Canon's not very friendly to any of the characters, I reckon. I like to imagine they get a little more support behind the scenes (which would be why I wrote Counting Stars, hah), but it's equally easy to read them as all being quite isolated individuals, in different ways.

Canon also implied that Jack's been pregnant before (maybe it was a joke; who knows), which got me thinking. Initially, I wanted to explore the effects of the YTNW on Jack, but there were so many possibilities I felt a little lost. Then I thought of maybe focusing on the one aspect - the (possible) rapes. And since mpreg was (maybe) canon, an additional dimension to that. It opened up a whole other set of problems that Jack had to deal with.

I wanted very badly for Jack to have some form of support here, largely to show that it's absolutely necessary for one to move on - and also that even with that support, it's difficult to heal. It does end on a hopeful note, but it's clear that Jack has a long way to go yet, in healing. [I tend to pretend CoE doesn't exist, but I can't help but wonder what losing Ianto (and Owen and Tosh, before) would do to his state of mind, given this particular situation...]

In any case, thank you muchly for reading and reviewing; sorry for the long, rambly response! =D