Title: Repair In Route Author: OtrameGenre: Angst, Dark, Drama, Hurt/Comfort
Rating: NC-17
Other/Implied Pairings: Owen/Tosh, Jack/Doctor (kind of one-sided), Martha/Doctor (also a tad one-sided), Master/Jack (noncon)
Summary: The Year-That-Never-Was left open wounds. Healing them would take time. But of course, they had time
Status: WIP
Length: Multipart
Word Count: Ongoing
Warnings: non-con, character death, suicide, mental illness, torture
Comment or Excerpt from fic: Many, many people comment on the lack of focus Torchwood hason Jack's recovery from what was probably a not-too-pleasant experience, not to mention repairing his relationship with the Doctor, who was outright mean to Jack for the first two episodes of the Master arc. Most of these people focus on his recovery in the context of Torchwood Season Two, in codas for KKBB, Meat, and Exit Wounds. But Otrame takes a different spin- after all, the TARDIS is a time travel machine. Martha, Jack, and the Doctor could have taken a trip or two in between the Master's death and Jack choosing the return to his team in Cardiff. This explores how the four of them (Martha, Jack, the Doctor, and the TARDIS) would heal in this situation. Combined with some frankly brilliant theories about what, exactly, the Time Agency did this is something I'd highly recommend for anyone who is a fan of dark fics. One word of caution- although she updates fairly regularly, this is a WIP, and they are all still very broken, although Jack does seem to have the worst of it right now.
Memories are just stray neuro-chemical pulses in the matrix of my brain, and if a Time Lord can’t control a few stray neuro-chemical pulses in his own brain… But of course I can. I can allow a few to remain. Just enough so I know what happened. Put the rest in deep storage, only called up when absolutely necessary. And I refuse to believe that there will ever be a time I need to remember
Jack, sitting in an enormous puddle of blood holding a corpse in his arms. The blood has clotted, the serum separated and spread out from the original stain on the floor. The thinner places have already dried; the corpse is ice cold. Jack’s eyes are dead.
….
You start here. The universe is this way. Reset all variables to current conditions. The past is not a real thing. You are alive, in a healthy body. Your TARDIS is healing. You can go on from here.