A/N: For HP Slash Luv, here is her January present in the Gift-Giving Extravaganza.
I will admit, this is not a pairing I ship, and I haven't seen Season One in ages, but I tried my best. And don't favorite or follow without reviewing, darlings.
bubbling to the surface
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Jack Harkness is nothing if not flirtatious, and when he meets a very pretty girl with a flower for a name, Jack does what he does best, flirt.
Honestly, he didn't expect to be dragged onto a sentient space ship with a grumpy guy in leather and the girl in the Union Jack shirt, but the best things in life come when you don't expect them. It feels Jack is getting a chance to reclaim his lost memories at first, but after a while, it turns into him making new ones, with a leather clad northerner and a smiling blonde.
Rose Tyler really is quite amazing, carrying about her a bright personality and a simple charm. Jack makes sure to use the more corny lines he has in his arsenal, just to hear her laugh. (It's not like she'd go for him anyway, it isn't hard to catch the looks she gives the Doctor.)
The Doctor himself is quite a character, rough at the edges, with that kind of tortured bad-boy vibe Jack himself could never pull off. He takes both of them in and for those few months where he lived in a time traveling machine and ran away from aliens, everything is amazing and wondrous.
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In the morning, there is always a cuppa sitting in the kitchen for him, and one Rose Tyler perched on the counter, swinging her legs back and forth. The Doctor usually spends his mornings repairing the TARDIS, which seems to always need fixing, so it's just them.
A smile, a wink, and he starts to slip into conversation with Rose.
"How's you sleep, beautiful?" Jack makes sure to call Rose this as much as possible, just to irritate the Doctor, but after a while, it just became habit, and then it stuck.
"Fine, Jack, what about you?" she replies, both hands wrapped around her mug, steam coming off the top. His own cup is a just the way he likes it, with one lump of sugar and cream. It has been sitting there, fixed just like that, since the second day he was onboard, and he has a strange suspicion that that was the work of one Rose Tyler.
It feels nice to talk to her, to make fun of the way she yearns for the Doctor, and yet, at the same time, he can see the happiness on her face when he comes up, even in a passing remark. He feels a twinge that he comes to recognize as jealousy.
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Jack can't exactly pinpoint what Mickey Smith does to him, but he knows for sure that that boy irks him. Captain Jack makes a point to be as friendly as possible anyways, gritting his teeth and forcing conversation. He winks and tries to imply anything and everything, but the way he just is, it makes Jack narrow his eyes and wrinkle his nose in dislike.
It could possibly be what he does to Doc and Rose, the vein of distrust that starts to nag at him when Rose and Mickey are off, the way the Doctor's eyes follow them when they leave the room, but it is probably the way Mickey Smith, utterly boring and not that handsome, can make Rose laugh so hard, can make her dote on him, it hurts.
But, Mickey has the type of personality that takes getting used to, and he manages to save Jack's life when he was almost stabbed by that horrible orange alien, (who he may have bought a drink once), so after deciding that he was okay, the tensions lessen slightly. Rose likes him though, so he pushes his feeling of animosity aside for her, trying to see what she sees in him. Rose tends so see the very best in people though, so it takes a little digging.
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On the game station, he decides that if he survives this, and even if he doesn't, he owes the Doctor for sending Rose home. She is the one thing that both of them love, and if she was safe, then he didn't have nearly as much to lose.
That's what he tells himself as he dies the first time, crumpling to the ground like a tattered paper doll. The first time he comes back hurts like hell, and in his moments of anguish, she is the thought that keeps him sane, again. It is with that thought that he starts Torchwood, and then he tries to stop thinking about Rose Tyler. The dashing coffee boy helps a little.