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"Ianto..."
Ianto couldn't feel his body anymore. The cold hard floor that, moments ago, was pressed against his back was gone. In his mind he knew it was still there, 13 floors of concrete and wood doesn't just disappear, even for Torchwood that was weird. What did PC Andy Davison call it? 'Spooky-do', that was it.
Logically he knew that everything was as he had left it, he was still lying in Jack's arms on the hardwood floor of Thames House, toxic gas still seeping into his lungs. Why couldn't he feel it though? Why couldn't he hear Jack anymore? Why did he feel like he was drifting away? Oh, that was it...he was dying.
*~*
It was the noise of someone clearing their throat that snapped Ianto back from the deep recesses on his thoughts on his impending doom. Well, he thought, it was more like something attempting to imitate the human gesture for catching someone's attention. It sounded forced and practiced, almost like the user had studied the interaction for many years, practiced it in the mirror but never had the guts to use it.
ARE YOU GOING TO KEEP LYING ON THE FLOOR?
The voice sounded like it was both booming and whispering at the same time, Ianto could feel the air tremble around him. Why could he feel the air but not his body?
DESPITE WHAT YOU HUMANS MIGHT BELIEVE, I DO NOT HAVE ENDLESS AMOUNTS OF TIME. ARE YOU GOING TO KEEP LYING THERE SILENTLY OR WILL I HAVE TO GET MY HORSE TO STAND ON YOU?
IANTO JONES, STAND UP
The tone of voice between the two rumbling bouts of words didn't change, but Ianto could identify a command when he heard one. So, he did just as the voice bid, he stood up.
Expect...he didn't. From his now upright position, Ianto Jones, the slightly see-through person, was staring down at Ianto Jones, the very not see-through and very dead looking person.
It was his Torchwood training, and general philosophy of avoiding panic in these type of situation, that made Ianto ignore his current ghost-like appearance, and look up at the source of the voice.
26 years of Halloweens, second rate supernatural films, and being dragged round dreary art galleries (first by his mother, later by Lisa, and more recently, surprisingly by Gwen when Rhys faked another excuse), should have prepared him for the sight before him. Ianto couldn't help the small gasp of shock that came from his mouth, could he still technically do that given the whole ghost status?
The figure before him towered above in a void black hooded robe, it was the living embodiment of the image of the Grim Reaper, if skeletons could be living that is. A long scythe was clutched in skeletal fingers, the robe barely hiding the arrangement of bones. Ianto caught himself wondering what they were held together by, and then began thinking on the fact that he was more concerned by that question, than the question of why the figure was standing there.
"Bloody Torchwood" he muttered under his breath, did he have breath?
I AM NOT A LIGHTING AID MADE FROM TREE MATERIALS
Probably not a good start to the afterlife, Ianto thought, offending its keeper and all that.
"I didn't mean to offend sir, I'm just a bit confused as to why I'm here. I mean I know why I'm here, I'm dead, I died, but why am I still here?" Ianto risked a glance down at his body again, for the first time he let his eyes wander across to Jack's still form, arm still draped across his own lifeless chest. How long until he wakes up this time?
CLERICAL ERROR
"Excuse me?"
ALBERT MY SERVENT, HE DROPPED SOME SAUSAGE FAT ON YOUR RECORD. SMUDGED THE DATE AND FAILED TO NOTIFY ME OF THE INCIDENT
"Forgive me for seeming rude...sir, but are you saying I'm not meant to be dead?"
EXACTLY, YOUR TIMEPIECE ADJUSTED TO THE DATE ALBERT RE-WROTE
"My timepiece?"
DEATH then reached the boney fingers not wrapped around the foreboding scythe into his cloak, they returned clutching a large hourglass. The sand from one side had completely fallen into the other.
"I see, and how many years did it adjust by?" Ianto asked, more out of his own curiosity.
SIXTY YEARS, GIVE OR TAKE THE END OF THE WORLD BEFOREHAND
"What happens now then? Do I just follow you and hope for the best?"
I THINK IT WOULD BE BEST TO RETURN YOU TO YOUR MORTAL BODY. THE UNIVERSE DOES NOT TAKE KINDLY TO THOSE THAT CHOOSE TO ADJUST THE COURSE
Ianto was just about to ask how exactly this seven foot collection of sun bleached bones, was going to stuff his ghostly body back into the now cold one still on the floor, when the room was suddenly bathed in a cloud of steam. The steam exploded from the fire sprinklers in the ceiling, but Ianto doubted it was made up of water alone.
'Decontamination complete' a computerised voice spoke over the speaker system still installed in the room. The doors to the room flung open to reveal UNIT soldiers donned with gas masks, guns trained on the tank of the 456.
I WILL RETURN AFTER I HAVE COMPLETED MY ROUNDS, IT WILL BE BEST TO COMPLETE THE PROCESS WHERE WE CANNOT SCARE THE SOUL OUT OF ANOTHER BODY. I WOULD HATE TO GIVE MYSELF MORE WORK
"Wait!"
Ianto exclaimed to the now retreating back of the skeleton, "when will that be?"
I BELIEVE HUMANS CALL IT, THE WITCHING HOUR. WHICH I WILL NEVER UNDERSTAND BECAUSE WITCHES HATE STAYING UP PAST THEIR NINE 'O CLOCK BEDTIMES
Before he could say anymore, the skeleton disappeared into, well, thin air. Ianto gave a sigh and turned back to the soldiers, who now, since they had apparently decided the 456 posed no more a threat than before, were arranging his and Jack's bodies onto makeshift stretchers.
He waited as they did routine (but pointless) checks for signs of life, before calling for backup. He waited as another pair of soldiers joined the first, and between the four of them, lifted the two bodies from the floor and out of the room. For lack of anything better to do, Ianto trailed after them.
*~*
He had been dead for two hours and 36 minutes before Gwen arrived at the warehouse. Ianto had always prided himself with keeping an efficient internal clock, him and Jack had tested it against the stopwatch many times...and in many interesting ways. He was glad to discover that even in this new; all be it apparently temporary, form, the clock still ticked along with the large digital clock mounted on the opposite wall.
Ianto had taken to sitting against the wall of the warehouse while he waited, but as Gwen uncovered Jack's face from the red sheet, he felt compelled to move. Ever since him and Jack had become more than just convient sex, Ianto tried to always be there when Jack gasped back to life. He wasn't going to let the inconvenience of death stop him this time. As Gwen turned away from Jack to uncover his own still face, Ianto settled on his knees next to Jack, and placed a hand where he thought Jack's chest might have began.
Jack came back to life under his hand with a small gasp, and for a second, Ianto thought he could see him, but then Jack was turning to Gwen and looking down at his body.
The way Gwen straighten his already straight tie, the way Jack wrapped an arm across her chest, the way they both stared down at him in silent mourning made him realise.
For many years Ianto believed himself to be unloved, or unlikable at least. He was the kid who's mother died young, who's father spent all his days working and all his nights drinking. He was the 'able student' who was never just quite good enough, he was the teenager that couldn't even get shop lifting right. His relationship with Rhiannon was strained since their mother's death, Ianto never quite wanting to let her in close enough to break his heart again if she was to suddenly die like his mam. It wasn't until Lisa, and her easy smiles and carefree laughs that Ianto thought about love again.
Fate was once again cruel and twisted when it set his world on fire, leaving him with a half metal girlfriend screaming in pain. He never blamed Torchwood for Lisa, not once, not even after Jack filled her body with bullets. He had blamed Jack at first, called him a monster, wished he'd die, but deep down he had known that anger was at the universe, ripping another great love from his life. It was part of the course that naturally Ianto would once shut down after Lisa's death, but Jack, the stubborn arsehole, refused to let that happen. He had turned up at Ianto's flat regularly during his four week suspension, always with a bag of takeaway, a bottle of wine and an arsenal of barely believable stories. For someone who was meant to be mourning a dead, long term girlfriend, Ianto had never laughed so much in his life than in those four short weeks.
He knew he loved Jack, just under three hours ago he had said so, he just wished he hadn't saved it til his dying words. Even though Jack hadn't said it back, he could see it in his eyes, hidden behind the pain and grief it had been there, and Ianto realised, that look had been there for a long time.
However, crouched watching Jack and Gwen holding a silent vigil over his lifeless form, did he realise that Gwen loved him too. Not in the way that he loved Jack, or the way that Jack loved him, she loved Rhys, or even the way that she loved Jack. Gwen loved him as a friend, maybe even as a slightly annoying and very sarcastic younger brother. He realised that he loved her, a bossy, headstrong, mother figure of a surrogate older sister, the sister that he never let Rhiannon be.
Lost in his thoughts he didn't notice Gwen get up and leave, didn't notice Jack giving him a final kiss goodbye. He only noticed the sound of their retreating footsteps, and the sudden cold, lonely feel he got when they left the warehouse. He lay down on Jack's discarded blanket, and waited some more.
*~*
Ianto followed the trolley bearing his body to the morgue, half out of nothing better to do, and half out of the slight fear that if he strayed too far from it then he might never get back to it. He watched as he was changed from suit to hospital smock, and breathed a sigh of relief when the morgue doctor decided to leave the autopsy for the morning.
Instead he watched as he was lifted onto a morgue drawer, the hatch closed and tagged, his clothes and personal belongings also tagged and bagged and placed to one side. The morgue doctor, drained the last of his coffee, dumping the mug in the sink before swapping a lab coat for a tattered rain jacket, flicking off the lights and bid a hasty retreat from the room. Ianto perched himself on the morgue table, heavily resisting the urge to try and wash up the mug, even though he knew he wouldn't be able to even turn on the tap.
His internal clock hit midnight on his sixth round of playing 'I spy' with himself, Ianto's legs were swinging back against the supports of the morgue table, like a naughty school boy kicking the school wall, when DEATH entered the room again.
SORRY I'M LATE, THERE WAS TRAFFIC
"Do you get traffic in the underworld?"
YOU DO ON DAYS LIKE TODAY AND THE AFTERLIFE IS NOT UNDERNEATH, IT'S NEXT DOOR, LIKE A LOUD NEIGHBOUR
Ianto chose to ignore both comments and instead slid from the table, coming to stand next to the morgue hatch that held his body. He waved a hand in its direction.
"I'm in there sir"
WELL THAT'S INCONVENIENT SEEING AS I'M OUT HERE
"Can't you just open the door and pull me out?"
I DO NOT EXIST ON THE SAME PLAIN, IT WOULD NOT WORK
"Well I can't open it either, my hand will go straight through it!"
WELL THAT DOES PUT US IN SOME BOTHER, HAVE YOU TRIED CONCENTRATING, APPARENTLY THE MALE OF THE HUMAN SPECIES IS BAD AT DOING THAT
Ianto could safely say this was the first time he had leveled an anthropomorphic skeleton with, what Jack liked to call his 'murder glare', that was apparently very different from his 'you're annoying but I'm still going to have sex with you' stare. Which was good, seeing as Ianto had no desire to do the latter with death walking.
In fact, he was a little embarrassed, he just presumed that he couldn't touch anything because he couldn't feel it, just because you couldn't feel something doesn't mean it wasn't there. After all, he had sat on the table and leant on the wall without falling through them, so why couldn't he open the drawer? He spared a quick thought to the empty coffee mug in the sink before reaching for the hatch door.
With a small fumble to get his bearings right, and a big pull, Ianto managed to release the door lock and pull the morgue drawer out from the wall.
"What now?" He asked the skeleton that had now come to stand at the head of his body.
ACCORDING TO A SMALL MAGIC BEARING BEING OF QUESTIONABLE MORALS, I BELIEVE ALL YOU NEED IS A BIT OF 'FAITH, TRUST AND....PIXIE DUST'
Ianto could have sworn the last words were squeezed through gritted teeth, even though DEATH's jaw had not moved once, in the whole time that they had spoken. He was about to say something, maybe even thank the gatekeeper to the dead, but DEATH placed one hand on his lifeless body, and with the other, swiped the scythe through his ghostly form.
Before he could protest Ianto sharply sat up, promptly smacking his head against the steel casing of the morgue drawer and knocked himself out cold.
*~*
When he woke again he felt cold, very very cold. His muddled thoughts finally managed to pin the reason down to him still being flat on his back on a refrigerated morgue drawer. Flexing his fingers and toes first, to check everything was back in its correct non-translucent place, Ianto swung his legs over the edge of the drawer and dropped to the ground.
YOU MIGHT FEEL LIKE A JUVENILE UNGULATE FOR A WHILE
'Newborn deer' his now, not muddled brain supplied in translation.
"How come, now that I'm back in my own body, can I see still you? I thought you were on a different plain, surely one I shouldn't be able to see"
YOU CAN BECAUSE I AM ALLOWING IT, WE STILL HAVE SOME BUSINESS TO DISCUSS. I SUSPECT YOU PUT ON YOUR GARMENTS AND MEET ME OUTSIDE
By now, it shouldn't have surprised Ianto that the skeleton turned and walked through the outer wall without a second glance. With a sigh Ianto found the bags containing his belongings, dressing quickly. He folded the hospital smock and placed it neatly on the morgue table, quickly washed the drying coffee out of the discarded mug, and slipped from the room.
In hindsight it should have been harder to escape from a government facility, Ianto didn't know if it was DEATH's influence or laziness on the guards' part, but he breezed through the facility and out into the open air without meeting another soul.
He rounded the left corner of the building into the loading bay, coming face to face with DEATH crouched down next to a large dustbin, playing with a cat. Ianto blinked back shock at the gentle way he tickled the small creature under the chin, the tiny black cat purring up a storm.
THESE ARE MY FAVOURITE CREATIONS, THEY UNDERSTAND THE UNDERLYING NATURE OF THE UNIVERSE
Do cats really understand anything more than food, sleep, bird, kill? Ianto pondered to himself. He thought it wasn't wise to voice these opinions to the seven foot anthropomorphic harbinger of doom, that moments ago had just revived him. He opted to nod his head in silent agreement instead.
"You said we had other business to discuss sir?"
DEATH reached into his robe and pulled out Ianto's hourglass before tipping it on its head. Both of them watched a proportion of the sand shift into the other side, before slowing down to a single grain. Ianto noticed there was significantly more in the top half than in the bottom, but he didn't comment on this.
GOOD
DEATH replaced the hourglass into the recesses of his robe, and returned again with a different one. To say it was an hourglass was to say a tent was a real brick house. The vestibules that held the sand were twisted together, knotted into what looked like an infinity symbol. Sand rushed between the two sections quicker than you could blink. DEATH set it on the ground next to the cat and looked up at Ianto.
LOOKING AT IT MAKES ME DIZZY AND IT HURTS MY EYES
Ianto wondered for a moment how a skeleton with no brain could really get dizzy. Or, if those pools of dark, swirling purple that rested in his eye sockets, really counted as eyes. He glanced down at the hourglass, doing a double take as he watched the cat trying to bat at the flying sand.
It brought up memories of teasing Dylan Price's cat with the laser pointer they won at the carnival. Dylan's mam wasn't too happy when the cat ripped the curtains, after they tried testing how far up they could get it to climb.
Ianto shook his head at the thought, drawing his eyes back from the fascinated cat, to the skeletal being that was instead, fascinated in said cat.
"It's Jack's isn't it?" He phrased it as a question out of politeness, who else would have a hourglass like that.
YES, AND YOU CAN RETURN IT TO HIM AT YOUR NEXT POSSIBLE CONVENIENCE. I HAVE NO USE FOR IT
With that, DEATH took one final look at the cat, still intent on catching the tiny grains of sand. For a moment Ianto almost thought he looked longingly at the small being, before turning to mount a tall grey horse, that Ianto could have sworn had not been standing there before.
CATS ARE GOOD COMPANIONS, AND GREAT PROVIDERS OF SUSTENANCE FOR THEIR FAMILY
Ianto seemed to think this was DEATH's subtle way of telling him to adopt the runt-like stray, with a new found sand obsession. He gave the skeleton a small smile in return.
"Thank you, for you know, fixing the admin error...sir"
The skeleton gave a short incline of the skull that Ianto took as a nod, and with one last longing look at the cat, dug his heels into the horse's side
HEIGH HO BINKY
and they both disappeared.
With another sigh, Ianto scooped the small bundle of fur under one arm, and the dizzying hourglass under the other. He set off in search of a phone.
*~*
SIX MONTHS LATER
Gwen had been easy to convince it was really him that stood before her. That is if Ianto could call staring down the barrel of a gun, while trying prove to Gwen on a UNIT salvaged bioscanner that his DNA matched, an easy time. In hindsight Ianto was glad that Gwen paused for thought before pulling the trigger, giving him time to explain. It would have been awful to have been shot, and wind up in front of DEATH again, trying to convince him it was another clerical error. 'Erm, can I have a go at take three?' Didn't really seem like a request fulfilled by the gatekeeper of the dead.
Rhiannon took the most convincing, it took him, Gwen, Andy and surprisingly Mica, to make her see the man in front of her was not a ghost but in fact her very alive brother. Although, Ianto did reframe from pointing out that for a period of around 10 hours, he had in fact been a ghost. He thought it best to leave that particular visual from his sister's mind, and instead concentrated on fielding questions about Torchwood and Jack.
Jack. Now there was the sticking point. Six months of hacking every database, security camera footage, and police record across the globe had pulled up no results for Jack. Either he was keeping extremely off grid, or he was off world altogether, both reasons that Ianto would not put past him. To say he missed him was an understatement, Jack had left twice before, once without saying goodbye, and the second time he said too much of a goodbye. Both times had left a gap in Ianto's heart but neither were quite as big as the gaping hole he had left this time.
He knew Gwen saw it in his eyes everytime another camera sweep came up blank, she had long since stopped commenting on it. Ianto was almost about to give up hope when Gwen hammered on his door at 2am in the morning.
"Its him, he sent me a message to meet him! You should go, you need to go instead!"
Ianto stared at the coordinates she handed him for a long time before pulling Jack's wrist strap from his bedside table. A UNIT scout group had unearthed it in the Hub wreckage, and Ianto had even gone as far as it clean it to shining and buy a brand new strap. He took one more look at Gwen, heavily pregnant and sleep deprived, and called her a taxi before leaving to go to the meeting spot.
He could see Jack before Jack noticed he was approaching. Ianto took a minute to examine the man before him, dressed exactly the same as to when he held Ianto's dying body in his arms. Despite the same clothing this Jack was unrecognisable, his eyes looked haunted and tired, his normally confident posture was slumped and dejected. 'Did I do that to him?' Ianto thought, did losing him and Stephen do all that to Jack?
"You know, we could have done this in a nice warm pub, instead of in a freezing field"
Ianto called out to him. Jack's head shot up from its bowed position so fast, Ianto thought he might have given himself whiplash. It was only the mixed look of shock, disbelief, grief, and love, crossing Jack's face that stopped Ianto from gloating thst he finally got one over on Jack bloody Harkness.
"Ianto..." he whispered.
Ianto, being the bastard he was, decided to draw out his approach to the man he had waited the last six months for. He ambled up the remainder of the hill, hands dug deep in his coat pockets, all the time holding eye contact with the captain. He came to a stand just out of reach of Jack's hands, which were slightly shaking at Jack's sides.
"If you hadn't have been all dramatic and got rid of your phone, I could have contacted you a lot sooner and saved us a few months. But you always liked having a flare of drama didn't you?"
Ianto couldn't help the fondness that bled into his tone, killing off the sarcasm he intended.
"But you...how are you..."
Ianto had never seen him so speechless, Jack's eyes were laced with desperation and longing, almost as if he was really really hoping this wasn't just a hallucination. He decided to take pity on the lost looking man in front of him, he raised a hand and settled it across the back of Jack's neck. Holding his head in place so Ianto could look him in the eye, he rubbed his fingers in small circles against the small hairs he found there, Jack subconsciously leaned back into the touch.
"Clerical error"
Realisation flashed across Jack's face before he was pulling Ianto to him, apparently that was all it took for Jack to accept it was really Ianto. The man seemed intent to get as close to Ianto as possible, slipping his hands into Ianto's coat, winding them firmly around his waist. He was pulled into Jack's solid form, and Jack's nose buried itself into his neck, breathing in Ianto's scent deeply. Ianto brought his other hand up to rub large circles against Jack's back, and he buried his face into Jack's soft hair.
They stayed like that for a while, before Ianto reluctantly pulled back, he ignored the look of confusion in Jack's eyes in favour of offering him a hand.
"Come on, let's go home cariad"
Jack breathed out a shaking breath before his fingers came to clutch tightly in Ianto's. He didn't say a word as Ianto led them down the hill, towards the gravel track that would lead them back into Bute Park.
He waited until their feet hit the rocky track before he tugged on Ianto's hand, promptly halting his step. Ianto turned to ask what was wrong, but before he could utter the words Jack was kissing him. The kiss was hard but sweet, Jack's hand found it's way to the small of his back, pulling him closer and deepening the kiss further. Ianto could feel Jack pouring every emotion he had into that kiss, heartache and love all mixed into one. It made any apprehension that Ianto had on the way to this meeting, that Jack was going to say he had moved on and didn't want him any more, disappear in a haze of desperate want. He didn't want it to end, but he was getting very short of breath, and again didn't want the skeletal figure laughing at him for 'death by kissing'. Ianto pulled back, resting his forehead against Jack's.
"I've been waiting six months for you to do that, and you do it in a dodgy city park at night"
Jack chuckled softly, his breath dancing across Ianto's face where their foreheads still rested together. His eyes were closed but Ianto could hear the emotion in his voice, could feel it in the way Jack still grasped to him.
"I'm never letting you go again"
*~*
Jack followed him back to his flat willingly, keeping as much into his personal space, without hindering his progress, as he possibly could. He didn't speak til Ianto was digging the flat keys out of his pocket, other hand still firmly grasped in Jack's
"So, you met DEATH?"
"Nice guy actually, very tall, big stick, you know, the standard"
"I know someone else who's got a big stick"
Ianto rolled his eyes fondly at Jack's leer and suggestive eyebrow wiggle.
"Did you ever meet him?"
"DEATH?"
"Yeah"
"A couple of times, he gave up after the first few deaths though, said he was bored of seeing me" Jack said as he followed Ianto through the door. Automatically toeing off his boots and hanging his coat on the rack. He trailed after Ianto as he made his way to the kitchen.
"The second time I met him, in the 19th century, his horse was also made of bones, held together by chicken wire. The third time though, he had changed to a real one. Said he was fed up of putting the skeleton one back together, and that they don't quite work correctly if you don't put it all back in the right place"
Ianto chucked in response, as he started the coffee maker he could hear Jack moved into the sitting room. He spared a thought for how right it felt, the sound of Jack puttering around his flat, making himself at home. The way that Jack Jack didn't flinch when Ianto told him they were going home, didn't presume he meant the Hub. How Jack subconsciously took off his boots and coat at the door, long past assuming that he was doing anything less than staying the night. It felt right, Jack in his home, Jack was his home. It was only then, that the man in question's voice broke him from his reverie.
"Ianto? Since when did you have a cat?"
And Ianto couldn't help smiling.
*~*