AN: Sorry for being majorly lax with updates, it's because even though I was done with exams I still had these group presentations to do and it was my birthday last week so I've been super busy. But NOW I'm basically free so it's time for me to sort the fic out.

Cartography for Beginners

Jenny

Adjusting to washing in a jungle lagoon after living halfway between an advanced alien space-machine and an isolated cottage in the Yorkshire moors was not as difficult as one might imagine it to be. Not for Jenny, at least, who knew they were just lucky to have a nearby lagoon with a waterfall at all. She'd been stuck in dense sectors of jungle and forest before that didn't have a river in sight, not to mention when she had gone to live in the deserts of Korix and the tundra surrounding Arooh. You couldn't bathe for weeks – months sometimes – in places like that. But she would wash now, even though she could probably cope just fine being dirty, to keep up good habits. It wasn't like she was going to be stuck on Rospaonus for long. It was a bit annoying that she forgot to bring shampoo with her, though. Or a towel.

Because she didn't have a towel, she ended up sitting on a rock at the edge of the lagoon without any clothes on, and found her thoughts straying as she wondered if maybe someone might think she was a mermaid. Then she thought about if she would even want to be a mermaid, and if Clara thought mermaids were sexy. She probably did, though, Jenny assumed, because everyone did. Although, Clara's undead issues with running water and hydrophobia would probably serve as a severe obstacle in their relationship… Jenny actually got quite caught up in this fantasy while she waited for the clothes she had rinsed to dry, and she got a little stressed until she remembered that she wasn't a mermaid and she and Clara didn't have any majorly weird relationship problems.

What of everything else, though? This 'Singularity'… She still thought that perhaps she should have brought her phone with her and called the Doctor, though she didn't trust him not to show up, and Jack had a point about the Doctor being the only person guaranteed to be able to work this map. As bitter as she was with him saying she wasn't 'genuine' enough to make it work, she hated to admit he could be right. And she still thought their best bet would be her going along as well; she would just have to be careful not to damage herself too badly. Not that Jenny's plans to avoid injury ever went well, she thought grimly, glancing at the bullet wound on her shoulder and the purple scar running across her thumb.

She stood up from her rock and yawned and stretched underneath the alien stars and the rainforest trees, proceeding to get dressed into clothes still damp from the humidity of the air. It bothered her a little, but not so much. They would dry off faster with her body heat, anyway, and she was used to her clothes being wet from sweat on that planet anyway. She'd been in much more uncomfortable situations than this before. It was while she was pulling her boots back on that she noticed the first cause for alarm: the silence. Normally the sounds of wildlife were everywhere, venomous insects and lizards and birds crawling and chirping in the trees. It was too quiet. Animals fled areas when they sensed danger was around, and Jenny sensed it, too, so she remained as light-footed as possible as she swiftly made her way back to the camp and the ship.

But she didn't quite make it back to the camp and the ship, because she heard voices, human voices, and not those of Jack or River. She stopped dead in the middle of a thicket of trees and tried to listen to what they were talking about, but all she paid attention to was the fact they were getting closer. In the wet and suffocating darkness of the jungle she acted on impulse, and made to climb the nearest tree. This went quite well for her, because she was very good at climbing things, running up the trunk until she could jump off it and grab onto one of the limbs above. She did this a few times to gain about two storeys on whoever was below her, struggling to see in the dark. Then she lurked and listened and strained her eyes.

"…going to be good pay for this, but I've woken up with bugs in my arse every day this week," a male voice complained.

"Tell me about it," his companion agreed, "They're like spiders with twice as many legs and wings. I didn't leave the colonies for this." The first man laughed. Jenny shook her head; people from the colonies couldn't cope with anything, she knew that from the experience of being friends with Oswin, Oswin who had never seen a bluebottle before and had practically died all over again when she had spied one on a window a few weeks back.

"Who let the prisoner escape to begin with? I hate it here."

"I heard he was broken out."

"Broken out? He was being guarded by Ordov! Somebody took on Ordov?"

"He's got a busted lip that says someone did. And won." Jenny smiled smugly to herself. Ordov was nearly three times her size, and she'd still beaten him almost completely solo, with a little help from a right-hook by Captain Jack. She was suspicious about how much they were complaining, though. Maybe this 'Kasterborous' were not as unified as their leader would have his rivals believe.

She stayed in the trees until they had passed by, but they were already so close to the camp and her ship that she was beginning to worry. She didn't think Jack and River had been found yet, though, otherwise everyone would be converging on them. There were still a few minutes at least until they were discovered, if they were discovered. If Jenny had it her way, they would slip away into space unnoticed, and maybe this awaiting ambush was exactly the convincing Jack and River would need to abandon their search for the Singularity.

Jenny didn't come down, but instead took the longer path of staying in the treetops and jumping from branch-to-branch like a primate. It was good practice, though, in case she ever wanted to re-join the circus. When she was almost back to the edge of their perimeter, however, she heard rushing footsteps and the sounds of desperate chatter over radios. Uh-oh. They had found the others. Maybe she should have stayed on the ground and risked capture to get there quicker… she still stayed up-high. With everyone running, someone was bound to trip right over her if she tried to sneak down below.

She saw her spaceship through the trees just when the sneering sound of Ordov reached her ears.

"And you really thought you could escape us?" He must be speaking to Jack. She came as close to the tree line as she could while remaining in shadow, and saw their camp now invaded by Kasterborous. At least they couldn't get onto the ship, though, not with the stairs up retracted.

"Well, a girl's gotta dream," Jack grinned. Ordov smacked him around the face. River was there, but staying quiet, wisely. Jack was drawing all their attention, perhaps on purpose. Ordov laughed coldly.

"This isn't funny," said a newcomer, scolding Ordov, "You let him get away on your watch."

"How was I supposed to know the fool would have anybody missing him?" Ordov argued. Jenny struggled to find this new speaker, but eventually did. He was short, weedy, and the phrase 'Napoleon complex' sprang to mind, especially since he called himself 'the Conqueror.' He was wearing fancy clothes, too, fancier than would be sensible out in an alien jungle, in shades of red and gold. Clearly he wasn't particularly smart. There were half a dozen armed goons with Ordov and the Conqueror as well. She couldn't risk coming out of the trees.

"How tall was this girl who beat you, again?" the Conqueror asked Ordov, who growled. The man was like some sort of animal.

"The girl is something else," said Ordov. Jenny listened and lowered herself on the branch so that she was sat with a leg hanging over either side, observing. "This one – he knows Time Lords. I heard her say the word 'regenerate.'"

"You heard rejuvenate," Jack interrupted, "She cares a lot about her skin. And would you look at her – she's unblemished." Jenny smiled.

"No, no. Regenerate. And something about divorce papers."

"Okay," said Jack, "You got me. The two of us are friends, bits on the side, sometimes we role-play and pretend to be advanced aliens who are married to each other. She's a circus freak and a thief!" Ordov punched Jack again. Jenny raised her eyebrows at his questionable efforts. Clearly, they were just going to keep hitting him, and would eventually drag him back to their camp. She wouldn't be able to break him out again. She needed a plan.

But it didn't go as intended.

The thing about Jenny was she was fearless… almost fearless. Currently there were three things in the known universe she was actively frightened of: losing Clara, xenomorphs, and beetles. She was terrified of beetles. Not spiders or moths or millipedes, just beetles. It was something about the way their shells split apart to reveal their wings, and how they rolled around in poo, but she hated the things, and that didn't change regardless of what regeneration she was in. Once, recently, she and Clara had gotten wine-drunk and asked each other a string of first date questions, and when Clara had asked her biggest phobia (aside from xenomorphs) she had said ladybirds, leaving Clara in fits of laughter.

She was in her tree, spying like the crook she was, when she felt something itchy on her head. Reaching up a hand she brushed it away absently, paying more attention to Ordov and the Conqueror, and then something red and shiny fell into her lap. If there was one thing she hated more than beetles, it was three-inch long, ten-legged, six-winged and four-horned alien beetles with glittering, scarlet exoskeletons. The monster landed on her leg and she panicked and fell out of the tree, landing flat on her back on the jungle floor and on the edge of the clearing. She made a few of the Kasterborous goons jump as she fell and landed, sprawled there in the mud, and then scrambled to her feet to try and escape the beetle.

"Graceful," River Song commented dryly from the log by their lonely lantern.

"There was a bug!" she exclaimed, then asked the nearest heavily armed paratrooper, "Can you see it on me still? It was a massive beetle," doing a twirl.

"Uh, no," he answered, gormless and fixated on her. She flashed him a grin to try and salvage some of her charisma.

"Good."

"Is that the girl who knocked you out?" the Conqueror asked Ordov with disbelief, "Even I could beat her up, she's a midget."

"Oi!" Jenny protested, "I don't think it's politically correct to call people that. And you're welcome to try and beat me up. I'll give you the old one-two punch." She mimed the 'old one-two punch' when she said it, bouncing on her feet for a second and hitting the air in front of her like she was boxing.

"He's right about her being unblemished," the trooper she had asked about the beetle told the Conqueror.

"I don't care one bit about her blemishes," he said, "Grab her!" The soldier regained himself and immediately went to grab her arm and hold her. She bit her lip and looked at him.

"Sorry," she said, and she hit him in the nose with the base of her left hand, hearing the crunch as it broke and started to bleed and he wailed, then kneed him in the gut and wrenched his gun from his hands when he was winded. She ended by kicking him in the ankle so that he fell to the floor, and just like that she had five or six guns trained on her, but her gun was trained on the Conqueror.

"I did tell you she is something else," said Ordov. The Conqueror glared at him.

"You've got it," said Jack, "She's a natural blonde. Kind of rare to achieve that kind of colour without some serious peroxide."

"Guns down or I'll shoot leader-boy in the head," Jenny threatened, looking around at the soldiers. They didn't lower their guns. Ordov laughed.

"They do not work for him, they work for me," he said.

"Alright, then I'll shoot you in the head," she said, indifferent. Ordov raised his own handgun and pointed it at Jack. "Oh, please. You're going to shoot Jack?" Ordov smirked and then, in a flash, changed where he was aiming and pulled the trigger. For a moment Jenny thought he was going to shoot her, and she was not always adept at dodging bullets, but he didn't. He shot someone else. The paratrooper next to her, Ordov shot him right in the head and he dropped immediately. Dead. "He was your soldier! How could you do that!?" Ordov met her eyes and laughed.

"I knew you were a Time Lord," he said, "Only a Time Lord could be so stupidly merciful. You would not dare to kill me. You would not kill anyone."

"I've killed people before," she said coldly, avoiding looking at the body on the floor as his blood began to soak into the foliage.

"Then I dare you to do it again," he smiled cruelly. And he was right. She wouldn't shoot him, it was an empty threat. He wasn't scared of her tricks. She lowered the gun, Jack and River watching her carefully. River must have a plan, surely, she was the only one of them technically invulnerable to bullets. Nothing would happen if a hologram got shot, it would just sail through her.

"A Time Lord," the Conqueror stared at her, "A real Time Lord. Lower your guns, everyone, nobody shoots."

"And leave us unprotected?" Ordov argued with him.

"I'm paying you to be here, you do what I say and so do they," the Conqueror hissed back, waving his hand at the soldiers around them. They all lowered their guns, too. "So, then, girly. To which of the Great Time Lords am I speaking?"

"Did they call themselves the 'Great Time Lords'?" she questioned. The Conqueror narrowed his eyes.

"She can't help you," Jack interrupted again, "She's not a real one. She's just a… clone, of old DNA. A resurrection attempt gone wrong. Can't even regenerate properly." Jenny resolved there and then that she was going to uppercut Jack the next time she got him alone. Or kneecap him.

"Whose old DNA?" the Conqueror asked.

"Someone inconsequential," Jenny said, "Unimportant. Don't even really know."

"No," said Ordov, "This one belongs to the Doctor."

"Hey, I don't belong to anybody," Jenny argued, "And if I did, it wouldn't be some 'doctor' person."

"This is a nice try, but I have met him before, under similar circumstances. You could even be him, if the idea of him regenerating into a woman was not so ridiculous," Ordov mocked.

"Funny you should say that…" River muttered.

"You hold yourselves the same way, speak the same way, are cowardly in the same way…"

"Nice deductions there, big guy. Maybe you can deduce yourself into my pants," said Jack.

"You just sound pathetic now," River quipped at him. Ordov hit him around the face again, this time with the gun. He managed to knock out a tooth. Jenny winced watching.

"You're made from the DNA of the Doctor?" the Conqueror asked, "The greatest warrior of all the Time Lords?" River laughed involuntarily.

"The Doctor is the one who killed the rest of the Time Lords," she said. The Conqueror's smile faded into an expression of malice and anger.

"A war criminal?" he asked.

"Suppose so," River said, "So I suppose the Time Lords aren't all they're cracked up to be. Oh well. We can all go home now, can't we?"

"Yep," said Jenny, "We'll just be leaving." She tried to step towards the spaceship, but Ordov pointed his gun at her again.

"No, no, no," said the Conqueror, shaking his head at her, "She's made from the DNA of a Time Lord. All the map needs is the DNA of a Time Lord. We can't let her go without testing it."

"It is pointless," said Ordov, "Let the girl lead us to the Doctor. Take her as hostage, see if he will help us to save her." Jenny couldn't let that happen, mainly because he probably would help them to save her. They had to get that map, and destroy it, and she could not let her father get involved.

"Okay, so you just give us the map and we'll take it back to the Doctor," Jack said. Ordov laughed. The Conqueror was searching his pockets, though, and Jenny watched. River still sat there, biding her time, surely waiting for an opportunity to do something. After all, River Song was probably the most opportunistic person in the universe.

"What are you doing? Do not let them get their hands on it," Ordov argued, "Even if it works, so what? There are other ways to fix it, there are other ways to find the Singularity."

"I'm too tired to carry on looking for other ways," the Conqueror snapped. Kasterborous were really not a unified bunch at all. He drew out a device, a golden circular object. Initially, Jenny thought it looked like the kind of unusual, old pocket watch she had seen in Eleven's room before sitting on the piano, one with Gallifreyan writing on top. But when the Conqueror brought it closer, held it out, she thought it looked more like a compass, somewhat ironically.

While Ordov was distracted watching what the Conqueror was doing, Jack was able to get up from the log where he had been sat with a gun to his head and tackle the phoney Time Lord as he approached Jenny. Jack knocked him straight off his feet onto the ground while Ordov wheeled around and aimed the gun again. The map fell from the Conqueror's hand and onto the grass. Jack lunged for it from the ground but Ordov stamped his boot down onto Jack's hand and Jack groaned when the bones were crushed. But they had had eyes away from River for too long, and River was not Oswin. She didn't have the dead weight of a physical prosthetic leg and a cane to hold her down. It took an instant for her to teleport across the clearing and pull the same trick on one of the paratroopers that Jenny had done to steal a gun initially, knocking him to the ground and smacking him in the face with the butt of the rifle to knock him out cold.

Meanwhile, Ordov reached down to take the map away from Jack's reach while the Conqueror, still pinned to the floor, whined and complained for somebody to shoot Jack already. Jenny may not shoot somebody with a gun (not to kill, at least), but she would sure as hell hit somebody with one, which was exactly what she did next. She took the rifle barrel in her hands and lifted it up, smacking the nearest soldier around the side of the head with it. That left just two more soldiers standing, minus Ordov, but Ordov had now picked up the map. While River went for the two remaining soldiers, Jenny flipped the rifle again and aimed and cocked it, firing at Ordov's hand. Good thing she never missed. She got him through the wrist and he dropped the map and stumbled, which allowed Jack to roll and catch it with his non-broken fingers. Jack scrambled to his feet while River finished dealing with the last guard.

"I've got it!" Jack exclaimed.

"Don't move, Ordov," River ordered, pointing the gun at him, "Jenny wouldn't hurt a fly, but I'll kill anyone who looks at me funny." Probably an exaggeration, but it seemed like Ordov believed her more than he believed Jenny. Couldn't detect traces of the Doctor in her. Well, not for a few decades, at least… Ordov cared more about saving his own skin than saving that map, so he backed away from Jack.

"No! Don't let them get away!" the Conqueror shouted, jumping and grabbing Ordov's pistol out of his hands and pointing it at Jack.

"Catch!" Jack shouted at Jenny, throwing the map. The Conqueror pulled the trigger but hadn't aimed at all; his bullet tore through Jack's shoulder and probably damaged his collarbone, but it was overall a non-fatal injury. Jenny dropped the rifle and lunged forwards, grabbing the map in her palm.

And then the sky lit up gold. Light like a sun poured through the gaps in her fingers as she touched the device. It felt like it was vibrating in her palms as everybody else froze to look. When she opened her hands the lid on the compass had come off and out of it was projecting what must be the map everyone was fighting over. It was an enormous, golden planet in the sky between them all.

"That's Rospaonus," River said. It was; Jenny could tell by the jungles at the poles. And then it zoomed in more, onto the north jungle, where they were currently, and kept going until it showed them a ginormous, golden mountain. A mountain she recognised because she had flown them past it while they had been searching for Jack and Kasterborous the day before.

Jenny clenched her hands over it to conceal the mountain from view again, just as Jack raised his fist and decked the Conqueror, knocking him out with one punch. He wasn't really a match for any of them. Only Ordov was, but Ordov was still in River's line of sight.

"On your knees," River ordered him, and he obeyed, Jack picking up the gun the Conqueror had stolen from Ordov and subsequently dropped from where it lay in the grass. Jenny walked around the two of them carefully, River following her as they paced, her just trying to get to the spaceship.

"I know where the mountain is as well," Ordov said.

"Yeah, well, it's a big mountain," Jenny said, "I think we have a better chance of finding the Singularity than him." As she approached, the stairs into the spaceship descended from beneath, letting Jack slip away on board. Ordov shrugged.

"I do not doubt that, but he is the one who pays me. I am sure we will see each other again, Clone of the Doctor." River walked past Jenny onto the ship.

"I'm his daughter, actually, and we'll be in and out before the wannabe Time Lord there even wakes up from his sleep," and with that she ascended into the flying saucer and sealed it up behind them.