"We've got incoming!" Jack yelled as we flew toward the Dalek ship. "The extrapolator's working. We've got a fully functional force field. Try saying that when you're drunk."
"And for my next trick..." The Doctor pulled down the lever and we landed. Rose appeared, and with a Dalek behind her.
"Rose, get down!" I yelled.
"Exterminate."
Jack used his gun to destroy the Dalek.
"You did it." Rose said and I ran up to hug her the Doctor came up behind me and hugged the two of us, "Feels like I haven't seen you guys in years."
"Told you I'd come and get you." The Doctor replied, pulling away.
"I never doubted it."
"I did. Are you alright?" He asked.
"Yeah. You?" Rose replied.
"Not bad. Been better." The Doctor answered.
"Don't I get a hug?" Jack asked.
"Aw, come here." Rose responded, going up to hug him.
"I was talking to him." Jack joked before they hugged. "Welcome home."
"Oh! I thought I'd never see you again."
"Oh, you were lucky. I was just a one-shot wonder. Drained the gun of all its power supply. Now it's just a piece of junk." Jack said.
"You said they were extinct. How come they're still alive?" I asked the Doctor.
"One minute, they're the greatest threat in the universe. The next minute, they vanished out of time and space." Jack replied.
"They went off to fight a bigger war. The Time War." The Doctor said.
"I thought that was just a legend." Jack replied.
"I was there. The war between the Daleks and the Time Lords, with the whole of creation at stake. My people were destroyed, but they took the Daleks with them. I almost thought it was worth it. Now it turns out they died for nothing." The Doctor finished.
"There's thousands of them now. We could hardly stop one. What are we gonna do?" Rose questioned.
"No good stood 'round here chin-wagging. Human race, you'd gossip all day. The Daleks have got the answers. Let's go and meet the neighbors." He answered before walking towards the door.
"You can't go out there!"
I followed the Doctor and saw seven Daleks, all screaming exterminate and trying to hit us with they're laser, but they were stopped by the force field.
"Is that it? Useless! Null points." He said in a french accent before turning to Rose and Jack, who were still in the TARDIS, "It's all right. Come on out. That force field can hold back anything."
"Almost anything." Jack corrected.
"Yes, but I wasn't gonna tell them that, thanks." The Doctor replied.
"Sorry."
"Do you know what they call me in the ancient legends of the Dalek home world? 'The Oncoming Storm'. You might have removed all your emotions, but I reckon, right down deep in your DNA, there's one little spark left... and that's fear. Doesn't it just burn when you face me? So, tell me, how did you survive the Time War?"
"They survived through me." A deep voice answered, and we turned around and saw a giant Dalek.
"Zoey, Rose, Captain, this is the Emperor of the Daleks." The Doctor said.
"You destroyed us, Doctor. The Dalek race died in your inferno, but my ship survived, falling through time, crippled, but alive." The Emperor stated.
"I get it."
"Don not interrupt!" All of the Daleks screamed around us.
"I think you're forgetting something. I'm the Doctor, and if there's one thing I can do, it's talk. I've got five billion languages, and you haven't got one way of stopping me. So if anybody's gonna shut up, it's you!" The Doctor yelled at the Daleks behind us and the backed up. "Okey-doke. So, where were we?"
"We waited here, in the dark space, damaged, but rebuilding." The Emperor continued.
How can the build anything? All they have is a plunger and a whisk.
"Centuries passed, and we quietly infiltrated the systems of Earth, harvesting the waste of humanity. The prisoners, the refugees, the dispossessed, they all came to us. The bodies were fileted, pulped, sifted. The seed of the human race is perverted. Only one cell in a billion was fit to be nurtured."
"So you created an army of Daleks out of the dead." The Doctor said.
"That makes them half-human." I replied.
"Those words are blasphemy!" The Emperor yelled at me.
"Do not blaspheme!" The other Daleks yelled.
"Everything human has been purged. I cultivated pure and blessed Dalek."
The Doctor turned back to the Emperor, "Since when did the Daleks have a concept of blasphemy?"
"I reached into the dirt and made new life. I am the God of all Daleks!" The Emperor replied.
"Worship him!" The other Daleks yelled at once.
"They're insane." The Doctor stated. "Hiding in silence for hundreds of years. That's enough to make anyone mad. But it's worse than that. Driven mad by your own flesh... the stink of humanity. Oh. You hate your own existence. And that makes them more deadly than ever. We're going."
Rose and Jack went to the TARDIS and I grabbed the Doctor's hand, "You may not leave my presence!"
"Stay where you are!"
The Doctor led me over to the TARDIS and we got inside as the Daleks shot at us and shouted 'Exterminate!' The Doctor leaned his head on the door and I put my hand on his shoulder, "Are you alright?"
"I'm fine." He answered before going over to the console and we went back to the space station.
"Turn everything up." The Doctor ordered as we left the ship, "All transmitters, full power, wide open, now. Do it!"
"What does this do?" The man asked.
"Stops the Daleks from transmitting on board. How did you get on? Did you contact Earth?" He questioned.
"Well, we tried to warn them, but all they did was suspend our license because we stopped the programs." The man answered.
"Then the planet's just sitting there, defenseless." The Doctor said before he looked over at Lynda, "Lynda, what are you still doing on board?" He turned to the man again," I told you to evacuate everyone."
"She wouldn't go."
"Didn't want to leave you." Lynda said.
"They're weren't enough shuttles anyway, or I wouldn't be here." The woman said, "We've got about a hundred people stranded on floor zero."
"Oh, my god. The fleet is moving. They're on their way."
The Doctor ran and took panels out and started taking wires out, "The Dalek Plane, big mistake. Because what they have left me with? Anyone? Anyone? Oh, come on, it's obvious. A great big transmitter, this station. If I can change the signal, fold it back, sequence it, anyone?"
"You've got to be kidding." Jack said.
"Give the man a medal!"
"A delta wave?" Jack questioned.
"A delta wave!" The Doctor exclaimed.
"What's a delta wave?" Rose and I asked at the same timed.
"A wave of van cassadyne energy. It fries your brain." Jack answered. "Stand in the way of a delta wave, and your head gets barbecued."
"And this place can transmit a massive wave, wipe out the Daleks!" The Doctor said.
"Well, get started and do it, then." Lynda said from behind Rose and I.
"Trouble is, wave this size, building this big, brain as clever as mine, should take about, ohh, three days?" The Doctor replied. "How long till the fleet arrive?"
"22 minutes."
The Doctor reached into the panel and pulled out the rest of the wires before smiling at us. As Jack spoke to everyone else, I helped the Doctor by stripping the wires. Rose started helping me and the others left the room except for Lynda and Jack.
"I just want to say, um, thanks, I suppose." Lynda told the Doctor. "And... I'll do my best."
"Me too." The Doctor replied.
They shook hands before Lynda left, Rose glaring at her the whole way out the door, and Jack walked up to us, "It's been fun. But I guess this is goodbye."
"Don't talk like that." I told him.
"The Doctor's going to do it. You just watch him." Rose added.
Jack smiled sadly at us before kissing the both of us and turning to the Doctor, "Wish I'd never met you, Doctor. I was much better off as a coward."
Jack also kissed the Doctor, "See you in Hell." He said before leaving.
"He's going to be all right." I said and the Doctor looked at me, "Isn't he?"
The three of us sat in the room, quiet, stripping the wires.
"Suppose..." Rose began,
"What?" The Doctor asked.
"Nothing."
"You said 'suppose'." The Doctor said.
"No, I was just thinking. I mean, obviously, you can't, but you got a time machine. Why can't you just go back to last week and warn them?" Rose asked.
"Soon as the TARDIS lands in that second, I become part of events, stuck in the timeline." The Doctor answered.
"Yeah, thought it would be something like that." Rose replied.
"There's another thing the TARDIS can do." The Doctor said, "It could take us away. We could leave, let history take its course. We could go to Marbella in 1989."
"Yeah, but you'd never do that." I replied.
"No, but you could ask." The Doctor responded. "Never even occurred to you, did it?"
"Well, I'm just too good." I smiled at him and he smiled back before there was a whooshing noise.
"The delta wave's started building. How long does it need?" The Doctor asked before the three of us got up and went toward the computer.
He pressed a few buttons before looking down, like he was defeated.
"Is that bad?" Rose asked.
"Yes." I answered for him.
"How bad is it?" Rose questioned.
The Doctor then popped up and face Rose, "Rose Tyler, you're a genius!" He kissed her head and I looked at the ground, "We can do it! If I can use TARDIS to cross my own timeline. Yes!"
The three of us ran to the TARDIS and went inside.
"Hold that down and keep position." The Doctor told Rose.
"What's it do?" Rose asked.
"Cancels the buffers." He answered, and ran over to me, "Zoey, pull down that lever when I say so."
I put my hand on the lever as he spoke, "If I'm very clever and I'm more than clever, I'm brilliant, I might just save the world, or rip it apart."
"I'd go for the first one." I commented.
"Me too. Now, I've just got to go and power up the game station. Hold on." The Doctor told us before running out, "Now, Zoey!"
I pulled the lever and the TARDIS started to move, "No." I whispered.
"Doctor, what are you doing?! Can I take my hand off? It's moving!" Rose ran to the door and pounded on it, "Doctor, let me out! Let me out! Doctor, what have you done?"
"He's saving us." I said and Rose ignored me.
A holographic image of the Doctor appeared and I stared at it, "This is emergency program 1. Zoey, Rose, listen, this is important. If this message is activated, then it can only mean one thing. We must be in danger."
"When aren't we?" I commented.
"And I mean fatal. I'm dead, or about to die any second, with no chance of escape." The hologram said, "And that's okay. Hope it's a good death. But I promised to look after the both of you, and that's what I'm doing. The TARDIS is taking both of you home."
"I won't let you." Rose replied as she went to the console.
"And I bet that you, Rose, you're fussing and moaning now, typical. But hold on and just listen a bit more. The TARDIS can never return for me. Emergency program 1 means I'm facing an enemy that should never get their hands on this machine. So this is what the both of you should do. Let the TARDIS die. Just let this old box gather dust. No one can open it. No one will even notice it. Let it become a strange little thing standing on a street corner. And over the years, the world will move on, and the box will be buried. And if you want to remember me, then you two can do one thing. That's all. One thing." THe hologram turned and looked at me straight in the eyes, "Have a good life. Do that for me, Zoey, Rose. Have a fantastic life."
Tears now fell down my face and I slid to the ground. He was gone. Really gone.
"You can't do this to me. You can't." Rose said and she started pressing buttons on the console. "Take me back! Take me back!"
The TARDIS landed and Rose ran out. She ran back in, "Come on, fly. How do you fly?" Rose turned to me, "Don't just sit there! Help me!"
I watched as she pulled random levers and buttons before walking outside. I finally stood up and started walking down the corridor and to his bedroom. I sat down on his bed and looked around. He hardly slept. And when he did it was only for a few hours.
I eventually left the TARDIS and locked it behind me. I went to the park and sat down on a bench. I ran my hand through my hair and sighed. What am I supposed to do now without him? Go to work? Watch the telly? Fall in love and start a family?
But I can't do that. Because I realized something a long time ago.
I am in love with the Doctor.
I sighed and stood up.
I looked at the ground and then noticed something written in chalk on the pavement.
Bad Wolf.
"Oh, my god." I walked over to the words, my arm stinging, but I ignored it.
And on the brick walls across the yard were the words again. Again and again and again.
"It's a message." I said to myself. "Throughout the universe, these words follow me. The past, present, and future. It's a link, isn't it? Bad Wolf on the station 200,000 years in the future, and now."
This couldn't be it. He couldn't die, could he? One night, when I couldn't sleep, he found me in the library and told me about his race. Time Lords regenerate. When they're dying, their cells change and he becomes different. That means he's stuck on the station.
I ran back to the TARDIS and to the console and to the panel that opened up a few weeks ago when Margaret the Slitheen tried to kill me and tear the ship apart. The bright light was the heart of the TARDIS, that light could bring me back, couldn't it? I mean, the TARDIS is telepathic. She can listen to my head.
There had to be a button to open it, and I walked slowly around the console, looking for the right button, or lever, or switch to do it.
"Come on. Where is it?" I asked as I walked around again.
Tears fell and I stroked the railing, "Come on, girl. I need to get back to him. Please, I'm begging you."
The panel opened and light poured out. The door slammed shut and I walked over to the light. As it swarmed around me I heard pounding on the door before it was blocked out with a voice singing.
"Bring me back." I whispered.
That TARDIS arrived and the doors opened before me and I saw the Doctor and Daleks surrounding the room. The light escaped through the doors and I stepped out and the Doctor fell on the ground.
"What've you done?" He asked me, terrified.
"I looked into the TARDIS... and the TARDIS looked into me." I answered.
"You looked into the time vortex. Zoey, no one's meant to see that." The Doctor told me.
'This is the abomination!" The Dalek Emperor said from the screen.
"Exterminate!" One of the Daleks in the room said before trying to shoot me.
I raised my hand and stopped the laser, "I am the Bad Wolf. I create myself." I looked at the sign in the room, "I take the words. I scatter them in time and space, even onto my own skin." I lifted my sleeve to show the scar that was shining gold, "A message to lead myself here."
"Zoey, you've got to stop this. You've got to stop this now." The Doctor said, "You've got the entire vortex running through your head. You're gonna burn."
I looked down at him, "I want you safe. My Doctor... protected from the false God."
"You cannot hurt me." The emperor stated. "I am immortal."
"You are tiny." I hissed, "I can see the whole of time and space, every single atom of your existence, and I divide them." I raised my hand again and the Dalek that tried to exterminate me dissolved into atoms, "Everything must come to dust. All things. Everything dies." The other Daleks dissolved, "The Time War ends."
"I will not die." The emperor said as he started to dissolve. "I cannot die!"
"Zoey, you've done it. Now stop. Just let go." The Doctor said.
"How can I let go of this?" I asked, "I bring life."
"But this is wrong!" The Doctor exclaimed and I lowered my hands, "You can't control life and death!"
"But I can." I told him, "The sun and the moon, the day and night. But why did they hurt?"
"The power's going to kill you, and it's my fault!"
"I can see everything. All that is... all that was... all that ever could be." I said.
The Doctor stood up and walked in front of me, "That's what I see, all the time. And doesn't it drive you mad?"
"My head." I sobbed, "It hurts. It's killing me."
"Come here." The Doctor ordered, "I think you need a Doctor."
He grabbed my face and put his lips to mine and I felt the vortex leave my body. I felt light-headed and grabbed his jacket so I wouldn't fall. The Doctor wrapped his arms around me and lowered me to the ground. I sat there and watched him face the TARDIS and the vortex flew from his mouth and back through the doors. The light then disappeared and he turned back to me.
He picked me up and I laid my head on his shoulder, "I'm so sorry."
"It's alright. You did save the world from a Dalek fleet." The Doctor replied.
The Doctor walked us back inside the TARDIS and sat me in the Captain's chair before going back over to the console and closing the panel, "Where's Rose?"
"With Jackie and Mickey." I answered as I leaned back. "She's probably mad at me. I did leave without her."
"We'll pick her up." He said, "But first I'm going to take you to so many places. How about Barcelona? Not the city Barcelona, the planet Barcelona. You'd love it. Fantastic place, they've got dogs with no noses. Ha ha!" The Doctor laughed and I smiled up at him, "Imagine how many times a day you end up telling that joke and it's still funny."
"Then let's go." I stood up.
"Well, maybe you will, and maybe I will, but not like this." The Doctor said.
"You're not making any sense." I replied.
"I might not make sense again." The Doctor responded. "I might have two heads. Or no head. Ha! Imagine me with no head. And don't say that's an improvement."
I had a feeling I knew what he was talking about, but I don't want it to be true.
"It's a bit dodgy, this process. You never know what you're going to end up with." He shot away from the console and doubled over, a golden light covering his body before disappearing.
"Doctor!" I exclaimed, running over to him and helping him stand up straight.
"You should really stay away." The Doctor said but I ignored his warning.
"It's all my fault isn't it?" I asked. "I'm the reason you're regenerating. If I wasn't so stupid-"
"It wasn't your fault. It was either you die or I regenerate. So I absorbed the vortex from you. No one's meant to do that. You know the process, Zoey. I'm not going to see you again... not like this, not with this daft old face." The Doctor replied.
"I love daft old face." I said and he smiled at me.
"Before I go-"
"You're not going anywhere." I told him.
"Zoey. Before I go, I just want to tell you, you were fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. And do you now what? So was I." The Doctor said.
"Yes, you were." I replied before grabbing his face in my hands and kissing him.
He kissed me back for only a moment before he pushed me away and a golden light bursted from his head and hands. When it was gone he looked at me.
The Doctor was different. He was thinner, about an inch or so taller, brown eyes instead of blue, and longer hair that I wanted to run my hands through.
"Hello. Okay, ooh." He furrowed his eyebrows, "New teeth. That's weird. So, where was I? Oh, that's right. Barcelona."