Chapter CIII

Mira

She had gone to her room, taken a shower and then gone to the kitchen to get something to eat. Then she had planned to sleep for at least ten hours, but, for whatever reason, the TARDIS didn't seem to agree with her plans. When she returned, the door to her quarters was locked.

After trying it a few times more, accompanied by some, even by her standards, hard swear words, she gave up and went to the observatory. At least the couch there was pretty comfortable.

...

She had managed to get some hours of sleep – she couldn't tell how many exactly, but she felt rested for the first time in at least a year – and headed back to the kitchen. On the way there she passed the open door to the library, finding Jack lying on the couch there.

"I take it you haven't found your room yet?" she said, making him jump. His luggage was scattered around him, though it wasn't really that much. A small backpack, the bundle with the swords and a duffel bag. "Don't worry, I had to sleep on the couch as well."

"Frankly, I didn't dare searching for it," he said and rubbed his face. "Feels like you could starve in here while searching for the right way."

"Definitely," she replied and sat down on an armchair. "It's hard to get your bearings in our largest ships, and they definitely are finite in size. Not sure about the TARDIS in this regard."

"Why was it the couch for you then?" he asked.

"She locked my room. No idea what she's up to now – it doesn't feel as if she's sulking though. Where's he and Martha?"

"Oh, you don't know yet?" he replied and looked at her with raised eyebrows. "Martha left."

"What? Why?"

There she had actually slept for a few hours once in a while and missed everything.

"He didn't tell me; just said she left. Had better things to do or something like that. You know how he is." He looked at her for a moment before he continued, "Everything's fine between the two of you?"

"Yes," she said. Surprisingly so, especially after their talk, everything between her and him seemed to be alright. She was still thinking about what he had told her, feeling his pain as a part of herself, and would continue doing so for quite a while, but still she felt as if everything was not only alright between them, but better than it had ever been before. Now, as it was out in the open, she could be there for him. She wasn't sure she could help him – how could there be help for someone who had lost everything – but she could be there for him in a way ordinary humans couldn't be there for each other. "We're fine," she added, sounding slightly surprised.

"Good to hear," he said and smiled his irresistible, boyish smile at her.

It was an honest smile, totally in sync with what he was feeling right now. She didn't let his friendly and flirty demeanour fool her though – there was another side to his personality, unscrupulous and ruthless towards whoever crossed him or his friends. In fact, probably not only towards his enemies. He surely loved to shroud himself in mystery, but he couldn't hide his true self from her. Despite his openly displayed – and in most parts not even faked – self confidence, his personality was as conflict-riddled as complex; she couldn't tell yet if he had always been like that or if the past years since becoming immortal had done that to him. Most likely the former, she thought, amplified by the latter. And even though she wasn't afraid to see this dark, uncompromising side of him for herself – she hoped that when it showed it wouldn't go against her.

Apart from all that and invisible for people without her special abilities who would be misled by his enigmatic behaviour, he also was a brutally honest person – a thing she had learned to value almost above everything else over the years. Sure, at first it hurt, and she wouldn't be human if she wouldn't occasionally sulk for a while when confronted with the unpleasant truth about herself and her behaviour, but in the long run it was the most helpful thing someone could do to her. Even though she had quite a good insight into her personality, occasionally she needed a kick in the backside from someone else.

"What?" he asked and frowned. "You really have a way of staring at people, you know?"

"I know," she said and grinned.

She grabbed the bundle and unwrapped the swords. Nice, blunt, training swords made of steel.

A few minutes and after making sure they had removed everything fragile around them, they faced each other with swords in their hands.

"Lower," she said after eyeballing him. "You're not that old yet. Or have your knees already given up on you?"

"Whoa, careful there young lady. Speaking of old age," he replied in the same playful tone and corrected his posture, "You've said you would have kept your head down for centuries if you ever wanted a quiet life." She watched him walking around her, turning her body with his movements. "How many centuries are we talking about?"

"Quite a few," she replied and stood up, watching him walking around her. "Don't feel like attacking me, do you?"

"Just don't want to hurt you. Maybe we should search for gloves and fencing masks?"

"Well, then don't go for my face then. I know, that's all it's about technically, but I think we should start with basic food-work, stances and parrying. I'm a bit out of practice anyway. Almost sixteen, by the way."

"Sixteen what?"

"Centuries," she sad, moved into a short guard and approached him, causing him to block her blow as expected. Now with their swords crossed she managed to bind his sword and pressed it down – after reversing the pressure a second later the tip of her blade was pointing at his throat. "You're dead. Well, sort of... Thanks for bringing steel swords by the way. Never liked the wooden ones."

She stepped back, weighing the sword in her hands. It was really a decent one – obviously blunt, but decent.

"You're sixteen-hundred years old!?" he asked.

"Almost," she replied and pointed down so he would move into position again. She received a whole mix of emotions from him as a reply, but at least he seemed to believe her.

"How comes?" he asked, watching her – this time way more warily than a moment ago.

"Superior technology," she replied, waiting for him to attack this time.

"Is it the pendant you're wearing? Time Lord technology?"

"Yes and no. I don't think Time Lords existed in my universe. We've messed with time far more than I'm comfortable with – if they exist we would have met them."

And yet it had occurred to her that It was exactly what the Time Lords had planned – give up their physical existence and become a being of pure consciousness. Of course there were others like It – so no, she didn't think It or any of them in their physical form had been the Time Lords of her universe.

"But you don't age," he said and then attacked her.

It was easy for her to block it – she had sensed his intentions seconds before he had moved forward.

"Not bad," she said after they had separated again. "Just try to follow your sword more. You moved almost in sync with your blow. Throw the blade, see it like a lever and then follow. Like so." She showed him. "Gives you more stability."

"I know," he said, "Guess you're not the only one out of practice."

"Just overdo it a little when practising. So you won't forget when it really matters. And no, I don't age. Not a day older than thirty. And, to answer the question you're about to ask next: Yes, I can die."

"That's something," he said and attempted to go for her from the left – just where she moved to, as he was bluffing and ended up almost four feet away on her right. "Admit it, you are a telepath!"

"No," she said. "Empath. But I can still tell when someone's bluffing. The rest was guesswork."

"That's not fair."

"Nope. But you, my friend, have made it into the unfair territory yourself by now. You might only have one-hundred-and-fifty years of experience, but that's still more than most humans can ever hope to achieve."

"Didn't you just say practising is supposed to be fair?"

"Did I? I just said we shouldn't actually hurt each other."

A moment later he was close, grabbing her sword and tried to disarm her. She let go of her sword as they were in wrestling distance anyway. They struggled for a few moments, but finally he managed to bring her down, pinning her to the ground.

"That was too easy," he said, his face close to hers.

"I didn't want to hit you where it really hurts," she replied with a lob-sided grin, studying his face, taking in his smell. He did smell good.

"Ouch," he said. "That's really unfair."

"What? Like your nose, your ears, your eye..."

He laughed, shook his head and let go of her, but instead of getting up he sat down on the floor. "Does it ever get easier?"

"What?" she asked and moved into a sitting position as well, her legs crossed.

"Everything. Trying to hide that I don't age like others, watching while they grow old and... die."

"Well, first, I never really had to hide," she replied. "Second... No. It doesn't get easier. Sorry."

"How are things in your universe? Are there more like you? You mentioned your father?"

"Yes, there are. Him and a few more. My universe seemed to be pretty parallel to this one here until somewhen in the 1960s'. After that... things changed. A lot. But that's a long story."

"How do you cope with being stuck here?" he asked after a while. "I mean, I'm not exactly where I want to be, but it's still the same universe."

The question caught her a bit by surprise. She hadn't thought about it recently – in fact, she had managed to completely suppress it the last year. There had been no time, and now – as well as before – she avoided thinking about it.

"To be honest, not at all," she finally said. "By the looks of it there's no way back. But... I don't know. I've been in so many hopeless situations. And there had always been a way out. Maybe I've just never learned to deal with actually having lost. So I just refuse to believe it." She was a bit shocked by her own words – and even more so that she had replied in such a way, revealing herself to him like that. "I'm glad you took care of Torchwood," she hurried to distract. "The last thing humanity needs is-"

"A bunch of xenophobic idiots," he finished her sentence.


Jack

"Just promise me to be careful," she said. "With all that alien technology. Some things are better left untouched."

"I'm a time agent, remember?" he replied and grinned. "No need to tell me that."

He still wasn't completely over the fact that she had lived for more than one and a half millennia. Sure, she could be lying, but deep down inside he felt that it was the truth. Well, he certainly wouldn't repeat the mistake of thinking that some of her sentences sounded a bit like fortune cookie sayings. Not that he really had thought that before, but well – almost. Now, on the other hands, her saying things like that made him wonder what she had touched which should have remained untouched.

At least her age explained why he couldn't really get the measure of her, despite thinking that he had quite profound knowledge of human nature – and he wondered for a moment if he was similarly hard to grasp for others.

Apart from all that, he thought as he mustered her, the year that never was had served her rather well; at least physically. Even though time had reversed, the changes in her – and his – appearance had lasted. She was still skinny but not as fragile looking as before. She might have gained two or three pounds, mostly muscle. And her skin was ever so slightly tanned – he had even seen a few freckles on her cheeks as he had pushed her to the ground.

"Another round?" he finally asked and reached out to help her up.

"So, what did you do down there the whole year?" he asked as they were circling each other again, him looking for a weak spot in her guard.

"Do you really want to know?" she replied.

"Well, on a second thought...," he said and hauled off – but she had already moved her blade to block him. "Just tell me one thing: What does GAU stand for?"

"Well," she said, feinting an attack to his left side, "Originally it's an acronym in my native language for worst-case scenario, mainly used in a nuclear context. But I changed it to Galactic Anarchical Union. Thought it was funny back then."

"Wait," he said after trying to remember where and when he had heard it before. He had had a certain suspicion and now she had just confirmed it. "You're German?"

For a moment she just stood there, obviously flabbergasted and he saw his chance to launch an attack – but she managed to block at the last moment. Not that he had intended to hit her, he would have stopped his blade short before actually hitting her.

"My mother is," she said and swung her sword around. "And I grew up there. My father was born in the US – though his father was a German immigrant and his mother's family was French, I believe. That makes me half US American, half German – at least as long as there still were national states. Now I'm rather an Earth-born human. Well, the continent Europe's still a thing, so that's what's stored on my ID card."

"You don't sound German," he said and blocked another attack from her. She always was one step ahead of his moves; a quite frustrating fact. By now he believed he had only been able to bring her down because she had allowed him to do so. And probably because she actually hadn't wanted to hurt him.

"Nah, and honestly, I'm absolutely not sure how my German would sound by now. I've avoided speaking it for ages. It's a dead language for so long... I mean, hardly anyone speaks English these days, which stuck around the longest. Honestly, I'm not quite sure I'd still be able to speak it. One can actually forget one's native language."

"And there I thought I could practice my German a bit..."

"No, please don't. I don't even want to hear the sound of it."

"Fine," he said, completely understanding her being reluctant to hear it. He didn't like to be reminded of his past as well. "So what's your accent then?"

"Intercosmo I guess," she replied. "At least it was that last time I heard a recording of my voice."

He launched another attack at her, but she evaded him again.

"Guess that's enough for today," she said and he agreed.

He felt he had embarrassed himself enough by now, and it was also time to see how the Doctor was doing - and if there was a chance for him to get a decent bed.


NicoleR85, lautaro94, bored411, kosetaa, E-man-dy-S, MiaEther, OneWhoReadsTooMuch: Thanks for leaving a review :-)

Guest: No, they don't exist, and I didn't add them in my FanFic either. There are other "higher beings", so there really is no room for Time Lords.

Type40TARDIS: I almost forgot about this episode... Thanks for reminding me, and of course I'll do it :D