Bonjour!

The last chapter was very rushed, I'm sorry, definitely not one of my best! But, I hope to improve as I keep writing!

Enjoy and please review!:)

Cautiously the River and The Doctor who had appeared at the doors walked into a destroyed hall full of smoking Daleks, massive piles of rubble, sparking equipment, a destroyed machine, a blown-up Prime Minister and, in the middle of it all, a frightened little girl, curled up in a ball on the floor, crying quietly to herself.

River ran over to her daughter and scooped her up and craddled her on her knee, stroking her hair and kissing her face,

"Shhh sweetie, I'm here now, mummy's here, shhhh." She crooned, wiping away Mia's tears.

"But you're not! You are but you're not because you don't know me, do you? You've not even gave-gave birth to me yet!" Mia sobbed, she wanted nothing more but her mothers arms and she felt like she wasn't in them.

"But I have." River whispered into her ear with a smile.

"What?!"

"It's us. We've come for you, like we always do."

"What are you talking about?"

"To us we dropped you off on Raxocoriophalapatorious about, hm, what? 20 minutes ago?"

"20 minutes?! But- but I did so much on that planet! I saved a city, I stopped a war, I-I- I called the Slitheen ugly! It was weeks not minutes!"

River chuckled, "Time machine, remember?"

Mia giggled, "Oh yeah!"

River laughed and squeezed her daughter tight to her chest, never wanting to let go again.

The Doctor, meanwhile, stalked around the room, examining each of the Daleks and their obliterated machine.

"You've killed them alright Amelia Song." He said aloud, "They're all gone."

"Well that's good, isn't it?" Mia asked with a small triumphant smile

The Doctor spun around to his daughter who had, unknowingly, just commited genocide. He looked at her and he worried. He knew what was coming next.

"Yeah." He said to her with a smile. He sat down infront of River and Mia climbed out of River's arms and into his.

"I've missed you." He murmured to her, burying his face in her hair and inhaling.

Mia laughed, "I've missed you to. I have seen you very recently though."

"Oh yes, we remember. Got into some trouble with Slitheen I believe?"

"Well they're not exactly lookers are they dad? I mean, come on, they're GREEN!"

The little family of three laughed together.

"Speaking of younger you, where are you?"

"We'll be here soon, I think we're just scanning outside those doors right now."

"Yes, didn't your screwdriver brake?" River asked with a smile, remembering the panic they had felt when they were unable to get into the hall and the argument that had followed about the screwdriver never being very reliable.

"No, it did not brake, it just went a bit funny for a while, that's all!"

River chuckled, "Yes well it's a good job I was there wasn't it?"

"So all this what your discussing right now, what you remember happening, is going on right this second,behind those doors?" Mia asked, very confused.

"Yes. Bit of a paradox really but you only live once." The Doctor said,

"Or you only live 11 times." Mia whispered, straightening her dad's bowtie.

River and The Doctor laughed automatically but it was wrong. A wrong laugh. They both sounded... Devastated. Like there was a huge abbyss of endless pain lurking just underneath, waiting to consume them at any moment. Mia, of course, picked up on it.

"What's wrong?" She asked, looking at their faces and seeing her mother in floods of tears and her father trying with all his might to hold them back.

But before they could answer, younger River and younger Doctor burst in.

They stopped dead in their tracks when they saw another version of themselves cradling Mia between their arms.

"Hi!" Mia beamed from the middle of her parents, "Look, you came twice to the party!"

Young River and young Doctor were at a loss for words but not at all the decapitated Daleks, not at the ruins of the hall around them, not at the blasted Prime Minister, not even at the sight of another version of themselves.

No, none of that shocked them. In fact they hardly saw any of that. What had The Doctor and River frozen in horror was Mia.

She was turning a light grey in colour, her hair wasn't bouncy in it's curls, it was lank and flat. Her body looked weak and crumpled as she rested her head on her father's shoulder, as if it was too heavy to lift. Her lips looked chapped and thin and her eyes drooped as her eyelids struggled to stay open.

Mia hadn't noticed what had been happening to her body until she started to struggle to breathe. Her lungs ached with every tiny inhalation and her chest wheezed as she exhaled. She suddenly had this banging, throbbing headache and whereas before she was always able to feel the thundering drumbeat of her two hearts hammering in her chest now she couldn't feel them at all, she wondered where they had gone.

She wanted to speak, ask what was happening to her, but she found she couldn't find her voice.

"Stay back." Older Doctor warned, "This has to happen."

"What's happening to her?!" Younger River screamed while older River continued to sob silently into her daughter's hair.

"She's dying. She has nothing left. She used up not only her regenerations but her current life energy too." Older Doctor murmured, stroking Mia's cold cheek.

"Is that even possible?" Younger Doctor asked,

"Yes. She had no idea what she was doing, she couldn't control it, couldn't stop it. So she used it all up until it was all gone. There's nothing left in her now."

"But-but there must be something we can do! WE'VE ONLY JUST MET HER! She can't die!" Younger River shouted,

Older Doctor swallowed back a wave of tears and waited till his voice was strong enough to say, "This is a fixed point. This is always what must happen. Did you not wonder why the Dalek's shots kept missing you? Why you could pass the guards so easily? Why you never came in contact with any Dalek while running? Why it was so easy to brake the machine? All of those little things were the universe leading you to this point. If one of those had gone wrong we all wouldn't be here right now but we are. This. Must. Always. Happen."

"No, no, fixed points can be rewritten!" Younger River said, tears in her eyes as her older self was inconsolable.

"But they can't, can they River? You saw what happened at Lake Silencio. Our daughter must die here today or else the whole of reality will collapse again."

There was a huge, horrible silence that followed filled only with River's tears.

Suddenly, younger Doctor murmured, "Let it."

"What?" Both older Doctor and younger River said,

"Let the whole of reality collapse, I don't care, that girl is not dying here today. Not that girl."

"You can't. That's not what happened. We remember it. We remember being stood where you are stood right now and we walked here and sat with our older selves and all four of us mourned our loss. I remember it happening."

"Your memories can change. You know that! Are they not beginning to already?"

The older Doctor frowned and then, reluctantly, nodded.

"Well then," Concluded younger Doctor, "you have no reason to object."

Older Doctor smiled, a huge, genuine grin and said, "I knew you would say that."

"We won't have much time, she's fading fast and if reality is going to combust I'd rather get it over with quickly."

Younger Doctor smiled back, "Let's get to work then, shall we?"

Older Doctor jumped up, grinned and murmured, "Geronimo."

Review please:)