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Fanfic: "Singularity"
Title: "Singularity"
Author: Aeshna
Fandom: Doctor Who
Rating: PG
Word count: 366
Characters: Jack Harkness
Summary: The universe folds. He plays on.
Spoilers: Maybe vague for 3(29)x11 Utopia and x13 The Last of the Timelords, if you squint a bit.
Disclaimer: Not mine, no matter how many DVDs and toys I buy! Everything here belongs to RTD and to Auntie Beeb, who already has my licence fee.
Archive: Sure, whoever wants it – just let me know where it ends up!
Notes: Something short that has been nagging at the back of my brain for a couple of weeks, based on the explanation of Jack's immortality in Utopia and that line about how he could still be out there somewhere. So, if Jack is a fixed point in space-time, what does that actually mean for him in the (very) long term?
(For the record, I'm not really getting the thrashing fuss over what sounded like a throwaway line in the last episode of DW s3, given that they'd stated the fixed and permanent nature of Jack's immortality quite clearly on several occasions. And that's the more interesting interpretation for me as viewer and writer, so.... :))
Many thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
mimarie and jwaneeta for looking this over for me. Feedback of any variety is very much appreciated but not compulsory – I'll post anyway! I've suffered for my art, now it's your turn....
Am claiming this for the![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
100_situations fanfiction challenge, prompt "Light".
It all comes to silence at last, all things to less than dust.
There is an awareness of pressure – not collapse but contraction – as time and space and existence, all that is and was and ever could be, draws in towards a single fixed point, the ancient and godless universe finally seeking its centre.
The seed in the pearl. The irritant become jewel.
The very kernel of creation.
He... is. He exists. Other details have long since become irrelevant. Time has no great meaning to him, his existence become a drifting dream of memory, of experience, of fable and faith, of more truths than a single mind was ever meant to hold. He is older now than the universe itself, time merely another dimension as it wraps itself around him – forward and back, up and down, the familiar plaything of a life barely lived in the linear. He is a fact as immutable as gravity here at the end of all things: a constant, a key, a singular impossibility that holds no purpose but to be –
And to be alone, now. Time holds no meaning but he feels them pass, the last of them – the gaseous mathematicians of Telsharn; the gentle hiveminds of the Rudarni Gap; the energy sharks of the dark matter reefs; the fierce and fragile and frightened monstrosities to whose basal species he might once have belonged. Gone. All gone. All life and energy and matter converging, the dimensions folding inwards onto him, always onto him....
The universe folds. He plays on.
Time fades and fragments, temporal shards forming around him, a tightening maelstrom that he cannot escape. He accepts its embrace and he waits, waits with infinite patience, waits for the one experience, the only experience, that he has never fully known....
It does not come.
The universe twists, ends, the contraction complete –
– doesnotcomedoesnotcomedoesnotcomedoesnotcomedoesnot –
He examines this closely, finally understanding, and considers his choice.
For a long time-not-time caught in dark-not-dark – a moment and millennia, an instant and eternity – he rests, truly rests. And then....
Then there is LIGHT.
~ fin ~
Author: Aeshna
Fandom: Doctor Who
Rating: PG
Word count: 366
Characters: Jack Harkness
Summary: The universe folds. He plays on.
Spoilers: Maybe vague for 3(29)x11 Utopia and x13 The Last of the Timelords, if you squint a bit.
Disclaimer: Not mine, no matter how many DVDs and toys I buy! Everything here belongs to RTD and to Auntie Beeb, who already has my licence fee.
Archive: Sure, whoever wants it – just let me know where it ends up!
Notes: Something short that has been nagging at the back of my brain for a couple of weeks, based on the explanation of Jack's immortality in Utopia and that line about how he could still be out there somewhere. So, if Jack is a fixed point in space-time, what does that actually mean for him in the (very) long term?
(For the record, I'm not really getting the thrashing fuss over what sounded like a throwaway line in the last episode of DW s3, given that they'd stated the fixed and permanent nature of Jack's immortality quite clearly on several occasions. And that's the more interesting interpretation for me as viewer and writer, so.... :))
Many thanks to
mimarie and jwaneeta for looking this over for me. Feedback of any variety is very much appreciated but not compulsory – I'll post anyway! I've suffered for my art, now it's your turn....Am claiming this for the
100_situations fanfiction challenge, prompt "Light".It all comes to silence at last, all things to less than dust.
There is an awareness of pressure – not collapse but contraction – as time and space and existence, all that is and was and ever could be, draws in towards a single fixed point, the ancient and godless universe finally seeking its centre.
The seed in the pearl. The irritant become jewel.
The very kernel of creation.
He... is. He exists. Other details have long since become irrelevant. Time has no great meaning to him, his existence become a drifting dream of memory, of experience, of fable and faith, of more truths than a single mind was ever meant to hold. He is older now than the universe itself, time merely another dimension as it wraps itself around him – forward and back, up and down, the familiar plaything of a life barely lived in the linear. He is a fact as immutable as gravity here at the end of all things: a constant, a key, a singular impossibility that holds no purpose but to be –
And to be alone, now. Time holds no meaning but he feels them pass, the last of them – the gaseous mathematicians of Telsharn; the gentle hiveminds of the Rudarni Gap; the energy sharks of the dark matter reefs; the fierce and fragile and frightened monstrosities to whose basal species he might once have belonged. Gone. All gone. All life and energy and matter converging, the dimensions folding inwards onto him, always onto him....
The universe folds. He plays on.
Time fades and fragments, temporal shards forming around him, a tightening maelstrom that he cannot escape. He accepts its embrace and he waits, waits with infinite patience, waits for the one experience, the only experience, that he has never fully known....
It does not come.
- Does not come....
The universe twists, ends, the contraction complete –
- – all of time and creation is held within him –
- – shot through him –
- – wrapped around him like a lover –
He examines this closely, finally understanding, and considers his choice.
For a long time-not-time caught in dark-not-dark – a moment and millennia, an instant and eternity – he rests, truly rests. And then....
Then there is LIGHT.
~ fin ~
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Or be reborn in a squaling child. Didn't Einstein say that all time is simultaneous?
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Glad you enjoyed it! :)
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Excellent. Love the end.
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It is excellent example to happen. It feel like the rebirth of the universe.
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Perfect.
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Glad you enjoyed the fic!
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The fixed point thing was what really jumped out for me. Jack is a fact, a constant, and that's fascinating to explore, not least because of the knee-jerk reaction that more temporally aware species seem to have to him. Lots to play with there!
Gorgeous imagery and the language really conveys the sense of timelessness. Just beautiful.
Thank you - that timelessness is pretty much what I was aiming for. :) I do seem to have two different writing styles going on - I'm usually content to putter along in third-person past tense, but every once in a while one of these will want to come out.... Glad you enjoyed it! :)
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In my mind, it was a rather horrific thought, but you've made it happy, and I love that.
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Thank you for the comment - I'm glad I managed to make it happy for you! :)
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(I was wondering if anybody was going to notice my poncy spacing at the end there.... ;))
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God, I do rattle on. I'll have to work on expressing myself more briefly.
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I'm not going to FoB route because a) the "fixed-point" explanation is much more interesting, presented far more convincingly, and has far more scope for storytelling, b) the FoB always looked so bloody helpless and miserable, but mostly c) I've had experience of people close to me becoming permanently (if, mercifully, briefly) bedridden and there's nothing quite like having to deal with the physical and emotional realities of that to really make you not want to visit it on anyone you actually like.
On the immortality!angst front, I think that what was getting Jack down was the lack of understanding of what had happened to him. He needed answers and, now that he has them, he can get on with restructuring his life with a more positive outlook. It's about acceptance and looking forward rather than back. And if any character should be able to deal with that, it's Jack! Yes, people die... but they're also born and there will always be others for him to connect with. He'll live and love and move on and maybe forget the details in time, but I strongly doubt that he'll ever be truly alone unless he wants to be.
Glad you enjoyed the fic. :)
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Very interesting to see a different point of view expressed for a change.
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I'm rather surprised, if I understand you correctly, that you found my opinion that people choose their levels of loneliness unusual. In some of my circles, it's not that uncommon.
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I can only reiterate my surprise that you haven't encountered the idea that people choose their level of loneliness before, as to me it's a commen, even a widely-held idea. It occurs to me to wonder have you encountered the somewhat associated idea that people choose their level of happiness as well?
Would you care to friend to discuss this further?
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It's certainly an idea that I've come across before. Loneliness is a state of mind as much as anything else and company can always be sought out; plus, some people are simply more comfortable with their own company than others, while some can be lonely in a crowd. Jack, I think, is someone who enjoys the company of others but has always had transient relationships (of whatever sort): he's a soldier and a time traveller - one way or the other - always leaving people behind. This isn't entirely new for him and he's certainly capable of being self-sufficient.
I think that for Jack, what had bugged him is that he hasn't known what happened and what his situation was. He didn't know the details, the reasons, the limitations, if it was permanent or about to all come crashing around his ears, if it was accidental or done for a reason. He was always waiting for the other shoe to drop. He's now got his answers and he's a free agent, his immortality his to do with as he pleases (and I find it very positive that his choice there is to return to his mortal friends rather than hang around with the Doctor). He's a practical guy - I don't think he'll see it as a curse so much as a situation to be adapted to and dealt with with more understanding than was possible before. And now that his life is effectively his own again, I think he'll open up more emotionally to others - yes, he'll lose them, but he understands what he is now and I think that'll make him more inclined to enjoy them while they're there.
Which is a long-winded way of saying that I don't think Jack will find his immortality all that lonely, simply because I don't think he'll let himself get that way. :) He'll form deeper attchments than the Doctor does, he'll enjoy them for what they are and mourn them when they're gone... but there'll always be others. I really don't think this is his first TW team we're seeing and he'll have loved and lost all those before them (that's a big staff morgue!), and he'll love and lose all those who follow. But, whether at TW or elsewhere, there will always be more to follow so long as Jack has any say in the matter. :)
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(even if, according the DW, humans are a constant. Bollocks, say I - other than Jack, they'll have been engineered, re-engineered, back-engineered, and just generally reinvented. I doubt there'd be much genetic similarity between me and Cassandra after 5 billion years (c'mon, that's older than the Earth is now!) and considerably less similarity by the time we get to the Toclafane.... ;))
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(I know, I'm two years late, but I just read it for the first time.)
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Glad you enjoyed it! :D