I Wanted to Come Back

My dearest Rose,

How stupid could I have been? So careless? I hate myself. I truly do. For this, oh for this, I should never return. I always seem to mess things up. I can't bare to write to you now. I just can't. It's like I've lost you all over again.

---

We stepped out of the TARDIS and I looked around. We were in a big room, it seemed to be made of metal, like a great big space ship.

"What is this place?" I asked, keeping close to him.

He pulled out his sonic and waved it around, "Ship. It isn't Dalek though, I've seen this before. Where have I seen this before?"

He walked around the room, sonicing every thing, punching buttons. I chanced to walk around the circumference of the room, trying to find anything that might help him. There wasn't much, just dusty old dead plants and green scale like things littering the floor. I picked one up, looking at it. It was light green, and very pretty, strangely.

"Doctor, what is this?" I asked, holding it up.

He walked over, "Huh, looks like a Silurian scale. What would a Silurian scale be doing here?"
He frowned, "Oh. Oh. Oh! That's bad, very bad. But why would Daleks take a Silurian ship? There's nothing here except plants and medical- Oh no!"

He ran around the room, finding a door he soniced it open. He looked over his shoulder, "Whatever happens today Lily. Remember who you are."

With that he ran and I followed. I don't know why I followed, I don't know why I didn't just get back into the little blue box and wait for the madman to come back. I felt like I needed to be with him, that I needed to help him with whatever scared him so much. So I followed him, and I didn't question it. Later I would though, when I felt like I had been left where I didn't belong. When I had given up hope, I hated the Doctor. I hated him so much, that was the problem. When you give up on the Doctor, what is there to believe in? He told me he would come for me, but he didn't come for me. I came for him, sure it wasn't the right time line and not the right-. Well, that's for later on in my story isn't it? Spoilers, she once told me. Spoilers. Never tell the Doctor what he doesn't need to know.

We paused at the end of a hallway, if that's what you called them on alien space ships. There was this sound, it was so... Robotic. So emotionless.

"You are inadequate. You will be exterminated."

There was a blinding flash from behind a closed door and I stepped back, the Doctor's face fell slightly, but then he looked at me. There was something there, or rather, something wasn't there. Something that should have been.

"Lily. I can take you back. I can do it right now, we'll go back and I'll leave you there. I can do this on my own, I can't. Won't. Put you in danger," his voice was grave.

When a man looks like that, you don't just leave him. You stay with him, you help him, you make him better. And that's just what I did.

"No you will not. I am staying right here and we are going to beat those Dalek things and then you're going to take me anywhere I want," I raised an eyebrow, begging him to test me.

He looked away, smiling, "Humans are one thing, American humans are an entire other thing."

I smiled too, "You better believe it Future Boy, now let's bust some Dalek ass."

I didn't quite know then what I know now, but if I had, I wouldn't have said that. Never would I have said that. I was stupid, not to fear the Daleks that day, but I do now. Even with the Doctor by my side, they make me tremble. I wonder how many more are out there, still hiding from what they can't remember. They're so hateful that I don't even think they realize that their memories have been stolen from them, hole lifetimes just gone from their heads.

We went passed the room, but not before looking in. What I saw scared me and confused me. The confusion was what caused my fear though, I think. I had never seen anything like it. They weren't exactly short, but they weren't tall either. They were covered in those panels, exactly like the one in the TARDIS, with rounded off tops. They had something like an eye, but it was a long lens, and there was only one. Two lights protruded off their heads, and a plunger like thing in their middles. The thing next to it, I later learned, was a weapon. A very dangerous weapon. They had people from the office, people I worked with, lined up against a wall. Three Daleks were in front of them, and they scanned each and every person. Saying that same phrase when they came to a particular person. You will be exterminated. That phrase still haunts my dreams to this day, no amount of comfort from the Doctor can change that.

"W-what are they going to do to them? The ones that aren't good enough?" I whispered, as we made our way down the halls.

"You know what they are going to do Lily," was all he said.

We remained quite as we scouted the ship. The Doctor said it didn't seem like there were more than six Daleks, but one was too many either way. He feared them, and hated them, all in the same instant, and when I later learned why, it made sense.

"How are we going to kill them Doctor? We don't have any weapons, we have nothing."

We were standing in another empty room, but there was a computer in this one. He was trying to pull up the surveillance for the entire ship. The upper hand, if you will.

"We don't need weapons, not when we have our minds Lily. Never use weapons."

I laughed, "What goods a mind when it doesn't even know what it's up against?"

"You're brilliant, you know. You have a need to survive, and you will, you always will. Humans are the greatest survivors," he said.

"You are not supposed to be here. You will be exterminated."

I froze, my blood ran cold. I turned to face the Dalek, the Doctor by my side. We raised our hands, and the Doctor stepped forward.

"I am the Doctor. What are you doing with those people in there?" he asked.

"The Doctor? I do not know of any doctor. You will be exterminated," it replied in a cold, robotic voice.

"No! No, no, just listen to me," the Daleks beam distributor wavered. "Tell me what you're going to do to those humans. Then you can kill me."

"You are not very wise, Doctor. We will turn the humans into Daleks. The incompatible herd will be exterminated," the way it spoke was broken some how.

"Dalek Sec is here, isn't he? Let me speak to him, take me to him," the Doctor pleaded.

"I will not-" he was broken off and silence fell in the room. "I will take you to Dalek Caan. You will then be exterminated."

The Dalek turned, in a way, and we followed.

"Who is Dalek Sec or Dalek Caan?" I asked.

"The select few were made to guard the most powerful of the Daleks, when he died, the Cult of Skaro fell through time and space. Dalek Sec, I've encountered him before, he's the one behind this. If I could just change his mind like I did last time, I can fix this. But why did he say Dalek Caan? He escaped last time, went mad..."

When we reached Dalek Caan the room was filled with beakers of colors, and there was a Dalek there. He was like the others.

"Take the human girl," he said, his voice all the same.

"No!" screamed the Doctor, but it was too late.

To be honest, I don't remember much after that. I woke up in a glass tube, but as I shouted for the Doctor, gas filled it and I slept once more. I woke up again, later on I think, and the Doctor was there with me, but he wasn't. Like he was there in my mind, telling me everything would be okay. I slept again after that, my head pounding. The last and final time I woke up, I was in an alley, my clothes were wet and I was filthy and it was very dark.

I walked out into the street, my body ached and my head was searing. I knew I needed to find the Doctor, but I didn't know where I was, I asked people where I was, and they all answered the same.

"Why, London of course. Americans, always going about like they own the place."

London, I was in London. I woke up in London. I fell asleep on a Silurian space ship and woke up in London. That made sense, perfectly utter non-sense. I wandered the streets, asking the same question, hoping to find someone who wasn't British. A clue that told me I was still sleeping on the Silurian ship. But they all sounded the same, they were all British, and none of them liked me. Finally I gave up, I lost hope. I sat on a street curb and wrapped my arms around my legs. I cried. The Doctor was no where to be found, I wasn't even sure where I was or how I got here, but I did know I was alone.

"Ello, what year is this?" someone asked me, he wasn't quite British.

I looked up and met a man in a bright blue suit, with red Converse. His hair was brown and very messy, and those eyes. I felt like I'd seen those eyes before, but they were brown, not green.

"What year? It's twenty fourteen, obviously," I said.

He frowned, looking around, "No. I don't think so. Oi, are you American?"

He squatted down in front of me, his thin pink lips pursed.

"You're not right, you don't belong here. This is nineteen something, twenty maybe? Something like that. And you're wearing, well, twenty fourteen clothing. How did you get here?" he rambled.

I leaned away from him, "There was... No, you wouldn't believe me."

"You'd be surprised by what I'd believe, come on, spit it out."

I stood up, and so did he, "There was a madman, with a little blue box."

His eyes squinted, but I carried on, knowing I sounded crazy.

"He promised adventure, but then I woke up here. If I ever see the Doctor again, I'm going to give him a piece of my mind."

His hand in his pockets, he leaned away from me, eyes wide. "What's your name?"

"Lily," I said, frowning. "Who are you?"