Disclaimer: I don't own Torchwood.

Author's notes: Just a short drabble I wrote after watching TTLM recently. Spoilers for the said episode, unsurprisingly. Many thanks for Darcy58 for his betaing, as always.


Icy Oblivion

He tells her it is like falling asleep.

It is impolite to lie to a lady, his mother always taught him, but he feels that he has to make an exception with her. He cannot bear to tell her the truth.

When the doctor sedates him, he can feel his consciousness slipping away, but the process never happens quite fast enough. He feels the icy air surrounding his body. The cold is so severe he is certain that one of these days his bones will splinter from it. He wants to scream, to give voice to the pain spreading all through him, but the sedatives keep him paralysed. He has no control over himself; he is locked in his body. Only his mind remains his own. Just when he is certain that he will either go mad or die from the icy agony, the blessed darkness finally carries his mind to the embrace of the awaiting darkness.

He tells her every day for him happens immediately after the previous one.

When he is frozen, deep in the bowels of Torchwood, darkness stretches between each day. He is not quite awake, but he is not quite asleep either. The emptiness that surrounds him is endless; a terrifying expanse that would surely drive him mad if he was fully conscious. He floats through it, a weightless spark of light in the absolute darkness. Light only appears when the resuscitation process begins once again, another year having slipped by in the emptiness. Recently there have been two light sources in the darkness; one is warm and inviting, calling his mind to finally be at peace, but the other light always drags him backwards, to the chilly space that is the Torchwood medical bay.

On some level, he instinctively knows that one of these days, one of these years, the other light will claim him as its own. What will happen to Torchwood's plan to use him to save the world then?

For the first time in weeks, or perhaps decades, he wants to come back. He now welcomes the icy pain and the utter darkness. They are now a prelude to the next time he opens his eyes to find her looking down at him. She calms his racing heart – is it just the adrenaline they have injected into him? She grounds him in the first moments when he cannot remember who he is or why he exists.

He has known her for four days. She has known him for four years. Yet, those moments spent together are enough for both of them. He knows what he wants and although she is shy, she seems to want the same thing. Courting is difficult when he is only awake one day a year, but somehow they manage it just the same.

There is one more thing he does not tell her, at least not while she is awake. When she has finally succumbed to exhaustion, wrapped safely in his arms, he whispers the words over and over. His words become a memory, something to keep her safe and sound when he is cold in his grave, his mind finally at peace.