Chapter 28

There was a loud crash and the TARDIS jolted.

Rory ran to the doors and opened them. "Red Waterfall. We made it."

"Good old us," the Doctor said.

"How do we know that we're in the same Red Waterfall as Amy?"

"Focus on the positive."

Rory looked at a topless statue of a lady. It was carved in the Greek style. Elise's area of expertise was in painting, but she could admire the talents of sculptors.

"We locked onto Amy's time stream. Eyes front, soldier."

"Right, yes. Sorry."

"Apalapucians are the great cultural scavengers, Rory. This gallery's a scrapbook of their favorite places."

There was a copy of the Mona Lisa on a pedestal (or maybe it was the original?). Elise considered asking her father to visit Da Vinci.

"Bit of Earth, bit of alien…" Rory looked at a pillar that was glowing blue and dripping. "…bit of whatever the hell that is."

The Doctor shed his jacket as Rory looked around. "Where is everyone?"

"Right, Rory, switch the Time Glass on and sonic it. I'm sending a command signal to the screwdriver. Amy's here somewhere, if I can just get a lock on her."

Rory pulled out the screwdriver and soniced the Time Glass.

"I wonder what happens if we mix the filters?" the Doctor wondered.

Blurry figures of people appeared in the Time Glass.

"Oh, there they are. Forty thousand time streams overlapping. Red Waterfall isn't one time stream, it's thousands."

"How is that possible?" Elise asked.

"The same way the TARDIS is bigger on the inside." The Doctor tapped her nose like he did River.

"Are they happy?" Rory asked.

"Oh, Rory. Trust you to think of that. I think they're happy to be alive. Better than the alternative."

Rory lowered the Time Glass in time to see someone coming towards him with a Samurai sword. He fell backward onto the floor.

The Doctor grabbed Elise around the waist to stop her from running out of the TARDIS to Rory's aid.

"I come in peace. Peace, peace, peace, peace," Rory told the person.

"I waited."

"Sorry, what?"

"I waited for you. I waited for you."

They raised their helmet to reveal an older Amy. A much older Amy.

"Amy," Rory breathed, "Doctor, what's going on? Amy."

"I think the timestream lock might be a bit wobbly."

Amy raised her sword.

"No, please. Please," Rory begged.

"Duck," she told him. Amy stabbed the Handbot in the head and it hit the ground.

The Doctor and Elise watched on shocked. This wasn't their Amy. Their sweet and kind Amy. She'd hardened.

"Handbots carry a black box in case they go offline. I've changed the cause of termination from hostile to accidental. Easy to re-program. Used my sonic probe."

"Amy."

"Rory."

"Why?"

"Because I've survived this long by making the Handbots think I don't exist. Don't touch the hands. There's anesthetic transfer on the skin. If they touch you, you go to sleep."

"But you're still here?"

"You didn't save me." Amy started to walk off, but Rory ran in front of her.

"But, this is the saving. This is the us saving you. The Doctor just got the timing a bit out!"

The Doctor mouthed a "Sorry", but neither could see it. Elise placed a hand on his back, comforting him in her own silent way.

"I've been on my own here a long, long time. I've had decades to think nice thoughts about him. Got a bit harder to stay charitable once I entered decade four," Amy told Rory.

"40? Alone?"

"36 years, thanks."

"No. Right. I mean, you look great. Really, really." Rory's eyes wandered.

"Eyes front, soldier."

"Still can't win then?"

"In fact, I think I can now definitely say I hate him. I hate The Doctor. I hate him more than I've ever hated anyone in my life, and you can hear every word of this through those ridiculous glasses, can't you, Raggedy Man?"

"Er, yes. Putting the speaker phone on." The Doctor walked over to the console and hit a button. He wouldn't let it show, but Elise knew his hearts were breaking with that statement.

"You told me to wait, and I did. A lifetime," Amy told him.

"Amy!"

There was a Handbot coming up behind her.

"You've got nothing to say to me."

"Amy, behind you!"

There was another one in the room with them.

Amy threw her sword to Rory and touched the hands of the Handbots together. They powered down.

"Feedback. Knocks them out. Learned that trick on my first day," Amy said. She left the art gallery and Rory followed her.

"Okay, so we just take the TARDIS back to the right time stream, yeah? We can stop any of this happening," Rory asked the Doctor.

"We locked on to a timestream, Rory. This is it."

"This is so wrong."

"I got old, Rory. What did you think was going to happen?" Amy snapped.

Rory grabbed her by the arm and she looked back at him. "Hey, I don't care that you got old. I care that we didn't grow old together. Amy, come on, please."

Amy pulled her arm out of his grip. "Don't touch me. Don't do that."

"It's like you're not even her."

"36 years, 3 months, 4 days of solitary confinement. This facility was built to give people the chance to live. I walked in here and I died. Do you have anything to say? Anything, Doctor?"

"Where did you get a sonic screwdriver?" he asked her.

"I made it. And it's a sonic probe."

"You made a sonic screwdriver?"

"Probe."

Rory followed Amy into the section of the facility where Amy had been living for the past 36 years. She had a Handbot with hooks for hands and a smiley face drawn on it.

"Don't worry about him. Sit down, Rory," Amy said.

Both Rory and the Handbot sat down.

"You named him after me?" Rory asked. That had to mean something, right?

"Needed a bit of company."

"So he's like your…"

"Pet?"

"Is it safe?"

"Yep. I disarmed it."

"How?" Rory looked down the robot's non-existent hands. "Oh, you disarmed it."

"Oh, don't get sentimental, it's just a robot. You'd have done the same."

"I don't know that I would have," the Doctor told her.

"And there he is. The voice of God. Survive, because no one's going to come for you. Number one lesson. You taught me that."

"Is that really all I taught you?"

"Don't you lecture me, blue-box man flying through time and space on whimsy. With his always faithful daughter by his side."

Elise tried not to be hurt by that comment. Was she really always faithful? She couldn't think of time where she'd gone against her father.

"All I've got, all I've had for 36 years, is cold, hard reality. So no, I don't have a sonic screwdriver because I'm not off on a romp. I call it what it is. A probe. And I call my life what it is. Hell."

"Amy Pond, I am going to put this right. You said you learned from an Interface. Can I speak with it?"

Amy looked down and checked her watch. "Doesn't work in here. 2:23. The garden'll be clear now." She walked up to Rory. "Stay or go?"

"Sorry, me? No, I'm coming with you."

"Then try not to get killed. Or do. Whatever."

Amy and Rory made their way to the garden.

"When I first came here, I had to trick the Interface into giving me the information, but I've reprogrammed it now. It'll tell me anything except how to escape," Amy explained.

"You hacked it? That's genius," Rory said.

"Sorry to interrupt that beautiful moment, but temporal engines like that have a regulator valve. Has to be kept at a distance from the main reactor or there'd be feedback. Interface, where's the regulator?"

A blueprint appeared on the screens of the TARDIS. "The regulator valve is held within."

"Oh. Very, very… Interface, I need to run through some technical specifications. Rory, give me to Amy a minute."

"Here you go," Rory said and handed them to Amy.

She put them on. "They look ridiculous," she said.

"That's what I told him. Still, anything beats a fez, eh?"

The two of them smiled and laughed together.

"What is it?" Rory asked.

"I think that's the first time I've laughed in 36 years."

"I'll just, er, leave you two geniuses alone. I'll be back in a minute."

"There's still time, Amy. There's still time to fix everything." As they were discussing the plan, Amy suddenly started running.

A Handbot had gotten to Rory. Amy chopped its head off before it could harm him.

"Rory. Rory?" Amy asked, kneeling by his side.

Rory groaned. "Glasses."

Amy stood up. "Stupid!"

"Oh! You saved me."

"Don't get used to it."

"Have you been crying? A little bit."

"Shut up, Rory."

"You have, haven't you?"

"Woman with a sword. Don't push it."

Elise smiled. There was their Amy.

"Okay. So, here's the plan. Time is always a bit wibbly-wobbly, but in Twostreams it's extra wobbly," the Doctor said.

Amy took the glasses off and put them back on Rory.

"I've worked out how to hijack the Temporal Engines and use them to fold two points of Amy's timeline together. We're bringing her out of the "then" and into the "now"! Amy, I just need to borrow your brain a minute. It won't hurt, probably. Almost probably and then Amy Pond, I'm going to save you."

"No!" Amy yelled.

"No? What do you mean no?" Elise asked her, "Amy…"

"Time's up. Handbots coming."

Rory followed Amy back into the main part of the facility.

"Amy, you've got to help us help you. I need you to think back 36 years ago," the Doctor told her, "Amy? Amy!"

Amy entered the Temporal Engines room and slammed the door in Rory (and their) faces. There was something on the door.

Rory raised the Time Glass up to the door to read the message. It read "Doctor, I'm waiting." "You told her to leave us a sign. She did and she waited. Oh Amy."

Rory entered the Temporal Engines room, going after Amy. "Why won't you help yourself?"

"He wants to rescue past me from 36 years back, which means I'll cease to exist. Everything I've seen and done dissolves. Time is rewritten."

"That's…that's good, isn't it?"

"I will die. Another Amy will take my place. An Amy who never got trapped at Twostreams, an Amy who grew old with you, and she, in 36 years, won't be me."

"But you'll die in here!"

"Not if you take me with you. You came to rescue me, so rescue me."

"Leave her and take you?"

"We could take this Amy with us, easy, but if we do, our Amy has to wait 36 years to be rescued," the Doctor said.

Rory shook his head. "So I have to choose which wife do I want?"

"She is me. We're both me."

"You being here is wrong. For a single day, an hour, let alone a lifetime. I swore to protect you. I promised."

Amy stared at him for a moment and then entered her makeshift home.

"Rory," the Doctor said.

"This is your fault."

"I'm so sorry, but, Rory…"

"No, this is your fault! You should look in a history book once in a while, see if there's an outbreak of plague or not."

"Rory…" Elise said.

"Oh great. Let me guess. You're going to defend him, aren't you? Maybe you should grow up and realize that he's not perfect."

Elise had had enough. She was not going to stand around and constantly be insulted. "I'll be in my room."

"Elise…" The Doctor said, reaching for her.

"No. I…I need to be alone." She walked away and left her father standing in the control room alone.

An hour later, there was a knock on her door.

"Elise? It's me," Rory said.

Elise wiped her cheeks. "Um, come in."

The door opened and Rory entered. He walked toward Elise and sat down on her bed. "You've been crying."

"What gave you that impression?" Elise's voice was hard and Rory could tell she was holding back anger. She very rarely ever got mad.

"I wanted to apologize. For the things Amy and I said."

Elise sighed. "Rory, I know my father isn't perfect. He's responsible for the deaths of our people. He's impulsive and manipulative and when he gets mad, it's downright scary. But I love him anyway. He's the only real father I've ever known. I can look past his faults, because he's done so much for me. I know I put him on a pedestal sometimes, but honestly doesn't every other little girl do the same with their father?"

"So we're good?"

Elise smiled and wrapped her arms around Rory. "Of course. I could never be angry at my Uncle Rory."