The Doctor and His Guardian

by yetanotherbloodyfan

Book 1 in The Guardian of Time Series. Against all odds, the Doctor's forbidden love, the Guardian, has survived the Time War also, despite having disappeared some time before. Now join the Gallifreyans as they travel the Universe together, finally free of the High Council's control. But... is the Bad Wolf still waiting for them? Rewrite of Season 1/2. Doctor/OC-Time Lady.

6. Chapter 6: Dalek

I don't own Doctor Who, only the Guardian.

GD~GD~GD~GD~

The TARDIS landed without either the Doctor or the Guardian touching anything.

"That's not supposed to happen." the Doctor frowned as he looked at the screen. Rose moved over to the monitor, only for the TARDIS to spark yet again, driving the girl back. The Guardian smirked a tiny bit and joined the Doctor. They had landed millions of miles and thousands of years from their destination.

"What happened?" Rose asked.

The Doctor frowned, not seeing any problems. "Don't know."

"Care to investigate?" The Guardian asked him, noting the signal that the TARDIS had locked on to.

"Sure."

The Doctor stepped out of the TARDIS first, followed closely by the Guardian, then Rose.

"So, what is it? What's wrong?"

The Guardian rolled her eyes at the question. Rose had been with them a week, always managing to convince the Doctor to take her on yet another adventure. She was about ready to abandon the girl on Earth sometime in her relative future, just to get rid of her. The TARDIS would be a more than willing accomplice, as she seemed to be more determined than usual to throw off the Doctor's plans.

"I told you, Rose. I don't know. There's some kind of signal drawing the TARDIS off course."

Rose looked around. "Where are we?"

The Guardian answered her. "Earth. Utah, North America. About half a mile underground. The year 2012."

The Doctor looked at a glass case, while the Guardian looked at another. It contained a piece of spaceship.

"That's so close. So I should be...26!"

The Guardian found a light switch. Lights turned on one-by-one, revealing a long hallway lined by glass cases.

"Blimey… It's a great big museum." Rose breathed.

The Doctor moved along the row. "An alien museum. Someone's got a hobby. They must have spent a fortune on this."

"Chunks of meteorite, moon dust. I think that's a milometer." The Guardian pointed at one of the cases.

"From the Roswell spaceship." The Doctor agreed.

"That's a bit of Slitheen!" Rose exclaimed, pointing at the next case. "That's a Slitheen's arm. It's been stuffed!"

The Doctor caught sight of something. "Oh, look at you!" There was a trace of sadness in his voice.

The Guardian joined him at the display case, which contained the head of a Cyberman.

"What is it?" Rose joined them as well, standing on the Doctor's other side.

"An old friend of mine. Well, enemy. The stuff of nightmares reduced to an exhibit." He smiled sadly and took the Guardian's hand. "I'm getting old."

"Is that where the signal's coming from?" Rose asked, completely obvious to the Doctor's distress.

The Doctor squeezed the Guardian's hand once. She responded for him. "No, it's stone dead. Whatever is sending out the signal is alive and calling for help."

The Doctor touched the glass and immediately an alarm went off. Within seconds, an armed guard had cut the trio off from the TARDIS, weapons pointed at them. The Doctor grabbed the Guardian's other hand to keep her from pulling out her gun and starting a fire-fight. She made an annoyed noise, but didn't try to fight him. They were surrounded on all sides anyway.

"If someone's collecting aliens, that makes you two Exhibit A and B." Rose commented.

GD~GD~GD~GD~

The trio was quickly escorted up quite a few levels by a hard-edged woman called Goddard. They walked into an office to see a young man holding an alien instrument up and a bored-looking man in a chair behind a desk.

"What does it do?" The bored man asked.

The young man, who was English, handed the instrument to him. "Well, you see the tubes on the side? It must be to channel something. I think maybe fuel.

"I really wouldn't hold it like that," the Doctor said.

"Shut it," Goddard snapped.

"Really, though, that's wrong." The Doctor insisted.

"Is it dangerous?" The English boy asked, slightly offended.

The Guardian stepped between the Doctor and the man in the chair, not like his calculating look. "Only if you ego is big enough that you consider looking like an idiot to be dangerous."

She reached for the object and firing bolts clicked all around her. The man held up one finger and the guards relaxed. He passed the instrument to her.

Feeling the familiar weight of the object, she smiled a little. It was definitely not Gallifreyan in origin, but she had learned how to handle thousands of instruments from different cultures. Music was the only thing that her trainers hadn't corrupted for her until she met the Doctor.

Gently, she stroked the metal and high, sweet notes filled the room. "It requires delicacy."

"It's a musical instrument." The man said, fascinated.

"And it's a long way from home," the Doctor added. "Where would you say its from?"

"Eye of Orion," the Guardian responded without even needing to think.

"Here, let me." The man snatched it out of the Guardian's hands and tried to play it himself. The sounds he produced were lower, more mechanical.

"I said delicate. It reacts to the smallest fingerprint. It needs precision."

The man lightened his touch and the higher notes came back.

"Very good," the Doctor said. "Quite the expert."

"As is your friend." He tossed the instrument onto the floor. The Guardian winced as it hit the wall.

"Who exactly are you?" He demanded.

"I'm the Doctor. And who are you?" The Doctor took the Guardian's arm and pulled her slightly behind him.

The man smirked. "Like you don't know. We're hidden away with the most valuable collection of extra-terrestrial artifacts in the world, and you just stumbled in by mistake."

The Doctor chuckled. "Pretty much sums me up, yeah."

"The question is, how did you get in?" He moved around the desk to stand directly in front of the Doctor. The Guardian snorted as his obvious attempt to intimidate.

"Fifty-three floors down, with your little cat burglar accomplice and blondie here. You're quiet the collector yourself; they're rather pretty.

Rose huffed. "She's going to smack you if you keep calling her 'blondie'."

The man smiled. "She's English, too! Hey, little Lord Fauntleroy. Got you a girlfriend."

The young man nodded tensely.

'Amadahy, no matter what happens, I need you to make sure that this man doesn't discover that you're not human.'

'What about you?'

The Doctor didn't answer.

'Eltanin…'

He glanced at her, and she could see the genuine fear in his eyes. 'Amadahy, there are methods of torture that the humans have that only a few would try on me, at least in this time. But you…' He trailed off and looked away.

The Guardian understood. She knew of many cultures that would have no qualms about raping her or sexually experimenting on her. It seemed she would have to add humans to that list. 'Remind me what you see in these creatures again?'

Adam spoke. "This is Mister Henry Van Statten."

"And who's he when he's at home?"

"Mister Van Statten owns the internet."

"Don't be stupid." Rose replied. "No one owns the internet."

Van Statten grinned. "And let's just keep the whole world thinking that way, right, kids?"

"So you're just about an expert in everything except the things in your museum." The Doctor observed. "Anything you don't understand, you lock up."

"And you claim greater knowledge?"

"I don't need to make claims, I know how good I am."

"And yet I captured you," Van Statten said. "Right next to the Cage. What were you doing down there?"

"You tell me."

"The Cage contains my one living specimen."

The Guardian barely stopped herself from rolling her eyes. For all his supposed genius, Henry Van Statten had walked right into that one.

"And what's that?"

"Like you don't know."

"Show me."

"You want to see it?"

"Blimey, you can smell the testosterone," Rose cut in with a weak laugh.

'Eltanin, for once I agree with Rose. This is not the time to appease your ego.'

The Doctor and Van Statten didn't break their staring contest.

"Goddard! Inform the Cage we're heading down." He looked over at the young man. "You, English, look after Blondie. Go and canoodle or spoon or whatever it is you British do. And you, Doctor with no name, come and see my pet. Bring yours."

The Doctor's jaw tightened. "Good, I never go anywhere without her."

Van Statten frowned, and the Guardian realized what the Doctor was doing.

'Don't you dare leave me up here with Rose! Doctor!'

"On second thought," Van Statten said. "She stays up here. English, now you get two girls." He smirked and then led the way out the door. The Doctor smiled apologetically at the Guardian, then followed him.

GD~GD~GD~GD~

The Doctor heard the Guardian's voice in his head the entire way down to the Cage. It seemed that she had decided to punish him for abandoning her by subjecting him to an ongoing commentary about every little stupid thing Rose and the English kid were saying.

About midway through, he promised himself that after this adventure, he was going to say goodbye to Rose and take the Guardian someplace nice and quiet and talk her into finally marrying him.

"We've tried everything," Van Stattan explained once they reached to outer room of the Cage. "The creature has shielded itself but there's definite signs of life inside."

"Inside? Inside what?" The Doctor began working through the list of creatures he knew that could shield themselves inside a small ship or armor. So far, the list wasn't looking good.

Especially not with the Guardian upstairs. Most of the higher species would consider it an honor to kill her.

The door behind Van Statten opened when he punched in the combination. A man in an orange suit moved to stand beside Van Statten.

"Welcome back, sir," he said. "I've had to take the power down. The Metaltron is resting."

"Metaltron?" What sort of a name was that?

"Thought of it myself. Good, isn't it?"

Ah. It was that sort of name.

"Although, I'd much prefer to find out it's real name."

So would the Doctor. Orange Suit held out a pair of gauntlets.

"Here, you'd better put these on. The last guy that touched it… burst into flames."

That narrowed down the list.

"I won't touch it then." He grinned flippantly.

Van Statten was unamused. "Go ahead, Doctor. Impress me."

The Doctor walked through the door, into a dark room. Behind him, he heard Van Statten ordering that the door not be opened until there was a result, then said door shut, locking him in with whatever the creature was.

There was a faint blue light in the middle of the room, and just enough light from a bulb in the ceiling to see all sorts of drills on a table. He winced and turned to the creature.

"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."

White lights blinked as the creature spoke in its rough, mechanical voice. "Doc-tor?"

The Doctor froze. "Impossible." The list had been narrowed down to one species. A species that was supposed to be dead.

"The Doctor?" The creature's voice was stronger now.

Lights turned on to reveal the creature, badly damaged and in chains.

"Exterminate! Exterminate!"

The Doctor pounded on the door. "Let me out!" He had to get to the Guardian before the creature did!

"Exterminate! You are an enemy of the Daleks! You must be destroyed!"

The Doctor realized that no one was coming for him. He shrank back against the wall. So this was how he was going to die. In a cage, far away from the Guardian.

GD~GD~GD~GD~

'Amadahy, I love you.'

The Guardian straightened in her chair. 'Eltanin, what's wrong?' There was such finality in his voice.

He didn't respond.

GD~GD~GD~GD~

The Dalek's laser arm twitch, but nothing happened.

The Doctor smiled, relieved. "It's not working."

He wasn't going to die here today.

He began laughing. A Dalek. A creature born to kill, and now it couldn't even do that.

"Fantastic! Oh, fantastic!" He moved away from the wall, unable to contain his glee. "Powerless. Look at you. The great space dustbin. How does it feel?" He ran closer, getting inches away from its eyepiece.

"Keep back!" The Dalek slid back.

"What for? What're you going to do it me?"

The silence stretched. They both knew that the Dalek couldn't do anything.

Finally, after eight hundred years of War, the last Dalek in the Universe was powerless. He had complete control. He could do whatever he wanted to it.

He nearly shuddered as he remembered the sight of his granddaughter Susan's lifeless body. She wasn't even supposed to be on Gallifrey. She had married a human and lived in the 22nd Century. But even she had answered the call of Gallifrey when he hadn't.

His daughter—his only child, his Gaiana, the very image of his first love—had died not long after that. He had actually seen her die, heard her scream when a Dalek shot her. That Dalek hadn't lived longer than it took for her body to hit the ground.

More memories came to the surface, memories that he had buried in order to survive. Everyone that he had ever seen killed by a Dalek. Everyone that he had ever loved. Susan. Gaiana. His brother. His parents. Gaiana's three sons. Their families.

And, long before the Time War, his first wife.

"If you can't kill," he spat at the Dalek. "Then what are you good for, Dalek? What's the point of you? You're nothing! What the hell are you here for?"

Oh, how those words could have been applied to him. He had fought for four hundred years. War was all that regeneration had known. Even as a new man, the bloodlust of the Warrior remained, hidden for the Guardian's sake. Because how could he help her if he couldn't even help himself?

"I am waiting for orders."

The Doctor stopped. "What does that mean?"

"I am a soldier. I was bred to receive orders."

His mind went to the Guardian. She had been trained from childhood to receive orders. Ever since the day she stood before the Untempered Schism. Three hundred years later, she was granted her position. Declared "finished". The Ultimate Weapon.

And now she had no one but him. How did she feel, no longer having the High Council standing over, dictating her life? Did she feel free? Or directionless?

"Well, you're never going to get any. Not ever." He replied to the Dalek.

"I demand orders!"

"They're never going to come! Your race is dead! You all burnt—all of you. Ten million ships on fire. The entire Dalek race wiped out in one second." And the entire Time Lord race. Except him.

"You lie!"

"I watched it happen. I made it happen!"

"You destroyed us?"

Let the Universe burn or commit genocide against two insane species. He walked away from the Dalek, the shame of that choice returning. The Guardian kept it at bay, reminded him that he had done the best that he could. But without her there…. "I had no choice." He replied, more to convince himself than the Dalek.

"And what of the Time Lords?"

He flinched. "Dead. They burnt with you. The end of the Last Great Time War. Everyone lost." His final words were spoken at a near whisper.

"And the coward survived."

The Dalek calling him a coward reignited his fury. "Oh, and I caught your little signal. 'Help me.' Poor little thing. But there's no one else coming 'cause there's no one else left."

"I am alone in the universe." He could almost believe the Dalek was sad about that. If Daleks had the ability to feel sorrow, which they didn't.

"Yep."

"So are you. We are the same."

The Doctor stiffened. "We're not the same! I'm not..." Though technically, he was. The Guardian was Gallifreyan by birth, but she wasn't a Time Lord.

Or even a Time Lady.

He was the last survivor of the Academy. Last of the Prydonian Chapter. Last of the House of Lungbarrow. There were so many aspects of their culture that the Guardian had been cut off from due to her training. He was the last one left to remember them.

GD~GD~GD~GD~

'Eltanin, what's wrong?'

She was getting sick of this. He wasn't dead; she could still feel his presence in her mind. He just wasn't responding to her.

'I'm alright, Amadahy.' His response in her mind was weak, but there. She nearly sighed with relief, but that would draw the humans' attention. If they could pull their attention off each other long enough to realize that there was another person with them.

'What's going on down there?' She asked.

There was no response for a long time, long enough that she grew concerned he wasn't going to answer her. 'I need to protect you, Amadahy.'

The coldness in his voice… 'Eltanin, what the hell are you going to do? What is down there?'

He never responded.

GD~GD~GD~GD~

The Doctor glared at the Dalek. It would kill the Guardian, if given the chance.

"No, wait. Maybe we are." He backed away from the Dalek, towards the control table. "You're right. Yeah, okay. You've got a point. 'Cause I know what to do. I know what should happen. I know what you deserve." He spat the last word, and paused dramatically. "Exterminate."

He pulled a lever on the control table. The Dalek screamed as the room lit up with electricity, all focused on it.

"Have pity!" It screamed.

"Why should I? You never did. You never would." He needed to kill it now, before it realized that the Guardian was here. He pressed a few buttons and turned a dial to ramp up the voltage. There still wasn't enough to kill it.

"Help me!" The Dalek screamed as guards hurried in.

The Doctor tried to increase the voltage once again, but the guards grabbed him.

Van Statten went immediately to the Dalek. "I saved you life. Now talk to me."

Orange Suit turned off the electricity.

"You've got to destroy it!" The Doctor shouted over the guards dragging him out.

GD~GD~GD~GD~

The Guardian followed Rose and the young man—Adrian or Andrew or Alan, something with an A—to a room filled with random pieces of alien debris. She had tuned out of their conversation long ago, noting that they were only flirting with each other as Rose pretended to be impressed by the young man's "knowledge" of aliens.

So much for the Doctor's claims at humans were a loyal species. Rose certainly didn't seem loyal to Mickey.

She continued trying to get the Doctor's attention, but he was ignoring her.

Whatever was down there had to be big, if he wasn't even listening to her.

"What is in this Cage?" She turned suddenly to "not-Mickey", as she decided to call him.

He and Rose both looked startled that she had spoken.

"What?" He asked.

"What's in the Cage?" She repeated. She wasn't exactly in the mood to repeat herself—granted, she never was—but the Doctor was probably in danger. She could repeat herself a few times if that meant protecting the only other Gallifreyan in existence.

"Well, I did ask, but Mr. Van Statten keeps it to himself." He glanced at Rose. "Although, if you're a genius, it doesn't take long to patch through on the comm. system."

"Show me." The Guardian walked over to the computer that Not-Mickey stood beside.

"It doesn't do much, the alien." He began typing. "It's weird. It's kind of useless. It's just like this great big pepper pot."

The Guardian felt her blood freeze when she saw the screaming Dalek. No… It couldn't be here!

"It's being tortured!" Rose cried. "Where's the Doctor?"

"Take me down there." The Guardian snapped, her shock giving way to fury. "Now." The death of the Daleks was the only thing that had allowed the Doctor to bear the loss of Gallifrey and his family.

Not-Mickey hesitated, then led them to the door at a glare from the Guardian.

As they walked down the hall, the Guardian's mind ran through the possibilities. The most likely? That the Doctor had tried to kill the Dalek, and was even now being interrogated by Van Statten.

It wasn't likely that the Dalek had killed him. If it had firing capability, the man in the orange suit would have been dead the moment he stepped in the room.

Worst-case scenario? Van Statten had discovered that the Doctor was an alien and was even now torturing him.

The Guardian picked up her pace, forcing Not-Mickey and Rose to run to keep up with her.

Van Statten would want to make sure that she and Rose were not aliens, too. And the Doctor would die before he gave her up to be tortured.

She couldn't let him do that.

GD~GD~GD~GD~

"The metal's just battle armor. The real Dalek creature's inside." The Doctor spoke as the guards escorted him into a lift, followed by Van Statten and Goddard.

"What does it look like?" Clearly, the man was not pleased that the Doctor had tried to kill his pet.

"A nightmare. It's a mutation. The Dalek race was genetically engineered. Every single emotion was removed except hate."

"Genetically engineered..." Van Statten mused. "By whom?"

The Doctor nearly sighed in frustration. Would this man ever stop thinking about how valuable his pet was and start realizing how much danger he had put the world in? "By a genius, Van Statten. By a man who was king of his own little world. You'd like him."

Van Statten ignored the insult when Goddard began speaking. "It's been on Earth for over fifty years. Sold at private auction, moving from one collection to another. Why would it be a threat now?"

"Because it's greatest enemy is here." Let them think that was him. "How did it get to Earth? Does anyone know?"

"The records say it came from the sky like a meteorite. It fell to Earth on the Ascension Islands. Burnt in its crater for three days before anybody could get near it and all that time it was screaming. It must have gone insane."

"It must have fallen through time," the Doctor mused. That had been known to cause Daleks to go insane. They weren't meant to time-travel. "The only survivor."

"You talked about a war?" Goddard asked.

They already knew, so why not? "The Time War. The final battle between my people and the Dalek race."

"But you survived, too."

The Doctor glanced at Van Statten, noting the implications in his voice. "Not by choice."

"This means that the Dalek isn't the only alien on Earth. Doctor, there's you. The only one of your kind in existence."

Yep. He kind of figured that was going to happen.

GD~GD~GD~GD~

"Now, smile!"

The Doctor barely kept himself from screaming as Van Statten's machine scanned him. If there was one thing a Gallifreyan could hear through anything, it was the sound of another Gallifreyan screaming. Especially now that they were the only two left, they had a mental bond stronger than that of most married couples, even though they were still only promised to each other.

If he let out a sound, the Guardian would hear it and come running. Then Van Statten would know about her. About her abilities.

"Two hearts!" Van Statten observed, his excitement clear. "Binary vascular system. Oh, I am so going to patent this."

"So that's your secret." The Doctor barely kept his disgust hidden. And the Guardian complained about Victorian values. Clearly, this man had none. "You don't just collect this stuff, you scavenge it."

"This technology has been falling to Earth for centuries. All it took was the right mind to use it properly." Van Statten was proud of what he had done. He moved closer to the Doctor.

"Oh, the advances I've made from alien junk. You have no idea, Doctor. Broadband? Roswell. Just last year my scientists cultivated bacteria from the Russian crater, and do you know what we found? The cure for the common cold. Kept it strictly within the laboratory of course. No need to get people excited. Why sell one cure when I can sell a thousand palliatives?" He started to walk back to the scanner.

"Do you know what a Dalek is, Van Statten?"

He stopped, curious.

"A Dalek is honest. It does what it was born to do for the survival of its species. That creature in your dungeon is better than you."

"In that case, I will be true to myself and continue." He walked away.

"Listen to me! That thing downstairs is going to kill every last one of us!"

"Nothing can escape the Cage," Van Statten replied, in the same tone of voice that the Doctor had heard used in reference to the Titanic. He turned to scanner on for a moment.

"But it's woken up! It knows I'm here." But not that she was there. "It's going to get out. Van Statten, I swear, no one on this base is safe. No one on this planet!" And most especially not her.

Van Statten just turned the machine on again.

GD~GD~GD~GD~

Not-Mickey got them into the Cage. Fortunately, Van Statten seemed to have the best security money could buy, and also the most scared of disturbing him. They walked right in.

The Guardian had hoped it was all a nightmare.

Well, it was. Just not the sort that she had hoped for.

It was a Dalek.

The door closed behind them. Wonderful. Locked in a dungeon with Not-Mickey, Rose the Flirt, and a Dalek. The Guardian wasn't sure which was the most dangerous. Probably not the Dalek right at this moment, judging by the battered looks of it.

"Don't get too close." Not-Mickey told Rose.

"Don't get anywhere near it at all." The Guardian replied. "That thing was bred to kill, and I doubt it's completely defenseless."

Rose ignored her and stepped closer to the Dalek. "Hello. Are you in pain?"

The Guardian rolled her eyes. "It's been tortured. What do you think?"

Rose glared at her, then stepped closer to the Dalek.

"Yes..." The Dalek spoke weakly. "I am in pain. They torture me, but they still fear me. Do you fear me?"

Rose frowned, tears in her eyes. "My name's Rose Tyler. I've got a friend, he can help." She reached to touch the Dalek.

The Guardian grabbed her arm. "Rose Bloody Tyler, don't be an idiot. Who do you think did this to it?"

Rose pulled her arm free. "They did!"

"Rose, you have no idea of what that thing is!" The Guardian could feel tears threatening to appear. "I watched its race murder billions of my people. The Doctor's entire family. I was at the funeral for his granddaughter."

It had been a small, private funeral, and it only happened because Susan had died saving the life of a member of the High Council. The Doctor had been too grief-stricken to remain longer than it took to see that she really was dead. Her mother had been too devastated to even try to come to the funeral of her only daughter, and her one surviving brother had been in the midst of a battle—the same one that killed him. She had been the closest Susan had to family at her own funeral.

"That doesn't mean it has to die!" Rose nearly screamed in reply. "Just because its people did such horrible things..." She stepped back, closer to the Dalek.

"Yes, it does! If you think I'm cold-hearted, that thing doesn't even have the ability to feel anything other than hate." The Guardian grabbed Rose's arm, intent on shoving the girl behind her whether she liked it or not.

But Rose pulled away at the last moment, too fast. She lost her balance and fell back, catching herself with one hand on the Dalek's head-piece.

"No!" The Guardian and Not-Mickey shouted at same time. The Guardian yanked Rose away, but it was too late. An orange hand-print glowed where Rose had touched it.

She shoved Rose into Not-Mickey. "Get out of here!"

"Genetic material extrapolated." The Dalek's voice was deep again, normal. Just like it was in the Guardian's nightmares. "Initiate cellular reconstruction!"

It broke out of it chains just as the door opened and Orange Suit entered.

"What the hell have you done?" He snapped at Rose and Not-Mickey.

"Stay back!" The Guardian grabbed his arm. "Get out of here! Now!"

Orange Suit snorted. "What's it going to do? Sucker me to death?"

"If it has to, yes!" The Guardian dragged him towards the door. "Lock it down!" She shouted to the guard.

"Condition red! Condition red! This is not a drill!"

GD~GD~GD~GD~

Weary from pain, the Doctor looked at Van Statten. "Release me if you want to live." He spoke weakly, wondering if it was even worth the effort.

No matter what, the Guardian would find him.

But by then, he might be the only one who could stop the Guardian from killing everyone on this base for harboring the Dalek and torturing him.

GD~GD~GD~GD~

~"You've got to keep it in that cell."~

The Guardian stopped arguing with the guard over the security of the vault and turned to the computer monitor. "Finally, someone who is intelligent enough to know what we are dealing with. Where have you been?"

On the screen, the Doctor smiled weakly. "Ask Van Statten."

The Guardian stiffened, noticing the Doctor's small flinch as he spoke and stiff posture. He looked like he was in pain.

"Van Statten, if there is any permanent damage to him, you are answering to me."

GD~GD~GD~GD~

Van Statten actually backed up a couple of steps at the darkness in her voice. And he hadn't even met the Weapon.

"How did that thing get free?" The Doctor demanded. From the way Rose was almost hiding in a corner…

"The human you insisted on bringing with us, that's how."

~"I said that I was sorry!"~

GD~GD~GD~GD~

The Guardian rolled her eyes and turned to the blonde human. "Sorry won't cut it when the entire world dies because you had to feel sorry for a creature I told you wasn't worth it."

"I've sealed the compartment." The guard insisted. "It can't get out. That lock's got a billion combinations."

The Guardian sent a frustrated glance at the Doctor on the screen. "Your turn." She'd already tried multiple times.

~"The Dalek's a genius. It can calculate a thousand billion combinations in one second flat."~

The Guardian turned to the door to see that the Dalek was doing just that.

GD~GD~GD~GD~

The Doctor watched in horror as the Cage door opened. The guards opened fire on the Dalek, the Guardian joining in a second later. But even her guns had no effect on the Dalek.

"Don't shoot it!" Van Statten shouted, as if his men could hear. "I want it unharmed."

'Amadahy, get out of there. I don't care about anyone else, just get yourself out of there.'

GD~GD~GD~GD~

The Guardian cursed, wishing that she still had her gun from the War. As small as it had been, it would have been able to take the Dalek down easily.

She really needed to get another one of those. Surely the Doctor had the parts lying around somewhere.

The Dalek glided out of the vault, but instead of going for the humans, it moved over the computer. Oh, no.

The guard she had been arguing with spoke. "DeMaggio, take the civilians and get them out alive. That is your job, got that?"

The female guard nodded and turned to Rose, Not-Mickey, and Orange Suit. "You, with me."

They ran off. The guard turned to the Guardian. "You need to get out, too!"

The Guardian rolled her eyes. "I have a much higher chance of surviving this than you do. I fought these things for eight centuries. You get out now."

The Dalek used its sucker arm to smash the computer monitor. Electricity ran throughout its body, but this electricity restored it, mending the damage.

"Abandoning the Cage, sir!" The guard spoke into his communicator.

He and the Guardian ran. Behind them, they heard the Dalek shout.

"The Daleks survive in me!"

GD~GD~GD~GD~

The Doctor hurried over to the hologram screen that Goddard had pulled up.

"We're losing power," she said. "It's draining the base. Oh, my god. It's draining the entire power supplies for the whole of Utah."

"It's downloading."

"Downloading what?" Van Stattan asked behind him.

"Sir, the entire West Coast has gone down."

"It's not just energy," the Doctor told her. "The Dalek just absorbed the entire internet. It knows everything."

"The cameras in the vault have gone down."

No doubt the Dalek had just shot them out, practicing with its newly restored weapon. He turned to Van Stattan. "We've only got emergency power. It's eaten everything else. You've got to kill it now!" Before it killed the Guardian. She had gotten lucky earlier than it was more interested in restoring than killing the others in the Cage.

Goddard clearly understood the danger, even if her boss didn't. She gave the order for the guards to attack.

GD~GD~GD~GD~

The Guardian easily caught up with Rose, Not-Mickey, and Orange Suit. A group of guards met them, and the female guard shouted for them to be let through.

Behind her, she heard the guard she had tried to save get shot by the Dalek, then the guards opened fire.

It was too similar. She had done this before—running through a bunker, a Dalek chasing after her. Rassilon was the Lord President. It had been her job to protect him, to get him to the safely of a transport ship that would take him from the ruined city to the Citadel in Arcadia. She had done it, but it had cost her.

That had been the only time that the Weapon had died.

GD~GD~GD~GD~

"Tell them to stop shooting at it!" Van Statten shouted.

"But it's killing them!"

"They're dispensable. That Dalek is unique."

The Doctor nearly punched Van Statten. How could he be so absorbed in himself that he didn't care about the men who they were hearing die?

Van Statten spoke into the comm. "I don't want a scratch on its bodywork, do you hear me? Do you hear me?"

The gunfire stopped.

They were all dead.

'Amadahy, are you alright?"

'Kind of running for my life right now, Eltanin.' The Guardian snapped back. The Doctor grinned. She was fine. She could run faster than any of the apes down there, and run longer.

Goddard pulled up a schematic of the base and showed them where they were and where the Dalek was.

"This museum of yours—have you got any alien weapons?"

"Lots of them," Goddard responded. "But the trouble is the Dalek's between us and them."

"We've got to keep that thing alive." Van Statten insisted. "We could just seal the entire vault, trap it down there."

The Doctor slapped his hands on the desk, making Goddard and Van Statten jump. "Leaving the Guardian trapped down there? Not a chance. You were wrong, Van Statten: I'm not the last of my people. The Guardian comes from the same planet I do. And she's my fiancee. I. Am. Not. Abandoning. Her." He was in Van Statten's face by the last word.

There was a brief staring contest and then Van Statten backed down.

The Doctor turned back to Goddard. He gestured to a spot on the screen. "It's got to go through this area. What's that?"

"Weapons testing."

"Give guns to the technicians, the lawyers, anyone. Everyone. Only then have you got a chance of killing it."

And as soon as this was over, the Doctor was going to make sure that the Guardian had a gun that could work on the skin of a Dalek. Because no matter what he had said, if one Dalek escaped, there had to be more out there.

GD~GD~GD~GD~

"Stairs! That's more like it. It hasn't got legs. It's stuck!"

The Guardian charged past her, up the stairs. "Rose Bloody Tyler, do you think we didn't have stairs on Gallifrey? It can bloody fly!"

She heard Rose and Not-Mickey hurry after her. At some point, they had lost Orange Suit. Whether he had fallen behind or stayed behind, the Guardian didn't know.

Far beneath her, she heard DeMaggio talking to the Dalek.

"It's not interested in negotiating! The only thing it wants is us all dead!"

"Exterminate!"

The Guardian clutched her head at DeMaggio's death-scream. It was too similar.

GD~GD~GD~GD~

"I thought you were the great expert, Doctor."

The Doctor tried to ignore Van Statten as he focused on the computer screen.

"If you're so impressive, then why not just reason with this Dalek? It must be willing to negotiate. There must be something it needs. Everything needs something."

He didn't even look up. "What's the nearest town?"

"Salt Lake City."

"Population?"

"One million."

"All dead." The Doctor looked up to see Van Statten shake his head in disbelief. "If the Dalek gets out, it'll murder every living creature. That's all it needs."

"But why would it do that?" Van Stattan shouted.

"Because it honestly believes they should die. Human beings are different, and anything different is wrong. It's the ultimate in racial cleansing and you, Van Statten, you've let it loose!"

The Doctor spoke to the assembled guards and scientists over the comm. "The Dalek's surrounded by a force field. The bullets are melting before they even hit home, but it's not indestructible. If you concentrate your fire, you might get through."

No one responded, so the Doctor tried again. "Aim for the dome, the head, the eyepiece. That's the weak spot."

The commander responded this time. "Thank you, Doctor, but I think I know how to fight one single tin robot."

"You idiot!" The Doctor snapped. This man was going to get everyone in that room killed!

GD~GD~GD~GD~

Rose and Not-Mickey stopped when they reached to room filled with armed guards.

"Move, you idiots!" The Guardian shoved them both forward. They ran to the other side of the room, past the trap for the Dalek.

Again, they stopped.

Oh, for the love of Clom, this was getting ridiculous.

Again, the Guardian shoved them forward, just as the Dalek slid into view.

"It was looking at me!" Rose shouted as they ran.

"Yep," the Guardian snapped. "It revived itself by extrapolating your DNA. You'd better hope it doesn't realize that it doesn't realize that it also got a little bit of your DNA mixed with its own."

"Why?" Not-Mickey asked.

"Because then she'd take my place on its list of people it wants dead. And that's Number One."

GD~GD~GD~GD~

Everyone in the office stood in shock as the Dalek killed every guard and technician with a single shot and the sprinkler system.

The Doctor looked down. He had genuinely thought there was a chance for all those people.

"Perhaps it's time for a new strategy. Maybe we should consider abandoning this place."

Goddard didn't even bother to conceal her disgust at her boss. "Except there's no power to the helipad, sir. We can't get out."

"You said we could seal the vault?" The Doctor asked reluctantly. He had to believe that there was enough time for the Guardian to get to safety.

Van Statten moved to sit at the computer. "It was designed to be a bunker in the event of nuclear war. Steel bulkheads—"

"There's not enough power." Goddard interrupted. "Those bulkheads are massive."

"We've got emergency power." The Doctor pointed out. "We can re-route that to the bulkhead doors."

"We'd have to bypass the security codes! That would take a computer genius."

"Good think you've got me, then." Van Statten interjected.

"You want to help?" The Doctor asked, surprised.

"I don't want to die, Doctor. Simple as that. And nobody knows this software better than me."

"Sir?" There was something different in Goddard's voice.

The Doctor turned to the monitor on the wall.

The Dalek stared at the camera, water still pouring around it. "I shall speak only to the Doctor."

The Doctor straightened slowly. What if something had happened?

'Amadahy?'

'Still running for my life with two humans who like to linger!'

She was safe. The Doctor breathed a sigh of relief. "You're going to get rusty."

"I fed off the DNA of Rose Tyler. Extrapolating the biomass of a time traveler regenerated me."

"What's your next trick?" That was not regeneration.

"I have been searching for the Daleks."

The Doctor walked up to the monitor. "Yeah, I saw. Downloading the internet. What did you find?"

"I scanned your satellites and radio telescopes."

"And?"

"Nothing." Its voice turned almost frantic. "Where shall I get my orders now?"

"You're just a soldier without commands."

"Then I shall follow the Primary Order, the Dalek instinct to destroy—to conquer!"

"What for? What's the point?" He nearly shouted. The Dalek didn't reply. "Don't you see it's all gone? Everything you were, everything you stood for."

If it wasn't for the Guardian, it would be the same for him.

"Then what should I do?" The Dalek asked.

Here was his chance. His last chance to make sure that the Guardian got out of this alive. "All right, then. If you want orders, follow this one: kill yourself."

"The Daleks must survive!"

"The Daleks have failed!" The Doctor snapped. "Why don't you finish the job and make the Daleks extinct. Rid the Universe of your filth! Why don't you just die?" He spat the final words.

The Dalek was silent for a long time. Then, "You would make a good Dalek."

The monitor went blank. The Doctor stared at the black screen, stunned. In nearly the two thousand years he had lived, no one had ever likened him to a Dalek. What had he become?

"Seal the vaults." This needed to end. The Guardian could make it.

Van Statten began typing. "I can leech power off the ground defenses, feed it to the bulkheads. It's been years since I had to work this fast."

"Are you enjoying this?" The Doctor snapped, looking up from his own typing for just a moment.

"Doctor," Goddard said. "She's still down there."

The Doctor nodded his thanks. At least one of the humans seemed to care that he was putting his fiancee in even more danger to save them. He typed in a command to call Rose, since the Guardian was too focused to mentally contact.

~"This isn't the best time."~ Rose answered.

"Where are you?"

~"Level forty-nine."~

"You've got to keep moving. The vault's being sealed off up at level forty-six."

~"Can't you stop them closing?"~

"I'm the one who's closing them. I can't wait and I can't help you. Run if you want to live."

Then he tried to contact the Guardian once more.

GD~GD~GD~GD~

'Bulkheads closing. Level forty-six. Run.'

The Guardian heard the warning. They still had one more level. The Dalek was just behind them. In that moment, her decision was made.

"Rose, run!" She shouted ahead.

The girl and Not-Mickey stopped and turned back.

"I said, 'run'! And if you even hint to the Doctor that I am not with you…" She let her voice trail off. The Doctor would never do what needed to be done if he knew that she was staying behind.

Rose ran, but Not-Mickey—no, Adam—stayed. "This is insane! Come with us!"

The Guardian pulled out her two most-powerful guns. They wouldn't stop the Dalek, but they could slow it down. "Run, Adam. This is the only chance."

He hesitated.

"Run!" She shouted.

Several moments later, she heard the klaxon sound as the bulkheads began to close. She couldn't help but pray to the Gallifreyan deities that she didn't even believe in anymore that Rose and Adam made it to safety.

'Amadahy, what the hell are you doing?'

The Guardian blinked, tears coming at the sound of the Doctor's panicked anger. 'I did what you would have done. I put my life in place of theirs.'

'Amadahy, no!'

She laughed weakly. 'What, so you can make grand gestures and nearly get yourself killed, but I can't? What would happen to me if you died? I don't know this Universe like you do. I'd die within days, even with my training. You traveled without me before, you could do it again.' She took a deep breath. Any second now.

'Amadahy!'

The Dalek rolled into view.

'Good-bye, Eltanin. I love you.'

She began firing until her guns ran out and she tossed them aside. She had more guns, but she had never planned on getting out of this anyway. "You should be proud of yourself, Dalek."

If she was going to die, then the Dalek was going to know who she was. "Last Dalek in the Universe, and you get to kill me."

"Identify yourself!"

She smirked. "I'm the Weapon."

The Dalek wheeled forward slightly. "You are the greatest enemy of the Daleks! Exterminate! Exterminate!"

Then it fired.

GD~GD~GD~GD~

The Doctor collapsed as he heard the Guardian's death-scream forty-six levels down. Then he felt her presence leave his mind. She was dead. His Promised was dead. The Guardian of the Lord President. The Last Immortal.

His Amadahy.

He was alone. His mind, empty of every last Gallifreyan voice.

And all because of one man. He forced himself to his feet and charged at Van Statten, grabbing the man by his jacket and slamming him against the wall. "I could've killed that Dalek in its cell, but you stopped me!"

"It was the prize of my collection!" Van Statten struggled, but he was no match for the Warrior.

"Your collection?" He spat. "But was it worth it? Worth all those men's deaths? Worth the Guardian? Because of you, I truly am the last of my kind! Will your collection be worth it when I kill you for killing her?"

He vaguely heard others shouting for him to stop. Then he heard the Dalek.

~"Open the bulkhead, or the Weapon dies."~

The Doctor dropped Van Statten and turned to the monitor. An unfamiliar woman stood in front of the Dalek's laser, wearing a slightly burnt version of the Guardian's clothes. She had curly dark red hair, and her posture was more open, more confident.

He ran over to the monitor. "You're alive?" He couldn't believe it.

The woman smiled. ~"You didn't think that you could get rid of me that easily, did you, darling?"~ Her accent was Scottish now.

It was her. She hadn't called him 'darling' since her last regeneration before the War. The Doctor smiled back, tears filling his eyes. "I thought you were dead."

~"Open the bulkhead!"~ The Dalek interrupted the Guardian's reply.

~"And why should he?"~ The Guardian asked, turning slightly.

The Doctor winced at her risky action. So this new regeneration was a danger magnet, too. There went the dark hair of his current regeneration.

~"Silence!"~ The Dalek cried. ~"What use are emotions, Doctor, if you will not save the woman you love?"~

The Doctor hesitated, wishing that he could talk to the Guardian. But she must have severed their mental bond just before the Dalek shot her, to spare him feeling the pain of her death, even if she couldn't stop him from hearing it. Their mental bond wouldn't be fully reestablished until they could see each other face-to-face and make eye contact again.

Then he saw it. A tiny nod from the Guardian. She knew something that he didn't. They had an advantage.

He looked around. Rose and the English boy had joined them at some point. Everyone was waiting for his answer.

"She was murdered once. I'm not going to lose her again." He pressed the 'Enter' key.

The screen went dark, and everyone erupted.

"Who the hell was that woman?" Van Statten's voice was, unsurprisingly, the loudest.

The Doctor smiled at him. "That, Van Statten, was the Guardian. And you thought the two hearts was impressive."

"What happened?" Rose demanded.

The Doctor frowned. "Humans. We've got a psychopath on its way up, and you're asking personal questions."

"Well, then, what the hell do we do?" Van Statten snapped.

"Kill it when it gets here." The English boy spoke. He caught the Doctor's eye. "That's why the Guardian stayed back, to give us time."

Hm. Perhaps there was more to this kid than appeared.

"All the guns are useless," Goddard snapped. "And the alien weapons are in the vault."

"Only the cataloged ones."

So that was what the Guardian had known.

GD~GD~GD~GD~

Adam quickly showed the Doctor to his workshop. The Doctor dug through piles of broken guns, guns that weren't strong enough, and hairdryers until he found one that would work.

He returned to Van Statten's office to find the Dalek and the Guardian had arrived. Van Statten cowered against a wall, while Rose stood in front of the Dalek.

"Get out of the way!" He shouted, lifting his gun.

Rose turned at the same time the Guardian did. The Doctor felt the mental connection snap back in place.

'Eltanin, she's trying to talk good into the Dalek.'

He swallowed, his dread rising. "Rose, get out of the way now."

"No! I won't let you do this!"

"That thing murdered hundreds of people just today," the Guardian told her.

"It murdered the Guardian," the Doctor added.

Confusion crossed Rose's face for a moment, then it was gone. "It's not the one pointing the gun at me!"

"He has to do this, Rose," the Guardian said. "The Daleks have destroyed everything I ever knew, and this one will do the same thing to your world. Somewhere out there is a future version of you. Do you really want to spend the next six years knowing what will happen to the world because of the decision you make right now?"

Now Rose looked hurt at the idea that she wasn't still traveling with him and the Guardian. As if he would let her continue traveling with them after this.

"But it's changing," Rose protested, tears in her eyes.

"It's mutating, Rose," the Doctor responded.

"Into what?" The Dalek cried suddenly.

'Are you ready?' The Doctor asked the Guardian.

'When you are.'

"Rose Tyler's DNA did more than just regenerate you. You absorbed her DNA. It made you a hybrid."

"A hybrid is impure!" The Dalek cried. "She has corrupted me! Exterminate!"

But the Guardian was already in motion. She pulled Rose away from the Dalek and against the wall. Its shot hit the wall behind the Doctor.

The Doctor fired his gun, and bits of Dalek went everywhere with a loud bang.

He stared at the smoking remains of the Dalek casing. The entire upper half was gone, the organic part scattered all over the room. Another race destroyed by him.

He felt a hand on his shoulder, and he turned to look into the Guardian's new green eyes.

"Why did you forgive me so easily for what I did?" He murmured in Gallifreyan, ignoring the humans in the room.

The Guardian smiled. "Because I know that you made the only choice you could. Even though I don't remember the last days of the War, I know there was something else going on. Rassilon was plotting something. Something worse than the War."

The Doctor frowned at that thought—that there could have been something worse than the War going on, but then the Guardian's smile turned flirty.

"I seem to have a new pair of lips that need breaking in. Care to help with that?"

He grinned and kissed her deeply, just so thankful that she was alive, even if she had lost yet another life, not that she was too concerned about it. That was one of the benefits of being an Immortal. Not even the scientists employed by the High Council could limit the number of her regenerations.

GD~GD~GD~GD~

The Guardian could tell that the Doctor was furious with Rose. He hadn't spoken a word to the girl since the Dalek had died, despite the girl's attempts to ask questions about regeneration. She had been forced to answer, and she had only given the bare minimum of responses, mostly because she had no idea of what a normal regeneration was like.

"I was wrong, alright?" Rose snapped desperately as the neared the TARDIS.

"Wrong, you say?" The Doctor whirled around to face her. "What you did was idiotic! You should have listened to the Guardian when she first told you not to get near it."

"It was an accident!"

The Guardian grabbed the Doctor's shoulders in an attempt to calm him. That was new. Her calming him.

"The Guardian died because of your 'accident'."

"But she's right there!"

The Doctor made a sound of disgust and walked over to the TARDIS, unlocking it and disappearing inside. The Guardian turned back to Rose. "I might still be alive, but the previous me died. I'm a different person from the one that tried to stop you earlier. Not just my appearance, but my mannerisms as well. And I truly could have died. The Dalek barely missed my right heart, which allowed me to regenerate."

She glanced in the direction of the TARDIS and lowered her voice. "But a few more centimeters and I wouldn't be here right now to keep the Doctor from dropping you off on a desert planet and leaving you there. Be grateful he is only going to take you home."

The Guardian looked past a now-terrified Rose to see Adam hurrying over to them. "Adam, you mentioned your fascination with outer space. How would you like to see it?"

The young man's eyes widened. "Do you mean it? I mean, I know that you're an alien and all, but Goddard says they're going to fill this place with cement."

"Of course I mean it. You tried your best to save my life. And your cache of weapons helped save the world. We just have to drop Rose off at her home, and then the stars are yours." The Guardian led Adam and Rose—who seemed terrified of being left behind—to the TARDIS.

"You're going to get inside that box?" Adam exclaimed. "They said cement!" Then he saw the inside of the TARDIS. "It's bigger on the inside!"

The Guardian grinned. Now she understood how much the Doctor loved it when people said that.

GD~GD~GD~GD~

We have a new Guardian! I imagine her as looking like Scarlett Johnasson did in Iron Man 2, and her theme is "Ice Of Phoenix", by Audiomachine.

Writing this episode was interesting, as it's not a favorite of mine. I feel like, in the writer's attempt to "show the Doctor his humanity", they completely disrespected his PTSD. I mean, seriously, the man spent X-number of year hundreds of years fighting these creatures, and you're going to make him feel like a monster for holding a gun on one of them? Seriously?!

There was about a gazillion other things that annoyed me about this episode, but I think the Guardian expressed that frustration for me quite well.

So, I might as well explain about what the Guardian is, since I don't think we'll be getting more details for a while now. Basically, when the Guardian stood before the Untempered Schism as a child, her reaction was a far rarer (not quite unheard of, but close) one—the Untempered Schism actually altered her biology, making her functionally immortal—she has an infinite number of regenerations. (Hence the name, Immortal.) That's why she was chosen for the position of Guardian of the Lord President—she could survive the training and live long enough to make it all worth it. She personally lost count of her regenerations a long time ago (plus there was the time that she can't remember), but for the sake of numbers, she is on her 444th incarnation. I have it planned for her to talk a bit about it in my rewrite of Series Three, but that's still a bit off.

Next time: With Rose not present, how will Adam's time with the Gallifreyans go differently? How short will it be? Plus, the Doctor and the Guardian get a surprise visitor from their future. And… is that a wedding on the horizon?!