A/N- And here be the update…enjoy! Oh, and I've just realized that there probably are not forests 'on the outskirts of Cardiff'. My defense? It's AU. Deal with it. Anywhore, on with the chapter!

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When Jack and the rest of the team finally caught up with Evelyn and the Doctor, each one was out of breath from the long run that they had needed to keep up with the teenager and the Time Lord. Jack came up first and was both perturbed and pleasantly surprised when both the Doctor and Evelyn jumped on him to rather forcefully throw him to the forest floor.

"Well, I know that they say make love not war, but do you two really think this is the most appropriate time?" he said in a low, mischievous whisper.

Evelyn responded with a look of pure disgust crossing her features, "You wish, Harkness," she said dismissively but jumped a bit when she heard a twig snap a ways off, "Christ, Harkness, do you think that your team could be any louder?"

He looked up at her impishly and asked, "Do you really want me to answer that?"

She gave him an evaluating look and quickly replied, "No," as he continued to smirk cheekily at her, "Go tell them to quiet down," she sighed.

She was rather annoyed when he grinned and said in that still same voice, "Gladly, but you'll need to get off of me first."

It was only then that Evelyn noted with some embarrassment that the Doctor had already gotten up off of Jack (probably before she had even started talking) and that she was still straddled across his waist in an uncomfortably sexual manner...and that without the Doctor's weight on him as well he could very well have moved her off him any time he liked. As the blush began to creep into her cheeks and Jack's features contorted into another smirk she gracelessly rolled off him as he slowly got up to dust himself off and walked off nonchalantly to his team around 100 yards back.

"Jack!" the Doctor called out to him as he sauntered away.

"Yeah?"

"Circle around, see if you can find another point of entry. No sense in all of us barging in all at once, right?" he replied.

Jack nodded and gave him a casual two-fingered salute as he continued back towards his team, "You've got it, Doc," he answered.

The Doctor turned to her, which she honestly suspected was a bit of an afterthought, "Go with him, Evelyn," he said sternly.

She glared at him, "I'm not a child," she hissed.

Inwardly, her words wounded him…they reminded him too much of Jenny, "You're seventeen," he replied matter-of-factly in a conversation ending tone.

"I'm going to be eighteen in six months!" she replied with whispered indignation.

"Exactly!" he said, matching her tone, "You're too young to be putting yourself in this kind of danger. Go with him."

"You're not my father!" she said in a low hiss, firmly standing her ground.

He turned to glare at her, "No, I'm not, but that doesn't change the fact that you are seventeen and that you are far too young to be doing this."

"No." she replied irritably.

He snorted, "That's mature."

"You're just wasting time, you realize?" she replied, "I'm rather stubborn, in case you hadn't noticed."

"No worry there, I have. It's rather irritating."

"I prefer to think of it as charming."

"Not when you're at the brunt of it," he replied moodily.

"Of course it isn't," she answered with a caustic roll of her eyes.

"Can we get back to business, please? You need to stick close to me so we can get-" he suddenly looked over at her, "How do you do that?"

She looked genuinely perplexed, "What?"

"That thing…that thing where you say or do something that gets me off topic and then all of a sudden, you've won the argument and had your way."

"Natural talent?" she said wryly.

He shook his head ruefully, "You, Evelyn Russell, are a most remarkable mystery."

"Good to know I'm thought of so highly," she replied dryly.

"I will puzzle you out, Evelyn, just you wait," he replied with a smirk.

"Good. When you finish exploring my mind, could you tell me what you find? I'd be quite interested to know what's in there myself."

He snorted to himself, "Humans, always thinking that there's something deep and buried up in all those wonderful heads of theirs…You'll see," he said to her, "Someday, that mind of yours will be so well-used and broken in that you'll long for the days when there was a bit of mystery to keep it interesting."

She looked at him sadly, "You're probably right…it's just that sometimes-What was that?" she said as she suddenly broke off.

"I don't know," murmured the Doctor as he gazed off distantly in the noises' general direction before his head suddenly whipped back in Evelyn's direction, with that classically manic smile gracing his features once again, "But I can guess," he said abruptly, creeping ever closer to the thicket of trees that were the only things separating them from what Evelyn would later fondly recall as fate.

There was really nothing she could so but run after him…to make sure he didn't kill himself…really.

She followed after him with her light, nimble step, carefully avoiding the copious brush underfoot. By all rights, at this point she should have been a bit panicked and certainly pale as a sheet, but, much to her own bewilderment, she was calm, even serene. Hugging herself closer to the tree was an act of self-preservation rather than one of fear. Her breathing was even, although a bit shallow, so she took a deep breath of the fresh air around her in an effort to force her mind to succumb to the reality of it all instead of just treating it like some surreal dream. On that breath she took in a few familiar springtime scents; wildflowers, the vague remnants of early morning dew, the heady sweet scent of new shoots of grass and soil, freshly tossed aside by the mint green buds. There were also new scents, unfamiliar but intoxicating all the same; particularly the comfortable and musky yet gratifying scent of the man just a few trees down. She closed her eyes and reluctantly exhaled the boldly aromatic array of scents and simply turned her head in the way she thought the Doctor had ventured before taking yet another deep inhale while a satisfied smile played across her lips…she didn't find him attractive by any stretch of the imagination, but, lord, that scent! It was missing something, though, a vaguely woody scent that she couldn't quite place...Her expectations of another giddy springtime climax were shattered, however, when her deep inhale was overwhelmed by the distinctly coppery scent of blood.

The Hameovores.

How could she have been so stupid!?!?! Getting distracted by scents and spring…she needed to focus on the task at hand, and that was helping the Doctor so that she could get home to…what exactly? She had nothing, not really…no boyfriend, no driving ambition, no real passion…

If she was being honest with herself, the only reason she wanted to get back was to see if she could fix her car.

It was a little depressing, really, she was eighteen, graduating from high school, had just gone to her prom (albeit after having a rather crappy prom experience) and she was at an absolute low point of interests and expectations. She heaved an irritated sigh and set her sight on the task before her. She turned towards the Doctor and, cocking a single eyebrow, cocked her head towards the clearing. He gave her a quick nod in assent, gave her a sharp look and mouthed 'Keep behind me'. Evelyn just sighed again and nodded, her legs already poised to keep up with whatever he threw at her.

The Doctor suddenly stopped behind a massive oak tree and left Evelyn tripping over her flailing arms and legs to stop in time. She caught herself on the tree and looked up to give him a quick glower, from which she was quickly distracted following the Doctor's far-away look towards the Haemovore's encampment.

Her look changed from one of annoyance to one of curiosity, "Doctor?" she asked, reaching out towards him, "Doctor?" she asked again with increasing urgency, quickly latching on to his shoulder, to which he jumped back a bit in response.

"Really Ace," he seemed to mutter without thinking.

Evelyn gave him a startled glance, "Evelyn. Doctor, are you alright?"

He shook his head, as if to clear his thoughts, "Yes, yes, why not?"

Evelyn bit back a shriek of frustration, they didn't have time for this, "Just forget it," she said in a resigned monotone. He nodded at her, although still airing a bit more on the side of retrospect than she would have really liked.

"Right," he said, back to a fairly fitting business-like persona, "Well…oh, dear, I really should have a plan shouldn't I?"

"Yeah," came her voice in a breathy, disbelieving hiss.

"Oh well," he said in a rather chipper manner while Evelyn's mouth dropped another half an inch, "Might as well get on with it. Allonsy!"

She shook her head as the Doctor waltzed ahead and followed him at what she considered to be a safe distance.

They broke through the thick underbrush with relative ease, finally entering the clearing proper after what seemed like an eternity. All of the Hameovores, their blood red soulless eyes turned towards them like a shot, it was hard to believe that they were all once human, for they all looked somewhat similar, each having coal black hair and ice pale skin stretched taught across uniformly thin frames.

"Hello!" said the Doctor cheerily, although Evelyn saw the forced, slightly strained character behind the wide idiot's grin.

"Doctor…" Evelyn muttered out of the side of her mouth, which also held a toothy overzealous grin, "What are you doing?"

"Still no idea," he replied in kind

"Oh, yay," came her sarcastic hushed response. They moved ever closer as Evelyn began to unconsciously shrink against the Doctor in fright.

"Now, eh, I believe that you have been, uh…feeding off of the residents of this city and…err, well…I don't really appreciate it all that much."

"Ooh, scary," she muttered to him as an unholy moan rose from the ever advancing wall of undead.

"Err, Evelyn?" he said.

"What?" she hissed.

"I don't quite think that they understand me."

"Really?!?!?" she replied in mock surprise, as they walked towards them in such a manner that Evelyn began to unconsciously bite her lip in alarm as the ridiculous grin and bravado faded, her eyes darting around their surroundings, looking for any way to get out alive.

"Time for Plan B," he said almost nonchalantly.

"Which is?"

"Get the bloody hell out of here."

She rolled her eyes, "Do you want a Nobel Prize for that one Einstein?"

She let out a shallow breath and looked over her shoulder to see a small, almost imperceptible break in the dense wall of foliage behind her. She looked up at the Doctor as he gave her a quick nod and mouthed 'Go.'

That was all the cue she needed. She ran without grace and tumbled towards her salvation, tunnel vision took over, with Evelyn barely noting the thorny bushes creating a variety of lightly bleeding scratches all over her body, nor did she notice the bleeding caused by a thick branch whose height she'd misjudged.

Evelyn looked back at the Doctor with purest desperation. Her hair, matted with sweat and blood, flew about her face as she ran and fumbled for the small gun at her side. She pulled down on the trigger with her eyes squeezed shut and her face turned from the unholy beasts that made their slow progression towards her. To her horror, they were merely blasted back a few yards; but that was all she needed. At a breakneck speed, she ran to the Doctor, reaching towards him and catching herself clumsily on his bony elbow as she toppled onto him, her chest heaving. Her eyes widened in fear as the Haemovoeres closed in on them. She pulled herself up and pressed herself to the Doctor's back, where she reached down for her gun only to find…a banana.

She turned to glare at the Doctor whose only response was to look back at her as if to say 'Who, me?'

"I can't believe you," she muttered incredulously, "It doesn't even hurt them."

"Poor habit to get into," he replied nonchalantly as she rolled her eyes in disbelief. As she turned again to reply he cut her off with earnest, "Evelyn. Don't be afraid."

She looked him straight in the eyes, with the express intent of telling him how asinine he sounded and that now if any was a damn good time to be afraid, but she stopped as she saw him. He looked so…right, so trustworthy, that before she could stop herself she found herself saying, "I'm not afraid. I'm with you," and then promptly cringed at the overt sentimentality of the statement.

But then the strangest thing happened.

They started to fall.

Like burning wood, like the sands of an hourglass, they collapsed in the most beautifully macabre manner. Down, down they fell, noiseless screams issuing from their dry, soundless throats, reminding Evelyn strangely of a silent film. Her grip on the Doctor loosened as she watched in morbid fascination as these woefully unnatural beings reduced to soot before her very eyes, becoming naught but a pile of clothes and dust in the wind.

Her full body turned to the Doctor, looking up at him as a child for answers, her mouth moving wordlessly for a few moments before she could get it working properly again, "Wha-how?" she asked, hopelessly lost.

"Faith," he murmured almost inaudibly, slowly making his way around the piles of dust and soot that surrounded them, crouching down to one a few feet away and rubbing it between his fingers, "True, powerful, intense faith," he stood upright and turned back to her, "It was you, pure, unadulterated you."

"What?" came her whispered response.

"You must have had such a powerful, unshakeable faith in someone or something that it was enough to destroy them," he said, as much to himself as to her.

"But-but I can't have," she said in disbelief, "I'm just me…just average, boring me."

He smiled at her indulgently, "You're human," he said, reaching out and cupping her face whilst gently rubbing his thumb against it, "That's special enough," he said with a smirk as he lead her away, "Oh, and Evelyn?"

"Yeah?"

"You are anything but 'average' and 'boring'."

Just then the Torchwood team ran up to them, "Christ, are you all right?" asked Jack, at the head of the group, as they all came to a skidding halt.

"Fine," said Evelyn hoarsely.

At this, Martha's lips pursed, "Let me see your head," she said with all of her medic's professionalism, as she strode over to Evelyn and parted her long thick hair to get a better look at the sluggishly bleeding gash on her head.

"My-oh," came Evelyn's vaguely confused voice as she touched a hand to her head and pulled her fingers away to find the tips covered in dark crimson blood.

"Don't touch it," said Martha, gently but firmly moving her hand back to her side as she took a closer perusal of the cut and turned to the Doctor, "Take her back to the TARDIS straight away. Don't let her touch it. Clean it, dress it, keep an eye on it, got it?" she said quickly with that still same clipped professionalism.

The Doctor nodded sheepishly, a bit embarrassed at not having noticed her injuries, "Got it," he turned to Evelyn, "Come on," he said as he wrapped an arm around her to support her.

She quickly pulled away with an indignant glare, "I have a head wound, I'm not an invalid."

The Doctor sighed defeatedly as if to say 'Whatever you like.'

She walked forward, still in a bit of a daze, but had only made it a few steps before she failed to notice a fairly large grouping of significantly sized rocks. She stumbled over one and pitched forward. The Doctor and Jack both ran forward in a bid to grab her, but they were too late, she fell on to the rocks with an ominous crack issuing from where she had landed. They ran over to her as she began to try to push herself up, both tentatively reaching out to help her up. Her hand shot out to signify to them that they should keep away.

"I'm…fine," she heaved out heavily between labored breaths; her hand slowly went back down to support her body weight as she began to slowly push herself up, her face quickly contorting in pain as her elbows buckled, "Not fine! Not fine! Not fine!" she yelled as she went down again. The Doctor and Jack both swept in to each grab an elbow and slowly ease her up.

The Doctor turned to Jack, "She's not going to be able to walk back to the TARDIS," he said seriously, "Do you think that you can carry her?" he asked Jack.

"Sure," said Jack quietly, already moving to cradle the unprotesting woman. The Doctor gently went and wrapped her arms securely around his neck, wincing in sympathy as she emitted a small squeak at even that gentle movement. Jack looked down at her drawn and pale face as her head lolled loosely against his shoulder, suddenly looking less the feisty woman he had grown to know and find rather entertaining and more the helpless waif. He unconsciously clutched her closer, afraid that if he even loosened his hold a bit she would disappear.

They finally reached the TARDIS where Jack found himself surprisingly unwilling to hand Evelyn over to the Doctor's more than capable care. He mentally shook himself and gently secured the woman in the Doctor's arms and held open the TARDIS's door for him as he carried her into the Medibay off the second hallway and closed them after the two with a reluctant sigh.

…

A/N- Hi, all! Soo sorry for the long update, but I personally think that it was worth it. Good news is that I already have chapter 11 written barring some revision and chapter 12 is already a good way along. I'm hoping that maybe these will fit better if I write them all simultaneously, at worst it will result in quicker updates and similar quality, so I don't really think that I can go wrong. And as it's (almost) St. Patty's Day, review, I'm Irish, but seriously, everyone have a wonderful, safe, healthy and happy St. Patrick's Day and may you not be the designated driver.