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The Age of Paradox 2.5: Miracle Day
Maybe it was unfair to run off like this, but Amy chose to consider her decision to remain part of the TARDIS 'crew' as an example of how she had grown beyond a point where she could be happy just staying put on Earth. The Doctor and the Brigadier had been forced to call on more than a few of their shared contacts in UNIT to get the TARDIS shipped back to Britain after everything had calmed down, and he had soon confirmed that the end of the Miracle had also ended the barrier that had been keeping the old girl trapped. He was still running a couple of checks on some of Jack's remaining equipment in Cardiff to be sure everything was in order, but the Doctor was confident that they would be resuming their travels as soon as the most immediate problems had been dealt with. With Natalie still getting used to her new body and personality, Amy had been taking her around the city every day, but Gwen had volunteered to take Natalie out for the day to give Amy a chance to relax in the TARDIS and go over what everyone else was doing.
Obviously the priority for the others was to make sure that the Families couldn't do anything like that again, which meant trying to lock down on whatever resources they had available and stop them building up that kind of power again. A few back-traces had allowed Rex's associates in the CIA to find a few other moles from the Three Families in the agency, including someone he and Esther had apparently known back before this all started. So far none of the captured moles were talking, but the investigators were hopeful that they would at least be able to trace something once they had more time to work out the links between their captives.
Of course, on a wider note, the camps were posing a particular problem at this stage. Even in cases where the camp coordinators hadn't been as bad as Maloney, the whole situation was in one of those frustrating legal grey areas where everyone wanted to condemn what had been done there but nobody was sure of the right policy. Strictly speaking, nothing that had taken place in those camps had been outright illegal even if it was fundamentally immoral, but several people were aware of the implications of using 'Just following orders' as an excuse in any situation. The Doctor had asked Sarah Jane to use her contacts to try and identify those camp wardens who had at least made sure that anyone burnt in their camps would have never been able to recover from their injuries, but that would only get them so far…
Is this why he doesn't stick around? Amy suddenly found herself wondering.
She would never doubt that the Doctor genuinely cared about the people he met and the planets he tried to help, but it must be hard to face a situation where his usual methods couldn't make a real difference. As much as she told herself the Doctor was a great man, Amy could tell that he wouldn't have the patience to work on helping civilisations rebuild after this kind of long-term damage. He could justify it as him not wanting to basically take power after fighting to stop other people forcing their will on others, but ultimately the Doctor's lives were all about freedom, which included being free of that kind of permanent responsibility. He would do what he could to give other people the chance to make their own lives, but he didn't want to get stuck with that kind of duty himself.
Still, on this occasion he was at least making sure everything was in better shape to rebuild before he left. The Brigadier's UNIT contacts were helping Rex's associates in the CIA to make sure they found all of the Three Families' remaining active agents and the Doctor's old companions were each doing their part in their particular areas of expertise. Captain Jack Harkness in particular had begun his own efforts to rebuild Torchwood as a more official organisation, both to focus on the hunt for the Families and re-establish his own efforts to protect the world. While he understood that the Doctor and the other TARDIS travellers wouldn't remain, Jack had assured them that Torchwood would always be available if they needed help on Earth.
Still, Amy had been pleased when Esther had revealed her own decision to join Jack and Gwen in Cardiff to re-establish Torchwood. Rex had been initially offended at Esther's decision, but had accepted her argument that she didn't feel as though she fit in at the CIA after everything that had happened, and was looking forward to exploring new opportunities with the others. The Doctor had even provided Esther with a few useful contact details, going beyond his immediate companions, so that Torchwood would have a few new resources available than they'd had before.
Amy wasn't sure she could commit to anything like that at this point in her life herself, after so long preparing to face the kind of threats that any regular TARDIS traveller would face, but she could see how it was a good idea at the moment. The Doctor was taking steps to ensure that humanity was protected while he resumed his own travels, and everything could go back to the way it was meant to be…
"It's never going to be entirely the same, is it?"
"The old ways stopped applying quite some time ago from my perspective, Brigadier," the Doctor smiled at his old friend as they stood in the Brigadier's study, the homely atmosphere providing a sense of comfort as they considered the grim events of the last few weeks. "We can do our best to hold on to what matters, but it's never going to be possible to do things the way we did before."
"It's one of the things I regret most about the modern way of doing things, really," the Brigadier mused with a smile, standing by a chair even as he seemed determined to stay on his feet. "The new guard say that they have to be rougher these days, but they seem to forget what we had to deal with back then; just because you made it easier back then doesn't mean it was ever simple."
"I made it easier?" the Doctor looked at the Brigadier in surprise, not bothering to hide how touched he was at that simple statement. "I always worried… I mean, the Master was definitely on Earth because I was there…"
"You're not responsible for what others do because of you, Doctor," the Brigadier shook his head. "It's like what I believe they call the… superhero paradox in comics these days; once certain kinds of problem start others will respond, but ultimately we're all responsible for our own actions. You do what you do because you want to help, and how your enemies react to that is on them rather than you."
"Thank you, Brigadier," the Doctor grinned at his old commanding officer, and the only man he would ever have acknowledged as his 'boss' on any level.
He wasn't sure if he was ready to say why he was particularly grateful to hear that statement, but when his half-memory of Magdalena's accusation that he was the reason everything had come to Dust in that now-defunct timeline that led to his alternate third regeneration still troubled him even now, it was refreshing to hear that a good friend didn't blame him for the enemies that came to Earth hunting him.
"Anyway," he clapped his hands together with a brief smile, "how's Agent Matheson settling back into the CIA?"
"Almost too easily," the Brigadier shook his head with a half-smile. "It puts me in mind of Doctor Shaw in some ways. He was a good enough fit with the rest of you, but even just hearing your tales of what you were dealing with it's not hard to see that his heart wasn't in it when he was out there with you all."
"Sometimes people just aren't cut out for it," the Doctor conceded. "I've had to turn down a few people who wanted to come along because I realised they were asking for the wrong reasons."
"They can't all be Miss Grant or Miss Smith, can they?"
"It's the disadvantage of only taking the best," the Doctor smiled. "I have to turn down some good people who just… aren't a good fit."
"And it's not any easier when the stakes are this high?"
"The Faction… make things difficult," the Doctor conceded with a grim nod, understanding what his friend was referring to. "I thought I was keeping Amy and Natalie safe by just travelling… I wanted to believe that I could just go back to the way things were…"
"But it's not that simple?" the Brigadier looked sympathetically at his friend.
"Would anyone have attempted something like this back in the old days?" the Doctor waved a hand at the newspaper on the Brigadier's desk announcing a surge of funerals. "Even if Earth's back to normal now, it's still going to take a while for everyone to get over this, and then there's the question of these Three Families to deal with…"
"We dug out the Fourth Reich after we exposed Hitler's son, and then we had a far wider range of resources to search through," the Brigadier smiled, sitting down with a brief groan in the chair behind the desk as he looked at the Doctor. "If these Three Families are as selective as they sound so far… I wouldn't dare to say it will be easy to find them, but we have precedent."
"And I wouldn't be leaving Earth at a time like this if I didn't trust you and Jack and everyone else to find them," the Doctor replied, before his expression turned more serious. "But just remember; all you need to do is make the call and I'll be right back."
"Of course," the Brigadier nodded at him. "And if you need any help from us… well, I think we've already made our point."
"You did," the Doctor said, walking over to give his old superior a warm handshake. "Anyway, I should move on; I still have to nip back and make the right calls for you to get everyone together in the first place."
"Not the kind of thing you used to do, as I recall."
"Another sign of how things have changed," the Doctor shook his head with a wistful expression of regret before he turned back to the door of the study. "Like I said, time for me to keep moving; if the Faction think they can get away with this…"
"You've never let us down, Doctor," the Brigadier observed with a smile.
"Even against a foe like the Grandfather?"
"He is nothing but the corruption of everything you are," the Brigadier said with a reassuring nod. "I for one would bet on the original over the cracked mirror at any day on any world… and you have a good set of companions to face the challenge with you."
The Doctor knew that he didn't need anyone's approval of his companions, but once again, having his oldest human friend express approval of the people who would be by his side in this upcoming fight felt right in a way he couldn't explain. He gave the Brigadier a smile of thanks even as he walked over to look out of the study window, briefly lost in thought as he looked upwards at the blue sky.
Somewhere out there in the wide universe of space and time, in the stars currently hidden by the sun and the daylight, the Grandfather was content to play with the universe and twist things as far as he dared for no better reason than that he could do what he liked now that Gallifrey was gone. The Doctor had spent his last two lives basically just trying to travel in this universe and help out where he could, as though nothing had changed since he first started to wander freely again in his fourth body (he'd been on the run in his first two and his third had been a bit of a stay-at-home sort even after his exile was lifted), but if the Faction had the nerve to do something on this scale he clearly couldn't just leave them to their own devices any more.
He would give Natalie in particular a few more days to get settled in to her new identity, but once she was ready and he was satisfied that the world was prepared to move on from the Miracle…
It's time to face the Grandfather.
AN: This marks the end of this part of the series. I will be putting this series on hiatus for the immediate future so that I can focus on a few other projects, but when the time's right, I will return to this series to complete the Quest for Paradox, as the Doctor, Amy, Natalie and K9 seek to find and confront the Faction while ending their influence on the wider universe.