badly_knitted | Ficlet: To Live Is To Fly (Reply)

Title: To Live Is To Fly

Characters: Diane Holmes, Owen

Rating: PG

Spoilers: Out Of Time.

Summary: Diane loves Owen, but he’s not enough to make her stay.

Word Count: 344

Written For: My own prompt ‘Torchwood, Diane Holmes, She didn't want to leave Owen, but she couldn't stay,’ at fic_promptly.

Disclaimer: I don’t own Torchwood, or the characters. They belong to the BBC.

Stepping down from the Sky Gypsy and finding herself in the future had been the most amazing, impossible thing Diane had ever experienced. It was a whole new world, where anything was possible and women were as free to choose their own path through life as any man.

And then there was Owen, a charming, self-assured man who didn’t give a damn what anyone thought of him. He said what he meant with a blunt honesty that appealed to her, and he wasn’t in the least put off when she took the lead in bed. She couldn’t help falling for him, even though she’d only known him a few days.

It would have been so easy to settle in this new world, make a place for herself and build a life with Owen, and yet something held her back. There were so many rules and regulations keeping her from taking to the air that she couldn’t stand it. For Diane, flying was like breathing; she couldn’t live without it. Being told she couldn’t take her plane up until she was qualified according to the rules of this new era felt like being stabbed in the chest. Flying was all she’d ever wanted to do.

As wonderful as this future might be, it wouldn’t allow her the freedom she needed most of all. She didn’t belong here and even Owen wasn’t enough to make her stay. Surely he couldn’t expect her to give up everything for him?

He begged and pleaded for her to stay, even offered to go with her, but he didn’t belong in her time any more than she belonged in his. She wasn’t going to be talked out of doing what she had to do, and if she didn’t make it back to her own time, if she wound up somewhere, or some-when else entirely, well, she’d always wanted a life full of adventure. Maybe it didn’t really mater where she went, as long as she could just keep flying, because to her, there was no better feeling in the world.

The End