I suppose it would count as necrophilia, wouldn't it?

Damn, that would be tough to explain.

Although I think it's one of the few things I haven't done.

Moral: never play I Never with Captain Jack Harkness, kids.

Jokes about pickles?

I've got a million of 'em.

Jeeze, what a wedding day that was!

( OOC )

( Torchwood Diary: Spoilers up through 2x04, Meat )

( OOC )

So, there's this year that I won't talk about.

Ianto's starting to ask a lot of questions. I can't say I blame him.

But I'm not ready to talk about it, yet.

( OOC )

How about that? You can be in two places at once, without the aid of a time machine.

But only when it's really, really important.

Damn, I'm fine.

( OOC )

( Torchwood Diary: Sort of )

( Torchwood Diary: spoilers for 'The Last Time Lord' )

I saw Martha's face. She recognized his voice, too, but she only knows the half of it.

Now I know why all hell broke out in Cardiff the way it did, when it did. Saxon was keeping Torchwood out of his hair - just in case we got to talking too much with UNIT, I suppose. Not that we have a history of cooperating, but a guy's gotta cover his bases.

I know what's going to happen, generally - as I say, I was in Cardiff at the time. That time being late 2007, which I'm guessing is not too far ahead of Martha, but nearly two years behind me.

I've got a feeling I'm about to see whatever happened in London up close and personal. What the hell, bring it on. The shit I've seen in the past century, I doubt this "Master" guy can throw me for a loop - although the Doctor sure seems rattled.

The thing is, do I tell the Doctor what I've figured out? Will sharing the information improve the situation, or make it worse?

It's moments like this that time travel really gives me a headache.

I have a new to-do list.

Yes, dear diary, that means exactly what it sounds like.

- Help Martha past her towering, visible-at-a-thousand-yards resentment of Rose¹.
- Help the Doctor beat whoever the hell it is that just stole his TARDIS
- Introduce the pair of them to my idea of cookery. Specifically: sandwiches².

It's important to have goals.



¹ - not that I blame her for it, at all. Rose is... well, it's a hell of a shadow to be in.

² - that's not to say I didn't want to beat the tar out of the Doctor for the first half of a second after I caught up with him but, damn, I can't stay mad at a pretty face.

If I had to pick one word to describe Owen, it would be angry. Since I've known him, Owen has always emitted a quiet, constant air of seething anger.

No. Simmering is a better way to describe it. Always on the verge of a rolling boil.

I've always had an idea at the factors behind it. I've read his file, after all. His family situation, his skirting on the edge of criminality before pulling himself up by his bootstraps and putting himself through med-school and god knows what sort of stress he went through, then, being largely a charity case at a college stuffed with the children of the elite.

So, yeah, Owen's got an impressive set of emotional barriers built up around himself - when cockiness fails, fall back on bitchiness, and if they keep coming, fall back on being outright offensive. Nothing makes a better defense than a good offence. Words Owen lives by, I'm sure.

Anyway. I'm mentioning this because it's been a very surprising couple of days. Most notably:

-- Owen surprised me by sneaking under my gaydar without causing a single ping. We've been working together how many years?
-- That surprise was, however, a mere prologue to the apparent destruction my unexpected return wreaked on his aforementioned emotional defenses.
-- And I think I surprised the socks (and everything else) right off of Owen with my usual response to jealousy - and he can hem and haw all he likes about it, he was/is jealous of Ianto - by hauling him into bed as quickly as possible.

Mind you, in this situation, it was more a case of making a few pointed glances in the bedroom's direction and seeing how he reacted. He was hellishly vulnerable and I didn't want to push him. I might be a cold-hearted bastard when the occasion demands it, but this occasion didn't.

And, to be honest, Owen's always been in my Someday file, but I didn't seriously expect someday to be last night.

However, this sunny sky is not without a few clouds. The local culture hereabouts has an almost pathological fixation on monogamy, and that's going to cause problems.

In general (there have been exceptions), jealousy is a foreign concept to me. It's something I just don't get - like monogamy. But I'd forgotten that it's hard-wired into people of this time and place. I think it's a symptom of insecurity on a societal level, but that's fodder for another day...

Owen is prone to jealousy. He's made that clear. I had no idea (see: sneaking under the gaydar) that he'd be subject to jealousy and it's only now, after applying my preferred solution to the issue, that it occurs to me to wonder if it's going to apply to Ianto. There's capacity for some very strong emotions buttoned up under those suits of his, and while I've always thought it was clear that we were just having some fun together - once I got him past the aftermath of the Lisa debacle - I'm forced to wonder if Ianto would still agree with that. Then again, given the nature of my (relatively) recent departure and return, Ianto might not speak to me ever again... I've got to deal with that, and soon.

Meanwhile Owen is, I think, struggling with what happens when his values run smack into Captain Harkness.

To be honest, I've made the classic time-traveller's mistake and let my 51st century values disregard those of the early 21st century. I could end up with a hell of a mess to clean up - and that was before I tried to run away from my responsibilities, here.

And all because I don't get monogamy. Or jealousy. Or possessiveness.

Suzie was the only one I dared share my feelings with, as I thought she was the least likely to laugh at me. To her credit, she didn't. But I wonder how the team would react if I told them that I love them all. Somewhere between utter disbelief and extreme scepticism I think - with maybe an accusation of breaking into the MDMA supply by Owen, on the side.

And that's the thing. I do love them all.

No, it's not as if I hired candidates based on how I felt about them emotionally - case in point being Owen, who got right under my skin and stayed there from day one - but sooner or later, this work brings out the best in everyone (as well as the worst) and... I'm only human. So's Owen, of course.

What touched me was his need for reassurance that I'm here to stay this time. A need for... compassion? Would that be the word? I admit that I never shared any such thing with Owen, because I didn't believe he'd react well to it. I didn't think it was something he needed - all those battlements did their job. Should I have tried harder? I think so, in hindsight. We might have avoided the whole wretched opening the rift situation, for one thing.

I wasn't kidding when I told him it wasn't a sympathy fuck, but I was also serious when I told him that we weren't embarking on a relationship. Love can just be, as far as I'm concerned - with occasional (alright, frequent) sweaty interludes. I love Ianto. I love Owen. And Tosh, and Gwen and Suzie and Rob and the rest of them that came before. How can you not end up loving someone you have to trust so much as we do each other? Whether or not those people I love want to take any physical action, I try to leave up to them - after making sure that all and sundry know that I don't mind, of course...

The challenge, the real, have I made things ten times worse? challenge is going to be explaining all of this - to both Owen and Ianto. Maybe I'll write a memo and bring everyone in on the loop at once:

To all staff,

I love you.

Yes, that way, too. But reciprocation isn't mandatory.

Sincerely,
- The Boss.

I might just try that, if I wasn't sure it would get me hauled up on the red carpet in London faster than you can say sexual harassment suit.

I'm going to have to think about this some more. I'm also going to have to think about how I can arrange to be in the middle of an Owen-Ianto sandwich because, dear god, that would be fun...

(OOC Note: This entry is in reaction to this one-off event. I'm not putting it into my regular Torchwood Diary canon, but I still want the character to have a noodle about the situation)

( OOC )

So, an ex-time agent and a physician walk into a bar...

The setup is about a week after Jack Harkness rather abruptly left the Torchwood team in the lurch. He's returned, having spent an indefinite amount of time god (or the Doctor) only knows where, and in need of an extensive chat with one Owen Bloody Harper who is, as usual, a bit narked about the whole thing.

It gets just a teeny bit slashy at the end, but I doubt anyone's surprised by that. This is what happens when you let fangirls loose around hawt characters.

Uh.. Someone wanna tell me how I woke up in Portmeirion this morning with a weather balloon bouncing up and down on my head? It was making some really strange sounds, and I say that as a guy who has been there and definitely done that.

Don't laugh. This is a fill-in-the-blank sort of thing. Points for creativity, 'cause I'm sure out of ideas - probably because my head is killing me and I don't know why.

And where the hell is my communicator? Lola, if this is some sort of idea of a joke, I'd threaten to spank you, but I'm pretty sure you're disassemble me down to my component molecules and you're one of three people within twelve parsecs who I sincerely believe could do that. It's a compliment, trust me.

In the meantime, who's got a good solution for getting sand out of everywhere?

( Torchwood Diary )

( Torchwood Diary )

( Torchwood Diary: No spoilers/wandering in AU territory )

( Torchwood Diary )

( Torchwood Diary: Spoilers for 1x10, Out of Time )

( Torchwood Diary: Spoilers for 'The Runaway Bride' )

( Torchwood Diary: No spoilers )