Foundation

Word Count: ~ 1.000

Summary: Jack and Esther find that they like each other.

Characters: Esther Drummond, Jack Harkness

Pairing: Jack/Ianto (hinted)

Rating: PG

Spoiler: Children Of Earth, Miracle Day (nothing in particular) / Audio play: House Of The Dead

Setting: after Miracle Day - Dead Of Night

Author's Note: This was a spontaneous thing. I don't really know where it came from. But I love the dynamics between Jack and Esther and I wanted to write something about them.

Disclaimer: I'm not making money with this fanfic. The tv-show Torchwood and the characters appearing within it belong to their producers and creators. Any similarities to living or dead persons are purely coincidental and not intended.

XXX

Esther loved the ocean. Since they'd arrived here in Los Angeles and moved into the small apartment with the stains on the floor and the thin walls she preferred to spend her evenings out here. It meant escape from the too-tiny place that just hadn't been intended to house four people.

She sat on the beach, huddled into her jacket against the cool night breeze, and listened to the calming come and go of the waves. It was good, sitting here alone while the others made plans and talked strategies. She wouldn't be able to help without feeling like a little girl trying to give the adults advice, so she just relaxed and wrapped her arms around her knees, her gaze straying from the pitch-black ocean crowned by the foamy-white tops of the waves to the ink-blue sky and the bright stars, then back again.

"A beauty, don't you think?" a man asked and Esther turned around to the broad figure behind her. Jack's hands were buried deep inside his coat pockets. He seemed out-of-place, but that seemed to be the case all the time. He smiled. "This planet." He stepped closer. "Would you mind me sitting with you for a while?"

"No," she answered without the slightest hesitation. She felt safe and comfortable when it was just her and Jack which was weird since she practically knew nothing about him. He managed to fall gracefully beside her into the sand, leaning back on his elbows to look up at the sky. She caught longing written across his face and smiled. "Were you the kind of boy who wanted to become an astronaut?"

Jack laughed and his eyes twinkled in the weak light of the near street lamps when he looked at her. "You would never believe me if I told you what I was up to as a boy." His smile withered and he seemed sad for a moment, before he gave an exaggerated wink. "What about you?"

"Me?" Esther shook her head. "I never had any plans to be honest. The typical girl fantasies about being a veterinarian but ... no, nothing serious."

"I always wanted to see all kinds of places, kept imagining that I'd travel around the ... wherever I wanted to go."

"Did you do it?"

"For a while," he answered with a nod, "but then everything changed and ... not to the better. Took me a few years to find something like a home again. That didn't last long, though. I came to Cardiff, did Torchwood for what felt like an eternity before I was finally happy with who I was. I had friends, loved someone, settled down." He shook his head. "It's all gone now. All of it but Gwen." His eyes were hooded, sad.

"Sounds like enough adventures to last a lifetime."

"Or more," he sighed.

Esther just looked at him for a minute and she started to feel something for him. Not simple attraction to a beautiful man. It felt like she'd found a long-lost friend, someone who had been gone for a very long time and who had returned scarred and broken. She'd felt that way before, more than once in her life, and she silently cursed herself. Men like Jack, guys like Rex – they were Esther's weak link. She was Wendy to every lost boy who crossed her path, loving them, nurturing them, and looking behind their apparently easy confidence and annoying arrogance that hid the fear of ending up alone. She couldn't help but take them in and find a way to tell them that they weren't unwanted and that they could drop their mask, even for just a minute, just for her. She always ended up hurt in the end, but she didn't care, not until she was alone in her apartment and nobody could see her break down after yet another disappointment.

Esther reached out and took Jack's hand. "Gwen mentioned your friends. She told me about them. They seemed like great people." Toshiko certainly sounded like someone Esther would have been friends with. Owen – another lost boy. And Ianto ... "He's the one you loved and settled down with." She didn't need to tell him who she was talking about.

He knew. "One of the few people I really, truly loved. I killed him."

"I wouldn't put it that way. Gwen made him sound like someone who was determined to follow you wherever you went."

Jack smiled sadly. "I seem to have that effect on people ... it kills them." His smile died and he looked at her. "That's what I do ... I love them, I lose them." His hand cupped her cheek, callused fingertips rubbing against her skin. "You really shouldn't be here with me, Esther Drummond."

It made her giddy to be that close to him, even though he was being nothing but a friend. She swallowed. "I think this is worth it."

He took his hand away and she felt the loss if its warmth immediately. He shook his head. "Nothing would ever be worth your death."

"I'm not dead yet." She didn't know where those words had come from, but they sounded right. They sounded like something she needed to say.

After a minute of silent contemplation, a grin lit up his face. It was real and honest ... and, God, he really was beautiful!

"I knew you'd be a tough one. I like you already."

"That's good," she said, blushing and avoiding his eyes, "'cause I like you, too." Hesitantly, she reached out a hand, laying it palm-up on the cool sand of the beach. He took it gently.

Together, they looked up to the stars until Rex called them in for a very late dinner.

END

08/11