FORGIVENESS
THIRTYSIX
The Doctor, unready and unwilling to concede, scowled at her, "The only people you can make peace with are your enemies."
"Peace? Are you suggesting…?" She scoffed. "We can no more make peace with the Aedui as we could with a firestorm. If they think about us at all, and I truly suspect they do not, they would think of us as objects to be exploited for their own lustful amusement."
"Are you not even willing to try?"
"Doctor, I am working very hard to simply keep the two of us alive and chatting right now. I believe you sense – in fact I'm absolutely certain you do – that we are standing inside something malignant and malevolent. And it is like unto the tip of an iceberg: the evil of this place expands far beyond the boundaries of the cosmos."
She made a wide, sweeping motion with her arm. "This beachhead, this structure, crosses and occupies myriad dimensions and innumerable versions of subspace. To us in our dimension it is big, but we only see a pinprick of it. In fact, it is truly ginormous. Its limitlessness is unknowable, incomprehensible, unfathomable. It has fantastic power; and time – TIME, Doctor! – which is so important to you, along with everything else you and I hold near and dear, is simply inconsequential here. Think of it: nothing we care about is of consequence. Just consider what happened to Jack. Did you think such a thing was even possible, Doctor? In your wildest speculations would you have believed he'd be so cavalierly regressed? Could you imagine he would be ripped from reality like that? Be appointed such a sad and pointless end? I know he wouldn't have…
"I know you, Doctor. And I know what you pride yourself on. How you see yourself and how you believe you fit into the universe. It is laudable and honorable. You strive for certain kinds of resolutions. You speak for moral clarity. You seek ways of preserving life, no matter what manner of life it is. But in this one case, Doctor, your mores do not matter. There is no human or Time Lord equivalent to the level of callousness we are confronting. There is no pity. No sympathy. No mercy. No forgiveness. There is no interest. And this, Doctor, this is why I came. This is why I am here."
She closed her eyes and nodded slowly, acknowledging the voice in her head – Grasshopper's voice – before continuing, "This is why we are here.
"And now," she continued. "Something must be done before the last fragile boundaries protecting our dimension are breached by the Aedui, for they are coming in far greater numbers than even you can imagine. They are the wolf at the door." She leaned over and scooped up John in her arms. "Pick up Jack, Doctor, and follow me."
"And where are we going?"
"To a safe distance. Get Jack into your TARDIS now. We must hurry."
"A safe distance from what?"
"I'll explain it to you once we're inside. Please Doctor, I know you're less than happy with me at the moment but I'm asking you to trust me."
He watched as she glanced down for a second or two into John Hart's face and then looked at him again. It was the way her expression softened during that brief interval when she gazed at John which clinched it for him. In her face he saw that most profound of humanity's strengths: love. "Right," he said, his choice made in an eyeblink, "I can do that."
He lifted up Jack and followed her to his ship.
Once inside they laid down their precious burdens and removed John's and Jack's helmets before taking off their own. The Doctor saw that Jack's face had transformed back to its normal albeit bearded appearance. As she'd claimed, the Captain had been reset, restored back to the present… their present. Some of the color was returned to Jack's cheeks and he was breathing softly. But both men were still incognizant, which was not necessarily a bad thing, The Doctor noted, since there was little doubt Jack would loudly object to yet another shattered promise.
Wil paused momentarily over John, tenderly repositioning his arms and hands over his chest. The Time Lord pursed his lips, inhaled loudly through his nose and glowered at her as he unfolded to his full height.
"This is a slippery slope you're on. I can't say that I approve."
Wil stood, met his eyes and smiled wanly. "Better a slippery slope than up to my ass in alligators." She paused for a time, reflecting, "Perhaps it is to my detriment that I want to react differently than you against the imperfections of life. You have the benefit of all your experience, of all those years you have lived, and all the lives you have touched. Of all your triumphs and your mistakes, and I know you've had many of both." She shrugged. "And I am still so young in some ways. I am driven by different spirits than you, by different forms of madness. I admit I am boiling in my impatience and engulfed by my desire to act, and to act swiftly. That is my role in this story, Doctor. We are vinegar and oil. Fire and ice. Yin and yang." She glanced down at Jack and then back at The Doctor. "But I know from the company you keep that you seek out and embrace multeity. To best thrive, we all require diversity. In this way we are similar. But beyond even that simple observation, while we are indeed different, you and I, we are also in many other ways, the ways that count the most, so very much alike.
"So, Doctor, watch me act. I am young but also impossibly old. I am human, but I am so much more. And I am powerful beyond imagining."
She turned toward the entrance of the TARDIS and the doors flew open.