Staying Human
Disclaimer: Doctor Who does not belong to me and I am making no profit off of this story.
This is a little one-shot story set in the past of the Universe of my story, War Of The Guardians. The relevance of this story to the main one will become apparent by the end of it I hope.
The small world of Meridian was being overrun by Dalek invaders, and it seemed as if the struggling human colony would surely be lost. None of the hapless colonists had had any success so far against the Dalek onslaught.
In the midst of the ensuing bloodbath, a young girl about ten years old wandered through the devastation lost and alone. She continued to call for her parents who were now unable to answer her. She would never see them again.
She began to cry and tremble out of control. She just stood there unmoving as she realized that her world had been destroyed. She no longer cared what happened to her anymore. She just wanted to be with her mum and dad again.
Suddenly, a brunette woman appeared in front of her out of nowhere. One minute nothing had been there and the next there she was standing before her. The little girl blinked to make sure that she wasn't seeing things.
The woman was very pretty and wore a long old fashioned white dress that looked like it came from Old Earth's past. She looked confused at first, and then saw the little girl looking at her in curiosity and smiled.
"Hello! Sorry to have just popped in here out of nowhere. I was trying to make it back in time to Victorian London, but I seem to have gotten slightly off track. Time travel is much trickier than you think that it would be," She said with a soft smile.
The little girl thought that she must have been driven mad by the Dalek attack, and that was why she was babbling so. She didn't think that the woman was dangerous though. She seemed to very nice but just a little confused.
For the first time, the woman seemed to notice all of the devastation around her and the look of despair on the little girl's face. She looked at her in concern and patted her head as if to comfort her.
"Are you okay?" She said with the kindest voice that the little girl had ever heard.
"I can't find my mum and dad! I think that the Daleks got them!" The small girl said as she began to cry.
"I'm so sorry! Come with me and I'll see if we can find them, okay?" The woman offered.
"I'm not supposed to go with strangers mum said," The crying girl said through tear stained eyes.
The woman laughed a little. The things that people cling to even in despair! She thought amused.
"I think that in this case she'd say it was okay," The woman said softly.
The little girl hesitated a moment, and then took the woman's hand. The two then started to walk through the rubble as they searched for any survivors.
It was then that their luck ran out as a lone Dalek spotted them from the sky and landed in front of them.
"You. Will. Be. Taken. To. The. Work. Camps. And. Processed! Move! Move!" The Dalek ordered as it spat out each word in fury.
"That's where we're going right now. Just let us be, and we'll be there shortly," The woman lied.
The little girl looked at her in horror. She relaxed when the woman turned her head and winked at her.
"Move! Move! You. Will. Go. With. Me!" The Dalek continued to order them.
"I said we were going, Lester! Can I call you Lester? I used to know a Lester once, and you remind me of him. He was loud, stupid, and overbearing too! That's probably why I dumped him come to think of it! I was in kind of a slump then. I was into obnoxious jerks for a while there, and then I came to my senses and got out of dating idiots again," The woman babbled at a million miles an hour.
The Dalek grew tired of her talking and shouted in a louder and more urgent tone, "Move. Now. Or. You. Will. Be. Exterminated!"
The woman actually smiled at this to the now frightened little girl's surprise. How could she be so calm and even happy at a time like this? She thought. Her good mood and confidence began to rub off on the little girl though, and she quickly started to feel calmer and protected. She felt like she was safe with this woman, but she didn't know why.
"Move!" The Dalek ordered one last time as its gun stalk turned on the woman.
"No!" The woman said defiantly.
"Exterminate!" The Dalek cried as a blast of energy shot out of its gun and toward the woman.
The little girl screamed in terror, but the energy bounced harmlessly off of the woman and had no effect on her!
The woman laughed at the visibly confused Dalek.
"What's the matter? You finally come across someone you can't kill, Lester? How's does it feel?" The woman taunted him.
"Who. Are. You?" The Dalek asked in a panic.
"I'm someone who hates you lot more than anyone in the universe with the possible exception of one very special man! Who am I? I'll give you a clue!" The woman mocked.
Then, a blast of energy shot out of the woman's hand and blew the Dalek to bits! The woman covered the little girl with her body as pieces of the Dalek went flying out in all directions. The woman seemed unharmed by them though.
The little girl didn't know who this strange woman was, but she seemed indestructible. She was like a superhero or something she thought.
The little girl looked at her in shock.
"Who are you?" She asked as she repeated the Dalek's earlier question.
"I'm someone that the Daleks hurt badly a long time ago. I'm going to pay back the favor now!" The woman said with an angry look on her face.
She quickly replaced it with her usual ever present cheerful smile though. She didn't want to rattle the still upset little girl any more than she already was.
"Let's keep trying to find your mum and dad, okay?" She said as they began to walk together again.
To their misfortune, however, they were soon attacked by two more Daleks who flew at them out of the sky!
Again, she shot a ray of energy out of her hand; and one of the Daleks exploded. The other Dalek though hit her several times with his energy blasts. She reeled back this time as so many blasts at once broke through her shield. The little girl looked at her in shock as she began to look fuzzy as if she were trying to fade out of existence! The woman's image started to fade in and out as if she were going to disappear at any moment!
The little girl began to get scared. What if the woman vanished and left her here all alone with the Dalek? She thought in terror.
The woman seemed to sense her terror and tried to comfort her. "It'll be okay. I'm your friend, and I'll protect you. Remember that, no matter what happens!" The woman said.
The little girl nodded and watched as the woman fired her energy blast at the Dalek yet again. The second Dalek then exploded just like the first one had. Before it did, however, it had managed to fire off one last blast at the woman.
She screamed as the blast hit her; and then, to the little girl's shock, the woman faded away and changed into something else!
Instead of the beautiful woman that had been her friend, a Dalek now stood in front of her!
The little girl started to whine and began to shake. She didn't understand what was happening, but she was now terrified out of her mind.
"I. Won't. Hurt. You! It. Is. Still. Me! I. Am. The. Same. Person. That. You. Trusted! I. Am. Oswin. Oswald. And. I. Am. Human! I. Am. Not. A. Dalek! I. Am. Human!" The woman said in a Dalek voice.
The little girl began to relax somewhat and gathered the courage to speak to her.
"It's still you? What happened to you?" She asked in a quiet voice.
"They. Changed. My. Body. But. Not. My. Mind!" Oswin explained.
The little girl began to understand now. She now knew why the woman hated the Daleks so much.
Suddenly, the Dalek faded and was replaced by the woman once more.
"There. That's better! I managed to fix my custom made perception filter/shimmer much quicker than even I expected that I would. Now, you won't have to look at how ugly I've become anymore. This is the way I used to look when I was human," Oswin explained.
The little girl could only stare at her. She said nothing.
"Are you okay? I won't hurt you! I swear! I was made into a Dalek physically, but they couldn't change me mentally. I'm still Oswin. I'm going to help you find your parents just like I said," Oswin pleaded with her.
The little girl could tell that Oswin wasn't lying and that she actually cared about what the girl thought of her. She found herself wanting to reassure her newfound friend.
The girl smiled at Oswin; and said, "Okay. Let's find them. What if we can't though?"
"What do you mean?" Oswin asked.
"What if we can't find them? What happens to me then?" The little girl asked worried.
"Then, I'll take care of you myself if I have to," Oswin promised.
She didn't know why she said that, but she meant it. She just couldn't abandon her to be looked after by strangers even though she was virtually a stranger to the little girl herself.
Luckily, it hadn't come to that, however. She wasn't sure how she would have taken care of the girl anyway. A Dalek body was hardly made for motherhood!
Oswin had found some relatives of the little girl's among the survivors and had left her with them. She found herself starting to well up with emotions as she turned to leave her there.
"What's your name, little girl? I never asked," Oswin said before she left.
"It's Marissa. Marissa Queen," the little girl said with tears in her eyes.
"Good to know you, Marissa Queen! Have a good life, and stay human no matter what you do! Don't let what happened here change you, okay?" Oswin said to her.
The little girl nodded and began to cry. She would miss her new friend! She had taught her an important lesson today which would serve her well in the future.
Oswin walked away out of sight of the others and then did another Emergency Temporal Shift. She had a Doctor to find!
Did I fool you? Did you think that the woman was Rose or did you guess who she really was? This chance meeting will have consequences for the main story, of course. Plus I wanted to bring Oswin into this somehow and show that she escaped the Asylum at the same time. Obviously if Oswin is not Clara than all of that talk about going to Victorian London becomes AU but I hope that I'm right about who she is because wouldn't this version of her be awesome?