3
Ianto was cold.
It was dark and somewhere he could hear Ton crying softly.
Oh my baby.
Get up darling
Lisa?
Get up darling, wake up.
Lisa, where am I.
You are going to be OK, wake up darling.
Ianto tried to wake up.
He knew he had hit the building they had been walking past, the breath knocked out of him as he lay face down in the rubble, trying to breathe.
Were they hit by a car?
He could feel the cobbles under his fingertips, the brick building behind him when he rolled against it in an effort for more air.
His ears were ringing and he yawned in an effort to pop them, hoping to restore something as he blinked in the harsh light.
Hands, touching him, lifting him as he was patted down gently and then it all returned in a rush.
Like being physically slapped, Ianto was reeling back against the brickwork.
Screaming.
The smell of … oh god.
Ianto looked around at the devastation and then remembered the mother and child, crying out as he realized the fluttering object had been the pushchair.
He struggled over to it and fell to his knees, pulling it over to stare into the vacant face of the dead baby.
He was screaming now, struggling with those trying to help as he clung to the poor little girl.
He was upright and he pulled away from the hands as he sought the woman, finding a leg that bore the leggings he had seen under her coat with the sunflowers on them.
Her torso was not far away.
He stumbled towards it and the red hair he had admired was … oh god. Not hair, that was…
Ianto vomited in the street, his knees giving out as hands were holding him again, voices trying to soothe and center him.
He looked around.
Bodies littered the street and the wailing emergency vehicles helped drown out the feeble death cries of those beyond help.
The bus was now a mangled mess, the top layer peeled back like a sardine can with too much to look at, there was too much assaulting Ianto's sight and he closed his eyes.