I awoke with a sharp gasp, pulled from the darkness yet again, wishing I could stay and escape the pain. For one fleeting moment, I hoped above all else I had been dreaming. That Ianto was alive and well, waiting to console me after another death like he always does. I kept my eyes closed for one more second, as if to prolong the realization of what i already knew; Ianto Jones, my gorgeous Welshman, lay dead next to me.
I sat up stiffly, and looked to my left. There, just as i knew there would be, lay a red body bag, identical to the one i lay in. I needed to look at him, to take in his beautiful face one last time. Slowly, sombrely, i unzipped the bag.
I found myself looking into the cold, dead eyes of a stranger. Instead of the angel's face I knew and loved, there lay someone i had never met in my life. But surely, if we had died together, Ianto and I would be placed together in the soulless room that held the many dead. So where was he? I silently checked the surrounding bags, looking in vain for the one face i needed to see, the one face I would never see smile again. I sat again, defeated and alone, waiting for some sort of relief from the gut-wrenching pain I felt. None came.
