Jenny lay on the ground beside the TARDIS. Her face was ashy pale and her eyes were closed. She looked small...like one of the children. Donna felt tears on her face and Jack's hands tightened on her shoulders. Silently they watched as Clara and the Doctor approached her. She could hardly bear to look at the Doctor's face. Jack closed the door gently.

...................................................................................................................................................

"Jenny!" The Doctor shook her shoulder. Beside him, he heard Clara crying quietly.

"Sit on her other side," he said to her as he scanned her body with the screwdriver.

"It's too much...they've dosed her. Far more than Donna," he murmured, "a human can only survive for so long with this stuff."

"But she's not human."

The Doctor looked at her.

"You knew this?"

Clara nodded.

"She was with you? In the Time Agency? She was a Time Agent?"

"One of the best," Clara said, her voice shaking badly, "and I mean good by my standards, not theirs. Can we do anything for her? Drain the poison out some way?"

"No... It's shutting her whole system down." He closed his eyes for a moment.

"I never knew you knew her," Clara said, "I can't understand...me meeting you. The coincidence of it all." She trailed off, looking at Jenny.

The door began to open.

"Donna, I told you! Stay out of here!"

"It's Peter," Clara told him quietly.

"You too, Peter!"

"I will." Peter's voice was shaky. "I just...Donna told me to give you this for her." He held out something small and shiny.

The Doctor stared at the small, gold chain.

"She wanted to give it to Jenny," Peter said. "She said...something personal from you and her."

The Doctor curled his fingers around the chain. He felt numb, as if he was standing at looking at the scene from far, far away. Jenny had died alone here because he hadn't wanted to believe. He had saved the ship and lost her. Dimly he was aware of Clara opening his hand gently and taking the chain from him. She bent over and fixed it around Jenny's neck.

"We'll take her into to the TARDIS," the Doctor said. "The least she deserves is some dignity."

"Doctor..."

"Please. I just want to get her off this ship."

"Doctor..." Clara squeezed his arm. "Her colour's changed."

The Doctor leaned over Jenny's still form, looking intently at her face. There was something. Not much. A faint flush in her cheeks. He felt her forehead and then checked her pulse.

"She's fighting back," he whispered. Clara bent over, tears still running down her face.

"Jenny. We're here...Clara and the Doctor! Please...try and wake up."

For a second there was silence. Absolute silence. Then the sound. A sound that dragged him back to a past long gone but never forgotten.

A small, shuddering breath.

"God...how?" Clara was laughing and crying as she rubbed Jenny's arms, trying to warm her body.

"It's the chain!" The Doctor banged his head. "The chain! It makes sense!" He looked up at Peter who hurriedly took a step backwards.

"What?"

"The chain has been in the TARDIS as long as Donna has! And that metal...it's a great absorber! Great...the molecules...they attach to each other...sort of like osmosis. From the Vortex...you see there's these particles called..."

"Try saying it in English," Peter said.

"The metal in her chain gave Donna some protection against the huon energy. They affected her more severely when the chain was gone! That's when she really reacted to it. And it's helping Jenny now. Jenny! Can you hear me?"

Jenny's eyelids flickered.

"Please wake up," Clara whispered, leaning over and clutching her hands in her own.

Jenny opened her eyes. For a second she stared upwards. Slowly she focused on Clara.

"You did it," she whispered. "You got here."

"You got her here," the Doctor said quietly.

He was vaguely aware of Clara getting to her feet, murmuring to Peter and leading him out of the room.

Finally, her eyes met his.

"Hello Father," she said.

He couldn't speak anymore. Gently he raised her up, holding her tightly in his arms.

...............................

Donna couldn't look at the shut door anymore. And looking at Jack was equally hard.

"If I'd realised, if I thought about it," he started to say, "we could have got to her sooner. She was a lotto ticket to those bastards. Timelord genetics. You told us, Donna, remember? After you regenerated, you told us she was alive."

"I was probably dreaming."

"Yeah, but maybe not."

Jack started to say something else but the door was opening again. Donna watched apprehensively as Clara and Peter walked out. Clara was clutching Peter's arm.

"She's alive," she said, almost in a whisper.

"What?"

"She's alive, Donna! Your chain revived her!" Sobbing, Clara grasped Donna's arms. "How did you know?"

"My chain?"

"It saved her!"

"But it's only a chain! I wanted her to know someone cared about her on this ship..." Donna looked at Jack in bewilderment, almost afraid to believe what she was hearing.

"Will she be ok?" he asked Clara.

"I think so. She's conscious."

Tears running down her cheeks, Donna kept her eyes fixed on the door. After a moment, Jack patted her shoulder gently.

"I'll go and see," he said gently.

................

Jack entered the room cautiously.

"Doctor, sorry to disturb but we need to know if she's ok." He smiled at the pale figure in the Doctor's arms.

"Captain Jack Harkness...and you must be Jenny!"

"Hello," she said shyly, offering him a radiant smile.

"Jack," the Doctor said warningly, "really...don't!"

"It's ok," Jenny said, "he's just saying hello."

"He's never just...Never mind. You'll see. Jack is..."

"Constantly misunderstood," Jack said, grinning at Jenny.

"I owe you an apology, Captain," Jenny said. "It was me who told them you were the Doctor. I didn't really think of you as a real person, I'm afraid. I just wanted to try and keep him safe. I should have known from the photo that you'd be here too. But I panicked. I heard you got shot."

"Don't worry," Jack said, "happens to me all the time! Besides, it helped us. A lot. Do you know where they keep the particles? If we destroy them all, Donna might just be able to say hello to you!"

Jenny nodded, "the room under this one." She looked down the floor. "They thought I could withstand them because of my genetics."

"Were you a prisoner?"

She shrugged. "Kind of. Not at first. I..." She looked at the Doctor. "I woke up on Messaline and you were gone."

"I'm so sorry," he said softly.

"I stole a ship and headed out...to see the world, and find you! And after a while, I found a way to make it travel in time. I couldn't control it very well but..."

"How'd you get it to do that?" The Doctor looked fascinated.

"Well, there was this wire...and I was on this planet with all this solar power. It was like electricity only much stronger. And if you combined it with the surface energy of the ship, and create a sort of..."

"Maybe we can do the technical bit later," Jack suggested. Not that he wasn't interested but the two of them looked so absorbed, it looked like it was going to be a longer conversation than they had time for.

"Right. Yes." Jenny grinned at him. "Well, I could do it sometimes even if I couldn't always end up exactly where I wanted to."

"Happens to us all," the Doctor said.

"I tried to track you," she said, "I could sense the energy, you see, where people were time-travelling and I thought you were only one. I nearly found you a few times too. Midnight..." She grimaced slightly, "Vira. Earth."

"You've been to Earth?"

"Yeah only it was 4567 and I thought I'd found you but I'd actually found a group of time agents. And then I realised that if I joined them, I could learn more about time travel and look for you properly. So I did. And it was brilliant at first. I met Clara and she was so good. She covered for me so I didn't have to do the medical. And she told me things to convince them that I was from their time. All I had to do was buying and selling...after hurtling around space by myself, it was easy! I tried visiting Earth again, in your time but it was gone."

"Oh yeah. Long story."

"My daughter...a time agent." The Doctor shook his head in mock sorrow.

"Where did you go wrong?" Jack asked.

She smiled briefly at them but her eyes were sad. The Doctor gave her hand a squeeze.

"You got involved in Clara's research," Jack said gently.

"Yes. I found Clara sneaking around their base one night and made her tell me. She knew that there was a section and that they didn't want humans breeding with other races and what they were planning for this ship. We spied on them all we could. We found out that they were building a paradox machine and I could feel how wrong that was. It was almost like something physically wrong. It made me sick to think of it."

The Doctor nodded understandingly.

"They caught Clara one night. The Professor had cameras set up in her home. He heard us talking there and they made a pretence of firing her for poor performance. She sneaked into his office for her teleport but of course they caught her."

"She told us," the Doctor said.

"I pressed the button before they could," Jenny said. "They have horrible exile times to send people back to. And usually with a price on their head."

"You sent her to the 1980s," Jack said, sounding amused.

"Better than the Dark Ages! How did she get here anyway?"

"We met her," the Doctor said, "in a little town where she'd just nearly caused the end of the world with her vortex manipulator! I meet a lot of time agents up to no good on my travels!" He nodded at Jack and raised an eyebrow.

Jenny grinned.

"She told us all about her brave colleague," he said sadly. "If only I'd asked her more. But the whole story about this ship kept distracting me."

Jack sat beside them. "So, they kept you locked up?"

"No, I got away." For a second, she looked quite pleased with herself. "And I decided to go and see what happens in 2075 so I travelled forwards. Seven years in their time and back to The Time Agency. I got caught there. It was like the professor knew I'd come back. I tried to sneak in but they were waiting for me."

"You escaped and went back?" The Doctor asked in confusion.

"Yes! Well, I had to know what happened then, didn't I? Besides, they went on about you so much I knew you were part of it and it was the best way to find you as well!"

"There might have been safer ways."

She shrugged. "You save planets and people. I wanted to do the same. And I felt close to those children, even though I'd never met them. Because the Professor talked about them the way he talked about anyone who wasn't human. The way he talked about me when he did the medical and found out I wasn't human. Like we were objects. Or animals. That's why I helped them with the Paradox machine. Because it kept the children safe until you got here."

"It nearly killed you." The Doctor's face was murderous.

"I know. But I knew you'd get here. Besides, I thought I'd be ok. I was fine, walking around but every day it got harder until...a while ago. I thought I was dying. I knew Donna knew I was here but anytime I saw her, she was...well..."

"Drunk or concussed." The Doctor closed his eyes. "I didn't listen to her."

"Donna was drunk?" Jack asked interestedly. At the Doctor's look, he stood up.

"Ok, I'm off to find the rest of those particles."

Jenny laid a hand on the side of the TARDIS and smiled at them.

"I did plenty of running," she said.

................................................................

"Are you ok?" Donna asked Peter who stood silently beside her, looking a bit shell-shocked. Again.

He seemed to snap to attention.

"Yeah thanks. I'm glad she's ok. Your friend."

"It's down to you in a way."

"How?"

"Well, if you hadn't taken my chain, it wouldn't have occurred to me to give it to her, would it? I wouldn't have given it a second thought. It was on my mind because you took it and I got it back and it was just in my pocket. My granddad gave me that chain. He'd be chuffed to know it saved someone!"

"Is he still alive?"

"Yeah! In my time, I mean."

"That's good," Peter said. "He must love to hear about your travels."

A loud voice echoed through the hallway.

"Crew members. Please prepare your passengers for landing. Repeat. Landing in 30 minutes."

"Seat belts on," Donna muttered.

"Oh more than seat-belts," the Doctor said, emerging from the doorway, "but let's not bother with all that. We'll sit in the TARDIS." Jenny was behind him, leaning against the doorway. She held out her arms to Donna then offered the chain instead.

"Take this back," she said, "not that I'm not happy to have it but it'll protect you from me!"

"Thanks," Donna took it and put it around her neck, "I want to say hello to you properly!" She hugged Jenny tightly, marvelling at the fact of the girl being alive and well and in their presence.

Jack returned, giving the Doctor a brief thumbs-up. He still didn't look right, Donna thought worriedly. It wasn't like Jack to look so tired. He said something to Clara, obviously a joke because they both laughed. But his eyes still looked shadowed.

"Are you alright?" the Doctor asked, looking closely at her.

"Fine, I think." She looked at her arms and felt her cheeks. "I've forgotten what proper breathing feels like!"

"You'll be even better when we get out of here."

"How can we landing anyway?" she asked. "We were nowhere near Vira a few hours ago!"

"The TARDIS righted that," the Doctor said proudly, "pulled the ship back to its proper time. We were only days away from Vira when we came on board."

"Pity you didn't tell me that at the time."

The Doctor, without warning, pulled her into a tight hug.

"Thank you," he whispered.

"For what?"

He held her at arm's length and for a second, didn't reply. Then he smiled broadly at her.

"Come on. I bet you're dying to get some Viran fresh air!"

As they walked into the TARDIS, she glanced back at Peter.

"Ready?"

He squared his shoulders and smiled nervously at her and Donna realised suddenly that whatever care and protection he still needed, somewhere in the last few hours, he had become more of a man than a child. They sat beside the Doctor and Jenny while Jack showed Clara around the TARDIS controls and she crossly reminded him that she had driven this ship alone before. Donna caught the Doctor's eye and grinned.

"I have to say though," Jack was saying, "the skill involved in certain manoeuvres! I mean, look at Donna and the Doctor here. Went into this ship with some vague plan to pretend to be a couple. Came out married with a son and daughter. You gotta admit, that's pretty impressive!"