Jack. (Fic)
1 and a half month
He's further away then he's ever been, but Ace doesn't realise it was because she pushed him away. Excuse after excuse, trying to give him excuses to do other things. Avoiding him. Perhaps she was still hurting after Valentine's Day, or... or perhaps it was because she was afraid. She came late and silent, left early, spent more time then perhaps she should leaning against the side of the TARDIS.
3 Months
They'd fought. They'd fought and she'd punched him, because she finally heard from Ianto. Ianto, who didn't want her anyway now that he and Gwen might actually be a bit of a couple, but one night when she'd been amazingly drunk she just asked Ianto why not. His confession that she was too innocent made her bristle, but hearing that he had said if Ianto touched her he'd kill him made her see red.
Drunken accusations were the worst kind; everything came out, but it was usually garbled and hurtful.Certain words were said, in the realms of you don't want me to me happy because you can't be and You're keeping me for yourself but you don't want me. He tried to tell Ace, tried to show her - but she punched him hard enough to give him a bloody lip and when he'd picked himself up off of her floor she was gone.
She spent the night with someone who didn't expect any more from that night, and took four showers afterward.
Six Months.
It amazing how long you can go without talking to a person if you actively try. Ace finally had her group of friends, people who were her age who she spoke too and laughed with and got drunk with. She wasn't the type to sleep around, they knew - but it didn't matter. More often then not Ace was sleeping on their floor, and no one mentioned when she woke up crying.
She heard the Doctor was gone the day after it happened. She didn't cry, didn't yell - her feet hit the forest floor with thumps as she ran, twigs whipping her face. Into the treehouse, up the three flights- He was just sitting, his back against the wall as a piece of paper fluttered in his fingers. Another damned letter, and when he saw her she saw that flash of weariness before he opened his arms. She shook her head, and he opened his mouth to protest even as she toed off her shoes and slipped into his bed to hold him, not the other way around.
She didn't protest when he got her shirt wet.
1 Year.
They went swimming on Tuesdays. It was a habit that just fell into place, neither of them actually agreeing on it. Laughter, splashing - it all became the norm, and one day that Ace stood under the waterfall, her head tipped back as she watched the water fall straight down through the sun-
He wondered what'd taken him so long.
There was a strong hand on hers, the water pounding against their skin as he finally bent to kiss her with gentle fingers on her jaw. She gasped in surprise, ended up choking and pulling them both into the water.
Two Years.
They'd not talked about the kiss, although five more had peppered the following months. Each one was deep and pure, the kind that they write stories about. Perhaps, that's what this story is about in the end. Ace understood him, knew that he meant it, but... but there was always something else. Someone else. He'd pulled back the first five times, but the last- when they'd been kissing in the dim light of the bonfire, she'd gently touched his wrist when those calloused fingers had slipped under her shirt.
He'd been trying for fidelity, again. It was the third time, and none of them were with her.
Four Years.
Ace ended up in his bed more often then not, most nights. There was a treehouse wide poll going on, wondering if they actually had a relationship. The sight of her padding out of his room topless, with only a low pair of knickers on her hips had seemed a clue, but all they ever did was sleep. Something in her still wouldn't believe that he wanted her for anything other then comfort- he'd tried to tell her six times, but he could see that it hurt her, that she was assuming the wrong thing and that it wasn't for the right reasons.
She was there for him every time a relationship went wrong, and didn't know that this last one had fallen apart because he was accused of being in love with Ace. He couldn't protest it.
On a freezing December morning, there was that familiar grinding of gears, of an animal trapped in a small space that had both of them stumbling out of the treehouse almost naked. He watched as all the color drained from Ace's face when a short man with dark eyes and a big voice stepped out, the was that she took a half-step back.
He knew her better then he knew himself, most of the time.
The Doctor moved back into what'd been his room, and Ace ended up closed in there with him for over five hours. He waited like someone waiting in a hospital, readying himself to hear the worst even though he didn't know what it was. Raised voices, the occasional slamming of furnature- she emerged with no color in her face, and he could see the pain in her eyes and the shaking of her hands. He didn't know what the Doctor had said to her, but she withdrew from him. Murmured apologies, that she must have caught something-
Lies, all of it. He wasn't stupid. It took him all of an hour to get her installed in his bed, half a sleeping pill having been crunched up in her sandwich. He'd left when she'd asked, but could hear her crying through the door. He had things to take care of, and his eyes grew almost blank as he moved back down the stairs.
The Doctor had wanted a fight when it came to him, and he heard the man spout the same things that he'd heard from Ace years before. That she didn't know what she was doing, that she couldn't handle herself, that she was a child- and once he'd picked the small man up by his coat and said that if he made Ace cry again he'd put him back in his TARDIS and make sure that he never came out- He spewed vitrol, low words with spitting syllabants and rolling Rs. The Doctor said he was protecting her, that he was helping her.
And after he'd pointed out every one of Ace's flaws, then that accent said You only want her to shag her, he crumpled from the fist that he'd not even seen coming.
He'd finally realised. It wasn't that he was stupid, it was just... it'd never been the time. But as he lay in his bed with her head pillowed on his chest, he realised some things. Even though he wanted it at times, he never had needed to have a shag with her. They'd come close twice, but it'd been years. Four years, really. Every time he'd tried to stay faithful, every time that he'd offered to give of himself...
Maybe what he needed was right here.
Eight Years.
It'd taken another year, in the end. He'd gotten distracted, she'd taken too much of that single conversation to heart. Valentine's that year, they'd had another heart to heart and when this time he'd told her the truth she'd not believed him. There'd been another month, of him trying- Until finally he kissed her when they were both standing on the beach, the setting sun turning her tanned skin crimson, strong hands cradling her face as he told her that she might be the one that he kept looking for.
That night they made love under the stars, his hands coaxing her to new highs and when he closed his eyes and slid into her it was like he was home.
Their relationship was an on-again off-again one, with her getting so mad at him that she couldn't even speak to him and the last time when he was telling her that he could be faithful- She'd hit him again for the second time, an amazing amount of furiosity in that small frame. She didn't want that from him, because that's not who he was. She understood that he loved so many, and that he needed so many, and didn't hold it against him, didn't resent it (although she insisted on a condom with everyone else.) They largely kept doing their own thing, but the whispered words at night, the feeling of the weight of her on his chest- It kept him grounded.
When she'd started getting sick two years later, sleeping and withdrawn and pale - he'd steeled himself for the worst when she'd gone to the clinic. Cancer wasn't unheard of here, and without the technology- And there was only so much that the nanobots could do.
She'd not talked to him for two days when she'd walked out of the clinic, and finally- finally, when she'd slipped back into his- now their room, her voice breaking at the whispered truth- It hurt him. It hurt, and she could feel his body stiffen. She'd told him- even though it didn't matter, she'd told him that for her, there wasn't anyone else. Didn't need to be anyone else.
There was no way she was pregnant.
Stiff words- hurtful words, and when she'd started to cry he pressed his eyes closed, his hand stroking her hair. He'd not thought it could hurt this much, wondered if this was what it was like for her. When he would ask months later, she'd retort that of course not; he'd not promised, and it was entirely different.
House (who was now with Wilson, and as happy as he could be for being House) made a snide comment when he'd heard. The look in this blue eyes was serious enough to kill, careful words following that if he heard that Ace had found out House's opinion- ... Well. It was House that pointed out that there were actually two possibilities, being that they lived on a magical island and all.
The test had taken fourteen minutes, and most of that was a backup in the lab.
She avoided saying I told you so, but it was clear in her laughing eyes as he picked her up, and she whispered that word in his ear. Daddy.
A year later, and when Jack cradled the six-month-old Estelle Audrey Harkness to his chest, he fell a little more in love.
He's further away then he's ever been, but Ace doesn't realise it was because she pushed him away. Excuse after excuse, trying to give him excuses to do other things. Avoiding him. Perhaps she was still hurting after Valentine's Day, or... or perhaps it was because she was afraid. She came late and silent, left early, spent more time then perhaps she should leaning against the side of the TARDIS.
3 Months
They'd fought. They'd fought and she'd punched him, because she finally heard from Ianto. Ianto, who didn't want her anyway now that he and Gwen might actually be a bit of a couple, but one night when she'd been amazingly drunk she just asked Ianto why not. His confession that she was too innocent made her bristle, but hearing that he had said if Ianto touched her he'd kill him made her see red.
Drunken accusations were the worst kind; everything came out, but it was usually garbled and hurtful.Certain words were said, in the realms of you don't want me to me happy because you can't be and You're keeping me for yourself but you don't want me. He tried to tell Ace, tried to show her - but she punched him hard enough to give him a bloody lip and when he'd picked himself up off of her floor she was gone.
She spent the night with someone who didn't expect any more from that night, and took four showers afterward.
Six Months.
It amazing how long you can go without talking to a person if you actively try. Ace finally had her group of friends, people who were her age who she spoke too and laughed with and got drunk with. She wasn't the type to sleep around, they knew - but it didn't matter. More often then not Ace was sleeping on their floor, and no one mentioned when she woke up crying.
She heard the Doctor was gone the day after it happened. She didn't cry, didn't yell - her feet hit the forest floor with thumps as she ran, twigs whipping her face. Into the treehouse, up the three flights- He was just sitting, his back against the wall as a piece of paper fluttered in his fingers. Another damned letter, and when he saw her she saw that flash of weariness before he opened his arms. She shook her head, and he opened his mouth to protest even as she toed off her shoes and slipped into his bed to hold him, not the other way around.
She didn't protest when he got her shirt wet.
1 Year.
They went swimming on Tuesdays. It was a habit that just fell into place, neither of them actually agreeing on it. Laughter, splashing - it all became the norm, and one day that Ace stood under the waterfall, her head tipped back as she watched the water fall straight down through the sun-
He wondered what'd taken him so long.
There was a strong hand on hers, the water pounding against their skin as he finally bent to kiss her with gentle fingers on her jaw. She gasped in surprise, ended up choking and pulling them both into the water.
Two Years.
They'd not talked about the kiss, although five more had peppered the following months. Each one was deep and pure, the kind that they write stories about. Perhaps, that's what this story is about in the end. Ace understood him, knew that he meant it, but... but there was always something else. Someone else. He'd pulled back the first five times, but the last- when they'd been kissing in the dim light of the bonfire, she'd gently touched his wrist when those calloused fingers had slipped under her shirt.
He'd been trying for fidelity, again. It was the third time, and none of them were with her.
Four Years.
Ace ended up in his bed more often then not, most nights. There was a treehouse wide poll going on, wondering if they actually had a relationship. The sight of her padding out of his room topless, with only a low pair of knickers on her hips had seemed a clue, but all they ever did was sleep. Something in her still wouldn't believe that he wanted her for anything other then comfort- he'd tried to tell her six times, but he could see that it hurt her, that she was assuming the wrong thing and that it wasn't for the right reasons.
She was there for him every time a relationship went wrong, and didn't know that this last one had fallen apart because he was accused of being in love with Ace. He couldn't protest it.
On a freezing December morning, there was that familiar grinding of gears, of an animal trapped in a small space that had both of them stumbling out of the treehouse almost naked. He watched as all the color drained from Ace's face when a short man with dark eyes and a big voice stepped out, the was that she took a half-step back.
He knew her better then he knew himself, most of the time.
The Doctor moved back into what'd been his room, and Ace ended up closed in there with him for over five hours. He waited like someone waiting in a hospital, readying himself to hear the worst even though he didn't know what it was. Raised voices, the occasional slamming of furnature- she emerged with no color in her face, and he could see the pain in her eyes and the shaking of her hands. He didn't know what the Doctor had said to her, but she withdrew from him. Murmured apologies, that she must have caught something-
Lies, all of it. He wasn't stupid. It took him all of an hour to get her installed in his bed, half a sleeping pill having been crunched up in her sandwich. He'd left when she'd asked, but could hear her crying through the door. He had things to take care of, and his eyes grew almost blank as he moved back down the stairs.
The Doctor had wanted a fight when it came to him, and he heard the man spout the same things that he'd heard from Ace years before. That she didn't know what she was doing, that she couldn't handle herself, that she was a child- and once he'd picked the small man up by his coat and said that if he made Ace cry again he'd put him back in his TARDIS and make sure that he never came out- He spewed vitrol, low words with spitting syllabants and rolling Rs. The Doctor said he was protecting her, that he was helping her.
And after he'd pointed out every one of Ace's flaws, then that accent said You only want her to shag her, he crumpled from the fist that he'd not even seen coming.
He'd finally realised. It wasn't that he was stupid, it was just... it'd never been the time. But as he lay in his bed with her head pillowed on his chest, he realised some things. Even though he wanted it at times, he never had needed to have a shag with her. They'd come close twice, but it'd been years. Four years, really. Every time he'd tried to stay faithful, every time that he'd offered to give of himself...
Maybe what he needed was right here.
Eight Years.
It'd taken another year, in the end. He'd gotten distracted, she'd taken too much of that single conversation to heart. Valentine's that year, they'd had another heart to heart and when this time he'd told her the truth she'd not believed him. There'd been another month, of him trying- Until finally he kissed her when they were both standing on the beach, the setting sun turning her tanned skin crimson, strong hands cradling her face as he told her that she might be the one that he kept looking for.
That night they made love under the stars, his hands coaxing her to new highs and when he closed his eyes and slid into her it was like he was home.
Their relationship was an on-again off-again one, with her getting so mad at him that she couldn't even speak to him and the last time when he was telling her that he could be faithful- She'd hit him again for the second time, an amazing amount of furiosity in that small frame. She didn't want that from him, because that's not who he was. She understood that he loved so many, and that he needed so many, and didn't hold it against him, didn't resent it (although she insisted on a condom with everyone else.) They largely kept doing their own thing, but the whispered words at night, the feeling of the weight of her on his chest- It kept him grounded.
When she'd started getting sick two years later, sleeping and withdrawn and pale - he'd steeled himself for the worst when she'd gone to the clinic. Cancer wasn't unheard of here, and without the technology- And there was only so much that the nanobots could do.
She'd not talked to him for two days when she'd walked out of the clinic, and finally- finally, when she'd slipped back into his- now their room, her voice breaking at the whispered truth- It hurt him. It hurt, and she could feel his body stiffen. She'd told him- even though it didn't matter, she'd told him that for her, there wasn't anyone else. Didn't need to be anyone else.
There was no way she was pregnant.
Stiff words- hurtful words, and when she'd started to cry he pressed his eyes closed, his hand stroking her hair. He'd not thought it could hurt this much, wondered if this was what it was like for her. When he would ask months later, she'd retort that of course not; he'd not promised, and it was entirely different.
House (who was now with Wilson, and as happy as he could be for being House) made a snide comment when he'd heard. The look in this blue eyes was serious enough to kill, careful words following that if he heard that Ace had found out House's opinion- ... Well. It was House that pointed out that there were actually two possibilities, being that they lived on a magical island and all.
The test had taken fourteen minutes, and most of that was a backup in the lab.
She avoided saying I told you so, but it was clear in her laughing eyes as he picked her up, and she whispered that word in his ear. Daddy.
A year later, and when Jack cradled the six-month-old Estelle Audrey Harkness to his chest, he fell a little more in love.