Spoilers: Oh, for just about everything. Here be spoilers, I say. Especially to you folk who are just getting to watch the series on the CBC. If you don't wanna know, stop reading... now.

Authors Note: I'm neither a "shipper" nor am I gaga for the idea of Time Lord babies. But, the Master was clearly getting some in LotTL (see, first spoiler... told you to stop reading), so I think this is plausible. There may be more of this. I hope there is anyway, if time allows. Oh, and this is my first.

Disclaimer: Of course I don't own Doctor Who, or Torchwood. And if I did they'd probably fail miserably. So I'm just borrowing them from the BBC. It's better this way. Really.

Dropped Down a Well

She clutched the swaddled bundle to her chest, ducking against the sleet that stung the pale flesh of her cheeks turning it an angry pink. The infant in her arms, barely a week old, fussed slightly as a wet and frozen piece of her mother's blond hair drooped forward onto her warm little forehead. She looked up into the dark sky as she came into glow of the Millennium Centre. This is where it would happen. This is where it would have to happen. She shifted the bundle to one arm, and reached into the pocket of her wool coat with the other – she felt the cold metal of the single-shot pearl-handled revolver, and a tear slid down her numb cheek.

"Lucy!" The voice came from behind, muffled by the cold wind. Lucy's back straightened as she clung to her little girl with both arms.

"Lucy, you don't have to do this!" She turned to see the source of the Welsh accented voice. Warm golden eyes wide and concerned watched her under dark sleet-matted hair. Her body moved stiffly – part tension of the moment, part cold, part fear.

"Why?" Lucy found her voice but it came out as a croak. "So you can study her? Raise her in some cold laboratory? Constantly reminding her of… of…" She couldn't finish the unbearable thought. One year and eighteen months – the best and worst time of her life.

"Remind her of what, Lucy?" The woman asked. She genuinely didn't know. No one knew. Twelve months erased in a cyclone, and she trapped at the eye of it. She clung to the infant, the last remaining piece she had of him.

"Lucy, why don't we go inside. It's cold. We can talk this over. I can help you." The woman continued moving forward. She was only a few yards away from Lucy now. "Let's have a nice warm cup of tea, and we'll figure this out. You and me."

Lucy tightened her grip on the infant, backing away. A sob escaped her, tears now flowing down her face. The tiny baby began to cry, sensing her mother's distress.

Suddenly the atmosphere shifted. The wind and sleet stopped, and an eerie quiet descended on them – only the child's sniffling could be heard. The air was strangely static, as if every atom hung in some sort of stasis. This was the time. This was the place.

"Lucy, please." A new voice, this one male. Lucy's heart leaped into her throat. He knew.

"You." She gasped when his clean cut face came into view. "You know. You remember."

"I do." He answered, his voice smooth, calm, and comforting. "And I won't let them. She'll be fine."

Lucy hesitated. She had loved him. Despite what others said, she was certain of that. But then there was this writhing little creature in her womb, and something changed. Something made her destroy that which she loved so much… for its own protection. She winced as that sharp and surprising crack again echoed through her memory.

"Lucy…" the man's voice had now the underpinning of panic. Lucy realized that she had shifted the little bundle to one side and once again had the pearl-handled revolver in her hand. She stared at the tiny infant with tear filled eyes. The wind had picked up, and they were all bathed in a strange aqua glow.

"Lucy, bring her here. You don't want to do this. Please!" The man's voice was desperate, shouting above the thunder that came with the ionized air exploding around them.

"No." Lucy said. Her voice was calm now. She knew what she had to do. The confusion was gone.

As gently as putting her in a crib, she put the baby down on the cold wet ground and stepped away. The little one only wailed briefly as she was separated one last time from her mother.

"Lucy, no!" he screamed. All at once a beam of light came streaking down from the heavens, a massive amount of energy discharging from the rift as it shifted causing a temporal earthquake. Lucy raised the revolver, pointing it first at the man, and then at herself. Even though she had prepared for it, even though she was expecting it, that last deafening crack still surprised her.

First and Last

Captain Jack Harkness stood in the morgue of Torchwood Three, staring at the body of Lucy Saxon. He had sent the rest of his team home hours ago, telling them to get some sleep and get warm. Although he could have easily waited in his office for UNIT officials to arrive, he just didn't feel right leaving the Master's final victim alone – however posthumously he took her. The only one who insisted on remaining was Ianto, manning the front entrance. For this, and for the comfort after, Jack was grateful.

Heavy footfalls tinny against the metal grating of the floor announced UNIT's presence before Ianto's soft musical lilt announced them. Jack continued to stare at the body until he heard someone clear their throat with impatience. He glanced up only briefly to see a blond man, dressed in a black uniform and built like a linebacker, standing at the head of the autopsy table.

"You've come for the body." Jack said. It wasn't a question, and he wouldn't pretend that he didn't expect them.

"Yes." The linebacker answered. "And the child?"

"Gone." Jack's voice caught as he said it, somewhere between anger and anguish. He remembered as the flash shot down to the very spot where the infant lay. The energy discharge had nearly knocked them off their feet, and only after it dissipated did any of them realize what had happened. Lucy lay dead by her own hand, and the child had completely disappeared. Lucy may have been the Master's final victim, but as far as Jack was concerned the child was the newly-formed UNIT's first.

"What do you mean, gone?" The blond man asked, impatience unmasked in his voice.

Jack finally looked up and fixed his gaze on the blond man. The darkness and anger in Jack's eyes almost caused him to step back, but his military training kept him rooted.

"I mean, she's gone." Jack said firmly. "Vaporized. Or swallowed up by the Rift. Both worst case scenarios. Our Medical Examiner has pronounced the child dead." Jack zipped up the body bag holding Lucy, walked through the ranks of UNIT personnel and into the Hub. "Take her, and get the hell out of here."

An Unlikely Recipient

A middle aged man stumbled drunk through the sooty streets. He was pretty sure he was more or less pointed towards home. Actually, he wasn't sure at all… the only thing he was sure of is that the buildings around him had turned to jelly, and they were undulating suspiciously. Somewhere on the next street a car backfired sending a cloud of steam billowing over the buildings, followed by the curses of the owners.

"EXTRA EXTRA!" cried the late-night edition paper boy under the gaslights. "Solar storm hits atmosphere later this evening. All eyes to the skies! Hey mister, wanna read about the storm… it's gonna be a big'un!" The bright blue eyes shone against the young lad's coal dusted face. "Mister Morgan! Lookit ye. You're in a right state, you are! Jimmy, take o'er. I need teh get Mister Morgan home before he gedshimslef turned back to the pub."

The young lad, once satisfied that Jimmy could man the paper stand, took one of Morgan's arms and hefted himself under the older man's armpit to keep him steady.

"I know where I'm goin', Joseph." Slurred Morgan, his boozy breath hitting Joseph in the face.

"Sure you do, Mister." Joseph said jovially, trying not to gag from the smell. "I'll just help you 'ome nonetheless. Rather see you safe than robbed or worse. People out there just ain't as kind as I am." Joseph plodded through the dusty streets, scowling protectively at the staring passers by. When he got Morgan home, he would make sure he got to bed, and turned on his side as to not swallow his own tongue. Then he would help himself to enough coins to buy him and Jimmy a good supper – no more, no less. Morgan would remember little of it in the end, and wouldn't question the missing copper from his coin purse.

As Joseph rounded the corner, almost losing Morgan in the process, the gaslights were turned down and bright patches of aurora began appearing in the sky. The solar storm had begun in all its splendor. Blues, oranges and greens lit up the sky, and the soot covered faces of those who came out to watch the spectacle. It wasn't often that such anomalies came to Victoria Minor, and when they did it was a cause for awe and celebration. Joseph struggled to look up while still carting Morgan down the street. Just to the end and he could unburden himself of the poor man.

Suddenly, the air went still and cold, and a horrendously bright aqua light split the darkness of the street. Morgan started and Joseph nearly dropped him. Just as quickly as the light began, they were plunged into darkness once more. Joseph and Morgan stood silent, not daring to speak until the gaslights were turned up. Joseph let out a relieved but nervous laugh.

"Quite the treat tonight, eh Mister Morgan." Joseph chuckled. "'Aven't seen an aurora quite like that before."

Joseph began to heft Morgan's weight again, and as quickly as he could cover the last couple of metres before leaning in to open the door of the drunk man's home. It was a good thing he heard the gurgle, or he would have stepped right on it. "Well, I'll be…" Joseph muttered, shifting Morgan against the wall.

The young lad squatted down to see what he had almost trodden underfoot. On Morgan's front stoop was a bundle of white fabric with something inside. Joseph lifted the bundle gently in his arms and looked down at the big bright eyes staring back at him from the clean little porcelain face. "Wouldya look at that, Mister Morgan." He cried in shock. "Who in their right mind would leave a baby on your doorstep!?"

A Story of Sixes

There hadn't been a time since they'd met him that Jack and Martha wouldn't come running the moment they heard the grinding of the TARDIS engines. Today was the first exception. Instead all they could do was sit nervously, glancing at each other and then quickly away as if it were some sort of embarrassing accident. Finally Jack just stared at the ground. The blue police box gradually came into view out of the ether, flashing light on top first, then the edges beginning to define themselves, and finally solidifying itself into the surroundings, becoming part of their reality.

Jack and Martha stayed sitting by the fountain, unwilling to speed up what was certainly going to be an unpleasant situation. It had been 6 months since Lucy Saxon's body was turned over to UNIT, and a week more than that since Martha had called the Doctor, sooner than either of them could have expected. He should have been here long before this, something had gone very wrong.

Jack's eyes remained fixed to the ground, while Martha stared at the blue box. He hadn't come out yet, which was a bit odd. Normally, she would have expected him to come running out and rattling off plans and factoids just as quickly as his feet moved. Finally, after several agonizing minutes, the door cracked open. The tall thin man, blue suit, brown overcoat, and disheveled hair, exited the box with hands in pockets, trailed by a buxom redhead. That must be Donna, Martha thought. She'd known he'd picked up a new traveling companion, and was somewhat relieved by it. Uncharacteristically stoic, the Doctor trod towards them.

"He's here." Martha said to Jack, as if he already didn't know. Jack's shoulders tensed. He'd had 6 long months to get himself really really angry about this, and he knew if he looked the Doctor in the eye he just might be denied that anger and the courage to turn it into words.

The Doctor cast Martha a sad gaze before turning his attention to Jack, who still refused to look at him. He put a hand on the other man's shoulder. "I'm sorry." His voice cracked a little, he cleared his throat. "I'm so sorry."

"Where the hell were you." Jack hissed through clenched teeth. The Doctor removed his hand and stepped back. Jack finally looked up, anger clear on his face.

Donna stepped forward, irritated. "He tried." She said, stopping herself when she realized that this was probably best sorted between them. She stepped closer to Martha to give them room.

The Doctor looked down at his sneakers. Breathed in… 2… 3… 4… 5…, and breathed out 2… 3… 4… 5… Jack had 6 months to be angry about this, surely he could spare an extra 10 seconds for the Doctor to formulate an answer for what – for him and Donna anyway – had been mere days. As his exhale finished, he raised his head, squared his shoulders, and tried.

"I…" Was all that got out before the Doctor looked down at the ground again. Alright, try again. "I don't know what happened."

Jack looked at him surprised. The Doctor always had an answer for everything. He'd never seen him struggle with something so much. "What do you mean, you don't know what happened?" He asked, anger abating but still there.

"The TARDIS wouldn't materialize. No matter what I did. You would have thought I was trying to cross time streams or something equally catastrophic. But that's it. I could not physically materialize here… not 6 months ago… not even 6 days ago. This is the soonest point I could land." The Doctor looked up to the sky and pondered his use of soonest… didn't seem to be the right choice of word but it would do. Contemplating the oddities of human grammar was preferable to thinking too hard about the situation.

He knew the next question he needed to ask, but was not sure he wanted to hear the answer. He already knew the end result of it anyway, why know the mechanics? That niggling presence had been in the back of his mind for 3 months on the Valiant, not fully understanding it until Martha had rung him. Really, he should have known… but it was just so different. It was unlike anything he had ever felt before. He'd felt it all throughout his efforts to land here. He had worked for hours, Donna helping where she could, the two of them showered by sparks and subjected to near electrocution. It was only when the ship had threatened to tear itself apart that he had stopped, drifting in the vortex for days before he allowed them to become part of events this far down the line. That's when the tiny spark of consciousness that had been playing at the back of his mind was suddenly snuffed out.

Finally, he screwed up enough courage to at least state the outcome as he believed it to be. "They're both dead, aren't they."

"Yeah." Jack's expression softened. "Lucy shot herself, and the child was swallowed up by a temporal earthquake."

The Doctor swallowed hard. "I want to find out what happened."

"What do you mean, find out what happened?" said Jack, repeating the Doctor for the second time. "I just told you."

"I mean, I want to find out exactly what happened." The Doctor said firmly. "Why the TARDIS refused to land, how Lucy knew about the temporal earthquake. Everything." The Doctor was speaking rapidly now, pacing back and forth. "There's something else going on here. Something we don't know about." He stopped and look Jack dead in the eye. "This should not have happened. And the least that I can do is figure out why."

Jack had been right about one thing. Looking the Doctor in the eye, his anger bled away and a small grin tugged at the corners of his mouth. Six months he'd agonized over what had happened, and had been prepared to verbally spar it out with this man. In just under 6 minutes, the Doctor had turned that all on its ear. Jack put an arm around the Doctor's shoulders and, much to his surprise, planted a big kiss on his cheek.

"Let's go then." He said guiding the Doctor towards Torchwood Three. "Mi casa es su casa."