letters to Sarah Jane. [private]
Dearest Sarah Jane,
I know you'll never read this, but there are a few things I need to talk about. I can't talk about them to you for real. I can't talk to anyone about all of them. Some of them, maybe, but not all of them. I don't want you or anyone to be disgusted at what I've done. What I've become.
I look in the mirror and I don't like the person looking back at me. I use to think, long, long ago that what I was doing was good. That I was doing it for good reasons. Lately though, I doubt it.
I haven't been a very good friend to a lot of people, and its been going on a while. The Doctor, who I asked to drop me off. The Brig who I haven't seen in a very long time. Too long a time. Quatre and Kevin who I couldn't keep safe in my own home. Relena, who I haven't seen in far too long. Duo, who I haven't seen in longer. A lot of the nurses at the hospital who I don't show I appreciate nearly enough. My interns, who looked to be tarred with my brush. Adam, both as a friend and as an intern. Megabyte, for looking after him and on occasion, me. Both of them for taking care of Sammie. Sammie, for being the best dog a man could wish for.
Most of all though, you. I miss you. I know you're probably away on some important assignment, or maybe even visiting someone. I know its really none of my business. I have my sunday afternoons I sneak off and see Jane. I sometime wish you could have met her when she was the woman I remember. Vibrant and full of life. I never even introduced you two. Somehow it never came up. I miss the easy comraderie we used to have, the way we would casually touch and joke. You never knew how much I loved you even then.
I came and visited this summer, several times. I know now you weren't off with the doctor, and blame the green eyed monster if you will, but I thought you had gone off with him. Not that I would have blamed you, traveling with him was wonderful, and I know you care deeply for him. Dare I even say it, love him?
I know I was wrong to make that assumption, but whoever said it was better to have loved and lost, was a fool. I've watched you over the years, sometimes alone, sometimes, for a short while with someone. I always envied them. I didn't begrudge you their company, as it was obviously something you wanted, but I envied them. They weren't good enough for you, though if that's what you wanted I would have happily done whatever I could to keep you together. Thankfully it never came up.
This September...I never wanted you to hear that I couldn't chose you. That I don't put you first in my life. That you aren't the most important thing. You are. I lost faith. In me, in you, in us, in whatever. I don't know. I thought you were going back to travelling with the Doctor. I thought you were going to die. I thought we both were. I thought they were going to kill us as surely as they had Ben and Rebecca. I just hoped it would be quick.
I can't remember quite how we got out of there, I seem to have developed a bit of selective amnesia, but I do remember you sitting on my lap. I remember you undoing my handcuffs, and saying something, but I can't remember what. Its like a hazy memory, just out of reach. I know it was important, something I should remember, but I can't. It is ...frustrating to say at the least.
I'm sorry I never contacted you. Part of it, certainly, was that I thought you had gone. Part of it was simply me being a coward. I started suspecting something was wrong when the headaches didn't let up. When I started seeing things. You see, biologically there was only one thing it could be. Brain cancer. That word still gives me the chills.
Yes, I knew I had it. I knew, or suspected at least, before Adam ordered the MRI. I wasn't in a good place, and and that is putting it mildly. I just wanted the headaches to stop, just for a while here and there. I know stealing drugs was wrong, but the other option, surgery and chemotherapy would have left me someone else. Not me. Incapable of working and incapable of supporting anyone. It would have most likely stripped me of a lot of who I am, and considering its placement, it would have stripped me of part of or all my sight.
I can't do that.
I can't live knowing I will end up like Jane. In a home, cared for, and making a nuisance of myself. Not that she is, her nurses say she is as good as gold, but me? I'm more likely to be a pest. If that happened she would have had to be moved to a second rate nursing home. I couldn't do that to her. My options seemed rather limited.
When Adam found out what it was, that I had one of Them growing inside me...I have to admit I hardly slept for several nights. The thought of becoming as bad as Them, becoming a menace, becoming what I wanted to protect people from was unacceptable.
If you had have known about the cancer, I know you would have encouraged me to find treatment. Treatment was not an option. And with it growing, I was afraid of ..well, touching anyone. After all, that's how they infect you. Touch.
And in the mean timeI was taking, stealing the drugs to deal with my infection. Letting my interns pick up the rap when I was investigated. And even that one I ducked, talking to Torchwood and making a deal. I owe Jack three favours now, and sometimes I worry about what he will ask when he collects. And sometimes I think, whatever it is, it will only be a fraction of what I deserve. A fraction of what I should do, or have done to me, depending on what he choses, for the callous way in which I've treated them. Its only fair I bargain them out of it.
We found out They were really there, in London. Not all my hallucinations were really hallucinations. They had been feeding off Quatre and Kevin, and I'm guessing Bailey the Cat and Sammie as well. Sammie lost a lot of her energy and her puppy fat to that beast.
The thing is, they're young men, Kevin and Quatre. They shouldn't have to worry about aliens having them for dinner when visiting someone. The shouldn't have to worry about being drained to the point of almost death. And Adam and Megabyte, they just went for it. They attacked it, regardless of the dangers to themselves. They shouldn't had to have seen it feeding off their friends. Hear it try and convince them not to kill it while it was killing them.
They shouldn't have had to see me shoot it.
I shot it. I know it wasn't a human, and I know it was self defense, but dehumanising is the first step to making killing acceptable. It isn't, what I did was wrong, and at the same time right. I've seen what they can do. I've seen it. I can't believe anything good comes from it. But it was also wrong what I did. I think I scared them. I haven't seen much of them since, and they seem tired? Wary? Upset? I'm not sure.
Its not the first time I've shot someone. I used to think that I could make up for it with the lives I saved, at the hospital. Now I know I can't. Once taken, a life is gone. Snuffed out, forever. Sometimes I feel like a hyppocrite. On the one hand, I try and save lives, on the other hand, I take them. Who am I to decide who lives and who dies?
But still I do it. I chose for Ben to die. I knew they would kill him and I let them.
In some ways I'm glad you won't read this letter. Then you'd see me for what I am. A druggie. A hyppocrite. A murderer. Put like that, its not someone you would want as your friend, would it? That's why you'll never read this. Later, tonight, I'll light a fire and burn this, as well as some other letters I wrote to you. Maybe that will help, maybe it won't. Then again, I may just delete it. Clean. Fast.
Either way, thanks for listening. For reading. For being a friend. For being my inspiration. For being the one I love.
Yours, always, with love
Harry.
*walks away after hitting the delete button*