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Chapter 13
Rose was panicking. Yes, the TARDIS had returned, but it was empty. The Doctor was nowhere to be found. She couldn't understand how this was even possible, unless he did it again. Maybe he sent the ship back, to her this time rather than with her? No, that didn't make sense...
She maneuvered around the center console, pushing random buttons and flipping levers, but to no avail.
"Why isn't it coming on?"
"Rose, calm down," Jack said, in what he hoped was a soothing voice. "What are you trying to do?"
"There has to be some way to trigger it," she muttered. "Come on! I didn't have to do anything last time..."
"What? Tell me and I'll help!"
"The TARDIS voice interface, emergency protocols, some message from the Doctor!" She was growing increasingly frantic.
Jack, unfortunately, was at a complete loss. He wanted to help Rose, but he wasn't sure how. So he busied himself in front of one of the monitors trying to glean recent coordinates.
"Wait! Do you hear that?" Rose asked. There was the ding of an oven timer followed by the great swell of an orchestra. "What in the world...?"
"That sounds like-"
"Carmen? Where is it coming from?"
"Day three-six-three. The terror continues. Also, made another soufflé, very nearly. Check defences. They came again last night. Still always at night. Maybe they're vampires. Oh, and it's my mum's birthday. Happy birthday, mum. I did make you a soufflé, but it was too beautiful to live."
Rose and Jack exchanged a confused look before turning back to the monitor.
Amy and Rory had barely moved as the Doctor took in their precarious surroundings.
"What's he doing?" Rory wondered.
"He's chosen the most defendable area in the room," Amy began. "Counted all the Daleks, counted all the exits, and now he's calculating the exact distance we're standing apart and starting to worry. Oh, and look at him frowning now... Something's wrong with Amy and Rory, and who's going to fix it? And he straightens his bow tie."
Amy's narrative was interrupted by the Dalek announcing that they had arrived.
"Arrived where?" the Doctor asked.
"What do you know of the Dalek Asylum?"
The Doctor chewed on that for a moment, not quite sure how best to proceed. "According to legend, you have a dumping ground. A planet where you lock up all the Daleks that go wrong. The battle-scarred, the insane, the ones even you can't control. It's never made any sense to me."
"Why not?"
"Because you'd just kill them."
"It is offensive to us to extinguish such divine hatred."
"Offensive?"
"Does it surprise you to know the Daleks have a concept of beauty?"
The Doctor couldn't hide the look of disgust that appeared on his face. "I thought you'd run out of ways to make me sick. Hello again. You think hatred is beautiful."
"Perhaps that is why we have never been able to kill you," the Dalek proclaimed.
The Doctor really didn't like the thought of that. Did an entire race really think that he was fueled by hatred? He knew that he had a dark side, but really he considered himself to be a righter-of-wrongs, or an healer as it were. He didn't want to think about the millions of insane or incurable Daleks that were waiting on the planet below. Why should he help his sworn enemy? And what was that noise?
As if in answer to his unspoken question, he heard someone say "This signal is being received from the very heart of the Asylum."
Suddenly the room was transformed with the beauty of Georges Bizet's "Habanera" from his masterpiece Carmen and the Doctor was momentarily transported to the premiere of the opera that he had attended via the orchestra pit back in 1875.
"Doctor," Amy hissed, pulling him back to the present where the Daleks began yelling again.
"What is the noise? Explain. Explain."
"Er, it's me." Rory shot him a confused look, which he ignored. "It's me, playing the triangle. Okay, I got buried in the mix. Carmen. Lovely show. Someone's transmitting this. Have you considered tracking back the signal and talking to them?" He rolled his eyes at their lack of response and decided to try it his way. "Hello? Hello? Carmen?"
"Hello?" a female voice responded.
"Come in. Come in, Carmen."
"Hello! Yes, yes, sorry. Do you read me?" The relief that she felt at being heard was almost palpable.
"There's a signal," Jack said. "Now if I could just get a better lock on it..."
Rose ran over to Jack, but quickly grew frustrated as she had no idea how to help. The Doctor was gone, Rory was essentially kidnapped, and she couldn't get ahold of Amy. She didn't think that the Doctor would have taken them somewhere without her, but with the way he had been acting since the incident… No. If he had, then the TARDIS would not have returned to her.
"Here we go!" Jack said, as the Doctor's voice suddenly surrounded them.
"Yes, reading you loud and clear. Identify yourself and report your status."
"Who is that?"
"The Doctor... New regeneration. Now can you find the source of the signal or not?"
"Oswin Oswald, junior entertainment officer, starship Alaska. Current status, crashed and shipwrecked somewhere not nice. Been here a year, rest of the crew missing. Provisions good but keen to move on."
While Rose tried to place the mysterious Oswin girl, Jack sprang into action. A crashed starship was something he should be able to trace, even if he had to enlist help from his Torchwood team.
"A year? Are you okay? Are you under attack?"
"Some local lifeforms," Oswin replied.
"Do you know what those lifeforms are?"
"I know a Dalek when I hear one, yeah."
Rose snapped to attention. How was that possible? "Jack," she whispered. "Did she just say-"
"What have you been doing on your own against the Daleks for a year?"
"Making soufflés?"
"Soufflés? Against the Daleks? Where'd you get the milk?"
"Or the eggs..." Rose added.
"It's gone," Jack told her. "We lost the signal!"
Tears welled in Rose's eyes as she thought of the Doctor all alone, facing their greatest enemy without her.
The Doctor considered the information he had just gleaned from this Oswin girl. One the one hand, she sounded fine considering her precarious situation. On the other hand, how was she making those soufflés? But then on the other hand, he needed to get her out of there - she was surrounded by insane Daleks. Then again, on the other - no, that was too many hands. "If someone can get in, then those Daleks can get out. Even you don't want that. And yet you haven't just blasted them out of the sky."
"The Asylum forcefield is impenetrable and can only be turned off from within the Asylum."
A small smile of disbelief appeared across the Doctor's face. Was it possible that the Daleks were actually afraid of something? He shook his head, realizing that this was exactly the case. "Not one of you will go, so tell me, what do the Daleks do when they're too scared?"
"The Predator of the Daleks will be deployed."
"You don't have a Predator, and even if you did, why would they turn off a forcefield for you?"
"There is one Predator remaining."
Amy coughed and gave the Doctor a look.
"Me?" he asked, turning to the room at large. "Me?" Furthermore, what did they mean… Oh. The Doctor pondered this realization, not noticing as a wristband was placed on his wrist. He looked down in surprise when someone spoke.
"This will protect you from the nanocloud."
"The what? The nano what?"
"The gravity beam will convey you close to the source of the transmission."
The Doctor blinked. "You're going to fire me at a planet?" This was quite possibly the stupidest thing he had ever heard, and that was saying something. "That's your plan? I get fired at a planet and expected to fix it."
Rory seemed to give the statement some credence. "In fairness, that is slightly your M.O."
"Don't be fair to the Daleks when they're firing me at a planet."
Of course that brought the Ponds back to the forefront of the Doctor's mind. "What do you want with them?"
"It is known the Doctor required companions."
Rory rolled his eyes. "Oh, brilliant. Good oh."
"Don't worry. We'll get through this, I promise. Don't be scared." Rose, I'm so sorry, the Doctor added silently.
Amy had been silent for most of the exchange. She had been craving adventure though, so why not just go with it? "Scared? Who's scared. Geronimo." Besides, there was no time to reconsider or try to reason their way out of the situation. She found herself pushed into a gravity beam with both the Doctor and her (now ex) husband. All heading toward the Dalek planet, and all suddenly heading in three different directions.
"No, get the signal back! There has to be something you can do," Rose pleaded. She couldn't accept that the Doctor was taken - yet again! - by the Daleks. She had saved him before, and she was determined to do it again.
Jack sighed and ran a hand through his hair, growing more frustrated. "Maybe back at the Hub, but the TARDIS won't respond to me."
Rose vaguely remembered John mentioning something to that effect as well. Ever since she had saved Jack, the ship seemed to want to avoid him as much as possible. But she knew that wasn't always the case... The TARDIS had allowed him to come on board and to boost the original signal. Maybe the ship knew something though.
"Okay, yeah. You go, see what you can do."
"But what about you?"
She shook her head. "What if he comes back or something else happens?"
"Rose, what if the Daleks come for you?"
"They can't have done. They don't know I'm here." And then from out of the blue Rose was struck with an idea of what to do. She had no idea why, but she felt compelled to carry out this new plan. "Jack, have you got a car?"
Amy landed with a thud on the wet snow under a brilliant blue sky. She rubbed her neck as she rose, taking in her surroundings. She grew increasingly concerned as all she saw was the blindingly white snow; there was no sign of the Doctor or Rory, nor any response when she called for them.
A moment later though, she heard footsteps. Her hopes high, she was once again deflated as a stranger came running up to her. ""Who are you? Are you okay?" the strange man asked. "I'm Harvey." Not even thinking about it, Amy ran from him. "Where are you going?" he shouted after her.
The Doctor could hear Amy shouting in the distance, and sat up. As he looked around the landscape, he noticed a series of eyepieces popping up and down from under the snow, as if examining him. He started laughing as he heard Carmen once again.
"Sorry! Sorry, pressed the wrong switch."
"Soufflé girl?"
"You can always call me Oswin, seeing as that's my name. You okay?"
"How are you doing that, eh? This is Dalek technology."
"It's very easy to hack."
"No, it isn't. Where are you?"
"The ship broke up when it hit. Somewhere underground, I think. You coming to get me?"
"Doctor!" Amy called again, relieved to finally find him.
"Hey!" he responded, before turning back to the eyepiece. "Oi! Soufflé girl! Come back!" He shook his head and focused on Amy. "Amy! Hey, where's Rory?"
Harvey came running up behind Amy, grateful to find another new arrival and hoping that this meant he would get to go home soon. "There was another beam. There. Over there," he told them, leading the way to a deep shaft that had been drilled through layers of snow and rock. "We came down two days ago. There's twelve of our escape pods. I don't know what happened to them."
"Alaska?" Amy asked. "That's the same ship as soufflé girl."
"Yeah. Except she's been here a year," the Doctor whispered.
Harvey led the two into the escape pod with the intention of getting them rope so they could reach Rory. What no-one had anticipated though was that the crew he had expected to find had long since been dead. There was certainly something about this planet that messed with Harvey's mind. Now the Doctor just had to figure out what was going on.
"They're dead. All of them," the Doctor said.
"That's not possible. I just spoke to them. Two hours ago. We were doing engine repairs."
"You're sure about that, are you? Because I'd say they've all been dead for a very long time."
"They didn't get in this state in two hours," Amy added.
"No, of course. Stupid me. I died outside, and the cold preserved my body. I forgot about dying," Harvey breathed, before a Dalek eyepiece appeared in his forehead.
"Amy, the door!"
Working together, they managed to lock Harvey away. For the moment at least.
"Explain, Amy commanded. "That's what you're good at. How'd he get all Daleked?"
"Because he wasn't wearing one of these. Oh, ho, ho. That's clever." The Doctor shook his head in reluctant admiration. "The nanocloud. Microorganisms that automatically process any organic matter, living or dead, into a Dalek puppet. Anything attacks this place, it automatically becomes part of the on-site security. These wristbands protect us. The only thing stopping us going exactly the way he did-"
"Doctor, shut up! Living or dead?"
"Yes, exactly. Living or, or... Dead. Oh dear."
The Doctor and Amy searched frantically for a quick escape - the dead crew had come to "life," revitalized by the nanocloud. They scrambled through a nearby door entering the escape pod's cockpit, and the Doctor sealed the door.
"Is it bad that I've really missed this?" Amy grinned.
"Yes."
"Good."
"I know."
"Unauthorized personnel may not enter the cockpit."
"Shut up," the Doctor muttered.
"Oh, Mister Grumpy. Bad combo. No sense of humor in that chin."
"Is that her again, soufflé girl?"
"Yeah, she. Oi, what is wrong with my chin?"
"Careful, dear. You'll put someone's eye out. Scanning you. You're in another of the escape pods from the Alaska, right? Same ship I was on."
"How can you hack into everything? It should be impossible. You're in a crashed ship!"
"Long story. Is there a word for total screaming genius that sounds modest and a tiny bit sexy?"
"Doctor. You call me the Doctor." Amy hit his shoulder.
"See what you did there. the floor. I'm picking up a breach at floor level. There could be a way out. See you later."
Both Amy and the Doctor struggled to get the floor hatch open, but it appeared to be blocked off by whoever had used it before. "The lower part of the pod is buried, so this must go straight down to the Asylum," he said.
"Where Rory is."
"Speaking of Rory, is there anything you want to tell me?"
"Are we going to do this now?"
"What happened?"
"Oh, stuff. You know. We split up. What can you do?"
"What can I do?" He wanted nothing more than to help his friends find their way back to each other.
"Nothing. It's not one of those things you can fix like you fix your bowtie. Don't give me those big wet eyes, Raggedy Man. It's life. Just life. That thing that goes on when you're not there."
That was something the Doctor knew all too well and yet refused to accept. It was why he hated goodbyes. Life would continue on for his companions, his friends, but not always turn out the way he had hoped. He had to hold out hope though - after all, look at Rose. He had gotten her back, against all of the odds in (and out of) the universe. Now if only he could find his way back to her...
Amy was about to head down through the hatch when the crew made another appearance, this time through the bulkhead camera. "What've they got?" she wondered.
The Doctor raised his head and moved in for a closer look. "One of these. The wristband. But where did they get it?"
"Doctor, they got it from me."
"Oh, Amy."
"Doctor, what's going to happen to me? Seriously. Tell me what."
This was most definitely, without a doubt, very not good. And the Doctor was left with a fleeting thought, the ghost of a memory, the first time he kissed Rose.
A/N: As always, thanks for the follows/favorites/reviews! It means a lot, and I really do appreciate them. Please keep 'em coming, the feedback is very encouraging!