Philip Bates is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.
You don’t believe that statues can move. And you’re right: they can’t – of course they can’t… when you’re looking.
Chapter 1. The Dying Detective.
On the instructions of the mysterious Julius Grayle, Detective Sam Garner makes his way to a rundown hotel, Winter Quays. He meets a dying man, who warns him that the Angels are coming for him. But who is he? “I’m you…”
Garner runs, but suddenly, there are Weeping Angels everywhere: scrambling up the stairs, blocking the elevator, filling the corridors. He makes his way up onto the roof – but there’s no escape, as the Statue of Liberty bears down on him.
Chapter 2. The Angels Take Manhattan.
Central Park, New York. Present day. The Doctor’s reading. Out loud. Amy’s trying to read too, and the Doctor (eventually) notices (after it’s pointed out to him) that she now wears reading glasses. He tries them on for size, and begins reading her The Angel’s Kiss: A Melody Malone Mystery, a book he found in his jacket pocket. He rips out the last page and puts it in their picnic basket, because “then it doesn’t have to end. I hate endings.”
Rory, meanwhile, goes off to fetch them some coffee. But three sinister cherubs are watching him; laughing as they follow him into the shadows….
Chapter 3. Missing in New York.
Melody Malone has been following The Skinny Guy. It’s a dark New York night, and The Skinny Guy turns to see her. Melody asks him what he’s doing in April 1938, and he replies: “I just went to get coffees for the Doctor and Amy. Hello, River…”
Rory finds himself in 1938, as he and River Song (that’s Professor River Song to you) are threatened by two armed New Yorkers. They’re forced into a car, and are driven to meet Mr. Grayle.
Chapter 4. Taking the Case.
The Doctor and Amy rush into the TARDIS, keeping track of what’s happening to the Rory and River by reading the book. Amy finds the date her husband was sent back to – 3rd April 1938 – and the TARDIS tries to materialise there… but it can’t. The city’s full of time distortion, and the TARDIS bounces off 1938, because it’s “like trying to land a plane in a blizzard.” River explains to Rory that she slipped past the distortion using a Vortex Manipulator, but the Doctor needs signal to lock on to…
The TARDIS ricochets back into 2012, landing in a grave yard. Before the Doctor can stop her, Amy skips ahead in the book to page 43 and notes that, in the future, he’s going to break something: “’Why’d you have to break mine?’ I asked the Doctor. He frowned and said, ‘Because Amy read it in a book and now I have no choice.’” And once he knows what’s coming, it becomes fixed. Time can’t be rewritten once you’ve read it.
Unseen by the pair, a gravestone reads, ‘IN LOVING MEMORY: RORY ARTHUR WILLIAMS.’
Chapter 5. Night in the Statue Park.
Rory and River meet Mr. Grayle, who promptly puts the former “somewhere uncomfortable.”
Rory is thrown down into the dark cellar by one of Grayle’s heavies. The lights don’t work, so the man chucks him a pack of matches. The henchman leaves Rory in the shadowy cellar. But he’s not alone.
Mr. Grayle’s a bit of a collector, and he has some very interesting items. River unveils the elephant in the room: a damaged Weeping Angel, its face contorted; silently screaming for help. More Angels are coming…
Chapter 6. The Gargoyle.
Mr. Grayle knows River as “Melody Malone: the detective who investigates Angels.” He momentarily turns the lights off – and the Angel grabs River’s wrist. It’s too damaged to send her back in time, but she can’t escape its grasp. “You’re going to tell me all about these creatures,” he says, turning off the lights once more. “And you’re going to do it quickly.”
Back in the cellar, a creepy giggle echoes off the stone walls. But using a match, Rory can only see stone cherubs scattered on the ground. The match burns out. He lights another… and the cherubs have moved.
Chapter 7. The Skinny Guy.
The Doctor locates a vase from the Chin Dynasty that is eventually acquired by Mr. Grayle, and uses it (and River’s Vortex Manipulator) as a signal to lock onto 1938. After a lot of turbulence, the TARDIS materialises. The energy given off by the TARDIS’ landing knocks Grayle out and the Doctor and Amy find River, still in the Angel’s grasp.
“I need a hand back, “River says. “So which is it going to be: are you going to break my wrist? Or hers?” The Doctor just stares. “Oh no. Really?” She asks. “Why do you have to break mine?”
“Because Amy read it in a book and now I have no choice.”
The cherubs reach out towards Rory, and he instinctively flinches, dropping another match. He quickly lights another – but it’s swiftly blown out by a cherub on his left.
Chapter 8. Julius Grayle.
River is introduced to The Angel’s Kiss, a book she hasn’t written yet. They can’t peek ahead though – spoilers! – so instead they look at the chapter titles. While Amy goes to save Rory, The Roman in the Cellar, the Doctor reads further chapter titles… until he gets to ‘Amelia’s Last Farewell.’ He storms off, leaving River to get herself out of the Angel’s reach…
Spent matches lie all over the ground. Rory’s not in the cellar. The cherubs have displaced him once more – but not in time, only in space.
River locates him: not far away, at a place called Winter Quay. “You got out,” the Doctor marvels. But she had to break her own wrist to do it. Feeling guilty, the Doctor repairs River’s wrist using regenerative energy, and the pair and Amy rush off to find Rory.
Mr. Grayle, meanwhile, wakes up to see a statue of a woman and her son approaching him.
Chapter 9. Calling the Doctor.
With Weeping Angels on his tail, Rory enters Winter Quay, a seemingly-abandoned hotel. The elevator takes him up to a floor, and he enters the only room there.
The Doctor, Amy and River enter Winter Quay too, and the Ponds are reunited. But there’s a Weeping Angel watching. And it’s smiling.
Chapter 10. The Roman in the Cellar.
Waiting for Amy to return to him, an old man is also in the room. With horror, they realise it’s Rory. The older Rory dies in her arms, and the Doctor realises what this means: “this place is policed by Angels; every time you try to escape, you get zapped back in time… If they could keep hold of their victims, feed off their time energy over and over again… This place is a farm.”
The Angels are coming for Rory. They’re going to send him back in time, and he’ll eventually die an old man, in this room, in Amy’s arms.
Chapter 11. Death at Winter Quay.
Rory has a plan though: if he does escape, he’ll create a paradox; “poisoning the well,” and killing the Angels at Winter Quay. They run, but they can’t go down as the Angels are blocking the way. So they head up to the roof instead, and are greeted by the Statue of Liberty.
So Rory threatens to jump. If he dies, a paradox is created. “River said that this place would be erased from time – never existed,” he reasons. “If this place never existed, what did I fall off?”Amy won’t let him do it alone though: “Together. Or not at all.” The Doctor and River follow them up, but too late – -
They jump.
Chapter 12. Amelia’s Last Farewell.
Suddenly, they’re back in the graveyard in 2012. It worked. “We got lucky! We could’ve blown New York off the planet,” the Doctor tells them. “I can’t take the TARDIS back there; the time lines are too scrambled.”
They hug and head back to the TARDIS – but Rory is distracted by a gravestone: “Amy! Come see this… There’s a gravestone here for someone with the same name as me.” And he disappears back in time, touched by a surviving Angel, still haunting the graveyard.
“That gravestone: Rory’s,” Amy says, crying. “There’s room for one more name, isn’t there?” The Doctor begs her not to, but Amy’s mind is made up: “I’ll be with him. Like I should be. Me and Rory, together.” She bids farewell to River, and turns to the Doctor. “Raggedy Man. Good bye.”
She disappears too. ‘IN LOVING MEMORY: RORY ARTHUR WILLIAMS, AGED 82, AND HIS LOVING WIFE, AMELIA WILLIAMS, AGED 87.’
The Doctor is devastated, and River tells him he needs to find someone else to travel with. When she writes the book, she’ll send it to Amy to publish. “I’ll tell her to write an Afterword. For you. Maybe you’ll listen to her.”
The Doctor rushes back to Central Park, where he finds, lying in a picnic basket, a pair of reading glasses and the last page…
Afterword. By Amelia Williams.
“Hello old friend, and here we are; you and me, on the last page. By the time you read these words, Rory and I will be long gone. So know that we lived well, and we’re very happy. And above all else, know that we will love you – always.
“Sometimes I do worry about you, though. I think, once we’re gone, you won’t be coming back here for a while, and you might be alone, which you should never be. Don’t be alone, Doctor. And do one more thing for me. There’s a little girl waiting in a garden…”
The Eleventh Hour.
“She’s going to wait a long while, so she’s going to need a lot of hope. Go to her. Tell her a story. Tell her that if she’s patient, the days are coming that she’ll never forget. Tell her she’ll go to sea and fight pirates. She’ll fall in love with a man who’ll wait two thousand years to keep her safe. Tell her she’ll give hope to the greatest painter who ever lived, and save a whale in outer space.”
In Leadworth, little Amelia Pond sits on her suitcase, waiting in the garden for her magical Doctor – her Raggedy Man – to come back for her. The rasping and grinding noise of ancient engines fills the sky, as Amelia looks up, happily.
“Tell her… This is the story of Amelia Pond. And this is how it ends.”
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