Big big thanks once again to my dear beta NoPondInTheForest and to you guys for all your reviews and favourites and follows - they made my day! I've taken some liberties as regards the uses of vortex manipulators, hope you won't mind too much!


Clara had closed her eyes in order not to get sick as the whirl of the time vortex started to push her whole body in all possible directions, but as soon as she felt that her two feet were on solid ground again, she opened them up.

"Oh, brilliant!" she muttered clenching her teeth when she realised that the familiar faces of the two men she had expected to find there with her were not to be seen at all. As a matter of fact, she wasn't in the Tower of London either. Oddly enough, she was standing halfway along a white wall corridor inside what appeared to be someone's very ordinary looking house. All along the corridor there were pictures hanging on both walls, but it was night and the lights were off, so she couldn't take a proper look at them. What she could definitely tell was that the corridor opened up into a room, as the light of the full moon entering through the window had made part of it relatively visible. Clara slowly stepped into the room, her eyes curiously inspecting it as much as the limited lighting conditions would allow. There wasn't much furniture in it, except for a couple of chairs and a round table, on top of which were countless gadgets – the sort of gadgets the Doctor would spend ages fidgeting with –, some radio equipment, a laptop, and what appeared to be not so much a microscope than a really very small telescope.

Getting close to the window, Clara pulled the blue curtain to the side and felt a soft breeze caress her face and the few parts of her skin that her tunic had never been meant to cover. When she looked up, she couldn't hold back a loud gasp at the majestic sight of the towering building that she would never have imagined could have been there at all – Canary Wharf.

"Hang on," she said with a frown, "am I back in the twenty-first century again?"

A shiver ran through her body the moment she felt a hand squeezing her shoulder. Paralysed by fear, she slowly turned around, and her heart almost burst with the most immense joy the moment she saw the Doctor – her Doctor – standing right in front of her.

"Clara!" he whispered, and to her, his voice sounded like that of someone who'd just seen a ghost, "what are you doing here?"

He seemed to be delighted to see her in spite of it all.

"Doctor!" she whispered back, instinctively holding his hand. "Is everything alright?"

Much to her surprise, the Doctor's hand was shaking.

Her question didn't seem to surprise the Doctor in the slightest. Even if the room was dark, he must have known that the tear falling down his cheek would be inevitably visible to her. A few seconds were spent in silence, the Doctor just staring deep into her eyes as he cupped her cheek and smiled softly. Something must have happened to him, Clara thought just seconds later, as it was plain as day to see that he was feeling emotional. For a moment, she panicked, since the Doctor had hardly ever been emotional before. She was hoping for him to be able to put his thoughts into words and tell her about what had happened, but when he finally said something, he didn't speak about those things at all.

"Yes it is," he replied, his thumb caressing her chin as his eyes sparkled, his pupils dilating in the moonlight. "After a very long time, I think everything's finally alright."

There was another brief silence, during which time the Doctor squeezed Clara's hand harder.

"Clara, you need to go," he whispered softly again, concern now suddenly written all over his face.

"I wish I could," she lied, "but I don't know how. I don't even know how I ended up here. All I know is this thing definitely had something to do with it."

She lifter her arm, and as the fabric of her tunic sleeve fell down onto her elbow, Jack's vortex manipulator appeared right in front of the Doctor's eyes.

"I see," he said.

"Captain Jack was trying to help me teleport to …"

"Captain Jack? Are you with Captain Jack?" he suddenly asked quite alarmed, as the features that Clara had just moments before found sweet and adorable were transformed into a grimace of disgust. "Clara! What on earth are you doing with him? You can't be with him! Oh, wait a minute… I think I'm having a déjà-vu!"

"Doctor, listen, I really shouldn't be here," said Clara, putting her idle hand on the Doctor's shoulder. The sudden thought of the girl who would still be waiting for her to come back to the Tower of London and save her had rapidly filled her heart with pain.

"You have absolutely no idea how much you really shouldn't," the Doctor replied. "You need to go now, before it's too late."

"Then help me," she said, lifting her arm to show the Doctor her vortex manipulator again. "That indigo thing, a code, or a series of digits or whatever it was that Captain Jack dialled… That's what's brought me here."

Clara could hardly believe it when an unexpected sparkle in Doctor's eyes made his worried expression turn into the one of childish innocence and excitement that she knew only too well and adored only too much. Things got even more unexpected when, out of the blue, he wrapped his arms around her, and lifting a hand, he let it rest on her head as his fingers started to fiddle with her brown hair. The Doctor didn't know it, but this sudden close proximity to him was making it really hard for Clara not to forget what she was supposed to be doing and just give in, if just by doing that she could stay there in his arms. The thought had just crossed her mind that there was nowhere else she'd rather be.

"What are you doing here?" she asked in a desperate attempt to keep all of her senses together in view of this completely unexpected and strangely intimate encounter. "What's this place?"

"I'll be back with you soon, I promise," said the Doctor criptically. "I just… I had to come here, Clara. There was one last thing I had to do."

"It's okay," said Clara. She would have loved to ask him what the reason he had been crying was, but as he soon seemed to have almost become his usual happy self again, she decided that she wouldn't. "There's one thing I need to do too, so I guess I'd better get going."

Yes, she had actually said those words, but she hadn't meant them for one second.

"Is the Bard already with you?" asked the Doctor, leaving an empty space between them as he took a few steps backwards.

"Yes he is," she said, smiling broadly as she understood the implications of the words he'd just said. Firstly, that this very moment was still in the future for the Doctor. Secondly, that the Doctor himself had just confirmed Edward de Vere to be the very man he'd said he was. And finally, that in the end they had all just been reunited after she had set that poor girl free from her dungeon in the Tower.

"Good! Good!" the Doctor said, sighing with relief and swallowing as he kept nodding repeatedly, which made Clara smile again. For some reason she couldn't quite grasp, those had been fantastic news. "Here, let me help," he said, releasing her from his embrace as he took a step backwards and delicately lifted her hand in search of the vortex manipulator.

"I'm not with Captain Jack Harkness," Clara surprisingly found herself whispering while the Doctor fiddled with her magical bracelet. "I ended up with him the last time I used this thing, but it was an accident… I was trying to find you!"

She hesitated for a moment, during which the Doctor took the sonic out of his jacket pocket and pointed it at the vortex manipulator.

"And you did," he said shyly as he kept sonicking. "Jack usually… You know… He sort of has this effect on people… And on aliens… Even on droids. Once he told me the story of a…"

"Trust me, he's not as irresistible as he thinks he is," she said as she rolled her eyes.

"Okay, this is done now," said the Doctor, turning off the light of his sonic screwdriver and putting it back inside the pocket of that purple jacket which she had not seen him wearing during the last few hours and which she loved so much, "and you really shouldn't stay here any longer, Clara, or you might never be able to come back."

"Okay, I'm leaving! But so are you, right?" she asked in a serious voice, frowning.

"Of course I am!"

"Then why are you still here?"

"I'm here because you're here," he replied, putting his hands on her shoulders. "I was actually on my way out when I saw you, but now I'm not leaving until you've left first."

"And can't we just leave together?"

"Afraid not," he replied. "We're going to different places and times," he replied. "I've reprogrammed that thing so that it'll drag Jack's to it wherever he might be."

"But he said his isn't working."

"Oh, he was wrong," said the Doctor. "As usual!"

This time, they both smiled. Clara was a bit confused as she eyed her upgraded toy and lifted the flap in order to get ready to leave. She looked intently into the Doctor's eyes before she started to press the usual buttons, and her eyes probably shone when she did – just because his were shining too.

She would have loved to tell him how much she loved him for staying there, wherever that place was and however dangerous it might be, just to make sure that she could leave safely. She would also have loved to tell him how much she would ignore the catastrophe, natural or alien, that apparently was coming to get them, if he should happen to not make it and couldn't come back right after her, or how fast she would teleport back if she had even the tiniest suspicion that he might have got trapped in that place or anywhere else in the universe. She would have loved to tell him that she would always come back for him.

She would have loved to say all those things and countless others, but she just didn't, and when she finally opened her mouth, the two words that made their way out of it, she thought, couldn't have been any sillier.

"See ya," was all she managed to say before she pressed a crucial last button.


The brief moment they'd spent suspended in space as they journeyed through the time vortex hadn't made Captain Jack Harkness stop squeezing Edward de Vere's fingers. The two men were still holding hands and smiling at each other excitedly when the dim lighting of the place they had materialised in caught them both by surprise.

In looking away from his new friend, Jack barely needed half a second to realize where they were, or who they were with. There were small yellow light bulbs scattered all over the place, but the source of the almost fluorescent greenish light shining right in the centre was a time rotor in front of which there seemed to be, to Edward's great astonishment, a massive hairy egg.

"Oh no," Jack exclaimed, "we really need to get out of here."

"Is this a spaceship, Lord Boeshane?" asked Edward, which gained him a confounded look from Jack.

"Yes… It is," Jack slowly answered with a frown. How could a man from the Renaissance era know what a spaceship was, or that he actually was inside one, even if he was a genius? "Please, call me Jack."

And it wasn't just any spaceship, Jack reckoned – it was one that he knew really well! He had spent some time travelling the universe in it with a couple of friends, one of whom happened to be standing right opposite, almost completely dressed in black, as he often did, including his customary black leather jacket.

The time rotor was making a rather scandalous noise, that was why the Ninth Doctor and his friend looked really busy pulling levers and pressing buttons, and also why none of them had even noticed that Edward and him had materialised inside the TARDIS and were now keeping them company. And concerning the person that was keeping the Doctor himself company… Well, that was no friend of Jack's at all!

"Excuse me, Lord Boeshane," said the Earl of Oxford, whose incredulous eyes had kept dancing across the room they had suddenly materialised in, as he studied every lever and choral and light and person in it.

"What's up, Eddie dear? And it's Jack, remember?" he replied.

"I beg your pardon, sir Jack," Edward went on, "but that young man over there…"

"Yes, I know…" said Jack with a sigh.

"…he seems to bear a striking resemblance to…"

"Yeah, I've noticed!"

"You, my lord."

"Yes he does!" Jack exclaimed, feeling delighted. "And don't I look great in that blue t-shirt!"

"I think I look even better in period costume!" they both heard the other version of Jack say. "I seem to have aged a bit, though."

"You'd never believe how much you've aged, you sexy thing," Jack told his past self, looking seductively at him as he winked. "Fortunately for us, time's definitely on our side!"

"What's this?!" the Ninth Doctor suddenly shouted as his eyes kept moving from one Jack to the other. "Jack! What have you done this time?"

"Oh, look at him!" Renaissance Jack exclaimed, smiling like a Cheshire cat as he took a few steps towards his old friend. "All big nose and big ears and a receding hairline, but doesn't he look great just like that!"

"Thank you!" the Doctor replied, his own broad smile competing with Jack's. His happy features, however, shifted to form a grimace of reproach in a matter of microseconds. "And when the time for adulations is over, will you stop glancing at your own backside and tell me how come there are two Jack Harknesses in here? And why are you and your new fling wearing those ridiculous outfits?"

"Accident in time and space, Doc… Oi!" Jack suddenly exclaimed. "Our outfits are not ridiculous! And how do you know Eddie here is my new fling?"

"Because I know you, Jack," answered the Doctor, crossing his arms over his chest. "I'd have to be really stupid to think that he isn't."

Jack pretended to be cross for an instant, but soon he thought it'd be much better to move on to more practical matters.

"We were supposed to be teleporting to the Tower of London."

"The Tower of London?" the Doctor asked. "And why would you want to teleport to the Tower of London?"

"'Cause a friend's waiting for us there," Jack replied. "She's got my vortex manipulator and we were supposed to be teleporting with her, but something must've gone wrong at the last moment and we've ended up here."

"Not that I think that ridiculous thing could've gotten you all too far anyway," said the Doctor, "but why should you give it to her in the first place?"

"I didn't, Doc – she nicked it!" answered Jack. "And from the Black Archive, of all places!"

"She did, didn't she?" asked a beaming Ninth Doctor. "Fan-tas-tic! Good for her! What was your problem again?"

"We need to get back to her."

"Then go!"

"Can't you take us?"

"Can't you get there by yourselves?"

"No we can't!"

"And why is that?"

"Because my vortex manipulator doesn't work!" shouted Jack, a bit upset. "Because you keep deactivating it whenever we meet!"

"I must definitely have a very good reason for that," said the Doctor, raising his eyebrows. "But right now, it must be working, or you wouldn't be here at all!"

"I told you, Doc, we've come here by accident!"

"I don't think so, Jack," said the Doctor enigmatically as he reached out for Jack's arm and lifted the flap of his vortex manipulator. "See? This is just a little useless thing, but even little useless things can tell when a relative's around."

"What did you just say?" Jack asked in confusion.

"What sort of Time Agent are you anyway?" asked the Doctor. "You don't even know how your own technology works! You said your friend's wearing one and that she was going to use it…"

"Well, she already has," Jack told him. "She was locked up in the Tower and she used it to escape."

"Better and better!" exclaimed the Doctor. "'Cause the moment she used hers to escape, yours got a wake-up call. Look!" he added, letting go off Jack's arm and pointing a forefinger at the vortex manipulator. "It's alive and kicking!"

In turning his head to his wrist and gaping at his vortex manipulator, Jack realised that the Doctor was right – his little device seemed to be fully operative again. And all of a sudden, everything made sense to him. The two versions of his vortex manipulator had run into each other at the same time and in the same place, and in doing so, they had behaved like the opposite poles of two incredibly powerful magnets. Therefore, the only reason why Clara Oswald had teleported to the vicinity of Whitehall Palace was the fact that he was there – and that he had been wearing his.

"Does this mean," Edward asked the Doctor, taking a few steps towards Jack and putting his hand on the vortex manipulator itself, "that we can find the lady Clara, sir?"

"Of course it does, you stupid ape! What else could it mean?" exclaimed the Doctor as his eyes darted to Edward. "And yet, in order to avoid trouble, I'd have a couple of adjustments made before you go if you don't want to…"

Unfortunately for Jack and Edward, they both disappeared from the TARDIS control room, as if by magic, before the Doctor had time to finish that sentence.

"… keep being dragged by the other," the Doctor said with a sigh.


"Well well well," Jack heard a sexy, self-assured and familiar female voice say. "Not the boy I just texted, but that was fast! So sweet of you to come, Captain, though I'm afraid this is not a fancy dress party."

The playwright and the former Time Agent were now in a big living room inside what was beyond question a very rich man's mansion, judging by its size and by the impressive amount of works of art it housed – paintings and sculptures and vases of incalculable value, among many other expensive collectibles. A podgy old man wearing a prohibitive pinstriped black and white suit had stretched his arms upon seeing them, in an attempt to protect all the objects that were on display on the table behind him.

"I'm trying to decide which of those things I should take more personally, Professor," said Jack, "you texting other boys when I'm not around or you not liking my new dress. I love yours, by the way! Black always makes you look ravishing."

"Who are you?!" the terrified old man asked.

"Thank you, darling," said Professor River Song, "and don't be jealous, dear, there's no need! I never text other boys, just the usual one. May I ask, who's your friend? Not your new husband, I hope…"

"Why? You jealous?" asked Jack with a grin.

"My name is Edward de Vere, my lady," said Edward as he bowed.

"Oh no!" exclaimed River, her eyes opening wide. "You can't be!"

"So you know too, huh?" said Jack.

"Of course I know!" replied River. "Liz Ten told me."

"Who is Liz Ten, my lady?" asked Edward.

"Long story, little time, you handsome thing," said River, winking at him.

"Now I might be getting a bit jealous," said Jack.

"As long as wealthy gangster behind me stays put you have nothing to fear," River went on, "but if you turned around you'd be surprised! Now tell me, what are you doing here?"

"Wish I knew!" said Jack. "We were trying to teleport somewhere with a friend but apparently we seem to be destined to end up in all the wrong places."

"And why would you do that?" asked River.

"'Cause we're both wearing vortex manipulators," said Jack, "and Doc said that…"

"That when two vortex manipulators interact," she said for him, "they usually enjoy playing hide-and-seek, among many other things. They also have a thing for wormholes."

"How do you know that?" asked Jack, incredulous.

"If the Doctor knows, so do I," she answered as her lips curled into a smile.

"Well, why don't I know?"

"I don't know, Captain," she said, "but knowing you the way I do, I'm sure you were probably naked somewhere else… Don't worry darling, mommy's here! Give me your hand, and tell me where it is that you're trying to go."

"The Tower of London," said Jack, "on the morning of 18th May 1600."

"The Tower of London?" asked River in surprise. "Captain, I think you should know… It's almost impossible to teleport to the Tower of London. That place's full of temporal distortions - almost as full as New York 1938!" she added as she looked around her.

"But our friend teleported out," Jack insisted. "Why wouldn't we be able to teleport in?"

"Teleporting out is one thing, Captain," River told him, "but teleporting in is a very different question, especially if you have a particular date in mind. You might never be able to make it unless the Doctor can help you."

"Here's there with us actually," said Jack, "we'd just have to go and find him."

"Then go!"

"And that's all?" said Jack. "No hug? No tears? No kiss goodbye?" he asked as he sauntered towards her, rested his hands on her hips and slowly drew his mouth close to hers.

"Oh Jack. you're such a drama queen," she replied as she put her hands on his chest.

Unfortunately for Jack, he could only brush his lips against River's before she pushed him away from her.

"Mr Grayle!" she shouted. "That thing's moved!"

"Of course it has!" shouted Mr Grayle. "Nobody was looking at it!"

Jack and Edward turned their backs, and the Earl of Oxford was literally petrified by what he saw – a terrifying stone statue of an angel, which looked like no other angel statue he'd ever seen before.

"Captain, you need to leave now," River said to Jack. "Give me your hand."

"Always loved Weeping Angels," said Jack, offering his wrist to River. "Never dated one, though."

"I'd like to see you try," River said as she pressed a few buttons on the vortex manipulator by heart, not wanting to take her eyes off the angel behind Jack and his new friend. "Okay boys, time for you to go!"

"And where are we going?"

"To find your friend first of all, then to find the Doctor, and then to the Tower I guess. Not sure this thing will actually take you in or drop you off outside, in which case, trust me Captain, you'd better walk in."

"Thank you, my sensual Professor," said Jack. Then, giving River one of his usual smiles, he added, "I'll spend my days and my nights in Elizabethan England trying to figure out the best way to repay you."

"I've already decided how I want you to repay me, Captain," she said, smiling wickedly at him. "Are you looking at the statue, Mr Grayle?"

"Yes I am!"

"Good boy!" she said as she took Edward's hand and put it on top of Jack's wrist. Then she darted her eyes from the Weeping Angel right opposite to Edward de Vere in front of her, and looking intently at him, she finished that sentence she had left inconclusive. "And it involves you, Mr Shakespeare."

Then she turned her face to Jack and smiled, and pressed the last button for him.


Clara wasn't too sure that she wanted to open her eyes this time, but eventually she did, and luckily for her, a flash of white light came immediately afterwards, leaving Captain Jack and Edward de Vere right in front of her before it faded.

"So happy to see you again, Miss Oswald," Jack said upon seeing her.

Clara briefly glanced at the faces of the two men who had just materialised in front of her before her eyes were caught by the surroundings and the scene that was going on right behind them.

Whatever the Doctor had done to her vortex manipulator seemed to have worked. She had not been able to see much the first time she had been inside that dungeon in the Tower, only what the moonlight had made visible in its dark interior, but as her eyes quickly studied the place, she recognised the four-poster bed, the widow next to which the girl had been standing the night before, the door that had certainly been locked, and the smell of the food that had been left untouched on a plate in the corner next to the door. Everything was exactly as Clara remembered it. Only that, this time, the girl was not in that room.

The people who were positively there was a future version of herself and definitely of the two Doctors, the three of them still in their tunics, and the scene they seemed to be starring in was anything but a merry one. With her back turned to the newcomers, future Clara was weeping uncontrollably, her head resting on her Doctor's chest. The Doctor himself looked pretty disturbed as he held her in his arms and caressed her beloved scalp with his long fingers. While this was going on, the Tenth Doctor was looking out of the window in the other side of the room, his arms stretched in front of him as each of his hands was resting on a different corner of the frame. During the little time the Eleventh Doctor and she had spent in the other Time Lord's company, Clara had quickly gotten used to seeing him looking downcast, but what she saw in his eyes this time was something completely different, something she might have called pure and simple hatred mixed with a feeling of impending doom.

Real-time Clara didn't even want to try to make any guesses to find out the reason why future Clara might possibly be crying the way she was. For the time being, she could only think of one, and that was the very reason she would never accept at all. She opened her mouth to ask the Doctors about what had happened, but she found that no words would come out of it at all.

"Doctors," said Jack instead, "we need your help! Where were you the morning after you lost Clara at St. Paul's?"

Not even taking the trouble to raise his head or look at them, the Tenth Doctor kept staring out of the window. He made the effort, however, of collecting his scattered thoughts and answering Jack's question, and it wasn't easy for him at all.

"The Mermaid Tavern," he said.

"Irony upon irony," muttered the Eleventh Doctor bitterly.

"My lady," Edward suddenly asked real-time Clara, "are you unwell?"

For centuries and centuries to come, William Shakespeare would be regarded as a genius, and Clara had just been half-way through her silly quotation test with him when she had known that to be true.

The girl was gone, and her soul had just broken. And of course, a genius would have known.