Doctor Who, Special Series; Episode 8: The Predator of the Daleks

A/N NEW: skdlfjslfsj. So I overslept and almost missed my bus and had to deal with family and only got around to posting this at 12pm PST. Then I get a message from a friend saying that it didn't actually work. Then I had family things and life and other non-internet activities. ANYWAY, sorry about the delay on this chapter. Hopefully it's fixed now.

A/N: Hello. Just wanted to say that I love you all but love you more when you review. Also, I have a tumblr now, which is a slightly terrifying idea. The link is on my profile at the top.

Thanks to: Paul, Twicked, OhShirleyUJest, FlyingLovegood123, Ptroxsora, Wonderbee31, Dark Dark Angel, DragonRose4, and LilyLunaPotter142

Questions nobody has asked yet but probably really should have: Why was Harry at Hogwarts over Christmas break in this fic when in the books he went to Grimmauld Place?

Answers to the question: Because Tonks swanned off to go travel with the Doctor, the guard rotation on the Hall of Prophecies is slightly different in this fic than it is in canon. In this fic, Kingsley Shacklebolt was on duty that night; while most of the events of that night went as per canon, it was deemed safest to leave Harry at Hogwarts as Kingsley was not a close family/friend.

Things were sort of getting back to normal – whatever normal was for a legendary quasi-immortal alien and a young human with magical powers. The Doctor and Tonks spent the better part of a day in the Time Vortex just drifting and trying to come to grips with what had happened. Trying to deal with his insanity and restore something to their relationship.

The Doctor cast a look across the console room at Tonks. She had settled – not well, per se, but close enough that anyone who wasn't very good at observation wouldn't notice the changes. Of course, he was very good at observation.

Tonks was scared of him. She froze – just for the briefest instant, but long enough for him to notice – every time she looked at him, and whenever they brushed past each other she flinched away. She trusted him, though, which made no sense at all. And she'd had great fun when they went to leave the note for himself, tromping about the woods and almost getting eaten by the Acromantula. But still – she was damaged. And he didn't know how to fix it.

He was damaged, too, he was just better at ignoring it. He had, deny it all he liked, gone completely insane. There had been no more barriers between him and the universe. If Tonks had not spoken up when she had, he would have been lost.

I could have destroyed reality.

He still could, he knew that, but now he was caged. It was a welcome cage, and one whose absence terrified him whenever he got out, but it was still a cage, and he still pushed against it. It was worst right after he put it back up, and best right before it came down, which meant he was restless and pushy and tense and nervous and a thousand other tangled up feelings because he had willingly chained himself up again.

The Doctor never claimed to be simple.

"So, Tonks," he said abruptly, leaning back in the pilot's chair, feet on the console, "where are we off to next?"

She raised an eyebrow. "Aren't you the pilot?"

He shrugged, trying to pretend he hadn't seen her flicker of fear when he spoke. "Yeah, but if there's any place you wanted to go – we'd just have to be careful about my timeline –"

The mobile on the console rang.

"You've got a phone?" Tonks asked.

The Doctor gave her a look. "Course I've got a phone. Why wouldn't anyone have a phone?" Realizing that Tonks was staring at him, he picked up the mobile. "Oh – rude – right." He flipped it open and held it up to his ear. "Hello."

"Doctor. Thank god you decided to answer."

He grinned. "Martha. What's wrong?" Something was wrong, of course something was wrong, she wouldn't have called unless something was wrong.

"Daleks."

His hearts stopped. "Are – are you certain?"

"No, you skinny idiot, I'm making things up. Yes, I'm sure" Clearly, Martha had long since run out of patience.

He forced up a chuckle. "You're channelling Donna."

That got a shaky laugh. "Great. Moving on. We don't know how many. Enough to take out a hundred and ten Aurors and only lose one of their own. That's how we know what we're facing. One of the Aurors contacted Scrimgeour before his death, which meant Kingsley knew, and he told Moody. I wasn't allowed to go to the site, but I've seen the Pensive memories. It's them."

He swallowed. "Why? Why does it have to be them?" he asked quietly. He hated fighting Daleks, hated it worse than any other opponent. They reminded him of the Time War, every time he saw them, but it wasn't just that. It was their hatred, their inability to stop, the need to kill every single one of them in order to "win". How much they reminded him of himself.

"I don't know, Doctor," Martha said, evidently trying to keep him calm. "But come quickly. I'm in London right now."

He nodded, beginning to pull switches. "We're on our way."

With a click, Martha hung up.

"What's up?" Tonks looked at him across the console, curiosity dampening out the fear.

"Here. Catch." The Doctor tossed the mobile across the console. "The – the – the little screen – thing. There's a date and time. Read it to me."

Tonks fumbled for the phone and promptly dropped it on the grating. "Bloody hell."

The Doctor looked up from modifying the coordinates. "It's been strengthened. I need you to read me those –"

Tonks sighed, picking up the phone. "February 9th, 10:57 am."

"Another month?" He shrugged, accepting the loss of time easily. "Alright. February 9th, we'll land at 11:15 am. 1996, I assume?" He pulled another lever and typed in the coordinates. "And then – Daleks."

She hissed in sharply and put the mobile back on the console. "Merlin – Daleks? Still? I thought you blew them all up with Skaro."

The Doctor let out a slight groan, leaning against the console. "So did I," he said tiredly. "And yet – they survive. As do I, I suppose."

"Don't." Tonks looked at him, for the first time without a flash of fear in her eyes. "Don't compare yourself to them. You – you stopped. They never will."

He looked at her, wishing that his naked hope didn't show – hope mixed with the fear that someday he wouldn't stop. "And here we are!" he said, landing the TARDIS.

"Where's 'here'?" Tonks crossed her arms. "What happened to environment checks?"

The Doctor rolled his eyes. "We're in the middle of London. London, England, Earth. What could go wro–" He opened the doors and stopped. "Well, yes, it would have been nice to know that my TARDIS decided to land us in the middle of the Ministry of Magic!" he yelled at the console.

A light flashed apologetically.

"Right, well, too late now." He sighed, stepping out of the TARDIS. "She likes the Department of Mysteries," he explained to Tonks. "Gallifrey only knows why, but she does."

Tonks snorted. "At least we hit London. That's better than a lot of your trips."

The Doctor grinned. Joking was good. Joking meant she was beginning to relax around him. "And –" He checked Time. "Right date, as well. 11:32 am. Not bad for an old rust bucket, eh girl?"

The TARDIS brushed in an amused fashion across his mind.

"Come along, Tonks. TARDIS – power down. Let's not have any fun visitors, shall we?"

Lights flickered out as Tonks left the TARDIS. Not bothering to conceal his surprise, the Doctor grinned. "Where in the Department are we?"

Tonks blinked, surprised – but not afraid. Not afraid was good. "Ah – when we were getting debriefed. On standing guard over the – the –" She waved a hand.

He nodded. "The prophecy. Yeah, I know. What about it?"

"The Headmaster told us a bit about each of the rooms. He said there's one that's kept always locked, that – that contains a force more wonderful and terrible than death, er – than human intelligence, than the forces of nature." She chewed on her bottom lip, thinking.

The Doctor quirked an eyebrow, amused. "You memorized it?"

Tonks blushed. "He – he's a hero. Of course I memorized it."

Grinning, he began to walk away from the TARDIS. "According to Albus, when'd this room come into use?"

She frowned. "Ah – about twelve – no. Thirteen years ago, now."

He chuckled, hands in his pockets. "Albus told you it was a room of love, didn't he?"

Tonks blinked, following him hurriedly. "Love is a better motivator than hate for most spells."

"The room was sealed off because my TARDIS wouldn't let anyone in. The force more wonderful and terrible than death, human intelligence, and the forces of nature was a Type 40 TARDIS." He grinned with pride at his TARDIS, the only one left – the most amazing thing in the world for him.

She laughed, shaking her head. "Only you, Doctor. Shouldn't we be going?"

He made a face at her, making her snort again. Good. "Right-o then. Allons-y, Tonks!"

It turned out that Aurors could Apparate into and out of the Ministry at will. It also turned out that no one bothered removing dead Aurors from the list of people who could Apparate into and out of the Ministry. The Doctor was thrilled with this revelation and spent several minutes expounding to Tonks both how much of a security breach it was and how potentially useful it could be if he ever needed to attack the Ministry before Tonks ran out of patience and grabbed his arm.

Apparation after re-joining his TARDIS was substantially different from Apparation before. Now there were three – Time, himself, and his TARDIS – and they wound around and within each other and he was whole and they were bound together in a way that he hadn't been since the Time War.

And then they landed and it was over.

"Right," the Doctor said, cracking the bones in his neck, brain not yet unscrambled enough to process all of the visual information. "Where are we?"

Tonks pulled her hand away from his quickly – they'd had to hold hands in order to Apparate, but it hadn't meant that the Doctor missed the flash of terror across her face when she held out her hand to him. "You can't imagine how much fun it is to hear you asking the question for once. About two blocks away from Grimmauld Place. Do you – I don't have – damnit."

It took a minute for the Doctor to put this together, but when he did, he beamed. "I've already been."

Tonks noticeably relaxed. "Ah. Well then. It's just down here." Turning, she led the way down one street and over another.

Recognizing the street, the Doctor bounded ahead and pounded on the door of Number 12, Grimmauld Place.

"Did you have caffeine for breakfast today or something?" Tonks grumbled, catching up to him.

He ignored this, smiling brightly when the door opened. "Hello. I'm the Doctor! I'm here about your Dalek problem."

Tonks snorted. "Some days I worry about you."

The tall black man who had answered the door blinked coolly at him. "Tonks," he said, looking around the Doctor. "Good to see you again."

Tonks grinned, almost – but not quite – nudging the Doctor out of the way. The Doctor, immune to such human considerations as personal space, remained right where he was. "Hey, Kingsley. How're things?"

Kingsley – the Doctor took more interest now that he had a name and personality and had even been in the books – sighed. "Lost some friends this morning. We all did, to one degree or another," he said in a low voice that sounded perpetually like it was drawling. He was dressed in red Auror robes that had one sleeve cut off to reveal a white bandage wrapped around one arm.

The Doctor shifted uneasily. "Oh. Right. Sorry about that. It's sort of my fault."

"Stop it," Tonks muttered. "You weren't here. Therefore, it's not your fault. How were you supposed to know that there were still Daleks, let alone that they would come here?"

He shot her a glare, but ignored the comment. "Where's Martha?"

Kingsley looked at Tonks and then at the Doctor. "You should come in. Alastor and Albus are already here."

The Doctor grinned. "Brilliant!"

They made it all of two steps into the hallway before another man stepped into the way. "Doctor."

He froze, straightening and throwing the edges of his long-coat back. "Corsair."

The Corsair let shaggy black hair fall into his eyes. "You have some nerve showing up here."

The Doctor shoved his hands in his pockets. "I was invited," he said casually. "Unless, of course, you can handle the Daleks all on your own. In which case, I'd be perfectly happy to leave again."

Black eyes bore into his before flicking down, conceding the point. "I don't want you to come back to my house."

"I'd be thrilled not to," the Doctor snapped. He wasn't doing well with the presence of another Time Lord so close physically, yet so far away emotionally. He couldn't reach out, couldn't make a move to welcome, couldn't do any of the things that culture and genetics said he had to do to greet another of his kind.

The Corsair gave a short, tense nod; he had to be feeling the same as the Doctor. Suddenly, his eyes flicked over to Tonks. "Don't hurt my cousin."

Both he and Tonks tensed at the implications, but only the Doctor moved. Taking a step forward, he met the Corsair's eyes, dangerous and with a slight edge of Oncoming Storm. "Since when have you claimed any relationship with apes?"

The Corsair hissed a breath in, frowning. "Here-now, I am human,"he whispered in annoyed Gallifreyan.

The Doctor tried not to let this affect him, the sound of his language after so many years. "You haven't told them?" He responded in kind, the fluid musical syllables coming easily off his tongue.

"Why would I? This way, they don't question me. I can hide until you and your boyfriend,"the word was suddenly, abruptly English, "leave and go home. I don't need to get involved in your masochistic mating ritual."

Ignoring the Corsair's assessment of his relationship with the Master, the Doctor jerked his chin up. "If you haven't told them that you're a danger, you can't worry about me being a danger to one human."

The Corsair tensed. "One human that I have grown to care for," he admitted slowly.

"Hypocrite," the Doctor spat. "You are a target for the Master. You put them in danger by being here."

"Not as much as you do."

He flinched, unable to hide how much that hurt. "I will not hurt Tonks," he said slowly, using a variant verb form that allowed him to make it clear that he would no longer hurt Tonks but said nothing about the past.

The Corsair picked up on it. Face telegraphing his anger, he stepped toward Tonks. "What did he do to you? What did that timeline-destroyer do to you?"

Tonks couldn't have understood the Gallifreyan insult, but she certainly knew the tone of voice. "I trust the Doctor. I trust him with my life."

"Does she know that's the choice she's making?"the Corsair spat.

The Doctor grinned viciously. "Don't insult my companion's intelligence. Of course she knows. She's known since the beginning."

"What language is that?" Kingsley asked finally.

The Doctor was impressed that it took him that long to ask. "Mongolian," he lied blandly.

Kingsley's look said he didn't quite believe this, but he didn't question. "Come on, you two. Sirius, quit picking fights, even if it is in a strange language."