Chapter Twelve

~ There will be little rubs and disappointments everywhere, and we are all apt to expect too much; but then, if one scheme of happiness fails, human nature turns to another; if the first calculation is wrong, we make a second better: we find comfort somewhere. ~

Jane Austen

Anneke Strickson swallowed hard, but the cold lump in her throat refused to go away.

"Nervous?" the Captain's voice came over the com; they'd been prowling around the Janus and Hestia for almost an hour, moving deeper and deeper into the derelict ship.

Anneke checked her O2 gauge. She had eighty nine minutes left in her pack. The Captain would have about the same.

"Talk to me, Crewman," Harkness ordered; his tone was firm… gruff.

She swallowed again. "I'm fine, Sir," she lied.

In addition to the usual field gear – patch kits, tools, handheld lights and whatever the Captain had in his bag – they were both carrying extra O2 packs, two and a half hours' worth each. None of it made her feel any better about being out of communications range of the Bonnie Welshman. If anything went wrong, they were on their own. If they got lost in the bowels of the wreck or if anything happened to the Welshman…

"You sure you're ok?" the Captain asked again.

"No," she admitted. She felt foolish, but she couldn't help herself. The feeling was made worse by the soft laugh she heard come over the com.

"Afraid of ghosts?" he teased.

"I was taught that it was bad luck to steal from the dead, Sir." Bad things happened to people who robbed corpses. Not that there were any actual corpses… but every time a shadow seemed to move she could feel the eyes of the dead on her. She knew she was just being superstitious, but she couldn't help it.

"What did you expect? The Welshman is a salvage and scavenge vessel, Miss Strickson."

"I… I guess I didn't really think about it."

"Lured by the paycheck, eh, Sailor?" Jack paid a fair wage and he knew it. The work was risky; there had been more than one trip out when he'd come back with fewer men and women than he'd left port with. He hoped that this wouldn't be one of those trips… he turned so he could see the face of the young woman walking next to him.

"It wasn't the pay out, Sir," she told him honestly.

"Must've been my devastatingly good looks then," he grinned at her.

She flushed a deep shade of pink. "I… really hadn't noticed, Sir. Sorry."

"I'm wounded," he did a good job of sounding it, too, although it was clear by her expression that she didn't believe him.

He just smirked. "By the way, the Universe won't grind to a halt if you call me 'Jack', you know," he told her.

Anneke almost stumbled. It had nothing to do with the bent and twisted metal under her feet.

He caught her, "Easy there."

"I'm ok." I think…

They came to another debris jammed corridor. At times like this he would have traded in nearly every alien device he'd collected over the years for one sonic blaster… But maybe the Doctor was right. Jack had noticed that as he'd grown older and he'd become more and more abhorrent of violence and the things that made violence more destructive. Guns. Bombs.

Besides, bananas are good… he smiled to himself.

Anneke's voice jarred him out of his reverie. "If you don't mind my saying so… Jack… you seem to be going somewhere."

He gave over another wry, typical Jack Harkness grin. "Gotta be going somewhere. The alternative's pretty boring, don't you think?"

She wondered if he was being difficult on purpose or if this was just another one of his annoying personality traits. He seemed to have quite a few. "What I meant was, you seem to have a specific destination in mind."

He chuckled and retrieved the handheld scanner from his bag. The technology itself was current, but he'd tweaked it a bit. "There's no way to get through this way… but there should be a maintenance hatch around here somewhere. We can use the service tubes to get around that mess. The debris clears up again in about fifty metres."

"You're not going to tell me what you're looking for, are you?"

"Does it matter?"

"I suppose not. The hatch should be over here," she said. He had a point. It didn't matter what he was really looking for; it wasn't any of her business. She found the hatch. "I'm not sure how you're planning on opening it."

"Well… if you ask real nice, I might let you play with my favourite tool," his brows shot up suggestively. Before she could begin collecting her wits enough to speak, he handed over another device from his pack.

Anneke blushed. It was definitely phallic shaped… not anatomically so, but it was long and cylindrical and given his expression… "What am I supposed to do with this?" she asked.

His broadening grin spoke volumes about what could be done with the device… but he surprised her by explaining in a patient tone that all she had to do was point it at the hatch and press down on a small, nearly hidden button.

When she did, the hatch popped open, just a crack. "What is this thing?" she wanted to know. There wasn't any power left in the ship; all of the systems were long dead… except for that miracle he'd pulled off with the computers the first time out. And now this.

"It's a modified version of a sonic screwdriver," he explained with some pride. It wasn't anywhere near as impressive as the Doctor's of course, but after getting a chance to examine Sarah Jane's sonic lipstick once, a very long time ago, Jack had devised his own little sonic lock-pick.

"A… what? Who'd want to make a screwdriver sonic?" Anneke's reaction reminded him so much of his own that he couldn't help laughing.

"Someone who had a lot of shelves to put up, I suppose," he repeated the Doctor's answer. He took it back from her and pried the door the rest of the way open. "Ladies first." He gestured towards the open hatch… the darkness beyond.

"Gee, thanks."

"Relax, we're the only living things on this ship and there's no such thing as ghosts… unless you're just trying to get me to go first so you can check out my butt. If that's the case…"

Anneke groaned and shimmied into the small hole. The service tubes were cramped, crawling room only, but at least this section didn't seem to have suffered any major damage. However, even with the lights from her helmet on full strength, she could only a few metres into the darkness… she couldn't shake the feeling that at any moment she was going to come across with something nasty…grisly. Gross.

"You're doing' fine," Jack's voice made her jump. It was calming at the same time, though. If not for the Captain's voice, she would have felt like she was all alone with the darkness.

"Just keep talking to me, Anneke," he said patiently, following her through the hatch.

"What would you like to talk about?" she couldn't help but ask. Harkness was a strange, strange man…

"I don't know. What's your favourite flavour of ice cream?"

"How many metres did you say?" she asked, instead of answering his question.

"About fifty. That should be… what, two markers?"

She nodded, then realized it was a stupid thing to do; he couldn't see her. "Yeah. That should be right." She continued plodding forwards on her hands and knees hoping nothing jumped out of the darkness at her.

"You didn't answer my question," Jack reminded her a few moments later.

"I really don't see how ice cream is relevant to anything, Sir."

"So we're back to Sir, now are we? Was it something I said?"

She didn't know quite how to answer that. Her father had always said that the best way to tell if somebody liked you was if they could name your favourite flavour of ice cream… but it could be that the Captain… Jack… was only trying to make conversation. As bizarre as his choice of topic seemed to her, it most likely innocuous. She hoped. "Jack, then. And it's pistachio."

"You like nuts," his grin was audible. "I'll have to remember that." He knew the conversation was annoying his young companion, but that was the point. He wanted to give her something to think about besides all the things that could go wrong. Or ghosts… not that there was any such thing. He knew there was something about the dark that gave most people pause to wonder… to be afraid. When people were afraid, whether the fear was rational or not, they made mistakes.

"What about you?" she surprised him (and herself) by asking.

"I love nuts. Of course I like other things too," he added.

Anneke didn't have to see his face to know that he was wearing a Cheshire grin. She felt her cheeks grow hot. "I… didn't mean… that is… ice cream. I was asking about ice cream."

He laughed; she realized he'd been well aware of what she was really asking all along.

"It's strawberry," he told her.

"Somehow I would have expected something more… exotic."

His chuckle was warm… it made her wonder… he seemed ok most of the time… at least when he wasn't coming onto her…

"We're at the second marker," she said, glad to have something else to think about. "The hatch should be just ahead."

"Here," he slid the screwdriver up to her.

It took her a minute… she wasn't as strong as the Captain… but she got the door open and peered out into the corridor. "All clear."

Jack followed her down out of the service hatch.

Deciding that it was now or never, especially since he was the one who had initiated personal inquiries like favourite flavours of ice cream, Anneke asked the Captain if she could ask him a question.

"I might even answer," he said with another one of those wide, wry grins.

"It's about Mr Anders."

"All right," he replied, his tone becoming cautious. He consulted the data pad… the cabin he wanted was just ahead.

"I heard that… I mean… that is… I heard he used to be a… he was in a Red House," her words came out in a stumbling rush. "That he was a cyprian…"

"He was," the Captain cut her off. His tone was frigid.

"I'm sorry. I don't mean… I was just… wondering. About that."

"About what, precisely?"

Anneke cleared her throat. "Just… just whether or not it was true. The rumour going around Omega was that he was a… you know…" she stammered. Of course he knew what Mr Anders used to be. "It's just that I know how rumours sometimes get blown out of proportion and I always thought people like that were marked or something."

Jack counted silently to five and reminded himself that Anneke Strickson was a year younger than Kam, that she'd lived her entire life out in the margins, on a salvage vessel like his Welshman. Chances were she'd never seen a cyprian before… never been anywhere near a Red House. She couldn't possibly begin to understand what it had been like for Kam. What it was still like. "We had the tattoos removed," he answered as simply as he could.

"Oh. I just heard…" she paused. "I just heard some stuff." She was regretting having brought it up.

"Stuff?" Jack inquired.

She cleared her throat, her discomfort growing. After returning from her first trip out to the Janus and Hestia with the Captain… after watching he and Kam Anders interact… she'd asked questions of some of the rest of the crew.

Buddy Garrison was no help at all. He took everything at face value and only seemed to see the good in people. She didn't bother talking to Fielding, of course. Fielding didn't like her and she knew it. But then she'd found An Cho having a cup of coffee in the mess and figured since Cho worked on the bridge with Harkness and Anders…

"Just... stuff. It's probably not even true."

"What exactly have you heard, Miss Strickson?" he wanted to know. It didn't sound like a request, either.

"I just heard that… that Anders…that he… belonged… to you. Sir." She felt a sudden wave of shame overtake her. When she said it aloud it sounded so wrong.

Jack felt his jaw muscles twitch. "Mr Anders doesn't belong to anybody. What he does when he's off duty is his choice. Is that perfectly clear?"

"Yes, Sir. Crystal clear." She was sure she'd never seen anyone as angry as the Captain seemed then. It only confused her more. "But… you're always coming on to me… I just thought…" she had thought that if Mr Anders wasn't really his boyfriend if he… the thought of anyone 'belonging' to somebody else made her stomach churn. But if that was the case it would at least explain why the Captain could seem so callous towards Mr Anders sometimes, why he thought it was all right to come on to her... other members of the crew.

"I apologize if I've been out of line, Ms Strickson," Harkness said in a tone that rivalled the vacuum of space for its coldness. "I can assure you it won't happen again."

"Sir…I…"

"End of discussion, Crewman," he cut her off. "Except… I would appreciate it if you didn't bring any of this up with Mr Anders."

"Why? I mean…" if he cared about Anders enough to get this upset…

When the Captain turned and looked at her, she saw equal measures of bewilderment and anger in his expression. "Because I don't want Kam feeling like he has to defend himself for having been humiliated, brutalized and raped for the last seven years of his life!" His fury was only barley contained.

"I… I'm truly, sorry, Sir. Very truly sorry."

The only acknowledgement she got for her apology was curt nod. He turned and went back to work.

………………………………………………………..………..

Almost two hours later, they came to the fourth cabin. Forty five minutes of that had been spent getting from the section that housed the first three cabins to the section they were currently weaving their way through.

Jack's earlier estimation about accessibility was starting to seem overly optimistic. He began to fear that the entire excursion would end up being nothing but waste of time and resources, despite the valuable goodies they'd managed to plunder along the way. Although the haul would likely fetch a good price once they got back to civilization, it wasn't what he was looking for.

There had been no more friendly chit chat between himself and Ms Strickson. Jack knew giving her the cold shoulder over something as stupid as an assumption based on something someone else had said was childish, but it rankled him that people still thought that Kam was… for sale. That members of his crew could think it. Wasn't it obvious to them that he was a damned good pilot? Or did they think he was just keeping him on the bridge as a decorative piece?

Not that he minded the view…the company. Nothing had felt so right in so long… And he acknowledged that he had assigned Kam to his shift so he could keep an eye on him, back before things came to a head with Fletcher. He'd wanted to keep Kam safe, to protect him from whatever was happening… but I guess I'll never be able to keep him safe from what people think….

Kam had done so much to prove himself to his crewmates. He was always willing to pull extra hours, help out wherever he asked to… always on time for his shift… he never asked for any favours from anyone. Sometimes Jack thought he worked twice as hard as the rest of the crew, just so they wouldn't think he was taking advantage of the fact that he shared the Captain's cabin.

He only hoped Kam hadn't heard the same rumour Strickson had. It would devastate the younger man to know that there were still members of the Welshman's crew capable of thinking things like that… and so help me if it's Avi Stasi… he didn't know what he would do, but it wouldn't be pleasant, at least not for Mr Stasi.

Even as he stewed, Jack kept an eye on Strickson; as angry as he was, he had no intention of losing her out there. He stole a quick glance at his data pad and the schematic of the ship. "It's this one," he said stopping in front of what was left of the corridor's sixth cabin. There was no need to dig into his pack; a metal beam had pierced the cabin wall, leaving a gaping hole large enough for him to walk through. Jack didn't hold out much hope of finding anything… "Careful," he warned his companion. "That metal looks jagged."

"Yes, Sir." She still wasn't sure he'd be too quick to help her if she found herself jammed up out there. But she followed the Captain into the cabin anyway. There wasn't much else she could do.

An had said that sometimes cyprians got sold into private service, especially when they got older, if they were pretty, like Mr Anders. Twenty, twenty five… that was as old as anyone was ever allowed to get in the Red Houses. Anneke didn't want to think about what happened to the cyprians who weren't sold into private service.

She didn't want to think about what would have happened to her if she hadn't been able to convince the Tigreah's Captain that she could be a valuable member of his crew, even at only thirteen years old… when her father died…

She swept her light around the room, inadvertently creating eerie shadows against the walls…

Under the heavy gloves and protective space suit, Jack's wrist strap started to beep. It was a proximity warning. John… or at least his vortex manipulator… was somewhere in this cabin.