Solipsism
Ten: The Oncoming Storm
I have to decide whether or not I'm going to allow Jack to go ahead with this. Whatever this is. I honestly don't know what it is he's planning. I do know, of course, that it will undoubtedly be exciting. Probably interesting. Prone to intriguing. Maybe violent. Likely dangerous. And possibly deadly.
Such is life in the fast lane with Captain Jack Harkness.
And to be honest, I have a sort of vague idea – I feel it in my bones – that Jack is setting up the stage for me. But to do what? I don't mean to mix my metaphors but I wonder if he is expecting a specific move or if he's just placing the pieces on the board.
Not that I have an alternative plan; whatever it is he has up his sleeve, I don't have anything better up mine.
You see, I'm still a bit distressed over Varna. In other words, I'm distracted. Not only am I distraught that she is dead, and that her death was apparently an empty and purposeless one, but I am also distraught over how easily I have seemingly accepted her death. How effortlessly it wove itself into the tapestry of my lives. How quickly I have moved on.
What does this mean? Have I grown accustomed to losing companions in horrific ways? And if so, what does that say about me? If it is true, if this is what I have become, then I am dismayed with myself. I have always felt it was my most solemn duty to care for those who choose to travel with me, to serve with me. Failing to adequately do so has been the greatest shame of my existence.
The words Davros spoke before he died in the Crucible still ring in my ears, what he said about my Children of Time dying in my name. Even though I have admitted it – I have admitted freely and with clear conscience that death and destruction often follow indiscriminately in my wake – it still doesn't make it any easier to tolerate or to accept what on occasion befalls those nearest and dearest to me. I am the Oncoming Storm. The Destroyer of Worlds. Or, as Rose Tyler, my beautiful precious Rose Tyler so appropriately called me once: a walking, talking death trap.
But at the risk of sounding crass, and as I explained to that same Rose Tyler a long time ago: I cannot dwell; I must move on. That is how I survive. Otherwise, if I stopped and thought too much and mourned too deeply, I might never start up again – I might become immobilized – it is as simple as that. Needs must when the devil drives…
I look sidelong at Jack, and a small glimmer of reality intrudes unannounced and uninvited into my mind: we are, the two of us, pledged to protect each other. Yes, of course, I have known this all along to be true. It cannot be, has never been, otherwise. Yet, I have to wonder how our relationship will not ultimately turn out any way other than tragically.
You see, I would die for Captain Jack Harkness and most certainly he would die for me. What can the future hold other than each of us ad infinitum clambering over the other in endless gallant attempts to perish while heroically saving the life of his best friend? The stark irony does not escape me, to be sure. I glance at Jack again; catch him looking at me, his eyes sparkling despite the dour situation. I discard my previous line of thought in lieu of a more attractive, productive, and no less valid one: this is after all a competition – but not a competition as to who will best die but rather who will best keep us all alive.
And in that competition, well… need I point out that I am the hands-down favorite? Jack may be a hero, but I am The Doctor and a Lord of Time.
Meanwhile, I have been fingering my sonic. Another part of my brain has been playing with ideas. Those ideas seem to involve my sonic and I feel it softly, warmly vibrating through my glove and into my receptive fingertips. The sonic screwdriver is not alive, not like the TARDIS is alive, and yet it has an energy all its own – a peculiar, life-like energy that stirs me, stirs my thoughts. I turn my full attention to it and the ship's bridge which now lies directly ahead.
I increase my pace, step out in front of John and Jack and enter the bridge ahead of them. I walk directly to the master science station console and my sonic starts to hum audibly. I dimly hear footsteps halting behind me, but ignore them. I'm about to do battle with a fantastically intelligent hypercomputer, and the outcome is not a sure thing at all for several reasons, not the least of which is that she – it – has physically extended itself into my… into our brains.
What I need to do is nothing less than a total purge of the hypercomputer's operating system. I basically need to nuke it, in other words. And I need to nuke it fast, before Newhope realizes what I'm about. As I begin entering commands on the input device she immediately starts throwing up blocks. I'm bashing down her defenses as quickly as I can but they keep pushing back at me bigger and badder than before. My sonic hums louder.
I'm suddenly distracted by a movement at my side. It's Varna. I should've expected this. The ship is trying to divert my attention and it is nearly succeeding. I know the vision is speaking but I disregard it. Despite a terrible temptation to do otherwise, I literally partition that particular segment of reality and disregard it. But the effort has cost me dearly in both time and progress. I'm losing ground and I know it. So I work all the harder, trying to get past protection after protection. Newhope is fighting hard and she's trying to go on offense. I can feel it… she's starting to attack.
And then I hear it. Again, I should've expected this. I hear the sound of explosive decompression as the bridge, and indeed the entire ship, catastrophically loses pressure.