Author's Note(s): Yet another songfic, originally based on 'My Last Breath' by Evanescence, though it did stray a bit. Beautiful, beautiful song. The story sort of took on a life of it's own, so I didn't use the lyrics as a template as much as I normally do, but I think it worked out!

Wow, the second time in two straight Torchwood stories, I'm doing something which I always hate when other authors do. Last time it was calling Ianto 'Yan,' which I really dislike, and now I'm typing a scene from the show into the story. I always find that unnecessary, almost like it's plagiarism, though obviously it's not, if your fic is just being canon. But I still think it's annoying, cause most of the time we already have the scene memorized anyway (you shippers and Torchwood obsessives, you know what I'm talking about! ;), but it's a flashback-y-type-thing, so I kind of had to. You'll understand. Anyway, please forgive me?

Last note, promise. This story does not even try or pretend to line up with any religion. I used the word Heaven because I believe that's what the character in question would have grown up calling it. I don't actually know enough about any religion (which may or may not be obvious :) to describe any recognized faith's afterlife correctly, so this is basically what I think it would be like. And, voila, it is! Oh, the joys of being an author!

Anyway, hope you enjoy!

[*]

"You will die. And tomorrow your people will deliver the children."

Jack's blurry eyes slide helplessly away from the foggy cage of the beast, dragged back to the gaunt face of his lover. He doesn't even have the strength left anymore to whisper to him, to beg him. It is a fight against his tunneling vision, his shaking limbs, his tightening throat, to brush his lips tenderly across Ianto's. He stays there, holding that point of contact for as long as he possibly can, tears sliding unchecked down his cheeks.

The feeling of Ianto in his arms is the last sensation he takes into the darkness.

[*]

The screams in his- Soul? Mind? Consciousness?- are so loud, so gut-wrenching that the pain of them is almost enough to distract from the utter emptiness of this place. It's an unknown eternity, lasting forever and the blink of an eye that he floats there, phantom heart breaking.

There's a presence, off to one side. Panic rushes through his spirit, giving him the impression that he'd be choking on his fear if he still had a throat. He recoils, fearing that creature, that monster that he can always sense here, the one that emanates the same deep, menacing evil as Abbadon only so much bigger.

Something brushes against him, but it's not cold as ice and sharp and terror embodied like he feels whenever he got too near that thing. This is gentler, warm. And it brings light.

He doesn't have eyes to see it, or a body to feel the warmth, or ears to hear it, but somehow he can understand it. The spirit is expressing friendship and camaraderie, sharing his hatred and fear of his surroundings. It soothes the acidic press of the emptiness outside him and reaches into his mind(?) to touch the grief and despair inside him, the utter shock and the sensation that the very ether of who he is has been burning and scattered. It coaxes him to let it in, to let it see him.

He must have gone mad. There's no one else in this place, this infinite lack of life or existence, no one else but the monster. What is this spirit that is with him, its smooth touch diverting the pain of his existence? He relaxes his mind, tentatively allowing the spirit entrance.

It gently reaches inside. He'd gasp with the sensation, if he had a body. The glow, the warm, non-existent light, it seems to be going through him. As invasive and surprising as champagne up the nose, but utterly more comforting. The throbbing mass of mourning and terror, grief and anger that is his brain is calmed wherever it touches.

Gray, Tosh and Owen stop stabbing hooked daggers into his heart. The loss of them is still there, but the guilt and tears that he's repressed retreat somewhat. Other hurts that he hadn't even acknowledged are soothed under the spirit's touch:

The Doctor's voice, echoing with distrust and scorn, announcing his wrongness, his unworthiness. The same man, the one for whom he'd trawled through a primitive, vicious century and died for hundreds of times over, crying and begging while cradling the man who'd made it his mission to cause Jack as much pain as was physically possible and succeeded. A woman he'd saved, who'd saved him, who he'd worked with and trusted with some of his secrets for half a decade betraying him, taking advantage of his trust to murder innocents and then kill him. The team he'd handpicked loosing their hard-earned trust in him and betraying him. A man he'd loved when he was naïve enough to fall, taunting and killing him, taking his memories of their love and tainting them by slaughtering the people of the city he'd given his life for to protect so many times.

The spirit touches all these and more, stitching up the tiny scratches that have coalesced to make his soul a battered, bloody mess. It moves with empathy and kindness, touching each bruise with a delicate caress, then moving on.

Jack's mind spasms as the spirit approaches the pulsing ball of tears at the center of his psyche. Ianto's death, his loss, mere seconds/minutes/hours before has sunk in and is carving it's own piece out of the muscles of Jack's heart. The spirit surrounds the aching mess of his memories and slowly squeezes it, almost massaging the quivering emotions that are sunk in his very core.

The memory flows back to him as vividly as if it were still happening. Jack swallows back the wave of emotion that threatens to overwhelm him again as he watches.

"Don't speak, save your breath," he was saying. His heart had been shattering, he remembers. At that moment, some part of his brain had been screaming for someone to come, the Doctor, Gwen, ANYONE to rescue them, but most of his had been frozen. The only functioning part had been his heart, which was busy measuring the seconds slipping through his fingers, trying to savor the feelings of Ianto in his arms, knowing, despite his denial, that these were the last moments he'd ever have with this man, the one who he…

"I love you."

No. Oh, God no. Don't say that, not now. You're going to be okay, you'll heal, and then you can say it for real and I can say it back and it'll be great, so great, so real, I promise! Not like this, not like- like it's a deathbed promise, like it's the last thing you'll ever say, ever feel. Don't leave me like this, imagining everything that could have been, the life we could have had, loving each other. Don't say goodbye…

"Don't." He couldn't say all that, couldn't say everything he wanted to say. He wasn't about to waste Ianto's last moments with talking, filling up the air like he always did. He had to hold Ianto, to stare into his eyes the way he did when they first woke up, in these last moments.

His eyes closed.

"Ianto? Ianto!" He whispered. "Ianto, stay with me. Ianto, stay with me, please! Stay with me, stay with me, please! Please!" His voice cracked, crying again, he trailed off as Ianto's eyes opened again.

Another few moments with his lover, snatched before he was gone forever. Living on stolen time, when were they ever not? And yet he still didn't know what to say. What words were valuable enough, that they could be worth saying in these last scavenged minutes, the last time they'd ever be together?

He rubbed Ianto's shoulder under his hand, the other caressing his cheek, smoothing over it, the last intimate contact they'd ever have. The taste of death was so forward on his tongue, the virus already burning his lungs the same way it was Ianto's. His biology must be giving his these extra seconds of lucidity while Ianto succumbed so quickly… so quick and easy to die, to leave him… He kept his eyes open except for blinking away the fog of tears, determined not to miss an instant of the time he had left.

Ianto's unseeing eyes focused again. "Hey." He made Jack focus on him, like he wasn't already, but it was comforting. He was saying 'don't think about that, look at me.' The same way he always did when Jack was upset. Now all he needed was to put on a little smirk and say something witty, dragging a smile out of him. Then they'd go out for dinner, or to bed to not-sleep.

But this wasn't happy. He wasn't making a joke. He was crying. "It was good, yeah?"

Oh. Oh. This what he'd missed the first time around. Ianto wasn't where he was, hadn't lost a dozen lovers, loves, like this. He wasn't saying, 'I'm glad we at least had this time together,' like his wife in the nineteen-tens. He'd swallowed Jack's 'Don't' the wrong way, as a denial, and he was trying to see whether any of their relationship had been worth it at all.

As the Jack in the memory replies ("Yeah"), the Jack watching his own memory from an outsider's perspective starts sobbing anew as he realizes how he'd let Ianto down, how horribly the Welshman had misunderstood him. While he'd been trying to cherish his last moments with this man, Ianto had been wondering if Jack even cared for him. No wonder he'd been so adamant that-

"A thousand years time, you won't remember me."

"Yes I will," he swore. He pulled Ianto closer to him, hating the emotions on the young man's face, the obvious signs that their time was about to run out. "I promise!"

'How could you think that? How could you think I'd forget you?' He'd wondered at the time. Now he knew better. This time, he can see the disbelief on Ianto's face, that even with his assurances that there was no way he could forget him, he'd already broken Ianto's ability to believe him.

He doesn't want to watch any more. What is this creature? He'd thought it was being kind, taking away the pain of things that were still lingering from centuries ago, still grating from mere months ago. Now it was rubbing in his face the obvious truths of what a terrible lover he'd been, what a horrible person he was, that even in his lover's last breaths he couldn't offer Ianto relief, couldn't make him happy.

"Why are you doing this?" he screams. There is no sound, no sound in the non-existence, the emptiness of this place, this space. "I don't want to see any more!

Next, he knows, was Ianto taking a deep breath, his eyes opening wider, then closing. He watches it happen, beating with non-existent fists against the memory. Ianto's eyes cracked open, meeting his for the last time. "Stop it!" he roars, mental voice snapping.

Ianto's eyes don't close.

Jack stares at the memory, frozen in his mind. "Why?" he whispers to the spirit. Frozen at one of the worst moments in his life. While it was happening, he'd have given anything for another second with Ianto, but that second?

The spirit wraps tighter around him, and Jack feels it.

"Ianto?"

The spirit is hugging his mind, enfolding him just like Ianto always did after one of his nightmares. Tightened the blanket around him, or if he was too hot simply held on tight, and whispered in his ear.

Jack stares at his lover's eyes and tentatively hugs back.

"I can't stay long, Jack."

Jack grips the spirit, pulling it close and squeezing it to him. "Why are you here, how are you here, why can't you stay?" he asks them all in an instant, thoughts of them together in bed, at Torchwood sharing a smile over coffee, laughing with the team, all shared along with the questions.

The spirit chuckles. "I can't go back. But I'll be here."

Jack is crying at the presence, no, at the impending absence of his lover. Holding the spirit as close as he can. "Why not?" he begs.

"Because I'm dead, Jack," the spirit replies. In that same tone Ianto always took when Jack tried to pull him away from work, or from his book, or to breakfast at their favorite coffee shop. 'Because I'm working, Jack.' 'Because I'm busy, Jack.' 'Because you're naked, Jack.'

He hitches a sob at the reminders, and Ianto laughs at the memories.

"I got here early," Ianto-spirit remarks to itself. It makes a motion that, if they'd been corporeal, would've amounted to rubbing his back. "All I wanted to say was I love you and I'm not afraid of what comes next."

Jack makes a noise that would've been a laugh if it wasn't so full of pain. "There's nothing next, Ianto! There's just this!" He motions at the freezing emptiness around them.

Ianto-spirit chuckles. "I'll see you soon, Jack," and pulls away.

Jack tries to grab at the retreating spirit, but it's like trying to hold onto silk in a strong wind. Ianto slips through the grasping tendrils of his mind like dust. "Ianto! Please, please don't leave me!" he cries after the figure he could barely feel. He begins to feel the all-too-familiar tug and fights against it with all his strength.

"I'll see you soon. I promise." Jack looses the fight, and the sense of Ianto vanishes as he's dragged, kicking and screaming, back into the light.

[*]

No great gasp, not this time. A quiet inhalation, eyes opening. A moment of disorientation, then the knowledge entered his head, peacefully, like news being gently broken. The emotional upheaval hits you like a freight train, sure, but the delivery itself is quiet, calm. Jack remembered this from other times he was told his loved ones were dead.

He heard and identified Gwen's breathing before he even looked. He sat up, filled with some detached, floaty sort of energy. Some odd cushion between him and the world, like a glass pane that let him see clearly but didn't let in any sound, any emotion. Somewhere inside of him were great, tearing sobs of anguish, but as he moved over to her, stared down at Ianto's body, the sense of isolation kept his eyes barely wet.

"There's nothing we can do."

[*]

He saved the world, killed his grandson, and left.

He traveled the Earth, found it hurt more than death, and left the planet.

It was honestly a surprise that it took him an additional two months to die.

Walking back to the apartment Lhogana was letting him squat at. Drunk, as usual. Lucky she didn't mind. But it turns out alien hovercars do, at least when you walk into them.

At least he woke up somewhere nice.

Speaking of which, where was he? He was used to waking up in dingy alleys, with Ian-

He closed his eyes again.

"You just gonna lay there, then?"

He sat up abruptly, looking around what appeared to be the outdoor pavilion of a café. He was sitting on a red-stained wooden floor between two metal chairs, with vines for backing and cushions attached to the seats. Around him sat several small round tables made of the same metal designs and textured glass covering the tops. Two tables away was a figure, wearing a dark t-shirt and jeans, and sipping a mug of what had to be coffee.

Jack stood up, slowly walked between the scattered chairs until he was in front of the table.

Ianto smiled, "I told you I'd see you again," and motioned to a chair.

Jack sat. Ianto leaned forward and placed down a coffee mug that had literally appeared in his hand. Jack took a sip, closing his eyes.

"I know, almost as good as mine, huh?" Ianto joked.

Jack opened his eyes. "I haven't had coffee in a while."Ianto sighed and put down his mug, sobering. "I'm sorry, Jack. I'm sorry I couldn't be there longer when I died."

Jack almost laughed. "Hell of a thing to be sorry about, Ianto."

The younger man gave a small smile, then looked up. "I mean, I'm sorry I didn't get to explain fully. When I died, it took a while for me to get through processing, then I had to get someone's attention, and explain the situation, then I had to plead my case. It all took a long time."Jack leaned forward. "What are you talking about? You're dead!" he said bluntly.

"I know," Ianto nodded. He sat back in his chair. "I have to explain this to you, Jack. There is somewhere we go, after we die.""What, here?" Jack motioned around to the pavilion. He could see the building to his left, yellow-orange stone and red roof, see the flowers in the window-boxes, but somehow he couldn't see inside the windows. On the other side, there was a red-cobbled road, and a cast-iron gate between it and the café, but somehow the street just seemed to end half-way across, and he couldn't see past it. There wasn't blackness, or emptiness, there just… wasn't. "Where are we, Ianto?" he asked, panic seeping into his tone.

"We're somewhere I made up. I created this place, to see you," Ianto explained. "When you die, Jack, you're judged. There's lines, like for getting into a cinema, and they tell you which door to go through. When I walked through my door, I was in this house." His eyes fixed on Jack's seriously. "It was Tosh's house."

Jack's mouth dropped open, and he turned his head to the side questioningly. "What are you talking about?"

Ianto leaned forward, smiling. "It was Heaven, Jack. Tosh has a house. She lives in a suburb, drives into town to visit Owen and her friends and family, and to work. They're both happy!"

Jack was shaking his head. "That makes no sense. I've died hundreds of times, there's never been anything there!"

But Ianto was waving that aside. "You never got far enough, Jack, you're not meant to really die yet. You get stuck in Limbo, that was where I found you the first time. But it's there, Jack, there's a Heaven!" He was grinning and moving his hands around as he spoke like he always had when he was alive, when he got really excited. "Tosh is a computer programmer, because they don't have mishaps in Heaven, but she makes new programs, and there are aliens- you hear me, Jack, there are aliens in Heaven!- and they need to be taught the software. She took me to her work, and she showed me all this alien technology they'd brought that she was adapting to be usable for humans. And of course there aren't diseases in Heaven, and no one dies, but people still fall off ladders and cut themselves cooking and such, so Owen still has work to do. And Tosh lives with Tommy, they got married- you can get married, in Heaven, can you believe that!- and Owen lives with his Katie, I met her, Jack, she's so kind. And it's incredible."

Jack stared as Ianto's eyes lit up and his cheeks flushed, and looked at the forearms that were always hidden under the suits. He smiled, because he got to see Ianto.

"Jack." Ianto said curiously. "Aren't you listening?"

"Why are you here, then?" he asked. "If Heaven's so wonderful."Ianto reached across the table and took Jack's hand from the barely-touched coffee. Jack's eyebrows went up in surprise: when he was alive, Ianto had rarely performed such gestures, and the fact that the place they were in looked public, even if it was empty, made him even more surprised.

"I gave it up." Ianto said simply.

Jack shook his head. "Why?"

"So I could see you."

Jack blinked, then laughed. "You're saying you gave up Heaven just so you could see me?"

"Yes," Ianto answered seriously.

Jack stared at him. "Why? For God's sake, Ianto, why would you give that up?"

Ianto looked down at their clasped hands, stroking Jack's with his free hand. He was silent for a few moments. "It never rains, Jack.""What are you talking about?" Jack said loudly, not a bit exasperated at Ianto for changing the subject when the had far, far more important things to talk about than the weather.

"I miss it." Ianto looked past Jack, eyes not focused. "In Cardiff, it rained more often than not. I grew up in Wales, I lived in Wales most of my life, so I'm used to the rain, I love the rain." He looked at Jack. "It never rains in Heaven."

Jack wet his lips, not understanding. "So?"

"So it's not perfect, Jack. It's great, it's amazing, really, but it's not perfect. And it's not perfect, 'cause you're not there." He gripped Jack's hand tighter.

"I talked to Tosh for a while, and she took me to the town offices. And then I talked to some people, filled out some paperwork, was bounced around to a few offices. But I finally got a meeting with someone important." He let go of Jack's hand with one of his and took another sip of the coffee, which Jack copied. It was great coffee, it just wasn't Ianto's coffee, so it simply didn't satisfy him.

"I had to go up the ladder a bit, where I eventually got to plead my case. It took a while, a few months on my end. But they granted me this, and when I went back to find you it had only been minutes for you, in Limbo. That was when I saw you just after we died."

"What did they grant you?" Jack asked, afraid of the answer.

Ianto tightened his hold on Jack's hand. "Every time you die, you'll come here. Or somewhere else I make up, we can talk about that. But I'll be here, you'll never have to go back to Limbo."

"How?" Jack asked, voice hoarse.

"I cashed in my chips," Ianto said, half-jokingly. "You get credits, for being good, doing good things, and you loose credits for being bad. Not for sinning and such, most human and alien religions don't entirely match up with the way the credit system works, but for doing honestly bad things. Tosh and Owen and I, working for Torchwood? We saved a lot of lives, and that got us lots of credits. I used up mine to get this with you."

Jack sank back in his chair, dumbstruck. Centuries of knowing, knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that everyone he loved essentially ceased to exist, that they were snuffed out like the light of a star from far away, there one day and gone the next. Never to think or laugh or love again. To hear that they were all potentially happy and together with their loved ones was mind-blowing.

Ianto smiled gently at his expression, sipping his coffee, which for some reason hadn't run out. He waited patiently while Jack collected his thoughts.

"Wait…" Jack spoke up after a few minutes of processing. "Where are you then? When I'm not dead? Are you stuck here alone?" he asked concernedly. Jack wondered for a moment if what he'd acknowledged was Ianto's excessive loyalty to him would stretch far enough to make an insane decision like that. He'd already caused his lover's death, he couldn't stand to be the reason for ruining his afterlife as well.

"No, I…" Ianto looked away from Jack. "I get to go back."

Jack's eyes narrowed at the tone. "If you spent all your credits to get here, then…" He begged the question.

Ianto shifted in his seat. "Owen and Tosh help me pay to stay in Heaven. And… and Lisa." He waited a few seconds before nervously glancing at Jack. "I'm living with her, when I'm not with you."

Jack considered this. "I'm glad," he said.

And he was. As much as he… cared for Ianto, he was happy that Ianto was happy. He knew he would have loathed for Ianto to be anywhere near as alone as he usually felt. Like he felt when Ianto died. Like he felt… well, right now.

"It's not-" Ianto exclaimed, stuttering. "I'm not saying- we're-" He sighed, took a deep breath, and changed tacks. "It's different, in Heaven. Owen's married with Katie, but he's married Diane as well, she just doesn't like to live with them. And he and Tosh are a lot closer, I'm always teasing them about whether they've started something up. And Tosh has gotten, I guess you could say a conjugal visit to Mary. She's not anywhere too bad, but her crimes on her home planet stopped her from getting in to Heaven. So…" he gestured between himself and Jack, vaguely. "I'm not… breaking up or anything, as much as I could do if I were to, not that there'd be a need for a 'break-up,' per se-" Ianto rambled.

Jack cleared his tightening throat and Ianto blushed, his beautiful eyes widening and his breaths starting to come closer together in nervousness. 'Apparently even being dead can't stop you from feeling insecure,' Jack thought ironically.

"Ianto, if what I think is right, you were in my mind. You could see how I felt. You must know how much I…" Again, for some reason, just like they always had during his real time with Ianto, the words stuck in his throat. Despite the point he was trying to get across, and the fact that knew he was right and that Ianto had to know what he meant, Jack could still see the flicker of uncertainty in the late Welshman's eyes as he stumbled over the words.

He never wanted to see that uncertainty in Ianto's face again.

"…how much I love you."

The honest shock in Ianto's expression was painful (how could he not know?), but the tentative traces of happiness made up for it. "Do you mean that?" Ianto whispered almost silently.

Jack leaned forward to take his hand again. "I really do," he said sincerely. He locked eyes with Ianto and let the moment hang, perfect with their smiles and their love.

Then he brought them back. "And I really don't care about Lisa. I know how much you love her still, and it's not like I can ever be there with you," he smiled, a tad bitterly, to cover up the sudden loss. Yet another thing he could never have with Ianto, another way he could never be normal. An eternity always that one degree off, never able to really be with someone.

Ianto frowned and tightened his grip. "You will, Jack. I promise, eventually, you will."Jack laughed. "You know that for sure? I told you, Ianto, I'm a fact. That means it's forever." He held up a hand to block Ianto's arguments. "And even if I do die someday, who says I wouldn't be going somewhere much worse than Mary?" He asked, half jokingly, half seriously.

Ianto's face morphed into a controlled mask of anger that Jack had seen before and learned to be wary of. "I do," Ianto growled, his low voice becoming husky in his firmness. "You are a hero, Jack Harkness, no matter how much you think you're a villain. By the time you arrive in Heaven you'll have enough credits to buy the place." His tone lightened. "And when you do get there, first you'll have to pay for me to come back full-time, not out here in Limbo. Then you'll have to buy a huge house, so you and I and Lisa and Estelle and everyone you have loved and will love can live there." He grinned. "Who knows, we may even set aside a guest room for Hart."Jack laughed, "Cupboard under the stairs is good enough," but his heart felt lighter than it had in eight months. All of a sudden he felt the familiar tug in his gut.

"No! I want to stay!" he cried, lurching to his feet. He knocked the chair over, but ignored it. "Ianto!"

His lover stood too, coming around the table to embrace him. "I'm sorry, Jack. Time works differently here. Sometimes we'll have hours, sometimes only seconds." He pressed a gentle kiss on Jack's lips, which the Captain was too disoriented by the pull of life to return. "Jack. Go back to Gwen. Go back to Torchwood. You need a purpose in your life. I love you."Jack blinked back tears, staring at Ianto's eyes. He didn't have enough time to respond, but as he woke up on the side of the road on an alien planet, he knew that Ianto could see his answer anyway.

[*]

I'M POSTING THIS AS A HAPPY BIRTHDAY FIC TO ME, AND LOTS OF REVIEWS WOULD MAKE AN AWESOME PRESENT! Thanks for reading :)