Title: A Kind Of Destiny

Author: trustno1, aka trustno1987, aka me!

Spoilers: Jack

Rating: Still K+

Pairing: Nine/Rose (just not immediately)

Disclaimer: Surprisingly enough, the Doctor, Rose, Jack and the general idea of Doctor Who does not belong to me. This story, however, does, as do any original characters within it, so © Lindsay.

AN: I'm off to London 'till Tuesday (yay!), so I thought I'd better post this next chapter for y'all – the next chapter (2) should be completed and online when I get back. :-) Also, this jumps about a little, from different people's perspectives - again, it should only be for this chapter, as I'm introducing characters - sorry if it's a little confusing! Oh, and where there is 'II' between paragraphs it means a change in scene, and 00 means a different person's perspective. Ok, now I'm done, you can actually read the fic now!

CHAPTER 1 – Area 51

"Senator, we are making excellent progress with regards to the Treaty. I am now at the Space Station at the edge of their system for the final negotiations regarding technological advances. If you would like to send a copy of your latest report, Sir…" The holographic projection standing imposingly in the centre of the dimly lit room flickered slightly, then nodded.

"I'll send you the updated report, Zoch. It isn't too different, just one or two minor alterations we deemed necessary to ensure everything runs as smoothly as possible – it won't affect your work."

"Of course, Sir," came the crisp reply that may have hidden a hint of disapproval.

"I expect another update in one pfase. Senator Jovik out." The hologram sputtered and dissolved into a small pinprick of light before disappearing completely. Only then did the cloaked figure pull out a small black device, into which it spoke a couple of strange syllables. Another hologram, far smaller than the previous, emerged from the top, flickering intermittently.

"Proceed to part two, Devos. Zoch out." Without waiting for a reply, the hologram was terminated, and the room plunged into further darkness.

Almost 200 light years away, five large, hooded beings huddled in a dank, dark chamber. One concealed a small black device inside the layers of robes it wore and turned to the others with a look of ecstasy.

"Finally, it is time."

II

Bethany Montgomery lay on top of her black SUV with a bottle of Pepsi (with a delicate dash of vodka laced in it) in her hand, staring at the ever-darkening sky above Nevada. She had been lying there since the red-purple haze of dusk descended some twenty minutes ago, and was now listening to the soft music of the desert combined with strains of country music currently playing on the radio. As the darkening blue of night began to eradicate all light from above her, save that of the billions of stars and a handful of planets, she swigged the last few drops and swung her legs over the side of the vehicle. Bracing herself to jump, she paused as she heard a wind picking up just in front and to the left of her; a sound that grew steadily louder, sounding less like any wind she had ever heard, but nonetheless feeling like a stiff desert breeze. She stared ahead, head cocked like a puppy, until a sight beheld her that had her wondering exactly how much vodka she had put into the fizzy beverage.

For in front of her, in the middle of the Nevada desert – rather close to Area 51 no less – had appeared a large, blue 1950's British Police Call Box.

00

After checking the computer to ensure they had arrived where he'd told the TARDIS to arrive, he took Rose's hand (something that they seemed to do unconsciously now) and let himself be let out after her and Jack. They were met with a warm Nevada dusk, calm and clear and quiet except for Jack and Rose talking.

00

If the large blue box wasn't bizarre enough, the door opened and three people walked out, mid-conversation, two of them talking simultaneously:

"I can't believe I'm actually gonna see the site of the Inter-Galactic Headquarters!"

"Oh, jeez, Doctor, you can't manage to land during the day for once?"

The first voice, American, belonged to a tall, conventionally handsome (but handsome all the same) man wearing jeans, a plain t-shirt and cowboy boots that looked very new. The second voice, a London accent, belonged to a smaller girl, around the same age as Bethany, who also wore jeans and a top, but with comfortable sneakers as opposed to boots. As she stepped out of the Police Box she dragged with her a man taller than the first, with large ears that she thought looked surprisingly cute, and wearing a faded leather jacket, black trousers and boots.

"They still call it 'Area 51', Jack, and it really isn't that interesting. And Rose, it's only just dark; at least I parked us in the right place," the taller man, apparently a Doctor of something, said with a Northern British accent, surveying their surroundings with a satisfied smile. Which fell as he turned and saw Bethany looking at them inquisitively. "Ah." The other two followed his line of sight and also froze slightly, much to the amusement of Bethany. "Um, I don't suppose there's any point in asking if you didn't see that, is there?" the Doctor-of-something asked her.

00

The Doctor half-heartedly corrected and chastised the two of them whilst making a cursory sweep of their surroundings – even in the middle of the desert he could manage to find trouble. So far so good – dusty orange-brown soil met the darkening sky where the first few stars were beginning to appear, and to the left of them a faint haze of light over a small mound lit from behind the young woman sitting atop an SUV… He stopped mid-sentence, tugging Rose around to his point of view and sensing her and Jack tense up considerably – the last time they had accidentally materialised in front of someone, it hadn't gone down too well. Since neither of his companions seemed to be particularly forthcoming in the vocal department, he went and asked one of the stupidest questions he had for a long time.

00

Bethany raised a sarcastic eyebrow at the strange group.

"No shit I saw it." She jumped off the truck now, worn leather cowboy boots kicking up the dry dirt on the highway as she landed and began walking steadily towards them. To her further amusement, they seemed speechless, though she couldn't quite understand why – she supposed it was the case of role reversal that they might not have been used to.

"Next time you don't see three people walk out of a big blue Police Public Call Box from 1950's Britain, that didn't just materialise in the middle of the Nevada desert, tell me if you didn't see it." She stopped in front of the American, apparently called Jack, and smiled politely at him.

"You're British," he said with a hint of surprise. Bethany supposed it was the shock of realising someone had seen them, when they obviously weren't used to being seen, that had caused him to come out with this less-than-intelligent comment. She took a breath then sighed theatrically, putting on a regretful, 'you caught me' look.

"No pulling the wool over your eyes is there? Was it the accent that gave me away?" she asked with fake disappointment and a hint of sarcasm that the girl evidently caught on to, as she gave a small chuckle. Deciding to try her luck with her – Rose, she thought the Doctor-of-something had said – she extended her right hand. The blonde took it in her free hand, smiling as she did so.

"I'm Bethany Montgomery," she said politely.

"Rose Tyler," the girl said, then inclined her head to the man to side of her, currently holding her left hand and smiling. "This is the Doctor, and this is…"

"Captain Jack Harkness," the American said with a wide, Hollywood grin, taking her hand and kissing it gallantly, evidently sufficiently recovered. Bethany raised her eyebrow again and turned her head to Rose, whispering conspiratorially to her, but loud enough for Jack to hear her.

"Y'know, I haven't been hit on that quickly since the very drunk cowboy in the country bar I stumbled into just outside of Tulsa." Rose and the Doctor-of-something laughed, but Jack wasn't fazed by her immediate knowledge of him and his intentions. He put on a mock affronted look.

"And how do you know I wasn't just being a gentleman?" From the poorly concealed chuckles from the other two, Bethany supposed they didn't think he was being a gentleman at all, and neither did she. Not that he wasn't rather sweet all the same.

"Sure – gentleman. That was gentleman, with a hint of 'I'm available, how about it?'" Bethany retorted to the laughs of all three of them. Deciding she had shut him up for the moment, she turned back to Rose, her mind full of questions again.

00

The Doctor wasn't used to being so quiet when he'd just met someone, and he guessed Rose hadn't seen him be since she'd met him, though she (and this new girl too, incidentally) was handling things perfectly well – he knew she was missing her girlfriends back home, and having someone her own age and so similar to Rose was evidently just what she needed.

He was so quiet partly because he hadn't received such a good response from a human who had just witnessed a large blue Police Box materialise in front of them since he'd met Rose, or indeed most times before that, and he was frankly quite shocked. Sitting on top of her SUV, she'd had her head cocked to one side, a frown creasing her forehead, and looked almost as one would if they were presented with a particularly trying mind puzzle, as opposed to an alien and two humans emerging from a blue box. And her sarcastic comeback to being hit-on immediately by Jack was definitely impressive, eliciting smothered laughs from both him and Rose, though Jack didn't seem too put out in the least.

Also, he was busy studying her. Her dark brown eyes shone with excitement as they flittered from one person to another, but he saw something else as Jack introduced himself, in both her eyes and stance. For a moment she appeared to draw into herself, before squaring her shoulders defensively and issuing the amusing comeback, that he was certain was self-protection first, and humor second.

00

"So, what are you then? Are you aliens or something?" Bethany asked, feeling excitement bubbling in her stomach, completely covering anything that could be constituted as fear, or even nervousness. As someone who was very open-minded, she believed in pretty much anything, especially if it appeared in front of her eyes. Not that she was a complete conspiracy buff, or belonged to weird cults that thought aliens were about to take over the human race; she just had a healthy appreciation for the paranormal, and believed that humans were most certainly not alone in the Universe, or even the Galaxy.

"I'm not, he's not," here she pointed to Jack. "He is," she tugged on the Doctor's hand. He nudged her slightly, a small frown on his face. "What? You are! And you just put the TARDIS down in front of her, I think she can know you're an alien – she doesn't seem to disturbed by it either."

"What's a TARDIS? Is it like a transporter or something? Have you got a ship somewhere?" Bethany reeled off, before stopping herself, realising she had gotten a little carried away. Rose didn't seem to mind however, and started answering her questions eagerly.

"This is a TARDIS. It's an acronym, stands for Time And Relative Dimension In Space…"

"A time machine!" Bethany interrupted excitedly, grinning widely.

"Yeah, kind of, it travels through time, but this is the ship, believe it or not…" Rose continued, not seeming to mind Bethany's interruption.

"Excuse me ladies, but am I going to get a word in edgeways here, since it's my ship you're talking about?" the Doctor-of-something asked good humouredly. Rose smiled at him, which Bethany supposed meant 'carry on'. She didn't let him however, and began talking again.

"So what are you doing here? I mean it's the middle of no-where. You said something about Area 51, but you aren't exactly going to see much, except a chain link fence, which, incidentally is about two miles that way," she pointed in front of her. "Only thing around here is this crappy motel," she pointed over her shoulder now, at a dark building that only the Doctor had seen due to a marked absence of lights. Any lights were at the front of the motel, and since they were viewing it from behind, they were almost hidden from sight.

The Doctor person looked a little put out at this knowledge, as did Jack, but Rose just grinned smugly.

"Perfect landing my arse," she said, and received a poke for her troubles.

"It was – you didn't fall over this time did you? And we aren't that far away from it, really," he replied, glancing around.

"So, where are you from then? When are you from? I mean, seeing as how you have a time machine type thing and all," Bethany asked looking at each of them in turn, trying to guess the answers.

"I'm from London," Rose said, jumping in before either of the other two had a chance to speak. Bethany supposed she didn't usually get to lead the conversations, and was making the most of it. "Not in the future or anything, from your time." She seemed to think about this for a moment before turning to the Doctor-of-something. "This is my time, isn't it? Or did you get that wrong too?" He frowned at her, though Bethany wasn't completely sure if it was directed at Rose or whether he was actually thinking about it.

"It said this was October 2006 on the monitors, but it also said we were right next to Area 51."

"And you said I was a crap pilot," Jack interrupted, and Rose grinned.

"You are, and I think I need to do some more tweaking," the Doctor-of-something retorted, before turning back to Bethany, who was waiting patiently with an amused smile on her face. "What year is it please?"

"It's October, so your ship thing got that right, but you're three years out – it's 2009." While the Doctor-of-something appeared to be puzzling over this, Rose leaned closer to Bethany.

"He does it all the time – once, we were supposed to be going to Christmas in Naples, 1860. We actually ended up in Cardiff, 1869. Was still Christmas though, so he got two out of three," she grinned, and Bethany found herself liking Rose even more.

00

In truth, they were far away, especially when the TARDIS had told him they had not only landed near Area 51, but almost on top of the compound. Normally he wouldn't be overly worried, but the wrong date had been shown again, and there was nothing on the monitors to suggest that Bethany was even there. This had happened to them a few times in the last year or so, and each time there was a specific reason for the TARDIS landing where she did.

The Doctor looked at the young woman more intently, and felt the strangest feeling that he knew her – it was similar to the feeling he got when he first met Harriet Jones, then MP for Flydale North, now PM for Britain. As he studied Bethany he saw her eager thirst for knowledge and confident attitude. Her honest face that held eyes captivated with an almost child-like awe was framed by dark, shoulder length hair of unruly curls and seemed as familiar to him as her attitude. Yet behind the confident exterior, and if he looked properly into her deep brown eyes, he saw a scared child that still lurked, hidden by straight backed postures and sarcastic wit, and still desperate to prove herself. This too, struck a strangely resonant chord within him.

It was with this thought that he began to realise where he knew her from, and why he didn't immediately catch on with her name – unfortunately, he only usually managed to fully rid his memory of the inconvenient haze towards the end of meeting someone, which didn't help too much in preparing him. He also knew he would be inviting her on board the TARDIS, and had the sneaking suspicion that Rose (and Jack) wouldn't mind another companion in the slightest.

00

Bethany was just about to ask about where the others came from, when she noticed the Doctor-of-something studying her, and not at all discretely.

"You said your name was Bethany Montgomery?" the Doctor-of-something asked, scrutinising her intently. Feeling slightly uncomfortable under his intense blue eyes, she nodded but maintained eye contact with him, squaring her shoulders slightly. A range of emotions flittered across his eyes, and for a moment Beth wondered if he was telepathic, or possessed some alien sense that allowed him to see into her mind – he was certainly studying her hard enough. A feeling of unease swept over her at that thought, but other than feeling slightly uncomfortable under this stranger's gaze, she felt nothing that would support her fears that she was being mentally invaded. Although, she mused, it isn't every day you meet an alien, so who knows whether having your mind read felt strange. However, Beth reasoned, Rose seemed a very nice person, and she didn't think she'd let some alien read her mind or anything. She hoped.

After the longest ten seconds of her life, Bethany thought she saw something in the Doctor-of-something's eyes, as though he recognised her, but in a split second it was gone, and she put it down to the quickly fading desert light, as he gave a satisfied nod and smiled widely at her.

"Well, I think I'd better check the navigational controls out, see if there's a reason the old girl brought us here, or if she needs fixing." Rose and Jack looked as though they were about to protest to him, and Bethany felt a familiar sinking disappointment in her stomach at the thought that these incredibly interesting people were about to disappear from her life as unexpectedly and suddenly as they'd appeared. "Want to give Beth here a tour of the TARDIS, Rose? I did materialise in front of her after all, and she seemed to handle that better than most people would've."

Beth watched Rose squeeze the Doctor-of-something's hand and give him a half hug before practically bounding over to where she was standing next to Jack, grinning widely and attempting not to look too eager.

"Bethany, if you thought us materialising was impressive, wait till you see this…" she said enthusiastically, heading to the Police Box. Beth followed behind her, with the two men bringing up the rear. She supposed they were going to be transported to their ship, which hopefully wouldn't take long – it looked an awfully tight squeeze in there.

00

The Doctor decided it would be best not to tell Bethany exactly why he was inviting her aboard until it was absolutely necessary, but he'd tell Rose a little later – he always needed a human perspective on such matters, and Rose's was the best, in his opinion. It wasn't as though he thought she wouldn't be able to cope with it – quite the opposite, if her behaviour thus far was an accurate indication – he just realised that Rose was going to strike a much closer friendship with this young woman that he would, and coming from her would be easier and more appropriate, especially considering the circumstances.

II

Captain Adish Harva stared out of the port side windows at the vastness that was space and mulled over his meeting with Ambassador Zoch. He was pleased with the progress that they were making with regards to the Treaty between their two races, and after speaking briefly with the Ambassador's Senator on his home planet, he was confident that trading could begin within a few days. He also hoped to send a few of his crew on a mission to the Senator's home planet – in fact, it had been so long since they had been on a proper away mission, advancing their knowledge of other cultures in the galaxy as opposed to sending deep space probes to analyse far off planets that would never be suitable for them to occupy, that he may even go down himself. He loved his job – not that he ever really thought of it as a job, more a calling – and he loved his ship and crew, but when a fantastic opportunity to explore came along, he wasn't going to pass it up.

But there was something that had been troubling the Captain, making him wish the Senator had managed to make the trip to his ship himself, instead of sending over a representative. Of all the sufficiently intelligent life forms he had encountered during his life (and some not quite so intelligent), Zoch was definitely one of the most resistant he had ever met. It always troubled him when he had to rely on far more primitive means to ascertain the characteristics of a new species, and he definitely wasn't able to sense anything about this individual other than vague feelings of apathy and a hazy brightness, much like the atmosphere of the planet he spent most of his young life trying to escape from.

However, this was only one individual out of an entire race, and the security officers that accompanied Ambassador Zoch were not as difficult to penetrate, though there remained some resistance. He sighed, and made his way to a comfortable chair, collapsing into it gratefully. He knew he couldn't continue to act paranoid about something that may not even be there; it wouldn't do the Treaty any good, and frankly it was a bad example to set, if he jumped to conclusions. No, he'd try and understand them through the more primitive methods if he had to, and just be cautious of how much trust he allowed himself to give this new race, with whom they would share more than just a section of the galaxy.

END CHAPTER 1