The Splintering

They had been driving all night, and Ace was finally beginning to feel a little better. Somewhere in Greece, the Doctor had stopped by the side of the road and bought a coarse woven blanket. She had tried to tell him not to, that they couldn't afford to stop, but she had been too weak even to speak. The blanket lay soft and warm over her lap now, and she found she could squeeze a little fold of it between her fingers if she concentrated.

The car was small and boxy and blue, it reminded her of the TARDIS. God she missed the TARDIS.

She closed her eyes and the girl was there again. "Well, you're just about ready, Ace." She said. She was small and pale and she had something of the Doctor's ancient childishness in her smile. To Ace it looked like she was sitting crosslegged on the bonnet of the car, unchilled in her black jeans and lacy tank top. Blood loss. Hallucinations.

"Why are you helping me?" in this dream, Ace could speak and move and there was no dried blood cracking and flaking on her back, sticking her to the upholstery.

"I'm not really helping, Ace. I'm just doing my job, and letting what happens happen."

"Your job?"

"Don't be stupid, Ace. We haven't got much time." The girl's hand, the color of white lace and nothingness pushed her back to the car. This time she managed to turn her head and look at the Doctor. There was a new streak of white at his temple. (That came when you died, Ace . . . but no, she didn't understand any of this) He was frowning and staring out ahead, his hands clenched on the steering wheel. There was something gone from his face, something she missed. If only he'd smile, she could feel that things were going to be alright.

She settled her head forward again, to look out the windshield. The sky was huge. Must be America, she realized, you didn't get roads like this in Britain, going forever through dusty farmland.

But the sky.

That was where they were headed, she was sure. Into that sunset. The clouds were thick and wild and streaked with color. They swirled around the golden central brightness of the sun. It looked like a snapshot of the first moments of an atomic explosion -- the sun a fireball at its center.

She slept a while more, and woke with the Doctor's hand on hers. Trees passed outside the window as his fingers sank slowly between hers. She found she could squeeze his hand back a little.

She turned her head to check the back of the car. Empty.

"Where did John go?" Her voice was raw; she could hardly make out her own words. To the Doctor it may have sounded like a moan of pain. His fingers tightened on hers.

He kept his eyes on the road.

They stepped out of the TARDIS. Ace was still strong, the Doctor was still smiling and gentle, her confidence man. Her Lancelot and laughingstock and father confessor.

A tall blond man in a worn fawn trenchcoat ran up. "You bastard." he shouted, knocking the Doctor with one harsh jab. "You miserable little -- "

Ace bashed him in the stomach with her elbow.

He gaped at them for a moment, getting his breath back. He smelled like a smoker, but he didn't breathe like one.

"Hello John." the Doctor said from the curb, rubbing his bruised cheek.

"Oh god. Bloody time travellers." muttered the man.

Ace watches them walk on, liking the way the three of them draw stares, liking the way the blond man, John Constantine steals looks at her face. But the girl's voice is insistent. "Come on, Ace, skip to the important part; we don't have time."

John has cast a spell.

He grinned his rough, stubble-cheeked grin at Ace "Most people don't really believe I can do this crap." She found herself liking him. He was tougher than she was, and hurting somewhere inside, but still he could give her that joke-'em-if-they-can't-take-a-fuck grin.

The Doctor looked too worried. "If I've really done all you say, John, why are you bothering to help me?"

John glanced away, mock shame covering that deeper hurt. "I know what its like, don't I? Screw it all up, lose the girl. Somebody warned me 'fore Kit left, I might've done different." He met Ace's eyes for a moment and she saw that he didn't believe this at all -- deep down he figured he was pretty much doomed to be miserable. Poor old sod.

They watched through the circle John had made in something red-brown and suspicious on the wall. Ace didn't not want to believe . . .

Ace does not want to watch. She knows she must. She takes the colorless hand and holds it for support.

Ace watches Ace watching Ace in a stupid dress and stupid shoes and what the Doctor is saying, betraying. And over and over again she is the pawn and the sacrifice until she leaves him on a planet with a stupid name. And she is crushing Daleks with a big gun like some crazy phallic nightmare. And then she is back, back with the Doctor again. But she's acting like a little kid, god that must be five years away and she's still having tantrums and picking fights.

Whose idea of growing up is this?

Is this really who I'm going to be?

And the Doctor, he's getting darker and crueller and . . .

They watch. And the Ace with John and the Doctor turns to the little man beside her, sobbing and screaming and striking him on the chest again and again and again. "Are you going to let that happen to me? Are you going to do that?"

He gathers her into his arms until her struggles turn to hitching sobs. Only John and the outside Ace can see his ashen, shocked face and his moving mouth.

"No," he is whispering over and over and over "No."

Ace remembers one more important thing. The Doctor's voice saying: "There is a way out for all of us."

While Ace slept beside him, the Doctor drove on, westward. The sunset blazed on. Perhaps it was the brightness that brought tears to the Doctor's eyes.

"Push ahead, Ace, come on."

She didn't want to remember any more, but she had to. The big room, John standing in the background, the other Doctor, the one who reminded her of a great blond teddy bear, was in front of her. The American bimbo was leaning against the wall. What was her name? Carrie? Perry? something odd like that. These two were a really unlikely pair, the girl in jeans and a leotard top, very posh fashion, very New York, very Barbie doll. The other Doctor, the one before hers, apparently, was wearing the most hideous outfit she'd ever seen, and all with a big, worn, gray coat over it, tied off with a bit of rope. Her Doctor looked almost normal by comparison.

Ace's Doctor had just got finished telling the other Doctor the gist of things, what John had shown them, what was going to happen.

The other Doctor was pacing, talking in a big warm voice. He stepped nearer to Ace, the pitch of his voice suddenly dropping away. It took Ace a moment too long to feel how strange things were.

Ace watching wanted to cry out a warning.

"I'm sorry, Ace." He said, his voice gentle and soft, "It's the only way. I've got to live; I can't become him."

The Seventh Doctor rushed forward; he had seen something. "No, please, don't!" he begged.

The distortion of regeneration glowed in the air over the Sixth Doctor; his fair hair lost it's curly liveliness, it hung in a plain, black cap over a narrow, hard face. The barbie doll girl started screaming; Ace didn't blame her one bit.

Before Ace could move away, his hand flashed down. She gasped in pain and jerked against him as blood gouted from the knife wound in her back. He held her up as she struggled for a moment and then went limp. With something like tenderness, he lifted her head up from where it had fallen backwards and gently moved it to rest on his chest. 'I'm so sorry, Ace.' he whispered 'It's the only way, the only choice.' his voice was deep, sleek, cultured. Sad.

Ace saw and understood. Now came the part you missed when you died. Now came the grieving and the crying and . . . but no, it wasn't going to be like that because the Doctor always cheated at life and he was going to . . . something . . . something "There is a way out for all of us."

but she couldn't remember. She watched.

Ace's Doctor had been frozen for a moment, but now he moved forward, almost in a trance. 'Let her go.' His eyes were wide and full of shocked pain, and his voice was cold and terrible. He took Ace from the Valeyard's arms and sat down very slowly, until he cradled her on the floor.

Finally he looked back up at his other self. 'Why?'

"Without her, the plans and stratagems mean nothing. Without her, you, that is, I, will never have to face the eternals, nor the Hoothi. She is the key." The Valeyard smiled

("How do I know who that is?"

"Because I told you, Ace, pay attention, this is the important part.")

"At least, that is what our sixth self believed."

The Seventh Doctor looked down at his hands, they were bloody, they were trembling. "He was the weak link, because of the trial, because -- "

"Splitting hairs is a legal technique, but also a temporal reality. At first I was just a little fraying at the end of your life, Doctor. But now I have split the timeline halfway back to the root." dreadful, death's head grin. "A few moments for reality to sort itself out and -- "

"Stop it!" it was the girl, the little bimbo. She was standing there, tiny and pretty and helpless, surrounded by these crazy Time Lords, and she was sick of it. Ace saw suddenly that this girl had done something in a few moments what that other Ace, the one John had made her watch, hadn't managed in years; she had grown up. "You're not the Doctor."

"Quiet, girl."

"No. You shut up!" And she shoved him with her little college-girl athelete muscles.

Things happened quickly, but neatly, like they'd been planned out ahead of time. The Valeyard turned towards the girl, John darted out and grabbed hold of the gray coat, pulling it off. The girl shoved the Valeyard over. And the Doctor just sat there, holding Ace's body against his own, her blood spoiling the cream of his jacket.

John tapped the Doctor on the shoulder, gently. While the girl stood staring, the Valeyard faded, becoming the teddy bear Doctor again.

"I got it, Doc." John whispered. "It's over."

"Yes."

"What's going on." That was the girl, Peri.

"Well, thanks to you, luv, I managed to snatch this," John waved the gray coat. "which is all that was keeping old nasty stable in this time. It's a bit like that old blue box of his . . . " he wavered on which Doctor to point to, the unconscious or the uncommunicative, "uh, theirs. Right Doc?"

The Seventh Doctor nodded. He pulled the coat gently from John's hand and wrapped it around Ace.

"So what?" Ace exploded, "I've got to be dead by now, right?"

"Look, you want to give up, fine with me. I've got things to do."

Why did she even care what this girl thought? But, she did, it was like back that one summer when she'd been going to try to blow up their school. Manisha had just looked at her, a look that said 'I'll still love you Ace, I'll still love you, but if you do this I'll be very disappointed."

Ace turned to watch.

Peri was helping the big man along. He and Ace's Doctor had exchanged one long look between them, and that seemed to be it. Talk about beating yourself up over something, ha-ha.

"It's not over." the Sixth Doctor said at last. "The Valeyard created the coat. He can make more and come back to supplant our timeline whenever he likes."

The Seventh Doctor nodded. "Yes. Though the timeline we have isn't . . . " he was touching the fabric of the coat, considering the rough weave of it. "The coat." He reached under the fabric, gripped Ace's cold hand.

Ace watching could almost feel it.

Ace's Doctor looked up at his other self, eyes wide, with a desperate, almost deranged hope in their blue depths. "There is a way. There is a way out for all of us."

Ace opened her eyes and looked at the Doctor. She could feel the heaviness of the coat on her shoulders, and could see the same coat on him. His creation. Full of secrets.

She missed the TARDIS.

"John's safe." he said, not looking at her. "The others have probably made it through already."

"There was a girl . . . " she managed to say.

He looked at her now, eyes full of worry, sorrow. He probably thought she was delirious. Maybe she was. She remembered suddenly that before they had found the car, he had been carrying her, step by step, walking westward. "What, Ace?"

"Nothing, she's gone now."

"Where are we going?"

The Doctor nodded ahead of them, where that wild sunset was growing bigger and bigger. He hadn't smiled once yet. He looked old and tired and bitter and cold. She felt sort of angry about that. It wasn't easy, coming back from the dead.

Wasn't that why they were doing this, to stop him becoming cold, to stop her being angry all the time? If he'd just smile once she could be sure that they weren't going to lose just what they were trying to save.

On the other side of the sky, A tall, curly haired man and a girl stood side by side in the wasteland. A moment of otherhood, a sunburst of color, and they are people changed. The man is in a drab coat, drab trousers. The girl is a woman, and she no longer tries to talk in her mother's American accent, she talks as her father did, when she was very small. She says "So that's it then?"

"Yes." He sits heavily in the sand. "I . . . "

She wanders a few steps away, hearing him muttering about guilt and atonement and hermits. She seems to remember the sound of a train in the distance, a place that was neither here nor there, a man in a bowler hat. She has grown up; she knows now that if he is going to stay here and suffer for what he's done, she can go on without him. She looks over her shoulder to where he is gathering up bits of rubbish from the sand. She hopes she will not have to leave him.

"So in this other place, we'll be other people?"

"Or they'll be us."

"What about here, I mean this universe or reality or whatever?"

"As far as we're concerned, Ace, this will be a universe that didn't exist."

"But--"

"Nothing happens here, Ace. This is a place that simply won't be."

She thought he might be lying, but if so, it was only to protect her.

"But the people whose lives we're going to take over, what about them?"

"They'll be us, Ace." he sighed. "I refuse to discuss the concept of free will."

"What is that?" she looked out into the blinding sky. It was all that could be seen now.

"A decision, the biggest decision of our lives."

She almost thought she saw him smile.

The car hit the nexus, and disappeared, back to the roadside where it had been abandoned. Ace felt her back heal over all at once and stared out to see her whole life in sunset colors of red and gold, shading to clouds and midnight blue. Every second was a thousand choices.

And with every choice she made her own way.

And with every choice she is splitting the infinite, and the repercussions of the choice shatter her and a thousand, a million, an infinity of other selves, other lives explode outward like splinters of glass, shimmering and drifting away. Countless tiny lights of other hopes, other possibilities, each with her own name, her own life.

And my name is ACE. Black clothes and big boots and I'll get in the car and go and go and go and blow it all away to fire and ashes until it's pure and good and right and true and the Doctor, he's like that too, except he soothes things and strokes them until all the lions are just kittens and Yes I will go with you and someday soon someday soon someday soon I will put down my bomb and plant a hundred billion rosebushes and I can change and move and I will still be ACE I will still be ACE I am ACE . . .

The Doctor saw a vast web, a tapestry of lines and lives and lies, and, feeling the spider-silk cutting into his fingers, he grasped one line and held it and swung foot-first into the center. Triangular splinters of himself fly off, some sitting at desks, some sleeping warm next to a body the curves of which he has all but lost to time and sorrow, some standing cold and aloof and powerful, dropping handfuls of earth into a shallow hole covering black satin and badges in brown and mud.

Some open their eyes on morning and smile.

He sees Ace running headlong into the new world. He laughs, understanding suddenly how easy it is to do the impossible.

Whirling like a dervish, he falls into his life.

A man and a woman sit together on a hillside. Things have not been easy, but they are here, and together, and things are not so very different. The Doctor is still wearing his gray coat. Ace's is gone. It doesn't matter.

The Doctor is lying on his back looking up at the blue sunny sky. His hair has grown out, almost to shoulder length, and there are a few more streaks of gray in it. He still wears it swept back. She teases him about putting it in a ponytail, but he seems to think that would be somehow less dignified.

It is a moment before the shock comes, but when it does she understands so much more. He is looking up at the empty blue sky, staring, and she thinks there is nothing there to look at. And then she realizes that he can see the stars. The sunlight doesn't drown them out of his sky.

Every tiny light.

She lies on her back beside him and naps and dreams.