"Who are you?" A man asked as soon as we materialized on the other side of the teleport. The Doctor stepped in front of Mark and I so that he was standing between us and the man, which is when I realized that he was holding a gun as was the small collection of other people behind him.
"I'm the Doctor and I don't like guns," the Doctor said fiercely. The man raised an eyebrow up at him over the barrel of the gun. I put my hand on the Doctor's shoulder and leaned around him carefully so that the man could see Mark. The gun clattered to the floor immediately and I heard someone shout in surprise.
"Markus," the man breathed, and Mark blinked at him in surprise.
"You're my dad," Mark said, and I placed him on the floor slowly. The man dropped to his knees in front of Mark and nodded with tears in his eyes.
"Yes, I am. And your mother is on her way." He reached a hand out slowly and Mark threw his arms around his Dad's neck.
"How did you know?" The Doctor asked as Mark's Dad hugged him back desperately. I smiled and tapped my nose.
"If you're asking about the name it's wild coincidence. If you're asking about the family relationship; They have the same nose and cheekbones," I said, and the Doctor chuckled lightly.
"Even with a perception filter you saw all that," he said.
"Mom is stuck with the Daleks," Mark said, and his dad pulled away from the hug slightly.
"Yes, but she's going to borrow someone." I waited for my limbs to go funny again, but instead a lovely red head came racing up to us.
"Markus," she cried and threw her arms around him as well, holding him tightly for several minutes before she pulled away. "I know I look different than your visions. I'm sorry." Mark reached up and touched her face gently.
"It's alright," Mark said, and she smiled at him before looking up at us.
"Thank you for rescuing him. The Daleks had discovered the location of where we hid him," she said. The Doctor inclined his head to her.
"Are you the one who summoned us?" I asked, and she nodded.
"Yes. I heard the Daleks refer to The Oncoming Storm and hoped you would offer us aid," she said, and the Doctor nodded.
"Of course. When did the Daleks get here?" He asked, and Mark's dad looked up. I made a mental note to ask for everyone's names after the Doctor had gotten a few questions answered because I was pretty sure that he was going to explode if he didn't get some soon.
"About four years ago. They crash landed," Mark's dad said as he stood up from the floor and let his wife monopolize Mark.
"How many?" The Doctor asked distantly, like he was adding and removing things to and from a mental list in his head.
"About fifty at the start. We're not sure how many there are any more," one of the other men said.
"How do the Daleks propagate?" I asked, and the Doctor shook his head with a slightly disturbed look on his face.
"You don't want to know. Besides, they don't have the resources here," he said. "Carry on."
"We went to their crashed ships to offer them aid and assistance. They responded hostilely. It wasn't long after that before we were forced into hiding. It was easy to keep one step ahead of them because of Amealia." Mark's Dad nodded his head towards his wife who was pressing uncountable kisses into Mark's head.
"Which is why they took her," the Doctor said.
"Seeing the future, it's not an exact science. They caught us by surprise and we had to focus on getting Mark away from them. So many people had already died, and we couldn't risk losing him that way." His eyes misted with tears and I suddenly realized that he had given up his son and lost his wife to the Daleks on the same day. I admired him for the fact that he had kept fighting.
"I'm dangerous to the Daleks, they don't trust what I can see, but they don't want me against them either. I tried not to tell them that you were coming, but sometimes I can't help myself," Amealia said guiltily and the Doctor shrugged.
"They would have found me anyways," he said. "You lead us to Mark because you knew the perception filter on the building where you hid him was about to give out." Amealia nodded.
"I'm sorry, but it was too much of a risk to send Craick. I knew you wouldn't leave him there," Amealia said. I figured that Craick was Mark's dad.
"Quite right," the Doctor said before he looked back at Craick. "When did the Daleks build that statue?"
"About ten months after they got here. A lot of people died building it," Craick said. I took the Doctor's hand and squeezed it comfortingly as his other hand rubbed his face quickly.
"I'd been hoping I was wrong about slave labour," he muttered under his breath before he continued. "Where's their main base of operations?"
"You don't seriously intended to go after the Daleks?" Craick said with a shocked look on his face and I shrugged.
"Running head long into danger to help others is kind of what we do," I said. Craick looked between us like we were crazy.
"You don't have any weapons!" He protested, and the Doctor adjusted his suit.
"I never carry weapons. Personal policy of mine. Now Emma and I are going to go rescue Amealia and at the very least get the Daleks off this planet," the Doctor said. It was moments like this where he really looked like the hero that he pretended not to be, standing tall and sure against his greatest nemesis. Amealia's head jerked up at his words and she stood up and shoved Mark into Craick's arms.
"You need to go right now," She ordered and Craick started as all the other spectators who were still scattered around the room jumped into action. I knew without having to ask that the Daleks were coming.
"I'm going with the Doctor and Emma," Craick said and made to hand Mark back to her and she shook her head sadly. Mark latched onto his dad's neck and refused to loosen his grip.
"Markus needs you," Amealia said. Craick reached out and grabbed her forearm.
"You are coming home to us. Do you understand me? You are coming home," Craick said fiercely and once she had nodded released her. "You'd better go too."
"I'll go with the Doctor and Emma." I could tell Amealia had left the red head she'd borrowed just from the way she spoke, but I wasn't sure why she wanted to come with us. She must have noticed that both the Doctor and Craick were about to protest because she spoke again quickly. "She's my sister. I'm going to bring her home."
"She knows where she is going," I said, and the Doctor pulled a face and I beamed at him. "There's that Emma is right, but I don't like it face."
"You are right," he said begrudgingly and pointed a finger at Amealia's sister. "You are going to listen to every word I say." She nodded and gave him a salute.
"Oh no don't salute I hate those." She gave me a look and I shrugged.
"He likes to pretend that he doesn't throw orders around," I said. "What's your name?"
"Tressa," she said, and I reached out to offer her my hand to shake.
"Pleasure to meet you."
"Emma three thousand one hundred and fifty-two. It's important," Mark said, and I nodded at him.
"Okay. I'll remember," I promised just as Craick nodded to us both and went racing off down the hallway. I pivoted to the Doctor. "How far into a plan are you?"
"Not as far as I'd like," the Doctor said and there was suddenly a terrific crash from our left and Dalek screams echoed down the hallway. "And that erases the plan, so we make it up."
"Make it up?" Tressa hissed. I felt bad for her since she had probably volunteered to come with us thinking that the Doctor was a little more put together.
"It's okay he excels at making it up as he goes along," I said just as a group of five Daleks rolled into the room where we were standing.
"WHERE IS THE DOCTOR?"
"Oh, come on surely you remember me?" The Doctor asked as he rocked on his feet and I bit down on my lip to diminish my smile since he was really starting to get into a rhythm.
"YOU ARE NOT IN OUR DATABANKS!" The Doctor held his hands out sideways.
"Scan me then. Prove my words that I am the Last of the Time Lords," he said with a shrug. There was a tense moment of silence before the Doctor spoke again with a slightly tilted eyebrow. "Confirmed?"
"YOU ARE THE DOCTOR!"
"Indeed, I am!" The Doctor leaned in towards them slightly. "Tell me does that send a shiver down your, well I'd say spines, but you don't have those do you?"
"THE DALEKS DO NOT FEEL FEAR!"
"And yet here you are subjugating people! It has been a long time since the last time the Daleks did that, not since before the height of the Dalek Empire," the Doctor mused. Watching him go back and forth with the Daleks almost felt like watching a tennis match where they fate of the world was at stake, thrilling and terrifying all at once.
"THE DALEK EMPIRE HAS NEVER FALLEN!" Now that I could see the Daleks it was easy to tell which one was speaking and which wasn't, since the lights on the top of their heads light up as they did. I'd forgotten about that.
"It has fallen at least twice. The first when Skaro was lost along with Gallifrey."
"Sorry what's Skaro?" I asked as I extended my hand slightly into the air.
"Dalek home world," the Doctor said as he spun back to face towards me and sent me a look. "Emma, we have talked about the hand."
"Sorry, again, you just had the banter going," I said. The Doctor spun on his heel again to face the Daleks and continued with the train of thought I had interrupted.
"The second time was when the Emperor died. Hard to have an Empire with no Emperor," he said.
"THE EMPEROR CANNOT BE KILLED!"
"Everyone can be killed when a god made of time swipes them out of existence," the Doctor said flatly, and I squished my eyes shut to wrack my brain of what he was talking about and then remembered about the Bad Wolf thing with Rose. I might really have to put thought into that Companion's handbook for easy referencing in situations such as these. The Daleks seemed to freeze in shock, which I thought was quite impressive considering they didn't have faces or emotions.
"So, since you didn't recognize me in this form and you believed until very recently that the Dalek Emperor was still alive, you're from then. Dalek Caan didn't contact you when the Daleks tried to take over the universe again then?"
"Easy, Doctor, don't taunt them too much," I said.
"DALEKS DO NOT HAVE NAMES!"
"That's not the point. The point is what are you going to do with me. Shoot me? Kill me?" The Doctor asked and spread his arms out again. Tressa squawked in alarm. "No, you're not going to do that because otherwise you wouldn't have carted my TARDIS off to who knows where."
"That's actually a good point," I said with a slight head tilt.
"Which means that you have other plans for me. To which I say," he paused, grinned and held his hands out. "Lead on."
"This is his plan?" Tressa asked desperately. I shrugged.
"It's worked basically every time so far. And he has been doing this a very long time," I said.