Merry Christmas Eve! :3 Hope you enjoy. I still haven't entirely got the whole 'adventure' thing down. Soon. Maybe.

Chapter Nineteen

The Alien who Stole Christmas

Part Two

"Did you call Jack?" asked Jenny, buttering a slice of toast. It had snowed heavily the previous night, making it nearly impossible for any of them to leave the house. It was very unlikely that the shopping centre would be open. Their investigation would have to be put on hold.

"Yes, I did," replied Gwen, looking confused. "He's walking over later on. But he wasn't in the hub."

"Oh yeah, I forgot to mention. He told me he was renting a place nearby."

Gwen stared at her. "This is Jack we're talking about, right?"

Jenny laughed. "Apparently."

"What did you do to him while he was here?"

"Hey, I was just trying to get him to stop drinking, not turn him into an actual human being."

"Morning," said Sky with a yawn, shuffling slipper-clad into the kitchen and sitting next to Jenny. "Is it a snow day?"

"Looks like it."

"Mhmm," she murmured, too tired to be excited. "My first one."

"So what do you do on a snow day?" Jenny asked Gwen.

"Me?" she raised her eyebrows. "I stay inside and watch telly. Children, you go outside and build snowmen and have snowball fights. If there's a hill, you can sled down it."

Sky cocked her head to the side, brown eyes curious. "What are snowmen?"

Gwen sighed. "Come outside and I'll show you."

"So," said Jack, a twinkle of amusement in his eyes as he sat on the coffee table and ignored their protests that he was in the way of the television. "I'm guessing you're not up for investigation."

Sky blew her nose loudly. Jenny sent her most withering glare at her boss.

"Do we look like we're up for investigation?"

He laughed. "As I suspected. Never mind, I'll just have to stay here and watch TV with you."

"Jack!" Sky cried, annoyed, as he promptly plopped himself on the sofa between them.

"What?"

The Flesh Kind rolled her eyes. "You're impossible."

"Not impossible," Jenny murmured, almost to herself. "Just a bit unlikely."

"Exactly!" Jack beamed.

"That's not what I—" she sighed, changing tactics. "You're not even meant to exist. Fixed points in time are not … captains."

"I'm actually not a captain. Stole that title."

"Of course you did."

"Why am I not surprised," Sky chipped in.

Jack folded his arms, an exaggerated pout on his face.

Several days later, most of the snow had melted away, they had received a message from Luke informing that he would be returning home on Saturday, and they were ready to investigate the suspicious redhead at the Boots store.

Jenny and Sky, arms ladened with bags, approached the store rather warily. Jack was monitoring the CCTV, and Gwen was nearby, ready to intervene if necessary.

They wandered among the shelves, chatting about insignificant things, trying to act as two sisters going about their Christmas shopping.

It wasn't long before they were approached by the woman, who smiled widely at them and asked if they'd like to sample a bestselling perfume, Embrace.

"No thank you," Jenny declined with a smile. "I come out in a rash."

"Mum might like some though, wouldn't she?" Sky chipped in.

"Yeah. What does it smell like?"

Nirvana – so the name sewed into her t-shirt said – held the bottle out to them. "See for yourself."

Jenny took the half-empty glass bottle, giving it a calculated sniff, before passing it to Sky to do the same. Nothing seemed off, so she merely handed it back and asked if she could purchase a bottle of Embrace.

Leaving the store, she and Sky sat on a bench next to Gwen.

"Are you all right?" she asked immediately.

"Yeah, we're fine," Jenny assured her.

"We got a sample," Sky added, raising the Boots bag.

"Well done."

"Where's Jack?"

"In the SUV," Gwen answered. "C'mon, let's get going."

The trio exited the shopping centre, finding the SUV in the car park and piling into it.

"Nice work," Jack complimented them with a grin. "I'm sure your mum will love her Christmas present."

"Oh, shut up."

"This is where the medical professionals came in handy," said Jack with a wry smile, as they stood in the (as of yet unused) Torchwood lab.

"Well, what does it take to get a doctor to come to the dark side?" asked Jenny, raising her eyebrow.

"For Owen, it was an alien parasite inhabiting his fiancée's brain."

The Time Lady winced. "Nasty."

"You could call Martha?" Sky suggested.

"No. I can figure it out."

Her words surprised even Jenny, but now she had to follow through with them. "I can't have been given this brain for nothing. Clear out. Go on. See if you can get some Intel on this Nirvana. And where this perfume was supposed to have originated."

Left alone in the lab with the bottle of perfume, she closed her eyes. Working through the situation in her brain was the best way to approach it. Surely some of her father's extensive knowledge had transferred itself to her along with the knowhow required of a soldier. How could she separate the components of a liquid to figure out which one caused such erratic behaviour in humans?

And, just like that, she knew.

After a quick exploration of the lab, she had found the equipment and protective clothing required for what she needed to do. Securing her hair in a careless ponytail, she began.

Hours later, Sky leaned against a surface that was not in use, grinning at her friend.

Jenny squinted at the Flesh Kind over a test tube. "What?"

"What?"

"Why are you smiling like that?"

"It's a good look on you," she decided after a moment. "You look like one of those ones from the TV."

"If I can figure out what's going on here, then you can compliment me, okay?"

Sky was still smiling. "Okay."

"I hear you had an eventful week," said Luke with a grin, as he kissed the cheeks of both his sisters (in his eyes, at least).

"Are you talking about the snow or the crazy people?"

"Both."

"Good assumption, then."

"Well," he said, the grin returning. "It's a good thing I'm back, isn't it?"

Here's some trivia for you: Nirvana is not named for the band, but for a shark on Easter Eggs Live (it aired on Channel around Easter, and had live streams of all sorts of stuff hatching; chickens, frogs, emus and – you guessed it – sharks). We were waiting for weeks for Nirvana to make her appearance.