Fic- The Room
Title: The Room
Pairing: Jack/Ianto, Ianto/Lisa
Ratings: Adult- grief, swearing.
Spoilers: Cyberwoman
Summary: Ianto searches for Lisa where she isn’t.
Disclaimers: I own nothing
Notes: Comments make me write more!
There is one door in the hub which is never opened. It has been locked for nearly a year, its secrets hidden in the darkness. Ianto tries not to think about it. He has tried not to think about since the night it was first locked.
He’s in bed. Jack is asleep beside him, breathing heavily but not quite snoring. Normally, the sound brings Ianto peace. He likes it when Jack is relaxed. It calms Ianto. But tonight, nothing can calm him. Tonight, the door throbs in his mind.
He shifts, restlessly trying to force the door out of his mind. It hurts to think about it and he wants so much to stop but he can’t. It follows him constantly.
Jack snorts and rolls over, throwing an arm over Ianto’s hips. Ianto pats his hand and Jack mumbles in his sleep.
“Ianto,” he murmurs and Ianto smiles. Jack must be dreaming about him.
“Ianto, Myfanwy shit on my desk again,” cries Jack.
Ianto rolls his eyes. Oh, the sweet nothings he gets whispered into his ear.
He looks at Jack’s face, soft and relaxed in sleep. Jack locked the door. Jack still has the key. Ianto knows where it is.
He can’t stand it any more. He disentangles himself from Jack’s loose embrace and gets up. He pulls on boxers and one of his t-shirts from Jack’s drawer. He unhooks Jack’s bunch of keys from his trousers and quietly climbs the ladder into the main hub.
He barely looks where he is going, just takes the lift as far down as it will go, then walks blindly through corridors. He doesn’t think about the fact that it’s freezing down here. He doesn’t think about the pressing darkness. All he can think about is the door.
He’s gripping the keys so tightly, they’re pressing into his palm, cutting into his skin and he doesn’t even notice.
He’s done this before, gone down to the door, just to look and remember. But now, he has the key.
He reaches the door. It is so dark, he can’t even see it. He reaches out, touches the cool metal. He shivers, not from the cold. The metal is damp. It always is down here. But there is something about wet metal which makes him shudder. His nightmares are full of slick wet metal.
He feels with his fingers for the lock. He’s shaking. He clenches his fists, presses his finger to the lock and clumsily slides the key in.
He doesn’t want to open the door but he has to. It has been on his mind for so long.
There are tears on his face. He can feel them rolling down his chin and jaw. He can’t do it. The lock clicks open but he doesn’t push the door open. It’s like he’s frozen in place, like he’s stuck. He’s stuck a year in the past. He’s stuck in that room with her, with the ghost of her.
Suddenly, a large hand grips his shoulder. Ianto tenses, pushes forward into the door.
“Don’t touch me.”
The hand falls away. “Ianto, what’s wrong?”
It’s Jack, of course. Ianto knew it would be Jack. Who else would it be? But his body was expecting, wanting, someone else, wanting her.
“I’m going in,” he says and he can hear Jack’s sharp intake of breath.
“I don’t think you should,” Jack says. “That door has been locked for a year and it needs to stay locked.”
“No, I need to go in. I need to see. I need to see her.”
Jack grabs Ianto’s shoulders, spins him around and pushes him against the door. There is fierce anger in his eyes.
“She is not in there, Ianto. She’s dead. Now, come back to bed.”
Ianto jerks out of Jack’s grip. “She is! She is! I have to see her!”
Jack steps back. Ianto can see him forcing away his anger, reaching for his calm. He reaches out to Ianto and this time his touch is gentle.
“Come back to bed, Ianto. This isn’t the right time for this.”
Suddenly, Ianto begins to sob, big choking sobs and he can’t breathe and Jack is holding him.
Ianto holds onto tight to Jack, clinging to him. The sobs ease. Ianto presses his face into Jack’s shoulder. His skin is warm and soft. Ianto realises that Jack is barely wearing anything either.
“It’s freezing,” Ianto murmurs.
“Yeah and you’re going to catch pneumonia down here, you damn idiot.”
Ianto smiles, kisses Jack’s shoulder then looks up at him. “Take me back to bed.”
“Uh huh. And no more wandering around in the hub at night in your underwear.”
“You can’t bloody talk.”
They turn. Ianto hears the click and the rattle of keys as Jack locks the door, then Ianto is being taken to bed and it all feels right.
But as he lies down in bed, warm and cosy with Jack’s strong arms wrapped around him, the door is still throbbing in his mind.
* * *
“Ianto, these need to be filed by the end of the day and the SUV needs to be booked in for its service and I need a room booked for my meeting with the Prime Minister next month. I want the best room. Vibrating bed, Jacuzzi, the works.”
“I’ll get right on it, Sir,” says Ianto, taking the box of assorted alien artefacts from Jack.
It is a quiet day, when it comes to alien activity at least. There is always plenty of other work to do. They haven’t talked about the other night. Ianto isn’t sure he wants to and Jack certainly hasn’t broached the subject.
But Ianto can’t stop thinking about it. He’s stolen the key off Jack’s key ring. And soon, he will go down there. He will open the door.
“Ianto, are you okay?” Tosh asks, joining him at the coffee machine.
“Huh?”
“You’re really quiet today,” she says, passing him the cups. “Quieter than usual, I mean.”
He shrugs. “I’m fine. Just got things on my mind.”
“Oh. I thought it was because…of the date.”
He blinks at her. “The date?”
“Yeah, um…it was a year ago today.”
A jolt goes straight to his chest and he realises exactly why he’s been thinking about the door. How could he have forgotten? He holds himself tight, tensing muscles to stop from shaking. His body remembers.
He’s on edge, fighting to control the jangle of feelings lurching up within him. He avoids Jack.
It is approaching the end of the day. Ianto serves up the last cup of coffee of the day, then slopes off to consider the door again. He won’t be missed.
He steps through the darkness. The key is in his hand. He flips it over and over in his hand. He’s restless, too full of anxious energy. She used to hold his hand so firmly when he shook. He can feel the warmth of her hand in his just for a moment. Then the cold of the brass key overtakes the warmth.
He has reached the door. He avoids touching the wet metal and instead reaches for the lock. It clicks open. He hesitates, then pushes open the door, pushing past the fear. He wants to go inside.
There is darkness. There is cold. A rush of cool air rushes past his face and all of a sudden, he can taste blood. It overtakes him, crawls up his nostrils and down his throat and each breath sticks in his throat. He chokes, doubling over as he tries to cough the taste away.
“It’s not real,” he gasps. “Not real.”
He forces himself to straighten up, holding his stomach in tightly. If he doesn’t, he’s sure he will throw up.
The machine has long since been dismantled. Ianto doesn’t know what happened to it, what Jack did with it. Neither does he know what Jack did with her.
He doesn’t need to see to find his way to the spot. He sat here so often with her, holding her hand, increasing her meds. He’d spent all the time he had looking after her, putting so much effort into her and then, within a few hours, it had all been ripped away from him. Jack tore her away.
He stands in the spot, closes his eyes and listens to the clang of metal echoing in his mind. He can smell it. The tang of copper burns his throat, blood and metal mixing together. This is where Jack killed her.
He opens his eyes and shakes his head to clear it. No. She was already dead. She died at Canary Wharf. Jack did what he had to do to protect humanity.
But she’d still been his Lisa. She’d smiled at him and held his hand and told him she loved him. She was still his Lisa.
He sinks to the floor. The hard floor sends shocks through his knees and he remembers that pain from before. He remembers the ache of his chest, remembers sobbing on the floor over her dead body.
He’s back there. He can smell the blood. He can smell the discharged guns. He can hear Jack’s heavy breathing, feel his eyes on him.
“You shouldn’t have come here.” The voice is stern but tender. Ianto doesn’t want to hear it.
“Leave me alone.”
“I’m not leaving you alone down here.”
Ianto leaps to his feet, spinning round to fix Jack with a glare. “You took her away from me and now you’re trying to do it again. She’s here! I want to be with her.”
“She dead, Ianto. She isn’t here.”
Fury fills Ianto and he jerks forwards, grabs Jack and forces him into the wall. “You killed her! She’s dead because you killed her! I hate you!”
Jack’s angry eyes glare back at Ianto. “She died in London. You know that.”
Bile rises up in Ianto’s throat as his mind shows him clear pictures of the machines and the metal and the blood. He pulls away from Jack, choking on the bitter taste of blood and vomit.
Jack stays still and Ianto can feel his eyes watching him steadily. Ianto sits on the floor and hugs his knees. H rests his head on his knees and looks at the floor. Light shines on the floor from the open door, illuminating the dingy concrete floor. There isn’t any blood. It has all been cleaned away. But he can still see it there.
“Please, leave me alone,” he whispers.
Jack takes a few steps towards him. “I’m afraid of what you might do if I leave. You’re vulnerable right now.”
Ianto sniffs. “You don’t understand. You don’t know what it’s like.”
“I do. And that’s why I’m going to stay here with you while you deal with this.”
Ianto doesn’t say anything, just watches the floor. He closes his eyes, tries to imagine Lisa’s arms around him. He tries to imagine holding her but he can feel the hot metal implanted in her skin. What he remembers isn’t her.
“She loved me,” he whispers. He tells himself she loved him right to the end but he knows it wasn’t her, not in the end.
Jack crouches down. “Yes, she did. But she’s gone now and I’m here.”
Ianto reaches out and pushes hard at Jack. Jack stumbles a little.
“You’re not her. You don’t l…I don’t want you!”
A pinched look comes over Jack’s face for a few seconds, then he smoothes it out and the tender, calm look is back.
“She loved you but she’s gone now. It’s all right to move on.”
“I…I want her back but…you…you’re…I…lo…”
Jack holds out his hand. “I know. It’s all right.”
Ianto shifts closer to Jack and puts his head on his shoulder. Jack puts an arm around him and holds him gently.
“I’m sorry,” Ianto whispers.
“Shush,” murmurs Jack, his breath warm against Ianto’s cheek. “It’s all right. You’ve got nothing to be sorry about.”
* * *
Ianto feels guilty. The emotion adds itself to the mix swirling around inside him. Jack led him away from the room, locked the door behind him. But he let him keep the key. Ianto keeps it in his pocket, slipping his hand to it to feel the smooth coolness of it.
Jack doesn’t want him to open the door again. He thinks it should stay locked away. He thinks Ianto hasn’t ready to face it yet. But Ianto wants to. He needs to be with her.
Jack has given him the choice. Ianto knows what he has to do. Jack is watching him. He has been watching him all day.
Ianto waits until the end of the day. He stays calm. He keeps his head.
He walks downstairs slowly. He can feel Jack watching him go.
Ianto is not crying. He’s keeping calm. He opens the door, goes inside, lets the dark envelop him. He smell her. He can smell the sweetness and the softness of her skin, her body. He can feel her wrap her arms around him.
He sits down on the floor, lies down where she lay all those days. He closes his eyes and he can feel her.
“Lisa,” he whispers. “I miss you.”
He thinks of all the ordinary moments they spent together. The talking, the laughing, the fighting the fucking. Every single ordinary, extra-ordinary moment. It all matters.
He wants to remember it. It was another life. It feels so far away now, yet so close. Another life. Yet it is his. It belongs to him. She is gone now, but he is still here. He remembers. He remembers her.
He feels Jack entering the room and standing watching him.
“You’re remembering her,” Jack’s voice is soft and gentle. He understands.
Ianto stays where he is, stays lying still on the hard floor. He is remembering her. But he’s not thinking of her in here.
He’s thinking of her in her flat in London, where they used to spend their time off together. He’s thinking of lying in bed with her on a Saturday morning. He’s thinking of cooking together in her cluttered kitchen, bumping hips over the dishes. He’s thinking of walking in the city parks with her in early summer evenings.
He remembers their fights. Stupid fights. Fights over the state she kept her kitchen in, fights over what a fusspot he was. It is all too much to think about. It fills his head too full. Every single moment together.
“How do you remember it all?” he asks Jack, gazing up at the dark ceiling.
“Remember what?” Jack asks. His voice is still soft, non-threatening and Ianto is grateful for that.
“All those little moments about everyone you ever loved.”
“I don’t. I remember the person. You don’t fail if you don’t remember everything.”
Ianto clenches his hands, pulls at his shirt buttons. “Feels like I’m loosing, that everything’s drifting away, like I’m going to lose her if…”
“If you don’t hold on with all your strength?”
“Yeah. I guess.”
Jack comes closer. “She died.” His voice is soft and gentle. “She’s gone from the world. But you’re not going to lose her memory. She is there, inside you.”
“She’s in here too, in this room.”
“Ianto, are you ready to say goodbye to her?”
Ianto sits up and looks straight at Jack. “What do you mean?”
“I mean do you want to go now and sit with her and say goodbye.” He looks away. “I know you never got that chance before.”
Ianto scrambles to his feet immediately. “Yes. Yes. Let’s go now.”
“But you’ve got trust me.”
“I trust you.”
Jack holds out his hand and Ianto takes it. They don’t speak, just leave the room in silence. Jack lets Ianto lock up after them and keep the key.
Ianto knows in just a few seconds where they’re going. The morgue but the locked room with only a few cabinets inside. Only Jack goes in here.
But now Ianto is here too. Jack keeps hold of his hand as he opens a cabinet.
Ianto doesn’t look at him. He keeps his eyes focused on the cabinet as Jack slides the drawer open.
She is lying there, still and peaceful. She is still encased in the metal.
Ianto lets go of Jack’s hand and goes to her. He stands by her side, gazing down at her. She hasn’t changed in this year. She is the same as he remembers her. He can ignore the metal. He just looks into her face, a face he loves. Loved.
Jack is still watching him but holds back. He doesn’t intrude in Ianto’s grief.
Ianto caresses Lisa’s face. “I was going to ask you to marry me,” he tells her. “Did you guess? I kept thinking about spending my life with you, settling down. I had our whole lives planned out.” He smiles. “Sorry. I know you hate plans.”
He sighs and finds her hand. “I don’t have plans anymore. There’s only…what happens. Maybe it’s better that way. I had all these plans for us and things still went wrong. Everything changed. And…I coped with it. I…I think I’ve changed since you died. Maybe…maybe I needed to change.”
He leans over and kisses her sweetly on the mouth. “Goodbye, Lisa. I love you and I won’t ever forget you. I promise.”
He stands straight and, not even glancing at Jack, leaves the room. Behind him, he hears Jack returning the room to order and following him.
Ianto doesn’t go far. Outside the room, he stops, leans against the wall and closes his eyes.
He senses Jack close to him, watching him carefully.
“I can’t just get over it,” Ianto says.
“Of course not,” says Jack, gently.
“But I want to move past her. I want to have a life.”
“You deserve to have a life.”
Ianto shifts close to Jack and rests against him. Jack puts a gentle arm around him.
“She’s not in the room,” Ianto whispers. Jack strokes his head.
“But she’s with me. And it’s my job to remember her.”
“You don’t have to remember everything.”
“No. But I will remember her.”
Pairing: Jack/Ianto, Ianto/Lisa
Ratings: Adult- grief, swearing.
Spoilers: Cyberwoman
Summary: Ianto searches for Lisa where she isn’t.
Disclaimers: I own nothing
Notes: Comments make me write more!
There is one door in the hub which is never opened. It has been locked for nearly a year, its secrets hidden in the darkness. Ianto tries not to think about it. He has tried not to think about since the night it was first locked.
He’s in bed. Jack is asleep beside him, breathing heavily but not quite snoring. Normally, the sound brings Ianto peace. He likes it when Jack is relaxed. It calms Ianto. But tonight, nothing can calm him. Tonight, the door throbs in his mind.
He shifts, restlessly trying to force the door out of his mind. It hurts to think about it and he wants so much to stop but he can’t. It follows him constantly.
Jack snorts and rolls over, throwing an arm over Ianto’s hips. Ianto pats his hand and Jack mumbles in his sleep.
“Ianto,” he murmurs and Ianto smiles. Jack must be dreaming about him.
“Ianto, Myfanwy shit on my desk again,” cries Jack.
Ianto rolls his eyes. Oh, the sweet nothings he gets whispered into his ear.
He looks at Jack’s face, soft and relaxed in sleep. Jack locked the door. Jack still has the key. Ianto knows where it is.
He can’t stand it any more. He disentangles himself from Jack’s loose embrace and gets up. He pulls on boxers and one of his t-shirts from Jack’s drawer. He unhooks Jack’s bunch of keys from his trousers and quietly climbs the ladder into the main hub.
He barely looks where he is going, just takes the lift as far down as it will go, then walks blindly through corridors. He doesn’t think about the fact that it’s freezing down here. He doesn’t think about the pressing darkness. All he can think about is the door.
He’s gripping the keys so tightly, they’re pressing into his palm, cutting into his skin and he doesn’t even notice.
He’s done this before, gone down to the door, just to look and remember. But now, he has the key.
He reaches the door. It is so dark, he can’t even see it. He reaches out, touches the cool metal. He shivers, not from the cold. The metal is damp. It always is down here. But there is something about wet metal which makes him shudder. His nightmares are full of slick wet metal.
He feels with his fingers for the lock. He’s shaking. He clenches his fists, presses his finger to the lock and clumsily slides the key in.
He doesn’t want to open the door but he has to. It has been on his mind for so long.
There are tears on his face. He can feel them rolling down his chin and jaw. He can’t do it. The lock clicks open but he doesn’t push the door open. It’s like he’s frozen in place, like he’s stuck. He’s stuck a year in the past. He’s stuck in that room with her, with the ghost of her.
Suddenly, a large hand grips his shoulder. Ianto tenses, pushes forward into the door.
“Don’t touch me.”
The hand falls away. “Ianto, what’s wrong?”
It’s Jack, of course. Ianto knew it would be Jack. Who else would it be? But his body was expecting, wanting, someone else, wanting her.
“I’m going in,” he says and he can hear Jack’s sharp intake of breath.
“I don’t think you should,” Jack says. “That door has been locked for a year and it needs to stay locked.”
“No, I need to go in. I need to see. I need to see her.”
Jack grabs Ianto’s shoulders, spins him around and pushes him against the door. There is fierce anger in his eyes.
“She is not in there, Ianto. She’s dead. Now, come back to bed.”
Ianto jerks out of Jack’s grip. “She is! She is! I have to see her!”
Jack steps back. Ianto can see him forcing away his anger, reaching for his calm. He reaches out to Ianto and this time his touch is gentle.
“Come back to bed, Ianto. This isn’t the right time for this.”
Suddenly, Ianto begins to sob, big choking sobs and he can’t breathe and Jack is holding him.
Ianto holds onto tight to Jack, clinging to him. The sobs ease. Ianto presses his face into Jack’s shoulder. His skin is warm and soft. Ianto realises that Jack is barely wearing anything either.
“It’s freezing,” Ianto murmurs.
“Yeah and you’re going to catch pneumonia down here, you damn idiot.”
Ianto smiles, kisses Jack’s shoulder then looks up at him. “Take me back to bed.”
“Uh huh. And no more wandering around in the hub at night in your underwear.”
“You can’t bloody talk.”
They turn. Ianto hears the click and the rattle of keys as Jack locks the door, then Ianto is being taken to bed and it all feels right.
But as he lies down in bed, warm and cosy with Jack’s strong arms wrapped around him, the door is still throbbing in his mind.
* * *
“Ianto, these need to be filed by the end of the day and the SUV needs to be booked in for its service and I need a room booked for my meeting with the Prime Minister next month. I want the best room. Vibrating bed, Jacuzzi, the works.”
“I’ll get right on it, Sir,” says Ianto, taking the box of assorted alien artefacts from Jack.
It is a quiet day, when it comes to alien activity at least. There is always plenty of other work to do. They haven’t talked about the other night. Ianto isn’t sure he wants to and Jack certainly hasn’t broached the subject.
But Ianto can’t stop thinking about it. He’s stolen the key off Jack’s key ring. And soon, he will go down there. He will open the door.
“Ianto, are you okay?” Tosh asks, joining him at the coffee machine.
“Huh?”
“You’re really quiet today,” she says, passing him the cups. “Quieter than usual, I mean.”
He shrugs. “I’m fine. Just got things on my mind.”
“Oh. I thought it was because…of the date.”
He blinks at her. “The date?”
“Yeah, um…it was a year ago today.”
A jolt goes straight to his chest and he realises exactly why he’s been thinking about the door. How could he have forgotten? He holds himself tight, tensing muscles to stop from shaking. His body remembers.
He’s on edge, fighting to control the jangle of feelings lurching up within him. He avoids Jack.
It is approaching the end of the day. Ianto serves up the last cup of coffee of the day, then slopes off to consider the door again. He won’t be missed.
He steps through the darkness. The key is in his hand. He flips it over and over in his hand. He’s restless, too full of anxious energy. She used to hold his hand so firmly when he shook. He can feel the warmth of her hand in his just for a moment. Then the cold of the brass key overtakes the warmth.
He has reached the door. He avoids touching the wet metal and instead reaches for the lock. It clicks open. He hesitates, then pushes open the door, pushing past the fear. He wants to go inside.
There is darkness. There is cold. A rush of cool air rushes past his face and all of a sudden, he can taste blood. It overtakes him, crawls up his nostrils and down his throat and each breath sticks in his throat. He chokes, doubling over as he tries to cough the taste away.
“It’s not real,” he gasps. “Not real.”
He forces himself to straighten up, holding his stomach in tightly. If he doesn’t, he’s sure he will throw up.
The machine has long since been dismantled. Ianto doesn’t know what happened to it, what Jack did with it. Neither does he know what Jack did with her.
He doesn’t need to see to find his way to the spot. He sat here so often with her, holding her hand, increasing her meds. He’d spent all the time he had looking after her, putting so much effort into her and then, within a few hours, it had all been ripped away from him. Jack tore her away.
He stands in the spot, closes his eyes and listens to the clang of metal echoing in his mind. He can smell it. The tang of copper burns his throat, blood and metal mixing together. This is where Jack killed her.
He opens his eyes and shakes his head to clear it. No. She was already dead. She died at Canary Wharf. Jack did what he had to do to protect humanity.
But she’d still been his Lisa. She’d smiled at him and held his hand and told him she loved him. She was still his Lisa.
He sinks to the floor. The hard floor sends shocks through his knees and he remembers that pain from before. He remembers the ache of his chest, remembers sobbing on the floor over her dead body.
He’s back there. He can smell the blood. He can smell the discharged guns. He can hear Jack’s heavy breathing, feel his eyes on him.
“You shouldn’t have come here.” The voice is stern but tender. Ianto doesn’t want to hear it.
“Leave me alone.”
“I’m not leaving you alone down here.”
Ianto leaps to his feet, spinning round to fix Jack with a glare. “You took her away from me and now you’re trying to do it again. She’s here! I want to be with her.”
“She dead, Ianto. She isn’t here.”
Fury fills Ianto and he jerks forwards, grabs Jack and forces him into the wall. “You killed her! She’s dead because you killed her! I hate you!”
Jack’s angry eyes glare back at Ianto. “She died in London. You know that.”
Bile rises up in Ianto’s throat as his mind shows him clear pictures of the machines and the metal and the blood. He pulls away from Jack, choking on the bitter taste of blood and vomit.
Jack stays still and Ianto can feel his eyes watching him steadily. Ianto sits on the floor and hugs his knees. H rests his head on his knees and looks at the floor. Light shines on the floor from the open door, illuminating the dingy concrete floor. There isn’t any blood. It has all been cleaned away. But he can still see it there.
“Please, leave me alone,” he whispers.
Jack takes a few steps towards him. “I’m afraid of what you might do if I leave. You’re vulnerable right now.”
Ianto sniffs. “You don’t understand. You don’t know what it’s like.”
“I do. And that’s why I’m going to stay here with you while you deal with this.”
Ianto doesn’t say anything, just watches the floor. He closes his eyes, tries to imagine Lisa’s arms around him. He tries to imagine holding her but he can feel the hot metal implanted in her skin. What he remembers isn’t her.
“She loved me,” he whispers. He tells himself she loved him right to the end but he knows it wasn’t her, not in the end.
Jack crouches down. “Yes, she did. But she’s gone now and I’m here.”
Ianto reaches out and pushes hard at Jack. Jack stumbles a little.
“You’re not her. You don’t l…I don’t want you!”
A pinched look comes over Jack’s face for a few seconds, then he smoothes it out and the tender, calm look is back.
“She loved you but she’s gone now. It’s all right to move on.”
“I…I want her back but…you…you’re…I…lo…”
Jack holds out his hand. “I know. It’s all right.”
Ianto shifts closer to Jack and puts his head on his shoulder. Jack puts an arm around him and holds him gently.
“I’m sorry,” Ianto whispers.
“Shush,” murmurs Jack, his breath warm against Ianto’s cheek. “It’s all right. You’ve got nothing to be sorry about.”
* * *
Ianto feels guilty. The emotion adds itself to the mix swirling around inside him. Jack led him away from the room, locked the door behind him. But he let him keep the key. Ianto keeps it in his pocket, slipping his hand to it to feel the smooth coolness of it.
Jack doesn’t want him to open the door again. He thinks it should stay locked away. He thinks Ianto hasn’t ready to face it yet. But Ianto wants to. He needs to be with her.
Jack has given him the choice. Ianto knows what he has to do. Jack is watching him. He has been watching him all day.
Ianto waits until the end of the day. He stays calm. He keeps his head.
He walks downstairs slowly. He can feel Jack watching him go.
Ianto is not crying. He’s keeping calm. He opens the door, goes inside, lets the dark envelop him. He smell her. He can smell the sweetness and the softness of her skin, her body. He can feel her wrap her arms around him.
He sits down on the floor, lies down where she lay all those days. He closes his eyes and he can feel her.
“Lisa,” he whispers. “I miss you.”
He thinks of all the ordinary moments they spent together. The talking, the laughing, the fighting the fucking. Every single ordinary, extra-ordinary moment. It all matters.
He wants to remember it. It was another life. It feels so far away now, yet so close. Another life. Yet it is his. It belongs to him. She is gone now, but he is still here. He remembers. He remembers her.
He feels Jack entering the room and standing watching him.
“You’re remembering her,” Jack’s voice is soft and gentle. He understands.
Ianto stays where he is, stays lying still on the hard floor. He is remembering her. But he’s not thinking of her in here.
He’s thinking of her in her flat in London, where they used to spend their time off together. He’s thinking of lying in bed with her on a Saturday morning. He’s thinking of cooking together in her cluttered kitchen, bumping hips over the dishes. He’s thinking of walking in the city parks with her in early summer evenings.
He remembers their fights. Stupid fights. Fights over the state she kept her kitchen in, fights over what a fusspot he was. It is all too much to think about. It fills his head too full. Every single moment together.
“How do you remember it all?” he asks Jack, gazing up at the dark ceiling.
“Remember what?” Jack asks. His voice is still soft, non-threatening and Ianto is grateful for that.
“All those little moments about everyone you ever loved.”
“I don’t. I remember the person. You don’t fail if you don’t remember everything.”
Ianto clenches his hands, pulls at his shirt buttons. “Feels like I’m loosing, that everything’s drifting away, like I’m going to lose her if…”
“If you don’t hold on with all your strength?”
“Yeah. I guess.”
Jack comes closer. “She died.” His voice is soft and gentle. “She’s gone from the world. But you’re not going to lose her memory. She is there, inside you.”
“She’s in here too, in this room.”
“Ianto, are you ready to say goodbye to her?”
Ianto sits up and looks straight at Jack. “What do you mean?”
“I mean do you want to go now and sit with her and say goodbye.” He looks away. “I know you never got that chance before.”
Ianto scrambles to his feet immediately. “Yes. Yes. Let’s go now.”
“But you’ve got trust me.”
“I trust you.”
Jack holds out his hand and Ianto takes it. They don’t speak, just leave the room in silence. Jack lets Ianto lock up after them and keep the key.
Ianto knows in just a few seconds where they’re going. The morgue but the locked room with only a few cabinets inside. Only Jack goes in here.
But now Ianto is here too. Jack keeps hold of his hand as he opens a cabinet.
Ianto doesn’t look at him. He keeps his eyes focused on the cabinet as Jack slides the drawer open.
She is lying there, still and peaceful. She is still encased in the metal.
Ianto lets go of Jack’s hand and goes to her. He stands by her side, gazing down at her. She hasn’t changed in this year. She is the same as he remembers her. He can ignore the metal. He just looks into her face, a face he loves. Loved.
Jack is still watching him but holds back. He doesn’t intrude in Ianto’s grief.
Ianto caresses Lisa’s face. “I was going to ask you to marry me,” he tells her. “Did you guess? I kept thinking about spending my life with you, settling down. I had our whole lives planned out.” He smiles. “Sorry. I know you hate plans.”
He sighs and finds her hand. “I don’t have plans anymore. There’s only…what happens. Maybe it’s better that way. I had all these plans for us and things still went wrong. Everything changed. And…I coped with it. I…I think I’ve changed since you died. Maybe…maybe I needed to change.”
He leans over and kisses her sweetly on the mouth. “Goodbye, Lisa. I love you and I won’t ever forget you. I promise.”
He stands straight and, not even glancing at Jack, leaves the room. Behind him, he hears Jack returning the room to order and following him.
Ianto doesn’t go far. Outside the room, he stops, leans against the wall and closes his eyes.
He senses Jack close to him, watching him carefully.
“I can’t just get over it,” Ianto says.
“Of course not,” says Jack, gently.
“But I want to move past her. I want to have a life.”
“You deserve to have a life.”
Ianto shifts close to Jack and rests against him. Jack puts a gentle arm around him.
“She’s not in the room,” Ianto whispers. Jack strokes his head.
“But she’s with me. And it’s my job to remember her.”
“You don’t have to remember everything.”
“No. But I will remember her.”