Perturbed, I hit the shield and decided it was time to break things. Using my authority as Captain, I did an override on the computer lock out, and dropped the quarantine field. Shetty was not happy and she retreated as I approached her. I quickly caught up to her and, like the episode of Star Trek where the evil Captain Kirk attacks Yeoman Rand. I caught her up and dove directly into a kiss that she didn’t want. And unlike a movie kiss, where Kirk is kissing the protesting girl, Shetty didn’t surrender to the kiss and give in. The longer the kiss the more angry she got and the more resistant she got, and what always saves her is that House enters and on hearing her protest, he doses me with a sedative.
Fuck, I hit the shield. Fortunately, the sedative and stun and everything else doesn’t follow me through and back to set point. Again I override the shield and we, Shetty and I, play chase around the transporter console. She ends up calling for security and they arrive just before House after I catch her and they stun me.
Fuck, I hit the shield and this time I am so aggressive that Shetty pulls her own phaser and threatens me. I guess transporter tech are require to be armed. And, based on security’ timing, there must be a security office pretty close. Ideally, you would think it would be right next door and they would be monitoring it, and ready to respond by erecting emergency force fields and locking out the corridor and lifts. In case an intruder was beamed up?
Next reset, I attack, and Shetty pulls her phaser.
“Go ahead, and when you finish, we’re going to be right back here, because, well, clearly you are the common denominator, I always see you first,” I said.
“Have you lost your mind?” Shetty asked.
“This is going to happen. It has to happen,” I said.
I had this theory, as long as you were looking into the eyes of the person holding a gun, they can’t shoot you. She actually stunned me. Fuck, I hit the shield and this time I tried my look her in the eyes theory, without the preamble of giving her permission to shoot me, and simply took the phaser. “If you pull a phaser, you might as well use it,” I said.
“What’s going on?” House asks.
So, I stun House and turn back to Shetty. “Now, come here,” I said. Shetty backs away. “Don’t come near me,” she warns.
“I would rather you be awake, but, unconscious works for me, too,” I said, stunning her.
Apparently, when you fire a phaser on my ship, security comes to investigate. They arrived with Loxy, phasers drawn. I stunned one, the other stunned me.
Fuck, I hit the shield. Unlike Aryk, I learned quickly enough that the only way to score with Shetty is to play the psychic, hook up with her at the party, and well, Fuck… I start over.
The next time round, I accompanied Loxy back to the Bridge, and kind of stand around watching, which is what Captain’s do, right, but for some reason, they seem to know something is off. So, why draw it out. “Sacagawea, take us out of orbit,” I said. “Plot a course for the Milky Way, maximum warp?”
“Sir?” Sacagawea asked.
“Can you follow orders, or do I need to call someone else to the helm?” I asked.
Sacagawea clearly had an emotional response, but she held it, very professional, and it so happened that I was checking out her legs before she turned back around, and at the top of her boot was the hilt to her knife. Good old Sac, always has a knife on her. She turned and took us out of orbit.
“Captain,” Uhura said. “What about the crew we left planet side.”
“They’ll be alright,” I said. “Go ahead, Sacagawea, full throttle it. Let’s see how fast we can go.”
Engine room started calling, wanting to know why we were going for an unscheduled warp.
“Test drive, Mr. Tesla,” I said. “What happens at Warp Ten?”
“Warp nine,” Sacagawea said.
“Keep pushing it,” I told her. “No, Sir,” Sacagawea said.
I headed down towards the helm to do it myself. House and Jung and security arrived on the Bridge. Tesla was protesting. “The engines can’t sustain this frequency!”
“John, let’s have a talk in the other room,” Jung said.
“Not yet,” I said. “I need to see if we can escape this trap through distance.”
“Yeah, let’s talk about this trap in the other room,” Jung said.
“Nope. And you can’t make me,” I said. “Because you have a no restraint policy.” Chan pulled out a phaser. “I don’t,” Chan said.
“I am not a threat to myself or anyone else. I am merely putting some distance between me and that pit trap from hell,” I said.
“Come with us, or I will be forced to stun you,” Chan said. “Oh, just stun him already,” House snapped.
Fuck! I hit the shield. And Chan didn’t even stun me. Ah! Stun, sleep, orgasm, and distance. There was a hard distance to my predicament! See, that’s useful information, too. I went right back to the Bridge. No one seemed the wiser or the least concern that just a few minutes ago I was hell bent on fleeing. Things were pretty much tracking along as they were the previous time. Everyone was in their place. Loxy was hovering wondering what I was about.
“Uhura, can you help me with something?” I asked her. “Of course, Captain,” Uhura said.
“Can we hold this in my Ready Room?” I asked. “Sure,” Uhura said.
Loxy looked like she might burst, but she was not going to say anything about a privilege of rank in front of crew.
Uhura accompanied me back to my ready room and when the door was closed, I fished out a small medallion I was wearing under my shirt that was unnoticeable thanks to the turtle neck undergarment. I handed it to Uhura. It was a Thai medallion of a ‘meditating’ man, an ambiguous humanoid figure, not a specific man. It was comprised of the special, spiritual metal called “Leklai,” which was more precious than gold to the Monks of Thailand. It was encased in a plastic shield, and contained seven, very small, precious stones, the color of chakras, off set from the meditating man. Resting on top of the medallion was the school ring Loxy had given me earlier. I had threaded it through the outside of the necklace chain, dropping it to the end, where it stop just perfectly against the meditating man. Today, I had been wearing it with the meditating man and the green stone of my ring facing outwards, away from my heart. Yeah, when I faced the meditating man inwards, I was going to have a self reflective day, that’s how my OCD interpreted the two ways two ways to wear it. Umm, but now with the ring added, there was four ways to wear it. Meditating man facing in or out, and green stone projecting in or out.
Or is that eight ways…
“Oh, how lovely,” Uhura said.
“Jenny gave me the medallion,” I said.
“And, she said if I ever needed to contact her, you would understand.”
“Well, sure,” Uhura said. “It’s basically a flash drive, “I have to break the seal to plug it in?” I asked.
“No, just lay it on any console,” Uhura said. She showed me by laying it on my desk next to the monitor. She asked Siri access it. The panel lit up underneath my medallion. On the screen, a complex subspace formula for became prominently displayed. “Should I open the frequency?”
“Would you please, and on speaker,” I said.
Uhura handed me the necklace back, while calling up a complex communication screen, punching up the frequency. She pushed send. The communication screen responded with the word ‘pinging’ which seemed to me like an internet thing. Over the speaker, a phone could be heard ringing.
“That was unexpected,” I said.
“Clearly, we have a connection of some sort,” Uhura.
“Hello?” someone answered. It was male. “Who is this?”
“Um, may I speak with Jenny, please,” I asked.
“There’s no one named Jenny here,” he said.
“How did you get this number?”
“Hello, John? Is that you?”
“Oh, yay, Jenny, I need you,” I said.
“What? What?! Who is this?!” the man asked. “And how are you using my line?”
“I am Jenny, who are you?” Jenny asked.
“I am the Doctor, who are you?”
“Dad?”
“Dad? Dad who?” he asked.
“Yes! I am the daughter,” Jenny said.
“What?! How did you get this number?” the man demanded again. “Jenny, can you trace the coordinates back to me?” I asked.
“Sure. On my way, sweetie,” Jenny said. “Wait, I still have questions,” the Doctor asked.
But I hung up. “Thank you, Uhura. I will be on the Hangar deck if you need me,” I said. “Aye,” Uhura said, following me back to the Bridge.
Loxy handed the Conn to Uhura and followed me. I got the sense this might a long Lift ride down. And suddenly I was singing in my head, “Jenny Don’t Lose my Number…”
“What the hell is going on?” Loxy asked.
“I am so trying to figure that out,” I said.
“Just hang in there with me.”
Loxy and I arrived on the Hangar deck simultaneously with the arrival of two TARDISes, one pink, and one blue. Loxy hit her Comm. Badge. “Security to the hangar deck, ASAP.”
“That’s really not necessary,” I said.
“You summon the Doctor and you don’t think that warrants some concern? What’s going on?” Loxy asked.
“Oh, I just needed to talk to Jenny a moment, nothing big,” I said.
Security arrived just as both TARDISes opened up and folks were emerging. I gave a hand signal to security and they held off drawing phasers. I noticed Chan mirroring my gesture, but they kept their hands on their weapons, and spread their formation out.
Jenny emerged at the same time the Doctor emerged. Rose Tyler also emerged, following the Doctor. Jenny smiled, the Doctor gave her funny look, as they circled each other, and then they both ran around the foreign TARDIS, and inside the TARDIS, and then back out to confront each other. I smiled at Rose. Rose waved, uncertainly.
“Did you just smile at Rose?” Loxy asked. “I love Rose,” I said.
“You love everyone?!” Loxy said, and we quarreling over top of the Doctor and Jenny quarreling.
“What did you do to my TARDIS?!” the Doctor asked. “It did it on its own,” Jenny said.
Jenny and the Doctor both pulled their sonic screw drivers out and scanned each other.
My security pulled their phasers and the Doctor and Jenny turned towards the security threat, and I got between security and the guests.
“Wait, wait, wait, put your weapons away, now,” I said. Chan backed up my request.
With the threat level down a notch, the Doctor read the results of his scan. “What?!” he said. “This can’t be possible.”
“It is odd. I would have thought if we had met again, it would be after you gave birth to me,” Jenny said.
“I gave birth to you?” the Doctor said.
“Technically, the progenation device gave birth to me, utilizing your DNA as the primary matrix,” Jenny said.
“So, you’re a clone?” Rose asked.
“No, it’s more complicated than that,” Jenny and the Doctor said simultaneously. He was not amused that they both had the same answer at the same time. “I was born a full adult, with all the information I needed to function as an adult.”
“But no personal experience, you’re still a child,” the Doctor said.
“No, I have grown some. I have some experience under my belt,” Jenny said. “Apparently,” the Doctor said. “You’re pregnant.”
“Yeah, about that,” Jenny began.
“Springing daughter on me is one thing, but telling me I am going to be a grandfather, again, that’s a whole nother level of… thing,” the Doctor said, not knowing what to call the thing.
“Technically I didn’t tell you, you scanned me without permission,” Jenny pointed out. “You scanned me first,” the Doctor said.
“I just needed to make sure it was you,” Jenny said. “Who else would it be?” the Doctor asked.
“Sorry, may I interrupt this family reunion,” I asked. “And who are you?” the Doctor demanded.
“I am the Captain,” I said. “Captain who?” the Doctor asked.
“No, Captain Harister, of the USS Enterprise,” I said, offering to shake hands.
“Never heard of him,” the Doctor said, turning back to Jenny. “And who’s he to you?”
“He’s the father,” Jenny said.
“OMG,” Loxy said.
“And who are you?” the Doctor asked.
“I am the Captain girlfriend,” Loxy said.
The Doctor pointed his screwdriver back to me, looked to his daughter, and then to Rose. “Has the whole Universe blown up and I missed something?”
“It’s fairly complex, but maybe we should sit down over dinner and discuss this,” Jenny said.
“What’s to discuss?” Loxy asked.
“Well, for starters, what emergency you have that you felt compelled to call me,” Jenny said.
“He didn’t call you, he called the Doctor,” the Doctor said.
“No, he was calling me,” Jenny said.
“On my phone,” the Doctor pointed out.
“Yeah, well, I am a bit curious why the number isn’t reversed, sense the TARDIS is also reversed,” Jenny said.
“Can we talk about my problem?” I asked.
“Like where you’re going to sleep tonight?” Loxy asked.
“No,” I said. I closed my eyes as I comprehended her slant. “Wait? What?”
“Son, you clearly have multiple problems,” the Doctor said. “You may need more than a Doctor.”
“I’m stuck in what appears to be an infinite time loop,” I said. Loxy slapped my arm. “Why the fuck didn’t you tell me?”
“I did tell you. Quite a few times. It just gets tiring telling the same thing over and over,” I said.
“Oh, I can so relate. If I had a dollar for every time someone asked me who I am,” the Doctor said.
“This is serious,” I said.
“Oh, relax, you’ll just reset, and be all the wiser,” the Doctor said. “It is how these things work. It’ll sort itself out. Or not. No harm, no foul. Actually, they can be quite fun, if you know how to play. In fact, the theory of time travel didn’t come to the Gallfireyans because of a Tesla like genius, but because one of the first Gallifreyans was stuck in an infinite loop, for what he figures was upwards of ten billion years. Oh, but when he got it, he shined like Buddha on LSD.”
“Really?” Rose asked. “What happened to him?”
“Oh, he’s still stuck in the loop,” the Doctor said. “Once he gave our society the formula for time travel, he retired to ‘the’ Mountain where he sits to this day in meditation. People visit him all the time. And it’s a really hard climb up there, but, like humans, we love our Gurus.”
“I’mm confused. He’s still stuck in a loop?” Loxy said.
“Yes, with a 42 hour cycle, but his body still goes forwards in time, he’s just not there, sort of,” the Doctor said. “It’s complex. How many times have you reset?”
“I lost count,” I admitted.
“Is it similar to the time you were stuck in the TARDIS?” Jenny asked. “This happened before?” Loxy and the Doctor asked simultaneously. “You didn’t tell her?” Jenny asked.
“Apparently, we don’t share the important stuff anymore,” Loxy said.
“It wasn’t a big deal,” I said. “No, really, it was rather boring and I didn’t even realize I was cycling till like tree months into it, because the loop was about a week long.”
“He was stuck in the TARDIS for a year,” Jenny said.
“How could you not notice you were bouncing in time?” Loxy, the Doctor, and Rose all asked.
“It was a really long week, and I was pretty entertained exploring the inside of the TARDIS,” I said.
“And that’s when you got her pregnant?” Loxy asked.
“No. Well, I don’t know,” I admitted. “You stepped out for most of that week. It was one of the factors that made it hard to notice I was cycling. Every day in the TARDIS is the same day.”
“You left him alone in the TARDIS?” the Doctor asked.
“Well, I had a lot of running to do, and he isn’t much a runner,” Jenny said.
“What did you touch?” the Doctor asked.
“I don’t know,” I said.
“No, this is important,” the Doctor insisted. “Tell me everything you touched.”
“Besides the ‘daughter,’” Loxy said. Rose covered her mouth, trying not to laugh.
“I don’t know?! I touched a lot of things,” I said. “Can you narrow it down to a specific item?”
“There are a lot of things in the TARDIS that have chronon energy, and a high enough dose might explain your loopy-ness. The only other thing on the TARDIS that might explain it… Wait a minute. Did you mind meld with the TARDIS?” the Doctor asked.
“I don’t think it was mind meld precisely,” I said. “Oh, so you’re like me?!” Rose said.
“What are the triggers for resetting?” Jenny asked.
“Sleep, distance, death, using the transporter, phasers set to stun, and orgasms,” I said. “Oh, that last one sucks,” Rose lamented for me.
“Yeah, tell me about it,” I said. “I don’t even get to the good part. And the furthest away in time I have gone from set point is just shy of about 53 hours, and only because I either fall asleep or I end up in something similar to a bipolar manic phase looking for any stimulus to keep me awake which generally leads to a romantic interlude which just causes me to start over.”
“Orgasms reset you? Is that why you’re avoiding me?” Loxy asked.
“Yeah,” I said. Sort of. That wasn’t a complete answer because apparently we had gone a few days without before this nonsense started, and she was counting these days and using it as evidence for her belief that I was losing interest in her. People rarely give complete answers; I had evidence that she also wasn’t giving complete answers, and so at this moment, ‘yeah’ was true, but not Truth, and it was meant to stop the conversation in favor of the other threads I was following. Of course, even when you’re stuck in an infinite loop, and maybe because of the loop, we end up being careless and say things that aren’t helpful. “You get really mad when I fake it and I really am walking eggshells around you trying not to set you off?”
“Really?! You act like I am a time bomb,” Loxy said. “You’ve been really challenging to be around lately,” I said.
“Well, excuse me if I am still adjusting to having complex set hormones,” Loxy said. And that made a lot of sense. I mean, she started life in my head, and so, she was bombarded with male hormones, which tend to be pretty constant state of libido driving testosterone. Sure, male cycles, too, but the cycle is not as extreme as the female experiences, and I’ve learned over time to deal with an intensely high set point.
Jenny pulled out her sonic screwdriver and scanned her. “Oh, you, too?!”
Oh, well, fuck, that might explain a lot of it, too. Fuck, and not once has she told me! Of course, not once have I asked nor have I pushed too hard to discover what was going on with her. Some of that is just respecting her privacy, but some of that is I forget that she isn’t truly an adult human and she’s still learning to navigate social nuances. There are some who might even say she wasn’t human, due to starting life as a tulpa. I don’t question her humanness. Evenif she were alien anime, I would recognize her being sentient. I assumed when she got ready she would tell me and therefore I was making assumptions about her ability to cope with all the changes we’ve been experiencing. I reached out to her, but she took a step back.
“I don’t need comforting, John,” Loxy said.
I should have asked, what do you need, but I went with: “When did you learn?”
“Learn what?”
“When did you discover you were pregnant? Exactly what time?”
“Why?”
“Please,” I said.
“15:45, today, Sickbay,” Loxy said.
“When did your time loop start?” the Doctor asked.
“13:13,” I said. “Is there anything that can be done to stop it?”
“We’ll figure something out,” Jenny said, but the Doctor was shaking his head ‘no.’ She caught it. “What? There’s got to be something we can do.”
“Like go back before the loop starts and kill me,” I said.
“Is it that bad?” Loxy and Jenny asked.
“Some of it,” I said. How could I tell them everything I had learned? In fact, I had done so much now that I was forgetting some of it. “There are some hard events that no matter what I do, they happen. I can change or minimize our response to these things but the events happen.”
“But that’s not why you want to die,” Rose said.
I shook my head. “I have mapped out what I consider to be an ideal day, but I can’t sustain it. It’s like watching the same movie over and over. I get bored, I want change things up,
and add commentary, and change the script. And, I have had some really awful days where I have gone out of my way to blow everything up, not literally, well, not all the time, my crew is outstanding in terms of keeping me from hurting myself or others. And I would blow everything up and risk having the worst reputation just to break out of this. But that’s not working and I don’t like who I have become. And yeah, even though no one will know and I can go to my graves with those secret, I will know that I did some really awful things. And so like, just a moment ago, Loxy, you hinted at I need a new place to sleep, and I could honor that because you’re reacting to who you think I am now and that’s not likely to change, but the moment I reset, you will have reverted back to a different moment of understanding and if I honor your present wishes ‘then’ it sends you on a new tangent, and if I pretend this moment didn’t happen, you sense something as if I am holding something back and that too starts another round of our relationship spiraling out of control, and not your fault, I am not blaming you. It’s just that I am stuck. I can’t even just go crazy because when it’s all said and done… I am still stuck!”
I finished my speech with prayer hands, fingers touching my lips. There was silence.
“How many times have you completed suicide?” the Doctor asked.
“42,” I said.
“Well, no more of that,” Jenny said.
“What if you take him back in time before the loop?” Loxy asked.
“Oh, no,” the Doctor said. “Bad idea. Like tying a knot in a slip stream. The Eye of Jupiter? Yeah, I did that. Look, John, time is much stranger than even Einstein fancied. People think of it as moving in one direction, because that’s mostly how we experience it, but it goes in all sorts of ways, and it churns, and it glitches, for a lack of a better word, and as you’re probably realizing, or will realize, it isn’t just a physical property of the Universe, or you wouldn’t be remembering anything. If it was just your body in the loop, you wouldn’t remember and you wouldn’t be having this existential moment. De-Ja-Vu, that’s a temporal loop, too, but it’s a short lived loop and the experiencer hasn’t cycled enough to gain awareness. Time and dreams are more closely linked than your perceived ideas of the wakefulness flow of time. I would say, based on your present awareness of the loop, it was likely going on years before you started waking up to the reality of it. And the reason no one else seems to be equally awake, is because time loops are infinitesimally small. The only solid advice any Time Lord could give is, learn all that you can, because it won’t last forever.”
“Didn’t you say that other guy was in a loop for ten billions years before he understood time travel and he’s still in the time loop?” I asked.
“Yeah, you were listening,” the Doctor said. “This moment won’t last forever because time is finite. There is a beginning and there is ending. Even when you’re stuck in the middle of time, when time ends, it all ends.”
I didn’t really capture all of that because I was stuck on the eternity part. “OMG, if it lasts till the end of the Universe, then it’s more than a moment!” I said, fairly cross.
“Well, that’s a matter of perspective,” the Doctor said. “What other perspective is there?”
“There is no time. All that was, is, and will be has come and gone,” the Doctor said. “That doesn’t make any sense. And if I am stuck in the now, how can I get to the end of time if I am not making any gain?”
“Koans and paradoxes,” the Doctor said. “When you figure it out, you’ll find peace.”
“But not necessarily the end to the loop,” I said.
“You got it,” the Doctor said. “Have we done this before?”
“No. This is the first time I called you for help,” I said. Probably the last time, I thought to myself.
“Why didn’t you call me sooner?” Jenny asked. “Why didn’t you tell me you were pregnant?” I asked.
“I was going to get around to it,” Jenny said. “I have been busy saving Crossover One.
You would believe how busy that place is. It makes Dad’s adventures of Earth seem Disney-ish.”
“Careful!” the Doctor said.
“Any way, last week, I was saving like six planets all at once! I can’t wait to talk you about what I have discovered out there. It’s so amazingly impossible and mind blowing-ly beautiful.”
“Is that even a word?” Loxy asked
“So we meet again?” I asked. “I’m not stuck here forever?” Jenny shrugged. “I haven’t gotten there yet, either.”
I looked at my watch. One of those hard events was looming. “Excuse me, I am going to be needed on the Bridge,” I said.
“You’re welcome to stay and watch this unfold?”
“It’s probably better not to be here when you reset. TARDISes and Time Lords can have a peculiar effect on such things,” the Doctor said. “Good luck.”
“Not luck, wisdom through experience,” Jenny corrected. “Have fun storming the castle.”
“See you in a moment,” I said.
“Or a millennia,” Jenny said.