When Everything Changed - Chapter 13/20
Sep. 29th, 2010 02:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tonjavmooreTitle: When Everything Changed – A Torchwood/Dr. Who/Sarah Jane Adventures Crossover
Author:tonjavmoore
Characters/Pairings: Jack/Ianto, Gwen/Rhys, Eleven and Amy Pond, and a lot of people from the Whoniverse at large
Rating: PG
Word Count: Total: 32,741; Chapter 13: 2,064
Spoilers: This assumes that you are familiar the five days of Children of Earth. Otherwise, you’ll be a bit lost. This is a timey-wimey fixit that takes up action partway through Day 3.
Disclaimer: Torchwood, Dr. Who, and Sarah Jane Adventures all belong to the BBC and RTD. Sadly.
Betas: Thanks to midlist_writer and welsh_scotsman on Live Journal. Also, to my friend Alexandria Cameron who put up with my squeals and tantrums when it just wouldn’t get out through my fingers the way I wanted it to.
Dedication: This is for my good friend and the best roommate anyone could have ever the pleasure of having, Susan Garrett. She was taken from us by cancer and the world is not as bright as it was before she left.
Summary: When the Shadow Architects find a paradox that is destroying the Universe, can the Eleventh Doctor find a way to restore Jack’s timeline to what it should have been?
I have disabled comments on Live Journal. Please comment at my Dreamwidth account. I love comments. They are cookies for my soul. You don’t have to have an account to comment there.
Story starts here:
Chapter 1
Chapter 13
Amy watched the Doctor at the console. “There’s no way to stop the sound of the old girl, but we’ll come in with the full perception filter on, so they won’t be able to tell what’s causing the air displacement,” he said. Amy recognized it as his now-here’s-a-neat-trick voice. “Not even that close.”
She felt the vibration of the TARDIS moving and smiled to herself. The ship seemed to be getting better and better as time passed – they were still on the right track. The climax would be soon. She hoped it played out according to the Doctor’s plan. What the dénouement would be, she had no idea. As the Doctor had pointed out, they were changing the future they remembered and replacing it with something new.
The TARDIS came to rest with a gentle bump. “Go!” the Doctor ordered.
Amy shot out of the door, waving her paint gun wildly. She centered it on a table along one wall that had people both in and out of uniform behind it. They had jumped when she appeared from the corner and were gaping at her. She ignored the large smoke-filled tank on the other side – it wasn’t her concern. “Out! All of you! Out the door! Now! Don’t make me shoot you!” Amy was channeling her inner action heroine and loving it.
“Who are you?” one of the men demanded, even as the others were getting to their feet, eying Amy nervously. “Where did you come from?”
“Not important.” Amy closed her ears to the pounding and sloshing behind her. “Get out of here before I shoot!”
Some of them bolted from the room, while the others followed more slowly. “If you’re here to stop the exchange, it won’t do you any good,” a man in a uniform said. “The transfer has begun.”
“That won’t make me any less likely to remove your head with this. Get out!”
She followed the last one out the door and waited until she heard a lock from the inside. No one would disturb the Doctor from – whatever it was he was going to do. “I need someone to show me to the heliport,” she ordered. “Now!”
Two women were standing together. One of them, a young black woman, stepped forward. “Follow me,” she said quietly. As she brushed past Amy, she whispered, “I wish you’d shoot them all.”
Amy followed her, appreciating the sentiment. “What’s your name?” she asked.
“Lois Habiba. I’ve watched them planning. It’s horrific.”
“Pleased to meet you. Can we move a little faster, please?” Amy found it hard to suppress her excitement at the next part of the plan.
A lift ride and a short flight of stairs later, they were on the roof. Amy scanned the sky and saw the helicopter rapidly approaching. Even now she could hardly believe that the Doctor had gotten it right.
The Doctor looked down at his hands. They would cause death now. He had tried so hard to put the executioner in him to rest. He wasn’t supposed to decide who lived and who died. He tried so hard to drum that lesson into himself and yet here he was again, planning on taking a life with cool calculation. Without it though the Universe would implode in on itself. He couldn’t let that happen.
Taking in a very deep breath, he jabbed his finger down on the button.
Amy was so intent on the helicopter settling into place that she almost missed the movement in the sky behind it. It was suddenly filled with silver wedge-shaped ships. They were either very big or very close. From their undersides came beams of white light, clearly visible even in the daylight.
Her attention was diverted when Captain Jack Harkness hopped out, followed closely by Ianto Jones. They both looked up at the approaching ships and waved to the pilot to shut the machine down. They ran across the roof and pushed Amy and Lois back under the safety of the overhang from the door without a word.
One of the beams swept across the area, but it passed harmlessly on. They all ran to the side of the roof to look down. The beam was moving across street below. She heard horrified gasps from the two men as the traffic came to a halt, effectively trapping a yellow school bus. Drivers got out of the cars pointing to the sky. The bus driver, a soldier dressed in fatigues, jumped to the ground. He was followed by a stampede of frightened children. “No!” Jack shouted. “No, get them inside!”
When the beam reached the children, they froze. A moment later, they began to rapidly float upwards toward the ship overhead. The adults were unaffected, but the children were paralyzed. “It must be filtering out the ones that are too young or too old!” Ianto said with a voice just loud enough to be heard.
Several more children were trapped and being pulled off the ground by the beams. The soldier grabbed one around the waist and was pulled up with her until he tumbled back down to the ground. A man from a car grabbed a child who was still moving and shoved him under the stationary bus. Other people began doing the same, pushing any child they could reach under the stopped cars around them. As the beam came to them, nothing happened.
“The cars are protecting them!” Amy crowed. “Save as many as you can, people!” She knew they couldn’t hear her voice, but she felt better for having said it.
Jack turned to her. “Who are you and what are you doing with an Arithalian paintbrush?”
Oh, bugger, Amy thought. Back to the plan. “My name is Amy Pond,” she said, looking into those very blue eyes. “You don’t know me, but I’m a Companion.”
“The Doctor’s here? Where?”
It was the bark of a man used to being in charge. Amy almost bristled, and then remembered what he’d been through in the past couple of days. She cut him some slack – this time. “I’m not exactly sure where he is at the moment,” she lied. “But, we need to get you down to the room with the tank. Follow me. Hurry!”
Rhys had counted ten buses already, with five more waiting to pull in. As he directed them, he scanned the horizon as he did so, not even sure what he was looking for. He knew what as soon as he saw them. Silver ships swept toward them, coming faster than he could believe. He pulled one large door shut behind the last bus when he saw one more coming. There were beams coming down from the ships, now, sweeping the earth as they came – looking for children. Rhys ran toward the last bus, waving frantically to get it into position to pull in. The driver stopped just before the hangar.
There was no time to lose. Rhys pulled the bus door open and elbowed the shaking driver out of his seat. He backed the bus up to get it clear of the doors and then gunned it forward. He threaded the vehicle into the hangar with only inches to spare between two other buses. The now bus-less drivers pushed the heavy doors completely closed just as the first beam crossed the curb between the dirt field and the concrete pavement of the motor yard.
Rhys glanced down at the other driver. “Learn to drive a lorry, mate,” he said. “Then you can do that.” He popped the emergency exit above the driver’s seat and climbed out to survey the chaos. Well, at least these kids were safe.
Jack pounded down the stairs behind Amy Pond, with Ianto close on his heels. They didn’t have time to wait for a lift. “It’s this way,” Pond said, waving an electronic access card she’d gotten from a woman Jack thought he recognized as Lois from Gwen’s description. “Corridor, here. Door, here.” Amy tried the door, and it opened.
Suddenly, the sensation of being in two places hit him again – this time stronger than ever. He was in the open space of Aston Downs as well as Thames House. He clutched at Ianto’s hand, desperately trying to anchor himself in the here and now. His vision cleared and he could see the tank before him had been shattered.
The air in the room was clean, so someone or something had vented the noxious soup of the alien atmosphere. The alien’s bloated body lay on the floor unmoving – there was no sign of the child that had dangled beneath it in that nightmare vision. Into the stillness a sound came. A cough. A quiet child’s cough.
They ran forward. With Ianto’s help Jack shifted the alien’s body off the child underneath. The tendrils that still connected the boy to the alien were covered with tiny cilia, limp now that the creature was dead; Ianto started to peel them away from the child’s body as Jack lifted the boy’s head and shoulders. He was blonde, his hair slightly damp and clinging. Jack put a shaky hand to the boy’s throat to see if he had a pulse.
Again the feeling of the double places hit him. He was looking at a child – his grandson – with blonde hair lank, blue eyes open and flat with the dullness of death. Blood trickled from his eyes, nose, mouth and ears. He was dead and Jack had killed him. “No! God, no!” he whispered.
Ianto’s grip brought him back. “He’s got a pulse, Jack.” The words pulled him closer. “He’s alive.”
Jack stared with wonder as the boy drew in a shuddery breath. Blue eyes fluttered open and gazed back at Jack. Two more coughs and the boy was breathing almost normally.
Then, as if a door had slammed shut, there was no other world. Jack looked up at Ianto and smiled. Ianto smiled back. They both smiled at the boy.
Ianto said, “Call the paramedics.”
One of the women took out a cell phone and did so. She hurried out of the room. Other people began to come in, but Jack ignored them. He pulled the boy onto his lap.
The child looked at Jack and then whispered in a hoarse voice, “Captain Jack.”
“Hello,” Jack answered. He could feel the moisture in his eyes. “Bobby Ferguson, is that right?”
“Aye.” The boy looked around. “Is this part of the adventure, Captain?” Almost as an afterthought, he said, “My throat hurts.”
“We’re going to take care of that right away,” Ianto promised. Bobby’s eyes turned to him. “Did you go on the adventure, too?”
The boy’s accent was thick, but understandable. “No, not me,” Ianto said. “I wasn’t there. Tell me about it, Bobby.”
“We went into the light,” Bobby said. “Then we were in a hall. Someone said to lie down and we did.” He frowned. “That’s all. Then I woke up and I’m here. Where is here, Captain?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Jack said. “You’re safe. We’re still in the adventure, Bobby.”
Amy put a hand on Ianto’s shoulder so as not to distract Jack, who was drinking in the sight of his small burden. “I’ll see you soon,” she said. “I’ve got to go.”
Ianto looked up at her in surprise. “Go?”
She nodded at Jack. “He needs you now. Tell him we’ll see him soon. Oh, and your families are safe. We made sure of it.”
Ianto nodded and turned his attention back to Jack. He slid his arm around Jack’s waist as Amy backed away quietly. She heard rather than saw the doors of the TARDIS open and stepped inside quickly. The Doctor said, “We’ll wait until the room is empty before taking off again. No need to interrupt.”
Amy looked at him. “You killed it. I thought… you said you didn’t kill.”
The Doctor looked sad. “Remember the burning house? In order to save that boy I had to remove the atmosphere that was keeping the alien alive. Sometimes death is the only option. I never want it to be. I always hope it won’t be. But it happens.” In a complete change of mood, he said, “Listen to the TARDIS! She’s well again. We did it, Amy Pond! We did it!” He grabbed her by the waist and swung her around in a circle “Geronimo!”
Chapter 14
Author:
tonjavmooreCharacters/Pairings: Jack/Ianto, Gwen/Rhys, Eleven and Amy Pond, and a lot of people from the Whoniverse at large
Rating: PG
Word Count: Total: 32,741; Chapter 13: 2,064
Spoilers: This assumes that you are familiar the five days of Children of Earth. Otherwise, you’ll be a bit lost. This is a timey-wimey fixit that takes up action partway through Day 3.
Disclaimer: Torchwood, Dr. Who, and Sarah Jane Adventures all belong to the BBC and RTD. Sadly.
Betas: Thanks to midlist_writer and welsh_scotsman on Live Journal. Also, to my friend Alexandria Cameron who put up with my squeals and tantrums when it just wouldn’t get out through my fingers the way I wanted it to.
Dedication: This is for my good friend and the best roommate anyone could have ever the pleasure of having, Susan Garrett. She was taken from us by cancer and the world is not as bright as it was before she left.
Summary: When the Shadow Architects find a paradox that is destroying the Universe, can the Eleventh Doctor find a way to restore Jack’s timeline to what it should have been?
I have disabled comments on Live Journal. Please comment at my Dreamwidth account. I love comments. They are cookies for my soul. You don’t have to have an account to comment there.
Story starts here:
Chapter 1
Chapter 13
Amy watched the Doctor at the console. “There’s no way to stop the sound of the old girl, but we’ll come in with the full perception filter on, so they won’t be able to tell what’s causing the air displacement,” he said. Amy recognized it as his now-here’s-a-neat-trick voice. “Not even that close.”
She felt the vibration of the TARDIS moving and smiled to herself. The ship seemed to be getting better and better as time passed – they were still on the right track. The climax would be soon. She hoped it played out according to the Doctor’s plan. What the dénouement would be, she had no idea. As the Doctor had pointed out, they were changing the future they remembered and replacing it with something new.
The TARDIS came to rest with a gentle bump. “Go!” the Doctor ordered.
Amy shot out of the door, waving her paint gun wildly. She centered it on a table along one wall that had people both in and out of uniform behind it. They had jumped when she appeared from the corner and were gaping at her. She ignored the large smoke-filled tank on the other side – it wasn’t her concern. “Out! All of you! Out the door! Now! Don’t make me shoot you!” Amy was channeling her inner action heroine and loving it.
“Who are you?” one of the men demanded, even as the others were getting to their feet, eying Amy nervously. “Where did you come from?”
“Not important.” Amy closed her ears to the pounding and sloshing behind her. “Get out of here before I shoot!”
Some of them bolted from the room, while the others followed more slowly. “If you’re here to stop the exchange, it won’t do you any good,” a man in a uniform said. “The transfer has begun.”
“That won’t make me any less likely to remove your head with this. Get out!”
She followed the last one out the door and waited until she heard a lock from the inside. No one would disturb the Doctor from – whatever it was he was going to do. “I need someone to show me to the heliport,” she ordered. “Now!”
Two women were standing together. One of them, a young black woman, stepped forward. “Follow me,” she said quietly. As she brushed past Amy, she whispered, “I wish you’d shoot them all.”
Amy followed her, appreciating the sentiment. “What’s your name?” she asked.
“Lois Habiba. I’ve watched them planning. It’s horrific.”
“Pleased to meet you. Can we move a little faster, please?” Amy found it hard to suppress her excitement at the next part of the plan.
A lift ride and a short flight of stairs later, they were on the roof. Amy scanned the sky and saw the helicopter rapidly approaching. Even now she could hardly believe that the Doctor had gotten it right.
The Doctor looked down at his hands. They would cause death now. He had tried so hard to put the executioner in him to rest. He wasn’t supposed to decide who lived and who died. He tried so hard to drum that lesson into himself and yet here he was again, planning on taking a life with cool calculation. Without it though the Universe would implode in on itself. He couldn’t let that happen.
Taking in a very deep breath, he jabbed his finger down on the button.
Amy was so intent on the helicopter settling into place that she almost missed the movement in the sky behind it. It was suddenly filled with silver wedge-shaped ships. They were either very big or very close. From their undersides came beams of white light, clearly visible even in the daylight.
Her attention was diverted when Captain Jack Harkness hopped out, followed closely by Ianto Jones. They both looked up at the approaching ships and waved to the pilot to shut the machine down. They ran across the roof and pushed Amy and Lois back under the safety of the overhang from the door without a word.
One of the beams swept across the area, but it passed harmlessly on. They all ran to the side of the roof to look down. The beam was moving across street below. She heard horrified gasps from the two men as the traffic came to a halt, effectively trapping a yellow school bus. Drivers got out of the cars pointing to the sky. The bus driver, a soldier dressed in fatigues, jumped to the ground. He was followed by a stampede of frightened children. “No!” Jack shouted. “No, get them inside!”
When the beam reached the children, they froze. A moment later, they began to rapidly float upwards toward the ship overhead. The adults were unaffected, but the children were paralyzed. “It must be filtering out the ones that are too young or too old!” Ianto said with a voice just loud enough to be heard.
Several more children were trapped and being pulled off the ground by the beams. The soldier grabbed one around the waist and was pulled up with her until he tumbled back down to the ground. A man from a car grabbed a child who was still moving and shoved him under the stationary bus. Other people began doing the same, pushing any child they could reach under the stopped cars around them. As the beam came to them, nothing happened.
“The cars are protecting them!” Amy crowed. “Save as many as you can, people!” She knew they couldn’t hear her voice, but she felt better for having said it.
Jack turned to her. “Who are you and what are you doing with an Arithalian paintbrush?”
Oh, bugger, Amy thought. Back to the plan. “My name is Amy Pond,” she said, looking into those very blue eyes. “You don’t know me, but I’m a Companion.”
“The Doctor’s here? Where?”
It was the bark of a man used to being in charge. Amy almost bristled, and then remembered what he’d been through in the past couple of days. She cut him some slack – this time. “I’m not exactly sure where he is at the moment,” she lied. “But, we need to get you down to the room with the tank. Follow me. Hurry!”
Rhys had counted ten buses already, with five more waiting to pull in. As he directed them, he scanned the horizon as he did so, not even sure what he was looking for. He knew what as soon as he saw them. Silver ships swept toward them, coming faster than he could believe. He pulled one large door shut behind the last bus when he saw one more coming. There were beams coming down from the ships, now, sweeping the earth as they came – looking for children. Rhys ran toward the last bus, waving frantically to get it into position to pull in. The driver stopped just before the hangar.
There was no time to lose. Rhys pulled the bus door open and elbowed the shaking driver out of his seat. He backed the bus up to get it clear of the doors and then gunned it forward. He threaded the vehicle into the hangar with only inches to spare between two other buses. The now bus-less drivers pushed the heavy doors completely closed just as the first beam crossed the curb between the dirt field and the concrete pavement of the motor yard.
Rhys glanced down at the other driver. “Learn to drive a lorry, mate,” he said. “Then you can do that.” He popped the emergency exit above the driver’s seat and climbed out to survey the chaos. Well, at least these kids were safe.
Jack pounded down the stairs behind Amy Pond, with Ianto close on his heels. They didn’t have time to wait for a lift. “It’s this way,” Pond said, waving an electronic access card she’d gotten from a woman Jack thought he recognized as Lois from Gwen’s description. “Corridor, here. Door, here.” Amy tried the door, and it opened.
Suddenly, the sensation of being in two places hit him again – this time stronger than ever. He was in the open space of Aston Downs as well as Thames House. He clutched at Ianto’s hand, desperately trying to anchor himself in the here and now. His vision cleared and he could see the tank before him had been shattered.
The air in the room was clean, so someone or something had vented the noxious soup of the alien atmosphere. The alien’s bloated body lay on the floor unmoving – there was no sign of the child that had dangled beneath it in that nightmare vision. Into the stillness a sound came. A cough. A quiet child’s cough.
They ran forward. With Ianto’s help Jack shifted the alien’s body off the child underneath. The tendrils that still connected the boy to the alien were covered with tiny cilia, limp now that the creature was dead; Ianto started to peel them away from the child’s body as Jack lifted the boy’s head and shoulders. He was blonde, his hair slightly damp and clinging. Jack put a shaky hand to the boy’s throat to see if he had a pulse.
Again the feeling of the double places hit him. He was looking at a child – his grandson – with blonde hair lank, blue eyes open and flat with the dullness of death. Blood trickled from his eyes, nose, mouth and ears. He was dead and Jack had killed him. “No! God, no!” he whispered.
Ianto’s grip brought him back. “He’s got a pulse, Jack.” The words pulled him closer. “He’s alive.”
Jack stared with wonder as the boy drew in a shuddery breath. Blue eyes fluttered open and gazed back at Jack. Two more coughs and the boy was breathing almost normally.
Then, as if a door had slammed shut, there was no other world. Jack looked up at Ianto and smiled. Ianto smiled back. They both smiled at the boy.
Ianto said, “Call the paramedics.”
One of the women took out a cell phone and did so. She hurried out of the room. Other people began to come in, but Jack ignored them. He pulled the boy onto his lap.
The child looked at Jack and then whispered in a hoarse voice, “Captain Jack.”
“Hello,” Jack answered. He could feel the moisture in his eyes. “Bobby Ferguson, is that right?”
“Aye.” The boy looked around. “Is this part of the adventure, Captain?” Almost as an afterthought, he said, “My throat hurts.”
“We’re going to take care of that right away,” Ianto promised. Bobby’s eyes turned to him. “Did you go on the adventure, too?”
The boy’s accent was thick, but understandable. “No, not me,” Ianto said. “I wasn’t there. Tell me about it, Bobby.”
“We went into the light,” Bobby said. “Then we were in a hall. Someone said to lie down and we did.” He frowned. “That’s all. Then I woke up and I’m here. Where is here, Captain?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Jack said. “You’re safe. We’re still in the adventure, Bobby.”
Amy put a hand on Ianto’s shoulder so as not to distract Jack, who was drinking in the sight of his small burden. “I’ll see you soon,” she said. “I’ve got to go.”
Ianto looked up at her in surprise. “Go?”
She nodded at Jack. “He needs you now. Tell him we’ll see him soon. Oh, and your families are safe. We made sure of it.”
Ianto nodded and turned his attention back to Jack. He slid his arm around Jack’s waist as Amy backed away quietly. She heard rather than saw the doors of the TARDIS open and stepped inside quickly. The Doctor said, “We’ll wait until the room is empty before taking off again. No need to interrupt.”
Amy looked at him. “You killed it. I thought… you said you didn’t kill.”
The Doctor looked sad. “Remember the burning house? In order to save that boy I had to remove the atmosphere that was keeping the alien alive. Sometimes death is the only option. I never want it to be. I always hope it won’t be. But it happens.” In a complete change of mood, he said, “Listen to the TARDIS! She’s well again. We did it, Amy Pond! We did it!” He grabbed her by the waist and swung her around in a circle “Geronimo!”
Chapter 14