Prayers to Broken Stone ((The Meddler VI/Allison Castiel))

[Allison Castiel]

To Allie's surprise, they weren't instantly executed. Instead, they were forced to march through the jungle, travelling further and further downstream. She was so tired that she fell into the mud on a few occasions, but every time, the Daleks forced her up and onward, until everything became just a blur of exhaustion. Rob tried to reassure her, but every time he spoke, the harsh voices of the pepperpot cyborgs would cut across him, ordering him contemptuously into silence. Every time the creatures spoke, she wanted to be sick. Their voices were so unfeeling, so inhuman, unlike anything she had ever heard before.

By the time the dilapidated saucer arrived to collect them, Allie had got to the point where she physically couldn't go any further. In her opinion, the saucer looked battered enough to be on its last legs, but she was no mechanic, and probably wasn't any sort of judge. The only thing she knew for sure, it meant she didn't have to walk any further, and beggars couldn't be choosers.

Rob took her hand and helped her on board. He was still managing to cheek their captors, wringing a weak smile from her, even as the creatures threatened to exterminate them for about the hundredth time. But by the time the short flight was over, Allie was beginning to wonder whether it would have been better to walk after all, even if she'd had to crawl through the mud.

On the inside, the saucer was in even worse shape than on the outside. Her throat clogged with the acrid smoke, and the electrical fizzes that sparked from the instrument panel made her afraid the entire craft was going to burst into flame at any moment. The landing on the other side was truly terrible, but she wasn't sure whether the bumps and crunches were the fault of the pilot, or a malfunction of the craft itself. She heard Rob murmur something about leverage, but she didn't know what he meant. To be honest, she was too busy hanging on for dear life to care.

When they finally disembarked, she saw the crashed ship, surrounded by devastated undergrowth, and her eyes widened, before flashing quickly to Rob. “Is this it?” she whispered urgently, the implications flickering dizzily inside her head. “Is this Ground Zero?”

It had to be related, surely – an alien ship, smashing into the Amazon jungle, only a few miles from the first reported sightings of the mutated wasps? It couldn't be a coincidence. But these strange monsters... these Daleks... what did they have to do with the wasps?

As if in response to her thought, a crimson and gold Dalek loomed up in front of them, slightly larger than the others, and somehow even more imposing.

"Report," it boomed in a deep voice.

"I obey," the grey Dalek stated. "These are the humans who captured the saucer piloted by Dalek Yelwes."

The crimson Dalek's eyestalk bored into Ally's eyes. "Time traveler," it boomed.

Instinctively, she flinched backwards. “Don't!” she choked defiantly. “Don't you touch me!”

Then it rotated to stare at Rob. "And... wait. This is no human. This is..." Suddenly, the Dalek lunged forward, sucker slamming into Rob's chest and driving him backwards into the hull of the grey Dalek. "You are a Time Lord! Who are you?"

..."I, uhm... I'm the Doctor. Lovely night for a..." suddenly, he was staring down the muzzle of the gunstick. It looked distressingly huge.

"Then you are an enemy of the Daleks," the crimson cyborg droned, "and you will be exterminated!"

"No!” Allie shouted again desperately, horrified as she saw the weapon aimed directly at Rob's head, struggling to get to him. “He's not! We're not here looking for you! It's the wasps! We're trying to stop the wasps!”

She had no idea if the Daleks would understand what she was talking about, or if they would even care, but she couldn't just stand back and let Rob be killed, right in front of her eyes.

[Rob "the Meddler" Goodfellow]

"Then you are an enemy of the Daleks," the crimson cyborg droned, "and you will be exterminated!"

"No!” Alley-cat shouted, echoing Rob's horrified thoughts as he realized he'd said entirely the wrong thing. “He's not! We're not here looking for you! It's the wasps! We're trying to stop the wasps!”

"Wasps?" the crimson Dalek echoed in its booming drone. "You will explain yourself. Explain yourself! EXPLAIN!"

"It's like this," Rob cut in, trying to take the attention off his friend. He swallowed hard as the eyestalk traversed to stare at him once more. "See, we... we've come from the future." Did that sound crazy? Would they assume he was crazy?

"Go on," the Dalek prompted, gesturing with its gun. "Explain yourself, Doctor."

"I... to tell the truth, I'm not sure I am the Doctor," Rob tossed out, wondering if that would make his position better or worse. "I'm not sure I'm even a Time Lord. But we came from about five years uptime, right? A future when the..."

"How did you get here?" the Dalek demanded. "Where is your capsule? Where? WHERE?"

"No capsule," Rob shot back, then carefully dug in his pockets. Selecting a cigarette that wasn't too water-logged, he lit it and puffed it into life. "We jury-rigged a Temple gate, made a short-lived twistor collapse through Minkowski space to connect the spacetime event locations. But the reason..."

"That is madness," the Dalek interrupted. "You traversed the Vortex in a method that could have..."

"Destroyed everything, yeah. I know." Rob blew smoke from his nose. "Course, if I had, we wouldn't be talking right now would we? Anyway, we came here because there the whole world is shot all to hell and back, because of some wasps mutated with alien DNA into giant killing machines." The glowing tip of his cigarette flared as he waved his hand around. "Right here is ground zero for it. Didn't expect you lot, mind, but... well. Any other alien DNA around?"

"And what did you intend?" the Dalek boomed.

Rob shrugged. "Dunno. Kinda making it up as I go, you know? But..." he glanced at the wrecked ship. "You lot planning on hanging about, if that ship gets fixed? Cause I think I can do that. Then you pile in and piss off, and we hike back to civilization, and nobody has to look at mud and trees ever again." He grinned.

The crimson Dalek stared at them both for a moment without speaking. "Place them in custody," it droned. "If they attempt to escape, they are to be exterminated." The eyestalk fixed on Rob once more.

[Allison Castiel]

As Allie watched Rob desperately trying to negotiate with the implacable pepper pot aliens, a fresh chill settled at the base of her spine and began to wind its way upwards. She could so clearly remember the Doctor's voice explaining in a few terse words about the great Time War that had destroyed his people and his planet. He hadn't said much, not giving any specific details of the foe they had fought or any explanation of the final, terrible outcome. The subject had obviously been a painful one, and Allie hadn't pressed him further – the desolation in his eyes had told her all she needed to know back then.

But now... Rob's intermittent memory flashes had recalled hundreds of thousands of these Dalek creatures attacking. He had seen the flames, heard the screams, he had fought them, before their sheer numbers had caused even him to fall back. She was not necessarily sure even now that he definitely was the Doctor, but she had no doubt he was a Time Lord, even the Daleks had acknowledged that. So had those flames been on Gallifrey? Was he remembering the death of his own planet, the murder of his people? Were these the alien creatures who had been responsible for the Time War?

Allie swallowed hard. Somehow, she knew she was right. And now they were here, on her planet, on her Earth. Death incarnate. And in a few short days their genes would somehow mutate to create the giant wasps that would annihilate everything she had ever loved. How had she ever thought they could stop it happening? These were the monsters who had left that look of bleak devastation in the Doctor's eyes, who had caused Robin Goodfellow to run. For the first time in their long, dangerous journey, she felt the last vestiges of hope seeping away, leaving dull resignation in its place, as she finally understood what they were truly dealing with. There would be no reasoning with these creatures, no bargaining chip they could offer. Their mission had been doomed to failure from the start.

But, to her surprise, despite his recent horrifying memory flashbacks, Rob apparently had no intention of giving up. He was still talking, his insouciant grin still showing white in his grimy face, smoke from his cigarette lazily spiralling upwards in the humid air.

“And what did you intend?" the Dalek boomed.

Rob shrugged. "Dunno. Kinda making it up as I go, you know? But..." he glanced at the wrecked ship. "You lot planning on hanging about, if that ship gets fixed? Cause I think I can do that. Then you pile in and piss off, and we hike back to civilization, and nobody has to look at mud and trees ever again."

There was a deep pause and Allie held her breath, her heart skipping a beat, her small body rigid with tension. Was the Dalek actually considering Rob's offer? Surely not. Surely even Puck couldn't pull a rabbit out of his metaphorical hat this time.

The crimson Dalek stared at them both for a moment without speaking. "Place them in custody," it droned. "If they attempt to escape, they are to be exterminated." The eyestalk fixed on Rob once more.

“I obey,” the grey Dalek intoned, shoving her in the back with its sucker arm, so hard that she was sent sprawling to her hands and knees. “You will march. You will march. Do not try to escape. Any resistance will result in extermination.”

“Yeah, you already said.” Allie responded wearily, wanting nothing more than to collapse face first into the mud, never to move again. But where there was life, there was hope, Danny had always said, even in their darkest days, even when the deafening thrum of metallic wasp wings had filled the air and blocked out the sun. Thanks to Rob, they weren't dead yet. Perhaps that meant the Daleks saw some value in their continued existence. Perhaps, against all the odds, Rob had one last trick up his sleeve.

“Do not go gentle into that good night,” ...she whispered to herself, remembering him reciting the poem to her back in Chiswick, what now seemed like a very long time ago. “Rage, rage against the dying of the light...”

Hope might be gone, but rage... oh, that she could do.  Rage for Glenda, rage for Fitz, rage for Danny, rage for the Doctor, rage for Rob... rage for herself and all she had lost.  Gathering herself in a supreme effort, she forced her failing legs to cooperate, attempting to rise to her feet, one last time.