"They're gone  River! I don't care about technicalities, I'll never see them again! The twins will never meet their grandparents. Oh god!"

"Shh, shh, deep breathes,"

"I can't - I can't breathe,"

----------&----------

New York, 2012

The Ponds are by a duck Pond in Central Park, Amy and Doctor have their backs pressed up against each other and Willow is at their side, her back leaning on both of theirs.

"New York growled at my window, but I was ready for it. My stocking seams were straight, my lipstick was combat ready, and I was packing cleavage that could fell an ox at twenty feet,"

"Doctor, you're doing it again, "Willow sighs

"I'm reading!" he defends

"Aloud. Please could you not?" Amy asks, reading a newspaper.

"There's something different about you, isn't there?" he turns back to her and she raises her eyebrows.

"What's the book?" Rory changes the subject as he attempts to plait Alexandra's hair - she'd been teaching him and so far had made little progress. He'd sighed at his first failure 'how can an eight-year-old do this, but not me?'.

"Melody Malone. She's a private detective in old town New York,"

"She's got ice in her heart and a kiss on her lips, and a vulnerable side she keeps well hidden," Amy states

"Oh, you've read it?"

"You read it. Aloud!" Willow laughs, putting a strawberry packet on her 24-week belly.

"And then went yowzah!"

"Only you could fancy someone in a book," Rory laughs

"You clearly haven't read many books," Willow tells her father and Alexandra laughs.

"I'm just reading it. I just like the cover,"

"Oooo, can we see the cover?" Willow excitedly tries to get a look, but The Doctor swat her away.

"No, no, I'm busy!" Amy tries to look as well and The Doctor looks at her "It's your hair!" he sniffs her "Is it your hair?"

"Oh, shut up. It's the glasses...I'm wearing reading glasses now, on my nose, see?" she gestures "There you go,"

"I don't like them. They make your eyes look all liney" he moves them off her face "No, actually, sorry. They're fine. Carry on," Willow snorts and Amy glares at her.

"Okay, I'm going to go and get us some more coffee. Who wants more coffee? Me too. I'll go!" Rory ruses off the rock they're sat on and Alexandra sits between her mother's legs, colouring in a book.

"Rory, do I have noticeable lines on my eyes now?" Amy asks her husband

"Yes," Willow slaps her husband's knee.

"No,"

"You didn't look,"

"I noticed them earlier. Didn't notice them!" he corrects "I specifically remember not noticing them,"

"You walk among fire pits, Centurion," Amy flirts

"Do I have to come over there?"

"You can if you like," she smirks

"Well, we have company," Rory walks over and Willow covers her daughter's eyes as a joke.

"I'll get a babysitter," Amy and Rory kiss and when they stop, Willow removes her hands from Alexandra's eyes.

"Oh, do you know, it is so humiliating when you do that!" The Doctor groans

"Stop being a baby," Willow looks up at him "besides we kiss all the time," she gives him a kiss as Amy and Rory are lost in their own moment.

"Coffee?"

"Coffee," Amy nods whilst Rory gets up and walks off

"Can I have a go?" The Doctor takes Amy's reading glasses and puts them on. He starts to read the book again "Oh, actually, that is much better. That is exciting!" Amy and Willow laugh.

"Read to us," Amy orders, putting her newspaper down and getting comfortable, Willow shifts slightly and puts her head in Amy's lap.

"I thought you didn't like my reading aloud,"

"Shut up, and read us a story," Willow slaps him slightly

"Yeah Dad," Alexandra chimes in "read to us," she leans back and puts her head in Willow's lap, letting her mother brush her fingers through her hair.

"Just don't go yowzah," Amy says and Willow grins, this causing the Doctor to laugh and he rips out the last page of his book.

"Why did you do that?" Amy looks back

"I always rip out the last page of a book. Then it doesn't have to end. I hate endings," he places the page in the picnic basket.

"'As I crossed the street, I saw the thin guy, but he didn't see me. I guess that's how it began,'

----------&----------

The Doctor keeps reading and soon, the group moves to a bridge where Willow takes over reading after Alexandra insists. Amy and Alexandra are playing Pooh sticks off the bridge and The Doctor is leaning net to Willow, arm wrapped around her as she reads.

"I followed the skinny guy for two more blocks before he turned and I could ask exactly what he was doing here. He looked a little scared, so I gave him my best smile and my bluest eyes,"

"Beware the yowzah. Do not, at this point, yowz," Amy points to The Doctor who rolls his eyes. Willow puts her face closer to the book, checking she read something right

"Willow? What did the skinny guy say?" Amy asks, sensing the pause

"Mum?" Alexandra walks over

"He said, 'I just went to get coffees for The Doctor, Amy and Willow. Hello, River.' Willow looks up and the atmosphere has clearly changed

-----

"Hello, Dad," River greets

"Where am I? How the hell did I get here?"

"I haven't the faintest idea, but you'll probably want to put your hands up," Rory turns and sees a gun pointed in his face, he drops the coffees and does as River said. Another man comes up behind River.

"Melody Malone?"

"You're Melody?!" Rory asks, turning to River whist a limo pulls up

"Get in," one of the men orders.

-----

The Doctor, Amy, Willow and Alexandra are rushing through New York, getting back to the TARDIS. The Doctor is holding Alexandra in attempts to hurry everything up.

"What's River doing in a book? What's Rory doing in a book?" Amy questions

"He went to get coffee. Pay attention!"

"He went to get coffee and turned up in a book. How does that work?" Willow asks

"I don't know. We're in New York!"

-----

"What is going on?" Rory gets inside the limo, keeping his hands up while River sits calmly.

-----

"Where did you get this book?" Amy is holding it, flashing it in The Doctor's direction

"It was in my jacket,"

"How did it get there?" Willow adds

"How does anything get there. I've given up asking. Date, date. Does she mention a date? When is this happening?"

"Yeah, hang on," Amy starts flicking through the pages and Willow grabs The Doctor

"We can't take Alexandra!"

"We can't take her to Vastra, this is urgent!" The Doctor whispers, having put Alexandra down on the jump seat "and we can't take her to River or Alex,"

"I know someone..."

"Who?"

"Jack," The Doctor goes to object "We don't have another choice,"

"April 3rd, 1938!" Amy shouts out and Willow makes a call.

-----

"You didn't come here in the TARDIS, obviously,"

"Why?"

"They couldn't have,"

-----

"Couldn't have? What does she mean? Couldn't have?" The Doctor shouts, rushing around the console, Alexandra is nowhere to be seen

-----

"This city's full of time distortions. It'd be impossible to land the TARDIS here. Like trying to land a plane in a blizzard. Even I couldn't do it,"

-----

"Even who couldn't do it?!" Willow shouts, angry and Amy rubs her back

"Don't you two fall out, she's only in a book,".

"1938. Easy one," The Doctor pulls a lever and there's bangs and crashes, Willow braces herself on the railing as sparks fly. The scanner reads 'Temporal Distortions Detected', then 'No Signal'.

"What was that?"

"1938. We just bounced off it...."

-----

"So how did you get here?" Rory asks his oldest daughter

"Vortex manipulator. Less bulky than a TARDIS. A motorbike through traffic. You?"

"I'm not sure..."

-----

The TARDIS is landed and Willow is leant on a gravestone, Amy next to her as The Doctor puts out fires inside the TARDIS. The graveyard is just outside of Manhattan.

"The Weeping Angels?"

"It makes sense,"

"It makes what?" Amy questions

"That's what happened to Rory. That's what the Angels do. It's their preferred form of attack. They zap you back in time, let you live to death,"

"Well, we've got a time machine. We can just go and get him,"

"Well, tried that, if you've noticed," Willow gestures around "and we are back where we started in 2012,"

"We didn't start in a graveyard. What are we doing here?"

"Don't know. Probably causally linked somehow. Doesn't matter. Extractor fans on!" The Doctor shouts into the TARDIS.

"Well, we're going to get there somehow. We're in the rest of the book," Amy has her glasses on, reading.

"Doing what?" Willow is still leaning on the gravestone and a strange sensation fills her stomach "Ow..."

"What?" The Doctor looks over at her and she wave him off

"Kicking," she explains briefly. The first time one of them kicked, they'd been in a prison cell and it'd made The Doctor more than a bit concerned.

"Page 43, you're going to break something..."

"I'm what?"

Amy starts reading "'Why do 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.',"

"Stop! No! No! Stop!" The Doctor rushes over "You can't read ahead. You mustn't. And you can't do that!"

"But we've already been reading it,"

"Just the stuff that's happening now, in parallel with us. That's as far as we go,"

"But it could help us find Rory!"

"And if you read ahead and find that Rory dies?" Amy looks down "This isn't any old future, Amy, it's ours. Once we know what's coming, it's fixed. 0. I'm going to break something, because you told me that I'm going to do it. No choice now,"

"Time can be rewritten," she says weakly

"Not once you've read it. Once we know what's coming, it's written in stone,"

Nearby, there's a gravestone, with the words 'In Loving Memory Rory Arthur Williams'.

----------&----------

a/n: So here we are...The beginning of the end for the Pond family. I'm writing this Author's Note before I write the episode, But I'm already crying because I'm not ready to write this, and I don't know if you're going to be ready to read the rest of this.