AUTHOR: NNWest
DISCLAIMER: None of them are mine...but their universe is a lot of fun.
AN: I thank my dear beta readers glassunicorn77 and darkaegis! No idea where this came from. The conversation wouldn't leave my head until I wrote it down.
Rose sighed and gazed once again into her empty coffee cup. She sat alone at a small table outside the coffee bar designated as the rendezvous point, watching the foot-traffic and willing her companion to appear. Jack was late. Not so late she thought she should look for him, but getting there.
She made an exasperated noise and impatiently checked her watch. Again. Twenty minutes and counting. She had a pretty good idea what he was up to. It wasn't as if this was the first time he'd kept her waiting. And, though he was always apologetic for his tardiness, it still irked her. When she finally looked up, Rose was gratified to see Jack's tall, broad-shouldered form appear from around the corner.
As she watched him approach, she knew instantly she had been right about the reason for his lateness. That knowledge brought with it all the concerns that plagued Rose about his behaviour. She didn't need to see his slightly mussed hair or the rapidly fading red marks on his throat when he got close enough; they only served as confirmation. The swagger in his step and his broad grin even before he saw her were enough. She rolled her eyes. The irrepressible Captain Jack Harkness had got himself shagged.
"Hello, gorgeous," he called as he easily leapt over the short rail separating the cafe's outdoor seating area from the sidewalk. "Sorry I'm late, but mission accomplished." He plunked the little bag, presumably the object of his primary errand, on the table in front of her.
"Great." She stood and he re-pocketed the bag. "Let's go," she ordered, stalking out onto the sidewalk.
They walked without speaking for a while, Jack studying her with an occasional sideways glance. She pretended not to notice. Eventually, he had to break the silence. "What?"
"What 'what'?"
"I know that look. I can almost see the wheels turning, adding it all up and coming up with a total you don't like. So, out with it."
"'S nothing. Forget about it."
"Rose, it's obviously not nothing. If I upset you I want to know what I did."
She walked on, not responding.
He tried again, "Was it 'cause I was late?"
"No. You're late all the time." She sighed and under her breath added, "Usually because you've found someone to be late with."
He heard her just the same and was rocked back by the revelation. "Oh."
She drew up short. She really hadn't meant to hurt him. "No, Jack. I didn't mean it like that. You're you. It's what you've always done as long as I've known you. It's just that..." she trailed off not knowing how to finish, how to voice the questions she wanted to ask.
"Just that, what?"
"When you...you..." Her hands made a useless gesture as her mind searched for the words. "Are you safe?" She could see he was trying to follow her, but had no clue what she was trying to ask. "Did you use a condom?" she finally forced out.
"No." There it was, her worst fear confirmed.
"Shit, Jack!" Anger erupted in her, bringing stinging tears to her eyes. "Don't you know what's out there? All kinds of STDs, the mother of them all being AIDS. I mean..." Words failed her again.
"Oh Rose." He reached for her. She pulled away, tears flowing freely now. She wiped uselessly at them as he tried once more, "Rose, come here."
Jack looked around. Her outburst had drawn several pitying looks from the passers-by and he longed to draw her away and shield her from these voyeurs. Or, at the very least, to remove the argument from the middle of the busy sidewalk. "Please," he pleaded softly and she subsequently allowed herself to be coaxed to the edge of the walkway.
Jack leaned his back against a building's brickwork and settled her weight against him, bringing her head to rest on his chest. The cold stone's rough texture bit through his jacket somewhat and ruefully he remembered a similar sensation not an hour previous, during the encounter that earned him this trouble. "I'm sorry, Rose. It's all right," he soothed, trying to quiet her sobs.
She tensed, pulling back to thump him in the chest with a balled fist. "It's not all right!" she snapped. Rose tipped her head back to look him in the eye, her fury plainly visible. "Don't you see? I want you to stay safe." Her voice softened. "I care about you."
Jack pulled her back into his embrace. "Oh Rose, sweetie. I know that, but clearly I need to explain some things. I may be pretty, but I'm not stupid. Well, not usually," he admitted, pressing a light kiss against her hair. "I just didn't stop to think about things from a twentieth century-"
"Twenty-first," Rose mumbled into his chest.
He smiled and continued, "Twenty-first century viewpoint. Had I thought about it for two seconds, your worries would have been obvious. But, you have to remember I'm not from this time zone-"
"You can still be hurt, still die, even if you've not been born yet!" She recalled the shock she'd felt when the Doctor had told her that in a nineteenth century Welsh dungeon.
"I know that, too. That wasn't the point I was making. Not many years from now, science will have mapped the whole human genome. Before the end of the twenty-first century, they will crack the retrovirus mystery--that's HIV taken care of. Right around the same time, they cure cancer and a whole slew of other nasty diseases. The point is, I was immunised against most of them in utero--before I was born.
When I became a Time Agent, they inoculated me against anything else I might encounter in my operational time range--anything up through the 200th century. I'm not going to catch anything from a bit of fun."
Jack paused. Rose had stopped crying, quietly listening to him speak and letting him rock her gently. Now she clung to him, fists curled tightly in his jacket, silently considering his words. He felt her shiver against him as a sudden gust of chilling autumn breeze stirred the naked branches overhead and sent dry, fallen leaves skittering across the concrete. He folded her closer to him.
"And I'm sorry if I sometimes forget about your perspective. By the fifty-first century, the whole concept of 'safe sex' is foreign because there is no sex that's not safe. Apart from some of the really rough stuff, but that depends on your taste."
A long minute passed and Jack could sense she still had more to ask. "There's more you want to know, ask away."
"Was it a guy or a girl? Today, I mean."
"It was a man."
"Guess you don't have to worry about pregnancy that way," she mused.
"Don't have to worry either way. I'm sterile," Jack stated simply. "Shooting blanks as it were--another gift from the Time Agency. All operatives are implanted with a birth control device. Keeps anachronistic genetic material out of the gene pool."
She pulled back to look up at him in surprise. Compassion tinged her voice as she said, "You can't ever have kids?"
"Oh, the process is easily reversible. Just haven't bothered to have it removed. Haven't found the appropriate time and place for kids yet."
"Time and place." She gave a short laugh. "You forgot you need the girl, too. You found her yet?" she teased as she poked him lightly in the ribs.
He arrested her hands and brought them to his chest, bringing her close again. He smiled, but his tone was soft and serious as he looked into her eyes. "Maybe. I don't know. It's...complicated."
Taking a moment to decipher his words, Rose's astonished expression returned. "Me?"
"You." Jack lifted a hand to caress her jaw-line. At the tender touch, she pressed her cheek into his warm hand. He dipped his head to meet her lips in a soft and loving, but chaste, kiss.
"You never said," she breathed. Her arms slipped beneath his jacket to encircle his waist, hugging him tightly.
"And screw up what you and the Doctor have!" His smile turned rueful. "I said the situation was complicated. I've seen you with the Doctor, and him with you. Together, you're brilliant; there's no other word for it. You shine hot and bright, like a sun. I saw it the moment I teleported you both aboard my ship and I knew I couldn't interfere in it.
I think I told you I'm not dumb. I love you both," he admitted, "but you need to find your places with each other before any of us can know where mine is."
Her wide eyes were shining with fresh tears. Jack tsked as he pulled a pressed handkerchief from a pocket. "Don't do that," he murmured gently and dried Rose's tear-streaked cheeks, blotting away the smeared make-up from around her eyes. "I shudder to think what the Doctor's going to do to me when he finds out I made his Rose cry once, let alone twice."
A small smile appeared on her lips. "Like he has any room to talk."
"That's my girl," Jack beamed. "Telling him that might just save my hide. Now, we're late and the Doctor's waiting."
She took his hand and dragged him away from the wall. "And who's fault is that?" she chastised. She laughed at his feigned chastened expression. "Come on."