Of the Vortex Born: Chapter Thirty-Four

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A/N:  Yeah, an actual new chapter of this and everything.  Who would of thought?

                                                              Chapter Thirty-four: Unexpected

Jamie Tyler’s ego was either far stronger and more elusive than the Doctor had realized or else it simply no longer existed. Despite the entire family going into a deep meditation and sorting through Jamie’s mind, scanning each segment in turn as if turning pages in a book, there was no sign of her core personality. It was after several hours and with considerable reluctance that he had to admit defeat and withdraw his family from their full cohesive state.

As each person resolved back into their individual personalities he monitored activity in Jamie’s brain. Everything was functioning as it should be with the exception of the big empty hole that should have held the essence of his youngest daughter. He had put her under for the melding, afraid that her unfamiliarity with her family would have caused her to resist. Now he released the final bond on her and her eyes slowly blinked open and found his.

“I still don’t remember,” she said in a low voice.

“I know,” he told her. “We couldn’t find her. We couldn’t find you. I’m so sorry, Jamie. There’s nothing else we can do. You’ll have to start all over again, getting to know us and building your life’s experiences from scratch.”

Jamie sat up and shrugged. “Guess I’m no worse off then I was yesterday,” she said. “Where’s Luke?”

“He’s working on one of the simpler TARDIS repairs,” Rose informed her daughter. “She’s almost healed.”

“I’m sorry, kiddo,” Landon said to Jamie reaching out and ruffling her hair. “I was hoping--.”

“We were all hoping,” Mairi interrupted.

“We were all hoping this would work. Did any of our memories transfer into you?” he asked her.

“No,” Jamie said after a moment. “There was no change at all. I feel like…like there’s a wall, a big white wall, that’s been built up between me and…and everything else and no matter how hard I pound against it, no matter how I cry out, I can’t find my way back to where I’m supposed to be. I just can’t. The scary thing is I’m not even sure that there is anything on the other side. It’s just…emptiness.”

“Oh, Jamie,” Rose gathered her daughter into her arms. Jamie tolerated the hug. “I am so sorry.”

“Nothing can be done about it, I guess,” Jamie said pragmatically when she’d had enough of her mother’s hugs and squirmed free. “I’m alive and I’ve got a family who loves me even if you’re all strangers to me. That’s something. I just…have to get to know you again, that’s all.”

“Yeah.”

“I’ve got to get back to work,” said Landon finally. “We’re cleaning up the mess that was created when the Ganyites were blown apart. I certainly hope this is the last we see of them.”

“Did Jake ever find a motive for their attacks?” Rose asked.

“No. I’m not sure we’ll ever know,” he said. “They were blasted apart pretty thoroughly. Not one survivor was left to question.”

The communicator on Landon’s watch beeped and he looked down at the readout. “I’ve really got to go. They’re launching the troop carrier in thirty minutes.”

“Not without you they aren’t,” said Mairi. “You are the driver.”

“Still, they don’t need to wait on me. Jamie’s fine, if in the same condition she was in before we tried to fix her, so there’s really no reason for me to stay.” He said his good-byes and left the infirmary.

A moment later Mairi’s handheld computer buzzed and she left her sister’s side to retrieve it. She read the text that hastily scrolled across her computer screen. “Nikolas needs me in the makeshift lab,” she said. “See you later.” She exited quickly without waiting for replies.

Jamie hopped down off the exam table. “I’m going to go see Luke,” she said and exited the infirmary in much the same fashion as her elder sister had.

“It doesn’t even seem to faze her,” Rose said wearily. “She’s never going to remember who she was before and it’s like she doesn’t even care.”

The Doctor pulled Rose into his arms. “I know it seems like that, but I can assure you she does feel something akin to remorse at the loss. My people were a very pragmatic lot, Rose. We learned to accept the things we couldn’t change and the things we wouldn’t allow ourselves to change. Jamie is just coping the best way she knows how.”

“I know,” Rose said. “I suppose it’s hardest on me because I know how much she’s lost. How much I’ve lost. It’s easier for you. You didn’t watch her grow up. You’ve only known her the last few weeks. Hardly time to get to know her at all.”

“Perhaps,” he said. “Still, I feel the loss, Rose.”

“I know. I didn’t mean to imply that you didn’t.” The Doctor looked at Rose and felt a bit of sadness that they still had to be so careful of each other. As much as either of them might want to fall back into the ease of their first relationship, too much had happened; both of them had changed too much for it to ever quite be that way again.

“I know you didn’t, Rose.” He rubbed his hand over his face and then up through his hair. “Maybe, with enough time it’ll still come back.” Even to his own ears he didn’t sound convincing.

“Do you really believe that?” Rose asked. “Or are you just trying to reassure me?”

His shoulders slumped. He hadn’t felt this defeated by something since he’d first lost Rose to this parallel world of hers. “False hope is still hope,” he mumbled. “No, I think we have to face up to the fact that our Jamie is gone forever.”

Rose sighed and put her arms around him. “We still have her, though. Our daughter is healthy and safe and with us. And that’s worth a lot.”

“That’s worth everything.”



“Hey, Uncle Jake? I thought they said that all of the Ganyites were destroyed,” Landon called to the back of the cockpit. Jake released his seatbelt and came up to sit in the unoccupied gunnery chair.

“They were,” Jake said. “What are you seeing?”

Landon flipped a couple of switches and the opaque screen in front of Jake went transparent. “At two o’clock,” he said, “there’s a formation. Or at least I thought that’s what it was, but it’s moving. It was originally at three o’clock.”

“I’ll fire a shell overhead and let’s see if we can get a little light on the subject,” Jake said typing something into the keyboard in front of him. Jake grabbed hold of the joystick and aimed one of the cannons at a forty-five degree angle. With a quick squeeze he fired a shot into the air that split a few seconds later above the formation.

Red light bathed the subject and glittered off the shiny black diamond and smooth onyx surfaces. “That…that doesn’t look like any of the creatures we’ve encountered before. Wrong shape, wrong size, wrong everything. Before they were made up of either diamond or onyx. This looks like it has both,” Landon said.

“Maybe we’re looking at a new type of Ganyite?” Jake theorized.

“Could be. Whatever it is, it’s awfully unwieldy. And…wait a minute! What’s that?”

“What’s what?” Jake asked.

“That flash of purple,” Landon said. “Right to the left of the creature.”

Jake peered carefully where Landon indicated. “I don’t see anything,” he said.

“It was there. It’s gone now, but it was there.”

“Maybe you’re just imagining things. There has been a lot of stress lately what with the stuff going on with Jamie,” Jake said.

“It was there,” Landon insisted. “I’m not one towards flights of fancy and you know it, Uncle Jake.

“Well, whatever it was, it’s gone now.”

“And what are we to do with this thing?” Landon asked gesturing at the slowly moving Ganyite.

“Hold it at bay. Keep it from getting anywhere near Moon Base Two. But don’t fire on it unless it’s absolutely necessary. We don’t know that this thing had anything to do with the attacks on Moon Base One. Until we do it’s to be considered a hostile non-combatant,” Jake said.

“By whose orders?” Landon asked.

“Mine,” said Jake. “I’m in charge of the Moon now. Emergency promotion papers came through this morning.”

“Then why are you out in the field?” demanded Landon.

“We lost too many good soldiers in that last attack. Now we have to work with what we have left. Get a little closer in. I want a better view of what that creature is up to.”

“Yes, sir,” said Landon. He fiddled with switches and knobs and levers and then the slow, lumbering troop carrier shifted in the direction of what Landon continued to think of as the enemy.



“They’re going crazy!” Nikolas Onishenko said as Mairi burst into the makeshift laboratory. She rushed right up to the cage that held the two remaining minus or what her father had said were Ritauels.

“We need to let them out of their cage,” she said and moved quickly to do just that. The birds burst out of their confinement and zoomed about the room crying out wildly then abruptly disappeared.

“Where’d they go?” Nikolas asked looking around the room frantically. “That was the only pair we had left."

“I don’t know. They must have some kind of ability to teleport. These creatures can survive in vacuum. It isn’t unbelievable that they could move through space in the blink of an eye,” she said calmly.

“Yes, but…where to? Their old habitat was destroyed when their dome blew out,” he said.

“I don’t know. Maybe somewhere else in the base or maybe outside. They’ll turn up when they get hungry,” she answered.

“And if they don’t?” Nikolas asked.

“Then they don’t. Not your worry anyway. The birds were my project,” she said.

“Yes, but--.”

“Don’t worry about it, Nik. Shouldn’t you be manning the com anyway?” she asked.

“Not my shift. Plus they’ve got their own staff here. Moon Base Two didn’t suffer any damages. Not like we did. I’ll spell Erin in a bit but mostly I’m watching the in progress experiments that didn’t get destroyed before the move.” He gestured expansively about the room.

Mairi ducked as a flutter of purple feathers burst into the room above her head. “Where the hell have you been?” she asked the bird that came to rest on her upheld hand.

“Fah! They reek,” Nikolas said lifting up his shirt and putting the neck over his nose to try to cancel out the smell.

“That’s what they smell like when they excrete their body oils,” Mairi said unperturbed.

“Can’t you smell that?” Nikolas asked.

“Course I can. Amazing senses, me. But I can also filter out the worst of the stench. Different physiology than humans,” she told him.

“Right. I forget sometimes that you’re not just a girl,” he said.

“I am just a girl,” she said with a shrug. “Just not a human one.”

“How’s that work, anyway?” he asked as they bundled the birds back into their cage. Nikolas brought over a big dish of soapy, lavender scented water and placed it into the cage. Immediately the birds began splashing about in it. “I think they’re trying to get the smell off them.”

“Likely. How’s what work?” Mairi asked.

“You being an alien. It’s just you and your mum and dad and your brother and sister, right? There aren’t any more of you?” he asked.

“No, there aren’t any more. Dad’s planet was destroyed. He was the only survivor as far as I know. Mum used to be human before she was exposed to the Time Vortex. It overwrote her DNA and changed her into a Gallifreyan with the abilities of a Time Lady,” Mairi explained.

“So then a human could become one of you?” he asked.

“I suppose so, if the circumstances were right. I don’t think Dad wants to expose anyone to the Vortex again, though. It was very dangerous and it nearly killed my mum. Of course, it happened under uncontrolled circumstances so it’s hard to say what might happen under controlled ones,” she mused. “Why all the questions?” she asked. “You’ve known me since I was a little girl. Why all the curiosity now?”

He shrugged. “Just was wondering is all. Wondering what was possible between one of your kind and a human.”

“Why?” she asked gazing at him steadily. He blushed under the intensity of her stare.

“Can…can a Gallifreyan and a human have a child together without the human’s DNA being overwritten?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said. “It’s rare but it can happen. Why?” she repeated.

“I just…Sharri asked me to ask you,” he admitted.

“Why didn’t she just ask Landon?” Mairi asked. Nikolas only continued to gaze at her. “She’s not…?”

“I ran the test three times.”

“Let me run it,” she said. He retrieved a test tube of blood and handed it to Mairi who quickly prepared a slide and put it under the microscope. “Those are definitely shed Gallifreyan fetal cells,” Mairi confirmed.

She slid her stool back and shook her head. “She won’t want to come with us when we go. She has too much family. She’s not going to want to leave them behind. Not even for Landon. And after seven years, he won’t leave without her.”

“Leave?” Nikolas asked looking confused. “To go where? To Earth?”

“No. Back to my mum’s original universe. Once my dad gets things sorted and the TARDIS is one hundred percent operational, we’re leaving. Mum and Dad and Jamie and--.”

“You?” he asked. Something in his tone made her look at him more closely.

“Yeah, me,” she said slowly.

“But…but you’re grown. I can understand Jamie going off with them, she’s underage, but you…you have a life here, a job at the university, so many projects that you’re running. Friends. You’re just going to leave all that behind?” he asked earnestly.

“I want to know my father,” she said simply. “And once he gets his ship back to the parallel universe there is no guarantee we can ever come back. I can’t not see my mother again. I just can’t.”

“But if Landon stays--.”

“I know he’ll be okay. Landon always is. He’ll have Sharri and a child and he’ll be fine. But me…I’m not like him. All this other stuff, it’s nothing. I can do it anywhere. I want to travel. I want to see the stars and other planets. I want everything my dad has to offer. I don’t have anything keeping me here,” she said.

“What about me?” he asked on a rush of air.

“What about you?” she asked startled to find he’d closed the distance between them. He cupped her face in his hands and leaned in and kissed her. It was soft and slow but insistent and she found her mouth opening under his. He took full advantage, exploring her tongue and teeth and taking her breath away.

When he finally released her she had to grab for the stool to steady herself. “I don’t want to lose you,” he said in a low voice.

“But…but…you never…not once… and I…” Mairi took in a deep breath. “Oh, damn it.” She stepped back into him. “Do that again.”