Choice - tag Jack
Red used to tell Liz she was an open book, easy to figure out and even easier to predict. That statement usually earned the big guy a case of very warm beer or a slap across the face in retaliation, depending on if she was feeling forgiving or not. (nearly boiling all his beer was a worse reaction than a slap, by the way.)
This time, as Liz sat silently over thinking everything and every option, Red's words about being easy to read crept back into her mind, and she immediately realized that for a select few, that was in fact very true right now. That unintended mental link she'd forged with Jack was only amplified by all the time the two had spent on the TARDIS lately, and Liz knew if he picked up all her worry, all her self doubt and all her fear, it would just be the same song and dance that let to them both being frustrated again.
The cup of coffee she'd finally managed to talk, or think, or whatever, out of the TARDIS, sat ice cold and Liz didn't even care. She was too wrapped up in her own thoughts to notice hours had gone by since she'd been unable to sleep and decided to avoid the rest of the TARDIS occupants by going exploring. She never expected a ship to have a garden...or more lilies than she'd ever thought could possibly exist.
Liz continued to twirl a small flower that somehow changed colors as it moved and sighed before putting up one of those psychic force fields that were second nature to her by now. She didn't want the first thing Jack said to her to be 'we're not going though this again', or something like that. She knew better than to keep asking him the same questions by now. He couldn't tell her what she was going to do to make the things she'd seen happen, no matter how much she begged. Free will was too important, and choice was not a luxury for her anymore. It was a right, as it always should have been.
Liz huffed and tossed the lily aside, just as she had dozen before that one. "Perfect. Finally get a choice in what I get to do, and I hate it."
This time, as Liz sat silently over thinking everything and every option, Red's words about being easy to read crept back into her mind, and she immediately realized that for a select few, that was in fact very true right now. That unintended mental link she'd forged with Jack was only amplified by all the time the two had spent on the TARDIS lately, and Liz knew if he picked up all her worry, all her self doubt and all her fear, it would just be the same song and dance that let to them both being frustrated again.
The cup of coffee she'd finally managed to talk, or think, or whatever, out of the TARDIS, sat ice cold and Liz didn't even care. She was too wrapped up in her own thoughts to notice hours had gone by since she'd been unable to sleep and decided to avoid the rest of the TARDIS occupants by going exploring. She never expected a ship to have a garden...or more lilies than she'd ever thought could possibly exist.
Liz continued to twirl a small flower that somehow changed colors as it moved and sighed before putting up one of those psychic force fields that were second nature to her by now. She didn't want the first thing Jack said to her to be 'we're not going though this again', or something like that. She knew better than to keep asking him the same questions by now. He couldn't tell her what she was going to do to make the things she'd seen happen, no matter how much she begged. Free will was too important, and choice was not a luxury for her anymore. It was a right, as it always should have been.
Liz huffed and tossed the lily aside, just as she had dozen before that one. "Perfect. Finally get a choice in what I get to do, and I hate it."