Author's Note: This concept has been dancing around at the edge of my head for a while, though I'm no scientist (I hope that fact isn't too obvious). My only real problem was developing a plot to go with it. Please tell me your own opinions, even if its just a few words.
(*Is secretly bragging to all her friends about posting the 10,000th Torchwood story on this site*)
[*]
It's strange, at first. Because Jack's been having this odd sort of headache all day, and he doesn't usually get headaches unless the world is pretty close to over, and it's a rather quiet day. Around lunchtime, it gets worse, and by the time the Rift alarm blares out, it's enough to send Jack doubling over his desk, hands covering his ears.
Tosh turns off the alarm, and Jack stands up from his chair, headache making him nearly trip from dizziness and blurry vision as he walks.
Gwen and Owen have already reached Tosh's desk, and are looking at her monitor over her shoulder. They didn't have as much paperwork as Jack to complete and have been bored and whining all day. Ianto is standing in front of the armory, ready to hand out whatever weapons are necessary for the Rift's latest visitors.
Tosh is shaking her head. "I have no idea what's going on here. It's like the Rift is… shivering, or shaking or something."
"That's wonderful," Gwen nods to the room at large in a 'that figures' sort of way. "A Riftquake, right above Cardiff."
"Not- a 'quake," Jack gasps. They all turn to see him hanging onto the doorframe of his office, sweat beading on his brow. His headache has multiplied by a thousand. "'s worse th'n that," he slurs, moaning.
Gwen rushes forward to duck under his arm and help him to the couch. Owen has run to fetch his medical bag and Tosh is still trying to interpret the information on her monitor. Ianto has moved to stand behind her, but is watching Jack with concern.
"Don't worry Tosh, it shouldn't affect us too much," Jack manages to get out, eyes screwed shut.
"Then what is it?" the tech asks.
Owen has crouched in front of Jack, his kit at his side, and motions for Gwen to move out of the way as he holds up a flashlight. "Open your eyes for me, Jack."
Not gonna happen. "It's a temporal headache, Owen, I know London synthesized some sort of painkiller-"
"Right, here we are." Owen grabs Jack's left arm and stretches it out straight, slapping the area over his elbow a few times. Then he inserts a syringe and almost instantly, Jack can open his eyes as the pressure in his head is reduced to the level of a mild hangover.
"Thanks," he grins, despite the residual pain. Owen throws a smug smirk back at him as he tosses his kit onto his workstation.
"What was all that about, Jack, what's happening?" Gwen looks concerned, but he waves her off.
He sits up straighter on the couch and looks at his team seriously. "A universe has collapsed."
Even Tosh turns around to stare at him in disbelief.
"A- what?" Ianto breaks the silence.
Jack tries to smile, but he's too aware of the seriousness of the situation. "You know how I always say 'Don't mess with the Rift, or it could mean the end of the universe?' Well, in some other universe, you guys didn't listen to me. Or, someone time traveled and caused a huge paradox that destroyed the space-time continuum."
"But, the end of the universe?" Gwen repeats disbelievingly. "Then why are we all here?"
"Because it wasn't our universe," Tosh answers. Her eyes are alight, staring at Jack. He smiles at her proudly as she figures it out. "It was a parallel one."
"Wait, that Discovery Channel science crap is real?" Owen scoffs. "There's no way you can convince me that in some alternate version of Earth we're run by supercomputers or monkeys or something."
"That doesn't sound very likely, but aliens? You bet." Jack winks. "In some parallel world, Owen, you're probably married to an alien."
The medic makes a vomiting sound while Gwen grins.
"So, somewhere, in some universe," Ianto interrupts, looking vaguely horrified, "everyone, everywhere, every when, just died?" He looks at the others as their mirth dies.
"Not really," Jack answers. "At least, we don't think so. The theory suggests that the universe just… never existed in the first place."
"Wait a moment, if it never existed, then, how could it end?"
"That sounds more like a paradox in itself to me."
"Wouldn't the vacuum effect from the absence take the whole multi-verse with it?"
"Kids, slow down!" Jack tells them. When they stop talking over each other, he sighs. "First of all, I'll admit that I didn't do too well in this class at the academy," he smiles self-deprecatingly. "As long as you understood the whole 'Don't destroy the universe' thing, knowing what would happen if you did wasn't all that important. But the thing about the universe- or in this case, the multi-verse-" he nods to Tosh, "is that it usually takes care of itself. A paradox inside a universe, once resolved, will have essentially never happened. That isn't to say there aren't effects; some people might remember, there will be ripples in space and time. But the lack of the paradox doesn't cause a paradox itself, the universe is flexible enough for that."
"As for Tosh's question," Jack sighs, then asks for a piece of paper. When Ianto fetches it, Jack scribbles with a pen he found in the couch. A few jagged criss-crosses make up one universe, another layer from Gwen's pencil make another.
"These two universes exist together. If one of them moves, there's enough space that the one right next to it will move too, but not as much. When you've got a thousand universes all mashed together, the power of the shock-wave that each one absorbs is minimal and can barely be detected inside any one universe."
He turns over the pencil and erases the gray universe. "Now say this universe is destroyed. Now we have a space. Tosh is right, there's a vacuum, but there's an infinite number of other universes that can take up that space. The Rift shaking, that's a sign that our universe has shifted slightly to take its share of that space."
There's a short period of silence, then Tosh asks, "Will this affect the Rift?"
Jack shakes his head. "The Rift isn't inside the universe. Think of it like a string that's attached to the universe and one end is tied to Cardiff. The other end is just flailing about, and when it touches another area, something from that place and time might be pulled through. If anything, we might get less coming through for a while as the Rift settles down."
"Doesn't it hit one of those thousand other universes, then?" Gwen pipes up curiously.
"Clever, but no. It's connected to our universe enough that it can't touch the others."
"So, what do we do?" Ianto speaks.
"Do?" Owen repeats. "What do you mean, do? It sounds like we might have time for a vacation!"
"An entire universe just died," Ianto points out. "Whether it was instantaneous or not, trillions of trillions of people, aliens, everything… they just ceased to exist." His eyes are still wide and sorrowful, and Jack decides to do something about it.
He gets up off the couch and puts his arm around Ianto, looking at his team's faces. "This is just like any natural disaster that happens on Earth," he says solemnly. "It's terrible, but there's nothing we can do about it. We can't even send relief aid."
"Should we… I don't know, pray or something?" Gwen asks.
She is looking more troubled rather than less, so Jack smiles. "If you want to learn something from this, you want a moral, then here it is." They all look at him expectantly.
"Don't do anything to destroy the universe, because you'll just give someone like me a really bad headache."
That breaks the atmosphere and the team laughs, and then the alarm goes off again.
"I thought you said it was going to be quiet," Gwen complains.
Owen laughs looking over Tosh's shoulder. "God, you know what else is temporally sensitive besides Jack? Weevils. A half dozen are stumblin' about Bute Park."
Everyone groans, and Ianto heads back to the armory to fetch the Weevil spray and stun guns.
Jack takes a last look at the visual graph of the Rift on Tosh's monitor as the team make their way to the SUV. There's no way he can see the vanished universe, but the Rift is trembling violently as their own space-time continuum rushes in to fill the gap
"I'm sorry," he says quietly. "I want Ianto to be right, that it was instantaneous. But even if it was…" he shakes his head. "I hope you're somewhere better now."
With a last nod, he follows his team out the cog door.