Last time on The Doctor's Girl:
"You are the weakest link." it said firing and Broff disappeared in mid-run. The Anne Droid's mouth opened, and a gun protruded from it. Without a moments hesitation, it fired, a thick and fast bolt of yellow/gold light it hit Fitch - and she was gone.
"I saw you die!" The alien backed me against a wall.
"We have your associate. You will obey or she will be exterminated." the Dalek said looking at me.
"Ashlee?"
"Yes, Doctor?" I asked eagerly.
"I'm coming to get you." he told me.
"I'll be waiting."
The Daleks were in a state of panic and one of them rounded on me.
"You know the Doctor! You understand him! You will predict his actions!" One of them told me.
"I don't know!" I said as it glided dangerously towards me. "And even if I did, I wouldn't tell ya."
"Predict! Predict! Predict!" It said hysterically.
"TARDIS detected. In flight." another Dalek said.
"Launch missiles! Exterminate!" the first one said.
"You can't! The TARDIS hasn't got any defenses - you're gonna kill him!" I said.
"You have predicted correctly." the Dalek said and I trembled in fear of where I was and what was happening. Suddenly I heard the sound of the TARDIS materializing. I looked around as a breeze blew my hair and saw the TARDIS slowly appearing around me. The Doctor's outline became more and more distinct, standing beside the console.
"Ashlee! Get down!" I stared at him for a moment in shock to see him again. "Get down, Ashlee!" I threw myself down to the ground as he said and didn't have to wait long.
"Exterminate!" the Dalek said. The Dalek fired at Jack - who was holding a gun. With the gun he deflected the ray back at the Dalek, who exploded with a scream. I winced as smoke billowed from the remains of the Dalek. I then Rose struggled to my feet.
"You did it!" I said staring at the men I'd traveled with. The Doctor walked to me and without a word pulled me close to him. "Feels like I haven't seem you in years." I told him.
"Told you I'd come and get you." he told me pulling away slightly.
"Never doubted it." I told him.
"I did! You all right?" he asked me, worry still swimming in his eyes.
"Yeah. You?" I asked.
"Not bad. Been better!" he said giving me a quick kiss before going to the smoldering remains of the Dalek.
"Hey, don't I get a hug?" Jack asked coming towards us.
"Ahh, come here!" I said opening my arms slightly.
"I was talking to him." Jack said gesturing to the Doctor. We laughed and threw our arms around each other. "Welcome home!"
"Ohh, thought I'd never see you again." I told him.
"Oh, you were lucky - I was just a one-shot wonder. Drained the gun of all its power supply. Now it's just a piece of junk." he told me. The three of us bent over the Dalek, looking at it. The battle armor had been blasted away, giving us a clear view of the mutant inside.
"You said they were extinct. How comes they're still alive?" I asked the Doctor.
"One minute they're the greatest threat in the universe, the next minute they vanished out of time and space." Jack said and I knew where they went.
"They went off to fight a bigger war... the Time War..." The Doctor told him.
"I thought that was just a legend." Jack said.
"I was there. The war between the Daleks and the Time Lords. With the whole of creation at stake. My people were destroyed, but they took the Daleks with them. I almost thought it was worth it. Now it turns out they died for nothing." The Doctor said.
"There's thousands of them now. We could hardly stop ONE. What're we gonna do?" I asked him.
"No good stood round here chin-wagging! Human race, you'd gossip all day. The Daleks have got the answers - let's go and meet the neighbors." he said cheerfully, heading off down the ramp.
"You can't go out there-!" I said urgently but he already opened the door and stepped out.
"Exterminate! Exterminate! Exterminate!" the Daleks said as they fired their bolts of energy at us, but to no avail. The rays reflected off something keeping us all safe. The Daleks gave us and the sound of their guns faded into silence.
"Is that it? Useless! Nul points." the Doctor said leaning against the TARDIS. "It's all right, come on out. That force field can hold back anything." he told us. Jack stepped out first and I followed.
"Almost anything." Jack corrected him.
"Yes, but I wasn't gonna tell them that. Thanks." The Doctor said sarcastically.
"Sorry." Jack apologized to him and we turned to the Daleks again. The Daleks were silent, watching us, as the Doctor stepped forward to address them.
"D'you know what they call me in the ancient legends of the Dalek Home world? The Oncoming Storm. You might've removed all your emotions... but I reckon that right down deep in your DNA, there's one little spark left. And that's fear." he said and their eyepieces twitched nervously. "Doesn't it just BURN when you face me? So, tell me - how did you survive the Time War?"
"They survived through me." We heard someone say. The Doctor turned startled and took a few steps toward the voice with Jack and I following him.
"Ashlee... Captain... this is the Emperor of the Daleks." he said staring up at the Emperor.
"You destroyed us, Doctor. The Dalek Race died in your inferno, but my ship survived, falling through time, crippled but alive." The Emperor told him.
"I get it." The Doctor told him.
"Do not interrupt!"
"Do not interrupt!"
"Do not interrupt!" Three Daleks said making me flinch away from them closer to the Doctor.
"I think you're forgetting something. I'm the Doctor. And if there's one thing I can do - it's talk. I've got five billion languages, and you haven't got one way of stopping me. So if anybody's gonna shut up, it's YOU!" he shouted toward the Daleks making them shuffle backwards slightly. The Doctor turned back to the Emperor Dalek and addressed him once more. "Okey doke. So, where were we?"
"We waited here in the dark space, damaged but rebuilding. Centuries passed, and we quietly infiltrated the systems of Earth. Harvesting the waste of humanity. The prisoners, the refugees, the dispossessed - they all came to us. The bodies were filtered, pulped, sifted. The seed of the Human Race is perverted. Only one cell in a billion was fit to be nurtured." the Emperor Dalek said.
"So, you created an army of Daleks out of the dead." the Doctor said.
"That makes them... half human." I said looking at the Daleks surrounding us.
"Those words are blasphemy!" the Emperor said, his voice rising.
"Do not blaspheme!"
"Do not blaspheme!"
"Do not blaspheme!"
"Everything human has been purged. I cultivated pure and blessed Dalek." he told us. The Doctor was looking around at them all, disturbed.
"Since when did the Daleks have a concept of blasphemy?" he asked.
"I reached into the dirt and made new life. I am the God of all Daleks!" The Emperor said.
"Worship him! Worship him! Worship him!" the Daleks said all together.
"They're insane! A hundred years hiding in silence - that's enough to drive anyone mad." The Doctor told us. "But it's worse than that. Driven mad by your own flesh. The stink of humanity. You hate your own existence. And that makes them more deadly than ever. We're going." he said and we followed him back to the TARDIS.
"You may NOT leave my presence!" The Emperor told us but we were already halfway towards the TARDIS and none of the Daleks could stop us.
"Stay where you are!" the Daleks ordered but the Doctor just closed the door on them.
"Exterminate!" They fired at us all crying their war chant and the Doctor leaned his head against the door. I walked up to him and placed my hand on his shoulder and he grabbed it. He turned to me and hugged me close to him. I hugged him comfortingly knowing how hard this was for him.
The Doctor, Jack and I marched out of the TARDIS, which had materialized at one end of Floor 500.
"Turn everything up. All transmissions, wide open, full power. Now! Do it!" the Doctor ordered walking up to the controls.
"What does that do?" the guy asked.
"Stops the Daleks from transmatting on board. How did you get on? Did you contact Earth?" The Doctor asked him.
"Well, we tried to warn them, but all they did was suspend our license because we stopped the programs." he told him.
"And the planet's just sitting there, defenseless." he said before noticing a woman next to him. "Lynda, what're you still doing on board? I told you to evacuate everyone." the Doctor told the man next to him.
"She wouldn't go." he told him.
"Didn't wanna leave ya." Lynda said smiling at him. I looked from her to him then back to her.
"There weren't enough shuttles anyway, or I wouldn't be here... we've got about a hundred people stranded on Floor Zero." the other woman told us.
"Oh, my God. The Fleet is moving. They're on their way." the man said and we all looked at the screen to see the fleet moving. The Doctor frantically ripped armfuls of wires out of desks as we watched him, not knowing exactly what he was trying to do.
"Dalek plan - big mistake. Because what have they left me with? Anyone? Anyone? Oh, come on - it's obvious. A great big transmitter - this station." he told us. "If I can change the signal, fold it back, sequence it - anyone?"
"You've gotta be kidding." Jack said looking at him and what he was doing.
"Give the man a medal!" he said grinning.
"A Delta Wave?" Jack asked him.
"A Delta Wave!" The Doctor said excitedly.
"What's a Delta Wave?" I asked him.
"A wave of Van Cassadyne energy. Fries your brain - stand in the way of a Delta Wave and your head gets barbequed!" Jack told me.
"And this place can transmit a MASSIVE wave! Wipe out the Daleks!" the Doctor said. I opened my mouth to say something but was cut off by Lynda.
"Well, get started and do it then!" she told him.
"Trouble is, wave this size, building this big, brain as clever as mine, should take about - ooh - three days? How long till the Fleet arrive?" the Doctor asked.
"Twenty-two minutes." the man told him after checking on the computer. The Doctor frantically pulled another cable out from underneath the desk, stared at the end of it for a second then looked up to us and beamed.
"We've now got a force field so they can't blast us out of the sky." Jack said as everyone but the Doctor gathered around the computer. "But that doesn't stop the Daleks from physically invading."
"Do they know about the Delta Wave?" the male worker said.
"They'll have worked it out at the same time. So, if they want to stop the Doctor, that means they've got to get to this level - 500. Now, I can concentrate the extrapolator around the top six levels, 500 to 495. So, they'll penetrate the station below that at level 494 and fight their way up." Jack told us.
"Who're they fighting?" the male worker asked.
"Us." Jack told him.
"And... what're we fighting with?" the male worker asked.
"The guards had guns with bastic bullets - that's enough to blow a Dalek wide open." Jack told us.
"There's FIVE of us." the female worker said.
"Ash, you can help me. I need all these wires stripped bare." the Doctor said and I went to join him.
"Right! Now there's FOUR of us!" the female worker said.
"Then let's move it! Into the lift! Isolate the lift controls!" Jack told them. The two workers hurried off and Lynda approached us. He stood up to meet her before she left.
"I - I just wanna say, um... thanks, I s'pose. And... I'll do my best!" she told him.
"Me too." he said grinning. I watched as they awkwardly decided on the best way of saying goodbye. At one point it looked as though he was going to kiss her forehead but they settled for a handshake instead. They laughed embarrassed before she headed off, glancing back at the Doctor who watched her go. I continued stripping wires until Jack walked up to us.
"It's been fun!" he said lightly. "But I guess this is goodbye."
"Don't talk like that. The Doctor's gonna do it. You just watch him." I told him.
"Ashlee..." Jack said cupping my face in both his hands and looking into my eyes intensely. "You are worth fighting for." he placed a brief kiss on my lips before turning to the Doctor. "Wish I'd never met you, Doctor!" he said grinning, taking the Doctor's face in his hands. "I was much better off as a coward." Jack kissed him the same way he kissed me before smiling and putting a hand on each of our shoulders. "See ya in hell." I watched him leave before turning back to the Doctor.
"He's gonna be all right..." I said trying to make myself believe it. The Doctor just gave me a look but gave no reply. "... isn't he?"
The Doctor and I were sitting on the floor in the space between the middle row of desks, working busily in a companionable silence.
"Suppose..." I started to say before stopping and going back to my work.
"What?" The Doctor asked me.
"Nothing." I told him.
"You said 'suppose'." he reminded me.
"No, I was just thinking... I mean, obviously you can't, but... you've got a time machine. Why can't you just go back to last week and warn them?" I asked.
"Soon as the TARDIS lands in that second, I become part of events. Stuck in the timeline." he told me not looking up for his work.
"Yeah, thought it'd be something like that..." I said continuing my work.
"There's another thing the TARDIS could do... it could take us away..." he said and glanced at him, smiling. "We could leave. Let history take its course. We go to Marbella in 1989."
"Yeah, but you'd never do that." I said.
"No, but you could ask." he told me and I looked back down to my work. "Never even occurred to you, did it?" he asked.
"Well, you bring out the good in me!" I told him smiling. I looked up at him to see him with love and affection in his eyes. The computer whirred in the background and the Doctor looked over at it, suddenly alert.
"The Delta Wave's started building. How long does it need?" We both lept to our feet and rushed over to the computers. The Doctor plonked himself in one of the chairs as I peered over his shoulders. He pressed a few buttons, starred at the monitor... and his face fell.
"Is that bad?" I asked him. He didn't reply as his head sunk to his knees. "Okay, it's bad. How bad is it?" I asked him. He suddenly perked up and lept to his feet, his eyes bright.
"Ashlee Tyler, you're a GENIUS!" he said and I grinned at his enthusiasm. He kissed me quickly before looking back at the computers. "We can do it! If I use the TARDIS to cross my old timeline... yes!" He shot off towards the TARDIS with me right behind him. We ran through the doors and over to the console. "Hold that down and keep position." he told me.
"What's it do?" I asked him breathless holding down the lever.
"Cancels the buffers. If I'm very clever - and I'm more than clever, I'm BRILLIANT - I might just save the world. Or rip it apart..." he told me.
"I'd go for the first one." I told him.
"Me too. Now, I've just got to go and power up the Game Station. Hold on!" he said running our of the TARDIS, full of energy. I waited for him with wide-eyed expectancy, waiting for him to return. When the TARDIS started making sounds and the like I started getting worried.
"Doctor, what're you doing? Can I take my hand off? It's moving." I called out to him. I abandoned the lever and ran across the room, throwing myself at the doors. "Doctor, let me out!" I said panicking. "Let me out! Doctor, what've you done?" I called to him, tears rushing down my face as I pounded on the door frantically.
"This is Emergency Program One." I turned in shock at hearing the Doctor to see a hologram of him. "Ashlee, now listen, this is important. If this message is activated, then it can only mean one thing. We must be in danger. And I mean fatal. I'm dead or about to die any second with no chance of escape." he told me.
"No!" I said moving towards the hologram.
"And that's okay. Hope it's a good death. But I promised to look after you, and that's what I'm doing. The TARDIS is taking you home." he said.
"I won't let you." I said rushing to the console trying to make the TARDIS take me back.
"And I bet you're fussing and moaning now - typical. But hold on and just listen a bit more. The TARDIS can never return for me. Emergency Program One means I'm facing an enemy that should never get their hands on this machine. So this is what you should do: let the TARDIS die." he said and I moved back to him. "Just let this old box gather dust. No one can open it; no one will even notice it. Let it become a strange little thing standing on a street corner. And over the years, the world will move on and the box will be buried. And if you want to remember me, then you can do one thing. That's all. One thing." he turned to me, his eyes full of love and sorrow. "Have a good life. Do that for me, Ash. Have a fantastic life." I saw tears building in his eyes and I shook my head at him as the hologram flickered before fading altogether.
"You can't do this to me." I said going back to the console. "You can't!" I slammed down every available button and lever in my reach. "Take me back! Take me back!" I begged the machine. The engines eventually died down and ground to a halt. I abandoned the console and ran across the room, flinging the doors open and rushing outside hoping to find my Doctor. I looked out to see the block of flats where Mum and Rose lived on a gray and dismal day. I ran back to the console and tried to go back.
"Come on, fly. How do you fly? Come on, HELP ME!" I begged pushing the buttons and pulling levers again and again, praying for it to work but nothing happened. I stepped out of the TARDIS feeling empty and truly alone for the first time in a long time.
"I knew it! I was all the way down Clifton's Parade, and I heard the engines and I thought 'there's only one thing that makes a noise like that'." I heard Mickey say as I leaned against my home. "What is it?" he asked me and I fell to the ground crying heavily and loudly.
Mickey had called Mum and Rose and we'd met them in a shop eating chips and fish. Well, they were I was just staring outside the window as they talked.
"And it's gone up-market, this place. They're doing little tubs of coleslaw, now." Mum said. "It's not very nice. Tastes a bit sort of clinical."
"Have you tried that new pizza place down Minto Road?" Mickey asked them.
"What's it selling?" Rose asked him.
"Pizza." Mickey told her and I rolled my eyes.
"Oh, that's nice." Rose said. "Do they deliver?"
"Yeah!" Mickey told her.
"Oh, Ashlee. Have something to eat..." Mum begged me.
"Two hundred thousand years in the future, he's dying, and there's NOTHING I can do." I said my voice trembling.
"Well, like you said - two hundred thousand years - it's way off!" Mum told me.
"But it's not! It's now! That fight is happening right now, and he's fighting for us! For the whole planet, and I'm just sitting here eating chips!" I said pushing my chips away from me.
"Listen to me." Mum told me and I looked at her. "God knows I have hated that man, but right now, I love him - and d'you know why? Because he did the right thing. He sent you back to me and Rose." she told me turning her attention back to her chips, as though the matter was closed.
"But what do I do every day, mum? What do I do? Get up - catch the bus - go to work - come back home - eat chipsand go to bed? Is that it?" I asked them.
"It's what the rest of us do." Mickey told me coldly.
"But I can't!" I told them.
"Why, 'cos you're better than us?" Rose asked me.
"No, I didn't mean that!" I said before trying to calm myself down. "But it was... it was a better life. And I - I don't mean all the travelling and... seeing aliens and spaceships and things - that don't matter. The Doctor showed me a better way of living your life." I said meeting their eyes before turning to Rose. "You know, he showed you too. That you don't just give up. You don't just let things happen. You make a stand. You say no. You have the guts to do what's right when everyone else just runs away, and I just can't-" I kicked the table in frustration and lept to my feet, running out of the chip shop in despair.
Rose and I were sitting on a bench with her trying to convince me to stop trying to get back to him.
"You can't spend the rest of your life thinking about the Doctor." Rose told me.
"But how do I forget him?" I asked her.
"You've got to start living your own life." Rose said and I looked up at them. :You know, a proper life, like the kind he's never had. The sort of life that you could have with someone else." I looked on the ground and saw two familiar words: BAD WOLF. I stood up and looked at them then looked at the fence to see the words on it also. I smiled and ran to the wall.
"Over here. It's over here as well!" I called out.
"That's been there for years! It's just a phrase! It's just words!" she said.
"I thought it was a warning... maybe it's the opposite. Maybe it's a message. The same words written down now and two hundred thousand years in the future. It's a link between me and the Doctor! Bad Wolf here... Bad Wolf there!" I said with a large grin on my face.
"But if it's a message, what's it saying?" Rose asked me.
"It's telling me I can get back! The least I can do is help him escape!" I said running off to the TARDIS.
"All the TARDIS needs to do is make a return trip. Just... reverse." I explained to Rose.
"Yeah, but we still can't do it." Rose told me.
"The Doctor always said the TARDIS is telepathic. She is can listen." I said looking around the console.
"It's not listening now, is it?" Rose asked me.
"We need to get inside it. Last time I saw you and Mickey, with the Slitheen, this middle bit opened..." I told her. "And there was this light... and the Doctor said it was the heart of the TARDIS. If we can open it, we can make contact. I can ask it to take me back!" I told her excitedly.
"Ash..." she said quietly.
"Mm?" I asked her not looking at her.
"If you go back, you're gonna die." she told me.
"That's a risk I've gotta take. 'Cos there's nothing left for me here." I told her, finally looking up from the console to her.
"Nothing?" she asked me, tears in her eyes.
"No." I said looking back at the console.
"Okay, if that's what you think... let's get this thing open." She said pulling out her phone.
I heard Mickey start the engine of his car. We had hooked his Beetle up with a thick, strong chain, the other end is attached to the console with me next to it.
"Faster!" I said and Rose repeated me outside to Mickey.
"It's not moving!" I called to them. The chain became more and more taut but nothing happened. I chewed on my lip with anticipation as the chain shuddered then snapped. I yelled in frustration and kicked the console before leaning on it, my head down in defeat. I slumped down in one of the chairs next to the console broken and defeated staring into space with Mum next to me. Rose had given up trying to convince me to stop trying and had sent Mum in to try.
"It was never gonna work, sweetheart. And the Doctor knew that. He just wanted you to be safe." she told me.
"I can't give up." I told her.
"Lock the door. Walk away." Mum begged me.
"Dad wouldn't give up." I said looking at her.
"Well, he's not here, is he?" Mum asked me and I didn't say anything to her. "And even if he was, he'd say the same."
"No, he wouldn't." I told her. "He'd tell me to try anything. If I could save the Doctor's life... try anything." I told her.
"Well, we're never gonna know." Mum told me.
"Well, I know. 'Cos I met him. I met Dad." I told her.
"Don't be ridiculous." she said.
"The Doctor took me and Rose back in time, and we met Dad." I told her.
"Don't say that." Mum told me.
"Remember when Dad died...? There were two people with him." I asked her. "Two girls. They held his hand. You saw them from a distance, mum! You saw them! Think about it! That was me and Rose. You saw us-" I told her.
"Stop it." Mum told me.
"That's how good the Doctor is!" I shouted at her. "He took us back in time and we met Dad and I learned what you've been keeping from me since I was two years old! Why didn't you tell me I was adopted?" I asked her, tears pouring out of my eyes.
"Stop it! Just stop it!" Mum shouted at me running from the TARDIS, crying. My whole body shook thinking about what was happening. I was losing him again.
Mickey and Rose were leaning against Mickey's car, looking at me as I leaned against the TARDIS.
"There's gotta be something else we can do." Mickey said.
"Maybe Mum was right... maybe we should just lock the door and walk away." I said looking down in sorrow.
"I'm not having that. I'm not having you just- just give up now. No way. We just need something stronger than Mickey's car... something bigger... something like that!" Rose said and we turned to look in the direction she was. I saw a huge recovery truck drive around the corner - driven by Mum. I grinned in amazement as it came to a halt and Mum climbed out, striding towards us.
"Right. You've only got this until six o' clock, so get on with it." Mum said tossing the keys to Mickey.
"Mum, where the hell did you get that from?" Rose asked her.
"Rodrigo. He owes me a favor. Never mind why, but you were right about your dad, sweetheart. He was full of mad ideas, and this is exactly what he would've done. Now, get on with it before I change my mind." Mum said and I unlocked the door to the TARDIS and attached the chain to the TARDIS console and the other end to the truck. We were ready. This would work.
"I'm coming for you Doctor." I said looking up to the ceiling. Mum and Rose stood outside with Mickey at the wheel of the recovery truck and me next to the console. Mickey started driving the truck and the chain stretched again.
"Keep going!" I shouted to them.
"Put your foot down!" I heard Mum shout to Mickey.
"Faster!" I shouted again.
"Give it some more, Mickey!" Rose shouted over the roar of the truck. I heard the metal begin to creak...
"Keep going!" I shouted out.
"Come on, come on!" I heard one of them yell but I couldn't tell which one it was anymore. The chain became more and more taut as the metal creaked even louder in protest.
"Keep going!" I called to them, holding my watch to me tightly. Finally the catch ripped of and the panel flew open, a blinding light poured out. I didn't notice I opened the watch as I stood in the light to try and communicate with the TARDIS. A mysterious breeze blew my hair and suddenly, the light flew into my eyes in golden streams. I held my hand towards the door and they closed. I saw memories flew into my mind from the watch, helping me remember who and what I was. But now, I was something more. When I felt the Doctor was outside the TARDIS doors I looked at them and made them fly open. The Doctor threw a hand over his eyes as the blinding golden light that was inside me poured out. I walked out and stood in the doorway as the Doctor stared at me, awestruck as the light curled around me. He stumbled backwards, falling to the ground.
"What've you done?" he asked me sounding scared. I gazed down at him and I felt the time votrex in my head, showing me everything.
"I looked into the TARDIS. And the TARDIS looked into me." I told him.
"You looked into the Time Vortex - Ash, no one's meant to see that." he told me.
"I know." I told him.
"This is the abomination!" the Dalek Emperor said.
"Exterminate!" one of the Daleks fired at me and I held up my hand. The bolt froze and reversed back into the gun. The Doctor looked at it in amazement before turning to me.
"I am the Bad Wolf. I create myself. I take the words and I scatter them in time and space." I said waving the words on the wall into time. "A message to lead myself here."
"Ashlee, you've got to stop this. You've got to stop this now." The Doctor told me. "You've got the entire vortex running through your head. You're gonna burn."
"I want you safe." I told him looking at him. "My Doctor. Protected from the false God."
"You cannot hurt me. I am immortal." the Dalek Emperor said and my head snapped to him.
"You are tiny. I can see the whole of time and space - every single atom of your existence, and I divide them." I said raising my hand. The Dalek then separated into golden, liquid-like particles. "Everything must come to dust... all things. Everything dies." I said looking to the side and the Daleks lined up then were reduced into the same particles. "The Time War ends."
"I will not die. I cannot die!" the Dalek Emperor said in fear.
"I am The Hunter. You are my pray. I always get what I'm hunting." I told it. When I felt the Dalek fleet dissolve I just stood on Floor 500 like I was in a trance.
"Ashlee, you've done it. Now stop. Just let go." the Doctor told me.
"I bring life..." I said to him. "For the first time I bring life to someone I care for instead of death.
"But this is wrong! You can't control life and death!" he told me, fear in his voice.
"But I can. The sun and the moon... the day and night." I said.
"The power's gonna kill you and it's my fault." he said lowering his head.
"I can see everything. Just as I used to." I told him. "All that is... all that was... all that ever could be." The Doctor stood up and looked down at me.
"That's what I see. All the time. And doesn't it drive you mad?" he asked with a grin.
"My head..." I said looking at him.
"Come here." he said walking up to me.
"... it's killing me..." I told him, crying.
"I think you need a Doctor." he said. I gazed into his eyes and then gently, carefully, he leaned down and pressed his lips to mine. As he kissed me I felt all the power I had leave me. We parted slowly and we gazed at each other for a few seconds before I passed out completely.
When I woke up I looked around me to see I was inside the TARDIS.
"What happened?" I asked him sitting up a little. Next to my arm was the pocket watched I'd carried around with me for 19 years. I felt no pull to keep it with me since it was opened. Looking at it brought the last few moment back to me in a flash.
"Don't you remember?" The Doctor asked me mildly surprised.
"Yeah, I do." I told him.
"Ashlee Tyler. The Hunter. Who'd have thought I'd see you again." he said and I smiled at him. "I was gonna take you to so many places. Barcelona - not the city Barcelona, the planet. You'd love it. Fantastic place - they've got dogs with no noses." he said and I laughed with him. "Imagine how many times a day you end up telling that joke, and it's still funny!"
"Then, why can't we go?" I asked him getting up, smiling.
"Maybe you will. And maybe I will. But not like this." My smile faded and I looked down at my feet.
"You're regenerating. Oh my god, this is all my fault." I said looking up at him with sadness written across my face.
"It wasn't your fault, Ash. You were only human then." he said smiling at me.
"I still shouldn't have looked into the time vortex. I know better than that." I said.
"As a human you didn't. As a Time Lady you do. Don't forget that." he said before suddenly he was propelled backwards with a blast of golden light. He clutched his stomach as though he had been punched. I rushed forward in concern.
"Doctor!" I called to him.
"Stay away!" he reminded me and I stopped and stared at him, tears rushing down my face.
"What can I do to help you?" I asked him.
"I absorbed all the energy of the Time Vortex. There's nothing you can do right now." he reminded me. He screwed up his eyes in pain. "Before I go, I just wanna tell you, you were fantastic." he said smiling proudly at me. "Absolutely fantastic. And d'you know what?" he asked me and I shook my head. He grinned at me and finished his sentence. "So was I." I smiled and nodded at him. He smiled widely back at me during his last few moments before suddenly, he convulsed and orange energy exploded from his skin, blasting out of the neck of his jumper, the sleeves of his jacket and the bottoms of his trousers. I staggered back, shielding my eyes from the heat and light, but I couldn't look away from him. Eventually the energy died away and a completely new man stood before me, still wearing the old Doctor's clothes. He looked slightly surprised for a moment, before turning to look at me. "Hello! Okay-oo." he stopped talking and gulped. I stared at the Time Lord I'd fallen for as a human and been in love with as a Time Lady. He'd been my husband, father to my children, grandfather to my children's children. I watched him as he ran a tongue over his teeth, brow furrowed. "New teeth. That's weird. So, where was I? Oh, that's right! Barcelona." he said with a grin and I grinned back at him.
The Doctor's Girl will return in
The Christmas Invasion