Firefly
While I'm writing this I'll go ahead and put this down. Ianto is pissed off with me that I'm even here, but he's going to have to learn to live with the fact that the Doctor is my friend. Well, for the Doctor's part, anyway. As for my part, I'm afraid he's the love of my long life and I've learned to live with the fact that he's never going to be mine. So Ianto needs to learn that, too. I know you'll sneak a peek at this, Ianto. No matter how much I adore you, I'm afraid the Doctor laid prior claim 140 years ago. But he's never going to be mine. I understand that. Can't you?
Doesn't mean I don't love him to pieces though. Honestly, I think maybe partly because he'll never be mine.
He popped in this morning all hyper and grinning, but I've so learned to see through that façade. Sometimes his long memory is just too much for him and I've learned that when he just pops in for no good reason, it's usually because there is a good reason. A good, personal reason.
It's just that the enigmatic little shit can't actually come out and say what it is, and I've learned not to push. But I do suspect it all comes down to his memories. And it can be anything from the Time War to losing Rose or another of his many (yet still so very loved) companions to the Year That Never Was. And there are even times when I suspect, going by the odd surreptitious looks he gives me, that he gets a little case of the guilties for abandoning me and not being able to love me the way he knows I want him to. He just can't say any of those things.
Oh, I haven't given up hope that he'll actually learn to confide in me someday. A few months ago he showed up like this and I managed to winkle it out of him that he and Sara Jane had gotten into a bit of a spat over some silly thing. Probably something rude that fell out of his mouth. I really should speak to her. She holds a lot more emotional power over him than he'll admit or she suspects.
He wanted me to pop out with him for the afternoon, he said, with that big grin of his, the one he uses when he's in hiding from himself.
Did I mention I've learned to read him? Not quite like a book. He's too complex for anyone to do that. I doubt even another of his kind could learn to do that. But yeah, I can read him a little.
"Promise me it's just an afternoon," I said. "No side-tracking. I have paperwork I need to take care of."
He looked at Ianto, glowering at him from over by the sink. "Yes," he said cheekily, "I see that. Lot of paperwork. Lot of paperwork." He gave me a wink. "Just an afternoon. Promise."
I never said he was an idiot. Yes, sometimes he is just oblivious, but never an idiot.
Sometimes I think the oblivious is deliberate. As though if he doesn't acknowledge something he doesn't have to deal with it.
And then he reminds you he's not human. As if being deliberately oblivious isn't such a so-human thing to do.
The trip in the TARDIS was a short one so I knew we couldn't have gone far. When the doors swung open we were in a much more warm and humid climate, and dusk was approaching.
"Blackbeard's Island, Jack!" He grinned, nodding his head to indicate I should follow him. "Barrier island off the coast of Georgia, U.S. of A. Pirates used to come here. What do you think of that?"
"Why here? Why an uninhabited island?"
"These islands are protected, you know," he said, as if that answered my question. I shed my coat and stepped out into the balmy air with him. He led me to what appeared to be a sandy trail through newly green grass. "Look! Here they come!" He ran ahead, full of manic energy, as if desperate to outrun whatever was bothering him. He spread his arms, looking skyward. That's when I noticed it: tiny bright green flashing lights. I heard him laugh. The little lights surrounded him, growing thicker and thicker. What were they? I began to worry.
He looked at me and must have seen the expression on my face, because now his laughter was directed at me. "Jack," he said, cocking his head at an appealing angle, dark eyes sparkling. "They aren't some alien threat! As if all aliens are rotters. It's only fireflies! Just itty-bitty lightning bugs!
"Came across this place on July 18, 1742, the day the Highlanders fought the Spanish on Saint Simon's island. The Battle of Bloody Marsh, it's called. The Highlanders, they defeated the invasion of the Spanish. Brave, bold, smart people. So loyal. Defended their colony well, though the marsh was red with Spanish blood when they'd finished.
"Stopped by here to clear my head. The battle had been… awful. Fell in love with these islands, I did. It's so pretty here when the jessamine blooms, smells so nice. And then I found out the fireflies like me! Blimey if I know why."
I watched him spin slowly around, enjoying the flashes of his tiny insect fiends. Some of them landed on him. "Some people catch them and put them in jars, but I could never do that." When he looked at me again, his eyes held a look of pleading, as though there was something he wanted me to understand.
The penny dropped for me then.
He was a firefly.
"Thanks," he said. "For changing Torchwood. I'd die as a prisoner, just like these little bugs. Oh, I would flash pretty for a while, but then?" He shrugged.
Of course, being him, there was another meaning. That being that even if he wanted to, if he ever let me catch him, it would just burn him out. Like a firefly in a jar. I smiled then. How could I ever want to do that to him when he's so much more beautiful flying free and lighting up the darkness?
I slowly walked over to him as if he were some small, wary wild thing, which he sort of is, you know? I put an arm around his shoulder and we watched the fireflies like that for a while. I gently kissed his temple.
"No one is ever going to catch you and keep you, not while I have anything to say about it," I assured him. He looked at me for acknowledgment of the unspoken words: not even Jack Harkness.
He grinned, and this time the grin was the genuine article, then leaned into me, resting that busy head of his on my shoulder, as if in thanks. I got it, and he got that I got it. But of course, he can never say so, for all that this regeneration is so chatty: always talking, but a lot of the time not saying a damn thing. Not that I won't hang on every word.
Because, you see, I'm going to outlive him some day, my bright little firefly of a Time Lord. I can never catch him, never trap him and live with myself. I won't keep him in a jar, but I'll have my memories of him.
And they'll twinkle brightly through all my long years.
I stepped back and watched him spin in a vortex of tiny, flashing green lights, his face at peace, and I suddenly, unexpectedly felt very content. It was a scene that burned itself into my memory, and one that will remain with me all my years.
That's privilege enough for me.