Author's note: Please note that this story is not for Rose fans. So if you are one of those then I suggest that you move on to another story. This is a story that I've been wanting to tell almost since the start of She Burns but I knew that I couldn't fit it into that story arc due to it's large size. I've struggled with the beginning of this story because I do not like writing Rose at all, so I am trying to strike a balance with telling the story and writing a character that I dislike.
I hope that I have managed to strike a good balance here. There will be some preamble before we rejoin the Doctor and Donna on their adventures, but for now enjoy!
Silence reigned throughout the void. The walls between universes thrummed with light and life even as delicate barriers kept the multiverse from destroying itself.
One such barrier shimmered with a patchwork of multicolored strands visible only to those terrible creatures that called the void home. Creatures that were sometimes glimpsed when beings would travel through the void in their attempt to breach the walls of reality.
These creatures would sometimes linger along the barriers looking into the universes of light, watching as the denizens of those realities fought and lived and died.
It was in a particular universe that a battle had just been won on a tiny, blue speck of a world. A world in a backwoods portion of a spiral galaxy that was indistinguishable from a billion other galaxies, and yet, time and fate seemed to warp around events on this world.
The barriers between universes began to flex as a madman in a different reality, prepared to rip the fabric of the multiverse to shreds.
The creatures of the void continued to watch the universes unfold, but they felt that the end was drawing near and so they waited for the fate that was fast becoming inevitable.
London was burning.
The Metacrisis Doctor stood atop the tower that served as the new home for Torchwood One, his eyes closed so that he could better shut out the sounds of sirens and the continued screams of the injured and dying.
He had been in Pete's world for a little over two years and in that time, he had quickly learned that while some things were the same as the primary universe, other things were completely different.
Earth had been the constant focus of attacks by Cybermen in those two years and the Council of Torchwood had been killed off one by one as the attacks continued. They had finally won what seemed to be the final battle against the Cybermen when they had discovered the nerve center of the aliens operation.
A team of twenty elite operatives infiltrated the network of tunnels that led to the nexus of their operation, but only one had emerged, screaming for everyone to run as the countdown to detonation reached zero.
The Metacrisis Doctor had been surprised to find a Jack Harkness in this reality just like in the primary universe, and like that original Jack, this one was also a former time agent from the future. His life had taken many similar turns as the original Jack's had, all the way down to trying to con another passing time agent with a Chula Ambulance. It was at that moment, that Jack's life had taken a dramatic shift. He had still taken on the alias of Jack Harkness, World War II hero, but he had chosen to leave the earth after he had successfully conned his fellow time Agent, John Hart.
Jack had been drawn back to earth several years earlier when Torchwood had been decimated in the first series of renewed Cybermen attacks, at time in which he sensed a power void that he could easily step into and thus con his way into a position of power on the planet.
The Metacrisis Doctor smiled as he remembered how Jack had changed in the last few years since he had met him; his trickster ways had quickly morphed into the same focused zeal for protecting humanity that his counterpart had exhibited. Jack rose naturally through the ranks and quickly became a confidante of Pete Tyler, the man who had been tapped as the next leader of Torchwood when the position would inevitably become available.
However, the arrival of Rose Tyler and the Metacrisis Doctor had had an unintended effect on this universe's timeline and Pete's destiny would soon be forever altered.
The Metacrisis Doctor heard footsteps behind him, his hand crumpling the piece of paper that he held in his hand which contained a portion of the list of the dead. Three names in particular had been seared into his memory, three names that rested amongst a hundred other names whose lives had been cut far too short.
He turned to face Jack Harkness as the man walked up beside him, his eyes not missing the wild, haunted look in the man's gaze before he turned back to stare into the blazing orb of the sun.
The two men stood together for a while in tense silence, watching as fires were slowly extinguished around the city and a ragged group of people gathered in the square below Torchwood One. Their cheers drifted up to the rooftop as finally the people of London began to believe that their terrible ordeal might, at long last, be at an end.
"It's done then?"
Jack Harkness took a deep breath, his gaze turning back to the Metacrisis Doctor before he muttered, "It's done, though I don't like the outcome. We kept coming back to you, even Pete wanted you to head Torchwood. But they chose me in the end."
The Metacrisis Doctor shook his head, his dark eyes flashing for just a moment with the fire for which he had been best known, before he turned to face Jack. "You know that I'd never accept the position, Jack. It's not that I don't want to take the responsibility for Torchwood, but I have never wanted to be a leader of any kind. I simply inspire people to reach deep within themselves to be truly great."
Jack snorted at his words, his head swinging around to pin the other man with an incredulous stare. "You really believe that drivel, don't you? You're the only reason we're still standing here today and aren't still wading through an endless army of Cybermen."
"It's only because I know the Cybermen, I've encountered them many times in the past." The Metacrisis Doctor grimaced at his own words, the memories of his progenitor were still vivid in his mind, memories that many times he forgot were not truly his own. "Or rather, the Doctor has encountered them many times in his travels."
Jack stepped closer to the Metacrisis Doctor, his hand rising to clap the younger man on the shoulder. "I've never met this Doctor that you keep talking about, but if he's even half the man that you are, then his universe is very lucky to have him. You'll always be the Doctor to me."
The Metacrisis Doctor smiled softly at Jack's words, his gaze drifting back to the setting sun before he whispered, "You may believe that I'm the Doctor, but not everyone feels the same way."
Jack grumbled under his breath, his hand dropping before he turned away and paced the edge of the rooftop in agitation. "Rose Tyler doesn't matter, Doc. She's ultimately the reason that Pete wasn't named Torchwood's Director."
The Metacrisis Doctor sighed softly at Jack's words, true though they were. He had sincerely hoped that Rose would have changed and possibly grown up during the last two years; but other than showing an alarming affinity for wielding the biggest weapons possible, she was still the same immature girl who had shown no remorse or compunction for having ripped a hole through the multiverses in her mad quest to be reunited with the Doctor.
He had decided to go along with the Doctor's madcap plan to send the two of them to Pete's world together, because the Doctor had truly been wracked with guilt over the direction that Rose's life had taken. He had mistaken the feelings that he had felt for Rose for some form of love and so had mistakenly thought that his duplicate would naturally have those same emotions. The Doctor had thought that he was being kind to Rose by leaving his duplicate with her so that she could have her happily ever after. It was something that he would never have been able to give to her.
They hadn't even made it off the beach before the truth had become painfully obvious. He wasn't a duplicate of the Doctor, at least not enough of a duplicate to satisfy Rose. He was a mixture of Donna Noble and the Doctor, an enigma that was brought into the universe in the midst of crisis and now was cast adrift in an alternate universe to find his way alone.
Rose had returned home and had instantly attempted to use the Dimension Canon once again to get back to the primary universe so that she could be reunited with the real Doctor. When Torchwood had intervened, and locked her out of the controls of the Dimension Cannon, she had begun demanding that her father let her have access to the controls once more. She felt that she didn't belong in this universe and that the Metacrisis Doctor was a fraud, one who wouldn't be able to help them in any meaningful way should there ever be a true emergency.
Her words had been proven false when the first Cybermen had attacked London and the Metacrisis Doctor had become an indispensable advisor on the defence and eventual defeat of the aliens. During the last two years, they had barely seen each other, though he had caught her several times trying to sneak back into the Dimension Cannon control room only to stomp back out screaming and hurling insults in every direction. She loved to call him a fake and a fraud, and she always made sure that there were as many people around as possible to hear her insults.
She was not well liked by the people of Torchwood, but more than anything her increasingly erratic behavior had begun to reflect poorly on Pete Tyler and his ability to remain objective in the light of his daughter's actions.
The Metacrisis Doctor shook himself from his morose musings, his hand rising to rub his forehead tiredly when he thought of everything that still had to be accomplished. "I guess I shouldn't be surprised that the rest of the council would hold Rose's actions against her father, I just hope that the council hasn't lost the support of a good man with its decision."
Jack crossed his arms over his chest, his brooding gaze slicing back to the Doctor when he thought back to the heated debate over who should be the next Director of Torchwood. "The council will listen to me in the end, Doc. Pete's still a trusted member of this organization and I won't allow his daughter's actions to overshadow all that he's contributed to its survival."
The Metacrisis Doctor left out a small sigh of relief when he heard Jack's words, though he had had a feeling that Jack wouldn't have let Pete unfairly bear the brunt of a daughter whom he had just discovered a few years earlier. He felt a pang of sorrow when he thought of Rose and how bitter she was with the direction her life had taken, how angry she had been when she had seen the companions that the Doctor had surrounded himself with since her departure. She had been especially angry with the place that Donna had taken at the Doctor's side and that her evolution into the DoctorDonna had given her a part of the Doctor that Rose had always insisted had belonged to her.
The Metacrisis Doctor struggled with guilt when he felt the silence in his mind, his connection with Donna had been forcibly severed not long after he had arrived in this alternate universe. It seemed that the Doctor had failed to find a way to stabilize Donna's mind and thus had resorted to completely burying her memories.
He had been struck unconscious when that had happened and so he hadn't even been able to do anything but mourn for the loss once he had regained consciousness. He remembered well how their telepathic connection had blazed aboard the crucible, his mind had been almost giddy in the embrace of the Doctor and Donna's minds. Their focused purpose had filled him with a sense of belonging that had since been missing from his life.
He found himself reaching into the void in his mind from time to time, hoping that something would reach back to him. He was, unfortunately, always met with silence.
"I have another question, Doc. One that I'm pretty sure you already know the answer to."
He turned back to see Jack looking up at him with an expression he had never seen on the man's face, it was a mixture of worry and hope that was almost painful to witness. He knew why Jack had been the only man to emerge from the Cybermen's tunnels, he'd had a feeling that Jack had suffered far more than any of them could imagine and it was only through a monumental force of will that he had continued to function until the crisis had finally ended.
"I know what you're going to ask, Jack."
"What the hell am I, Doc? What the hell happened to me? I remember dying in those tunnels, I remember the Cybermen swarming over all of us and the laser blast that killed me. I remember dying at least a dozen times before I was able to plant the charges and blow the place sky high. Am I going crazy? Have I finally cracked?"
The Metacrisis Doctor shook his head, his hand rising up to grasp Jack's shoulder in a firm grip so that he could force the man to meet his eyes. "You're not going insane, Jack. You did die, you most likely died more times than you can remember."
"You know what's happened to me, don't you?" Jack's voice was pleading, his eyes shining with barely restrained emotion as he struggled to understand the insanity that his life had become.
"In the universe that I came from, the Doctor travelled with Rose and that universe's Jack Harkness. They travelled together for a while before they ended up in the year 200,100. It was there that they uncovered a plan by the Daleks to enslave the human race and launch an offensive that would allow them to subjugate the entire universe. The Doctor knew that he would most likely be killed in the resulting battle and so he sent Rose back to her home in the past, where he instructed the Tardis to remain so that the Daleks wouldn't be able to use her for their own ends."
Jack listened intently as the Metacrisis Doctor continued, his curiosity was piqued as he listened to his counterpart's exploits in another reality. He felt his stomach sink with dread though when the other man continued, his words hammering into Jack's soul with ruthless precision as he realized that the life that he had hoped to lead was now forever altered.
"Rose didn't listen to the Doctor and because of that, she was somehow able to rip open the heart of the Tardis, taking its near limitless energy into herself. She used that energy to return to the future in time to save the Doctor, though Jack had already been killed by the Dalek's advance. She called herself the Bad Wolf and for a time, she had all the power of a god. She brought Jack back from the grave, but she couldn't control the power and so she brought him back forever."
Jack sat down hard on the rooftop, his mind spinning at the implication in those words. He looked back up at the Metacrisis Doctor, his mouth opening and closing while he tried to find a focus in the madness that was swirling within him. "But she brought that Jack back forever, what does that have to do with me?"
He couldn't stand the soft look of concern in the man's eyes, the intense gaze seemed to cut Jack to the quick and laid bare the terror that he could barely control.
"The Doctor didn't realize it at the time, but it looks like Rose brought every Jack back forever. She had the power to reach through the barriers between realities and it looks like she made sure that every single one of you that existed in any reality will never be able to die."
Jack clenched his teeth so hard he was afraid he was going to crack them, his nails dug so deeply into his palms that he felt them draw blood. "You're saying that I'm immortal then, Doc?"
The other man nodded. "I'm afraid so, Jack."
Jack shook his head, his eyes clenching tightly closed before he surged to his feet. He was suddenly filled with a burst of adrenaline, his angry steps carrying him to the edge of the building where he looked down on the crowd below before he turned back to the Metacrisis Doctor. "I can't comprehend this right now, Doc. It's too much, simply too much to take in all at once."
"I can understand that feeling, Jack. The Time Lords were used to near immortality, we were raised knowing that we would see millennia pass. It's not the same for humans, not by a long shot."
Jack's hands clenched and unclenched for a moment more, his wild gaze somewhat tempered when he heard the other man's words. It was with a supreme force of will that he forced the gibbering terror back into it's dark hiding place; he couldn't focus on those facts now, he still had too much to do to risk falling apart just when humanity needed him most. Later though, would be time enough for him the let the terror loose.
"I'd rather you not call me Doctor anymore, Jack. I no longer have any right to that name. I'd prefer a simpler name, one that doesn't have any connection to a legacy that's no longer mine."
Jack swallowed, thankful for the distraction of the request when he heard the other man's words, his gaze drifting down to the paper that had been crumpled in his hand before he nodded. "Have you decided on a name?"
The Metacrisis Doctor nodded, his hand tightening around the names of the dead before he muttered. "I'd like to be called Alec, Jack. Alec Noble. I think she would've liked that name."
"Who would've liked the name?"
Alec lifted his hand, fingers opening to hand the list of the dead to Jack so that he could see three names circled in red. Jack took a moment to read the names, Wilfred Mott, Sylvia Noble and Donna Noble.
"Who were these people, Alec?"
He sighed, surprised at the burn of tears for the deaths of people that he truthfully didn't even know. "In another reality, I would've considered Donna to be my mother."
Jack gasped at that realization, his hand tightening on the sheet of paper before he nodded curtly. "Alec Noble is a good name, and you're right. She would've been proud of the man that you've become."
He was surprised at the burst of emotion he felt for Alec when he saw the raw grief that flashed through the man's eyes, Alec's hands clenching for a moment before he nodded and turned to look out over the darkening city.
Jack and Alec stood in silence for a while longer as the last of the light faded away, the faint cries of celebration growing louder while the crowd below Torchwood One continued to grow.