Home, the long way round [1]

Chapter 15 - The Big Bang

Maddie was laying behind the stones as then she heard someone walking towards her, her eyes opened. She saw Rory standing there, looking grim. "Rory." She tried to stand up, but failed.

"Maddie, you okay?" Rory asked as he helped her stand up.

"Yeah, I think so." Maddie replied to him, then she looked around. "Where Amy?"

"She's dead." Rory replied to her. "Then the Doctor came to me and gave me this." He held up the sonic screwdriver.

Maddie looked at it. "What?" She exclaimed.

"Yeah, I need to open the Pandorica and get him out." He replied, utterly confused.

"Well, do it then." Maddie said rudely.

Rory rolled with his eyes, then he opened the Pandorica with the sonic screwdriver. Then the Doctor was released from the chair, looking confused. "How did you do that?"

"You gave me this." Rory replied to him.

The Doctor walked out of the Pandora as then took out his screwdriver from his own pocket. "No, I didn't." He comment.

"You did. Look at it." Rory held up the sonic screwdriver.

Then he touched his screwdriver to Rory's as they 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." He glanced at Maddie. "That's nice." He comment and then he asked to her. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah, I'm fine, Doctor." Maddie smiled at him.

The Doctor smiled at her as well as then he looked at the Daleks were fossilized. "That's not."

"Yeah." Rory asked to him. "What are they?" Then they looked at around them. Everyone who was in the chamber when the universe ended has been fossilized.

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

"Err, what does that mean?" Rory asked to him as then Maddie asked. "How can I be here? When I was in the room as well?"

"Total event collapse. The universe literally never happened." The Doctor replied to Rory as then he looked at Maddie. "You are connected to me, that's what kept your safe."

"So, our soulmate bond." Maddie looked at him. "That's what kept me safe?"

The Doctor nodded. "Yes."

Rory looked confused at them. "So, how can we be here? What's keeping us safe?"

"Nothing. Eye of the storm, that's all. We're just the last light to go out." The Doctor looked at him, then he noticed that Amy wasn't there as well. "Amy. Where's Amy?"

~00~

The Doctor crouched down and took off the blanket from Amy as Rory said sadly. "I killed her." Maddie stood next to him.

"Oh, Rory." The Doctor told him as then he stood up.

"Doctor, what am I?" Rory asked to him.

"You're a Nestene duplicate." The Doctor replied to him. "A lump of plastic with delusions of humanity."

"But I'm Rory now. Whatever was happening, it's stopped. I'm Rory." Rory argued with him.

"That's software talking." The Doctor comment.

Maddie looked at him confused. "What are doing?" She asked, then he hushed her. "Rude."

"And still not ginger." The Doctor told her.