Chapter Eight

Roland winced as he looked away from the angel, wary of what it might do. He wasn't sure why he was trusting Jenny with something so dangerous, but then, she had never let him down before. Jenny blinked intentionally the moment he turned away and was amazed by what she saw when she opened her eyes. Rather than being dead or transported as River had described, she was staring directly into the face of the angel and it's arm had passed through her. The angel could see them, but it could not interact.
"That's fascinating!" Jenny exclaimed softly. Roland seemed perplexed by the development, so she continued to explain. "Don't you see? This part of time has been rewritten. It's happening, but it never did. It's a ghost of an event! It's technically here, even though it never was, and we are here, so it can see us; but because it was never here and we are, it can't affect us."
Roland nodded, pretending to understand. She wasn't speaking in time jargon, exactly, but there were too many contradictions for his liking. "So... does that mean your dad is ghosty too?" he asked.
"No," Jenny giggled. She looked up at her father, who appeared to be having a heated conversation with Amy and River. "He's a time traveler. He's always been here. See him over there? He's as solid as you and I. Some of those men aren't though. Evidently in one timeline they ceased to exist."
Roland turned to look at the Doctor after making sure the angel had moved on. The way the Doctor moved as he talked reminded him of some of Jenny's subtler mannerisms. "You're extremely good at guesswork," he said with a smile. He didn't appreciate the risks she'd taken, but they'd paid off and he could hardly blame her.
"It's not all guesswork. Some of it is what River says in the diary," Jenny corrected. She crossed her arms over her chest and shrugged. "The rest is just sort of... instinct."
She smiled and tilted her head as she observed her father. He looked very different in this new form, much younger, but he was just as expressive when he talked and had the same caring nature for his companions. She wanted to shout out and get his attention as Roland suggested in Asgard, but she feared the results. She didn't know if she could interact with him yet, much less what the consequences would be if she did.
A thought came to mind and she decided to perform one more experiment. She picked up a pebble from the ground and threw it in the direction of the clerics. The stone his the ground by one of the men's shoes, and he turned his head to see where the sound had come from. Jenny noted that she could interact with the clerics, even the ghostly ones. Perhaps the Doctor could hear her too. She watched as the Doctor, River and one of the military men, 'Octavian' according to the diary, headed to the primary flight deck.
More and more angels began surrounding the clearing where Amy and the clerics were staked out. The angels took no notice of Jenny and Roland once they realized they couldn't touch them, and averted their attention to tearing apart the cybernetic trees. The lights in the forest began to flicker and the clerics began to panic. The lights went out completely for a moment before coming back on. When they did, the angels were nowhere to be seen. A bright light appeared from the direction of the secondary flight deck and the clerics were sent to investigate it. Jenny took this as her cue and went after the Doctor, gesturing for Roland to follow.
It took several minutes for Jenny and Roland to catch up with the Doctor. The Byzantium was a large ship, and they had waited long enough to miss which direction he had gone. When they did, they saw River and the Doctor entering the flight deck, but Octavian was no longer with them.
"What happened to him?" Roland asked as he looked around. "He was with them when they left, and we didn't pass him on the way here."
"He's gone," Jenny replied bluntly. "He was 'ghosty' remember? He's ceased to exist permanently now." She watched as the flight deck doors closed behind River and the Doctor and tapped on the corridor wall impatiently.
Roland was not as concerned about the circumstances, and looked at Jenny with bewilderment. "How can you say that so calmly? A person has stopped living suddenly, and you're acting as if he was just some extra in a film!"
Jenny turned sharply and glared at him. "Sh! They can't know we're here, or there will be far worse consequences. We can't do anything about Octavian now. The angels got him and that's that."
Silence followed her outburst and Roland averted his attention to listening in at the door. He had always thought Jenny was purely interested in good times and adventures, but now she seemed distant and cold-hearted. Her quest to find her father seemed to be affecting her outlook on events around her. All she cared about was reuniting with her father, and he had know way of telling what could happen after that. It was possible that Jenny would fly off with the Doctor in his Tardis and he would never see her again.
The Doctor seemed equally affected by the strenuous circumstances, and was shouting at River for trying to get the teleport to work. He believed it useless, and was giving up hope on saving Amy. From the sound of things, Roland could tell that River ignored the Doctor and continued working on it. She proved that the Doctor was overreacting when Amy materialized in the room a moment later.
"They saved Amy," Roland whispered. He glanced at Jenny, who showed no signs of emotion. "Of course," he added. "It's in the diary, so you already knew that."
The power went out suddenly and the doors to the flight deck opened. Jenny grabbed Roland's shoulder and pushed him into a corner where they would remain unseen. Peering around the door frame, Jenny could see that a group of angels had appeared. Some of them were aware that Jenny and Roland were present, and watched them blank expressions.
"Do you think we look like ghosts to them?" Roland wondered aloud. He was looking at the hazy shapes of the living statues and realized that, like them, they were not part of the original events either.
Jenny was surprised by Roland's statement and mulled the idea over in her mind. It was something she never would have thought of, and while it was unimportant, it was an interesting concept. "Perhaps," she whispered. "Perhaps everything does."
Inside the flight deck the lead angel was negotiating with the Doctor. It demanded that the Doctor throw himself into the crack that had created the light in the cyber forest in order to close it and free the angels. In return, they would leave his friends alone.
"Roland," Jenny said sharply. "Hang onto something." He immediately obeyed her and braced himself for something awful to happen. He didn't know what, but when the ship suddenly lost its artificial gravity he thanked himself for having faith in Jenny despite her moodiness.
A sudden burst of energy shot through the room as the angels fell into the crack in place of the Doctor, causing it to erase the beings from history and snap itself shut. The planetary gravity now replaced that of the ship, and the group were able to walk on the walls instead of the floor.
"I'm sorry for snapping at you," Jenny said suddenly. She was not looking at Roland, and instead had turned to follow the Doctor out of the ship. "I just don't want you thinking we can change fixed events. I don't know much about time, it's true, but I do know that it's not something to meddle with."
Roland scoffed and followed after her. "Please. That's all we ever do!"