Fic: Past Imperfect.
So here it is, a little later than I said I'd start posting it, but I wanted to have a most of the next part written before posting this part. Fic will hopefully be updated once a week.
Title: Past Imperfect. (1/7)
Pairing/Characters: Jack/Ianto, team.
Rating: R
Warnings: Torture/interrogation scene in later chapter. (No sexual elements to torture.)
Summary: Waking up injured and with no memory of the past few days is only the start of Jack's problems as part of his forgotten past comes back to haunt him.
A/N: Set during in series two after Meat but before Adam.
There’s something very unsettling about waking up naked on the floor of a strange bathroom with no memory of how you got there, Jack decides as he struggles to sit upright.
Head pounding unmercifully, Jack leans back against the grimy tiled wall next to an antiquated sink and tries to recall just how he got wherever here is. Nothing is forthcoming. He remembers leaving the Hub early in the morning, before everybody got in for the day, to get something to eat. He hadn’t wanted to deal with a conference call between him, a General from UNIT and somebody from USA homeland security, on an empty stomach.
Shivering, the dingy bathroom is unmercifully cold, Jack tries to push down the feeling of fear that is starting to coil in his stomach. Fear solves nothing, that had been one of the first lessons that he’d been taught back at the Time Agency. Remaining calm and trying to remember events leading up to the period of memory loss was the best solution.
Closing his eyes, Jack tries to concentrate, the fear and the various aches and pains his body is beginning to tell his are present drifting back temporarily as he blocks them out.
He remembers walking across Roald Dahl Plas, the rain fast soaking into his shirt as he’d not fastened his coat as he’d headed for a nearby cafe, one of the few open that early in the morning. There’s no memory of arriving though, everything after leaving the Plas and walking onto Pierhead Road is a complete blank.
More unnerved than he is willing to admit, Jack opens his eyes and tries to work out how much time he lost. There’s nothing to work with though, and Jack knows it could just as easily be days, weeks or even years that he’s missing, and somehow that makes it seem even worse.
Standing up everything seems to dim, grey fog clouding the edges of Jack’s vision, until the dull ache in his right knee flares into white-hot pain cuts through it. Gripping the edge of the sink for support, eyes watering and gasping of breath, Jack rests all his weight on his good leg and waits for the worst of the pain to pass.
The mirror above the sink is cracked and grimy, but it is enough so that Jack can see the bruises on his face and the partially healed cut on his lip. There are other bruises, some on his stomach that look like a boot prints, others on his across his arms that suggest batons or maybe metal bars, while his knee seems to just be one large bruise; mottled purple and swollen, it barely resembles a knee anymore.
Jack knows with the sick certainty of past experience that his injuries are the result of a severe beating, one that had been bad enough to seriously injure him, although not to kill him. Whether that had been intentional on the part of those who had taken him or if he’d given them what ever they wanted before they got around to killing him, Jack doesn’t know.
The sudden thought that perhaps it isn’t over, that he’s just been dumped here in the bathroom while his captor or captors decide what to do to him next, hits Jack hard. He feels disorientated and dizzy, the floor seems to shift and shake under his feet. Shock, concussion or bleeding out slowly from internal injuries he’s not sure, all Jack knows is that he’s in no state to fight back effectively or to escape, but having to helplessly endure another beating makes him feel sick.
Shaking from the cold and what he suspects is delayed shock, Jack listens at the bathroom door for what seems like an age before deciding that there’s nobody there.
Cautiously Jack opens the door. It opens out onto a small landing with two doors, to what are probably bedrooms, and a flight of stairs.
Limping badly and leaning against the walls for support, Jack checks the two upstairs rooms. Finding them devoid of everything, except the smell of decaying wood and mould, he makes his way carefully to the stairs. Holding on tightly to the banister, his knee threatening to give way with each step, Jack slowly makes his way downstairs.
The downstairs is equally cold and empty, and as lacking in clues at to where it is or how Jack might have got there, as the upstairs. The house, probably once a farm worker’s cottage, doesn’t look like it has been inhabited for years. Derelict and with the much of the glass broken in the downstairs windows, the freezing wind and rain, combined with the bare slate floors, leave Jack shaking so badly from the cold that it’s hard for him to stay on his feet.
Normally, Jack doesn’t have a problem with being naked; a lot of his favourite things happen when he’s naked, but right now clothes, especially his greatcoat, would be very welcome indeed. The absence of his vortex manipulator only seems to heighten the sense of nakedness. It’s the first time that he’s been without it since Martha had handed it back to him onboard the Valiant soon after the Master’s death.
It’s not something that Jack wants to be thinking about, there are still a lot of memories there that he’s not worked through yet, painful, hurtful memories that until now he’s been able to keep out.
The only thing that Jack can find to wear is an old curtain. Faded and spotted with mildew, Jack tears a strip from the bottom of it to bind his knee, before wrapping the remainder of around himself. It does little to ward off the cold, and Jack’s sure that didn’t feel so damn wretched he’d find the idea of wearing a floral curtain as a toga funny.
Outside it’s raining. Freezing and torrential it obscures the view down into the valley, leaving Jack no clues as to which way would be best to find help.
Because, as much as Jack hates to admit it, he knows he’s going to need help if he’s to get back to Cardiff and find out what’s going on. Immortality, as handy as it has proved over the years, doesn’t protect him from pain or fear or loss, all it means is that at the end of it, however bad it gets, he’ll always be the one left standing.
Despite choosing the easiest route down into the valley walking still hurts, although Jack is sure that the cold is helping to numb a lot of the pain. He’s almost glad of the pain though, as it doesn’t allow him to think about anything else too closely, such as why he’s not healed yet.
Jack knows that his healing has been erratic ever since his time on board the Valiant, well more erratic; it hadn’t exactly been totally predictable before. Through the years Jack has learnt that his state of mind when he dies has a lot to do with the speed at which he revives. If there’s immediate danger to those that he cares about coming back always seems faster, even if it means that sometimes when he revives he’s less than completely healed.
There had been too many deaths too close together during that nightmare year, both at the hands of the Master and by those who’d served him out of fear that if they didn’t they would be the ones bleeding and dying instead. Since then it has been like his body has got use to being injured, small cuts and bruises no longer triggering whatever it is that keeps bringing him back. It makes Jack wonder if perhaps the Doctor has got it wrong, that he’s not a fixed a point in time, just one that moves in fits and starts, like a fault line through a planet’s crust.
Perhaps the Master had killed some of the wrongness out of him. Maybe that’s why the Doctor had offered to take him with him, and could look at him now.
Jack stops, and leans against the dry stone wall that runs a long the edge of the farm track he’s walking down. He’s not sure where that last thought had come from, it’s certainly not one he wants to have or believe.
Coming back from dying seems to be slower now as well, The only explanation that Jack has been able to come up with is that it’s a defence mechanism, just a simple physical reaction to limit the amount of times that he can die in a single day. After all he couldn’t die again if he was still dead.
Walking again, determined not to think about any of it until he’s back in the Hub, Jack not sure how much further he’s gone when he realises that he’s stopped shivering. He knows that it not a good sign, but there isn’t anything that he can do about it apart from try to keep moving.
It’s hard though, the desire to curl up into ball until he has stopped being cold and in pain is so strong, Jack knows that isn’t an option though, not if he wants to get back to a hot drink, an even hotter shower, some warm clothes and his team.
The dizziness and disorientation that have been present since he woke seems to get worse as a he walks, until every step seems to require his full concentration not to slip and fall. It’s a level of concentration that, as time passes, Jack finds impossible to maintain, and each time he falls it’s harder to get up.
The sight of an old red phone box by the side of the road brings tears to his eyes that have nothing to do with the pain and biting cold that seem to cut right through him.
Stumbling inside, Jack leans against the door, glad to be out of the wind and rain.
Looking at the phone which has been converted to card use only, Jack is grateful that back in the 1980’s the then head of Torchwood three had got a free phone number for Torchwood, just in case any of the staff need to call in, but had no change. With fingers numb from the cold he dials the only Torchwood number he can remember: the tourist office.
The relief is short lived as it continues to ring until it switches over to an answer phone. “This is the Cardiff Bay Tourist Information service. There is currently nobody available to…”
“Come on, come on, pick up,” Jack mutters under his breath, not wanting to even consider that there’s nobody there to hear him, or that whoever had taken him has got to his team as well.
Abruptly the recorded message cuts out. “Jack?”
The sound of Ianto’s voice has never been so welcome, and Jack rests his head against the wall of the phone box, relieved that whatever had taken him hasn’t taken all his team.
“Jack, is that you?”
“Yeah.” Jack’s throat feels rough and tight, and he’s aware that he’s started shivering again. For reasons that temporarily escape him Jack’s knows that it’s a good sign, but it still makes him feel wretched and sick.
“Where are you? Where have you been?”
“I don’t know.” Wave of dizziness hits him, and Jack closes his eyes, waiting for everything to stop spinning and get back into focus. “How long have I been gone?”
“Nearly a week. I thought, I mean we all thought…” Ianto trails off, sounding embarrassed and ashamed.
That I’d run off with the Doctor again, Jack thinks bitterly. Did that mean that they hadn’t even bothered looking for him? Jack knows that he’s been irritable and distant with them the past couple of weeks since the incident with the space whale, and he wonders now if they’ve misinterpreted it him being sorry that he ever came back.
“I’m sorry. Are you all right?”
Jack thinks about lying, but knows that there’s really no point, Ianto will see the state he’s in soon enough. “I’ve had better days.”
Ianto is quiet for a moment, and Jack can picture the worried frown that Ianto gets when he’s concerned about somebody or something. Eventually Ianto asks, “Are you coming back?”
“Soon as you come get me.”
“Where are you?”
“Don’t know.” Jack looks at the information in the phone box, the words drift in and out of focus, but he can make out that it’s in both English and Welsh. He closes his eyes again. “Still in Wales. Just trace the number.”
“On it.” Ianto goes quiet for a moment, and Jack can hear the sound of typing, before Ianto says, “You’re near Llanwrtyd Wells. It’ll take about an hour and a half to get there, if I leave now. Or do you want me to wait until I can call Gwen and Tosh in?”
Jack shakes his head. An hour and a half is far longer than he’d hoped it would be, but there is nothing that he can do except wait.
“Jack? Are you still there?”
“Yeah.” It takes Jack a moment to realise that Ianto wouldn’t have been able to see him shake his head. “Just come and get me, and bring me some clothes.”
“Clothes?” Ianto sounds somewhere between amused and worried. “You’ve lost your clothes?”
“Naturism and Wales really don’t go together, do they?” Jack tries to make light of it, not wanting to worry Ianto any further than he already is.
“Not at this time of year, no.” Ianto laughs, it sounds forced, more worried now than before.
“Is Owen there?” Jack asks, as he realises that Ianto had only mentioned calling Gwen and Tosh in.
“Yes. Why?”
“Bring him with you, there’s a couple of things I’d like him to check out.” As much as Jack doesn’t like the idea of being this hurt and weak in front of any of his team, and would prefer to keep it just between him and Ianto, he also knows that should he pass out or worse die of his injuries or the cold he doesn’t want Ianto to have to struggle to get his body into the SUV on his own or to have to a long drive back to Cardiff with just a corpse for company.
Ianto, Jack knows, wouldn’t complain, and would probably tell him, if asked, that it doesn’t bother him. Jack knows that it does though. Before Ianto it had been a long time since anybody actually put his feelings first, or even acted like he still has any, and somehow the fact that he does this to protect him touches Jack more than he can say.
“We’ll be a quick as we can,” Ianto says reassuringly. “Jack, I…” he pauses. “Are sure you’re alright?”
“You know me,” Jack says, trying to sound better than he feels. “I’m always alright.”
“I do, don’t I?” Ianto doesn’t sound happy with Jack’s answer or even convinced, but doesn’t push it, saying, “I’ll see you soon.”
Call ended, Jack closes his eyes, and leaning all his weight onto his good leg, he waits for them to arrive.
Part two
Title: Past Imperfect. (1/7)
Pairing/Characters: Jack/Ianto, team.
Rating: R
Warnings: Torture/interrogation scene in later chapter. (No sexual elements to torture.)
Summary: Waking up injured and with no memory of the past few days is only the start of Jack's problems as part of his forgotten past comes back to haunt him.
A/N: Set during in series two after Meat but before Adam.
There’s something very unsettling about waking up naked on the floor of a strange bathroom with no memory of how you got there, Jack decides as he struggles to sit upright.
Head pounding unmercifully, Jack leans back against the grimy tiled wall next to an antiquated sink and tries to recall just how he got wherever here is. Nothing is forthcoming. He remembers leaving the Hub early in the morning, before everybody got in for the day, to get something to eat. He hadn’t wanted to deal with a conference call between him, a General from UNIT and somebody from USA homeland security, on an empty stomach.
Shivering, the dingy bathroom is unmercifully cold, Jack tries to push down the feeling of fear that is starting to coil in his stomach. Fear solves nothing, that had been one of the first lessons that he’d been taught back at the Time Agency. Remaining calm and trying to remember events leading up to the period of memory loss was the best solution.
Closing his eyes, Jack tries to concentrate, the fear and the various aches and pains his body is beginning to tell his are present drifting back temporarily as he blocks them out.
He remembers walking across Roald Dahl Plas, the rain fast soaking into his shirt as he’d not fastened his coat as he’d headed for a nearby cafe, one of the few open that early in the morning. There’s no memory of arriving though, everything after leaving the Plas and walking onto Pierhead Road is a complete blank.
More unnerved than he is willing to admit, Jack opens his eyes and tries to work out how much time he lost. There’s nothing to work with though, and Jack knows it could just as easily be days, weeks or even years that he’s missing, and somehow that makes it seem even worse.
Standing up everything seems to dim, grey fog clouding the edges of Jack’s vision, until the dull ache in his right knee flares into white-hot pain cuts through it. Gripping the edge of the sink for support, eyes watering and gasping of breath, Jack rests all his weight on his good leg and waits for the worst of the pain to pass.
The mirror above the sink is cracked and grimy, but it is enough so that Jack can see the bruises on his face and the partially healed cut on his lip. There are other bruises, some on his stomach that look like a boot prints, others on his across his arms that suggest batons or maybe metal bars, while his knee seems to just be one large bruise; mottled purple and swollen, it barely resembles a knee anymore.
Jack knows with the sick certainty of past experience that his injuries are the result of a severe beating, one that had been bad enough to seriously injure him, although not to kill him. Whether that had been intentional on the part of those who had taken him or if he’d given them what ever they wanted before they got around to killing him, Jack doesn’t know.
The sudden thought that perhaps it isn’t over, that he’s just been dumped here in the bathroom while his captor or captors decide what to do to him next, hits Jack hard. He feels disorientated and dizzy, the floor seems to shift and shake under his feet. Shock, concussion or bleeding out slowly from internal injuries he’s not sure, all Jack knows is that he’s in no state to fight back effectively or to escape, but having to helplessly endure another beating makes him feel sick.
Shaking from the cold and what he suspects is delayed shock, Jack listens at the bathroom door for what seems like an age before deciding that there’s nobody there.
Cautiously Jack opens the door. It opens out onto a small landing with two doors, to what are probably bedrooms, and a flight of stairs.
Limping badly and leaning against the walls for support, Jack checks the two upstairs rooms. Finding them devoid of everything, except the smell of decaying wood and mould, he makes his way carefully to the stairs. Holding on tightly to the banister, his knee threatening to give way with each step, Jack slowly makes his way downstairs.
The downstairs is equally cold and empty, and as lacking in clues at to where it is or how Jack might have got there, as the upstairs. The house, probably once a farm worker’s cottage, doesn’t look like it has been inhabited for years. Derelict and with the much of the glass broken in the downstairs windows, the freezing wind and rain, combined with the bare slate floors, leave Jack shaking so badly from the cold that it’s hard for him to stay on his feet.
Normally, Jack doesn’t have a problem with being naked; a lot of his favourite things happen when he’s naked, but right now clothes, especially his greatcoat, would be very welcome indeed. The absence of his vortex manipulator only seems to heighten the sense of nakedness. It’s the first time that he’s been without it since Martha had handed it back to him onboard the Valiant soon after the Master’s death.
It’s not something that Jack wants to be thinking about, there are still a lot of memories there that he’s not worked through yet, painful, hurtful memories that until now he’s been able to keep out.
The only thing that Jack can find to wear is an old curtain. Faded and spotted with mildew, Jack tears a strip from the bottom of it to bind his knee, before wrapping the remainder of around himself. It does little to ward off the cold, and Jack’s sure that didn’t feel so damn wretched he’d find the idea of wearing a floral curtain as a toga funny.
Outside it’s raining. Freezing and torrential it obscures the view down into the valley, leaving Jack no clues as to which way would be best to find help.
Because, as much as Jack hates to admit it, he knows he’s going to need help if he’s to get back to Cardiff and find out what’s going on. Immortality, as handy as it has proved over the years, doesn’t protect him from pain or fear or loss, all it means is that at the end of it, however bad it gets, he’ll always be the one left standing.
Despite choosing the easiest route down into the valley walking still hurts, although Jack is sure that the cold is helping to numb a lot of the pain. He’s almost glad of the pain though, as it doesn’t allow him to think about anything else too closely, such as why he’s not healed yet.
Jack knows that his healing has been erratic ever since his time on board the Valiant, well more erratic; it hadn’t exactly been totally predictable before. Through the years Jack has learnt that his state of mind when he dies has a lot to do with the speed at which he revives. If there’s immediate danger to those that he cares about coming back always seems faster, even if it means that sometimes when he revives he’s less than completely healed.
There had been too many deaths too close together during that nightmare year, both at the hands of the Master and by those who’d served him out of fear that if they didn’t they would be the ones bleeding and dying instead. Since then it has been like his body has got use to being injured, small cuts and bruises no longer triggering whatever it is that keeps bringing him back. It makes Jack wonder if perhaps the Doctor has got it wrong, that he’s not a fixed a point in time, just one that moves in fits and starts, like a fault line through a planet’s crust.
Perhaps the Master had killed some of the wrongness out of him. Maybe that’s why the Doctor had offered to take him with him, and could look at him now.
Jack stops, and leans against the dry stone wall that runs a long the edge of the farm track he’s walking down. He’s not sure where that last thought had come from, it’s certainly not one he wants to have or believe.
Coming back from dying seems to be slower now as well, The only explanation that Jack has been able to come up with is that it’s a defence mechanism, just a simple physical reaction to limit the amount of times that he can die in a single day. After all he couldn’t die again if he was still dead.
Walking again, determined not to think about any of it until he’s back in the Hub, Jack not sure how much further he’s gone when he realises that he’s stopped shivering. He knows that it not a good sign, but there isn’t anything that he can do about it apart from try to keep moving.
It’s hard though, the desire to curl up into ball until he has stopped being cold and in pain is so strong, Jack knows that isn’t an option though, not if he wants to get back to a hot drink, an even hotter shower, some warm clothes and his team.
The dizziness and disorientation that have been present since he woke seems to get worse as a he walks, until every step seems to require his full concentration not to slip and fall. It’s a level of concentration that, as time passes, Jack finds impossible to maintain, and each time he falls it’s harder to get up.
The sight of an old red phone box by the side of the road brings tears to his eyes that have nothing to do with the pain and biting cold that seem to cut right through him.
Stumbling inside, Jack leans against the door, glad to be out of the wind and rain.
Looking at the phone which has been converted to card use only, Jack is grateful that back in the 1980’s the then head of Torchwood three had got a free phone number for Torchwood, just in case any of the staff need to call in, but had no change. With fingers numb from the cold he dials the only Torchwood number he can remember: the tourist office.
The relief is short lived as it continues to ring until it switches over to an answer phone. “This is the Cardiff Bay Tourist Information service. There is currently nobody available to…”
“Come on, come on, pick up,” Jack mutters under his breath, not wanting to even consider that there’s nobody there to hear him, or that whoever had taken him has got to his team as well.
Abruptly the recorded message cuts out. “Jack?”
The sound of Ianto’s voice has never been so welcome, and Jack rests his head against the wall of the phone box, relieved that whatever had taken him hasn’t taken all his team.
“Jack, is that you?”
“Yeah.” Jack’s throat feels rough and tight, and he’s aware that he’s started shivering again. For reasons that temporarily escape him Jack’s knows that it’s a good sign, but it still makes him feel wretched and sick.
“Where are you? Where have you been?”
“I don’t know.” Wave of dizziness hits him, and Jack closes his eyes, waiting for everything to stop spinning and get back into focus. “How long have I been gone?”
“Nearly a week. I thought, I mean we all thought…” Ianto trails off, sounding embarrassed and ashamed.
That I’d run off with the Doctor again, Jack thinks bitterly. Did that mean that they hadn’t even bothered looking for him? Jack knows that he’s been irritable and distant with them the past couple of weeks since the incident with the space whale, and he wonders now if they’ve misinterpreted it him being sorry that he ever came back.
“I’m sorry. Are you all right?”
Jack thinks about lying, but knows that there’s really no point, Ianto will see the state he’s in soon enough. “I’ve had better days.”
Ianto is quiet for a moment, and Jack can picture the worried frown that Ianto gets when he’s concerned about somebody or something. Eventually Ianto asks, “Are you coming back?”
“Soon as you come get me.”
“Where are you?”
“Don’t know.” Jack looks at the information in the phone box, the words drift in and out of focus, but he can make out that it’s in both English and Welsh. He closes his eyes again. “Still in Wales. Just trace the number.”
“On it.” Ianto goes quiet for a moment, and Jack can hear the sound of typing, before Ianto says, “You’re near Llanwrtyd Wells. It’ll take about an hour and a half to get there, if I leave now. Or do you want me to wait until I can call Gwen and Tosh in?”
Jack shakes his head. An hour and a half is far longer than he’d hoped it would be, but there is nothing that he can do except wait.
“Jack? Are you still there?”
“Yeah.” It takes Jack a moment to realise that Ianto wouldn’t have been able to see him shake his head. “Just come and get me, and bring me some clothes.”
“Clothes?” Ianto sounds somewhere between amused and worried. “You’ve lost your clothes?”
“Naturism and Wales really don’t go together, do they?” Jack tries to make light of it, not wanting to worry Ianto any further than he already is.
“Not at this time of year, no.” Ianto laughs, it sounds forced, more worried now than before.
“Is Owen there?” Jack asks, as he realises that Ianto had only mentioned calling Gwen and Tosh in.
“Yes. Why?”
“Bring him with you, there’s a couple of things I’d like him to check out.” As much as Jack doesn’t like the idea of being this hurt and weak in front of any of his team, and would prefer to keep it just between him and Ianto, he also knows that should he pass out or worse die of his injuries or the cold he doesn’t want Ianto to have to struggle to get his body into the SUV on his own or to have to a long drive back to Cardiff with just a corpse for company.
Ianto, Jack knows, wouldn’t complain, and would probably tell him, if asked, that it doesn’t bother him. Jack knows that it does though. Before Ianto it had been a long time since anybody actually put his feelings first, or even acted like he still has any, and somehow the fact that he does this to protect him touches Jack more than he can say.
“We’ll be a quick as we can,” Ianto says reassuringly. “Jack, I…” he pauses. “Are sure you’re alright?”
“You know me,” Jack says, trying to sound better than he feels. “I’m always alright.”
“I do, don’t I?” Ianto doesn’t sound happy with Jack’s answer or even convinced, but doesn’t push it, saying, “I’ll see you soon.”
Call ended, Jack closes his eyes, and leaning all his weight onto his good leg, he waits for them to arrive.
Part two