Chapter Four: A Fixed Point in Time

The Doctor situated the TARDIS just on the surface of the lake, a mile away from where the scene was taking place along the shore. The TARDIS was kept invisible to avoid attention from his future self, Amy and Rory, River, or even the "Astronaut" that had risen from the lake to come and do the job; although the Doctor could imagine many other invisible TARDISes in the area, doing the same thing that he and Henry were doing: viewing his own death. Even though it was technically not breaking the rules of the Time Lords, the Doctor knew he should not have come to that time to witness his own murder; however, it was something that he had to see in order to try and understand why. He could imagine a massive (invisible) audience of other Doctors watching the exact same scene, trying to do the same.

Henry watched every moment of the death via the view screen above the TARDIS control console, from the time in which the mysterious astronaut rose from the lake waters to the point where the astronaut fired on the future Doctor. At first the shot only activated what the Doctor described to Henry as "regeneration," when Henry saw some sort of bio-energy escape the future Doctor's body only seconds before being shot again, killing him on the spot. After the future Doctor had been killed, the mysterious astronaut retreated back into the lake. River attempted to stop the astronaut by shooting at it, but none of her shots connected with the mysterious being.

As the moment arrived when Amy and Rory were shouting and crying over the fallen body of the future Doctor, the Doctor (the one in the TARDIS with Henry) shut off the view screen, choosing not to see any more of the event to come. Henry looked to him after watching the scene and could see the genuine depression in his face. "I'm sorry" was all Henry could have told him.

The Doctor tried to seem as if he could care less, waving off Henry's apology with a weak smile. "Yeah, well…these things happen, right?"

"But you can avoid them from happening." Henry said. "You can just start again and stop it from…"

"Time can be rewritten. I know, Henry." The Doctor interjected. "But I just…I just can't." He looked very defeated in the eyes of Henry; someone he believed to be so powerful that he could stop the curse that had fallen over the people of Storybrooke.

Henry gave up trying to convince the Doctor otherwise while his friend focused on the console, commencing in departing from Utah of April 22nd, 2011. As soon as Henry felt the alien time machine take off, he knew there was no way of going back and trying to stop what he had seen happen (or will happen) to the Doctor. As they traveled through the time vortex to return to Storybrooke on January 14th, 2012, Henry recalled seeing the two people that were mourning over the future Doctor before the Doctor shut off the view screen. "Who were they?" he asked without specification.

"Who are who?" The Doctor returned with a question of his own.

"Those people you were with. They were your friends?"

The Doctor smiled. "More than friends…Two of them are my trustworthy companions…One of them will be my wife one day."

Henry's eyes lit up in excitement. "Really? Is it the redhead?"

"No, no. Of course not. She'll be my mother-in-law."

Henry felt like his head was going to do a 360 with this news; he only met the Doctor for a day, and he was already enthralled with the type of life he lived – or will have lived. He had more questions to ask the Doctor, but he just as he began his next one…

VWOORMP!

BOOM!

An enormous tremor came over the TARDIS, nearly knocking the Doctor and Henry off of their feet. Panicked, Henry asked him, "What happened?"

The Doctor rushed all about the hexagonal console, flipping switches and pressing buttons with more vigor than before. "Relax, Henry! Everything will be fine! We've probably just ran into a speed bump!"

"A speed bump?"

"Well, not literally a speed bump, but a…"

VWOORMP! BOOM!

Again, the TARDIS shook, only more violently than the last time.

Henry became more worried with each passing moment of the sudden chaos. "Seriously, what is happening, Doctor?"

The Doctor honestly did not have a direct answer for Henry, because he did not know what was happening himself. No matter how much he tried to get the TARDIS back on course, it seemed that the extreme turbulence would continue. To make matters more complicated, there was a bright flash shining from the corner of his right eye, distracting him from his piloting of the TARDIS. Only when the flash started getting bigger and brighter did the Doctor turn to see where in the room it was reflecting from did he realize that it was a form of light that was engulfing the entire console room.

"Doctor, what's that light coming from?"

When Henry noticed the light as well, the Doctor was convinced that he was not seeing things. He did not have much time to deduce what it was or where it was coming from as it grew to the point that everything in the room was totally white, but he hoped that it was not another result of a crack in the universe.

Archie was giving his pet Dalmatian, Pongo, his usual evening walk through town when he heard strange noises upon crossing Granny's Diner. Stopping himself and Pongo just in front of the diner, Archie looked around curiously; at first he thought that there was a storm on the approach, which prompted him to open the umbrella that he was usually seen with (even on days where he did not require one). After a while, when there were no drops of rain falling from the sky, Archie closed up his umbrella again; yet he continued to hear the strange noises that oddly resembled thunderclaps.

It was then that he suddenly spotted something materializing just across the street. From what Archie could make of it, it appeared to be some sort of police box, showing up right on the street corner across from Granny's Diner. Once the police box had completely materialized there, Archie curiously and cautiously walked up to it, never before seeing something so strange. With Pongo still at his side, Archie approached the doors to the police box and attempted to open one of them; just as he was about to, the door had opened on its own by someone who was actually in the box.

That someone turned out to be Henry, who looked terrified, tears streaming from his eyes.

"Henry!" Archie exclaimed in shock. "What's going on? What is this thing?"

"He's gone!" Henry cried. "He's gone!"

Great concern went through Archie as he knelt down to be at eye level with Henry, doing his best to calm the terrified boy. "Henry, Henry, calm down. What happened? Who's gone?"

Henry swallowed hard before answering Archie in a calmer tone. "The Doctor…he's gone."