Summary:
Holly Davis had grown up in a very practical English household. Normalcy was expected. Her father, a banker. Her mother, a stay at home mom. She, a good student at school. Not bad, not great, good. Normal. And after her tumultuous time in Perkinton Orphanage for Lost Girls she did not mind normal. Normal was good. Normal was great. She attended university, became the assistant at a local manufacturing firm and everything was normal.
Waking up in a hospital bed, stiff and foggy with a man and woman staring at her in utter shock, not normal.
Epilogue
Chapter One
It's the End of the World
Holly felt along the back of the large pole. The outer part of the building was thick with grime and dirt. It was old. And some part of her said, England 1989. Where was she? The light above her was a ghoulish yellow and the dirt and dust that flecked across the sky was fading, in and out. Where was she? The sky was bleak and as dark as coal. Not a star showed in the sky. She could not move her arm. Suddenly, she heard a flurry of crowds.
"-stabbed!"
"Hurry!"
"Someone call the-"
Her eyes began to close and her mouth fell open. The last thing she heard was a strange pulse. And then her vision went black.
Holly Davis had grown up under a cloud of mystery and suspicion. It had all started thirty years ago when a baby, wrapped in a thick blue shroud had appeared, dead, on the steps of Perkinton Orphanage for Lost Girls. The nurse that had found her, Mary Hartfur, had been sure that the child was dead, her only clue the light blue tent of her skin. She had screamed and had run to the office of the Headmistress, screaming of a dead baby. Her superior, Madame Cartwright, was always more level headed. Cartwright plucked the baby up from its position and with one hand called Torchwood. What Mary Hartfur would never know is that Madame Cartwright had been expecting this child for almost a decade.
Smiling, a brisk English smile, she shooed the girls that had woken up and Mary Hartfur from the room. Leading the confused nurse from the building, patting her on the shoulder when she insisted on staying. Only Cartwright couldn't let her and shut (and locked) the door in her face.
There was nothing she could do now but wait.
The knock came an hour later and Cartwright came a small sigh of relief when she looked through the peephole.
"Madame Cartwright"
That familiar American smirked made Cartwright slightly irritated.
"Captain," she replied, coldly, allowing the door to fall open.
"Where's the kid?," he asked, following after her.
"In here"
The babe was settled comfortably in a crib, the shroud tight around her.
"Bit of a small thing," the Captain commented.
Cartwright felt the childish urge to roll her eyes.
The Captain seemed to switch almost in an instant from awed to serious, a hand placed on his revolver, "Are you sure we shouldn't contact the Doctor?"
The Headmistress shook her head, lips pursed, "The instructions I was given by her parents were unquestionable."
"He'll find her one day-"
"If she remembers"
"Are you sure she'll forget everything-"
"She has to!"
They stared at each other for a long time, waiting for the other to crack.
Cartwright didn't.
"You used to be one of the sweetest people I knew"
Cartwright turned away from him, and picked up the child and placed him in the Captain's arms.
"Take her somewhere safe, where you can always watch over her"
"I'll look after her Cartwright, scouts honor"
