A/N: Sorry for the long wait, but here is part one of Journey's End!
"Will someone please tell me what is going on?" Donna demanded through her tears.
"When a Time Lord dies," Naya explained, "their body renews itself by changing. It's the only way he'll survive."
"But you can't!" Rose exclaimed.
The Doctor struggled to his feet and fell against the console, breathing heavily. "I'm sorry," he gasped. "It's too late… I'm regenerating."
The Doctor pushed himself off the console and threw his arms and head back as golden regeneration energy encircled his body. He stayed in that position for a few moments before suddenly turning towards us and pointing his arms at the jar containing his old hand at the base of the console. The golden glow of the regeneration energy became too bright to look at directly and I was forced to look away as the Doctor channeled the energy into his other hand. My face was buried in Jack's chest until I heard the Doctor gasp and stumble backwards on the metal grating.
Forcing myself out of Jack's arms, I started forward towards the Doctor to make sure he was alright but stopped short when I saw him. "Wh-… What the-?" I stammered in confusion as I stared in shock at the Doctor.
"Now then," he said with a grin, his voice distinctly Northern. "Where were we?"
Instead of retaining his original form, the Doctor had somehow changed appearance. Bursting through his old self's pinstripe suit was a tall, semi muscular man with familiar big ears and incredibly short hair. Seemingly unaware, or unbothered, by his change, the Doctor bounded past me to kneel beside the jar containing his hand.
"There now," he said as he blew gently on the jar, making the golden glow fade away like mist. Then he stood up and leaned casually against the console as he looked at the five of us. "You see? Used the regeneration energy to heal myself and then siphoned off the rest into a handy bio-matching receptacle, namely my hand. Well, I say matching. It bio-matched my previous incarnation, all ears and Northern and leather wearing, so it turned me back into him."
"What?" I asked incredulously, my eyes still locked on the simultaneously new and old face of the Doctor's.
"My hand there," he said as he looked at me. "My handy spare hand. You remember? Christmas Day, Sycorax. Lost my hand in a sword fight? That's my hand."
"What?" I repeated.
The Doctor flashed me another grin and wiggled his eyebrows. "What do you think?"
"But you're…" The Doctor nodded at me, still grinning. "You're…"
"Yep."
"But that's not… You're not… That's not supposed to happen!" I exclaimed.
"I know. Fantastic, isn't it?"
I shook my head. "No, you don't understand. It's literally impossible. I've seen a future you, a you past this point in your timeline, and you still had your old face. I mean, your previous face. Er, I-I mean-"
The Doctor shrugged before interjecting, "Time's always in flux, changing, bending, being reshaped and rewritten. This regeneration was most likely a fixed point, but still able to be changed just slightly. Able to be changed enough for me to look like this now."
"Doctor?" Rose breathed from behind me.
I had completely forgotten about the others until then, so I turned around to look at Rose. She and Jack looked as if they had seen a ghost, Naya was shocked into silence, and Donna was so confused that all she could do was gape at the new Doctor.
"Doctor? Is that really you?" Rose asked again.
The Doctor smiled and nodded. "It's me, Rose."
"But… I never thought I'd see you again."
"Well," the Time Lord added after a moment, a slightly embarrassed expression on his face, "it's not exactly me. I look like the old me and I sound like him, but it's not his personality in here. Well, not all of it anyway. I figure he might pop out every now and again. It's Mr Suit and Converse, both of which I see no longer fit me," he added as he looked down at his body.
The TARDIS let out a gentle whirr and flashed her lights. Just a few moments later, a small stack of clothes and a pair of new shoes materialized on top of the console. The Doctor laughed and reached over to grab the items off of the console.
"Oh, look at these. It's been years," he said with a smile.
Almost immediately, the Doctor toed off his converse and began working at his clothes to take them off as well. Naya squeaked in surprise and turned around so her back was facing the Doctor, one of her hands covering her eyes as well. With her free hand she made Donna turn around and face the opposite side of the console room. Rose cleared her throat a little awkwardly and turned around with her eyes wide and her cheeks tinted pink. Still mostly surprised by what had just happened, I slowly turned around to face the others and spotted Jack staring unashamedly at the Doctor.
"Jack, aren't you gonna turn around?" I asked.
He scoffed and crossed his arms over his chest. "As if."
Naya immediately reached out and grabbed Jack by his arm, quickly turning him around before slapping the back of his head. Jack grimaced and rubbed the back of his head after Naya slapped him, but didn't turn around again. After a few long moments of silence, I glanced cautiously over my shoulder to see if the Doctor had finished dressing yet and was met with the image of him in just his black pants and shoes. I was frozen in surprise as he pulled a burgundy jumper over his head and quickly turned around before he could see me looking. Jack had been watching as well apparently and winked at me before turning his head away again, making my entire face flush.
Just a few seconds later, the lights in the TARDIS suddenly went out and the ship let out a groan before going completely silent. I immediately spun around to face the console and looked up at the time rotor to see that it was no longer lit up from the inside. The Doctor had just finished pulling his old leather jacket on as he raced around the console in a panic.
"The power's gone," he said. "We're in some kind of… chronon loop."
"A time loop?" I asked.
Before he could answer, the TARDIS suddenly jerked to one side and sent us all stumbling across the room. The TARDIS jerked again, this time to the other side, and then moved as if it were blasting off. The Doctor grabbed onto the console for support while Rose and Donna clung to Jack, who was leaning against one of the coral support beams. Naya and I were holding onto the railings encircling the edge of the metal grating. After a few moments, the ship stopped shaking so much and I was able to stand without the support of the railings.
"Doctor?" Donna asked, stepping away from Jack's side to approach the Time Lord. "What's happening?"
The Doctor rushed over to the scanner and peered at the screen. "We're being moved somewhere…," he muttered.
"There's a massive Dalek ship at the centre of the planets," Jack said. "They're calling it the Crucible. Guess that's our destination."
"Doctor, you said these planets were like an engine," Donna said. "But what for?"
The Doctor stood and ran a hand through his hair as he looked at the scanner, lost in thought. Then he suddenly gasped and gestured to Rose. "Rose! You've been in a parallel world. That world's running ahead of this universe. You've seen the future," he said excitedly. "What was it?"
Rose looked sadly at the Doctor. "It's the darkness," she answered seriously.
"The stars were going out," Donna said.
Rose nodded. "One by one," she continued. "We looked up at the sky and they were just dying. Basically, we've been building this- this travel machine, this dimension canon so I could come back and warn you. And suddenly it started to work and the dimensions started to collapse. Not just in our world, not just in yours, but the whole of reality. Even the Void was dead. Something is destroying everything."
"But in that parallel world, you said something about me," Donna interjected.
Rose turned so she could properly look at Donna. "The dimension canon could measure timelines, and it's- it's weird, Donna, but they all seemed to converge on you."
Donna shook her head in confusion. "But why me? I mean, what have I ever done? I'm a temp from Chiswick."
The scanner started beeping then and the Doctor turned to look at the image that had appeared on the screen. It was some kind of map of all the planets that had been taken out of time and at the center of the planets was a red dot flashing on and off.
"The Dalek Crucible," the Doctor muttered. "All aboard."
I stepped forward so I was standing beside the Doctor and slowly reached out to take his hand. He looked down at me and the serious, worried expression on his face faded a little when our eyes met.
"Hey," I said softly.
The Doctor sighed heavily and searched my eyes for a few moments before suddenly pulling me into his arms. I squeaked in surprise and stood awkwardly in his embrace for a second before relaxing and returning the hug. I buried my head in his chest and closed my eyes, letting the threat of the Daleks and Davros fade away for just a minute while I was safe with the Doctor.
After he pulled away, the Doctor looked past me at Naya. He didn't say a word, but extended his arm towards her and she immediately ran to him. Her arms wrapped around his torso as the Doctor rested his chin on the crown of her head. He closed his eyes and pressed a light kiss to her head before tightening his arms around her.
The TARDIS landed very suddenly and the Doctor and Naya pulled apart in surprise. The Doctor turned to face the TARDIS doors as if he anticipated something or someone to burst through and into the ship.
"THE TAR-DIS IS SE-CURED!" a Dalek exclaimed from somewhere outside the ship.
The Doctor reached for my hand and pulled me closer to him, then put his other arm around Naya's shoulders.
"DOC-TOR," another Dalek ordered in a deep voice, "YOU WILL STEP FORTH OR DIE!"
"We have to go out," the Doctor said. "Because if we don't, they'll get in."
"You told me nothing could get through those doors," Rose replied.
Jack nodded and said, "You've got extrapolator shielding."
The Doctor moved his arm from Naya's shoulders and turned to look from the door to Rose, then to Jack. "Last time we fought the Daleks, they were scavengers and hybrids and mad. But this is a fully fledged Dalek Empire at the height of its power. Experts at fighting TARDISes, they can do anything. Right now, that wooden door is just wood."
Jack turned to Rose. "What about your dimension jump?" he asked.
"It needs another twenty minutes. And anyway, I'm not leaving."
"What about your teleport?" the Doctor asked Jack.
"Went down with the power loss," he answered.
"Wait, your vortex manipulator went out?" I asked.
Jack nodded. "I don't know how, but they managed to take it out too. So unless your teleport is up and running, we're stuck here."
Rose shook her head. "Hers is just like mine. It needs to recharge."
"Naya, what about you?" the Doctor asked as he looked to our daughter. "Do you have anything? A vortex manipulator, a time ring, teleport, anything?"
Naya shook her head, a few strands of her dark black hair falling across her face. "No. I'm sorry."
The Doctor sighed. "Right then. All of us together." He looked to each of his companions, smiling first at me and then Naya, then Rose and Jack. But when he looked to Donna, he saw that she was staring blankly at the console. "Donna?"
The Doctor stepped past myself, Rose, and Jack and stood in front of Donna. He called her name again, which finally brought her out of her trance. "Yeah?" she asked, slightly confused.
"I'm sorry," the Doctor said. "There's nothing else we can do."
Donna smiled sadly and nodded in understanding. "No, I know."
The Doctor returned her smile and gently ran his hand along her upper arm in an attempt to comfort her. He nodded and then walked back to stand beside Naya and I.
"SURR-ENDER, DOC-TOR, AND FACE YOUR DA-LEK MAS-TERS!" a Dalek ordered from outside.
"CRU-CI-BILE ON MAX-I-MUM A-LERT!" another Dalek screamed.
"Daleks," Rose breathed in almost disbelief, laughing a little as if the idea didn't absolutely terrify her.
"Oh, God," Jack added in a silly voice, making Naya and I laugh as well.
The Doctor looked at Jack, then Donna, Rose, Naya, and myself, and smiled. "It's been good though, hasn't it? All of us. All of it. Everything we did." He looked at Donna and nodded. "You were brilliant. And you were brilliant," he said as he looked to Jack. "And you were brilliant," he continued as he glanced at Rose.
Next he looked to Naya and took her face in his hands, pressing a kiss to her forehead. "And you were brilliant." Finally he turned to me and, as he cupped my face in his hands, he smiled sadly at me. "And you were absolutely fantastic," he said before pulling me into a gentle kiss.
The Doctor smoothed his thumb across my cheek before finally pulling away from me. He turned to face the TARDIS doors and, after a moment of hesitation, started forward. I walked after him and grabbed his hand. Behind me, I could hear the others following us down the ramp to the doors.
As soon as the Doctor opened the door, the echoing shrieking of countless Daleks bombarded my ears and I flinched. The Doctor released my hand and put his arm around my shoulders to comfort me as I recoiled against him. The TARDIS was parked in some kind of control room and half of the room opened up to a large, empty space where hundreds of Daleks were flying through the hair and screaming.
"DA-LEKS REIGN SU-PREME! ALL HAIL THE DA-LEKS!" announced a large, red Dalek that stood nearby the ship.
"DA-LEKS REGIN SU-PREME! ALL HAIL THE DA-LEKS!" the others echoed. "DA-LEKS REIGN SU-PREME! ALL HAIL THE DA-LEKS!"
"BE-HOLD, DOC-TOR!" the red Dalek said. "BE-HOLD THE MIGHT OF THE TRUE DA-LEK RACE."
The Doctor looked over my head at the others and when he noticed that Donna and Naya were still inside the TARDIS, he called out to them. "Donna, Naya! You're no safer in there," he said.
Barely a moment later, the TARDIS door suddenly slammed shut, locking Donna and my daughter inside. Even though I'd known it would happen and that Donna would be safe in the end, realizing that Naya was stuck inside the TARDIS made me start to worry. The Doctor rushed towards the TARDIS and pulled hard on the doors, but they didn't budge.
"Doctor?" Donna called from inside the ship. "What have you done?"
"It wasn't me!" the Doctor exclaimed. "I didn't do anything!"
"Dad? Dad!" Naya shouted. "Mum! Let us out! We're not staying behind!"
Once he realized that he couldn't open the doors, the Doctor turned and ran up to the red Dalek with rage burning in his eyes. "What did you do?" he demanded.
"THIS IS NOT OF DA-LEK OR-I-GIN," the red Dalek answered.
"Dad, let us out!" Naya shouted angrily. "You can't just lock us in here!"
"Stop it!" the Doctor snarled at the red Dalek. "That's my friend and my daughter in there. Now open the door and let them out. Now!"
"THIS IS TIME LORD TREA-CHER-Y!"
"It's not me! I wouldn't lock my own daughter in there!"
"NEVER-THE-LESS, THE TAR-DIS IS A WEAPON AND IT WILL BE DE-STROYED!" the Dalek exclaimed.
A trapdoor situated underneath the TARDIS suddenly opened and the ship fell through the hole in the floor. The Doctor cried out and rushed to the edge of the trapdoor with me right on his heels. We both looked over the edge of the hole and I felt a wave of dizziness overwhelm me as I saw how far the drop went. Jack came up behind me then and drew me back with both of his arms around me, bringing me a safe distance from the trapdoor.
"What are you doing? Bring it back!" the Doctor screamed. He flew past Jack, Rose, and I and stopped right in front of the red Dalek. "What have you done? Where's it going?"
"THE CRU-CI-BLE HAS A HEART OF Z NEU-TRI-NO EN-ER-GY. THE TAR-DIS WILL BE DE-POS-IT-ED IN-TO THE CORE!"
The Doctor's face grew visibly pale. "You can't," he breathed. "You've taken the defenses down. It'll be torn apart!"
A screen above the red Dalek suddenly crackled to life and an image of the TARDIS falling into an enormous ball of fire appeared. The TARDIS let out a wail and floated on the surface of the core for a few seconds before she began to slowly sink.
"But Donna's still in there!" Rose exclaimed as she marched towards the red Dalek.
"And Naya!" Jack shouted and followed after Rose, releasing his hold on me. "Let them go!"
I was still frozen in shock as I gazed up at the screen, wondering if my daughter was really going to be okay.
"THE FE-MALES AND THE TAR-DIS WILL PER-ISH TO-GE-THER. OB-SERVE!" The red Dalek seemed to be mocking the Doctor when it spoke again. "THE LAST CHILD OF GALL-I-FREY IS POW-ER-LESS!"
"Please, please!" the Doctor said desperately. "I'm begging you. I'll do anything! Put me in their place! You can do anything to me, I don't care, just get my daughter out of there!"
"YOU ARE CO-NNEC-TED TO THE TAR-DIS," the Dalek said. "NOW FEEL IT DIE, DOC-TOR!"
Placed at some sort of console beside the red Dalek, a normal Dalek stood and began a count down. "TO-TAL TAR-DIS DE-STRUC-TION IN TEN RELS."
The Doctor was shaking with rage and sorrow as he stared up at the screen and my heart broke. I snapped out of the haze I was in and ran to his side, taking his hand in mine. His hand was clasped so hard around mine that I could almost feel bruises forming as each second passed.
"Please," he breathed as tears began to streak down his cheeks. He turned and looked at the red Dalek. "Please! I'll do anything, anything, just save them! Please, that's my daughter!"
The Dalek continued the countdown without any hesitation. "FIVE, FOUR THREE, TWO, ONE!"
"THE TAR-DIS HAS BEEN DE-STROYED!" the red Dalek exclaimed. "NOW TELL ME, DOC-TOR. WHAT DO YOU FEEL? AN-GER? SOR-ROW? DE-SPAIR?"
The Doctor's face was contorted with burning rage as he transformed into the Oncoming Storm. He whirled around on the Daleks, his mouth curled into a sneer as he marched towards the red Dalek. "I've already lost one daughter, Dalek, and now you've killed my second daughter and my best friend right in front of me. If you think you're going to survive this, then think again!"
"IF E-MO-TIONS ARE SO IM-POR-TANT, SURE-LY WE HAVE EN-HANCED YOU?"
Jack leapt forward with hatred burning in his eyes. "Yeah? Feel this!" he shouted as he pulled out a gun from his coat and began firing at the red Dalek.
"Jack, no!" I shouted. The red Dalek screamed its battle cry and fired at Jack before I could do anything to stop him. "No!"
Rose cried out in horror and flew to Jack's side, falling to her knees beside his dead body. Despite knowing that Jack would be alright, I was still worried for him and hurried over to kneel on Jack's other side.
Rose gasped as she leaned over her friend's body. "Jack," she breathed. "Oh my God. Oh no."
The Doctor walked over to Rose and put his on her shoulders, trying to pull her to her feet. "Rose," he began softly, "come here. Leave him."
"But they killed him," she replied, still in shock.
"I know. I'm sorry," the Doctor said as he wrapped his arms around her. "Diana, please, come here."
"ES-CORT THEM TO THE VAULT!" the red Dalek ordered.
I leaned down and kissed Jack's cheek, unsure of whether or not he had been resurrected yet or not. "I'm sorry," I whispered before I finally stood up and walked to the Doctor's side.
The Doctor guided Rose to stand in front of him as two other Daleks moved on either side of us. They began to urge us forward, towards a large doorway. The Doctor put a hand on Rose's shoulder. "There's nothing we can do, Rose."
"But we can't just leave him!" she cried.
"I'm sorry, but we have to."
"THEY ARE THE PLAY-THINGS OF DAV-ROS NOW!" the red Dalek exclaimed as the other two Daleks led us away.
Once we had been guided into a new room several floors down from where we had forcibly left Jack, the Daleks made the three of us stand in a line. The Doctor stood on my right and Rose stood on my left, both of them hardly more than a a yard or two away from me. Rolling out from the shadows, Davros appeared with a pleased expression on his face. He pointed to us and ordered, "Activate the holding cells."
From somewhere above me, a single beam of light shone down and surrounded me completely. I immediately reached out and my hand was stopped from moving beyond the light by an invisible barrier. The barrier seemed to ripple and move slightly when I touched it, but I knew there was no way I could get past it.
Davros nodded in approval. "Excellent. Even when powerless, a Time Lord is best contained."
The Doctor smirked as he crossed his arms over his chest. I knew he was hiding all of his anger and pain at Naya's apparent death behind a facade of arrogance and humor. "Still scared of me, then?"
"It is time we talked, Doctor. After so very long."
"No, no, no, no, no," the Doctor replied as he shook his head and laughed. "We're not doing the nostalgia tour. No, I want to know what's happening right here, right now, because the Supreme Dalek said Vault. Right? As in… dungeon, cellar, prison." The Doctor smiled knowingly at his enemy. "You're not in charge of the Daleks, are you? They've got you locked away down here in the basement like, what, a servant? Slave? Court jester?"
"We have… an arrangement," Davros explained.
"No, I've got the word. You're the Dalek's pet!" the Doctor mocked. "The old, annoying, useless pet that they're forced to look after."
"So very full of fire, is he not?" Davros asked as he ignored the Doctor in favor of addressing Rose and I. He looked at Rose next with a smile. "And to think you crossed entire universes, striding parallel to parallel to find him again."
"Leave her alone," the Doctor hissed.
"She is mine to do as I please," Davros replied.
Rose raised an eyebrow at the Dalek creator. "Then why am I still alive?" she wondered.
"You must be here. It was foretold. Even the Supreme Dalek would not dare to contradict the prophecies of Dalek Caan."
Across the room, another light of some kind flashed on and shone down on the remains of an exposed Dalek inside a half destroyed Dalek shell. "So cold and dark," Caan cried. "Fire is coming! The endless flames!"
"What is that thing?" Rose asked with a grimace.
The Doctor sighed. "You've met before. The last of the Cult of Skaro. But it flew into the Time War, unprotected."
"Caan did more than that," Davros explained. "He saw time. Its infinite complexity and majesty, raging through his mind. And he saw you. All three of you."
"This I have foreseen, in the wild and the wind," Caan cackled maniacally. "The Doctor will be here as witness, at the end of everything. The Doctor and his precious Children of Time." Can began laughing then, sounding even more insane than the first time he had laughed. "And one of them will die!"
"Was it you, Caan?" The Doctor sneered, his eyes burning with rage and his hand shaking. "Did you kill Naya? Donna? Why did the TARDIS door close? Tell me!"
"Oh, that's it!" Davros exclaimed, chuckling in amusement under his breath. "The anger, the fire, the rage of a Time Lord who butchered millions. There he is." The Doctor had fallen silent as soon as Davros spoke, but I could see that he was immediately ashamed of what he surely felt was the truth. "Why so shy? Show your companion, your wife. Show them your true self. Dalek Caan has promised me that too."
"I have seen! At the time of ending, the Doctor's soul will be revealed," Caan said while he continued to laugh hysterically.
"Yeah and you know what you'll find?" I snapped, my anger and frustration with Davros finally too great to be held in. "The soul of a man who would give his life for the whole universe. Yes he's killed people, but he's also saved worlds and universes and countless lives."
Davros laughed mockingly at me. "And here she comes, the Doctor's savior, the Wolf of Time, the Rage of the Vortex, ready to defend her husband until the very end."
"Damn right I'll defend him. It's called marriage," I retorted, choosing to ignore the titles Davros had addressed me with.
"You defend this disgrace of a Time Lord with hands so bloodstained that he can never be clean? How utterly human," Davros sneered.
"Human and proud of it. You don't know the Doctor, not like I know him. He's not evil or bloodstained or anything else you might think. He's a hero-"
"A hero?" Davros interjected, his voice laced with disbelief. "You call this murderer a hero?"
"Yes!" I shouted. "Because he is!"
"Then you know nothing of your husband, Diana Scott. If I were to release the Doctor now, he would spare no time in murdering me for the death of his daughter."
"Our daughter," I snapped. "Naya's our daughter."
"And she is dead. Because of me."
I fisted my hands at my sides, resisting the urge to somehow barge through the holding cell and punch Davros in the face. He was taunting us with Naya's death, knowing that he could fuel the Doctor's anger with it, as well as mine. Even though I knew that Donna and Naya would be safe, I still couldn't stop worrying that maybe something would go wrong and my daughter was really dead.
"Stop it," Rose demanded. "Leave them alone! Do you hear me?"
"Silence!" Davros ordered. "Do not dare to order me around. I will destroy you if necessary, prophecy or not." He suddenly turned to the Doctor then. "The ending approaches, Doctor. The testing begins."
The Doctor furrowed his brows in confusion. "The testing of what?"
Davros gestured to the ceiling, where another screen appeared. "The reality bomb," he said. "Supreme Dalek, begin testing!"
On the screen, the red Dalek appeared and began shouting orders. "TES-TING CAL-I-BRA-TION OF RE-AL-I-TY BOMB! FIRING IN TEN RELS! NINE, EIGHT, SEVEN-"
Davros flicked a switch on the console placed around his torso. "Behold, Doctor. The apotheosis of my genius," he sad proudly.
As soon as the switch had been thrown, the screen split in half to show the red Dalek continuing the countdown on one and a large room filled with humans on the other. The second screen displayed the image of what I guessed was some kind of holding area for the humans that the Daleks had captured. A group of Daleks surrounded the people and had corralled them so they were standing under a large device hanging from the ceiling, a device which I didn't recognize but I knew was some part of the reality bomb.
"-THREE, TWO, ONE, ZERO. ACT-I-VATE PLAN-ETARY A-LIGN-MENT FIELD!" the red Dalek commanded.
The Doctor gasped and shook his head. "That's Z-neutrino energy, flattened by the alignment of the planets into a single string." He turned towards Davros and pressed his hands against the barrier. "No, Davros. Davros, you can't! You can't!"
"What?" Rose cried in confusion. "Doctor, what's happening?"
The device hanging above the group of people began to whir and glow bright green. The people all cried out and then were suddenly silenced as their bodies disintegrated into dust. The entire group, which was probably no more than twenty or thirty, had completely disintegrated and disappeared in less than five seconds.
"Doctor," Rose asked slowly, "what happened?"
"Electrical energy, Miss Tyler," Davros answered. "Every atom in existence is bound by an electrical field. The reality bomb cancels it out. Structure falls apart. That test was focused on the prisoners alone. Full transmission will dissolve every form of matter."
"The stars are going out," Rose whispered in realization.
The Doctor stared wide-eyed at Davros. "The twenty seven planets. They become one vast transmitter, blasting that wavelength," he said as he began to piece together Davros' plan.
Davros grinned. "Across the entire universe. Never stopping, never faltering, never fading. People and planets and stars will become dust, and the dust will become atoms, and the atoms will become nothing. And the wavelength will continue, breaking through the rift at the heart of the Medusa Cascade into every dimension, every parallel, every single corner of creation!" he cried. "This is my ultimate victory, Doctor! The destruction of reality itself!"
Still displayed on one of the two screens overhead, the red Dalek began shouting orders. "PRE-PARE FOR UNI-VER-SAL DE-TON-A-TION! THE FLEET WILL GA-THER AT THE CRU-CI-BLE! ALL DA-LEKS WILL RE-TURN TO SHEL-TER FROM THE CAT-A-CLY-SM. WE WILL BE-COME THE ONLY LIFE FORMS IN EX-IS-TENCE!"
A few moments later, one of the screens that had reverted to black and white static suddenly came alive. The face of Martha Jones appeared on the screen; she was dressed in a UNIT uniform and a determined expression was on her face.
"This message is for the Dalek Crucible. Repeat. Can you hear me?"
"Put me through!" the Doctor demanded.
Davros looked up at the screen with a pleased expression. "It begins as Dalek Caan foretold."
"The Children of Time will gather," Caan cackled maniacally, "and one of them will die!"
"Stop saying that!" the Doctor snapped. "Put me through!"
"Diana!" Martha exclaimed in surprise a moment later. "Where's the Doctor?"
"I'm right here!" the Doctor said in frustration. "Martha, it's me! I regenerated."
I nodded in confirmation as I looked up at the screen. "It's him," I said simply.
Martha was silent for a few seconds as she processed the Doctor's physical change. And then, as if a switch had gone off in her head, she was back to business. "Doctor, Diana, I'm sorry," she said sadly. "I had to."
"Oh, but your friends are powerless," Davros interjected as he rolled forward into view. "My prisoners. State your intent."
Martha raised her hand. "I've got the Osterhagen Key. Leave this planet and its people alone or I'll use it," she threatened.
"Osterhagen what?" the Doctor echoed. "What's an Osterhagen Key?"
"It's a bomb," I whispered.
"What?"
"There's a chain of twenty five nuclear warheads placed in strategic points beneath the Earth's crust," Martha explained. "If I use the key, they detonate and the Earth gets ripped apart."
"Wha- Who invented that? Martha, are you insane?"
"The Osterhagen Key is to be used if the suffering of the human race is so great, so without hope, that this becomes the final option."
"That's never an option."
"Don't argue with me, Doctor!" Martha snapped. "Because it's more than that. Now, I reckon the Daleks need these twenty seven planets for something. But what if it becomes twenty six? What happens then? Daleks? Would you risk it?"
Beside me, Rose grinned and pointed at the screen as she glanced at the Doctor and I. "Oh, she's good."
"Who's that?" Martha asked, momentarily distracted by the blonde woman.
"My name's Rose. Rose Tyler."
Martha gasped, then smiled. "You're Rose? You came back?"
Rose nodded. "All the way from another universe," she said as she flashed the other woman her famous tongue in teeth grin.
The screen beside Martha's suddenly crackled to life and an image of Jack, Sarah Jane, Jackie, and Mickey appeared. Jack was standing at the front of the group and holding a long, golden chain with the warp star encased in a small container at the base of the chain. The warp star was hooked up with a half a dozen other electrical wires of varying colors that all led somewhere off the screen.
"Captain Jack Harkness, calling all Dalek boys and girls," Jack said. "Are you receiving me? Don't send in your goons, or I'll set this thing off!"
"He's still alive!" Rose exclaimed happily. Her smile dropped, however, when she spotted Jackie and Mickey right behind Jack. "Oh my god, and that- that's my mum. She got caught."
"And Mickey- Captain, what are you doing?" the Doctor asked in a rush.
Jack sighed. "I've got a warp star wired into the mainframe. I break this shell, the entire Crucible goes up."
"Don't you dare," the Doctor hissed. "But… Where did you even get a warp star?"
"From me," Sarah Jane said as she stepped forward to stand just beside Jack. "We had no choice. We saw what happened to the prisoners."
"Impossible," Davros breathed in surprise as he looked up at Sarah's face on the screen. "That face. After all these years."
Sarah's face fell as she stared at Davros in shock. "Davros. It's been quite a while. Sarah Jane Smith," she snapped. "Remember?"
Davros chuckled. "Oh, this is meant to be. The circle of time is closing. You were there on Skaro at the very beginning of my creation," he told Sarah.
"And I've learnt how to fight since then," the journalist snapped in reply. "You let the Doctor and his friends go or this warp star? It gets opened."
"I'll do it," Jack said as he prepared to pull the star from its shell. "Don't imagine I wouldn't."
Rose smiled proudly. "Now that's what I call a ransom," she beamed as she turned to look at the Doctor. But the Doctor wasn't smiling and he looked as if he was close to tears. "Doctor?"
"Theta?" I asked softly. "What's wrong?"
"And the prophecy unfolds," Davros said.
"The Doctor's soul is revealed!" Caan exclaimed. "See him! See the heart of him!"
Davros moved so he was no more than a few feet away from the Doctor. "The man who abhors violence, never carrying a gun," the Dalek creator taunted. "But this is the truth, Doctor. You take ordinary people and you fashion them into weapons. Behold your Children of Time, transformed into murderers. I made the Daleks, Doctor. You made this."
"Stop it," I snapped. "Leave him alone."
The Doctor swallowed as a pained expression came over his face. "They're trying to help," he said in a shaky voice.
"Already I have seen them sacrifice today for their beloved Doctor," Davros continued. "The Earth woman who fell opening the Subwave Network."
"Who was that?" the Doctor questioned in confusion.
"Harriet Jones," I told him. "The Daleks killed her."
"How many more?" Davros asked as he inched closer to the Doctor. "Just think. How many have died in your name?"
The Doctor looked visibly sick and I knew that he was reliving the death of every person he had ever met and lost. Tears came to my eyes as I watched the Doctor's facade fall away and be replaced with sorrow and guilt.
"The Doctor," Davros continued, "the man who keeps running, never looking back because he dare not, out of shame. This is my final victory, Doctor. I have shown you yourself."
"Stop it," I spat. "Shut up. Just shut up and leave him alone!"
"I speak only the truth, Doctor!"
"This isn't the Doctor! This isn't who he is!" I shouted. "Just leave him alone! Just stop!"
"Your hands are as bloodstained as his," Davros sneered as he turned on me. "There is a reason that you are called the Rage of the Vortex, Miss Scott."
"Stop it," I said.
"There is a reason you are called the Wolf of Time. Because you are a killer, as despicable as the Time Lord that you have bound yourself to!"
"Leave her alone!" the Doctor shouted.
Martha's voice suddenly sounded through the vault. "All of you, stop it! You, Davros!" she said as she lifted the Osterhagen Key into view once again. "It's the Crucible or the Earth."
Davros merely looked across there room to one of the Daleks standing by a console. At the sudden look, the Dalek exclaimed, "TRANS-MAT EN-GAGED!"
"No!" Martha screamed as she was suddenly teleported away from wherever she had previously been on Earth.
A/N: Don't forget to review!