Doctor Who: Time Switch

                                                                        

                                                                                                               TIME SWITCH

                                                                                                                        BY

                                                                                                               A.J.  PREECE

                                                                                                            
                                                                                                                 
Prologue

He leant forward to accept her kiss and then something odd happened.  For the briefest of moments, he felt a strange wrenching sensation, as if something had been torn from him.  There was a second of two of confusion and then suddenly all was crystal clear.
Ann was there in front of him, in his arms, solid and real and the feeling that something had been put right. 
He didn't understand that last bit, but Captain Parks suddenly felt that at last, he was home.  None of what he had been through now mattered.  Even the lingering image of a white room and a strange man, were fast becoming a distant memory.  Fading, fading, gone.

A disembodied stream of energy tore through space and time.  It was alive and concious, and praying that this time would be the last.....

                                                                                                           PART  1

Sarah Jane Smith stamped her feet and flapped her arms in an effort to keep warm.  The Doctor as usual, seemed impervious too the cold.
He was working in his shirt sleeves, humming softly as he studied some microcircuit through a jeweller's eye glass.
"Don't flap your arms around like a manic Albatross Sarah, I'm sure things will warm up as soon as the technician's have repaired the central heating.  Could you pass me that B5 screwdriver?  No that's the B2", he said softly, "The B5 has a red handle.  Thank you"
"Doctor what are we doing here anyway?  Has the Brigadier explained yet?"
Now the Doctor showed his first signs of irritation, and she knew it wasn't aimed at her.
"No he hasn't.  At a moment's notice, he says, Doctor get your coat and Miss Smith and meet me in some lowly research station in the middle of nowhere.  And all over the telephone.  I have to get the TARDIS to make a short hop through space and not time, and she's not good at short hops like that. Now I have a partially fried Dimensional Compensator to repair.
With this planet's pitifully inadequate technology, this is going to be a long job.  What's worse is that we have been here the best part of a day and we still have no idea as to what's happening.  Maybe it's time I spread my wings, stopped being the Brigadier's lap dog.  I'm a Time Lord Sarah, and here I am, running errands for the government and a bunch of play soldiers!"
"Ahem!"
"Oh sorry Sergeant Benton, I didn't see you there.  No offence" he said hurriedly.
"None taken.  Between you and me, it's getting too me as well.  Doctor?!"
Suddenly the Doctor stiffened at the workbench, his back went ram rod straight, his eyes bulged and he yelled "No!  Get out!  Get out!" before he slumped too the floor...

In a place they called the White Room, a lone figure chewed on a fat cigar as he berated the small computer in his hand.
"Oh for God's sake!  What a time for you to go off line!  Come on, work dammit!  You misbegotten son of an abacus!"
He shook the unit and slapped it again and then jumped as a soft male voice with a slight trace of a lisp came from behind him;
"What's going on? And I really shouldn't shake that unit like that, it looks quite fragile too me!"
Slowly, the man known by those that knew him simply as Al turned.
The figure of a man, roughly six feet tall, dressed in a light blue frilled shirt and a pair of dark green trousers stood there.  He had a mane of curly white hair, and a stern but friendly face.  Al would have guessed that he was in his late to mid forties but something told him he was far, far older than that.
His eyes were blue and gleamed with intelligence and wit, but there was definitely something alien in those eyes.
"I'm the Doctor" he said softly, "Now where in the blue blazes am I?  And when?"
Al gathered his wits and said, "This is the Quantum Leap project headquarters, in the middle of the Nevada Desert, U.S.A.  The year is 2005."
"Well" the man called the Doctor said, with a sudden edge too his voice, "Get me back home and give me back my body!"
"Whoa OK! Calm down!  Yes we can do that but not just yet.  Please bear with me here.  You see the guy that is now occupying your body and sharing your memories, has something he has to do before he can leave you and you can go home.  I'm sorry but those are the rules!  Now please stand back, and let's see what information I can get that will help him and you out!  Oh dammit!  Ziggy work for Christ's sake!"
The Doctor glared at Al, his hands resting on his hips......

The Doctor had been carried over to a bench and laid out upon it.  His eyes were firmly closed but his face kept twitching as if muscles were stimulated by electric shocks.
Occasionally he would mumble something unintelligible and toss his head from side to side.
The medical office shook his head in confusion and as he put away his stethoscope he said, "Well I don't understand his physical make up as well as others did, but he seems to be all right.  Your files say that there were times when he had slipped into a protective coma, but this does not seem to be one of those.  Both hearts are strong but beating a little quickly, and the blood pressure is as normal.
Whatever is going on, I have no idea at all"
"Perhaps we should try giving Harry a call?" said Sarah, for if there was a human doctor that understood the time traveller, it was Harry Sullivan.
"I'm afraid not Miss Smith.  We don't know where he is.  After resigning his commission he left the country, and that's the last we heard from him.  I think he went off to Africa to work at an orphanage or some such noble cause." said the Brigadier, who had entered the room a little after the Doctor had collapsed.
He stood there feeling twice as helpless as he looked.  The medic sighed and left the room, and the Brigadier felt his frustration building.

Henry James closed his living room door and switched on his radio. Static again!  Angrily he thumped it and swore, but it was no use, he couldn't get a damned signal.
The disruption had been happening over the last few days. It had started with sporadic bursts of static or loss of signal, but this had been going on for a full half hour now.
With a savage twist of his wrist, he switched it off and tried the television but that was the same story.  What the hell was going on?
Frustrated he picked up a book, sat down to read and the lights died.
"Bugger!" he yelled.

Professor Mitchell stood watching the team digging.  He twirled the end of his beard, which was his habit when he was thinking.
He heard footsteps approaching and smiled as he saw the tall, elegant, glamorous figure of  Helen Inar coming towards him. 
Again he tried to remember the exact moment she had joined the dig, but he couldn't.  It didn't matter though, she was a superb archaeologist and added a touch of much
needed glamour too the proceedings.
Mitchell felt like a schoolboy with a crush on a teacher whenever he saw her and that was ridiculous; he was old enough to be her father for God's sake!
She flashed him her dazzling smile and gazed down into the trench.
"Well are we any closer to bringing it up?" she asked softly.
Mitchell shook his head, "No I'm afraid not.  You see just when we think we have found the end of the object, we unearth more.  I tell you geophysics are annoyed, as
most of the object was missed by their scans.  Whatever we have here, is definitely not from the neolithic era at all.   But Helen dear, can't we get back too the neolithic site we were supposed to be excavating?
Oh I'm grateful for the extra help you have enlisted, please don't get me wrong. It's just that we have enough diggers on this that we can spare the workforce and return
back too the original project, and still have enough resources to unearth the object."
She smiled, and arched an eyebrow.  She seemed to consider for a few moments and then said, "No.  The ministry wants it dug up.  The sooner you do that, the sooner you
can resume grubbing through the dirt for bits of animal bone, flint and whatever other finds you can get.  I'm sorry, but I'm only following orders, please do the same for me"
And she gave him that full smile and locked eyes with him.  Again, try as he might, he couldn't look away.
"Just do as I ask"
"I'll do as you ask" he replied, echoing her words like a zombie.
She laughed softly as she walked away.

The Doctor's eyes snapped open.
Slowly he turned his head too the left and too the right.  The small room was empty and clearly it was some sort of ward.
The remaining two beds were empty.  Muted light filtered through vertical blinds.
He sat up and immediately regretted it.  He had never felt this dizzy, at least not since he and Al had attended Sadler's New Year's Eve party.  Boy what a night!
It was almost as bad as receiving a sting from a Zygon by all accounts.  Wait a minute, what the hell was a Zygon anyway?
An indistinct image of some weird creature floated in front of his mind's eye for a second or two and then it was gone.  But he felt confused as hell now.
All sorts of memories were racing through his head, jockeying for position. Some made no sense at all, whilst others felt right.
First there were the names; Al, yes of course he knew Al!  But who the heck was Jamie McCrimmon?  Zoe Herriot?  And did he have a granddaughter called Susan?
Part of him said, yes I do and who the heck is Al?  But part of him took that question and turned it on it's head.
Think man think!
I'm Doctor Sam Beckett!  Yes, that's it, I'm Doctor Sam...no I am the Doctor!
Yes the Doctor, a wanderer from the planet Gallifrey. 
What?  Run that by me again?
I'm Sam, Sam Beckett!  I'm from Arizona, and I'm the head of the Quantum Leap project!  I'm a traveller....
.....In time and space and I travel the continuum in a machine called the TARDIS.  I'm a Time Lord.
No, I'm human!  Human damn it! 
"Al!" he called, softly at first, and then louder, "Al, where are you?  Where am I?"
Sam Beckett/The Doctor stood in the room, swaying like a drunkard.
Images continued to flash through his mind.  His head was pounding and his skull felt like it might explode.
He wished it would, it might end the pain.....

In the darkness they waited.
They were trapped, weak and hungry.
They had heard the promises that they would be free soon and wondered if they had been lied too again.
Lies they could handle, but this imprisonment was a living death! 
We need freedom they screeched.
In time, came the reply, you'll be free in time.  Be patient my friends, be patient, soon you'll have all that you need, all that you want and much much more.

Sam Beckett/The Doctor suddenly whirled, his eyes shielded by his raised hands as he saw a figure emerge from a doorway of light.
"Hey Sam, relax.  Please calm down and listen."
"I am not Sam!" snapped Sam Beckett/The Doctor, "I am the Doctor!  You hear me, the Doctor!  But I'm also this Sam Beckett!  I remember his life and I remember my life and I am so confused!  I need, I need answers"  His voice trailed away, and a tear rolled down his face.
Al grimaced, this was not going to be easy. 
He had as many questions as Sam right now and not enough answers, but one thing was clear. 
If Al couldn't get him settled and listening and understanding the data he did have, then Ziggy had calculated that there was at least a sixty five percent chance that
Sam Beckett would lose his mind and go insane........

                                                                                                        
                                                                                                             END OF PART ONE.