Chapter 32

Owen was in his office the morning after the raid, catching up with paperwork. At 10am the phone rang. It was the Palace, with the news they had waited so long for. Slamming the phone down, Owen rushed into the main Hub area and yelled, "They got them!"

Tosh looked up uncomprehendingly. "Who got who?" she queried.

"The SAS got Stamford and Oduya, of course," Owen shouted with glee.

Delight blossomed on Tosh's face. "Oh yes!" she crowed.

Joanne had heard the commotion from the medical bay and walked in. "What's up?" she asked.

When Tosh and Owen explained she smiled broadly. "We've got to tell Jack. Where is he?"

"Jack and Charlotte are in their session at the moment," Owen said. "I'll tell him the good news as soon as he comes out."

"This is fantastic," Tosh exclaimed. "And now they'll arrest the soldiers who helped them. Jack will be able to leave the Hub soon and lead a normal life."

"Well, relatively normal," she qualified, when assailed by the incredulous gazes of the others.

b_b_b_b_b

In their session, Charlotte and Jack had reached an important milestone. "So Jack. Can you tell me what happened on the last day of your time on the Valiant?" Charlotte asked.

"I'm sure you know most of it," Jack pointed out.

"Some, but I want to hear your version of events," she replied.

"OK, I know the drill," Jack acquiesced with a smile. After months of sessions he was well aware of the routine.

Sobering, he collected his thoughts. "Well, you know from the last few sessions that I had built an EMP device, but I wanted to wait for an opportunity when it would do some good to activate it."

"It must have been hard, to wait," Charlotte commented.

"God yes, you have no idea how many times I just wanted to activate it and, if I couldn't kill the Master in the chaos, I was just going to jump. I hoped that he wouldn't be able to find me if that happened. But I knew that once the unaffected Toclafane showed up on the Valiant, he would have them all searching for me. I doubt that I would have lasted long before they found me. And it would have meant abandoning the others."

"Is that what stopped you?" Charlotte asked.

"Yes. It's possible he wouldn't have carried out his threat, but not likely, even if I managed to stay free. So they would all have died horribly. And he would have been pissed off at me, so I'd have been just as badly off as I was before. It would have been much more sensible for me to agree to his terms and take the bargain."

"Your safety in return for their torture and death?" Charlotte clarified.

"Yes. And I was very close to doing that," Jack admitted. "So when the rebels attacked the Valiant it didn't take a genius to figure out it was then or never. It was pure luck that I wasn't chained up in that room when they arrived."

"And what happened when you activated it?"

Jack laughed mirthlessly. "The lights went out."

Charlotte looked at him quizzically. "Is that all?"

"No, but that's all I could see. I was in the bathroom where I'd hidden the device. I assumed the Toclafane had been knocked out as well as the lights, but I didn't know for sure."

"What did you do?"

"It was pitch black. I groped my way out of the bathroom and tried to get somewhere with light. It was just my luck that the first people I ran into were the escaped prisoners. They all knew who I was..." Jack swallowed, "I was the Master's pet torturer, and the person who had killed their comrades. I suppose I can't blame them for the way they reacted."

Charlotte remained silent, waiting.

"Ianto was there."

Charlotte gasped at that revelation.

"And he didn't lift a finger to help me. Didn't try and stop what happened. He just stood back and let the mob beat me unconscious."

"And how do you feel about that?"

"How do you think?" Jack retorted. "Intellectually I know that he was reacting to the persona that I had built, the evil sadistic torturer, but I couldn't help but feel that he should have at least wanted to stop it. For the sake of what we once had, even if he was totally oblivious to what I'd done to keep him safe. It was yet another betrayal."

Charlotte laid her hand on Jack's arm in a gesture of comfort.

"When I woke up, I was locked in a cell. Gwen came to see me. She told me Ianto was dead."

"What!" exclaimed Charlotte.

"Well," clarified Jack. "She said that my lover was dead, and since the only person that had been my lover was Ianto, that's what I thought she meant. I suppose Tish would have been a possibility, from that one night, but Gwen didn't know anything about that." He hesitated and then continued with distaste, "It turned out that she meant the Master. I didn't have a clue why at the time. Just the thought of him being my lover would make me sick."

"I can understand that," murmured Charlotte with a shudder. She was well acquainted with the exact nature of Jack and the Master's physical relationship.

"And then she dropped the bombshell. The Master's paradox machine was about to be dismantled."

"You knew what that meant then?" Charlotte queried.

"Of course. Don't forget that I was a time agent in the 51st century. I understand exactly what happens if a paradox is undone. That would have been my salvation. All my sins forgotten."

Charlotte smiled at the oblique reference.

"And then Gwen told me I had to stay on board, so that I could stand trial. I pleaded with her, begged her, but she wouldn't budge. And then she left and it was too late. Time was rewritten but I was left behind."

"I'm so sorry Jack."

"It's OK, I didn't deserve to forget. No matter what the reason, I did torture and kill innocent people."

"Jack," Charlotte interrupted. "You must stop blaming yourself for that. You had no choice. Everyone understands that, including the law. Everyone has forgiven you, except yourself."

"When they took me off the Valiant I couldn't understand why no one would listen, and why Tish hadn't told them that I was the Master's victim not his henchman." Jack's face crumpled. "Then Oduya told me she'd been evacuated before time reset. Why did she abandon me?" This was not a rhetorical question. Jack genuinely wanted an answer. He had been deeply hurt by Tish's apparent betrayal.

"I can't give you an answer Jack," Charlotte admitted sadly. "But, from what you've told me about her, I don't believe that she would ever have willing abandoned you. I know that the team tracked her down and verified that her memory of the Valiant had been erased. We'll probably never know what happened. But there could be an explanation: she could have been hurt in the fighting, and been taken off without even knowing what was happening. There aren't enough witnesses who retained their memory to ever find out."

"It's just that everyone else disowned and abandoned me," Jack murmured, "even Ianto. He made it clear that I was nothing to him and never had been. I wanted to know that there was one person who never did."

"I believe that there was," Charlotte insisted. "And you knew Tish, and how she felt about your plight. If you look in your heart don't you know if she would have betrayed you?"

Jack was silent for a few moments, then smiled. "Yes. Yes I do know. She didn't abandon me. Something happened to prevent her from telling anyone. And you know what?"

"What?" asked Charlotte.

Jack smiled, broadly this time. "I don't need to know what it was."