Author: mediasavant
Title: --not titled--
Prompt: 500 words or more on loving.
Fandom: Jack Harkness (DW and TW)
Rating: pg13



I don't love. At least I never did before.

Before her, I moved through time, fucking and conning and lying and leaving before anyone could get hurt. Anyone, including me. And then I saw her there, knew there was something special about a girl hanging by a rope from a barrage balloon over London. I didn't even know her, but she wasn't from this time, and she had the balls, or sheer stupidity, to dangle as the bombs fell while wearing a Union Jack.

That was the kind of insane that I could fall for.

The way she said hello, the way she held onto me, the way her hair cascaded over my arm and her eyes looked through me...it was all physical at first, yeah. What? I'm man enough to admit that I could have easily given her the time of her life and left her aching for more and digging in her purse for her underpants as she went home to him.

But then there was that attitude. That strength. That absolute love and devotion when she looked at him and I died inside that she didn't look at me the same way. She never really did, not through London, not through Cardiff, not on Satellite Five. I looked at her that way, but the light in her eyes never quite met the level it did when she looked at him.

And still I loved her. When she died, I wept. I screamed. I fought. And then I thought...I was the one who figured it out. Not him. I was the one who brought her back to life...okay, she hadn't actually been dead, but we thought she was and it was just as awful as if it were true. But she wasn't and it was me, not him. Me.

And still she didn't love me.

I thought.

He sent her home, which was the right thing to do. She shouldn't have died in the cold emptiness of space. I had said my goodbyes, I had given her a kiss. God, I remember that kiss. I can still taste her sometimes, that taste of fear and sugar and her raspberry lip gloss. Her lips were so soft. So soft. Her face so warm in my hands as I held her and kissed her goodbye.

I never loved before and I said I would never love again. An easy thing to say when I knew I was fighting a hopeless battle against the entirety of the Dalek fleet. Not a whole lot of time to fall in love in a gunfight. Not a lot of time to fall in love when you're dead.

She still didn't love me; I haven't got any illusions about that. But she brought me back to life. Not him. I can still hear her voice. I can still feel her in every atom of my existence. I wonder if she even knows what she did to me.

I don't love. At least I never did before.