BIG BANG

Part III

A Quick Trip

As The Doctor concentrated on the wristband he excluded everything else from his consciousness. The teleport was warm, vibrating slightly and… speaking. But what was it saying? It started out as barely a whisper, but then increased in volume: "Doctor… I need you." It was a familiar voice. The Doctor breathed in deeply through is nose and then held his breath for a moment. During that moment, a million thoughts went through his head; a million calculations were analyzed and a decision was made. "I'm coming," he murmured to the leather strap as he put it back into his coat pocket.

He quickly retrieved all the objects he'd tossed on the ground and whirled out of the park, towards the TARDIS. Briefly he considered stopping at the shop to tell Rose where he was going, but then he remembered her instructions to him -- that she needed 24 hours to take care of "things"…. And whatever those "things" were, it was clear he was not invited. He hadn't been hurt by this exclusion, at least not much. Although the "wedding shower" party that he was missing that evening sounded potentially interesting and he wondered if it really involved some sort of group soaking by water; something he might enjoy under the right circumstances, as long as the water was warm! At any rate, he was not welcome, and that was that. "Oh, I'll just take a quick trip and she'll never know I was gone," he thought as he navigated down the street, past the crowded cafes and shops.

And, there she was, right where he'd left her – he smiled despite himself, just like he did every time he saw her. He pulled out the key from his inside suit coat pocket, noticing that although it was typically warm to the touch that it was a little warmer than usual, and caressed the TARDIS affectionately as he unlocked the door and stepped inside. "Right! Cardiff!! We're off!!" He sang out, full-voiced, as he set the coordinates and started up his old ship. As the TARDIS began to dematerialize he spun around and then hopped, just a little, into the air. "24 Hours? I would've been bored to death!" he sang. "Allons-y!"

The Second Law of Thermodynamics

He opened the door and blinked in the bright sunlight. He was in his usual parking place at the Millennium Centre. Locking the door behind him, The Doctor stood, leaning against the TARDIS, trying his best to look debonair -- it was silly, really, but sometimes next to Jack he felt a bit graceless. He'd never admit it to him, but Jack was exceedingly charming, and in a contest of elegance and style, well… The Doctor wasn't quite sure who might win. Not that it mattered… much.

Of course he sensed it when Jack appeared in a shimmer of transport light, but feigned surprise when the man silently moved into his field of vision.

"Captain."

"Doctor."

"What do you want?"

"Don't I get a hug first?"

The big smile on Jack's face was infectious and The Doctored grinned as the two men came together in a warm embrace. Stepping back, The Doctor had already moved on, "Something wrong?"

Jack stood quietly, blue eyes meeting brown. The Captain wasn't purposefully being obtuse. It was just that he wasn't sure where to start. In fact, he wasn't sure exactly what it was that was happening. It wasn't just one thing, as far as he knew, it was several… at least. Maybe more…

The Doctor waited patiently. With Jack, more than anyone else he knew, it was worth waiting for something to be said, rather than blunder on ahead without him.

In the short time that things had started to go "wrong", to use The Doctor's term, Jack hadn't actually put into words the thoughts that were swimming in his mind. When he mentally shook himself and finally did try to verbalize them for The Doctor, they sounded almost unbelievable: "There seems to be a problem with some of the fundamental laws of physics".

The Doctor raised an eyebrow. Jack went on, "I'm not joking. You know the second law of thermodynamics? I think maybe it's not working so well." He paused briefly then continued. "And then there's the moon."

"The moon?"

"You know Newton, Galileo and Kepler? The moon seems to not be in the right place any more."

"What else?"

"The tides."

"Well, of course… if the moon's wrong, so would be the tides."

"Yes, of course."

There was a long silence. Again The Doctor waited for Jack.

"Doctor, what could be nuking the laws of physics?"

The Absence of Danger

The Doctor and Jack were in the TARDIS. "Einstein," The Doctor whispered under his breath, but Jack heard him say it anyway – or maybe felt him say it was a more truthful way of putting it.

"What do you mean?" The Captain asked.

The Doctor sat down on the only chair in the TARDIS control room and sighed. "Jack, Einstein was the closest thing to a Time Lord your planet ever produced." Jack raised his eyebrows at the apparent slight. "I'm not kidding, Einstein was brilliant, and it takes one to know one. He was starting to understand Time and Space like no other human ever had. If he'd lived for a decent amount of time, say another 500 or 1000 years, he would've probably come close to figuring out what the Time Lords knew about spacetime."

The Doctor was quiet for a moment, wondering if Jack would've caught on to the gist of it. He had. "E equals MC squared," Jack murmured, awe in his voice.

And The Doctor responded in a hushed tone, "The Cosmological Constant…" But then he raised his voice. "If the laws of physics are breaking down, there are some big ones, some huge ones that are going to cause tremendous problems. And problems not just for you humans and your planet, the galaxy, and the universe… BUT FOR ME!"

The Doctor whirled around and started punching manically at various buttons, displays and levers on the TARDIS console. "Oh no, no, no, no, no. Don't do that!" he shouted as he stopped clouting on a keyboard and ran towards the entrance, Jack in pursuit. The Doctor grabbed the door and tried to open it to no effect. He gave it a couple more shakes and a dirty look before stepping back to explain to Jack that the TARDIS had gone into 'lockdown' – "She won't let us leave. Something terrible is happening and she's trying her best to protect me… Erm… Us, that is, she's protecting us!"

Jack stood mutely, slightly slack-jawed and shaking his head. He was thinking about his team… they were out there, trying to deal with whatever it was that was happening, and here he was, stuck.

"Imprisoned?" he looked at The Doctor incredulously. "Am I imprisoned by your ship?"

"Well, not exactly…"

"Then get me out of here!"

"I can't, not really," said The Doctor. "There's nothing I can do. The lockdown protocol is designed to not only protect me from danger; it is designed to protect me from myself during times of danger. She won't let me break the protocol until she decides it is safe. Beyond that, she's smarter than I am." At that, Jack's eyes widened – he'd never heard The Doctor admit that anyone or any thing was smarter than he. The Doctor had noticed the reaction. "She is, you know. I can't fool her. I can't trick her. I can't even make a convincing argument to change her mind."

"Sounds just like a woman!" replied Jack.

There was silence again.

"But how does it… she… How does she know we're in danger? What does the TARDIS know that we don't?" Jack asked. "And can she do something about it or are we just supposed to sit here on our behinds and wait?"

The Doctor's eyes lit up and he smiled one of his biggest smiles. "Oh…. She can do something alright!" he said. "She can steer us clear of it – take us away from the danger, to some place where it is not!" He ran back to the keyboard he'd been pounding on earlier and started manically typing and muttering to the display screen. Jack moved closer in order to see and hear better what The Doctor was doing. The Time Lord was speaking very quickly; almost as if he was talking to someone else, Jack thought, someone other than himself. "The obverse of danger… the opposite of the current situation, that's what I want!" The Doctor said to the monitor. "Take me somewhere far away and safe so that…." His words drifted off as he pushed a few buttons, pulled a lever or two and Jack heard the familiar sound of the TARDIS engines. The Doctor let out with a frenzied laugh: "Ha! Ha! We've done it! We're moving! We're going!" The Doctor was jumping up and down, clearing at least two feet as he leapt repeatedly in the air.

They were indeed 'moving', with more shaking and banging than Jack recalled was normal. He grabbed at the spongy material on the railing and was grateful once again that someone, some companion or another during the last 900 years, had thought about it and had decided to put in some padding. The wadding was nice, but it didn't help Jack when the TARDIS lurched to what he thought of as her "starboard" side and caused him to land with a fair amount of force on his tailbone. By the time he opened his eyes, The Doctor was already up off the floor asking him if he was alright. "I'm not as young as I used to be," was the best he could do as he dragged himself back to a standing position.

AND, they were indeed 'going', but where? The Doctor, although calmer than a few seconds before, was clearing his throat and making some odd sorts of "hmmm" and "ummm" sounds. At the same time the TARDIS engines were at full throttle, and while the lurching had subsided, at least for the present, there was still a whole lot of rocking and rolling going on.

As Jack watched The Doctor he found himself wondering, not for the first time, how much in control The Doctor really was, and what he really knew. Jack had always suspected that The Doctor made a lot of stuff up as he went along. On the one hand, it wasn't a comforting thought but on the other… well… there was no one in the universe that Jack trusted or respected more. Even though at times their relationship – if that was what to call it – was strained, there was little doubt in his mind that he loved the Time Lord and would give up his life, if that were possible, for him. Despite their occasional competitiveness, he wasn't ashamed to sound stupid if the need should arise.

"Do you know where we're going?" asked the Captain.

At first he wasn't sure if The Doctor had even heard him. Or if The Doctor remembered that he was even there. "Okay," Jack sub-vocalized, "maybe I don't love him."

The Doctor turned and flashed his eyes, "Oh, I don't believe that for a second!"