It was so easy for the days to blur into one when none of them held any distinction from the next. What should have been horrific soon turned into routine and what should have been heartbreaking just became another scar among countless others. But some days were different. Some of the days he wished would fade into the monotone of his memories were the only ones he could recall. Some days just stood out.

~o~o~o~

One of the many things the Jack hated the most about his life aboard the Valiant was how little he knew of what was happening beneath him, of how little he knew about what was happening to his team in the dreadful place that Earth had become. His team. He should have been the one protecting them but all he could do was to hope and pray to whatever deity would have him that they were surviving. He knew that they wouldn't be living, for that was too much to ask for and it was damn near impossible under the circumstances but for now all he hoped for was that they survived.

Jack soon lost count of the days he spent being tortured and killed because in a sad and roundabout fashion dying had became routine to him, as had the unimaginable amounts of pain the Master managed to inflict upon him every time he killed him.

It was all Jack could do to hold on to his sanity, but he did. Barely.

Every time he saw the master stride towards him, often with some sickening implement in his hands, he made sure that his once easy smile was firmly fixed upon his face and a suave comment was at the ready. Each time he did this he saw the Master slowly lose his composure. It slipped ever so slightly whenever he made an innuendo or laughed at his joke because no one else would. To him, it felt like he was siphoning away some of his own torment and passing it over to his captor and in doing so he managed to cling to his state of mind, even if by only his fingertips.

This all quickly changed after his twenty third death at the Master's hands. He felt the bullet rip into his abdomen and lodge there and when his head began to loll forward onto his chest he saw the red stain of his blood steadily soaking through his shirt. After several pain filled minutes Jack felt the familiar sensation of his mind slipping away into the abyss he sensed the life leave his body as he slumped forward as much as him chains would allow as his blood continued to drip onto the floor providing the only sound within the whole room.

~o~o~o~

While he awaited for his prisoner to awake from the dead the Master stood impassively over his body, his face showed none of his crazed glee that usually lit up his features as he watched Jack be dragged forcibly back into the land of the living and his eyes didn't betray his manic energy that seemed emanated from them whenever he found a particularly inventive way to slaughter the abomination of a fixed point that so often stood in front of him.

No, he mused silently, his game had become boring and something needed to change. He had established that he could physically break the so called man in front of him on a whim and no matter what he did Jack would always come back but he had so far not even tested his mental strength. A slight smile quirked at the edge mouth when he came up with the solution. It was time to see just how strong Captain Jack Harkness really was.

~o~o~o~

Jack was surprised when the Master arrived the next day with two armed guards; usually he was alone, but quickly schooled his expression into a smile that had once been charming. Just as he opened his mouth to comment on the extra company the Master beat him to it and in a bored voice said to the guard who flanked his left, "Shoot him." The last thing that Jack felt was the terribly familiar feel of bullets peppering his body.

The first thing that Jack was conscious of was that he was no longer bound by his chains. In fact, as he opened his eyes and took stock of himself discreetly he noticed that not only was he liberated but he was also not where he had come to think of as his cell.

From what he could see and feel he was laying in a heap upon a polished hardwood floor, which was dappled in the early mourning sunlight, a sight that he never thought he'd see again.

As he sat up slowly, trying not to draw attention to himself (an entirely new experience for him) he came to the conclusion with slight trepidation that he was on the main control room floor. The floor where he had first been captured and where he had watched Martha disappear from all the while wishing he could go with her.

~o~o~o~

Seeing Jack slowly rise from his position of lying on the floor the Master's face broke into a twisted smile of anticipation, pausing only to grab the handles of the Doctor's wheelchair he strode into Jack's eye line and enjoyed the range of emotions that flickered across his face.

First he saw undisguised loathing from when Jack first noticed him, next came longing, guilt and pity all rolled into one when his eye's alighted on the Doctor. Although the Master couldn't see the Doctor's face from standing behind him he saw the man's shoulders stiffen as he took in his friend struggling on the floor at his feet.

Despite all the strong emotions that played out across the man's face the dominant one seemed to be confusion. A natural emotion he supposed and was only fair that he enlighten the poor man before him. Feeling a smile break on his face the Master stepped forward to do so.

"Well Captain," he said in a genial voice that he knew would make the other man hate him just that little bit more, "I have a problem. My problem is that I seem to have grown, well, bored of killing you, and what is the point of having a plaything if it's only going to bore you?"

At this point he paused to shoot a look over his shoulder at the shoulder at the Doctor. The other time lord's eyes were closed and his face held such a broken and painful expression that the Master knew in a instant that the Doctor had figured out his plan. Turning back to Jack on the floor he continued,

"We all know you're not going to die, so let's see how much we can make you wish you could." He said with malice colouring his voice, turning to the doors on the other side of the room he issued a single command "Bring her in!"

~o~o~o~

All of the bravado that Jack had been trying to gather from the depths of his mind quickly fade when he saw three people walk through the door towards him.

Two were armed guards that the ship seemed to be crawling with but the third was obviously not. The person between them was clearly a woman and a petite one at that and despite the bag that covered her head Jack knew who it was and the truth almost broke his heart.

She was roughly brought level to the Master and although she struggled it was a feeble attempt that required little effort to restrain her. When she was standing directly in front of the Master he threw Jack a flicker of a smug smile before returning his attention to the person in front of him.

"My, my! What have we got here?" Came the mocking voice that had taunted Jack for the last three weeks. With slow and deliberate movements the Master drew his hand upward to head height and pausing only to savour the moment he whipped the bag off of the woman's head and threw her to the ground in Jack's direction.

Jack broke her fall the best he could and for the first time in what seemed like a life time he found himself looking into the face of Toshiko Sato.

~o~o~o~

The Master watched in satisfaction as he watched the woman, Toshiko's eyes become wide as she took in Jack. His plan seemed to be coming together perfectly and it was certainly more interesting than killing the man over and over again. He was just about to step forward and initiate the second part of his plan when he felt a weak tugging at his sleeve. Looking down he saw the Doctor looking up at him with a inscrutable expression upon his face.

"Don't do this." What should have been a powerful command came out as a broken plea and the Master was pleased to note that he was right to bring the Doctor into this, this affected both of them.

But seeing as he was going to go though with his plan anyway he saw fit to deign the Doctor with an answer,

"Why shouldn't I?"

The question came out as a hiss but the Doctor never broke eye contact with the Master as he pointedly looked over at the pair on the floor. Toshiko had gotten over he initial shock of seeing Jack for the first time since he left and had now grabbed him and was sobbing unashamedly into his chest while he clung to her just as tightly and tried to hold back his own tears even as he rocked her backwards and forwards trying to find empty words of comfort.

The Master took in the scene with an air of general amusement before deciding that the time was right to act. Striding over to the pair he crouched down to be on their eye level. He ignored the outright hatred he could feel that radiated off of Jack in waves and in stead focussed in on Toshiko. He reached out a hand and moved as if to caress her cheek, smiling inwardly when she cringed away.

"Oh my dear Toshiko, the things I have planned for you." He crooned to her softly. With a suddenness that surprised both her and Jack the Master gripped both of her arms and yanked her body upright and made her stand. Jack made a move as if to stand alongside her but was made still by the ominous sound of the safety clicking off the guns of the soldiers behind him.

The Master continued regardless "Ah Tosh, May I call you Tosh? Well I was just going to explain to Jack here how this is going to work." He paused to look over and address Jack directly, " You see, I was beginning to tire of our time together so I decided to shake things up a little bit. And that's when I found you!" He said in a light voice as he turned back to Tosh, " All alone in the world and a member of the prestigious Torchwood three! How could I possibly resist bringing you here? He finished softly.

"Where are the others?" Jack blurted out quickly before the Master could interrupt him. He looked at Tosh with pleading eyes willing her to understand that he needed to know what had happened to his team.

With a quick look at the Master who showed no signs of stopping their conversation and was instead watching over them with an air of condescending amusement Tosh spoke " We got a anonymous tip off to the Himalayas a few days after you left and Gwen wanted to check it out. We got about half way there before we realized it was a diversion," she paused in her speech only to throw filthy look at the Master

"but when we started to come back they started to close all the borders. We had to make most of journey at night. And well, last night we started to walk again when the toglaphane," Tosh was interrupted by a sound of distaste from the Doctor which seemed to amuse the Master to no end before she continued with her story "came after us but I just wasn't fast enough. I got separated from the others."

Tosh finished regaling her story to Jack just as the Master's face broke out into a fresh grin,

"Don't you see?" He said, "Your sorry little team is done for! I know where I can find them and when I do, I'll bring them here to see you, so I can kill them and you can know that it was all your fault."

The Master said lowering his voice and stalking slowly towards Jack as he finished talking. The image in Jack's mind was terrible and the worst thing of it was that was no doubt in Jack's mind that the Master would do it, even if only for his own demented pleasure.

While he was for the most part too wrapped up in his own mind to notice the Master's gloating little speech he did notice one thing. While his captor tried to goad a response out of him by saying how he would personally kill every member of torchwood three he had angled his body away from Tosh to focus on Jack. He completely missed the fact that when he talked about killing her team mates Toshiko Sato's face had become completely blank of any emotion and it was only when he began to blame their impending death's on Jack that she finally cracked.

For a split second Jack saw pure rage flit across Tosh's delicate features; it was an emotion that he had never seen her display before and it didn't seem to sit well on her face.

Jack continued to stare at her in astonishment as she crouched and launched herself at the Master, punching and kicking every inch of him that she could find, trying to wrap her small hands around his throat to no avail but continuing to try to beat him into submission.

It took both of the guards that had escorted her here to pull her off of him and when they did she struggled once more before going limp in their arms. The Master walked over to her and stood so close that she had nowhere to look except for at him. He held her gaze while he stood there and from his vantage point Jack could see three scratches that seemed to run the length of his face and he wasn't surprised by the flicker of pride that flared in his chest for his brave Toshiko.

"Well well," The master's voice was no longer deceptively jovial and was instead cold and sneering, "On your head be it."

With this statement he turned away from her and grabbed what looked like a microphone from the centre table and when he spoke again his voice was grossly magnifies and Jack new he was addressing the toglaphane outside the ship.

"My children! Today we fly above Japan! A proud country with a proud people!" Here he paused and shot a crazed look at Tosh who had gone completely stiff while all of the blood had seemingly drained from her face as she looked on in wide eyed terror. "Decimate them."

The last part of his speech came out as a whisper but for all of the silence in the room it could have been a gunshot. Jack vaguely noticed that the Jones family had been marched in at some point and they too stood in shock as they listened to the magnified screams that bounced off of the walls.

The Doctor sat with his head bowed into in his hands as he tried to deal with the awful onslaught of memories that their terrified screams brought back to him. As for Tosh her reaction to hearing the country below her scream in agony was nothing like what Jack would have expected from her, he would have expected her to fall apart, to cry, to sob, anything that showed what she was feeling.

However, when Jack found it within himself to look at her he was shocked. Tosh stood defiantly, straight backed and tall with a terrible fury illustrated in every line of her body. The Master walked over to her slowly as if savouring the moment,

"All gone. The whole of Japan, and who knows" he snarled suddenly, throwing a contemptuous look at Jack, "maybe Martha Jones was there. After all you never know, but you can always hope."

Jack saw the Jones family stiffen out of the corner of his eyes but did nothing to offer any empty comfort, after all Martha could have been in Japan but right now he had to believe that she wasn't. he had to believe that she was far away and as safe as possible. "What shall we do with you, my little Toshiko?" Said the Master his voice having dropped to a sickening croon, "I could keep you I suppose, keep you with your precious freak," he continued standing in front of her so close that his face hovered only inches away from her own, "or I could kill you, and then find the rest of those degenerates that you call your team mates-" The Master never fully finished what he was going to say because Tosh, with both of her hands being held behind her back by guards did the only thing she could do; she levelled her most scornful look and spat at him. Jack knew the instant it happened that his brave Toshiko had just signed her own death sentence and the look on the Master's now sneering face only told him that he was right.

"Make her kneel." Came the short command aimed at the guards behind Tosh who each placed a hand on her shoulders and forced her to the floor. Jack sat horror struck at what he knew was inevitable.

"How considerate of you Toshiko, you seem to have made the decision for me." mocked the Master with a hint of steel to his voice.

Grabbing a hand gun from one of the guards he pointed it at her with an unwavering hand. He cocked his head to one side looked to all the world like an inquisitive child and with no warning he pulled the trigger.

The bullet hit Tosh on the right side of her chest, missing her heart by a metaphorical mile but piercing her lung.

She had minutes left to her and they would be filled with pain and suffering. Ignoring the protests of his guards Jack all but crawled the distance between them to reach Tosh just as she started to keel backwards.

Placing her between his legs with her back against his chest he attempted to staunch the blood that was staining through her shirt to no avail. He was so frantic in his actions that at first he didn't hear her speak.

"Jack." Her voice was so thin and weak that he could barely hear it, his only solace in the fact that if he could barely hear it then there was no way in hell that he bastard who shot her would here her final words; he wasn't worthy of hearing them.

"Jack," she repeated more insistent this time, "don't listen… not your fault."

Hearing these words almost destroyed him completely for he knew them to be untrue,

"Hey, don't speak like that. Save your breathe." Jack could hear his voice wavering as he spoke and as he raised his eyes around the room for any form of help he could find he only met two pairs of eye.

The Master's eyes watched the scene before him hungrily as he saw Jack falling apart at the seems. When Jack met the Doctor's eyes all he saw was anguish and a terrible suffering but somehow this only made things worse.

He felt inexplicable anger towards the man as held a dying friend in his arms. Torchwood. A dying member of Torchwood, a institute that the Doctor had disparaged and ridiculed so readily yet look what had happened, Torchwood had saved so many lives while the Doctor had been leading his fanciful life and look what had happened.

Jack was shook from his despairing thoughts when he heard another painful breath wrack Tosh's small frame as she dragged more air into her corrupted lungs as she prepared to ignore Jack's advice of saving her breathe; he wasn't surprised, it was crap advice anyway.

"If- when you see Owen, tell him I loved him," a small trickle of blood fell from the corner of Tosh's mouth, "and just thank you Jack. For everything." Jack watched on in horror as her body stopped trying to form words, stopped trying to breathe, stopped trying o live. Just stopped. All he could do was sit there as he cradled the limp form of a woman whom he loved like family.

This all stopped when he heard the Master's cold laugh seep through the room and suddenly as if he weren't in control of his body anymore, he felt himself launch himself from the floor and at the Master with the intent to kill him just to wipe that look off his face.

He felt his fist land one blow against the timelord's and an insignificant amount of satisfaction it brought to hear a definite snap of bone from under it. He intended to carry on until the so called "Master" was dead on the floor but just as he pulled back his other hand to hit him he heard three gunshots go off.

As if he were already dead himself he felt the pain of the bullets in his side dull in comparison of the pain within his heart.

As his consciousness ebbed away from him he hoped that the oblivion was just as cold and unfeeling as he felt it to be every other time he died. Just this once he would like to stay dead, even if only for a little while, because at the moment it had to be a damn sight better than whatever it was passed for his life.

….

A/N- Thanks for reading, I'm going to continue this fic in the obvious direction and reviews would really help, especially since it's the first chapter. Technically I think this should be a crossover but it's more torchwood than Doctor who and the cross over's don't get read as much, anyway thanks again and Merry Christmas-V