"The Theater, The Theatre"

34. One Face, Two Minds

New York City, in the year 2047

They couldn't leave the theater, not any of them except the two of them now, but if Cassie went outside, with Tom's disc…

"What do we do now?" Rachel asked the Doctor.

"She's real now, we can stop her," Mackenzie nodded.

"No," the Doctor turned to her. "None of you must touch her, not now, not…"

"Doctor?" Sophie called up, cutting her off. The Doctor turned, and Sophie looked nervous all over again. "This might be a bad time, what with the ghosts and all, but I think it's happening for real now, the baby… My water just broke," she announced. At once, Rachel had resumed her position at her daughter's side.

"You'll be alright, both of you," she vowed. "I'll stay with you.

"Julian, I need… I need him here, he can't miss the baby being born," she shook her head, the old tears regaining. "Doctor, please, whatever you have to do…"

The Doctor had every intention of doing something about Cassie and the disc, naturally, but suddenly she found it hard to leave Sophie's side, as though out of responsibility to the child who would be born and one day grow to be her companion.

"Yes, right," she straightened up. "First things first," she turned to the Angel, who had not left their side. "I need your help. I can try and talk her down, but for the benefit of time, it might be best if you had a go at it. You two were kin in ghostship before, now you are again in corporeality. Convince her to relinquish the disc."

"How would I do that?" the Angel asked.

"It seems to me that your corporeality comes with something of a side effect, namely memories originating out of your forms, the faces you've taken on. You may just be able to make her tap into hers, the way Young Cosima did, the way you must have as well."

The Angel looked to Sophie. The moment she'd told them the baby was coming, the Angel had felt something in her, something she guessed Rachel Berry had felt too, and for that she'd leaned in nearer to her daughter protectively and reassuringly. But the Angel couldn't do that, and she'd realized it then.

Despite these memories she was accessing, despite what they were telling her, she was not Rachel Berry, and Sophie was not her daughter. She'd had a name of her own once, and a child, but they were neither one of them belonging to the two women huddled on the ground. She didn't even know for certain that they were truly hers and not only part of… the story…

She wasn't real at all, nor had she ever been. She existed because people like Rachel Berry had gone and portrayed her, just as the wall of images had shown it. Her world was cardboard, her wings had wires…

But not these wings. For the time being, they were as real as she was. And if her time was meant to come to an end, then she would use that time well.

"I am not… evil," she slowly declared.

"Never thought you were," Rachel replied, shaking her head in an almost sisterly way.

"Doctor," the Angel turned to her now. "I would prefer you came along. You seem to have a better idea of what's happening than I do." The Doctor stood, turning hesitantly to look at Sophie and Rachel. The baby would come, no stopping it now, and it still felt impossible to leave knowing that. But Rachel saw her face and interpreted the look as something more like 'will you be okay without me?' and once she'd nodded, it felt hard not to go ahead and leave with the Angel, so she did.

"Wait!" Sophie called, breathing deep. The Doctor turned immediately, and the Angel stopped, too. "Julian was here, wasn't he?" Sophie asked the Angel. "I heard you talking about him, that's why I came out of the Doctor's ship."

"The young man, yes," the Angel confirmed, bowing her head when she remembered what she'd planned to do for him. "A woman came, made me walk away from him."

"Yes, I imagine she would," the Doctor told herself. She didn't have to guess who that woman would be. She'd made certain not to come into the theater proper, but the outside was fair game, wasn't it…

"He could… he could still be out there," Sophie looked up to her mother. "H-He should be here, I want him to be… the baby…" She started to cry, and Rachel took up her hand, stroked her arm reassuringly.

"He will be. It'll be over soon, all this here, and then we'll get him, and you'll have that son or daughter of yours," she told her, stealing a look to the Doctor that begged the Time Lady not to make a liar out of her.

"You listen to your mother now, she's got the right of it, you'll see," the Doctor told Sophie.

After the Doctor and the Angel had gone, there wasn't much else for the others to do but keep Sophie calm while they waited to see what would happen next.

One day, Sophie would know more about all that which had been happening around her on the day her daughter was born. One day, she would look to her eldest daughter and she would see it, see the person she was growing up to become. She would know the true identity of the woman who had appeared to both her and Julian. The Teacher. Their daughter, Gemma…

Of course she wouldn't be able to tell her that. She would still be a child, unaware of her life's future course. And she'd have to stay that way, until the moment came when she could piece it together herself. The only one they could confide in until then was Rachel, who would have known it, too.

The oddest thing from that moment became to carry on the stories of the Doctor and the Teacher to Gemma and her sister. They weren't just stories anymore, they were Gemma's legacy. What could she do? Hide them from her? She already carried them in her spirit, same as Sophie had done all her life. They couldn't pry the stories from Gemma any more than they could keep her from living them.

TO BE CONTINUED (TODAY)