Hello guys!

Today we finish up Dalek! The next episode is the Long Game, an episode I really don't care about one way or another so I'm going to try to make it interesting.

Also, I finished reading the Day of the Doctor novelization the Target exclusive one and it was really good so I recommend you guys go and read it. It's real interesting and very meta.

Anyway, I won't keep you waiting any longer.

Happy reading!

Chapter 19

Dalek part 2

Stairs. There were just stairs. June's stomach could barely handle it. She had fallen far behind Rose and Adam. Her legs wobbled underneath her, threatening to toss her to the floor. She could already imagine herself spilling over onto the concrete and getting sick everywhere.

She jumped when her phone buzzed in her pocket. She dug it out and an unknown number shone on the screen. She usually ignored unknown calls, but she figured the Doctor would be trying to reach her. So, she answered it. "Hey," she said. Her voice felt like it was bubbling up in her throat.

"Where are you?" the Doctor asked.

June glanced around. A large sign hung on the wall next to a steel door. "Floor forty-nine."

"You've got to keep moving," he told her. "The vault's being sealed off up at level forty-six."

"Um, alright." She stumbled as she jumped onto the next step. Her body crashed onto the concrete. Rose shouted back to her. The Doctor's quiet, muffled voice asked her if she was okay from the phone speaker. June quickly stood back up again and pressed the phone to her ear. "I'm fine." She began to run again, despite her body's harsh arguments. "Stop the door from closing. We'll be there soon."

"I can't," he told her. "I'm the one who's closing them." June sighed. "I can't wait and I can't help you. Now, for God's sake, run."

"Yeah, I figured that," June grumbled into the phone. She really just wanted to close her eyes and fall over. She wanted the world to be still.

June ran as fast as she could. Even though everything in her body ached and burned, she ran. And as her steps pounded down the hallway, it began to feel like her body didn't exist and instead she existed inside the horrible sick feeling. The pain pushed tears down her red cheeks. She couldn't help but think about how she just wanted to stop. She wanted to sleep and feel safe and okay again. The stress of the chase and the stress of the illness pounded against her bones and her brain and she was about to burst.

"Done it," Van Statten's muffled voice came from the other side of the call. "We've got power to the bulkheads."

"The Dalek's right behind them," Goddard added. Those words made June feel worse.

"June?" the Doctor asked.

"We're—" she took a deep breath. "We're almost there. Just a few more seconds."

June knew that salvation sat just around the corner, but it never got any closer. Despite being much further along than June, Rose and Adam weren't even close to the exit. And the more she fought towards safety, the worse everything became. It felt more like tugging against chains than running with a stomach ache.

"Doctor," Van Statten said, "I can't sustain the power. The whole system is failing. Doctor, you've got to close the bulkheads."

She had to make it. If she didn't, June would be another victim of not just that singular Dalek, but the whole destructive race. But her hope and confidence drained too quick. She was not much more than dead weight. And she began to cry. Not just silent, painful tears, but a real cry. She couldn't hold it back. Something had to give. Not that it made anything any easier.

The Doctor's voice was soft, muttering, as if he couldn't bare for her to hear him. "I'm sorry."

Rose and Adam turned the corner before June could even see the way around it. She still could hear Adam call back, "Come on!" like they weren't already going as fast as they could.

The door had already closed half way when June ran around the corner. She forced her legs to go faster despite how they shook and sputtered. Adam rolled under the door, safe. And then Rose rolled under as well. She was safe. Rose was fine and that was good. The door slammed shut.

June's broken running continued until her body hit the steel door. Her tears turned into sobs and her lungs gasped for air. She slid to the floor where the concrete and the steel met to make a cold spot. Before this, June had had no idea what agony felt like, but she figured that this was close enough.

She doubled over and got sick in the corner of the hallway.

June stood back up, not bearing to sit next to her own sick. She leaned against the steel wall. Her face welcomed the cold of the metal. She could hear loud banging from the other side, muffled screams and arguments. June brought the phone back up to her ear. "Where are you?" the Doctor asked, his voice already taking over everything. "June, did you make it? What about Rose?"

Just when she thought the crying was over, it started again. "Rose is fine," she choked out. "But I didn't—" her words were drowned out by sobs. "This is fucking torture. I was screwed over by my own goddamn body. Fucking pathetic." The Doctor didn't say anything. The only noise was that of a machine rolling into the room. This wasn't like the explosion. She had been protected by steel and rooms inside rooms. This was more like having a gun pressed to your head. No escape. And she couldn't bear to look at it.

She stared at the steel and started rambling off all of her pre-death thoughts. "Okay, you're still there right?" The Doctor said nothing but she could hear him breathing. It was so faint she was scared she was hearing things. "Anyway, it's gonna suck for you and I'm sorry… but take my back home once this is over. I'd like to be buried at home." She was talking about her own funeral without joking or acting. It made her feel worse. "Tell my family and friends that I love them. They deserve that. They also deserve the truth. Don't stick around afterwards. Grace will try to beat you to death." Her voice choked and cracked. She was doing this to Grace, to her parents, to her sister, to Logan, to Parker, everyone she loved. "And you. Please, I beg of you, don't blame yourself. This isn't and never will be your fault. If you blame yourself I will come back from the dead and haunt you until you stop. Because it was my choice to be here. It was my choice to travel with you. And honestly, I wouldn't have had it any other way. I adore you. You don't—" her voice cracked, "—you don't deserve that pain again. I'm sorry." She could hear the Dalek behind her. Its whirring and mechanical hissing. She told herself not to be scared of her death, not after the pitiful way she ended up in front of it. She lowered her phone and turned to face it.

They locked eyes. June thought about what she would've said to her family and friends if she had the time to sit down and talk to them. And then came the mechanical voice, "Exterminate!" and June closed her eyes.

~*O*~

The Doctor ripped off his earpiece. He couldn't listen to that. Not to her— "I killed her."

~*O*~

June sat in the console room with him instead of sleeping. She was sprawled out on the tattered jump seat. She held her guitar across her stomach and slowly strummed a tune the Doctor didn't recognize. She was in the middle of some story about running around, trying to catch fake snowflakes as a kid. She had only seen her first real snowfall that day. She told him that soap suds and snowflakes were so much different than she had really thought. She had had nothing to base it on beforehand.

The Doctor sat, tinkering with the console. If one were to look at him, it would seem like he was just tolerating her story, but he was listening. He liked hearing her talk, or sing, or hell, even hum. It took his mind off of everything else. She just reminded him of how beautifully simplistic life could be. She never chose to dwell on the atrocities. She thought about the nice things, things that made her happy. And they were never saving a planet or discovering the answer to a secret lost to history, they were just simplistic things, like days on the beach or small road trips with her friends. She was a break for his mind. With her, he didn't have to think about the past that lingered in his memory and if he did, she was usually the one set on making him feel better. She had once told him that there wasn't much of a point to be purposely sad. That's why she never told any sad stories. That's why she always tried to cheer him up and keep him smiling. He supposed that neither of them had any clue how much he actually appreciated that.

~*O*~

And he had killed her.

Van Statten's voice came quietly from behind him. "I'm sorry."

The Doctor looked over at him. "I promised I'd protect her. She was only here because of me, and you're sorry? I could've killed that Dalek in its cell, but you stopped me." And now it had killed her. She was gone. They had taken someone else from him.

"It was the prize of my collection!" Van Statten argued weakly.

"Your collection?" the Doctor boomed. "But was it worth it? Worth all those men's deaths? Worth June? Let me tell you something, Van Staten. Mankind goes into space to explore, to be part of something greater."

"Exactly!" Van Statten cried. "I wanted to touch the stars!"

"You just wanted to drag the stars down and stick them underground, underneath tons of sand and dirt, and label them!" he argued. "You're about as far from the stars as you can get." He stopped. He thought of June again. She probably would have told him to calm down by now. He would rather hear her scolding him than to not hear her at all. "And you took her down with you. She was twenty-two years old." No, wait. "Almost twenty-three."

~*O*~

June didn't think she was dead. She could still open her eyes. She could still feel herself breathing. The Dalek stood right in front of her, staring, unmoving, unshifting. "I'm… not dead," June said. The Dalek was a killing machine, literally, and yet, she was alive. "Why am I not dead?"

"I am armed," the Dalek droned. "I will kill. It is my purpose."

"Yeah, I got that," June said. "You're meant to kill. You killed everyone who stood in your way."

"We killed everyone who stood in my way," the Dalek corrected. Right, still her fault.

"So?" June asked. "I'm standing right here in front of you and you're doing nothing. What gives?"

"I feel your fear," the Dalek said.

June nodded. "Do you expect me not to be afraid? After what you've done." We.

"Daleks do not fear," it said, head shaking. "Must not fear." Its gun fired. June shrieked and closed herself up in some sort of weak protection attempt. It shot either side of her and only close enough not to hit her. "You have given me life. What else have you given me? I am contaminated."

~*O*~

The elevator door open and Rose and Adam walked into Van Satten's office. Rose had obviously been crying. Adam seemed less than effected. The Doctor turned on them. "You were quick on your feet, leaving June behind!" He wasn't shouting particularly at either one of them, he was just shouting.

Adam got right up in the Doctor's face, something the Doctor didn't take kindly to. "We're not the ones who sealed the vault!"

Rose pushed her way between the two and kept them apart. "Stop shouting, both of you!" Her voice was still strong despite how she had been screaming. And they listened, they stopped shouting, but they didn't stop glaring at each other.

"Open the bulkhead or June Harlow dies."

Everyone turned to the screen. There, displayed on it, was the Dalek and a perfectly alive June Harlow. The Doctor's hearts skipped a beat. He barely knew what to say. He grinned and held back a laugh. "You're alive!"

Rose gasped behind him. "Oh my god, you're okay!"

June could get used to seeing him so happy. It was a little difficult making everything out so far away, but god, she had never seen so much joy on his face before. "Yep," she nodded. "I still feel like shit though. I might have the flu."

He quickly turned concerned again. "I thought you were dead."

"Open the bulkhead!" the Dalek demanded.

"I would advise against that," June told him. Let it out, it would kill more people. Don't let it out, it would just kill her.

"What use are emotions if you will not save the woman you love?" the Dalek asked.

June furrowed her eyebrows and glanced at the Dalek. "Who the hell are you talking about? We're talking about me, here." She looked back up at the Doctor. He had this look on his face. Maybe it was fear, concern, anger, hurt, guilt, maybe all of those. "Don't do it," she said.

The Doctor looked back. Rose nodded quickly, encouraging him to do it. He walked over to the computer. "I killed her once. I can't do it again."

That pain. That hurt. It had been for her. Oh. Oh, he cared too much.

The bulkhead door opened and the screen cut off.

Van Statten started around his desk towards the Doctor. "What do we do now, you bleeding heart?" he demanded. "What the hell do we do?"

"Stop shouting," Rose snapped. "We'll figure something out."

The Doctor, meanwhile, didn't exactly know what to say. He had saved June. That's what was important.

"Kill it when it gets here," Adam said.

"We can't," Rose argued. "Don't you see, it's changing."

"Changing?" Van Statten demanded. "You're delusional. It'll kill all of us."

"That's why we have to get to it first," Adam said.

"All the guns are useless, and the alien weapons are in the vault," Goddard said.

"Only the catalogued ones," Adam said.

~*O*~

They piled back into Adam's workshop. The Doctor immediately went towards a large basket of alien weapons and began to sort through them, tossing them aside when he didn't like them. "Broken." Toss. "Broken." Toss.

"You can't do this," Rose pleaded. "The Dalek is changing. It didn't kill June when we all know that it could have."

"Broken." Toss.

"I think it might be changing for the better," Rose said.

The Doctor stopped and looked back at her. "I know the Daleks. They don't change." He tossed another weapon side. "Hairdryer."

"Mister Van Statten tends to dispose of his staff, and when he does he wipes their memory," Adam explained. "I kept this stuff in case I needed to fight my way out one day."

"What, you in a fight? I'd like to see that," the Doctor shot.

"I could do," Adam argued. Rose rolled he eyes.

"What are you going to do, throw your A-Levels at 'em?"

"Doctor," Rose complained. "Stop being rude."

He rolled his eyes and turned back to the basket. He picked up a particularly large gun and balanced it in his arms. "Oh, yes. Lock and load." Rose stared at him. What was he turning into?

~*O*~

The elevator slowly rose towards Van Statten's office. June glanced at the Dalek. "So," she said, "listen." It was silent. She guessed that it was listening. "I know you have every right to be pissed at Van Statten for treating you like shit, but you don't have to kill him. Or anyone for that matter. Like, you don't even have a reason to want to kill the rest of them. You didn't kill me so…."

The Dalek swung its eye towards her. June jumped away, stumbling back against the wall. "But why not?" the Dalek demanded. "Why are you alive? My function is to kill. What am I?" It looked away. "What am I?" June didn't really know.

The elevator door opened. Van Statten stood there in the middle of the room, utterly terrified, as if he was just waiting for his death. "I would suggest being very careful," June told him. "Don't piss it off any more than you already have." She glanced around the office, but the Doctor and Rose were nowhere to be seen.

"Van Statten." The Dalek rolled out of the elevator. "You tortured me. Why?"

Van Statten stumbled away as the Dalek rolled closer and closer. "I wanted to help you," he said. Probably bullshit, if June had to guess. "I just—I don't know." He had begun to panic. "I was trying to help. I thought if we could get through to you, if we could mend you. I wanted you better. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry! I swear," his back hit a wall, "I just wanted you to talk!"

"Then hear me talk now," the Dalek said. "Exterminate!" June darted towards it. "Exterminate! Exterminate!"

"No!" June boomed. Her arm came between Van Satten and the Dalek. She tried to make her voice as demanding and strong as possible. She didn't know how well it sounded. "Stop it!" The Dalek looked over at her. "You don't have to kill him. If you kill him, that doesn't make you any better than he is! Do something else! Like…" she faltered, "I dunno. What do you want?"

The Dalek looked at Van Statten, then back at June. "I want freedom."

June nodded. "Alright. As long as you don't kill anyone else ever again, you can have your freedom."

~*O*~

June followed the Dalek through the hallway. It stopped in the middle of the floor and aimed its gun into the air. The gun fired and a hole appeared in the ceiling. June jumped away from the falling rubble and stumbled to keep herself up. Sunlight poured in through the open hole and June realized how much she had missed the warmth and the bright blue sky.

"Well," June said. "There you go. Freedom. Sunlight."

"How does it feel?" the Dalek asked.

"Good," June said. "Warm. Reminds me of happiness." She looked down at it. "Isn't there a way that you can feel it? It's worth just a taste."

It took a lot of mechanical whirring and slow-moving machines, but the Dalek opened its armor. June almost didn't want to look, but she forced herself to. Inside the metal sat a mutant creature with slimy sticky white skin, a large bulging eye, and many tentacles. It almost took June's breath away despite having seen weirder. She didn't think that there would be something so organic hidden inside such a large metal casing.

"Get out of the way!" The voice made June jump. She spun around on her heels and there he was, the Doctor. And in his hands, he held a large, menacing gun, something June would have never even associated with him. Rose hid half way behind him. She looked just as alarmed as June was. "June, get out of the way now!"

June almost laughed. The sight in front of her couldn't be real. "What? You're kidding." She looked over at Rose. "He's kidding, right?"

"I tried to stop him," Rose muttered, shaking her head. "Wouldn't listen."

June looked back at the Doctor. The man who stood in front of her was driven by hatred and fear. The Doctor was scared. She could see it in his eyes. He feared for her. He hated the Dalek, for a very understandable reason. But June was his friend. And as his friend, she couldn't let him go along with this. "What are you doing?" she asked.

"Please," he said, obviously trying to keep his voice level, "get away from it."

June shook her head. "No way. Not if you're going to do what I think you're prepared to do."

Rose walked across the room, not caring about the way the Doctor gaped at her. She joined June in front of the Dalek. "That makes two of us," she said. They smiled at each other. "I'm glad you're okay."

"I'm glad you're okay, too," June said.

"That think killed hundreds of people," the Doctor snapped. She could see him shaking. She just wanted to hug him, but she had to stand her ground.

"But look at you," she said. "You're better than this, Doctor."

"I've got to do this," he argued. "I've got to end it. The Daleks destroyed my home, my people. I've got nothing left."

June hadn't felt so much pain for someone before. Then again, she hadn't met anyone who held as much pain as the Doctor did. It felt like a betrayal to who she was to let him stand there and hurt, but he'd be better in the long run if she stopped him. "I know," she nodded. "But this doesn't fix things."

"Just look at it," Rose said. She stepped aside, pulling June along with her so he could see the Dalek.

The Doctor watched it with furrowed eyebrows. It was clear from his face that he had never seen a Dalek in such a vulnerable state. "What's it doing?"

The Dalek raised its tentacle up, reaching for something it could never touch. "It just wanted to feel the sunlight," June said.

The Doctor shook his head. "But it can't."

June shrugged. "I mean, it didn't kill Van Statten. It didn't kill me. It's not a normal Dalek. It's changed. And you're changing. What the hell is this?" she gestured to him. "Cause it's not you."

The Doctor let the gun fall to his side. "I couldn't—" his voice strained in his throat. "I wasn't—" it sounded like he was lost. He didn't know what to say. "Oh, June. They're all dead."

"Why," the Dalek droned, "do we survive?"

"I don't know," the Doctor said.

"I am the last of the Daleks."

"You're not even that," the Doctor told it. "June did more than regenerate you. You've absorbed her DNA." June rubbed her hand. "You're mutating."

"Into what?" the Dalek asked.

"Something new," the Doctor said. They were all silent. "I'm sorry."

"Isn't that better?" Rose asked.

"Not for a Dalek," the Doctor said.

"I—" it took it a while to get out the words, "—can feel so many ideas. So much darkness." Its eye shifted to look at her. "June, give me orders," it said. "Order me to die."

June suddenly felt unstable on her feet. "What?" The Dalek didn't say anything. She shook her head. "No, I can't do that." She didn't say it, but it would be like killing it herself and there was no way she could do that.

"This is not life," the Dalek said. "This is sickness. I shall not be like you. Order my destruction!" And upon her silence, the Dalek started to chant, "Obey! Obey! Obey!"

But June couldn't. Her mouth wouldn't open. She knew that it wanted this. How it could want this, she didn't know. But she couldn't say it. Rose took her hand. June looked over at her. Rose gave her a shaky nod. June looked back at the Dalek. She took a deep breath and said, "Okay, do it."

"Are you frightened, June Harlow, Rose Tyler?" the Dalek asked.

"Yeah," Rose muttered.

June just nodded.

"So am I," the Dalek said. "Exterminate." And it closed its eye.

Rose pulled June away as the armor began to close around the Dalek. They ran across the hall with shaking legs and heavy eyes. They stood with an utterly stunned Doctor who didn't seem to be processing anything in front of him.

The Dalek rose into the air. The balls from its shell came around and formed an electrical blue shield around it. There was a loud bang, a bright light, and then everything disappeared. It almost looked like there had never been a Dalek there in the first place.

They all stood silently. June sighed and rubbed her forehead. "I don't feel good," she said. "Let's go." She took the gun from the Doctor's hand. She nearly dropped it, but quickly got a good hold on it and tossed it down the hallway. "Don't need that." She took his hand instead.

~*O*~

I was a long, quiet walk back to the TARDIS. June kept glancing up at the Doctor. He still seemed lost or in the middle of processing everything. June stopped walking. "Rose," she said, "walk ahead of us a bit."

The blonde girl looked between the two of them with narrow eyes. After a pause, she said, "Alright." She left them, going down the next flight of stairs and disappearing around the corner.

The Doctor turned to June, "I'm not really in the mood—"

She hugged him. His words fell before he could finish them. He hugged her back, very aware of her head on his shoulder and her soft breathing in his ear. He heard her almost chuckle. "Did you think I was going to yell at you?"

"I wouldn't've been surprised," he admitted.

"As much as I hate the way today played out," she said, "I can't blame you for reacting the way you did. You just—" she paused, "need someone to remind you how good you can be." She pulled out of the hug and smiled at him. She took his hand once again and gave it a tight squeeze. "Come on." She turned the other way and began to walk down the stairs, pulling him along with her.

The Doctor smiled at the back of the brunette's head. Oh, how thankful he was for June Harlow.

~*O*~
"A little piece of home." The Doctor patted the side of the TARDIS. "Better than nothing." June smiled softly at him.

"Is that the end of it, the Time War?" Rose asked.

"I'm the only one left. I win." He seemed so tired of it. "How about that?" June didn't exactly know what to say to him. She wanted to, but how could she reply to that?

"The Dalek survived," Rose said. "Maybe some of your people did too."

"I'd know," the Doctor said. "In here." He tapped the side of his head. "Feels like there's no one."

"You're not alone," June said, taking his hand again. "You've still got us. And I'm not planning on leaving any time soon." She looked back at Rose. "Are you?" She already knew the answer.

Rose shook her head. "Nope."

The Doctor nodded. "Yeah."

Adam jogged up to them, interrupting the moment June thought had been going quite well. He carried a large duffle bag in his hand and seemed out of breath. "We better get out," he said. "Van Statten's disappeared." Right. He just vanished. "They're closing down the base. Goddard says they're going to fill it full of cement, like it never existed."

"About time," Rose scoffed.

"I'll have to go back home," Adam said. God, what was he playing at?

"Better hurry up then," the Doctor said. "Next flight to Heathrow leaves at fifteen hundred hours."

"Adam was saying that all his life he wanted to see the stars," Rose told the Doctor, smiling hopefully. Great, she was playing at it too.

"Tell him to go and stand outside, then," the Doctor said.

"He's all on his own, Doctor, and he did help," Rose pouted.

"He left June down there," he argued. "Almost left you too."

"So, did you," Rose shot back.

"Guys," June complained.

Adam looked between all them. "What're you talking about?" he asked. "We've got to leave."

"Plus, he's a bit pretty," the Doctor noted. June looked at Adam. He wasn't that pretty. Much more Rose's type than hers.

"I hadn't noticed," Rose said.

June snickered. "Sure, you hadn't."

The Doctor looked down at her. "How do you feel?"

"Like shit," June said. He raised an eyebrow at her. "Oh, you mean about—yeah, I really don't care." She didn't know Adam well enough to like or dislike him. She wasn't for him joining them, but she wasn't fully against it.

The Doctor shrugged, looked at Rose, and said, "On your own head." He turned and began to unlock the TARDIS.
"What're you doing?" Adam asked. "She said cement. She wasn't joking. We're going to get sealed in." They walked inside the TARDIS, Adam reluctantly watching after them. He really had no idea what he was about to get into.

And there's Dalek wrapped up. I think the ending is a little awkward. What did you guys think of the chapter?

I will be back soon with part one of the Long Game

Reviews, follows, and favorites are very much appreciated!

Until next time,

~ C.C.