Note: Wow, I wrote this one quickly. It just came easily I suppose. This I think is the best chapter I have written yet. It tests the relationships between certain characters, and brings to light some truths...especially about Jack and Jude Benson...but I'm not telling, you'll have to read. Also, it mentions a name that will crop up in future stories of mine. (Hint: After this story is finished, look out for Bullet Proof Skin and AngelWing, but other than that I won't spill!) Enjoy!


Ten

The Truth Hurts

"Jack…" Jude spluttered, pretending like he had been taken completely by surprise. He staggered to his feet, forced a weak, unconvincing smile at the stunned man standing just metres away from him. "I…I can't believe you survived…"

At first, Jack said nothing. He gazed emptily at the floor space in front of Jude, either confused or upset. "No." He finally replied. "I can't believe you did…"

Jude tried to interject, wanted to plead his case, but his mouth just hung open uselessly when he heard Jack's next words.

"…When everyone else died…" Finally Jack looked into his eyes. They were pitiless, resentful, and cold…but they burned into Jude's like a raging ball of fire, scorching his vision until he felt tears prick at the corners of his eyes.

"I got lucky." He blurted out quickly, and without really thinking. Is that how he thought of himself, lucky? When he abandoned his colleagues, his so called 'friends' to let them die?

"Oh yeah?" Jack retorted. "And what about all the others then Jude? Did they get lucky?" His voice almost sounded hopeful, but it was hidden beneath an edge of anger and mistrust. "Jedrek, Sara, Kaine, Ellie? Did they get out alive?"

Suddenly, Jack's gaze shot down to Jude's left wrist, where he had been discreetly tugging at his grubby boiler suit's far too short sleeves. His constant fiddling didn't save him in any way. Face twisting with disbelief, Jack tried desperately to believe that the seemingly familiar device Jude was in possession of wasn't really there, that he was imagining the whole thing and would wake up any second now in his ship, floating through some far flung nebula, being none the wiser. But this wasn't a dream – it was a nightmare, and he found the golden question simply spill out of his dry mouth. "What's that?"

Jude stuttered and stammered, speechless at the fact that the game was up. Before he could even blink, hands were gripped like vices around his shirt collar, and he found himself being flung like a piece of dirty laundry to the equally as dirty floor. Oil and grime smeared up against his pale face, Jude didn't even bother to struggle as he felt the leather expertly pulled off his wrist, leaving the strange sensation of a cool breeze brushing against the place it had been for so very long. He waited anxiously in silence with Jack's mud-caked boot pressed firmly against his other cheek. It seemed to take an eternity before the size ten was lifted from his face, the rubber leaving a deep impression behind. Jude didn't hesitate for one second. He madly scrambled to his feet, taking in great gulps of air after having it knocked out of him, but not once attempting to run away.

He just couldn't – mesmerized by a look he had never seen before on Jack's face. He gazed at the device in his hands, almost as if he didn't seriously believe it was real, turning it over and over until he stopped, the realisation suddenly hitting him like a tonne of bricks. Carefully, he reached two of his fingers into a practically invisible slot on the underside of the device, slipping out what looked to be a crumpled piece of paper. Jude had never seen or noticed it before in his five years of having it wrapped conveniently around his wrist, and once again, the sickening feeling of guilt came crashing down around his ears. Jack just stood there, looking so much more tired than he had done before as he stared into space and twirled the paper in his fingers. At this point, Jude could make out no writing, just the blurred, wrinkled up figures of people standing huddled together, weathering the cold of a frayed Cardiff Bay. It was a photograph – an old fashioned, still one, where people simply smiled timelessly back at you. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't tell who the people were, but he bet he could make a pretty good guess.

"So it's true." Jack said, voice strangled and his eyes red and puffy as he fought back tears. "Torchwood actually told the truth for once. They're dead." He replaced the picture, afterwards strapping the device to its rightful place. "And to think, I was blaming myself for killing them." He shook his head, angrily laughing at himself for his deluded idiocy. "No. I was the one who was trying to save them!" Knuckles bulging a bony white, he spun towards Jude, taking small yet intimidating steps as he closed in on the dumbstruck man. He shot him a disgusted look. "You should have heard London when they first told me about you. They couldn't have sung your sorry praises enough."

In a sudden flash of anger, Jude found himself being practically thrown out of the room, his body slamming into the wall behind him. He could have sworn that just for a second, creeping out warily from around the corner of the corridor, was a robot – and not a small one either – a huge one, rusted and almost ancient in appearance. But Jude had no time to worry about robots, because the next thing he knew, Jack had a chokehold around his neck…

…and he was hanging over the abyss.


Jenny was sure that Jarg was going to die. Watching him scuttle across the collapsing walkway like a terrified crab, every instinct in her mind told her that the odds against him were insurmountable, that he was lost to the horrors – and sometimes unfairness – of combat. At first, she might have accepted this as normal, but now, things felt…different…like she should have been out there with him now, doing everything in her power to keep him alive, to keep him going – even if it meant losing her own life as well. But instead she just stood there uselessly, her dad's hands resting gently on her shoulders, pointlessly holding her back from something she could never bring herself to do.

Maybe even he, 'the pacifist', saw no possible way of helping him, she thought tearfully, shaking off the Doctor's grip and turning away from the scenes ahead of her. She couldn't look; dare not look. But even then, she could hear everything – the horrifying shriek of the flying insects and the never-ending whir of their wings, Jarg's pained gasps as he fought for every ounce of air, the grinding screech of metal as it tore itself away from the very wall it was welded to…all just got louder and louder…until Jenny's head was fit to burst.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Donna fall back, hand over her mouth with shock, and the Doctor begin to shepherd them both backwards even further. That was when the definitive sound came – the final groan of the platform as its supports gave way, sending everything it was holding clattering down into the cavern below. Jenny closed her eyes for a moment, defeated. Jarg had sacrificed himself for them. For her. But no matter how brave or profound the gesture was, to her it felt empty. Still, the Doctor kept pushing her further into the cramped little storeroom, more urgently this time.

Grief mutating into anger, she found herself spinning on her heel to yell at him, just to tell him to leave her the hell alone, but those hurtful words never came out of her mouth, and suddenly she was so glad they didn't. At first she was confused, completely disbelieving at what her eyes were showing her. It felt like a creature that was pretending to be Jarg was leaping at that narrow doorway, all four arms flailing wildly and his feet kicking at thin air as the ground beneath him simply disappeared. One corner of Jenny's mouth lifted slightly in the form of a wavering smile, almost as if she was thrilled to see him alive and still within the grasp of staying that way, yet totally unsure of his audacious leap of faith at the same time. It was incredible. Everyone stared at him, slack jawed, as the monstrously huge Yuluxian soared effortlessly through the air like an eagle.

"Correction," Donna said, just before the whole room violently shuddered with the impact of Jarg's less than fashionable landing. "He is gonna make it."

And he did, latching onto the doorframe whilst viciously swiping at the alien insects at the same time. He just about managed to knock them back momentarily, but they were brutal – probably more brutal than their non-flying counterparts – hissing so furiously that they bore several rows of jagged, needle-like teeth that stretched its way right down their throats, and were firing something orange and glowing out of a gun that vaguely resembled a luminescent hedgehog. Jenny winced, her stomach lurching as she saw a few of the bullets – which seemed to be small glass shards – lodge themselves deep in the thick flesh of one of Jarg's arms and the others pepper the metal wall next to him.

Jarg hardly looked as if he had felt them at all, probably in too much pain to notice any more of it piling up on him as he squeezed his way through the narrow doorframe. Absolutely exhausted, but as quickly as he could, Jarg pulled at the warped and bent metal of the door, hauling it closed until its distorted shape would close no more. Unfortunately, that 'no more' turned out to be a wide gap in the top right-hand corner, where the door had folded in on itself and left an opening plenty big enough for something to stick its head through. Desperate to carry out their mindless killing, one of the insects tried frantically to claw its way inside, mandibles clicking feverishly as it tried to get a grip on Jarg.

Jenny glanced quickly at him as he put his full bodyweight against the door, every muscle he possessed visibly shaking with the painstaking effort of holding back the surprisingly strong insects. She knew what to do. It just came to her easily. Naturally. Every military protocol that was downloaded directly into her brain urged her onwards, sparked into life after being dormant for god knows how long. She turned to her dad, who was simply standing there, watching with something akin to fear. Was that even possible for him? For a moment she felt frustrated – furious even at his lack of action, but she suppressed it and instead looked right into his eyes, meaning each and every word she was about to say. "I'm sorry."

Baffled, the Doctor could only look on as Jenny reached down to the side of her right boot, smoothly unsheathing something long and shiny that made his two hearts skip a thousand beats. How could he not have noticed that before? Now that she had made everyone fully aware of it, it had struck him at how obvious it was to spot. He blinked numerous times, thinking for a moment that he was blind, and hoping against hope that what she was gripping tightly in her hand wasn't what he thought it was. Before he could even begin to pursue his knife-wielding daughter, she had taken several quick, purposeful steps towards the thrashing alien insect, her weapon raised and ready.

"Jenny!" He shouted, deep down knowing that he was already too late, that her stubborn mind had been made up before she had even apologised to him.

Which, of course, was incredibly thoughtful of her – she was really thinking about what was right and what was wrong – but the cold, metallic glint of that sleek knife sent his own stomach lurching up his throat, almost as if she had stabbed him there herself. He couldn't help it. Over the years it had become second nature, his instinct. Weapons had evolved into the demons that sent a chill down his spine, that woke him from the seemingly eternal nightmares that plagued the rare moments he had slept. Anybody he had seen actually carrying a weapon…well, he could never quite look at them in the same way again. The vivid and disturbing image of holding that revolver to Cobb's head drifted into his thoughts, recalling how he had deserved every ounce of having a bullet through his skull, but then how his entire hand had froze, his body slipping into a coma and the way the oxygen seemed to seep out of the room.

He gazed at Jenny now as she inched her way towards the creature, trying to avoid its razor-sharp claws, and remembered how heartbroken he had been at the sight of her lifeless body…and how she would have to go back to that…it just seemed too cruel…

A bright spray of orange blood and a pained screech kicked him out of his thoughts, as Jenny's knife connected with the insect's neck, just between the cracks of its exoskeleton. Almost immediately it fell limp, hanging through the gap in the door like a ghastly ragdoll. On the other side, it went deathly quiet, like the entire world outside had frozen. For what seemed like forever, everybody stood in complete silence, listening to the rapid drumming of their hearts and gazing at each other, stunned at the past ten minutes of their lives. The first to make a sound – and consequently make everyone jump out of their own skins – was Jarg.

The Yuluxian slumped against the wall, holding one of his bloodied arms and whimpering pitifully like a dog. It was the glass shards buried in his skin. The orange glow that emanated from them grew less and less, until it had almost gone. The Doctor bent down next to him, inspecting the shards. It reminded him of something, something somebody had told him about a short while ago…ah! He reached out to yank the things from their place as quickly as he could, but Jarg shied away, covering them with one of his enormous paws.

"Don't do it!" He wailed, tears welling up in his frightened eyes. "Don't want more pain!"

"They're poisonous!" The Doctor replied, waving his hands about manically. "I need to take them out now before too much of the venom gets into your bloodstream."

He simply shook his large head, blubbering uncontrollably and evidently panicking at this idea.

"You're making it worse for him." Jenny scolded, kneeling down next to the Doctor, her shirt and arms splattered with alien blood. For a strange moment, she looked like a surgeon. "Jarg, you need to do as he says. It's going to hurt but it'll feel a lot better when the shrapnel is gone."

With one last sob and a reluctant nod, he lifted his paw, revealing the jagged shards. It was worse than Jenny had first thought – the three bullets had not only buried themselves into his arm, they had partially ripped their way across one of his deltoids, staining his velvety fur a grim black. She scanned her eyes over the rest of him, realising that that too didn't look much better. It was if someone had taken to him with a knife, slashing at his skin until it had left deep, nasty cuts all over his body. As this thought floated through her head, she suddenly felt very self-conscious about what her fist was still anxiously hanging on to, almost as if she knew the fight wasn't quite finished. But it was for now, so she quickly wiped the remaining blood away on her shirt and began to slide the knife back into its discreet scabbard – that was until the Doctor stopped her in her tracks.

"Don't, I'm gonna need that in a minute." He stated cryptically, removing the first shard from Jarg's arm with a quick pull. Surprisingly, the whining beast did nothing but screw his eyes up tight and embrace the pain.

Jenny frowned, confused at why he would want anything to do with the item. Even the others who were standing around and watching with morbid fascination seemed a little bewildered. "May I ask why?" She ventured, not sure whether she was going to like the answer or not.

As it turned out, she didn't.

"I've got a hunch about the venom and the blood," He answered, the second shard coming out just as painfully as the first and dripping with its orange substance. "They could be the same."

Jorena gave a dramatic shudder, her excessively long arms and claws nearly bopping Donna and the Librarian in the face. "So, they get the venom from their…their…" She could barely utter the word. "Blood?"

"Might do…" The Doctor replied, fishing out the final shard and snatching the knife from its discarded spot on the floor. Carefully, he poured some of the venom onto the sharp edge of the blade, making sure to get a good pool of it on the surface. "Right then! A bit of an unorthodox experiment coming up, but hopefully very effective."

What he did next almost made Jenny puke, and that was coming from someone with a strong stomach. The Doctor, without hesitation, dipped his tongue into the venom like a dog lapping up water, tasting the small amount he had in his mouth.

"That was…sickening…" Jenny said, shaking her head with her hand over her mouth, almost as if she was holding back the vomit. "…just sickening."

"Actually it was quite tangy. Sort of like an orange really. Or a satsuma." His wide and toothy grin, however, couldn't hide the burning sensation on his tongue for long. He suddenly doubled over with pain, feeling like a volcano had erupted inside his mouth and spilled its blisteringly hot contents down his throat. "Ow, ow, ow, ow!" He moaned, scraping at his tongue with his hands – to no avail. "Acid! Very strong acid! And definitely their blood. Contains all sorts of weird and wonderful things."

"Oh." All of a sudden, Jenny seemed quite worried, looking down at the blotchy red marks on her arms where the blood had been and feverishly scratching them. "That would explain the itching."

"Don't worry, it'll fade…you know, eventually." The Doctor replied unhelpfully, handing Jenny her knife back and then trying assist Jarg in getting onto his feet – which turned out to be more like helping the Doctor break his back. He seemed to have recovered from the burning blood in his mouth very quickly.

Suddenly, Jenny gave a loud gasp, so much so that Donna was quite ready to catch her friend in case she collapsed with shock. It was the knife, which she held between two fingers and at arms distance like someone would with the black, rotting remains of a once colourful banana skin that had been lying in a filthy gutter for at least a week. The look of utter horror on her face said everything, and Donna could see why.

Nearly the entire blade was coated with the sticky remains of the venom, which seemed to be literally eating at it, fizzing and popping away at the steel until the once biting, sharp edge and point was nothing less than an ugly lump of blunt metal.

"This is now useless." Jenny shot an angry look at the Doctor, who simply smirked right back at her icy stare and gave a sly wink.

"Nasty stuff Sharndrix blood, isn't it? Although, there is one plus side to it." He pointed to the ruined knife. "It destroys almost all types of metal – including steel weapons. Can't use that anymore can we?"

The audacity and sheer cheek of his cunning plan was infuriating. Jenny was about to retaliate, was on the verge of devoutly claiming that it had saved all of their lives, but instead she stopped herself and returned his smug little smile. "Oh, I don't know, I suppose it'll do to poke someone to death."

That was a reply the Doctor had never expected to hear from her in a million years – sarcasm.

He felt a slight twinge in his stomach. It was the twinge of realisation; the realisation that in numerous ways, she really was a lot like him. Too much, he had said, but those words brought the devastating memories flooding back far too quickly for him to cope with. All at once, the wide grin of earlier looked as if it had been violently ripped off of his face and then plastered with a shell-shocked blankness. Remorsefully, and without another word, he turned away and motioned for the Librarian to lead on, leaving Jenny to gingerly follow on behind and feel very put out.

For what felt like ages they roved through the endless corridors and walkways of the cavern, each and every one of them knowing that Jude had gone mysteriously missing, but every time they addressed his disappearance, they were met only with cold silence or a half-hearted 'hm'. Very suddenly, a tense air had befallen their small group, like a dark, oppressive cloud was hovering overhead, threatening to drown them all in a mighty storm. Donna knew who was causing the bad weather – she was walking just a couple of metres behind him, watching carefully as he trudged after the Librarian like a blinkered mule. For the Doctor to notice someone was missing and not even seem to care was odd; not like him at all in fact. It was against his code of laws surely?

Donna was about to ask him herself what was wrong, when she felt someone urgently pull her back by the arm. Spinning around, she met the nervous eyes of Jenny, who as far as Donna knew had been tagging along at the rear with Jarg, several steps behind everyone else as if they were downtrodden outcasts. She had claimed that it was to make sure Jarg was ok, but there appeared to be much more to it than just that.

"What have I done?" Jenny asked, making sure to keep her voice as low as possible.

"What d'you mean?"

"I've said something wrong, haven't I?" She glanced longingly at the Doctor for a moment, her eyes pleading to the back of his head. "If it's about what I said to him after he destroyed my knife, I didn't mean it. It was a joke. I thought he'd laugh."

Donna tried to remember the exact moment in time she'd said what she said, and tried to recall the moment that the Doctor's happy face had broke. It had all happened so quickly. She could barely tell the difference between a smile and a frown. The thing is, if it had been anyone else who had said that line to the Doctor, Jenny was right; he would have laughed.

Her consoling answer just seemed to come rolling naturally out of her mouth. "He's realized something." She looked at her friend triumphantly. "He's realized that you're a lot like him."

For the first time in a while there was a hint of a smile on her face. "Is that something to worry about?"

Donna gave a loud chuckle, forcing the Doctor to fleetingly look over his shoulder at them, still frowning, yet obviously surprised at the sudden positive swing in the atmosphere. "No, its very complicated for the Doctor." For a moment she had to wrestle away the image of Jenny's dead body in her mind, whilst trying to do what the Doctor had failed miserably at – maintaining a smile. "He does care, really he does. I can promise you that. Its just…complicated, that's all."

Donna expected Jenny to feel no better about what she had said, maybe even somehow read the true thoughts running through her head, but surprisingly, the opposite happened. Her face lit up with a relieved grin, almost as if a huge weight had been heaved off of her shoulders.

She was about to say thank you, when an aggressive, unforgiving voice resonated across the entire cavern, so angry and full of bloodlust that it made everyone jump a mile.

"Well," The Librarian turned to face them all, utterly shaken, and by the looks of it consulting some sort of digital readout on his wrist that scrolled endlessly with incalculable numbers. "It appears that we have found the missing party member and his um…" He gave a fuzzy cough. "…'friend'. Although from the ruckus I am picking up I severely doubt they are professing their undying love for one another."

"That's not true," The Doctor said, recognising the voice instantly. "You just never can tell with Jack."

With that, he was off like a bolt of lightening, the tail of his brown coat the last thing to disappear through the doorway with an elegant swish.


Right now, and for the first time in his entire life, Jude wished that he was dead, simply so he was saved from the haunted memories that whispered in his head day and night…tormenting him…ripping him apart from the inside out – but the one thing that bothered him most of all, the onething that really got him begging, was the torn up look in Jack's eyes as he threatened to throw him into the abyss like one of those useless robots. Jude had dreamt of this moment nearly every night for the past five years, and had erupted from his restless sleep a thousand times with the distressing image of his smouldering stare burnt into his retinas. They had spelled vengeance, he was sure of it, and he knew he deserved nothing less than to fall through the depths of this cursed planet to his righteous doom.

He suddenly felt Jack's grip around his shirt collar tighten, and the commanding presence of someone he had once had the right to call a 'friend' leer over him.

"Why did you take this from Ellie?" He said in a voice barely touching a faint whisper, and startling Jude a little at how heartfelt the question seemed to be. But suddenly, all sincerity swept aside, his voice started to get louder and more threatening, as if the answer was already blindingly obvious to him. "She was second in command, it was her job to look after you all whilst I did what I had to do. So why did you take it?"

Jude stuttered and stammered again, partly stranded in his own sea of thoughts but also lost for words. His gaze suddenly fell on something large shifting in the shadows to the right of him, and he felt his mouth swing open when he could finally make out the brutality of the machine waiting patiently for him a matter of metres away, with its own metal jaws open just as wide as his.

So this is what Jack had in mind for him. Not a fathomless fall into a pitch-black cavern, oh no. That was far too good, and far too painless. No, Jack was going to toss him into the exquisite blades and teeth of this monstrosity, and watch as he was ground to a messy, red pulp – just like his colleagues when they were crushed under the immense weight of that ship's engine, completely helpless. They had had each other for those final goodbyes, those last minute hugs and prayers before their world had come crashing down around them…Jude instantly realized that he had nobody…that he was going to die here of all places…

He only noticed that he hadn't answered Jack's question when he felt two sharp stabs of excruciating pain across the middle of his spine, where he had been smashed against the rail in an explosion of violent fury.

"Tell me!" Jack hollered, his eyes a mixture of bloodshot rage and broken down tears.

So Jude did, and as he spoke it, he found a torrent of frightened yet remorseful tears flood from his own eyes and roll down his grimy face. "Because I was scared!" He gave a noisy and pitiful sob, absently remembering what his father used to think of grown men who cried – "women!" he would gripe. But Jude couldn't help it. Five years worth of worries, grief and suffering came pouring out of him like a dam had burst somewhere inside his heart, and straight away he knew he was telling this to the right man. "I saw you give that thing to her…I don't know, it must have been the way you whispered something in her ear…something felt…wrong. God! I was so stupid and naïve back then…"

Jack was frowning, as if he didn't quite understand. Couldn't understand. "You…you thought I gave it to her so she would save herself?"

Jude simply gave a frantic nod, still weeping.

"But she wouldn't have done that." He stated conclusively, like he had the evidence taped to his forehead. "She wouldn't leave Jedrek behind. She could barely let go of him just to talk to me for a few minutes." A tense smile formed over Jack's face, as if he had been struck with a happy memory that also felt cold to the touch. "She loved him, she really did. I gave the Vortex Manipulator to her so she could not only save him, but everyone else in the base as well. That included you."

For Jude, that was the final hammer blow, and it smashed him right on the head. He stopped crying, beyond all forms of emotion other than shock.

"I kinda figured that the ship was going to come down anyway," Jack continued, releasing his grip around Jude's collar and letting him stand up properly for the first time in ages. "So I quickly reconfigured the Manipulator to carry a large group of people, and set the co-ordinates to-"

"Bristol…" Jude cut in, eyes wide and staring as his brain still tried to take in all of the information. "…Torchwood's main spaceport…"

"Where somebody happened to have a lovely ship parked there waiting for them. Your fathers, right?" He sneered loudly. "You're a lot of things Jude, but none of us ever suspected you of being a coward. You hid it too well…and it cost them their lives."

"Please kill me." He suddenly begged, startling Jack at how genuinely desperate the request came across as being. "I can't take it anymore."

Jack simply shook his head. "No."

"What?"

"You heard me, no. That would make me just as bad as you." For a moment there he could have almost laughed at the dumbfounded look of disbelief on Jude's face – he looked like a little kid who had just been denied a packet of sweets. "You've got what you deserved – life, so you can live out the rest of it thinking about what you have done, just like I have to live mine with the pain. If you really want to die, you'll have the guts to do it yourself. Don't expect me to dirty my hands with your blood."

"But-"

"I've got what I want, and that's the truth, something Torchwood would never give me and something I can never forgive you for. And I am furious, I really am." He paused, staring into Jude's hollow eyes. "And I'm sure they wouldn't want it any other way."

With that, the harsh clanging sound of heavy footfalls on metal echoed from somewhere behind them, and within moments the skinny figure of the Doctor came bounding through the doorway, the frown on his face suggesting that he expected to see something bad. He skidded to an unsteady halt, the rubber soles of his shoes squeaking with the slide.

"Hello again!" He quickly shot an overly bewildered look at The Cruncher, who was sat in the mouth of the opposite doorway, unable to go on the narrow walkway but still gazing out over everything with two very curious headlights. The arrival of this new, wild-haired person seemed to particularly interest her.

"You took your time!" Jack shouted, turning his anger and grief on the Doctor. "How long does it take to get someone, anyone to help?"

"Ah, well…yes, I might have got a bit distracted…you know, elsewhere…"

Completely out of the blue, Donna, the Librarian, Jorena, a blonde girl and an enormous demon-like creature came thundering into view, obviously trying to keep up with the Doctor.

As they came to a stop and took in their surroundings, the horned demon creature suddenly scowled at Jack, his lips curling up as he gave a guttural growl. With one clawed finger, he thrust it aggressively in his direction. "Counterfeit man!" He bellowed, setting everyone's eyes upon the culprit.

Now it was Jack's turn to feel the heat…