A/N: Yes, I know it's been a long time. So long, in fact, that I wasn't happy with the version of Chapter One that I had. I'm sure of this being the official version this time and I have Two done and Three's at least half-way done. So sorry for annoying you fans, but at least I know this version's going to last longer.

I'm also going to school for a BS, so my updates might be erratic, but I'm very confident that I'll keep plugging away. Hope you all understand.

"But ... "

"Hey, Jess? Do you think you can handle register for a few minutes?"

Absolutely not! My initial response never made it past the thought stage. It's just ten more minutes. You can do this, girl.

Pasting a smile on a face that had gone numb, I trudged back to the front, tucking a strand of my ever-escaping mouse brown hair back under the cap. I did not have the migraine of the century. I did not feel like I'd get sick at any second. Perfectly, fine, beach-blonde happy. Minus the blonde.

"Sure. Just tell me when to get out of here." Even my hushed voice became a pile driver with every syllable. I squinted at the midday sun that charged therough the windows. Even more incentive for me to leave as soon as possible.

Right. What could I do to keep from staring at that cursed sun for too long? I could almost hear my neck creak as I craned it around, scanning the lobby with bleary eyes. The soda cooler had gaps in it. I could manage a few bottles. Completely facing away from the front and the cold might actually help.

I should've known better than to think positive.

" ... up, Jack! Who hard can it be to ask a couple questions?" With a voice dripping Brittish, a brunette stormed inside.

Such a wave of irritated, gummy-bear-filled taste filled my mouth that I almost gagged. My stomach rolled, threatening to coat the tile floor then and there. "Can I help you, ma'am?" Somehow, I managed to form a sentence that didn't come out all mumbled. Reluctantly, I turned towards the sun.

The woman's face had drained of color. "No way. Jess, you're ... alive? Is this a joke?"

"Um ... you might have me confused with someone else, ma'am. I don't think we've met before. Have we?"

Please, please go away. Or buy a pizza. Or both. I could feel the walls closing around me. A blur started at the edges of my vision. Blackout for certain if I didn't lay down soon.

For several agonizing seconds, she stared at me. As if I were a ghost or other creature of the past. I didn't have the heart to snap her out of it. Or the energy, for that matter.

"Gwen!" A man burst through the door, blue coat flaring about him. Wide blue eyes met mine before so many scents and tastes assaulted me that I couldn't think. "Jess."

Taking a step back, I tried to push through the chaos that had invated my private inner circle. Tried. A loosing battle. "If you're asking if ... if I remember you, the answer is no. You must be thining of another Jessica." There, that should solve the issue.

Wrong again.

The man's face grew so pale that I felt a small inkling of pity for him. So sickly, I thought he'd faint before I did. He took a few steps towards me, a flash of a smile dancing across his face. It never met his eyes. "Come on, Jess, very funny. You said you'd recognize me." Desperation became a sticky-sour lime in my mouth.

"N ... no, sorry."

"Not even the Blitz? End of the universe? Big blue police box?" With every word, his fear intensified, pressing in on me as he closed the distance even more. Only a couple of feet separated us. He reached for me. "It's Jack, Jess. Jack Harkness. It's me."

I could barely swallow past the assault on my senses. How could he know me? Why wouldn't he let me be? I couldn't see past the screeching pain that had taken over my mind. Swallowing even more bile, I backed away. "I'm sorry, sir, but I don't know who you are or where you're from or what you're talking about. Do you want to order something, or do I have to get my manager to ask you to leave?"

"Jess ... please." Before I could react, he reached out and grabbed my hand.

An explosion ravaged my senses and so many immages rocketed along my arm and into my thoughts. It overwhelmed everything. I cried out, yanking my hand away. My stomach refused to listen to me any longer.

The store went by in a blur as I ran towards the bathroom. Didn't even turn on the lights as i plunged towards toilet. Sweat flushed across my skin as I lost the entire contents of my stomach. Every inch of me ached. Shook like I'd come down with a fever. I couldn't think, couldn't breathe.

After a long time, I just lay on the floor, curling into a ball, my ability to think snatched away from me by the maelstrom of the world. Too many people. Too many feelings. Too much! Too much!

" ... sure you're a doctor? You don't look like one." Sophie's pitchy voice raked its nails across my mind what seemed like years later.

"It's my day off."

"Well, whatever the case, I'm glad you came when you did. She hasn't come out for almost an hour and none of us want to move her in case ... well ... in case we make it worse. I'm really worried that something might be wrong with her. I mean, seriously wrong."

Three sets of feet pounded the floor, drawing closer every second. Pulverising what little of my sanity remained.

I whimpered, wrapping my arms around my head. As if that would help.

"See? We don't know what to do. She said we should call her parents first if this happened, but they're not answering their phone. I hope you can help, sir."

Just let me die, please.

Silence only graced me for a few seconds. "Doctor, what's wrong with her?" Breathed a new voice. Peach concern flooded the room. Thick and sticky. Tainted with sour minty curiosity. "Is she the reason the TARDIS went all ... sparky?"

"I'm afraid so. Rose, I need you to get everyone outside. Yourself included."

"What? Why?"

"She's an empath, Rose. A strong one who has no idea how to filter everything out. Your emotions are hurting her."

"But what about you?"

Too much peach-mint surrounded me. Far too much. I groaned, my stomach threatening to make another reappearance.

"I'll be fine. Now shoo. Ask about the family, something, just get out."

The silence that followed came as a shot of morphine. Peace and quiet. Enough to let me drown in the pain. A small bit of pressure eased as well, but not nearly enough to make a difference.

A large, warm hand rested on my shoulder.

I flinched away, another whimper escaping me. I couldn't take any more surges like that. Nothing happened. The man's hand carried no trace of him. As if he didn't exist. Almost against my better judgement, I felt myself relaxed into that touch.

"There we go," came a warm murmur. A far cry from the curt tone he'd used with his friend earlier. "Don't open your eyes. I need you to look at me. Can you do that?"

Swallowing down the fear of moving, I eased over onto my back. Nothing threatened to eject from my stomach again. I followed the sense of ... nothing ... and craned my head to the left. Toward what felt to be right.

"Very good. Wasn't so hard, now, was it?" Such warmth came from his tone that it felt as if I'd turned to face the sun. "Now, I'm really sorry about this. I truly am, but if we're going to have any chance of solving this, you're going to have to trust me. And I mean completely trust me." Those hands rested on either side of my head, supporting, yet comforting at the same time. "No no," he added as I peeled my mouth open to say something. "Don't talk. Just think that you trust me and I'll know."

Think it? Wait, did I really trust a stranger when I didn't even know what he looked like? What did he gain from me trusting him?

Well, what have you got to loose?

I forced the queasiness in my stomach down like it had become one of those gopher games. Concentrated on thinking what I'd been about to say. [All right, have at it. Nothing much more you can do to me, anyway. If you're implying you can read minds, that is. Which I seriously doubt.] I didn't expect such a ramble to pop out of the diseased mass that my brain had become. Didn't know I could focus enough to even think up one sentence.

A chuckle flowed over my skin like a balm from one of those sauna places. Just before I felt ... something ... change in my mind. It didn't have a definite name. Or an easy way to describe it. Like ... a footstep easing into my head. I shuddered; every part of me wanting that presence out.

No. I trusted him.

Clenching my jaw, I shoved the urge to kick it out to the curb. Let him do whatever he planned on doing. Still didn't think he could do anything worthwhile.

Between one moment and the next, all the chaos around me simply vanished. Just gone. As if it never existed. I gasped, coming up for air. I'd been drowning among the sea of every one else.

"No no. Not yet," the strange man protested. "Still have some work to do, just not here. Keep your eyes closed a bit longer." A high-pitched, whirring noise filled the room, but didn't savage my mind.

"Take your time. I'm not going anywhere."

An even stranger, louder noise surrounded us. Like something alive wheezing for breath. Within seconds, the cold tile had morphed into some sort of warm metal digging into my back. How on earth could the floor change? A scowl found its way onto my brow. Now I had to see what was happening.

Peeling my eyes open a fraction, I didn't see much of anything. Just a golden glow and a dark shape in front of me.

"Oi, what did I say about keeping your eyes closed?" The shape moved closer, hands taking my head in those hands again. "Is it just me or are you Amearicans more stubborn than most?"

"Only when they want to know what's going on," I retorted, feeling more like myself the longer the silence in my head continued. Only then did I realize that he had a rather thick accent. Just a day for Brits, then. Information to file away, adding to my list of things that didn't make sense. Or were just plain weird. "Seriously, what did you do to my head? How did you do it? How did you even know what ..."

A finger placed on my lips silenced me as good as a rag in my mouth. "Shush. You'll have to shut it if you want me to finish."

"But finish what?"

"Oi!"

"Oh fine. I've got a thousand and one questions for you, though." With a reluctant sigh, I clenched my eyes shut. Sealing the unknown away yet again. Enough to send my curiosity to heights that set a fire under my skin. He hadn't done anything to misuse my trust yet.

Once again, more footsteps entered my mind, but I'd already resolved to let him in. A niggling sensation dangled in front of my senses like a worm on a hook. Curious, I tried to rach for it, as crazy as it felt. I'd barely interacted with it - brushed, or grasped, I didn't know how to describe it - when such a glow errupted in my mind that I flinched away from it. Okay, big no. Something I shouldn't touch.

"And ... there we go." Something clicked in my mind. Like a wall sliding into place. The hands dissapeared. "All set. You can look now."

Feeling more sane than I'd ever had in my whole life, I snapped my eyes open. Got confronted by a shaved head, brown eyes, and big ears. Leather jacket and pants, too, all black. "Well, Doctor, you certainly don't lack for a sense of fashion. Could be worse."

His eyebrow shot up and he jerked away. "What?"

"What?" Alarm thudded in my chest. How did I know to call him that? "Well ... I heard your friend call you that, so ... what, that's just something only she can call you? What do I call you? What did you do to my head?"

"Woah, hold on, there. One question at a time." The man - or the Doctor, since he hadn't objected to me calling him that - stood and backed away, but didn't offer a hand. A void still existed around him. Though if that was on purpose or a result of what he did to me, I couldn't be sure. "All I did was put up some barriers you should've had in the first place. They'll last for a few years, but they'll degrade. By then you should be able to get the hang of keeping your own up."

My response never made it out of my mouth. As I rolled to my feet, the enormity of the new space we were in hit me. At least six times the size of the bathroom. Y-shaped collums formed a ring around a platform with a central console that had a clear colum in the center. Round lights covered the walls. A thrumming filled the air. Like a heartbeat.

"Okay ..." Now my head hurt for entirely different reasons. "So you've sealed up my mind like Fort Knox. Right. I'm not going to ask how you can do that since I feel that it'll be really complicated. Or you just won't tell me. Either one." Running my hand through the rats nest that had once been my hair, I gaped at the enormity of the place. "So ... where are we?"

The Doctor made a face. Part wince, part annoyance, though I had to guess at that. "Long story. You're not sticking around long enough to find out. Now, where's home for you?"

"But how ..."

Though he'd started running around the console of gadgets like a chicken with its head cut off, the Doctor had enough time to pause and glare at me. "You're right; too complicated and no, I'm not going to tell you. Your parents can do that after I've had a word with them. Why they let you go so long without barriers is completely beyond me."

"My ..." He thought my parents should've taught me? "But ... my parents are just normal. They're not my birth parents, anyway, so ... whatever's wrong with me didn't come from them."

"What?" Confusion sent the Doctor's face into a mass of frowns and scrunches. He shot upright like I'd given him a burst of adrenaline. "Are you sure?"

I shrugged, a faint blush starting to burn my cheeks in patches. "Pretty sure. But how can I be like this? There's no such thing as empaths, right?"

"Not for a couple thousand years anyway," the Doctor muttered, returning to his console. "Home, now."

I frowned. Though I could no longer sense what he felt, the Doctor's evasiveness gave away that he knew a lot more than he admitted. How else would he know how to enter my mind like that? "Look, Doctor, I don't know why you helped me or how you did what you did, but I need to know: will ... will that ever happen again? The migraine?" The memory of it caused my hands to clench and open.

Never, never did I want to go through that in my lifetime.

Only then did the Doctor stop long enough to come closer to me. Such an intense look entered his eyes, that I found myself trying to catch my breath. Add to the fact that he stood head and shoulders taller than me, he made a very imposing figure. Yet he didn't scare me. "No. Not if you keep those barriers up. So, again, since you seem a bit thick, where's home?"

"Thick?" Without thinking, following the first instinct that came to mind, I raised my hand and gave the Doctor my best smack on the back of his head.

"Ow! What was that for?"

"Being rude." I crossed my arms and glared at him. "Wherever we are now, I think it would be best if you just dropped me off behind work." Talking about dropping me off like encountering someone who could transport me places happened every day. Freak out later. Freak out over the fact he might be an alien later. "I still have a shift to finish and if I just show up at home, then that'll raise more problems than solve them. I don't think you want problems, do you?"

The Doctor stared at me, expression dead-pan. I stared right back, determined not to let him win."Oh fine, have it your way." He stalked back to the console, flicking switches and odd-knobs. The whole room jerked back and forth. I had to grip a railing to keep from falling over, but the Doctor kept his balance. As soon as a bone-jarring yank rocked the place, he gestured towards the doors. "There, almost exactly where we left. Happy now?"

I grinned at him. "Very. Thank you. At least the alien's got manners."

"Who said I was an alien?"

Raising my eyebrow, I jst stared at him.

"Right. Off you go. Try not to get into any trouble. Won't be seeing me again."

"If you keep that attitude, then I'm happy to leave you." Though I kept the sharpness in my words as I headed to the doors, I felt a grin trying to wiggle its way onto my face. I'd never bantered like that with a complete stranger, let alone with someone who could enter my mind and could possibly be an alien. Resting my hand on the door, though, I turned with a serious expression. "Seriously though, Mr. Doctor. Thank you. I don't know if I could've gone on longer if you hadn't shown up. I owe you a thousand times over."

I stepped out into the sunshine, sighing in its warmth. I didn't have to worry about it hurting anymore.

"Doctor! Wait up!" I had just enough time to see a flash of a pink sweater and blonde hair fly by before the doors creaked shut again.

The urge to see what his ship looked like became overwhelming. I spun on my heel as the wheezing sound returned ... and could've sworn that my jaw hit the floor. A small, blue box faded in and out until it finally dwindled away. A blue box! Just like ...

"You need to be quite the person to keep up with him."

Yelping, I whirled around, coming face-to-face with the man named Jack. "Jeez, warn someone when you're standing behind them next time," I grouched, eyeing him warily. I could still remember the storm that touching him had caused. "What do you want?"

Such a far-away glaze had entered his eyes, I didn't know if he heard me. "Gotta be fast and good good at running. Always running." Blinking, he seemed to refocus on me. A smile that spoke of fond memories and incredible sadness transformed him into someone a hundred years older than he appeared. "Of all the places to end up, I never thought I'd see you at the beginning. And I mean the very beginning."

"I said I don't know you."

"I know, I know." Jack winced, running a hand through his hair. "That's my fault, I'm sorry. Tried out a new function on this thing and I guess ... I guess I was thinking about you a little too much. Messed up our jump." He gestured to a device strapped on his wrist.

Goosebumps rippled up and down my arms. I narrowed my eyes. "Okay ... so the Doctor's got a spaceship ... thing. You say you know me already even though I know for a fact I've never seen you before in my life. Are you an alien too?" Two aliens in one day. Almost too much for me to handle. Major mind-blow the instant I get home.

That drew a laugh from him. "No way. One-hundred percent human, I promise." He took a couple steps closer, but stopped when I took a half-step backwards. "I'm sorry, Jess. About the brainstorm. I should've seen the signs. Teach me for going all sentimental, huh?"

Thankfully, I couldn't feel what had to have been a torrent of emotion rolling from him. Even so, I could almost feel his regret tingling along my skin. What I saw in his eyes ate at my concience. I couldn't stay mad at a guy who seemed about ready to jump off the cliff. I just ... couldn't. With a heavy sigh, I rested a hand on his arm. Briefly. Not long enough to seem over-familiar.

"Hey, it was a mistake. Can't blame you for doing that based off something I haven't done yet. If I'm making any sense."

My hand had the same effect as if I'd electrocuted him. Jack's head snapped up and I could hear him catch his breath. A flash of deep emotion crossed his eyes, but it vanished before I could think of a name. "You are, actually. So the Doc gave you some barriers. That helps more than you think. Now I know when you are." This time, he took the initiative and stepped back.

"You have no idea how creepy this is." I smiled. Act natural. He hadn't given me the creeps yet. Well, beyond the normal, expected ones. "So, if I'm getting the lingo right, we know each other sometime in the future, but I wasn't supposed to be meeting you now?"

"Close. I can't tell you much without having you show up and punch me, but ... yeah. This was a mistake. Though I wouldn't put it past you to just not tell me about this." A quirky smile pulled his face out of the frown it seemed to have sunk into.

I felt a smile of my own ease to the surface. "Sounds like something I'd do."

"Exactly. Long story cut incredibly short, I'm a time traveler. Well ... part time. Anyway, we don't meet in the right order sometimes, so if we see each other again, I might not be the same me. It's best to check and see where we are before doing anything."

"Wait, what makes you think we'll see each other again?"

Jack's grin could've lit up the entire city. "Now that's telling. Spoilers, as a friend might say." A hand reached up before he could stop it. "Uh, may I? You can punch me if it makes you feel better."

My throat filled with all sorts of emotions, all of them my own. How could I deny a look that desperate? Why did I feel so comfortable around a complete stranger? Did he say he traveled in time? That we knew each other in the future? So the Doctor might be an alien, Jack time-traveled, I learned that I was an empath. Talk about one mess of a day.

Absently, I nodded. There didn't seem much more he could do that would surprise me.

Jack's finger's threaded themselves in my thick hair and tugged. Gently, a thousand and one emotions screaming on his face. The whistful smirk that appeared carried so many memories. Perhaps he'd done the gesture before. Perhaps he really did know me.

After several seconds, I grew uncomfortable enough.

Jack cleared his throat, dropping his hand. "Ah, thank you. I ... ow!" He yelped as my palm smacked the side of his face. Shock widened his eyes and made him slack-jawed as he held a hand to the spot. "What was that for?"

My first response finally made it out of my mouth. "I don't know. Seemed like the right thing to do. Your face is too pretty anyway."

Jack's chuckle followed me all the way inside.