TEST DRIVE #2 - The Holodeck/Ten Forward

[tenforward_m]

Where were you a minute ago? Well, you aren't there anymore. Instead, you're standing in a very large, dark room lined with yellow. There are doors at either end of it.

Here's where things get a little choose your own adventure-y. You could:



1: Approach a console filled with buttons, located a few feet away. Press one, and it'll let you out of the room. Travel down a long hallway and you'll be in Ten Forward, the Enterprises' entertainment lounge. Have a drink, mingle and try to figure out why you're here.

OR

2: Maybe you just muttered some vague request under your breath. Maybe you wished aloud you were somewhere else. Or for help? If you did, might be in a fire station. Muttered something about killing whoever dumped you here? Surprise - you're in a slasher movie!

Though they're confusing, these visions feel about as real as they can be. And guess what - other people can experience those fantasies with you, as if they too were really there. How ever will you escape? Or do you want to?

[OOC: Welcome to the Holodeck! If you choose this option, whatever your character chooses to say out loud will cause a virtual reality program to load and play. While your character feels as if what they're experiencing and seeing is quite real, they're purely living through the latest and best in what he Enterprise has to offer in entertainment. Make sure to detail what your character's fantasy is, so that those threading with them will know how to react.

Open til next month's test drive!]

Comments

[captgreatcoat]

She's certainly annoyed at his reaction, and it's almost amusing. He makes very little attempt to stop his little smile. Well, that sounds like a girl who's trying to name drop.

There are a few folk out there whose shtick is time and space. It was his long before he met the Doctor, and you never know when you're going to run into a Time Agent. But how many of them would inspire that sort of a reaction?

(This has just got to be too much of a coincidence if she means what he thinks.)

"What, you trying to impress me?"

[and_she_waited]

"Why would I do that? I'm tryin' to get you to bugger off," she says.

She doesn't say it with quite as much force as she would if she meant it, though. He's interesting. A bit smarmy, and clearly full of himself, but he's got that – that something. Like a good stiff headwind, or the rumble of stadium seats at a footy match.

Adventure. It clings to him like an expensive cologne.

"Maybe you're trying to impress me," she counters. "Wavin' your big gun about, implying you know about time and space travel when I know you don't have a TARDIS."

[captgreatcoat]

"No you're not," he teases. "Not you."

Not a girl dropping those sorts of hints. And not even because of his own personal charms, which are significant. Because she claims time and space and that takes a sort of person who'd never turn away from somebody saying what Jack's been saying to her.

He leans a little closer, his eyes dancing, breath and pulse quickening, not because of her, but because of her words.

He was right.

"And I know you don't, either. Because there's only one left after the Time Lords disappeared. But I know who does."

[and_she_waited]

She finds your confidence off-putting in a way that's completely un-sexy, Jack. Completely. And if anyone implies any different, she'll give them what for.

She could tell him off for not taking a hint, but she may know just how he feels. Breath hitching, heartbeat picking up, recognition and unrelenting hope sending sparks through her eyes.

She leans in, so close now they're sharing breath.

"You know the Doctor," she whispers.

[captgreatcoat]

She's leant in towards him, too, and if this was any other situation than the one it is, it would be a chance for more flirtation. Because he can feel the warmth of her breath, and she must be able to smell the heady scent of his pheromones.

But this?

This is even more exciting than flirting with her. Because her eyes are shining, too, and she proves him right when she whispers the name that's so often in his heart.

"Know him? I travelled with him."

[and_she_waited]

Her whole countenance undergoes a slow transformation from that stern jawline and beetled brow, suspicion and barely-contained hope in her eyes, to relief and delight so strong it bubbles up in a short laugh. There's only one other man who can put that kind of sparkle in Amy's eyes, and he just so happens to be wherever the Doctor has got off to.

"When?" she demands, rising out of her seat.

She keeps her eyes locked with his, however. It's like she's holding onto a candle in a gale, knowing if she isn't careful the flame will go out. Right now that flame is in this fellow's eyes, recognition and hope so fragile she cannot risk snuffing it. It's the closest she's come to getting home yet.

"Did he come, too?" she asks, daring to believe.

[captgreatcoat]

It's amazing, the effect that mentioning the Doctor has on the people who've been his companions. For Jack, even after all this time, the thought of the man tugs at his heart and his gut, the pull as strong now after he's made his choice to walk away from the Doctor, Martha, and the TARDIS as it ever was in more than a century stuck on Earth just waiting for the Doctor to show up.

And now she's getting up, her eyes aflame with the light the Doctor kindles in his friends, her gaze fixed on his.

"Lifetimes ago," he says, with his best attempt at his habitual enigmatic, tantalizing answers. But it's not as much of a game any more.

Not now they have something so deep in common.

"I haven't seen him here," he admits. But he's still smiling.

"But you know him. You never know when he'll show up."

[and_she_waited]

Unlike Jack, her face falls. She can't help it, really. She's always waiting on the Doctor to show up.

"Oh, I know. I just wish it was sooner rather than later," she complains.

It's always later. Why is that? He's got a bloody time machine!

"What's your name, then? I'm Amy, but I reckon that won't mean much to you," she says. "Unless that's 'lifetimes ago' lifetimes in my future."

[captgreatcoat]

"Tell me about it."

He knows the look on her face. Hell, that look's been hardwired into his soul for so many years he's learned not to let it show on his face. Sometimes. Because Amy sounds like she's expecting him at any moment, and it took Jack more than a century of living and dying to find him.

And that wasn't all that long ago in comparison.

"I saw him again not all that long ago, but sorry. Amy doesn't mean anything to me." Then again, apart from Rose, the new Doctor apparently doesn't tend to talk about his companions. Martha sure as hell didn't seem to have heard of him.

It would have been nice to think he'd rated a mention, at least.

"But who'd know with him?" He holds out a hand to her, perfectly friendly now she's not shouting and his Webley's away. "Captain Jack Harkness."

[and_she_waited]

Wouldn't want to get on the subject of name dropping with Amy. The Doctor better mention her when she's not about, otherwise she'll have him by the ear so hard...

"Right," she sighs, standing straight and eyeing that hand. "Captain?"

Her eyes narrow. She takes his hand cautiously.

"He never mentioned a captain. Jack's not exactly an unusual name," she says.

ugh I faaaaaaaailll sry

[captgreatcoat]

"And he never mentioned an Amy, either," he says, but his handshake is friendly enough; firm without being aggressive, and he's still smiling.

Still. If she's from after his time -- and how can you tell, with the Doctor, who has companions scattered all across his timeline -- it would have been nice to think he'd get a mention, at least.

Not that he'd really expect it.

"But I did travel with him. Right to the end of the universe."

Uh no, I protest. You ROCK. :D?

[and_she_waited]

She arches her eyebrows, giving him a knowing look. Like they're about to share a secret, or a joke only they can understand.

"Aye, he's not very good with names, is he?"

At least, not when it comes to some people. Like the gads and gads of people he's travelled with before, whom he never much likes to talk about. He has his reasons, but they mean bugger all to Amy; maybe she's seen Jack's face flash across a telly screen. The TARDIS is a bit more willing to share, if only to make the Doctor bluster.

"Which end of the universe?" she prompts, pillowing her chin in her hand.

That's life with the Doctor, making sure you know what end you're talking about, and whether it's a happy or a sad thing.

[captgreatcoat]

"Not at remembering to mention them, no."

Given how surprised Martha had been when she'd met him, it was pretty clear the Doctor didn't talk about him much. Even if he did talk about Rose. Oh, Rose. Rose who Jack had come to resent as well as to love, though he hates that little dark part of himself.

Rose, who hadn't been abandoned, but had been lost.

Fortunately, Amy provides him a distraction from that particular thought process.

He laughs; if there'd been any doubt she were really a companion of the Doctor, that should set it to rest, because most people wouldn't think to ask that question.

"The one in the year 100,000,000,000,000."

[and_she_waited]

She's watching him carefully, because if there's one thing the Doctor's good at teaching someone it's how to keep secrets. She wants to get home, and she's not convinced this Captain Jack isn't her way to do that.

Whatever he's thinking, though, she couldn't say. At any rate, it's gone with a puff of smoke the second he starts laughing.

"Impressive," she intones, looking chuffed. "Has he ever let you drift in space outside the TARDIS?"

[captgreatcoat]

Amy's sharp. That much is clear in the narrow-eyed way she watches him, clearly thinking, clearly studying him. Besides, the Doctor doesn't tend to take along companions who aren't sharp in their own way, even if it's not necessarily the traditionally academic way.

Amy's scrutiny disappears into a smile at his laugh, though.

Oh, he likes her. He really likes her. But then again, the Doctor's always had pretty good taste. If he does say so himself.

"No. Now, that is impressive. I did kinda wind up clinging to the outside of the TARDIS as we hurtled through the vortex though. Gotta say, not recommended."

Definitely not.

Also, kinda of fatal. To anyone but Jack.

[and_she_waited]

She chuckles incredulously, eyes wide.

"That sounds like a story," she grins.

She'd figure it for more than kind of fatal, at the very least. Her eyes track up and down, but he seems whole. Hmm. Captain, eh? She wonders what his mettle's made of. Titanium, perhaps.

"Don't suppose he gave you a key after that?" she adds, a bit cheeky.