Almost seventeen years later...
"ANNIE?"
There was no answer. The Doctor rolled his eyes. When Annie didn't answer, there was only one place she could be in the TARDIS: the swimming pool.
He moved away from the controls and headed down one of the hallways. After making a few lefts and rights, he walked into the swimming pool room. Sure enough, he could see Annie's tanned body moving back and forth in the pool. She looked up from beneath the water and swam upward to meet him at the pool's edge.
"Yes, Daddy?" she asked, taking off her goggles.
"Where'd you put my sonic? I need to fix a few wires under the console."
Annie giggled, telling him, "I needed to use it to fix the door to my room. It kept locking itself. I hope you don't mind."
Of course he didn't mind, but he would have appreciated her asking him. He had told her numerous times to ask him to use his sonic, but she always seemed to be forgetting to do so. If she were a Time Lord, he probably would have gotten her a sonic by now.
"Where is it now?"
"In your room."
The Doctor sighed. He hadn't checked his bedroom. That wasn't the first place he would look. He rarely went in there.
Not to mention he also told her hundreds of times not to put his sonic in his bedroom.
He sighed, "Where in my room?"
"Here, I'll show you."
Annie pulled herself out of the pool, dried off quickly, and wrapped the towel around her body. She slipped on her sandals and walked out of the pool room, her honey brown hair still dripping wet.
She led him to his room, opening the door and heading towards the nightstand from Glifion IV. Annie pressed a few buttons on its exterior and a small drawer opened out and floated in front of them. She pushed the floating drawer towards the Doctor. The Doctor realized that the sonic was in it and using the voice command for the drawer said, "Sonic". Immediately, the sonic floated out of the drawer and into his hand. Then the drawer floated back to the nightstand and slid back in.
"Thank you, Annie."
"No problem Daddy. I think I should go clean my room. I haven't cleaned it since we went to Rasta-Rasta- how do you pronounce it again?"
"Rastaphiloporimapatorp?"
"Yeah. I always get tongue tied pronouncing that one." She said as she went back to her room.
Annie's room was a mess. Then again, she was always too busy travelling through time and space with her dad to really pay attention to the state of her bedroom. When it was clean, it was a very nice room. Light blue walls(blue was her favorite color), cherry wood flooring, beautiful furniture from different planets and several dolls and strange objects that must have been souvenirs from the space travels she'd been on with the Doctor. A laptop lay on a strange looking desk and a Harry Potter book lay next to it.
Annie sighed and looked at the dolls and stuffed animals. She was almost eighteen, she really needed to get rid of those, she hadn't played with them since she was, oh she didn't know anymore, nine or ten?
She went up to the attic to grab a couple of boxes. She met with her father along the way.
"Where are you off to?"
"Just to the attic. I'm putting some old toys up there for storage and am just grabbing some boxes to hold the stuff." she said, walking around her father. "You?"
"Just grabbing some old tools that can do the job the sonic can't."
"Huh. I thought that the sonic screwdriver could fix that console."
"Apparently not all the way, by the way, once I finish fixing the console, shall we do some more travelling?"
Annie grinned. "How about we go to Earth for once, I've never been there." This was true, the Doctor had, for some reason, avoided taking her to her home planet, making it out that she was a humanoid alien like himself, even if she was not Gallifreyan like he was.
"Oh, alright." she had been nagging him about this for at least three years - more - if you counted the year on the planet they were on.
She grinned and hugged him, then walked up to the attic. She gathered a couple of boxes and walked back to her room.
She started with the alien toys, she wrapped each one then placed it carefully in a box she'd labeled with a blue Sharpie and some duct tape she had lying about.
Once she was done with those, she packed up almost all of her old dolls and stuffed animals. She left just one, the well-worn tabby cat she'd named Simon. Her dad had bought it for her when she went to New Earth for the first time when she was eight.
After a little while she'd packed up all the things she wanted to get rid of, or at least put in storage, and took them up to the attic.
She took a quick shower and went down to the control room.
"Daddy?" She yelled.
"Down here!" She heard him say from under the console. She rolled her eyes as she walked down the steps to see her father hanging on a bungee-like thing under the glass floor, practically wrapped in wires as he continued to untangle them and reconnect them by means of a sonic screwdriver and a normal pair of wire cutters.
"Need some help?" she giggled.
"No. I think I've got it. Why don't you go... clean your room some more?"
"I already cleaned it." Sparks crackled, interrupting her. "Ten minutes ago!"
"Oh..." he muttered, still completely focused on the TARDIS and not on her.
She rolled her eyes and went to the wardrobe room to change out of her dressing gown.
She found a simple white V-neck T-shirt, black ripped up jeans, pink Doc Martins and headed to the men's jacket section.
She riffled through several coats and jackets, including her dad's spare tweed one and a ridiculously long brown trench coat, before finding a black leather jacket that she liked very much. She slipped it on to find that it fit almost perfectly, just a little long on the arms.
She went back downstairs and found her dad completely tangled up in wires.
"Nice going!" She burst out laughing.
"Oh. Just help me, will you!" She quickly unknotted the wires and offered him her hand.
He took it, pulled himself up,straightened his bow tie, and looked at the jacket. "Where did you get that jacket?"
"In the wardrobe. Why?"
" I wore that in my ninth regeneration." His eyes looked tired and sad, as if a great secret were behind that jacket, or even that regeneration, but then his eyes lit up with a child-like happiness as he said, "It looks great on you!"
"Thanks!" she looked at the console." Finished yet?"
"Just about. Why?"
"Remember? You promised to take me to Earth. And not New Earth. The original Earth."
"Right. It's not all you think. Why do you want to go so bad?"
"I dunno. It's one of the few places we haven't been, I guess." She looked away from him for a moment. "It just sounds so... interesting. I mean, the way you talk about it and all that. Besides, I've never actually seen a full human being before."
He sighed to himself, why didn'the tell her she was full human?
Well it was too late to do that now.
"Shall we go?" She reached for one of the control mechanisms, she was getting freakishly good at steering the TARDIS. She'd been paying more attention than he'd thought.
He only hoped that she would avoid that one place... that one place in particular... anything but LakeSilencio.
When they got out, the Doctor poked his head out. He groaned, it was exactly LakeSilencio.
"Oh Annie, look at the time, we better go!" he said as he started pushing her back in the TARDIS, slamming the door shut behind them. "I just realized that I forgot to show you the dogs with no noses on Barcelona! Much friendlier place anyway!" He started heading towards the console, but Annie still stood at the door, staring back at him.
"Dad, you promised."
The Doctor sighed. "Yes, I know. But we can't go there."
Before she could argue, the Doctor pressed a few buttons and headed towards Barcelona.
They stood there for a few minutes after they landed. Annie didn't move from the door.
"Take me back."
He looked questionably at her. She rarely got mad at him! Usually the only time she got mad at him was when they were in a dangerous place and he didn't want her to step foot out of the TARDIS.
"I only wanted to see Earth. What are you hiding from me?"
"Nothing! Nothing."
She gave him a questionable stare. He avoided it and said, "Fine, we can go back, but we can't go there. We can go anywhere but there. In fact, let's just avoid the United States altogether."
She sighed in relief. "At least we'll still get to go to Earth!"
He pressed a few buttons again and this time they landed in Cardiff.
The Doctor headed her back out of the TARDIS towards a place he'd once fought a wall-walker at. He might as well check Skypoint Apartment Complex to see if it had returned. Annie had not yet forgotten her small argument with her father. She decided she'd figure it out later, as of right now, she was on Earth! She could have jumped for joy.
She watched as the Doctor did several long scans of a building. She looked at the ornate sign outside the front gates. SkyPoint Apartments. She looked up at the building,it was gigantic. At least twenty-five floors high.
She tapped her foot impatiently. "Dad. I wanna see more of Earth than just some gigantic building."
"Just one second..." he took one last scan then stood up. "Alright. Where do you want to go?"
"Anywhere!" She laughed, throwing her hands up and spinning around excitedly. The Doctor rolled his eyes at the young woman's immatureness. She could be quite a young lady. She had almost tricked him once into thinking she was the daughter of a governess. That was how much a young lady she could be. But when she got excited about a new planet... She could be extremely silly and easily excitable.
Of course, he remembered how he was when he first travelled to Earth. He had been so excited to see how such a tiny race of people could always end up surviving. Not to mention their bravery! Although their cities and buildings weren't as extravagant as others, the Doctor was still awed by the human race. Considering that this was Annie's first time on Earth, he could understand her excitement.
Annie looked eagerly around her surroundings. The Doctor trailed along side her, keeping an eye out. For some reason, he felt the same thing he'd felt almost eighteen years ago. On that day. He'd almost forgotten it! And, the boy. He'd forgotten about the boy.
But perhaps it was for the best. The boy had to have been killed. But why would anyone go to such great measures to kill a human boy and leave the girl he was with?
"Dad? Dad. Someone is staring at us." The Doctor came out of his trance.
"What?"
"Someone. Is. Staring. At. Us." She said as she pointed to the dark haired man who was indeed staring at them. Annie made the mistake of making eye contact with the man; he raised his eyebrow in interest, making Annie blush.
The Doctor noticed Annie's reaction and murmured, "Oh no."
Annie broke eye contact with the man and looked at her father. "Is he dangerous?"
"He's probably the most dangerous human in existence," the Doctor stated irritably. But then he added, "He's harmless."
"But you just said-" But then the man walked over to them.
"You'll understand in a few minutes. Come along." He began walking over to the man, Annie following close behind him, a bit puzzled. How was the man dangerous but harmless?
"Hello, Jack." the Doctor said irritably.
The man - Jack - looked surprised. "Hey buddy, I don't know who you are, but..." he paused and grinned at both of them. "I sure don't mind that you two came over here." He turned to Annie. "What's your name?"
The Doctor growled before Annie could answer, "I'm the Doctor, nice to meet you Jack. Now stop flirting with my daughter."
Jack just looked at the man who had called himself the Doctor. "Doctor? Is that really you? You changed...again."
The Doctor cracked a smile. "Yes, well don't get used to me always popping by to say 'hello'."
Jack chuckled, "Don't worry, I won't. So you have a daughter? I always knew that you and Rose would have a kid - "
"Oh no no no no NO!" The Doctor said quickly. "No, she's adopted. I didn't get to tell you: Rose is in the parallel universe with the Metacrisis. It's a long story how I came about Annie."
Annie looked up at the Doctor curiously. 'Who's Rose?"
"Oh - er - no one."
Jack smirked, "Oh come on, did you hide that whole story from her?"
"There is no story, Jack," the Doctor said sternly.
Jack smirked. 'Uh-huh. Sure. Whatever you say."
"There. Is. No. Story!" the Doctor said, the frustration clear in his voice.
Annie put on the stubborn pout she reserved only when she wanted some form of information about someone,something, or somewhere. 'Who is she? Really. My real mum?"
"She's just a former companion Annie."
She gave him a look as Jack smirked again. She turned to him. "Will you tell me who she is?"
"He was in love with her. That's the main thing." The Doctor threw his arms up and shook them with frustration.
Jack rolled his eyes and nodded towards Annie. "What is she?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, what type of alien is she? Or is she human?''
The Doctor gulped as Annie looked at him. He had never told her anything about what she really was.
Before the Doctor could answer, a large crash could be heard. The Doctor looked around and Annie immediately handed him the sonic.
"Dad? What was that?" she sounded only partially frightened.
" That is what took your brother, I believe."
