A/N - Oh my god. The series finale is next!

The Doctor, Elise, Cyber-Webley, and the kids walked up to the castle. The platoon rushed out, their guns drawn.

The Doctor hid behind the chess board he was holding. "Don't shoot, don't shoot, I'm nice. Please, don't shoot!"

The moment reminded Elise of Rory when they dealt with the Minotaur.

Clara walked up to them.

"Hey, Clara, you haven't let them blow up the planet. Good job."

"Did you get the kids? Are they all right? What's going on?" she asked.

"Er, a bit of a good news, bad news, good news again thing going on."

Clara aimed her gun at him.

"So, good news, I've kidnapped the Cyberplanner and right now I'm sort of in control of this Cyberman."

"Bad news?"

"Bad news, the Cyberplanner's in my head. And, different bad news, the kids are, well, it's complicated."

"Complicated how?"

"Complicated as in walking coma." He hid behind the chess board again as Clara looked at Angie and Artie.

"Please tell me you can wake them up."

"Hope so."

"Other good news?"

"Well, in other good news, there are a few more repaired and reactivated Cybermen on the way, and the Cyberplanner's installing a patch for the gold thing. No, wait, that isn't good news, is it. Er, so, good news, I have a very good chance of winning my chess match."

"What?"

"I'll explain later. In a bit of a hurry. Get me to a table, and somebody tie me up! Need hands free for chess. And immobilize me, quickly."

They went to the throne room where Clara tied the Doctor to chair with some rope.

"Right, that's good. I won't be able to move, but hands free. Good."

"You're playing chess with yourself?" Clara asked.

"And winning." He tore the golden ticket off and the Cyberplanner was back.

"Actually, he has no better than a twenty five percent chance of winning at this stage in the game. Some very dodgy moves at the beginning. Hello, flesh girl. Fantastic. I'm the Cyberplanner."

"Doctor?"

"Afraid not. I'm working the mouth now. Allons-y. Oh, you should see the state of these neurons. He's had some cowboys in here. Ten complete re-jigs."

"You aren't the Doctor." "

No, but I know who you are. You're the impossible girl. Oh, he's very interested in you."

"Why am I impossible?"

"Hasn't he told you? The sly devil. Oh, dear me. Listen, soon we'll wake. We'll strip you down for spare parts, then build a spaceship and move on."

"More Cybermen."

"They're waking from their tomb right now. You can either die or live on as one of us." The Cyberplanner's hand was moving. He wrote 'Hit Me' on a notepad sitting next to him. That was definitely the Doctor breaking through.

"The Doctor will stop you."

"He can't even access the lips."

Clara smacked him rather hard.

"Ow! Oh, that hurt. No, stop. Enough, Bit of pain, neural surge. Just what I needed. Thank you," the Doctor told her.

"Why am I the impossible girl?"

"It's just a thing in my head. I'll explain later."

"Chess game. Stakes?"

"If he wins, I give up my mind and he gets access to all my memories, along with knowledge of time travel. But, if I win, he'll break his promises to get out of my head and then kill us all anyway."

"That's not reassuring."

"No."

"Please tell me you can fix whatever happened to the children."

"Children. Yeah. They're fine. I mean, right now their brains are just in stand-by mode."

"That is not fine!"

"Listen, right now they have a much better chance of getting out of this situation alive than you do."

Both Elise and Clara could tell that it wasn't the Doctor speaking anymore. He would have comforted Clara and reassured her that everything would be okay.

"Which one of you said that?" Clara asked.

"Me. Cyberplanner. Mister Clever. Now, if you don't mind, I have a chess game to finish." He poked Clara between the eyes. "And you have to die, pointlessly and very far from home. Toodle-oo."

Clara turned around and stormed out of the throne room.

The Cyberplanner turned his eyes to Elise. "Don't you want to know?"

"Know what?"

"How he knows you."

"He knows me, because he's my father."

The Cyberplanner laughed. "He knows you from before."

"Before? What do you mean before?"

The Doctor jerked. "Stop it."

"No. He doesn't want you to know your future."

Elise slammed her hands down on the table. "If he's not telling me, then there's a good reason behind it. Timelines have to be kept. We both know what happens when you know your future." Elise stormed out of the throne room.

"What's wrong?" Clara asked.

"He's pissing me off."

Clara rolled her eyes. "I'll go deal with him." Clara went inside the throne room and Elise heard yelling. Clara came running back out. "Watch him."

"Watch him? I'm not a babysitter!"

"You are now!" Clara ran off and Elise groaned loudly before going back into the throne room.

"Ah, welcome back," the Cyberplanner said.

"Finish your game and don't speak to me," Elise told him.

"I've learned so much from you, Doctor. It's been an education. But now, it's time for the endgame. They're nearly here. Now, you can take my bishop and keep limping on for a little longer, or you can sacrifice your queen and get the children back. But it's mate in five moves, and I get your mind."

"Take my queen, and give me back the children." The Doctor looked at Elise, who nodded.

"Emotions. Can't you see what a foolish move that was? You've lost the game."

"Kids back now."

Angie and Artie collapsed to the floor.

Elise rushed over to them and checked them over.

"Emotions, Doctor, all for two human children you barely know. And it was a pointless sacrifice anyway."

Angie stood up.

"So, Doctor, do you think the children's death will affect your relationship with Miss Clara?"

Porridge ran in with a case.

"Welcome to Webley's World of Wonders, children. Now presenting delights, delicacies, and death," Webley spoke.

"Doctor!" Angie yelled.

Porridge grabbed at Webley's leg, but Webley threw him off. Porridge went sliding under the chess table.

"Angie, are you okay? Just look after Artie, okay?" the Doctor told her, "Your move. But before you take it, just so you know, sacrificing my queen was the best possible move I could have made. The Time Lords invented chess. It's our game. And if you don't avoid my trap, it gives me mate in three moves."

"How? How?"

"Oh, come on. Call yourself a chess playing robot?"

"How!"

"You figure it out. Or don't you have the processing power, hmm?"

They heard the fighting stop.

"What are you doing?"

"Doctor. Doctor, Doctor, Doctor, Doctor, Doctor, Doctor, Doctor. I'm pulling in extra processing power. Three million Cyberbrains are working on one tiny chess problem. How long do you think it's going to take us to solve it?"

"That's cheating."

"No, no, no, no, no. Just pulling in the local resources. There's no way you can get to mate in three moves."

"Three moves. Want to know what they are?"

"You're lying."

The Doctor picked up Porridge's hand pulser. "Move one, turn on sonic screwdriver." The Doctor pulled out his sonic screwdriver and soniced the pulser. "Move two, activate pulser. Move three, amplify pulser. See you." The Doctor moved to disarm the implants, but his other arm stopped him.

Elise rushed forward and helped him.

"That's cheating!"

"Just pulling in the local resources," Elise quipped.

Clara and a few members of the platoon came running in as the Doctor sat up with no implants.

"Ah, hello. Can someone untie me, please?"

"Do you think I'm pretty?" Clara asked.

"No. You're too short and bossy, and your nose is all funny."

"Good enough. What happened to the Cyberplanner?" Clara untied him.

"Out of my head and redistributed across three million Cybermen right now, and about to wake them all up, kill us and start constructing a spaceship."

"We need to destroy this planet before they can get off it," one of the platoon members said.

The Doctor ran over to the bomb case. "Okay, it has a fallback voice activation."

"The Captain, but she's dead."

"I think you should ask Porridge," Elise said.

"Why?" Clara asked.

Elise pulled out the penny she had been given earlier. "He looks exactly like he does on the coin. The wax figure is taller than him, but I'm sure they did the same thing with Napoleon in his day. Any member of the royal family would have activation codes."

"Porridge?"

"She's right. Clever girl," Porridge said.

"So you can save us?"

"We all die in the end. Does it matter how?"

"What do we do?" one of the platoon members asked.

"I don't want to be Emperor. If I activate that bomb, it's all over," Porridge told them.

"And if you don't, three million Cybermen will spread across the galaxy. Isn't that worth dying for?" the Doctor asked.

"Doctor..."

"Three million Cybermen!"

"The bomb, the throne, it's all connected. I just have to say this is Emperor Ludens Nimrod Kendrick, called Longstaff the forty first, the Defender of Humanity, Imperator of known space. Activate the Desolator. And it's done."

The bomb turned on and started counting down.

"It'll blow in about eighty seconds. Easily long enough for the Imperial Flagship to locate me from my identification, warp jump into orbit, and transmat us to the State Room."

They were transported in a second.

The Doctor looked around. "Oh yeah. Nice ship. Bit big. Not blue enough. Listen, there is a large blue box at coordinates 6-ultra-19-P. I need it transmatted up here right away."

"Right. Did you get that?" Porridge asked an officer.

She nodded and typed the coordinates into the console.

"And that's that. Seventy six, seventy seven, seventy eight, seventy nine..."

The planet exploded, rocking the spaceship.

"Farewell, Cyberiad. You know, it was good to get away. Good to be a person and not to be lonely, or Emperor of a thousand galaxies with everyone waiting for me to tell them what to do."

"Can't you run away again?" Artie asked.

"They'll be keeping a close eye on me this time. That's what happens when you're Emperor. Loneliest job in the universe."

"You don't have to be lonely," Clara told him.

"I don't." He turned to her and knelt down. "Clara, will you marry me?"

Elise saw the look on the Doctor's face and quickly covered her laugh with a cough.

"What?"

"He said..." Artie started.

Angie cut him off. "She heard what he said."

"You're smart and you're beautiful, and I've never met anyone like you before. And being Emperor won't be as hard if you're by my side. And you'd rule a thousand galaxies."

The Doctor walked over to them. "This sounds like an actual marriage proposal. Tricky. Now, if you want my advice..."

"You, not one word. This is between me and the Emperor," Clara told him.

The Doctor backed off.

"Porridge, I don't want to rule a thousand galaxies."

"Yeah. Silly of me."

"I'm really sorry."

"But that's stupid. You could be Queen of the universe. How can you say no to that? When someone asks you if you want to be Queen of the universe, you say yes. You watch. One day, I'll be Queen of the universe," Angie told them.

"Of course, I could have you all executed, which is what a proper Emperor would do," Porridge said.

"You're not actually going to do that, though, are you?" The Doctor couldn't tell if he was kidding or not until Porridge started laughing.

"Go on, get out of here, all of you, before I change my mind."

Before they dropped Clara and the kids off, they said their goodbyes.

Artie shook the Doctor's hand. "Thank you for having me. It was very interesting."

"My pleasure. Thank you for coming." He turned to Angie. "Now, I've got something for you. It's not from me, it's from the TARDIS. Ah. New phone." He handed her the phone.

"Thanks."

"You're welcome."

"Sorry I said this box was stupid." Angie shook his hand.

"Bye."

"Bye. Thanks, Clara."

"Thanks, Clara's boyfriend," Artie said and the two of them left.

"Thank you, Doctor," Clara told him.

"For what?"

"Kid's day out. Getting us off the planet alive. Whatever you were doing with the Cybermen. Goodnight. See you next Wednesday."

"Well, a Wednesday, definitely. Next Wednesday, last Wednesday..."

Clara left.

"One of the Wednesdays. Impossible girl. A mystery wrapped in an enigma squeezed into a skirt that's just a little bit too tight."

The Doctor smiled before shaking his head, stopping that train of thought. "What are you?" He set the TARDIS in flight and it was then that the Doctor noticed Elise was quietly sitting on the stairs twirling the penny between her fingers. He sat next to her.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"Nothing." Never let him see the damage.

The Doctor knew she was lying, but he didn't press her.