Spiegel im Spiegel, Chapter 10
Mar. 11th, 2009 08:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fic_of_forkWord Count: 2499
Summary: Like a mirror reflected into a mirror, choices made create an infinite of possibilities, and images seen may not be what they appear. An encounter with an elusive, incorporeal race leads the Doctor and his allies on a dark journey.
Warnings: Some violence, none graphic
Rating: Teen
Characters: Ten, Donna, Braxiatel, Torchwood, Original characters (Mike)
Genre: AU, Adventure
Author's Note: Thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
mtemplar_fic! Benny is, of course, Bernice Summerfield, and the Mansionhouse was one of the main buildings at the Braxiatel Collection, where Brax's apartments (*cough* TARDIS *cough*) were, along with various administrative offices. Sorry about the delay in this one. I'm in thesis hell.
Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who, Torchwood, or any of its characters, and I'm receiving no profit from this beyond the joy of writing.
Chapter 9, Chapter 8, Chapter 7, Chapter 6, Chapter 5, Chapter 4, Chapter 3, Chapter 2, Chapter 1
The air in the room was stifling with tension, as the members of Torchwood, the Doctor, Mike, Donna, and Braxiatel readied themselves for the inevitable breach. With a crash and an explosion that rocked the Hub, the great circular iron door that protected them from the outside blew inward, landing in a resounding thud as if it were some gigantic gong. As the first reanimated corpses came within shooting distance, the air shimmered and thickened, and the corpses caught in the shimmering air stuck, as if they were a fly in clear amber.
"It's Tosh's time lock," Gwen said.
"Oh, but it needs to be deactivated," the Doctor said, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
If Braxiatel had a response, nobody knew. He gave no inclination that the Doctor's sarcastic barb had been heard.
The Doctor stuck his arm through the thickened air of the time locked perimeter. "It's not gonna keep the Mindwights out forever," he said, as he waggled his fingers in it. "They'll figure out a way through. Brax and I are immune to it, which means the Mindwights will come up with some way to breach it, since they've got my memories."
Jack glanced at a pocket watch. "We've wasted five hours, people. Seven hours until they start killing people, if they haven't already. We've got work to do," he said.
***
Gwen glanced at the whiteboard Jack had set up and written notes on. While methodical, she had to wonder why he kept studying the scribbles. It was a list of their assets ("one Type 40 TARDIS, one Type 80TARDIS time capsule, one vortex manipulator (broken), one sonic screwdriver, one time ring (bound to Mike), half a dozen assorted wood screws, and a small ball of twine, and two Time Lords") and their liabilities ("two Time Lords, and incorporeal aliens capable of exploding brains.") She shook her head and ascribed her unease to fatigue. Five more hours until the slaughter would begin, and there was still no word from the other Time Lords.
"No sign of the zombies, so I ordered pizza," Ianto said. "Meat Feast for us, and a Veggie Delight for the Time Lords. All our other guests from Gallifrey preferred vegetarian, so I assumed they were. The Doctor made a hole that opened long enough so that the pizzas could make it through without getting stuck."
"Thanks," Gwen smiled. Since the warehouse, people were looking to her for reassurance. That put her on edge, again, since the last time she had authority was when Jack had disappeared. Come to think of it, she wondered, where was Jack? In the few minutes she had spent talking to Ianto, Jack had seemingly vanished.
Her musings were cut short by the sound of a raging argument in the main part of the Hub. "Are they still stroppy?" Gwen asked.
Ianto sighed and rolled his eyes. "At least they aren't still trying to manipulate us into having their row for them," he replied.
"Keep an eye on them," Gwen said. "If they keep it up for much longer, lock the pair of them in a cell and flush the key."
"It would be my pleasure," Ianto responded with a little bow. He walked away from Gwen and back into the main part of the Hub, where the Doctor was sitting at a workbench, with parts and objects strewn across it. Braxiatel stood nearby.
"Why are you sticking around, anyway?" the Doctor asked.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Braxiatel responded.
"You know what I mean. The second things get the least bit... involved... you do a bunk, like the rest of them."
"Oi!" Donna interjected, but neither listened to her. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Martha shake her head and walk away.
"Excuse me?" Braxiatel retorted, oblivious to Donna. "Where were you when the Fifth Axis invaded? Or the Daleks? How about the war between the Draconians and the Mim? You were nowhere to be found," Braxiatel sneered. "You were too busy showing off to that silly Pollard girl to notice much of anything."
"Donna," Mike whispered, pulling her away from the Doctor and Braxiatel, "Are you an only child?"
"What's that got to do with it?" she asked Mike.
"Let me give you some advice about sibling relationships from someone who's the oldest of six," Mike began. "The Doctor and Brax started it, let them end it."
"But--" Donna started.
"Unless one of them is bleeding, stay out of it," Mike said.
"I had no idea. The Gamatra system was supposed to be a backwater, where nothing happened. By the time I heard about it, it was all over," the Doctor said.
"Oh, of course. With anything resembling responsibility--especially to your people or your family--you run the other way. Seems we aren't so different. The irresponsible fool act was fine when you were in your seventies. Don't you think you're a bit old for it now?"
"Where were you when I was on trial for my life? Either time?" the Doctor said, his voice cold. "How could you have stood by and let them do what they did to me?"
"Did you seriously think there wouldn't be repercussions for your actions?" Braxiatel snapped. "You have no one to blame but yourself for what happened to Jamie and Zoe."
"Fair enough," the Doctor said. "By the way. How has Benny been?"
Without saying a word in response, Braxiatel turned and walked away. Donna glared at the Doctor and went after Braxiatel. Calmly, as if nothing happened, the Doctor busied himself in the task that the argument had interrupted.
Mike stuck his hands in his pockets and walked over to the Doctor, but Martha put a hand on his shoulder. "Let me take care of him," she said. "I've been caught in the crossfire between Tish and Leo often enough."
"Sounds good," Mike agreed. "I'll go sympathize as one older brother to another."
Martha pulled over a stool and sat next to the Doctor. She only needed one glance at the tortured look behind his eyes to know what was going on. "You know," she said, "if I had a pound for every awful thing I said to either Leo or Tish, I'd be able to pay off my student loans. And tuck some aside for Leo's baby. Did you two argue much growing up?"
"Not really," the Doctor admitted. "Used to follow him around, actually."
"I wanted to hate him."
"Martha," the Doctor began as he looked up from his chore. "Brax had nothing to do with the decision to resurrect the Master. He was nowhere near the High Council when that happened. Thankfully, or he would've been assassinated with the rest of them."
"I know that," Martha said. "But it was who Braxiatel represented. He was one of them."
"Like me?" the Doctor asked, with realization dawning.
Martha smiled. "I was wrong in my prejudice against Braxiatel, just like you were wrong in blaming him for the things done to you. I know you didn't mean what you said. How about in a couple of minutes you go patch things up?"
The Doctor snorted and returned his attention to his task.
***
Mike found that you could tell the Time Lords who spent a significant amount of time around humans, because they were the ones who secretly enjoyed being hugged. It wasn't that Time Lords disliked being touched; but not being primates, they didn't have as intimate a need for touching and being touched like humans did. When Mike came across Donna and Braxiatel sitting on a step leading into the catacomb his TARDIS was parked in, he had to smile knowingly at the utterly blissful look on Braxiatel's face, as he was held by Donna. Mike's heart broke for him, when he realized it had probably been a few centuries since the last time Braxiatel had received a hug from anyone.
Shivering in spite of himself, Mike remembered what had happened in the zero room so many weeks ago. Before Margaret's attempt, it was discussed and decided to quietly end Braxiatel's life without waking him from stasis. Mike had been horrified at the pronouncement and had argued strenuously against it. As the elaborate state funeral was being planned, one chance to remove the Pandora entity from Braxiatel's mind was granted. Mike was present during it, and while remembering that dreadful moment, he had to wonder in spite of his beliefs, if they had made the right decision. He wondered how long he would have nightmares about the events inside of the zero room.
But as Mike watched Donna and Braxiatel, he knew he had been on the right side of the argument. Everyone, he thought, deserved to have a moment such as Braxiatel and Donna shared. Mike knew that the brief instant that Donna and Braxiatel shared had probably done more to heal him than anything the Time Lords did. He also wondered which of Donna's wounds had been healed. Hearing footsteps, Mike saw the Doctor making his way towards them with his hands shoved into his trouser pockets. He caught the Doctor's eye and nodded in the direction of Braxiatel and Donna.
The Doctor looked up just in time to see Donna and Braxiatel share a soft kiss. Stunned, the Doctor could've sworn he felt his jaw hit the ground. He gestured at them and grinned broadly at Mike.
"I'm sorry," Braxiatel whispered to Donna. "I shouldn't have--"
"I didn't mind," she interrupted.
"I'm not my br--" Braxiatel began, but was interrupted by another kiss.
"I know," Donna replied, as she broke off for a breath. Behind them echoed furious whispers punctuated by giggles. Turning, Donna saw the Doctor mid-gesture to Mike. "Oi!" Donna barked. "How old are you? Twelve? You want free porn, go look on the Internet." To Braxiatel she added, "Remind me to thank my mum for not having more."
"You have no idea," Braxiatel responded dryly.
Before any of them could say anything else, gunshots and shouting broke through from the levels above. The Doctor pivoted and ran back up the stairs to the Hub, only to find black smoke pouring from the web of wires and electronics that formed Toshiko's time lock, and reanimated bodies coming through the hole where the door was that was blown open earlier.
Deftly, the Doctor weaved between seconds, dodging bullets and diving for cover near the smoldering machinery near the rift control.
"It failed," Gwen yelled to the Doctor.
"I can see that," the Doctor shouted back. Carefully fanning away smoke, he used his sonic screwdriver to open the device. He groaned when he saw the condition of the insides, now melted into slag and plastic. "Brax!" he yelled.
"Three second time loop around the entire building, I'm on it," Braxiatel replied, as he turned to go back to where the TARDISes were parked.
"Take Jack with you," the Doctor spat. "He can help route it through mine. Yours still has that leak."
"Got it," Jack yelled to the Doctor, as he ran after Braxiatel.
Donna ran after them, and nearly slammed into Braxiatel's back, as he paused to unlock the lacquered doors of his TARDIS.
"'Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.' The Mansionhouse brings back memories, doesn't it?" Jack asked Braxiatel as he saw inside of Braxiatel's TARDIS. Jack unlocked the door to the Doctor's TARDIS and ran inside.
Donna saw a look of either pain or rage flash across Braxiatel's face as he busied himself around his own console. Donna laid her hand on his shoulder, and his countenance softened, as his cooler hand gently squeezed hers.
Through the open door, Braxiatel watched Jack exit the Doctor's TARDIS and run upstairs. "Go tell the Doctor to open the rift. Slowly!" he said.
Braxiatel finished what he was doing after Donna left. As he exited and locked the door to his own TARDIS, he halted before the still-open door of the Doctor's. He entered and groaned at the console room. "What deplorable taste..." Braxiatel muttered.
A light began flashing on the console, and Braxiatel tore his attention away from the golden walls and coral struts to the console in front of him. "That's not correct," he said to nobody in particular. A few adjustments, and the light blinked out.
***
Upstairs, the air between the Hub and the outside shimmered. The reanimated bodies that were through were quickly dealt with, and the remains were dragged into the depths of the catacombs for disposal. Donna wandered over to the Doctor, carefully picking her way through shattered remains of furniture and other objects caught in the crossfire. The Doctor was busily trying to salvage what was left of Toshiko's work.
"Have you ever known Jack to pick a fight?" Donna asked.
The Doctor looked up from his task. "Jack? Maybe he was having an off day?"
"When we were trying to get the time loop thingy working. Jack said something about mighty despair."
The Doctor stared incredulously at Donna. "'Look on my works, ye mighty and despair! Nothing beside remains. Round the decay of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, the lone and level sands stretch far away'?"
"Yeah, that's it," Donna said. "First bit. Almost set Brax off."
"Shelley? Jack quoted Shelley?" the Doctor asked, shocked. "Did he mention dating Shelley?"
"He bragged about dating Proust once," Gwen mentioned, as she overheard the conversation with interest.
"Nope. Just quoted that line and made a crack about something called the Mansionhouse."
"Really?" The Doctor looked as if he were intently mulling over something.
"Now, what's this all about?" Gwen said, glancing toward Jack's office.
"I'm not sure," the Doctor said, letting his words trail off in thought.
Braxiatel carefully walked through the debris, and wiped a bit of dirt off his trousers with a handkerchief. "How well do you know Jack?" he asked.
"What history you two have is not my problem--" the Doctor started.
"He had the main temporal circuits routed through the crystalline feedback panel," Braxiatel interrupted.
"The what?" Donna asked.
"That's bad," the Doctor said. "It would've blown a hole through the first five dimensions as we know them."
"Jack deliberately did this? You're positive?" Gwen said.
"He was the only one in the Doctor's TARDIS," Donna volunteered.
"I think you need to entertain the notion that Jack isn't who he says he is," Braxiatel said. "Who else would've had the knowledge to destroy the time lock without causing damage to the dimensions inside it?"
"One of us," the Doctor said.
"You two were nowhere near it," Gwen responded.
"Hey, didn't he goad you two into having that row earlier?" Donna asked.
"Now that you mention it, he did," the Doctor said.
Without waiting for a response, Gwen grabbed another clip for her gun, reloaded, then returned to the Hub. She walked up the stairs to Jack's office. Calmly, Gwen aimed her handgun at Jack's head and pulled the trigger. The retort thundered off of the tile walls.
Summary: Like a mirror reflected into a mirror, choices made create an infinite of possibilities, and images seen may not be what they appear. An encounter with an elusive, incorporeal race leads the Doctor and his allies on a dark journey.
Warnings: Some violence, none graphic
Rating: Teen
Characters: Ten, Donna, Braxiatel, Torchwood, Original characters (Mike)
Genre: AU, Adventure
Author's Note: Thanks to
mtemplar_fic! Benny is, of course, Bernice Summerfield, and the Mansionhouse was one of the main buildings at the Braxiatel Collection, where Brax's apartments (*cough* TARDIS *cough*) were, along with various administrative offices. Sorry about the delay in this one. I'm in thesis hell.Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who, Torchwood, or any of its characters, and I'm receiving no profit from this beyond the joy of writing.
Chapter 9, Chapter 8, Chapter 7, Chapter 6, Chapter 5, Chapter 4, Chapter 3, Chapter 2, Chapter 1
The air in the room was stifling with tension, as the members of Torchwood, the Doctor, Mike, Donna, and Braxiatel readied themselves for the inevitable breach. With a crash and an explosion that rocked the Hub, the great circular iron door that protected them from the outside blew inward, landing in a resounding thud as if it were some gigantic gong. As the first reanimated corpses came within shooting distance, the air shimmered and thickened, and the corpses caught in the shimmering air stuck, as if they were a fly in clear amber.
"It's Tosh's time lock," Gwen said.
"Oh, but it needs to be deactivated," the Doctor said, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
If Braxiatel had a response, nobody knew. He gave no inclination that the Doctor's sarcastic barb had been heard.
The Doctor stuck his arm through the thickened air of the time locked perimeter. "It's not gonna keep the Mindwights out forever," he said, as he waggled his fingers in it. "They'll figure out a way through. Brax and I are immune to it, which means the Mindwights will come up with some way to breach it, since they've got my memories."
Jack glanced at a pocket watch. "We've wasted five hours, people. Seven hours until they start killing people, if they haven't already. We've got work to do," he said.
Gwen glanced at the whiteboard Jack had set up and written notes on. While methodical, she had to wonder why he kept studying the scribbles. It was a list of their assets ("one Type 40 TARDIS, one Type 80
"No sign of the zombies, so I ordered pizza," Ianto said. "Meat Feast for us, and a Veggie Delight for the Time Lords. All our other guests from Gallifrey preferred vegetarian, so I assumed they were. The Doctor made a hole that opened long enough so that the pizzas could make it through without getting stuck."
"Thanks," Gwen smiled. Since the warehouse, people were looking to her for reassurance. That put her on edge, again, since the last time she had authority was when Jack had disappeared. Come to think of it, she wondered, where was Jack? In the few minutes she had spent talking to Ianto, Jack had seemingly vanished.
Her musings were cut short by the sound of a raging argument in the main part of the Hub. "Are they still stroppy?" Gwen asked.
Ianto sighed and rolled his eyes. "At least they aren't still trying to manipulate us into having their row for them," he replied.
"Keep an eye on them," Gwen said. "If they keep it up for much longer, lock the pair of them in a cell and flush the key."
"It would be my pleasure," Ianto responded with a little bow. He walked away from Gwen and back into the main part of the Hub, where the Doctor was sitting at a workbench, with parts and objects strewn across it. Braxiatel stood nearby.
"Why are you sticking around, anyway?" the Doctor asked.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Braxiatel responded.
"You know what I mean. The second things get the least bit... involved... you do a bunk, like the rest of them."
"Oi!" Donna interjected, but neither listened to her. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Martha shake her head and walk away.
"Excuse me?" Braxiatel retorted, oblivious to Donna. "Where were you when the Fifth Axis invaded? Or the Daleks? How about the war between the Draconians and the Mim? You were nowhere to be found," Braxiatel sneered. "You were too busy showing off to that silly Pollard girl to notice much of anything."
"Donna," Mike whispered, pulling her away from the Doctor and Braxiatel, "Are you an only child?"
"What's that got to do with it?" she asked Mike.
"Let me give you some advice about sibling relationships from someone who's the oldest of six," Mike began. "The Doctor and Brax started it, let them end it."
"But--" Donna started.
"Unless one of them is bleeding, stay out of it," Mike said.
"I had no idea. The Gamatra system was supposed to be a backwater, where nothing happened. By the time I heard about it, it was all over," the Doctor said.
"Oh, of course. With anything resembling responsibility--especially to your people or your family--you run the other way. Seems we aren't so different. The irresponsible fool act was fine when you were in your seventies. Don't you think you're a bit old for it now?"
"Where were you when I was on trial for my life? Either time?" the Doctor said, his voice cold. "How could you have stood by and let them do what they did to me?"
"Did you seriously think there wouldn't be repercussions for your actions?" Braxiatel snapped. "You have no one to blame but yourself for what happened to Jamie and Zoe."
"Fair enough," the Doctor said. "By the way. How has Benny been?"
Without saying a word in response, Braxiatel turned and walked away. Donna glared at the Doctor and went after Braxiatel. Calmly, as if nothing happened, the Doctor busied himself in the task that the argument had interrupted.
Mike stuck his hands in his pockets and walked over to the Doctor, but Martha put a hand on his shoulder. "Let me take care of him," she said. "I've been caught in the crossfire between Tish and Leo often enough."
"Sounds good," Mike agreed. "I'll go sympathize as one older brother to another."
Martha pulled over a stool and sat next to the Doctor. She only needed one glance at the tortured look behind his eyes to know what was going on. "You know," she said, "if I had a pound for every awful thing I said to either Leo or Tish, I'd be able to pay off my student loans. And tuck some aside for Leo's baby. Did you two argue much growing up?"
"Not really," the Doctor admitted. "Used to follow him around, actually."
"I wanted to hate him."
"Martha," the Doctor began as he looked up from his chore. "Brax had nothing to do with the decision to resurrect the Master. He was nowhere near the High Council when that happened. Thankfully, or he would've been assassinated with the rest of them."
"I know that," Martha said. "But it was who Braxiatel represented. He was one of them."
"Like me?" the Doctor asked, with realization dawning.
Martha smiled. "I was wrong in my prejudice against Braxiatel, just like you were wrong in blaming him for the things done to you. I know you didn't mean what you said. How about in a couple of minutes you go patch things up?"
The Doctor snorted and returned his attention to his task.
Mike found that you could tell the Time Lords who spent a significant amount of time around humans, because they were the ones who secretly enjoyed being hugged. It wasn't that Time Lords disliked being touched; but not being primates, they didn't have as intimate a need for touching and being touched like humans did. When Mike came across Donna and Braxiatel sitting on a step leading into the catacomb his TARDIS was parked in, he had to smile knowingly at the utterly blissful look on Braxiatel's face, as he was held by Donna. Mike's heart broke for him, when he realized it had probably been a few centuries since the last time Braxiatel had received a hug from anyone.
Shivering in spite of himself, Mike remembered what had happened in the zero room so many weeks ago. Before Margaret's attempt, it was discussed and decided to quietly end Braxiatel's life without waking him from stasis. Mike had been horrified at the pronouncement and had argued strenuously against it. As the elaborate state funeral was being planned, one chance to remove the Pandora entity from Braxiatel's mind was granted. Mike was present during it, and while remembering that dreadful moment, he had to wonder in spite of his beliefs, if they had made the right decision. He wondered how long he would have nightmares about the events inside of the zero room.
But as Mike watched Donna and Braxiatel, he knew he had been on the right side of the argument. Everyone, he thought, deserved to have a moment such as Braxiatel and Donna shared. Mike knew that the brief instant that Donna and Braxiatel shared had probably done more to heal him than anything the Time Lords did. He also wondered which of Donna's wounds had been healed. Hearing footsteps, Mike saw the Doctor making his way towards them with his hands shoved into his trouser pockets. He caught the Doctor's eye and nodded in the direction of Braxiatel and Donna.
The Doctor looked up just in time to see Donna and Braxiatel share a soft kiss. Stunned, the Doctor could've sworn he felt his jaw hit the ground. He gestured at them and grinned broadly at Mike.
"I'm sorry," Braxiatel whispered to Donna. "I shouldn't have--"
"I didn't mind," she interrupted.
"I'm not my br--" Braxiatel began, but was interrupted by another kiss.
"I know," Donna replied, as she broke off for a breath. Behind them echoed furious whispers punctuated by giggles. Turning, Donna saw the Doctor mid-gesture to Mike. "Oi!" Donna barked. "How old are you? Twelve? You want free porn, go look on the Internet." To Braxiatel she added, "Remind me to thank my mum for not having more."
"You have no idea," Braxiatel responded dryly.
Before any of them could say anything else, gunshots and shouting broke through from the levels above. The Doctor pivoted and ran back up the stairs to the Hub, only to find black smoke pouring from the web of wires and electronics that formed Toshiko's time lock, and reanimated bodies coming through the hole where the door was that was blown open earlier.
Deftly, the Doctor weaved between seconds, dodging bullets and diving for cover near the smoldering machinery near the rift control.
"It failed," Gwen yelled to the Doctor.
"I can see that," the Doctor shouted back. Carefully fanning away smoke, he used his sonic screwdriver to open the device. He groaned when he saw the condition of the insides, now melted into slag and plastic. "Brax!" he yelled.
"Three second time loop around the entire building, I'm on it," Braxiatel replied, as he turned to go back to where the TARDISes were parked.
"Take Jack with you," the Doctor spat. "He can help route it through mine. Yours still has that leak."
"Got it," Jack yelled to the Doctor, as he ran after Braxiatel.
Donna ran after them, and nearly slammed into Braxiatel's back, as he paused to unlock the lacquered doors of his TARDIS.
"'Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.' The Mansionhouse brings back memories, doesn't it?" Jack asked Braxiatel as he saw inside of Braxiatel's TARDIS. Jack unlocked the door to the Doctor's TARDIS and ran inside.
Donna saw a look of either pain or rage flash across Braxiatel's face as he busied himself around his own console. Donna laid her hand on his shoulder, and his countenance softened, as his cooler hand gently squeezed hers.
Through the open door, Braxiatel watched Jack exit the Doctor's TARDIS and run upstairs. "Go tell the Doctor to open the rift. Slowly!" he said.
Braxiatel finished what he was doing after Donna left. As he exited and locked the door to his own TARDIS, he halted before the still-open door of the Doctor's. He entered and groaned at the console room. "What deplorable taste..." Braxiatel muttered.
A light began flashing on the console, and Braxiatel tore his attention away from the golden walls and coral struts to the console in front of him. "That's not correct," he said to nobody in particular. A few adjustments, and the light blinked out.
Upstairs, the air between the Hub and the outside shimmered. The reanimated bodies that were through were quickly dealt with, and the remains were dragged into the depths of the catacombs for disposal. Donna wandered over to the Doctor, carefully picking her way through shattered remains of furniture and other objects caught in the crossfire. The Doctor was busily trying to salvage what was left of Toshiko's work.
"Have you ever known Jack to pick a fight?" Donna asked.
The Doctor looked up from his task. "Jack? Maybe he was having an off day?"
"When we were trying to get the time loop thingy working. Jack said something about mighty despair."
The Doctor stared incredulously at Donna. "'Look on my works, ye mighty and despair! Nothing beside remains. Round the decay of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, the lone and level sands stretch far away'?"
"Yeah, that's it," Donna said. "First bit. Almost set Brax off."
"Shelley? Jack quoted Shelley?" the Doctor asked, shocked. "Did he mention dating Shelley?"
"He bragged about dating Proust once," Gwen mentioned, as she overheard the conversation with interest.
"Nope. Just quoted that line and made a crack about something called the Mansionhouse."
"Really?" The Doctor looked as if he were intently mulling over something.
"Now, what's this all about?" Gwen said, glancing toward Jack's office.
"I'm not sure," the Doctor said, letting his words trail off in thought.
Braxiatel carefully walked through the debris, and wiped a bit of dirt off his trousers with a handkerchief. "How well do you know Jack?" he asked.
"What history you two have is not my problem--" the Doctor started.
"He had the main temporal circuits routed through the crystalline feedback panel," Braxiatel interrupted.
"The what?" Donna asked.
"That's bad," the Doctor said. "It would've blown a hole through the first five dimensions as we know them."
"Jack deliberately did this? You're positive?" Gwen said.
"He was the only one in the Doctor's TARDIS," Donna volunteered.
"I think you need to entertain the notion that Jack isn't who he says he is," Braxiatel said. "Who else would've had the knowledge to destroy the time lock without causing damage to the dimensions inside it?"
"One of us," the Doctor said.
"You two were nowhere near it," Gwen responded.
"Hey, didn't he goad you two into having that row earlier?" Donna asked.
"Now that you mention it, he did," the Doctor said.
Without waiting for a response, Gwen grabbed another clip for her gun, reloaded, then returned to the Hub. She walked up the stairs to Jack's office. Calmly, Gwen aimed her handgun at Jack's head and pulled the trigger. The retort thundered off of the tile walls.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-03-12 06:40 am (UTC)Hope you don't mind me pointing out you've got a couple of typos in there.
With a crash and and explosion that rocked the Hub, the great circular iron door that protected them from the outside blew inward, landing in a resounding thud as if it were some gigantic gong.
"and an" in the first part of the sentence - and "with a" not "in a" in the third part.
As exited and locked the door to his own TARDIS
"As he"
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Date: 2009-03-12 06:49 am (UTC)Bah. Teach me to update when I'm tired. Thanks.
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Date: 2009-03-12 06:51 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2009-03-12 10:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-12 12:40 pm (UTC)*hands in her beta membership card*
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Date: 2009-03-12 12:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-03-13 01:31 am (UTC)The sibling squabble was interesting.
Favorite lines:
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Date: 2009-03-13 01:47 am (UTC)Here's more about the relationship: http://fic-of-fork.livejournal.com/13312.html