After Ianto's death somewhere far away but not far enough escape.

When we are alone we chose to ignore the beauty around us. We lose touch with it all.

I can hear him crying. I can always hear him crying. I reach but I can't touch him. He leads me into a dark warehouse. Something flies past. It screams to the night and then it vanishes. But he is still crying.

"Ianto!" I scream," Where are you?"

No answer, just the sound of tears hitting metal. Or is that the water from the leaking pipe a few feet in front of me. I still hear the tears. Smelling them on my hands, wiping his face with my lips, he closes his eyes and slips out of my grasp. His cold grey skin is so lifeless like many others around him, just lying there dead. "Ianto, honey, stop playing around this isn't Halloween. Take off that makeup you look like a corpse!"

"I am a corpse, I sit here and wait and there is nothing but thought. Jack, will you ever be here, with us, with me. We wait and think and can't see, only the dark." The tears renew and drop in big puddle on the floor, on the grass.

The sun is out again and he stands there, Ianto in the sun. The pale god threatened by the light. He much rather be deep underground. Lost in his Archives, still so much to do, he must be thankful like me that he is no longer part of that world.

I can hear him now, "There it is! No one to mess it up again, the problems of what happens to the place when I'm gone solved it's self. It exploded." No smile, just one as he turns away. He always loved his own jokes. And he saved the laughs for later.

The image bought me a smile.

Then there is Lisa. She is with him in the dark for sure. I wonder. Are they reunited after all this, surrounded by nothing but their love?

I think of him, that first time. The very first time we were together. I thought about it. And he flirted, but like with a lot of Ianto things, I thought it just came with the suit.

I never thought to take him seriously. Never realized that maybe he wanted more.

Lisa was in the hub, and I was touching the coffee cup he just gave me, watching him turn and leave my office. I was daydreaming of the skin under the suit. It was always a daydream; I thought so until we touched.

You felt it too didn't you Ianto, didn't you? We both felt that electric current flow and light up every synapsis in our mind. But you never thought of men. Just me, you said so. Why me?

Lisa was gone; he cried at all of us, can still hear those tears. I wanted to comfort him but he made me so angry. My house, my home, the place that I hold dear, and he choose to contaminate it with that thing!

You loved that thing. Really you did, you loved the woman she was, from the first time you met to the moment you made love and every moment you were allowed. God Ianto, I know you loved her so why didn't you just let her go?

We walked alone into the dark place. We hear nothing as the tears fall. The deafness is blinding, the quite so bright. I needed you then, I need you here.

That first night, our night, you sobbed a little at our contact. I wont debase it by saying those crude words to describe it. It went way beyond sex, even for me. It reached the stars, my home, the man I was, the man I became, the man you made me that night.

I never said, "I love you". I know that hurt you, I know that left you in flux over the whole experience. But I didn't think we needed that, I thought you knew it is what I felt. I was wrong. I left you in the dark, where you are now; with out that glimmer of light, to warm you until, what ever it is that you wait for comes.

That night, our first real kiss, you were naked before me. You, the shy one, just walked into my office after the others left, with out any clothes on. I know when, you still had the cut on your head from bashing skulls with that cannibal. Never could get you in the country again for long but you did love it on the beach. Even when it was cold, you said I kept you warm.

Your pale body beckoned to me. Long torso and small stomach with white willowy limbs, made me shake a little. I stripped bear before you as if to say "lets start over, naked and renewed."

Standing there we admired each other for sometime. Some how we met in the middle and we touched. Gently the first kiss, we meshed together. You needed no lessons, Mr. Jones. You knew what you wanted.

I knew I was you first man. But it didn't matter to us. We just wanted to be, to feel our bodies join, in more then just gratification. It was love, even then, with all that happened. It was love. I should have told you sooner Ianto.

If the Doctor came, I would leave with him, if it were love, then you would have crumbled inward, like you almost did after Lisa, and when you thought I was in love with Gwen.

So I lied, said I didn't do couples and kept you at arms length for the longest time. That was wrong. I should have taken you with me. But what would The Master have done to you if he knew you were with me? What did he do to the one I loved in the year that wasn't?

Water under the bridge and I filled the river that the bridge is over. I let go all of it as the ship hums quietly and I try to sleep. Your face is before me, and Steven's, I let you both down. I'm not a very good person. I killed you both in my own special way. It was as if I pulled the trigger.

My fault always my fault. I should have retconed you after the warehouse, I should have kept a better eye on you rather then rely on a stupid computer entry to tell me about Ianto Jones. I should have never let you whittle your way in to my soul.

Forever you are with me, and for that I should be grateful. I will remember when I'm alone, when being around the mortal spawn gets to be too much. You will comfort me. For I never gave you enough. It should have been more. You gave me all, every bit.

I see your smile, the laugh in your eyes, as they squint. You're like a kid with that face. So young not full of the horrors we see on a daily basis. We laugh as we fell off the bed, a tangle of sheets and we still kept going. You encouraged that. Our hearts beating together was the perfect song.

We slept on the floor that time, all legs and arms wrapped into each other like a living sculpture. The CCTV camera saw us. I copied that image and saved it. It is on a DVD that I put in that tin box of mine. It survived the explosion, just like me.

The tears a silent now, memories have a way of doing that playing tricks on the soul. The heart beats normal, and I'm not in such a state. Your gentle smile dances before me. I think it was when you caught me cheating at naked hide and seek you smiled that smile, first.

Oh to let you know, Ianto, I can't drink coffee any more. You ruined that for me. But I will try to love the next person and I will tell them about you. I will tell them that because of you I won't let life drift pass me. I will live forever but I don't want to miss it again.

Like I miss you now. And always will.

The End.