Disclaimer: I own nothing from the show, but the story itself is mine.

Chapter 3.

The two men walked out of the school together and crossed the parking lot to Ian's car.

The Doctor climbed in the passenger side. "Niiiice car, Chesterton. A '63 Bentley? How do you afford it on a teacher's salary?"

Ian laughed. "That's the advantage of having a brother who works for Bentley. When he's ready for a new car, which with him is every two or three years, I can get his old one fairly cheap. Barbara and I went and picked it up yesterday."

The Doctor nodded. "Hooray for well placed family! Drive on, young man, drive on!"

Ian backed out of his space and headed for the gates, only to stop halfway down the drive.

"What?" queried the Doctor. "Is something wrong?"

Ian was staring out the driver's side window across the grounds at the Tardis. "No Doctor, nothing's wrong. It's just…"

"Just what?"

Ian smiled in an almost embarrassed sort of way. "A couple of days after Barbara and I got back, we were out shopping for things to fill out our new flat. When we turned a corner onto one of the Highroad streets there was a police box standing there. Now both of us knew that it had been there for years, but it was still…well, I just had to open it and look inside. When it wasn't the Tardis, I honestly can't say if I was more disappointed, or relieved." He looked back at the seemingly incongruous blue box. "But there she stands. Still the same."

"I redecorated the inside a bit, you want to go and have a quick look?" the Doctor asked looking at Ian out of the corner of his eye.

Ian sat quietly behind the wheel for a moment, eyes fixed firmly on the Tardis. Then he slowly turned back around. "No, Doctor. Thank you, but…I just can't. It's still too soon for me."

He dropped the car into gear and continued on through the gates and onto the road.

"So tell me Doctor, how long has it been for you since we left? For us it's only been nine days, but you made it sound like a hundred years. Has it really been that long?"

"Several hundred, Chesterton. I was so young back then. You knew me in my first life. This is my tenth self."

"Tenth?! Amazing! So how old are you?"

"Oy! Bit of a rude question isn't it?"

Ian laughed. "It's not the first time you've accused me of rudeness is it?"

"Ha! No, I guess it isn't. In Earth terms I am nearly 970 years old. When you knew me back then I was about 400 or so. Give or take a decade."

"Incredible! So what have you done since then? Settled down or…." Ian never finished his sentence for at that moment a colossal explosion on the road ahead sent the car skidding into the ditch.

The Doctor sprang out of the car and ran to the other side. "Chesterton! Ian! Are you alright?"

Ian touched his forehead and blinked several times, trying to clear the haze from his thoughts. "Yes, I'll be alright in a minute Doctor. Just hit my head on the steering wheel I think. What happened?"

The Doctor quickly looked around the area. "I don't know. Some kind of explosion. I think…"

Another sudden explosion behind them pelted them with rocks and debris, causing them to dive for cover behind the car.

"Someone's firing at us Doctor!" yelled Ian.

"Yeah I figured that out Chesterton! Quick, run for the Tardis!"

The two men headed back down the road, running as if all the demons of hell were behind them. When they reached the gates, they made a beeline for the safety of the blue box. But as they approached the cricket pitch, two large, rounded metallic forms rolled around from behind the Tardis, their loud mechanical voices screeching.

"It is the Doctor! You are an enemy of the Daleks! Halt or you will be exterminated!"

Ian and the Doctor stopped dead in their tracks, and raised their hands in surrender as two more Daleks rolled out into view behind them.

"At least now we know who was firing at us, Doctor. What should we do now?" When the Doctor didn't respond, Ian turned and looked at him. "Doctor?"

The Doctor's face registered the shock his mind felt. "Daleks…regular old Daleks! But it can't be! There are no more of you! Only the Cult of Skaro Daleks are left! Where did you lot come from? You're all supposed to be dead! Wiped out of time!"

The first Dalek spoke up. "We four escaped from the void you banished us to! Now we shall have our revenge upon the one who destroyed our race! Exterminate! Exterminate!" The others joined in the hideous chorus. "Exterminate! Exterminate!"

The Doctor shouted them down. "Wait! How? How did you escape? It should be impossible! The void was sealed. You should have been there forever."

The Daleks' eyestalk swiveled round to face him. "The one called the cyberleader found an opening to another dimension and fled into it. We followed and exterminated the inferior mechanoid. The humanoids of that dimension had discovered how to open a gateway to the void. We destroyed them and adapted the technology to our own. Upon returning to this dimension we ran temporal scans and found a weak signal from a self destruct mechanism on an old Dalek time travel device in this time period and came to investigate. Now that we have captured you, we shall free our brethren and conquer all realities!"

The Doctor looked like a broken man. "It's my fault, all my fault. I thought I was being clever, trapping them between worlds. But I was wrong, they just escaped again. I can't do anything right, I just kill everything I touch, all the people I meet, Astrid should have been a clue, I couldn't even save her, I can't save anyone, I've destroyed the world, all the worlds…" he rambled on and on in shock.

Ian grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him. "Doctor! Get a hold of yourself! What do we do?"

"You might try running!" cried a voice from across the pitch.

Suddenly there was a bright flash as one of the Daleks exploded. The other three turned and began firing at the figure that had just destroyed one of their number.

"Under attack! Return fire!" was repeated several times as they tried to track the shooter who was now running helter skelter for the woods of the nearby park. "Ignore target! Ignore! The Doctor is escaping! Exterminate!"

Taking advantage of the distraction, the Doctor and Ian bolted for the Tardis, barely managing to slip inside before the Dalek guns began assaulting the door. Dashing to the controls, he sent the ship into the time stream and they dematerialized away from the Daleks rage.

Okay there's chapter 3. Finally some action! I hope you all enjoy it, and I thank all you guys for your kind words in your reviews, especially THE UNEARTHLY IDIOT. Please keep up telling me if it's good or not. It's not for my own ego, I really want to make this the best it can be. So if I screw something up, tell me. I'm a big boy. I can take it if it's my fault. Chapter 4 soon!