FORGIVENESS

TWENTYONE

"Are you going to be okay, Jack?"

"It's not me who needs to answer that question, Doctor."

"What do you mean?"

"You're the one who'll be stuck working with Echidna, Mother of all Monsters."

"Jack!"

"What, Doctor?"

The Time Lord shook his head sadly. "You have every right to be angry, Jack, but she came a very long way to help us."

"So?"

"Imagine where we'd be if she hadn't."

The Captain broke eye contact and looked around the small room. He'd gone there to change back into his own clothes, which were cleaned and neatly pressed. Even the missing button on his shirt had been replaced. The button that had popped off and disappeared only a few hours before when he'd been out in that field with John, amongst the tall blades of grass… He felt a jolt as he recalled the touch of John's fingers on his skin.

After Jack finished dressing he'd meant to shave but instead he sat down, head in hands, to think. And that's how The Doctor found him a short time later.

"Yes, I know," he answered the Time Lord, "of course you are right. We'd be in a fine mess."

"No, Jack. We were already in a fine mess, and didn't even know it. We would now be in an even worse mess if Wil hadn't shown up. She was very brave…"

Jack interrupted him angrily, "Her courage isn't an issue here. Her ability to keep a promise is. Do you trust her?"

The Doctor thought for a moment and then nodded, "Yes."

"Why?"

"Because there's no better choice."

"Stupid answer."

"But an honest one. And now can you be honest with me, Jack?"

"Yes, Doctor."

"Why are you so angry with her?"

"Why am I…? Are you crazy?" Jack stood up, his face inches from The Doctor's. "You've been living with me since she left. If anyone, you should know what I went through."

"Exactly, Jack. What you went through. Past tense. Might I suggest you think about why you're holding on to your anger? Maybe it's time to move past it?"

Jack shook his head in utter amazement, "I can't believe you're lecturing me about letting loose of the past."

"Meaning?"

"You're the one who told me you were tired of looking backward. That you wanted to look forward and wanted me to help you move on…"

"Well, I don't think I put it quite that way."

"Okay, so I'm paraphrasing. But speaking of honest, I want you to tell me something, Doctor."

"And that is?"

"Tell me why you came to visit me, just before Wil left, and before I began traveling with you. You did promise to tell me you know, and I'm asking you now to fulfill that promise. Tell me, Doctor, why did you come back to Cardiff?"

The Time Lord's face suddenly turned phenomenally sad. Jack was sorely tempted to rescind his demand but stood his ground. Honesty works both ways…

"I wanted you to help me get my people back, my world back," The Doctor said softly. "I could no longer bear being the last one. The last of the Time Lords. Ever since the Crucible and the Medusa Cascade I had been obsessed with the idea. I thought: if Caan had broken the Time Lock, why couldn't I? But I didn't want to do it alone. I needed you. I wanted you to go back with me into the wild and fire and wind. So I came to Cardiff, Jack, to ask you to help me.

"But then, in the Hub when I thought I had lost you forever, I began to realize that in truth I did not want to look backward with you, but what I really wanted was to look and more importantly to move forward with you; and this is because I know without a doubt you… YOU, Captain Jack Harkness, are always inexorably and uncompromisingly moving forward…

"More than any person I've ever known you seem to grasp precisely and unerringly where you are and where you are going.

"And how I love and admire that about you, Jack… So I changed my mind about my people, my world, and my loneliness and desolation. I let go of them and decided instead to focus on what lies ahead. In some ways it was one of the most difficult decisions I've ever made because at the same moment I let go of all of that, I also had to let go of my own guilt about the Time War. I had to forgive myself. And that guilt," the saddest of smiles graced The Time Lord's face, "had been my constant companion and dearest friend for such a very long time."

The sad smile disappeared. "But in other ways, thanks to you, it was the easiest decision I've ever made."

The Doctor was silent. Jack looked at him wondering what in the hell he could say in response. Nothing immediately came to mind and so the Captain nodded slowly, deliberately. "Thank you," he finally said. A bit insufficient, maybe; Jack shrugged inwardly. But then something else occurred to him and he narrowed his eyes, "Was any of that bullshit?"

The Doctor smiled wickedly but shook his head firmly, "No, not a word of it. By the way, did you just call me stupid?"

Jack laughed. "Have I ever told you that you really should take something for that attention surplus disorder of yours?"

"I didn't know there was a treatment for it," The Doctor chuckled, but then he turned serious. "So Jack, is there anything else you want to ask me?"

Jack looked at the Time Lord long and hard before finally answering. "What Rose did to me, Doctor, this resurrection business? Will I ever die?"

"I can't tell you that, Jack."

"You can't or you won't?"

The Doctor wordlessly shook his head.

"Okay then, maybe you can answer me this," Jack was working earnestly to control his rising irritation. "Could you take what Rose did away from me?"

"No Jack, I can't. I don't believe anyone can. You're an impossible thing and it seems you're stuck like that."

Jack nodded almost imperceptibly, and then exhaled a loud sigh as he shrugged. "You know, standing there like that blinking at me," he said, "you look so damned enigmatic."

The Doctor's face lit up, "Do I really? That's brilliant because I do try!"

"Yep. A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. That's you."

"Flattery will get you everywhere, Jack."

"Oh will it?" The Captain raised an eyebrow.

"Well… just about," The Doctor grinned.