"That was a short conversation," Martha mused when Sam entered the TARDIS.

"Al didn't have much to say. I've given Ziggy all I know, but it hasn't been enough; she still doesn't know why I'm here."

"And who is Ziggy?"

"Parallel-hybrid computer," Sam answered. "But not exempt to breakdowns. Unfortunately, that's not the case this time. If it were, it wouldn't be hard to fix, theoretically; we've enough parts in storage after the last fiasco, according to Al. But now the limiting factor is information, or rather the lack thereof."

"Suppose there's nothing I can do to help, is there?"

"I'm not sure. Anything would probably be helpful, even if it's not entirely relevant, just so Ziggy can process the situation." He looked away for a moment. "I just feel…useless," he finally confessed.

"But you aren't. I mean, look at the facts here, yeah?" She smiled encouragingly at him. "You fix things, just like the Doctor. You risk your life to do what's right. Besides, you already told me you love it." She kept smiling at him, knowing it was contagious. "And I know you weren't lying. I could see it in your face. Sam, your life is amazing. Do you know how many people on this planet would give their right arm to have a chance to study the past like you are?"

"That was the initial intention of the Project," Sam allowed, facing her with a small, sad smile of his own.

She beamed at him. "I know you want to get home, and some day you will, just like me. I mean, since I've begun travelling with the Doctor, I've only been home once. I never know when I'm going to get back there, and even if I ask, I mean, the TARDIS sometimes, well…."

"Hits turbulence?" Sam offered, a genuine smile on his face now. It didn't last long, however. "You remember your own time, though; not like me. I remember a few things, random things, but nothing important, not really. I want to know what I'm missing. I want to remember everything. And I can't."

"Maybe you will, some day. But it's not like you don't have any contact at all, is it? You've got Al." She held up her cell phone with a grin. "And I've got my mobile." She pocketed it before Sam could ask for any details, continuing, "Thing is, no matter how far away we go, we're never cut off from our present completely. And you're doing so much good for the world in little ways. Those are bound to add up. You told me yourself you've touched more lives than you can count. How many of those people would be leading poorer lives if you hadn't touched them? How many of them would have had something so terribly wrong happen that they could never get past it, even as time went on, so they ended up souring the lives of whomever they touched? You're brilliant, but you've got to be an absolute dunce if you think for one moment that you're useless." Her grin faded. "Besides, if anyone should be feeling useless, it's me."

"Why would you say a thing like that?" Sam asked immediately, concerned. "I'm sure you've helped the Doctor out of one scrape or another."

"Yeah. I have. Not as often as he's saved my skin, but…." She shrugged. "I just…. It's been months, so it's silly, but when the Doctor became John Smith, he asked me why I was there, what my purpose was, why the Doctor let me travel with him. And it's because he's lonely, most of the time." She smirked, adding, "And he loves having someone to talk to. I don't think he even really minds that I don't understand him half the time, just because I'm there for him to explain it to." Her amusement faded as she continued, "Thing is, the Doctor, he doesn't really…. I mean, I couldn't expect…." She stopped. "I just…. I dunno. The Doctor could have ended up travelling with anyone. He travelled with someone before me. And it still hurts him to remember. Sometimes, I swear he looks at me, and he's…." She trailed off, unable to finish her thought.

"The Doctor wouldn't travel with just anyone," Sam said, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. "You're special. Ordinary, but…. Brilliant, I believe he'd say."

"But…." Martha took a shuddering breath. She couldn't believe she was about to say this. "I love him, but he doesn't look at me twice. Every moment of it hurts. I don't want to stop travelling with him, but I know I can't stay forever."

"Then live each moment as if it's your last. Don't take a second of it for granted. You may love the Doctor, but you deserve someone who loves you in return, who treasures every moment he has with you. You deserve someone who will understand you, support you, and believe in you, someone you care for and will gladly do as much for and more in return. You're smart, you're strong, and you're witty. You're determined and courageous and beautiful and…brilliant, really. And there is someone out there, on this earth, in your own time, who will realize and appreciate that. You just need to find them. Don't you ever sell yourself short, all right? Promise me that. Promise me you won't settle. Promise me that you'll shelve the concerns of your family over what's proper and what's not and instead help them realize why you're doing what you're doing or why you're with whomever you're with. Can you promise me all that?"

Martha smiled, still blinking back tears. "Yes. I promise."

"I haven't known you very long, Martha Jones," Sam continued, "but I know that you have the will and the ability to do what's right, no matter what life is throwing at you. Even in the most trying of circumstances, even when everyone else has given up, you are the type of person who can continue. And do you know why I think that?"

"Because I'd try to follow the Doctor's example?"

Sam shook his head. "No," he replied gently, "not because you'd follow the Doctor's example. Not because you believe in him and trust him and would try to do what he'd do in a given situation. You'd be able to survive extenuating circumstances because you have the ability to believe in yourself. Remember that. Martha Jones, no matter how ordinary you think you are, no matter how extraordinary you've become since travelling with the Doctor, no matter what trials you're facing, no matter what hurdles you're trying to jump— If you put your mind to it, I believe you could save the world."

She laughed, almost bitterly, still trying to fight off the tears as she was. "Fat chance of that."

"I don't know what you've been through, travelling with the Doctor, but a change doesn't have to be big or drastic for its effects to be felt. You said I helped people by touching tens of dozens of lives. You can do the same. Just take it one small step at a time, and keep going, no matter how hard the journey becomes. And if you think you've finally reached the end, and the reward seems bittersweet, then you just need to keep going." Martha lost her battle, and the tears started to flow. Sam pulled her into a tight hug. "You have a good character, you know. Good character, good will, and good judgement. With your compassionate heart and logical mind, people will trust you, and trust in you. And I don't think you'd even be capable of letting them down."

"Thank you." Her voice was muffled because her face was still pressed into his shoulder, but she didn't care. She meant it.

Sam wasn't sure how long it was before he left the TARDIS again. Martha had been the one to excuse herself. She'd said he was right, that she was being silly, the Doctor probably did have plenty more libraries in the TARDIS, and if she set out looking for them with the intention of helping the Doctor, then the TARDIS would likely help her find them. Sam hadn't been certain how he should reply to that, because regardless of how often he'd had to think on his feet, he hadn't been faced with another scenario quite like this. Each leap brought its own surprises, of course, but this one was certainly one of the strangest.

He found the Doctor pacing around the exterior of the other TARDIS, muttering to himself. He didn't notice Sam at first, so Sam took the opportunity to study him, mentally comparing him to the other Doctor's healthy image. Among other things, Sam was concerned that the Doctor's face didn't even look flushed, despite the frantic walking round and round the blue police box.

"Doctor?" Sam called gently. Finding that he hadn't been heard, he repeated the call, louder this time, and the Doctor stopped abruptly and looked at him.

"I need to get back to the Project."

"But you said you couldn't—"

"I know what I said." The Doctor ran his hands through his hair. He began pacing again, resuming his old route. "So right now, your way is best. Just nicking it. Might give me a nasty headache, but it won't tear me apart."

"But you can't travel my way," Sam said as the Doctor reappeared from behind his ship a second time. "You're here and…." He trailed off, realizing what the Doctor was thinking.

The Doctor stopped in front of him. "Exactly. Leap him into me. You've leaped leapees into themselves before. You did it with Al. You can do it with me. Bit unconventional, granted, but we can sort it out."

"How much did I tell you?" Sam asked. "Al hasn't even mentioned that since it happened. He's never even said how much he remembers of that."

The Doctor looked like he was going to tear his hair out. "You didn't tell me that," he confessed, slowly removing his hands, though his hair remained in its newest out-of-place position. "You didn't tell me everything about Alia and Zoey, either. Not this me; I only knew bits of it. The other me found it out when he read through the reports of your leaps. And my timeline's fracturing. I can see splinters of what he knows. I know what he's learned now, not just what he learned the first time through, so I could piece together the rest doing my own research from here. Trouble is, I don't have to look far to know about Alpha, Sam. Or Edward St. John V. Which means some of these splinters may fly, cracking other timelines. And you're awfully close to me right now. You, and Al, and Martha. Even Donna, considering."

"Considering what, exactly? And who is Donna?" Sam asked, having heard the Doctor mention her before, though he'd been unwilling to ask at that time.

"Your—" The Doctor cut himself off, looking pained. "No, hasn't happened yet for you. My friend. In about twenty-five years, relative time, my friend Donna is going to save you. You, and everyone else on Earth. Everyone in the universe, really. No matter when you are, Sam, she'll still save you. She'll save everyone. She was brilliant." He closed his eyes.

Sam knew the pain he glimpsed on the Doctor's face was real, so he didn't even bother asking why he thought this would affect his friend. Perhaps she was close to his other self at the Project, like Al was, even if that was unlikely. Still, however true the Doctor's story was, Sam had a feeling that he wasn't exactly telling the truth, at least not in its entirety. But it was the man's right not to share everything with him, and he would respect that.

Besides, if the Doctor was going to get himself leaped back to the Project, he needed to know what was going on beforehand. And what to do if something went wrong. He still wasn't sure what would happen if the Doctor splintered, and he wasn't sure he wanted to help the man do something that would cause that process to accelerate to the breaking point. He wanted to know the facts.

He'd have to ask questions carefully, though, or he might not get any answers. "So if you figured this out yourself, why tell me? Why not just tell Al? He was with you, after all."

"I didn't have time to say anything to him," the Doctor answered, not bothering to open his eyes. "Too busy discussing…other things. And then they were cut off, so I expect that means that the circuitry's fried in that handlink. Even if it wasn't a big explosion, which I don't really expect it was, it would have knocked something out somewhere along the line. Domino effect. Nothing a new handlink wouldn't fix, but it would take a minute or two to get that, and I didn't think Al would be particularly happy to see me by the time they finally got it synced up and ready for use. And I would've been the only one to lock on to, and they know it, seeing as we weren't able to rig anything up to get a signal in the TARDIS, not on such short notice or without all the proper tools and calibrations and whatnot, on top of everything else that kept cropping up." The Doctor sighed, opening weary eyes. "I doubted Al would come back until Ziggy could get a lock on you again."

"Are you sure it's safe? To leap him into you?"

"Sam," the Doctor began in a tone most often reserved for chiding children, "I know what I'm doing. Yes. It should be safe."

"Should?"

"There are very few things in this universe that are completely certain and unchangeable," the Doctor reminded him. "So yes, should. Look at it this way. If we don't do anything, it'll have the same effect. If this goes wrong, which it shouldn't, it would only be speeding up the process that was going to happen anyway."

"But why do you need to go there?"

"Because that's where it started. It all started there. Everything started there." The Doctor offered him a smile, but to Sam, it looked weak. "And you know what they say to do when you're at a loss: go back to the beginning and start again." The smile became a bit stronger but still looked faint. "I've done all I can from here, on this end, but there's something I'd like to check there, just to be sure. To preserve the rest of my timeline, I'd rather not ask my other self to do it, and he'd be the only one to find it because he'd be the only one who would know what he's looking for."

"What if something goes wrong?"

The Doctor's expression became sombre now. "You'll never know it if it does," he confessed at length, sounding almost resigned to that fact. "But I'll know what to do, when it comes to it. I've hidden the information in the TARDIS, and if worse comes to worst, the file will be activated. So it'll just be this that's changed, if everything goes according to plan."

"But what about you?"

"I'll be…replaced."

"But—"

"Look at it this way," the Doctor interrupted. "We need to get the other me here, because he's the only one who can do what needs to be done to do the splicing. Only, it'll still be tricky, so you'll have to stay here with Martha, and I'll send him off in my TARDIS." He patted his ship fondly. "She's going to hide away everything he can't know about yet."

"You can't—"

"I can." He straightened up, suddenly looking far older than he had before. "I'm extraordinarily clever, but I can still make mistakes. I like to think I'm wise, but sometimes I need someone to open my eyes for me. Some of the things I have seen—faced down, even—in all my years travelling…. Oh, it would chill you clear to your core. But I've seen wonderful things, things I wouldn't have appreciated quite as much if I had never spent so much time with you humans. I've always been a bit eccentric, but in the beginning, I still thought I was above you."

The Doctor smiled. "You wouldn't have recognized me then, but believe me, I needed to be brought down a few pegs, and I was. But I didn't like it. It's terribly humiliating, being shown up by a lesser evolved species." The smile became rueful. "Still is humiliating, but it helps me. Sometimes, I'm trying so hard to avoid something, or forget something, or find something, or simply make sure something happens in precisely the right way, that I miss things. Little things. I'm too focused on the big picture. And then one of you bumbling little humans comes and reminds me, points something out, or even just says something brilliant…. And it helps, every little bit. What I want to do now is take a risk because I'm not going to give up. Are you going to deny me that?"

"Of course not," replied Sam immediately, appalled that the Doctor would think he would even try.

"Thank you. Really. Thank you." The Doctor lifted one hand and studied it for a moment, turning it around slowly and wiggling his fingers. He sucked in a breath. "Would've thought they'd have managed to get the handlink connected. I can't have done that much damage." He paused. "Well, not intentionally."

"Yeah, well," Al said bitterly, causing Sam to jump—although the Doctor's expression didn't even change. He was standing off to one side, glaring at the Doctor, but he moved closer as he continued, "I confined your counterpart to the Waiting Room, so don't expect to be seeing him any time soon."

"But you're still on this parallel," the Doctor pointed out mildly, "so it can't all be bad, can it?"

"The handlink nearly blew up in my hands!" Al shot back. He turned to Sam, saying, "Ziggy doesn't think you came here to help the Doctor. At least not initially. We don't have any definite information, but Ziggy projects that, if what the loony tune over there is saying is true, then the only reason you would have come here was to help his companion, Martha Jones."

"Help her with what?" Sam asked.

"That's just it; we don't know. Usually, we can access files on these people, but in 1983, Martha Jones isn't old enough to be in preschool, and in 1999, she's just applying to med school." He turned back to the Doctor suddenly. "Is she through that yet? Med school?"

"In her relative timeline, no."

Al nodded and looked at Sam. "Maybe you're here to help her pass her exams."

"But she is in my relative timeline," the Doctor continued. "Mind, I had to pull a favour with UNIT to speed up the certification process, but she was doing well last time I ran into her."

"Family troubles, then," Al suggested. "She's got family, hasn't she? Everyone has family troubles." Beside him, Sam snorted and muttered something about infidelity.

"Sure she does. But things get a whole lot worse, and then they get better, and she survives."

"Yeah, well, Ziggy still gives it a 34.7 percent chance, based on what we do know, and that's probably the best you're going to get, Sam." Al frowned down at the handlink—one of their earlier models, Sam realized. He hadn't seen that one in quite a while. It was their first prototype, most of it clear black plastic and circuitry, more compact than the colourful one Al used these days—and, more importantly, connected differently than the newer one.

When Al noticed Sam's interested look, he rolled his eyes and explained, "I had Do—Dr. Beeks go get Tina after the other one blew up." He saw the Doctor's eyes narrow, but Sam seemed to accept it; he hadn't caught Al's slip. Thankfully. "Completely frazzled the circuits and the plastic even melted. I'm lucky I didn't burn my hand. Gooshie managed to hook this one up again, since none of the others worked, but needed Tina to correlate the connections of some other whatchamacallit, and interface something else, but…." Al shook his head. "I've even got Beeks running maintenance checks, trying to isolate what the Doctor did so we can repair it, because he doesn't want to tell us, just fix it himself, and Gooshie and Tina are still trying to work out all the bugs with this."

"I could fix it up, if you like," the Doctor offered.

"Forget it," Al said immediately, dismissing the option with a wave of his hand. "Besides, you're stuck here, from what I gather."

"Not if you leap me into myself," the Doctor pointed out. "Let him out of the Waiting Room and get him into the quantum accelerator. You can target leaps now, and he needs to splice these parallels together, because I can't. Even if Sam's already done what he leaped in here to do, he can't leap out until this is sorted, can he? He hasn't before. Granted, you can't know that for certain, but it's not a risk you want to take, is it?"

"What do you mean that Sam's already done what he leaped in to do?" Al demanded.

"Well, you've talked to Martha, haven't you?" the Doctor asked, raising his eyebrows at Sam.

"Well, yes, but—"

"There, see? And it worked, you know. What you said. She listened to you." The Doctor sucked in a sudden breath, closing his eyes for a few seconds. Opening them, he continued, "But, well, I wasn't completely wrong. About you leaping here, I mean. Just…partially. You weren't supposed to leap into these circumstances. You weren't supposed to leap into me now. If you were the turbulence we hit in the Vortex, then we're probably the reason you leaped in early as much as you're the reason Martha and I ended up on this parallel.

"Granted, my alarm only went off because you landed on this parallel in the first place. Being the Type LXXVI that it is, you were in danger, continuous enantiomeric pocket or not. It's safer than the rest of this parallel at the moment, but it's still temporally unstable and is liable to terminate a few minutes before the rest of the parallel. Of course, because I had to leave a sensor at the Project, I couldn't make it sensitive enough to tell me what kind of danger you were in, as I wasn't about to leave highly advanced technology in the end of the twentieth century, and that's what alerted me to this mess in the first place. Though I would have found it later, given that Sam remembers the combined effects of the spliced parallels, with the key mutations merging as they would." He focused his attention solely on Al and added, "But, none of that's going to matter if you don't get me to the Project and the other me from the Waiting Room right here."

Al looked from the Doctor to Sam, the latter looking just as shocked as he himself felt. Grudgingly, he hit a button on the handlink. And frowned. "Even with the Doctor in the Waiting Room, there's only a 12.4 percent chance that Sam should be leaping."

"Exactly. He's not going to get out of here unless we fix this, and we can't fix this unless you leap my counterpart into me, right now."

"Look, Doc, I don't care what you say. You don't know—"

"I do know," the Doctor snapped. He started to laugh, bitterly. "Oh, you're the one who doesn't know, Al. You don't know how much I wish I didn't know, but I do. I do. It's always there, right in the back of my mind, and most of the time I can keep it there; I don't have to look too closely, even if I can't shut it out. But I can't push it away now. It's right in the forefront, right out in front of me, blinding me with everything, so I know. Oh, believe me, I know. And it doesn't matter what happens to me, not really, because I'm going to die anyway. Whether or not we splice these parallels together, whether or not we succeed in this little venture, I'm going to die."

Sam looked alarmed at the Doctor's sudden change in mood, and Al wasn't exactly feeling comfortable himself, especially since the Doctor seemed oblivious to their looks. Hadn't he said, back before they'd begun discussing the situation at hand too deeply, that it had only been a few months for him, too? Not much longer than it had been for them at the Project? How long had he known? How long had it been eating away at him? Because Al knew the Doctor was telling the truth—it was so clear, on his face and in his voice and in that harsh, dark, haunting laughter, that Al figured there could only be handful of people on the planet who wouldn't be able to see it.

"I'll go tell everyone what's going on," Al informed Sam quietly, punching the right key on the handlink. "You just…take care of him."

Sam nodded, casting the Doctor another worried glance, and by the time he looked away, Al had gone.

A/N: So, yes. The splintering is catching up with the Doctor, and it's a bit further along than it was before, isn't it? Moves quickly, that. So now it's hard for him to think straight, what with everything he's seeing. Or at least to hide everything, or ignore things, or pretend otherwise. That, and I'm cruel.

Also, I had to fudge the dates a bit. Couldn't figure a good way around that. Any suggestions?

And as for the conversation between Martha and Sam, you can take what you like out of it. To really fit it into Doctor Who canon, I'll suggest it as a reason for Martha being married to Mickey, which I suppose is something I ought to have seen coming but didn't. Because otherwise, if no real explanation was given, then with this skewed storyline of mine, it actually fits. The splintering Doctor, as far as we know, last heard of Martha and Tom Milligan. Crack the timeline apart, insert Sam, and things take a different direction, with the Doctor not looking at all surprised to see Martha and Mickey together when he tracks them down and saves them. And, really, the non-splintering Doctor wouldn't be surprised to see them together, would he, when he sees them right at the end, not if he knows what Sam changed.