"Doctor Who: Powers of Ten" (Invite Only!)

The Doctor. Epilogue and Prologue, Part I.

The Doctor slowly walked the circumference of The Console, trailing his fingers over its lines and edges.

Save for the rise and fall and vworrrp of The Time Rotor, temporal orbit, it was quiet here. Oh so very quiet.

Too quiet.

He flicked a switch, and the monitor screen sprang to life, automatically cycling through to The Time-Space Televisualizer channels.

On the screen, Donna Noble stood teary-eyed and grinning as Shaun Temple sank to one knee, Wilfred and Sylvia looking on in delighted surprise.

In Donna's pocket, however, there ticked unnoticed a fob watch engraved with Circular Gallifreyan...

Using the hair sample that The Doctor had acquired from Donna as a little human girl, The Doctor had combined Lazarus technology with The Chameleon Arch and extracted the Time Lord biological code from Donna while reverting her genetically to a pure human state.

But if she ever wanted. If the need ever arose.

She could open that watch and for short periods unleash The DoctorDonna's fierce intellect and imagination on The Universe again.

Shaun Temple didn't know what he was in for.

The screen flickered again, displaying new spaciotemporal coordinates.

Jack Harkness stared bewilderedly at his own temples in a bathroom mirror, perplexedly examining the first signs of silver growing in.

A figure moved up behind him and slid their arms around his waist--

--Ianto Jones kissed the back of Jack's shoulder, as those arms squeezed tightly. One of the hands wore a sleek, gleaming metallic glove.

Jack closed his eyes and smiled softly, leaning back against the man he loved.

The screen flickered again.

Repairs on The New Torchwood Hub had progressed rapidly, especially with the infusion of personnel from the rescued Torchwood Four. While not all of Torchwood Four's people had been salvageable, between them there had been enough of an increase in productivity that Mickey and Martha had decided to run off, elope, and go freelance.

Meanwhile, the man called Nigel Tate amused himself by playing tricks on Big John E and Captain John Hart... shapeshifters were excellent tricksters, after all, and Nigel was an excellent shapeshifter. Specifically, he was a Whifferdill formerly named Frobisher, before the paradoxes of The Time War had caused him, broken and amnesiac, to forget his prior existence. Now restored to a modicum of mental health, he dedicated his life to taking the piss out of others who'd begun to take themselves too seriously.

Once more, the screen changed.

Having regenerated into a ginger-haired, cooler-willed version of herself, Jenny strode out into battle against the hordes alongside howling, snarling Giles Archer Plantaget-- they would rescue Giles' world from the undead scourge, or they themselves would die trying.

Unlike Richard of York, they did not give battle in vain.

The screen flickered again, and went to a testing screen, and The Doctor stood still and alone in that space. Lost in thought, hands in pockets.

...but again the screen flickered, this time unbidden by The Doctor, and he glanced at it in startlement.

Framed by a background of pure white, a human male of African American descent stood gazing back from that screen, his placid expression somehow still quite... imperious.

"Ah, Emissary," The Doctor bobbed his head, shaking himself out of his quiet, solemn reverie. "How's she managing?"

"If you don't mind, Doctor, I'd prefer to discuss it in person," replied the thunder-velvet tones of Captain Benjamin Sisko.

"Right, then," The Doctor nodded, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. "Shan't be a mo."

The Doctor. Epilogue and Prologue, Part II.

The sun shone down over the baseball field used by The London Kings, circa 2042.

The Doctor... materialized, appeared out of nothing, no vworrrp like his TARDIS, just stepped from nowhere and onto the pitcher's mound. He slipped his hands into his pockets, turning around slowly, nodding cheerfully to himself.

"Ah, baseball, she's all right," he considered. "Well. She's no cricket."

"Where I come from," rumbled The Emissary, just behind him, "we say that the other way around."

The Doctor seemed dubious, quirking an eyebrow as he turned to see the projection of Ben Sisko standing next to an image of Buck Bokai and an image of Jennifer Sisko. "Yeah. 'Spose you would." Then he brightened, with a grin. "Buckaroo Bokai! 'Ello! Loved you when you played for The Bats."

"Buck" harrumphed softly, wryly. "That was a long time ago."

"Jennifer" strode forward, peering through narrowed eyes at The Doctor, running her gaze up and down him. He stood still, expression tolerant but expectant, wondering what she was on about.

"This one," she decided, "is not linear."

The Doctor snorted. "Oh, I should hope not. How boring would that be?"

She shook her head at him, tutting. "Your game is ending, soon."

The Doctor's joviality came to a rushing halt. "...oh. Is that still a thing?"

"Jennifer" sniffed archly. "'He will knock four times.'"

He met her gaze without flinching. "And who's 'he' then, when 'he's' at home? Eh? All you 'Prophets' are so ruddy textbook enigmatic, but there's none of you as can do a thing with detail work."

Ben rolled his eyes and crossed his arms over his chest. "Can we move along?"

"Buck" moved up beside "Jennifer" and nudged her away, shaking his head apologetically at The Doctor. "Sorry about this. Me personally, I know we're not supposed to play favorites, but I'm rooting for extra innings."

"Thanks for that, I s'pose," The Doctor replied, blithely, eyes half-lidded, but then "Buck" and "Jennifer" were gone, leaving The Emissary and The Doctor...

...standing alone, side-by-side, on the bridge of The Defiant.

Hands crossed behind him, Captain Sisko gazed at the viewscreen, giving The Doctor a moment to reorient himself.

"It doesn't seem so long ago, now," Sisko mused, indicating the Science station, "that I stood there with Dax and agreed that we'd rather be on Risa. But I figure... if you're going to have a paradise planet, you might as well have another as a back-up."

The Doctor nodded easily. "Betazed."

Sisko smiled ever-so-faintly. "At this point in the linear timeline, The Betazoids are still rebuilding after their damage in The Dominion War. But there's no reason they can't help her rebuild while they're at it."

Rubbing one ear, The Doctor mulled this over. "She's so very badly damaged-- her gender and her sexuality and her very species used against her time and again, this world she's from, this mirror universe--"

"I've been there," Sisko reminded The Doctor. "I died there, in a manner of speaking."

"Mm," The Doctor took Sisko's point, then continued: "She's been taken to extremes, all that depravity and violence, and then-- on top of her so very broken life, she got thrust into the madness of my world, all these telepathic fields crashing like tsunami against her own."

"What better place for her rehabilitation," Ben mulled, "than a place of pacifism and unashamed sensuality, with beautiful bodies and powerful minds to help set her back on the path?"

The Doctor smiled gently. "Well, I certainly can't think of a better."

Ben turned to face The Doctor, and clapped him on the shoulders. "We'll take good care of her, Doctor. That's a promise."

"Coming from you, Emissary," The Doctor noted, "a promise is a Hell of a thing." But he hesitated. "Tell her-- tell her I said--"

He shrugged quietly. "Live Long and Prosper."

"I'll make sure she gets the message," Sisko nodded. "And... Doctor."

The Doctor hesitated.

Was The Emissary going to wish him peace and long life?

They both knew he couldn't.

But instead The Emissary shook his head just a twitch. "Qapla'."

The Doctor couldn't help but smile at that, a wistful little smile, and replied: "Qapla'."

...and then The Doctor was back in his TARDIS, turning off the dimensional teleprojection device that had beamed him into The Bajoran Wormhole, the gap between universes that had allowed him to return T'Pol to something approximating a homeworld.

Standing there in the quiet.

He had sent back Donna, and sent back Giles-- and Jenny with him-- and sent back T'Pol, and sent back Jack-- his immortality now shared with Ianto through an advanced form of Resurrection Gauntlet.

And that just left...

Captain Jack the Cat bounded up onto The Console beside The Doctor, squinching his golden-brown eyes.

"Right, that's enough moping about," he decided. "Where to next, mate?"

The Doctor smirked a soft little smirk, and rubbed the back of Jack's head.

"Onwards."

The Doctor and The Cat. Epilogue and Prologue, Part III.

"So, then," The Doctor mused, sitting in the jumpseat with his Chuck Taylors up on The Console, a diary open in his lap, "let's take inventory, yeah?"

Jack the Cat was curled up beside The Doctor on the jumpseat, gnawing on a red handkerchief. Too busy to say anything.

The Doctor made a tick-mark with a pen. "Phosphorous Carousel of The Great Magellan Gestalt."

Jack paused in his gnawing, squinted. "Singed me tail."

"Yeah, soz," The Doctor shrugged, then ticked another box. "Saved a planet from The Red Carnivorous Maw."

"And people make jokes about orange cats being big eaters," Jack snarked.

The Doctor grinned at that, and checked another box: "Named a galaxy 'Allison.'"

Jack snuffled, and licked a paw. "Why 'Allison,' exactly?"

With another shrug, The Doctor considered this: "Pretty bird from Community."

Jack stopped licking his paw, given pause. "Oh. Yeah. Can't fault your taste."

The Doctor grinned faintly. "And, ah, speaking of which-- got married! Good Queen Bess. Liz One."

"Told you that wouldn't work out, mate," Jack leaned back to gaze up at The Doctor, that half-cleaned paw sticking up in the air. "But you could've handled it better."

The Doctor stopped with his pen in the air, and decidedly did not say anything to that. And then he decided: "Barcelona."

Jack blinked. "What, like in Spain? Wait, is this a Fawlty Towers thing?"

"Naaaah," The Doctor dismissed, "good reference, though. It's a planet! A planet called Barcelona. None of the dogs have noses, and not only does that joke never get old, you'd be happy as a pig in stink-- a planet where none of the dogs can smell you to chase you."

Jack's tail twitched, and he started purring, that big deep rumbly purr that could put even The Emissary's voice to shame. "Yeah, all right."

"Right, then!" The Doctor bounded to his feet, reached for the controls. "Barcelona!"

But before he could touch those controls--

--there came a knock at the doors. The TARDIS doors.

They were in temporal orbit, and yet.

A knock.

And then another.

And then another.

...and then another.

The Doctor stiffened.

...four knocks.

"No," he breathed.

"No."

The Doctor and The Cat. Epilogue and Prologue, Part IV.

The Doctor's fingers trembled as he reached--

--he reached first for the door handle.

--then for the lock.

--then for the door handle again.

--he closed his eyes. "Ah, blow it."

And yanked the door open.

He opened his eyes to find, framed against The Time Vortex...


"...Doctor."

"I am called Metron."

Jack darted under The Console, his tail bushy, his voice a series of hisses...

The Doctor drew in breath sharply. "Right, then."

And slammed the door shut.

...an instant later, he staggered back as the doors blew open, and the blue-clad figure in the gleaming green chair held up one hand-- he had just snapped his fingers.

The Doctor shook his head incredulously, sputtering, refusing to accept the witness of his eyes. "No. No. That's not possible. Only I can do that. The TARDIS, she's bonded to me."

Metron did not smile, did not nod. He steepled his fingers in front of him, and intoned: "Yes."

The Doctor staggered back another step, dark dark eyes bulging in his head. "But that means-- that means that you're--"

And again he said simply, with a voice devoid of emotion, of morality, but full of... correctness: "Yes."

The Doctor squared his shoulders, strode forward, stabbed a pointing finger towards the circular symbol on Metron's chest. "You can't be me. You can't be. Because I would never intentionally seek this out, the damage caused by the two of us existing together could destroy The Universe. Blinovitch and Belgium."

Metron was utterly unmoved by The Doctor's righteous indignation. "The Universe's restructuring is inevitable. And this moment was scheduled to occur."

"No," The Doctor snapped. "No. This isn't inevitable. Ruddy-- spoilers and ontological paradox-- Time can be rewritten."

"Yes," Metron replied, yet again, and then continued: "All of Time."

He narrowed his eyes, bunched his eyebrows. "Protect yourself, Doctor. You are needed for what is to come."

"I will see you again. At the Beginning."

...and then, with a darksome, ominous OMMMMMMMM... lightning crackled in The Vortex, and the being upon the throne faded from sight.

The Doctor stood there with his mouth open, aghast, floundering, foundering.

Captain Jack crawled out from under The Console, eyes so very wide, tail so very overinflated. "Is... is he gone?"

The Doctor did not get a chance to reassure The Cat.

Because then, in the distance, he spotted a searing flash of emerald light. A shockwave, in The Vortex...

...rushing for them at a rapid clip, expanding to swallow everything, everything, everything.

SWOOOSH

"No," The Doctor begged, and threw himself to slam the doors again, to sprint to The Console, flipping switches and toggling toggles... "Defenses to maximum! Extrapolator shielding ramping up by 500 Bernards, come on, come on!"

The blast wave hit them, whatever it was, knocked The TARDIS arse over teakettle...

Jack clung to the grated floor with his claws spread wide and he screamed "Doc! Doc, what-- what's going--"

"It's rewriting history around us, the whole Universe is undergoing--" The Doctor sputtered, sparks flew in his face, still he turned dials and cranked cranks-- "--all of time and space is getting reorganized, our whole corner of the cosmos-- and it's trying to reorganize us with it. To disintegrate us and reintegrate us--"

"We're gonna die?" Jack mrrrowwwled, in a panic. "I don't-- I don't wanna die."

"No," The Doctor put his foot down. "We're not going to die. The TARDIS will keep us safe, we're in a state of temporal grace and--"

--green light began to pulse through the cracks in the doors, to emanate inwards strobe by strobe.

"Doc. DOC!" Jack thrashed and scurried back, wedging himself between a coral pillar and the wall of The Console Room. "It's comin' in! It's gonna get us! It's too late! I gotta-- I gotta run-- instinct-- it's instinct-- fight or flight it's always flight--"

The Doctor flung a desperate hand out to The Cat, shaking his head, his face stricken and pale and his freckles standing out in stark relief-- "No, Jack, Jack, don't--! Stay with me! We can face this together, we're losing our whole existence I can't lose anyone else! PLEASE!"

Jack shook his head, covered his face with his chunky forepaws.

"I can't-- I can't-- I can't--"

--and then he was gone.

PAF.

Air rushed into the spot where the striped cat had balled himself and he was gone.

The Doctor's outstretched hand fell to his side. And his voice broke right along with his hearts.

"...no. Oh, no."

"Oh, Jack, not you too."

He stood there for a moment, now utterly utterly alone alone alone, and the strobing pulse of the green green light crawled towards him...

...he let it come to him, just for a moment.

And then he snapped his gaze to stare into the heart of that green green light and he squared his jaw. "No."

He snapped a switch on The Console, and the modified Chameleon Arch dropped from the ceiling to swing pendulously next to The Doctor's head.

"You're not gonna get me."

"Not all of me."

"I don't wanna go."

And as the green light flooded the last of The Console Room, the screams of his agonized Chameleonic bio-conversion rang from pillar to pillar...

Epilogue and Prologue, Part V.

The world changed.

Not once, but four times.

Great Old Ones slithered restless and deathless in the darkness, waiting for their time to come.

There rose and faded dark times of Old Gods of The Third World, Urgrund, Joyous Home, but great cataclysm shook this primordial aeon and a planet split in twain, releasing The Godwave and giving rise to The Fourth World.

No longer would a Time War rage between Time Lords and Daleks, no longer would Cybermen burst forth from parallel planets and try to remake the face of organic life. Instead, new threats and monsters and gods and demons would populate this cosmos, some of them horrifying beyond imagining, others so mundane as to be laughable.

No longer was The Constellation of Kasterborous at The Center of The Universe, instead there formed a small world called Oa, orbiting a star that would be called Sto-Oa. Instead of The Time Lords, there arose The Guardians of The Universe. The Guardians would strive to create order in The Universe, and they would be inspired to this end by the young children of a world called Ma'aleca'andra.

The gleaming world of Krypton would come from times of mystical barbarism in the light of Rao, its godly red sun, and would become the greatest force for pure scientific research in The 28 Known Galaxies. Its people would know Despair and Destruction-- but they would be the cradle of Hope.

On a world called Earth-- neighbor to Ma'aleca'andra and child of its same yellow sun --there were planted seeds of great power and knowledge in a species called "humanity," and these would prove fascinating to beings The Universe over.

It would be there that Krypton would send that last Hope, even in the midst of its greatest darkness.

It would be there that the greatest of The Guardians' agents of Order would be born.

It would be there that The TARDIS would crash-land, engines phasing, limping onto emergency power, as The Doctor would be written into the new timeline-- a human child of The 20th Century. A metahuman, receiving one of those seeds of power, a metagene, that he might be most like his lost self. Time would be rewritten around The Doctor, including him.

An offshoot of the lineage of Horatio Nelson with Emma, Lady Hamilton would result, over the generations, in Stephen and Rosemary Hamilton having a tiny, brilliant child, brother to their troubled Emil.

They would call this boy James David Hamilton, and he would be one of the brightest minds of his age, a Tenth-Level Intellect.

And with him, wherever he went, he would bring a watch, a watch that he would remember having received as a child but never specifically when. He would be haunted by a great square thing that he would somehow bring with him from home to home without ever quite looking at it, without ever peeking under the thick, musty sheets that hid it from view.

...but James David Hamilton would not be the only change to this world. The Doctor's mind would seep into the making of The Universe-- names and faces-- lovers and friends --would manifest themselves in the new timeline, a school called The Valeyard, a show called Doctor Who, even galactic landmarks like The Silver Devastation. His mere presence would influence history, despite his human form. (It was, of course, strictly a matter of coincidence that the most powerful and important creature in all of Creation was a beautiful young blonde woman. That he didn't have anything to do with.)

His daughter would marry a Scion of Shadow.

And he would live a long, full life, eventually growing old in a town called Smallville, and slipping away from that life alone in his bed as his daughter and son-in-law and their three children played outside.

Until a voice reminded him of the watch.

Reminded him to open it.

And release from it that neuropsychic net and biological template that raged, caged within.

Lazarus technology would make him young again, just as he was.

And he would go on to do so much more.

So. Much. More.

Epilogue and Prologue, Addendum.

When Ezra Small came to found Smallville in 1831, an orange cat would be there with him.

There were those who wondered if he weren't the very spirit of Smallville, ever-watchful, and making his presence known at all Smallville's most pivotal events.

His accent was Midwestern, not Tasmanian, but his attitude problem remained intact.

This cat would be named "Jack." And, like a certain namesake of his, he would live a long, long time.

(( Please continue reading about Jamie Hamilton and The Doctor (and Jack the Cat!) in the "Last Daughter of Krypton" series of threads created by the fantastic and inimitable TearsofTheWorld, and the "Last Daughter of Krypton: Legion" spin-off tie-in put together by Abraxas Winterlight.

Thank you for reading.