RETURN TO SKARO

Author note Chapter 2 is now up please review

Disclaimer I don't own Doctor who the BBC does.
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As the Doctor raced out of the Tardis, followed closely by Donna, they saw no sign of Jenny. In fact, they saw no sign of any kind of life at all. It was just as Gallifrey had been when it had been destroyed, and by the looks of things, Skaro had been destroyed right along with it. The Doctor knew that sometimes things weren't how they appeared on the surface... and now was one of those times.

"One day, I'm going to meet someone who doesn't wander off." He muttered to himself, sighing loudly.

"It looks pretty much deserted... there's nothing here." noted Donna, looking to the Doctor for some kind of reassurance.

"It's not right. I don't think we're alone at all..." He said under his breath, too quiet for Donna to hear.

What makes a good leader? Wasn't that a question he'd once asked Erisa? He stood there in silence, remembering her answer.

"Always be prepared to take the big risks, always confuse the enemy and always,always, have a plan B."

The Doctor snapped back to the present. He didn't know why the question, or her answer, was so important right now. Maybe it wasn't important at all, but hadn't both Romana and Erisa both done just that, taken the big risks? Even when the risk could be that they might die?

He looked at Donna. "It happened during the Last Great Time War. Ten billion Daleks, the entire race, was wiped out in no time at all, and the entire planet burnt, but wasn't completely destroyed, like Gallifrey.

"But who could do such a thing?" Donna asked, knowing she probably wasn't going to like the answer.

He didn't answer right away, but instead looked around them, taking in the planet around them. Finally, his gaze met hers again. "Me." He held her with his deep, dark eyes. "I didn't have a choice. I even destroyed my own people because if I hadn't...." He trailed off, as he was suddenly overcome with grief at the memory of it all made him not able to finish what he'd been saying.

"Dalek " he hissed as he pulled Donna down behind the rocks they watched for a brief moment then out of the corner of his eye he saw someone who seemed familiar to him but it couldn't be who he thought; he was the only one left.

DWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDWDW

"You are a Time Lord." The Dalek's robotic voice sounded unnaturally loud in the silence of Skaro. "I am alone in the universe. So are you."

"But my Dad... he's the Doctor! He can help!"

"The Doctor!" the Dalek almost screamed with fury at the mention of his name. "Exterminate! The Doctor must be exterminated!" the Dalek started moving towards Jenny, quicker than she would have thought possible. Jenny screamed as she stumbled backwards, trying to get out of its line of fire but then... nothing. Whatever the Dalek was supposed to do... it wasn't, or maybe... it couldn't.

The Doctor heard a piercing scream. A scream so familiar, so like the ones he had heard on Gallifrey during the Last Great Time War. He started running, Donna following close behind.

"Jenny!" Her name came out as more of a sigh of relief at seeing her alive.

"I'm fine! I'm fine! Well... sort of..." She said as he helped her up.

"For some reason, the weapons aren't functional." Jenny nodded to where the Dalek was sat motionlessly.

The Doctor's gaze swept up and down the lone Dalek, not sure what to do. "What good are you, a single Dalek all alone on this entire planet? Why the hell do you exist if you can't even kill?"

"I am waiting."

"Waiting for what, exactly?" The Doctor's interest was aroused.

"Orders."

"Orders? What orders? What's that supposed to mean?"

"I am a soldier. I am waiting for orders."

"Well they're never going to come. Ever."

"I need orders."

"But you aren't ever going to get any! Not now that your entire race burned! Ten billion Daleks, the entire race was destroyed."

"You lie."

"No. I saw it happen. I made it happen!"

"You destroyed us."

"I had no choice." How many times had the Doctor used that line? He had said that exact sentence, 'I had no choice,' so many times, but what he wondered now was if there really had been a choice. What if he hadn't done what he had in that moment, what if he'd hesitated and it had been too late? Would the Daleks have stopped at Gallifrey? Would the prophecy concerning the Daleks have come true? Would they have gone on to exterminate the entire universe, exterminate everyone so that there was no life form other than that of the Dalek?

Erisa had seen it. She'd foretold the end of Gallifrey and had been powerless to stop it. It had been the day she had been taken against her will; to stare into the untempered schism... she had never been quite the same again. The Doctor himself had seen many time wars when he had looked into it, though he hadn't seen the Last Great Time War he had seen the death of his family, and he tried to prevent it, breaking every law of Gallifrey in the process. But he wasn't able to do anything... so he ran and he never stopped.

"And what of the Time Lords?" asked the Dalek, the mocking tone obvious in its voice.

"All dead. They burnt with your race."

"And the coward survived."

"There's no one left." The Doctor stared at the Dalek in front of him. The last surviving Dalek who had nothing, not even able to kill.

"I am alone." Stated the Dalek.

"Yep." The Doctor told it with a triumphant smile. If he had to be alone in the universe then it should be too. But the Dalek's only came about because of Davros, a man who was king of his own little world.

"We are the same." Continued the Dalek.

The Doctor spun round angrily. "We are not the same!" But then he froze a deep frown on his face. "Maybe... maybe you're right. Maybe we are similar... because I know what to do... I know what you deserve... Extermination."

This was the very spot Erisa had been taken from him. As he knelt down and his fingers touched the ground, he could sense her. He didn't understand it, but as he remembered it, the two of them standing there, one moment she was by his side, the next... she was falling... falling through the void away from him... the anger hit him full on. "I have to finish it. I have to finish it now." He straightened up to face the Dalek.

Donna stepped between them, planting herself right in front of him. "No. No you don't. If you do, what does that make you, Doctor?"

The Doctor knew exactly what that made him. Davros had told him the day he had tried to save him - I name you forever Doctor the Destroyer of the worlds! For a brief moment, all the people's lives he felt he had destroyed and ruined flashed before him - Rose, Martha, the face of Boe, Erisa... his entire race.

Finally he looked at Donna. "It destroyed my people, my planet and my own cousin." The Doctor looked so sad, like he had never felt anything different. "Don't you see, Donna? I can never bring any of them back. They're all gone while they still survive."

Donna took his hand in her own, holding it tight as if to restrain him and keep him with her. "Doctor, you said we always have a choice."

"I can't let it live." He glared at the Dalek, before his eyes flicked back to her. "There are things you don't know, Donna."

"Like what?"

"The reason I was sent to Skaro in the first place, that mission with Erisa, it was a failure. I didn't know at the time that what our people saw was the entire universe destroyed by the Daleks. Not just our planet but every planet out there. This is what I do, Donna. Every day, the choices I make impact the future of every being out in the universe. I can see, and I think you can too, everything that was and everything that could be." He stared deep into her eyes. "Do you see it?"

She nodded slowly, her eyes still fixed on him.

"Doesn't it ever drive you mad?" He paused for a moment to examine the Dalek in front of them. "And that's why I can't let it live."

But, as he looked back at Donna, he heard the words "Emergency temporal shift."

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