earlgreytea68 | How Fortuna Saved the Universe (17/24)

Title - How Fortuna Saved the Universe (17/24)
Author - earlgreytea68
Rating - General
Characters - Nine, Ten, Eleven, Jack, OCs
Spoilers - Through "A Christmas Carol," just to be safe.
Disclaimer - I don't own them and I don't make money off of them, but I don't like to dwell on that, so let's move on. (Except for the kids, they're all mine.)
Summary - Fortuna gets her story. And it's pretty timey-wimey.
Author's Notes - Huge thanks to Kristin, chicklet73 chicklet73 , and lorelaisquared , who all talked through plot points and gave early drafts once-overs. And, last but not least, everlasting thanks to chicklet73 chicklet73   for beta-ing, with flair.

The icon was created by swankkat , commissioned by jlrpuck   for my birthday.

Prologue - Ch. 1 - Ch. 2 - Ch. 3 - Ch. 4 - Ch. 5 - Ch. 6 - Ch. 7 - Ch. 8 - Ch. 9 - Ch. 10 - Ch. 11 - Ch. 12 - Ch. 13 - Ch. 14 - Ch. 15

Chapter Sixteen

His TARDIS was on its side. That much was clear from Brem’s position against the wall. The other thing that was clear, though, was his father, in his head, as safe and solid a presence as he always had been. Brem, at an uncomfortable angle squashed against the wall, closed his eyes briefly in relief. When he opened them again, he was just about to tackle the effort of climbing up to where the door of his TARDIS was when a voice over to his left said, “Blimey, are you a terrible driver.”

Brem turned his head and stared at Leather Jacket. “You’re still here!”

“Where’d you think I was going to go?”

“You were supposed to vanish.”

Leather Jacket glared at him, rubbing the back of his head. “Sorry I didn’t oblige you that way.”

Brem shook his head a bit. “Doesn’t matter. Dad’ll know what to do,” he decided, confidently, and then he started clambering his way up the tipped, tilted floor over to his door.

“Do you always land sideways?” Leather Jacket complained.

“No, not always,” Brem responded, sourly. Now that he was close to having his regular father back, he was feeling less inclined to be nice to Leather Jacket. “Sometimes I land upside-down entirely.” Brem tried his door, tentatively. At the angle he was at, it was difficult to get enough purchase to pull it open, since it had appeared to get a bit bent upon impact.

“Do you really?” Leather Jacket asked behind him, appalled.

“Of course not,” Brem replied. “Anyway, you taught me how to drive, so I wouldn’t be too smug, if I were you.” Brem tugged hard at the door, and it flew open, and he managed not to lose his grip on the railing.

His father’s head immediately appeared in the doorway. Brem tried to think if he’d ever been so relieved to see him. “Brem,” he said. “You’re sideways.”

“Yes, I know, it’s a bit self-evident from my position. Help, please?” He was struggling to clamber out of the sideways doorway.

His father pulled at him, and he managed to go over the side of the doorway and land in a heap, but he was barely even noticing landing in awkward positions anymore.

“Are you alright?” his father asked, pulling him up.

Brem didn’t answer. He hugged him fiercely instead, closing his eyes and concentrating on burrowing into the warmth of his father’s presence in his mind.

“Oh,” his father said in surprise, and then let him, hugging him back inside and outside. “You’re okay now,” he told him, and brushed a kiss over his head. “We’ll fix it.”

Brem nodded into his shoulder, feeling suddenly ashamed that he was acting like a four-year-old. He straightened, stepping back. “Where’s everyone else?” he asked, because the rest of his head was still silent and empty.

“How’d you get here?” his father asked him, simultaneously.

Leather Jacket abruptly landed in an unceremonious heap at their feet.

“Don’t worry about me,” he drawled up at them. “I’m fine.”

His father blinked down at him, and then looked at Brem.

Brem rubbed the back of his neck. “He kind of tagged along.”

“Tagged along?” Leather Jacket struggled his way to his feet. “You kidnapped me.”

Brem wasn’t paying attention to him. Brem had noticed the other people in the control room, who were all staring at him, speechless.

“Who are they?” he asked his father, and then, for the first time, he realized exactly what the control room looked like. “And what the hell happened in here?” he demanded.

“I re-decorated,” said the strange man in a bowtie, defensively. “And I happen to like it, young man, I’ll have you know.”

Brem stared at him. Then he said, slowly, “Dad, what…?”

“Yeah, I think we’ve got a lot to catch up on,” his father agreed.

***

Matt had reached a decision.

His baby was dying. He didn’t know why—he couldn’t understand it—but it was happening. None of the normal human reasons seemed to make any sense. All he knew was that his frantic child had worn himself out inside of Athena, was somehow bleeding Athena dry of nutrients, and yet was fading in front of him. And he was taking Athena with him. Whatever was wrong seemed to be very wrong, and he couldn’t allow it to kill both of them.

And help wasn’t coming.

Matt called everyone he could think of, twice more. Nothing. No one responded. He walked out to the control room and spoke to the TARDIS. The TARDIS liked him, Athena had told him, more than once. And he knew the TARDIS adored Athena.

“Where is everyone else?” Matt asked the TARDIS. “Can you get me to anyone else?”

The TARDIS hummed at him, a hum Matt had no trouble interpreting. It was apologetic, and sad, and scared. The TARDIS was as scared as he was. He stood there for a second, feeling very alone. He wished he could go get Jackie. This is going to sound crazy, but I’m eventually going to marry your daughter’s daughter, and do you mind sitting with me while I deliver your great-grandson, I don’t really want to be alone.

The TARDIS hummed again, more comfortingly, and Matt nodded at her in acknowledgment and drew a hand down the wall. He wasn’t alone, not entirely.

Matt turned back, walked back to the infirmary. He looked at the readings on every machine. And then he left again. He knew he had every state-of-the-art piece of the equipment back in that infirmary, but, if he was going to have to perform surgery, he needed to do it with the regular instruments he’d been trained on.

He retrieved the human surgical instruments and brought them into the infirmary. He sterilized them and scrubbed himself. Then he stood by Athena and watched the monitor of the baby’s heartsbeats, until it hit the danger zone and a high-pitched whine sounded through the infirmary.

Then Matt took a deep breath, and began.

***

Nobody at Torchwood really paid them much attention as they landed there, and Fortuna wondered if Jack had warned them.

“Two TARDISes in one week,” Jack proclaimed, jovially, walking over to them with arms outstretched. “Lucky us.”

“Hi, Jack,” said Fortuna, and accepted his hug.

“Hello, beautiful,” he replied, and kissed the top of her head. “Going to solve this mess with me?”

“Of course.” She stepped back and indicated Sylvain. “This is Sylvain. Sylvain, this is Jack.”

“Sylvain San Broglio,” Jack said, shaking his hand.

Both Sylvain and Fortuna blinked.

“Sorry,” Sylvain said, “do I…?”

“We never met. I only know you from reputation. We used to work for the same people.”

“The Time Agency?” Sylvain clarified.

“Yes,” Jack confirmed, and then grinned. “And now, I hear, we’re both rogue.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because they are out looking for you in force. But don’t worry, you’re safe here.” Jack was walking away. “Ioan—” he called out.

“Tea,” a man called back to him. “Yes. I know.”

“You’re a doll,” Jack replied, and winked. “Come here,” he said to Fortuna and Sylvain, and then as they walked, to Sylvain, “That coat? Really? A bit showy, isn’t it? And it’s not going to be marketed for another thousand years, what made you think you could blend in with it?” Before Sylvain could defend himself, they entered a room with a large and complicated-looking computer. “I want you to see these readings.”

Sylvain regarded it with interest. “You’re sitting on a rift,” he realized.

“You’re smart,” Jack said. “I like you. Keep this one, Fort. Normally Fortuna dates some…” Jack waved his hand back and forth, as if to indicate her choices in men were questionable.

“Ignore him,” Fortuna rejoined, good-naturedly, and stepped forward to the computer, peering more closely. “This is a mess,” she said.

“How did it get so tangled?” Sylvain asked. “It’s like one big knot.”

“It looks to me like a chrono-trap,” Jack answered. “Gets time all in a jumble like that, until you don’t know which way is up. Or which timeline is real.”

“It was a chrono-trap,” Fortuna confirmed, not taking her eyes off of the screen. “That’s what the Master said.”

“Who?”

“The Master, he’s behind this.”

“Who’s that?”

“My father’s, you know, nemesis. He never mentioned him?”

“Your father doesn’t mention important things,” Jack pointed out.

“True.” She straightened away from the computer. “So that’s where everyone else is, trapped on different timelines?”

“Yeah. I think so, anyway. If you can’t feel them…”

“This is the real timeline,” Fortuna announced.

Jack shook his head. “You can’t know that for sure.”

“I know it. I’m the key, I’m the one who imploded the chrono-trap.”

“You imploded it?”

“I thought it was a black hole.”

“Oh,” Jack said, dead-pan. “That’s better, then.”

“If this is the real timeline, how do I get my family back?”

“I have no idea,” Jack admitted. “I’ve never dealt with a chrono-trap before. I’ve never seen one, just read about them in basic training.”

“You need to pull the dangling thread,” Sylvain said, and pointed to one of the readings on the monitor. “That thread, there.”

“But what does that thread correspond to?” Fortuna asked, looking at the reading. “How will we ever figure it out?”

“I’ve no idea. But that’s your key, the moment in time protected by that reading.”

“He’ll have it blocked, of course, this Master guy,” Jack commented. “I mean, if he’s any good, he’ll try to keep you from getting anywhere near that trigger point.”

“Is it Versailles, do you think?” Fortuna asked Sylvain, looking at him. “The moment when I interrupted my father?”

Sylvain shook his head. “I don’t think so. A chrono-trap can’t be undone by undoing something that happened after the chrono-trap weakened the timelines and made them susceptible to this mess. There’s a prior moment in time, from before the chrono-trap, that would have to be undone.”

Fortuna looked at Sylvain for a long moment.

He sensed her finally, looking away from the monitor to meet her gaze, his quizzical in response. “What?”

“Nothing,” she managed, and looked away from him, to Jack. “I need to get to my family.”

“They’re on all different timelines at the moment, according to you, and I have no idea how we’d find any of them.”

“I wouldn’t recommend getting to them anyway,” Sylvain interjected.

“What? Why?”

“Because if we’re on the real timeline—and I think you’re right that we are—you don’t want to risk crossing the real timeline onto a fake one. It could make the fake timeline the real one, and vice versa. We need to come up with a way to get your family here.”

“Well, that’s a good thing, then,” Fortuna remarked.

“Why do you say that?”

“Because my family will get here. If there’s a way to be found, they’ll find it.”

Sylvain stuck his hands in his pockets. “Does that mean we’re just going to wait?”

Fortuna smiled at him fondly and looked at Jack. “He’s terrible at waiting.”

“Time Agents usually just jump forward in time, rather than wait,” Jack explained.

“Exactly.”

“Have you ever seen Cardiff, Sylvain?” Fortuna asked him.

“Why would I ever see Cardiff?” Sylvain responded, blankly.

Fortuna smiled at him again and took his hand. “Let’s go.”

Next Chapter

How Fortuna Saved the Universe (17/24)

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