Whoniverse:The doctor from another universe

Chapter 8: Lost in time

The Awakening

In the aftermath of the Time War, amidst the chaos that saw the Cybermen clashing with the Time Lords in a devastating conflict, Captain Jack Harkness found himself caught in a temporal explosion. The last thing he remembered before darkness claimed him was the searing pain of his body being torn apart, scattered across the threads of time.

When Jack finally awoke, it was to find himself in a place beyond his comprehension—a dimension where time didn't flow as it should, where past, present, and future seemed to intertwine and loop back on themselves. He was alone, without his Vortex Manipulator, without a clear sense of how much time had passed since the Time War, or indeed, if the war had even ended.

The landscape around him was a surreal vista of swirling colors and shifting terrains, landscapes morphing from desolate battlefields to serene vistas in the blink of an eye. It was beautiful and terrifying in equal measure.

The Realization

Jack quickly realized that his unique nature—his inability to die permanently—had somehow protected his consciousness, allowing him to reform in this bizarre dimension. But the question remained: How could he escape? How could he find his way back to his own universe, to continue the fight alongside The Doctor and protect the innocent?

Determined to find answers, Jack began to explore this strange dimension. He encountered echoes of events from his past, fragments of his own timeline that played out in front of him like ghostly reenactments. It was disorienting, witnessing moments of joy and pain, victory and loss, but it also provided clues to the nature of the dimension he was trapped in—a place of temporal anomalies, a nexus of sorts, caught between realities.

The Quest

Jack's quest to escape became a journey of self-discovery. He faced challenges that tested his resolve, his courage, and his heart. From outwitting a paradoxical puzzle that threatened to loop him in an endless cycle of failure, to confronting manifestations of his deepest fears and regrets, Jack pushed forward, driven by the hope of return and reunion with his friends and allies.

Along the way, he encountered other beings trapped in the dimension—victims of temporal accidents and experiments gone awry. From them, Jack learned of a mythical construct said to exist at the heart of the dimension, a device capable of stabilizing temporal energy and opening gateways between worlds. It was his best chance at finding a way out, at returning to his own universe.

But the path was not without its guardians. Entities that thrived in the chaos of the dimension, feeding off the temporal energy of trapped souls, stood between Jack and his objective. It was a battle of wits and will, as Jack leveraged his experience as a Time Agent and his indomitable spirit to outmaneuver these beings.

As Jack Harkness came to the harrowing realization that he had been trapped in this bizarre, time-bending dimension for over a millennium, the weight of his isolation and the expanse of time lost to him settled heavily on his shoulders. Yet, in true Jack Harkness fashion, despair was quickly replaced by determination. He resolved not only to escape but to master the very fabric of the dimension that held him captive.

Drawing on his extensive knowledge as a former Time Agent and his encounters with The Doctor, Jack set an ambitious goal for himself: to build a makeshift TARDIS. He understood that to escape the temporal loop and the dimension itself, he needed something capable of navigating the complexities of time and space, something that could pierce through the layers of reality back to his own universe.

The task was monumental. Components for such a device were not readily available in this dimension, and Jack had to rely on his ingenuity and the remnants of temporal anomalies scattered throughout the landscape. He scavenged parts from echoes of past technologies and harvested energy from the nexus points of the dimension, places where the fabric of reality was thin, and the power of time itself was palpable.