Hello everyone!

We got an air date for series 11! I'm so excited!

Anyway, today we start Dalek. Now, what I realized during writing is that there aren't a lot of scenes with Rose and by addition in this story, June, especially in the beginning. And there's also not a good place to split the chapters. So, it's gonna be a little awkward, but this is a really good episode so it'll make up for it (hopefully).

I won't keep you any longer.

Happy reading!

Chapter 18

Dalek part 1

A loud knocking on her bedroom door interrupted June's restless night of attempted sleep. She turned her throbbing head towards the noise. The door cracked open and the Doctor poked his head inside. "Wake up," he told her, his voice quiet yet still demanding. "Something's interfering with the TARDIS's flight pattern. We need to take a look." June groaned. She just wanted to sleep peacefully. "Ten minutes." And then he was gone.

June sighed. She hadn't been able to sleep anyway. The moment she sat up in bed, a wave a nausea crashed over her. She leaned over, her head upside down against the mattress and her hand clutching her stomach like holding it would make any difference. After a minute of sitting there, hoping the pain would stop with no results, she sat back up. She pressed the back of her hand against her forehead but she wasn't feverish. She forced herself to get up.

It took a while for June to get ready through the groggy way her body wanted to move and the stuffy feeling blocking normal thoughts. But she did finish everything, even managing to pull on a full outfit that even looked a little bit presentable. She swallowed down pills for the headache and the nausea, but had a bad feeling that it would make no difference.

The Doctor and Rose were already waiting for her when she walked into the console room. The appearance of her dead weight made the chatter between the two fall silent. The Doctor spoke to her first. "I said ten minutes." His tone didn't make the concerned way he was looking over her obvious.

June frowned at him. "Yeah, well—" she was too tired to come up with a comeback, "oh well."

Rose walked up to the brunette, eyebrows furrowed. The familiar green eyes seemed completely hollow. "You look terrible."

"Thanks, Rose," June deadpanned.

Rose pressed a hand to her forehead. "Are you sick?"

June swatted her hand away. "I'm fine. I'm feeling— I'm good." Rose frowned at her. "Seriously, I'm fine."

"Have you eaten anything?" she asked.

The wheezing of the TARDIS filled the room as June shook her head. "Don't feel like it." By the way Rose frowned, June could tell that she would try to convince her to eat and she wasn't in the mood for that. She didn't think she could stomach anything without dropping and becoming violently sick. "Where are we going?" she asked the Doctor. He gave her another once over. June caught the concern in his eye this time. "I'm fine," she insisted. "Where are we going?"

"Don't know," he said, flipping a switch on the console.

"Oh great," June said. "That's awesome. Nothing at all could possibly go wrong."

~*O*~

They stepped into a dimly lit hallway. There were tall class cases full of black blob shaped objects lined down the long, narrow, seemingly endless room. The air was still and lifeless. It was as if nothing real had touched the ground in years.

"So, what is it?" Rose asked. "What's wrong?"

"Don't know," the Doctor said. "Some kind of signal drawing the TARDIS off course."

"Where are we?" Rose asked. June leaned against the TARDIS doors, watching the Doctor and Rose gaze around the narrow space.

"Earth," the Doctor said. "Utah, North America. About half a mile underground."

"Ooh, we're in America for once," June muttered, almost laughing to herself.

"And, when are we?" Rose asked.

The Doctor was obviously more focused on the dark things inside the display cases than Rose's questions, but still said, "2012."

"2012," June mouthed to herself. She had turned seventeen that February. She had stopped caring about school the second she left her junior year behind her. She had turned to making money for instruments and practicing audition songs for musicals. She was secretly seeing the delinquent next door as more than the friends that they had been before. She would sit on the roof of her house with him, going through cans of soda while they watched the Disneyland fireworks go off in the distance. It had been a much simpler time and she couldn't stop herself from smiling at the memories.

"God, that's so close," Rose sighed. "So, I should be twenty-six." June kept forgetting that Rose was years older than her. She was supposed to be the child, not Rose.

And then everything lit up. June winced against the light, but when she could see again, everything was much clearer. They were in some sort of museum. A scarily clean, untouched museum. And even though they could all see, the items in the glass cases weren't much easier to identify. They were all misshapen and odd. None of them belonged here.

"Blimey," Rose gasped. "It's a great big museum."

"An alien museum," the Doctor said.

"Obviously," June scoffed. "Those things—" she glanced at the items in the glass cases, "—don't exactly look like they're from earth."

"Someone's got a hobby," the Doctor continued, glancing at the items in the glass cases. June was sure that he could identify each and every one with no issue. "They must have spent a fortune on this. Chunks of meteorite, moon dust. That's the milometer from the Roswell spaceship."

June smiled. "I knew that was actually a spaceship."

"Of course, it was actually a spaceship," the Doctor said. "Does anyone actually think that it wasn't?"

"That's a bit of Slitheen!" Rose exclaimed. It wasn't difficult to pick the Slitheen out from the rest of the alien clutter. A severed Slitheen arm stood upright and lifeless in one of the glass cases. "That's a Slitheen's arm. It's been stuffed."

"Where the hell did they get it from?" June wondered. She could only picture it being amongst the wreckage of the explosion they had caused.

The Doctor didn't care to notice the Slitheen. He was much more focused on another glass case with something inside that made him sigh and say, "Oh, look at you."

It was an old, silver robot head with handle bars on the side and dead eyes that looked like they were stuck mid-cry. June joined him at the case, but didn't spent much time staring at the robot, but instead looked up at him. It was like the Doctor could see nothing else. He wasn't just staring, but remembering. "Did you know that thing?" June asked.

The Doctor nodded. "Yeah. An old friend of mine. Well, enemy. The stuff of nightmares reduced to an exhibit. I'm getting old."

June stared at the robot. That had been the stuff of nightmares? "It looks like it's from the sixties." The Doctor looked down at her. She was focused on scanning the robot's features. He smiled softly at her. He was glad her little comments could make him stop remembering.

"Is that where the signal's coming from?" Rose asked. June hadn't noticed her appear next to her shoulder.

"No, it's stone dead," the Doctor said. "The signal's alive. Something's reaching out, calling for help." He took another moment to stare at his past. And then he lifted his hand and touched the glass.

And then an alarm sounded. It blared and echoed off the walls of the hallway. June almost jumped a foot off the ground, a movement her stomach didn't like nor agree with. Soldiers poured into the room, popping out around the glass cases and surrounded them.

"If someone's collecting aliens, that makes you Exhibit A," Rose told the Doctor. June winced. She hadn't even thought of that.

~*O*~

They were escorted into an office by a tall blonde woman and about fifty guards. Two men sat behind a large desk, an older man and a boy, about Rose's age. The older man obviously didn't care much about anything and the boy seemed tiny and naïve compared to him. And on the wall behind the desk hung an abstract painting of the older man.

The boy handed the older man a small, grey, alien device. "What does it do?" the older man asked. June was almost stunned to hear actual American accents on one of their trips instead of the usual European-esque ones.

"Well, you see the tubes on the side?" the boy asked. June frowned. So much for being in a room full of Americans. "It must be to channel something. I think maybe fuel."

"I really wouldn't hold it like that," the Doctor interrupted.

"Shut it," the blonde woman snapped. Her voice so harsh it almost made June jump.

"Really, though," the Doctor continued, "that's wrong."

"Is it dangerous?" the boy asked.

"No, it just looks silly." He started for the desk. The loud clicking of the cocking guns rang out behind them, making everyone freeze in place. The older man held his hand up and the guns lowered. He stood and, with an intrigued look on his face, handed the Doctor the device.

"You just need to be—" the Doctor ran his fingers lightly against the ridges of the alien device. Soft noises played from the object. It sounded like what June imagined stars to sound like. Shining, glimmering, and alien. "—delicate."

The older man smiled widely. "It's a musical instrument."

"And it's a long way from home," the Doctor said.

"Here, let me." The older man plucked the device right out of the Doctor's hand. It didn't sound right when he tried to play it. Instead of sounding like shining, the music sounded more like mechanical errors with out of tone beeping.

"I did say delicate," the Doctor said. "It reacts to the smallest fingerprint. It needs precision." And a few moments later, the music began to sound right again. The Doctor smiled. "Very good. Quiet the expert."

"As are you," the older man said. He tossed the musical instrument aside. It hit the wall with a loud crack that made June flinch and fell to the floor. Any amusement on the Doctor's face vanished. "Who exactly are you?" the older man asked.

"I'm the Doctor," the Doctor said. "And who are you?"

"Like you don't know," the older man retorted. "We're hidden away with the most valuable collection of extra-terrestrial artefacts in the world, and you just stumbled in by mistake."

The Doctor laughed. "Pretty much sums me up, yeah." June couldn't help but laugh with him.

"The question is," the older man started around the desk, "how did you get in? Fifty-three floors down, with your little cat burglar accomplices. You're quite a collector yourself, they're rather pretty." His attitude about her and Rose made June feel sicker than she already did.

"They're gonna smack you if you keep calling them they," Rose retorted.

"She's English too!" the older man exclaimed without even looking at Rose. He glanced over his shoulder at the boy. "Hey, little Lord Fauntleroy, got you a girlfriend." He looked back at the Doctor. "Is this one English, too?" he asked, pointing at June.

June gritted her teeth. She didn't know who he was, but she didn't like him. "I'm not," she said. "And I can answer questions about myself, thanks."

The older man laughed. "They're both a little feisty." He focused back on June. "Look at this one's eyes." June tried to make her annoyance obvious. She didn't appreciate being referred to as 'this one.' She squirmed under the older man's curious stare. "Are they natural?" he asked. It seemed like he was asking the Doctor again, but of course, he wouldn't answer for her.

"Of course, they're natural," June said. "You can't exactly go change your eye color."

The older man laughed. "Sure, you can't."

"This is Mister Henry Van Statten," the boy said. June stopped. She knew that name. Van Statten had been a popular, very successful business man years back, but he mysteriously disappeared one day and was never seen again. June hadn't paid much attention to him because at seventeen she was more concerned with due dates, rehearsal, and finding enough time to sleep.

"And who's he when he's at home?" Rose asked.

"Mister Van Statten owns the internet," the boy said.

June almost laughed. Rose said, "Don't be stupid. No one owns the internet."

Van Statten grinned. "And let's just keep the whole world thinking that way, right kids?"

"So, you're just about an expert in everything except the things in your museum. Anything you don't understand, you lock up," the Doctor said.

"And you claim greater knowledge?" Van Statten asked.

"I don't need to make claims, I know how good I am," the Doctor said.

"And yet, I captured you," Van Statten reminded him. June sighed. Ego vs Ego. She was already too tired for it. "Right next to the cage," he continued. "What were you doing down there?"

"You tell me," the Doctor said.

"The cage contains my one living specimen." If Van Statten treated people the way he had treated June and Rose, she wondered how bad he would treat some alien he had trapped in his basement.

"Show me," the Doctor demanded.

"You want to see it?"

"Blimey, you can smell the testosterone," Rose sighed. June snickered.

"Goddard, inform the Cage we're heading down," Van Statten ordered. "You, English. Look after the girls. Go and canoodle or spoon or whatever it is you British do." June wasn't sure if he remembered that she was American or not. "And you, Doctor with no name, come and see my pet."

~*O*~

They were taken into another room, another office. This one was opposite of the clean, professional one they had been held in before. This one was dark and cluttered, stuck in the corner of the huge underground museum base. "Sorry about the mess," the boy—Adam—said. "Mister Van Statten sort of lets me do my own thing, so long as I deliver the goods."

June sat down in the first chair she saw. She leaned over, her arms resting against her softly trembling legs. Rose and Adam carried a conversation by themselves. June was fine with it. She didn't feel like observing the conversation and pretending to be interested. She was too busy shifting uncomfortably and feeling sick.

"What do you think that is?" Adam asked. He handed Rose some alien object.

Rose turned the object over in her hands. "Er, a lump of metal?"

"Yeah," Adam nodded. "Yeah, but I think, well, I'm almost certain, it's from the hull of a spaceship. The thing is," he leaned over the desk closer to Rose, "it's all true. Everything the United Nations tries to keep quiet, spacecraft, aliens, visitors to Earth. They really exist." June smiled softly. At least not everyone was either completely blind or in denial.

"That's amazing," Rose said. She was clearly choosing to leave out the truth, probably for the better.

"I know it sounds incredible, but I honestly believe the whole universe is just teeming with life," Adam said.

"I'm gobsmacked, yeah," Rose nodded.

June snickered. "Gobsmack is an actual word?"

Adam and Rose looked over at her. Rose nodded like this was the most obvious thing in the world. "Yeah."

June shrugged. "I guess I can't judge." She slouched in her chair, but her stomach churned as her body stretched so she quickly sat back up.

Rose turned back to Adam. "So, you do what, sit here and catalogue it?"

Adam grinned. "Best job in the world."

"Imagine if you could get out there," Rose said. "Travel amongst the stars and see it for real." She was pushing it. It seemed like she was teasing the idea. Imagine if you could. He didn't know that they did.

"Yeah, I'd give anything," Adam told her. "I don't think it's ever going to happen. Not in our lifetimes."

"Oh, you never know." Rose began to look around at the objects hanging from the walls and the ceiling. "What about all those people who say they've been inside of spaceships and things and talked to aliens?"
Adam took a drink out of a mug and nodded his head. "I think they're nutters."

Rose stopped and looked over at him. She slowly grinned and laughed. "Yeah, me too." And that's why June never said anything. People would think that she's crazy.

"So," Rose said, "how'd you end up here?"

"Van Statten has agents all over the world looking for geniuses to recruit," Adam explained. Geniuses. Adam seemed smart, but not a genius.

"Oh, right. You're a genius," Rose retorted, rolling her eyes.

Adam shrugged. "Sorry, but yeah. I can't help it. I was born clever." Rose grinned. June watched him with narrow eyes. He seemed off to her. Maybe it was something about the way he spoke or the way he acted. June wanted to hit herself. She shouldn't be judging, she didn't even know him. And Rose seemed to like him, so why did June feel off? "When I was eight," Adam continued, "I logged onto the US Defense System. Nearly caused World War Three."

"What, and that's funny, is it?" Rose asked. June frowned. They were flirting right in front of her, weren't they?

"Well, you should've been there just to see them running about. Fantastic!" Adam laughed.

Rose laughed and looked away. "You sound like the Doctor." June shook her head, staring down at the concrete floor. No, no he didn't.

"Are you and him…?" his words fell off.

"No, we're just friends," Rose said. "That'd be June."

Everything froze for a moment. June's breath and voice nearly caught in her throat. "I'm sorry, what?" Rose smirked and winked at the brunette. It was like she knew something. But there wasn't anything to know.

"Good," Adam said.

Rose raised her eyebrows at him. "Why is it good?"

What the hell had she meant, 'That'd be June'? June didn't know what Rose saw between them. She had to be making something out of nothing. They were just friends. Good friends. Nothing more.

"It just is," Adam said.

They were both silent for a moment. Rose glanced over at June, but looked away when she saw the look on the woman's face. "So," she said, "wouldn't you rather be downstairs?" She started around the desk. "I mean, you've got these bits of metal and stuff, but Mister Van Statten's got a living creature down there." Right, they were there for a reason. The Doctor was already down there, but that didn't mean he wouldn't need backup.

"Yeah," Adam nodded. "Yeah, well, I did ask, but he keeps it to himself. Although, if you're a genius, it doesn't take long to patch through on the comm system."

Rose grinned. "Let's have a look, then." Adam turned to his computer. Rose looked over at June. "Come here, you. You've been too quiet lately."

June sighed and heaved herself off of her chair. She had to go and look, didn't she? Rose couldn't help but watch her with a concerned eye. June was stumbling and staggering as she walked.

"It doesn't do much," Adam said, "the alien. It's weird. It's kind of useless. It's just like this great big pepper pot."

June stood with Rose and Adam and watched as the live feed popped up on the computer. Adam was right, the alien looked like one of those salt and pepper shakers. Just… more off. There was obviously something wrong with it. It was chained to the spot where it stood, like it was the most dangerous creature in the universe. It didn't look dangerous, but something told June that it was.

And then a man in an orange hazmat suit approached the alien. He had a large drill in his hand. He aimed it at the large, dirty, alien shell. It began to spin and spin and the alien screamed mechanically. No matter how off it seemed… it didn't deserve what was happening to it.

"It's being tortured!" Rose exclaimed. "Where's the Doctor?"

June frowned. Where was the Doctor? He never would never let anyone or anything be tortured with a giant drill. He would have already stopped or at least be trying to. However, June doubted that Van Satten was a very lenient man. Who knew if he would even let the Doctor get close to the alien.

"I don't know," Adam answered.

"Take us down there now," Rose demanded.

~*O*~

Rose was very obviously very determined to solve the problem. June was nervous and less than enthusiastic. June hadn't seen the Doctor anywhere on their trip down to the cage. He and Van Statten had just gone missing. It screamed that something was off.

They walked into the room right outside the cage and a security guard immediately jumped up out of his chair to stop them. "Hold it right there."

But Adam had it handled, holding up an ID card and saying, "Level three access. Special clearance from Mister Van Statten."

The cage door was already open, as if the room was just sitting and waiting for people to come in and gawk at the alien. The room itself was dark and their attentions were immediately pulled away from the massive amounts of controls around them right to the alien. It stood right across from them, chained up and bathed in dim light.

June felt weird looking at the alien. It felt like there was something going on behind the metal. She knew that she was taller than it, she knew that it was chained up, it couldn't do anything to her. They were here to save whatever it was, not to fear it.

Although Adam told her, "Don't get too close," Rose was very willing to approach the alien. June inched along behind her, ready to grab the blonde and yank her away before anything happened. The alien did seem defenseless, but a lot of aliens did before they attacked.

"Hello," Rose said, looking at the alien right in its bright blue eye. "Are you in pain? My name's Rose Tyler. This is June Harlow." She gestured back to June. "We've got a friend, he can help. He's called the Doctor. What's your name?"

"Yes," the alien droned in its rough robotic voice.

"What?" Rose asked.

The alien's eye moved to meet Rose's. "I am in pain." June softened. No, it had to be defenseless. And it wasn't right for her to be defensive when it needed help. She wasn't like that. Maybe it was the sick feeling in her stomach or something else mysterious in the air that was throwing her off, but she usually wasn't one to go against those in pain. "They torture me," it continued, "but still, they fear me. Do you fear me?"

"No," Rose said.

The alien turned its eye to June. Just it laying its sight on her felt heavy on her brain. "Do you?" it asked. June silently shook her head. There was no reason to fear it. Any wrong feeling in her gut had to be mistaken.

Its eye lowered to the ground. "I am dying."

"No, we can help," Rose argued.

"You'll be fine," June agreed.

"I welcome death," it said. It looked up at Rose. "But I am glad that before I die I have met humans who were not afraid." June felt its words physically take her heart and squeeze it tight.

"Isn't there anything we can do?" Rose asked.

"My race is dead," the alien said, "and I shall die alone." June thought of the Doctor.

Something told her to reach for it. It was dying. It was stuck in a metal shell, wasting away alone and in pain. Anyone would feel sympathy for it. So, June reached up, took a deep breath, and placed her hand on the alien's metal head. She regretted it immediately. The metal burned her skin and she recoiled away. Her golden handprinted faded into the alien's shell. She had done something wrong.

Suddenly, the alien was much more alive. It lit up and its head whizzed around mechanically. "Genetic material extrapolated." June grabbed Rose and pulled her to the back of the room towards Adam. Something had changed. She had changed it. "Initiate cellular reconstruction!" The chains snapped against the alien's weight.

The man in the orange hazmat suit came into the room, carrying the large drill. "What have you done?" he snapped at the group. He approached the alien. It raised one of its hands which looked a bit like a plunger. "What are you going to do?" the man asked. "Sucker me to death?" And it did. The alien's plunger hand grabbed the man's face and started suckering him to death. No, this definitely wasn't the same alien June had felt bad for a minute ago.

They ran out of the cage. "Get some backup in there!" June shouted.

"It's killing him!" Rose yelled, running up to a control deck. "Do something!"

One of the guards spoke into a microphone. "Condition red! Condition red! I repeat, this is not a drill!"

June had insisted that someone go in and try to save the man in the hazmat suit, but everyone knew it was already too late to save him. So, the cage door was sealed shut. But the rest of them could be saved. No other deaths would be her fault. They all just stood around, with anxiously crossed arms and jittering legs, waiting from orders from Van Statten who was taking his sweet time getting back to them.

But when he did appear on the computer screen, the Doctor was with him and he did not look happy. June was washed with relief to see that he was fine. She was almost sure that something could have happened to him. "You've got to keep it in that cell," the Doctor ordered.

June pushed her way to the screen. "So, it's kinda my fault," she told him. He gaped at her. "But I was just trying to be nice and I felt bad. I didn't know what would happen!"

A guard appeared at her shoulder. "I've sealed the compartment," he said. "It can't get out, that lock's got a billion combinations."

"A Dalek's a genius," the Doctor said. June froze at the alien's name. She only knew that name for one, very bad reason. "It can calculate a thousand billion combinations in one second flat."

"That's a Dalek?" June asked.

The Doctor nodded. "Yeah." The dying alien June had felt sympathy for was a Dalek, a menacing, killing machine, one of the species that started the Time War, the Doctor's worst enemy. And now it was alive again because of her.

"But you said—"

The Doctor interrupted her, "And I was wrong."

"Is now a good time to tell you that I've been feeling sick since I woke up today?" June asked. She nervously smiled at him.

He gaped at her. "No!"

"Well—" she laughed a strained laugh and shrugged. The Doctor stared at her incredulously.

June and Rose were quickly pushed away from the screen and towards the exit. They stood with Adam behind two security guards. They held their guns up to the cage door. A long series of various numbers were alternating on the cage lock. The numbers quickly turned into a string of number signs. And then the door cracked, swung open, and revealed the Dalek.

Looking at it was worse now. June knew what exactly it was. But to her, it didn't look like the monster the Doctor had described it to be. The only man that it had mercilessly killed was the one who had been torturing it and even though that didn't justify his death, a human would've done the same.

One of the guards shouted, "Open fire!" and the guns started to go off. June flinched and Rose grabbed her arm, backing away from the noise.

Van Statten's muffled voice came from the computer screen. "Don't shoot it! I want it unharmed!"

And then the Doctor's voice, "June, Rose, get out of there!"

They backed up through the doorway as the Dalek slowly approached them. And then it stopped and turned, deciding to go towards the computers instead. The guards took the moment to reload and bark orders. "De Maggio, take the civilians and get them out alive. That is your job, got that?"

De Maggio nodded and started towards the exit. She nodded at the group of three and said, "You, with me." They left the other guard to shoot at the Dalek.

~*O*~

They were running. Running as people were dying. June could hear the screams and the cries from the soldiers who fought against the seemingly impenetrable Dalek. She realized that it was much more menacing than it looked. It was killing everyone in its path. It seemed much more like the monster the Doctor had described than what June had initially seen. And it was all her fault. The blood was on her hands.

June was constantly lagging behind the group. Her wobbly legs didn't want to work and the sick had worked its way up to bobbing in her throat. The feeling in her stomach felt less like that of a stomach and more like hands twisting and punching her innards like it was Playdough or slime. She was usually a fast runner, but now she just felt like the entire definition of her being was to feel sick and nauseous.

But even though she felt like if she opened her mouth any more without getting sick, the moment she saw it in the distance in front of them, she cried out, "Stairs! There are stairs!"

Rose reached back, grabbed one of her arms, and excitedly pulled her into the stairwell. "That's more like it!" she exclaimed. "It hasn't got legs. It's stuck!" They grinned at each other. June didn't want to show it on her face, but she was dreading the quick, jumping climb up the staircase.

De Maggio pushed them towards the stairs. "It's coming! Get up!"

They all clambered up the staircase. June felt like her stomach was threatening to fall out of her body. They stopped up the second large flight. June leaned against the railing next to Rose. She kept struggling to catch her breath. It felt like each breath was scraping violently down her throat. And just as they were able to stay still, the Dalek rolled through the doorway.

It stopped, staring at the staircase. June stared down at it. How could something so unintimidating kill so many people in such a little amount of time? And now it seemed completely stuck.

"Great big alien death machine defeated by a flight of stairs," Adam mocked.

"That thing's just killed a lot of people and you want to tease it?" June asked him through ragged breaths.

The Dalek turned its eye up to them. De Maggio held out her gun. Her hands were shaking. June swallowed. She had to be the strong one here. Not June, not Rose, not Adam, but her. She was in charge, having to lay down her life before everyone else's. It wasn't fair. She must've been just as scared as the rest of them. "Now, listen to me," she demanded of the Dalek. "I demand that you return to your cage. If you want to negotiate then I can guarantee that Mister Van Statten will be willing to talk. I accept that we imprisoned you and maybe that was wrong, but people have died, and that stops right now. The killing stops. Have you got that? I demand that you surrender. Is that clear?"

The Dalek was quiet. And then, "Elevate." And it began to rise into the air.

"Ah, shit," June groaned.

Rose gasped, "Oh my god."

And as the Dalek rose up the stairs towards them, De Maggio turned to Adam and said, "Adam, get them out of here."

"You're not staying behind," June argued. "It'll kill you."

"You can't stop it," Rose agreed.

"Someone's got to try," De Maggio said. The Dalek was dangerously close. "Now get out!" She shoved them away with her free hand. "Don't look back. Just run."

They did what they were told. They ran up the last flight of stairs. They all ran down the nearest hallway, June watching Rose and Adam's backs ahead of her. And then De Maggio screamed. June couldn't take a moment to close her eyes. She would have to remember to tell someone how brave she had been.

~*O*~

June watched Rose and Adam stop in front of her. When she caught up, she noticed a room full of armed soldiers and employees of all different types. They had really ramped up the gun power. "You three, get the hell out of there!" the soldier in charge shouted at them.

So, they ran. They stopped in the back doorway, watching the still scene in front of them. June and Rose wrapped supportive arms around each other as they were both tired of running. The people outside were so still that it seemed almost like a picture. That is, until the Dalek rolled onto the scene.

It looked right at them. Right at her. June held eye contact with it. It was staring at her. And nothing moved. No one attacked and no one moved. The Dalek just stared at her.

"We have to go," June whispered to Rose and Adam.

Adam pulled Rose away and Rose pulled June with her. Rose tugged on June's arm. "It was looking at you," she said as they jogged away.

June shook her head. "No…." She knew that it was. But she didn't want it to have been.

"Yeah, it wants to slaughter us," Adam said.

"I know, but it was looking right at her," Rose shot back.

"So?" Adam asked. "It's just sort of a metal eye thing. It's looking all around."

Rose shook her head. "I don't know. It's like there's something inside." She looked up at June. "Didn't you see it?

June held up her hands, moving away. "Okay, honestly, I don't know what's going on with that thing. But we don't exactly have the time to figure it out. If we stay here, we're dead. And I don't want that. So, we're going and we're not going back. Okay?" There were silent nods. "Okay, let's go then."

As they ran, June wondered if something could be going on with that Dalek. Maybe Rose was onto something. Maybe something on the inside was changing. But then again, it was killing so many people, how was it any different to what the Doctor had described? And now, that thing was in charge of the fate of a room full of people. And no one could do anything about it.

That's part one of Dalek!

What did you guys think?

Reviews, follows, and favorites are very much appreciated!

Until next time,

~ C.C.