N.B. I think the violence goes up a notch here. And by the way, chapter 12 is arguably my favorite, so you're in for a treat.

Martha Jones had come up in the world. True, there was nothing quite like being the Doctor's constant companion, travelling through space and time in a wonky old police box. But she'd spent most of the time mooning over the Doctor, and she'd done quite a lot on her own. The year that never was continued to haunt her dreams, but since then, she'd been in all the right places at the right time. Working with UNIT. New York, then Germany. Dr. Jones, with a cool head, ingenuity, experience, and a heart. A heart that belonged to Dr. Tom Milligan. Martha couldn't resist flashing the engagement ring on her finger one more time. Six weeks. Six weeks 'til the wedding.

So what was she doing in Cardiff, then? It wasn't exactly far-flung or exotic, and normally if any dangers cropped up, Jack and the Torchwood team could handle them. But for the moment, Martha was still UNIT—not Torchwood. She liaised, she believed was the proper term. What Torchwood didn't know wouldn't hurt them. Her mission was top-secret—as most of them were these days; a short phone call to her mum, to let her know she was all right, and then into the field again. No one could know that in an abandoned house somewhere between Caerphilly, Cardiff, and Margam, someone had managed to salvage a Dalek from those not destroyed in the cataclysmic events at the beginning of the summer. Someone had painstakingly reconstructed it and was planning to use it as their own personal killing machine. Martha Jones was going in to stop them and wipe the scene. So no one would even have a whisper of what might have gone on.

Normally missions of this sort, however grim, were accompanied with chit-chat. But Martha's driver in the unobtrusive van was quiet, wouldn't even look at her. Rain, again, she thought, fogging up her backseat window.

*

It was pouring as the Doctor uneasily led the Scarecrow and the Joker toward the outskirts of Cardiff and Bute Park in the distance. All three of them were quickly soaked, mud splotching all over their shoes as they lurched on. The Doctor noticed the Joker's limp had become more pronounced, but every time he thought they might slow down, so the Doctor could enact some cunning plan he'd not yet thought up, the Joker would burst into another Aqua song. Crane had been laughing at this incongruity at first, but on the third chorus of "My Oh My" had demanded they find somewhere dry to wait out the storm.

"Dunno," shouted the Doctor over the din of the rain, parting his limp forelock over his eyes. "This is Wales—could go on forever like this." It was hard to believe the sun had even risen; the valleys were struck in an eerie kind of twilight that, even the Doctor admitted, was hardly in keeping with the season.

". . . rule the country, baby, you and I!" the Joker shouted at the top of his lungs.

"You fool," said Crane with thorough disdain. "Why, why, why am I saddled with fools?"

The Doctor cleared his throat and jabbed a thumb toward what looked like a derelict farmhouse. "Looks abandoned. And dry."

The Joker shoved past Crane to where the Doctor was pointing. "And likely not to contain any people. Nice choice, Doc, totally predictable. You don't want anyone to get hurt . . ."

"Just forgot my brolly, that's all," said the Doctor playfully, thumbs hooked over his trouser pockets. Doing his best to look nonchalant in a thunderstorm. "This all right with you, Crane?"

"Maybe we can find hot cocoa and roast some marshmallows," said the Joker, pushing past the Doctor and limping toward the house. "Stay up late and have a slumber party."

"Horlicks," said the Doctor with flippancy pleasant enough to rival the Joker's.

"Gin," said Crane simply.

When they reached the house, the Doctor tried the front door. Then the Joker kicked it down with a triumphant shout of, "Honey, we're home!" The three stood wetly at the threshold as nothing answered from the interior of the house.

"Smells like . . ." began Crane.

"Salt and vinegar," said the Doctor slowly. "And overcooked meat."

"Good," said the Joker, cocking his gun. "Somebody's made us dinner."

He went in with the gun pointed at shadows and started randomly shooting. Sparks flew and debris was hammered with bullets. "What the hell are you doing?!" the Doctor cried.

"Couldn't see anything," said the Joker sullenly.

"It's called a light switch!" exasperated the Doctor, reaching a dripping hand up the wall and coming on contact with a switch. He flipped it, and the lights briefly went on before shorting out. "Fine," said the Doctor to the darkness. "The sonic screwdriver's got a torch on it. Why don't you try that?"

"Don't bother," said Crane, shining a path from a pen light he'd had in his pocket. The Doctor silently cursed, hoping at last he'd be able to get the sonic back from the Joker. They moved cautiously through the living room of the house. Though the floorboards creaked and were covered with dust, there was still the overwhelming stench of something alive—or that had recently been alive. "Someone's been living here," said Crane impassively. They kicked over empty tins of spaghetti hoops and used cans of lager.

"Squatters," tsked the Joker, still holding the gun at arm's length. "Where's the kitchen?"

As both fugitives turned, the Doctor crept backward toward a staircase leading to what he assumed was the basement. If he could somehow trap them in the house, just for a few minutes, he might be able to—The floor creaked under him, a dead giveaway. He took another step backward, kicking over a stack of books which clomped to the floor. "Stay where you are," snapped Crane. The Doctor obliged but bent to pick up the stack of books. "Bomb-Making," he read. "Columbine: What Can We Learn. Al's Guide to Sawed-Off Shot Guns."

"Let me see that," the Joker said with pointed interest.

"I'm feeling a bit uneasy about this," said the Doctor.

"Pffft, amateur stuff," assessed the Joker and flung the books back down the staircase.

"Identify, identify!" came a strange and bloodcurdling voice from downstairs.

"I know that voice," said the Doctor, with terror in his eyes. It was instinct now that was driving him. If he'd stopped to think, to really think, he would have just walked calmly out the door and let the two murderers deal with their fate. But since he had first laid eyes on that cool metallic casing, heard the voice from the creature within, half mechanism, half primal scream, his reaction had been to get all life away. "Get out of this house as quickly as you can," he whispered.

But it was too late. The Dalek was already coming up the staircase. The Doctor could see its eyestalk as it said, "Elevate!"

"Move, move, move!" shouted the Doctor, pushing past the other two men and rushing up the stairs to the house's first floor. Crane and the Joker quickly followed him, and once they were all upstairs, the Dalek moving slowly in pursuit, the Doctor threw a rickety Queen Anne table and chairs, one by one, down the staircase. They didn't strike the Dalek, but they slowed its ascent. The Doctor dove behind a sofa in the upper room, smelling damp and dead things. Crane followed him, but the Joker stood standing on the landing, watching the Dalek with undisguised interest.

"What is that?" asked Crane.

"It's a Dalek," the Doctor said, voice breaking with the strain. "It's a creature from outside this world, made up of nothing but egotism and hate. We've got to find a way out of here before it—"

The Doctor never finished his sentence, as the Joker had begun firing the handgun at the Dalek. "You idiot!" the Doctor shouted. "You'll just provoke it!"

The Dalek fired a shot from its gun-appendage that singed the shoulder of the Joker's coat. But that didn't stop him firing. He threw down one gun and found another from somewhere in his coat. Bullets were pinging off the Dalek's metal casing as it roared, "Exterminate!" with every killer beam it sent toward the Joker.

"Aim for the eyestalk!" the Doctor found himself saying, not knowing what would be worse: to be left at the Joker's mercy—or the Dalek's. Crane was frantically feeling around behind the sofa for some kind of weapon. The Doctor saw his hand close around a crowbar.

With one well-aimed shot, the Joker shot out the Dalek's eyestalk. "My vision is impaired, I cannot see!"

"Now that's more like it!" the Joker bellowed, as the confused Dalek began to whip its head and damaged eyestalk around and around. Its stunted appendages shot wildly for a few moments before it lowered itself on the top step of the staircase. The Joker grabbed the crowbar out of Crane's hand and made a savage leap onto the Dalek. Both fell down the stairs into the pile of rubble the Doctor had created when he threw the furniture at the Dalek.

The Doctor and Crane got out from behind the sofa and watched in horrified fascination as the Joker smashed the Dalek's eyestalk off in one clean blow. He was grunting ferally as he rained brutish cracks at the Dalek's gun-appendage. The Dalek made a liquid-y, surrendering noise as its gun-appendage was hacked off. "Come on!" shouted the Joker, running at the Dalek and knocking it onto its side. "Fight! Is that the best you can do?"

The Dalek gurgled in distress as the Joker hit and kicked it with demoniacal fury. The Doctor was appalled and yet—there were cleaner ways to kill a Dalek, and kill them one must almost always do. In his darkest days, even the Doctor had picked up a gun to put an end to a Dalek that had been redeemed by Rose. He'd let thousands of Daleks be sucked into the Void without compunction; out of sight, out of mind. Seeing the killing machine completely defeated would have been almost triumphal—if it wasn't, he was convinced, being destroyed by another killing machine. Still, a tiny, tiny part of the Doctor was grateful.

Now the Dalek was screaming. The Joker had released a blade out of the toe of his boot and was slicing through the Dalek's metal casing as he continued to hammer it with blows. He was jumping up and down on his free foot and practically foaming at the mouth. He gave one final, tremendous clout to its head, and the top of its casing burst off in a crackling array of mutant Dalek and electricity. The Joker stood, panting, over the Dalek carcass before throwing the crowbar against the wall. He grunted and leaned against the staircase, most of his makeup wiped clean by the rain and sweat. He looked up at the Doctor, and it was hard to say what exactly his eyes held. The Doctor gulped, unsure what to say in return.

The Doctor heard Crane get up behind him, but he had barely tasted the acrid smoke from the jet concealed in Crane's suit before he fell, dazed to the floor. Fear toxin, he thought. Crane, you bastard. The Doctor held his breath, counted to ten, counted sheep. He thought about K'anpo and meditation and deep breathing and Zygons. Huuuge Zygons that stared their wicked orange stare through beady eyes that gleamed hate. Zygons with stings and a foul smell and pustules of orange. Stop. Shadows that moved, shadows that were taking people's last words, heywhoturnedoutthelightsheywhoturnedoutthelights . . . Stop. He saw a spidery skeleton over Gallifrey made of bone, and then a Gallifrey that was no more. And guilt and blame in the eyes of his people. "Romana? Romana, I'm so sorry . . ." And Leela. Leela's speckled, spangled eyes. Adric. He saw a gold star and an impassive Cyberman. He heard the crunch of gold meeting the metal shell of a murderer. Stop.

"How much did you give him?"

There was light streaming from his eyes, and everything burned. He wanted to become the burning. Stop. Must be stronger than . . . He thought about an underwater base strewn with the bodies of Silurians and humans. "There should have been another way . . ." And he was back on Skaro holding two wires together, almost crossing, and there was fear. Fear that he'd done the wrong thing. Yes! You have the right! Just do it! And the bottomless fear as his nemesis, the last of his people, died in his arms. He would have exchanged places then and there. Given up that mantle to one he knew would use it for evil. I fear to be alone.

"It's humanly impossible for him to resist that dosage."

Lynda with a Y. All that trust in her face. The sadness of Billy Shipton. Katarina at the airlock. Sara Kingdom's scream. Stop it!! Like Cyrano de Bergerac, he was feinting at phantoms. And the fear of being too cold, too cruel, in order to do this job, as Martha Jones looked at him, disappointed, one last time. I'm sorry . . . The bitterness of Sutekh. The deadly beauty of Morgaine's eyes. He felt the heat of a molten planet tearing itself apart, and in that, the animal passions telling him to kill . . . In his hand was a rock, and he was raising it to crush a skull. Doctor, you coward—Doctor, you hypocrite. The Master laughed—"Die, Doctor, die!"—the Valeyard laughed, and the Joker laughed.

The Doctor reached up and grabbed Crane by the throat, pushing him against the wall. "You didn't know—" he wrenched out "—that I'm—not—HUMAN—" With a casual rage, the Doctor dashed Crane's head against the wall until the twisted psychologist lost consciousness. The Doctor let him slump on the floor and caught sight of the bubbling mess of Dalek entrails on the floor. He turned slowly to the sound of mocking applause behind him.

The Joker was at the base of the stairs, having taken off his coat and having lain it over the cracked Dalek casing. "Doc, I'm really impressed."

"Don't."

"Wouldn't dream of it," said the Joker. "Just wanted to try Crane's fear toxin on another subject." He pulled up a struggling woman from beneath the wreckage of the table and chairs. The Doctor's eyes widened as he recognized her. The Doctor could feel both of his hearts stopping as the Joker brought his blade up against her cheek. Martha!

"Little princess in a terrible mess . . ." cackled the Joker.