Ten Times the Doctor hates the Daleks

He is the Doctor, a Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey.

They are his mortal enemies, armour plated mutants originating from Skaro. Bred to hate. Built for war. Determined to conquer and destroy.

And since his very first encounter with them, he has learnt to fear and hate their kind. For what they did. For what they do. For what they might yet become.

But he is the Doctor, heroic and kind hearted. He does not choose his hatred lightly.

I

The first time, it takes him a while to truly hate them. They seem weak and crippled, trapped within their city. If they showed more compassion, the Doctor might almost pity them.

But they are ruthless. He watches Chesterton lose his mobility. He groans as they ignore the need for help from the sickness which inflicts them. He sees what they truly are under those thick casings for the first time (They call the Thals disgusting?). He observes in horror them killing an innocent man desperate for peace and understanding.

But it isn't until he and dear Susan are captured yet again till he can find no mercy in his heart.

He learns of their plans to explode a Radiation Bomb over the Thals, to choke out all life on Skaro until only they survive.

Susan can't take it in. "But you'll kill all of the Thals! Don't you care?"

He has to speak his mind, he can't hold back any longer. "That's sheer murder."

And the Dalek standing over him simply states "NO. EX-TER-MIN-AT-ION. ON-LY THE DA-LEKS DES-SERVE TO SUR-VIVE." He dumbly watches as the Daleks declare their power over a dead planet, their suckers raised to salute. "TO-MOR-ROW, WE TAKE OUR PLACE AS RU-LERS OF SKA-RO!"

And with such senseless ideology, the Doctor knows he will never truly trust a Dalek ever again.

II

The Doctor stares down at the chaos of the Dalek city. He can't tell if it's the same one he saw in his last body, even if it is its virtually unrecognisable from before. But all he really sees is the destruction, Daleks exploding, screaming, dying.

He regrets that part of him is glad. Another part is remorseful. He was so close. Alpha and the other Daleks he had modified had come along so well, he even managed to stop thinking of as a force for good... maybe.

"DIZ-ZY... DIZ-ZY DOC-TOR!" The thoughts of progress came back, and the Doctor let a long sigh out as he glanced across at dear, sweet Victoria Waterfield. The Daleks had nearly destroyed her, body and soul. Captured, threatened, used by a madman in his dreams of Gold... and to see her father killed... Professor Waterfield had been a good man, and the Doctor had been distraught to have watched him jump in the line of the Dalek's fire.

He remembered the Emperor Dalek, and frowned.

"YOU WILL TAKE THE DA-LEK FACT-OR. YOU WILL SPREAD IT THROUGH THE EN-TIRE HIST-O-RY... OF EARTH!"

But the Emperor's plan failed, and the Daleks are in revolt before him.

He looked across at Victoria. "I'm sorry Victoria," and he placed a hand upon his shoulder gently. "I think your father wanted you to be safe, more than anything else." Her face said nothing, so he turned back to the ruins of the Dalek City, collapsing before him.

"The Final End." He muttered aloud, "I hope so... that or some of the humanised Daleks survived, and seek to help Skaro and the rest of the universe. We shall have to see, won't we?" He twirled, raised a hand at Jamie, and the trio of travellers, their new companion included, heading down the Valley in the direction of the TARDIS.

III

He is running, and he is angry.

He doesn't show it, not to Sarah Jane as they race away from the carnage behind. She is naive. She doesn't know the Daleks as well as he does. He called them blobs of hate, and now his feelings have been confirmed.

How could they ever have trusted them? The sight when they first landed and seeing their weapons to be useless amused him at first "So Daleks, you're without the power to kill. That must make you feel scared, doesn't it?" The party of humans, so desperate for the Parrinium which is only found upon this world, knew better than they did. So did the Exxilons who blew up that Dalek outside. Even without their weapons, he should have seen their evil, their determination and cruelty would ultimately make any bargain he made with them useless.

But like a fool he trusted them. Has he learnt nothing? The fact of his mistake was made quite clear when those Daleks stormed the temple of the Exxilons, cutting them down with primitive gun fire, a poor submission from their usual death rays, but deadly nevertheless. Their thinking prevailed, and now he knows that with power, the Daleks will sweep across this planet until there is nothing left.

And as he carries himself deeper into the recesses of the tunnel, Sarah's worried tone of something living in its dark gloom, he once more resolves to defeat the Daleks. He has to, for Earth, Exxilon and the universe. As always, the hero.

IV

He has the wires in front of him and he stares back at them with a mixture of confusion and triumph. In his hands lies the opportunity to prevent the Daleks from ever existing. Just touch the wires together and their reign will never come. All the Thals they will never kill. All the Empires they shall never destroy. But... he can't...

"Do I have the right?" He hears his voice echo through his mind. Sarah and Harry are urging him to take the plunge, to put the two wires together and complete the mission that the Time Lords set for him.

"We foresee a time, where they will have become the dominant force in the universe..."

And still he lingers. "But so much good will come out of the Daleks. Because of their evil, races will join together, ally themselves for the greater cause." He tells Sarah of the foreknowledge of seeing a child who you knew would commit the greatest crimes. "Could you then kill that child?"

"Doctor, we're talking about the most evil creatures in existence."

His mind drifts back to the image of the insane madman, of Davros' brooding form.

"To possess a capsule of such power... To know that the tiniest pressure from my thumb would end... everything... Yes, I WOULD do it!"

Time stretches to forever. He can almost hear his two moral halves arguing. If he does this, history could change completely – perhaps for better, or worse. If he doesn't, the Daleks will exist, will exterminate, will conquer... will destroy millions.

"Do I have the right?"

The Doctor has never felt more afraid to make a decision in his whole lives. And then it is made for him. The Kaled scientist tells of success, and the wires are pulled away.

Hours later, when in desperation he will try again and the advancing Dalek will destroy his last chance of success...

Throughout his entire lives, he will never know if he made the right choice.

V

Pointing the gun at Davros is difficult, he tells himself. But it must be done.

"I'm not here as your prisoner Davros, but your executioner."

Remember his own words from before. Davros is evil incarnate.

"Davros created the Daleks, he must not be allowed to save them."

"Where are you going?"

"To kill him."

Davros' sly smile stares back at him daring and defiant. "You lack the courage, Doctor. If I were you, I would be dead by now."

"Well, clearly I haven't had your practice."

He tries to squeeze the trigger, but he can't...

As with many times, it ends up haunting him when the tale has ended. So many deaths this time, Daleks and human bodies across the warehouse complex where this battle started. He completely understands Tegan perfectly that she can't carry on... there has been so much death. He prays heatedly that she find peace as he leaves Earth.

And he prays too that Davros never survived that explosion on board the prison station. Because it he has, he knows the Doctor's greatest strength and weakness in one. And that terrifies the Time Lord more than anything.

VI

"SUR-REN-DER! SUR-REN-DER OR WE WILL EX-TER-MIN-ATE THE SER-IP-HI-A GAL-A-XY!"

The Dalek Supreme's words haunt him the entire time, right to the end of the Gallifrey Dalek Incursion and their ultimate destruction.

It terrifies him that the Daleks have in a way succeeded. Not only did they destroy an entire galaxy – and he had the opportunity to stop them using the Apocalypse Element – but from its ashes they have a powerbase to work from. An entire galaxy... he didn't believe the Dalek Supreme at the time and paid the price.

So many dead. The President of Gallifrey. Several hundred Chancellery Guards. The inhabitants of Archetryx. And so, so many across a trillion worlds, worlds he will never know or see. As a man who adores to travel, it saddens him deeply. As a moralist... he is never more hateful of the Daleks than he has ever been. They have invaded his world, threatened his people, destroyed.... so much.

Evelyn, dear dear Evelyn tries to be understanding, but as a human (and he never means to insult her in that way) she could never comprehend that much death and suffering, upon such a scale... Thank goodness for Romana, able to see what he sees. Having her at his side through all of this has been a light in an otherwise immensely dark chapter of his long life.

Only the Daleks could do so much evil as this.

So he spends the next few days after leaving Gallifrey in inward medication, reflecting on the days to come, praying that when the day comes (and he knows it will) he can stop the Daleks invading Gallifrey again.

VII

So, it comes to this.

Skaro destroyed in a huge explosion. He saw it die, and it pleases him. This current incarnation is not the remorseful type when it comes to pure evil. In the end he gave Davros the chance to relent, and he didn't. It is the faux Emperor who is the destroyer of his kind, in the end.

Still it doesn't help at the Funeral of that boy. He sits at the back, musefully, Ace next to him. When they carry the coffin to the mound of Earth in the distance, he holds her hand and they stand away and he twirls and starts heading away.

"Doctor?" Ace's normally strong, dependant voice is waving and tense. "We... we did good, didn't we?"

He glances up at the sky, as if he can see Skaro from all the way down here, and taps the side of his umbrella thoughtfully.

"Time will tell. It always does. Come on, work to do Ace."

VIII

The Doctor has always felt he knows the full evil of the Daleks. Over eight incarnations now he has fought them off, on Skaro and Earth, Exxilon, Gallifrey and Red Rocket Rising. The cycle seems almost circular now; he shows up somewhere, probably quite by accident discovers a Dalek Fleet about to invade a planet, or Davros raving on about crushing Earth between his fingers. They'll be a few deaths, he might lose a companion and learn to hate them again, but ultimately good triumphs, Dalek Fleets explode and Davros or the Dalek Supreme or Dalek Emperor or Great Uncle Albert swears revenge for the next time.

It's tragic and horrible, it always is. But he wins. He must do, always.

But then it starts.

The War. The ultimate war. Time Lord and Dalek in a fight to the finish.

There are some pretty close calls. He sees Davros destroyed forever at the Jaws of the Nightmare Child. He loses countless allies and companions to a thousand energy blasts. And of course, loads of Daleks blow up, as always.

He can't even visit Earth. The Time Lords won't let him.

The War hardens him. Watching the kind of things which happen at the fall of Arcadia does that to a man. But still he has hope.

He even tries to laughs off the Dalek landing on Gallifrey when it finally arrives. They've done that before!

They didn't arrive with billions of Daleks last time though. And huge waves of saucers. And the Crucible...

He can still see the aught look on his face. Indecision. Romana's plea. The switch. The chance to end it all...

The Daleks swarm over his home planet. In the past he's seen it happen to a thousand worlds. Seeing it happen to his own horrifies him.

Horror gives way to grief, to rage, to decision.

The quiet strikes him first when he awakes, the absence of sound and light. Time frozen like glass, the achron energy flowing on his fingers...

And before he dies and a new form takes over, he has to tell the universe his thoughts, the words he needs to pour from his soul before what he knows he will be next replaces him, and he won't want to admit it ever again.

"I'm sorry."

IX

Seeing the Dalek brings it all back. The pain, the anger and loss, all of it. He is reminded of what he did and what cost it took to rid the universe of the Daleks. Seeing the creature in the cell makes him want to scream in rage. The fact that what he did means nothing, if but one of those stinking mutants is still alive. The pleasure of hurting it heals the guilt and bitterness.

It isn't until Rose stares back at him with those big soulful eyes that he realises what he has become.

"YOU WOULD MAKE A GOOD DA-LEK." Those words flood back at him, and at that moment, when he holds the gun at the pathetic mutant inside the metal casing, he realises that it is right.

"What about you, Doctor? What the hell are you changing into?" Rose's query resonates through his hearts.

And he stares back at the Last of the Daleks as it in turn stares at the Last of the Time Lords.

"WHY DO WE SUR-VIVE?"

"I don't know."

And perhaps for the only time in history, both feel pity for the other.

X

He sits alone. Again. Eyes glistening with tears, thinking about the Daleks.

Seeing the Crucible shook him. The Master was right, you never forget it.

He reflects back a bit. That day he was with a Single Dalek, and he gave it a chance. Paused, held steadfast, took the merciful route.

"Cause I've seen one genocide, I won't cause another. Caan... let me help you. What do you say?"

"E-MER-GEN-CY TEMP-OR-AL SHIFT!"

If he had a gun, some means of killing it, none of this would have happened. Caan would have never escaped, Davros would be trapped in the time lock, twenty seven planets wouldn't have vanished one day, he and Donna wouldn't have to worry about the Adipose or the Pyroville, and Donna wouldn't be... Wouldn't be...

He closed his eyes. This one had been a drain. A big old horrible drain. One moment laughing and smiling with all those dear old friends and the day saved, the next on his own, the TARDIS darkened, her mood the same as his.

I had the chance to stop the Daleks forever. Well, maybe forever. Not one hundred sure of that, but it's a thought.

He's had lots of chances, over the centuries. And every time he doesn't take it, doesn't check every itch of Skaro, doesn't touch the wires, doesn't pull the trigger at Davros' head...

The Time War was the only time he ever did it, and even then it wasn't enough.

And now, thanks to Rose and Martha and Donna and Jack and dear, dear Sarah Jane, he knows why. For days where he gets to be with all of them. For the fact he can look himself in the mirror and say, I'm not a Dalek.

He straightens, attempting a half grin upon his face. He needs cheering up, all this misery won't do. He thinks of Christmas at Rose's and snaps his fingers.

"Christmas, that's what I need. Victorian, classical, ready salted Christmas! Dickens and carols and big turkeys. Not a sink plunger in sight!"

He pulls a lever, and the TARDIS lights up, engines whirring and spinning. Time to escape, time to have fun. And just for a moment, he thinks that one of those lovely companions he has amassed over the years is right there and he has to say it.

"Allons-y!"

So, Christmas! Victorian Christmas! What possible old enemy could be waiting for me there?