Nietzsche and the Doctor

by Asterism

The Doctor, Amy and Rory visit Nietzsche in the 1800s. Aliens high above Earth are attempting to steal the wisdom of everyone and everything. Can the Doctor and Nietzsche figure out the aliens' plot and save the Earth?

The metallic whir of the machine swirled up the broken bits of sound in the air and leveled them properly on the ground in patches of shining dust. Rory and Amy watched through the viewfinder, a sense of wonder running through them at the patches of sparkling magic, as it seemed while they had descended from among the stars, they had followed them to earth. "So where are we?" Amy asked the Doctor as he found his coat and touched the handle of the sonic screwdriver, just to make sure it was there.

"Get your coats. We," he said, "are in Nuremberg." He swung the door open and motioned them out into the cold night.

"Nuremberg?" Rory asked, pulling the edges of his coat closer when the chill nibbled at his skin. A light snow filtered down. "Why? When?"

The Doctor tipped his head one way and then the other as he thought. "Not sure. It's like I heard something, but now that I'm listening for it..." He glanced around the landscape: a quiet, bare hill just outside the city, "…it's gone." He looked up into the deep, black sky. "Just gone."

The three musketeers began a walk off of the hill, guided by moonlight and the shining lights of the city. They walked across cobbled foot bridges, among people in foot-length dresses, men in hats and formal suits. "Did an opera just get out?" Amy asked.

"We're in the late 1800s, I'd say," the Doctor said, spinning about to try to capture all the stimuli around him. "Hopefully not too late."

"Too late for what?"

The Doctor knocked on the door of a modest house and smiled as an attractive middle-aged woman opened the door. "Hello," he said.

The woman was in her nightgown, with her winter coat on over top of it, and she stood mostly behind the door, looking her guests over with skepticism. "Can I help you with something?"

"We're here to see Friedrich Nietzsche."

"Friedrich's not been well for quite a while," the woman said as she closed the door behind Amy and Rory. "And you're a doctor?"

The Doctor smiled and took the woman's hand. "That I am. What's your name?"

"Elisabeth."

"You're his...?" Amy led.

"Sister," and the woman smiled.

"Friedrich Nietzsche," Amy chuckled.

"Do you know him?" the woman asked. "I thought perhaps I had met all of his friends by now."

"No, I'm...aware of his work?" Amy replied, glancing at the Doctor to see if this answer had been acceptable. He simply looked over his shoulder at her as he glanced around the room.

"I haven't met many people outside of academia who seem to have read his work. I'm still trying to get through it, myself." She looked Amy over. "You don't seem like you're an academic."

"Hey!"

Rory stepped between them. "Oh, my, where's the Doctor run off to?"

The Doctor had already made his way through the house to the back bedroom and was hovering over Friedrich's bed. Amy and Rory joined him, looking on as the father of the aphorism stared into space dreamily, almost wistfully, with stacks and stacks of books falling off the shelves around the room. He was frail and pale, but with thick dark hair and bushy eyebrows and beard. He looked like a man that hadn't been connected to the human world in some time. But Friedrich's eyes locked onto Rory when he entered the room, followed him as he came around the edge of the bed.

"He seems to recognize you," Elisabeth whispered, a touch of wonder in her voice.

"I just have one of those faces," Rory assured her.

"He - he doesn't even recognize me," she marveled, leaning over Rory's shoulder to catch Friedrich's eyeline, assuring herself that he was, in fact, gazing intensely in Rory's direction.

Friedrich sat up a bit as Rory approached, a look on his face like he may be glimpsing a ghost. "Doctor?" Rory murmured as Friedrich reached out and clasped his arm.

Summoning strength enough to speak, his dark eyes ablaze with a thousand words, Friedrich parted his cracked lips and rasped, "Rory the Roman," then collapsed into unconsciousness, the words hanging heavy in the room.

"Oh my God," Elisabeth said, stepping between Rory and Amy to pull the covers up on her brother. "But he hasn't spoken in weeks."

The Doctor removed his sonic screwdriver and scanned Friedrich head to toe, then set about walking in a slow circle around the bedroom, taking readings as went, stopping near the window to look out, running his finger along the sill and tasting the dust.

"What are you doing, Doctor?" Elisabeth asked as Rory and Amy backed up to give the Doctor some room to work.

"Exactly how long's he been like this?" he asked, ignoring Elisabeth's question as he continued to walk and test and check readings.

"He's only been home from Turin about three weeks," she answered, shaking her head.

The Doctor turned. "Turin? What's in Turin?"

"The hospital." Elisabeth sat in a chair next to her brother's bed, settling into the spot with the familiarity of a woman who had spent many days and nights there. She leaned forward and clasped Friedrich's hand. "He had some sort of episode while living in Turin and ended up in the hospital. He apparently just...stopped speaking one day while he was there."

"I see," the Doctor said, replacing the screwdriver in his breast pocket, eyes darting around the room but landing again on the window. He unlatched and opened it, letting in a blast of cold air as he leaned out and looked up into the clear, dark sky. "I think we really need to visit that hospital."

"It's half a day's journey, but I can fetch you a map," Elisabeth offered.

The Doctor placed his hands behind his back and smiled, bowing slightly as he said, "Please." Elisabeth left the room to search for the map and Amy skipped over to the Doctor. "Nietzsche! I didn't know you were such a philosopher."

The Doctor glanced at Amy, a slight smile on his lips. "I dabble." His smile faded when he turned to peer at Friedrich as Rory leaned over the bed, Rory's nurturing side unable to resist checking vital signs to make sure the man was resting comfortably. "Nietzsche is a man who can see through the veil of reality and firmly articulate those tiny truths no one else was ever able to speak before," the Doctor mused. Rory eased his hand against Friedrich's forehead, and the philosopher opened his eyes. He blinked at Rory, then focused beyond him for the first time, seeing the Doctor and Amy.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"I'm the Doctor. This is Amy and you've met Rory."

Friedrich studied Rory carefully. "You were in my dream." Rory helped the philosopher sit up in bed. "You helped me escape."

"Escape what?" Rory asked, fluffing the pillows to make his ward more comfortable.

Nietzsche's face clouded, he shrugged. "I don't remember." Then he glanced around the room. "Where am I?"

"You're at your sister's house. Elisabeth," Amy said.

"Elisabeth? I haven't seen Elisabeth in..."

His sister returned to the room with maps in hand and looked to see her brother sitting up in bed. He was even following her with his eyes. "Fritz?" she breathed.

"Lizzie," he laughed and held out his arms. She rushed to embrace him, whispering to him about how many times she'd prayed for him to recover.

Amy glanced at the Doctor as she held Rory's hand and pulled him close. "What's going on?" she whispered.

"Doctor, I don't know what you've done," Elisabeth said, looking at him over her brother's shoulder, "but thank you."

"Ah, well, you're welcome. We'll be going now."

"Go?" Friedrich asked. "But you've just arrived."

"We'll be back tomorrow. Promise. Now, get some rest." He glanced around the room, took a final reading with the sonic screwdriver, then he hustled Rory and Amy out of the door like a house mother to hens.

"What was that about?" Rory asked.

"We should go," the Doctor said. "We came too late. We're here after Nietzsche lost his mind. There's nothing we can do for him now."

"But he was fine a minute ago," Rory insisted.

"Yes, and that was wrong. We have to go."

"But you said we'd be back tomorrow," Amy reminded him.

"I lied."

"You can't just say you're going to do something and not do it."

"Of course I can. I do it all the time."

Amy stopped dead in her tracks as the Doctor walked ahead. She pulled Rory to a stop with her. "I'm not going."

The Doctor paused and turned on his heel. "What do you mean 'not going'?"

"We said we'd be back, and we're going to be back. In the morning."

The Doctor glowered, studying her, his jaw set hard as stone. "I said we're going."

Amy shook her head and crossed her arms. "No."

The Doctor looked at Rory, whose face held a bit less conviction but more compassion. "I think we should stay."

The Doctor looked between the two of them, but Rory the most, the wind pulling heat from them as they stood with snow melting under the shoes. "Fine," he said finally. "You want to sit and watch the waste of one of the world's finest minds, I won't stop you."

"That's better," Amy murmured.

"One day."

"One day," she echoed. They continued walking, out of town and up the little hill towards the Tardis. "It is weird, though, that he'd start talking when we're around."

"I'm afraid it might be a little of the Tardis language translator rubbing off on him."

"That's never happened before."

"Doesn't mean it's not happening now." He unlatched the door to allow Amy and Rory in. "Trouble is, I don't know how to fix it, so we pop by tomorrow, say 'hi,' and then we go."

"What about Turin?"

"We pop by, say hello, go by the hospital in Turin, and then we go," he revised.

Before the Doctor closed the door he kicked up some of the sparkling dust the Tardis had sent swirling on their way in, watched the tiny particles pick up color as they circled about. A far away sound, like a man whispering a story to himself before bed, made the Doctor turn his head and peer into the darkness.

Nothing there but the wind and a lightly wafting snow.

"So today we visit Turin." The Doctor stretched his limbs and snapped his blue suspenders against his chest. The morning was gray, but the air was chilly and fresh. Amy and Rory had already gone down to the Nietzsche house while he stayed behind to analyze the readings he had gotten the night before. They had been slightly out of the ordinary, but not un-ordinary enough to arouse suspicion.

The Doctor knocked lightly on the front door and Elisabeth let him in. Friedrich was up, testing out wobbly legs as Rory helped to keep him steady. Amy brightened up when she saw the Doctor. "Look at him go," she said, pointing at Friedrich as the Doctor settled in an over-stuffed chair next to her.

"He had a bad night," Elisabeth said, "but he's been much better since company's arrived."

"We're to go to Turin, aren't we?" the Doctor asked, watching and listening to Rory chatting away with Friedrich.

"You don't want to stay?" Elizabeth asked, her eyes gaining creases of concern at the prospect of her house again falling silent when Amy and Rory and the Doctor left, her brother retreating into the chatter of his own head.

"The sooner we go, the sooner we get back," the Doctor assured her, standing and resting his arm along her shoulders in a quick hug.

"But he so loves the company," Elisabeth protested.

"Well, Amy can stay with you; can't you, Amy?" He turned to look at her.

Her eyebrows raised into a tent and her lips turned down. "But I wanted to see Turin."

The Doctor knelt in front of Amy and said, "I wouldn't ask, but I need someone to keep an eye on Nietzsche, document what he does, what he says, how he says it. My only other choice is..." He gestured to Rory with a flick of his head.

"And?"

"And I think he'd be of more help coming with me. He's a nurse and it's a hospital. He might notice something out of the ordinary."

"You're out of the ordinary," she grumbled, putting her chin in her hands and pouting.

"Yes, well, it's decided then." He rose and clapped his hands once, drawing the attention of the two men in the kitchen. "Rory, you'll come with me to Turin. Amy's staying here."

"She can help me with dinner," Elisabeth offered, then turned to look at Amy, who forced a wan smile as the Doctor and Rory made sure they weren't within Amy's striking distance.

"Can we dance?" Friedrich asked, dark eyes fixed on Amy as he bore much of his weight on Rory's shoulder.

Amy rose from her chair to give Friedrich a place to sit. She reached out, taking one of his hands lightly. "Maybe a bit later." She and Rory guided Friedrich to the chair so he could sit down.

"We'll dance tonight when you return," Friedrich said. "Do you dance, Doctor?"

He hooked his thumbs into his suspenders and chuckled. "Do I dance?" He looked at Amy, who shrugged and wiggled her hand, kind of. "Seems I do."

"You can dance with Lizzie. I've seen her watching you."

The Doctor glanced sheepishly at Ms. Nietzsche as she backed away from them. "Friedrich, don't say things you don't mean," she huffed, blushing.

"I mean everything I say," he laughed.

"Don't start the dance without me," Rory said as Friedrich settled into his chair and Amy sat on the floor in front of him, tucking her legs beneath her. The Doctor studied Friedrich as he stretched out his limbs carefully, looked around the room with a fresh pride, a gentle kind of pleasure. He reached over and pat Friedrich's arm as if to say everything is going to be okay.

"Tell me, Friedrich," Elisabeth said, sitting next to Amy on the floor, looking between the two men that sat above her. "What's it like inside your head?" The Doctor looked at her and she met his eyes briefly before looking back at her brother.

"What do you mean?" Friedrich asked.

"I mean, I can see you now, plain as day, staring back at me with eyes just like mine." Friedrich smiled. "But sometimes you disappear without a trace, like you're locked up inside another world in your head."

Friedrich's brow crinkled. "Do I?"

"It's been a month since I saw you last."

His eyes widened as he struggled to understand that last statement. He glanced away and searched his memory for any clues. "A month?"

Elisabeth grabbed his hands and his attention returned to her. "Since Turin. A month you've been ill. What happened to you there?"

"Turin," he whispered, remembering. Elisabeth looked back at the Doctor. He understood what she was doing. She wanted him to see what Friedrich's world was like, to retreat from a world he'd toiled for years to explain and understand and descend into a private hell of chaos. "I recall a horse, and being in the street," Nietzsche murmured. "This man, he was treating the horse quite poorly and I stepped in to stop him. And then…"

Rory stopped studying the maps of Turin in the kitchen to hear Friedrich's tale. The maps were most were useless, really, since the Tardis would touch them down on the hospital grounds. The trick was finding the most secluded spot to which to set coordinates, and then being able to hop the guarding fence without detection.

Friedrich closed his eyes and was quiet for a moment. "It was like a whisper at first, just a little tickle on my right ear. Then it came from all sides, voices talking at me, shouting at me all at once. I could hear so much but understand none of it. Constant, incessant." Friedrich covered his ears like he could hear it all again, his eyes becoming glassy as he looked into the distance to remember. "It's like if my own mind had a voice and it was screaming, but then multiplied by a million."

The Doctor's brow crinkled quizzically as he took in the new information. Amy touched Friedrich's hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze.

"Then came the images," Friedrich continued, his voice taking on a rough edge as his shoulders shrunk and he bowed his head. "Such violence. So much bloodshed and heartbreak. I couldn't see it all, it came so fast, but I could feel it like a crushing weight on my chest. I lost myself in it." Friedrich lifted his head and opened his eyes, focusing on the Doctor. "Can you imagine it? Lost in a sea of destruction. So lost you can't even find yourself?"

The Doctor nodded once, slightly. "I can imagine."

"I can't go back there," Friedrich whispered, tightening his hold on Amy's hand. "Not now, since I've only found my way back. Lizzie says you can help me. Can you?"

The Doctor turned to face Friedrich directly. He reached out and placed his hands on the philosopher's shoulders and looked into Friedrich's eyes. "I promise you, I'll do my best." He got up and went into the kitchen, grabbed up the maps. "Rory, come along," he called as he walked out the door and out of sight. Rory bent to kiss Amy on the cheek, then he followed.

The hospital at Turin was quite imposing. The Tardis materialized along the south lawn, which was complete with a hedge maze dotted with impressive statues. The air itself glimmered in the sun, and the serenity of it all could almost rouse suspicion. As they stepped out, the Doctor held his hand out and caught some of the shimmering dust in the air.

Same as they had seen on the hill in Nuremburg.

"What is that?" Rory asked as the Doctor took a quick reading with the sonic screwdriver.

"Bread crumbs," he murmured back, mostly to himself, then dusted his hands off.

"Why'd we end up here?" Rory asked, looking up at the man and horse statue above them.

"I dunno, I think sometimes she just likes to play with me." He knocked on the blue wood paneling of the Tardis then spun around to take in the hedges that closed around them. "But I do love a good puzzle."

Rory glared at him.

"The hedges are quite lovely," he added, and he forged ahead into the maze, Rory following.

"Is this because I don't like climbing fences?" Rory asked.

The Doctor smiled. "I've never considered it."

"Considered what?"

The Doctor peeked over his shoulder at Rory. "I've never considered if the Tardis calculates the climbing preference of companions before choosing a landing site. Oh wait, probably not."

"I don't like mazes."

"There's a surprise." The Doctor stopped, licked a finger and thrust it into the air, turning about sixty degrees before starting off again down a different corridor. They began to pass patients now, dressed in white slip-on shoes and pale blue gowns.

Within minutes, they were out of the maze, walking across the expansive grounds and sticking out like sore thumbs. The Doctor absentmindedly took readings with his sonic, shining the light in the eyes of an older woman, Rory saying sorry, sorry, sorry, walking along the raised bed of bare rose briars, in through a slightly ajar doorway in the main building.

"Excuse me!" someone called as the Doctor walked through the front foyer ignoring the check-in desk. He glanced around the room, eyes landing in the south corner. A narrow door drew his attention, tucked in a corner with shadow that seemed impossibly deep taking into account the crisp light coming in from behind them. It would no doubt be stale in the hallway behind the door, no open windows, the perfect place to hide.

"Rory, could you, uh…" The Doctor gestured with his head at the orderly coming to enforce the visitors' rules.

"What?"

The Doctor couldn't pull his eyes away from the south corner, the door almost imperceptibly swinging open just a crack. Why did no one else seem to notice it? Perhaps because it didn't look like a door, no knob, dressed up like the rest of the wall – a hidden passageway? Why would it be open in a place like this? A patient could easily lose their way. "Um, ask around to see if anyone remembers Friedrich," the Doctor said distractedly, slipping the pad of psychic paper into Rory's vest pocket. "Also ask if anything strange has been going on around the hospital lately."

Rory's mouth opened a little to ask again, what? But the Doctor had already sprinted away, following his screwdriver as a hound follows his nose.

The hallway had air as thick as the Doctor thought. The kind that is so heavy it blocks out noise and light. As he walked, he could hear his two hearts thumping, the floor beneath his feet shifting, but nothing from the foyer and the hospital just a few feet away. He looked back and the rectangle of light that was the doorway seemed miles away. His screwdriver pulsed, lighting the way only inches in front of him. There, in the distance, something pulsed its light back.

"Hello," he whispered. "What might you be?"

Rory shook hands with the burley orderly. "Hello. I was looking for information on a patient. I'm…Gary, an at-home-care nurse," he showed off the psychic credentials, "and I was sent to retrieve some paperwork."

The orderly looked Rory over skeptically. "Which patient?"

"Friedrich Nietzsche. Someone should have called ahead so I could pick it up."

"Let me check behind the desk. Follow me."

Rory looked over his shoulder to where the Doctor had disappeared, then followed the orderly to the desk to wait for the file.

The Doctor crept forward, beaconing his light to see the other beacon back. The hallway closed in tighter, so he had to turn sideways to get through. The air got hotter, stuffier, but the pulsing light seemed close now, orangey-red and mesmerizing.

There was a sound in the hall, like scurrying insects, or tiny rodents. A woosh like wind, though the heavy air never moved. There was that whisper he'd heard in the woods above Nuremburg. He looked around himself, the galloping tempo of his hearts picking up a bit as a sweat popped out along his brow. The Doctor sweating? He thought to himself. Ha! He shimmied out of his coat in response to the heat. Besides, the hall proved not to be wide enough to keep going with it on. Even his thin shoulders, turned sideways, were wedging him, the walls shedding shellac from between the wooden slats.

Rory stared at the ornate paintings on the walls, the carvings in the marble as he leaned with his elbow on the edge of the check-in desk. The orderly put in a call for Nietzsche's file and smiled apologetically for the wait. A patient wandering in from the garden turned to look at Rory, stopping dead in her tracks. He didn't notice her at first, but when she drew closer, he met her stare. "Hello, ma'am," he chirped.

"I know you," she whispered, looking at Rory with reticent recognition. She leaned forward and pressed her hands to his cheeks. A soft smile grew on her face as tears welled in her eyes, holding him as a mother seeing her son home from war. "Rory," she whispered before the desk nurse came around and led her away. "Rory, it's you."

Rory was a bit taken aback, watching the patient as she was taken away, still looking back at him, shaking her head like she'd mistaken him for someone else. "That was odd," the orderly said.

"I just have one of those faces," Rory replied. "Any other strange things happening around here lately?"

Before the orderly could answer, two more patients uttered Rory's name, looking at him with blinking, wide eyes, as though a cloud was clearing for them and the sun was a little hard to bear. It was difficult to hear what they were saying, three more patients coming in as well. They whispered among themselves, all the while staring at Rory like he might be the second coming. Rory could hear only snippets. The Roman, he heard. I remember him.

An older woman came in with a young man guiding her toward the grand staircase beyond the atrium. The young man paused to say hello to the nurse behind the desk and the old woman stood waiting, staring off into space as though she could see something there. She muttered a little to whatever she could see, having a conversation with a memory.

"That's Mrs. Sloan," the orderly whispered to Rory. "She came in about three weeks ago, along with this lot." He pointed to the small crowd of people murmuring about Rory. "She's the only one we managed to find family for. That's her son at the desk. The rest were just...too far gone. No ID on them."

Rory stared at the milling group then at Mrs. Sloan, at the sad sort of lost look on her face. "All of them came in at once?" The orderly nodded. "What day?"

"Not sure, but around the same time as Nietzsche. I'll check."

As the orderly began riffling through papers and calendars, Mrs. Sloan cocked her head slightly to the side, listening for something far away. Then she turned slowly, peeking at Rory over her shoulder. "Are you alright, miss?" Rory asked and put a hand lightly on her shoulder. At his touch it was like dawn broke on Mrs. Sloan's face; the dreariness clouding her eyes drifted away and her eyelids fluttered in the bright light of the atrium. Rory smiled softly.

"I'm quite fine, young man," she replied in a soft voice as she tried to remember where she'd seen Rory before. She stepped a little closer. "Could you tell me where exactly we are?"

"Mom!" Mr. Sloan took hold of his mother's arm and led her away from Rory. "Don't go bothering people."

Mrs. Sloan pulled her arm away. "Don't talk to me like I'm a dog Christian. I was just having a chat."

Mr. Sloan was dumbfounded for a few tense moments, then he wrapped his mother up in a big hug. "Oh my God, mom. You're back!"

"Back? Back from where?" she laughed as she hugged her son.

"You were..." he trailed off as he leaned back to look at her. "Doesn't matter, you're back! How's that possible?" He looked at the speechless nurses behind the desk. "How's that possible?"

Rory inched away a little from the Sloans and nudged the orderly. "Any luck on my file?"

"It's coming sir."

When the Doctor pulsed his screwdriver, the orange orb called out to him. The whispers were all around now, gnawing at his ears as he pushed himself forward with a boot on the closest support beam, working against the steadily constricting walls that were making it hard to even breathe. He reached with his hand and felt the warmth of the light, the weight of it. Then he was holding it in both hands until it was all he could see. The knowledge of it. The power.

Doctor!

He thought it was a whisper, another disembodied whisper at first, until it came again. Sharper this time.

Doctor!

He pulled his eyes from the orb and looked back toward the doorway. It was Rory. Miles and miles away. Rory called for him, and he came.

The Doctor collapsed on the hospital side of the doorway, covered in concrete dust and dragging his coat behind him. "Are you all right?" Rory asked, clapping him on the back as he coughed out some of the dust and insulation.

"I'm fine," he rasped, waving Rory's attention away. "Got what I came for."

"Great. I got Friedrich's file, so we should go." He pointed to a mass of patients who were staring intently, even as staff tried to herd them off to other parts of the hospital. The Doctor stood and pushed Rory a few inches to the left to watch the audience follow him with their eyes. He pulled him back a foot or so to watch them continue to follow carefully.

"That's creepy," he whispered to Rory.

"It is, yeah."

"Off we go, then."

So it was a quick hop through the hedge maze, a salute at the stone man and horse, then dematerialization in the Tardis before a few stray patients. They knew the patients wouldn't tell anyone of the police box that appeared and disappeared in the center of the hedge maze. Those that doubted what they saw may see it as a delusion, a dream, a fantasy; and those that were sure of what they saw couldn't risk telling anyone as they might end up involuntarily extending their hospital stay. "I don't think this is helping anyone," Rory commented, watching the patients disappear in the viewfinder. For some reason, it was always their faces to fade last into static.

Rory told the Doctor that in the last two weeks there had been a steep increase in the number of patients admitted to the hospital, and they all were exhibiting some of the same symptoms as Friedrich: confused, isolated, uncommunicative. It was as if dementia were catching.

"Well, now. Seems we have a lead to follow." The Doctor showed Rory the orb.

"What's that?"

"Dunno." He tossed it to Rory so he could fiddle with some switches. "But won't it be fun to find out?"

Chapter 2**

Back at the Nietzsche household, Rory returned to a home filled with music. Friedrich was back in bed, but sitting up and watching Amy and Elisabeth work clumsily through a folk dance, neither knowing well how to pick up the lead. "Oh! Rory!" Amy came and got him from the doorway and pulled him into the dance. "You know this one!"

The Doctor remained on the Tardis, analyzing the glowing orb he had stashed in his bigger-on-the-inside jacket pocket. There was a frequency it vibrated on, one way, way up there, and he tuned his ampliphone device to pick up the transmission.

"I've got it!" The Doctor burst in through the Nietzsche's front door, holding the glowing orb above his head in triumph. They scarcely heard him come in, as the music was loud, and their clapping was quick, and the stomps on the floor were fierce. Friedrich held Amy around the waist with one hand, her left hand held high by his, and they trotted around the room to the music, Amy laughing like a little girl as he led her through the dance.

Friedrich, too, was smiling like anything, cheeks with a healthy blush, looking not at all like the man they had all met only an evening ago. They turned at the back side of the room and Amy noticed the Doctor all at once. She didn't stop dancing. "Come in! How did it go?"

"Didn't Rory tell you?"

"He didn't tell me anything."

"Too out of breath," Rory said.

"Not enough, I say," Friedrich called to him. "Take my sister for a spin on the floor, lad." He looked over at Elisabeth. "A day without music and dancing is a day wasted."

"Does no one want to hear about me being brilliant?" the Doctor asked.

Rory stood and half-bowed, offered his hand. "Would you like to dance, Ms. Elisabeth?"

She placed her hand in his. "Absolutely, Mr., um, Rory."

Guess not.

So the Doctor stood and looked on, ever the outsider in a human world filled with moments of simple joy. Eventually, he stepped outside to get some air, to stare up at the stars and let the cold make him shiver. "Hello, Doctor." He turned to see Friedrich offering him a coat.

"No, thank you."

"You'll catch your death."

The Doctor smiled softly. "I really won't." He returned his eyes to the sky. The stars shined so brightly tonight they seemed closer than usual. Friedrich was still unsteady on his feet and the Doctor reached out to steady him when he wavered and pressed a hand to his head and closed his eyes. "It's like there are millions of voices out there," Friedrich said, waving a hand at the sky. "And they're all calling at once."

"What do they say?" the Doctor asked, rubbing his hand soothingly on Friedrich's back.

"They say..." He concentrated, squinting as he tried to sift through the running dialog, but finally he shook his head, taking a deep breath and turning his face back up to the heavens. "Sometimes I can see such beautiful things in all directions," he mused. He looked toward the moon and described the formation of a star from glowing green gas. He looked over the sky of the town and described the diamond peaks of Midnight. "Such things are so exquisite and my mind wants to be there...a piece over here," he pointed. "A piece over there," he pointed again. "These thoughts want to fracture and carry my very mind away." He sighed a stream of condensation as his shoulders slumped. "They are relentless in this pursuit and it takes all my strength just to hold my head together." He pressed his hands to his forehead. "It hurts."

The Doctor spoke softly, leaning down to Friedrich's height. "I'll find out what's doing this, Friedrich. You just need to hang on. Remember, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger."

Friedrich laughed, even as he continued to physically hold his head together with his hands. "You know my work?"

"I know a lot of things."

"Yes you do," he said, with an air of knowledge the Doctor had never heard short of, well, himself. "You always figure things out."

The Doctor nodded. "Yes. Eventually I do," he replied, acknowledging only to himself that it was sometimes too late.

"The problem with my thinking," Friedrich said, "is that the strength it takes to endure a personal pain doesn't necessarily translate to those you love." He turned a little to look in through the door at Elisabeth, currently swept up in dance with Amy and Rory. He hadn't seen her smile this way in a long while. "And even as we move on they are left to bear our scars."

The Doctor gazed at Rory and Amy, glowing with happiness in the warm yellow light of the fire inside, and wondered what scars he'd leave them with once he decided to move on, or they did. Friedrich looked over at him, standing quietly as wind circled them, the branches making it whistle slightly. It was a lonely sound. "Tell me a story, Doctor. Of a time when you figured it all out."

The Doctor smirked, an invitation he only ever needed to hear once. Friedrich was pleasant company; he laughed heartily at the Doctor's stories, of monsters and common heroes, and a man who always saved the day. "You should write stories, my friend," Friedrich laughed. "Live forever in the form of prose, then you wouldn't have to live forever as a man."

"No time to write. Too busy saving the world." The Doctor chuckled, pointing out to Friedrich light from a star he knew had died a hundred years before. "And you'll keep seeing it for decades."

"Not me," Friedrich said softly, pulling his coat tighter around himself. The Doctor's smile faded, knowing but not saying. "Doctor, I know this is stolen time. Any more you can give me I will cherish."

I wish I could give you all the time in the world the Doctor thought, but this was his curse, to be left with knowledge of the mechanics of changing a man's life but without the universal permission to use it.

"What would you do with more time?" the Doctor asked. "Would you continue to write?"

Friedrich hummed in thought. "Perhaps. But it's not as important as this. Just time at my home with my family; good company and good music is more precious than any other world in the heavens you could show me."

The Doctor looked up at the sky again in silence, at the empty spot where Gallifrey once was. His breath wafted up to obscure the stars intermittently and the cold crept in through his tweed coat. "Space looks lonely from here," he murmured.

Friedrich put a hand on his shoulder. "A man stares for too long into an abyss, eventually the abyss stares also back into him." The Doctor looked over at him. "Consider that one written for you."

Amy popped her head outside. "Oi! Gentlemen! One, you're letting all the heat out, and two, there are ladies standing about without a partner. So inside, both of you."

The Doctor grinned. "Yes ma'am."

Friedrich and Amy, Rory and Elisabeth returned to their revelries as the Doctor held the orb in front of him and spoke to it softly. "Hello?" he whispered. "Can you hear me?" When a waltz from the French 16th century began on the record player, the globe lit up and buzzed, as though the sound resonated with the very core of it. "Oh my," the Doctor murmured and walked through the kitchen-cum-dance floor with the orb in his hands, gracefully avoiding the dancing pairs, and set it down right next to the record player. "I suppose that answers that."

"Answers what?" Amy asked. She and Nietzsche had stopped dancing, and she had come quietly up behind him.

"It responds to music," the Doctor said, lightly smacking her hand down when she reached out to touch the glowing object. "I was looking at it when it was relatively inert. It responds to sound. Music the most, it seems."

"What is it?"

"Not entirely sure. But it's broadcasting. Haven't quite figured out to whom…"

"Doctor!" Friedrich called, and the Doctor turned. "Come and dance."

The Doctor, sheepishly, "Oh, I don't know."

"Come along," Friedrich said, motioning him over. "Dance with Lizzie. She's been waiting for you."

Elisabeth blushed and shielded her face with her hands so no one would see. The Doctor sighed softly at the gesture, and his two hearts reached out, in the swell of the music, and embraced her. The Doctor came across the room in one fluid motion, and gently took Elisabeth's wrist, pulling her hand away from her face, and fixing it with his own. She looked up at him and smiled just a little, her eyes glittering more happiness than she registered on her face. He placed his other arm carefully, at the small of her back, and they stepped into the waltz, twirling about the room like they'd danced together all their lives.

"I didn't know he danced," Rory whispered to Amy, who looked on with eyes wide to take it all in.

"Of course he dances," Friedrich answered wistfully, unable to remember the last time he'd seen Lizzie shine so brightly. "I wouldn't believe in a god that didn't dance."

Elisabeth was the painting and the Doctor was the canvass; she held the beauty and the Doctor held her up, spinning her around for all to see. Elisabeth saw the Doctor like the apparition he was: appearing when she'd prayed for him most, and likely to disappear at any moment. "Who are you?" she whispered. "You can't be real."

"Don't I feel real?"

"You show up here, and Fritz is magically better. You haven't even touched him. What kind of doctor are you?"

He leaned a little closer to her and whispered in her ear, "The best kind." Then he turned her, lifting her lightly off her feet for a moment and looked down on her, benevolent and entranced. The waltz played on and the Doctor remembered the first time he'd heard this piece. In fact, he'd been there when it was written. And this woman, this human woman from the middle of Germany, had heard and learned the same piece by heart and joined the two moments in history by passion alone.

"Friedrich's like you," she said. "So clever. In a class by himself, I'm beginning to realize as I read through his work. Clever enough to think his way out of anything." The Doctor smiled. He liked that. "If he can think his way out of any relationship whatsoever between heaven, hell and earth, I can only imagine what he thinks of the relationship between me and him."

"Biologically linked siblings…altruism due to biological imperative to preserve similar sets of genes and increase potential of perpetuating said genes throughout the future of the human race."

Elisabeth blinked up at the Doctor. "Yes. Yes, that's probably close to what he thinks."

"Clever man."

"Clever enough to be completely alone."

"But he loves you, of course."

Elisabeth nodded, looking briefly over at Friedrich. "I know," she sighed. "I know. He's always been such a lonesome soul, ever since we were kids. He was sickly, lived inside his head." She looked back up at the Doctor and he could feel Elisabeth searching his eyes for something she could find familiar. "When I found him in Turin and looked into his eyes it was like the loneliness he'd felt all his life had taken over."

The Doctor found he couldn't look away from her. He nodded lightly. "Loneliness is a powerful thing."

The statement hung in the minimal space between them, and Elisabeth's smile faltered for the first time that evening. She broke form to move closer and lay her head against the Doctor's chest. "Since you've been here, Doctor, Fritz has been so much better. He has his spells but...it's like there's hope. Like he'll come back when you do."

The Doctor released Elisabeth's hand and hugged her properly, resting his chin by her temple as the waltzed neared it conclusion. As he felt her arms slip around him as well he whispered, "Enjoy your dance, Lizzie. It's nearly over."

"Doctor!" Amy called as she jolted back from the darkness surrounding Friedrich's bed, stepping into the light of the sitting area. The orange orb, once laid carefully beside the record player, was levitating at about Amy's head-height, warming in color to red.

"Why's it doing that?" Rory asked.

"Not quite sure," the Doctor said as he turned away from Elisabeth, hopped over a chair and approached the orb, studying it as he came. It rose higher to match his height when Amy stepped behind him. He reached out for it. "Maybe you shouldn't-" Rory began, grabbing the Doctor's arm just as his fingers moved into the light of the orb. And just like that, Rory and the Doctor disappeared.

Chapter 3**

"Where are we?" Rory whispered as he and the Doctor stood hunkered together, the darkness around them so deep they couldn't tell if they were outside or in.

"Not sure, but probably nowhere good, considering that." He pointed at the orb, which was hovering before them, brightening to a blueish-green.

"Is green bad?"

The Doctor looked at Rory. "Why would green be bad?"

"I dunno."

"Don't just jump to wild conclusions."

"You do it all the time."

He smirked a little, straightened his bow tie. "Well, yes. But I'm usually right. Anyway, I was talking about that." He pointed to a small symbol on a tile inlaid in the ground beneath them. It was an ivory endless knot, not unlike the symbol for universal knowledge, but with one darkened band running straight below the length of the design, feeding what could have been the end of the knot into the beginning. "That is the symbol of the infinite unknown," the Doctor explained as he began to walk slowly forward, into the darkness as the orb led the way.

"We're just going to follow it?" Rory asked, pointing at the beacon.

"The infinite unknown is just that: unknown, unless someone or something is in pursuit of the infinite truth. The two are inextricably linked, of course. In pursuit of the infinite truth one always runs up against those smaller truths that are hidden and those, those are what lead to the infinite unknown."

"Do we know where it's taking us?"

"The infinite truth is also just that: truth. No, wait, infinite. It's infinite. It's forever and it's always, and it always was, and it's too much for any one being or species or even planet to comprehend. To even attempt it..." As they walked the orb became brighter, illuminating a wider circle around them, but still there were no discernible features they could make out.

"Following an orb that transported us to the middle of nowhere. It seems like such a bad idea."

The Doctor looked over at him. "Do you have a better plan? Everywhere else is...dark. I don't like the dark, too many shadows and things that pop out and go 'boo!'" He exclaimed the last word a bit too loudly and not only did it make Rory wince, but his voice bounced several times around them, likely alerting whatever it was that brought them here. The Doctor stopped and hugged Rory close and whispered, "I've established we're inside. And wherever we are it's very, very big."

"Awesome." Rory focused ahead of them. "Did you notice that when we stopped the beacon stopped as well?"

"Yes. But mostly I noticed that." The Doctor pointed slightly above them. As the orb's light grew brighter, Rory and the Doctor noticed other tiny globes up on shelves, all hovering and spinning languidly beneath glass covers. They each gained their own unique light as Rory and the Doctor neared and faded when they walked on by.

"Wow," Rory whispered as they looked up and saw no end to the stacked shelves, rising above them until they disappeared again into darkness, globe after globe, each unique in color and intensity of light. The Doctor leaned in close to one of the objects, studying it. It looked like a tiny planet with two circling moons. The ability to create a gravitational element on such a small scale was fascinating to him, and he couldn't help but want an even closer look. He grasped the edge of the crystalline cover that held the little world captive. He thought for a moment, could it be a trap? Then shook his head, no. An alarm went off as soon as he began to lift the cover.

"Ah, curiosity always catches up with you," the Doctor grumbled.

The orb above them turned deep purple, then black, giving off no light.

"Who enters!" boomed a voice around them before a veiled figure stepped out of the darkness and held out its hand. The orb floated away from the Doctor and Rory, and rested there in the palm like a puppy returning to its owner. It brightened to the intensity of a setting sun and the figure pushed it toward the ceiling, where it hovered happily.

"Hello," he said, straightening up. "I'm the Doctor."

"Um, and I'm Rory." He waved sheepishly.

"That's Rory," the Doctor echoed.

The figure pulled the veil away from its head to reveal a humanoid face but with light-blueish tinted skin. Its cranium was misshapen in such a way to accommodate an uncommonly large brain. The kind of brain a man like the Doctor or Nietzsche could have done wonders with.

"You are not welcome here," the figure said. "You've stolen an entry pod," it pointed at the orb above, "and are attempting to steal my knowledge."

"Oh, now this is a misunderstanding. We aren't trying to steal anything," the Doctor explained as he walked forward, Rory following, trying to get a better look at the man or creature before him. "We were inadvertently transported here by your...entry pod."

"The entry pod does nothing inadvertently. You have activated it, therefore you must have some uncommon power."

Rory leaned a little closer to the Doctor and whispered, "The power of song?"

The figure's eyes began to brighten and glow, blueish-white tendrils of light creeping up when it turned its face to the ceiling, to the orb, which brightened and began to spin when the tendrils encircled it. Around the room were whispers and murmurs, then a cacophony like an orchestra warming up with a rock band, tribal drums and harpsichord, too many genres and instruments to hear when they were playing all at once. Above, the orb shattered into tiny pieces, but the shards didn't disperse. They came apart, each piece spinning independently, chaotically, as the energy that had been housed within the orb drained down the energized tendrils into the figure.

"Oh my," the Doctor sighed. "Not unlike a plasmovore only it siphons knowledge."

"The little...entry thingy stores knowledge?" Rory asked.

"Not just knowledge," the figure said, though it didn't move its lips. It looked at them, the sound of its voice was all around them, but the words came from no one source. The light raining down on the figure from the shattered sphere was shimmering in its skin, continuing to light up its eyes. "Eternal knowledge."

The Doctor looked up at the glowing particles on the shelves all around the room. "If you absorb the knowledge by breaking the spheres, why do you have so many stored in this room?"

"This is the archive," it answered. "All knowledge has been assimilated."

"If you're in pursuit of the infinite knowledge, you must know how dangerous too much can be."

"Knowledge is the only weapon against the infinite unknown."

"The unknown isn't an enemy."

The light above the figure faded, the knowledge drained. As the energy tendrils curled and retracted the Vade Mecum returned to its usual hue and the orb shards fell around the figure like stars from the sky. "When our planet was forced out of reality and into the infinite unknown during the last time war, we became wiser. Even though we returned to reality, we knew then the wisdom of the universe had to be preserved. It was only logical that we, a species that could house such knowledge, would step into the breach and begin the process."

The Doctor looked again at the tiny spinning planet that had caught his eye, trapped beneath that cover, and rested his hand against the glass to gaze at it sadly. He scanned it quickly with his screwdriver. "Miniturization, compression field, full stasis. You isolate every planet, every star and solar system you come across, miniaturize them and then keep them here in this room? Under glass?" He thought of the tiny, tiny creatures trapped inside this stasis field, relative time stopped for them, growing old without even taking a breath.

"It is an archive," the figure stated. "The planets and solar systems are safe. Nothing is archived until the knowledge within it is extracted."

"With the entry pods," Rory said, understanding. "Entry, like an entry in a dictionary."

"And we found the music pod for Earth," the Doctor said. "The ultimate iPod," he laughed, nudging Rory with his elbow. Rory looked back at him, unamused with the current situation. The Doctor's smile faded and he returned his attention to the man in front of him. "Vade Mecum," he said, naming the creature. "You drain the past, present and future of a planet or solar system, and then, seeing no further use for it, you toss it in a closet like an old coat."

"Knowledge is paramount."

The Doctor grumbled, stepping forward with a spark of anger in his voice. "This is planet Earth. There are 1.5 billion people on that planet and there is so much that can't be reduced to words and books and genres of art, culture, or even history. There's humanity in all its glory and its defeat. You can't catalog that, not even if you extract all that there ever was, is, or will be." He shook his head and glanced at Rory, thought of Nietzsche, looked around the room at the orbs of planets and stars that had all begun to glow with the rising intensity of his words, of his determination. "I know about knowledge. It can be...a burden." He looked back at the Vade Mecum. "Or it can bring so much life."

The figure stared at the Doctor and Rory, an expressionless creature but they could feel themselves being studied, as though being evaluated for their worth. "We are the Vade Mecum," the figure said, stretching its hand out, palm up, a searingly bright white ball of energy collecting there. The Doctor stepped in front of Rory, holding his sonic screwdriver like a weapon, making ready for whatever onslaught may come. The Vade Mecum continued, "You shall be archived." The creature hurled the ball of energy, capturing the Doctor in a translucent containment bubble. His sonic screwdriver dropped uselessly on the ground.

Amy ran to the empty space where the Doctor and her husband had been. "Where've they gone?" she breathed, holding her hands out in the space, the air slightly warm.

"Friedrich!" Elisabeth reached out to catch her brother as he started to fall. Amy hurried to help her, easing Friedrich onto the floor. Friedrich had both hands clasped to his head like he was afraid it might fly apart. With the two women at his side, he curled into the fetal position and tried to block out the sounds crashing around him and the visions exploding on the inside of his eyelids.

The Doctor twitched and clenched his teeth, groaning in agony as wisdom was extracted from his body. Rory touched the translucent bubble that separated them and pulled back with slightly singed fingers.

The Vade Mecum began to radiate light from its skin as arcs of light connected him with the Doctor. "So much knowledge," it murmured, eyes lighting up as an entry sphere began to materialize in the space between the creature and Rory. "What a remarkable specimen I've found."

"Doctor, what do I do?" Rory asked.

"Screwdriver," he managed to say from beneath the pain.

Rory looked around, noticed the sonic screwdriver beneath the Doctor, just within the energy bubble. "Of course." He slid the sleeve of his coat down to cover his hand, steeled himself, took a few deep breaths, then reached for it. The containment energy burned the fabric of his coat away, down to his skin. He gripped the screwdriver and retracted his arm quickly, his skin stinging hot, the last of the linen on his limb burning. He whimpered a little as he pat the area, putting out the smoldering bits against the light burns on his skin. "Got it. Now what?"

"The … machine," he said haltingly, forcing the words out.

"What machine?"

"Four..." He stopped and groaned louder this time, gripping handfuls of his hair as he writhed in pain. "Four o'clock."

Rory looked around the room, shook his head. "What does that mean?"

There was no answer.

"Doctor?" Rory looked into the containment bubble to see The Doctor no longer animated, wilted but still standing, like a sleepwalker waiting to wake up. "Doctor?"

The Vade Mecum spoke again. "You are the Roman," it said, looking at Rory. "The impossible Roman."

Rory turned to face the creature, feet at a wide stance, hands clasped at his sides, one tightly around the screwdriver. "Impossible," he chuckled. "Perhaps. But you know what Romans do?" He held the screwdriver out in front of him. "They fight."

Point and think he heard Amy say in his head, and he activated the sonic. Behind the Vade Mecum, the miniturization device sprang to life, targeting the creature before it began to throw sparks and short out. The Vade Mecum shrank so quickly that Rory thought it had completely disappeared and the containment bubble dissipated just as quickly, the Doctor collapsing onto the floor. "The orb," the Doctor breathed as he rolled over onto his back to catch his breath.

Without the Vade Mecum the orb had begun to obey standard laws of gravity and Rory sprinted to the center of the room to catch it before it crashed to the ground. He noticed the miniaturized Vade Mecum beneath him, dodging the movements of his sneakers, and bent to lift the creature by the back of the neck. "What do I do with this?"

The Doctor sat up and looked at the tiny creature, chuckling aloud. "Well, I think a belljar and a tidy spot in the archive's in store for you, buddy. And you'll get what you've always wanted: to be part of the collected history of the universe."

"We are many," the Vade Mecum said in a teensy tiny voice that made Rory and the Doctor laugh. "The archive of Earth has begun and it cannot be stopped."

The Doctor hauled himself up off the ground and came over slowly, taking the Vade Mecum from Rory. "I'm the Doctor, and I will find a way to stop it." Then he fetched an empty belljar, placed the creature next to a gorgeously red solar system and trapped it there to think about what it had done. Then the Doctor took the entry pod and screwdriver from Rory and moved to the center of the room. "Rory, hold my arm."

"Is it wrong to leave him like that?" Rory pointed at the Vade Mecum.

"There's no compression field. He'll be back to normal in a few hours."

The Doctor pointed his screwdriver at the entry pod, and before they could blink, they were back in Nietzsche's kitchen.

"How long were we gone?" the Doctor asked as Rory knelt over Friedrich. He scanned the new entry pod and then took a reading inside the room. "That's better."

"I dunno, a half hour?" Amy replied.

Friedrich fought against Rory as he tried to secure his arms, to keep him from harming himself or Amy or Elisabeth. "Doctor!" Rory called. Friedrich's struggles were becoming weaker as he opened his eyes a crack to look up at the Roman with pleading eyes.

But the Doctor had run outside to take another reading. "Brilliant!"

"Doctor!" Rory called again.

Amy went outside to fetch the Doctor, found him pointing his screwdriver at the sky and practically dancing with excitement as he looked at the readings. "A little trouble inside, if you're not busy," Amy hissed, tugging at the leather patch on the elbow of his jacket.

He started in mid-thought, like she'd been standing there for the past few minutes listening to him prattle on about the Vade Mecum and their storied history. "Now that I got a lock on the signal from the activated entry beacon I can filter it out. My readings were useless before because they were cloaked in signal – this constant reverberating soup of signal and almost-tangible sound. It's still there," he pointed up in the sky. "It's still going; I can just filter it out now."

"Doctor, Friedrich..."

"See this?" The Doctor bent and pinched some of the sparkling dust that had settled into the spaces between his shoelaces, kicked up by the Tardis when he and Rory had returned from visiting Turin. "It's signal particles. We came through a layer so thick we actually shattered it into tiny pieces."

"Doctor..." Amy sighed.

"Can you imagine if you could hear all of that? Or maybe even see it?" the Doctor mused, looking off into the distance. "The whole of Earth's past, present and future running through your head all at once? You'd be..." He looked over at Amy and smirked. "Well, you'd be me." He touched his tie. "But you wouldn't have my head and my head is what keeps it all from flying apart." The Doctor turned suddenly and grabbed Amy by the shoulders. "Flying apart," he repeated quickly. "Friedrich."

The Doctor pushed Amy aside and rushed back into the house. He knelt over Friedrich and shined the light of his screwdriver into the philosopher's eyes, Friedrich settling quickly down, dropping into a deep sleep. The Doctor pressed his hand to Friedrich's forehead, taking a quick look through his thoughts, slowing them, stopping the overload of Friedrich's brain.

"What the hell was that?" Rory asked.

"He can hear it all," the Doctor said. "The entry pod was just one of many and they're all broadcasting volumes and volumes of information." The Doctor pocketed his screwdriver. "Friedrich's head is picking up some of the information and it's too much for any human brain to handle."

Rory sat on the floor next to the Doctor. "Like those people at the hospital. They're not crazy at all."

"No, just overloaded."

"We should tell them."

"Larger things to do," the Doctor muttered. "First thing, let's get Friedrich into bed."

Rory and the Doctor hauled Friedrich off the floor and placed him in bed, Elisabeth taking up her place at his side. Amy took hold of Rory's hand, holding it tight and setting her head on his shoulder. "I'm sorry," the Doctor whispered, and came forward to lay a hand on Elisabeth's shoulder, then he seated himself at the foot of the bed. He met eyes with her and she turned away, excused herself, retreated to her own bedroom. The Doctor took a deep breath and hung his head, speaking softly to Friedrich. "I'm sorry, friend. I heard you before but I wasn't listening. And here you are, bound to bed again. You believed in me; I gave you hope. But hope can be the worst of all evils because sometimes it prolongs the torments of man." He sighed and looked into Friedrich's placid face. "I believe that was one of yours." He reached out and squeezed Friedrich's hand. "Rory, he remembered you."

"Yes, Doctor."

"As the Roman. Why would he remember you as the Roman?"

"Well," Amy said, "Thanks to me The Centurion is a legend, right? A fairy tale?"

Rory smiled at her and wrapped his arm around her waist. "I like legend."

"Dragging the Pandorica behind you for 2,000 years? I'm not letting anyone forget that." She put her hands on either side of Rory's face and stared into his eyes. "I certainly never will."

The Doctor shook his head. "No, no, I mean there was an overload of information, right? Enough to make people uncommunicative it was so much. Then you come around and they immediately have a clear and tangible thoughts." The Doctor scanned Rory, scanned his face especially and grinned. "Oh my."

"'Oh my' what?" he asked.

"It's you! It's you my dear Rory. There's a knowledge matrix laid over the planet, filtering the information from the entry pods into usable form for the Vade Mecum and I think you and your face break the signal up enough so it is no longer a continuous stream. People can understand around you. They can get the respite of clarity." The Doctor laughed aloud and spun around the room once.

"Why me?"

"It's your face!" The Doctor rushed over and took hold of Rory's cheeks. "It's your perfectly sharp features. They chisel the signal up into bite-size chunks." The Doctor kissed Rory's forehead. "Oh, I knew your pointy face would come in handy one day."

Chapter 4**

Up on the hill, in front of the Tardis, the Doctor stared up at the night sky, at those stars that seemed closer than ever before, the light snow swirling down. Amy and Rory joined him. "So just up there is a ship full of Vade Mecum?" Amy asked.

"Indeed there is. And it's such a clear night."

Amy frowned at his non-sequiter. "So?"

"So where's the snow coming from?" He continued to stare into the sky, like something might move and warn him of impending trouble. "Rory, could you pick up that stick over there?" He pointed to a long bit of wood, almost the length of Rory himself.

Rory bent and picked it up. "Now what?"

"Just, uh..." The Doctor mimed jabbing it into the sky.

Rory stared at him, holding the limb in his hands. "You notice something's not right and you want me to poke it with a stick?" The Doctor didn't even acknowledge the question, continuing to stare up at the sky. Amy stepped forward, punched Rory on the shoulder. "C'mon, just do it," she prodded.

He grumbled a bit under his breath then lifted the stick, thrusting it up. He came into contact with something slightly solid but also an uncomfortable bit squishy. He squinted up, wondering how he could be actually touching the sky and pulled the stick back. A gelatinous ripple wiggled through space, like the night was made of Jell-o. "It feels like an eyeball."

The Doctor looked over at him with slightly raised eyebrows, cocking his head a little as if to say, maybe? "Ugh!" Rory dropped the stick straight away and shook his hands like he may have gotten something disgusting on them. "Gross."

"Oh, relax, Rory," the Doctor said. "It's the semi-solid knowledge matrix stretched out along the whole of the earth. So you basically poked a gigantic eardrum instead of an eye. Does that make you feel better?"

Rory glowered at him. "No."

"I should've known sooner." The Doctor pointed to the south, at the brightest point in the sky. "No way is Eta Carinae's supposed to be this bright in the late 1800s. In the earlies, yes, but not in the lates. They've got quite a bit of information up there, but not quite all of it yet!" He turned his attention back to the task at hand. "Alright, Ponds." He put his arms around the shoulders of Amy and Rory and pulled them close. "Rory and I found out that the Vade Mecum have begun the archiving process and they are not keen on stopping it. So the best thing to do is make an inventory of our assets and then set about improvising as we always do."

"We've got Rory's face," Amy offered.

"That we do," the Doctor replied. "Also, we've got an entry pod with a little piece of my mind in it, which gives us access to the Vade Mecum's ship." The Doctor herded Amy and Rory into the Tardis and retrieved the orb, holding it in his left hand. He shined his sonic through it, peering into the hazy gray cloudiness inside the ball. "If we can find a way to shut down the process up in the Vade Mecum ship it would be a lot easier than doing it from down here."

"You can't go back to that ship, Doctor," Rory said. "They put you in that...energy... bubble-thing last time."

"That's true. But they didn't get you."

Rory blinked at him. "So?"

The Doctor turned to face Rory, holding out the entry pod to him. "You're a blessed anomaly, Rory Williams." Rory took the orb reticently, held it gingerly. It was warm, solid, weighty in his hands. His confidence swelled for a moment, a seedling unfurling after a harsh winter. "That should slow the Vade Mecum down a little bit, at least," the Doctor concluded, and the winter clouds returned to Rory's soul. The Doctor moved to the far side of the Tardis console as he continued to talk. "I boosted the power in the orb a bit but it still only has enough to go once to the ship above and back here to the Tardis." He pressed a button and as the Tardis rumbled, the sphere glowed. "See? All locked in. No matter where the Tardis is, you'll return to her."

"I'm not letting him go up there alone," Amy said.

"Not alone," the Doctor corrected. "Remember there's a little bit of me inside that entry pod. It will help whenever it can."

"And what will you be doing?" Rory asked the Doctor.

"Well, the most effective thing Amy and I can do is try to find the remaining entry pods placed here on the planet and break the link between Earth and the Vade Mecum just in case you can't find a big red switch up in the ship to shut down the archiving process. Sound good?"

Rory nodded, actually satisfied with that answer.

"How much time do we have?"

The Doctor took a look at his watch. "I'd say we have...until daybreak?" He looked between the two of them, a smile growing on his face. "Give or take," he added. "Think we can do it?"

"But how will we get to all the entry pods?" Amy asked. "There could be hundreds of them."

The Doctor removed his sonic screwdriver. "We follow this. I've got it tuned to the right frequency now and we can root out the pods one by one." The Doctor pointed at Rory. "The entry pod is psychically activated so if you get into trouble, all you have to do is think of the Tardis. But remember, you only get one go at it, so don't use it til it's absolutely necessary, or the job's done, okay?" Rory nodded once, straightening up like a man steeling himself for battle. "Good luck." The Doctor pointed the sonic at him and he disappeared.

Amy stared at the empty spot where Rory had stood for a long while. Long enough so that when the Doctor got her attention again, they were in Cairo. She stepped out into the dust and looked around herself. "Where do we go?"

The Doctor held the sonic like a torch, turning to her left and pointing. "That way!"

They scrambled out into the darkness, kicking through the sand and tossing up vegetation as the screwdriver beckoned them ahead. The Doctor uncovered an orb, glowing purple in the dust. "Found it!" he held it high in triumph. He took a quick reading with the sonic. "Written language entry pod."

Rory arrived in the dark belly of the Vade Mecum's ship, not at all where he and the Doctor had been before. He crouched low when he heard something stirring in the shadows to his left, and he pressed his back to the damp wall behind him. At the end of the corridor three Vade Mecum floated past, moving like ghosts in their flowing robes. Once they were gone Rory breathed a sigh of relief, but he still wasn't any closer to completing his mission. He looked both ways and whispered to himself, "which way do I go?"

"Go left!" the Doctor said and Rory lifted the entry pod, shushing the illuminated image of the smiling Doctor's face.

"Could you be a little quieter?" he whispered harshly.

"Yes I can," the Doctor replied cheerily, and then again, "yes, I can," in a whisper. "Now go left."

Rory looked left and crouched again as another Vade Mecum floated past the opening at the end of the hallway. "Does it have to be left?" he whispered.

The Doctor smiled goofily. "Go left."

Rory sighed and took off at a sprint down the hallway, holding the orb in his hands.

"Ooh, got it!" Amy called, pulling up an entry pod from the muck along the Amazon river. She was absolutely covered in mud from her boots to her waist, but she rubbed some of the mud off on her shirt and paused to look into it, at the swirling turquoise like a mood ring or lava lamp.

"Great!" The Doctor dropped out of an adolescent Kapok tree in front of her, smoothing his shirt and straightening his tie. There wasn't a speck of dirt on him. Amy glowered at him as she held the pod out to him. He made a face, leaned forward a little but didn't come any closer, scanning with the sonic. "Natural history and ecosystem function entry pod."

Amy's rolled her eyes. "Great. So let's go."

"Uh, actually, could you just hold still a moment?"

"Why?"

"There's a gigantic Green snake sleeping on the branch right above you."

Amy froze, her eyes wide. "Why would you even tell me that?" she squeaked.

The Doctor frowned and cocked his head. "You don't like snakes? I thought this would be a treat for you."

"No, I don't like snakes and especially not when they're hanging over my head!"

"Ssh, shh. You'll wake it up." The Doctor took soft steps and reached out his hand to Amy. She took it and he eased her away from the reptile and back toward the Tardis, which had managed to find the only spot of dry land to materialize on. "It's night time, Pond. We really should try to respect their sleep cycle."

"You should respect mine. I am not a happy camper without sleep."

The Doctor pushed open the door to the Tardis. "Duly noted."

Rory stopped and peeked around a corner into another hallway. It looked like all the others: dark, long, shiny floor, and a terrifying low-level hum that was rising in intensity the longer he explored. The heat was rising as well, making him sweat in his hooded sweatshirt. "Turn right," the Doctor whispered.

Rory obeyed, grinding his teeth against one another as the hum filled his head and buzzed in his chest. He moved quickly but stealthily, his back to the wall so nothing could sneak up on him. "Wait," the Doctor commanded and Rory faltered to a stop. "Hide." Rory looked around him, felt in the dark along the wall for a crevice or outcrop to hide beneath. But there was nothing. He could hear the soft woosh of the Vade Mecum moving toward him but he couldn't see them, didn't know which way they were coming from. Without recourse, he crouched in the dark and hoped they didn't come past him. He tucked the glowing Doctor entry pod beneath his legs to block out the light.

Before Rory's eyes, close enough to touch, a group of Vade Mecum floated in front of him, coming from a hallway to his right and crossing through to a hall that went off at an angle from where he was hiding. Because the hall was at quite a shallow angle he could see the Vade Mecum for quite a while as they traveled away from him, but this also meant they could see him if they happened to turn around.

They stopped.

Rory held his breath and hoped he hadn't attracted any attention, praying they didn't turn. When his lungs ached he clamped a hand over his mouth to will himself not to gasp aloud for breath.

They still didn't move.

Desperate, Rory took a chance and lunged over to the other side of the hallway, pressing his back to the opposite wall where the Vade Mecum couldn't see him. He took fast, quiet breaths to try to re-oxygenate his body as silently as possible. Then he noticed the entry pod on the floor against the other side of the hall. He cursed himself internally when he heard the woosh growing closer. Rory concentrated on the orb and thought of only one thing: Go dark!

"What?" the Doctor whispered.

"Just…shut up and go dark," Rory whispered back.

"Oh." The orb switched off.

Rory tucked his legs in tight and tried to be invisible when a Vade Mecum came back to the corridor intersect, its blue skin shimmering slightly, giving off a wan light that reached Rory before the creature did. If it was looking around Rory didn't know it, because it never turned its head.

"What are you doing here?" it asked.

"God, it's cold here." Amy pulled her parka closer around herself and followed the Doctor through a maze of tunnels.

"What do you expect? It's Antartica."

Amy paused and peered at the walls around them, the rounded roof and slippery floor. "Are these walls made of ice?"

"Not made of ice, but cut into the ice, yes." The sonic screwdriver drew the Doctor to a stop in front of a small door, about three feet by three feet, that he and Amy had to crawl through once they managed to defrost and open it. Inside there were cylindrical cases lined up all along the walls and shafts of ice laid out on tables. In the center of the room was an inactive drill.

"What is this place?"

"Those are ice cores determining the climate history of the Earth going back thousands of years." He looked over at Amy. "You humans. So inventive."

They found the entry pod wedged in the corner of the room, embedded in ice that was part of the supporting structure of the tunnels. When the Doctor removed it a dangerous rumble emanated around them. "You didn't," Amy sighed, and the Doctor looked back it her with an oops written all over his face.

The Vade Mecum hadn't noticed Rory crouched in the dark, but it had collected the Doctor entry pod and ventured further into the bowels of the ship with it. Without any other options, Rory had begun to follow it.

The humming sound was getting louder, a blue glow growing in intensity in the bleak and labyrinthine hallways in front of Rory. The Vade Mecum ahead turned to the right and disappeared. Rory followed after taking a moment to make sure he wouldn't be seen. He peeked around the corner to find he was back in the archives, where he and the Doctor had originally been. This time, however, instead of it being largely empty it was full of hundreds upon hundreds of Vade Mecum. They were all chanting together, their skin glowing brightly, a swirling eddy of energy sweeping through the room to coalesce in the center. Rory couldn't see anything forming there, but he could sense it coming. There wasn't much time left.

Chapter 5**

"How many do we have now?" the Doctor asked as he tossed off his parka and manipulated the Tardis controls. Sparks flew behind him and the control console was hot to the touch. So many stops and starts, jumps forwards and backwards through time were giving the Tardis more of a workout than she'd had in a while.

"I dunno," Amy replied, looking in the sack that held all of entry pods they had collected. "Over a dozen?"

The Doctor stroked the casing that held his little sliver of the time vortex. "Just a little more, darling," he whispered. "You can do it."

"What?" Amy called.

"Check the door!" Amy pulled open the door and squinted into the sunshine, visibly withering in the hot humidity that came rolling in. The Doctor and Amy stepped out onto a city street bustling with people, the smog and honking horns of yellow taxis, young people on fixed-gear bikes and business men and women sipping iced coffee drinks through straws.

"Now this is a city!" Amy laughed and looked up, almost falling backwards trying to see the tops of the buildings.

"This," the Doctor said, "is the city. New York, New York in the modern day!" He held up the sonic and weaved between tourists and natives in search of the entry pod hidden somewhere nearby. Amy scurried along behind him until he lost the trail.

"What happened?" she asked.

"There're too many signals. They're everywhere." He pointed up at the gigantic Coca Cola display, the television playing advertisements for movies and television shows, the hundreds upon hundreds of cell phones being used around them.

"We could ask," Amy said.

"Great idea." The Doctor tried to get the attention of a young man, but he was wearing earphones and sunglasses and was determined not to acknowledge the strange, gangly man in suspenders. The Doctor tried again, a woman this time, but she gave him a careless look head to toe then continued on her way with a flick of her head. "Americans!" the Doctor huffed. "Hopeless."

Amy nudged the Doctor into the shade of an awning before he overheated and became any more flustered. "Just relax. I'll do it." She stepped up along the edge of the fast-moving crowd and astonishingly, to the Doctor, anyway, easily pulled a gentleman aside with a sweet smile and gentle wave. "Easy if you do it right," she murmured to the Doctor as the man came over and shook the Doctor's hand and said, "Dope bowtie."

The Doctor touched it. He wore his red one today. "Thank you."

"Where'd you get it? Brooks Brothers?"

"Um, Leadworth."

The man crossed his arms over his chest and crinkled his brow. "I don't know that place. And that's weird cuz I know everything around here."

The Doctor smiled. "You do? That's perfect." He reached into his pocket and produced one of the entry pods. "Have you seen anything that looks like this around?"

The man arched one eyebrow. "Seriously?" He pointed behind the Doctor to a New York City novelty trinket shop, at the snow globes in the window. "There are about a million of those in there and in stores all around the Square. Why would you come to Times Square and ask something like that?"

The Doctor sighed audibly, looking across the street at another novelty shop, then at another one on the corner. "Because I'm a silly old man." He looked over at Amy. "This might take a bit."

Amy and the Doctor tossed through debris in the storage area of the fourth trinket shop they had come across. Who knew there could be so many novelty t-shirts, Statue of Liberty key chains and Empire State building snow globes in America? "What if we can't find it?" Amy asked.

"We'll find it." The Doctor lifted a box of little bobble-head puppies with New York bandanas tied around their necks. He lifted one up. "Isn't that cute?" Amy stared at him blankly for a few seconds, then she lifted the box of trinkets and dumped them on the floor. Then she proceeded to step on the creepy little objects until she was sure she'd crushed every one.

"I just did America a favor," she said.

"You're cranky."

"I haven't slept," Amy replied, kicking through more boxes, sending packaging material flying, shredded paper floating down on them like snow on the hill in Nuremburg. "Maybe you don't need to sleep because you're an alien and everything, but I'm a human and if I don't get my eight hours I get very cranky."

"I see."

"What's that up there?" Amy pointed to a box at the top of the inventory shelves. She put her foot on the lower scaffolding to try to reach it.

"Oh, I wouldn't-" the Doctor began, but the shelf had already begun to tip. The Doctor stepped in and plucked Amy from the path of the falling structure but the contents of the box fell down around them. And amidst the tissue paper and I *heart* New York t-shirts, a bright pink entry pod fell as well, landing, cushioned by the clothing, at Amy Pond's feet.

She leaned forward and picked the orb up. She stared into it, at its shifting colors and started to laugh. The Doctor dusted himself off and stood up next to her, taking the orb out of her hands as she continued to laugh hysterically. As he felt the weight of the orb, took in some of the knowledge of it, he smiled. Surrounded by cheap terrible merchandise they had found Earth's culture entry pod.

Rory looked up at the many planets and galaxies on the walls above the Vade Mecum and wondered where Earth would be placed among them. The creature Rory had been following set the Doctor entry pod down with a few others that looked to be inert. When the Vade Mecum moved toward the middle of the room, joining its comrades in chant, Rory eased down the stairs and along the edge of the archives toward where the Doctor had been deposited.

For the first time, Rory noticed there were windows in the roof of the archive, and he looked up beyond the glass at the stars in the universe, and noticed the slight glimmer of sunlight catching the scratches on the outer layer of airtight plastic. It was going to be dawn on this side of the Earth soon.

Rory crouched in the dark, the Doctor's orb within spitting distance and a league of Vade Mecum ten feet away. He stretched out his arm, his fingers just brushing the entry pod. Come on he thought to himself and managed to get the orb into his grasp. Once he had receded into darkness again the Doctor whispered, "Can I come out now?"

"Yeah. What do I do? It looks like they're almost ready to start actively archiving the Earth."

The Doctor appeared again in the orb. "Look beneath your feet. There should be grating instead of a solid floor." Rory knelt on the ground and set the orb carefully down beside him. He tugged on a section of the grating and managed to get some give. He leaned the loosened section against the nearby wall, exposing an incredibly intricate twist of wires.

Behind him, the Vade Mecum's chant increased in volume and rose in pitch.

The Doctor and Amy materialized in the middle of the labyrinth at the mental hospital in Turin. The Doctor stepped out, carrying the sack of entry pods over his shoulder like Father Christmas. "Oh, we're back."

"Back where?" Amy asked.

"Turin. This is where Friedrich went after he fell ill." The Doctor set the bag of entry pods down and took care to filter out all of the signal coming from them before checking to see why they'd rematerialized here. "It's strange. There's an incredibly high level of information bursting through the air here, so I understand why this was where Freidrich was first affected, but it's unlike anything I've seen so far. There are multiple sources but they all seem to be coming from…right here."

Amy looked around them, the hedge maze, the statue, and the stars fading above them as the sky lightened to purples. "It's in the maze somewhere? That's just great," she huffed in frustration.

"No, I mean it's coming from right here." The Doctor walked around to the back side of the Tardis, then came back around to the front. "It has to be here."

"Doctor." Amy pointed to an entry pod that had risen up out of the bag.

"Ooh." The Doctor rushed over and scanned it with the sonic. "This is the first entry pod we found. Freidrich's entry pod." He scratched his head and walked in a small circle around the pod. "Why would it be so active right now and none of the others? It must be something to do with the location? No! To do with Freidrich! Amy," he turned and grabbed her by the shoulders. "What would Friedrich say if he were here right now?"

"How would I know?"

"He's human, you're human, what would a human say right now?"

Amy looked up at the entry pod. "Um…"

"Amy, hurry. Dawn is on its way."

Amy thought back quickly, what would a famous philosopher say at the dawn of the end of humanity? No. What would Friedrich say if he were back here, in the hedge maze, looking up at the sky and realizing this could be the last dawn he ever saw? What would Friedrich remind them—"Man and horse!" Amy exclaimed.

"What?"

She pointed up at the statue. "Remember, Friedrich said there was a man and horse and then he woke up here in the hospital. Here's a statue of a man and horse. That's gotta be it!"

The Doctor smiled lightly and leaned forward to kiss Amy on the forehead. "You're brilliant." He snatched the floating orb out of the sky and set it on the edge of cement wall surrounding the statue. "C'mon. Help me, Pond." They set about placing the orbs all around the edge of the statue.

Rory held a set of eight wires in his hand, spread out in his palm so he could see the colors and feel the warmth of the energy running through them. "Okay, now what?"

"You need to pull the blue wire out of the box control," the orb Doctor said. Rory isolated that wire and wrapped it around his pointer and middle fingers to get a good grasp on it. "No, wait, the purple wire," the Doctor corrected.

"Are you sure?"

"Blue wire." Rory was quiet for a few moments to see if the Doctor would change his mind again. "Purple. Actually, why don't you pull them both at the same time?"

"What'll that do?"

"It will cut the power to the minituruzation and archiving machine. The connection between the Vade Mecum and the activated entry pods will be broken."

"And what will happen to the people that were affected by the process? All those people in the hospital and Friedrich? Will they go back to being normal? Will they be okay?"

The Doctor stared back at Rory for a moment. "Unknown."

"Unknown? You're supposed to know everything."

"I cannot know everything."

"Do you know for sure it's purple and blue?" Rory asked, fingering the two wires.

The Doctor was silent for a moment. "Purple and blue hold the lowest probability of shorting out navigational systems and crashing the Vade Mecum ship into the Earth. However, in that scenario the archiving process would surely be stopped but would result in the death of thousands of people."

Rory tightened his grip on the two wires. "Purple and blue it is." He tugged on the wires. There was a snap of energy and a whiff of ozone then the swirling eddy of psychic energy that had been collecting above the Vade Mecum suddenly dissipated. The ship shimmied and threw Rory into the light of the archiving room, into the sight of hundreds of Vade Mecum. They turned to look at him, expressionless and motionless for a few moments, then they lifted their hands, beams of crackling blue lightning shooting out of their palms.

Rory gripped the Doctor entry pod and thought of the Tardis, closing his eyes tight as the lightning came straight for his heart.

Chapter 7 **

When Rory opened his eyes he was in the Tardis, and all in one piece. He took a moment to let out the breath he was holding and let the relief make his knees buckle. "There is a backup archiving processor here on Earth," the Doctor said. Rory blinked at the orb Doctor, then he pulled the door open and looked up at the sky. Still in purples, rising to pink. That gave him just a little bit of time. "Doctor," he whispered to the orb. "I need you to take me somewhere fast."

"You are in the Tardis. This is where you should be."

"You're telepathically activated and if I think hard enough you'll have to take me there, right?"

"If there is enough power, yes."

Rory stepped out of the Tardis and called to the Doctor and Amy instead of coming over to them because he knew they would try to stop him. "I'll be right back!"

"Wait!" the Doctor began. "There's another fail safe, here on Earth. We need you to-"

"I'll just be a minute, I swear. I'll be back!"

The Doctor took a step towards him. "But you can't!"

"I'm sorry."

And just like that, Rory had disappeared again.

Amy huffed, putting her hands on her hips. "Well, glad he's okay."

Rory appeared again in the foyer of the mental hospital. It was empty this time, moodily dark and too quiet. Rory sprinted up to the check-in desk and noticed the same orderly that had helped him before at the desk. "Can you come with me?" Rory asked the orderly hurriedly, grabbing a pen off of the desktop and a handful of blank paper before he took off again up the wide staircase leading up to where the patients were resting for the night.

"W-wait," the orderly stammered hurrying after him.

"Where are all the people who came in with dementia in the past three weeks?" Rory called from a flight above.

"I can't just-"

"Where are they?" Rory asked again with an urgency and authority he didn't know he could muster.

The orderly stopped for a moment, then moved quickly to catch up, taking the set of keys from his hip and leading on to the dementia ward. When Rory stepped into the room, about a dozen heads immediately popped up from their pillows to look at him. By now, he recognized that look, that moment of clarity in a very confusing world. He thrust the pen and papers into the orderly's hands and then he walked to the bed of the woman closest to him. "Hello miss," Rory whispered, careful not to wake up the slumbering man in the next bed.

She blinked, trying to clear her eyes. "Rory?"

He smiled and nodded. "That's right. And what's your name, love?"

"My name?" She squinted blearily, through a fog of information for the most precious tidbit that was her own. Rory took her hand and held it firmly, watching her brighten up, blink away the sleep and cotton inside her head. "Frau Hinke. Gilda Hinke."

Rory smiled at her again and pressed a hand to her forehead. "You go ahead and get some sleep now, okay?" He looked over his shoulder at the orderly. "Write it down." The orderly was standing open-mouthed, staring between Rory and Frau Hinke, but there wasn't time for this. Any moment now the Doctor would figure a way to stop the Vade Mecum for good, and then Rory and his exquisitely pointy features wouldn't be worth a thing. "Her name. Now you can find her family. Write it down!" The orderly snapped to attention, nodding and quickly scribbling on a blank sheet of paper and then clipping it to her chart as Rory moved on to the next bed.

Amy placed the last of the orbs on the cement beneath the statue. "Okay, what do we do now?"

The Doctor motioned her over, then he looked into her eyes and took her hands. "Now, the Vade Mecum are going to try to steal your memories."

"What? I thought Rory disabled the archive…thing."

"He did. But there's a back up. Right here on the planet. Right next to us." They looked up at the man and horse. "The sun's coming fast, so I need you to think about everything you know for sure. Think of football matches, history books, movies, anything and everything. Everything you know through and through, top to bottom." He took a deep breath and held her hands tighter. "Close your eyes, Amy. And think."

She closed her eyes. "What if I don't think about the right things?"

"You'll pick the right things, Amy. Just concentrate."

Amy filtered through her life and picked out some of the things she'd always remember. The Tardis, her big comfy bed at home, her mum and dad… The Doctor looked up at the sky, pinks turning into reds, knowing the sun was rising at a thousand miles per hour just to the east of them. "C'mon, Amy," he whispered. "Think hard."

Rory glanced at the window as he ran to the next bed. The sun was coming. We have to go, the orb Doctor whispered to Rory in his head. "Just a few more," Rory answered aloud. They're coming. "What?" The Vade Mecum are coming to Earth to retrieve the orbs. You only disabled the remote system. "Why didn't you say that sooner?" The Doctor tried. Rory looked up at the people he had yet to get to, their expressions of hope beginning to waver, a confusion setting upon them like a wolf after a weak elk. He looked down at the Doctor orb but it had gone blank, the power run out of it. The sky was angry red, on the edge of rupture to dawn; there simply wasn't enough time.

He turned on his heel to the orderly and said, "thanks for your help," and sprinted for the door. He tried to think himself back to the Tardis, but the orb was inert. Down the stairs and outside in the growing light he was faced with the hedge maze and he wished he had paid more attention the first time the Doctor had solved it.

"I'm not trying to rush you, Amy, but can you hear that?" There was a slight rumbling sound, growing with every second. "Those are Vade Mecum deployment ships burning through the atmosphere."

"Ssh," she hissed. "I'm thinking." The color blue, rolling Scottish hills, petrichor, the man who waited. Rory the Roman. She smiled.

The Doctor looked over to see the orbs all activate and levitate at once. "Whatever you're thinking about, keep at it," he whispered.

"Friedrich always got it right," she murmured. "Remember the first thing he said to us?"

"Rory the Roman." The Doctor smirked and put his hands against Amy's cheeks. "Keep thinking."

Lost in a sea of wrong turns and dead ends, Rory was afraid he may have doomed this mission because of his innate hatred for puzzles. He was about to curse out loud when he felt that now-familiar build of energy in his body, and the Doctor orb lit up brightly. "Now we're cooking!" it said.

Suddenly, Rory was standing nose-to-nose with Amy, the orb having inserted him between the Doctor and his wife, as would a cheeky little piece of the Doctor's brain. "Um, Doctor, you're getting a little fresh these days," Amy commented.

"Uh, no, it's me," Rory replied.

Amy's eyes popped open. "Rory! How could you just run off at a time like this?"

The Doctor stepped away from the couple. "Amy, just keep thinking. Close your eyes and your mouths and think. Think about everything the Vade Mecum could take away from you if they archived your memories." He took the final entry pod from Rory's hand and set it among the others. It immediately levitated higher than all the rest, and began to circle the statue. The other orbs followed suit, circling faster and faster until they were nothing but a blur.

Amy clamped her mouth shut and closed her eyes again. She furrowed her brow as she thought. "Did you wish me here?" Rory whispered to her. Amy chuckled and she wrapped her arms around the back of Rory's neck, tilted her chin up and kissed him.

When Amy and Rory's lips connected, the statue of the man and horse fractured and flew apart revealing a glowing fruit tree with both flowers and heavy apples, fragrant as a spring morning. Amy, Rory and the Doctor stood staring for a few silent moments as cement rained down around them, eyes hypnotically fixed to the tree. "Did we do that?" Amy asked.

The Doctor clapped his hands. "Yes you did. This, Amy and Rory, is the real tree of knowledge."

"What, like, from the bible?"

"Most stories and legend have basis in reality. On this planet, and every planet and solar system in the Vade Mecum's archive, there exists a tree just like this. It's the backup system."

"Well, if the story's out then someone has to have escaped from the Vade Mecum before," Rory said. "Right?"

"Exactly," the Doctor said. "Every piece of fruit bears lifetimes of knowledge. I can understand why someone would create a story in which a tree like this would be dangerous. It can be." The Doctor took hold of the Ponds' hands and led them back, away from the tree, as the orbs were still circling like angry bees. The orbs attached themselves to the juicy apples that weighted the limbs and flew off in separate directions with the fruit. "With the knowledge dispersed, it can be shared. Knowledge is only dangerous if there's too much in one place."

"Says the man with a time vortex in his house," Rory quipped.

"Where are they going?" Amy asked, pointing up at the entry pods.

The Doctor stared up at the orbs disappearing into the sky. "A hundred places in the universe. Now everyone will know how to stop the Vade Mecum when they come."

"What will the Vade Mecum do? Are they still coming here?"

"No. They'll chase the entry pods in pursuit of their knowledge. They might catch some, but won't catch them all." He put his arms around his companions. "Somewhere out there, they'll suddenly know a little bit about Earth and the Ponds and how they stopped the Vade Mecum. Legends have to start somewhere, you know?"

"Like the tree of knowledge," Rory said.

"Oh, that would chap Friedrich a little bit, wouldn't it?" Amy joked. The Doctor and Rory looked at her. "Religion, you know? Do you think he'll be okay now?"

The Doctor stood outside the Nietzsche house. The door was open, chilly early-morning air swirling in to mix with the warmth from the hearth. But the Doctor never went inside. The air played with his hair as he stood out front, shuffling some dirt with the toe of his boot.

He could hear Elisabeth crying inside. The hope in his eyes is gone he heard her say. It's just gone.

Amy came out after a while with tears on her face and looked up at the Doctor. "Why?" was all she asked.

The Doctor regarded her sorrowfully, from beneath the shag of his hair. "He fell ill five weeks ago, Amy. He only stopped speaking three weeks ago, when the Vade Mecum came. I hoped maybe…" The Doctor shook his head. "We gave him good company, and a chance to see his sister again. Those are good things, right?" Amy sniffled and hugged the Doctor, wondering how he could bear to know Friedrich would return to this state and choose to save the world anyway.

Rory came out a few minutes later and took Amy back up the hill towards the Tardis. The Doctor looked in through the door for just a moment, at Elisabeth in her chair at her brother's bedside. He imagined her smile and the feel of her in his arms, then he began to pull the door shut. She glanced up and saw him just before the door shut between them, turning to follow his companions on to brighter spots in the universe.

"One more thing before we go," the Doctor said as he closed the Tardis door.

Rory was hugging Amy, her head on his shoulder as they attempted to process what had just happened. "Oh, God, please can we just put a lid on it for a day?" Rory pleaded.

"This is for you, Rory," the Doctor said and motioned him over to the viewfinder.

Rory sighed, recognizing the mental hospital grounds at Turin. "What am I supposed to see?"

The Doctor zoomed in with the viewfinder to where the man and horse statue once had stood, and the apple tree that still bloomed in its place. "I wanted to give them something to remember, since the tree is just a tree now."

Rory squinted, and there, just beyond the apple tree was a new statue, proud and caring, standing guard over the tree of knowledge. The statue had a high helmet, upper-body armor, a shield and sword in hand. The Centurion. The Roman. The Protector.

"I wanted them to remember, Rory." There were a few patients looking up at the statue, picking up petals from the apple tree, blooming even in the middle of winter. "I wanted them to remember, without a doubt, the morning they were saved by Rory the Roman."

40