Author Notes: Thank you for the feedback, I really appreciate it! This is both the longest and darkest chapter yet - hope you like it!

Chapter 6

They were watching again. He knew it. That feeling that creeps down the spine, twining its way round, an altogether detached sensation, one his mind could focus on, to escape from one to the other. But Suzie didn't like that. She had to be in control, the centre of attention. She hated the fact that in reality she was not in control, that she was only able to do what she did because of their permission. Because they liked to watch.

In a way, that was somehow comforting. Suzie was not the be all and end all of his being in this hell. She did not have complete control. She could do what she wanted, but in truth she would never be all powerful. He held onto that thought, cherished it as his body was torn, wrenched inside out, dirt clinging to his skin and in his bones. He repeated it, over and over, as his mind desperately wished for tears on the days when she would not allow them to fall.

There was that familiar snap in the back of his mind, and he collapsed as his stunned brain was finally given back control. Instinctively, he curled his arms around his stomach, silent sobs shaking his thin frame. Then, as was the usual process, everything caught up, and he found himself retching emptily, that horrible jerking reaction as his tears became sickly sweet and meagre bile burnt his throat. It was only after this that he could fully return to himself and stagger unsteadily to his feet, dragging his pathetic excuses for clothes in a tight shroud around his body.

He refused to raise his eyes to meet her gaze, made worse by her obvious height advantage over him. Overly gentle fingertips grazed his cheek, and a mocking laugh rang through the room when he instinctively flinched away. "I would apologise for the length of our little rendezvous today, but we both know that would be a lie; I do so look forward to our time together. Just as good now as it was when we were both alive." Owen shivered again, his mind desperately trying to find one corner to retreat into and never come out again. Suzie reached towards his and began stroking her thumb across his cheek, "Aww, my poor baby. I had to be harsher today – you know that little stunt you pulled made them angry. Although I still marvel at how you made Toshiko disappear in a puff of smoke; pity I can't make your voice tell the truth as well as I can make it beg."

Owen didn't trust himself to respond – he was still trying to mentally hide. He was getting quite good at this, letting Suzie just wash over him. He was pretty sure somewhere down the line of his medical training he had learnt that patients who retreated into their own heads this much were not the definition of fine, but right now, it seemed like the best thing in the world. He vaguely recalled the rift people on Jack's island from a lifetime ago, and realised he could completely see where they were coming from.

Apparently Suzie had finally realised he had zoned out on her again, and she sighed, not in annoyance, but in a rather longsuffering way, as if he were a particularly difficult pet. She kissed him on the lips, an action he barely registered, but then she just left, closing the door behind her with a click, and within an instant all his nerves were on fire, a sick, panicky feeling rearing its way through his body as he began to hyperventilate. He was never left alone in this room. He was never left alone period. He backed away from the door until he hit the opposing wall and slide down, wrapping his arms around his legs. His battered mind couldn't cope with change any more; he was much too far past that stage.

And then the door opened, and one of them glided in. His breath hitched, and logically he knew he should be scared, but apparently that particular emotion had disappeared along with his ability to cope with new situations.

The white eyes raked over his wretched form, both unseeing, and insightful in more ways than would ever be comprehensible. Owen was hypnotised. White on white on white, with him a pathetic dirty blot in their world. And then he understood. He understood why they hated Jack, why Torchwood had to pay for it, why Suzie obeyed them.

So when he started screaming himself hoarse as the papery fingertips pressed into his temples, setting his nerves on fire, he knew that he deserved all that this place, and these beings, dealt his way.

Jack had recoiled with the heat as soon as he stepped out of the Tardis. The heat, and the sheer sense of wrong that seemed to seep from the very walls. "Home sweet home." Tosh's haunting voice floated from behind him, and he exchanged a worried glance with the Doctor, whose face was set in grim lines.

"Hello Jack."

All three turned as one to see Suzie leaning casually against the wall. "How did you know we'd be here?" It was a valid question, and one the Doctor was very interested in knowing, his voice filling the void of silence that enshrouded the other two.

"Oh, just Owen. I couldn't find out the truth, but they could. They recognised his recall of your face. Apparently you're well known, you and that woman you were with. They knew how to track you."

"Who are they? Who are you?" The Doctor was clearly on edge.

"What does it matter? All you need to know is that you belong to them now. You may as well-"

They didn't find out how Suzie might have ended that sentence, as at that precise moment, Tosh had wrenched Jack's gun from the holster at his side, and planted a bullet directly through her forehead, with all the deadly accuracy that Torchwood taught. Immediately the Doctor leapt forwards, while Jack pulled the gun away. The Doctor grabbed the small woman by the shoulders, "Why did you do that? You didn't need to kill her! She's just as much a victim as the rest of you!"

Tosh's face twisted into a sneer, "Third time lucky."

It was enough to shock the Doctor into silence as she extracted herself from his grip. Jack looked just as disturbed as he did. As far as the Captain was concerned, this was Tosh; sweet, gentle, and definitely not as damaged as Jack.

It was never meant to turn out this way.

Something was wrong. They could all sense it. The white shadows flittered restlessly, agitated by something only they could comprehend. In the dark recesses of his mind, Owen felt like an observer in his own body, when in reality, Suzie was no where nearby. He was trapped within himself, unable to break open from the autopilot his body and outer being had been operating on for what seemed like an age, even though it had not been so long ago when Tosh had sat beside him.

He stopped fighting with himself. There really wasn't much point anymore. So when that wailing song rang through the walls for the second time, screaming an emergency, and they all glided off as one, he was too enveloped in darkness to care.

Once again, the Doctor found himself running, only this time it was towards the danger instead of back to the Tardis where it was safe. The three of them darted through the tunnels like rabbits caught in an ever-closing trap. Every once in a while, it would seem as if Toshiko knew where she was going, but whenever that thought crossed his mind, her erratic movements always seemed to prove him wrong.

That was until he heard the moaning.

At first, he thought it was just an undertone to the wailing alarm, but then he began to hear it properly. It had a different quality. It was inside him, rather than around him. The moaning was of hundreds of minds, trapped in themselves, unable to escape.

He jerked up short, skidding on the rocky ground, the realisation hitting him hard. Jack looked at him uncomprehendingly, while Toshiko just regarded him with a disturbing cool clarity, as if she knew what he could hear. "Doctor?" Jack's voice seemed to bounce off the walls, adding to the outward wailing, and the inward moaning.

"This way." It was all he could choke out without letting on what he was feeling, the only two words he could make seem calm and collected.

Now he knew the way, he realised Toshiko's movements had not been as erratic as he had suspected. But when they found what they were looking for, he almost wished they had gotten lost.

Rows upon rows of compounds, ten to twenty people in each. Jack could only stare in horror. He knew these people. He had worked with them, they had been his friends, superiors, responsibilities. And they had all ended up here. After all he had seen in over a hundred years of living, after experiencing so many different centuries, this was the final dark secret. Because all of this had come out of him.

The Doctor's comforting hand on his arm was the only thing that kept him from screaming out in rage and pain. Toshiko felt none of this, and Jack used her slow, purposeful movements as a way to ground himself in the here and now. She had stopped at a compound, her fingers winding delicately around the dividing bars. She cast her cold eyes on the pair, "Open it. Now."

Obediently, they both moved towards her, the Doctor producing a sonic screwdriver and aiming it at the lock. He had almost expected it to be deadlock sealed, but apparently they hadn't been expecting intruders, as it swung open of its own accord.

Humming. One note, rising to a pitch as the torn throats created the sound, swaying to it, entranced by the noise of their own creation as it spread between the compounds. Jack blanched, whispers to the Doctor, "Why are they doing that?"

The Doctor's sad, old eyes did not meet with Jack's, "Because they know why I'm here."

Toshiko, meanwhile, had found what she had been looking for, "Owen?" She crouched down, placing her cool palms against either side of his face. She finally looked like she was going to lose it again, "Owen, please, it's me." Gently, she took one of his hands, swallowing back tears at the red raw, blistered skin, his own doing.

The Doctor remained where he was, unable to walk into the compound when he knew he could do nothing to help. Jack, however, had no such sense of what had to be done, as he too bent down next to the pair. His breath hitched at the state of the man he had thought to be dead. He was worse off that Tosh had been. Just as thin and damaged on the outside, but one look into his unblinking eyes was enough to know his mind had not been left as unscathed as hers had. The kinder thing to do would have been to kill him. Tosh's words rang round and round in his head. When she had uttered them, he had thought her to be under incredible emotional strain, but now he could understand why she had said it. The Doctor had said how Owen had been together enough to orchestrate an escape, to plead and plead until he had agreed to take Toshiko back with him, and Jack was willing to bet that once Owen had done that, he had just given up.

But then Tosh leant forwards, and for one moment, Jack expected her to kiss Owen, but of course, she was too smart for that. Instead, she rested her forehead against Owen's, and Jack realised for the first time that Owen alone wasn't humming with the rest. The pair seemed to close their eyes in unison, before opening them again. Tosh smiled a false smile, "Time to go."

Jack would never understand how she had done it, but somehow, Owen was on his feet, unsteady, but certainly more able than the rest of the people who watched them steadily, unmoving from their personal hell. Of course, he had missed the glances of understanding between the Doctor and Tosh, just as he had missed the too-bright flickering of Owen's eyes; maybe he just hadn't wanted to see. So when they were running again, Jack had honestly thought they were running back to the Tardis. And in a way they were, just not in the manner Jack had presumed.

It was a strange turn of events, and one Owen could honestly not have predicted. Nevertheless, he had easily accepted Toshiko's return, along with Jack's, and the strange man. If he was going to hallucinate, then this was definitely one of the preferred manifestations. After all, he knew Tosh was safe, because he had gotten her out, just like he had promised himself, so her being here wasn't really so bad, because it wasn't actually her.

He knew what he had to do, and in a way, it was nice that he wouldn't have to do it alone, even if his only company were figments of his imagination. He could even feel Tosh's fingers interlaced with his own as they ran.

Fake-Jack halted in front of them. They were back. The room seemed more...ordinary than he remembered it. It seemed like an age since he was encased in a new puppet body in this very room. Maybe it was; he had lost all sense of time. There wasn't any need to count anymore, now Tosh was gone. It could have been ten years ago since she had left. Not that he especially felt the need to know.

The strange man moved forwards, producing that strange buzzing object that apparently did more than unlock cell doors. He was analysing wires, snapping at Jack to help him, giving a running, frantic commentary of what they needed to do.

Owen didn't move. He just stood there, arm around Toshiko's waist as her arm linked around him. In reality, he knew it was actually him doing all those things, that he was actually alone, but it really was very considerate of the hallucinations to just let him stand here and pretend. And when Toshiko murmured that Suzie was dead, that she had killed her, once and for all, Owen had smiled at the Not-Tosh, grateful for the lie, because he knew they were coming, he knew it was almost at an end.

The strange man spoke for him when they came, just because he didn't think he could speak when they were so close. He asked them questions, as if he were the most powerful being in the universe, and allowed to ask such questions, to make such demands and threats. They didn't answer of course, silent in their response, refusing to justify their actions to him, denying the plausibility of his threats. They had every right to do so, of course. All they had to do would be to point, and he would fall limp as a rag doll, the kind hallucinations dispelled with the shattering of false reality which his mind had courteously created.

But they did not disappear. Even after they looked at him and Tosh, both insignificant in the grand scheme of things, even after the pair of them fell in a heap, their legs no longer under their command.

The floor seemed to shake, hot dust swirling in eddies around them. Fake-Jack was yelling something, and loud short cracks sang through the air as the beings began to fall one by one.

None of it mattered.

Tears mingled with a smile across Not-Tosh's dirt smudged face, and Owen smiled in return. It was nice of her to stay around.

Fake-Jack was fighting with the strange man, screaming, his words lost in the noise of breaking earth and the darkness in Owen's mind.

And then the strange man was off running, and Fake-Jack had slid down to sit with Owen and Tosh, both of whom still couldn't move their legs. He was crying, which for some reason didn't seem like a strange thing for a hallucination of Jack to do.

The Not-Tosh buried her face into Owen's neck as the ceiling crumbled, while Fake-Jack enveloped them both with his arms, using his own body to shield their much smaller forms from the debris.

Owen forced his eyes open, and smiled at Not-Tosh, who raised her head slightly and one last time smiled softly in return.

An ear-splitting shriek rose up amongst them as the wrong-place gave one final cry.

And all that was left was darkness and the stars.

To Be Continued...

Author Notes: I wrestled with myself as to whether to end it here. My beta chemicalnova pointed out how utterly depressing that would be, so you can thank her for the coming real final chapter. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this one though!