OF DEATH AND BEAUTY (First Season)

IANTO

The first beautiful thing Ianto could remember was his mother. Her tiny waist, slender hands and large wells of deepest blue, soulful eyes. Her dark hair curled and shone and smelt of apples. Ianto's mother died of cancer when he was eight. Death, then was just the aching absence of someone that he adored with all his heart. When she first became ill he had prayed hard to God every night to make her better. After her passing he stopped talking to God. He stopped talking to everyone. The second beautiful thing was a journey to from Newport to Lavernock taken one night in late October on a clear starry night. He was eight and he'd run away from home to go and look for his mother. He found her in the twinkling heavens as he stood on the edge of the cliff overlooking the Bristol Channel. The police brought him home and he'd suffered his first beating that night. Ianto's father often spoke with his belt or his fists and Ianto always stood between him and Rhiannon because his father was too drunk to realise which one of them he was beating.

Ianto was glad when his father died and didn't bother going to the funeral because he didn't see the point. Instead he got done for shoplifting and served a sentence for opening his mouth for the first time in seven years.

After that the only beauty Ianto saw was in the romantic poets or in any other book he could hide his face in. He loved words, loved art and he loved them because his mother had and he wanted to be like her. Detention reformed him, made him realise he had to get out of the life he was in.

Death was being trapped in poverty, it was loss of hope and faith. It was the loss of his mother and being an uncle at the age of seventeen. Rhiannon became part of the cycle, the only saving grace was that Johnnie was a decent bloke. The next beautiful thing was seeing Rhi's new born baby for the first time. He had always thought babies to be disgusting and smelly, but little David was perfect and Ianto held him like China and cried because his mother had missed this precious moment in their lives. He promised to give everything he could.

Death was realising he truly could remember everything he was visually exposed to and waking up each night having revisited those recollections. His life became memory and silence and he hid behind expensive wool silk blends and highly polished shoes. People thought he was weird, OCD. He never fitted in.

Torchwood happened.

Quite by accident, though in later life Ianto often questioned that. Torchwood encouraged his neatness, his attention to detail and his obsession with gaining knowledge.

Death was his first kiss. Not with Lisa but Jordan from accounting. It was a beautiful moment and Ianto remembered stars in his head when their lips met. Jordan didn't remember the following day and Ianto walked away feeling humiliated and confused.

Lisa was beautiful, the timbre of her voice, her deep heartfelt laughter, the way she painstakingly manicured and painted her nails. Lisa shone through all the ugliness in his world and he knew he would never tire of looking at her. Death was meeting Lisa. He killed his old life that day and spun tales of childhood happiness and family holidays. Lisa would never know the man Ianto truly was underneath what he was desperately trying to become. Someone else. Death was falling in love, losing his virginity, having butterflies in his stomach and being held through the night. It was the sweet smell of cocoa butter lotion and perfume like tea roses.

When the Cybermen came and ripped his new found world apart Ianto found himself living for the first time. Making Lisa better became his only purpose in life, no matter the cost. His friends had died, what few he had, so the only person he could rely on was himself. Fear kept him awake. Lisa.

He never even considered the possibility that she was already dead.

It crashed around him and as he lay face down in the dirty shallow water of the Hub he felt his heart stop beating in his chest. There was a light and a shocking pain as he was hauled back into life by those fiery lips against his.

Jack.

Death was betrayal and hurt and it flooded through Ianto's veins like a poison as the air exploded into his lungs. Death was Lisa's final words and now that she was gone there truly was nothing left to live for. There was only the pitying glances from Gwen, the anger from Owen, the sadness from Tosh and the comforting hand on his shoulder from Jack.

Death was forgiveness and all he could do was straighten his tie and shine his shoes.

Beauty and tears came again in the form of a love letter that Tosh read to him. It had fallen through the Rift and taken her a week to translate. Ianto had cried that night.

The first time he saw Jack die then spark back into life was of no surprise. This was Jack after all. What startled him was how distressed Jack looked as he was hauled back into living and breathing again. Ianto knew that look. Loneliness and disappointment. Death was not an option for Jack and Ianto had learnt to forgive by then. He made the coffee and kept the secret. Jack seemed to appreciate his discretion as much as his body. Beauty was the way that Jack would witness all of history. Ianto knew that Jack did not see it that way. It was also the fact that he had a pet dinosaur and worked in a cavern and was able to steal moments to look upon the strange things that were housed there. Beauty was Jack's hands in his hair, sliding over his skin and the way he would chuckle against his neck when Ianto shivered at his touch. It was the sound of Jack whispering or sometimes shouting his name when he came. It was the way Jack would smile at him after.

Death was the first time he and Jack made love, the night after John Ellis had died in his car. The second death was when Gwen stood guard over Jack's body, denying him his grief. Death was a kiss, death was a sudden departure to the arms of another man and him being alone again.

Beauty was Rhiannon and how she had held on to her life, never having to pretend or run away. She had a husband and two children that she loved with such ferocity and inspite of their poverty she made them happy, was happy herself.

Beauty was a dream of dying in his lovers arms because when he died there was no other place he would rather be...

AN: You will see I am somewhat preoccupied with the subject of dying lately... I've lost a dear friend recently and my aunt is also dying from Lung Cancer, I suspect this is my way of dealing with it. I was always told it is good to exorcise ones anxieties through writing...

Thanks for your reviews... you know who you are and you are always greatly appreciated. The friend I lost I met through this web site and that is the value of this place, getting to know new people and making friends who stay with you throughout...

Deeta