A/N: Thanks for the reviews! Tried this chapter out in first person, changed my mind, so it took a while, sorry. Next chapter should be a little quicker, although it's a bit Owen-centric (in the same manner the first chapter was Gwen-centric,) which I'm a little nervous about...
Basically, some background for the OC here. She gets a name, and the back story starts to build. In the next chapter, Torchwood's back and they'll get to learn a bit more about what's going on.
No spoilers, (well, technically, there's some light spoilers for Last of the Time Lords, S3E13 of Doctor Who, but you probably wouldn't notice unless I pointed it out,) usual disclaimers apply (OC is mine, but the Time Agency is not,) I heart reviews, and all that.
The poster boy. She'd noticed him, how could she not? He was, at a point, the face of the Time Agency, the picture perfect cadet that everyone who joined up should strive to be. She forgot, wrapped up in her own life and never having known him, but meeting him again down the line, she'd remember. Dark hair, blue eyes, chiseled jaw, that build... she'd recall eyeing the poster the first time she saw it, an advertisement, 'come join the Time Agency,' or something to that effect, but more alluring and more forceful. She'd been with friends, two or three whose names would fade from memory by the time she saw him again, but she'd remember laughing with them at the poster. It had been cheesy, too forced to be real. She'd suspected he was a model, because, honestly, what Time Agent would look like that? Her friends, she'd recall, had snubbed the action and adventure the Time Agency had promised, but secretly, that poster and that poster boy had started a slow-building fire in her gut.
Four years after seeing it, she'd signed on with the Time Agency, having already forgotten, by that point, that it was the advertisement that planted the idea in her mind in the first place. By then, she had new friends, friends who encouraged her joining and tried to sign up with her. Their names, too, would be forgotten, because everything before joining became hazy and unimportant. None of them made it, anyway. They probably lived boring, ordinary lives - the sort of lives, by the way, that she'd once felt she was sworn to protect but somewhere along the line forgot she gave a damn about.
The work was consuming. The action and adventure that the Time Agency promised was delivered, tenfold. It wasn't a job, as she'd imagined, but, rather, it was a life in itself. And she was good at living that life, she felt she was meant for it. Every completed mission was met by pats on the back from her superiors and promises of promotions in the near future. She was full of ego, then, really believing she was a shining star among the rest of the recruits. She was quick-witted and sure-footed and she believed in herself. There was no doubt that she'd rise through the ranks. She absently dreamed, at times, of one day rising to the very top of the Time Agency. It was a pipe dream, she always knew that, but she grasped at anything that gave her efforts more meaning. She found herself living, not unhappily, for those pats on the back.
The 51st century. Oh, it was grand. As in any time, there were people who just never felt like they belonged, but not her. She knew she'd been born in the right place. She knew she'd fallen into the right line of work, because she took to it like a fish to water. It was almost as if she'd been bred to be a Time Agent. She was never one to ponder on the meaning of life and the whys and hows of where she was and what she was doing. She had her purpose set out in front of her. She carried it with her as a device strapped to her wrist, as the uniform she wore when the occasion called for it. She was a soldier with a bright future, why question any of it?
Molly Carter - was that her name, her real name? After assuming so many fake identities, they seemed to blur together to the point where she wasn't sure if Molly was something given to her, or something she'd taken and favored to the point she made it her own. She never questioned her fuzzy memories, because she was content, like the other good soldiers, to live her life in the present. (So to speak, anyway, as she actually lived her life jumping around between the present, future and past.) Some of them suddenly realized they had no idea who they were, some of them recognized changes in procedure, but she always trusted her superiors. They gave her the details she needed to know, and she was happy with that. Why waste the energy delving deeper? Why grasp at straws? She was Molly Carter and whether her parents or the Time Agency had made her that didn't matter.
She was something special and she was going to be someone to answer to some day, she really was. But then, as countless Time Agents before her had, (the ones that nobody counted nor remembered,) she died.
So many times, she'd near as shaken hands with Death, then gone on her merry way. She was used to danger. She was used to bullets whizzing past her ear or sticking in her shoulder. She didn't waver under the barrel of a gun and it was something she recognized a strength. She kept her wits in the face of danger, because how else would she get out of a bad situation? How could she carry out her missions if someone waving a gun about reduced her to a useless, quivering mess of tears? She didn't lose her confidence, faced with certain death. In fact, she operated best under the worst of terms.
It was such a shock to her to have her charms resisted. She'd talked her way out of death more times than she could count, she'd flirted her way in and out of prisons, wars and beds of government officials. It was all part of the training, after all. Negotiation, seduction... she knew how to use the tools nature and the Time Agency had equipped her with. But she was still human, and maybe she'd faltered in the face of that shock.
It hardly mattered, really. When there was a bullet lodged in her heart, nothing much mattered. She'd failed, she was going to die, and, likely, no one but her superior would ever know. People who have had near-death experiences often say that their last thoughts were of concern for their loved ones, or that their entire life flashed before their eyes. Perhaps that's not always true. Perhaps, for people coming back from the brink, it's just a way to ensure that when they do leave the world, they're remebered as good and empathetic, or as someone who lived a full life and regretted nothing. There's something so human about wanting a dignified death and profound last words and thoughts. Maybe, at the end, some people draw upon this need and determination and find some strength within them to grant that last wish.
Maybe that sometimes is the case. Certainly, though, it's not always. Molly's dying thoughts were not of her past, not of her failures or successes, nor of any friends or loved ones. (And at this point, did she even have any of the latter? Not really. Her parents were but a hazy memory, and the idea of a relationship was something laughable in her line of work.) She wasn't wondering what would happen when she drew her last breath. Her mind was pleasantly blank as it occurred. She felt satisfied, as if she'd reached the end of her journey. She'd always been living the life she knew she was meant to live, and then, she felt as if she was dying the death she was destined for.
In fact, it was true. Molly Carter, as she came to be known, was meant to die that day. No one could know what dictated that, but there were people who were anticipating it, planning for it, watching her every move and waiting until the time was right. Her death would signal the beginning of dreams being realized for them. It had taken a lot of hard work for Molly to die as she did, and although she sucked in her last breath and her heart beat for the last time, a lot more work would be put into her before she was done.