Just a little scrap of a drabble inspired by the song "I'll Follow You into the Dark" by Death Cab for Cutie. I think it really fits. :/

XXX

You and me have seen everything to see

From Bangkok to Calgary

And the soles of your shoes are all worn down

The time for sleep is now

It's nothing to cry about

'Cause we'll hold each other soon

In the blackest of rooms

If Heaven and Hell decide

That they both are satisfied

Illuminate the 'No's on their vacancy signs

Sometimes he would come here. On nights he couldn't bear spending alone, he would come here.

Occasionally he would go to Gwen and Rhys'--they were most accomodating, and most understanding, both too much and not enough. He could sleep on their settee there, and wouldn't have to worry about bad dreams because the baby would keep them all up too much anyway. Other nights, where it would have been too many times for it be fair on them, he would just go back to the Hub like usual and sleep in the office the best he could. And then other times, he would come here instead.

Next to his cold corpse, Jack would lie and drift. Only in this room, holding his hand more tightly than would have been bearable were its owner alive, would his sleep be worthy of the title. No nightmares ever touched him here. He wasn't even sure whether he was ever asleep or not at all--perhaps some new state he'd achieved.

It was just him now. Suzie, Owen, Tosh, and him, they were gone. Gwen was too busy to keep saving the world anymore, what with the baby... and he couldn't do it anymore. He had been so many places, done so many things, fought so many times, but it was only him who came out at the end, every single time. He felt almost old--as close as he could get to old.

"If you died, I'd follow you." That's what he'd been told, so long ago he couldn't think even of a safe ball park for the memory. Jack had actually laughed first. He couldn't die. Then he stopped and just held him, and forgot the technicalities. He tried to convince him not to--for a moment both of them truly forgot it could never happen as they'd argued.

There was always the unspoken, the unasked--"Would you follow me?" Ianto never asked it. Jack never answered it.

Maybe this was the equivalent of dying for him. For anyone else, it would be. If this was as close as he could get, then it was fine by him.

If there's no one beside you

When your soul embarks

Then I'll follow you into the dark

Then I'll follow you into the dark