"And maybe this is why when Pandora opened the box that carried such calamities which inflicted all of mankind, gentle hope emerged too."
- an excerpt of Nikita Gill's poem "Where Hope Comes From"
or in which
the timechild is saved and finds the...
three: Captain Jack Harkness and the Runaway Horse
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Cardiff, Wales 1868
Taking air in the park was by far the best way to gossip with your friends without parents, or adoptive parents, listening in. Annabeth was Pandora's closest friend, with fiery red hair and green eyes that almost matched Pandora's own, the horses that they were mounted on weren't their usual steeds, Pandora's horse was being used by a friend of her father, leaving her to ride one of Annabeth's horses, a spooky thoroughbred only off the track for a year. Annabeth would often joke the horse, Dynamite, was afraid of life.
"Then my little sister Penny, says with the straightest face to her governess." Annabeth laughed wholeheartedly, "Then why are you having biscuits, you are already big at the waist!" Pandora's eyes widened. "Goodness, I bet that got her a wallop to the side of the head after," Annabeth laughed again, "I wouldn't know, I was practically dying of laughter." The women reached the top of the hill in their local park, having two options for getting back down, and much to Annabeth's dismay she knew which way Pandora would insist on going down.
Pandora turned on the area thick with trees. "First one down wins!" Starting, Pandora made the transition between trotting to cantering easily, dodging trees, and almost striking a couple as she ran down, basking in adrenaline as she rode.
At this moment, just a second fleeting with one thought as her horse lept into the air, kicking, screeching, and finally bolting pulling out from under her, it was only one thought as her body hit the exposed roots of a willow tree. It's just a rabbit. Horses are as big as they are, and yet one rabbit moves in the brush, and it's all over for the horse, and more important to note for its rider.
Everything hurt on Pandora's body, the skin scrapes that decorated her face and arms, the bruised spine, and the blood seeping down from her hairline. A pounding headache pounded from behind her eyes. Her eyes fluttered closed, just for a minute.
***
Captain Jack Harkness was very rarely seen sober since his Vortex Manipulator failed in the time aspect of his jump requests landing time almost two hundred years before the time he had been aiming for. Though on this morning he was decently dressed for the time and doing something proper for once in his life, promenading with the beautiful eligible women of Cardiff.
It wasn't hard to miss a fully tacked-up horse running full speed out of the woods, without a rider. Jack promptly turned to the woman he was with. "If you'll excuse me I think I see someone I know," He bowed before speedwalking toward where the horse had come from. It had to have been a mile into those trees that he finally saw her, a girl wounded from falling from the horse.
Jack Harkness knelt to touch her, to check for a pulse or any sign of life, when at his touch her skin began to glow a brilliant golden shining in the shade of the trees. "Oh my god." He whispered, moving to cradle the girl in his arms as even her blood began to glow a steady flow of brilliant gold. "You are not human, that part is evident, he noted the silver locket around her neck with circles engraved on the front, he almost had opened it, when the girl gasped, sitting up and nearly hitting Jack Harkness with her head. She looked at him like he was crazy as she pulled out of his arms aggressively.
"Who the bloody hell are you?" she asked, scampering to her feet. "Captain Jack Harkness. Nice to meet you.." His accent was odd. Pandora pulled a face at him. "Miss Pandora Fletcher." He smirked at her curtsy she did short, quick, and dare he say a little bit sassy. "So Ms. Fletcher did you know that you glow golden energy when you are injured, particularly when you are unconcious?" He asked as she looked at him like he had grown a second head, which in his world wouldn't have been as crazy of a thought as it would be for Pandora.
"What? Don't be ridiculous." At her sound of disbelief he reached for her hand, pulling out a small folding knife he sliced through her palm.
She cried out in pain pulling her hand from Jacks abruptly. "Look, Ms. Fletcher." He spoke. Pandora looked down at her hand again, seeing the golden energy working to stitch her skin back together as if nothing happened.
Pandora turned her green eyes to the man who watched her skin with a wondering look. Pandora pulled her hand to her check backing away from the man. "You didn't see anything." She spoke backing away before turning to quickly make haste in the direction the horse she had been riding had taken off.
"Pandora.. Miss Fletcher, I know this will sound crazy but I can help, help you understand. Please just let me show you what I'm talking about.
The sixteen year old stopped her trek turning and gesturing for him to go ahead. The man quickly took the blade he had sliced her with and cut his own hand, and like her it closed up sealing itself back into his body, though his healing ability didn't make his insides glow with a golden light.
"Would you like to come to a tea room and talk about it?" Jack asked. Her green eyes watched him carefully, "Okay."
***
"What do you mean, you can't die?" She asked her voice a whisper as she poured a cup of tea for each of them.
"I can't die, just like your wounds heal like there never was a wound to being with, mine goes a little farther." Jack explained, placing sugar cubes in his teacup.
"Have you almost died before?" She asked. He nodded, "I've been shot in the head before and I got up and walked away from it with a headache, but walked away nonetheless."
"What happened that made you like this, and what's wrong with me."
Jack sighed, "I was with a friend and his companion, he has a spacecraft which feeds on the time rift that runs through Cardiff. When I was last with him, I was killed, but the companion, Rose, had looked into the time vortex, and saved me. I was left by them, so I came to Cardiff to catch him the next time he comes to refuel." Pandora oddly enough understood most of what the man out of time had been saying, though that confused her even more.
"As for you I bet your an Alien, someone not of this world, or at the very least you were exposed to something. What do you know about your parents?" Pandora looked at him with a reluctance to speak. "I'm adopted, I have amnesia, I can't remember anything from before I was 14 years old which is when I was found in a park, unconscious. Abigail and Gabriel Fletcher adopted me last year."
Jack Harkness could recognize a part of himself in Pandora, the confusion and the fear of the unknown. "I think we ought to be good friends now with this information." Jack smiled pleased with himself.
