Well, school has been awful. I'm sorry this took so long, but all the emotions in this episode were giving me a LOT of trouble. I've finally decided that instead of just dedicating one chapter to Dalek, I'll be splitting it into several so I can cover all the scenes I want to do. There's really not that much romance in this one, actually, but it's still really necessary as an insight into the Doctor's personality. Enjoy, and please review.

The vault door closes behind him and with a loud boom and barely audible click as it locks. There's hardly any light in the room, not enough to see this 'Metaltron' Van Statten is so obsessed with, but enough to make out the torture implements laid on the table. The Doctor grimaces and composes himself before turning to where he assumes the creature is to speak.

"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."

There is a beat of silence in which he's afraid this creature might actually be dead after all its gone through. Then . . .

"Doc-tor?"

His hearts stutter and nearly stop when he hears the voice. The same voice that screams in his nightmares every time he manages to sleep. Its impossible. Totally impossible. He might be talking again, he's not quite sure, because the dalek is screaming at him as the lights finally switch on.

"The Doc-tor?! Ex-ter-min-ate! Ex-ter-min-ate! EX-TER-MIN-ATE!"

"Let me out!" he yells, banging on the door as hard as he can, but there's no response from outside.

"You are an en-emy of the Da-leks! You must be DES-TROYED!"

His sonic screwdriver is forgotten as his mind races and he turns to stare Death in the face, still trying to back as far away as he can. He's come all this way, survived this long, done so much just to die here. He's just starting to think of a certain blonde upstairs that won't be able to get home without him when he realizes the dalek is pointing but not firing. The laser moves a few times but does nothing, and he comes to the right conclusion at the same moment as the dalek.

"Its not working." the dalek looks down at it and he just can't help himself. "Hahahahahhaha! Fantastic! Oh . . . fantastic." he sounds like a madman and he knows it, but doesn't quite care. Maybe that's what he is. That's what he's been all along and he just hasn't realized it until now. He's not going to die, not now. But this thing shouldn't be here. "The great space dustbin, how does it feel?" he yells, running up and putting his face in its eye stalk, hardly containing another maniacal laugh as it tries to back away from him.

"Keep back!"

"What for? What are you gonna do to me?" he rages, putting some space between them now because he's having trouble breathing that close to it. "If you can't kill, then what are you good for, dalek? What's the point of you? You're nothing!"

There's a pause and the dalek doesn't reply. Part of him doesn't want it to, part of him never wants to hear it speak again. But the other part needs to know how it got here. It escaped. What if others did? Was it all for nothing?

"What the hell are you here for?" he mutters, not looking at the creature tied in front of him.

"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 gonna get any. Not ever." he says, almost managing to convince himself that's true. How did this one escape? Does it not know what happened?

"I de-mand or-ders!"

"Well they're never gonna come! Your race is dead. You all burned, all of you. Ten million ships on fire, the entire Dalek race, wiped out in one second."

"You lie!"

It doesn't know. It doesn't remember. It must have fallen through time; the only survivor. The only survivor.

"I watched it happen. I made it happen!" he yells, gloating about his victory for the first, and last, time.

"You des-troyed us?"

It must be the way the soldier worded it, because it felt like someone had stabbed him in between the hearts. Those were the words he dreamt of hearing every day. Hearing them from another Time Lord who had somehow, miraculously, survived, searching out someone else only to find him and know that he had been the one to do it. To hear the accusation and pain and hate in the words they threw at him before leaving him alone again. And even though this is a dalek, the filth of the universe, the words hurt just as much as they would from one of his kind. He has to turn away to answer because he doesn't want to look at it anymore.

"I had no choice." he practically whispers it, but he knows the dalek heard it.

"And what of the Time Lords?"

To hear that name coming from a dalek sends another stab of pain through him, but this one awakens his mind. This thing isn't one of his people. It's the filth he and his race were protecting the universe from. But he has to answer anyway, because he knows the thing won't just stay quiet.

"Dead. They burned with you." he takes a deep, rattling breath to steady himself, even though he knows it won't work. "The last great Time War. Everyone lost."

"And the cow-ard sur-vived."

"Oh, and I got your little signal. Help me, poor little thing." he mocks, because he doesn't want to respond to that accusation. The coward. The one who ran, from the untempered schism, from his duties, from his family and friends, from his people. Always running, and never stopping. "But there's no one else coming, 'cause there's no one else left."

"I am a-lone in the un-i-verse."

"Yep." he says, managing a tiny smug smile before it continues.

"So are you." the smile melts off his face. "We are the same."

"We're not the same, I'm not-" he stops, because a horrible, genius thought has occurred to him. "No, wait. Maybe we are. You're right, yeah, okay." he says, backing up slowly to the controls behind him. "You've got a point. 'Cause I know what to do. I know what should happen. I know what you deserve." the dalek's eye stalk is following him, unsure of what he's doing. Well, it should now. Its exactly what it would do in his situation. So he just fakes a smile and lets that little bud of cruelty that's been building inside him flourish. "Exterminate."

He pulls the lever and watches with grim satisfaction as the dalek screams in pain. Just a few more seconds and it will roast inside that metal casing it has, and it will all be over.

"Pit-y me!" it screams, and he shakes his head.

"Why should I? You never did."

Except the door is actually opening now and someone is pulling him away, shutting off the power. He yells at them to kill it, kill it now before it can escape, except no one's listening. After awhile he's not even listening to himself. He's listening to the screams of Time Lords and Daleks alike as they burned in one great inferno at the end of Time War. He's listening to the first cries of terror, from Rassilon and Romana and Susan alike, as they realize what he's done. He's listening to his own screams as he bolted inside the TARDIS and ran away. He's listening to the cries of a long dead people. He's listening to his victims, and only wishing that he could add this dalek to the list.