This is just a oneshot about Jack's thoughts on the Year that Never Was. It starts with him noting the differences in the dynamics of his team, and then goes on to discuss what happened to each team member during that year. Kind of depressing, I guess, but how else was it going to be? I mean, the Torchwood team was bound to be high up on the Master's hit-list.
Also, I've got another fic that goes a little more in Janto-centric depth on the Year that Never Was. It's called "The Benefits of Distance." If you like this and you're looking for more Jack/Ianto fluffiness, feel free to check it out!
Disclaimer: Yes. You've caught me. I'm not an 18-year-old American girl. I am, in fact, Russell T. Davis. Be prepared to have your socks knocked off by the season finale of "Doctor Who"!
One interesting thing about Jack's office that no one buy Jack knew was that it was possible to have the shades down over the windows and still be able to see the Hub. If he wanted to, all he had to do was push a button at his desk and they became transparent—but only from his side. No one in the rest of the Hub would notice a difference.
Jack didn't know exactly what it was or how it worked—like the sidewalk-life, he preferred to marvel in silence—but whenever he got tired of spying on the team via CCTV (and he'd come to terms with "spying"—he was really okay with it. Of course, he'd had a lot of time to think about his personal views on spying on the team, and after a long internal debate, he'd realized that it was fine, mostly because spying was more interesting than doing paperwork), he closed the shades and watched them in person.
It was this way that he began to notice the dynamics that emerged between the members of the Torchwood team—dynamics that hadn't existed before he'd disappeared off with the Doctor, all those months ago. The relationships had mutated and matured during his absence and, consequently, they were relationships that he could neither fully understand nor become a part of.
Jack saw the way that Ianto always brought Gwen her coffee last so that the two could spend a few extra minutes in conversation, smiling and laughing together over some inside jokes that no one else understood. They'd barely had anything to do with one another before Jack had left. Gwen had a tendency to ignore things that didn't fly directly in her face, demanding to be noticed (Jack figured that trait was the reason she'd entered into that ill-advised affair with Owen), and Ianto was the soul of subtlety. He wondered what had happened to turn these strangers into such good friends.
Jack noticed the differences in the dynamic between Toshiko and Owen. With Jack gone, Tosh had come out of her shell, it seemed, and the doctor had been quick to notice her new strength and vivacity. He seemed almost helplessly drawn to the quiet little technical genius. No longer was Tosh alone in her affection, and Jack smiled to see Owen helping her into her coat at the end of the day, offering her the last slice of pizza—little things that the medic probably didn't realize screamed "I really fancy you!"
Jack saw that Ianto and Owen could finally stand one another. It must be alien intervention, he'd thought when he'd first noticed, because no power on Earth could ever make those two get along. But now, only months after constantly yelling, cursing and, yes, even shooting at one another, they were able to amicably trade quips and even agree on things. It was like they'd become more synchronized with one another, Jack thought. Owen hadn't stopped calling Ianto "tea-boy," but now Ianto's only reaction was to chuckle and send him a zinger right back. In fact, there was something approaching affection between the two men. Jack would have given anything to know the situations that had brought this change on.
The strangeness of watching these people interact at a distance was only compounded by his memories. But are they even memories if they never happened? Jack vividly recalled what had happened to each of his team members during that awful year that had been erased. Sometimes, especially when he was tired or feeling vulnerable, the memories nearly overwhelmed him, and he had to hang onto the present with his fingernails so that he wouldn't be dragged out to sea.
Burning Soul
Gwen had died when Cardiff burned to the ground, right at the beginning of the Master's regime. Jack was a new prisoner on the Valiant, still more or less unbroken by the Time Lord's madness. Of course, he liked to think that his imprisonment had no affect on his dashing, debonair demeanor, but alliteration aside, he eventually had to come to terms with the fact that, after a year, he'd been just about burnt-out. Sure, he kept up the flirting and the fire, but it was a shell—a façade that he maintained in order to give hope to the Jones family. At the beginning, though, he was certain that it was only a matter of hours before everything returned to normal.
Gwen's death had marked the first time he had ever felt like giving up.
"Cardiff's gone," the Master had told him in a sing-song. Jack had felt his hands clench into fists despite his resolve to remain calm. "And d'you know what? I think that—clumsy me—I may have wiped out one of your little Merry Men. Oopsies!"
Jack had died many times, but he'd never known what it felt like to feel his heart stop. The Master's words seemed to echo in his ears. "What?" he'd gasped. Dead? Who?
The Master had laughed at his disbelief. "Only a woman," he said with a sigh. "And that's too bad, isn't it? She was trying to get some snot-nosed brats out of a daycare center, but my little friends stopped her." He gave a happy giggle. "They're so efficient that way! Anyway, they got her, and some fat idiot who was trying to help her out." Fat idiot? Jack wondered, still trying to process the information. Oh, God—Gwen and Rhys. He felt a twinge of shame as he recalled the number of times he'd insulted Gwen's boyfriend in exactly the same way. He gave his life to help Gwen and to save those children…he thought. He's no idiot.
Some sign of recognition must have crossed his face at hearing Gwen's description, because the Master let out a full-throated belly laugh. "Now you're catching on!" he'd shouted. "I just love playing guessing games! I just can't wait until the next time!" The Time Lord turned to go, but paused at the door and said, in a voice so quiet that Jack had to strain to hear it, "They will all die, freak. All of them. And I'll make sure you know about every…single…one." He laughed again. "'Cause that's the thing about you—you can't die, but you're still human. So I'm going to rip your soul to shreds instead."
Valiant to the End
Jack had seen Owen's fate firsthand, and it was the memories of the young doctor that haunted him the most strongly during his moments of weakness. The Master had captured Owen as he tried to smuggle much-needed medication across the border between the Czech Republic and Germany, and brought him on board the Valiant. Jack had been dragged up to the large meeting room to witness the young man's execution.
"Are you scared?" the Master had asked Owen, caressing his cheek with the laser screwdriver. "I know I would be. I know what this little screwdriver can do to a person."
Despite the gravity of the situation, Jack had been forced to suppress a smile at the young man's colorful, graphic and anatomically precise (he was a doctor, after all) suggestion of where the Master could put the screwdriver. The moment of mirth was quickly displaced by total anguish, however, as the manic expression on the Master's face twisted, and a lethal beam of light shot from the tip of the small metal cylinder through Owen's forehead. The doctor crumpled to the ground before Jack even had a chance to cry out.
"Damn, I wanted to make that last longer," the Time Lord had commented, regarding Owen's body calmly. "But, silly me, I just lose my temper sometimes." He looked back at Jack and grinned again. "Ah! There's that bit of soul I wanted to see!"
Jack watched him through silent tears as he approached. "I'm going to kill you," he told the Master quietly. "And each time you regenerate, I'm going to kill you again."
"Tsk tsk," the Master said, rapping Jack smartly on the head with the laser screwdriver. "That kind of attitude won't get you any friends, Jackie-boy." Jack couldn't stand to look at the man—instead, he stared down at the crumpled body on the floor. I'm so sorry, Owen, he thought. I'm so, so sorry.
He heard the sound of the screwdriver charging even as Owen's face filled his vision, and knew what was about to happen. But the burning beam of light shooting through his chest brought sudden darkness, and he welcomed death as it rushed up to meet him.
And sometimes, even now, with that dreadful year erased from history, when he looked at Owen, he saw the dead man instead of the live one, bruised and bleeding. Never again, he thought. I'm not going to let you die on me ever again.
Cracks in the Stone
Jack had always known that Toshiko was good with technology—he just hadn't realized that she was as good as she was. Good enough to track alien movement through Cardiff, perhaps, but not good enough to break through Time Lord technology.
He realized that he'd severely underestimated the woman when her face popped up on all the television screens on the Valiant—on all the television screens all over the world. There was a telly in the boiler room where he was chained up—the Master was vain enough to view that as a requirement—and the oddest mixture of happiness and fear swamped Jack to hear her voice.
"My name is Toshiko Sato," the woman had said. She was totally expressionless—only her eyes conveyed the depth of her seriousness and the strength of her urging. "I am broadcasting this to let all of you watching know that there is still hope. The monster who calls himself our master cannot control us forever, and this telecast is proof of that. His power is an illusion, and this is a crack in that illusion."
She continued to speak of hope for over a minute, and Jack lost himself in her voice. It was serene and mesmerizing, and evoked a sense of absolute confidence and faith. He studied her face, noting the scar that stretched from the corner of her mouth to her cheekbone—a scar that hadn't been there when he'd left, months ago. Toshiko seemed stronger than he'd ever seen her before (a strength that he would see mirrored upon his return after the year had been erased), but that strength was coupled with a new hard outer shell that he would not have wished upon the sweet, shy woman.
Jack would have given anything to preserve that moment, not because it was at all wonderful or peaceful, but because he knew what would happen next. And sure enough, the Master's voice cut over the broadcast within two minutes of its start.
"Well done, Miss Sato!" the Time Lord taunted, and Toshiko's image was replaced by the familiar one of the Master at his table. "You certainly are a clever one." He paused, as though considering a difficult problem. "Perhaps you're a bit too clever, though. Because my friends and I don't like people taking over our televisions!" He laughed. "Or perhaps you're not clever enough, because now I know exactly where you are, and we're coming to get you." The Master smiled at the camera. "People of Earth—please attend! This is a lesson in what happens to those who resist my power. Are you watching, Jack Harkness?"
The camera cut back to Toshiko's broadcast, and Jack closed his eyes in pain. Tosh was slumped over in her chair, clearly dead, and two of the Toclafane hovered in the background.
"Lady screamed loud!" one of them said.
"Funny lady!" said the other and Jack felt a single tear roll down his cheek.
The Invisible Man
The Master never told Jack what had happened to Ianto, and Jack always took this as a good sign. Every day that passed without news of the Welshman was a good day for Jack, no matter how many times the Master killed him. It wasn't until later, after the whole ordeal was over, that Martha told Jack that Ianto was working with the Resistance, ferrying fugitives across the country. Jack had smiled when he'd heard this, glad that Ianto, ever-efficient, ever-prepared Ianto, was able to make a difference in what must have seemed like a losing struggle to the people on the ground. It had certainly seemed like one to those on board the ship.
Of course, the Master was aware that the fact that Ianto Jones went unmentioned was giving Jack hope, so he began to brag about how easy it was to hunt the tea-boy, hoping that would demoralize the American. Occasionally he would claim to have killed him, but the declarations lacked the vindictive glee that he always had when he killed someone important and Jack saw right through those bluffs.
"What I don't understand," the Master had whined one day, "is why you would even need a tea-boy! I mean, top-secret organization, you hunt aliens, and you need someone around to make the coffee? What do you think Starbucks is for?"
"You've obviously never had a cup of his coffee," Jack had said, groaning. The Master had just stabbed him in the chest twenty times, and he wasn't feeling quite up to strength yet. "It sets you off Starbucks for life."
"Mmm-hmm." This non-verbose answer was so uncharacteristic of the Master that Jack shot him a sharp look. The Time Lord was watching him evenly, cold eyes quietly assessing him. Jack quickly looked away.
"Ah…" And that was the syllable that Jack had dreaded hearing. It was filled with sudden understanding and evil joy, and Jack felt his heart sinking into his stomach the moment the drawn-out word escaped the Master's lips. Shit. "It's not just the coffee he's around for, is it?" the Master said. Jack didn't answer. "Look at me when I'm talking to you!" the man shouted, grabbing Jack's chin and forcing him to look into his eyes.
"I'm sorry, baby, but the magic's gone," Jack said. The Master punched Jack in the face. Not the best reaction, but at least he'd managed to get a rise out of the Time Lord. And at least he hadn't been killed again.
"Ianto Jones…" the Master said, standing over Jack, who was sprawled out on the ground. "God, you 51st century men are so predictable. I should have guessed. Show you a pair of blue eyes and a nice arse and you're gone." He leaned down to Jack, close enough to whisper directly in his ear. "I know that you're probably worried about him," the Time Lord said. Jack closed his eyes, overwhelmed by anxiety for his young lover. "I just want you to know that we'll be doing everything to find him. You probably want to know that he's safe and sound, don't you?" He patted Jack's cheek. "Now, don't you go pining away! I'll be back soon."
Jack heard, rather than saw, the Master walk out the door. Ianto…the image of the young man's face danced before his closed eyes. Subtlety, that was Ianto. He could become almost invisible when he wanted. Jack just hoped that he would remain invisible just a little…while…longer.
Living in Silence
The team didn't know where their leader had been for the last few months, and Jack had no intention of telling them, no matter how much Gwen batted or eyes or Owen complained. He even refused point-blank to tell Ianto, a decision that had resulted in a number of nights spent cold and alone. He didn't care. The year that never happened had evoked a strong sense of protectiveness in Jack's chest, and the surest way of violating that was to tell them.
They were his team. More than that, they were his family. And if anyone wanted to hurt any of his family…they'd have to go through him first.
Hope you liked it! Please review!