It wasn't easy, trying to track the cracks to their source. For one, they had sprung up all over the place. Yes, he could narrow it down by seeing where they were the most concentrated, but they didn't spread at the same rate, so he couldn't assume that the oldest one was the widest or the longest or any such thing. Which, essentially, meant he was still left guessing.

The good news, however, was that the change was not set. Even if he couldn't seem to keep things permanently fixed, if he could track down the source, he wouldn't need to, because he could stop it before it became any worse. And he had to. Whatever was trying to change, it was degrading the timeline. Not just the splicing job, but the entire timeline, great swaths of it, all at once, weakening, sickening, cracking—dying.

Something was most definitely not right, and he needed to find out what that was.

The Doctor wasn't sure how long he had spent at the console of the TARDIS, fiddling with one thing or another, filtering through readings and probing the timestreams for additional data. He'd risked stopping long enough for another quick look at the timeline, assessing the cracks as best he could that way. It didn't seem to help. It just wore him out, draining his precious energy reserves. But he couldn't stop to rest. He didn't have time to do that. If he did, the change might stop fluctuating and begin to set. And he couldn't let that happen, not if it was at all within his power to prevent it.

But pegging it down to a particular time period was difficult enough, let alone a specific date and location.

A dulled ringing brought him back to his senses, and he blinked. He'd gone off for a moment. He must be tired if he'd let that happen. But he didn't tend to rest much these days, anyway. Not when he knew his days were numbered. He didn't want to waste a moment of them. He seemed to have so few left.

It took him a moment to find the source of the sound. It was part of an alarm clock that he'd wired into the console after making some repairs. Donna had been with him, then. Oh, how she'd screeched the first time it had went off! The memory of it brought a smile to his face. But it was short-lived, because she was gone now. She'd stuffed a couple of tissues into the bells of the clock, dulling its ring, and he hadn't had the heart to take them out.

But the clock wasn't something that usually went off, no. Mainly because he usually didn't bother to wait for it. It told him when the TARDIS had finished sorting through the data he had her scrutinizing and screening. Usually, he was right there, ready to turn the alarm off before it set itself off, but there were a few times he'd been too busy to do that, like he had with Donna that first time, and there were a few times when he'd been too, well, caught up in other things, to do that.

He shut the alarm off.

The Doctor frowned when he read the screen. He doubted the TARDIS had gotten it wrong, but…. San Francisco? Again? Surely he wasn't going to die there twice, was he, because of some temporal mess?

But perhaps that first— No, it couldn't. 1987, the screen read. September 18. The first temporal catastrophe hadn't happened yet.

Except he knew, from experience, that that didn't really mean anything.

Unfortunately.

Because he had a bad feeling about this whole thing. A very bad feeling.

Something wasn't right.

And he might not be able to fix it.

A bit more subdued than usual, the Doctor programmed the coordinates into the TARDIS and set her on her way.


This was one of those times, Alia thought, when she would have preferred to have someone other than Zoey as a partner. Zoey didn't mind wandering off topic whenever a particularly delectable specimen of the opposite sex walked by, and Alia couldn't make any scathing retort until they were long gone. She had to bear it all in silence.

She'd been at this long enough, so she ought to be used to it, but sometimes…. Alia shook her head. She just had to bear it through. Zoey was still questioning her, trying to find out what she'd learned about the leapee. Alia didn't bother asking why Zoey hadn't questioned their leapee first. She no longer bothered trying to figure out why Zoey did what she did. If she had a reason, she would never find grounds to tell it to anyone else.

"I think one of the leapee's friends is going to break up with someone, so I did try driving a wedge through that to make sure," Alia answered automatically. "But it didn't seem like it would have lasted anyway."

"Surely you would've found out something else," Zoey prodded, sounding vaguely annoyed.

"Unfortunately, no," Alia replied. "So I would suggest that you get to work in the Holding Chamber."

Before, Zoey would have had her head for daring to make such a comment. But she didn't have as much power now, and Alia knew it. She was also fully aware of the fact that she could still be punished severely for making that comment, but she didn't care any more, not really. It was endless, this game of leaping, and they'd only be doing her a favour if they killed her. She'd be able to escape, then.

But they wouldn't do that. She was too valuable to them.

Besides, if she was a bit cocky, she could retain her sanity.

And if she managed to keep hold of her sanity, she might be able to keep hold of her hope.

It was a false hope, but it was still hope. And it was all she had left.

Ages ago, back when she'd first started leaping—before, really—she'd been offered hope. She'd been a bit different back then. A better puppet, not so bitter—but they still held all the strings, casting her whichever way they wished. But on leaps like this one, where they lost control, just for a second, and something else moved her about—they were the leaps that reminded her to keep hope. If Lothos and Zoey didn't control her, then perhaps she could escape.

Of course, if something else had controlled them all along, then she really didn't have much to hope for anyway. Whatever that was, it was far more powerful than her. She was helpless against it.

Sam had been helpless, too, but he'd had hope. He'd had faith. Oh, how she'd envied him when she'd realized how he leaped. He helped people, every time. He did good things, pushing together things she tried to tear apart. He'd talked about balance, the balance of good and evil. She didn't know how much he was parroting his partner, Al, but it had reminded her of someone else. She'd hesitated because of that, that reminder.

And then she'd made a choice, one she'd never thought, back when she'd first started leaping, that she'd ever be able to make. But she had. She'd let him go. He couldn't save her, but that didn't mean she had to condemn him. There needed to be a balance; there always did. And if she destroyed one side, she'd destroy the other. But that wasn't why, in the end, she'd chosen to save him, even knowing what it would mean for her. She hadn't saved him simply because she wanted to save herself. She'd saved him because he was doing everything she couldn't, because he was helping, making the world better, and because she really did hope that, eventually, he would be able to save her and free her from her trap.

And because he'd given her a choice, a choice that she'd known she'd face for ages. Another doctor had told her about that choice—another time traveller, if she'd pieced things together right, as he'd expected her to. That doctor, Dr. Smith—he'd told her that she'd have a choice to make, a chance to do the right thing, and he'd told her that if she suffered the consequences of that right choice, she'd get another chance for freedom.

He'd been right about Sam. She could only hope that he was right about that, too.

Leaping may have robbed her of many of her memories, but it hadn't been able to take that one away. She'd remembered, just as she'd promised the Doctor that she would. She may not be able to remember him clearly now, his face or his voice, beyond vague impressions of colour or tone, but she remembered his words, and that was enough.

"Thames is working on extracting some more information now," Zoey informed Alia simply. "Lothos will be able to project a scenario soon enough."

Alia just nodded. She could see someone ahead of them, wandering back onto the park path. She didn't want to open her mouth in case the man had good hearing. She wasn't sure how well the sound carried here, and the wind would be blowing her words to him.

"I'll check up on you shortly, Alia, darling," Zoey said. "Ta ta."

Alia kept walking, risking a glance over her shoulder to see whether Zoey had gone or not. Seeing that she had, Alia felt some measure of relief. It hadn't been that long ago that she'd run into Sam, she thought, and now, on her first truly uncontrolled leap since their meeting, she wanted some more time to think about it.

"Grace?" the man asked as she walked past, sounding incredulous.

She stopped and looked him up and down, hesitating, wondering how well the leapee knew him.

"No, wait, hold on," he continued, staring at her. "You're not Grace, are you?"

Alia's heart jumped into her throat, and then she realized that the man must have mistaken her for a different Grace. She smiled at him. "I'm a Grace, but not the one you're looking for, I think," she answered politely. She turned to continue on her way.

"You've got Grace, haven't you?" the man asked, calling after her, his voice flat, more a harsh statement of fact than an accusation. "She's gotten caught up in your little experiment."

Alia picked up her pace slightly, not looking back. She found herself wishing that Zoey hadn't left quite so soon. It wasn't like she couldn't take care of herself. She knew enough that she was fairly certain she could lay the man flat within two minutes if she had to. She just didn't want to have to explain away a black eye or some other sort of bruise, or carry a sprained wrist with her into the next leap. She risked that, every time, leaping the way she did, and she didn't want to have to find a way to explain away a seemingly spontaneous injury.

"Alia."

She stopped in her tracks and turned back. "Sam?" she ventured, hardly daring to hope. Had they met again after all? But how had he known it was her?

He shook his head, and her hopes crashed around her. "Don't you remember me, Alia?" he asked. "I mean, I expect it has been a while for you, hasn't it, all that leaping about, but has it really been enough for you to forget me, after you promised you'd remember what I said, if you could?"

She stared at him, taking in his messy brown hair and focussed brown eyes, his long brown coat hanging on a slim frame over a brown pinstriped suit, his—

It couldn't be.

It was 1987.

He hadn't met her yet.

So then…. Alia caught her breath. He really was a time traveller. Not like her, nothing like her—he kept his true form, the same one. He didn't have to borrow anyone else's. And he could control where he went, when, for how long. He didn't have to do anything at all to leave. She'd never trusted herself to truly believe that he could be a time traveller. She hadn't dared. But now, now, she had undeniable proof.

"Doctor." It wasn't a question. It just had to be him. She knew it was him. And now that she saw him again, she wondered how she could have forgotten him, the way he spoke, his mannerisms, the aura that surrounded him. Him, the mysterious Dr. Smith.

Except, if it was him, why hadn't Lothos noticed? Zoey may not have, but Lothos ought to have picked up on it, through the handlink. Especially since they were still searching for Sam. Surely the Doctor couldn't travel through time without leaving some sort of trail, too.

"Alia, is this you? Are you doing this?" the Doctor demanded, catching up to her. "Did you lot program this in for a leap? Was this planned?"

Wordlessly, Alia shook her head.

"Oh, no, no, no, no, nonononono!" The Doctor started pulling at his hair, spinning around in a circle, looking at their surroundings. He stopped and faced her again. "Who's leaping you around?"

Alia shrugged. "It's not God. I can say that much."

"So that leaves you with Time, Fate, or Whatever, right?" the Doctor guessed, his forehead creasing. "I'll bet on the whatever, myself, with you lot. So then—"

"You've met Sam?" Alia interrupted. "Sam Beckett? Dr. Samuel Beckett?"

The Doctor looked like he'd been about to launch into one explanation or another, but he stopped at the sight of her face. "Yes," he answered. "I met him before I met you. But, that's neither here nor there, because Sam doesn't factor into this equation, does he? You've met him once, but you haven't run into him again, have you? You're still waiting, aren't you? And in the midst of your waiting, you're leaping, aren't you, and wronging rights? So what have you leaped in here to do this time, Alia? What are you supposed to change?"

"I don't know," Alia answered. "I haven't been here long enough to find out."

"And it's not a programmed leap," the Doctor continued, "so you're just clutching at straws." He sucked in a breath. "Brilliant. Why did it have to be Grace, Alia? Why Grace? Why did you have to leap into Dr. Grace Holloway?"

"I'm sure I don't know," Alia replied steadily. "Why not tell me?"

The Doctor shook his head. "Oh, no. I don't have the answers, not this time. Not like last time. Last time, I knew what had to happen, didn't I? I just needed to let it play out, guiding it along so that it picked the right path. But I'm blind this time, and do you know what? Something's gone wrong. And it's going to keep going wrong unless I can stop it."

"You're like Sam. You fix things."

"To a point," the Doctor allowed. "Alia, listen to me. I'm going to need your help."

"I can't," she said, stepping back. "I really can't. They'd know. I've been through hell, Doctor. Please don't ask me to go back." And before he could stop her, she twisted away and began to run.


"Zoey," Thames called. "Come look at this."

"I haven't time, Thames," Zoey snapped from the other side of the room. "I've more important things to be doing."

"This is worth it," Thames counted. "I think we've found him."

"Sam Beckett?" For once, surprise coloured Zoey's voice. "Really? Let's see, then." Sounding pleased, she strode over to join Thames from where he was examining the data Lothos had picked up from her time with Alia.

"No, not Beckett," Thames corrected. "Dr. Smith." He pointed to the frozen image caught from the handlink, isolated a distant figure, zoomed in, and focussed. The clarity held for a split second before the figure blurred slightly, becoming a brown smudge, but it was enough. Thames didn't bother trying to sharpen it again; he knew Zoey had seen it. "I wasn't getting any data at first. I had to extrapolate the—"

"Don't bother me with the details," Zoey snapped. "Just tell me this: if you've got a fix on his position there, can you get me a lock?"

"Lothos first recognized it by its absence," Thames explained. "Until I finished reversing everything, we couldn't even get a picture. One frame. That's all I got. One clear image. I can get you to where you left Alia, but you'll have to see if you can find him on your own from there. If you stay with him long enough, we might be able to track the signal back and pinpoint his position in our time."

"Pity we couldn't just kill this one and be done with it," Zoey said, frowning a bit. "I do hate all those technicalities." She straightened up. "Very well. I'll be in the Imaging Chamber. Get me there as quick as you can."


The Doctor didn't bother chasing Alia down. He didn't need to. She'd come around. Well, even if she didn't on her own, he knew where to find her. And that was enough, for now.

Besides, he wasn't alone anymore. He never used to be able to tell so easily, but he was sensitive to it now. It…hurt, just a bit, if he was honest. But alongside everything else that hurt, this wasn't much of anything at all.

But it was still another reminder that he didn't have long left.

He pulled something out of his pocket and looked at it. He still didn't know what it was. He'd never tracked anyone down who would know to tell him. It was small, but part of something bigger. Like so many other things. But it was also…. It was also a reminder of what had happened, and how his own personal timeline had split into two parts that were later forced together. He'd never expected it to work. He'd been grateful it had, but he still kept waiting for it to fray, to start to split apart again.

It wouldn't really be sealed until he regenerated. Providing he did, of course, but considering that he was still around now, he was fairly certain he would, seeing as his other self had managed to call upon some of that energy and force it back to be used now. He knew, on two different levels, what had been done. He remembered explaining it to himself, and he remembered his determination to make the impossible possible, to find the loophole, and he remembered his own relief as he understood what would be done, and why it ought to work. He remembered what it felt like to break apart, to crack along every possible line, and how painful it was to hold the shards in place, and how much it had hurt to seal it all again.

But he also knew how easily he would splinter again if he didn't get these cracks sealed up—quickly.

Not an easy thing to do when he was being tailed.

At least he'd have a bit of time before they figured out the whole picture. He didn't have much, especially not if Alia told them, but they'd realize soon enough that he was a time traveller. At least, they would if they started to piece together what they already knew. He hadn't been able to clear away all the traces. The official ones, yes. He'd wiped their records, destroyed their data. But he'd had no desire to wipe their memories, even when he'd known what he would potentially face by leaving them be. And while he looked exceptionally good for his age, even he tended to look a bit different after ten years. Especially if he looked at the last ten years of his life. He'd been a different man back then. Those changes, particularly the physical ones, weren't exactly subtle.

The Doctor shoved the object back into his pocket and started on his way, wandering in the opposite direction that Alia had taken. He hoped Zoey would lose interest in him soon, but he couldn't count on that. He was just glad Alia had gotten away before she'd turned up. Still. Even if she was watching him, it didn't mean he couldn't think. Thinking out loud could be a little bit dangerous, but he ought to be able to avoid that.

Unfortunate, really. Sometimes he could work through things so much easier once he'd said it all aloud.

Of course, half the time he did that—saying everything out loud—was because he was explaining it to someone. It always helped when he did that. It really did. He would be explaining something, and suddenly he'd realize what he'd need to do, and then he could do it. Granted, it was sometimes a moment or two before everything fell into place, but it usually worked out. He still had some close calls, of course, but it usually worked.

Not like this, this silent thinking. He knew now what could happen if he was left with only his own thoughts for too long. Too many memories. Too many viewpoints, really, each one just slightly different, conflicting with another but still all in agreement, and yet not one of those had made him stop. And they should have, each and every one of them, and now he was faced with disapproving silence, too, from the consciences that he had deliberately ignored.

He wouldn't be able to forgive himself, even if he did miraculously manage to stop the timeline from cracking.

The Doctor sighed. He felt old. It seemed as if he'd seen so much, lived so long—it wasn't that he was tired, exactly. He hardly had reason to be if he was; even if he had seen well over the nine hundred years he admitted to, more than enough to give Methuselah a run for his money, he was going through his regenerations rather quickly for a Time Lord. And another was coming, soon. It just…. He was lonely, and he didn't exactly look to be at an age where he could sit and chat with a stranger about any of this. He didn't expect understanding. He just wanted…. Connection, he supposed. To know that he was not the only one with those thoughts in his head.

Any self-respecting Time Lord would say he'd spent far too much of his time with humans, and that they were a bad influence on him.

But…. There were humans out there who, like him, knew that their days were numbered. Not for the same reason, but with the same knowledge and everything that came with that knowledge. A desire to live the last days as fully as possible, since every moment seems so much more precious, so treasured, because it's another moment that could slip away forever without being appreciated. Even for him, where he could relive that moment, it wouldn't be the same. For him, it was still different, more like another moment lived than the same moment lived again.

But it was also…. He'd been through it so many times, but he was still afraid. He ought to survive it, but there was always that chance that…that he wouldn't. That it would be too sudden, too quick, or that something would go wrong, or— Well, no, not or. Because he wouldn't suppress it, not now. He wouldn't choose death, not yet. There were still too many things to do, even if he was a different man when he was doing them.

Providing he would still want to do them.

That was the real fear, not knowing who he'd become. He'd be himself, but at the same time, he could be so different. That's one reason it still felt like death, even if it was survival.

Among the other things he could stand to learn, there was acceptance.

Fine line, though, with acceptance. There were some people who said that they'd accepted things when really they'd just given in, not troubling themselves to fight. Take Alia, for instance. She'd accepted her position as a hapless leaper, a helpless destroyer. For the most part. She was too afraid to fight it, or rather of the consequences of doing that, to help him. She'd given in.

But not, he hoped, to the extent that she wouldn't be able to get away with Sam.

Granted, if he couldn't convince her to help him now, she'd never have the chance. The timeline probably wouldn't last that long.

With his luck, especially his luck lately, it wouldn't be long until Zoey and everyone else at the Evil Leaper Project realized what he was, putting things together as Alia had done, only with different pieces.

He'd worry about that when it came to it. Now, he'd be better off trying to lose Zoey, plan things out himself, try to get Alia alone, and go from there. He couldn't see where Zoey was, exactly, and he wasn't about to try, because that could very well make it easier for Lothos to pinpoint him, and he wasn't about to make anything easier for them unless he had to. As it was, he could just sense where Zoey was, the general direction, with a vague impression of how closely she was following him.

Thing was, he had to lose her without her getting suspicious.

The Doctor glanced around him again, partially to get a better idea of where Zoey was, and partially to take in the surroundings. He grinned when he saw a way out. Bolting would have been too obvious, even if it probably would have done the trick since she would have a fair bit of trouble following him if he dodged into the trees and she lost sight of him, meaning she couldn't just pop herself ahead. But he recalled Zoey's character, and he was quite certain that she'd find reason to go elsewhere if he made things incredibly dull for her.

She wasn't, as far as he knew, the type of person who particularly liked chess.

He rather doubted if she even knew how to play it, given how well practiced she was at her other little games.

So, all he had to do was go up and introduce himself to the two men playing up ahead, watch for a spell, and try his hand against the winner. He knew how to drag games out. More fun that way, really, than just winning in a few brilliant moves. But he was fairly confident that, no matter how good a player he was up against, he could stay in the game long enough to bore Zoey to tears.

There was the risk that she would try to stick around and learn his strategy, or to see if he started chatting, but he resolved that he would keep his mouth shut and stare at the board for as long as necessary, until she was gone. And then when she was, well—then he could enjoy himself.

Just briefly.

Before everything started to happen too quickly.

Besides, it would give him a chance to think, with a surface distraction so he didn't dwell too much on past or future.

And maybe it would be a step towards acceptance of the inevitable future he feared, even when he was going to be doing everything he could to save it.


A/N: Just a quick thanks to those who take the time to review, and if anyone's wondering why I said Zoey likely doesn't like chess, for all I portray her as a bit of a strategist and a game lover, well, she doesn't like playing by other people's rules, either.