I recently started to watch Buffy and Angel and to be honest, I seriously dislike what happened towards the end of season three of Angel. For me, the show goes completely downhill from there. The Groosalugg was nothing but a cheap ploy, the old trope of introducing an old or new love interest to stall the will-they-won't-they relationship between two of the main characters. Connor being kidnapped was just the old trope of somehow aging a baby into an older character that would actually function as a story-driving character and not just as a plot device. And the entire ascension thing and the subsequent Jasmine storyline just felt like a punishment for Charisma Carpenter for daring to get pregnant. To add to that, the entire development of the Buffy/Angel-relationship from here on out (Angel moaning Buffy's name when he loses his soul in "Awakening", the kiss and talk in "Chosen" and his proclamation of forever love in "The Girl in Question") and the fact that Whedon didn't even want Carpenter back for the 100th episode and instead wanted Buffy to play Cordelia's part in "You're Welcome", tells me that he simply wanted to rub it in even further.
Enough of the rambling. I started to wonder how to fix this. I wrote out several story ideas, a lot of them turning into crossovers with Doctor Who. Some directly, some indirectly. The Last Great Time War or the War (War in Heaven) often found their way in as an explanation for the alteration of the timeline or why I'd ignore the comics and so on and so forth. In the end I settled on finding one moment, just one, to alter that would change everything. This idea led to this story. I hope that people will like it.
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters of the shows Angel or Doctor Who. The rights of these characters belong to Joss Whedon, WarnerBros. and the BBC respectively.
It was late in the day, the sun had already set on Los Angeles and the creatures of the night were slowly creeping out of the holes in which they hide away during the day. In recent years the general public had first become aware of their existence and then slowly forgot about them again. The Groosalugg was still aware of their presence. But right now he didn't care for it, even though he stood at one of their favourite hiding places – a graveyard. Normally he wouldn't be here, but he felt the need to pay his respects to the woman he had loved, even though she had not loved him back. Or at least not in the way he had wanted her.
Visiting Cordelia's grave was not an easy decision for him. Their break-up still was fresh in his mind, even though it had been nearly fifteen years at this point. It had taken him years to come to terms with something he had suspected from the moment he had come here in the first place – his princess had been in love with somebody else. And the more time he had spent around her the more he became aware of who this other person was – Angel. The vampire with a soul who himself had also been in love with her but had not been brave enough to tell her and had rather let her go away with another man, hoping that she'd find happiness, than have her suffer under his curse.
This vampire was currently kneeling at the grave of Cordelia, having laid down flowers and whispering to her gravestone. Groo didn't hear what he was saying, since he was standing several feet back, watching Angel from a distance, but he was sure that it was apologises for failing her, for trying to move on and failing at that as well. Groo had heard of Angel and the Slayer Buffy trying to have a relationship once more but that it didn't work out. Seeing Angel like this told Groo that it was Angel's love for Cordelia that had stood between them. It was ironic, the half-demon mused. Cordelia's love for Angel had stood between him and her and Angel's love for Buffy had blinded Cordelia for Angel's love for her until it was too late. This world's author Steven King had been right, there was no such thing as a happy ending, Groo thought.
Groo, unlike Angel, had managed to move on after several years of searching. He had found a woman he could love and who loved him back when he had gone looking for a mad sorcerer in central Africa. But after a couple of years spent together she had died of an incurable illness. Now he was back in Los Angeles, the place he had first come to when coming to this world. It had taken him a couple of day to bring up the courage to go visit Cordelia's grave and now he couldn't even go near it because of Angel. It wasn't that he was afraid of the vampire's reaction but he didn't want to disturb him.
"I'm sorry," Groo said in a whisper to no one in particular. He didn't even knew who he meant. Himself? Gugu, his late mate? Cordelia? Or maybe even Angel? It didn't really matter he decided. There was nothing he could do to help any of the others or himself. And it wasn't like Gugu could hear him. Maybe Angel could due to his vampire hearing, but he was so focused on the grave that he probably didn't. Groo wondered, not for the first time, if Cordelia could see or hear him. He knew that she was a higher being now, so maybe she could. He hoped she could and would but he also wondered if she would bother and not just spent her time on the higher planes to watch over Angel and Connor – her family. The family she did already had when he had come back to her, just prior to it all falling apart.
"I wish I could have done something to help you, my princess," he said as he walked away from the grave, completely aware that he looked like an insane person talking to himself. "I still ask myself if I could have saved you or at the very least helped you if I hadn't left or returned here sooner. Maybe I could have gotten rid of this higher being in you before it did this to you."
"You couldn't have," answered a voice form behind him with a slight accent, that Groo by now recognised as Scottish.
The half-demon turned around and spotted a man he had not seen in many years. He was rather small with dark brown hair and piercing dark eyes, on his arm he had an umbrella, which handle was formed like a question mark, a motif also found on his sweater, over which he wore a dark brown jacket and in addition to that he had a lighter coloured hat on. "Doctor," Groo said in a small whisper.
"Groosalugg," the Doctor greeted back, taking off his hat. "My condolences."
"Thank you," Groo replied, slightly bowing and wondering whom the Doctor meant – Cordelia or Gugu. A question he suddenly asked out loud.
The Doctor smiled sadly. "Both, but I'm here to talk about Cordelia."
Groo nodded solemnly. "Why? She has been dead since thirteen years by now."
"I'd say that her life had been over since about fifteen years," the Doctor told him mysteriously.
Groo swallowed hard on a lump that he suddenly found in his throat. "What," he asked.
The Doctor smiled a dangerous smile. "Come, walk with me," he offered and then wandered off.
Groo looked after him and then at the graveyard's entrance, back into the direction of the graveyard, which he couldn't make out any longer, then at the Doctor again. Sighing he decided to follow the strange man. They had met during the uprising in Pylea. The Doctor had negotiated a peaceful transition of power, allowing Groo and other people in power to remain unscathed. Afterwards he had tried to convince Groo to stay and to help his people, find his place in this new society. When Groo had declined he had offered him to travel with him, promising him that he could take him wherever he wanted to go. Groo had also declined this offer, wanting nothing more than to get to Cordelia. Now he was wondering if he had done the right thing or if he had robbed Cordelia of precious weeks with her family before it all went to hell.
Groo followed the Doctor to a small pond nearby. They stood there in silence until suddenly the Doctor picked up a small stone and threw it into the water. "Did you see that," he asked Groo.
"You threw a stone," answered the former regent, wondering what the Doctor wanted from him.
"Yes, and did you see what it did to the water," the Doctor asked. Groo simply frowned, causing the Doctor to pick up another stone. "Look," he told him before throwing it into the water.
"It causes small waves," Groo replied, not knowing where the little man was going with this. Everybody knew how water reacted when you threw something into it.
"Yes," the Doctor exclaimed delighted. "It causes ripples. Small ripples, that do not have a great effect, not for us at least. But sometimes even a small stone can create a ripple that will have big effects. Sometimes people call it the butterfly effect."
"Butterfly effect?"
"A butterfly here can swing its wings and it can create a hurricane at the other side of the world."
Groo continued to frown. "I doubt that this is possible."
The Doctor chuckled. "Not directly, no. But a small ripple can create another one and that another. It's what we call the Ripple Effect."
"Ripple Effect?"
"One small change of action can lead to a widely different outcome of things. As an example, the numbers one and two are very close. In a normal mathematical equation that you'd learn in elementary school, there often isn't much of a difference in outcome if you accidentally choose the wrong one as your variable. But the more complex the equation becomes, the least you'd think one wrong variable could throw it off, but the opposite is the truth. Use the wrong variable at one point, just one, and everything can be thrown of course. Even in something as relatively simply as the construction of a building. A false variable at one point of the construction could lead to a worse outcome in case of an accident or might even cause one itself."
Groo nodded slowly, beginning to understand. "You are saying that one small action can lead to a big change in outcome," he said.
"Precisely."
The two continued to stand there, staring out onto the pond. "But why are you telling me this?"
"You asked the question yourself," the Doctor replied.
Groo frowned again, not liking these mind games.
"You asked yourself if there could have been something you could have done, that would have saved Cordelia," the Doctor explained.
"And you told me that there wasn't," Groo replied.
The Doctor sighed. "That is not what I said."
"But..."
"You couldn't have changed this outcome of things by doing what you believe you could've done," the Doctor explained.
"Then what could I've done," Groo asked desperately.
"What I told you to do back on Pylea."
"You mean stay there or travel with you? Not coming here?"
The Doctor nodded.
"How would that have helped Cordelia," Groo wanted to know.
"You know what happened to her."
"Of course I do," Groo responded, anger and sadness in his voice.
"Very well then, do you think you staying would've prevented Cordelia from ascending or Jasmine from breaking free once she descended?"
Groo thought about it for a moment before denying it.
"Why did you leave her?"
"Because she loved Angel, not me."
"Now, if she and Angel had been in a relationship, do you think that would have made it more or less likely for her to ascend?"
Groo thought about and turned the idea over in his head. In the end he had to come to one conclusion; "Less likely."
The Doctor nodded. "Okay, and if Connor had still been a baby and not a teenager, to whom she was still the primary female caregiver, his mother you might say, would that lower the chances of her ascending even more?"
"Probably," Groo answered, confused what Connor's abduction had to do with this or with him.
"If you and Cordelia had not gone to Mexico together and she would have been there while Wolfram & Hart manipulated everything so that it seemed to dear Wesley that his false prophecy was coming true, do you think it likely that she would have picked up on Angel's change in behaviour?"
"Definitely."
"And do you also think that without Cordelia being in a relationship with another man, the others wouldn't have been so easy to write off Angel's mood swings to jealousy?"
Groo didn't want to answer that one but he still nodded.
"You see, you staying on Pylea or simply not coming to Los Angeles to seek her out, could have prevented the very event that caused her to die," the Doctor said.
Groo looked out on the pond. Guilt running through him. "I killed her," he suddenly said.
"No, you didn't. Jasmine did. If you want to blame somebody who contributed to it, blame the Powers. But do not blame yourself, Groosalugg. You did nothing wrong personally," the Doctor assured him.
"But why are you telling me this," he asked the smaller man.
The Doctor sighed. "A storm's approaching in my future. I can't see the details very clearly yet, all I know that I still have a few centuries myself until it happens but I don't know how long I'll actually have," he admitted.
"What kind of storm," Groo asked, looking at the Doctor, who suddenly looked older than before. Groo had seen into the eyes of the Doctor back in Pylea, and he had seen that they were ancient, more ancient than his body. But now his body looked ancient as well.
The visitor sighed again. "A war, the War as my people call it. A war we only know is going to happen, not when, not whom we are going to fight, not how it will end, just that it will happen and that it'll throw the universe, our universe, and potentially other universes into chaos."
Groo didn't know what to say. "Your people," was all he managed to get out.
The Doctor nodded and looked up to the night sky. "You can't see it now, its light is too weak and the lights of the city too bright, but up there," he used his umbrella to point to the night's sky, "you sometimes can see a little star. It's so old and far away that it's starting to fade. There's a planet there that supports humanoid life, just like this one does. In my universe, a parallel version of this one, the people there, the Gallifreyans, rose up against the Pynthia ruling us. One of the leaders of the rebellion, Rassilon, become the first High President of Gallifrey. Under his leadership we perfected time travel, implemented the Web of Time, ingraining certain events into the fabric of the universe, making it natural law that they would have to happen. Here, in this reality, none of this ever happened, making this reality way more vulnerable to what is to come."
Not knowing how to respond to this, Groo simply stared at the Doctor with his mouth hanging open. He of course knew about different dimensions and parallel realities. His time here on Earth and watching some television shows that dabbled in the realms of fantasy and science fiction had introduced him to the theory of the multiverse. But actually talking to a man who seemingly was from a different version of this very universe that he now called home was something completely different.
"The last thing this universe needs, and quite frankly my universe as well, is having the Senior Partners become a part of the War," the Doctor finally said.
"The Senior Partners," Groo asked, wondering what they had to do with this.
The Doctor nodded. "They left this dimension as you know, but they want to come back. The War might give them the opportunity to."
"How?"
The Time Lord sighed. "We have a machine known as the Matrix. It allows us to predict our own future, often very accurately. But not when it comes to the War. Thousands of years ago the Matrix had shown the High Council the first signs of it coming but since then everything became even more muddied, less clear. The closer we get to the War, the less we know. That is why we only call it the War, the start of it the Event or our opponent in it simply the Enemy. In one possible prediction of the future the Event is the Senior Partners gaining access to our reality, trying to use Time Lord technology to get back here, starting the War."
"You believe that prediction to be true?"
"I don't know. Nobody does. What I do believe is that it still is a possibility and even if this isn't what is going to happen, a war like this, a war that will be fought within the realm of time itself, is going to be destructive. It'll open my universe to outside influences like the Senior Partners, who would definitely try to use it to their advantage."
"And you want to prevent this from happening," Groo realised after thinking about the Doctor's words for a moment.
The Doctor nodded, affirming his intentions.
"But what does this have to do with me or the princess?"
The Doctor smiled. "Ripple Effect," was all he said.
Groo crooked his eyebrows in question. "How does that relate to this war issue?"
"The Senior Partners left this dimension due to the end of magic, which only occurred because of the Twilight crisis. If we were to prevent the Twilight crisis and with it the end of magic, they wouldn't leave."
"But how do you plan to prevent it and what do I have to do with it?"
"The Powers put a lot of effort into paving the way to the Twilight crisis and having it happen exactly the way it did. They wouldn't just let me interferer there. But if I change one little thing in the past, one event that happens outside of the reach of their own full powers, one event that will change the outcome of the crisis, I might be able to either prevent the Senior Partners from leaving or to lure them into a trap," the Doctor explained.
Realisation dawned on Groo once more. "And you believe me not coming here would do that." It was not a question.
"Exactly," the Doctor responded and got out a small device. "This can project you into the past. You'll appear to your younger self, and only him, nobody else will be able to see you. And then you can tell him to not come to L.A."
"And where should I tell myself to go," Groo asked, still trying to wrap his mind around the possibility of meeting his younger self.
"Maybe Africa, Congo if I remember correctly," the Doctor hinted with a glimmer of mischief in his eyes.
Groo couldn't stop himself from smiling. He could go back, save the word, kinda, give Cordelia and Angel both the happiness they deserved and spent more time with Gugu, maybe even prevent her from getting sick in the first place. This was a perfect plan. "Are there draw backs," he asked.
"When everything works out, you'll not remember this talk or anything that happened in the last fifteen years until this moment in time, when both of your timelines have caught up with each other. I'll come by then and it'll be up to you to decide if you want to keep these memories or not."
Groo nodded. So much for saving Gugu. "But I will remember talking to myself?"
The Doctor nodded in response. "You'll have to. Otherwise this won't work."
Finally Groo appeared and took the machine the Doctor was holding out to him into his own hands. Suddenly he found himself back in Pylea. Confused he looked around and saw himself, looking at him with horror in his eyes.
"Who are you," asked his past self. Groo nearly had to laugh at his attire and hair. He was no longer running around like Angel, as Cordelia had him dressed up as back when he had come to L.A., something that, in retrospective, should have immediately told him who she really was in love with.
"I am you, from the future. Nobody else can see me but you. I am here with a message," Groo said.
"What message," the past self asked.
"Do not go to the princess. You'll ruin her life. She is happy right now and if you go there, she'll give it up for you."
"What?"
"Listen to me," Groo begged and started to tell his past self things only he could know himself.
"Okay. What about the future, can you tell me something about that?"
"When you go through, meet up with Krevlornswath of the Deathwork Clan, whom you really should call Lorne. Ask him about Angel's son and tell him that you know his name is Connor and that I told you. Then tell him that you know that Cordelia has been turned into a half-demon. Those are all things that happened in their realm in recent months, you couldn't possibly know otherwise. What else? Well, in a few months there's going to be the soccer world cup in South Korea and Japan, which Brazil will win against Germany, but if you wait that long to believe me it will be too late."
"What will be too late?"
Groo took a deep breath. "You love Cordelia?"
"Of course I love the princess."
"Then do not go to her now. She's about to find happiness with the man she truly loves, whom she already loved and who loved her when they were here, both to stubborn to admit it to themselves, let alone each other. And if you go to her now, that is never going to happen. She's going to leave him, continuing to deny her true feelings, for you."
"Why would she do that if she indeed loves another?"
"Because she still cares about you and because she fears that Angel might not feel the same way about her. This is why she's denying her feelings."
"Angel? The vampire champion?"
"Yes. The very same man who defeated you, me, us in mortal combat. She loves him, I'm very sure by now that she loved him already back then, and I know he had been in love with her."
"Then why did she...," the past Groo started to ask.
"For the same reason she dressed me up to look like him when I came to L.A., which will happen to you as well by tomorrow if you go there. She projected her feelings for him onto me or you, us."
"She doesn't love me," the past Groo said defeated.
"Not like that, at the very least. Maybe there's a part of her that does, just like there's a part of Angel that still loves Buffy."
"Who is Buffy?"
"His former girlfriend and the reason why Cordelia thinks he could never really love her."
"But he does?"
"Of that I am certain." There was a pause. "Listen to me, if you go to her now, the two will never get together. Angel will lose his son. Cordelia will fall for a false promise and then be possessed by an evil higher being, which in turn will lead to her dying."
"The princess will die? And you do not want me to go to her? To warn her?"
Groo sighed and ran a hand through his hair. This was more frustrating than he thought. "No, because if you do not go, Angel will tell her how he feels. The two will get together. They will save Connor. Cordelia will have something to go home to instead of following an empty promise and not be possessed. If you don't go, she will stay alive."
The past Groo seemed to start to understand. "And where should I go instead?"
"You could stay here. Or you could ask Lorne to help you find a woman by the name of Gugu Balkonour. She must be somewhere in the South Africa right now."
"Why should I want to find this strange woman?"
"Because I loved her. She was my mate for a few years until an illness took her. If you go to her now, you two could have more years together. You might even be able to save her, spent an entire life with her."
The two simply looked at each other for several seconds until the younger Groo gave a crude nod. "Okay, I will not seek out the princess, at least not right away, is that satisfactory?"
The older Groo sighed. It wasn't, not really, but he had the feeling that he couldn't get anything more out of his younger self. He remembered how obsessed with seeing Cordelia again he had been back then. He didn't let go until Lorne had brought him to her and insisted on seeing her right away, while Angel was trying to tell her something. For the first time it hit Groo that this had been the night and the reason why he couldn't let his younger self go to Los Angeles right now. This was the night in which Angel finally was working up the courage to tell Cordelia how he felt. She would be in denial about it at first, he thought, but she would come through, and until then he had to somehow keep himself away from her.
"Just promise me to wait at least two weeks, better three or even four," the older Groo asked.
With a sigh the younger self nodded. "I will wait for a few weeks, if you really believe that to be necessary."
"Good," said Groo and let go of the gizmo he was holding and felt himself pulled back until suddenly everything went black.
It was the same date as the one when he had met the Groosalugg and told him to go meet his younger self. Now, instead of standing at a pond in a graveyard in Los Angeles in the late evening hours, the Doctor walked the grounds of an apparently abandoned castle, that in fact used to be a monastery and was now used as a training headquarters for the Slayers and Watchers. It was the middle of the night, so no one was out and about, no one who might ask him questions why he was here, leaving him enough time to seek out the memorial he was here to see.
It was a big, shiny stone tablet, listing all those fallen at the Battle of the Hellmouth fourteen years ago. The Doctor took a good look at it and sighed as he came closer, laying his hand on the name of the Groosalugg. The fool had not listen to his older self. Instead of going to Africa, to meet his future mate earlier to get some more years of happiness, he couldn't stay away from Cordelia. He had honoured his promise and not sought out the woman of his dreams for the first three weeks. That had been enough to seriously alter the timeline. Angel and Cordelia had gotten together, Connor had been rescued at the last minute, the three became a family, and Holtz, Sahjhan and Skip were defeated by Angel and his allies, including the Scoobies. Meeting Buffy and her friends, the Groosalugg deemed them great warriors, forming a connection with the Slayer herself over Angel and Cordelia. When he had heard of the First rising in Sunnydale, he had rushed in to help, leading to his death at the final battle. Other lives that were supposed to end that day lived now because of his sacrifice, while other's had died in the meantime. Time, even here, had a way of putting itself right, he supposed.
Twilight still came but the crisis played out very differently. The Powers allowed the Doctor to intervene, knowing that their own plans had failed. He gained control of the Seed of Wonder and used it to lure the Senior Partners into a trap, hoping for them to stay in there long enough so that they wouldn't be able to interfere in the War. He had managed to succeed with his plan but he couldn't bring himself to be happy about it. No matter how many lives he had saved or changed for the better, a good man had died, making the ultimate sacrifice, and that only because he had trusted the Doctor. His previous regenerations would have blamed themselves even more, some more than others, but being Time's Champion sadly required him to sometimes push aside his emotions and only take the bigger picture into account. He knew that someday he'd have to pay a price for this, and he would gladly pay it. He was still the Doctor after all and not some aloof Time Lord who didn't care about the emotions and the well-being of others. And right now he took the time for himself to mourn the loss of a man he had to use as a pawn.
He only stayed for a few seconds before leaving again. He had no desire to be spotted and he knew he should return to his own universe. As he walked back to his TARDIS, he hoped that the old thing would take him back to the exact moment in time in which he had left Ace. The last thing he wanted right now was to deal with her being angry at him for leaving her behind for days, maybe weeks. Thinking of his companion, the Doctor began to smile and started to whistle while swinging his umbrella. The time for mourning was over, now it was time to search for the next adventure.