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First there was pain and sorrow, echoing like it wasn’t wholly from himself alone. The next moment just blackness. Silence. He knew a moment of panic as he remembered what Suzie and Owen and Jack had said. There’s nothing after... Just the darkness.
Something in the dark.
Is this hell?
Was he consigned to it because of his sins, even after trying to make up for them? Yet... Logically, there is no such thing as nothing. Therefore, there has to be something.
As if he’d conjured it, Ianto felt a presence. Slowly a golden light appeared in the distance. He watched it, wondering if it was just a trick of the eyes, but it was definitely coming closer. Wasn’t that supposed to be a white light? If it offered him heaven, would he go?
The light suddenly seemed to explode. Ianto shielded his eyes, and when he was able to see again, there was a figure in front of him. The odd part was he couldn't clearly see it, featureless, gender-less, just something there.
The figure circled Ianto, looking him up and down. “Did ya ever think, maybe, that dead is dead? When it's your time it's your time.”
Ianto smoothed down his waistcoat, and his dignity. “I’m with Torchwood, our people find it hard to stay dead.”
“Indeed.” The figure appeared to be amused. “Why are you here, Jones, Ianto Jones?”
“I'm...not sure. I don't even know where I am.” He really hoped this wasn't the darkness he'd be spending eternity in. How would that be any different from hell?
When the Being spoke next, it was as if it had read his thoughts. “Will you go towards the white light? Or do you believe you deserve hell?”
Ianto mulled over the implications in the figure's words and tone. “Have I a choice?
“Your death was necessary. It would cheapen it if you were to survive.”
Ianto's eyebrows met his hairline, but he chose not to comment on his opinion of that. Also, it wasn't an outright no, he noted. “I'm not ready yet. Jack needs me.”
“You're just the tea-boy. Plenty where you came from. Your Jack probably already has another one.”
Ianto called on the stubbornness that had served him so well in life. “It's not like that. No one understands him like I do.”
The figure laughed. “Good! Jack must suffer; you are a means to an end.”
“Hasn't he suffering enough already?!” Ianto spat in anger.
“Never can have enough suffering. It's drama,” the figure replied.
“You're full of shite,” Ianto couldn't help saying, although it might not be a good idea to antagonize this being, sometimes one must take a stand. “I'm not through yet, I've things to do. We have unfinished business.”
“You had to die, so Jack can save the world.”
“What?!” Ianto sputtered. “He's been saving the world for over a century just fine without me having to be some kind of sacrificial lamb.”
“You don't understand,” the figure said condescendingly.
Ianto considered what might happen if he lost the argument. This darkness... Jack knew it. That meant this must be where he came when he died, in the between-time before coming back to life again...
“Okay then,” Ianto decided. “I'll stay right here thanks.”
“You can't be serious! It's time to get over it, and move on.”
Ianto pulled himself up to his full height. “You think I'm afraid of you?! I went to HELL once already, to save Jack! Not even death will stop me from being there for him.”
Before he'd even finished the words, a blinding white light appeared. The dark figure seemed to shrink in on itself, getting smaller and smaller, until it was just a speck of nothing.
“What's going on?” Ianto asked in a shaky voice, as a similar figure appeared, but this one white and so bright Ianto couldn't look at it. “Am I to follow you to heaven?”
The voice was the sweetest, gentlest sound Ianto could ever remember hearing. “Oh, no my child. You chose to stay in the darkness, just to be there for our Jack. Because of your willingness to sacrifice your very soul...”
“I bring life.”
Ianto felt himself falling, through the darkness, down, back down to Earth. Just before landing, he heard the voice one last time.
“Tell Jack Bad Wolf says hi.”
I don't really care where I go when I die,
cause I just found heaven.
You can tell the devil that he's wasting his time,
cause I just found heaven.
Hallelujah.
--Just Found Heaven, by Daughtry
the end
7/17/19