Solipsism

Jack: An Amazing Gift

Making my way down these brightly lit ship's corridors what I'm seeing is a whole lot of emptiness: empty hallways, empty intersections, dark and unused empty rooms containing sparse and vacant furnishings. All I hear is the sound of my own footsteps echoing off the floors, ceilings and walls. I'm tempted to com The Doctor again, but I withstand the desire, concluding it too inanely childish; I need to leave him be. Still, I'm feeling a bit spooked and so I start humming (and there is no rhyme or reason as to my choice of tune) the song "Beautiful." Right, an insipid pop song. Wil Beinert, the accomplished musician, the consummate classicist, would've laughed out loud at me. But like I said, there's no logic to it, it's simply what seeps irritatingly into my brain.

Although my ultimate destination is the main engineering section, which is at the aft of the ship, I find myself almost inexplicably heading toward Newhope's sick bay. Not that it's so much out of the way, but really there's no rational explanation for wanting to go there. And yet… the room holds significance for me. It is important and for some reason there's a part of me that yearns to see it again.

The time I spent previously on Newhope was extremely intense. It was intense because of me and what I was going through at that point in my life. It was intense because of John. And it was intense because of The Doctor.

Now don't laugh at me when I tell you my relationship with The Doctor is rather like an onion, as unromantic and banal as that may sound. I am on a singular journey – meticulously pulling apart the layers of that metaphorical onion, one by one, and discovering what lies beneath. Those layers represent personal epochs: before I knew him, when I met him, when I realized I was falling in love with him, when I died for him, when I was abandoned by him (don't let him tell you he didn't!), when I found him again, and again… and again…

It was there in Newhope's medical bay, standing next to the motionless, vulnerable form of The Doctor, holding his hand in mine and being so very frightened for his life, that I came to realize my love for him encompassed more than the mere physical longing I felt for his body and the mental longing I felt for his companionship. I realized there was something far more to it than those commonplace sentiments, and the realization shook me to my core. That realization later allowed me to expose without fear my bare soul to him and, ultimately, to become something more to him than just a simple friend or a threadbare lover – to in fact transcend myself and become something I've never been before. Something that I'm not even sure I have a name for. Something that I don't have adequate words to describe…

"The sun will always, always shine… But tomorrow we might awake on the other side," I sing softly to myself as I walk through the entryway of the ship's medical bay.

The lights come on automatically with the motion of my presence. Then, sort of as when you are looking at some geometric shape that looks like a tangle having no order at all, and you rotate it just a tiny bit, and suddenly all its planes and vertices come into alignment and you see what it really is, I see something that at first has no order – it doesn't make sense to me.

I blink and shake my head, as if it will help to clarify the sight. As if it will rotate what I'm looking at just enough for it to obtain order, to make sense.

"Hello, Jack," she says and I stop dead in my tracks.

"Hello Rose."

Rose Marion Tyler is sitting on one of the medical crèches. She's leaning against a stack of pillows. Her knees are pulled up to her chest, her arms encircling her legs. She smiles at me.

"How are you?"

"I'm fine. Um, Rose?"

"Yes, Jack?"

"What are you doing here?"

"Well, I miss you. Isn't that enough?" Her smile goes a little crooked and she winks. "But it's not just that, we need to talk."

I'm finally able to move again, so I walk over to the bed and look down at her. I take a deep breath. "I miss you too, Rose."

She nods and her smile becomes a little sadder. It makes me sad to see it.

"We never really got a chance," she explains, "to talk about what happened on Satellite Five. It's been bothering me. I wanted to apologize…"

"Rose, you have nothing to apologize for!"

"No, I do. I wanted to apologize. I never meant to leave you like that. If I had known…"

Suddenly Rose is crying. And it is breaking my heart. I reach down and touch her hair, her face. She's warm and soft. She reaches up and takes my hand and presses it tenderly, lightly to her lips before moving it slowly to her heart. I feel that strong heart beating rhythmically in her chest.

"If I had known what had happened to you, I would've tried… I would've done it differently. I don't know how, but I wouldn't have left you there. I mean I wanted you alive, I don't regret that, that part… But I would never have abandoned you. Not intentionally."

I sit down on the bed next to her. She scoots over a few inches and I stretch out on the mattress and put my arm around her shoulders. "Shush, Rose. It's okay, really. You gave me a gift that day. An amazing gift…"

Rose looks up at me and manages to smile though her tears. "I didn't want you to die," she half-whispers and then hiccups.

I chuckle quietly and give her shoulders a squeeze. "I didn't want to die."

She leans into me, puts her head on my shoulder. It feels good. I'm not complaining but aside from Spike it's the most physical contact I've had in weeks. Ever since Wil…

"So, Jack, you finally got what you wanted?"

I turn my head and look at her. "What do you mean?"

"You're traveling with him."

True enough, but there's something about the way she said that… I look away. I'm not sure how to respond. It turns out I don't have to.

"I'm happy for you, Jack."

"I can't replace you, you know," I answer, sounding apologetic but God knows what for. "No one can, ever. You're irreplaceable. He still misses you. He always will."

"You need to take care of him, Jack. For me, you must look after him."

I nod. "Always," I whisper.

"And, Jack, that amazing gift?"

"Yes?" I close my eyes and hold my breath. Oh my God. Could she take it from me? He never really said…

"Don't squander it."

When I open my eyes again I'm standing in the doorway to the sick bay. There's no one there – the room is empty.