8
Well maybe there is one more thing to tell you before you decide.
I can only tell you what I feel I relevant. Please forgive me if this feels like I am blowing smoke up your arse, I swear this is not so, although I do admit to finding the imagery of that reference interesting.
Now Em is awake, I know he will come. He can't not come. Whether he likes it or not, his Tardis will hear the song of mine and come as we are so few now you know. It is a matter of choice.
I can continue to pretend that I am here on this rock as one of her ants…. Or I can flee. Now, I must warn you, I am a Timelord and we do run so very well but I am slower these days with a damaged heart, a lovely but tempting Captain and my Gem. My little Gemima.
Of course I have Em. Yes. That's right.
As I do not age, neither does Jack … we can go where and when we want. Stay, go… jump. Come back… they would never know if not for the fact my daughter will change appearance as her lifeline is not set at an Adult age. That's how we work…grow so slow and when we reach our peak we…stall …or of course those pesky regens occur.
I watch Jack now, hovering over the child he calls Squishy like she is some little sweetling and I see that to him she is. He sees her as herself, not a piece of me, a possible child to him. He looks down at the little golden haired sweetling and see her for her own merit and loves her. This is a strange thing to come to terms with, us Gallifreyan do not love easily. We try, but we are fickle. It is said that to love one so strongly we might burn out the suns is to endanger the very fabric of time we are supposed to be protecting.
Who knows.
I see him with her and finally understand that point, I finally feel the burn deep in our souls. Souls. Yeah. Timelord remember? Lots crammed into the package.
I have had what some might call a rough go of it … is that the term? I do like the way that one sounds, like sandpaper had sloughed me raw or one of those car washes has attacked leaving me a huddled mess of quivering wetness, red welts from those brushes and… sorry. I do let my mind wander.
.
..
.
"Squishy?" Jack's voice was soft and full of affection as he watched the little one stretch and yawn her way to wakefulness, then movement in the corner of the room had him turning his head to see Ianto for the first time, furled like a dragon or something in the chair.
His legs pulled up and his arms wrapped around them like he had been hugging….oh. Jack straightened up as he let the little one wake and he approached Ianto, "Hey, you OK?"
"Yeah, just musing."
"That can be dangerous, have you not heard of the terminal condition known as life?" Jack joked, "are you really OK? Is something worrying you?"
"Just thinking, Em is awake and singing. Louder than the coral on your desk ever could. I wonder if another Tardis might hear it and come" Ianto could not lie, "I wonder if Theta might come."
"Theta?"
Ianto let him have a moment to consider the Gallifreyan name before he corrected gently, "You call him the Doctor."
Jack blinked, "That's his real name? Theta? Doesn't that mean a decline in time or something? One of its meanings? Really?"
"Yes" Ianto snorted, "But … it's also a polar coordinate. He was loomed to be a Timelord, flying is in his blood."
"And you?" Jack's mind was whirring as he now knew Ianto not only knew the Doctor, he knew him on a personal level, enough to … "When did you first meet?"
"School" Ianto replied as he rose and stalked across to look down to the now awake and listening child, "We all went to school, we were not created with all knowing intelligence ya know."
"So… you are…"
"Old?" Ianto looked back over his shoulder and grinned, "Says Peter Pan."
Jack snorted as he watched Ianto lift Gemima then offer her, rushing to accept her with glee as her little face rubbed into his chest.
"Well, how is my Squishy Beanny Bum today?" Jack gushed as he walked over to check her night time pull-up nappy and completely revert to a mess.
Was kind of nice.
Ianto didn't go back to the thinking chair.
That sort of thing could do your head in ya know.
Wondering if you were making the right decision.
To stay.