The life of a con-man isn't that bad, really.
Sure, there's some running, actually there's a lot of running involved but you're free to come and go as you please, free from rules and restrictions...And the money is nothing to sneer about!
It's true that, ever since he'd had his memory stolen, Jack had begun to keep little mementoes in his bag, small items he'd take if he met a particularly interesting person or lived a special moment, but that didn't mean he was lonely or anything! The captain toyed distractedly with the whiskey tumbler in his hand. He'd been away from home for so long, yet he was no closer to getting those two years back...
It was the music, that's what it was. The music they were playing was getting Jack down. "Can we play something more cheerful? I know there's a war on, but that doesn't mean we can't have some fun, right?" Jack walked to the phonograph to change the disk, and soon a more light-hearted song was playing. It didn't help. Maybe he just needed some fresh air. The captain walked on to the balcony and took deep breaths as he looked at the London city lights below. Jack closed his eyes, the fresh night breeze cooling his skin...And then he heard the Air raid siren.
At the beginning of the war everyone would get really agitated when they heard that sound, but now people were so used to it there was little fear left; it had been trained out of them, like when there's a stench in a room that is overpowering at first but if you stay there long enough you can't smell it anymore. Jack looked on as he saw the planes approaching, and then he noticed something odd hanging from a barrage balloon. Was it what he thought it was? Picking up a pair of binoculars, he used them to get a better look at...yes, it was indeed a girl! It was almost comical how she was holding on to the ropes for dear life while bombs fell all around her, Jack smiled. The clothes had nothing to do with the period, she had to be a time agent! Jack looked at her face: she was pretty, too. The poor girl seemed to be in real trouble, she probably needed some help. Where was her partner? Why was she alone? He lowered the binoculars slightly to have a peek at the young lady's behind...
Jack decided to go and save her himself...
.
.
.
...The memory was fading, reality was inexorably pulling him back.
Jack wished he didn't have to wake up.
He could feel cold metal chafing his wrists, hear the echoes of distant footsteps and taste the bitterness on his parched tongue. He missed his hangovers.
When unconscious, Jack dreamt of the past: Lucy demonstrating the vortex manipulator, being stuck in the nineteenth century, winning rear of the year, his encounter with depressing-bar-guy with his obsession for that red-headed woman...and his latest flash-back, which was when he first met Rose and the Doctor.
Many, many years after those things had happened, the captain was now tied up in a giant spaceship being killed over and over again by an unhinged time lord.
It's funny how things turn out.
Jack really, really wished he didn't have to wake up.
Reluctantly the captain opened his eyes and beheld once more the dark and sinister cell in which he had been imprisoned. He hoped to see one of Martha's relatives, he always felt a little bit better when he could share a glance with a fellow captive, with someone who could even just begin to understand what he was going through. Plus the little sister wasn't bad-looking, either, he mused.
He heard footsteps approaching and his heart slowly sank, for he recognised their rhythm and they bore no friend closer. "Wakey wakey sleepy head," an eerily cheerful voice sang as the door to his cell opened "early to rise and early to be dead!" Jack clenched his jaw and slowly looked up.
Never show him fear.
He might scream in agony as he died over and over again, but he would never, never, show that man fear.
"We really must stop meeting like this." Jack greeted his captor. "People are starting to talk."
The Time Lord grinned "You're so funny! After what is this...eight months? After eight months you're still cracking jokes." His smile turned to a sinister sneer "Maybe I need to crack you."
"Oh come on, that was terrible. You really need to hire some better writers if you want to improve your one-liners."
The Time Lord chuckled sarcastically then moved in closer to Jack, staring into his eyes quizzically, as if he were a strange mystery to him.
"So funny, aren't you Jack? But tell me, aren't you scared, Jack? Have you already forgotten what I can do to you, Jack? Or maybe you enjoy dying..." The Master whispered in his ear.
"What's it like, Jack? Tell me, what's it like to die?"
"Untie me and I'll show you."
The Master stood for a moment in silence, then smirked "You fool. You could make things so much easier for yourself...Why do you have to be so stubborn?" he cried as he walked over to get some "tools".
The Master had been taunting and torturing him for months. He had taken everything away from him, including his little bag of memories, in an attempt to humiliate and break him, but Jack never allowed himself to show fear, never begged for mercy. He was beginning to realise that, as time passed, with every joke Jack made, with every resistance and refusal to betray his friends, with each time he would not beg for mercy or vow loyalty, the Master was losing the battle. The time lord had thought he could tame the immortal man and break him, like he planned to do with all humankind. But if even after months of terrible deaths, with no hope of escape, this man stood up against him...What hope did he have against an entire race? The Gallifreyan wanted to make an example of him, but was now forced to hide him away from the rest of the world.
It was this knowledge that, most of all, kept Jack going: The Doctor was the Master's greatest foe, the Captain was his greatest humiliation.
"Why do you make me do this to you?" The Time Lord Cried insanely as he approached his prisoner.
Jack braced himself, taking deep breaths. Don't show him fear.
"When will you just surrender? It's not so difficult: just beg for mercy..."
Jack realised there was another advantage to immortality his captor hadn't thought of.
"When will you learn? WHEN WILL YOU JUST GIVE UP?"
The Captain raised his eyes to meet his captor's crazed stare, and smiled.
"Never."
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Jack awoke with a gasp. He was sitting up in bed, perspiring and panting. He raked his hand through his hair and rubbed his eyes. That dream again. The captain wouldn't admit to it but even now, after so long, he had nightmares about the year that never was.
He shakily got up and walked to the window of his apartment. He couldn't go to Torchwood early or they'd guess something was wrong...Jack walked to the wardrobe and pulled out a small black rucksack. After the master was defeated, the captain had all his things returned to him, including the little souvenirs. At the beginning he collected them in case someone tried to steal his memories again, hoping the mementoes would help rebuild his past, but as time went on they became a consolation, something to hold on to. Whenever his nightmares made it too difficult to sleep, he would pull some out and reminisce. After so many years, he sometimes forgot some of the items he had collected. Sitting on the couch, le randomly pulled out something to look at: a photo of his very first Torchwood team, a badge a German soldier gave him that Christmas Eve, and a folded piece of paper Jack didn't recognise at first. He opened it to see the now faded and hardly recognisable image of a lady smiling back at him. Although he had only met the man once, there was something so earnest in the way he had spoken of this woman... Maybe that's why he had kept the poster: there was such hope in it...
Of course it was a sentimental, silly notion, but Jack had been around long enough to know something pure when he saw it, and had learned enough to never laugh at it.
"I'm sorry, depressing-bar-guy." The captain muttered in the silence of his home.
"I hope you found her."
Quietly Jack put everything away and went to have a shower, unaware that the very same day he was going to meet the lady in the poster.
