BIG BANG

Part VIII

A Broken Heart

"So, there's nothing we can do?" asked Jack.

"I didn't say that…" The Doctor nodded his head towards the device that he'd used earlier, floating forlornly from the ceiling. "I could always try it again."

"I have a bad feeling about that," was Jack's response. He hadn't liked it the first time The Doctor used it and felt he'd probably like it even less the next time. "Are there any other options? What have we got?"

"What have we got? What have we got? What have we got? Well, we have the TARDIS." The Doctor's eyes traveled down Jack's body. "We have you and your teleport. And we've got me. How's that for starters?"

"No surprises then?"

The Doctor rubbed his head, mussing up his hair even more than it had been. "No… No surprises. No magic up my sleeve." He wiggled the fingers of his right hand in front of Jack's face and then shrugged. "Besides…"

"Besides what?"

"Besides, I don't know if we ought to do anything. Jack, you should've experienced them… it... whatever…. They are astonishing. I don't know if I have the right to commit genocide, even if I could, and that is what we're talking about, against such a race such as this. They are eons beyond the Time Lords! What right do I have to snuff them out? It is a responsibility I don't want! They aren't the Daleks! They aren't evil, they are remarkable. I should safeguard them!"

"But look at what they've done! At what they're going to do! Everything you've protected, everything you've cared for. Everything you love. Gone, all of it! No – more than gone: never having been. It is unconscionable that you could contemplate allowing it! Remember Rose! Remember Albert bloody Einstein! You are responsible to them; you owe them your allegiance and your protection!"

"Who am I to say these magnificent beings have no right to exist?"

Jack looked at him in despair and apprehension. "You're The Doctor!"

"No I'm not."

Jack's heart beat once, and then again, but he knew it was broken. Those were the three words he feared the most. Had his fears somehow conjured them up? Could it be his fault? He didn't want to ask, but he had no choice… It was either move forward or give up, and the latter was never an option. He bulwarked himself.

"What do you mean you're not The Doctor?"

The Doctor, watching Jack's face, infinitesimally softened his own. "No, I'm sorry Jack. That's not what I meant. I am The Doctor. I am him. But leaving our reality for theirs changed me, just as I'd said it would, and as I knew it must. I know them now, and they are a part of me -- always and forever.

"For any sane organism, it is easier to kill someone you don't know than kill someone you do. War is always easier depersonalized. I could no more extinguish them now, having known them, than I could extinguish the Time Lords." His expression was one of incredible sadness. "At least not on purpose," he added. His hands, the moment before so animated dropped listlessly and his shoulders sagged.

"Well, that's bad news."

"No, Jack, it isn't. That's the good news. I'm not a mass murderer or a weapon of mass destruction, no matter what you may think, or hope. Nor am I a god, vengeful or otherwise. I'm The Doctor and just The Doctor. Mind you, most of the time that's pretty good, but right now at this very moment…"

"If they prick you, do you not bleed?"

"Yep, something like that…"

The two men were quiet for a time. Jack was starting to wonder if they were finally running out of things to say to each other. Maybe it was time to pull out a chess board or a deck of cards… Hell, maybe there was a basketball court somewhere on the TARDIS. He found himself speculating if The Doctor even played games, physical or otherwise. But then he remembered something…

"You said that's the good news?"

"Yes, that's what I said."

"So what's the bad?"

"The bad news," The Doctor continued, "is that even with the TARDIS and your teleport, and with your and my considerable talents and abilities, there's nothing we can do. There's nothing to do, it's already too late. I discovered this when I was with them; what's going to happen has already happened and is happening now.

"They go to work at the beginning when the conditions are right later – remember for them that time is nonlinear – and when the amount of mass, the level of expansion, the consistency of the universe, its gradient temperature, and all the other factors reach a perfect pitch, they act. Well, they've already acted and the change has been made.

"It's over," The Doctor added vehemently, "for Rose and for your 'Albert bloody Einstein'."

Worse Things

The Doctor felt badly for Jack. He knew what it was like to be the last of his kind, and now that 'honor' had been awarded to Jack as well. He also knew Jack was denying the inevitable truth, and looking for a way to fight it. Jack would perform genocide if given the reason and the chance. And he, The Doctor, wouldn't allow it. Not now, that it was too late and the change already made. That was the difference… just like the last time that they'd remodeled an entire universe to fit their needs, these beings had done it again and stopping them was impossible…

The Doctor's reveries were interrupted by Jack. "Doctor we have to go back!"

"I've already told you, we can't. They're gone, all of them… everything is gone. They've never been."

"No, that's not what I meant!"

The Doctor looked at Jack, his mind moving in a hundred different directions at once. What was it that Jack was asking of him? What had he just been thinking before Jack interrupted him? Right… that stopping them now was impossible. And yes, that was true, but…

"Jack! You're brilliant!" He let out a joyful whoop. "We have to go back before our Big Bang, to their universe, and stop them – get them to stop – ask them, convince them, persuade them…"

Jack had to complete the sentence for The Doctor: "Persuade them to commit suicide." It was a simple as that. Although in his heart and soul Jack was prepared to do more… much more. His hand gripped the teleport deep in his pocket.

"No guarantees," said The Doctor.

"No guarantees," acknowledged Jack.

"It will be a one-way trip for all three of us," The Doctor stroked the TARDIS console. "Mind you, I'm not entirely sure that she can do it, but if she can, there's likely no way she'll be able to bring us back. I'll have to use the micro black hole in the spacetime device to take us there, but once it has, it will no longer exist." The Doctor looked lovingly at his ship. "It's the only singularity we have.

"Once we're there, all bets are off; we have to assume we'll be stuck at the end of their universe."

Jack nodded and smiled, "Together, at the end of the universe. I can think of worse things."

"We'll also be changed."

"What do you mean?"

"We can't exist in their universe. You knew that already – they told you, and it is true. In their universe we'd be beyond a paradox, we'll be impossible; we're made up of atoms and forces that can't exist in their universe. The TARDIS would be impossible because she is a time machine and time doesn't exist in their universe. So the TARDIS will have to change us into something incomprehensible, and change herself as well. I don't know what it will feel like; I don't know if we'll have feelings or anything remotely equivalent. I'm not even sure we'll be able to communicate."

The Doctor's eyes roamed around his ship and then he continued, "It's a shot in the dark that might fully qualify as one of your 'worse things'."

"Doctor," Jack said, "I think I might know something about this." He went on to explain what it had felt like earlier when The Very Bad Thing Happened. He described being pulled asunder and compressed simultaneously.

The Doctor nodded. "Oi! Sounds painful!" he paused a beat. "There's no way to know if it will be like that or not, and there will be no turning back once we make the leap, are you sure it's what you want to do? There's no way I can protect you. I can't leave you behind – it is all or nothing."

"I wouldn't let you leave me behind. You need me."

"Yes, I do."

"Then?"

"Then… Allons-y mon Capitaine!"