Disclaimer: I don't own "Doctor Who" or "Twilight", and the essential details of the original concept of this fic came from a video posted on YouTube by heroesdwtw- which has unfortunately been taken off YouTube since the last chapter I posted- and is used with their permission
Feedback: Much appreciated
Prisoner of the Daleks
"There was no need for that," the Doctor said quietly, his gaze having shifted in the direction where I knew the body that had been Scrum only moments ago was now lying. "He wouldn't have harmed anyone."
"HE WAS OF NO USE TO US," a Dalek said, with the same callousness that I'd experienced when dealing with James and Laurent; it was as though we were just something to be pushed aside rather than sentient beings who actually mattered...
"You'll pay for this," Cuttin' Edge muttered, gritting his teeth against the pain in his legs as he tried to sit up. "I'll make you pay."
"SILENCE," the Dalek said. "YOU WILL BE TAKEN TO THE MINES AND MADE TO SERVE THE DALEKS."
"No!" Cuttin' Edge yelled. "Never! Kill me now, you metal b-!"
"Cuttin' Edge!" Bowman yelled. "Leave it. Just... stay alive as long as you can."
"How?" Cuttin' Edge yelled, practically sobbing as he looked over at Bowman (I wondered if this was how everyone had felt about my reaction after Edward left; knowing that someone was dealing with that kind of pain when you could do nothing to help them was definitely not comfortable...).
"Kid..." Bowman said, nodding grimly at his crewman. "Just do your best."
"YOU WILL BE TAKEN FOR DEEP-LEVEL INTERROGATION," the Dalek continued, with a cold nonchalance about its attitude that almost made me sicker than when I'd been face-to-face with James; at least James actually looked like he'd enjoy what he was going to do to be, but the Dalek was just talking about killing Bowman because it could. "THE PROCESS INVOLVES BRAIN EXCORIATION AND SURGERY. YOU WILL NOT SURVIVE THIS PROCESS."
"Yeah, right," Bowman said, looking directly back at the Dalek. "Tell me something I don't know."
"YOU WILL OBEY THE DALEKS!"
"That a fact?" Bowman countered with a raised eyebrow. "What if I choose not to? What if I say you can talk your gun-stick and-?"
"SILENCE!"
"Why?" Bowman asked, his arms spread out as he looked nonchalantly back at the being that would be perfectly willing to kill him just for existing. "What are you going to do to me, Dalek? I'm too valuable for you to exterminate. You need me alive for interrogation, remember? To help you wipe out mankind or something."
"YOU WILL BE MADE TO COPERATE," the Dalek said, its arms twitching and lights flashing as it quivered in a manner that I could almost interpret as annoyance if it wasn't for the fact that what the Doctor had told me about them left me doubting whether this thing could even get mad in the first place. "IF NECESSARY YOU WILL BE PERMANENTLY DISABLED AND TAKEN TO THE INTERROGATION CHAMBER BY FORCE."
"Forget it," Bowman said, straightening up as he looked back at the Dalek. "I'll walk. Which way is this interrogation chamber, anyway?"
Even as Koral struggled to help him despite the Daleks that were currently holding her back, I personally found myself admiring Bowman's cool dignity; even face-to-face with the Daleks, it wasn't enough to make him lose his focus or sacrifice whatever control he had over the situation...
"I'll be OK," was all that he said as he looked over at Koral.
"NO!" Koral screamed, turning to face the Doctor almost before I realised what she was up to "Please... you can't let them take him away."
"I can't stop them, Koral," the Doctor said simply (I had to agree with him there; anything he did to take attention off Bowman would just get us in more trouble when the Daleks realised just who they'd captured...).
"You can!" Koral insisted. "I know you can!"
"I can't," the Doctor replied, the intensity of his response telling me more about the situation than any spoken words could have.
Koral knew about the Doctor...
How she'd found out what she apparently knew I didn't know- maybe he'd let something slip when he was talking to her while we were separated on the Wayfarer at some point (I'd tried to stick with him, but I had to go to the bathroom sometimes)-, but that didn't change the fact that she was doing something so unbelievably selfish that I couldn't believe it.
"You know the future," Koral said, staring earnestly at the Doctor even as I had to fight to stop myself having a panic attack at what she was actually asking him to do. "You've seen it. You know what happens. You know more than him."
"NO!" I yelled, hissing in frustration as I walked over to glare at her; even if I was partly motivated by a desire not to lose the only person who could get me home, I also knew that the Daleks being allowed any kind of access to the Doctor was a terrible thing even to think about. "Whatever you're thinking, don't; you don't understand-!"
"I understand that they are going to take him and cut out his brain!" Koral continued, still glaring at the Doctor. "And you're just standing there, letting them do it! And he doesn't know anything. Not compared with you!"
"It doesn't work like that," the Doctor said as he stepped towards Koral, ignoring the Daleks that had turned to look towards us; even as the thought of their weapons being aimed in my direction scared me, a part of me was relieved to have an excuse not to say anything that might have ended up incriminating the Doctor's true identity anyway. "I can't let that happen."
As the Doctor turned away, Koral could only stare at the Doctor as Bowman shook his head, leaving me to stare around at the rest of the crew.
I hated to sound selfish, but I wished that the Daleks would just take Bowman away and leave things at that; we were already in trouble without the Daleks learning just who they were holding prisoner...
"TAKE JON BOWMAN TO THE INTERROGATION CHAMBER," the Dalek said, as they began to take Bowman away.
"Wait," the Doctor suddenly said, the Dalek that appeared to be the commander of the others present turning to look at the Doctor before I could do anything to stop him.
"Can I have a private word?" the Doctor continued, as though nothing out of the ordinary was about to happen.
"SPEAK."
"What are you doing?" I hissed at him out of the corner of my mouth, my fear of the Daleks forgotten in the face of my concern for the Doctor.
"Don't worry; I know what I'm doing," he replied in a low voice, shooting me a brief, comforting look that I still wished presented more confidence than it did before he turned his attention back to the Dalek. "Well, this is probably going to be a bit embarrassing..."
"EXPLAIN!"
"Look," the Doctor said, staring back at the monstrous alien, "I really hate it when people say this sort of thing, but... Do you know who I am?"
For a moment, the Dalek could only stare at him as he stepped towards it- I wasn't sure what I wanted to happen at this point; I couldn't think of any response the Dalek could make that wouldn't just result in the Doctor being killed-, but then he leaned forward to whisper something at the grille pattern around what looked like the Dalek equivalent of a neck, and the creature suddenly jolted backwards, its head lamps flashing as it looked at him.
"ALERT! ALERT!" the Dalek yelled, with a suddenly-renewed sense of energy."SCAN THIS PRISONER!"
"Come on," the Doctor said, hands held wide and a smile on his face. "You know you want to."
Even as he spoke, the Daleks surrounding him had extended their sucker arms towards him, only to subsequently become apparently agitated by their discovery as they moved around him.
"EMERGENCY!" the first Dalek yelled. "EMERGENCY! IT IS THE DOC-TOR!"
"It's the twin hearts, isn't it?" the Doctor said, as though he hadn't just revealed his identity to a race that would like nothing more than to kill him. "They're such a giveaway."
"IT IS THE DOC-TOR! IT IS THE DOC-TOR!"
"Please," the Doctor said, smiling in an almost casual manner as he looked around at the race that had destroyed his own as though he was a particularly confident celebrity dealing with a mass of fans, "no autographs."
"DO NOT MOVE!" the Command Dalek yelled, its gun now aiming at the Doctor. "DO NOT MOVE! YOU ARE THE DOC-TOR! YOU ARE AN ENEMY OF THE DALEKS. YOU WILL BE EXTERMINATED!"
"Oh, come off it," the Doctor said, apparently ignorant of the slight agitation I was starting to notice spreading through the rest of the canyon; it was as though the revelation of just who was among the recent prisoners had sparked off some kind of automatic reaction that had stirred all the surrounding Daleks into a slight... well, I wanted to call it 'panic'.
"Not before you've had a chance to interrogate me, surely?" the Doctor continued, smiling at the Command Dalek casually. "At least a quick question-and-answer session... No?"
"Dude," Cuttin' Edge said, looking over at the Doctor with a new edge of admiration in his eyes, "you got some serious presence. What the hell did you say to them?"
"Just enough to make Space Major Jon Bowman look like third prize in the Chirstmas raffle," the Doctor clarified, looking apologetically over at Bowman. "Sorry about that; I'm afraid they're not going to be all that interested in you now. Try not to feel too downhearted."
"I always knew there was something you weren't telling us," Bowman commented; I thought briefly about being angry at his apparent lack of concern for the fact that the Daleks' greatest enemy had just handed himself over to save him, but this still definitely wasn't the time to draw attention to myself. "Turns out you're Dalek Enemy Number One. Congratulations."
"I know," the Doctor nodded briefly. "Funny how things turn out, isn't it?"
"SILENCE!" the Dalek yelled. "DO NOT SPEAK! YOU ARE A PRISONER OF THE DALEKS! YOU WILL BE TAKEN FOR INTERROGATION! AND THEN YOU WILL BE EXTERMINATED! EXTERMINATED!"
"You always make me feel so welcome," the Doctor said nonchalantly.
In response, the Dalek extended its sucker arm to 'punch' the Doctor in the stomach, before it subsequently turned to face Bowman.
"YOU WILL BE TAKEN TO AWAIT YOUR INTERROGATION," the Dalek said (I almost felt like swearing at that particular revelation; even after what the Doctor had done, they were still going to take Bowman...). "THE OTHER MEMEBRS OF YOUR CREW WILL BE TAKEN TO WORK IN THE CORE MINES."
I barely even registered Koral's screams to Bowman as the clawed Daleks began to take us down a nearby corridor towards what I could only assume were the previously-mentioned mines, all I could do was keep my eyes fixed on the Doctor, praying that he'd say or do something to give me some faith that he did have a plan, that I wasn't going to die here centuries and light-years away from home because he'd tried something to save someone else that hadn't even worked...
Then the doors closed in front of me, and my fear turned to anger as I turned to glare at Koral.
"What the hell was that?" I asked, waving a hand at the rapidly-retreating door behind us (The Daleks didn't appear to care about any argument we might have so long as we kept walking).
"I could not let him die-!" Koral said.
"And that means it's OK to give them the Doctor?" I yelled angrily. "It didn't even help anything; the Doctor's knowledge isn't the same as Bowman's-"
"He is from the future-!" Koral began.
"Which means he knows what battles are coming; Bowman probably knows some codes or something that the Doctor doesn't have, the Daleks aren't just going to ignore that!" I protested, brief recollections of the basic military information I'd picked up from my conversations with Jasper so long ago flying through my mind as I glared at the cat-like woman. "You selfish bitch-!"
"You protest simply because you wish the Doctor's safety; how is that different-?" Koral protested.
"Because I wouldn't have handed someone else over to them just because I want him to be safe!" I yelled back at her. "We can't do that; if we're just going to sell each other out we're just doing the Daleks' work for them-!"
"SILENCE!" the Dalek nearest me said, ramming its sucker arm into my back, sending me staggering for a moment before I regained my balance.
Even as I made a mental note not to continue talking- evidently we'd pushed her Dalek captors too far; I didn't want to give them an excuse to kill us-, I couldn't bring myself to fully understand Koral's attitude; she knew how dangerous the Doctor's knowledge could be, and she had still been willing to hand him over to the Daleks like that.
I just couldn't believe that she'd been so goddamn selfish; nothing else had mattered more to her than keeping Bowman alive for her sake-!
Even knowing the danger we were in right now as the Daleks forced us towards wherever we were going, I almost couldn't stop myself suddenly feeling the urge to throw up as I realised something.
Everything I'd just accused Koral of being- selfish, obsessed, so focused on saving one person that she didn't care who else died- could have described me.
Back when I'd been with Edward, I'd been willing to let other people get hurt if it meant that I was able to stay with him...
Admittedly, I liked to think that I wouldn't have actually deliberately handed anyone over to be killed in Edward's place on purpose, but was letting someone else die to save the person I loved- as I was increasingly sure Koral saw Bowman that way- really any different from letting everyone I knew assume that I was dead if Edward had turned me?
Just because he had meant more to me than anyone else didn't mean that Edward was the only person who mattered at all; focusing on him like that...
It wasn't right.
No matter how much I'd loved Edward... no matter how much I'd wanted to be with him...
The fact that the Doctor's knowledge of the Daleks' was so much more potentially dangerous than anything Bowman might know might have made the situation worse than it would have been if I'd faked my death to be with Edward, but in the end, no matter what way I looked at it, one essential detail remained the same; both Koral and I had been willing to cause other people pain so that we wouldn't have to feel it ourselves (With the obvious exception of the pain I'd probably feel when I first transformed, anyway).
Admittedly, there was a difference- the pain I would have caused others if I'd faked my death to be with Edward or something like that would have been purely emotional, while Koral's actions would almost certainly result in people dying if the Daleks managed to make the Doctor talk-, but it didn't change the facts; causing others pain so that we wouldn't feel it ourselves...
It was wrong.
God, it was practically the reason the Cullens didn't drink human blood- Esme in particular didn't want to make others experience what she'd been through by losing their children-, and I'd been willing to cause people more pain just to be with Edward?
Lying to Charlie to protect him from James had been all right because I'd known I would be coming back if everything worked out, and even what I was doing now was fine- since the TARDIS was a time machine I could be back before anyone really knew I was gone-, but abandoning them all just to be with Edward...
It was hard for me to admit it, but I had to recognise the implications of my recent epiphany; letting other people suffer so that I could get what I wanted wasn't right.
Oh my God... I thought to myself, my legs moving almost on automatic as my brain turned over its latest revelation in shock. What was I thinking...?
It didn't make the pain I still felt at the thought that Edward had left me go away, but it helped me accept something that I should have recognised long before now; the person I was while I'd been with him had suffered from serious problems-
"HALT!" a Dalek yelled, bringing Koral, Cuttin' Edge and I to a stop, even as I made a mental note to think more about that particular revelation when I had the time.
And there will be time, I privately resolved to myself.
I didn't survive James and Laurent's attempts to kill me, or travel all the way to a planet ruled by the most evil beings in the universe in what apparently wasn't even the 'right' version of reality (And how strange had my life become where I could accept a thought like that without worrying that I was going crazy?), just to die before I had time to think about who I was becoming and who I'd been before I'd met the Doctor...