The sitting room was tastefully appointed, once. Now the wallpaper is dirty, peeling, and what isn't covered in a fine layer of dust is coated in grainy dirt as nature reclaims the rotting wood floor and wall paneling. The window is too cloudy to see out of, but a woman in a rocking chair sits next to it all the same, wrinkled, pale hands curved around the ends of the armrests like claws. Moths and rot have claimed the best of the spiderwebbed shawl across her shoulders.

Ianto approaches cautiously, the wood giving softly and damply under his shoes, but no matter how close he gets (not so close), no matter the angle, he cannot seem to see her face. With the cold crawling across his skin and into his cheeks, he's not sure he wants to. There's a high-backed chair in the corner against the far wall, next to a crumbling fireplace filled with piles of ash, and Ianto gamely brushes away the grime and brittle shells of long-dead insects before he sits, to wait. He's not sure what scares him more - that she will turn around, or that she won't.