A/N: I upload a bit early this time because today is a very special day... December 1st is Eva's birthday! (I wrote it in the beginning of 'Conflicted').
So I update today instead of during the weekend, in the hopes that you'll have a nice weekend :)
During the next week, Eva slowly pulled herself back together. Part of her recovery involved entering the TARDIS and going back to her room, the one that looked and felt like home. The walls had pictures of herself with the First and Second Doctor's companions, along with a couple more of just the companions or the Doctors on their own, but they still weren't as filled as they had been in his tenth regeneration.
Occasionally, when the Doctor sunk into his work to distract himself from the lack of progress in anything concerning the Master, she'd go to her room and lay on the bed, pretending – if only for a couple of minutes – that she was back home, and that Nyssa or Mike would barge through the door any moment and ask her to do something. She wished nothing more than to hear her parents argue, to know that she was back in the world that she knew, but at the same time she didn't.
It was a constant battle inside her mind between all of the wonderful things this world could offer her and all of the terrible things it held within it. And it was a constant battle inside her mind between all of the things she knew the Doctor could offer her, and the fear of how being with him would change the world – and if he even wanted her, something she doubted very much.
It was during one of those times, as she lay on her bed and wondered what should she do, that her locket started glowing.
"Doctor!" she called, running out. "Doctor!"
"Eva!" the Doctor called back, rushing to her. "Are you alright?"
"I don't want to go," she cried. "I don't – I can't do this, not right now."
"It's okay, Eva," the Doctor said. "It's okay."
"It's not, it's really not," Eva said. "Please, I don't want – I want to stay – please!"
"It's time for you to go now," the Doctor told her. "You know it."
"It's not fair," Eva cried. "I need more time, I can't – I can't face another you right now."
"I'm sorry," the Doctor said, kissing her forehead. "You'll see me soon."
"No!" Eva called as the light engulfed her. "No! No!"
She blinked, opening her eyes to find herself standing in the middle of an unknown room.
"No!" she cried. "No, no, no."
"Evie?"
She looked up, blinking through her tears to see Jack looking at her. He was older than she remembered him to be – his salt and pepper hair making him look mature – and she couldn't help but think he aged well. Not that it was really a surprise when it came to Jack, but still.
He stepped towards her, taking her hand in his while using the other to wipe away her tears.
"What happened?" he asked.
"I... I thought..." Eva couldn't even finish a sentence. She was completely torn between wanting to go back to the Doctor she was just with and being relieved at not meeting another one.
"How about I'll make us a cup of tea?" Jack offered. "We can sit down and talk about anything you want. Or not, if you prefer."
Eva nodded weakly, letting Jack lead her into the kitchen. She sat down, watching him as he prepared the tea carefully, as if preparing for a ceremony, and but the kettle on fire.
"Where are we?" she asked.
"Cardiff, 31st century," Jack replied.
"Still Cardiff?" Eva questioned.
"Always Cardiff," Jack replied with a smile. "I got a weakness to the city ever since I spent a hundred years waiting in it."
"Isn't it a bit suspicious, though?" Eva asked. "Staying in the same place all the time when you're not aging? Well..." she looked at the small wrinkles around his eyes. "Almost not aging."
"I sometimes disappear for about twenty years," Jack shrugged. "When I come back, I say I'm my son and that passes me about fifty years. Not that many people notice," he added. "I barely have human contact most of the time."
"That's... awfully sad," Eva said.
"Yeah," Jack said darkly. "The curse of being immortal. You visit quite often, though."
"Yeah, well, I've got an immortal life to pass, as well," she shrugged. "You know... Apparently."
"How long have you been doing this?" Jack asked.
"Two weeks," Eva said. "The Doctor gave me a calendar to keep track of time, but..."
"You lose yourself when you travel," Jack nodded understandingly. "I used to get that feeling all the time, back in the days."
"Back in the days," Eva repeated. "God, you even talk like an old man. How old are you?"
"Roughly 1200," Jack said. "Sometimes it feels like less, but sometimes..."
"Like much, much more," Eva nodded understandingly. "I guess I'll feel that, too, one day."
"You will," Jack said sadly. "But for now... where have you been?"
"Well," Eva said. "I saw dinosaurs on a spaceship. And Vashta Nerada in the Library. I met Robin Hood."
"You told me about that one," Jack smiled. "Nice bow and arrow skills."
"And the Master," Eva went on. "With the Third Doctor, back in the seventies. I... He... He hypnotized me, and under the effects of the hypnosis I kissed the Doctor."
"Wow," Jack let out a low whistle. "That was your first kiss with the Doctor?"
"His first kiss," Eva said. "My second. He kissed me after the whole Robin Hood thing."
"And...?"
"And I slapped him for it," Eva said. "A past him. He's just... He's insufferable," she said. "He keeps saying how young I am, and commenting on my smoking habits. And he just... it's like he doesn't care what I'm feeling."
"Of course he cares," Jack said. "Ever since I first met the two of you, the Doctor always cared for you."
"He sure doesn't act like it," Eva scoffed. "I just – At times, I'm terrified. He doesn't get it, and I don't think you do, either, but even though I can't die, I feel like I'm constantly in danger. I know what's going to happen, I know what monsters we'll face, I know who's going to die. I know how everybody's stories end."
"Everybody?" Jack asked.
"I know yours," Eva told him. "I know Martha's to a certain extent, and I know everybody else's... well, except mine and his."
"You need to make this one," Jack said. "You need to live it."
"Live it how?" Eva questioned. "He kissed me twice, and I don't know what it means... if it even means something."
"It meant a lot," Jack said. "The question is, are you going to do something about it?"
"Don't you already know?" Eva asked.
"I'm not going to tell you," Jack said. "You need to make the decision yourself, because that's what you want to do. Not because that's what you should do."
"But how am I supposed to know if I'm making the right choice?"
"You're not," Jack said plainly. "Of course you don't know. You're not supposed to know. All you need is to make that choice."
"You make it sound so easy," Eva huffed.
"Oh, I never said it was easy," Jack told her. "I said it was necessary." Eva opened her mouth to reply when the doorbell rang. "Excuse me, I need to answer this."
He walked out of the kitchen, opening the front door.
"Mr. Harkness," a female voice greeted in a friendly tone. "I brought Linny over."
"Thank you, Lucy," Jack replied, his smile evident his voice. "And I told you a million times to call me Jack."
"Not gonna happen," Lucy replied.
"One day," Jack retorted. "You're coming over tomorrow night, right?"
"I forgot to tell you," Lucy said. "I have a family event. Could you manage this one without me?"
"Just this once, I don't want you to make a habit out of it," Jack warned playfully. "You know how hard Wednesdays are."
"I'm sure you'll manage," Lucy replied. "See you on Thursday, then?"
"See you on Thursday," Jack agreed. "Say goodbye, Linny."
"Bye-bye," Eva heard a child saying, sparking her curiosity.
She carefully neared the door, eavesdropping the conversation that was happening on the other side of it.
"Daddy's got a friend over," she heard Jack saying. "So how about you go upstairs and pick something to wear, and then I'll help you get dressed and the three of us could go to the park?"
"Okay!" the girl said happily, footsteps following her statement as she ran upstairs.
Eva backed away from the door, sitting on her chair just as Jack walked in. She tried to keep a straight face, but her surprise must have shown since Jack sighed.
"How much did you hear?" he asked.
"All of it," Eva replied. "You have a daughter?"
"Linny," Jack said. "She's three years old and... she's my everything."
"Why didn't you tell me about her?"
"It's complicated," Jack said. "She's complicated. Her mother left less than five minutes after she was born, all of my other children are long dead, and..."
"She's all you have," Eva said understandingly.
"I'm scared for her," Jack admitted. "I just keep waiting for something to happen and take her away from me."
"Why do you think something'll happen?" Eva asked.
"That's what happens to everybody else I get close to," Jack replied.
"It doesn't mean it will happen to her," Eva added.
"But it will anyway," Jack said.
"You can't know that," Eva insisted.
"Can we not talk about it now?" Jack asked. "Please, I..."
"Daddy!" Linny called from upstairs. "I picked clothes!"
"Don't choose pink with pink again!" he called.
"Okay!" Linny replied.
"Not pink with purple, either!"
There was a moment of silence before Linny whined, "Daddy..."
"I should go upstairs," Jack said, shaking his head fondly.
"I'll make sandwiched," Eva offered. "Does peanut butter and jelly go?"
"Jam," Jack corrected. "Not jelly."
"I like her already," Eva smiled, looking at Jack's back as he walked upstairs.
Captain Jack Harkness, a family man. Who'd have known? She knew, of course, that he had other children – Alice Carter being an example of one of those, in addition to the assumption that a man with Jack's flirtatious nature, combined with the fact that he had lived so many years, was bound to have an accident here and there.
But to hear the way he was with her, to see how he talked about her... it was clear that this girl meant more to him than the rest. Possibly, as he said, because he had already lost the others and was scared to lose her, as well.
Eva thought about it as she made sandwiches and packed them in a bag, washing a couple of apples to snack and just adding three bottles of water when Jack and Linny walked in.
"Oh, honey," Eva sighed, looking at the child's clothes. "Pink and blue would never do."
"It was either that or pink and pink with pink on top," Jack said. "Trust me, we got off lightly today. Linny," he added, "I want you to meet Eva, an old friend of mine."
Linny hid behind Jack's leg and Eva smiled.
"It's very nice to meet you," she said. "Do you want to go to the park?"
Linny blushed and nodded before running outside.
"Well," Eva laughed. "That was absolutely adorable."
"It will get better once she gets used to you," Jack promised. "She's a little shy at first, you should have seen how she was like with Lucy, at first."
"And Lucy is...?" Eva started, raising her brow.
"The babysitter," Jack replied. "Don't get anything into that dirty head of yours."
"My head is dirty?" Eva questioned. "Have you met yourself?"
"Shut up," Jack laughed, offering her his arm. "Shall we?"
"We shall," Eva said, taking his arm with hers and following the three year old outside.
EMH
"So," Jack said as they sat on a bench in the park, keeping an eye on Linny. "The Doctor."
"The Doctor," Eva repeated with a sigh. "I don't know what to do."
"What do you want to do?" Jack asked.
"I don't know!" Eva replied. "If I do something... I might change everything."
"You need to remember that the world you know from the show isn't the world you're in right now," Jack said. "The other world didn't have you. Things are different here."
"But what if I change things too much?" Eva asked. "What if I change things so much that I'll change the future I know?"
"You can't live your whole life like that," Jack replied. "You have to start actually living."
"Is that what you're doing?"
"That's different," he said. "I'm currently living in a world that, as far as I'm concerned, should belong to history lessons."
"Well, I'm currently living in a world that, as far as I'm concerned, should belong to Comic Con," Eva retorted. "I think my situation is worse."
"You..." Jack started, before shaking his head. "You know what? I'm not gonna fight you about this."
"Why?" Eva asked. "Because you know I'd win?"
"No," Jack said harshly. "Because this is not a game. There are our lives, and –"
He paused, looking at the swings before jumping to his feet and running towards the playground. Eva looked after him, trying to understand what caused him to act that way, when she noticed Linny.
The girl jumped from the swing she was on and was currently mid-swing, floating in the air for a moment before descending quickly. But she flew too high and fell too fast, the momentum of the fall too much for her to deal with. She crushed to the ground with a scream, the ground scrapping her knee when she hit the ground.
"Daddy!" she cried, holding her leg.
"It's okay," Jack said, raising her into his arms. "I'm here. Daddy's here."
He brought her to the bench, taking the bottle of water Eva offered him and using it to clean Linny's leg.
"It burns," Linny whimpered.
"I know," Jack said, wiping the tears off her face. "How about Daddy will do some healing magic and fix you up?"
Linny nodded and Jack smiled sadly, glancing at Eva for a moment before moving his hands in the air above the child's knee. Eva gasped when she saw skin forming across the wound, healing it in a matter of a minute or two.
"Better now?" Jack asked.
"Better," Linny nodded, turning to look at Eva as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. "Can I have a sandwich?"
EMH
"She's speed-healing," Eva stated later that evening while Linny was in the shower, getting ready for bedtime.
"Yes," Jack said as he washed the last dishes from dinner. "She gained certain aspects from me being a fixed point and all."
"Did any of your other children have that, as well?" Eva asked.
"No," Jack replied. "Just her."
"Why?" Eva questioned. "And... to what extant? Did you consider having the Doctor take a look at her?"
"Oh, he looked," Jack muttered, before adding quietly, "More than I'd like to admit."
"What did he say?" Eva asked, not hearing the last part.
"He's not sure," Jack sighed. "All he could say for certain is that she's not a fixed point."
"But will she die and come back, like you do?" Eva pressed. "Or is she just healing? How long will she live? How fast will she age –?"
"It's complicated," Jack cut her off. "And now's not the time to talk about it."
"But –"
"Evie," Jack said. "She's coming."
As if on cue, Linny ran through the door and jumped into her father's hug.
"Goodnight, Daddy," she told him.
"Goodnight, honey," Jack replied, kissing her head before letting go as Linny turned to Eva.
"Goodnight, Evie," she said.
"Goodnight, Linny," Eva said, leaning in to hug the girl but jumping back as soon as they touched, holding her hand as if she'd been burnt.
Linny's eyes widened with wonder and she reached out for Eva once more, smiling when Temporal Energy was created between the two before looking at her father.
"That's so cool!"
A/N: Dun dun dun! Sorry, couldn't stop myself...
Until next time, you can look for me on Tumblr (mayalr96, Fandoms All Day) for sneakpeeks and updates, or on pa tr eon (Delete the spaces on the site name, ffnet is annoying. username: Mayalr96).