"The Truth is a Three Edged Sword, Their Side, Your Side and Reality Itself" (The Vorlons)

PARADOXOSIS PT 9

The Sleeper Awakes.

Sunlight was the most precious thing in Ianto's life. As a child it heralded the day of his birth, bringing light into the eyes of his parent's. It meant a day at the beach, or in the park or just sitting on the back porch step playing with his cars or rubbing his dog's ears. The Sunlight made his world shine and always left him feeling like something good was left for him to grab hold of, even on his darkest of days. The day when his parents had died in a road traffic accident, when his sister lost her fight against HIV, when his friends and loved ones burned at Canary Wharf and the day he realised that Lisa was no longer human. So many things turned to ash, leaving emptiness and desolation in its wake. Except he could still look up into a blue sky, see the sun and find some comfort there. He never understood it, never questioned it because it enabled him to hang on to his fragile grasp of his own humanity. Then he went to the Brecons, was confronted by the unthinkable, the repulsive, the disgusting and the impossible. Humans at their basest level feeding on the flesh of their own kind, taking lustful pleasure in an act of the devil. Not that he was religious you understand. The metaphor was distasteful to him. But the inhumanity of those acts snapped his delicate thread and sent him into the abyss.

The litre of vodka had gone down his throat like fire, too easily and too quickly. But he could still drown in his overwhelming horror, still felt contaminated by the filth of that day. He had wanted to feel something, anything but what he was feeling now. The sun wasn't up to rescue him from the blackness. The kitchen knife was too blunt, barely scratched the surface of his porcelain skin. The Stanley blade glided through his flesh, making him quiver on the verge of orgasm………….

Jack had settled himself on the floor outside of the door behind which Ianto was sealed. The Doctor had been very specific. Under no circumstances was Jack to enter the room, to do so would risk killing the man behind the door who was trapped in a perverse contortion of time, deciding his own fete. Jack had had to bite his own knuckles when Ianto started screaming. But he sat there none the less, hoping by some small chance that Ianto would know he was there and choose to come back to him. Tears flooding down his face in silence.

The feel of Jack's hands on his skin was like being touched by fire. Every fibre of his being, electrified by the delicate brush strokes of his lover's fingertips. Each single touch of his lips against his felt like the beginnings of the universe itself, pouring into his broken soul, healing him. Ianto breathed Jack, every moment, every breath, his beautiful Jack. He had never felt pain or joy like it. His smell, his voice and his body heat all became part of himself. They moved as one, they spoke as one and they thought as one. Like two halves of the same soul finally melded together through longing and loneliness. Ianto knew he would never feel this way again and when Jack left, the emptiness was a chasm and his body became a shell of nothingness. What was he with out this man? A mere shadow, an empty amphora used and tossed away to rot into dust.

Jack wasn't sure how much time had passed. He was dozing when Martha proffered a cup of tea and couple of digestive biscuits. He accepted them with a grateful smile.

"How long?"

Martha glanced at her watch. "Seven hours 38 minutes." She patted his shoulder. "Don't worry Jack."

White, pain. Blindingly bright and screaming in the depths of his skull. God so much pain. Everything nerve on fire. So much hatred and lust. It was Brecon, all over again, just one mad man with so much evil in his twisted excuse for a soul. Why won't the pain end? Jack will save us. He'll put the world to rights. That's what he does. He fixes the world and makes everything right again. Where are you Jack?

Ianto lurched to his feet throwing off Jack's greatcoat to the curved floor. He pounded on the wall and screamed Jacks name. He had never felt this kind of primal terror before, the Master was coming for him and he knew he was about to blow his own brains out again and right now it was last thing he wanted to do.

But the gun had already been pressed into his shaking hand; the barrel at his temple and a Weevil was tearing at his flesh and bones.

He pummelled the cold smooth surface of the wall that felt as cold as marble and unforgiving as he pounded it, breaking his knuckles, splitting the skin. The red of his blood stark against the whiteness. Ianto froze and sank down sobbing.

"I don't want to die, please I don't want to die."

Tell me what it is you want?

"I want to live. It's all I want is to live."

What would make you live?

"I would. Do I need a reason?"

Are you worthy of that gift?

"No. But no one has the right to judge my worthiness."

Who are you?

"I'm Ianto Ifan Jones."

That is merely your name. Who are you?

"I am the son of Manon and Ivor Jones, brother to Menon."

An accident of birth, miracle of nature?

"We are all miracles. Life itself is a miracle. Please I do not want to die. I'm afraid of the darkness."

What would make you live?

"The light. I love the sunlight. The sky, the stars, the air over the sea in my lungs and my friends who are waiting for me not to let them down by giving up. I don't know who you are. Who are you?"

I am Ianto Ifan Jones who are you?

"I don't understand the question."

And that is why you will die.

"I'm just me, Ianto. The quiet one in the corner who never says anything. Doesn't want to upset anyone. I'm scared of the dark and spiders. My favourite book is 'Rendezvous with Rama' by Arthur C Clark. I like to wear suits and drink coffee. I love claret red shirts because they always make Jack smile when I wear them. I write in my diary every day since my Mam and Tad died because it's like I am talking to them. If I had to die to save my friends or the world I would, but not like this. Not just by sinking into nothingness. I want my death to count for something. Not here, not now please, not like this."

Ianto had cried a few times in his life, but never like this. Heaving each sob with a wrench in his gut that made him hurt all over. He finally curled into a ball and pulled Jack's coat around him for warmth and fell into an exhausted sleep.

There were voices around him. Gentle hands lifting him and the warmth of someone close against him. Warm sweet breath against his face, a mixture of spice and honey. He was warm, could feel the heat tingling in his toes. There was light on his face. Was that bird song?

"Jack?"

"Hey there."

"Where am I?"

"In a chair on the balcony at your flat. It's a beautiful morning. I thought you'd like to see it."

Ianto slowly opened his eyes; the light of dawn was spreading over the rooftops.

"You brought me home?"

Jack nodded settling in a chair beside the one he had sat Ianto in, wrapped in his coat with hot water bottles and a pair of Gwen's big rabbit slippers on his feet.

Ianto felt like an old aged pensioner. "Did he fix me?"

Jack gasped his wrist, the warmest it had been for days. "Well the way I see it, you fixed yourself. Though your hands will take a couple of weeks to mend. You'll be ok Ianto. The room took away all the rift energy in your body and you made the decision to live in the here and now."

"I must thank the Doctor."

"You already did, by making the choice you made. He's gone now anyway, back out there somewhere." Jack gestured to the sky.

Ianto turned to look at him in the half-light.

"You didn't go with him."

Jack met his look with a brilliant and heartfelt smile. "I have everything I ever wanted right here. It took me seeing you die on the Valiant to realise that. So if you're still up for that date?" There was a hopeful and mischievous glint in his eyes.

Ianto turned back to the view.

"Dinner and a movie? Count me in."

THE END

AN: Thank you for your kind reviews... I hope I have acheived a decent ending here,because this was very hard to write. I knew what I wanted to achieve but not sure if I have pulled it off. OPinions would be gratefully recieved...Thank you.