[shady]

[more_flexible]

Shady had been strange, but Jack had promised. He wasn't quite sure what to expect. Okay, that wasn't entirely true, but he wasn't sure specifically. After all was said and done, he trekked to the Keep to find her.

"Shady?"

Comments

[joie-devivre.livejournal.com]

She was carving. Sitting with her back to the tree, one of her many daggers picking out details from a bit of wood - oddly charred, so much it left black streaks on her hands.

It looked like a wolf.

She looked up and tucked it all away, dusting off her hands - and as she looked up, for one stark moment there was such fragile vunerability - like she'd collapse into tears, like she wished for death.

And then it was gone, her eyes brightening as she smiled. "Jack! I was waiting." She raised an eyebrow as she stood. "Hope you don't mind heights." The ladder was next to her, so her reasoning was obvious.

[captainjack.livejournal.com]

He caught it, there wasn't much he didn't notice when he was wholly focused on someone. It didn't mean he was going to pounce on it...time and place.

"I don't mind a bit," he said, looking up the ladder. "Although I'm used to stairs. Good thing I'm flexible."

[joie-devivre.livejournal.com]

"Good thing." She shook her head slightly, and moved up the ladder ahead of him, her hair oddly loose at the moment it went easily to her ankles, and it was normally coiled up in a braid at times like this-

She made it up and dug through her packs that were up here, all of the items piled against one of the doors out to the balcony - the one leading to the room Theon had... converted, but Jack didn't need to know that. She sat heavily on one of the makeshift chairs, and looked at him, expecting him to join her.

[captainjack.livejournal.com]

He enjoyed the view as he climbed and only took a cursory look around, out of habit. "Nice place," he said casually, moving to where she was.

[joie-devivre.livejournal.com]

"I didn't build it." She didn't say any more then that, holding up the cut crystal bottle, the two tiny cups in her lap. "It's called Dragon's Blood. I don't really know what's in it, besides not that, and not pineapple." She paused, then shook her head. "Don't ask."

She poured, not even feeling the wee cup. "One'll get you drunk, two, you'll be sopping - and three, you'll be plastered. How about we go with one?" Hers was fuller then his, and she held his out to him.

[captainjack.livejournal.com]

"Drunk from this much?" he asked, obviously sceptical. However, he had been around and knew well that if someone said something would get you drunk, they were probably right. "If you say so."

She was less than half his size and had more, which gave him pause. His eyes narrowed and he cocked his head just a bit, but he lifted the bit of crystal.

"What are we drinking to?"

[joie-devivre.livejournal.com]

"The availability of alcohol." She meant it as a joke, but it fell flat as she closed her eyes and downed it, feeling the burn of liquid fire as it ran down to her stomach. It made her not feel anymore, made her not remember-

And for that, Shady was thankful. So incredibly thankful-

She couldn't even admit it.

[captainjack.livejournal.com]

"I'll drink to that," he said, tipping it back as easily as she had, but he wasn't prepared for the burn or the near-instant way it hit him. Before he even could set the cup down...

"Fuck...you weren't kidding," he said, swallowing hard once more.

[joie-devivre.livejournal.com]

"I don't kid. Not about that, anyway." She reached for the cup. "Don't drop it - they don't grow on trees." She sighed, and stared up at the ceiling.

"Life's shit. How's yours? Really, I mean. A liar can tell a liar, even when they're good."

[captainjack.livejournal.com]

He grinned, but it was cold. "Life...is shit. What can I say? I got close and my heart got torn out three times on the same day," he answered, blinking at how the truth just came. It just...flowed. It didn't hurt, it just was.

[joie-devivre.livejournal.com]

"Bet you I can win."

The words were... dead.

More then dead. That look he'd seen in her eyes, it was there, even as she twisted the cap on the bottle again. More for herself.

[captainjack.livejournal.com]

"It's not really a competition, is it?" he said quietly. It was hard to focus with the heat flushing his skin, but he saw what she was doing. He'd done the same days ago.

"...What happened, Shady?"

[joie-devivre.livejournal.com]

"Just a day like any other, when the dead walk and-" She looked at him, and started pulling off her shirt.

This wasn't about sex - she had on a breastband and smallclothes anyhow, but she pulled off her shirt, unlaced her leggings, half scooting out of the chair before standing with a slight wobble.

And the angry red scars were clear - they'd healed ugly from the infection, twisted evidence. "I live here alone."

[captainjack.livejournal.com]

Jack rose, reaching out to steady her. He'd seen her in the clinic, but like most things he wasn't supposed to see, his eyes had glided past her small frame beneath the blankets.

There was no looking away, now.

Any other day when the dead walk..."Halloween," he said, touching her scars so very gently. Suddenly, he felt sort of fortunate he'd only had his mind scrambled.

Not so scrambled that he couldn't remember the aftermath. Chase had died. House had been safe in New Atlantis. And the list of the dead and disappeared was no secret.

"Theon."

[joie-devivre.livejournal.com]

She didn't cry.

She hadn't cried since he'd died, since she'd watched that light in his eyes flicker out with the blood on his lips. "He pulled me out of the way of the sword before-" She'd paled to about the color of milk. "It was Robb Stark. Dead and walking, his broardsword through Theon's chest." His heart, most likely. She'd seen enough battles. She knew what it looked like.

And she could recall this, in every single vivid detail, and she didn't even realise it as she started to shake. "Then it crumbled to dust."

[captainjack.livejournal.com]

Jack closed his eyes, allowing her just that much privacy, but he didn't let her go. A tremble grew to shaking and only then did he move. Closer, arms encircling her. He'd seen so many people die, but...not like that. Nothing like what she described.

"He saved you," he repeated, trying to keep it clear in the fog of the liquor. Only one thing came to mind--his own words. "...worth fighting for."

[joie-devivre.livejournal.com]

She was shaking. Shaking horribly, so bad her teeth were starting to chatter. "No. I didn't move- I was ready to die and he pulled me out of the way. He shouldn't have died. He- Why was I mad at him, Jack? Why did I say no? He only found other women's beds, was getting what he couldn't get from me- I wasn't enough for him-"

She was dizzy somehow, her breath catching in her throat until she felt like she was going to be sick.

[captainjack.livejournal.com]

For all his resolution not to let anyone new in, he failed spectacularly. He gethered her into his arms, lifting her as he sank to the floor and cradled her.

"I don't know why," he said softly. "I really don't know how it works. And without answers, it's worse when they're gone. And death...I don't know, Shady."

Jack kept his eyes closed, fighting the flashes of Rose, of the kiss, of the Daleks. He'd gone to his death...and he'd done it for her.

[joie-devivre.livejournal.com]

"It shouldn't matter. None of it should matter, because it's just sex, but he promised - we promised that we wouldn't without a heads up and it- they could get pregnant and I can't-" Her voice broke. "It's because I couldn't, because I somehow wasn't enough- So I left him. I left him, and he was alone. He was a-alone and seeing them and that room- that room is where he tried to regain his sanity and he died and-" She still wasn't crying. Couldn't.

She couldn't stop the shaking. "I don't want to be human. I don't want this anymore."

[captainjack.livejournal.com]

One hand came up to cradle her face, so small in his palm, and he finally opened his eyes to look at her. He meant to refute her, to tell her she didn't mean it, to say that being human, living like this, it was worthwhile, that it would get better.

He'd lied enough for the day.

"I know. I know about not wanting this, Shady. I do. I always find a reason to keep going, but I know exactly what you mean."

Okay, not the human part. He'd always been human, until just before he'd come here. He hadn't even had time to figure that out, though.

"The promises and the lovers and the firends and the work and the...things...things that fill the days and nights...I don't know if anything even matters half the time. You're not the only one who feels this way, baby."

[joie-devivre.livejournal.com]

"I want to die." It was a choked whisper, and one tear fell from her eyes that were swimming with them, the lone drop skimming down the line of his hand. "I want to die, but then he would have died for nothing. He already died for nothing." He died for me.

[captainjack.livejournal.com]

"Not for nothing," Jack said quickly. "Shady, listen."

He pulled her closer, turned her face to his, and rested his forehead against hers. "It's not nothing. His last act was to save you. Whatever happened before, whatever fights, whatever hurts...you loved him and that is everything."

He couldn't tell if his hands were trembling too, or if it was from her shaking. It didn't really matter. None of it mattered now, not when he was crying the tears she couldn't.

[joie-devivre.livejournal.com]

"He died for nothing." The words were hollow. "It may have been everything, but he died for me, and all I want now is death." She stared at him. "I want him to be alive. I want it to never have happened. I want to leave this place, but I'll still remember."

Her voice cracked. "It hurts so much, Jack. Somehow, I'm empty, but it hurts."

[captainjack.livejournal.com]

Fuck, he knew that pain. He knew it so well. The emptyness of watching the TARDIS go and not return, the emptiness of losing people, one after the other. The hollow pain that he ignored most days, pushed down, tucked away--the pain, when it was too much made him run, he knew it.

He'd just never heard it, hollow and terrible, from the lips of a woman. Especially one like her. The Shady he'd know was so different than this woman he held so close and careful. The woman he'd known had been like life itself.

"I know. This, I know," he said, swallowing hard. It all made sense now, how she drank, why she startled, what that fragile pain in her eyes was. It all made sense because he'd felt it, too. He was fortunate enough to have people to pull him back from the brink. He was lucky enough to have reasons, contrived as they might be, reasons to go on.

"You are not alone," he whispered.

[joie-devivre.livejournal.com]

"But it doesn't matter." It wasn't about people. It wasn't about having them, or losing them - it was about him. She looked away, the shaking less now, just because she didn't have the energy to keep it up. "I should have died, Jack. I should have been the one, or both of us."

"But I can't." She couldn't, because then it would be worse then nothing, because he'd be gone.

[captainjack.livejournal.com]

"You can't go back. You can't make it different," he answered quietly, pulling away enough to look at her, and for the briefest moment, there was murder in his eyes. He could kill he so easily. He could do it. It wouldn't be hard. He'd killed so many people, some of them just this intimately. Murder in his eyes, but not in his heart.

He'd left all that behind. He couldn't do it anymore, and she wasn't asking, nor was she a target. She was just a broken woman who no one could fix. No one could make anything better or easier. Not Jack. Not even death.

"...But you can't live like this, either. You're flirting with disaster, Shady. You know that, right?"

[joie-devivre.livejournal.com]

She saw the look in his eyes. Heard what he said.

And that might be why she kissed him, bruisingly hard, her hands gripping his shirt.

The first spark he'd seen in her thus far, and it was so that she wouldn't have to listen. Wouldn't have to think about it.

[captainjack.livejournal.com]

So many kinds of wrong, and Jack couldn't fault her at all. She really wasn't alone, he did the exact same things, in nearly the same order. Just...not for as long.

He twisted his fingers in her hair, gripping and pulling as he kissed her back with matching force. His other hand rested half on her throat, the fingers curving up against her cheek. She tasted strongly of the Dragon's Blood, too strong, and after another minute, he tore himself away.

"Who are you kissing, Shady?"

[joie-devivre.livejournal.com]

She'd been kissing him.

Kissing him to forget, yet, but-

"Out."

It was just the question, what it meant, what it implied that made her face twist to anger, her eyes smolder. "Leave. Now." He'd gone too far. "The only man I was kissing was you. Get out."

It took her barely a moment to get out of his lap, for her fury to be palpable- and he was lucky that she didn't have her daggers on her.

[captainjack.livejournal.com]

He exhaled and began to stand. "I know you were kissing me, but you could have been from the moment I got here. It wasn't until..."

Until I could have killed you as easily as breathing

"...I mentioned disaster. Liar can tell a liar, especially up close," he said, making his way to his feet, only to stumble back hard against the wall. "Shit...how far is it to the ground?"

[joie-devivre.livejournal.com]

"Over twenty feet." Her smile was gone. "You stay. I'll go." She had more then him, but she was used to it.

"Be gone in the morning." She moved, focusing past the alcohol, not really willing to listen to his blathering. She tucked the flask into her pack before dressing, then dropping the pack to the ground below.

[captainjack.livejournal.com]

"Are you fucking joking? I can't stay here," Jack said quietly. He was fluid, nearly blissful. Whatever she'd given him was amazing.

He pushed off the wall and made it to the door. Twenty feet. One ladder. He'd gotten out of worse, he was sure. He had to have. He was still alive.

"I promised I'd always come back." He said it mostly to himself as he contemplated the distance, then looked at her once more. "Thanks for the drink. And...be careful."

A liar could only keep going for so long before the truth crept up and cut the legs out from below.

[joie-devivre.livejournal.com]

"I'm not going to be shut in prison forever because you were a moron." It took her less time to grab one of her daggers and follow him then it did for him to contemplate the distance, and when he turned to look again she easily placed one foot on the railing and applied the blunt handle of her dagger to the back one of Captain Jack Harkness' head.

She wouldn't leave then - not until he woke up, but at least it'd stop him from busting his legs and leaving her in a rut.

"By Fortune's left, why do you have to be so heavy?" The last person she'd done this too-

No. She wouldn't think about him.

She needed another drink.