Chapter 16

The Big Bang

In the British Museum, a young Rose Tyler hurried past the marble lion that gazed on the museum's Great Court with hollow, sorrowful eyes. 'Come on, Mum,' she called to Jackie.

They passed rows of carved Roman heads, hundreds of sightless eyes watching their progress. Then there were some sarcophagi, and a giant stone foot that seemed almost too comedic to be in such a serious place as a museum.

Then they came to a row of statues, sculpted human forms, some headless, some armless, but all possessed of a shining white dignity despite their misfortunes.

'Oh, look at that. That's good, innit?; Jackie said, looking at a statue of a beautiful young woman holding a cornucopia, overflowing with stone fruit and flowers, in the crook of one arm. The other arm was no longer whole, a wrist stump gesturing redundantly. 'The goddess Fortuna,' she read out loud.

'Not that,' Rose said. 'This way.' She wasn't interested in old, broken statues. She was there for one specific exhibit. The one in the pamphlet that was posted through the letterbox. The one that was ringed with red ink and the message saying, "Come along Rose".

'But we're not lookin' at anythin',' Jackie complained.

'This way!' Rose called again.

'Rose!'

She led Jackie to the Anomaly Exhibition, where she stopped to look at the exhibit of petrified Cybermen, then pushed through the people standing looking at the Pandorica. Someone snatched her Original Cola drink from her. Suddenly there was a post-it note on the Pandorica, saying "Stick around, Rose".

'Rose!' she heard her mother call after her, so she ran and hid.

'Rose? ROSE?'

Jackie searched all through the museum with the security staff, looking for her daughter. She was frantic with worry. Rose was her only daughter, her only link to her dead husband, Pete. She was her whole world.

'ROSE!' she shouted as it approached closing time.

['Rose Tyler, please go to the reception, please. Your mother is waiting for you there. Rose Tyler, please go to reception,'] a voice called over the Tannoy.

The security staff closed the museum, and advised Jackie to go to the police, and go home to see if she had made her own way there. The night security would continue to search the museum to see if Rose had fallen asleep somewhere in the building.

Later that night, young Rose crept out from the Penguin display, knocking some of them over. 'Sorry.'

She crept past the creepy exhibits to return to the Pandorica and remove the post-it note. She put her hand on the Pandorica and it started to open, filling the area with an intense white light. Young Rose backed away as the person inside spoke to her.

'Okay, kid. This is where it gets complicated,' an adult Rose gasped, as she stumbled out of the Pandorica with her crying daughter in the sling in front of her.

'Are you all right?' her younger self asked. 'Who are you?'

'I'm . . .' She was about to say Rose, and then realised who was asking. 'Fine. I'm supposed to rest. Got to rest, the Doctor says.'

'What Doctor?'

Rose tapped her head. 'He's in here. Left a message in my head like I'm an answerphone. Where am I? Hang on. British Museum, right? I was here before, once when I was little, and once . . .' She finally realised what was happening. 'Yeah, complicated. Let's see,' she said, assessing her height and the length of her hair. 'It's what, 1995?'

'Who are you?'

'It's a long story. Oh. A very long story.'

At Stonehenge, 1,894 years previously, the darkness was relieved by burning torches and braziers. Mickey had the bodies of Rose and Andrea lying across his lap. 'So the universe ended,' he told his best friend. 'You missed that, in 102 AD . . . I suppose this means you and I never get born at all. You would have laughed at that.' He stroked her hair off her face, and tucked it behind her ear as he used to do when they were together.

'Please laugh,' he pleaded. 'The Doctor said the universe was huge and ridiculous, and sometimes there were miracles. I could do with a ridiculous miracle about now.'

Suddenly, as if in answer to his wish, there was a flash of white light and the Doctor popped out of thin air, wearing a red fez and carrying a mop under his arm.

'Mickey! Listen, she's not dead. Well, she is dead, but it's not the end of the world. Well, it is the end of the world. Actually, it's the end of the universe. Oh, no. Hang on,' he said hurriedly, and then vanished.

'Doctor? DOCTOR!' Mickey shouted.

He reappeared, this time without the mop. 'You need to get me out of the Pandorica.'

Mickey looked puzzled. 'But you're not in the Pandorica.'

He reached inside his jacket pocket and reached out his sonic screwdriver. 'Yes, I am. Well, I'm not now, but I was back then. Well, back now from your point of view, which is back then from my point of view. Time travel, you can't keep it straight in your head. It's easy to open from the outside.' He pointed the sonic screwdriver at Mickey to demonstrate. 'Just point and press.'

He gave Mickey his sonic screwdriver. 'Now go.'

The Doctor vanished and returned again. 'Oh, and when you're done, leave my screwdriver in her top pocket. Good luck.' He vanished again.

'What do you mean?' Mickey asked. 'Done what?'

He gently laid Rose and Andrea on the ground and covered them with a blanket, before going down to the Pandorica chamber. He pointed the sonic screwdriver at the Pandorica and pressed the button. The chamber was filled with an intense bright light as the Pandorica opened, to reveal the Doctor strapped to the chair.

The chair started to release him. 'How did you do that?'

'You gave me this,' Mickey told him, holding up the sonic.

The Doctor took his screwdriver from his own pocket. 'No, I didn't.'

'You did. Look at it.'

The Doctor stepped out of the Pandorica and touched his screwdriver to Mickey's, causing them to spark. 'Temporal energy. Same screwdriver at different points in its own time stream. Which means it was me who gave it to you. Me from the future. I've got a future. That's nice,' he said cheerfully, and then saw the fossilised Cybermen. 'That's not.'

'Yeah. What are they?' Mickey asked, looking around the chamber at all the fossilised inhabitants.

'History has collapsed. Whole races have been deleted from existence. These are just like after-images. Echoes. Fossils in time. The footprints of the never-were.'

'Er, what does that mean?'

'Total event collapse. The universe literally never happened.'

'So, how can we be here? What's keeping us safe?'

'Nothing. Eye of the storm, that's all. Remember the Daleks? No one else does who wasn't in the Crucible. We're just the last light to go out.' He then remembered what happened to his wife and daughter. 'Rose and Andrea! Where are they?'

Without speaking, Mickey led him back to the surface. 'I killed them.'

'Oh, Mickey,' the Doctor said sadly as he pulled back the blanket to see his wife's beautiful face.

'Doctor, what am I?'

'You're a Nestene duplicate. A lump of plastic with delusions of humanity.'

'But I'm Mickey now. Whatever was happening, it's stopped. I'm Mickey.'

'That's software talking,' the Doctor said coldly.

'Can you help her? Is there anything you can do?' Nestene or not, he felt the guilt of his actions

'Yeah, probably, if I had the time.'

'The time?'

'All of creation has just been wiped from the sky. Do you know how many lives now never happened? All the people who never lived?' For the Doctor, it was Gallifrey all over again. 'My wife and daughter aren't more important than the whole universe.'

Mickey was incredulous. He grabbed the Doctor's shoulder, spun him around, and punched him on the chin.

'They bloody well should be,' Mickey said angrily. 'What kind of alien are you? They're your wife and daughter . . . my best mate and honorary niece.'

The Doctor worked his considerable chin. 'Welcome back, Mickey Smith! Sorry. Had to be sure. Hell of a gun-arm you're packing there. Right, we need to get them downstairs. And take that look off your plastic face. This is my family we're bringing back to life.'

The Doctor gently picked up his wife, her head flopping backwards, her blonde hair falling back. His daughter was lying across her chest in the carry sling. With tears in his eyes, he carried them down the stone steps to the Pandorica chamber.

He placed Rose and Andrea in the Pandorica chair and kissed his daughter lovingly on her head, leaving a sample of his DNA from his lips. He stroked Rose's cheek, and gently brushed her lips with his. He was no Prince Charming though, and Rose was no Princess Aurora.

'So you've got a plan, then?'

'Bit of a plan, yeah. Memories are more powerful than you think, and Rose Lungbarrowmas is not an ordinary girl. Married a Time Lord. Remember what she did on the Crucible? She's got part of the TARDIS in her head,' he explained as he put two fingers on each of her temples.

'She had the universe pouring through her dreams every night. The Nestenes took a memory print of her and got a bit more than they bargained for, like you. Not just your face, but your heart and your soul.'

He mind-melded with Rose. 'I'm leaving her a message for when she wakes up, so she knows what's happening.' He then stepped out of the Pandorica and sealed the sides together.

'Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. What are you doing?'

'I'm saving her. This box is the ultimate prison. You can't even escape by dying. It forces you to stay alive.'

'But she's already dead.'

'Well, she's mostly dead. The Pandorica can stasis-lock her that way. Now, all it needs is a scan of her living DNA and it'll restore her, and hopefully extrapolate that to Andrea with my DNA that I just left on her.'

'Where's it going to get that?'

'In about two thousand years.'

'She's going to be in that box for two thousand years?'

'Yeah, but we're taking a shortcut. River's vortex manipulator. Rubbish way to time travel, but the universe is tiny now. We'll be fine.'

'So hang on. The future's still there, then. Our world.'

'A version of it. Not quite the one you know. Earth alone in the sky. Let's go and have a look. You put your hand there. Don't worry. Should be safe.'

'That's not what I'm worried about,' Mickey said looking at the Pandorica.

'They'll be fine. Nothing can get into this box.'

'Well, you got in there.'

'Well, there's only one of me. I counted.'

'This box needs a guard. I killed the last one.'

'No! Mickey, no. Don't even think about it.'

'She'll be all alone.'

'She won't feel it.'

'You bet she won't.'

'Two thousand years, Mickey. You won't even sleep. you'd be conscious every second. It would drive you mad.'

'Will she be safer if I stay? Look me in the eye and tell me she wouldn't be safer.'

'Mickey, you . . .'

'Answer me!' Mickey demanded.

'Yes. Obviously.'

'I killed her. How could I leave her?'

'Why do you have to be so human?'

'Because right now, I'm not,' Mickey said. He needed to pay a penance to his best friend for what he had done to her and her daughter.

'Listen to me. This is the last bit of advice you're going to get in a very long time. You're living plastic, but you're not immortal. I have no idea how long you'll last. And you're not indestructible. Stay away from heat and radio signals when they come along. You can't heal, or repair yourself. Any damage is permanent. So, for God's sake, however bored you get, stay out of . . .'

Mickey disappeared, along with the Pandorica Chamber, and was replaced by a fossilised Cyberman 'Trouble!' he finished saying as he saw the Cyberman approaching. 'Oh.'

He turned to run and saw his gorgeous, living wife and daughter, along with a young girl who he had seen win the bronze medal at the under seven's gymnastics competition at the Jericho Street Primary School. 'Ah, two of you . . . Complicated.'

'Delete! Weapons systems restoring,' the Cyberman said.

'Come along, Roses,' the Doctor said, grabbing their hands and running.

'Delete!'

They ran to a Middle Eastern montage, where the Doctor grabbed his wife and pulled her into a passionate kiss, being careful not to squash his daughter between them.

'Phew! I should get trapped in a stasis cube for two thousand years more often,' she joked. Relieved to be in his arms again.

'Only if I'm right there with you,' he told her as he took a fez from a mannequin.

'What are we doin'?' she asked him.

'Well, we are running into a dead end, where I'll have a brilliant plan, that basically involves not being in one.'

A security guard walked into the Anomaly Exhibition, shining a torch. 'What's going on?'

The Doctor ran back to the Pandorica and looked around the corner. 'Get out of here. Go! Just run!'

'Drop the device!' the Cyberman commanded.

'It's not a weapon. Scan it. It's not a weapon, and you don't have the power to waste,' the Doctor called out.

'Scans indicate intruder unarmed.'

The guard dropped the torch and stepped forward. Rose gasped when she saw Mickey in a museum guard uniform.

'Do you think?' Mickey asked. His fingers dropped down and his Auton hand weapon appeared, which he used to shoot the Cyberman.

'Weapon impaired! Weapon . . .' the Cyberman leaned forward and stopped.

'Rose!' Mickey called to her.

'Mickey,' Rose called back.

They ran forward to each other and hugged. 'I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I couldn't help it. It just happened,' Mickey told her.

'Oh, Shut up,' she said as she kissed his cheek.

'Yeah, shut up, because we've got to go. Come on, the Doctor said.'

'I waited. Two thousand years I waited for you Babe. I owed you that.'

'No, still shut up,' Rose told him.

Young Rose tugged on the Doctor's sleeve. 'I'm thirsty. Can I get a drink?'

The Doctor looked down at her. 'I should imagine so,' he said as he dropped the fez on her head which covered her eyes. 'Not sure where from though,' he added.

He looked towards the Cyberman and the Pandorica beyond. 'The light. The light from the Pandorica, it must have hit the Cyberman.'

The Cyberman straightened up and lifted its gun arm.

'Out! Out! Out!' the Doctor ordered.

They ran to the Museum Reception. 'So, two thousand years. How did you do?' the Doctor asked Mickey as he closed the door and put the fez on his head.

'Kept out of trouble,' he answered.

'Oh . . . How?' the Doctor asked as he picked up a mop to bar the door.

'Unsuccessfully,' Mickey replied and then recognised the mop. 'THE MOP! That's how you looked all those years ago when you gave me the sonic.'

The Doctor looked at the mop in his hands. 'Ah. Well, no time to lose, then.' He tapped the buttons on the vortex manipulator and disappeared in a flash of light.

A second later, the Doctor returned. 'Oops, sorry.' He put the mop through the door handles to the Anomaly Exhibition.

'How can he do that?' young Rose asked. 'Is he magic?'

The Doctor used the vortex manipulator again to jump back to Roman Stonehenge, and then he reappeared. 'Right, let's go then.'

He led them up a flight of stairs and stopped half way up. 'Wait! Now I don't have the sonic. I just gave it Mickey two thousand years ago.' He disappeared and reappeared again.

'Right then,' he said, reaching into the top pocket of Rose's leather jacket, and retrieving his sonic screwdriver. He stole a quick kiss. 'Thanks Love. Off we go!'

Once again he started to run up the stairs and stopped. 'No, hang on. How did you know to come here?' he asked young Rose.

She showed him the museum leaflet that had been posted through the letterbox of 48 Bucknall House, and the post-it note from the Pandorica.

'Ah, my handwriting. Okay.' He grabbed a new leaflet and post-it note from the information desk and vanished. He returned seconds later with the drink he took from young Rose earlier. 'There you go . . . Drink up.'

'Is that a vortex manipulator you've got there?' Rose asked.

'Yes, it's River's. Cheap and nasty time travel. Very bad for you. I'm trying to give it up.'

'Yeah, I remember when we escaped from the Futurekind on Malcassairo,' Rose told him. 'Where are we goin'?'

'The roof.'

There was a flash of light at the top of the stairs, and a second Doctor appeared. He was without the fez, and his clothes were smoking. The Doctor ran up to himself, and scanned his body with the sonic.

'Doctor, it's you. How can it be you?' Mickey asked.

'Oh my God Love,' Rose gasped. 'Is that you?'

The Doctor held his other self's chin and turned it's head from side to side. 'Yeah, it's me. Me from the future.'

The future Doctor's eyes flickered open and he suddenly sat up, grabbing the Doctor in a hug, and whispering in his ear, before falling back again.

'Are you . . ? I mean, is he . . . is he dead?' Rose asked hesitantly.

'What?' the Doctor said distractedly as he stood up. 'Dead? Yes, yes. Of course he's dead. Right, I've got twelve minutes,' he said as he ran up the stairs. 'That's good.'

'Twelve minutes to live? How is that good?' Rose asked angrily. She'd just seen her husband die in front of her.

'Oh, you can do loads in twelve minutes. Suck a mint, buy a sledge, have a fast bath. Come on, the roof.'

'We can't leave you here dead,' Mickey told him.

'Oh, good. Mickey the idiot. Are you in charge now? So tell me, what are we going to do about Rose's younger self?' the Doctor said.

Rose looked around and saw a discarded drink of cola on the floor. 'Where'd she go?'

They ran down the stairs. 'ROSE?' Mickey called out, only to hear his voice echo back to him.

'There is no younger Rose. From now on, there never was. History is still collapsing,' the Doctor explained.

'But how can I still be here if she's not?' Rose asked.

'You're an anomaly. We all are. We're all just hanging on at the eye of the storm. But the eye is closing, and if we don't do something fast, reality will never have happened. Today, just dying is a result. Now, come on!' He ran out of view.

Rose stroked her daughter's head. 'He won't die Sweetheart. Time can be rewritten. He'll find a way. I know he will.'

Mickey covered the dead Doctor with his jacket.

'Move it! Come on!' the Doctor shouted from somewhere ahead of them.

They ran after him, and climbed a ladder to the roof trapdoor. 'What, it's mornin' already?' Rose asked him as she followed him out onto the roof. 'How did that happen?'

'History is shrinking. Is anybody listening to me? The universe is collapsing. We don't have much time left.' He sonicked a satellite receiver dish off its pole.

'What are you doin'?' Mickey asked him.

'Looking for the TARDIS,' he replied.

Mickey frowned. 'But the TARDIS exploded.'

'Okay then, I'm looking for an exploding TARDIS.'

'I don't understand,' Rose said. 'So, the TARDIS blew up and took the universe with it. But why would it do that? How?'

The Doctor gave her a proud smile. 'Good question for another day. The question for now is, total event collapse means that every star in the universe never happened. Not one single one of them ever shone. So, if all the stars that ever were are gone, then what . . .' He pointed his sonic screwdriver at a large burning ball in the sky. 'Is that? Like I said, I'm looking for an exploding TARDIS.'

'But that's the sun,' Mickey told him.

'Is it? Well, here's the noise that sun is making right now.' He sonicked the receiver dish, and they heard the wheezing, grinding noise of the TARDIS. 'That's my TARDIS burning up. That's what's been keeping the Earth warm.'

Mickey's Auton hearing detected another noise. 'Doctor, there's somethin' else. There's a voice.'

'I can't hear anythin',' Rose said.

'Trust the plastic,' Mickey told her.

The Doctor adjusted the frequency of the sonic. ['I'm sorry, my love . . . I'm sorry, my love . . . I'm sorry, my love.']

'Doctor, that's River,' Rose said, puzzled. 'How can she be up there?'

'It must be like a recordin' or somethin',' Mickey suggested.

'No, it's not . . . Of course, the emergency protocols. The TARDIS has sealed off the control room and put her into a time loop to save her. She is right at the heart of the explosion.'

['I'm sorry, my love . . . I'm sorry, my love . . . I'm sorry, my love.']

River was frantically trying to escape the TARDIS, when she had an idea. She hooked the TARDIS engines to the main door handles and cranked the handle to divert power through the lock. She ran down the ramp and threw the doors open to discover the TARDIS was parked right up against a rock wall.

'I'm sorry, my love,' she said quietly before . . . hooking the TARDIS engines to the main door handles and cranking the handle to divert power through the lock. Running down the ramp and throwing the doors open, she discovered the TARDIS was parked right up against a rock wall.

'I'm sorry, my love,' she said quietly before . . . hooking the TARDIS engines to the main door handles and cranking the handle to divert power through the lock. Running down the ramp, she saw the Doctor, who was wearing a fez and leaning against the door.

'Hi, honey. I'm home,' home he said jokingly.

River looked at her watch. 'And what sort of time do you call this?'

He held out his arm for her to take. 'Time to get you out of here.'

She took his arm and he activated the vortex manipulator to take them back to the roof of the museum.

'Rose!' River said as they appeared in a flash of light. 'And the plastic Centurion?'

'It's okay, he's on our side,' the Doctor told her.

'Really?'

'Yeah.'

'I dated a Nestene duplicate once. Swappable head. It did keep things fresh,' she said saucily. 'Right then, I have questions, but number one is this . . . What in the name of sanity have you got on your head?'

'It's a fez. I wear a fez now . . . Fezes are cool.'

River and Rose exchanged a look which, for the first time brought them together in agreement. Rose snatched the fez and threw it into the air, and River shot it to pieces.

'Oh!' the Doctor exclaimed.

They were looking at the exploding TARDIS, when they saw the Cyberman rise up above the parapet. 'Delete.'

'Run, run! Move, move. Go!' the Doctor called out to everyone.

'Come on!' Mickey said.

The Doctor picked up the satellite dish and used it as a shield, deflecting the energy bolts as they went back into the museum.

They made it down the ladder, and the Doctor closed the trapdoor. 'Doctor, come on,' River called up to him.

'Shush,' he said, listening at the hatch. 'It's moving away, finding another way in. It needs to restore its power before it can attack again. Now, that means we've got exactly four and a half minutes before it's at lethal capacity.'

'How do you know?' Mickey asked.

'Because that's when it's due to kill me.'

'Don't say that,' Rose told him angrily.

'Kill you?' River asked. 'What do you mean, kill you?'

'Oh, shut up. Never mind. How can that Cyberman even exist? It was erased from time and then it came back . . . How?'

'You said the light from the Pandorica . . .' Mickey started to suggest.

It's not a light, it's a restoration field,' the Doctor told him. 'But never mind, call it a light. That light brought Rose and Andrea back, restored them, but how could it bring back a Cyberman when the Cybermen have never existed?'

'Okay, tell us,' Rose said.

'When the TARDIS blew up, it caused a total event collapse. A time explosion. And that explosion blasted every atom in every moment of the universe. Except . . .'

Rose realised where his thoughts were going. 'Except inside the Pandorica.'

The Doctor pointed at her. 'The perfect prison. And inside it, perfectly preserved, a few billion atoms of the universe as it was. In theory, you could extrapolate the whole universe from a single one of them, like, like cloning a body from a single cell. And we've got the bumper family pack.'

Mickey shook his head. 'No, no. Too fast. I'm not gettin' it.'

'The box contains a memory of the universe, and the light transmits the memory, and that's how we're going to do it.'

'Do what?' Rose asked.

'Relight the fire. Reboot the universe. Come on!'

Doctor, you're being completely ridiculous,' River told him. 'The Pandorica partially restored one Cyberman. If it can't even reboot a single life form properly, how's it reboot the whole of reality?'

'What if we give it a moment of infinite power? What if we can transmit the light from the Pandorica to every particle of space and time simultaneously?'

'Well, that would be lovely, dear, but we can't, because it's completely impossible.'

'Ah no, you see, it's not. It's almost completely impossible . . . One spark is all we need.'

'For what?'

'Big Bang Two! Now listen . . .'

Without warning, the Cyberman shot the Doctor. 'Delete! Delete!'

Mickey pushed Rose and Andrea around the corner as River knelt down to check on the Doctor. 'Get back. River, get back now!'

'Delete!'

Mickey used his Auton hand weapon to shoot at the Cyberman, causing it to power down again.

'Doctor? Doctor, it's me, River. Can you hear me? What is it? What do you need?' He activated the vortex manipulator and vanished.

'Where did he go?' River asked. 'Damn it, he could be anywhere.'

'He went downstairs,' Rose said quietly with tears in her eyes. 'Twelve minutes ago.'

'Show me!' River said urgently.

'River, he died,' Rose told her angrily. She'd had enough of River's bossiness. It was the second time in twelve minutes that she'd seen her husband die.

'Systems restoring. You will be deleted,' the Cyberman said.

'We've got to move. That thing's coming back to life,' Mickey said.

'You go to the Doctor . . . I'll be right with you,' River informed him.

Mickey led Rose away to the stairs where her husband's body lay.

'You will be deleted!' the Cyberman declared.

'Not yet. Your systems are still restoring, which means your shield density is compromised. One Alpha Mezon burst to your chest disc would kill you stone dead.'

'Records indicate you will show mercy. You are an associate of the Doctor's.'

'I'm River Song. Check your records again.'

'Mercy,' the Cyberman said in an emotionless voice.

'Say it again,' River taunted.

'Mercy!'

'One more time.'

'Mercy!'

When Mickey and Rose came to the top of the stairs that led down to the Museum Reception, they could see Mickey's jacket, but no Doctor.

'How could he have moved? He was dead,' Mickey said. 'Doctor? DOCTOR!'

'But he was dead,' Rose declared.

'Who told you that?' River asked as she came down the stairs.

'HE did,' Rose said, referring to her husband.

'Rule one . . . The Doctor lies,' River told her.

Although Rose was annoyed by River's attitude, she couldn't help thinking that if he had lied, then he might still be alive. 'Where's the Cyberman?'

'It died,' is all she would say.

River led the way back to the Anomaly Exhibition, where they could see the unconscious Doctor sitting in the Pandorica.

Rose ran into the Pandorica. 'Doctor!' she cried, cradling his face in her hands.

'Why did he tell us he was dead?' Mickey asked.

Rose had worked it out. 'We were a diversion. As long as the Cyberman was chasin' us, he could work down here.' She turned back to her husband. 'Doctor, can you hear me? What were you doing?'

The light from the TARDIS was getting brighter outside.

'What's happenin'?' Mickey asked.

'Reality's collapsing,' River told him. 'It's speeding up. Look at this room.'

Mickey looked around the room, and all the display cases were empty. 'Where'd everythin' go?'

'History's being erased. Time's running out,' River said.

Rose looked out of the Pandorica to see what was happening, and then turned back to the Doctor. 'Doctor, what were you doing? Tell me. Doctor!'

'Big-Bang-Two,' the Doctor whispered.

'The Big Bang. That's the beginnin' of the universe, right?' Mickey asked.

'What, and Big Bang Two is the bang that brings us back? Is that what you mean?' Rose asked the Doctor.

'The TARDIS is still burning. It's exploding at every point in history. If I throw the Pandorica into the explosion, right into the heart of the fire.'

'Then what?'

'Then . . . let there be light,' he said quietly. 'The light from the Pandorica will explode everywhere at once.'

'That would work? That would bring everythin' back?'

'A restoration field powered by an exploding TARDIS, happening at every moment in history? Yeah, it'll work.'

'And how do we do it?' Rose asked hesitantly, dreading the answer.

'I've wired the vortex manipulator to the rest of the box. I'm going to fly the Pandorica into the heart of the explosion.'

'But what happens to us?' she asked, stroking Andrea's head.

'You all wake up where you ought to be. None of this ever happens and you don't remember it.'

'Tell me you come back, too.'

'I come back too,' he said with a wry smile.

'Liar!' she cried.

'I'll be the heart of the explosion.'

'So?'

'So all the cracks in time will close, but I'll be on the wrong side, trapped in the never-space, the void between the worlds. All memory of me will be purged from the universe. I'll never have been born.'

'No! I don't want to forget you. I want Andrea to know her dad.'

'Nothing is ever forgotten. Not really. But you have to try.'

'Doctor! It's speeding up!' River called from outside.

Rose put the Doctor's sonic screwdriver in his pocket.

'There's going to be a very big bang. Big Bang Two. Try and remember your friends and they'll be there.'

'How can I remember them if they never existed?'

'Because you're special. You've looked into the Eye of Harmony, the heart of the TARDIS, and the TARDIS has looked into you. You share a bond that transcends time and space. You brought Mickey back, you can bring everyone else back. You just remember and they'll be there.'

'And you?'

'And me? I need you to do something for me,' he said with a sad smile. 'I need you to help Amy Pond remember her family.'

'What, her aunt?' Rose asked, wiping the tears from her eyes.

'No, her parents who should have been in that big, empty house but weren't because of the crack in her wall. Will you do that for her, for me?'

'Yeah . . . okay,' she squeaked. She held Andrea up so that he could kiss her cheek, and then she kissed him passionately one last time.

'Are you okay?' Mickey asked her as she stepped out of the Pandorica.

'Are you?'

'No.'

'WELL, SHUT UP THEN!' she shouted angrily, and immediately felt guilty about shouting at her best friend. They looked at each other and Mickey pulled her into a hug as she burst into tears.

The Pandorica closed and started to levitate. 'Back!' River called out. 'Get back!'

The Pandorica took off and rocketed through the roof of the museum. They huddled against the wall, and River got a text message on her communicator. 'It's from the Doctor.'

'What does it say?' Rose asked urgently, wanting to read the last message from her love.

River showed her. 'Geronimo,' she read out loud.

The Pandorica reached the TARDIS and they exploded in an intensely bright conflagration. There was then another explosion as everything reversed back.