AN: I've no title for this but the intention is clear. To remember all our boys and girls of all nations who have given their lives to protect us and to thank them.
Ianto rose from his bed early that morning and donned his black Zara suit, white shirt and dark red tie. The final addition, a poppy he had picked up the previous day on his way home from the Hub. He studied his reflection wholly aware of his own fragile existence; of how easily and often he had faced death and somehow avoided it, whilst many others had not. He had a cousin out in Afghanistan with the British troops, thankfully he was alive and well, but too many had come home in boxes. Every time he saw it on the news it made his gut hurt as he remembered the lines of bodies laid out after the fiasco of Canary Wharf. Some of those men and women had been his friends, two of them ex lovers from before Lisa. The desolation threatened tears and Ianto turned away from the mirror and picked up his car keys and wallet. The cell phone was left behind, he'd made it clear to Jack that today he was not available. Jack had understood, as he always did when it came to the things that mattered.
The drive to London was uneventful due to the early hour and Ianto arrived in Docklands taking almost half an hour to find a parking space. It was his first time back since the incident and he sat at the steering for some time before gathering the resolve to get out of his car. He grabbed the bunch of silk, handmade poppies from the passenger seat and carefully picked the little origami bird that Tosh had made for him to bring; she'd lost friends here too. With the tokens in hand he locked the car and made his way to the glistening tower that was Canary Wharf.
Ianto was startled to discover a small collection of people already gathered just to the left of the main entrance. Ianto recognised two of them straight away. Fellow survivors. He quietly joined them and found the reason for their presence. A small, almost unnoticeable plaque of brass was set into the concrete floor. Ianto froze, staring down at it.
"For those who fell, for those who are lost to us.
You are always in our hearts and in God's hands."
Ianto sighed, it wasn't enough of course and it couldn't bring back the lives of the 912 people that died that day. He bent down and lay the flower's and Tosh's gift beside the other flowers that had been left there along with tokens and messages. Ianto read them, remembering smiles, shared lunches and babysitting Emma's two kids with Lisa. He remembered a future that had been stolen from him and so many others. Finally he straightened up, realising that he was alone now, that somehow he always would be alone. Maybe that wasn't such a bad thing. He'd return to Cardiff. Jack would be melancholy for much the same reason as him and Ianto wondered how Jack coped with so much loss, two world wars and years of Torchwood. The Battle of Canary Wharf had almost broken him. Ianto sighed, he hated to fight, and hated war but he understood the necessity of it. Sometimes there really wasn't any other way. And knowing that one day that is all that would be left of him, an anonymous plaque somewhere. He smiled to himself knowing that the price was worth paying if it kept his sister and her family safe.
He took one last glance at the plaque before heading back to his car.
