The Doctor pushed the hatch up, climbing out onto the roof.
El poked her head out after, frowning. "It's day."
"We weren't in there for that long." Jack commented, as they all got onto the roof.
"No, we weren't." The Doctor confirmed. "But I told you before, time is shrinking. Doesn't anybody listen to me?"
"I listen." El boasted proudly.
"And for that," The Doctor took the fez off, placing it on El's head. "You get to keep this. Now, the universe is collapsing, we don't have much time left!" He jumped onto a pillar with a satellite dish.
"What are you doing?" Sarah Jane inquired.
"Looking for the TARDIS." The Doctor answered.
"But it exploded," Jack recalled.
"Not exploded, exploding." The Doctor corrected, pulling the dish off.
"But… why would she do that?" El asked. "How?"
"Good question, for another day." The Doctor replied. "Question now is; Total Event Collapse, every single star in existence was never born, not a single one, so what, the hell-" He turned, pointing to the sky. "Is that? …Like I said, I'm looking for the exploding TARDIS."
Sarah Jane held up a finger. "That's the sun."
"Oh yeah?" The Doctor replied. "Well, here's the sound that sun is making, right now."
The Doctor held up the dish, sonicing it, and they all froze, as a metallic, wheezing scraping filled the air.
El covered her mouth in shock, as she could feel the TARDIS's agony radiating from the star.
"That's my TARDIS burning up." The Doctor swallowed. "That's what's been keeping Earth warm."
Jack frowned. "Doctor, there's something else. A woman."
Sarah Jane shook her head. "I don't hear anything."
Jack pointed to his ear. "I know an attractive voice when I hear it."
The Doctor flicked the screwdriver open, boosting the volume.
"I'm sorry, my love… I'm sorry, my love… I'm sorry, my love…"
"River." El recognized. "What's wrong with her?"
"A recording, maybe?" Sarah Jane suggested.
"No…" The Doctor's arm fell. "Oh, she must've still been inside when the engines exploded so the TARDIS put the control room into a time loop to save her! She is right at the heart of the explosion…"
River joined two power conduits from the console together, the system sparking as the power flowed in a way it wasn't meant to.
The woman lifted one of the panels open, fiddling with the innards, before twisting the door lever, as one of the hexagonal roundels exploded, sending glass and sparks across the room.
She ran down the steps to the door.
She pulled the doors open, freezing.
A rock wall, the remnants of a planet the TARDIS had landed inside, blocked her escape.
"I'm sorry, my love…" River whispered, turning back to the console.
The heart of the TARDIS, directly underneath the control systems, erupted into an enormous ball of flame.
River joined two power conduits from the console together, the system sparking as the power flowed in a way it wasn't meant to.
The woman lifted one of the panels open, fiddling with the innards, before twisting the door lever, as one of the hexagonal roundels exploded, sending glass and sparks across the room.
She ran down the steps to the door.
She pulled the doors open, freezing.
A rock wall, the remnants of a planet the TARDIS had landed inside, blocked her escape.
"I'm sorry, my love…" River whispered, turning back to the console.
The heart of the TARDIS, directly underneath the control systems, erupted into an enormous ball of flame.
River joined two power conduits from the console together, the system sparking as the power flowed in a way it wasn't meant to.
The woman lifted one of the panels open, fiddling with the innards, before twisting the door lever, as one of the hexagonal roundels exploded, sending glass and sparks across the room.
She ran down the steps to the door.
River stopped, as the Doctor leaned against the painted wood.
"Hi honey, I'm home." The Doctor smiled slightly.
River checked her wrist strap, a hand on her hip. "And what sort of time do you call this?" She demanded, as the heart of the TARDIS erupted into fire.
Ozone popped at the Doctor reappeared, River and the Doctor standing arm in arm.
"El," River recognized, "And Sarah Jane." She glanced at the time agent, grinning. "And Captain Jack Harkness. Hello. Doctor River Song."
"Nice to meet you, Doctor River Song." Jack returned the grin, as their eyes practically made love to each other.
"Oh, god, it's like having two of them." The Time Lord grumbled.
"Right then," River clapped her hands, "I have questions. But number one is this: What in the name of sanity have you put on that girl's head?"
"It's a fez." El answered for the Doctor, hand going up to the hat. "I wear a fez now."
The Doctor chuckled, smiling. "Fezzes are cool."
River let out a suffering sigh.
"EXTERMINATE!" The stone Dalek from before shouted, hovering up to the roof from down below.
"Go!" The Doctor shouted. "Run, run, run!" He grabbed the dish, using it as a shield to block the Dalek's weakened blasts, as the others climbed down the hatch.
Once inside, the Doctor stood at the top of the ladder, sonicing the hatch shut.
"Doctor," River kept her gun trained on the hatch, as the Dalek banged on it from outside. "We need to move."
"Shh." The Doctor hopped down. "It's going around, finding another way in. It needs to restore its power before it can attack again. Now, that means we've got about," He checked his watch, "Four and a half minutes before it's at lethal capacity."
"How do you know that?" Jack questioned as the Doctor took the lead down the stairs.
"Because, that's when it kills me."
"Kill you!?" River's head snapped over to the Doctor.
"Never mind that!" The Doctor shot back. "How can that Dalek even exist?" He asked, taking the lead down the corridor. "It was erased from history, it never existed at all! And it came back, how?"
"You mentioned something about the light." Jack recalled.
"From the Pandorica." El finished.
"It's not a light, it's a restoration field." The Doctor retorted. "But never mind, light works. It's what brought Sarah Jane back, but how can it bring back a Dalek when the Daleks never existed!?"
"…Okay." El shrugged. "Tell us how."
The Doctor glanced at her, before he continued moving. "When the TARDIS exploded, it caused a Total Event Collapse, time explosion. That explosion destroyed every atom in the universe, except-"
"The ones inside the Pandorica." Sarah Jane recognized.
"Yes. Now, each one of those atoms contains an imprint." The Doctor continued. "Like a microscopic snapshot of the universe as it was. In theory, you could extrapolate a whole new universe from just one, and we've got the bumper family pack!"
"Is that… possible?" El asked.
"Possible, yes." The Doctor replied. "I'd say that Dalek was proof enough. Skaro never existed in this collapsing timeline, but it did in the original. The restoration field from the Pandorica hit the Dalek, ergo, it brought it back. Not just restoring its life, restoring its history. And that, is how we're going to do it."
"Doc… You can't seriously be suggesting we bring back a whole universe with a… nightlight!" Jack stated.
"Yes, he's right!" River agreed, stomping behind the Time Lord. "It's ridiculous. That light was able to barely restore one Dalek! If it can't even restore a single life form, how's it going to restore the whole of reality!?"
"What if we give it a moment of infinite power?" The Doctor suggested in response. "What if we can transmit the light from the Pandorica so it covers all of space and time at once?"
"Well that would be lovely, dear," River smacked her lips, "but we can't-because it's completely impossible!"
"Ah, no, you see, it's not." The Doctor replied. "It's only almost completely impossible. One spark is all we need."
"For what?" Jack asked.
The Time Lord smiled. "Big Bang Two. Now, listen-"
A loud, mechanical zap cut the Doctor off, as his skeleton began to glow through his body. He fell to the ground, as the others began to panic.
"EXTERMINATE!" The Dalek screeched, having found its way inside. "EXTERMINATE!"
"Back!" Jack ordered, pushing El and Sarah Jane into cover. "River!" He shouted to the woman over the Doctor's body. "Back, now!"
"EXTERMINATE!" The Dalek screeched again.
Jack peeked back out of cover, firing two shots from his Webley revolver at the Dalek.
Though Jack didn't hit the Dalek's eyestalk, it powered down, being so weak not even its normal external defenses could protect it. He holstered the weapon, as El and Sarah Jane went back over to the Doctor.
"Doctor," River addressed the Time Lord in anguish, who was spasming on the floor, in great pain. "Doctor, it's me, it's River. Can you hear me?"
The Doctor's hand flew down to his wrist, and with two beeps, the Vortex Manipulator activated, carrying him away in a blast of lightning.
"Where did he go?" River looked around. "Damn it, he could be anywhere."
"…downstairs." El sniffled, looking at the empty space. "Twelve minutes ago."
"Show me." The woman demanded, turning to the girl.
"River…" Sarah Jane swallowed. "He died down there."
"SYSTEMS RESTORING!" The Dalek proclaimed.
"Damn it!" Jack hissed. "I thought I took that thing out already!"
"YOU WILL BE EXTERMINATED!"
River stared hatefully at the creature. "You lot go to the Doctor. I'll be right with you."
The other three looked between each other, before they ran off, Jack covering their backs, as they went back to the stairs.
"YOU WILL BE EXTERMINATED!" The Dalek shouted, inching ever closer.
"Not yet." River retorted, taking her blaster from its holster. "Your systems are still restoring, which means your shield density is compromised. One alpha meson blast to your eyestalk would kill you stone dead."
"RECORDS INDICATE YOU WILL SHOW MERCY." The Dalek replied, coming to a stop. "YOU ARE AN ASSOCIATE OF THE DOCTOR'S."
River snarled. "I'm River Song." She replied, leveling the blaster at the Dalek. "Check your records again."
The Dalek inched back slightly as it reviewed the information. The one being in all the universe that succeeded where the Daleks had failed time and time again. "…MERCY."
"Say it again." River ordered.
"MERCY."
"One last time."
"MERCY!" The Dalek begged.
The trio sprinted to the steps where they had seen the Doctor keel over, and they collectively froze.
"He's gone." El looked to Jack's discarded coat on the floor.
"Ellie, kid, if there's one thing you need to know about your dear old dad," Jack began, picking the coat up off the floor, "Is that he's a lying liar who lies."
"Rule one." River stated, coming towards them. "The Doctor lies."
Sarah Jane looked around. "What happened to that Dalek?"
"It died." River stated, shaking with anger as she took the lead.
"Doctor!" Jack shouted, as the four of them ran back into the large hall containing the Pandorica.
"Dad!" El ran up to it quickly, the Time Lord lying slumped over in the chair.
"Why would he tell us he was dead?" Jack questioned.
"…we were the diversion." Sarah Jane realized. "As long as the Dalek was chasing us, he could work down here."
"Doctor," River examined him, "Can you hear me? What were you doing?"
The light from the exploding TARDIS shifted from a warm orange to a hostile red, as Jack looked to the source. "What's happening?"
"The collapse is speeding up." River explained. "Look around." She ordered, as El held onto the Doctor's limp hand.
"The exhibits," Sarah Jane realized, looking at the totally empty displays. "They're gone."
"History's been erased… not long for us now." River turned back to the Time Lord. "Doctor, time is running out. What were you doing? Doctor?"
The Doctor forced himself to look up, his breathing becoming labored as he looked to El, hand tightening around hers, before his eyes glided over to River. "Big… Bang… Two…"
"Big Bang Two?" El repeated, swallowing as she looked at the Doctor. "Dad… what does that mean?"
"The Big Bang… the creation of the universe." Jack explained.
"Big Bang Two, that's the one that brings us back?" Sarah Jane theorized. "Doctor, is that what you mean?"
The Doctor forced himself to nod slowly.
"Oh…" River breathed in realization.
"River, what?" El asked, keeping herself from crying in front of all of them.
"The TARDIS is still exploding." River answered. "The Key to Time was already destroyed, but the TARDIS herself exists outside of time… Exploding at every single point in time and space at once. If you threw the Pandorica into the heart of the fire…"
"'Let there be light…'" Jack breathed in realization himself. "That light from the Pandorica, the restoration field… it would shine at every point in space and time."
"A second Big Bang…" Sarah Jane finished in awe. "Would that work?"
"A restoration field powered by an exploding TARDIS…" River turned back to the Doctor. "It might even work." She took the Doctor's sonic screwdriver, sonicing the Vortex Manipulator on his wrist, a series of wires running from it to the Pandorica. "He's wired the Vortex Manipulator into the rest of the box."
"Why?" El asked.
"So he can take it with him." River answered, as tears began to fall from El's eyes. "He's going to fly the Pandorica into the heart of the explosion."
Big Bang Two, the universe restarted… at the cost of the Doctor.
