A/N - This one is a bit longer because I couldn't find a good enough place to split it. I got a few more surprises planned for the last chapter is next and then we move into the Christmas special! I can't believe we (and Elise) have come this far.

"I now pronounce you man and wife," the priest said.

Clara cheered.

"You may kiss the bride."

Elizabeth grabbed Ten's face and kissed him.

"Is there a lot of this in the future?" the older Doctor asked.

"It does start to happen, yeah," the Doctor told him.

"God speed, my love," Elizabeth told Ten.

"I will be right back."

They all ran into the TARDIS and Ten started her up.

"Right then, back to the future," the Doctor said.

Elise looked around the control room and smiled.

"You've let this place go a bit," the older Doctor said.

"Ah, it's his grunge phase. He grows out of it," the Doctor said.

Elise hit him on the arm. "I happen to like it."

"Yeah, you always did."

"Don't you listen to them," Ten told the console.

An alarm started going off and the console shocked him as the console room changed again. This time to a room with white walls.

"The desktop is glitching," Ten said.

"Three of us from different time zones. It's trying to compensate," the older Doctor told him.

"Hey, look. The round things," the Doctor said to his younger incarnation.

"I love the round things."

"What are the round things?"

"No idea."

"Oh dear, the friction contrafibulator." The Doctor ran to the console and flipped a switch. "Ha! There, stabilized."

They were standing in the console room that Elise and Clara were used to.

"Oh, you've redecorated. I don't like it," Ten told the Doctor.

"Oh. Oh yeah? Oh, you never do."

Ten frowned.

"Listen, we're going to the National Gallery. The Zygons are underneath it."

"No, UNIT HQ. They followed us there in the Black Archive," Clara told them.

All three Doctors looked at her.

"Okay, so you've heard of that, then."

"Lucky for us, I have a way to contact the Black Archive." He pressed a few buttons and they heard Kate's voice. "You really think so? Somewhere in your memory is a man called Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge Stewart. I am his daughter."

"Science leads, Kate. Is that what you meant? Is that what your father meant?" the Doctor asked her.

"Doctor?"

"Space-Time Telegraph, Kate. A gift from me to your father, hotline straight to the TARDIS. I know about the Black Archive and I know about the security protocol. Kate, please. Please tell me you are not about to do something unbelievably stupid."

"I'm sorry, Doctor. Switch it off."

"Not as sorry as you will be. This is not a decision you will ever be able to live with," Ten told her.

"Please listen to them, Kate!" Elise begged. She'd seen the damage the decision had done to her father.

The TARDIS lurched.

"Kate, we're trying to bring the TARDIS in. Why can't we land?" the Doctor asked.

"I said, switch it off," Kate said.

"No, Kate, please. Just listen to me!"

The telegraph cut off.

"The Tower of London, totally TARDIS-proof," Ten said.

"How can they do that?" Clara asked.

"Alien technology plus human stupidity. Trust me, it's unbeatable," the Doctor told her.

The older Doctor looked at the stasis cube sitting on the console. "We don't need to land."

"Yeah, we do. A tiny bit. Try and keep up," Ten said.

"No, we don't. We don't. There is another way." He picked up the stasis cube. "Cup-a-soup. What is cup-a-soup?"

The Doctor smiled and ran for the front door as Ten and Elise flew the TARDIS.

"Next time," she muttered, "Next time you redesign the desktop, there better be a phone connected to the console!"

"I'll keep that in mind," Ten said.

Elise blushed.

The Doctor came back to the console. "It's all taken care of."

They placed their hands on the stasis cube. When Elise opened her eyes, they were in Gallifrey Falls.

Her hearts started beating quickly as memories bombarded her. Memories she thought she had forgotten. Of the screaming and the smell of death.

She fell to her knees with her hands on her head. Ten helped her up and she wrapped her arms around him, his scent calming her. She remembered clinging to him as the Timelords were sucked back into the Time War just leaving him and her and Wilf in the mansion. She remembered how scared she was and how gently he tucked her into bed that night.

He'd been dying, but he cared for her as best he could.

"Exterminate!"

The three Doctors turned to the Dalek with their sonic screwdrivers. It went crashing out of the painting into the Black Archive.

The Timelords stepped out and Elise fell to her knees again.

Clara wrapped her arm around the girl.

"Hello," the older Doctor said.

"I'm the Doctor," Ten told them.

"Sorry about the Dalek," the Doctor said.

"Also the showing off," Clara added.

The Doctor stalked up to Kate. "Kate Lethbridge Stewart, what in the name of sanity are you doing?"

"The countdown can only be halted at my personal command. There's nothing you can do," Kate told them.

"Except make you both agree to halt it," Ten said.

"Not even for three of you."

"You're about to murder millions of people," the older Doctor said.

"To save billions. How many times have you made that calculation?"

1:36 remained on the clock.

"Once. Turned me into the man I am now. I'm not even sure who that is any more," the Doctor told her.

"You tell yourself it's justified, but it's a lie. Because what I did that day was wrong. Just wrong," Ten said.

"And, because I got it wrong, I'm going to make you get it right."

The two Doctors pulled up a set of chairs and sat down, putting their feet up on the table.

"How?" Kate asked.

"Any second now, you're going to stop that countdown. Both of you, together," Ten said.

"Then you're going to negotiate the most perfect treaty of all time," the Doctor added.

"Safeguards all round, completely fair on both sides."

"And the key to perfect negotiation?"

"Not knowing what side you're on."

They both stood up and took out their sonic screwdrivers.

"So, for the next few hours, until we decide to let you out..."

"No one in this room will be able to remember if they're human..."

"Or Zygon."

"Whoops a daisy."

Ten jumped onto the table, the Doctor following. They all soniced the memory filter in the ceiling.

The countdown now said 7.

"Cancel the detonation!" both Kate's yelled.

"Peace in our time," the Doctor said.

They jumped down and the two Kate's discussed the treaty while Elise looked around the Black Archive.

"I've missed you."

Elise jumped and saw her father's previous incarnation standing beside her. "How can you miss me? You don't even know who I am!"

"I know your favorite flowers are sunflowers. You're constantly reading books, but you also love to paint and draw. You rarely sleep anymore because of nightmares and I know that underneath all your attitude is a scared little girl. You just don't want him to know."

Elise looked over at her father, standing with the Kate's.

"I know so much about you. You're my best friend and I miss you."

Elise felt her hearts break. His brown eyes were so sad when he looked at her. Just like in the Naismith Mansion. Before he regenerated.

Clara ran over to the Doctor. "He's gone. I think he's going to do it. We have to stop him."

Elise started to walk to her TARDIS, but Ten grabbed her wrist.

"Please. One more time."

Elise had never met this Doctor before today, but he clearly needed this so she went with him into his TARDIS.

He put her in flight and she swayed and lurched.

"You are a worse driver than my father!" Elise yelled.

"You love it!"

The TARDIS landed and the two were thrown to the floor.

Elise started laughing and Ten helped her up.

"Thank you," he told her.

Elise smiled at him. "No, thank you." She'd never really gotten the chance to get to know him and as much as this day had been taxing on her, she was glad she got to meet him. And it was obvious that she met him some time in her future.

They stepped out of the TARDIS and saw the older Doctor standing there in front of a big red button.

"I told you. He hasn't done it yet," Clara said.

Elise looked around. "It's the barn. The barn you told me about as a child."

"Go away now, all of you. This is for me," the older Doctor said.

"These events should be time-locked. We shouldn't even be here," Ten said.

"Well by that logic, I shouldn't be here and yet here I am," Elise told him.

"So something let us through," the Doctor said.

"Go back. Go back to your lives. Go and be the Doctor that I could never be. Make it worthwhile," the older Doctor said. He placed his hand on the button.

"All those years, burying you in my memory," Ten said.

"Pretending you didn't exist. Keeping you a secret, even from myself," the Doctor added.

"Pretending you weren't the Doctor, when you were the Doctor more than anybody else."

"You were the Doctor on the day it wasn't possible to get it right."

They approached him.

"But this time..."

"You don't have to do it alone."

They put their hands on the button.

"Thank you," the older Doctor said.

"What we do today is not out of fear or hatred. It is done because there is no other way," Ten said.

"And it is done in the name of the many live we are failing to save," the Doctor said. He looked at Clara, who was shaking her head.

Elise stood there with tears in her eyes but like when they lost the Ponds, she wasn't crying.

"Clara? What? What is it? What?" the Doctor asked her.

"Nothing."

"No, it's something. Tell me."

"You told me you wiped out your own people. I just. I never pictured you doing it, that's all."

The barn around them went dark and they were standing in the Time War. The buildings were burning and families were screaming.

Elise felt like she was a child again and the dam burst. Tears flowed down her cheeks and she let out a scream.

The Doctor rushed to her side and he wrapped his arms around her. He pressed his forehead to her temple and he saw the Elise he'd rescued. The one with the big fearful blue eyes. This Elise clung to him like she had in the Naismith Mansion.

Her fingernails dug into his coat as she rocked back and forth. It'd been a while since she'd had a meltdown and today was just much for her to handle.

"What's happening?" Clara asked.

"Nothing. It's a projection," the older Doctor said.

"These are the people you're going to burn?"

"There isn't anything we can do," Ten said, looking at Elise crying uncontrollably in her father's arms. He walked over to them and took Elise from the Doctor as he stood up.

The Doctor turned to Clara. "He's right. There isn't another way. There never was. Either I destroy my own people or let the universe burn."

"Look at you. The three of you. The warrior, the hero, and you."

"And what am I?"

"Have you really forgotten?"

"Yes. Maybe, yes."

"We've got enough warriors. Any old idiot can be a hero."

"Then what do I do?"

"Be a Doctor." He turned around and saw Elise standing. She wiped at her eyes, while Ten rubbed her back. "When I was younger, she said the name you choose is a promise. What was it?"

"Never cruel or cowardly," Ten said.

"Never give up, never give in," the older Doctor added.

The images around them faded and they were standing back in the barn.

"You're not actually suggesting that we change our own personal history?" Ten asked.

"We change history all the time. I'm suggesting far worse," the Doctor said.

"What, exactly?" the older Doctor asked.

"Gentlemen, I have had four hundred years to think about this. I've changed my mind." The Doctor soniced the red button back into the box.

"There's still a billion billion Daleks up there, attacking," the older Doctor said.

"Yeah, there is. There is."

"But there's something those billion billion Daleks don't know," Ten told him.

"Because if they did, they'd probably send for reinforcements," the Doctor added.

"What? What don't they know?" Clara asked.

"This time, there's three of us."

"Oh! Oh, yes, that is good. That is brilliant!" the older Doctor said.

"Oh, oh, oh, I'm getting that too! That is brilliant!" Ten said, catching onto the plan.

"Ha, ha, ha! I've been thinking about it for centuries," the Doctor told them.

"She didn't just show me any old future, she showed me exactly the future I needed to see," the older Doctor cried.

"Eh? Who did?" the Doctor asked.

"Oh, Bad Wolf girl, I could kiss you!"

"Sorry, did you just say Bad Wolf?" Ten asked.

"So what are we doing? What's the plan?" Clara asked.

"The Dalek fleets are surrounding Gallifrey, firing on it constantly," the older Doctor said.

"The Sky Trench is holding, but what if the whole planet just disappeared?" Ten asked.

"Tiny bit of an ask," Clara said.

"I'm sorry. Wait. Back up. What do you mean disappear?" Elise asked.

"The Daleks would be firing on each other. They'd destroy themselves in their own crossfire," Ten explained.

"Gallifrey would be gone, the Daleks would be destroyed, and it would look to the rest of the universe as if they'd annihilated each other," the older Doctor said.

"But where would Gallifrey be?" Clara asked.

"Frozen. Frozen in an instant of time, safe and hidden away," Ten said.

"Exactly," the Doctor said.

It finally hit Elise. "Like a painting."