"Gooshie, activate the accelerator chamber," Al called as he stormed out of the Imaging Chamber and into the Control Room. "Ziggy, let the Doctor out of the Waiting Room, and Donna, get him set and into the quantum accelerator chamber. Tina, we're leaping the Doctor into himself. You've got the coordinates from Ziggy's last lock. Verbena," he added, spotting her step up to help, "you'll want to get down to the Waiting Room. When I left, the Doctor was fit for the loony bin, and Sam looked like he agreed with me on that."
There was a flurry of activity around him, but for a moment, Al just stopped. He didn't really believe in God, not after what had happened with…. But some things Sam had encountered during his leaps—like Angela, whom he had scoffed at the entire time regarding her claims of being an angel, until she had left and Sam, along with everyone else in 1958, had forgotten all about her—had him questioning again. He'd found himself praying before, when circumstances were dire, and, well, now was as good a time as any.
"Synchrotron online," Gooshie called, interrupting Al's thoughts—and wishes and pleas and bargains, if he were perfectly honest. He vaguely wondered how long he'd been lost in his thoughts; he hadn't even realized Donna had re-entered the Control Room, let alone that she was now standing in place beside Gooshie, ready to leap the Doctor on Gooshie's command.
"Affirmative," came Donna's reply. The catch in her voice reminded the others of the last time they'd stood here, in the same positions, repeating the same lines. The last time, when they'd sent Sam back in time, leaping him into Al—something they couldn't have done if Donna hadn't let him go, because Sam wouldn't have been able to break her heart again. But with less than thirty seconds, he would have been hard pressed to find another way to save Al.
"Stand by to fire," Gooshie continued. He caught Tina's gaze, and she nodded; everything was in order. "Fire!"
"Ziggy?" Al asked after a moment.
"The leap was successful, Admiral." There was a slight pause, and Ziggy added, "But Dr. Beckett will be unable to leap out if the Doctor's state deteriorates any further. The resulting complications that would occur during the attempted leap would be lethal to the leapers."
"Then the Doctor had damn well better know what he's doing," Al growled. "If we lose Sam because of him—"
"Ziggy," Donna called out suddenly, "what are the chances that Sam won't—?" She stopped, unable to finish her query, too afraid of the answer to ask the question at that moment. "Keep monitoring those temporal fluctuations you've been tracking and alert me to any changes."
"Of course, Dr. Eleese."
"Gooshie, how's the record coming?" Al asked, trying to break the uncomfortable silence after Donna's request. "Are we going to have a copy of the leap this time?"
"I believe so, Admiral. Providing Dr. Smith remains unaware, that is. Given his actions last time…."
"Yeah, he'd somehow manage to ruin them, I'm sure." Al frowned. "Donna—"
"I'm staying here," Donna interrupted. "I'll help Gooshie."
Al's frown deepened slightly, but he didn't argue. He took a breath, calculating how long he figured it would be before Beeks tracked him down with her report on the Doctor, and turned to Tina. "Join me?" he asked, jerking his head in the direction of his office. He opened his mouth to continue, but Tina gave him a broad grin, and he swallowed his words. Why waste his breath talking, after all?
"Oh, Al," she said, her earrings winking brightly, matching her smile. "I thought you'd never ask!"
"Oooh," the Doctor groaned, holding his head. Sam looked at him with renewed concern, but the Doctor suddenly straightened up. "How you stand that, leap after leap, is beyond me. Granted, you tend to stay on the same timeline, and that's bad enough, but jumping parallels? Grates the nerves, it does." He gave his head a shake. "Right, then. Things to do."
"You can help me to sort this out?" Sam asked, trying to get used to the fact that he was talking to his leapee, face to face—and that they were in the same temporal plane.
"Well, technically, from what I understand, you did your part. You just can't leap until I've sorted everything else. Namely, the splicing. Right. But you can't come with me."
"But I thought—"
"You have some experience with time travel, but frankly, it's not nearly enough." The Doctor read the look on Sam's face and sighed. "I'm not willing to take the risk," he explained, "of taking you fully into the Vortex, not when you're split as you are. And before you even mention it," he added, seeing Sam open his mouth in protest, "I'm different. And besides, I'm still me. The same me, from teeth to toe. I've a few neurons that I'd better not acknowledge at the moment, but they will be a part of me, in however many years he is ahead of me."
"But I—"
"I won't be long," the Doctor interrupted. "Well, not unless I miscalculate. I'm more concerned about leaving than landing, because by the time I'm through, I'll have knit the parallels together, and it'll be a fair bit easier to find the right piece of time." He looked at Sam for a moment, who didn't have the heart to keep protesting. "I don't know if you'll notice a difference, actually, since things should just change around you. Not if you remember what happened once the splicing was through. Which has me curious, really. Because…." He trailed off and shook his head. "I'll find out soon enough, I suppose." He grinned at Sam and nodded to the breast pocket. "I might have an old watch in there," he said. "Don't know if it works, but if it does, you can time me." Pulling a key from his own pocket, he unlocked the door to his counterpart's TARDIS and dashed inside.
Sam stepped back as the engines of the TARDIS wheezed to life. He wouldn't deny that he wanted to experience another type of time travel, but witnessing this…. It was astounding. Some part of him—well, not exactly him—could name all the laws that were obeyed, and how most of the laws he himself knew were shattered once the higher dimensions were accounted for. His pure fascination of each and every concept involved as he saw the groaning dematerialization of the Doctor's ship was enough to override his bitter disappoint.
Grinning despite himself, Sam started rummaging in his pocket for a watch.
Dr. Verbena Beeks stood just inside the Waiting Room, the seamless, bright blue walls giving the impression of immense space. It helped, they'd learned, with some leapees. It added to the surreal sense of the leap. Whether that was a good thing or not depended upon the leapee, though she would rather be convincing a disoriented leapee that they had neither died nor been abducted by aliens than try to…. But she had an advantage this time: she'd met the leapee before. That he was currently curled up in so tight a ball that she could barely glimpse Sam Beckett's face was the more pressing disadvantage.
Verbena walked cautiously up the ramp. The balled figure did not stir, though she didn't doubt that he knew of her approach. "Dr. Smith?" she asked gently.
No response. Not even a twitch.
"Dr. Smith, do you remember what happened?"
Nothing.
Verbena considered her options. Usually, identifying the leapees and the year of their present was their priority. If the leapee was unusually distraught, they could take the time they needed to establish a feeling of calm, after which they could begin plying for the information they needed. This time, however, things were different. She guessed that Al thought Dr. Smith would be able to help them, regardless of how annoyed he was with the man's counterpart. But looking at the still figure now, she had to wonder if perhaps they were too late.
Al exaggerated, yes. He joked. He drank, and he smoked. They were ways for him to deal with the fact that no matter how much danger he saw his friend being forced to face, all he could do was provide some information, either from what Ziggy had turned up or his own experience. On good days. On other days, all he could do was watch. But sometimes, just for a minute, he'd slip back, and—
Verbena carefully placed a hand on the leapee's shoulder. "Dr. Smith?" she called again, still keeping her voice low and soothing.
For a moment, there was nothing. Then, "Don't touch me." The voice was muffled, but the command was clear. That, however, did not startle Verbena as much as the pain in the voice. She withdrew her hand.
"I'm sorry," she said, her apology genuine, though she wasn't sure she hid her confusion quite as well as she would have liked.
"I don't want you to cut yourself," Sam's voice continued, each word still sounding forced.
"I beg your pardon?"
The figure began to uncurl with agonizing slowness. Verbena could see the pain on Sam's face, hear the steady, controlled breaths—far too shallow and quick to be normal, from what she recalled earlier. He pulled himself into a sitting position, eyes screwed up tightly, face white. "I don't want you to cut yourself," he repeated, enunciating every word with painful precision. "And you might, if you get too close."
"I'll just—"
"No." A careful, deeper breath, slowly exhaled. Dr. Smith opened his eyes. "You don't understand. The slivers are there, but you can't see them, so you could cut yourself."
"Let me help."
A pained smile appeared on the face. "Oh, Dr. Verbena Beeks, if you could help, I wouldn't stop you. But you can't." His eyes closed again.
"We have medical facilities—"
"Oh, you know that won't help. Nothing will."
"If we could just—"
"Sam's physical aura is masking me," Dr. Smith cut in, reopening his eyes. "Believe me, what's underneath isn't pretty. But you can't do anything about it. The damage was incurred in the leaping process."
"Ziggy didn't pick up anything unusual."
"She wouldn't have, not after the inhibitor I put in. And even I thought I'd be in better shape than this." Dr. Smith took a few steadying breaths before continuing, "More stable, I mean. Wouldn't have suggested it otherwise. I mean, there always was Martha. But I thought from here, I could…." He trailed off, instead pursuing his original thought. "Besides, I didn't want to skew the timeline any—" He inhaled sharply. After a few seconds, he added, "Any more than necessary."
"But if there's anything—"
"There wasn't, and there still isn't. I'm the Doctor, Verbena Beeks, and I know time in a way you never will. Because you can't. Most of what you believe is, under normal circumstances, complete and utter nonsense. I mean, step on a butterfly and change the world?" His tone was scoffing, and he started to laugh but quickly reconsidered, cutting off with a hiss of pain.
"I'll get you a glass of water," Verbena told him, starting to move off, but when she saw him give a slight shake of his head, she stopped.
"Hear me out." A few more laboured breaths, then, "The idea of one small move in time creating catastrophic effects downstream—yes, it's possible, but it's exceedingly rare. Currents are regulated. Modified. Moderated. You can pick most any major event in your history, and likely as not I'd be able to tell you five, ten little things that led up to it, not just one. It's all a matter of—" He'd been speaking more quickly, but he suddenly broke off. He smiled weakly at her. "Well, perhaps that isn't such a bad idea, the water."
Verbena nodded and went to get it. She wasn't entirely sure what to make of the situation, and she didn't particularly like that feeling. She'd managed to get a partial story about Dr. Smith's last appearance at the Project out of Tina, and a few other bits from Donna, but Al kept avoiding her, and Gooshie had been too busy to approach. For the most part, she was still flying blind—even out of what she had been told, she wasn't sure how much she could believe.
Except that Dr. Smith was also a time traveller. That fact seemed indisputable, given the circumstances.
Her thoughts weren't much clearer by the time she reached the Waiting Room, namely because she'd tried consulting Ziggy but had been told that any data pertaining to the Doctor had been corrupted as if that were the end of it. Remembering what Dr. Smith had said about an inhibitor, and what Tina had been ranting about earlier….
Frankly, she had to wonder exactly how…safe they were. The Doctor and Dr. Smith had both been talking about time being damaged, and what with where Sam had ended up, she had to be thankful they hadn't tracked any worse effects. The Project's security was threatened, yes, but they could deal with that accordingly. Her immediate concerns lay with Dr. Smith. Time traveller or not, she needed to hear him out to begin to understand his mental state. The effect of time on Sam, and any of their other leapees, had been partial amnesia. The effect on Dr. Smith appeared to be different.
He hadn't moved, as far as she could tell. His eyes were closed again, but he was utterly still, and for a moment, she wasn't sure that he was breathing. She put the water down beside him.
"Thank you," he said, picking it up and taking a few tentative sips. He still hadn't opened his eyes.
"Do you feel well enough to continue?"
A crooked smile appeared on Sam's face, and he opened his eyes. "I feel like I've fallen a couple hundred feet off a radio telescope. My body feels broken. But I'll still continue, yes. Did last time, at any rate." He looked at the water for a moment, took a swig, and choked. "Bit too enthusiastic, I think," he explained, coughing. When the fit subsided, he sat very still. After a moment, he asked, "Where was I?"
"You were saying you could name a number of small things that led up to a notable historic event."
"Right. Yes." Dr. Smith took a careful breath. "Generally, when someone says that this one thing caused that one event, all they are showing you is the last straw. The one that broke the camel's back. There could be an entire haystack involved, but they're blaming that one straw. You lot, you love blaming that single straw, that final event, but really, your vision's just blinkered. You don't see any more because you don't want to see any more. Usually." He looked up at her as if he expected her to protest. When she didn't, he continued, "But you, here, what you send Sam out to do— That's different. You don't want him to burst the dam; you want him to divert the river."
A contradiction of sorts, Verbena noted, but she saw his point. "And you disapprove?"
"Well. Sort of. Not exactly. The intention is true. The means is suitable, given your circumstances. But you can't control the effects, and that's what worries me."
"Ziggy—"
"Is a wonderful invention, yes," Dr. Smith interrupted, "but she's limited by the same limitations as those who invented her." He paused. "Last time I was here, I made a mistake. That's not something I often say. But I'm correcting it, Verbena. Right now. The parallels are being spliced. I can feel it. The strands are converging, and even though my mistake will still stand, it won't matter anymore. Not in the long run."
"Are you saying that Sam is making mistakes that will have to be corrected?" Verbena asked, careful to keep her voice neutral.
Dr. Smith shook his head, just slightly, just once. "No. I'm saying that he's doing the correcting."
"Then where do you find fault in his work? Because it wasn't his original intention?"
"I think the evolution of the experiment is a wondrous thing," Dr. Smith told her, and for a moment, the sincerity in his voice eclipsed his pain. "I just…. It's not planned. Sam is very, very lucky, Verbena Beeks. That he's leaping about in time is absolutely brilliant, but there are things out there—things that he doesn't know about, things that you don't know about. And even if I can keep him away from fixed points, I can't…. I can't guarantee that he…. It's dangerous. I know that from experience." He held up a hand in front of him, studying it. "So many effects," he said. "If Sam was the only one out there, he'd be safer. But he's not."
"So there are others like you and Alia?"
Dr. Smith opened his mouth, but he still took a while in answering. "Ah, well, no," he finally responded. "Not like Alia, not anymore. And certainly not like me. Just…." He stopped again, and Verbena couldn't tell whether it was due to a lack of words or the amount of pain he was surely experiencing.
After a moment, he continued, "With me, the reason I'm in this mess…. I can't change my timeline. Once I've done something, I've done it. That's that. Simple. Trying to avoid that makes things complicated. Sometimes, I can get out of it unscathed. Usually takes a tremendous amount of power, though. And once it's happened, well, it's already happened one or two or four or however many more times before, so it was bound to happen again. I try not to cross my own timeline, a few cheap tricks aside, where it really doesn't matter because I'm careful enough. So if I do cross it, I try not to change it." He hesitated. "The last time I crossed my own timeline where I was in the same regeneration and something changed, my other self, he…. He didn't splinter, exactly, when the timeline was changed, because the circumstances weren't ones that would lead to splintering. That's why it's rare. And probably the only reason I've managed to avoid it until now. Because it all comes down to the circumstances of the change. Last time, the effects were instantaneous."
"What happened, if I may ask? Last time?"
"Oh, I nearly died last time," Dr. Smith answered hollowly. "It took a very smart, very brave man to save me. And everyone else. Technically, on that parallel, I had died. But then one ordinary man made a sacrifice, and the timeline reasserted itself, correcting all the damage that had been done to time that day. November 7, 1987." Dr. Smith paused, and finally added, "One small change, you'd think. One life. But it mattered. Oh, how it mattered."
"Sam's saved lives," Verbena pointed out. "Many times."
"Yes, and I've made sure he doesn't face those monsters that try to correct that. Well, correct that as they see fit. We don't see eye to eye, them and me. Not usually." He took a careful breath and added, "I'm glad it's limited. Sam's travel. He's much safer when it's limited."
"Limited?"
"Within his own lifetime."
"But you can't—"
"It's limited," Dr. Smith repeated, a bit more forcefully. "And, because of that, he shouldn't have to deal with anything that I've had to deal with." He paused. "Well, unless something mistakes him for me again, but that's unlikely."
"I beg your pardon?"
"Oh, reason I ran into Sam last time," Dr. Smith said, waving it off. "It's just—" He broke off abruptly, his breath exploding through his teeth. He curled forward, face screwed up tightly in pain. He teetered forward, precariously balanced on the edge of the table, and she caught his shoulders, worried that he'd fall off otherwise.
"Don't touch me!" he yelled, pulling away immediately, knocking the half-empty glass of water off the table and causing it to shatter. She stepped back, shocked at the outburst. He pulled himself up and settled safely in the middle of the table, staring critically at her. "Let me see your hands," he demanded, his voice still strong. He didn't sound angry as much as he sounded worried.
"I'm fine," she informed him, showing him her unscathed palms.
He breathed a sigh of relief. "Good," he said simply. "You weren't cut."
Deciding to humour him, she agreed, "No. Isn't that lucky?"
"Far more than you realize," he told her darkly. "I could have cut your timeline, but it doesn't even look like I nicked it." He continued to stare at her. "No," he finally said. "Don't think I did. You were headed for that anyway."
"Pardon?"
"Safest thing," Dr. Smith began, ignoring her, "is to keep everyone away from me. Far as you can. Especially Al and Donna. Even Sammy Jo. Anyone who's had their timelines changed by Sam is more susceptible to being cut. And I can't guarantee that cutting them won't send them back to wherever they were before Sam interfered." He closed his eyes, and his voice dropped to a whisper. "I don't want to hurt anyone else."
Pursing her lips, Verbena reluctantly acknowledged that she wasn't going to be getting anything more out of Dr. Smith for a while yet. Carefully sidestepping the broken glass, she set out to find Al.
A/N: Many among you will, of course, recognize a few lines of dialogue from The Leap Back. The events of that episode are also the reason I'm saying that they can, more or less, target a new leap. If not, well, we'll call it another stroke of luck.
As for the Doctor off to the Evil Leaper Project to do something to splice the parallels…. That's another story entirely, neatly fitted into this one between this chapter and the next, and is called Splicing.