Somewhat difficult to write; hope you enjoy!

Chapter IX - The Raggedy Man's Goodbye

Rose jerked awake, that sensation of falling pulling her out of her dreams. She looked around the small room, breathing heavily. The curtains were pulled together, but she could tell that it was dark outside. Rose knew the feeling of a city, having grown up in one, yet she knew this wasn't London. At least, not London from her time.

Voices in the hall caught Rose's attention. "Rory!" a familiar voice shouted. Rose stood up quickly, knocking a book off the arm of the chair she woke up in. It was then that Rose realized she wasn't alone in the room. The giveaway was a moan from the bed that Rose hadn't seen before.

Her eyes having adjusted, Rose looked around the room again. It was strange how there was a little cherub statue on the nightstand. Did most people have those in their homes?

The door slammed against the wall, and the room was filled with light from the corridor. Amy moved into the doorway, and Rose was about to say something but the Doctor's voice stopped her. "Get out of here! Don't look at anything; don't touch anything-"

"Who's that?" Amy asked, staring at the man in the bed. She looked to Rose for an answer, as if she'd known the blonde was there the whole time.

The old man in the bed leaned up on some pillows, holding his hand out to her. Rose was reminded of something from a sappy romance book. "Amy. Amy, please. Amy, please. Please."

Amy took a step closer to the old man in the bed. "Rory?" she said, calling out for her husband. "He's you."

He took a breath, "Amy." But then he was still.

Rory and the Doctor crowded into the small room. "Will someone please tell me what is going on?"

"I'm sorry, Rory," the Doctor said solemnly, "but you just died."

"What the hell?" Rose's sudden outburst caught no one by surprise. Rather, it seemed like the other three had known she was here all along. And hadn't she been? Where had they been? Her memory was jumbled into an outline of fuzzy images floating around in no particular order.

"This place is policed by Angels," the Doctor said, as if that made all the sense in the world. Every time you try to escape, you get zapped back in time."

"So this place belongs to the Angels? They built it?" Amy asked.

None of this made sense to Rose. "What angels?" Her mind thought of the cherub on the bedside table. She looked over to it, but it was gone. Thinking that she must have imagined it, Rose looked to the Doctor."

"Weeping Angels," the Doctor said quickly, obviously running low on the time needed for a decent explanation. "Stone creatures until you blink, incredibly fast, zap you back in time, let you live to death, wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff." To Amy, Rory, and (Rose could now see) River, he continued, "Displacing someone back in time creates time energy, and that is what the Angels feed on. But normally, it's a one-off, a hit and run. If they could keep hold of their victims, feed off their time energy over and over again. This place is a farm, a battery farm. How many Angels in New York?"

River looked at her futuristic-looking mobile phone which wasn't really a phone at all (or maybe that was a feature). "It's like they've taken over every statue in the city."

"The Angels take Manhattan because they can," the Doctor said, his expression grim, "because they've never had a food source like this one. The city that never sleeps."

Loud, heavy thuds echoed in the distance. Surprisingly calm for someone who had just seen his future self die, Rory asked, "What was that?"

"I don't know," the Doctor said, not lying. "But I think they're coming for you."

"What does that mean? What's going to happen to me? Why is physically going to happen?"

"The Angels will come for you. They'll zap you back in time to this very spot, thirty, forty years ago. And you'll live out the rest of your life in this room, until you die in that bed."

"And will Amy be there?"

"No."

"How do you know?" Amy asked.

The Doctor gave his best friend a sad look. The truth would hurt; it always did. "Because he was so pleased to see you again."

Rory worked his mind quickly to formulate a plan. "Okay. Well, they haven't taken me yet. What if I just run? What if I just got the hell out of here? Then that never happens."

The Doctor refrained from letting his frustration show on his face. It would only stress out his friends. "It's already happened. Rory, you've just witnessed your own future."

"Doctor," River said, "he's right."

"No, he isn't," the Doctor argued.

River didn't let him go on about how she was wrong because she wasn't. "If Rory got out, it would create a paradox."

The thuds slowly grew louder and seemed to rumble, but not in a thunderous sort of way. "What is that?" Amy asked, her eyes shifting to the window.

River ignored her mother. "This is the Angels' food source. The paradox poisons the well. It could kill them all. This place would literally unhappen."

The Doctor wasn't ready to play this game. "It would be almost impossible."

She nearly smiled. "Loving the almost."

"But to create a paradox like that takes almost unimaginable power," the Doctor said. "What have we got, eh? Tell me. Come on, what?"

Amy stepped up and took her husband's hand. "I won't let them take him. That's what we've got."

Rory glanced to the window. "Whatever that thing is, it's getting closer."

The Doctor focused on the problem at hand. Sometimes his Pond's determination was frustrating to the point of nearly making him regenerate. "Rory, even if you got out, you'd have to keep running for the rest of your life. They would be chasing you forever."

Amy walked to the flat door and pulled it open. Rose gasped. A full-size statue of an Angel stood outside in the hall. Unfazed, Amy directed, "Husband, run." He ducked out, and Amy followed, knowing that they needed to get out as quickly as possible in order for this to work.

The lights flickered, and Rose felt the fear start to creep up on her. As if he'd sensed it, the Doctor took her hands in his. Holding them tight, he looked in her eyes and firmly pressed, "Rose, the Weeping Angels will kill you. Try to stay between River and me, and blink as little as you can. Don't look into their eyes, and don't blink." Straightening up, the Doctor turned to his wife. "River, I'm not sure this can work."

She rolled her eyes and helped Rose past the Angel blocking the door. "Husband," River said, "shut up."

There were Angels everywhere. Amy and Rory moved as quickly as they could, keeping their eyes in as many places as was possible. Going down the stairs wasn't an option, so they were forced up to the roof.

The autumn air was crisp and chilly, with a biting wind cutting through the streets and alleys between buildings. The stars overhead were nearly invisible due to the lights of New York City, but the large sign reading 'Winter Quay' only accentuated the enormity of the entity behind it.

"I always wanted to see the Statue of Liberty," Rory choked. "I guess she got impatient." He suddenly turned and sprinted to the opposite end of the roof, where a brick wall separated the roof from the several story drop to the ground.

"What are you doing?" asked Amy.

"Just keep your eyes on that," Rory said, estimating the height of the wall and trying to determine the best way to do this.

Without looking away from the Statue of Liberty, Amy called, "Is there a way down?"

Rory's head spun looking at the distance from up here to the ground. "Er, no. But there's a way out."

Amy whipped around and saw Rory standing on the ledge, waving in the wind. "Rory, stop it," she shouted, running over to him. Damn Lady Liberty. "You'll die!"

"Yeah," Rory said, "twice. In the same building, on the same night. Who else could do that?"

"Just come down," Amy begged, "please!"

Rory shook his head and argued, "This is the right thing to do. If I die now, it's a paradox, right? The paradox kills the Angels. Tell me I'm wrong. Go on, please, because I'm really scared." His wife was silent, and Rory was afraid to look at her. "Oh, great. The one time you can't manage it. Amy, I'm going to need a little help here."

Turning to face her as best he could, Rory took his wife's hand and placed it against his chest. She had to be the one to do it. To him, for him; same thing really. "Just stop it!" she fought.

"Just think it through. This will work, this will kill the Angels."

"It'll kill you, too!"

"Will it?" Rory argued. "River said that this place could be erased from time, never existed. If this place never existed, what did I fall off?"

"You think you'll come back to life?"

He gave a bitter laugh. "When don't I?"

"Rory-"

"And anyway, what else is there? Dying of old age downstairs, never seeing you again? Amy, please. If you love me, then trust me, and push."

"I can't."

"You have to."

"Could you?" Amy demanded, tears threatening to fall. "If it was me, could you do it?"

Rory let there be a moment of emptiness before he softly said, "To save you, I could do anything."

And that made all the difference. Ever so carefully, Amy climbed up onto the ledge next to Rory, praying that the wind wouldn't blow them both over until it was time. "Prove it."

"No, I can't take you too-"

"You said we'd come back to life."

"Amy, look-"

"Shut up," she said. "Together, or not at all."

A scuffle arose from the stairwell door. The Doctor had arrived with River and Rose. He saw his two best friends on the ledge and shouted, "What the hell are you doing?"

Amy didn't look away from Rory as she said, "This is my nightmare, Doctor. So I'm changing the future. It's called marriage."

And together, the two let go of inhibition and fell off the side of the building. Wind rushed past them, wrapped tightly in each others' arms.

The Doctor screamed after them, but the lights flickered and burst. Energy crackled, and River gripped her husband's arm. "Doctor! What's happening?"

He took River's hand in his, then grabbed Rose's wrist with his other free hand. "The paradox-it's working! The paradox is working!"

Rose waited for the sickeningly inevitable crunch below, but it never came. A ringing filled her ears and the energy brightened until it was an unbearable white. She closed her eyes, and waited for this to pass. The dreams were getting progressively worse. What terrors could the next bring?

And then the light faded to darkness. The Doctor's grip disappeared from her arm, and there was silence. Rose opened her eyes and looked around frantically. She was alone.

Rose stood in a seemingly infinite hallway with doors on each wall for as far as she could see. What was this place? "Hello?" she called. There wasn't even the comfort of an echo, much less an actual answer.

The Doctor was the only one who hadn't had a nightmare yet, so this had to be it. Was he afraid of hallways? An abstract answer could have been that he was afraid of eternity, but he was a Time Lord; eternity was home.

Rose chose a door at random and turned the knob.

The Doctor awoke to the sound of the computer saying, "Auto-destruct in two minutes." He looked around to place himself, but he didn't understand. Professor River Song was sitting looking at a screen and at her wrist and doing things with wires that he struggled to comprehend. Why would she feel the need to attack him and render him unconscious?

But then everything clicked into place, and the Doctor knew he would have to relive his worst nightmare again: watching his wife die in the Library.

The Doctor had been unconscious for approximately seven minutes, but his mind was still lacking clarity. He moved to stand, but was stopped by cold metal on his wrist. He looked down at the handcuffs and quickly said, "Oh, no, no, no, no. Come on, what are you doing? That's my job!" He struggled against his restraint, hoping he could stop her. He was prepared this time; he knew what was going to happen

She looked at him with a slightly amused look in her eyes. "Oh, and I'm not allowed to have a career, I suppose?"

He looked between her and the handcuffs. "Why am I handcuffed? Why do you even have handcuffs?"

Professor Song grinned at him, "Spoilers."

He was not laughing, and this situation was not funny. "This is not a joke! Stop this now. This is going to kill you! I'd have a chance, you don't have any."

She turned fierce rather quickly and snapped, "You wouldn't have a chance, and neither do I. I'm timing it for the end of the countdown. There'll be a blip in the command flow. That way it should improve our chances of a cleaner download."

Professor River Song was smart; he'd give her that. She's probably too smart for her own good, but they didn't have the time to argue about it. He didn't know who she was before, but now he did, and she was about to sacrifice herself for him. The Doctor would not let that happen. Not again. "River, please," he begs, "no."

She looked at him, sadness overcoming her features that had been so jovial earlier. "Funny thing is," she began, her eyes revealing the betrayal she felt, "this means you've always known how I was going to die. All the time we've been together, you knew I was coming here. The last time I saw you, the real you, the future you, I mean, you turned up on my doorstep with a new haircut and a suit. You took me to Darillium to see the Singing Towers. What a night that was. The Towers sang, and you cried."

"Auto-destruct in one minute."

"You wouldn't tell me why, but I suppose you knew it was time. My time. Time to come to the Library. You even gave me your screwdriver. That should have been a clue." The Doctor looked around so he won't have to see the tears in her eyes. He felt terrible because there was no way that time could be rewritten like this, not in a just way. One day, he would tell her his greatest secret, and then betray her, all because it had already happened. His wandering eyes spied the two screwdrivers and her TARDIS blue diary sitting just out of reach, but he tried to get them anyway. Sadly, she finished, "There's nothing you can do."

He pressed, "You can let me do this." Dying in a dream will cause you to wake up in reality.

"If you die here, it'll mean I've never met you."

"Time can be rewritten!" he said, making himself believe it so that she will. Nobody else had to die today.

She became upset, "Not those times. Not one line. Don't you dare. It's okay, it's okay. It's not over for you. You'll see me again. You've got all that to come. You and me, time and space. You watch us run."

But he needed answers, even if she wouldn't give in. There was no time, and it was incredibly dangerous to know his own future, but he's already done this, and knows too many things he had been impatient to know. "River, you know my name." ("Auto-destruct in ten-") "You whispered my name in my ear." ("-nine, eight, seven-") "There's only one reason I would ever tell anyone my name. There's only one time I could."

She gave him a sad smile as she lifted the two cables. "Hush, now." ("-four, three-") "Spoilers," she whispered, and it tore at his hearts because he could stop this. ("-two, one-")

River joined the two power cables, and the Doctor raised his free hand to shield his eyes from the blinding light. When it was safe to see, River's body was inanimate.

Rose looked down at the book in front of her. It appeared to be a diary-the journal of impossible things, something told her. The book was full of drawings and sloppy handwriting. Like in a dream, everything seemed to be jumbled together except for one phrase: Run, you clever boy, and remember me.

Picking the book up, Rose flipped through the pages. Slowing down to pick through them one at a time, she grew surprised and then unnerved to see that each journal entry was made up of two words repeated over and over again: BAD WOLF.

"Rory!" Amy shouted, running down the endless corridor. What the hell was this place? "Rory!" Eventually, Amy realized she was getting nowhere. All of the doors looked the same, and the hall never turned or reached an end. What kind of nightmare was this?

Amy gave in to her curiosity and moved to open one of the doors. She remembered the hotel with the minotaur, and stopped. Would this room unleash some monster from the Doctor's past? She almost stepped away and went further down the hall, but changed her mind. Running away wouldn't help if all she did was run past doors forever.

Before she could rethink, Amy yanked the door open. Instead of the dim hotel room she'd expected, the door opened to an organic version of the TARDIS console room. Maybe this was a previous design, or a completely different ship. Coral beams went from the metal grate floor to the domed ceiling.

A man who looked just like the Doctor from the parallel universe stood at the console, speaking with another version of Martha Jones. "Right then," she said. "Bye." Martha left, but then suddenly reentered the TARDIS. "Because the thing is, it's like my friend Vicky. She lived with this bloke, student housing, there were five of them all packed in, and this bloke was called Sean. And she loved him, she did, spent all day talking about him."

"Is this going anywhere?" the other Doctor said.

"Yes. Because he never looked at her twice. I mean, he liked her, but that was it. And she wasted years pining after him. Years of her life. Because while he was around, she never looked at anyone else. And I told her, I always said to her, time and time again, I said, get out. So this is me, getting out." She tossed her mobile phone to him. Amy's Doctor would have dropped the thing, but this man was more coordinated. "Keep that, because I'm not having you disappear. If that rings, when that rings, you'd better come running, got it?"

He nodded. "Got it."

Martha smiled. "I'll see you again, mister." She walked out of the TARDIS, and Amy left the room, shutting the door behind her. Leaning against the wood, she pondered what she had just witnessed. Martha Jones was a previous companion of the Doctor?

Shaking it off, Amy chose the next door and opened it. This time, she was standing outside the TARDIS with a Doctor she didn't recognize. A blonde woman was with him, saying, "I'm not coming with you."

"Inside," this Doctor urgently pressed, "that's an order."

"No more orders, Doctor," the young woman said. "Goodbye."

"What? What a moment to choose!"

"But it is, isn't it?" she asked rhetorically. "A moment to choose. I've got to be my own Romana."

Another man joined the conversation. "And we need a Time Lord."

"Goodbye, Doctor," Romana said.

The Doctor shook his head. "No, no, no-wait, wait. There's something else. K9. He'll be alright with you behind the mirrors."

Romana smiled. "I'll take care of him."

"I'll miss you," said the Doctor. "You were the noblest Romana of them all."

Amy backed out of the room and shut the door as the TARDIS was dematerializing, wondering if all of these rooms held another goodbye. It almost pained her to feel the urge to open another. She walked along the hall, knowing she would never reach an end. It was only a matter of time until she was forced to open another door.

This time, she was back in the organic console room with the Doctor from the other universe. Donna Noble stood with her hands on the console, speaking to the Doctor as he threw them into the Vortex. "I thought we could try the planet Felspoon. Just because. What a good name, Felspoon. Apparently, it's got mountains that sway in the breeze, mountains that move. Can you imagine?"

The Doctor seemed grim as he said, "And how do you know that?"

Donna was gleeful, pointing to his head, "Because it's in your head. And if it's in your head, it's in mine."

"And how does that feel?" Amy could tell that the Doctor knew something that he didn't want to share with Donna. His posture and demeanor gave it away, even if she didn't know this version of the Doctor. He was still the same man.

"Brilliant!" Donna exclaimed, speaking quickly and only getting faster with time. "Fantastic! Molto bene! Great big universe, packed into my brain. You know you could fix that chameleon circuit if you just tried hot-binding the fragment links and superseding the binary-binary-binary-binary-binary-binary-binary-b inary-binary-binary-binary-binary-binary-binary-" She took a deep breath, "I'm fine. Nah, never mind Felspoon You know who I'd like to meet? Charlie Chaplin. I bet he's great, Charlie Chaplin. Shall we do that? Shall we go and see Charlie Chaplin? Shall we? Charlie Chaplin? Charlie Chester. Charlie Brown. No, he's fiction. Friction, fiction, fixin', mixin', Rickston, Brixton-"

Donna doubled over, gasping for air. "Oh my God."

The Doctor looked sympathetic and just as pained as she, for he knew what was going to happen. "Do you know what's happening?"

Grimacing, Donna nodded angrily, and hissed, "Yeah."

"There's never been human-Time Lord metacrisis before now. And you know why."

Amy had never seen such a sad look as that which was in Donna's eyes. "Because there can't be." A beat. "I want to stay."

"Look at me," the Doctor said, moving in front of her. "Donna, look at me."

"I was going to be with you forever."

"I know."

"The rest of my life, traveling in the TARDIS," she said, on the verge of tears. "The Doctor Donna. No. Oh my God, I can't go back. Don't make me go back. Doctor, please, please don't make me go back."

He looked as if he were about to cry as well, but was trying to be strong for her. "Donna. Oh, Donna Noble. I am so sorry. But we had the best of times."

"No," she said.

He ignored her. "The best. Goodbye."

"No, no, no. Please! Please! No, no," Donna fought, but it was no use. The Doctor pressed his fingertips to her temples, steady against her struggling. Amy understood what was happening by the way she was fighting, the goodbye he had given her, and tears on her own cheeks. "No!"

But then Donna fell unconscious.

Amy left the room and wiped the tears from her face. She'd always known the Doctor had to say goodbye eventually, but she didn't realize it would be like this. Some left of their own will, some didn't have a choice...and some died, her mind completed. Donna Noble may have only had her mind erased, but the Donna Noble who had traveled with the Doctor was dead.

She didn't want to do this anymore. She couldn't walk through the rooms and watch the Doctor lose his friends. It didn't matter if the real him was around here somewhere; she didn't want to look for him any longer.

One more door, something told her, and Amy let her subconscious take control of her body. She walked to the door directly across the floor and pushed it open. She was not prepared for the sight in front of her.

The Doctor was handcuffed to a railing, and River Song lay still in a chair. Her own daughter. "Melody!" Amy gasped, bounding over to where her baby girl was sleeping.

"Amy," the Doctor said, his voice breaking. "Amelia Pond. I'm so sorry."

Amy shook her daughter's body, not wanting this to be real. This felt too real. She kept telling herself that it was a dream, but it was too hard. A pair of arms wrapped around Amy, and she turned into a familiar chest, sobbing. "Rory," she moaned, "she's gone. Melody's dead."

The whirring of the sonic screwdriver was heard in the background, then murmured "Thanks" from the Doctor. Rose helped him to his feet, and tried not to feel uplifted when he didn't let go of her hand for those few seconds before he went to comfort his friends.

After calming Amy down from her hysterics, the Doctor led the way through a large Library to the TARDIS. Unlike before, they were able to walk inside properly this time. Amy collapsed onto the pilot's seat, pulling Rory down with her. Rose stood off to the side, watching the Doctor search through a cubby for some sort of bottle. He shook the brown bottle, then unscrewed the lid to pull out the dropper.

He crossed to Rose. "Stick out your tongue." Feeling foolish, she did so. He put a few drops of a warm liquid in her mouth, then moved on to the Ponds. After giving them the liquid, the Doctor took some himself. A few minutes after receiving the medicine, Rose felt a cooling sensation, like someone had dropped a bucket of lukewarm water over her head.

Perfectly dry, she blinked several times as if to clear her eyes. The lights seemed brighter, the details more focused. It appeared that Rory and Amy were having similar reactions.

The Doctor didn't wait to be questioned before explaining. "We were affected by the universe's natural defenses upon our arrival. Because we were all in one ship, we all had the same hallucinations, the same nightmares. But we're better now. It's over. I just gave you all a sort of anti-Benadryl to combat the sleepiness and after-effects of the hallucinatory molecules. Some natural sleep will benefit us all."

"What was that place, Doctor?" Rory asked, not feeling the need to sleep just yet.

Rose shivered from the chill in the air. As if he noticed her discomfort, the Doctor twisted a dial that looked suspiciously like a thermostat. "My subconscious."

"So your nightmares?" Rose asked.

He nodded. "What has happened, what could happen."

Amy looked up at him through wet eyes. "And Melody..."

The Doctor looked genuinely concerned as he took his friend's hands. "The first time I ever met River Song, she sacrificed her own life to save mine. I treated her terribly and I regret every minute of it. That day was-is one of my worst nightmares. She doesn't know, but I do-I've seen her death, I've lived her death. But even though she's your daughter, Amy, Rory, you mustn't tell her. Her death in the Library is a fixed point. She can't know."

Rory wiped his eyes and wrapped an arm around Amy's shoulders. "Let's go to bed," he said, standing and leading Amy out of the console room.

The Doctor and Rose stood silently for several minutes. "I saw so many people," Rose said. "Peri, Susan, Jack...how do you live with it?"

He pulled Rose into his arms and rested his chin on her blonde hair. After a long moment, he answered, "Because I have to."

Rose stepped away from him, looking up to his face. "Can I visit my mum, please?" When he nodded, she muttered, "Thanks," and then walked away to her room. Life on the TARDIS was exhilarating, and so heartbreaking. She needed the comforts of home, her mother's cooking, and Mickey's laugh.

She needed to tell Mickey the truth.

I hope you enjoyed that. Pretty please review!

Next time: The Base that Shouldn't Be