Crossroads

"I can't believe that you bought all of that junk."

I just frown at Major Shaw, feeling deeply annoyed. This is the first thing she's said since we left the shop, and that was over an hour ago. I give her what I hope is a withering look. She looks back at me, unimpressed.

"It's not junk. It's basic Wiccan tools," I point out. I'd been meaning to get my own, but being stuck in Victorian England didn't help in the slightest... and I'd rather not use Jane's. It feels... wrong to use them. I just wish I had had more time to learn about the religion from her.

What gets me, though, is the mystery of the stalker. Whatever they are, they are powerful, and have too much of an interest in me. And possibly John and Mom, too, given they were at the house. But was it the present me, or the past me it was observing?

In any case, I need to figure out what is so interested in me, and why.

"So... what's this 'Wiccan' thing, then?" Shaw asks, trying her best to hide her pain. All of this travelling must be causing that wound to flare up. Thinking about it, the organic side of me seems to be aching with all of the walking we've done, too. She's clearly trying to work out if there's a reason for getting what I got, or if I'm malfunctioning.

"It's a religion. Earth based spirituality. It's one of the many Magickal branches of Paganism," I tell her. Shaw makes a small noise.

"No religion I know of uses bits of wood with stones attatched. Or a knife. or-"

"Mine does. And it's not a bit of wood, it's a wand. You use it to channel and focus energy. And it's not simply a knife. It's an Athame. It does much the same as a wand, but can be used differently in ceremony." I stop to face her dead on. "And stop mocking my beliefs."

Shaw is clearly sizing me up, warily gauging whether I'm simply making that last part up, or if it's genuine. After a moment, she realises I'm serious. Which I am. I've looked at as many world religions, and Wicca makes the most sense to me. Not to mention I can make balls of silver energy in the palm of my hands. Need to figure out what that means. Part of the reason why I got my own tools. We start walking again.

"Still don't get why you're wearing that cloak," she mutters. I don't answer, wanting to focus instead at getting to our next location, as well as me trying to enchant this cloak. The Cathedral has a Perception Filter, which makes people not notice it. I'm hoping to do the same thing with my cloak, but with magick instead. If that mystery individual comes again, I might be able to get close enough to learn more. I don't like not knowing.

There. We're at the next place. A modern looking church, with white walls. I quickly check the time. We are all inside now, and it's not been long. I get us to the side of the church, as fast as possible. I mustn't interfere with events. Not when they are as confusing as they are... I find a wooden crate for Shaw to sit on, and I put the bag with my dress on the top, to act as a sort of cushion. I get out a bar of chocolate, and offer Shaw a piece, which she refuses with a shake of her head. I motion to the makeshift chair, which she reluctantly sits down on. I give her a small smile, trying to stop this stupid hostility we have. She looks out at the road.

"Why are we here?" she asks, watching a fire department ambulance drive off. That would be Charley Dixon. As much as he's a tactical threat, and him knowing us puts him in danger, I like him. There is a simple honesty in him I respect. There's so much suspicion and deceit between us all, it drives me crazy. I make a little cooing noise with my mouth full as I feel the chocolate melt in my mouth. I'd really like to sit down, but there isn't a second crate to sit on. Besides, if my stalker appears again, I'll be able to follow them faster. Then I might find out some more about them. And that'd be tight.

Just before I finish eating my bar of chocolate, I hear a familiar sound. Major Shaw gets up to cautiously see what the source of the noise is. She makes a small strangled sound as she recognises the blue box shape she's become familiar with. I've got a lump in my throat. And the urge to rush forward, and to warn her, to tell her what will happen, to save her...

But if I tell my dead girlfriend that she'll die in the past, I'll cause a tear in time, because of the extremely paradoxical nature of my telling her.

So I can't warn her. Or even give her a hint. Which is killing me inside. I feel my cheeks moisten with silent tears. I sniffle unexpectedly.

"What's wrong with you?" Shaw asks, looking at me briefly before staring back at the blue Police Box. "And how many of those things are there?"

"Just one. After this, it goes back in time, to allow the woman inside to integrate into the time-line, to help me and John. She'll end up with me, Derek and Jack over a hundred years in the past. There'll be a mission to stop the creation of a primitive Skynet. It goes wrong. And she'll-" my voice breaks as I see myself walk out of the Cathedral, and hear the doors slam shut as it starts to de-materialise. I watch myself watching the Cathedral disappear. The feeling I have is totally whack. And it is, seeing myself like this. I had so much hope, this belief in so much... innocence. That's what I was then. Innocent. And that's now gone, and I wish it was back again. I want that wonder, that delight. I sniff loudly, engulfed in pain, chocking in loss. I watch my younger self hide in an alleyway.

"Whatcha doing?" Shaw asks. I place a trembling hand on her shoulder.

"Waiting. I'll run out of the church, and that version of me walks in, to cover the fact I had run away. The version of myself hiding is something like half a year younger than I am now. And the version hiding is something like a couple of days older than the ver-"

I hear the doors of the church open, and we carefully peer round to see myself run away, passing us in the process. I pull the hood down further, whispering a chant I've come up with, trying to enforce the perception shift I want around my cloak. I see myself looking in my direction. She must be looking straight at me. I don't think I can see myself. If I could I'd investigate, and-

I'm inside now. I grab my bags, and motion to the Major we need to move. I grab the bag with my dress as soon as she gets up. We follow my past self as she runs ahead, disappearing in no time.

"It's no use! We don't know where she is!" The Major exclaims, annoyed. I give her a small, lop-sided smile.

"Doesn't matter. I know where she'll end up," I point out.

"Were there any other versions of yourself watching?" I shake my head.

"Not unless there were any future versions of myself. Which would be illogical. The risk of a paradox would be too great. Unless I've gone completely insane. That's a possibility," I tell her as we move to the alleyway I know I'll end up, going.

We get there, going deeper into the alleyway. What's that? Sounds like thunder. oh. I remember now. I caution Major Shaw, and we go deeper into the alley. I look further along, and see myself gazing at a crack of lightning flaring through the air, joined by another.. And another. And another. More and more coming together, turning green. Green lightning, and then a sphere of green energy starts to form, and it seems to be spinning, crackling and pulsating. It's like its alive, being born. Seeing it again, all of this, makes me appreciate how much I've changed.

I stare at my younger self, as she's unable to move. I remember feeling stupid, just standing here, that I'd probably be killed, but still transfixed by the sheer beauty of the moment. I still am. So amazing to watch, as if I'm seeing something powerful, made up of the elements themselves. I open myself up, feeling the power of it magickally. That's what it is. Magick. I get that now. When Jane was exiled, she was in a magickal battle with something powerful in her home universe, and the fight kicked her out. Of course... her enemy had wanted to kill her, by sending her to a universe highly poisonous to her part Fae nature.

And then the sphere is complete, and inside suddenly appears a crouching someone- a girl... I gaze longingly and lovingly at her teenaged appearance, her beautiful long hair, and the battered leather jacket she's wearing. Her hands are splayed outward, her arms outstretched, and there is the look of power to her, as if she is made of power.

Yes. She's fighting a massive battle, and she's barely holding off that attack by the sheer force of her will. She's badly outclassed, I can sense how imbalanced the fight should be, but she's pulling up surprises, able to hold her own against impossible odds.

The sphere grows tighter, as if trying to crush her. It's weird: I can see she's there, but also not there, as if she's in two places at once. And the energy sensations I'm getting... I hold out my wand, desperately hoping to get a better viewing of this fight. Because I can see me having to do this in the future. She's grunting now, as if the effort is taxing her. The drain to her is immense. I can see an instability forming in her magickal fields. She's staring forward, staring at some invisible focal point, staring with a glare that could melt steel. I know that look. She's wanting to get out of the sphere, and tear to shreds her attacker. It's the predator inside her. It makes her that way sometimes. Made. For me, it's made. Because she's dead.

Time travel can be confusing. And suck big time.

My past self is knocked backwards, as the fight ends, and the bubble explodes. A loud lowly-pitched guttural grunt erupts from Jane, as she's thrown backwards into the brick wall behind her, her head slamming it with a sickening crack. She falls forward, and as she does so, manages to land on her feet, like a cat. Her rage must be keeping her going, because that injury would have really hurt bad.

And then it hits her; a familiar metal case with glass sides. It smacks her squarely on the forehead, kicking it back, blood gushing forth from the nasty gash it forged. Even so, she catches it in her right hand, and uses her left to secure the catch. I watch my yourself look at the hand in a jar. A jar with bubbling fluid, and with genetic material that ended up inside both me and Jane.

Her head snaps forward, and she shakes it slightly. With a small frown, she looks about, assessing calmly her environment.

"Certainly not in Kansas any more," she mutters as she starts to examine the jar. I can't help but smile slightly at her comment. I watch on, as the events unfold as I remember them, watching the first time I met the woman who would end up intimate with me, who would show me the creation of this planet, who would die alone. I feel the pain and the sadness puncture my body, flooding my chest cavity with fluid sorrow. I just want to die right now. How can I carry on without her? She means so much to me. Such a hole in my life, inside me, and I don't know how to fill it again.

I watch as the walk past, wrapping both me and the Major with my cloak, using my perception chant to keep Jane from seeing us. The only advantage I have is she won't be expecting me to be here. Otherwise I'd stand no chance. She's too experienced magickally to be fooled by me. Not if she's looking out for me.

We watch as the bubble forms for time displacement, and the soldier sent to warn us about Greenway comes through, fatally wounded. I know he'll die from that gunshot wound, because I was there when it happened. Will be there.

Whatever.

I see the younger me fall into the crater, and Jane move to save me as the second bubble emerges. I see Jane use a combination of technology and magick. Oh. Looking at it now, I see it's mostly magick that made us move through time. I can also sense how time itself is eating into her body, accelerating the damage this universe is doing to her body. In a flash, they are gone.

I walk forward, assessing the area with my wand. What? I've just been blinded by something. My eyes quickly adjust back to normal. Then again, it pays sometimes to not be wholly organic.

I stare at the sight of the naked woman rising up from a crouch in front of me, turning to look at Major Shaw, her head tilting slightly.

"Your clothes. Give them to me."

I swallow hard, accidentally saying the one word I can think of, one I hear John use a lot.

"Crap."