Visits
The Doctor is so used to being the oldest, wisest person around. I think he'd find future-Jack a little unsettling.
Jack's eyes were incredibly old. Standing, hands-in-pockets in the doorway, the Doctor struggled to meet that ancient gaze.
'Come for a visit?' queried Jack lightly, putting down the spanner he was holding. It was highly incongruous watching a clearly ancient being doing basic maintenance work on a shield array.
'Think I've hit the wrong time, actually,' admitted the Doctor sheepishly. 'The TARDIS just sort of stalled here, so I thought I'd have a look around and see what was what.'
A slight smile curled Jack's lips. He straightened and wiped his hands on his overalls, then walked over to the control panel on the wall and flicked a couple of switches. The machinery he had been working on whirred into life and he nodded in satisfaction. 'Is that so,' he said, turning to give the Doctor his full attention. The Doctor was stuck by how much his mannerisms had changed despite the youthfulness of his face. Vibrant energy had been replaced with deep calm.
'It is,' replied the Doctor.
Jack's smile turned to a full blown grin. 'You're a terrible liar, Doctor. Come on, let's go get a drink.'
The Doctor's eyebrows shot up in indignation. 'I am not! That's what happened.' He nevertheless fell into step beside Jack as they made their way out into the station's corridor, heading towards the mess area.
'Well, OK, it may have been how it happened. Except for the fact that the TARDIS never does anything by accident. And I can't help feeling that means some awful disaster is about to befall us.'
'You were more fun when you weren't all ancient and all-knowing,' the Doctor said sulkily.
'Hey! I'm a sprightly eight-thousand-and-six,' Jack defended himself.
The Doctor chuckled, but the image of Jack's ancient eyes whispered through his mind. It was unsettling being the young one in the company. They passed the occasional station-worker, all of whom shot the Doctor curious looks, but made it to the mess without being interrupted. Jack's 'drink' turned out to be tea.
'Alcohol has no effect on you,' he pointed out wryly.
'No reason why you shouldn't try,' returned the Doctor, wondering when this dialogue had turned around. He took a sip of his tea and tried to stop mentally measuring this Jack against the Jack of eight thousand years ago.
Jack shrugged and smiled and said nothing. They sat in silence for several minutes, both sipping at their drinks. The Doctor was investigating the place he was in, peering at the signs on the walls and the starscape outside the portholes. Jack seemed content just to sit, enjoying the peace of the moment.
'When do you think I should change my name?' Jack pondered, bringing the Doctor's gaze back to him.
'What are you thinking of changing it to?' the Doctor asked cautiously. Aside from the uncomfortable tingle that the universal aberration sitting across from him let off (which he was willing and able to ignore), there was something about talking to someone so much older than him that made the Doctor feel wary. As though playing chess against a grandmaster who could see infinitely further ahead, and yet sat patiently waiting. The Doctor realised he was glad Jack was a friend. With the hand he had been dealt, any ill intentions would have had universal ramifications.
'Well, I currently go by Badger Alsaleet Thrice although that changes every fifty years or so when I re-incarnate as my own son. I was talking about when it is I'm meant to become old Boe-face.' There was a benign smile on Jack's face as he spoke that firmly masked whatever emotions he was feeling.
The Doctor eyed him and chewed thoughtfully on his lip. 'How much do you know?' he ventured carefully.
Jack's face broke into a bright grin. 'Enough to really shock you and Martha back in 2007, am I right?'
The Doctor narrowed his eyes. 'That's why you told us that little tale?' he asked accusingly. He didn't ask how Jack had remembered that one moment in eight-thousand odd years of life. Some things were better left unknown.
'Heh. At the time it was pretty hard not to break out laughing at the looks on your faces. C'mon- what time traveller hasn't heard of the face of Boe?'
'Here I am, angsting over how I'm meant to hide from you the fact that you're going to be a giant face in a jar, and you're busy laughing at me! Thanks a lot, Badger.'
'Welcome as always, Doctor,' replied Jack with a grin. He drained the last of his tea. 'I'll be honest, I may have sent the TARDIS a bit of a come-hither. Hadn't seen you in a while and heard it whizzing past…'
'You can do that?' asked the Doctor with a frown.
'Half a millennium spent in a monastery. Does wonders for eleven dimensional visualisation,' confided Jack.
The Doctor's eyebrows shot up in surprise. 'You spent five hundred years in a monastery? Did you castrate yourself first?' He couldn't keep the dubiousness out of his voice.
'I'll have you know I am the epitome of self-control,' Jack returned with mock huffiness. 'Now we better get you on your way before some horrible disaster really does happen. If you don't land in the middle of one, they do seem to follow you around, and I'm too old and sensible to dash around saving the world.'
'You're never too old to save the world,' the Doctor told him with a smile. The Time Lord drank the last of his tea and handed the mug to his erstwhile companion before standing. He paused for a second, as though debating what to say before simply settling on a nod. Jack watched him head back in the direction the TARDIS had parked in and smiled himself. As pointless as these occasional interludes he had with the Doctor were, they made a very long life more bearable.
fin