"...And then I said, 'But you're already wearing my pants!'" Jack laughed, a loud, boisterous laugh as the group at the table chuckled along with him. He'd been recounting stories for half the night, and Eve, as Miranda called herself these days, was watching him with slow admiration. This body, it seemed, wasn't particularly interested in telling stories. Her stories would get her committed, after all.

She was sipping a glass of wine imported from some far-off vineyard planet, but smiled at Jack when he squeezed her knee and winked. He was a dashing fellow, certainly, and had done a lot to make her life in the 51st Century easier. And he wasn't a bad lover, if she said so herself.

They'd lived together for some time, at first as a matter of convenience, but it morphed into something else. Something inside her told her that Jack understood better than anyone else. Maybe not this Jack, but a someday version. Someday and today felt too close together in this body.

But Jack was… Jack. A 51st-Century kind of guy. And tonight he wouldn't be coming home with her, at least not alone. She was still very 21st-Century, and noticed the looks the couple next to Jack were exchanging with him. She masked her frown - she hated these nights, when she couldn't ignore that he wasn't hers alone. With the Doctor, there was a feeling of being the only one in the universe. With Jack, she sometimes wasn't even the only one in the room.

She didn't hold it against him. It was the one part of their lives that they were different, it seemed. And so she got up and kissed his cheek, claiming an early morning - their code for her leaving him to his devices - and walked out into the warm evening air.

Looking at the stars, she tried to remember all the ones she'd been to. Most with the Doctor. It had been a few years since she'd left him, and she'd barely left Earth. Like it or not, this was her home, and she wanted to be here. She supposed there was also the chance that she might see him one day, by chance, strolling by with a new companion and his giddy grin. And she'd feel that tightness in her chest she got when she dreamed of him. And she'd watch until she couldn't watch without talking to him or touching him, and then she'd run. She'd run across time and space and cry until that tightness was gone. She wasn't even a memory for him now, especially not with this face. When she dreamed of him, it was more like a vision, and that tore at her even more.

Jack slipped out the door a few minutes later, alone. She was surprised. The couple had seemed keen enough, and she'd never known Jack to turn down a rendezvous. She waited for him, letting him shorten the gap between them. It was now familiar when he slid his hand around her hip to her stomach, pulling them closer together. "Everything alright, Evie? You seemed a little lost in thought back there."

"Just...thinking."

"About?"

"What happened before I met you."

"That crazy 21-Century life you never tell me about?" His voice held a smirk, and she tilted her head back onto his shoulder.

"I've told you plenty."

"But not how you got here."

"That's because I didn't come from the 21st Century." He slid out from behind her, slipping his hand into hers as they started walking back to the flat. He didn't say anything, and for a long minute they walked in silence. "How old do you think I am, Jack?"

"I learned a long time ago to never comment on a woman's age. Unless she's a Halorian. Age is such a point of pride for them. And you're not a sprouting a giant spike off your forehead, so I'll wager you're not Halorian."

She laughed quietly. "No, I'm human. Or was. There was a bit of a situation that seems to have adjusted my DNA. Slightly. But I'm something like 79 years old. I'm ancient. You're what, 29?"

"That's not a problem for me, Eve, you know that." He leaned in to steal a kiss as they walked.

"I spent a lot of that with someone. And sometimes the stars just remind me of him."

"He was a spacer, right? And you jetted across the galaxy together?"

"The whole universe." She sighed. "I don't know Jack. I'm just not very good company tonight. And I'm keeping you from the party."

"You're not keeping me from anything. They're pretty boring anyway. You're way more interesting. In and out of bed." He gave her a roguish grin. "Tell you what, wait right here. I'll be right back."

He let go of her hand and jogged off toward a little automated stand selling flowers. Almost against her will, she smiled. He was good to her. He wasn't the Doctor, but she did love him. He swiped his hand over the payment bar and started to pick a rose. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath to steady herself and force the nostalgia back in her head. She'd been here six years. Such a long time in one place. And this new body.

She almost saw it before it happened, though her eyes were closed. A car, moving too fast around the corner. Strange how that would happen even here in the 51st Century. Cars seemed so old-school, even if it was an unmanned delivery vehicle. A computer virus. She was going to die from a computer virus. She would have laughed if she'd had the time.

Her body felt awkward, pinned and far too squishy in the middle. She was bent hard over the front of the car, with a nanosteel wall behind her. Jack was shouting, sprinting. No one else came to see. It didn't matter. She was dying. Again.

Jack pushed the car back away from her, and she crumbled. "Evie, can you hear me? Stay with me, I'll call for help."

Her voice was small when it came out of her. "No. Just. Just get me home. I'll be ok." She was dying. That meant she'd be ok.

He argued, but couldn't refuse her. "Evie, stay with me. Come on, you beautiful creature, stay with me."

Such a stupid senseless death. She hadn't been doing anything but missing the Doctor, and Jack had been buying her roses...Images and shapes flashed in front of her. The Doctor, a girl named Rose… the TARDIS. She swallowed hard. There was blood in it. She didn't have much time. She felt the shimmer start there, in her stomach, where the bleeding must be. It was a slow roll through her insides this time. No golden flashes, no fire. She needed to get back to the apartment before it finished. She could deal with Jack seeing her regenerate, but the rest of the world?

He made it through the door and she brushed a hand through his hair. "You wonderful man. I'm so sorry." It shimmered out of her, stretching and tightening and pulling and pushing all at once. She felt like a piece of play dough. And then, for a glorious moment, she felt nothing.

She blinked. The golden haze started to clear from her vision. She took a deep breath. No blood. It was nearly done. Jack was staring at her, barely breathing himself. She sat up. "Hi there, Jack." Her voice was a soft and low, though it was uncertain in its first use.

He frowned as his eyes darted back and forth across her face. "Evie?"

"Um, yeah. This is, um, a thing that happens, yeah?" She gestured at herself, noticing her skin for the first time. It was darker, far darker than she'd ever been, even with a deep tan. Her hair fell across her face, black and shiny. She was so different. She felt longer, leaner too.

"What...what happened? You were… I mean, the car, and you were coughing blood, and…"

"I sort of regenerated."

"What?"

"Regenerated. It's a thing. Um. Timelordsdo."

"Time Lords? But they disappeared ages ago. What are you?"

"I'm, well, it's complicated. But I think I must be Gallifreyan now. And my name was once Miranda Larsen. Not Eve O'Donnell." She looked him over, then frowned so deeply her eyes closed. "I think I have to leave now Jack."

He couldn't respond.

She moved quickly through her bedroom, gathering the few things she wanted to take with her where she went next. Whenever she went next. The vortex manipulator of course. A few trinkets from the TARDIS. And the memory adjuster - one of two she had left with the ability to return memories to someone. She turned it over in her hands, making a slow decision. She wasn't sure it was the right one, but she had to do it.

Jack was sitting on the couch, a glass of hypervodka in his hand. "Miranda Larsen. 21st Century, US. Reported missing, assumed dead, 2013. That's you, isn't it?"

"You searched for me?"

"Queried the database. What happened?"

Feeling the squish of the memory adjuster in her front pocket, she figured she could afford to tell him. "Well, a time traveler appeared outside my house. Then offered to take me with him. After I shot at him." She gave a thin smile. "And we traveled for ages…" She talked to Jack for an hour, maybe more, telling him secrets that no one else could have.

"You're a Time Lord by DNA, then. I don't even know what that means for you. I mean, no one else has been like that before. Or after, because they probably would have come back to tell us about it."

"Right." She sighed. "I think we could both use a drink. Refill?"

He handed her his empty glass. She filled it, dosing it with a fair amount of sleeping powder. She handed it to him, and he kissed her hand, then up her arm to her shoulder, and pulled her close to him for a soft kiss. "You're still my Evie, you know." Then he drank. She almost shouted at him to stop, that she would stay and he would keep her for a long time. But she couldn't. She couldn't let him keep what he knew, now. And so she let him drink her selfish decision to tell him everything, watched it go down in a few quick gulps of vodka. She kissed his temple, after he fell asleep, lying him back on the sofa, and pricked his arm with the syringe. She'd programmed the nanochips to remove memories of her, but they were so pervasive. Two years of memories. She wondered what he'd have left. Hopefully enough.

"Goodbye Jack. I'll find you again, someday, and give you back all this. Just… it's not safe now. I hope you'll understand. I, I do love you. Even if this is a terrible way of showing it."

Gathering her things, she activated the vortex manipulator, trying not to cry as she left behind another man she loved. She needed to see the Doctor, needed to know it was worth it. Four hundred years and three galaxies over. She could feel the golden thread that was the Doctor's life pulse in her mind, stronger just after her own regeneration. She wasn't quite sure what planet was four hundred years and three galaxies over, or what face of the Doctor would be there. But she had to see that face. She had to remember him, because she was leaving a trail of forgetting across time and space, and she could not be the one to forget this time.