"No," I tell them, "We're not beaten yet."

"But everybody disappeared," Rory says. Something simple and sad about that. You think he'd know better than to make me think of Jessica when I'm trying to be objective about this. "How are we not beaten?" Ah, there's the old no-good-at-sarcasm… I really do need better names for all these things. "How does this not count as pretty well trashed, Doctor?"
"Because anything disappearing into time and space requires a massive amount of energy and that amount of energy can't happen without leaving a mark, a little scar on the face of the vortex and, like pretty much any scar, while that's fresh you can tell what made it and where it went. Now shut up, I'm thinking."

"Because it's way too easy to just say you can trace them."

"Yes. Also that would have been a tiny bit of a lie, because I can't trace them. The whole process takes a minute or two and the signals are fading out very, very quickly and as we speak. I can trace one of them. Now shut up, I'm thinking."

"Which one?" Amy wants to know.

"That is what I would be thinking about if everybody would just shut up."

Things to consider include what I've been told, what I know, the path I'm on and all predictions appertaining to it. This latter, before you all start on me, is nothing to do with my own personal feelings about it. I'm being objective. But the fact is Soul was in Rory, Soul was there, Soul has heard that prediction and they'll be playing off it.

What I've been know. Madame Song let a little something slide there. Spoiled rotten, I am. Her little slip of the tongue was no accident, she's too smart for that, too controlled. I reach back in my mind for the exact words. An encryption was about to be broken.

"On the Keep…"

"The Keeper," I tell myself out loud, confirming it, feeling the trace of the next syllable on my lips and comparing it with hers in my memory. "Yes, yes, the Keeper."

The Ponds look at each other, shake their heads, "Who?"

"The Keeper. Don't ask, started all this, ask Scone, he was there, Scone's dead, tell you later, but yes, yes, the Keeper. Encryption being broken on the Keeper's… The Keeper died trying to pass information to me-"

"Somebody's dead?" Pond balks, holding tighter to Rory.

"-And that information was stolen from her at the time of the murder before I arrived. That's it, that's what they're working on."

"Well, what kind of information?" Rory asks.

"Not a clue. But then again, there's what I've been told to consider. Like River, before, just now, she told me something." Oh yes, this out-loud thing is much easier. If one just pretends their questions aren't really questions but the required springboards of advanced thought, one can get along very well.

"Eye-patch River?" Rory balks, and in a small and almost automatic way, Amy informs him that it's not an eye patch.

"No, the other River, the nice one, she saved me, again, long story, tell you later, but yes, yes, she told me something. Said that I should be paying more attention to the Brother of the Ash."

Oh, it's not helping any more. I'm confused, and worse than that torn. For instance, I know neither where nor when Jessica has been taken, but once I look up the wild man and his Brethren, I've probably got a good chance at guessing. I don't know when River's popped off too, but I've got a pretty good shot at finding out where and I have rather a landmark to look for if indeed the Keeper's code is about to be broken.

Third factor; path and associated predictions. Again, I reach back for the precise wording, then remember I have it recorded. Play it back for myself.

"What is that?" Amy asks, rushing up to listen.

Rory tells her, "Marie Laveau told his future." We both turn and he turns sheepish, looks at his feet. "Yeah, Soul wanted to listen in, I think."

"You mean you listened in and Soul was there, but no matter now."

Marie, from hundreds of years ago and the top of the sonic, says again that there will be two more forks in my path. At the first I will turn towards the water, towards the tree at the second, and then I will come to the end. I turn it off before she describes the ending to me. That's not for either Pond, and even Soul didn't hear that part, because I've never played it back. I'm not listening to it. It's not coming. That's not going to happen. It's not.

The water and the tree. The River and the Ash. Has to be. Sorry, Marie, but it doesn't go how you said. I don't live through that.

The Silence are aware of what Marie said. They know I am supposed to go after River. Now, the straight, normal, single bluff, would mean calling them out and running for Jessica. But they know I'm not that stupid, just to do the opposite because they say so. No, they'll be expecting me to pay no mind to Marie, to double-bluff and chase after River, and that's fine, that's a good plan, but there's one thing the Silence haven't counted on.

I'm not half so stupid as they think I am.

I'm twice as stupid.

I turn towards the place where Jessica disappeared, the sonic grabs a time signature and I rush to the Tardis to get these last remnants traced.

"But Doctor, what about River?" Pond cries, running after me.

I can't be unkind to her. This is the second time I've done this, in her eyes. "Amy," I begin. I take her face in one hand even while typing with the other, and I try to be comforting with one eye on the monitor. "Amy, it seems unfair, but the River you saw here, the mad one, Eye-patch-it's-not-an-eye-patch River, that's a future version. We can't help her better than by keeping that from ever happening."

She's coming round to that, I think. She begins to nod. The moment dies when her husband, standing in the open doorway, laughs in a quiet and inane way that has to be questioned.

"Hm? Oh, it's nothing, really. Just Marie was right."

"What? What? No. No. No, Marie was wrong, Marie was very, very wrong, all the shades of wrong and they are many, those shades, as many as the shades of the sea is as wrong as Marie was, what are you talking about Marie was right?"

I am, by this time, as his shoulder and rather out of breath. That's what the inhalation is, by the way. It's not a gasp, I'm just out of breath.

Behind the place from which the Brother stole Jessica, a broken gutter drops a steady trickle into a puddle below. I turned towards the water. And at my back, at the place where River vanished, climbing vines reaching over the edge of the roof pile up on themselves and snake around in vines and branches, and are to all intents and purposes a tree. From which I turned away.

Very quickly, and in a surreptitious way so as not to panic the Ponds, I try for any trace of River's signal.

There's nothing.

Sick to the pit of my stomach and sorry from the bottom of my heart and all those other strange little phrases humans apply to their bodies. Primarily the sick and the sorry, though.

You came to save me and I have very possibly refused to do the same. Been too stupid and too panicked to look at it properly, to interpret the proper signs. You must have known you'd need me there, eye-patch or none, and now Heaven alone knows how far from you I'm going, and how much farther down the path that ends with you and I both darkened and dead and for what? Because I couldn't take a second. One extra second to look at it all again. How many billions of seconds have I traded off for the sake of that one?

Sick, as I said, and so wholly and eternally sorry.

"Doctor?" Rory says. The stupid bloody smile's gone off him now alright, and I can't find it in myself to say something cheerful back to him. "Doctor, what's the matter?"

And from up at the console, where she's missed all this, Amy is watching the monitor and cries excitedly, helpfully, "Doctor, she's got something. Accurate to within three months, it says."

A lock on Jessica.

Well, I suppose she was going to need rescued sooner or later.

So I steel myself, swallow the lump in my throat, clap my hands and turn back to them. "Right! Mr Pond, door closed, please. Anybody need an emergency exit demonstration? No? Good, there are none anyway. And off we go, we merry band, to rescue a damsel from… Amy?"

Reading slowly, sounding out the syllables, "Tir-in-na-noc?"

"From a land, lady and gentleman, of myth and legend and wild Celtic types! Rory, keep an eye on her. They love a ginger and she loves them in a skirt. All doors are now locked, please hold on very tightly to something for take-off and landing, the two of which ought to follow hard upon each other."

Why the big show?

Because they smile.

Taking care of the people I care about, remember? Most of them anyway.

The usual rattle and ker-thunk of takeoff, and Pond giggles like it's new to her. Humans like fun. They don't make it easy to forget either, the dear sweet things. Fun, then. Don't let's be grown-ups today. Shake off sorry and fight through sickness, and don't let's have serious-face conversations today.

Another day, though.

And if you see her, tell her I was asking about her. Tell her that I'm coming. And she will tell you, because I will make sure of it, that I have been there and gone.

[And so we came to the end. I'm popping off to have, you know, Christmas and family and television and chocolate and presents, so consider this my season hiatus. I promise, though, I'll be back before you've gotten through your selection boxes (depending, once more, on your desire to ever see me again). Keep an eye out for the next preview if you're looking for me. And you all know how I am, I just can't stay away – who knows what nice little girls and boys who let the author know where she stands might find in their stockings? (I would never full-on troll for reviews. You like it or you don't, that's good enough for me.) Merry Christmas to all, should I not see nor hear from you, and to all, many thanks.

Hearts, Sal.]