Well Hello There

[spacehopper]

When: Any Time
Where: Anywhere
Who: Captain Jack Harkness + You

You've seen him before, maybe even since you were a child. When he appears, it's always been right there, at the edge of your vision, watching you. Sometimes he says hello in passing as he crosses the street. Sometimes he just smiles when you spot him and ducks into a shop or moves around the corner. He comes and goes from your life, never threatening, never tangible.

Until today.

Today he moves towards you purposefully. He has bright blue eyes and dimples when he smiles. He'd not aged a day since you first started to see him. He smells like the best thing in the world to you. He offers his hand. "Hi. I'm Captain Jack Harkness," he says.

Comments

[templeistelepathybutton]

Charles' smile grew more and more as he looked around, despite the fact that there was still a headache curled around his temples, trying to figure out where to even look first. However, when Jack gestured towards the joystick, Charles looked more than a little uncertain for the first ten seconds or so. The joystick looked a bit like something he had seen on a home computer, but somehow far more advanced. He himself had never used one, so at first, he wasn't entirely certain what to do with it other than the most obvious of touching it.

Once he figured out it moved them, his brows went up and he cautiously started trying it out, wanting to get it under control before really trying to go anywhere. When he felt a little more confident with it, their bubble finally took off properly into the water.

"Do you do this often? Take people from their timeline and bring them to a resort park?" A joke as much as it was serious, trying to learn more - anything, really - about this man he was with.

[spacehopper]

The answer was a simple no and a not so simply yes, so Jack only smiled and then pressed his own lips closed with his fingers. Swallowing water would lead to explosion after all and while that could happen through the nostrils too, it was better to safeguard one’s mouth on the ride.

He’d answer questions – possibly – later. Or maybe not, it was hard to tell with Jack.

For now, he put his feet up on the bar of what looked like a roll cage keeping people away from the bubble’s edges and let Charles drive them along through the exhibits.

From time to time, little fish would swim through their air bubble inside of their water bubbles or catch a ride in their wake. The other pods floated along behind and in front of them, most going in crazy patterns as the kids driving them enjoyed themselves. There was a lot to see and a lot to explore. The universe was filled with strange sea life.

[templeistelepathybutton]

The look Charles gave in return to Jack's mimed silence could practically be a cry of 'bullshit', but he said nothing and turned his eyes out to something he had never seen before. A world beyond worlds, where while children were being children, he could still witness things he never dreamed of.

He pulled them up along side of a bubble filled with what almost looked like tiny fish-people from a distance, but when he got closer up, they looked a lot more disturbing than that. Hugely graceful in their bubbles but entirely benign despite their ugly appearance, with dome-shaped eyes bulging and hands ending in claws. Mostly they looked excited to be swimming around one another, chasing each other, until they spotted Charles, then they decided to stare back at him curiously.

Blink. Charles wasn't sure if they would do anything to him, but as their bubble moved in more, he did glance to Jack with a raised brow as they clearly were curious about the two in the big air bubble.

[spacehopper]

Just because Man was the only intelligence on Earth didn't mean that there weren't a variety of other intelligences out there. Once they made their way safely, without explosions, to the dry area of the aquarium again, the Captain didn't mind answering Charles' questions about the two curious creatures he had noted back in the Alpha Nebula exhibit.

"They're staff," Jack laughed. "One looks like a guy I use to date actually. He was really sweet when he was male but a little catty when he was female. You have to be careful with the gender swappers. And you think being bipolar might be bad!"

It was impossible to tell if Jack was making anything up or even exaggerating because he just took Charles to an aquarium on Mars. Crazy!

[templeistelepathybutton]

If Jack was joking, he was doing a damn fine job of completely bowling Charles over in the moment. Normally, there would be no question as Charles would have immediately scanned over Jack's thoughts without a second thought about it, but given his earlier attempt to scan outward and Jack's natural defenses, Charles would have to accept certain things with perhaps a grain of salt, but as truth. Jack seemed to have yet to lie to him, so it did earn him some credibility with Charles.

"You're not serious," Charles did comment back, trying to fathom the idea a partner that switched genders. It also told him something that he wasn't sure how it settled with him. Was it that in the future, the dating of other genders was more acceptable? For Charles, the Stonewall riots had only occurred a few years before and unrest was still powerful from it. "...Could he- she- ah, it- come out of the water?"

[spacehopper]

"I'm both always and never serious," Jack joked, hands in his pockets. There was something truly wonderful about Charles' complete confusion and his willingness to learn and accept, to observe but also to ask questions. It was a good way that Jack had come to expect in the people he wanted to keep on the Torchwood roster.

It didn't matter where or when a potential agent was from, they simply had to possess a lot of wonder.

"He could come out of the water," Jack said. "Using something a little bit like an aquarium on legs. When you care for someone, you make it work. Even when it's just physical, you make it work!" he laughed and led Charles down the stairs towards the cafeteria.

[templeistelepathybutton]

So you're full of shit, yet you weren't lying about the future. About time travel. Charles thought to himself, watching Jack with a curious eye. Really, this whole trip was almost equal parts fascinating, terrifying, and incredible. Here he was, incredibly far in the future, on a planet people did not, could not, travel to in his time. Hearing Jack talk about this... partner of his was very strange.

He gave a small smile as he listened, trying to imagine it but could not. Jack was a very different sort of gentleman than any he had known, even other mutants.

"...what do you want me to do with you, in this... agency of yours? I know nothing about the future other than what you've shown me.. or is that typical?"