Chapter Fourteen: The Fractured Vortex

"Well what do we do?" asked Gwen calmly easing the tense moment out of itself. All eyes were on the man-with-a-plan-sometimes, the Doctor, who restarted his ritualistic dance comprised mainly of pacing around the place and ruffling his hair in vain hope of conjuring up an idea. But the pacing and hair ruffling simply continued with no sign of a result. The time rotor rose and fell impatiently in its column, humming tunelessly to itself which the Doctor felt simply made nothing better. He wished he remembered how to put the thing on silent. He couldn't hear himself think.

"I can use the manipulator to teleport onto her ship and stop her or something," suggested Jack suddenly, throwing his idea up in the air to help. "Overload it when she's trying to-"

"No, no," dismissed the Doctor quickly as he continued pacing. "You can teleport out but you can't teleport into a TARDIS with the manipulator even with her defences down. You need another TARDIS to do that."

"Well, we've got a TARDIS and we went in before ok," said Gwen quickly, getting to the aid of her boss. Jack taught his motley crew good teamwork.

"But that was a trap to lure us in," explained the Doctor gently, trying to not sound rude and abrasive. He was prone to that whenever he was under due stress. "Her defences will be up now she knows we're trying to stop her, so we can't waltz right back in. And I hate being in another person's TARDIS. Makes us vulnerable."

He began pondering again, his brain tirelessly suggesting different ideas but one after the other they seemed as inexplicably flawed as the next. Each scheme seemed to fizzle out as he conjured it. As each thought tumbled terribly out of mind, The Doctor noticed that the youngest member of the group began to fidget and his face screwed up in a weird look full of thought.

"Why does she even want to destroy us?" he said finally. "What have we ever done to her?"

"It's complicated Matt," answered Ivy quickly. She had been there to witness the Rani's plan. "Trust us."

"Yeah but I mean, we get along with you guys alright," he said simply, scratching his untidy head of hair. His face was still screwed and contorted with thought as he continued to speak. "You guys aren't that different. You have terrible fashion but that's just personal I guess. I mean you even look like us."

The Doctor wanted to take offense at the jibe about his fashion sense, but his mind was engrossed and absorbed at observing his companions. He'd been travelling on his own for too long, he almost forgot his favourite thing about companions; they often for some mystifying and mysterious reason were able to outthink him.

"Yeah. Morphic field and stuff," said Ivy quickly. "Like you said back on Earth Doctor. Physically, there's very little difference between us."

And then it struck him like a ton of bricks.

"Wait, wait, wait, wait," he babbled quickly, rushing to Ivy, his hands outstretched and resting almost inches from her head, as though trying to catch the thought before it disappeared. "What did you say?"

"There's very little difference between us?" answered Ivy alarmed, eyeing the Doctor's fingers and wondering what he was going to do with them so close to her face.

"No, not that," dismissed the Doctor quickly. "Morphic field."

The floodgates of thoughts in his mind were creaking, ready to burst open. The others in the room began closing in as the two of them unconsciously spoke softer and softer, though the still didn't understand. Nobody but the Doctor did.

"Yeah, you said the morphic field made us look just like you, give or take a few parts."

"I said that?"

"Yeah," answered Ivy, more confused than ever, but the Doctor wasn't. His mind exploded with joy and thoughts like a furious kettle boiling over.

"Oh, I am brilliant! You are too by the way. But ho ho! I am brilliant."

"What are you guys talking about?" asked Jenny exasperatedly. "What's the morphic field? And how are we going to stop the Rani with this?"

The Doctor's mood and mode changed in an instant. He stood up straight, teeth flashing a cocky grin and smoothly turned into tutor mode, ready to dispense everything he knew to the crowd around him.

"The morphic field!" he shouted to the others around him, arms flailing about ready to do any over the top gestures to assist in the explanation. "When Time Lords evolved into this shape, we left an imprint of it in the universe. All that energy we spent evolving, where does it go? Physics class number one kids, energy is never destroyed."

He thumped the TARDIS console triumphantly as though it would trigger the others into comprehension, but when they looked as clueless as before, he simply continued.

"It only turns into something else. Heat, light, kinetic, and even biological energy. Now -that's- what the morphic field is. Genetic code energy imprinted onto the universe. And every day everything in the universe keeps evolving, so the energy is always there, everywhere. Every minute of every second. As long as there's life, there's the morphic field."

"Yeah, but how is this useful to us?" asked Jack warily, knowing the Doctor was about to explain through an onslaught of words that didn't seem to end.

"Oh, it's brilliantly useful. If you were a powerful Time Lord, which you aren't, except for Jenny and she still has a long way to go, but if you were, using the morphic field you could increase the speed of evolution on planets, make them advance faster like the old Time Lords did before we made laws against that. But anyways, genetics is very intricate and complex and every living thing has a different genetic make. Human genetic make up is similar to apes, monkeys, even daisies and Time Lords, but we can always differentiate one from the other. Even if we're all dead and buried. Parts of me will still be just that slightly different to parts of you and parts of you are so very unique to parts of us.

"I repeat my question. How is this useful to us?"

"All that mutation the Rani did to her experiments? That's our ace in the hole. All that mutation and creation, all that energy is unique. Disgusting, powerful and new but unique. If I can find that energy, and send it back to her experiments through the vortex, it'll make it as though it never happened. It's like a pendulum. All the energy used to make it swing, I'm gonna send it right back so it ends up just right back where it was."

"So all those people, they'll be alright again?" asked Ivy hopefully.

That's when the Doctor hearts dropped. He forgot about all those people the Rani killed and used in her experimentations. He conveniently only focused so much on stopping the Rani and keeping his friends alive, he forgot about the innocent dead.

Then suddenly, a familiar chilling voice rang throughout the TARDIS.

"Tell them the truth Doctor."

"Rani," he whispered hatefully to himself. She found them.

"Tell them what will happen to all those people Doctor," she said carefully, her words full of spite and malice.

"They'll-"

"They'll burn," shrieked the Rani joyously, chuckling like the depraved maniac that she was. However she was right and he was ashamed to tell the truth. So she did it for him. "A genetic energy overload will cause an implosion. Evolution requires time, and the reverse is true. But that's not a luxury you can afford can you, Doctor? Time's champion. Hoisted by his own petard. I am enjoying all the poetry in our encounter."

"We're gonna stop you Rani," barked the Doctor angrily to the faceless voice that echoed in his TARDIS.

"Is that true? Even if you can garner all that energy, and somehow direct it at me can you actually do it? They said you were alone in the final day of the Time War. Can you do it again, today, with children? One, your own? And could you really kill another Time Lord?"

The Doctor did not wish to speak to the Rani. Though his resolve didn't waver, his conscience perhaps did.

"With the humans gone, we could rule over the ashes of Earth from which a new Gallifrey rises!"

The Doctor opened his mouth to speak, but a different voice spoke instead.

"Look," barked Ivy angrily. "I'm all pleased and stuff that the imminent destruction of my species has improved your career opportunities, but that's not going to happen. We're gonna stop you. Doctor, we didn't kill those people, she did."

"Confidence born of ignorance. Your words are empty as your future. This exchange is over."

"Bitch."

There was an eventful silence in which everyone held their breaths and waited for a response, but thankfully none came. And then wonderment and awe washed over all when they realised what Ivy had just done. Gwen, most impressed came over to give her a deserved hug and big arm round the shoulder as all the others cheered and laughed.

"Ivy, how old are you?" she asked happily.

"Seventeen. Why?"

"Nothing. Jack, does Torchwood have a minimum age rule?"

"I don't know," he chuckled at the thought. "Doesn't have a maximum age though."

"I'm thirteen," quipped Matt hopefully.

"Ok, the minimum age rule is now sixteen."

"Ok, so how are we going to do this?" ushered Gwen purposefully, snapping them out of the moment of slight revelry. All eyes returned to the man of the time travelling house box.

"Right. Yes, yes, yes, yes," muttered the Doctor as he returned once more to his controls and busying himself with them. "This time loop won't hold for much longer, and when it ends, we'll be back in the time stream with no time to lose. Time, time, time, time. We're always running out of time. So I need all of you to listen up."

"Just tell us what needs to be done," said Jenny eagerly, ever the ready for battle.

"First of all, I'm going to need all of you back on Earth."

"What?" came the chorus of reply that the Doctor had come to expect.

"No, no, it's all part of the plan," he answered earnestly with his index finger in the air to silence them. He was glad he had a face that people listened to. "I'll be in the TARDIS, but I'll teleport you down on Earth. I've got very important jobs for all of you. Gwen, Jack, I need Torchwood to set up the Rift Manipulator for me. "

"No problem," answered Jack smoothly and confidently. "The Manipulator should be up and running again."

"Good," replied the Doctor who started tottering around his console doing God knows what. "The Rani's planning to open the Rift and I need you to help her."

"What?" cried Jack alarmed. "Why are we doing that?"

"Because that's the only way I can make sure the genetic energy can get out of the Vortex," he explained, his head popping up from behind the middle column. "We're not going to open it up too big, because then obviously it'll turn everything to ash. Just big enough. We might even get to seal it properly at the end of this if everything works out."

"Have I told you how crazy you are?" replied Jack hands high in the sky exasperated. Though it wasn't an argument against the plan in any way.

"Matt, Ivy, Jenny!" barked the Doctor, rallying them up together near the controls. They rushed eager and ready.

"Yes!" they cried in unison. They seemed to have instantly bonded.

"Right. I need you to have this," said the Doctor as he began rummaging in his pockets. The trio looked on hopefully for something amazing to be pulled out. "My sonic screwdriver."

"Oh great," said Matt slightly disappointed. "What do we do? Put up shelves?"

"No," said the Doctor indignantly.

"But if you took this part out..."

Then the Doctor began dismantling his screwdriver and from various other pockets come up with other attachments and odd looking devices that didn't seem to really fit onto the screwdriver but he managed to cobble them up together. Slowly, the screwdriver went from looking like a misshapen pointy thing, to a misshapen pointy thing with bits that looked like falling out.

"Replaced it with this...come on, get in there...and if my jiggery and pokery classes were any good...tadaa!"

The Doctor brandished his handiwork for them to see and it looked one of the oddest things in all of creation. It resembled something slightly like an inside out umbrella. There was a large satellite looking dish at the top now, and several other things that made odd dings, beeps and clicks running all the way down the former screwdriver.

"What does it do?" asked Ivy apprehensively, eyebrows raised the highest it could go.

"It's a relay," said the Doctor simply. The blank faces that beamed back at him allowed him an excuse to continue to talk. "Technically it's now mostly just a big lovely conceptor geometry relay, with magranomic trigger, with one defunct field separator. But that's just so the whistling goes with the lights."

"Cool," answered Jenny. He thought so too.

"Yeah and it also finally works near hairdryers and cats too."

"So what do we do with it?" inquired Ivy.

"When you're on Earth, I need you to get under the space station and aim this straight at it."

"You want us to get underneath the big giant ball in the sky?" said Matt dispassionately.

"Yes."

"The one we're trying to blow up?"

"Yes."

"Brilliant."

"Don't worry, if this whole thing works out, it'll be gone before you know it," assured the Doctor. "Jenny, I need you to take of them for me. Odds are, you'll run into some UNIT soldiers just trying to do their job. There's a chance they might stop you."

"I know what to do," she replied confidently nodding as she did.

"Don't hurt them," he warned.

"I won't."

"Promise?"

"Promise. "

"Good."

Jack felt a familiar lump in his throat. It wasn't anything sexual, it was just nervousness materialising. No matter how many times he died or how many times he went off doing something spectacularly stupid, he'd often get nervous. He rarely shows it of course, but it was there. It felt good. It was good. He liked the lump in his throat. It often preceded the adrenalin rush spreading throughout his body. It sounds like a cliché' but to a man who could never die, that feeling was one of the few things that made him feel alive.

"Doctor, are you ready?" whispered Jack softly to the Doctor after finally being able to get him alone for a minute.

"I've committed genocide against the Time Lords once before. I can do it again," said the Doctor after a moment's hesitation. It was a different tone of voice the Doctor used and as Jack stared at him, behind his eyes, he thought he was beginning to look his age.

"You kid yourself," replied Jack, trying to make light of the grave topic they were debating. "Let me do it. Gwen and Mickey can take care of the manipulator."

"You kid yourself," answered the Doctor quickly though he seemed to be avoiding eye contact now and awkwardly inspecting some controls. "My hands have been, are and will always be bloodier than yours."

He was pushing Jack away with mere words. The Doctor wasn't backing down from this. Jack understood that the Doctor wanted this burden to bear. Just like it was with Harold Saxon, it was his responsibility. The burden seemed to surround him now; like a darkness.

"But, thank you Jack," he added finally, looking up at him. A sliver of light penetrating that darkness.

"Yeah...no problem," he replied lamely. He wished he knew the right words to say, but the Doctor sensed the awkwardness and spoke first.

"How do we get into these kinds of things?"

"I don't know," chuckled Jack truthfully. It was true. Things just seemed to happen to them. "Dalek invasions, universal destruction, edge of time itself and now genocide...How come we never go anywhere nice?"

"Next time perhaps."

Next time? If there was a next time. It had gone quiet as though the Doctor too was contemplating on what he had just said.

"I've always wanted to go to that bar on Zog's Zagzigul city," declared Jack truthfully. "They say that's where all the cute sailors go."

"I'll keep that in mind," answered the Doctor as he flashed a grin.

"Good luck Doctor."

"Thanks," answered the Doctor silently. "Now, everyone ready? Here, we go."