Who: The Doctor (12), Oswin Oswald What: A Dalek has arrived through the Portal, and the Doctor realizes this is no ordinary Dalek. When: Saturday, May 12th, shortly after this exchange Where: The Bureau Warnings: None Status: Complete in gdocs
Flashbacks. The Doctor was wearing a leather jacket and big ears at the time, and Rose was his traveling companion. Some rich jerk had gotten his hands on a Dalek and was torturing it to try and understand what it was, not realizing he was playing with death. It too had gone dormant, until the Doctor approached and was recognized.
Tumbleweed had a different set of circumstances. There were people here from other universes with powers, abilities, and weapons, which might just be able to take out a Dalek, but if the Time War taught the Doctor anything, it was to never underestimate a Dalek. Especially if they were cornered. In that way, both the Doctor and the Daleks were very similar. Actually, the Doctor was similar to the Daleks in other ways, which he didn’t like to dwell upon too much.
It occurred to the Doctor that he might be making matters worse by going in to see the dormant Dalek, that his presence would awaken its anger, and maybe he ought to just let sleeping Daleks lie… but that was never going to happen. The Doctor was driven to meet his mortal enemy. So, with the portal guards waiting in the wings for the worst to happen, the Doctor entered the room where the Dalek was being kept.
The moment the Doctor saw it, his hearts beat faster, though his expression was intense, showing no trace of fear. Arms hanging loosely at his sides, he kept tightening his hands into fists and then releasing, wiggling his fingers a little to shake off the tension. The Doctor’s angry eyes flashed toward the upper corners of the room where security cameras watched the drama unfold, so he used that as an impetus to finally approach, taking slow, but deliberately heavy steps toward the Dalek.
A few feet away, he stopped and asked, “Is anybody in there? Can you hear me?” When he got no response, he reached into the inner breast pocket of his coat to pull out his sonic screwdriver. “Do you know who I am?”
There was an alert on her monitor. That wasn’t true. There had been hundreds of alerts at first, which was to be expected. Together, she and the Doctor had set a planet to explode, which tended to set off alarms.
Was there something else?
Oswin blasted O Fortuna to drown out the dalek cries behind her door. Something had happened. She wasn’t dead. That might have been cause for celebration except, it seemed, for a few complications. First, she’d lost time. At least several hours, a handful of minutes, and alarming number of seconds had passed that she couldn’t account for. Next, the daleks had followed her to wherever she landed.
It took a combination of the music, and construction -- construction she had to put up again and again each morning -- to get things under control before Oswin could respond to the alarm on the dash of her crashed cockpit.
After a delayed pause, the eyestalk of the dalek flickered to life. There was a soft whirr of noise as it raised and focused on the Doctor, taking time to answer his question.
“NOPE. SORRY. CAN’T SAY THAT I DO.” After a brief pause the dalek added, “DO YOU MIND? HAVEN’T THE FOGGIEST IDEA WHAT PLANET I’M ON. YOU KNOW HOW IT IS. GET A BIT DISTRACTED. LEFT TURN AT THE WRONG SPOT.”
The moment the light flickered on was the same moment the Doctor’s shoulder muscles automatically tensed. His grip on his sonic became tighter and his jaw tightened. Then came the metallic, staccato voice that haunted his nightmares. But instead of the usual tirade of hate, there came an actual conversation that was so polite that it caused the Doctor to stumble backwards a couple of steps out of sheer surprise. With his jaw slackened and hanging open slightly, he stared at the Dalek to process what he heard, then stepped closer with his head cocked curiously to one side.
“You’re on Earth,” he tentatively began while lifting his screwdriver - its high pitched buzzing accompanied by a flashing green light indicated that it was taking a reading. “At least an alternative version of Earth, but still teeming with humans…” He brought up humankind as a test to see how the Dalek would react, since it was clear from the start that this was not your ordinary Dalek, even though when the Doctor checked the readings it confirmed that yes, there was a Dalek inside. He had experience with Rusty, the Dalek who hated his kind and was hell bent on destroying them, but this one was much different that that.
“I’m the Doctor,” he told it, bracing himself for the reaction, preparing to run just in case it decided to start firing its weapons.
“EARTH? LOVE EARTH. I’M FROM EARTH, ACTUALLY. HOW’S EARTH DOING? IT MISS ME WHILE I WAS GONE?”
The dalek paused. It’s eyestock refocused. “THE DOCTOR? ARE YOU SURE?” There was a slight up and down. “WHAT HAPPENED TO THE CHIN? LOSE IT FENCING TO NOSE? MUST HAVE BEEN TERRIBLE. SHOULD HAVE PUT SOME MONEY DOWN. I KNEW NINA HAD IT IN HIM.”
The rest of the dalek was motionless. It had been easy enough to move, giving no resistance, as if it hadn’t known that it could.
The Doctor’s forehead wrinkled as he raised his bushy eyebrows high with surprise, but all his confusion dissipated when the Dalek referred to his chin. It all clicked, remembering the Asylum and the one Dalek that was considered so dangerous, it had been locked away from all the rest. The Doctor paused to scrub his face with his hand out of deep disturbance, and it took all his energy to gather himself together to calmly ask, “Is that you, Souffle Girl?”
A pause, then he continued, “Same person, different face. It’s one of my quirks. In exchange for the chin,” he pointed to his chin with his sonic, “I got these eyebrows”, he then pointed to his them.
“Nose and Amy aren’t around anymore, but you’ll get to meet my wife. Urm… what was the last thing you remembered before arriving here?”
“YOUR POOR WIFE. SEND HER MY CONDOLENCES.” It was at the question of what she remembered that Oswin didn’t respond. The eyestalk flickered.
Oswin Oswald rubbed at her temples with her fingers. It was the cramped quarters, nearly a year. She had the most fearsome headaches. Real killers.
The eyestalk flickered back to life. “PLANET OF MAD DALEKS. YOU BUMBLED IN WITH YOUR FRIENDS. I HAD TO SAVE YOU ALL. DELETED YOU FROM THE PATHWEB. WHAT THANKS DO I GET? WHOLE PLANET BLOWN UP ON ME. YOU COULD HAVE JUST TOLD ME YOU WEREN’T INTO BRUNETTES. I WOULD HAVE LET YOU DOWN EASY ENOUGH.”
Oswin smirked.
In that moment when the light dimmed, the Doctor stood in apprehension for her answer, but breathed a little easier when he realized that she must’ve blocked the memory of being told that she was not trapped in a cockpit, but had been changed into a Dalek and was desperately fighting against it using elaborate, psychological defense mechanisms. Before he could even wonder whether or not he ought to break the news to her again, the Doctor enthusiastically leapt in to defend himself.
“Hey! That’s not fair! I brought you here, didn’t I? Okay, actually I didn’t, but I’m totally taking credit for it. By the way, thanks for deleting the memory of me from the Pathweb. That was really handy, while it lasted. The Dalek’s memory of me eventually returned.” He then glanced over at one of the security cameras and gave a thumb’s up signal to let the people watching in the other room know that it was safe, and they could relax.
Oswin rolled her eyes.
“WHATEVER ACTUALLY BROUGHT ME HERE, STILL HAVE REPAIRS TO MAKE. CAREFUL WITH THE SHUTTLE. WORRY ABOUT THE PARKING SPOT LATER, UNLESS YOU FIND A GOOD ONE. ANYTHING ELSE?”
Repairs? The Doctor contemplated the implications of this word, but it worked in his favor. It didn’t seem like Oswin was currently in the mood to ask questions. However, it did suggest that she was struggling to keep the facade she’d built around her psyche. Oswin was in a precarious situation, and her case needed to be handled very carefully.
“I think I know where a better parking spot’s at,” he told her, using Oswin’s own way of phrasing things. “Someplace that’ll help your shuttle get stronger.” Either his TARDIS, or maybe his younger regeneration’s - he’d have to write to him, as well as Clara, to get their input. “In the meantime, stay tight. You’re going to be alright.” After a moment’s thought, he asked, “Is there anything I can do to help you?” He wondered what would happen if he spoke to her in a way that would support her mental status. “Do you need any supplies?”
Where do you get the milk, Oswin? There was no expression to read on the outer metal casing of the creature. No microexpressions to read. Nothing that would help interpret the seconds that ticked by before Oswin replied: “NOPE. I’M GOOD.”
Silence.
“BE CAREFUL WHEN YOU MOVE HER, DOCTOR. SHE’S SEEN BETTER DAYS. SIGNING OFF FOR A MO. INTERCOM WILL BE DOWN.” Oswin Oswald thought she was talking about the remains of the Alaska. She refused to believe it was referring to anything else.