Chapter 16

The Pandorica Opens

'Vavoom!' the Doctor said suddenly, making Rose and Andrea jump.

'Va-what?'

'I can't believe I've never thought of this before. It's genius,' he said as he landed the TARDIS. 'Right, landed . . . Come on.'

'Where are we?'

'Planet One. The oldest planet in the universe. And there's a cliff of pure diamond, and according to legend, on the cliff there's writing. Letters fifty feet high. A message from the dawn of time And no one knows what it says, because no one's ever translated it . . . Till today.'

'What happens today?'

The Doctor kissed her on the lips, and kissed Andrea on the head. 'Us. The TARDIS can translate anything. All we have to do is open the doors and read the very first words in recorded history.'

They stepped outside, where the TARDIS had landed in between some giant mushrooms, and read the message.

"Hello Sweetie", it read, with some scientific symbols below.

'Vavoom,' Rose said sarcastically.

'Right. Come on then. We've got to be somewhere,' he said, going back into the TARDIS.

'Where?'

'No idea. Isn't that amazing!'

The TARDIS had materialised at the edge of a wood, on a hill. Rose stepped out with Andrea in her pushchair and looked around. It looked like Earth, but looks could be deceiving.

'Right place?' She asked her husband.

'Just followed the co-ordinates on the cliff face. Earth. Britain.' He looked at his wrist watch. 'One oh two a.m . . . No, p.m . . . No, AD.'

From their vantage point on the hill, they were looking down on an encampment. 'That's a Roman Legion,' Rose realised.

'Well, yeah. The Romans invaded Britain several times during this period.'

'Oh, I know. My favourite topic at school,' Rose told him. 'Invasion of the hot Italians.' The Doctor raised a questioning eyebrow. 'Yeah, I did get marked down for the title.'

A soldier ran up to them, banged his fist on his cuirass in salutation, and then knelt before him. 'Hail, Caesar!'

'Hi,' the Doctor replied, slightly bemused by the greeting.

'Welcome to Britain. We are honoured by your presence.'

The Doctor smiled. 'Well, you're only human. Arise, Roman person.'

'Why does he think you're Caesar?' Rose whispered. The Doctor noticed a smear of lipstick on the soldier's face, and had his suspicions.

'Cleopatra will see you now,' the soldier told him, and led the way down the hill to a large, opulent tent.

'Hello, sweetie,' River said as they entered the tent. She was dressed as an Egyptian queen.

'River!' Rose said. 'Hi.'

'You graffitied the oldest cliff face in the universe,' the Doctor said.

'You wouldn't answer your phone.' She clapped her hands, and one of her slaves handed her a rolled up canvas, which she offered to the Doctor.

'What's this?'

'It's a painting. Your friend Vincent. One of his final works. He had visions, didn't he? I thought you ought to know about this one.' The Doctor unrolled the canvas, and they looked at a version of Starry Night.

'Doctor? Doctor, what is this?' Rose asked, looking at the exploding TARDIS in the middle. 'Why is it exploding?'

'I assume it's some kind of warning,' River said.

'What, something's going to happen to the TARDIS?' Rose asked with concern. As far as she was concerned, the TARDIS was the safest place in the universe, and now she was worried that their daughter was inside the TARDIS in the painting.

'It might not be that literal,' River told her. 'Anyway, this is where he wanted you. Date and map reference on the door sign, see?'

'Does it have a title?' the Doctor asked her.

'The Pandorica Opens.'

Rose had heard that before. In his head, when he was thinking about the crack on the Byzantium. 'I've heard that before. "The Pandorica will open. Silence will fall" you said. What is it?'

'A box, a cage, a prison,' River said. 'It was built to contain the most feared thing in all the universe.'

'And it's a fairy tale, a legend. It can't be real,' he told her.

'If it is real, it's here and it's opening, and it's got something to do with your TARDIS exploding.' The Doctor unrolled a velum map and laid it on the table. River continued. 'Hidden, obviously. Buried for centuries. You won't find it on a map.'

'No, but if you buried the most dangerous thing in the universe, you'd want to remember where you put it.' He looked at the map, and saw the most obvious place to hide the most dangerous thing in the universe. 'We're going to need transport.'

'I'll commandeer some horses,' River said, leaving the tent.

'Where are we goin'?' Rose asked the Doctor.

'About eight miles northwest of Sarum, or Salisbury as it will become known.'

'Oh right,' Rose said, and then thought about it. 'Hang on, Salisbury . . . Salisbury Plain. Isn't that where Stonehenge is?' She followed her reasoning. 'An obvious landmark for millennia, they've hidden it at Stonehenge, ain't they?'

He gave her that proud smile. 'Yep. That was my exact same reasoning.'

Rose looked at the tent opening, and back to the Doctor. 'River . . . has she met me yet? Cos for a moment there, the way she looked at me . . .'

'It's hard to tell with her,' he told her.

'So when you introduced me as Rose Tyler back on Alfava Metraxis, she could have already known that.'

'Could be,' he admitted. 'She's good at hiding things.'

'Almost as good as you,' she said teasingly.

That hit close to home for him. If she only knew the things he had to keep to himself. He took Andrea's carry sling from the holdall in the back of the pushchair and handed it to Rose.

'Here, you'd better put this on while I fold down the pushchair.'

Rose put the sling on as he lifted Andrea out of the pushchair and stole a quick kiss.

'Better not let Madam catch you doin' that, or she'll know who we are.'

'Know whom "who" are?' River asked from the tent entrance.

'Er, me an' my daughter. I know you've met the Doctor before, but I don't know if you'd met me yet. I'm Rose, Rose Tyler, and this is my daughter, Andrea.'

River held out her hand and smiled. 'Nice to meet you Rose.' She rubbed Andrea's cheek with her finger. 'Hello Andrea.'

River looked at the Doctor, and then back to Rose. 'She's beautiful, like her mother. I'd ask you about the father, but I'm guessing there's a bit of a back story there. Spoilers and all that.'

"You have no idea", Rose thought as they went outside. Three slaves were holding the reins of the horses, and the Doctor fixed the collapsed pushchair to the back of the saddle.

Rose then realised that River no longer looked like Cleopatra. 'I've just noticed, you've changed your clothes.'

River laughed. 'Yeah, a shimmer outfit I picked up a while ago. An essential accessory when you live life in the fast lane.'

They galloped across a landscape that would become Wiltshire in Rose's time, and arrived at Stonehenge. They dismounted and hurried inside the circle of stones. The Doctor and River started scanning the stones.

'How come it's not new?' Rose asked. She expected the stones to all be upright and capped.

'Because it's already old,' River the archeologist told her. 'It's been here thousands of years. No one knows exactly how long.'

'No one?' the Doctor asked her.

'Oh don't tell me you were there,' Rose said.

'All right . . . I won't.' He continued to scan the stones with his sonic screwdriver.

He glanced at Rose, and saw that she was waiting for him to continue. "Gotcha" he thought to himself with a smile. 'A nice chap though, Caedric Starseer. A neolithic diplomat and a brilliant astronomer. He united the tribes with the vision of building a monument to the ancestors, and got a stellar observatory to boot.'

Rose rolled her eyes and turned to River. 'Okay, this Pandorica thing. Last time we saw you, you warned us about it, after we climbed out of the Byzantium.'

'Spoilers,' she replied, putting a finger to her lips.

'No, but you told the Doctor you'd see him again when the Pandorica opens.'

'Maybe I did,' River said mysteriously. 'But I haven't yet. But I will have.'

"I was right then," Rose thought to herself, "this is before the Byzantium for her."

'Doctor, I'm picking up fry particles everywhere. Energy weapons discharged on this site.'

'If the Pandorica is here, it contains the mightiest warrior in history,' the Doctor said, standing on the Altar stone. 'Now, half the galaxy would want a piece of that. Maybe even fight over it.' He jumped down and put an ear to the Altar stone. 'We need to get down there.'

'Well, we'd better get started then,' River said, heading back to the horses to offload her equipment. They set up perimeter lights as it started to get dark, and River attached four anti-gravity lifters on each corner of the Altar stone.

'Right then. Ready,' River asked, and then activated the lifters with her tablet device. There was a sound of machinery moving, and then the Altar stone moved aside to reveal stone steps down into the ground. River switched on her torch and shone it down the steps.

'The Underhenge,' the Doctor said quietly. He took out his sonic and used it as a torch.

They passed through a short, narrow tunnel, which opened out into a large chamber built from the base of the Sarcen Stones. The Doctor lit a wooden torch with his sonic screwdriver. River picked one up also and he lit it with his. The torches showed a large double door in the chamber with a wooden bar across it. With River's help, he lifted the bar and dropped it on the ground.

They pushed the doors open and walked through to see a large cube with circular, embossed designs on each side. 'It's a Pandorica,' the Doctor told them.

'More than just a fairy tale,' River said.

As they approached the cube, the Doctor's foot touched a Cyberman's severed arm lying in the dust of the floor.

The Doctor touched the Pandorica. 'There was a goblin, or a trickster, or a warrior. A nameless, terrible thing, soaked in the blood of a billion galaxies. The most feared being in all the cosmos. And nothing could stop it, or hold it, or reason with it. One day it would just drop out of the sky and tear down your world.'

'How did it end up in there?' Rose asked.

'You know fairy tales. A good wizard tricked it,' the Doctor replied.

'I hate good wizards in fairy tales,' River told Rose. 'They always turn out to be him.'

Rose laughed. 'Yeah, and the hero in the myths and legends, according to him.' She looked around the chamber. 'So, it's kind of like Pandora's Box, then? Almost the same name.'

'Sorry, what?' the Doctor said from the other side of the chamber.

'The story. Pandora's Box, with all the worst things in the world in it. That was my favourite book when I was a kid,' Rose told him, and saw the expression on his face. 'What's wrong?'

The Doctor thought about what she had told him recently. 'Your favourite school topic. Your favourite story. Never ignore a coincidence, unless you're busy. In which case, always ignore a coincidence.'

'So can you open it?' River asked him as he inspected the circular designs.

'Easily. Anyone can break into a prison. But I'd rather know what I'm going to find first.'

'You won't have long to wait. It's already opening.' River held her scanner against the Pandorica. 'There are layers and layers of security protocols in there, and they're being disabled one by one. Like it's being unlocked from the inside.'

'How long do we have?'

'Hours at the most.'

'What kind of security?' the Doctor asked.

'Everything. Deadlocks, time stops, matter lines.'

'What could need all that?'

'What could get past all that?'

'Think of the fear that went into making this box. What could inspire that level of fear?' he asked. He rested his head against the cube. 'Hello, you. Have we met?'

'So why would it start to open now?' River wondered.

'No idea.'

Rose wondered something else. 'Ahem, And how could Vincent have known about it? He won't even be born for centuries.'

Once again, Rose had asked the right question for her husband. 'The stones. These stones are great big transmitters, broadcasting a warning to everyone, everywhere, to every time zone. The Pandorica is opening.'

'Doctor, everyone everywhere?' River queried.

'Even poor Vincent heard it, in his dreams. But what's in there? What could justify all this?'

'Doctor, everyone?' River asked again, hoping he didn't actually mean everyone.

But the Doctor was deep in thought. 'Anything that powerful, I'd know about it. Why don't I know?'

'Doctor, you said everyone could hear it. So who else is coming?'

'Oh,' he said.

'Oh?' Rose said. 'Oh, what?'

River went to one of the stone pillars. 'Okay. If it is basically a transmitter, we should be able to fold back the signal.'

The Doctor started scanning each pillar in turn. 'Doing it.'

'Doing what?' Rose asked.

River explained it to her. 'Stonehenge is transmitting. It's been transmitting for a while, so who heard?'

'Okay, should be feeding back to you now. River, what's out there?'

'Give me a moment.'

'River, quickly. Anything?'

'Around this planet there are at least ten thousand starships.'

'At least?' Rose said in amazement.

'Ten thousand, a hundred thousand, a million, I don't know. There's too many readings.'

'What kind of star ships?' the Doctor asked her.

Rose was hiding in a stone cellar from a partially assembled Cyberman. She heard someone outside the wooden door. 'Doctor? Doctor?'

She jumped when a Roman short sword pierced the door, which swung open to reveal the Cyberman skewered to the wood.

She could see the outline of a Roman soldier in the doorway. 'Who, who are you?'

The Centurion removed his helmet. 'Hello, Rose,' Mickey Smith said before she passed out from the Cyberman sedative that had been injected into her.

'Whoa, whoa, whoa,' Mickey said as he caught her and gently lowered her and Andrea onto a stone.

Meanwhile, the Doctor was recovering from being electrocuted by the Cyberman's arm that had been firing at him. He heard an echoey voice. 'Sir, the man's coming round.'

'Rose? Andrea? Where are they?

'They're fine, Doctor,' Mickey told him, holding Andrea in his arms. 'Rose is just unconscious.'

The Doctor checked Rose. 'Okay. Yes, she's sedated, that's all. Half an hour, she'll be fine.' He took his daughter off Mickey, without registering the fact that Mickey Smith was in Roman Britain. 'Okay, Romans. Good. I was just wishing for Romans. Good old River. How many?'

'Fifty men up top, volunteers. What about that thing?' Mickey said, nodding at the Pandorica.

'Fifty? You're not exactly a legion.'

'Your friend was very persuasive, but it's a tough sell,' Mickey told him. He'd sent River back to the Roman camp to get reinforcements.

'Yes, I know that, Mickey I'm not exactly one to miss the obvious,' he said without any hint of irony. 'But we need everything we can get. Okay, Cyber weapons. This is basically a sentry box, so headless wonder here was a sentry. Probably got himself duffed up by the locals. Never underestimate a Celt.'

'Doctor?'

'Hush, Mickey Thinking. Why leave a Cyberman on guard, unless it's a Cyberthing in the box. But why would they lock up one of their own? Okay, no, not a Cyberthing, but what? What? No, I'm missing something obvious, Mickey Something big. Something right slap in front of me. I can feel it.'

Mickey gave him a lopsided smile. 'Yeah, I think you probably are.'

'I'll get it in a minute,' he said as he left with the Cyber weapons. He dropped the weapons, returned to the chamber and looked intently at Mickey, prodding him in the chest. 'Hello again.'

'Hiya,' Mickey replied. 'So, Boss . . . You've done the face thing again.'

'Oh, the regeneration. Yes I have.'

'What does Rose think?' Mickey asked as he looked at her, curled up on the stone like a sleeping child.

'I think she's still getting used to it to be honest . . . So, how've you been?'

'Good. Yeah. Good. I mean . . .' He looked down at his uniform. 'Roman.'

'Mickey I'm not trying to be rude, but how can you be here?'

'I don't know. It's kind of fuzzy.'

'Fuzzy?'

'Well, I was in this warehouse with Martha, trackin' a Sontaran. He must have circled around behind us, 'cus I remember gettin' shot, and then I'm a Roman. It's very distracting.'

'A Sontaran in a warehouse? But I . . .' The ground started to shake, and the circular designs on the Pandorica were glowing green and moving like cog wheels.

'What is it? What's happening?'

'The final phase. It's opening.' Mickey ran out of the chamber to see what was happening outside.

The communicator that River had given the Doctor, buzzed for his attention. ['You're surrounded. Have you got a plan?'] River asked him.

'Yes. Now hurry up and get the TARDIS here. I need equipment.' He walked up to the Pandorica. 'What are you? They're all here, all of them, all for you. What could you possibly be?'

When Mickey got to the surface, he saw a sky full of alien craft buzzing Stonehenge. The Roman soldiers were either running around in a panic, or rooted to the spot in terror.

'Sorry, sorry, dropped it,' Mickey heard the Doctor say from the entrance of the Underhenge. 'Ah, the Mickey-Meister. Could you hold Andrea for a moment?' He handed his daughter to Mickey, and when he spoke again, his voice boomed out of the communicator.

'Hello, Stonehenge! Who takes the Pandorica, takes the universe. But bad news, everyone, because guess who? Ha!' he said, jumping up onto the Altar stone.

'Listen, you lot, you're all whizzing about. It's really very distracting. Could you all just stay still a minute because I AM TALKING!' The alien craft stopped whizzing about.

'The question of the hour is, who's got the Pandorica? Answer, I do. Next question. Who's coming to take it from me? Come on! Look at me. No plan, no back up, no weapons worth-a-damn. Oh, and something else. I don't have anything to lose! So, if you're sitting up there in your silly little spaceship, with all your silly little guns, and you've got any plans on taking the Pandorica tonight, JUST REMEMBER WHO'S STANDING IN YOUR WAY! REMEMBER EVERY BLACK DAY I EVER STOPPED YOU, AND THEN . . . AND THEN, DO THE SMART THING. Let somebody else try first.'

He stood on the Altar stone with his arms held out wide and turned in a circle. After the booming of his voice, there was an eerie silence as nothing seemed to happen. And then, the spaceship's search lights went out, one by one, and they retreated.

'That'll keep them squabbling for half an hour,' the Doctor told Mickey. He looked around at all the soldiers with a smirk of admiration. 'Romans.'

They went back down to the Pandorica chamber. 'They're still out there. What do we do now?' Mickey asked.

'If I can stop whatever's in this box getting out, then they'll go home.'

'Right.'

The Doctor saw Rose get up off the stone slab and walk towards them. 'Oh, my head.'

She walked into an embrace with the Doctor. He held her face, kissed her on the lips, asked her to say "Ah", and looked in her mouth.

Rose said 'ah.'

'Just your basic knock-out drops. Get some fresh air, you'll be fine.'

'Is it safe up there?' she asked him.

'Not remotely, but it's fresh.'

'Fine,' she said. She saw a Centurion was holding her daughter, and took her into her arms and gave her a big hug and cuddle. 'Thank you,' she said.

'Yer welcome Babe,' the Centurion said with a chuckle.

Rose immediately recognised the voice and looked at his face for the first time. 'Mickey!' she squealed with joy and went to hug him. She realised that Andrea would be squashed, and handed her to the Doctor.

'Oh, come here ya big hunk.' She gave him a hug around his neck and a kiss on the cheek. She then leaned back and studied his face. 'But how? How can you be here . . . be a Roman soldier?'

'Ah, already covered that one Love,' the Doctor said, handing back Andrea. 'We haven't got a clue, but I suspect it's got something to do with the crack in the wall.'

'Crack in the wall?' Mickey asked.

The Doctor led them out of the chamber as he explained. 'There are cracks. Cracks in time. There's going to be a huge explosion in the future, on one particular day. And every other moment in history is cracking around it.'

'So how does that work?' Mickey asked him. 'What kind of explosion? What exploded?'

'Doesn't matter. The cracks are everywhere now. Get too close to them and you can fall right out of the universe.'

'So I fell through a crack when that Sontaran shot me?'

'Basically,' the Doctor told him. 'Originally, I stopped it happening, but the crack has rewritten the time line.'

Rose sat on the Altar stone, cradling Andrea, and Mickey found a blanket to wrap around them.

'Thanks mate,' she said with a smile.

He returned the smile and nodded, before turning to the Doctor. 'So, how did I end up here?'

'I don't know, you shouldn't have. What happened? From your point of view, what physically happened?'

'Like I said, I was in the warehouse. I was arguin' with Martha, tellin' her it was no place for a married woman. And then I said if we went down to the factory floor, and down past a corridor, he wouldn't know that we were there.'

He gave them a lopsided grin. 'Famous last words, eh? I felt the energy blast hit me between the shoulder blades. I was surprised that it didn't hurt, and then I was just here, a Roman soldier. A proper Roman. Head full of Roman stuff. A whole other life, just here like I'd woken up from a dream. I started to think it was a dream, you and Rose and the TARDIS. And then today, in the camp, the men were talking about the visitors. The girl with the blonde hair. I thought you'd come back for me.'

'We didn't even know you were here,' Rose told him. 'We were followin' some directions that were left for us.'

'But I don't understand. Why am I here?'

'Because you are,' the Doctor said. 'The universe is big. It's vast and complicated and ridiculous, and sometimes, very rarely, impossible things just happen and we call them miracles, and that's the theory. Nine hundred years, never seen one yet, but this would do me.'

River hurried up the ramp to the console, throwing her fleece jacket on the chair. 'Okay,' she said to herself and started the Time Rotor.

The TARDIS dematerialised, but it jerked. 'What's the matter with you?' she asked. 'What are you doing? What's wrong?'

The TARDIS lurched down the Time Vortex and stopped. River could hear creaking from somewhere within the TARDIS. 'Okay. You okay now?'

River stepped out of the TARDIS in the middle of a council housing estate at night. There was a Post Office, a take away, and some shops with shutters that had graffiti on them. 'Why have you brought me here?'

She took out her tablet, and started scanning the area. She found scorch marks on the Tarmac, and started to follow a trail of alien energy. It led to a security door of a block of flats called Bucknall House, and she noticed the lock on the security door had been vandalised.

She followed the trail up four flights of stairs, and along a landing to number forty eight, the door of which was hanging off its hinges. 'Rough neighbourhood,' she said to herself. 'Okay, so something's been here.'

She followed her scanner signal into a room on the left, which was obviously a teenage girls bedroom. It was a mess. She wondered if it had always been messy, or if the place had been turned over by someone searching for something. She was right on both counts.

She noticed that the wardrobe and the draws had no clothes in them. There were dust free patches on the walls where River presumed photographs had been removed. It had the feel of a room where everything of personal or sentimental value had been removed. There was a book on the dishevelled bed, and River shone her torch on it. It was a picture book of The Story of Roman Britain.

She moved some of the clutter and found a copy of the Legend of Pandora's box. She remembered Rose telling the Doctor that it was her favourite book when she was a kid.

'Oh no,' River said, and went into the hallway. She shone her torch towards the unhinged door, and saw some letters on the floor. She picked them up and looked at the address labels. There were utility bills addressed to Mrs. J. Tyler, and a bank statement for Ms. R. M. Tyler.

She quickly made her way back to the TARDIS, and found a group of hoodies hanging around by the large, cylindrical bins.

'Hey, lookie what we got here,' one of the youths said, walking towards her. The other hoodies followed him and surrounded River.

'Hello boys,' she said sweetly. 'Looking for a bit of excitement are you?'

'Yeah. An' I reckon we've found it, eh lads?' the lead hoodie said, leering at her.

'Ooh, I think you're right,' River purred. 'But be careful what you wish for.' She nodded down, and the hoodie looked to see a pistol pointing at his groin.

He gasped and looked at her smiling face with terrified eyes. 'Now, I suggest you boys run along home, lover boy and I would like to be alone.'

The gang scattered, and River moved the gun to under his chin. Before she could tease him anymore, she heard the phone ringing inside the TARDIS. 'Oh, what a shame, I'll have to take that call. Never mind Sweetie, maybe I can come back later.'

She holstered the pistol, patted his cheek, and went inside the TARDIS. She ran to the console and picked up the phone.

['The TARDIS, where is it? Hurry up,'] the Doctor said urgently.

'Don't raise your voice, don't look alarmed, just listen,' River said calmly. 'They're not real. They can't be. They're all right here in the story book. Those actual Romans. The ones I sent you, the ones you're with right now. They're all in a book in Rose's flat. A children's picture book.'

['What are you even doing there?']

'It doesn't matter. The TARDIS went wrong. Doctor, how is this possible?'

['Something's using her memories. Rose's memories.']

'But how?'

['You said something had been there.']

'Yes. There's burn marks on the Tarmac outside the shops. Landing patterns.'

['If they've been to her flat, they could have used her psychic residue. Structures can hold memories, that's why houses have ghosts. They could've taken a snapshot of Rose's memories. But why?']

'Doctor, who are those Romans?'

['Projections . . . or duplicates.']

'But they were helping us. My lipstick even worked.'

['They might think they're real. The perfect disguise. They actually believe their own cover story, right until they're activated.']

River found a stray photograph in the pages of the book. It was a selfie of Rose and Mickey in Trafalgar Square when she was on a lunch break from Henricks.

'Doctor, that Centurion,' River started to explain, and then had a realisation. 'It's a trap! It has to be. They used Rose to construct a scenario you'd believe, to get close to you.'

['Why? Who'd do that? What for? It doesn't make sense.'] He heard a bang in the TARDIS. ['River? River . . ? River, what's happening?']

'I don't know. It's the engines. Doctor, there's something wrong with the TARDIS, like something else is controlling it.'

['You're flying it wrong.']

'I'm flying it perfectly,' she told him. 'You taught me,' she admitted reluctantly.

['Where are you? What's the date reading?']

River checked the view screen. 'It's the 26th of June, 2010.'

['You need to get out of there now. Any other time zone. Just go.']

'I can't break free.'

['Well, then shut down the TARDIS. Shut down everything!']

'I can't!' She told him, and then paused as she heard a voice coming from all around her.

'Silence will fall . . . Silence will fall.'

'Someone else is flying it. An external force. I've lost control.'

The Doctor paced around the chamber, worried by this turn of events. 'But how? Why?' he asked River over the communicator, before a high pitched noise filled the chamber causing the Romans slump over momentarily.

'Listen to me, just land her anywhere. Emergency landing, now. There are cracks in time. I've seen them everywhere, and they're getting wider. The TARDIS exploding is what causes them, but we can stop the cracks ever happening if you just land her.'

['It's not safe,'] River told him.

The Pandorica started to open, and a brilliant white light flooded the chamber.

'Well, now. Ready to come out, are we?' the Doctor said.

['Doctor? I'm down. I've landed.']

'Okay, just walk out of the doors. If there's no one inside, the TARDIS engines shut down automatically. Just get out of there.'

['I'm going.']

'Run!' he told River, and then noticed the Roman soldier's fingers drop away from their hands to reveal weapons.

['Doctor! Doctor, I can't open the doors!']

The Doctor realised that all the Romans were Autons, even Mickey. ['Rose!'] he called out in his thoughts.

Above the Doctor, in Stonehenge, Mickey was struggling against the Nestene Consciousness. 'Argh! No! No, please. No! I'm not going. I'm Mickey! Listen to me. You have to run. You have to get as far away from here as you can. I'm a thing! I'll kill you. Just go! Please, no, I don't want to go. I'm Mickey! I'm, I'm . . .'

'Smith. Mickey Smith from the Powell Estate. My best mate.' Rose told him.

'Rose, you've got to run. I can't hold on. I'm going.'

'You are Mickey Smith and you aren't going anywhere.'

Mickey's fingers drop down to reveal the muzzle of a weapon.

Rose heard the Doctor call a warning in her mind. ['Rose!']

But it was too late. Mickey cried out. 'No.'

A single energy bolt passed through Andrea's body, killing her instantly, before hitting Rose. She gasped and started to cry as she fell into Mickey's arms.

Mickey cried in disbelief at what he had just done. 'No! No! No!'

'Doctor, I can't open the doors! Doctor, please, I've got seconds!' River said into the phone, but he was no longer there.

So, it was all down to her. She tried frantically to escape the TARDIS, and then she had an idea. She hooked the TARDIS engines to the main door handles and threw the switch to divert power through the lock. She ran down the ramp and threw the doors open to discover the TARDIS is parked right up against a rock wall.

'I'm sorry, my love,' she said quietly before the TARDIS exploded.

Down in the Pandorica chamber, the Doctor was being dragged along by two Auton soldiers, when he felt his daughter die and his wife get shot. ['ROSE! NO!']

['Oh my Love. I'm SO sorry,'] she weeped in his mind. ['I thought I could stop Mickey, and now Andrea's dead.']

['It's not Mickey, it's an Auton . . . Rose . . . I love you, and I will make this right. I promise you, I will make this right.']

He struggled against the Auton's grip, but they continued to drag him backwards. 'Plastic Romans. Duplicates, driven by the Nestene Consciousness, eh? Deep cover, but what for? What are you doing? What's in there, eh? What's coming out?'

'The Pandorica is ready,' the Centurion Marcellus announced.

The Doctor looked over his shoulder. 'What, do you mean it's open?'

The Cyberleader marched forward. 'You have been scanned, assessed, understood, Doctor.' Two more Cybermen materialised behind it.

'Scanned? Scanned by what, a box?' the Doctor asked.

'Your limits and capacities have been extrapolated.'

Judoon, Sontarans and Sycorax also teleport into the chamber.

'The Pandorica is ready,' the Sontaran, Stark declared.

'Ready for what?' the Doctor asked.

'Ready for you,' the Cyberleader told him.

The Doctor struggled against the grip of two Roman Autons as he was dragged closer and closer to the Pandorica He was fastened into the seat inside it. His arms, torso and head clamped in place with all his old enemies staring at him.

'You lot, working together. An alliance. How is that possible?'

'The cracks in the skin of the universe,' the Cyberleader started to explain.

'All reality is threatened,' Stark continued.

'All universes will be deleted,' the Cyberleader said.

'What? And you've come to me for help?' the Doctor asked angrily. 'You have a funny way of asking for it, by killing my wife and child.'

'No. We will save the universe from you!' Stark told him.

'From me?'

'All projections correlate. All evidence concurs. The Doctor will destroy the universe,' the Cyberleader said.

'No, no, no. You've got it wrong,' the Doctor told them.

'The Pandorica was constructed to ensure the safety of the Alliance,' Stark said.

'A scenario was devised from the memories of your mate,' the Cyberleader explained.

'A trap the Doctor could not resist,' Stark confirmed.

'The cracks in time are the work of the Doctor. It is confirmed,' the Cyberleader announced.

'No. no, no, not me, the TARDIS. And I'm not in the TARDIS, am I?'

'Only the Doctor can pilot the TARDIS,' the Cyberleader said.

'Please, listen to me!'

'You will be prevented.'

'Total event collapse!' the Doctor said. 'Every sun will supernova at every moment in history. The whole universe will never have existed. Please, listen to me!'

'Seal the Pandorica,' the Cyberleader commanded.

'No! Please, listen to me! The TARDIS is exploding right now and I'm the only one who can stop it! Listen to me!'

The Pandorica closed.