A/N - We're getting down to the wire, guys!

"So what's this got to do with the TARDIS?" Amy asked.

River had left to go back to the Roman camp, leaving Elise, Amy, and the Doctor on their own.

"Nothing, as far as I know," the Doctor said.

"But Vincent's painting. The TARDIS was exploding. Is that going to happen?"

"One problem at a time. There's forcefield technology inside this box. If I can enhance the signal, I could extend it all over Stonehenge. Could buy us half an hour."

"What good is half an hour?"

"There are fruit flies live on Hoppledom Six that live for twenty minutes and they don't even mate for life. There was going to be a point to that. I'll get back to you."

"So, are you proposing to someone?"

"I'm sorry?"

"I found this in your pocket."

Elise and the Doctor looked at her. She was holding her engagement ring.

"No. No, no, that's er, a memory. A friend of mine. Someone I lost." The Doctor tried taking it from her, but she pulled away from him. "Do you mind?"

"It's weird. I feel, I don't know, something," Amy said.

The Doctor and Elise realized that on some level, she remembered Rory.

"People fall out of the world sometimes, but they always leave traces. Little things we can't quite account for. Faces in photographs, luggage, half eaten meals, rings. Nothing is ever forgotten, not completely. And if something can be remembered, it can come back."

"So, was she nice, your friend?" Amy asked, handing the ring back to the Doctor.

"Remember that night you flew away with me?"

"Of course I do."

"And you asked me why I was taking you and I told you there wasn't a reason. I was lying."

"What, so you did have a reason?"

"Your house."

"My house."

"It was too big. Too many empty rooms. Does it ever bother you, Amy, that your life doesn't make any sense?"

An energy bolt was fired at them and they ran to hide behind the Pandorica.

"What was that?" Amy asked.

"Okay, I need a proper look. Got to draw its fire, give it a target," the Doctor said.

"How?"

"You know how sometimes I have really brilliant ideas?"

"Yes."

"Sorry." The Doctor ran out into the open. "Look at me, I'm a target!"

Elise rolled her eyes. How the hell had he lived for this long?

He ducked behind one of the pillars.

"What is that?" Amy asked.

"Cyberarm. Arm of Cyberman," the Doctor told her.

"And what's a Cyberman?"

"Oh, sort of part man, part robot. The organic part must have died out years ago. Now the robot part is looking for, well, fresh meat."

"What, us?"

"It's just like being an organ donor, except you're alive and sort of screaming. I need to get round behind it. Could you draw its fire?"

"What, like you did?"

"You'll be fine if you're quick. It's only got one arm, literally."

Amy reluctantly ran out into the open and the Doctor pounced on the arm. He managed to sonic it.

"Doctor?" Amy asked.

"Scrambled its circuits, but stay where you are, it could be bluffing."

"Bluffing? It's an arm."

"I said stay where you are!"

Amy looked down and saw a cable winding around her ankle. "Doctor?" she asked. The cable pulled her to floor.

"Amy!" the Doctor yelled.

The Cyberman arm shocked the Doctor, effectively knocking him out.

"Doctor!" Amy yelled as Elise ran over to the Doctor.

She put her head on his chest, hearing both his hearts beating. Elise heard Amy scream.

She was being attacked by a Cyberman head.

Elise ran over to her and pulled out her sonic screwdriver. She pointed it at the Cyberman head, but it wasn't doing anything.

Amy managed to bash it against a pillar until it let her go. She threw it to the floor and it crawled away. "Doctor?" Amy asked. A dart hit Amy in the neck.

"You will be assimilated."

"Yeah? You and whose body?" Amy quipped.

A headless, armless Cyberman entered the chamber. It placed its head back on as Amy and Elise backed up through the big door.

The door slammed shut.

"Doctor!" Amy yelled.

A roman sword pierced the door. It swung open to reveal the Cyberman stuck to the door.

"Who, who are you?" Amy asked the Roman.

He took off his helmet. "Hello, Amy."

It was Rory!

Amy passed out and Rory caught her, gently laying her on a stone.

Elise hugged Rory's legs.

"Hey Elise," he said, patting her head.

"Sir, the man's coming round," a soldier said.

"Amy? Where's Amy? Elise?" the Doctor said, running towards them.

"She's fine, Doctor. Just unconscious. Elise is fine too," Rory told him.

The Doctor quickly soniced her. "Okay. Yes, she's sedated, that's all. Half an hour, she'll be fine. Okay, Romans. Good. I was just wishing for Romans. Good old River. How many?"

"Fifty men up top, volunteers. What about that thing?" Rory pointed to the Cyberman stuck to the door.

"Fifty? You're not exactly a legion."

"Your friend was very persuasive, but it's a tough sell."

"Yes, I know that, Rory. I'm not exactly one to miss the obvious. But we need everything we can get." The Doctor picked up two guns. "Okay, Cyberweapons. This is basically a sentry box, so headless wonder here was a sentry. Probably got himself duffed up by the locals. Never underestimate a Celt."

"Doctor?"

"Hush, Rory. Thinking. Why leave a Cyberman on guard, unless it's a Cyberthing in the box. But why would they lock up one of their own? Okay, no, not a Cyberthing, but what? What? No, I'm missing something obvious, Rory. Something big. Something right slap in front of me. I can feel it."

Elise thought it was funny how the Doctor was standing right in front of Rory (and addressing him by name) and still not realizing that he was talking to Rory.

"Yeah, I think you probably are," Rory told him.

"I'll get it in a minute."

The Doctor walked into the next room and dropped the guns. He re-entered the chamber and poked Rory. "Hello again," he said.

"Hello." "How've you been?"

"Good. Yeah. Good. I mean, Roman."

The awkwardness was so thick you could cut it with a knife.

"Rory, I'm not trying to be rude, but you died."

"Yeah, I know. I was there."

"You died and then you were erased from time. You didn't just die, you were never born at all. You never existed."

"Erased? What does that mean?"

"How can you be here?"

"I don't know. It's kind of fuzzy."

"Fuzzy?"

"Well, I died and turned into a Roman. It's very distracting."

Rory walked over to Amy and stroked her hair. "Did she miss me?"

Before the Doctor could answer his question, the ground shook.

They ran back into the chamber to find the designs on the Pandorica were glowing green and moving.

"What is it? What's happening?" Rory asked.

"The final phase. It's opening." The Doctor grabbed his communicator and called River. "Yes. Now hurry up and get the TARDIS here I need equipment!" He hung up and approached the Pandorica. "What are you? They're all here, all of them, all for you. What could you possibly be?"

The Doctor grabbed the communicator and soniced it, effectively making it a megaphone. "Sorry, sorry, dropped it. Hello, Stonehenge! Who takes the Pandorica, takes the universe," he said as they ascended the stairs, "But bad news, everyone..." The Doctor jumped up on the Altar stone. "Because guess who? Ha! Listen, you lot, you're all whizzing about. It's really very distracting. Could you all just stay still a minute because I am talking!"

The spaceships stopped moving.

"The question of the hour is, who's got the Pandorica? Answer, I do. Next question. Who's coming to take it from me? Come on! Look at me. No plan, no back up, no weapons worth a damn. Oh, and something else. I don't have anything to lose! So, if you're sitting up there in your silly little spaceship, with all your silly little guns, and you've got any plans on taking the Pandorica tonight, just remember who's standing in your way. Remember every black day I ever stopped you, and then, and then, do the smart thing. Let somebody else try first."

Elise clapped as the spaceships retreated. She hoped that one day she could give speeches like that. She wanted to be exactly like the Doctor when she grew up.

The Doctor jumped down from the Altar stone and high-fived Elise. "That'll keep them squabbling for half an hour," the Doctor told them, "Romans." The Doctor, Elise, and Rory went back down to the Pandorica chamber.

"They're still out there. What do we do now?" Rory asked.

"If I can stop whatever's in this box getting out, then they'll go home."

"Right."

"Rory, I'm sorry. You're going to have to be very brave now."

Amy walked straight past Rory to get to the Doctor. "Oh, my head."

"Ah," the Doctor said, opening his mouth.

Amy did the same.

"Just your basic knock-out drops. Get some fresh air, you'll be fine," he told her.

"Is it safe up there?"

"Not remotely, but it's fresh."

"Fine." Amy turned around and bumped into Rory. "Oh, you're the guy, yeah? The one who did the swordy thing."

"Yeah," he said.

"Well, thanks for the swording. Nice swording."

Amy headed up the stairs.

"No problem. My men are up there. They'll look after you," Rory told her.

"Good. Love a Roman."

Rory turned back to the Doctor. "She doesn't remember me. How can she not remember me?"

"Because you never existed. There are cracks. Cracks in time. There's going to be a huge explosion in the future, on one particular day. And every other moment in history is cracking around it."

"So how does that work? What kind of explosion? What exploded?"

"Doesn't matter. The cracks are everywhere now. Get too close to them and you can fall right out of the universe."

"So I fell through a crack and now I was never born?"

"Basically."

"Well, how did I end up here?"

"I don't know, you shouldn't have." The Doctor stopped working on the Pandorica and approached Rory. "What happened? From your point of view, what physically happened?"

"I was in the cave, with you, Elise, and Amy. I was dying, and then I was just here, a Roman soldier. A proper Roman. Head full of Roman stuff. A whole other life, just here like I'd woken up from a dream. I started to think it was a dream, you, Amy, Elise, and Leadworth. And then today, in the camp, the men were talking about the visitors. The girl with the red hair. I thought you'd come back for me. But she can't even remember me."

"Oh, shut up."

"What?"

The Doctor tossed the ring box to Rory. "Go get her."

"But I don't understand. Why am I here?"

"Because you are. The universe is big. It's vast and complicated and ridiculous, and sometimes, very rarely, impossible things just happen and we call them miracles, and that's the theory. Nine hundred years, never seen one yet, but this would do me. Now get upstairs. She's Amy and she's surrounded by Romans. I'm not sure history can take it." The Doctor clapped Rory on the back and he left.

Elise looked up at the Doctor with a smile.

"Oh shut up", he told her.