A/N: Alex's outfit for this chapter can be viewed on my Tumblr, under the name 'darksideofparis'.
~The Pros and Cons of Silence~
August 11th, 1998
"Mind if we join you?" Amy asked.
"No, not at all," Mark answered, sliding a chair towards her. "I thought I might see you here."
Rory let Amy take the seat with the most shade, while the Doctor eased himself into a chair directly in the glare of the midday sun. Alex, not at all bothered by the heat after living in Kentucky's hot summers for thirteen years, sat in his lap. The narrow street baked in the heat, heady with traffic fumes and swarming with tourists. Occasionally, the guttural rev of a motor scooter drowned out the clatter from the coffee bars and souvenir stalls, but it never drowned out the constant, thunderous, splashing roar of the Trevi Fountain waterfall.
"Four Frappuccino's," the Doctor told the waitress. "Make mine decaffeinated." The waitress boggled at the Doctor. His only concession to the heat was a pair of black sunglasses. He should have been roasting in his tweed jacket and bowtie but showed no discomfort.
Alex, however, had been far more conscious of the heat. She now wore a burgundy and white checkered button-down with three-quarter length sleeves, white shorts, a brown belt, burgundy-colored Converse, gold-stud earrings, and her sonic necklace. Like the Doctor, she was also wearing sunglasses, though hers were oversized and white.
"How did you find me?" Mark asked.
"Wibbliness," Rory explained. "The Doctor has a special detector." The device in question lay in Alex's lap, beeping intermittently.
"Oh, yes, I remember. When we first met. It seems such a long time ago."
Rory exchanged a raised eyebrow with Amy, then Alex. As far as they were concerned, they'd only left Mark at the supermarket a few hours ago, yet he already looked noticeably older, his hair thinning, his skin tanned but showing deeper lines around his mouth and eyes.
"How long has it been?" Alex asked.
"Four years. I'm 41 now." Mark sipped his tea and smiled. "While you're not a day older."
"So what have you been up to?" Rory asked. "Whatever it is, you're looking good on it." He nodded to Mark's finely tailored gray suit.
"Behaving myself," Mark said with a curt smile. "Keeping out of the way of my younger self. I've been traveling – I did spend a few weeks in Belgium – and now I have my own small business consultancy company." He presented Alex with his card.
"'Harold Jones'," Alex read. She handed it off to the Doctor for his own examination. "Your new identity?"
Mark nodded. "Seemed to fit the bill. Nice and anonymous, nothing to provoke suspicion."
"And what sort of 'business consultancy' do you do?" the Doctor questioned, pocketing the card.
"Don't worry, I'm not giving them information about the future or anything like that. It's just a cover for my investments."
"Investments?"
"I've done quite well for myself over the past few years, Doctor. Oh, I've been careful not to drive attention to myself. For each deal that makes a profit, I make sure I make another that makes a loss. So far, I've mostly been dealing in internet start-ups, registering domain names and so on, but recently I've moved into property, share options, and, ah, West End musicals."
"West End musicals?" Amy repeated, shocked.
"I'm putting some money into an ABBA thing that's coming up. I think it might do well."
"Are you a big fan of musical theater, then?"
"No, but I know which shows will still be running in ten years' time. It's the same for all my investments; if I know a company is still around in 2011, I buy shares in it. I think my biggest one came from G-Locke Publications, after the deaths of the founder and his wife. Everyone was pouring money into them, feeling sorry for the little girl who almost drowned."
Dead silence. Amy and Rory didn't dare look at Alex. The Doctor glared at Mark, even though he knew the man wouldn't be able to make it out behind the dark lenses of his sunglasses. In his lap, Alex had tensed up. She knew from reading G-Locke's Wikipedia page that the company shares had gone up 400% after her parents' deaths, but actually hearing it from someone who had also invested in the company. . . She didn't know how to react to that.
Luckily for them, the waitress chose that moment to come back with their chilled coffees. Alex snatched hers up the second it was placed on the table, immediately sipping on it before she did something horrible, like crying. She hated crying, not in the least because it involved water, which she also hated.
The Doctor waited until the waitress had left before resuming the conversation, maneuvering it onto a safer topic. "So, what about your little to-do list?" he asked, his voice coming out in a slight growl until he coughed a little. He reached up and rubbed one of Alex's tense shoulders. She was still sucking on that coffee. "How's that been getting on?"
"See for yourself." Mark took a sheet of paper from his briefcase and handed it to the Doctor.
The Doctor absorbed both sides in under a second. "This is the letter from your future self?"
"No, this is the copy. The original is kept in a safe in my flat."
"Very wise." The Doctor returned the letter as Alex finally set her coffee down. "Already ticked two items off the list, I see."
"Yes. I had to delay the start of one of my third-year exams, because my younger self was running late. And then last year I had to make sure he ended up with a winning lottery ticket."
"A winning lottery ticket?" Rory cried, his jaw dropping.
"Not the jackpot," Mark chuckled. "Just matching enough numbers to win about sixteen thousand pounds."
Amy whistled in admiration. "Not bad for a day's work!"
"But how did you do it?" Rory wondered. "All the stuff with musicals and internet sites I get, but you couldn't possibly remember what the winning lottery numbers were, one week in 1997!"
"He wouldn't need to," the Doctor said between slurps of his Frappuccino. He continued rubbing at Alex's shoulder and sighted contentedly when she relaxed back against his chest.
"Why?"
"Because he wrote them down in the letter he sent himself!" Amy exclaimed with a grin.
"Eh?" The more Rory tried to figure it out, the more confused he got. No, it was no good. A diagram would be required. Or an explanation from Alex, but thanks to Mark's G-Locke comment, she was no longer talking.
"Which brings us to item number three," the Doctor announced. "Speaking of which, here they are . . . right on schedule!" He lowered his sunglasses. Alex did the same and they both peered towards the fountain.
Rory followed their gaze to see young Mark, in a t-shirt and a floppy white bucket hat, wandering through the crowd with a girl in a summer dress. Even from this distance, Rory could tell she was stunning.
So could Amy, who gave Rory a look which in no uncertain terms reminded him that he was now a married man.
~The Pros and Cons of Silence~
For the first time in what seemed like years, Mark felt at peace. The sky was blue, the air was balmy and breezy, and he was with Rebecca. They'd spent the morning exploring the Castel St Angelo, the Piazza Navona, and the Pantheon, winding through endless streets, never hurrying but always excited at what was around the next corner. It had been the most perfect day ever.
Of course, he wasn't with Rebecca, not in the boyfriend-girlfriend sense. They were on holiday as friends and nothing more; that had been agreed in advance. Although they shared a bed, they shared it with a pillow between them, and were changing into their night things in the bathroom to avoid embarrassment.
How had he ended up in Rome with Rebecca? If he'd known in January how things would turn out . . . it wouldn't have made it any easier. His father hadn't lasted into the new year, and he'd ended it with Jenny a few weeks later. He just wanted to be a good son to his mother for once. They talked about Dad, Mark hearing stories he'd never heard before, about how they'd first met, and how his father had rushed out of a council meeting to see his newborn son, and how proud he was of him, how he always told everyone he met how proud he was of his son.
He'd remained in contact with Rebecca, talking almost daily on the phone. And she had been great. She always listened, asking questions and making suggestions, even making him laugh.
In April, it was Mark's turn to be the shoulder to cry on. Rebecca had discovered that her fiancé Anthony had been having a relationship with one of his colleagues from work, and that it had been going on ever since he'd moved to Manchester. When she confronted him about this, Anthony begged forgiveness, but Rebecca couldn't forgive him. She could barely look at him without feeling sick.
But she had already booked a holiday in Rome and now had no one to go with. It hadn't been Mark's idea to offer to take the spare ticket. It had been his mother's. She reminded him how his father had never found the time to take her to Paris, and that he'd always regret it if he let this opportunity slip through his fingers.
Mark plucked up the courage to ask Rebecca if she'd mind if he went with her. She laughed and told him that she'd been waiting for ages for him to get the hint. He insisted on paying for his half of the holiday; after all, after his win on the National Lottery, he could afford it.
He'd come so far in the past six months, out of the darkness and into the light. And as though she knew what he was thinking, Rebecca took his hand, and together they squeezed through the crowd towards the Trevi Fountain.
And Mark's right hand began to tingle.
~The Pros and Cons of Silence~
The couple reached the terrace at the top of the steps leading down to the turquoise pool, then paused as the boy took the girl's photograph. Rory, the Doctor, Amy, Alex, and Mark watched from their table, peering out from behind their menu cards.
"You think you lost your wallet here?" the Doctor asked.
"That's what I remember. According to the letter, it should happen any second now."
Rory edged forward to get a better look. He could see the wallet bulging in the young man's back pocket. But he couldn't see how it could accidentally fall out. Until he noticed a thin, seedy-looking teenager sidling through the crowd, the only person there not to be gazing in wonder at the statue of Oceanus. Without breaking his stride, the teenager lifted the wallet from young Mark's pocket and walked casually away. Towards where they were sitting.
The Doctor gave Rory a nod. In a few seconds, the thief would be within reach. Rory psyched himself up to grab him. But then the thief noticed that they were looking at him. He launched himself into a run, shoving them both out of his way.
Rory turned to see the teenager skidding down a side street. Without thinking, Rory sprinted after him, giving a yell of, "Stop! Thief!" Around him, the tourists gawped on in bemusement.
Rory turned down the side street to see the teenager knocking aside any bystanders that impeded his progress. Ahead of him, a Fiat blocked the entire width of the street. The teenager didn't slow down. He simply leapt onto the car's hood, ran across its roof, and jumped to the ground, making his escape. Without pausing to think, Rory scrambled over the car after him, trying his best to ignore the blasts from the horn and the barrage of insults from the driver.
The teenager darted down across another side street, glancing back to see if he'd lost his pursuer. He hadn't. After landing heavily on the tarmac, Rory redoubled his speed, ignoring the stitch in his side. He chased the teenager through a number of increasingly narrow alleyways, if not by sight, then by the sound of the teenager's heels.
The next alleyway ended at a flight of steps. The teenager had already climbed twenty or so of the steps, but Rory didn't give up. Groaning with the effort, Rory raced after him. The steps were incredibly steep, rising up over the rooftops, and just when Rory thought they might go on forever, they ended at a parking lot.
The teenager dashed over to a motor scooter, but before he could turn the ignition, Rory lunged at him, knocking both the thief and his scooter to the ground. In the struggle that followed, Rory pried the thief's fingers apart and wrenched the wallet out of his grip. Then the teenager shoved Rory aside and, shouting expletives, scurried into the distance.
Rory lay on the tarmac, his chest heaving, until he heard the Doctor and Alex jogging up the stairs after him.
"Well done!" the Doctor complimented as Alex helped Rory to his feet. "You've just saved the entire space-time continuum."
"Great," Rory gasped, little enthusiasm in his voice as he handed him the wallet.
"Here," Alex said, passing him a bottle of water she'd gotten at the café before they came racing up here. She held it with a napkin between her bare hand and the slight water condensation on the outside of the bottle. "Drink this."
"Bless you," Rory said gratefully, opening the cap and chugging the water down.
Meanwhile, the Doctor examined the wallet, then shook his head. "But I'm afraid it's the wrong wallet," he told them.
Rory's eyes almost popped out of his head. "Wh-what?!"
"Only joking," the Doctor beamed as Alex groaned. "It's the right wallet. Your face!" Shaking her head, Alex reached up and whacked the Doctor on the back of the head. "Ow!" he cried, shooting her a look. "What was that for?!"
"Ignore him," Alex told Rory, doing that very thing to the Doctor. "Now we have to deliver the wallet to Mark's hotel."
~The Pros and Cons of Silence~
It had been one of the best mornings of his life, only to be followed by one of the worst afternoons. Somewhere between the Pantheon and the Trevi Fountain, Mark had lost his wallet. The wallet containing all his money, his credit cards, his travel insurance, everything.
They spent the next hour retracing their route, Mark scanning the gutters whilst cursing his own stupidity. He knew Rebecca didn't have enough cash to pay for both of them. They wouldn't be able to go out, or visit the museums, or see Hadrian's villa at Tivoli. The more Mark thought about it, the more furious he got.
As they reached the Pantheon, Mark slumped against a wall. "Okay. That's it. I give up."
"Oh well," Rebecca shrugged. "Never mind."
"I don't get you. I'm going out of my mind here, and you're just taking it all in your stride."
"I'm on holiday. It's not as if Rome is going anywhere. And anyway, what's the point in me worrying when you're stressing out enough for both of us?"
"So you're not angry with me?"
"Of course not. Look. Let me buy you an ice cream."
"We can't afford it."
"Okay, let's . . . let's walk back to the hotel. I might still have some traveler's checks in my suitcase. We can at least work out how much money we have left."
"Yeah. I suppose that's a plan."
"It's a brilliant plan, because I thought of it," Rebecca teased, getting a smile out of him. "And don't worry. So you lost your wallet. It's not the end of the world."
~The Pros and Cons of Silence~
The Doctor twirled the wallet in his hand like a magician with a playing card before handing it to the hotel receptionist.
"Look, here's a thing. My . . . girlfriend and I found this wallet lying in the street and we think it might belong to somebody staying in this hotel."
The receptionist opened the wallet, then looked at the Doctor and Alex as though they should be arrested for interrupting her day.
Alex refused to let this woman intimidate her. "Mark Whitaker," she said clearly. "His name was on his credit card."
"Yes," the Doctor agreed, snaking an arm around Alex's waist. "So if you could put it aside, for when he gets back. That's all. And if he asks about us, just say it was some . . . beautiful girl and a handsome stranger." He winked at Alex and adjusted his bowtie proudly.
Alex blushed bright red and tugged the Doctor away from the receptionist before he embarrassed her further. Still, it was nice to know that he thought she was beautiful.
"Beautiful, huh?" she remarked as they headed outside.
"Of course, love," he said earnestly. His arm moved up to wrap around her shoulders, pulling her close to him. He put a kiss to the top of her head before murmuring, "Feeling better?"
Alex nodded, knowing he was asking how she felt about the comment Mark had made on G-Locke. "Yeah, I'm over it now. It was just . . . a bit of a shocker, hearing it like that. I mean, I know the stocks went up after my parents' deaths, but . . . hearing it like that . . . I guess it kind of jarred me."
"Want me to knock him out again?"
Alex burst out laughing and shook her head. "No! It wasn't his fault anyways. I never told him my last name. How was he to know? Besides, his letter probably told him to invest in the company. He was just following orders."
"Speaking of which. . ." The Doctor led her down the steps and out onto the street, where Amy, Rory, and Mark were waiting for them.
"Well, that's finished," Rory declared as Amy placed a congratulatory arm around him.
"Yes. Another one to tick off your list, Mr. Whitaker." The Doctor squatted on the ground, opened his leather satchel, and took out his automatic wibble-detector. "Except. . ."
"Except what?" Mark asked.
The Doctor held the device above his head, like someone trying to get a better phone signal. "I'm still getting wibbliness. You see that dial?"
Mark and Alex peered at the machine. "You mean the one that's not moving?" Alex asked.
"Yes. The fact that it isn't actually moving means that the course of history is still in flux."
Or it's broken, Alex thought, but didn't say. She didn't put much value on anything the Doctor made or repaired. She still remembered the time he blew up the kitchen microwave after crossing two different-colored wires together.
The Doctor waggled his fingers. "Something else that happened on this day," he continued. "Something with lots of. . . What was the word, Rory?"
"Ramifications?" Rory sighed.
"Ramifications! Yes. Something with lots of ramifications! So, Mark, what was it?"
"You can't expect him to remember," Amy reminded him. "As far as he's concerned, it was, like, fifteen years ago!"
Mark ran a hand through his hair, smiling at a reawakened memory. "Oh no, I remember like it was yesterday."
"But it's not yesterday. It's today." The Doctor gripped Mark by the shoulders and looked directly into his eyes. "So tell me, after you recovered your wallet . . . what did you do next?"
~The Pros and Cons of Silence~
The disembodied heads of long-dead Roman Emperors lined the hallway, each one made of smooth, white marble.
"And this one is," Rebecca said, reading the plaque beneath it, "Tiberius. On a scale of bonkersness from one to ten, he was about an eight." She continued down the Hall of Emperors, her footsteps clicking on the marble floor.
It was nearly closing time and the Capitoline Museum was deserted. Mark relaxed, breathing in the refreshingly cool air, scarcely able to believe they were here after all the traumas of the day.
When they'd finally made it to the hotel, the receptionist had greeted him with wide-eyed excitement, waving and shouting his name. She had his wallet, and it still contained all his credit cards and money! According to the receptionist, it had been handed in by some 'beautiful girl and handsome stranger'. Mark thanked her effusively, promising her that when he got home, he'd tell everyone he knew that Italians were the most honest people in the world.
What the wallet didn't contain was any details about his hotel. So how could they have known where to hand it in? Mark was too relieved to question his good fortune. He and Rebecca bought a celebratory pizza and resumed the tour, visiting the Colosseum, the ruins of the Roman Forum and the Palatine Hill, before climbing the steps to the Capitoline Hill. As they entered the museum, they persuaded a Korean tourist to take a photo of them beside Constantine's Monty Python-esque foot before entering the palatial interior.
"Weird," Rebecca commented, interrupting Mark's thoughts. "Don't look very Roman, do they?"
Rebecca indicated six statues standing in a line against the wall. They were statues of angels, their arms crossed over their chests, their eyes staring worshipfully upwards. With their robes and nest-of-vipers hair, they resembled the statue of a Wounded Amazon from the Great Hall. But their wings looked anachronistically Victorian.
"What do the labels say?" Mark asked, giving each statue no more than a cursory glance.
"There aren't any. Guess they must be new."
~The Pros and Cons of Silence~
Young Mark and Rebecca inspected the statues for a few more moments before disappearing through the doorway at the far end of the hall.
"Weeping Angels," Rory sighed. Seriously, didn't these things do anything else other than prey on innocent humans?
Gesturing to Rory, Amy, Alex, and Mark to stay crouched behind a bust of the Emperor Hadrian, the Doctor approached the statues, holding his eyes open with his fingers, his steps not making a sound. "Yes. That proves it."
"Proves what?" Amy whispered.
"They're waiting for a paradox to happen," Alex deduced. Blue lightning crackled across the ornate ceiling.
"What sort of paradox?" Rory shivered. "I mean, caused by what?"
The Doctor turned to Mark. "When you were here before, did anything happen that was unusual in any way? A stroke of fortune, a coincidence that set you down a particular path?"
Mark thought back. He remembered visiting the museum before and seeing the Angel statues had jogged a previous memory of having seen them before, but after that, he couldn't recall anything apart from the conversation he'd had with Rebecca on the balcony overlooking the Forum.
"Nothing springs to mind," he answered, then he slapped his cheek. "Oh! Except there was one thing. We got locked in."
"You got locked in?" the Doctor repeated.
"Er . . . Doc?" Alex called quietly. "You're not looking at the Angels."
"I thought you all were! Do I have to tell you lot to do everything?"
"I am. Now," Amy cut in, staring, wide-eyed, in the direction of the statues. Mark followed her gaze. Three of the statues were caught in walking poses, heading for the doorway after young Mark and Rebecca. The other three had been frozen as they stalked towards the Doctor, their arms outstretched like sleepwalkers, features calm and blank.
"They're trying to get between us and the young Mark." The Doctor walked towards the Angels, beckoning to Amy, Alex, Rory, and Mark with a finger behind his back.
"You keep an eye on the ones near us, I'll keep an eye on the others," Mark whispered. With Amy, Rory, and Alex treading silently behind him, he crept after the Doctor, keeping his eyes fixed on the Angels heading for the doorway, resisting the urge to turn towards the ones only a few meters away. Slowly but surely, they made it past the statues to the doorway. The moment they were all through, the Doctor slammed the door shut behind them and secured it with his sonic screwdriver.
"So, Doctor," Rory said with a sigh of relief. "What exactly is it we have to do?"
"Isn't it obvious?" the Doctor asked with a wild-eyed grin.
"We have to lock young Mark in," Alex informed them.
~The Pros and Cons of Silence~
"Five minutes, no more, okay?" the museum guard said, barely sparing Mark and Rebecca a glance before he disappeared into the toilet with an urgent shuffle. They were in the underground tunnel that linked the two halves of the museum, and which led to the Tabularium, the ancient Roman record office. They wandered through a hall filled with altars and burial slabs into a rough-walled tunnel which opened onto a cloister overlooking the remains of the Forum below, the toppled Corinthian columns, and, in the distance, the Colosseum. All were bathed in the coppery glow of the setting sun.
Rebecca rushed over to the balcony, sighing in awe. "What a view!" She turned to Mark and smiled. "I'm glad you came along in the end. This wouldn't have been half as much fun without you."
"You call watching me panic for an hour fun?"
"Well, entertaining," she smirked.
Mark snapped a photograph of the view. "Come on, we should be heading off."
"Let them chuck us out. I want to see what's down here first." Several passages littered with temple fragments branched off from the cloister. Rebecca ran off to explore the first while Mark glanced back down the tunnel to the Tabularium. For a moment, he thought he'd seen a movement in the corner of his eye, as though they were being followed, but there was nobody there.
~The Pros and Cons of Silence~
"That was close," the Doctor whispered. They all stood flat against the tunnel wall, as still as statues, the Doctor, Mark, and Alex on one side, Rory and Amy on the other. Alex could feel the clammy bumpiness of the stone wall against her back.
When the young Mark had slipped out of sight, the Doctor relaxed and stepped forward. "If your younger self sees us. . ." He pulled a face to indicate some unspecified calamity.
They proceeded down the narrow doorway that led to the cloister. "Is this it?" Rory asked.
Mark nodded. "Yes, I remember, we were locked out on the balcony, just through here. . ."
"Right, well, suppose we'd better get on with it then," Rory remarked, reaching for the heavy, iron door. "I would ask how we're supposed to lock it without the key, but—"
"Sonics," the Doctor and Alex chimed in, the Doctor rotating his sonic screwdriver in the air while Alex merely held the charm of her sonic necklace up.
"Yeah, always the sonics." Rory began to heave the door when an angry shout came from down the tunnel.
"Hey, what are you doing?!" The security guard waddled towards them, a tanned man in his fifties with a bushy mustache and the uniform of a much slimmer man. "That's my job."
"Sorry, sorry," the Doctor apologized genially. "Just worried about security. Can't be too careful." He swept the sonic screwdriver through the air as though trying to locate invisible thieves.
The security guard squinted at Mark. "I thought there was two of you?"
"There were," Amy said perkily. "But now there are five of us. What of it?"
The guard snorted and heaved the door shut with a bang. He locked it with a set of heavy iron keys before turning to direct them down the tunnel with his thumb. "Closing time now. Way out is on right, you go upstairs, you go home, I go home, bye, bye."
"Yes, excellent plan," the Doctor enthused, clapping his hands. "Well done. Thank you very much, you have been magnificent. Come on, Mark, Rory, Amy, Ally. Nothing more for us to do here. . ."
~The Pros and Cons of Silence~
"Well?"
Mark shook his head. "No. We're locked in." The fingers in his right hand tingled, presumably the result of him slamming his fist against the door for several minutes.
Rebecca regarded him with amusement. "Not really your day, is it?"
Mark didn't know whether to laugh or cry. On the flight out, he'd had this insane fantasy that something might happen between them on this holiday. That she might see him as something more than just a friend. But today she had only seen him at his worst, at his most irritable and incompetent. His one chance to impress her and he'd blown it.
"I'm sure someone will find us," Rebecca reassured him. "There are worst places to be locked in. And worse people to be locked in with."
~The Pros and Cons of Silence~
"That was it? That was all we had to do?" Amy checked, strutting after the Doctor and Alex.
"I think so, yes." The Doctor wrapped an arm around Alex's shoulders, using his other hand to check his wibble-detector as they climbed the stairs into a gloomy hall lined with statues of mythical figures. "I'm losing wibbliness. The future's no longer in the balance."
Mark noticed the tingle in his hand had started to fade. He'd almost forgotten it was there.
"Um, Doctor," Rory said warily. "If that's the case, aren't the Weeping Angels gonna be a bit pissed off?"
"I wouldn't doubt it," Alex responded as they went down the hall, their footsteps echoing in the darkness. As the hall had no windows or skylight, the only illumination came from the electric lights. "So keep an eye out for them."
Amy looked around, apprehensively studying each statue in turn. Of all the places for a statue to hide, it just had to be a museum filled with statues. "But we're safe, so long as we see them before they see us?"
"You're never safe where the Weeping Angels are concerned," the Doctor muttered darkly.
"Behind us!" Rory cried, pointing. The six Weeping Angels stood at the top of the stairs at the end of the hall. All were frozen in the process of lowering their hands from their faces.
"Everyone look towards the Angels," the Doctor commanded. "We'll be absolutely fine so long as—"
K-chunk! K-chunk!
The electric lights at the end of the hall flickered and went out. Rory yelped in surprise.
"You had to say it, didn't you?" Alex cried sharply at the Doctor. "You had to say it!"
K-chunk!
"Keep moving," the Doctor told them. "Just keep moving!"
Alex and the others slowly backed away as the lights in the middle of the hall went out. Now the only remaining lights were those behind them. In front of them, Alex could make out the sinister, shadowy shapes of the statues of centaurs and nymphs, knowing that somewhere in the blackness, the Angels were lurking, waiting for the final set of lights to go out.
K-chunk!
The final set of lights went out. It was as if Alex had closed her eyes. She heard Amy give out a tiny yelp as Rory grabbed her hand. Alex's hand shot up to her sonic necklace. She fumbled with it for a moment before finally succeeding in turning the flashlight function on. A topaz-colored light shot out of the topaz on her necklace. A second later, she heard a high-pitched buzzing sound and the Doctor's sonic lit up with a green glow.
The two aimed their sonics ahead of them, revealing an Angel as it lunged out of the darkness towards them. The Doctor flashed his light to the left, halting another Angel as it reached out with scratching fingers. Alex aimed her necklace to the right, revealing another one, its mouth open wide in a silent scream. The two flittered their lights between the Angels, trying to hold them back, but each time they lit one up, it had taken another step towards them.
"Amy, Rory, Alex, Mark! Move! Move!" the Doctor yelled. "I'll hold them off for as long as I can!"
"What?!" Alex screeched.
"What about you?" Amy cried.
"I'd be extremely grateful if, on your way out, you could get someone to turn the lights back on."
Amy felt Rory squeeze her hand and, together with Mark, they backed down the hall, watching the green and topaz lights dart back and forth between the enraged faces of the Angels. Then they reached the next room and broke into a run.
Alex, however, refused to move, something the Doctor had expected. "Alex," he said warningly as he continued moving the sonic back and forth. "What did I tell you?"
"If you think I'm leaving you to a hoard of Weeping Angels all by yourself, you're insane!" Alex snapped. She narrowed her eyes at him, even though she knew he wouldn't notice as he kept watch over the Angels.
He growled low in his throat. She always did this. She always put herself in danger in order to help him. Couldn't she see that when she did that, all he could think about was her? That he could only focus on the ways to get her out of that danger instead of ending the danger altogether? Was it only that obvious to him?!
"Alex, just go!"
"No!"
"Alexandria Nicole Locke, you do as I tell you!"
He heard Alex gasp and he could practically feel her narrowed eyes burning a hole in his back. "Fine!" she barked, muttering some choice words in Spanish under her breath. He heard her back up slowly and then, once she was in the next room, he heard her take off.
He sighed with relief. He really didn't like yelling at her, especially yelling at her and calling her by her full name, but experience had revealed that there was no other way to make her listen during times such as these. Making a mental note to apologize to her later, he continued whipping the sonic back and forth as the Angels gained on him.
~The Pros and Cons of Silence~
"Sorry about all this."
"What are you apologizing for?" Rebecca asked, still enchanted by the view. As the sun had set, the color of the ruins had shifted from orange to a dusky red. The air smelt of ancient ruins and pine trees. "Besides, how many people get to see this? Luckiest thing, being locked in."
"It's been a lucky day, overall," Mark wryly commented, joining Rebecca at the balcony. From here, there wasn't a single modern structure in sight. No office blocks, no streetlights, nothing.
"Yeah," Rebecca laughed. "Must be fate."
"Can I ask you a question?"
"Go for it."
"All the stuff that's happened today, anyone else would've been mad at me, but you . . . you were okay about it. Why?"
Rebecca swept her hair back while she considered her answer. "Seriously? The way I see it, after what happened with Anthony, I could've got all paranoid and bitter. But then he'd have won, he'd have changed me into a worse person. And after hearing you talk about all the stuff you've been through with your dad and everything, it kind of put my woes into perspective. Life's too short to be miserable, basically. If you can be happy, then be happy."
"Seize the day?"
"Exactly. Seize it, baby." Rebecca turned towards him with an expression he'd seen once before, on the terrace of the students' union.
His stomach trembling, Mark leaned forward and kissed her.
Rebecca responded, kissing his lips as he kissed hers, gently, precisely, before finally pulling away. "That's not quite what I meant," she told him.
"No?"
"No. But it's a good start." Rebecca gave him a conspiratorial smile. "You know, we could very easily be locked in here all night. . ."
~The Pros and Cons of Silence~
Back in the hall of statues, the Doctor was fighting a losing battle. No matter how rapidly he alternated the light of the sonic screwdriver between the Angels, they continued their advance, their arms reaching forward, forcing him to back away. And because the rest of the hall was in complete darkness, he had no way of knowing how long he had left before he backed himself into a wall.
"Okay, I'm getting that you're not happy," he said placatingly. "But can't we sit down and discuss this like reasonable people? Cup of tea, Jammy Dodgers, comfy chairs?" He could practically hear Alex groaning in disbelief. Naturally, the Angels did not respond. Their eyes remained blank. Their jaws remained open. "Look. I can—"
The Doctor slipped on the marble floor, lost his balance, and landed heavily on his back. For a moment, he found himself in total darkness, until he remembered he still had his sonic screwdriver in his hand. In one movement, he activated it and swung it upwards.
Its green glow illuminated the faces of the six Weeping Angels, all looking down at him with expressions of pure malice. They had him surrounded.
"Ah now, you've made a mistake, you see," the Doctor remarked. "Because I can see all of you at once. So, the question now is . . . which one of us will blink first?"
~The Pros and Cons of Silence~
As they reached the museum entrance, Amy grabbed the security guard, the same guard who they'd spoken to in the tunnel. "You've got to turn the lights back on!"
He shrugged quizzically. "I did not turn out lights."
"Well, somebody did!" Amy yelled. "There's still somebody in there! In the dark!" She wasn't sure if Alex was still down there or not, though, knowing the Doctor, he wouldn't allow her to be for long.
The security guard snorted and walked slowly over to a switchboard. Rory and Mark caught up with Amy, Mark red-faced from the exertion, Rory wearing his usual worried expression.
A split second later came the sound of sneakers squeaking on the marble floors. Alex came running up, her sunglasses flopping against her chest from where she had hung them from the collar of her shirt. Seeing the guard at the switchboard, she shouted, "Hurry up!" The Doctor wouldn't survive for much longer down there without the lights on.
The security guard made a 'tch' noise, then flicked down a succession of switches. The hallway behind them flickered into yellow light.
"Thank you," Amy said, muttering "at last" under her breath. Alex didn't say anything, instead choosing to take back off down the hallway. With the security guard leading the way, the other three hurried back through the brightly lit museum.
Returning to the hall with the statues of mythical figures, they discovered the Doctor lying on the floor, the Weeping Angels encircling him, locked in position as they prepared to strike.
"Doctor!" Amy and Alex shouted. The girls rushed over to him and helped him slide out from beneath the scrum of Weeping Angels. Once he was out and on his feet, Alex launched herself at him. Her previous fury at him long forgotten, she hugged him tightly as she got up on tiptoe to give him a long kiss on the lips.
"I've been trying not to blink for the last minute," the Doctor said once he and Alex came up for air. "Harder than you'd think." While Rory and Mark kept a careful watch on the Angels, the Doctor brushed himself down, straightened his jacket and bowtie, and approached the security guard.
"Hello." The Doctor put a friendly arm around the guard's shoulders. "You're probably wondering where those six new statues have come from."
The guard nodded dumbly.
"Well, I shouldn't worry about them if I were you, they won't be here in the morning. But until we're all safely out of the building, let's not let them out of our sight, eh?"
Mark coughed to get the Doctor's attention.
"Oh! But first you might like to pop down to the Tabularium. I think there might be two people locked in down there. . ."
~The Pros and Cons of Silence~
August 12th, 1998
Mark lay in bed, woken by the morning sunshine. He pulled on his glasses and the rest of the room fell into focus. The pillow from the center of the bed lay on the floor where he'd thrown it the night before.
Rebecca perched on the balcony in a summer dress, gazing out into the street whilst thumbing through her copy of The Beach.
"Rebecca?"
"Oh, you're awake now, are you?" she said, putting down her book. The morning sun shone in her hair like a halo and gave her skin a golden glow.
"About last night."
"Yeah?"
Mark swallowed. "Just checking. It wasn't another mistake, was it? Another 'one-off'?"
Rebecca raised an eyebrow. "Is that what you want it to be?"
"No, no, I don't," Mark hurriedly answered.
"Me neither," Rebecca agreed. "In fact, I hope it's going to turn out to be the complete opposite."
Mark climbed out of bed, his feet slapping on the tiled floor. He wanted to rush over and kiss Rebecca, but looking at her sitting in the window, he changed his mind. "Wait there."
"What?"
Mark picked up his camera and focused on Rebecca. "Hold on, don't move, I just want to capture this moment." As she turned to gaze out into the street with her impossibly blue eyes, he pressed the button and the camera shutter clicked shut.
~The Pros and Cons of Silence~
A/N: More Dalex interaction and we finally get to see how Mark and Rebecca got together! Next chapter will see more fun Dalex moments, as well as more background into Mark and Rebecca's relationship and how it moved forward. :)
NicoleR85 - Thank you! Hope you enjoyed the chapter! :)
bored411 - They are! I just loved writing that end-scene between the Doctor and Alex, mostly because we finally got to see how the nickname 'love' for Alex came about. :) Hope you enjoyed the chapter! :)
whitedwarf - Thank you! The end-scene with the Doctor and Alex was one of my favorite parts to write. We'll definitely see how Mark and Rebecca got married very soon and if the Doctor, Alex and Mark's future self were in any way involved with it. :}
Thank you to everyone that reivewed, followed and/or favorited this story! Please review and see you tomorrow! :)