How We Break

When he had moved to the front of the cells, practically pushed up against its bars, he couldn’t remember. A stench he had grown accustomed to being in the air was overpowering. In small movements, he adjusted his arms. All four of the missing chunks were stinging. It didn’t really bother him; it was a good pain, but some small part of his mind was curious. He was wet and sticky at the same time, halfway to drying, his entire body covered in piss, far too much of it to have been one person or even two. With that understanding came the burn of every wound, but again, it was a good pain.

~

Gasping at the cold, the Doctor stiffened and fought the onslaught of water to get up into a sitting position. The pressure from the hose was enough to make what little unmarked skin he had sting. Rory pulled up one of the Doctor’s arms by the wrist and power rinsed it and his armpit and his side, then switched and did the same with the other arm. He kicked apart the Doctor’s legs and moved over his torso and finally his face and hair. When Rory seemed satisfied and nearly an inch of water puddled on the floor, the spray ceased.

Rubbing the water out of his eyes and pushing back his sopping hair, the Doctor looked up at the man. Twelve bites were missing from the Doctor now, arms, legs, and torso, and almost all of them now had a fresh line of red streaming down over his pale skin. Before he could begin to contemplate what he was supposed to do, Rory knelt down between his legs. He locked eyes with his prisoner and for a moment seemed to simply look at him. He reached down around and gripped the Doctor under the ass cheeks and picked him up to set him in his lap.

For a moment, one brief, relieving moment, the Doctor put his arms around the man’s shoulders and rested his face in Rory’s neck. It was so warm. The Doctor thought then that he could die that second and it would be the best second since he set foot on the asteroid. Rory’s hands lightly trailed up his back and over his shoulder blades, and his top lip brushed the Doctor’s throat and collar bone. With a whimper, the Doctor pushed his hands through Rory’s brittle hair and moved himself closer. Rory’s mouth ghosted over the pulse in the Doctor’s neck. The Doctor pressed against him, willing him to bite there, just there, in that perfect spot, and no more could happen to him. One more missing bit of his body, the right bit, and all this would be erased from him.

Rory smirked into the Doctor’s skin and whispered, “You don’t have much more I can take. I think this will be over soon.”

“Please…” the Doctor squeaked, pushing Rory’s face into him.

He shrieked as he was abruptly evicted from the lap he was on and crushed face first into the stone. Rory scraped his teeth over the Doctor’s ass and thighs, climbed over him, and roughly entered him. The Doctor’s body tensed and spasmed, but no noise escaped. The weight over him grunted with every thrust. He pulled his arms up over the back of his head as if they offered some sort of protection, and with every grunt came another tear.

~

Footsteps.

Banging.

Screaming.

He should care, but he really just couldn’t.

Footsteps again.

The cell door rolled open. The Doctor tensed expectantly. Over however long he had been there, the things that happened were very much routine, so he noticed the second the cell door didn’t close again. Not that it mattered, he couldn’t run anyway. Rory said he was almost done. He just had to wait. When a second person entered his cell, their movement made him realize his eyes were open ever so slightly. They looked like shadows, each holding something. He hoped they were knives he’d seen in the slaughterhouse. That would mean they were done with him.

A hand touched his shoulder, and he cringed away.

“Hey, who… who am I?”

“Rory.”

“No, Doc, open your eyes. Look at me. Do you know who I am?”

Something pulled at him, something deep and buried. He shook his head. No, it was too difficult, to much to think about. Calloused warmth carefully rubbed over his eyelids, brushing away crust and grime. It was nice to have his eyes free. He blinked. Nothing was in focus. He blinked again. Yes, there were still at least two people in the cell, though given the second and third outline each had, the Doctor wasn’t sure. He noticed then the hands on his face. They were warm too. He rubbed his face in one of the palms, gently at first and then, holding onto the wrist, almost aggressively, like an intense itch he couldn’t control.

It was the smell, a new smell that was old, so very old and familiar. He blinked again and again and gasped in a way that sounded more like a sob.

Jack.

~

Gwen ran down the carved out halls, gun drawn, two UNIT commandos following. All three of them had ridiculously bright lanterns on their belts to serve for light until UNIT got the tripod lights up. These rotten, bloody cannibals. Monsters, that’s what they were, nothing less. All over she heard gun shots and with each one felt a certain satisfaction that they were paying with their lives, but also a grating frustration that they weren’t paying with screams. No one on her ear piece had said a word since they all jumped down the four shafts into the asteroid and found a room of freezers filled with muscle and organs.

“I see cells,” she yelled back to the men following her.

She picked up the pace, gun at the ready, but every cell was empty. They went down beyond what her eye could see. Some of the barred rooms had gore spattered on their walls but most were barren, until they came to one with a man.

“No,” muttered Gwen, running to the bars.

She grabbed the door with her free hand and yanked, but it barely rattled.

“Jack!” she said to her ear piece, “I’ve got him, Jack, but I can’t get to him. The bloody door won’t open. I need the key.”

Behind her, she could hear UNIT describing their location as she gazed at the man on the floor, huddled into the corner. Even from there, she could see the overlapping hand-print bruises on his thighs and arms. Deep purple ringed his neck. She crouched down, her hand curled around the metal.

“Doctor,” she said softly, “Doctor, if you can hear me, you’re safe now. No one’s going to hurt you anymore.”

She heard the pounding of steps so urgent they could only have been Jack’s. He skidded to a halt as he came up from the other end of the black hallway. She was surprised when Jack didn’t kick anything, didn’t start screaming or swearing. For a single second he paused, looking at his friend, and nudged Gwen aside, key extended. It clanged in its lock, and when he pushed the door open, he stood there. Gwen frowned at him questioningly and forced herself past him into the cell. Her first step was squelchy. The floor was caked in waste and blood and vomit and chunks of God knows what, but she kept going. Cautiously Jack followed.

Gwen approached the Doctor and knelt beside him, trying not to touch the wall. All over she saw craters in his flesh, some so deep bone peaked through. She set her hand on his shoulder, and he flinched.

“Jack,” she said, not removing her eyes, “Jack, they’ve been eating him.”

Quietly, Jack said, “I know.”

He observed the way the Doctor sat, leaned over to one side, the dried blood on the inside of his legs, the hand prints and teeth marks not meant for eating. A coarse anger Jack had never felt before slammed into him so hard it was nauseating. He cracked teeth gritting his jaw. Heedless of the moisture on the floor, he stepped closer and got down on his knees, sitting back on his ankles. He reached out and cupped the Doctor’s chin with both hands. The Doctor wasn’t looking at him, not really. The whites of his eyes were barely visible beyond the slit of his eyelids. He didn’t seem to be taking in anything.

“Can you hear me, Doctor?” asked Jack softly.

He waited but received no reaction.

“We came to save you,” Jack told him with an ironic smile, “Remember all those times you sent me out to the TARDIS? I set up some tech so I could monitor where she went if you took off…. I’m sorry it took so long to get here. I used the key you gave me and my vortex manipulator and the bug, and she came to me, Doc. She came and opened her doors and took me here, but I couldn’t get in…. I had to get help…. I had to. Please be okay.”

Gwen reached over and wiped away the tear on Jack’s face.

“Listen, it’ll be alright now. I’ve got you.”

Still no answer.

“Hey, who… who am I?”

“Rory.”

Jack sucked in a breath. The Doctor’s voice sounded nothing like the Doctor, but he spoke. Rory—Jack remembered the story of Rory and Amy. At least the Doctor was thinking. Jack leaned closer.

“No, Doc, open your eyes. Look at me. Do you know who I am?”

Jack did his best to gently rub circles over the Doctor’s eyelids, not knowing what else to do, but his hands shook, and he really didn’t want to hurt him. The Doctor seemed to like it though. He opened his eyes but was still clearly sightless. He nuzzled Jack’s hand and rubbed his face in further as if he were trying to push his way through it.

Somewhere in him, it all clicked.

He gasped out a sob, “Jack.”

“Yes,” said Jack urgently, pressing their foreheads together, “Yes, Doc, it’s me. I’ve got you now. You’re safe.”

One of the Doctor’s hands threaded through Jack’s hair and gripped painfully, the other clamped around the side of Jack’s neck.

“He’ll hurt you,” croaked the Doctor, “He’ll hurt you.”

“No, he won’t. We own this place now.”

“NO!” the Doctor screamed and shoved Jack away, “He hurts!”

“Who?” asked Jack, shaking the filth off the hand he caught himself with, “Who hurt you…? What’s his name?”

“Rory.”

Jack paused again.

“Your Rory? Your friend?”

The Doctor rubbed his face in his hands in frustration. Jack stripped off his coat and, though the lower half was disgusting, he stood and hunched, draping it as best he could over the Doctor’s shoulders. It was not accepted.

“Doc, please, I’m trying to help.”

Jack tossed his coat over his shoulder and reached for the Doctor’s hands. They trembled in his and barely had the strength to hold on.

“It’s time to get you out of here.”

“No, no, no, please, not again, no, I can’t.”

“Shhh, shhh, it’s okay—“

The Doctor let go and pulled away, tucking himself into his corner, shaking his head and muttering pleas under his breath. Jack lost what little self-control he had.

“You can’t leave because of Rory, is that it?”

Faintly, the Doctor muttered something about “hurts.” Jack stood and spun away, crunching his cracked teeth.

“Martha, Ianto,” he said to his communicator, “I need a man called Rory. Find him. Bring him to the cells.”

Jack walked over to the bars and gripped them with white knuckles, his breathing ragged, angrily staring at the hall floor, waiting.

“Um, do you know,” Gwen started hesitantly, “Is there anyone in here other than these monsters? Any people like you?”

“Susan,” the Doctor said, his head wrapped in his arms.

“Who is Susan?” Gwen frowned at the silence and decided to move on, “Is there anyone other than Susan?”

“The children. Get the children…. Get Susan. Run.”

“UNIT,” Jack barked suddenly, “Have you found anyone else prisoner…? Have you found any children?”

It took a while to get a response, but then Ianto’s voice came to him over the earpiece, “None alive.”

Jack kicked the bars. Everyone jumped. For a long while no one said anything. Gwen stroked the Doctor’s hair; Jack tried in vain to even his breathing, and the UNIT soldiers stared quietly at the wall.

“Coming to you,” said Ianto in Jack’s ear.

After a few minutes they heard rustling and struggling coming towards them. Two more UNIT soldiers held a pissed off man between them, followed by Ianto. Jack pointed into the cell, and the soldiers drug the struggling man in. Jack noted with a small amount of pride the man’s freshly swelling eye and Ianto’s freshly purpling knuckles.

“His name is Rory?” asked Jack, following them in, doing his best not to look at his new prisoner.

“No, no one is named Rory from what I can tell, but—“ Ianto held out a green tipped screwdriver— “He had this on him.”

Jack glared at it. He snatched it out of Ianto’s hand and entered the now crowded cell. He went over to the Doctor and got down next to him.

“Here, Doc. It’s your sonic.”

The Doctor carefully parted his arms and lifted his head. At first he seemed intrigued by the familiar object but around Jack he caught sight of the man and sucked in a breath. He wrapped his arms around his chest but didn’t hide his face again.

“Take it. It’s yours,” Jack insisted.

The Doctor shook his head, eyes never leaving the man. Martha appeared at the bars, out of breath and panicked. She cried out as her eyes landed on her friend, but two UNIT soldiers grabbed her upper arms and held her back. UNIT came because Torchwood wasn’t enough to take the compound, but they came with the understanding that Torchwood gave the orders. Jack was in charge, and he doubted Martha would stay objective. He had already given UNIT their orders to keep her back. By the screaming she was doing, he had been right. One of the soldiers said something very firmly to her and she quieted.

Jack pointed behind him, “Is this Rory? Is this the man who hurt you?”

No answer.

“What’s his name?”

“Rory.”

Jack looked sideways at the man, his own eyes darker than he knew himself capable of and motioned for UNIT to bring him closer. With another instructional movement, they pushed the man down to his knees.

Jack asked the Doctor, “You won’t take the sonic because he hurt you for having it?”

The Doctor lifted his gaze to Jack, shrinking back from his sonic, and said, “Tried to get away.”

Without looking behind him, Jack’s elbow shot out and collided with Rory’s nose. Blood streamed down over his mouth, purple and blue immediately blooming over his face. Jack wanted so badly to turn round and pound him until there was nothing but mush in place of his head, but he held himself in check.

Holding the sonic an inch from the Doctor’s hand, he said, “I think you can have it back now.”

The Doctor didn’t take it. Jack touched it to his palm, and the Doctor’s fingers carefully curled, but he held it like it might burn him any second.

Jack stood and asked, “Why don’t you turn it on?”

The Doctor looked at him with wide eyes.

“It’s okay to do that. Do you know why? Because I’m in charge now.”

Lashing back again, Jack’s elbow hit Rory’s cheek bone this time, and it cracked. Rory shrieked and covered his face, having troubles spitting out the blood. Jack composed himself and gestured towards the screwdriver. To his surprise and relief, a sonic resonance filled the air, but he was nowhere near as surprised as the Doctor, who seemed like he didn’t quite know how that had happened. For a few minutes Jack watched him run his fingers over the cool metal and push different settings, every one making him glance up at Rory on his knees with a busted face, until finally the Doctor put both his hands around the rod and held it close to his chest.

“Leave,” Jack told the UNIT soldiers.

They left at once, Rory falling forward. Jack pointed and after a tense second, Gwen rose and stood by the cell door.

“This man isn’t going to hurt you anymore, no matter what you do,” said Jack calmly, “He hit you?”

The Doctor nodded. That was an easy question. Jack stood and kneed Rory in the face. The man fell groaning and yelling. A stomp on his ribs made hands move from face to chest, and Jack shoved his boot into Rory’s throat, pinning him. Jack’s foot and ankle and leg were clawed and punched, but the rage that burned through him numbed it. He pulled his pistol from his belt and carelessly lined up a shot to the ankle. As the gun went off, the noise was startlingly loud, echoing off the stone. Another shot came, a second bullet blowing into Rory’s shin. Jack sank bullet after bullet up the man’s leg, blood bursting into the air with each shot, until the barrel was empty. Without pause, Jack dug in his pocket and refilled his pistol. Rory withered on the floor, his pants’ leg soaking and dripping.

Jack stepped away and approached the Doctor, kneeling again. He held his hand out.

“Remember me? I’m Jack. I’m the one who protects the Doctor.” He went back to Rory, and from there asked, “Did he force you?”

The Doctor hadn’t understood the question.

“Did he rape you?”

He looked down at the sonic in his hands, eyes averted.

“I know he did; I just need you to tell me. Say it out loud, and then I’ll fix it.”

Jack waited patiently. Words nearly left the Doctor’s lips several times but were stunted last second.

Finally, he whispered, “He said it would keep Susan safe if I let him… let him do whatever he wanted…. It hurt….”

“Hey, it will never happen again. Do you believe me?”

The Doctor held his gaze and then nodded, though he wasn’t sure it was the truth.

Lazily, Jack cocked his pistol again and fired. Blood erupted from Rory’s crotch. The man screamed this time, a proper scream. Jack fired in succession until the barrel was empty. The space between Rory’s legs no longer held shape. It was flat and deflated, nothing more than dripping gore, bits and pieces scattered in a growing pile of blood and clinging to the torn holes on his pants. Rory kept screaming, his back arching, trying to wriggle free.

“Oh, shut up!” yelled Jack, stomping on the man’s chest.

He whimpered like a wounded dog, but the screaming ceased. Stepping back, Jack sheathed his pistol and pulled the long military coat from his shoulder.

“Doctor,” he said softly, sitting one more time, his legs sliding through the sludge on the floor, “Doc, please help me know what to do.”

His friend looked at him with big brown eyes; one of them so bloodshot almost no white was visible. Brown, floppy, crusty hair plastered flat against the Doctor’s forehead. Jack remembered this body before him as beautiful and smooth and lithe and so strong. Now here he was battered and beaten, trembling, violated, used, and eaten. The despair in Jack threatened to crush the breath out of him. It was combated only by the black rage that laced his veins. He reached one hand out slowly so as not to startle the Time Lord. The tips of his fingers touched the Doctor’s face. The Doctor flinched but didn’t pull away. Jack’s fingers slid over his cheek and into the grimy hair. He felt the Doctor lean into him, nuzzle his hand again, eyes closed.

Anything, that’s what Jack would do, anything. Vengeance was justified. The storm in him demanded it, but it calmed, ruefully shrinking to an echo. No, he wasn’t needed right now to inflict pain or terror or make people sorry. He was needed to push the pain away, to be the warm body the Doctor knew would always be safe. Whatever it took, anything.

“Here,” he whispered, opening his coat and shaking it around the Doctor’s shoulders.

He had imagined seeing all three regenerations in his coat, but this was not what he wanted. It dwarfed the man. Jack tucked him into it, pulling the shoulders closed over the Doctor’s arms still clutched on his sonic. The Doctor watched hesitantly as Jack’s hands worked but did his best to not interfere, no matter how much his instincts were screaming at him. This was Jack after all.

The calm that washed over Jack was not matched by his friends.

Gwen took two quick steps to the man on the floor and stood over him. She knocked a bullet into the chamber of her gun with a satisfying metallic snick.

“The bodies,” came Ianto’s voice, booming over them as he entered the cell, yanking back the top of his gun, “The children in the freezers, pieces of them. Was that on your orders? Did you decide to kill them?”

Consumed by pain, Rory didn’t even hear him, just rolled and rythed on the floor.

Ianto squeezed out three shots into Rory’s uninjured leg. Gwen stepped over the man on the floor towards Jack.

“Doctor,” she barked a lot harsher than she meant to, making the cowering man jump, “Is he the one who took bites out of you? Was he the only one?”

The Doctor turned his head towards Jack and leaned so that his face was partially hidden behind him. Jack’s arms came up as if to hold him, but they hovered unsure if he was allowed to touch.

The Doctor nodded, but then added quietly, repeating Rory's words, “My face will be the sweetest.”

Jack did embrace him them, crushing him with more force than he should have. Shrieking, Gwen wheeled around and stormed back to Rory. Her foot came out and stomped on the side of his head, crushing his cheek into the stone floor. The gun in her hand whirled around and came to rest above his head. Jack thought it would be a kill shot, but instead Rory’s teeth shattered out. Chunks and chips panged off the wall. Large portions of his lips were suddenly missing, bloody gaps in his face. Gwen turned and marched herself to the bars, kicking them repeatedly. When she finished, the cell settled into quiet. Only the ragged breathing of the mushy puddle of the floor could be heard.

“Look,” said Jack, his mouth brushing the Doctor’s head, “I know it’s nasty, but look.”

Carefully the Doctor turned his head to obey.

“See, look at him. There is no physical way he could possibly hurt you or me or any one of us. Okay? Understand?”

No answer came.

Jack rubbed his face into the Doctor’s hair and whispered, “Time to get you home.”

Heedless of the brutal filth, Jack slid his arm under the Doctor’s legs and held him close as he stood with the man in his arms. Ianto reached out and helped tuck the military coat around the Doctor’s naked body until he was sufficiently cocooned.

Jack nodded to the lump on the floor, and said, “Take care of it. I don’t want it ever thought about again.”

With that he walked, taking his Doctor with him, out of the cell and down the dark halls. UNIT soldiers parted as the Doctor passed, eyes closed, curled up into Jack’s chest. They didn’t salute.