Fic - Should Auld Acquaintance Be Forgot
Title: Should Auld Acquaintance Be Forgot (Twelve Days of Christmas - Day 3)
Series: Torchwood/Doctor Who
Characters: Jack Harkness, Ianto Jones, Toshiko Sato, Owen Harper, Gwen Cooper, Margaret Blaine, The Doctor, The Master, Jacqueline Harkness
Rating: R
Prompt: Three Rift Quakes
Beta: Going commando
Disclaimer: I do not own Torchwood, Doctor Who, or the characters therein, they belong to the BBC and RTD. Any original characters and places are my property. Any similarity to real people or places is meant in respect. No money is made from this.
Summary: On what should have been a normal day, the Torchwood team gets an unexpected visit from a group of unlikely travelers.
Author’s Note: Part of the Twelve Days of Christmas fic for 2010. Day Three was submitted by Shelley. Thanks to knitchick1979, mrsdrdavison, bacon_fiend, and pockychopstix for inspiration (and character borrowing) for several parts.
Author’s Note 2: Sorry this is a wee bit late, but have been trying to take care of my health first.
Should Auld Acquaintance Be Forgot
“Jack! You cannot send that to the representative from-”
“Why not? He needs a little fun in his life, since he seems to have such a stick up his-”
“No.” Ianto closed the bag from Colin’s Adult Bookshop and shoved it into one of the drawers of Owen’s desk. “If you want to send them anything-”
“We should, since their office somehow caught on fire.”
“Now what’s on fire?” Toshiko asked as she came up from working on Mainframe, her head buried in her PDA.
“Nothing,” Ianto said. “Coffee?”
“Thank you,” Tosh murmured as she sat down at her computer, still concentrating on the PDA.
“For me as well?” Jack looked at Ianto with pleading eyes. Ianto rolled his eyes and disappeared into the kitchenette. Jack walked over and stood behind Tosh, looking at the numbers scrolling across her computer screen. “Something wrong?”
“I don’t know…”
“You don’t know?”
“The numbers I’m getting, we should have had a disturbance in the Rift, but nothing has happened. I even checked the monitoring equipment, looked in on Mainframe…” She finally looked up and pointed at a sequence of numbers on the main monitor. “It’s like it’s holding it in. As if the Rift is a volcano waiting to erupt.”
Jack leaned over, staring at the data. “So, when’s volcano day?”
“It should have happened yesterday.”
“Why am I first hearing about this now?”
Tosh looked down at the PDA again. “I thought it was wrong. But everything I can find proves otherwise.”
“Has anything like this ever happened before?”
“Once. Before the quake that hit Cardiff a couple of years ago, when the Lord High Mayor Margaret Blaine went missing.”
“Oh. That.” Jack buried his chin in his chest. “Bring up the CCTV footage for the Plass and the Bay.”
“There’s nothing out of the ordinary.” Tosh started bring up all the camera footage on her computer screens.
“Do a search and see if there are minute temporal or imaging disturbances anywhere but the lift by the fountain.”
“What am I looking for specifically?”
“A blue police box.” Jack grabbed his greatcoat from the coat rack and slipped it on.
“What about you?”
“I’ll be upstairs checking things personally.” He ran over by the kitchenette. “Ianto! Get Gwen and Owen in here now.”
Jack took off before Ianto could even respond. Sprinting upstairs his mind was trying to figure out why the Doctor would be there, and in the back of his mind he wondered why the Doctor hadn’t contacted him. He had thought they were fine after that whole year with the Master. Maybe something had happened…
As he was crossing the tourist office, that’s when the first quake hit. Grabbing the counter for support, Jack stumbled to the door to the outside. Flinging it open he found himself face-to-face with a brunette Margaret Blaine.
“Are you kidding me?” She scowled at him, still wearing the same skirt suit she had been wearing before turning into an egg years ago. “Didn’t I kill you?”
“I think not.” Jack grabbed her by the wrist and yanked her inside the tourist office. Pulling out his earpiece and putting it on, he called downstairs. “Tosh? You and Ianto okay?”
“A couple of bruises, but we’re fine,” Tosh replied. “It was a localised quake, just around the Bay.”
“See what else you can find out about it. And ask Ianto where the handcuffs are.”
“Middle drawer on the right,” Ianto said over the comms.
Jack dragged Margaret with him as he dug the handcuffs out of Ianto’s drawers. Ratcheting one ring around her wrist, he attached the other ring to an office chair.
“I like it rough, but we barely know each other,” she quipped.
Jack pushed her down, leaning over her, hands on the arms of the chair, trapping Margaret. “How did you get here?”
“You don’t know?”
“Tell me.”
“Where’s the fun in that?”
He moved in closer, feeling her breath on his face. “You will tell me.”
“Pretty, but rather stupid,” Margaret said as she huffed out a big breath of air.
Something in the back of Jack’s mind kicked into gear and he pulled back in time, avoiding the poison on her breath. He mentally kicked himself for momentarily forgetting all that he had learned about the denizens of Raxacoricofallapatorius. It wouldn’t have permanently killed him, but he didn’t have time to waste.
“You can’t kill me that easily. Why are you here? Going to try and blow up Cardiff again?”
“But I already did.”
“What?”
“How do you think I got here?”
Jack’s face fell as it dawned on him just what Margaret had said. Ducking around the counter, he bolted for the outside door. Flinging it open, he saw it. Margaret’s tribophysical waveform macrokinetic extrapolator - her pandimensional “surfboard”. Jack ran his hands along it, feeling it hum. Snatching it up from the ground he slammed the door shut and stomped towards Margaret, wanting to smear the smile from her face.
“You destroyed an entire city?!”
“It didn’t work though, you’re still here.” She cocked her head to the side. “How did you do that? The Doctor’s ship was the first thing to blow sky high. I saw it burn, with you inside.”
The door behind him opened and Jack looked over his shoulder, barely breathing. He blinked as Gwen came running in, Owen on her heels. Both of them stopped in their tracks when they saw Margaret.
“Jack? Yeah, what the hell’s going on?”
“We have a visitor,” he said, turning all his anger back on Margaret.
“Who’s she?”
“Someone who shouldn’t be here.”
His earpiece crackled as Tosh tried to talk to him, but he couldn’t make out any specific words. “Gwen,” Jack barked. “Pull up the Rift readings on the computer.”
Gwen was sidling behind him when the world shook a second time. Jack covered her as several ceiling tiles fell on them. Owen ducked on the other side of the counter. Behind him, Margaret had disappeared.
“Where’d she go?” Gwen asked as she brushed her hair back.
“Here, you stupid humans.”
Jack really wished he had his gun on him as he looked up and found Margaret holding Owen with her brooch pointing at the medic’s head. Owen struggled against her, and Jack got a good look at what Margaret was holding.
“Owen! Stop moving.”
“Why the fuck for?” Owen bashed his elbow into Margaret’s gut. She pointed the brooch at a nearby stand full of brochures. They all watched as it turned into a pile of grey confetti. “Shit,” he muttered.
“Because she’s holding a particle reducer to your head,” Jack said. “What do you want Margaret?”
“My God. That’s why she looks so familiar,” Gwen said. “I thought she disappeared.”
“I want to leave this pitiful planet and find the rest of my family,” Margaret sneered.
“That won’t happen here,” Jack coolly said as he spotted Ianto just beyond the doorjamb to the entrance of the tourist office. “You see, Margaret, the family Slitheen doesn’t exist anymore. Not here. We could return you to Raxacoricofallapatorius.”
“That would be a death sentence and you know it!”
“Just don’t hurt him. I’ve grown fond of my doctor” Jack smiled as Ianto crept right behind Margaret. Mentioning the word doctor seemed to have distracted her. “What? Do you have a problem with doctors?”
Before she could respond, Margaret heard Ianto behind her and turned around in time to get a tazer to the chest, knocking her out. Owen pulled away and watched Margaret drop to the ground.
“Thanks for that,” Owen replied.
“We don’t have much time. She’s only wearing a human shell, that shock won’t knock her out for long. Get her downstairs, in restraints, and remove all of her jewellery.”
“Does she have anything to do with the two earthquakes?” Gwen looked over at him, her brow crinkled in worry.
“The first one. Not sure about the second. And they aren’t earthquakes, they came from the Rift.”
“Bloody hell,” Owen mumbled as he collected Margaret’s brooch and picked up her earrings from the floor.
“Don’t put those together,” Jack said, pointing at the earrings. “That’s how she teleported. No question where they’ll take you.” He turned to Ianto, running his hands along the other man’s lapels. “Thanks. But why were you outside?”
“None of you were responding and we lost visual when the second quake hit. I took the lift. By the way, I passed a knocked over blue police box by the fountain.”
Jack’s head snapped up. “Did it look like his?” Ianto shook his head yes. “Help them with Margaret.” With that he took off past Ianto and ran up to the fountain.
There it was. It looked just like the Doctor’s TARDIS. A bit shorter, although it was on its side, that did make estimating length a little different for some things. He could hear the door thunk open, but couldn’t see it since the door was now the roof. A puff of smoke came out and he saw a hand grabbing the edge of the TARDIS. Jack ran over and took the hand, helping to pull them out. What he had not expected to see was a ginger woman… wearing the Doctor’s brown suit.
“Oh, that’s not good, not good at all.” She started looking around the TARDIS, feeling it’s side. “I’m sorry.” She spun around and Jack saw just how much she was a woman, her shirt unbuttoned part way. “Sorry about that,” she said as she tucked her shirt back in and re-buttoned up a bit. “This looks familiar,” she said, looking around the Plass.
“You’re in Cardiff, United Kingdom, on Earth,” Jack said, looking the woman up and down.
“Oh… that’s interesting.” She looked at him, and Jack swore it was the Doctor’s eyes. “And you are?”
“Captain Jack Harkness,” he said. “Is the Doctor okay?”
“I would hope so,” she replied. “Since I’m the Doctor.”
“No, that’s impossible, I didn’t think Time Lords could change gender when they regenerated.”
“It’s not outside the realm of possibility, but I don’t think that’s the case here, unfortunately.”
“If you’re the Doctor, you would have recognised me. You’re wearing the same style of clothes I last saw you in.”
“You would think I would, unless I’m not your Doctor.”
“How is that possible?”
“Well, the TARDIS might have been dancing along the border of the vortex and the void. Well, it might have gotten sucked into the void.” She looked up at him sheepishly. “You see, well… we might have broken through a crack in the void, and not be from this dimension at all.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Captain Jacqueline Harkness, and you are?” a feminine voice asked from behind him. Jack’s body turned to ice as it dawned on him what had happened. Talking to the Doctor, he had followed them and left his back to the TARDIS, which meant that someone else had climbed out. He turned around, to find himself face-to-face with a tall woman with long black hair, and wearing a grey greatcoat. Her blue eyes looked him up and down. “You’re cute, officer. Who are you?” She smiled at him.
“Don’t. Just,” the Doctor stepped between them. “Don’t.”
“Why not?” she asked, following the Doctor.
“Because he’s you.”
Jacqueline looked sideways at Jack. It was intriguing and yet nerve wracking. This person was him, but not. A female him from another universe… and a female Doctor. It made him wonder what else had changed.
The Doctor looked over her shoulder at Jack. “Probably the only man you’ll be happy with, but just don’t.”
“This isn’t my Cardiff, is it?”
“Your Cardiff?” Jack raised an eyebrow at Jacqueline.
“My Cardiff.” She looked back at the Doctor as she still investigated the TARDIS. “I wonder if we could find a version of Torchwood and get their help? I wonder if Torchwood exists here?”
“You’re looking for Torchwood?”
“Yes,” Jacqueline replied, rolling her neck and looking back at Jack.
He smiled. “I’m Torchwood.”
“Really,” Jacqueline said. “I’ve been running Torchwood since Queenie hired me on in 1879. What about you?”
“Since ‘Queenie’ hired you’?”
“Victoria. I had been her personal bodyguard. I used to dress like a guy, hung out with the male soldiers, slept with the soldiers - those were the days - but was the only one who could accompany her majesty anywhere, and did we go places…” Jacqueline smirked, a far-off look in her eyes. Jack recognised that look and silently applauded the woman in front of him.
Before Jack could congratulate her, a moaning came from inside the TARDIS. “Is someone else in there? Someone hurt?” Jack asked.
“No, just complaining,” Jacqueline snapped.
“Right! I forgot, she always like to go for walkies once we land,” the Doctor said. “Get her up here.”
“You got a dog?” Jack asked, wondering what else was different. He kept an eye on Jacqueline as she hung half inside the TARDIS motioning for someone to come up the rope she had climbed up herself - how had he not noticed the rope? Jack wondered if it was time for a vacation. It definitely was when he saw what “pet” came up out of the TARDIS.
Jack took several steps back, automatically reaching for the weapon he wasn’t carrying. It couldn’t be. It was blonde. It was a woman. But the face - and the eyes which bore into him as soon as it looked at him - was the Master. The Master was wearing a hoodie and sweats… with a collar around their neck. He could only stare as the Doctor pulled a leash from her long coat and clipped it to the collar.
“Time for walkies! Jacqueline, can you take her?”
Jacqueline just glared. “You know she always tries to run away from me, and if she attacks me again, I might choke her with the collar. I might just do that if she starts singing Animaniacs again.” The two stared at each a moment, the Master between them. Finally the Doctor headed off around the Plass with the Master in tow.
“The Master isn’t dead in your Universe?”
“Was.”
“What happened?”
“I’d rather not say,” Jacqueline said. Jack couldn’t help but stare at Jacqueline as she leaned against the TARDIS. “What?”
“I was just wondering what else was different between our Universes. Do you have a brother?”
“Had a sister.”
“Had?”
“I’d rather not say.”
“If both the Doctor and the Master are still around, what about the other Time Lords?”
“Those lying bastards all perished in the Time War.”
“You know about the Time War?”
“I should. I fought in it.”
“You fought in the Time War?”
“Didn’t you? I was on the front lines.”
“I guess some things are different.”
The two lapsed into silence for a minute as Jack’s mind struggled to piece together this version of him and the Doctor. Before he could say anything else, they were interrupted by Owen jogging up to them.
“What’s all this?”
“What are you doing here, Owen?”
“Whose this?” Owen asked, nodding at Jacqueline.
“Captain Jenna Hanson,” Jacqueline said, holding out her hand to him.
“Dr. Owen Harper,” he replied, barely shaking her hand. “Apparently comms are conked out, but I think Tosh is about to deliver kittens. The numbers on her Rift monitoring program are all over the place. Gwen is watching our visitor, but Tosh has Ianto doing some background checking. Either it’s going to rain tomorrow, or we’re all going to die in the next five minutes.” Owen stuffed his hands into the pockets of his coat.
“That’s it! It’s the Rift!” The Doctor was practically yelling as she trotted back to them with the Master behind. “We were talking while on our little walkie, and realised why we were pulled here. Radiation and spacetime gets concentrated in the Rift. When we were traveling in the vortex, we were skimming along the edge of the void. If you look at the theory of nonlocality, everything is joined together.”
“Quantum interconnectdness,” the Master chimed in, grinning like the Cheshire Cat.
“More like Bell’s Theorem. Once objects are connected, they affect one another forever.”
“Sounds like two people I know,” Jacqueline muttered.
“Two objects cannot occupy the same space - granted it gets a little muddled out there - but something that was connected to us collided with us, and dragged us into the void. Our mass must have been greater, because it fed off our original destination of Cardiff, albeit a different Cardiff, since we were taking the dear Captain back!”
“And what does that mean?”
“It means the TARDIS and another, smaller ship collided, creating a crack in the void. Between our plotted destination of Cardiff, any Cardiff, and the fact that the Rift is the most highly concentrated point in spacetime on this planet, we were deposited right under it like a big old blinking neon sign. The Master and I figured out a way to get ourselves back and seal up the hole, but first we need to find this other entity.”
Jack exchanged a look with Owen. “I think we can help you with that.”
“Good! Now, if only we some way to manipulate the Rift. Does Torchwood have something like that?” the Master asked, sneering.
Jack and Jacqueline looked at each other and grinned. “That’s possible,” Jack said. “What do you need done?”
“I need the other entity, and we need to open the Rift.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Owen asked.
“No. Just open it enough for the TARDIS to slip in and then it should be fine.”
“Owen, you heard t he woman. Go and bring our guest up here, and then get things ready so we can open the Rift.”
“I’m not getting shot over the fucking Rift again.”
“Do it,” Jack said authority in his voice. “What do you need Doctor?”
*** *** *** *** ***
Jack counted down the seconds on his stopwatch. If the Doctor didn’t get the TARDIS moving they were in trouble. The team had re-righted the TARDIS using a pulley system, and brought the alternative Margaret Blaine upstairs. Jacqueline had started cursing a blue streak when she found out who they had to transport and was threatening to just shove Margaret out the TARDIS doors as they moved through the vortex, letting her fall wherever. Jack didn’t argue with her, but part of him wondered what Jacqueline’s Margaret - or Mark, or Jiminy for all he knew - Blaine did to her.
“I’ve got everything ready to go, Captain,” the Doctor said over the communication system they had set up. Good thing the TARDIS could tap into nearly every bit of electronics in any universe.
“All right, on the count of three,” Jack said, looking at Owen. Owen’s scan was set to be the last and would initiate the Rift manipulator. “Safe journey.”
“I hope so,” Jacqueline muttered.
“One,” Jack looked at Tosh’s computer. “Two.” He gave his team an encouraging smile. “Three.” He nodded his head at Owen, who pressed his finger against the reader.
The reader accepted it and started counting down. The whole base began to shake as the machinery powered up. Jack held on to the desk, making his legs stand firm. He watched the computer as the numbers from Tosh’s Rift monitoring programs began breaking the scale. She muted the warning alarm as they concentrated on the CCTV.
“A couple of more seconds Captain and we’ll be gone,” the Doctor said. “Thank you!”
“Any time Doctor,” Jack yelled over the sound of the Hub trying to shake apart.
“Understood,” Jacqueline said.
Jack took a breath and heard the familiar vworping sound of the TARDIS. His heart saddened as he wished they had more time together, but the numbers didn’t lie. He would have liked to have found out just what their Universe was like, what the Time War had been like, and a host of other things, but if they didn’t get back through the crack Margaret had created, his Universe would have fallen down around him.
His team held on for dear life as the earth shook for a third time.
“Shut it down!” Jack yelled as the communications with the TARDIS closed. He watched as Tosh and Ianto went to work on the computer systems while Gwen and Owen took care of the physical with the manipulator itself. None of them said anything as they went to work.
None of them said anything as they went about cleaning up the Hub, but Jack could feel them watching him, wondering why he didn’t go with this Doctor.
None of them said anything the next day after Jack had taken them out the night before for drinks for a job well done. But they all did wonder why Owen had bought a Ez-Reach Prostate Probe and kept it in his desk drawer.
Series: Torchwood/Doctor Who
Characters: Jack Harkness, Ianto Jones, Toshiko Sato, Owen Harper, Gwen Cooper, Margaret Blaine, The Doctor, The Master, Jacqueline Harkness
Rating: R
Prompt: Three Rift Quakes
Beta: Going commando
Disclaimer: I do not own Torchwood, Doctor Who, or the characters therein, they belong to the BBC and RTD. Any original characters and places are my property. Any similarity to real people or places is meant in respect. No money is made from this.
Summary: On what should have been a normal day, the Torchwood team gets an unexpected visit from a group of unlikely travelers.
Author’s Note: Part of the Twelve Days of Christmas fic for 2010. Day Three was submitted by Shelley. Thanks to knitchick1979, mrsdrdavison, bacon_fiend, and pockychopstix for inspiration (and character borrowing) for several parts.
Author’s Note 2: Sorry this is a wee bit late, but have been trying to take care of my health first.
Should Auld Acquaintance Be Forgot
“Jack! You cannot send that to the representative from-”
“Why not? He needs a little fun in his life, since he seems to have such a stick up his-”
“No.” Ianto closed the bag from Colin’s Adult Bookshop and shoved it into one of the drawers of Owen’s desk. “If you want to send them anything-”
“We should, since their office somehow caught on fire.”
“Now what’s on fire?” Toshiko asked as she came up from working on Mainframe, her head buried in her PDA.
“Nothing,” Ianto said. “Coffee?”
“Thank you,” Tosh murmured as she sat down at her computer, still concentrating on the PDA.
“For me as well?” Jack looked at Ianto with pleading eyes. Ianto rolled his eyes and disappeared into the kitchenette. Jack walked over and stood behind Tosh, looking at the numbers scrolling across her computer screen. “Something wrong?”
“I don’t know…”
“You don’t know?”
“The numbers I’m getting, we should have had a disturbance in the Rift, but nothing has happened. I even checked the monitoring equipment, looked in on Mainframe…” She finally looked up and pointed at a sequence of numbers on the main monitor. “It’s like it’s holding it in. As if the Rift is a volcano waiting to erupt.”
Jack leaned over, staring at the data. “So, when’s volcano day?”
“It should have happened yesterday.”
“Why am I first hearing about this now?”
Tosh looked down at the PDA again. “I thought it was wrong. But everything I can find proves otherwise.”
“Has anything like this ever happened before?”
“Once. Before the quake that hit Cardiff a couple of years ago, when the Lord High Mayor Margaret Blaine went missing.”
“Oh. That.” Jack buried his chin in his chest. “Bring up the CCTV footage for the Plass and the Bay.”
“There’s nothing out of the ordinary.” Tosh started bring up all the camera footage on her computer screens.
“Do a search and see if there are minute temporal or imaging disturbances anywhere but the lift by the fountain.”
“What am I looking for specifically?”
“A blue police box.” Jack grabbed his greatcoat from the coat rack and slipped it on.
“What about you?”
“I’ll be upstairs checking things personally.” He ran over by the kitchenette. “Ianto! Get Gwen and Owen in here now.”
Jack took off before Ianto could even respond. Sprinting upstairs his mind was trying to figure out why the Doctor would be there, and in the back of his mind he wondered why the Doctor hadn’t contacted him. He had thought they were fine after that whole year with the Master. Maybe something had happened…
As he was crossing the tourist office, that’s when the first quake hit. Grabbing the counter for support, Jack stumbled to the door to the outside. Flinging it open he found himself face-to-face with a brunette Margaret Blaine.
“Are you kidding me?” She scowled at him, still wearing the same skirt suit she had been wearing before turning into an egg years ago. “Didn’t I kill you?”
“I think not.” Jack grabbed her by the wrist and yanked her inside the tourist office. Pulling out his earpiece and putting it on, he called downstairs. “Tosh? You and Ianto okay?”
“A couple of bruises, but we’re fine,” Tosh replied. “It was a localised quake, just around the Bay.”
“See what else you can find out about it. And ask Ianto where the handcuffs are.”
“Middle drawer on the right,” Ianto said over the comms.
Jack dragged Margaret with him as he dug the handcuffs out of Ianto’s drawers. Ratcheting one ring around her wrist, he attached the other ring to an office chair.
“I like it rough, but we barely know each other,” she quipped.
Jack pushed her down, leaning over her, hands on the arms of the chair, trapping Margaret. “How did you get here?”
“You don’t know?”
“Tell me.”
“Where’s the fun in that?”
He moved in closer, feeling her breath on his face. “You will tell me.”
“Pretty, but rather stupid,” Margaret said as she huffed out a big breath of air.
Something in the back of Jack’s mind kicked into gear and he pulled back in time, avoiding the poison on her breath. He mentally kicked himself for momentarily forgetting all that he had learned about the denizens of Raxacoricofallapatorius. It wouldn’t have permanently killed him, but he didn’t have time to waste.
“You can’t kill me that easily. Why are you here? Going to try and blow up Cardiff again?”
“But I already did.”
“What?”
“How do you think I got here?”
Jack’s face fell as it dawned on him just what Margaret had said. Ducking around the counter, he bolted for the outside door. Flinging it open, he saw it. Margaret’s tribophysical waveform macrokinetic extrapolator - her pandimensional “surfboard”. Jack ran his hands along it, feeling it hum. Snatching it up from the ground he slammed the door shut and stomped towards Margaret, wanting to smear the smile from her face.
“You destroyed an entire city?!”
“It didn’t work though, you’re still here.” She cocked her head to the side. “How did you do that? The Doctor’s ship was the first thing to blow sky high. I saw it burn, with you inside.”
The door behind him opened and Jack looked over his shoulder, barely breathing. He blinked as Gwen came running in, Owen on her heels. Both of them stopped in their tracks when they saw Margaret.
“Jack? Yeah, what the hell’s going on?”
“We have a visitor,” he said, turning all his anger back on Margaret.
“Who’s she?”
“Someone who shouldn’t be here.”
His earpiece crackled as Tosh tried to talk to him, but he couldn’t make out any specific words. “Gwen,” Jack barked. “Pull up the Rift readings on the computer.”
Gwen was sidling behind him when the world shook a second time. Jack covered her as several ceiling tiles fell on them. Owen ducked on the other side of the counter. Behind him, Margaret had disappeared.
“Where’d she go?” Gwen asked as she brushed her hair back.
“Here, you stupid humans.”
Jack really wished he had his gun on him as he looked up and found Margaret holding Owen with her brooch pointing at the medic’s head. Owen struggled against her, and Jack got a good look at what Margaret was holding.
“Owen! Stop moving.”
“Why the fuck for?” Owen bashed his elbow into Margaret’s gut. She pointed the brooch at a nearby stand full of brochures. They all watched as it turned into a pile of grey confetti. “Shit,” he muttered.
“Because she’s holding a particle reducer to your head,” Jack said. “What do you want Margaret?”
“My God. That’s why she looks so familiar,” Gwen said. “I thought she disappeared.”
“I want to leave this pitiful planet and find the rest of my family,” Margaret sneered.
“That won’t happen here,” Jack coolly said as he spotted Ianto just beyond the doorjamb to the entrance of the tourist office. “You see, Margaret, the family Slitheen doesn’t exist anymore. Not here. We could return you to Raxacoricofallapatorius.”
“That would be a death sentence and you know it!”
“Just don’t hurt him. I’ve grown fond of my doctor” Jack smiled as Ianto crept right behind Margaret. Mentioning the word doctor seemed to have distracted her. “What? Do you have a problem with doctors?”
Before she could respond, Margaret heard Ianto behind her and turned around in time to get a tazer to the chest, knocking her out. Owen pulled away and watched Margaret drop to the ground.
“Thanks for that,” Owen replied.
“We don’t have much time. She’s only wearing a human shell, that shock won’t knock her out for long. Get her downstairs, in restraints, and remove all of her jewellery.”
“Does she have anything to do with the two earthquakes?” Gwen looked over at him, her brow crinkled in worry.
“The first one. Not sure about the second. And they aren’t earthquakes, they came from the Rift.”
“Bloody hell,” Owen mumbled as he collected Margaret’s brooch and picked up her earrings from the floor.
“Don’t put those together,” Jack said, pointing at the earrings. “That’s how she teleported. No question where they’ll take you.” He turned to Ianto, running his hands along the other man’s lapels. “Thanks. But why were you outside?”
“None of you were responding and we lost visual when the second quake hit. I took the lift. By the way, I passed a knocked over blue police box by the fountain.”
Jack’s head snapped up. “Did it look like his?” Ianto shook his head yes. “Help them with Margaret.” With that he took off past Ianto and ran up to the fountain.
There it was. It looked just like the Doctor’s TARDIS. A bit shorter, although it was on its side, that did make estimating length a little different for some things. He could hear the door thunk open, but couldn’t see it since the door was now the roof. A puff of smoke came out and he saw a hand grabbing the edge of the TARDIS. Jack ran over and took the hand, helping to pull them out. What he had not expected to see was a ginger woman… wearing the Doctor’s brown suit.
“Oh, that’s not good, not good at all.” She started looking around the TARDIS, feeling it’s side. “I’m sorry.” She spun around and Jack saw just how much she was a woman, her shirt unbuttoned part way. “Sorry about that,” she said as she tucked her shirt back in and re-buttoned up a bit. “This looks familiar,” she said, looking around the Plass.
“You’re in Cardiff, United Kingdom, on Earth,” Jack said, looking the woman up and down.
“Oh… that’s interesting.” She looked at him, and Jack swore it was the Doctor’s eyes. “And you are?”
“Captain Jack Harkness,” he said. “Is the Doctor okay?”
“I would hope so,” she replied. “Since I’m the Doctor.”
“No, that’s impossible, I didn’t think Time Lords could change gender when they regenerated.”
“It’s not outside the realm of possibility, but I don’t think that’s the case here, unfortunately.”
“If you’re the Doctor, you would have recognised me. You’re wearing the same style of clothes I last saw you in.”
“You would think I would, unless I’m not your Doctor.”
“How is that possible?”
“Well, the TARDIS might have been dancing along the border of the vortex and the void. Well, it might have gotten sucked into the void.” She looked up at him sheepishly. “You see, well… we might have broken through a crack in the void, and not be from this dimension at all.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Captain Jacqueline Harkness, and you are?” a feminine voice asked from behind him. Jack’s body turned to ice as it dawned on him what had happened. Talking to the Doctor, he had followed them and left his back to the TARDIS, which meant that someone else had climbed out. He turned around, to find himself face-to-face with a tall woman with long black hair, and wearing a grey greatcoat. Her blue eyes looked him up and down. “You’re cute, officer. Who are you?” She smiled at him.
“Don’t. Just,” the Doctor stepped between them. “Don’t.”
“Why not?” she asked, following the Doctor.
“Because he’s you.”
Jacqueline looked sideways at Jack. It was intriguing and yet nerve wracking. This person was him, but not. A female him from another universe… and a female Doctor. It made him wonder what else had changed.
The Doctor looked over her shoulder at Jack. “Probably the only man you’ll be happy with, but just don’t.”
“This isn’t my Cardiff, is it?”
“Your Cardiff?” Jack raised an eyebrow at Jacqueline.
“My Cardiff.” She looked back at the Doctor as she still investigated the TARDIS. “I wonder if we could find a version of Torchwood and get their help? I wonder if Torchwood exists here?”
“You’re looking for Torchwood?”
“Yes,” Jacqueline replied, rolling her neck and looking back at Jack.
He smiled. “I’m Torchwood.”
“Really,” Jacqueline said. “I’ve been running Torchwood since Queenie hired me on in 1879. What about you?”
“Since ‘Queenie’ hired you’?”
“Victoria. I had been her personal bodyguard. I used to dress like a guy, hung out with the male soldiers, slept with the soldiers - those were the days - but was the only one who could accompany her majesty anywhere, and did we go places…” Jacqueline smirked, a far-off look in her eyes. Jack recognised that look and silently applauded the woman in front of him.
Before Jack could congratulate her, a moaning came from inside the TARDIS. “Is someone else in there? Someone hurt?” Jack asked.
“No, just complaining,” Jacqueline snapped.
“Right! I forgot, she always like to go for walkies once we land,” the Doctor said. “Get her up here.”
“You got a dog?” Jack asked, wondering what else was different. He kept an eye on Jacqueline as she hung half inside the TARDIS motioning for someone to come up the rope she had climbed up herself - how had he not noticed the rope? Jack wondered if it was time for a vacation. It definitely was when he saw what “pet” came up out of the TARDIS.
Jack took several steps back, automatically reaching for the weapon he wasn’t carrying. It couldn’t be. It was blonde. It was a woman. But the face - and the eyes which bore into him as soon as it looked at him - was the Master. The Master was wearing a hoodie and sweats… with a collar around their neck. He could only stare as the Doctor pulled a leash from her long coat and clipped it to the collar.
“Time for walkies! Jacqueline, can you take her?”
Jacqueline just glared. “You know she always tries to run away from me, and if she attacks me again, I might choke her with the collar. I might just do that if she starts singing Animaniacs again.” The two stared at each a moment, the Master between them. Finally the Doctor headed off around the Plass with the Master in tow.
“The Master isn’t dead in your Universe?”
“Was.”
“What happened?”
“I’d rather not say,” Jacqueline said. Jack couldn’t help but stare at Jacqueline as she leaned against the TARDIS. “What?”
“I was just wondering what else was different between our Universes. Do you have a brother?”
“Had a sister.”
“Had?”
“I’d rather not say.”
“If both the Doctor and the Master are still around, what about the other Time Lords?”
“Those lying bastards all perished in the Time War.”
“You know about the Time War?”
“I should. I fought in it.”
“You fought in the Time War?”
“Didn’t you? I was on the front lines.”
“I guess some things are different.”
The two lapsed into silence for a minute as Jack’s mind struggled to piece together this version of him and the Doctor. Before he could say anything else, they were interrupted by Owen jogging up to them.
“What’s all this?”
“What are you doing here, Owen?”
“Whose this?” Owen asked, nodding at Jacqueline.
“Captain Jenna Hanson,” Jacqueline said, holding out her hand to him.
“Dr. Owen Harper,” he replied, barely shaking her hand. “Apparently comms are conked out, but I think Tosh is about to deliver kittens. The numbers on her Rift monitoring program are all over the place. Gwen is watching our visitor, but Tosh has Ianto doing some background checking. Either it’s going to rain tomorrow, or we’re all going to die in the next five minutes.” Owen stuffed his hands into the pockets of his coat.
“That’s it! It’s the Rift!” The Doctor was practically yelling as she trotted back to them with the Master behind. “We were talking while on our little walkie, and realised why we were pulled here. Radiation and spacetime gets concentrated in the Rift. When we were traveling in the vortex, we were skimming along the edge of the void. If you look at the theory of nonlocality, everything is joined together.”
“Quantum interconnectdness,” the Master chimed in, grinning like the Cheshire Cat.
“More like Bell’s Theorem. Once objects are connected, they affect one another forever.”
“Sounds like two people I know,” Jacqueline muttered.
“Two objects cannot occupy the same space - granted it gets a little muddled out there - but something that was connected to us collided with us, and dragged us into the void. Our mass must have been greater, because it fed off our original destination of Cardiff, albeit a different Cardiff, since we were taking the dear Captain back!”
“And what does that mean?”
“It means the TARDIS and another, smaller ship collided, creating a crack in the void. Between our plotted destination of Cardiff, any Cardiff, and the fact that the Rift is the most highly concentrated point in spacetime on this planet, we were deposited right under it like a big old blinking neon sign. The Master and I figured out a way to get ourselves back and seal up the hole, but first we need to find this other entity.”
Jack exchanged a look with Owen. “I think we can help you with that.”
“Good! Now, if only we some way to manipulate the Rift. Does Torchwood have something like that?” the Master asked, sneering.
Jack and Jacqueline looked at each other and grinned. “That’s possible,” Jack said. “What do you need done?”
“I need the other entity, and we need to open the Rift.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Owen asked.
“No. Just open it enough for the TARDIS to slip in and then it should be fine.”
“Owen, you heard t he woman. Go and bring our guest up here, and then get things ready so we can open the Rift.”
“I’m not getting shot over the fucking Rift again.”
“Do it,” Jack said authority in his voice. “What do you need Doctor?”
*** *** *** *** ***
Jack counted down the seconds on his stopwatch. If the Doctor didn’t get the TARDIS moving they were in trouble. The team had re-righted the TARDIS using a pulley system, and brought the alternative Margaret Blaine upstairs. Jacqueline had started cursing a blue streak when she found out who they had to transport and was threatening to just shove Margaret out the TARDIS doors as they moved through the vortex, letting her fall wherever. Jack didn’t argue with her, but part of him wondered what Jacqueline’s Margaret - or Mark, or Jiminy for all he knew - Blaine did to her.
“I’ve got everything ready to go, Captain,” the Doctor said over the communication system they had set up. Good thing the TARDIS could tap into nearly every bit of electronics in any universe.
“All right, on the count of three,” Jack said, looking at Owen. Owen’s scan was set to be the last and would initiate the Rift manipulator. “Safe journey.”
“I hope so,” Jacqueline muttered.
“One,” Jack looked at Tosh’s computer. “Two.” He gave his team an encouraging smile. “Three.” He nodded his head at Owen, who pressed his finger against the reader.
The reader accepted it and started counting down. The whole base began to shake as the machinery powered up. Jack held on to the desk, making his legs stand firm. He watched the computer as the numbers from Tosh’s Rift monitoring programs began breaking the scale. She muted the warning alarm as they concentrated on the CCTV.
“A couple of more seconds Captain and we’ll be gone,” the Doctor said. “Thank you!”
“Any time Doctor,” Jack yelled over the sound of the Hub trying to shake apart.
“Understood,” Jacqueline said.
Jack took a breath and heard the familiar vworping sound of the TARDIS. His heart saddened as he wished they had more time together, but the numbers didn’t lie. He would have liked to have found out just what their Universe was like, what the Time War had been like, and a host of other things, but if they didn’t get back through the crack Margaret had created, his Universe would have fallen down around him.
His team held on for dear life as the earth shook for a third time.
“Shut it down!” Jack yelled as the communications with the TARDIS closed. He watched as Tosh and Ianto went to work on the computer systems while Gwen and Owen took care of the physical with the manipulator itself. None of them said anything as they went to work.
None of them said anything as they went about cleaning up the Hub, but Jack could feel them watching him, wondering why he didn’t go with this Doctor.
None of them said anything the next day after Jack had taken them out the night before for drinks for a job well done. But they all did wonder why Owen had bought a Ez-Reach Prostate Probe and kept it in his desk drawer.