When Everything Changed - Chapter 14/20
Oct. 6th, 2010 09:59 pm![[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 14: 1,126
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.
A/N: I like my stories to end after the clearing up of the loose ends.
Story starts here:
Chapter 1
Chapter 14
Ianto waited near the Buckingham Palace helipad. It wasn’t a place he’d ever thought he would be standing. His inner historian had registered a mild objection in favor of preserving the traditional which his pragmatic voice had overruled. The pad was safer and more convenient.
Jack had managed somehow to convince General Oduya to let him contact the Queen directly from Thames House. While Ianto had stayed with Bobby as the paramedics checked him over, Jack had spoken to Her Majesty about getting the young boy to safety. They’d immediately been cleared to take him to the Palace clinic instead of a hospital. Their surmise had been correct. The Royal Family in Balmoral Castle had received false briefings that went along with what they were seeing from the news outlets. They’d had no idea of the true state of affairs. Orders had gone out to arrest the Prime Minister and his advisors, pending investigations.
Even with Bobby and Queen Elizabeth to concern himself with, Ianto was surprised that Jack had not mentioned the Doctor. In the past even a mention of the Time Lord would send Jack into overdrive, but this time – it was as though he’d forgotten their brief encounter with a Companion. Rather than asking questions, Jack had busied himself with other concerns. As far as Ianto was concerned, that was all to the good.
He was still dressed in the coverall from their prison, but one of the equerries had promised to obtain some clothes for them all. It couldn’t happen soon enough. Ianto was drained, Jack was exhausted, and he was sure all the members of the team were in the same shape. The doctors were examining Bobby now to see if his forty plus years in captivity had caused any permanent effects. Jack hadn’t wanted to leave the boy alone and scared. The 21st century was a big change from the world of 1965, especially for a child raised in an isolated Scottish orphanage.
The large helicopter had hardly touched down when Gwen, Martha, Rhys and Mickey came charging out. Gwen flung herself at him with Martha a close second. He hugged them both fiercely, so relieved to see them again, apparently unharmed. Rhys and Mickey joined in and when they finally broke apart, Ianto didn’t feel nearly as tired as he had before.
Of course, Gwen had the first question. “Where’s Jack?”
Ianto waited to answer until he saw that Clem was being brought out on a stretcher and placed on a gurney under the watchful eye of a doctor and nurse. Ten more people were being brought out in handcuffs. Ianto couldn’t help but hope that they would put the Johnson woman in a particularly unpleasant place. He knew it was petty, and she had helped them in the end, but he doubted he could ever forgive what she had done to Jack.
Shaking off these thoughts, he addressed the others. “Let’s get inside and I’ll explain.” He indicated the electric carts nearby. “We’re guests of Her Royal Majesty now. Honored guests, not the type they put in the Tower to await execution.”
“Oh, yeah?” Mickey said in his sharp London accent. “Do we get a bloody shower?”
“I certainly hope so,” Martha said, giving him a little push. “You’re pretty rank.”
They really were going to make it, then, if they could still make jokes. On the short ride back to the Palace, Ianto permitted himself a sigh of relief. If they could just hold it together for a short while longer, they could all rest in safety and relative comfort.
Soldiers of the Royal Guard stood at the entryway and were scattered in the corridor. At Gwen’s raised eyebrow, Ianto said, “Guards, not jailers. We seem to be a lot more valuable now than we were before.”
“Glad someone realized that,” Rhys growled.
They followed the corridor until Ianto motioned them inside a conference room. “They’ve given this to us to use while we’re here.” They took seats and looked at Ianto expectantly. “Jack is busy right now, and I’ll explain in a minute why. First, if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like you to tell me what happened to you. Martha, would you start?”
They went around the room, summarizing. “How many did you save?” Ianto asked. “Best guess?”
Rhys shrugged. “Sixteen bus loads. They were pretty much crammed full. Call it around a thousand. We didn’t have time to take a good count. By the time those ships had disappeared we had a horde of parents to deal with.” He looked sad and Gwen patted his hand. He continued sadly. “We had to tell some of them that we didn’t have theirs. It was rough.”
“Yeah, rough’s a good word for it,” Mickey said. “We didn’t get all the buses redirected. We don’t know what happened to them.”
“We’ll find out,” Ianto said. “According to the information Sarah Jane Smith’s computer has managed to come up with from news and networking sites, we’re estimating somewhere between five and six million children were stolen. There’s still a lot of chaos, so there are a lot of unknowns. That’s a small fraction of the eight hundred million plus they demanded, but still too many.” He mustered up a smile for Gwen. “There’s no telling how many you saved. Sarah Jane’s computer took your message and translated it into different languages and rebroadcast it worldwide.”
“Your turn,” Gwen said firmly. “Where’s Jack?”
Ianto took a deep breath and told them about Bobby. “He’s a bright, cheerful little boy,” he concluded. “Living proof that this isn’t the end.”
Martha went into doctor mode. “I want to see those test results. When do we get to meet him?”
“Probably tomorrow. He’s sure to be tired after all this, and they want him to remain under observation for a couple of days. He’s a bit of a miracle and you know how doctors are skeptical of miracles.”
Martha nodded solemnly. “We just don’t like them at all.” She grinned. “Well, maybe we do sometimes.”
“Jack’s theory is that the 456 keep them in some sort of stasis, just allowing their bodies enough to keep producing the drugs that they crave.” Ianto knew he sounded a bit melodramatic, but he was too tired to care. “Otherwise, they’d die from the atmosphere alone.” He leaned forward. “You all know what this means, don’t you?’
Ianto could almost hear the thoughts buzzing around the room. He waited and one by one they got it. “I think we all understand,” Gwen said, after a minute.
“Then you know what we have to do next.” Heads snapped around to the doorway where Jack now stood. He smiled wearily as he crossed to the table. “We’re finally ready.”
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 14: 1,126
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.
A/N: I like my stories to end after the clearing up of the loose ends.
Story starts here:
Chapter 1
Chapter 14
Ianto waited near the Buckingham Palace helipad. It wasn’t a place he’d ever thought he would be standing. His inner historian had registered a mild objection in favor of preserving the traditional which his pragmatic voice had overruled. The pad was safer and more convenient.
Jack had managed somehow to convince General Oduya to let him contact the Queen directly from Thames House. While Ianto had stayed with Bobby as the paramedics checked him over, Jack had spoken to Her Majesty about getting the young boy to safety. They’d immediately been cleared to take him to the Palace clinic instead of a hospital. Their surmise had been correct. The Royal Family in Balmoral Castle had received false briefings that went along with what they were seeing from the news outlets. They’d had no idea of the true state of affairs. Orders had gone out to arrest the Prime Minister and his advisors, pending investigations.
Even with Bobby and Queen Elizabeth to concern himself with, Ianto was surprised that Jack had not mentioned the Doctor. In the past even a mention of the Time Lord would send Jack into overdrive, but this time – it was as though he’d forgotten their brief encounter with a Companion. Rather than asking questions, Jack had busied himself with other concerns. As far as Ianto was concerned, that was all to the good.
He was still dressed in the coverall from their prison, but one of the equerries had promised to obtain some clothes for them all. It couldn’t happen soon enough. Ianto was drained, Jack was exhausted, and he was sure all the members of the team were in the same shape. The doctors were examining Bobby now to see if his forty plus years in captivity had caused any permanent effects. Jack hadn’t wanted to leave the boy alone and scared. The 21st century was a big change from the world of 1965, especially for a child raised in an isolated Scottish orphanage.
The large helicopter had hardly touched down when Gwen, Martha, Rhys and Mickey came charging out. Gwen flung herself at him with Martha a close second. He hugged them both fiercely, so relieved to see them again, apparently unharmed. Rhys and Mickey joined in and when they finally broke apart, Ianto didn’t feel nearly as tired as he had before.
Of course, Gwen had the first question. “Where’s Jack?”
Ianto waited to answer until he saw that Clem was being brought out on a stretcher and placed on a gurney under the watchful eye of a doctor and nurse. Ten more people were being brought out in handcuffs. Ianto couldn’t help but hope that they would put the Johnson woman in a particularly unpleasant place. He knew it was petty, and she had helped them in the end, but he doubted he could ever forgive what she had done to Jack.
Shaking off these thoughts, he addressed the others. “Let’s get inside and I’ll explain.” He indicated the electric carts nearby. “We’re guests of Her Royal Majesty now. Honored guests, not the type they put in the Tower to await execution.”
“Oh, yeah?” Mickey said in his sharp London accent. “Do we get a bloody shower?”
“I certainly hope so,” Martha said, giving him a little push. “You’re pretty rank.”
They really were going to make it, then, if they could still make jokes. On the short ride back to the Palace, Ianto permitted himself a sigh of relief. If they could just hold it together for a short while longer, they could all rest in safety and relative comfort.
Soldiers of the Royal Guard stood at the entryway and were scattered in the corridor. At Gwen’s raised eyebrow, Ianto said, “Guards, not jailers. We seem to be a lot more valuable now than we were before.”
“Glad someone realized that,” Rhys growled.
They followed the corridor until Ianto motioned them inside a conference room. “They’ve given this to us to use while we’re here.” They took seats and looked at Ianto expectantly. “Jack is busy right now, and I’ll explain in a minute why. First, if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like you to tell me what happened to you. Martha, would you start?”
They went around the room, summarizing. “How many did you save?” Ianto asked. “Best guess?”
Rhys shrugged. “Sixteen bus loads. They were pretty much crammed full. Call it around a thousand. We didn’t have time to take a good count. By the time those ships had disappeared we had a horde of parents to deal with.” He looked sad and Gwen patted his hand. He continued sadly. “We had to tell some of them that we didn’t have theirs. It was rough.”
“Yeah, rough’s a good word for it,” Mickey said. “We didn’t get all the buses redirected. We don’t know what happened to them.”
“We’ll find out,” Ianto said. “According to the information Sarah Jane Smith’s computer has managed to come up with from news and networking sites, we’re estimating somewhere between five and six million children were stolen. There’s still a lot of chaos, so there are a lot of unknowns. That’s a small fraction of the eight hundred million plus they demanded, but still too many.” He mustered up a smile for Gwen. “There’s no telling how many you saved. Sarah Jane’s computer took your message and translated it into different languages and rebroadcast it worldwide.”
“Your turn,” Gwen said firmly. “Where’s Jack?”
Ianto took a deep breath and told them about Bobby. “He’s a bright, cheerful little boy,” he concluded. “Living proof that this isn’t the end.”
Martha went into doctor mode. “I want to see those test results. When do we get to meet him?”
“Probably tomorrow. He’s sure to be tired after all this, and they want him to remain under observation for a couple of days. He’s a bit of a miracle and you know how doctors are skeptical of miracles.”
Martha nodded solemnly. “We just don’t like them at all.” She grinned. “Well, maybe we do sometimes.”
“Jack’s theory is that the 456 keep them in some sort of stasis, just allowing their bodies enough to keep producing the drugs that they crave.” Ianto knew he sounded a bit melodramatic, but he was too tired to care. “Otherwise, they’d die from the atmosphere alone.” He leaned forward. “You all know what this means, don’t you?’
Ianto could almost hear the thoughts buzzing around the room. He waited and one by one they got it. “I think we all understand,” Gwen said, after a minute.
“Then you know what we have to do next.” Heads snapped around to the doorway where Jack now stood. He smiled wearily as he crossed to the table. “We’re finally ready.”
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2010-10-07 07:57 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-10-08 04:18 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-10-07 10:55 am (UTC)Love that Torchwood and friends now guests at the Palace =)
Also very glad that the queen didn't know what was going on. The conspirators are in BIG trouble now!
(no subject)
Date: 2010-10-08 04:22 pm (UTC)Thanks for reading!
(no subject)
Date: 2010-10-08 05:05 pm (UTC)(One thing that really nagged at me was the whole idea that the government was trying to keep everything calm, yet they stuck a bomb in Jack and let him go off and blow a big hole in Cardiff. Way to keep the public from panicking!)
(no subject)
Date: 2010-10-08 06:55 pm (UTC)Actually, the thing that made me go "Huh?" on the first day was why did the aliens want to advertise their presence in the first place? I mean, really? Why not just swoop in and start grabbing children? It's not like they would all be under cover. Why drag it out for five days and negotiate with a government of such a small population? (Don't mean to offend any British sensitivity, but the UK is not the most populous nation.)
As to the specious argument - "But then there wouldn't have been any story" - I say, there wasn't a story there to begin with. But that's a whole 'nother rant.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-10-08 07:22 pm (UTC)And how about this - if the government wanted Torchwood out of the way, why not contact them, ask them to come to London to consult on the alien threat, then arrest them. Quick, quiet and easy compared to sending out a hit squad (who apparently couldn't hit anything anyway - so much for crack marksmen!)
(no subject)
Date: 2010-10-07 11:34 am (UTC)Great chapter. Glad to see the team as guests instead of prisoners, and I'm like Ianto...I hope Johnson gets punished for what she did to Jack. Sure, she changed sides but that doesn't mitigate blowing Jack up, in my opinion.
All those kids...I do hope they get saved at some point.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-10-08 04:31 pm (UTC)I do not like Johnson in any way, shape, form, or fashion. I don't think Ianto would tolerate her for a minute, so I'm locking her up and throwing away the key. (Unless, of course, I'm struck with an idea that I need her for.)
There's a lot more to clean up.
iUrLjRJHvpYrzRBkWur
Date: 2013-04-08 08:07 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-10-07 03:03 pm (UTC)Really great update but please update soon I can't wait to see what happens next :)
(no subject)
Date: 2010-10-08 04:37 pm (UTC)I'll try to update tonight (Friday).
Thanks for reading!
(no subject)
Date: 2010-10-08 01:55 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-10-08 04:41 pm (UTC)Jack has plenty of plans. He just has to put them into action. Not going to be as easy as it looks, but when is it, really?
Thanks for reading and commenting.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-10-08 03:01 am (UTC)And I can't imagine that the Royal Family knew ... when I think of the number of children in that family ... just no way.
I love Ianto's thoughts on Johnson ...
(no subject)
Date: 2010-10-08 04:44 pm (UTC)When I originally watched the series, one of the things that kept popping me out of the proscenium was waiting for the Queen to say or do something. I mean, I know she doesn't have a lot of political power, but come on! These are her people.
Can't stand Johnson. Don't want to see her or hear about her. Putting her in jail. Period.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-10-08 01:50 pm (UTC)I can't wait for the next chapter!!
(no subject)
Date: 2010-10-08 04:48 pm (UTC)Jack and the team are juggling a lot of balls (figuratively, of course) in the air. There's more to come. Next chapter up tonight, hopefully.
NJxiILZCUVpjaxZT
Date: 2013-04-09 01:08 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-10-26 01:37 pm (UTC)great fic
(no subject)
Date: 2010-10-27 04:28 pm (UTC)