Hello! Thanks for checking out the sequel to my first story, One Love, One Lifetime. For those of you who haven't already done so, I strongly recommend that you read that first, as this will make so much more sense if you do.

This is going to be a bit different than the first one, with less pure fluff and more adventure, and will feature appearances by many beloved Whoverse characters, as well as a strong presence from the OC's introduced in OLOL. I'm really excited for this story, and I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I am going to enjoy writing it.

So, without further ado, I present to you the first chapter of Define Impossible!

Disclaimer: Nope, I do not make any money off of this. It's just for fun.

Define Impossible

Prologue: Clearing the Haze

Captain Jack Harkness tossed down the remainder of his drink and grimaced slightly as it burned his throat. Man, that stuff's lousy, he thought. For some reason, no matter where he went in the universe, no alien bar had ever managed to replicate whiskey properly. It seemed to be a human thing. He signaled the bartender and ordered something else, then scanned the other bar patrons, not sure whether he was looking for another employer or for… well, something a bit more fun.

Since he'd left Earth in the wake of the 456 catastrophe, Jack had spent the past ten years doing exactly what he was doing right now: wandering aimlessly through the galaxy, picking up odd jobs to keep himself fed, and then spending the rest of his time and money in bars of varying degrees of reputability. And in other people's beds. Well, he spent his time in other people's beds, at least, the day that Captain Jack Harkness needs to pay somebody for… anyway. He'd completely lost track of the number of jobs, bars, drinks and beds, and he rather liked it that way. Lately, it was easier to just let himself drift. Easier not to get close to anyone, which made it easier to keep himself from getting hurt.

The one time that stood out in the mind-numbing haze of alcohol and sex was that time on Zog, in one of the classier bars he'd been in for a while. He'd glanced up to see who that note was from, and nearly died of shock as he spotted that familiar brown trench coat. That last visit from the Doctor was burned into his mind in perfect detail, just like every other time he'd seen the Timelord, from the London Blitz to the end of the universe to the Dalek Crucible. No matter how hopeless he knew it to be, there would always be a small part of him that was in love with the Doctor.

Of course, that night was also memorable for other reasons. After all, Alonzo had known how to do things with his tongue that Jack happened to know were illegal in at least twelve star systems. Wouldn't have thought it looking at him, but… wow. Plus, maybe it was just a holdover from his soldier days, but he loved a man in uniform.

"Korellian Sunrise, please, and one for the broody fellow in the grey coat," someone said, breaking Jack out of his nostalgia. He glanced around, and found a very beautiful, bright red woman of some species he didn't recognize giving him an appreciative stare. Well, that was fine. He'd let just about anyone buy him a drink.

"Captain Jack Harkness, and you are?" he introduced himself, flashing the woman his most charming smile. He noted, with a purely internal smirk, that even though she had initiated the flirting, her cheeks still flushed a slightly darker red. It was nice to know that he hadn't lost his touch.

"Aleria. Pleasure to meet you, Captain," she said, settling onto the barstool next to him.

"Pleasure's all mine, and please. Call me Jack. So, if you don't mind me asking, what's a lovely lady like yourself doing in this place?" he asked, waving a hand around at the rather dingy bar.

"Oh, just having a drink and chatting up handsome human strangers. Hoping to have a little fun tonight," Aleria replied, taking her drink from the bartender and sipping it delicately.

Jack, however, found himself frowning at her response. While her tone was light, her eyes had dropped when she mentioned "having a little fun tonight." Now, normally, he would have never asked questions, since he was not interested in getting close to people anymore, but something about this young woman was drawing him in, in a way he hadn't felt for a long time. So, despite the damaged part of him that was screaming for him to drop it, he decided try to get her to open up.

"You okay? You seem a little down," he added when she gave him an odd look.

She sighed, but her face was fixed with an ironic smile. "Even after everything you've been through, there's still something of the hero in you, isn't there, Captain Jack? It's no wonder that she…" she broke off as he stared at her, stunned.

"What the- Have you been reading my mind? Have we met before? Are we crossing someone's timeline?" Jack stammered, feeling an odd mixture of panic and a touch of anger sweep through him.

"Sorry," Aleria said, ducking her head shamefully. "We haven't met, and we're not crossing timelines. I'm afraid I was sort of in your head, it's really hard for my species to control it sometimes, and you don't have any shields up."

"I don't-" Jack cursed, suddenly aware of how much he'd let his psychic training lapse recently, and closed his eyes to firm up his shields a bit. "Better?" he asked.

She smiled. "Yes, actually. I can still hear you, but only if I concentrate. And while you're a very interesting man, I wouldn't violate your privacy like that."

"So, I'm interesting, then?" he asked, flashing her his trademark grin.

She grinned back at him, her pure white teeth making an interesting contrast with her ruby-red skin, and her equally red eyes sparkling. "Yes, you are. You're handsome and charming, you're dressed very unusually for this place, you don't seem even the slightest bit worried about being in this bar, which has a rather unsavory reputation, and you've got the strangest timelines I've ever seen in my life."

That last comment caused Jack to choke on his drink, and he stared at her. "What do you mean, strangest timelines?" He was starting to be more than a little bit suspicious of her, and shifted his weight so that his gun would be easier to reach.

Aleria held up both hands in a placating gesture. "Relax, Captain, I don't mean you any harm. My people are sensitive to time, that's all. I see the timelines of everyone I meet, whether I want to or not, actually. Yours are so different, and it's fascinating. I can't decide if you're giving me a headache, or if that's just the alcohol," she teased, flashing him a disarming smile, which he couldn't help but return. "I've done a lot of traveling, but I haven't ever met someone who had so much Time twisted up around him, coiling and stretching and snapping back into place like… like a bungee cord."

He chuckled. "I had another friend who told me something like that once, said I was a fixed point in time, a fact. He said it gave him a headache, too." He shifted in his seat, not really wanting to discuss his "condition" or the Doctor with this stranger, no matter how lovely she was, and changed the subject slightly. "So, if you can see the timelines, can you tell me what's going to happen tonight?" he asked, giving her his most seductive smile, the one that had been known to cause both men and women from all corners of the universe to swoon at his feet.

She laughed outright at that. "Well, some things, I suppose, but time is always in flux. Some things are fixed, some things aren't. I can tell you that that hideously disgusting Altuvian over there is either going to meet his lifemate or get black-out drunk and end up passed out on the floor with his pockets emptied, and that the bartender is going to drop a glass in about, oh, five seconds." She paused, and counted them off, then grinned as the sound of breaking glass reached their ears. He chuckled, a bit impressed in spite of himself, and she kept going. "I can tell you that the Grand Minister of Beljaro is going to decide to run for a second term, that the redhead in the corner is about to leave, and that you are going to invite me back to your room and I'm going to say yes. Oh, and that I'm going to die," she added flippantly, and Jack stared.

"Hey, what makes you think that?" he blurted out before he could censure himself. Man, but this woman was really getting under his skin. He could feel his self-imposed fog of apathy beginning to lift of its own volition with every word she spoke.

Aleria shrugged, as though trying to deny the pain of her own admission, and Jack's heart ached for her. "Because I can see it coming in my timeline. Tonight is the night I die. That's why I was so determined to have a little fun tonight."

"Well, you just stick with me, and I guarantee I won't let anything happen to you," he found himself saying, before he even had the chance to think about it.

She smiled sadly. "That's awfully sweet of you Jack, and I appreciate it, really. But there's nothing you can do about it, I'm afraid. It's a fixed point. It's impossible to get around."

"Yeah, well, I'm an impossible sort of guy," he said with another one of his trademark grins. "How about you let me buy you a drink, just so we're even, and we'll have no more of this depressing death talk, huh? Let's just see where tonight takes us."

Aleria grinned back at him. "That sounds like a good plan. So then, Captain Jack Harkness, tell me a little about yourself."

They sat at the bar for a couple of hours, chatting and buying each other drinks, and Jack quickly found himself opening up to this strange woman, more so than he'd opened up to anyone in the past ten years. He told her all sorts of things as the night went on, and she was just as forthcoming about her own life. He learned that most of her species had been destroyed in the Time War, exterminated by the Daleks, and that only a few children, like her, had made it off the world in small, single-occupancy ships that had scattered throughout the universe. Only once had Aleria met another of her kind, and the only things she knew about her people, she had learned from the artificial intelligence within her ship. Together, they commiserated on the difficulties of their lives, and she offered him a level of sympathy and compassion that he hadn't seen since Ianto died.

"Well, you were right about one thing," he said finally, as the bartender announced last call.

"What's that?" Aleria asked, amused.

"I am going to invite you back to my room tonight. So, what do you say?"

She grinned. "I already told you I was going to say yes, Jack. So, feel like getting out of here?"

"I thought you'd never ask," he chuckled, and rose to his feet, offering her a hand with a gentlemanly bow. She giggled and took it, rising with remarkable grace for a woman who'd just spent the last two hours matching him drink for drink. He quickly tossed a few coins on the bar to cover their last round, tucked her hand into his elbow and led her out of the bar.

The mediocre hotel where he was staying wasn't far, so they decided to walk the short distance, getting a little fresh air, since the public transportation systems in this city were infamous for being disgusting and unreliable. They chattered about random things as they walked, and Jack tried not to be too obvious about the way he was checking her out. When she did catch him at it, he quickly tried to cover it by complimenting her flowing black and gold robes, (which were lovely, and he had noticed them, to be fair) but she gave him a look that had him stammering, and he finally just told her how sexy she looked.

They were only one block away from his hotel, on a poorly-lit corner, when a pair of Tirraquans suddenly leapt out of the shadows and jumped them both. Jack had no time to grab his gun, and was forced to resort to his bare hands. He became a flurry of activity, trading blows with the thugs with an ease born of several lifetimes worth of practice, and had just managed to knock one of them unconscious when Aleria suddenly cried out.

He spun on his heels to face her, and felt all of the blood drain from his face when he realized that while he'd been busy with the first thug, the other had managed to stab Aleria with a long, wicked-looking knife. Before he realized what he was doing, Jack had his gun out and fired, putting a bullet directly between the Tirraquan's eyes. The man crumpled to the ground like a puppet whose strings were cut, and Jack quickly holstered his gun so that he could catch Aleria as she collapsed.

Much to his dismay, he quickly determined that even if there was such a thing as a decent hospital on this god-forsaken planet, there wouldn't be anything they could do for her. She was dying, just like she had said she would. Just like he had promised her she wouldn't.

"I'm sorry," he choked out, cradling her gently in his arms. "I didn't see his knife soon enough. I should have been paying more attention." He inwardly cursed himself. Why did so many people have to die in his arms?

"It's okay, Jack," Aleria gasped. "I saw this, remember? I knew it was coming. It's not your fault, it was a fixed point in time."

"But I told you I'd protect you," he objected, fighting down tears.

"You did something even better, Jack. You gave me a friend, so that I didn't have to be alone here."

For once, Jack had no words, so instead, he leaned down and kissed her gently. When he broke away, she smiled. A moment later, her eyes widened, and she gasped. With a last burst of strength, she reached up and seized his face in her hands, forcing him to look her in the eye.

"Listen to me, Captain. I just saw…I have to warn you." She broke off, coughing weakly, then managed to get her voice back again. "She is coming, the child of Wolf and Storm, coming from so far… She will burn, burn from within and rise from the ashes like the Phoenix. She will rise from rage and despair to bring hope and light and joy, and she- will bring- the Firestorm…" Aleria struggled to force out her final words, and breathed her last, her open, glassy eyes still staring into Jack's.

He wrapped his arms around her tightly, holding her to his chest, his tears streaming down his face and shock at her last words reverberating through his skull. His mind whirled even as he mourned the loss of this woman he barely knew. Why had she felt the need to tell him this? What could it possibly mean? Wolf and Storm… Could that possibly mean what he thought it did? But how?

One thing was for sure, he couldn't keep this to himself. There was someone he needed to contact right away, just as soon as he took care of Aleria. He gently closed her eyes, then stood, lifting her in his arms. He'd take her back to where she'd told him her ship was, and see if he couldn't research the burial customs of her people so that he could give her a proper goodbye.

And then, he had a Timelord to find.

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Thank you for reading, and please review! Reviews feed the muse, and a well-fed muse lets me write faster!