The Wrong Side of the Bed (for quitehomoerotic and alien_catcher)

[ambitious_woman]

There were a great many things about Jack Harkness that were endearing. Far to many things, truthfully. Though that was a matter Reinette was studiously choosing not to examine. If one wished to narrow it however? To an acceptable, manageable quantity

Comments

[quitehomoerotic]

Jack didn't always sleep well. He often slept broken or littered with bad dreams. He slept when he had to and not when he wanted to.

But sometimes? Sometimes, he slept because it was merely nice. Slept because he'd tired himself out, because he was comfortable, or because it just felt good.

Such sleep seemed to happen often around Reinette.

When he did sleep, he slept sprawled, his arms out on the bed and legs consuming most of the area, making his mark. An arm often thrown around Reinette beside him until he shifted and moved again, or was unceremoniously prodded aside.

On this occasion it was an accidental shift that forced her the edge off the bed. And so Reinette fell, taking with her both the sheet and the small leather strap that had been discarded on the bed the night before.

He barely noticed at first; continuing to sleep, shifting a little.

But the room was quiet, and he was suddenly cold.

His eyes darted open, and he knew.

Reinette was no longer there. And nor was his wrist strap.

[alien_catcher]

The Torchwood Hub was uncharacteristically quiet.

Gwen wasn't precisely sure where her team was, to be entirely honest, which was just fine with her seeing as she had spent the morning maintaining a precarious balance between polishing off paperwork and perusing YouTube.

So when the incursion alarm went off, blaring in her ears and making her jump out of her seat in a panic, Gwen had to take a moment to get her mindset back into what it meant to be a Torchwood operative.

Which was probably fine, as it was then she noticed what looked unmistakably like the form of a blonde woman with tousled hair, wearing nothing but a bed sheet wrapped around her body.

Gwen activated her headset, barking over the comm. "Oi, Jack, there's an intruder!" She already had her sidearm grasped steadily in her hand, and she felt like a right fool as she pointed it at the clearly - very clearly - unarmed woman in front of her. "Who are you?" she shouted cautiously over the alarm. "How did you get in here?"

[ambitious_woman]

For a moment Reinette could only manage the assault on all of her senses.

The hard expanse of the floor. The hash, artificial ringing that filled her ears. The cold of the air, that not only felt not of home? But not of Jack. Which was irritating all on its own.

Reinette blinked, managing to sit herself straighter and pull into what at least felt somewhat more dignified. It was only then that she became aware of the firm, demanding tones of another woman's voice. There was no mistaking the edge beneath it.

Her gaze fell on the firearm she brandished only briefly, something far more fascinating catching her attention. Reinette pulled herself even straighter still, unmasked fascination working its way over her features.

"Gwen," she identified the woman in front of her, a cobbling together of old photographs and Jack's own stories. "Gwen Cooper."

[alien_catcher]

Gwen had expected a vast variety of answers to come from the woman's mouth. But that? That was not one of them.

The alarm was becoming distracting, pounding against her head and she struggled with one hand to blindly deactivate it. After a few clumsy presses of buttons, the Hub feel into a sudden silence, one that seemed almost louder than the alarm had been.

Keeping her gun aimed for no reason she could name, she appraised the woman with a determined gazed. She hardly seemed a threat but Gwen had seen worse things come from more innocent looking situations.

"How do you know my name?" she demanded.

[quitehomoerotic]

He hadn't been far. Tosh and Owen were out investigating the strange EM readings coming from one of the cliffs in Penarth, and he and Ianto were taking the time to grab lunch at a place in Mermaid Quay.

Lunch that was, of course, promptly left as he bolted as fast as he could run back towards the Hub. The lift was out of commission while the incursion alarm blared, and he all but jumped down the flights of stairs', arriving at the base just as the alarm was cancelled out.

He ran through the cog door, into the main Hub, gun raised and pointed ready for whatever might be waiting.

"Gwen get back!" he called, his voice firm and strong as he moved up beside her.

But then he saw her. A woman. A woman in a sheet no less. But then appearances could be deceptive. He didn't lower his gun.

[ambitious_woman]

Now that whatever that noise had been was silenced, Reinette was only able to just work though what had happened to her. What of course followed next was what that could mean. The math alone was daunting. And there could be no denying that France -- her France -- was impossibly far away

[quitehomoerotic]

He didn't know her. There was nothing in his eyes that knew her, nothing inside that held anything at all for the woman that stood a few feet away.

"She just appear here?" Jack asked, talking to Gwen while the gun was still trained at the scantily clad woman a few feet away.

So she knew names. But so what? They were hardly unknown people in certain circles, and if someone (or something) had found their way in, then it stood to reason they might know more.

"Rift fluctuations?" he barked, wanting to know anything and everything that had happened.

[alien_catcher]

"No, Jack, the Rift monitor didn't detect anythin'. She literally just... appeared."

Still watching the woman, Gwen sensed a certain uncertainly about her, maybe even a helplessness that, while not unexpected, made Gwen's heart go out to her.

Jack's gun was still raised so Gwen lowered her own, approaching the woman with slow, small steps. It was then that she noticed the familiar piece of technology tangled near her feet.

"Jack," Gwen whispered, pointing at the wrist strap.

[quitehomoerotic]

Jack didn't trust anything. Things often weren't as they seemed, and though that could be both positive and negative, he was inclined to expect the latter.

"Gwen stay back from her," he shouted, taking a step closer himself. His eyes lifted and fell over her form, trying to take her in, evaluate her.

"She could be anything."

[ambitious_woman]

When Jack took a step towards Reinette, it was only natural for her to take another full step towards him in return -- quite deliberately closing the space between them.

She had clearly been challenged. There was nothing that would prevent her from meeting it, not even the sheet she clearly wore. This was not about Jack now, It was about herself.

"That," she found her voice. "Is all together enough."

Her gaze moved evenly between Jack and Gwen, clearly addressing them both.

"I could be anything? Did you know, you are something yourself? All together rude."

[alien_catcher]

Gwen's first instinct was to laugh at the woman's response, but she had the distinct feeling that Jack would not appreciate the outburst.

Instead, she did her best to hide her smirk. She straightened her shoulders and turned an inquisitive eye back to the woman, but she still didn't rush to raise her gun. She leant down and quickly scooped up the wrist strap, dangling it in front of Jack as she kept her eyes trained on the woman.

"She's got one like yours, Jack." She knew better than to hand it to him when he had that look on his face, so instead, she turned her attention back to the woman and gave her a small smile that was not entirely forced. "What's your name, love? How did you get here?"

[ambitious_woman]

Reinette held herself still, taking in the interplay between Jack and Gwen. All while still fully aware there was still a gun pointed quite clearly at her. Still she did not pull back.

"Jeanne," Reinette finally answered, hearing the the word before she consciously decided on it. There was nothing about this place or time that made her feel like Reinette. Nothing to identify herself within it. "My name is Jeanne."

Her eyes flickered back to the wrist strap, deliberately not answering the other question.

[alien_catcher]

Gwen's eyes darted between Jack and Jeanne. Although the woman had not answered the question, the glance at the wrist strap had been answer enough, and Gwen had to bite her tongue, resisting the urge to interrogate Jack as to what to the item was, exactly. She knew questioning him would do nothing, however; they had to present a united front to stay in control, and questions like that were better left for private.

She sighed, not holstering her gun but not raising it either. "What should we do with her, Jack?" she asked him. "She's obviously not interested in telling us anything."

[quitehomoerotic]

Jack's eyes flicked sideways and caught the strap in Gwen's hand. "Put that down," he said firmly. "It's not the same." The strap was most definitely different, and if she'd come with that then she'd come from the future and was undoubtedly hardly as innocent as she might appear.

"I'll take her down," he said. "We can run some tests when Tosh and Owen get back."

His attention turned to Reinette. His gun was still trained up on her.

"You," he said firmly. "Turn around. Walk to the doorway. No sudden movements. Down the stairs and keep going."

He waved his gun once to gesture her, and he started walking.

[alien_catcher]

Her pride somewhat wounded, Gwen twisted the wrist strap in her hands as Jeanne moved in response to Jack's direction and he followed her towards the cells.

Gwen holstered her gun and crossed her arms, calling after him. "I'll be watchin' the surveillance camera," she informed him. "And I'll be down straight away if she tries anythin' funny."

Jack and his unlikely prisoner vanished from her view, and Gwen slumped back into her chair, staring down at the wrist strap and trying to make sense of the situation.

After a moment, she shoved the wrist strap definitely in her pocket and activated the cell cameras, watching the room intently with a pensive frown.

[ambitious_woman]

She remained silent the entire walk towards the cells. Reinette's entire focus remained on keeping the sheet wrapped about herself in as dignified a manner as possible, and keeping the angle of her chin held high.

The world got dimmer. Then colder.

And still she ignored it.

Perhaps the most absurd of all was the one familiar thread that remained? Was the steady cadence of Jack's steps. There was a presence to them, a weight that Reinette knew well now, having heard them echo enough through Versailles's halls.

But when she turned around, aware he had lead her fully into a cell of some kind? Reinette looked into the eyes of a stranger.

"I can assure you, Jack Harkness, you will not be performing any tests on me."