A/N: (Feel free to skip my useless rambling) Ah, here we are! The climax! Hopefully it's exciting enough. My fingers were actually typing faster to keep up with the speed my mind was going at while I wrote this. I hope it's not too confusing or anything :/ Anyway! Come on in, sit down on the comfy chairs, and enjoy tea and Christmas-y cookies! :) I hope you enjoy this chapter, and don't forget to leave a review and grab an umbrella on your way out! It's raining pretty hard.

35

Falling Inside the Black

There was no way the guards hadn't heard the noises Rory was making as he writhed on the floor, holding his head in pain. The Doctor swallowed as he watched, helpless to do anything. There was nothing he could do to fix this. It was too late. The Mona Lisa had woken and taken back her control of the minds she'd had her fingers in. Brooke hadn't broken the psychic link between Rory and the Mona Lisa - she'd only knocked the alien out. The Doctor needed to be able to get to the Mona Lisa if he was going to manage to break the link and get her safely inside the TRL.

Amy rushed over to Rory, crying his name. She looked up at the Doctor with eyes that told him to do something, to fix it, to make it better like he always did. The heavy, booted footsteps of soldiers were coming alarmingly close. The Doctor thought fast, picked up a bench by the wall, and effectively beaned two of them in the head just as they rounded the corner. He whirled and focused his attentions on Rory and Amy while Brooke took care of the rest in a mad dance of ducking and stabbing.

Brooke charged headlong at the four or five soldiers. She knew she was at a disadvantage. Her only weapons were her crossbow and bolts and her fists, and she had one bad leg. Still, hefted the heavy weight of the oak crossbow in both hands and swung it like a club, catching a guard on his temple and knocking him stone-cold to the ground. She quickly whipped a bolt out, ducking the swing of a sword as she plunged it into a second soldier's chest. He gasped, choking and wheezing. She whirled and caught a third with the edge of her crossbow, knocking him off balance as she pulled the bolt from the soldier's chest and then drove it into the third soldier's jugular. The fourth was smart, he went for her leg. She gasped at as flesh collided with flesh. Sharp pain caused her to stand there in a momentary haze.

Rory's eyes closed as the Doctor rushed forward. "No, no, no!" he exclaimed, grabbing Amy by the arm. "Amy, you have to get away, now, please Pond, come along, Pond!"

Tearing her away from Rory was like trying to pick up a sleeping cat. Leonardo had to come help. The Doctor turned to get a visual on Brooke as Rory stood to his feet, unsheathing his sword. The Doctor swallowed.

Brooke felt arms grab her and pull her into a side passageway. Then, she was aware of running, being half dragged across the slippery stone of the floor as the Doctor, Amy, and Leonardo ran with her. She came to her senses slowly as the fog of pain was cleared by rushing adrenaline. She glanced back, her eyes widening. "Where's Rory?" she demanded as the Doctor rushed down the steps.

"Ah, Roranicus Pond! He's currently after us with a sword!" the Doctor shouted back as if it was somehow a marvelous and wonderful notion. Of course, that was his way of deflecting the gravity of the situation.

His mind was working at top speed as Brooke shouted off directions to the room she'd left the Mona Lisa in. All he need was to touch her. One touch was all it took to break the psychic link and transfer her mind into the TRL. Somehow, getting his hands on a dangerous alien always proved to be more difficult than it actually should be. He huffed irately at that.

They finally made it down the hall and to the door. The Doctor threw his weight against, it, pushing it in and closing it behind him against the mob of soldiers that was after them.

"Quick, grab things to block it!" he urged. It was a mad rush to get swords, halberds, vases, tables, benches, chairs... anything that could stop the crowd from coming in and giving them a moment with the Mona Lisa.

"Well, well, well...look who showed up."

The Doctor turned slowly as Brooke put one last spear against the door. There the Mona Lisa stood, in all of her renaissance glory. Her eyes pierced his, that smirk on her face. She wrapped her arms around herself, disturbingly calm as the door rattled ferociously behind the group. The Doctor folded his hands. He could still give her a second chance- a chance to leave the planet. He needed to try.

"You smile as if you know something I don't," he replied.

"I know many things you don't, Doctor," she took an apple from the fruit bowl, casually tossing it in the air and taking a bite, letting the clear juice dribble down her chin. The Doctor made a gagging noise.

Brooke stepped forward. "Let's just do it now, while we have the chance!"

The Doctor put a steadying hand on her arm. "Not yet, Brooke." He turned to the Mona Lisa. "You have two choices. You can leave now and never come back, or you can stay and be imprisoned for the rest of your life."

The Mona Lisa crossed her arms bemusedly, that sly grin widening even further. "You're in no position to give me ultimatums, Time Lord. In a few minutes, my strongmen will have come and broken down the door, and it'll you that'll be at my mercy."

"No, I don't think so," the Doctor smiled cheekily. "You see, all I have to do is touch you, you know that. You're a touch-psychic yourself. That's how you control your henchmen, is it not?"

She circled him like a cat with a mouse. Brooke was alert next to the Doctor, her graceful lines rippling with tension as she gripped a bolt between her fingers. Amy and Leonardo took a step behind the Doctor, and the Time Lord's stance widened aggressively. The Mona Lisa laughed, a deep, horrible, throaty sound. "Time Lords - The gods who had Time at their fingertips, who commanded it at the snap of their fingers. The gods who lit the stars and caused them to shine." She turned to him. "And you, Doctor, a great warrior. The Oncoming Storm, the one who has made whole worlds burn. The one whose screams of his own people filled his ears. Gallifrey, sacred spheres, the Red Haven-" The Doctor swallowed, his eyes filling with pain, guilt, and anger as he watched her silently, standing there with all the regality of a great cat. She continued, "Nameless one who can make whole armies just turn and run away...and here you are, locked inside my bedchamber with nothing but a TRL and a few incompetent friends to help you."

"I see you've done your homework, then," Brooke murmured angrily. The Doctor pressed a finger to his own lips to shush her.

He smiled politely at the Mona Lisa, "If you know me that well, you ought to know that it's very unwise to put me in between a rock and a hard place, Mona Lisa." He took a step forward. "So, I'm going to give you one. Last. Chance. Leave, or be imprisoned for the rest of your miserable life." She'd caused the pain of the people he loved, and that was not a safe place to be.

The Mona Lisa stiffened. "No."

With that, the Doctor lunged for her. The door broke down. Brooke whirled, loading her crossbow quick as she could. There had to be at least ten, four of which were the strongmen. They were led by Rory. Brooke didn't have a chance, but she had to try.

The Mona Lisa threw a vase at the Doctor. He ducked just in time. The two of them locked horns, the Doctor using his screwdriver, the Mona Lisa using whatever article around the room she could find as the two of them wound through the twisting, roving mass of soldiers. She was making her way to the door, he had to stop her.

Amy thought quick and grabbed the heaviest blunt object she could see. She swung it around her like a madwoman. With a crack, the object collided with the leg of one of the soldiers. He howled in pain. Brooke put a bolt through his chest to finish him off and Amy smiled at her. "Not bad."

"Yeah, you too," Brooke nodded breathlessly before turning to fend off another. He swung for her head, she ducked, grabbed his arm, and twisted it behind his back. He dropped the sword and she sent a swift kick to his leg, knocking his feet out from under him. Brooke twisted his neck to an unnatural angle and moved on to the next one.

The Doctor and Leonardo chased the Mona Lisa up a winding staircase. She was still screaming and finding things to tear down and get in their way. A heavy curtain came crashing down, and the Doctor quickly grabbed the inventor by the collar and flattened against the cool stone wall as the rod and fabric rolled down the stairs. He then continued up.

It was a losing battle in the Mona Lisa's bedchamber. Adrenaline only lasted so long and Brooke was nearly to her knees in pain as she just kept attacking guard after guard. They seemed to be never ending. Amy was a bit of a help, but she wasn't a trained fighter. She could only knock them out at best. They quickly found themselves backed up against a wall, quite literally, as Brooke fired bolt after bolt and Amy battled them back with her makeshift club. A soldier got close enough to grab Brooke by her hair. She gasped as her head was yanked forcibly back. Quickly, she twisted in his arms, elbowing him in the stomach and then cracking his jaw with an uppercut to the chin. She rammed a bolt into his stomach and pulled it out, still taking great gasps of breath. Sweat dripped down her forehead, pain throbbed through her leg. Amy did the best she could to help. A swing to the left knocked a guard back a foot or two to the unforgiving floor. She didn't get another swing. Her club was stopped by a strong hand. She turned to see Rory, that smirk painted on his face as if he was a clown at a carnival. Amy's eyes widened to the size of small grapefruits as he wrenched the club from her raw and bleeding hands.

The wind rushed in the Doctor's ears as he burst out of a trap door and onto the top of a high tower. The Mona Lisa's back was to the low wall that circled the column of stone. Leonardo came after him, wheezing as he heaved himself and the painting onto the wooden floor. The Doctor took several, careful steps toward the alien.

"You've got no options, so surrender," he said, out of breath.

"I would rather die," she spat back. Her eyes were wide, wide with fear but also with anger and hatred.

"I really don't want to condemn you to a life alone, trust me. I wouldn't wish that on anyone," he murmured, still making his way to her inch by agonizing inch.

She glanced behind her, breathing heavily. The ground was so very far away. The people on it looked like mere ants crawling around. The carts and horses were just a child's playthings. Her fingers gripped the edge of the cold, hard stone and she turned to look at the Doctor. For a moment, he saw something...almost human in her eyes. It was an icy terror, the terror of being trapped and without help, condemned to live out the rest of her days in solitary confinement or return to her people in shame. He knew that feeling and it broke his heart.

She swallowed. "Doctor, there's always a third option... and I think-" her breathing was coming in short gasps now. Her face was white as parchment, "I think I'm going to take it."

He jumped for her just as she let go and fell into thin air.

"No!" His arms closed on oxygen molecules and the Doctor stood there on the edge of the tower, horrified as her form crunched into moor and pavement below. His eyes squeezed shut and he looked away, not bearing to look, his hearts twisting in his chest.

Amy watched as the strongmen fell to the floor among the bodies of the slain soldiers. Their normal comrades, now no longer so brave now that their leaders were gone, were fleeing. Her knees hit the floor as she cradled Rory's head in her hands. Blood oozed onto her fingers from the back of his skull where he'd hit it.

Thick tears burned at the corners of Brooke's vision as she knelt slowly as well, taking his hand and scrambling to find the pulse. She prayed he wasn't dead.

Reassuringly, the steady throb of blood through veins greeted her fingers. She let out a breath she hadn't known she'd been holding and grabbed at a cloth to press to the back of his head. "He's going to be okay - just unconscious."

Amy looked up at her, swallowing. "What- what happened?"

She could only shake her head in response. "I don't know."

Someone entered the room, and the pair looked up. There the Doctor stood, a melancholy look on his face. "It's done," he whispered. There was no triumph in his voice.

Brooke stood, her face pinched. "What happened?" she repeated Amy's earlier question.

"She took her own life," Leonardo supplied, squeezing in through the door and rolling up the painting. "I suppose I might as well name the painting and set it on my wall for later."

"Oh," Brooke gulped.

Amy caught the Doctor's eyes as she glanced between Leonardo and her Raggedy Man. There was something very unpleasant in his gaze. His face was drawn and he looked a hundred years older. When he caught her gaze and realized how worried she was, a melancholy smile lit up his face. "Let's go back to the TARDIS, shall we?"

After returning to the TARDIS, saying their goodbyes to Leonardo Da Vinci, and patching Rory up, the three returned to the Louvre. Slowly, the Doctor walked up to the painting of the Mona Lisa, inspecting it, letting his eyes rest on the corner of the left eye. No tear.

"Looks like time got rewritten," Brooke murmured.

The Doctor glanced around and sonicked the painting. Yes, there was no alien inside. Just one, very empty, TRL. "Yeah," he whispered, his throat constricting violently as he looked away from them, fighting tears of guilt that burned at the corners of his vision.

Amy looked at him, her eyebrows knitting together. "It wasn't your fault, you know - that she died."

Rory agreed with her, "Her choice, Doctor."

"It wasn't really." The Doctor looked up at his friends, his eyes filled with acid and ice. He knew the choice he'd asked her to make - he knew what it felt like to be so, utterly alone for hundreds of years. He also knew that if he had been offered the same choice, then perhaps he would have done the same thing.

He clapped his hands, forcing the emotions back and returning to giddy Doctor mode. "Well! Now that that's done, another day finished, earth saved once again... how about we go to a park?"

Rory wrinkled his nose, "A park?"

"Sorry, Raggedy Man, but Rory and I are going to head home for a bit."

Oh. The Doctor nodded, his face falling just slightly, "Right, I'll take you there. Brooke? Where do you need to go?" He turned to hear Brooke's answer, but none came.

Brooke was gone.