Author's Notes: This story is set several months after the events of "Tracking Torchwood," and shortly after "The Midnight Clear." The title of Madhukar's book is borrowed from the Rassilon, Omega, and that Other Guy website, which is fantastic for Doctor Who research. Kit and Madhukar are mine; all else belongs to the BBC. Thanks to Aibhinn for beta services.
Chapter One – Discord
"Acarya, may I ask you a question?"
The Doctor looked down from his perch on the library ladder. His student was standing at its foot with a thick, leather-bound book in his hands, held open in the middle. "You know that asking questions is the only way we ever learn, Madhukar," the Doctor answered. "The greatest discoveries were made because someone asked a question. All scientific progress has been made because someone needed the answer to a question!" He hopped down to the floor, with the book he'd been seeking in his hand. "One very wise man said one's first step in wisdom is to question everything. Another wise man said it's better to know some of the questions than all of the answers. And the most intelligent human who ever lived was intelligent enough to know that the important thing is not to stop questioning! If you never ask—" he stopped as his student tilted his head to the side, smirking with a sardonic lift of one orange-red eyebrow.
Oh, yes. Rose and Jack had indeed managed to corrupt the Seeker over the past few months, just as they'd said they would. Now, whenever the Doctor was just warming to an off-the-subject subject, Madhukar would give him that look and stop him cold.
The very same look Rose and Jack used.
Well. At least Madhukar still addressed him as Honored Teacher in his own language. So they hadn't quite made him disrespectful.
Yet.
The Doctor cleared his throat and dropped into his favorite chair. "Right, then. What was your question?"
The smirk vanished. Madhukar looked a little uncomfortable as he held his book up. The Doctor read the title: The Laws of Time and the Rules Governing Time Lords from the Worshipful and Ancient Law of Gallifrey. "These laws you told me to study. I'm confused about them."
The Doctor put down his own book and took off his glasses. He motioned for Madhukar to take the seat opposite him, on the other side of the library fireplace. "What has you confused? They're really very straightforward. No changing history, protect the Web of Time…"
"No traversing your time stream. No coming into contact with past selves. No interference with Time-Unaware races," Madhukar nodded. "And no unauthorized use of a TARDIS. Should I go on?"
The Doctor leaned back in his chair. "Ah. No need. I think I know why you're confused."
"From your own stories, you've broken many of these laws."
The Doctor nodded slowly. "Yes. Well." He paused for a moment, considering. "The first thing you have to understand is the difference between the letter of the law and the spirit of the law."
Madhukar looked at him quizzically. "The law is the law, Acarya."
"Welllll…" How to explain this to a being culturally conditioned to see rules in black and white? The Doctor tilted his head back, looking at the ceiling as if he could find the answers written there. As usual, the ceiling stubbornly refused to produce any answers. He sighed. "Most species aren't as literal about the law as yours is. They allow for shades of grey—"
Two things stopped the Doctor from launching into a lecture on ambiguity. The first was Madhukar sliding from his chair to his knees, clutching the sides of his head with a cry of pain. The second was a tremor that ran through the TARDIS, accompanied by a feeling of confusion and—was that fear? In nearly a millennium together, he couldn't ever remember feeling outright fear from her.
Something was very wrong.
"Doctor, what's going on?" Jack was standing in the doorway, bracing himself on the lintels as the TARDIS continued to shake.
"I don't know, Jack!" the Doctor answered as he knelt down in front of Madhukar, who had bent over double, long fingers clenching into his shock of ginger hair as he pressed his palms against his ears. "He started doing this when the TARDIS started shaking. Where's Rose?"
The shaking was becoming more violent as Jack made his way next to them. "I don't know. Hopefully holding onto something solid." He knelt down and put one arm around Madhukar's thin shoulders to hold him steady. He looked at the Doctor. "I'll look after him. Go see what's happening!"
One more worried glance at his student, then the Doctor was dashing out of the library and down the corridor.
Fearconfusionpainlossfear… a looping litany of feelings projected from the TARDIS. For once not just tickling the back of his mind, but screaming their way into the forefront of his consciousness as he sprinted toward the console room. FearconfusionpainlossFEAR!
She'd never done this before.
Something was very, very wrong.
He reached the console room to see the time rotor moving erratically, in fits and starts instead of in the usual smooth up and down motion of centuries. He ran to the console. They were supposed to be in the Vortex, but the position readouts on the monitor were changing almost too quickly for even him to read. From what he could catch, they were flashing between the Vortex and different moments and places in time and space. A millisecond here, a microsecond there, twisting, turning, tumbling out of control. He needed to stop them, set them down in a safe place so that he could check out the TARDIS' systems, and then try to figure out Madhukar's symptoms. But the way they were hopping all over the Web of Time, it would be tricky to do without damaging either the Web or the TARDIS. He'd say i impossible /i …but he'd already learned not to use that word. No, it would just be tricky, especially with his concentration being rattled by the distress emanating from the TARDIS. It would require exquisite timing.
Good thing he was a Time Lord.
Bracing himself on the still-shaking console, he closed his eyes, sending thoughts of comfort and reassurance to the TARDIS. Slowly, he breathed in and out.
Slower. In. Out.
Focus. Visualize.
Then his steady, slow breathing hitched for a moment, and he let out a gasp of shock.
Something was very, very, very wrong.
What happened to the Web?
The transdimensional spiral of history was twisted, distorted. Stretched out of its usual shape. No wonder the TARDIS was skipping over it like a stone skimmed over a lake. He re-centered himself, regaining his concentration. Another slow breath in and out, narrowing in on one thread of the Web to catch on to.
Caught it.
He pulled a lever, and the TARDIS shuddered violently one more time. Then she was still. The shaking was gone, but the sensations of fear and loss remained. Loss of what?
"Doctor?"
He turned, and was relieved to see Rose running into the console room, uninjured but with a worried look on her face. "Are you all right?"
"I'm fine, but I need you to come with me," she said, crossing the room to the railing where he and Jack tended to throw their coats. She retrieved Jack's and turned to head back out. "Come on!"
No explanations, just a race down the corridor. She stopped at the entrance to the Cloisters. "Give me a moment," she said, and went inside.
"Rose? What is it?" he called. Why the Cloisters? Come to think of it, why haven't I heard the Cloister bell? The TARDIS is terrified, and the Cloister bell should be ringing like mad.
"Come in, Doctor," Rose called from beyond the entry arch. He passed through the archway—and then stopped short when he saw why she had brought him here.
She was kneeling on the floor. "I was going to the console room when everything started shaking," she said. "As I passed the arch, I heard something falling. When I came in, I found her here."
"Kit?" He knelt next to Rose, eyes widened in surprise. His former companion was sprawled on the paving stones, unconscious. Rose had draped Jack's coat over her. He could see one bare leg sticking out from under the coat, bent at an unnatural angle. "It's almost as if she literally dropped in out of the Vortex." He brushed her hair away from her face and saw scrapes on one cheek. He looked around, and noticed a smear of red on one column. "Or was thrown out of it. It looks like she collided with that."
"She was stark naked, Doctor. And it looked to me like both her arm and leg got broken," Rose told him. "How could that happen?"
"How could any of this happen, Rose?" the Doctor responded. "The TARDIS is in a panic. Madhukar is in pain. The Web of Time is distorted. And now, an angel has fallen into my Cloister room!" He shook his head. "There's no such thing as coincidence, Rose. This is all connected. Give me a hand here."
He lifted Kit off the floor, Rose adjusting the coat to keep it still wrapped around her. "Get Jack. He's in the library with Madhukar. We'll get everyone in the medical bay, and we'll start getting to the bottom of this."
Jack flew through the medical bay door, rushing to Kit's side. She was still unconscious, lying under his coat with her broken arm and leg exposed. He stroked her hair and bent to kiss her forehead. She didn't stir. He straightened up and looked at the Doctor, who was setting instruments out on the worktable next to her bed. "What the hell is going on?" he demanded.
"I still don't know , Jack," the Doctor replied in a calm voice. He turned to rummage through bottles in one of the storage cabinets. "I do know there's something wrong in the Vortex. I do know something has warped the Web of Time. I do know something is affecting Kit, Madhukar and the TARDIS. What I don't know is what that something is."
"It's the Song, Doctor," Rose said came from the doorway. She was supporting Madhukar, who was still grimacing in pain, slowly shaking his head. As she helped him sink into a seat, the Doctor noticed that she was being very careful not to make skin-to-skin contact with him, the long sleeves of her hoodie pulled over her hands to keep them from touching Madhukar's bare forearm. She looked back at the Doctor. "When I touched him, I could hear it. The Song…it's just noise now. All out of tune. It's…it's hideous."
"Discord in the Music of Time," the Doctor murmured. He and Jack couldn't hear it, but Rose could whenever she touched Madhukar: the legacy of the Bad Wolf. "That would explain it. He hears the Music all the time. The TARDIS lives in it, and Kit is one of the singers."
Jack stared at him. "Doctor, that Music is creation itself. What could disrupt it?'
The Doctor turned back to the cabinet. "I'm hoping Kit can tell us, if I can bring her around. Where did I put that ammonium carbonate?"
Rose moved next to Jack and asked, "Why'd she show up like this?"
The Doctor found the bottle he wanted. "You mean without clothes?" When Rose nodded, the Doctor said, "Remember how she changed? Rippling from the center outward? When she takes human form, she probably creates the vital internal systems first, and works her way out. I don't think she had time to finish before she crashed into the Cloisters. And that makes me think she was thrown here." He opened the bottle. "Smelling salts. Jack, hold on to her so she doesn't jar her arm and leg."
Jack put one hand on Kit's covered shoulder, and put his other arm across her midriff to hold her still as the Doctor waved the bottle under her nose. She jerked as her eyes snapped open—
And she began to scream, struggling against Jack's hold. Madhukar cried out in empathy.
"Kit! Angel, it's all right. You're safe. I'm here. You found me." Jack was leaning over her ear, talking to her, but she didn't seem to hear him at all, still fighting against him.
Rassilon! If she kept this up, she would hurt herself even more. He didn't want to sedate her; they needed her alert to help them figure out what was going on.
Normally he wouldn't do this without permission. But this was an emergency. He reached two fingers out to touch her temple—
And now he was the one screaming as something like a high-voltage electrical shock coursed through his body.
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