STORIES
SEVEN
"Jack!" the Time Lord hollered from the TARDIS control room. "Are you coming any time soon, or should I go ahead and start War and Peace?"
The Doctor was sitting on the floor, petting Spike, who'd padded over to him in hope of food but since it wasn't yet dinnertime had to instead be content with a vigorous rub on the head. The rub was indeed acceptable but as it happened an attempt at a more energetic form of cuddling was not, and the cat made the extent of his displeasure clearly known over a grab-and-hug incursion with a swipe of his paw and a frigid green-eyed stare.
It seemed The Doctor had had enough too. He shooed Spike off his lap, brushed the cat hair off his pants and gracefully rose off the floor. "Jack!" he bellowed again.
Simultaneously with his name being evoked the Captain strode into the room and as he did The Doctor had to suppress a powerful urge to laugh.
"Jack! You're wearing…"
"Shorts?"
"Shorts!"
"And?"
"Well…" The Doctor grimaced. "Human males should not wear shorts."
Jack looked down at his legs. "Why? What's wrong with them?"
"What's RIGHT with them?"
"Erm… well, they're comfortable. They're cool. They ventilate. And they show off my most excellent tush."
Now The Doctor did laugh out loud.
"Are you laughing with me or at me, Doctor?"
"Oh, Jack… I'm laughing at you."
Again Jack looked down at his legs. "Are my legs really that bad?"
Tears were now running down The Doctor's face. "No Jack, your legs aren't really that bad. As long as they're safely ensconced in a nicely pressed pair of Dockers, they're absolutely beautiful legs."
"You don't like the shorts?"
"No, Jack."
"Is it the color?"
"No, Jack."
"The pattern?"
"No, Jack."
"You want me to change?"
"Yes, Jack."
"Seriously?"
"Seriously."
Jack shrugged. "Okay, well… Hey, I'm glad you care so much."
"Oh, I care a lot, Jack." The Doctor smiled and it was a beautiful and heartfelt smile.
"I guess I'll go change then…" Jack paused for a few seconds, making sure it wasn't really some sort of joke. Then he shrugged again, turned and walked out of the control room.
The Doctor yelled after him, "Don't forget the beach chairs! And the beach umbrellas!"
Then he looked around for Spike, who'd apparently taken the opportunity to flee. With no cat to torture, or rather shall we say rub, and nothing else much better to do, The Doctor paced back and forth across the room a couple of times and then finally walked down the ramp and threw open the doors.
Somehow, although his voice was softer, it carried farther. "Jack?"
"Yes, Doctor?"
"Could you come here?"
"But I'm not yet…"
"Jack, could you come here please?"
"Yes, of course, Doctor."
Once more the Captain entered the room. He was half-dressed and barefoot. He tucked in his t-shirt and zipped up his trousers as he quickly padded across the floor toward The Doctor. Jack had finished tucking and zipping, but had not yet pulled up his suspenders as he joined his friend at the entrance and looked outside.
Something was terribly wrong.
Jack shook his head and frowned. "Doctor, where are we?"
There were no beach grasses. There were no sand dunes. There was no ocean. There was no peninsula.
Instead the view that met his eyes was lifeless, rocky, nightmarish devastation. The craggy ground, interrupted from place to place by tall spires of black stone, was a slightly darker burnt-red color than the moonless sky above it.
As the two men stood and stared, a white flash of ball lightning streaked and crackled across the sky.
"Doctor?"
"I believe we're on the Boeshane Peninsula, Jack. Exactly one hundred years before it was settled by your forbearers."
"It can't be."
The Doctor narrowed his eyes and looked closely at Jack, "Oh, but it can."
It was the tone of voice. Jack turned and looked at the Time Lord.
"What?"
"That's my question."
Jack was thoroughly mystified. First his home and now his Doctor was making no sense.
"What do you mean?"
"Jack – something unimaginable has happened to your home world's past and yet here you are, apparently untouched and intact."
"So?"
The Doctor looked upset, suspicious. "If what we're seeing is true, and I have absolutely no reason to believe otherwise, to not believe my own eyes, then you shouldn't be here Captain."
"Oh, gee. Thanks."
"No, seriously. Now you really are an impossible thing, Jack. You're from the Boeshane Peninsula. But the Boeshane Peninsula doesn't and apparently won't ever exist. Not when it looks like this. This isn't even capable of supporting single-cell life, much less human beings and other complex life forms. It could've never been colonized and you would've never been born.
"No, something horrible has happened here and, I'm sorry to say it Captain, but you're the prime suspect since you still exist. That's a fact of life. And the undeniable nature of paradox."
"A fact of Time Lord life, maybe, but not my life!"
The Doctor said nothing.
The Captain shook his head and glared angrily at the Lord of Time, "So?"
"So, Jack. What have you done?"
