Chapter 12

"Daleks," Rose breathed in shock. "How can there be Daleks? The Doctor destroyed them all. That's why he was sent here." She ran to the monitor to confirm her nightmare was real. She counted at least six bronze Daleks just outside the TARDIS doors. Their blue glowing eyestalks and whisk-like lasers were all aimed at the TARDIS.

"K9, do we have...oh, what was it called?" Rose's brain was slightly scrambled from panic. "Extrapolator shielding?"

"Negative, mistress."

Rose's heart sank. She had little with which to fight the Daleks and no way to keep them out of the TARDIS. "If we survive this, put that on the Doctor's to-do list," she told the robot dog.

"Affirmative," he chirped.

"I need you to try to contact Torchwood. Or Jack Harkness. Tell them where we are." She took a deep breath and strode down the ramp to open the door and face the Doctor's worst enemy. Stepping out of the TARDIS, she let the door swing closed behind her, shielding K9 from view. She could only hope he could find a way to bring help.

"The female is human," one of the Daleks screeched, antenna-like lights blinking in time with its speech. "Only Time Lords can pilot a TARDIS. Explain!"

Rose somehow managed to shrug nonchalantly despite her inner terror. "I guess I'm just special."

"Humans are inferior beings," another Dalek proclaimed. "You will be exterminated."

"Yeah, well if I'm so inferior, how is it that I destroyed your crazy emperor? I obliterated the Dalek fleet at Satellite Five."

The Daleks seemed taken aback, as much as metal-encased aliens could be. "Identify yourself."

"Hello, I'm Rose Tyler," she said with a wave, doing her best impression of the Doctor. "But you might remember me as the Bad Wolf." The Daleks' eye pieces began waving around, which Rose took as a sign of confusion. "What I wanna know is why you kidnapped my fiancé, the man who destroyed your entire race. Of course, since you're here at all, I'm guessing you weren't there at the Medusa Cascade. Did you lot run away and hide?"

"Daleks do not run away," another one grated angrily, or so Rose thought. They always sounded like they were angry.

"Then how are you here?"

"The Void portal opened by inferior Cybermen."

Rose suddenly understood. "The two-way breach. When Torchwood allowed the Cybermen through to my world, the Daleks came, too. But not all of you. You didn't come on the Void ship, so you must've traced the Cybermen back to this world to what, hide out for five years?"

"We came through the Void without protection. A new ship had to be built. We will bring the Genesis Ark to this universe and create a new Dalek empire."

Though she didn't comment on it, it didn't escape Rose's notice that it seemed they had just the one ship. It was the best piece of news she'd gotten since the Doctor disappeared. As dangerous as even a single Dalek was, she was grateful they weren't facing an entire armada.

"Put her with the other time traveler," the first Dalek ordered. "We will extract the artron energy."

The Dalek nearest Rose began waving its laser at her and Rose put her hands up. "You will follow," it ordered. She dutifully trailed the Dalek through the narrow corridor of the ship—it seemed much smaller than the other Dalek ships she had seen during her travels with the Doctor. The interior was mismatched, like the parts had been scavenged from a multitude of other ships.

Eventually the Dalek led her to a large dark door that slid open. "Inside," it screeched. She stepped in and watched the door slide shut in front of her face.

"Rose?"

She turned and launched herself at the Doctor, her real, part-human Doctor, wrapping her arms tightly around his neck. "I was so worried."

The Doctor pulled back to see her face, almost disbelieving she was actually there. "How did you get here? Were you caught in the transmat?"

Rose shook her head. "I came in the TARDIS."

"But how?" He looked into her eyes and noticed gold swirling amidst the brown. "No," he breathed, stepping back and tangling his fingers in his already mussed hair. "No, no, no. Rose, how could you? It will kill you and there's nothing I can do to stop it."

"I had to, and I feel okay, I swear. She only gave me a small fraction of the Time Vortex this time. But Doctor, we have to get out of here."

He shushed her with a finger on her lips. "The Daleks don't know who I am. They think I'm just a time-travelling human. Must be the single heart that fooled them."

"They said something about artron energy. That's the stuff from travelling in time, right?"

"Background radiation. Harmless mostly," the Doctor commented absently as he thought. "If the Daleks are trying to scavenge artron energy, that means they're desperate for power. This ship likely isn't capable of time travel."

"That's good, right?"

"It limits just how much damage they're capable of." He sighed. "Every time I think they're gone for good, they keep coming back."

"They came through the Void. They said something about bringing the Genesis Ark here. I think they want to reopen the breach."

The Doctor shook his head. "They can't—the breach is sealed. Unless…" he trailed off and rubbed his hand on the back of his neck.

"Unless what?"

"Unless they go back to before we sealed it."

Rose frowned for a moment as she thought it through. "You think the Daleks were the ones manipulating this universe's Torchwood?"

"I do." The Doctor looked at Rose again, and a funny little half smile crossed his face. "You're in your wedding dress," he said as if he'd just noticed.

She looked down at her dress, nearly having forgotten about it herself with all the chaos. Other than a little dirt on the hem, it didn't seem any worse for wear. "I was supposed to be getting married today," she said wistfully.

The Doctor's expression was pained. "I did tell you I was rubbish at weddings, right?"

Rose gave a short laugh. "Of all the things I thought could go wrong today, getting abducted by Daleks didn't even make the list. So how do we get out of here?"

"The door is deadlock sealed. I can't open it." He pulled his sonic screwdriver from inside his grey coat. "This might as well be useless at the moment."

"Well, the Daleks have only locked us up—together, at that. They must not think we're much of a threat. We've come out of similar scrapes all right before."

The Doctor looked unusually pessimistic. "Last time Donna and I broke you out."

"There must be something we can do. Something you can build." She looked around their cell, but the room was completely bare.

"Do you have your mobile?"

Rose patted the close-fitting skirt of her gown. "No pockets. All I have is my TARDIS key." That elicited a brief smile from the Doctor.

"May I?"

Rose pulled out the key from under her dress and slipped the silver chain over her head. The Doctor adjusted the setting on the sonic before applying it to the key, which he then handed back to Rose.

"What did you do?"

"Perception filter. If we find a way out of here, it might get you back to the TARDIS unnoticed."

Rose frowned. "You don't sound too confident."

He brushed a strand of Rose's long, windblown hair away from her face. "Every time we've come up against the Daleks, one or both of us have nearly died."

"But we're still here, together," she said, forcing just a little more optimism than she felt.

"Rose, will you do something for me?"

Her eyebrows drew together with concern. "Of course. What?"

"Marry me," he said simply, dark eyes watching her intensely.

"That is what we were about to do, in case you've forgotten. Did you get bumped on the head?" She skimmed her fingers through his hair. "I bet mum's going mad right now wondering where we are."

But the Doctor didn't smile or make a disparaging remark about her mum like she expected.

"I mean right now, right here. In case...well, just in case we don't make it back this time."

Rose started to contradict him but stopped at his serious expression. "All right."

"I know it's not what you wanted, and I'm sorry."

Rose grabbed his hands in hers and looked up into his anxious face. "Don't be daft. All I've ever wanted was you. This party, the fancy clothes...yeah, it's fun, and mum was over the moon about it, but it's not important."

The Doctor brightened and started undoing his tie, pulling it free from around his neck. "This is a bit long, but it'll do." He handed one end to Rose and held on to the other hand. "Wrap it around your hand like this until we meet in the middle."

Rose did as instructed, wrapping the sapphire blue silk around her right hand until she met the Doctor's left. "What now?"

"Normally there's a bit about families consenting to the union, but in light of our present circumstances, we'll have to skip that. This is the very, very short version. Rose Marion Tyler, I'm going to tell you something few people in any universe know, and it's not something you can ever share."

Rose looked at him questioningly but nodded. He reached out his right hand towards her temple, and she felt the warm presence of his mind meet hers. Instinctively, she closed her eyes and saw brilliant, swirling shapes that coalesced into writing, but it wasn't a language Rose recognised.

"Old High Gallifreyan," she heard the Doctor's voice in her head. Suddenly, the words became clear as if they were any other language being translated by the TARDIS.

"That's your name. Your actual given name," Rose said aloud as she silently tried to sound out the foreign words. She felt the Doctor withdraw from her mind, but something felt different, like the tiniest bit of his consciousness remained. She opened her eyes. "How come you've never told me?" she asked softly.

"I couldn't. Until now." He tugged gently on their bound hands to pull her closer and wrapped his free arm around Rose's back. He lowered his head and pressed his lips to hers. Rose responded, going up on her toes in her satin flats to get closer to him. She ran her unbound left hand up his back and through his hair. Through their bond, she could feel a glowing happiness cut through some of the Doctor's worry. The emotion wrapped around her like a warm embrace as she relaxed into him.

"You guys are so sweet. You know, most people tend to notice when they're being rescued," an American-accented voice drawled.

Rose and the Doctor broke apart just enough to turn their heads towards the interrupting voice, standing practically cheek to cheek. Jack Harkness stood framed in the now open doorway with a massive laser rifle slung across his torso.

"That perception filter's giving me one hell of a headache," Jack added, pointing to his temple.

"Sorry!" Rose reached for her TARDIS key, but the Doctor stilled her hand.

"No, leave it." Jack watched with interest as the Doctor unwound his tie from Rose's hand and shoved the whole thing in his pocket. "So what's going on here, anyway? You don't usually see both the bride and the groom disappear during the ceremony."

"Daleks," the Doctor said tersely.

"Is that what those tin cans are?"

"The Daleks are among the worst enemies I've ever faced, and yet I seem to face them over and over again. A few of them always escape somehow. But they aren't supposed to be in this universe at all. That's why you don't recognise them."

Rose looked up at the Doctor. "They've been here just as long as I have."

"And in all that time, they haven't gotten far. That's good. That means they're weak, disorganised."

Jack raised his wrist with his vortex manipulator. "I can't jump all three of us back, but we can find the TARDIS and get the hell out of here."

"No," Rose said. She felt the Doctor squeeze her hand. "No, I've seen what the Daleks can do, and we can't just let them stay here. Just one can kill hundreds of people. An entire ship could destroy the Earth."

"So how do we stop them?"

"First, we need to get back to the TARDIS," the Doctor said. He poked his head out into the mercifully clear hallway and then gestured for Rose to lead. Jack kept his laser rifle at the ready. The corridor opened up into a large round room with the TARDIS at the centre, numerous thick cables extending in multiple directions. The blue box was guarded by four Daleks.

The Doctor pulled both Rose and Jack into a small alcove. "You're going to have to make a run for it. I can distract them–"

"Or I can shoot them," Jack countered.

The Doctor shook his head. "You might be able to get one or two of them, but not all four. They'd kill you as soon as look at you."

Rose grabbed the Doctor's arm. "What's to stop them from killing you?"

"Very little, unfortunately. I'm counting on Dalek hubris here. Hubris," the Doctor repeated, savouring the word. "You know, for raging genocidal...things, they do prattle on."

Rose's only reply was a raised eyebrow. Even that was unnecessary, as the Doctor was able to feel exactly what Rose was thinking.

"Now, these Daleks are scavenging for energy, specifically artron energy. They were desperate enough to bring me here for what little clings to me from travelling through the Time Vortex. But they aren't interested in me or Rose anymore. Why? Because they now have enough artron energy at their disposal to bring this ship to full power."

Rose looked horrified. "You mean the TARDIS."

"It's all right," the Doctor said reassuringly. "You couldn't have known. Besides, we're going to defeat the Daleks by giving them what they want."

"I don't follow," Jack told him.

"Unlike the Daleks, the TARDIS was grown in this universe. She's designed to run on the power from this universe's Vortex." When Jack still looked perplexed, the Doctor turned to Rose. "Remember the first time we came to this universe with the old TARDIS and she shut down?"

"Diesel in a petrol engine," Rose replied, remembering the Doctor's analogy.

"Precisely. The old TARDIS needed energy from our home universe, but the new one, well she's brilliant. Even though she was grown from the old TARDIS, she grew up here, on this universe's energy. But the Daleks are from our original universe. They're carefully siphoning energy and converting it so they can use it." He gestured to the large black cables snaking out of the TARDIS.

"Then how do we stop it?" Jack asked.

"You aren't going to stop it. Just the opposite, in fact. You're going to turn their careful trickle of energy into a firehose. It should overload their systems, causing everything to shut down. Or possibly explode."

"What do we do?" Rose asked.

"Prepare the TARDIS for flight but don't set any coordinates. She'll start to draw energy from the Vortex. If that isn't enough, give the helmic regulator a good whack but remember to leave the parking brake on. The TARDIS needs to stay here."

"Can you do all that?" Jack said to Rose.

Rose looked concerned and turned to the Doctor with pleading eyes. "Come with us. I only know what half of the controls are for. I can't fly her."

He gave her a sad smile. "You got here. Bad Wolf is connected to the TARDIS and the Vortex. You can probably get her to start drawing power without pressing a single button."

"But Doctor–"

He silenced her with a finger pressed against her lips. "And if that doesn't work, I'll show you what to do."

He took a step back so he was no longer touching Rose. "Like this," she heard, even though his mouth hadn't moved. She saw a series of images of TARDIS controls, a sequence of instructions to follow. Rose wanted to know how this was possible—she'd always had to be in physical contact with the Doctor to communicate. Before she could even voice the thought, she heard his answer. "Perk of being married to a Time Lord."

"We're gonna talk about this later," Rose demanded in a whisper. She could see Jack trying to smother a laugh.

The Doctor pulled out his own TARDIS key and applied the sonic screwdriver to it before handing it to Jack. "Perception filter. Should help you get past the Daleks once I distract them."

"Thanks." Jack dropped the chain around his neck. "Good luck, Doc."

The Doctor turned back to Rose and tangled a hand in her messy blonde hair. "I love you," he told her as he kissed her hard. Rose wrapped both of her arms around him and clung desperately, not wanting the kiss to end because it would mean he was leaving to face his enemy.

"Come back to me," she whispered when they finally broke apart, not trusting a telepathic message to reach him.

The Doctor didn't respond, unwilling to make a promise he wasn't sure he could keep. He just stepped back, staring at her as if he was trying to memorise everything about her, and then turned away to stride confidently into the room filled with Daleks.