Chapter 25

Bonzenland, Africa

May 2019

The sounds of screams and pleading filled the small room, echoes of a time long past but not forgotten. Peri, slightly disappointed in Harkness' inability to hold his stomach, decided to leave him alone in misery for a while but placed the projector high on a wall, allowing the videos to continue to run consecutively but preventing the immortal man from stopping their display on the opposite wall.

Jack lay miserably on the floor. He moved as far away from the mess he'd made as he could although that wasn't far, given the size of the room and his lack of mobility. He wanted to shut off the videos. While he could close his eyes, the screams continued to drill in his brain. It was sheer torture to hear the savagery. He called out to Peri in the other room. "Please, don't. What do you want? Please don't hurt them. I was the one that set off the explosion. I should be the one to suffer, not them."

After a minute, the door opened again to reveal his tormentor. She grimaced slightly at the stench in the room. "Ugh. Can't let my husband come back to that mess you made. I'd make you clean it up but I can't trust you out of those ropes you're in." She sighed and then walked away from the room, returning a couple of minutes later with rubber gloves, a bucket of soapy water and a rag. Cleaning up Jack's sick quickly, she put the cleaning supplies just outside the door before bringing in her chair once again to take a seat. "There. Much better, don't you think?"

The video had continued playing. "Not until you turn this off. I know what he's capable of. I was at each of these places after he finished." He then looked at her again. "You don't need to do this."

"Of course, we do," she returned with a smile, letting the film continue. "Can't allow you and your friends to interfere with us again. Better to get them out of the way. You and the Doctor, on the other hand, will be far more difficult. Since we can't exactly kill you, we can remind you of the consequences of messing with us."

"That's what this is about?" Anger permeated the immortal. "You were going to enslave Earth. What did you expect? That no one would try to stop you?"

"You nearly killed my husband and you changed him!" she growled angrily. "He never hit me before. Not once. But then he was irradiated by lantoni radiation thanks to you. Do you know what that does to a Time Lord's mind? Do you?"

"I have a pretty good idea," Jack growled out. "I wish he had died... even though the Doctor was glad he survived. You're both monsters."

She leaned forward in her chair. "We're both entrepreneurs and we know our positions in this world. We were meant to rule and we're going to. All the great rulers have had to be monsters to establish control. Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan... Believe me, I would love to reenact what my beloved has done for me with you but I need him back without complications."

"How long will I have to endure this?" he asked. Inwardly another question was more poignant. 'How long would they suffer at the Master's hand?'

She pulled out the stopwatch she had set before and looked at it. "This particular session... about thirty minutes. But the after effects will haunt you the rest of your long eternal life." She put the watch away. "You will never be free of us, Jack Harkness. We will haunt you for decades. No one you love will ever be safe. For the rest of your life, you will be wondering whether or not your friends and family are being tortured and murdered, paying the cost for what you did to us."

Jack writhed at the ropes. "I won't let you," he growled out. "I don't know how, but I'll find a way to stop you."

"Rope burns," she reminded, her voice almost maternal.

"I don't care if it breaks open his wrists and causes him to bleed to death," Jack cried out, continuing to try to get free.

"I told you, no rope burns!" she cried out. Although she wanted to torture him further, his active plan to hurt her husband - though the chances were slight given the nature of quantum leaping - changed the plan once more. Marching from the room, she came back a minute later with a hypodermic and shot him full of a sedative. "No rope burns," she repeated as he passed into unconsciousness. Taking a deep breath, she considered his form for a moment. Given that she would be retrieving her beloved in less than thirty minutes, she decided that she had actively tortured his mind enough - the sights and sounds of the films would continue to do the work without her aide. Untying her prisoner, she then proceeded to remove the ropes and projector from the room. Making sure that only Harkness remained in the chamber, she closed the door and pulled out the stopwatch. Fifteen more minutes and her husband would once again be in her arms.

DWQLTWDWQLTW

Project Quantum Leap

April 5, 2010

The Doctor was typing frantically on the console, Rose and Al by his side to help in any way that they could. Al had sent Gooshie into the TARDIS with an order to keep the mix of ten curious scientists and five Marine Guards in line and out of the inner workings of the alien spacecraft.

"The Master bypassed the main controls, blocking them off from here," the Gallifreyan stated in rapid succession, voicing his thoughts as he worked. "But if I can access the control of the auxiliary programs to the radium containment field..." He groaned in frustration. "He isn't making it easy. Rose, the sonic. Setting 3821." He ignored the sensation of her hand digging into his inside jacket pocket to find the device, still intent on his lightning fast finger-pacing. "Use it on the bright red flashing wire underneath." He waited for a moment to see if there was a result. "Not that one. The other one."

"There is no other one!" Rose countered vehemently.

"Well, what's red and flashy down there?"

"Don't you know what you're doing?" Al asked, a nervous tinge to his voice. "I thought you knew what to do!"

"Oi! I didn't build this thing, you know," the Doctor protested, still typing at the console.

"Well, I did." He crawled under the console with Rose but called up to the Time Lord after a quick scan of the underside. "Are you attempting to reinitiate the Fourier Bridge to its default setting?"

"Oh, you're brilliant! Yes, I am. Well, not actually the default. That's why I want her to use setting 3821."

"Whatever," Al finished. He pointed to an area that had a series of lights flashing in a pattern. "There, aim that sonic thingy at that," he told Rose.

"Sonic thingy?" she questioned with a hint of amusement in her voice as she followed the instruction.

"Hey... you knew what I was talking about, right?" All of the sudden, the area began sparking. "Oh, shit!" the Admiral exclaimed. "Move!" The two scrambled out of the console to avoid being hurt by the conclave of electricity.

Even as they found themselves pressed against the wall as far from the console as they could get - which wasn't far enough in Al's opinion, the Doctor gave a triumphant, "HA!"

"HA? HA? You almost killed us down there! I thought you knew what setting 38-whatever would do!"

The Time Lord blinked at him with befuddlement. "It did the job, didn't it?"

"Did it?" Al pushed back. "Or was getting us singed just a prelude to having our molecules torn asunder?"

"If the Doctor says it did the job then it did the job," Rose defended. "Why are you being so... obstinate?"

"Because the last words from my friend's mouth was to keep everyone safe," Al said, his jaw clenched tightly.

"And you succeeded beautifully," the Gallifreyan complimented with the beginning of a brilliant smile. "Albert Calavicci and Rose Tyler! What a team!"

"So... no big bang?" Al asked for clarification.

"No big bang but the one at the beginning of the universe... and Trinity Site... and Hiroshima and Nagasaki... and Priemta Vore and the Far Rings of Hirwew..."

"Don't forget Bikini Atoll," Al pointed out. "But I get the picture."

"Bikini Atoll is nowhere near Priemta Vore," Rose commented with a grin.

"I don't even want to know," Al stated.

A gentle laugh came from her as she extended her hand to Al. "Formal introductions. Rose Tyler." She blinked at him for a moment, obviously trying to remember something. "Do I... know you? I mean, other than as the person I spent a whole minute smushed against under a giant computer."

Al looked at the Doctor, not sure how his explanation would be taken by the young woman. "This is a first for me. I've never talked to a leapee after a leap. Only during it. Maybe it would be better for you to explain since you know her better."

"All right," the Gallifreyan agreed. "Budge over then."

"Better yet, I think I'd better try and do some damage control. He's still out there," Al finished his voice ominous. He knew that Rose knew Jack well and the last thing he needed was to confuse her more at this point.

"The Master can't do much anymore. I've completely locked him out of the system. You should be able to find him easily enough," the Time Lord assured him.

Al gave a nod of acknowledgement. "Good." The ex-military man started to walk to the TARDIS. "I need to retrieve a few people for the search."

"Al," the Doctor called after him. When the visually older man turned, he asked with a furrowed brow, "Code AHBL?"

"All Hell Breaking Loose," came the reply. Then the man smiled. "I suggested Code OS for 'Oh Shit' but Sam didn't like the vulgarity."

"Code AHBL... Code OS..." the Gallifreyan pondered the words and then grinned. "Well...both certainly fit the situation. OS is inherently more dramatic, though." His grin widened. "I like dramatic," he complimented.

"That I've seen in spades," Al finished as he opened the door to the blue box. "Hernandez... stop that!" he called out as the door closed behind him.

The Doctor raised an eyebrow at the exclamation before shrugging slightly, knowing that Al would take care of anything that might happen. Not that anything really could happen that the TARDIS wouldn't allow. But it still was disconcerting to know that the humans in his fabulous ship might have been getting into trouble he wouldn't approve of. Hearing a slight chuckle from behind refocused his thoughts to the woman who had made the lovely sound and as such to one of the reasons Al had left them on their own. Turning, he walked over to her side before sitting beside her with a soft smile. "Hello," he greeted gently.

"Hello," she responded, returning the smile. "So, who was the nice old guy in the awful clothing?"

"Albert's not that old," the Doctor defended the Italian. Seeing the look on her face, he continued, "Rear-Admiral Albert Calavicci, retired, holographic observer for Project Quantum Leap."

"He seemed to know me."

"I imagine he does, considering the amount of time you've been in his care," came the soft answer.

"The amount of time..." Rose started before her eyes became tinged with both confusion and a bit of fear. "I don't remember much since Canary Wharf..." She blinked. "Mum?"

The Time Lord took a deep breath. "Your mum is safe. She's in the other universe - you remember that universe, the one with Lumic and the Cybermen and your not-Dad? She's there with your not-Dad and Mickey. I tried to send you there but you had to come back. Nearly got pulled into the Void, in fact. Probably would have if Sam hadn't traded places with you."

"Sam..." she said considering the name. "Sam Beckett? He's the one responsible for this project, yeah?"

"Yup," the Doctor responded. "Him and his friend Albert."

Memories were beginning to coalesce. Suddenly she gave him a strange look. "How's Jack involved in all this? I remember Jack." She gave a nervous laugh. "But that couldn't be, could it." She put her hand to her head. "It's all so jumbled. Am I mad?"

He looked at her with gentle eyes, reaching out to take the hand she had put to her head. "No. You're perfectly sane. It's travelling in time without the corrective instrumentation that a vortex manipulator or better yet a TARDIS possesses. Causes temporary amnesia thanks to the synapses misfiring. It'll all go right with a little rest and time." He took a breath. "And yes, Jack was involved. Apparently, his organization provides funding to Project Quantum Leap."

"But why am I here?" Rose questioned, turning to the Doctor. She noted the look in his eyes. "Why are you looking at me like that? Doctor?"

"Well... I've missed you," he admitted. "I mean, a few months without my best friend... bit hard to handle."

"A few months?" She had a look on her face that said at least some of the gaps in her memory were filling in. "Sam Beckett... traded places with me? What did I just say? What does it mean... traded places?" Another memory burst in. "I think I had a man's face... and body! I am mad."

"I told you. You're perfectly sane," the Doctor repeated himself. "It's the situation that's a bit... well... hinky."

"Hinky?" For a moment the fear on her face faded as she looked at the Doctor mischievously. "I've never heard you use that word before."

He ran his free hand through his hair. "Blimey, I've definitely been around Albert too long. Right. Basic principles of time travel without corrective instrumentation based on Dr. Samuel Beckett's String Theory." He cleared his throat for a moment before continuing. "Imagine your life from birth to death. It's obviously a linear string of progression from cause to effect as is all the events throughout history around the same linear string of progression. Now suppose that you found a way to jumble up that timeline into a big ball of wibbly wobbly timey whimey stuff, which is what time really is. But you find a way to jump from one point in time to another by accelerating quantum particles and placing yourself in the same chamber as the agitated particles, thus causing you to move through time. Problem is with this type of time travel, the only corrective variable would be to actually replace someone in a different time and sending them into the future to replace you. And, unfortunately, it also means that you would actually have to be living that person's life for whatever amount of time you are replacing them in the past which means that you would actually have to look like the person you are replacing. That's basically what happened between you and Sam Beckett."

"I actually was a man then?"

"No, you only looked like a man. You've always been the one and only Rose Tyler," he assured her with a grin.

She tilted her head. "But then that means... Sam Beckett looked like me." Giggling she added, "I bet he hated that."

"Wasn't that fond of it, no. Especially in Ancient Egypt. The Pharaoh kept hitting on him."

"I missed Ancient Egypt?"

"We can still go there. All of time and space at our hands, remember? Just us three."

"Three? Is Jack coming with us again?"

"Well, he could if he wants to. We can invite him when he comes back, which hopefully will be soon. But then it would be us four." He hesitated for a moment, a worried look on his face, though he didn't explain the expression on his features. "Four is good. Been a while since I had that many in the TARDIS." He squeezed her hand. "Best part is that you're back with me. I've learned a valuable lesson while you were away from me. I've learned that you can't let opportunities pass you up, no matter what."

"I'm not sure I understand," Rose answered. She was still confused about who the fourth member was. Still, something in the Doctor's eyes told her that wasn't the most important thing to hear at that moment.

"A lot happened while Sam was with me and a lot didn't happen but I still remember everything as if it did. Helps that Glad was there to help me figure out a few things. She's a bright girl, Galadriel. You'll like her."

"Doctor, you're rambling," she interjected, returning the squeeze he had given to her before. "Whatever it is... you can tell me."

The Gallifreyan again scratched the back of his neck with his free hand. "It's not easy for me to admit how I feel..." he admitted. Sniffing slightly, he turned his head so that he was looking into her eyes. "Here goes," he stated, a verbal dose of courage in the words. "Rose Tyler... I love you." He gazed at the stunned expression on her face. "Did... did I say something wrong?"

She blinked for a moment before giving a nervous little laugh. "I never thought I'd ever hear those words from you."

"I meant them," he told her seriously. "I love you, Rose. Have for a long time now. Ever since the leather jacket and big ears."

"They weren't that big," she commented, dismissing his self-derision. "They were the ears you had when I fell in love with you."

He seemed to think on her words for a moment. "So... you're saying..." He started, a smile growing on his face.

She giggled gently at his expression. "Yeah. I'm saying. I love you, Doctor."

The Doctor laughed as well, joy showing on his face, before grabbing Rose and pulling her into a tight hug that was immediately followed by a kiss.

"So, you finally told her," came a female voice from a few feet away. "About bloody time."

The Time Lord and the bleached blonde looked up from their seated positions, gazing up at the grinning face of one Galadriel Thatcher.