A/N I don't own BBC or Doctor Who

Book of the Update: Deeper by Gordon and Williams

Chapter 2

"DOCTOOORR!" Donna shouted, clinging onto the railing to try and keep her balance as the ship was flung in every direction.

Rose, not having had a chance to grab onto something, was sliding all about the console room and finally managed to catch hold of the jump seat and hoist herself to a standing position. Just then, the lights blew out, glass went everywhere, the temperature increased by at least 20 degrees, and fires started on the console and on the walls.

They both screamed and Donna fell to her knees, crawling over to Rose, who had taken on a strange expression. She stood up and shakily made her way over to the console and grabbed on to steady herself, looking through a ragged burnt hole in the metal. Through the hole, she could see a little golden spark and it triggered something in her memory…..golden light in the TARDIS…..the TARDIS….

DOCTOR WHO

"But Donna and Rose are still in there!" Jack shouted at the red Dalek, "Let her go!"

"THE FE-MALE AND THE TAR-DIS WILL PER-ISH TO-GE-THER. OBS-ERVE," the Dalek gestured to a screen behind them and the Doctor and Jack turned. "THE LAST CHILD OF GALL-I-FREY IS POW-ER-LESS."

"Please," The Doctor begged, "I'll do anything. Just get them out of there! Put me in their place. You can do anything to me! I don't care just GET THEM OUT OF THERE!"

"YOU ARE CONN-EC-TED TO THE TAR-DIS NOW FEEL IT DIE," the red Dalek said with a sick sort of robotic joy.

The Doctor stood, staring at the screen in agony, teeth clenched, fire in his eyes, as he watched the ship burn.

"TAR-DIS DES-TRUC-TION IN TEN SEC-ONDS. NINE. EIGHT. SEVEN. SIX. FIVE. FOUR. THREE. TWO. ONE" The TARDIS faded into nothing, lost in the fires below. "THE TAR-DIS HAS BEEN DES-TROYED. NOW TELL ME DOC-TOR, WHAT DO YOU FEEL?"

Jack looked at the Doctor. His face still appeared as though he were in numb agony, but his eyes…..something had happened to the TARDIS, but it hadn't been destroyed.

"AN-GER? SOR-ROW? DES-PAIR?" the red Dalek asked, goading him.

"Yeah," he breathed. It sounded heartbroken, but Jack knew that the Doctor could lie very well. The red Dalek, however, did not know this.

"IF EMOTIONS ARE SO IMP-ORT-ANT THEN SURE-LY WE HAVE EN-HAN-CED YOU?"

"Yeah? Feel this," Jack yelled, pulling out his gun and shooting the Dalek three times.

"EXT-ERM-IN-ATE!"

"Aughahhh!" Jack fell to the floor, motionless and the Doctor looked down at him, grief written on his face.

"YOU ARE THE PLAY-THINGS OF DAV-ROS NOW," The red Dalek said, leading him down a hallway. He turned back to Jack for a moment and nodded ever so slightly when he saw him wink.

DOCTOR WHO

"Alrigh' well that's as good as she's gonna get without the Doctor," Rose said, wiping off the newly repaired lights on the wall. "Now, no one knows we're here, so we've got to keep quiet, yeah?"

"W-what are you?" Donna asked, speaking for the first time since Rose's eyes had changed color, nearly half an hour ago.

"Shhh," she held a finger up to her lips. "I'm Rose, and I'm human. And you're Donna, human, and you're going to help me fly the TARDIS."

"But only the Doctor can do that, right?"

Rose waved her hand. "You're a smart girl, yeah? I bet we can figure it out."

Donna opened her mouth, but Rose cut her off. "Well, come on over, don't be shy. She's not going to bite," she said, gesturing to the console.

Donna walked over, slower than molasses, and stood by Rose. "Why did your eyes go like that?" she finally spit out.

Rose blinked a few times in surprise. "Like what?"

Donna gaped at her. "Like that." Rose still looked confused. "They're gold now? 'Stead of brown?"

Rose reached a hand up and touched her eyes. "I…I dunno. They don't feel any different. Feel just like eyes."

Donna looked away. "'s freaky."

DOCTOR WHO

"Activate the holding cell," Davros commanded in a gravelly voice. A beam of light shot up around the Doctor like a cage. "Excellent. Even when powerless, a Time Lord is best contained."

"Still scared of me then?" the Doctor asked, touching his hand to the light and watching as the force field became visible.

"It is time we talked, Doctor, after so many long-"

"No, no, no, no, no, we're not doing the nostalgia tour," the Doctor said, cutting him off. "I wanna know what's happening right here, right now, cause the supreme Dalek said vault. As in dungeon…cellar…prison…you're not in charge of the Daleks, are you? They've got you locked away down here in the basement like what, a servant? Slave? Court jester?"

"We have…an arrangement," Davros said shortly.

"No no no no no no I've got the word, you're the Dalek's pet!"

"So very full of fire you are. And to think, that girl crossed entire universes to find you. Poor little Rose Ty-"

"DON'T you dare say her name!"

"Her name is mine to say as I please."

The Doctor grit his teeth and changed the topic. "Why am I still here?"

"Because it was foretold," Davros said, bowing his creepy little head forward. "Even the supreme Dalek would not disobey the prophecies of Dalek Kaan," he swept a hand back to where a light had just turned on above the saddest Dalek the Doctor had ever seen. It was barely even a flap of rotten skin with a brain, hanging off of pieces of charred metal that was once the traditional protective casing of a Dalek.

"So cold and dark," Kaan said in a high-pitched, giggly voice, "Fire is coming. The endless flames."

"Dalek Kaan," the Doctor said, repulsed. "So you flew into the Time War unprotected and this is what happened, well, is this what the Cult of Skaro has come to?"

"Kaan did more than that," Davros objected, "He saw time. Its infinite majesty and complexity raging through his mind. And he saw you."

"Yes," Kaan squeaked, "I have foreseen, in the wild and the wind, the Doctor will be here as witness; at the end of everything, the Doctor and his precious children of time…and one of them will die," he laughed, flailing his tentacles around.

"Was it you, Kaan? Did you kill Rose and Donna? Why did the TARDIS door close? TELL ME!"

"OH that's it!" Davros rolled over to him. "The anger, the rage, the fire of a Time Lord who murdered millions….there he is. Why so shy? Show us your true self, as Dalek Kaan has said you will."

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

"What does that mean?" the Doctor mumbled at Kaan, who just laughed in response.

"We will discover it together," Davros whispered, showing his grimy teeth off in a terrifying smile. "Our final journey. Because the ending approaches; the testing begins."

"Testing of what?" the Doctor asked apprehensively.

"The reality bomb," replied Davros with a short laugh. "Behold," he gestured to the screen that appeared, showing the testing of the reality bomb.

"That's zedneutregon energy, flattened by the planets into a single string…..No, you can't! Davros! Davros, you can't! You can't! NO!"

DOCTOR WHO

"Okay, let's see what we've got here," Rose said, looking at the blue screen that showed energy levels near the TARDIS.

"But….those are planets," Donna pointed out.

"Twenty-seven planets," Rose said softly. "That means something…..something the Doctor said, or maybe Torchwood mentioned something about twenty-seven planets…twenty-seven planets…"

"Single string zedneutregon ions compressed into a single line," Donna read what the TARDIS had written on the screen. "What does that mean?"

Rose's eyes widened. "No way…"

The planets on the screen faded from extremely high energy levels back to normal.

"It's finished," Rose said, her voice catching.

"What was it?" Donna asked softly, but Rose just kept staring at the screen. "Rose. Rose, what did it do?"

"Electrical energy," she mumbled. "Every atom in existence is stuck together by this thing, this electrical field. The reality bomb – the thing the Daleks just used – cancels it out and the structure of everything falls apart. That….that must've been just a test or something, because if that was the real thing, every form of matter would dissolve."

"The stars goin out…" Donna whispered and Rose nodded numbly.

"The twenty-seven planets will become one big transmitter and blast that wavelength everywhere, across the universe…..across everything. Every planet and every star will become dust, and then that dust will just sort of fade into nothing," she took a shaky breath, tears spilling down her cheeks, "and it'll keep going. It'll break into other dimensions, into every single parallel world…."

"So everything will just become….nothing?" Donna asked, trying to wrap her mind around that, but she couldn't. "We've got to stop them."

Rose wiped off her face with the backs of her hands. "Right. So….let's see what the TARDIS can find for us, yeah?" she said, patting the console as the TARDIS gave a gentle hum and a light went on in one of the rooms in the hallway. Rose grinned and ran into the room, coming out in just a moment holding what looked like a big hunk of metal.

"So what is this thing?" Donna asked.

"Uhh…not sure, to be perfectly honest. But the TARDIS is sending me this thought…'s like the Daleks are all connected to one person and if we get the reality bomb to focus on that person, all the Daleks will be destroyed, yeah?"

"Biggest backfire in history," Donna said, grinning.

Rose's smile faded. "But I don't think I can do that. I don't think I can destroy an entire race…even if it is the Daleks. It's just…wrong." She looked at Donna, the conflicted emotions showing on her face, and Donna didn't know what to say or what to do because she was right…..but it seemed as if they had no choice.

DOCTOR WHO

"This is Martha Jones representing the Unified Intellegence Task Force on behalf of the human race. This message is for the Dalek crucible, can you hear me? I repeat, can you hear me?"

The Doctor looked up at the sound of Martha's voice. "Put me through!"

"And so it begins as Dalek Kaan foretold," sneered Davros.

"Put me through!" the Doctor growled.

"Doctor!" Martha said from the screen, "I'm sorry. I had to."

"But the Doctor is powerless. My prisoner. State your intent," Davros said, rolling into the light.

"I've got the Auster-Hagaan Key," Martha said, holding it up for the camera to see. "Leave this planet and its people alone or I'll use it."

"Auster-Hagaan what? What's an Auster-Hagaan Key?"

"There's a chain of 25 nuclear warheads, placed in strategic points beneath the earth's crust. If I use the key, they detonate and the earth gets ripped apart."

"What?" the Doctor asked, completely blown back. "Who invented that? Well, someone called Auster-Hagaan, I suppose. Martha are you insane?!"

"The Auster-Hagaan Key is to be used if the suffering of the human race is so great, so without hope that this becomes the final option."

"That's never an option!" The Doctor objected, but Martha cut him off sharply:

"Don't argue with me, Doctor, cause it's more than that. Now I reckon that the Daleks need these 27 planets for something. What happens if it becomes 26?"

"Captain Jack Harkness, calling all Dalek boys and girls, are you receiving me?" a new voice called out from the second screen that had just appeared. "Don't send in your goods or I'll set this thing off."

"Jack, what are you doing?" the Doctor asked. "Mickey? Jackie? Sarah Jane?"

"I've got a warp star wired into the main frame. If I break the shell, the entire Crucible goes up."

"You can't!" The Doctor spat, "Where did you even get a warp star?"

"From me," Sarah Jane said, "We had no choice; we saw what happened to the prisoners."

"Impossible…" Davros breathed, "That face…after all these years."

"Davros," Sarah Jane mumbled, her voice shaking, from anger or fear, the Doctor couldn't tell. "It's been quite a while. Sarah Jane Smith, remember?"

"Ohhh, this is meant to be. The circle of time is closing. You were there on Skaro at the very beginning of my creation."

"And I've learned how to fight since then," she spat at him, "you let the Doctor go or this warp star – it gets opened."

"I'll do it," Jack said, twisting the cord around his finger. "Don't imagine I wouldn't."

The Doctor was staring at the ground.

"And the prophecy unfolds," Davros growled.

"The Doctor's soul is revealed," Kaan pitched in from his perch in the background, laughing, "See him? See the heart of him."

"The man who abhors violence, never carrying a gun, but this is the truth Doctor. You take ordinary people and fashion them into weapons. Behold your children of time transformed into murderers. I made the Daleks, Doctor. You made this."

"They're trying to help," he said, always feeling the need to defend his companions.

"Oh yes," Davros crooned, "Already I have seen them sacrifice today for their beloved Doctor."

"Who was it?" he asked in confusion.

"Harriet Jones," Jack said softly. "She gave her life to get you here."

"How many more? Just think, how many have died in your name?"

The Doctor's face contorted in pain as he thought of everyone who had ever died trying to save him….there were too many. Way too many.

"The Doctor, the man who keeps running, never looking back because he dare not out of shame. This is my final victory, Doctor. I have shown you yourself."

"Daleks!" Martha cried, apparently having had some stimulation on the other end of the video call. "Decide! The earth or the Crucible?" Suddenly, she vanished, dropping the Auster-Hagaan Key as some sort of transmit took her away. The same thing happened to Jack and the others.

They appeared in a flash beside the Doctor, who yelled at them not to move.

"GET DOWN on your knees! All of you! SURRENDER!" Davros commanded and the Doctor hissed at them to do as he said.

"The final prophecy is in place. The Doctor and his children, all gathered together as witnesses. The time has come. now, detonate the reality bomb!"

"You can't, Davros! Just LISTEN TO ME! JUST STOP!"

"Aaahahahah nothing can stop the detonation! NOTHING! AND NO ONE! Aaahahah!"

Suddenly, a familiar sound reached their ears. The TARDIS was materializing.

A/N Please leave feedback :)