Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

When she had left with Rusty nine months ago, she had never expected that it would end with her sitting at the cockpit staring out into space while being completely bored out of her mind. She was currently in the middle of Dalek infested territory in a ship that had some steady improvements since she brought it which gave it plenty of strong stealth abilities, but those were currently off meaning a Dalek ship should have found them hours ago.

During one of their recent attacks on the Daleks, they had acquired several Dalek space mines and came up with the idea of drawing Daleks into quality trap since they won't be able to identify their own mines. A flaw caused by the fact that Daleks could never imagine that their enemies could get their mines and use them against them, because as Rusty put it their enemies were inferior in so many ways. Journey knew that was a dig at her expense, referring to how long it had taken for her to get up yesterday. In her defence she had felt like celebrating the night before as they rescued a bunch of children from the Daleks with no casualties which was a rarity in her line of work, but apparently to a Dalek that wasn't much of a defence.

But it had been five hours and no ships had taken the bait, and it had gotten so bad she had seen Rusty check that they were in the right part of space. The Dalek who had been so unaffected by every horrific act it saw and committed, was bothered that nothing was attacking them and to be honest so was she. It was at times like this that she was forced to do something that went against all her instincts.

"I don't suppose you have any idea on how to pass the time?" she asked Rusty who stood next to her chair.

"WE MUST STAY ALERT FOR DALEKS. REMAIN FOCUSED ON THE MISSION." Rusty replied without even turning to look at her.

"It's been hours and the scans are at maximum power. We could detect a Dalek ship that was several miles away from us. Come on, tell me a Doctor story where the Daleks were again delivered a humiliating defeat. " Journey told it with a smile, as while she didn't have the fondest opinion of the alien she did like to hear about all the times she beat the Daleks.

"NO."

"Fine you can tell me one later. But please give me something to do. You told me you're connected to one of the biggest databases in the universe and have some of the memories of a body changing time traveller. Are you telling me you've got no ideas?"

Rusty was silent for several minutes and Journey waited in hopes it was thinking of something. But she eventually came to the conclusion that it was now ignoring her, so with a sigh she continued to stare out in space while trying to think of ways to entertain herself. She was about to start counting the stars again when Rusty spoke.

"I SPY WITH MY LITTLE EYE SOMETHING BEGINNING WITH THE LETTER P." it said simply in it's electronic voice.

"No, we're not playing I spy! I haven't sunk that low." Journey shouted while pointing at Rusty, making the Dalek swivel its eye stalk to look at her. She turned away and both fell into a silence, with the only noticeable sound being when Rusty briefly turned it's eye stalk back to look out into the void. Journey's eyes began to wander around the console in the cockpit and eventually she had to ask when she saw the picture of a beach she kept on the dashboard simply because it was there when she got the ship. "Is it the picture?"

"NO."

"Is it that purple smudge?" she asked as she spotted a bit of purple that had also been there when she bought the ship, wondering if it was doing what Mao used to do when he thought he was being clever.

"NO."

"I give up. I can't see anything that starts with that letter and there's nothing purple, a lot of red and grey but no purple."

"YOU CAN'T GIVE UP THIS SOON. HUMANS NEVER GIVE UP THIS SOON OTHERWISE YOU WOULD BE ALL DEAD."

"Oh just tell me what it is."

"PHOTONS."

Journey slowly turned to glare at the Dalek, who upon realising that Journey wasn't talking turned to look at her in time. They stared at each other for a few second before Journey talked again, her tone full of annoyance while unable to ignore how familiar this felt.

"Do you mean the stars? The light created by the stars?"

"CORRECT."

"That's not how I spy works! You're supposed to say it starts with an S or that it rhymes with tar. Nobody would have guessed photons."

Rusty just stared at her in what Journey thinks is surprise before it spoke. "WOULD YOU LIKE TO PLAY TWENTY QUESTIONS?"

"No! After seeing how you got I spy wrong I doubt you know how to play that right." Journey replied as she focused on looking out for any Dalek ships again which quickly destroyed her willpower. "Are you a vegetable?"

Two hour later Journey had stomped off to a wardrobe at the back of the ship which had stuff from the previous owner that she had never gotten round to throwing out. She had practically yelled at Rusty for saying it was a Kaled, something she had never heard of before and once it explained she became annoyed with since it might as well had said it was a Dalek. She wasn't sure why but she was determined to not lose to Rusty at such juvenile games which is why she dug out an old game projector and they were currently using it to play monopoly after experiencing several defeats after playing yahtzee and chess.

"I PLACE A SPACE STATION ON MY YELLOW PROPERTIES FOR SIX HUNDRED CREDITS." the Dalek said while the projector responded by his commands by removing that amount of money and adding three space stations to the yellow properties. All together this now meant that Rusty had fifteen space stations and six spaceships for each property it owned.

"Dice roll." Journey said as she glared at the hologram, and she watched as her spaceship moved five spaces to land on a moon card. It appeared on the screen and she saw that she had to move to a red property. That however was a problem since Rusty had a space station on those and there was no way she could possibly pay it. She looked at Rusty through the hologram as it automatically congratulated Rusty for being the winner. "I don't know how but you cheated."

"I HAVE A QUESTION." the Dalek announced without a hint of arrogance, having been very nonchalant about the whole situation for a Dalek. "ARE YOU WHAT IS CALLED A SORE LOSER?"

"I am not a sore loser! You are the problem, you either played the game wrong or you somehow cheat. Nobody is that lucky as monopoly!"

"THE MINES HAVE BEEN OUT FOR FAR TOO LONG. WE SHOULD DEACTIVATE THEM AND BRING THEM BACK BEFORE RETURNING TO HUMAN TERRITORY." Rusty told her as it moved away from the table and went off to where the controls for the mines were kept.

Journey angrily watched it leave as she turned the projector off but it was only when she was putting it away that she realised why the situation felt so familiar. It was because when they had brief moments to be children, she and Kai would play games together and he would always win. And just like Rusty her brother would react to winning with little emotion, as if there was no possible way the result could have been anything else. To Journey's horror playing childish games with a Dalek reminded her of the happiest moments from her childhood.