Story info and title page

This fanfiction is cowritten by two authors and primarily posted at randomhouses . livejournal . com. There is more detailed information there, including extras like images, character info, and silly summaries. Also, updates there tend to happen quicker than here.

Basic story info:

A House, Torchwood, Doctor Who, Discworld, Nintendo/Super Smash Bros., Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Pirates of the Caribbean, Labyrinth, Verbotene Liebe, Robin Hood and other cameo universes (eg Harry Potter, Red Dwarf, Starcraft, 2001: A Space Odyssey, etc.) cross-over.

Warnings: None as of yet. Unless crack counts as a warning. Maybe mild slash? It's hard to have Jack without it. Oh, and spoilers, lots of spoilers for all the shows. Some minor violence.

Rating: R. Contains violence, language, sexual innuendo, and adult themes (no, get your mind out of the gutter!).

"Pairings": Well, we'll see! There are no boundaries. But this is primarily NOT a romance fic. All canon pairings will probably be kept. Not that there really are many. Currently contains or will contain Jack/Ianto, Gwen/Owen, and Jack/Ten. And Ten/Screwdriver. Yeah. And Cameron/Owen, Chase/Cameron, Two/Jamie, Jamie/Adric (no, really!... well, apparently not...), Bilis/Gwen, Bilis/Abaddon, Bilis/Rhys, Rhys/Suzie, Suzie/Glove, Glove/Hand, Suzie/Hand, Glove/Hand/Resurrected Goldish, Chase/House (sorta), Chase/Wilson (sorta), Cameron/House (sorta), Gwen/Foreman (what? ew!), Rhys/Gwen, Rhys/Myfanwy (headdesk), Toshiko/Owen, Sarah Jane/Adric, House/Wilson, Jack/House/Wilson, Carrot/Angua, Wilson/Mrs. Palm, Sybil/Vimes, Five/Adric(?), Tosh/Brenda, Wilson/Brenda, Tosh/OC(Monty), Cuddy/Ianto, Jack/Elizabeth, Will/Elizabeth, Jack/House/Wilson/Cuddy, Christian/Olli, Robin/Much, Robin/Marian, Marian/Guy, Will(Scarlett)/Djaq, Marian/Cuddy.

Timelines:

House-verse: Post-Tritter, pre-"Insensitive".

Torchwood-verse: Post-season 1, pre-season 2, technically post-Doctor Who series 3 but does not follow "Last of the Time Lord" canon.

Who-verse: Ten: post-series 2? 3? Sorta post-series 3 but ignores most of series 3 continuity. Five: Sometime in season 20 or 21 (companions are Tegan and Turlough). Four:Assume spoilers through season 13 (companion is Sarah Jane). Two: Takes place during season 6B, so assume spoilers for everything (companion is Jamie). Also assume spoilers for seasons 18 and 19.

Disc-verse: Definitely assume spoilers for Guards! Guards!, Men at Arms, Feet of Clay, Jingo, The Fifth Elephant, Night Watch, Mort, The Truth, Hogfather, Soul Music, Thief of Time, Going Postal, and probably more.

Pirates of the Caribbean-verse: Post-At World's End but disregards the post-credits sequence ten years later.

Nintendo/Smash Bros.: Post-Brawl but ignores Subspace Emissary. I mean, really, is there actually anything continuity related? Oh, well, I guess I (Suninos) should admit I haven't played any Fire Emblem, so all those characters are just... not at all related to the games. Mario continuity is largely kept. And... that's about it.

Labyrinth-verse: Probably takes place before the events of the movie but doesn't contradict it.

Robin Hood: Spoilers for season one, will probably AU after that.

This fic was begun in March of 2007. All new episodes and books published after that date are disregarded by the fic (EDIT: This may or may not be the case for s4 of DW). The story therefore now falls into the category of Alternate Universe. Events of Arcs 2, 3, and 4 will be entirely AU and changes the course of series histories. Therefore, certain episodes of old-Who and season 3 House are also disregarded.

ALL of the above is subject to revision.

The shows, books, locations, and characters are the property of David Shore, Fox, BBC, Russell T. Davies, Terry Pratchett, the Douglas Adams estate, Nintendo, Konami, Sega, and other relevant persons and companies and we are making no profit whatsoever from this random adventure into the realms of crack!fic, so please don't sue us.

Eram quod es, eris quod sum

Writers: Muskratio and Suninos

"I was what you are,

you will be what I am."

-Grave inscription

He ran. The cold steel pounded against the soles of his boots, ringing out one metallic thump after another, the dirge of the hammer striking a nail into a coffin lid, the moan of the bells rocking back and forth in a distant clock tower. Everyone was dead. Everyone, through all the universe and all of time.

What is the price? she'd asked him. Is it worth it? And even now, with burning tears streaming down his face, he didn't know. He'd been given the choice between an eternity of slavery and an eternity that never was, and he couldn't decide. How could anyone? How could he choose for every innumerable soul through all of existence, for people he'd never known, faces he'd never seen? Even worse, how did he choose for the ones forever seared into his memory?

Ianto Jones ran, not for his life but because he could think of nothing else to do. Because the void was coming, and it would take him like it'd taken the Doctor and Tosh and Cameron and Foreman. Like it'd taken all of them. Like it'd taken Jack, his immortal Jack whom he'd sent to his death.

The darkness spread, the echoes of screams surrounded him. All the choices, all the lies, all the hatred. And though he knew it was false, he could not forget the moments he'd spent before those burning eyes in that chamber of glittering, mocking emerald towers. For a few seconds, with all of history laid bare before him, the futility of life had been so obvious…

…and that was the point.

The eyes, so focused on themselves, had never looked outward.

He'd been so scared, but that was the whole point.

Ianto stopped running. He turned and faced the nothingness. He looked it in the eye, and he laughed at it.

"You can take it all away, but I still remember. Right now, I remember everything. And it happened. All of it happened. All of history, it came around once, and it can come again and doesn't that make you angry? Doesn't that make you feel small? You can wipe everything from existence, but all you'll do is kill yourself too, and somewhere out there, sometime, somehow, another universe will blossom, and life will come into being once more, and things will survive."

And that was all that mattered. You were born, and you lived, and you died, and everything in between was trivial, a brief, flickering match in the night, but it was real, and that made all the difference. It was all that mattered, and the thought didn't scare him anymore. He laughed, and he ran, but this time, he knew where he was going. His feet moved with purpose, and nothing would stop him. He was going to find House.