Fandomweekly Challenge 159 - Altered
Dec. 31st, 2022 09:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
m_findlowTitle: Altered
Fandom: Torchwood
Jack felt angry and violated. All the long forgotten memories of his Time Agency days came flooding back to him, making him feel even more furious. He'd had memories taken away from him once before – two whole years worth, and to this day he still had no idea what he'd done to deserve it. What had been so terrible that he had to have his memories erased? Did he even want to know what he'd done, or was it perhaps that he'd seen something someone else had done and this was their way of protecting themselves.
Either way, he couldn't change the past. Those memories were gone and he was unlikely to ever get them back. This however was somehow worse. Something had come in and not only taken memories from him, but written in whole new ones. Not just him, but his whole team.
Jack mentally chastised himself for not seeing it sooner. Hadn't he wondered if things were just a little bit off? There'd been so many warning signs, from Gwen freaking out about not recognising who her own fiancé was, to Jack’s own flashbacks of his long lost brother that had come out of nowhere. Why had it taken until Ianto came to him, professing to be a serial killer, to realise something was very wrong. Of course Ianto was no killer. Jack knew that much for sure, no matter how detailed Ianto’s description of the events were. He cared deeply for Ianto, even loved him maybe, but now Jack was beginning to question everything. Not least of all why the gentlest member of his team suddenly though he was a cold blooded murderer, and even enjoyed it.
Adam was the common link between all of them. A man who hadn't existed in their systems until two days ago, and who had been tampering with their recollections, inserting himself into their lives as if he'd always been a part of the team. What permanent damage had he done to them in order to preserve his own existence? Jack felt like he had all his memories intact but who knew what had been altered or erased. They were the sum total of their experiences and now someone had upended that precious equation. Would he even be able to tell which memories were his and which weren't?
He looked at Ianto standing there beside him, seeing the CCTV of Adam attacking him, and no doubt reliving the trauma of having all those awful memories forced onto him again as if he really had murdered those girls. What kind of sick, twisted, evil creature thought that was a way to deal with threats? What had he hoped to achieve? To fill Ianto so full of guilt and loathing that he might harm himself?
Would Jack have believed it if he had? Or would Adam have simply laid a hand on his shoulder and told him Ianto had been troubled for a long time, didn't he remember all those little warning signals? And he would, because Adam would make him believe he’d seen things that had never truly happened. That was what Adam did. Adam who was rewriting their existences for his own ends, never mind the implications.
Jack reached out a hand to Ianto’s elbow, reassuring him that what he was seeing on the CCTV feed was real. Ianto had, by accident, uncovered the truth. Rather than Adam simply removing his memories of keeping a diary that strangely contained no references to Adam at all, he'd done the unthinkable in torturing the young man instead. Adam would pay for that.
Jack loved Ianto. That wasn't a fake memory. It couldn't be. Yet no sooner than Jack contemplated the thought he knew what they had to do to fix things. The only way to get rid of Adam would be for them to erase their memories of him. Jack knew it was a huge gamble. What else might they lose as a result? How many of their memories now were fakes? Tosh's relationship with Adam for a start would be gone. He'd be stealing love and happiness from her and replacing it with, what? What lay in store for Tosh on the other side of reality?
Would Jack wake up and find that he no longer felt the same way about Ianto, or vice versa? Was there a “them” or was that just another tampered memory, meant to distract Jack from what was really going on? Could he live with that, knowing how much he cared for the young man? He could be wiping out so many happy memories that maybe had never existed except in this new reality Adam had created for them.
‘It's just a memory,’ he said, trying to convince Ianto that things would be okay, as much as he was trying to convince himself of the same fact. ‘It never happened. Adam made those terrible things feel real, but they aren't.’
Ianto still looked a bit shaky but he was slowly putting himself back together, buoyed by Jack's confidence that they'd been the ones who were the victims.
‘I have a plan,’ Jack said, but he didn't get any further than that before he heard the cogwheel door alarms, lights flashing and door spinning sideways to admit his team for a brand new day. A new day of lies, Jack thought bitterly. The last day he vowed. Two years of his life already gone was nothing compared to an infinite future of false memories, not to mention the lives of his friends. They had only this one life to live. They deserved to live it in truth, even if that was harder or more painful than the life they were living now. Not that Jack believed for a second that Adam had their best interests at heart.
There wasn't time to explain to Ianto that he'd take care of things, only to know that he would. Adam was about to be erased, and to hell with the consequences.
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Ianto, Jack
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG.
Length: 1,000 words
Content notes: None
Author notes: Written for Challenge 159 - Memory at ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fandomweekly
fandomweeklySummary: Jack comes to a horrifying realisation that he no longer knows what’s real and what isn’t.
Jack felt angry and violated. All the long forgotten memories of his Time Agency days came flooding back to him, making him feel even more furious. He'd had memories taken away from him once before – two whole years worth, and to this day he still had no idea what he'd done to deserve it. What had been so terrible that he had to have his memories erased? Did he even want to know what he'd done, or was it perhaps that he'd seen something someone else had done and this was their way of protecting themselves.
Either way, he couldn't change the past. Those memories were gone and he was unlikely to ever get them back. This however was somehow worse. Something had come in and not only taken memories from him, but written in whole new ones. Not just him, but his whole team.
Jack mentally chastised himself for not seeing it sooner. Hadn't he wondered if things were just a little bit off? There'd been so many warning signs, from Gwen freaking out about not recognising who her own fiancé was, to Jack’s own flashbacks of his long lost brother that had come out of nowhere. Why had it taken until Ianto came to him, professing to be a serial killer, to realise something was very wrong. Of course Ianto was no killer. Jack knew that much for sure, no matter how detailed Ianto’s description of the events were. He cared deeply for Ianto, even loved him maybe, but now Jack was beginning to question everything. Not least of all why the gentlest member of his team suddenly though he was a cold blooded murderer, and even enjoyed it.
Adam was the common link between all of them. A man who hadn't existed in their systems until two days ago, and who had been tampering with their recollections, inserting himself into their lives as if he'd always been a part of the team. What permanent damage had he done to them in order to preserve his own existence? Jack felt like he had all his memories intact but who knew what had been altered or erased. They were the sum total of their experiences and now someone had upended that precious equation. Would he even be able to tell which memories were his and which weren't?
He looked at Ianto standing there beside him, seeing the CCTV of Adam attacking him, and no doubt reliving the trauma of having all those awful memories forced onto him again as if he really had murdered those girls. What kind of sick, twisted, evil creature thought that was a way to deal with threats? What had he hoped to achieve? To fill Ianto so full of guilt and loathing that he might harm himself?
Would Jack have believed it if he had? Or would Adam have simply laid a hand on his shoulder and told him Ianto had been troubled for a long time, didn't he remember all those little warning signals? And he would, because Adam would make him believe he’d seen things that had never truly happened. That was what Adam did. Adam who was rewriting their existences for his own ends, never mind the implications.
Jack reached out a hand to Ianto’s elbow, reassuring him that what he was seeing on the CCTV feed was real. Ianto had, by accident, uncovered the truth. Rather than Adam simply removing his memories of keeping a diary that strangely contained no references to Adam at all, he'd done the unthinkable in torturing the young man instead. Adam would pay for that.
Jack loved Ianto. That wasn't a fake memory. It couldn't be. Yet no sooner than Jack contemplated the thought he knew what they had to do to fix things. The only way to get rid of Adam would be for them to erase their memories of him. Jack knew it was a huge gamble. What else might they lose as a result? How many of their memories now were fakes? Tosh's relationship with Adam for a start would be gone. He'd be stealing love and happiness from her and replacing it with, what? What lay in store for Tosh on the other side of reality?
Would Jack wake up and find that he no longer felt the same way about Ianto, or vice versa? Was there a “them” or was that just another tampered memory, meant to distract Jack from what was really going on? Could he live with that, knowing how much he cared for the young man? He could be wiping out so many happy memories that maybe had never existed except in this new reality Adam had created for them.
‘It's just a memory,’ he said, trying to convince Ianto that things would be okay, as much as he was trying to convince himself of the same fact. ‘It never happened. Adam made those terrible things feel real, but they aren't.’
Ianto still looked a bit shaky but he was slowly putting himself back together, buoyed by Jack's confidence that they'd been the ones who were the victims.
‘I have a plan,’ Jack said, but he didn't get any further than that before he heard the cogwheel door alarms, lights flashing and door spinning sideways to admit his team for a brand new day. A new day of lies, Jack thought bitterly. The last day he vowed. Two years of his life already gone was nothing compared to an infinite future of false memories, not to mention the lives of his friends. They had only this one life to live. They deserved to live it in truth, even if that was harder or more painful than the life they were living now. Not that Jack believed for a second that Adam had their best interests at heart.
There wasn't time to explain to Ianto that he'd take care of things, only to know that he would. Adam was about to be erased, and to hell with the consequences.
