full chapter title: YEARS OF BAD LUCK AND IT AIN'T GETTING CLEARER
-from On the Inside by Daughtry


Liz's class schedule had been pre-determined by Lois and followed the suspicious students perfectly. In first period Biology two boys, Daniel and Carson, had been flagged. Apparently, one month ago they had been caught at the scene of the crime. They denied any knowledge as to what had happened to the student victim Carolina Saunders. She had gone missing that month. The police eventually gave up on the case having found nothing that could link the two boys to the disappearance.

"If there's alien tech involved," Jack had said, "they the police will never figure it out."

Half of the morning went by and Liz tapped her desk impatiently. These students as the school dare called them, cared absolutely nothing about the courses they were enrolled in. Yet somehow, they all passed? It was the middle of English and the teacher has just started a new unit on Modernist Literature. She handed out books of T.S. Eliot.

"Turn to page 12," the teacher, Mrs. Bauer, instructed. "The Hollow Men," she read, for that was the title of the poem. Scanning the class, she laid her eyes on Liz. "Lauren," she smiled, "would you please read?"

Liz gave a nod and turned her eyes to the book. On the screen back in the Hub, Jack, Gwen and Lois watched, but more so listened, intently.

"We are the hollow men," Liz began. "We are the stuffed men/Learning together/Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!/Our dried voices, when/We whisper together/Are quiet and meaningless/As wind in dry grass/Or rats' feet over broken glass/In our dry cellar." Somewhere to Liz's right, a student snickered. Liz tried to suppress her irritation and continued.

"Shape without form, shape without colour/Paralysed force, gesture without motion;/Those who have crossed/With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom." Here Liz paused for a split second, realizing that the poem was probably killing Jack on the inside. "Remember us – if at all – not as lost," she read strongly, "Violent souls, but only/As the hollow men/The stuffed men."

The girl paused to take a breath as it was the end of the first section of the poem.

"So he's talking about scarecrows," Carson concluded. Liz rolled her eyes.

"Dead scarecrows," another student corrected. If Liz remembered correctly, her name was Jennifer. He father was part of the city council.

"Dead scarecrows," Carson started, "that are fat. Why else would they be stuffed?"

"But aren't they hollow?" Daniel pointed out.

"They're dead!" Carson threw his hands up in the air. "Who cares?"

By then, Liz had had enough. "Death!" she exclaimed, looking back at the students. She sat in the front row and had to turn around in her chair to see everyone else. "You have brains. Use them!"

"New girl's got a temper!" Daniel whispered to Carson.

"New girl's going to kick you to LA if you don't lose the attitude." Daniel shrunk back a bit. "T.S. Eliot is one of the best writers of all time. And for God's sake you lot go to one of the best schools in Cardiff and you act like a bunch of stuck-up, rich-kid snobs who don't give a damn about education because you think you're all going to get your parents' money. Well FYI, when the world ends with a whisper instead of a bang, keep that in mind. And yes, I didn't just quote Eliot." No one in the class responded. "The Hollow Men is a five part poem about three kingdoms of death. It talks about how the dead live through the living's memories; it talks about fear of death, how death is empty and how in the end, we all die. And just for background, Eliot thought religion was dead and that society was empty. So shut it and pay attention."

Satisfied, Liz turned around and faced the front again. "I think you do have a temper," Jack informed her. Despite, that his voice sounded a bit broken.

There was no such thing as everyone dying in the end. He was living proof of it. Hah. Living proof. The pun was unintentional in Jack's thoughts.

"Shut up," Liz wrote in her book before looking up at her teacher. Mrs. Bauer was as bit taken aback. "May I continue?" The teacher nodded dumbly. "Eyes I dare not meet in dreams/In death's dream kingdom/These do not appear:/There, the eyes are/Sunlight on a broken column/There the tree is swinging/And voices are/In the wind's singing/More distant and more solemn/Than a fading star.

"Let me be no nearer/In death's dream kingdom/Let me also wear/Such deliberate disguises/Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves/In a field/Behaving as the wind behaves/No nearer-/Not that final meeting/In the twilight kingdom."

Liz went on to read the third and fourth sections to the poem and got passed the bit about the prickly pear before taking a deep breath and saying, "Between the idea/And the reality/Between the motion/And the act/Falls the Shadow/For Thine is the Kingdom./Between the conception/And the creation/Between the emotion/And the response/Falls the Shadow/Life is very long./Between the desire/And the spasm/Between the potency/And the existence/Between the essence/And the descent/Falls the Shadow/For Thine is the Kingdom./For Thine is/Life is/For Thine is the…

"This is the way the world ends. This is the way the world ends. This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang but a whimper."

* * *

It was five minutes into the lunch hour. Gwen had come as a surveyor and questioned Liz about how she felt about the school, all in a professional manner of course. The Welshwoman had subtly stated that Jack was out doing a routine Weevil hunt. It would be just Lois at the comms. Then Gwen was led off by Mrs. Coulter for a tour of the school grounds.

Lunch was a great dilemma for Liz, or rather Lauren Chen. The new girl had already made enemies, namely her English class and medical science class. First it was T.S. Eliot and then it was acing the med sci placement exam with a breeze. After all, she was Torchwood's doctor.

She found her own little corner and sat down, placing her book bag on the table. Then she pulled out her Torchwood phone and hid it underneath the table, quickly scanning the proximity for any minute Rift readings. "What's that?" a girl asked.

Quickly, Liz promptly turned off screen of the phone. "Just texting a friend," she lied smoothly. The girl scrambled inside her own mind for why this other girl looked familiar. "You're in my English class," she realized, after scanning the other girl's mind too.

"Katerina Coulter. How do you do?" Katerina stuck out he and Liz shook it. "Kat for short."

"Coulter as in assistant headmaster?" Liz quickly made the connection. Kat nodded.

Get close, Liz's contacts read. Need connections.

"I didn't piss you off did I?" Liz made a show of acting concerned. Why was she so good at this? Being heartless and oh-so uncaring while putting a front that showed so sense of compassion.

"Nah," Kat shook her head and sat down next to Liz. "I've wanted to have a go at Carson and Daniel. They're complete prats."

Ask about the guys, Lois messaged.

"So Carson and Daniel," Liz prompted. "Should I guess who's worse?"

"I'll give you fifty quid when I see the day. They're two peas in a pod. On second thought, they're two rotten peas in a pod." Kat laughed and Liz joined in, hoping her own laughter didn't sound as fake as she thought it did. "And if they ever start hitting on you…" Kat trailed off.

"Make a run for it?"

"Yep!" the girl laughed. "So America huh?"

"Yeah," Liz nodded. "Good ol' States."

"Jackie in Biology said that she'd went there over summer and that the sky was so much smaller, but everything was so much more… brilliant."

"She got to New York?"

"I suppose. Yes. You've been there?"

"I lived there when I was a kid. Then my parents sent me down to Texas, though I don't suppose you know where that is?"

"Of course I do! Clint Eastwood and his, uh, cowboy movies right?"

"Honestly, that's barely what a sixth of the population's like. I lived in Dallas. Polluted, dirty, crime and just about everything else a city can be. I go back to NYC every now and then during break."

The bell rang right as Liz finished talking. "I'll see you then," Kat said, gathering her things. Liz nodded and headed off in the other direction to physical education.


Got the name "Katerina" from one of my Whiz Quiz buddies

Also, the poem read in class was The Hollow Men by T.S. Eliot. I love his literature and though this suited Jack very well. Also, if you're a Whoverse geek like me, you'll remember part of it was used in Doctor Who The Lazarus Experiment in which the Doctor talks about how long life isn't always that great.