A/N - Happy Thanksgiving to my fellow Americans! Here's a new chapter!

The engine room was nothing but a cliff.

"The engine room. The heart of the TARDIS," the Doctor said.

"We're outside," Clara told him.

"No, we're still in the TARDIS."

"There's no way across."

"No, okay, you're right."

"So what do we do? Time for a plan. Do you have a plan?"

"Well, no. No plan. Sorry."

"If you don't have a plan, we're dead."

"Yes, we are. So just tell me."

"Tell you what?"

"Well, there's no point now. We're about to die. Just tell me who you are."

"You know who I am."

"No, I don't. I look at you every single day and I don't understand a thing about you. Why do I keep running into you?"

"Doctor, you invited me. You said..."

"Before that. Elise and I, we met you in the Dalek Asylum. There was a girl in a shipwreck and she died saving our lives, and she was you."

"She really wasn't."

"Victorian London. There was a governess who was really a barmaid, and we fought the Great Intelligence together."

"She died trying to save me," Elise told her.

"And she was you!"

"You're scaring me."

The Doctor got in her face. "Elise was right. What are you, eh? Are you a trick, a trap?"

"Hey! Don't go blaming me! I had just regenerated!" Elise snapped.

Clara backed away from the two Timelords. "I don't know what you're talking about!"

The Doctor grabbed her before she could fall off the cliff and hugged her. "You really don't, do you?"

"I think I'm more scared of you right now than anything else on that TARDIS."

"You're just Clara, aren't you?" The Doctor laughed and hugged her again.

"Okay, I don't know what the hell this is about, but the hug is really nice."

"We're not going to die here. This isn't real! It's a snarl."

"What?"

"What does a wounded animal do? It tries to scare everyone away. We're close to the engine. The TARDIS is snarling at us, trying to frighten us off. We need to jump."

"You're insane."

"We'll cross a portal to the engine."

"How can you be so sure?"

"I can't."

The three of them backed up.

"Okay, well, that's watertight," Clara said.

"Hey now, Clara, I have piloted this ship for over nine hundred years. Trust me this one time, please."

Clara raised her eyebrows at him.

"Okay. Okay. As well as all the other times. Ready?"

Clara nodded.

The Doctor looked at Elise, who gave him a smirk.

"Who's scared? Geronimo."

He smiled, remembering another red headed with a Scottish accent. He grabbed her hand and they all ran towards the cliff and jumped off.

They landed in a white space filled with pieces of metal frozen in time.

Elise gasped and the Doctor squeezed her hand. Elise squeezed it back.

When the Doctor spoke, Clara could hear the pain in his voice. "The heart of the TARDIS. The engine, it's already exploded. It must have been the collision with the salvage ship."

"We're not dead," Clara told him.

"She wrapped her hands around the force. Froze it."

"So, so it's safe?"

"Temporary fix. Eventually this whole place will erupt. There's no way I can save her now. She's just always been there for me, and taken care of me, and now it's my turn and I don't know what to do. I think it just..."

Elise could feel her hearts shattering in her chest. The last TARDIS was dying. The last thing left of their home planet, besides each other, and soon she'd be dead.

Clara took the Doctor's other hand and the Doctor noticed the burn marks on it.

He looked at her and smiled. "Oh, Clara. Oh. You are beautiful. Beautiful fragile human skin." He kissed her palm. "Like parchment. Thank you. The rift in time. All the memories leaking out. I need to find the moment we crashed."

The Doctor pulled out his sonic screwdriver. "I need to find..."

Music started playing.

"...the music."

He grabbed Clara and Elise's hands and they found the control room.

They carefully made their way under the console as the music played. There was crack in the wall. Thankfully this one wasn't "W" shaped.

"The time rift. Recent past, possible future," the Doctor said.

"What are you going to do?" Clara asked.

"Rewrite today, I hope." He grabbed the grenade that went off earlier and etched letters onto it with the screwdriver. "I've thrown this through the rift before. I need to make sure this time. Going to take it in there myself. There might be a certain amount of yelling."

"It's going to hurt?"

"Things that end your life often do that."

"No!" Elise yelled.

The Doctor walked over to her and kissed her forehead. "It'll never have happened. This timeline."

"Big Bang?"

He smiled and kissed her head again. "Big Bang." He walked over to the crack.

"Wait! All those things you said. How we've met before, how I died," Clara said.

"Clara, don't worry. You'll forget. Time mends us. It can mend anything."

"I don't want to forget. Not all of it. The library. I saw it. You were mentioned in a book."

"I'm mentioned in a lot of books."

"You call yourself Doctor. Why do you do that? You have a name. I've seen it. In one corner of that tiny..."

He put a finger on her lips to stop her. "If I rewrite today, you won't remember. You won't go looking for my name."

"You'll still have secrets."

"It's better that way." The Doctor stepped through the crack in the wall, screaming.

Elise came out of her room and into the control room. "What the hell was that?"

"Magno-grab. Nothing to worry about," the Doctor told her.

"My room's a mess."

The Doctor waved his hand. "The TARDIS will fix it."

The rotor beeped.

"I didn't mean like you're a maid or anything. You know I didn't mean it."

Elise laughed. "You two are about as bad as you and River."

"Speaking of River, would you like to see her?"

Elise's face lit up. "Oh! Could we?"

"I could drop you off."

Elise's smile fell. "You mean, you're not coming?"

The Doctor shrugged. "I figured you could use some mum and daughter time."

Elise smirked. "You just don't want her to meet Clara. That's what it is."

"It is not!"

"It so is! You don't want your ex-wife to meet your new girlfriend."

"Clara's not my girlfriend and why is River my ex?"

"Because ever since the Ponds, you don't want to visit her. I.e. she's now your ex-wife."

The Doctor was quiet. "I never meant for it come across that way."

Elise smiled and hugged him. "I know. River is still my mum. But Clara now gets to be the super-cool step-mum."

The Doctor smiled and threw a lever.

Before Elise stepped off the TARDIS, the Doctor said, "Be sure to wish River a happy birthday."

Elise stepped out into the Stormcage facility just in time to see Rory dressed as a Roman walk off with a younger version of herself. She knew exactly where she was in River's timeline.

Elise walked up to River's cell. "Was that Rory I saw?"

River turned to her, dressed in Regency era clothing. "Yes it was. What are you doing here?"

"You didn't think I was going to visit you on your birthday? I'm hurt."

River laughed and hugged her.

They sat down on River's bed.

"Now, tell me what's been happening."

"Well, it all started when..."