A/N: Since this is a canon diverging AU, Oswin's name will remain Oswin. Hopefully that shouldn't throw too many people off.
Also, alternate title for this fic (and unofficial theme song) is "my long forgotten cloistered sleep." It fits the themes really well, and the music itself is reminiscent of Clara's Theme, but - ultimately - "The Dalek Adventures of Oswin Oswald" was catchier. I'd definitely recommend listening to it though if you have the chance.
Oswin sat huddled in her giant command chair, awaiting death. Despite her earlier bravado and trademark cheek, she was terrified.
Who wouldn't be with death just moments away?
She tried her best to think of it as some sort of escape. It was easier if she rationalized it away into something that was better than it actually was. It wouldn't be death because she was already dead. Her real life had ended the second her ship had crash landed on this God-forsaken planet.
God.
Her family had been mildly religious, but she wasn't. Oswin remembered being dragged to church at the beginning of every lunar cycle when she was very little. She'd been bored to tears then and extremely skeptical, but now she hoped that she was wrong. If there was a God, maybe she'd be reunited with her mother. Her warm and loving mother with dimples in cheeks and sunshine in her heart. They could make soufflés together. The thought made her smile in spite of her inner sorrow.
Or maybe her friend Sadia had been the one with all the answers, and Oswin would end up reincarnating into some new, better life.
Oswin liked the sound of that more than heaven. As glorious as paradise had to be, she wasn't quite ready to leave this universe for good. Not yet at least anyway. To be given a second chance to run around and laugh beneath the open sky… to not get royally screwed over… Yes, she'd choose that over heaven any day.
Meanwhile the seconds kept ticking.
She curled up into a tighter ball. After awhile she realized that they were slowing. She blinked, confused, until she remembered that everything around her was a lie. She didn't exist in reality anymore. Or rather, her body didn't, but her mind didn't. Apparently time could speed up or slow down depending on how she wanted to perceive it.
Oswin felt the seconds grower slower and slower, until each was lasting a near minute.
Maybe it would've been better to speed them up and get it over with. No matter how much she slowed them, it would never be to a complete stop. Time would pass, sooner or later. And perhaps it wouldn't be all too terrible. The force necessary to detonate the planet would guarantee her a swift and painless death.
Death.
No, she thought, begging herself not to cry all over again. She wasn't ready at all.
Oswin sat there, cowering in upon herself until she finally heard a sound. It was low pitched and drawn out and completely unintelligible. She ignored it at first, thoughts of her inevitable, impending destruction weighing more heavily on her mind. Then some strange new part of her sensed that the noise emanated from something organic.
That wasn't right, she thought with a frown. Nothing on this planet was organic. Not fully organic anyway.
She looked up.
Standing in the doorway of her room was the Doctor, frozen in her slowed time, a mysterious blue box behind him.
The Doctor stared at Oswin, feeling just a tad bit sick.
It'd seemed like such a brilliant idea back in New York. Oswin deserved a second chance, and he could be… would be the one to give it to her. Despite her outer casing and appearance, the girl was human and she'd more than proven herself of that. She'd been completely human from the moment he'd first spoken to her to the moment that they'd said their goodbyes.
But even keeping all those memories at the forefront of his mind, they felt like such lies.
His people had been destroyed because of the Time War. A war that had raged - in part - to keep Timelord technology out of Dalek control. More than just his people. Countless civilizations and galactic empires had been annihilated. The scars still stretched across all of time and space and always would.
And now he was about to freely invite a Dalek aboard one of his people's greatest creations.
Every instinct of his was screaming at him to stop. It was wrong, terribly wrong. He was making a mistake. Despite her origins, she was now a Dalek. She'd almost lost control once; she could lose it again. She could murder him aboard his own ship and claim it for her own. He could be inadvertently unleashing untold horrors against the universe. It wasn't too late, he could turn away and leave her for good…
No. That was right. Oswin was a 'her.' Dalek's didn't have gender. Gender was impractical. Gender was a form of self-expression. A Dalek would be hard-pressed to define the meaning of self-expression. She wouldn't. She was human. Somewhere behind that eyestalk was a beautiful human brain. A beautiful human brain and and beautiful human mind just waiting to be shown the universe.
They had only seconds left before the first of the explosions went off.
He stretched out his hand in invitation.