So, I've signed up to do some 100 theme challenges and this is the first I've gotten done. Not all that happy with it but I feel like I should start posting something here.

I cried like three times while writing this little drabble. I had to watch the scene so I could get the dialogue right, and it always makes me cry. Then it hit me again when I was writing the last couple sentences.
This is not what I planned on writing when I started... I planned for the 'breathe again' to be Ianto coming back after Jack's magic life kiss (insert sparkles here)... but then this happened. It's basically just the last few minutes of Day 4 in text form.
Hopefully the rest of my Challenge fics won't be this depressing... .


"Ianto? Ianto?" Jack breathed, almost not risking to make a noise lest the fragile moment shatter. "Don't go. Don't leave me, please," he begged, desperation clear in his tone. His voice broke on the final plea, "Please don't."

"He will die. And tomorrow your people will deliver the children," the 456 were very calm and certain in their assertation, and Jack hated them all the more for it.

He looked up at them then, the hopelessly addicted aliens in the glass chamber, demanding 10% of the world's children. And he didn't care. He didn't feel the righteous anger that had burned through him not ten minutes before. All he felt was a stabbing, soul-deep, ache. The only person in the world that he would have done anything for had just died in his arms.

The ache began to dull and Jack could feel the life leaving him as the virus worked through its final quick stages. He looked down at the man in his arms, and felt more tears silently making their way down his face. It wouldn't do any good. He knew it wouldn't, but some part of him wasn't willing to give up; wasn't willing to lose the one person that was still holding him to this planet. He leaned down and kissed Ianto one final time, putting the last bit of life he had into it.

As Jack slumped to the floor and death began to darken his vision he had a fleeting hope that he would never wake up.

He woke with soft gasp, blue eyes flickering open with the slight surprise and confusion that always came with reviving. He lay there for a moment as the memories came back. The children, the 456, the virus.

Ianto.

As he sat up he looked over and noticed Gwen, gaze turned downward. He didn't need to look to know. He moved over and put an arm around the woman, as much to keep himself upright, as to comfort her. They both gazed down at the young man laid out under the red sheet.

Jack wished he hadn't woken up this time. Cursed the fact that he had to breathe again. He hated the darkness, but god, it was so much better than this. This pain that he knew wasn't going to end, or at least not anytime soon. He knew with time it would dull, lose its edge, but that made him angry. He didn't want to forget, and he knew the dulling of the pain would mean he was doing just that. Forgetting. He had promised he wouldn't forget.

As tears began making silent tracks down his face Gwen said brokenly, "There's nothing we can do."