{rp} Will you follow me into fire? Will you follow me into darkness? Will you follow me into death?
Suzie's chosen a relatively isolated spot -- no point in possibly knocking anyone else out when Thane comes to get her -- and is sitting comfortably, leaning back against a tree, browsing The Complete Emily Dickinson. (Paper books, at last!) The Dickinson calms her down, and the tree ought to spare her any undignified toppling over when she's
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"I'm fond of surviving, Agent Thane. I've made something of a career of it so far. And I've got no desire to end up dead or worse just to save a man who pretends to goodness while being just as terrible as the things he supposedly fights." A hint of venom creeps into her tone, entirely unfeigned. She neither likes nor trusts the Doctor, for all that people she does like and trust seem to think the world of him. Better an honest monster than a hypocrite in saint's clothing.
I haven't seen you before, Suzie thinks at the fainter shadow, and then addressed them all. I'm here to help. Here to get this sorted, however that has to happen.
And then, at Jack, O Captain! my Captain! I've got a favour to return, remember? And I'll get you out of this, I promise. Just talk to me, Jack. Please.
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Living isn't his priority, but he can understand it when he sees it.
"So hop on a plane to the Bahamas," he says. "Skip the country. Leave them to fight their little losing battles on their own while you sit in the sun somewhere and have people bring you drinks. History is notoriously unkind to traitors," he says, and there's a glint of something in his eyes. He still hasn't forgotten certain people who have stabbed him in the back in the past. "And Torchwood might as well be closing in on the cruise missile stage on me."
The faint shadow skirts around Thane, being perhaps overcareful not to touch the tar shadow. One of us doesn't belong here, it says, softly. And I'm not sure it's me. ...but I'm not sure it's you, either.
Behind it, Jack pulls his head up, tracking featurelessly until he's looking in Suzie's direction. Being trapped in one's own subconscious doesn't mean much, experientially - there's no will, no action, just a state of being and registering, influencing by implication if at all. But something about Suzie's presence-
Suddenly the world widens from black to achrome and the capacity to think, to reason, to react returns - and all the memories he couldn't examine before settle into him, and there's such a thing as thought again. And with all that...
Berlin, 1961, he mutters. You're on the wrong side; you need to get out get out NOW
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She sees that flicker in his eyes and doesn't flinch away from it, though she's aware of just how fine a line she's walking. "I'm already a traitor to them; there's a whole stinking future history of things I never did, but would have, if my timeline hadn't been thoroughly fucked by coming here. I don't make a habit of getting into a situation without a way out. In my future, their past, the options I had ready went spectacularly wrong. People died, myself included, and Torchwood in all their sanctimonious glory said goodbye and good riddance." She's still smiling, but there's a snarl buried underneath. "Meanwhile, I end up here, with no bloody clue what would've happened, and you can guess at the reception I got to start with. Take another guess at what they'll do when I vanish, based on what they know. They wouldn't want to take the chance." She chuckles, and the sound's dry and dark. "I'm out of options."
We're out of options, she thinks, directed at Jack. Gwen and Sam know I'm here. The Vesmier will be keeping in contact, relaying whatever information I can get direct to them. But we've been making no bloody progress, Jack. Even the Time Lords can't get close enough for long enough to do any good.
"They've made it so the safest thing I could do to get away from them is just what they were afraid of -- run straight to you and hope for the best. Well done, team."
Well done, indeed. All true, and if not for their suspicions, I wouldn't have half as easy a time of helping them. It's sort of funny.
I'm not leaving, Captain. I'm here to put things right. I know what I'm walking into, and... I'm good at this, Jack. This is what I do best, out of anything. I was good enough to have fooled you, once. Think I'm good enough to do the same to him?
I do. And if I'm wrong... Then I'm wrong.
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Behind him, the tar shadow laughs. Its breathing has stabilized but it's thinner, now, every inch of skin falling back into its bones. Tell us what you have that's worth fighting for.
You don't need to get close enough, you need to stay away, you need-
The fainter shadow is circling in toward Jack, wary, like Jack is an injured animal and it's not sure if he'll bite.
There's this thing, this energy, you need to block it, an - I know more. Knoew more. While I was hunting him. You need to block that and put a bullet in my brain. Ask the TARDIS. It's awake, it'd know how and even if you're on this side-
The paler shadow seems to gather its resolve and step up, pulling itself up so the lines of the uniform fall into something picture-perfect. Stop, it says, with the tone of one who has no control over the situation but would like the situation to think he does. Stop, please. This isn't me.
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All of you, listen, she thinks. I'm the only one who can see you, and hear you, and take into account what all of you want. I'm asking for your cooperation in return. Information, feedback. And right now, a little push at him, with the thought that he doesn't want to kill me, or let me go 'prove' myself. I could be much more fun to keep around. That's not much to ask.
One way or another, I'm doing this or dying. It's not up for discussion. Help me, and I'll help you.
Suzie smiles a little and raises an eyebrow, her body language shifting to something born from long practice. She's good at this, at showing some vulnerability, giving the impression she's made to be used. Look, it says, look how very breakable I am. You want control? Here I am. Subtle, but there.
"Excellent question. I could give you a very long speech about how I was dear Captain Jack's second-in-command for five years, and how I've got an extensive skill set, but the truth is, I'm no Time Agent, and most of what I could do for you, you could do yourself without taking me on. I'm not going to promise what I can't deliver -- that gets me killed all the more quickly. All I can do is appeal to your sense of whimsy." She gives him a perfect copy of the crooked grin she'd used on Jack more times than she could count, the one the always seemed to find charming. "If I'm very lucky, you'll decide I'm amusing enough to keep."
And for all that her body says use me and her grin's all charming cockiness, just for one moment, she lets the fear surface in her eyes. Please, please, I want to get out of this alive, whatever it takes, please...
A second later it's gone, and the outermost mask is in place again. A mask, over another mask, over still another, and at the very core of it all, Suzie's praying to anything that'll listen. Please, let me be right about him. Let this pay off.
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He's a torturer. She's an agent of something, even it it is a backwater little space-age special ops group a properly-equipped Time Agent could walk in and dismantle. And she's trying to play him.
It's the tone. The offer. The flash of fear. Textbook-perfect, and if he hadn't been watching for everything, he even would have bought it. She looks like a plant, like someone who will break convincingly and pour out all the false information he could ask for. Sure, lady on a silver platter. Or not a lady, for the way she's been acting, but what he can't place is her angle. He hasn't been doing anything to merit a distraction, unless Torchwood has some new weapon they're devising. The Time Lords might have something they're working on, in any case. And someone in with him, someone who could occupy his attention for some critical period of time...
But that reeks of a desperation he's not sure he believes, from them. Unless he has them more offbalance than he thought, all this skulking in the shadows, but they just scored a victory. Why would they be edgy now?
And she wasn't lying. All that disdain - or was it disdain? Anger, certainly, bitterness, possibly disgust, aimed at Torchwood. That was genuine, or she's a better actor than this most recent gesture would indicate. And that makes no sense. No, this is not something she's doing for them, whatever her motives are.
Behind him, the tarshadow's withdrawn a few steps, body fleshing out but eyes glassing over. The faint shadow is hanging back, looking from her to Thane with an expression that suggests he's trapped in a room with crazy people and he's wondering if there's an easy way to get out, and Jack's every muscle seems to have gone rigid, like a hunting dog in the instant before the chase. And there's something over him, something much larger but so faint as to be nigh-invisible, gone in an instant.
"Well," Thane says, after a moment. "That's a good summary of your opinion of Torchwood's competence. Your aim is not survival - this is the last place you'd want to come without a very good bargain if that were the case."
Don't, Jack says, and it's not clear whether he's speaking to Thane or Suzie. But he knows those cues, knows them as well as Thane does if not better, and he's already seen Suzie broken open and hurt because of him once. But for all he wants to say Get out again, there's no way out that he can find, and he can't struggle up toward Thane more than he's already trying to. It's deep and mechanical, the stuff keeping him down.
"I don't think you'd be playing coy if you wanted to see Torchwood down and hurting," Thane continues. "I think you'd know I'd be on board with that. So that leaves you, walking in here with someone who's taken and tortured all comers. Flattering as it would be to think you came because you wanted me..." He lets the sentence hang.
Far in the background, Jack slumps forward. After a moment he pulls his head up, searching blind for the faint shadow.
Lis, he says, tone nearly abject. I don't know if you can hear me, but she could have been Lis.
And for a second, the faint shadow doesn't do anything. Then, to all appearances of its own accord, it steps forward and seizes Thane's shoulder, sinking into him almost to integration.
Look. There's no way she can go home, it pushes. No chance for amnesty. You'd better let her go. You're not like... not... We were supposed to be better.
There's a cold flash in Thane's eyes and the faint shadow staggers back with an exclamation of pain, but Thane's posture has shifted, just a bit. After a moment he pulls a key out of a small pocket, looping his middle finger through the keyring and letting it dangle. She tries anything - hell, the Rift could have given her telekinesis - and she'll be dead damn quick.
"Interest me," he says.
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Forgive me, Jack, she thinks. But I'm not leaving you. I do this or I die.
Somewhere in the parts of her mind carefully hidden away, she feels something start to move, a slow, gradual shift, that ends in a suggestion of a form above her, many-armed and snarling, its shoulders shaking with tears or laughter or both. Its voice is faint, like the rest of it, shifting as it speaks, changing in strength and inflections, back and forth and back again. It might not even be the same voice at all.
and this is what you see of me father thought i'd beaten you at your own game and all of those that can hurt i learned from and learned better but you never taught me enough to surpass ... you have our captain and we cannot allow it but where is our power where have you taken it forgive us our captain this is what you made us father and this is what we shall become ... we can sacrifice this part of ourself for our captain to preserve him keep him secret keep him safe and we have nothing else nothing but our captain
And with that it sinks into Suzie, staring through her eyes before it vanishes, and when Suzie speaks, there are echoes of its voice in hers.
"Every woman adores a Fascist,
The boot in the face, the brute
Brute heart of a brute like you."
The quote's delivered with a twist of the mouth and an unblinking gaze, locked onto Thane's. "Call it flattery if you want," she says, "but you're good. Better than he was," and she's not sure if she means Jack or her father or both. This is truth pulled from a place it had been hidden, but the Vesmier helped there, brought all the damage up, and she can admit now what she'd never dared to say otherwise, even to herself. She looks for this, looks for images of her own personal hell magnified out of all proportion, looks for that same cruelty, that taunt of never-good-enough and throws herself at it.
If she can endure it, it's one step closer to erasing where it all began, and if she can't...
I'm disappointed in you, Suzie. It's just the two of us now. You'll have to do better next time. Clear enough for her to hear, to cause a tremor in her hands, quickly stilled.
Why won't you DIE?
...if she can't endure it, she obviously deserves it.
"Better than I am, and it's been a long time since I've seen that." She's quiet now, but there are sharp edges in her posture, her voice, her eyes. No pretense, no games, just the darkest of truths, raw and anguished and very, very quiet. Seen and not heard, just as she was taught. "I have this, and I... had Torchwood." Self-loathing, self-destruction, and the bloody job.
Her aim is survival; it's surviving him. And there he is, gorgeous and cruel, loathed and yes, wanted, dear fucking God, she wants him, and if he knows how to look, it's all right there. Nothing feigned, nothing obscured except for the one thing, the one person she has to protect, to save, the only one who bothered trying to save her, who's still trying, even when there's nothing left to be saved.
I'm sorry, Jack. It's like I said... You're a good man. And I'm not a good anything.
"...is that interesting enough, Agent Thane?"
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But this is something very close to him, something barely not listened to, integrated again in a few moments because it's not hard to see and here, in the dubious privacy of his own mind, it's too easy to admit. His only options, going after the Doctor now, are ultimate victory or ultimate defeat. Triumph in a way he can hardly imagine, or be torn down piece by piece until not even the pieces remember what they are. It's the second possibility which is by far the more probable, but he wants one, needs one, to be realized. Even that would be better than staying here.
Show her the quality of your mercy.
Thane stands. Behind him Jack throws himself forward, with a flicker of the larger shadow - the beast, buried twice now, bound but never entirely silenced. It doesn't matter. They're held back by something, spectral iron, wrought bars or chains, a barrier even the Vesmier was stymied by.
There is nothing I recognize as mercy any more.
I will destroy you, he says, almost pleads and I've watched this too many times already, tied back in his own subconscious, unable to do or change anything.
And Thane is walking over, the key to the cuffs held in his hand so there's no way to take it without touching him, feeling the warmth of his skin. And then he's offering it, because this is a new twist on an old routine, and he has all the power.
"We'll see," he says, watching her eyes with every appearance of high dispassion. "You'll have to convince me." And God help you if you waste my time, his tone says, settling across the words.
The fainter shadow has turned away. The tarshadow is laughing, wounded and bitter.
Selfish, is all that it says.
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It's a quiet, horrified thought, sounding like it came from someone much, much younger than Suzie herself. She was meant to be playing him, not...
She wants him. After what he did to Tosh (You were right about me, Tosh. I'm sorry...), part of her still...
It doesn't matter. Selfish or not, true or not, I did what I set out to do. And I'm sorry, Jack, I really am. You shouldn't have to see this. But I believe in you. All of us do. And for you to give up on that, on Torchwood... That's worse than anything he could do. That's letting him win. Even if he's something you were, you're more than he is, and you're better, and I'm not letting you go. I don't think Gwen would, either.
One way or another, I'm fixing this. For all of you.
Suzie looks into Thane's eyes, searching them for a sign of... anything at all, really. Of course, she's not going to find one. That's the point, isn't it? He's better than she is.
And then she reaches up, takes the key from his hand very slowly, very carefully, not entirely convinced it won't be yanked away. Her hand stays against his for perhaps longer than strictly necessary, though she has to fight to keep it from shaking. She wants to be touched. She wants to jerk away in revulsion. She hates him almost as much as she hates herself for wanting him. It was supposed to be a lie.
Besides, Jack... There's nothing here worth saving. Me and him, Jack, and I'm every bit the traitor they said I was, just for this.
"And just what would it take," she says softly, "to convince someone like you, I wonder?" She pulls away, and the moment she breaks contact she's undoing the cuffs with practised efficiency. Jack trained her well, once upon a time; she's not even looking, her eyes still locked on Thane's, showing more than they should. "What do you want?"
There's a place in her mind, safe and quiet, away from him, and she wants to retreat there now, but she doesn't dare. Doesn't deserve to.
Doesn't want to? Yes, perhaps that, too.
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No, Jack says, and now there's no pleading in his voice. There's pain, but it's the same pain as when he said he'd kill her if he had to. This is what he is, somewhere and somehow - he's the leader, Torchwood Command, and he will hold together, break apart, defend or judge or kill because that's his responsibility. It might not be good. Might not even be fair. But it's what he has, does, is, and Torchwood comes to learn that if they see him this far down. You cannot look at me now and tell me I am worth saving and you are not. There is nothing you owe me for which this could be payment. I will carry you out of this bleeding if I have to.
Thane lets her go, then turns and walks to the other edge of the room. He's programming something into his wristband, and looks up after a moment. "Come on, then." Cross the room. Walk to me or I leave you behind, and wouldn't you just hate that? You will buy my time second by second and if you cannot pay, I won't kill you. I'll leave you tied up on the floor of your tower and let Torchwood finish the job.
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And there's something in Jack's voice she hasn't heard in far too long, and there, there he is. Welcome back, O Captain, she thinks, and for all the pain and fear and self-loathing... It's possible what the Vesmier built for her isn't completely ruined from the inside, because there's a certain dry note to her tone that wasn't there before.
I can. I did. If you want to carry me out of this, bleeding or not, she continues, grimly determined, then work with me. Help me, help us, so we both walk out of here. The Vesmier's given me a few things. A bit of structure, a way to hold together. ...I may have broken it a little just now. More than a little. But it's something. I have an assignment. If you want to save me, Captain, then we do the job.
She may doubt that she deserves to be saved, but if it gets her Captain back, that's what matters. And everything else... She'll deal with that later. None of this changes what just happened, but there's enough of the Suzie Costello who was Jack's second-in-command left to do what she has to, even if none of it shows on the surface.
And when Thane summons her to the other side of the room, she moves on instinct, with all the speed and efficiency Jack helped her refine in the years she worked for him. She notes the purse, grabs it and as she slings it over her shoulder she's already crossing the room. It's the kind of trained response that overrides emotional reactions: break down later. Move now. And it's only when she stops at Thane's side that she notices the shaking of her hands, the way she's clutching at the strap of her purse... But it doesn't matter. She's there, as ordered.
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They emerge in the hall of a two-story strip mall, brand-new, from the looks of it, still with For Lease signs still in the windows. He shoves open a door - a storage closet, from the looks of it, though it might be wise to check it for safeguards before sticking one's hand in - and withdraws his hunting rifle, disallowing any trace of a smile to touch his face.
Ours, whispers the integrated shadow.
Thane walks to another doorway, tripping the mechanism and raising the chain gate. The store inside is unfurnished, white and too large and empty, but he's taken a chair from somewhere and set it against the wall. He walks to it, laying the rifle across his lap and cleaning it without looking up at her.
He's saying, across every muscle, I am in control of this. Body, weapon, situation, and she's walked into the sphere of that control. But, as for that, she's incidental. She can't extract herself, but she can be dumped out of this.
"The Doctor," Thane says, clearly a prompt. It's another test, as well - What are you willing to give me without my asking? He'll be the one, hisses the tarshadow. Tear us to pieces. Finish the job. Or break into nothing, then he'll be the lucky one.
You can still walk out of this, Jack says. Play coy. Evade. Thane wouldn't offer her the regard of killing her.
There's no chance she'll take it. not after coming this far, and what does that say? But he has to try. Because seeing this through and seeing her survive this is going to require two ends to be shredded against an unyielding middle, and Jack's not convinced that he has a magic bullet any more than they do.
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But not even firsthand experience of a teleport can change the fact of where she is, and what she's done. The fear, the self-loathing, they're all back seconds later. She follows him because she has nothing else she can do, because the combination of his cruelty and her own need, her craving for punishment (to survive it? to be broken by it? something tells her the answer is yes) have conspired to pull her in as irresistibly as gravity attracting a satellite.
She's in orbit around him, and that orbit's decaying. Eventually she'll crash. There's no if here, just when.
When he sits, she moves to stand near him, just off-centre in his field of vision, not so far off as to hide, nor close and confrontational, judging distance and positioning by instinct. I'm focused on you, it says, but I won't presume to command your focus in return. Head slightly bowed, just... watching him, hands clasped behind her back, where they can clutch at each other without him seeing, standing at something very like parade rest.
Nothing about this will fool him, of course. He knows, she's sure, that her hands are clutching each other behind her back to still the shaking, that if he put a hand on her right now he could feel the slightest of tremors running all through her, not visible, but enough to be felt. But appearances are one of the few things she has control over, here. And even that can be taken away at a moment's notice.
What little control she has only reinforces his, and this, she thinks, is exactly what he wants... Her holding herself together enough to give herself to him, with full knowledge of what she's doing. If she just gave up and allowed herself to be taken, he wouldn't bother. From everything he's shown her, he wants her to work for this, to be painfully aware of just how far she's falling.
And oh, she is.
You know I can't, she thinks at Jack. I'm sorry. She wants to touch him somehow, to offer or receive reassurance that's beyond her reach at the moment, but she pushes that thought back as firmly as she can.
And something responds, a shadow that pulls away from her and takes one step, than another, in Jack's direction, watching him warily. This one's small, timid, and slowly its features resolve into a much younger copy of Suzie, barefoot and in a nightgown. She's looking at Jack like she's not sure if he's safe, hanging back... And then suddenly she runs to him and flings her arms around his waist, somehow finding a way to cling comfortably to him despite the abstract straitjacket. I'm sorry, she says, face pressed into his side, and it's uncertain whether she means for the sudden clinging or... everything else. I really, really am, and that's NOT a lie, I swear it isn't...
And I'm sorry for this, especially, Suzie thinks.
"The Doctor," she says, darkness in eyes and voice, fear and mistrust and anger. There's not much room for doubt about her feelings, just from the way she says that name. "Safe in his TARDIS, and she's gone and locked him in, because no one can stand to see him hurt, running after you again. Safe and surrounded by otherwise sane people who'd take a bullet for him, and above all, feed his delusion that he's the tragic hero in all of this."
Her next words are soft, barely audible. "Better an honest monster than someone so lost in his mad drive to 'help' that he feels he can disregard the ruin left behind along the way."
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Sometimes broken things, imperfect things, are all you get.
"And you." His voice is flat and hard-edged. You say you harbor grievances against him. You want my interest. You think I don't know everything I need to about Torchwood and their idiotic allegiances?
Behind him, Jack startles at the sudden shadow, and before he can react, the faint shadow is stepping over toward him. It stays as far as it can away from him, but reaches out to the young Suzie, putting a hand on her shoulder to pull her away.
Don't, he says - warns, really, because he knows someone long-gone in the Agency and he knows that civilians do best to stay far away from them. There's fear in his voice. Even if he's still a neophyte, holding rank on a social technicality, he knows enough to see that he's not good, either. But he's safer, in a way, than anything else in this implied playing field. Don't draw attention. Don't get close. Don't walk into the Agency or an Agency man. I'm trying to tell you how to survive.
And Jack doesn't move. Doesn't respond to that, doesn't refute it, looks down at the shadow and says nothing because what the hell can he say?
...he's got no control, he says, after a moment, deep grief in the angles of his words. Trapped here. Not his world, not his wars, nothing. I can't defend him but I can't condemn him.
Is this what it is, then? It's still Jack, but the voice has slipped. How it was? He doesn't remember you, if this was what you saw. What do you think this means? I've only got the one solution. It's what I would do, were this you.
Say what happened if you have to stay here. Everything. The more the... worse. I don't want this from you.
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She hasn't missed those cues, and for all that she does not want this, if this is what she has to do, she'll give him everything and then some.
And you won't remember this, Jack. When we get you back, and we will, if you've got anything, it's going to be... This. I'm sorry, Jack. You love him, I know.
"He came to help me with what the Rift did to me, what I was seeing... I see things people've locked away, things they don't want to admit to, all the darkness they tell themselves isn't part of them. I see them. I hear them. And the Doctor came." Her voice is flat, dead, a recitation of atrocity. And this is worse than it's ever been, telling this, worse than reporting to Jack that first time, because it's all there on the surface this time.
"I've seen things that would give most people nightmares, heard them explain to me just how and why and how many they've killed, and the thing that he carried was worse than all of them. He's the dark at the end of everything, ancient and forever, shadows crawling all around him, he's death, he's..." She swallows, forces herself to stay steady, to fight the emotion that's rising in her voice despite her best efforts. She's dredging up a nightmare for him, laying it at his feet, and is this offering enough? Will anything ever be enough?
It's too late, says the girl-shaped shadow, clinging tighter to Jack when the fainter shadow touches her, not yet looking up.
"It named itself. Named him. Ka Faraq Gatri. Karshtakavaar. The Bringer of Darkness, Destroyer of Worlds. ...the Oncoming Storm." She'll never forget those words, never forget the truth of him. "And that's what it was. The darkness and the thunder, all of it reaching for him, wanting out. It would've destroyed me if it had the chance, because I could've become a traitor one day. And then he offered to make it stop, make it so I couldn't see. And like an idiot, I told him yes."
The worst part's coming now, and her shoulders shake with the memory, with the effort of getting through this recitation intact. "I didn't expect to be like... You know. You know what's been done to me to have me here and asking for this. And he pushed his way into my mind and it was just the same." And the words are coming out on their own now, all her effort going to just keeping it together, because she's Torchwood and she will not fall, not here, not now, even when her voice slips beyond her control. So she doesn't censor it, doesn't leave out the details that will give Thane every tool he could want to break her down even further. "It was my father, all over again. And it was there. It was right there, all in the front of my mind, what that did to me, and I tried to pull away, and he didn't..."
Teeth gritted now, forcing this to come out as words instead of sobs. "He didn't stop. He might've started to pull away, and then he found out he could look through me. He could see himself, talk to himself, and then. He. He went in. Deeper. I think he forgot I was even there, just so he could bloody yell at the monster that he is, so he could stare at it like he'd no idea it was ever there, because oh no, that's not him. The tragic hero, loved by all except himself, the Doctor..." Her face contorts at that, as she finds anger somewhere... And anger's something she can use, something that keeps her from falling apart completely.
"And I screamed. And someone came to help, and pushed him off me. And then he looked at me and told me he was sorry." She laughs, and it's more than half a sob. "That's what I'd been hearing all that time, under everything else, how he was so, so sorry. But 'sorry' never stops him. He wears his guilt like one of those bloody suits, but he knows there's no one higher than him, no authority over the Doctor. It's enough if he just feels really, truly bad about it, I'm sure."
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The girl-shadow looks up, having spent the entire recitation with her face pressed against Jack, clinging tighter to him with every word. But when Suzie's done, she looks up, at the fainter shadow, her eyes wet, raw pleading in her expression. He came to save us. He loves the Doctor, but Jack came to save us from him anyway, don't you understand? No one else ever has, but Jack did, and Malek did... And if he hurts us, it's because we deserved it or because it's what he does because they made him dangerous, but he'd fight off his Doctor for us. Please don't take me from him, please don't... She looks into his eyes, willing him to just understand, and then she's back to hiding her face against Jack. I don't want to see, she murmurs.
[[OOC: Fucked up the first comment, and so I got to repost them both. Whee.]]
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