Author's Note: To make up for my long delay in updating this one, here's another quick chapter! Hooray!

I would like to dedicate this chapter to the following people, who were kind enough to review the previous one: SophieQueenOfTheWorld, SawManiac211, MayFairy, sailormajinmoon, EmmaMarie (x 4), Push To Shove, Ahsilaa, silentnight, MountainLord-92, Guest, meloyelow123, Celestial Valkyrie, TheWickedHeart, Theta'sWorstNightmare, Geraldine, Imorgen and DoctorWhoFan93.

Big thanks to EmmaMarie for her big catch-up, you are wonderful XXX

To guest: Yeah, felt a bit bad about the cliffie, so here's quick update :)

To Geraldine: In this chapter, you get to see what happens with the crack, so I hope you enjoy!

To DoctorWhoFan93: Awesome, welcome on board, so great to receive your feedback. Very pleased to know how much you are enjoying it all. Writing seems to be a bit of an addiction for me at the moment, so I'm guessing there'll be a bit more from me around from time to time. Thanks so much for the review!

- CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN -

"Midnight? Why is it always midnight?" - Shrek, Shrek 2

Rapidly flicking through the possibilities in his head, the Doctor considered the two impossible options the Chaos-Master had faced him with. The Devil? – remain here with the reawakening Daleks. Or the deep blue sea? - risk the perils of the surging Time-fire blocking the only exit. Choosing between them was pointless, since each was equally deadly. The Chaos-Master had caught them in the perfect trap.

But then he smiled. Maybe not so perfect. After all, the one thing you should never include in a perfect trap was the Doctor.

"Captain Hart," he said. "If you're playing a game and the rules are stacked against you, what do you do?"

"Change the rules," Hart replied, without hesitation.

"Precisely."

The Doctor handed little Amelia to Amy for safe-keeping. "Stay back, you two." Then he headed back down the room towards the Daleks. "Rory, Hart, follow me."

"Follow you where?" Rory demanded in bewilderment. "What are you doing?"

"Grab a Dalek...and PUSH!" the Doctor ordered, ducking down behind the lead Dalek. "Quickly, before their weapons systems come back on-line!"

Even as he spoke, he was shoving the armoured cyborg along in front of him with all his strength, straight towards the glowing crack.

"Re-lease me!" the Dalek barked, its head casing spinning wildly. "You will re-lease me!"

Seeing what the Time Lord was doing, the other two men instantly followed his example, seizing the remaining Daleks from behind and thrusting them across the smooth, polished vinyl floor like a pair of shopping trolleys. The three cyborgs were enraged, but they were still seconds away from regaining enough power to energise their operating systems, and all they could do was scream useless threats.

"De-sist! DE-SIST!"

"O-bey the Da-leks!"

"You will be ex-term-in-ated!"

With one final, enormous shove, the Doctor propelled the lead Dalek directly into the heart of the crack, before leaping backwards to safety. Pulsating tentacles of white fire wrapped around the pepper-pot shape, silhouetting it for just a few, heart-stopping seconds, and then the light flared brightly and it was gone.

Hot on his heels, panting with effort, Hart and Rory also heaved their Daleks within range of the thrashing tentacles of light, It wasn't a moment too soon, as their weapons systems blinked back into life. A sizzling laser bolt flew dangerously close to Rory's ear, zinging towards Hart's head. The ex-Time Agent ducked with practised ease and the blast struck the wall behind him with an ear-splitting explosion.

But it was too late for the Daleks. The eldritch coils of Time-Fire fastened inexorably around them and dragged them violently inside the boiling gash of light. At once, there was a vibrating, roaring, rushing sound, followed by a noise like a clap of thunder, and the crack snapped shut.

Eerie silence fell across the room. For a few seconds, nothing moved.

Then Amy said in a hushed voice, "Wow."

"Yeah," Hart echoed sardonically. "Wow. What just happened?"

The Doctor dusted himself off and adjusted his bow tie. "The only thing that can close a crack in time of that size is a complicated space-time event," he replied. "Those Daleks were survivors of the Time War, one of the most catastrophic temporal apocalypses the Universe has ever known. Believe me, they qualified."

"But...where did they go?" Rory asked.

The Doctor shook his head. "I don't know. They were wiped from Time, just like you were. Just like Tejana has been. But wherever they ended up, the really, really good part about it is, the crack has closed and they aren't here any more. Problem solved!"

Tejana knew she couldn't afford to give any quarter. Even though she was fighting the man she loved, the man she would do anything never to hurt, she kicked and bit and scratched with every atom of strength she could muster. All she had to do was to break free for just a few seconds, just long enough to fling herself across the small room into the crack. If she managed to get close enough, the Time-fire would pull her in and even the Master wouldn't be able to stop it from taking her.

But he knew that as well as she did, and he was equally determined to make sure she didn't get the chance, using his superior strength and bulk to constrain her, pulling her steadily further and further away from her goal. The light streaming from the crack was growing brighter and brighter. Something unforeseen was happening. Oh gods, she thought, was it closing already of its own accord? Was the fabric of the space/time continuum already that unstable?

"Theta!" she screamed in desperation. "Help me!"

Her young father hovered uncertainly, obviously reluctant to attack his best friend, still believing he could reason with him instead. "Koschei, what the hell's the matter with you? Are you insane? Let her go!"

But Koschei's expression was as cold and unreachable as a winter's storm. "Interfere and I'll kill you, Theta," he promised, the whiskey-coloured eyes old and dangerous in his youthful face.

Disregarding the other boy completely, he proceeded to wrench Tejana's arms behind her back, despite her violent struggling, forcing a scream of pain from her lips.

Theta's expression darkened. "Then you'd better do it!" he growled, launching himself forward. "If you can."

Moving like lightning, his arm wrapped around Koschei's neck in a vicious stranglehold, cutting off the other Time Lord's air in an attempt to make him loosen his grip on Tejana. "Let go, Kos!"

But Koschei wouldn't. The Master's will inside him was much too strong. If anything, his hands only tightened, enforcing his control over the small, slender girl in his arms. Still holding on to her, he threw himself savagely backwards, crushing Theta against the rough, stone wall behind them, grinding his shoulder into the other boy's chest over and over again. All the breath exploded from Theta's lungs in an anguished howl.

Refusing to give up, Tejana battered the heels of her soft shoes against the Master's shins, wishing desperately for a pair of good, sharp stilettos she could drive into his instep. In the meantime, Theta managed to pull back his fist and slammed it mercilessly into the small of his opponent's back, impacting heavily with Koschei's kidneys. The Master yelled in rage and pain and doubled over, bringing all three of them tumbling to the ground in messy, confused tangle of arms and legs.

Sobbing with exertion, Tejana managed to extricate herself and began crawling towards the crack. Dimly, she was aware of the Master lunging for her with a snarl like a mad dog, only for Theta to grapple with him and hurl him back, intent on winning her the few precious seconds she needed to escape.

However, to her frustration, the glistening tendrils of Time-fire seemed to be retreating, drawing back before she could reach them. The crack gaped wider and wider, stretching like a terrible open mouth. Blinking against the extreme brightness, Tejana could see three small dark shadows forming in the centre of the yawning fissure. At first she thought they were spots dancing across her vision, caused from staring into the intense white light. Then she realised that they were getting larger, like something coming closer and closer down a long tunnel.

Behind her, she could hear the Master swearing violently as he fought to break free from Theta, using every dirty hand-to-hand combat trick in the book and some that weren't. Theta was taking heavy punishment, but with the dogged determination that was typical of him, he refused to relax his grip.

"Go, Kat!" he shouted. "Now! He's gone mad. I can't hold him much longer!"

But Tejana had stopped in her tracks, mesmerised by the approaching shadows, every instinct she possessed screaming in warning that things were about to get exponentially worse.

"GO!" Theta bellowed again, gasping in agony as the Master ruthlessly punched him in his previously-damaged ribs.

"I can't!" she cried in despair. "It's too late! Something else is already coming through!"

The shadows were solidifying now, the light running away from them like water, shapes forming out of the featureless blur. Tejana's eyes widened in horror. Very recognisable shapes. Shapes that had struck terror into the hearts of creatures across a thousand galaxies. Shapes that represented the thing she hated and feared more than anything else in the Universe.

"Oh no," she breathed, suddenly reversing direction and scrabbling backwards to put herself protectively in front of Theta and Koschei. "Oh, no, no, nooooooo!"

And, just like that, there was no more time. The crack snapped shut into a thin, luminous line, hanging in mid-air like the Cheshire Cat's grin, before disappearing altogether, taking all her hopes with it. She was once more trapped on Gallifrey, with no possible way of escape.

As were the three Time War Daleks gliding smoothly towards her, their weapons raised and ready to fire.

"Ex-ter-min-ate! Ex-ter-min-ate!"

Rory slammed the doors of the Pandorica Room and the Doctor used his sonic screwdriver on the lock, sealing it shut.

Hart's eyes narrowed in suspicion as he watched them. "What are you doing that for?" he demanded. "You're not expecting those tin pepper-pots to come back, are you?"

"No," the Doctor answered. "But it's better to be safe than sorry. I doubt very much that the Chaos-Master has finished playing with us just yet. He's having far too much fun."

Rapidly, he glanced around the museum foyer, looking for something else to block the door with. If the Chaos-Master did happen to find some more Daleks to send after them, just sonicking the lock wasn't going to be nearly enough.

"So, Rory," he said in the bright, conversational voice he always used when he was trying to lift morale and keep everyone's mind off the situation at hand. "Two thousand years. How did you do?"

Rory shrugged. "Kept out of trouble."

John Hart gave a derisive snort, as if he had known all along that someone as ordinary as Rory wouldn't be able to find trouble if it bit him on the ass, even if he was a plastic android. "Oh yeah? How?"

Rory shot him a poisonous glare. "Unsuccessfully," he snapped.

"That's nice," the Doctor said vaguely, not really listening. The only thing that appeared remotely useful to reinforce the door was an old-fashioned mop with a wooden handle that one of the cleaners had left behind, sitting in a corner in a grubby metal bucket. The Doctor hurried over and grabbed it, turning to face his companions with it in his hands.

Immediately, Rory's eyes lit up in sudden excitement, as if the answer to an age-old riddle had just been revealed to him. "The mop!" he shouted, pointing emphatically at the Doctor and making him jump. Then, a bit more calmly, he added: "Er...that's...how you looked all those years ago when you gave me the sonic."

Realising he had just caught up with his own divided time-line, the Doctor replied, "Right! No time to lose then!"

Still wearing the red fez and with the mop tucked under his arm, he activated the vortex manipulator and transported himself back to the only place in history he knew for certain still existed – Stonehenge. There, he found past-Rory sitting on the ground in his Roman officer's uniform, cradling a dead Amy in his arms. The young man looked up at him in astonishment, as if he was seeing a ghost.

"Rory! Listen, she's not dead!" the Doctor exclaimed breathlessly. "Well, she is dead, but it's not the end of the world. Well, it is the end of the world. Actually, it's the end of the Universe." He looked down at the mop in his hands, belatedly realising that he had forgotten to bar the door back in the museum after all. "Oh no! Hang on!"

He activated the vortex manipulator in reverse, rematerialising in the museum corridor. "Oops, sorry!" he said to his small group of companions. Without stopping to say anything further, he wedged the mop securely across the locked double doors into the Pandorica Room, holding them closed. Then he vanished again, reappearing beside past-Rory at Stonehenge.

"You need to get me out of the Pandorica," he said, getting straight to the point.

Past-Rory gave him a blank, uncomprehending look. "But you're not in the Pandorica."

The Doctor could have explained the temporal implications to another Time Lord in a few quick sentences, using the requisite technical terms. But trying to explain it so that a human could understand would probably take the next two thousand years, so he decided not to try.

"Yes, I am. Well, I'm not now, but I was back then. Well, back now from your point of view, which is back then from my point of view," he said, as simplistically as possible. "Time travel, you can't keep it straight in your head." Giving up on any further explanation, he reached into his pocket and withdrew his sonic screwdriver, handing it over to past-Rory. "Here, you can use this to open it from the outside."

The young man's eyes widened considerably, as if he was about to panic. "No, I can't! I've got no idea how to make it work."

The Doctor nearly grinned, thinking of the past-Hart who was currently skulking around down in the darkness of the Underhenge. Oh, Rory, are you in for a treat, he thought in amusement.

"Don't worry about that," he said aloud. "There's a man waiting down there who will help you. He's a bit of an ass...well, when I say a bit of an ass, what I really mean is, a lot of an ass...but he does grow on you. Kind of like a foot fungus, really... Anyway, the point is, he's an ex-Time Agent, so he knows about temporal technology. You might need to make a bit of effort to convince him at first, but you'll work it out. Now go."

With that, he reactivated the vortex manipulator and took himself back to the museum.

Little Amelia was tugging at the hem of Amy's jacket. "How does he do that?" she asked in an awestruck voice. "Is he magic?"

The Doctor didn't give Amy a chance to answer. "Right, let's go then!" he called, racing for the nearby stairs. Everyone followed him, only to stop at the foot of the stairs as he whirled around abruptly and faced them again. "WAIT! Now I don't have the sonic! I just gave it to Rory, two thousand years ago!"

He tapped again on the manipulator and returned briefly to Stonehenge. "Oh, and when you're done," he said to past-Rory. "Leave my screwdriver in her top pocket. Good luck!"

Another few taps on the controls and he was back on the stairs in the museum. He would never admit it to John Hart, but all this zipping back and forth unprotected through the Time Vortex was making his head swim, Time Lord or not. He couldn't help wondering how the Time Agents had ever put up with it on a prolonged basis, especially back when the Universe had not been so compact.

"Right!" He leaned forward and extracted the sonic screwdriver from Amy's top pocket. "Off we go!"

But before he'd taken more than two steps, he paused dramatically again and hurried back down the steps towards little Amelia, crouching down to her level and looking into her eyes. "Hang on! How do you know to come here?"

Little Amelia reached into the pocket of her duffle coat and pulled out a pamphlet with a yellow sticky note attached to it. The Doctor examined it closely. "Aaaah," he murmured. "My handwriting! Okay!"

Tossing the papers over his shoulder on to the floor, he rushed across to a nearby display stand, and seized a pamphlet out of one of the clear plastic holders. Then he crossed over to the reception desk and grabbed a yellow sticky note and a red pen. In the blink of an eye, he was standing outside Amelia's house, busily poking the note and pamphlet through the brass letterbox slot in the front door.

Next, he materialised a little later in the same timeline, behind little Amelia when she first arrived at the museum, snatching the drink she was holding right out of her hand. After that, it was back to staircase in the museum foyer, where his companions were still waiting for him.

"Here you go!" he said cheerfully to little Amelia, handing her the plastic container. "Drink up!"

Amelia stared at the drink in delight. "I knew it!" she cried. "You are magic!"

"Magic or not, he's not doing my hangover any good, popping in and out like that," Hart grumbled, pinching the bridge of his nose irritably. "Don't suppose you could rustle me up a few hyper-vodkas, could you, Doc? God knows, I could do with another drink right now."

Shyly, little Amelia held out her drink container to him. "You could have some of mine, if you like."

Despite the tough guy image he liked to portray, the Doctor saw the ex-Time Agent's gaze soften at the unmistakeable hero-worship in the little girl's face. For a brief instant, he was inexplicably reminded of Jack, as Hart grinned at Amelia and ruffled her hair. "Yeah? What's in it?" he asked gruffly.

"Water."

Hart gave a comical grimace, as if she had just suggested he drink poison. "Sorry, kid. Thanks for the offer, but the only time I ever intend to drink water is when fish learn to climb out of it to take a piss!"

Amy clapped her hands over the child's ears, spitting Hart with a furious glare, while Amelia giggled.

"Was it hard to learn to be this disgusting, or did it just come naturally?" Amy inquired, her voice dripping with acid sarcasm.

Hart ignored her and winked at Amelia. "She thinks I'm hot, really. She just doesn't want to admit it!"

Amy rolled her eyes and turned to the Doctor instead. "What is that thing?" she demanded, pointing at the leather strap wrapped around his wrist. "How are you doing that?"

"Vortex manipulator," the Doctor explained. "Cheap and nasty time travel. Very bad for you. I'm trying to give it up!"

She sighed in a resigned manner. "Where are we going?"

"The roof!"

Whirling around, the Doctor began to ascend the stairs again. At the same moment, there was a flash of light and a figure appeared at the top of the stairs. The Doctor stared in disbelief. It was him, identical in every single respect, except for the fact that his doppleganger had a large knife sticking out of his blood-stained chest. His double looked dully down at him for a few seconds, wavering on his feet, before he toppled and fell, rolling all the way down the stairs, until he came to rest on his back on the landing where the Doctor stood.

"Doctor, it's you!" Rory exclaimed in shock. "How can it be you?"

Without replying, the Time Lord pulled out his sonic screwdriver and ran it over the inert body of his double.

"Doctor, is it you?" Amy insisted.

"Yeah, it's me. Me from the future."

Hart took a step forward, his eyes fixed incredulously on the lethal-looking weapon protruding from the fallen man's body. "That's my knife. My knife, that's still in my boot. How the hell does it end up in your chest?"

Without warning, the future-Doctor's eyes sprang open and he heaved himself upright, before grabbing the present-Doctor and frantically whispering in his ear. Then he collapsed and fell backwards again, his eyes shut, his body limp and boneless.

Amy made a choked sound of distress. "Are you...? I mean, is he... dead?"

"What?" the Doctor responded vaguely, his mind spinning with the implications of the information his future self had just given him. "Dead?" Pulling himself together, he leapt to his feet. "Yes, yes, of course he's dead."

Climbing over the body without a second look, he began to climb the stairs, looking at his watch. "Right, I've got twenty two minutes, that's good."

"Twenty two minutes to live? How is that good?" Amy shouted at him.

"You can do loads in twenty two minutes," he replied nonchalantly. "Eat a hamburger, buy a sledge, have a bath... Come on, the roof!"

But Rory dug his heels in. "We can't just leave you here...dead!"

The Doctor levelled a freezing look in his direction. "Oh, good, are you in charge now?" he asked sarcastically. "So, tell me...what are we going to do about Amelia?"

Suddenly realising how quiet the little girl had been for the last few minutes, Amy, Rory and Hart all turned to look for her. The plastic drink cup lay abandoned on the floor, but there was no sign of the child anywhere.

"Where did she go?" Hart snapped, almost running back down the stairs. "Kid? Where are you? KID?"

Rory followed him, shouting the little girl's name up the empty, echoing corridors. "Amelia! Amelia!"

"There is no Amelia!" the Doctor said in a flat voice. "From now on, there never was. History is still collapsing."

Amy swallowed hard, her face pale in the dim light. "But, how can I be here, if she's not?"

"You're an anomaly! We all are. We're all hanging on at the eye of the storm, but the eye is closing, and if we don't do something, reality will never have happened." The Doctor hurried to the top of the stairs and glared down at them. "Today, just dying is a result. Now, come on!"

With that, he rushed away, heading for the roof. Behind him, Rory slipped off his night watchman's jacket and laid it gently over the dead man, respectfully covering his face.

Amy shook her head and wrapped her arms around herself in comfort. "He won't die!" she told herself aloud. "Time can be rewritten. He'll find a way. I know he will."

"Well, I know one simple, easy way we can stop it happening," Hart said, pulling his knife from his boot and tossing it to the ground beside the body. "If I leave this here, there's no way anyone can stab him with it in the next twenty two minutes. Case closed."

"Do you think that will work?" Rory asked hopefully.

"Dunno," Hart shrugged. "Don't see why not. We can only try."

"Come on, you lot!" the Doctor roared from up ahead. "Move it!"

Hastily, Hart and Rory ran up the stairs to join him, taking the stairs two at a time. Amy stayed on the landing for a few seconds longer, staring at the jacket-covered body, a curiously blank look on her face. Like a sleepwalker, her hand extended and she took hold of the knife, carefully concealing it out of sight inside her jacket.

"Amy!" Rory yelled from the distance.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm coming!" she responded, turning away from the fallen Doctor and hurrying up the stairs to catch up with her companions.

Another Author's Note:

I felt very bad about leaving you with such a cliffhanger last time...so here, have another one...or two...! In the next chapter, John Hart meets up with River Song again, which should be very interesting, woo hoo!

And if anyone is looking to read an Eleven/OC story, Ahsilaa has written one called "Across Time", for which she would appreciate people dropping by for a look!