I'm Sorry

A woman was escorted through the home of the Holy Roman Emperor - Winston Churchill - until they had reached the man himself. The woman, dressed in pale green, watched him without a definable expression on her face until he ordered they be left alone.

"Tick tock, goes the clock, as the old song says," Winston said. "But they don't, do they? The clocks never tick. Something has happened to time. That's what you say. What you never stop saying. All of history is happening at once. But what does that mean? What happened? Explain to me in terms that I can understand. What happened to time?"

'A man. A wonderful, horrible man.'

The woman raised her eyebrows. "A woman."

|C-S|

In another time, Adelaide stepped out of the TARDIS with the Stetson on, walking through the destruction, until she had reached the final lifeform on the ship. "Now, I have a feeling that you don't fully understand the emotions you're experiencing at the moment," she walked up to the nearly dead Dalek. "Let me give you a word for this: afraid. You are afraid."

The Dalek twitched. "Emergency. Emergency. Weapon system disabled. Emergency!"

Adelaide used her sonic to open the casing of the Dalek. "I need information from your data core. Everything the Daleks know about the Silence."

|C-S|

Adelaide stepped up to the bar of Calisto B. "Gideon Vandaleur. Now."

"Who says he's here?" the bartender snapped.

"The fact you just stole five hundred credits from that man." She nodded at the one in question. Not liking the threat, but needing to send a message. Then, nodding at the bartender, she moved to sit at a table, waiting for him to bring Gideon.

A hooded figure sat before her, lowering the hood to reveal an eyepatch. "Father Gideon Vandaleur, former envoy of the Silence." She leaned back. "My condolences."

"Your what?"

"Gideon Vandaleur has been dead for six months." She soniced the man, making him freeze, before leaning forward. "I need to speak to your captain." She gave them a few seconds before she spoke again. "Hello again. It has been quite a long time since Berlin."

"Adelaide, what have you done to our systems?"

She smiled. "They'll be fine so long as you're not rude." Her face neutralized again. "Since you're posing as Vandaleur, I can assume you're investigating the Silence. I would like you to tell me about them."

"Tell you what?"

"Their weakest link."

|C-S|

She sat across from someone who was clearly an alien, with the same eyepatch as Kovarian and Vandaleur, and a chess board between them. A crowd surrounded them, cheering, and the queen before the alien crackled with electricity. Adelaide looked exactly as the universe had always known her to: emotionless, but an instinctive hint of a smirk whenever something went her way and sometimes even when it wasn't.

Adelaide nodded at the piece the alien was, clearly, attempting to avoid touching. "The crowd knows that the queen is your only legal move. But, as you know, you've moved it twelve times and have, thus, caused over four million volts to run through it. Even with that clever gauntlet of yours, you'll never live to bishop four."

"I am a dead man unless you concede the game."

She raised her eyebrows. "But I'm winning."

"Name your price."

"Saying please." She smirked for a second. "Information."

"I work for the Silence. They would kill me!"

She shrugged. "They're going to kill me very soon and, before they do, I would like to be very certain about why I have too."

"Dorium Maldovar is the only one who can help you."

"Dorium was beheaded at Demon's Run."

The alien nodded. "I know. Concede the game, Adelaide, and I'll take you to him."

She waited for a few seconds before tipping her piece, conceding the game.

|C-S|

The alien led her through a tunnel, guiding them by the light of a torch, and there was just enough light to keep them from actually stepping on the various skulls scattered around.

"The Seventh Transept, where the Headless Monks keep the leftovers," the alien explained. "Watch your step. There are traps everywhere."

"And the reason there are no rats?" Adelaide felt she knew the answer, but was still curious.

The alien smirked. "The skulls eat them." A few of the skulls on the shelves turned to look at them as they passed. "The Headless Monks behead you alive, remember."

They reached a room with pedestals, each pedestal holding a box. "The rich are given boxes, and the rest are left to watch."

The alien nodded. "And Dorium Maldovar was always very rich."

Adelaide stepped forward, sonicing Dorium's box to open it. "Thank you for bringing me here, Gantok."

"My pleasure." Gantok aimed a gun at her. "It saves me the trouble of burying you. Nobody beats me at chess." He took a step forward and, promptly, fell through the floor. Adelaide glanced back to ensure he hadn't somehow managed to survive it before sonicing the pit closed.

Dorium opened his eyes, seeming to just have woken. "Hello? Is someone there?" She turned, and he smiled. "Ah, Adelaide, thank God it's you. The Monks, they turned on me." She raised her eyebrows. "Give it to me straight, Adelaide, how bad are my injuries?" she said nothing, and he sighed. "Oh, it really is impossible to fool you, isn't it?"

She smirked.

|C-S|

"This is absurd!" Winston scoffed. "Other worlds, carnivorous skulls, talking heads. I don't know why I'm listening to you."

"In another reality," Adelaide said simply, her hands resting on the table in front of her, "you and I are very close to the same person. I believe that you're able to sense that connection, just as you can sense that there is something wrong with time."

'Can't he feel the pain? Can't anyone else feel the pain of all reality pressing down on their chest?'

"You mentioned a woman."

Adelaide nodded. "Yes, she shall be entering the narrative shortly."

"What's she like? Attractive, I assume."

She sighed. "That seems to be the general consensus."

"Tell me more."

|C-S|

"Oh, it's not so bad, really," Dorium said, not caring that he knew Adelaide was only listening because it was rude to interrupt, "as long as they get your box the right way up. I got a media-chip fitted in my head years ago and the wi-fi down here is excellent, so I keep myself entertained."

"I need to know about the Silence."

Dorium sighed. "Oh, alright. A religious order of great power and discretion. The sentinels of history, as they like to call themselves."

"And they want a Time Lord dead."

"No, not really. They just don't want both of you to remain alive." She gestured for him to continue. "Both of you are people with long and dangerous pasts, but your future, together, is infinitely more terrifying. The Silence believe it must be averted."

"What's so dangerous about our future together?"

"On the fields of Trenzalore, at the fall of the eleventh, when no living creature can speak falsely, or fail to answer, a question will be asked. A question that must never, ever be answered."

Adelaide nodded. "Silence will fall when the question is asked."

"'Silence must fall' would be a better translation. The Silence are determined the question will never be answered. That the Time Lords will never reach Trenzalore."

"By killing one of us, they presume the other will fall as a result." Dorium nodded the best he could. "What is the question?"

"The first question. The oldest question in the universe, hidden in plain sight. Would you like to know what it is?" She nodded. "Are you sure? Very, very sure?" Again, she nodded. "Then I shall tell you. But on your own head be it."

|C-S|

Winston leaned closer to her as the pair walked through the halls of the building. "But what was the question? Why did it mean your death?"

"Suppose there was a man who knew a secret. A truly dangerous secret that, if told, would destroy the universe. What would you do?"

He shrugged. "If I had to, I'd destroy the man."

"But suppose there was a woman who was bonded with the man across time, in a way they would never be able to deny. Suppose it was believed that, should the woman die, the man would either be drawn to his own self-destruction or lower his defenses to allow someone else to destroy him. Thus, the question would be destroyed in one neat swipe. And suppose that the woman already wanted to die."

'I don't want to die, don't let me die. Please, don't let me die!'

Adelaide looked around the room, shaking her head. "Suppose that silence would fall. All the times we heard those words and we never realized what it meant." She stopped. "Why are we here?"

"This? This is the Senate Room."

She turned to him. "And why did we leave your office?"

"Well, we wanted a stroll, didn't we?" But, as he spoke, he frowned at the revolver in his hand.

"Then why do you have your revolver?"

He shrugged. "Well, you're dangerous company."

Adelaide looked at her arm, seeing the black mark. "Correct, Winston."

"Resume your story."

|C-S|

Adelaide dropped Dorium onto a chair near the console. "Adelaide, please, open my hatch, I've got an awful headache. Which, to be honest, means more than it used to." She opened it, stepping back.

"Why Lake Silencio, specifically? Why Utah?"

"It's a still point in time. Makes it easier to create a fixed point. And your death is a fixed point, Adelaide. You and the Doctor can't run away from this."

She crossed her arms, leaning against the console. "I know, Dorium. It is the Doctor who does not."

Dorium looked around the TARDIS. "Where is that Time Lord, anyway?"

"He is indisposed."

He frowned at her. "What did you do?"

"I couldn't have him interfering with something he didn't understand. I have spent the past two hundred years attempting to convince him of what must occur."

"Two hundred years? What's the point in delaying?"

"When I'm gone, I don't want the Doctor to destroy himself. I want him to continue helping, even if he has to remove himself from the history of the universe in order to do so." She paused, looking away for a moment. "The Doctor - and the Silence - believe that he leads a life of death and destruction." She looked back at Dorium and her eyes were hard. "It has been my mission to prove him wrong, but I have been preventing the inevitable for far too long. My time has come." Slowly, she drew the envelopes she'd taken from Sophie, looking down at them.

She needed to do this.

|C-S|

Vandaleur, though he was truly the Teselecta, was before Adelaide again, with the envelopes spread out on the table. "Surely you could deliver the messages yourself?"

Adelaide raised her eyebrows. "To do so would involve crossing my own timestream. Even I know that shouldn't be done."

"According to our files, this is the end for you. Your final journey. We'll deliver your messages. You can depend on us."

She nodded, standing. "Thank you."

She had just turned to the door when the Teselecta stood as well. "Adelaide, whatever you think of the Teselecta, we are champions of law and order, just as you and the Doctor have been. Is there nothing else we can do?"

Adelaide said nothing as she left.

She'd never been a fan of law and order.

|C-S|

"Why would you do this?" Winston asked her, frowning. "Of all the things you've told me, this I find hardest to believe. Why would you invite your friends to see your death?"

Adelaide looked away. "I had to die, but I wanted one final goodbye. I suppose I'd gotten sentimental toward the end." She sighed. "They were my first companions, you know, Amy and Rory. The last Centurion and the girl who waited, as the Doctor called them. Though, they were more the Doctor's companions than my own. But they were still my friends."

"And did you tell them this was going to happen?" She looked at her arm, taking a deep breath. There were three marks now. "And this woman you spoke of. Did you invite her?"

"River Song was actually there twice." Adelaide looked around the room. "As expected, I set everything up perfectly, and there was only one thing left that I needed to do." She smiled. "I had to die."

|C-S|

In another time, Adelaide stood before the astronaut, her jaw clenched. "Hello. It's going to be okay, I promise." The astronaut lifted its visor, revealing River Song, as Adelaide knew it would. "Alright…here we are at last."

River's eyes were filling with tears. "I can't stop it. The suit's in control."

"It's alright, River, you're not supposed to. This has to happen."

"Run."

She smiled, and that smile looked so impossibly tired, like all the weight of the universe rested on those upturned lips. "I'm done with running. It's time."

"I'm trying to fight it, but I can't. It's too strong."

Adelaide nodded. "This is a fixed point, this must always happen, no matter what path the Universe takes." She knew quite a bit about fixed points. Her past had been peppered with them, scattered with encounters that the stars had wanted.

But not anymore.

"You won't even remember this." She nodded over towards where the other River, Amy, and Rory stood, watching her in pure horror.

"That's me…how can I be there?"

"That is you from the future, serving time for a murder you can't remember." She smiled. "My murder."

"Why would you do that? Make me watch?"

"You need to know that this is inevitable and that I forgive you."

"Please, Adelaide, please…please, just run! Think of the Doctor!"

She nodded. "I have."

"Time can be written."

"Not fixed events, River, I know you know that." She closed her eyes. "Goodbye."

The weapon fired five times, but Adelaide felt no pain and, when she opened her eyes again, River was smirking. "Hello, mermaid."

"What have you done?"

River shrugged. "Well, I think I just drained my weapons systems."

"River, this is a fixed point in time."

"Fixed points can be rewritten."

Adelaide shook her head. "They can't, River, in no universe can they-"

And then, with a flash of light and a pain beyond anything Adelaide could possibly describe, time was rewritten.

|C-S|

"Well? What happened?" Winston asked her.

"Nothing."

He frowned. "Nothing?"

"To put it another way, everything happened at once and it will never stop." She ran a hand through her hair. "Time is dying and it's going to be 5:02 in the afternoon for the rest of eternity."

Winston moved to take a step forward, since they now stood opposite each other, but frowned, sniffing the air. "Gunsmoke. That's gunsmoke!" he lifted his revolver. "Oh, I appear to have fired this."

Adelaide looked down at her arms, now covered with marks. "You seem to be defending us."

He shook his head. "I don't understand."

"The aliens who lead the Silence are remarkable creatures; they're memory-proof." She looked around the room.

"But what does that mean?"

"It's impossible to remember them. The moment you look away, you forget they were ever there. In small numbers, they're not difficult." Adelaide held up her arm, showing him the amount of marks that covered it. "But in large amounts…"

They both looked up to see a large amount of Silence hanging from the ceiling like bats, but before either of them could do anything a device was thrown into the room, beeping. "Go! Go! Go!" a soldier shouted. "Keep the Silence in sight at all times, keep your eye drives active."

Winston squinted through the light the flare bomb created. "Who the devil are you? Identify yourselves!"

A woman stepped forward. "Pond. Amelia Pond."

Winston raised his revolver again, but Adelaide stepped in the way, holding up a hand to Winston, but frowning at Amy, for the woman was wearing an eyepatch. "I do hope that there is still some record of me in this world."

Amy said nothing as she raised her own gun and shot Adelaide.

|C-S|

Adelaide woke in what she quickly determined was the Orient Express - she'd been once, long ago - as a radio spoke in the background. "The Government has again apologized for extensive radio interference caused by solar flare and sunspot activity."

She sat up slowly, rubbing her head, and looked around the room to see Amy standing in the doorway, watching her. "Amelia?"

"Those stun guns aren't fun." Amy stepped forward. "I'm sorry, I wanted to avoid a long conversation. You need to get up, though, we'll be in Cairo shortly."

Adelaide stood. "Given the sketches, various toys scattered about, and your statements, I assume that you remember me."

Amy grinned, laughing. "Hope you don't mind me saying, but you look rubbish."

She looked down at the Roman robes she was wearing, an unbidden blush from a long-suppressed voice rising in her cheeks. Winston had maintained her as an advisor and had, thus, treated her kindly for the undetermined amount of time she'd spent under him.

Thankfully, the presence of Caroline had remained almost completely quiet in her mind, a great contrast to the last time the universe had been rebooted. She was fairly certain it was because she was the center of the change this time rather than the Doctor.

"I shall forgive your slight if you can provide me with new clothes." Amy held out a pale green dress shirt, pants, and shoes. "Thank you, Amy."

|C-S|

Once Adelaide was dressed, she called for Amy to return; as per her request, Amy had left the room until she was ready. "I do like this office, Amy." Adelaide ran a hand over the edge of the desk. "What's the purpose of the eye patch?"

"It's not an eye patch," Amy corrected. "Time's gone wrong. Some of us noticed. There's a whole team of us working on it, you'll see."

"And Rory?"

Amy pulled a drawing from her desk, showing Adelaide an idealized version of Rory. "That's him, isn't it? I can't find him, but I love him very much, don't I?"

Adelaide smiled. "Very much."

"I have to keep doing this, writing and drawing things. It's just…it's so hard to keep remembering."

"Like you said, time's gone wrong. Do you remember why?"

"The lakeside."

Adelaide nodded. "Lake Silencio, Utah. I died."

"But then you didn't. See, I remember it twice, different ways."

"Two separate versions of the same event happening in the same moment must have caused time to split open, making all of history happen at once."

Amy shook her head. "But does it matter? I mean, can't we just stay like this?"

"Time is disintegrating. It will spread itself thin until all reality just falls apart."

There was a knock and a soldier leaned in, one Adelaide recognized immediately as Rory. "Ma'am? We're about to arrive. Eye drives need to be activated as soon as we disembark."

Amy nodded. "Good point. Thank you, Captain Williams."

Rory glanced at Adelaide, and the Time Lady gave him a nod. "Hello."

"Hello, ma'am, pleased to meet you." Rory ducked out of the room again.

"Captain Williams," Amy provided, "best of the best. Couldn't live without him."

Adelaide, honestly, had to stop herself from smiling. "Amy, you will find Rory, but you'll need to notice everything. Use your eyes."

"I am using them." Adelaide said nothing and Amy sighed. "Why are you older? If time isn't really passing, then how can you be aging?"

"Time is still passing for me. Every explosion has an epicenter and, this time, I'm what's wrong."

"What's wrong with you?"

She ran a hand through her hair again, breathing hard. "I'm still alive."

'I'm sorry.'

A/N: Almost at the end. I will say...the next chapter is one of my favorites for this story ;)

Three chapters left...

Notes on reviews:

God is Gracious: Not permanently...