Author's Note: I'm nervous again. But on the plus side, I just added a FAQ to my profile. That might answer a couple of questions.
"NO!" The Doctor and Jack cried at the same time.
The Doctor struggled up and caught her just as she fell. He clutched her to him, staring down with horror. "You little idiot. Why?"
"Why?" the Valeyard echoed. Jack glanced at him. He was trembling. "Who jumps in front of a bullet twice?"
"Apparently she does," the Doctor said softly.
Jenny coughed weakly. "Bad habit."
"You little idiot," the Doctor repeated. "Do you want to know I never use guns?" he asked suddenly, not looking up. "Like you said, they're a lot more direct. But do you really know why?" He finally lifted his head and glared at the Valeyard. "Because in the end, it's the people you never meant to that get caught in the crossfire."
Jack had seen the Doctor angry before, but he still marveled in how different it felt. When he had traveled with the Doctor, it had been in his ninth incarnation. Despite their time together, Jack had only seen him angry a few times. But when he was, his emotions were on his sleeve, and he was like a wounded animal, unpredictable and dangerous. He had only taken a few trips with the tenth doctor, but had managed to see him lose his temper as well. That Doctor had burned like a supernova when he was angry, filled with immeasurable levels of fury and unbelievable amounts of passion.
The new Doctor's anger was very different. His anger was cold, calculating, and devastating. It was the kind of anger that crushed its target into nothingness, and even though it wasn't aimed at Jack, he could feel his blood turn to ice.
"I didn't know," the Valeyard whispered.
"That doesn't matter."
Jack could hear stomp of boot in the halls outside. The Valeyard heard it too, looking toward the door. He spared a last glance at Jenny and the Doctor, before lifting his wrist, letting the cuff fall back to reveal his Vortex Manipulator. He pressed it and disappeared in a flash of light.
The door swung open, and soldiers in red berets swarmed in. Jack recognized the colonel.
"He's gone," he explained, struggling with his bonds as Magambo looked at the Doctor for an explanation. For his part, the Doctor was speaking quickly and softly to the dying blonde girl in his arms. "Ran as soon as he heard you. Now will you get us out of here?"
A soldier immediately began to undo Jack's straps as another produced a small set of bolt cutters to free the rest of Torchwood. As soon as one hand was free, Jack pulled the wire crown from his head and began to tear at the remaining straps. Once they were off, he stumbled off the table and rushed to the Doctor.
"I really need you to do this for me," he was saying. "I can't go back to being alone, please Jenny, trust me."
Jenny looked like she was having trouble keeping her eyes open. Her breathing was faint and her skin pale. "Does it hurt?" she asked, her voice barely more than a whisper.
"No," the Doctor said with a smile that didn't even begin to hide the pain in his eyes. "Not in the least."
Jenny's eyes closed and her breathing stopped.
"Jenny." The Doctor shook her. "Jenny!"
And then she started to glow.
Jack blinked.
There was no mistaking it, she was regenerating. But it wasn't like what he remembered, standing in the TARDIS as the Doctor almost died, holding Donna and Rose close. He had released a torrent of energy, bursting out of every exposed inch of skin, before managing to shunt it off into his severed hand. But if the Doctor was a surging waterfall, Jenny was a gurgling brook.
The energy gradually grew brighter and brighter till she looked like nothing more than a bright, girl shaped light. A little flash, even brighter, seemed ripple out from her core to tips of her fingers, before suddenly pulling in suddenly. The glow vanished.
And the Doctor was holding a different girl.
"Jenny?" he asked quietly. "Are you alright?"
Her eyes fluttered open. "Owwwwwwwwwwwwwww." She fixed him with an accusatory stare. "You lied to me. That hurt. A lot."
The Doctor's grin was almost foolish. "I couldn't take the chance you wouldn't do it."
"So you lied?" Jenny pushed herself up onto an elbow, swaying slightly.
"Slowly," the Doctor chided. "It'll take a while to get used to your new body."
After a moment, she managed to get herself sitting upright. She ran a hand back through her hair, pulling out the band holding it back into a pony tail. It fell to frame her face. "My hair changed color."
"Yeah, it'll do that."
She grabbed some of it and held it for closer inspections. "But I liked my hair. It was blonde. Now, it's, it's-"
"Brunette," the Doctor said. "A very lovely shade."
"It's brown."
"Well, technically."
"No, not technically. It's brown." Jack had to admit, her face, split between a frown and a pout, was, at the very least, adorable. It was other things too. "I was blonde. Blonde. Guys like blonde girls."
The Doctor opened his mouth, hesitated, and closed it again. Clearing his throat, he stood up, offering a hand to help Jenny up.
Jack turned his attention back to his team. Free from the pipe, they were waiting as the UNIT soldier worked on getting the handcuffs off their wrists. Gwen walked up to him, rubbing her wrists. They were red and ragged, distorted by the hours chained above her head.
"Are you okay?" he asked.
Gwen nodded. Her eyes flickered to Jenny. "Um, is she-"
"Apparently."
"Oh."
"Colonel," the Doctor said, walked up to Magambo, "we'll need a ride back to UNIT Head Quarters."
"Of course, Doctor," she answered stiffly.
"Congratulations on your promotion, by the way. I hope you didn't have to sacrifice too many innocent lives to achieve it."
She didn't grace him with an answer, only a dark glower, before turning and walking away.
"What was that about?" Jack asked.
"I suppose you could say the colonel and I had a bit of a moral dilemma the last time we've met."
"Over what?"
"Sentient trees."
Jack blinked. "Ah," he said, deciding to pretend he knew what the Doctor was talking about.
The Doctor suddenly changed subjects. "How are you feeling, Jenny?"
"It's quiet," she answered, still frowning.
Jack glanced around at the bustling groups of soldiers, each seeming focused in some sort of task. The room was filled with the sounds of rustling movement, barked orders, and stammered reports. "Quiet?"
"Not here," Jenny said, waving dismissively to the crowd. She pointed to her head. "Here."
"How?" the Doctor asked.
"Well, I always had the military side barking orders." She held up a hand. "It was like 'Rawr, do this, do that, carry a gun, fight, fight, rawr, rawr, rawr'." She puppeted the words with her hand. "And then I had the Time Lady side." She held up her other hand. "It was like 'Hey, have fun, go look at that, what's that do, hey, hey, hey'." Her hand acted that out too. "And they never got along. It was always 'Rawr, fight', 'Hey, have fun', 'Rawr, military protocol', 'Hey, climb that tree'." She paused, staring at her hands. "What am I doing?"
"Acting out a show, apparently," the Doctor answered.
"Why?"
"New body, new brain. You tend to pick up some quirks."
"You mean I'm going to be weird? Like you? I don't want to be weird."
"I'm not weird," he protested. "I'm unique. Eccentric."
"That's weird."
The Doctor grumbled.
"Sir," a soldier interrupted. "The car is ready."
Jack looked at Gwen. "Get everyone back to the Tower. We can talk there. I going to make sure UNIT doesn't hold him up too much." He hurried to catch up with the two of them.
"So, the sides aren't fighting anymore?" the Doctor was asking.
"No, it's like they're not even there." Jenny was frowning again. "I don't know how to explain it. It was like before they were some sort of outside knowledge that was always pressing in, but now it's like a part of me. Like they are there, but they aren't. Am I making sense?"
"Enough," the Doctor said with a smile. "Don't worry, you'll probably have more time to think about it."
Their car was actually a truck. The Doctor, Jenny, and Jack all got in the back, and the engine rumbled to life. Magambo didn't spare them a second glance.
Jack watched the Doctor as the truck bounced down the street. "So tell me, who's the Valeyard?"
"A me. A wrong me."
"You've met him before?"
"In a way. Back in my Sixth Incarnation, I was arrested and framed for breaking one of the Time Lords biggest rules. Non-interference."
"You had to be framed for that?"
The Doctor grinned. "I didn't used to break that rule, but I certainly bent it a lot. Enough to be more than a big thorn in the council's side. He also claimed I committed genocide. I hadn't, of course." His eyes flickered. "Not yet, anyway. I found out later that he was essentially a future, evil version of myself, from somewhere around my twelfth regeneration. We've tangled a few times since then, but I've always won. And that's what terrifies him.
"The Valeyard remembers me winning. By admitting who he is would be admitting he's destined to lose. You have to realized, he's me at my worst. I'm a coward, I know I am. I don't want to die, but I could never put someone else's life in front of my own. He takes it to the extreme." He paused. "I'm only guaranteed thirteen regenerations. I've used up eleven of them, and I may have wasted one with that partial regeneration you witnessed. The point is, I'm only guaranteed one more life. So is he. And that thought terrifies him. He'll do whatever he can to preserve his life. Once I realized who he was, and that you were missing, it clicked into place."
"He wanted to become like me? But didn't you say I was wrong, that I was something in time that wasn't supposed to be. Why would he want to be that?"
"Because he doesn't care. The Valeyard only wants to survive, and he'll do whatever it takes to achieve that. And that's why I'm going to track him down. I have too, before he sacrifices even more lives."
Jack glanced at Jenny. She was examining her hair again and shifting continuously in her seat, looking at her entire body. "What about her? He seemed genuinely upset."
The Doctor's eyes darkened. "Ruminants of my feelings. I'll tear him apart if he comes anywhere near my daughter again."
Jack blinked. "Daughter?"
"It's a rather recent development."
"Oh." Jack made a face. "Wow, yeah, sorry, I thought you two had a completely different relationship. It's a little gross now."
"What did you think we were?"
"Well, you know."
The Doctor stared at him. His eyes flickered away for moment and he blinked. "Oh, Jack. No, just no."
"In my defense, you do have a history with blonde girls."
"Stop, please."
The truck turned into the base, its wheels creaking as they ran along the concrete. After it came to a stop, the Doctor offered a hand to his daughter, who was still busily checking out her new body. "Is everything okay?" he asked.
"I think my boobs shrank."
The Doctor's eye twitched. "Okay, I didn't need to know that."
"You asked."
"Still."
"And I think my butt is bigger."
"It's a very nice butt," Jack offered.
"No," the Doctor said, jabbing a finger at him. "Jenny, why don't you go to the TARDIS? New bodies tend to have different tastes in clothes, so why don't you pick something out."
"Anything?"
"Anything."
The moment she was out of sight, the Doctor turned to Jack. "You're a friend, so I want you to understand. If you lay a finger on her, I'll use the castrate setting on the sonic screwdriver."
"The sonic screwdriver has a setting like that?"
"I'm serious Jack."
He held up his hands in surrender. "I promise."
"Good."
"Is it just me, or is she acting younger though?" Jack asked as they walked into the building, a tall poofy hair soldier holding the door for them. "Less mature."
"Probably. Jenny was created through progenation and programmed to be a soldier. She never got a childhood. This may be as close as she can get."
"So I guess you're not the last Time Lord anymore."
"Well, technically she's a 'Time Lady', but I suppose you're right."
They paused in front of the TARDIS. Jack smiled. "Sloane will probably try and find you, but I can explain it if you'd like."
The Doctor smiled. "Thanks."
The door of the TARDIS opened and Jenny posed. "What do you think?"
Jack's eyebrows went up appreciatively.
The Doctor brow furled.
"Nice."
"NO!"
