Title: Blank Spots
Characters: Rhiannon, Ianto, Their Father (unnamed), David
Ratings/Warning: NC-17 – dark themes, including allusions to murder and child abuse.
Spoilers: Children of Earth
Summary: Every family has its secrets, but the Jones family has secrets darker than most…

A/N: My grandfather died of bladder cancer three years ago. The illness of Ianto and Rhiannon's father is based on his deterioration.

Blank Spots

"Little and big secrets
silence, unsharing
from shame, for protection
blank spots
in the telling
of our story."

~ "Family Secrets" by Raymond A. Foss

Their father had died of progressive bladder cancer.

That's what the document said. It was there; signed, sealed, official and locked away.

Rhiannon hands shook as she pulled the old, crumpled paper from the base of the box. It was a document she had lost a long time ago, a document she had consigned to the dust of history. Misplacing it in the first place had only caused a few moments of guilty panic, before she had pulled herself together and realised that she really didn't care. Their father was dead, after all, and she didn't need a doctor's signature to remind her of that.

She hadn't expected to find it here, shoved away in a box of old photos and journals, in the dingy recesses of this flat. It was the last place she'd expected to find it. The last person she'd expected to have it.

But then, maybe it wasn't so strange after all.

She remembered the last days of her father's life. Remembered the long hours listening to the rasping of his breath, dutifully washing the skeletal frame of his body, changing the soil of his colostomy bag; always the same, day in and day out. She should have hated him for doing this to himself, should have felt revulsion at the price she was having to pay for all those years of stuffing tobacco into his lungs, but she couldn't summon the energy.

Her brother hadn't bothered. Slouching in and out of the house, sometimes coming into the room, but never offering to help, never lending a hand to aid her in her struggles. She didn't blame him. He didn't want to touch his father, and his father didn't want to be touched by him. It was a mutual revulsion, a sentiment shared. The only time they had ever agreed on anything.

David had been only young, playing downstairs. Ianto was trying, she'd admit, but there was very little that her withdrawn, angry nineteen-year-old brother had in common with the boisterous three-year-old. She could see the vein pulsing at his throat as he held himself back, saw that anger rising as the child tried to climb on him, always there, always loud, and always annoying.

His fist had clenched.

And then she'd seen the fear in her brother's eyes, shining through as he pushed her son away frantically. His fingers had gripped at his wrist, and lips moving in a silent chant as he began to rock. As the shirt sleeves rode up with the effort of his obsessive rubbing, the small, scarred welts across the length of his arm were clear. She didn't need to look to know they were there. Even though she tried to forget.

It had been easy to read the words forming silently on his lips – not me, not me, not me – and she'd wanted to step forward, enfold him in her arms and smooth his hair down, reassure him – not you, never you, not the same – but the rasping cry of her father had forced her to turn away.

He'd died in the morning.

She'd been in the kitchen, fetching herself a glass of water. Or maybe it was whisky. The memory was hazy, unimportant and stupid compared to everything else, but she wanted it. Wanted to remember what she was drinking, wanted to remember what she was doing, wanted each detail forged into her memory as clear as any other, because maybe if the surroundings memories were clear then everything would make sense. .

There'd been a rustling from the room, the gently movement of fabric against skin, and she remembered stopping, pausing outside the door with her hands clenched around the cup. This memory was sharp – the coldness of the glass against her palm, the ticking of the clock like gunfire in her ears, her own breathing roaring through the quite space.

Time hadn't stopped as she peered around the door. Time never stopped, never offered a chance to stop and think and change your actions. But it had seemed to slow down, each heartbeat drawn out within her chest as her eyes swallowed the room in their gaze.

Her brother had been there, one hand clenched by his side, eyes fixed on the still body beside him. There was a slight tremor running along his body, fist shaking against the course material of his jeans. At first, she'd thought he was crying, but there were no tears, just cold, dead orbs sitting in the place of those blue irises she had always loved so much.

She'd taken a step forward, hand outstretch and lips parted, offering meaningless comfort, petty words…anything, something to get through that shell that he had built up.

But she'd stopped short when she realised something was missing.

The breathing. The rasping noise that had filled her ears and her life for such a long time. She couldn't hear it anymore.

Suddenly, her brother jerked, looking up at her with panic on his face. Before she'd been able to speak he had rushed passed, a whirl of black clothes and pale skin shooting by her as words failed to form on her lips. She'd been able to smell the sweat on his skin, damp with fear and panic; hear the shakiness of his breath slide against her as he passed; seen his fist clutching furiously at something she couldn't quite make out…

The next day, he'd gone.

She found out a week later, from a friend of his, that he'd caught the early morning train to London, packing only a few clothes and taking money from her purse. A few days after that, she'd found a small pillow stuffed underneath her bed, a slight red stain sunk into the fabric and a scribbled "sorry" taped to the corner.

Now, here in this dingy flat - her father long buried and her brother cooling in a London morgue - she held the crumpled document in her hand. The words burned lies into her brain, lies she had willingly believed for so many years.

Pulling a lighter from her pocket, Rhiannon held it against the corner of the paper, watching as the flames ate away the denial she had held in her heart for far too long.

She didn't cry as it burned.

Thank you for reading.

Reviews feed the muse!