The Long and Winding Road Chapter Twelve: (No) Second Chances

[isilienelenihin]

An AU retelling of season 4, beginning with The Last of the Time Lords
from season 3. First story in the All Roads Lead Home series.

10/Rose, Martha, Jack Harkness, Donna Noble, the Master, River Song, Sarah Jane Smith, and many more.

( Chapter Seven )

If she was being completely honest with herself, Donna Noble would admit that over the past year she'd spent a sizeable chunk of time fantasizing about meeting the Doctor again. None of those fantasies included being chased by corporate goons with machine guns or hanging off the side of a building in a lift used to wash windows. In retrospect, she probably should have expected it. He was, after all, somewhat of a trouble magnet.

"What's your next brilliant idea, spaceman?" she cried. "She'll just reel us back up!"

"Not likely," the Doctor commented. "I put a sonic lock on the controls, and I very much doubt that she's got a sonic instrument.

He was wrong, as occasionally happened, even if he would never admit it. Mrs. Foster, flanked by two goons with guns, approached the controls. "He's slippery, that one," she said. "Let's see how he handles this." She pointed what looked like a pen at the dials and knobs. A strange humming sound filled the air and a faint blue light shone from the tip.

The car plummeted toward the ground. "I should have known!" Donna shrieked as she grabbed the side of the cart.

The Doctor gritted his teeth and thrust his sonic screwdriver at the lift. They jerked to a halt. "There," he said, breathing heavily. "May have misjudged them just a bit."

"Oh, do you think?" Donna snapped. "What are you doing now?"

He pressed a hand to his ear. "It's me. I need you to get to floor-" he glanced through the windows next to them, "thirty six." He paused. "We're in one of those carts they use to wash windows." He sighed. "It seemed like a good idea at the time. Yes, I know-she's got a sonic and I'm not sure how long I can hold her off." Another pause, then a grin. "See you soon."

"Who was that, then?" Donna asked, puzzled. Hearing one half of the conversation was almost less than helpful.

He turned his beaming grin on her. "The cavalry." She stared at him. His smile faded a bit. "You know, like in those old westerns? The cavalry swoops in and saves the good guys in the knick of time?"

"You. Are. Bonkers!" she yelled finally. "We're dangling a hundred feet off the ground and you're making pop culture references!"

"Well," he began, "it's more like two hundred and eighty eight feet," but Donna interrupted him.

"And now she's cutting the cable!"

"What?" He looked up, and sure enough, Mrs. Foster's sonic was pointed directly at one of the cables. A spot just under the lift started to spark. The Doctor leaned back, took aim, and sent a quick prayer to gods he didn't believe in before he activated his screwdriver. His aim was true. Mrs. Foster cried out as her device sparked and she let it fall. The Doctor stretched his hand over the edge of the cart and caught it expertly.

He pressed his ear again. "Where are you? I managed to stop Foster but she's damaged the cable. I don't know how long it'll hold." He paused. "Right. Back at you."

"Well?" Donna asked.

"She's almost here." He turned his attention, and the sonic, on the windows.

"She?"

The Doctor ignored her and focused on the task at hand. After a moment he sighed and switched it off. "It's no use. She's deadlocked the building. It's the only thing the screwdriver won't open, well, that and wood," he explained. "Basically, we're stuck. There's no way in."

The window across from Donna slid open and a blonde head poked out. "Hello!" the gril said brightly to Donna. "I'll have you two out of there in a tick!"

The Doctor stared at her. "How did you do that? The whole building is deadlocked!"

She snorted. "Not from the inside. You are completely useless without me." She held out her hand to Donna. "Come on, then."

Donna stared at her. "And what, jump?"

The blonde nodded. "Don't worry, I'll catch you."

"You, catch me?" she asked incredulously. "I don't think so sunshine!"

"I'm stronger than I look!" the blonde snapped back. "And we really don't have time for this, now shift!"

Reluctantly, Donna clambered over the side of the car. True to her word, blondie pulled her in through the window. The girl grinned at her. "'S amazing what life-or-death situations can do for your motivation," she quipped, and left Donna sitting on the floor with her back against the wall.

"Your turn, Doctor," the girl said, her head back out the window.

"Took you long enough to get here," he grumbled.

"Being rude again?" she asked tartly, but without anger. "Besides, the cavalry always arrives at the last possible moment. More dramatic that way."

Great, the so-called 'cavalry' was a blonde, early twenty-something girl. And where they-yes, they were definitely flirting. He was different from the last time she saw him-lighter. She wondered how long it had been for him. He didn't look older, but he was an alien. For all she knew he didn't age at all.

The cable gave out as the Doctor climbed through the window, and for a long moment he dangled half-in, half-out, but finally he managed to scramble through. Inertia carried him forward and he and the blonde ended up in a pile on the floor. They were tangled together; she was beneath him but his hand cradled her head. His other gripped her shoulder. One of her hands was fisted in his jacket beside his lapel; the other was clenched around his arm just above the elbow.

"Blimey, she said, "you're heavier than you look, Doctor."

The Doctor grinned. "Solid muscle, me."

They were doing it again. They were flirting. Donna was suddenly and inexplicably angry. "Can we hold off the flirting until after we escape, thanks?" she asked tartly. The blinked at her. "Looks like you've moved on, spaceman. Didn't take you very long, did it? D'you remember how you were when we met? Because I do. I remember the look on your face when I found that jacket hanging over the railing." She glared at him as she stood and marched towards the door. He and the blonde untangled themselves and followed.

"Donna," he tried to interrupt, but she was going full steam.

"Don't you 'Donna,' me!" she snapped. "Did you even tell her about Rose? You know, the woman you lost before I met you? D'you remember that you couldn't even say her name without crying? Or did you just sweep in and put the universe at her feet? I know I told you to find someone, but she's what, nineteen, twenty? She should be at home with her mum, not risking her life 'cause you're lonely!"

"She's right here, you know," the girl commented.

"Not talking to you, blondie!"

"She sounds like your mother," the Doctor said to the girl.

"Oh, so you've met her mother. That's something at least. Didn't you meet Rose's family?"

"If you'll let me explain," he began, but she interrupted him.

"No need to explain, I just forgot that for all you're an alien, you're such a man."

That was the final straw. "Fingers on lips!" the Doctor shouted. The girl did so with a grin, like it was some kind of joke between them. Donna took a deep breath, preparing to tell him off for even attempting to do that to her, but he jumped on her momentary silence. "Donna Noble," he said, "meet Rose Tyler."

She blinked. The blonde smiled at her. "He's told me all about you, but I never thought I'd get to meet you!"

Donna turned to the Doctor. "Oh my god, like, 'her name is Rose?' That Rose?"

He rolled his eyes. "No, Donna, I just go kidnapping young blonde women named Rose. Of course that Rose!"

"You found her!" Donna couldn't believe it. Of course he was different-he had his missing piece back.

Rose shoved the Doctor with her elbow. "Rude," she chastised him. "And I found him. Actually, I found Martha. Had to follow her around for a year to get to this lump."

Donna hugged the girl. Rose was startled at first, but quickly returned it. "You were right," the older woman said as she released her. "He is completely useless without you."

"Oi!" the Doctor protested. "He's also right here!"

"So are they," Rose said, pointing behind Donna.

Mrs. Foster and her goons stood in the middle of the hallway that Rose, Donna, and the Doctor currently occupied. She took off her glasses, folded them, and placed them in the pocket of her jacket. "Well then," she said with a smile. "At last."

Donna gave her a small wave. "Hello, I'm Donna."

The Doctor bent forward with a grin, his hands behind his back. "Hello, I'm the Doctor, and this is Rose. Nice to meet you."

Mrs. Foster regarded them coldly. "Partners in crime, and apparently off-worlders, judging by your sonic technology."

"Oh, yes!" The Doctor patted his suit jacket. "I've still got your sonic pen. Very nice, very sleek, don't you think Rose?"

She nodded. "It is definitely sleek."

"And if you were to sign your real name?" the Doctor asked.

"Matron Cofelia of the five-straighten Classabindi nursery fleet-intergalactic class."

"A wet nurse?" Donnas asked. The Doctor nodded.

"Using humans as surrogates," he supplied. His face darkened.

"I've been employed by the Adiposian first family to foster a new generation," the Matron replied. "There breeding planet was lost."

Rose frowned. "Lost? How do you lose a planet?"

The Matron smiled. "Oh, the politics are none of my concern, I'm here for the children."

"Like an outerspace supernanny?"Donna asked.

"Yes, if you like." The Matron's face brightened at the association.

"So those little things," Donna continued, "they're made out of fat. But that woman-Stacey Campbell-there was nothin' left of her."

"In a crisis the Adipose can convert all sorts of tissue-bones and internal organs, etc. It makes them a little bit sick, the poor things," the Matron said.

"What about poor Stacey?" Donna took a step forward, outrage evident in her voice.

"Seeding a level five planet is against galactic law." The darkness was back in the Doctor's face and voice.

"Are you threatening me?" the Matron asked, one eyebrow raised.

"I'm trying to help you, Matron," the Doctor responded. "This is your one chance. And if you don't take it, I'll have to stop you."

"I hardly think you can stop bullets." Her face was a blank mask again. "Kill them," she said to her goons. The men took aim.

"Wait, wait wait wait!" the Doctor cried.

The Matron raised an eyebrow. "What did you expect me to do, let you go, Doctor? The wolf is at the door. Desperate times call for desperate measures."

"Yes, of course not, but! Do you know what happens when you hold two identical sonic devices against each other?"

Rose was looking at him like he was insane. Donna was still staring at the guns. The Matron took a deep breath, her lips a thin line in her face. "No," she said finally.

The Doctor grinned. "Nor me. Let's find out!" He pointed the sonic pen and the sonic screwdriver at each other, and activated them. Pulsing noise enveloped them. Donna had her hands over her ears as the noise pulsed. Her eyes watered and it felt like her very bones were vibrating. The Matron and her goons had been unprepared, and collapsed. The Dotctor seemed unaffected, but beside him Rose looked to be in much the same situation as Donna. She shoved the Doctor and he switched the devices off.

He grabbed her hand. "Run!"

They ended up outside the maintenance closet. The Doctor began shifting the cleaning supplies while Rose and Donna watched. "That's one solution," the older woman commented, "hiding in a cupboard. Are you sure the three of us will fit?"

"I'm not sure the Doctor and his ego will fit," Rose grumbled. Donna laughed.

"Rose Tyler, I like you."

Rose grinned. "I like you too, Donna Noble. It's a shame you didn't go with him. He could have used someone to keep him in line."

"Oi!" the Doctor protested. "I had Martha, and she was brilliant!"

"And completely infatuated with you," Rose replied. "She let you get away with murder." Donna's eyebrows rocketed up. "Not literally," Rose reassured her. "But she let him walk all over her."

"So where's Miss Martha now?"

The Doctor paused. "At home. With her family." His voice said that there was more to the story, but Donna knew better than to pry. He'd say eventually.

"Right, so what are you doing with all that?" She motioned at the cupboard. Rose rolled her eyes.

"She's got a computer core running through the center of the building," the Doctor replied. "I've been hacking into it all day, but now I've got her sonic pen, so I can get past the triple-deadlock."

"But what's it for?" He might be a nine-hundred plus year old alien with the biggest brain in the universe, but she was a human being. And he could stand to explain a little more.

"As near as we can figure, it's an inducer," Rose answered. "The capsules-those necklace thingies, work on a small scale to create the little fat people. This thing is like that, only bigger. If she activates it-" the girl faltered.

"If she activates the machine then emergency partheogenisis will occur," the Doctor said quietly. "And one million people will turn into Adipose."

"They'll die," Donna clarified. "Like Stacey-she just sort of dissolved into those thing."

The Doctor nodded, his back to them, his attention on the inducer. "We need a bit of privacy for this."

Rose grinned. "I can take care of that."

"But they've got guns!" Donna protested.

Something in Rose's face shifted and Donna was forced to reevaluate her estimation of the girl's age. For just a moment she saw something of the Doctor in her eyes-something ancient and golden and timeless. Then the girl reached into her pocket and pulled out something slim and shiny. "So do I," she said, and ducked out the door.

"And you're just going to let her swan off?" Donna asked the Doctor.

"Rose can take care of herself," he replied. "Right now I need to focus on this."

"She's got a gun!"

"Psychic energy," he said, still studying the machine.

"What does that even mean?" Donna asked, exasperated.

"Phasers set to stun," he replied.

Rose returned a few minutes later. "Knocked 'em out and tied 'em up," she said. "How's it going?"

"She's started the cycle," the Doctor replied.

The machine beeped. "Inducer activated," a metallic voice said.

"Well, stop it!" Rose said.

"I am trying," he responded as he flashed the sonic pen at it. For a moment it looked like he had done it, but then the machine beeped again. "She's doubled the strength!" He straightened, clutching his hair with one hand; the other held the sonic pen with white-knuckle force.

"Doctor," Rose's voice was calm as she stepped closer to him. Donna was forced to back almost out of the tiny closet. "What does that mean?"

"I've got to cancel the signal. The capsules have a primary signal-if I can switch it off then the fat becomes fat again. But I only have one capsule-one signal!"

"What do you need?" Donna asked, also calm. Wouldn't do to have everyone losing their cool at once.

"I can't do it." The Doctor looked at Rose, wide-eyed. "I can't stop it."

"Doctor!" Donna's voice was sharp. "What do you need."

"Another capsule," he replied absently. "But there isn't time-"

Donna reached into her jacket pocket where she'd stashed the necklace she'd stolen from Adipose Industries two days ago. "You mean like this?"

Joy chased shock and awe across his face. "Oh, Donna Noble, you are brilliant!" he crowed. Rose laughed as he grabbed the capsule from her and plugged it into the inducer. "Just a quick application of the sonic, and-yes!" The machine beeped twice, and then went dark. The Doctor hugged Donna first, and then swept Rose up in his arms, still laughing. "Brilliant! You are both brilliant!"

Donna blinked at him, shocked. "Is he always like this now?" she asked Rose, who had stopped laughing but was grinning from ear to ear.

"Everyone lives, Donna!" the Doctor said. "I never get days like this!"

A deep rumbling roar interrupted their rejoicing. "What's the hell is that?" Donna asked.

The Doctor glanced at the ceiling. "Mum and Dad have come for the kids." The inducer beeped again, and the screen lit up. Strange glyphs flashed across. The Doctor frowned as he studied it.

"Oh," he said. "Instructions from the Adiposian first family." His eyes widened. "We need to get to the roof."

"Why?" Rose, still in the circle of his arms, asked.

"She's rigged the inducer up to act as a levitation post as well, and we're not the ones in trouble anymore." He pocketed the sonic pen and whirled away from the inducer. "She is. Allons-y!"

The view from the roof was one of the strangest things that Rose Tyler had ever seen, and as she'd travelled with the Doctor for two years and then spent almost two hundred either working for Torchwood or jumping through space, time, and the occasional parallel world, that was saying a lot. Pillars of blue light stretched from the ground to a huge spaceship floating overhead. Tiny fat people-Adipose-drifted upwards in the light.

"There must be thousands," she murmured.

"Oh yes," the Doctor replied, staring at them.

"What are you gonna do the," Donna asked, "blow them up?"

The Doctor and Rose looked at her like she'd grown a second head. "They're just children," he replied. "They can't help where they came from."

"That makes a change from last time," she noted. "That Martha must have done you good."

He sniffed. "She did, yeah. She did." He shot her a sidelong look. "She fancied me."

Donna laughed. "Mad Martha-that one." Then she glanced over at Rose, standing on the Doctor's other side, their hands intertwined. "Then again, Mad Rose."

"Absolutely barmy," the other woman agreed.

One of the Adipose in the levitation beam waved at them, and the three people waved back.

Donna let out a little laugh. "I'm waving at fat."

"A day in the life," Rose responded, smiling.

The last of the Adipose vanished into the ship, and Matron Cofelia appeared, hovering just above the edge of the roof.

"Matron Cofelia!" the Doctor called, rushing to the edge. "Listen to me!"

"Oh, I don't think so Doctor," she replied. "And if I never see you again it'll be too soon."

"Why does no one ever listen?" he muttered. "Can you shift the levitation beam? Can you get over to the roof?"

"Whatever for?"

He groaned. "Matron, the Adipose know that seeding a level five planet is illegal, so what do they do now? They get rid of their accomplice."

"But I'm so much more than that, Doctor." He rolled his eyes at her placid words. "I'm nanny to all these children."

"Yes, but Mum and Dad have the kids now. They don't need you anymore!"

Horrified realization dawned on her, but before she could move the blue light flickered, and died. For a second she hung suspended in the air, and then she dropped like a stone. Donna turned away and the Doctor pulled Rose to him, trying to shield her from what he knew (from experience) happened to a living body when it contacted concrete from such a height.