Nah. Apples are good, just nothing on bananas, apparently.
[Sticks her tongue out at at him and makes a silly face.] Thirty to a hundred times!
[But she laughs and shakes her head, sitting back down in the doorframe and leaning her head against the wall.] But I didn't do it alone. It's really easy. Step one, find out why the world is ending and who wants it. Step two, stop them. Step three, whine about being a ghost, and how almost no one can hear you or see you, and that really made step two super difficult and un-fun. Step four, charge the dimension cannon, go to the next timeline, and start all over again.
[Dusts her hands.] Easy peasy.
Know a dozen timelines where all I had to do was convince a woman to turn left.
[Grimaces. Hard.] Yeah. I'm downplaying it. Hard. I had to watch the Doctor die a couple dozen times, because that woman would have normally stopped him and made him get out alive, because he would have been protecting her which saves himself, and then the rest is dominoes. And just figuring out that she individually hinged the rest was a headache.
And then I wound up loving Donna, that woman, too, even though I'm jealous she got to have adventures with the Doctor without me. And I had to let her sacrifice herself in front of a car crash, the same way my father did to solve a paradox.
So when I say "easy," no. It's the furthest thing from easy. It's my own personal private hell, that I'm pretty sure the Devil himself set up to punish me because separating me from the Doctor wasn't enough or even his doing... probably.
But you know what? [Looks up to him and makes sure he's sort of looking back at her.] I'd do it a billion more times if I have to. Because it doesn't matter that it's hard or that it hurts. It just doesn't. And I won't let him win.
You're not in any of my saved timelines, probably. Dunno, you might be. But the only demon I knew said he was the devil, the ultimate evil in all religions.
[Looks up at the ceiling.]
The Doctor said he lied, but he didn't. He was just using psychic truths to scare and hurt us. Try to make us frazzled and fight each other. Spread discord. That's what he said he wanted. To rein destruction and fire and death on everyone.
[Crosses her throat with a finger, looking back at Crowley.] So I shot him into a black hole. The archaeologist he possessed, I mean.
[Glances awaaaaay again.] He said is the darkness though. And that he was caged by the forces of light before time. The Doctor said it's impossible, yeah? Nothing is before time. Least, not in his universe. But I've been thinking since I started traveling between universes... Maybe he was from outside it? Another universe, and they picked the Doctor's, because his is supposed to be sealed against the others.
[Rubs her temples. She's dying to ask questions, and faltering completely. Crowley probably doesn't have the answers. And she doesn't really care for his opinion, just facts, and she wouldn't even be here if Aziraphale wasn't such a fail.]
[But the only other person she could ask would be Michael, and she's very certain his universe's structure is different from the others.]
You said God must want the apocalypse. I don't even believe in God, because... [Hand gesture.] If you're going to leave everything up to me and humanity, then I might as well just put my faith in us anyway. [Bites a fingertip and slowly shakes her head.] But there is... something other than just me, the Doctor, and the TARDIS that doesn't want everything destroyed. [Makes a face at him, crossing her eyes and sticking her tongue out.] Probably just humanity. But look at all us gathered here, yeah? We're not all humans, so it's something that spreads between universes and people.
But... I do know... Satan definitely wants the apocalypse. He did then, and usually whenever I guess I "thwarted" him -- using your word, mind, not mine -- [Huff, where was she?] it was like...
Slitheen, yeah? There're this family of mercenary-assassins from --
[Crosses eyes. It's been over three or four YEARS since she said it. Can she?] Raxicorico fallen angels in a prius.
[ :| she tried. Okay?]
[Facepalm.]
[Groan.] I swear I had it once.
[Weak grin.] Point is, they wanted an apocalypse, world war three, to be precise, so they could sell the nuclear fallout of the Earth for cheap star fuel.
I didn't stop them single-handedly, but I helped. We all did. You're thinking like... well, Satan. If you only think of how terrible humans are and how to manipulate them and hurt them, then yeah, you're going to find it's really easy to do. And that's what the slitheen did. They just assumed everyone would be selfish and evil and reactionary. So thwarting that? Is super easy. All it takes is one person turning left. And yeah, I just got through saying how that wasn't easy, it hurt like hell, literally, but it's because every little thing has major ripples.
Aziraphale [Slowly this time, because she messed up Raxicoricofalliptorius earlier, so she wants to be extra sure.] said he's not as important as me, but stuff like that... It's not like that. He's wrong. I don't care what God or Heaven says. Even bloody rocks have chain of event fallouts. All it takes to stop the apocalypse is people wanting it. One person who just does whatever it takes, however stubborn they have to be, however willing to try and do anything.
[Shrug.] I say that's all, and again, I'm going to point to the Donna turning left example. It seems small, but it's trying to move a mountain with your bare hands. It can still be done though. And I've done it. Mostly just... had to unfortunately sit through living it, and yelling and screaming myself hoarse because of how useless I felt, but yeah. I still stopped it. Stopping Satan just took me not being selfish. He wanted to terrorize us into bringing him back to Earth, and instead I was willing to risk dooming us all to the black hole so he couldn't get out.
Don't underestimate humanity, or we'll bite you in the wings every time.
no subject
[Sticks her tongue out at at him and makes a silly face.] Thirty to a hundred times!
[But she laughs and shakes her head, sitting back down in the doorframe and leaning her head against the wall.] But I didn't do it alone. It's really easy. Step one, find out why the world is ending and who wants it. Step two, stop them. Step three, whine about being a ghost, and how almost no one can hear you or see you, and that really made step two super difficult and un-fun. Step four, charge the dimension cannon, go to the next timeline, and start all over again.
[Dusts her hands.] Easy peasy.
Know a dozen timelines where all I had to do was convince a woman to turn left.
[Grimaces. Hard.] Yeah. I'm downplaying it. Hard. I had to watch the Doctor die a couple dozen times, because that woman would have normally stopped him and made him get out alive, because he would have been protecting her which saves himself, and then the rest is dominoes. And just figuring out that she individually hinged the rest was a headache.
And then I wound up loving Donna, that woman, too, even though I'm jealous she got to have adventures with the Doctor without me. And I had to let her sacrifice herself in front of a car crash, the same way my father did to solve a paradox.
So when I say "easy," no. It's the furthest thing from easy. It's my own personal private hell, that I'm pretty sure the Devil himself set up to punish me because separating me from the Doctor wasn't enough or even his doing... probably.
But you know what? [Looks up to him and makes sure he's sort of looking back at her.] I'd do it a billion more times if I have to. Because it doesn't matter that it's hard or that it hurts. It just doesn't. And I won't let him win.
You're not in any of my saved timelines, probably. Dunno, you might be. But the only demon I knew said he was the devil, the ultimate evil in all religions.
[Looks up at the ceiling.]
The Doctor said he lied, but he didn't. He was just using psychic truths to scare and hurt us. Try to make us frazzled and fight each other. Spread discord. That's what he said he wanted. To rein destruction and fire and death on everyone.
[Crosses her throat with a finger, looking back at Crowley.] So I shot him into a black hole. The archaeologist he possessed, I mean.
[Glances awaaaaay again.] He said is the darkness though. And that he was caged by the forces of light before time. The Doctor said it's impossible, yeah? Nothing is before time. Least, not in his universe. But I've been thinking since I started traveling between universes... Maybe he was from outside it? Another universe, and they picked the Doctor's, because his is supposed to be sealed against the others.
[Rubs her temples. She's dying to ask questions, and faltering completely. Crowley probably doesn't have the answers. And she doesn't really care for his opinion, just facts, and she wouldn't even be here if Aziraphale wasn't such a fail.]
[But the only other person she could ask would be Michael, and she's very certain his universe's structure is different from the others.]
You said God must want the apocalypse. I don't even believe in God, because... [Hand gesture.] If you're going to leave everything up to me and humanity, then I might as well just put my faith in us anyway. [Bites a fingertip and slowly shakes her head.] But there is... something other than just me, the Doctor, and the TARDIS that doesn't want everything destroyed. [Makes a face at him, crossing her eyes and sticking her tongue out.] Probably just humanity. But look at all us gathered here, yeah? We're not all humans, so it's something that spreads between universes and people.
But... I do know... Satan definitely wants the apocalypse. He did then, and usually whenever I guess I "thwarted" him -- using your word, mind, not mine -- [Huff, where was she?] it was like...
Slitheen, yeah? There're this family of mercenary-assassins from --
[Crosses eyes. It's been over three or four YEARS since she said it. Can she?] Raxicorico fallen angels in a prius.
[ :| she tried. Okay?]
[Facepalm.]
[Groan.] I swear I had it once.
[Weak grin.] Point is, they wanted an apocalypse, world war three, to be precise, so they could sell the nuclear fallout of the Earth for cheap star fuel.
I didn't stop them single-handedly, but I helped. We all did. You're thinking like... well, Satan. If you only think of how terrible humans are and how to manipulate them and hurt them, then yeah, you're going to find it's really easy to do. And that's what the slitheen did. They just assumed everyone would be selfish and evil and reactionary. So thwarting that? Is super easy. All it takes is one person turning left. And yeah, I just got through saying how that wasn't easy, it hurt like hell, literally, but it's because every little thing has major ripples.
Aziraphale [Slowly this time, because she messed up Raxicoricofalliptorius earlier, so she wants to be extra sure.] said he's not as important as me, but stuff like that... It's not like that. He's wrong. I don't care what God or Heaven says. Even bloody rocks have chain of event fallouts. All it takes to stop the apocalypse is people wanting it. One person who just does whatever it takes, however stubborn they have to be, however willing to try and do anything.
[Shrug.] I say that's all, and again, I'm going to point to the Donna turning left example. It seems small, but it's trying to move a mountain with your bare hands. It can still be done though. And I've done it. Mostly just... had to unfortunately sit through living it, and yelling and screaming myself hoarse because of how useless I felt, but yeah. I still stopped it. Stopping Satan just took me not being selfish. He wanted to terrorize us into bringing him back to Earth, and instead I was willing to risk dooming us all to the black hole so he couldn't get out.
Don't underestimate humanity, or we'll bite you in the wings every time.