ten_fwd | Prince in the tower? [Open]

Jack knew every inch of his room--he'd been pacing it for long enough--and so it struck him immediately when the wall didn't end when it should. The wall was gone, in fact, and the floor was different.

In total fact, the entire room was different. Gone was Lucinda, gone was the bed, gone were the curtains he'd begun to contemplate setting on fire (but if he had a fire source he'd have a way to escape so he settled for just fantasizing about it). It had been replaced with something like a sitting area--with terribly dated designs, something like twenty years old.

The sudden space around him, after confinement, had Jack a little disoriented and he stumbled mid-step. Also, he'd been expecting to have to stop and turn suddenly, so having the extra space to move threw him off a little. He pressed a palm against the wall, grounding himself, and flashed a vague smile at the few people who were shooting looks at him--and people, how about that.

Half sure he'd finally cracked, Jack kept walking, fingertips digging into the wall hard enough to sting, chewing on the inside of his lips and gritting his teeth. "Where in god's name am I," he muttered, ducking his head to keep anyone from noticing he was talking to himself. He stopped when the wall changed again--this time not through some second change of scenery, but because Jack had reached a window. He lifted his head and stared.

Stared at the vast expanse of space.

Drugs. He'd definitely been drugged.

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"Fatima," she said, using the most Americanized pronunciation of the name that there was. It hadn't been fun going to middle school in LA in a post 9/11 world. Especially considering the fact that of the many colors tossed into her heritage, it was her Indian background, not the Iranian, that she identified with the most.

And, you know, she was from LA.

"I'm guessing," she said, moving over to the window to look out at the stars, "that you're new here?"

"Fatima," he repeated, mimicking her pronunciation. "Who do you think I am, Fatima?"

Because he knew she wouldn't be speaking to him otherwise. Not that it mattered to him, if this was all some sort of hallucination or dream or drug induced hallucination or dream he'd wake up in a few hours and nothing would be different.

She appreciated the way he pronounced her name, affording him a slight, if absent smile.

Talking about Zelien, she realized, was going to have to become a matter-of-fact endeavor. She couldn't allow herself to get emotional or choked up, thinking about people she'd never see again, people who, in all logic, she should never have known in the first place.

"My friend Jefferson," she said. "You look just like him. Different hairstyle, I guess. And he would never dress like...that. But you two could be twins."

Well it was only polite. Mispronouncing someone's name after they already pronounced it for you was like misspelling their name in a reply to an e-mail where they already wrote their name.

He looked down at himself and back up. "What's wrong with what I'm wearing?"

Jeans and a blazer might not have gone together but at least they were clean. And he looked good in them, and the dress shirt and tie.

He was either stalling or purposefully getting off track because he didn't believe any of this was real.

She raised an eyebrow. "Did I say something was wrong with it?" She hadn't. And, although she'd been groomed to pretty much hate anyone in a tie, she had to admit, he wore it well.

But that was so not the point.

Fatima shook her head. "Jefferson's kinda fashionista," she explained. There were few guys, in fact, who were pickier about their clothes than Fatima was about hers. "And he wears a lot of pink."

A pause.

"And he has a scar. You don't have it."

"Your tone did." Like that hadn't been a significant pause between 'like' and 'that'. Sure, Jack was on the defensive. Either he'd been somehow kidnapped to possibly outer space and strange women were calling him by different names and something was going on or he was hallucinating and none of this battered.

"I don't look good in pink."

It was a final tone. Clearly Jefferson didn't look good in it either. Then again, Jack was quite pale.

He shifted, hand moving like he was going to brush his hair aside and changed his mind. "Lady, we've all got scars."

"Not like his," she said, making an absent gesture across her throat.

She actually didn't know the story of Jefferson's scar. She'd seen it a couple of times, mostly in the heat of the moment, during an experiment. And one time, when they'd gone clothes shopping (all right, clothes-stealing) together. She hadn't asked. Always sort of figured there would come a point when he would trust her enough to tell her the story.

That wasn't going to happen now.

"And you would look hot in pink," she added. Because no one could dare to question her fashion sense. "Pale pink. Like a strawberry Starburst. Not Pepto pink, though. That's too much."

Whereas Jack's only visible scar was from his kidnapping, a mark on his forehead partially obscured by his hair.

"No." Because he'd tried pink before.

And it only had a little bit to do with Silas telling him it looked too 'queer' on him.

Guys were almost always weird about pink, so Fatima didn't pursue the argument. She just basked in the knowledge that, not only was she right, but she'd actually seen it and the result was...hot.

Jefferson was definitely the hottest dad she'd ever met.

Not that she knew a lot of them.

She frowned a little bit, looking out into the stars. "This is weird."

Well Jack couldn't argue with the 'hot' part, if only because of the shared face.

He was neutral on fatherhood though.

"I'm just assuming I've finally lost my mind." He shrugged. "I'm not sure how I came up with this, though."

Fatima smirked. "Yeah, me too." Not so much because the multiverse was messing with her. She was used to that. It was just that this place was so...nice. It was beautiful. Luxurious even. Like some kind of futuristic, flying Hilton. It was a spaceship with carpeting, for crying out loud. What kind of people did that?

To say nothing of the - apparently - free lunch.

The other shoe had to drop.

"Apparently, the ones in the funny space pajamas are the natives," she said. "They call themselves 'Starfleet' or something like that." She didn't trust them. Like, at all.

Well it made some sense to Jack--once humans made their way into space, of course they'd put some effort into making it comfortable for themselves. Which implied they'd been in space for quite some time.

"I think it's called a 'uniform'," he said, casting a glance to said members of Starfleet out of the corner of his eye. "Military?"

Call them what you wanted. They looked like pajamas. But Fatima always had been, and always would be, a complete snob when it came to fashion. She'd forgiven the shabbiness of most of the Zelien prisoners because they were prisoners. And Sam because...well...she had a thing for him. But the uniforms were just plain silly.

"That's implied in the 'fleet' part of 'Starfleet,' I guess," she said. "Although they claim to be explorers."

The two weren't mutually exclusive. But it felt like a pretty weird combination.

Prince in the tower? [Open]

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