AN: Very disturbing scenes. Heed the warnings.
Chapter 2
Jack died of carbon dioxide asphyxiation peacefully, in his sleep, two and a half hours after the recycling failed. Twenty minutes after that, he revived with a desperate gasp. He revived in peak physical condition, his haemoglobin rich in oxygen.
At first Jack thought that they had been rescued. The relief that shot through him was monumental; he and the baby would be OK. Had the Doctor come back, leaving the rescue until the last possible moment? He staggered to his feet and looked around for the TARDIS, but there was no sign of it, or indeed any rescuer. Where were they? He had come round, so someone must have provided oxygen.
Jack's relief was short lived. As his body used the oxygen he had revived with, he began to gasp. This was not a slow build up of carbon dioxide, leading to a gentle slide into sleep and death. This was sudden. Jack's body had gone from fully oxygenated, to having no oxygen intake, at the instant he revived. Once the reserves were depleted, it was like drowning in air. He dragged in huge lungfuls of air, but it had no effect. He fell back on the floor, body thrashing involuntarily, hands clawing at his throat, as he tried desperately to get oxygen. He died again, four minutes after reviving.
It took another three deaths for Jack to realise that he was actually dying and reviving. He screamed his agony out to the empty room. Then he remembered the baby. Forgetting his own torment, his thoughts whirled. What is this doing to the baby? Is it already dead, or is it dying and reviving along with me? There was no way to tell. He prayed that it was still alive.
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Months passed, and no one came. Jack continued to play out the awful cycle of living and dying. The only change was due to his pregnancy. He was showing. So the pregnancy was still ongoing. Jack had no idea why he was reviving from death, and still less idea about how a pregnancy could progress under those circumstances. But progress it did. And, though he did not know it, the usual, gestation time of one year, for a Gallifreyan, was stretching out to six years. In the four minutes of life he had in each cycle, the baby grew. For the twenty minutes he was dead, it did not.
As he grew bigger, Jack's relief that the baby survived with him, turned to ashes. He would never have wanted a child to suffer this agony. It would have been better for it to have died, and stayed dead, the first time. And what would happen, when the time came for the birth? What, as was looking very likely, they had not been rescued by then?
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As time went on, Jack prayed for a permanent death for both of them. Anything would be better than this hell. He tried to make it happen. In one of his few functional minutes, he kicked a console to pieces and yanked out a sharp piece of metal. He cut his throat on his next revival, and bled out. He still revived. On one occasion he hung himself, using the wiring for the delta wave machine. That resulted in him being trapped, hanging, as he died and revived, until eventually the wires snapped. In desperation, he tried the delta wave, heedless of the fact that he would have wiped out all life on Earth, if it had worked. He tried four times before his befuddled mind remembered that he had snapped the wiring, and there was no power. In a distant corner of his mind, he was aware that he was no longer rational.
Eventually he gave up trying to end his life, and simply lay where he dropped. Sometime in the fourth year, Jack began to feel the baby move. He imagined he could feel it writhe in agony.
In the fifth year, the baby's Gallifreyan/51st century mind reached out to him. Though his telepathy was weak compared to a Gallifreyan, it was enough for him to be able to detect the contact. The baby was crying, and it broke his heart anew. Despite his own mental breakdown, and physical suffering, Jack projected love and wrapped the fledgling mind in his, giving what comfort he could.
Over the months that passed, Jack did his best to reassure the tiny creature, while they both suffered indescribably. His one time love for the Doctor had turned to intense hatred. He took the piece of metal he had once used to kill himself, and used it to cut his wrist. With the blood, he wrote on the wall of the control room, in letters one foot high,
Fuck You Doctor
Burn in Hell
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Though it was difficult to form any coherent thoughts, as they approached the end of the 5th year Jack began to panic about the birth. He was male, and the only way to give birth was a Caesarian section. He needed a proper medical centre, and surgeons. What he had was a sharp piece of metal. And what would happen to the baby when it was born? Would it still revive, or would it finally succumb to death? He was hopelessly torn. He didn't want the baby to die, nor did he want it to continue to suffer. Could he keep it inside? If he did, what would happen? Would it die? It was an impossible decision, not helped by the very short periods of lucidity that Jack had, between deaths and dying. Eventually he decided that he would not deliver the baby when the time came, but instead keep it inside him. At least he knew that it would revive there.
As the 6th year of their torment began, Jack started to feel the pangs of impending birth. He recognised them from his previous pregnancy. He ignored them for months. The pain he was in increased every time he revived, but still he ignored it. But, eventually, he realised that the baby's mind was becoming weaker at each resurrection. If he continued with his plan, the baby was going to truly die. He now had no choices.
In the few minutes of his next revival, he prepared. He gathered one of his cleanest blankets, to make a nest for the baby next to the pallet. He undressed and lay down, picking up his makeshift knife and holding it to his chest. Next time he would do it.
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He revived, holding the knife, knowing that he had to act quickly before he died again. He could still feel the baby's mind, though it had faded again. This was going to be crude, but, as long as he got the baby out without hurting it, that's all that mattered. He leaned against the wall so that he could sit partially upright, and see what he was doing. Jack placed the point of the knife on the left side of his swollen stomach, below the main bulge, and pressed in. Not too far, or he would hit the baby. He pulled the knife across, cutting as he went. It was agony, but he persisted, screaming as he did it. It wasn't deep enough! Again, quickly, before he died again and revived healed.
This time it was enough. He put the knife to one side and, grabbing the upper side of the incision, pulled to open up the rip. He nearly passed out with the pain, but held on to consciousness by sheer willpower. Rivers of blood were gushing from the wound. The pallet was soon drenched, and pools were forming around it. He couldn't see the baby through the gore, but he reached in with one hand and felt around. There! He had it. Pulling the baby out, he laid it in the nest, while he grabbed the knife again and cut the umbilical cord. It was done.
Knowing that he had only moments before he asphyxiated again, or bled out, Jack reverently picked the baby up, and cradled it in his arms. He fought down his pain and looked at it, trying to memorise every second. It was a girl. The baby opened her eyes and looked at him. He smiled, as tears fell freely from his eyes. "Hello, gorgeous." The baby started to cry. Jack gently caressed her with his hand, and with his mind, pouring all his love into her. He kissed her tiny fingers. It wasn't fair that such a tiny, innocent, creature had known such a tormented existence. At the very least he wanted her to know that she was loved.
Jack could feel himself slipping away, so he lay down, holding the baby close. When he awoke, she stayed dead.
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All Jack could do the next three times he revived was pour out his grief in wracking sobs, cradling the tiny body in his arms. As he cried out to the uncaring cosmos, his mind, for so long on the brink of giving way, finally snapped. On his fourth resurrection, he put the baby gently in its nest. He dipped his hand in his blood, which was still wet, and moving over to the wall, started to write. He died where he stood each time, and just carried on writing when he woke, returning to the pallet frequently to replenish the bloody ink. He continued for as many death cycles as it took to cover the walls. The words "Fuck You Doctor Burn in Hell" were now repeated hundreds of times around the room. If he had thought that he hated the Doctor before, the feelings he had for him now transcended hate. He wanted him to suffer, like their daughter had suffered. To feel what she had felt, in her short hellish existence. If the Doctor came to rescue them now, he would kill him.
It was two more deaths before he pulled himself together enough to find a bottle of water from his stock. He used it to wash the blood from the baby's skin and hair. Once she was clean, he wrapped her in a sheet with just her face showing, and laid her next to his pallet. He kept her away from the blood. He redressed himself in his black leather trousers and, no longer white, T-shirt.
"It's all right now," he told her, kissing her forehead. "All the hurt is over. There will be no more pain. And you won't be alone, I'll be here with you. I won't abandon you."
He lay down on the blood soaked pallet, next to her, and let his hand rest on her. And there he stayed.