| Date: 18 December 2007
Characters: Professor Yana, Jack Harkness Location: hotel hallway, hotel dining room, hotel room Link to IJ: thread #13930 |
 The Professor stepped into the storage room in search of more cables, his mind about four steps along in the list of everything that would need to be done before the rocket could launch, andâ... found himself in a corridor. A very unfamiliar one. He stopped, turned around and blinked at the door behind him. It led to an empty closet. He walked into it, touching the very solid walls as if that would make them make sense.
He stepped back out into the corridor. Still there. Looked back. Still a closet. Apparently made of wood, as if the situation wasn't strange enough. He looked both ways down the corridor and then around at the other doors, and stood there a moment, trying to decide whether to walk down the hall or start trying doors. Or yell for Chantho, because maybe he'd just lost his mind. |
 He was just walking down the hall when he saw an older gentleman in very old fashioned clothes looking very lost. Very lost and looking warily at a closet, which was more than enough of a clue for him to guess what had happened, and all right laughing would have been mean but there was something so endearing that he couldn't keep the smile entirely off his face.
He stopped a few feet away, hands in his pockets. "Hey. You all right, there?" |
| The Professor turned, and smiled. "Jack! Just the man I wanted to see."
He gestured at the closet and back at Jack, and then seemed to give up on trying to explain and said, "I don't know what's going on, but how do we get back?" |
| He stepped back. "Wait, wait, wait, hold on." He held his own hands up. "Who are you and where's back?" |
| He looked at Jack quizzically. "Captain? Are you all right? Back to the lab so we can get ready to launch the rocket." |
| "Back to the lab so we can relaunch the rocket," he echoed, very slowly. He looked back toward the closet and tried to deal with what he could. "I think that might be a problem." |
| "I'm...starting to get that impression. We're a long way from Malcassario, aren't we? And you're not Jack. You look just like him, though. I'm Professor Yana, by the way, excuse my manners." He extended his hand to Jack. |
| He took the hand. "I'm honored to meet you Professor Yana," he said gently, his grip warm and firm. "And I am Jack, but thanks to a ...glitch, I suppose you could say, I haven't met you yet. If you'll come with me, I think we can find somewhere comfortable to talk, and I'll get you something warm to drink."
He was protective. He was wary, too, but an old guy in old fashioned clothes who was acting lost pinged every 'hero' instinct Jack had. |
| The Professor hesitated a little. "I really need to get back, but, well, obviously it's not going to be through there," he nodded at the closet. "And I have a feeling this explanation might take a while, so, yes, somewhere comfortable and something warm to drink sounds very good, thank you." |
| "Don't worry, when you get back I promise it'll be when you need to be." He released the Professor's hand, but put his hand on his shoulder to lead the way. "Do you know much about time? Relativity, maybe?" |
| The professor chuckled a little. "I know more about time than I want to. About the end of it, anyway. But yes, I still remember some of what I learned about relativity." |
| "The end of it?" he asked, curiously, but he didn't stop and didn't dwell, because an answer here wasn't something he was entirely sure he wanted. "Good. You've slipped through time. This isn't any particular where or when. Apparently we'll be able to get back when we can get back, and until then," he shrugged. "Well, the coffee's not bad." |
| "So not just back in time, but outside of time somehow? And you're Jack, just from sometime in his past? Not too far back, from the looks of you." He was getting his bearings a bit now.
"If the coffee's better than the last cup I drank, I'll be happy, and that wouldn't be difficult." |
| "Sounds like you've got it," he said, with a quick grin. "And not too far back might be relative, but we'll leave it at that for now. " He held a door open for the Professor to step through.
"The coffee's not great where you're from?" |
| He stepped through the door, and grinned back at Jack. "That's an understatement. So, where--or maybe I should say when--are you from?" |
| "It's a long complicated story, but the short answer is twentieth century Wales. The longer answer is. Longer." He ushered the Professor down a short hallway and through another door, to the dining room. |
| "So how in the world did you get from--never mind. Coffee first, things that are going to make my head spin later," he decided. |
| "Coffee first, head spinning can wait for later," he agreed, and pulled a chair out for the Professor. "Wait there," he said, casually, and wandered off to get them coffee. |
| The professor sat down, and tried to stop feeling like there was something he was supposed to be doing. He settled for watching Jack instead, and looking around the room. |
| Jack came back with two cups of coffee and put one down in front of the Professor before he took the seat opposite him. "I don't know how you take it," he apologized. "I hope black will do, but there's cream and sugar over there, if you want it." |
| "Black is just fine, thank you." He held the cup with both hands, warming them. "Certainly smells better than the last cup I had. Can't remember the last time I actually drank it while it was hot, either." He really intended to stop asking questions every two minutes, but one more slipped out, "Jack, what's this place for, do you know? |
| "Sounds like you've had a rough time of it lately," Jack said, very carefully. He shook his head in response to the question, though he waited until he'd had a drink of coffee to try to answer. "I don't know," he admitted. "There are a couple of people here who seem to know more than I do, but they're people I feel the need to be cautious of, for now. What were you saying about a rocket?" |
| "It's just been busy. The time that I'm from is very near the end of the universe, and we've -- my friend Chantho and I -- have been trying to build a propulsion system for a rocket to take the last humans on Malcassario to...well, a place they're calling Utopia. There's been a very strong transmission coming from there for years, but I don't know anybody who's been there. But Malcassario isn't going to be habitable for much longer, and it seems like the best chance there is.
The problem was, we couldn't get the propulsion system to work. Until the Doctor showed up today. He made it look easy." The Professor shook his head. "Fixed it just like that." |
| He blinked, repeatedly. Any effort at hiding his own confusion and conflicting thoughts would have been pointless, especially since he was so stuck on trying to untangle all the layers of meaning and potential meaning in that statement.
"The end of the. Wait, the Doctor? What'd the Doctor look like?" |
| "Well, he had brown hair and brown eyes, tall, skinny, bounced around a lot. Do you know him? Or do you know him yet, I should say." |
| He shook his head. "Not that one," he answered, and filed the information. "But it is so good to know that I will." |
| "Not that one? Is it a title, something like that? And yes, you definitely know him. You and him and um, Martha, that's her name, and your blue box showed up on our doorstep today. You know, I have no idea why. But I'm glad you did. That rocket might actually get launched after all." |
| He shook his head. "It's not a title, it's a name but it's a complicated situation and I'm not sure I know how to explain. I do know that if the Doctor's there in the TARDIS - the blue box - that your Rocket is as good as launched, already." |
| "I don't doubt that." The Professor remembered his coffee and drank some of it. "Oh. This is good." He frowned, 'I think he must've told me what the box is called..." He trailed off for a second, then shrugged it off. "Your friend may be brilliant with machines, but he tells terribly bad lies." He grinned and took another sip of coffee. |
| He laughed, because he couldn't not. "What kind of lies was he telling this time?" |
| "His excuse for not knowing about Utopia was some nonsense about being a hermit. With friends. Who he meets up with every ten years to talk about caves. To be fair, though, I suppose the truth would've been a little hard to explain." |
| "That he's a time traveling alien with commitment phobia? Yeah, that would be hard to explain, wouldn't it?" |
| He laughed. "I think so. Well, the alien part was obvious enough, what with the hand in the jar and all." He waved his hand. "Listen to me rattle on, sorry. It's just been a strange day." |
| "I still had the hand in a jar?" He asked, and oh yes he was poking and prying and he was the one engaged and curious now. "How old are you?" |
| "You had the hand in a jar, yes. In your bag, much to Martha's consternation." He has to think about how old he is. "I'm sixty-eight..ish. I may have lost count at some point. You get to a certain age and it doesn't matter, a year or so either way." |
| "Oh, how well I know that." He propped his elbows up on the table, fingers folded and chin resting on them. "So, end of the universe, and you're making a rocket with the Doctor to go to Utopia and save... everything that's left." |
| "Oh, just wait," he said, "It gets harder to keep track." He finished his coffee, and then said, "Yes, that's pretty much how things were going. Is that what he does? Travel around and fix things? Is that what you did, with the Doctor you knew?" |
| "Does it? I had no idea," he grinned, behind his cup. Then he sat it down, fingers curled around. "That's exactly what he does. With an insane grin." |
| He chuckled. "The grin's the same, I think." |
| "I'm not sure I can imagine him with any other kind of grin," he admitted. "Drink your coffee before it gets cold," he reminded, gently. |
| "You sound like Chantho," he said, sounding amused. But he drank his coffee.
"How long have you been here? If that question even makes sense here." He rubbed his eyes. |
| "Who's Chantho?" he asked, still watching the Professor. He was a link to the future, to the Doctor, and to knowing that he was going to get there. Back to saving the world, in time, with the Doctor.
"A few days, I think. You look tired. Do you want me to help you find a room?" |
| "Chantho is my assistant, and my very good friend." he grinned, suddenly. "She liked you. Will like you. I feel like I need a whole new vocabulary for this."
"It has been kind of a long day, and if you wouldn't mind terribly, that would be very kind of you." |
| "Everyone likes me," He said, with less arrogance than that statement could have had, but not by much and only because it was warm.
He stood up, pushed ihs chair back in and held his hand out for the Professor. |
| "Evidently," the Professor said with a wry grin, and stood and pushed his own chair in. He took Jack's hand as easily as he had taken the Doctor's earlier in the day, when it had been him doing the leading. |
| He kept a grip on the Professor's hand and led him back into the hotel. "If you need anything, " he said as he walked. "There are a lot of nice people around. Try to be careful about it, though." |
| "Captain," he said, sounding amused, "Are you telling me not to take candy from strangers?" |
| He thought about it, lifted his eyebrows and made an indecisive sound. "Yeah, that's about it," he agreed, with another grin. |
| "I'll bear that in mind," he said, tongue-in-cheek. Then, more seriously, "Anyone specific I should be aware of?" |
| "Be aware that there's another me here, and keep an eye on anyone wearing a suit and tie. Seriously, just be cautious and you'll be fine." He tested one of the doors found the room empty. "You think this will do?" |
| "Another you? From your past, or--" he trailed off, not knowing how to finish that sentence and trying to figure out how to turn the lights on instead. |
| "Another me, from my past," he agreed. He stepped in behind the Professor, and found the switch and flipped it. "There you go." |
| "This will do very nicely," he said, looking around. "Thank you very much, Captain, for taking care of a lost old man. Above and beyond the call of duty, I think." |
| He grinned, eyes crinkling at the corners and warm. "My pleasure, Professor Yana. Sleep well, and if you find you need anything, from one old man to another, let me know." |
| He smiled back, gentle and sincere. "It was very nice to meet you, Captain Jack Harkness--both of you." |
| "Sleep well, Professor." He half bowed before he backed out of the room and shut the door. |