urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:likenobodyever I know you like nobody ever: Rose & Jack's Story I know you like nobody ever: Rose & Jack's Story 2007-07-14T08:10:33Z urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:likenobodyever:762 Rose Tyler 2007-07-14T07:02:46Z 2007-07-14T08:10:33Z <i>Jack is 174 years old (and 38); Rose is 19<br /><br /><br />Cardiff Bay, Wales.</i><br /><br />She can tell that there's something bothering Mickey, even though he came all the way from London to see her. Maybe it's the fact that she's not ready to come home -- she's not sure she'll <i>ever</i> be ready to come home -- or maybe it's the new face around the TARDIS. He'd seemed to realize that her feelings for the Doctor are deep-seated but complicated, and that the man's an alien and therefore also complicated: the Doctor doesn't hit Mickey's bloke-radar as a threat. Jack, though...<br /><br />He's very handsome -- there's no missing that, even at first glance. Even for a bloke as straight as Mickey. He's also completely charismatic. Rose doesn't intend to ever tell her... is he even her boyfriend anymore? To ever tell Mickey about champagne and dancing and Big Ben in the middle of the Blitz. But it lingers between 'em -- her and Jack -- and adds a layer of meaning to the smiles she gives him, to his hand at the small of her back when he's being protective.<br /><br />Mickey's not stupid. She can see that he sees.<br /><br />She slips out of the TARDIS, leaving the three blokes to tinker and talk, and hopes that the alien, the Captain and Mickey can find something in common to do that blokey-bonding thing over. It would make things easier...<br /><br /><br /><br />Cardiff is very different from the last time she was there -- all the way back in 1869. She thinks of Gwynyth then and smiles a little sadly, a lot proudly. One working-class girl saving the world, out of the sight of everyone. It's something to aspire to. The wind coming in off the bay is chilly and she adjusts her scarf about her throat a little more closely, lost in thought.<br /><br />"And what're you doing out here?"<br /><br />Rose startles at Jack's voice, whipping around at the sound of it. "You followin' me?" she asks, smiling to soften the words.<br /><br />"Rose, you don't know the half of it," he tells her and his wistful little smile strikes her as odd. Off somehow. He was back in the TARDIS, laughing with the other two only a few minutes before... and now, here he is, watching her with --<br /><br />He looks like the Doctor, she thinks suddenly, and is struck by the strangeness of the thought...<br /><br />Still -- there's an <i>old</i> sort of look in his eyes, and a repressed tenderness to the way he's watching her. He has his hands in the pockets of a gorgeous grey trench coat that she's never seen him wear before -- carefully tucked in his pockets, like he's trying to stop himself from reaching out and touching her.<br /><br />"Are you okay, Jack?" Rose asks, frowning. His expression melts into another one of his dazzling smiles, and it almost makes it to his eyes. <br /><br />"Of course I am, sweetheart. Why wouldn't I be?"<br /><br />She bites her lower lip. <i>You're lookin' at me funny,</i> dies unspoken. "Why indeed?" Faint smile.<br /><br />"You know what?" He pulls one hand out of his pocket and there's a half-gesture forward -- as if he was going to touch her -- that just becomes a careless brush off of his lapel. "Never mind. Run along, Rose Tyler. Go... do whatever it was you were doing." A lift of his chin, fond but a little dismissive. "I'll see you again."<br /><br />"Back in the TARDIS, yeah?"<br /><br />"Sure."<br /><br />She hesitates. Another reminder of the Doctor, right there: he's gone untouchable right in front of her. That's when she <i>knows</i> something's not right. She could never have imagined Jack shutting down like that. He's the most physically expansive and open person she's ever seen.<br /><br />"Jack?"<br /><br />"What's wrong, sweetheart?" He catches her chin in his hand, fingers curled under, thumb resting just below her lips.<br /><br />"You just seem... I dunno. Wrong." She touches his forearms, a gentle, companionable gesture, trying to draw him out. <br /><br />He just smiles that Doctor-smile at her again, leans forward and kisses her forehead. "I promise: one day, I'll tell you all about it. Can you live with that, baby girl?"<br /><br />"Awright." It doesn't occur to her to bristle at his term of endearment; the way it just rolled off his tongue made it okay. (She suspects this may be precisely why Jack was such a successful con-man.)<br /><br />"Now, run along." He walks around her and gives her a playful slap on the rump. "I'll see you... soon." <br /><br />She holds his eyes for one more moment, before trotting off down the Bay. And, although she doesn't look back, she can still feel his eyes on her for a long, long time. urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:likenobodyever:274 Rose Tyler 2007-07-10T07:09:18Z 2007-07-10T08:34:37Z <i>'Jack' is 23, Rose is 34</i><br /><br />*<br /><br />She's sitting at the bar, a vision in red, waiting for him. Legs crossed, good shoes. Her wine glass is half-full with the house white -- an acceptable, if unremarkable Chardonnay. She can't help but think her mother would have loved the 'posh' wine and the thought makes her smile against the rim of the glass.<br /><br />When he enters, it's not the him she was expecting, but her smile broadens. He's told her about this evening, how vividly he remembered it, down to the red patent shoes she was wearing -- and... and she should have realized. He'd been so young, a newly-qualified Time Agent, so he hadn't actually bothered to pin-point the date... Still, she should have realized.<br /><br />Feeling a familiar pair of blue eyes on her body, Rose turns towards him and meets his gaze. He grins, and she raises one eyebrow, amused and inviting. There's a cocky youthful swagger in his step -- not <i>that</i> different, but just a bit from his cocky older-and-wiser swagger -- as he struts over to her side.<br /><br />"Well, hello there." Time has definitely softened the older him's accent a little. Here, it's all peach pie and iced tea.<br /><br />"Hello, Jack," Rose smiles at him, sips her wine.<br /><br />"I'm very sorry to say that my name's not Jack, Beautiful," he admits. "But for you, it cou--"<br /><br />"It will be," she tells him. "Join me. I'll buy you a drink." She has it on exceptional authority that she bought him his first ever strawberry daiquiri, and so that's what she orders.<br /><br />"It's very... pink," he observes, eyeing the icy-cold blender drink with suspicion.<br /><br />"I think you'll like it. If not, I'll drink it and I'll buy you another one."<br /><br />To that, he concedes. "Something with hypervodka, I think, if not."<br /><br />"Wrong century. Hypervodka's not invented for another seventeen hundred years," she corrects him, and watches him stiffen. Time Agency training comes to the fore and his handsome face turns to a mask. She touches his hand and smiles reassuringly. "Scan me with the computer on your vortex manipulator." Another jolt of surprise in his beautiful eyes. "I'm a traveler too."<br /><br />"You're from the future too?" He's staring at her, enthralled, eyes wide and face so open she wants to just take him in her arms and kiss him for being so utterly beautiful. "Are you with the Time Agency?"<br /><br />"Actually, I was born in 1986. I've just traveled a bit, independently, I suppose. I was... somethin' of a freelancer."<br /><br />He sips the daiquiri, relaxing a little just before he does -- and the exploding into a delighted grin. "Oh, wow, that stuff's fantastic!"<br /><br />"I thought you'd like it," Rose smiles mysteriously at him. It's fun and incredibly unusual for her to get to be the enigmatic one, and it's written all over his boyish face that he is just eating it all up with a spoon.<br /><br />Finally, he says, "You know me in the future, don't you?"<br /><br />"That's right, Jack."<br /><br />"Look, Beautiful, I told you: my name is not --"<br /><br />"And I told you: it will be." She holds his gaze, until he looks away, laughing. <br /><br />"This is, you know, kind of bad. It's my first mission and I've managed to cross my own timeline. They're really, really not going to li--"<br /><br />"So don't tell 'em," Rose advises. He looks shocked that she'd suggest such a thing, before taking a moment and nodding a little reluctantly.<br /><br />"You probably have a point. Still. I'm a by-the-book kind of guy." She huffs out a mostly-swallowed laugh, actually caught by surprise with that comment. "... At least I am right <i>now</i>," he concludes, unsure of how to react to her amusement. There's a moment in which he processes this hint of what's to come, and then tucks it away. Rose smiles reassuringly.<br /><br />"So," he looks her over, very speculatively. "In our shared future, Beautiful, just how well do I get to know you?" <br /><br />And in that moment, he's so much like <i>her</i> Jack that Rose laughs with delighted affection. She takes his chin between her fingers and kisses him tenderly. When she pulls away, her red lipstick is smeared around his mouth and she tidies it up with her thumb.<br /><br />"Pretty well, then," he concludes, finding his voice.<br /><br />"Somethin' like that," Rose affirms with a nod.