*peeks out*

So ... hey

Not dead here (well, if you're following my profile, you'll have seen that I am definitely not).

I am really really sorry about the long wait, and am happy to inform you that the next nine chapters are in the can and waiting to be beta-ed.

As always, eternal love and gratitude to everyone who has read, reviewed, favourite and followed this fic, and to Lara (theraggedyblog) and Sinead (sinead-does-things on tumblr and sinead-writes-things on here) for all of their help.

(I have only realised that I am not doing these) Disclaimer: Nothing is mine. Except the words. Those are mine. Typed them myself and everything.

Happy Easter! I wish a plethora of chocolate upon you all :3

Chapter Ten

"You'd swear you want to sleep on the couch," Rhys remarked, as he passed her. Jenny was folding up the blanket and pillow that she used to sleep on the sofa, leaving them beside it out of the way.

"I don't sleep much," she replied nonchalantly.

"How many hours did you get last night?"

"Three."

He shook his head, venturing into the kitchen to make some coffee. She chuckled.

"Anyone else up?"

Rhys shook his head. "It's Saturday, Jenny, nobody's ever up."

"You are."

"Yeah, well, I'm used to it, ain't I? Are you having coffee?"

"Yes please," she smiled, padding into the kitchen. She could shower and dress after breakfast. It was Saturday, after all.

"I thought I heard voices," murmured Sky, walking past Jenny in a fluffy dressing gown.

"Morning," Jenny smiled at her. "Jack still asleep?"

"Yeah," she said. "What's for breakfast?"

"How about pancakes?" suggested Rhys.

"Banana pancakes?"

"You bet."

Jenny smiled. Pancakes might take a while. "I'm gonna take a shower. Don't eat them all on me."

"No promises!" Sky called after her as she left the kitchen.

She wandered along the hall to find the press where the towels were kept. That day was the second in which Jack was staying with them. She had been surprised to find that he and Rhys seemed to get along reasonably well. On her first witness of an exchange between the two, she had assumed them to be enemies, at worst. She gathered two towels and made her way to the bedroom.

Jack was no longer asleep, but was sitting on the bed, lacing up his shoes. He was dressed in the same way as always.

"Do you ever wear anything other than that?" she asked, dumping the towels on the other bed and rummaging through the chest of drawers.

"Do you ever wear your hair down?"

She rolled her eyes at the retort. "It's down right now, Jack."

"It's always in that ponytail."

"I like that ponytail."

"I'm just saying," he stood up, picking up his coat as he did so. "You should let your hair down once in a while."

She shook her head as he left, knowing that it meant something other than her hair style. She found some clothes, adding them to her pile and going into the bathroom.

She hadn't really known what to make of showers the first time she'd tried one, but she found that she enjoyed them. The stream of hot water was pleasant, and she had time to think, sometimes even sing bits of the songs that were played frequently on the radio station that Gwen listened to.

"You waited for me?" she asked, surprised, as she entered the kitchen and sat next to Sky.

"Good manners and everything, isn't it?"

She smiled. "Thanks, guys."

"So, what do you think?" Jenny asked, hands in the pockets of her pea coat, wearing a hat that Gwen had forced on her. She really picked up the mothering thing very quickly. Anwen was going to be the kind of teenager that protested as her mother fixed her clothes. She could tell.

Jenny had announced that she was going for a walk, and dragging Jack with her, who was in his usual dress. She had a feeling that he would wear that coat even in scalding temperatures. Now that they were standing outside an orchard, where the leaves were a riot of beautiful colours, he looked unimpressed.

"I don't know why this is necessary."

"C'mon, Jack, It's beautiful!" she argued.

"This happens every single autumn, Jenny. I've seen it a thousand times."

She rolled her eyes. "Yeah, well this is the first time I've seen it, so humour me, okay?"

"I don't see how this is supposed to help."

"If you can tolerate me, you can stop drinking."

"Tolerate you?" he frowned. "You're my friend. That takes a bit more than toleration."

"Gwen's words, not mine," she said, crouching down and taking her hand out of her pockets to pick up a fallen red leaf. "How can you not find this remarkable, Jack? I'm sure that I will even after I've seen it a thousand times."

"That's you."

She twirled the stem between her fingers, pocketing the thing.

"You're still going to be around in a thousand years," Jack murmured, as they started to walk again. "Sometimes I forget."

She almost laughed. "Forget I'm an alien? But I get what you mean. Gwen, Rhys, Luke, Sky, Anwen. They're all going to die, eventually."

"So am I, hopefully. I mean, I can't stick around till the end of the world, can I?"

"Isn't that what immortal means? Never dying, never ageing."

"The same applies to you, but only until your regenerations run out. Does that make you immortal?"

She shook her head, in an 'I don't know' way rather than a 'no' way. She thought Jack understood. "Anyway, point is, I'll be around for a while, so I think you'll have to tolerate me after all."

He laughed. They reached the house, Jenny digging in her pocket for keys, mumbling as she did every time about how she should buy a handbag, though she still hadn't. She should have written it on her hand. Finally finding them, she opened the door.

"You could've just rang the doorbell," Jack pointed out, as they stepped into the house.

"I would've bothered someone," she replied, taking off her hat and coat and hanging them up before taking the leaf out and holding it carefully.

"What are you going to do with that?"

"Press it," she answered, walking into the living room and sitting on the sofa next to Sky. "Hey Sky. What are you watching?"

"How I Met Your Mother. Remember it?"

"Oh yeah," she said, then, raising her voice, she called, "Gwen?"

"What?" came the yelled answer from down the hall.

"Where's the phone book?"

"In the study!"

"What do you want the phone book for?" Sky frowned.

"I found this," she said, showing it to the younger girl. "I'm going to press it."

"That's a great idea!" Sky exclaimed. Jenny smiled faintly at her, walking down the hallway and searching the study for the copy of The Yellow Pages that was kept in there. Finding it, she slid the leaf into one of the back pages and closed it, returning to Sky.

It was a much earlier episode than the one they had previously watched. The actors were younger, and the main character, Ted, was dating a woman called Zoey. It was an enjoyable series, she decided.

"Maybe we should start watching them from the start," she suggested.

"Yeah, we should …"

"Dinner in twenty," Gwen announced, walking into the kitchen.

"What are we having?" the two girls called after her.

"Pizza."

Sky grinned. Jenny remembered her mentioning that the first thing she had ever eaten on this planet. She had eaten a biscuit; not quite as momentous.

She stood, walking down the hall and into the bedroom. It was empty, making it easy to grab her laptop and charger and leave again.

She heard voices as she walked back down the hall. She stopped outside Anwen's room, craning her ears. She frowned. It wasn't Rhys speaking, but Jack.

"… I'll probably still look the same when you die, you know. That'll be a difficult explanation when you're older. But right now I'm your uncle Jack, and that's all you need to know … you might even join Torchwood. That'd be funny. Your mother would have a field day …"

She continued on her way, frowning again, slightly, enough for Sky to ask, "What's up?" as she sat beside her again.

"Nothing," she replied, plugging the laptop in and switching it on. "Nothing …"

Okay. I just feel like Jack is/will be really close to Anwen. He's probably her godfather, if Gwen and Rhys did that. Like when he found out Gwen was pregnant, he said, "We're having a baby!" As in the three of them. Torchwood. And if Ianto was still alive, he'd be an uncle too. So yeah.

Announcement stuffs:

As you'll have noticed, I changed my penname. My old one didn't describe me anymore, since I'm not really writing Harry Potter or Glee anymore. It's what I hope is a clever take on "the Lady Swan" from Once Upon a Time 3x10. I'm also branching out into ouat fic, as some of you will have seen. (Captain Swan are ruuuiiiing my liiiiife. Ugh). On a related note: KILLIAN'S CURSED AND EMMA'S TRYNA CHEER HIM UP AND WE'LL PROBABLY GET A TLK SOMEBODY HOLD ME!

Ahem.

Second off, I made a side blog (again), with the same url as my shiny new penname, where, provided anyone's interested, I will post random stuff; previews, headcanons, maybe some 'deleted scenes', as it were, and any questions that any of you lovely people might be interested enough to ask me.

Also, I have the direction of this fic mapped out, which I'm slightly proud of, and which means less making it up as I go along :P