Turn Again (5/?)
Aug. 21st, 2009 05:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dbskylerTitle: Turn Again
Rating: PG
Characters: Sarah Jane, Ten, Maria, Luke, Clyde, Alan, the Brigadier, Harry, Capt. Magambo, Ross Jenkins, Rose
Spoilers: Turn Left (and the DW episodes referenced within it) and the first season of SJA
Disclaimer: This is a work of fan fiction, offered freely. Doctor Who, Sarah Jane Adventures and all characters belong to the BBC.
Summary: Sarah Jane wakes to a world where the Doctor is dead. A missing story from "Turn Left."
Warnings: Should go without saying, but let's be clear: there's character death here, folks. Not my fault; go complain to RTD. But it's all just a canon AU, so don't worry.
A/N: While there’s angst, especially in the first chapter, this story will not be an angst-fest. Promise.
(Chapter One here)
(Chapter Two here)
(Chapter Three here)
(Chapter Four here)
"Doctor!" cried Sarah. All thoughts of what had just happened to her were immediately swept away as she took in the sight of the Time Lord. She flung her arms around him and hugged him as fiercely as she could, feeling his solidity, the beat of his hearts, the movement of his chest as he breathed. "Oh my god, Doctor!"
"Hullo!" he said again, then his arms around her tightened as he hugged her back.
"Are you all right? What happened to you?"
"I was taken out of time," he replied.
She pulled back and looked at him. "You were killed."
"That, too," he agreed with an ironic smile, then added, "So were you."
"What?" She stared at him. "But . . . " She turned and looked around at their surroundings, then realized for the first time where they were.
"Sorry," said the Doctor, but he didn't sound sorry at all, and when she tore her eyes away from the familiar grey landscape to look at him again, he didn't seem sorry, either. In fact, he seemed rather happy about it.
"Hey!" she said, giving him a sharp poke with her elbow. "Could you at least try to look like you regret the fact that I'm dead?"
"Taken out of time," he corrected. "Not dead. Death was merely the method by which the time disruption happened. But the moment the death became inevitable, the timeline split, creating two versions of you, and the expulsion of energy from the temporal rift carried this version of you here. So while there's a version of you that's dead in the timeline, the you that's you never actually died." He beamed at her.
"Right," she said, then she shook her head and smiled. "Well, as long as I'm the me that's me, I suppose that's good news. And I take it that means that the you that's you never died, either?"
"Nope," he said cheerfully. "Good thing, too, seeing as how ghosts are lousy conversationalists."
She laughed. "I can imagine." Then abruptly she hugged him again, because it was just so good to see him, and so reassuring to hear him talk about split timelines and time disruptions as if they were nothing much to deal with at all.
If she'd understood what he'd just said, which she actually thought she had, mostly, then she had been through this before. She looked again at the cloud-like space around them. The last time she was here, the Trickster had switched her with Andrea Yates and caused her to die as a teenager. While her 13-year-old self had been dead in the new timeline that the switch had created, she herself -- her adult self -- had been transported here.
Apparently it had just happened again. Or something similar, anyway.
"Nice to have company this time, at least," she said. Then a thought struck her. "Hey, if I'm here because I died during a time disruption, then what about other people? There must be people dying all the time on Earth, and I just left a whole hospital full of the dead and the dying. Are they all here somewhere too?"
"No," he said, and his eyes grew sad. "They're gone, all of them, all those people at Royal Hope, and they weren't supposed to die at all. In the original timeline, the hospital was returned to Earth before the air ran out."
Sarah shivered, thinking of the people she had met and remembering what it felt like to die of suffocation. "So you know what happened in the original timeline? But even so, how would you know what happened at Royal Hope?"
"Because I was there, and I met a medical student who saved my life and helped to save the Earth."
"Martha Jones?" asked Sarah quietly, and when he nodded, she said, "She helped me, too."
He smiled at that, but in a wistful way. "Afterwards, she came traveling with me, and she saved my life and the Earth again. But she paid a price, and so did her family, and she had to leave to go take care of them." He sighed. "Well, her parallel world counterpart did, anyway. Strictly speaking, the Martha you met never did any of that at all. And strictly speaking, neither did I."
She gave him a puzzled look. "I understand how Martha never did those things -- in this timeline, she never got the chance. But if you remember those events, then aren't you from a point in time after they occurred? How can you remember something that you never did?"
"Because this isn't just a changed timeline," he explained. "It's an entire parallel world. I was traveling with someone -- Donna Noble, you'd love her, she's brilliant," and he gave a quick smile, "but then something happened. Suddenly I was here, with memories of a version of myself who drowned, and memories of events that were supposed to happen in a timeline where I survived. Except they weren't just supposed to happen, they did happen, but to another version of myself -- the version of myself in that other world, the original world that this parallel world broke off from. That other Doctor is still out there right now, alive and well, visiting a market with Donna. I'm just an alternate version who was never supposed to exist, taken out of time from a parallel world that shouldn't even be here in the first place."
She frowned, struggling to understand. "But if you're a version of the Doctor who wasn't supposed to exist, then what about Martha?" She paused, and looked up at him. "What about me?"
"The same," he said gently. "You're an alternate version of Sarah who met an alternate version of Martha on an alternate world that's wrong, whose existence is disrupting reality itself. "
She met his gaze, taking in the import of his words. "Then how do we fix it?" she asked.
The expression on his face was solemn. "You realize that if we fix it, then you and I cease to exist -- cease ever to have existed at all?"
She nodded. "How do we fix it?" she repeated.
He smiled. "I don't know yet. But I'm sure I'll think of something."
---------
tbc . . .
Rating: PG
Characters: Sarah Jane, Ten, Maria, Luke, Clyde, Alan, the Brigadier, Harry, Capt. Magambo, Ross Jenkins, Rose
Spoilers: Turn Left (and the DW episodes referenced within it) and the first season of SJA
Disclaimer: This is a work of fan fiction, offered freely. Doctor Who, Sarah Jane Adventures and all characters belong to the BBC.
Summary: Sarah Jane wakes to a world where the Doctor is dead. A missing story from "Turn Left."
Warnings: Should go without saying, but let's be clear: there's character death here, folks. Not my fault; go complain to RTD. But it's all just a canon AU, so don't worry.
A/N: While there’s angst, especially in the first chapter, this story will not be an angst-fest. Promise.
(Chapter One here)
(Chapter Two here)
(Chapter Three here)
(Chapter Four here)
"Doctor!" cried Sarah. All thoughts of what had just happened to her were immediately swept away as she took in the sight of the Time Lord. She flung her arms around him and hugged him as fiercely as she could, feeling his solidity, the beat of his hearts, the movement of his chest as he breathed. "Oh my god, Doctor!"
"Hullo!" he said again, then his arms around her tightened as he hugged her back.
"Are you all right? What happened to you?"
"I was taken out of time," he replied.
She pulled back and looked at him. "You were killed."
"That, too," he agreed with an ironic smile, then added, "So were you."
"What?" She stared at him. "But . . . " She turned and looked around at their surroundings, then realized for the first time where they were.
"Sorry," said the Doctor, but he didn't sound sorry at all, and when she tore her eyes away from the familiar grey landscape to look at him again, he didn't seem sorry, either. In fact, he seemed rather happy about it.
"Hey!" she said, giving him a sharp poke with her elbow. "Could you at least try to look like you regret the fact that I'm dead?"
"Taken out of time," he corrected. "Not dead. Death was merely the method by which the time disruption happened. But the moment the death became inevitable, the timeline split, creating two versions of you, and the expulsion of energy from the temporal rift carried this version of you here. So while there's a version of you that's dead in the timeline, the you that's you never actually died." He beamed at her.
"Right," she said, then she shook her head and smiled. "Well, as long as I'm the me that's me, I suppose that's good news. And I take it that means that the you that's you never died, either?"
"Nope," he said cheerfully. "Good thing, too, seeing as how ghosts are lousy conversationalists."
She laughed. "I can imagine." Then abruptly she hugged him again, because it was just so good to see him, and so reassuring to hear him talk about split timelines and time disruptions as if they were nothing much to deal with at all.
If she'd understood what he'd just said, which she actually thought she had, mostly, then she had been through this before. She looked again at the cloud-like space around them. The last time she was here, the Trickster had switched her with Andrea Yates and caused her to die as a teenager. While her 13-year-old self had been dead in the new timeline that the switch had created, she herself -- her adult self -- had been transported here.
Apparently it had just happened again. Or something similar, anyway.
"Nice to have company this time, at least," she said. Then a thought struck her. "Hey, if I'm here because I died during a time disruption, then what about other people? There must be people dying all the time on Earth, and I just left a whole hospital full of the dead and the dying. Are they all here somewhere too?"
"No," he said, and his eyes grew sad. "They're gone, all of them, all those people at Royal Hope, and they weren't supposed to die at all. In the original timeline, the hospital was returned to Earth before the air ran out."
Sarah shivered, thinking of the people she had met and remembering what it felt like to die of suffocation. "So you know what happened in the original timeline? But even so, how would you know what happened at Royal Hope?"
"Because I was there, and I met a medical student who saved my life and helped to save the Earth."
"Martha Jones?" asked Sarah quietly, and when he nodded, she said, "She helped me, too."
He smiled at that, but in a wistful way. "Afterwards, she came traveling with me, and she saved my life and the Earth again. But she paid a price, and so did her family, and she had to leave to go take care of them." He sighed. "Well, her parallel world counterpart did, anyway. Strictly speaking, the Martha you met never did any of that at all. And strictly speaking, neither did I."
She gave him a puzzled look. "I understand how Martha never did those things -- in this timeline, she never got the chance. But if you remember those events, then aren't you from a point in time after they occurred? How can you remember something that you never did?"
"Because this isn't just a changed timeline," he explained. "It's an entire parallel world. I was traveling with someone -- Donna Noble, you'd love her, she's brilliant," and he gave a quick smile, "but then something happened. Suddenly I was here, with memories of a version of myself who drowned, and memories of events that were supposed to happen in a timeline where I survived. Except they weren't just supposed to happen, they did happen, but to another version of myself -- the version of myself in that other world, the original world that this parallel world broke off from. That other Doctor is still out there right now, alive and well, visiting a market with Donna. I'm just an alternate version who was never supposed to exist, taken out of time from a parallel world that shouldn't even be here in the first place."
She frowned, struggling to understand. "But if you're a version of the Doctor who wasn't supposed to exist, then what about Martha?" She paused, and looked up at him. "What about me?"
"The same," he said gently. "You're an alternate version of Sarah who met an alternate version of Martha on an alternate world that's wrong, whose existence is disrupting reality itself. "
She met his gaze, taking in the import of his words. "Then how do we fix it?" she asked.
The expression on his face was solemn. "You realize that if we fix it, then you and I cease to exist -- cease ever to have existed at all?"
She nodded. "How do we fix it?" she repeated.
He smiled. "I don't know yet. But I'm sure I'll think of something."
---------
tbc . . .