 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||
 |
||||||||||||||||
 |
||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
MIDNIGHT December 24th 11.58pm Cardiff
The rift has been quiet for days so I’ve sent everybody home, even Ianto. Much as I love him I didn’t want him here, not tonight. I promised him I’d call him if I got lonely, or if the rift activity increased or if I just wanted to hear his voice, kissed him goodbye and sent him off into the night with Gwen. But now the silence in the Hub is pressing down on me, I need to get some fresh air and I’m sure that just for a few minutes Torchwood can be left deserted. I grab my coat and ascend up the water tower and out into the cool damp air of Roald Dahl Place. Cardiff on Christmas Eve… it couldn’t even be bothered to snow I noted absently as I strolled towards the waterfront. I can hear the sounds of parties in full flight, laughing and singing, the faint clink of glass on glass as the people of the city prepare to welcome another Christmas Day. On reaching the water I stand and stare across it at the lights reflecting in its surface and wonder where The Doctor is. Is he is on a planet with snow and Christmas? I always thought The Doctor would like Christmas, not the kind that he has had the last few years but a proper ‘old fashioned’ Christmas with snow and presents and too much food and repeats on TV. A Christmas with people who love him and who I think he loves too, in his own way. In the distance I hear the Cathedral Bells chime midnight and I raise my gaze from the depths of the water to the far reaches of the sky. “Happy Christmas Doctor, wherever you are.” I whisper to the stars, hoping he is not alone, wishing I was with him, wishing that the siren in the distance was the sound of the TARDIS materialising. But it isn’t, it’s just Cardiff on Christmas Day, and I turn from the waterfront casting one last hopeful look to the stars. “Love ya’ Doc.” I tell him as if he was stood beside me. My phone rings, it’s Ianto. He can hear the last remains of the sadness in my heart as I answer the phone. “Hi Yan” “You OK Jack?” “Yes I’m fine… oh Merry Christmas by the way.” “Same to you.” There was a long pause and I could almost hear Ianto’s thoughts through the static of the phone. When he spoke he was hesitant. “He didn’t come did he?” I knew who he meant as much as he knew that was the real reason I’d shooed them out of the Hub earlier. “No, he didn’t. But before you ask I’m fine and no I don’t want you to come down and hold my hand.” That may have sounded callous but Ianto was smart enough to know that tonight he would only ever have been second best to The Doctor and I loved him enough to not want him to ever feel like that. “Sure?” “Yes but thanks for asking.” “I didn’t.” “No but you would have done.” Another pause “You know I love you don’t you?” “Yes and I love you too Jack. Will I see you tomorrow, or should I say later today.” “You betcha’” I told him the thought of Christmas Day with him lifting my spirits just a little. “I’ll see you for lunch and by the way…” “Yes Jack?” “I expect a HUGE present!!”
*******************
December 31st 11.58pm Cardiff
Here I am again standing by the water… alone. I’ve left Gwen and Rhys and Ianto in the Hub, all a little drunk and all a lot happier than I feel right now. It looks as if this will be another year without The Doctor, another year when I’m left hoping and wishing for him to come back to me. I know the Universe is a very big place and the Earth is just one tiny part of it but I also hoped that maybe I meant enough to him to make him want to see me again. Just once more. This time it isn’t the church bells that tell me the New Year has arrived but the loud countdown of the revellers in the pubs and clubs and the fireworks across the other side of the bay. I want to be happy and to join in but yet again my thoughts are drawn to The Doctor and my eyes are drawn to the stars. I feel the start of tears pricking my eyes as the revellers start to spill out into the Place, singing, shouting, exchanging hugs and kisses with people they know and people they don’t. I should go back inside, back to the Hub and to my family and I blink back the tears and without any words this time turn away from the water. It was as if the crowds suddenly went silent and faded from view as through their throng I saw a flash of blue, a flash of brown and then suddenly he was there in front of me, slightly out of breath, slightly dishevelled but none the less really there! “Hello Jack” “Doctor!” I wanted to be mad at him for keeping me waiting for making me spend Christmas alone but I couldn’t be, I just couldn’t be, so with the biggest smile I had I threw myself into his arms and hugged him so hard and so long it started to hurt. “Sorry I’m a bit late” he whispered in my ear “Let me make it up to you” He broke the hug and with his trademark grin grabbed my hand and took of for the TARDIS at a run. “Where are we going?” I asked him “It’s still not New Year in New York….and I hear they have real snow.”
|