AN: At last this chapter is ready. But I apologise in advance that the next chapter will be even slower. I am going on holiday next week for 9 days, without a computer or internet access.

I'm just watched episode 7 of MD. My spoiler free reaction. Wow! At last a great episode.

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Chapter 9

For two more days they ploughed through the DVDs, taking notes of anything that could be used to help Jack's case. Snatching only a few hours sleep, between double shifts, they were all becoming physically exhausted. Add to this the emotional trauma of seeing someone tortured, for their sake, and the team were a mess. Only Owen was maintaining his equanimity through the grim task. On the plus side, Ianto's cuts were beginning to heal, and he had managed not to add to them since the night he'd seen the Master declare to Jack that the team did not love him

At last they reached, what they all hoped would be, the final day of DVD watching. Tomorrow, the plan was that Owen and Ianto would largely return to Torchwood duty, along with Joanne and Mark, while Tosh and Gwen prepared Jack's case and searched for him.

b_b_b_b_b

Gwen and Owen watched the Master inject Jack with a chemical, and then leave him alone. It had soon become clear what the chemical was, as Jack became more and more aroused, and distressed. They saw Tish help him, before the Master snatched away their brief period of happiness. Then came more of the usual pattern. Torture and death, followed by an empty room, while Jack was elsewhere on the Valiant. It was late afternoon before anything unusual happened..

As Owen put the next DVD in the player, he noted down the date, in preparation for taking notes. He pressed play, and for the first hour or so they saw nothing but an empty room. Finally, the Master and Jack entered the room together. Slowing the DVD to normal speed, they could immediately see that Jack looked terrified. He cringed away from the Master, but to no avail. The Master hit him so hard that he flew across the room, obviously badly injured as he landed.

As the Master furiously berated Jack for giving the rebel a quick death, Owen realised that this could be one of the key points for Jack's defence. This must be the point at which Jack was persuaded to torture the rebels.

He was about to point this out to Gwen, when the Master shouted "I am going to punish you for this. You were warned what would happen if you didn't obey me. I am now going to kill one of your friends."

b_b_b_b_b

Tosh and Ianto had spent the whole day down in the archives, going through their assigned DVDs. There had been nothing unusual, just the grim playing out of Jack's awful life on the Valiant. They decided to watch just one more, and then take a much needed break.

The DVD started with the room in semi darkness. Jack stood at the far end, naked, his hands nailed to the wooden beam. They had seen him in that state many times, through the months the DVDs covered. Then, to their astonishment, the Master walked into the room, followed by Stevens and Modine, who were manhandling a struggling Ianto. They dragged him over to a set of chains on the wall, and secured him.

Ianto gasped in shock. Seeing himself in the hidden room, released a barrier in his mind. The memories of that night flooded back, overwhelming in their intensity. He remembered what had happened, as if it were yesterday. He remembered the feelings, and the love.

Tosh was looking at him in amazement, obviously about to demand why Ianto had never told them that he had seen Jack in this state on the Valiant.

"Stop Tosh. Stop the DVD! I remember," he exclaimed.

She did so.

Ianto looked devastated. "The Master, he let me see Jack, and then he retconned me. The guards held me down, while he poured it down my throat." His voice broke, "I knew what it would mean to Jack, if I forgot, but there wasn't anything I could do to stop it. I must have broken his heart."

Tosh moved over to him, and put her arms around him. "Ianto, it wasn't your fault. The Master used you in one of his mind games against Jack."

Ianto was trying desperately to hold back the flood of emotions, that had been released by the breaking down of the retcon. He needed to get away, to be alone to deal with it. But, if Tosh realised how upset he was, he'd never get away from her. He forced himself to smile, and appear calm. "You're right. But I don't want to see this DVD. I remember everything, so there's no need. I'll just go make coffee for everyone. We were about to have a break anyway."

Tosh looked worriedly after him, as Ianto left the room. But, she let him go. She turned her attention back to the paused DVD. Ianto did not want to watch it. Should she just skip it, trusting that he remembered anything significant for Jack's defence, or should she watch it while he was absent? Deciding that Ianto might not have perfect recall of what happened, she started the DVD again, and began to watch.

b_b_b_b_b

As Ianto walked through the Hub, tears threatened to blind him. He remembered the love, he felt it as strongly as he had done on that night. And he remembered how he had stabbed that love through the heart and shredded it with his words. He remembered Jack's face, as he raised his arm in a half hearted gesture, asking Ianto for help when the mob surrounded him, and the bitter acceptance in his eyes as Ianto turned away. By that time Jack had expected nothing else.

But even after that, Jack had not given up on him, calling out for him to remember, and declaring his love. But he had rejected every overture Jack had made. Then, he had compounded this by denying that he had ever had feelings for him. "I know you love me," Jack had said, and this was how he knew.

Slipping out quietly, without anyone noticing, Ianto set off for home.

b_b_b_b_b

Owen and Gwen watched, appalled, as Jack knelt in abject supplication at the Master's feet, begging him not to hurt them. It got worse. The Master sent a guard for petrol, and announced that he was going to burn one of the Torchwood team. Jack's begging and pleading ramped up at this. Knowing that Jack had been reduced to this, to protect them, Gwen could barely watch.

It got worse. Stevens arrived with a can of petrol, and the Master demanded that Jack choose one of his team. Jack failed to answer, and the Master responded by choosing Owen.

Owen went rigid, as Jack shouted "No. Burn me!" He watched, in disbelief, as the Master drew it out. But eventually, after Jack had promised to follow his orders to the letter, agreed to burn Jack instead of him.

They watched as the Master ignited the petrol on Jack, and the fire took hold. Jack's screams were hellish, and he writhed in agony. Mercifully, the flames grew quickly, and his struggles did not last long. Soon, only a corpse burned in the chains. But worse was to come, as Jack revived while still unhealed. They watched him screaming in agony, as he changed from a charred wreck, to his normal healthy body. When it was over, he hung in his chains, limply, barely conscious.

Gwen was so busy trying not to throw up, as they watched the horrific images, that she did not notice Owen's reaction. He remained rigid throughout Jack's immolation, but his face was tortured.

As he watched, Owen felt the composure he had maintained, through all the awful scenes they had witnessed, crumbling. He had been horrified at Jack's treatment by the Master, and shocked by his sacrifice, but deep down he never really believed that Jack did it for him. For Ianto and Gwen, yes. And probably for Tosh. But he had thought that he was just incidental, that Jack would not have done it just for him. That belief had allowed him to keep an emotional detachment, that the others had not had. But this. This was for him directly. And what a sacrifice. As a medic, Owen knew that burning was a terrible way to die. And for Jack to beg the Master to burn him, for Owen's sake, despite Owen's treatment of him, was too much.

Owen started to shake. All the years that he had hated Jack for torturing the rebels, and Jack had done it for him. He had gone to a UNIT high security prison, largely due to his actions over the final days of the Master's reign. And Jack's worst crimes were done to save him.

The DVD showed Jack, slumped, but whole once again, in his chains. Owen stood abruptly, knocking his chair over as he did so. He was still shaking. If Jack did this for him, then everything he had suffered over the long months since his deal with the Master, had also been as much for him as the others. The weight of that realisation, and the guilt, hit him like a ton of bricks. Breathing heavily, he headed for the door, brushing past Gwen as he did so.

When Owen stood up, Gwen finally looked at him. She was shocked. He looked wrecked. She was also confused. Yes, the scenes they had just seen were hellish, but so were many scenes that had gone before, and Owen had never reacted badly before. She had, Tosh had, and Ianto most definitely had, but Owen had always been calm. And this was the scene they had been waiting for, where they found out exactly how the Master persuaded Jack to torture the rebels. It would be a major part of his defence.

As Owen went past her, Gwen caught his arm. "Owen? Are you OK?"

"Christ, no," he exclaimed, shaking her hand off. "How the hell could I be all right after that! I need a drink. And I'm not going to stop until I get those images out of my head."

"But we need to finish the DVDs," Gwen protested. "This is the last day before you and Ianto go back to regular Torchwood work."

That stopped Owen for a moment, but then he shook his head and said with anguish, "I can't. Not right now. Can't you understand? You saw it. The Master was going to burn me, not Jack. Jack saved me, and I didn't deserve it."

As she watched Owen leaving, Gwen made her decision and, grabbing her bag from her desk, she followed him out. He was obviously in no state to be alone, so she would have to go with him.

b_b_b_b_b

It was two hours before Tosh reached the end of Ianto's visit to the room. She noticed that, even in those circumstances, Jack did not reveal to Ianto the full extent of his deal with the Master. She zoomed through the time while they lay asleep together. She saw their mutual declaration of love, just before Ianto was taken out by the guards. Her heart broke for them both. As she stopped the DVD, Tosh suddenly realised how much time had passed, and Ianto had not returned with the coffee. Perhaps he had just not wanted to come back, while she watched the DVD.

Tosh went back to the main part of the Hub, to look for Ianto, and coffee. There was no sign of either in the kitchen, so she stuck her head round the boardroom door, to see if he was with Gwen and Owen. No one was there.

Joanne and Mark were in the medical bay, but they had not seen Ianto either. Checking the tourist office, Tosh was alarmed to find that someone, presumably Ianto, had left the door unlocked. She was starting to really worry now. Running back down into the Hub, she collected her bag and coat, and told Joanne and Mark that she had to go out for a while. Owen had told her that he had found Ianto drinking at a local pub, after he saw Jack's deal with the Master. She thought that, remembering his night with Jack, might have made him do the same again. So she set off to check Ianto's favourite pubs. She also called his mobile and his home, but neither Ianto, nor Ellie, answered.

b_b_b_b_b

Although it was only early evening, Owen went to a night club that he knew well. It was open, but there were no other customers. He sat at a table, with Gwen across from him, and ordered three tequila slammers. When they arrived, he downed them in quick succession, and ordered three more.

"Not joining me?" he asked Gwen.

Gwen shook her head. "Why are you doing this?" she demanded. "You've seen things just as bad happen to Jack, and you've never reacted like this before. You were coping better than any of us."

Owen laughed sardonically. "Oh yes, I was coping, and you know why?" He waited a second for Gwen to reply, but she merely waited. "I coped because I didn't feel personally involved."

Gwen gasped in surprise. She knew that the doctor could appear insensitive, and uncaring, but would never have believed that he would be that detached, regarding a friend who had suffered and died for him.

Even through his drunken haze, Owen saw her expression, "Don't get me wrong," he slurred. "I cared, and it hurt to see Jack suffer like that, but all along I thought that he was doing it for you and Ianto. You two were always special to him. I thought I was just incidental." He downed another drink. "But today, Jack offered himself to be burned to death instead of me. You saw it." He looked at her helplessly, "That means I wasn't incidental, and all the times we've watched him die it was for all of us."

"Of course it was," Gwen declared, "it was for you, me, Ianto and Tosh."

With the choice between dissolving into girly tears, or downing another drink, Owen chose the latter. He signalled the bartender for three more.

b_b_b_b_b

Ianto got home on autopilot. His mind was filled with grief. By his actions when the Master was defeated, he had destroyed any hope of regaining the love that existed between himself and Jack. Before that, there could have been redemption. A few days ago, he had asked Owen if Jack would ever be able to forgive him. And now he remembered that he had, at least for the way Ianto had treated him before the Master's last day on the Valiant. Despite Ianto's treatment of him, Jack had forgiven him, and loved him. Even if it was under hellish circumstances, he and Jack had mutually declared their love for the first, and only time. When he thought of what their future could have been, of what he had destroyed, sobs welled up in him again.

And what of Jack? What had he felt, as he was taken away by UNIT, with Ianto's rejection ringing in his ears. After everything he had endured for them, Ianto had broken his heart, and abandoned him, along with all his so called friends. As he thought of Jack's pain, Ianto raked his chest and arm. Nothing could ever make it up to him.

Ianto felt as if he were falling into a black abyss. He stumbled to the kitchen, and grabbed one of the sharp knives. His sobs wracked his frame so much that he could barely hold it steady. Standing in the centre of the kitchen, he made a wild thrust into his arm. The pain sharpened his senses, and the blackness receded. Ripping off his shirt, he slashed at his arm again, then at his chest. He needed to feel the pain, to atone for what he did to Jack. He was still slashing when he heard loud knocking at his door. He ignored it, and swiped the knife across his left wrist. His gaze became fixated on the blood welling from the wound.

Outside the door of Ianto's flat, Tosh was becoming frantic. "Ianto, are you in there?" she shouted. She pulled the alien lock pick from her bag, and set it going on Ianto's locks. It took less than a minute to unlock the door.

Ianto didn't even look up when the door opened and Tosh ran in. She surveyed the scene in horror, then approached him slowly, her hand extended. "Give me the knife, Ianto," she ordered.

He did look up when she spoke. But he clearly wasn't fully focusing on her. The knife waved dangerously in her direction, and Tosh stepped back in alarm. "Ianto, please, can you just put the knife down?"

"No," he answered, "I need it. I need to feel what Jack felt."

Tosh was desperately scared that Ianto was about to kill himself, right in front of her. "Jack wouldn't want you to do this, Ianto. He did what he did to keep us all safe, most importantly to keep you safe. He loved you. You don't want to throw what he did back in his face, do you?"

Ianto's anguish was heartbreaking. "I already did, Tosh. He loved me, and I stabbed him through the heart."

"But, if you kill yourself, everything that he did for you was a waste. He would have suffered for nothing!"

Ianto visibly sagged as she said that, but did not let go of the knife.

"He'll need you when we find him. He'll need all of us, but you most of all, because you know him better than any of us. You love him." Seeing Ianto wavering, she added sternly. "You owe it to him to stop this."

Ianto dropped the knife and, slumping to the floor, he leaned on the kitchen wall and cried. "Not kill," he managed to say through his sobs. "I wouldn't, I just needed to feel some of Jack's pain."

Tosh scooped up the knife, and placed it out of Ianto's reach. She grabbed her mobile, and called Owen. The phone rang and rang, but there was no response. Ianto may not have intended to kill himself, Tosh would reserve judgment on that, but he may have done it accidentally. Blood was flowing freely from dozens of wounds, the slash across his wrist looked particularly bad. While she waited for an answer, she yanked open Ianto's cupboards, and found several clean tea towels. She ran back to Ianto, and wrapped them around the most serious wounds, in an attempt to slow the bleeding. It wasn't working very well.

Seriously panicking at the lack of response from Owen, Tosh called the Hub directly. If she got no response there, she would call an ambulance. To her utter relief, Joanne answered.

"Joanne, thank god. I need you at Ianto's flat right now. Bring your medical gear. It's Ianto, he's got several knife wounds. I can't stop the bleeding. Bring Owen."

Receiving a hurried confirmation from Joanne, Tosh dropped the phone, and started to apply pressure to the makeshift bandage she had put on Ianto's wrist. As she knelt next to him, holding his wrist tight, she looked at the wounds that she had not bandaged. There were two obvious wounds, which were recent, but in the process of healing. They were long slashes, and the remains of a bandage, that Tosh had not applied, clung to part of one of the wounds. With shock, Tosh realised that this was not the first time that Ianto had deliberately injured himself. He must have been doing it since they found out about Jack's deal with the Master. How had they not noticed? He must have been in pain each day at work.

Tosh gasped in alarm, as Ianto fell across her knees. He was only semi-conscious by this time. "Hold on, Ianto, Joanne is on her way. She'll be here soon, and will get you fixed up." She prayed that, that was true. "Don't you dare die on me. Remember, Jack needs you. You can't abandon him."

Through the roaring in his ears, Ianto heard Tosh, and he agreed with her. He had to help Jack. If he did nothing else in his entire life, he had to do that. He was holding on to consciousness with all he had, when Joanne rushed into the flat.

b_b_b_b

In an effort to shake Gwen off, Owen had left the night club, and gone to a lap dancing club. The bouncers on the door had refused to let her in, as Owen had said that she was a trouble maker.

Inside, Owen ignored the girls, and just ordered drink after drink. He was determined to drown out the phrase that was still echoing through his head. "Burn, me!" His phone started beeping, but he ignored it.

Left outside, Gwen decided to call in reinforcements. She called Mark at the Hub. Explaining the basic situation, she asked Mark to come and extract Owen from the club, and help her get him home. She also called Karen, and warned her that Owen would be coming home blind drunk and in a right state.

When Mark got to the club, Gwen was waiting for him outside. Mark was not pleased at being called out for a drunk colleague, and having to leave Joanne alone at the Hub.

Apologising profusely, but without explaining the real cause of Owen's meltdown, Gwen gave Mark the bare bones of the situation. It was obvious that there was a lot that she wasn't saying.

"OK, I'll get him out, so we can take him home," Mark agreed. "But you are going to have to give Joanne and me a proper explanation tomorrow. We can't go on with all this secrecy between us. We're supposed to be a team."

b_b_b_b_b

"Where's Owen?" asked Tosh, as she realised that Joanne was alone.

"Our illustrious leader is blind drunk at a lap dancing club, I believe," said Joanne scathingly, as she started to work on Ianto. He was now unconscious. She gasped as she saw the wounds, and realised that, far from what she had expected, they were self inflicted. "I can stabilise him," she told Tosh, "but he needs to go to hospital. With this amount of blood loss, he should have a transfusion."

"He won't want to do that," argued Tosh.

"Well, he should have thought of that before he did this then, shouldn't he?" snapped Joanne. "What the hell was he thinking!" As she spoke, she continued to check Ianto's wounds. For the first time looking at the less serious ones, as Tosh had before her, she realised that some of the wounds were days old. "He's obviously been self harming over the last week," she pointed out. "And I'm pretty sure that he never did this before, so don't tell me that it has nothing to do with this project you've all been working on."

Tosh couldn't deny it. She listened as Joanne called for an ambulance, and then, as they sat in silence next to Ianto, she made a decision. Time for Joanne to understand. And anyway, when they found Jack, she would need to know what had happened to him. "You're right, of course," she admitted. "I know Owen told you that it is about our ex-boss Jack Harkness. Well, Jack and Ianto were lovers, and a few years ago we were all imprisoned by a sadistic megalomaniac. We were prisoners for nine months. He was a madman, and loved to play games with people's lives. He forced Jack to pretend to work for him, by threatening the rest of us. Jack went along with it, and we all believed that he had betrayed us. We treated him like dirt, especially Ianto. And, when this madman was defeated, Jack was tried and found guilty of murder and treason, amongst other things. He was locked up in a high security UNIT prison. We wiped him from our minds years ago.

Wiping away a tear that threatened to fall from the corner of her eye, she continued. "But then, new evidence turned up. This madman, he called himself the Master, had made recordings of what really happened between him and Jack. And it was worse than you could ever imagine. Jack was tortured, really brutally, and the Master offered to stop if he would agree for us to be tortured instead. He refused, so he suffered over seven months of horrendous torture in our place, all the while with us hating him and believing he was a traitor."

Joanne was listening in shock. "My god, he must be an amazing man to do that. And it's hard to believe that anyone could survive torture over that extended a time."

Tosh flinched at that statement. "He didn't."

Joanne was understandably confused. "I thought you said he was put on trial, and imprisoned."

"He was," Tosh confirmed, then added, "You've been with Torchwood for quite a while now. You've seen a lot of unbelievable things. Well Jack is the most unbelievable thing. He's immortal."

Now Joanne was really confused. "But you said he died!"

"That's just it," Tosh explained sadly. "Jack can suffer and die, just like any of us. But then he comes back to life. And the Master knew this. He tortured him to death practically every day, and then Jack would resurrect without a mark on him."

Joanne was stunned into silence by that. She believed it, because she had absolute trust in Tosh. But what that had meant for Jack Harkness, was too awful to comprehend. Ianto had obviously been unable to cope with knowing what had happened to his lover.

At that moment the ambulance arrived, and Tosh and Joanne had to put their discussion on hold. They travelled in the ambulance with Ianto, and Joanne coordinated with the hospital to get him admitted to a private room. The emergency dressings, that they had applied, were redone. The less life-threatening injuries were also treated. He was given two pints of blood, and regained consciousness. Finally, Ianto was left to rest.

As soon as Ianto was settled, Joanne headed back to work. Joanne had explained to Tosh, that Mark had been called out by Gwen earlier, and that she had been manning the Hub alone when Tosh called. Mark had phoned, to let her know that he was back in the Hub, but she needed to get back for the rest of her shift.

As Tosh prepared to spend the night in the relatives room, waiting for Ianto to wake, she phoned Gwen. As they briefed each other on the evenings events, Tosh admitted that she had given Joanne a lot of information about Jack. They both agreed that they had reached the point where they had to bring Mark and Joanne fully into the loop. They would do that during their next shift.