"…Legend says, wherever the Pandorica was taken, the Centurion would be there, guarding it." The display piece in the National Gallery played back, as Sarah Jane, and Sarah Jane watched.
The year was 1963, even though there was a flatscreen television with a playback going (the damage to time had been so great, that technology was a good fifty years ahead of what it should've been), and Sarah Jane had been found.
By a younger version of herself. A child, only about twelve years old. The young girl had been led to the museum by a series of mysterious messages, relentlessly pestering her Aunt Lavina to take her there.
Upon her arrival, she found a note on the Pandorica, telling her to stick around until dark. So, she did, and night had fallen. The younger version of Sarah Jane placed a hand on the prison, letting the older version be revived and set free.
Now, they were watching, a video of the history of the Pandorica playing back.
"The Centurion appears as an iconic image in the artwork of many cultures, and there are several documented accounts of his appearances, and his several warnings to those who attempted to open the box. His last recorded appearance was during the London Blitz in 1941. The warehouse where the Pandorica was stored was destroyed by incendiary bombs, but the box itself was found the next morning, a safe distance from the blaze. There are eyewitness accounts of the night of the fire of a figure in an odd mixture of Roman and contemporary dress hauling the Pandorica out of the flames. Since then, there have been no sightings of the lone centurion. And many speculated that, if he ever existed, he perished in the fires of that night."
"Doctor…" Sarah Jane, the older one, breathed. "What did you do?"
"EXTERMINATE!" A voice across the massive hall proclaimed.
The child Sarah Jane jumped. "What's that?"
Sarah Jane put herself in front of the child, watching as a stone Dalek, recovered from underneath Stonehenge, slid towards the Pandorica.
"EXTERMINATE!" The alien snarled.
Lightning popped next to the two, as the Doctor and El materialized in a puff of smoke.
"Oh." The Time Lord blinked, turning around. "Oh! Two of you!" He looked between the Sarah Janes. "Complicated."
"EXTERMINATE!" The Dalek shouted, causing the Doctor to jump. The Dalek looked down at its gunstick as it failed to fire. "WEAPONS SYSTEMS RESTORING."
"Right, come along, everyone!" The Doctor grabbed the older Sarah Jane's hand, the woman grabbing her younger self, before he led them into cover.
"What are we doing!?" The older Sarah Jane demanded, as the Doctor ran into a mannequin.
Fumbling around, the Time Lord knocked the fez off the mannequin, holding it in his hand. "Well, we're running into a dead end where I'm going to have a brilliant plan to get rid of that Dalek!"
"Dad?" El looked to the Time Lord.
"That Dalek's restoring, but I don't know if your powers are going to effect it. Better not chance it."
"What's going on?" A security guard questioned, shining a torch beam into the chamber.
"Get out of here!" The Doctor ordered. "Just go! Run!"
"DROP THE DEVICE!" The Dalek ordered.
"It's not a weapon!" The Doctor said, assuming the creature was talking about the torch. "Go on, scan it! It's not a weapon and you don't have the power to waste!"
"SCANS INDICATE INTRUDER IS… ARMED!"
"Yep." The security guard replied, suddenly hefting an enormous rifle up, firing two shots at the Dalek's eyestalk.
"VISION IMPAIRED! VISION IMPAIRED!" The Dalek screeched, spinning around.
The Doctor poked his head out. "Jack!"
"Two thousand years." The man began striding over, allowing the Cybergun to fall to his side. "You practically spin me around blindfolded, kick me in the back, and tell me to get to it, before vanishing into nothing."
"Oh, uh…" The Doctor sheepishly blinked.
The man suddenly laughed, before pulling the Doctor into a bear hug. "Good to see you again, Doctor!" He beamed, before pressing a kiss that lasted a good ten seconds to the Time Lord's lips. "That's for getting me out of that grave."
The Doctor spluttered and wiped his mouth. "Well, somebody didn't get out much for two-thousand years."
El eyebrows furrowed before she looked to the Doctor. "What was that he just did?"
"Oh, well, um…" The Time Lord scratched his head. "It was a kiss."
"A… kiss?"
"Yeah, a smooch, a snog, sucking face." The Doctor told the child. "You only do it with people you like. Unless you're like him. He's a harlot."
"A harlot?" El questioned.
"A man or a woman who goes around kissing lots and lots of people for no reason. A harlot. AKA, Captain Jack Harkness."
"I am not!" Jack denied, before he glanced over to the older woman. "And Sarah Jane Smith…" He smiled. "Big fan of your work."
"Really?" The woman blushed. "Oh."
"See?" The Doctor whispered to the two young girls. "Harlot…"
"Excuse me, bow-tie man," The young Sarah Jane pulled on his arm, "I'm thirsty. Do you have anything to drink?"
"Oh, it's all mouths today, isn't it?" The Doctor grumbled, shoving the fez on her head.
The girl removed the hat, shoving it back to the Doctor.
"Wait…" The Doctor looked to the still-open Pandorica. "The light… the light from the Pandorica. It must've hit the Dalek."
The creature began to whirr as it returned to activity.
"Out!" The Doctor quickly took a step back from the Dalek. "Out! Out!" He ushered the others forward, pulling along El and the other child. "So!" The Time Lord looked at Jack as he helped slam the door shut, the Doctor sonicing the door locked. "Two-thousand years, how was it?"
"You know me, kept out of trouble." Jack answered.
"That's a damn lie!" The Doctor glanced at the hat in his hands, quickly getting sick of carrying it around, before placing it on his head.
"What!?"
"You were in ancient Rome and just across the way from ancient Greece!" The Doctor replied. "I know how… 'loving' those two societies were!" He grabbed a mop, jamming it in the door handles. "Right, let's keep going!" He dashed over to the stairs, "No, hang on!" He turned around, bending down to the young Sarah Jane's level. "How'd you know to come here?"
The girl reached into her pockets, pulling out some sticky notes and a pamphlet, before handing it to the Doctor.
"Ahh, my handwriting." The Doctor smiled, throwing the objects over his head. He ran over, grabbing a pamphlet out of a display case, before running over to a nearby desk for the sticky notes and pen. He tapped a series of commands into the Vortex Manipulator, vanishing.
The young Sarah Jane gasped. "How did he do that?"
The Doctor suddenly appeared back in the room, holding a large drink with a straw. "There you go, drink up." He passed it off to her, walking up the steps.
"Where are we going?" El asked.
"The roof!" The Doctor answered.
Lighting cracked at the top of the steps, and all of them froze as the Doctor, clothes looking raggedy and the man himself looking haggard, appeared. He stared down at them, before tumbling down.
The Doctor ran over, scanning the future version of himself with the sonic.
"Dad…" El slowly approached. "It's you. How can it be…?"
The Doctor didn't respond, moving his other self's head.
"Doctor," Sarah Jane, the proper one, began. "Is that you?"
"…It's me." The Doctor confirmed. "Me from the future."
The older Doctor's eyes snapped open, locking on himself, pulling himself closer. The older Doctor whispered something into his younger self's ears, before flopping back on the ground.
"Doctor… that can't be you." Jack swallowed. "You'd regenerate."
"…not always." The Doctor replied, as he shot to his feet. "Right, I've got about twelve minutes, good!"
"How is that good!?" El demanded.
"Oh, you can do loads in twelve minutes." The Doctor replied. "Suck a mint, buy a sledge, have a fast bath. Come on!" He snapped his fingers. "The roof!"
"W-Well we can't just leave you here!" Sarah Jane replied.
"Oh good, someone other than me is finally taking charge." The Doctor walked back down to her level. "So, tell me, have you got a plan to deal with the sudden vanishing act of your younger self?"
The other three suddenly whipped around, seeing only the cup lying on the ground.
"Where'd she go?" El asked.
Jack ran down to the bottom. "Sarah! Sarah Jane Smith!" He called, receiving nothing in response.
"There is no Sarah Jane. There never was." The Doctor took a couple of steps down. "History is still collapsing. She was the youngest, she vanished first."
"But, how can I still be here?" Sarah Jane asked.
"You're a time remnant. We all are." The Doctor answered. "The last vestiges of an altered timeline hanging on by a thread in the eye of the storm, and that eye is shrinking! If we don't do something now the whole of the universe will have never happened, just dying is the result! Now, come on!" He shouted, running off into the museum.
Jack looked down to the Doctor's body, pulling off his coat. He laid it gently over the Time Lord's body, sighing.
"He can't die…" El whispered. "He can't. I won't let it happen."
"COME ON!" The Doctor bellowed. "MOVE IT!"
The three shook their heads but sprinted up the stairs to catch up.
Unbeknownst to them, however, there was still another danger.
"…RESTORE!"
