Solipsism
Ten: The Two of Us
I'm in the control room fiddling with something or another – well, actually the vortex loop control, which is on the fritz again – when I hear Jack groan.
It's not a good kind of groan.
I walk quickly to his room and listen at the closed door. I hear rustling and then another groan, followed by an alarmed and alarming gasp.
"Jack?" I tap softly on the door with my knuckles. "Are you alright?"
My question is answered by the sound of a very loud impact. It's a bit like a thud, quite reminiscent of a body hitting the floor. I grab the door handle and it moves loosely in my hand, so I open the door, look in, and wait a second for my eyes to adjust to the dim lighting.
Jack is indeed on the floor, ruthlessly ensnared by a blanket. Pillows are scattered here and there around him, and he is looking very sheepish. I suppress a smile, but am only half-successful. I decide then and there to move him into a room with a futon rather than a bed that's several feet off the floor. He'll thank me for it later…
"Jack? What's going on?" I ask. Belatedly I realize I may have intruded on his privacy and so I backpedal, both literally by taking a step backwards and figuratively by inquiring, "Do you mind if I come in?"
Jack is not the same man I first met on mid-twentieth century Earth. But then again I'm not the same Time Lord. I think all things considered the ebb and flow of time has been less kind to my friend the Captain than me. How could it not be? I've lost track of the number of times he's died. I think he probably has, too. He's died way more times than I've regenerated… and from what I've seen, his deaths aren't any less traumatic than my regenerations, although Jack being Jack, he makes them look far easier than they really are. He has, however, described his resuscitations as akin to being dragged across broken glass; I believe he's understating the experience. Not convinced? All you need is to be present when he comes back from the dead. Just look into his eyes in that moment when they first open. You'll see something… I don't even know how to describe it. But it makes me wonder where he goes when he dies. What he sees when he dies. It makes me wonder, but I admit I'm too afraid to ask.
Yes, afraid.
Jack smiles at me – THAT smile – the smile that makes him look like a nine-year-old caught doing something he's not supposed to be doing, and pats the floor invitingly with his hand as he sits up against the bed frame.
Incidentally, he also wraps the blanket more modestly around himself. Imagine that! Jack! Shy! Will wonders never cease? It's not like I've never seen him naked… This time I am more successful at hiding my twinge of amusement.
I walk over, lower myself onto the floor next to him, pull my knees up to my chest with my arms and rest my chin on them. I look at Jack's face, "Another bad dream?" I ask.
He nods his head.
"Do you want to talk about it?"
He shakes his head slowly. Although he's still smiling, I notice the smile no longer reaches his eyes. I have to decide whether or not to let him off the hook.
"Jack?" I guess I decided not to. "I think you should tell me. Talk to me, Jack. Was it Wil again?"
He closes his eyes. "Yeah, I guess so," he says. "It's hard to remember. The dreams vanish so quickly. It's already mostly gone…" His voice trails off but then he opens his eyes again and looks directly into mine. Their startling blueness makes me blink. "And yet it's so hard to forget," he half-whispers.
I know what he's talking about of course. Who he's talking about. We've discussed it often enough. I knew he would have a hard time getting over her, getting over Wil Beinert leaving him and vanishing completely from our universe – vanishing of her own accord – at least that's what we fervently hope: that she disappeared voluntarily. But we really don't know…
I anticipated it was going to be hard, but I'm not sure I realized exactly how hard. I only have my own experiences to measure against, and I've concluded that the level of difficulty for Jack is similar to when Susan Foreman left me… when I had to let Susan go. I still ache from it, you know: I've never gotten over her and never will. I wouldn't want to. That ache is such an important part of my existence. It's an integral part of me. But I've had such a long time to process and incorporate it; I've literally had lifetimes to accept it, and Jack… well for Jack what happened is still so very recent, still so fresh, and it still rubs him raw.
Susan… No one knows, I've never told anyone, but that's when I really started running. I know sometimes, for dramatic effect, I say my running started when I was eight and looked into the Untempered Schism, or when I was exiled by my people from Gallifrey, but in reality it all goes back to Susan and when she walked out of my door forever. I should tell Jack about this, someday… but today is not that day.
Well, running away from despair is as good a palliative as any. Look at me! I'm the perfect example.
"Jack, I wonder if it's time we stop our aimless meanderings and have a proper adventure. What do you think?"
His eyes narrow but he says nothing.
"Remember when you asked me about Dyson spheres? Well, I believe I may have found one in the Time Lord database."
"You've been holding out on me?"
"No! Really, no," I lie. "I just came across it a little while ago. The Time Lords didn't use that term, of course. 'Dyson sphere' is an expression unique to Earth, so it took me a bit of time to track it down."
"Uh-huh."
"So?"
Jack smiles again, and this time it does reach his eyes. It makes me unaccountably happy. "Sounds like fun to me!" he says. The enthusiasm seems real, but me being me, I need to be absolutely certain. Plus, the two of us, we make our decisions together.
"So… does that mean you want to come along?"
He shrugs but there's no mistaking the sparkle in his eyes, "That's what friends are for!"