Preface

Because this is a crossover fic, I'd first like to explain some of my intentions and discuss what canon I'll be drawing from.

This fic takes place inside the rich universes of the Doctor Who TV series and Neil Gaiman's Sandman comics. I don't think these universes are irreconcilable, but I doubt any scenes will take place in the Dreaming or the Silver City or in Destiny's Garden. There will be planets and spaceships, though!

Here is the canon I'm familiar with: I've read all four volumes of the Absolute Sandman and the first six volumes of Lucifer (Death shows up once), and I've seen all of Doctor Who starting with the 2005 series and all of Torchwood.

I'm writing this for fun and I'm not sure if it's in entirely the best taste but I just want to see what happens. As a short story writer person (5 pages and under is what I do best!), I'll probably stop writing this after a few chapters but in the meantime, it should be tons of giggles and squees.

I have the deepest respect for the Doctor Who writers and the creators of Lucifer and The Sandman, whose universes have taken me in many times when the world of modern university academics wants to wring me out like a flesh and bone towel. And then there's Netflix, which gives me instant access to all things.

Chapter 1

Sometimes I just do things without really understanding them, or their implications. Over the past few days I've seen things of great beauty to rival the things of great tragedy that I've been seeing my whole life. And before I met the Doctor, I'd always managed to squirm away from them, press a button on my Vortex manipulator, and find a new name, a new life, a new face to gaze upon with all the intensity of my existence. John Hart, a fellow Time Agent who I'd loved, and then tried to kill. The beautiful Estelle, who I left in the midst of a war. And further back in time, in a memory I try to repress, my little brother, Gray, who I lost in the midst of an invasion.

But I can't think about them now. There are Daleks coming up the hall and I have a machine gun that I'm not afraid to use. I'm buying him time because he's going to save the universe and I'm going to help him as much as I can. I'm dying for him right now and, God, I'm not afraid. I've felt so much pain and loss in my life that I can't be so naïve as to fear the loss of my own consciousness.

I'm shooting at them now, those barely conscious beings of steel and pure evil, rounds and rounds and rounds. I don't have enough ammo, but that's not the point. The Doctor will pull through. As soon as I'm all out, I toss the machine gun off of my shoulder and start shooting again with my handgun. The Doctor will save the human race. My bullets aren't having any effect, but I knew this. You have to aim for the eye, that's it's weakest point. But I'm not hitting it, or something. I have to keep stalling, just a little longer. And when I run out of bullets again, I stand at ease, looking directly into the front Dalek's eye.

It lights up, and says, in its curious metallic speaker-voice, "Exterminate."

And I reply, defiant (because what else can I be?), "I kind of figured that." And I lift up my arms oh so slightly and wait to be delivered from this life of pain and beauty to the silence that I'm sure comes next.

I feel the slight searing of the Daleks' extermination rays, as painless a death as I could ever hope for, and I'm aware of slumping to the ground, dead or dying or something along those lines. I'm not sure where I am but I'm not aware of any Daleks or any floor or anything really other than a slightly dry breeze like the kind I remember from my childhood on the Boeshane Peninsula, and if I think about it some more, the smell of the sea. Or maybe a bonfire. Yep, there's the bonfire. And I'm sitting next to it, looking into the flames.

I'm wondering what's happening to the Doctor. If he survives all this. If he saves the human race. If he exterminates the Daleks. Somewhere off in the distance, I think I can hear that peculiar mechanical swooping noise that the TARDIS makes and I feel so sad all of a sudden, knowing that I'm quickly receding from that universe. I feel the heat of the flames, and the touch of a hand. I look over and see a mess of black hair. The hand is pale, but warm. My companion looks up at me and smiles. "Come on, Jack."

"But my friends…the Doctor…Rose…the Daleks. What happened?"

"I'm sorry, Jack. I don't know any better than you do. Come on," she said, gently but with a hint of iron insistence.

And I stand up, slowly, using the girl for support. Her eyes look deep and sad, but she's smiling. She looks like a human to me, but off in some small way. Her skin is too pale, her hair is too dark. She's the absence of color and the presence of color, but no gradient between the two. I wonder how she got here, to this beach bonfire on a dry night. And where is Satellite 5? I look back at the bonfire, to the heat of the flames, to the place where they are pulled out of the nothingness. And I see it. The words "Bad Wolf" staring at me as plain as when we were at the Bad Wolf corporation's headquarters. And I know I have to go.

I drop the girl's hand, and she seems to fade a bit, seeping into the darkness all around us. I jump into the fire and I gasp. Hallway, Satellite 5. Handgun at my side, machine gun off to the left. No Daleks. I gasp again. I stand up, staggering. I pick up dust on the ground where there used to be Daleks. What happened here? Where are they? And I rush into the main control room of Floor 500, only to see a ghost of the TARDIS launching off back into space and time and wherever else it can go. And I'm breathing heavily, as if I've never breathed before. And then they're gone. I stand there on Floor 500 for a few minutes, waiting for my heart rate to slow and my thoughts to become linear.

After awhile, I feel like I'm myself again. And then I have to face the facts. I died. I definitely died. Or came pretty darn close. And there was a girl who wanted me to come with her. Or was there? Who knows what happened, I was dead. My God, I was dead. And now I'm alive? How the hell did that happen? And the Daleks are all dust, but the Doctor and the TARDIS are gone. Is the Doctor alive? How could the Doctor have survived? And I thought he sent Rose back to Earth with the TARDIS. And now I'm stuck here, no people and no Daleks and no answers.

I stand there in the hallway for a couple more minutes and try to formulate a plan. I have a vortex manipulator, and I just need to use it to get back to a time where the Doctor would be likely to visit me. If he's still alive. I need to have some words with that spellbinding man about leaving your best friends on a satellite without telling them why they're alive after they died.

Earth. 21st Century. Cardiff. The Doctor likes to refuel his TARDIS at the rift there. And I'll be waiting. I set my vortex manipulator to Cardiff in 2005 and it makes some weird buzzing noises that I've never heard before and I'm off and man I've forgotten how much this hurts compared to traveling in a TARDIS…and I land headfirst into something that smells a bit like hay and feels like it too. I look up and see some quaint houses trimmed with snow and look around and see that I'm in an oxcart. I'm not too up on my history but I don't think they used oxcarts to transport hay in 2005. And of course oxcarts have drivers. This one, by the looks of him a 12 year old boy, screams. I leap out of the cart and try to figure out what I've gotten myself into now.