The Time of Change

Left Behind

Through the chaos, I recognize one thing clearly. Something is coming for me. I can't stop it. I can't see it. It has no true purpose other than to frighten. Perhaps to kill. I spin around wildly but still see nothing. I don't know what to do. This place is so dark and hazy and filled with smoke that not even my feet are visible. I hear metallic rustling and shuffling feet all about me. Things are moving toward where I stand, breathing heavily with fear. My heart is pounding harder than ever. I can feel blood pulsing from the right side of my chest so fervently that it almost feels like I have a second heart, but I don't have time to think about it too much.

"Doctor, go!" I scream, catching his attention. He waits for me by the door, which is lowering from the ceiling with every second that passes. Jack Harkness holds it up and stops it from locking me inside. The rest of our party are headed back to the TARDIS, but these two waited behind for me. The Doctor starts to protest but I shout him down. "I'm right behind you. Get everyone else out of here!" Light glints off his rectangular glasses as he and Jack exchange a worried look, but thankfully the Doctor trusts me. He waves Jack forward, casting one last loaded look my way before the gigantic metal door clangs shut.

The sound seems to set off a tripwire, and at once they have surrounded me. They are everywhere, still cackling at the thought of shooting some of the people I care most about. One breaks ranks and wheels up to me. They are metal aliens with tubes like plungers for eyepieces, covered in brass spheres and just an outer shell for a being that has no emotion. Giant tubs of pure hatred with wheels attached. They think that everything should have their frame of mind, and anything not like them should be exterminated. They kill simply because they were born to do so, hidden in their protective bodies to survive the turmoil they cause. These creatures have obliterated entire races. They are the Doctor's greatest foes, the reason Gallifrey doesn't exist anymore, the reason he is alone in the universes.

Daleks.

I'd know them anywhere.

I back away slowly, swallowing hard. I glance at the door once more, just to be certain that the Doctor has gone. Relief and fear flood through me in equal spates as I strap the Doctor's bomb-like device to a nearby control panel, and I immediately feel guilty for being afraid. This is my job, what I was born to do. It was never about a choice, and it will never be about my own comfort. Anything and everything must be done to keep the Doctor alive.

"If you want him, you've got to go through me," I say in a voice that is low and threatening. "Give me your best shot." I glare at the dalek approaching me, its eye scalding with an electric blue light. Wave after wave of terror and anxiety crash over me, proving that they rule me just as much as the laws that force me to die. My entire body shakes uncontrollably, despite my tone being even and strong. The finger I point accusingly at the dalek is steady in the air. I wonder which one this is, if it has a name, like Davros or Dalek Sec do. But it doesn't care if I have a name. It doesn't think twice about me, or the way I don't back down from it, or what my history is, or how many times I've seen its kind in all my life. None of that crosses its mind. All it knows is that I am with the Doctor, and I'm just as big a threat as he is to them. So there's only one thing it can do.

"EXTERMINATE!"

The blinding blue-green beam streaks from its eyepiece. A split-second slice of time freezes as it zooms toward me, the Doctor safely preoccupied with leading the escape far away. I clamp my eyes shut and clench my teeth, bracing for impact.

I'm not afraid.

It hits me directly in the middle of my chest. Searing pain rips through me, all my muscles screaming for relief. I feel myself flicker from view for a moment as I stumble and hit the ground hard. Freezing cold grips my left elbow upon impact, and the fingers go numb. My right hand scrambles to touch the place where I was blasted. My stomach drops out of me when my index reaches into a hollow spot in my chest. There's a hole going through me, burned into a perfect circle. I peer at my own fingers and will them to glow. Millions of frenzied, terrified thoughts streak across my brain.

Why won't you work? I can't go yet. This can't be my time. He still needs me. The Doctor... They aren't safe yet. I have to stand up. I have to keep going. Stand up, Annalise!

The dalek turns and rolls away, clearly thinking it's killed me. I struggle to my feet, covering the scorch mark in my shirt with my hand. Gingerly I flex my left arm, sighing in relief to discover it isn't broken (not that that matters anymore, what with my now-hollow chest). My attention is caught by the fingers on my right hand. They shimmer with a golden light that nobody except me has ever understood. I press them deeper and deeper into the area around the hole until the pain of the pressure is unbearable. Warmth spreads like branches on a tree inside me. They reach the parts of me that are wounded and repair them in a nanosecond. I sigh deeply as my pace quickens to a sprint and I bolt through the smoke toward the door, listening to the soft beeps that signify a countdown to detonation.

The light brings me back to my Doctor every time. It flows through my veins, pumped by a heart that should've stopped beating a long, long time ago. It makes it so that I never have to die right away, but all good things come at a price. The light has a terrible price, just not for me. It is for the person I always leave behind.