Author's Note: As I said. Lots of theories.
Probably should be saying something else pithy about this section, but I'm feeling a little faint, today. So I'm going to lie down.
"Ben!" shouted the Doctor, as he tugged Dawn along with him, the two of them racing through the castle, trying to find Seo. "She mentioned… Ben! That'd be Ben Wilkinson, I assume. Rather nice bloke. Well, had the down-side of sometimes morphing into Glory, but… way Seo spoke of him… you'd think he was Davros."
Oh. Damn. That's right. The Doctor hadn't been around for the end of that whole thing.
"Ben tried to kill me," Dawn said.
They darted through a room with a balcony, the Doctor glancing back over his shoulder at her. "What, really?"
"Yeah, really," said Dawn. She gritted her teeth. "Threatened to cut me open until there wasn't enough blood left in my body to create a portal. But instead, he just surrendered me to Glory, because she promised to make him immortal." Dawn felt herself shaking, her jaw set. "And… Glory-Seo had the gall to compare normal Seo to that miserable, spineless—"
The Doctor stopped, and Dawn almost ran into him. He was staring at her, now. Analyzing her, carefully. "You were fourteen," he said. "It's ten years later. And even just hearing his name still makes you this angry."
"He tried to kill me!" Dawn shouted. "I trusted him, and he stabbed me in the back! How can you just forget something like—?!"
"Exactly," muttered the Doctor. "How can you forget it?"
Dawn stopped. Hesitated. "What…?"
"That happened to you when you were fourteen," said the Doctor. "Imagine… exactly the same thing happened to you… when you were less than a year old. Your brain still developing. Your childhood fears and subconscious traumas all still being formed deep down within your psyche."
Dawn blinked. "Huh?"
The Doctor grabbed Dawn up by the shoulders. "Dawn, Seo's body is mortal. It can die. It should have died when struck by a Dalek beam." He shook her. "The only way it didn't… is if Seo was never actually struck by that beam at all."
"But… she was!" said Dawn. "I saw it! She was struck, point-blank! She died, and the Glory part of her—"
"Took over?" the Doctor said. "Like Ben and Glory — two different people sharing the same body? And…" He examined her, curiously. "…you seem to be able to remember Ben and Glory are related, now, even though you couldn't during that year when you battled against Glory. Interesting."
"It's… not… but Seo wasn't Ben!" Dawn insisted. "Seo — real Seo — was kind, and sweet, and wonderful, and…"
"Real Seo is still just as alive as she was before," the Doctor cut in. He pointed in front of them, towards the distant figure they were pursuing. "Dawn, that's not Glory. It's Seo. The real Seo. The same Seo. Problem is… she's convinced herself that her situation is just like Ben and Glory. And it's not."
Dawn wasn't sure what to say to this. "It's… not?"
The sound of footsteps, just in front of them, and the Doctor grabbed Dawn's hand, and began to race forwards, through the castle. Chasing after the sound.
"There isn't 'a Seo' and 'a Glory-Seo'," the Doctor told her, as they ran. "But she thinks there is. That's what you're seeing. She doesn't know what's happening — she's terrified, confused, struggling to justify something she doesn't understand. So her childhood trauma kicks in. And convinces her that she's living through her worst fear."
Dawn's head spun.
"There's… there's only one Seo?" Dawn asked. "This killing-everyone crazy person… isn't Glory? It's…?" She didn't want to believe it. Couldn't believe it. "But Seo told me! She said the Monks gave her something, deep down inside. That was exactly like Glory. Except they made that something still kinda be… her."
The Doctor absorbed this. "That's what she thinks? Interesting."
Turned a corner, sharply, dragging Dawn behind him. Then stopped short. As he looked, horrified, at the room he and Dawn had just entered.
"Oh, no," the Doctor muttered.
Dawn stepped past him. And stared. "But… that's… the balcony room!" she cried. Pointing off to the area behind them. "From back there! How could it be both here and…?"
"Recursion," the Doctor said. Took out his sonic, scanned it along the walls, checked the reading. "A recursive environment created using block transfer computation. A space-time trap." He spun around, to address the balcony. "Very clever."
Dawn turned, too. Spotting a small blond figure, on the balcony. Her brown eyes fixed on them. Her stare intense and biting.
"Course, this isn't the first recursive time-space trap I've been caught in," the Doctor called to Seo. He grinned. "Was caught in one back in my fifth incarnation, when—"
"Castrovalva," Seo said, her voice emotionless. "I know."
The Doctor hesitated. "How…?"
"He liked to brag, while he was torturing me," said Seo. "Especially about all the ways he hurt you. Nearly killed you." She gave a proud little half-smile. "And now he's dead. And I'm the one hurting you, instead. Fancy that."
"Seo, listen to me," said the Doctor, his expression now deadly serious. "You're not the Master."
"No," Seo mused. Hands resting on the railing of the balcony. "I'm just what he always wished he was. Immortal. Undefeatable. An all-powerful, murdering, evil—"
"You don't understand what's happening to you," the Doctor cut in. "You're scared, Seo. Struggling to make sense of something you should never have had to deal with. I understand that!" He stepped forwards. "So let me help you."
Seo slammed a hand down on the railing, the stone cracking and crumbling beneath her fist. "The way you helped me by bringing me here?" she shouted. "Thwarting my plans, breaking my ship, stealing my aunt, and then showing up to take me down in person?" Her body shook with rage. "No. I'm Glory-Seo. I don't want or need any more of your 'help'."
"You've got it wrong!" the Doctor cut in. "You're not—!"
But Seo turned, and… faster than either of them could register… had disappeared from sight.
Dawn felt herself shaking.
"That was… the real Seo?" she squeaked. Cleared her throat. "That was actually…?"
The Doctor sighed. "She's convinced herself she's evil," he said. He gestured at the area around them. "Hence… this. Borrowing a trap from my an enemy of mine. And certain it's exactly the same situation."
"Isn't it?" asked Dawn.
The Doctor turned to her. "The Master stuck me in a recursive trap because he wanted to kill me," he said. "Seo trapped us here to keep us out of her way, so we'd be safe. Because she's terrified she'll kill us."
The Doctor flicked his sonic screwdriver out of his pocket, and began buzzing it at the walls, frantically.
"Right," the Doctor said. "Better get out of here, find Seo, and stop her before she does something she can't take back." He hesitated. Then corrected himself with, "Before she does any more somethings she can't take back."
Dawn hung back. Her mind racing through the last hour or two of her life. Deborah Raykins… the IPSA fleet… the Daleks and Seo and… then…
This.
"You really think there's a way we can snap her out of this?" said Dawn.
"Always a way out of anything, if you look hard enough!" the Doctor assured her, adjusting the sonic. "After all. She fought off Twilight. And that actually was a separate entity trying to seize control of her body and mind."
As opposed to this. Which was just… Seo thinking she'd turned into Glory. Making up some separate personality in her mind, to justify her super-strength.
Oh, God.
Dawn had known Seo was a bit guilt-ridden and crazy, but she'd never thought Seo was full-out schizophrenic or anything!
"What do you think she's doing out there, now?" asked Dawn.
"No idea," said the Doctor, hopping around and buzzing his sonic along a different section of the walls. "Something desperate, probably. And highly destructive. Doubt she locked the two of us in here so she could stumble back to her ship and wallow in self-pity."
"Yeah, well, after you broke her ship," Dawn muttered, "more likely she'd wallow in yours."
The Doctor froze. Then spun on Dawn, eyes wide. "What did you say?"
"Nothing," Dawn dismissed. "She just might be a little mad at you for breaking her—"
"No! No, you said…!" The Doctor cried, darting over and grabbing Dawn up by the shoulders. He stopped, and his entire face fell into sudden, horrified panic. "Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no!"
"What?" said Dawn.
"Most powerful ship in the universe, most dangerous two girls in the universe, most dangerous situation in the universe," the Doctor rambled, hand pushing back his floppy hair, "and I've just put them all together."
He turned on his heel, attacking the wall of the recursive time trap with a sudden frenzy that he hadn't had, before.
Dawn was a little taken aback. "But Seo can't get into the TARDIS, right?" she said. "I mean, my TARDIS key's back on Earth, with Ria, and Seo doesn't have one of her own. So…"
"Oh, trust me," muttered the Doctor. "Seo doesn't need a key to open the TARDIS. No matter what she tricked Twilight into believing."
The walls around them shimmered.
Then seemed to ripple, shake, and stagger, the whole thing almost collapsing around them. The Doctor grabbed Dawn's hand.
"Run!" he shouted, as they sprinted forwards.
