Say My Name
Summary: Jenny takes off from Messaline and finds herself in an unsavory place with a familiar face.
Note: This is a one shot for now but if people seem interested I might add more later. I’m working on other stuff though so marking it as complete for now. I wrote this on my phone while half asleep please excuse any errors.
Say My Name
When Jenny took her first breath — her first deep breath full of the shining gold of regeneration — it was one filled with knowledge.
Her father had left her, thinking her gone, and she understood why, understood his pain. Because the machine that birthed her took something else from him that it wasn’t meant to take. In the wake of her regeneration she had gained no small amount of knowledge as well. His memories echoed in her mind, etched faintly into her consciousness. She couldn’t see everything, but there were bits and pieces she could remember. Rose. Susan. Romana. Sarah Jane. Tegan. There were names she recognized but couldn’t put to a face. And then faces with no names. Who was the teenaged girl with the baseball bat? And then there was the one who was both enemy and friend, the master.
Jenny knew that she needed to find her father again. He was the only family she had, the only person like her, and the need for adventure was in her blood now. And she knew that above all he was alone. They were alone, the last of the time lords. They needed each other. And he would never come back there, thinking she had died. So she emulated her dear old dad, and she stole a ship and ran away. It was a big universe, but she knew he had a habit of lurking around Earth in the 20th and 21st centuries so all she had to do was find herself some time travel and make her way there too. How hard could it be?
—
Jenny soon found out that it could be very hard. Six hours after she left Messaline her ship had run out of fuel. She was the Doctor’s daughter, and had hundreds of years of his memories in her head, and so she made due, but it still stalled her plans as she was dead in space until a friendly craft came her way and towed her to the nearest way station. It was then that Jenny guiltily realized that she had in fact stolen the ship, had no legal claim to it, had no money, and had no identification claiming that she was in fact even a person. Given that the planet she had landed on had a ban on cloning and progenation Jenny had landed herself in a sticky situation indeed.
—
“You look like someone who regrets a significant amount of their life decisions and is scheming to get out of here.”
It was the first thing that Jenny’s cell mate said to her after she was shown in. The other woman was slightly taller than her, though that may have been the what Jenny considered impractical heeled shoes. She was wearing red pantsuit that Jenny could not help but notice both complimented her figure well and was very well kept for someone who was imprisoned. Forcing herself not to get distracted by the woman’s warm brown eyes, Jenny refocused on her words.
“I suppose you could say that. I’m not exactly keen to stay here, no. I am not exactly considered a person, apparently.” Jenny replied bitterly.
“Ah. So you’re a clone too, then?” The woman asked, eying Jenny up and down.
“Progenation machine, technically. My… father gave his DNA and I was created. I have a handful of his memories but I’m not actually him. You’re a clone?” Jenny asked curiously. She was doing her best to keep eye contact and stay engaged in the conversation, though she also scanned the cell with her eyes to see if there were any listening devices, not that she really thought they would be visible if they were there.
“No, which is why this is all very annoying.” The other woman sniffed.
“Then why…?”
“I was split apart. My consciousness was flung into a million pieces and I was reborn across the universe into several different places and times, always growing into the same form no matter who my biological parents are. At some point in the journey each of the pieces of myself regain the memories of my original self. All of us are… fragments you could say.” The woman explained.
Jenny cocked her head to the side curiously. “You don’t look like a fragment of a person.” As soon as she said it Jenny realized how it sounded and winced. “I mean…”
“It’s okay.” The woman laughed. “I am solid, I am a person, that’s why I’m annoyed. I’m just as real as anyone. But because I’m not the original, because their stupid ‘is this person a clone’ tests register me as less than I don’t get to be real.” She was clearly defensive, with her arms crossed, though she did so lightly, as though it were an old argument that she was trying to not let bother her anymore.
“Well you’re real to me. ” Jenny said firmly, placing a comforting hand on the other woman’s shoulder, though she quickly removed it after realizing she had not asked permission to touch her.
Jenny stepped away and cleared her throat. “Seeing as how I’m a fellow prisoner that may not mean much, but I bet between the two of us we could probably make it out of here, and find a place where we can be real people together.”
“Are you proposing that we break out of prison and run away together?” The woman smirked, a glint in her eye. She stepped closer into Jenny’s personal space, and Jenny swallowed not uncomfortably before clearing her throat again.
“You said it yourself. I’m scheming to get out of here. Though I don’t know that I regret getting stuck here if it means getting to have met you in the process.” Jenny replied with what she hoped was a confident tone.
“That would be a much smoother pickup line if you had asked me my name already.” Jenny blushed heavily at the woman’s teasing, and muttered indistinctly about not having meant her response to be a pickup line.
“My name is Oswin,” the woman laughed again. “But my friends call me Oz.”
“Are we friends now?” Jenny asked, smiling in relief that she had not messed up this social interaction too badly.
Oz came closer and breathed into Jenny’s ear.
“If you tell me your name and help me get out of here I’ll be anything you like.”
—
Jenny did not know what to make of Oz. She had never met anyone like her before, but then again, she had not actually met that many people before. She had only been a person for… a week at this point? Even with her father’s memories that did not make up for lived experience.
Oz made her feel things and she did not understand them. What she did understand and did feel comfortable doing was leading a rebellion and breaking a bunch of innocent people out of prison.
If she and Oz stole a ship—one that she made triple sure had fuel this time—well that was neither here nor there.
—
Oswin Oswald did not often feel guilty. Guilt was not an emotion that she gave herself the ability to feel very often because she preferred to simply move on and move past things that would cause it.
Yet she did find herself feeling guilty about the way that she had treated her initial interactions with Jenny. The girl was only a few days old, and had been abandoned by the only family she had. The last thing she needed was to be flirted with the way that Oz had been doing.
So she scaled it back. She kept things friendly, and she and Jenny became companions of a sort that Oz hadn’t had in years. She didn’t know that she had ever had a friend like Jenny. The two of them just clicked.
The two of them traveled together for first one year, then two, then the next thing she knew it had been five and Oz was confused . Because she remembered being Clara. She remembered it all. And she knew that one day she would meet the Doctor. One day she would fulfill her purpose as a fragment and die.
And she hadn’t told Jenny. In all the years they had known each other that was the big secret between them.
She knew that Jenny was hiding a secret too. And yet Oz had a sneaking suspicion—a dread that she knew what it was. Jenny had never spoken of her father by name, but Oz was almost certain from her description that this mysterious man that Jenny wanted to be reunited with was the Doctor. And so with all likelihood, the day that Jenny met her father again… would be the day that Oswin died.
I apologize that it is not more explicit with their relationship but also Jenny is only a few days old at first what did you expect. If I write more the ship will be more explored but also I don’t know if anyone will even like this lol.