Action and Reaction

Jenny tugged at the manacle. The chain rattled, but the bolts holding it in place didn't stir. She tugged harder. Nothing.

"Don't do that. You'll chafe your wrists."

She glared at her father, manacled to the wall across the cell. His hair was even messier than usual, flattened on one side and sticking up wildly on the other. His tie had been pulled loose. Good. He deserved it.

"You should have let me hit him. Then-"

"Then we would have been shot, not just locked up." The Doctor replied cooly. "And I hate getting shot." He glanced at the manacles around his own wrists, and, despite what he'd just told her, gave them a good tug. It did as little good as it had done her. He frowned.

"If I can get my sonic screwdriver…"

"What?" Jenny challenged, "With your teeth?" it was his fault they were stuck in here. They could have fought their way past the guards. Instead he'd ordered her not to struggle.

A soldier obeys orders.

Shut up.

Across the cell, the Doctor seemed to be considering her words. He shook his head.

"Nope, it's in the lower breast pocket, and these chains won't let me bend that low." He met Jenny's glare again. Her face was set like white marble. Why she was cranky he had no idea, since she should be properly abashed at this point. It was her impulsiveness that had gotten them down here in the first place. He rattled a manacle again, and sighed, glancing back at his daughter.

"This is why you don't go barging into situations, by the way. You asses first .You learn the conditions. Look before you leap, remember?"

"I did look." Jenny replied hotly. "And I didn't like what I saw. What they're doing is wrong. I wanted to fix it."

"And you got us in a fix instead." Her father replied drily. "I'm not disagreeing with your view." He twisted his hands in their manacles, and gave the maneuver up. "The problem's with your method of acting on it."

"What would you have done, then?" She demanded.

"Glad you asked." The Doctor said, eyes on the manacle around his right wrist, "I was starting to do it when you barreled in. When we landed at this party the talk about war and their 'secret weapon' got my interest, like it did yours. Then when we got downstairs and I met the High Minister and had a bit of a chat, I knew exactly what was happening. And for your information, you weren't the only one who saw the bruises under his wife's fur. So, what was I going to do? I was going to speak to several of the more thoughtful cabinet members throughout the party, ask them very carefully if they don't think that the High Minister has been overreaching their country's charter. Discuss their country's illustrious history, then work the conversation around to the fact that if they approve going to battle, their country will become the aggressor in a war that will tarnish their name for centuries. I mean, they're basically going to raze that little lot next door, and with weapons from a more advanced planet too. We would have had a discreet chat with the Minister's Lady on the way out, get her away somewhere safe if she wanted out from under her husband. The Cabinet would have deposed the High Minister in a few days, everyone would have been right proud of themselves for their wisdom and their patriotism, Lady Rees'ssha would have been quite happy, and his Lordship would have been disgraced enough to stay out of politics. The non-planetary weapons he's gotten a hold of would never have been used, and they would have forgotten that we were ever there. What I would not-" he emphasized his words with a pointed, eyebrow-raised stare-"have done was go in, suggest to the High Minister that I give him a beating of the same intensity as the one he gave his wife, then whirl around and tell his Cabinet that they were poor strategists and idiots for going with their bloke's orders, in front of the whole party. Because, Jenny, this is what happens when you do. Now the Cabinet is feeling belligerent, the plans for war are still going ahead, they still don't know about the non-native weapon they're sanctioning the use of, and the Minister still has his wife under his hand. And we're down here. Where we can't fix any of it."

Jenny stared right back.

"I didn't call them idiots."

Her father rolled his eyes. "No, you called them worse. Which really didn't help matters. So whenever we get out, now we'll have to find those weapons, deactivate them, talk some sense into a very annoyed Cabinet, possibly get into a fight with some guards, and rescue the Minister's Lady. Which will be quite a lot more trouble than it needed to be. "

For a moment, father and daughter stared at each other. Jenny glanced down. She pulled at her manacles again. Then she braced her legs against the wall, and kicked outwards, pushing her body up into an arc. Her feet landed hard against the sides of the manacles binding her wrists. Other than scraping the stone behind them, the manacles didn't budge. Jenny let herself back down, her back thudding painfully against the stone as her legs hit the floor. She couldn't even do that right.

"Impressive."

"And useless." Jenny grated.

Her father shrugged. "Ah, well, it's still a nice move. Might have worked too, if these weren't durasteel. Besides, it's not like you're Houdini. Can't expect to…Oh! Houdini!" The Doctor's thin face lit up. He nudged the edge of his coat open, and pulled what looked like a length of wire from his breast pocket with his teeth. Leaning to the left, he just managed to get it into his hand.

"What's a Houdini?" Jenny asked.

"Who's Houdini, Jenny. Harry Houdini, amazing man, a human actually, great fellow, and the one who taught me how to do-" Her father twisted the wire once, twice, flicked his hand, and the manacle fell away.

"that! Like I said, great man."

He pushed the wire into the other manacle, and in a moment it popped open.

"They never change these things!" the Doctor exclaimed. He bounded to Jenny's side, and in a moment she was free.

"You have got to show me how to do that!" She said. He grinned. "Later, yes I do. Now for the door." Whipping out his sonic screwdriver, the Doctor pressed it against the lock. It clicked.

"There we are!"

Jenny poked her head out the door. Distantly, she could hear the sound of running feet.

"They know we're out."

Her father glanced up the corridor. "I figured as much. Doesn't give us much of a head start, but anyway…" He grabbed her hand, and met her eyes. "Run!"

…………………………………………………………………………………….

Jenny stood, nonplussed. The Lady Rees'ssha had wrapped both arms and her tail around the Doctor in an enthusiastic hug. She let go of him, and grabbed Jenny in the same sort of embrace, muffling her in blue fur. Jenny was sure she'd never felt more awkward in her life.

"How can I ever thank you?" the woman asked, letting go of Jenny. Her wide silver eyes gleamed as she smiled at the pair. The Doctor smiled back.

"Just go out and be brilliant, that's all the thanks you need. Will you be able to get by on-" He gestured to the rubies the Lady had grabbed as they'd run from the High Minister's private rooms. Rees'ssha glanced down at the stones, and gave off a warbling little laugh.

"Get by? With these I could buy an island!"

"Well, don't get too flashy." The Doctor said. "Though I don't think you need to worry about your husband again. From the look of it, the army and the Cabinet will be dealing with him."

Jenny nodded. "He lied to his troops as well as his Cabinet, and now they know it. Bad idea to lie to the men who put their lives on the line for you. He's going to regret it."

Rees'ssha's lips pulling back from long teeth.

"I hope he does."

She glanced back at the TARDIS, its door left open when they'd landed to drop her off.

"Will I see you two again?"

Jenny pasted a smile on her face.

I really, really hope not.

Her father's amusement rippled through her head. To Rees'ssha, he shrugged.

"Oh, you never know. Good luck with it all."

"And you. Both of you." Bending her long torso, Lady Rees'ssha gave an intricate bow. Jenny stepped back into the TARDIS, and her father closed the door.

The ship hummed quietly around them. The Doctor took up his stance at the console.

"Well, that was interesting. Lesse, total tally of the day: one catastrophic war with overly advanced technology averted, one damsel in distress saved, one mad nascent dictator deposed and punched in the mouth, and one floor blown to smithereens. You did have to fit punching and something blowing up in, didn't you?"

"I didn't mean to." Jenny defended, walking to the other side of the console. "Well-not the explosion, anyway. It just…happened. I assumed the weapons were inactivated. Guess I shouldn't have. But I did put them out of commission."

"Oh you did that." The Doctor replied, "In spades." He released the handbrake, and the ship began to groan and hum around them. He glanced around the rotor as they worked.

"So, learn anything from that whole mess? Anything at all?"

"Yep." Jenny replied, her eyes on the controls. She glanced across at her father.

"I found out how bad I am at escapes. I'd like to meet this man Houdini. Looks like I could use a bit of his specialized training. Can we go there?"

Across the console, The Doctor rolled his eyes.

"Not what I meant, Jenny. If we hadn't gotten in to the situation in the first place we wouldn't have had to get out of it."

Jenny grinned at him.

"I know. But we did."

The Doctor glanced at Jenny, intending to drive home the importance of cause and effect at length. But he met his daughter's wide eyes, her confident grin. He shook his head at his impossible child. And he set the coordinates to introduce her to Houdini. If she was going to get into situations, she might as well know how to get out of them.

If he remembered right, that had been his reasoning when he'd gone to meet Houdini too.