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The Face of Boe.
The Face of Boe. Can it be?
As the first surprise fades, part of him is exulting - Jack will age, will be able to die, will not be locked into forever without changing.
But another part of him is grieving already for the man: so vibrant, so full of spirit, full of joy, more alive than anyone he's known, and he'll turn into something so distanced, so weary, so apart. His hearts ache, and he remembers: seeing his friend die, but not recognising him. Had he really blocked Jack from his mind so completely? Even with how changed he was - shouldn't he have known? How was Jack even able to die of old age? Had he found some way back to mortality? So many questions.
Oh, Jack, dying to save the human race once again. Dying like that - fulfilling your own prophecy, locked into a temporal circle. Not being able to warn the Doctor beyond what he knew he had said, so as not to unravel the timelines. Dying with his friend beside him - his friend, who didn't even recognise him. Worse than if you'd been alone. Millions of years, you lived, and you had to end like that.
What is there to do? Is there anything to do?
He's alone now. Martha is with her family, and while he hopes, part of him knows better: she won't come with him again, not this time. And rightly so, too - being with the Doctor does no one any good. He knows it only too well.
He moves the levers. Off we go: New Earth again.
He times it carefully: just after his past self leaves, he returns.
Walks up to the giant head lying dead on the ground. Looks. Looks. Oh, my friend. What have I done to you? You were right: you'd have been better off if you'd never met me.
He can sense it now, even in this corpse - the wrongness, all of it, just as he did before. He really was too good at blocking what he didn't want to know. Until he'd been confronted with Jack again, on Malcassairo, and hadn't been able to look away any more.
And... what?! It jerks, violently - the dead being in front of him takes a shuddering breath and...
Even now, you can't die?
The Face of Boe opens its eyes, takes a few more breaths, blinks at the Doctor. "That was not what I expected."
The Doctor smiles, sadly. "I'm sorry. So sorry."
The Face closes its eyes again. "Good-bye, Doctor." And he can see it getting ready to teleport - when did he evolve those abilities anyway? Probably the same time he turned into a giant face in a jar. Sarcasm: the cure for everything.
"Wait!" the Doctor shouts.
The Face of Boe opens its eyes again. Looks at him, so tired. So weary. "I cannot tell you any more, Doctor."
"Oh. No! This isn't the me that was here before. He left. This is the me after that. Stupid thing, timelines, can be pretty confusing, even for a Time Lord." He shrugs to himself. "Anyway - you are not alone, Professor Yana, the Master - that's already happened to me. Thanks for the warning, though it could have been a bit less cryptic."
"It could not."
The Doctor sighs. "I know." He sits down on the stairs next to the Face, looks up at its eyes. "Martha told you, didn't she? What you said. Were going to say. Preserving the timeline and all that." He takes a deep breath. "Jack."
The Face of Boe closes its eyes again. "I haven't heard that name in a long time."
"I'm sorry."
"There is nothing you could have done."
"What will you do now?"
"What does one do when one gets tired? I will sleep for a while. Once, I slept through a hundred thousand years. Had quite the hangover when I woke up."
Oh, Jack. Still more of you there than I knew.
And suddenly, he has an idea.
"Maybe..." He swallows. "Maybe there is something I can do. I didn't think of it before, but that was when you were human. I don't think it'd have done anything then. No idea if it will now, really, but it's got to be worth a try. Er, if you want, that is."
The Face smiles at him, fondly. "What are you talking about, Doctor?"
"The heart of the TARDIS, remember? That's how it all started. Maybe if you looked into it..."
"Dangerous."
"Yes!" He grins at his friend - so much older than he is, now, and how strange is that? "Come on, old friend - live a little!"
The Face of Boe snorts. It's the most undignified sound he's ever heard the ancient being make, and oh, isn't it good to hear.
The Doctor's stomach clenches. He's not sure why this is so important, but it is. It is. "Please. Let me try."
Slowly, the Face nods. "As you say. It cannot hurt to try." It snorts again. "And if it does hurt, that would be a change, too. God, I'm bored."
The Doctor smiles at that. "Let me just get the TARDIS."
And he runs off, runs into his control room, quick as he can, reaches for the controls, dematerialising, rematerialising the TARDIS around the Face. It's a matter of moments. "Welcome home, old friend."
"You better stay out of the way, Doctor."
The Doctor nods and moves to the other side of the console. Turns his face away. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see the Face turn its own eyes toward the TARDIS console, and then a blinding light starts to fill the control room.
He closes his eyes, tightly.
Opens them again as an inhuman scream fills the room, just in time to see the light fade. On the other side of the control console, the giant head is gone.
He blinks. Moves around the console, to where his friend was -
- where his friend is, lying on the floor, slumped in a heap, naked and beautiful and human.
He runs to him, grabs his shoulders, turns him onto his back. Alive. And he can sense him still. Not really human, then. Still forever. His throat constricts. Has he condemned his friend to go through all of it again, from the start? Oh no. That was not how this was supposed to end.
Jack coughs, raises his head. "Well. That wasn't what I expected either." He sits up. "Ouch. I forgot how much muscles could hurt."
"Jack?"
Jack gives him a blinding grin. Before he knows it, he's swept into an embrace, and a kiss is planted on his lips. "Thank you, Doctor," the ancient man whispers against his skin.
"Are you sure? Was that what you wanted? I thought you wanted to die."
"More times than I can remember."
The Doctor winces. "So..."
Jack shrugs. "I can't. I should have known that. I've spent millennia looking for a way to turn mortal again. Thought I'd found it when I became... well, you know. Thought I could die of age, if nothing else would kill me. But it really doesn't work that way. Wishful thinking. She rewrote the universe to make me a part of it."
"And now you're human again." Well, mostly human.
Jack grins. "You can say that out loud, you know. I haven't lost any of my abilities."
The Doctor winces. Tries to close his mental walls. Too much in his brain no one needs to see, not even this man.
Especially not this man.
Jack rolls his eyes - actually rolls his eyes - and rises from the floor. "Time for me to go."
The Doctor stands, too. "Where are you going?" He doesn't want to lose him again so soon - he's only just found him again.
Jack gestures towards the TARDIS walls. "There's a whole new world outside, and the people need help. Time for me to do some work on the ground again. I haven't been able to do that in a while."
Jack. So very Jack, still, even after millions of years.
He swallows. "Will I see you again?"
Jack reaches out, pulls the Doctor's head forward and kisses him again. "Of course you will. Just be careful when you cross my timeline - I've been in a lot of places, and you'll run into different versions of me out there."
"All right."
"Mind if I raid the wardrobe room?"
"Go ahead."
Jack's naked form disappears through the doorway, and the Doctor stares after him, trying to get his racing thoughts under control. What does this mean? What does it all mean?
He's still trying to figure it out when Jack returns. He's wearing... oh God, he's wearing his coat again, the original - the same one he left behind before he died the first time. He looks so very much like a vision from the past that the Doctor's hearts both skip a beat.
Jack smiles at him and moves toward the door. Opens it. Then he hesitates, turns around and walks back towards the Doctor.
"I'm not you," he says.
What does that mean? The Doctor's face is giving away his incomprehension, no doubt, because Jack elaborates. "I'm not you. I won't just walk out there and leave. Wait."
And Jack closes his eyes, concentrating. After a moment, there's something lying on the console next to them. The Doctor reaches out for it, hesitantly.
Jack nods. "If you need me, give me a call. This thing's synchronised with my timeline, so you'll always get the right version of me. Good-bye now, my young friend."
And with those words, he leaves. Not through the door, though - he just dematerialises.
Gone.
The Doctor looks at the piece of technology in his hand. The metal is biting into his skin. He's barely remembering to breathe. My young friend. He'd known, of course, but he hadn't really understood it until now. Jack, so much older than he. So much older than anything living. The tables have turned between them, thoroughly.
And of course, as he always knew, Jack is a better man than he is.
He sits down, abruptly. Stares at the communication device in his hand, unseeing. Where to go from here? He doesn't know.
He doesn't know.