Rose sat at the Doctor's bedside, feeling the stars above her being born and dying, in the eternal time she waited. Novice Hame had reassured her, that he would awaken in good time, and that both of his hearts were strong. Rose had wondered why then, could he not awaken? She longed to see the inane grin he got whenever he chose a new timeline, the way his eyes danced with glee, even in the face of unimaginable peril, and to hear him yell "Allons-y!" before pulling the switch that would catapult them to some forgotten place in time. She let go of his regenerated hand, and sighed softly;
"Doctor? I'll be back, I just gotta check in with my mum, and Mickey. When I get back, I want you to wake up, alright? You still gotta tell me you love me; no radioactive slime is gonna take you from me, you ain't regenerating yet; it's not time," she placed a gentle kiss upon his damp forehead; the toxic slime working his body overtime, trying, but ultimately failing, to alter his Time-Lord cellular make-up. She walked out into the corridor and into Novice Hame, who smiled at her, her whiskers shivering as she did;
"Is he really gonna be alright?" Rose spoke softly, her eyes fixed upon the feline nurse nun before her.
"I promise you, your Doctor will be fine. He is a friend of New New York, and we would work tirelessly, to keep him safe, as he always has for us, and for all of New Earth.
"And he'll be the same? When he wakes up? He won't regenerate again?" she bit her thumb nail as she let her gaze fall to the floor.
"He'll be weaker for a time, but he will still be the man you love, and know. He will regain his strength in time. We have started a slow-release chemotherapy-like drug, to stunt cellular growth, and to regenerate, the Doctor's cells would need to be free to be modified. As they are not, once all of the toxicity is removed from them, they will remain as they were, and will only repair. Excuse me, I must attend to my patients," Novice Hame smiled and gave a courteous nod, before turning and walking towards the Intensive Care Facility. Rose took one last look into the Doctor's room before walking out onto the apple grass. she laid herself in the middle of it and pulled out her intergalactic cell phone.
The Doctor slowly started to come to, a haze of orangey lights swimming in his vision. He rubbed his head and blinked several times to clear the fog. He shook his head and groaned as the TARDIS console came into view. That's odd he thought to himself as he looked around; it was like he had never seen the place before.
"I wonder where we are," he mused quietly.
"
New, New, Opposite Earth!" a familiar female voice piped up. The Doctor shrieked and fell backwards.
"Blimey Rose, I didn't know you were there," he sighed and held the place where one of his hearts resided.
"Where else would I be?" she looked puzzled, but then smiled radiantly;
"Come on, let's go and have a look!" she practically bounced like an excitable child as she spoke.
"Where the hell is New New Opposite Earth? There is no such place," the Doctor spoke with perplexity.
"Well you brought us here," Rose rolled her eyes as she spoke and grabbed his hand;
"Come ON," she dragged him and pulled open the TARDIS door. The Doctor's calm, bambi brown eyes scanned the area; it looked just like Earth. Snow was falling sporadically around them as they stepped out from the TARDIS He watched as people busied themselves with their shopping, their eating and drinking, their newspapers. Then he saw a sight that made his blood run cold, and his two hearts skip a beat. There, making its way down the street, was a Dalek. The Doctor dived towards the Dalek, shouting as loud as he could;
"Everybody stay back! Stay away from it! It'll kill you!" he frantically waves his arms. The Dalek stopped in front of the Doctor and turned his eye stalk to look at him;
"What is going on? Where is there danger?" The Dalek swivelled its head around before returning it to the front;
"Definitely no danger. You are mistaken." The Dalek spoke with the same robotic, monotone shriek as the Doctor had always known them to possess; he still heard their shrieking in his dreams, during the last Great Time War upon the planet Gallifrey. Standing close to his sworn enemy, he felt anger bubbling up through his veins;
"You! You are the danger! You destroyed my home, my people," he spat his words through gritted teeth. Rose stood beside him, a perplexed look on her face.
"I do not understand. Daleks are peaceful beings. we would not harm your people," The Dalek replied, the little lights on its head blinking with each word. The Doctor scowled and tapped his head to give his words a bigger emphasis;
"Is there something wrong with your wiring?! You're a Dalek. I'm the Doctor," he clanged the head of the Dalek with his sonic screwdriver, and no sooner had he done that, a swarm of people grabbed a hold of him. They picked him up, and he protested vehemently;
"That's a Dalek! Don't you understand? Daleks kill, it's all they know!" he struggled to get free, but failed due to his slender frame.
"It's thoughts like those that mean we need to take the stand we do," A blonde-haired man spoke stiffly. They put the Doctor onto a wooden chair, behind a desk;
"Stay there," A rather large redhead sniffed before she walked out of the room. The Doctor was used to getting himself into muddles, and he conceded that this must just be one of those times. He scanned the room; it was pretty sparse and dingy if he was honest. There was the wooden chair he had been somewhat aggressively placed on, the table that stood before it, a sink and a counter top with tea and coffee, mugs and a mini fridge.
The Doctor mused for a moment before rising, he glanced back at the door for a moment to make sure he wasn't going to be interrupted. He pulled his sonic screwdriver from his jacket pocket; today he was wearing the black and blue pinstripe suit, with a dark blue shirt and black and blue tie. He locked the door with his sonic screwdriver, and made his way to the kitchenette area. He set the kettle to boil, once he had filled it a quarter of the way with fresh tap water.
The doorknob rattled, just as the kettle started to whistle, signifying the end of the boil cycle. The Doctor turned his head towards the noise and smirked, as he heard the man behind it growling and grumbling in protest. The man leaned against the door and the Doctor promptly opened the door with the screwdriver, causing the man to fall flat on the floor. He growled in contempt and rose to dust off his clothes.
"Very funny," he snapped stridently, and took the chair opposite the one the Doctor should have been occupying. The Doctor turned his chair round and sat, a leg on either side of the chair's back and smirked;
"So, are you going to tell me what this utter nonsense is about, or am I going to have to guess? No chance of you believing what I was saying is there?" he tipped his head to one side in a playful manner, curiously looking at the gentleman opposite him. He was of an average height, average build, and he had a goatee, and ponytail of brown with slight grey streaks. He looked, the Doctor concluded, like your garden-variety hippie.
"No, there isn't. You're not the first to try and label the Daleks in this way, and sadly you probably won't be the last. Do you know who we are?" the man clasped his hands together under his chin as he awaited an answer.
"The Dalek Police?" the Doctor grinned, his eyes dancing with mirth. The man rolled his eyes and shook his head;
"My name is Sage," he began, but was broken off by the Doctor's scornful laughter;
"I have a companion called Rose, put you two together and you could make a nice sauce," he laughed louder than he should have at his own joke.
"Do you think this is funny?" Sage frowned, his annoyance evident.
"I do rather, yes," the Doctor's smile widened as he sat back in the chair apathetically.
"Regardless, I will tell you; I am the leader of the NSPCD," he looked awfully proud of this statement.
"And what exactly is the NSPCD?" the Doctor eyed Sage curiously, his tongue pushed up behind his top teeth, as it always was when he was being cheeky, or inquisitive.
"The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Daleks," Sage spoke matter of factly. The Doctor bit his lip to try and prevent the outburst of hysterical laughter that threatened to erupt at any moment. Sage frowned, his patience becoming ever thinner by the Doctor's impertinence.
"I'm very serious. You committed assault on a Dalek, and now you have two choices. One; you can be held in custody until we discern if said Dalek wants to press charges against you," he paused and looked back to the Doctor's amused and smug face.
"And the other option is?" the Doctor raised his eyebrow, both curious and amused;
"You will do community service, and here that means you will integrate yourself into Dalek society; primarily the Dalek you assaulted and his friends. They will show you how they live, and you will embrace it. so which is it to be?" Sage folded his arms and awaited a response. The Doctor sighed heavily;
"You're really serious about this aren't you? This is bloody ridiculous. Alright, I'll give you a chance, show me that these Daleks aren't like the ones in my dimension."
"So the community service then?" Sage arose from his chair;
"Let's just get this over with," the Doctor rolled his eyes and stood, to follow Sage out into the winding corridors of the justice building. He caught Rose's gaze as he walked out into the crisp air and she smiled thinly. The golden-coloured Dalek swivelled its head so its eyestalk was fixed upon the Doctor's face. The Doctor eyed it up warily, his better judgment thrown into chaos by the theory that this creature was not a menacing killing machine in this dimension.
"Now, this is Dalek Thay, I trust that you will commit to this, Doctor, you will be surveilled from a distance to ensure no further grievances are committed. The Doctor blinked and frowned;
"I said I would, I'm a man of my word," he reached his hand out carefully to touch the cold, shiny metal of Dalek Thay's head;
"You're really not evil? How can you be a Dalek without the urge to kill?" he tilted his head to the right and ran his hands over the vents of Dalek Thay's neck, interested in the craftwork, and for once, being able to see it up close.
"Daleks do not kill. That is a myth. We may be machines, but we have hearts and souls just like you. We hear of these Daleks from another world who exterminate and destroy. We do not understand this behaviour; we like to dance," Dalek That's head lights flicked on and off in time with his speech.
"Dance? you're telling me Daleks dance?!" the Doctor exclaimed, the shock painting his face into a mask of contortion.
"Yes, we do. You will see when you meet my friends. Let us go now to the PepperPot Palace," Dalek Thay turned and started to drift in the general direction of East, and The Doctor and Rose began to follow him, he snorted at the irony of the name, but said nothing. He looked curiously at Rose, baffled at how normal she seemed to be finding all of this. He assured himself that this was another version of Rose, one who lived in a world where Daleks danced, and he was the only one who was in the dark about all this.