tampered | Log; Ongoing

Log; Ongoing

When; Friday, March 14th, Evening
Rating; PG-13 to be safe
Characters; Atora Hanashima (

sohappyforyou) and Jack Harkness (

handsomejack)
Summary; Second verse, not quite same as the first when it comes to Atora's dates.
Log;

He was a gentleman, really. He held out his arm for her to hold when they met and even pulled out her chair when they sat down to dinner. Had it been raining, Atora wouldn't have been surprised if he laid down his coat over a puddle just so she could safely cross it.

Whoever said chivalry was dead clearly didn't know that Atora thought that Jack probably resurrected it.

Atora wrapped the lacy maroon shawl she had liberated from the clothing collection at Rose's workplace closer around her as the chilly evening air blew across her bared shoulders, leaving goose bumps in its wake. She had no idea what they were going to get into after splitting up from the other couple. Even if she ended up waiting for her companion for the night outside, only to start shivering, she knew Jack wouldn't steer them wrong.

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Jack had said a fair well to the Doctor and Rose before stepping up to his date's side. Dinner had been lovely but he figured that everybody involved could now enjoy a bit of time off on their own.

Coming up beside Atora he once more folded one hand properly behind his back while offering her the other arm and a warm smile.

"So, I believe I heard talk of possibly dancing or if you'd rather we can walk for a bit? I believe I promised ice cream?"

Atora returned his grin with one of her own. Dancing or walking? She had been wearing heels all day and her toes were currently screaming for a hot water soak. Walking would hurt, but dancing would hurt even more. She was smart enough to tell the difference.

"I can't have you breaking your promises on me, so ice cream it is!" she answered, slipping her arm into his.

"The lady wants ice cream!" Jack crowed cheerfully and smiled as he started to walk in the direction of where he'd looked up a shop on the map. He was careful to keep his pace to what seemed comfortable for her and folded his fingers over her hand to keep it warm where it rested against his arm.

"Are you warm enough?"

"Can I have cake too? I'm sure I behaved well enough tonight to earn some," Atora asked with a light tone. Her tone belied the guilt that she felt inside. She had set up two dates with two different men on the same day. It was the first time she had done anything of the sort and honestly, Jack was too much of a gentleman for her to turn down right off the bat.

Even if Faye had told her not so good things about him.

"I am. It'll take a lot more than cold weather to wear me down." She flexed her slim fingers underneath his as she ignored her feet and kept in step with him.

"Of course, cake. Separate or mixed into the ice cream?" He asked.

Truly, he didn't mind. Jack wasn't the best 'relationship' material and that was an understatement. He was here because the Doctor had set it up and after meeting her because Atora seemed like a nice woman, the type of lady he enjoyed having as a friend.

As such, he'd kept his flirting attentive but lacking any real heat, the sort of good natured tone that he used with his friends.

"Separate. The fun is in the mixing!"

If Atora had to be honest with herself, she would have preferred to be with Gray right at that moment. Jack made nice company, but she truly didn't feel any chemistry with him. Not the type she felt with Gray anyway. It wasn't a bad night. She did have fun. But really, it felt more like a night out with the friends than something more romantic.

But there weren't any kids waiting at home in the city for her, any progress reports to give to the Chief, no demons to fight. Only Raizou, and knowing the bear as well as she did, he was sleeping for the night. The least she could do was enjoy the rest of the night with what would most likely become a good friend.

Jack really could be like a good girl type friend. Minus the painting of fingernails. Unless you caught him in a quirky mood. He'd also be the first to encourage Atora to follow her instincts and if romance seemed to be in the air with this Gray, then that was definitely who she should be focused on!

Yes, he was a bit of a matchmaker.

"All right! Let's see what we can find."

He wasn't sure if the shop he had in mind had cake as a completely separate dessert but perhaps he could weddle something. Holding the door to the shop open for Atora, he escorted her in.

"Thank you," she acknowledged him opening the door and she strolled inside and stood to the side to wait for him. A part of her wished she turned down the offer of dessert. Atora really didn't want to waste anymore of Jack's time than she already had. If he had other ideas about their future, she really needed to tell him what she thought before it was too late.

She just needed a nice way to let him down. She never liked hurting people's feelings.

Stepping up to the counter, the first thing Jack asked about was the possibility of getting a side of cake with their ice cream. Not just cake bits but actual side of cake, yes with some whip cream on it for frosting, so long as Atora approved!

He was now going to be able to add getting dumped to his resume for the week. Really, it was just like being back at home. Though he'd have to give the Doctor a hard time about this!

Giving his own order, he gave her a chance to place her's and while waiting, smiled knowingly at her.

"So, have I at least redeemed myself slightly from my reputation?"

Yes, indeed, she approved of anything that came in the form of cake. Whipped cream frosting included. She made sure that the young boy working in the shop knew she wanted extra whipped cream on her slice of cake.

If anything, when Atora dumped Jack, she'd use the excess cream to drown her shame.

"Reputation?" she asked as she looked at him questioningly. "The one Faye told me about?"

Seriously, there was humor to be found in this situation, particularly when Jack next got hold of the Doctor.

"Mmmm," he said, grinning. "Rose and the Doctor rather took me to task for that."

Pausing he chuckled and gave a little boy sort of shrug.

"Course, if it hadn't been that it would probably have been something else. I fear I can be a trial at times."

Winking, he reached to pay for their ice cream and cake as it came across the counter, nodding towards a table as he picked up the treats to carry them.

"Sit and eat?"

"So is it true?" Atora had a serious nosy streak in her. Sometimes, she just needed to know the details on some things and this was one of them. Even as she chose a table to sit at, she expected an honest answer.

"Tell me there were no aliens."

Jack wasn't one to be ashamed of his past, even when he was staring down the barrel of potential disapproval, so it was the truth that Atora got.

"I can't tell you that, else I'd be lying." He said with simple honesty, setting down their treat and once again holding her chair for her.

"Course where and when I come from, it's actually very normal. Though I'm not perhaps as much of an ass as I made out to be. I'm afraid your friend pushed my buttons and I responded ... fractiously."

It really couldn't be any more possible for Atora's eyes to open wider. She'd heard some odd things about their world from the Doctor: spaceships, time machines, that sort of thing. She really thought the alien part was a joke.

"So she was telling the truth," Atora mused as she sat down, too shellshocked to thank him properly. "And she's not my friend. I don't think Faye likes me, to be honest. She said I was too nice and perky."

Pushing her chair in, Jack moved over to his own seat and sat down. His smile was gentle.

"As I said, she pushed and I pushed back. Probably not very handsomely done of me but then I have my moments."

Picking up his spoon, he played with it.

"I honestly don't sleep with everything and anything, not now. There was a time, when I was younger and brasher and I still flirt to beat the band but you have to understand, I come from a time where the attitude towards sex is quite a bit different. It's not as intertwined in the idea of love and I grew up separating the two ideas."

"She seems like the type to work a nerve or two, so I can't really blame you for a moron moment," she laughed.

At least Jack was honest. Men she knew would take the first chance at lying about their bedroom conquests or their fights with other women.

"If that's what you know, that's what you know. I can't necessarily blame you for that when you give me an explanation," she continued as she tapped her fingernail on the handle of her spoon in thought. "I'm sure you would think I'm bananas for working with demon children all day long from where I'm from just like I thought you were crazy for bedding aliens."

Edited 2008-03-15 03:40 (UTC)

Taking a bit of ice cream, Jack chuckled and politely swallowed before he shook his head.

"Not bananas at all, children are wonderful." He said with a genuine smile. "Perhaps I'd say ambitious for the demon part of things though."

He paused and then cocked his head to the side, looking sincerely curious.

"Really? Demon children? How did you get into that?"

Speaking of nosey!

"They really are." Now this was her subject of choice. Nobody could ever say Atora didn't love children as much as she love animals.

"Long story short?" Atora began as she scooped up a bit of cream with her spoon, "None of them have been accepted by their families or society as a whole. We take them in and train them to learn how to control themselves. Most of them stay on to work for us or just live with us period."

She paused and her eyes and voice dropped as the memories of Gen, the one that would always be her favorite child, came flooding back to her. "Some leave. Not by choice, but by death."

Jack listened attentively, nodding with unfortunate understanding of how such circumstances could come to be, even with children.

His expression sobered further when her last words seemed to bring Atora a distressing memory and he reached out to lay a gentle, supportive hand against her wrist.

"I'm sorry," he said simply. He didn't try to say anything else, because words meant to help too often came off as patronizing. He knew from having been on the receiving end of them often enough.

"It sounds like you and your organization do good work, especially in the training. Sometimes having a purpose makes all the difference."

A few tears dripped into the frosting of her cake before she could stop them.

"Look at me," she laughed bitterly as she shook her head, "We're supposed to be having fun and here I am sobbing into my cake."

Atora wiped her eyes with the back of her free hand and took a couple of deep breaths. "Tell me about Torchwood. Rose told me to ask you."

The faster she changed subjects, the faster she would hold off the waterworks.

[ooc: Sorry. LJ is being an fool with the notifs.]

Edited 2008-03-15 04:39 (UTC)

Jack certainly did not want his ~~new friend~~ date crying and so he gave her wrist a gentle squeeze and then smiled with bright, cheerful warmth.

"We have a pterodactyl," he offered. "She came through the Rift by accident and we couldn't send her back so she lives in our base with us."

He was more than happy to tell funny stories or do whatever it seemed Atora needed him to do at the moment.

She'd be okay. At least that was what Atora was telling herself as she used her other hand to return the squeeze. All she needed was time. The wounds were still fresh after all.

A pterodactyl? First aliens, now dinosaurs. What world did he come from?

"But what do you do in Torchwood?"

Chuckling a bit ruefully, Jack lay his arm across the table and gave Atora a quiet sort of smile.

"Rose is not helping me maintain my dashing air of mystery, here." He said.

"Torchwood is an organization that gathers, analysis and adapts alien technology to assist the planet Earth in defending itself against potential alien threats."

That was sort of a broad overview of what they did but Jack really wasn't used to just talking about Torchwood. He was perhaps too used to keeping secrets.

Right.

All Atora could do was pick her up spoon up and dip it in into her ice cream before blurting out the first thing that came to her mind.

"I'm being honest here. I'm going to pretend that I just understood what you said if you pretend I didn't cry."

An air of mystery wasn't needed if Jack didn't make any sense to her.

"We can do that," Jack agreed with a gentle chuckle.

Picking up his own spoon, he pursed his lips thoughtfully and then dug out a scoop full.

"I guess simple terms would be, I help the planet I call home defend itself. How's that?"

"That'll work, Jack."

Atora went silent as she dug into her own dessert, carefully thinking of a way to ask him just what did he expect to come from this date. A relationship? A friendship? Enemies? Mind reading wasn't one of her strong points.

"May I ask you a question?" she asked, pushing her half empty dish off to the side. Suddenly, she wasn't craving her sweets as much anymore.

Noticing the way the ice cream was set aside, he politely set down his own spoon and moved his dessert aside as well. After all, it was just rude to continue to stuff your face when your companion wanted to talk.

"Of course," he invited.

The best way for Atora was always the blunt way and she might as well have gotten it over with.

"Be honest with me. Would you rather be friends? I mean, you're a handsome guy and very sweet but..." she trailed off, trying to let him down easy, "I don't think it's going to work out in the long term."

There. It was out and now the ball was in his court.

Jack smiled, looked down at his folded arms and then back up at her, his expression understanding and hopefully sweet.

"Tell you a secret," he said, leaning over to whisper. "I'm absolute rubbish as any sort of long term romantic prospect."

The smile reached all the way up to his blue eyes.

"I'm a much better friend and I can tell just from tonight that you definitely deserve better than my arse for a romantic prospect," winking, he set his chin on his hands and put on a woeful expression that was gently playful. "So, you can totally dump me ... even though I'm really, really hot."

"Consider yourself dumped. Hot or not." Atora replied with a relieved smile on her face. At least they were on the same page. It wouldn't be hard at all if they can joke about it.

"I fear for the person that finally gets you to settle down." She reached across the table and gave him a playful flick against his forehead. "I suspect duct tape and rope will be used."

Laughing at the flick, Jack sat back and smiled wickedly.

"I can only hope duct tape and rope is used!"

Really, he was fairly irrepressible.

"You horrible man. Have you no morals?" she laughed. "Next you'll be demanding chains and whips too."

Little did he or anybody else know, Atora had her irrepressible moments as well.

"Oh please?!" Jack cried, absolutely playing it up like the biggest ham that had ever been a ham.

Atora covered her mouth to hold in the laughter that was bubbling out. The store employee were looking at them as if they were insane already.

"You need a spanking, but I have the feeling you'd like it too much," Atora remarked, words coming out muffled.

Also aware of the looks, Jack turned and gave the employee a cheerful wave and the full effect of his hundred watt smile before he turned back to Atora.

At her comment, he just arched his eyebrows as if to say she should already know the answer to that question and then he reached over and attempted to attack her nose with a glob of whipcream.

Hey, now that they'd established the idea of being friends, it meant he was going to be an utter brat!

Oh, she knew the answer already and it already started another fierce giggling fit that got worse with him hamming it up to the now blushing worker and lasted until she noticed a finger heading for her face.

"If you cherish that finger..." Atora warned as she armed herself with a spoonful of chocolate ice cream.

She wasn't adverse to a public food fight at all.

Jack froze, finger hovering between them.

"The polite and proper thing to do here, would be for me to withdraw from the field of battle," he said in a staid and proper tone.

Because Atora had a beautiful dress on and they were in a public place and ...

Yep, that finger full of whipcream was totally headed in the direction of her nose/cheek.

"It would also be the sensible thing to do."

Battle was her forte. He was one thousand years too early to even attempt to defeat her.

That's exactly why there was a glob of half-melted ice cream flying towards the center of Jack's forehead.

Edited 2008-03-16 02:29 (UTC)

It was close quarters battle and as such ... yeah Jack ducked a little but that merely resulted in the ice cream landing across his temple and into his hair.

Reaching up towards his hair, he stuck his fingers in the mess and was fighting back laughed as he cocked his hand and then gave his fingers a hard flick in her direction.

Scatter shot attack!

There was ice cream on her dress. On her new red dress.

This was war.

"You want to die?" she threatened in a jokingly sort of way as she picking up the plate containing her slice of cake. "Give me a good reason why I shouldn't smash this in your face."

And before she would even give him a chance to answer, the cake was heading his direction anyway.

"I live dangeroooff!" He tapered off as he suddenly had a face full of cake to contend with.

As the spongy, whip cream covered mess slowly smeared itself down off his face and into his lap, Jack sat there with his hands raised sort of looking at his now ice cream and cake smeared self. Though it was tempting to take retribution, really she'd won that little skirmish fair and square and he could only imagine they were one flying spoon full of ice cream away from getting asked to leave.

"Usually when I look like this, there is someone to lick it off of me," he said in a matter of fact -rather than an inviting- tone and giving his finger a small shake to loosen a bit of cake off the tip.

"Too bad, there's nobody that foolish around here," Atora giggled as she watched him surrender. Jack was indeed a mess, in more ways than one.

She pulled a handful of napkins from the metal dispenser on the table and offered them to her new found friend. "Clean yourself up. I don't want the Doctor and Rose thinking I don't know how to act in public."

Taking the napkins, he began to clean up the worst of it, looking all the world like a naughty young boy caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

"Bah, they know me, Atora. They know I can never behave, in public or anywhere really," Jack winked.

When he'd managed to get cleaned up of the worst of it, he reached out and drew over his ice cream, which except for a scoop of whipcream, was still mostly intact.

"So, shall we share a non date, ice cream? Since yours got used for target practice? Then I will politely walk you home and with your permission, kiss you on the cheek and take myself off to get chocolate ice cream out of my hair."

"And they still tolerate you? Amazing," she grinned as she tapped her nose to signal that he was missing a spot. "And yes, we shall. Only if you let me give you a hug too."

Reaching up quickly to wipe at his nose, Jack chuckled gently.

"Amazing, I know." He agreed with a good natured grin. "And I am never one to turn down hugs!"

"Good. Because if there's one thing this city is lacking is a good amount of hugs!" she replied as she picked up her spoon to dig into his serving.

If anything else, minus the ice cream spotted across the front of her dress (she'd have to find out of there was a dry cleaner on the island), the night was ending on a good note. She didn't have a lover, but she had a friend and a damn good one too.

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Log; Ongoing

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