They sped after the little girl in the moped.

"Merry!" Clara yelled, reaching out for her.

Before Merry could grab her hand, she was dragged into the pyramid and the door slammed shut.

"Brakes! Brakes!" Clara screamed.

They landed roughly, throwing Elise from the moped.

"Okay, time to let go," the Doctor told Clara.

"I can't."

"Clara, you have to."

"Why?"

"Because it really hurts."

"Sorry."

The Doctor got off the moped and Clara followed. Elise stood up as the Doctor soniced the entrance. "Oh, that's interesting. A frequency modulated acoustic lock. The key changes ten million zillion squillion times a second," he said.

"Can you open it?" Clara asked.

"Technically, no. In reality, also no, but still, let's give it a stab." The Doctor rushed at the door and started to sonic it.

Elise pulled out her own sonic screwdriver (newly updated) and set to work helping the Doctor.

"How can they just stand there and watch?" Clara asked.

"Because this is sacred ground."

"And she's a child."

"And he's a god. Well, he is to them, anyway."

They heard Merry scream.

"Merry! Merry, hold on!" Clara yelled, "We'll be there soon. Doctor?"

"Yes, yes, yes, yes. Oh, hello."

"Hello what?"

"The sonic's locked on to the acoustic tumblers."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning we get to do this." He looked at Elise, who nodded.

The door started rising.

"Hello there. I'm the Doctor, this is my daughter Elise, and you've met Clara. She was supposed to be having a nice day out. Still, it's early yet." The Doctor stopped sonicing the door and it dropped a little. "Are you coming, then?"

Merry shook her head.

"Did I mention that the door is majorly heavy?"

"Leave. You'll wake him," she told him.

"Really quite extraordinarily heavy." The Doctor collapsed to his knees. "Elise, get inside."

"What? No."

"Now!"

Elise stopped sonicing and ran inside.

"Clara?"

Clara ran inside.

The Chorister was still singing.

"Merry, we need to leave," Clara told her.

"No! Go away."

"Not without you."

"You said I wouldn't get it wrong and then I got it wrong. And now this has happened. Look what happened!"

"You didn't get it wrong."

"How do you know? You don't know anything. You have to go! Go now, or he'll eat us all."

"Well, he's ugly. But you know, to be honest..." Clara walked up to the glass box. "I don't think he looks big enough."

"Not our meat, our souls."

Elise rolled her eyes and grabbed Merry's arm, about to drag her out of the pyramid. Merry touched her temples and Elise was dragged up against the glass box.

"Get me off of this! Get me off of this right now!" Elise screamed, her cheeks flushed with anger.

"He doesn't want you. He wants me. If you don't leave, he'll eat you all up too," Merry told them.

"And you don't want that, do you? You want us to walk out of this really quite astonishingly heavy door and never come back," the Doctor said.

"Yes."

"I see. Clara's right. Absolutely never going to happen." The Doctor stopped sonicing the door and quickly ran inside.

"Did you just lock us in?" Clara asked.

"Yep."

"With the soul eating monster?"

The Doctor straightened his bowtie. "Yep."

"And is there actually a way to get out?"

"What? Before it eats our souls?"

"Ideally, yes."

"Possibly. Probably. There usually seems to be."

"Will someone please shut him up!" Elise yelled.

The Chorister was still singing.

The Doctor knelt in front of him. "He's trying to sing the Old God back to sleep, but that's not going to happen. He's waking up, mate. He's coming, ready or not. You want to run."

The Chorister finally stopped singing.

"That's it, then? Song's over?"

"The song is over."

The Doctor and the Chorister stood up.

"My name is Chorister Asbethix, and the Long Song ended with me." He touched his bracelet and disappeared.

"Are you kidding me? We could have teleported this whole time!" Elise yelled.

"That's it, then. Song's over," the Doctor said. The Doctor soniced the Mummy and it came to lift, roaring.

Elise's hearts sped up.

The Doctor ran up to the glass box. "Ah ha! Look at that."

"I hate you," Elise muttered.

"No, you don't."

"You've woken him," Merry whimpered.

The Mummy started banging on the glass as the Doctor walked around it.

"I don't mean to rush you, but GET ME OFF OF THIS THING NOW!" Elise yelled.

Clara walked up to her.

"Clara, I'm really scared." Never let him see the damage.

"I know. I know you are. I am too," Clara reassured her, "But he's gonna figure this out. You know he will. He always does."

"No, we didn't wake him. And you didn't wake him, either. He's waking because it's his time to wake, and feed. On you, apparently. On your stories."

"She didn't say stories. She said souls," Clara corrected.

"Same thing. The soul's made of stories, not atoms. Everything that ever happened to us. People we love, people we lost. People we found again against all the odds. He threatens to wake, they offer him a pure soul. The soul of the Queen of Years."

"Stop it. You're scaring her."

"Good. She should be scared. She's sacrificing herself. She should know what that means. Do you know what it means, Merry?"

"A god chose me."

"It's not a god. It'll feed on your soul, but that doesn't make it a god. It is a vampire, and you don't need to give yourself to it. Hey, do you mind if I tell you a story? One you might not have heard. All the elements in your body were forged many, many millions of years ago, in the heart of a faraway star that exploded and died. That explosion scattered those elements across the desolations of deep space. After so, so many millions of years, these elements came together to form new stars and new planets. And on and on it went. The elements came together and burst apart, forming shoes and ships and sealing wax, and cabbages and kings. Until eventually, they came together to make you. You are unique in the universe. There is only one Merry Galel. And there will never be another. Getting rid of that existence isn't a sacrifice. It is a waste."

Without knowing it, the Doctor had comforted Elise once again. She loved when he made speeches like that. It reminded her of the Pandorica and the pride she had felt.

"So, if I don't, then everyone else...?" Merry asked.

"Will be fine," the Doctor reassured her.

"How?"

"There's always a way."

"You promise?"

The Doctor made two crossing motions over his chest. "Cross my hearts."

Merry wrapped her small hand around the Doctor's. Merry blinked and Elise could move again.

The Doctor half expected her to rush towards him, but she simply stepped away from the glass as the Mummy broke a hole in the glass where her head had been. The Doctor had to keep reminding himself that this Elise wasn't as needy or clingy as the last one had been. This one acted like she didn't even need him.

The asteroid rumbled.

"Something's coming. What's coming?" Clara asked.

"The Vigil," Merry said.

"And what's the Vigil?" the Doctor asked.

"If the Queen of Years is unwilling to be feasted upon..."

"Yes?"

"It's their job to feed her to Grandfather."

Three beings appeared with a puff of black smoke.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry!" Merry cried.

"Don't you dare," Clara threatened them.

"Yep. Stay back! I'm armed! With a screwdriver," the Doctor said.

The beings knocked the screwdriver from the Doctor's hand and blasted Clara, the Doctor, and Elise.

Clara was the first one to come to.

"Clara. The sonic," the Doctor told her.

Clara got up and grabbed the screwdriver and threw it to the Doctor. The Doctor created a shield and Merry ran back over to Clara.

"You know all the stories. You must know if there's another way out," Clara told her.

"There's a tale. A secret song. The Thief of the Temple and the Nimmer's Door."

"And the secret songs open the secret door? How does it go? Can you sing it?"

Merry started singing and a door opened.

"Go!" the Doctor yelled.

Clara and Merry ran out of the room as Elise started waking up.

"Ow," Elise groaned.

"Elise, get up," the Doctor told her.

"Doctor! Elise!" Clara yelled.

The Doctor grabbed Elise and they ran out of the room.

An energy beam hit the sun behind the pyramid and the Vigil disappeared.

"Where did they go?" Clara asked.

"Grandfather's awake. They're of no function anymore," the Doctor said.

"Well, you could sound happier about it."

The asteroid rumbled again.

"Actually, I think I may have made a bit of a tactical boo-boo. More of a semantics mix-up, really."

"What boo-boo?"

"I thought the Old God was Grandfather, but it wasn't. It was just Grandfather's alarm clock."

"Sorry, a bit lost. Who's the Old God? Is there an Old God?"

"Unfortunately, yes."

The sun started to get brighter.

"Oh, my stars. What do we do?"

"Against that? I don't know. Do you know? I don't know. Any ideas?"

"But you promised. You promised!" Merry cried.

"I did...I did promise."

"He'll eat us all. He'll spread across the system, consuming the Seven Worlds. And when there's no more to eat, he'll embark on a new odyssey among the stars."

"I say leg it," Clara said.

"Leg it where, exactly?" the Doctor asked.

"Don't know. Lake District?"

"Oh, the Lake District's lovely. Let's definitely go there. We can eat scones. They do great scones in 1927."

The sun rumbled.

"You're going to fight it, aren't you?"

"Regrettably, yes. I think I may be about to do that."

"It's really big."

"I've seen bigger."

"Really?"

"Are you joking? It's massive."

"I'm staying with you."

"No, you're not."

"Yes, I am. I can assist."

"No, you can't."

"What about that stuff you said. We don't walk away."

"No. We don't walk away. But when we're holding on to something precious, we run. We run and run as fast as we can and we don't stop running until we are out from under the shadow. Now, off you pop. Take the moped. I'll walk."

Clara and Merry ran to get the moped, while Elise stayed.

"Elise..."

Elise crossed her arms over her chest. "You're insane if you think I'm leaving you."

"Elise, please."

Elise walked over to him and took his hand in hers. "You and me, remember? No matter what."

The Doctor smiled, stroking her cheek. He placed a kiss on her forehead and they faced the sun.

A few minutes later, they heard Merry singing.

The Doctor smiled. "Okay, then. That's what I'll do. I'll tell you a story." The Doctor kissed the back of Elise's hand and let go, stepping closer to the sun.

Elise knew he needed to do this himself, but she'd been here for support. She also really loved watching him monologue.

"Can you hear them? All these people who've lived in terror of you and your judgement? All these people whose ancestors devoted themselves, sacrificed themselves, to you. Can you hear them singing? Oh, you like to think you're a god. But you're not a god. You're just a parasite eaten out with jealousy and envy and longing for the lives of others. You feed on them. On the memory of love and loss and birth and death and joy and sorrow. So, come on, then. Take mine. Take my memories. But I hope you've got a big appetite, because I have lived a long life and I have seen a few things."

Tendrils of energy attached themselves to the Doctor.

"I walked away from the last Great Time War. I marked the passing of the Time Lords. I was given an opportunity I never thought I'd have again. I became a father. I saw the birth of the universe and I watched as time ran out, moment by moment, until nothing remained. No time. No space. Just me. I walked in universes where the laws of physics were devised by the mind of a mad man. I've watched universes freeze and creations burn. I've seen things you wouldn't believe. I have lost things you will never understand. And I know things. Secrets that must never be told. Knowledge that must never be spoken. Knowledge that will make parasite gods blaze. So come on, then. Take it! Take it all, baby! Have it! You have it all!"

The energy tendrils released the Doctor. There were several explosions and the Doctor collapsed.

Elise rushed forward, wrapping her arms around him.

The sun came to life again as Clara ran to them.

"Still hungry?" Clara asked the sun. She opened up her book and took out the leaf. "Well, I brought something for you. This. The most important leaf in human history. The most important leaf in human history."

The sun smiled.

"It's full of stories, full of history. And full of a future that never got lived. Days that should have been that never were. Passed on to me."

A tendril of energy reached for the leaf.

"This leaf isn't just the past, it's a whole future that never happened. There are billions and millions of unlived days for every day we live. An infinity. All the days that never came. And these are all my mum's."

The Doctor stumbled to his feet. "Well, come on then. Eat up. Are you full? I expect so, because there's quite a difference, isn't there, between what was and what should have been. There's an awful lot of one, but there's an infinity of the other."

The leaf dissolved.

"And infinity's too much, even for your appetite."

The TARDIS landed.

"Home again, home again, jiggity jig," the Doctor sang.

Clara opened the door. "It looks different."

"Nope. Same house, same city, same planet. Hey! Same day, actually. Not bad." The Doctor spun around. "Hole in one!"

"Clara? What's wrong?" Elise asked.

The brunette had a pensive look on her face. "You were there. At mum's grave. You were watching. What were you doing there?"

"I don't know. I was just making sure," the Doctor said.

"Of what?"

The Doctor approached her. "You remind me of someone."

"Who?"

"Someone who died."

"Well, whoever she was, I'm not her, okay? If you want me to travel with you, that's fine. But as me. I'm not a bargain basement stand-in for someone else. I'm not going to compete with a ghost."

"No." The Doctor took a ring out of his pocket. Clara's ring. "They wanted you to have it."

"Who did?"

"Everyone. All the people you saved."

Clara took the ring and placed a kiss on it.

"You. No one else. Clara."

Clara left the TARDIS and the Doctor watched her for a moment before closing the door.

The Doctor and Elise were quiet for a moment before Elise walked up to him, holding out her bracelet.

"What is this?" he asked.

"I want you to have it."

"But...but it's yours."

"And I don't need it."

"You should hold onto it. Pass it down."

Elise took the Doctor's hand and placed it in his palm. "Please keep it." She kissed his cheek before disappearing down the corridor, probably on her way to the library.

The Doctor looked down at the delicate bracelet in his hand. It was far too dainty for him to wear, but he put it in his pocket.

Just as Elise had never taken it off, he'd carry it around on his person.

No matter what.

Forever.