Author's Note: It took me all day, but "Something" is rewritten! I don't know if it's any good, yet, because I haven't read it over, but it's definitely different from what it used to be. I think I've fixed all the major plot holes, now. There's one minor plot hole that I've got no idea how to explain. And one that I only just noticed, which never used to be a plot hole until I rewrote the stuff around it! But the really big ones, which deal with what's actually going on, are all fixed.

I still want to tighten it up a little more. I did that in a few places, and noticed it was way better. Like, there was this one section which used to go:

"Amelia Pond!" said the Doctor. "Are you accusing me of being unable to pilot my own TARDIS?"

"No," said Amy. "I'm pointing out a well established fact. You can't pilot your TARDIS."

But I rewrote it to this:

"Amelia Pond!" said the Doctor. "Are you accusing me of being unable to pilot my own TARDIS?"

Amy gave him a pointed look. "Twelve years," she reminded him, "and four psychiatrists."

See? That's way better. Now I just have to figure out how to do that to the entire rest of the story, and it'll be great.

Anyways, I'll keep working on "Something". Hopefully, I'll get it good enough that you guys will enjoy it. Then you can join Amy, Rory, Buffy, and the Doctor in their battle against the forces of darkness!

Right. Sorry. That was a big distraction from this story. The Seventh Segment. "Non-Interference", part III. Right. I love this section. And I really like this particular short story.

So I'll stop rambling, and let you read it. Enjoy!


Part III

.

Glory slammed down her fist, fracturing the gizmo the Doctor had been constructing into a million pieces. "Do you think I'm stupid?" she shouted. She threw the remaining piece of machinery at the Doctor's head, and he only just managed to duck in time. "I know what this is! It's a seventh dimensional energy suplementer!"

"Well, there is that seventh dimensional discontinuity," the Doctor said. "If I just use that to open—"

"You weren't trying to open it!" Glory shrieked. "You were trying to close it! You were trying to trap me! Just like you did that time I sucked your brain!"

The Doctor gave a small grin. "Bet you're not too keen to try that again, are you?"

Glory tried to kick him, but he rolled out of the way at the last moment, and darted towards the door. It was slammed in his face by two minions, standing in front of it. The Doctor turned, his eyes scanning the room for other possible exits.

"You are the most annoying, stubborn person I've ever met!" Glory spat at him. "I just want to go home! Don't you understand? All I want is to go home!"

The Doctor met Glory's eyes with his own. "No, you don't."

That made Glory falter, just a little. She regained her composure. "Oh, is that what this is about? You're upset about the whole reducing your reality to cinder and ash thing?" She gave a sigh. "You mortals can be so uptight about your stupid little problems."

"You don't want to go home, Glory," the Doctor said. "All you want is revenge. Revenge against your two co-rulers — the ones who pushed you out and trapped you here."

"Yes," said Glory. "I do. And to do that, first I need to go home!" She grabbed the Doctor by the chin, her nails digging into his flesh, blood trickling across them. "And you're not helping!" she hissed.

The Doctor bit back the pain, and kept his voice steady. "You're too late."

Glory froze. "What are you talking about?"

"They're dead," said the Doctor. "Both of them."

Glory's words failed her.

"Your home world is no longer a realm of darkness, Glory," said the Doctor. "It's a republic, finally at peace after years of war and bloodshed. You have no home. Nothing to go back to. You're alone."

Glory jerked her hand away, stepping back. "You're… you're lying!" she insisted. "You have to be! I mean, I fought a war against them, and I couldn't even come close to killing them! What could—"

"They joined the Daleks," the Doctor told her. "We had to get rid of them."

"You Time Twerps?" Glory cried. "You think your stupid little four dimensional bodies could get rid of beings as powerful and all knowing as—"

"Hyper-inter-spacial gravitational forces surrounded by a powerful magnetic field, compressed into a super-concentrated plasma core with transdimensional anchors to support it?" the Doctor prompted.

Glory was speechless.

"They're both dead, Glory," the Doctor said. "I should know. I led the charge against them myself. Watched them both disintegrate before my eyes. They're long dead. There's nothing worth going back for."

"You think your stupid little Time War was enough to crush gods?" Glory demanded. "You think your pathetic little conflict was enough to crush the might of—"

"It did," said the Doctor. "It did what you couldn't, Glory. It destroyed men, monsters, and gods alike. Slaughtered the cosmos. Even the White and Black Guardians fled this reality, along with the Eternals, sealing themselves off somewhere safe. I'm sorry. I am so, so sorry. But everyone is dead. No one survived the Time War. There's no one left to take revenge on."

Glory fixed her eyes on the Doctor, a spark appearing therein. "There's still you," she pointed out.

The Doctor gave her his best friendly grin. He'd been wondering how long it'd take her to work that out. "So there is! But, well, think about it. Killing me won't help anything. Killing me won't get them back."

"Yeah," said Glory, "but it would be eliminating a liar! And a coward! And a cheat! You think I'm just going to fall for that? You think I'm just going to give up because you say so? I don't care what happened in your stupid little war. I'm going to become the ruler of everything, return home and get my revenge, and you and your entire reality will go up in smoke! How does that feel?"

She stormed up towards the Doctor, murder in her eyes, and anger in her every step.

Which was when one of the minions shouted, "Now!"

And with a sudden zing of energy, the Doctor discovered he was… somewhere else. He could feel that tang in the air.

"Short range teleport," he said. He took out his sonic, and the device (disguised as an ancient scroll — clever, that) burst into flames, and dissolved itself. He turned to the minions. "Blimey, you lot really are quite clever, aren't you?"

"Can… can you really defeat Glory?" said one of the minions. "You… you said you'd defeated the other two."

"Ah, actually, that was a bit of a lie," the Doctor admitted. "Her two co-rulers were still licking their wounds from their war with Glory when the Time War broke out. Didn't join either side. But, well, considering the number of other twelfth dimensional beings we got rid of during the War, it's not actually all that much of a lie."

"But… you can defeat her, right?" said the minion. "Please?"

The Doctor gave them a kind smile. "Absolutely!"

The minions gave a sigh of relief.

"Then… we want you to help us," the minion told him.

The others around them nodded. The Doctor counted six, total, all clothed in the same brown sack-cloth, and all sporting nasty bruises and cuts.

The Doctor raised an eyebrow. "All of you, or just you six?"

"Most of us decided to continue to worship the abomination," said one of the minions. "But we think you were right. We're tired of being beaten down all the time. We're tired of having to live only to serve someone who wants to destroy all life in the universe. We want to be free."

The others all nodded.

"What's your name?" the Doctor asked.

"Anolifonim," the minion replied.

"And I'm Katridelphi," another said.

"And that's Saconiptin, Rotrolintra, Incoloptor, and Farmi," Anolifonim explained.

They seemed so excited and proud to offer their names. As if they'd never before been asked. The Doctor guessed they probably hadn't. Glory didn't seem the type to care about names or identity.

"Well, then, Anolifonim, Katridelphi, Saconiptin, Rotrolintra, Incoloptor, and Farmi," the Doctor told them, "I'd be happy to help you find a new home. One where Glory will never find you, or come near you, ever again."

The six of them began jumping up, hugging one another and dancing. They seemed too excited for words.

The smallest of them — Farmi — came up and hugged the Doctor, too. "Thank you," she said. "This is more than we could ever have dreamed of."

The Doctor looked around at their excited faces, and he allowed a sincerely happy grin to spread across his own. The universe may be cruel, may throw him so many impossible situations, so many instances where thousands died and he could do nothing to stop it, but… this sort of thing… giving lives to those who never had them, giving people a fresh start…

This made it all worth it.


The Doctor left the six minions on a beautiful, uninhabited world, one with sparkling crystal waters and magnificent sunsets, one where food was plentiful and the weather was kind, and they could live their lives in peace. It was, the Doctor knew, not exactly the generous gift they all thought. He'd brought them to a place far enough away from the rest of the known universe that, even if they'd wanted to cause mischief, they couldn't. There was no threat of their ever being invaded, but there was also no chance for interstellar contact.

The Doctor thought it was very fitting for a group of people who had spent their lives worshipping Glory. Here was a world where they could be free and happy, and a world where the Doctor wouldn't have to worry about them.

The no-longer-minions hadn't noticed the mixed gift, though. They'd been ecstatic about the new world the Doctor had taken them to. They'd started jumping up and down with excitement, and then they'd spun around and started bowing to him, muttering praises to him and worshipping him as if he were some sort of god. Farmi even began taking down his words of warning as 'commandments'.

"No, really, I'm not a god!" the Doctor insisted. "I've never wanted to be a god, I don't believe I'm a god, and I have no intention of ever believing I'm a god. I'm a man travelling around in a blue box. That's it."

But that hadn't exactly stopped them from groveling at his feet as he left them to get on with their lives. Perhaps, the Doctor thought, that was the secret behind these minions. They weren't evil or without conscience, nor were they stupid or insane, they were just… really, really devoted. With all their hearts, minds, and souls. They needed something or someone to worship, all the time, and once they had that devotion, it was very difficult to break.

But the Doctor was very good at being annoying. And if he was annoying enough to villains, they always lost their temper, and struck out at their minions or lackeys or servants. Which was usually enough to convince these faithful servants to abandon their mistress.

At any rate.

Time to get back to work! Glory. Ben. Dawn. All that sort of thing. Time to figure out how to fix this whole situation without nearly collapsing the universe, again. The Doctor fixed up his hand using the technology at his disposal in the TARDIS, then rematerialized outside the Magic Box.

He burst inside the store just in time to see someone he'd never laid eyes on before — a skinny young woman with short amber hair — fleeing into the back of the store. Well, none of his business. He had more important matters to deal with.

At the moment, the primary one was placating a very angry Donna Noble.

"You left without me?" Donna said.

"Actually… well, sort of…" the Doctor scratched the back of his neck. "Just a bit of a jaunt. Nothing big."

"You left without me!" Donna said.

"Donna, really, it wasn't anything important," the Doctor told her. "Nothing at all. Just a sort of… well, bit of a lift, you could say. Refugees. That sort of thing."

"You saved some people, didn't you?" Buffy asked.

"Well, yeah," the Doctor admitted.

"You saved people without me?" Donna demanded.

"It wasn't planned!" the Doctor told her. "Spur of the moment type thing. Really, nothing important. Promise."

Donna crossed her arms. "Fine. But you better not be thinking of going off without me again, Spaceman. You got that?"

"Absolutely!" said the Doctor. He turned to the others, and gave them a wide smile. "Well? Aren't you going to ask me what I found out?"

"What you found out about what?" said Buffy. "I thought you just saved some people and came back."

"Before all that," said the Doctor. "With my trans-dimensional compression detector!"

"Glory?" Willow guessed. She glanced at the Doctor's hands. "I mean, just, you know, judging by the injuries."

Looks like the Doctor missed a few bruises with the dermal regenerator. Well, he'd fix those up, later. Important thing was the bones were no longer broken, which was very nice for him.

"Not exactly." The Doctor put his hands into his pockets. "I found Glory's alter-ego."

"So you found… Glory when she's actually a really nice person who gives orphans candy?" Buffy asked.

"Basically, yes!" the Doctor said. "Rather pleasant fellow by the name of Ben Wilkinson. Medical intern down at the hospital."

"That's the guy who sat with Dawn while your mom was having trouble, right?" Willow asked Buffy.

"Yeah," said Buffy. "I remember him." She glanced over at the Doctor. "So, what about him?"

The Doctor peered at them. Had they just missed what he'd told them? "Well, he's Glory."

The entire group, including Donna, stared at him with completely blank faces.

"Perhaps the Doctor has a point, of sorts," Giles put in, when the silence had gotten extremely awkward. "We might need some outside help with this whole Glory business. Although, I have to admit, I'm not certain a medical intern is exactly the help we need."

"He's the one who needs help!" the Doctor said. "I can't intervene directly. Every time I do, there's a universal temporal readjustment. But you lot can go right in, tighten up the compression field, and all your troubles will be over."

Once again, a sea of blank faces surrounded the Doctor.

"Are you saying that Ben's in trouble?" said Willow.

"I'm saying that Ben can turn into Glory!" the Doctor told them. "And… why are you lot not working that out?"

"I get that working in a hospital is big on the stress factor," said Xander, "but I think that finding super-angry-beating-people-up lady is kind of bigger."

"Donna," the Doctor said, turning to her. "You have to understand."

"You. Are. Bonkers!" Donna told him. "We're trying to find someone super evil that's going to destroy the universe, and you waltz off to have a chat with an overworked medical intern?"

The Doctor turned to Buffy. "Elizabeth?"

"He was really nice to Dawn," said Buffy. "I mean, maybe we can give him a fruit basket or something. Since this whole Glory thing is going nowhere."

"Yeah, I mean, if not even the Doctor can find Glory, then I guess there's kind of no chance," said Willow.

The Doctor's mirth drained away. "She's done something," he muttered. "Altered the fundamental programming of the universe. A logical loop pattern holding you in stasis."

"And we're back to the crazy techno babble," Xander said. "Good to be back on familiar ground."

The Doctor looked out at the blank faces around him, the clueless faces that would never, ever understand. And he realized what Ben had told him. No human would ever be able to understand Ben's connection to Glory. If the Doctor couldn't intervene, himself, no one else would be able to. And if the Doctor intervened, then he risked another universal temporal readjustment.

Or even a universal collapse.

He knew. He knew what these events were headed for. He knew where the universe wanted him to wind up. An impossible choice. A decision that would make him hate himself. Just one more instance where the universe was unspeakably cruel and unfair to him.

"Doctor," said Buffy, "are you okay?"

The Doctor didn't bother to answer. He just turned, and left.


Buffy found the Doctor a few blocks away from the Magic Box, sitting on top of a dumpster, fiddling with his sonic screwdriver. She sat down, next to him.

"Donna's worried about you, you know," she said.

"Surprised she hasn't come out here, herself," said the Doctor.

Buffy had been, too. But Donna had been very insistent about it. Buffy was going to walk out there and "set Skinny straight". And Buffy had kind of been grateful, to tell the truth.

The Doctor looked over at Buffy. "I'm going to kill your sister."

"Stop saying that," said Buffy. "I know you're not."

"Have to," said the Doctor. "There's a chain reaction occurring, here. One I cannot stop, or even slow. The moment I get too involved, the moment I try to change things, the universe writes me out. I know where this is going to end, Elizabeth. It's your sister, or the multiverse."

"You're trying to make me beat you up again, aren't you?" said Buffy. She crossed her arms. "I'm not beating you up."

"You should," said the Doctor. "In another timeline, you would."

"You killed other-me's sister?" Buffy asked.

"No," said the Doctor. "She never had… this whole thing never…" He slumped. "She… claimed I killed her mother."

Oh. Well, that explained a lot. That must be why he was so scared of Buffy's mom. Because he was terrified that, somehow, in this timeline, he'd wind up killing a member of Buffy's family. (Both timelines matched, right?) If not Dawn, the Doctor was scared it might wind up being Buffy's mother.

"Did you?" Buffy asked.

"Course not!" said the Doctor. "Wasn't even there. She was just… looking for something to fight, I suppose. Someone she could take revenge on. Make it all better."

"She sounds less and less like me all the time," said Buffy.

The Doctor raised an eyebrow. "We'll see about that."

"I'm not going to kill you," Buffy said. "Because you're not killing my sister. If you were serious about it, you'd just do it instead of complaining at me about it."

The Doctor gave a small sigh. "I'm going to," he told her. "In the future. If it comes down to a choice between your sister or everything else in the infinity of the multiverse, I'm not choosing your sister."

"If you want to kill her," said Buffy, "you'll have to kill me, first."

"No, I won't," the Doctor said.

And it was true. Buffy and him both knew it was true. He was clever and strategic enough that no matter what Buffy did, he'd find a way to keep her alive.

(But even if he didn't, even if he couldn't, Buffy knew he'd go through with it, anyways. To keep the universe alive, he'd make any sacrifice. It was his duty.)

"I know what you'll do to me," said the Doctor. "When this is over. Should have known from the beginning, really. No such thing as a second chance. In any timeline, in any set of circumstances, this is how we'll always wind up. As mortal enemies."

"I'm not the one making you my enemy," said Buffy.

The Doctor gave a dry laugh. "She said that, too."

And the more Buffy heard, from this earlier Doctor, about Elizabeth, the less she wanted to be like her counter-part. The more worried she became when she realized she could fall into that trap — so very, very easily.

"Why can't you just be like you used to, last year?" Buffy asked. "Doing the right thing and being completely good and virtuous and wonderful? It was so much easier back then!"

"Elizabeth," said the Doctor, "if I do the right thing, your sister dies."

"But she doesn't have to!" said Buffy. "I could change things. Change the future! If you can't get involved, then I will."

The Doctor sighed. "She said that, too," he said. "She was going to change the future. Make things right. Save everyone. But by trying to change the future, she fell into it."

Buffy didn't say anything.

"By the end of this, either your sister will be dead and you'll want to kill me," the Doctor told Buffy, "or there won't be a multiverse left for you to kill me in."

"Shut up!" Buffy snapped. She found herself clutching the side of the dumpster tight enough that her knuckles were turning white. She snapped her head around to look at the Doctor. "I'm not other-me. I'm not going to kill you. Ever."

"And if it were anyone else, what would you do?" the Doctor asked. "If it were Riley Finn, or Willow, or Xander, or even just your local villain-of-the-week, how would you react?"

Buffy didn't answer.

Riley said she had a double standard. That she let the Doctor get away with things she'd never let any of the rest of them get away with. And… damn it, Riley was right. Because if it were anyone else, she really would hack them into little tiny pieces.

But not the Doctor.

"Doctor," said Buffy, in a cold voice, "if you kill my sister, I swear I'm going to make sure that you live. Because I want to make sure that you never, not for a single second, forget that you killed an innocent girl. I'm going to make you live with seeing me hurt and alone and in pain, I'm going to make you live with my mom completely torn up about losing her baby girl. I'm going to make you live with the pain, the loss, the guilt, until it eats away at you and makes you nothing, because you will never, ever forget her. Do you understand?"

"I'd rather you just killed me," said the Doctor.

"Yeah," said Buffy. "That's the point."

The Doctor shook his head. "Sometimes, I don't know if your job is to torture me, or help me."

Buffy gave a sigh. "I feel that way about you, too."


That afternoon, the Doctor tried to intervene directly. Fix Ben himself, and get rid of Glory.

The universe wrote him out.