Hi, everyone, and welcome to my latest story
Hi, everyone, and welcome to my latest story!! For all of you familiar with my work, thanks for coming back, and welcome to any new readers!! This story picks up where 'Lost and Found' left off, but it can be read separately. In case any readers haven't read that, here's a quick recap: The Doctor rescued Ace from a Dalek prison ship, and now she travels with him and Martha. They recently encountered a very unpleasant man who kidnapped the Doctor and Ace. Ace escaped and found Martha before going back for him. She went totally feral, due to an alien presence- a Cheetah mindset- she'd picked up in a 7th Doctor adventure. The Doctor helped her get it under control, and is now wondering just how inhuman she is. SO, with no further ado, I give you the first chapter of Echoes of the Past!
DISCLAIMER FOR ALL CHAPTERS: I do not own Doctor Who, Torchwood, The Doctor, Martha, Ace, Captain Jack, Nitro 9, etc. Sadly.
"Hmmm…." The Doctor leaned back and peered thoughtfully at the little silver cylinder he held. In front of him, Ace squirmed impatiently on the edge of the hospital bed, tapping her fingers against the flap of the ever-present rucksack by her side. The Doctor had approached her earlier, asking if he could formally test her and see how inhuman she had become, between her time spent on Gallifrey and the alien Cheetah Virus inside of her. The test was simple- he'd take a tiny tissue and blood sample and run it through a DNA analysis thing. She'd agreed willingly enough, but if she'd known he would be this aggravating about it, she would've passed. She bit her lip, trying to wait for the Doctor to finish his examination. It didn't work.
"So? What's it show, Professor? Am I gonna wake up tomorrow with fur and fangs?" Her tone was light, but there was real worry behind it.
The Doctor ran his free hand though his unruly brown hair and pulled out his 'smart glasses', stroking an imaginary beard. Ace chuckled. She thought the glasses made him look geeky, in an endearing kind of way. He frowned at the little metal thing and tapped it gently, as if to make sure it was working right.
"Well," he said, "the test results are pretty much what I expected them to be." She huffed, annoyed- that didn't explain anything. He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye and winked cheekily. He was annoying her on purpose. She glared at him, and instantly he pulled out the puppy dog eyes and looked piteous. Her mouth twitched; she relented and stuck her tongue out. He stuck his out right back, and soon they were making increasingly silly faces at each other. They both ended up collapsing in laughter, the Doctor leaning back against Ace's legs and grinning up into her shining eyes. He reached up over his head and tapped her nose, earning him an even wider smile. Then Ace crossed her arms and pushed him up with her legs.
"Seriously, though, Professor. What's the news?" He noted the anxiety she was trying hard to hide and gave her a straight answer.
"You're a little more than half human." Her expression was openly alarmed now. Not the reaction he'd hoped for, but she didn't know yet that it wasn't as bad as it sounded.
"Does that mean I'm half cat?" She knew the Cheetah was still there, but she'd hoped it hadn't altered her that much.
The Doctor shook his head. "No, not at all. The Cheetah makes up about half of your alien DNA, so a quarter of you overall. The other quarter is Time Lord, Gallifreyan. You spent years there, living with telepathic people and even more telepathic TARDISes- it was bound to change you at least a little. As to what it will do to you now, I really don't know. It won't be anything obvious, like your enhanced senses from the Cheetah. My best guess is that you won't age nearly as fast anymore." He was a little concerned, if not surprised. He'd been pretty sure that the results would be something like what they were. He just wasn't sure how Ace was going to take the news. She could be unexpectedly touchy about some things.
Ace nodded slowly. "Well, I guess we won't be able to tell either way for a couple more years, then. I mean, we won't know whether or not I'm aging until I should look older but I don't." She considered the news carefully. Knowing she was only half human would take some getting used to, but it definitely had an upside. If she didn't age quickly anymore, then she had that much more time with the Doctor. She smiled at the thought. A longer youth wasn't a bad prospect at all. Besides, she already had experience with not looking her age- she thought she was around forty-five or fifty, but her body (and mind) was still twenty-six. Actually, her mind might even be a bit younger than that, but still. She knew she showed her age, so to speak, in some things- her opinion on war, for instance- but was still very young in others. Slow aging probably wouldn't be too different from the way she already was.
Satisfied that Ace wasn't going to lose her temper, the Doctor gestured to the open doorway. "I'm going to go check up on Martha, ok?" Martha was somewhere around the console room, relaxing while the Doctor tested Ace. Ace nodded and leaned back against the wall again. She closed her eyes, suddenly tired enough to nap. The Doctor hesitated a moment, not wanting to startle her or see her take it the wrong way, and then brushed a lock of light brown hair behind her ear and kissed her forehead tenderly. Without opening her eyes, she smiled and found his hand with hers, squeezing it gently. He squeezed back and, disentangling his hand, walked away quietly, feeling more complete than he had in years. Ace was daily becoming more and more what she'd been to him before, and even more than that. It was like having a daughter again, a daughter who was also a best friend and a loyal protector and ally. With those thoughts in his mind, he strode off in the direction of the central console room, looking for Martha.
Back in the med bay, Ace heard the door open as quietly as it had been closed and, assuming it was the Doctor again, didn't bother moving. Then someone spoke, and it was a cheerful, unfamiliar male voice. "Doctor? You in here? Martha let me in and said I'd find you- oh, hel-lo. Who might you be? I'm very pleased to make your acquaint-" By this time, Ace had jumped off of the bed and was standing with her back to the wall, brandishing a can of Nitro-9 threateningly. She cut off the man who stood before her, her voice low and icy to mask the fear she felt both at being surprised by a stranger and the fact that it was a strange man being friendly with her. She'd had bad experiences before, things not even the Doctor knew about. "Back off, Scumbag." The man looked surprised, caught in the middle of extending a hand. He was tall, with dark hair and eyes, and he wore a long, dark blue coat over a light blue shirt and darker pants. His face was friendly enough, but Ace didn't buy it. She'd learned the hard way.
Jack was caught utterly off-guard. He'd only been saying hello to the beautiful young woman. He couldn't help flirting with her; he flirted with everyone. He hadn't expected anything like her sudden leap toward the wall, a blank yet somehow menacing silver can from the bag beside her now held in her hand. At first he'd thought she was simply someone who'd had too much experience with fighting and was used to split-second reactions to possible threats, but then he saw the flash of fear, quickly hidden, in her expression. He wondered then if she'd perhaps had some bad experiences with men- certainly he was nothing to be afraid of, physically at least. He lowered his hand and took a slow, careful step back. He held up his hands to show they were empty. "I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to startle you. My name is Captain Jack Harkness. I'm a friend of the Doctor's." He noted that the older teen/young woman (he couldn't decide which) relaxed slightly but kept her defensive posture. She trusted the Doctor, then. He wondered who she was.
The Doctor found Martha in the main room, staring absently at the viewscreen. The TARDIS door wasn't quite shut; he closed it tightly. "Were you outside, Martha?" he asked curiously.
She looked up at him, blinking. "Outside? No, I haven't left all day. Oh, I did let Jack in, though. He knocked a couple of minutes ago." The Doctor felt an instant pang of foreboding. He looked around for his flirtatious friend. "Jack's here? Where is he?" Martha frowned. "Um, I'm not sure, exactly. He asked where you were, so I sent him off to the med bay to find…" she trailed off, her instantly horrified expression mirroring the Doctor's. "Ace," they both breathed. Without another word, they took off for the med bay, hoping they would get there and defuse the situation- possibly literally- before Ace blew anything up. Or anyone.
When the two of them skidded to a stop in the hallway, a curious sight met Martha's eyes. Jack stood in the doorway with his back to them. He held is hands up as if attempting to placate someone- Ace, probably, thought Martha. Ace herself was backed against the wall, a can of Nitro-9 in one hand and the other hand on the cap. The Doctor seemed to take all of this in instantly and directed his first comment at Jack. "What did you do to her?" His voice was halfway between amused and threatening.
"I didn't do anything! I only said hello, I swear!" Jack protested. "She's the one who pulled the can on me! Look, Doctor, would you mind telling this beautiful young lady here that I really was only saying hi and that I'm not some kind of mass murderer? Because I think that's what she thinks I am, and I really don't feel like dying today. I've already been blown up once this week." Martha cringed. She'd heard about that one. She giggled, too, though, hiding it behind a hand. It wasn't often that Jack's flirting was turned down, and certainly not so violently. She wondered what had sparked Ace's reaction. Sure, she had a hot temper, but not usually this hot. Jack heard her, and glared at her, fake-wounded. She ignored him.
The Doctor was having similar thoughts. He had not expected anything like this- Ace's behavior was unusual, even for her. He'd come running to the room because he didn't want a startled Ace to go feral on Jack. Her recent experiences had given her control over the Cheetah, but it was new control, and it would be liable to break under unexpected stress. Jack, whether expected or not, always counted as stress. Deciding to give the Captain a break- obviously he hadn't started this- the Doctor spoke to Ace.
"He's really an ok guy. You can put the Nitro down. He's not going to hurt you. He's a friend. He just happens to have an uncontrollable urge to flirt with anything that has a heartbeat." Ace lowered the can immediately, trusting the Doctor, but still looked wary. The Doctor sighed. First impressions tended to stick with Ace; if Jack was planning on staying with the TARDIS crew for any length of time, that wasn't going to help any. It was time for proper introductions now.
He motioned to Jack, while still looking at Ace. Jack stepped forward, causing Ace to tense involuntarily. The Cheetah must have intensified her already hair-trigger fight-or-flight response. The Doctor pointed to Jack. "This," he said, "is Captain Jack Harkness, former Time Agent and occasional TARDIS crewmember." Ace nodded stiffly to Jack. He bowed. Ace smiled slightly; good, thought the Doctor. Maybe his charm will help him win her over. He went on. "And this is my former-and-current companion, Ace McShane."
Jack's eyed widened. His jaw dropped slowly, and he gaped at Ace as though she was a ghost. "No way," he said. "Are you serious? The Ace McShane? The only human ever to be made a Time Lord?" Taken aback, Ace nodded and said "Uh…that's my name, yeah. I don't think there'd be any other Ace McShanes running around the universe. But…you know who I am?" Her face was confused.
Jack was grinning from ear to ear now. "Of course I know who you are! The human section of the Time Agency, the McShane Branch, was named in your honor as the only human Time Lord in existence. Well, it was started in your memory, really- we thought you'd died in the war long before we were around. But we all knew about you, as a sort of once-living legend. After you graduated from the Prydonian Academy, word passed from alien to alien right on down to us humans in the Agency. But to meet you-!"
For once, Jack was well and truly lost for words. He understood now a little of why she'd reacted to him the way she had- from what he'd learned, she'd gone from a rough childhood on Earth to an abrupt relocation onto an alien planet to traveling with a less-than-forthcoming Doctor to being transplanted yet again, this time to Gallifrey, just in time for the War. She'd probably seen as much death and destruction as he had, and at a much younger age. She'd always been his hero in his early days at the Agency, and now to actually see her, face to face! ….And to apparently terrify her and incur her wrath the moment he spoke…inwardly, he shrugged. You couldn't have everything in life.
Ace was still staring at the handsome man in front of her, utterly flabbergasted. As far as she was concerned, she was a no-account delinquent from Perivale who got a lucky break when she escaped, albeit by accident, to Iceworld. The Professor had been trying for years to convince her she wasn't as worthless as she'd thought. Apparently he wasn't the only one who believed that. Noticing her stare, the man- Jack- gave her an unexpectedly shy smile. She couldn't help it-she smiled back. And just for a moment, she would've sworn she heard the ice between them tentatively begin to crack.
Just so you know, I haven't seen any Torchwood episodes, so if anything I said regarding the Time Agency directly contradicts anything Jack has revealed in Torchwood, I apologize. Just put it down to author's wishful thinking. Anyway, hope you liked it! Please review.