Of the Vortex Born: Chapter Thirty-one

[amberfocus]

Chapter Thirty-one:  A Promise Broken

Safely in a survival suit, Mairi Tyler ushered Professor Martin to the escape pods making sure the elderly teacher was secured. “What about you?” he called to her as she exited the little ship.

“Don’t worry about me,” she said. “I know what to do.”

She slapped the panel on the outside of the pod and the door slid shut. The professor’s voice echoed in her helmet as he said, “Be careful, Mairi.” She flipped off the personal band and dialed into the U.N.I.T. secondary band.

“Onishenko, over,” came the immediate reply.

“Nikolas, it’s Mairi. The dome I’m in just blew again. Over.”

“There was a moonquake,” he said. “We’re starting an evacuation to Moon Base Two of all non-essential personnel, over.”

“Is there anything I can do to help? Over.”

“Can you get to your mum’s lab? Over,” he asked tersely.

“I think so, over.”

“Don’t take the magtrain, over,” he warned.

“Why not? Over,” she asked him.

“Because they’re all being used for evacuation. The safety of the residents has to come first. Do you have your file reader? Over,” he asked.

“Um, just a second.” She made her way back to where the caged minus were still chittering and picked up the device. She took a moment to release the latch on their cage and opened the little door.  She reached in for the birds and one at a time transferred them to a smaller cage she could take with her. “Okay, got it. Over.”

“What’s your ident key? Over,” he asked.

“57194-U, over,” she told him.

“All right, I’m sending you a map of the utility tunnels under ground. There’s PTV’s available and you should be able to ride one to the service entrance under U.N.I.T headquarters, over,” he told her.

Mairi received the directions and map and started off towards the entry point. “You sure the tunnels are safe, Nik? With the moonquake and all? Over,” Mairi asked.

“Yes,” Nikolas told her. “I’d never send you into danger, Mairi. The material they’re made of is much stronger than the domes. It’s the same stuff they used on the sea bed that survived the underwater volcano in 2014. Over,” he said.

“Okay. I’ll get there as soon as I can. Over.”

“Be safe,” he told her. “Over.”

She smiled ruefully. “As I can be. Mairi, out.” Mairi hurried into the service tunnels, quickly found the personal transport vehicles and pulled one out of the locker. She slipped her file reader into the slot on top of it and it transmitted its data to the little two wheeled machine. She stepped up onto the platform and hit the start button. Quickly the little PTV began its journey.



Jamie and Luke had made it to her mother’s lab at U.N.I.T. and to the TARDIS just before the evacuation of Moon Base One began. If they hadn’t they would have been forced onto a magtrain or possibly back into an evacuation pod and neither one of them were too crazy about that idea considering what had happened the last time. Luke pulled out his key and the pair quickly entered the TARDIS.

“You going to tell me now what you’re planning?” he asked her. She had said she’d tell him on the way, but she hadn’t. She’d been too busy thinking things through and had waved him to a hush when he’d asked.

“We’re going to take the TARDIS to rescue my mum and dad,” she told him.

“But she’s broken. And anyway, you don’t know how to fly her,” Luke protested.

“I can make her work,” Jamie said confidently.

“How?” Luke demanded. “The Doctor said it would take two weeks worth of repairs and he’s only managed to get a couple days’ worth in in all of the time we’ve been here.”

Jamie gave him a long look then moved in front of the console. She put her hands down on the surface of one of the panels and ever so slowly she began to glow.

“Jamie, no!” Luke shouted. “You promised!” Jamie glanced at him, her eyes full of gold as she called upon the power of the Storm Wolf. “You can’t!” he exclaimed.

“But I can,” she said.

“No! It’s not safe. I won’t let you.” He advanced on her.

“I am sorry,” she told him. “There is no other way.” Her voice changed as the power rippled through her. “And you can’t stop me, Luke.”

“You promised! And it could kill you,” he gasped out. “Your father, he didn’t want to scare you, but it could kill you if you use it again.”

The TARDIS console began to open and brilliant yellow light shot out and enveloped Jamie. “If it is three lives saved at the cost of my own, it is a sacrifice I am willing to make,” she said. There was no hint of Jamie in her voice anymore; she was completely the Storm Wolf.

Luke body slammed her away from the TARDIS console and she fell to the ground heavily but got back to her feet and continued to shine brightly in the light she had absorbed from the Vortex. Tendrils shot out from her body and wrapped themselves around the various knobs and levers of the controls. Switches flipped and buttons depressed and the bicycle pump moved of its own accord. A loud, ethereal groaning sound echoed through the ship and the central column began to raise and lower itself. The TARDIS echoed with the sound of dematerialization.

“Jamie, no,” Luke said brokenly.

“She’s my mum,” the augmented voice told him. “I have to.” Jamie’s eyes went white as she sought for something else that needed mending, and without thought or concern as to what it might do to her, she reached out and built a bridge. As the ship rematerialized in space, she crumpled to the deck, blood trailing from her left ear and nostril and a single bloody tear from her left eye.



“No,” Rose cried out. “What is she doing?” Pain shot through her head as she felt her daughter activating the power of the Storm Wolf.

The Doctor reached for his clothes grimly and got dressed as the TARDIS materialized around the Moon Bubble. While Rose dressed he began the sequence to open the bubble. By the time she was fully clothed the bubble had popped open and they emerged from the stale air into the sweet, clean atmosphere of the TARDIS.

They hurried to the control room. At first they saw nothing, but then the small stifled sob on the far side of the console caught their attention. They hurried to the far side and found Luke cradling Jamie’s body in his arms. At first he was motionless, but finally the Doctor’s soothing voice got through to him and he looked up. “She’s cold,” he said.

“She’s supposed to be,” Rose assured him. “Our body temperature’s lower than yours.

“No,” Luke said. “I–I know what she’s sup..." He took a deep breath. "Supposed to feel like. She’s–she’s cold.” He hiccupped and another little sob escaped him. His body started to shake.

“I need to examine her, Luke,” the Doctor said softly. Slowly he allowed Rose to pry Jamie’s body free of him and she and the Doctor laid Jamie out flat on the deck. Rose lowered her head to Jamie’s chest, first on one side, then the other while the Doctor checked the side of her neck for the double pulse point that should register there.

“No heartbeats either side,” she said grimly. She bit at her lip as the Doctor pulled a stethoscope out of his pocket and double checked her assessment, then moved it down to her lungs to listen for breath sounds. He looked at Rose then and shook his head no.

“She’s reckless, my Jamie. Always has been,” said Rose as she pulled the child’s lifeless body into her arms. “Oh, Jamie, why?” Rose asked on a sob.

“Rose, there’s still a chance,” he said. “Please, let me check her mind.”

Rose loosened her grasp on her daughter and the Doctor placed his hands at the child’s temples. The blankness of the void he was sucked into as he searched his daughter’s brain frightened him. He found where an aneurysm had burst shutting down control of her autonomic functions. He backed out rapidly.

“Her brain was too badly damaged for her to trigger the natural regenerative process on her own,” he told Rose. “I can do it for her, but the incarnation that results could be extremely unstable emotionally and she may never remember who we were to her. Or I can get her to the infirmary and try to repair the damage done medically, but I might not have enough time and she may never be herself again. She’d know us, but…she’d be semi-vegetative.”

Rose stared at him in horror. “I know it’s awful, Rose, but I need a decision from you. There’s not much time.”

“How do I decide something like this?” Rose asked.

“Will her brain be all right if she regenerates?” Luke asked. “Whether she knows us or not, will she be whole?”

“Yes,” said the Doctor.

“But there’s no chance of her being whole with medical intervention?” he queried.

“No,” said the Doctor.

“Jamie and I, we had a lot of time to talk in that escape pod and…she’d want to be whole. She loved life too much.”

“But she wouldn’t know us!” Rose protested.

“But she’d learn to,” Luke said. “I know it’s giving up a lot. She’s an amazing, wonderful, beautiful, impetuous girl. And it’s what she’d have wanted.”

Rose gave him a long look and then turned to the Doctor. She nodded at him. “Do it. Help her to regenerate.”

He lifted his daughter from Rose’s arms and headed to the infirmary. Gently he lowered her body into an isolation tank and then reached in with his hands and found her temples. Slowly he ventured back into her mind and triggered the necessary process amongst the dying brain cells, then pulled out and backed away.

Nothing happened. He had been too late. He turned to take Rose into his arms, to share his grief with the woman he loved but she was still staring at Jamie. “Rose, it didn’t work,” he said.

Rose shook her head no. “Give it time. My regeneration took longer to start than yours did the last time you changed.”

“Rose.”

“Give her time!” Rose cried out.

“It’s too late, Rose. We’ve lost her.” Rose fell against the Doctor, sobbing her heart out, shouting words of denial. As gently as he could, he led her away to the other side of the infirmary and carefully injected her with a sedative. He held her hand until she fell asleep.



Luke ventured up to the chamber, trying not to think how much it looked like a casket. Jamie’s hair floated in the pale blue liquid, her clothes soaked with it to just beneath her neckline. He leaned down and kissed her lips gently and as he pulled away, tears fell from his eyes onto her face. He stroked the side of her face gently, his finger trailing across her temple.

“Please, no,” he whispered. Suddenly he was sucked out of reality and found himself in an odd white room devoid of anything. He looked around him carefully then said softly, “Jamie?”

“I’m here.”

“Can you come back to me?” he asked her.

“I’m trying.”

“Try harder.”

“I can’t,” she said.

“I love you,” he whispered.

She looked at him then closed her eyes serenely. “I love you,” she told him. She burst into flames of gold and Luke felt his body hurled across the room, his mind losing contact, before he knew no more.

 

Comments

[maniacalshen.livejournal.com]

They all need a vacation after this. Seriously. I didn't think you were gonna kill Jaime, but I was D: for Rose nonetheless!

[amberfocus.livejournal.com]

I seriously thought about it, but I didn't think my readers woudl forgive me for it. Nice icon. Is it one of yours?

[maniacalshen.livejournal.com]

Yes, ma'am. And thank you! I'm one of the not-so-happy with JE crowd, and that icon expresses my reasoning in the shortest form possible (ie, No one looked happy, lack of hope, etc).

That and I didn't really have an angsty icon before I made that one. :D

[tracy-lousia.livejournal.com]

Oh you nearly gave me a heart attack there. We can't loose Jamie!