silver_sun | Fic: Mind Games.

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Fic: Mind Games.

Mind Games.

Fandom: Doctor Who/Torchwood

Rating: R bordering on the NC17

Warning: Mental violation. Rape. This is dark fic you have been warned.

Spoilers: Doctor Who, from Utopia through to Last of the Time Lords.

Summary: Sometimes the cruellest tortures of all are those produced within our own minds.

Link to sequel; A sort of homecoming

From the moment Jack realises that Saxon, he refuses even mentally to refer to him as the Master, can see into his mind, can knock down his mental defences as if they are made of paper, he knows that he’s in serious trouble.

Saxon is all manic smile and energy as he walks into the cell that has been Jack’s home for the last five months. "Morning, freak." He places his hands either side of Jack's head. "Now what shall we watch today?"

Jack knows better than to try to fight him, knows the consequences for everybody else on-board the Valiant that he cares about should he even attempt to resist. Nor does Jack bother to dignify him with a response. Bitter experience has taught him that he won’t be given any choice in what Saxon decides he will be made to see and feel.

Forcing Jack to re-live some his most unpleasant memories is just the latest in Saxon’s series of experiments on him, and the more humiliating and painful the memories are the more he seems to enjoy them. On the days when he can’t find a bad memory to suit whatever twisted pleasure he gains from this he takes good memories, takes them and alters them, feeding in fear and pain until Jack can’t remember what is real and what is just another of Saxon’s sick lies.

Jack allows Saxon into his mind without a struggle, dropping all barriers, knowing that the sooner it is started the sooner it will be over.

Today’s memory is unfamiliar and although he's sure he's never been there before Jack finds himself running through what he knows to be the darkened and deserted streets of thirtysecond century London. He's trying to get away from some unknown horror behind him, he's half naked, his clothes, the remains of some type of uniform that he can’t quite place, are in tatters. Bruised, bloody and so afraid that he can hardly draw enough breath to keep running he struggles on, his bare feet cut and bleeding from the pursuit.

Turning a corner his foot catches in a pothole and he falls hard, hands and knees tearing on the rough ground. It’s all the opportunity the creature needs and a second later it’s on him. Huge, formless and utterly terrifying, its unseen claws tear at his clothing and skin, pushing his face into the dirt.

He's trying to shout, to scream for somebody, anybody to help him, but it's cutting off his air, crushing him with it's weight, and he all can get out are choking sobs as its claws rip away the last of his clothing.

Jack knows with a sickening certainty what is going to happen next as he feels slick tentacles pull his legs apart, suckers on them trail octopus like across his skin.

Revolted and so very afraid, there isn’t even enough air left in his lungs to scream as it forces its way inside him, sensitive skin tearing under it’s onslaught. Pinned down and unable to breath Jack can do nothing but lay there choking as the agony builds, until eventually, mercifully, he passes out.

Then suddenly it’s over, gone, and he’s stood trembling in his cell, Saxon’s fingertips resting lightly on his temples.

Too shocked by what he has just been forced to endure Jack can do nothing but stare at Saxon in mute horror, his breath coming in short ragged gasps.

Saxon is still grinning maniacally as he lowers his hands, "That was very educational, I didn’t know a human body could stand so much damage and survive, you learn something new everyday." He looks at his watch, “Fun as this all is I’ve got to dash, you know how it is, countries to conquer, people to kill. Busy, busy, busy that me." Saxon slaps him hard across the arse, a final insult as he leaves, calling back, “Same time tomorrow.”

As soon as Saxon and his guards are gone Jack stumbles the few steps across to the mattress on the floor, the only furniture in his otherwise bare cell, and drops to his knees.

Jack’s sure what he's just been forced to endure could never have actually happened to him, that it has to be just another sick and twisted game that Saxon is playing with him, but it had seemed so very real.

Real enough that Jack's sure he’s never going to be able forget the mind numbing fear and the sense of complete and utter helplessness that he felt during the creature's and Saxon’s violation of his mind and body.

It’s overwhelming and Jack’s stomach cramps, bile burning at the back of his throat and he barely has time to stagger from the mattress before he vomits the remains of his meagre breakfast onto the floor.

Shivering, Jack crawls back onto the mattress and tries to fight back the tide of sheer panic that is threatening to engulf him. He doesn’t want to think about what he has just seen, what he has just felt, but there is nothing in the room to distract him, nothing to stop thinking about it, nothing to stop his mind replaying it over and over again.

He tries to talk himself through it, to talk himself down, telling himself that it could never really have happened, that is was just another of Saxon's mind games. Yet doubt remains. What if it had? What if it was something from his missing two years? What if he'd removed his own memories to forget this?

After all there's a small, faint scar on his hip that he's never been able to work out where and when he got it. What if it was from this?

There are too many what ifs and a ragged sob escapes him. Pressing a hand across his mouth, Jack bites down against it determined that he’s not going to give Saxon, if he’s still listening, the satisfaction of hearing him cry, of letting him know just how close he is to breaking right now.

He can’t fall apart, he tells himself, he's not allowed to, not yet. Not while the Doctor needs him to be a distraction, not while Martha needs him to divert Saxon’s seemingly boundless capacity for destruction away from her, and definitely not while Martha’s family need him to be the one to bear Saxon’s brutality. He knows they would never ask such a thing of him, they are good people, he does it simply because he knows that he can survive it and they would not. So despite the pain it brings him, he has almost come to welcome it, because it makes him feel like he has a purpose.

And just maybe, if he is totally honest with himself, it’s because he hopes that if the Doctor ever finds out what he has endured he might be able to look at him again and call him his friend.

A hand still pressed against his mouth, stifling sobs he’s can't quite keep inside, Jack curls into a ball, trying to will his mind into blankness.

Jack hates to blank his mind completely, to zone out, the empty darkness of it feels too much like death. Right now though he welcomes the numb oblivion it will bring him, because it’s preferable to the almost overwhelming feelings of shame and despair that now seem to fill every part of his consciousness.

He’d learnt how to do it as part of his training with the Time Agency. They’d told him that it would help him withstand torture, that it was necessary skill, as only by understanding how to resist torture did you gain the necessary knowledge to perform it.

Jack can’t help but wonder that if he’d paid more attention to those classes, if he’d just taken it more seriously or if he’s kept up his practice of it, whether he would have been able to resist Saxon, maybe even push his way in to Saxon’s mind.

He’s just not good enough, he never has been and that’s the problem, he’s sure of it now, because why else would the Doctor have run from him?

A sickening thought occurs to him, what if Martha manages to rescue the Doctor, would they even try to rescue him? or would he be left behind again? Abandoned to suffer without even the hope that death would one day release him from his torment.

He has no answers and it hurts even to think about the trust, the faith, that he once had in the Doctor, so Jack lets the darkness claim him, finding, at least temporarily, a sort of numb relief in the emptiness of his own mind.

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Creepy and evil. Poor Jack.

Thank you for reviewing.

I was going for creepy, the whole year that never was, and Saxon more or less saying that he'd find it entertaining to kill Jack again and again, I think was a fairly disturbing concept.

The fact that Jack is imprisoned and isolated with the only hope of rescue or escape that he has lies with a man who's previously abandoned him and had told him that he doesn't really want to look at him and a women's he's just met, I felt made his situation all the more bleak.

I am at present mulling over an almost equally bleak sequel, set after the incidents on board the Valiant, but before Jack's return to Torchwood, when Jack realises that the Doctor mourns the Master's death more than he is upset at Jack's treatment by him.

Wow you've really captured the bleakness of the situation perfectly here. "And just maybe, if he is totally honest with himself, it’s because he hopes that if the Doctor ever finds out what he has endured he might be able to look at him again and call him his friend." That sentence made me so sad because it really highlights Jack's feelings and his pain over being abandoned and told that he's 'wrong'. I would love to read a post Valiant sequel to this (you mentioned you might consider writing one in another comment) Thanks for a great read!

Thank you for commenting.

Jack really did get a rough deal in those last three episodes of DW series 3.

The sequel was spawned by rewatching Last of the Time Lords the other day and how the Doctor treated him after they got off the Valiant.

What struck me was the lack of any kind of thank you, apart from an offer to travel with him again, and offer which when Jack refuses it the Doctor looks rather miffed and then promptly disables Jack's teleportation device. It came across (to me at least) very petty, 'like if you aren't going travelling with me, then you aren't going travelling at all.'

Followed up by him calling Jack an impossible thing. It was Jack's briefly hurt expression, then his attempt to turn it into a joke that made me want to write more of this.

Don't get me wrong I like the Doctor, so it's not a character bash, just one of the few interpretation I have about what was going on, the other interpretations are more Doctor friendly.

I've got some of the sequel to this written already, although i'm still deciding just what it covers, at the moment it's looking like spanning the time from he leaves the Doctor and heads back to Torchwood until moment before he actually meets his team again.

After that though i'm not sure, I may continue it further into what happens during series 2 of Torchwood, it depends what the muses do.

You've echoed my thoughts on the situation *exactly*! I'm pretty fond of the Doctor in general but he really *was* incredibly harsh towards Jack....especially so since Jack was pretty much a victim!

I found the scene where Jack, Martha and the Doctor are all overlooking the remains of Chantho's city really chilling - the Doctor gives Jack such a look of utter disgust and Jack doesn't say anything but looks absolutely gutted. I found it especially jarring because even though the Doctor can be a little careless with other people's emotions, he's usually not cruel. In that scene I thought he was and it has bugged me ever since that Jack never really got an opportunity to clear the air and get a proper apology.

I'll be looking forward to your sequel! :-)

That just *hurt*

Thank you for commenting,

It sort of hurt to write some of it too, but I thought it was time to write something outside of my usual zone. I was in two minds as whether to post it once it was written as I was a bit worried that people might think it was too dark and bleak.

Sometimes dark and bleak is good.
And let's face it - when canon includes a year of someone being held captive for a year by a madman who laughs as the planet below him burns I don't think you're going to be available to avoid it. You handled it really well.

Thank you.

It has always surprised me that DW canon events can be so much darker than Torchwood, but they get away with it because of how it shown visually, ie without any blood or swearing.

The fate of the Family of Blood was, I found, particularly cruel - that death wasn't great enough a punishment for them (they would have died in short order without their engery source) but the Doctor found it neccessary to punish them in such a way as they wouldn't die and could never escape unless he released. The fact that he went back once a year to check that one of the was still trapped pretty darn creepy. It made me think that if the Doctor ever went bad he'd go really bad indeed.

I can't even begin to imagine what Jack was forced to endure because of that evil bastard. Nicely done seems odd to say, but you brought out poor Jack's emotions quite well. I wish to cuddle him, but then I don't think he'd handle human contact well right now. Nice job nonetheless.

Thank you for commenting.

The whole year that never was scenario really does leave so much to the imagination, and very little of it is anything like pleasant.

There will be more to this story eventually, i'm still working the details, especially on how to get Jack from this point to how he is at the end of Last of the Time Lords and at the start of Torchwood series 2. This is because I intend, if I can get it to work, to fit this story in around both the DW and TW canon, so that it runs (hopefully believable) in the background to what we seen on screen. This is probably ridiculously ambitious, but I won't know if I can unless I try.

Wow. Just wow. so disturbing. Poor Jack. You have done a brilliant job on this. Mastering the emotion and vibe of the whole situation.

(and does it make me a bad person that I want more?)

Thank you for commenting and sorry for taking so long to reply.

I had wondered if this fic was a little too dark and if how I wrote Jack's reaction to what had happened was believable. I'm pleased to hear that you think I have done a good job of this, as this is something of a departure from what I normally write.

There will be more of this and I am currently working on a sequel to it, although it might be a while until it's ready to post.

definitely not too dark. Nothing can ever be too dark in the world of fiction. And for not being something you normally do, you've done it *very* well. I tried dark once...it didn't end pretty...lol

Can't wait for the sequel!!

Wow, that was very well written. That hurt a bit to read but you do such a brilliant job writing a hurting and slightly broken Jack. Keep up the good work.

Superb story!

I was also outraged at the Doctor's treatment of Jack. After all, Jack ended up immortal because he was fighting to keep the Daleks away from the Doctor. To just abandon him - yes, maybe you could accept that he had to see to Roes. But to never go back! To know what he was abandoning Jack to.

And his total 'so what' attitude when Jack was relating how he discovered his immortality, and the ways he'd suffered and died since then. The Doctor finds it in him to show kindness and gentleness to complete strangers; yet he can't find any words of solace for a man supposed to be his find. Jack totally changed for him, and he looks at him like he's worse than the Daleks.

I love that you fitted the missing two years into this, something that seems to have been forgotten about in canon. It does make you wonder if Jack was robbed of the memories, what had he seen? If he gave them up, what terrible thing happened to him to make losing two years of his life more preferable to remembering it?

I can't wait to see where you go from here. *cuddles Jack* *kicks the doctor*

Brilliant :)
There's so much possibility for writers when talking about the Year that Wasn't. You did a really good job - I don't think I've read a changing/discovering old memories fic before, so it was a good, original idea.

I'd also really like to read the sequel :)

Em xXx

Thank you, and sorry it has taken me so long to reply.

I have now posted the sequel, A sort of homecoming.

Oh, this was beautiful in the most evil sort of ways. I adore it.

Thank you for commenting.

Oh my goodness, poor Jack.

Thank you for commenting.

Definitely poor Jack, although since I'm a sucker for eventually happy, or at least completely tragic endings, I won't leave him completely broken, although working that in with everything from Torchwood series two is going to something of a challenge.

I look forward to reading more, something to make me smile perhaps?

There will definitely be more of this, at the moment I'm thinking three more parts after A sort of homecoming. With one set after Meat, the next one probably after Dead man walking, and the final one after Exit Wounds.
It's not going to be a traditional sort of happy ending though, as there really is no way of working that into canon, but there will be hope and sort of recovery for Jack.

It might be a while though before these appear as I'm also writing challenge fic for writer in a drawer and have to get one fic a week written for that until such point as i'm voted out.

I look forward to more with baited breath.

This is my favorite thing I have read in awhile concerning the year that never was, in fact it is quite possibly my favorite thing I have read in awhile over all.

Personally, I was not appalled at the behavior of the Doctor towards Jack, I rather enjoy the glimpse into his darker side. We as fans know it is there, it simply has to be given all that he has seen and done. It is the reason he is such a match for the Master, if he were to be completely insanely and maniacally evil he might even rival the Master.

You seem to have got it just right, the feeling of isolation that Jack would have all over again, the worrying if the Doctor and Martha would even attempt to save him, to find him.

Pardon the language, but I love the mindfucking. It has shades of Adam in it which was one of my favorite bits of Torcwhood this year, and Saxon would definitely use that to his advantage, gaining perverse pleasure out of torturing Jack like that.

Excellent stuff, really stellar.

Wow, thank you :)

I guess I wasn't so much appalled, just sad that Jack never seemed to get any form of comfort from anybody. I can't blame the Doctor for it though as he seemed to be hurting a fair amount himself and because of that wasn't able to see the hurt in the people around him. I do agree though if the Doctor ever went bad he would be very bad indeed.

The odd thing is that I wrote the first part of this before Adam aired. I really liked Adam as well, it's just a shame that they didn't have longer to explore the possibilities of it, but I guess that the downside of the fact that they don't really do two part episodes.

The biggest challenge now is to how the have this storyline running in the background of what we see in the episodes.
At the moment I'm thinking about another three parts, with one set after Meat, the next one probably after Dead man walking, and the final one after Exit Wounds. This is probably one of the most ambitious things that I've ever attempted to write, and I'm glad that it's not a complete disaster.

Woah I didn't know that story before :O
So heartbreaking*sniff* I can understand Jack's fear, being left alone again....wonderful description!
It's so sad and totally well written, thank you!

I would like to join my voice to all those going 'Awwwww, poor Jack' after reading this. It's sad and nasty and makes me wanna do bad things to the Master.

One point of criticism: You really should get a BETA. There are a lot of spelling mistakes and unfortunately they distract me from the wonderful story.

I'm glad you liked the story.

On the spelling mistakes, do you mean the actual spelling of words or the grammar and punctuation connected to them? As the spelling of the words has been checked. I do use the UK conventions for spelling though, I don't know if that's what's causing the problem.

Hello. I do mean the actual spelling, yes. I use British English spelling as well, and I noticed some mistakes, especially at the beginning of the story. There are some things that standard spell-check doesn't pick up on if you use the electronic version, I think that may be the problem? I always find that a BETA is a wonderful idea, because it never hurts to have a real person look things over (fresh eyes and all that).

Okay that's interesting as I've run it through five different spell-checkers and none have said anything is incorrectly spelt apart from offering me the other spelling of cruelest/cruellest, both of are viable spellings.
Which are the words that none of these spell-checkers are picking up as incorrect? Just so I know for future reference.

Okay, here goes. These are the ones I noticed:

...series of EXPERIMENT on him... - experiments, plural.

...some type of uniform he can't QUIET place... - quite.

...crushing him under IT'S weight... - its.

...and all he can get out IS choking SOBS... - 'are...sobs' or 'a sob'.

...as it forces IT'S way... under IT'S onslaught... - its.

...unable to BREATH... - breathe.

...and he's stood trembling... - I think this should be: 'and he's standing trembling'. As far as i know, only lamps, sofas etc. can be 'stood' somewhere, so unless you are referring to him being placed deliberately by someone else (which you might be?)

...Jack stumbles the few STEP... - steps, plural.

...just another of Saxon's MINDS games... - mind games.

...stifling sobs he's quite can't keep inside... - this sentence doesn't make sense to me. maybe: "Stifling sobs he can't quite keep inside"?

That's it, I guess. As I said, they're things that spell check doesn't pick up on.

Thank you for pointing these out to me i'll go and change them, apart from the stood/standing one as my paper copy of the OED gives its first definition of stood as 'remaining on ones feet' so it seems okay to leave that one as it is.

This one is really quite good. Dark and depressing as hell, but very good!

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Fic: Mind Games.

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