Rubber soles slid across the glass floor of the TARDIS's bridge, sparks shot out from the console, and two gingers were hanging on for dear life all while the Doctor laughed maniacally.
"So this is what you meant by saying you wanted to 'push her to her limits', Doctor?" shouted an obviously worried Amelia Pond.
"Yes! Well, no, but sort of yes – but really no. But in all honesty: Yes." Replied the Doctor, still running around pushing all sorts of buttons and turning all kinds of knobs.
"Uh, Doctor? What is it exactly that you're trying to do?" asked the sputtering Rory Pond (Williams technically, but that isn't how it works).
"You'll see, Ponds! Just hang tight and hope for the best!"
"You've never told us to hope for the best, which makes me think I should be preparing for the not-so-best." Muttered Rory.
"Oh shush and hang on!"
After minutes of spinning and flying through eternity, the TARDIS began to stabilize and materialize. The Doctor stood and looked at his reflection in the monitor, "Yeah that'd do it." He told himself, smiling moronically. He straightened his bow-tie and turned around to face his two companions, who were standing, but only barely. Amy was holding her stomach and Rory had his hand against his mouth.
"It has never been that bad, Doctor." Amy told him.
"Yeah well I've never gone that far that fast. Didn't know I could." He responded, patting the console as if it were a dog, "Ahhh she's a good one."
"So where are we, exactly?" Rory questioned.
"Well, we're...well we're outside of the universe. Technically speaking."
"Haven't…we…already been outside of the universe? When the TARDIS was a woman and an Ood and it was green and I died- again?"
"Ah yes the Ood- poor thing. Can't save them all." The Doctor said to himself while typing away.
"So how are we outside of the universe…again?" Amy asked.
"I could tell you. I could very well tell you but, knowing you two, you'd interrupt me and ask me if it was timey-wimey stuff again. Which it is."
"Last time we were outside of the universe, you said it was like a bubble. Is this…another bubble?"
"Ah, Rory, wrong! I said it was like a bubble which it wasn't but if it helped you then it certainly was a bubble but it really wasn't – so yes, this is another bubble. But it probably isn't. But we have landed, which makes me wonder what exactly we've landed on."
The Doctor, while saying all that, had walked to the TARDIS doors and was about ready to open them before he stopped and looked up at the two. Amy and Rory still looked puzzled. The Doctor noticed something- they weren't blinking, they weren't breathing, or talking, or moving in general. His head popped to the side and saw that the usual pillars of steam rising from the floor were completely still, as were the images on the monitor and the lights as well. Unlike last time, however, the soul of the TARDIS seemed to be still intact.
"That's odd." He whispered, as he walked up to the two of them, waving his hands in their face and making funny faces at Rory.
"Very odd. Must be a time lock." He assumed, as he jumped back down the stairs to the doors. The Doctor pulled them open and almost made a step outside before seeing, to his shock, that it was completely and utterly pitch black outside- no foreseeable end or beginning, no noticeable top or bottom.
"Well now I'm just confused."
He knelt down and slapped his hand into the darkness to see if there was a ground – after all, there had to have been a ground for the TARDIS to land on – and indeed there was. His palm slapped against a hard ground.
"Hm."
The Doctor then stepped outside of his blue box and looked around. Nothing. No wind, no smell, no sound, nothing.
"So…big black thing. Nothing here. No sound or movement. So how did I end up here?"
The Doctor looked behind him, and his eyes widened.
The TARDIS was gone.
"Well that's just not fair."
_
The Doctor flung his arms in the air, "Of course. I leave her for one minute and she disappears. Reliable, just like I told her.". He pulled out his screwdriver and made an attempt to turn it on, but even though he hit the switch over and over again- nothing happened.
"Oh, bollocks. Why aren't you working?" he asked it, tapping the bulb of it with his finger.
It was then when the Doctor heard something- the sound of a materializing TARDIS: Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh.
"Well that's just not possible." He thought to himself as he watched his TARDIS re-materialize in front of his eyes.
"At least she's back, and oh she'll never hear the end of this." He said to, well, himself as he walked over to it. The strangest thing happened as he reached the doors, though, they opened.
"What?"
"What?"
The Doctor was looking straight in the face of, to his shock, himself. Another Doctor. A simultaneous "You?" broke from their mouths. The new Doctor's head tilted and the old Doctor's eyes squinted.
"How are you here?"
"I wanted to come here. How are you here?"
"I wanted to come here too."
"Where are Amy and Rory?"
"They're…well they're in there!" said the old Doctor, looking inside the TARDIS, "And they're still…frozen. That's still odd. And you're still here. Why are you still here?"
"I just got here. They were frozen so I thought I'd take a look around." The new Doctor proclaimed as he pushed the old Doctor out of the way and walked around the dark, empty space.
"There's nothing here, you know."
"I can see that. Except you."
"Well, except you."
"Except us."
The two Doctors looked at each other and smiled devilishly, before the new one turned and looked around.
"Where'd she go? Where's my TARDIS?"
"Ah, yes, well, you see…it disappeared."
"What?"
"Don't worry, mine did too. Well, maybe worry. Just a little though."
Just as the old Doctor did with his screwdriver, the new one tried to turn his screwdriver on, to no avail. "Let's see…no TARDIS, no screwdriver, no Ponds- but there's us. Two Doctors."
"Doctors in the dark, no less."
"Outside of the universe. Nothing here."
"Except…that." Said the new Doctor, pointing to – once again – another TARDIS, and just as before, another Doctor.
Three Doctors.
"Hello you lot!"
"How are…"
"What?"
"Yes yes I know. Confusing. Don't worry. It's all taken care of. I'm…you. The two of you."
"How are you here, though?"
"Same way you two got here. Wanted to go somewhere nice. Got lost. It happens."
"So where are we?"
"The end of the universe. Well- the beginning. Well- outside of the beginning."
"But we were the Big Bang!" shouted the two other Doctors.
"Right, and well, this is before the Big Bang."
"So what do we do?"
"Well…look. There." Said the newest Doctor, pointing at what now appeared to be a crack of light in the darkness.
"That crack…it's just like the others."
"Have you ever broken a teacup, have it shatter everywhere, and then you try to put it back together? You're always missing a little piece of it? Why am I asking you, I am you, of course you have."
The two other Doctors' eyes widened.
"We shut all the other cracks, but just like a shattered cup, there's that one piece." The newest said.
"What do we have to do to close it?"
"Jump in!"
"But that would erase us from existence!"
"Yes and no. You see, I have to jump in too. With the TARDIS. You'll all be in here as well."
"And how does that solve anything?"
"We'll be spinning through time and space, which we restored almost completely, and I'll drop you off at various points in our timeline."
"But what is this place?"
"Oh he just explained that you idiot!"
"Don't worry, Doctor, I'll say it again. This place is before time, before space, before everything. The last place a crack in reality could hide and live- that's what brought us here, that's why the Ponds were frozen, that's why nothing works, that's what made your TARDIS's disappear. It's like a circle. A bicycle chain, things go around and around and sometimes they pop off and you have to fix them and that, Doctors, is exactly what we're going to do."
All three Doctors stared at each other.
"So what do we do?" asked the oldest.
The newest Doctor disappeared inside his TARDIS and returned with a bundle of cables.
"Take these, and the three of us are going to drag this beauty into the crack."
_
The three Doctors pulled the TARDIS, slowly, up to the crack.
"On three gentlemen, we jump in and pull her down with us."
"One." Said the oldest.
"Two." Said the middle.
"Geronimo!" said the third, as the three jumped into the crack.
The cables went taut and the TARDIS slowly pulled into the crack, and as she did, it seemed to close behind them. The three Doctors fell through all of reality, all while climbing the cables back into the TARDIS.
"This is where it gets tricky, boys."
"I thought you just had to drop us off in various times?"
"Well, yes. But I'm not sure when. You there," said the newest Doctor to the oldest, "Where were you last?"
"Flying through space, on our way to Earth. I was going to drop the Ponds off for fish and chips but they insisted on…"
"Ah yes, well then, that's where you'll go."
"And what about my TARDIS?"
"She'll be there, always would have been, always will be. Can't rewrite time. And what about you there?"
"The Williams-Pond wedding, I was about to get changed into my tux but- where were you going?" asked the middle Doctor to the oldest.
"Well…River might say 'Spoilers', so…"
"Ahhh right. Yes, well, wedding."
"Wedding it is!" shouted the newest Doctor to the middle, as he slid across the glass floor of the bridge.
The TARDIS flew through reality and shook and spewed out sparks from all sorts of places before materializing. "Now, here we are. The Pond wedding. The tux is in the closet, get it on and get it on fast- you've got dancing to do, mister!"
And so, the Doctor put on his old tux and exited out of the TARDIS, "his" TARDIS- returned to his own timeline.
As for the other Doctor, he was dropped off on an island.
"Careful not to step in that stuff. Don't want to mess with those fancy shoes." Warned the newest Doctor.
With that, the Doctor was off again- but something was different from this Doctor's TARDIS and the TARDIS's of the other two; this one had no Ponds in it. No companions. Just a ringing phone. The Doctor stood against the console, leaning in, listening to a worried Scottish voice.
"Doctor? Doctor can you hear me? Are you ever going to hear this? You don't even know you've got an answer phone! How can you be so clever and so completely stupid at the same time? Well if you can hear this, please just pick up the phone. Don't get confused- I'm not invisible or trapped in a space box or something…I'm just talking on the answer phone. So just pick up the phone! You said you'd find my baby. You said you'd find Melody. Have you found her? Because you promised. I know she'll be okay…I know she'll grow up to be River, but…that's not the point. I don't wanna miss all those years, you know? I can't stand it, I can't. Please Doctor, please. Okay…phone me back when you know something. Please Doctor at least do that. As soon as you know, okay? Alright…bye."
"Oh Amelia…Amy…I'm sorry. She wasn't there. It was the only way to go through all of time and reality again and she still wasn't there!" shouted the Doctor, throwing his fists through the air.
"I'll find her. I promise. I promised."