Friday: Free For All
Happy weekend folks! Hopefully LJ is a little more cooperative today, but we apologize for the difficulties this week in the context of the DDoS attacks. Mostly our hosts and our mods could not get in, or if they could, were unable to post. Assuming LJ remains stable, regular service will resume
( Read more... )
“Not the best welcome I’ve ever received, but definitely not the worst,” says Captain Jack Harkness as he pushes the door open completely and strides past Rory into the house.
“Yeah, sure, come on in,” mutters Rory, rolling his eyes, as he shuts the door and follows him.
Jack ends up in the kitchen, hands behind his back and surveying a row of mugs hanging on little pegs. Rory feels a bit uncomfortable about that, seeing how he and Amy haven’t been living here for even a whole day yet and haven’t had chance to see what’s here themselves. He doesn’t like the idea of Jack Harkness getting friendly with his mugs before he does.
“I showed up for your stag night, but you’d left by that point,” says Jack as Rory puts the kettle on and seats himself at the small table set to one side of the room.
“You weren’t invited.”
“Or to the wedding I noticed.”
Jack selects a blue mug with white polka dots on it and carefully takes it down from its peg, cradling it in one hand with three fingers through the handle. Rory imagines it purring it delight at being the object of the Captain’s affections.
“Well, you know,” says Rory. “My fiancé, my bride, kind of wanted to keep it that way.”
Not that Rory has any doubts about losing her to anyone anymore, and on that note Amy walks into the room, a book in one hand and a blue rubber duck in the other.
“I was exploring upstairs, but I heard voices,” she says, giving Jack a onceover before raising her eyebrows at Rory and tilting her head questioningly. “Friend of yours? I didn’t know you’d told anyone we were back yet.”
“More of an acquaintance,” says Jack, turning on the charm.
He puts the mug down on a countertop, next to the kettle, and comes over to kiss the back of Amy’s hand - the one still clutching the rubber duck and the one with her wedding ring.
“I haven’t seen Rory for some time now and I was just wandering where he’d gotten to.”
“Oh,” says Rory again and lets his head fall forward onto the table with a groan.
It hadn’t occurred to him that Torchwood would have been keeping that close an eye on him still after all this time, but then he didn’t really know them, just as people that dropped into his life from time to time to check he was still, well acting normal.
“Maybe this is a bad time,” says Jack, but in a tone of voice that suggests that Amy might want to leave rather than that he himself is going anywhere.
“Oh no,” says Amy firmly, putting the book down on the table with a threatening thump. “I’ll just pour the tea.”
Reply
Rory raises his head and focuses on Amy.
“I was born on another planet, a long way from here and a long time from now, but I fell through a rift in space and time. I was only a kid, five maybe? So I don’t really remember it. Jack,” he says, gesturing at the man in question, who seems to have frozen in place, “is in charge of a group called Torchwood that deal with alien stuff. They helped me find a home here and kept an eye on me. Apparently still do.”
“Huh.” Amy places a mug of tea in front of him - the blue one with polka dots - and hands Jack one as well, pressing it into his chest when the Captain doesn’t immediately respond. “Were you human?”
“Yeah, just from the future. I think Torchwood wiped a lot of memories, to make sure I didn’t let slip anything that I shouldn’t probably.”
She turns to glare at Jack, then collects her own tea and sits down next to Rory.
“Which I’m hoping is the reason why telling me slipped your mind?”
Rory knows she isn’t angry though, even before she takes hold of his hand and squeezes. She knows how inferior he always felt to her Raggedy Man and they both know a young Rory who’d been from the future but couldn’t really remember anything of it wouldn’t have been half as interesting to her.
“My Last Centurion, a man from the future. So after being plastic for two thousand years and then the world rebooting, not to mention all the other stuff, what does that make you, do you think?”
“Confused?”
Rory pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs whilst Amy smiles at him.
“Actually,” says Amy, “what do you think that makes River? Or are we just sticking with ‘child of the TARDIS’ and ignoring everything else for sanities sake?”
Jack makes a startled noise, which is unusual in Rory’s experience, not to mention amusing. He carefully puts his mug down on the table and then sits down himself, staring at the pair of them for a moment before a large grin spreads across his face.
“You met the Doctor.” He laughs. “So that’s why our readings on you went haywire. Oh, that must have been one hell of a honeymoon.”
Amy turns to him angrily, still holding Rory’s hand.
“Well whatever readings you’ve got, get them stopped. Or you’ll find out some of what happened on that honeymoon first hand.”
“Are we talking about the actual honeymoon, the attempted honeymoons, or just everything post-wedding?” says Rory, trying to lighten the mood. “And post-wedding as in chronologically for us or post-wedding as in everything in real time after the wedding in 2010? And - ”
Amy cuts him off by letting go of his hand and placing it over his mouth instead.
“All of the worst things, okay? Whenever they happened. Got it?” she says, directing the last at Jack.
“Yes, Ma’am,” he says cheerfully and tilts his chair back on two legs. “Oh, I like her.”
Rory grins and watches the rubber duck floating in Jack’s tea, which the Captain still doesn’t seem to have noticed.
“Yeah. I thought you would.”
Reply
Reply
Reply
Leave a comment