A/N: And here's the end of "Dalek!" Written while I watch the Christmas special once again. :D I hope this does it justice since I cried for real when I saw the episode for the first time. This is in an apology for missing two days due to the New Year. I haven't written a chapter in a day this long since I started my binge writing.

Have fun. Next up, a filler chapter of my own invention. :D

Dalek

Part Six

The dreaded pain and resultant death never happened.

In the silence, I hardly dared to breathe, but I definitely hadn't died. I peeled my eyes open and glanced around. A scorch mark in the wall near my head told me where the shot had gone.

It missed.

The Dalek had shot at me and missed. Granted, it had hit near the camera, so everyone might think I'd died, but a miss nonetheless. The Dalek hadn't killed me. Why?

"So … are you going to kill me or not?"

"What have you done to me?"

I blinked, my fear dissolving into confusion. "Me? What are you talking about?"

The Dalek's gun twitched wildly, as did the eyestalk. Its fear became more prominent. "I have a weapon. I will kill. It is my purpose."

"But?"

"I … can't. I … feel … your fear."

I flinched as the gun went off two more times. However, I couldn't help but stare at the Dalek in surprise. Well, time to see if I could salvage the situation after all. "It's not a fear of you, if that's what you're wondering. I'm scared for you."

"Daleks do not feel fear!"

"Maybe not, but you feel anyway. You heard what the Doctor said. I'm an empath, so don't tell me you can't feel anything because I can tell that you do." I took a step forward and the Dalek actually backed away from me. "There's nothing wrong with feeling things."

"I am contaminated!" The fear inside of it came out so strong that tears stung my eyes. "What have you done to me?"

Perhaps a gentler approach would be kinder? "It's called change, Dalek, and that's usually a good thing."

"Daleks do not change!"

"Well, maybe they should. Maybe by changing you can start your race again. Be the good guys or something. Is that so hard to imagine?"

The silence stretched for so long, I didn't know if it had actually heard me or started planning something that would end up with people dead. "Why do you do this?"

I somehow managed a smile. "I don't know, myself. If you let me talk to the Doctor, I'll be able to get you out of here." I couldn't guarantee that, of course. I still technically didn't know the Doctor that well. He could do something that I didn't expect, but I could care less. I wouldn't let him kill the Dalek and potentially some part of him that I didn't think he should loose.

The eyestalk rose to the camera. "Open the bulkhead or Jessica Gale dies!"

I whirled around to find the camera twitching again. "Dalek, that's not the way to get them to trust you," I muttered, but I felt pretty sure they could hear me. "Complete opposite, in fact."

"You're alive!"

The raw emotion that burst through a speaker brought a grin to my face for a few seconds. "No need to sound so relieved, Doctor. Don't I always show up where I don't belong?" Okay, I didn't do so well either, but who was counting?

"I thought you were dead."

"Snap out of it, Doctor, 'cause you're going to kill me once you hear my idea."

"Well at least you're alive, right?" Oh, that's where Rose disappeared to.

"What does it want?"

"It's not what 'it' wants, Doctor." I pictured the Doctor's face in my mind and stared those eyes down as much as I could. "I want you to open the doors. I know I haven't done anything to make you trust me like this, but the Dalek could've shot me but it didn't … he didn't."

"Jessica, I can't. If it gets to the surface, it's going to kill everyone."

"He could've killed me a lot easier than the whole of the human race! I'm still here, aren't I?"

We'd talked too long for the Dalek, apparently. "Open the bulkhead! I need to reach the surface!"

"What for?!" The Doctor's yell echoed around the hallway. "What could you possibly need besides your urge to kill anything that isn't a Dalek?"

"I need to survive!"

"Doctor, please, trust me. I can handle this." I softened my voice. Challenging the Doctor wouldn't get me anywhere. "If you'll come down here and promise to hear me out, you'll understand, but you have to open the doors first."

Once again, I felt the Doctor's mind try and reach mine. This time, I let him in so he could feel exactly what I did. He didn't linger, barely touching my memories before withdrawing. I didn't even know if he paid any attention to the details.

Several long seconds later, the doors clank and began to rise.

"Why did you kill him?"

My own voice startled me out of the numb, zombie-like state I'd fallen into. The quiet of the upper hallway echoed with the trudge of my feet. I still felt close to losing everything in my stomach. Statten's pain still ricocheted around my mind. I could barely keep my thoughts together.

"He captured me. Tortured me …."

"So?" I wrapped my arms around myself. I didn't even have the energy to be angry at him. "You could've shown him mercy. Proven that you're better than him."

"Mercy is a weakness."

Shaking my head, I put myself in front of him, stopping the Dalek in his tracks. "No it's not. I tried to stop the Doctor from hurting you before. Yes, it didn't work so well, but you all but asked for mercy. What's the point of asking for that when you can't give any in return?"

I didn't want to even touch his emotions, but they called to me. Gave me the urge that if I just pushed a little more, everything would turn out all right. I could feel his need, his want to give into the new emotions that were growing inside him. Only the thinnest defense kept them from completely taking over.

The Dalek paused, his eyestalk flicking over me. "Why do you oppose the Doctor?"

"What?"

"You are his companion. I do not understand your contradiction of his orders."

"Do Daleks always follow orders?"

"Yes." The Dalek paused, as if thinking hard about something. "We are … we were bred to follow orders. Daleks did not fear, did not feel. Only hate."

I raised an eyebrow. "But aren't you a Dalek?"

"I … do not know what I am."

"Then what do you feel?"

Moments passed. The Dalek turned his gaze to the roof. His weapon thrummed to life and the ceiling exploded into pieces. I yelped and ducked out of the way, but nothing more came down.

Except for a bit of sunshine.

If I hadn't already been emotionally drained, the clicking of the Dalek's armor didn't send me as much into shock. It all moved, separating from the main part of the body with puffs of … something. When it opened, I completely forgot about any despair I felt towards him.

A Dalek seemed to be nothing more than an eye with flesh and tentacles. Nothing so dangerous after all.

Tears gathered and burned in my eyes. One managed to escape. How could something so helpless not receive anything but pity?

A wall of hate slammed into me with such force that I grunted, but that lasted for only a second. I stood, whirling around to face it and placing myself in front of the now exposed Dalek. Only one man in the universe would have so much hate burning inside of him.

The Doctor came barreling around the corner. With a gun.

Rose appeared a second later. "I'm sorry. I tried to stop him."

"Get out of the way."

I almost choked on my heart as the Doctor raised the gun. At me. Well, at the Dalek behind me, but I stood between them. "No," I breathed, firming my stance as much as my nervousness would allow.

My response didn't seem to register. "Jessica, get out of the way now!"

"Absolutely not!" I shouted right back. "I asked you to trust me. This isn't trusting me!"

The struggle with his emotions almost sent the air around him into a roiling chaotic mess. "I've got to do this, Jessica. I've got to end it. The Daleks destroyed my home. My people. I've got nothing left." With those words, I could sense even more of the tortured soul he'd started to show me inside the TARDIS … and it nearly broke my heart.

"Neither has the Dalek," my voice cracked even more than the Doctor's. "I know he killed Statten, but can you honestly say you wouldn't have done the same if you'd been tortured?"

The Doctor opened his mouth, no doubt with some sort of smart comeback. Nothing happened. The gun wavered, dipping some before he remembered that he even held it in the first place.

I couldn't stop until that gun was pointed at the floor or got dropped. "You say the Daleks can't be trusted, but have you looked in a mirror?"

"Don't," came the warning I should know to take seriously. So close to pushing one of the buttons I should never come close to.

Since when did I listen to him anyway?

"Why not? You apparently don't have a conscience to tell you when to stop." I took several steps closer, but kept myself between the two. "I wasn't in your War so I'm not going to pretend and ask you to try and see things from his point of view."

"You can't ask me to forget. You don't have the right."

"I know and I'm not even asking you to forgive him, I know that would be too much. Just let this one …."

"What's it doing?" Rose's cautious words sliced through my focus.

I turned to find the Dalek stretching out a tentacle towards the sunlight. A trembling hand pressed against my face where I felt even more tears dampening my cheeks. I definitely wasn't going to let the Doctor get away with murder now.

"What's it doing?" The confusion in the Doctor's voice emerged only a pale echo of the disruption inside his wrath.

"He … he put the hole in the ceiling. I guess he … just wanted to feel the sunlight?" I honestly didn't know why the Dalek wanted the light. I didn't feel sure about anything at the moment.

I glanced at the Doctor and could've sworn he'd gone several shades paler. "But it can't," he murmured, voice cracking. His whole concept of what the Daleks were, shaken from the roots.

I returned my attention to him. He still held the gun, but it definitely pointed at the ground now. Biting my lip, I closed the distance between us. "Again, why not? I don't know if you have any skill in empathy, Doctor, but if you could feel what I do in him right now …. Please, just … let it go. Don't kill him like he did Statten."

My hand reached out and covered one of his.

"I …. They're all dead, Jessica." The Doctor couldn't even meet my eyes. "All of them."

"Why do we survive?" The Dalek's question came out so quiet, we barely heard him.

A muscle in the Doctor's jaw twitched. "I don't know."

"I am the last of the Daleks."

"No you're not. Not anymore." Understanding dampened his anger more than I thought possible. "When Rose touched you, she did more than help you regenerate. You absorbed some of her DNA. You're changing."

"Yes."

"He's feeling, Doctor," I corrected. "For the first time in his life, he's actually feeling something other than hate."

Rose took several steps closer, her fascination drawing her in. "It's changing? So isn't this a good thing?"

"Not for a Dalek." Now the Doctor fixed me with a gaze the … actually had pity for me. "That hate is hardwired into their genetic structure, Jessica. Rose might have started the mutation, but you encouraging it to feel is only making things worse, not better."

Worse? My confidence and hope crumbled and died. I'd thought I was doing something good by enforcing all those kinder emotions.

"This is not life. This is sickness. Jessica Gale, order me to die."

I almost gave myself whiplash as a secret fear began making itself known. "What? No, no, no," I rushed forward until I could crouch at eye level. "You can't ask me to do that. Why do you want to die now? I thought you said you wanted to live."

"Not like this." The Dalek's tentacles twitched weakly. "I cannot be like you. Order my destruction."

"No."

"Obey! Obey! Obey!" The Dalek screamed, almost seizing in his desperation.

I could hear my heart ripping into pieces. How could he ask me to order a suicide? "I … I just …." I shook my head. "I can't, I'm sorry."

"But I can," Rose murmured, so close that I jerked in surprise. "I started this by touching it, didn't I? I should finish it."

The Dalek thought for a while. "That … is acceptable."

"Do it, then."

I didn't even bother holding back anymore. With a shudder, I touched the end of one of his tentacles before tearing myself away. Doubt and guilt ripped into me as I retreated back to the Doctor's side.

"Jessica Gale?"

Sniffing, I forced myself to face the Dalek again. "Yes?"

"Are you afraid?"

The nod felt harsh and jerky. "Of course I am."

"So am I. Exterminate."

As the Dalek began rising off the ground, I squeezed my eyes shut. I couldn't bear to make myself watch. It was all my fault. I'd forced the emotions out of him. Encouraged him to question his inborn nature.

Why did I ever think that I'd be able to be of any help?

A flash against my eyelids made me flinch. The Dalek was dead.

A hand gripped my shoulder. "I'm sorry."

I couldn't bear it. Shrugging his hand away, I just shook my head. "Don't, Doctor. Just … don't."