Authors note: So, with the Daleks never having been created in the previous story, I couldn't have "the Victory of the Daleks" episode. So I jumped to "The Time of Angels" episode instead.

Chapter 9

The Time of Angels

'Wrong. Wrong. Bit right, mostly wrong. I love museums,' The Doctor said as he commented on the labelling of the various exhibits in glass cases.

'Yeah, great,' Amy said sarcastically. 'Can we go to a planet now? We've done the big space ship? You promised me a planet next.'

'You're lucky you got an asteroid,' Rose told her as she looked around the cathedral like museum. 'We did Earth to death . . . literally, before I got to go to an alien planet. And then we got thrown in prison.'

'But a museum on an asteroid! I was expecting people with two heads or something. Two suns in the sky, alien forests, that kind of thing.'

'Amy, this isn't any old asteroid. It's the Delerium Archive, the final resting place of the headless monks. The biggest museum ever,' he said enthusiastically.

'You've got a time machine. What do you need museums for?'

'Entertainment,' Rose said with a grin, bumping shoulders with her.

The Doctor continued his inspection. 'Wrong. Very wrong. Ooh, one of mine. Also one of mine.'

'Oh, I see. It's how you keep score,' Amy said.

The Doctor circled a display case that contained a square box, and rested his arms on top of it as he contemplated the ancient artefact.

Amy rolled her eyes. She felt like she was back at school on an educational trip. 'Oh great, an old box.'

'It's from one of the old starliners,' he told them.

'What is it?' Rose asked.

'A Home Box.'

'What's a Home Box?' Amy enquired.

'Like a black box on a plane, except it homes. Anything happens to the ship, the Home Box flies home with all the flight data.'

Amy still wasn't impressed. 'So?'

The Doctor pointed at the box. 'The writing, the graffiti. Old High Gallifreyan. The lost language of the Time Lords. There were days, there were many days, these words could burn stars and raise up empires, and topple gods.'

'What does it say?' Amy asked him.

He paused as he looked at Rose. 'Hello, sweetie.'

Amy snorted a laugh, but Rose looked amazed. 'You are kiddin', right?'

'What? Is it some sort of ancient joke?' Amy asked.

'The woman in The Library who died. River Song . . . she called you sweetie,' Rose remembered.

'Yes, she did,' The Doctor agreed. 'So, are you both ready?'

Amy frowned. 'Ready for what?'

His face may have been new, and she may still be getting used to it, but Rose knew that look, and also knew what was coming next. He took his sonic screwdriver out of his jacket pocket and sonicked the display case. An alarm started to wail as he snatched the Home Box.

'Ready to run!' he said and ran down the nave of the cathedral museum towards the TARDIS with the box under his arm. Amy and Rose, who was pushing Andrea in the buggy, were close behind, followed by two security staff.

They made it safely into the TARDIS, and the Doctor started the Time Rotor before putting the Home Box on the console.

'I can't believe you just did that!' Rose said.

'Why are we doing this?' Amy asked as he tried to access the data in the box.

'Because someone on a spaceship twelve thousand years ago is trying to attract my attention. Let's see if we can get the security playback working.'

He got the Home Box to display the CCTV footage on the console view screen. The playback showed River Song in a glamorous evening gown, looking at the camera over a pair of stylish sunglasses and winking.

'That's not someone,' Rose said. 'That's River Song.'

A man's voice came out of the speaker as they saw River standing at an airlock door. ['The party's over, Doctor Song, yet still you're on board.']

['Sorry, Alistair. I needed to see what was in your vault,'] River told the man. ['Do you all know what's down there? Any of you? Because I'll tell you something. This ship won't reach its destination.']

['Wait till she runs. Don't make it look like an execution,'] the man called Alistair said.

River lifted her arm and talked to her watch. ['Triple seven five, slash three four nine by ten, zero twelve slash acorn . . . Oh, and I could do with an air corridor.']

The Doctor moved around the console and started adjusting the controls.

'What was that? What did she say?' Amy asked.

'Were those coordinates?' Rose asked recognising the format from her limited experience of flying the TARDIS. 'They sounded like coordinates to me.'

The Doctor looked at his wife with pride and grabbed a quick kiss. 'Coordinates,' he confirmed as the Time Rotor pumped up and down.

['Like I said on the dance floor, you might want to find something to hang on to,'] River said saucily on the screen. They watched as she blew a kiss before the airlock opened, sucking her out, backwards.

'Oh my God!' Amy gasped. 'She committed suicide!'

'Whoo!' The Doctor hurried to the doors and opened them, holding his arm out for some reason.

As Rose and Amy reached the doors, the woman they had seen on the screen came sailing through the doors, into the Doctor's arms, and onto the floor on top of him.

'Doctor?' Amy queried.

'River?' the Doctor said in greeting.

'A-hem,' Rose deliberately cleared her throat with her arms crossed and a disapproving look on her face.

River climbed off him without comment and looked out of the doors. 'Follow that ship.'

The Doctor went to the console and started the Time Rotor.

'Why are we following that ship?' Rose asked her, but River was too focussed on the console to answer.

'They've gone into warp drive. We're losing them. Stay close,' River said.

'I'm trying.' the Doctor told her.

'Why?' Rose asked again.

'Use the stabilisers,' River said over Rose's question.

'There aren't any stabilisers.'

'The blue switches.'

'Oh, the blue ones don't do anything, they're just blue.'

'Yes, they're blue. Look, they're the blue stabilisers.' She pressed the blue buttons, and the TARDIS stopped shaking. 'See?'

'Yeah. Well, it's just boring now, isn't it?' he sulked. 'They're boring-ers. They're blue . . . boring-ers.'

'Doctor, how come she can fly the TARDIS?' Amy asked.

'You call that flying the TARDIS? Ha!' he replied.

Rose raised an eyebrow. 'Actually, that was pretty good,' she said begrudgingly.

'Okay. I've mapped the probability vectors, done a fold-back on the temporal isometry, charted the ship to its destination, and parked us right along side,' River said with a satisfied smile.

'Parked us?' Rose asked.

'We haven't landed,' the Doctor said.

'Of course we've landed. I just landed her.'

'But . . . it didn't make the noise,' Rose observed.

'What noise?' River asked.

The Doctor gesticulated towards the console. 'You know, the "vrwoorp, vrwoorp".'

'It's not supposed to make that noise. You leave the brakes on,' River told him.

The Doctor was definitely miffed. 'Yeah, well, it's a brilliant noise.'

'I love that noise,' Rose said.

The Doctor nodded in agreement. 'Come along, Rose, Pond. Let's have a look.'

'No, wait. Environment checks,' River called out.

'Oh yes, sorry. Quite right. Environment checks,' he said. He went to the TARDIS door, opened it and looked outside. He looked at River. 'Nice out.'

River was looking at the view screen. 'We're somewhere in the Garn Belt. There's an atmosphere. Early indications suggest that . . .'

The Doctor interrupted her with a lecturing tone to his voice. 'We're on Alfava Metraxis, the seventh planet of the Dundra System. Oxygen rich atmosphere, all toxins in the soft band, eleven hour day and . . .' He looked outside again. 'Chances of rain later.'

Rose had a satisfied smile on her face as River looked irritated. 'He thinks he's so hot when he does that.'

'How come you can fly the TARDIS?' Amy asked her.

'Oh, I had lessons from the very best,' she replied.

The Doctor had a smug look on his face. 'Well . . . yeah.'

River wiped the smug look off his face. 'It's a shame you were busy that day . . . Right then, why did they land here?' she said as she headed for the doors.

'They didn't land,' he said from the jump seat.

'Sorry?' River said, turning back to look at him.

'You should've checked the Home Box . . . It crashed.'

River left the TARDIS and the Doctor closed the door after her.

Amy followed him back to the console where Rose and Andrea were waiting for him. 'Explain. Who is that and how did she do that museum thing?'

'It's a long story and I don't know most of it,' he told her. Off we go.'

'What are you doing?'

'Leaving. She's got where she wants to go, let's go where we want to go,' he said as he started to set the coordinates.

'Yes!' Rose whispered with a fist pull.

'Are you basically running away?' Amy asked.

'Yep,' he said.

'Too right!' Rose agreed.

'Why?'

'Because she's the future.' He looked at Rose 'Our future.'

'Can you run away from that?' Amy asked them doubtfully.

'I can run away from anything I like. Time is not the boss of me.'

Amy had a realisation. 'Hang on, is that a planet out there?'

'Yes, of course it's a planet,' he said.

'Although, we've been to better ones,' Rose told her.

'We've been to worse,' he reminded Rose with a lopsided smile.

'You promised me a planet,' Amy said. 'Five minutes?'

'Okay, five minutes,' he said reluctantly.

'Yes!' Amy said and hurried to the doors.

'But that's all,' he stated as he stood up. 'Because I'm telling you now, that woman is not dragging me into anything.'

Rose put the baby harness over her shoulders like a reverse parachute, and lifted Andrea out of the baby seat to put her into the harness. 'Is this a good idea?'

'It's only five minutes. What could . . .'

'Don't you dare say it,' she interrupted. 'Just . . . don't.' She gave him a concerned look. 'In that footage from the ship, she said she'd looked in the vault, and she knew the ship wouldn't reach its destination.'

The TARDIS had landed on a desert plain, in front of a cliff which had an ancient building carved into it. There was a once sleek spaceship, which was now a burning wreck, sticking out of the top of the edifice.

'What caused it to crash? Not me,' River said as they stood beside her.

'Nah, the airlock would've sealed seconds after you blew it,' the Doctor said. 'According to the Home Box, the warp engines had a phase shift. No survivors.'

'A phase shift would have to be sabotage. I did warn them,' River said.

'About what?' Rose asked, but once again, River seemed to ignore her. It was getting very annoying.

River took a futuristic flat screen device out of her purse. 'Well, at least the building was empty. Aplan temple. Unoccupied for centuries.'

The Doctor turned to Amy and smiled. 'You wanted aliens with two heads, it's a shame you've just missed them. Well, by a few centuries anyway.'

'Two heads, really?' She never knew if he was joking or not. She looked at River who was still scanning the wreckage. 'Aren't you going to introduce us?' Amy asked him.

He didn't want to. He didn't want to have any interaction with this woman who was a clear and present danger. 'Amy Pond, Professor River Song.'

River looked over her shoulder at them. 'Ah, I'm going to be a Professor someday am I? How exciting . . . Spoilers.' She looked at Rose and Andrea expectantly, waiting for him to introduce them as well.

Rose suddenly realised that this River hadn't met her yet, but when she'd seen her in The Library, River had said she never thought she would have the honour to meet Rose Tyler, the woman who saved him from himself. What Rose didn't know, was that River Song was very good at keeping knowledge of the future to herself. Even Amy had no idea that she had just been introduced to her own daughter.

The Doctor on the other hand, was fully aware that this version of River Song hadn't met Rose, and was reluctant to introduce his present wife to his future wife. It had been awkward enough in The Library, and it was all a bit too domestic for him.

['Bear with me on this Love. Spoilers and all that,'] he thought to Rose. 'And, er . . . this is Rose Tyler and her daughter Andrea.'

Amy was about to ask what he meant by "her daughter", but Rose caught her eye and shook her head to tell her to drop it. Amy got the message, and asked a different question. 'Yeah, but who is she and how did she do that? She just left you a note in a museum.'

River smiled as she explained. 'Two things always guaranteed to show up in a museum. The Home Box of a category four starliner and sooner or later, him. It's how he keeps score.'

'I know,' Amy said with a laugh. She liked this woman, and didn't know why the Doctor and Rose were giving her the cold shoulder. There was obviously a bit of history between them, and she thought that maybe River was an old flame of the Doctor's.

'It's hilarious, isn't it?' River laughed, which got disapproving looks from the Doctor and Rose. Amy definitely liked this woman.

'I'm nobody's taxi service,' the Doctor told her in annoyance. 'I'm not going to be there to catch you every time you feel like jumping out of a space ship.'

'And you are so wrong,' River said teasingly.

She scanned the wrecked ship with her tablet device. 'There's one survivor. There's a thing in the belly of that ship that can't ever die.' She looked at Amy. 'Now he's listening.'

River then used the tablet as a communicator. 'You lot in orbit yet? Yeah, I saw it land. I'm at the crash site. Try and home in on my signal.' She held up the tablet and called over to the Doctor. 'Doctor, can you sonic me? I need to boost the signal so we can use it as a beacon.'

He grudgingly took his sonic screwdriver out of his pocket and sonicked the tablet from a distance.

'Ooh, Doctor, you sonicked her,' Amy said teasingly.

'Why do you let her do that?' Rose whispered. 'Boss you about like that?'

'Because the sooner whoever is up there gets here, the sooner we can get out of here.'

Rose felt a bit guilty about questioning her husband's motives, and looked down at their daughter and stroked her head. 'Ah, yeah. Fair enough . . . Sorry.'

River had walked back towards them. 'We have a minute. Shall we?'

She took out her TARDIS-style diary that Rose remembered from The Library. 'Where are we up to? Have we done the Bone Meadows?'

'What's the book?' Amy asked.

'Stay away from it,' the Doctor warned her.

'What is it though?'

'Her diary,' the Doctor told her

River corrected him. 'Our diary,'

And Rose corrected her. 'Her diary,' she said quietly to Amy. 'But he's in it.'

'Her past, my future. Time travel. We keep meeting in the wrong order.'

Amy could see the pained look of uncertainty on Rose's face. 'Okay, so I know who she is, but what is she . . ? To him I mean.'

'I'm not sure I want to know,' Rose said hesitantly. 'Because I think I might be . . . Well . . . Spoilers.'

Four small tornadoes kicked up the dust and turned into four soldiers. 'You promised me an army, Doctor Song,' one of the soldiers said.

No, I promised you the equivalent of an army,' River corrected him. 'This is the Doctor.'

The soldier held out his hand. 'Father Octavian, Sir. Bishop, second class. Twenty clerics at my command. The troops are already in the drop ship and landing shortly. Doctor Song was helping us with a covert investigation. Has Doctor Song explained what we're dealing with?'

River looked at the Doctor. 'Doctor, what do you know of the Weeping Angels?'

'You said five minutes!' Rose reminded her husband in hushed tones. 'And now you want us to go into a "maze of the dead" to capture a Weepin' Angel.'

'No I don't,' he said defensively. 'I want you, Andrea and Amy to go into the TARDIS and wait for me.'

'Has this new you gone completely daft? What happened to Shiver and Shake?'

Amy had overheard the Doctor's comment. 'You want us to do what? And who's Shiver and Shake?'

'Exactly!' Rose said accusingly.

Father Octavian approached with some of his soldiers from the drop ship. 'Is there a problem Doctor?'

'Er, no. Just some domestic issues to be ironed out,' he said with a charming smile.

'Then perhaps I can be of assistance,' Father Octavian said, indicating a female soldier by his side. 'This is Sister Joan, a nun from the Sandhurst Convent. Not only is she a highly trained soldier who has taken an oath to serve and protect, but she is also an experienced child care assistant with a family of her own.'

'You have a family?' Rose said in surprise. 'Aren't nun's supposed to be celibate?'

'Fifty first century church,' the Doctor told her. 'They've moved on.'

Rose's interest was piqued by the nun-soldier. 'So how do you cope, bein' a mum and a soldier.'

'It's hard,' she said with a wistful smile. 'I have a boy, four, and a girl who's two, and I miss them something rotten. But I know they are being well looked after by my sisters back at the convent.'

'So, what do you think Rose? Will you agree to Sister Joan looking after your daughter while you help us capture this Lonely Assassin?' Octavian asked them.

The Doctor looked at Rose for her approval. 'What do you think?'

Rose knew that they would be able to feel Andrea's thoughts, and send their own thoughts to her if she became upset. 'Okay. I'd better show you where the nursery is in the TARDIS . . . Oh, and you'd better prepare yourself for a bit of a shock,' she warned her, referring to the transdimensional interior.

River had a smirk on her face as she sidled over to the Doctor. 'That's a new one for you, having to sort out child care for one of your companions.'

He raised an eyebrow. 'Yes . . . Maybe you should put it in your diary.'

Whilst Rose was settling Andrea in the nursery, and getting Sister Joan a strong cup of tea in the kitchen to calm her nerves, the Weeping Angel made a move on Amy. It trapped her in the dropship and tried to escape from the view screen, by transferring itself to Amy through her eyes.

It was only through a clever bit of remote control dexterity, that Amy was able to pause the recording of the Angel where there was a burst of static, so that it was no longer on the screen.

Rose joined the Doctor, Amy and River as the assault team blew a hole in the wall, and entered the Aplan temple. It was huge inside, with a number of terraces containing Aplan statues.

There was gunfire from behind them, and the Doctor, Rose, River and Amy ran back to the main group. A young Cleric had shot up a statue.

'Sorry . . . sorry. I thought . . . I thought it looked at me,' the Cleric confessed.

'We know what the Angel looks like,' Octavian said. 'Is that the Angel?'

'No, sir,' the Cleric said sheepishly.

Octavian gave him a stern look. 'No, sir, it is not. According to the Doctor, we are facing an enemy of unknowable power and infinite evil, so it would be good, it would be very good, if we could all remain calm in the presence of decor.'

The Doctor took pity on the young man. 'What's your name?'

'Bob, sir.'

'Ah, that's a great name. I love Bob.'

'It's a Sacred Name. We all have Sacred Names,' Octavian told the Doctor. 'They're given to us in the service of the Church.'

'Sacred Bob. More like Scared Bob now, eh?' the Doctor said cheerfully, trying to make Sacred Bob feel better.

'Yes, sir.'

'Ah, good. Scared keeps you fast. Anyone in this room who isn't scared is a moron. Carry on.'

Rose leaned close. 'That was very nice of ya.' She kissed him on the cheek. 'I love you.'

'We'll be moving into the maze in two minutes. You stay with Christian and Angelo. Guard the approach,' Octavian told Bob.

'Isn't there a chance this lot's just going to collapse? There's a whole ship up there,' Amy said.

'Incredible builders, the Aplans,' River remembered.

'Had dinner with their Chief Architect once,' the Doctor told them.

'Really?' Rose asked.

He nodded. 'Two heads are better than one.'

'What, you mean you helped him?' Amy asked.

'No, like I said earlier, he had two heads. That book, the very end, what did it say?'

River took out the book. 'Hang on.'

'Read it to me.'

'What if we had ideas that could think for themselves? What if one day our dreams no longer needed us? When these things occur and are held to be true, the time will be upon us. The time of Angels.'

'What the hell is that supposed to mean?' Rose asked him.

'Is that from a Robbie Williams song?' Amy queried.

'I'm not sure what it means yet. But I hope it's not as bad as I think it could be.'

Amy looked up at the temple. 'Are we there yet? It's a hell of a climb.'

'The Maze is on six levels, representing the ascent of the soul. Only two levels to go,' River explained.

'Lovely species, the Aplans. We should visit them some time,' the Doctor suggested.

'I thought they were all dead?' Amy said.

'So is Virginia Woolf. I'm on her bowling team,' the Doctor informed her.

'Oh yeah, the Bloomsbury Bowlers,' Rose remembered. 'That Lytton Strachey was a terrible flirt, just like Captain Jack.'

The Doctor continued. 'The Aplans were very relaxed, sort of cheerful. Well, that's having two heads, of course. You're never short of a snog with an extra head.'

River was looking around the temple. 'Doctor, there's something. I don't know what it is.'

'Yeah, there's something wrong. Don't know what it is yet, either. Working on it. Of course, then they started having laws against self-marrying. I mean, what was that about? But that's the Church for you . . . Er, no offence, Bishop.'

'Quite a lot taken, if that's all right, Doctor,' Octavian said in an annoyed tone. 'Lowest point in the wreckage is only about fifty feet up from here. That way.'

'The Church had a point, if you think about it,' Amy mused. 'The divorces must have been messy.'

Rose laughed with her as they continued on through the forest of statues. 'I haven't seen this many statues since we were in the British Museum,' she said. 'There's a statue of me in there y'know.'

'Seriously,' Amy asked her.

'Yeah. The Goddess Fortuna . . .'

'Oh!' the Doctor exclaimed as he suddenly realised what he'd been missing.

'What's wrong?' Rose asked.

'Oh!' River echoed.

'Exactly,' the Doctor said.

'How could we have not noticed that?'

'Low level perception filter, or maybe we're thick.'

'What's wrong, sir?' Octavian asked.

'Nobody move. Nobody move. Everyone stay exactly where they are. Bishop, I am truly sorry. I've made a mistake and we are all in terrible danger.'

'What danger?'

'The Aplans,' River said.

Octavian frowned in confusion. 'The Aplans?'

'They've got two heads,' River told him.

'Yes, I get that. So?' Amy said.

'Oh God!' Rose said as she realised too. 'Sorry, no offence,' she whispered to the bishop.

'So why don't the statues?' the Doctor asked. 'Everyone, over there. Just move. Don't ask questions, don't speak.'

The soldiers moved into an alcove away from the statues.

'Okay, I want you all to switch off your torches,' the Doctor told them.

'Sir?' Cleric Marco queried.

'Just do it. Okay. I'm going to turn off this one too, just for a moment.'

Rose remembered the Angels from before. 'But we won't be able to see them, and it takes them less than a moment to get you.'

River looked at him. 'Are you sure about this?'

'No,' he admitted, but it was the only way to prove the statues were actually Angels.

He flashed his torch off and on in an instant. 'Oh, my God. They've moved,' Amy gasped.

The Doctor ran down the passage, and it was filled with statues coming towards them. 'They're Angels. All of them.'

'But they can't be,' River claimed.

'Clerics, keep watching them,' the Doctor ordered.

He ran back to a vantage point of the main cavern, and saw all the statues were climbing up towards them. 'Every statue in this Maze, every single one, is a Weeping Angel. They're coming after us.'

'But there was only one Angel on the ship. Just the one, I swear,' River told him.

'Could they have been here already?' Rose asked.

The Doctor turned to River. 'The Aplans. What happened? How did they die out?'

'Nobody knows.'

He looked at Rose. 'We know.'

'They don't look like Angels,' Octavian noticed.

'And they're not as fast as they were before,' Rose said.

Amy remembered what the Doctor had told her in the dropship. 'You said they were fast. They should have had us by now.'

'Look at them,' the Doctor said. 'They're dying, losing their form. They must have been down here for centuries, starving.'

'Losing their image,' Rose said.

'And their image is their power,' the Doctor explained. 'Power . . . POWER!'

'Doctor?' Amy called to him quietly, but he was in full lecture mode.

'Don't you see? All that radiation spilling out the drive burn. The crash of the Byzantium wasn't an accident, it was a rescue mission for the Angels. We're in the middle of an army, and it's waking up.'

'We need to get out of here fast,' River said.

'No kiddin',' Rose said sarcastically.

Octavian took out his communicator. 'Bob, Angelo, Christian, come in, please. Any of you, come in.'

['It's Bob, sir. Sorry, sir,'] the young, scared Cleric said.

'Bob, are Angelo and Christian with you? All the statues are active. I repeat, all the statues are active.'

['I know, sir. Angelo and Christian are dead, sir. The statues killed them, sir.']

The Doctor grabbed Octavian's communicator. 'Bob, Sacred Bob, it's me, the Doctor.'

'I'm talking to . . .' Octavian protested.

'Where are you now?' the Doctor asked Bob.

Octavian was still protesting at the Doctor's complete disregard for protocol. 'I'm talking to my . . .'

'Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, shut up.'

['I'm on my way up to you, sir. I'm homing in on your signal.']

'Ah, well done, Bob. Scared keeps you fast. Told you, didn't I. Your friends, Bob. What did the Angel do to them?'

['Snapped their necks, sir.']

'What?!' Rose exclaimed.

'That's odd. That's not how the Angels kill you,' the Doctor told them.

'They kill you nicely,' Rose explained.

'They displace you in time . . . Unless they needed the bodies for something,' the Doctor theorised.

Octavian took his communicator back. 'Bob, did you check their data packs for vital signs? We may be able to initiate a rescue plan.'

The Doctor took it back again. 'Oh, don't be an idiot. The Angels don't leave you alive. Bob, keep running. But tell me, how did you escape?'

['I didn't escape, sir. The Angel killed me, too.']

'What do you mean, the Angel killed you?' the Doctor asked.

['Snapped my neck, sir. Wasn't as painless as I expected, but it was pretty quick, so that was something.']

'If you're dead, how can I be talking to you?'

['You're not talking to me, sir. The Angel has no voice. It stripped my cerebral cortex from my body and re-animated a version of my consciousness to communicate with you. Sorry about the confusion.']

'So when you say you're on your way up to us . . .'

['It's the Angel that's coming, sir, yes. No way out.']

'Then we get out through the wreckage,' Octavian said. 'Go! Go, go, go. All of you run.'

'Doctor,' Amy called again.

'Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm coming,' he told her, and then spoke to the bishop. 'Just go. Go, go, go. Yeah. Called you an idiot. Sorry, but there's no way we could have rescued your men.'

'I know that, sir. And when you've flown away in your little blue box, I'll explain that to their families.'

'That's not fair,' Rose said to the retreating Octavian.

The Doctor still had the communicator. 'Angel Bob. Which Angel am I talking to? The one from the ship?'

['Yes, sir. And the other Angels are still restoring.']

'Ah, so the Angel is not in the wreckage. Thank you.' In its arrogance, the Angel had given him vital information. He ran behind Rose along the passage, passing Amy as they went.

'Don't wait for me. Go, run.'

'I can't . . . No, really, I can't,' she said.

'Why not?' He asked her. Rose had turned around and came back to see what was wrong.

'Look at it. Look at my hand. It's stone,' Amy told them, looking at her hand holding a handrail.

'You looked into the eyes of an Angel, didn't you?' the Doctor said.

'I couldn't stop myself . . . I tried.'

The Doctor looked at her intensely. 'Listen to me. It's messing with your head. Your hand is not made of stone.'

'It is. Look at it.'

'Amy, its flesh and blood,' Rose told her.

'It's in your mind, I promise you,' the Doctor said. 'You can move that hand. You can let go.'

'I can't, okay? I've tried and I can't. It's stone.'

The Doctor talked in a calm, quiet voice. 'The Angel is going to come and it's going to turn this light off, and then there's nothing I can do to stop it, so do it. Concentrate. Move your hand.'

'I can't.'

'Then we're both going to die.'

'We're all gonna die,' Rose corrected him. 'Look Amy, I know what it's like to have an alien in yer head. And God knows, we were useless when it happened to us.' She was referring to Cassandra on New Earth. 'But he ain't gonna leave you, and I ain't gonna leave him . . . So move your hand!'

'You're not going to die.'

'They'll kill the lights,' he told her.

'You've got to go. You know you have. You've got Rose and Andrea to think about . . . and all that stuff with River later on, and that's all got to happen. You know you can't die here.'

'Time can be re-written. It doesn't work like that.'

The statue arrived in the passageway. 'Keep your eyes on it. Don't blink.'

'Don't worry,' Rose said. 'I remember.'

'Run!' Amy told them

'You see, we're not going. We're not leaving you here.'

'I don't need you two to die for me. Do I look that clingy?'

'You can move your hand,' he told her.

'It's stone.'

'No it ain't,' Rose said.

'You've got to go. Those people up there will die without you. If you stay here with me, you'll have as good as killed them.'

'And if you don't move your bleedin' hand, you'll as good as make our daughter an orphan. Now MOVE IT!' Rose said angrily.

['How are your nails?'] The Doctor thought to Rose.

She realised what he was thinking. ['Long and strong,'] she replied.

'Amy Pond, you are magnificent,' the Doctor said.

'I'm sorry,' Rose told her.

'It's okay. I understand. You've got to leave me.'

'Oh, no, I'm not leaving you, never,' he told her.

'Nah,' Rose confirmed. 'I was sayin' sorry about this.' Without taking her eyes off the Angel, she gripped Amy's hand and dug her nails into the back of it.

'OW!' Amy pulled her hand free and hugged it to her chest.

'See? Not stone. Now run,' he commanded.

'You dug your nails in my hand!' Amy said to Rose.

'Yeah, and you're alive,' Rose said as though she were talking to a simpleton.

'Look, I've got nail marks. Look at my hand,' she said to the Doctor as she held her hand out for him to inspect.

'Yes, and you're alive. Did we mention?'

'Blimey, your nails. Have you got claws or something?'

'Yeah, big bad "wolfy" ones,' Rose said with a grin.

The Doctor looked at them. 'Yeah . . . Alive . . . All I'm saying.'

As they made their way through the tunnel, they heard voices from up ahead.

'The statues are advancing along all corridors. And, sir, my torch keeps flickering,' Cleric Marco said.

'They all do,' Octavian replied.

'So does the gravity globe,' River added.

Octavian called to his soldiers. 'Clerics, we're down to four men. Expect incoming.'

The Doctor entered the chamber. 'Yeah, it's the Angels. They're coming. And they're draining the power for themselves.'

'Which means we won't be able to see them,' Octavian realised.

'Which means we can't stay here,' the Doctor told him.

'Two more incoming,' Octavian announced.

'Any suggestions?' River asked.

'The statues are advancing on all sides. We don't have the climbing equipment to reach the Byzantium,' Octavian said, looking up to the wrecked ship thirty feet above them.

River turned to the Doctor. 'There's no way up, no way back, no way out. No pressure, but this is usually when you have a really good idea.'

'There's always a way out,' he told her, and it echoed around the chamber. 'There's always a way out.'

['Doctor? Can I speak to the Doctor, please?'] The Angel who used to be Bob called over the communicator.

'Hello, Angels. What's your problem?'

['Your power will not last much longer, and the Angels will be with you shortly. Sorry, sir.']

'Why are you telling me this?' the Doctor asked, although he already knew they wanted to scare the group.

['There's something the Angels are very keen you should know before the end.']

'Which is?'

['I died in fear.']

'I'm sorry?'

['You told me my fear would keep me alive, but I died afraid, in pain and alone. You made me trust you, and when it mattered, you let me down.']

'Liar!' Rose called out. 'He told Bob it would keep him fast. He never said it would keep him alive.'

'What are they doing?' Amy asked.

'They're trying to make him angry,' River said.

'No, they're tryin' to distract him by makin' him feel responsible for Bob's death,' Rose told them. She remembered when she had first met him, and how he had been wracked with guilt and remorse.

['I'm sorry, sir. The Angels were very keen for you to know that.']

'Well then, the Angels have made their second mistake because I'm not going to let that pass. I'm sorry you're dead, Bob, but I swear to whatever is left of you, they will be sorrier.'

['But you're trapped, sir, and about to die.']

'Yeah. I'm trapped. And you know what? Speaking of traps, this trap has got a great big mistake in it. A great big, whopping mistake.'

['What mistake, sir?']

The Doctor looked at Rose. 'Trust me?'

'Always have, always will,' she replied.

He looked at Amy. 'Trust me?'

'Yeah.'

He looked at River. 'Trust me?'

'Always.'

He called over to the soldiers. 'You lot, trust me?'

'Sir, two more incoming,' Cleric Marco announced.

Octavian nodded. 'We have faith, sir.'

'Then give me your gun,' the Doctor said.

'But you don't use guns,' Rose said.

'That's when you use them to shoot people,' he said cryptically. 'I'm about to do something incredibly stupid and dangerous. When I do, jump!'

'Jump where?' Octavian asked.

'Just jump, high as you can. Come on, leap of faith, Bishop. On my signal.'

'What signal?'

'You won't miss it.'

['Sorry, can I ask again? You mentioned a mistake we made.']

The Doctor pointed the pistol at the hull of the Byzantium. 'Oh, big mistake. Huge. Didn't anyone ever tell you there's one thing you never put in a trap? If you're smart, if you value your continued existence, if you have any plans about seeing tomorrow, there is one thing you never, ever put in a trap.'

['And what would that be, sir?']

'Me!' he said and fired at the gravity globe that was floating below the hull of the Byzantium.