{rp} Will you follow me into fire? Will you follow me into darkness? Will you follow me into death?

[superiorspectre]

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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[superiorspectre]

He's seen right through her, and the feeling of being out of her depth, of not being good enough sends one of the shards on the surface of her psyche digging in, twisting in ways she didn't expect and couldn't account for.

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

[john_thane]

A figure pulls itself out of Thane, still close enough to wrap its arms around his shoulders, half-sunk into his body, whispering just below the threshhold of audibility, punctuating whatever words with a nip at his neck, fingers on his face. Thane doesn't tend to repress emotions and considerations, not aside from that deathwish and shards of people he once was/could have been/isn't now so what's the point - alll of that is kept roiling in his consciousness, thought but left unspoken

[superiorspectre]

That wasn't meant to be true.

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

[john_thane]

Thane brushes his fingers across her cheek, a practiced gentleness resolving into a fist at the nape of her neck, knotted in her hair. He's still feeling her out, alert to everything - the pace of her breathing, the look in her eyes, the way she holds the key, the smell from her skin. The feel of her hair tells him she values appearances as well as the veneer she holds up in her eyes. The slip of her tone tells him she's not used to breaking apart. The slant of her shoulders tells him she's used to this arrangement, though not in total degree, that she knows these terms, and they know her.

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

[superiorspectre]

When Thane's fingers brush against her cheek, Suzie freezes at first, unsure of what to expect. She's used to having some control, subtle as it is, and here her power's nearly nonexistant. This much is hers: to keep him interested. So there's a second of quiet tension, and when his fist curls in her hair, that, she knows. Knows just enough to relax into it slightly, to move into the grip, make it easier for him. Resist, and it hurts more. Go limp, same thing. So the trick is to relax as much as is allowed, to be as ready as possible for whatever comes next.

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

[john_thane]

That tells Thane more, watching her move, watching her react. He hits the teleport a second before she reaches him, reaching out almost as an afterthought to touch her shoulder, envelop her in the flash. It's good that she was quick.

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

[superiorspectre]

In the moment after the teleport, Suzie's first thought is, Oh, so that's what it feels like! Just for a moment, there's a flicker of curiosity... She's had to give Thane more of herself than had ever been planned, and that lets it slip into her expression... She wants to take the thing apart, find out how it works... That's what she does, with technology and people both. The trick with either is doing it without damaging them in the process.

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

[john_thane]

He lets his eyes flick up to her for just long enough to say You're down a point. Do better or get out. Then it's back to cleaning the rifle, working her barrel, her trigger, adjusting the sight. This century doesn't have the requisite parts he needs to make her into a truly spectacular weapons, but...

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

[superiorspectre]

I didn't want this. But if this is what it takes... I can't be rational, Jack. I have to give him nothing but emotion, reason and understanding have no place here.

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

[superiorspectre]

Silence, then, the ragged edge of her breathing. She's breaking for him already, and he's barely touched her at all, but this is only the beginning. He could do so much worse with what she's just given him...

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.]]

[john_thane]

Thane's lips pull into a thin smirk, barely a smirk, drawn as a man on the rack as he listens. This is what he wanted, the stuff on which suckled his crusade - the great and terrible Time Lord, the creature beyond reckoning. Thane doesn't style himself a tragic hero. And he doesn't, he thinks, keep anything hidden, not in a case like this - what he's showing her is the worst of him and he's kept nothing locked away, to his mind. The deathwish isn't so much discarded as doesn't register, and he's never considered Harkness any part of him, anyway. What's she going to do with his dark side when she came asking for it to overshadow her, when that's the foremost of him anyway?

"You were an idiot to trust him," Thane says, voice gaining some good humor. "But then, you walked up to me. I thought you said you were fond of surviving. Either you're just not very good at it, or the lady doth protest too much."

The faint shadow releases her, steps back. You think we're better? -I'm not better. Can't say for him. He wasn't better '

[superiorspectre]

But you try. No one tries for us. No one, not ever. Except...

Maybe she does protest too much. Maybe she doesn't know what she wants anymore, maybe she's not sure whether she wants Thane as something to overcome, or something to be destroyed by.

Maybe she's found something more important. Maybe the only way out of this is through it. This place, this situation, this person she's become.

The girl-shadow lets go, looks up at Jack with wide, frightened eyes, then slowly, so very slowly, reaches up to place a hand over the suggestion of crossed arms, over his heart. I know.

No condemnation. Just fact. We don't get to be safe. But this is close. It's... She bites her lip, trying to find the right word. It's fair.Suzie's hand goes to the necklace without conscious thought. One thing. One person, in all the world, who did something for her before Jack and Malek, long gone and barely-remembered, a ring stolen from a dusty box when she left home

[john_thane]

You have to understand this, Jack says. If you want anything from me you have to understand this first.

There are far better people than me, he says, You think no one will care because you haven't looked. You haven't looked because you won't admit they'd exist. Not for you. I was worse than you were and with less reason to be. And you want to sacrifice yourself for me.

The faint shadow looks up at him, for a moment bitter pain twisting his face into something like Thane's, then twisting it past. No one was willing to sacrifice anything for us. Down, dog...

You make your own damnation. Or your own salvation.

Thane's smile grows, and his posture changes again. He relaxes, comfortable and confident both, and one tension has snapped from the air to be replaced with another. "Good," he says, and the message is twofold: the first, You've earned my interest. For now. The second, Then that's one more thing for me to take from you whether you want me to or not.He goes on cleaning the rifle, but his eyes are fixed on Suzie. His

[superiorspectre]

Part of Suzie flees at that, retreats to the mental bunker the Vesmier built for her, watching through the cracks she put there herself. The rest of her watches Thane, raw and shaking, but fighting to stay upright, to give him a bit of challenge, at least, watching the way his hands move over the rifle and...

Oh, he's good. There's something hungry in her eyes as she watches him. She knows what he's doing, what he's trying to show her, and if this doesn't destroy her completely...

Oh, the things you could teach me.

And what would it be like, being taken apart by a master? She'd never met anyone to surpass her father, and his destruction had been, she knows now, a sign of his own desperation. Not clinical, not thorough, just the reflexive actions of a broken man.

She learned from that, and everyone who tried to break her after, she tried to break in return, or she just laughed as they tried and failed.

He's going to succeed, and he'll do it so beautifully...

Don't be upset, the girl-shadow says, almost pleads. We're hiding. Most

[john_thane]

"And that wrecked you," Thane says, and that's recognition, interpretation, judgment. Because you are a wreck, standing here in front of me. He fits the rifle back together, slinging her over his shoulder when he stands. "You're thirteen. About..." He brings his hand up to the height of a child's head, "this high to your father. Adults are so big, aren't they?"

The words are idle, curious, a cat batting at something to see if it will roll or run. There's no malice in the tone but no human regard, either; it's a good story, that's all it is, never mind if it cuts her up inside. It's like Thane is deciding that maybe this would be a good way to spend an afternoon.

"So, you and your father. Big empty place that's never big when you want it to be. You're not your mother and you're a pretty piss-poor substitute and that's on his mind every time he fucks you. You get better you think that'll stop? Maybe the point is not for it to stop."

He'll assume things, follow the patterns, apply and then slowly distort a template he's

[superiorspectre]

And this hurts, and in some ways, Jack's words are worse than Thane's.

And God, she feels small all over again, and her body language reflects it: even at a reasonable height (almost 5'10" in her boots, as practical a heel as she can manage, because she's never without those bloody heels, anything to not feel smaller than she is), she seems tiny in comparison to him, shrinking in on herself.

Always mediocre. That hurts, sandpaper on raw nerves, and even with all the control she can muster in place, there's the slightest of flinches when he says it.

Curled in on itself, the girl-shadow murmurs softly, quoting:

She rose to his requirement, dropped
The playthings of her life
To take the honorable work
Of woman and of wife.

If aught she missed in her new day
Of amplitude, or awe,
Or first prospective, or the gold
In using wore away,

It lay unmentioned, as the sea
Develops pearl and weed,
But only to himself is known
The fathoms they abide.

She looks up at Jack, then. Dickinson. This is ours. It never came from him, it