Well, at this point, it seems like all my longer form stories are going to be a chapter here and a chapter there, so my sincerest apologies for that! I got a burst of inspiration today, so here's a new chapter for Christmas with chapter 7 coming soon. A little exposition on some of Susan's past - it may not be that she told David quite everything about her time during the War. I hope you all enjoy, and if you like it, please let me know! Every review helps my typing fingers grow their wings :D
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Jack Harkness had seen Susan Foreman at her absolute lowest.
When she had returned from the Time War, he was the one who had found her, curled up in a smoldering crater, clutching a sobbing infant in her arms.
She had smelled of Time, a scent Jack had become painfully familiar with through his work with both the Time Agency and Torchwood, a bitter, acrid scent that was akin to freshly laid tar, a scent that was worse when one had been through a Timeline riddled with paradox. Jack Harkness had thrown Susan over his shoulder and held the child tightly in his arms, and he had run as quickly as he was able back to Torchwood.
It had taken days after he found her to convince her to eat. In the weeks after, he barely got two words out of her. After a month, she had told him that her name was Susan, and she had to get back to her husband, because he hadn't met his son, and he would be worried. After some delicate prodding, she had broken down, sobbing as she told him of a war to end all wars, of a Time War that had manipulated Timelines and murdered planets and their peoples and was still raging. There was no right side in the War, Susan had sobbed, and she had run away to protect her child.
Jack had been astounded, to say the least. It had been years since he had seen the Doctor, and for one of his people to be here, out of all places, was the coincidence of the millenium.
He had tried to recruit her to their ranks, and she had hesitantly agreed at first, but she had found their methods crude at best and brutal at worst, both of which were traits that she couldn't bear. Not so soon after she had run from a war-torn planet, and not with her child, who was just beginning to develop a touch telepathy that allowed him to feel his mother's emotions when they were close. If she came home distressed every night, Susan had said, it would be highly damaging and traumatic for his skill in the long run, as he would begin to associate the bond with pain.
As Jack half guided, half dragged Susan through the Torchwood bunker halls, he ignored the stares of his colleagues and was reminded about the look in her eyes then. It had been haunted, but it held the bated fear of a conflict alive - one that, while bleak, possessed an uncertain outcome that scraped hope from the bottom of the box of war.
Now, though, the only look in her eyes was a horrified emptiness.
He closed the door to his office and pulled out a chair that was less than comfortable, but she collapsed into it like it was made of clouds, her entire form trembling. His hand lingered on the doorknob for a moment as he took a deep breath. Before he turned around, though, her voice, no louder than a strained whisper, sent ice into his heart.
"You said… you knew my grandfather. Didn't you? When I told you… about the War."
"A long time ago. Yes."
"You knew him… you knew him, and you didn't tell me he was the killer of our people."
Jack sucked in a sharp breath through his lips. He turned around to face her, and sat down in his chair.
"Susan…"
"No. Don't speak, please don't…" A stifled sob caught briefly in her lungs, before she choked it out almost violently. "Jack, they're all gone."
Silence hung in the air between them, save the cries Susan did her best to muffle with her right palm. He reached over to take her left hand in his. She made no move to take it back.
"I'm so sorry, Susan," Jack murmured. "He never really talked about it, with me… it wasn't my place."
Susan nodded sharply, squeezing his hand, her fingernails digging into his skin.
"I have him blocked, now. In my mind," she said, her eyes shut as she forced the barriers deeper into her mind. The muted sensation was like spreading Novocaine over her mind - deeply uncomfortable, but nothing in comparison to the sheer sense of amputation she felt when she took them down. Nothing in comparison to the fury she would rage in his direction the second the shields were dropped. Nothing in comparison to what she might do if she saw him. "Grandf- the Doctor. If he can even justify that title anymore."
Jack noted her use of the Doctor's name over familial title. He forced himself to meet her eyes.
"Look, Susan…" he began. "I don't know everything that happened in that war. But I do know the Doctor. When I first met him, he was pretty fresh out of it. And I know how absolutely horrible he felt about… what he did. From what I understand, from the little he said about it, and from the legends too, he didn't have a choice. It was his planet and the Daleks, or it was the universe."
Her eyes flashed with anger.
"Jack Harkness, I fought in that war," Susan spat, red tinting her vision. "Gallifrey's government was corrupt, but her people are proud and strong. My mother and father and siblings all died in his inferno and I don't know what sort of legends of yours idolize genocidal maniacs, but I will never look at the deaths of billions and billions of people and billions more children and attempt to justify it!"
Jack didn't say anything, but he tightened his grip on her hand, which was already iron-clasped around his, looking at her with a surprising amount of shared grief. Her eyes trembled with the aftermath of her words.