Author's Note: "Non-Interference".

Short Story Summary: The Doctor discovers Glory's alter-ego.

One of my favorite stories in this series. I love Dawn and the Doctor together. Hurray! Enjoy part 1.


Non-Interference

Part I

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Dawn scooted over to the living room table, now littered with junk from all over their house, and inhabited by one hunched over pinstripe-suited figure wearing a pair of black-rimmed glasses.

"What'cha doing?" Dawn asked.

The Doctor looked up at her, and gave her a grin. "Dawn Summers!" he said. "Brilliant to see you. Where's Donna?"

"With Mom and Buffy," said Dawn, venturing a little closer to get a better view of the triangular device the Doctor was constructing. It looked like he'd used just about every roll of duct-tape in the house, along with a lot of rubber bands. Super high tech? Yeah, right! "She heard the word 'shopping' and couldn't resist."

"Ah," said the Doctor. "And you stayed behind…?"

"To see what you were doing," said Dawn. She pointed at the device he was building. "What's that?"

"Trans-dimensional compression field detector," the Doctor explained.

Dawn had no idea what that was. But it sounded super sciencey and stuff, which was a pretty Doctor thing to build. "And what's that do?"

"Detects compression fields," the Doctor told her. "Even the multi-dimensional sort." He reached over for an old, nonfunctioning vacuum cleaner motor which was lying on the table, and pried the casing off. "Which, if it works, will allow me to discover where Glory is hiding." He took out a curled up piece from the motor, then stuck it in his own device.

"I get it," said Dawn. "You're trying to find Buffy's big bad."

"Oh, yes!" said the Doctor. "One big Glory-detector, coming up!" He paused. "And… Slitheen detector, come to think of it." He glanced over at Dawn. "You lot wouldn't happen to have any vinegar around, by any chance?"

"What are Slitheen?" asked Dawn.

"A family of Raxacoricofallapatorians," said the Doctor, adding another rubber band to his device. "Criminal family, to be precise. Rather nasty sort who like to wear hollowed out human skins like Halloween costumes. Usually a bit overweight with a zipper running along their foreheads."

"Cool!" said Dawn. "Can I see them?"

"Well, if they're around, you probably already have," the Doctor replied. "You just wouldn't have known. And I wouldn't call them 'cool', exactly. They don't tend to be particularly friendly. Especially not towards humans."

"Whatever," said Dawn. "That's kind of normal around here."

The Doctor considered. "Suppose so." He glanced over at Dawn, and grinned.

Dawn sat down at the table, beside him. "Can I help?"

"Absolutely!" said the Doctor. He rotated the device towards her, and then began explaining at super-mega-speed about all the little bits and pieces, and how they worked together, and what they did, and all sorts of stuff that Dawn didn't pick up. Then he looked back at Dawn. "Got that?"

"I got the part where you said I could help you," Dawn replied.

"Ah," said the Doctor. "Yes. Well. In that case. Could you hand me that BIOS chip, please?"

Dawn glanced around at the selection of junk on the table in front of her.

"The… bit from the old computer," the Doctor clarified.

"Oh," said Dawn. She picked up what looked like a motherboard from the computer that had gotten smashed up when Buffy threw a demon into it, a month ago. Which, apparently, wasn't covered by the warranty. She gave it to the Doctor. "Here."

"Brilliant!" said the Doctor, beaming, and he got back to work.

Dawn smiled. Look at her! She was being helpful! She was being talked to by some kind of alien genius guy like she was some kind of human genius girl, and it didn't matter if she wasn't (or if Buffy had told her a million times that he did that to everyone because he wanted to show off how smart he was), because he was still treating her like she was someone important! Like she was someone besides just the little sister.

"And that… little doohickey with the extension cord," the Doctor added.

"The hairdryer?"

"Yes! That's the one!" The Doctor pulled out his sonic screwdriver, wiggling it in the air.

Dawn passed him the hairdryer, and he got to work, taking it apart, placing little bits of it into his own device and then buzzing at sections with his sonic.

"Can I come with you?" Dawn asked. "When you go out to find this big bad and stuff?"

"Rubber band," the Doctor requested.

Dawn handed him a rubber band, and he secured it in place.

"Can I?" she asked him, again.

"Sorry, can you what?" the Doctor asked, not looking up at her.

"Come with you!" said Dawn. "To find the big bad with your little device thing."

"Absolutely!" said the Doctor, eyes still fixed on the device he was now buzzing with his sonic. "You can hold the vinegar. Just don't wander off, do everything I say, and…" He trailed off, as he looked up at her, then glanced around at his surroundings. "Actually… better stay put."

Dawn pouted. "Why? You said I could come!"

"Well, yes," the Doctor conceded. "I did. But then I remembered that you have a sister who's quite a bit stronger than me, and would probably put me through at least one regeneration if I let you tag along. And seeing as I don't have a whole lot of those left, I'd like to keep the ones I still have."

"That's not fair!" Dawn complained.

"Wouldn't exactly put it like that," the Doctor countered. "Not about fair or unfair. More like… difference in philosophies, really. Your sister believes that she lives in her world — with the monsters, and the evil creatures, and the plots to destroy humanity, and all that sort — and everyone she cares about most should live outside of that."

"Which sucks," said Dawn, crossing her arms and pouting.

"Which is one way of looking at it," the Doctor corrected. "Not my way, but certainly a valid way. And, must say, her mortality count is quite a bit lower than mine, on average. So that's certainly in her favor."

"What's your way?" Dawn asked.

The Doctor placed a few more pieces into his device. "Don't like sheltering people," he told her. "Great big universe out there, waiting to be explored. Bout time people started exploring it. Take in the good and the bad. Learn to live up to their own potential." He glanced up at Dawn. "You humans really do have an extraordinary amount of potential, you know."

"See, that's way cooler than what Buffy says!" said Dawn. "You're all taking people out to do stuff, and Buffy's all leaving people behind where it's safe."

"As I said," the Doctor continued, "the mortality count is in her favor."

"I bet if you had a sister, you wouldn't be all, 'stay here where it's safe while I go do cool stuff,'" Dawn muttered. "I mean, you bring Donna along. And you guys are kind of like… you know. Family-ish."

The Doctor didn't answer, just continued cobbling together his device.

"I mean, I get that I'm Buffy's actual family-family, so I'm always gonna be different," said Dawn. "But I'm not a baby. She shouldn't treat me like I'm a baby. You don't."

"If you were a baby," the Doctor said, in a soft voice, "I'd be very, very worried."

"Yeah, see?" said Dawn. "Buffy and Mom are, like, totally smothering me. It's like they're not letting me go out and be all fighting stuff on my own. It's always, 'you're just a kid' and 'you're just the baby' and stuff. These days, it's like Buffy won't let me take two steps on my own."

"It's hard for them to let go, sometimes," the Doctor replied. "Hardest thing in the world, watching your child grow up. Letting them out to make their own way in life. Their own mistakes."

Dawn examined him, carefully. "Wait… you…" She stopped, and collected her thoughts. She'd known he was 900 years old and an alien, but… this was something she hadn't even considered. "Did you have kids?"

The Doctor turned to look at her. A horribly sad glimmer in his eyes. "Sometimes," he told her, "when you lose the ones you love, and everything else of theirs is taken away..." He glanced off into the distance. "It's all I have, Dawn. The memories. If I lost that, they'd be gone forever. My whole family."

Dawn wasn't really sure what to say to this.

"I had a granddaughter, once," the Doctor said. "A long, long time ago. I travelled with her for years. She was about your age — or the Gallifreyan equivalent thereof — when I left her on her own. Allowed her to build a new life and new family in the 22nd century. Then the War broke out, she came home, and…" He stayed silent for a long moment. "Now she's gone," he whispered. He cleared his throat, and continued speaking in a slightly stronger voice. "Wiped out of time and space without a trace to show she ever existed. Nothing of hers survived — none of her diaries, or little trinkets, none of her dresses, not even her TARDIS room. I have nothing. The universe has nothing. No one even remembers her, anymore. No one but me. If I died — when I die — she'll be gone. Lost to the universe forever." He closed his eyes. "Some days, it feels as if she wasn't even real at all."

"That sucks," said Dawn. And she was just thinking, no wonder the Doctor always got super melancholy whenever she was around! His granddaughter had been her age, and the Doctor had been all cool and giving her independence, and then she'd gone off into some huge war and died. Maybe Dawn reminded him of her or something. "But… you still remember her, right? So she's not totally gone or anything."

"Which is better?" the Doctor asked. "To have existed, but remain unremembered, your legacy fading away into nothing, your every impact on the world unraveling in the strands of time? Or to never have existed, but be remembered, loved, cherished, given the chance to make a permanent difference to the world?" His eyes met Dawn's. "What do you think?"

"I dunno," said Dawn. "I guess it's always good to be remembered."

"Even if that memory isn't part of the web of time?" the Doctor asked her. "Even if all those events you remember never actually happened at all?"

"Yeah, but you remember them," said Dawn. "I mean, there was a big war and stuff, and everyone died. None of us might remember it happening, but you do. So it's kind of real, you know?"

"It matters," the Doctor said.

"Uh, yeah," said Dawn, crossing her arms. "That's what I just told you. Geeze!"

"Just checking," the Doctor replied, bending his head down over his work.

But Dawn could still see that horrible sadness in him, and something else, now, accompanying it. Guilt. Shame. Loss. Well, yeah, of course he felt like that! He lost his granddaughter and no one even remembered her! That would totally suck!

"Was she like me?" Dawn asked. "Your granddaughter, I mean?"

"Not... exactly," the Doctor told her, still not looking at her.

"How not exactly?" Dawn prompted. "Was she all superhero and Buffy-like?"

"She was... brilliant," said the Doctor. "Amazing. Beautiful, inside and out."

"And she, like, battled evil monsters and stuff?" Dawn asked.

"No," said the Doctor. "She... felt for them. Reached out to them. Always tried to help, in whatever way she could. Always did her part to make the universe a better place." He stopped his work, his eyes unfocused, as he remembered. "She saw the beauty in everything. Even on Skaro, in the wreckage of a war that turned an entire forest to stone, she found a flower that she thought was one of the most beautiful things she'd ever laid eyes upon."

The Doctor gave a small laugh. "She always got herself into trouble, though. She was like you in that regard. Always wandering off, always getting kidnapped, always winding up right in the thick of it! Dragged me in, too. The French Revolution, Marco Polo, Marinus, the Aztecs, the Sensorites — oh, I remember the Sensorites! She opened up a psychic communication, then ran off to help them after I forbade it. We had such a row after that. Me telling her to be responsible, her telling me I was being heartless. But that... was what made her brilliant. She was always pushing me to think of others, trying to make sure I did the right thing."

The Doctor's hands clutched the device a little tighter, trembling. "She made me a better person, Dawn. She still does. Her memory, everything she was — it's always with me, always inspiring me to be better, to be more compassionate and forgiving, to look past the evil and find that inner spark of goodness in everyone. I'll never forget that. I'll never forget her."

"She sounds pretty cool," said Dawn.

"She was," said the Doctor. He turned back to his device, and every emotion was suddenly erased from his face. He buzzed the sonic at the device, and slipped on a black casing across the back. "Still. Gone now. Wiped out of time and space and the universe. Never even existed, not even real, only alive in memories — that sort of thing."

"I remember her, too, now, though," said Dawn. "See? So that makes her more existy. And, I mean, when you die, you don't have to get all depressed that the universe will lose her forever, because now I know about her, too. So her memory can still be super-mega-inspiring and stuff here on Earth."

The Doctor froze. His eyes fixed on the device. And there was something that appeared in his face. Something icy, something cold, something angry.

"Stop it," the Doctor hissed, through his teeth.

Dawn frowned. "Huh?"

"Just stop this!" the Doctor snapped. His hands were shaking. "I've gone through torture at the hands of the Daleks, I've lived through death and loss and pain and grief, I've even lived through watching Rose tumble into the void. But you…" His eyes grew dark. "You are the biggest torture of all, Dawn Summers! And I can't deal with it!"

"I'm… I'm torturing you?" Dawn asked. "But I thought—"

The Doctor turned on Dawn, his eyes blazing. "Stop being nice to me!" he shouted. "Why? Why, why, why did you have to be such a nice person? Why did you have to start liking me?"

Dawn huddled back in her chair. "I… I didn't…"

The Doctor jumped to his feet. "None of the others ever liked me!" he continued. "They clobbered me across the head, they accused me of bewitching the world, they tried to lock me up forever. Why can't you hate me like them? Why can't you hate me and loathe me and try to kill me?"

"Donna likes you," said Dawn, trying but failing to make her voice sound less like a squeak. "Buffy likes you. And you're nice to me."

The Doctor ran a hand through his hair, pacing the room. "I can't even look at you," he said. "I can't even see you without thinking of everything I've lost. You're the worst thing that's ever come into my life, and yet…" He swung around. "You're brilliant! You're human! You're a shining light of hope out there for everyone to see and fight for! Why did you have to be brilliant? Why did you have to be nice and kind and a wonderful person? Why couldn't you have been mean and spiteful and someone who enjoyed bashing kittens over the head? Why did it have to be like this?"

Dawn had no idea how to begin to react to this. "You… don't like me?"

The Doctor squeezed his eyes shut. "Of course I like you!" he snapped. "That's the problem. That's the whole point! Everything you are, everything you could be, everything you've been, and in the end, all you really are is Dawn Summers. The human being."

"Oh, my God," said Dawn. "I'm not going to grow up to be evil or something, right?"

The Doctor looked away from her. "No."

Phew.

"The universe always does this to me," he muttered. "Every single time. Give me something good, something wonderful, and in the end…." He took a deep breath. "That choice. That's how this'll end. That's how it'll always end. With that always impossible choice that the universe keeps throwing me, over and over again!"

Did this have something to do with Buffy? Or was this him remembering his granddaughter and being all super traumatized and stuff? No, wait, maybe this was his self-loathing thing. Yeah, that had to be it. He didn't want her to like him, because he didn't like himself, and he got pissed off when other people liked him.

"Yeah, well, I like you," said Dawn, sounding braver than she felt. "And I want to be nice to you. So you can just deal with it!"

The Doctor squeezed his eyes shut, as if in pain. Then he darted over to her, leaning down to look right into her eyes, and taking her hands in his own.

"Dawn Summers," he said, in a low but earnest voice. "I want you to promise me. Promise that if you're ever in danger, you'll run. Run far, far away from me, and never look back. Never give up. Never let me find you. Promise you'll survive. Please, promise you'll fight for life."

Dawn blinked at him. "I… I guess…"

But she never got the chance to say anything. Because at that moment, Buffy, Donna, and her mother all poured into the house, laughing and chatting and piling up shopping bags by the front door. Donna caught Dawn's eyes, and began going on about their trip, and all the stuff they bought, and how they bought some stuff for her, too.

Buffy darted out to get a few more bags, while the others were talking, excitedly. When she entered, she glanced around the room. Then turned to Dawn.

"Where's the Doctor?" Buffy asked.

Dawn glanced around the room, but the Doctor, and his cobbled-together device, were gone.