A/N: Sorry, you had to wait a little longer than planned - I lost the USB containing all the data for the fanfics, among other things. Talk about keeping all your eggs in one basket! *Author smacks himself on the head for being a dunce.* Anyway, here's chapter 10 - and I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!

The Ironsides

The TARDIS materialised inside a Filing Room deep underground. When the Doctor stepped out, he was confronted with three rifles poised at his head. By the time Romana, Amy and Rory had disembarked from the TARDIS, the rifles had been lowered...to reveal the face of one Winston Spencer Churchill.

"Amy, Rory, Romana," the Doctor began the introduction. "Winston Churchill."

"Doctor?" the man before them asked. "Is it you?"

"Winston, my old friend," the Time Lord moved to shake Winston's hand, which was then poised in a beckoning gesture. "Haaa – every time!"

"What does he want, Doctor?" Romana asked her fiancé.

"TARDIS Key, of course," the Doctor replied with a chuckle.

"Ooo...sorry, Prime Minister, I'm afraid we cannot do," the Time Lady sighed heavily.

"Who's your friend, Doctor?" the Prime Minister asked the Time Lord he was already acquainted with. Now that he thought on it, what she said suggested that she knew a great deal about the remarkable Time Machine that stood behind the group he was greeting.

"Winston Spencer Churchill, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom...meet Romanadvoratrelundar, former Lady President of Gallifrey," the Doctor introduced them.

"It's an honour, Mr Churchill," the former Lady President told him.

"I'll say," whispered Amy and Rory simultaneously. They had read about this man in the History Books – now they were actually meeting the man!

"So you are no longer the last?" Winston asked the older Time Lord. The last time they'd met, the Doctor had told him that he was the last of the Time Lords.

"Indeed not, Prime Minister," Romana replied for her fiancé. Stood before her was a man whose historical significance she had learnt of during her Academy years...but nothing beat actually meeting the person. Education never did fully prepare one for the real Universe. "And you can call me Romana – any friend of the Doctor's is a friend of mine." This was a bold statement – but the Time Lady had found the Time Lord's experience and instinct to be near impeccable.

"The feeling is mutual, my dear," the Prime Minister told her, soon refocusing his attention on both of them. "But I must make my case; think of what I could achieve with this remarkable machine, my friends – the lives that could be saved!" he implored them.

"Ah...doesn't work like that," the Doctor sighed. But Winston merely raised his eyebrows.

"Must I take it by force?"

"I'd like to see you try," both Time Lords replied at once, scoffing at the thought of Winston Churchill being able to snatch a TARDIS Key off of either of them.

"At ease," he ordered with a smile – the Marines promptly lowered their rifles.

"You rang?" asked the Doctor, his friend's call still fresh in his mind...

*DW* in a Corridor... *DW*

"So you've changed your face again," Winston observed as he walked down the Corridor.

"Yeah, well, had a bit of work done," the Doctor shrugged. Inwardly, he was abundantly aware that this was his last regeneration. But this would not stop him from living his life to the full – he had come to believe in wasting Time when one didn't have any. Before Romana could slip a comment on that, Amy spoke up.

"Got it, got it, got it! Cabinet War Rooms, right?" she guessed, taking in her surroundings.

"Exactly, Amy – this place is the top secret heart of the War Office...where all plans are drawn and all wartime directives are thought up," Romana told her, her head then turning toward the Doctor to see if she'd missed anything. He gave her a nod to confirm that she'd got it spot on.

"We're actually in the Cabinet War Rooms?" Rory asked them, still struggling to take it in. "Under Whitehall?"

"Yep," the Doctor answered.

"You're late, by the way," commented Winston, as a uniformed woman approached the group to hand the Prime Minister some Requisitions. "Excellent."

"Late?" the Doctor asked him.

"I rang you a month ago," Winston clarified.

"Really? Sorry, sorry – it's a Type-40 TARDIS, I'm just running her in," the Time Lord gave his flimsy excuse...one that no one was fooled by – especially not Romana.

"He's making it up, Winston," she told the Prime Minister. "He says that all the time, but he never gets round to it." She received a pointed stare from her fiancé for her remarks. Suddenly, Winston stopped walking, noticing that something was off with the Officer who'd handed him the Requisitions and prompting everyone else to stop as well.

"Is something the matter, Breen?" he asked her, concern in his voice. "You look a little down in the dumps."

"No, Sir – fine, Sir," the now-identified Breen shrugged it off; unaware that Romana was looking into her eyes. What the Time Lady saw was all too familiar...the soul of a woman who had lost a dear loved one...or was about to, at least.

"Action this day, Breen – action this day!" Winston reminded her, in an effort to reaffirm her morale. The Prime Minister's effort was at least partially successful.

"Yes, Sir."

"Excuse me, Sir," another voice interrupted, and the entire group turned to face a male Officer. "Got another Formation coming in, Prime Minister. Stukas, by the look of them."

"We shall go up top, Group Captain," Churchill replied, his last two words identifying these men and women as members of the Royal Air Force. "We'll give 'em what for! Coming, Doctor?"

"Why?" the Time Lord asked his old friend with curiosity...and a little trepidation. If Winston had rang him a month before, thinking that he had a dangerous situation on his hands, it was clearly bad.

"I have something to show you," Winston told them all, making Romana worried. Just because whatever was bad enough for the Prime Minister to call the Doctor in was no longer treated with suspicion, it did not mean the threat wasn't still there. Nevertheless, she, the Doctor, Amy and Rory followed him into the Lift.

"I could tell what was up with Breen, you know," the Time Lady told the others, making them turn their heads. "She's either lost or about to lose her loved one."

"How, might I ask?" Winston inquired, somehow getting a hunch that it was a sore topic for the Romana.

"I've been through it – I know what it's like," she admitted, before snapping herself back into shape. "Still...action this day..." she trailed off. Winston turned back to the eldest Time Lord present.

"We stand at a Crossroads, Doctor...quite alone, with our backs to the wall. Invasion is expected daily. So I will grasp, with both hands, anything that will give us an advantage over the Nazi Menace," he informed the group.

"Such as?" the Doctor inquired, keeping the emotion out of his voice for when he would really need it.

"Follow me..."

*DW* on the Rooftop... *DW*

The quintet was confronted with the sight of World War II London. Half the buildings were in ruins. A small amount of them were still emitting smoke. To top it all off, the Sky was scattered with German Bombers complete with Fighter Escorts.

"Wow," Amy whispered, staring long and hard into the distance, taking in every sight she was confronted by with ready acceptance. Before she could say any more, however, Winston was speaking again.

"Doctor...this is Professor Edwin Bracewell, Head of our Ironsides Project," the Prime Minister introduced him to a Scientist in a white labcoat, holding up a pair of Binoculars. The Doctor gave him a V-for-Victory salute, Romana smiling at the gesture.

"How do you do?" Bracewell called over to him. Another voice soon interrupted anything that any of them may have had to say.

"TWO FLIGHTS, JU-38S APPROACHING FROM THE EAST!" the voice shouted. This was followed by the sound of a bomb impacting the Ground.

"Oh my God," Rory could only gasp in transfixed shock.

"I know, Rory," Romana told him sadly. "Nothing we can do for them now...what happens must happen. It's the established Earth History."

"Ready, Bracewell?!" Winston called over to the Professor.

"Aye, aye, Sir!" Bracewell called back. He then inclined his head towards an Emplacement behind him. "On my order...FIRE!" Instantly, the sound that was the signature of a Projected Energy Weapon rang over the Rooftop several times...and the blasts from the aforementioned weapon impacted the German planes, destroying them all with one shot. This sound was all too familiar for the Doctor…and all too familiar for Romana as well – for she had first heard the sound on Skaro, where the worst monster in all of creation were searching for their insane creator. It was the sound of a merciless, hateful killer...the monsters that had very nearly destroyed her life as Romanadvoratrelundar when they had killed her son.

"What was that?!" Amy cried in shock.

"That wasn't Human," the Doctor whispered in horror. Not again! Why must they always survive?! He thundered telepathically, before switching back to verbal. "That was never Human Technology! That sounded like...show me. Show me...show me what that was!" he ordered Bracewell, who gave the order for the weapon to advance. Sure enough, a Dalek confronted the group.

Rory could only stare in abject horror. The Daleks were here, in 1941?!

The Doctor walked up to the khaki-painted, Union Jack-dog-tagged Dalek, with Romana close behind him...and stared it in the eye.

"What are you doing here?"

"I AM YOUR SOL-DIER," the Dalek bleated, making his mind go back, briefly, to the time after his first regeneration, on one of the 21st Century Human Colonies, before he snapped himself back to the Here-and-Now, focusing on the Dalek.

"What?" he asked the Dalek to repeat itself.

"I AM YOUR SOL-DIER," it repeated, earning a vicious, angry scoff from Romana. Like they were stupid enough to fall for that, which meant that the Dalek was after something – they were as far from docile or servile as anything could get.

"Stop it!" snapped the Doctor – the bitterness he felt at having to condemn the Time Lords to Hell had been renewed ever since his last encounter with the Master. "Stop now. You know who I am – you always know."

"YOUR I-DEN-TI-TY IS UN-KNOWN," the Dalek intoned. Before either Time Lord confronting the creature could come up with a fitting retort, Bracewell stepped in.

"Perhaps I could clarify things here," he piped up. "This is one of my Ironsides."

"What?!" both Time Lords cried. There was more than one?!

"You will help the Allied Cause in any way that you can?" Bracewell asked the Dalek.

"YES."

"Until the Germans have been utterly smashed?"

"YES," the Dalek repeated its first answer.

"And what is your ultimate aim?"

"TO WIN THE WAR!" the Dalek cheered – or appeared to, at least – leaving Romana and the Doctor to stare at each other, knowing exactly what would happen when the Daleks got whatever it was they were after…