looking up at skies on fire

But you sailed away,
A fine summer's day,
Cause you heard it calling,
A new day dawning,
You were longing to find.

“Stay.”

It's one word. A simple word, so tiny, and she grasps it like a pebble in her fist. Gwen has words, so many words she wants to say, but there is only one that falls from her lips without a thought. It's filled with longing and regret and fear and adoration, and she knows he hears every part of it, every facet of her soul calling to him. Stay.

And she knows it means nothing. It's a single pebble on a beach of thousands, millions, billions. It's a single pebble that he loves no less and no more than the one next to it. He will pick up every one, hold it, weigh it, memorize every lump, every line, every hue, before he returns it to the ground. And he'll move on, because there are so many pebbles. So much to see, so much to do.

Her eyes plead, and his eyes shine with wonder and humour and some disappointment and her request. Because she should know better, shouldn't she? She should know the longing in his heart for freedom is just as strong as her longing that he could ever belong to her.

“No,” he tells her, and she knows better than to argue. She's loved too many wild hearts in her time, and she can't break him, anymore than she could break Jack. He's the Doctor; he's a lord of time and space and so many things she could never understand, and he's destined to leave her, to chase his own longing now that their time is over.

And with no other words to follow, he is gone. She's just a single pebble among thousands, a single star among billions, and he loves her no less and no more than any other.

Muse: Gwen Cooper, Torchwood
Prompt: the song meme: "Stay" by Alison Krauss
Verse: Open Verse
Word Count: 297