Chapter 21 – The fight for Love
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Jack and Ianto slowly lowered Jenny into the water.
"Everything's normal," Jack said. He threw a wink at Vastra; she needed all the reassurance she could get. "We ready?"
The Doctor gave Jack a nod. He was fidgeting with his sonic in the corner of the room, unusually quiet (especially for this regeneration). Was he having doubts...? Well, it was probably too late for that now.
Jack took a deep sigh and started the machine up. The Torchwood gang all turned their attentions to Jenny, who seemed to be taking in the sonic waves nicely. They all breathed a sigh of relief. Jenny had passed the first hurdle.
Vastra, who had been pacing around the room frantically, took a deep sigh of relief and continued pacing. She couldn't stand to look at the screen and at Jenny, asleep in the machine, but she couldn't stand not knowing what was happening. The incessant beeping from the heart rate monitor was giving her a headache, but the sound was comforting in its own strange way. Jenny was alive and safe.
Martha, who also didn't seem to be her usual self, was propped up against the TARDIS with Clara, keeping a watchful eye on the machine and statistics that kept updating.
Clara shot a glance at Martha and nudged the other companion's shoulder. "Well, the hardest part's over. The waves seem to be at the right frequency... Jenny will be back in no time."
Martha smiled at Clara and squeezed the other woman's shoulder. "So you travel with the Doctor now, do you?"
"Yes, I do."
"Then you know that nothing ever goes according to plan." Martha looked Clara in the eyes, gaze unwavering. "Never," she repeated.
Clara shuffled her feet, then glanced over to Jenny. Slowly, she smiled. "So you travelled with the Doctor?" she asked.
Martha nodded.
"Then you know that that even though the Doctor doesn't follow plans, he always finds a way to fix the problem." She looked to the Doctor, who still fidgeted anxiously with his sonic and his bow tie. "Always," she repeated, echoing Martha.
Both women exchanged smiles. "I think he chose wisely," Martha commented. "Picking you as a companion."
Martha seemed to be struggling with tears. "He always does," Clara said, leaning in to give Martha a hug.
And then, the monitor's green light changed to red. Something started screeching in the room, and Clara and Martha instantly turned their attention to Jack.
"Houston, we have a problem," Jack shouted over the noise. "The apparatus is malfunctioning... oxygen levels below fifteen percent and falling!" he yelled to Gwen.
"What apparatus?" Both girls shouted in unison.
"The breathing one" Gwen shouted, thundering past the rest of the Torchwood gang to the machine where Jenny was.
Toshiko ran down into the machine room, closely followed by Owen and Ianto. Vastra would have done anything to follow them down there, but she couldn't. And that made her panicked beyond words. "Jenny!" she shouted, hand clenching the hilt of her katana. But weapons wouldn't help Jenny now.
The Doctor scanned the machine with his sonic. "Oxygen levels at ten percent," he informed them.
"What's happening?" Clara demanded. "Fix it, Doctor!"
Martha stormed over to the machine and yelled, "Get her out of there now! There's no time to fix it!"
"The machine isn't finished," Ianto protested. "This could be our only chance to restore her memory."
"Oxygen below five percent... she's suffocating." Toshiko shot a panicked glance at the other members of her team. "What're we going to do? Jack?"
Vastra spat curses in Silurian, katana drawn. For just one moment, she considered not going into the room. But she was an egotistical girl at heart, and she couldn't stand being away from Jenny anymore.
She burst out of the office and slammed Jack into a wall, pressing the katana blade to his neck. "Lisssten to me, human," she hissed. "You will get Jenny out of there NOW!"
Jack nodded once, completely unfazed. "Tosh, Owen, shut it down."
Owen pushed the button that was supposed drain the tank of water, but nothing happened.
"Oxygen at zero percent! She has less than three minutes!" Toshiko yelled from the console.
"I think it's deadlocked," Jack hollered over the noise of overheating electronics.
With a loud pop, a spark plug blew. And then another, and another. Vastra was frozen in fear. Why did nothing ever go according to plan?
"One minute," Tosh informed them.
"The machine's draining Torchwood's power!" the Doctor shouted. "We have to shut it down." He started scanning the machine.
Vastra found her voice and screamed in desperation. She wanted to kick the machine, to destroy it... The Doctor seemed to be doing something with the power sockets, sticking his sonic into each socket and frowning. He was taking too long... would the Doctor fail her now, in her time of greatest need?
She felt strangely distant now, as if she were observing the scene from afar.
"30 seconds," Toshiko warned.
Owen and Gwen banged away intently on keyboard consoles, and Ianto and Jack were trying to pry open the deadlocked machine with a crowbar.
"The machine it's absorbing Torchwood's power" The Doctor shouted.
"What do we do" Vastra shouted in desperation. Fear had filled her body causing her to freeze and tense up.
"We have to drain its power" The Doctor said scanning every inch of the machine.
"How" everyone shouted.
Vastra swung her katana at the delicate glass side of the machine. It wouldn't help Torchwood a bit to do it that way, but it had been nearly three minutes. Jenny's body floated in some strange not-water liquid that sloshed through the open side, soaking everyone's shoes. Vastra wanted to run to Jenny, but her knees were locked. Was it fear, happiness, anxiety?
Everything still felt frozen to her.
Jack carried Jenny over to Vastra, and she finally broke down. "Jenny, Jenny my love... can you hear me?" Vastra cradled Jenny's head in her lap and kissed her matted black hair.
The Doctor and Toshiko scanned Jenny's body with their various electronic devices, and exchanged grim looks.
"Just this once," the Doctor whispered, "Everybody lives..." He suddenly lit up.
"Jenny?" Vastra asked urgently. "Jenny? Don't leave me now, please. Please. Don't leave me."
The Torchwood gang huddled around them. They had all accepted that there was no bringing back Jenny. It was too late
.The TARDIS door opened in the background. Had the Doctor given up? Clara and Martha wondered. Then the Doctor stuck his head out. "I'm getting help," he explained softly, and dragged them both into the TARDIS without further preamble."
Vastra couldn't let go of Jenny. She grit her teeth and felt hot tears welling up in the corners of her eyes anyway.
She couldn't let them see her cry. Emotions were hindrances. She was a Silurian, and she didn't have emotions.
"Jenny, don't you dare die without me!" she whispered intently. "How... how can you be so cold? You always were the one who warmed me during these cold London nights..." And now Vastra was the one who was suffocating. "H-how can you be gone?" she choked.
"Jenny Don't you dare leave me" She wailed. "Don't you dare!"
The TARDIS's brakes screeched in the interring silence.
"I came as fast as I could," the Doctor said, holding out a jar full of fireflies. He unscrewed the jar and let the fireflies out, much to everyone's confusion. Was this some kind of Gallifreyan custom...?
The little fireflies—which Jack realized with a start were not fireflies, but nanogenes—flew over to Jenny and settled on her face gently.
Vastra tried to brush them off, but the sparks just sank into Jenny's skin.
The others in the room cast the Doctor a strange look except for Jack, who couldn't stop beaming like an idiot.
Jenny's eyes flew open and she gasped, colour returning to her face.
Everyone else sighed in relief, hugging and patting each other on the back. The Doctor, however, crossed his fingers for Jenny's memory.
Vastra cradled Jenny's face in her hands. "Jenny?" she asked almost tentatively.
Jenny stared at Vastra's green, scaly face, at the machine and the katana lying on the floor amid a pile of broken glass. She didn't say a word for an eternity.
"Jenny?" Vastra repeated, softer this time.
Vastra was shocked. She repositioned Jenny upright so she could get more air into her system.
The colour seemed to return to her flawless face.
"Ma'am?" she asked weakly.
Vastra wanted to... she didn't know what she wanted to do. It didn't work. A single tear dripped from her cheek.
Jenny's brow wrinkled in confusion, and she raised a hand to wipe away Vastra's tears.
Hardly daring to look up, Vastra stole a glance at Jenny's face and saw her Jenny smiling. And it was her Jenny's smile, soft and sweet and with a playful edge.
"I thought Silurians didn't cry," she said, laughing a bit. Then she wrapped her arms around Vastra's neck and hugged her as tight as she could. "Then again, you're my Silurian," Jenny said, face buried safely next to Vastra's neck.
"You really do remember?" Vastra whispered into Jenny's hair. "You do?"
"Of course, silly. How could I forget?"
Vastra swept Jenny off the floor and laughed for the first time in a thousand years. "My Jenny," she murmured.
Jenny normally didn't like being carried and lifted everywhere when she could walk quite alright on her own. But this time she didn't argue. She just wanted to be with Vastra…Forever
Jack and the Doctor watched from afar. Not wanting to ruin the moment.
Clara and Martha were hugging each other with happiness and relief.
None of the assembled really believed in miracles—they were impossible. But then again, so was the Doctor.
And they could always count on him.
"See if I let you go on adventures with me again," Vastra threatened lightly. Jenny just smiled and kissed Vastra into silence.
And they would have stayed in that moment forever if they could, two lovers reunited, soaking wet, below the streets of Cardiff.