DISCLAIMER: I do not own Torchwood or the characters and am not making any profit from this. Sad but true.
NOTE: Spoilers for Day One, End of Days, KKBB and Something Borrowed. This is written in the firm hope there will one day be more than four times! Comments are much loved!
The first time was a beginning.
It was a simple thank-you. It was gratitude and adrenaline and relief, taking her over.
It was a quick, unexpected moment. An impulse. A sudden urge, acted on before she realised that acting on her urges around him would be a full time job, and a dangerous one at that.
It was soft, and sweet, and innocent. Its naivety left him stunned and silent.
It was a promise of things to come.
A promise that was never kept.
The second time was a goodbye.
It was a final, private, trembling declaration of love, that she never intended him to feel.
It was unbelievably powerful.
It found him, reached him when he was floating hopelessly in an unreachable, unknowable place. It cut through time and space and dragged him back from the darkness.
It was a rescue.
And it saved them both.
The third time was painful.
It was just a kiss on the cheek between friends. It was congratulations, best wishes, a time honoured ritual of polite society.
It was as passionate as a kiss like that could be.
It was regret for a hundred opportunities passed by, and an apology for the next hundred that would be equally ignored.
He thought it was a sacrifice, noble and honourable.
She thought it was cowardice, and she hated him for it.
It still left her weak.
The fourth time was everything and nothing at all.
It was the offer of all that she wanted, of being swept up and swept away, taken far from normality and expectation and the sick feeling of settling for second best.
It was months of longing and lusting and denying and forswearing, suddenly culminating and dissolving in one moment.
It was her heart beating so hard it seemed to almost break her chest as he finally took over and put a stop to her excuses and refusals.
It was his hands on her shoulders and then his fingers on her lips, gentle but demanding, not taking no for an answer. It was what she'd dreamed of, waited for. It was everything.
And it was nothing too.
In the end, it wasn't even a kiss. It wasn't even Jack.
And it broke her.
The fourth time was the last time.