The Fractures (comic story)

 was the third story of the Doctor Who: The Twelfth Doctor comic story series published in 2015.

Summary
Molly's father was killed in a terrible accident. UNIT scientist John Foster suffered the same fate. But are they really gone? Both play a part in the universe-hopping new arc! The Doctor and Clara race against time to both stop a dreaded new peril – the Fractures – in a bid to stop reality unravelling around them.

Part one
Kate Stewart is visiting Hannah Foster in her home. They discuss the recent death of Hannah’s husband, Paul Foster, who used to work for UNIT at the Tower of London. Paul had died in a car crash which the rest of the family survived. Kate mentions Paul’s unfinished projects, and asks if Hannah knows anything about the passwords and encryption-shields he used to conceal his work. Meanwhile, Hannah’s daughter Molly is sitting in the garden when what appears to be a ribbon flies past. It moves about, spelling out the words ‘follow me’. Molly follows the ribbon to the garden wall. When the ribbon reshapes itself to say ‘pull me’, Molly pulls on it and a portal opens up. A man in a jumpsuit jumps through. He unmasks, revealing himself to be her father Paul.

On an unknown planet, the Twelfth Doctor and Clara Oswald are facing off against a horde of monsters led by Captain Van Volk. When the Doctor activates an artificial gravity core from a Darkstar warpship, Van Volk and his Reivers are pulled towards it and rendered immobile. The Doctor then calls the Judoon to arrest the criminals before boarding the TARDIS to take Clara back to Coal Hill School in time for her to teach an English class. Before they can go to the school, the TARDIS detects a space-time emergency that requires urgent attention.

In the Fosters’ garden, Paul is talking to Molly in a small play-house. He persuades her not to tell anyone else that she’s seen him.

At The Tower, UNIT are struggling to shut down a reality gate which is out of control. Kate orders that the base be sealed from Level 7 down, trapping her inside. The Doctor arrives before this can happen, closing the gate with his sonic screwdriver. He criticises UNIT for their “cack-handed” attempt at bridging between dimensions. He says that instead of leading from one dimension to another, UNIT’s gate leads to the centre of the Void, and if left open much longer could have destroyed the world. Kate reveals that the gate was a project being overseen by Paul Foster. The Doctor and Clara leave so that the Doctor can check for any “lasting damage” to reality which might have been caused by opening the gate.

Somewhere in London, Daryll Hackett is on the phone to his personal assistant Melanie. He tells her to fire his employee Dave, who has not been hitting sales targets. He drops a coin into a crack in the pavement, and when he bends down to pick it up an abstract red shape swooshes up from the crack and engulfs him. He appears to be sucked into the crack, leaving his money on the pavement’s surface.

At Coal Hill School, Clara speaks to Lisa Foster after class. Lisa says her Dad’s death still doesn’t feel real, and Clara reassures her that things eventually will get better.

At Hackett Property Services, Dave is furious when hearing he has been fired. He demands to see Daryll, but Melanie tells him Daryll isn’t in. Dave insists that he is, and to Melanie’s surprise they see Daryll in his office. When the two walk in Daryll shakes Dave’s hand, and begins to warp and wrap around Dave’s arm. Melanie screams, and a blue glow emanates throughout the building.

Clara is continuing her talk with Lisa when the TARDIS materialises in the girls’ toilets. The Doctor emerges and Clara introduces him to Lisa. He hands them both a pair of extra-dimensional glasses.

Hannah notices her daughter Molly is taking her father’s clothes up the garden. As she goes downstairs to investigate the doorbell rings. She opens the door to see Daryll Hackett, Dave and Melanie, whose faces are etched with intricate black tendrils. They introduce themselves as The Fractures. The Fracture inhabiting Daryll’s body informs Hannah that her household has broken the laws of reality, and that accordingly she has forfeited her right to live.

Part two
Commander Potter and another UNIT scientist are examining the broken reality gate, attempting to detect any breaches in reality. When a rupture appears above them the two scientists are hijacked by the Fracture. Now occupying the bodies of the scientists, the Fracture radios Kate and tells her everything is under control.

At the Foster residence, Hannah races to the garden to find Molly so they can escape from the Fracture. She discovers Paul in the play-house and becomes afraid, telling Molly to get away from him. Paul tells her not to be afraid, and that he’s come from an alternate universe where Hannah, Molly and Lisa died in the car crash but he survived. Hannah calls him an imposter and threatens to call the police. After she dials 999, the Fractures arrive and disable Hannah’s phone.

In the TARDIS, the Doctor explains that he’s detected an energy signature at the Fosters’ house and is taking Clara and Lisa there to investigate. When they arrive Lisa sees the front door open and runs through to the garden. She’s grabbed by the Fracture-possessed Dave. Paul bargains for his daughter's life, telling the Fracture to take him and leave his family alone. The Fracture insists that Paul has marked them with the Void, and that their existence is unravelling as a result. Clara then hits Paul with the garden swing and he releases Lisa. The Doctor faces the Fracture inhabiting Daryll and tells it to leave the Earth and go back to its own reality. The Fractures explain that they come from the Void and seek to destroy any being which threatens to damage the barriers between universes. Deducing that the Fractures must navigate a physical universe through a kind of sonar sensing (since they cannot experience typical sensations of touch, smell, sound, etc), the Doctor disorients the Fractures with a sonic charge. While they are distracted, the Doctor leads everyone from the garden to the TARDIS. On the way, the Fracture inhabiting Dave chases them across the road, where his is hit by a double decker bus. Without a host, the Fracture tries to latch onto one of the Fosters, Clara or the Doctor, but they make it to the TARDIS and dematerialise in time.

The TARDIS lands in Clara's living room. There, the Doctor explains to the Fosters that Paul has come from another universe into their own universe. Paul explains that in his universe it was his family that died in the car crash and him that survived. He tells them that UNIT recovered a Cyberman reality gate which was destroyed during Battle of Canary Wharf, and that he'd secretly begun to restore it. After sending drones through the Void which were programmed to detect the DNA of his family, Paul stepped through the Void and reached the universe in which his family were still alive.

When his explanation is finished, Paul’s children attempt to hug him. The Doctor stops them, saying it might be unsafe. Using his extra-dimensional glasses, the Doctor sees that Paul’s jump-suit is contaminated with void-energy, and he theorises that this is how the Fractures were able to track him. The Doctor suspects that the Fractures will stop at nothing to destroy Paul, who they perceive as a threat to the structural integrity of the multiverse, and he suggests that the best solution would be to hand Paul over to them. He then hands Clara his sonic screwdriver, which is set to act as a sonic disruptor, and tells Clara he has to get as far away as possible.

The driver of the bus that ran over Dave is revealed to have been occupied by a Fracture, and the Fractures are now inhabiting the bodies of everyone who has since boarded the bus.

Part three
Clara is in her apartment, talking with Hannah while the rest of the Foster family comfort each other. Hannah wants to believe Paul is back for real but is finding it hard to trust him. It suddenly gets dark, and disembodied Fractures begin pouring in through the apartment windows. Clara blasts them with the sonic disruptor and escapes with the family. Outside they find the double-decker bus the Fractures arrived in. Clara steers the bus away, and Paul tells her to head for the Tower of London.

UNIT’s headquarters at the Tower has been overrun with Fractures. Kate orders all non-combatant personnel to be evacuated, and also orders a distress call be broadcast on all channels for the Doctor.

In the TARDIS, the Doctor sets fire to Paul’s contaminated jump-suit before dropping it into a burning star. He then rummages around before retrieving an item that resembles a Rubik’s cube. He gets a call from Clara, who tells him she’s driving a bus and the Fractures are chasing her. As the bus crosses Tower Bridge the Fractures attack, causing it to spin out of control. Paul attempts to reason with them. Suddenly the TARDIS arrives, flying alongside the bus, and the Doctor opens the door so that Clara and the Fosters can jump aboard. The bus crashes through the bridge’s barriers and plunges towards the Thames. Clara grabs the Doctor’s hand, and he pulls her up into the TARDIS as the bus hits the water.

Outside the Tower of London, UNIT soldiers, tourists and a Beefeater are attacked by the Fractures.

Inside, Kate is shooting at a continually-morphing Fracture to no avail. It zaps her gun, which then falls to the floor. The Doctor’s Rubik’s cube-like device rolls between Kate and the Fracture, opens up, then draws the Fracture inside. The Doctor then walks over and picks up the cube, which he tells Kate is a Rassilon Cube, a Gallifreyan prison that the Fracture will not be able to escape from.

The Doctor then begins a discussion with the trapped Fracture, which is taking on a warped appearance of the UNIT scientist it inhabited earlier. The Fracture insists that Paul has broken laws of reality which should never be broken, but the Doctor retorts that the Fractures damaging reality further by pursuing Paul. The Fracture justifies this by saying they are inhabiting the space-time of the creatures native to this universe, from which the Doctor works out that their presence in his universe is achieved by temporally displacing their hosts, forcing the humans they inhabit to be cast into the Void. The Fracture calls this a necessary evil. The Doctor insists that a necessary evil is still an evil deed, then returns the Fracture to the Rassilon cube.

The Doctor reveals that while he was talking to the Fracture he had the TARDIS carry out a molecular scan of it. Using this, and the probes Paul had previously sent through the Void to locate his family in another universe, the Doctor plans to reopen the reality gate and send the probes in to locate the Fracture’s victims inside the Void. Paul apologies to his family for putting them in danger, and Hannah gives him a kiss.

The Doctor asks Clara and Kate to fight off the Fractures while he and Paul activate the reality gate portal. He gives Kate a Shreeker Sonic Cannon which she can use to disrupt the Fractures as they draw close. When Paul has prepared the probes he sends them through the reality gate and into the Void, where they locate the Fracture’s victims. Once he’s received their trans-dimensional coordinates the Doctor expands the portal. This creates a flux which draws the Fractures back into the Void and displaces their victims, returning them to their own universe.

Outside the Tower of London, Dave, Melanie, Daryll and the bus driver all regain consciousness. By the open portal, Paul says goodbye to his family. He says he has to leave this universe or the Fractures will return looking for him. As he begins to step through Clara grabs his arm, asking the Doctor to stop him. At first the Doctor refuses, saying he has no choice. However, when the Doctor marks himself as the Fractures' mortal enemy and number one target he realises Paul will be safe, and agrees to let him stay in the same universe as his family.

Later, Paul thanks the Doctor and attempts to give him a hug, which the Doctor quickly declines. The Doctor and Clara then return to the TARDIS and set off on their next adventure.

Characters

 * Twelfth Doctor
 * Clara Oswald
 * Kate Stewart
 * Paul Foster
 * Hannah Foster
 * Lisa Foster
 * Molly Foster

Original print details
to be added

Continuity

 * The Doctor refers to humanity as "pudding brains". (TV: Deep Breath et al)
 * Lisa references the Doctor serving as Coal Hill School's caretaker. (TV: The Caretaker)
 * The Doctor wears 3D glasses. (TV: Army of Ghosts)
 * Clara jokes that none of her pupils are giving her requests for extra homework. (TV: The Caretaker)
 * Potter remarks that Osgood is away and that she'd be devastated at missing the Doctor, especially since she replaced her scarf with a bow tie. (TV: The Day of the Doctor, Death in Heaven)
 * The Doctor uses a strand of Clara's hair for a scientific test. (TV: Deep Breath)
 * Paul Foster is able to travel from his universe into this one because he reverse-engineered the gate destroyed during the Battle of London in 2007. (TV: Army of Ghosts, Doomsday)
 * Clara is surprised Hannah knows about her relationship with Danny Pink. She learnt it in playground gossip from Lisa. (TV: The Caretaker, In the Forest of the Night)
 * The Doctor saves Clara and the Fosters from a crashing bus by flying the TARDIS alongside the doors and having them jump in. The Tenth Doctor pulled off a similar feat to save Donna Noble. (TV: The Runaway Bride)
 * The Doctor gives Kate a Shreeker sonic cannon, which he says he got from Brooklyn. (COMIC: Echo)
 * The Doctor continues to be apprehensive about hugging. (TV: Deep Breath, Listen)