tampered | (no subject)

(no subject)

When; Tuesday, July 22
Rating; G
Characters; Lucy Pevensie

lionesscouchant and Jack Harkness

handsomejack
Summary; Lucy arrives on the beach to find she's not the only one there
Log;

She had been in the train station. Which was odd, because she had been completely sure that when she left Narnia, she was at the train station.

So why was she on a beach? It was extremely reminiscent of the last time she was in Narnia, and she wondered if somehow she had found her way back. Maybe Aslan needed her there. Was that what was going on? "Susan? Peter?" She walked a little more and looked around. "Where are you?"

She wasn't afraid, but she was wary, but the water looked good. She walked out a little more. Maybe she would find someone soon.

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After that lovely squabble (http://king-coffee.livejournal.com/9991.html?thread=994311#t994311) with Ianto earlier, Jack had just snapped.

He didn't even have the energy to point out to Cori what a dumbass he was and while he felt bad for letting Blue down in that regard, Jack just couldn't.

He was down at the beach, sitting on the tails of his coat, feet drawn up to keep them out of the surf as he stared out across the ocean. He'd like to say he was thinking about things but his mind was little more than a cacophony of white noise at the moment.

She spotted him from across the beach and took a cautious step, then waited a moment. He was dressed a bit like her father; except for the greatcoat, and there was no one else around. She was still in her school uniform, and she remembered the bear that didn't talk.

However, after another minute she realized that he looked terribly, horribly wounded, like his heart had broken. She walked up, carefully, and spoke. "Excuse me? My name is Lucy Pevensie, and I'm a bit lost."

Jack had been on the verge of getting on the net and telling a group of people where to get off, starting with Cori and working his way down.

He'd eventually decided he just wanted to be left alone and so had retreated to what he thought would be a quiet place and having his solitude intruded upon sent a flash of annoyance through him. But as he turned and saw the young girl standing there in a school uniform from a time long ago, he blinked and his expression softened.

"Hello, Lucy Pevensie," he greeted her with a low key smile. "A bit lost? Where were you last?"

She smiled a little and waved, as if she were far away. "I was with my siblings, in the train station, on the way to school." She looked him over. "Is this Narnia? Are you lost too?"

She paused a bit. "If you're lost, maybe we can help each other." He looked lost. Even though he was smiling, he looked like he wanted to cry. "My brothers and my sister were with me," she added, "But I think we're alone."

Crying was something Jack tried to keep mostly to himself when he did it but he did feel the same sense of despair he'd felt when he'd last cried. When Tosh and Owen had died.

Still, wouldn't do to be crying in front of a young girl now would it. She sort of reminded him of Jasmine.

"No, lass. This is a place called the City and it sounds like you've been brought here to catch up with your siblings," he said in a calm voice. He knew at least that Peter was here, had heard Tosh talking about him and he had spoken briefly to a young man named Edmund who he'd seen was named Pevensie and hadn't he seen an entry from a Susan?

He was calmer, and less hurt looking, so Lucy responded fairly with a sweet smile. She sat next to him. "The City? The City doesn't have a name?" She pulled out a piece of stick candy from her pocket and offered it to Jack.

She paused and asked, "You saw my siblings?"

Gently shakes his head, not about to even go on the whole taking candy from babies situation and half smiles, looking back out across the water.

"Just The City," he confirmed. "You've been drawn into a sort of bubble in time. It's a City, maintained by deities who seem to draw people and creatures from different worlds to it for, well purposes aren't always well known to be honest but it seems to need the emotions we generate."

Way to be sort of waffly there, Captain.

"Anyway, I haven't met your siblings but I've heard about them and a friend of mine met your brother Peter and a Caspian as well."

She thought about it as she sucked on a piece of candy. "Does that mean that we're stuck here?"

No Aslan, then. Aslan never trapped people. She sucked a bit more and chewed off a piece, and pocketed the rest. "It's good to know they're here," she said thoughtfully, "But I bet they're being dreadful, they always are if mum isn't around. And Caspian and Peter are probably fighting already." She looked at Jack. "What's your name?"

"Well, I've heard of people finding ways out but for the most part it seems to be at the whim of the deities and the City itself, so ... yes." He said with an apologetic smile.

Jack lowered his head and chuckled a little. "I'm not sure about the being dreadful bit but I do believe that Peter and Caspian have been, squabbling."

Squabbling was a good word for it and we'd just ignore what he'd seen on the net about what Cori was doing with Peter, kthnxs.

"I'm sorry," Jack said, turning and holding a large hand out towards her. "I'm being horribly rude. Captain Jack Harkness, at your service."

She took his large hand and shook it. "It's a pleasure, Captain Jack Harkness. Are you in the war? Are you American? My dad is in the war," she explained, "But I've never met many Americans." She cocked her head a bit. "We were evacuated, you know."

She ducked her head a bit. "I hope that wasn't rude."

"It's a pleasure, Miss Lucy Pevensie." He returned, giving her hand a shake and gentle releasing it.

"I was in the war, yes. I'm not American per say, I just have that accent. I'm sorry your father went to war but I hope he returns home to you safely and he's very brave for having gone. Yes, I helped on some of the evacuations when I was in London."

He gave her a friendly sort of grin, to so that it hadn't been rude of her at all to be inquisitive. It was a good trait for any child to have.

It was nice to have someone to talk to and who answered her questions without making a fuss. Most people just told her to be quiet - it was rather like talking to Mr. Tumnus again. She tugged on her braids and was silent for a moment.

It would be nice to talk more, she thought, but she thought that finding her siblings would be best. "Is there a way for me to talk to my family, or find them? And Caspian, too," she added after a moment. "If it isn't too much trouble."

She smiled broadly, pleased that he was grinning at her.

"Of course," Jack said kindly and he reached into the pocket of his overcoat and withdrew his PDA.

"Which would you like? I can set you up to put a message on the net and have them come here to find you or we can go see if they're at home in the City? I think I know where Peter and Caspian are at least, though I might have to knock on a wrong door or two."

Because he wasn't entirely certain where they lived, just ... sort of a ballpark idea.

"Oh!" She said with a bit of surprise at his PDA. "What's that? Can you help me set up my message to them? I don't want you to have to walk all over the place with me if they can pick me up, although..." she paused for a moment. "I don't suppose you'll mind waiting with me a bit, would you? Only if it's not an inconvenience to you, of course."

The truth was that she thought he needed a bit more company before she left, and knowing Peter and Caspian it would take them a while before they managed to find her.

Jack wasn't entirely sure what he needed, well okay he knew he needed Blue back but that wasn't happening and so he was left just sort of lost at the moment. But Lucy was easy to focus on, being as she was sweet and young and helping her find her family was something he could do.

"It's called a PDA," Jack explained in a positively quiet tone that would have surprised anyone who knew him and he went on to show her how it worked, explaining how people communicated around the City. Getting it set up, he held it out towards her. "Just type what you want to say to them right there on the screen and then press the big red button there."

Lucy took it in her hands. "Is this an army thing," she asked as she typed, slowly, working her way through the proper letters and symbols. "It's different!" she said, working diligently.

She finished the entry and pressed the red button. "So I can get one of these, too?"

Watching closely, in case she seemed to need help, Jack nodded with approval as Lucy caught on quite quick.

"It's actually just a product of this age," he explained, letting her explore it further if she wished. "The base technology, architecture and functionality of the City corresponds with 21st Century Earth."

There was a pause and Jack went back over his words, realizing they might have been just a bit 99 cent long for a young lady from the 1940s. Winkling his nose at himself Jack gave Lucy one of his more familiar sassy grins.

"In other words, it comes from your future."

Her eyes widened a bit, then she wrinkled her nose. "So I suppose then that the world really changed." Narnia hadn't changed much in all that time, but then the Narnians really didn't much care for change. "Are you from the future, too?"

"Yes," Jack said and he looked out at the water again. He briefly considered explaining when in the future but scrapped it. A little girl didn't need to get that sort of confusing information thrown at her.

"So, it looks like you were headed to school?"

She just nodded. Time doing funny things wasn't odd for someone who had been twenty-five and was now ten.

"I was going to school, but then we ended up in Narnia, and then back on the train. But now we're here - and I suppose that means that I shouldn't be in school," she added with a mischievous grin. "Do you like living here, Captain?"

"No," Jack said simply, not one to lie to children, at least not direct lies.

She did have a mischievous grin indeed and he reached over to give her a light bap on the nose for her comment about school.

The fact that he didn't lie to her made her like him more. She laughed at the tap to the nose. "You should always try and make the best of it, is what my mum always tells me." She wrinkled her nose. "Although I would rather be in Narnia than anywhere else, if my family's here then I think I'll be fine."

She tapped her foot a bit. "I bet you'll be fine, too."

"Your mum is a very wise woman," Jack agreed, though right now he wasn't feeling much in the spirit of 'make the best of it'.

Sometimes one's spirits just, flagged. But he wasn't going to show that to Lucy, not when she definitely had the best attitude to bring into the City.

"I imagine you're probably fine no matter where you end up Miss Lucy," Jack said with a knowing arch of his eyebrow.

"Well I do try," she added knowingly. It was true, that she did try, as often as she could. "Is it safe to swim here? Susan's best at swimming, but I like it well enough."

"When there aren't giant lizards coming from the ocean," Jack said with slightly pursed lips.

"Oh and you should check out the lakes. There's a large blue squid alien in one of them called Ellington. He likes to play musical instruments and sing with you."

Jack missed Ellington, he missed the days when Ellington had been at the mini-hub.

Damn it.

Closing his eyes, the immortal fought off a wash of despair, trying not to let it grip him again while the child was around.

That was a surprise. "Giant lizards? Squid aliens?" She wasn't sure she believed him except that she did; she always believed people. It wasn't really gullibility.

"I'll ask Peter to take me," she decided, finally.

"I think you'll like him," Jack said with a small smile.

He was probably being boring company for an active and inquisitive child but Jack just couldn't bring himself to talk to Lucy about the City or what to expect. He hoped that her siblings would be good to warn her of the dangers in the City and to watch over her.

No child should be left alone after all.

He was making her feel comfortable, which was much more important. She smiled up at him, and sat quietly, waiting for her siblings.

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