To Be Forgotten

Chapter 12 - The Big Bang

The Big Bang, part 2 -

They made it up onto the roof to see it was daytime, prompting Amy to squint a bit and ask, "What, it's morning already? How did that happen?"

"History is shrinking", the Doctor explained, "Is anybody listening to me?", he jumped onto a ledge, "The universe is collapsing. We don't have much time left."

"What are you doing?", Rory asked when the Doctor sonicked a satellite dish.

"Looking for the Tardis", he pulled the dish off.

"But the Tardis exploded."

"Okay then, I'm looking for an exploding Tardis", he ran to the edge of the roof.

"I don't understand", Amy called after him, "So, the Tardis blew up and took the universe with it. But why would it do that? How?"

"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 is that?", he pointed behind himself at the big sun-like ball of orange light illuminating the sky, "Like I said, I'm looking for an exploding Tardis."

"But that's the sun", Rory argued.

"Is it? Well, here's the noise that sun is making right now", he held up the satellite dish and pointed his sonic against it. It started to hum like a landing Tardis, "That's my Tardis burning up. That's what's been keeping the Earth warm."

"Doctor, there's something else", Rory pointed out.

The Doctor sonicked the dish to amplify the whisper Rory had made out, "There's a voice."

"I can't hear anything", Amy muttered.

"Trust the plastic."

Then they were able to hear River's voice, "I'm sorry, sweetie", over and over.

"Doctor, that's River", Amy recognised, "How can she be up there?"

"It must be like a recording or something", Rory said.

"No, it's not. Of course, the emergency protocols", he lowered the dish to think, "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."

The Doctor pushed some buttons in his vortex manipulator and interrupted River's loop by materialising at the door of the Tardis, "Hi, honey. I'm home."

River looked at her wristwatch and smirked, "And what sort of time do you call this?"

They materialised back on the rooftop and River recognised the two people waiting for them, "Amy! And the plastic Centurion?"

"It's okay, he's on our side", the Doctor let go of her.

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"I dated a Nestene duplicate once. Swappable head. It did keep things fresh. Right then, I have questions, but number one is this", she turned to look at the Doctor's fez, "What in the name of sanity have you got on your head?"

"It's a fez. I wear a fez now", the Doctor told her happily, "Fezes are cool."

Amy and River exchanged a conspicuous glance, then Amy grabbed the fez off the Doctor's head, making him protest with a loud, "Oh", but then she threw it in the air and River shot it. Behind the blast the Dalek rose up, "Exterminate!"

"Run, run! Move, move. Go", the Doctor ushered the group away and picked up the satellite dish to use as a shield, successfully defending against the blasts that just made sparks against it.