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fandomweekly2025-06-20 12:58 pm
badly_knitted) wrote in fandomweekly2025-06-20 12:58 pm
Entry tags:
[#263] A Better Idea (Torchwood/Doctor Who)
Theme Prompt: #263 – Genius
Title: A Better Idea
Fandom: Torchwood/Doctor Who
Rating/Warnings: PG
Bonus: Yes.
Word Count: 1000
Summary: The Doctor is a genius, he can figure anything out given enough time, but sometimes it doesn’t hurt to give him a nudge in the right direction.
Travelling with the Doctor was proving to be quite an education. Ianto had heard all the tales Jack told about the Time Lord, heard them over and over, embellished with greater, if somewhat suspect, detail each time, and at first, he’d felt pangs of jealousy, because it was obvious Jack had feelings for the man, alien, whatever. There was definitely hero worship involved, along with the physical attraction. But now he and Jack were travelling in the TARDIS, and Ianto had to admit, if only to himself, that the Doctor was certainly charismatic.
He was highly intelligent, knowledgeable on many subjects, lightyears ahead of humanity when it came to science and technology… Ianto wished Tosh could have experienced this, travelled with the Doctor, seen all the wonders of the universe, because she had always deserved it far more than Ianto himself ever could. It would have been the meeting of two genius-level minds, they would have bounced ideas and theories off each other like the longest table tennis volley ever… But Tosh was gone, and the least Ianto could do for her was to enjoy the experience on her behalf, holding her memory close to his heart.
He couldn’t ask the far-reaching questions that Tosh would have been able to, but he did his best, even occasionally earning a surprised look from the Doctor, and a “See? I told you hie was brilliant,” from Jack, although on those occasions, Ianto wasn’t entirely sure whether Jack was talking about him or the Doctor. It didn’t really matter anyway.
What DID matter was that Ianto Jones, Torchwood Three’s archivist and General Support Officer, was out in space, visiting other planets, and other times, and it was every bit as amazing as Jack had always told him, even if the Doctor, for all his brilliance, tended to be a bit… well, erratic. Then again, despite looking human, from the outside at least, he was still an alien, and as all Torchwood agents knew, it was a bad idea to judge aliens of any description by human standards. They thought differently, lived by a different set of societal rules, a different moral code, a different everything.
Unfortunately, the Doctor also had an bad habit of getting himself, and by extension his travelling companions, into one scrape after another, usually resulting in them having to run for their lives.
“Are you sure you know what you’re doing, Doctor?” Ianto had to ask, because he knew it would never cross Jack’s mind to, and really, someone had to keep a level head in these situations.
“Of course I do!” the Doctor exclaimed. “I’m brilliant, I know EXACTLY what I’m doing, I just don’t know if it will work.” The Time Lord said it as if that was just an insignificant detail that wasn’t worth bothering about.
“If you don’t know that your plan will work, wouldn’t it be better to come up with another plan, one that you ARE confident about?”
“Where’s your faith? Even if it doesn’t work, I’m sure to figure something out.”
“I don’t know, Doc.” Jack was frowning. “Ianto has a good point. Maybe winging it and hoping for the best might not be the most sensible option.” He shook his head. “I can't believe I just said that.”
“Neither can I!” The Doctor stared at Jack, looking hurt, betrayed, on the verge of pouting the way Jack did when he didn’t get his way. Maybe that was something he’d picked up from Jack, or the other way around.
“I’m just saying, we might only get one shot at this, so if your idea fails, we might not have time to try something else. That spaceship is going to be caught in the star’s gravitational pull in less than an hour. If we’re not careful, we might get pulled in too. Wouldn’t it be better to land somewhere onboard, get all the passengers and crew into the TARDIS, and forget about saving the ship?”
“Yes, that would be better, except for two things. One, there are over two thousand sentient beings aboard, and we’d never get them all into the TARDIS in the time we have.”
“What’s the second thing?” Ianto raised an eyebrow.
“What?”
“You said there were two reasons landing aboard the ship wouldn’t work.”
“Oh, yes, there’s a forcefield. The TARDIS can’t get through it.”
“Ah, I see. You didn’t think that was the more important consideration?”
“Given enough time, I could break through the forcefield, but it would do no good because there are too many people aboard.
Ianto nodded; put that way, the logic was sound. He frowned in thought. “What happens when the TARDIS tries to get through?”
“She gets pushed away,” the Doctor said.
What had Tosh told him about forcefields? “Can the TARDIS generate a forcefield of her own?”
“Yes, of course. Why?”
“Could she generate one strong enough to act against the spaceship’s forcefield, pushing it away? Look, I’m no genius, I know bits of a lot of subjects, but I remember a friend of mine telling me about forcefield generators, lines of force… I don’t really know what I’m talking about; if Tosh was here, she’d probably tell me I’ve got completely the wrong idea. She was brilliant, you would have liked her.”
The Doctor was frowning now. “Lines of force… instead of trying to pull the ship away, try to divert it by using the TARDIS’s forcefield to repel the ship… You know, that might just work! Why didn’t I think of that? I’ll need to calculate the exact strength, and the proper angle, but by pushing instead of pulling, we wouldn’t be risking getting dragged in ourselves… Yes! You know, Jack’s right, you really are quite smart for a human!”
“Not my ideas, just bits I picked up from Tosh.”
“Nevertheless, you thought of it when it was needed!” The Doctor turned to Jack. “I like him, you should keep him.”
“It’ll work?”
“Of course! I’m a genius, aren’t I?”
The End
He was highly intelligent, knowledgeable on many subjects, lightyears ahead of humanity when it came to science and technology… Ianto wished Tosh could have experienced this, travelled with the Doctor, seen all the wonders of the universe, because she had always deserved it far more than Ianto himself ever could. It would have been the meeting of two genius-level minds, they would have bounced ideas and theories off each other like the longest table tennis volley ever… But Tosh was gone, and the least Ianto could do for her was to enjoy the experience on her behalf, holding her memory close to his heart.
He couldn’t ask the far-reaching questions that Tosh would have been able to, but he did his best, even occasionally earning a surprised look from the Doctor, and a “See? I told you hie was brilliant,” from Jack, although on those occasions, Ianto wasn’t entirely sure whether Jack was talking about him or the Doctor. It didn’t really matter anyway.
What DID matter was that Ianto Jones, Torchwood Three’s archivist and General Support Officer, was out in space, visiting other planets, and other times, and it was every bit as amazing as Jack had always told him, even if the Doctor, for all his brilliance, tended to be a bit… well, erratic. Then again, despite looking human, from the outside at least, he was still an alien, and as all Torchwood agents knew, it was a bad idea to judge aliens of any description by human standards. They thought differently, lived by a different set of societal rules, a different moral code, a different everything.
Unfortunately, the Doctor also had an bad habit of getting himself, and by extension his travelling companions, into one scrape after another, usually resulting in them having to run for their lives.
“Are you sure you know what you’re doing, Doctor?” Ianto had to ask, because he knew it would never cross Jack’s mind to, and really, someone had to keep a level head in these situations.
“Of course I do!” the Doctor exclaimed. “I’m brilliant, I know EXACTLY what I’m doing, I just don’t know if it will work.” The Time Lord said it as if that was just an insignificant detail that wasn’t worth bothering about.
“If you don’t know that your plan will work, wouldn’t it be better to come up with another plan, one that you ARE confident about?”
“Where’s your faith? Even if it doesn’t work, I’m sure to figure something out.”
“I don’t know, Doc.” Jack was frowning. “Ianto has a good point. Maybe winging it and hoping for the best might not be the most sensible option.” He shook his head. “I can't believe I just said that.”
“Neither can I!” The Doctor stared at Jack, looking hurt, betrayed, on the verge of pouting the way Jack did when he didn’t get his way. Maybe that was something he’d picked up from Jack, or the other way around.
“I’m just saying, we might only get one shot at this, so if your idea fails, we might not have time to try something else. That spaceship is going to be caught in the star’s gravitational pull in less than an hour. If we’re not careful, we might get pulled in too. Wouldn’t it be better to land somewhere onboard, get all the passengers and crew into the TARDIS, and forget about saving the ship?”
“Yes, that would be better, except for two things. One, there are over two thousand sentient beings aboard, and we’d never get them all into the TARDIS in the time we have.”
“What’s the second thing?” Ianto raised an eyebrow.
“What?”
“You said there were two reasons landing aboard the ship wouldn’t work.”
“Oh, yes, there’s a forcefield. The TARDIS can’t get through it.”
“Ah, I see. You didn’t think that was the more important consideration?”
“Given enough time, I could break through the forcefield, but it would do no good because there are too many people aboard.
Ianto nodded; put that way, the logic was sound. He frowned in thought. “What happens when the TARDIS tries to get through?”
“She gets pushed away,” the Doctor said.
What had Tosh told him about forcefields? “Can the TARDIS generate a forcefield of her own?”
“Yes, of course. Why?”
“Could she generate one strong enough to act against the spaceship’s forcefield, pushing it away? Look, I’m no genius, I know bits of a lot of subjects, but I remember a friend of mine telling me about forcefield generators, lines of force… I don’t really know what I’m talking about; if Tosh was here, she’d probably tell me I’ve got completely the wrong idea. She was brilliant, you would have liked her.”
The Doctor was frowning now. “Lines of force… instead of trying to pull the ship away, try to divert it by using the TARDIS’s forcefield to repel the ship… You know, that might just work! Why didn’t I think of that? I’ll need to calculate the exact strength, and the proper angle, but by pushing instead of pulling, we wouldn’t be risking getting dragged in ourselves… Yes! You know, Jack’s right, you really are quite smart for a human!”
“Not my ideas, just bits I picked up from Tosh.”
“Nevertheless, you thought of it when it was needed!” The Doctor turned to Jack. “I like him, you should keep him.”
“It’ll work?”
“Of course! I’m a genius, aren’t I?”
The End