Mind Games

Pairing: Vaguely implied past Nine/Jack, but pairing not the focus of the story.

Rating: M

Warning: Mental violation. Rape. This is dark fic.

Spoilers: Doctor Who, from Utopia through to Last of the Time Lords.

Summary: Sometimes the cruellest tortures of all are those produced within our own minds.

A/N: This is my first time staying outside my usual pg/pg-13 rated fic so any comments are very welcome.

From the moment Jack realises that Saxon, he refuses, even mentally, to refer to him as the Master, can see into his mind, can knock down his mental defences like they are made of paper, he knows that he's in serious trouble.

Saxon is all manic smile and energy as he walks into the cell that has been Jack's home for the last five months. "Morning, freak." He places his hands either side of Jack's head. "Now what shall we watch today?"

Jack knows better than to try to fight him, knows the consequences for everybody else aboard the Valiant that he cares about should he even attempt to resist. Nor does Jack bother to dignify him with a response. Bitter experience has taught him that he won't be given any choice in what Saxon decides he will be made to see and feel.

Forcing Jack to re-live some his most unpleasant memories is just the latest in Saxon's series of experiments on him, and the more humiliating and painful the memories are the more he seems to enjoy them. On the days when he can't find a bad memory to suit whatever twisted pleasure he gains from this he takes good memories, takes them and alters them, feeding in fear and pain until Jack can't remember what is real and what is just another of Saxon's sick lies.

Jack allows Saxon into his mind without a struggle, dropping all barriers, knowing that the sooner it is started the sooner it will be over.

Today's memory is unfamiliar and although he's sure he's never been there before Jack finds himself running through what he knows to be the darkened and deserted streets of thirtysecond century London. He's trying to get away from some unknown horror behind him, he's half naked, his clothes, the remains of some type of uniform that he can't quite place, are in tatters. Bruised, bloody and so afraid that he can hardly draw enough breath to keep running he struggles on, his bare feet cut and bleeding from the pursuit.

Turning a corner his foot catches in a pothole and he falls hard, hands and knees tearing on the rough ground. It's all the opportunity the creature needs and a second later it's on him. Huge, formless and utterly terrifying, its unseen claws tearing at his clothing and skin, pushing his face into the dirt.

He's trying to shout, to scream for somebody, anybody to help him, but it's cutting off his air, crushing him with its weight, and he all can get out are choking sobs as its claws rip away the last of his clothing.

Jack knows with a sickening certainty what is going to happen next as he feels slick tentacles pull his legs apart, the suckers on them trail octopus like across his skin.

Revolted and so very afraid there isn't even enough air left in his lungs to scream as it forces it's way inside him, sensitive skin tearing under it's onslaught. Pinned down and unable to breathe Jack can do nothing as but lay there choking as the agony builds, until eventually, mercifully, he passes out.

Then suddenly it's over, gone, and he's stood, trembling in his cell, Saxon's fingertips resting lightly on his temples.

Too shocked by what he has just been forced to endure Jack can do nothing but stare at Saxon in mute horror, his breath coming in short ragged gasps.

Saxon is still grinning maniacally as he lowers his hands, "That was very educational, I didn't know a human body could stand so much damage and survive, you learn something new everyday." He looks at his watch, "Fun as this all is I've got to dash, you know how it is, countries to conquer, people to kill. Busy, busy, busy that me." Saxon slaps him hard across the arse, a final insult as he leaves, calling back, "Same time tomorrow."

As soon as Saxon and his guards are gone Jack stumbles the few steps across to the mattress on the floor, the only furniture in his otherwise bare cell, and drops to his knees.

Jack's sure what he's just been forced to endure could never have actually happened to him, that it has to be just another sick and twisted game that Saxon is playing with him, but it had seemed so very real.

Real enough that Jack's sure he's never going to be able forget the mind numbing fear and the sense of complete and utter helplessness that he felt during the creature and Saxon's violation of his mind and body.

It's overwhelming and Jack's stomach cramps, bile burning at the back of his throat and he barely has time to stagger from the mattress before he vomits the remains of his meagre breakfast onto the floor.

Shivering, Jack crawls back onto the mattress and tries to fight back the tide of sheer panic that is threatening to engulf him. He doesn't want to think about what he has just seen, what he has just felt, but there is nothing in the room to distract him, nothing to stop thinking about it, nothing to stop his mind replaying it over and over again.

He tries to talk himself through it, talk himself down, telling himself that it could never really have happened. Yet doubt remains. What if it had? What if it was something from his missing two years? What if he'd removed his own memories to forget this?

After all there's a small, faint scar on his hip that he's never been able to work out where and when he got it. What if it was from this?

There are too many what ifs and a ragged sob escapes him. Pressing a hand across his mouth, Jack bites down against it determined that he's not going to give Saxon, if he's still listening, the satisfaction of hearing him cry, of letting him know just how close he is to breaking right now.

He can't fall apart, he tells himself, he's not allowed to, not yet. Not while the Doctor needs him to be a distraction, not while Martha needs him to divert Saxon's seemingly boundless capacity for destruction away from her, and definitely not while Martha's family need him to be the one to bear Saxon's brutality. He knows they would never ask such a thing of him, they are good people, he does it simply because he knows that he can survive it and they would not. So despite the pain it brings him, he has almost come to welcome it, because it makes him feel like he has a purpose.

And just maybe, if he is totally honest with himself, it's because he hopes that if the Doctor ever finds out what he has endured he might be able to look at him again and call him his friend.

A hand still pressed against his mouth, stifling sobs he's can't quite keep inside, Jack curls into a ball, trying to will his mind into blankness.

Jack hates to blank his mind completely, to zone out, the empty darkness of it feels too much like death. Right now though he welcomes the numb oblivion it will bring him, because it's preferable to the almost overwhelming feelings of shame and despair that now seem to fill every part of his consciousness.

He'd learnt how to do it as part of his training with the Time Agency. They'd told him that it would help him withstand torture, that it was necessary skill, as only by understanding how to resist torture did you gain the necessary knowledge to perform it.

Jack can't help but wonder that if he'd paid more attention to those classes, if he'd just taken it more seriously or if he's kept up his practice of it, whether he would have been able to resist Saxon, maybe even push his way in to Saxon's mind.

He's just not good enough, he never has been and that's the problem, he's sure of it now, because why else would the Doctor have run from him?

A sickening though occurs to him, what if Martha managed to rescue the Doctor, would they even try to rescue him? or would he be left behind again? Abandoned to suffer without even the hope that death would one day release him from his torment.

He has no answers and it hurts even to think about the trust, the faith, that he once had in the Doctor, so Jack lets the darkness claim him, finding, at least temporarily, a sort of numb relief in the emptiness of his own mind.