Spoilers, spoilers, spoilers. This is my reaction to what happened on Thurs 9th and Friday 10th (Children of Earth Days 4 and 5). If you haven't watched it and don't wish to be spoilered, don't read.

Also, it is quite raw. But that is how I felt after the series. So, excuse the lack of polished finishes.

Comments, reviews here or at my Livejournal would be welcome.

Memories

It takes a lot of determination to open the front door and step in. He's been watching the place since... He swallows the knot on his throat, putting the spare key Ianto kept under a loose stone in the garden in his pocket and closing the door behind him. Closing his eyes, he felt tears running down his face, and memories flooding his mind. Ianto complaining about him leaving mugs on the coffee table without a coaster, with that half smile that told him he wasn't really in trouble. Falling onto Ianto's huge bed, sometimes so exhausted they didn't even get out of their clothes, sometimes so entangled on each others the world could have ended and they wouldn't have noticed. Ianto stepping out of the shower, towel around his waist; that half surprised look the first time he found Jack cooking dinner instead of waiting for the takeaway or the pizza.

Blinking furiously, he puts down the cardboard boxes he's brought with him. There may not be a Hub for Ianto to rest, there may not be a Torchwood Three to speak of, but he isn't doing this to follow rules and regulations. This... this he owes to Ianto. It's what he would have wanted. Over the counter that separates the kitchen from the sitting room, the pot of coffee they never had time to drink is still waiting. Grabbing one of the boxes, struggling to transform it from its flatpacked form to a proper container, he steps into Ianto's bedroom. The room they had shared most of the nights they had been able to slip away from the Hub and the Rift for a few hours.

Ianto's wardrobe has always been impeccably organized: suits, shirts, ties, carefully pressed and hanging in meticulous order, so he could get dressed in the morning with an astounding economy of movement and thought. As he walks around the room, rummaging through drawers and boxes, he is suddenly aware of how obvious his presence in it in the past months is. A half read book he will never finish lies on one of the bedside tables. Toothbrush and razor in the en suite. Scattered clothes in need of dry cleaning lying on the floor, where Ianto would have glared at them if they had had time to think about it the last time they were here.

Taking off his coat, he sits on Ianto's side of the bed, and opens the bottom drawer on the bedside table. Reaching down, he takes out a small wooden box. Ianto's memory box, he called it the first time he saw it. Should he open? Ianto never made a secret of it, but... With shaky hands, he lifts the lid. In contrast with the order or everything that was Ianto – his clothes, his home, everything he touched – the box is a chaotic mix of old pictures (family, friends, Lisa, a suited gang that can only be part of Torchwood One, Torchwood Three back in Suzie's day, one night they finally dragged the new boy out for a drink, a picture of Jack he can't remember being taken), old cinema tickets and event admissions, snatches of paper with faded writing.

At the bottom of the box, lovingly wrapped in crimson velvet, is his stopwatch. The one he threw at him when they were trying to revive Suzie. The one he was happy Ianto never gave back. He punches the mattress, helplessness washing over him as the Cardiff rain has been doing for the last week while he mustered the courage to walk in here again.

Fighting back the tears, the frustration, the pain, he brings another of Ianto's precious possessions out of the drawer. Leather-bound and travelled, Ianto's diary is yet another of those little things that made Ianto different. In this day and age of computers, online blogs and digital information, Ianto chose to write. He always said it calmed him, and that is something Jack can understand. He doesn't know if he'll ever be able to read the pages, relieve good and bad times through Ianto's careful record. But the simple act of holding it somehow brings a certain peace to him. Carefully, he slides it into the inside pocket of his greatcoat. His hand closes around the stopwatch still in his hand, and, blinking away the tears, he loses himself in the mechanical task of boxing Ianto Jones' life, and a few of his own tears.

He thinks about staying the night, burying his head in Ianto's pillow and pretending he's there, alive and warm. But he can't get himself to do it. He wishes he had his faithful Webley with him, even if a bullet to the head would only give him a few moments of peace and the mess would make Ianto cringe.

He leaves a few hours later, not even leaving a note for Gwen to explain he was here. She will know it was him, when she finally comes. His hand closes once again around the cold metal of the stopwatch. He doesn't notice the rain when it hits him.