Aliya found herself blearily becoming aware of consciousness as it began to resume dominion over her brain once more. She blinked several times before opening her eyes and seeing beautiful blue irises only a few inches away.
"Good morning," He said with a wide grin. Her lips twitched upwards as she blinked again, trying to shake off the drowsiness.
"Morning," She replied, yawning and propping herself up on her elbow.
"Sleep well?"
"Very. You?"
"Like a log."
Aliya snorted in amusement and scanned his face. He seemed to be in one of his lighter moods, there was no trace of the deeply ingrained sorrow that often haunted his features. She found herself smiling because of it, more cheerful because he was.
"What?" The Doctor asked with a slight frown. "Is there something on my face?"
"No," She said, giggling a little, "I'm just happy. Enjoying the moment. Last time, you weren't here when I woke up." Their minds both went back to that time, and the Doctor felt a small surge of guilt hit him.
"I couldn't stay, you know what would have happened if someone had found me there. And from what you've told me, whoever trapped you in that mountain may not have done so if I had been there. It may have saved your life," The Doctor reminded her.
"I know," Aliya said sincerely, "I'm just enjoying it now, that's all."
"Well, so am I." The Doctor agreed, his fingers reaching out to brush a strand of hair out of her face. "Woken up alone too many times in my life, me." He smiled tenderly, and then looked up at her hair and properly saw it for the first time. A huge smirk broke out on his face, and it was obvious that he was trying to hold back a laugh.
Aliya frowned. "What?" He said nothing, his grin just grew in size, his eyes playful and amused. "What is it?" She scowled at him. "Tell me!"
"Nothing…just, nice hair, that's all." He shrugged, not quite able to keep a straight face. He watched in amusement as she quickly swung herself out of bed and walked over to the full length mirror that was propped up against the bookshelf.
"Oh, for the love of Rassilon!" She exclaimed, halfway between exasperation and irritation.
What were usually reasonably elegant curls had transformed overnight into a fuzz of golden fluff that stuck out around her head at every angle.
"Is this a usual morning occurrence for you?" He asked curiously.
"No! I mean…I don't know." She sighed. He got out of bed and came up behind her so that his head was visible in the mirror over her shoulder, still grinning a smirk that was irritating his blonde friend a lot.
"Almost looks like a halo," He noted casually, eyeing it. "Fitting, considering."
"Oh, shut up, enough of the title jabs," She muttered, running a hand through the fuzz. "Huh…it's not even that knotted, just very…fluffy. I look ridiculous."
"Nothing wrong with ridiculous."
She looked up at the Doctor. "Nothing except that my pride and dignity has been tarnished," She said seriously, but her joking grin could not be contained, and they chuckled in unison.
"Alright you, best you go and find a hairbrush to tame our resident dust bunny-"
"Hey! Just because I don't know what that is, doesn't mean that I don't get the gist!"
"And meanwhile, I can get dressed. Hold on, there's a thought. Do you have a bedroom?" The Doctor frowned, realising that he hadn't even thought about it.
"No," Aliya said as she made for the door, "The TARDIS hasn't made me one, and it's not like I was sleeping anyway. I just went to the library, and read books."
"All that time, and you were just in the library?" He looked almost worried by the thought, but she made a 'pft' noise and rolled her eyes. "Fine then, off you go, find that hairbrush that you so desperately need!" He pushed her out the door and pulled an almost mocking smile. She scowled in a way that both of them knew she didn't really mean and walked away down the corridor, muttering about 'dust bunnies'.
"Aliya, come on, you've got to run faster!" The Doctor urged her, pulling on her hand.
"You try running in an alien ceremonial dress some time, and see how fast you are compared to someone only wearing a loincloth!" Aliya retorted irritably, pulling up the skirts of the feathered dress even further as her legs pumped harder.
The Doctor looked over his shoulder, seeing the alien religious mob chasing after them in the distance, their anger not diluted at all. They would never be able to outrun them, the TARDIS was too far away.
"Ali, we're going to have to hide and hope that they just run past, okay?" He said, and she nodded. He pulled her off the side of the gravel road, and they fell into the large ditch next to it, tumbling together through the mess of leaves and mud until they came to a halt at the bottom.
Their landing position was somewhat compromising, with Aliya landing on top of him, their chests pressed together, bare skin touching. Having been forced to participate in an alien worship ceremony, both had had to dress up, leaving Aliya in a long skirt and small top that only covered the essentials, leaving her stomach bare, and the Doctor in a loincloth, chest completely revealed. He had however managed to snatch his leather jacket on their escape run, but was still carrying it over his arm.
The Doctor grinned widely at their successful evasion technique, and reached and hand up to smear some of the mud off Aliya's face. She smiled and rested her head on his chest, relaxing after the large amount of running. The Doctor tilted her head up and kissed her gleefully, the cheerful victory kiss that was hardly anything new.
They broke apart with giant smiles on their faces, eyes staring into each other. Then he pulled her in once again, and this time when their lips met, there was a sense of urgency to it.
The Doctor rolled them over so that he was on top of her, and his hands began moving up her sides, caressing, stroking, feeling every inch of her torso. Her fingers ran down his back, feeling the muscles there.
The fire had always been there, waiting for them to create a spark powerful enough to ignite it. They were getting close, the sparks flaring with each second that passed, with each inch of skin explored…
The Doctor found his hand travelling up her right leg, sliding under the peacock skirt, but as it reached her thigh it suddenly came to a halt before abruptly pulling out underneath the skirt and returning to her waist at the same time that he broke the kiss, causing the Time Lady to stare at him with confusion in her eyes, looking as though she did not know whether to feel rejected or not. The Doctor sighed and rolled backwards so that she was resting gently on his chest again. Their raspy and uneven breathing was the only sound for thirty seconds, before she finally spoke.
"Why?" She did not sound sad, or angry, just curious.
"Not here. Not now," He said simply, gesturing slightly. "Not covered in leaves and mud, and lord knows what else. When we…" He trailed off, tucking a strand of mud-caked hair behind her ear, and while he didn't need to say the words, his meaning was clear, "I'm going to do it properly."
Aliya kissed him softly, just for a moment, to convey better in her actions what her words would struggle to do, to show understanding and gratitude.
"Do you think they've gone?" Aliya whispered after several minutes of just lying there.
"I should think so!" He said optimistically, helping her to her feet and pulling on his leather jacket, hiding a lot of the skin he had been showing. "Off we go," He said, helping her climb up before following behind, trying not to look up her skirt as he did so.
The two half dressed, mud-covered Time Lords set off down the road once more, laughing at themselves and the various leaves and branches stuck to them, and their laughter rang through the valley.
"So what do you think that signal is?" Aliya said as she stepped out of the police box after the Doctor. They were in some strange room, large and full with no windows very few lights on. The place seemed abandoned. She tried to not let the dim room bother her too much.
"I don't know, but it drew the TARDIS off course, and that's something," The Doctor replied vaguely.
"Is it?" Aliya teased, and he rolled his eyes.
"Very funny," He told her patronisingly.
"I aim to please, my lord," She did a mock curtsy, the kind done on Gallifrey at important events. "Where and when are we?"
"Earth, Utah, North America, 2012," He said as he peered inside one of the glass cabinets. "We're underground."
"Not so different from the usual, then, just less British," Aliya murmured, examining one also. Suddenly, the lights came on, revealing the size of the room and collection. "Wow…some kind of museum. For aliens!"
"Someone's got a hobby," The Doctor noted as they began to walk down the isle they were in. "They must have spent a fortune on this! Chunks of meteorite, moon dust…that's the milometer from the Roswell spaceship…"
"Stuffed Slitheen hand…" Aliya noted, taking a closer look and shuddering a little.
"Oh, look at you," The Doctor said in a strange awe. Aliya turned around to see him approaching a silver metal head, and she jumped a mile despite knowing that it wasn't alive.
"Doctor, that's a Cyberman head," Aliya said as she came to stand next to him. Memories of how the creatures had plagued the Game of Rassilon flung themselves at her. She shuddered.
"I know…the stuff of nightmares, reduced to an exhibit…" He turned to smile grimly at her. "Makes you feel old, doesn't it?" Aliya nodded silently, her eyes still on the head, but she backed away, unnerved by it.
"The signal has to have been coming from something alive…what do you think it is?" She said, purposefully looking away.
"Something reaching out, calling for help…" His fingers touched the glass and immediately alarms began to sound, armed soldiers rushing in before they could even realise what had happened.
"We're aliens in a museum of alien artefacts…why do I feel as though this is very bad?" Aliya said quietly, and the Doctor merely ground his teeth together and said nothing.
They were led through many corridors to an office where a young man with a British accent was showing a small metal artefact to the older man sitting at the desk.
"…these tubes on the side, I think they're to channel something, maybe fuel…" He was explaining, and the Doctor and Aliya both smirked, knowing how wrong he was.
"I really wouldn't hold it like that," The Doctor recommended, and the man looked up at him with a raised eyebrow.
"Shut it!" A tall woman with red hair said to the Doctor.
"Really though, that's wrong."
"Is it dangerous?" The young man asked curiously.
"No, just looks silly," The Doctor said simply. He made to take the artefact, and every gun in the room loaded and aimed, only to stand down at a gesture from the older man, who was clearly in charge. He handed the small object to the Doctor, who cradled it in his hands. "You just need to be…delicate." The object began to make tuneful noises. Everyone in the room watched as his fingers gently grazed the surface of the instrument.
"It's a musical instrument!" The man said in wonder.
"And it's a long way from home," He said, handing it to Aliya. "You want to try?"
She took it in her hands and surveyed it. "I was never much good at the sensitive ones," Aliya murmured, but underneath her tiny finger movements, it sang, though not nearly as smoothly as it had for the Doctor.
"Doesn't sound too bad," The Doctor said as she handed it back to him.
"Yes, well, your ears are so big that some stuff is bound to get lost in there occasionally," Aliya retorted stubbornly, and the man at the desk and the Doctor both raised their eyebrows. The former reached his hand out for the instrument.
"Here, let me," He said as he took it out of the Time Lord's hands. The Doctor tried to give him advice, but sure enough, the instrument released the beautiful music once again.
"Very good," The Doctor noted, "Quite the expert."
"As are you," The man replied with a leering grin as he threw the instrument away carelessly without a second thought. "Who exactly are you?"
"I'm the Doctor, who are you?"
"Like you don't know," The man said smugly. "We're hidden away in the most valuable collection of alien artefacts in the world, and you just stumbled in by mistake."
"Pretty much sums me up, yeah," The Doctor said with a grin, knowing that it wasn't going to get him anywhere.
The man nodded as though he found it amusing. "Question is, how did you get in? 53 floors down, with your little cat burglar accomplice. You're quite a collector yourself, she's rather pretty." He said as he ran his eyes over the blonde woman as the Doctor watched, feeling mild protectiveness and jealousy spark for a moment, but felt it abide as his companion crossed her arms and glared at the human man.
"Who happens to have a name, not that you obviously care about that at all. Eyes off, okay?" She said simply.
"Who's English and feisty, hey, little Lord Fauntleroy, got you a girlfriend," The man continued, not looking put off by her biting comment, merely talking to the British young man again, who then spoke up.
"This is Henry van Statten," He said.
"Who is?" Aliya asked expectantly.
"Mr van Statten owns the internet." He replied, and both Time Lords raised their eyebrows.
"I thought nobody owned the internet," Aliya said unsurely.
"And that's what we want the whole world to keep thinking, right, kids?" Van Statten said.
"So you're obviously the expert in everything except for the things in your museum," The Doctor pointed out, "Anything you don't understand, you lock up."
"And you claim greater knowledge?" Henry asked with a raised eyebrow.
"I don't need to make claims, I know how good I am," The Doctor replied calmly.
"And yet I captured you," Van Statten reminded him, the smug air having returned to his voice, "Right next to the Cage…what were you doing down there?"
"You tell me."
"The Cage contains my one living specimen."
"What's that?"
"Like you don't know."
"Show me."
"Want to see it?"
They were distracted from their word play by Aliya's quiet chuckle, and both turned to her with questioning looks.
"What's so funny?" Van Statten asked, clearly a little irritated but trying not to show it.
"You," She replied simply, smirking, "Trying to be more impressive than him."
Van Statten narrowed his eyes and then decidedly ignored her before turning to the red headed woman who worked for him.
"Goddard, inform the cage, we're heading down. English, look after the girl, go and canoodle, or spoon, or whatever it is that you British do. And you, Doctor with no name, come and see my pet." Henry instructed, and Aliya looked at the Doctor indignantly.
"Why do I have to stay here?" She asked with a frown.
"You're going to stay up here, and stay out of trouble, alright?" The Doctor told her firmly as he stepped into the lift with Van Statten.
"I'll stay out of trouble alright, you big eared ponce!" Aliya bit back, not happy at being left behind and treated like another stupid ape.
Warily, the Doctor stepped into the cage of the so-called 'Metaltron'. The lights were off, so he couldn't see the thing, but considering the attitude of van Statten, he wasn't entirely sure that he wanted to see what the man had done to it.
"Look, I'm sorry about this. Mister Van Statten might think he's clever, but never mind him. I've come to help. I'm the Doctor," He told it apologetically.
The blue shining through the dark seemed to blink. "DOC-TOR?" An all too familiar, horrific robotic voice asked.
"Impossible."
"EX-TERM-IN-ATE! EX-TERM-IN-ATE!"
The Doctor pounded his fists on the door, absolute terror seizing him, "Let me out!"
"EX-TERM-IN-ATE! YOU ARE AN EN-E-MY OF THE DA-LEKS! YOU MUST BE DES-TROY-ED!" Its gun arm pointed at him, but didn't fire.
"It's not working." He saw that it was broken, and began to laugh. "Fantastic! Oh, fantastic! Powerless. The great space dustbin. How does it feel?"
"KEEP BACK!"
He came closer, just to go against its command. "What for? What're you going to do to me? If you can't kill, then what are you good for, Dalek? What's the point of you? You're nothing. What the hell are you here for?"
"I AM WAIT-ING FOR OR-DERS."
"What does that mean?"
"I AM A SOL-DIER. I WAS BRED TO RE-CEIVE OR-DERS."
"Well you're never going to get any. Not ever," The Time Lord all but whispered, shocked that the Dalek was so deluded.
"I DE-MAND OR-DERS!" It shrieked.
"They're never going to come! Your race is dead! You all burnt, all of you. Ten million ships on fire. The entire Dalek race wiped out in one second."
"YOU LIE!"
"I watched it happen. I made it happen!" He shouted.
"YOU DES-TROYED US?"
"I had no choice." He turned around, unable to even look at it anymore.
"AND WHAT OF THE TIME LORDS?"
"Dead. They burnt with you. The end of the last great Time War. Everyone lost."
"AND THE CO-WARD SUR-VIVED."
"Oh, and I caught your little signal," The Doctor mocked. "Help me…poor little thing…but there's no one else coming, 'cause there's no one else left."
"I AM AL-ONE IN THE U-NI-VERSE," The Dalek said forlornly.
"Yep," The Doctor said with grim satisfaction.
"SO ARE YOU," It added. The Doctor felt his hearts deflate completely except for the one spark left in him. He spun back around.
"No, see, that's where you're wrong. There's one more, one stubborn little pain-in-the-butt Time Lady, which means that I'm not alone. Not ever. Even now, I can just sense her, in the back of my head," The Doctor said fiercely, his voice becoming deadly quiet. "And no one is ever going to touch her, because I've just realised what you deserve. Exterminate!" He grinned menacingly and grabbed the nearest weapon.
"Sorry about the mess," Adam said as he and Aliya entered his workroom, the latter looking around with only slight interest. "Mr van Statten sort of lets me do my own thing, so long as I deliver the goods. Now, what do you think this is?" He held out a lump of metal. Aliya took it in her hands and sniffed it before running her finger along it and then licking her finger thoughtfully as he watched, perplexed.
"Piece of spacecraft," She said smugly as she handed it back.
"I think it's from the Hubble one, yeah," Adam said warily, "Nice guess."
"Guess," she snorted.
"The thing is, it's all true. Everything the United Nations tries to keep quiet, spacecrafts, aliens, visitors to Earth, they really exist!" He said earnestly.
Aliya cocked an eyebrow. "We're in a giant museum full of alien artefacts, and you feel like you need to tell me that they exist? How oblivious do I look? What do you even do, just sit here and catalogue everything?"
"Best job in the world!" He said.
"I think travelling through space and seeing all the life out there would probably be better," She said, privately feeling smug.
"Yeah, I'd give anything." He nodded. "I don't think it's even going to happen though, not in our lifetimes."
"No, I doubt it. But how did you end up here? Because you're English."
"Van Statten has agents all over the world, looking for geniuses to recruit." Adam said casually.
"You're a genius now?" Aliya asked curiously.
"Sorry, but yeah, I can't help it, I was born clever. When I was eight, I logged onto the US defence system, nearly caused World War Three." He said arrogantly.
"And I'm supposed to be impressed by that?" Aliya inquired.
"You should have been there, just to see them running about! Fantastic!" He said, looking pleased with himself. She had to laugh a little bit at that.
"Now you're talking like the Doctor," Aliya smiled despite wishing that she were in the Cage with him.
"Are you and him…" Adam asked, gesturing just enough to imply what he needed to.
"Yes," Aliya said quickly, her eyes narrowing.
"Oh," His eyes dropped.
"Is there something wrong with that?"
"No," He replied automatically, not seeming entirely truthful.
"Good. But wouldn't you rather be downstairs, where all the action is?" Aliya asked, hoping that she would be able to convince him to let her go down and join the Doctor.
"Well, he keeps it very quiet, but, if you're a genius, it doesn't take long to patch onto the com system." He grinned at her.
"Can I see then? The creature?"
"It doesn't do much, the alien," He said as he began typing.
"Well, neither would I if I were captured by you lot," She muttered.
"It's weird, it's kind of useless, great big pepperpot…" He trailed off as the image came up.
It was very obviously a Dalek, in chains and being tortured. Aliya's jaw dropped and her hearts completely missed a bit as she went very still.
"No," She whispered, "That's impossible." And then her blood ran cold. She turned to Adam, a new fierceness in her eyes. "Take me there, now. The Doctor went down there, if he was allowed near it, it would have killed him on sight!" She stormed out of the room, pulling Adam by the hand, while confusion and slight fear showed on his face.
"You talked about a war?" Diana mentioned. She, the Doctor and van Statten were in the elevator.
"The Time War," The Doctor said, nodding, "The final battle between my people and the Dalek race."
"But you survived too," Henry put in.
"Not by choice," The Doctor said darkly.
Henry continued. "You and your little friend – I assume that's who you were referring to when you mentioned a 'Time Lady' to the Dalek?"
"Aliya, yes." He nodded.
"But that means that the Dalek isn't the only alien on Earth, Doctor, there's you two, the only ones of your kind in existence." He smiled in a way that the Doctor found troubling as he turned to Goddard. "Send for her."
Aliya and Adam entered the cage, and Aliya burst in to face the Dalek. Its eyepiece swivelled to look at her curiously.
"YOU ARE A TIME LORD," It said, and she merely continued to stare at it gravely.
"I had no idea," She said sarcastically. "Where is the Doctor?"
"THE DOC-TOR IS NOT HERE."
"Did you kill him?" Her voice became shaky, and her mind began thinking of a million ways that she could make the Dalek pay if it answered in the affirmative.
It said nothing for several moments, only stared at her.
"NO."
Aliya couldn't help a smile breaking out across her face, but was confused as to why it had not killed the Doctor. She saw upon examination that its weapons were broken. "A Dalek that cannot kill…" She said quietly, "Most pointless creature in the universe."
At that moment, several of the guards entered, led by Diana Goddard. Before she could say anything, the guards grabbed Aliya and began attempting to pull her out, their intention of capture clear.
"Let go of me!" She snarled, and kicked her legs in the struggle, accidentally hitting Adam backwards in the process. It did no good, within seconds they had dragged her out of the Cage.
Unknown to her, Adam fell back onto the Dalek, his hand print scorched onto the metal skin, and burning his own skin where the contact had been made.
That was when the Dalek woke up.
The Doctor grudgingly took off his jacket and pullover, only doing so because of the half dozen guns pointed at him. When he saw Aliya being led in, he felt his anger grow.
"You, girl-" Henry began, but Aliya whipped around to glare at him.
"I am over a thousand years old, I'm not a girl!" She spat, and he merely smirked.
"Whatever you are, get over there and take off your upper layers of clothing, just like him," He said dismissively, and Aliya was pushed to stand by the Doctor, who was looking at Van Statten with an enraged expression.
"Come on, Van Statten, making me undress is one thing, making her undress is another!" He said.
Van Statten smirked, running his eyes over Aliya once more and shrugging. "Undergarments, then. Any more fabric than that and it will interfere with the scan."
"You so much as look at her, and you'll be sorry," The Doctor threatened before turning to Aliya. "I'm sorry, I didn't know they would do this. Though I suppose it's hardly surprising."
Aliya nodded and pulled off her denim jacket and threw it on the floor next to his leather one. Then, with suddenly trembling hands, she began lifting her blouse up slowly, until it got stuck halfway up. Her eyes darted to his face, both panic and fear written across her features. She was staying strong, giving the appearance of fortitude around Van Statten, but now facing away from him and looking at the Doctor, he could see how much hatred and painful injustice was in her eyes.
"Here," He said gently, his hands replacing hers and slowly sliding the fabric up. She closed her eyes briefly at his touch, but tried to ignore it, as she knew it to be the wrong time.
"You know, whenever I would imagine you undressing me, I will admit that I never imagined it quite like this," Aliya murmured quietly, smiling wryly at him before he pulled the shirt over her head and cast it on the floor.
He cupped her face gently for a moment and gave her a momentarily kiss on the lips, and then the forehead. It was his way of trying to assure her that everything would be alright. And perhaps, just slightly, staking his claim in front of the other males in the room.
They approached Van Statten, waiting.
"Well, Doctor, your taste continues to impress me, blue lace, very nice," He commented on Aliya's undergarments, making the woman scowl and cross her arms over her chest.
The Doctor absently wondered why she was wearing a blue lace bra in the first place – she had always seemed practical, not the type to wear fancy, flimsy underwear.
"Strap them in," Van Statten commanded, and they were taken to different slanted platforms which they were then strapped to. Van Statten flicked a switch and the machine whirred into action, the red light scanning over their bodies.
It was very painful, and the Doctor cringed and managed to avoid making much noise. Aliya was less successful, and let out breathy gasp of pain along with tiny whimpers.
"Two hearts! Binary vascular system, oh, I am so going to patent this." Van Statten rubbed his hands together happily, momentarily stopping.
"So that's your secret, you don't just collect this stuff, you scavenge it." The Doctor said, and he quickly directed his attention to Aliya, who was lying dejectedly against the metal grating, breathing heavily with her eyes shut. His eyes snapped back to Van Statten.
"This technology has been falling to Earth for centuries, all it took was the right mind to use it properly," The human man replied proudly. "Oh, the advances I have made from alien junk, you have no idea, Doc. Broadband? Roswell. Just last year, my scientists cultivated bacteria from the Russian crater, and do you know what we found? The cure for the common cold. Kept it strictly within the laboratory, of course, there's no need to get people excited. Why sell one cure when you can sell a thousand palliatives?"
"Do you know what a Dalek is, Van Statten?" The Doctor interrupted. "A Dalek is honest. It does what it was born to do, for the survival of its species. That creature in your dungeon is better than you."
"In that case, I will be true to myself, and continue," Henry said coldly, switching the scan on again. Aliya, who had been silent during their conversation, let out a cry of pain once more, and the Doctor felt his dislike for Henry van Statten begin to shift to something much closer to hate.
"Van Statten, please! You don't need to scan her, we're exactly the same! Let her go, it's hurting her!" He said urgently, shooting looks at the blonde woman.
"A male and female, of course there are differences…" Van Statten corrected, his eyes twinkling with malicious intent. "Perhaps I should make you breed. I bet you'd like that, wouldn't you, Doctor? Don't think I haven't noticed."
The Doctor very pointedly ignored that comment. "Van Statten, and you have to listen to me! That thing downstairs is going to kill every last one of us!" He shouted.
"Nothing can escape the Cage," Henry said surely.
A few minutes later, the alarms blared, and a voice came through the coms, stating a Code Red. The Doctor looked up gravely.
"Release me if you want to live."
Van Statten complied immediately, and the two Time Lords were released. They hurried to pull their clothing back on, and the Doctor gripped her hand tightly for comfort, as there was no time for any other form of sentimentalities.
They ran into Van Statten's office, where they got the Cage through video link. Adam said it was his fault, he had accidentally touched the Dalek, and it had woken up.
"He'd touched my hand," Aliya recalled thoughtfully, "That's enough residual DNA of a time-traveller to restore it."
The humans were then told how dangerous the Dalek was, and as it began to escape the Cage, they all fled. The thing they saw before the screen went blank was the Dalek approaching it.
Next thing they knew, all the lights went down, causing Aliya to suddenly grip the Doctor's hand even tighter, a scared whimper escaping her lips. Luckily, the emergency power system kicked in. It was however revealed that the Dalek had absorbed the internet and the power supply of the entire West Coast of America.
"Tell them to stop shooting at it!" Henry said angrily.
"Sir, it's killing them!" Goddard protested indignantly.
"They're dispensable, the Dalek is unique! I don't want a scratch on its body, do you hear me?" Van Statten commanded through the coms. The Doctor shot a look at Aliya, who was watching Van Statten with a look of pure hatred and cold pity in her eyes.
He had never seen her look so similar to the Time Lords, the people who acted righteous but were in reality cruel and selfish. It was unnerving.
The Doctor and Aliya ran down the stairs, the former carrying the large gun that Adam had helped them acquire once he had escaped from the lower levels being sealed off. The Dalek was still trapped behind the door that had been the lockdown cut off, so all they had to do was open it and shoot. They approached the door, and used the coms to order the door to be open. As it slowly slid up, the Doctor raised the gun and aimed.
"Time to do what I should have done the moment I saw it, what I should have done when I was given the choice to stop the Daleks from ever existing." He said darkly.
Finally the Dalek was revealed, but the Doctor couldn't bring himself to fire. His hands shook as he held the gun. The Dalek came forward, and pointed its gunstick at Aliya.
"LET ME PASS OR I WILL EX-TERM-IN-ATE THE WO-MAN YOU LOVE," It threatened, but the Doctor only gripped the gun tighter.
"I don't need to let you pass. I can kill you, right here, right now," He responded.
"YOU ARE THE DOC-TOR. RE-CORDS SHOW THAT YOU WILL SHOW MERCY," It said, and moved closer to Aliya. Just its presence made the room seem colder, and the tension was tangible.
"Well then, your records are out of date. I'm too old for mercy." The Doctor fired the gun and the beam shot through the air, hitting the Dalek full on and causing the entire top half to explode.
They stared at it for half a minute, processing that it was really dead.
The Doctor felt some strange kind of guilt surge through him, and he knew it was due to the fact that he had murdered a living being. But the knowledge that it had been a Dalek keep it at bay, no matter what a tiny part of him tried to protest.
Aliya hugged him tightly, and he hugged her back, not letting go for several minutes.
"It's over," The Doctor said softly. Aliya let out a nervous laugh of relief, and pressed herself against his shoulder, breathing in the smell of the leather as she loved to do.
The Dalek was dead, and the world was safe once more.
The two Time Lords stood outside the police box, with the Doctor touching it rather tenderly.
"You…don't think any others survived, do you? Any Daleks?" Aliya asked quietly, and he shook his head.
"That was just a one in a hundred billion chance, there's no way any more could have survived. I would know, I killed them all," He said bitterly. "How about that. I win."
Adam came running up to them. "We better get out," He said, "Van Statten's disappeared, they're closing down the base. Goddard says they're going to fill it full of cement, like it never existed. I'll have to go back home."
"Better hurry up, then. Next flight to Heathrow leaves at 1800 hours," The Doctor said after checking his watch.
"Goodbye, Adam," Aliya said with a smile, "Come on, Doctor, let's go." He unlocked the TARDIS and she went inside, waving goodbye to Adam.
"She said cement! Aliya, what are you doing hiding in a box?" The human boy asked.
"Goodbye Adam. Have a nice life," The Doctor said cheerily, before also going onto the box. Adam watched in wonder as it wheezed and disappeared right before his eyes.
The Doctor found Aliya in the library, reading a book about Earthen geology, stretched out on the couch and not leaving any room for him. He pulled her feet up and sat down before placing her feet on his lap. She barely glanced at him before looking back at the page. Her jacket was hanging over the arm of the couch.
"What rocks and earthquakes could be so interesting? I thought you thought Earth was boring," The Doctor said, and Aliya tore her eyes away from the book to smirk at him with a teasing glint in her eyes.
"I never said it was boring, I just thought that you were a little too obsessed with it, that's all. However, since you obviously aren't going to let it go any time soon, I thought perhaps I would have to learn to like it a lot too." She shrugged. "But I can only read this for so long." She put the book on the floor, and pulled her legs in before turning her body around so that it was her head that was resting on his lap.
His large fingers began stroking her hair, and she closed her eyes contently.
"Question," The Doctor said.
"Okay."
"Why the blue lace?"
A blush crept up her neck. "Oh. I was planning on surprising you later." She sighed and blew a strand of hair out of her face, the hot air hitting his fingers. "It didn't exactly work out how I planned."
"I like the sound of that surprise," He said wryly. His finger ran past her temple, and the tiny brush of his mind against hers made her go very still.
Time Lords had two sides to 'lovemaking'. The physical side, and the mental side. Over the course of their lives, the Doctor and Aliya had been together physically on a number of occasions, most of them one off scenarios.
But they had only scraped the surface of the mental side. Because while it was easy enough to touch minds, and they had done it several times, it wasn't enough. It wasn't what Time Lords had to the potential to do – which was have their minds connect completely, to be in the other's mind.
There was nothing in the universe more intimate than that. For that reason, it was very rare, because most Time Lords were too unfeeling or private to even consider it. Others would never find someone that they wanted to be close to. But for the few that did experience it, it was more than any physical act could ever hope to be.
And before, before the Time War, they had never been able to even hope for it. Their world was too tremulous, too restricting. Physical connection was desperation and need when they knew that it couldn't possibly last. Mental connection was a commitment.
One he had never been ready to make, and one she had never been ready to accept or even consider.
"I'm sorry-"
"No." Aliya sat up slowly and turned so that she would swing a leg over his, effectively straddling him. She put a finger to his lips. "Don't apologise. I liked it." She smiled. "You definitely deserve your surprise. Even if it's not really a surprise anymore." Her hands went to the bottom of her shirt and she pulled it over her head before throwing it over her head, letting it fall to the floor somewhere behind her.
Surprise flashed across the Doctor's features for a moment, before his hands came to rest on her waist, on the newly bared skin. And try as he might, he couldn't keep his eyes from wandering back to the blue lace, the blue lace that she had worn just for him.
"I got to see you in your underwear," She said, grinning, "I thought that maybe I could return some of the favour."
He grinned back, just letting his fingertips trace across the skin of her lower back, and then of her stomach. "Feel like I'm in one of my dirty dreams."
She laughed. "You have dirty dreams about me?"
"Maybe a little." He smirked. "Probably sounds silly, but I still find it hard to imagine you actually wanting me like this. This body of mine is so…daft."
"It's really not," Aliya said, her voice a fraction lower and her eyes a shade darker. She took his face in her hands so that she could kiss him soundly. His hands pulled in, pressing their bodies together in a way that made them both gasp, just a little. When they stopped for breath, she smiled at him. "Why did you touch my mind? Before?"
"Just…felt like it. Shouldn't have without asking, m'sorry," He said, rather sheepishly.
"Do you want to do it again?" She whispered. His eyes widened slightly, but his hand came up to rest by her ear.
"You sure?"
Aliya nodded. "I want to feel you." His hand touched her temple, and she could feel the soft, gentle sensation of his mind on hers. It was like being touched on the cheek. By the time that he broke the connection and both of them opened their eyes after reflexively shutting them, she was smiling.
"Bloody hell," He said, looking a little stunned. "That was-"
"Fantastic." At the use of his favourite word, he kissed her, hard. Her body again moulded to his as she kissed him back with just as much enthusiasm. "Absolutely fantastic." She laughed, rather giddily, before quickly becoming serious. "Oh Rassilon, I want-" She stared into the clear blue eyes that were watching her so intently. "I want that."
"This?" The Doctor asked, touching her temple again just for a moment, making her inhale sharply, and then nod.
"But not just like that," She said slowly, rather timidly, "I mean fully."
He blinked, rather shocked. "Fully?"
"Well, yes." She saw the deep frown starting to form on his face, and began to backtrack. "But not if you don't want to, it was just an idea."
"Aliya, I didn't-"
"Ask for that, I know." She ducked her head, trying not to let the rejection well up in her chest. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have assumed." She started trying to move off his lap. "You know what, maybe I should just-"
His hands took her firmly by the shoulders and held her in place, but she tried to shake him off.
"No!" She said, unable to look at him because tears were starting to well up in her eyes. "You can't just – I mean – I don't think that I want to do this anymore. You clearly don't want-" She tried to keep herself calm, but it was difficult. Suddenly emotion was rising and she couldn't stop it. Not the hurt, not the anger, not the rejection. "I shouldn't have assumed. I shouldn't have expected it of you, I had no right. I'm just stupid and clingy and fanciful-"
The Doctor's hand tilted her chin up so that her eyes, shining with tears, could meet his concerned, incredulous ones. "Aliya. You misunderstood, you overreacted."
"Well I know that now, but why won't you just let me go," She asked him, face twisting with indignation, "Let go of me, let me leave and keep what's left of my pride."
He shook his head. "You're impossible." He held her head gently in his hands and brought it closer to his so that he could put tiny, fleeting kisses on each of her eyelids. She went very still, and very quiet. His fingertips rested on both of her temples, and very slowly, he pressed his forehead against hers.
The floodgate opened and his mind was almost fully against hers. He could directly feel her shock, and her confusion. So he used the link to make it so that she could feel exactly what it was that he felt for her. The love he could never express in words, the fear of the strength of it, the fear of losing her to death or something worse. The way that she made him so infuriated, the way she made him face what it was that he needed to face, the way that she drove him out of his mind, in the best and worst ways.
A very small part of him could feel her body shuddering against his, and could hear a tiny cry escape her lips.
Slowly, delicately, he pulled away and let their minds separate again. As he became fully aware of his physical surroundings again, he realised that he had a weeping Time Lady in his arms.
"I'm such an idiot," She was saying, her voice cracking, "If I'd just given you two seconds…" His hand cradled the back of her head, and she looked up at him, eyes red and still glassy. "I never thought that I was insecure about how you felt about me, but I was, I really was. I hadn't thought about it, but you've just left me behind, and there have been so many others, and Romana, and even when you gave me a chance, I screwed it up, I wasn't brave enough."
He just looked at her expectantly. "And now?"
She sighed, and made a noise that sounded like it was between a sob and a laugh. "And now, for some reason, you do feel the way I hoped, against all logic of the universe. But how can you? I'm so stupid."
"That's how," He told her, brushing hair from her face and wiping the tears from her cheeks, "Because you are bloody stupid. You're my beautiful idiot of a best friend." He kissed her sweetly, tenderly, and she started to laugh. "What now?"
"I'm just so happy," She said, shaking her head, "But please, keep kissing me." He did just that, and didn't pull away until a minute or so later.
"So, do you still want to do this? Fully? That will make it real. No coming back from it, once it's there, it's there forever," The Doctor reminded her, "You sure you want to get stuck with me?"
"Very sure," She assured him, smiling widely again for the first time since their misunderstanding, "Are you sure that you want to get stuck with me?"
"I've proved as much." His hands went back to her temples, and her hands went to his. Their foreheads came together, and very slowly, they opened up their minds to each other. The sheer weight of it was staggering, but eventually the effort required faded, and strands of their minds were entwined – ensuring that the bond was solid.
With the connection forged, they both opened their eyes, leaning back enough that their eyes could meet, but keeping their hands in place, keeping the connection live.
"I can feel you," Aliya whispered, a tiny smile on her lips.
All the full connection really meant was that their minds were open to that of the other – that less or no physical contact was needed for them to touch. Or, that if they were in contact, that they could truly connect, in that way that was so much more intimate than the physical act.
It was only possible to have that kind of connection with one person at a time. Most would only ever have it with one – they were almost impossible to break.
"Gonna take a while to get the hang of," The Doctor said, just as quietly. "Should probably leave it for a while, in the background." She nodded, agreeing. Just having her mind practically bared to his was more than enough. She thought that she might burst if they tried anything more.
That was when her brain stopped considering the mental possibilities and recalled their physical position. Which was her, straddling him, her shirt on the floor.
"Of course, that's not all there is," She said, starting to smile again, hands coming to rest on his lapels. "After all, we were waiting for something. I think that we might have found it."
"Are you saying what I think you're saying?"
As an answer, she kissed him with a new hunger, a new passion that had him clutching at her wherever he could reach, holding her to him as if his life depended on it. Eventually she pulled away and got up. She kept a tight grip on his hand.
"I think this is the part where you take me to bed," She whispered, and with a small tug of her hand, the Doctor was on his feet and leading her through the corridors until they were at his bedroom. When they got inside, he kicked off his shoes and sat on the bed to rip off his socks.
As soon as his jacket was also on the floor, Aliya again straddled his hips, her hands pulling off his jumper, peeling it up and revealing the bare chest underneath. It came over his head, and when it was gone, he was kissing her again. Deeply, with his hands holding her head, and hers resting on the small of his back.
When they stopped for breath, Aliya's hands moved to run through his short hair, and her head dipped to press kisses along his shoulder and collarbone, lingering on the 'v' of his neck.
His fingers curled into her hips and brought her against him with a yank. A small squeak escaped from her and shifted into a gasp when they were suddenly touching practically everywhere, albeit through clothing.
"Okay," She said breathily, "The jeans are going to need to go."
One of his arms curled around her back, and next thing she knew, he had flipped them so that they were lying on the bed, her underneath him. She let her legs drop from his hips. While the loss of contact was regrettable, it allowed her hands to go to the button of his jeans, just as his were at the button of hers.
Once the two pieces of denim were also on the floor, the Doctor dipped his head down to kiss Aliya forcefully, pressing her into the duvet as her arms wrapped around him and her hands explored his neck and back.
With the new mental aspect of their relationship, they could both very faintly sense the emotions of the other, only because in that moment they were so heightened. Love and desire were the only ones potent enough to be recognised on their own.
"You're so beautiful...I love you, Doctor," She murmured against his mouth, making him go still. He leaned back just enough so that their eyes could meet.
"Aliya-" His voice sounded pained.
She pulled his head back down to hers so that there was an inch between them. "I know you won't say it. So show me."
There was a pause. But then he grinned, and did exactly that.