Allons-y! (Closed For Chas)

[Apollion]

The Searcher's world took a turn for the worse. Like it wasn't horrible enough.

He was gripping the console of his TARDIS, tears streaming down his face. He was forced to kill his old companion, not long after she died and came back through a Metacrisis, only to throw him out of his TARDIS and go gallavanting across the galaxy and the time vortex. He had no choice to kill her before she created a major paradox.

Now his TARDIS was falling through the Void, a last minute backfire brought on by a command Aly had entered. "Damn it! Where are you taking me?!" he yelled at the ship. "Tell me!" He scurried around, trying to regain control. Suddenly, a violent shudder rushed through the TARDIS and he was knocked to ground. The shaking had stopped.

"W... we stopped..." he said to himself. He rose from his feet and checked the console with a frown. "Oxygen outside... I wonder..." He grabbed his modified Dalek-Thompson (equipped with a stun setting) and opened the door, stepping out into the unknown.

 

[ChasNicollette]

They were building, down there. She could feel it in her toes, and in her spine, power tools, digging, excavating, building.

Building what, she wasn't sure. But they were building. Perhaps rebuilding was the better term...

She stood in view of Cardiff Bay, her coat flapping around her gently as a breeze rolled in off of the sea. Beside her, the water tower stood tall, and beyond that, the city of Cardiff, all around her...

And behind her stood The TARDIS. An affectation of a 1960's London Police Box adorned its outside, but inside was a whole different world.

They were both the last of their kind. A Type-40 TARDIS, obsolete by the standards of her people, hopelessly outmoded... but it was the only one to have survived.

The TARDIS and The Doctor.

And Doctor she was, though it would surprise many a person to have learned this.

She hadn't always been a her. But there had been... something of an accident.

She'd almost died. She'd almost regenerated. But partway through...

She glanced down at her hand, waiting patiently and absentmindedly while her TARDIS drank of The Cardiff Rift, restoring its power, refueling. She looked down at her hand and waggled her fingers.

Still weird, she noted. So alike my old hand, but subtly, profoundly different.

She sighed, and stuck her hand back in the pockets of her blue suit. (She'd had to have this re-tailored, but quite nicely now did it fit her slender frame with the ever-so-bewildering hints of curves.)

Ah, well. At least my skin isn't quite so terrible anymore.

Her hair was all right, too, she acknowledged. She'd let it grow out a little bit...

The light flashed atop her TARDIS, and it let out a little groaning noise, just one, a whooshing and a groaning...

Out came her sonic screwdriver, and she tapped the key on the side, examining the readings... the sonic and The TARDIS were linked, and she checked the fuel gauge...

"Does that mean yeh'll be off, then?" a man's voice, sounding nervous, sounding like all the nerves in the world were jangled within him.

The Doctor glanced up at the Welshman, and smiled gently, twirling the sonic on her fingers. "Just about, yeah. Out of your hair in a mo'."

Rhys Alun Williams smiled a smile that looked as nervous as he sounded. "Right, then. Wanted to thank you for. Cheers, for, erm. Relocating the last of them... Weevil things. No place to keep them now, not until they've finished with, you know."

He stamped his foot on the ground, indicating the reconstruction that was going on beneath. Harwood's lorries had been instrumental in hauling away the rubble, he'd not done too badly quid-wise from this, but still. More important things.

The Doctor nodded gently, taking his meaning. "You lot are going to do all right for yourselves, I should think. Getting The Weevils squared away was the least I could do after-- after not being able to help. With the--"

She hesitated. They both knew what she meant.

"You're just one m--" Rhys started, then hesitated, and corrected himself. "--woman."

The Doctor's eyes went half-lidded. "Bang on, actually. One man, and one woman. Though the man's half-human and living on a parallel world, funny story. And then there's me."

Rhys hesitated, he'd seen a lot, he'd seen incredible things, but this particular individual was new to him and she was... well, she was intimidating. "In any case. Yeh can't be everywhere at once."

"No," The Doctor agreed, her dark eyes seeming to retreat inward a little, reflecting on power and its lack. "No, I can't. But still. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

Apparently uncomfortable with this subject, Rhys glanced skyward, and cleared his throat.

"D'yeh think he'll be back, at all, ever?" Rhys wondered.

The Doctor followed Rhys' gaze, squinted up at the sky. "Hard to say, really. No-one can see the future, Rhys, least of all me. But I'd have to think... no. No, I'm sorry, he's gone this time. He's got a new destiny to..."

She trailed off for a moment, smiling a ghost of a smile. "...face."

Rhys opened his mouth to say something else, but then the mild wind from the bay picked up, sharply, The Doctor's coat starting to flap more insistently.

The Doctor hesitated. She felt the wind flow over her not-so-terrible skin and she knew that this wasn't a natural thermodynamic atmospheric repositioning...

...and then the sound. Oh, the sound.

The sound like the wind between the worlds, the sound like ghosts amongst the graveyards of the timelost and forgotten. That unmistakable sound.

The bottom dropped right out from under her. Her hearts were in her throat, she whirled to make sure that-- no, no, her TARDIS wasn't leaving without her, this was--

--this was--

--this was another TARDIS.

She could feel it coalescing in the core of her brain, she'd told Rose in her Ninth incarnation that if another Time Lord was alive anywhere, anywhen, she'd know it... in her head...

That feeling came to life.

Fear gripped her spine, trepidation skyrocketed through her binary vascular system, her hand became white-knuckled upon the sonic screwdriver.

Another Time Lord.

But that's impossible.

Even if it were possible...

She felt it come to life in her head, the same feeling she'd gotten when The Master had shed his human guise and become The Master once more, she hadn't seen it happen but she'd felt it...

...she'd felt him go away when he died all over again...

...but he never did stay dead.

She pointed the sonic screwdriver at that point, aimed with both hands. She could see it coalescing, familiar shape, familiar as the back of his-- as the back of her own hand...

Another Police Box began to fade into existence, strobing out of nothing and into something. A Police Box painted not blue... but black. Like some sort of Gallifreyan Horseman of The Apocalypse.

Rhys sounded stricken. "Should I-- should I get Gwen?"

The Doctor shook her head sharply. "Get below. Get to safety. Run. I'll bet you eye-stalks to probic vents that door's about to open wide, and I can't promise you that it'll be anything good. Your wife, your daughter, g'wan and look after them. Run!"

Rhys took a deep breath, and then sprinted for the docks, for the other entrance to... below...

The Black Box solidified. And it sat there for a moment, ticking over, as if taking a quick look around.

The Doctor narrowed her eyes. Her coat swirled in the settling breezes.

"'Gall pechod mawr ddyfod trwy ddrws bychan,'" she muttered in Welsh.

And the door swung open.

And a man stepped out. A male. A Time Lord.

He had a gun. A gun like those that the Dalek-Humans had wielded in Depression-era Manhattan.

And he was...

She blinked.

Just as Time Lords could perceive each other's existence, so too could they see through to the hearts of each other with the laying on of eyes. No matter how many times a Time Lord regenerated, they still recognised each other.

And this...

...was an old school chum. A classmate at The Academy.

Yes, yes, it was painted all over him, Void stuff, even without her 3D glasses she could perceive it on him, he'd come through the barriers from a parallel world. (Which shouldn't have been possible.)

But even less possible...

She knew him. She knew who he was. Or, at least, who he was to her.

The Engineer.

She shook her head, didn't quite lower the sonic. "...what?"

 

[Apollion]

If The Doctor was surprised, The Searcher was even more so.

He stared, frozen at the woman who stood in front of him, a sonic screwdriver raised. She was dressed the same way, had the some styled hair, the same eyes... but she was a she, not a he. Yet he could feel the same feeling The Doctor emanated from his mind. It was exactly the same. He lowered his weapon, his eyes in disbelief. "What?"

He turned his head to the right and there it was. The blue police box. The Doctor's TARDIS. "What?!" he cried out. He began to run around the ship, touching the fake, blue wood. He couldn't believe it. It was the same thing, plain and simple. He stepped away then turned back to The She-Doctor, eyes widened. "But... it's not possible... you're a girl! No! Nooo... you're not a girl, wait, not you, I mean, the real you, I MEAN, the other you, the you I know, but you know me, but..." He gave her one last confused look over.

"....what the bloody hell?!" he said, before his eyes rolled into the back of his head and he collapsed.

 

[ChasNicollette]

He stared, frozen at the woman who stood in front of him, a sonic screwdriver raised...

He lowered his weapon, his eyes in disbelief. "What?"

"Yeah, tell me about it," The Doctor replied, her screwdriver unwavering. "(And me eyes are up here, mate.)"

He turned his head to the right and there it was. The blue police box. The Doctor's TARDIS. "What?!" he cried out. He began to run around the ship, touching the fake, blue wood. He couldn't believe it. It was the same thing, plain and simple.

The Doctor tensed when the man who might have been The Engineer ran for her TARDIS, like this was a hi-jacking, but no, but no, it was a frantic empirical analysis. The same sort of... desperate disbelieving recognition ran rampant in The Time Lord, and The Time Lady could only watch in sad but fretful sympathy.

He stepped away then turned back to The She-Doctor, eyes widened. "But... it's not possible... you're a girl! No! Nooo... you're not a girl, wait, not you, I mean, the real you, I MEAN, the other you, the you I know, but you know me, but..." He gave her one last confused look over.

"Yeah," The Doctor murmured sadly. "That's pretty much what Rose said, too. And Jack... oh, the look on Jack's face was priceless. Donna took it in stride, mostly, bless her."

"....what the bloody hell?!" he said, before his eyes rolled into the back of his head and he collapsed.

The Doctor blinked. And lowered the sonic. "I'm a girl, then? And you're fainting on the spot?"

The Doctor shook her head, scowled a little. "'Pig-tails, frilly skirt.'"

She scooped up the fallen Dalek weapon and, glancing at it for a moment, arching an eyebrow at the stun setting, placed this into an inside pocket of her coat. And yes, it fit.

Popping on her glasses, she then hurried over to the fallen Engineer and, touching the key on the side of the sonic screwdriver, scanned The Time Lord's vitals. Significant Void-stuff, like she'd suspected, a great deal of temporal background radiation, The Engineer'd evidently been engaged in some heavy chronometric activity of late.

Not her Engineer. A parallel Engineer.

Friends in school. They'd even had the same birthday. Turned eight on the same day...

"Both hearts beating," she murmured, shaking her head. "Respiratory bypass system on stand-by. Temperature, 18 degrees Centigrade, little warm. Pulse 8 BPM, little low. But you're not in a healing trance, you're just... one two many hits to the psyche, yeah?"

She glanced at The Black Box. And then she glanced at The Blue Box.

"You could do with a go in a Zero Room," she muttered. "But I don't have a key to your TARDIS-- though I could go through your pockets --and until I know more about you I'm not letting you set foot in mine."

Curious, she waved the sonic at The Black Box. And arched an eyebrow.

"Heavily modified," she murmured, "I shouldn't wonder. And oh, that's very you."

She sighed, shook her head one last time, and pocketed the sonic. "Right, then. Come with me."

Gathering The Engineer up in her arms, she began to carry him towards the docks. Towards the tourist information office that, now rebuilt, had served as the primary employee entrance for Torchwood Three. (He was pretty heavy, but The Doctor refused to tolerate the notion that she might have diminished upper-body strength in this form. Martha had just been lighter, was all.)

As The Doctor stepped into the false-front tourist office and laid the erstwhile Engineer out on a bench, the secret entrance opened behind her and Gwen Cooper emerged with Rhys, Gwen with a gun drawn, still very very much pregnant.

The Doctor looked at Gwen blearily, shrugging out of her coat and draping it across the counter. "Oh, that's going to be a lot of help."

Gwen smiled grimly. "Killed you once, didn't it? Being shot?"

The Doctor blinked, and smiled ever-so-faintly. "Someone's been reading the file back-ups. No, technically, the bullets didn't kill me. A well-meaning surgeon did, while trying to figure me out."

"Talk about, what was it," Rhys suggested, "'physician heal thyself?'"

The Doctor chuckled. "Quite so."

She quieted, and remembered the deadened look on Lucy Saxon's face when she... "Though it's not... entirely unheard of. One of us, dying from being shot."

Her hand went into a pocket on her blue suit coat, and came out with a small jar with a screw-top lid. "Venusian smelling-salts," she explained softly, as she unscrewed that lid.

And she waved this under The Engineer's nose.

"C'mon, then," she murmured. "Wakey wakey. Let's see what you're on about."

Gwen thumbed back the hammer on her side-arm, aiming it with both hands. Rhys moved behind Gwen.

The Doctor rolled her eyes a little.

 

[Apollion]

While he was unconscious, his mind began to fill with flashes of memory. His first day at the Academy, the many years he spent with The Doctor, learning about the Laws Of Time, the connection between TARDIS and Time Lord... he remembered his appointment as The Engineer, being tasked with creating and modifiying weapons, ships, equipment... remembered The Time War, the thief... the family in England, his wife... the day they died... everything poured into that dream and he knew he would have to suffer this dream. Over and over.

Suddenly, a sting filled his nostrils, the scent of Venusian smelling-salts. His eyes opened wide and he sat up slowly, wrinkling his nose. "Doctor, you know that smell irritates me! Don't do it again..." he warned before rubbing his nose. Then he saw Gwen with the handgun aimed at him and he raised an eyebrow before looking at The Doctor again. "You did tell her about bullets, right?" he asked before sitting on the bench properly. He could percieve the Void stuff, but only just as he looked at his hand. With a grunt, he cracked his neck.

"Okay... explanation time. That way Miss Torchwood here will lower her weapon, you'll learn how I got here... and then you can help me get back to my world. Not that it could be possible, knowing that I'll just add a bigger crack in between dimensions..." Searcher then paused and looked over the Female Doctor one more time. "Let me guess... human female tissue interfered with regeneration? Bad Wolf playing a final prank?"

 

[ChasNicollette]

His eyes opened wide and he sat up slowly, wrinkling his nose. "Doctor, you know that smell irritates me! Don't do it again..." he warned before rubbing his nose.

The Doctor chuckled wryly, capping the bottle and pocketing this away. "Technically, I don't know anything about you. Or, well, there's the distinct possibility that everything I think I know about you is wrong. Which, to be honest, puts me at a considerable disadvantage, given how much I think I know about you."

Then he saw Gwen with the handgun aimed at him and he raised an eyebrow before looking at The Doctor again. "You did tell her about bullets, right?" he asked before sitting on the bench properly. He could percieve the Void stuff, but only just as he looked at his hand. With a grunt, he cracked his neck.

"I did tell them about bullets," The Doctor assured him, a weary smile on her lips. "But you know, whatever makes them feel safer. This little lady once tried to hose down a Dalek with a machine gun, she's not going to listen to me. Although-- and, speaking of Daleks --considering the heat you were packing when you debarked, you're really not in a position to judge."

Gwen arched an eyebrow at that. "What sort of 'heat?'"

"Okay... explanation time. That way Miss Torchwood here will lower her weapon, you'll learn how I got here... and then you can help me get back to my world. Not that it could be possible, knowing that I'll just add a bigger crack in between dimensions..." Searcher then paused and looked over the Female Doctor one more time. "Let me guess... human female tissue interfered with regeneration? Bad Wolf playing a final prank?"

"First of all," Rhys protested, pointing a finger, "it's 'Missus,' now, not 'Miss.'"

Gwen's lip quirked, and she gave Rhys a sour look, a bit exasperated, as though he'd dropped a ball. "'Miz.'"

Rhys stood corrected. "'Miz' Torchwood."

And then cleared his throat, and pointed that finger again. "Second of all, for a man who's just said he's explaining things, you just got a Hell of a lot more cryptic."

"He's got a point," Gwen nodded.

"He does have a point," The Doctor agreed, easily enough. "But... in the interest of diplomacy?"

The sonic screwdriver emerged from somewhere, suddenly it was in The Doctor's hand, and the light shone and the whistle sounded and all of a sudden Gwen's safety clicked on.

Gwen blinked. And then her clip fell out of the gun, much to her dismay. "Strewth! Oi, of all the insufferable--!"

The Doctor smiled faintly, and stood up straight, tucking the sonic away again.

"Rhys," Gwen sighed dismally, "can you please pick up me clip."

Rhys hesitated, glancing at The Doctor, who was watching them somewhat imperiously from behind her glasses.

"Darling," Gwen scowled, "I'm eight months bluddy pregnant and I can't bend down to reload me gun."

"All my fault then, isn't it?" Rhys smiled gamely, dropping down to grab the fallen magazine, handing it up to her.

"Yes," Gwen scoffed, though a little bit better-naturedly. "I s'pose it is."

She slapped the clip back into the gun, but she did, in fact, holster the gun. "There, now. Copasetic?"

The Doctor grinned, plucked the glasses off of her face and then, well, holstered them. "Dead brill."

And then, hands in her pockets, she swiveled to face The Engineer once more. "Right, then. Well, I'd be interested in the manner of your ingress, absolutely, because that'll determine whether or not your egress'll cause the collapse of the fundamental pillars of reality and all that. ('End of The Universe, butterfingers.')"

She pursed her lips, and narrowed her eyes, and shrugged her shoulders. "It's sort of an involved story, actually. I was shot. By a Dalek, of all things, which is, frankly, embarrassing. Grazing shot, only exterminated my left heart, but I was fading fast. Except I'd... grown rather fond of that particular regeneration and, to be honest, I still am, really. And thus, when the regeneration initiated I let it cycle through, fixed me heart, mollified some internal burns and haemorraging, worked out some kinks in the nervous system. Then, before the regeneration completely took hold, I diverted the remaining energies into a handy bio-matching receptacle."

She paused, bit the inside of her cheek. "But. I. Hung on for too long, I think, just a tiny second too long, and I think I might have been about to regenerate into, I dunno, Davina McCall or someone, because the next thing I know I'm an x-chromosomal version of my y-chromosomal self. Not completely rewritten. Just enough to make the male me into a female me."

Her face scrunched up. "Oh, that's all a bit boring when you say it aloud, ennit? Shame, really, it was plenty exciting at the time."

She leaned against the counter, hands still in her pockets, tutting softly. "Hope your story's less of a dud than mine."

 

[Apollion]

Searcher gave a smile to Gwen and Rhys. "My, apologies, Ms. Torchwood. I hope your child has a healthy birth..." Then he turned his eyes to The Doctor. "Obviously, you haven't seen me in 7 years. Ever since The Time War. I was sent to recover the Sash of Rassilon from a thief who, for some reason, knew that Gallifrey would be destroyed. I, of course, didn't know that until I destroyed him. I know you don't like violence, but things were different back then. After I recovered the Sash... well, that's when everything began to burn under Dalek death rays. I was blown into the Untempered Schism and I spent 7 Gallifreyan years in it's never-ending flux. Of course, I had my eyes closed. I didn't want to go mad, after all."

Then he continued to tell his tale. How he woke up in 1500s England. How he had no memories of their homeworld. How he had fell in love, married then lost love. He told the story of tracking his version of The Doctor down, trying to find him, to let him know that he was not alone. How he went through 7 regenerations just to even do that. His encounter with Aly. His journeys with her. Her demise then her rebirth via Biological Meta-crisis...

"When the process was finished, I was like this and she was something more." He said, gesturing to himself. "She was made Time Lord. Two hearts, regeneration cycle, knowledge of the Universe, everything. But it got to her. She threw me out of the TARDIS and I spent months tracking her down. Funnily enough, I kept encountering several alien races with evil plans. Toadastans, for example. They tried to assimilate a whole school."

He quickly turned his head to the humans. "Mushroom people, fans of Sylvia Plath.." He turned back. "Anyway, I finally managed to find her in Brooklyn, New York. She was on the verge of tearing a rift open, letting something... horrifying in. I managed to stop it... but it involved killing her." His face was grim with sadness and pain. "I didn't want to do it, but I had to. I couldn't erase her mind, because it would have turned her into a vegetable. I tried to leave... then the rift decided to pull me in. Now, here I am..."

Slowly, he released a sigh then sprang onto his feet. "Right then! I have a feeling we have a possible crack to seal up before it makes the Cardiff rift wider and we all know what that means..."

 

[ChasNicollette]

Searcher gave a smile to Gwen and Rhys. "My, apologies, Ms. Torchwood. I hope your child has a healthy birth..."

"Well," Gwen smiled faintly, "thank you for that. (It has to go better than the last one.)"

"Bluddy aliens," Rhys grunted, then paused. "No offence."

Then he turned his eyes to The Doctor. "Obviously, you haven't seen me in 7 years. Ever since The Time War. I was sent to recover the Sash of Rassilon from a thief who, for some reason, knew that Gallifrey would be destroyed. I, of course, didn't know that until I destroyed him. I know you don't like violence, but things were different back then. After I recovered the Sash... well, that's when everything began to burn under Dalek death rays. I was blown into the Untempered Schism and I spent 7 Gallifreyan years in it's never-ending flux. Of course, I had my eyes closed. I didn't want to go mad, after all."

The Doctor whistled softly. "Time-travel without a capsule, and you took the scenic route. You're sure you didn't go mad? Y'know, stark staring bonkers, bandog and bedlam?"

She shook her head, and her eyes grew darker still. "Yeah. We all got blood on our hands during The War. You missed the best bit, I think. But go on, don't let me tread on toes."

Then he continued to tell his tale. How he woke up in 1500s England. How he had no memories of their homeworld. How he had fell in love, married then lost love. He told the story of tracking his version of The Doctor down, trying to find him, to let him know that he was not alone. How he went through 7 regenerations just to even do that. His encounter with Aly. His journeys with her. Her demise then her rebirth via Biological Meta-crisis...

The Doctor frowned. She had been in 1500s England, and she hadn't felt The Engineer's presence. Could the amnesia have prevented that as thoroughly as a Chameleon Arch's reprogramming of identity?

No. Not possible.

Yeah. The Engineer of my world is dead. Just like all the others.

Never lived to become The Searcher.

...sorry, mate.

At this point, Rhys had gotten Gwen a chair, and she sat holding his hand, frowning at The Searcher's own little Winter's Tale. "What's this, then? 'Meta-Crisis.' Sounds uncomfortable."

"Sounds like something from a comic book," Rhys agreed. "And not in the good way."

The Doctor frowned softly, gesturing with one hand while the other stayed in her pocket. "It's an... it's an energy exchange that hybridises one life-form with another. For example, you could integrate human DNA into a Time Lord, and they'd be viable, you know, like... Spock. Half-human, half-Vulcan. But it doesn't work the other way."

"Inserting a Time Lord's biological code," Gwen processed, "into a human's body?"

The Doctor put her hand back into her pocket, withdrew inward slightly, her eyes darkening as deeply as they'd done when The Time War was mentioned. Donna.

"Yeah," The Doctor nodded, all confirmation and sadness. "That doesn't end well."

"When the process was finished, I was like this and she was something more." He said, gesturing to himself. "She was made Time Lord. Two hearts, regeneration cycle, knowledge of the Universe, everything. But it got to her. She threw me out of the TARDIS and I spent months tracking her down. Funnily enough, I kept encountering several alien races with evil plans. Toadastans, for example. They tried to assimilate a whole school."

"It's a funny oul' life," The Doctor agreed, smiling faintly. "Doesn't matter where you go, trouble just finds you. And, oh, those Toadastans."

He quickly turned his head to the humans. "Mushroom people, fans of Sylvia Plath.."

The Doctor smirked, eyes managing to twinkle. "Fungis, once you get to know them."

Rhys chuckled, Gwen shook her head, smiling exasperatedly.

He turned back. "Anyway, I finally managed to find her in Brooklyn, New York. She was on the verge of tearing a rift open, letting something... horrifying in."

The Doctor's eyes narrowed, the twinkle gone. The Great Old Ones.

"Blimey," she murmured.

"I managed to stop it... but it involved killing her." His face was grim with sadness and pain. "I didn't want to do it, but I had to. I couldn't erase her mind, because it would have turned her into a vegetable. I tried to leave... then the rift decided to pull me in. Now, here I am..."

The Doctor stared to nowhere for a moment, thinking about Death and Time Vortices, how often Death for her came reaching through fissures in Time and gaps between Universes. "'No matter where you go, there you are.'"

Slowly, he released a sigh then sprang onto his feet. "Right then! I have a feeling we have a possible crack to seal up before it makes the Cardiff rift wider and we all know what that means..."

Rhys gave Gwen a hand out of her chair, and Gwen grunted softly. "Roman soldiers with an axe to grind?"

Rhys' eyes widened worriedly. "More of those ruddy Weevils."

"'Cats and dogs living together,'" The Doctor mused, swirling her coat around her shoulders. "'Mass hysteria.'"

The Doctor grinned at The Searcher. "'Who ya gonna call?'"

And then she sprinted out the door, heading back for the sculpture and Roald Dahl Plass.

For, side-by-side, two ships of the line, The Black Box and The Blue Box.

 

[Apollion]

"Not Ghostbusters... they can't do anything right!"

The Searcher grinned as The Doctor sprinted in the direction of the twin TARDISes. More running! This is the life! He turned to Gwen and Rhys, pulling a certain device from his pocket. "Here, use that with Torchwood's rift scanners. Once calibrated, you can use it to create some kind of "rift stitch", it will stop the crack from spreading any further than it already is. If you need to thank someone, thank the Australian branch of Torchwood. Au revoir!" He turned then sprint after The Doctor.

When he finally caught up to her, he gave her a smile. "Y'know, I thought you were crazy when you said that this was fun! Now I see the appeal!" As soon as they approached the building, however, Searcher grabbed the Doctor's arm. "Waitwaitwait! I have an idea!" He pulled out two devices from his huge pockets then placed them on the ground and activated them. "Hoverboards. Not like the cheap Back To The Future-esque plastic." He stepped onto one and surfed the air a few times. "Going up!" he yelled before ascending the building.

 

[ChasNicollette]

(In which it is proven that I love this stuff way too much.)

"Not Ghostbusters... they can't do anything right!"

The Doctor chewed this over as she ran, her coat flapping behind her.

You'd think The Engineer would have nothing but respect for a bunch of humans that could contain the supernatural through terrestrial science they'd pieced together-- unlicenced --out of junkyards.

Not to mention sealing a dimensional rift and repulsing a extradimensional incursion.

She slowed to a walk, and gazed up the water tower as she grew closer. She lifted her hand and waggled her fingers in the air. Her fingers tingled... and the tingle became a prickle almost agonising which crawled and creeped down the back of her arm and up to the back of her neck.

Yeah, speaking of which...

On went the 3-D glasses, and The Doctor could only whistle at what she saw.

"Oh, Cardiff," she murmured. "You've had some cowboys in here."

The Searcher grinned as The Doctor sprinted in the direction of the twin TARDISes. More running! This is the life! He turned to Gwen and Rhys, pulling a certain device from his pocket. "Here, use that with Torchwood's rift scanners. Once calibrated, you can use it to create some kind of "rift stitch", it will stop the crack from spreading any further than it already is. If you need to thank someone, thank the Australian branch of Torchwood. Au revoir!" He turned then sprint after The Doctor.

Rhys stared blankly after The Searcher, holding the device he'd just been handed. "Oh, they've got one in Australia now?"

"Used to, yeah," Gwen actually seemed impressed. "Torchwood Four. It went... missing."

Rhys processed this for a moment. "I guess he must have found it, then. When he was Searching."

"I guess he must have," Gwen nodded slowly, then gestured to the secret entrance. "All right, then, let's have a look at this thing."

And they vanished into the underdark of what once had been The Hub.

********​

Captain John Hart sat quietly at the bottom of a ladder beneath a manhole cover, his ancient Italian boots tapping an alternating rhythm on the floor. The room, like most of the rest of The Hub, had not survived intact. But now that the rubble had been dug away, it served as a kind of shelter from the relentless noise of the construction.

In his fingers he had steepled a small piece of rubble unlike any other.

And he sat, gazing past that rubble, at the wall opposite, the wall above the foot of what once had been Jack Harkness' bed.

There was a poster. Of Leonard Nimoy. In character as Spock. And that, somehow, remained intact, when so many other things had been destroyed.

Apparently, having been oblivious of Twentieth-Century Earth popular culture when John had known him, Jack had developed quite a fascination with the green-blooded alien in the intervening centuries.

Jack had loved a man, once, that had been first introduced to him as "Mister Spock." And while John had made leaps and strides, becoming a far better man, far less vindictive, he was yet by no means perfect.

And he couldn't help feeling jealous that Jack had loved this man, this "Spock," far longer than Jack had ever loved John.

John sighed, and again examined the piece of TARDIS coral in his fingers. A piece of TARDIS coral that had once sat on Jack's desk.

Jack was gone. Ascended into the sky like some sort of self-resurrecting Messiah.

'Where I am going, you cannot follow.'

Bastard.

"Captain?" a voice called out from the top of the ladder, enquiring. "Captain Hart, are you down there? Only something interesting's happening, and I might need your help with this."

Hart sat there for a moment, blue eyes in a glower, but then blew air through his lips, and reached up to grab a rung of the ladder and haul himself to standing. "Hold your horses, Professor, I'll be up in two shakes."

Placing the piece of TARDIS coral on the spot where Jack had once rested his head to sleep, John turned and began to climb the ladder.

"Of course," he muttered to himself as he went, "you shake it more than three times, it means you're playing with yourself."

He topped the ladder, and found UNIT Professor Malcolm Taylor waiting for him. Hart arched an eyebrow, regarding Taylor.

Taylor stood there for a moment, staring back at Hart.

Hart pursed his lips for that same moment. Taylor reminded him of some form of human insect. And not the good kind, those cute blue bug-girls from Malcassairo. Taylor was tapping his fingers together, hands wrapped in grey fingerless gloves, as he squinted at Hart through round-lensed spectacles.

Hart smiled faintly. "So. There's a problem of some kind?"

"Well, yes," Taylor blinked, as if suddenly realising he hadn't been talking.

(Hart scared him, more than a little. And rightly so.)

"You see," the Welshman mumbled, "there's a TARDIS."

"I know," Hart told him, trying desperately to be tolerant and not to fall off of the murder-rehab wagon. "It's blocking the lift. Damned inconsiderate, if you ask me. Which, no-one does."

"Yes, yes, quite right, quite right," Taylor nodded, and turned, and scuttled away back out of what was left of Jack's office and out into The Hub proper. "Well, you see... there's another one."

John blinked. "Wait, what?"

And he hurried after the buggy little man.

Sitting at the bottom of the steps in what once had been the medbay area, Doctor Martha Milligan-Jones was not having the best of conversations.

"No, Tom," Martha hissed into her mobile, "I'm not having this out with you again. I thought we agreed when we got married that the both of us were on the same side. You knew I was dedicated to this when you popped me the bloody question!"

She cupped her left hand over her ear, her wedding and engagement rings glinting in the temporary fluorescent lights that the UNIT reconstruction crews had set up, and pressed the right hand, holding the mobile, even harder into her right ear.

"No," Martha scowled. "No, I've heard this one before, it's all reruns. This is the part where you accuse me of being so preoccupied with all these threats from beyond the stars that I'm unable or unwilling to tend to our own problems here on Earth. Which is when I tell you, I'm helping hold the door shut to keep these terrible threats out so that you still have an Earth to save!"

Martha scrunched her eyes shut as she listened to Doctor Tom Milligan...

"No," she snarled, "no, I'm not saying that I'm better than you, that I'm doing more important work, I'm saying that it's as important, that it's the same--"

She stiffened. And then stared at the phone.

And her eyes went sad and dark.

"--that's what I've always said," she finished, to the husband who'd just hung up on her.

She sighed dismally, and clapped her phone shut. "...shit."

"Trouble in Paradise?" came a gentle, strong voice from the top of the steps.

Martha glanced up at the man who stood atop those steps, wiping his oily hands on a rag, the man whose alternate-universe Torchwood experience had made him invaluable to the rebuild, the man whose mechanical and computer genius had him presently getting the new Torchwood Three S.U.V. up and running.

Mickey Smith finished wiping down his hands as he walked down the steps, setting his bejumpsuited butt down on the step beside her.

Martha offered him a crumpled, dejected little smile. "Eight months after the honeymoon, and the honeymoon's over. It's the same argument it's been since day one: he wants me out there in Africa with him, patching up little boys and girls, when any minute a Sycoraxic asteroid-ship could crash into San Francisco and plunge us into an extinction event, or some Carrionites could crack out of their shadowy prison and eat our souls, or-or-or Slitheen could take over Geneva..."

"If it's not one fhing," Mickey noted, grinning an infectious, encouraging grin, "it's anuvver."

Martha stared dismally at her mobile and then thudded her head onto Mickey's shoulder, rather surprising him.

They sat there for a moment, and Mickey quietly slipped an arm around her shoulders.

"I have to agree wiv 'im on one fhing, though," Mickey murmured.

Martha pushed away from him with a start, staring at him like he'd just uttered C.S. Lewis' Deplorable Word. "Oh, and what's that, then?"

Mickey didn't even blink, his smile utterly unrepentant, utterly sincere. "If I were lucky enough t' be married t' someone like you? Well, I'd want you wiv me all the time. None uv this fhousands uv miles apart."

Martha stared at Mickey for a moment as if seeing him for the first time.

And Mickey smiled back at her.

The moment hung between them. And then it passed. Gone, but not forgotten.

"C'mon," he murmured. "There's somefhing you need to see."

And he stood, and held out a hand to help her up.

Martha's eyes narrowed at him, and she mirrored his smile with her own. "Okay. What've you got for me this time?"

********​

The Doctor slowed to a meander as she walked closer.

It's blown open. It's blown wide open.

Not just time and space, now, it's the whole multiverse, all the infinite parallels.

I could...

I could find Rose.

I could find her again.

The Doctor took off her 3-D glasses and pocketed them, agony etched in her eyes.

Well, don't be ridiculous.

She's found the man of her dreams, hasn't she? You pushed her into his arms.

And, you, Doctor. Well, you're not the man of her dreams anymore. Are you?

You're not the man of her dreams at all.

She glanced over her shoulder as The Searcher hurried up beside her, and she managed, despite everything, to give him an always all right sort of smile.

When he finally caught up to her, he gave her a smile. "Y'know, I thought you were crazy when you said that this was fun! Now I see the appeal!"

"Nope," The Doctor assured The Searcher. "Not crazy at all."

She paused, though. "Well--"

As soon as they approached the building, however, Searcher grabbed the Doctor's arm. "Waitwaitwait! I have an idea!"

The Doctor stopped. The Doctor stared.

He's so like me, now. We were alike in our first incarnations, our first lives.

The three of us. My twin brother, my best friend, and me, all of us turning eight on the same day. All of us beholding The Untempered Schism on the same day.

We lost my brother that day. He never was the same after that.

And I've regenerated since then, and my friend and I became different, and drifted apart...

...now he's regenerated again. And he's like me again.

Sometimes a Time Lord or a Time Lady can choose their regenerations. If they're clever enough, like Romana, my God she was clever. Goodness knows, The Time Lords gave me enough options to choose from when forcing me away from my second life.

(Odd little deja vu. One of the faces they'd offered me looked like my tenth me. This me, when I was male. Second me thought this future me looked 'too thin...')

I can't choose my regenerations. But sometimes, I think, my subconscious plays tricks on the process...

When I died on that operating table in front of Grace Holloway, I wanted to be young, and strong, to impress her.

And when I died saving Rose from the energies of The Time Vortex, I wanted to become something she could really, really love. Not just that funny-looking bloke with the ears and the nose.

I really was fantastic, then. But Rose deserved something handsome.

And, oh, The Master, he wanted to be young and strong, too, and he changed from Professor Yana into a glass-darkly version of me.

Is that why you're like me now, Searcher-Engineer-once-was? Because you were Searching for me?

Not that I'm complaining. It's a funny oul' life.

I like that we're alike.

I've missed you. Old Friend.

*******​

They had gathered around what had once been The Rift Manipulator, the four of them, the UNIT construction crews still working in the background, bringing that selfsame Rift Manipulator back to life again. Professor Taylor, Captain Hart, Doctor Jones, and Mickey Smith. Monitor screens displayed the two TARDISes up top, and The Time Lord that had jogged up beside their resident Time Lady.

"I thought she was the last of them," Martha murmured. "Now that The Master's been shot and cremated. I thought she was the last."

"In this world, certainly," Professor Taylor agreed, fiddling about, "Doctor Jones. But he's not from this world. Not from our history. He's something of a next-door neighbour. But this doesn't seem to make our Lady Doctor any less glad to see him."

"S'weird, still," Mickey opined softly. "Seeing 'er like this. 'Im as an 'er. S'weirder even when 'e changed faces that first time. 'E's-- she's so much like The Doctor I met that Christmas. But she's a little different. Around the edges, right down th' middle."

"It's not so unusual where I come from," John harrumphed. "Really, your Twenty-First Century concepts of gender make a man want to bust a cap in his own ass, they're so 'quaint.'"

"Careful with that," Martha muttered, not finding this new captain entirely trustworthy compared with the old one. "You're not as immortal as some people."

"Well, no," John conceded. "But I'm working on it."

Mickey glanced at John. "You want t' live forever?"

John stared back at him, unblinking, utterly expressionless, giving nothing away. "Who doesn't, these days?"

Professor Taylor had removed his glasses and was examining the wiring of the half-restored Rift Manipulator with a pair of goggles that looked like they were repurposed from a pair of binoculars. "The Rift activity involved here threatens to be enormous, like a... like a dam about to burst! Ten to the thirteenth-power bernards!"

He paused, and frowned. "Oh, that's no good. A hundred malcolms is a bernard, but what do you get when you have that many bernards?"

Hart's jaw muscle twitched. "A cochrane?"

Taylor frowned at him through those comical-looking goggles. "Sounds uncomfortable."

As they spoke, the airlock door of The Hub's front entrance powered open, and Rhys helped Gwen back through, after they'd so hurriedly departed only minutes before.

Hurrying over to the other four, Rhys handed Professor Taylor the device that The Searcher had given them. "He says this'll fix it. The other one."

"Mm," Taylor murmured, examining it closely through those goggles. "Yes, this'll enable our nascent Rift Manipulator to emit a compressed burst of feedback on a counter-oscillation, specifically tailoring itself to the Time/Space/Void disturbance."

And he pulled a jack out of the side of the thing, blinking in startlement. "Ah. And, ah, it seems it's... USB-compatible."

Martha arched an eyebrow at Gwen. "Where did he say he found this?"

Gwen shrugged, a bit helplessly. "Australia."

Martha nodded as if this made sense.

Shedding the goggles and replacing his spectacles, Taylor made to plug this into one of the terminals attached to The Rift Manipulator.

But, strong as an ox, John Hart stayed Taylor's hand. "Hold on, hold on."

Taylor gawped at him. "You what?"

Hart shook his head. "Look, I've been travelling your Earth for awhile, and if there's one thing that bugs the shit out of me about your funny little globe, it's the inconsistency of your voltages. You can't even swing by the old Torchwood Five in India for a nostalgic visit and expect your American electric toothbrush to charge properly. Now, thinking about this rationally, this-- Time Lord fella brings in his frammistat from a whole 'nother dimension and you expect it to plug in first try?"

Taylor hesitated. "He has a point."

Rhys scowled. "He does have a point."

Gwen crossed her arms over her stomach, and felt her child kick. This distracted her for a moment, and she couldn't help a smile. But then she narrowed her eyes at John Hart. "But... in the interest of diplomacy?"

"Yeah, yeah," John muttered, rolling up his sleeve and opening the flap of his Time Agency wrist-strap.

(Granted, this hadn't been his originally. His one had had a bomb attached to it, and Jack had detonated it for him safely. This one, John'd taken from Jack's brother Gray before Jack had put Gray in cryo-freeze. Only trouble was, Gray had put isomorphic controls on it, so that the built-in Vortex Manipulator only worked for Gray. Cunning bastard. No time-travel, no teleportation. No chasing after Jack. But the rest of it still worked fine.)

John takked a key, and a beep sounded, and a green light flashed. "There. Safe as houses. ...I've reversed the polarity of the neutron flow."

*******​

He pulled out two devices from his huge pockets then placed them on the ground and activated them. "Hoverboards. Not like the cheap Back To The Future-esque plastic." He stepped onto one and surfed the air a few times. "Going up!" he yelled before ascending the building.

The Doctor stared at The Searcher, and then watched The Searcher rise.

And The Doctor smiled a slow, slow smile.

He is like me.

Rude, and not ginger.

And something of a show-off around tall, bespectacled brunettes.

The Doctor stepped onto the hoverboard.

Yeah, well, I flew a double-decker bus once and another tall brunette snogged me in front of everyone.

Two can play at this game.

And the sonic screwdriver was in her hand.

"'McFly,'" The Doctor intoned, "'you bojo, those boards don't work on water.'"

She pressed the button on the sonic, and the hoverboard thrummed beneath her feet, shuddered and rumbled as the maglev systems suddenly found themselves boosted by a considerable margin.

"'Unless you've got power.'"

And she put her back foot down and pointed the nose of the hoverboard upward and dropped into a crouch...

...and in a flash of blue light, the hoverboard rocketed her up, up, up, past The Searcher, up into the sky, whipping around in a Lomcevak as she whooped, whooped, delightedly and loudly, her voice ringing across the Cardiff skyline, and then she performed a Whifferdill turn and then descended slowly to the same level as The Searcher, there at the top of the sculpture.

She smiled at him faintly, standing there on the hoverboard, and put her hands in her pockets.

"Say what you will about The Back To The Future Trilogy," The Doctor pointed out, "its writers had a fabulous grasp of The Infinite Temporal Flux."

She paused to think on this for a moment. "Is this going to be a thing with you? Me having to defend my favourite 1980's Earth science fiction films? Because honestly, if you utter one cruel word about Flight of The Navigator..."

Growing serious again, The Doctor nodded to the base of the structure. "I wish I had better news for you. The Rift is maybe minutes away from rattling itself apart. And there's absolutely zero hope of you coming up with a back-traced transmultiversal navigational vector in the time you have. Torchwood's going to see the same thing and weld that Rift shut before you can say 'Jack Robinson,' and from what I recall, you could say 'Jack Robinson' awfully quickly."

Floating closer, she held out the 3-D glasses to him, her face as torn as could be. "Take a look if you want."

"'Marty, I'm sorry, but I'm afraid you're stuck here.'"

 

[Apollion]

Searcher stared at the Doctor, then the glasses, then the sky. It was too late. He couldn't go home. Not now anyway. He needed the rift to heal. That took a long time. A really, really, really long time. His face lost all enthusiasm. All excitement. Just the cold, hard, mask he wore whenever he knew that logic and Fate was against him. He floated past the Doctor, stepped off his board and snapped his fingers. The Black Box opened immediately, allowing him to walk through. He strode to the console and leaned against it on his hands.

I... I can't go home...

He ran to one side of the console then engaged a program. Slowly, his TARDIS began to drain the Rift of the energy needed to power the ship. He would need it. After about a few minutes, the meter was full. In silent agony, he immediately keyed in another command. The command to close the Rift.

....so be it.

He engaged it and slammed his fist on an empty portion of the console, tears rolling down his face. "God-damn it..." he murmured. He had no choice. It was end of the world or entrapment. It was obvious. He slowly tried to relax, but it was useless. He, for the first time, cried. Cried for those who died in his wake, for those he loved. He wanted it to end.

He didn't realise that The Doctor had just walked in.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Down in The Hub, Malcolm Taylor plugged the rift-stitch device into the partly-assembled Rift Manipulator, and squinted at one of the monitors. "That, erm, ought to do it... oh, no, hang on, it's uploading its drivers..."

Mickey harrumphed. "You watch, it's going to upgrade its firmware, next. Shouldn't we be getting on wiv this?"

Martha gnawed on her lower lip. "Come on, come on..."

Sparks flew, suddenly, and Rhys did his level best to get between Gwen and those sparks, though they spattered harmlessly across the floor... everyone else jumped in startlement, even Hart.

"Christ," Captain Hart griped. "One of these epochs, you'd think someone somewhere would invent a fusebox that's worth a damn."

But then power coursed up and down the column at the centre of The Rift Manipulator, rather like the rising and falling central column of a TARDIS. The Rift Manipulator shuddered, and radiant light crackled forth...

Clambering back up to squint anew at the monitor, Malcolm Taylor made a disapproving noise. "No good, no good. It's made an effort, lovely workmanship, but--"

"Let me guess," Hart scowled. "We 'dinnae ha' the power?'"

Gwen leaned in beside Malcolm, frowning at what she saw on the screen. "He did say the least it would do would be to stop the damage from spreading. And, well, it's done that. But The Rift still looks like a soap bubble ready to pop."

She glanced ceilingward. "Two of those TARDIS things, and they can't use their own--"

But then the sound echoed through The Hub, the sound that seemed to carry through all the walls and Earth between sky and pavement and underdark.

And on the monitor, the light atop The Black Box began to flash. The Black Box faded not, it stayed solid, but the light strobed.

"Ah," Gwen stood corrected. "There we are, then."

Malcolm punched the sky with a half-gloved fist. "That did it! Brilliant! The tumult's subsiding, and The Rift is healing!"

Rhys smiled faintly. "Well, took their time, didn't they?"

Mickey chortled at that, and slugged Rhys in the shoulder.

********​

In a storm of bewilderment and sadness, The Searcher landed. He opened the door to The Black Box with a snap of his fingers.

(This gave The Doctor a bit of a start; she hadn't had the guts to try that particular method of "Open Sesame" since... well, since The Library.)

And in he went.

And, touching down and leaving the hoverboard floating a foot or so above the Cardiff pavement, The Doctor quietly followed.

The temptation was, of course, to leave him to his grief.

But The Doctor knew what it felt like to be alone, and she knew it wasn't a good feeling.

...she paused, a little bit reverently, a little bit cynically, as she entered his TARDIS.

It wasn't a Type 40. The Doctor had thought not, of course not, in her timeline all the Type 40's had been accounted for as early as her fourth incarnation.

This was a TARDIS built for war, with all the sentimentality stripped away and replaced with silly things like temporal torpedoes.

The Console Room was a bit nostalgic. She recognised this configuration, she'd used this during her fifth life. Right down to the coat rack.

Quietly, she hung her coat on the coat rack. And put her hands in her pockets, watching The Searcher as he siphoned off the energy of The Rift to keep The TARDIS' reserves afloat. And then, with an air of bitter finality, The Searcher tripped the switch to stem The Rift's temporal chaos and to initiate the lengthy process of recovery...

He engaged it and slammed his fist on an empty portion of the console, tears rolling down his face. "God-damn it..." he murmured.

The Doctor crushed her eyes shut and craned her head back, she knew what that felt like, to need so badly to curse the underlying order of The Cosmos that one had to give it a name, however vestigial.

She knew what it meant to rage against the dying of the light whilst simultaneously begging the darkness to swallow her...

...standing in Central Park, demanding that The Cult of Skaro do it, just do it...!

She opened her eyes and teardrops tumbled forth, he wanted so badly to go home, such as it was, at least he had some sort of home to go back to, be it ever so humble. She didn't have anything.

Just... just The TARDIS. And maybe Earth.

He slowly tried to relax, but it was useless. He, for the first time, cried. Cried for those who died in his wake, for those he loved. He wanted it to end.

And she saw this in him, this messy-brown-haired man clad in black with his hazel eyes. She saw this in him, the echoes of agony. The timelines converging and diverging, a Time Lord in all his impotent glory.

Her hearts went out to him, and she moved to his side, and she touched his shoulder, and she turned him to face her. Her tears gleamed on her face in the pale white light of his Console Room, and she touched her forehead to his, clutching his head in both her hands.

She shivered with the seismic shifting of their shared rage, their shared surrender, their shared pressing on by sheer force of habit.

He was stuck here. At least for now. At least until they found him a safe way back.

But for all the darkness of the cloud that hung over The Searcher, still there remained a silver lining.

"You," The Doctor breathed, her voice a shuddery mess, "Are Not Alone."

 

[Apollion]

"You... Are Not Alone."

The Searcher gazed into the brown, tear-filled eyes of not a man, not a Time Lord nor a Time Lady, but a woman. A very, very, very old woman, something a woman of her physical age would ever have. Behind the eyes of that woman was 906 years of life, death, pain, suffering, loss, joy, resentment, anger, fear, love, every single emotion experienced by all but machines and Dalek-kind. He saw a galaxy, a universe, and entire periods of time. She had seen almost all of it and had witnessed the deaths and triumphs of so many people...

He had the same thing in his eyes. Both felt the same pain, the same drive, the same feelings they could ever feel. They had both lost so much: friends, family, their own home.... all lost in the whirling madness of Time and Space. They were the only two of their kind in known existence. Finally, after so long, The Searcher knew what The Doctor had felt for so long: loneliness. His hands went to her face, wiping her tears away, caressing her gentle skin. "D...Doctor.... I'm scared..." he admitted. His hearts pounded in his chests. He could feel hers too. The rhythm of their pain was louder than anything.

He gave in. He kissed her. Long, hard, deep. Loving. It was just them, alone yet not alone.

 

[ChasNicollette]

His hands went to her face, wiping her tears away, caressing her gentle skin. "D...Doctor.... I'm scared..." he admitted.

She nodded, she wanted to find words for him, to quote G.K. Chesterton or T.S. Eliot or some other genius with two initials and a surname, but there were no words, she'd already told him the only four she thought could possibly help, she was so much better at destroying things with six words than building them back up with four.

She nodded and her eyes ached and her tears mirrored his.

Her tears. And her fears.

His hearts pounded in his chests. He could feel hers too. The rhythm of their pain was louder than anything.

That made her smile an agonised smile. Feeling his hearts beat against hers. The sound of drums...

But she had been born a Time Lord and reborn a Time Lady and with these great responsibilities there came great powers. She could see Time in all its infinite unfolding, she could feel the whirling of the worlds, she could perceive what moments were set in stone and which were fluctuating between the possibles, and most of all, most of all, she could see which infinitesimal instants were most heavy-laden with portent.

She could see Time stand still, and hold its breath, as though waiting for a curtain to rise on a whole new paradigm.

This was one of those instants. And she gazed into the face of it, the eyes of him, without blinking.

He gave in. He kissed her. Long, hard, deep. Loving. It was just them, alone yet not alone.

She let him.

It takes two to tango, as they say, and he kissed her and she let him and she kissed him back, it was impulse, it was so very human.

When she'd been. Her Eighth. She had been a man, and she had kissed a woman, Grace, out of the sheer joy of being alive, of knowing who he then was. And this was like that, a kiss born out of impulse, born out of the gleam of light on the well-polished spur of the moment. But it was not a kiss born out of the joy of knowing. It was a kiss born out of the dread, the terror, the horror of knowing nothing.

Of not knowing the future. Of not knowing oneself. Of not knowing what else to do.

The Searcher knew these things not, but neither then did The Doctor. And so she kissed him back.

There were the faintest bristles upon his face, he tasted male, he felt warm, she hadn't kissed a man since Jack's first desperate goodbye, and even then it had been a male's mouth accepting another male's, not a female's mouth accepting a male's...

...she felt Time still, and hold its breath, and she held her breath right along with Time...

...she could hold her breath for quite awhile.

But then a shiver fell down her spine like a piano-forte down a winding stair, and she drew back from him, biting her lip with a gasp and a tremble.

She gazed at him, unable to put into words the questions that danced in her soul. She touched her forehead again to his.

And then she stepped back, and rested a hand on the Console to steady the tremble in its fingers.

"'In spite of all the dishonour,'" she murmured,
"'the broken standards, the broken lives,
The broken faith in one place or another,
There was something left that was more than the tales
Of old men on winter evenings.'"

She smiled faintly, and finished: "...T.S. Eliot."

 

[Apollion]

The Searcher's eyes didn't open until The Doctor quoted T.S. Eliot.

His hands were trembling, just like hers. His hearts were pounding, just like hers. His console beeped, just like... Wait, what?

He was snapped out of the kiss' trance by the main monitor, text and diagrams scrolling along the screen. He looked it over then froze. ".... oh smeg..." he murmured. He walked over to another monitor, switching and turning certain dials and switches. "Oh smeg..." he said out loud. He raced around to his left, past the Doctor (he did pause a little to look at the lips he just kissed) and back to the main monitor. He couldn't believe it. Just before the Rift closed, something managed to seep through. He scanned each trace of entry....


"Oh smegging hell!" He ran out of his TARDIS and leaned over the edge of the building. No, no, no, NO, not again! he screamed in his head. He was staring down into the biggest abyss of alien hell he had every seen. Cries of "DELETE", "ASSIMILATE" and roars and bellows filled the air. It was a battle royale, and all creatures were confused. Lost. Scared.

So they did the only thing they could do. Fight for survival.

Searcher ran back to the TARDIS and stormed in, a fire of urgency, of duty, filling his Gallifreyan veins. "Doctor, I'm afraid we should keep the romantics for later. Now, what do get when you put Cybermen, Toadastans and Pyroviles inside one big city? Chaos. We need to act now or else this place will become so destroyed, you'll never see it rebuilt!"

 

[ChasNicollette]

"Anxiety is the hand-maiden of creativity." -T.S. Eliot.

If there were a Cloister Bell in the heart of The Hub as there was in The Doctor's TARDIS, it would have been tolling. Instead, red alert klaxons shrieked, and, as one, the crew gathered there looked upwards.

"Oh," Gwen murmured, "shit."

Taylor's fingers flew over the keys... "I don't understand! I just-- I don't understand it! The Rift was repaired, just a few last remaining interspacial fluxes before it stabilised, this isn't... I ought to be reading exponential, geometric spikes in activity...!"

"Run a diagnostic, Professor," Mickey growled, reaching past him and hitting the key that displayed analysis of the interloping life-forms. "I've got some oul' friends to play wiv. Like it or not, they're 'ere. (Strewth, and Toadastans, I 'aven't fought those since that outbreak in Pete's World's Budapest...)"

He wheeled around and, cracking his knuckles, headed for the armoury. Grinning his ass off, John Hart followed.

Gwen drew her gun, made to follow Mickey and John, but Martha instantly instantly put her hand on Gwen's arm.

Gwen looked at that hand, and then looked Martha in the eye. "Are we going to have a problem, Jones?"

Martha arched an eyebrow. "Give your husband the gun, and stay here. Doctor's orders."

Rhys shook his head, and raised his eyebrows, no way he wanted to get in the middle of this fight.

Gwen scowled, and shook off Martha's hand. "Fine, then. I'll sort it."

Martha held out her hand, imperious. "Give over."

Gwen scowled deeper still, and handed over the gun. "Fine."

Rhys breathed a sigh of relief, which was sharply interrupted when Martha tossed him the gun.

"Anything comes through that door," Martha instructed Rhys firmly, "or the lift, that isn't The Doctor, or her new friend, or one of us. You gun it down. Full stop."

Rhys smiled worriedly, gamely. "You bet I will."

"Traitor," Gwen shook her head, and turned back to the terminals, glancing at Malcolm as he gnawed at his fingernails.

But she couldn't blame him, either of them. Bad enough she'd run up there after what could have been a rogue Time Lord...

Beside her, Rhys was staring at the gun like he'd never seen its like before.

Martha chuckled softly, and hoped for the best, and followed the other two.

Mickey strolled through the armoury like he had been born to this, running his fingers over the stocks of guns. Some had been supplied by UNIT. A couple, Mickey had brought from Pete's World, him and Jackie Tyler. Others, like a spare of Jack's old defabricator gun, had been stored offsite and returned here when the place had been restored enough. Some had even fallen through The Rift while Torchwood had been out of the picture. And some of these? Some of these, Mickey had made himself.

So much for 'Mickey The Idiot,' eh?

He glanced over his shoulder at Hart, who looked like a kid in a candy store.

"Name your poison," he growled at the captain.

"I'll have a shot at these frog things," Hart grinned, rubbing his hands together. "It's not every day I get to kill a species I've never met before."

"Toadastans," Mickey instructed, "ehn't frogs. They're mushrooms. And... 'ere."

And he tossed Hart a gauntlet, a device made to snap 'round wrists. Hart caught it effortlessly, and snapped it 'round the opposite wrist to that which wore Gray's wrist-strap...

He flexed his hand, and an injector dart ratcheted into place, glinting under the fluorescent lights. "What's this, then?"

"Good for plant-monsters," Mickey instructed, "extraterrestrial athlete's foot, and troublesome 'ouse'old stains. Them darts're full up wiv industrial-grade bleach."

John arched an eyebrow. "Get you, tiger."

"No time to stroke egos, boys," Martha scowled, standing behind Hart. "I'll cover the Pyrovile vector."

Mickey turned, and plucked a big oul' looking metal thing off of a rack, tossed this to Martha. Once upon a time, Mickey had mistaken one of these for a freeze gun, but really, they were fire extinguishers. Fallen through time from The Fifty-First Century, maybe even from The Madame de Pompadour herself, stranded in The Dagmar Cluster, they were perfect weapons to fight creatures made from molten rock.

"That'll do," Martha nodded, and Mickey grinned.

Mickey grabbed his very favourite gun from the rack, a positively massive rifle, almost Liefeldian in its scope. "Guess that means I'm on Cybermen detail. Some fhings never change."

"Time's a-wasting," Hart opined, and the three of them strode out of the armoury and headed for the airlock...

"John," Gwen murmured from the terminals.

Hart glanced at her. He looked almost offended that she was delaying him, but... tolerant.

Gwen smiled faintly. Hart was their fiercest warrior, to be certain, in the absence of Jack's centuries of battlefield experience. His thirst for blood still frightened her, even though she couldn't be certain how much of that bloodthirst had been genuine when she'd known him, and how much had been an act put on for the puppetmaster that had been Gray.

All the same: sometimes for a guard dog to be useful, you had to let him off of the chain.

"Don't kill any humans, John," she admonished him.

He grinned.

"Usual formation, everyone," Gwen called to them, as the door irised out of their way and they hurried towards the surface.

Rhys blinked. "What's 'usual formation?'"

Gwen smirked. "It varies."

********​

There was a moment, there, between The Searcher and The Doctor, and then, then, the moment was gone.

Love and monsters.

Can't ever have one without the other...

The readouts on The Searcher's TARDIS displays were prophecies of doom, and when The Searcher began cursing like a character on "Red Dwarf," The Doctor could hardly blame him.

The Searcher ran outside, and The Doctor could hear it, could hear it outside, the chaos, the shouts, the desperation...

"No," she scowled, clawing her hands through her hair, her face scrunching up, "nononono, there's no way it was open wide enough to let all this through, we fixed it, something else is going on..."

Sprinting around the vaguely familiar modified Console, she did her best to crack the codes spinning through The Black Box's sensoria, spectacles on, squinting, glaring...

Yes, I see them, the fluctuations, she considered, but none of them wide enough to let more than a humanoid through, maybe two? But that's insane, how could all of this catflap through a hole in Time and Space and-and-and The Void sufficiently capacious for half of The Beatles?

She paused, stock-still. Unless?

No...!

But then The Man in Black was back on board, and he looked none too pleased.

Searcher ran back to the TARDIS and stormed in, a fire of urgency, of duty, filling his Gallifreyan veins. "Doctor, I'm afraid we should keep the romantics for later. Now, what do get when you put Cybermen, Toadastans and Pyroviles inside one big city? Chaos. We need to act now or else this place will become so destroyed, you'll never see it rebuilt!"

The Doctor tutted sharply, darting over to the coat-rack and swirling her coat around her shoulders. "Always, always it's like this. I go looking for fun, and the moment, the very picoscopic instant I stumble upon something I wouldn't mind getting lost in for a few hours, that's when the excrrrrement gets rrrrendered aerrrrosol."

Tugging out the collar of her coat, The Doctor shook her head. "I was there when Rome burned down, butterfingers, I had a bit to do with that, and that London fire, yeah, sorry, not entirely my doing, but Chicago, Chicago it was all the bluddy cow's fault, don't look at me. My point is, they're all still around. Cardiff's been Gelthed, it's been Blitzed, it's been Rifted, it's been Apollyonned, but it's still standing, give me oul' girl Caerdydd a little credit."

Her hand went into her coat pocket, she began fumbling about, biting her tongue as she reached in there. "Oh, but this time? This time, she's got you. This time, this time she's got me, and this time, this time she's got them, and you've spent enough time among humans, you know what I'm talking about. Indomitable!"

The Doctor came back out of her pocket holding a Y-shaped device that fit neatly into the palm of her hand. Immediately, the sonic appeared in the other hand and whistle, hum, glow, she ran the sonic over the Y-scanner. "You were always a clever gent, supercalifragilistic, but I've got a Hell of a brain, too, me, and none of those funny remarks about males being better at abstract thought... y'see, The Rift did some hiccupy things while we were snogging-- erm, very nice, by the way --and none of them were big enough to let in more than a mayfly or a particularly large ladybird, except! What if they let through just one bloke, just one bloke or just one, erm, 'sheila,' and this bloke-or-sheila-or-androgene-or-hermaphrodite-hexapod was like a living homing beacon for the rest of them, dragging them through with them whether they liked it or not? Just soaked in... I dunno, Huon particles or something, causing macroscopic quantum entanglement?"

The Y-scanner beeped angrily in her palm, the lights started flashing, and she grinned, she grinned with nearly all her teeth, plucking off her glasses and pocketing these with the sonic... "Biomatriculated spacio-temporal phase induction, bee-aye-enn-gee-oh!"

Tilting her head, she dove out through the door, rotating slowly from side to side like a Scout doing orienteering, trying to find that elusive Magnetic North... "All we have to do is find the bioform in whom resides the biomatrix, send 'em packing, and all these creatures great and small will snap back to their respective Universe like a great big cosmic rubber band."

The lights stopped flashing on the Y-scanner, and she scowled, and she smacked it, and it started blinking again. "And then we can get back to, you know..."

She hesitated, and glanced at The Searcher, and at, well, his mouth...

"...'fun.'"

And then, in that moment of hesitation, that moment of glancing, a gigantic Pyrovile foot-soldier stormed out from behind the water tower, looming over them, The Doctor's hand went for her pocket-- water pistol, bloody water pistol, that Graske stole me water pistol! --and it seemed, in that instant, all was lost.

But then white foam billowed in torrents into the face of the looming, searing, growling monster, and it shrieked as its internal magma solidified in seconds...

Martha grimaced, and she grinned, as Mickey and John came hurrying along behind her. "Doctor," she mused, "what would you do without me?"

"Martha Jones," The Doctor beamed, "still a star."

"Yeah," Mickey grinned. "And don't you forget it."

She glanced at The Searcher, quickly. "Searcher, this is Martha, the bloke on the left is Mickey, he's a good sort, the redcoat on the right is Captain John, he's a bit of a good-for-nothing, (no offence)--"

John rolled his eyes. "(Oh, none taken.)"

"--everyone, this is The Searcher, Parallel Time Lord for the win," The Doctor continued, "we're looking for a needle in a haystack the size of Cardiff and the haystack's rather taken umbrage at our invading its privacy."

The Doctor blinked. "Oh, erm. Searcher. I've still got your--"

Her hand went in the inside pocket of her coat, and all of a sudden she was tossing him back his Dalek-Thompson.

"--yeah, sorry. (Just... watch where you're pointing that thing, all right?)"

 

[Apollion]

Searcher nodded to Martha, Mickey and the Captain respectively before catching his weapon. Instinctively, his warrior instincts kicked him, his hands already priming the weapon's primary energy matrix with a nice metallic clik-clak. "Thank you! (Relax, the only thing I'm pointing it at is the enemy...)" He turned and strode towards the edge of the building, to suddenly turn on his heel and head back. "I almost forgot! Here." He reached into his own coat and pulled out a fully loaded, multi-colored Super Soaker. "Consider this an upgrade, my dear!" he said, tossing the big water gun to The Doctor.

He then turned to the mortals, noticing each of the tools in (or on) their hands. "Well, looks like you've got your duties, so I guess we don't have to plan much. Only thing I recommend is not going down the inside of this building, nor going down to the battle royale either." The Searcher finally returned to the edge then pulled out a pair of binoculars and looked around. Once he had a common view of the situation, he motioned the group over.

"Alright, we have multiple situations here. Firstly, the Cybermen look like their heading for higher ground across the road. Mickey, you and I are dealing with them. (Hope you don't mind flying.) Secondly, the Toadastans need more soldiers... they're heading to a office building northeast of here. Captain John, I need you to extract those people, get them to the roof and call for helicopter extract, providing you have a communication device, which I have here." He paused to toss a radio to John. "Martha, Doctor, the Pyroviles seem to luuurve this building (Always wanted to say that), so I need you two to use that water tower to at least take care of at least a majority of them."

He put the binoculars away then turned back to the group. "Hopefully, by the time this is all cleared up, it's lunch time!" He smiled, but only for a second, as he suddenly felt a shiver up his spine. He spun around, pulling out a cylindrical device and activating it which revealed a pure blade of blue light, and deflected a small barrage of deletion fire. As soon as the rays destroyed the Cybermen, he deactivated the lightsaber and came face to face with The Doctor, placing the weapon in her hand.

"Be careful... I'll be back with Mickey in tow. (And then you and I can have fun, okay?)" Searcher kissed her on the cheek, ignoring all reactions from the others, then smiled at her before turning to Mickey, placing hoverboards at their feet. "Well then, Torchwood Soldier Corporal Mickey... lets kick some ass." He mounted his board and shot off towards the roof of the building across the road.

 

[ChasNicollette]

Searcher nodded to Martha, Mickey and the Captain respectively before catching his weapon. Instinctively, his warrior instincts kicked him, his hands already priming the weapon's primary energy matrix with a nice metallic clik-clak. "Thank you! (Relax, the only thing I'm pointing it at is the enemy...)"

The Doctor nodded appreciatively, clicked her tongue. "Wahey, thank you for that."

He turned and strode towards the edge of the building, to suddenly turn on his heel and head back. "I almost forgot! Here." He reached into his own coat and pulled out a fully loaded, multi-colored Super Soaker. "Consider this an upgrade, my dear!" he said, tossing the big water gun to The Doctor.

The Doctor reached up and caught the Soaker with one hand, arched an eyebrow. "Oh, now this-- Searcher, you beauty."

Martha arched both eyebrows, and deadpanned: "Ah, yes, we're all very impressed by his big squirter."

The Doctor grinned, as she pocketed the water-rifle. "Oh, listen to you, cheeky. You've been hanging 'round with this lot too long."

Martha stared, blankly. "...right, then."

He then turned to the mortals, noticing each of the tools in (or on) their hands. "Well, looks like you've got your duties, so I guess we don't have to plan much. Only thing I recommend is not going down the inside of this building, nor going down to the battle royale either."

Captain Hart grimaced. "Oh, and I thought this was going to be fun."

Mickey smirked. "Not to worry, John-Boy. It'll still be a little fun."

The Searcher finally returned to the edge then pulled out a pair of binoculars and looked around. Once he had a common view of the situation, he motioned the group over.

Sprinting over, The Doctor drew out her own pair of Galilean opera glasses, peered through these, and the three humans followed on, watching the two Gallifreyans carefully.

"Alright, we have multiple situations here. Firstly, the Cybermen look like their heading for higher ground across the road. Mickey, you and I are dealing with them. (Hope you don't mind flying.)"

Mickey's smirk never wavered. "I've been living on a parallel world with zeppelins. A lot of zeppelins. Whatever fear uv 'eights I used t' 'ave? It's gone now."

"Secondly, the Toadastans need more soldiers... they're heading to a office building northeast of here. Captain John, I need you to extract those people, get them to the roof and call for helicopter extract, providing you have a communication device, which I have here." He paused to toss a radio to John.

John snagged this from the air easily enough, arched an eyebrow. "Actually, I've got free roaming and unlimited minutes on this thing on my wrist, but I'll take it in case I need a spare."

"Martha, Doctor, the Pyroviles seem to luuurve this building (Always wanted to say that), so I need you two to use that water tower to at least take care of at least a majority of them."

Martha nodded firmly, adjusted her grip on the far-future fire extinguisher. "Sorted."

He put the binoculars away then turned back to the group. "Hopefully, by the time this is all cleared up, it's lunch time!" He smiled, but only for a second, as he suddenly felt a shiver up his spine. He spun around, pulling out a cylindrical device and activating it which revealed a pure blade of blue light, and deflected a small barrage of deletion fire.

--John had a gun in his hand in an eyeblink, Mickey had his rifle leveled, Martha lunged in front of The Doctor, The Doctor was shoving the opera glasses away and reaching for something, but The Searcher was faster, impossibly faster, the threat was sorted--

As soon as the rays destroyed the Cybermen, he deactivated the lightsaber and came face to face with The Doctor, placing the weapon in her hand.

The Doctor's eyebrow climbed her forehead. "Yeah, I've had me hand chopped off, that's practically a rite of passage for a Jedi, ennit?"

Examining the hilt, she pocketed this. "Well, I'm a dab hand with a cutlass, and that sits better with me than shooting everything in sight. 'An elegant weapon.'"

John seemed especially bemused by this. "'Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi, you're my only hope.'"

"Be careful... I'll be back with Mickey in tow. (And then you and I can have fun, okay?)" Searcher kissed her on the cheek, ignoring all reactions from the others--

--and reactions there were, indeed, Mickey grinned, John chortled, Martha gave a sly smirk--

--then smiled at her before turning to Mickey, placing hoverboards at their feet. "Well then, Torchwood Soldier Corporal Mickey... lets kick some ass."

"Actually," Mickey remarked, stepping, well, aboard, "I prefer 'Agent Smifh,' if y'wouldn't mind?"

He mounted his board and shot off towards the roof of the building across the road.

Mickey gunned his board and hurtled after, whooping, crouching to make himself a smaller target for deletion fire, locking and loading...

"Can't let them hog all the action," John snarked, sprinting out of there. "I've got me some Goombas to stomp."

Martha grinned at The Doctor. "'Fun?' Flirting with Frank in Manhattan, Shakespeare, you've been waiting to be a girl all your life, haven't you?"

The Doctor's eyes were half-lidded. "Now, Martha. You're not jealous, are you?"

Martha stuck her tongue out at him. "No, Doctor. Besides, I don't swing that way, not even for you."

The Doctor grinned at that. "Probably for the best."

She peered over the edge at the abyss below. "'Unto the breach.'"

He glanced again at his old friend. "'My soul is prepared, Doctor Jones, how's yours?'"

Martha stared at him. "You've been wanting to say that to me for ages, haven't you?"

"A few months," The Doctor admitted. And then sprinted off: "Avanti!"

"'Last Crusade.'" Martha grimaced, and followed. "Ah, well. At least it's better than 'luuurve.'"