Livy was humming an unfamiliar song, waving her hands to her music and shuffling her feet slightly, as if she was dancing. She was wearing one of Gwen's shirts, which was too big for her thin frame. She had kept the gloves and the hat, even though it wasn't cold in the Hub. Jack stood watching her from a distance, chin propped in his hand.

There were no recorded sightings of her anywhere in history. They could find nothing more from her EEG or DNA. She was a mystery, and though Jack loved mysteries, he loved solving them more.

"What song is that?" he asked. Livy pivoted on one toe of her Converse trainers to face him.

"'Eternity Hurts' by Penny Wishes," she replied. "Won't come out for another, oh, sixty years or so. Dad thinks they're rubbish, but Mum likes them, too."

"You said last night I'm supposed to keep you safe," Jack said. "Safe from what?"

Livy finally stood still, looking at Jack with an expression in her eyes far too old for her face. "Everything," she replied simply. She turned away from him. "You have anything to read around here?"

Tosh approached Jack a little while later. "I did the tests on the vortex manipulator like you asked me," she said in a low voice. "I found something...interesting."

"Yeah, what's that?"

"Well, for starters, it's over a hundred years old," Tosh said. Jack frowned.

"You're right; that is interesting. Anything else?"

"Yes, and this is even stranger. It's been upgraded and repaired several times, but otherwise it's identical to yours."

Jack blinked at her. "What, same make and model?"

"Same everything," Tosh said, spreading her hands. "I would have to say it is yours."

"That's not possible," Jack said, shaking his head. "Livy said her uncle gave it to—oh, crap." Jack froze with a deer in the headlights expression, one Tosh had rarely seen on her team leader. "She can't be," he muttered.

An alarm suddenly blared overhead and Ianto could be heard yelling from somewhere, "The scanners are picking up Rift activity!" Jack and Tosh dashed for the computer station, where the rest of the team was also gathering.

"What is it?" Owen demanded. "What have we got?"

"An alien life form," Tosh reported. "It must have come through the Rift. It's heading toward the wharfs."

"SUV, now!" Jack ordered. Owen and Gwen ran to keep up with him as he headed toward the garage. Tosh's fingers flew over the keyboard, Ianto hovering over her shoulder. No one noticed Livy slipping out after the other three.

There was a brief scuffle for the passenger seat which Owen lost. Just as Jack was about to peel out of the garage, Livy flung herself into the truck and buckled her seat belt. "I'm coming, too," she announced.

"The hell you are," Jack began, but the girl cut him off.

"There's no time to argue. We're going to lose it!" she said urgently. Jack bit down on his words and stomped on the gas pedal. Unfortunately, she was right.

"Tosh, keep talking to me," he ordered into his headset.

"It's moving fast, you'll have to hurry to keep up with it," she said. "Head south."

Jack weaved his way through the traffic, getting to the wharfs in half the time it would normally take. "Stay here!" he ordered Livy as they piled out of the car.

"Not likely," she replied cheerfully. Jack growled in frustration, but said nothing more as they headed out, following Tosh's directions. Livy kept pace with the adults, her long legs pumping furiously, but she never complained. They raced down the alleys of the docks, splitting up to corner the alien. Livy stuck with Jack, always a few steps behind him.

They tracked the creature to a shipping yard, searching through the packing crates. When it gave them the slip, they had to backtrack in order to surround it. "Where is it?" Owen panted over the radio. "Where's it gone?"

"Right...there," Livy said, pointing. Jack whirled around to see something crouching in a shadow at the end of the aisle. "Look at it," the teenager breathed. "It's beautiful!"

Beauty was certainly in the eye of the beholder, because the alien was certainly not pleasant-looking. Scales were interspersed with tufts of fur. It walked more-or-less upright, with a reptilian snout and a heavy tail.

"A Rexorian Lizard," Livy said, breathing shallowly. "Young one, too. First growth stage. Poor thing's probably scared out of its wits."

"We need to contain it before it starts scaring anyone else," Jack told her shortly. "Get behind me." The teenager did as he asked as he reached under his coat. He pulled out the weapon and aimed it at the alien.

"Oi!" Livy suddenly yelled. "What do you think you're doing?" Her voice startled the creature and it darted off again.

"What did you do that for?" Jack asked furiously, rounding on the girl.

"You were going to shoot it!" Livy retorted, sounding just as angry. "There was no call for that!"

"Rexorian Lizards are carnivores," Jack told her. "They're dangerous!"

"He hadn't hurt anyone. The least you could do is give him a chance!"

Jack glared at her but didn't continue the argument. "Tosh, where is it now?"

"Circling back towards Gwen and Owen," she replied.

"All right, try to get a visual and take it down if you get a clear shot."

"Oi!" Livy yelled again.

"Stun it, if at all possible," Jack continued, scowling at her. "You are in so much trouble right now, young lady," he growled at her. Livy only stuck her tongue out at him. He stomped off towards his team mates, the girl tagging along behind him.

They arrived on the scene of chaos. Owen was wrestling with the creature, though it looked as if it simply wanted to get away. Gwen stood nearby with her stun gun, yelling at Owen to get out of the way. Jack paused for a split second to sigh, and then he rushed into the fray, grabbing the creature off of Owen.

The lizard swung its tail around, knocking Jack's feet out from under him and sending him sprawling on top of Owen. Gwen fired and missed as the alien darted towards freedom, only to be covered by dozens of thin, blue tendrils of electricity. It collapsed and lay twitching for a few seconds before it went still.

Livy stood over the alien, brandishing a round, silver device. "Personal defense unit," she said proudly. "Releases an adaptive electric shock that'll knock out anything organic." She frowned briefly at the device. "Doesn't work on robots, though." She slipped it into her pocket and beamed. "See, no one had to get hurt."

"You're still in trouble," Jack said, coming over to study the lizard. Livy crouched beside it and ran her hand over its coarse fur.

"There, there," she murmured. "We're gonna take care of you."

"What is that thing?" Owen asked, straightening his clothing.

"Rexorian Lizard," Jack replied absently, his attention caught by the girl. "Predators, but not particularly vicious. Shouldn't be a problem to contain."

"Do we get to keep it?" Livy asked cheekily.

"For the moment," Jack said. He continued to stare intently at Livy. "I know who you are," he said.

Her smile slowly evaporated from her face. "Figured it out yourself, did you?" she said with a nod. "Thought you might. You're smart. Always have been." She blew a sigh. "Oh... Now what to do?"

"First we're gonna get this back to the Hub," Jack said, nudging the lizard with his toe. "Then you're gonna talk."

It took them over two hours to get the Rexorian Lizard settled into one of the containment cells underneath the Hub. When Jack got up to his office, Livy was waiting for him, her expression serious. He sat down at his chair and they simply looked at each other for a long moment.

"You've got your father's eyes," Jack said eventually. "And your mother's smile."

"That's what everyone says," Livy replied. She took off her cap for the first time and ran her fingers though her thick, straight hair. She laughed a little. "Dad always loved the fact I turned out ginger. Said he knew he had it in him."

"So..." Jack said after another moment of silence. "You going to tell me what happened?"

To his chagrin, Livy promptly burst into tears. "I want my Mum and Dad," she said, blinking away moisture in her eyes. "I want my Uncle Jack. You taught me...never to lose a fight. To never miss an opportunity. To never be afraid." Tears spilled onto her cheeks. "I'm so scared."

Jack was out of his seat in a flash and Livy threw herself at him and they landed on the floor in a tangle. He cradled her against his chest as she sobbed brokenly, stroking her hair and murmuring gently. When the storm subsided, he dried her tears and looked into her brown eyes.

"Tell me what happened," he said.

"We wanted to go to the ocean," she said, sniffling a little. She accepted his handkerchief gratefully. "Someplace warm. Dad knew a really great place, so we went. Only... it was empty. The whole planet. They were just...gone." She sniffed again and pressed the handkerchief to her eyes. "We didn't mean to wake them, really. We were just trying to find out where everybody had gone."

"Wake who?"

"The Bonedancers," Livy whispered with a shudder. "It was awful. We barely made it back to the TARDIS. They—somehow they latched onto our wake through the Time Vortex. Everywhere we went they followed, and we couldn't stop them. Then they came to earth." Her breath hitched and for several moments she couldn't continue. Jack stroked her hair again, resting his chin on the top of her head.

"Go on," he said gently.

"Dad said it would kill her," she forced out through another onslaught of tears. "But Mum said it was the only way."

"What happened?" Jack asked, a little too sharply.

"I don't know!" Livy sobbed. "You sent me away! Made me come here, to you, so that I'd be safe!"

Jack rocked her back and forth. "Oh, Livy," he whispered. "I am so sorry."

*****

She was sketching something, her lower lip caught in her teeth as she moved the pencil over the paper. Jack watched her in silence from the other side of the glass partition, Gwen at his side.

"Well, then. Who is she?" Gwen asked.

"She's my niece," Jack replied, never taking his eyes off Livy. Gwen looked at him in surprise.

"You never mentioned you had family," she said, sounding a little put out.

"It's...complicated," Jack replied. "I have a sister. That's her daughter." He nodded toward the girl.

"What's your sister's name?" Gwen peered up into Jack's face, trying to read the expression behind the blue eyes.

"Rose," Jack whispered almost reverently. "Her name is Rose."

"Pretty name."

"She's a pretty girl," Jack replied.

"Jack," Gwen said carefully. "If you can't die, and you're hundreds of years old, how is it your sister had a child in the future, that came back to the present?"

"Time travel," Jack said with a snort. "Gotta love it." He turned abruptly to Gwen. "I'm not going to tell you everything about me, Gwen. I probably never will. My past—hell, and my future—is painful, and not even I know all of it. So you're just going to have to trust me."

Gwen merely lifted an eyebrow. "I always do," she said simply, and walked away. Jack sighed and rubbed his eyes. Then he stepped back into his office.

"Are you all right?" he asked softly.

"I'm always all right," she replied tiredly, not looking up from her drawing. "Always have to be."

"Did I tell you that?" Jack asked, forcing a smile.

"No. Dad."

Jack looked over her shoulder at the picture she was working on and flinched. It was hardly the thing anyone expected a fourteen-year-old girl to draw. Whatever it was, it was hideous, like a bundle of weirdly-shaped bones strung together by sinew and wire. "Is that a Bonedancer?" he asked.

She nodded and put her pencil down. She had once more donned her blue cap; it kept her hair out of her face so Jack could see her expression. It was schooled and hard, but also brittle, as if the tiniest pressure would shatter it.

"They use the bones of the people they kill to make themselves bigger, stronger," she said. Her hands were restless, tugging at her ever-present gloves. "They rattle when they walk. I can still hear them sometimes...when I sleep."

"I'm sorry," he said again. Livy shrugged abruptly and turned the page over, hiding the monster. Her expression was even more fixed, more determined.

"It's going to be okay," she said firmly. "It always is. Mum and Dad will come back to get me when it's safe. You won't come. Can't risk meeting yourself. Time paradoxes are such nasty things. Did Mum every tell you of the time she met herself as a baby? World nearly ended."

Jack sat down and moved his chair next to Livy's. "Tell me about you," he said. "It can't hurt anymore, since I already know who you are. Why weren't you supposed to exist?"

A half-smile quirked her mouth. "Everywhere and every when Dad's gone, he never met sight nor sound of me. He had children once, but he lost them in the Time War. The Doctor wasn't supposed to have any more kids."

"But then he met Rose," Jack said, a fond look on his face.

"Yeah," Livy said. "Mum's, well, she's different. She sort of exists outside of time. No, that's not right...I know. She's not ruled by time. It treats her different than the rest of the universe."

"Why?" Jack asked. He always knew Rose was special, but this was new.

"Because she's Bad Wolf," Livy said simply.

Jack frowned. He had heard of Bad Wolf before, but it slipped his memory. He fished around for a few more minutes, and then it came to him. "Bad Wolf's just a legend," he objected. "An anomaly in the space-time continuum."

"Rose Tyler is Bad Wolf," Livy insisted. "It started on the Gamestation, Satellite Five. The Daleks were invading and Dad sent Mum home to protect her."

"I remember that," Jack said. "I died."

"And Bad Wolf brought you back," Livy said. "Mum didn't want to let Dad die on his own. She had to save him, so she absorbed the Time Vortex and became Bad Wolf. She wiped out the Daleks and brought you back to life, only she couldn't control the power so she brought you back forever. Then, it was killing her, so Dad took it from her, but it made him regenerate. Only they found out later he hadn't taken all of it and it changed her."

"Changed her how?" Jack asked, leaning forward.

Livy reached up and tucked a stray bit of hair behind her ear. "She's powerful. I mean really, really powerful. But not all the time. Sometimes Bad Wolf just comes. And when it does, well, there's nothing that can stop her. Other times she's just like you or me. Well, that's not right, since neither of us are what you'd call normal...or helpless." Livy amended thoughtfully.

"You're a Time Lord," Jack said. It wasn't really a question.

"Time Lady," Livy corrected. "Yeah."

Jack studied her face for a long moment. At first glance she looked like any other teenaged girl: young, pretty, somewhat shallow, but it was her eyes that gave her away. She had a Time Lord's eyes: ancient, wise, full of sorrow and joy beyond human understanding.

"Start from the beginning," Jack ordered softly. "Tell me everything."