NEW: Flowers of Time (1/1) - "Riverlets Through Time" series (4/12)
Title: Flowers of Time
Series: Riverlets Through Time
Rating: T
Author:tkel_paris
Summary: Jenny is alive and traveling with her parents, but will the Daleks destroy everything? And what's with that blonde who's seeking her father?! Fourth in the “Riverlets Through Time” series.
Disclaimer: Jenny would've been traveling with Donna and the Doctor had I owned Who. Of course, her DNA would've been supplemented by Donna's. Frankly, I think she looks more like a child from Donna's family than the Doctor's. At least from Ten's blood. ;P
Dedication: nini_cuddles. Your fic “The Bride” has spawned a mini-monster. ;D
Author's Note: So here we are with the Generated Anomaly. Sometimes you can't help but be inspired by what others write. And sometimes, you and the writers you talk with the most come up with the same general idea. The challenge is making your own mark on it. Hope I did well enough here.
Bridal Fears
Diverging Truths
Truth Shines Through
There were a lot of things missing from her download. Jenny quickly realized that once she discovered that she had two hearts. Her mind had blanked on that detail until her dad said that she had them. It hadn't helped that he was having clear trouble just looking at her, like she reminded him of a lot of things he was trying to forget about.
But despite her dad's slow acceptance of her, Jenny hadn't hesitated to step between him and a bullet. It was ingrained in her training that you gave your life for one more important than yourself. And who was more important than the Doctor? His tears told her that she was loved, and she hoped that Donna - good, kind, lovely Donna - would help him through this. That Martha girl, too.
Waking was a lovely surprise. She'd found the shock on Cline and the Haath's faces amusing, and was just ready to get up... when she saw her dad and Donna staring at her in shock. She supposed that she'd given them a big scare, but the way her dad clutched her to him told her that she had been dead.
The thought was a bit chilling. Death was supposed to be final. What was this about her dad's people that enabled her to escape it?
It was explained while she was exploring all the strange garments in the TARDIS wardrobe. Regeneration and the like, although her dad suspected that the terraforming chemicals and gases were responsible for her revival. Whatever the cause, he wasn't going to argue with it. Just accept it and treasure her being restored to him and her mum.
Her Mum. Donna. Yes, Jenny supposed that naming her and forcing the Doctor to see her as his daughter did make Donna her mother. Not that Jenny minded! Donna gave wonderful hugs, was full of encouragement and lessons, and was so clearly good for both of them!
The TARDIS certainly thought so. Now that was a bit of a shock, discovering the telepathy part! But she'd sensed that all sorts of wonderful things awaited her now. New worlds, civilizations to save, and who knew what else?! It was going to be one great journey - with some running and danger involved - but surely it was nothing her dad and mum couldn't handle. Especially now that they had her! They just had to wait for her to select a pair of jeans, a good shirt, a jacket... and some strange underthings...
Her mum had had a good laugh over her dad's blush when he'd fled to the Control Room to avoid that discussion. Somehow her own underthings were something he didn't want to know about, but Donna's? That seemed to be a different story. Did it have something to do with the difference between what was acceptable between a parent and a child than between a married couple?
Her questions were put on the wayside when she saw Shan Shen. A world based on Earth's China? The culture was so different! The banners, the colours... the sky! It was so much, and Jenny wanted to experience it all! The drink that bubbled in her mouth was a brilliant start!
Then it all started to go wrong. Splitting up hadn't seemed like a bad idea at the time. Dad had wanted to find something as a gift for Mum. Something to do with the courtship - whatever that was - that she hadn't gotten from him before they were married. Also, he wanted something to soften Sylvia, Mum's mother, with. Wilf, Mum's grandfather, wouldn't be forgotten, but he would accept them both. Although Dad had noted that Jenny might able to placate Sylvia with her own innocence...
Jenny hadn't followed her father's explanation. She hoped her mother would help there. But then her father froze. He sensed her mother was in some distress, and followed the mental trail back to her. They found her in a fortune teller's tent, looking pale and with some weird... giant insect dying at her feet. The huge hugs they got spoke to how upset Mum was.
The story was astonishing! One decision change on Mum's part created a great big parallel world where Dad had died - which meant Jenny would have never been born. The idea was scary to Jenny, although not as much as hearing what all went wrong because the Doctor hadn't been there to save people and make things better. Although her own distress was nothing to what Mum felt, if how she clung to Dad was any indication...
Mum had sensed from that start of the journey that the world was wrong, and the feeling only grew. She wanted to go back and correct her mistake, but it had taken seemingly dying to reset things. With the help of a blonde girl who was looking for the Doctor, who'd had a message for Donna to tell him. That it was a youngish girl caught Dad's attention, but the message freaked him out: Bad Wolf.
Then that phrase showed up everywhere, and Dad's only reaction? To say that the universe was ending.
Oh, she got a better answer when they hurried back into the TARDIS. That it meant that the walls between the universes were collapsing, and that signaled something very bad was coming. Jenny had to ask, once she'd received a brief summary about Rose Tyler, whether Rose's efforts to get back to the Doctor could be the cause. Whoa, had Dad turned pale! He slowly admitted that he'd thought of that, and that he no longer knew what he would do if Rose came back. It would all depend on what she had made of herself.
Then Earth vanished! Right from under their feet! Jenny's telepathic abilities were weak, but enough for her to pick up on her mother's anguish and her father's panic - without looking at either of them. She hoped that everyone was still alive.
The Shadow Proclamation visit... Oh, if she never saw another one of them, she'd be so grateful! They were rude to her parents, especially her mother, and just gave Jenny the creeps. Even though they figured out where to look, after Mum remembered one thing about the bees - and promised a further explanation when they had the chance. Although Jenny would treasure the shout of the Architect when Dad slipped them away, practically thumbing his nose at their presumption!
But there was one other reason to be uneasy about that visit. When she was sitting with her mother, comforting her while her father was seeking answers, one of the strange women came by with water. She knew about the Beetle, which was creepy enough, but the final message she left them with made Jenny's blood run cold:
Be careful. A great loss is in your future if you are not prepared to risk all again, Jenny.
Her Mum had gripped her hands tightly. The implications were not happy ones...
And things only got worse. First being unable to find Earth despite the trail, which was bad enough. Finding it, and then meeting some of Dad's companions through the network was lovely - although Jenny had sworn Martha was about to faint from seeing her. Then Dad found out that one of his greatest enemies was still alive despite the Time Lock, and then... Rose Tyler appeared...
Jenny had already been told that her father had traveled with a number of people over the years. Her mother was fine with that, understood it as part of his history, and would ask when something made her feel it necessary to know something. Rose Tyler had apparently thought she was the Doctor's first companion, and reacted poorly. Acted possessively toward him, and hadn't seemed to get that he couldn't risk bringing her back.
In short, Jenny was already disposed to despise Rose. When she got a look at her, in the flesh and not from the TARDIS' memory banks... she had all sorts of questions. How young was that girl?! Had her clothing style really not changed in the decade she had to have spent in Pete's World?! And, though this was probably the least of questions, what was with those dark bits in her hair up at the roots?
Her father hadn't known what to do. He hesitated a long moment before her mother nudged him, saying that he had to do something and that it was okay to greet someone who had been a friend once. So he slowly started walking over. Rose seemed to think he was in shock, if the confusion replaced by an encouraging smile was any indication, as she started running toward him. Jenny was rather pleased that her dad didn't share the excitement...
But everything went to the wayside when a Dalek appeared and shot her father. Three women barely had time to scream before another man appeared - one of the companions on the network - and shot the Dalek dead. He shouted at them to get him inside the TARDIS, which seemed sensible enough to Jenny. She and her mother had him inside quickly, and the other two people rushed in behind them.
Inside, Jenny and her mother tried to fuss over her father, but he told them to get back, that they couldn't touch him during a regeneration. The Man tugged them back, but also had to hold the blonde girl - who cried that he couldn't (Jenny assumed she meant regenerate) - away. Then Dad muttered some apology, and golden energy seemed to shoot out of him in five directions, like a weird star symbol. It was too bright to look at, even for her, but then suddenly it went totally into that weird jar with Dad's old hand (oh, that story had creeped her out!) and he was fine. Yammering away as usual.
Jenny and her mother rushed forward to hug him, leaving Rose back with the Man, who - when Jenny chanced to look behind her - had to keep Rose from rushing forward. His dark eyes gazed at them with contemplation, and at her father with wonder. Rose rushed forward for a hug, but Jenny was having none of that. If the Man - who Jenny recalled was named Jack - hadn't yanked Rose back, and her parents didn't restrain her, Jenny's fist would have met Rose's face. Hard.
But they couldn't stop Jenny's mouth. She shouted at Rose for nearly getting the Doctor killed, and demanded to know why she was risking damaging the multi-verses.
It was at that point that her father made the introductions - although he told them telepathically to not yet admit who they were to him. He preferred to deal with Rose's unreasonable jealousy later, after they figured everything out about Earth and the other planets. The Man, Jack Harkness, smelled strange to Jenny, like something was off about him... She couldn't explain what it was, and wanted to ask her father why. (Perhaps in private; her mother had cautioned her about asking certain types of questions in public. Something about how she wanted Jenny to learn manners...) Although that wasn't exactly a priority when she could sense that her father wasn't pleased with what he was hearing from Rose...
Not that it mattered when the TARDIS was captured. That her father said they had to go outside alarmed Jenny, and made her wish she had a weapon - even with her father's warnings about guns around Daleks. But then... the TARDIS doors slammed shut and her mother was trapped inside. Jenny watched, shocked into silence, as her father pleaded for her mother's life - to no avail... Her voice remained absent as she rushed to hug him, not letting Rose anywhere near him, and stayed silent when Jack was shot.
Her father's lack of real alarm over Jack's seeming death bothered Jenny, but he told her to not ask questions. Which seemed wise; these pepper pot creatures didn't make her think they enjoyed answering anyone's queries.
Being captive in the Vault... Davros freaked her out, and she was bothered by the almost melted Dalek's comments that she wasn't originally in his visions, but now was. Jenny could sense from her father's faulty attempts to suppress his thoughts that he knew that they would kill her and Rose, letting him suffer as long as possible...
The horror of watching the Reality Bomb test... All those people! Just... just gone! Her insides felt like they'd turned to ice, especially as she could also tell that the Daleks hadn't thought about what would happen to them once the Bomb went off at full strength... And she was even less impressed than her father was over Rose's own stupidity. Helping him?! She just wanted to be with him, share in the glory as a bonus!
The efforts of the companions to stop the Daleks both impressed Jenny and bothered her. Her father had spent so much time telling her about the perils of violence, what killing does to a person - and these people were willing to risk a lot of deaths to stop the Reality Bomb... She desperately hoped for an alternative, something to happen! Especially when the Daleks just beamed all of them into the Vault.
Then the TARDIS came back! She was alive! Jenny's hearts lifted, thinking Mum had made it. But then out came... She was stunned that a virtual copy of her father ran out. The gun in his hands barely registered, until he was stunned. Her mother rushed out, grabbed it and begged to know what to do. Her father's scream of warning came too late, and Jenny's legs nearly gave out when she saw her mother practically flung away. All seemed lost...
And then it stopped. The Bomb had been deactivated! And there was her mother standing, alive and well - and babbling as much as her father ever did! She barely followed her mother's explanation of the Meta-Crisis, and felt her father's awed shock and pride. She'd numbly asked if the Meta-Crisis was her brother, and her mother nodded - before ordering the skinny boys in suits to get to work. So Jenny helped her family, especially when her father had to rush to transfer control to the TARDIS.
But then things went really wrong. Earth was left to send back, and the Daleks were still abundant, could still cause many deaths. Jenny saw the flicker of agony on her brother's face before he completed the prophecy and caused the deaths of the Daleks. She heard her father's unappreciated effort to save Davros, amazed that he would try. She manned one of the Consoles (evidently in place of Rose), and her brother another in place of their father. Together with four of the companions, under the combined supervision of the Doctor and the Doctor-Donna, Earth was restored.
The hugging part of the celebrating was nice, even though she was hugging people she'd never met before. (Although she wouldn't hug Rose; she had her pride. She'd also basically ignored the girl as much as possible, though she got in her way every time she tried to get near the Doctor. Except during the celebration, too many distractions. Besides, she finally heard about Jack's pheromones and being immortal, which explained why he smelled odd.) She paused when she found herself faced with her brother. She was no longer the only child, the sole focus of her parents attention. And was Ben (the nickname based on the name Mum gave him) younger than her? Older? But those stopped when he held out his arms and said, with love in his eyes, he was grateful that she, his sister, was alive. Her reluctance melted a bit, and she hugged him, deciding that she could live with being a sister.
Then Jenny's mind hit on a big question. One she had to voice: Could her mother's human mind handle having all the Time Lord information inside it?
She saw her parents' faces pale so much she thought they'd faint. Her mother started to cry, thinking she had to die. Her father suddenly froze, and muttered something that made no sense:
When the Three-Fold Man appears, there will be an unseen Fourth. Do not part the Second and the Third, or the Fourth will never get to live.
Silence ruled the TARDIS. Jenny remembered Dalek Caan muttering about the Three-Fold Man, but hadn't really absorbed that it was her father, mother, and brother being spoken of until right then. The shock was broken only when the Doctor pulled out his Sonic and scanned his wife. The Sonic emitted an odd chirp, and Jenny watched as her father froze again, tears forming in his eyes. He looked at her brother and said that he knew where the other heart went.
A rapid-fire explanation from her brother to everyone followed, but was quickly replaced by an even more rapid conversation between the rest of Jenny's family. The three were tossing ideas about how to save Donna and Ben's unborn twin. The others watched in stunned silence, with only Martha - whose own shock at seeing Jenny had been immense - participating. She was a human doctor, after all. A number of things were suggested, including the use of the Chameleon Arch, but they didn't have enough time to get it working right for a human. Even with her brother's presence stabilizing her mind, her mother had an unclear amount of time before her mind burned, and the baby would need the mental connection to her in order to properly grow.
It boiled down to one thing: the Doctor's memories had to be removed. The energy connected to them would also go, but where could they put them? The Doctor and the Meta-Crisis were each capable of it, but the memories would have no place to go. Regeneration might not even save them, and Donna wasn't crazy about the Doctor giving up this life to save hers. More time before the end, she said cryptically.
It was when her father seemed willing to let this self die in order to save her mother, Jenny had an idea. What if she took on the memories? She was a Time Lord, but didn't have any knowledge as to how to be one. She was the perfect choice.
Her family immediately protested. She was so young, they said, and it might kill her outright. But Jenny would have none of it; she'd offered a sacrifice before, and this one was even more important. This one would be for her family's future. Two lives were at stake, and her father shouldn't have to give up a life. Furthermore, Jenny had noticed that her mother and brother apparently had a lot of her father's DNA now in them. If regeneration meant the Doctor's current self's DNA would no longer be viable, then what would happen to the rest of his family?
Given how her whole family paled, Jenny knew she'd found the right argument. But she had one more to play: the servant at the Shadow Proclamation had foreseen this moment, and expressly said that she, Jenny, would have to be willing to risk all to stop a great loss. The moment was hers, and she was ready.
She saw the tears in their eyes, felt the shock of the others, but held firm, staring her father down with all the fire she'd absorbed from him and from her mother. After a much longer moment than anyone liked, he sighed and guided her mother to the Jump Seat, signaling Jenny to come over. Jenny found her hands grasped by her mother's, who guided them to her own face's contact points, and Jenny slipped into her mind far more readily than she'd imagined possible...
Then she felt two other presences. Her father and brother had each established contact with her, to guide her on the delicate process. And faintly, she could feel her baby brother's mind, and sensed the tears building again in her mother's eyes.
The process was a tangled mess of memories, not meant for the way a human brain was organized. The levels of folding were vastly different, but with two minds guiding her and one mind helping the disconnecting, Jenny was able to fly through what was necessary. Pulling apart this, untangling that, loosening another, and drawing it all to herself.
Although it all wanted to stay in one big ball of information, not quite coming into Jenny's own mind. She puzzled over this, but focused on her task. She came to the moment of her brother's - well, brothers' - conception, the last link between her mother and the energy of the Meta-Crisis, and wiggled at the connection with her mother's help. It was being stubborn, not wanting to budge, and then... something was rising!
Jenny was barely aware of her father and brother jumping away, to avoid whatever was coming. She felt the ball of information become a glowing golden energy that shot from her mother's mind through her fingers and right into her own. And the universe seemed to explode before Jenny's mental eye.
She stumbled back, feeling the glow fade from her vision. Dizzy, she looked at her mother - now safe - and smiled. She murmured about how time was more beautiful than she'd thought... and then her legs gave way. She faintly heard her family shout her name as the universe went black around her...
TO BE CONTINUED IN “Handy('s) Story”