How Fortuna Saved the Universe (17/24)

[earlgreytea68]

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

 

Comments

[trialanderror12.livejournal.com]

I love your brilliantly thought-out plots, too, because I can almost never predict what's going to happen next! A lot of times you read something and you know what's coming, or if something surprises you it's because it was completely out of left field and so it doesn't feel like something's been plotted around you, it just feels like it popped out of nowhere. That's one of the things I love about Doctor Who--you can just see, as you near the end of a season, all the little hints and breadcrumbs they dropped along the way that just make sense now that you know what it was all leading up to. And then you feel like going back and rewatching all the episodes to find all the little things that make sense and that you can't believe you didn't catch in the first place but were really never going to. And that's how I feel when reading your chaptered fics in this 'verse--like I'm being taken along on a crazy, amazing roller-coaster ride, and I can sit here and guess all I like but in the end it's going to be something so much better and more well-plotted than I could imagine, and so I ought to just sit back and enjoy the ride. (Doesn't actually stop me from guessing, though--in those first moments when she saw Sylvain in the prologue, before the other her said is name, I was so sure he was regenerated!future!Brem. It was the line about the great hair--I thought, all of the Doctor's children will have to have great hair, in any regeneration. They were made from Ten, after all. *grin* But yeah, obviously that's not what happened, and it was loads better. As always. :) )

As I was reading the college story I kept thinking...as much as Brem doesn't like to be told he's like his father, I can so picture this as being exactly how the Doctor would have acted if he'd been raised with love and been given freedom and fallen in love this way. I was almost hearing Tennant's voice in my head for some of his lines, he was acting so much like his father! But of course there were also moments where his own personality, so like the Doctor's but at the same time so different, shone through. Like when he first told Kate he loved her--he hesitated, it took him a moment, but he said it relatively quickly after she did. And I thought, way to go, Brem. That, at least, you can know is very you--your dad would have taken an awful lot longer to admit it. At that point I think I'd fallen a bit into expecting Brem to be more like the Doctor, just like everyone around him--I was honestly surprised that he told her, then. And that just made me look back and think of all the ways he does differ from his father, and to be more cognizant of the ways he was in the future.

As I've said, so many separate and individual instances and lines in these stories that slayed me--in happy ways, in thoughtful ways, in oh-god-my-heart ways... So many different things. But right now, just having finished reading them all, the ones that stick out the very most in my memory are these:

Jack, every single time he appeared/was mentioned when they were kids. Every. single. time. God, but especially right before they met him, I think--that was so utterly beyond brilliant. The handsomest man in the universe, the Doctor not standing a chance in a fight against him, Brem's "Mum, he's wearing clothes".... Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. I love Jack, of course, but the way you write him and the way you have the children and the Doctor interact with him is just...gah. Wonderful. Made me burst out in giggles with every line. : )

[Third and hopefully final part of comment coming soon. Silly LJ making me paste this in pieces..haha]

[trialanderror12.livejournal.com]

You absolutely broke me when Rose was trying to sleep right after they'd gotten her back and Brem was trying to get in the door and that whole scene was just so sad but then when the Doctor looks at her, all broken to pieces, and says "you can't lock this door on us anymore"..... Dead, I tell you, dead. You broke me. The Doctor's breakdown when he first lost her, and Brem having to be strong, was bad enough, but I was pretty confident she'd be back, so that was bearable. But this...she's back, she's all right, but everything was so very much not okay. I wanted to just hug the Doctor and tell him everything was going to be all right. All of them, really, but especially him. Because so much of his life has been not all right. And it shouldn't be that way. *sad sigh*

Leading off the tail end of that, because another moment that got me was when you fixed that--I don't remember which story this was either, but Rose and the Doctor were looking at something, and Rose asked him how many times they'd been wherever they were, and he said he didn't know, he didn't remember. And Rose said she thought he kept count, and he said he used to. And I was so happy, Rose was so happy--that was wonderful, that finally he's happy enough and used enough to being happy that he can start to take some things for granted. That was just wonderful.

And oh, this just occurred to me, but does it make me a terrible person that I thought Brem was going to use the Moment, too? As soon as he actually did it I knew it had to be some kind of trick--he hadn't even tried to negotiate or get them out, it would have been just stupid to use it right then. But when he was waving it around, when he gave his little speech, when he said he was his father's son--I thought he'd try and exhaust every other possibility first, but that if it came down to it, yeah, he'd use it. Then he pushed the button and I knew it was a trick, but... Yeah, definitely thought he was going to use it. As bad as the Doctor, me. Haha.

Oh, there are so many more things you've done that I'd love to ramble on about, but I'd be here for ages trying to remember them all. Every time you write something that pulls something from a previous story and ties it in simply and neatly...I have to pause a moment, because it's just such incredible storytelling. Thank you so much for writing these stories and making me fall in love with your characters. It has been a truly wonderful experience and I look forward to more.

I actually yelled "What? No!" at my computer when I finished this chapter and tried to find the link to the next one and came up empty. I was so into the story, and I wanted to see what happened next, and then it was over! Gah. I cannot wait for a proper Brem/Nine/Ten/Eleven conversation. That's going to be excellent, I know! And just for the record--if you kill Sylvain I'm going to be very, very angry. I like Sylvain. Also Jack should randomly-meet-for-the-first-time and get to fall in love with one of the assorted great-great-grandkids someday... He's going to live forever and he's pretty much doing it alone, because as we've seen Torchwood is full of different people every time they come by. He should have someone always by his side. *pets Jack*

Anyway, I think I'm done fawning over the fic for now, haha. At some point I ought to go back and reread and leave comments on the other stories, because there is so much more than this that cut straight to my heart. I absolutely cannot wait for more of this story. There's more once Fortuna's story is over, yes? (More planned out in your head, I mean.) It would make me very sad to think that their story is over. *pets them*

Once again--thank you!! And happy writing. : )

~T

[earlgreytea68.livejournal.com]

That "While She Is Sleeping" is a tough and devastating story. How broken the whole family turns out to be after "Chaos Theory" actually took me by surprise. I didn't expect it to be as much of a theme in the Chaosverse as it's turned out to be. But they do get that happy moment, as you point out, in "Whispers in Her Ear," when the reader gets to see that the Doctor truly has relaxed, has learned how to take things for granted--a luxury he's never indulged in before.

Oh, I *love* that you thought Brem was going to use the Moment! That delights me! Because the great thing about that scene is that you can totally see where the Doctor's coming from: Brem is his father's son, and his father would have done it, it's totally, utterly, completely true. The key to Brem's relationship with his father is that the Doctor has never really figured out how much Brem *adores* him. They are so alike that they challenge each other, and I think the Doctor thinks Brem blames him for every mistake he's ever made, and I think the Doctor would be utterly bewildered to ever really figure out that, to Brem, he is DAD, he is the most amazing person and beloved person in his universe.

It's funny how all the stories have become interlocking. Sometimes, I can tell which ones I wrote close to each other, because they reference each other more effortlessly. ;-)

Thank *you* so much for reading and leaving me these lovely comments. I hope you enjoy the rest of the ride on "Fortuna." And yes, there's more, I think. In fact, I *know* there's more.

[earlgreytea68.livejournal.com]

I have a really hard time with plotting, so you have no idea how much it means to me to hear good things about my plots! I've been working harder on that, and I'm happy to know that you've been enjoying them! I especially love what you say about being surprised but not feeling cheated by the surprise. That is a pet peeve of mine, actually: plots that are either too obvious or are so *not* obvious that they make no sense. So this comment is just delightful to me! I love to keep readers guessing, and I hope that the payoff works for everyone!

I think what you say is right, and I think it's exactly how Rose thinks about Brem: If her Doctor had been raised by adoring parents, if he'd been encouraged and supported and allowed to do as he wanted and accepted for who he was, then he would have been Brem. And there's something of a tragedy in that, but it's a tragedy that's corrected, here in this 'verse. And Brem telling Kate that he loves here there: I feel the Doctor was not good at admitting he loved people because he wasn't used to it, he wasn't raised in an environment where loving the way he loved was acceptable. Brem was, and as terrifying as loving will always be to a controlling personality like Brem's and the Doctor's, he's able to work through that terror more quickly than the Doctor is, to know that he's surrounded by people who will help him if something goes wrong.

Jack was so much fun to introduce to the Chaosverse. I had a blast with that. But I also admit that his conversation with the Doctor is one of my favorite parts of the 'verse. I was sad about how it worked out in Utopia, I wanted something more, and I love how chilly and mean the Doctor can be to Jack, because that's part of the Doctor's personality, too.