A/N - Welcome to the last chapter of "The Death of the Doctor". Title and sneak peek at the next book to come!

"Where are they?" Elise asked River.

"They'll be here any minute," River assured her daughter.

Soon enough, Amy and the Doctor entered the room.

"Dad!" Elise yelled.

"Elise!"

Elise threw her arms around her father.

"How...how did you get here?"

"River found me. Trust me when I say I have never been happier to see you!"

The Doctor smiled. Elise let go of him and he turned to River. "Hi, honey. I'm home."

River turned to face him. "And what sort of time do you call this?"

"The death of time. The end of time. The end of us all. Oh, why couldn't you just die?" Madame Kovarian asked.

River grabbed Elise. "Behave, sweetie."

The Doctor looked at the two woman.

"She keeps trying to kill her," River explained.

"Did my best, dear," the Doctor told Kovarian, "I showed up. You just can't get the psychopaths these days. Love what you've done with the pyramids. How did you score all this?"

"Hallucinogenic lipstick. Works wonders on President Kennedy. And Cleopatra was a real pushover," River told him.

"I always thought so."

"She mentioned you."

"What did she say?"

"Put down that gun."

"Did you?"

"Eventually."

"Oh, they're flirting. Do I have to watch this?" Kovarian complained.

"It was such a basic mistake, wasn't it, Madame Kovarian. Take a child, raise her into a perfect psychopath, introduce her to the Doctor. Who else was I going to fall in love with?" River asked.

"It's not funny, River. Reality is fatally compromised," the Doctor told her, "Tell me you understand that."

"Dinner?"

"I don't have the time. Nobody has the time, because as long I'm alive, time is dying. Because of you, River."

"Because I refused to kill the man I love."

"Oh, you love me, do you? Oh, that's sweet of you. Isn't that sweet. Come here, you." The Doctor rushed towards River.

"Get him!" Amy yelled.

Several soldiers grabbed the Doctor.

"Don't hurt him! Please don't hurt him!" Elise begged.

Amy wrapped an arm around the brunette.

"I'm not a fool, sweetie. I know what happens if we touch," River told him.

The Doctor managed to grab River's arm.

"Get off me. Get him off me!" River yelled.

"Doctor, no. Let go! Please Doctor, let go!" Amy yelled.

"It's moving. Time's moving!" a woman in a white coat told them.

"Get him off me! Doctor!" River yelled.

"I'm sorry, River. It's the only way." They started glowing as time sped up again.

River pulled away from him. "Cuff him."

"Oh, why do you always have handcuffs? It's the only way. We're the opposite poles of the disruption. If we touch, we short out the differential. Time can begin again."

"And I'll be by a lakeside killing you."

"And time won't fall apart. The clocks will tick. Reality will continue. There isn't another way."

"I didn't say there was, sweetie. There are so many theories about you and I, you know."

"Idle gossip."

"Archaeology."

"Same thing."

"Am I the woman who marries you, or the woman who murders you?"

The Doctor leaned in close to River's face. "I don't want to marry you."

"I don't want to murder you."

Amy and Elise felt drops of water hit their heads.

"Doctor, what's that?" Amy asked.

"The pyramid above us. How many Silence do you have trapped inside it?"

"None. They're not trapped. They never have been. They've been waiting for this, Doctor. For you," Kovarian told him.

Rory came running in. "They're out! All of them. No one gets in here! Ma'am, my men out there should be able to lock this down. We have them outnumbered."

"And you're wearing eye drives based on mine, I think. Oops," Kovarian said.

"What do you mean?" the Doctor asked.

Electricity surged through the eye drive that the woman in the white coat was wearing. She cried out in pain.

"Help her! Help her!" the Doctor yelled.

The soldiers around them starting yelling as they were electrocuted.

"She's dead," Amy told him.

The Doctor and Elise's eye drives tried to shock them.

"Eye drives off now. Remove them," the Doctor ordered.

Amy pulled the Doctor's off. The Doctor turned around and pulled Elise's off as Amy's started to shock her.

"The Silence would never allow an advantage without taking one themselves", Kovarian taunted as River tried to pull Amy's off, "The effects will vary from person to person. Either death or debilitating agony. But they will take you all, one by one." Madame Kovarian's eye drive started to shock her. "What are you doing? No, it's me. Don't be stupid. You need me. Stop it. Stop that!"

The Doctor turned to River. "We could stop this right now, you and I."

"Get it off me!" Kovarian yelled.

"Amy, tell her!" the Doctor said.

"We've been working on something. Just let us show you," she told him.

"There's no point. There's nothing you can do. My time is up."

"We're doing this for you!"

"Then people are dying for me. I won't thank you for that, Amelia Pond."

"Just let us show you," River begged.

Elise stepped between the two women and the Doctor. "Please. Don't leave me alone. It's you and me, remember? No matter what," she told him, "Do it for me."

"Captain Williams, how long do we have?" Amy asked.

"Er, a couple of minutes," Rory said.

"That's enough. We're going to the Receptor Room right at the top of the pyramid. I hope you're ready for a climb," River told the Doctor.

They made their way to the top of the pyramid, Amy and Rory following close behind.

"What's this? Oh, it's as timey-wimey distress beacon. Who built this?" the Doctor asked.

"I'm in charge of the TARDIS. I understand the physics. Elise helped of course too," River explained.

"But that's all you've got, a distress beacon."

"I've been sending out a message. A distress call. Outside the bubble of our time, the universe is still turning, and I've sent a message everywhere. To the future and the past, the beginning and the end of everything. The Doctor is dying. Please, please help."

"River! River, this is ridiculous! That would mean nothing to anyone. It's insane! Worse, it's stupid! You embarrass me!"

"We're just trying to help you!" Elise yelled at him.

Amy and Rory joined them.

"We barricaded the door. We've got a few minutes. Just tell him. Just tell him, River!" Amy said.

"Those reports of the sun spots and the solar flares. They're wrong. There aren't any. It's not the sun, it's you. The sky is full of a million, million voices saying yes, of course we'll help. You've touched so many lives, saved so many people. Did you think when your time came, you'd really have to do more than just ask? You've decided that the universe is better off without you, but the universe doesn't agree."

"River, no one can help me. A fixed point has been altered. Time is disintegrating."

"I can't let you die."

"But I have to die!"

"Shut up! I can't let you die without knowing you are loved by so many, and so much, and by no one more than me and our daughter."

"River, you and I, we know what this means. We are ground zero of an explosion that will engulf all reality. Billions on billions will suffer and die."

"I'll suffer if I have to kill you."

"More than every living thing in the universe?"

"Yes," Elise and River spoke in unison.

"River, River, why do you have to be this? Melody Pond, your daughter. I hope you're both proud. And Elise! You should want to save the universe!"

"The universe is nothing without you in it!" Elise told him.

"I'm not sure I completely understand," Rory said.

"We got married and had a kid and that's her," Amy explained.

"Okay."

"Amy, uncuff me now."

Amy walked over and took the handcuffs off.

"Okay, I need a strip of cloth about a foot long. Anything will do. Never mind." The Doctor took off his bowtie. "River, take one end of this. Wrap it around your hand, and hold it out to me."

"What am I doing?" she asked, doing as he said.

"As you're told. Now, we're in the middle of a combat zone, so we'll have to do the quick version. Captain Williams, say I consent and gladly give."

"To what?" Rory asked.

"Just say it! Please."

"I consent and gladly give."

The Doctor looked at Amy. "Need you to say it too, mother of the bride."

Oh my god! They were getting married!

"I consent and gladly give," Amy said.

The Doctor looked at Elise. "And now you."

"Wait. What?" Elise asked.

The Doctor smiled softly and said, "I'll only marry River if you want me to."

Elise looked at River. The woman who had been influential in raising her. "I consent and gladly give," she said.

"Now River, I'm about to whisper something in your ear, and you have to remember it very, very carefully, and tell no one what I said." He leaned in and whispered something to her. "I just told you my name. Now, there you go, River Song. Melody Pond. You're the woman who married me. And wife, I have a request. This world is dying and it's my fault, and I can't bear it another day. Please, help me. There isn't another way."

"Then you may kiss the bride," River said.

"I'll make it a good one."

"You'd better."

The two kissed and reality changed around them.

Elise opened her eyes and she was back on the TARDIS. It was quiet.

Did it work?

Dorium's door was shut and he was quiet. Maybe he was sleeping.

The door to the TARDIS opened and the Doctor entered.

Elise ran towards him and threw her arms around him.

He put a finger on his lips, signaling her to be quiet. He ran to the console and they took off to return Dorium's head.

"Who's carrying me?" Dorium asked as they entered the Seventh Transept, "I demand to know. I'm a head, I have rights. I want my doors open this time. I demand that my doors are open!"

The Doctor opened his door and turned to leave.

"Is it you? It is, isn't it. It is you, I can sense it. But how did you do it? How could you possibly have escaped?"

The Doctor and Elise shed their cloaks.

"The Teselecta. A Doctor in a Doctor suit. Time said I had to be on that beach, so I dressed for the occasion. Barely got singed in that boat," the Doctor explained.

"So you're going to do this? Let them all think you're dead?"

"It's the only way, then they can all forget me. I got too big, Dorium. Too noisy. Time to step back into the shadows."

"And Doctor Song, in prison all her days?"

"Her days, yes. Her nights? Well, that's between her, me, and Elise, eh?"

"So many secrets, Doctor. I'll help you keep them, of course."

"Well, you're not exactly going anywhere, are you?"

"But you're a fool nonetheless. It's all still waiting for you. The fields of Trenzalore, the fall of the Eleventh, and the question."

"Goodbye, Dorium."

"The first question. The question that must never be answered, hidden in plain sight. The question you've been running from all your life! Doctor who? Doctor who? Doctor Who?"

Elise and the Doctor entered the TARDIS.

"So, any questions?" he asked Elise.

"Yeah."

"Okay. Fire away."

"Who's Rose Tyler? You mentioned her earlier and I just thought..." Elise asked, "Was she the blonde?"

That wasn't the question he'd been expecting.

The Doctor pinched the bridge of his nose. "Elise, please."

"I just want to..."

"Stop asking!" Out of the corner of his eye, the Doctor saw Elise flinch. He sighed and walked over to her. "I'm sorry for yelling. Just...I don't like to talk about her."

"Did...did you love her?"

The Doctor didn't answer. He simply placed his hand on the back of her head and kissed her forehead.