Five: The Caretakers of the Rift

"Do call again..."

"I would love to."

Marius started before realizing it.

Jack had made contact with Compline's avatar, and he was now in 1941 with Toshiko, and unable to get back unless Ianto and Owen got the right equations.

"SHIT," Marius cursed, not bothering with a Sidra one as he started to type in when he felt it again.

Gwen now met up with the same avatar.

But he can't be. Even if given an extended life...he would feel different.

What is Compline up to?

--

"Captain Jack Harkness, 133 Squadron."

Marius flinched heavily at that before putting the palm of his hand up to his forehead. "Purple Matriarch..." He had known Jack Harkness wasn't the real name of Captain Jack, but he hadn't realized that meeting the man who's name he'd stolen and taken on would be so hard on Jack, and the surprise from Toshiko was...not helping.

"I hate this...but I need it."

He waited, trying hard to be only on the fringes before he got the name he wanted, the one he needed.

Bilis Manger...the avatar of Compline, the one they had run into twice now, who was manipulating them and later would manipulate the Rift.

I need--

No, you don't...

Marius started as he felt himself frozen in place, his heart racing as he looked over to where the other Sidra had appeared.

"Compline."

"You must be my replacement," Compline smiled at him, his dark eyes almost like that of an Earth shark as he slowly walked around the stuck Sidra. "What's your name, young one?"

"What do you care?" Marius asked, glaring at him from as far as he could look without breaking his own neck.

"I do, though. You're doing what you can to help those I need to test."

"Test?"

Compline nodded. "I ensured it was there just in case I needed one, and they pose the best for this test. A test of their loyalty, of their want to survive, and of how they react to those they've lost."

Marius' eyes widened. "You made her go through the Rift."

"Diane is a wonderful girl, and safe, don't worry. Ianto never would've gotten Lisa into hiding unless I had helped him along at times, and she wouldn't have reverted had I not...touched...a few items to help her programming along either. Toshiko's mother was already dead so it wasn't a problem. The only one is Jack." A glare, "I cannot create a convincing Doctor or Rose Tyler. I need them."

Marius felt his muscles twitch. "Why open the Rift? Why bring about that demon?"

Compline glared at him. "Because they need a test! Don't you see that? Because this test will ensure that they grow."

Marius' glare turned icy. "He'll kill them, and then he'll destroy the world!"

Compline gave a small smile. "Better him then what's coming. You've heard the sound too...the sound of drums, the beat of another Time Lord, forgotten by everyone including himself, and returned with the help of a silly Doctor and his lovely wife."

Marius felt himself freeze inside as Compline told him, "You'll be released when what I want is complete. Until then, enjoy the show."

Marius started to shout when his voice cut off in his throat and he could only watch as Compline disappeared.

--

Leave them alone! Let me go!

He screamed, trapped in his office as Toshiko and Jack tried to get back, while Owen's single-minded quest to open the Rift, to regain Diane and the others as a spare prize, while Gwen and Ianto, trying to think straight and clearly, did what they could to save the others without causing more damage.

And all the while Bilis played them, directed by Compline, and with Marius trapped in his office screaming in the hopes he could get free.

--

Owen opened the Rift, and the minute he did, Marius stumbled forward and then, not waiting, was out the door and heading to help his Clients.

This isn't a test. It's torture...I don't care what it is that Lilith does in the hopes of maturing her own Clients. I don't care how bad it seems...destroying the world just to see if you can is not going to happen on my watch.

--

Marius hated being one step behind, and even with the authorization, as quick and flimsy as it was, to go to Earth to try and 'observe' or warn Chronometrics of what was going on, he was having trouble catching up with Bilis when ever time he stopped where the trace lead him, they threw the random people of that time, as well as the normal flotsam and jetsam of the Rift, at him and Torchwood.

Owen was cracked, shattered, and unable to function totally. Toshiko had already seen the 'ghost' of her mother created by Compline. Bilis was ready to kill to turn Gwen, their last step in stopping Jack and allowing them to fully open the Rift.

Marius started as he paused and then moved out of the way of the speeding Torchwood SUV. That was it.

They would open the Rift, and Bilis would be there to taunt them in the end. Bilis, who had set this all up, would ensure that they knew what he wanted them to do.

And so will Compline.

--

Marius stumbled when Jack was shot and killed enough to keep him out for a good minute and half, and growled in frustration at the fact that Owen now showed he could and would kill someone if he had to. Of all the stupid--

Loyalty...

Marius stood and sighed. With enough stress and triggers, they would open the Rift. With a taunt from Jack when he shouldn't have, they shot him. Was that loyalty, or something else?

Human nature...the Human Race is too complex to say anything of it. Their loyalty at that point wasn't to Jack or rules, but to the ones they loved.

They only did this because it was too hard, so hard...

He knew that. His mind ached and burned with that longing he had felt from all of them upon seeing the apparitions of their lost lovers, friends, and even more when Gwen, thinking Rhys was safe, found out instead she couldn't prevent the horrible death he had gone through.

And it was all Bilis and Compline's fault.

Fueled by that and the horror they felt upon realizing their errors, upon seeing that what they had hoped to accomplish was really nothing but the end of the world...he moved to where they would be, where they all stood glaring at Bilis, where he stood arrogantly proclaiming the coming of his demon lord, of the one that Compline had put under the Rift in order to test them at this point.

Compline wasn't hidden, but Marius was, and he waited until they looked up before moving and grabbing his fellow Sidra and the human avatar he had chosen then moving them to the very edge of the open Rift.

--

"You can't stop us!" Compline yelled as Marius set them down. "They've failed their test!"

"The great Abbadon has risen!" Bilis yelled as well over the storm of Time and Space around them, over the roars of the freed demon and the screams of those being killed before their time.

Marius glared at them then said, "They haven't failed. You have."

The two looked at him as Marius said, "You cared only about this final test, the one to end all tests. Can the Human race survive this, you think? Can they stop themselves when this temptation is so warped and changed that they must do it or lose all hope, and if they do then they lose themselves? This is an unfair test, and one not worthy of a Sidra. On top of that, you've broken too many rules to be brought back. If this is anyone's test, Compline, it was yours, and you've failed it."

Compline's body grew rigid as he glared at the younger Caretaker. "I? Those you coddle, those you--."
"There is no need for it," Marius told him, then glared at Bilis, "or for you. There's no need for this because all that is needed is normal chaos, the everyday mundane things that we report on, the simple things turned into life-and-death, hope-and-loss situations. No one personifies it more then them. All they have done is to survive and move on, to put this past that is so hurtful behind them, to live. You would take that from them for a test in which everyone, not just Torchwood or those living on the Rift without consent or knowledge, fails no matter what?"

Compline looked at him, then shook his head. "You're too young. You don't realize it. What good is hope, or the chance of winning? The cards are always stacked against them, will always be. This is a test and they have always been meant to fail it. Abbadon is my Client, and through him, through my avatar Bilis, we have shown that the Human race is weak. With the Rift open, we can now show how weak the rest of Universe is."

Marius looked at him, then sighed. "You're a fool."

"What? What do you know?"

Marius looked up at him then said, "My first assignment was Krop Tor, the Bitter Pill, which was a planet that revolved around a black hole. Within it, trapped by the same ones who trapped your Client, was my first one. The Beast himself."

He saw their surprise before Marius said, holding up a hand and looking at Bilis. "Here, go and meet him."

A telepathic push sent Bilis over the edge as Compline blinked then turned back to him. "What are you doing?"

"What the Doctor did, what the Humans did, what every one with a sane point of view does. Protect their Clients, serve them, and report on them. You manipulated those who are caretakers of the Rift, not by right but by choice. You've murdered and brought in a human for the sole purpose of rigging a deck and making them lose, of killing them off just because you want to, because you think we can."

Compline yelled at him, "WE CAN! WE, the Sidra race, one of the oldest, older then any other race, who wrote and recorded the very makings of the Universe, of Time itself in this one, of those who trapped the Beast and his Son and their brethren in cages, of those who witnessed all the Time Wars and were affected by them. We have every right to do this, to destroy those unworthy of continuing on! The Human race, resilient as they are, doesn't deserve it more then my Client! They are too flawed!"

Marius straightened, within his mind the choice and decision of Captain Jack resounding. "They are, but for all their flaws, they do what they can to atone for it. They do what they must to repent. They will do what they have to do in order to keep themselves and others alive. As they move on and learn more, they will become one of the greatest races in the known universe. It's any wonder all other races look at them and wonder, or that those who travel the universe enjoy having Humans as companions. For everything they are, they will do what they must to protect those they care for. Just as I will do what I must to deal with you."

Compline moved and Marius did at the same time, the ending movement being Marius holding Compline by his neck over the Rift as it howled around them, Compline's fingers digging into his hand and causing a long line of blood to flow downward.

"He won't save them! Whatever that Captain is, he is not Human."

Marius glare at him. "Who else is there? Who else is there trying to harm those within my group?"

Compline said simply, "A Master, a Time Lord. He will do it, unless we allow Abbadon to succeed, and by his side will be that pretty little girl you care for so much...she will be his ally and downfall."

Marius looked at Compline, then touched his mind. Yes, Compline was telling the truth.

"Then I will do what I must."

Marius released Compline and said simply, "I will do what I must, because she gives tests that are not stacked against her Clients. She gives them and hopes for the best, though her luck is never that. And I will give her what support I can in it."

--

Marius was glad he could throw his report into the file psychically, because the minute that Jack went to face Abbadon he knew that there was not going to be a good thing going on in his mind.

The closet was padded, and he was only just able to lock it and put a rag into his mouth when his whole body arched through shared pain and he screamed.

--

"By all that is Good and Sacred and Not Sacred and everything in-between, Marius!" Avery shouted, as she had when she found the list of the possibly dead after that incident with Compline and Cameron had told her about Jack. While he usually watched just over the Doctor, and was having a time about something else that came up with Lilith, he sometimes also checked on the Doctor's old Companions, usually to see how they were doing or what they were doing. Jack and Rose Tyler seemed to be the most interesting at that point, and after she had called for Marius anyway, he called her to tell her, simply, that Jack wasn't waking up for a while.

Knowing the type of havoc that could cause a Seidra-clan mind like that of Marius, Avery had tracked him down to his locked storeroom closet, but it was deadlocked and sealed...until Marius chose to open the door, he'd be in there.

So Avery pounded on the door and yelled for him to come out and get help, to find a way to get help, to live because that's what his other Clients needed.

No sign, no response, nothing, and Avery couldn't get the medical help she needed to force it open either.

She'd have to wait it out, or wait him out, and she did so by research into her niece's activities, by waiting and doing her usual task, right before she got the note that Marius had opened up the door and left his office on business that would take him a while.

Avery looked at the note and sighed. "Earth again? What's so important down there?" A turn of the channel made her pause and look closely before she got up and raced to find Cameron and find out what, exactly, was going on with his Clients and the Earth this time.