Boulevard Of Broken Dreams
Beta: The marvellous and spectacular hel_bee who has the patience of a saint and a heart of a lion (and makes this so much better to read.) Any other mistakes are mine, mine, mine all mine….
Chapter 30
Walk This Empty Street - 31
The air held a hint of autumn as the breeze weaved its way through the splendid mismatch of graveyard trees.
The steady flow of mourners offering their condolences had made their way back to the house on promises of tea and coffee or something stronger. Ianto and Sarah Jane had remained at the graveside; Martha stood nearby, keeping her distance, not wanting to intrude on their silent goodbyes.
Ianto stared at the freshly dug earth, lost in thoughts of recriminations, hoping that somehow his guilt could be buried along with the coffin. But it still clung to him, refusing to let go of his heart, threatening to destroy all the close knit walls he had built over the years.
Harry was gone, dead, and Ianto could never take it back, not now.
His gaze wandered to Sarah Jane who placed the rose she had been holding during the service onto the grave. She was burying her past in this final tribute, burying the ‘what ifs’ and ‘what might have beens’.
She looked at him and smiled softly. “I’m not staying, I can’t, I’m sorry.” He nodded and her gaze drifted back to the rose.
“We were going on a date, when, you know, when it was all over. Thai, I think he liked Thai food.” She inhaled deeply, not wanting the tears to overwhelm her.
She paused, swallowing hard, looking beyond the petals of the single red rose. “Don’t fill your life with regrets, Ianto, don’t leave things until it’s too late - we let too many chances pass us by.”
Her gaze rested on the simple wooden cross marking the plot until the ground settled and a more elaborate headstone could take its place. “I loved Harry, but I couldn’t see it, couldn’t see him, because I thought I loved…” Again she hesitated, the name and admission left to wander in the breeze. “And Harry was too much of a gentleman to ask, but he was always there for me, always.”
Ianto looked at the cross, a sentinel for the dead, what words could he find to carve in polished granite to mark this man; surely there was no stone big enough, no words adequate.
“He was proud of you, Ianto. Proud of who you were and who you had become.” Her smile lifted the moment, but only briefly.
“I should have…” he began, confessing his heart to the rows of dead.
Sarah Jane reached across and squeezed his arm. “No,” she said strongly and kissed his cheek, embracing him as she whispered, “he loved you, Ianto, he wouldn’t want you tormenting yourself like this. Let him go, we’ve enough ghosts haunting us.” A tear slid down her cheek; Ianto pushed it away with his thumb but the mascara track remained.
She stepped back and wiped away a second. “I’ll ring you.” Ianto nodded, listening as Sarah Jane turned and retraced her steps back along the gravel path, pausing briefly to smile at Martha who had moved to join them.
“It was a beautiful service.” Ianto didn’t turn round; Martha had been there for him since Harry’s death. Jack had not.
He had disappeared to face his own demons and reflect, maybe, on the future. Jack does this, Jack runs and Ianto understood; they all needed time as much as it needed them.
Martha had taken over the helm of Torchwood, and would remain so until the team got back on their feet. She’d been tireless in the task, committing all her energies to the day to day running of the Hub, but Ianto knew the truth, he knew her, she needed to keep herself busy so she didn’t have to face this moment. Her own mortality hidden in floral tributes and funeral cortèges.
“Yes, yes it was,” he answered, his eyes lost in bank of colourful flowers.
“The team send their love…”
Ianto cocked an eyebrow, Martha smiled. “Even Owen,” she continued. “They wanted to be here for you but the rift’s keeping them up 24/7.”
“Never a dull moment.”
“No.” Martha hesitated, taking a tentative step forward, but not too close. “He saved my life.”
It was the first time it had been broached between them and he wasn’t sure how to answer her. Harry’s death had been inevitable; hers, at that point in time, uncertain. Ianto found he was smiling. “He would have been glad,” he said finally, “for a hero’s death; it’s what he would have wanted.”
“I don’t know how to make up for it, how to make it right. It should have been…”
“Then I would have lost a good friend.”
Ianto turned to face her, he sighed. He didn’t know what to tell her, he was trying to deal with this but Martha deserved something from him too, even if it was what she already knew. “Just carry on doing what you do, Martha Jones, save the world a day at a time and make Harry’s death worth something.”
She looked away, noticing a sparrow had settled on one of the gravestones, daring to venture into the open now the graveyard was mostly empty. “And you? Are you coming back?”
Ianto waved away a bee, drawn to the sweet smelling flowers. “Yes, it’s where I belong.”
Martha nodded, letting the moment settle on them as they both watched the sparrow, bolder now, hop down to retrieve something from the freshly cut grass.
“Did you find an answer?” she asked as the sparrow flew away, spooked at the sound of her voice.
Ianto shook his head. “I’ll always be conflicted.”
She threaded her arm through his. “Head and heart,” she said, looking down at the mass of flowers.
“Head and heart,” he repeated, softly kissing the top of her head.
“Apparently there’s fruitcake and Scotch back at the house.” Martha steered him away from the graveside.
“Harry’s favourite.” He smiled. “I could do with a drink.”
“Me too,” Martha conceded. “It’s been a long summer.”
“Yes, yes it has.”
They walked along the gravel path, turning the stones, displacing some onto the neatly kept banks. At the half boundary wall the Doctor and Jack stood waiting, their gazes focused at different directions, their distance apart, telling. Ianto stopped and sighed.
“You have to face them sometime.” Martha read his reaction.
”I know, but not just yet, there’s someone I must see first.”
Ianto had noticed a figure stood inconspicuously to the side of the church, almost blending with the rough grey stones. He let go of Martha. “I’ll be back in a moment.” He turned and headed back toward the church to where
Benton stood smoking just out of view of the others.
He looked up as Ianto approached. “Nasty habit,” he said, looking at the old Victorian gravestones in this more sombre part of the churchyard.
“Death?” Ianto mused.
“Smoking,” Benton replied, drawing on the nicotine but making no attempt to stub it out. “Do you mind?” he gestured to a weathered bench. Ianto nodded.
“’In memory of Leonard Dawson, 1932-1985.’” Benton read the dedication on the bench before sitting down, flicking ash onto the grass. Ianto joined him.
They both stared at the stretch of ancient headstones. It was darker here, more oppressive, the shadow of the church casting out the sunlight.
Benton went to the breast pocket of his dark jacket, heavy for the weather but he seemed not to notice its weight, and pulled out a postcard, laying it flat on his lap. He continued to ponder the gothic designs of the weathered headstones through a thin veil of twisting smoke. “UNIT seems to have lost Andrews,” he said at last.
Ianto looked down at the remnants of confetti caught in the long grass at the foot of the bench. “Really?”
“Really. They’d like to tidy up all the loose ends now that Harry’s tenure is over. They think he may have had help to disappear.” Benton took a long drag on the cigarette.
“They’ve no use for a hired assassin then?”
“No.” The word curled in smoke. He flicked more ash away. “New broom and all that. I give it a couple of months.”
“They’ve found someone to replace Harry already?” Ianto looked up; it had been almost three weeks since Harry’s death.
“There’s always someone ready to step into the big shoes, the problem is they don’t always fit.” Benton stubbed the cigarette on the arm of the bench, obscuring the number ‘4’ in the sentiment, ‘Tracy 4 Andy,’ that had been gouged into the wood.
“Hard shoes to break in,” Ianto echoed.
“Difficult,” came the reply.
“Military man?”
Benton made a face. “Civil servant.”
Ianto looked surprised. Benton unbuttoned his jacket. “He won’t last, hasn’t got the stomach for it. TUBBIN,” he said.
At Ianto’s puzzled look Benton smiled, saying, “Thumb up bum, brain in neutral, I learnt that one from Harry.” He reached into the coat for a battered hip flask.
Ianto gazed at the older man. “And you?”
Benton smiled, lightening the lines that marked his seventy plus years. “I’ll keep my head down until I’m needed.” There was a pause. “You did the right thing.”
“So everyone keeps telling me.” Ianto buried a miniature paper horseshoe in the grass with his toe.
Benton sighed and uncapped the flask. “This, this is your world, Ianto, not ours - it’s too…”
“Complicated?”
“Dirty. Harry Sullivan was a gentleman and this world has no use for gentlemen anymore. What he did, what he had to do, cut him deep but he still made those difficult decisions. He did his duty.”
“Hero to the last,” Ianto said bitterly.
Benton looked at him. “Yes, and Amen to that. I wish there were more.”
They turned back to the headstones and Benton lifted the flask. “To Harry Sullivan, seadog and sawbones.” He smiled. “Friend.”
He took a deep breath. “On the chest of a barmaid in Sale were tattooed the prices of ale and on her behind, for the sake of the blind, was the same information in Braille.” He took a large swig and handed it to Ianto.
Ianto smiled. “Did Harry teach you that one?”
“Of course.”
Ianto saluted Benton with the flask before drinking from it. The Scotch was big and explosive making Ianto gag slightly on its intensity.
Benton chuckled. “Highland whisky, Balblair - the good stuff, got a taste for it back in the seventies when I was posted up there. Too peaty for Harry, one of the few things we could never agree on, Scotch and women.” He took the flask back and took another mouthful.
“You coming back to the house?” Ianto asked, although his voice seemed to have raised an octave.
Benton shook his head. “I’m not much for small talk, never was.” He slid the postcard across to Ianto and stood.
“And I’m not one for goodbyes, Ianto, not at my age, it always seems so final, so I’ll just say: you know where to reach me.” He held out his hand.
Ianto stood and clasped it strongly. “Thank you, John, for all your help.” There was something unsaid between them. Benton nodded and slipped the flask back into his pocket.
Ianto turned and walked back toward the gate, knowing Benton would exit another way. He looked down at the postcard; it was a picture of the automated lighthouse on Flat Holm and part of the surrounding nature reserve. He flipped it over; the script was carefully written, weighted and hard into the card.
Thank you.
A
Ianto smiled to himself, an old soldier and an assassin, who said Torchwood employees have difficulty making new friends.
Chapter 32