Manifestation
Part 3 - Conclusion

By Bex

The Valeyard kept a hand clamped tightly on Grace's arm as they made their way back through the sprawling maze of galleries. He was doing it purely to annoy her, she knew that. She certainly wasn't going to miss being there to see what happened when he and the Doctor came face-to-face.

"What are you going to do?" she asked, in suspense.

"You'll have to just wait and see."

"I won't let you hurt him, you know," she told him, trying to put the same easy confidence that the Doctor had mastered into her declaration.

"My, how protective. I do believe he also taps into the maternal instincts. Yes; that would certainly explain the plethora of human females he's traveled with over the centuries."

Grace glared. She knew he was doing it, and he was still able to push her buttons. Bastard.

"Doctor?"

The Time Lord sat, staring blankly at the shimmering blue soulwell as Grace and the Valeyard stood framed in the gallery doorway. He didn't seem to have heard her.

"Rather self-absorbed, don't you think?" the Valeyard whispered in her ear.

Grace jerked angrily. "It's that hologram he's looking at. It's done something to him."

"Yes; rather clever of me to have had this installed here. I knew he couldn't resist the chance to stare at his own navel. He has one, you know. Like you humans."

Grace's head whipped around to stare at him. "I don't believe you," she said.

"What, about the soulwell? Or the navel?"

Grace's head swung back around as she tried to jerk her arm free of his grasp. "Let go!" she complained. She had to go to the Doctor, wake him up from whatever spell the soulwell had put him under; warn him.

"Oh, don't disturb him now," the Valeyard advised her.

"I thought you came here to talk to him!"

"Well, perhaps I've changed my mind," he said mildly. Grace's eyes widened as he swung the sidearm up and aimed it directly at the green velvet-covered back of the figure sitting oh-so-still on the bench.

"No!" she exclaimed, grabbing at his arm with her free hand. "You can't do that if you're going to be created from him!"

"This won't necessarily kill him. Perhaps he'll regenerate. Let's see...he's number eight... Oh, but I forgot: This is a Time Lord staser. If it's at the correct setting, which it --" He glanced at the gun momentarily, "--is, it will kill him. Did he ever tell you how that works? The energy reverberates around inside the body, which convulses. It's quite nasty to watch."

"You'd be killing yourself!" Grace exclaimed.

"Perhaps. I'm not really sure what would happen. Perhaps I'd just...fade away."

"You're a part of him, right? You can't destroy yourself!" she protested desperately.

And the Valeyard wrenched her close, glaring fiercely at her twisted face. "To the contrary -- people do it all the time! This is just a little more externalized than usual!" he snarled.

Grace stared back at him, appalled.

"And now I think you finally understand," the Valeyard told her with sinister finality. "Rationality doesn't come into it: I could do anything."

"Please don't kill him," Grace said then, her voice low with entreaty. "You don't need to do this -- you have a life; now go and live it! Leave him alone!"

"But always in the back of my mind is the awareness of him, the original from which the 'flawed chip' was struck..."

Grace swore internally. Dear God, Time Lord Self-Pity.

"I won't be free until he is gone."

Grace's hand latched doggedly onto the Valeyard's arm. He was trying to raise his staser again. She grappled for the gun.

"No --no!" she gasped, yanking at his hand, as he struggled to aim. "Stop it! You don't really want to do this."

That surprised him enough that he paused in his struggles and locked eyes with her. "I don't want to do this?"

"Right -- you want me to stop you," Grace declared gamely. "You really are part of the Doctor, and you don't really expect to kill him, because you know I'll stop you."

His face took on an incredulous expression. "You, a human, are analyzing me?!"

"Hey, I had a psych course when I was in medical school."

His expression became even more strange. "A...'psych course'? And that enables you to understand my motives?"

"It was a course on abnormal psychology," she snapped. "You're part of his id, right? Probably his death wish or something. I also remember Freud telling us about that. Now give me the gun."

He glared down at her and she glared right back. He tensed his arm to move the weapon out of her restraining grasp, and her own muscles tightened in response.

"I should have killed you back there," he growled.

She sneered back at him. "You never intended to -- you obviously need an audience."

"Excuse me. Is this a private party, or can anyone join in?"

Grace and the Valeyard turned their heads to look. The Doctor stood before them.

Grace stared. "Why do you Time Lords have to always complicate everything?" she growled, jerking her head at her opponant. "Why couldn't you have just left well enough alone?!"

The Doctor shrugged. "It's...just our way. And I didn't exactly ask for this to happen."

"I'll bet you didn't!" Although she was glaring at the Doctor, Grace fancied she could feel a smile growing on the Valeyard's face. "Oh, stop that!" she exclaimed, turning an unfriendly look upon the dark-haired man with whom she was still frozen in contention. "What are you so happy about? This is you, remember?" she exclaimed.

"Well, he is and he isn't," the Doctor said. "You took over the Keeper's body, didn't you?" He shook his head sadly. "That's a perverse correpondance, given how the Master tried to take mine."

"Where do you think he got the idea?"

The Doctor tilted his head and stared at the gray-robed man before him. "From the trial, yes, when they were going to grant you my remaining incarnations if you succeeded in convicting me. He never was as original as he liked people to think." He sighed, and passed a hand over his face. "I'd been wondering where you'd gotten to..."

"Oh, you know I'm never very far away."

"Indeed," the Doctor agreed dryly. "How appropriately psychogenic. But that doesn't change the fact that you're not just a part of me -- you must have taken on some of the Keeper's traits when you took posession of his body. You may even be an amalgam of the both of you."

The Valeyard looked momentarily uncertain, then sneered. "What, trying to evade your responsibility?"

The Doctor's eyes narrowed. "No. Just stating the obvious. You are not just a representation of my 'dark side'. Not anymore."

Grace looked at the Valeyard speculatingly, intrigued by this latest twist, as he thought the Doctor's statement over. The next instant, he unlocked his arms so suddenly that Grace, caught off guard, lost her balance and released her grip, stumbling several paces away. Feeling hands on her shoulders, she looked quickly up.

It was the Doctor. "Grace, are you all right?" he asked urgently.

She looked back, staring at his worried blue eyes. "I'm fine," she told him. "It was...a bit of a surprise." Her tone was dry. "Any other skeletons like that one?"

"Well, that depends what you mean by skele--" He winced as she dug an elbow into his side.

"Ahem." They both looked up to see the Valeyard before them, idly playing with the staser that he still held. Seeing that he had their attention, he raised it and aimed it at them. "You may be right, Doctor," he told them coolly. "Still..."

Grace rolled her eyes. "Oh, for heaven's sake -- I thought we'd finished with that! What's the point?!"

"The point is-- The point is... The Valeyard paused.

"Force of habit?" the Doctor offered, bright-eyed.

"Lack of imagination," Grace decided.

The Valeyard glared. "You are in no position to--"

"Now that he can't just blame you for everything, he can't decide what to do, so he's taking it out on us," Grace said, turning her head to look at the Doctor.

Her friend nodded back vigorously. "Sad, isn't it? He's trapped in the past. He's forgotten that people are never static. They change and grow."

Grace sighed theatrically. "But I guess he just can't face reality. Too many options. He's got so many opportunities, and all he can do is run through the same old grudges..."

"If I were him--" The Doctor paused, eyebrow raised to acknowledge the irony. "I'd be out, exploring the universe, learning about it and myself. Choosing a name that suited me."

"Yes, so would--" Grace began, pausing as the Doctor suddenly turned his head away, staring out into the room.

"Grace, he's gone," he said.

She looked around. They were indeed alone. She slumped slightly. "Oh, God," she muttered. "That was..." She straightened. "He actually listened to us?"

"Apparently so. Only time will tell."

She sighed, rubbing the back of her neck. "Wow. That was something else. He said the holofield was a trap -- how did you break away?"

The Doctor smiled winningly. "I haven't, yet. But that should't be a problem now."

Grace stared at him, perturbed. "But then -- then that would mean--" She closed her eyes momentarily, then opened them again. "Should I just click my heels together three times?" she inquired waspishly.

"If you like; it doesn't really matter. Just--" He took hold of her arm, and they stepped forward-- "hang on--"

Grace gasped, her eyes flying open. She was slumped on the bench in front of the soulwell, the Doctor seated beside her. She drew in a juddering breath and sat upright.

"Aah," she groaned, putting her head in her hands for a few moments. "When did this happen? I remember -- I saw--"

"Easy, Grace," the Doctor reassured, patting her on the shoulder.

"But I need to know how much of this was real!"

He looked at her, bemused. "It was all 'real', Grace. What exactly do you mean?"

"But I was out in the other parts of the museum, then I saw him, then we..." She stopped and turned a steely gaze upon her friend. "Just tell me one thing, Doctor: Is there really a 'Valeyard'?"

He looked at her frankly. "Yes. Parts of me I never imagined would see the light of day were wrenched free from my future and given life." He paused, glancing down. "It's not something I go out of my way to advertise. It was much more of a problem during my sixth incarnation; I never thought it would ever effect you." He sighed and met her eyes again. "I'm sorry."

"Well, for what it's worth, Doctor, he didn't really hurt me. Not with anything I hadn't already thought about long before." She looked gingerly up at the glowing blue holofield suspended above them. "You know, they say it's not good to examine your navel too much. Now I know what they mean."

The Doctor blinked, then slotted a shifty glance her way. "Indeed." He stood up, stretching luxuriously. "I've certainly had enough of that for a while."

Grace quickly joined him. "Ditto," she said.

"Eh?"

"Enough of you being introspective. Anyone ever tell you Time Lords your minds are pretty grabby? Reaching out like that and just pulling other people's in--"

"Grace, we can hardly help it if we have intellects the size of a--"

"Come on, Doctor," Grace said, rolling her eyes at his hyperbole as she pulled on his arm, urging him forward.

"What's so important that it requires you to manhandle me?"

"Giftshop," she prompted succinctly. "Come on."

Now it was the Doctor's turn to roll his eyes. "You humans and your consumer culture. I swear, I'll never understand--"

"You know, that's pretty funny, coming from a man with whole rooms full of bric-a-brac."

"That's different -- I've collected those items during my travels. They're souvenirs."

"Exactly. And now I'm going to get a souvenir of this visit."

The Doctor subsided, conceding the point, relieved that Grace was recovering so quickly from her experience.

--

Grace, museum guide book in hand, stood in line for the gift-shop cashier, as the Doctor wandered idly through the back of the shop.

Sighing, she dug her hand into one of the on-seam pockets of her dress, reaching for the change purse within and frowned. The purse was there, but also what felt like a piece of paper.

Pulling it out, she unfolded and peered at it. It read: Despite our differences, a stimulating introduction. We shall meet again.
--V

Grace stared at it, her lips thinning. "Oh, very funny," she muttered grimly, unable to resist glancing up and around. "If you think I'm going to be looking over my shoulder all the time from now on, think again. I just hope you're ready for me next time!"

Stepping up to the cashier, who was goggling at the human tourist mumbling to herself, Grace smiled, crumpled the scrap of paper, and lobbed it handily into the small wastebasket standing nearby.

"Hah! Two points!" she exclaimed.

Just out of sight, a figure in gray smiled, before turning and disappearing into the shadows.

Fin

Tip o' the hat to Timothy Zahn.