself, much to the annoyance of his team back at Torchwood. Gwen being the notable exception there, since she's managed to find a way of worming in past his defenses.

Were it of any real import to their situation, he'd push her. But curious as her hinted-at story makes him, he'd be one of the first people to understand how one bad day can leave you in that sort of a mess.

"Depends on the room," he says, with a little lean in like he's sharing a secret with her. "When I've just been hurled off Earth and wound up in some unknown bar? Hell, yes."

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First entrance

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