One by one they left him, increasingly cut off, alone, in the silence and the dark, until only touch remained… touch, and pain. — The story's summary
Sense is a Doctor Who fanfiction by Adalia Zandra. It starts with the Tenth Doctor, Rose Tyler and Jack Harkness on the tail end of one of their adventures when they're unexpectedly captured by some aliens who want the TARDIS.
And then things take a turn for the worse.
The aliens have a nasty chemical which subjects victims to near-total sensory deprivation, removing all senses except touch, which is heightened to the point that regular sensations are painful. When the Doctor steps forward to talk to them, they decide he's the perfect victim for it...
It can be read here
. There's also a short sequel, available here.
Sense contains the following tropes:
- Affectionate Gesture to the Head: Jack kisses Rose's hair after she's fallen asleep.
- Big "NO!": Jack gives a couple when he hears that the trio's captors want Rose to touch the Doctor's broken wrist, thereby hurting him worse.
- Casual Danger Dialogue: The trio engage in this...at first. Once things start to get scary, they stop.
- Closest Thing We Got: With the Doctor out of commission, Jack Harkness is forced to basically act as his substitute, communicating with the aliens, keeping Rose safe, and running the escape plan. Later on, he stays more-or-less in charge while the Doctor recovers.
- Cold-Blooded Torture: The Doctor is subjected to this with the double whammy of a chemical blindfold and violent beatings, in the hopes that he, Rose and Jack will give up the TARDIS to their captors.
- Cry into Chest: Jack does this to the Doctor when the emotions catch up to him. It's an unusual variation on the trope, as The Doctor is the one who has been tortured and just had a particularly painful reminder of his experiences. That said, a quick look inside his point of view suggests that he feels better about being the one holding and comforting Jack.
- Cunning Linguist: Jack's status as this means he is the only one who can communicate with the aliens who are holding them captive once the TARDIS' translation circuit is disrupted.
- Forced to Watch: For the most part, Rose and Jack are left alone by their alien captors, but have to watch every beating they subject the Doctor to.
- Hurt/Comfort Fic: The main genre of this fic. And how. The first portion involves the Doctor being chemically deprived of all his senses but touch and then beaten for two days as Rose and Jack are helpless to prevent it. The second portion follows the three as they recover. Unusually for this trope, while the Doctor has the most healing to do, Rose's and Jack's respective traumas are touched on as well, to the point that the three seek outside help.
- I Kiss Your Hand: Jack kisses Jackie Tyler's hand as the three leave her home. She's quite impressed.
- Motivational Kiss: Rose kisses Jack on the cheek right before they escape for luck.
- No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: The Doctor is subjected to multiple over the forty-eight hours that the trio are in enemy hands. As he is reliant only on his sense of touch, which has been heightened to the point that even regular contact is somewhat painful, it's agonizing.
- Point of Divergence: Adalia Zandra references that this takes place in an Alternate Universe where Rose doesn't get stuck in a parallel universe and Jack Harkness joins the crew at some point. However, they leave it ambiguous as to what happened, as
"[s]o many wonderful stories have been written to bring about such an AU". - Polyamory: The Doctor, Rose and Jack. It's ambiguous in the fic, as they share kisses (mostly not on the lips, though there are a few in the last chapter) but mostly just act like a trio of close friends, Jack's incessant flirting aside. The sequel make it less ambiguous.
- Something Only They Would Say: Rose comes up with the idea of tracing initials on the Doctor's skin while he's still chemically blinded to let him know that he's safe. He intuits that only she and Jack would know the letters.
- Tears of Joy: Rose and Jack find that the Doctor has tears on his cheeks when he reestablishes his telepathic connection to the TARDIS.
- Translator Microbes: The Doctor's chemical blindfold severs his connection to the TARDIS, thus interrupts the presence of the telepathic translation it provides to all companions. Thankfully, Jack speaks both English and a trade lingo that he uses to communicate with the trio's alien captors.
- Unbroken Vigil: Rose and Jack take turns sleeping and staying up with the Doctor after the three escape, making sure he's never left alone.
