A Crack in Time

Disclaimer: The BBC owns the Doctor Who bits and Tim Kring created Heroes and its characters.

Summary: Doctor Who/Heroes X-over – Set in series 5 of DW, post-season 4 Heroes – A crack in a bedroom wall has turned into a crack in time. As time unravels, the TARDIS is drawn to a past mistake that left a woman trapped in a horrible future. Of course, stopping a virus is nothing compared to readjusting to missing years… PeterxCaitlin, PeterxEmma.

Prologue

Adventures always started in a blue police box.

It was an odd sort of box, bigger on the inside, and out of time. It's bright blue paint was at war with its 1950s design and the oddity of a blue phone box parking on street corners, inside buildings, or in gardens made it stand out further.

The box had a name—the TARDIS. A wondrous machine capable of time and space travel. Time And Relative Dimension In Space.

The TARDIS was home to the Doctor—a 900+ year old alien known as a Time Lord—and his companion. His companions varied from time to time as did his own appearance. So far he had gone through eleven faces.

His most recent companions were a strange couple. Amy was Scottish, a ginger-haired lass he'd met as a girl, and one of his more out-spoken and stubborn companions. Along with her travelled a nurse, Rory, who happened to be her fiancé. Rory and Amy balanced each other out and brought an energy to the TARDIS that he'd missed while travelling alone.

It was his curse—he was doomed to wander the universe—always visiting and never belonging. He would never grow old—not at the same rate a human—and he would always end up alone. He was the last of his kind. His home planet burned in a war many centuries earlier.

He adopted Earth as a surrogate planet. Humans had always amused him. They were truly unique creatures. Among them he'd had several notable companions.

First and foremost was always Rose Tyler. Blond. Young. One of his dearest friends and favourite companions. The one woman he could recall loving a great deal for the first time in a long time. She was long gone—trapped in a parallel world.

There was Doctor Martha Jones. Quirky and brilliant. Smith and Jones. A pair to see. She decided to stop travelling after her family was endangered.

Donna Noble. The Doctor-Donna. Witty and easy to get along with. She'd been a temp when they first met. Together they saved the world.

There was also Captain Jack Harkness who was busy with his own team on Earth. Jack never met a gender or species he didn't like. He also had a secret—he couldn't die.

A more recent companion was the enigmatic River Song. A professor and a doctor. When they first met, she'd sacrificed her life. She also revealed that their fates were intertwined. Her past was his future. He knew next to nothing about her, except he would see her again.

"Doctor? Heellooo, anyone home?"

With a start the Eleventh Doctor looked up. "Oh, sorry, must've dozed off. Where were we then?"

"I wanted to see a planet, but Rory here…" Amy rammed her elbow into his rib cage for clarification, "wants to see America."

"You picked last time, Pond."

"Yeah and the statutes came to life and then we got attacked by space fish! That's not exactly what I meant by 'planet'!"

"Enough. Rory, when do you want to go?"

"When?" he stuttered.

"When in history…the whole history of the world…do you want to go?" the Doctor asked.

"Surprise me… somewhere in the past."

"Surprise it is."

The Doctor hopped up to the controls, his bow-tie slightly askew. He had the appearance of an excited child as he grinned, pulling levers and twisting knobs. His method of flying the TARDIS was always interesting, especially with the noises and gizmos.

Amy and Rory each grabbed hold of the railing as the engines kicked in.


New York City – 2007

Quarantine kept the once-lively streets clear. The army patrolled in tanks wearing Hazmat-level suits and looking for stray or infected people. Their job was to protect the people who remained.

93% of the world's population was dead and trapped in a wasteland. Some cities were completely deserted—the entire group of citizens dead—while other metropolitan centers continued to have larger numbers.

Either way, the world was far from normal. People stayed inside. No one left their home country for travel. Deportation was common. Decontamination even more common. And sometimes, an outbreak was contained by securing an area and leaving people to die.

Into the midst of chaos, one unlucky woman was deposited. Her lover was torn from her arms.

According to the people she met, the official ones at least, the man she knew was dead. The first wave of the virus killed him. Peter Petrelli died in Odessa, TX along with his brother and a family friend. If she met someone else, they were messing with her.

Not that anyone cared. What mattered to the paper-pushers was that Caitlin was Irish. She didn't belong here. Not anymore.

She was due to be deported to her birthplace, where she would most certainly die. Even if she lived, her family was already dead, and most likely her friends were gone as well. There was no life in Ireland. Not alone.

Caitlin had no choice. She was herded along like cattle for slaughter to a holding area. The next flight for Ireland would leave in eight hours.

She had eight hours to escape and find her travelling companion—her Peter. If not, she was as good as dead.

When the alarm bells went off, her eight hour window vanished. Someone was infected. The virus was in the holding area. They were all going to die.

Author's Notes:

A bit of DW background for newbies. I'm not AU-ing Season 2 or 3 of Heroes…all events thru Season 4 will happen, even though Caitlin's currently alive around Season 3. DW is post-Vampires of Venice in series 5 since series 6 is very recent and spoiler-ish…series 5 and the crack made more sense anyways. There will be a mixture of British and American spellings, so I apologise for any confusion to come. Enjoy! Please, feel free to ask questions!