DISCLAIMER: I asked for the Doctor for my birthday, but the BBC and The Moff said no. So I asked for the TARDIS… I got a cookie jar… shaped like the TARDIS. Better than nothing I guess! So no I don't own Doctor Who but I still have hopes that someone somewhere will see the massive error in this.

Regardless.

SUMMARY: The Doctor is being stalked through his own timeline. Nothing and nowhere is safe.

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Jenny had been looking for her father for a very long time. After almost 60 years, she still wasn't ready to give up, but her supplies were running dangerously low and her fuel gauges read almost empty. She had no desire to float in the vaccum of space until she suffocated, regenerated, and repeated the process until she died for good.

Luckily, recent upgrades to the ship's navigation gave her a broader range of telemetry for neighboring systems. That's how she found Therone. It was a merchant-centric planet with ports at every point of every continent to welcome ships from around the galaxy. Supplies may have been little-to-none onboard, but she had plenty of cargo to trade.

"This is Captain Jenny Lourdes of the Mac Tire requesting permission to land for refueling and trade for necessary supplies." She didn't have to wait long before an affirmative and coordinates were transmitted.

Walking out of her ship, she patted the fuselage and instructed the techs to make sure they used "the good stuff" before she gathered her cargo and set off to find a vendor.

Trading in the jewels and precious metals she'd received as reward over the years served her well now. Only spending a handful of her 'money', she managed to fuel her ship completely and buy enough food and medical supplies to last six months out in the black.

Her wanderings brought her to a small stall tucked in an alley between two store fronts. The small woman manning the booth had to be ancient! White hair hung down to the ground and framed a face full of wrinkles. She had not one tooth in her big smile, but she was quick and had a grip that could put most sailors on the ground.

Jenny spent several hours browsing the jewelry, books, and scrolls, talking to the old woman – whose name turned out to be Priya –, swapping stories, tips, and gossip between them. When she finally told the old woman she was searching for her father, "He calls himself the Doctor," Jenny's new friend's eyes grew very wide and her croaking voice went silent.

"Do you know him? Please! If you know him, you must tell me how to find him!" Jenny went to her knees and grasped the Priya's hands as they clenched together on her lap.

"Oh, child. I'm so sorry." Priya placed a hand on Jenny's cheek. She'd grown up on the myths of the Doctor, the one that saved her world from destruction like he had so many others. When the call went out saying the Doctor was dead, she mourned with the rest of her people. "I'm sorry, Jenny, but your father died many years ago."

Jenny felt numb inside. All this time, and for nothing. She swallowed back her tears and nodded. "Thank you, Priya, for everything," and stood to leave.

Priya shot a hand out and grabbed Jenny by the wrist. "Wait! Here, take this." She pressed an intricately carved silver leaf pendant in Jenny's hand.

"Oh, Priya. Are you sure?"

Priya grinned her toothless smile. "Yes, my dear. I heard legends of the Doctor's home world of Gallifrey, saying that silver-leafed trees would shine like gold in the sunset. I've held onto this for years, but I think it's only proper for the Doctor's daughter to have it. Go, my dear, and find home."

Jenny's tears broke through her restraint. She hugged the old woman tightly before securely tucking the leaf into her jacket pocket and turning to leave.

By nightfall, her ship remained empty, so the tech crew secured the holding area around the ship and left.

Three days later, in ripped, burned, and blood-spattered clothes, she came running, followed closely by another woman. Jenny stopped long enough to instruct the four members of the tech team to lift the restraint on her ship, threw them the last of her reward money, and yelled at them to run for their lives.

Minutes later, the Mac Tire and its passengers were cruising at top speed away from Therone. Jenny just grinned a her new friend, "Love the running!"

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Now that she knew her father was dead, Jenny decided to continue travelling, continue running, continue helping people that needed it.

Her new friend – "Call me Fred." – walked from the back of the ship, towelling her long brown hair dry. "Thank you so much, Jenny. There's no telling how much crud I've just washed off. Ugh."

Jenny laughed. "No problem, Fred!" She adjusted the ship's course to correct for the slight gravitational pull of a not-so-faraway star before saying, "You never did say why you were in there to begin with. I mean, I'm happy to help you out, but I'd like to know if you're some mass-murdering psycho."

Fred laughed before sighing, and plopped in the seat opposite Jenny's. "No, Jenny. I can promise you I'm no mass-murdering psycho. No, I crash landed there about… six years ago, I think it was."

"Six years?!" Three days had been the limit to what Jenny had been willing to endure. All that just because she had two hearts. How Fred managed six years was anybody's guess.

"Oh, yes" Fred breathed deeply, exhaling carefully as if she were afraid it would hurt. "There was a war on my planet. As far as I know, everyone died. I was President, you know." Fred smiled and nodded at Jenny's disbelief. "Yep. Deposed by a mad man that thought he was a god, but deposed none the less. Sometimes I wonder if Rassilon hadn't shown back up, would things have gone better. Regardless, I was responsible for calling an old friend of mine home so he could end it. We plotted behind the Lord President in secret, and made the plan to destroy everything we knew. Only my friend could do it because only he would have been strong enough to do what was right for the sake of everything else."

"Who?" Jenny whispered.

"I called him Theta for the longest time because the name he chose for himself was ridiculous." Fred laughed at the memory.

"Why not use his real name?"

"Because it's a secret. Name's are power, Jenny."

"So, you're not really Fred?"

"Oh, no! But I do love the name, so I'll still be Fred."

"Were you looking for him out here? Is that why you crashed?"

Tears stung Fred's eyes. "No." She cleared her throat. "No. He came. He came and he saved everything by destroying all we knew. Moments before he locked our world in a battle for the rest of time, my best friend and bodyguard knocked me out. She threw me in one of the derelict ships and shot me out into the cosmos. She saved me."

Jenny put her around around her friend as the grief finally poured out. "I'm so sorry, Fred," she whispered.

Fred smiled thinnly at her in thanks before she continued. "The next thing I remember, the capsule crashed into the planet. I was tossed out just as it disintigrated and found there just a few hours later. They took me to the place where you found me, and decided I was alien enough to further their scientific research. The took blood, bone, hair samples, you name it. The last few year or so have been relatively peaceful. They fed me, drugged me, tried to kill me, but no more poking and prodding. That was something at least." Fred shuddered. "Hate needles."

Jenny was in shock. Fred had lived through all that and acted as if her torture were nothing. Jenny only hoped she would be that strong one day.

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Over the next few weeks, Jenny and Fred learned they had many of the same likes (travelling, helping, tea, and chocolate) as well as dislikes (getting shot, being shot at, being chased by people shooting at them, and pears). Jenny told Fred about her friends from Earth, Martha and Donna, and surprisingly, Fred was familiar with the planet, so she was happy to lead the way.

Fred had even managed to steal a strange wrist strap from a handsome fellow in a long blue coat that had passed out at the bar they'd wandered into. The man was going for his weapon as Jenny and Fred made it out the door. Lucky for them, the Mac Tire wasn't far away.

"Oh, this is wonderful!" Fred danced around with her prize held high as soon as the ship broke atmo.

To Jenny's mind, it looked like an over-sized wristwatch. "Why?"

"Why? Why?!" Fred was astounded. "Jenny, my friend, this is gonna get us to our new home!"

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Fred had spent the better part of three days rewiring the wrist strap into the Mac Tire's navigation system. "This tech is so old! How in the world did he not blow himself up?!" She sighed, "That'll have to do. It'll work, but who knows how many times."

"So, what's it do?"

"It's called a vortex manipulator. Jenny, with just a few buttons, we can be within miles of Earth."

"No... Really?!"

"Yep!" Fred popped the 'p' in an increasingly familiar manner.

"Oh, yes! Let's go!"

"Let's see… Galactic coordinates 22-3-0-96 by 5-3, if I'm not mistaken." Fred looked to Jenny after entering the coordinates. "Ready?"

Jenny just grinned as the Mac Tire disappeared.

As it turns out, 22-3-0-96 by 5-3, is not Earth's galactic coordinates. It is, in fact, the precise landing coordinates for Retsam. But let's not tell them that for the moment.

yeah... you know who it was. extra point goes to the person that figures out WHEN he was passed out at the bar... ;)

More points to the one that pinpoints the coordinates.