What if...the Empire of the Wolf began in Tooth and Claw? (Part 3)

Last time, Captain Jack Harkness found himself on the run from the werewolf legions of the Torchwood Institute. As he makes his way to the Torchwood House, Jack experiences the strange appearances and disappearances of various creatures. Time is beginning to unravel as he makes his way into the house to find...the TARDIS, and a very familiar individual within it, the Doctor.

Just not the Doctor he was expecting to find.
Yes, the Doctor is in the form of Matt Smith - the Doctor's eleventh incarnation. He explains the change from his previous two incarnations (and hence at the third between Tennant and Smith that we never got to see because Russell T. Davies needed drama! - more on that when my retrospective gets to Journey's End), telling him about the battle on the GameStation in the years 200,100 as seen way back in The Parting of the Ways. He explains much of the same things that he does for Jack in Utopia, namely that Jack is now immortal as an established "fact". Normally, the TARDIS would be trying to get away from him, but the Doctor notes that the TARDIS isn't doing much of anything anymore besides holding him there.

He explains the incident at the Torchwood House, the rise of the Wolf and how that altered the timeline. When it did, a multitude of the events that the Doctor had been involved in both before and after it at various points in his life could not happen as they had. Time was unable to correct the mistakes and, as a result, paradoxes were formed and seeped through threatening to swallow everything. The Doctor, dying from his wounds inflicted by the Wolf, was thrown into the TARDIS. This stabilized the paradoxes much like a paradox machine would have.

Jack also catches on to the fact that the Doctor is specifically mentioning avoiding Rose. When he presses the issue, the Doctor does not divulge any more information, but Jack is led to believe that Rose has died.

More pressing, however, is a simple fact: the TARDIS is dying. Hence, time is starting to come unraveled as we've seen with the appearances of aliens like the Autons and the Carrionites that clearly shouldn't be there. With this knowledge, Jack asks what can be done and the Doctor has no idea what can be done. However, the TARDIS engines suddenly begin to groan and Jack's body glows with the energy of the time vortex.

The Doctor quickly theorizes that Jack's presence might have awakened a fragment left in the Heart of the TARDIS. With him as a battery, he might be able to jump start the TARDIS and allow them to fix the paradoxes. As they get to work, however, Yvonne has arrived with a Torchwood firing squad. With the TARDIS circuits out of commission, the Doctor won't be able to get the shields up. Jack steps out to stall for time. Yvonne informs him that he's a traitor to the Empire and will die as a traitor. The firing squad fires off some rounds, riddling Jack. He falls back into the TARDIS, which begins to dematerialize. With the shields up, no further bullets get in. Yvonne is outraged at this, and one of her squad comes up and pulls a gun on her.

As she falls to the ground, bleeding to death, she witnesses the armored figure remove their helmet and gasps out a weak protest of "It can't be you!" before dying.

In the Time Vortex, the TARDIS begins repairing itself through the use of artron energy. The walls become less dilapidated, the engine hum more smoothly than the rough start they had, and even the Doctor takes a moment to shave the ridiculous beard he has grown. He theorizes that they'll need to get back to the moment when the Wolf managed to attack himself and Rose. Jack questions the validity of this plan, seeing as it will cause even more paradoxes, but the Doctor says the TARDIS will be able to sort it out. Jack puts his trust in the Doctor again. As he said on the GameStation, "never doubted him, never will".

However, trouble manifests when Torchwood operatives with vortex manipulators teleport onboard. The Doctor notes the temporal grace circuits are on the fritz just before they start opening fire. Jack returns fire, naturally, and the ensuring shoot-up damages the TARDIS. Flashes of alternate realities assault the senses of the Doctor and Jack, including a timeline where the Doctor Jack remembers travels with a secret Torchwood agent, a planet's worth of Cybermen battling millions of Daleks, and others.

Hey, c'mon, I've done enough of these What Ifs to get a little me-service in there.

After this, the TARDIS makes an emergency landing. Jack questions the Doctor about the alternate timelines they saw, but the Doctor dismisses them as just that and focuses back on the task at hand. The damage in the fight has stuck them to Earth for the time being. The Doctor risks stepping outside and time doesn't immediately fall apart which gives some credence to his theory about the TARDIS being able to repair the timeline. Having shown up in a field in the middle of nowhere, the Doctor and Jack try to figure out what to do next.

As they do, Jack notes a curious stone statue of an angel nearby. He attempts to inform the Doctor about this, but gets nowhere as Eleven goes on one of his rants he's known for. When Jack looks back, the statue has clearly moved...

Back at the Torchwood House, the unmasked Agent is given instructions by the voice we recognize as the Emperor. Until the Agent speaks and confirms her instructions. We see Rose Tyler, with the eyes of the Wolf...an agent of the Empire of the Wolf.

And that's where we're going to end it this time. Will Jack and the Doctor become victims of the Weeping Angels? Is Rose Tyler truly under the thrall of the Wolf? Will the timeline be repaired? Will there be more intrusive cameos from other monsters from Doctor Who's long and storied history? Keep your eyes peeled for next time, where we'll find out.

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