CHAPTER 52

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Penny and Jack were just coming back to Penny's apartment after a very successful date when they were met at Penny's door by a man with a Vortex Manipulator on his arm suddenly appearing out of nowhere. The man immediately ran up to Jack and said, "I'm glad that I finally found you, Dad. You've got to come with me."

"Dad? Did you just call him Dad?" Penny asked the man in complete shock and astonishment.

The mysterious man immediately recognized Penny, but he pretended not to know her for the sake of preserving the timeline. He said, "Yes, he's my father. Or at least he will. I've come way too early in his timeline though. He doesn't even know me yet. I'll just be going before I let anything slip that might change the future."

The man hurried to use his manipulator to get him out of there, but he was much too slow. It was too late to leave now anyway. He had awakened the sleeping beast of jealousy inside Penny and now he would have to pay along with his father.

Penny grabbed him painfully by the wrist and began to crush it in her hand before he could leave. She gave him the stare of death as she began to demand answers from him immediately.

"What is your name and more to the point, who is your mother?" Penny demanded furious.

"I'm John Harkness. I can't tell you who my mother is because then I might change my own timeline and make it so I'm never born," John told her.

He was trying not to cry out from the pain that he was feeling as Penny steadily increased the pressure on his wrist. She always could manage to bring his ego crashing back down to Earth no matter how strong and invincible that he thought that he was. Whenever she reprimanded him like she was doing now, he was just like a little boy once again.

"Oh, you'll tell me alright. You'll tell me everything that you know right now," Penny shouted at him.

"Leave the kid alone, Penny. He's right. If he's from my personal future, then he can't tell you anything about it around me. He might cease to exist on the spot," Jack said.

"Don't try to use temporal mumbo jumbo to talk me out of being angry. I have a right to be mad," Penny said.

"Why? He probably comes from the far future, Penny. I told you that I'm immortal. He could be from way in my own personal future, and his mother could be anyone. I hate to say this, but she could be from a time where you've been gone a long time, Penny," Jack said.

Penny looked closely at him as if to see if she could see the truth in his face and in his eyes. She studied him for several minutes as the three of them stood there in an uncomfortable silence.

"I believe you. I'm so sorry, Jack. It's just that I can't bear the thought of you having a child with anyone else but me," Penny blurted out finally.

She put her hand to her mouth in shock at what she had just said. She hadn't even realized that that was how that she had felt until she had said it.

Jack was smiling at her now as he realized just how much that she really loved him and for the first time, he realized how much he really loved her. He never wanted to see that look of pain and fear in her eyes ever again and certainly not because of him.

"Is that a proposal?" Jack said with a sly smile on his face.

Penny was blushing fiercely as she said, "I believe that it is. It's not exactly the way that I would have preferred to do this though. I mean you're supposed to propose to me first."

Jack walked up to her and kissed her passionately for several minutes. Then he pulled away leaving her standing there with a huge smile on her face.

"Ok, If you insist on it, then that's what I'll do," Jack said finally after a moment more.

He got down on one knee and pulled a ring box out of his pocket. Penny's eyes bulged as she saw it. She couldn't believe that this was real!

"You've already planned this," Penny said in shock.

"I've wanted to do this for quite some time now. I just haven't been able to work up the courage. Also, I wasn't sure exactly sure just how you felt about me," Jack admitted.

Penny looked at him like he was insane and said, "I don't see how you couldn't know. It's not like I've been keeping it a secret."

"Yeah but I wanted to be sure, Penny. I had to be sure that we were on the same page," Jack said honestly.

"We've been on the same page since the day that I met you, Jack Harkness," Penny said with a smile of pure happiness on her face.

"You mean in that bar? You've known how you felt about me since then?" Jack asked in disbelief.

"Oh, yeah! I liked you from the moment that I met you. I just wasn't sure how you felt about me," Penny admitted.

We're quite some pair, aren't we? Both of us too terrified to ask each other how we really felt about each other," Jack said laughing.

"Uh, could you let me go now?" John said in a pain filled voice from beside Penny.

Penny looked at him absent mindedly and realized that she was still holding onto his wrist very tightly. She quickly let go of it and smiled at him apologetically.

"I'm so sorry! Is it okay?" Penny asked him.

John rubbed it some and said sheepishly, "It will be. It may be very sore for a couple of days though."

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that. Please accept my apology," Penny said.

"Yeah, sure! It's no big deal. I'll be fine," John said with a reassuring smile on his face.

Then he surprised Penny by suddenly hugging her tightly. He held onto her for a moment and then slowly let her go. Penny looked at him with a questioning look.

"I know you very well in the future, Penny. I can't tell you any more than that though. I shouldn't have even told you that," John admitted.

"It's okay. I don't think that you said too much or else you wouldn't still be here, would you?" Penny said with a warm smile.

"I suppose not. I guess I'll be going then. I need to find the right version of Dad to help me with the problem that I have," John said.

"Are you sure that I can't help?" Jack asked concerned.

"No I think that it's best that you don't know much about me yet. It might change things too much," John said.

Jack nodded in understanding and said with a sly smile, "Well, I guess I'll see you around then."

"Oh, yeah! You won't be able to miss me. I'll be the one crying and screaming," John quipped.

Both of them hugged each other and John said, "You'll see me later, Dad; and I'll be seeing future you in about five minutes hopefully."

John manipulated the controls on his Vortex Manipulator and was gone in a flash. Jack and Penny stared at the spot for a moment and felt that maybe something special had just happened. They weren't sure why they felt that way, but they did.

Then the two of them focused their attention back to the question at hand. Jack got back on his knees and showed Penny the ring again.

"Penny Miller, will you marry me?" Jack asked her with a huge smile on his face.

"Yes, Jack. Yes!" Penny said as she laughed with joy.

John Harkness finally met up with a future version of his father that was from the right timeline. The two of them then solved the problem of a Cyberman invasion of Cardiff in the future that John hadn't quite been able to handle by himself.

Afterwards, Jack asked John, "I assume that you didn't tell her too much then when you saw her."

"You should know. You were there," John said with a laugh.

"I know, but that was a long time ago for me. I can't quite remember what happened. Obviously you didn't say too much though, or you wouldn't still be here," Jack said.

"I didn't really say anything except that I was from the future, and I hadn't been born yet," John admitted.

"That was risky. Why didn't you go with the born in the 1800s story that I told you to tell people? That sets everything in my past, and there's no way for anyone to confirm or disprove it especially when you use that phony Jeremiah Harkness name," Jack said.

"I couldn't lie to her, Dad. I just couldn't," John said with his eyes on the ground.

"It's okay, Will. I can understand. You love her too much to lie to her. You never could lie to her. You could always lie to everyone else but never to your mother," Jack said with a proud look on his face.

"Don't call me Will, Dad. I prefer John. It's closer to your name," John said.

"Yeah but I prefer Will because Penny named you after her father. It was very sentimental for her," Jack said.

"She hasn't changed much. She's just as tough in the past as she is now. She actually hurt my wrist," John said, still rubbing it.

"Yeah, that part I remember. She had you almost crying out in pain!" Jack said laughing.

"Mom's one tough woman no matter what time period she's in," John agreed with a smile.

"That she is. We'd better go meet up with her for dinner right now, or you'll be feeling that pain in your wrist again real soon," Jack said with a wink.

The two of them laughed with each other, and then they both ran back to their house as fast as their legs could take them. Jack hadn't been lying about Penny possibly hurting them if they didn't show up on time after all. It was best not to risk that!

Next: Rose returns to this title as she accidently discovers that an enemy that she thought was dead is somehow still alive but has no memory of who they really are. What will she do about them? Plus Penny tells Rose and Emma about her engagement.