"I guess we should start by asking exactly what we're up against," I said.
"Daleks," the Doctor said dryly as he peered at a computer. I shot him an unamused look.
"You know that's not what I meant," I said before I looked between River and Dale and hauled the Doctor a few steps away and ducked my head in next to his.
"Listen we both know that we can't let the Daleks have River." He nodded.
"She would make too good of a weapon," he said. I bit my lip as I glanced over at her and Dale.
"But can we let the Daleks have Dale?" I asked and he paused, clearly at a loss for what to do. "They told me that they didn't feel like a Dalek anymore."
"They?" The Doctor asked with a slight eyebrow raise and I nodded.
"Dale doesn't really have a gender but calling them it didn't seem appropriate either. So, I went for they/them pronouns. I didn't think Dale would mind," I said, and his lips twitched at the corners.
"Honestly I don't think Dale knows the difference," he said with a slightly teasing tone to his voice.
"Not the point. Also, you're avoiding my question," I said. He let out a great gust of air as his shoulders slumped in defeat.
"I'm avoiding it because I don't know what to do about Dale," he said looking very conflicted. "I want to just leave them here because I look at them and all I see is a Dalek. And I will be the first one to admit that I have some very terrible history with them. But I can also see that they aren't acting like a Dalek and leaving them here would be cruel and against everything I stand for."
"Internal bias warring with external influence," I said as I reached out and took his hand. "Not that the internal bias isn't absolutely justified, but something like this scenario has happened before."
"A non-Dalek Dalek? I don't remember that," he said with an eyebrow raise.
"With Rose," I said, and I watched the memory dawn in his eyes. The Dalek who had felt remorse and wanted to feel the sun before dying. I was really going to have to start writing this stuff down because one of these days we were both going to forget something.
"Doesn't really solve our problem," he said, and I laughed.
"No, it doesn't. So, I guess we'll have to do what we do best." He looked at me in question. "No plan we make it up as we go."
"Is that what we do best?" He asked with a laugh.
"Well at the very least we do it very, very well."
"RIVER APPEARS DISTRESSED." I stepped away from the Doctor immediately and scooped her up off the floor.
"What's up? I hope you aren't hungry because I haven't got anything for you," I said as her face crinkled up before she started wailing at the top of her lungs. As she started crying the entire ship rocked to the side and an alarm started going off. I bounced and rocked River comfortingly as I looked between the Doctor and Dale.
"Let me guess the Daleks just arrived?" The Doctor rushed over to a computer and nodded at my words before his jaw dropped. "That bad?"
"Three Dalek platoons," he said flatly, and I winced at his tone as River stopped crying and I smiled down at her.
"Should I ask how big a Dalek platoon is?" He shook his head.
"Too many."
"Okay we just need to not panic," I said because the Doctor was starting to look well on his way. He shot me a wild look.
"Not panic! We're on a Time Lord warship with not one, but two genetic experiments!" He threw his hands up in the air after he had run them through his hair a few times. "What's there to panic about?"
"Honestly you'd think we've never made our way out of a tough situation before," I said to River and she giggled as she reached up and fisted one of my curls in her hand. I gently loosened her grip with a smile. "My hair is not for you."
"Do you really have that much faith in me?" He asked.
"Do you really think you haven't earned it?" I asked with an arched eyebrow before I turned to Dale. "Any ideas Dale?"
"THEY WILL FOCUS ON THE DOCTOR."
"He is the biggest threat," I said, and the Doctor scoffed at that. "Hey, you're the Time Lord not me."
"Humans are just as formidable if not more," he said.
"Tell that to the Daleks," I said, shifting River in my arms and the Doctor reached over and took her without a word.
"Dale didn't really offer us an idea." I looked over at Dale as I bit my lip while mulling over ideas.
"I have an idea based off of Dale's observations. You're absolutely going to hate it though," I said, and he frowned at me immediately like he was trying to see if he could figure out what I was going to say before I said it.
"Should I ask?"
"You distract and lure the Daleks over here somewhere." I pointed at him and then moved my finger to wave a circle on the floor at his feet. I shifted to point between River and myself, looping Dale in as well so that I didn't exclude them. "We head to the TARDIS. I get her ready to leave so that we can go as soon as you get back from instituting a self destruct sequence. And yes, before you say anything I do know how to get back to the TARDIS from here. I paid very careful attention this time."
"You're right I do hate it," he said weakly but the face he was making said that as much as he hated my idea it also made sense.
"But you're also about to tell me that you don't have a better idea so we're going to go with mine?" I guessed. He glared at me even as he reached down and gently put his fingers on River's temple.
"I hate you." I shifted River so that I could recreate the sling and settled her in carefully before I arched up on my toes to press a kiss to his cheek as I realized that he had put her to sleep. "God dammit Emma why can't you be a little less brilliant?"
"As far as we know I'm immune to their lasers." I reminded him in an attempt to comfort him as I refashioned River's sling. "Besides it's your fault I'm so brilliant."
"Daleks could kill you a myriad of other ways," he grumbled lightly under his breath before pulling me against him into a kiss.
"Please Emma be safe," he whispered, and I cupped the back of his head to drag him back to me for a deeper kiss.
"You first," I said after I pulled away. He gave me a crooked smile before pressing his lips to my forehead. He caught my hand as I turned towards Dale, like he didn't want to let me go. "Dale do you think it would be better if you stayed here or came with me?"
"WITH YOU."
"Okay," I said and silently wished I could look back at the Doctor while also knowing that I wasn't strong enough. If I looked back and saw his undoubtedly extremely worried expression, I knew I would cave and stay here with him. But we had already discussed why we couldn't let the Daleks have River and there wasn't much point going over it again now that we had even more of a time crunch.
I valiantly pretended not to feel his hand grasping towards mine when I pulled it out of his grip as I left the room. We hadn't been walking very long before the Doctor's voice came on over the intercom.
"Daleks face me on the flight deck." His voice was cold and flat in a way that made me really wish I hadn't come up with this idea so that I could stay up there with him.
"YOU ARE WORRIED." I bit my lip and nodded.
"I am. The Doctor doesn't really do very well with anything that has to do with the Daleks, let alone the Time War and now we've got the Time Lords in the mix. I just want to make sure he's okay," I explained and held back a bit of laughter that was bubbling up about the fact that I was explaining my emotions to a Dalek.
"BUT YOU ARE NOT WITH HIM."
"I made a choice between keeping him okay or keeping River safe. I picked River." I said with a tiny bit of laughter so that I wouldn't start crying. That would probably be even harder to explain than this. "I'm trying to convince myself that it's doing the right thing."
"WHAT WILL I DO AFTER YOU LEAVE?"
"Dale, I have to be perfectly honest, I have no idea. I was planning on figuring that out much later from now. Ideas?"
"NEGATIVE."
I came to the stupid realization that we probably shouldn't have been talking while we walked as we rounded a corner and came face to face with a group of five Daleks, the one in the middle which had a giant cannon instead of the usual sucker and gun of the other four Daleks. I heard a vague echo of the Doctor telling me that the Daleks could kill me in a myriad of ways as they all screamed exterminate and I gasped as I whirled to try and put my back towards them to get myself between them and River.
"I AM DALE!" Dale shot forward past my line of vision and there was a cacophonous explosion that knocked me onto my hands and knees. I checked on River, who was miraculously still sleeping peacefully, as I scrambled to my feet and turned back around. The other Daleks were scattered into flaming pieces and Dale was laying on their side with their blinking eyestalk facing me. I stumbled over.
"Dale-" I choked on the smoke and the shock as I knelt next to them and rested my hand on their dome.
"I Did The Right Thing." I sniffled against the rising tears at Dale's words, the first ones that weren't a scream, and swept my palm over their head comfortingly.
"Yeah," I said wetly.
"What Are You Doing?" I licked my lips, swallowed and smiled.
"I'm Crying. We humans do that when we're sad."
"Sad."
"Yeah. I'd say it's the opposite of happy, but that would probably just lead to more questions," I said with a harsh laugh.
"I'm crying because I just watched Dale the not so very Dalek do the right thing." I watched the light in the eyestalk dim further and bent down to press a kiss next to my hand. "And I am so very honoured."
"Keep River Safe." The eyestalk went out and I clapped my hand over my mouth so that I wouldn't alert any other Daleks that might be nearby with my sobs.
"I promise," I whispered as I pushed myself up off the floor and cradled River a little closer to me so that I could rock her slightly. It was mostly so that I could comfort myself since River was still fast asleep and didn't seem like she would be waking up anytime soon. I made it back to the TARDIS without further incidents though the quiet was enough that I jumped around pretty much every corner. I decided to just snap my fingers instead of trying to shift River around so that I could fish out my key.
"Thank you," I said to the TARDIS once I had closed the door, turned around and realized that she had dug out a little cradle from somewhere and materialized it in the console room. I untied the sling from around my neck and settled River in the cot, smoothing my hand over the Gallifreyan on the side. "Any chance you feel like translating that for me?"
"No, I guess not," I said after a few seconds of waiting and nothing happening. She could only do that on occasion since she wasn't technically supposed to be able to. The TARDIS hummed slightly. "How about seeing if you can locate the Doctor by connecting with the other ship? See if I need to save him from a tight spot?"
The monitor on the console turned on to a video of the Doctor standing on the flight deck surrounded by Daleks.