CHAPTER 50

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MY, MY, HOW YOU'VE CHANGED, MR. POND! PART 2

"No, this is just wrong. All of it. You don't love one another. Not like that. I know you don't. Mum, you love Rory. You once let a Weeping Angel kill you just so that you could stay with him. You have to remember him. And Dad, Clara loved you so much that she almost died when she jumped into your timestream to save you. You can't forget something like that. You just can't!" Jenny said in tears.

"What are you talking about? I'm the one who jumped in his timestream in order to save him back on Trenzalore. I still keep bumping into echoes of myself to this day because of that and most of them are nothing like me at all. They're so unbelievably pushy and loud that's a wonder that anyone puts up with them. Good thing for you that I'm nothing at all like that, right?" Amy said to the Doctor as she kissed him.

"Yes, of course you're not," The Doctor said in a voice that was just a bit too drawn out to be sincere.

"You'd better be so glad that I'm too worried about Jen to deal with you properly right now, Mr. Pond," Amy said in a threatening tone.

Jenny immediately shivered in reaction to that name as she said in a horrified voice, "Please don't call him that."

"Why shouldn't I? He is my husband after all," Amy said in confusion.

"Not in her version of reality, Amy. Apparently she's very attached to this Clara. She must be something truly special," The Doctor said in a wistful tone.

"She is, Dad. She's sweet, kind, and beautiful both inside and out. She's always there for all of us whenever we have any problems and she actually puts up with whatever annoying thing that you do with a smile on her face because she truly loves you no matter what. She's perfect for you, Dad. I wish that you could remember her like I do. I miss her and my sisters so very much right now. I need them back. Please help me get them back again," Jenny said in an emotional voice.

The Doctor instinctively put a comforting arm around her and drew her close to him which only made Jenny realize even more just how different things were in this new reality as he said, "I'll do my best, Jenny. I promise. I'll do everything that I possibly can."

Amy looked extremely conflicted now as she said, "How do we know that this other world is any better than the one that we already have though? What's wrong with things the way that they are?"

She took one look at the anguished look on Jenny's face in response to her words however and immediately said in an apologetic tone, "I'm sorry. I know I'm being selfish, alright? I know that but I – I love the Doctor. He means everything to me. I don't want that to change. I don't want things between us to change either, Jen. It sounds like . . . almost like you love this Clara more than me."

Jenny vehemently shook her head as she said, "No, that's not true. I promise it's not. Things won't change between us. Trust me, Mum. We'll always be close. As for you and Dad, there's someone out there that I know for a fact that you love much more than him or at least there used to be. You belong with him, Mum. Always."

"I don't even know him though. He never even existed in this reality," Amy protested.

The Doctor cleared his throat nervously now as he said, "Actually . . ."

"What? What do you mean by that?" Amy said in a furious voice.

"Amy, I'm sorry. There was a man named Rory Williams who used to travel with us. He was your best friend and the man who you were originally going to marry. Then he . . . he was instantly erased both from Time and your memory when he was swallowed by a crack in time and space during one of our adventures together. I – I thought it would be best for you never to mention him again because you have no emotional connection to him at all anymore. I tried to help you remember him again right after you first forgot about him but you just looked at me as if I were completely mad. Well, madder anyway. I swear to you that it was never done out of any malicious intent because I never expected to actually fall for you myself later on. It just . . . happened," The Doctor said with a guilty look on his face.

"I'm glad that it happened though because I have absolutely no memory of ever having loved anyone else in my life. It's always been you that I fantasized about marrying growing up not this Rory person that you keep going on about," Amy protested.

"No, this isn't right, Amy. I know that for sure now. I kept trying to tell myself that it was but it's obvious that the Web of Time disagrees with both of us. We need to set things right again if we can. First we have to see if we can pinpoint exactly where Time went wrong and try to correct it if we can. I'll start with this Clara that you told me about, Jenny. Clara who? What's her last name?" The Doctor asked as he went to the console and began typing away furiously at the computer.

"Oswald. Her name is Clara Oswald and she was born on November 23, 1986 in a place called Blackpool back on Earth," Jenny said in what was now a hopeful voice for the first time since all of this had started.

"Blackpool?" The Doctor asked in a faraway voice as he gave Jenny an odd look.

"What about it?" Amy asked him curiously as she noticed his reaction.

"It's just that I spent a lot of time trying to get there back in my sixth incarnation. I seemed to be constantly being kept away from it by one thing or another and then when I finally arrived there I ran into the Celestial Toymaker which was definitely not a fun experience for me. It kept me from going there again for quite some time," The Doctor said with a small smile as he started to look up Clara on the TARDIS' computer.

"So you had a really rotten time in Blackpool once with a guy that apparently liked toys just a little bit too much. What does that have to do with anything?" Amy asked impatiently.

"I would hardly describe the Toymaker as 'a guy who liked toys too much', Amelia. Although I suppose that is technically correct in a way. It doesn't even begin to do him justice though because he's a major threat on a cosmic level," The Doctor said in an annoyed tone.

"Just get to the point, Raggedy Man. What does any of this have to do with this Clara person?" Amy said with what to Jenny sounded like undeniable jealousy and perhaps more than a bit of fear in her voice.

Jenny immediately grabbed Amy's hand in response and squeezed it reassuringly making her smile back at her as the Doctor said, "It's nothing I suppose. It's just that I felt irresistibly drawn there for some reason during that whole incarnation and that particular version of me loved to visit Earth in the middle of the 1980s."

"Which was when Clara was born," Jenny said with a huge grin.

"Exactly. I can't help but wonder if that wasn't entirely a coincidence now," The Doctor said thoughtfully.

"You mean like it was meant for you to find her someday," Amy said in a sad voice.

"Yes, something like that," The Doctor said as he gave her a sympathetic look.

"So? Did you find anything on her yet, Dad?" Jenny asked eagerly as she crossed her fingers and fervently hoped that Clara was still out there somewhere.

The Doctor shook his head as he said, "Nothing. All that I could find was a record of a Dave Oswald in that city who died when he was hit by a car."

Jenny's ears immediately perked up as she said in an excited voice, "That's it then. That's where it all went wrong. Clara told me that her mother saved her father from being hit by a car when they first met. We just have to go back and make sure that we set things right somehow and everything will be alright again. I know it will."

"That still doesn't explain why Rory came back again in your time. Something was changed there as well," The Doctor said.

"Oh, well, Mum wished him back into existence again after Big Bang II rebooted the universe. This was after he was an Auton the first time around," Jenny said in a matter of fact tone.

"Uh, I did what now?" Amy said with a deep frown.

"Don't worry. I think I actually understood most of that, Pond," The Doctor said reassuringly.

"I'm certainly glad one of us does," Amy said with a shrug.

"Let me explain it a little more to you," Jenny said as she told them both the whole story of how Rory returned and Amy saved the Doctor from the crack in time and space.

"That . . . That just sounds way too crazy to be real. No offense, Jen," Amy said with a stunned look on her face afterwards.

"I've actually had far stranger things happen to me believe it or not, Amy," The Doctor said in a nonchalant tone.

"That's what scares me, Doctor. I can actually believe that of you," Amy said with a chuckle.

"So there's another entirely unrelated sequence of events that became completely altered somehow because none of that happened in this reality. That suggests that whatever changed this timeline was not a natural event," The Doctor theorized.

"So you think someone went to all of that trouble just to get us together? What kind of revenge is that?" Amy asked with a frown.

"It would be the perfect revenge if it took someone that I loved deeply away from me and replaced her with someone else. Something like that would require not only a great deal of power and a vast, intricate knowledge of the Web of Time but also a level of personal hatred towards me that would be almost unparalleled by any of my other enemies. Only someone who really hated me would be that dedicated to hurting me like that. In fact, I can only think of two suspects on my list of enemies that would fulfil both requirements: The Master and the Daleks. This just doesn't seem like the Master's style however. He'd definitely have come around to brag about what he did by now," The Doctor said with his face in deep thought.

Jenny smiled in triumph now as she said proudly, "It has to be the Daleks. We just had a fight with the Daleks and the Cybermen recently and Third Mum, I mean Clara, beat both of them at once. She completely humiliated them!"

She then proceeded to tell them exactly what Clara had done, and even the Doctor seemed to be astounded by the brilliance that Clara had displayed.

"So she's your Third Mum, huh? That makes me feel a little better I guess. So who's your second mother then?" Amy asked curiously.

"Oh, that's Donna," Jenny said without thinking about it.

Then she saw the shocked and painfully sad look on the Doctor's face as she said in a stunned voice, "She was never fixed in this timeline was she? No Donna either then."

"Donna was a friend of yours?" Amy asked the Doctor in a soft voice as she gently stroked his face.

"Yes . . . she traveled with me before you did. I – I had to make her forget about me in order to save her life," The Doctor said in a deeply emotional voice.

"We fixed her in the proper timeline though, Dad, or at least the Rani did anyway," Jenny reassured him with a warm smile.

"The Rani? Helping someone? This really is a completely different timeline isn't it?" The Doctor said in complete surprise.

"I like the Rani. She's very sweet actually," Jenny said defensively.

"Not in my experience. You're making her sound like the Ushas that I grew up with now. I thought that person was gone a long time ago though. That only makes me want to bring back this timeline even more if we could save her," The Doctor said with a determined look.

"So what do we do to undo all of this then? Go back in time and fix whatever the Daleks did to erase this Clara and Rory? I'm betting that won't be too easy. It never is," Amy asked.

The Doctor nodded as he said, "No, it won't be because we have to have precise details on exactly how the Daleks changed history in order to successfully undo it. We can't just pop back and hope that we hit the right time and place even if that does work sometimes . . . occasionally. No, we're going to need to pay the Daleks a visit and somehow get the information out of their database without getting caught."

"Sounds like so much fun," Amy said with a sigh.

"Yes, it does, doesn't it?" The Doctor said with a brief smile of anticipation.

"I was being sarcastic, Raggedy Man," Amy said with a groan.

"You were? Sorry. Sarcasm is hard for me to understand in this incarnation," The Doctor admitted.

"Really? I never noticed," Amy said as she rolled her eyes at him.

"Was that . . .?" The Doctor asked curiously.

"Yes. Yes, it was," Amy confirmed for him as she smiled at him and kissed him which automatically made Jenny visibly cringe once more.

It was just so wrong she thought to herself with disapproval.

"Yeah, I sometimes do that too whenever I watch them get just a little bit too lovey dovey with one another, sweetheart. And that's really saying something coming from me," A man's voice suddenly said from behind Jenny.

"Jack?" Jenny said as she turned around just in time to get swept up in his arms.

She expected him just to hug her as he usually did whenever he greeted her so she was completely shocked to find him suddenly giving her a long passionate kiss in the next moment instead as he held her close to him. At first she tried to pull away from him but then she found herself actually enjoying it to her immense surprise and ceased fighting completely.

She couldn't help but wonder in that moment if perhaps she had been attracted to Jack all along without even realizing it.

When he finally pulled away from their kiss, Jack looked at Jenny strangely as he said, "What is it? Did I do something wrong?"

"Uh, I, uh, I . . ." Jenny said as her tongue became completely tied in knots around him.

"So I take it judging by that reaction that Jack isn't your husband in this other reality then?" Amy asked her with a grin.

"What?" Jenny said as her jaw suddenly hit the floor.

"You'll have to ignore her, Jack. She's been doing that a lot lately," The Doctor said with no trace of humor whatsoever.

"Other reality? What are you talking about, Ames?" Jack asked in confusion as he looked at Jenny with concern.

"Apparently our timeline was completely altered by the Daleks according to Jenny and nothing that we know to be true is right. I'm not supposed to be with Amy and apparently you're not supposed to be with Jen either. I can't say I'm all that broken up about that last one," The Doctor said with what might have been relief.

"Thanks so much, Doc," Jack said with a frown.

"For what?" The Doctor asked in confusion.

"Never mind, Doctor. It's not important right now. What is important is that now that we'll all back in the TARDIS again we need to fix everything back to normal before I change my mind and try to talk you out of it," Amy said.

"I might have a word or two to say about it myself even if you don't, Ames," Jack said as he gave Jenny a questioning look.

"Jack, I . . . I'm sorry. It's true though. In my reality, we're just friends. Really good friends and that's all," Jenny said as she could see the pain in his eyes.

"No, that can't be right. It can't be," Jack said in a hurt voice.

"I'm afraid it is. You seem to be madly in love with someone else instead. A Carrionite named Lilith," Jenny said in an almost disappointed voice.

"Lilith? If she's the same Lilith I'm thinking of, that sounds impossible," The Doctor said with a snort of derision.

"Clara changes her accidentally and makes her more like her. It's what Third Mum does, Dad. She's always doing the impossible. That's why you call her the Impossible Girl," Jenny said to her father in a distracted voice without once having taken her eyes off of Jack the entire time.

"Sounds like something I'd say," The Doctor admitted as he started to enter coordinates into the console.

"Jenny, are you sure about all of this? Really sure?" Jack said as he held her hands in his.

"I was but now . . . Now I just don't know anymore," Jenny said in a conflicted voice.

"Now you know how I feel, sweetie. I'm sorry," Amy said as she put a comforting arm around an obviously upset Jenny.

How could this be happening? How could she actually be falling for Jack now of all times? And what was she supposed to do with these feelings if she did fix things back? It wasn't as if she could pick up where she had left off even if she was so inclined because the Jack of that world definitely didn't feel the same way as this one did.

Or did he?

She immediately shook her head and tried her best to clear all of these thoughts out of her head. She had to concentrate on bringing the others back again not on her love life . . . or lack thereof.

"Jen?" Jack asked with concern as he saw the conflicting emotions flowing over her face at that moment.

"I'm sorry, Jack. This has to be done though. There are so many people that won't exist if I don't fix this," Jenny said as she avoided looking at him.

"It's okay, Jenny. I understand," Jack said even though his voice was clearly filled with regret and reluctance.

The Doctor seemed to be completely oblivious to all of this, which seemed oddly comforting to Jenny somehow since it was more like the Dad that she knew would have acted, as he rapidly dematerialized the TARDIS without even looking at them once. In fact, he actually seemed to be enjoying himself instead amazingly enough.

"I'm going to use an old trick of mine in order to enter Skaro unnoticed. I'll materialize us in the sewers. The only Daleks down there are mostly dead anyway so they're not really going to care too much and won't really be able to do anything even if they did," The Doctor said with a smug look on his face.

"Are you sure about that?" Amy asked skeptically.

"Yes, of course, Pond. You see the Daleks down there are the sewers," The Doctor said as if that statement was completely self-explanatory.

"Whenever I think that it can't possibly get any weirder traveling with you, Doctor, you always find a way to prove me wrong somehow," Amy said as she shook her head at him.

"Thank you," The Doctor said proudly which just made Amy groan in response even as it made Jenny laugh.

It actually felt good to laugh at that moment when it seemed as if her mind and her heart were going in completely opposite directions. This was completely insane though. How could she just suddenly fall for Jack like that when she had never felt anything like that before?

She had to take her mind off of it somehow because it wasn't as if anything was actually going to happen between them anyway especially if everything was returned back to normal, right?

"Jenny, it's going to be okay," Jack said to her in a soothing voice as he realized just how conflicted that she truly was at that moment.

"Just keep saying that long enough, Jack, and you might actually start to believe it yourself," Amy said with a knowing look.

That was when the TARDIS finally materialized in the sewers at last. The Doctor then eagerly charged outside a moment later. It was just a little bit too eagerly Jenny noted as she finally realized that he was hurting too at the thought of losing Amy and was doing his best to distract himself by thinking of all of this as just another adventure.

She never knew that time travel could wind up hurting so much. And to think that she had once thought that it would be so much fun to travel through time. No wonder her father looked as sad as he did back then. He must have thought her so incredibly naïve back then.

She rapidly pushed all of those thoughts aside however as she joined her father outside just in time to see that he was already up to his neck in trouble. That must have been a new record even for him she thought to herself in brief amusement.

There were currently an entire army of Daleks pointing their gun sticks directly at him as their leader warned, "HALT OR YOU WILL BE EXTERMINATED."

"What was that you said about this being your way to get into Skaro unnoticed?" Amy said in an angry voice.

"Yes, well . . . I suppose they must have finally caught onto it. Not even the Daleks can be that oblivious forever I suppose," The Doctor said with a sheepish look on his face.

"No, only you could apparently," Amy said with a sigh.

"I ACTUALLY HAD THE DALEKS GUARDING ALL POSSIBLE ENTRANCES TO THE CAPITOL, DOCTOR, BECAUSE I KNEW THAT YOU WOULD COME SOONER OR LATER. I PREDICTED FROM THE VERY BEGINNING THAT YOU WOULD STUMBLE ONTO WHAT WE HAD DONE AND TRY TO UNDO IT SOMEHOW. YOU SEEM TO HAVE AN UNCANNY KNACK FOR SUCH THINGS," The Dalek Emperor's voice said from all around them.

"It's a gift," The Doctor said smugly.

"Others might call it a curse," Amy quipped.

"YOU CAN ONLY LAUGH BECAUSE YOU TRULY HAVE NO REAL IDEA OF WHAT WE'VE TAKEN FROM YOU, DOCTOR. WE'VE SCORED THE ULTIMATE VICTORY AGAINST YOU BY REMOVING THE WOMAN THAT YOU LOVE FROM YOUR LIFE FOREVER. SHE HAS PAID THE ULTIMATE PRICE FOR HER EARLIER MOCKERY OF THE DALEKS BY BEING COMPLETELY EXTERMINATED FROM THROUGHOUT TIME AND SPACE. CLARA OSWALD HAS NOW NEVER EXISTED AND ONLY THE DALEKS REMEMBER HER. IT IS OUR ULTIMATE VICTORY AGAINST YOU, DOCTOR, AND THERE IS NOTHING THAT YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT. NOTHING BUT DIE," The Dalek Emperor proclaimed in triumph.

The Daleks all began to chant in unison now as they pointed their guns at the Doctor while saying, "AWAITING FINAL ORDERS TO EXTERMINATE THE DOCTOR, EMPEROR."

"Doctor, please tell me that you have some sort of plan or at least a thing right now," Amy said in a worried voice.

"NOW THAT HE KNOWS THAT WE HAVE SCORED THE ULTIMATE VICTORY AGAINST HIM WE HAVE FINALLY PROVEN THAT WE ARE SUPERIOR AT LAST. LET HIM DIE WITH THAT KNOWLEDGE AS HIS LAST THOUGHTS. EXTERMINATE THEM!" The Emperor ordered with malicious glee.

"Doctor!" Amy shouted in fear.

Then suddenly the Daleks all lowered their guns and simultaneously deactivated in unison.

"Did you do that?" Amy asked the Doctor.

"No, but I'm fairly certain that I know who did. You must be this Clara that I've heard so much about. You're very, very good," The Doctor said as he looked upwards.

"Doctor, have you finally lost it at last? Clara was erased from history," Amy reminded him.

"Only the flesh and blood one was, Amy. It appears that she left something of herself behind however in the Dalek Net which was designed to be completely impervious to the changes that they made in Time so that they could continue to remember her. Am I right?" The Doctor asked as he continued to look up.

Jenny cried with joy then as a familiar if mechanical sounding voice said from all around them, "I see that you're just as brilliant as ever, Old Man, and just as reckless too. Did you really not have a plan in mind to escape or did you think that these annoying little pepper pots were just going to let you go out of the kindness of their hearts? Luckily for you, I was just able to gain control of them in time to save you and also block the Emperor from being able to see what happened down here. Right now thanks to a fake video feed I rigged up on the spot he thinks that you're dead. Let's just hope that things stay that way. Am I cool or what, Mr. Grim?"

"I hate to say this but I like her already," Amy said with a smile.

"Actually you were the plan, Clara. Based on what Jenny told us about how you defeated the Daleks and the Cybermen, I was counting on you having left something like this behind in case the Daleks ever tried to gain their revenge on us. It appears that you're just as clever as I knew that you must be, Clara Oswald, and you're just as good as Jenny told us that you were. Even now having been completely erased in every other way you're still finding a way to save me," The Doctor said in a voice filled with awe.

"What can I say? It's what I do. I wouldn't mind the real me actually being around again to get the praise that she so richly deserves for it though so if you'd like to hurry up and enter the city now while I have this lot under control I'd greatly appreciate it, yeah?" Clara's virtual self said in an anxious tone.

"Is this what she's always like?" The Doctor asked Jenny with a smile.

"Pretty much, yeah," Jenny said with a warm smile.

"And I thought Amy was bossy," The Doctor said as he eagerly moved past the now motionless Daleks and towards the entrance to the lower levels of the city above them.

"I heard that," Clara's virtual self said in amusement.

"So did I and don't think I'll forget it anytime soon either," Amy threatened.

"Same old Red," Clara's virtual self said with a mechanical chuckle.

Jenny's hearts were finally lifted now as she dared to hope that everything would finally turn out alright now that Clara had actually pulled off the impossible once more. As she briefly looked at Jack however, she couldn't help but wonder if she would still wind up losing something very important somehow no matter what ultimately happened.

Next: It's the final wrap-up to this storyline at last as the Doctor with the virtual Clara's help searches the Dalek computers for more information on exactly what the Daleks altered in history and when. Will he be able to find out everything that he needs to know to set history back on its proper course once more before he's found and exterminated? Even if he does, will Jenny's life ever be the same again?