Substantiation.
Following Tosh, the Doctor stood behind her as she knocked on the door and entered.
He noted a lump in the bed which turned over as she placed the tray down she was carrying then opened the curtains.
"You have a visitor," she told him kindly as he struggled to open his eyes.
"Jack," he heard a voice say through a fog of drowsiness. He thought he recognised it as he moved his head in that direction.
"Doctor?" he said as he looked up.
"Heard you've been having a bit of a rough time..." the Doctor said as he sat on the edge of the bed.
"Where is Ianto?" he demanded, reaching out for the clock to see the time as he felt panic begin to rise.
"It's okay Jack, we made sure Ianto was out. He's with Mac working on his motorbike," Tosh explained frantically in an effort to calm him down.
"It's really important, under no circumstances is Ianto to see the TARDIS," he struggled to explain, his heart beating wildly and his eyes wide with fear.
"Owen and Martha have explained that Ianto's feeling invaded, and he might not deal too well with something just appearing out of thin air," the Doctor explained adding his own assurance.
"That's the understatement of the year. I can't emphasise how important it is that Ianto not see the TARDIS, under any circumstance," Jack panted out each word with effort.
"Jack, it's okay. We made sure Ianto was well away from the house before the TARDIS arrived. We waited until he was in the village before we called the Doctor and said he could materialise," she assured him and saw him sink back his head on his forehead as he tried to calm himself. Tosh helped him sit up and handed him a mug of coffee.
"I wonder if you could leave us for a while?" he asked Tosh.
He looked at Jack then waited until the door was closed. "Everyone is very worried about you," the Doctor said. "They tell me you've been here for two week now." He took a swallow of the coffee as he looked around the comfortable room.
"I hear you had a new companion...Donna?" Jack asked after a few moments.
"Yes, Donna."
"Keeping you on your toes?"
"More than that she's a great mate," the Doctor said smiling.
"I can't believe you're here. Am I that bad?" Jack told him honestly.
The Doctor looked mildly amused. "Owen tells me he has this theory that this has something to do with the Valiant," he said opening up the conversation.
Jack nodded. "Yeah, so I gather."
"It was a terrible year." He saw Jack take sip of coffee.
"Yeah," Jack agreed.
"And at the end so much to do, you and I never caught up." Jack looked off into the distance as the Doctor spoke.
"We could talk," he offered.
Jack looked at him. "I don't think I can," he admitted quietly as he now looked into his mug.
"I think you need to, if we found someone…"
"Who would believe what happened?" Jack burst out. "I haven't got the energy to convince them that I'm telling the truth!"
"I just need to rest," he emphasized after several moments has passed.
"I think you need more that rest. I agree with Owen and Martha, you had to cope with this too long on your own. This is partly my fault. I dropped you off without a second thought, thinking 'Jack he's a survivor he can survive anything'…but to see you like this, all of us who care about you can see you need more than just rest." He saw Jack become still under his comments. "If we found someone would you be open to the idea…"
"I can't leave here," Jack told him bluntly, "I won't leave here" he corrected.
"No one is asking you too." He saw Jack sigh and close his eyes.
"I don't think I can," Jack said a few moments later.
"Can?"
"Talk about it," he added sounding scared and he felt a shudder pass through his body. The Doctor saw Jack's hands begin to shake uncontrollably and took the mug from his hand.
"If we found someone who would be willing to come here, who you didn't have to convince, would you talk to them?" he asked again.
Jack looked up at him. "I don't know. I just need to sleep. Ianto will be home later and we need some time, just him and me. It's so hard, we used to spend every moment of every day….and now…"
"For Ianto then? If not for yourself, for him?" The doctor tried another tack. Jack looked at him with haunted eyes then nodded and began to sink back under the covers.
Closing the curtains the Doctor quietly left the room, saddened to the see the man he knew reduced to this remnant.
"Who do we ask?" Martha asked outright as she paced around the console room of the TARDIS,
"Geoff Green," Owen replied. "He is a world renowned specialist in helping the victims of torture; he has been overlooking Ianto's care. So he is already aware of some of the circumstances."
"Some of the circumstances? The issue here is we drop in ask him for help, and what are we going to say? He will think us certifiable." Martha pointed out. "Ianto has a history, he was found on the Valiant, he has hospital records, his injuries, all of Ianto's mental and physical scaring. Jack has…"
"Nothing, there is no record is there? Putting aside believability for now, without some background Doctor Green will be flying blind and that brings us back full circle. I sense Jack is incredibly reluctant to share. I've been doing some research about PTSD. It can be caused by a single or series of traumatic events but its effects are accumulative, event upon event. Now Jack has lived through the entire Twentieth Century. I know he served in World Wars One and Two, along with all the skirmishes Torchwood-style and god knows what else. To get Jack help we can't afford to send in anyone blind. They need his full and complete history, and if not complete history then a least a summary of things we know happened. Jack is going to need ongoing long-term support. I've asked Tosh to pull out his service record. Once we've convinced him we are not barking mad, and to help Jack in the now, we have to show him some evidence so he understands the full nature of what occurred."
"The Valiant!" Martha burst out as Owen finished speaking, and Owen and the Doctor were startled at her vehement declaration. "The Valiant was in the centre of the paradox. It would have instruments that would have recorded what happened during that year. CCTV footage, if nothing else, and we could at lease prove the year that never was, was real." She saw the Doctor shaking his head.
"Thought of that. While you were talking earlier I remembered that one of the last steps was to wipe the entire mainframe," the Doctor admitted his arms crossed.
"We could construct something...photo manipulation?" Martha suggested.
Owen shook his head. "He won't fall for that. We presented him with the best fake documents in history and within minutes he had dismissed them as fraudulent." He saw both the Doctor and Martha both raise their eyebrows.
"First visit, Jack sort of crashed in to see Ianto. We were in Geoff's office with him screaming at us both, vowing he was going to make it his life work that we would never step inside the building again, when Jack stated he was Ianto civil partner. Not surprisingly considering the circumstances Geoff demanded proof."
"Proof?" Martha checked.
"The next day we presented him with said proof. The documents were flawless; photographs, you name it."
"So if they were fake why didn't he kick you out?" Martha asked.
Owen smiled. "Because he's a bloody nice bloke who looks beyond the obvious; also Jack was mess. Truth be told I don't think he did it for us, he did it for Ianto. He had been there eight months and no one had turned up to claim him. They had no idea who he was. Then suddenly this man turns up in theatrical gear so desperate to see him he barges his way in. Truth though Jack was out of control from the moment we found out Ianto was alive," he paused as recalled that day. "Look, I'll be honest...when he found him then discovered Ianto had no recollection of him I swear Jack looked like his entire world had disintegrated. He wasn't much better the following day. I think it was clear even though the documents were faked; there was a connection that he couldn't ignore. Geoff gave Jack the benefit of the doubt."
"So Geoff Green is our man," the Doctor said as much to himself as Owen.
"Yeah, but without some evidence of what Jack went through, he is not going to believe us," Owen pointed out now crossing his arms.
"I can't believe there is nothing that remains of that horrible year. It's like we suffered for nothing." Martha ground her teeth as she put both her hands on the console and looked down in frustration then pushed herself away and sat down heavily on the small sofa.
Tapping his fingers on the console the Doctor suddenly straightened up. "But not everything," he burst out as he began to work the console. A few moments passed as the Doctor stepped back. "I think this is what we are looking for," he said triumphantly as the screen began to fill with images from the Valiant control room just before the American president was assassinated.
"Is there more?" Owen said, suddenly moving to his side.
"So fast! Any way of slowing this down?" Martha as the images now split into a multitude of segments, all fast-forwarding at breakneck speed.
A few moments passed when the Doctor took a sharp intake of breath. "I think this is what we are looking for," he said as a sickening series of images played out all that made it clear the Master had tortured a whole series of individuals.
"How?" Owen said as he felt his stomach turn over.
"The TARDIS was at the centre of the paradox," the Doctor declared. "Well done old girl." He patted the console.
Several hours passed and it became evident that the TARDIS had acted as some form of recorder. Forced to be at the centre of the paradox the events had become part of her living matrix. She had become the receptacle of the echo of every second of time during the entire year.
Being a living matrix they found that each second could be organised into any category. Placing in Jack's name, the sheer volume of information meant it would take years to assess every detail.
Finally they decided to ask the matrix to provide a potential catalogue of events starting with something ordinary, 'Jack eating', for example. They all noted now little there was of that. They then added Jack and the Master and the list lengthened to a multitude to choose from.
"Let's start at the beginning," Owen suggested.
The screen came alive as Jack was beaten into a bloody pulp as several of the guards at the Master's instigation vented his displeasure at Martha's escape as he watched on in glee. There was a brief pause then the next sequence began…
"Oh god," Owen said as he swallowed bile. He saw the Doctor shake his head as another scene began to play out.
Martha had her hand over her mouth as she tried to watch. She had wanted to close her eyes, but forced herself to endure each scene.
"Jack always had an instinctive fear of fire, and the Master used it full effect," the Doctor said as he watched him writhe in agony until he became a charred ruin.
Owen shook himself. He had expected extremes but nothing to what Jack had endured. He couldn't die, and that was a challenge for the Master. On top of this he delighted in forcing Jack into submission no act was too degrading.
The Doctor shuddered as the lengths Jack had gone to. He knew every button to push to trigger the Master's more sadistic tenancies, his challenge of, 'Do your worst' had meant the Master had done just that.
"He suffered all this and he never said a word," she said wiping away a tear as another sequence of images began to play out, this time of Jack being raped by several of the guards.
"I can't take any more, please turn this off," Owen begged as Martha now took refuge in the Doctor's arms.
"And Jack suffered another eight months of this," the Doctor commented. He saw the date embedded in the recording.
Several moments passed as they tried to recover from the sequences they had witnessed. Owen was not sure what was worse: what they had watched or knowing they had only seen a fraction of what was there.
"I wonder if the price Jack is paying is partly physical. We all assume when Jack dies he can just jump back as if nothing happened. What if this was so extreme, his body needs time to recover, and he can heal a finger but the trauma of that finger being broken takes a lot longer as each death is reinforced one on top of the other," Owen said thinking out loud.
"Maybe all this has imprinted itself. Somehow being killed multiple times, one after another, months of it, had to have done some damage," Martha ran with the idea.
"Let's find out the number." The Doctor began to request information from the matrix. Several moments passed before the completed list began to scroll down.
As Owen moved to read the list of the types of death and the number of times tried to keep his mind in a clinical state but it was impossible. The sheer number of deaths and their cruel nature made it incomprehensible that one man could have endured.
"He went through all this then arrived back and tried to carry on as if nothing had happened. Poor bastard...I didn't see it," Owen punched a strut, distressed.
"When this is all over I'm going to find a way to make this up to Jack," the Doctor said, just holding on to his own emotions. Martha pulled back and he handed her a clean handkerchief. "I don't know how, but I'm going to make start," he said manipulating the controls of the TARDIS.