A/N: Hi there! Thanks so much for all your lovely reviews, you guys are terrific, and I appreciate them more than I can say! I am determined to finish this fic, so hopefully there will more chapters to follow, a bit more promptly from now on.
- Chapter 37 -
"Maybe there's a God above,
But all I've ever learned from love
Was how to shoot somebody who outdrew ya.
And it's not a cry that you hear at night,
It's not somebody who's seen the light,
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah."
- Hallelujah, Leonard Cohen.
"Koschei!"
Tejana's anguished scream rang out, but before his name had passed her lips, she was already starting to forget. Blinded by the white light, her memories of the Master began to unravel, like thread unwinding from a spool. Already she was struggling to recall his face, his whiskey-brown eyes, the whiteness of his smile, the warmth of his touch.
"Doctor!" Her head felt as heavy as lead, but somehow she managed to turn it, her cheeks streaked with pleading tears. He could help. He had to help, before it was too late, and the last trace of the Master was lost to her forever. But her father's face was contorted in agony, his whole body spasming with the trauma of his averted regeneration. Just beyond, Tejana could see the red blur of Amy's hair as the human girl fell to her knees beside him in despair.
"Doctor..." Tejana tried again, but her voice trailed away into confusion, her mind fighting to hold on to the reason they were there. She tried to tighten her grip on his hand, but her fingers felt numb and refused to obey her commands. "Please!"
"I'll make this right, Tejana," he croaked. "I promise you, I will."
Without warning, there was a loud shout and the sound of running feet. River suddenly burst into view, skidding on her knees to the Doctor's side.
"What's happened?" she demanded in consternation, her hands hovering uselessly over the hilt of the knife that was still jutting from his chest. "You silly man, what have you done?" Her eyes flew to Tejana's age-ravaged face, her gaze cold and empty of recognition. "Who the hell are you?"
"My daughter" the Doctor murmured, his words slurring together, as if he was just barely conscious. "My daughter's come home."
"Tejana?" River echoed incredulously.
The Time Lady managed a weak nod in confirmation. River was a time traveller. She was positively brimming with artron energy absorbed during her sojourns through the Time Vortex. And Tejana wasn't part of her direct timeline... which was why, thank the stars, the other woman could remember her.
"Help... him," she begged.
River's attention snapped back to the Doctor, fear in her eyes, her hand reaching to brush back his hair in an automatic soothing gesture. "Doctor... Doctor, it's me, River. Can you hear me? What can I do? What do you need?"
A faint, almost apologetic smile crossed his pain-wracked face as he stared up at her. And then, in a bewildering flash of light, he activated his vortex manipulator and was gone.
Shocked, River gaped at her empty hands. "Where'd he go?"
She leaped to her feet, distress turning to fury at her own helplessness. "Damn it! He could be anywhere!"
"He went downstairs," Amy spoke up from where she was still crouched on the ground, her voice dull and lifeless and utterly without hope. "Twenty two minutes ago."
River whirled around to her, every atom of her body radiating urgency. "SHOW ME!"
Slowly, Amy raised her eyes to meet the woman's gaze. "River... he died."
"No," Tejana croaked. And then again, with more determination, "NO!"
Staggering, weaving back and forth as if she was drunk, she stumbled to her feet. She felt so drained, so all-consumingly weak, and the worst part was, she couldn't remember why. Nevertheless, she would be damned if she was going to just let this happen without fighting back. She was a Lungbarrow... and a Lungbarrow never gave up.
"Time can be re-written," she gritted out, gripping River's arm as the other woman reached out to steady her. "So let's find him and damn well re-write it!"
It wasn't easy for Tejana to walk. Her legs felt like rubber, as if they might fold beneath her at any moment. Had she been ill? she wondered hazily. Was this terrible lack of artron energy the result of a failed regeneration? More than once, River's strong arm kept her from falling, as the three women made their way to the grand staircase leading back down to the foyer of the museum, each of them dreading what they were about to find.
When they reached it, however, there was nothing to be seen, except a jacket lying carelessly on the ground, halfway up the flight of steps. Amy snatched it up and held it to her tightly, tears glistening in her eyes.
"B-but... how could he have moved? He was dead." She raised her voice and began to call plaintively, "Doctor? Doctor!"
"Who told you that?" River asked dryly, exchanging a glance with Tejana.
"He did," Amy insisted. "Rory, Hart and I... we were all here! We all saw him fall!"
Tejana drew her breath in wearily. "Rule One," she said. "The Doctor lies." Then, as the rest of Amy's words sank in, her lined face crinkled like paper. "Hart? Captain John Hart? He was here?"
"He came looking for you, I think," Amy nodded.
Surprise shot through Tejana's veins, incomprehension drawing her brows together in a frown. John Hart had come searching for her? The most selfish man in the universe? Why would he have done that?
"Where is he now?"
"He died," River replied, the brevity of her words contrasting sharply with the underlying grief in her tone. "Come on, let's find the Doctor. My guess is that he's gone down to the Pandorica."
Hart... dead? The idea was astonishingly surreal. He'd always seemed larger than life, almost invincible, in his own infuriating and abrasive way. Feeling as though she'd just been punched in the stomach, Tejana numbly limped the rest of the way down the stairs as quickly as she could, leaning heavily on River's arm.
Sure enough, the other woman was right. When they reached the room where the Pandorica was being exhibited, they saw the Doctor was inside the enormous stone box, slumped in the chair where he had once been imprisoned, his head lolling to the left. Immediately, River ran to his side, calling his name and patting at his face, trying her best to awaken him.
"Why did he tell us he was dead?" Amy asked.
Light-headed, and now devoid of River's support, Tejana leant against the nearest wall, using it to prop herself up. Against her will, her eyes closed. All she wanted to do was sleep. To close her eyes and never wake up. To dream away eternity, protected from pain and fear and loss.
"His future self told him what was going to happen," she responded drowsily. "He made a plan based on that information. I expect he thought you'd try to change things, if he told you the truth."
"Doctor! Doctor, can you hear me?" River's voice echoed out of the Pandorica.
Outside the museum, through the half-circle fanlight high above the stone box, they could see the orange blaze of the burning TARDIS in the sky, bathing all that was left of the Earth in its turgid light. All at once, the corona of fire began to grow brighter and brighter, until it was almost too incandescent to look upon.
"What's happening?" Amy cried, taking a step backwards.
Tejana's eyes flickered open. She saw River appear at the door of the Pandorica, her jaw set, dread seeming to hang over her like a sharpened axe.
"Reality's collapsing. It's speeding up. Look at this room."
At River's directive, Amy turned to looked behind her, down the long, cavernous hall, that had once contained a multitude of varied exhibits. Now, all the glass cases and roped-off enclosures were empty, as if they had never been there at all.
Amy gasped. "Where'd everything go?"
"History's being erased," Tejana replied dully, her eyes trailing over the chilling evidence of the temporal decay. She wished she could summon up some indignation, some sort of rage, here at the end of all things. Maybe if she could just recapture that flare of determination she had felt upstairs, that certainty that together, she and her father could still change the way it went. But feeling her energy draining away, drip by drip; seeing him slumped so lifelessly in that chair... both her hearts had sunk like twin stones. What was left? What could they possibly do? Perhaps there was no way back. Perhaps they were really beaten. "Time's running out."
"Doctor!" In desperation, River spun back into the Pandorica. "Doctor, what were you doing? You had a plan! Tell us!" She shook him gently by the shoulder, trying to rouse him. "Doctor!"
He stirred slightly, more blood staining his lips, as he strove to speak. "Big... Bang... Two."
"The Big Bang?" Amy repeated, moving forward, towards the doorway of the Pandorica. "That's the beginning of the universe, right? That's the bang that's going to bring us back? That's what you mean?"
Tejana saw the Doctor gave a twitch of his head, a tiny indication of confirmation. For a moment, she had no idea what he was talking about, and she was afraid his wits were wandering. But then, suddenly, it was as if someone had switched a light on in the dark of her mind. "OH!"
"What?" Amy demanded.
Over the red-headed girl's head, Tejana's eyes met River's, and she could see from the expression dawning across the archaeologist's face that she had also understood.
"The TARDIS is still burning," the Time Lady murmured. "It's exploding at every point in history. Trust me, I've seen the results of that. But... if you threw the Pandorica into the explosion, right into the heart of the fire..."
"What then?" Amy urged eagerly.
Tejana tilted her head back, to look up at the terrible, swirling inferno high above them in the sky, her quick mind calculating the odds, putting together the fragments of her father's plan.
"Then let there be light. The light from the Pandorica would explode everywhere at once, just like he said," River explained.
"That would work? That would bring everything back?"
River nodded. "A restoration field powered by an exploding TARDIS, happening at every moment in history. Oh, that's brilliant. It might even work."
She pulled out her sonic screwdriver and hurried back to the semi-unconscious Doctor, buzzing the blue-tipped silver rod up and down his arm, before centring the screwdriver on the time-travel device strapped to his wrist. "He's wired the vortex manipulator to the rest of the box."
"Why?"
Tejana pushed herself off the wall and shuffled forward to join Amy, her back bent and twisted like an old woman. Her appearance was even older now, resembling a human female in her late eighties, lank grey hair straggling across her wrinkled face.
"So he can take it with him," she said grimly, her breath coming in short, wheezing pants, as she stared accusingly in at her mortally-injured father. "He's going to fly the Pandorica into the heart of the explosion."
A short time later, side by side, Tejana and Amy stood, watching the coruscating ball of flame in the sky. It was much lower down now, as if the sun was setting across the entire universe.
"I'm sorry," Amy murmured, over and over again, like an automaton that couldn't stop. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry..."
"For what?" Tejana asked, her voice cracked with age and sorrow.
"I stabbed him. I didn't mean to. But I still did it. I would rather have stabbed myself."
"Some situations... there's no magic wands for, Amy." Tejana's response was firm, but gentle. She reached out a gnarled, withered old hand and squeezed Amy's smooth, young one. "He knew what would happen. He could have changed it, but he chose not to." She pointed to her temple. "I have... gaps... in my memories that shouldn't be there. I can't remember a lot about what happened. There are crucial links missing. I'm a Time Lady, I know when there's been a shift in time. I may not remember all the reasons we're standing here right now. But I suspect that what happened is as much my fault as it is yours. Maybe even more so."
There was a step behind them, and they both turned.
"He wants to see you both," River said wearily. She'd been busy inside the Pandorica, making the Doctor as comfortable as possible – even though there really wasn't much that could be done. "First you, Amy, then Tejana."
"So what happens here?" Amy demanded, looking back and forth between Tejana and River. "Big Bang Two? What happens... to us? And what about Rory... and Hart?"
"We all wake up where we're supposed to be," River said, knowing where Amy's questions were about to lead. But there was no point in trying to sugarcoat the truth. The girl deserved to know exactly what was about to occur. "None of this ever happens and we don't remember it."
Amy's face twisted in grief. "Tell me he comes back too."
It wasn't a plea. It was much more forceful than that. And it seemed to hit Tejana right between the hearts. Everything was about to change forever. Amy just didn't understand how much.
"The Doctor will be at the heart of the explosion," she answered quietly.
"So?"
"So all the cracks in time will close, but he'll be on the wrong side, trapped in the never-space, the void between the worlds. All memory of him will be purged from the universe. He will never have been born."
Amy shook her head, refusing to accept what she was being told. "But he's your father. If he's never born, what happens to you?"
"The universe will compensate," Tejana said, her tone hollow and bleak. "It has a habit of doing that. It will stitch itself together and it will go on. Somehow."
Or it would, she told herself silently. If it was given a chance. Except that in the case of her own history, she didn't intend to give it one.
"Please, Amy," River insisted, the grief surging with every breath she expelled. "He wants to see you before he goes."
Amy hesitated, then gave a brief nod, before heading back towards the open door of the Pandorica.
As soon as she was out of earshot, River put her hand on Tejana's shoulder, turning the Time Lady to face her. The look on her face was compassionate but shrewd. "He won't let you do it, you know."
Tejana's chin came up. River had always seen too much, always known too much, about the Doctor and about her. Even back then, in the Library, when she had met the woman for the first time, and River had met her for the last time. Maybe she was important to the Doctor. Maybe, in the once-future, she might have become his wife, just as Tejana had teased him back at Stone Henge. A wife that he chose and truly loved. But that had been before the Pandorica opened and the goblin inside had torn the causal nexus into pieces. Now, everything was different. River couldn't be allowed to interfere, not when Tejana had made her final decision.
"I don't know what you're talking about," she lied, meeting River's gaze squarely, as if she had nothing at all to hide.
"Yes, you do. There are two seats in that Pandorica. Two seats, two Time Lords. I know exactly what you're intending to do." River's hand tightened on Tejana's shoulder. "Don't bother to deny it. I saw it in your eyes as soon as you realised what he was planning."
Tejana bit down hard on her lower lip, refusing to let her tears spill over. There had already been too much crying. The time for that was over and done with. "I won't let him go alone. If you knew me at all, you'd understand that."
"Tejana..."
"No, River." She pulled roughly away from the restraining hand. "You know what will happen. I don't quite get how you know, but you do. He'll vanish from history and the universe will shift to mend the gap, the way it always does. I'll still exist, but I won't be his daughter any more. I'll be someone else altogether, and I can't bear the thought of that. I don't want any other father. I don't want any other life." She glared at River, silently pleading with her to understand. "I'm not stupid. I can feel that the Timefire has already purged my timeline. There's someone missing, someone so important that my personal history has been shredded into tatters. I won't lose the Doctor too."
"You won't remember any of it," River argued back.
"I won't remember... but I'll know," Tejana retorted painfully. "I'll always know. There will be a gap, an endless hollow, where something was meant to be, but somehow isn't. I won't live like that. I can't!"
There was a terrible certainty in her voice. She didn't know where it came from, but it was as if she had lived it all before, everything she was describing to River. As if she'd experienced the timelines shifting before, stealing away a life that should have been hers.
At that moment, Amy reappeared, framed in the doorway of the Pandorica. She looked shaken and upset, and she'd obviously been crying. "He's asking for you, Tejana."
Tejana nodded, and stepped towards the doors.
Determined to make her listen, River tried one last time. "You're his daughter! This isn't what he wants for you, Tejana!"
A sharp bark of laughter erupted from Tejana's lips, River's words sending her rocketing back in her mind, to her conversation with Theta Sigma, deep in the corridors beneath the Time Lord Academy during her borrowed time on Gallifrey:
...Her lips quirked in sadness. "My father was always very good at telling me what he didn't want for me. But he never really managed to say what it was he did want."
Theta smiled comfortingly and took her hand. "Probably the same things all fathers want for their daughters. The same things I would want for mine."
"What things?" she asked shakily.
"Love. Laughter. All the happiness in the Universe. Magic and wonder and joy. And most of all, above everything else, for her to be safe..."
"Yeah, well, this time, River," she said, shoving the words out of her mind and brushing past Amy, to pause on the threshold of the Pandorica. "He doesn't get a say."
And with that, she walked inside, and was swallowed up by the spill of bright, white light.