Author's Note: This is it, folks, the last chapter. To all who read it, whether for the first time or again, thank you & I hope you enjoyed it. My beta and I are close to being done with the rewrite of the second book and will hopefully be able to post that soon.
Chapter 10
It wasn't long before everyone was back in Yvonne's office, including Mickey and the man in the lab coat from the sphere room. Proper introductions were done as they sat down to figure out what to do about the sphere.
"How'd it get down there, anyway?" Rose asked.
"That's where it showed up. We can't find any evidence of the portal being down there, too, though." Yvonne said, taking a seat at her desk.
"No one can touch it, so it can't be moved. We've tried. Even if we could move it, there's no way to get it up here." the man in the lab coat (Dr. Singh, she found out) said, sitting on the edge of Yvonne's desk.
The Doctor was pacing, running his hands down his face. "Alright. We have a giant sphere in the basement that we need to get to the top floor so we can suck it through a hole in a wall. No one can touch it or move it. Even if they could, it wouldn't fit in the hallway or lift, much less the doors to this floor."
"Would the pull from the portal be strong enough to just drag it up through the building?" Kari asked from her corner. She really didn't want to participate, but knew she had little choice at this point.
"Yes, it would, but that would utterly destroy this building, putting you and Jack in way more danger then you would be already. The sheer force of it being pulled up through the floors would make the building collapse around you."
"Would we have to stay for the whole thing? Couldn't we just start the process and get out?"
The Doctor leveled a look at Kari. "What happened in your timeline?"
"Oh. Right." Kari said, deflating a bit.
"However, knowing that, we should be able to make sure it doesn't happen again and you can get out safe."
"Um, excuse me, but what are you two talking about?" Yvonne asked from her desk.
"One of the levers came loose in the middle of the process when this happened in her timeline. We were able to get it locked back into place, but at a cost." The Doctor glanced sadly at Rose before turning back to the group. "First thing that needs to happen is that Mickey here needs to go back to the other universe and destroy those hoppers."
"Right, then, so I suppose I should probably take off so I don't go getting sucked in." Mickey said as he stood up.
Rose stood up, tears in her eyes. "Thank you for helping. I miss you!" She hugged him tight.
He hugged her back. "I miss you, too. But that universe needs me; my gran needs me." He tilted her head up. "You keep that git out of trouble, yeah?" he said as he nodded toward the Doctor.
She sniffed and wiped tears away. "Always do!"
"Alright. Nice meeting you all. Cheers!" Mickey said as he stepped away from Rose and pushed the button hanging from a chain around his neck.
Everyone just stood and stared at the spot he had been for a bit before Jack spoke up.
"What about a way to secure the levers to keep them locked in place? We'd have to do it quickly because that sphere is going to start tearing through the building as soon as that portal is open."
The Doctor nodded. "That's a good idea. Is there anything in your stores that would secure them in place?"
Yvonne nodded. "I'm sure there is. You're more than welcome to take a look."
"Now how to get Kari and Jack out before the building collapses."
"What about your vortex manipulator? Or is it still broken?" Kari asked Jack, staring out the window again.
He frowned at her. "How'd you know it was broken?"
She turned and looked up at him. "Seriously?"
The Doctor walked over, grabbed Jack's wrist and fixed the manipulator with the sonic. "There. Now you two can get out once you secure the levers." He turned to the rest of the group and clapped his hands. "OK, let's get going!"
Kari continued staring out the window while everyone worked around her. She had no idea what was going on but knew someone would come get her when she was actually needed. She just wanted out of there, to be done with all of this.
After what seemed like forever, Jack came and got her. "Time to show you what needs to be done."
Kari stood up and followed him out. She noticed that the TARDIS had been moved into the room; she wasn't sure when that happened. She frowned as she passed it.
"What's that doing here?" Kari asked, jabbing her thumb at the TARDIS.
"Oh! That's so Rose and I can make a quick escape once we get the computer reprogrammed. Once it's gone, you and Jack will pull and secure the levers and then get the hell out." the Doctor explained while zipping between computer consoles.
Kari just nodded as she looked around the room, noticing that the only people left were the Doctor, Rose, Jack, and herself. All Torchwood personnel had been evacuated. They got to the levers.
"OK, it should be relatively simple. The program will tell us when to open the portal. We'll pull the levers up until they lock, then attach these ropes, like this." Jack bent down and demonstrated how they worked. "Once they're secured, we'll meet right here," he said as he stepped to a spot roughly between the levers, "and I'll jump us out of here. A warning: traveling with this thing can be painful."
She gave a small grin. "That's a risk I'm willing to take."
"Alright, Jack, everything's reprogrammed and the system is rebooting. That should take about 2 minutes. When it's back up, it'll tell you when to pull the levers. You have the coordinates of where we'll be?" Jack nodded. "Excellent. As soon as the levers are secure, get out of here! Don't wait around, just get out." Jack nodded again.
The Doctor and Rose hugged both of them, and then took off to the TARDIS. Jack and Kari watched it disappear, the sound completely dissipating as soon as the system came back up.
Jack spun to look at Kari with a grin on his face. "Alright! It's show time!" he exclaimed as he ran over to one of the levers.
Kari went to the other lever, heart pounding, waiting for the signal. As soon as the system gave the OK, they both reefed up on their levers, opening the portal. Before they were even up all the way, they could hear the rumbling of the sphere starting to come up through the building. With the levers secured, they ran to each other and Jack jumped them out just as the building started to crumble.
Next thing Kari knew, she was lying on her back in the control room of the TARDIS, aching all over.
"Oh, god, am I dead? If I'm not, I want to be." she groaned as she rolled over to her side, hugging her knees to her chest.
Jack came over and knelt next to her. "I told you it was painful." He grinned as he offered a hand to help her up.
She swatted it away, not wanting to move quite yet. She heard the sound of the sonic, presumably scanning her to make sure she was ok.
"Well, no broken bones or internal bleeding." the Doctor announced happily.
"That's reassuring." Kari moaned into the floor. She finally rolled back over onto her back, putting an arm over her face, shielding her eyes from the lights above her. "Did we do it?"
"We did it!" The Doctor beamed like a little kid. "I was able to watch it on the monitor. The sphere went through and the portal collapsed on itself. The building is completely destroyed, though."
Kari gave a thumb up with her free hand.
After another minute or so on the floor, she finally felt well enough to stand up. She immediately got dizzy and had to sit down in the jump seat. She looked up to find all eyes on her.
"What?"
"Kari Maxwell, you just saved Planet Earth!" The Doctor beamed, bouncing on his toes.
"Jack helped. You all helped. Wasn't just me." Kari protested.
"Yes, but it was you who warned us, despite your misgivings. That was incredibly brave of you." The Doctor sat down next to her and put an arm around her shoulders. He noticed her shoulders started to shake. His eyes got wide with concern. "Kari? What's wrong? Are you ok?"
She started shaking harder and harder until she couldn't contain herself anymore. She fell on the floor in a ball of hysterical laughter. They all stood over her, bewildered.
Once she finally calmed down, she sat up and wiped tears from her face. "Whoo! Wow! OK, I think I feel better now." She stood up. Her three companions were still looking at her with very confused looks. "What now?"
"What was that outburst for?" Jack asked with an amused grin on his face.
"Are you kidding me? It's for everything! It's for two supposedly fictional characters showing up at my apartment at 2 am and taking me with them so I can escape my life. It's for preventing several bad things from happening. It's for saving the freaking planet! The weight of the world has quite literally been lifted from my shoulders!" Kari exclaimed with a huge smile on her face.
"Do you know how completely emotionally numb I was by the time we actually got to pulling the levers? I wanted out of there so bad. I just wanted it all over. Being in the place that caused so much sadness, anger, and destruction was entirely too painful, so I just shut down. To get out of it alive and well and to have succeeded is AMAZING!"
She looked down at her hands and noticed they were shaking. She frowned at them. "I'm shaking. Why am I shaking?" She then noticed tears coming down her face. She looked up at the other three, face full of confusion.
"And there's all those emotions coming to the surface. Come on, hon, let's go to the library and relax and have these fine boys bring us some tea, yeah?" Rose said as she put her arm around Kari's shoulders, leading her down the corridor as she started sobbing.
Kari nodded. "Yeah."
Jack and the Doctor headed off down the corridor to the kitchen and set to making tea.
"Well, now what?" Jack asked.
The Doctor raised his eyebrows. "What do you mean?"
"This crisis has been averted. You have Rose. You need to tell her."
The Doctor frowned. "Tell her what? She already knows how this ended originally."
"How you feel about her, Doc. You have a second chance with her. Don't waste it."
"She knows, Jack."
Jack leaned across the table. "Does she know, Doc? Does she really know how you feel about her? Because I'll bet you dollars to donuts she doesn't. She hopes you feel the same way about her that she does you, but she doesn't know for sure."
The Doctor leaned against the counter and ran his hands down his face. "Even if I did tell her, I couldn't do anything about it. She's human; I'm Time Lord. We're not exactly compatible. Not to mention the whole she's going to age and die and I won't thing. I want her with me for as long as I can, but it's not fair to her. She deserves better, Jack. I don't deserve her."
"Why don't you let her decide that for herself?"
"I'd have to tell her everything I've done; all the reasons why I have nicknames like the Destroyer of Worlds and the Oncoming Storm. As soon as she hears those, she'll turn tail and run away from me faster than I've run from anything."
"I think she'd surprise you, Doc. She's seen what you can do. She knows you don't always have the easiest decisions to make. You've said yourself she's made you a better person in the time you've known her. Give her a chance."
The Doctor sighed. "I'll think about it."
"Fine. Just don't think too long."
With that, they gathered up the tea and headed to the library.
About 20 minutes later, Jack and the Doctor walked into the library with trays filled with mugs of tea. Rose and Kari were laughing and talking on the couch.
"Feeling better, then?" the Doctor asked with a smile.
"Oh yes! Very much so." Kari said with a huge grin as she grabbed a green mug with daises on it that suspiciously had her name on it.
"Good!"
They all sat in companionable silence for a while, enjoying their tea and watching the fire. The Doctor was the first to speak.
"So, Kari, do you want me to take you home now?"
She set her mug down in her lap and stared off for a bit, thinking.
"I honestly don't know. On the one hand, even with all the emotional stress, this has been a blast! But, I do have a life: two jobs, a cat, bills. All of it. I'm not so naïve to think that I could go traveling with you and just go back to all of that like I'd never left."
The Doctor leaned forward in his chair. "Jobs can be quit, bills can be paid off, and we can accommodate for a cat."
She leaned back and took a sip of tea before pulling her phone out and throwing it at the Doctor. "Could you please do a bit of jiggery pokery on that? I need to phone a friend on this." Kari said with a grin.