You Can't Always Get What You Want

Author: Milady Dragon

Disclaimer: I don't own Torchwood, because if I did it wouldn't be the mess it is now.

Author's note: I was driving to my mother's today and this just came to me. I've always been a bit (okay, a lot) bothered by certain things in the episode "Something Borrowed"; I mean really, Gwen…it's your bloody wedding day and you're making cow eyes at another man…and of course Jack isn't any better...

Anyway…this takes place during that dance, and is from Jack's POV. I'm hoping you all like it.

He dances with her, holding her a little closer than is proper on this, her wedding day. She's radiant, even in a dress that's spattered with alien blood…or maybe because of it. It doesn't matter to him that her new husband is watching; doesn't matter how it looks, because he's Captain Jack Harkness and, honestly, this sort of behavior is actually expected of him. It's a sort of armor for him, this flirting; it hides his true self, the damaged little boy from the Boeshane Peninsula who's seen too much, far too young. Who's lost almost his entire family in one day, and who now hides behind the façade of 51st Century playboy and immortal hero.

And this is how she sees him, the eternal champion who fights the good fight and always comes back for more. He encourages it. He wants it, really. He wants this attention, to be thought of as a knight in shining armor coming to the rescue of the damsel in distress. This image keeps him going in ways he doesn't even understand, and having found someone willing to idolize him like this makes him almost believe that he is the hero. That being immortal isn't the hell he knows it is. That his life is a fairy tale to be told to children as they're being tucked into bed at night.

He knows this isn't the case, but that's not important as long as he has her to believe in it.

She asks him what he's going to be doing while she's gone; he answers flippantly, knowing this is how he's expected to react. But he can't fight back the guilt at including one "item" in the list of things he'll "do" while she's on her honeymoon, and he ruthlessly thrusts it back down inside, because he's what she sees, and guilt doesn't fit into the equation that is the hero she looks up to.

He can't deny that he's wanted her from the moment he met her. How could anyone not want her? Her bright life and vivacity and tenacity and her belief in him, that's what he wants. He doesn't think it was ever truly sexual, because that would mean he'd be taking that innate innocence he so desperately wants her to keep. She's his Rose Tyler, and nothing should change that. It's frightening to him that he so easily could, that he could take her and make her jaded and tough and cynical. This isn't what he wants, and he'll always do his best to protect it.

He's not sure where it comes from, but suddenly he's thinking of the words to a Rolling Stones song:

You can't always get what you want.

How true this is. As much as he wants her, he knows he can't have her. It would ruin her, and destroy this happy thing she has with her new husband. He'd never do that to her. That would make him the not-hero, the despoiler, and her seeing him as special is what he wants from her. To take that beyond the flirting would be the last thing he would do. He wants her, but not in the way she might want him.

Then a soft sound, the clearing of a throat, breaks into his introspection. He's surprised to say the least, when their interrupter chooses not to dance with the bride, but as a warm hand clasps his, and a supporting arm curls around his waist, he knows this is where he's meant to be. This man who claims this dance with him, who holds him close, makes him feel safe in ways that hero-worship doesn't.

He treasures this.

This man, who accepts him, who sees him for who he is and doesn't judge him for it, who doesn't put him so high on a pedestal that he's surprised he doesn't get nose bleeds from the altitude…this man is the opposite of her, and while the immortal wants the adoration that she gives him, that he thinks in ways is his due for everything he's done for this world and this people, the man he is needs the grounding that this other gives him.

This makes him truly human.

And here, he'd once thought she could do that. How wrong he'd been, way back then.

Because, no matter how much he might want to be the hero, he's coming to realize what he really needs to be is just a man. An imperfect, normal human being with faults and scars and all the baggage that comes from his unnatural lifespan.

The man in his arms gives him that, as well as an understanding that shouldn't be possible in a 21st Century male.

That's when he thinks about the song again, and considers another line in it:

But if you try sometimes, you just might find…

You get what you need.