....more commentfic...

[trillianastra]

Quantum Leap/Doctor Who, Sam, why leaping and Time Lords don't mix

No sooner was Sam pulled away from the last body he had been occupying than he found himself in the next.

The next body turned out to be rather more interesting than usual. He blinked several times. From what he could see he was in a high-ceilinged room that would have looked like a cave, had it not been for the console in the centre. He tried to turn his head to get a better look around, and… couldn’t.

“Huh?” He said out loud to himself. The last thing he expected to happen was that he would be answered, by not one but ten people, all of whom seemed to be inside his head with him.

Unfortunately, none of the ten people seemed to be able to agree on what to say, so all he heard was a garbled mess of “Hey!”, “Excuse me?”, “What’s going on?”, and probably other phrases as well.

Tentatively, Sam said, “Uh, I don’t know what’s going on. Who are you people? One at a time, please…”

The ten people – all male, he thought – whispered amongst themselves for a moment. Then nine of them fell silent. The one that spoke sounded young, younger than Sam at least. “Look, we’re the Doctor. It’s… complicated. You probably don’t need to know. The problem is, you shouldn’t be in here. How did you get into our head?”

Sam hesitated, mentally ignoring the we and our that this ‘Doctor’ had used, and launched into an explanation – of sorts – of his situation. As he spoke, he was aware of the Doctor(s) whispering inside his (their) head. He decided that being heckled from inside one’s own head was one of his least favourite experiences, and hoped he’d never end up in this situation again. When he’d finished, he waited for one, or all, of them to say something.

The Doctor who’d spoken before, the young-sounding one, spoke up after another period of consultation. “Right. We’ve thought about it, and it looks like you ended up here by accident. Unfortunately, it looks like we might not be able to get you out just yet… but it’s all right… mostly… if you release control of motor function back to us, your consciousness will stay in here until we figure out how to get you out of there. How does that sound?”

Sam didn’t know what to think. It sounded better than most of his Leaps. He agreed, hesitantly, and soon he found himself being pushed back into the Doctor(s’) head. The one who’d spoken to him went forward, taking control of the body back from him. Sam spent the next four days inhabiting the Doctor(s’) head, in the company of the nine other Doctors who were also there. By the time the ten Doctors had figured out how to get Sam out of their head (and that had taken a considerable amount of arguing and at least one thrown teapot), he was becoming nostalgic for the Leaps where he ended up in a string of life-threatening situations every day.

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Historical RPS, Shakespeare/Christopher Marlowe, rivals in work, lovers in life

Kit opened his eyes slowly, squinting at the bright sunlight streaming into the room through the open window. His head was pounding, and he didn’t appear to be in his own lodgings, though the room did feel familiar. Frowning, he pulled himself into a sitting position and looked around, hoping for a clue as to his location. He glimpsed his purse, left on a chair nearby, and when he reached for it he was surprised to find that it felt heavier than it had of late.

He was wondering what good fortune he might have stumbled onto when the mystery was solved by a (somewhat disgruntled) voice speaking from the other side of the room. He turned around on the bed and saw his good friend Will sitting at the table, frowning over a piece of parchment.

Without looking up, Will said, “Lord Wiltshire commissioned a play for his son’s birth-day. You asked for an advance, and he gave it to you. After that I seem to recall you had a run of good luck at the gaming tables.”

Kit searched his memory for any recollection of the previous night. There had been gaming, certainly, and someone had commissioned a play, though he would have to trust Will on the details there. Will could be relied upon for details like that… after all, he was a famous playwright and he did have appearances to maintain. Speaking of which, he was sure he had something to do today…

He started to speak. “Wasn’t there somewhere I had to be today?”

Will didn’t even put his pen down. “Rehearsal at the Rose.”

“Ah. Thank you.”

“You might want to dress first.” Kit frowned again. There was definitely something odd about Will’s behaviour now.

“Yes, yes, of course. But first I have something more important to attend to. What happened?”

Will laid down his pen and glared at him. “You got that commission. I’ve been working, writing new plays, for months. And you dash something off in a few days, get it performed and you get the commission.”

Kit blinked as realisation dawned. Will – steadfast, reliable Will, with a wife and children in the country – felt envious of his success. Will thought he didn’t notice things like that, and didn’t realise that Kit was actually remarkably good at keeping his mouth shut sometimes.

Kit let out a soft sigh as he got up from the bed and walked to the table. “I know you work hard. It shows… your plays are unlike anything I’ve seen. Me… I coast along, wherever life takes me. I won’t amount to much. It’ll be you who gets remembered, not me. And as for the money… maybe I can buy you a fine meal somewhere, as recompense.” He smiled a little.

Will looked at him for a long moment, then nodded. “Very well. But… it’s not about the money, Kit…”

“I know.” Kit took Will’s hand in his and kissed it solemnly. Then, suddenly, he grinned. “We shouldn’t do this… this fighting over our work.”

“Not here, in any case. Perhaps when we are in other company we can fight.”

“But not here…”

“Never here.” Will pulled him down and kissed him soundly. “Never here,” he repeated softly. Kit couldn’t have agreed more.

He ended up sending a message to the theatre that due to ‘unforeseen events’ he would be unable to attend the rehearsal that morning, because he did, after all, have much more important work that needed his attention.

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Dollhouse, Bennett/Topher, he picked the wrong side

Bennett sat cross-legged on the floor, head bowed. They had left her to watch Topher. They didn’t think he needed a real guard, and none of them felt comfortable around her, so they told her to watch him when they left. She didn’t have anything else to do, so she did. At first it was easy, he was still unconscious from the tranquilliser. She sat on the floor and looked at him lying there. He looked so peaceful.

She felt sorry for him, really. He’d chosen the wrong side in the fight. Chosen his own house, the renegade house, against the might of Rossum. None of the people from the LA house had done particularly well out of their rebellion. They shouldn’t have done it. They were on the wrong side. That was what Rossum had told the employees of the other houses. The LA house was dangerous, the staff were rebels trying to hurt the corporation, they needed to be shut down. Bennett had heard that so many times, it had become so easy to believe.

It wasn’t easy now. Sitting in a darkened office like this. Topher Brink wasn’t dangerous. Well, maybe he was, but not the way they wanted her to think. And now… now he didn’t look like a dangerous rebel at all. But he’d chosen the wrong side. They kept telling her that.

He woke up, after a couple of hours. He blinked a few times.

“Bennett?” He said warily, looking up at her. “What… what’s going on?” He tried to raise his hand, and found that he’d been tied up.

“I have to watch you,” she said quietly.

“What? Did you tranq me?”

She shook her head violently. “That was the soldiers. They went. They said I had to watch you.”

“You didn’t do this?”

She shook her head again. “No.”

“Why are you here?”

“They brought me. They said they might need a programmer. They don’t trust you.”

“The feeling’s mutual… what are they doing now?”

“Finding the rest. You all chose the wrong side. They didn’t like that.”

Topher didn’t say anything for a moment. Then he said, quietly, “Bennett, you have to let me go. You know what they’re going to do, right? They’re going to kill everyone here. We have to stop them.”

“They can’t be stopped….”

“We have to try.”

“You chose the wrong side. You all did. I’m sorry.” Awkwardly, she stood up, and walked to the door.

Topher sighed. “So close to being perfect…” he murmured to himself as he closed his eyes and waited for the inevitable.

He couldn’t have been more surprised when he felt someone shaking him, and opened his eyes to see Bennett looking down at him.

“Huh? I thought you’d gone.”

“I had to check. They might have been watching…” She untied his hands, as quickly as she could with only one hand, and then he was able to untie the rope around his ankles and stand up. He smiled at her and said, “I thought I was on the wrong side…”

She shrugged. “Maybe we both are.”

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