Part Six

"We beat it once before. You just need more time to think." Amy was more than clutching at straws and she knew it.

"Time is something for once I don't have." The Doctor looked at the clock counting down on the monitor. "Let's go see my new playpen, shall we?"

As he walked over to the door and down the corridor towards the airlock, he didn't seem like a man who was about to die. He didn't seem anything. He was so calm he could have been taking a stroll down to the local chippy for a fish and mix.

If I was in his position I couldn't have been that composed.

Still, we followed him down to the airlock door, both expecting the Gallifreyan to come up with some amazing plan at the last minute. It's what he does, after all.

But not this time.

Another screen flashed into life as we entered the airlock, announcing that he had one minute, fifty-two seconds left to live.

The Doctor looked at it absently, then keyed in something on a nearby console to open the inner and outer doors.

Apparently, he wanted to take a peek at the chamber that was to be his crematorium, and the Aurix let him.

He strolled inside, looking around as if he were about to purchase the place. "Oh, this is cool, don't you think, Pond?"

Amy was struggling to hold it together. "No, no I don't think it is, actually."

"Oh come on! Just look at the size of those fans, and that duel core heater matrix for synthesizing the heat from the plasma. It's glorious!"

"One minute to initiation of program." The computer helpfully announced.

The Doctor turned at the voice and looked at me and Amy. There was a sadness in his eyes I'll never forget. "You two should go now. The computer will auto-lock the door at thirty seconds."

"We're not going." Amy defied. "We're staying right here and showing that thing what humans think of their friends."

He shook his head and smiled wanly. "Not a bad plan, but that's not how the Aurix works, and you know it. If it played fair in a fight we wouldn't even be here. Now go. Do this one last thing for me."

I nodded at him and took Amy's hand, somehow guiding her against her will out of the chamber and through the airlock doors. They hissed closed behind us and we both dared to look through the treble-thickness panes to see our friend one last time.

The Doctor's goofy grin was staring right back at us and he waved – actually waved. Then as we heard the programmed kick in, I swear I heard a warlike cry of "Geronimo!" from within the room beyond, but I couldn't bring myself to look at what was happening.

I grabbed Amy, pulling her close to me in a bear hug for what seemed like forever.

Something hissed and then clonked behind us and we both realized at the same time that somehow the test sequence was shutting down.

Was it over that quickly?

Amy reacted first, diving to the controls to pull up how long the program had run.

"Less than two seconds. It was running for less than two seconds…that might mean…"

I stood with my mouth open wondering how two seconds could actually feel like an eternity. But it had.

I slapped the emergency door lock override and together me and Amy bound into the test area without thinking it might be dangerous. The inner atmosphere had vented, though, leaving the interior feeling like a sauna.

The Doctor was lying dead center of the chamber, his face to the super dense flooring.

"Doctor!" Amy hit superspeed first, yelling his name all the way as we crossed the large flat area to his side.

For a second, I tried to pull her back as she kneeled beside him. What if she flipped his gangly body over to reveal horrific burns and more from the effects of the re-entry program? And besides, shouldn't I, the medically trained one be checking him over anyway?

Amy's headstrong and fearless, though, as most of you know, so she shrugged me off and gently rolled him anyway.

The Doctor groaned. "Hmm, I smell barbecue. No, wait. I was the barbecue!"

His skin looked slightly mottled and red in places, like he'd suffered some first degree burns, but apart from that, he looked amazingly well, considering.

Well, unless you count the fact that some of his clothing was a little charred. (How a Time Lord lived through what he had was unbelievable, but apparently Time Lord clothes were made of just as sturdy stuff!)

The Doctor noticed what I was staring at and pulled himself into a sitting position.

"You might want to take it a little slowly." I offered, but he waved me off.

"Why were you staring at my tie?" He looked down, but couldn't see quite enough of the bow to be sure. "It's burned, isn't it? Awww…my cool tie is now a fried tie!"

"Pity it wasn't the fez," I said under my breath.

He scowled.

Damn, I never will remember Time Lord hearing is about ten times better than my own.

Amy looked at us both with a frown. "When you've both finished squabbling and talking wardrobe?"

"Yes?" The Doctor and I answered together.

"Maybe you can tell us how you beat the Aurix?" She looked pointedly at the singed Gallifreyan.

He blinked, then appeared genuinely puzzled. "Me?" He asked incredulous. "I was sure it was you that had saved my pork, or bacon, or-"

It was time for us all to sit for a moment in wonder.

Just what or who had shutdown the re-entry program and cut off the Aurix's control?

A small panel set in the wall beeped and a screen about ten inches wide suddenly illuminated to show a very familiar face.

"Just because I live in a library now, sweetie, it doesn't mean I can't come out and play once in awhile." River smiled roguishly the other end of the comm link and we all heaved a sigh of relief.

Maybe it really was over.

"River Song!" The Doctor was first up and pacing in front of the screen before we could stop him. "Just how did you neutralize the Aurix?" he was demanding. "Even I couldn't neutralize it, and it was my lot that created it!"

He glanced down at the blackened tie and looked like a hurt puppy.

River beamed and then winked. "Oh you know, from one computer to another and all that."

Amy popped her head over the Doctor's shoulder. "What does she mean, lives in a library now and from one computer to another?"

The Time Lord ignored the question, but River's face softened. "Spoilers, dear, spoilers. You'll find out one day."

Amy looked annoyed but didn't push it. She knew better than to ruffle the professor's feathers. Well, basically, because you can't ruffle them. She's a pretty cool customer.

I think it's all in the parenting myself…

"So," the Doctor pondered. "You must have up-linked the library interface to the Digamma mainframe, bypassing all security protocols and attacking the Aurix matrix on its own terms inside the system." He grinned. "I like it…it's like Tron on steroids"

River looked over her shoulder, and I could just see other faces in the background, although no one I recognized. "Well I do have a few friends here back in the library. Miss Evangelista and the others have been most helpful."

"So is it gone?" I looked at the screen as I asked the question, then to the Time Lord. "I mean, really gone?"

He looked back at the professor. "Well?" He asked "Is it?"

River shrugged. "As gone as a binary based life form can be."

"Of course," the Doctor agreed. "Aurix versus River Song – the poor Aurix never stood a chance." He smiled again, but this time there was a sadness to it, a melancholy root buried deep down that only he understood. "It's nice to see you again River," he said softly.

"You too, sweetie." She returned the same sad smile. "Now go. Digamma 66 is still degenerating. The time eradication program is irreversible, you might not have long before the planet vanishes."

The Doctor stared at her like he was lost in the moment. "I know," he said quietly, no sadly.

River pulled out a small blue book that looked strangely like the TARDIS – her journal. "Remember the caves of Inchiny?" She watched for the Doctor's reaction.

"Errr…no."

River grinned. "You soon will. And it will be glorious. Now go. I'll destroy the Digamma computer cores from this end, just to be sure. See you soon, pretty boy."

Before he could say more, the professor cut the feed.

"Just what was that all about?" Amy barked.

Amy is no fool, and neither am I. The Doctor's conversation with River had been off somehow, like they were both hiding something, and we both knew it.

And no, I don't mean I suspected another Aurix trick, but something else.

"Why isn't River in Stormcage?" I frowned. Sometimes I don't even get time travel and dimensions, I swear. And well, River's timeline is pretty screwy anyway.

The Doctor's cheerless expression didn't change. "Let's just say she's in another kind of prison now. A much more secure one." He clicked his fingers. "Come on! You heard what River said, we have to leave this place, chop chop before it disappears from under us! Or maybe over us."

And with that he was jogging through the airlock and beyond, leaving a trail of charred tweed fragments in his wake.

I took Amy's hand and we followed, knowing there would be no more explanation on the weird comm conversation with our daughter, no matter how much we pushed.

...

I never thought the TARDIS would feel so much like home. A wooden blue box with a slightly cold-looking interior and weird gizmos everywhere to boot.

And yet today, I felt like I had been born inside the thing, it was so inviting. Mind you, I think it "knows" things, so maybe it sensed my fears and tried to calm me.

Actually, after the previous incident in the bubble universe I should probably call it "she" but that's another story you don't want me blathering about in the middle of this one!

Okay, so where was I?

Right, back in the TARDIS.

Amy had helpfully gone to make us all a cuppa after the Doctor announced the free radicals would do all our synapses the world of good.

While the PG was brewing and the Time Lord was pushing buttons that looked like they belonged on a landfill site, I quickly checked on Missy.

She was sleeping peacefully on a folding bed the Doctor had pulled from the time ship's many rooms like plucking a rabbit out of a hat.

"The leg's healing perfectly well, you know?" The Doctor had slinked up behind me and was now peering over my shoulder at the girl.

As soon as we'd boarded the TARDIS he'd come up with some rather nifty toys for melding tissue and bone back to their former state, and I wasn't about to argue where they'd come from.

Anything that cures the sick and saves lives has got to be good in my book, no matter which planet or time zone it appeared from.

"But you can't cure her asthma." I watched the little girl breath. "And what's to say another foreman won't come along and beat her just like Charleston?"

"Technically I know a few places that could easily cure her asthma." The Doctor sighed. "But it would be meddling with the past, corrupting time lines, altering a fixed point in the grand scheme of the universe." He looked at me. "I know you don't want me to take her back to 1855, but we could change vital historic events if we play God." He turned his back on me and I thought I heard him whisper something under his breath.

"Besides, it's not like I haven't tried and look how Bowie Base One turned out…"

Amy walked into the control room at that point juggling three mugs, but apparently the conversation wasn't lost on her. "Wasn't it you who once told me timelines can be re-written?" She demanded passing us both out teas.

The Doctor looked slightly sheepish. "Well, that was different."

"She's just a kid," I pleaded. "One asthma attack back in '55 could kill her. One more foreman like Charleston working her up and-"

As if to agree with me, Missy groaned in her sleep, her eyes flitting and dancing under their lids like she was frantically trying to escape something.

Her destiny, perhaps?

"Did you know Digamma is the Greek for six?" Amy suddenly offered randomly.

"And this helps Missy how?" I frowned.

"That planet back there's real designation was 666. Talk about destiny for it to be erased from existence or what." Amy plonked down on a console chair cradling her own mug. "I suppose I'm saying sometimes things aren't what they seem. Destiny isn't always what it seems."

My eyes widened slightly. "Bit profound."

"She gets that from me!" The Doctor grinned and absently pulled a new bowtie from his new tweed pocket.

"So can we just not take Missy home? I mean, at least not back to slavery."

The Doctor scowled and began pulling and pushing dials, knobs and err…bells again. "She has to go back to 1855, Rory. I'm sorry, but even I can't change that."

I sighed and turned my back on him, frustrated by the constraints put upon us when we had the chance to actually change something for the better.

Amy felt the same way too. "What kind of a Time Lord are you that could take a little kid back to probably die? Why did you even bother helping to fix her leg."

Ugh oh. Amy was angry, her nostrils were flaring and she was flinging her hair so badly even I didn't want to get in her way.

Husband's prerogative to retreat.

Obviously.

The Doctor smirked. "Ooh Amelia Pond, I love you when you're angry. Did I ever tell you that?"

"Probably" Amy snorted.

"Good," he snapped back. "However, no need to raise your blood pressure. I said I was taking Missy back to 1855. What I didn't say was where."

"Where?" Amy and I asked together.

"Rochester, New York," the Doctor clarified as he stomped on some kind of foot pedal control. "Have an old friend there that will look after Missy, trust me."

And of course, we did. The Doctor may have moments when he acts stark raving mad, but you can never say he isn't to be trusted.

(Well, unless he's an Aurix created Doctor, that is).

Twenty minutes later we found ourselves sitting in a rather grand farmhouse being welcomed by a young woman in her mid-thirties. She had a somewhat stern face, and the way her hair was combed back with a bun at the rear made me think of a school mistress.

She seemed to ignore me and Amy after the initial introductions, focusing on the Doctor with a rather curt air. "If it isn't John Smith back to haunt me," she sniffed.

"Oh I wouldn't say haunt," he returned. "More like plague."

"Well, you are infectious, I'll give you that."

Was that an actual joke from this very prim and proper young lady?

"This is my good friend Suzie B," the Doctor offered, taking a biscuit from the platter on the table in front of him. "Hmmn, ginger…did you know I always wanted to be ginger? Never had a ginger version of me yet, though."

"You're sassy enough," the woman smiled and then looked at me and Amy again for the first time in awhile. "I'm Susan – Susan Anthony."

It didn't hit me then, in fact it didn't hit me for a few days if I'm honest, but now that I know exactly who we left Missy with I feel like we actually achieved something from the whole Digamma 66 mess.

You see Susan B Anthony was a rights activist - a campaigner not only for abolition, but for woman's rights and much more.

If there was anyone Missy would be safe with, and cared for, it was Miss Anthony.

Sometimes the Doctor really is a smarty pants, isn't he?

Anyway, we took tea with Susan Anthony while Missy settled into a large and rather comfy looking room on the second floor. We chatted, we laughed, we discussed the future and of change – knowing what changes would come, but not daring to share them with her.

And eventually we left, waving to the activist as we left her behind in a cruel past that had helped carve our more civilized future.

Back in the TARDIS, Amy sighed, and I sensed all the tension drain from her as the time ship began its familiar vrooping noise.

"Did we actually just achieve something?" She asked. "I mean, other than being chased around a condemned planet by a mad computer program?"

"Saving Missy has to be worth something," I suggested, putting my arm around her. "Even if we didn't quite get your perfect alien holiday from your perfect alien holiday brochure."

She squeezed my hand. "Yeah well, maybe we would have been better off with Blackpool after all."

The Doctor disagreed. "Oh come on, people! Blackpool is for boring grannies who want to play bingo! Blackpool is for un-cool people who don't wear bow ties and fez's! Blackpool is…"

"Yeah, but it's safe," I countered.

The Doctor's bottom lip quivered and he looked sulky for about two seconds, then grinned again. "Now where's the fun in safe?" he waited for a response, those beady eyes of his darting between me and Amy. Eventually he just rubbed his hands together as if we'd given in. "Right, where to then?"

I feigned deep thought, staring at the TARDIS roof. "Um, I was thinking somewhere with big green slimy aliens, a deadly tar pit and some poisonous marmite truffles."

The Doctor beamed. "Really? I think I know just the planet! Although the truffles aren't poisonous marmite – that would be just plain overkill…"

"Err no, not really, " I laughed. "For once can we go somewhere normal? Like maybe Alton Towers?"

"Ah, right! Alton Towers it is then…"

Now obviously, that was just too easy.

I watched him bounce over to the center console and input lots of weird Gallifreyan symbols into the keyboard. Then he looked up at me and winked and I just knew Amy and I were in trouble for the second time in one day.

"Of course, you never said which Alton Towers," the Doctor teased. "The one on Katrika has been besieged for a thousand years, but they have awesome guest quarters if you don't mind the odd battering ram at your bedroom window before breakfast!"

I groaned.

And so, I suppose, the moral of this story is…

Never go on a daytrip with a Time Lord!

Epilogue

River looked around the fake world her consciousness was saved in and sighed – at least, she thought about sighing and the computer simulated it in a bogus body, in a phoney room, in a false neighbourhood.

And the lie went on.

Lie.

Yes, River was good at that.

She'd told the Doctor half the truth, at least.

Yes, she'd up-linked the library with the Digamma 66 computer systems, but she hadn't fought the Aurix there. Even with the help of Charlotte, Dave, Evangelista and all the people "stored" with her, it just wasn't possible.

Her virtual reality army just wasn't big enough.

If the Doctor couldn't defeat the being, what hope had she on its home ground?

The mammoth computer she and the others were stored in, however, now that had the power to eradicate an unwanted guest much more easily.

And what the Doctor didn't know, wouldn't hurt him.

Or anyone else.

River sensed the library computer working, she felt it through the current that linked her to its circuits and boards and memory core.

It was like the picture you can conjure in your head when you're thinking about a past memory – except for River, the images and sounds were fake forever now.

She imagined being in the library and suddenly she was there. That part of the magic always amused her.

A node swivelled and turned to face her as she floated down into the central room with the glass dome. This was her favourite place.

The node remained impassive until she approached it.

Tell me what I want to hear, River's mind screamed.

The node smiled. "The Aurix has left the library. The Aurix has left the library. The Aurix has left the library…"

River's mind exhaled with relief and her image simulated the action.

She'd done it.

The library had done it.

The Aurix had been exterminated like it had been faced by the whole Dalek empire.

A voice called from somewhere in the library network. "Professor Song?"

It was Charlotte, the little girl who the library had been built for.

They often played chess together – one last thing that wasn't an illusion, their minds locked in battle, playing forever.

River thought about the Doctor, about how he'd changed since they'd last met here.

She thought about Rory and Amy and of a future for them that would be her past.

Was her past.

She sighed again and turned in her little virtual world, heading for one of the open areas that looked out on the library planet's surface like a balcony.

Charlotte would be waiting for her there, and in the fake evening light, they would look up at the moon together and play the game.

Because after all, virtual or not, life was always one big game.

"Coming, sweetie," she answered and then began the nanosecond trip through the library's inner matrix to where Charlotte's mind was stored.

In the central chamber, the information node didn't revolve and return dormant. Instead, it remained active, bristling, even.

And eventually, it began to spout new data.

"The Aurix has left the library. The Aurix has left the library."

"The Aurix has been SAVED..."

The End

Author's Note

I have a wee bit of a plot bubbling around in my head for a sequel about the "Alton Towers" trip. If you fancy reading it, let me know, and I shall try once again to put fingers to keyboard! Special thanks to irismay42 for inspiring this story by mentioning my classic car's license plate looked like the name of a Who baddie! :)