Timeweave

Jenny was utterly stunned. "Jordan is Jack Harkness? My Jordan?" She'd heard enough stories about the rogue Time Agent through the years to know this painted her former lover in an entirely different light. That he wasn't who she thought he was, was the heartbreakingly very least of it. "Are you sure?" she whispered, voice cracking.

The Doctor nodded, but she pressed on, trying to sidestep the awful truth. "It's not just a resemblance? I've known lots of people who look alike..." Her voice trailed off at his expression; half compassion, half bleak knowledge.

"No," his quiet, sure voice compounded the agony. "I know Jack. I spoke with him. It's him."

Rose broke in then. "But, he can help us, then, can't he? Won't he?"

The Doctor shook his head. "He didn't know me. And he wasn't a fixed point. This Jack hasn't been changed yet. Rose, this is the old Jack, from before he ever met us. Which means..." He took a deep breath and forced the next words. "If he dies in that bomb blast six days from now, he never will meet us. And NONE of us will be here now."

He rubbed his face with both hands, taking another deep breath. "We don't have just one alternate reality staring us in the face here. We've got at least two. And I don't have a clue how we can get to the one we want, where all of us live, even Jack, and bring back Brandon." He sagged suddenly, leaning heavily against the console. "I just don't know."

"Then what good are you?" came a ragged whisper. They turned and stared again at Jenny, who came unglued before them, tears streaming down her face. "What good are you? You've ruined my life! You've taken away everything I ever had that was good, you took my son, and you can't give him back, and you made me this freak like you, and now I don't even look like myself any more! And now... just to top things off, you've gone and taken my memories of the only man I ever loved, and ruined them!" She was half-screaming now, and she suddenly unfroze, launching herself the three steps to the Doctor with fists raised. She brought them crashing down on his chest, and for a moment he simply stood there, arms down, not trying to ward her off. He'd never had a clue that she'd been that much in love once, she'd never told him.

Then, as she raised her fists to hit him again, he suddenly reached out and grabbed them, bringing her arms down again to hold gently but firmly between their bodies. "Jenny! I said I don't know now, but I swear on everything I hold dear, which includes you, that I will find a way to bring back your son. My grandson. I swear it, Jenny. I'll make it right. I'll set everything right."

She shook her head, wild with grief. "You can't set everything right. You can't. You can't give Jordan back to me now. Even if he lives, he's Jack. My Jordan is gone – he never was."

Rose again broke into the silence that followed. "How can it be Jack, if he died in the bomb?"

"I don't know," replied the Doctor, still holding Jenny. "Are you sure he died?" he asked her hesitantly, not wanting to pour salt in her wounds.

It didn't work. She glared at him even more fiercely, heart breaking all over again. "I saw it. The bomb literally blew him to pieces. I saw..." she couldn't go on. Sobbing, she ripped her arms out of his hands, and stumbled to the doorway, running blindly down the hallway into the TARDIS and away. Just away.

Joshua, standing mute witness to the scene from the other side of the console, made to go after her. The Doctor heard him take a step, and without turning told him, "let her go." Joshua glared at his back, but then caught Rose's eyes beyond; she backed her husband. Deciding she knew more about being female than he did, he stopped, but he stared at the doorway, empty now of Jenny's retreating back, sighing heavily. She'd always be his first love, and such things are never truly forgotten, but he'd long moved past it, living with her as brother and sister like they had for eight years now. That didn't mean he didn't still care deeply about her, though, and her agony now cut hard across his young heart.

Rose stepped across to put her arms around the Doctor, and they held each other for a moment, taking and giving comfort. She looked into his face. "I don't understand. How can it be Jack, if he died? Will die?"

"It means we must be the product of a tampered time stream already." He sighed heavily, echoing Joshua. "Bloody Zen Physics."

"What's Zen Physics? I missed that lesson, professor."

"It's what I used to call Advanced Temporal Physics in the Academy – the class I failed. Time stream splits, time loops, alternate realities, how they're caused, how to prevent them, et cetera. All that mind-bending wibbley-wobbley timey-wimey stuff."

"But I thought you were good at that."

"Me? No. I'm just wingin' it, makin' it up as I go along. Someone like Romana, now, she'd be able to tell you precisely what was going on and why, down to the temporo-atomics."

"Oh." With nothing more to say, she simply leaned against him, putting her head on his shoulder. If he couldn't figure it out, what use a mere mortal?

Joshua, however, was no mere mortal. The Doctor's words had sent his thoughts flying back past his first meeting with Jenny, to another time puzzle, another bomb, another stunning, intriguing Time Lady. "Doctor..." he began slowly. "I have an idea."

"Stars know we could use one," the Doctor replied. He turned, pulling Rose around with him, and looked hopefully at Josh. "What is it?"

"Remember the Eye of Harmony? The vortex?" The Doctor nodded. "Remember how I – how Romana and I, I mean, used the vortex to follow our own progress into and out of the chamber at the different times?"

"How you did it, you mean. Romana was only following your lead. What about it?"

"Didn't you say there's a similar bit of vortex in the heart of the TARDIS – this TARDIS, that hasn't formed yet in Baby?" His listener nodded again. "Then if I looked into the heart, into the vortex, maybe I could use it the same way. Maybe I could see and hear the different time streams, and separate them out. Maybe I could see how to make it all work out."

The Doctor nodded again, slowly. "That might work. If you can pinpoint the nexus – the action or moment that created – will create – each different alternate reality, maybe we can work out a plan around them." He took a deep breath, and silently asked the ship if she was willing to go along with the idea, getting an exited flash of playful purple in return. "OK. We'll do it." He turned to Rose, still in his arms. "You are not going to look." His tone brooked no opposition.

She gave him a mock-innocent look, her tongue tip peeking out at him insouciantly, and didn't bother to reply. He moved his hands to her hips and walked her backwards, placing her rear end firmly on the jump seat, then relented, giving her a quick but passionate kiss. "Please? No Bad Wolf – not today."

"Go on," she replied with a little laugh, pushing him off and settling back into the seat. "I can watch from here, yeah?"

'Yeah. But don't look too closely at the light." He gave her a last peck on the forehead, and swung back, striding quickly around to the far side of the console. He beckoned Joshua over to the right spot, turning him so he faced the console, and stood behind him, his hands lightly resting on the young man's shoulders. "When you're ready."

Joshua closed his eyes and took several deep, calming breaths, stilling his thoughts. "Ready," he murmured. The Doctor sent the go-ahead to the ship, who obligingly opened the panel, and the incredible, sparkling golden energy began seeping out, whispering towards Joshua's face. He opened his eyes at last when he felt the tingling on his eyelids and in his mind, simply watching the wispy patterns at first, absorbing the energies and flavors.

(Oh, sure, you make it easy for him, thought Rose, ruefully amused. Why couldn't you be so nice for me, eh? She thought she heard a whispered Sorry cross her mind, but it was gone before she could grab it. She blinked. Was the TARDIS actually listening to her, and replying? A slow smile crossed her lips, and she decided to keep her delightful secret.)

Joshua's mind was expanding, reaching out to the songs and patterns of time and life he heard constantly, grasping them and understanding them more clearly than ever before. He simply drifted for an endless moment, anchoring his position in the center of Now and Here. Then he reached out mentally, his hands physically mimicking his mind, and began tracing and weaving intricate patterns of vortex light in the air before him. The Doctor's life thread was the most distinctive, and he watched it weave in and around the tight knot of possibilities at the center of the tapestry, then picked out Jenny's, and Rose's, and even his own.

The four threads came out of the knot in several places, leading off into different directions; some together, some separate. He touched each one, looking for the direction he wanted, but wasn't sure which one it was. He found the brightest, strongest rope and peered along it, noticing how Rose's thread seemed to weave itself into the Doctor's until it was inseparable, though he could see flashes of its colors, an appropriately brilliant rosy pink, mixed within the Doctor's multicolor hues stretching far, far into the murky distance. Well, I guess that's the effect of a Life Bond. Interesting.

He turned around and faced back towards the knot, trying to sink into it and separate the strands. Suddenly it seemed to spring apart, all the various life threads swirling around each other now visibly. He found a dark thread that seemed to enter the knot several times, sometimes touching one of theirs, often running alongside Jenny's thread for long stretches, tiny threadlets reaching out between the two, as if they were trying to become entwined. Was this Jordan-Jack? Probably. At least twice, that thread came to an abrupt halt, drenched in blood and ashes. The bomb. Other times it thinned and wobbled away, weakened and alone.

Joshua realized he was seeing several realities stacked on top of each other and intertwined, and that all of them were possibilities from the moment he stood in. He had to find the nexus, the decision points for each one.

He mentally relaxed and eased back, letting the strands go and simply watching them form their knots again. They slowly spun before him, sparkling and mindless, refusing to behave. Suddenly he became aware of his physical surroundings again with one corner of his mind. "Are you seeing this?" he whispered to the Doctor.

"No," came the murmured reply, not wanting to intrude too deeply and knock him off course. "All I see are strands of light; they don't make any sense. This is all you, Joshua. Find the way."

Again and again he found a strand and followed it into the knots, only to lose it in the tangled mess. Again and again he backed out, or found himself sideways, his vision refocusing on a new set of strands, a new alternate reality. He found a hard little knot and tried to listen in, merging into the thread, only to be assaulted by sights and sounds and smells that he couldn't make heads or tails of, and had to let go again.

Finally, he became aware of the Doctor's hands tight on his shoulders, the Doctor's voice calling to him. "Joshua. Let it go. Let it go. Come out."

He came to himself slowly, seeing the strands of vortex energy he'd woven within the console room dissolve into nothing and wisp away back into the time machine's glowing heart, the panel closing with a soft click behind them. His weary arms sank to his sides, and he almost collapsed, the Doctor catching him and holding him up till he found his feet again.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," he mumbled, mimicking his hero unconsciously. "I couldn't find the way. It's too complicated. There aren't just two or three worlds colliding, there's a dozen, maybe more." He straightened up, letting the Doctor walk him around to the jump seat while Rose hastily made room for him. Finally looking up, he saw Jenny had returned, and was watching uncertainly from the doorway. She gave him a tiny, shy smile. He rubbed his face, then took a deep breath and gave his meager report.

"The only thing I'm sure of is that there are two nexuses. Nexi."

"Nexuses," supplied the Doctor, grinning.

"Right. And I bet you can guess when they are."

"The demonstration, and the bomb at the speech?"

"Right. I couldn't see clearly exactly who did what, or how we can steer things, but somehow we have to keep anyone from dying on those two days. Everyone."

"Even Jordan?" came Jenny's halting, hopeful query. She walked over to the group. "I know... he's Jack. But... Please. Even him?"

The Doctor answered her, pulling her close. "Especially him. He has to live, to come find Rose and me on Earth." He gave her a hug. "We'll find a way, sweetheart."

She hesitated, then hugged him back. "I'm sorry, Dad, for what I said. I don't know what's come over me."

His mouth quirked. "You regenerated. That usually comes with a whole new personality, as well. Usually, though, you have time to ease into it, and get to know the new you. Your bad luck is that you were just dumped into it with no warning, no time." He sighed. "Don't worry. We're going to keep the old you from getting too close to that bomb, too, one way or another. You'll get yourself back, I promise."

"Good. I don't like this me very much." She tried to grin, but it turned sideways into a grimace, instead.

Whatever he was going to reply was cut off by a sudden loud pounding at the front door, shocking all four into staring silence. Nobody ever noticed the TARDIS, the perception filter took care of that.

"Who the devil is that?" the Doctor asked of nobody. He walked down to the door, hesitated, then carefully opened it. Halfway open, it was wrenched out of his hands, and a second later he found himself flat on his back on the grating, rubbing his jaw from a fierce right hook, staring up into the cold, furious face of Captain Jack Harkness.

"You son of a bitch. Why didn't you ever tell me you were a part of this?" he hissed.