STORIES
TWENTY
Jack had retreated to his old office and poured himself a glass of something from one of the cut-glass decanters. He'd been surprised to find his former sanctuary looking mostly the same – much was as he'd left it. There were a few "Gwen-ish" additions, including a couple of photographs (one of a dog, since when did Gwen have a dog?) and a shiny-new bright pink MacBook. Well… that and the new – the different – piece of coral displayed prominently on the desk; Jack couldn't decide if it was an example of just how twisted Gwen's sense of humor was.
So the Captain sat at his old desk in his old chair, staring fixedly at his untouched glass of something-or-another and feeling kind of old himself. And that was how The Doctor found him some unknown amount of time later.
"Jack, are you okay?"
Jack didn't answer.
"Captain?" That old, familiar tone of voice…
"Doctor?" Begrudgingly, wearily…
"ARE YOU OKAY?" The Doctor sat down uninvited.
Jack rolled his eyes and made no effort whatsoever to hide that singularly discourteous nonverbal cue from the Time Lord. He knew he was being rude, but he just couldn't help himself. "He is my brother. How do you think I feel? Don't you have a shred of empathy in those Gallifreyan hearts of yours? Did you ever have a brother?"
There was no answer other than cold appraisal.
"The death stare and the golden silence," Jack scoffed and looked away.
"If I answer your questions do you think it will make you feel better?" The Doctor asked nonplussed.
"You could at least try!" the Captain spat. But then Jack closed his eyes, shook his head and half-whispered, "I don't know."
There was a long silence as The Doctor regarded his friend sadly and with no small measure of sympathy. Like himself, Jack had apparently and irretrievably lost the world of his birth. A curse the Time Lord would not wish on his greatest enemy, much less his best friend. Finally: "Well, what do you know, Captain?"
"I know that I want to be alone," was the churlish reply.
The Doctor stood up, "You want me to leave, then?"
Jack started as his eyes flashed open. He fully realized the significance of, and the hidden meaning behind, The Doctor's query. Or at least he thought he did. The Captain abruptly rose from his chair and in doing so accidentally knocked over his drink. "What? No!" He shook his head again, this time much more vigorously. "No, I don't want you to leave!"
The Doctor tilted his head, "I'm not very fond of this place, you know. It seems every time I come here something terrible happens to me."
Jack smiled wryly, "It tends to have that affect." He motioned to the chair across from the desk and both men sat down again. Jack pulled a few tissues out from a drawer and began mopping up the spilled alcohol. "You know," he said wearily, "with Gray I feel that I am almost in view of something that is at the limit of my comprehension." He tossed the sodden lump of tissues into the waste bin.
"He's mad, Jack. Something like that – no matter how much you want to and how hard you try, you can't fix something like that. He's too broken."
"He's more than just broken, Doctor. I know you saw it too."
"Oh yes, I saw it. And I agree with what Ianto said. He's a bad one and he's a potent combination, such evil – and let us honest about it, he is evil – mixed with so much knowledge and power is not a good thing. It's never a good thing…" The Doctor's voice trailed off as his eyes became unfocused.
Jack leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. "Do you think that he really was aware of what was going on when he was in cryogenic suspension?"
"It's possible," The Doctor shrugged. "And considering what he claimed, it appears likely, unless…"
"Unless what?"
"Well… I assume you trust your staff, Jack?"
"With my life… uh… lives."
"Okay. Fair enough."
"And we've just put him back on ice again, damn it," Jack shook his head ruefully. Then something else occurred to him. "What he said about Boeshane and the Void not being a part of its destruction… Doctor, did you believe him?"
The Doctor frowned, "It seems to me he was saying anything and everything he could to throw us all off-balance. And beyond that, to hurt us and create dissention and distrust between us. I suspect he's a braggart as well as a consummate liar, Jack, but I think – and this is just my gut reaction – that there was an inadvertent shred of truth in what he said about the Void. Maybe more than just a shred of truth! I don't know whether that slip was intentional or not, and by the way if it was intentional then we really need to watch out because he's toying with us. But regardless, perhaps in reality he provided a clue which might help us to move forward."
Now it was Jack's turn to frown, "Move forward how? What clue are you talking about?"
"Do you remember when he called himself the Prince of the Dark Force and the King of the Darkness?
Jack searched his memory and nodded. It had almost slipped by him because of the other far more hateful words that had come spewing forth from Gray's foul mouth – words that had incensed him; especially those cruel words about his precious Time Lord. "Darkness? Dark Force?" His eyes narrowed, "What's the significance?"
"I'm not sure, Jack. Like I said, it's just a gut feeling, but it hit me like a sledgehammer at the time and I admit that it kind of makes me wish Wil was still around…"
A look of surprise played across Jack's face.
"Well," The Doctor slid smoothly into pedagogical mode as easily as he might slide on his glasses. "We know that in this universe, at least, we're immersed in a shadowy world of dark matter and hidden forces. In fact, almost 90% of matter in our universe can't be seen or detected. Not even the Time Lords really understood this; they sort of gave up on figuring it out and decided instead to concentrate on other, easier, problems like traveling through time and space. Still… we know enough to say that even talking about dark matter as a single entity is a mistake. There are in fact many, perhaps infinite varieties of dark matter. We talk about the Void and multiple universes and myriad dimensions and innumerable subspaces like we talk about different types of cheeses; the concepts are so commonplace to us. But there are unseen and very much unknown aspects of the cosmos that exist all around us. These hidden worlds are populated by their own rich menageries of particles and have their own forces, just like our world with our commonplace protons and neutrons and cosmic rays. Yet we're unaware of those hidden worlds because their particles don't interact with the familiar matter in our own universe."
During this monologue Ianto had quietly appeared and he now stood in the doorway, listening.
"So we don't understand much at all about dark matter and its counterpart, dark energy – it's why they're called "dark" – but we do know it's there and we do understand that its gravity is what keeps our universe's galaxies and clusters of galaxies from flying apart, despite the staggering speeds of the individual stars and galaxies within those clusters. Its gravity is what permits us to exist! We also know that these astonishing concepts I'm describing so matter-of-factly, such as hidden worlds, such as dark forces, and such as the very notion of subspace – which Wil has mentioned so frequently – emerge out of string theory and other even more complex and fantastical hypotheses that even I have trouble fully comprehending…
"What I suspect, Jack," The Doctor turned his head and glanced at Ianto Jones, "and Ianto, is that if Gray is working with or manipulating Dark Forces – dark matter and dark energy – and if he's moving in and out and between our world and those unseen, hidden worlds at will, then even though we think he's been put safely back into the freezer, he may not actually really be in the freezer at all…"
"Oh yeah," Jack grimaced. "This just keeps getting better and better."
"Erm, sir?" Ianto's eyes tracked down from Jack's face to his chest and rested there.
The Captain looked down and to his utter amazement saw a little blue light blinking on his vortex manipulator. "Uh Doctor? What you said about Wil?" He raised his head and met the Time Lord's eyes, a grim look on his face. "Well, all I can say is be careful what you wish for…"