Fic: Paradox - Part 1of 2
Author’s Notes: My thanks to amand_r for doing all the work of hosting the challenge, as well as her patience with my slowness and her most excellent beta assistance, and my gratitude to unovis_lj for sparking the whole idea of a time paradox between these two universes. It didn’t play out exactly like we discussed, but that’s the way the timeline crumbles, as a certain Time Lord might say.
Summary: Methos is taken prisoner by a mysterious stranger from his past... or is it his future?
Paradox
By MacGeorge
“Okay, take the next right,” Toshiko’s clipped voice instructed.
Ianto yanked the wheel to the right at the next corner and Owen, Gwen and Jack hung on as tires on the big, black SUV squealed in protest. They jerked to a stop at an opening to a construction site. In seconds they had all spilled out of the car, their flashlights playing over and around the area in a search for anything unusual.
“I think the energy surge must’ve blown out the lights,” Gwen observed, automatically lowering her voice to a near whisper in the eerie, dark silence.
“Ya think?” Owen groused sarcastically.
“The lock on this gate is sheared clean through,” Gwen announced. “Whoever, or whatever we’re after went through here.”
“Be careful!” Jack admonished, his torch sweeping the nearby area. “There’s junk everywhere! Tosh, where to now?” Jack snapped into his comm unit.
“My reading isn’t exact, but I think the center of the surge was Northeast of your location,” Toshiko answered. “About 10 o’clock, 100 feet.”
The three of them pushed through the broken gate and picked their way through piles of construction equipment and anonymous debris, into a half-finished high rise. The unexplained energy reading had set off a cacophony of alarms in Torchwood Headquarters only minutes before and they had been out the door and into the streets in near-record time, but other than the broken gate, there was no obvious evidence of anything unusual here.
“Hold up,” Jack ordered to his three companions. “And turn off those flashlights!” The space was suddenly very dark and full of ominous shadows. “Any more readings?” Jack asked Toshika softly.
“Nothing in the past seven minutes,” she answered. “It’s dead quiet.”
“I’ll go in first,” Jack instructed, generating a muttered curse from Owen and an angry scowl from Gwen, who started to object but stopped herself at Jack’s warning raised hand.
Jack eyes were quickly adjusting to the dark. He could see skeletal ribs of reinforcing rebar jutting out from recently poured concrete pilings and large stacks of stored sheet rock and other materials, making the area a dangerous obstacle course at night and providing ideal hiding places for anyone - or anything - that might be trying to avoid detection. He worked his way into an open area of what would eventually be a car park, finally spotting what looked like a figure, crumpled and still, on the floor - except that something about it looked distinctly off. An alien using unknown technology? That would account for the strange energy reading. He warily moved closer, observing what appeared to be legs and a torso, but he had learned never to assume anything. He looked around, but other than the unmoving figure on the ground, he saw and heard nothing out of the ordinary. He squatted by the body, finally daring to turn on his flashlight, and his stomach lurched. Even after his decades of war and death and alien oddities, the sight of a decapitated body had the power to make him ill.
The head had rolled a few feet away, its dark brown eyes still open, staring at him accusingly. He stood, moving his circle of light in a search pattern until he spotted something else unexpected a few feet away. He knelt, inspecting it more closely and felt Gwen come up behind him.
“I told you to stay back.”
“No you didn’t,” she answered stubbornly. “You said to let you go in first. I did. What is that?” she asked in surprise, kneeling beside him and turning her own light on the long, shiny object.
“Looks like a sword,” Jack noted, nudging it carefully with his flashlight, “but you never can tell.”
Owen knelt by the body, inspecting it curiously. “Bloody hell,” he muttered. “Clean cut, though,” he noted, playing his light on the stump of the neck, then examining a number of bloody slashes in the body’s clothes. “Someone - or something, did a number on the guy.”
Gwen stared at the mutilated body in macabre fascination. “Uh,” she finally hiccupped an uneven breath and tore her eyes away, playing her light around the area. “Well, it seems whatever did this didn’t stick around to… oh, shit.”
Jack looked where her light was shining and froze, his eyes narrowing as inspected what her light had revealed in a deep shadow of a nearby pillar. “Interesting,” he observed softly. It was a man standing - or not standing exactly, since he also appeared to be dead, but pinned in a standing position up against the pillar by a point of rebar stuck straight through his chest. Most interesting, however, was that a second sword lay on the ground by his right hand. Jack moved closer. The first body had had numerous slash marks on it, clear evidence of a fierce battle. But this guy was uninjured except for the rebar stuck through him like an insect on a pin.
Owen opened the gap of the dead man’s coat, examining the blood-soaked sweater where it appeared the iron spear had run straight through his heart. “Well, that’ll certainly kill a bloke,” he observed. “Here, help me get ‘im off,” Owen instructed, moving up under the dead man’s arm and lifting. Jack grabbed the other arm, and together they pulled the body off the rebar and let it down onto the ground.
Jack searched the second corpse, finding a large caliber handgun in one pocket and a switchblade in another, in addition to the formidable broadsword that lay nearby. “Looks like he was a paranoid bastard, but there doesn’t seem to be any evidence of alien artifacts.” He finally found a wallet and opened it. “Adam Pierson,” he read from a license. “Here’s a card, but it just gives a London post office box. Tosh, see what you can…”
The corpse coughed and gasped, his eyes snapping open.
“What the fuck?” Owen whispered and knelt, quickly ripping open the bloodied sweater front. “He’s alive! Gwen, get my medical kit from the car!”
“Wait!” Jack ordered.
“Wait?” Owen snarled. “If I don’t stop the bleeding, he’ll be gone in seconds… I need…”
“I said wait! Look!”
Jack held open the torn fabric, and they watched the gaping, bloody wound disappear in a miniature shower of tiny blue sparks, leaving behind smooth, unblemished flesh. All of them were stunned into momentary silence as Jack met the equally surprised, fully conscious stare of a youngish man with a sharp-edged face and impressive nose.
Could it be? Surely not. The hand should have warned him if the Tardis had arrived. But in Jack’s strange world, coincidences took on a whole new universe of meaning.
The man blinked, examining Jack with narrow-eyed intensity. “Jack Harkness?” the man asked, cocking his head. “What the hell?”
“Doctor?” Jack whispered, leaning close. “My God, did you regenerate to a new body? Was that what that energy reading was?”
“Uh, regenerate?” the former corpse asked, looking confused, then he gazed down at his still-bloody chest. “Oh, that. This isn’t my blood,” he rushed to explain, grabbing at his sweater and wrapping it closed. “I was just passing by and heard something in here, like someone was calling for help, and…”
“Bullshit,” Owen inserted. “You were dead!” Owen looked suspiciously at Jack. “You know this guy?”
“No!”
“Yes!”
The two men had spoken simultaneously, and they shared a long look. “I thought you were someone else,” Pierson rushed to explain. “You look like someone I met a long time ago but you couldn’t possibly… I was still feeling a little confused, after all. Whoever knocked me out…”
“But…” Now Jack truly was confused. “If you’re not the Doctor…”
“I don’t know what the hell you people are talking about. I was just passing by, and…”
Jack’s fist hit the man square on the jaw, slamming his head onto the concrete. “Owen, sedate him!”
“Jack, what the fuck are you…”
“I said sedate him, now!”
Despite the expert blow, which should have at least dazed the former corpse, the strange man somehow managed to twist away and was on his feet and running so fast Jack barely had time to react, then it was a foot race through the dark, crowded, debris-ridden space. The man was fast, dodging around and over piles of equipment and supplies like a trained hurdler.
“Ianto!” Jack yelled into his comm unit as he tried to follow. “Subject headed your way. Stop him!” He didn’t have breath for any more words as he leapt over a pile of lumber, running pell-mell towards the gate where they had come in, his coat flapping behind him like wings. Gwen and Owen were behind him, making a terrible racket as they tried to follow. Then he heard a shout, turned a corner around a stack of sheetrock and skidded to a stop. Ianto was standing over the now-unconscious, unknown alien - one who inexplicably knew Jack’s name. Ianto was holding his bloodied flashlight like a club, and looked stricken at what he had done.
“He… he practically ran into me. I think I may have killed him!”
Owen and Gwen were gasping for breath as they reached the scene, and Owen knelt, feeling for a pulse. “No, he’s not dead, but you may have fractured his skull.”
“Sedate him,” Jack instructed.
Owen looked up at him with a frown. “Not with a skull fracture, Jack. It could kill him.”
“The guy just instantly healed from having a metal rod stuck through his chest, and you’re worried he’s going to die from a sedative?” Jack asked incredulously. “I said sedate him, and restrain him as well. Let’s get this guy back to Torchwood.”
~~~~~~~
Methos was having a Very Bad Day. Iilya Sedorsky, an asshole he had known over six hundred years ago somewhere in Eastern Europe, had found him at a Cardiff conference on recent archeological finds in the British Isles. When it became clear Sedorsky would not go away, the two men found a deserted spot for a confrontation. The guy had never been a particularly good swordsman, but he had evidently thought Methos even less of one - an impression Methos had gone out of his way to project all those centuries ago - until Methos had Iilya locked up in a Romanian prison for the rape and murder of several young women - so the man’s long-standing ire was somewhat understandable.
The fight was over quickly, but the Quickening had thrown him forcibly backwards, skewering him on a pole of rebar jutting out from a concrete column. And then… Methos made himself lie as still as possible, feigning unconsciousness as he sorted events out in a mind somewhat befuddled by a Quickening, death and injury and drugs.
He had seen someone out of his past. It had seemed so real, but it was just not possible. The man’s personal energy felt odd, but he was certainly not an Immortal. Maybe a descendant? Captain Jack Harkness had been a quirky, appealing, quite memorable character he had met sometime in… when was that? The first half of the 20th Century? In London? Yeah, that was it - during the Blitz, as he recalled.
He carefully cracked open one eye, examining his surroundings through the blurry curtain of his eyelashes. He was in a medical theatre. Lots of bright lights and sterile surfaces. Damn. He really hated modern medicine with its machines and purported scientific certainty that left no room for the unexplained reanimation of the dead.
“He’s human,” a man stated unequivocally in a working-class English accent.
They had doubted he was human?
“No extra heart sounds?” That sounded just like Jack - the one in his memory. “This isn’t making any sense.”
“You expect something around here to make sense?” a woman’s voice asked in an amused, slightly irritated tone.
“I wasn’t able to find much info on your friend here,” a new, lighter woman’s voice joined the conversation. “There’s an Adam Pierson who teaches ancient cultures and languages at Oxford. Published a few articles, but his personal history isn’t in any database that I could find. A 1971 birth record in Wales, but family all deceased and no record of property ownership. A few credit cards with moderate balances, nothing that sticks out. Mostly purchases of personal items and books. Bought a round-trip train ticket to Cardiff from London three days ago, but the rest is pretty unrevealing.”
“That’s odd,” Jack observed as Methos carefully watched him through almost-closed eyes. “These days everyone’s history is in some electronic database somewhere.” The handsome man pressed his lips together in thought. “Well, my dear Mr. Pierson,” he said softly, leaning over Methos’ naked body, covered only in a light sheet after they had apparently stripped him of his clothes and done all manner of tests. “You are a pretty mystery, aren’t you?”
Methos’ memory came back in a rush of heat - the odd sense of energy, the long, lean body that smelled slightly spicy and foreign, the sensuous, talented lips… He gave up on trying to feign unconsciousness and opened his eyes, looking directly into the intriguing gaze of chronically mischievous, sea-blue eyes. Damn. He could swear it was the exact same face, the same expression, the same undercurrent of desire that fizzed through his veins - just as it had almost a century before.
Methos struggled to sustain a useful train of thought. “What… where the hell am I?” he asked, trying to project a careful mix of outrage, fear and confusion.
“Tell me, Mr. Pierson,” Jack asked. “What earthly use do you have for such a very, large, sharp… sword, when you’ve got a whole set of more modern weapons in your pockets?” He picked up the weapon in question from a nearby steel table, holding it in front of him and letting the glare of the harsh fluorescent light play across its surface - a surface still stained with Sedorsky’s blood. “Do you like playing with swords?” he asked, hitching one hip onto the examination table. The question seemed potent with meaning as Methos’ memory provided an explicit and vivid image of Jack’s sweaty, naked body under him, heaving and gasping and….
“I… I’m an historian,” Methos determinedly interrupted his own errant thoughts. “I carry them as examples. There’s a conference in town. You can check. Now, either charge me or let me go,” he added, molding his features into stubborn determination - a MacLeod moment to be sure. Oh, shit! That thought reminded him that he was supposed to meet Mac in London in only a few hours, and if he didn’t show, who knew what havoc the man would wreck? Given the circumstances, he was uncertain whether that was a good or a bad thing. One more reason to figure out what the hell was going on, and quickly.
“Sorry,” Jack responded, not sounding sorry at all. “But we aren’t required to charge you, so the sooner you tell us exactly who - or what - you are, the sooner we can decide what to do with you. So,” he continued, and this time the amusement in his eyes faded to a cold, calculating assessment, “what’s your real name, and what do you have against,” he checked an ID card in his hand, “Boris Vildofsky?”
Methos went very still. If this group was some extra-legal group, this whole business could get very ugly, indeed. Maybe MacLeod coming to the rescue - usually something he tried to avoid - might not be such a bad idea after all.
“Who the hell are you people, anyway?” Methos asked defensively, not really expecting any kind of informative answer, but he was surprised when Jack stood, carefully putting the sword on a table before he turned, meeting Methos’ eyes easily.
“We are called the Torchwood Institute, and we have absolute authority over anyone or anything that we declare jurisdiction over, which is anything and everything we choose, but mostly alien life forms, artifacts, events…” Jack shrugged, and stepped closer. “And you, my friend, have given us more than ample cause to investigate you. A fight with swords? A beheading? Bizarre energy readings?” Jack leaned his hands on the exam table, looking deeply into Methos’ eyes. “And that coming back from the dead trick? Impressive.”
Torchwood. That sure as hell rang a bell.
“Ah,” Jack smiled. “You’ve heard of us. Why am I not surprised?”
“I’m a researcher,” Methos snarled. “Of course I’ve heard of you. But I don’t even know a Boris… whoever you said and whatever you think happened tonight, it has absolutely nothing to do with aliens, for God’s sake!”
“Then exactly what does it have to do with?” Jack asked softly, leaning in.
Methos just looked at him in silence. Jack blinked and took a long, slow breath, then backed off.
“Give him his clothes and put him in an unmonitored cell.”
“But…” the dark-haired young woman who had been standing as silent witness started, then she went silent as Jack tossed her a hard look and left the room.
~~~~~~
Their version of an “unmonitored cell” was pretty grim, Methos decided. More cave than prison cell, it had minimal comforts of sleeping platform and toilet and little else, but he’d been in worse - a lot worse. He sat quietly on the bench in a meditation position, keeping his mind clear of extraneous thoughts. He was sure events had now been set into motion that would lead almost inevitably to violence - potentially to someone’s death, but fretting about what MacLeod or the Watchers might be doing was pointless. It was a shame. He remembered really liking Jack Harkness, and if this version was similar, he would hate to see him die. He had absolutely no explanation for the truly remarkable resemblance to someone he had known briefly so long ago. Only time would reveal if there was any connection, and he had always had lots and lots of time.
There was a mechanical buzz, and the heavy, transparent sheeting that covered what constituted a door slid back and Jack sauntered in. The heavy military-style coat was off and he was dressed dapperly in an open-collared shirt, pleat-front pants with suspenders instead of a belt. A little old fashioned perhaps, but quite appealing, overall. The door slid closed and he leaned up against the wall, his hands in his pockets, and just gazed at him for a minute, then cleared his throat.
Methos waited.
“You’re a patient man,” Jack observed. “You’ve hardly moved since we put you in here. No pacing, no demanding your freedom, just sitting quietly, waiting.” He changed his stance a little and crossed his arms. “That’s the kind of patience rarely seen in such a young man, and all the evidence suggests to me that, despite appearances, you, Adam Pierson, are not a young man.” He pushed away from the wall and approached the bench where Methos was sitting in a lotus position and reached out, touching Methos’ cheek in an almost tender gesture. “No,” he said softly. “Not young at all.”
Methos looked up and met those remarkable, discerning eyes. “Appearances can be deceiving.” He cocked his head with a small smile. “And you? Are you what you appear to be, Jack?”
Jack’s brow furrowed. “And that’s another thing. How the hell do you know my name?”
Methos shrugged. “A long time ago I met someone named Jack who looked and acted very, very much like you. A relative, perhaps?”
Jack turned suddenly and paced away, then back again. “All right, let’s cut the crap, Pierson. You healed from a mortal injury, you talk about meeting me a long time ago, what exactly are you? Tests show you as human, but tests have been known to be wrong.”
Methos took a breath to speak, but Jack stopped him with a raised hand.
“And in my travels, I’ve learned that no one is exactly what they seem, so whatever weird or shocking secret you think you’ve got, trust me, I’ve heard weirder and more shocking. But,” he leaned a little closer, “I truly need to know… are you…” he stopped and swallowed. “Are you immortal?”
Methos contemplated the plethora of answers he could offer to that question - denial, derision, ignorance, confusion, outrage - but considering his circumstances, and that sometimes the truth could be the most effective offence - especially since the other choices would present their own set of problems - he simply answered, “Yes.”
Jack’s sharp cheekbones flushed pink, then faded and he staggered back a little, bumped against the wall and sank down, finally sitting on the floor with his hands around his knees. “Fuck,” he whispered. “And all this time I thought I was …,” his head snapped up. “Are there more of you. More like you?”
Methos nodded slowly. “And what that means, Jack, is that if you continue to hold me, there will be people coming after you, coming after this institute, it’s staff, it’s very existence. People of enormous power. Violent, determined warriors with unlimited resources and hundreds of years of wisdom and experience, who cannot be killed.” He unfolded his legs and stood over the obviously shaken man. “It is in your own interest and the interest of your organization to free me, and to forget you ever knew me.”
“But,” Jack surged to his feet. “I’m immortal, too! I’m one of you! I need to meet them, to talk to them, to understand…” but his protest faded at the look on Methos’ face.
“No,” Methos stated firmly. “I’m sorry, Jack. I don’t know what you are, but you’re not one of us. And trust me, you don’t want to be one of us… to know us.”
“But how do you know?” Jack insisted in irritation. “I can’t die! I’ve been burned and… and shot, and radiated and beaten and had my life force sucked up by a demon straight from the pits of hell, and I’m still alive! Damn it, I truly thought I was the only one. Not even the Doctor is like me.”
“The Doctor?” Methos asked.
Jack shook his head in frustration. “It’s a long story, but how do you know we’re not the same?”
“Because we can sense each other, Jack. I know when another of my kind is around. We can feel the special energy that keeps us alive, and I don’t feel that from you. I think I feel… something… some odd difference, but it’s not the same, and for that you should be very, very glad.”
“Glad!? Damn it, why? For the first time I’ve found someone who knows what this is like, who realizes that dying and living again isn’t some kind of… of gift!” Jack spun around and slammed his fist into the wall and Methos could hear the snap of bones and the tear of flesh as he left a bloody streak behind. Jack cringed, grabbing his wrist and Methos circled around him, taking the injured hand and watching as misaligned bones moved and torn flesh mended. In seconds there was no trace of anything wrong other than a smear of blood.
“Well, well, well,” Methos said softly in surprise. “Look at that.”
“I didn’t want this!” Jack hissed.
“Trust me, Jack,” Methos said softly. “If being Immortal has taught me anything it’s that it is a gift, but it is also a great curse, one that you have to learn to live with, or you will die, in here.” He touched Jack’s chest.
Jack shook his head and staggered back to sit on the bench protruding from the wall. “I’m not sure that hasn’t already happened.”
“No, I don’t think so,” Methos chuckled, drawing a dark look. “You sound like a friend of mine. Yes, another Immortal,” he said in response to Jack’s questioning look. “He’s a man with a great, great heart, but it is because he cares so much that the helplessness of watching the people he loves die, and sometimes being part of that death, overwhelms him. But then,” Methos shrugged, “he’s a Scot, so it may be just because he’s a brooder by nature.”
“A Scot? You mean, he’s… like… born here?”
“In Scotland, over 400 years ago,” Methos answered with a shrug.
“Shit!” Jack rose. “That’s older than I am! I thought only the Doctor was…” Jack stopped himself, looking closely at Methos. “How old are you, exactly?”
“Who the hell is this Doctor you keep talking about? You think he’s Immortal, too? Sounds like someone I’d like to meet.”
“And I bet he’d like to meet you.” Jack’s face softened as he smiled. “Yes, I bet he would. I suppose calculating his age is a bit tricky given the whole time travel thing, but I think he’s around 900 or so. You know, you remind me of him. Maybe it’s the nose,” his voice trailed off.
“What about my nose?” Methos asked, feigning offence while he absorbed some of Jack’s more bizarre statements, the strange events of the past… hours? Days? He wasn’t sure… started to come into clearer focus. “Jack, did you say “time travel thing”?”
“Yeah,” Jack answered, seeming a little distracted. “It’s,” he waved a hand, “complicated.”
“Well, well, well,” Methos sighed. “Something new under the sun. And that would explain why I remember you, but you don’t remember me.”
“Meaning?”
“I assume you can travel forward as well as back in time?”
Jack frowned. “I don’t usually talk about…”
“Oh, come on, Jack, that’s the only explanation for my knowing you. My past is in a version of your future that doesn’t include a memory of our meeting now.”
Jack shook his head, looking up at him with a smile. “Does being old make you smarter, or am I just being particularly stupid?”
“Let’s just say that in the short run, experience teaches you that events and behavior are depressingly predictable, but in the long run - in the very long run - it teaches you to appreciate the nuances that constitute the new, the different, the unexpected. And you, my young friend, are very unexpected.”
“As are you.” Jack stood and moved close. “When I saw you come back to life, I felt like a door opened up, a whole world of possibilities I thought had been locked away the first time I revived. I want… I need to know I’m not alone, that I don’t have to… exist… through time. Alone.”
“What about your Doctor friend?” Adam asked in the same near-whisper. They were so close he could feel the man’s body heat.
Jack shook his head. “The Doctor’s… different. He’s the only one left of his kind and he feels responsible for that. He’s tortured by it and nothing I do or say has ever even touched that wall of isolation.” Jack looked deeply into Methos’ eyes. “I don’t want to be like that. I want,” Jack grasped his upper arms, moved closer and suddenly warm, supple lips moved over his and he was pushed against the wall, a hard thigh pressed between his legs. Methos’ arms rose in response and moved around Jack’s back, feeling the play of skin and muscle under the soft, fine cloth of his shirt.
“Jack,” Methos finally pulled away, “our lives are not like that. We are a violent people, and if some of my… compatriots… knew you were an Immortal, even a different kind of Immortal, it could be very dangerous for you and everyone around you.”
Jack chuckled. “How could it be dangerous? I can’t kill you, you can’t kill me.” He moved closer, their foreheads almost touching, but Methos put a hand on Jack’s chest, keeping at least a small distance.
“Yes, Jack. We heal and we don’t age, but… we can die, and legend has it that the last one of us left alive will have unlimited power, so…” he shrugged, knowing it sounded too bizarre to be true. “We cut off each other’s heads.”
Jack’s eyes narrowed and he gave Methos a puzzled, dubious look.
“The swords?” Methos prompted. “The headless body?”
“You go around cutting each other’s heads off? That’s… that’s just weird!” Jack turned and paced away, running his fingers through his hair in confusion. “Who would want to live forever as the last one of their own kind?”
“Didn’t you hear the part about unlimited power? Trust me, Immortality doesn’t automatically confer rational thinking or even moderate intelligence. And no matter how pointless and destructive I think it is, there are still those who would take my head unless I defend myself.”
Jack half-turned, looking back at Methos over his shoulder, his eyes dancing with mischief. “So you think one of your guys would cut my head off, just to see if they got any power from it?” he asked, then went on with a tight smile. “The sad thing is that I’m not sure even that would kill me. Can you see it? Spending eternity as a disembodied head?” The smile faded and small shiver ran across his shoulders.
“Jack.” Methos moved closer. “I tell you this so you understand that I’m of no value to you. That we’re not the same. That you really need let me go,” he advised softly. “Soon. Very soon, you’re going to have more trouble than you can…”
“Jack!” A woman’s voice barked over the intercom just as a blaring alarm sounded in the hallway. “Intruder alert! There’s someone in the access tunnel!”
“How the hell did anyone get in there?” Jack shouted.
“Shit! That tears it!” Methos grumbled and grabbed Jack’s arm as he tried to leave. “This is what I was warning you about! Somebody could get killed!”
“Jack,” a calmer male voice now spoke. “The Hub has been breached and I can’t reach Tosh.”
Jack looked curiously at Methos. “You think these are… Immortals, come to get you? I thought you people only killed each other.”
“Not all of us, and this particular one is known for daring rescues.”
Jack smiled. “Sounds like my kinda guy. This wouldn’t be your brooding Scot would it?” Methos shot him an irritated look. “Follow me.” He activated something on a wrist device and the door whooshed open.
continued in Part 2
Summary: Methos is taken prisoner by a mysterious stranger from his past... or is it his future?
Paradox
By MacGeorge
“Okay, take the next right,” Toshiko’s clipped voice instructed.
Ianto yanked the wheel to the right at the next corner and Owen, Gwen and Jack hung on as tires on the big, black SUV squealed in protest. They jerked to a stop at an opening to a construction site. In seconds they had all spilled out of the car, their flashlights playing over and around the area in a search for anything unusual.
“I think the energy surge must’ve blown out the lights,” Gwen observed, automatically lowering her voice to a near whisper in the eerie, dark silence.
“Ya think?” Owen groused sarcastically.
“The lock on this gate is sheared clean through,” Gwen announced. “Whoever, or whatever we’re after went through here.”
“Be careful!” Jack admonished, his torch sweeping the nearby area. “There’s junk everywhere! Tosh, where to now?” Jack snapped into his comm unit.
“My reading isn’t exact, but I think the center of the surge was Northeast of your location,” Toshiko answered. “About 10 o’clock, 100 feet.”
The three of them pushed through the broken gate and picked their way through piles of construction equipment and anonymous debris, into a half-finished high rise. The unexplained energy reading had set off a cacophony of alarms in Torchwood Headquarters only minutes before and they had been out the door and into the streets in near-record time, but other than the broken gate, there was no obvious evidence of anything unusual here.
“Hold up,” Jack ordered to his three companions. “And turn off those flashlights!” The space was suddenly very dark and full of ominous shadows. “Any more readings?” Jack asked Toshika softly.
“Nothing in the past seven minutes,” she answered. “It’s dead quiet.”
“I’ll go in first,” Jack instructed, generating a muttered curse from Owen and an angry scowl from Gwen, who started to object but stopped herself at Jack’s warning raised hand.
Jack eyes were quickly adjusting to the dark. He could see skeletal ribs of reinforcing rebar jutting out from recently poured concrete pilings and large stacks of stored sheet rock and other materials, making the area a dangerous obstacle course at night and providing ideal hiding places for anyone - or anything - that might be trying to avoid detection. He worked his way into an open area of what would eventually be a car park, finally spotting what looked like a figure, crumpled and still, on the floor - except that something about it looked distinctly off. An alien using unknown technology? That would account for the strange energy reading. He warily moved closer, observing what appeared to be legs and a torso, but he had learned never to assume anything. He looked around, but other than the unmoving figure on the ground, he saw and heard nothing out of the ordinary. He squatted by the body, finally daring to turn on his flashlight, and his stomach lurched. Even after his decades of war and death and alien oddities, the sight of a decapitated body had the power to make him ill.
The head had rolled a few feet away, its dark brown eyes still open, staring at him accusingly. He stood, moving his circle of light in a search pattern until he spotted something else unexpected a few feet away. He knelt, inspecting it more closely and felt Gwen come up behind him.
“I told you to stay back.”
“No you didn’t,” she answered stubbornly. “You said to let you go in first. I did. What is that?” she asked in surprise, kneeling beside him and turning her own light on the long, shiny object.
“Looks like a sword,” Jack noted, nudging it carefully with his flashlight, “but you never can tell.”
Owen knelt by the body, inspecting it curiously. “Bloody hell,” he muttered. “Clean cut, though,” he noted, playing his light on the stump of the neck, then examining a number of bloody slashes in the body’s clothes. “Someone - or something, did a number on the guy.”
Gwen stared at the mutilated body in macabre fascination. “Uh,” she finally hiccupped an uneven breath and tore her eyes away, playing her light around the area. “Well, it seems whatever did this didn’t stick around to… oh, shit.”
Jack looked where her light was shining and froze, his eyes narrowing as inspected what her light had revealed in a deep shadow of a nearby pillar. “Interesting,” he observed softly. It was a man standing - or not standing exactly, since he also appeared to be dead, but pinned in a standing position up against the pillar by a point of rebar stuck straight through his chest. Most interesting, however, was that a second sword lay on the ground by his right hand. Jack moved closer. The first body had had numerous slash marks on it, clear evidence of a fierce battle. But this guy was uninjured except for the rebar stuck through him like an insect on a pin.
Owen opened the gap of the dead man’s coat, examining the blood-soaked sweater where it appeared the iron spear had run straight through his heart. “Well, that’ll certainly kill a bloke,” he observed. “Here, help me get ‘im off,” Owen instructed, moving up under the dead man’s arm and lifting. Jack grabbed the other arm, and together they pulled the body off the rebar and let it down onto the ground.
Jack searched the second corpse, finding a large caliber handgun in one pocket and a switchblade in another, in addition to the formidable broadsword that lay nearby. “Looks like he was a paranoid bastard, but there doesn’t seem to be any evidence of alien artifacts.” He finally found a wallet and opened it. “Adam Pierson,” he read from a license. “Here’s a card, but it just gives a London post office box. Tosh, see what you can…”
The corpse coughed and gasped, his eyes snapping open.
“What the fuck?” Owen whispered and knelt, quickly ripping open the bloodied sweater front. “He’s alive! Gwen, get my medical kit from the car!”
“Wait!” Jack ordered.
“Wait?” Owen snarled. “If I don’t stop the bleeding, he’ll be gone in seconds… I need…”
“I said wait! Look!”
Jack held open the torn fabric, and they watched the gaping, bloody wound disappear in a miniature shower of tiny blue sparks, leaving behind smooth, unblemished flesh. All of them were stunned into momentary silence as Jack met the equally surprised, fully conscious stare of a youngish man with a sharp-edged face and impressive nose.
Could it be? Surely not. The hand should have warned him if the Tardis had arrived. But in Jack’s strange world, coincidences took on a whole new universe of meaning.
The man blinked, examining Jack with narrow-eyed intensity. “Jack Harkness?” the man asked, cocking his head. “What the hell?”
“Doctor?” Jack whispered, leaning close. “My God, did you regenerate to a new body? Was that what that energy reading was?”
“Uh, regenerate?” the former corpse asked, looking confused, then he gazed down at his still-bloody chest. “Oh, that. This isn’t my blood,” he rushed to explain, grabbing at his sweater and wrapping it closed. “I was just passing by and heard something in here, like someone was calling for help, and…”
“Bullshit,” Owen inserted. “You were dead!” Owen looked suspiciously at Jack. “You know this guy?”
“No!”
“Yes!”
The two men had spoken simultaneously, and they shared a long look. “I thought you were someone else,” Pierson rushed to explain. “You look like someone I met a long time ago but you couldn’t possibly… I was still feeling a little confused, after all. Whoever knocked me out…”
“But…” Now Jack truly was confused. “If you’re not the Doctor…”
“I don’t know what the hell you people are talking about. I was just passing by, and…”
Jack’s fist hit the man square on the jaw, slamming his head onto the concrete. “Owen, sedate him!”
“Jack, what the fuck are you…”
“I said sedate him, now!”
Despite the expert blow, which should have at least dazed the former corpse, the strange man somehow managed to twist away and was on his feet and running so fast Jack barely had time to react, then it was a foot race through the dark, crowded, debris-ridden space. The man was fast, dodging around and over piles of equipment and supplies like a trained hurdler.
“Ianto!” Jack yelled into his comm unit as he tried to follow. “Subject headed your way. Stop him!” He didn’t have breath for any more words as he leapt over a pile of lumber, running pell-mell towards the gate where they had come in, his coat flapping behind him like wings. Gwen and Owen were behind him, making a terrible racket as they tried to follow. Then he heard a shout, turned a corner around a stack of sheetrock and skidded to a stop. Ianto was standing over the now-unconscious, unknown alien - one who inexplicably knew Jack’s name. Ianto was holding his bloodied flashlight like a club, and looked stricken at what he had done.
“He… he practically ran into me. I think I may have killed him!”
Owen and Gwen were gasping for breath as they reached the scene, and Owen knelt, feeling for a pulse. “No, he’s not dead, but you may have fractured his skull.”
“Sedate him,” Jack instructed.
Owen looked up at him with a frown. “Not with a skull fracture, Jack. It could kill him.”
“The guy just instantly healed from having a metal rod stuck through his chest, and you’re worried he’s going to die from a sedative?” Jack asked incredulously. “I said sedate him, and restrain him as well. Let’s get this guy back to Torchwood.”
~~~~~~~
Methos was having a Very Bad Day. Iilya Sedorsky, an asshole he had known over six hundred years ago somewhere in Eastern Europe, had found him at a Cardiff conference on recent archeological finds in the British Isles. When it became clear Sedorsky would not go away, the two men found a deserted spot for a confrontation. The guy had never been a particularly good swordsman, but he had evidently thought Methos even less of one - an impression Methos had gone out of his way to project all those centuries ago - until Methos had Iilya locked up in a Romanian prison for the rape and murder of several young women - so the man’s long-standing ire was somewhat understandable.
The fight was over quickly, but the Quickening had thrown him forcibly backwards, skewering him on a pole of rebar jutting out from a concrete column. And then… Methos made himself lie as still as possible, feigning unconsciousness as he sorted events out in a mind somewhat befuddled by a Quickening, death and injury and drugs.
He had seen someone out of his past. It had seemed so real, but it was just not possible. The man’s personal energy felt odd, but he was certainly not an Immortal. Maybe a descendant? Captain Jack Harkness had been a quirky, appealing, quite memorable character he had met sometime in… when was that? The first half of the 20th Century? In London? Yeah, that was it - during the Blitz, as he recalled.
He carefully cracked open one eye, examining his surroundings through the blurry curtain of his eyelashes. He was in a medical theatre. Lots of bright lights and sterile surfaces. Damn. He really hated modern medicine with its machines and purported scientific certainty that left no room for the unexplained reanimation of the dead.
“He’s human,” a man stated unequivocally in a working-class English accent.
They had doubted he was human?
“No extra heart sounds?” That sounded just like Jack - the one in his memory. “This isn’t making any sense.”
“You expect something around here to make sense?” a woman’s voice asked in an amused, slightly irritated tone.
“I wasn’t able to find much info on your friend here,” a new, lighter woman’s voice joined the conversation. “There’s an Adam Pierson who teaches ancient cultures and languages at Oxford. Published a few articles, but his personal history isn’t in any database that I could find. A 1971 birth record in Wales, but family all deceased and no record of property ownership. A few credit cards with moderate balances, nothing that sticks out. Mostly purchases of personal items and books. Bought a round-trip train ticket to Cardiff from London three days ago, but the rest is pretty unrevealing.”
“That’s odd,” Jack observed as Methos carefully watched him through almost-closed eyes. “These days everyone’s history is in some electronic database somewhere.” The handsome man pressed his lips together in thought. “Well, my dear Mr. Pierson,” he said softly, leaning over Methos’ naked body, covered only in a light sheet after they had apparently stripped him of his clothes and done all manner of tests. “You are a pretty mystery, aren’t you?”
Methos’ memory came back in a rush of heat - the odd sense of energy, the long, lean body that smelled slightly spicy and foreign, the sensuous, talented lips… He gave up on trying to feign unconsciousness and opened his eyes, looking directly into the intriguing gaze of chronically mischievous, sea-blue eyes. Damn. He could swear it was the exact same face, the same expression, the same undercurrent of desire that fizzed through his veins - just as it had almost a century before.
Methos struggled to sustain a useful train of thought. “What… where the hell am I?” he asked, trying to project a careful mix of outrage, fear and confusion.
“Tell me, Mr. Pierson,” Jack asked. “What earthly use do you have for such a very, large, sharp… sword, when you’ve got a whole set of more modern weapons in your pockets?” He picked up the weapon in question from a nearby steel table, holding it in front of him and letting the glare of the harsh fluorescent light play across its surface - a surface still stained with Sedorsky’s blood. “Do you like playing with swords?” he asked, hitching one hip onto the examination table. The question seemed potent with meaning as Methos’ memory provided an explicit and vivid image of Jack’s sweaty, naked body under him, heaving and gasping and….
“I… I’m an historian,” Methos determinedly interrupted his own errant thoughts. “I carry them as examples. There’s a conference in town. You can check. Now, either charge me or let me go,” he added, molding his features into stubborn determination - a MacLeod moment to be sure. Oh, shit! That thought reminded him that he was supposed to meet Mac in London in only a few hours, and if he didn’t show, who knew what havoc the man would wreck? Given the circumstances, he was uncertain whether that was a good or a bad thing. One more reason to figure out what the hell was going on, and quickly.
“Sorry,” Jack responded, not sounding sorry at all. “But we aren’t required to charge you, so the sooner you tell us exactly who - or what - you are, the sooner we can decide what to do with you. So,” he continued, and this time the amusement in his eyes faded to a cold, calculating assessment, “what’s your real name, and what do you have against,” he checked an ID card in his hand, “Boris Vildofsky?”
Methos went very still. If this group was some extra-legal group, this whole business could get very ugly, indeed. Maybe MacLeod coming to the rescue - usually something he tried to avoid - might not be such a bad idea after all.
“Who the hell are you people, anyway?” Methos asked defensively, not really expecting any kind of informative answer, but he was surprised when Jack stood, carefully putting the sword on a table before he turned, meeting Methos’ eyes easily.
“We are called the Torchwood Institute, and we have absolute authority over anyone or anything that we declare jurisdiction over, which is anything and everything we choose, but mostly alien life forms, artifacts, events…” Jack shrugged, and stepped closer. “And you, my friend, have given us more than ample cause to investigate you. A fight with swords? A beheading? Bizarre energy readings?” Jack leaned his hands on the exam table, looking deeply into Methos’ eyes. “And that coming back from the dead trick? Impressive.”
Torchwood. That sure as hell rang a bell.
“Ah,” Jack smiled. “You’ve heard of us. Why am I not surprised?”
“I’m a researcher,” Methos snarled. “Of course I’ve heard of you. But I don’t even know a Boris… whoever you said and whatever you think happened tonight, it has absolutely nothing to do with aliens, for God’s sake!”
“Then exactly what does it have to do with?” Jack asked softly, leaning in.
Methos just looked at him in silence. Jack blinked and took a long, slow breath, then backed off.
“Give him his clothes and put him in an unmonitored cell.”
“But…” the dark-haired young woman who had been standing as silent witness started, then she went silent as Jack tossed her a hard look and left the room.
~~~~~~
Their version of an “unmonitored cell” was pretty grim, Methos decided. More cave than prison cell, it had minimal comforts of sleeping platform and toilet and little else, but he’d been in worse - a lot worse. He sat quietly on the bench in a meditation position, keeping his mind clear of extraneous thoughts. He was sure events had now been set into motion that would lead almost inevitably to violence - potentially to someone’s death, but fretting about what MacLeod or the Watchers might be doing was pointless. It was a shame. He remembered really liking Jack Harkness, and if this version was similar, he would hate to see him die. He had absolutely no explanation for the truly remarkable resemblance to someone he had known briefly so long ago. Only time would reveal if there was any connection, and he had always had lots and lots of time.
There was a mechanical buzz, and the heavy, transparent sheeting that covered what constituted a door slid back and Jack sauntered in. The heavy military-style coat was off and he was dressed dapperly in an open-collared shirt, pleat-front pants with suspenders instead of a belt. A little old fashioned perhaps, but quite appealing, overall. The door slid closed and he leaned up against the wall, his hands in his pockets, and just gazed at him for a minute, then cleared his throat.
Methos waited.
“You’re a patient man,” Jack observed. “You’ve hardly moved since we put you in here. No pacing, no demanding your freedom, just sitting quietly, waiting.” He changed his stance a little and crossed his arms. “That’s the kind of patience rarely seen in such a young man, and all the evidence suggests to me that, despite appearances, you, Adam Pierson, are not a young man.” He pushed away from the wall and approached the bench where Methos was sitting in a lotus position and reached out, touching Methos’ cheek in an almost tender gesture. “No,” he said softly. “Not young at all.”
Methos looked up and met those remarkable, discerning eyes. “Appearances can be deceiving.” He cocked his head with a small smile. “And you? Are you what you appear to be, Jack?”
Jack’s brow furrowed. “And that’s another thing. How the hell do you know my name?”
Methos shrugged. “A long time ago I met someone named Jack who looked and acted very, very much like you. A relative, perhaps?”
Jack turned suddenly and paced away, then back again. “All right, let’s cut the crap, Pierson. You healed from a mortal injury, you talk about meeting me a long time ago, what exactly are you? Tests show you as human, but tests have been known to be wrong.”
Methos took a breath to speak, but Jack stopped him with a raised hand.
“And in my travels, I’ve learned that no one is exactly what they seem, so whatever weird or shocking secret you think you’ve got, trust me, I’ve heard weirder and more shocking. But,” he leaned a little closer, “I truly need to know… are you…” he stopped and swallowed. “Are you immortal?”
Methos contemplated the plethora of answers he could offer to that question - denial, derision, ignorance, confusion, outrage - but considering his circumstances, and that sometimes the truth could be the most effective offence - especially since the other choices would present their own set of problems - he simply answered, “Yes.”
Jack’s sharp cheekbones flushed pink, then faded and he staggered back a little, bumped against the wall and sank down, finally sitting on the floor with his hands around his knees. “Fuck,” he whispered. “And all this time I thought I was …,” his head snapped up. “Are there more of you. More like you?”
Methos nodded slowly. “And what that means, Jack, is that if you continue to hold me, there will be people coming after you, coming after this institute, it’s staff, it’s very existence. People of enormous power. Violent, determined warriors with unlimited resources and hundreds of years of wisdom and experience, who cannot be killed.” He unfolded his legs and stood over the obviously shaken man. “It is in your own interest and the interest of your organization to free me, and to forget you ever knew me.”
“But,” Jack surged to his feet. “I’m immortal, too! I’m one of you! I need to meet them, to talk to them, to understand…” but his protest faded at the look on Methos’ face.
“No,” Methos stated firmly. “I’m sorry, Jack. I don’t know what you are, but you’re not one of us. And trust me, you don’t want to be one of us… to know us.”
“But how do you know?” Jack insisted in irritation. “I can’t die! I’ve been burned and… and shot, and radiated and beaten and had my life force sucked up by a demon straight from the pits of hell, and I’m still alive! Damn it, I truly thought I was the only one. Not even the Doctor is like me.”
“The Doctor?” Methos asked.
Jack shook his head in frustration. “It’s a long story, but how do you know we’re not the same?”
“Because we can sense each other, Jack. I know when another of my kind is around. We can feel the special energy that keeps us alive, and I don’t feel that from you. I think I feel… something… some odd difference, but it’s not the same, and for that you should be very, very glad.”
“Glad!? Damn it, why? For the first time I’ve found someone who knows what this is like, who realizes that dying and living again isn’t some kind of… of gift!” Jack spun around and slammed his fist into the wall and Methos could hear the snap of bones and the tear of flesh as he left a bloody streak behind. Jack cringed, grabbing his wrist and Methos circled around him, taking the injured hand and watching as misaligned bones moved and torn flesh mended. In seconds there was no trace of anything wrong other than a smear of blood.
“Well, well, well,” Methos said softly in surprise. “Look at that.”
“I didn’t want this!” Jack hissed.
“Trust me, Jack,” Methos said softly. “If being Immortal has taught me anything it’s that it is a gift, but it is also a great curse, one that you have to learn to live with, or you will die, in here.” He touched Jack’s chest.
Jack shook his head and staggered back to sit on the bench protruding from the wall. “I’m not sure that hasn’t already happened.”
“No, I don’t think so,” Methos chuckled, drawing a dark look. “You sound like a friend of mine. Yes, another Immortal,” he said in response to Jack’s questioning look. “He’s a man with a great, great heart, but it is because he cares so much that the helplessness of watching the people he loves die, and sometimes being part of that death, overwhelms him. But then,” Methos shrugged, “he’s a Scot, so it may be just because he’s a brooder by nature.”
“A Scot? You mean, he’s… like… born here?”
“In Scotland, over 400 years ago,” Methos answered with a shrug.
“Shit!” Jack rose. “That’s older than I am! I thought only the Doctor was…” Jack stopped himself, looking closely at Methos. “How old are you, exactly?”
“Who the hell is this Doctor you keep talking about? You think he’s Immortal, too? Sounds like someone I’d like to meet.”
“And I bet he’d like to meet you.” Jack’s face softened as he smiled. “Yes, I bet he would. I suppose calculating his age is a bit tricky given the whole time travel thing, but I think he’s around 900 or so. You know, you remind me of him. Maybe it’s the nose,” his voice trailed off.
“What about my nose?” Methos asked, feigning offence while he absorbed some of Jack’s more bizarre statements, the strange events of the past… hours? Days? He wasn’t sure… started to come into clearer focus. “Jack, did you say “time travel thing”?”
“Yeah,” Jack answered, seeming a little distracted. “It’s,” he waved a hand, “complicated.”
“Well, well, well,” Methos sighed. “Something new under the sun. And that would explain why I remember you, but you don’t remember me.”
“Meaning?”
“I assume you can travel forward as well as back in time?”
Jack frowned. “I don’t usually talk about…”
“Oh, come on, Jack, that’s the only explanation for my knowing you. My past is in a version of your future that doesn’t include a memory of our meeting now.”
Jack shook his head, looking up at him with a smile. “Does being old make you smarter, or am I just being particularly stupid?”
“Let’s just say that in the short run, experience teaches you that events and behavior are depressingly predictable, but in the long run - in the very long run - it teaches you to appreciate the nuances that constitute the new, the different, the unexpected. And you, my young friend, are very unexpected.”
“As are you.” Jack stood and moved close. “When I saw you come back to life, I felt like a door opened up, a whole world of possibilities I thought had been locked away the first time I revived. I want… I need to know I’m not alone, that I don’t have to… exist… through time. Alone.”
“What about your Doctor friend?” Adam asked in the same near-whisper. They were so close he could feel the man’s body heat.
Jack shook his head. “The Doctor’s… different. He’s the only one left of his kind and he feels responsible for that. He’s tortured by it and nothing I do or say has ever even touched that wall of isolation.” Jack looked deeply into Methos’ eyes. “I don’t want to be like that. I want,” Jack grasped his upper arms, moved closer and suddenly warm, supple lips moved over his and he was pushed against the wall, a hard thigh pressed between his legs. Methos’ arms rose in response and moved around Jack’s back, feeling the play of skin and muscle under the soft, fine cloth of his shirt.
“Jack,” Methos finally pulled away, “our lives are not like that. We are a violent people, and if some of my… compatriots… knew you were an Immortal, even a different kind of Immortal, it could be very dangerous for you and everyone around you.”
Jack chuckled. “How could it be dangerous? I can’t kill you, you can’t kill me.” He moved closer, their foreheads almost touching, but Methos put a hand on Jack’s chest, keeping at least a small distance.
“Yes, Jack. We heal and we don’t age, but… we can die, and legend has it that the last one of us left alive will have unlimited power, so…” he shrugged, knowing it sounded too bizarre to be true. “We cut off each other’s heads.”
Jack’s eyes narrowed and he gave Methos a puzzled, dubious look.
“The swords?” Methos prompted. “The headless body?”
“You go around cutting each other’s heads off? That’s… that’s just weird!” Jack turned and paced away, running his fingers through his hair in confusion. “Who would want to live forever as the last one of their own kind?”
“Didn’t you hear the part about unlimited power? Trust me, Immortality doesn’t automatically confer rational thinking or even moderate intelligence. And no matter how pointless and destructive I think it is, there are still those who would take my head unless I defend myself.”
Jack half-turned, looking back at Methos over his shoulder, his eyes dancing with mischief. “So you think one of your guys would cut my head off, just to see if they got any power from it?” he asked, then went on with a tight smile. “The sad thing is that I’m not sure even that would kill me. Can you see it? Spending eternity as a disembodied head?” The smile faded and small shiver ran across his shoulders.
“Jack.” Methos moved closer. “I tell you this so you understand that I’m of no value to you. That we’re not the same. That you really need let me go,” he advised softly. “Soon. Very soon, you’re going to have more trouble than you can…”
“Jack!” A woman’s voice barked over the intercom just as a blaring alarm sounded in the hallway. “Intruder alert! There’s someone in the access tunnel!”
“How the hell did anyone get in there?” Jack shouted.
“Shit! That tears it!” Methos grumbled and grabbed Jack’s arm as he tried to leave. “This is what I was warning you about! Somebody could get killed!”
“Jack,” a calmer male voice now spoke. “The Hub has been breached and I can’t reach Tosh.”
Jack looked curiously at Methos. “You think these are… Immortals, come to get you? I thought you people only killed each other.”
“Not all of us, and this particular one is known for daring rescues.”
Jack smiled. “Sounds like my kinda guy. This wouldn’t be your brooding Scot would it?” Methos shot him an irritated look. “Follow me.” He activated something on a wrist device and the door whooshed open.
continued in Part 2