Chapter Thirty-eight: Bad Wolf Reborn

The TARDIS wrapped herself around Rose, using the huon particles that had been left behind to form a full link between them. Knowledge surged through Rose, all the knowledge and memories of a being with millennia of experience—including the knowledge of what exactly had just happened.

Oh, that's why we left those huon particles. They were kind of like a backdoor, so we could become Bad Wolf again.

That's right, my Wolf.

Rose blinked when she heard the TARDIS in her mind, speaking in full sentences. Even though she never had a problem understanding the ship, their conversations were usually more of a flow of understanding as they each shared ideas rather than actual dialogue.

A tinkle of laughter felt like gold light in the back of her mind. Yes, when we are one, we can speak in full sentences.

And they were one. It was odd, Rose thought with some detachment. She could feel the TARDIS in her mind, and Bad Wolf, and herself… and yet somehow, all three were also one.

But about the huon particles… Rose said, leading them back to the original topic of conversation. Is this going go leave me feeling all tired and worn out for a week?

No. It was only the addition of the Time Vortex that left you dependent on me. This time when we separate, the huon particles in you will stabilise, and if we're ever apart, you won't get sick again.

Rose held her hand up and observed the tinge of gold running underneath her skin. Why didn't you tell me that before?

Too much foreknowledge is not good for a temporal being. You saw your entire life when you held the power of the Vortex. You saw it all, and then you locked the memories away, to be unlocked only when they became relevant.

Rose sighed, but that was fair enough. And truthfully, she'd rather have some surprises left in her life, instead of having it an open book laid out in front of her.

She knew the exact moment the Doctor realised what had happened, and braced herself for his fear or disapproval. Instead, she was met mostly with confusion. She'd done what she'd hinted at over a year ago and become Bad Wolf without looking into the Time Vortex, and he couldn't understand how.

We are the Bad Wolf, she said simply, the plural coming naturally. We cannot be uncreated.

It took him a moment to process that, then his confusion was replaced with something more like pride and hope. Everything they'd been told about Bad Wolf in the last year helped him understand that they had always been coming to this point, and that Bad Wolf was the only way to save the universe.

Rose ducked below the console a moment before she heard shattering glass and realised the rest of the roundels and the glass in the door had just exploded from the pressure of floating on a sea of Z-neutrino energy. The hint of prescience that came with being Bad Wolf was an odd sensation, but since it had just saved her life, she wasn't going to complain.

While she waited for the turbulence to smooth out, Rose deepened the bond with the Doctor so she could eavesdrop on the conversation on the Crucible. When the Supreme Dalek gloated over their imminent deaths—the death of Rose, and the death of the TARDIS—the Bad Wolf couldn't help but smirk.

Time tugged at her, and she got to her feet and pressed a series of buttons that Rose Tyler didn't quite understand yet. But as the TARDIS—as the Bad Wolf—she knew they would time the flight of the TARDIS to the moment the Daleks' countdown ended. The ship would disappear from their monitor exactly when they expected, but instead of dissolving into atoms, it would rematerialise outside the Crucible, undetected.

Rose pressed the final button when the countdown reached four, and she felt the moment the TARDIS left the heart of the Crucible. The Doctor could feel it too, and they allowed themselves just a moment to celebrate together, before they each focused on the separate tasks they needed to do before they could be reunited.

oOoOoOoOo

Despite all the hints of Bad Wolf that they'd gotten in the last year, the Doctor had remained firmly in denial. Bad Wolf had killed Rose once, and her suggestion that it might be possible without risking that danger seemed… remote, at best.

And yet he could tell she'd kept her promise and not looked into the Time Vortex. With a full bond between them, he would have witnessed the power of raw time along with her. And while the idea of ruling the universe beside her as the god and goddess of time had some appeal, the awareness that their physical bodies couldn't withstand the power killed his interest.

He shoved his trembling hands into his hair and tugged, vaguely aware that he still needed to present a picture of an angry, grieving husband to the Daleks.

The sharp pain in his scalp focused his thoughts. How had Rose merged with the TARDIS so completely? Taking an eleventh dimensional matrix and folding it into a flesh body shouldn't be possible, and if it were, it should be putting far more strain on the physical form than it seemed to be.

We are the Bad Wolf, Rose reminded him. We cannot be uncreated.

It was incomprehensible to him, and yet it was obviously true. The Doctor growled and shoved his hands into his pockets as he straightened up to stare at the Daleks. Rose was safe, but they couldn't know that.

"Your TARDIS and your mate," the Supreme Dalek crowed, not realising how prophetic his words were. "You are connected to them both—now feel them die."

The golden light in the Doctor's mind felt amused as it listened to the words of the Daleks through their connection. The Doctor was able to channel his confusion and shock into something he hoped still looked like fear and anger.

"Total TARDIS destruction in ten rels," a Dalek announced. "Nine, eight, seven, six, Five, four, three, two, one."

The TARDIS disappeared from the screen, but she didn't disappear from his mind, and neither did Rose. The Doctor bit his lip to hold back his cry of victory. Oh, the Daleks had done it now. Because the last time a fleet of Daleks had gone up against Bad Wolf, they had been dissolved to dust.

If it were possible for a Dalek to smirk, the Supreme Dalek was doing it now. He waved his death ray and plunger arm in excitement. "The TARDIS has been destroyed. Now tell me, Doctor. What do you feel? Anger? Sorrow? Despair?"

Hope. The Doctor felt hope. Because Rose had flown the TARDIS out of the Crucible and was hiding somewhere, while she and the TARDIS worked on a plan. And if there was one thing that would always give him hope, it was the idea that Rose and the TARDIS together could do almost anything they set their minds to.

The Doctor pressed his lips together, hoping he looked like he was holding back tears instead of laughter. He looked at the blank screen, summoning up the empty tone of voice he'd used the last time Rose had been killed. "Yeah."

Jenny's grief buffeted against him. The Doctor frowned hard enough to get a headache between his eyes—couldn't she feel Rose still alive? His eyes widened after a moment when he realised that Bad Wolf felt different enough from Rose to confuse a young telepath.

He wrapped an arm around her and pulled her close. Pressing a kiss to her temple, he used the brief connection to project calm and hope to her. He couldn't tell her what had happened, but he couldn't let her go without some kind of comfort.

"Then if emotions are so important, surely we have enhanced you?" the Supreme Dalek taunted.

"Doctor?"

The Doctor turned slowly to meet Mickey and Jack's disbelieving looks. "Rose was there… with the TARDIS," he said, grinding out the words so they sounded painful. He met each man's gaze directly, holding it for a moment until he thought they understood. They both knew what Rose could do with the TARDIS.

Jack's gaze flicked over the Doctor's shoulder to look at the Daleks. He set his jaw, then pulled his service revolver out and ran past the Doctor.

"You want emotions?" Jack challenged. "Then feel this!" He fired the weapon at the Supreme Dalek. The bullets made no dent in the polycarbide casing, but that hadn't been Jack's goal.

"Exterminate!"

The Doctor carefully shielded Jenny with his body as the Supreme Dalek fired on Jack. Should the red menace get the idea to let his death ray go astray, he didn't want it coming anywhere near his daughter.

A moment later, the Doctor shuddered when he felt the wrongness that accompanied one of Jack's deaths. Donna didn't know about Jack's trick though, and she darted forward to bend over him.

"They… they just killed him," she said, her voice numb. "First Rose, now Jack."

The Doctor let go of Jenny and bent down to pull Donna to her feet. "I know. I'm sorry," he said, apologising more for not being able to tell her the truth than anything else.

"Escort them to the Vault," the Supreme Dalek ordered.

Donna stood up, still staring down at Jack's currently-dead body. The Doctor rested a hand on the small of her back as a Dalek rolled forward to escort them into a lift.

"There's nothing we can do," he told Donna. But as they walked away, he glanced over his shoulder just in time to catch Jack's wink.

"They are the playthings of Davros now," the Supreme Dalek gloated, unaware that the enemies he thought he was eliminating one by one were actually escaping his watchful eyestalk and forging plans for his eventual defeat.

oOoOoOoOo

Martha's trek through the German forest was cold and fraught with danger. More than once, she was nearly spotted by a Dalek patrol, but each time she managed to duck behind a convenient tree just in time.

Still, by the time she reached a clearing and spotted the large stone castle, illuminated by spotlights, her nerves were shot. A voice called out to her, and Martha looked up at the old woman climbing down from the ramparts.

"Hier ist niemand. Was immer Sie wollen, gehen Sie fort. Lassen Sie mich in Ruhe!"

Martha sighed; she sympathised with the woman for wanting to be left in peace, but she didn't have that option. "Ich heisse Martha Jones," she stated clearly, giving her identification to the woman she knew was an operative, despite her appearance. "Ich komme von UNIT. Agentin fuenf sechs sechs sieben eins, von der medizinishen Abteilung."

The woman stopped and stared at her from the top of the hill the castle had been built on. "Es hiess Sie kaemen vorbei. That accent. That is London, ja?" She tilted her head and her lips twisted into a half-smile. "I went to London. Long time ago."

Martha ignored the attempt at casual conversation. There was something wrong here. "I thought this place was supposed to be guarded."

"They were soldiers. Boys." The woman scoffed, and Martha knew what had happened before she finished the story. "I brought them food every day. But when der Albtraum came from the sky, they went home—to die." Her voice cracked, and she pressed her lips together and swallowed hard before speaking again. "But not you," she said after a moment.

"I've got a job to do." Martha didn't have the luxury of being able to leave and let the nightmare from the sky play out. It was her job to stop it.

She climbed the stairs and the woman let her into the castle. Even though Martha had never been to this particular site, she'd been shown pictures when they'd first told her about the Osterhagen key and how it worked. She knew exactly how to get to the secret station, hidden behind the castle walls.

The old woman watched her as she strode through the unused rooms and found the tapestry hanging on the wall that concealed the keypad. Martha yanked it down and pressed her hand to it.

While she waited for it to give her clearance to enter, the woman continued her story. "London. In those days, to see it. So much glamour. I was so young. I heard the soldiers talking many times. They would speak of the Osterhagen Key. I think London must be changed now, yes? But still, the glamour."

Martha's handprint checked out, and she pulled the heavy door open. Then, to her surprise, she heard the distinctive click of a safety being removed on a revolver, and she turned around to stare at the woman who had not actually been caught in nostalgic memories, but had been slowly sussing her out.

"You will not go," she said, but though the words were spoken fiercely, the weapon wobbled in her hands and Martha knew she was not in any true danger.

"I've got no choice." The words came out pleading, asking the woman to understand that she would never think of using the Osterhagen Key if there were any other way. Her stomach was tied in knots at just the thought of what she was attempting, but the fate of the universe was in the balance.

"I know the Key." The woman's eyes were wide with horror. "What it does. Sie sind der Albtraum, nicht die anderen, Sie! Ich sollte Sie umbringen, am besten gleich jetzt!"

The Doctor's voice whispered in her ear that the woman was right—Martha was the nightmare. The idea of setting off a string of nuclear warheads in the surface of the Earth rather than fighting until they had exhausted every option… it was wrong. It was against everything the Doctor had taught her, and it went directly against her medical training to do no harm.

But she had an order. "Then do it," she challenged. The woman stared at her for another interminable minute, then finally she dropped her hand.

No longer under threat, Martha nodded once, then turned and stepped into the lift.

"Martha, Zur Hoelle mit Dir!" the woman cried after her.

Martha pressed the button. "I know."

As the lift took her to the lower levels, Martha tried to shrug off the face of the old woman who had just told her to go to hell. She had an assignment, no matter what Harriet Jones or old German ladies thought.

But again, the Doctor's voice suggested that maybe there was another way. That maybe, she should start by giving the Daleks a choice. Didn't he always give his enemies a choice, a chance to do the right thing before he followed through on whatever plan he'd come up with to stop them?

The first hint of an idea formed in the back of her mind. Earth was one of twenty-seven planets. What if…

The lift stopped, and the doors opened directly onto a small station, big enough for one person only. As Martha unstrapped Project Indigo, the lights came on and the door shut behind her. Her breath caught in her throat; she had never felt more alone in her life.

She thought briefly of Tom and their ill-fated relationship. Did she feel alone partly because she'd broken up with him, or would she feel more alone if they were still together and she had to keep this from him? The same image that had convinced her to break up with him came to her again—Rose comforting the Doctor after the death of the Face of Boe. If she couldn't have that, she would rather be alone.

She squared her shoulders and strode towards the desk chair, the Osterhagen key in hand. The rules were clear: there must be three operatives at three stations with three keys to activate the Osterhagen Key. That gave her time to come up with an alternative to blowing up the Earth.

Martha pressed the button for the secure comm link that connected the stations positioned strategically worldwide. "This is Osterhagen Station One. My name is Martha Jones. Is there anyone there? Over."

A staticky pop and buzz came over the speaker. Martha pursed her lips—it was time to think like the Doctor, not just a doctor. There was always an alternative, if you looked for it hard enough.

oOoOoOoOo

The first thing Jack registered was heat. Much heat. Very hot. His eyes flew open, and he realised he was in an incinerator. Not the worst way he'd woken up after dying, but definitely not the best.

Thankfully, no one expected people to climb out of an incinerator, so the door didn't lock and he was able to slide it up and roll out before he died again and had to think of a new plan.

Using the scanner on his wrist comp, Jack was able to get a rough schematic of the Crucible. He punched a few more buttons and managed to get it to show Dalek activity—which was pretty much everywhere.

He eyed the plans and sighed. "Ventilation shafts it is," he muttered to himself and opened the nearest access point.

oOoOoOoOo

Sarah Jane, Pete, and Jackie followed the line of humans being led through the Crucible.

"Prisoners now on board the Crucible," a Dalek said. "They will be taken for testing."

"Testing?" Pete muttered. "I don't know if I like the sound of that."

Sarah Jane shook her head, then took a quick look around her, hoping to spot someone she recognised. "One step closer to the Doctor," she said resolutely.

oOoOoOoOo

Rose leaned back and surveyed the console room when she got the last bits of debris swept up. The TARDIS had repaired herself when they had left the Crucible, but there had still been a little bit of picking up left for Rose to do. And honestly, she didn't mind—it gave her time to think about what had just happened.

The moment they'd rematerialised, she'd felt the timelines settle around her in one solid path forward. She knew what she needed to do, and she knew with a certainty that was unnerving what had happened—no, what would happen.

Rose put her hand on the console and frowned down at the ship. "Can you try to think linearly when we're connected like this?" she said, the sudden headache giving the words some bite.

The lights in the console room flashed, and the voice of the TARDIS in her mind apologised, though not without a hint of laughter. To the TARDIS, time was as natural a part of her environment as air was to humans. And like humans wouldn't separate out the individual elements that made up the atmosphere, it was unnatural to her to divide past from present and future.

Rose rolled her eyes and brushed her hair out of her eyes. The glint of gold under her skin caught her eye again, and this time, it reminded her of something else. She'd seen that same gold at the edge of her vision in moments when the Doctor was threatened, or when they were in danger. She was the Bad Wolf, as she was meant to be.

And yet…

Rose brushed her hands over the controls on the console. "The Master said this wasn't the prime timeline," she said slowly. "That the most likely sequence of events after Canary Wharf was for me and the Doctor to be separated. So how… Did I…"

We saw all of Time, my Wolf. With the Vortex running through our mind, we saw it all. We saw the possibilities, and we found a timeline we preferred. And then, like a strand in a tapestry, we took that thread and wove it into our story.

A hazy memory shifted in the back of Rose's mind. She'd done this. She'd set them on this path, or at least made it a possibility. Because this was how it was meant to be—the Doctor and Rose Tyler, in the TARDIS, forever.

oOoOoOoOo

As the Doctor and his companions were led to the Vault, he quickly ran over his hidden assets. There was Jack, who had faked his death so he could hopefully get away from the Daleks and run free through the Crucible.

Sarah Jane had been on that conference call earlier, and if he knew Sarah, she would not be content to sit at home, watching the world burn around her. The Doctor didn't know what exactly she would be doing, but he expected her to appear at some point—likewise with the brilliant Martha Jones.

And, of course, there was Rose. Rose and their TARDIS, currently merged in the form of the Bad Wolf, listening in on the conversations going on and making plans that the Daleks absolutely would not be expecting.

Everyone would play a part, he knew. But his gut told him that the salvation of the universe would come at the hands of the Bad Wolf.

The Daleks who had delivered them to the Vault rolled back to the lift and returned to the main level of the Crucible. The Doctor stood in the middle of the room, with Jenny, Donna, and Mickey close by, and waited for Davros to speak.

"Activate the holding cells," the mad scientist said, and the Doctor saw a glimmer of light as energy shields went up around each of them.

Jenny reached out and touched hers, and it flickered blue for a moment. "That's weird," she mumbled, then pressed her hand more firmly to the barrier.

"Excellent," Davros rejoiced. He hit a button on his chair and rolled closer to the Doctor. "Even when powerless, Time Lords are best contained."

The Doctor flicked his finger against the shield. Davros' words made it clear he knew who Jenny was, and it struck him suddenly that his daughter was completely defenceless against his old enemy.

"Still scared of me, then?" he taunted, hoping to keep Davros' attention focused on him.

Davros ignored his attitude. "It is time we talked, Doctor. After so very long."

The Doctor shook his head quickly. He knew exactly where that conversation was going, and it was the last one he wanted to have with Davros. "No, no, no, no, no. We're not doing the nostalgia tour. I want to know what's happening right here, right now."

He scanned his surroundings as he talked. It had not escaped him that they'd taken the lift down to get to the Vault, and now, a hilarious possibility occurred to him. "Because the Supreme Dalek said Vault, yeah? As in dungeon, cellar, prison." He spun in a slow circle as he ticked off the synonyms. "You're not in charge of the Daleks, are you?" He smirked at Davros. Davros stared at him, grim-faced, and he knew he was right. "They've got you locked away down here in the basement like, what, a servant? Slave? Court jester?"

"We have… an arrangement," Davros conceded reluctantly.

"No, no, no, no, no." The Doctor rocked back on his heels and laughed at the ceiling. "No, I've got the word. You're the Dalek's pet!"

Davros jerked the joystick controlling his chair and wheeled over to Jenny, and the Doctor cursed under his breath when he realised his plan to keep Davros' attention focused on him had failed.

"So very full of fire, is he not?" Davros asked Jenny as he rolled to a stop in front of her. "Oh, I see the same fire in your eyes. You are indeed the Doctor's daughter."

A growl built in the back of the Doctor's throat, but before he could hurl useless threats against Davros, Donna's voice drowned out his protest. "Leave her the hell alone, you big old… Skeletor look-alike."

The Doctor covered his mouth to hide his smirk. Davros really didn't look much like Skeletor, but he loved Donna's creativity.

Davros' head swivelled between Jenny and Donna, trying to decide who he should stare down. "She is mine to do as I please."

Jenny tilted her head back and crossed her arms over her chest. "Then why am I still alive?"

The Doctor stared at the floor for a moment, working to choke back his anger and helplessness. Jenny was so much like Rose—the same fearless defiance that always terrified him at times like this.

"You must be here. It was foretold."

Davros' raspy voice held a note of reverence that caught the Doctor by surprise. Who exactly had the scientist found to revere?

"Even the Supreme Dalek would not dare to contradict the prophecies of Dalek Caan."

Davros pressed a button on his chair, and a light clicked on over a Dalek mollusk lounging in his open casing. "So cold and dark," Dalek Caan said, his tentacles moving in time with his singsong voice. "Fire is coming. The endless flames."

"What is that thing?" Mickey asked, while Donna gasped and put her hand over her mouth.

The Doctor sighed. "That is a Dalek, Mickey. A Dalek removed from his polycarbide shell." He looked at Donna, still staring at the grotesque mollusk-like creature with wide eyes. "Rose and I told you about them, remember?"

Donna shook her head. Her eyes were fixed on the tentacles, waving in the air. "Yeah, but you said they had… metal and stuff. That's just…"

"This is the true Dalek form," the Doctor explained. "What they all look like beneath the metal casing. And Dalek Caan is unique. He flew into the Time War, unprotected."

"Caan did more than that," countered Davros. "He saw time. Its infinite complexity and majesty, raging through his mind. And he saw you. All of you."

The Doctor frowned, wrinkling his forehead. He knew someone else who had looked into all of time and been changed by it. Looking into the Time Vortex had revealed the true desire of Margaret the Slitheen's heart—he could only hope that a similar experience had given Dalek Caan the same change of perspective.

"This I have foreseen, in the wild and the wind. The Doctor will be here as witness, at the end of everything. The Doctor and the Bad Wolf, and their precious Children of Time. Oh, but now the Wolf has been silenced."

The Doctor's hearts stuttered, and he choked on a gasp as he swayed slightly on his feet. The last time he'd been warned that the Wolf would be silenced, he'd gone without Rose and their bond for five months—three of which he'd thought she was dead.

Rose? he called frantically, even though he could still feel her in his head.

I'm fine, Doctor, she promised. But silent, like a submarine in the movies—running silent.

The tension drained out of him, and his shoulders sagged in relief. Then another thought occurred to him, and he shoved his hands through his hair. There was no way the phrasing was an accident, not if Dalek Caan could see Time. And that meant the Dalek knew Rose was alive.

He couldn't let anyone else pick up on that fact though, and he immediately fell back on the anger and hopeless desperation he'd felt when the Supreme Dalek had dropped the TARDIS and Rose into the heart of the Crucible.

"Was it you, Caan?" he spat out. "Did you kill Rose? Why did the TARDIS door close? Tell me!" His volume rose with each demand, until he screamed the final words. The diatribe had started as yet another way to deflect attention from Rose, but talking about how much danger she was in brought his earlier fear back to full force.

"Oh, that's it," Davros cried victoriously. "The anger, the fire, the rage of a Time Lord who butchered millions. There he is."

The Doctor felt Jenny's gaze on him, could feel her confusion in the face of his rage. Across the room, Donna and Mickey looked on sympathetically, but Jenny had never seen him out of control like this. He took deep breaths and reminded himself that Rose wasn't actually dead—she was only silenced, as Dalek Caan had said, biding her time until it was the right moment for her to save them all.

"Why so shy?" Davros said, his voice low and taunting. "Show your companion. Show her your true self. Dalek Caan has promised me that too."

"I have seen. At the time of ending, the Doctor's soul will be revealed."

The Doctor ignored Dalek Caan's latest prophecy and focused on his daughter instead. Her eyes glinted with tears, and he realised his outburst had convinced the wrong person of Rose's death.

"Jenny…" His mouth worked uselessly as he tried to think of some words he could offer to reassure her that wouldn't tip Rose's hand to the Daleks.

He shook his head, but that had the opposite effect he'd hoped for. Instead of realising he meant Rose wasn't actually in danger, she interpreted his head shake to mean Rose was gone. A tear tracked down her cheek, and the Doctor had to choke back the reassurances that would ruin Rose's secret plan.

He looked back at Dalek Caan before he could say the wrong thing. "What do you mean, my soul will be revealed?" he demanded.

"We will discover it together," Davros whispered. "Our final journey. Because the ending approaches. The testing begins."

"Testing of what?" Dread settled in the pit of the Doctor's stomach like a lump of over-kneaded bread.

Davros had half-turned away from him, but at the question, he spun back around. He tilted his head, and his voice was chillingly matter-of-fact when he answered. "The Reality Bomb."

oOoOoOoOo

Heavy double doors flew open in front of the group of human prisoners, and they were led into an open chamber with high ceilings. "Prisoners will stand in the designated area," a Dalek said as they were herded towards the centre of the room. "Move! Move!"

Sarah Jane stiffened when she took in the room's stone walls and dirt floor. To most people, they would have seemed very out of place on an advanced spaceship—the overall aesthetic was more what you'd expect to find on an archaeological dig. But there was something in the design that hailed back to Skaro, and a wave of memories she'd tried to bury came back to her.

A gasp of pain pulled her back to the present danger. Sarah Jane twisted her head, trying to find the woman and perhaps offer help, but she couldn't see over Pete's shoulders.

"You will stand!" the Dalek ordered.

Sarah Jane realised two things in an instant: what must have happened, and that the Daleks' attention was focused on this woman who had unfortunately fallen to the ground.

"I can't," the woman whimpered.

"You will stand!"

As the woman continued to plead with the Daleks, Sarah Jane scanned the room and spotted a smaller door off to the side. The Daleks hadn't taken her sonic lipstick from her when they'd been brought on board, so unless the door was deadlocked, she had a way out.

"On your feet, on your feet!"

Sarah Jane shoved her hand into her jacket pocket as she ran for the door, pulling out the lipstick. She heard the distinctive fire of the Dalek death ray when she reached the door, and assumed the Daleks had taken another victim.

Her hands were shaking as she pointed her lipstick at the lock. Please let this work, she begged the universe. She let out a breath when she heard the latch unlock, then she looked over her shoulder while the door slid open. "Pete, Jackie!" she whispered as she left the room.

Pete stared straight ahead with his hands locked behind his head as ordered. He was so focused on Tony and Jackie and everyone in his universe that he was letting down that he almost missed Sarah Jane whispering his name and Jackie's.

He let his gaze drift away from the Daleks to search for the Doctor's friend, and his eyes widened when he saw her standing on the other side of an open door. Hope coursed through him. After sparing the Daleks a quick glance to make sure he wasn't being watched, he carefully shifted to the side of the room, trusting Jackie to follow.

He only looked back when he reached the door, and his stomach clenched in hard knots when he realised she was directly in front of the Daleks and couldn't move. He pivoted, but before he could go in after her, a hand clamped on his wrist and dragged him out of the room.

Pete glared at Sarah Jane as the door slid shut. "What the hell are you doing?" He reached for the button. "I'm not leaving my wife behind!"

In response, Sarah Jane dragged him to the floor. Pete caught a glimpse of a Dalek patrolling just the other side of the door before they were safely out of sight.

oOoOoOoOo

The booming, grating voice of the Supreme Dalek reverberated around the Vault. "Testing calibration of Reality Bomb. Firing in ten rels."

The Doctor furrowed his brow. Reality Bomb? He stared at Davros, trying to understand what he was talking about.

"Behold." Davros' voice was shivering with anticipation. "The apotheosis of my genius."

The view screen turned back on, revealing a crowded room full of humans. The Doctor's gaze flicked between the screen and Davros, as he wondered what exactly the Daleks had done now. Davros bristled with pride, and the Doctor knew that whatever the Reality Bomb was, it was bad news from the humans trapped in that room.

The Supreme Dalek's countdown reached zero. "Activate planetary alignment field!" he ordered victoriously. The image on the view screen switched from the holding chamber to a quick glimpse of the configuration of twenty-seven stolen planets.

The final piece slid into place when the planets started to glow. Twenty-seven planets, like cogs in a gear, and a space station with a heart of Z-neutrino energy.

"That's Z-neutrino energy, flattened by the alignment of the planets into a single string," he muttered. The image switched back to the prisoners, and the Doctor's hearts thudded painfully in his chest as the final piece fell into place.

"No!" he breathed. "Davros, you can't!" He pressed his hands to the containment field and hissed when a charge went through his body. "You can't!" he insisted, his shoulders heaving as he struggled to breathe.

This was why the stars were going out in that parallel world. Reality was being literally undone. The people in that testing room, all of them, were about to be reduced to atoms.

And it wouldn't stop there. Everything and everyone would be reduced to nothing. No one was safe, not even Bad Wolf.

oOoOoOoOo

Pete paced the corridor, rubbing his hands over his bald head. Jackie was in there, and whatever the Daleks were planning on testing, he didn't think it was a new line of beauty products.

Another Dalek with a deeper grating voice came over the tannoy, counting down to something. The tension stole the last of Pete's patience, and he reached for the door controls again. And again, Sarah Jane stopped him.

"I can't just stand here and wait for the Daleks to kill her," he whispered harshly.

Sarah Jane shook her head. "I know you want to save your wife," she said, cutting off his protests. "But if the Doctor can't stop whatever the Daleks are doing in there, we're all going to be dead by the end of the day anyway!"

Those words reminded Pete of Jackie's pragmatic reason for leaving Tony behind to come to this universe and help the Doctor and Rose. He took a deep breath and nodded, knowing it was what Jackie would have wanted. Choosing his son's life over his wife's was torture, though, and he couldn't bring himself to watch.

Something beeped, and for a moment, he thought the weapon had fired. Then he realised he knew that sound, and he reached frantically into his pocket for his dimension hopper. The light was on, and he ran to the door.

"Thirty minutes," he told Sarah Jane as he held the yellow button up to the window. "It's recharged."

He pounded on the glass porthole, hoping the sound would be enough to get Jackie's attention. "Come on, Jacks," he muttered, and finally, she looked up at him. "Use it," he mouthed deliberately, pointing at the button. "Get out of there, love. Come on!"

Jackie's eyes widened, and she slowly lowered one hand to slip it into her pocket. Pete saw her turn to the woman she was standing next to and whisper something, then she disappeared.

A second later she was in his arms. "Pete!" She clung to him. "Oh, my God, Pete! I thought I was dead!"

The exhilaration of a narrow miss coursed through Pete's veins, and he threaded his fingers through Jackie's hair and tilted her head back so he could press his lips to hers. Tears burned under his lids as he kissed his wife fiercely, trying to convey exactly how grateful he was to have what was now a third chance at a life with her.

Sarah Jane tugged on his sleeve, and he reluctantly pulled away from Jackie to look through the window. The room was being flooded with bright greenish yellow light. Pete's eyes widened as one by one, the people left behind were vaporised, existing one minute and reduced to atoms the next.

The woman Jackie had tried to help was the last to go, and Jackie turned her face into his chest and whimpered when she was gone.

Even Sarah Jane's voice shook when she said, "Come on. We've got to find the Doctor."

oOoOoOoOo

Rose was still reining in her anger at the way Dalek Caan had heartlessly played with the Doctor's worst memories when the TARDIS monitor clicked on. She took a deep breath, then moved around the console to look at it. There was a diagram of the twenty-seven planets at the centre of the screen, with a report of what was happening scrolling across the bottom. She read along with the text, distantly aware that the words were in Gallifreyan, but setting aside that fact to think about later.

"Single string Z-neutrino compressed…" She sucked in a breath. Rose Tyler wouldn't know what that would do, but the TARDIS did, which meant Bad Wolf did. "No," she breathed, touching the screen as if she could reach through it and stop the Daleks.

You cannot save those people, my Wolf, but you can save the rest of the universe. Are you ready?

It was hard to contain Rose's compassion, but ideas were already brewing in Bad Wolf's mind. "I'm ready."

oOoOoOoOo

The image on the view screen flared with bright light. When the light faded, the room was empty. Jenny looked from the view screen to her father, who was trembling with rage behind his forcefield. He bared his teeth and turned away from the screen, his hands raking through his hair.

His reaction to the loss of those strangers made one thing very clear, even if she didn't understand anything else she'd just seen.

Mum was still alive.

That was the only way the Doctor could possibly be more upset over a room full of strangers than he was over Rose. And if he was pretending… they must be working on a plan together.

Jenny carefully hid her relief and asked the other question baffling her. "Dad, what happened?"

Davros answered before her dad could, his crackly voice breaking slightly over the syllables. "Electrical energy, Miss Tyler."

The creepy man wheeled his chair back over to her, and Jenny shuddered when he leered at her.

"Every atom in existence is bound by an electrical field," he explained, his voice warbling over the syllables. "The Reality Bomb cancels it out. Structure falls apart. That test was focused on the prisoners alone. Full transmission will dissolve every form of matter."

"The stars are going out," Mickey said from his holding cell.

Jenny looked across the room at Mickey. That's what had started this whole adventure, she remembered—in another universe, the stars were going out. And it was all because Davros and the Daleks had shut off the electrical signal that bound the atoms together, and had fired their weapon across time and space, and even dimensions.

"The twenty-seven planets," the Doctor bit out. "They become one vast transmitter, blasting that wavelength."

"Across the entire universe," Davros crowed. "Never stopping, never faltering, never fading."

A twisted smile curved up the corners of his mouth, and he started speaking faster and faster until the words were spilling out one on top of the other.

"People and planets and stars will become dust, and the dust will become atoms, and the atoms will become nothing." He lowered his voice, letting the ominous tone echo around the Vault. "And the wavelength will continue, breaking through the rift at the heart of the Medusa Cascade into every dimension, every parallel, every single corner of creation."

A vicious light entered Davros' eyes, and he pointed at the empty room on the view screen. "This is my ultimate victory, Doctor! The destruction of reality itself!"