For anyone still reading...real life got in the way, I'm afraid, hence the very long break and I'm very sorry. Updates will be regular from now on, I promise!
Happy New Year!
"I was never meant to be born. You know that."
"What?" The Doctor stared at her incredulously.
Jenny shrugged, as if none of it was any of her concern. Only her eyes betrayed her with the merest hint of unusual brightness. She was still clutching Donna's purple jacket.
"You said it yourself," the Doctor told her, "you didn't know. You didn't know the damage that the rocket ship could do. You didn't know that piloting it by yourself was a huge risk. And I never asked you properly what happened to it."
"A minute ago, you said this was all our fault!"
The Doctor rubbed his forehead.
"What I said was that some people..." He inclined his head to take Jack as well as Jenny into his gaze, "have forgotten the importance of not interfering with time. Jack and Ianto...swanning off wherever and whenever they like! You! Pressing random buttons on time travelling devices at a vulnerable time. They were just waiting for you to do something like that. It's a miracle you didn't become one of their Chosen Ones. Mind you...they probably knew you'd have absolutely no sense...."
"I thought I could go back and put it right!"
"You thought! You thought but you didn't know! You can't manipulate time! You can't bend it to your will! You can't interfere when you don't know what you're interfering with!"
"That's not always easy," Jack said, "and anyway, look who's talking!"
"It's different for me. I see what I'm doing. I know..."
"I know what I'm doing!"
"Do you? Cardiff 2007? You knew what you were doing?"
As if the question had come with a weight attached, Jack sank down on to the couch. Donna's couch. He tried not to look at Jenny and the jacket she was holding. The vivid purple made him see over and over...Donna falling...a flash of purple and a sudden silence that lasted for what felt like hours but could only have been seconds...
...seconds in which Donna was drowning.
Whatever else she had hurt on the fall downwards, and maybe she was lucky that she was too cold to feel any pain, she was drowning. At first she'd thought it would be instant. In the time old tradition of split seconds seeming like so much longer, she'd had a moment to register what was happening and that she couldn't possibly survive it. There had been a second to think of her mother and a brief, searing pain which thankfully had been eradicated by shock and cold and a frantic struggle for survival.
She was not a good swimmer but she had kicked and moved and tried her best to breathe when she could get her head above the waves. Her clothes were heavy and there was no keeping herself afloat. In desperation she had wriggled out of her jacket and thrashed about, hoping that movement would help but every second was dragging her further downwards...
...until her hand brushed something solid. She pressed against it, trying to feel for something she could cling to. It was stone, she was almost sure of that, and pretty smooth, by the feel of it. Still she pressed her hands to it, desperate to keep it in her line of sight. And then, she had felt it; perhaps a climbing plant, perhaps part of a tree, something wooden. Whatever it was, it was solid enough and she could hold on to it.
But a brief reprieve was probably all it was. Sooner or later, the numbness of hands would make her pull too hard or let go altogether. Or the water would rise. Or the waves would strengthen as she tired and pull her away.
She was very cold.
Around her was wind and grey and that other sound they'd heard the whole way through the forest...not quite laughter, not quite children, but something similar that wouldn't ordinarily give anyone the chills.
She clung on...and waited.
...seconds in which a gasp had brought Jenny back into her body with a wrench that was both painful and profoundly comforting, slightly like being woken from the worst nightmare ever.
And then the nightmare started again in full force as she realised that she was surrounded by water. Pulling herself upright, she stared around in confusion. Only a moment ago, she had been in Torchwood with her father and Jack. They'd been talking about...time or something. She shook her head slightly, trying to clear it. She'd wandered off...no. She'd picked up an object...an object that had tingled in her hands...
She was lying on metal. On something large and smooth and only by lying completely still, was there any chance of not slipping off into the waves that rushed around it. Very slowly, she pushed against her hands, attempting to pull herself into an upright position and nearly toppled sideways at the sight of the creature beside her.
It was human sized, maybe slightly bigger, with skin that looked like parchment, wings that quivered with some unimaginable power and eyes that seemed to look into rather than at her.
"You are reunited with your weapon" it announced calmly.
"Weapon? It's not..." Jenny looked down at the metal underneath her hands and back at the creature forgetting, in her confusion, to be intimidated by it.
"You used this weapon to destroy our world," the creature replied.
"I don't know what it is!" Jenny leaned over as far as she dared, trying to see underneath the surface of the water. The object was large, that was obvious, and something about the shape...and was that a door at the side? Even submerged, she felt a spark of energy run through it, as if her glance had strengthened it.
"It's my spaceship," she said, feeling as if her vital organs had all just stopped at once.
The creature regarded her silently.
"It's dying and I'm going to die with it," Jenny said, marvelling inwardly at her dull tone of voice.
But the creature turned in a dismissive gesture as if her words had annoyed it.
"What did you do to me?" She asked. "You took me away...It's like...I wasn't in my body."
"You were one of us," the creature said, "but you didn't fit. You are incomplete."
"And I'm grateful for that," Jenny muttered. She looked around her again.
"Where's my father and Donna? You better not have hurt them. If this is my fault, it has nothing to do with them. It's me you're punishing!"
"You have already been punished," it replied and suddenly its voice seemed to be the voice of thousands, rather than one.
"I can help," she said desperately, "I can put this right. Honestly. Just tell me where my father is, and Donna. We can sort this out and save your world. It's our world too. We wouldn't want to see it destroyed!"
"You have been punished," the creature repeated and its gaze seemed to force her to look it in the eyes and ask the question.
"How?"
"We severed the link."
"What link?"
"Parent and child," the creature said, "that link is severed, as cleanly as it is, when a human child is revealed to be one of us. Such an easy link to break for a connection so precious to you."
"Parent? You mean...my father? What have you done to him? None of this is his fault!"
"No," the eyes fixed solidly on hers, holding her still as effectively as if it was pinning her to the metal on which she lay. "It is yours. And therefore you can die here or live and face the person who was once your parent. It is of no consequence to us."
"What good is it to you if you harm my father? He's the one that can fix this. You want your world back, don't you?"
"And he will fix it. He has not been harmed."
"But you said..."
As if her words were thoroughly irritating it, the creature waved an arm to Jenny's right. She stared for a moment, at water rushing and dashing against a large expanse of rock and grassy ledges. Had something moved at the top? She squinted, placed a hand over her eyes to block out the sunlight...
"It's Jack!" She could make out his coat and a frenetic movement, as if he was fighting. But no, he was holding...she felt her body tighten as if every breath was being forced out of her.
He was holding her father back from jumping off the ledge.
Jenny looked at the water again. The churning waves. The flash of purple.
From somewhere in her head, she barely registered that she was sobbing as she lunged for the creature.
"Donna had nothing to do with this! You get her back!"
"No, but you had." Suddenly the creature's voice was louder than before with an echo that hurt her head.
"That won't make my father stop loving me," Jenny said, "please, bring her back. It's me you want." She backed up, realising that her hands were holding the creature's wrists. It was a curious sensation, as if she were clinging to parchment.
"Stay here and face him, then," was the only reply. The creature stood and even though a moment ago, it had seemed the height as Jenny, suddenly it loomed over her. Then it was gone, almost as if a ferocious wind blew it backwards. In seconds it had reached the top of the cliff where she could still see the frantically moving figures of the Doctor and Jack. In what looked like an embrace, it seemed to fold Jack up in its gnarled arms and then they vanished from sight, leaving the Doctor standing stock still, as if he might never move again.