1st Christmas
Ianto sat by the soft light, humming softly as he folded the little onesie and listened to the carollers out at the nurse's station.
"Do you hear that little man?" Ianto said softly to the tiny baby laying in the incubator, his hand patting the Perspex like he was comforting his child.
He moved the picture of Lisa closer as he opened the drawer and removed the baby book, noting the time and recording the numbers on the machines that worked to help his child live.
Snow was falling, he knew because he watched people running back and forth outside the room, with their scarves and gloves, heavy coats and snow speckling them like talcum powder.
In his room, the little bubble it was like he was watching another world.
He was hungry so he pulled the sandwiches out of the bag that sat by his feet, all that he could get on a day where most places were closed. Gods, he had forgotten it was even Christmas, in a world of his own as he stumbled home to shower and sleep.
Thinking of such.
Ianto scratched at his beard, knowing he needed a shave and perhaps some sleep but it was Christmas Eve.
Walter's First Christmas and he was not going to spend it alone.
"Mama can sing for a while, yeah?" he said softly, clicking the tape deck play button and filling the NICU with Lisa's soft voice as she sang Long and Winding Road.
He had found the tape going through his bedside table for the bottle of sleeping tablets, hoping to get a few hours sleep before the nightmares came back.
His leg was tingling and he rose, walking quietly around the room as he tried to loosen it up, spinning as the door opened and a nurse entered.
"Oh, Mister Jones, you still here?"
"Nowhere else to be" he replied with a polite smile and the middle aged woman sighed softly.
Poor boy, obviously no family, bar the horrible family of the dead wife who only came to abuse and disrupt. At least the court order keeping them away seemed to be working.
She noticed the sandwich sitting half eaten and her heart sank as she knew that was all he had for the day, turning and going to the staffroom and cutting a large slice from the Christmas Cake and returning to place it quietly next to the cake as Ianto sang in the middle of the room, not realising she had returned.
Hallelujah.
Oh that boy had some pipes!
She watched monitors as babies responded to his singing, little cries fading and cooing as they enjoyed the man who they all recognised as a constant in their short little lives.
Finally the song ended and he sighed, scrubbing at his face and she sighed too.
"Mister Jones, if I sneak a camp bed in here for the night, will you be good and use it?"
His smile was unexpected and so sweet that she saw her own son, waiting at home with his girlfriend.
Poor boy.
Poor boys, the both of them without the mother here anymore.
Ianto was so grateful for the little show of care that after she left he sat and wept.
The first kind thing done for him since the accident.
He lay on the bed and groaned as his body relaxed into the hard mattress.
Tomorrow might be Christmas Day for some but for Ianto and Walter, it would be one more day of life.
Just another day.
Without Lisa.