Write about a gift someone's given you.

She had stumbled upon the war by accident. The functions of the vortex manipulator remained new to her, having only used it once before to teleport back to her shuttle from Talyn Darc's hotel room. Jenny hadn't known how long the Time Agent would remain unconscious. Her blow to his head had been hard, but not nearly as hard as it once might have been. She had a choice, after all, to resort to other methods aside from violence. But in this case, she doubted she had much of one if she wanted to travel in time.

Her father had given her a taste of what it was like to manipulate that wonderful vortex, having reunited with him and travelling together for a time. But by that point, Jenny had grown too independent and wanted adventures of her own. So with a hug and a kiss and a promise to keep in touch, she had him drop her off at her shuttle. It had been abandoned for months and yet, no time at all. At that point, Jenny knew she couldn't wait until her next run in with her dad to travel through time again.

Meet Talyn had been a fortunate accident, or not so much of one. She knew of Time Agents by this point, knew the sort of man to look for. Seducing him was easy. He barely had time to explore her now naked chest before she purposely knocked him hard against the bed headboard.

And then, she had to run before he woke up and discovered that she had succeeded in slipping off his wrist strap. She still loved the running.

A week later, Jenny found herself in the midst of a battle field filled with humans from what she could only discern to be from some period of Earthian history. Some war that involved spears and bows and arrows and swords and men in rigid formations, rather than the firearms she was so used to. Jenny had only been playing with the device, trying to determine if there was a way to remove the vortex manipulator from the wrist strap. She hadn't meant to actually go anywhere.

The humans, she shortly found out, were called Romans and this planet Jenny had thought was Earth wasn’t. But more than that, perhaps the most important part of it all, was that her father had arrived here too. But the Doctor was not as she had ever seen him before. His eyes lacked the sadness she had seen in them when he looked at her; he was shorter and rounder, and far antsier than she remembered. They met while running from the Romans, Jenny , her young father, and his two human companions.

She had so many questions for him once her identity had been confirmed. Jenny knew a situation was at hand, the soldier in her yearned to participate in al l the battles. The easily excited girl, however, wanted only to know about him and the adventure they had all wound up on. There wasn’t time, though. She had forgotten how much her dad loved to run and every time Jenny laughed in exhilaration, she earned a strange look from the humans.

It was that same human, that boy who looked more and more flustered every time he looked at her, that saved her life in a barn located within what the Doctor called “the American Civil War.” Not all of the soldiers here had primitive weapons. She didn’t waste time to make herself handy with an MP44 as Zoe and the Doctor investigated the TARDIS-like structure in the barn. She hadn’t seen the soldier pointing his rifle straight at her, not until Jamie tugged her to the ground. The bullet ricocheted off a hay stack as Jenny landed on top of the boy. She laughed, smiled at him, and even stole a quick kiss before getting back to her feet.

They were accidentally abandoned, yes, but no one had ever saved her life before. Suddenly, Jenny looked at Jamie McCrimmon in a whole new light.

It was a feeling that broke her hearts when the Doctor told her she had to leave. He needed to summon the Time Lords to deal with the War Lord and all he had done. Jenny wanted to stay. She wanted to help him and Zoe and meet others of her race. She didn’t want to leave Jamie.

But she had seen that look in her dad’s eyes before, a look that had come over him when she had been dying in his arms on Messaline. If she stayed, for some inexplicable reason, she’d be harm. He couldn’t win an argument with his companions but, perhaps, he could win one with his daughter.

Reluctantly, Jenny wrapped her arms around him and promised to return to her time and place. It was easy to say goodbye to Zoe. But when it came time to say goodbye to Jamie, Jenny froze.

“Come with me,” she uttered, looking at him with the utmost sincerity. Jenny stole a glance towards the Doctor, her blue eyes now begging. “Please, Dad? Please can Jamie come with me?”

He straightened his suit jacket uncomfortably and looked from daughter to friend. A look passed between the two men and the Doctor nodded.

“It’s… it’s been a pleasure, Doctor,” Jamie responded as he clapped the Doctor’s hand and shook firmly. “I’ll take good care of ‘er, I promise. And I- I won’t forget you.”

Jenny stepped back to give Jamie the privacy he deserved to make his goodbyes. Her hearts were beating rapidly and she felt more alive than she ever had running. Jamie was going to come with her. She’d have her own proper companion to travel with - finally - and she didn’t have to say goodbye to the boy who saved her life.

Not yet. Not, she hoped, for a very long time. She still had a whole lot of running to do. Jamie took her hand and smiled shyly at her. She reset the vortex manipulator on the wrist strap and nodded. She still had a whole lot of running to do and now she wouldn’t have to do it alone.

Do broken hearts ever completely heal?

She remembers reading once that the world ends not with a bang but with a whimper. For Jenny, her world ends with a death.

It happens fast, too fast, for her. They’re on Earth, of course, where else would they be for a crisis of these proportions to occur? Even with all of time and space at their fingertips, it always seems to be Earth.

Always, always, always.

Blasted League.

She holds him in her arms, vaguely aware of eight year old twins shouting for their father. It’s filed in the back of her mind, filed back with the war the soldier has just abandoned for the love of her life. He should just be collateral damage, even all these years later, that’s what a body in a field should be.

But he isn’t. He’s her husband, he’s the father of her children, he’s the man she absolutely loves without a doubt. Has loved for all these years. And he’s dying.

Not ready to say goodbye.

As the tears roll down her face, she presses a finger to Bart’s lips. He’s trying to talk, but each word is a struggle. Jenny presses her lips to his instead, sending a quiet message of love meant only for him.

Blasted Doomsday.

There are screams in her direction but she doesn’t hear them until the bullets hit. The world goes black as she falls on top of her husband’s corpse. But unlike him, she’ll wake up in Oliver Queen’s private clinic. Her hair will be black and her eyes a dark green, a body she’ll despise for years.

Because the world doesn’t end with a bang or a whimper.

It just ends.

---
Words: 279
Companion piece to this

Write a letter to someone you betrayed.

Dear Dad,

I really hope that you get this letter. He said that if I left it on Earth with Martha that she'd make sure you'd get it. I didn't realise he knew her, too, but that's okay. I got to go to Earth, finally! Even if it was only for five seconds to drop off this note at Martha's flat. Did you get it? Will you write me back? Please say you will, Dad. I've missed you and I have so much to tell you.

I don't even know if I'll have enough space on this sheet of paper!

Maybe, I think, the most important part is that I'm alive. I'm very much alive, in fact, and well on my way to becoming a Time Lord, well, Lady because I am female. I found a teacher and he's been really helpful so far. I've had lessons in piloting a TARDIS and what time is and the history of Gallifrey. And Earth, but that's mostly my idea because there seem to be so many humans out there. I like reading about the Greeks, so far, especially the Spartans and the Athenians. Then there are the other lessons, too. About pain and pleasure and how brilliant it is to be Gallifreyan.

I think I love him, Dad. I didn't know I was capable of loving someone like that until I met him. It's such a brilliant feeling. I'd do just about anything to please him, kind of like with you. But, um, it's different, too, because of... I don't really know how to explain it, actually.

There was also... there... please don't be made with me, Dad. I also killed a guard five days ago. Two, actually, and an impostor. It was the impostor trying to kill him, my teacher, and the other two got in the way and, well, I did feel bad. I felt absolutely horrible. But I saved his life and that's what counts in the end, isn't it? Saving the life of the man I love? I know you said killing infects you and that there are other ways but I swear to you, Dad, this time there wasn't. But it doesn't matter. They were just Trakenites and wouldn't even be around in a couple of decades, anyway.

The page is starting to run low in space and I have so much more to tell you. I miss you a lot and I can't wait till I can find you again! And when I do, I'll be a full and proper Time Lady and you'll be so proud.

Love you, Dad!
Jenny

It hurts to find out that what you wanted doesn't match what you dreamed it would be. -Randy K. Milholland

"What do you mean, you want me to go?"

"I believe the words I spoke were simple enough, señorita," the prime minister of Nuevao Nuevo Angeles repeated slowly, almost as if Jenny were a child that couldn't comprehend the matter at hand. "We are in no need of your assistance. It is both a waste of your time and ours."

Jenny shook her head. Her eyes were wide and incredulous and she stared at him as if he were more alien than a descendant from a long ago group of human pilgrims from the fabled Earth city of Los Angeles. He could have had three antennas, purple skin, and ten eyes and she couldn't have found him stranger.

"But you're enslaved! And by giant bug-eyed creatures, too! I'm going to rescue you - all of you," she added in quickly, trying her best to emphasize the fact that she didn't mean just the capital city. "Don't you want that?"

Wrinkles creased by the man's eyes as he smiled gently at her. He shook his head, then placed what was meant to be a comforting hand on Jenny's shoulder. She shrugged it off and continued to watch him with massive confusion.

It didn't make any sense. Dad had come to Messaline and ended a war within hours. Everyone had been grateful and Jenny had even glimpsed a statue of her father with a plaque reading 'A Man Who Never Would' as she had ran to the docking bay. And it had seemed brilliant, possibly even more than so.

That had been the moment she had decided to follow in his footsteps. She'd find planets of her own to save, civilisations to rescue, creatures to defeat and, more than that, she'd find a whole lot of running to do. Nuevo Nuevo Angeles had seemed perfect! Bug-eyed creatures, a whole civilisation enslaved for neary a hundred years, a perfect (and pretty!) planet to save.

So far, all Jenny had going for her was an awful lot of running from the Circadian guards that controlled the spaceport.

"I mean, why wouldn't you? You could be free to make your own mark on the universe, not just césped harvesters for the Circadians! This planet is beautiful. It can be so much more than fields, I'm sure!"

The prime minister shook his head again, this time regarding her with what Jenny thought looked like a sad sound. "It's all we know. And we are content to live that way. The Circadians are not bad masters."

"But-"

"No buts," he interrupted. "I speak on behalf of all the citizens of Nuevo Nuevo Angeles when I say your attempts to free us are unnecessary. You will not be able to spark a revolution here, nor will you be able to convince the Hive Mind Leader to leave us be. Perhaps there may be some other planet in some other corner of the galaxy that may like your assistance, but it is not for us."

Jenny felt the prickling of tears in her eyes as hope deflated within both of her hearts. This was supposed to have been perfect. She was going to save a planet just like her father. And instead, she found herself not being wanted.

It hurt. It hurt a whole horrible lot.

"I understand," she responded quietly, no longer meeting his eyes. He was strange. This whole planet was filled with strange people. And all she wanted to do now was leave and pretend that she had never failed without even starting. "Yeah, I do. No rescuing. Right."

As she turned away from the city, heading back to her shuttle without protest from anyone - human or Circadian alike - Jenny forced a small, grim smile on her face. Nuevo Nuevo Angeles may not have wanted her help but, well, it was only one of many, wasn't it?

She'd find a planet to rescue yet.

Ten reasons to stay.

She always went, she never stayed. Maybe it was because of her impatient nature or maybe it was something in her DNA. Maybe it was due to the example laid out before her: Dad hadn’t even bothered to see her good and buried. Or maybe it had more to do with an overwhelming curiosity to always see what lay in the furthest reaches of the universe.

For whatever the cause, Jenny had always possessed many reasons to go in her life, a lot of excuses, too: The atmosphere’s too thick, the temperature to hot. Too many people here, not enough there. Too backwards, too forwards, too strange. Not what I’m looking for, not what I want. Too much to see out there, too much to do. Absolutely no room to run here at all. What; I’m not a dwarf!

In all her life, though, there were only ever a handful of reasons to stay:

The second time she had found any semblance of an excuse to remain planet side for longer than a day, it had been within a small farming community on Arcadia IX that Jenny thought would make for an interesting visit. Instead, she had led a struggle against a rather nasty alien creature, some bug-eyed, two headed being from an unpronounceable planet to put an end to the enslavement the bugs had inflicted for centuries. Victory had been brilliant and surprisingly not all that costly – on Jenny’s side at least.

As she boarded her shuttle, not wanting to deal with the aftermath, Tobi, a small child she had befriended prior to the battle, begged her to stay.

Two days extra days was all he received.

The third and fourth times Jenny thought to stick around had been because of a boy. The first was a young, reckless Boeshanian Time Agent from the 51st century going by the name of Jazz who had a penchant for narrow escapes and a dark, brooding past. It had been infatuation at first site on Jenny’s part and for a few days full of travelling and shagging, she had thought about staying with him forever. It didn’t last and, five full days after Jazz had disappeared from the inside of her ship, she landed on Arcateen V and fell head over heels for the star poet Aristeides and his words.

That affair lasted a full seven days before restlessness overcame them both and she and Aristeides went their separate ways.

( Reason number five was the result of a chance encounter. )

The Escapist - Nightwish

For as long as Jenny had been alive, she had never been one to ignore a signal for help. It might not have been saying much; after all, she had only known life for four months now. But to Jenny, it meant something. It was a part of who she was, a part of who her father was: not human, like so many she encountered of same anatomical structure. Different. Other.

A Timelady.

A title and a species that meant the universe to her because it was the only thing she really knew aside from her inheritance. And even then, there was so little that Jenny felt she actually knew about her father's people. If it bothered her to no end, and of course it did, she never let it show. But there were some things Jenny was certain of. Being a Timelady meant having two hearts. It meant having a better lung capacity than most people. It meant living even when she had died and it meant knowing things that others didn't sometimes.

( And it meant saving any and all individuals in trouble. It’s what Dad did, after all. )


[ooc: much, much thanks to rude_not_ginger, eleventh_doctor, and clever_wanderer for the various help in putting together this response]

What did it feel the first time you fell in love?

She thought that falling in love would be like what Spoon said. That the world would look grey and muted without him around. That it would mean she’d know she could live without that other person but she wouldn’t want to. That she’d grow her hair out and agree to vegetarian pizza and all of that stuff. It was the best description she ever had of love, one that came straight from a living, breathing person rather than a book.

And, at the very least, it had made as much sense as anything else she had been told about human relationships. This was to say, it made very little sense at all.

The first time Jenny fell in love there was no bursts of colours and sounds. There wasn’t any decision that she could live with or without him, there wasn’t any declarations of sacrifice. There was only exhilaration, pure and simple.

It reminded Jenny very much of the first time she ran, following after her Dad and Donna in the narrow corridors of Messaline while General Cobb and his troops chased after them. The rush and the freedom and the adrenaline pumping through her veins: that was what running was. And it turned out, that was what love was, too.

( Love was their shared laughter as they ran together away from the face of danger. )