CHAPTER 5
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AMY'S LAST CHANCE
"Can't this stupid thing go any faster? I've seen plenty of horses on television go a lot faster than this so why is this carriage so bloody slow?" Amy said in an irritated voice.
"Television?" Clara asked in confusion.
"It's too hard to explain right now, Clara. I'll explain it later if there is a later," Reinette said with an amused grin on her face.
Amy looked at her in surprise as she said, "So you know about television too? Just how much did you learn about the future from the Doctor?"
"Let's just say that I know far more than Monsieur Nostradamus and leave it at that," Reinette said.
"I'd so love to let you see my world," Amy said with a smile.
Then she suddenly became sad as she realized, "I'll never see my world again. I'll be lucky if I ever see Rory again."
"I'll help you get back to him, Amy. I promise," Reinette said.
Amy gave her a weak smile as she said, "We've got to save your time first though or there won't be any Rory to go back to. I suppose I should be more focused on that instead of wallowing in self-pity right now, huh?"
"It's alright, Amelia. I understand. It's always going to be the end of the world. Doomsday seems to come fairly frequently despite how special an occasion that it's supposed to be. I've saved the world so many times now that it's become almost a regular occurrence. This will be your last chance to ever get to be with Rory again though," Reinette said in a sympathetic voice.
"I still don't understand why the other Clara just couldn't have taken me there herself instead of creating a crack to send me back. I've had more than enough of strange cracks in my life believe me," Amy said in an upset voice.
"Clara's very busy right now. She's trying to stop the end of the universe herself in her own time," Clara explained.
"You know what she's doing right now?" Amy asked.
"Yes, I can sense it when I really try to. There's a link between us that lets us both see what the other is seeing especially when they're emotional. Clara's going through a very hard time right now. Jenny . . . died," Clara said.
Reinette looked horrified as Amy asked, "Jenny?"
"She's the Doctor and Clara's daughter," Reinette explained.
Amy began to immediately become extremely upset as she said in a determined tone, "And here I was whining about my life when she's just lost her child! I know exactly what she's going through right now, and I feel so sorry for her. At least I have a chance to see Rory again and I will. I won't let anything keep me from him now. You're absolutely right, Jeanne. There's always going to be another apocalypse, but there won't ever be another Rory."
Despite the horrible news that she had just received, Reinette couldn't help but smile slightly as Amy called her Jeanne. Clara gave her a knowing look which showed her that she had noticed it as well.
A moment later the carriage finally came to a stop right outside Notre Dame, and the three women rushed out of it as quickly as they could. The people inside the old church looked up at them in surprise as they ran through the aisles looking for Madame de Sparrow. They couldn't find her anywhere though which immediately caused Reinette to start wondering if maybe they had just completely wasted their time by coming to the wrong place after all.
"Marquise, could I help you with something?" One of the Musketeers who had been attending services inside of the church asked as he saw the distressed look on her face.
"Yes, I'm trying to find Madame de Sparrow. I was told that she would be here, but I can't find her. Have you seen her?" Reinette asked as she held onto the hope that maybe she hadn't just completely lost her last lead in finding her.
The Musketeer looked at her in confusion as he said, "I actually saw her a few moments ago. I know that she should still be here somewhere because I never saw her leave."
"Begging your pardon, Marquise, but I couldn't help but overhear you. It's possible that she could have gone into the hidden room," A monk said.
"Hidden room? What is this, an old black and white movie?" Amy said in disbelief.
"Movie?" Clara asked as the Musketeer looked at Amy as though she were mad.
"Later," Reinette said as she gestured impatiently for the monk to tell her more.
"It's this way, Marquise. It's a hidden area used for storage of valuable items that should only be known to a select few in the church, but it's possible that she learned of it too somehow. I'll lead you there so that you can check it," The monk said.
"Thank you so much," Reinette said gratefully as she began to follow the kindly looking monk even as she wondered why he looked so familiar to her.
That was a question for a later time though. Right now she was much more concerned with preventing the end of two worlds, her own and Amy's, as she followed the monk to a slightly discolored section of wall that was hidden out of sight of the rest of the church. She could see now that this part of the wall looked different from the rest of it, but she would have never noticed it if it hadn't been pointed out to her.
"This is the entrance to the hidden room. I must swear all of you to secrecy as to its location as we store many valuable items here to keep them from being stolen," The monk said.
"Of course. The church's secrets are its own business. It's none of mine. I could care less about them, and I'm sure that the others with me feel exactly the same way," Reinette said even as the others nodded.
The monk smiled in approval at this as he pushed a hidden button on one of the torches next to the discolored section of the wall, and it immediately slid open. As soon as it did, it revealed an extremely surprised looking Madame de Sparrow behind it who had been staring at a large vine line growth that was rapidly growing all over the room.
"So it's true. What are you doing in here, Madame? Are you attempting to loot the church's treasury?" The Musketeer asked as he pulled his sword.
"She's attempting to do much worse than that I'm afraid," Reinette said as she pulled out her sonic pen and began to scan the vines with it.
"Do you actually understand what it's telling you?" Amy asked curiously.
"I know just enough from the Doctor's memories to be able to piece together a rudimentary knowledge of what this device is trying to tell me, yes. It's saying that these vines are the very Rutan weapon that we've been looking for," Reinette said.
Madame de Sparrow smiled as she said, "Very good, Marquise. You've stumbled onto our little plot despite our best efforts at keeping at hidden. I must congratulate on your intelligence, my dear. You are definitely far above the rest of the pathetic rabble of this world. You might have made an excellent Rutan."
"I really doubt it, Madame or whoever you are. I've never been interested in perpetuating wars only in stopping them before they can occur," Reinette said.
"Then we would be kindred spirits after all despite what you seem to think about me, Marquise. I too no longer want to keep this insane war going. I want to stop it right now once and for all, and I'm only moments away from finally doing so. The Wrecker is almost ready to activate, and once it does my people will score the final victory against the Sontarans ending the war once and for all. Then they will finally know peace at last. I wonder what that will be like? I only regret not being there to see it myself. I've only ever known war just like the rest of my kind. None of us even has the slightest idea of what peace is like. I'd like to bring that gift back to my people," Madame de Sparrow said in a passionate voice.
"Yes, at the expense of completely wiping out my people and most of the Sontarans. That's much too high a price," Reinette said.
"Maybe so and maybe I am sorry that I'm going to have to wipe out this planet after having been among its people for so long and learning so much about them, but sometimes sacrifices must be made in order to achieve a lasting victory, Marquise," Madame de Sparrow said.
"No, not this time they won't. You're stealing my planet's entire future away from it, and I won't allow that happen. Tell us how to stop this. Now," Reinette ordered in a hard voice.
Madame de Sparrow laughed as she said, "You can't stop it, Marquise. It's far too late now. You've only succeeded in coming just in time to be here to watch the weapon activate and nothing more."
"You're a liar! You have to know how to deactivate it since you're the one who set it off, and you will tell us the truth," Clara said in a furious voice.
"You will do as the Baroness says or I will cut out whatever passes for your heart," The Musketeer threatened.
"Do you really think that I care about dying? I'm going to die anyway in a couple of moments, and so are the rest of you. I resigned myself to that a long time ago. Nothing you can do can convince me to stop now," Madame de Sparrow said.
"What if I told you that this won't stop the war?" Reinette said surprising everyone.
"What? What are you talking about? Of course it will stop the war. It will wipe out most of the Sontarans along with their homeworld and their breeding grounds in one massive strike. There will be no new Sontarans from that moment forward, and the ones who will be left will be too small of a number to be a real threat anymore," Madame de Sparrow protested.
"You're so wrong though, Madame. The Sontarans have another breeding planet besides Sontar in this era," Reinette said.
"What? No, that's a lie! My people would know if that were true," Madame de Sparrow said in a shocked voice.
"Would you? According to the Doctor's memories, the Rutans don't discover the second breeding planet until long after this time. What you're doing here won't end the war at all, Madame. You'll only be dying for nothing not to mention committing the mass genocide of my people. All in a useless gesture that will do no one any good whatsoever," Reinette said.
"You're lying. You have to be lying," Madame de Sparrow said in an uncertain voice.
"Am I? Look into my eyes and tell me if I'm lying or not," Reinette said.
The Rutan searched Reinette's eyes carefully but couldn't find any clues there that would tell her whether she was lying or not. She might actually be telling the truth, and if she was she didn't want to waste her life in a useless attack that would destroy the Wrecker for no tactical advantage whatsoever. That weapon was the last hope of the Rutans to end the war so it had to be used wisely.
Madame de Sparrow hesitated for a moment and then finally said, "You're right, Marquise. It would be a waste."
She pulled a small device out of one of her pockets and pushed a button on it that immediately deactivated the Wrecker. The vines all over the area quickly started to disintegrate as the Rutan removed a carefully hidden central processing unit that had been stuck onto one of the walls in the hidden room.
"So that's it then? It's over?" Amy said sounding almost disappointed.
"Why? Did you want to die, Giant Girl?" Clara said in disbelief.
"No, it's just that it's a little too easy isn't it? Usually the Doctor would only win after a long hard-fought victory. It would never be this easy," Amy said.
"I can't believe you're complaining about this," Clara said.
"She's right though. It's not going to be that easy," Madame de Sparrow said as she unexpectedly pulled a gun out of one of her pockets and aimed it at them.
"I knew it," Amy said.
"You actually sound happy about it. You're absolutely mad. You do know that right?" Clara asked with a frown.
"I know a couple of psychiatrists who would probably agree with you on that," Amy said with a grin.
"Don't look so happy, human. Your race may have been spared today, but you're all still going to die regardless of that because you know far too much. Word of the Wrecker must never reach the ears of the Sontarans. It must continue to remain the Rutans' secret until it is used to finally destroy them once and for all," Madame de Sparrow said.
"You're wrong. No one is going to die today except for possibly you," Reinette said as she aimed her sonic pen at her.
"Do you really think that that puny little sonic device will be able to hurt one of my species, human? I'm the one with the only real weapon here, and that assures that I am the one who will not die here today," Madame de Sparrow said.
"Wrong, monster!" The Musketeer shouted as he suddenly stabbed her in the chest with his sword.
Madame de Sparrow screamed even as she shot the Musketeer with her gun instantly disintegrating him without a trace. She continued to cry out in pain as she started to fire on the others now as well. They all ran for their lives as the injured Rutan started firing wildly all over the room in a desperate attempt to drive them all away from her.
Luckily Reinette quickly figured out a way to make the door leading out of the hidden room activate again before any of them were hit by the Rutan's blasts, and the three women quickly ran out of the room to safety. This left the monk, who hadn't run off with the others, all alone with the Rutan as she cornered him with a crazed look in her eyes while the door to the hidden room slid back into place trapping him there with her.
"I'll find them too eventually, but you're going to die first. If it hadn't been for you telling her where I was, none of this would have happened in the first place," The Rutan said in a pain-filled voice.
The monk smiled as he said, "Yes, I know. Didn't you ever stop to wonder why that was exactly?"
The Rutan looked at him in confusion now as she said, "What?"
"You call these apes primitive, Rutan, but you're not much better. She lied to you. There is no second breeding planet. She managed to completely outwit you, save her entire world, and get away to live to tell about it. That's a far better track record then you're going to have I'm afraid," The monk said as he pulled a staser out of his robes.
"Who are you? That's Time Lord technology. How dare your people interfere with my mission!" The Rutan hissed.
"My name is the Monk and my people have nothing to do with it. In fact at the moment they're not doing much of anything. I'm doing this all on my own because I won't have you interfering with the development of this world. Your influence could undo everything that I plan on doing to it myself, and I won't have you contaminating my experiment," The Monk said.
"Experiment? What are you rambling about?" The Rutan said.
"I'm afraid that you're never going to know the answer to that question," The Monk said as he shot the Rutan with the staser making her instantly crumple to the ground.
Then the Monk took the Wrecker away from the unmoving Rutan as he said, "Thank you so much. You won't need this anymore anyway, and it could come in very handy one day."
He laughed as he quietly exited the room in order to blend back in with the other monks. He would be long gone before any of them noticed the Rutan's body.
Or so he thought.
"I'm so glad that you made it out of there alive. Now I only have to worry about keeping her from getting back out again," Reinette said.
The Monk had to bite his tongue to keep from cursing out loud as he saw that Reinette, Clara, and Amy were all still there. They hadn't all fled in terror as he had hoped after all.
"There's no need, Marquise. The monster is dead. The Musketeer's wound finally killed her," The Monk lied.
Reinette actually looked sad at that as she said, "A pity. I would have liked to have tried to reason with her."
"She was trying to wipe out all of humanity," Clara said.
"She was also trying to end a war even if she was doing it in a completely misguided way. Maybe I could have used that as a starting point to talk to her," Reinette said.
"You really are like the Doctor," Amy said with a grin.
"Yes, sometimes she's too much like him for her own good," Clara added.
Reinette smiled as she said, "Then it's a good thing that like him I have my very own Clara to protect me isn't it?"
"You presume way too much, Jeanne. Do you really think that I'll keep watching out for you while you recklessly endanger yourself and always be there whenever you call on me for the rest of my life?" Clara asked.
Reinette looked at her with a shamed look on her face just before Clara added, "The answer is yes. I will always be there for you. Always."
"I totally nailed it. Sisters," Amy said happily as a tearful Reinette and Clara embraced.
The Monk smirked at this sappy display of sentimentality even as he used it as an opportunity to finally slip away unnoticed as he had started to do before. He couldn't afford to be found out now. He had plans for this world and he wasn't about to let even the celebrated Madame de Pompadour stand in his way now.
The women didn't even care that the monk was gone when they finally noticed him missing. They quietly put it off to his having rejoined the others in other to perform his daily duties while Reinette made a mental note to find him and reward him somehow for his help later.
Reinette then quickly reentered the hidden room only to find that the Rutan was missing!
"Where could she have gone? We never saw her leave," Clara asked in alarm.
"She must have a ship nearby that she transmatted to," Reinette reasoned.
"Transwhat?" Clara asked.
Reinette rolled her eyes as Clara said with a sigh, "I know, I know. You'll explain it to me later. I swear that even I have a hard time understanding you at times, and I grew up with you."
"Jeanne, now that we've lost track of the Rutan anyway can we please head back to the palace now? The crack might already be there while we're talking and I can't miss it," Amy said in an anxious voice.
Reinette smiled at her continued use of her first name now as she said, "I was just about to suggest that. Come on. Let's hurry back."
As the three women left, a sack full of gold in the corner of the room suddenly changed form and became Madame de Sparrow once more. The Rutan wasn't dead after all just badly wounded because the Monk in his ignorance of their biology hadn't used a powerful enough setting on the staser to kill a Rutan. She had merely played dead until the Monk left and then had quickly hidden herself the best that she could as she heard Reinette returning.
"This isn't over. I will regain my weapon and then I will kill both the Time Lord and you, Marquise," Madame de Sparrow said as she silently left the hidden room.
She knew that she couldn't afford to be spotted in her old form so in order to truly hide while she recovered from her wounds she changed herself once more. This time she was a young blonde woman in her early twenties in simple clothing who would be unnoticed as she left the church.
She decided that she would keep this form and use it while she plotted against her enemies later. Reinette would never suspect one of her beloved peasants of planning to destroy her after all. She decided that her new name would now be Sally.
Reinette, Clara, and Amy meanwhile had raced back to Versailles as fast as they could, and Amy was now busily searching for the crack everywhere. She finally yelled in triumph as she found it, looking exactly like the one from her childhood, on a wall in the Hall of Mirrors.
"This is it! I'm finally going to be with Rory at last! Thank you so much, Jeanne, for all of your help. I really appreciate it," Amy said as she hugged Reinette.
"What about me, Red? Don't I get any thanks?" Clara asked.
"Of course you do, Shorty. Thank you for being a real pain in the . . ." Amy started to say before Reinette quickly put her hand over her mouth.
"It wouldn't do to have you get yourself executed for saying something rude to one of the royal family, Amy, now that you're finally going to get to leave. Just say good bye and go while you still can," Reinette advised.
Amy smiled and said, "Sorry, Clara. I guess you were alright. Well, I suppose I'll be saying good bye to both of you now. Wish me luck."
She then turned to walk toward the crack as she hesitantly reached out towards it. She wasn't quite sure how it worked.
"What do I do?" Amy asked in an uncertain voice.
"Just touch it," Clara said with a smile.
"Thanks," Amy said as she proceeded to do exactly that.
There was a large flash of light and then Amy let out a frustrated sigh as she realized that she was still in the exact same place. Reinette and Clara were now looking at her in absolute surprise. She hadn't moved an inch.
Then to her horror she realized that the crack was gone now!
"What? That can't be it! It didn't work!" Amy protested.
"I think it did, Amelia. Look," Reinette said as she pointed to a Cardinal in red robes who was suddenly heading towards them with an angry look on his face along with an entire company of soldiers.
"Who is that? He's not the Cardinal that I know," Clara said.
"No, he's not which shows that the crack definitely worked, but not how it was intended to have worked. That's Cardinal Richelieu from long ago," Reinette said.
"Richelieu? As in the bad guy from The Three Musketeers?" Amy asked in disbelief.
"The what? Why am I so lost ever since Giant Girl showed up?" Clara asked even as Reinette, who knew exactly what she was talking about from the Doctor's memories, nodded.
"Yes, but this is no character from a book, Amelia. This is the real thing. Apparently the crack has moved the three of us a hundred years back into the past instead of just moving you forward into the future," Reinette said.
"How? What happened to the stupid thing?" Amy asked.
"I don't know and I don't think that we're going to have any time to find out either," Reinette said.
"Oh, you'll have plenty of time to think things over in prison, whoever you three are. You'd better think up a good explanation for trespassing here too or you'll all have to answer to me. Arrest them," Cardinal Richelieu ordered his men.
"Great. Just wonderful. Now I'm in even worse shape than I was before," Amy said.
"You know I'm starting to believe that you're bad luck, Red," Clara said as the soldiers surrounded them with swords drawn.
"Stuff it, Shorty!" Amy said with a frown.
Meanwhile back in Reinette's time, the Monk smiled in triumph as he saw the three women disappear into the rift and watched it close behind them. He had used his TARDIS to successfully redirect the rift to the past and strand Reinette there for good in order to get her out of his way. Now there would be no one to stop him as he carried out his own plans for the future of this world.
Even as he thought this though, he had no idea that the newly renamed Sally was watching him from the shadows. Watching and planning.
Next: How in the world will Reinette, Clara, and Amy escape from Richelieu's prison? Maybe they'll get a little help from the Man in the Iron Mask. Who could he possibly be? Meanwhile back in Reinette's time, Sally moves against the Monk as she tries to find out what he's up to in order to stop him. What unlikely allies will she attempt to recruit to help her in this goal and how will she convince them to work with her? I think you'll love the answer.