Cardiff bustled. The streets were full of people moving in every direction, thousands of individual lives intersecting for a second before continuing on their way. Thousands of individuals living out their normal lives in a city that was anything but.
No one noticed the girl lying in the middle of the plaza. No one ever noticed the strange things that always happened in Cardiff. She was wearing a black and white sweater, jeans, and fingerless purple gloves. A bright blue knit cap covered most of her reddish hair.
She was lying precisely on top of a rift in time and space, not that it was visible to the naked eye. Her arrival had been sudden and unobtrusive, though far more traumatic for her. After a moment, she began to stir. She opened large, brown eyes and looked around with a dazed expression.
"That went well," she muttered. "...I think." She pushed herself into a sitting position and lifted a hand to her head. "Ugh. Displacement hangover. That's not fun." She got rather shakily to her feet and took a more careful look at her surroundings. "Cardiff. Right. Just like Dad said. All right, first things first. Gotta find out the year." She took a few wobbly steps before the strength returned to her legs. Then she wandered off in search of a newspaper stand.
She fished in her pocket for a quid and paid the man, accepting the newspaper in exchange. It was good to find out current events, too. She sat down on a nearby bench and read the date. March 1st, 2007. Interesting. She scanned the headlines and found nothing exciting or out of place. "So we didn't mess with anything," she said to herself. "Brilliant." She spoke with an Estuary accent, a little out of place in southern Wales.
She amused herself for about fifteen minutes reading the funny pages, before she abruptly put the paper down and made eye contact with the man stealthily approaching her. "Hello, Captain," she said brightly. "Who're your friends? I don't know them."
Captain Jack Harkness stopped dead in his tracks, staring at the girl with a guarded expression. "And I don't know you," he said slowly. "But apparently you know me. Who are you?"
"Olivia, but please call me Livy. Only Mum uses my full name and only when she's cross," the girl said, folding the paper. "I rather hoped it'd be you. The other Torchwood blokes are a bunch of tossers, if you ask me. But no one ever does. Crime, really, since I've got so much to say."
"Pardon me, but how old are you?" asked the woman standing to the Captain's left.
"Oh, you're pretty, you are," Livy said with a smile, tilting her head to get a better look at the woman. "What's your name?"
"Gwen. Gwen Cooper," she said, looking thoroughly bewildered.
"Well then, Gwen Cooper, I am fourteen relative years old. Relative to me, that is, because I haven't been born yet."
Jack nodded, a knowing expression on his face. "A time traveler, huh? How'd you get here?"
She held up her wrist. "Vortex manipulator. Borrowed it from my uncle." She giggled for some reason known only to her. "No telling, really, where you're going to end up, though."
"Don't I know it," Jack muttered. "So, Livy. Could I make the assumption that you're human?"
The girl shrugged. "Close enough."
"Could I further assume that you're not from earth?" Jack pressed.
"You could," she answered.
"But what are you doing here?" burst out the other man in Jack's group. "Why Cardiff?"
"Dunno, actually," Livy said with another shrug. "Must have something to do with the Rift. Kinda attracts weird stuff."
"And...are you weird?" asked the Asian woman.
"Most definitely!" Livy said cheerfully. "I shouldn't ever have existed!" She hopped to her feet and tossed the paper back onto the bench. "So, you going to take me to your headquarters or what?"
Torchwood Three had gathered in a close huddle, all staring at the strange girl who sat atop one of the desks, swinging her legs and looking around with a curious air. "Right," said Ianto Jones in his deep voice. "What have we got?"
"A human alien not from earth who has traveled back in time to before she was born which wasn't supposed to happen," Jack replied.
"She wasn't supposed to travel in time?" Ianto asked.
"No," Jack replied. "She wasn't supposed to be born."
"And she seems to know Jack," Toshiko Sato added.
"Which is impossible, because I would certainly remember meeting her," Jack muttered.
"Well she did say she was from the future," Gwen said hesitantly. "So maybe you haven't met her yet?"
Jack shot her an unreadable look. "Well, we're not going to get anywhere talking to ourselves," he said, shoving his hands in his pockets. "I guess I'd better go talk to her."
"Good luck," Owen Harper said with a sneer. "She hasn't said a word since we got down here."
"Maybe you weren't asking the right questions," Jack shot back. He walked over to Livy and leaned against the desk next to her. "You doing all right?" he asked kindly.
She smiled up at him, her eyes twinkling. For a moment, Jack thought there was something familiar about her expression, but the moment soon passed. "I'm fantastic!" she said enthusiastically. "Time travel's old hat and all, but I've never done it by myself. It's loads of fun. I should do it more often."
"Livy, who exactly are you?" Jack asked, his expression serious.
"I told you. My name's Olivia," she said, kicking her legs.
"No. Who are you? Where are you from? And why are you here?" Jack pressed, putting his hands on the desk and leaning towards her. "I need to know."
She leaned towards him until their faces were inches apart. "I can't tell you," she said.
"Why?" Jack demanded, refusing to back down.
"Time paradox," Livy replied, leaning back. "Can't tell you about your own future."
"You're in my future?" Jack asked, just to be sure. Then a horrible though hit him. "You're not my—"
"Your kid?" Livy finished. She giggled and shook her head. "Nope. Just someone you know."
"What am I supposed to do with you?" Jack asked bluntly.
"Keep me safe," Livy replied, her expression gone abruptly serious. "You're the only one my parents trusted enough to send me to."
Jack snapped his fingers. "So it wasn't an accident, you ending up in Cardiff. You came looking for me."
She cocked her finger at him. "And he's a winner!" she said, once more all smiles. "Never was good at fibbing. Not that Mum ever minded."
"Your parents trust me. Who are they?"
Livy waggled a finger. "Ah, ah, ah. Not going to trip me up that way. Let's just say you know them and leave it at that."
"Are they someone I know now?" Jack asked, trying to wheedle the information out of her.
She raised an eyebrow and just stared at him. "You aren't from now, Jack," she told him bluntly. "You're from the 51st century. Just think of all of those people. Loads of possibilities. Now." She clapped her hands together and rubbed them briskly. "What do you feed a girl around here?"
"Are you sure it's safe?" Gwen asked, her voice barely above a whisper. "I mean, she is an alien, she told us herself!"
"I have reason to believe she's not going to run away," Jack assured her. "And I've taken away her vortex manipulator. She's not going anywhere. The Hub just isn't a comfortable place to spend the night. Would you rather I send her home with Owen?"
"Lord, no," Gwen said quickly. She pressed her lips together and flicked her dark hair over her shoulder. "All right, I'll take her home. She won't admit it, but the poor dear's exhausted. You can see it all over her face."
She left Jack's side and walked over to Livy. "Well, you'll be coming with me, then," she said cheerily. "Stay the night at my place. I'm sure you'd like to have a hot bath?"
"Yes, please!" Livy said, perking up. "You wouldn't believe the muscles that get sore during temporal displacement." She hesitated a moment, and then said, "And maybe some tea? Mum always said a cuppa does the body good."
"Of course," Gwen said, putting her hand on the girl's shoulder. "Off we go now." Gwen shot Jack a look as they passed him, and Livy wriggled her fingers at him.
"Night, Jack," the girl said with a smile.
"Goodnight," Jack replied, waving. As soon as the they were out of sight, Jack rushed to Tosh's work station, where the computer tech and Owen were waiting. "Did you get those scans?" Jack demanded.
"Every remote medical scan we could," Owen replied. "EEG, heart rate, blood pressure, basic DNA, and pupil dilation."
"And?" Jack queried.
"She isn't human," Tosh said. "At least, not completely. Her DNA suggests a hybrid between human and alien, but the alien donor isn't in the database."
"She also has an elevated heart rate and blood pressure," Owen added.
"Results of temporal displacement," Jack dismissed. "EEG?"
"Definitely non-human brain wave patterns," Tosh reported. "Take a look. Way too much activity for an average human."
"You're right," Jack murmured, looking at the chart. "There's something about this girl...something familiar, but I can't quite put my finger on it."
"Do you want me to keep on these?" Tosh asked. "See what else I can find out?"
"Actually, I want you to have a look at this," Jack replied, handing her Livy's vortex manipulator. "Full spectrum analysis. Try to find its starting location. Owen, you work on the medical scans."
"All right," Owen agreed. "And what are you going to do?"
"Research," Jack replied over his shoulder as he headed toward his office.