Author's Note: I just want to reiterate one more time that this story and most especially this chapter is NOT for Rose Lover's.

Many thanks to BMG and cassiekat for their thoughts and notes!

The lab erupted into chaos as a rift in reality exploded into existence. Pete threw his arms up to protect his eyes, but he momentarily lost his vision in the blinding flash of light that accompanied the arrival of the energy wave.

He could hear alarms screaming in response to the energy that was buffeting against the barriers of their reality, but it seemed that the damage had been stopped right at the point of impact. He dared to raise his head, blinking hazy after images from his sight in order to see that the modifications that Alec had managed to enact had saved them.

Pete turned to look at Alec in order to congratulate him on managing to save them all just in the nick of time, but he felt his eyes widen in horror when he saw Alec was suddenly seized in a golden energy field. The man was frozen solid and his teeth bared around a rictus scream of pure agony before his body was lifted from its feet and thrown across the entire length of the lab to slam with bone shattering force against the wall. He cried out when he saw that Jack too had been ensnared by the same energy field that gripped Alec and it was only a moment later that he too went flying through the air to slam against the wall at Alec's side.

"ALEC! JACK!" He ran towards his superior and his friend, his hand stretched out towards them both in an attempt to render some sort of aid though he had no clue how he could help them. He flinched when he met Jack's gaze and saw the light fade from his pain ravaged eyes.

Pete rushed back to the controls of the dimensional interface controls, his hands flying over the keys with more instinct than skill as he tried to modify the energy from Alec's strange ship in order to try to block out this new energy that had had such a devastating effect on two of Torchwood's most trusted members.

"Sir, we can't reach them now. Every time we try to touch them, our hands are forced away from their bodies. It's like they're in some form of stasis field, but the field looks like it's killing them." The Chief medical officer, Thomas Higgs, had rushed straight to Jack and Alec's side as soon as he had come into the lab. He was a seasoned enough veteran with Torchwood that he barely paid the undulating rupture at the other end of the lab any notice. He was, however, at a loss as to how he could help two men who very obviously needed his help. He'd never seen anything like what was happening now, and he had no idea what shape the men would be in when and if the energy field released them.

Thomas could tell that the impact of whatever this energy was had just struck Jack dead, but he hoped that the man's strange ability that had manifested in the last few years would be able to save him from whatever was ravaging his body. He never trusted in anything that he didn't understand and Jack's strange immortality was something that, though documented, flew in the face of every bit of medical knowledge that he possessed. There was nothing that he could do for Jack and he knew that he would have to trust in whatever fate was listening, that Jack would once more beat the odds and come back to life.

Alec was the one that concerned Thomas the most. He was very obviously still alive while he was struggling madly in the embrace of whatever this energy was, and his screams of anguish were enough that Thomas knew his dreams would be haunted for many months or even years to come. However, it was what was going on inside the energy field that had him the most confused.

"Sir, something's happening to Alec, though I'm not quite sure how to describe it. It's almost like he's changing even as I'm watching, but that's impossible."

"It's not impossible. It's what Time Lords do, though he wasn't supposed to have the ability to do that."

Pete and Thomas swung around at the sound of Rose's voice, Pete's eyebrows climbing near to his hairline when he saw that she was standing over a technician with a gun pointed to the man's head as he worked frantically at a different computer that stood closer to the actual Dimension Cannon.

"Rose, what the hell are you doing?"

"I've got to get out of here, Pete. I don't belong here. Don't you get it? The Doctor did this so that I could come back to him; he knew that he shouldn't have left me trapped here with that… that fraud."

Pete shook his head, trying to make sense of Rose's reasoning as she stood poised with a gun over a man who was a colleague to her even while her supposed friends were dying or already dead. She looked at him through completely dead eyes, her gaze was devoid of any remorse and he had the sinking feeling that she would pull the trigger if she didn't get what she wanted.

"Alec told us that the Doctor would never endanger the multiverse just to get a lost companion back, he said that to even try could have irrevocable consequences."

Rose snorted when she heard Pete's words, her gaze traveling to Alec as he remained pinned against the far wall of the lab. She had the disturbing sensation that he was still conscious enough to be watching her, and though she could just begin to make out his features melting and reshaping in that strange and terrifying way that she had glimpsed aboard the Tardis what seemed like a lifetime ago, she knew that she couldn't wait a moment longer. She didn't care if she ripped the multiverse to shreds, she knew that the Doctor had sent this energy wave so that she could find her way back to him and she would be damned if she would let some man who wasn't even her father stop her from getting back to the Doctor.

"Alec doesn't know even half of what he pretends to know. I wasn't just making things up when I was calling him a fake and a fraud. He's really a fraud; he pretended to be a Time Lord when he wasn't even half the man that he thought he was. He's a freak, borne of an accident during a crisis and he should've been left to die with the Daleks that he slaughtered."

The technician that Rose had her gun trained on, lowered his head as he continued to punch commands into the control console, his body tense before he gave up and turned back towards her. "I can't unlock the controls, Ma'am. They're password protected with an algorithm I've never seen before."

Rose snarled down at the terrified technician, her finger tightening on the trigger of the gun before she gruffly motioned him away and turned to point the gun directly at Pete's face. "You know the codes, don't you? Jack would've trusted you with the algorithms."

Pete reared back in shock when he saw Rose swing the gun towards him, his hand flying to his chest to still the pounding of his heart before he whispered. "You wouldn't dare. Jackie would never forgive you. You do this and she'll hunt you down herself."

Rose laughed cruelly at Pete's words, her eyes darting towards the far wall where she could see Alec seemed to have finally fallen to the ground. She couldn't wait any longer because something told her that whatever was happening to Alec wouldn't incapacitate him for long and he would do everything that he could to stop her from getting back to the Doctor.

"Mom doesn't care about me anymore, not since Tony came along. She's too caught up in trying to live happily ever after with you since she came here. I'm not going to settle for a fake life, this isn't where I belong and if the Doctor really knew what was going on here with you and with Alec then he never would've made me stay behind. Now give me the codes!"

Pete raised his hands, his throat clenching when he realized the girl that he had tried to call his own, turn her back completely on him and everything that he had ever hoped to offer her. He saw in that instant that she had never accepted him as her father and she had only used him to get into Torchwood so that she could get close enough to the Dimension Cannon to try to escape back to her precious Doctor.

Pete remembered meeting the man, after he had brought the other universe's Jackie back in order to try to fill the hole in his heart after the Cybermen had taken his first wife. He had seemed to be a man of honor, a man that would do everything in his power to make sure that he and his companions did the right thing. He couldn't have known what had happened to Rose in the intervening years, nor could he have known just how obsessed she had become by the very idea of the Doctor. He thought long and hard on the man that he had sensed when he had met the Doctor, a man that had been more than affirmed when Alec had been left behind on that desolate beach all those years ago.

Pete remembered what the Doctor had said and he made his decision. "I wouldn't give you the codes even if I could, Rose. Jack locked the codes to an algorithm only he would be able to decipher because he always worried that you'd get desperate enough to try something like this. I never believed him or Alec, but it looks like they were both right."

Rose's hand twitched, ever so slightly when she heard Pete's denial, her eyes widening in incredulous disbelief before she took a step closer to him. She kept seeing his face, the same face that she had seen all those years ago when the Doctor had taken her to see her father on the day of his death. She had been distraught with the Doctor even then; that he wouldn't allow her to save her father even though she had seen what had happened when she had helped him sidestep fate. She didn't understand why the Doctor was forever changing history and bringing back people who had died all the time but when it mattered the most to her, he refused to be budged. It had been one of the things that had led to some of her more outrageous behavior in retaliation for the perceived betrayal, never mind the fact that he seemed to have moved on without a thought when he'd trapped her in the alternate universe.

"I'll do it, Pete. I know you have to have a failsafe to override Jack's codes; I can't stay here any longer. I don't belong here, and the Doctor needs me!"

Pete didn't miss the fact that Rose refused to name him as her parent and he merely shook his head before he spread his arms wide. "Then do it, Rose, and stop talking about it."

"I wouldn't do that if I were you, Rose. There're too many people in this laboratory that'd be all over you before you got a step closer to the vault where the dimension jumpers are stored."

Rose gasped and spun around at the tired voice that suddenly sounded from the other side of the lab. Jack was just forcing himself to his feet, his complexion was ashen and his eyes were sunken into deep, bruised pockets but he was standing and once again, he was miraculously alive.

Rose didn't even notice Thomas, the medic, scrambling back from Jack as the Director forced himself to his feet, the medic's useless equipment falling from his hands so that he could watch Jack stumble towards Rose.

"I'm the only one that can decipher those codes and you know me well enough to know that I'd never build in a failsafe. I'd rather the Dimension Cannon rust into a useless piece of trash before it was ever used to endanger the multiverse again."

Rose regained enough of herself to swing the gun towards Jack; her eyes were swimming pools of rage as her finger tensed against the trigger. "What did he tell you to turn you all against me? I just want to get back to where I belong! Why is that so hard to understand?"

"You belong here with your family, Rose. The Doctor said that you were dead in that other reality. Rose Tyler, a casualty of the Battle of Canary Wharf. That's why you couldn't make a life there, that's why he left you here to try to rebuild with the only family you have left." Pete tried to plead with Rose one last time; his heart was breaking when he thought of what Jackie would do if she found out that Rose had killed him. He thought of the heartbreak that Jackie would endure even though she had given so much to try to give Rose a better life once they had made their way to this universe, but it had never been enough for her and he had been too blind to see it.

"You're lying! All of you are lying and just trying to keep me from the Doctor. I love him and I know that he loves me; it's why he sent this energy wave so that I could find my way back to him. Stop standing in my way!"

Jack took a faltering step closer to Rose, his eyes never leaving the barrel of the gun that was pointing at him even though he knew that the death would never stick. He hated dying and usually tried to do everything in his power to avoid it, but he would happily take the bullet to save Pete's life. "You know we're not lying, you know that we're telling the truth because Alec and Pete were there with you that day when you were left behind. You don't belong in that universe anymore and the Doctor has moved on without you."

Rose shrieked with an inhuman sound of rage, tears streamed down her cheeks while she looked Jack straight in the eye and pulled the trigger.

He didn't know who was more surprised that she'd actually managed to get the shot off, but in the end he only jerked when the bullet struck him right between the eyes. The last thing that he saw was Rose being tackled to the ground by her father and then the world went mercifully black.

Alec was swimming in a sea of fire. He had long since lost track of his body and found that he was simply floating shapeless through a place that he hadn't visited since his link with Donna had been forcibly severed.

He felt the universe throbbing around him in strange ways, the lines of force were radiating out from his essence to pierce the void and part the darkness that had settled around his soul.

My Lord Doctor, come to join us in our moment of triumph?

His entire being shuddered when that much hated voice echoed through the shapeless place, the words dripping with all the scorn that only Rassilon was ever able to impart. He fought against the panic that rose while he tried to find the thread back to his body, his mind whirling with all the possibilities that couldn't even begin to explain how he was hearing the Lord President's voice.

He was flailing about in that sea of agony, long dead instincts flaring to life when he felt the Time Lord senses that he had truly never known rise from the depths of his unconscious mind. Though he was not born a Time Lord, his legacy was that of the oldest race in the universe and he would be damned if he would let the universe fall to dust while there was anything that he could do about it.

If the Timelock's broken, then everything is coming through!

Alec's mind stopped dead when he heard the Doctor's voice, his thoughts whiting out for a split second while he thought about the ramifications of the Doctor's worse. The Timelock couldn't be broken, it was supposed to be unbreakable. But beyond that, the Timelock was supposed to keep all the horrors of the Time War locked away. It was supposed to keep the universe, indeed all of time, from burning to cinders.

What had happened? How had the Timelock been broken? Never mind that, it would explain the energy wave that had been destroying reality after reality but what else had happened? What else was his thick human brain missing?

Keep your head on straight, Spaceman, and focus!

Donna's beloved voice echoed through the void, the words striking a painful chord deep within him when he remembered how she had snapped and called him Spaceman when he had first appeared aboard the Tardis. Gods, the embrace of her mind had been glorious and he found himself hesitating in the void for a moment just to feel its welcome touch once more.

We will initiate the Final Sanction! The end of time will come at my hand. The rupture will continue until it rips the Time Vortex apart!

Alec fled the void when he heard Rassilon's words, his mind was spinning with terrifying possibilities as he heard Rassilon's promise to the Doctor. He found the Doctor's memories of the end of the Time War rising unbidden from the place that he had hidden them, the memories of a different life and a different man who had lived through the horror that had engulfed the universe.

Rassilon had indeed had the power to destroy all of creation with the Final Sanction and not just his reality, but every reality that existed throughout the multiverse. He was quite as mad as the Daleks had been at the end of the war and now he knew without a doubt that he had to get back to the primary universe in order to help the Doctor stand strong against this terrible threat.

He followed half-buried instincts as they guided him towards his body, the body that was still wracked with the ravages of an impossible regeneration, and he didn't hesitate to let his mind rejoin with that shell.

The pain that exploded through his awareness nearly drove him straight back into unconsciousness, but he fought through the red haze that seemed to be all that he knew and struggled to bring himself back to reality.

He blinked open new eyes, his vision narrowing down to a single point of focus as Rose stood poised with a gun pointed straight at Jack's forehead. He shook his head, gasping softly when he suddenly saw endless lines of probability spread off of each person standing in the room, but it was the wildly chaotic dance of chance around Jack that convinced him that he wasn't seeing things.

Alec tried to struggle to his feet, grunting when his legs didn't want to work properly. He fell forward, not at all surprised when he looked down at strange hands that were at one time similar to the hands that he had gotten so used to, but were definitely not the same. Red hair dusted the back of his wrists and he could just see the line of hair running up his arm into the t-shirt that he had donned that morning. "Ginger?" His voice came out barely a croak, though he felt a shivering sense of inappropriate excitement flare through him at the thought.

He fell forward onto his face, his hands not rising to catch him fast enough so that he managed to smack his forehead onto the cold floor of the lab. Alec groaned at the impact that left his ears ringing and his vision swimming, his entire body was quivering uncontrollably as he desperately tried to gain control of muscles he no longer knew how to use.

Alec felt hesitant hands reach out to grab him, the touch was trembling with uncertainty and the instant that they connected with his arm he felt the absolute terror that was filling the mind of the person who was trying to help him.

He turned a bleary eye up at the medic that leaned over him, the man's eyes were wide with panic but he was well trained enough to know when someone needed his help.

Thomas looked down at the man on the floor, unable to believe what his eyes were seeing. If he hadn't seen Alec fall from where he had been pinned against the wall and huddle into a ball on the floor, then he wouldn't have believed that somehow Alec hadn't changed positions with whoever this stranger was that was now looking up at him through a wild shock of red hair and blazing blue eyes.

"Sir?"

Alec grunted as he forced his hands under his face, pushing himself up onto his hands and knees before he took the medic's offered hand. "Yes, Thomas, it's me." His voice was thread, his vocal chords just now remembering how to function but barely forming the words before he felt his chest constrict in a painful reminder of the ordeal that he was still experiencing. He couldn't draw up any more energy as he took brief stock of the new body that he now wore.

He ran his hand up his chest, laughing weakly when he felt the reassuring thud of a second heart under his right hand before he remembered what had caused him to try to move so quickly. He turned to look at Rose just as she pulled the trigger and Jack fell dead with a bullet hole in the middle of his forehead.

"NO!"

Alec didn't know where the burst of adrenaline came from when he saw Rose's terrified eyes whip over to him as his eyes focused on her, she shrieked when she saw the changes that had been wrought on his body but the cry was cut short when she was tackled by her father.

Alec stumbled over his own two feet when he tried to run Jack's side, his body felt too fast and too strong to control and he knew that it would take awhile for him to get used to having a Time Lord's strength and agility again. "Come on, Jack. I need you to come back quickly this time, I need your help before the fissure closes and it's too late!" Alec started when he heard his own voice; the soft lilt to his words was an unexpected surprise even as he pleaded with Jack to come back from death more quickly.

He didn't have time to take stock of the changes in his body though as Rose was crying out incoherently to him. Her eyes were pleading with him to help her even as her father had her pinned to the floor and another technician was helping him wrench her arms behind her back so that they could cuff her. Alec pursed his lips when he saw those tear drenched eyes, his heart clenching for a brief moment when he thought of all the amazing adventures that she had shared with the Doctor and the very real friendship that the Doctor had shared with her. The Time Lord had never meant to lead her on, though his own inability to understand his emotions had led the both of them down a path that unfortunately had led to this very moment.

He pushed himself to his feet, his steps halting when he made his way to her side and looked down at her with only pity welling up from somewhere deep within him. "You could've been so much, Rose. He had such high hopes for you, and you've done nothing but threaten the multiverse time and again. You never learned any of the lessons that he was trying to teach you and you never cared about the effects your actions had on others."

She raised bleary eyes up to him, unable to believe that the red headed man that was towering over her was still the same man that had been stranded in this reality with her. When had she been so wrong? What did she do to turn them all against her? All she wanted was to have her life aboard the Tardis back, why was that such a bad thing? Why did everyone try to keep her from the Doctor and why did the Doctor think that she would ever be happy with a mere copy of him? She looked deep into those blue eyes trying to ignore the strange face that was staring back at her, but there was no mistaking the stunning resemblance that it bore to Donna Noble. She shook her head as best as she could, her eyes clenching closed because she refused to believe that he had been in any way tied to Donna. He had been promised to her, the Doctor had promised her that he would live with her and grow old with her. What had happened there? Why couldn't he just be like the Doctor like he was supposed to? "I just want to go home. I want to go back to the Tardis."

Alec looked down at her, sighing softly when he very distinctly saw two possible futures flare into being around her. In one she was able to live a somewhat normal life, happy with her family here in Pete's world. In the other, he saw only death and destruction; not only to herself, but to the entire multiverse as she would never give up her mad quest to regain her supposed place at the Doctor's side.

He very clearly saw the choice that was looming in front of him and knew that he had to be the one to finally set things right. Maybe this was really the reason that the Doctor had trapped him in this purgatory? Maybe this was why the DoctorDonna had allowed the Doctor to leave her perceived son trapped with a woman who would never accept him as she had claimed she would. Maybe the DoctorDonna had seen this future and had known that only Alec would be able to be the one to set things right.

He knelt down in front of Rose, his gaze turning to Pete for a moment for confirmation when the older man nodded in tired acknowledgement before Alec raised his hands to the touch points on Rose's face.

Rose tried to pull away from the touch of his fingers, she knew what his fingers in that position meant and struggled madly against her father's restraints even as he pressed his fingers to her temples and jawline. Her eyes were forced against her will to meet his icy blue gaze, the fires of time were burning in those depths and she knew that there was nothing she could do to stop him.

He was no longer the duplicate. He was no longer the weak copy of a truly great man. He was a Time Lord in all his raging power, and he was truly borne from the Doctor's legacy. He would do whatever he felt he had to in order to set things right, and Rose knew that her time had finally come to a close.

She whimpered into the sudden silence, tears streaming down her cheeks as she whispered brokenly. "I loved him."

Alec nodded softly, whispering in acknowledgement. "I know you think you did, Rose. But that wasn't love, and you'd never be able to live a normal life as long as you remembered. I'm sorry."

Alec closed his eyes and sent his thoughts winging into Rose's mind, his fledgling Time Lord senses responding to the centuries of memories that suddenly filled him to bursting when he finally allowed all of the Doctor's memories to break free from their hiding place. Everything that the Doctor had ever known suddenly filled his mind and he knew exactly what he had to do in order to at long last set things right.

Carefully reaching into Rose's mind, he started to remove her memories of her time with the Doctor. One by one, he lifted each gossamer strand free from her mind while she screamed and railed against him. She jerked against her father's hold, the tears streaming down her cheeks when she felt her life for the past eleven years flash before her eyes before each memory vanished like it had never been.

She saw the tears streaming down Alec's cheeks as he delved deeper and deeper into her mind, his mind relentlessly rooting out every secret hope and dark fantasy that even she had forgotten she possessed until finally he broke the contact and leaned back from her with a tired grunt.

He sadly watched Rose look up at him with uncomprehending eyes, the spark of recognition had fled her gaze and she whimpered softly once before she slumped against her father in unconsciousness.

He raised a shaking hand to his forehead, his haunted eyes rising to meet Pete's own tormented gaze while he struggled to find the strength to answer Pete's unspoken question.

"It's done, Pete. I did what I had to do in order to protect the multiverse. I'm so sorry that it had to be this way. I wish that things could've been different."

Pete nodded softly to Alec, his hold on Rose's arms relaxing so that he could reach out and grasp the other man's arm in a gesture of gratitude. "You did what you had to do, Alec. Thank you for sparing me from having to make that decision myself. I guess it's up to us to help her pick up the pieces." He reached into his pocket and pulled out the syringe of the new experimental retcon, his fingers closing tight around the object before he sighed and stuffed it back into his pocket.

Alec nodded numbly, his gaze dropping to Pete's hand where it had gripped his arm before he sighed. "The retcon would've never worked, Pete. Her memories were too entwined with who she was and who she struggled to be. She saw only what she wanted and because of that, those memories would have bubbled to the surface again and again no matter what you did." He let his head fall back, his eyes sliding closed when he felt the bone numbing exhaustion that accompanied regeneration nearly drive him under. "I just wish there had been another way."

He sat back hard when the strength suddenly drained from his body, his eyes rising to the tear in reality that was even now beginning to fluctuate wildly, but without Jack's help he knew that he would never be able to get his little Tardis to survive the crossing to the primary universe.

Alec crawled away from Pete towards Jack's still body, barely aware of the medic rushing past him so that he could examine Rose now that she had lost consciousness. He wasn't at all surprised that everyone in the lab kept their distance from him; their wild eyed gazes would skitter away from his as soon as he noticed that they were staring at him. They didn't recognize him and they were suddenly aware that he had powers that none of them had ever experienced or expected. They didn't know what he had done to Rose, but they were all too frightened to risk coming any closer than they had to.

Alec settled cross legged next to Jack, dropping his head against his upraised knees so that he could clench his eyes closed in a bid to process the chaos that raged all around him. He had lamented the loss of a Time Lord's sight; and now that it had returned, he found that he was completely unprepared to deal with the consequences of the knowledge that it imparted.

So Alec chose to wait in silence for a breath of life from the body beside him that would hopefully allow him to return to where he belonged.