When we stepped outside of the TARDIS, I had to stop myself from smiling at the familiar surroundings. This may have been Amy's beginning, but in a way, it was mine, too.
"What is this place, Nova? I'm already here, you might as well tell me." River pulled out her scanner as she walked into the house. It seemed that she was less timid to walk into a place when I was with her, because I most likely wouldn't let her walk into a death trap.
I walked ahead of her and stopped at a place in the hallway, the place with the radiator on the floor the Doctor was handcuffed to so long ago. "This is the exact spot where I met the Doctor for the first time."
River gave a hint of a smile. "Why has it brought us here? Because of you?"
"Never because of me," I walked ahead into the room that I knew to be Amy's, quietly, but briskly. "This is Amy's house, Amy's room. Look around."
River put her scanner in her pocket, and began looking through the contents on Amy's desk. She pulled out one book—a small picture book on Roman's Britain, and handed it to me. She then grabbed another one, a similar style book about Pandora's Box.
"Making sense yet?" I asked sadly.
River took the other book from my hand and quickly walked out, back into the TARDIS, and handed me her communicator/scanning device. "You talk to him."
"What—why?" I asked, staring at the thing in my hand and not knowing what to do with it.
"He trusts you more—just do it, press the button." River said, before going to try and work on the TARDIS again.
I didn't understand her tone, but I did it anyway.
"TARDIS, where is it, hurry up!" The Doctor exclaimed immediately, sounding frustrated.
"Um..." I tried quickly, so thrown off by his shouting that I wasn't sure of what to say at first.
Thankfully, the Doctor changed his tone. "Nova? Is that you?"
"Yes. Listen to me. The TARDIS wouldn't respond to us and left us at Amy's childhood home, and River found these two books, one on Romans and one on Pandora's Box. The Romans can't be real, Doctor. They look exactly like the ones in this picture book."
"Something's using her memories." The Doctor figured, in hushed tones.
"Doctor, I don't think they're using her memories to get to her. I think they're using them to get to you. It's a trap. This can't be real, Doctor. So who are those Romans?" I tried in vain to speed up the process, not exactly knowing what different outcome I was going for in the first place.
"They might think they're real; the perfect disguise. They actually believe their own cover story, right until they're activated." The Doctor answered again.
River held up a picture she found to me, of Amy dressed as a policewoman, and Rory dressed in a plastic version of the exact same Roman costume the Romans at Stonehenge were wearing. "Doctor, Rory..."
"I know. It doesn't make sense."
Suddenly the TARDIS jolted, and smoke arose from the center console. I scrambled to my feet, moving back over to River, trying to help her at least settle it down for a bit, but nothing was working, and the Doctor was shouting at me through the scanner. "Nova? River? Nova! What's happening?!"
"Doctor, something's wrong with the TARDIS—we can't get out, we're stuck in June 26th, 2010!"
"You need to get out of there now! Any other time zone, just go!" The Doctor panicked.
"I know—I can't, we can't—! We can't move, we can't land, we can't even shut it down, we can't do anything—something else is controlling this!"
The TARDIS stopped thrashing for just a moment, and an eerie voice took over, repeating the same sentence over and over—one that was all too familiar to me. "Silence will fall... Silence will fall..."
"Well, great. That's not at all terrifying, or creepy." I said, frustrated.
"Nova—you know the cracks are everywhere. The TARDIS exploding causes them, and you can stop it if you just land!" The Doctor shouted again.
"I can't land—I'm going to try to open the doors!" I shouted back, hanging up the phone, knowing it was a lost cause anyway.
888
Rory was writhing on the floor, struggling against his programing, tears flowing freely down his face in front of his fiancé who didn't remember him. "Listen to me, you have to run. You have to get as far away from here as you can! I'm a thing. I'll kill you. Just go!" Rory began sobbing to himself, now. "Please, no, I don't want to go. I'm Rory! I'm... I'm..."
"Williams." Amy uttered, tears also flowing down her face—but only now did she finally understand why. "Rory Williams from Leadworth. My boyfriend." Amy grabbed him by the shoulders, pulling him up. "How could I ever forget you?"
"Amy, you've got to run," Rory whispered in agony, his head twisting around painfully. "I can't hold on! I'm going!"
Amy grabbed his shoulders, making him face her. "You are Rory Williams and you aren't going anywhere, ever again."
888
The Roman soldiers shut down and restarted, and grabbed the Doctor by the arms, leading him backwards towards the Pandorica. The Doctor wasn't too afraid, or at least, he didn't show it, because he had to figure this out. "Plastic Romans. Duplicates, driven by the Nestene Consciousness, eh? Deep cover, but what for? What are you doing? What's in there, eh? What's coming out?" He tried asking.
"The Pandorica is ready," One of the soldiers responded.
"What, you mean it's open?" The Doctor asked, not being able to see it as how he was being held facing the opposite direction.
"You have been scanned. Assessed. Understood. Doctor." The Doctor slowly turned his head to notice a white Dalek had uttered that sentence, and two more yellow and red colored ones materialized beside it.
888
"The ring. Remember the ring? You'd never let me wear it in case I lost it." Amy chuckled a little through her tears.
"The Doctor gave it to me." Rory managed to whisper.
"Show me the ring. Show it to me." Amy demanded.
"Amy," Rory croaked in pain.
"Come on! Just show it to me."
With a shaky hand, Rory pulled out the box and opened it, holding it out to her. She smiled.
888
The soldiers had turned the Doctor to face the Daleks, and the Pandorica. "Scanned? Scanned by what, a box?" The Doctor could barely hide the fear from his voice. Half of him wished that Nova was here right now, but the other half of him knew she was probably safer in the TARDIS despite its malfunctions.
"Your limits and capacities have been extrapolated." The Doctor turned to see a Cyberman approach, followed by Judoon and Sontarans.
"The Pandorica is ready." A Sontaran roared.
"Ready. For you," The Dalek echoed, as the Pandorica finally opened.
The Doctor tried his best to resist against the soldiers ushering him forward, face pale, tears in his eyes—filled with fear.
888
"There it is," Amy held Rory's face, which was quivering, and gasping short breaths. "You remember. This is you, and you are staying."
Rory couldn't prevent his fake hand from opening down, revealing a laser gun inside. "No," he tried, but his laser fired—and Amy threw her arms around him one last time, before falling limp to the ground.
888
"Nova—listen to me, your future self will hate me for this, but your present self needs to do this." River grabbed me by the shoulders suddenly, tears falling down her face, several parts of the TARDIS bursting in flames and sparking all around us.
"What do you mean?"
"You have to go back to the Doctor." River shook me. "With your locket."
"I can't do that, River. And he doesn't need me, okay, you need me, or he needs you—but not me. This doesn't have anything to do with me, I know it doesn't." I tried making sense to her. I knew what would happen—and I wasn't a part of it.
"Yes it does, Nova! When will you finally see it? It might not seem like much now, just tiny changes here and there—but all those changes will add up, and something big will happen, and you cannot leave him when it does. You really can't." She shook her head, tears in her eyes.
"What are you talking about?" River spoke to me with such intensity, that it was beginning to scare me, and tears were forming in my eyes also.
"He doesn't need me, Nova. He needs you. Trust me. I'm sorry." River slammed her hand on my locket before I could protest—sending me whirling back to the other universe.
888
The Doctor sat in the Pandorica, and it may have seemed like he was sitting on a throne if nearly every part of his body wasn't clamped down somehow. There were metal bars holding his legs and torso back, and giant cuffs around his wrists, his hands in fists. There were even some metal objects on his shoulders—all he could move were his hands and head. He stared out at all the aliens staring back at him in a painful kind of awe. "You lot, working together, an alliance... How is that possible?"
"The cracks in the skin of the universe," a Dalek began.
"All reality is threatened!" A Sontaran complained.
"All universes will be deleted." A Cyberman finished.
"What? And you've come to me for help?" The Doctor asked.
"No. We will save the universe from you!" A Sontaran pointed their weapon at him.
"From me?" The Doctor couldn't believe it.
"All projections correlate. All evidence concurs. The Doctor will destroy the universe." A Cyberman echoed.
"No... No, no, you've got it all wrong!" The Doctor tried.
"The Pandorica was constructed to ensure the safety of the alliance. A scenario was devised from the memories of your companion... A trap the Doctor could not resist. The cracks in time are the work of the Doctor. It is confirmed." The aliens took turns explaining.
"No. No, no. Not me, the TARDIS. And I'm not in the TARDIS, am I?" The Doctor shouted desperately.
"Nova is in the TARDIS. Companion memories. The Doctor in the Pandorica. Two traps in one." A Dalek explained.
The Doctor glared, his high tone of panic now low and dark as he spat at them—"What?"
"We await her arrival." A Cyberman stated.
"Why? What do you need her for? There's only room for one in here." The Doctor was back into interrogation mode.
"Nova can pilot the TARDIS, and will stop at nothing. Nova will not go in the Pandorica. Nova can escape impossible places." The aliens uttered again.
"What are you going to do?" The Doctor demanded to know.
"We will take her essence—she cannot survive long without it." The Sontaran explained.
The Doctor's face paled, expression narrowed, fists clenched harder than ever. "When I get out of here—and I assure you, somehow, I will—you will regret ever touching her!"
"The Doctor will also stop at nothing. But the Doctor will not escape." A Dalek corrected.
"Try me," The Doctor growled. He knew it might be impossible to escape, and he was overwhelmed with fear—but the fear currently had nothing on his anger.
"We await her arrival." The Cyberman stated again.
He knew what they were going to do—and he knew that there wasn't much he could do to stop it. There wasn't much of anything he could do, besides wait.
A/N: Once again, what exactly has Nova escaped from? What is her 'essence', and how much will this mess things up in the future? Brace yourselves.