AN: Hidden Behind Our Appearances now has fanart! I'm so pleased. Bloodsong13T has made art for chapter 12 of that story, and written her own expanded version of the chapter. You can check them out at

bloodsong13t dot deviantart dot com / # / d59gly2 and on Teaspoon where you can find the story and a link to the art.

(sorry I can't put the proper links in but ff just removes them. Remove the spaces and replace dot with . to go to the link.)

Note that you will have to log in to deviantart to see the picture. Many thanks Bloodson13T!

I'm off on holiday today for 10 days (with barely any internet access), so there won't be another update until after I get back.

Chapter 28

Owen was in London when Jack had his second therapy session. Tosh was on duty, along with Mark, Ianto and Gwen. Owen had scheduled Tosh's shifts to make sure that she was in the Hub whenever Jack was due out of a therapy session. He had also increased the number of people on duty, so that they would be covered if Jack needed her.

The previous day, Charlotte and Owen had discussed the schedule for Jack's sessions. They had decided that she would see Jack for a session on two, out of every three, days. The day off would be when Jack was due to take his heroin. Charlotte would go down to London to see her other patients, and family, on those days.

This time, as instructed, Charlotte turned up at the tourist information centre and went inside. Ianto was manning the desk, waiting for her. He smiled and indicated that she should come through the back. They went down into the Hub, where Gwen and Mark were working. There was no sign of Tosh.

"You haven't met Gwen yet, have you?" queried Ianto.

"No," confirmed Charlotte. "She was off shift last time I was here."

"I'll introduce you then." Ianto led Charlotte over to Gwen's desk. "Gwen, this is Charlotte Nash. She's Jack's therapist. She's to be given free reign of the Hub whenever she comes here."

Gwen stood up and shook Charlotte's hand. "I'm so glad to meet you," she exclaimed, effusively. "I really hope that you can help Jack. We've all been so worried about him."

Charlotte smiled. Gwen was brash, and, from what she had heard, prone to putting her foot in it, but she clearly cared a lot about Jack. "I hope so too," she replied. "I'm here for a session with him now."

"Why don't you go down to the therapy room?" Ianto suggested. "I'll make the coffee and tell Jack that you're here."

b_b_b_b_b

Fifteen minutes later Charlotte and Jack were ensconced in the therapy room, coffee and chocolate biscuits in hand.

Charlotte sighed in pleasure as she sipped her coffee. "This is going to spoil me for coffee anywhere else," she commented.

"Oh yes," Jack agreed. "Ianto is justifiably famous for his coffee."

After another couple of minutes of small talk, Charlotte moved over to the serious aspect of their meetings. "Last time, we talked about events after Torchwood found you in Manchester. This time, why don't we start from the beginning? Explain to me how you ended up on the Valiant." She was pleased by how much calmer Jack looked in this session, compared to the last time. Hopefully he would become more and more comfortable talking to her, each time.

Jack leaned back, gathering his thoughts. "That's a very long story," he said eventually.

"That's no problem," Charlotte assured him. "We're not on a schedule here."

"OK," Jack agreed. "But I'll give you the abridged version anyway. I guess I have to go back to when I was travelling with the Doctor. Do you know who he is?" he asked.

"I have heard of him," Charlotte replied. "He is a traveller in time and space, and an enemy of Torchwood, I thought."

"That's partly right," Jack explained. "Time and space yes, enemy no. He only ever tried to help, and has saved Earth many times. I met him in 1940, and travelled with him for several months. We ended up on an artificial Satellite, orbiting Earth in the year 200,100. The Daleks … , you know who they are, right?" he checked.

Oh yes. Charlotte was well aware of the Daleks. She had counselled several survivors of Canary Wharf. "God yes," she exclaimed.

"They were plotting to destroy Earth, and the Doctor stopped them," Jack continued, before breaking off again, grimacing as he remembered those events.

Seeing the grimace, Charlotte deduced that there was a lot more to those events than Jack was so far admitting, something personal. "Did something happen between you there?" she asked.

Cursing therapists who could read body language, as if it was your mind, Jack came to the conclusion that he might as well tell all. She was going to know everything about the Valiant and the UNIT prison. Painful though it was, this was hardly comparable, in terms of personal humiliation and trauma. "He abandoned me," he stated bluntly. "He sent me up against the Daleks, to buy him time to create a machine to destroy them. We both knew it was a suicide mission. But that was OK, I was willing to do that to stop the Daleks. I hadn't always been on the side of good. That was my chance to make up for my past." Jack paused there for a moment, fighting down his anger. "The Daleks killed me. It was my first death, though I didn't realise that when I woke up. And then I saw the Doctor leave in the TARDIS without me."

The last sentence had come out as a bitter sneer. Charlotte could tell that this was an extremely significant event for Jack. "He must have thought you were dead," she exclaimed. "No one would just abandon a man who had done what you did."

"You'd think that, wouldn't you?" Jack agreed. "And for years I convinced myself that that is what had happened. But I was wrong."

"You mean he knew you were alive?" blurted out Charlotte, shocked.

"Yes. I waited for him in Cardiff, since I hoped the TARDIS would, one day, refuel using the rift. It took 100 years, but eventually he showed up. He saw me, and tried to do another runner. I caught up though, and he made it very clear that I was 'wrong' and an abomination that shouldn't exist. He admitted that he knew that I was alive, and had deliberately left me. 'Busy life, moving on,' he said," Jack growled.

"That's appalling," Charlotte put in.

"Yeah," agreed Jack, calming down somewhat. "But you know what I did? I forgave him. Not just for abandoning me, but for trying to get away when I found him again. And, like a mug, I carried on following his orders, just like I did when I had been his companion. That's how I ended up on the Valiant."

Charlotte looked puzzled, so Jack explained further.

"When I caught up with the Doctor, the TARDIS flew to the end of the universe. That's where we encountered the Master, and that set in motion the events that led to him taking over the Earth. It was our fault. We followed him back to Earth, and were trying to stop him by sneaking on to the Valiant. We might have been able to kill him, there was an opportunity, but the Doctor wanted to do things differently." And it still plagued Jack, not knowing if that plan would have worked. "Anyhow, we ended up captured. The Master had seen me die, and revive, at the end of the universe, so he knew what he could do with me."

Charlotte shuddered at the thought of what had happened to Jack on the Valiant, but she put that aside for the moment. "You seem to have a great capacity to forgive," she commented. "Not many people would have forgiven being abandoned, let alone that person trying to get away when you caught up with them."

"I am too forgiving," Jack agreed bitterly. "I have done a lot of bad things in my life, and, in particular, when I was a child I make a huge mistake. I desperately wanted forgiveness then, so I have always felt that the least I can do is give it when someone else needs it. And I loved him." He shook his head. "But the Doctor never even apologised. I don't think he was even sorry that he abandoned me. And, when the Master was defeated, he left without a backward glance. I could have explained to him what had happened, and the part I'd been playing. But, from what I've been told, he was so wrapped up in grieving for that sadistic fuck, that he never gave me a thought. So I'm done with him now. I'm afraid that, for him, my forgiveness has run out. I no longer care if I ever see him again."

Charlotte couldn't help but think that Jack would be better off without his blind loyalty to the Doctor. That had clearly led to nothing but mental and physical trauma for him. The Torchwood team were a different matter. "But you forgave the others for allowing UNIT to take you, didn't you?" she asked. "You told me last time that you trust them again, so you must have forgiven them."

"Oh, I've forgiven them for that," Jack replied. "And at least they were desperately sorry. Not like the Doctor," he added, somewhat snidely. "They are always very sorry," he murmured softly.

"Always?" queried Charlotte.

"Yeah, it's not the first time they … let me down." Jack had been about to say `betrayed', but perhaps that was a bit harsh. At least for the last time, when he had deliberately convinced them that he deserved to be incarcerated.

"What did they do before?" Charlotte asked. It might not be strictly relevant to Jack's case of PTSD, but any background information could be useful.

"Well, if you mean Ianto, he hid a cyberwoman in the basement of the Hub, and initiated a sexual relationship with me to give him grounds for hanging around after hours."

Charlotte was gobsmacked. It seemed that every time she asked a question, she opened up a massive can of worms. How could one man have such a history of being betrayed, even one as old as Jack?

"But, but … I thought you and he were an item. Weren't you two in love, before the Valiant?" she stuttered.

"We were," Jack confirmed, with an ironic grin. "My huge capacity for forgiveness," he reminded her. "Believe it or not, that wasn't as bad as what I did as a child. And Ianto was sorry." And he had been, eventually. After he had got over the fact that Jack had executed his girlfriend. "We got past it, and we were in love. Or at least I was. With everything that has happened since, I'm no longer sure about Ianto."

"And the others, what did they do?"

"It was just before the Doctor landed in Cardiff," Jack explained. "We were investigating an entity called Bilis Manger, who could travel in time at will. The rift was going wild, causing mayhem. Manger manipulated the others, using visions, to try and get them to open the rift and release Abbadon; a creature that fed on life energy. They all saw people they loved; dead people. These visions convinced them that, to save everyone, the rift had to be opened. It was a trick of course. I was the only one who refused to open it. But they needed my retinal pattern, and password, to do it. Ianto figured out the password, but I tried to stop them. So Owen shot me dead, while Ianto, Gwen and Tosh looked on."

"Oh my god," Charlotte exclaimed. She couldn't imagine the caring man, that Owen seemed to be, ever doing that. "But at least he knew that you'd come back to life."

Jack laughed ruefully. "Not then he didn't. He thought it was for keeps. The only one who knew was Gwen."

Hearing this, Charlotte was having major difficulty maintaining a professional demeanor. Seeing her horrified expression, Jack added "I forgave them. As I've explained, I am capable of forgiving a lot. But there was also a less altruistic aspect to it." His voice dropped with shame. "What else could I do? I had to stay in Cardiff to wait for the Doctor. Torchwood was my whole life. If I had not forgiven them, I would have had nothing."

Jack's history of forgiving belied his words. Charlotte was convinced that he would have forgiven his team, irrespective of such thoughts. He seemed to be trying to rationalise forgiving what should have been unforgivable.

"But then, just after that, the Doctor turned up," Jack continued, "and I had to chase after him. I didn't get time to say goodbye, or even leave a note. They must have thought I'd run off because of what they had done." He laughed again, hollowly. "It turned out to be useful. On the Valiant, I used all this to convince them that I had crossed over to the Master's side. It worked like a dream."

So, Jack had gone into the situation on the Valiant on the heels of two betrayals, one by his team and one by the Doctor. Given that, it was very hard for Charlotte to understand why he had chosen to sacrifice himself for those people. "They must have been amazed to find out that you hadn't gone over, after everything that they did," she surmised.

"Yes, and it took seeing the DVDs to convince them that I hadn't. They wouldn't believe me when I tried to tell them." Talking about it had clarified Jack's thoughts, and made one thing clear. "I've reached my limit. I couldn't forgive any of them if they do anything to let me down again."

And no wonder, thought Charlotte, angrily. But she kept her emotions in check. Despite what she thought of the team's actions, it was Jack's feelings that mattered. Her own had no place in the session. "What are your feelings for Ianto now?" asked Charlotte. "I know that you are no longer together, and that you are seeing Tosh."

"How did you know that?" Jack asked in surprise.

"Owen gave me a thorough briefing before we started our sessions," Charlotte explained. "He thought I should know all relevant facts."

Jack nodded in acquiescence. "Although I forgave the whole team for what they did, including Ianto, he was my lover. He, more than the others, should have stood by me, no matter what he thought. But he was actually more cruel than the others. He did too much damage. I have forgiven him as a friend, but I can't see him as a lover."

"Do you think that could change?" asked Charlotte.

"I don't know. In time, possibly," acknowledged Jack. "But it's much too soon. He has let me down three times now. Like the Doctor. But he is genuinely sorry for it, unlike the Doctor, so we may be able to work past it. Don't get me wrong. I'm no angel, I'm sure if you asked Ianto he could come up with times that I've let him down. But that doesn't make it any easier."

"And Tosh. Have you forgiven her sufficiently to be in a full relationship with her?"

"She never treated me as badly as the others on the Valiant," Jack explained. "And she is the only one who would have protected me, before my pardon, while UNIT were still after me. She did more for me than the man who was supposed to love me. I feel safe with her emotionally, in a way that I don't with Ianto. She helps."

Charlotte smiled. "I'm glad that she does." Although it did worry her, Charlotte did not say anything about the potential pitfalls of having two relationships coming to fruition at the same time. It might never happen of course, but it would be something to watch out for.

Glancing at the clock, Charlotte realised that they had run over the allocated time. It would not do to over stress Jack, so she wound up the session. Jack was not as emotionally distraught this time as he had been before. That was more than could be said for her, though she hid it perfectly.

"I'll be down in London tomorrow," Charlotte told Jack. "So we'll have our next session in two days."

Jack nodded, knowing full well that the real reason was that the next day was heroin day.

Tosh was waiting in the main Hub, when they made their way up. Charlotte smiled to her in greeting, but, not wanting to interfere if Jack needed Tosh, left formal introductions for another time. Ianto arrived then, to escort her from the Hub. She bit back her fury. It wouldn't be professional to react to anything that she learned in a session. But she could hardly believe how many times Ianto had let Jack down. And not just let down, but betrayed! And, as for Owen; he had murdered a friend in cold blood. She was truly shocked about that. But of course she could never mention it, or let it change her attitude to him in any way. She had been horrified by the lack of support for Jack that the team had showed after the Valiant before, and now, knowing their previous history, she was even more outraged.