Buffy — also chained, but, fortunately, left right-side up — struggled. "Doctor, this isn't the time."
"Sorry? Not the time? When is the time, if not this?" The Doctor tried to quirk an eyebrow at her, but it looked incredibly silly, with him hanging upside down, like that. "The whole timeline's batty. Not going to fix that just by mucking about, you know."
Buffy bit her lip to stop herself from laughing at him. She was scared to death, devoid of Slayer strength, about to be tortured in ways she didn't want to imagine, and finally feeling love for a daughter she couldn't remember — along with all the pain of that daughter's torture and death. But the Doctor was here. So it all, somehow, seemed a lot more okay.
"What do you call her, by the way? Glorificus?" the Doctor asked. "Almighty Glorificus? Glory? Or…?"
Buffy shook her head. "Just 'the Goddess'. Keyword being the Goddess — as in, 'the one-and-only divine being out there'." She rolled her eyes. "She seems really freaked out that we might find two other Hell Gods to worship, alongside her."
The Doctor considered, tilting his head back and forth. "Well… bit vain, but… suppose it makes sense…"
"Doctor," Buffy cut in, trying to get them back to a topic that could actually help them. "Is there a way you can give me back my Slayer strength?" She tugged on her chains. "Like, before Angel comes back?"
"Not likely," the Doctor replied, blowing a breath out of his cheeks. "This isn't like those drugs the Council gave you, when you turned 18. You were given a blast of Blinovitch — and that'll zap a person for a few hours, at least — day or two, at most." He paused. Reflected. "Well, actually, at most, you'd be dead, so…"
"It's my 17th birthday!" Buffy hissed at him. "I haven't turned 18, yet."
The Doctor paused. "Right. Yes. Sorry. Knew that." He gave a sheepish grin. "Bit hard to think, hanging upside down, like this. Brain goes a bit fuzzy."
"That's why we did it," said the Goddess, stepping out into the room, with Angelus. She curled up into Angelus, advertising their intimacy for Buffy. They smelled of sex, and their clothes were a little crumpled. "Sorry for the delay. We had some things to do, first."
Buffy found herself in tears, again.
"You were right, Goddess," said Angelus, examining Buffy. "One look at us, and she falls apart." He clutched the Goddess to him, possessively. "You know, Lover — I really feel I should explain to you, in graphic detail, just how much fun it is to have sex with your daughter. Just, the way she—"
"Got the mind-games, thanks," the Doctor interrupted. "Tell me, though — Seo, or Meyomelae Krvas, or Goddess, or whatever you're calling yourself, these days." His voice dropped, a little. "What happened to Drusilla?"
The Goddess stiffened, a little, at the question.
"Because all this shouldn't be possible, you know," the Doctor continued. "Nuclear war? The near annihilation of humanity? Everyone worshipping a goddess of pure evil? That's not how time's supposed to work. If you'd just nipped into the past and saved Drusilla in any normal way, I'd expect to see some other poor soul turned into a vampire — but nothing like this."
"Quiet," the Goddess snapped.
"So what, exactly, did you do?" the Doctor asked. "How'd you save her? Where did you put her? What else did you do, while you were there? And, more importantly, what did you manage to change that made all of history turn on its head, like this? Because I know Seo — and she'd rather die than let the likes of you run about with her body and her memories." He shot her a look. "So the fact that you're here, at all, makes me very suspicious that there's…"
"I think we're going to have to ignore my mom and torture my father, first, just to shut him up," the Goddess interrupted, her voice a little icy and more arch.
Angelus yanked a gag out of his little box of tortures and tools, and shoved it around the Doctor's mouth.
"He's right, though," Buffy said, regaining her courage… if not her physical strength. "This shouldn't be possible. It's paradoxiness on top of paradoxiness on top of paradoxiness. I mean…" Glancing at the Doctor, "...how are he and I even going to have a kid, in the first place, given how you've screwed up both our lives?" She shifted her gaze to the Goddess. "And how's it even possible for that kid to grow up to be you?"
The Goddess shrugged. "I'm an independent element of the universe. Nothing's impossible for me." She grinned, snuggling up to Angelus. "Not even going back in time to steal my mother's boyfriend."
Buffy bit back her fury and anger and hurt, at this. She was torn between too many emotions, pulling at her in too many ways. She wanted to scream at Seo that Angelus was using her — couldn't she see that? At the same time, Buffy wanted to burst into tears, because Angel was sleeping with someone else. And she wanted to burst into tears because he had hurt (so deeply) someone so important to her, someone she loved so much, and it tore her apart to see that.
"Oh, look," said Angelus. "I think that really, really bothers her."
The Goddess smiled. "I wouldn't have done it, if it didn't." She glanced over at the Doctor. "But how do we hurt him? Oh, I know. 1963, London. Shoreditch."
A slide projector clicked on, illuminating one wall of the mansion with a black and white crime photo from 1963. It was of a girl who had been brutally and sadistically murdered in a school in Shoreditch, London.
The Doctor recognized the girl.
His eyes went very, very dark.
"Susan," said the Goddess. She pat Angelus on the arm. "I was so proud of you! Show him another."
The image changed to a bloody, tortured Liz Shaw, then to Tegan Jovanka — gunned down while possessed by the Mara. Then to the crumpled and bloodied form of…
Martha Jones.
"Very nice work," the Goddess praised, rubbing Angelus' shoulder. "I wish Martha had screamed more at the end, though. Don't you?"
"Dunno — I wasn't there," said Angelus. "Different timeline." He grinned at Buffy. "Tell you what, though? How about I do something similar to Lover Girl, over here?" Angelus grabbed up some torture implements. "And you can tell me when the screaming is enough."
Buffy struggled in her chains, as Angelus approached her. "Seo, there's got to be some of you still in there!" Buffy begged. "Dawn! You remember Dawn! You couldn't hurt her, could you?"
"Mom, if you don't shut up," the Goddess said, sharply, "I'll make him stitch your mouth closed."
Angelus brandished the metal knives at Buffy, letting them glint in the fluorescent lights, as he brought them closer and closer to her face. He seemed to be relishing her ever increasing terror.
"He's using you, Seo!" Buffy shouted. "He's not sleeping with you because he loves you! He wants to turn you into his tool! His possession! But you actually do love him, don't you? You missed him, when he was Angel. You were lonely. You wanted him back."
"I don't know what you're talking about," said the Goddess, her eyes smoldering, as she crossed her arms. "My only interest, Mom, is in constructing a masterpiece." She gave a small smile. "And I think a Time Lord and a Line Hopper would make a pretty interesting temporal painting — don't you?" She flicked her eyes over to the Doctor. "It'd sure put the Quantum Crystallizer to shame."
A look of shock, then horror, then terror flashed across the Doctor's face, at those words.
Angelus didn't care. He raised up the knife in his hand, to make the first incision into Buffy's pretty face. "I think I'll start with the parts of your face that are similar to your daughter's, Lover…"
That was when there was a high pitched whine and a click from beside him, as the Doctor buzzed his sonic at the chains, and they all snapped open, at once — both his and Buffy's. Buffy darted out of the way of Angelus' knife, while the Doctor fell flat on his face with an 'oomf'.
"So, Seo's gone, is she?" the Doctor said, tearing off the gag. He grinned and winked at the Goddess. "And yet, you locked me up without confiscating my sonic screwdriver and — not sure if you noticed — but you've been miming the setting number I need to unlock the chains since you first began gloating at us."
He jumped to his feet, and stood in between Angelus and Buffy.
"And as for you, Angelus-be-dangelous," the Doctor said, taking Buffy's hand. "Word to the wise — you're not the one in charge, anymore. There's only one person with power, here, and she's standing right behind you — trying to fight off the remnants of her soul."
Angelus made to stab the Doctor in the gut — but the Goddess ran in and slammed Angelus against the wall, with a force that caused the whole building to shake.
"You miserable excuse for a vampire!" the Goddess shouted. "You sick, stuck up, selfish freak!" She tried to punch him in the head — but he yanked it out of the way, and the fist went through the wall. "You took my soul away, and you couldn't even do it properly?! You were so obsessed with torturing me that you gave little Say-say a way to stick around?!"
"And on that note," the Doctor said, grabbing Buffy by the arm and spinning around, "allons-y!"