Chapter Nine

The weeping angels were gone, and it was quite possibly one of the most relieving moments of Roland's life. He and Jenny were climbing out of the starliner Byzantium, admiring the technology and craftsmanship of the spaceship. They did their best to stay far enough behind the Doctor and his friends to remain unnoticed, but it was a difficult task with Roland's clumsiness.
After a long silence Roland cleared his throat and spoke up. "What are you going to do after you've spoken to your dad?" It was inevitable that she'd want to travel with her father, but Roland was unsure what that would mean for him.
Jenny thought about the question for a moment, watching the silhouette of her father climbing out of the ship. "I suppose that depends on him," she replied carefully. "But if he's anything like the man he was, I'm sure he'd be glad to have us travel with him." She had only known her father for a day before being presumed dead, but she was confident that she had seen his true self in the last few moments before she was shot.
Roland smiled at Jenny before continuing his endeavor to conclude the day's chaotic events. "And... you'll be okay with that? Traveling through the un-meddle-able thing we call time? You seem so certain that bad events can't be changed." He paused and looked down at his feet as he walked. "Is it because of that adventure you had without me? Did something go wrong while I was away?" He looked up to see that Jenny was walking quicker now to avoid answering him. "I'll take that as a yes," he sighed.

When they had reached the outside of the Byzantium, they saw that the planet consisted of a stony beach and a maze carved into a steep hillside. A camp of military clerics was set up outside the maze and were waiting for the return of the Doctor and his company. They were relieved to learn that the angels had been defeated, and were completely unaware that a group of clerics had ceased to ever exist inside.
Jenny and Roland hid behind a boulder near the camp and watched as the Doctor said farewell to River. There was a flirtatious exchange between them and Amy teased the Doctor after River had teleported away with the clerics.
"Now's your chance," Roland urged Jenny with a smile.
She was visibly nervous, something that Roland had never seen before. Normally she remained cool and calm under pressure and fierce when faced with a threat. Now that she had a chance to speak to her father, the man she had been in search of for weeks, she froze.
"Jenny, what's wrong?"
She frowned and looked over her shoulder at Roland. "What if he doesn't want to speak to me?" she asked. "What then? I'll have come all this way only to be rejected."
"Well if you don't go now, you'll have come all this way for nothing at all," Roland pointed out. "You're his daughter. I'm sure he'd be more than happy to see you again."
He had a point. Jenny attempted to regain her composure and stood up behind the boulder. She was still concealed from the Doctor's view, but she could see him clearly. She placed one foot out and urged herself to run to him, but as soon as she'd stepped out from behind the rock, a feeling of dread filled her gut. It wasn't the anxiety she had felt before, but something entirely different. Something she had felt two weeks before when she had opened the vortex while Roland was away. It was the beginning of a paradox.
Quickly she jumped back behind the boulder and crouched down low. She was panting and shaking all over, and hoping that she hadn't been seen.
"What are you doing?" Roland's voice was filled with exasperation, and he attempted to push her back into the open.
"No, stop!" Jenny cried. "I can't go out there, I had a premonition."
Roland took a step back and looked confused. "Hang on... what does that mean?"
Jenny watched with longing as the Doctor walked back to the Tardis with Amy. "It means he's not supposed to see me yet," she spoke softly.

Epilogue

"Hang on, sorry..." Jenny shook her head as they walked through the town. "Where are you taking me?"
"A pub!" Roland replied gleefully. "We've landed in 40th century Ireland. Might as well have a look around. If there's one thing that I know about the Irish, it's that they've always had excellent pubs."
Jenny smiled slightly at his giddy mannerisms, but the trace of red around her eyes and nose were still visible. Roland was bent on cheering her up in any way he could, and the Irish pub was his fifth attempt so far.
"But what's a pub?" Jenny was curious, but hesitant to show excitement. If it was anything like the aquarium they had just come from, it would most likely remind her of Messaline and the time she spent with her father.
"It's a drinking establishment!" he declared. He pushed open the door and held it so Jenny could walk under his arm. She was just short enough to do so without bending over too much.
Inside the building were rows and rows of chairs around round tables. The floor was wood paneling and a stained oak bar was off to the left with iron stools in front of it. The room was filled with people.
"Ooh, and old style pub!" Roland exclaimed. "You don't see many of these in the 61st century. Everything's all metal, glass and plastic."
"Judging by the popularity, I'd guess it's rare in this century, too," Jenny shouted over the bustle. She followed Roland to two empty stools at the bar and sat down on the stool to his right.
Roland leaned closer to Jenny so she could hear him. "Just one quick word of advice: if you order anything with alcohol they might ask you for identification. Since you don't have any, just order whatever you want 'virgin'."
He waved at the bartender and ordered a brandy. He wasn't asked for identification, perhaps because of the small amount of facial hair that had grown during their adventures that made him look almost thirty. Jenny, on the other hand, had no useful aging features and decided to take a moment to decide before ordering. The bartender nodded understandingly and turned around to tend to other customers.
"It's an awfully busy place, isn't it?" Jenny asked. No one replied and she turned to see that Roland had already struck up a conversation with the person next to him. She pulled her borrowed jacket tighter around her shoulders and looked to her right to see a bearded old Irishman there. She smiled nervously, and he smiled back.
"I take it this is your first visit to a pub, lass?" he said.
Jenny nodded, despite not knowing what the word 'lass' meant. The man nodded back understandingly, a gesture Jenny seemed to be getting a lot nowadays, and attempted to reassure her. "Well, it's nothin' to worry about, I assure you. Or has somethin' else got you upset?"
"Something else," Jenny replied. She was concerned that she was so easy to read, for one thing, but mostly her father was on her mind. She was his daughter, and she was meant to travel with him, yet she could never find him at the right time. She was failing to fulfill the purpose she was intended for.
"It's just that... I've been looking for my father," she began. She needed to talk it out, and Roland had already fixed his point of view. Before she knew it she had told the man almost the entire story of the past few weeks. Leaving out certain details such as time travel, of course. "I need to find him. If I don't, what am I supposed to do with my life?"
The old man hummed in thought, mulling over the information carefully before replying. "You seem like a capable young woman. There are plenty of things you could do with your life and careers that you could work towards. Now, that's not to say that you should give up looking for your father. You could even choose a career that you think might cross his path one day. Just don't lose sight of yourself in your search to find him."
"You mean, like travel? That's what he does."
"Precisely," the old man smiled. "Now when you leave The Cantina-" He gestured to the sign above the bar. "-you take an empty beer bottle, and you write a message to your father. Legend says that if you put the message in the bottle and throw the bottle into the sea, it'll reach the person it was intended for."
Jenny's eyes widened. Why hadn't anyone told her of this before? It seemed ridiculous to think that a message in the ocean could reach a man who traveled all of time and space, but it was certainly worth a try.
She waved at the bartender and put her elbows on the bar. "Yes, I'd like a virgin beer," she said decisively. The man looked at her strangely before reaching under the counter and placing a bottle labeled 'root beer' in front of her.

It was windy on the beach, but Jenny was able to write the letter without too much trouble. She rolled it up and pushed it through the neck of the now-empty root beer bottle after reading it aloud for Roland to hear. The letter read thusly:

"Hi, Dad.

Yes, it's really me. Not dead.

How come I'm alive? I don't know. I'm guessing the Source brought me back to life at the same time as Messaline. But they don't need me there, so here I am, out among the stars, having fun - planets to save, civilizations to rescue, creatures to defeat, and an awful lot of running to do! Is that how you started?
I've no idea how to contact you, but I met this guy in this cantina, and he told me how they used to put a message in a bottle and throw it out to sea. And the best bit is that somebody always found the bottle. So maybe, one day, you'll find this and come looking for me?

I'll try to make you proud of me.

Love,
Jenny"*

Roland smiled as she read the letter, apparently pleased by the wording. "Sounds like you've got your excitement to travel back," he said. "You won't be too disappointed if your father doesn't get the message, will you?"
"He travels all of time and space," Jenny pointed out as she threw the bottle into the sea. She smiled and hopped in place slightly. "All of it. It's not impossible to think that he or someone he knows could find it. Just a bit unlikely."
Roland offered Jenny his arm and began walking back to the shuttle. "Promise me you'll still have adventures of your own in the meantime. You're young; you need time to discover you. You don't have to be just 'the Doctor's daughter'. You're Jenny now, and you need to find out what that means."
"That sounds nice," she replied with a grin. "I'm looking forward to it."
Roland smiled down at her and wrapped one arm tightly around her shoulders. He opened the shuttle door and whispered, "Me too."

*This letter is an excerpt from "The Doctor: His Lives and Times" by James Goss and was not written by me. No copyright infringement is intended. All else is my original material.