Chapter Thirty-Three: Memories of Another Life

Archie knew calling Regina over to his office with Jack Harkness, River Song, and David present there was a huge risk. Their sessions were meant to be confidential, but with the Doctor now missing from Storybrooke, there was no choice in what had to be done. At the moment Regina had arrived and saw Jack, River, and David there with Archie, his fear became reality in a heartbeat when she immediately turned to him and said, "What the hell is this?"

"It's not an intervention, if that's what you're wondering." Jack jested.

When Regina finally realized that it was Jack Harkness in the room, she blinked rapidly in surprise, believing that she had been seeing things. "Captain Harkness? How did you get back? Have Emma and Mary Margaret returned as well?"

Jack shook his head. "No. A freak accident has both fixed our little problem and made matters more complicated at the same time. The Doctor's vanished from the town. We don't know where he's gone to exactly, but I've been told that you're the one who might be able to tell us."

"Me?" Regina uttered in confusion. "Why on earth would any of you believe I could find the Doctor? Who told you that I could even tell you? Was it Gold?"

Harkness found himself getting frustrated quickly. Seeing that he was and fearing he would lash out at Regina for wasting time, Archie stepped in. "Regina, you mentioned to me that you've had recurring dreams that feel like memories of another life. That other life is the Doctor's, isn't it?"

"Yes," Regina admitted, "but those are just memories from his past, not his present."

"Well, that's a good enough place to start." David said. "Maybe there are clues that can get us in the right direction."

Regina sighed, taking the meaningless plan into consideration. If she wanted to continue convincing Henry that she could change, she had to be willing to help in even the most hopeless of cases such as the one they posed to her. "Fine. I'll do what I can."

Jack looked to River, who then nodded to Archie. "Thank you, Regina," Archie told her. "Now, if you'll just lay here on the couch, River will give you a sedative to…"

"You're going to drug me?" Regina snapped.

"Unless you intend on poisoning yourself to sleep with an apple, we can do it that way." River's sarcasm was the only thing that had pushed Regina into going along with the idea of drugging her to sleep.

She removed her coat and lied down on Archie's couch, rolling up her sleeve to allow River to inject the sedative into her left forearm. After the injection, Regina waited for the drug to kick in. While she waited, she focused on River. Her face scrunched from recollection. "I remember you."

"You remember because the Doctor remembers." River contradicted.

Regina shook her head. "No, no. I remember meeting you before the curse. You…" Her focus on River's grinning face started to fade, meaning that the sedative began to kick in. The area around her began to shift and expand until it was no longer Archie's office but an entirely different room – one that was more alien in nature.

She saw the room fill up with thousands of versions of a creature that she had never seen before but knew about from the Doctor's memories. The creature was known as a Dalek, and it came in a variety of shapes and colors yet maintained the same distinctive design of its race. Their telescope-like eyestalks were directed solely on Regina, who was genuinely terrified of them. One of them had spoken to her – its set of twin speaker "lights" flickering on and off from its dome as a way of communication in reflection of its loud, heavy robotic voice.

"YOU ARE THE DOCTOR!"

"No, I'm not!" Regina cried.

"YOU ARE THE DOCTOR!" Every Dalek in the room screamed altogether.

"My name is Regina! Regina!"

The Daleks fell silent, turning to each other as if they were all confused.

"THE DESIGNATION 'REGINA' DOES NOT REGISTER WITH YOUR DESCRIPTION!" A different Dalek indicated. "YOU MAKE A FEEBLE ATTEMPT IN DECEIVING US, DOCTOR!"

"YOU ARE THE DOCTOR! YOU ARE AN ENEMY OF THE DALEKS! YOU WILL BE EXTERMINATED!"

"EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!"

Regina cried out to the chanting Daleks, but she knew it was useless to make a plea to the metal monsters not to kill her. Soon enough, she found herself staring down at the gunsticks of all the Daleks in the massive room, each and every one aimed directly at her. The chants of "Exterminate!" sounded in sync with each other while the Daleks opened fire on Regina. Thousands of blue beams discharged from the gunsticks and connected with her body. She felt the searing pain of the beams' negative effects, exposing her skeletal structure. The pain was so overwhelming that all Regina could do was scream and watch her body fade into ashes.

Her scream resonated out into the real world while David tried to control her thrashing body. Her eyes snapped open, and she ceased screaming upon discovering that she was still alive and staring at the alarmed faces of Jack, David, River, and Archie. "Regina, it's okay," David told her. "You're alright."

She looked around, seeing that she was back in Archie's office and still lying on the couch. Her face was covered in a mixture of tears and sweat, running her makeup. "Where are they? Where the hell are they?"

Archie stood puzzled from her frantic behavior. "W-Where are who, Regina?"

"The Daleks!"

"You saw the Daleks?" River curiously asked.

"YES!" Regina shouted. "They were everywhere around me! They killed me!" David, Jack, Archie, and River each stared at each other with great interest. Seeing their stares, Regina questioned, "How long was I out?"

"For ten minutes." Jack answered. "You were babbling in some alien language, which River figured out was Gallifreyan."

"Well, what did I say?" Regina asked, looking to River.

All eyes turned to River, who hesitated in translating. "Most of it didn't make much sense. Like Jack said, it was just babbling."

"So, in other words, we wasted ten minutes of our time." Harkness complained.

His words heavily offended Regina. "Your time? No, Captain Harkness, you've wasted ten minutes of my time by mentally torturing me." She pushed David out of her way and shot up from the couch, grabbing her coat on her way out of the office. Jack watched her leave, feeling very disconcerted and lost on what to do.