A/N - Been a while, huh! Not sure who's still here, but I'm  trying to not pressure myself to work on this, because I do have other  interests and ideas.

"The Daleks will be victorious. The rebels will be exterminated."

"Colonel? What's happening out there?" Journey asked, but they got no answer, only Rusty yelling, "Exterminate."

"Dalek fleet. Communications open."

"Doctor, what happened?" Clara asked.

"Do you see?" the Doctor said.

"Do I see what?"

"Daleks don't turn good. It was just radiation affecting its brain chemistry, nothing more than that. No miracle."

"Let me get this straight. We had a good Dalek, and we made it bad again? That's all we've done?" Journey asked.

"There was never a good Dalek. There was a broken Dalek and we repaired it." "You were supposed to be helping us."

"I gave it a shot. It didn't work out. It was a Dalek, what did you expect?"

"No more talking. You are done! Okay, new objective. We are taking this Dalek down."

"With us inside? Are you insane!" Elise yelled.

"Exterminate. Exterminate."

The Doctor turned to look at Clara. "What's that look for?"

"It's the look you get when I'm about to slap you." She slapped him hard, surprising both the Doctor and Elise.

"Ow. Clara!"

"Are we going to die in here? I mean, there's a little bit of you that's pleased. The Daleks are evil after all. Everything makes sense. The Doctor is right!"

"Daleks are evil. Irreversibly so. That's what we just learned."

"No, Doctor, that is not what we just learned!"

"Exterminate. Exterminate."

Clara looked at Elise, who nodded, encouraging the small brunette to go on. If anyone could calm down this situation, it was Clara, not two hotheaded Scottish Timelords.

"We need to place these charges for maximum effect. I'm going to scan the rest of the architecture for weaknesses," Journey told her fellow soldier.

"One question," Clara said.

"No time."

"Why did we come here today? What was the point?" Clara turned to the Doctor. "You. You thought there was a good Dalek. What difference would one good Dalek make?"

"All the difference in the universe, but it's impossible," the Doctor said.

"Is that a fact? Is that really what we've learned today? Think about it. Is that what we learned?"

"Journey, what the hell's happening? That thing's set the Daleks on us. And it's locked us out of our defenses. Journey, you're the Aristotle's only hope. I need you to destroy that Dalek," Journey's uncle said.

"The rebels will be exterminated."

"Whatever it takes."

"Understood, Uncle," Journey told him.

"I'm sorry."

"Yeah. Me too."

"Clara Oswald, do I really not pay you?" the Doctor asked.

Clara smiled. "You couldn't afford me."

The Doctor ran over to Journey. "Whatever you're going to do, don't do it. This Dalek must not be destroyed. We can do better."

"Are you out of your mind?"

"No, I'm inside a Dalek. I'm standing where I've never been. We cannot waste this chance. It won't come again."

"What chance? I have my orders."

"Soldiers take orders."

"And I'm a soldier."

"A Dalek is a better soldier than you will ever be. You can't win this way."

Journey held up a grenade, ready to pull the pin, but then put it down. "Argh! So what do we do?"

"Something better."

"The Dalek isn't just some angry blob in a Dalekanium tank," the Doctor said as he pulled the women over the ledge, "If it was, the radiation would have turned it into a raging lunatic."

"It is a raging lunatic, it's a Dalek," Journey commented.

Elise had to admit she had a point.

"But for a moment, it wasn't. The radiation allowed it to expand its consciousness, to consider things beyond its natural terms of reference. It became good. That means a good Dalek is possible. That's what we learned today. Am I right, teach?"

"Top of the class!"

"But now it's back to how it was," Journey said.

"But what it saw, what it felt, is still there."

"Yeah, I'm not really seeing that."

"Not here. There." He pointed up.

A lightbulb went off in Elise's mind. "Oh my god." She locked eyes with the Doctor and he nodded. "That's brilliant! If it works that is..."

"Someone explain to me what's going on. You want us to go to the cortex vault?" Journey asked, not following the father and daughter's silent conversation.

"The evil engineering?" Clara asked.

"Every memory recorded. Some suppressed, but all still intact. We need to show the Dalek that star being born again. Recreate that moment. You need to get up there, find that moment and reawaken it."

"Me?"

"Yes, you. Good idea."

"How?"

"Haven't the foggiest. Do a clever thing. And then once you've done it, the Dalek will be suggestible to new ideas. It will be open again. And I will show it something that will change its mind forever."

"What?" Journey asked him.

"Not a clue."

"This is crazy. There is no way that we can get back up there in time."

"Yes, there is," the female soldier said. She cocked her harpoon rifle.

"No, Gretchen. It'll bring the antibodies back down on us."

Gretchen turned to Clara. "Tell me the truth. Is he mad, or is he right? I've come this far. Probably going to die anyway. Wouldn't mind something to do for the rest of my life. Is he mad, or is he right?"

"Hand on my heart? Most days he's both," Clara told her.

Gretchen turned to the Doctor. "One question, then. Is this worth it?"

"If I can turn one Dalek, I can turn them all. I can save the future."

"Gretchen Alison Carlisle. Do something good and name it after me."

"I will do something amazing, I promise."

"Damn well better." Gretchen primed her harpoon.

"No, Gretchen," Journey cried.

Gretchen fired two wires up to the cranial ledge. "Go."

Antibodies started to approach.

"They're coming. They're coming," Clara said.

Journey fastened a pulley onto the wire. "Grab hold of the rope. Don't look down," she told Clara.

"Good luck," Gretchen said.

Journey and Clara flew upward.

Gretchen started shooting the antibodies as the Doctor grabbed Elise by the arm, pulling her away.

"You shouldn't have to watch that," he said softly.

They wandered through the Dalek until they came to the compartment that held the Dalek itself.

"Well, Rusty, here we are. Eye to eye," the Doctor said.

"You cannot save the humans. They will be exterminated. I shall join the Dalek units in the final attack."

"I saved your life, Rusty. Now I'm going to go one better. I'm going to save your soul."

"Daleks do not have souls."

"Oh, no? Imagine if you did. What then, Rusty? What would happen then?"

There were flashes and images of dying soldier appeared on the screens around them.

"Your memories. I'm about to give some back to you."

The Doctor pulled out his sonic screwdriver and start to cut through the tubing covering the Dalek's neurons. "See, all those years ago, when I began...I was just running. I called myself the Doctor, but it was just a name. And then I went to Skaro. And then I met you lot and I understood who I was. The Doctor was not the Daleks."

Elise had never heard this story before, even after traveling with him for over a thousand years at this point.

The Doctor pulled out some of the neurons.

More memories flashed on the screen. Daleks flying in space and attacking a ship.

"Oh, look. It's your memories again. It's like somebody's mucking about up there. Memories, all those memories. Do you remember the star you saw being born?"

"I...I remember."

The memory of the star being born appeared on the screen.

"You saw the truth, Rusty. Remember how you felt. You saw a star being born. The endless rebirth of the universe."

"No."

"And you realized the truth about the Daleks..."

"Truth? What is the truth?"

"Let me show you the truth. I've opened your mind and now I'm coming in." The Doctor spliced two pieces of a neuron together. He cried out in pain.

"Doctor!" Elise yelled. She wanted to grab him and stop him, but they'd been traveling together for so long that she had to have faith that he knew what he was doing.

"I'm part of you. My mind is in your mind," the Doctor told him.

"I see your mind, Doctor. I see your universe."

"And isn't the universe beautiful?"

"I see beauty."

"Yes, that's good. That is good. Hold on to that."

"I see endless, divine perfection."

"Make it a part of you. Remember how you feel right now. Put it inside you and live by it."

"I see into your soul, Doctor. I see beauty. I see divinity. I see hatred."

"Hatred?"

"I see your hatred of the Daleks and it is good."

"No, no, no. You must see more than that, there must be more than that."

"Death to the Daleks. Death to the Daleks. Death to the Daleks."

"No, there must be more than that. There must be more than that. Please."

"Daleks are evil. Daleks must be exterminated. Daleks are evil. Daleks must be exterminated. Exterminate. The Daleks are exterminated."

"Of course they are. That's what you do, isn't it?"

"What about you, Rusty?" Clara asked after they returned to being normal-sized.

"I must go with them," Rusty said.

"Of course you must. You've unfinished work, haven't you?" the Doctor asked.

"Victory is yours, but it does not please you."

"You looked inside me and you saw hatred. That's not victory. Victory would have been a good Dalek."

"I am not a good Dalek. You are a good Dalek." Rusty turned to leave, then looked back at the Doctor.

"Till the next time," the Doctor said. He turned away and made his way back to the TARDIS.

"Is he leaving? Isn't he going to say goodbye?" Journey asked.

"I think that was it. Yep, that was it. Sorry, got to run," Clara said. She grabbed Elise's hand and they followed after him.

As they reached the TARDIS, Journey came up behind them. "Doctor. Take me with you."

"I think you're probably nice. Underneath it all, I think you're kind and you're definitely brave. I just wish you hadn't been a soldier," the Doctor told her.

They went inside the TARDIS and took off.

Clara came back into the control room in a new set of clothes. "How do I look?"

"Sort of short and round-ish, but with a good personality, which is the main thing," the Doctor told her.

"I meant my clothes. I just changed."

"Oh, good for you, still making an effort."

The TARDIS landed.

"Okay, right, you're back in your cupboard, thirty seconds after you left."

"When will I see you again?"

"Oh. Soon, I expect. Or later. One of those."

Clara walked over to the door and opened it. "I don't know."

"I'm sorry?"

"You asked me if you're a good man and the answer is, I don't know. But I think you try to be and I think that's probably the point."

"I think you're probably an amazing teacher."

"I think I'd better be." Before she left, Elise walked over to her.

"Hey Clara?"

"Yeah, Elise?"

"...have fun on your date. He must be pretty special."

Clara smiled. "He is." Clara left and the Doctor put the TARDIS in flight.

"I'm sorry," Elise said.

"For what?"

"That things didn't turn out the way you planned."

The Doctor shrugged. "What's new?"

Elise looked at him.

"What is it?"

"I guess...part of me thought it might have worked. That there was a good Dalek. I thought that...that maybe the Time War would finally be over."

The Doctor flipped a few switches. "What about the 70's? You always loved that decade."

Elise frowned. "I...I used to. Not anymore."

"Okay, well where do you want to go?"

"I think I'll just go read something the library."

The Doctor tried not to let the disappoint show. Maybe she wasn't comfortable going somewhere with him alone yet. He could respect that. Maybe she needed more time to adjust to the change. "Oh, of course. We've had quite day."

Elise turned to go to her room, a tear escaping her eye. She could appreciate that he was trying, but it was like this body forgot everything his previous body knew about her.