Current mood:	sick
Entry tags:	fic, fic: tw

Fic: Left Unsaid (2/5)
Title: Left Unsaid
Summary: The stories Jack Harkness never told the Torchwood team
Characters: Jack/Martha, Torchwood team
Spoilers: Set after Last of the Time Lords
Rating: None, just what you read into it
Word count: 7 drabbles with 100 words each
Notes: For __kali__ and the Pass It Forward Meme. I'm coming down with a fever, and this was born out of insomnia/very bad dreams. So of course this is unbetaed, just written. I'm really thankful for concrit before I crosspost. *crawls back into bed*

Makes sense without Part One, too.



Ianto dreams of spheres that bring death and destruction, of hiding and fear and desperation. He always wakes up screaming when the silvery balls' knives slice through his body. He shivers in the darkness of his bedroom, that dream now so worryingly familiar.

He tries not to notice Jack's questioning eyebrow when Ianto enters the Hub early again. Sleep is impossible after those dreams of death. He jokes about his insomnia, asking Jack what Freud would've said about the imagery.

Jack doesn't laugh, but is suddenly very pale. Somehow that reaction is worrying Ianto even more than the nightmare itself.


+++


"Go home, Tosh" Jack smiles, leaning against her workstation.

"Just one more scan," Tosh sighs, slightly miffed that her boss doesn't recognize the urgency. "I get odd temporal readings, as if time has been... edited, maybe." She shivers involuntarily at the thought. When Jack looks alarmed she shakes her head, explaining, "Felt like someone walked over my grave."

"Don't say that," Jack snaps, gently pulling her out of her chair and towards the door.

"But with my data we could recreate events that-"

"Out," Jack interrupts her angrily, not interested at all.

In the morning, her data has vanished.


+++


"Get them off," Jack growls.

Owen can't help but grin, their mighty and immortal boss tricked by a bunch of women and an alien device. Serves him and his sleazy flirting right to be handcuffed to a bed for once.

Jack breathes heavily, his pupils so large his eyes seem black, his muscles rigid as Owen leans over him, fiddling with the small keys. Owen frowns, this looks like his boss is having a panic attack. Who would've thought their omnisexual, kinky Captain had a problem with being chained?

But Jack shakes it off like the handcuffs, ready for pursuit.


+++


Owen tells the story while they're waiting for Jack to return. He grins and watches as Ianto tries very hard not to blush, Gwen and Tosh roll their eyes, Martha pales.

When the Hub door opens, she practically runs towards Jack as he enters. Their conversation is too quiet to be overheard, but Martha's soothing touch on the Captain's wrists and the following hug tell everything. For a moment Jack sags, resting completely on Martha. But then he presses a chaste kiss onto her head, sniffing the air for coffee.

Not for the first time Owen wonders about their connection.


+++


"What happened while you were away?" Gwen asks one evening when she catches Jack alone in his office. She sits on his desk, fingering his strange coral gently, and waits.

"What do you mean?" Jack asks in return, gingerly pulling the coral out of her reach.

"You've changed somehow..." Gwen continues, then hesitates. She can't put her hunch into words. "You and Martha..."

"I was away for one day, what should've happened to me in one single day?" he smiles, but his hands are clenched into fists and his voice is cold.

Gwen knows better than to ask again.


+++


Jack snatches the cerulean orb from her desk, ripping the attached cables off in the process. Tosh shrieks, her boss ruining her analysis of this telepathic interrogation aid, more precise than Mary's necklace ever was. It could be invaluable.

Only now she realizes everybody but she and Jack is writhing in pain, clutching their heads. Suddenly she understands: It's active. Interrogation, torture. Jack hands move in complicated patterns over the glassy surface until the orb turns green.

"How did you..."

"Practice," he answers curtly, throwing the dead thing back at her. She doesn't miss the tortured look in his eyes.


+++


"Will this ever be over?" Martha asks Jack, shivering in the cold night breeze. He doesn't answer; Marta can tell his thoughts are miles away, up there among the stars above them.

"Do you regret it?" she whispers.

"I'm so old now, I regret many things," he sighs, but it's too dark for her to see the emotion accompanying his tired tone. His arm sneaks around her shoulder once more, pulling her close.

"But not this," he continues, his hand caressing her cheek as she rests her head on his shoulder.

They watch the stars for a very long time.


+++


Part Three