Jack won't stop screaming.

Given that there is a dagger plunged into his abdomen, it makes enough sense. But Lucy has been waiting for him to die, wishing he would get on with dying already, so she can yank out the blade and stab him again when he comes back to life. She sits on a storage crate with her knees tucked up to her chest and waits.

He's being very stubborn about it.

Blood is flowing steadily from the wound; Lucy watches it, tries to imagine the sound of a waterfall, running water, so that she won't just hear screaming.

Then he starts screaming her name, and she doesn't appreciate that at all. It takes her four steps, four urgent strides, to cross the room and get close, inches away from touching him. She grips the handle of the blade, and Jack struggles, tries to recoil, and resigns himself to the agony because there is nothing else he can do.

He chokes on blood as he tries to say something, but Lucy shoves the blade deeper, ripping an even more agonized scream from deeper inside him. She can feel it, he's so close, so she grips his shoulder with her other hand, rips the blade out and then uses all her strength to send it back in.

The scream dies in his throat.

Finally, all his muscles that were pulled taught are now lax. Eyes no longer being squeezed shut against the pain are now closed for lack of life instead.

Something warm drips into the corner of Lucy's eye. She blinks and then wipes the offensive wetness away. Her fingers come away smeared with red; blood. She realizes then that he spat blood on her face, when he had been screaming. Intentional or not, it still bothers her.

Glancing down at her other hand, the one still clutching the handle of the blade, she sees that blood has soaked her halfway to her elbow. There's blood all down the front of her dress, which she smears with her fingers in a halfhearted attempt to wipe it away.

She'll have to change now, which she decides with a significant amount of regret, because she's always loved the way the gold silk of her dress brushed against the front of her thighs when she walked, soft, cold, sleek. She loves the dress, and hopes it can be cleaned.

Hurrying off to her closet and bathroom, she pretends that oops, she forgot to take the blade out. Pretends, because she doesn't forget. She just leaves it, and gets far enough away, when Jack comes back to life, to not hear his screaming.

--

Harry's dragging her down corridor after corridor at a steady jog, her wrist clasped in his tight grip, where she can feel his wedding ring digging painfully into her. "You really must have a look at this, love."

If she didn't think so much about repercussions, Lucy would have asked Harry to slow down. She's tripping over her own feet, struggling to run across a metal grid floor in heels. It is during this run that she comes to realize that she never says what's in her head. A conscience is always warning her about Harry this and Harry that, and her stomach twists into knots when she thinks about it.

Onward, she runs, through the labyrinth, into the belly of the Valiant, into that damn engine room again, where she knows Harry's just taking her to see Jack again. Harry treats him with as much enthusiasm as a new puppy, and as much care as a science project, all experimenting and mixing chemicals. He has no regard for the outcome, just as long as the mixing is fun.

It's no fun for Lucy, though. She's about to break an ankle, or at least a heel.

"This really is very fascinating," Harry tells her. "The Freak really delivers when it comes to the show."

"What is it now?" She doesn't even try to feign interest; it won't make any difference.

"It's just... I've killed him quite a few times now. You were there for that. When I snapped his neck, his bones all shifted back in place. I shot him in the head," there's a twinge of smug satisfaction in his words, and he grins. "The wound just... closed right up."

"Fascinating."

"Hurting him, though, I could try breaking his arm. Surely no one's ever died of a broken arm. Humans, though... you can never be sure."

"You're trying to tell me that he only heals if injured fatally."

"That's what I want to find out, my darling. My clever," he pecks her chastely on the corner of her mouth, "clever love." Lucy doesn't think he's ever kissed her there. The act is gentle, soft, hardly something to worry about, in terms of bruising. It felt... nice. She licked the spot where her lips parted, tasting a bit of Harry on her tongue.

She would have to be more clever in the future if she wanted any more kisses like that. It makes her smile, thinking about all the other places where Harry can kiss like that, soft, sweet, and she doesn't even hear Harry talking anymore. He's still planning ways to hurt without killing, which Lucy knows Harry has trouble telling apart.

And then there's Jack, chained up by his arms, as usual. "Lucy," he nods his head politely to her, steeling himself to face Harry, to whom he says nothing.

"Good morning yourself," Harry says, sounding far more offended than he actually is. The dramatics are a little much for Lucy, but this is no longer for her, this show, the matinee performance of Harold the Conqueror setting himself loose on the man who finds himself royally fucked by his unique circumstances. How ironic, a man who could never die, getting killed over and over, and tortured even more frequently.

Maybe it was fun. By comparison, anyway, it was far more stimulating than watching cities crumbling into the sea.

"Let's see," Harry mutters, playing with his fingers as he considers his first move. But this is all part of the show. Harry is very good at causing pain, and should never need this much time to think and plan. But this is all for fun; and if he plans wrong, he can always have a do-over.

--

Lucy wants to understand the way Jack's mind works, figure out the mechanics of it all. Maybe then she could have an idea why he was trying to break out of his chains and shackles. Stoic, like a cat, she watches him strain and struggle, his muscles bulging beneath his shirt, his face screwed up tight, as he works at the chains that are bolted to the wall.

Hoping that she frustrates him by neither offering to help nor calling for security, but also uncertain of Jack even noticing that she's there, Lucy coughs to make her presence known.

There is no response from Jack, so she prompts him further. "Where exactly do you plan on going? Once you've broken free, of course."

Jack scoffs at her. He is not surprised, so Lucy can safely assume that he had just been ignoring her rather than be ignorant of her. In fact, he probably only remained silent because she hadn't addressed him until then.

"I'd jump."

The response is confident and without hesitation. Lucy is surprised to get a response at all, a response to a question that she had asked only in mockery.

"Wherever I'd land," he continues, "I'd get up and start running, and just like that I'd be free."

He would be free, but Lucy would still be a prisoner. She couldn't just leap from The Valiant and run from wherever she landed; her organs would all flatten and explode, and every bone in her body would shatter. Her blood and brains would stain the earth and leave a mess that someone should have to clean up eventually.

But not Jack. He would be free, unless Harry got to him before he came back to life, before he ever could start running. Scoop him up and chain him back up again, once his body had repaired itself.

"I should like to inform Harold of this," she says.

"About how I can survive impossible falls? I should like that very much." With a renewed vigor, Jack goes back to pulling on the chains. He fights with all his strength, holding on with every muscle, until his body forces him to breathe and, gasping, he collapses. Then he finds his footing again and directs his focus to the other chain.

It's a clever plan, rotating from chain to chain, using equal efforts on both of them, so that he won't have one arm free and the other still days away from release when Harry will walk in on him and beat him so badly, and keep him alive, so that Jack would have to recover slowly, like a normal person.

Lucy envies his strength; Jack's, not Harry's. "He won't, though," she says, and Jack stops to listen. "Throw you off. Not unless he can get down quick enough to scoop you right up and lock you away again before you come to."

"And wouldn't he love that," Jack sneers, all too aware of Lucy's loyalties and priorities. Without a doubt, he knows that she'll tell Harry, and that when he comes back to life it will be to the familiar humidity and smells of metal and oil of the dimly lit engine room.

All Jack wants, after escaping the chains and then the Valiant, finding the remaining members of Torchwood, shagging Ianto into a coma, rescuing the Doctor, killing the Master and saving the human race, is to have someone he can talk to, someone to tell how painful it is for the sounds and smells of the engine room of the Valiant to have become familiar. He can only anticipate falling victim to some form of Stockholm Syndrome next. But still, despite never being one to share his feelings, Jack really just wants someone to talk to.

Lucy, despite the many conversations Jack has had with her, is not someone to talk to; she is an asset, a blessedly unbalanced asset, one who Jack hopes will one day give him real means by which he can escape. Until that day, he'll need her, and he'll need to keep his head together.

He'll need to work faster with breaking out of his chains, if he wants to succeed with the latter.