Fic update: 'This Is Going To Be Fun' - Buffy/Life On Mars/Torchwood/Doctor Who (4/15ish)
Title: This Is Going To Be Fun
Author: Flurblewig
Fandom: Buffyverse/Life On Mars/Torchwood/Doctor Who
Genre: Comedy drama, with a side order of crackfic :-)
Rating: PG13
Length: This part 3,625 words
Characters: Ethan Rayne, Rupert Giles, Sam Tyler, Rhys Williams, Jack Harkness, Tenth Doctor (so far)
Pairings: None (yet)
Summary: Sam and Rhys have some unexpected encounters and lots of people learn more than they ever wanted to know about the nature of reality...
A/N: Thanks & hugs to my beta desoto_hia873!
Previous parts: 1 / 2 / 3
It looks like Gwen's just got home when Rhys rushes in, which surprises him At some point he'll get around to being pleased about it, but right now he's got a few other things on his mind.
'What are you doing, love?' she calls out from the kitchen as he starts scrabbling in the DVD cupboard.
'Oh, you know,' he says, as he stacks up the Buffy box sets under his chin. 'I didn't think you'd be back until late so I thought I'd amuse myself. Bit of a TV fest, bit of interdimensional time travel, maybe stop off for a curry on the way home, that sort of thing.' For good measure he grabs the Angel sets and a Watcher's Guide as well, and chucks the whole lot into a carrier bag.
He plants a kiss in the middle of her eyebrows, where a confused frown is starting to furrow the skin. 'Don't wait up, eh?'
He nips back outside to where the Doctor and Jack are waiting, wondering whether he ought to be a bit ashamed about just how much satisfaction that had given him. The Doctor beams and claps his hands when he catches sight of him, and Rhys decides the answer's no.
When they get back to the TARDIS Rhys tips out the DVDs, and Jack starts rummaging through them. He whistles. 'This is a lot of television. Considering it would take... oh, I reckon about ten days straight to watch it all, we're going to need to be selective.' He looks up at Rhys. 'Can you pick out the most important ones? The ones that give the most information about this place, and what we might be dealing with? You can fill us in on the rest as we go.'
The Doctor claps Rhys on the shoulder. 'You can be our official Cultural Liaison, how does that sound?'
Rhys grins back. It sounds quite good, actually.
The Doctor fiddles about under one of the panels for a while and then a three-dimensional version of 'Welcome to the Hellmouth' starts playing in mid air in front of his nose. 'Holographic technology revolutionises the entertainment industry,' the Doctor says. 'For a while, anyway. But not for a few years yet, so...don't go messing things up by inventing it or anything, okay?'
Rhys nods, mesmerised by the sight of Xander skateboarding into the Doctor's left ear. 'Okay.'
The Doctor reaches under the panel again, and comes back out with a a pair of candy-striped deckchairs. Another rummage produces a large packet of toffee-covered popcorn. There's no way all of that would have fitted in the tiny space it came out of, but Rhys has already dealt with the whole bigger on the inside thing. Using 'dealt with' in the sense of 'decided to worry about later', of course. It's a tactic that's worked in the past, so why change a winning formula?
'Here we go,' the Doctor says. 'You've got to have snacks. It's just not the same otherwise.' He throws the popcorn to Rhys.
'What?' he says, off Jack's look. 'Like you said, we've got a lot of television to watch. Might as well do it properly. There's probably even some beer around here somewhere. I'm sure Mickey had a secret stash.'
Rhys discreetly pinches his arm, but apart from leaving fingernail marks in his skin, nothing changes. 'Look, not that an evening in front of the telly--well, in front of whatever the hell that thing is--watching Buffy isn't my idea of a great night, but could one of you two please tell me exactly what the hell's going on?'
'Over to you,' says Jack, folding his arms and looking at the Doctor. 'I'm quite interested in the answer to that one myself.'
'Right, right, yes. Of course. Well, to explain it properly would take a large computer, a lot of complicated equations and about thirty five years. But the short version is that when Rose--that's a friend of ours, she travelled with me for a while--used the power of the time vortex--that's kind of the engine in the TARDIS--to defeat the daleks--that's, um, well, let's just say the bad guys--it actually de-created them. It re-formed the universe into a new configuration that didn't include them--that had never included them. But nature abhors a vacuum, right? Energy can never be destroyed, it can only be changed--so something had to replace the daleks throughout time and space. Since the only blueprint available to work from was inside Rose's head, it took what it could find. And that happened to be the Buffy universe.' He grins at Rhys. 'She was a big fan, too. Her and Jackie. Loved Xander. Wish I'd paid a bit more attention myself, now.' He turns round again and nods at the projection. 'He's quite cute.'
Rhys slumps into one of the deckchairs. It's not made of canvas but some sort of warm, vaguely rubbery material that moulds itself to his arse. He freezes, and for a second it all teeters on the edge, but he holds it together. The TARDIS is just about the most mind-bending thing he's ever seen in his life--apart from possibly that time he unexpectedly caught Brynn Morgan's mum in the shower when he was eight--but it's just going to have to go on hold for now. He'll get round to freaking out about what he's seen later, some time when he's got over freaking out about what he's just heard.
'So,' he says slowly. 'It's... real? It exists? Buffy Summers and Sunnydale, there really is such a place?'
The Doctor nods, settling himself into the deckchair next to Rhys. He reaches over to grab a handful of popcorn. 'Yep. Sunnydale, Buffy, and the whole universe around them.' He grins at Jack, who's still standing with his arms folded. ' That was our Rose, never did anything in half measures.'
'But--vampires. There were vampires.'
'Absolutely. And did you know, there never were any such things? All those legends, all the stories--and they never actually existed, anywhere on Earth in any time--or anywhere else for that matter. It was complete fiction, all of it.' He grins. 'Until now, anyway.'
'But--vampires. Real vampires. And magic, and demons, and evil, and school teachers who are really giant preying mantises!' Rhys can hear his voice rising in pitch with every word.
In front of him, a holographic Giles thwaps the huge 'Vampyr' book onto the library counter and Rhys flinches back right along with Buffy. Jack studies it intently. 'So what's the plan of attack? How do we destroy this place? Unmake it?'
The Doctor stops chewing, a piece of popcorn halfway to his mouth. 'Oh, good heavens, no. Can't do that. This is a whole new dimension with billions of people in it, it's not their fault that they didn't exist six months ago. They don't know that, they think they've been around just as long as we have. Can't just go around unmaking whole planets, it wouldn't be fair. And anyway, I'd have to absorb the power of the time vortex to be able to do it, and I'm not going there again. I've only just got used to these teeth, I'm not giving them up just yet.'
Rhys rubs his eyes. He has a headache. 'So--what is the plan?'
'Ah, well, I forgot to mention there was another complication.'
Jack lets out a snort of laughter. 'On top of the whole physical creation of a fictional universe thing? It's more complicated than that?'
'I'm afraid so. A little while ago I picked up a massive surge in temporal energy--and I mean huge, ginormous, off the scale. Of course my first thought was of the Rift, but when I started poking around it I found it went deeper than that. When I tracked it back, that's when I found it.' He gestures at the projection. 'The Buffy universe.'
'The surge went there?' Jack asks.
'No--it started there.'
'How is that possible?'
'That's item 4 on the list of Stuff To Find Out.'
Rhys looks up. 'What are items 1, 2 and 3?'
'The what, the who and the why. And speaking of which--' he gets up and taps a screen on the console. 'We're here.'
Rhys stands up as well. The deckchair seems disturbingly reluctant to let him go. 'Where?'
'Well, an added complication to the complication is that when the temporal flux reached out through the Rift, I think it caught someone else in it--someone from our dimension. And since cross-inhabitation of dimensions is never a good thing in the long run, we really need to get them back. I tracked the path of the time-disruption signature to its initial source, so wherever we're at, it should be the place that it all started from. Hopefully we'll be able to find some clues.' He points at the door. 'Go and have a quick look, and see if you recognise it'
Rhys blanches. 'Me?'
'You're our expert, remember? We'll just do a quick recce, there's nothing to be worried about.' The Doctor nods encouragingly, and eventually Rhys starts inching towards the door. When he finally opens it up, he sees a brightly-lit, cavernous room with rows and rows of glass cells along each side. He whistles softly and steps out, closely followed by Jack and the Doctor. He notes that Jack's gun is in his hand, and can't decide if that makes him feel less scared or more.
In the nearest cell is a bed with a lot of complicated-looking machinery hooked up to it. Or rather, hooked up to a body in the bed. Rhys's eyes take in a recognisable face. 'Oh, shit,' he breathes.
Instantly, Jack is at his side. 'What is it?'
Rhys points into the cell. 'That is Ethan Rayne. Which means that this'-- he gestures around the room generally-- 'is the Initiative.'
'The what?'
'The Initiative. Season Four. A secret organisation that was trying to find ways to use demons for the military. They had a base in Sunnydale, but it all went horribly wrong.'
The Doctor nods thoughtfully. 'So trying to use technology that didn't belong to them came back to haunt them, did it?' He directs a very pointed look at Jack. 'How interesting.'
'It wasn't exactly technology, more like bits of demons, but yeah, that sums it up pretty well.' Rhys looks around. 'This must be the Nevada base, I'm sure that's where they took Ethan after 'A New Man'.'
Jack keeps his weapon down by his side while he checks out the cell. 'So who is this Ethan character? He our guy?'
'Could well be. Ethan was a sorceror, a powerful one, and a worshipper of chaos. I wouldn't put it past him to be trying time travel.' Rhys puts his hands against the glass. 'Maybe he was trying to escape.'
'Doesn't look like he was too successful then, does it?'
The Doctor steps up to the glass as well, waving a small metal gizmo about and peering at it. 'Definite temporal activity,' he says. 'The residue is unmistakeable. Something travelled from this spot, but if it wasn't him, then--' he backs up, and walks straight into a rather gangly-looking young man in military fatigues. Rhys isn't sure who's more surprised.
The man blinks rapidly, his head swivelling between the Doctor and the TARDIS. 'What--who--what--'
'At ease,' says Jack. 'I'm Captain Jack Harkness of Torchwood Three, these are my associates. Is the situation under control?'
That sparks another frenzy of blinking. 'Um-'
'These are not the droids you're looking for,' Rhys says, and then starts to laugh. It has a hysterical edge that he can hear clearly but can't seem able to control.
'What's your name, soldier?' Jack barks, and the boy snaps to attention. Rhys has to resist the urge to do the same. He has to admit Jack does command mode very well.
'Josh, sir. I mean, Private Kellin, sir.'
'Private Kellin, I asked you a question. Is the situation under control?'
'You mean with 687-b, sir? Yes, sir. There's been no change in his condition since the incident, sir. Physically, there's no reason for the coma. He's absolutely fine, apart from there being no brain activity.'
The Doctor smacks his forehead. 'Of course. Yes, it has to be. He left his body behind but his consciousness travelled. Oh, that's very clever. Very impressive. Okay, so now all we have to do is re-fold the wave distortion signature through the rest of the spectrum and Bob's your uncle.'
Private Kellin frowns. It's a slow process. 'Uh, sir, where exactly did you say you--'
'Yes, splendid,' the Doctor, says, grabbing Rhys's arm. 'Carry on, as you were.' They run for the TARDIS. Jack slams the door behind them and the Doctor goes into a running-and-button-pushing frenzy. The floor tilts violently under their feet and Rhys hits the wall hard. The Doctor beams at him. 'Isn't this fun?'
Rhys just nods. It seems easier to do that than try to argue.
*
After a while they rumble and jerk to a halt again, and Rhys follows Jack and the Doctor out of the TARDIS into what looks like a hospital storage room. 'Where are we now?' he asks.
'Back in our own dimension,' the Doctor says. 'Hopefully at the other end of the string, as it were. Now, if the spell was for mind transport only, then we're looking for another body with no consciousness. Is this a psychiatric hospital? We could be looking for someone with catatonic schizophrenia.'
'No,' Rhys says, looking at the floor plan on the wall. 'It's an ordinary sick-people hospital. So--we want someone who's also in a coma, right?'
'Right. Let's see what we can find.'
They find plenty of people unconscious, but only one who seems to be in an official coma--a man in a private room, hooked up to a bank of machines that beep quietly. A blonde woman is sat by the bed, reading a celebrity gossip magazine. She looks up when they enter. 'Hello, who are you?'
Jack steps forward, taking her hand. 'Hi, I'm Jack Harkness. It's very good to meet you, although I'm sorry it had to be under these circumstances.'
The woman accepts his handshake and a kiss on the cheek, giving him a smile that's warm but rather confused. 'Thank you, thank you. I'm Sam's mum. Ruth. Are you from the station?'
'No, no,' says the Doctor, surreptitiously waving the metal gizmo again. 'We're just friends of, um--'
'Sam's,' Jack fills in, turning up the wattage of his smile.
Ruth looks at all of them in turn, her expression turning ever more dubious. 'Right. I, er, I don't think we've met?'
'We're in his Amateur Dramatics group,' says Rhys.
Jack gives him a look, but Ruth smiles and relaxes. 'Oh, really? I didn't know Sam had got interested in acting.' She looks back at the man on the bed and squeezes his hand. 'He must get that from me. I always wanted to be on the stage myself, I was a dancer when I was younger, I would have loved to have done musicals but then I got married and had Sammy, and it was--' she breaks off, and gives them a slightly abashed smile. 'Well, anyway, that doesn't really matter now. It was very nice of you to come over to see Sam. I think it helps, you know, for him to have his friends here.' She stretches and gets up. 'I'm going to get a cup of tea, you boys have a nice chat now. Would you like me to get you something? They have some very nice teacakes in the cafeteria.'
The Doctor brightens up. 'Ooh, teacakes?'
Ruth smiles and pats his arm. 'I'll be right back.'
When she's gone, they all face the man in the bed. 'What happened to him?' asks Rhys.
The Doctor picks up the chart and scans through it. 'Physically, he got hit by a car. Metaphysically, he got hit by a massive convergence of temporal displacement fields when the power Ethan Rayne used to transfer his consciousness back down his timeline fractured after it took power from the opening of the Rift. Basically, he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Although--' He pauses, looking up at Jack with an expression Rhys can't read. 'Tyler. His name is Sam Tyler.'
Rhys looks over the Doctor's shoulder at the chart, but it means nothing to him. 'Is that significant?'
'I don't know,' the Doctor says slowly, then seems to shake himself. 'Probably not. Coincidences do happen.'
Rhys smoothes down the cover on the bed. Tyler doesn't move, beyond the shallow rise and fall of his chest. 'So--he's like Ethan? His body stayed here but his mind went time travelling?'
'That's my guess, yes.'
'Where? Where did they go?'
'Now that, we still have to find out.'
'Don't tell me--more tracking of time distortion waves through the wormhole, or whatever.'
The Doctor pats his shoulder. 'By Jove, I think he's got it.' He leans over the man in the bed. 'Hang on in there, Sam Tyler, we're on our way.'
*
Back in the TARDIS, the Doctor spends half an hour running around the console punching buttons and checking readouts, then announces that they can put their feet up while the programme completes its calculations to track Sam and Ethan. Rhys puts the DVD back on and starts fast-forwarding through the discs, providing commentary as they go. Jack appears rather impressed with Spike, and says that Drusilla reminds him of an old flame. 'Beautiful girl,' he says, a wistful smile forming. 'But mad as a hatter. She used to like me to dress up as a priest and hear her confession, and boy did she have some stories to confess. And then we'd sneak into her local church and--'
The Doctor cuts in. 'Everyone reminds you of an old flame,' he says, rolling his eyes.
Jack grins, and shrugs. 'Occupational hazard, when you have a lot of history.'
'Speak for yourself.'
'I was hardly speaking for you, Mr never-met-an-opportunity-I-couldn't-waste, was I?'
Rhys gets the impression they've had this conversation, or variations of it, before. He moves quickly on to the Ethan episodes before he can get asked about his own romantic history. There isn't a great deal of it, apart from Gwen, and he doesn't really feel like admitting that in front of Jack.
He sneaks away while they're studying 'The Dark Age', and calls her. 'I might be a bit late home,' he says. 'Later than I thought. Like, maybe a couple of days. I'm on a rescue mission, see. With your Jack Harkness and an alien called the Doctor.'
''s'nice, love,' she mumbles, and he smiles.
'Go back to sleep,' he says. 'I'll see you later.'
He somehow manages to get lost on his way back to the control room, even though he would have sworn he'd only moved about three feet down one of the corridors. Going back the way he thought he'd come takes him into a giant sparkling industrial kitchen, where a single toasted cheese and marmite sandwich sits on a gleaming chrome counter. He scoffs it happily. Life in a magic spaceship obviously has fringe benefits.
By the time he gets back they've moved onto 'Passion', and Rhys is sure he sees the Doctor wipe his eyes. 'Poor Jenny', he says, then gets up to peer at the incomprehensible instrument panels and scribble something down in what looks like hieroglyphics.
Jack pats one of the deckchairs, which seems to have moved. 'I haven't seen any of these for years. Where did you pick them up?'
The Doctor frowns at the screen he's looking at, his nose only an inch away from it. 'Hmm? Oh, in a market on Aldekachik. Bloody stowaways. I didn't even realise they were here for six weeks. Still, I kind of got used to having them around in the end.'
Rhys backs away from his own chair and stands by the projection, taking up his commenting duties again.
They get through the edited highlights of half of Season Six, with the Doctor periodically jumping up and checking various instruments and readouts, before he sighs heavily and runs his hands through his hair. He turns around and leans against the console with a look on his face that Rhys is sure would be instantly recognisable to travellers in any universe whatsover.
He pauses the DVD. 'We're lost, aren't we?'
The Doctor folds his arms. 'No, no. Not at all. I know exactly where we are.' Jack raises his eyebrows, and the Doctor's shoulders sag a little. 'I just don't know exactly where Sam and Ethan are.'
'You can't find them?'
'Well, no, I'm pretty sure I can, it's just that the way it's going, they'll probably be about five hundred years old before I do.'
Rhys looks from him to Jack. 'So what do we do now?'
Jack looks thoughtfully over Rhys's shoulder at the DVD projection. 'I've got an idea. If the machines can't work out where Ethan went, and we don't know him well enough to guess...what about asking someone who does?'
They all turn to watch Giles frozen in the act of walking across the floor of the Magic Box. The Doctor beams. 'Brilliant,' he says, and runs back to the controls. 'Hold on to your hats, we're heading for the Hellmouth.'
Part 5
Author: Flurblewig
Fandom: Buffyverse/Life On Mars/Torchwood/Doctor Who
Genre: Comedy drama, with a side order of crackfic :-)
Rating: PG13
Length: This part 3,625 words
Characters: Ethan Rayne, Rupert Giles, Sam Tyler, Rhys Williams, Jack Harkness, Tenth Doctor (so far)
Pairings: None (yet)
Summary: Sam and Rhys have some unexpected encounters and lots of people learn more than they ever wanted to know about the nature of reality...
A/N: Thanks & hugs to my beta desoto_hia873!
Previous parts: 1 / 2 / 3
It looks like Gwen's just got home when Rhys rushes in, which surprises him At some point he'll get around to being pleased about it, but right now he's got a few other things on his mind.
'What are you doing, love?' she calls out from the kitchen as he starts scrabbling in the DVD cupboard.
'Oh, you know,' he says, as he stacks up the Buffy box sets under his chin. 'I didn't think you'd be back until late so I thought I'd amuse myself. Bit of a TV fest, bit of interdimensional time travel, maybe stop off for a curry on the way home, that sort of thing.' For good measure he grabs the Angel sets and a Watcher's Guide as well, and chucks the whole lot into a carrier bag.
He plants a kiss in the middle of her eyebrows, where a confused frown is starting to furrow the skin. 'Don't wait up, eh?'
He nips back outside to where the Doctor and Jack are waiting, wondering whether he ought to be a bit ashamed about just how much satisfaction that had given him. The Doctor beams and claps his hands when he catches sight of him, and Rhys decides the answer's no.
When they get back to the TARDIS Rhys tips out the DVDs, and Jack starts rummaging through them. He whistles. 'This is a lot of television. Considering it would take... oh, I reckon about ten days straight to watch it all, we're going to need to be selective.' He looks up at Rhys. 'Can you pick out the most important ones? The ones that give the most information about this place, and what we might be dealing with? You can fill us in on the rest as we go.'
The Doctor claps Rhys on the shoulder. 'You can be our official Cultural Liaison, how does that sound?'
Rhys grins back. It sounds quite good, actually.
The Doctor fiddles about under one of the panels for a while and then a three-dimensional version of 'Welcome to the Hellmouth' starts playing in mid air in front of his nose. 'Holographic technology revolutionises the entertainment industry,' the Doctor says. 'For a while, anyway. But not for a few years yet, so...don't go messing things up by inventing it or anything, okay?'
Rhys nods, mesmerised by the sight of Xander skateboarding into the Doctor's left ear. 'Okay.'
The Doctor reaches under the panel again, and comes back out with a a pair of candy-striped deckchairs. Another rummage produces a large packet of toffee-covered popcorn. There's no way all of that would have fitted in the tiny space it came out of, but Rhys has already dealt with the whole bigger on the inside thing. Using 'dealt with' in the sense of 'decided to worry about later', of course. It's a tactic that's worked in the past, so why change a winning formula?
'Here we go,' the Doctor says. 'You've got to have snacks. It's just not the same otherwise.' He throws the popcorn to Rhys.
'What?' he says, off Jack's look. 'Like you said, we've got a lot of television to watch. Might as well do it properly. There's probably even some beer around here somewhere. I'm sure Mickey had a secret stash.'
Rhys discreetly pinches his arm, but apart from leaving fingernail marks in his skin, nothing changes. 'Look, not that an evening in front of the telly--well, in front of whatever the hell that thing is--watching Buffy isn't my idea of a great night, but could one of you two please tell me exactly what the hell's going on?'
'Over to you,' says Jack, folding his arms and looking at the Doctor. 'I'm quite interested in the answer to that one myself.'
'Right, right, yes. Of course. Well, to explain it properly would take a large computer, a lot of complicated equations and about thirty five years. But the short version is that when Rose--that's a friend of ours, she travelled with me for a while--used the power of the time vortex--that's kind of the engine in the TARDIS--to defeat the daleks--that's, um, well, let's just say the bad guys--it actually de-created them. It re-formed the universe into a new configuration that didn't include them--that had never included them. But nature abhors a vacuum, right? Energy can never be destroyed, it can only be changed--so something had to replace the daleks throughout time and space. Since the only blueprint available to work from was inside Rose's head, it took what it could find. And that happened to be the Buffy universe.' He grins at Rhys. 'She was a big fan, too. Her and Jackie. Loved Xander. Wish I'd paid a bit more attention myself, now.' He turns round again and nods at the projection. 'He's quite cute.'
Rhys slumps into one of the deckchairs. It's not made of canvas but some sort of warm, vaguely rubbery material that moulds itself to his arse. He freezes, and for a second it all teeters on the edge, but he holds it together. The TARDIS is just about the most mind-bending thing he's ever seen in his life--apart from possibly that time he unexpectedly caught Brynn Morgan's mum in the shower when he was eight--but it's just going to have to go on hold for now. He'll get round to freaking out about what he's seen later, some time when he's got over freaking out about what he's just heard.
'So,' he says slowly. 'It's... real? It exists? Buffy Summers and Sunnydale, there really is such a place?'
The Doctor nods, settling himself into the deckchair next to Rhys. He reaches over to grab a handful of popcorn. 'Yep. Sunnydale, Buffy, and the whole universe around them.' He grins at Jack, who's still standing with his arms folded. ' That was our Rose, never did anything in half measures.'
'But--vampires. There were vampires.'
'Absolutely. And did you know, there never were any such things? All those legends, all the stories--and they never actually existed, anywhere on Earth in any time--or anywhere else for that matter. It was complete fiction, all of it.' He grins. 'Until now, anyway.'
'But--vampires. Real vampires. And magic, and demons, and evil, and school teachers who are really giant preying mantises!' Rhys can hear his voice rising in pitch with every word.
In front of him, a holographic Giles thwaps the huge 'Vampyr' book onto the library counter and Rhys flinches back right along with Buffy. Jack studies it intently. 'So what's the plan of attack? How do we destroy this place? Unmake it?'
The Doctor stops chewing, a piece of popcorn halfway to his mouth. 'Oh, good heavens, no. Can't do that. This is a whole new dimension with billions of people in it, it's not their fault that they didn't exist six months ago. They don't know that, they think they've been around just as long as we have. Can't just go around unmaking whole planets, it wouldn't be fair. And anyway, I'd have to absorb the power of the time vortex to be able to do it, and I'm not going there again. I've only just got used to these teeth, I'm not giving them up just yet.'
Rhys rubs his eyes. He has a headache. 'So--what is the plan?'
'Ah, well, I forgot to mention there was another complication.'
Jack lets out a snort of laughter. 'On top of the whole physical creation of a fictional universe thing? It's more complicated than that?'
'I'm afraid so. A little while ago I picked up a massive surge in temporal energy--and I mean huge, ginormous, off the scale. Of course my first thought was of the Rift, but when I started poking around it I found it went deeper than that. When I tracked it back, that's when I found it.' He gestures at the projection. 'The Buffy universe.'
'The surge went there?' Jack asks.
'No--it started there.'
'How is that possible?'
'That's item 4 on the list of Stuff To Find Out.'
Rhys looks up. 'What are items 1, 2 and 3?'
'The what, the who and the why. And speaking of which--' he gets up and taps a screen on the console. 'We're here.'
Rhys stands up as well. The deckchair seems disturbingly reluctant to let him go. 'Where?'
'Well, an added complication to the complication is that when the temporal flux reached out through the Rift, I think it caught someone else in it--someone from our dimension. And since cross-inhabitation of dimensions is never a good thing in the long run, we really need to get them back. I tracked the path of the time-disruption signature to its initial source, so wherever we're at, it should be the place that it all started from. Hopefully we'll be able to find some clues.' He points at the door. 'Go and have a quick look, and see if you recognise it'
Rhys blanches. 'Me?'
'You're our expert, remember? We'll just do a quick recce, there's nothing to be worried about.' The Doctor nods encouragingly, and eventually Rhys starts inching towards the door. When he finally opens it up, he sees a brightly-lit, cavernous room with rows and rows of glass cells along each side. He whistles softly and steps out, closely followed by Jack and the Doctor. He notes that Jack's gun is in his hand, and can't decide if that makes him feel less scared or more.
In the nearest cell is a bed with a lot of complicated-looking machinery hooked up to it. Or rather, hooked up to a body in the bed. Rhys's eyes take in a recognisable face. 'Oh, shit,' he breathes.
Instantly, Jack is at his side. 'What is it?'
Rhys points into the cell. 'That is Ethan Rayne. Which means that this'-- he gestures around the room generally-- 'is the Initiative.'
'The what?'
'The Initiative. Season Four. A secret organisation that was trying to find ways to use demons for the military. They had a base in Sunnydale, but it all went horribly wrong.'
The Doctor nods thoughtfully. 'So trying to use technology that didn't belong to them came back to haunt them, did it?' He directs a very pointed look at Jack. 'How interesting.'
'It wasn't exactly technology, more like bits of demons, but yeah, that sums it up pretty well.' Rhys looks around. 'This must be the Nevada base, I'm sure that's where they took Ethan after 'A New Man'.'
Jack keeps his weapon down by his side while he checks out the cell. 'So who is this Ethan character? He our guy?'
'Could well be. Ethan was a sorceror, a powerful one, and a worshipper of chaos. I wouldn't put it past him to be trying time travel.' Rhys puts his hands against the glass. 'Maybe he was trying to escape.'
'Doesn't look like he was too successful then, does it?'
The Doctor steps up to the glass as well, waving a small metal gizmo about and peering at it. 'Definite temporal activity,' he says. 'The residue is unmistakeable. Something travelled from this spot, but if it wasn't him, then--' he backs up, and walks straight into a rather gangly-looking young man in military fatigues. Rhys isn't sure who's more surprised.
The man blinks rapidly, his head swivelling between the Doctor and the TARDIS. 'What--who--what--'
'At ease,' says Jack. 'I'm Captain Jack Harkness of Torchwood Three, these are my associates. Is the situation under control?'
That sparks another frenzy of blinking. 'Um-'
'These are not the droids you're looking for,' Rhys says, and then starts to laugh. It has a hysterical edge that he can hear clearly but can't seem able to control.
'What's your name, soldier?' Jack barks, and the boy snaps to attention. Rhys has to resist the urge to do the same. He has to admit Jack does command mode very well.
'Josh, sir. I mean, Private Kellin, sir.'
'Private Kellin, I asked you a question. Is the situation under control?'
'You mean with 687-b, sir? Yes, sir. There's been no change in his condition since the incident, sir. Physically, there's no reason for the coma. He's absolutely fine, apart from there being no brain activity.'
The Doctor smacks his forehead. 'Of course. Yes, it has to be. He left his body behind but his consciousness travelled. Oh, that's very clever. Very impressive. Okay, so now all we have to do is re-fold the wave distortion signature through the rest of the spectrum and Bob's your uncle.'
Private Kellin frowns. It's a slow process. 'Uh, sir, where exactly did you say you--'
'Yes, splendid,' the Doctor, says, grabbing Rhys's arm. 'Carry on, as you were.' They run for the TARDIS. Jack slams the door behind them and the Doctor goes into a running-and-button-pushing frenzy. The floor tilts violently under their feet and Rhys hits the wall hard. The Doctor beams at him. 'Isn't this fun?'
Rhys just nods. It seems easier to do that than try to argue.
*
After a while they rumble and jerk to a halt again, and Rhys follows Jack and the Doctor out of the TARDIS into what looks like a hospital storage room. 'Where are we now?' he asks.
'Back in our own dimension,' the Doctor says. 'Hopefully at the other end of the string, as it were. Now, if the spell was for mind transport only, then we're looking for another body with no consciousness. Is this a psychiatric hospital? We could be looking for someone with catatonic schizophrenia.'
'No,' Rhys says, looking at the floor plan on the wall. 'It's an ordinary sick-people hospital. So--we want someone who's also in a coma, right?'
'Right. Let's see what we can find.'
They find plenty of people unconscious, but only one who seems to be in an official coma--a man in a private room, hooked up to a bank of machines that beep quietly. A blonde woman is sat by the bed, reading a celebrity gossip magazine. She looks up when they enter. 'Hello, who are you?'
Jack steps forward, taking her hand. 'Hi, I'm Jack Harkness. It's very good to meet you, although I'm sorry it had to be under these circumstances.'
The woman accepts his handshake and a kiss on the cheek, giving him a smile that's warm but rather confused. 'Thank you, thank you. I'm Sam's mum. Ruth. Are you from the station?'
'No, no,' says the Doctor, surreptitiously waving the metal gizmo again. 'We're just friends of, um--'
'Sam's,' Jack fills in, turning up the wattage of his smile.
Ruth looks at all of them in turn, her expression turning ever more dubious. 'Right. I, er, I don't think we've met?'
'We're in his Amateur Dramatics group,' says Rhys.
Jack gives him a look, but Ruth smiles and relaxes. 'Oh, really? I didn't know Sam had got interested in acting.' She looks back at the man on the bed and squeezes his hand. 'He must get that from me. I always wanted to be on the stage myself, I was a dancer when I was younger, I would have loved to have done musicals but then I got married and had Sammy, and it was--' she breaks off, and gives them a slightly abashed smile. 'Well, anyway, that doesn't really matter now. It was very nice of you to come over to see Sam. I think it helps, you know, for him to have his friends here.' She stretches and gets up. 'I'm going to get a cup of tea, you boys have a nice chat now. Would you like me to get you something? They have some very nice teacakes in the cafeteria.'
The Doctor brightens up. 'Ooh, teacakes?'
Ruth smiles and pats his arm. 'I'll be right back.'
When she's gone, they all face the man in the bed. 'What happened to him?' asks Rhys.
The Doctor picks up the chart and scans through it. 'Physically, he got hit by a car. Metaphysically, he got hit by a massive convergence of temporal displacement fields when the power Ethan Rayne used to transfer his consciousness back down his timeline fractured after it took power from the opening of the Rift. Basically, he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Although--' He pauses, looking up at Jack with an expression Rhys can't read. 'Tyler. His name is Sam Tyler.'
Rhys looks over the Doctor's shoulder at the chart, but it means nothing to him. 'Is that significant?'
'I don't know,' the Doctor says slowly, then seems to shake himself. 'Probably not. Coincidences do happen.'
Rhys smoothes down the cover on the bed. Tyler doesn't move, beyond the shallow rise and fall of his chest. 'So--he's like Ethan? His body stayed here but his mind went time travelling?'
'That's my guess, yes.'
'Where? Where did they go?'
'Now that, we still have to find out.'
'Don't tell me--more tracking of time distortion waves through the wormhole, or whatever.'
The Doctor pats his shoulder. 'By Jove, I think he's got it.' He leans over the man in the bed. 'Hang on in there, Sam Tyler, we're on our way.'
*
Back in the TARDIS, the Doctor spends half an hour running around the console punching buttons and checking readouts, then announces that they can put their feet up while the programme completes its calculations to track Sam and Ethan. Rhys puts the DVD back on and starts fast-forwarding through the discs, providing commentary as they go. Jack appears rather impressed with Spike, and says that Drusilla reminds him of an old flame. 'Beautiful girl,' he says, a wistful smile forming. 'But mad as a hatter. She used to like me to dress up as a priest and hear her confession, and boy did she have some stories to confess. And then we'd sneak into her local church and--'
The Doctor cuts in. 'Everyone reminds you of an old flame,' he says, rolling his eyes.
Jack grins, and shrugs. 'Occupational hazard, when you have a lot of history.'
'Speak for yourself.'
'I was hardly speaking for you, Mr never-met-an-opportunity-I-couldn't-waste, was I?'
Rhys gets the impression they've had this conversation, or variations of it, before. He moves quickly on to the Ethan episodes before he can get asked about his own romantic history. There isn't a great deal of it, apart from Gwen, and he doesn't really feel like admitting that in front of Jack.
He sneaks away while they're studying 'The Dark Age', and calls her. 'I might be a bit late home,' he says. 'Later than I thought. Like, maybe a couple of days. I'm on a rescue mission, see. With your Jack Harkness and an alien called the Doctor.'
''s'nice, love,' she mumbles, and he smiles.
'Go back to sleep,' he says. 'I'll see you later.'
He somehow manages to get lost on his way back to the control room, even though he would have sworn he'd only moved about three feet down one of the corridors. Going back the way he thought he'd come takes him into a giant sparkling industrial kitchen, where a single toasted cheese and marmite sandwich sits on a gleaming chrome counter. He scoffs it happily. Life in a magic spaceship obviously has fringe benefits.
By the time he gets back they've moved onto 'Passion', and Rhys is sure he sees the Doctor wipe his eyes. 'Poor Jenny', he says, then gets up to peer at the incomprehensible instrument panels and scribble something down in what looks like hieroglyphics.
Jack pats one of the deckchairs, which seems to have moved. 'I haven't seen any of these for years. Where did you pick them up?'
The Doctor frowns at the screen he's looking at, his nose only an inch away from it. 'Hmm? Oh, in a market on Aldekachik. Bloody stowaways. I didn't even realise they were here for six weeks. Still, I kind of got used to having them around in the end.'
Rhys backs away from his own chair and stands by the projection, taking up his commenting duties again.
They get through the edited highlights of half of Season Six, with the Doctor periodically jumping up and checking various instruments and readouts, before he sighs heavily and runs his hands through his hair. He turns around and leans against the console with a look on his face that Rhys is sure would be instantly recognisable to travellers in any universe whatsover.
He pauses the DVD. 'We're lost, aren't we?'
The Doctor folds his arms. 'No, no. Not at all. I know exactly where we are.' Jack raises his eyebrows, and the Doctor's shoulders sag a little. 'I just don't know exactly where Sam and Ethan are.'
'You can't find them?'
'Well, no, I'm pretty sure I can, it's just that the way it's going, they'll probably be about five hundred years old before I do.'
Rhys looks from him to Jack. 'So what do we do now?'
Jack looks thoughtfully over Rhys's shoulder at the DVD projection. 'I've got an idea. If the machines can't work out where Ethan went, and we don't know him well enough to guess...what about asking someone who does?'
They all turn to watch Giles frozen in the act of walking across the floor of the Magic Box. The Doctor beams. 'Brilliant,' he says, and runs back to the controls. 'Hold on to your hats, we're heading for the Hellmouth.'
Part 5