Prompt 1-15 – Shattered Tears

For: My Heart didn't Break, it shattered

Characters: 10th Doctor, Jack Harkness, Ianto Jones, Owen Harper, Toshiko Sato, OC nutcase

Rating: PG-13 for implied violence, and one swear word.

Set: After Season 4, while the Doctor is traveling by himself, and sometime early Season 2 for Torchwood. I just stole his team, so Jack didn't have to do everything himself.

There were many things that he didn't know, but a few things that, if he thought really hard about them, and ignored the cobwebs and buzzing in his head, he could say that, yes, I know that.

One was that the floor was really hard, and not comfy.

The second thing was that every little while, and he didn't know how long, or if it were the same amount of time between them, but every little while, someone would poke him. It hurt, but not a lot. Just a little. But still, someone was poking him. Quite a lot, now that he could muse about it. (They hadn't poked him in a bit, but not yet a while.)

The last thing he knew for as certain as he could be was that the Wrong thing was sometimes close and sometimes really far, so far that he could almost not feel the Wrong thing at all. The Wrong thing moved, and he stayed still, on the not comfy hard floor, and had people poke him.

He didn't know why that was so heartbreaking when the Wrong thing got really close and then disappeared. He didn't know why, when it was so close it felt like it was right there next to him, maybe just on the other side of the wall or floor, when it left, he cried silent tears. He knew (hey, that's four things!) that he could never move to go find the Wrong thing, that just opening his eyes was impossible, or it is now. He used to be able to, he hopes, otherwise how did he get here in the first place?

He thinks that that may have something to do with why the people are poking him, to keep him still, but he's not sure. He can't ask them, after all. They keep poking him.

The Wrong thing is back again.

The Wrong thing is something that he just knows is there, kind of like a ray of sunshine. You can just feel it, and you don't have to open your eyes to know that it's there in the room with you, you just sort of … know. Which is good, because opening his eyes is a bit hard right now. Moving isn't needed for listening, though. Sometimes, if they are really close and he thinks really hard and listens with both ears (how do you listen with only half an ear?) he can figure out what they are saying.

They talk strange, he thinks. Very plain. Not like home.

He's not sure where home is, but it isn't here. That's something he's figured out.

They haven't poked him in a good medium while. Almost two bits and a while worth.

The Wrong thing has a loud voice. A deep, loud, 'you will hear me' voice. He likes it. He shivers a little at it, and knows it get what it wants, sometimes with asking, most times without. He thinks that he knows that voice. That he knows the Wrong thing…the Wrong thing is looking for something.

Maybe, he hopes, the Wrong thing is looking for him. He thinks he's lost.

The Wrong thing and the Poking person are arguing. The Wrong thing shouldn't be there, the Poking person doesn't like him, it's not fair, bothering good people. He sounds angry, but not like the Wrong thing. The Wrong one (maybe he shouldn't call it thing…there's a name, but he can't seem to hear it, can't remember it) is angry, frighteningly angry. There is danger to that one that he can't stop and will hurt worse than the poking does.

He thinks he's afraid, a little, of what the Wrong one will do to … the other ones.

But not to him. Not to him, while he can't move and can only feel the tears track down his face as the Wrong one leaves once more. Never to him, even though he thinks he might have hurt the Wrong one before, long ago and far away, back when he could move and talk.

Back when he remembered his name.

He's quite sure it isn't Subject 2052.

He's almost sure.

He hopes he's sure.

"There's nothing, Jack." Owen Harper said, sliding into the passenger side of the SUV.

Captain Jack Harkness stood leaning against the hood of the SUV, looking over floor plans that Tosh had found for him just that morning, Ianto leaning beside him looking back at the plain building. There had been a series of tips from an inside worker about aliens and non-humans being tested on for months, and each time they went in, there was nothing. No data in the main computers, no lab results in the massive paper files that they kept, no holding cells, nothing that would prove the tips were legitimate – until their source had turned up face down in the Cardiff Bay with multiple stab wounds from a scalpel. Once more, Jack and Owen had gone through the building while Tosh went into the security footage and implanted her little spiders throughout the system.

"Jack?" Tosh's voice came over the little ear pierce. "On the third floor, did you enter a room with a narrow entrance for three to five feet and that opened up to what looks like a square eight by eight foot room?"

Jack frowned. "No. Owen? Ianto?"

"No."

"Nope."

"Why?" Jack asked, scanning the prints in front of him, ruffling through them. "There's nothing like that on the schematics."

"Because that scientist just went into a room like that with several syringes; I've got him on the security camera from the third floor elevator area, just going in now. There doesn't look to be a door, but I think however you get in, it swings inward."

Owen was already out of the SUV, medical bag slung over one shoulder as Jack took off back into the research facility, Ianto quick on his heels.

The Poking person was back, poking him.

It hurt, and made everything go all fuzzy and woozy in his head. It burned going in, and sometimes there was a cold one, too, that made him gasp a little. This time it was both, and he tried so hard to move, to get away from the poking.

Improvement is a good thing; he thinks that he might have twitched a few fingers this time.

The Poking person is talking about the time, how he's late. Late for something, he doesn't know what, that that Man had kept him talking too long. Everything could be ruined. Continuality must be preserved.

(The Wrong one is coming closer.)

There is breeze over his face, drying a few tears on his cheeks. The Poking person has left one of the poking things in his arm, and it hurts, and feels like it is pulling at him, but he can't move.

(The Wrong one is coming closer.)

A chime rings out, and suddenly the poking thing in his arm is gone.

The Wrong one is closer, closer than ever before. He is so desperate to move, to let the Wrong one know that he is here, please, find me, make the poking and the burning and the freezing stop.

The Wrong one is so close, so close….

The burning and the freezing in his veins are fighting, and he knows who will lose. It's never the burning or the freezing.

It's him.

The tears start again.

Jack knew that he was still calm the moment before he saw the red Converse sneakered foot on the ground. It was after he saw that foot that his temper flared to full burn, igniting to a fireball when he saw the familiar brown mop of hair, the pin stripped suit, the brown trench coat lying ignored in the corner. He brought up the ready sidearm to firing position. "Get away from him, now!" he commanded loudly. "Move, or I shoot!"

Ianto was only a few steps behind him, already reaching for a pair of handcuffs for the nutcase in the white lab coat. The scientist was backing away from the enraged captain, muttering something about how Harkness had no right to be interrupting his work, not even fighting Ianto's firm grip or the tightness of the cuffs.

Jack visibly restrained himself from moving towards the scientist, shaking just a little with suppressed rage. He really, really wanted to punch the answers out of that vermin, but he knew the Doctor wouldn't approve. After all these years, Jack thought to himself as he knelt down on the other side of the unconscious Doctor, he still wanted to please this erratically daft alien who'd had the gall to make him into a better person.

Owen was taking basic readings, frowning and muttering to himself about his findings. "What have you got, Owen?"

Owen pulled the stethoscope ear pieces out and shook his head, baffled. "Our friend here has two hearts, Jack," he began.

"Yeah, I know. How is he?"

Owen's eyes narrowed, but he continued. "One is beating at a slightly faster pace, the other is struggling. Lungs are fine, temperature is at 17 degrees-"

"He's got a fever, then." Jack brushed one hand over the Doctor's forehead, pushing aside the lank hair. "He's normally at about 15 degrees." Cupping one side of his friend's face, he wiped away a few tear tracks from the sunken cheeks and hollow eyes. "Oh, Doc, what have they been doing to you? Can you even hear me? C'mon, Doctor, I need you to wake up for me."

"Oh, it won't wake up any time soon, Captain."

Jack slowly removed his hand from his friend's face and ever so slowly stood up. With a bland, vaguely interested face, he turned to the scientist nutcase that Ianto held firmly by the door. "Oh?" he said softly. Behind him, Owen was tense, ready to move, and Ianto's eyes had gone wide – Jack that calm was never, ever a good thing for the one that he was furious at. "And just why is that?"

The scientist barked a laugh. "It's the perfect guinea pig. I had to keep it sedated so that I could study it, use it for my research."

Jack eyebrows went up. "Research?"

"Pharmaceutical. It's the perfect subject, with its higher metabolism that processes the drugs that much quicker. Months of research into side effects and drug reactions all done in a matter of weeks."

"Weeks." Jack was slowly walking toward the nutcase. "He," he stressed the pronoun, "he has been here for how many weeks? How long ago," he asked, voicing rising when he didn't get an answer, "did you kidnap him, just so you could experiment on him and lock him away in your little research facility? How long!" he shouted, hands fisting into the man's shirt, lifting him and slamming him into the wall behind him.

"Only – only three weeks, now! It is the perfect-"

"He's a living being! What have you been injecting him with? How much? How often? Tell me!"

"Jack," Ianto said calmly, when the scientist could only splutter in reply to Jack's outburst. "I found this in his pocket. I think it might be a good place to look for his research notes." He tried to hand Jack a small pocket computer, no more than the size of a decent hardcover book. "Would explain why Tosh never found anything in the main system."

"Take that, and him, back to the Hub, get Tosh working on it right away. Crack the firewall and strip it for anything useful! Put him in a cell next to Janet. Come back with the SUV." He dropped the scientist to the floor, and turned away, disgust and worry fighting over his face.

"But – but that's all my notes, my papers, you can't – you can't take that!" the scientist spluttered as Ianto dragged him to his feet. "Years of research-"

Jack whirled around and slammed him into the wall again, Ianto just getting out of the way. "How many other 'subjects' did you kill before him? What about them, their families, their friends, wondering where the hell they went?"

"They aren't living beings, not really-" was as far as the man got before Jack's fist connected with his nose, breaking it soundly.

"Get him outta here!" Jack snarled, stalking backwards a few paces, watching carefully. Ianto knew his job well, though, and quickly had the scientist in the elevator heading downstairs.

"Jack?" Owen asked after a few moments. "I think he's trying to wake up."

Instantly, Jack was kneeling on his friend's other side, one hand on his face. Owen had slipped his coat under the Time Lord's head as a pillow. "Doctor?" Jack said softly. "C'mon, Doc, you in there?"

There was the faintest frown on the pale face, eyes moving beneath closed lids erratically.

"Come on, Doctor, just try to open your eyes for me. I know it's hard, but just take one look at Jack, just for a second or two?"

The frown was a little deeper and Jack could have sworn that his friend was leaning into his hand just a little. He gently brushed a few more half-dried tears off his face as Owen stepped away, and came back with a pair of empty syringes, both of which were, for a wonder, labelled.

"When Ianto gets back, unless there is something on the computer, we can move him back to the Hub right away. No broken bones to worry about, and if these are the only things in him today, then they should wear off in about three to five hours."

"For a human?"

"Yeah, well, maybe a little less for him."

"Probably about 2 hours, then." Jack shook his head, and looked over into the corner. "Pass me his coat, would you? We can get him a little more comfortable in the mean time."

There are three things that the Doctor knows, beyond a doubt, even in his still kinda drugged state.

One is that the sofa that he is currently lying on is lumpy, but comfy.

The second thing is that new hands are sometimes poking him, but only a little, and it doesn't hurt. They are cold, but nice, and just take his pulse or check his hearts, or stick something in his ear, which tickles a little. They are very gentle, and every little bit, (time is still a fuzzy concept) they put a cold cloth on his face, and that feels rather wonderful.

The last thing he knows for certain is that Jack is right there beside him, with the Doctor's head in his lap, and Jack's fingers are carding through his hair. It feels rather nice, he admits to himself, such change from the cold hard and not comfy floor and the poking person.

The Doctor thinks that he'll be able to wake up all the way soon, and maybe even open his eyes even sooner, but right now, the pieces that were his hearts are slowly being cuddled back together, the tears of heartbreak are being wiped away, and the irrational fear that sedation can bring is being stroked away by gentle hands. He doesn't really want that to end just yet.

It's okay now to be still, and to be held, and not have to worry right now. He's safe, and his Jack is there, his wonderfully Wrong Captain Jack.

AN: Sorry for the repost, but the changes for a few little tiny things didn't save. :P

And thanks for the reviews! Lillibella, MaryMatthesen,