I Grieve
There were degrees of pain that one being could sustain. Withstand and continue to function… Even if it was a lie…a façade to trick the body and mind to believe that the pain was fake…a figment of some phantom wound. There were physical scars that would heal…emotional ones that never would.
Ianto knew of pain…loss and grief. He'd tried to keep it at bay. Believed that he could stop it from gripping onto his heart. But all he had learned was the longer it was given to grow and be…the harder it would try to fell you. He had thought that that pain…the one that ended with the destruction of the shell that once was Lisa was the worst he would ever know.
He had been grateful for that.
It had been an lie.
He ran his hands over the worn desk, the wood solid and real under his fingers. The presence of the captain…his captain still penetrated…echoed into the room sending an ache straight through his body.
Someday it would be different. It had to be.
Because this pain…was real…inside him it was growing…consuming and soon their would nothing left of him. Of the man he had tried so hard to become…to hold onto when his very world had fallen apart.
He wanted to leave. Move away from the memories that assailed him here. In this room…where he had learned to live once more. Had craved and yearned for what he could be given. The place where his heart had beat again…giving itself to callused hands and bruising kisses. His own lips discovering warm skin, tasting heat and salt…hands tracing hard muscles, mouth swallowing soft moans…his own…Jack's…
Leaning, eyes closed against the ghosts of remembered sensations, he breathed deep, filling with the scent that remained of his captain. It would never stop. Not in this place. He had held the ache at bay…allowing only these moments of grief.
It was time…to shove it away, deep inside where no one, not even he could find it. He smoothed one hand over his face, his body straightening, the pain sharp and he absorbed it. Hardened against it. He wandered directionless, acting out the motions of his every day chore, ignoring the worried glances from Owen and Tosh. Grateful for the small squeeze Gwen gave as she passed his side.
This would be their routine, he knew. Until it was no longer difficult to laugh. When their would be a case to follow, investigate and stop. His smile would return, not quite as bright but there. His voice would lose the desperate tone that edged his words. His mind would think less of endless nights and almost love…
His heart would harden when he wasn't looking.
Someday it would be different….it had to be…