June 5th, 2001

Mark went to the bookcase, slid aside the Harry Potter first editions, and unlocked the small wall-safe behind them. He slid out the battered envelope with MARK WHITAKER. 7/10/2011 written on the front. Crossing to his desk, he took out the letter from his future self, with its list of occasions where he must intervene in his own past. A list which he'd now completed.

Mark took a sip of freshly brewed coffee, tore a sheet of paper from a pad, placed it beside the letter from his future self, and began to copy it out, word for word, line by line.

This wasn't the first copy he'd made of the letter. He'd made a copy back in 1998, the copy he'd shown to the Doctor and Alex in Rome, which he'd shredded on his return. The one where he'd deliberately not included the final part of the message.

But make sure you follow these instructions, Mark. Because if you do, remember this.

YOU CAN SAVE HER.

Just as I did.

Yours sincerely,

Mark Whitaker, April 2003.

How many times had he read those words? Even reading them now for the hundredth time, Mark felt an ache in his heart. Rebecca need not die. It was written there in black and white, in his own handwriting.

He'd give anything just to speak to her again. Oh, he'd spoken to her at the wedding, but then he'd been pretending to be someone else. He wanted to talk to her as himself, to tell her how he felt. He longed to be with her, to hear her laugh, to tell her of all the things she'd missed out on; all the films that had come out after her death, all the Christmases, Lucy and Emma's civil ceremony and their baby daughter. They had always said they'd go back to Rome for their tenth wedding anniversary. Now they could do that and so much more.

Slowly and meticulously, Mark copied out the letter. With each line, he'd pause to check that he'd reproduced the details exactly. Glancing back at the original letter, he found that the handwriting matched. There was no way of telling the two letters apart; because, of course, they were the same letter.

Mark was about to copy out Because if you do when he paused to glance out the window. His reflection gazed back, a ghost suspended over a panorama of London. He could see the skyscrapers of the city, shimmering like the towers of a magical kingdom under the wine-red sunset. He could even make out the London Eye on the horizon, shining electric blue.

By now Mark was, more or less, a multi-millionaire. This flat had been his only indulgence; a penthouse at the top of an exclusive development. All the furnishings were modern and sleek, and one entire side of the lounge consisted of a window looking out across Parliament Hill.

But spectacular views and luxury flats didn't take away the pain. Mark returned to his work, and the words YOU CAN SAVE HER.

Everything else in the letter had come true, so why did he doubt this part? Maybe it was because it was too good to be true. But also because the Doctor and Alex had warned him that he must not change history, no matter what. Saving Rebecca would certainly count as changing history. But if he was destined to save her, as the letter claimed, then surely if he didn't save her, that would count as changing history too.

Mark put down his pen. He would leave the rest of the letter blank until after he had saved Rebecca. Then, and only then, would he fill in the rest. That way he could be sure the message was true. And if it meant he was changing history, then so be it.

Mark looked out across London. His younger self would be somewhere out there. Mark wondered what he was doing right now.

~The Pros and Cons of Silence~

Mark's younger self was working late in his office. Everyone else had left hours ago, while Mark remained behind to prepare a case that had unexpectedly been brought forward.

He rubbed his eyes and thought of home. Rebecca would be home by now. Mark was rarely home before ten o'clock these days. They only saw each-other for half an hour before bed, when they were both too exhausted to do anything but watch television, and for half an hour in the morning when they were in too much of a hurry to talk.

But it would all be worth it. He'd been promoted to senior assistant, and in a few years, he'd be in line for junior partner. Then they'd be able to afford a place of their own and could start thinking about children. But in the meantime, he had to make himself invaluable, which meant volunteering to step in whenever there was a crisis. Like tonight.

Mark sifted through the case notes. The case was similar to one they'd handled the previous year, Jones versus Maxwell, and it would be quicker to see what precedents they'd used then than to start from scratch. Mark finished his instant coffee and headed into Mr. Pollard's office, the neon light flickering as he switched it on.

Mark opened the filing cabinet, slid out the Jones folder, and returned with it to his desk. Then he opened it, expecting to find a sheaf of notes. Instead, there was a second, slimmer folder upon which was written IMPORTANT: NOT FOR THE ATTENTION OF MARK WHITAKER.

Mark checked the name on the folder. It read Harold Jones. Someone had accidentally misfiled the wrong folder. But who was Harold Jones? And why would his folder contain something that he was forbidden to see? He'd never even heard the guy's name before. Which was odd, because Mark thought he knew the names of all their regular clients, and going by the thickness of this folder, Harold Jones was a regular client.

There was only one way to find out. If there was something Pollard or Boyce didn't want him to see, Mark wanted to know what it was. He opened the folder. The first thing he saw was a copy of the CV he'd sent in when applying for the position of junior assistant. Then there was a page of notes in Pollard's handwriting under the heading PROJECT MAGWITCH.

Mark read the notes, at first intrigued, then with a growing sense of indignation. It turned out that this Harold Jones person was one of the firm's most lucrative clients, who had personally intervened to make sure Mark had been given the job of junior assistant back in 1999. In return, Jones would continue to use Pollard & Boyce to handle his business. It seemed that Jones's interests ranged from property development to TV production companies. Always as a sleeping partner, investing money through third parties in order to retain his anonymity, reaping the rewards by selling the shares at a profit or by receiving dividends and royalties.

Mark leafed through all the pages but could find no explanation as to why Harold Jones had intervened to get him the junior assistant job. Except for one note that Pollard had scrawled in the margin of one page: Estranged relative?

Whoever this Harold Jones was, Mark had to speak to him. There was an address included in the folder, a block of flats in Highgate. Mark returned the folder to the filing cabinet, grabbed his jacket, and ran downstairs, not bothering to say goodbye to Ron in reception. After climbing into his car, he rang Rebecca on his mobile.

"Hiya husband," she answered, her voice distant but cheerful.

"Hi. Look, just to say—"

"There was a crisis at work and you're going to be late?"

"Something like that, yeah. Sorry."

"No, don't apologize. I'll just order in a curry and watch Big Brother on my own."

"Can you leave me some? I had to work through lunch."

"Was there anything else? Only I'm in the bath and I'm making the phone all foamy."

"No, that's all. I don't know how long this will take, so don't wait up or anything."

"I'll do my best. Bye then. Love you."

"Love you. Bye."

Mark tossed his phone onto the passenger seat, twisted the ignition, and drove across London to Highgate, his mind racing with unanswered questions. After an hour's drive, he pulled up outside the apartment block. He was surprised by how impressive the building was; a smooth edifice of steel and glass, lit by ground-level spotlights. It looked more like a modern art gallery than somewhere where people might actually live.

Mark checked the address one last time. Flat 4-A. He headed over to the entrance and buzzed the intercom.

After about ten seconds, a voice answered, "Hello?"

"Hello. Harold Jones?"

"Yes. Who's this?"

"I'm from Pollard & Boyce. Urgent business."

"Come up." The security door buzzed. Mark swung it open and stepped into the brightly lit reception area. The elevator took him to the fifth floor, where a short corridor led to the paneled door for apartment 4-A. As he approached it, the door swung open.

"Hello?"

The man standing in the doorway looked oddly familiar. For a moment, Mark thought he was looking at his own father; the man had the same watery eyes, the same thinning hairline. But this man wasn't his father, he was only in his mid-forties at most. It was the weirdest thing. It was like he was looking into a mirror and seeing his future self staring back.

~The Pros and Cons of Silence~

"More wibbliness?" Rory prompted.

The Doctor nodded. "A build-up of potential time energy, the biggest one yet." He strained his eyes at the surrounding parkland. In the distance, the lights of London twinkled in the twilight. "Mark must be interfering with his own past . . . irresponsible idiot!"

Amy and Alex emerged from the TARDIS, Amy pulling on her jacket and handing Rory his. Alex, having given the Doctor his tweed jacket back, shrugged into a chocolate brown leather jacket with a hood. "Any luck?" Amy asked.

Rory shook his head. They'd only left Mark outside the hotel about ten minutes earlier. Then the TARDIS had started wheezing like a steam engine giving birth, and the Doctor had gone into madness-in-charge-of-a-mixing-desk mode, all wide eyes and twitching fingers.

"Where are we anyway?" Rory asked. "I mean, nice view."

"Hampstead Heath." The Doctor banged his palm on his wibble-detector. "Brilliant. I can't get a fix, the signal's swamping the sensors. . ."

"So how are we going to find this paradox thing?" Amy wanted to know.

Suddenly, there was a flash. Amy, Rory, and Alex shielded their eyes as blue lightning sizzled over a block of flats on the edge of the park. The lightning seemed to concentrate at the top of the building,

"I think we've found it," Alex declared. "I'm not the Doctor, but that definitely looks like wibbliness."

~The Pros and Cons of Silence~

"You're Harold Jones?"

Mark nodded slowly. The man standing in his hallway was his younger self. It was like being confronted by an old photograph. A face he'd seen many times in the mirror, but so long ago.

"May I come in?" Mark's younger self asked.

"You're from Pollard & Boyce?"

"That's right, I work there. But I think you already know that."

And then Mark realized the second thing that was wrong about his younger self visiting him. He had no memory of this taking place. When he'd worked at Pollard & Boyce, he'd never found out about Harold Jones. He'd certainly never gone to visit him.

"I think you'd better let me come in." Mark guided his younger self into the lounge. As he did, he felt a tingling in his right hand and noticed that his younger self rubbed his right hand at the same time. He'd felt it too. And there was an odd metallic smell in the air, the smell of dodgems and Scalextric cars. The smell of static electricity.

"Can I offer you anything? Coffee, tea?"

"No, I'm good," Mark's younger self replied. "Can we skip the small talk?"

"If you like," Mark said, sitting at his desk. "So how can I help you?"

"You can help me by telling me who the hell you are," Mark's younger self aggressively retorted. "And why the hell you've chosen to interfere in my life."

~The Pros and Cons of Silence~

Amy caught up with the Doctor, Rory, and Alex at the entrance of the apartment block. They were all staring up at the top floor of the building, where blue lightning flickered over the steel and glass.

"We may be too late." The Doctor tasted the air. "It feels like we're already too late."

"What do you mean, feels?" Amy asked.

"Time running off the rails. Forging new paths, new possibilities."

Rory looked around them warily. "Yeah, but surely if things were going wrong, the Weeping Angels would be here too, right? Like moths to a gong and all that?"

"Oh, great," Amy groaned. "Thanks for reminding me."

"Oh, they'll be here," Alex commented. "I think we can be sure of that."

The Doctor nodded in agreement. "They've probably been lying low in the cemetery down the road, awaiting their cue." He aimed his sonic screwdriver at the door, and it swung open. "Amy. Rory. Alex. Stay here."

"What?!" Alex cried. "Oh no, I'm going in with you."

"We're all going in with you," Amy corrected.

"Hey!" Rory objected, grabbing the corners of Amy and Alex's jackets as they started forwards. "If the Doctor says we should wait here, maybe we should do as the man says. I mean, he does know what he's talking about."

"Amy, listen to your husband," the Doctor told her. "Alex, listen to me." He ran into the brightly lit reception area and bounded up the stairs.

"Yeah. Like that's ever gonna happen," Amy scoffed.

"He should really know better," Alex reflected. Besides, she did listen to him. She knew when he really didn't want her near him, when he yelled at her and called her by her full name. Otherwise, the situation was fair game.

The two broke free of Rory's grasp and sprinted into the reception area after the Doctor, Amy's long-suffering husband trailing in their wake.

~The Pros and Cons of Silence~

"You're a distant relative?"

"That's right," Harold Jones confirmed. "On Aunt Margaret's side. I'm from, er, Canada."

"Canada?" Mark repeated, distrustfully. But the man's words had rung a bell. His mother had once mentioned a relative in Canada, a man who'd come to visit her once and who never replied to her letters or Christmas cards. And that would explain the resemblance. . .

"Did you visit my mum once, about six or seven years ago?"

"Yes. Yes, that's right. I happened to be in the country for work, and I thought I'd look up some relatives."

"Right. And that's why you got me the job at Pollard & Boyce?"

Harold nodded. "Exactly. They handle a lot of my business, and so I thought I'd do you a favor."

"You thought you'd do me a favor?"

"I recommended that they should take you on. But only for a trial period, on the understanding that if you weren't good enough, they were free to let you go."

Mark remained unconvinced. "Really?"

"So, while I may have helped you get your foot in the door, everything you've achieved since has been entirely down to you."

"They've been keeping you updated with progress then, have they?"

"Something like that, yes. They call it Project Magwitch."

~The Pros and Cons of Silence~

As Rory reached for the door of flat 4-A, the Doctor yelled out behind him. "Wait!" Luckily for the companions, the Doctor had only said, "Didn't I tell you to – oh, never mind!" before continuing up the stairs. That was as much of a scolding as they would get in these types of situations.

"What?" Rory now asked, his fingertips inches away from the door. A moment later, blue light began to flit intermittently across the surface, and across the walls, floor, and ceiling of the corridor. Rory felt the hairs on the back of his hand stand on end. "What is it?"

"A Blinovitch limitation field." The Doctor leveled his sonic screwdriver at the door, gradually moving closer until there was a split and crackle. "Nasty stuff. Not good to get too close."

"But we can get inside?" Amy said impatiently.

"In a moment," the Doctor muttered, fiddling with his screwdriver. "Nearly there, nearly there. . ."

~The Pros and Cons of Silence~

While Harold explained about 'Project Magwitch', Mark took the opportunity to look around the flat, with its huge windows and its view over London, its designer chairs, its widescreen plasma television. A blue light flashed outside, like that of an ambulance.

Harold's story made sense, but Mark still didn't believe it. "And that's why you wouldn't let me handle any of your cases?"

"Exactly. I didn't want you to know. Look, I'm sorry. Maybe I should have told you, but. . ."

Harold kept talking but Mark had stopped listening. He'd noticed the two handwritten letters on Harold's desk, both of which included a list of places, times, and dates going back to 1994. For 1995, he saw the details of an exam he'd taken at university. For 1997, he saw the address of a café in Coventry together with some lottery numbers. For 1998, it described the time he'd lost his wallet in Rome. . .

Mark suddenly remembered something Rebecca had once said to him a long time ago. About there being somebody at university who looked just like him.

"What are you doing?" Harold cried as he realized, too late, that Mark was looking at the contents of his desk. He lunged forward in a desperate attempt to conceal the letters. "You mustn't look at them, they're, they're confidential—"

Mark reached for one of the letters and, as he did, the fingers of his right hand came into contact with Harold's right hand. Mark heard a loud crackling sound, like a circuit being shorted, and an agonizing bolt of pain shot up his arm. For a moment, he had a sensation of cramp-like numbness, and could smell something burning, and then everything went black.

~The Pros and Cons of Silence~

The Doctor forced open the door to the flat and rushed in, Alex, Rory, and Amy at his heels. The entrance hallway flickered with blue light, and smoke drifted in the air. It was like stepping into a nightclub. "Hello?" the Doctor called out. "Anyone home?"

They made their way through the smoke into a large room with a kitchen at one end and an office at the other. All the electrical appliances in the kitchen were going haywire, switching themselves on and off, smoke pouring from their sockets. Blue lightning crackled across the floor, the ceiling, the walls, and the large, wide window that took up one side of the room.

Rory's eyes started to stream from the smoke. "What's going on?" he coughed. "This place is going bonkers!"

"Time-energy discharge," the Doctor answered, advancing into the room like a prowling tiger. "Overloads the electrics."

The light fittings fizzled, sending out cascades of smoldering sparks. "And what could have caused that?" Rory wondered.

Alex held her jacket sleeve up to her mouth in an effort not to breathe in the smoke. Aside from making her cough, it was giving her a strange craving for cigarettes. "I think I know," she replied, her voice slightly muffled by the jacket. She pointed towards the office, where two men lay slumped across the desk. They both had their right arms outstretched and appeared to be giving off steam.

"Mark Whitaker, A and B." The Doctor approached the bodies. "Must've made physical contact, shorted out the differential." He crouched beside the body of young Mark and took his pulse, before repeating the process with old Mark. "They're lucky to be alive. It seems young Mark decided to pay his older self a visit."

"So it wasn't old Mark interfering with his past," Amy mused. "It was young Mark interfering with his own future. . ."

Tap-tap-tap.

"But this shouldn't have happened?" Rory guessed. "I mean, whichever way round it is, bumping into yourself's gotta be bad news, right?"

"It's not an ideal situation, no," the Doctor said, remembering the times he'd run into past incarnations of himself. Though that was an entirely different sort of bad news. "We have to get them out of here. Rory, you take one Mark, I'll take the other."

"Right," Rory nodded, heaving young Mark into an upright position. While he did this, the Doctor managed to get old Mark standing and half-lifted, half-dragged him towards the doorway.

Tap-tap-tap.

Rory's lungs felt like they were on fire. As he struggled across the room with young Mark, all the light fittings burst into flames.

"I don't get it!" Amy shouted over the chaos. "Why isn't the sprinkler system working?"

"Something's preventing it," Alex answered. "Look."

The Doctor and Rory followed Alex's gaze to the window on the far side of the room. Six stone figures stood on the other side of the glass, their hands pressed against the surface, staring inside with serene, blank faces. The Weeping Angels. All bathed in the flickering glow of the lightning.

"What are they doing?" Rory shouted.

"What do you think?" the Doctor yelled back. "Feeding!"

But that's impossible, Rory thought. They were four stories up. There was nothing for the Angels to be standing on.

Tap-tap-tap.

Rory couldn't keep his eyes on all of the Angels at once. Worse, with all the smoke swirling about, he could barely keep his eyes open. But that sound the Angels were making, they were tapping on the glass with their fingers. . .

There was a loud creaking, cracking sound. Rory caught a glimpse of the window covered in a spider's web of fracture lines emanating from the hand of one of the Angels. Then he had to blink, and an instant later, there was an ear-splitting crash as the entire window shattered into a hundred pieces. The night wind roared in, fanning the flames higher and blowing the smoke towards Rory, Amy, Alex, and the Doctor.

And Rory could see the Weeping Angels never visibly moving but in the process of clambering into the room, one by one, their mouths wide as though screaming in triumph.

"Come on!" the Doctor yelled into Rory's ear. "We have to go!"

Rory gripped young Mark by the waistband and tugged him into the hallway, through billowing smoke and surging, snapping flames. It was like they were escaping from Hell itself.

~The Pros and Cons of Silence~

Mark's older self came to with a retching cough. His eyes and throat stung and there was a smoky, acrid taste on his tongue. But he could smell fresh air and hear the rustle of leaves in the breeze. He was lying on the ground, he realized. Rory knelt beside him, taking his pulse. Behind Rory, he could make out the Doctor, Alex, and Amy, looking down at someone else laid out on the pavement, someone he couldn't see.

Then it all came back to him. The visit from his younger self. He could picture him framed in the doorway. Mark gasped deeply and suddenly at the memory.

"It's all right," Rory said soothingly. "You're safe, mate. Me and the Doctor rescued you."

"You rescued me?"

Rory indicated the top of the apartment block. The top floor was a blaze of flickering orange flame, oily black smoke scudding up into the night sky.

"What . . . what happened?" Mark asked, pulling himself to his feet.

"Hey, take it easy," Rory cautioned. "You, um, seem to have bumped into yourself."

Mark staggered over to the Doctor, Alex, and Amy. They were tending to his younger self, who had been put in the recovery position, his suit charred, his skin smudged with soot. For one horrible moment, Mark thought that his younger self might be dead, until he groaned and breathed in a deep, sleepy breath.

Mark stared at him, then up at his burning apartment, unable to take it all in. There was something else, something he'd forgotten. "What did you say?" he shouted at Rory. "I bumped into myself?"

"The Doctor thinks you may have, er, made physical contact, or something. Which released a load of time energy."

Physical contact? He could remember sitting at his desk, his younger self in front of him, and he could remember realizing that his younger self hadn't been listening to him because—

"The letter," Mark breathed. "The letter I have to send to myself. . ."

"What?"

"Where is it? Did you bring it here?"

"No. Should we have done?"

"Oh no," Mark gasped. "Oh no. . ." He looked at Rory, whose mouth hung open with incomprehension, then Mark turned and ran back to the entrance of the flats.

"Hey, where are you going? You'll get yourself killed!" Rory shouted after him. "Doctor, the old one's doing a runner!"

Mark shoved open the security doors and raced up the stairwell, his chest straining with the effort. He passed some of the other residents of the block as they made their way downstairs. They called out to him, warning him not to go up there, but he ignored them.

He reached the fourth floor and slammed open the door to the corridor. A wall of searing heat hit him in the face, like he had just entered a furnace. He felt his skin prickle with sweat. The corridor ahead was clear, except for the thick black smoke that hung overhead like an indoor thundercloud.

Keeping his head low, Mark lurched down the corridor towards the door to his flat. His lungs felt like they were burning, and he could hear his own ragged, desperate gasps for breath.

He made it through the door into the hallway. It was almost unrecognizable, lit a deep red by the pulsing glow of the fire. He could barely keep his eyes open. But he had to find the letter.

Mark entered his lounge to be confronted by a vision from a nightmare. The kitchen was a roaring mass of flames, a plume of fire stretched from his television up to the ceiling, and his sofa smoldered with a foul-smelling smoke.

There were six figures in the room, standing perfectly still amidst the conflagration, each one holding its head in its hands, its wings folded back.

As Mark was forced to blink to clear his eyes of the smoke, the statues began to move. They slowly lowered their hands and turned to face towards Mark. There was no expression in their eyes. They seemed oblivious to the flames licking over their stonework.

Then, one by one, they opened their mouths, exposing their long, sharp fangs.

Mark stumbled blindly to his desk, feeling his way across the room until it banged into his midriff and the smoke cleared sufficiently for him to see the papers on his desk. As he watched, both the letters caught fire and shriveled to black. The flames consumed both letters completely, sending charred fragments fluttering up into the air.

Mark felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned.

"We have to go," the Doctor said adamantly. "Now."

Mark could see the Weeping Angels behind the Doctor, reaching out towards him. The sight caused Mark to freeze in terror. He couldn't speak or move.

The Doctor took him by the wrist and guided him back through the lounge, past the Angels, and out into the hallway. Mark could hardly breathe and could barely see, but the Doctor kept leading him through the smoke and darkness, helping him down the stairwell, and out into the clean night air.

~The Pros and Cons of Silence~

Amy and Alex squealed with relief as the Doctor tumbled from the burning building, heaving old Mark with him. Old Mark's clothes and hair were dirty and charred, but he seemed otherwise unharmed. He sat on the pavement a few meters away from where his younger self was sleeping.

The residents of the apartment block had gathered in the parking lot, marveling at the blaze as they awaited the arrival of the fire services. The fire would be visible all across London.

The Doctor squatted beside old Mark. "What were you trying to do?" he demanded.

"The letter, Doctor." Mark took in another lungful of air. "The letter I received from my future self, the one I had to send? It was in there. Both copies were in there!"

Alex's eyes widened. "Oh my God," she gasped, her jaw dropping.

"I saw them burn," Mark moaned wretchedly. "So that's it. History's been changed."

"What do you mean?" Rory asked.

"How can I have sent myself the letter, when I don't have the letter anymore?!" Mark yelled.

"Can't you just make another copy?"

"I can't remember every single word of the letter, can I? And if I got a single word wrong. . ."

"Oh. Right. Yeah."

"Didn't you make any photocopies, or anything like that?" Amy asked.

"No," Mark replied, leveling his gaze accusingly at the Doctor. "Because you told me not to, remember?"

The Doctor frowned. "So, now you can no longer send the letter to yourself, and the entire course of history has changed, with disastrous ramifications for the entire planet."

He paused to straighten up, lick a finger, and hold it in the air. "Unless. . ." He reached for his wibble-detector, which was still slung around his neck, and began to urgently twiddle with its dials. "Oh no. Oh no, no, no, no, no. . ."

"Doctor, what is it?" Alex asked urgently as Mark said, "Unless?"

The Doctor didn't answer them. He was too preoccupied in taking a reading with the detector. Then he looked up at the group with a fearful look in his eyes. "Unless the course of history hasn't been changed."

Alex frowned at him. "What?"

"Which can only mean one thing," the Doctor gravely continued. "Mark wasn't the one who wrote that letter!"

"What?" Amy cried. "But of course he did! You said—"

"Of course," the Doctor interrupted, the dots connecting in his head. "It was all part of their plan."

"Whose plan?"

"The Weeping Angels."

"Sorry, Doctor, you're saying the Weeping Angels wrote that letter?" Rory checked. "The one that Mark received in the year 2011?"

The Doctor nodded. "A list of instructions that Mark would think came from his future self, in order to make sure he obeyed them to the letter. In order to make sure that I'd tell him to obey them to the letter."

"But hang on, you're forgetting something. Mark said the letter was written in his own handwriting!"

Alex turned to look at Mark. "You never showed us the original letter, did you?"

"No," Mark admitted.

"I wish you had," the Doctor sighed. "Because Alex and I would've noticed that it was written on psychic paper. Write a letter on psychic paper and the handwriting will look like that of whoever reads it."

Mark pulled himself to his feet. "But the name on the envelope was in my handwriting too."

"Psychic envelope," the Doctor dismissed. "Same material."

"And the Weeping Angels got hold of this how?" Rory questioned, bewildered. "Did they just pop down to the nearest psychic newsagents?"

"The Angels are creatures of perception. To them it would be child's play." The Doctor looked at Mark mournfully, as though he was a condemned man. "The copy of the letter you showed me. It wasn't the whole letter, was it?"

Mark twitched. "What do you mean?"

"There was something else. Something else the Weeping Angels wanted you to do."

"No."

"What was the other part of the letter, Mark?" the Doctor exploded in anger. "TELL ME!"

"There wasn't any other part of the letter! You saw the whole thing!"

"I don't think so," Alex spoke up. Her eyes narrowed, pushing her topaz-colored irises down to little slits. She stepped up beside the Doctor. Together, the two looked like a terrifying force to be reckoned with. "You and I both know it. Whatever was in that letter was something that the Angels wanted you to do to change history. But you can't."

"It is something that can never happen," the Doctor added, his voice low and dark. "Something you must never do."

"No!" Mark protested, doubling up in pain as though crushed. His chest was heaving, and he kept swallowing, gasping, grimacing, as though trying to speak but unable to find the words. "No, you're wrong," he hissed at the couple. "It can happen. I'm going to make it happen."

"Mark," the Doctor started, "you can't, no matter how much—"

Mark straightened up and regarded the Doctor and Alex with cold, angry eyes; eyes filled with years of loneliness and grief. But instead of speaking, he turned away and strode towards the parking lot.

"Mark!" Alex called after him. "Where are you going? Stop—"

Mark raised his key fob, aimed it at his SUV, and unlocked it with a beep. He climbed into the driver's seat. Motioning for Alex to stay put, the Doctor attempted to grab the car door, but he was too late; the car's engine growled into life, its headlights flashed on with blinding brightness, and it swung out into the road. Amy, Rory, Alex, and the Doctor could only stand by uselessly as it accelerated into the night.

As the car disappeared from view, the wail of sirens grew louder until two fire engines and an ambulance appeared at the end of the road, illuminating everything with their flashing lights. Firemen clambered out, shouting instructions, and craning their necks to assess the blaze.

Distracted by the firemen, it took a few moments for Alex and Amy to realize the Doctor wasn't with them. He and Rory had returned their attention to Mark's younger self, who was still curled up on the pavement. He regained consciousness with a wheeze and splutter, his bloodshot eyes darting around in confusion. "Who are you? What happened?"

"You came to see a man called Harold Jones," the Doctor calmly informed him. "Why?"

"Harold Jones?" Mark frowned as he struggled to remember. "I was working late in the office and came across this folder . . . he was the reason I got this job. And he had these letters on his desk, with lists of stuff from my life!"

"It's all right," the Doctor said gently as he placed his fingers on Mark's forehead. Mark's eyelids drooped and his head lolled forward as he fell into a trance. "You'll be fine. Listen to me. You will have no memory of the events of this evening."

"No memory," Mark repeated.

"The last thing you'll remember is working late in the office. You won't remember me, my friends, or Harold Jones. When you awake, you will never had heard of him. Understand?"

Mark nodded.

"There was a small fire in your office, someone dropped a lit match into a bin. You threw your jacket over it, that's how it got burnt."

Mark nodded.

"And when you wake up, I want you to phone your wife and tell her you'll be coming home, then go back to your car, and drive straight there. You've got all that?"

Mark nodded.

"Good." The Doctor clicked his fingers.

Mark's head lifted. For a moment he looked around, not sure where he was, then he stood up. "Sorry, um, excuse me," he muttered, before speed-dialing a number on his mobile phone. "Hiya. . . Yeah. It's me. Just calling to let you know I'm on my way home. . . Love you too." Then, without registering the Doctor, Alex, Amy, or Rory, he strolled over to one of the cars parked outside the building, got into it, and drove away.

The Doctor, Alex, Amy, and Rory stepped aside as the firemen located the nearest hydrant and connected their hoses.

"So that's that?" Amy asked, rubbing the soot off her hands.

"I think so," the Doctor replied. "Mark goes home to his wife, having forgotten all about tonight, and all about us—"

Rory's mouth fell open as a sudden, terrible realization dawned on him. "Wait a minute," he interrupted. "Did you just say he's going home to his wife?"

"Yes—"

"But when I spoke to Mrs. Levenson, she never mentioned anything about Mark being married!"

"Doctor, that's what I wanted to tell you!" Alex cried. "Didn't get a chance to though, not in all the excitement. Mark has a wife here, but he doesn't have one in the future."

"Then that means they either got divorced," Rory picked up, "or. . ."

The Doctor suddenly looked very old and gaunt. "So that's it. That's what the Weeping Angels have been working towards."

"You mean, something happened to Rebecca?" Amy asked. "Or rather, something's going to happen to Rebecca. Oh my God. She's going to die. . ."

"And Mark's going to try and stop it," Alex wearily muttered. She ran a hand through her hair. She could understand Mark's motivations. Hell, she'd try and do the same with the Doctor or Marigold, Lacey, Amy, and Rory, but she knew his rescue mission was going to be futile. "He's going to try and save her."

"But if he saved her," Rory started, piecing it together, ". . .then he'd be changing history."

"Not only that, but—" Before the Doctor could finish, he was interrupted by a voice calling to them from down the street.

"Doctor! Alex! Amy!" A familiar figure ran out of the darkness towards them. As he got closer and slowed down, he moved into the glow of a streetlamp, allowing Amy and Alex to see his face.

It was Rory.

But Rory was standing right next to them, gawping in disbelief at the new arrival. Amy turned from him to the other Rory, the new Rory. He approached with an exhausted look on his face.

"Thank God," he sighed in relief, rubbing his side and wincing. "For a minute there, I thought I'd missed you."

"Rory?" the Doctor cried, regarding him suspiciously. "What are you doing here?"

The new Rory gave Amy a reassuring smile and ruffled Alex's hair, before he noticed his former self and his mouth fell open. "I'm, er, from the future? I mean, I was with you in the future, but then I was touched by an Angel. . ."

~The Pros and Cons of Silence~

A/N: And the plot thickens! I'm sorry this chapter is so short (and I kinda feel like Alex doesn't do much here) but I'm tired and I have homework to work on for tomorrow, so . . . here you go. :)

Also, I think we'll be wrapping up this adventure in the next two chapters, three at the most. :)

Notes on reviews. . .

Clayman01 - Thanks for your input and the reminder! I wasn't planning on adapting that book, but I may mention it somewhere if I ever read it. :)

bored411 - Haha, me too. Sometimes the Doctor needs a good whack. :) Hope you enjoyed the chapter! :)

NicoleR85 - Thank you! Hope you enjoyed the chapter! :)

Jojo - Thank you! We're definitely going to see a few flashbacks in this story. There are a bunch in 'Closing Time' that I'm really excited to reveal as they reveal a lot about Alex and what she was doing during one of the Doctor's adventures from before she met him. :)

Thank you to everyone that reviewed, followed and/or favorited this story! Please review and see you tomorrow! :)