Better Natures: Memory
Chapter 4: In Which Things Come To A Head
It wasn't long before Mickey and Ianto, Luke and Clyde in tow, made it up to the main part of the Hub. "Mickey, can you see about getting the medical bay unlocked?" Ianto directed. "I'm going to see if I can get back in contact with Jack and Donna." Somewhere along the way, communications had dropped again, and though they'd managed to get back in touch with Martha and Sarah Jane, they'd lost track of their two remaining missing people.
Mickey nodded and moved to a darkened terminal, tossing out an, "Aye, mon capitan!" as he went. Luke and Clyde looked around, looked at the computers. "How's he going to do anything with the power off?" Luke asked, the little light still bobbing along above his shoulder. It moved a bit itself, almost as if nodding in agreement.
"They're not really off," Mickey explained, answering in Ianto's place. "They just look it. Part of the lockown procedures." He finished tapping out a series of numbers on the keyboard, hit enter, and the screen lit up. "Aha! Jack's not the only one who can remember the overrides. Anyway, a few of the computers aren't shut down. As long as you're at one of those consoles and you know the override code, you can get access again. Which, remind me later, Ianto, to lock out Jack's access until he changes the overrides? They do not need to be seventy-two numbers."
"I'll keep that in mind," Ianto replied absently from where he was fiddling with the comms. Luke wandered over and peered over Ianto's shoulder while Clyde spied the takeaway containers and made a beeline.
"What if you swapped these two frequencies?" Luke asked, leaning around to point to two different figures on the screen. "Wouldn't that cut through the lockdown?"
Before Ianto could respond, there was a hiss, and a clang, and then the blast doors around the medical bay separated and pulled away. "Luke!" Sarah Jane called, rushing out and running over, pulling her son into her arms; the little light bobbed away for a moment before resettling. Luke laughed a little, hugged back, and then pulled away.
"Please, Mom, you're embarrassing me."
Sarah Jane pulled back, and brought a hand up to ruffle Luke's hair. "Oh, well, if I'm embarrassing you," she said, laughing in return. "All right, Torchwood," she said, looking around at the others. "We have a world to save. And please -- no guns."
Jack and Donna, flashlights in hand, walked through the corridor towards the access shaft. Jack held a weapon, too; Donna had declined one, claiming -- to Jack's surprise, given her previous skill -- that her lack of training would make her more liability than asset. She'd grabbed something else, he thought, although he'd not been able to tell what; a step behind him, she seemed to be fiddling with it every now and then before tucking it away again before he could turn and see it.
"It's like a dimmer switch," Jack said suddenly, stopping and turning to look at Donna. "I remember meeting you now, pretty clearly. It's like someone took a dimmer switch and turned it down. That's what's different about you."
"Oi, thanks for that, Spaceman," Donna retorted. "What's that even supposed to mean? Are you calling me dimwitted?"
Jack shook his head. "No, it's more like you were brighter, some how -- not in terms of intelligence, although maybe a little of that, too. It's like your personality isn't as bright. Like someone... turned you down."
Staring at Jack for a moment, Donna sighed. "Yeah, all right. That makes about as much sense as before you tried to explain it." She started walking again, taking the lead. "You're certain the access shaft is this way?"
"My memory's pretty much all back, I think," Jack said. "What I do have is perfectly clear. It's not all sequential -- some things about you are just flashes, without any context, and some of the things that happened around the same time. Around when I met you, I mean." He took a couple of jogging steps to catch up, but rather than reclaiming the lead, he matched Donna's pace, walked alongside her. "I wish I had more I could tell you, but that's all I've got right now."
It wasn't, but Jack hadn't lived as long as he had (before being rendered effectively immortal) without gaining some skill at lying. He had been a conman, after all.
As he walked down the corridor with Donna, memories of being on the Dalek ship washed over him: things he'd already remembered, that he'd already reclaimed, but that he was still trying to process. He remembered two Doctors, and seeing Rose again; Donna, more brilliant than he'd thought any human could be, hints of the Doctor coming through in her every word. A metacrisis, the Doctor had called it, a second-self grown from a hand thanks to Donna's inherent humanity giving it just the boost it needed.
But what had happened? he asked himself.
Donna stumbled beside him, and Jack reached out to steady her without thinking, dropping his flashlight. It went out when it hit the corridor floor, leaving them barely lit by Donna's flashlight. "What's wrong?" he asked, helping Donna reclaim her feet. Her free hand had gone to her temple, and her eyes were screwed shut.
"Headache," she explained. "Worse than before. It's passing, though." She steadied herself against Jack's shoulder. "Don't know why this is happening," she added. "Seems to be getting worse the closer we get to the Hub proper, though."
That, perhaps, was what worried Jack the most as they continued on their way: the Rift ran straight through the Hub, after all, and if that's what was interfering with Donna, if it was what was causing the headaches, was he just bringing her further into danger?
As most of the gathered crew sat huddled in the Hub, munching on lukewarm fish and chips by the light of Luke's hovering little friend -- with some effort, he'd 'convinced' it to separate from him and float in the center of the rough circle -- Ianto, across the room, suddenly exclaimed in success. "I've got it!" he called. "I can't reach Jack and Donna, but I've got Gwen on the comms. She and Rhys are on their way back here now," he reported, one hand coming up to touch his earpiece, "she's saying that the aliens may be invading and that we should prepare. They're not likely to negotiate, something about some kind of cult-like behaviour. A 'secret' locked away in a 'song that is ending', if anyone can figure out what that-- She's saying it's someone's life. That the aliens are saying someone is dying, or they're going to kill someone, she's not sure which, and that their death releases a secret they need."
As Ianto returned his attention to conversing with Gwen, the rest looked at each other nervously. "I'll head to the weapons locker," Mickey said, getting up. "Clyde-" At a look from Sarah Jane, Mickey quelled. "You stay here with Luke and Sarah Jane."
Clyde, dejected, sat back down, having already started to get up, but he didn't argue. He knew that, at the moment, at least, it was futile to try to get around Sarah Jane.
Martha stood up as well, and began gathering up the detritus of the meal. "You can all help me in the medical bay," she said. "We'll have to make some phonecalls. We have contacts in the local hospitals, they'll need to be informed of the potential invasion." Sarah Jane moved to help with the tidying, and Luke and Clyde nodded.
"We can do that," Luke said. "And -- is there anything else I can do to help? I'm good with computers."
From across the Hub, Ianto called out, "Come over here, Luke, I've got something I'd like you to take a look at." Luke glanced first at Sarah Jane, who nodded; Luke scampered over. "Sarah Jane," Ianto called after, "can I get you on comms? If there is going to be an invasion, we'll need someone coordinating with local authorities."
"On it," Sarah Jane replied, dumping her load of trash into the bin and following after Luke at a more controlled pace. Before long, everyone was occupied in their tasks, scattered around the main room of the Hub. There was a lot to do, after all, and potentially very little time to do it.
Jack stared at the hatch, wondering why the hell he couldn't remember how to open it. "I swear," he explained, "I distinctly remember this shaft being left open in all but-" He swore, this time most vehemently in six different languages: German, Spanish, a dead alien language, and three languages that hadn't even been created yet.
Rolling her eyes, Donna pulled out the thing she'd been fiddling with, revealing to Jack that it was a multitool. "All but this particular lockdown protocol, right?" she asked, leaning around him. "Get ready to pull the hatch open, I don't think this is going to work for long." The multitool emitted a high-pitched squeal as she leveled it at the door and did something, and Jack heard the hatch pop open, just a bit. "Oi, now, Spaceman," Donna said, doing her best to hold the multitool steady as it began to shake in her hands. "This thing's about to fly apart! I didn't have much time to work on it."
Jack shook off his stunned expression and pulled the hatch wide. "What did you do?" he asked. "How'd you manage that?" The words with which Donna replied shouldn't have made him fear -- a call back, through time and space, to words he'd uttered once -- but they did, for what they meant, and what he now understood was happening the more time that Donna spent with him, in the Hub. The wince that she tried to cover as she replied:
"Oh," she said, casually tossing the now-sparking multitool over her shoulder. "I just made that a little more sonic."
Gwen and Rhys, a few minutes before, had rematerialised on the Earth's surface to find themselves only a few block away from the hub, in the shadows of a dark alleyway. Night was falling swiftly now, only the last dim vestiges of twilight remaining until full-dark. "We've got to get back to the Hub," she said, looking around. "There's-" She cut off, just as she was fitting her earpiece comm back onto her ear. "Ianto?" she said, tapping it. "Rhys and I, we're-" She stepped aside, explaining the situation, as Rhys stepped out of the alley, glancing around.
"We're clear," he told Gwen, as she finished up with Ianto and came up beside him. "No one's around." They left the alleyway behind, and ran -- near sprinted -- the distance to the Hub. Gwen found herself having to pull back just a little, to allow Rhys to keep up, which she rather expected; he didn't spend his time running after (or away from) invading aliens, after all. He wasn't doing too badly, however, certainly not for your average civilian, although Gwen supposed he wasn't really that, not anymore.
Not that she'd ever found him average in any department.
As Ianto advised her during the run, the Hub lockdown was coming down, bit by bit, and the entrance was at something much closer to the usual level of security. It was only a couple of minutes until Gwen and Rhys were stepping through the last doorway, the wheel rolling aside for them. "What are we at?" Gwen asked. "Is there any word from Tek'var and his people? Any demands?"
Ianto shook his head; he was standing at a console, Luke at his side, both focused on what they were typing and not even looking up at their entrance. "Nothing yet," he replied, finishing up his current task and closing the window before looking away. "As far as I can tell, they're just sitting in orbit. There doin't even seem to be any transmissions coming in or out."
"The Hub sensors picked up the signature of there -- are they translator orbs? The spheres they carry, we caught some on CCTV. Crossreferencing brought up the Ood, but they don't seem to match." Luke turned away as well, his eyes wide. The little ball of light danced in front of him for a moment, and it caught in his eyes, making them dance, too. "Anyway, we've been able to track their energy signature, and we're not detecting any on Earth right now at all, so they all seem to be, I don't know, waiting for something?"
Across the Hub, Martha looked up from where she and Clyde were finishing their phone calls. "Local hospitals are alerted to the potential influx of patients," she said, "and Clyde here's been making the calls through to police and fire. Sarah Jane, do you have the comms set up?"
From over at a desk where she'd been set-up, Torchwood-issue earpiece glowing blue in her ear, Sarah Jane nodded. "I'm ready to go online with local emergency, UNIT, and both the British and American armies, should this extend that far," she replied. She glanced nervously over at Luke, who was once again diving deep into some kind of computer code, something she couldn't follow. Of all places Luke could be, though, she figured this was likely one of the safest places he could be. "I do hope it doesn't go that far- Mickey Smith, what do you think you're doing? You are not giving a gun to my son. Or to Clyde!"
"I just thought- They need some way to defend themselves, in case-" Mickey, just returned from the armoury, did have the self-presence to look abashed. "Sorry, ma'am. Of course not."
They stood there, the gathered eight, and began to wonder when the world would start to end.
And they wondered if it might actually happen, this time.
There was a lull, then, things growing quiet as people waited for something, anything to happen, unable to fully relax in the tension of the potentially impending invasion. Luke and Clyde ducked away from their stations and took the opportunity pull off together and find a secluded corner. In the shadows, their faces were lit by Luke's illuminating companion. "It needs a name," Clyde said poking a finger at the light; it responded by doing nothing, letting Clyde's finger pass through just as it had Luke's, previously. "Something proper-like."
"A name? Why?" Luke asked. "It's just a light, and I'm sure I won't be able to keep it."
"Yeah, but it's yours for now, innit?" Clyde pointed out. "A proper name, yeah, like Spot, or Rover, or-"
Luke laughed, reaching up to gather the light into his hands, into which it obliged to be moved. "It's not a dog," he pointed out, holding his cupped hands up in front of his face. The light responded by dimming slightly; Luke wondered if it was to keep from straining his eyes -- if, perhaps, the light was conscious, even just a little. "I suppose 'Lighty' is out of the question?"
Snorting, Clude nudged Luke's shoulder with his own. "Yeah, only if you're three," he retorted. "What about Clyde?"
"I've already got one of those," Luke replied, "and I'm more than happy with him." It was hard to tell, in the dim, though steady, light, against Clyde's dark skin, but Luke was rather certain Clyde was blushing. "I think I'll go with..." Luke considered for a moment. "Bob." The light flickered a bit here, even as Clyde looked at him incredulously.
"Bob?" he asked. "All the names in the world -- in the universe -- and you go with Bob."
The little light, though, was -- yes -- bobbing in a way that seemed almost happy, right in front of Luke's face. "Why not?" Luke asked. "Besides, I think it- he likes it." In fact, the light was shifting to a rather satisfied shade of blue. "Do you think he's actually alive?" he added, a moment later. "Kind of sad to think of something alive being stuck in a box like that."
"Yeah, but he's out now." Clyde, too, found himself shifting his pronoun use. 'And we're going to take care of him now, yeah?"
Luke nodded, and leaned in to bump his shoulder against Clyde's. "Yeah," he replied. "I can't wait for Rani to meet him."
From off to the side, not far from where they stood in their secluded alcove, a voice cried out: "Oi!" it said, familiar and yet not at the same time. "This is brilliant!"
Across the Hub, almost as far away as you could get from the boys -- by coincidence, not design -- Gwen stood on the catwalk, watching over those below. Someone walked up behind her; she expected Ianto, as she turned, unused yet to Rhys's presence in the underground base, but she smiled when she saw him there. Her hand fluttered up to brush against her stomach; Rhys reached up, his hand covering hers, his warm strength reaching through her and touching, pushing away, the chill of fear in her bones. "I haven't even thought about it yet," she said, shaking her head softly. "I can't, not yet. There's no time."
"I know," Rhys replied, and where once he might have sounded angry, now his voice rang only with sincerity and understanding. "But there's never time, is there? We'll have to make time, if we're going to do this. We'll need to make time for us, for the baby. I wonder if it's a boy or a girl? A girl, I hope, with my eyes and your smile."
Gwen nodded, not able to speak, emotion choking her throat. Tears came up to her eyes. "Rhys, how can we do this? Aliens could invade at any moment -- that's my life, how can we bring someone, a child, into that life? Knowing that any moment, she could be taken away from us, or we from her, or-"
"Or him," Rhys pointed out. He reached up further, now, pulling Gwen close, embracing her. "Because we have to," he continued. "It's what we have to do, as humans. It's hope. We have to keep on hoping. There'll be a world for her. Jack's proof of that. The world never ended for him, and if it did you fixed it. You'll fix it. It's what you do."
There was silence between them a moment, a few quiet tears streaming down Gwen's cheeks. "It's too much," she said, her voice softer now. "Sometimes, it's too much."
Rhys's hands moved soothingly up and down Gwen's back. "Aye," he agreed. "It usually is, but that's all right. You're stronger than you thing, my Gwennie."
Silence again, until Gwen pulled away. She reached up, brushing away the tears on her cheeks. "Hope," she said. "You're right. We need to have hope."
"And that's what we'll call her, too, if it's a girl." Rhys smiled, his lips quirking up at one side. "And if it's a boy... We'll think of something."
Gwen opened her mouth to reply when, from below, there came a shout: "Oi!" it said, the voice both familiar and not all at once. "This is brilliant."
The access shaft led up further than it should. Jack was certain that they'd already passed six or seven levels up when it should only have been three or four, and he made a mental note -- hoping he'd remember it when this was all over -- to have Ianto and Mickey take a survey of the shaft, to see where the extra doors (on extra levels) went. "I don't suppose you see the top of the shaft yet?" Jack asked, and not for the first time. "Seriously, it shouldn't be going up this far."
"I'll tell you when I see it, Spaceman," Donna replied. "Which if you'd been listening you'd have- OW." She swore, a few words Jack didn't understand, which was odd as he knew most Earth languages and could at least recognise the ones he didn't know. "I think I found it," she replied, and with a grinding sound the hatch at the top of the shaft gave way, light streaming down from the now-active Hub. "Looks like they managed to turn off the lockdown," she reported, climbing up through the open end of the shaft. There was a little room first, windows in the door letting in the light. Donna reached down her hand to help Jack up the rest of the way. "The Hub's out there, isn't it?" she asked. "I swear, I can almost feel it." Her hand went up to her forehead again, and she wavered where she stood, leaning for a moment against Jack.
"Donna? What is it, another headache?" Jack asked. "Look, Martha should just be on the other side of that door, and if she's not, we can get her back-"
Donna shook her head. "No, I'm fine, I'm fine, I swear. Just give me a moment." And that was, in fact, all it took, as she seemed to regain her balance and righted herself. "Let's go on, shall we?" She pushed open the door and stepped out. "Oi! This is brilliant!"
Behind her, Jack couldn't help but smile, taking in the Hub again as someone for the first time, experiencing it anew through Donna's wonder. Certainly, she'd seen it before, on the way in, but something was definitely different now. "You like it?" he asked, one hand coming up protectively to Donna's shoulder. "Everyone!" he called out, seeing his team and their guests scattered around the Hub. "We're back. What's our status?"
Everyone jumped up at once. Martha rushed over, a scanner in hand, and she ran it up and down Donna's form even as the older woman walked forward, to the center of the Hub where the rift manipulator stood. "This is-" Donna said again, cutting herself off. She reached a hand out, touching the air just to the left of the manipulator, facing it from where Jack stood. "There's something-" She grabbed at nothing, and when she pulled her hand down, the rift opened just a little bit, a tiny tear in time and space, and light streamed out, filling Donna's form; sound followed, surrounding her with heaven's chorus. "Oi, Doctor!" she called out, bathed in the essence of the universe. "I knew there was a way, you idiot Timelord! You didn't have to take it all! All it needs is the one secret!"
Jack watched as Donna stepped away from the rift manipulator and strode purposefully to the lift up to the plaza. Before anyone could react, it began to raise Donna up; before they could move after her, the light around her grew stronger, forcing them all to look away. "Mickey, Gwen, Rhys, up through the tourist centre now," he ordered. "Martha, grab any emergency equipment you think you might need. Ianto, watch the boys."
"Captain Jack, sir?" Luke called. "Mr. Smith -- Mum's computer -- is reporting in, and the Hub systems are confirming. The alien ship has changed orbit, and it's hovering right over Cardiff." He paused, swallowed. "Their powering what look to be their weapons systems, sir, and they're broadcasting a request for the Singer to show herself."
Above the Earth, the last remnants of a long-lost alien race stopped their chant. Moments later, it began again: "The song has begun anew, and the Singer sings the secret. The song has begun anew, and the Singer sings the secret."
The initial group -- Gwen, Mickey, and Rhys, with Jack only a few steps behind -- clamored up through the tourist centre and burst through the doors. "Donna!" Jack called, catching up and racing ahead. "What's happening?"
Donna stood -- if 'stood' were the right word when one hovers in mid-air -- a few feet above the ground, just in front of the fountain; she was only, in fact, a few steps away from where Suzie had shot Jack, a year (a lifetime? a hundred lifetimes?) ago. The light from the rift swirled around her, mixed with brilliant music. "Here it is!" she called, laughter bubbling up out of her, a sound of pure joy. "Here is the song! Here is the secret!" Above her, the alien ship centred itself, flying low above them. "Follow it home! Take back your secret, take back your song, and let it lead you home, to the lost moon of Poosh!"
Jack stared in disbelief as the light rushed away from Donna, and the song behind it, and encircled the alien craft before shooting off into the sky, into space, towards what he could only assume was the aforementioned lost moon of Poosh. "Donna?" he said, and then swore as she fell, limp, to the ground. He ran forward, the others only a step behind. Martha, too, had arrived, her doctor's bag in hand, and though Jack had the longer stride, still Martha reached Donna first. "She's okay, I think," Martha reported. "Abnormally high brain activity, but nothing that seems actually dangerous. Mostly it's about what I'd expect from a very strong human psychic. Her other vitals are stabilising... Correction, stable. Jack, do you want to help me take her down the lift? It's faster."
Wordlessly, Jack nodded, and he reached down to gather Donna's limp form into his arms. The trip down the lift seemed to take an eternity, even as Martha told him, "She'll be fine."
"Will she?" he asked. "What happened? Do you have any idea?"
Martha shook her head. "Not really," she replied. "The rift sealed back up after you ran out. Ianto's running diagnostics now, but his first reports were that it seemed to be operating normally. Aside from that, you'll have to wait until we get down there. Donna may have some answers when she wakes up."
Jack swore. "She remembers the Doctor," he said. "Do you think she's going to..." He couldn't bring himself to finish the sentence.
"It's a possibility," Martha admitted, "but I don't think it's likely. The Doctor didn't tell me much -- I don't imagine he told any of the rest of us anything more -- but what he did say, it made it seem likely that Donna would burn out completely. She's nowhere near that, now. In fact," she added, bring the scanner up again as the lift touched down, "she's just sleeping, now. Perfectly normal human sleep. Brain activity's still running high, but nothing that worries me at all."
Everyone watched as Jack carried Donna into the medical bay; Gwen, Rhys, and Mickey ran in through the doorway. No one said a word, their breath held close as they waited for an answer, any kind of answer. Jack place Donna down on the examination table, the best bed they had to offer in the Hub itself. "She's-" he began, but Donna stirred. Her eyes fluttered open, and she sat up.
"You all look like you're at a funeral," Donna said, rolling her eyes, but there were echoes of starlight, rift-light, dancing in them. "Honestly, what does a girl have to do around here to get a salad? Saving the world's not enough?"
Explanations waited a few minutes: Donna got her salad, Ianto made coffee and tea, and finally the group, all ten, gathered around the conference room table. "It was the biotransfer," Donna explained. "The biological metacrisis. When the Doctor locked away my memories, he didn't actually take it away from me. I just wasn't able to access it. My proximity to the rift began to break down the walls he'd put up, which was what was causing the headaches. Mind you," she added, "if I hadn't been near the rift, I likely would have died when the walls came down. I used the rift energy to... jumpstart things. The solution was actually really very simple, once I got down to it. The Doctor was too much for a human brain -- any human brain -- to handle. That doesn't mean that a human brain can't handle some -- even, in some cases, most -- of him."
"You used the rift energy, then?" Martha asked. "To boost your own body, your own mind, far enough to handle things."
"Exactly," Donna agreed. "I'm still human, mostly, maybe even more human than I was the first time I got the Doctor inside of me -- and Jack, don't think I can't hear you snickering. Really, though, I... fixed things. I'm not going to glitch out, now. There was one secret, one huge secret, that was stuck inside of me, something I couldn't bear to keep; I'd have been destroyed no matter what, if it stayed locked inside of me. The riftsong allowed me to release it. Somehow, the Poosheen knew that this was coming, I think probably through echoes in the time-stream, and they got here just in time to be lead back home."
There'd been a battery of tests, next, that Donna allowed Martha to perform, but each confirmed what Donna herself was saying: she was less than she had been for that brief, shining moment as the Doctor Donna, but not, perhaps, by much. Most importantly, she showed no signs of deteriorating, not even when Jack allowed Mickey to drive her back up to London to reunite with her parents. Proximity to the rift had brought her back to herself, but, it seemed, that same proximity wasn't required to maintain her.
Jack offered her a job, right off the bat, but she declined. "Not yet, at least," she allowed. "I've got a few things I need to do first." Her fingers running sparks down the rift as she hummed. "I'm the Singer, now; I've got a role to play in things to come. You'll see me again, though, and soon, I imagine. And don't be surprise if I've got a certain idiot Timelord in tow."
There'd been another meal before she left, the ten gathered once again around the conference table. Sarah Jane had finished her story, the one that had originally brought her to town, and her little car was packed and parked just above the Hub. Luke and Clyde, exhausted, were practically asleep in their chips.
Martha, Mickey, and Ianto bickered amicably about which movie to see that evening, as Donna had promised them a quiet night: no rift activity, no invasions. "It's the least I can do," she'd said, "and I think I actually can do it, just this once. A simple song, that one." Gwen and Rhys sat huddled, cozy, Rhys with a lager and Gwen a soda. Donna had congratulated them not long after waking up. "Would you like to know?" she'd asked, and at their hesitant nods, added, "Hope's a wonderful name. We can all use a little bit of that in our lives."
Jack stood back, a few steps away from the table, leaning against the wall. "How are you going to go?" he asked. "We don't exactly have a convenient TARDIS lying around."
"You mean you don't know?" Donna asked, honestly surprised. "The Hub, she's a TARDIS herself. Old, her, too old to travel any more, but faithful through the end, and that still a long time coming." Jack was floored, and the others surprised, too, but it did, they thought, individually, and in laughing comments, explain more than a few things about the base.
After they'd eaten, before their final goodbyes, Jack pulled Luke and Clyde aside. "Take good care of Bob," he said. "He shouldn't be a problem to feed at all -- just leave him out in the sunlight every couple of days and he'll be fine -- but light sprites can be fragile things. No microwave ovens, and don't let him get too close to the television." Luke had just nodded, eyes wide at the fact that he was going to be able to keep his newfound friend.
"Clyde," Jack added, "you take care of Luke, too. And neither of you let anything happen to Sarah Jane, okay?" They'd nodded again, both of them -- and when Jack whispered a couple of things into Clyde's ear that made him blush furiously before smiling and thanking him for the advice, Luke wondered if they were things he'd get take advantage of later.
Much later. A couple of years down the road later. There was plenty of time for that.
Finally, it was time for their goodbyes. Everyone saw Sarah Jane off first with the boys; there was afternoon traffic they wished to avoid on their trip back to Bannerman Road. As they drove off into the distance, Donna lead her way back into the Hub. "I'll make my own way," Donna said. "I'm the Singer now, like I said, and that brings... certain perks." She walked up to the rift manipulator and stopped just beside it. "Honestly, thank you all," she added. "I wouldn't be me again if it weren't for all of you." Her hand came up, and a soft, slow melody began to ring through the air of the Hub as she skated her fingers across the surface of the rift. She grabbed at nothing, and pulle that same nothing down, and the rift opened as if it were being unzipped. "I'll see you all again soon," she promised. "Don't let Jack get into too much trouble while I'm gone."
Before the others could say anything, she stepped through the rift and closed it seamlessly behind her. Only a few last notes hung in the air to prove that she'd been there.
"Gwen? Take Rhys home and have a quiet night in," Jack said. "That's an order. We'll discuss what's going to happen for maternity leave tomorrow. Ianto? What movie did you guys decide to see?"
Somewhere out in the universe, the Doctor grew suddenly very worried, and for the far-too-many-th time that he could remember, there was a woman behind him in the TARDIS when he turned around who hadn't been there a moment before
"Hello, Doctor," said the Singer, a rather pissed off smile on her face. "Remember me?"