So there I was, innocently checking my email and avoiding homework, and suddenly this ficlet bunny bounds into my head, gives me this irresistible big-eyed look and demands to be written…so here it is. The Ninth Doctor pondering on the reappearance of the Daleks in Bad Wolf. Enjoy. Review. And don't lose faith in Musings v2.0—it will be on its way as soon as I have the time to re-watch Season 1!Special thanks go to T.S. Eliot and INXS, who inspired me and whom I thanked by shamelessly stealing and corrupting their copyrighted lines (ten e-dollars to anyone who can pick them). And who, along with this computer and anything Doctor Who-related, I am not in the fortunate position of owning.
They rose on the screen before his very eyes, legions upon legions of gleaming metal and sleek, rounded bodies. Not a sharp edge to be seen; that had always been one of the things that had puzzled him about them, when he wasn't attempting to save his own skin. Rounded meant soft, pliable; curves meant submission, seduction (now stop that. Mind on the job, if you please.) Smooth arcs, spheres and parabolas always felt somewhat safer than teeth and knives in jagged lines. Yet these had an atmosphere and a weapon that made you turn and run. It was not exactly an impression of negative emotion; rather that those feelings were so beaten down and suppressed as to permeate what would be negativity with a powerful aura of claustrophobia. Knowing they had once existed was, for any emotional being—and how could he deny that he was one himself now, considering, he thought grimly —far more frightening than recognising their complete absence. It was a mystery whether or not they knew their greatest power was concealed in their voice and their effortless, automated glide. He suspected they didn't. Perhaps that was the most frightening element of all—for some.
For most, even.
But for him, they had one last card to play; the last twist of the smooth and dangerous knife (like Jack; maybe they were all the same, one way or another). Their very existence was a slap in his face. It was wrong; it was impossible, and improbable. Which was another thing: he'd never been one to just accept whether things were possible or not. Apparently, when it came to his own opinion it was a different story. Well, he made his own rules, always had.
Digressing again. Bad habit, that. He hoped it wouldn't last. On the other hand, it could be useful. And he'd never been the sort of man to stay on track about silly things like thought progression. Except, of course, when it counted.
But the appearance of millions of shiny, impossible pepper-pots, crackling with electricity and the subsurface current of sensation suppressed to an infinitesimally thin permeation, meant one thing over all:
His planet was lost from even the ashes of time.
His people and all they stood for had been wiped from the universe's memory.
All that was left was him and a battered, creaking Type 40; and now he realised the consequences of a moment's decision. The guilt would always be with him, and so would the Daleks. He could sum up his world in three words.
He had failed.