Jenny finally sees her father for the first time in years. It doesn't exactly go how she'd pictured.
Author's Note: We're working on an episode rewrite here for a couple chapters. The Stolen Earth and Journey's End aren't about to go down quite like how they did in the show, not with the addition of Jenny. Will go light on anything repetitive that we've already seen in the show; assume anything not addressed here happened how it did on screen. Because I am a Doctor/Rose shipper at heart, there will be bits of them, but this story is Jenny's and Jack's, so that's where my focus is.
Beta: GoingToTheTardis
Jenny was investigating odd occurrences for Torchwood on a slow Saturday soon after Rose's appearance and subsequent disappearance. People had been reporting ghostly noises and unusual colors emanating from one building in particular, and she'd just gained access when the earth shook.
She was flung into the railing of the stairwell, and when she felt her weight being pushed over the top, she twisted, grabbing on and letting herself go over without losing her grip. The building stopped moving almost as soon as it started, and Jenny swung back, then forward, pulling her feet in and up so that they rested on the railing between her hands, then pistoning herself to a standing position. Finally, she jumped off, landing lightly on the floor where she'd started.
"Well, that was different," she said to herself, shaking her head. The movement had stopped, she was sure of it, but her head said otherwise, said something was still out of place.
Her mobile buzzed.
"Hello?" she answered.
"Jenny, you all right?" Jack's voice held a note he only used when he was warring between his instincts to protect her and his knowledge that she was at least as capable as he was.
"Yep. Bit of a close call, but nothing I couldn't handle." Jenny glanced over the railing at the long drop down to uneven steps. "What happened, anyway?"
"We don't know yet, but… Jenny, look outside."
Jenny moved to the window, blinking at the darkness. "What's…" She started to speak, but stopped as something in the sky caught her eye.
The dark sky was filled with planets and moons, arranged in a pattern that she was sure was intentional and equally sure she'd never seen.
"What's going on here, Jack?"
"Looking into it. You should get back to headquarters if you can."
"Will do." Jenny moved to pull the mobile from her ear, pausing when Jack spoke again.
"Jenny?"
"What is it?"
"Be careful out there." There was that worried note again, despite the fact that his voice was low, almost his bedroom voice.
She was still staring up at the planets in the sky when she answered. "Not sure you're any safer where you are. The rest of the team all right?"
"Everyone's fine. I'll see you soon."
Jenny hung up and put her mobile away. She left the building through the window she'd used to enter, climbing easily back to the ground. She hadn't gotten very far before she got a text from Jack.
Daleks. Get here as fast as you can. Faster, if possible.
He'd told her about them, though she'd never encountered the creatures herself. She put on a burst of speed. She had to slow down, though, when Daleks started arriving. She'd have loved to study them, if it were safe, but despite their cobbled-together appearance, she knew the metal-encased species was deadly and without mercy.
Martha's gone.
At the second text from Jack, Jenny stopped moving entirely, despite knowing a Dalek could spot her at any moment.
Martha.
She hadn't seen a lot of the other woman at their first meeting, but she'd been able to get to know her better through Torchwood.
The Daleks had only just arrived, and already Jenny had lost one of her only friends?
She was very glad that she'd never truly renounced violence, as she didn't particularly plan to aim for the metaphorical kneecaps of any Daleks she met.
The next time she had to pass through where one waited, instead of going around and over the building nearby, Jenny retrieved the small-but-powerful gun she favored and shot it right in the eyestalk, feeling a grim satisfaction as it whirled blindly before she finished it off. The satisfaction outweighed the stinging sensation that ran along her leg after she dodged too quickly and slammed into a brick wall.
She didn't know whether they could beat the Daleks. She didn't know whether she'd survive if one of them hit her. She didn't know whether she'd come back again if she died.
What she did know, though, was that if she was going to do down, she wanted to go down fighting, with Jack by her side.
~O~O~O~
"Come on, Jenny. Where are you?" Jack muttered to himself, checking his cell phone again, his heart racing as he hesitated to activate his vortex manipulator using the codes Martha had given him.
Jenny hadn't responded to any of his texts, not about the Daleks or about Martha-twice, since he'd had to correct his misinformation-or about the subwave network and the conference call that had eventually included her father.
He was starting to worry.
He'd been ready to tell the Doctor about her, sure that if Martha in UNIT gear hadn't thrown him, the Time Lord knew about his daughter by now, but then the subwave network had cut out and all hell had broken loose again.
He had to leave, but Jenny was supposed to meet him here.
Jack looked at his nervous team. They were capable under normal circumstances, but they hadn't had to handle anything quite like this before.
"I'm coming back," he told them, fingers pausing over his vortex manipulator. "If Jenny gets here first, tell her I'm coming back."
He had to leave, but he couldn't just go to the Doctor and ignore the fact that Jenny was on her way to a Torchwood that was being actively attacked by Daleks. He changed the input before he could think better of it, flashing out and then back in just a few blocks from where he'd started.
He had to find Jenny first. Then he could worry about the rest of the universe.
"Jack?" The familiar voice made his heart stop for a moment.
"Jenny, oh, thank God." He wrapped her in his arms, feeling her gun against his back as she held him just as tightly. "You weren't answering your phone."
"Had an incident," she said, pulling back and gesturing at scrapes and holes in her dark jeans, evidence of a high-speed fall. "It isn't exactly working anymore. Do we know more about what's going on?"
"We need to get you a better phone when this is over. That's the third one you've broken this year." Jack placed a hard kiss to her lips. "Martha's okay. She made it. The Doctor's here, and I've got the manipulator set to where he most likely landed judging by the current base code." He adjusted the manipulator back to the settings he'd had before finding Jenny. "We have to go, now."
Jenny looked toward Torchwood headquarters, and Jack followed her gaze, knowing that whatever their team was facing, it wasn't good.
"They'll be okay," he said. "There are defense protocols there that even I don't fully understand."
Jenny nodded, then looked back at him. "Let's go."
They vanished, landing in their new location, and in the moment it took for them to orient themselves, Jack was able to watch the Doctor get shot by a Dalek.
Jack reacted immediately, firing on the Dalek and making sure it wasn't going anywhere ever again. He looked back at Jenny, who was paler than usual then ran toward the Doctor.
Rose was holding him, and they seemed oblivious to the situation around them. It was good to know some things never changed.
"Get him into the TARDIS," he said, helping Donna and Rose get the Doctor to standing. "Quick, move!"
The women got the Doctor inside, Jack and Jenny staying behind them to make sure there were no other unpleasant surprises. He let Jenny enter the TARDIS first so that he could shut the door firmly behind them, and he raced to the jumpseat to set down his weapons.
Jenny followed him as far as the jumpseat, then gasped. She sat down suddenly, her back against the console, eyes locked on Jack.
"I'm okay," she whispered. Jack started to move toward her, then saw that Rose and Donna were still hovering much too close to the Doctor.
He had to get them out of the line of fire. Jenny would be safe where she was.
After he pulled them away, he looked at Jenny again. Her eyes were closed, but the steady rise and fall of her shoulders told him she was still breathing. He turned his attention back to the dying Time Lord and away from the man's daughter.
~O~O~O~
Jenny had entered the TARDIS fighting guilt for having been the reason for Jack's delay. If he hadn't come to get her first, maybe the Doctor wouldn't have been shot.
When she got nearer to the console, she felt a presence in her mind, pushing its way in and overriding any other thoughts. The presence wasn't exactly gentle, and Jenny found herself quickly unable to stand. By the time she'd sat down on the nearest bit of grating, she realized that the ship was trying to communicate with her.
How was it doing that?
She realized her eyes were locked on to Jack, who was watching her with clear concern, and she told him she was all right before closing her eyes to focus on what was going on in her head.
Pictures, sounds, and thoughts that weren't hers started sliding across her mind, slowly at first, easing her into it. They sped up, and soon Jenny understood how the TARDIS worked, how the TARDIS was speaking to her, and that the ship preferred to be referred to as a "she" rather than an "it."
The flashes continued, showing a planet Jenny had never heard of, people she'd never seen.
This was the information the Doctor had been talking about, the knowledge that made her a proper Time Lord rather than a copy.
She learned that those feelings of connection and inevitability she got so often were because of her time sense, which crystallized further in that moment, letting her see things more clearly, see the necessity of her presence here at this moment.
She realized her telepathy wasn't limited to communicating only with the TARDIS, and that now that it had been activated, in a sense, she'd have a lot more open to her than she had before, though there were definite limitations and a lot of hypotheticals that made her uncomfortable.
Jenny was only vaguely aware of the conversations happening behind her, her attention focused almost entirely inward.
The influx of information finally slowed, then ended, and she took a deep breath, shaking off the spell the TARDIS had put her under, before opening her eyes and tuning back into what was happening in the room around her, hearing her father's voice.
"It's too late. I'm regenerating."
A few minutes earlier, she might not have fully understood his words, but now she knew. She looked at Jack, who was watching her while he sheltered the other women with his arms, and she knew she was right.
The Doctor was dying.
Whoops, I did it again: two chapters in one day. I hope you forgive me ;)