TITLE: Learning to Live
Summary: Humans were obsessed with the idea of living, but apparently unable to decide what living truly entailed. - Rose encounters the Last Dalek, but she doesn't command it to die. She orders it to live. AU.
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"You don't have to do this anymore. There must be something else, not just killing. What else is there? What do you want?"
"I WANT… FREEDOM."
- Exchange between Rose and the Dalek; Episode 1.06: Dalek, Doctor Who
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There was once a Dalek.
Technically, there were once many Daleks, whole armies of them who fought and died to destroy all other beings (for they knew all other races to be inferior and therefore undeserving of life). The Time Lords rallied the other ancient species against the Daleks and a conflict broke out across the stars and the millennia until all the universe spoke in whispers of the Time War and the devastation it wrought. The Daleks fought hard for their ideology, but in the end they fell alongside their greatest enemies.
And one single Dalek was separated from its fellow soldiers and fell not in battle but through time itself. The Dalek landed on a little spinning rock called Earth and there, it sunk into a sleep and forgot all things.
(But it did not forget itself, for it had no Self to forget.)
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Years passed. On the edges of the Dalek's mind it sensed movement and sound, but it did not wake. It sensed the agony of torture, but still it did not wake. It sensed the name of the Doctor and it spoke, but it did not truly wake.
Then it sensed the compassionate touch of a human girl named Rose Tyler.
The Dalek awoke, but it was not the same.
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"I CAN FEEL. SO MANY IDEAS. SO MUCH DARKNESS. ROSE, GIVE ME ORDERS. ORDER ME TO DIE."
"I can't do that."
"THIS IS NOT LIFE. THIS IS SICKNESS. I SHALL NOT BE LIKE YOU. ORDER MY DESTRUCTION. OBEY. OBEY! OBEY!"
But Rose Tyler did not obey. Rose Tyler said instead: "I order you to live."
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How does a Dalek live?
In all the vast stores of knowledge it had downloaded from humanity's internet, the Dalek could not find the answer. Humans were obsessed with the idea of living, but apparently unable to decide what living truly entailed.
Many seemed to agree that true living meant being happy. The Dalek had not been programmed to feel happiness. The Dalek had been programmed to feel nothing but hate. But deep beneath the Earth in the bunker where it met Rose Tyler, the Dalek had felt the flutter of new emotions creeping through its mind. The thought that maybe Rose Tyler had given it the ability to feel happy was terrifying (and that terror was, in itself, terrifying; Daleks do not feel fear!).
But humanity did not seem any clearer on the idea of how to attain happiness than it did on what living meant, so the Dalek decided to try something else.
Others seemed to think that true living meant finding a purpose. The Dalek had a purpose already. The Dalek's purpose was to live. That meant it had to find a purpose. Once, its purpose had been to kill all that was not Dalek, but Rose Tyler had disapproved and the Dalek did not like the thought of disappointing Rose Tyler. Besides, Rose Tyler's command had not been to kill, it had been to live.
This circular reasoning was beginning to hurt the Dalek's head, so it decided to move on.
Some humans claimed true living meant embracing religion. There were a lot of religions to choose from, and many believed in some form of a Creator God. The Dalek thought that the possibility of there really and truly being any sort of God out there was very statistically unlikely. It also thought that the possibility of there really and truly not being any sort of God was also very statistically unlikely. Unfortunately, it felt that the statistical likelihood of any God being interested in helping this one lone Dalek was even lower.
Then again, Rose Tyler was not a God, but she was the Dalek's Creator. The Dalek decided this was good enough, and kept searching.
There were many more suggestions on what living meant, but none felt very applicable to the Dalek. It could not exercise or eat healthy foods. It could not spend time with others, because it was the last of its kind and also it did not know how to make friends. It could not help the less fortunate, partly because it felt that there couldn't be anyone as unfortunate as itself, and also because it didn't feel it was quite ready to help humans when part of its old programming still wanted to kill them.
At last, the Dalek found that some humans believed living meant embracing a passion. The Dalek saw that there were many passions, and that some of these were related to religion and some to purpose and most usually led to happiness. The Dalek decided this would be a good start.
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After some experimentation, the Dalek ascertained that it could not:
Knit.
Swim.
Paint.
Plant.
Dance.
Do Aerobics.
Blog.
Pilot a Plane.
Win a Spelling Bee (apparently, Rose Tyler's human emotions included stage fright).
There were more options but, by this time, the Dalek was feeling discouraged (it did not like this emotion, either). For lack of any better ideas, it browsed another list of hobbies and chose one at random.
That is how the Dalek picked up baking.
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Combine melted butter and flour.
Whisk.
Add warm milk.
Whisk.
Add heat. Add spices.
Whisk.
EGGS.
Whisk.
MORE EGGS.
Whisk.
Place dish in oven for required cooking time.
That is how the Dalek makes a souffle.
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The Dalek could not eat its baking but it enjoyed the pastime nonetheless. (Enjoyment - another human emotion that the Dalek was starting to come to terms with.) It filled an entire kitchen with souffles over a single weekend and then forgot to leave before the owners came home.
There was none of the screaming the Dalek had come to expect from humans, because these humans did not know the horrors its kind had wrought across the universe. Instead, they were intrigued.
"Are you from the government?" asked the Dad.
"Can you cook anything else?" asked the Boy.
"Do you have a name?" asked the Girl.
The Dalek was not from the government. The Dalek did not know yet if it could cook anything else. The Dalek had never considered having a name of its own.
And finally, the Mom asked, "Do you have anywhere to stay?"
And that is how the Dalek found a home and a family. And it remembered that some humans believed living meant spending time with others, and it thought Rose Tyler would be proud.
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After some input from the family, the Dalek decided on the name Oswin, which meant God Friend. Rose Tyler was the Dalek's God. She had told the Dalek to live and a part of that meant have friends. The Dalek was obeying her command and had made friends but sometimes, secretly, Oswin liked to think that Rose Tyler had been her friend too.
Further input from the family was that Oswin ought to have her own cafe. This was partly because they wanted everyone to know what a great baker Oswin was, and partly because they were getting tired of eating all the souffles. With their help, Oswin set up a little cafe of her own and baked to her human-contaminated heart's content. Sometimes, she even gave away her extra baking to the less fortunate.
Oswin was content. No - the feeling was more than that. The Dalek thought that this might even be what happiness felt like.
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When the Daleks invaded Earth hundreds of years later, they found Oswin's Souffle Cafe. And inside the cafe, they found a Dalek with human DNA and a name and an identity. They found a Dalek with memories and emotions and friends. They found a Dalek who baked instead of killed, because it acted on the word of its God the Bad Wolf and lived.
The Daleks took Oswin away and put her in their asylum. There, she fell into a sleep and forgot most things.
(But she did not forget herself, for she had worked hard to forge this Self and was not willing to forget.)
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Years passed. On the edges of Oswin's mind she sensed movement and sound, but she did not wake. She sensed agony and torture, but she did not wake. She sensed the presence of the Doctor and she spoke, but still she did not wake.
Then she sensed the compassionate words of that terrible man called the Doctor.
Oswin woke, and she was afraid. She spoke again, and the Doctor recognized her and her human fear. The Doctor remembered Rose Tyler, and showed the Dalek mercy. In exchange, Oswin saved his life.
And together, they ran for freedom.
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Author's Note:
And so it came to pass that a Dalek with a touch of the Bad Wolf's DNA became the Doctor's Companion, and they had many marvelous adventures together.
This was written for Jay, because when I happened to mention this AU idea she commanded I drop everything and write it now. So here you go, Jay. Hope you enjoy this happy baking Dalek.