**Spoilers for The House of the Dead and COE**
A/N: I've mixed feelings about "The House of the Dead" radio play. On one hand, we finally have a definitive answer to how Jack feels about Ianto. On the other hand, ghost!Ianto is trapped forever between worlds. This drabble thing is just me ranting. If I didn't have so much unfinished fic I'd write something longer about ghost!Ianto thinking himself back into reality. I hope it makes sense! I'm use to writing much longer, more rambling, seemingly endless pieces. (Before anyone asks, a new chapter of "The Adventures of Jaunty Jones" should be up shortly!)
Thoughts in the Void
Ianto didn't remember being dead. He remembered having porridge for breakfast, changing his mind on which tie to wear twice, and getting the message to meet Jack at the House of the Dead pub to stop a séance.
Apparently, that had all been a fake memory. Jack had said he'd died from some alien plague. He didn't remember dying or anything about a plague. It was worrisome. If he couldn't rely on his memories, what did he have? Was any of it real? What if he wasn't only remembering things that didn't happen and forgetting things that did? What if it was all fake? No Jack, no Torchwood, no Lisa, no coffee…how did he know he was even Ianto Jones?
He tried not to think about it too much, but what else did he have to do? Jack had thought being trapped in the void between worlds would be like oblivion. The only creatures Ianto had ever heard of escaping the void were the Daleks so he couldn't blame Jack for being wrong in his speculation. It wasn't like they had gone into detail about what they experienced before indiscriminately slaughtering his colleagues and Cybermen at Canary Wharf.
Ianto wished he remembered what death had been like so he could compare it to this strange lack of existence. He couldn't move or see or feel, per se, but he could think. He was conscious. He was aware on some level. It was like living with no frame of reference to any other thing, living or inanimate. It gave him a new appreciation of Heidegger's "being-in-the-world". The irony of having no one to share the insight with was also not lost on him.
There was no way to measure the passage of time, but he was sure time outside the void was ticking by in different ways in different universes. He could count seconds, but it seemed beyond pointless. Ianto wasn't sure if the lack of time would drive him insane or if this all would be worse if he knew how long he had been trapped in the void.
After what might have been decades or perhaps only seconds in the universe he had known, Ianto decided he would decide which of his memories had been true. Had he died from an alien plague? Jack had said he'd been brave, something Ianto found hard to believe. He had never felt brave. But Jack had been proud of him. Perhaps in those final moments he had been brave. For Jack. He could imagine that. Had it hurt? No. He decided to believe it had been quick and painless and that the indignities of death hadn't been visited upon his body due to the virus.
And had Jack really loved him? Ianto smiled if only in his consciousness. Believing in Jack and their love would keep the madness away for a little while. Unless the memory was part of the madness, in which case, Ianto accepted, imagining his eyebrow rising, going mad was welcome.