"Professor?"
Ace is standing at the entrance to the TARDIS with the doors open, and she's staring out into the blank emptiness of space, which is even more black and empty than usual. The Doctor's half-buried underneath a pile of electronics, tinkering to his heart's content, and for a moment she thinks he can't hear her. But then he sits up and brushes snippets of wire off his question-marked pullover and glances over at her.
"What is it, Ace?" he asks, and by the look on his face, he hasn't heard the edge of slight horror and fear to her voice. She points out of the door tentatively, motioning him over.
"Sorry to bother you… but I think the stars are going out."
He's over by her side in an instant, bounding up with a speed that she never would have thought he was capable of, and they look out together as the final few stars disappear before their eyes, and space goes empty. It almost looks as if someone's draped a large sheet of black velvet over the outside of the TARDIS that could simply be swept aside. But when Ace reaches a hand out as far as she can go, she brushes nothing, and she withdraws, stepping back into the TARDIS- into safety.
"Are we in some kind of hologram or something?" she asks, grasping for explanations immediately. "Or- or are we at some point in time and space where the stars don't exist anymore?"
The Doctor's back at the console before she can even blink, tapping on the controls and reading the strange language on the screen as it scrolls past his eyes. "No. We're currently in the Horsehead Nebula, not too far from your native time zone."
His voice is controlled and his tone of speaking is light, but Ace has known him long enough to recognize tell-tale signs. This is the way he speaks when he's really intensely mad at someone or something, and for one reason alone- how dare you mess with his universe? How dare you (intentionally or not) go and pick apart the threads of all of the complex timelines and fourth-dimensional constructs that he had spent so much time neatly sewing together?
There's a steel in his eyes that tells her that he is not going to stand for this. He's going to march up straight to the door of whoever had done this, barge in without knocking, and deliver a full Doctor-style speech to the culprit, reducing them into a quivering wreck on the floor within minutes. Ace knows this because she's seen it done more than once. It's only at those times- when his shoulders are set, his eyes are glaring from beneath that straw Panama hat, and every inch of his body is screaming run at the person on the receiving end- that the Doctor truly scares her.
"Who did it, then?" she asks, stepping over the remains of the Doctor's experiment from less than a minute ago- lying forgotten on the floor. "Or what?"
He's opened up his communications channel from the TARDIS, which he told her once he almost always keeps closed, otherwise he'd be constantly be bombarded by pleas for help, suggestions of governments to topple, and sales calls. At the moment, hundreds of messages are coming in from all over the galaxies. Ace only sees a few as they flash onto the screen.
Stars are going out- Doctor, are you behind this?
You said you'd come if I called you on this. The stars have disappeared from the sky. Everyone's panicking, but I know you can help. Please hurry.
Doctor, where are you?
He stares at the screen helplessly, fingers gripping the edge of the console so hard that his knuckles are turning white. He seems mesmerized by the words that flicker onto the screen, only to be replaced by another similar, but somehow entirely different cry for his attention a moment later. It's only when there's a knock at the TARDIS door that he turns away suddenly. He and Ace look at each other, then dive for the handle simultaneously, both fumbling to open it.
There's no one outside.
Just an ordinary glass bottle, floating in zero-gravity, knocking up against the wood of the TARDIS's outer shell. The Doctor reaches out, plucking it carefully, and prises out the cork sealing the top. Inside is a letter, written neatly in blue ballpoint pen on lined paper. He holds it up so Ace can read it over his shoulder.
Dear Doctor, it begins, and after only one paragraph Ace can tell who it's from. It's the message in a bottle that Melanie Bush had promised to send the Doctor- the one that would reach him, in time. It's just like all of the others- worry over the fact that the stars had gone out, and co-ordinates for where he can find her.
I miss you, it finishes, and she's signed her name in loopy handwriting at the bottom, with hugs and kisses.
The Doctor drops the bottle to the floor. It shatters, and now Ace know that he's about to get serious. The message was the straw that broke the already-quite-irritable camel's back. The Doctor and Ace are in business, now, and they're going to deal with whatever's happened to the very end.
They materialize on a street in England, Earth. It's night time here, and, true to form, it's almost pitch black. The stars aren't there anymore, and the moon doesn't give off any light because- of course it has- the sun's gone out too. The street lamps, lit dimly, are giving up a reasonable struggle, but the blackness is pressing hard at the edges of the pools of light, threatening to overwhelm it.
It's one of the most depressing things that Ace has ever seen, and she tells the Doctor so. He hums a bit, and they continue down the street together. The Doctor hasn't mentioned why they're here, of all places. It looks like a dreary sort of town- not quite as bad as Perivale, but measuring pretty darn close. There's a post office (closed), a hospital, and a duck pond without any ducks.
"Professor," Ace begins, but is shushed by the Doctor brushing his umbrella irritably at her.
"Do you hear that?" he asks her rhetorically, glancing around the street. She listens, and almost misses a rhythmic creaking, like a pendulum rocking back and forth.
The Doctor leads them both into a small garden, out of the way. The creaking is being caused by a swing set in the back yard, that's half-heartedly being propelled back and forth by a young girl of about seven years of age. She looks up as they both climb over the fence- and Ace still isn't entirely sure why they're doing this. The girl's hair is ginger, a bright color that almost takes the dark away from the night- and she's in her nightie and wearing a knitted beanie and mittens.
"You're in my garden," she says, as if strangers that climb over your fence in the middle of a starless night are an ordinary occurrence that's nothing to worry about it. "Are you here to fix the crack in my wall?"
The Doctor smiles at her. "Hello," he says. "I'm the Doctor, and this is my friend Ace. What crack?"
She stares placidly at him. "The crack in my bedroom wall. Everyone says that it's an ordinary crack, but it's not. I can hear voices, coming from it. You're weird," she adds, almost as an afterthought.
The Doctor looks pleased. "Thank you."
"What's your name?" Ace asks, because it's the polite thing to do.
"I'm Amelia," says the girl. "Amelia Pond. Are you here to help?"
"Always," replies Ace with conviction, because it's one hundred percent true. "Amelia, aren't you worried about the stars? They're not there- isn't that something that you should be worried about?"
Amelia closes her eyes, screwing them up tightly. "The stars don't exist. Everyone says so. They're just a story, and they never have existed."
The Doctor and Ace exchange glances for a second- things are worse than they had thought. Ace takes Amelia's hand.
"Okay, then," she says. "Let's go have a look at this crack of yours."
Amelia Pond leads them inside and up the stairs. It's a lovely house- probably. Ace isn't really looking at the interior décor. She's looking at the seven-year-old as she steps carefully and purposefully from one step to the next. She's a very odd child, for her age. She doesn't quite seem in touch with reality.
When they arrive at her room, it's true- yes, there is a crack in her wall; yes, it does seem to be glowing and voices are coming out from it. Prisoner Zero has escaped. Prisoner Zero has escaped.
The Doctor does something with his sonic screwdriver, and the crack closes with a satisfying-sounding crunch, and they all head back to the TARDIS together- the only reason Amelia's with them is that she won't leave them alone. Neither of them can really bring themselves to argue.
At the TARDIS, she stands in the doorway and looks inside.
"The inside and the outside don't fit together," she remarks, staring about the inside.
"Yeah," Ace says instead of voicing one of the million thoughts bouncing around her head at the moment. "Want to come in while the Doctor does something clever?"
She does, and they do. The Doctor has, very recently, redecorated the interior. It's a very gothic, olde-worlde look, and Ace isn't quite sure if she likes it yet. Amelia runs over to one of the plush chairs on the far side of the room, and curls herself into it. To all intents and purposes, she appears to go to sleep.
Ace watches her for a moment, then the Doctor beckons her over.
"Incoming call," he explains. "From a TARDIS that's registering the same biodata as ours."
She gives him a blank look. "What- it's the same one?"
"Exactly," he agrees. "From my future self, no doubt."
A hologram flickers into existence, not entirely solid, but enough so that they can make out the features of a young man in a tweed coat and wearing- inexplicably- a bow tie. He's frozen for the moment, and Ace looks at him for a second.
"Blimey," she laughs, not really sure how this person standing in front of her is supposed to be the Doctor, let alone one of his future selves. "You've sure changed. Got yourself a facelift, by the look of it."
"Or maybe more than that," the Doctor says, somewhat cryptically and flicks a switch on the console. The hologram of the young man is suddenly animated and lively, and he grins at them both- a wide, infectious sort of smile.
"Hello, younger me, and- ooh, is it Ace, right now? Sorry for the unexpected call, but I need to tell you both not to worry about the little issue of the stars. Seriously. Don't worry about it, forget about every aspect of it. I'm currently working on stopping the universe from collapsing into a small singularity the exact shape and size of Fiji, and you two sneaking about blowing things up won't do much good to stop it."
"'Blowing things up'?" says Ace's Doctor, looking scandalized. "Does he really think so little of me?"
"Anyhow," the future Doctor continues. "Everything's going very wibbly-wobbly at the moment, so Time is in constant flux. It'll give you a bit of a headache if you think about it too much, but currently we're all in a timeline that's going to be wiped out in roughly an hour, my time, when the universe reset. And that's only if everything goes to plan, or otherwise- well, let's not think about that. My plans always work out."
He flashes them both a quick thumb-up. "Also, I happen to know for a fact that you've got little Amelia Pond in your TARDIS right now. I need her back in her house by tomorrow morning, or my cunningly devised plan will fall apart. She's a lovely girl, and you'll probably be tempted to keep her, but we can't have that."
Ace glances quickly over her shoulder towards Amelia, who's still fast asleep in the shadows of the console room.
"Miss you both," the young man concludes. "That is to say, I miss being you, Doctor, and I miss toppling empires with you, Ace. Or something. Regeneration is confusing, time travelling doubly so."
The hologram flickers into nothing, and Ace doesn't even have the heart to make a 'help me, Obi-Wan' joke.
They return Amelia home, although she begs to come with them, and the Doctor sends the TARDIS spinning off into deep space, where the stars are still dead.
"So," says Ace. "End of the universe, then."
The Doctor stares gloomily into the distance. "It appears so."
"And there's nothing we can do about it."
"No. That's all up to my future self."
"Then where are we going?"
He turns and smiles at her, though it appears slightly forced. "Somewhere beautiful. Somewhere stunning."
He takes them both to the Eye of Orion. It's peaceful and beautiful, even in the dark, and the Doctor's brought a picnic blanket so they can lie on the dewy grass without getting soaked. They stare at the black sky together in companionable silence.
It would usually be about this point that the Doctor would start pointing out the constellations in the sky for Ace's benefit, and rattle off facts and statistics that had a very high chance of being true, no matter how ridiculous they sounded. But tonight there aren't any stars in the sky for him to talk about.
Ace takes his hand, barely noticing how cold and alien it feels, and squeezes it tightly.
"So this is how the world ends," he says. "Not with a whimper, but a bang."
"You're misquoting something," she says.
He turns his head, and offers her a smile. "T.S. Elliot. The Hollow Men. My future self is planning to restart the entire universe- at least, that's what I think he's doing. I'd do the same, in his place. The Big Bang redux, if you like."
"What will happen to us?" Ace asks. The Doctor shrugs.
"Oh, we'll be put back in our proper places, no doubt. We won't recall a moment of this- well, you won't, anyway. I'm not entirely sure about me."
Ace wraps her arms around herself. The night air is freezing, and she hadn't brought her jacket with her. Not that it would matter, anyway. "If you do remember, though…"
"Yes?"
Their eyes meet- chocolate brown and oh-so-young; sea-storm grey and oh-so-old- and for a moment they completely and utterly understand each other.
"Tell me," she says softly. "I don't like having my memories wiped. I don't ever want to forget a single thing."
The corners of his eyes crinkle into a smile, and neither of them need to say anything else. They both turn back to the sky, and lose themselves in the blackness until the world ends, and it's just the two of them-
-then nothing.
"Professor?"
Ace is standing at the entrance to the TARDIS with the doors open, and she's staring out into space. The Doctor's half-buried underneath a pile of electronics, tinkering to his heart's content, and for a moment she thinks he can't hear her. But then he sits up and brushes snippets of wire off his question-marked pullover and glances over at her.
"What is it, Ace?" he asks. She grins, pointing.
"Look at the stars!" she says. "It's like that painting by that French guy- Van Gough-"
"Van Gough was Dutch," he corrects. "And you mean Starry Night, don't you?" He wanders over leisurely to look out, next to her. "Yes, I suppose it does, doesn't it?"
They look out over the stars together.
"Professor?" Ace asks again. He raises an eyebrow at her, which she takes as an opportunity to continue. "Do you feel like there's something we've… forgotten?"
He wiggles his eyebrows dramatically. "Not that I can remember. But then again, if I had, I wouldn't, would I?"
She leans against the doorframe. "You haven't ever had an amnesia problem, have you?"
He considers the question. "…I think I've forgotten."
She laughs and nudges him good-naturedly, and the TARDIS twirls on through space, overlooking the Horsehead Nebula.
And somewhere else in space and time, in a small English village with a post office (closed), a hospital, and a duck pond without any ducks, a ginger-haired girl called Amelia Pond wakes up for her wedding, the strange, half-remembered thoughts of an odd little man and his friend who fixed a crack in her wall fading from her memory.
Maybe it was just a dream, after all.