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Once in the desert, against the backdrop of war

-

Sand sucked.

It seemed fun at the beach, but months of it unrelentingly inserting itself into the tiniest places was enough to drive Geoff up the wall.

To be fair, this was a war zone, and there were other things that sucked more, so he didn’t complain about the sand too much.

He sighed and turned his attention to whatever bizarre story James was telling.

James told a lot of stories. Most of them involved aliens of some sort; other times he told stories of love and loss. And he was a good storyteller too, Geoff spent a lot of time listening to him when the VHS player broke down again, or when there was too much buzzing in his head and he wanted to hear someone else think for a while.

Geoff first met Captain James Hardy in the mess hall on his second night there. Later, he’d mostly muster up only vague impressions of those early days – hot wind, gritty eyes, sand already getting on his nerves – but he distinctly remembered that encounter.

James was loud and charming, in the same way a fraudster is loud and charming. Geoff thought he could see the sleaziness rolling off the man in spades, but his gut was drawn to him. There was something trustworthy about him, and James proved it over and over again in the following months.

And James was brave; he returned from some ventures that should have killed him but didn’t, and he cared about his people.

There was one night – the edge of cold and the creeping darkness – when Geoff sat with his notebook, piecing together his notes into something workable that he heard a whirring sound. A whirring, grinding, messy sound, with a note of something out of a science-fiction show. It was fucking loud, too.

In the background, whatever story it was that James was telling abruptly cut off, even as Geoff’s head snapped up and looked in that direction. His eyes were blown wide, jaw dropping open, but not even a second later he started grinning maniacally.

Everyone else in the room just looked confused and a tad frightened.

Before too long, a man in a long brown coat walked into the room. He scanned the room before fixating his gaze on James.

“Captain James Hardy. You’re being transferred.”

“Yes, sir,” James responded, huge smile on his face.

“Please come with me.”

Jack and the unidentified man walked out of the room, easily in step, and Geoff thought he could see the old camaraderie between them, and he thought he heard “Jack Harkness” whispered between them, and he couldn’t help wondering who the mysterious man was.

(Many years later, he would wonder what became of Captain James Hardy, but no one who had served with him had heard anything from him since that day.)

-

And then once in a back alley, in the middle of the night

-

The thing is, Ray doesn’t go out of his way to find dangerous situations. It’s why he stays home so much. The reason being that he finds himself in such a multitude of many tenuous situations that it’s probably not a coincidence.

It had seemed, at the time, like a good idea to head through an alleyway. It looked empty, the lighting was – well, it was shit, but it wasn’t the worst he’d ever seen – and it was wet and he just wanted to get home. So he had ducked in and made it about halfway through before being confronted by a big guy with a long, shiny knife.

Great.

“Gimme all your money, asshole.”

Ray sighed, trying not to let it show too much, and moved slowly to grab his wallet from his pocket.

“Yeah, yeah.”

He carefully extracted it and held it out to the mugger, who snatched it quickly. A second later, another man bustled through the alley, bumping into both of them.

“Hey, watch it, fucker! You -” the mugger yelled. The other man was adorned in a tweedy brown suit, and his  bright red bow tie and fez were visible even in the half-light.

Despite being almost a head smaller than the thug, the newly arrived man stared him down. Ray watched in confusion. He’d had enough trouble as it was.

"Me what? I think you ought to give this man his wallet back."

"Or?"

Ray saw the man reach into an inner pocket and out of the corner of his eye, he saw the mugger’s gaze also drawn to the silvery light-emitting device that had been extracted. It looked like it fit in the suited man’s hand. Well, at least one of them had a weapon.

“You think that’s gonna scare me?” the mugger asked, eyebrows raised sceptically.

“Three.”

“What the fuck?”

“Two. One.”

The bow-tied man sighed and pressed a button.

There was a moment of almost comical suspension of time, and then the mugger fell to his knees, desperately clamping his hands over his ears.

"Run," the strange man said, tossing him Ray wallet.

Ray did.

The two of them bolted from the alley until they found themselves almost a block away, Ray panting, trying to catch his breath, heart pumping.

“Thanks man,” he gasped out.

The other man, seeming to recover better than Ray from their impromptu exercise, just grinned.

“No problem.”

Another grin, and the suited man took off again, leaving Ray still walking it off, wondering what the hell had just happened.

-

Once when the world was in danger, but no one was awake

-

So maybe the streets were a little quieter while Michael was heading over to Gavin’s on foot. So maybe Michael wasn’t paying as much attention as he should have been to where he was walking.

So maybe he didn’t notice the huge box before he walked into it on the street.

Michael stopped and backed up a few steps as he looked at the thing he’d walked into.

It was a dark blue, wooden box, pretty tall, reminiscent of the old telephone boxes, but the wrong colour.

He ran around to the other side of the box to try and find the entrance, only to find it locked.

That was strange.

Then he looked around.

It seemed like it was a scene out of Sleeping Beauty or something.

The streets were strewn with the sleeping – how he hadn’t tripped over a body he didn’t know – and now that he noticed it, he could see a slight film over his vision, as though his glasses were getting foggy, but wiping them down didn’t seem to make any difference.

There was a slight heaviness to his limbs, as though he was dreaming, but he could read the sign on the side of the telephone box, so either Gavin was wrong or he would be waking up sooner or later.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a man and a woman running along the street, nimbly navigating their way around the people on the path.

Michael tried to call out to them because they might know what the fuck is going on here, because he sure as hell didn’t but before he could, it was like he was being dragged underwater, and he couldn’t breathe –

Michael woke up.

He scrubbed his hand across his face, wondering why there was a sense of dread curled up in his gut. It felt like he was forgetting something – something that might explain why there was a sore spot on his head, something about a blue wooden panel that seemed oddly familiar.

He ran through what he had to do for the rest of the day: go to work, film, edit, get groceries, and go to Gavin’s place.

And no matter how much he squirmed or swallowed or tried to remember, there was no loosening the knot in his stomach.

He didn’t know why, but he kept his phone is his pocket the entire way to Gavin’s, paying attention to where he was going, every step of the way.

-

And once a lifetime ago

-

Gavin wasn’t at the bottom of the social ladder at his high school, but he also certainly wasn’t at the top. And one of the reasons for that was because he was friends with Dan, who was bigger than him, and super athletic, and friends with all the coolest kids.

Dan was currently overseas.

This was a slight problem, because Gavin decided – it was accidental! – to offend the coolest kid in school. It wasn’t his fault that the other kid had left himself open.

So Gavin had run. He would be able to make it up somehow but right now he didn’t feel like being cornered by a bunch of kids bigger than he was. It certainly didn’t help that they were angry at him.

There weren’t many places to hide at a high school, Gavin realised, as he swore under his breath as he ducked around a corner and tried to fit himself beside a bush.

“Oh, Gavvy-boy, we know you’re there,” came a sing-song voice.

Well, this was fucking great, wasn’t it? Gavin just tried to keep quiet, hoping he could give them the slip and head back to where the rest of his friends were hanging out.

His hopes were dashed by the sound of footprints following him around the corner.

“Stop hiding like a fucking coward.” The threat of physical violence was oh-so-clear in the tone, and Gavin gathered himself to spring up when he heard a new set of footsteps approach.

“What’s going on boys?” a voice demanded. Gavin knew that voice – Mr Smith taught science, and he was one of those super relaxed teachers that was also really cool. In a dorky, hip kind of way.

“Nothing, sir.” Even Gavin could hear the edge of condescension in the bully’s voice.

“Okay. Well, I need you to clear the area. Maintenance needs access.”

Gavin heard rather than saw the footsteps leaving. He was concentrating so much on them that he didn’t notice that Mr Smith had made his way over to him and was kneeling down in front of him, eyes level.

“Are you okay?” he asked, voice soft.

“Yeah,” Gavin said, standing up and brushing off his pants.

Mr Smith mirrored his motions. “Did they do anything?”

“Nah, it was all talk,” Gavin answered, plastering a grin on his face. “I’m fine, honestly.”

“Come on, then. We need to get out.”

Gavin knows for a fact that no maintenance took place there that day. He also vaguely remembers the teacher muttering something about sticks and stones, and doesn’t want to think too hard about what that was supposed to mean.

-

Then once again when the world was falling apart

-

Ryan sort of sighed as he was borne into the air by a particularly strong gust of wind. It was terrifying, yes, but these sorts of alarming things tended to happen to him remarkably often.

It was only when he looked down that he realised, oh, the ground was literally falling apart.

Where he had been standing moments before, the concrete and asphalt had broken up like breadcrumbs and some had even started to begin shifting.

It was like a particularly bad nightmare, all things considered.

The world was breaking, he was flying, people were screaming, and in the distance, a blue box was appearing out of thin air – wait, what?

Actually, if this were a dream, Ryan wouldn’t question the strange things his subconscious came up with.

But out of the strange blue box popped two heads. They looked a little bit shocked and immediately ducked back inside.

After a moment, grey, steely matter seemed to seep out of the cracks. It looked thick, like honey gone horribly wrong.

The blue box landed on the ground.

So did Ryan.

He landed in the sticky, gooey grey – ha, he had been right – and felt it tug against his ankle, trying to drag him. He kicked out at it viciously, but it was a liquid and soon he was like the other people on the ground, limbs caught and struggling.

And in the distance, the two faces he’d seen earlier from the box seemed to be yelling at each other, a sight which then morphed into the taller man yelling something unintelligible.

Which then caused everything to stop.

That was nice.

The grey goo was still there, which was less nice, but at least it didn’t seem to want to drown him anymore.

Under the influence of some silvery wand wielded by the taller of the box inhabitants, the goo seemed to rise out of the ground, sealing up the cracks that it had created.

Ryan watched in confusion as it turned into several smaller blobs and just shot off into the sky.

After they’d disappeared from sight, Ryan looked around and saw the same bewildered expression on everyone’s faces. Well, except for the two people that disappeared into the now vanishing box.

When Ryan woke up the next day, he was certain he’d dreamt everything. But the calendar showed that he was missing a day’s worth of memories, and well, maybe it was crazy enough to be true.

-

And finally, once when they were all together.

-

They had all crashed at Geoff’s house the night before. It was two nights before Christmas, and although the weather had been cooler than usual the day before, Jack woke up to snow beginning to pile up outside.

He blinked a few times, rubbing at his eyes to make sure he was seeing it right.

That was definitely unexpected.

Snow was rare enough that native Austinites planned for it weeks in advance, but none of them had heard anything about this in the news at all.

Jack just stared out of the window, watching the snow pile up around the yard, still too sleepy to be excited.  

Behind him, he could hear Michael beginning to wake up, soft snores fading as he entered wakefulness.

“Morning, Jack,” he whispered, sidling over to the older man.

“Morning,” Jack responded, relaxing into Michael.

“Oh my god, yes! Snow day!” Michael yelled excitedly as he noticed why Jack was checking out the window, effectively waking the rest of them up.

A jumble of confused noises followed, while Jack just grinned fondly at them.

It wasn’t long before they received a call telling them not to try the traffic and that no one was expected at work, so it was just a long, lazy day of games and laughter, blanket forts and too many cushions on the couch.

Jack watched, heart fond, as his boys drifted off to a light doze in the early afternoon, Ray and Gavin leaning against Michael, who then leaned back into Ryan and Geoff, who was slumped into his side, like a domino chain of sleepiness.

Jack didn’t fight it when he felt the drowsiness as well.

And when they all woke up later, necks complaining, all the snow was gone.

-