A/N: Hey there guys! :) Here's the third chapter for "His Darkest Hour", which I hope stands up to your expectations :) Some parts might not make sense right now but that's the magic of Doctor Who. Not everything is given to you straight away :P

I also wanted to say that I've made a general forum for anything you might want to say to me/ask me (whether that be a suggestion or a comment on my writing style or something I need to improve or anything like that :P) I thought it would be a good idea because there isn't really much opportunity to talk directly to writers on FF so I set it up :) Let me know what you think about it, the link is on my profile page and I'll try to reply as soon as I can :D

Apart from that, enjoy this next chapter and dont' forget to review! :)

His Darkest Hour

Chapter Three: A New Plan

To be honest, The Doctor was in a bit of a pickle. He'd thought that by regaining ownership of his TARDIS and not allowing events to play out in the same way again he'd put a stop to all this. After all, it was the conglomeration between his and For's TARDISes-

I like that word! Conglomeration. Congloooomeratioon.

...

Oh. Sorry. Carry on.

Anyway, it was the pairing between his and For's TARDISes that had been used to start all this, so surely now he had his back everything would revert to how it should be?

But no. When the TARDIS re-materialized The Doctor found himself on the same rust-skied Skaro, with the same problems and the same enemies. "Why do all my friends turn on me?" The Doctor wondered aloud, leaning against the TARDIS. "What do I do wrong?"

He shook the feeling off, feeling sorry for himself wasn't going to save the whole of creation. He started to walk towards the exit of the smallish store cupboard (at least that was what it looked like) and peeked his head out of the door, which he then immediately withdrew, tightly sonicing the door shut.

Through the door he had seen rows and rows of conveyor-belts, all whiring and squeaking as they ran the half completed shell of their owners to the next stage of development. The Doctor cast an incredulous glace at the TARDIS, his fingers wrapped around his sonic like a vice, his only weapon against what stood out there. "Of all the places!" He hissed, his mind visibly whirring as he used his sonic to gently open the door an inch at a time.

He looked around, edging his head around the door frame slowly, eyes flickling left and right at alarming speeds. He heard a loud high pitched noise and immediate broke cover, running for a stone pillar close-by watching the door shut behind him. Then he realized it was just the converyor squeaking again. He willed his hearts to calm down.

Now that he was out of the cupboard, he could get a good look at gigantic room that towered high above him and seemed to continue for miles in either direction. The long, high room housed four conveyor belts, all of which were heading to The Doctor's right, towards what looked like a hastily constructed furnace. A chill ran down his spine. "Killing their own ancestors and melting them down for scrap? Daleks never change."

The Doctor decided that towards the furnace was not really where he wanted to go, so he took note of the equally high,well he couldn't really call them windows, in the walls that allowed Daleks to enter with ease for maintenance and worked his way up the room, moving from stone pillar to stone pillar. After about five minutes of tense creeping, with The Doctor squeezing his sonic tightly in both hands, he came upon a wrought iron door.

He walked up to it confidently, but then realizing there was no control panel he took a step back. "Always something good behind an impregnable door, that's what I always say."

Do you really always say that?

Well yeah... when I have the good fortune to find an impregnable door it's always the first thing that comes to mind.

The Doctor walked up to it again, running his sonic from one corner to the other, then paused to look at the readings. "Deadlock sealed. Of course it is." The Doctor sighed heavily and was about to consign the door as a lost cause when he noticed something. A small, hairline crack in the stone next to the door hinges. His eyes lit up with an idea, and then they positively glowed with inspiration as he ran towards the crack and pressed his sonic hard against it, ramping up the settings until you nearly had to cover your ears for the noise.

And then, when it seemed like this wasn't really going to do anything except give us all a major headache, the wall splintered, a loud snapping sound blasting over the screeching sonic as the hairline crack tore itself apart, exposing the hinges of the great door. Well, it would have, if dust wasn't now obscuring everything within reach. Deep within the fog there was an altogether unmanly "ah!"and then an echoing slam as the door crashed to the ground, The Doctor only just getting out of the way in time.

Much coughing and spluttering later and we could finally see what the door was hiding. The Doctor stood back up, adjusted his bow-tie and dusted himself off. "Just what I was looking for," he grinned, rubbing his hands together with anticipation. "Not what I'd originally planned" he muttered, stepping over the door and inspecting the masses of wires and buttons "but this should work perfectly."

Half an hour later and the TARDIS found herself rematerializing again, but this time in an entirely different cupboard, in an entirely different place. The Doctor stepped out, went "Ah. Wrong turning." and returned inside. He disappeared moments later.

The TARDIS soon found herself rematerializing yet again, but this time The Doctor seemed happy with his "choice" of destination.

Hey!

Sorry Doctor, but you do sometimes just turn up somewhere without having any intentions of doing so.

It's the TARDIS! Blame here not me, she's the one really in control of where we end up!

Well, whether it was The Doctor's piloting skills or the TARDIS', either way he found himself back on Skaro, in one of the hundreds of underground transport networks that the Daleks had crafted into the rock. He took a tentative step into the tunnel, leaving the TARDIS invisible in one of the alcoves that cut into the tunnel every so often, and then licked his finger, stuck it in the air and walked off to his right, his destination fixed firmly in his mind.

Now just to get there and try to find any clues about what For's machine was, and why it hadn't been affected by the temporal restructuring he'd just done. First stop, the research laboratory.