Fic: Borrowed Time (11/11)
Title: Borrowed Time (Part 11 of 11)
Author: lemon_pencil
Rating: G
Characters/Pairings: Ten, Donna, various others
Disclaimer: Rusty is fail, so I'm taking over. But they're not mine, I'm afraid.
Warnings/Spoilers: Series 4; Planet of the Dead.
Word Count: About 1,900
Summary: Donna wants to go on one last adventure before it's too late...
Author's Notes: This is the last real part in terms of plot, but there will be a short epilogue just as a follow up. I can hear you all shouting, 'No, please, no more!' ;) Well anyway, here we go...
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10
They were alone in the TARDIS at last. It had taken longer than expected to wrap things up at the warehouse and then to walk back to the TARDIS. They had said their goodbyes to Hector after taking him to his destination, and now finally it was just the two of them. It was approaching eight o’clock in the evening, but both the Doctor and Donna had been avoiding making any reference to the significance of the passing hours.
“Hold on a second,” said the Doctor. “Just one thing left to do. I need to make a quick phone call. Won’t be a minute,” he promised, grabbing Martha’s phone and dialling a number. After three rings, a voice answered.
“Unified Intelligence Taskforce,”
“I need to speak to Captain Magambo,” the Doctor requested at once. “Immediately. Tell her it’s the Doctor - but tell her the trouble’s already dealt with, I just need UNIT to finish things off.”
“Yes sir!”
The Doctor rolled his eyes, picturing the salute that had most likely accompanied this response.
“Doctor?” Captain Magambo’s voice had a slight note of trepidation.
“Captain. I need you to do something for me.”
There was an impatient sigh. “I suppose this is to do with these people who are acting strangely. Well, I can tell you now, we can’t understand it at all. I’ve had our scientists look into it, and they just haven’t been able to work it out.”
He cut in. “It’s okay, I’ve stopped the process - it was pollen, by the way - but I need you to broadcast how to cure the people who’ve been affected. They need cooling to about 35 degrees Celsius. Once the pollen is inside the human body, it can only withstand mild variation of temperature so the inducing of mild hypothermia should do it. That will kill off the spores, and the people affected should make a full recovery within a few days.” He quickly gave her the location of the warehouse where they had found the human test subjects. “Help those people as a matter of urgency.”
There was silence on the other end of the phone line for a moment, before the Captain spoke. “Right… yes.” He sensed she felt slightly miffed that the Doctor had managed to work it all out when her own scientists hadn’t had the slightest idea what was going on. “But what am I supposed to tell people, Doctor? I suppose it was some alien threat?”
“Yeah, and I don’t know! Use your imagination! The biofuel plants were susceptible to absorbing and amplifying radiation? Dangerous radiation that caused the strange effects?” he suggested.
“Yes, perhaps. We’ll see if we can think of anything better.” The Doctor strongly suspected that they wouldn’t, but held his tongue. “And… thanks.”
“No problem,” he said, and put the phone down.
Donna was rubbing her forehead. “The pain… it’s getting worse. Doctor, I need to get home before…”
The Doctor nodded. He flipped a switch on the console and adjusted a dial. “Chiswick. England.”
The rotor began to move up and down steadily, and for a few seconds they just stood staring at it silently. It was Donna who spoke first.
“Don’t think I’m going to make it to the allotted twenty four hours.” She tried to say this lightly, as though she was making a casual remark about the décor of the TARDIS, but it didn’t quite work.
He swallowed. “That was a rough estimate. And a lot has happened since yesterday evening. Your body will be tired out, which could speed up the degeneration process.”
She was staring down at the floor, not wanting to meet his eyes.
“Will you stay with me?” Her voice sounded small and afraid.
“Of course I will, Donna. To the… to the end.”
She fought back tears. “Thank you. For that and for letting me have one last chance to be of some use.”
“Oh Donna,” said the Doctor, wishing he knew what the best words were. “You’ve always been brilliant. I want you to know that. Please - you do believe me, don’t you?” She nodded, smiling tentatively. “And you’re so brave. Oh, people think I look death in the face all the time but I don’t. The weakness of the Time Lord: we’re too afraid of death. But you - you’re incredible, really, you are.”
Now she was crying, but she was past caring. “I don’t think I’ll be able to be brave when the time comes,” she said, choking on her words.
“It’s okay,” he said, his own voice thickening slightly with emotion. He came to hold her hand. “You and me… we’ve had some good times, haven’t we?”
“The best of times,” she quoted him, only just managing to get the words out, and he almost lost his composure at the expression. She saw the pain etched on his face. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to remind you of last time.”
He exhaled heavily. “Doing this all over again… it’s…” He broke off. Awful. Horrible. Too much to bear and I don’t think I can do it. He discarded all of these sentence endings, not wanting to burden her with his own personal turmoil when she had enough of her own to be dealing with.
“You’re my best friend,” was what he settled for eventually, biting his tongue hard to stop the tears. Pull yourself together, he scolded himself. She doesn’t need this.
“Likewise, spaceman,” she told him quietly, looking into those familiar and reassuring brown eyes of his. “God, look at us getting all soppy. I feel like I ought to slap you just to get some normality back.”
He marvelled at her courage once more. Here she was, close to death, and still able to joke about it. What was he going to do without her?
The TARDIS landed gently and Donna managed a weak smile. “I’m glad we helped those people though. Alice, especially; James will have his wife back again. All the thoughts and stuff that the spores took away - they’ll come back now?”
A look of amazement spread over the Doctor’s face all at once. “Say that again,” he said slowly.
She frowned. “I said, all the thoughts that the spores took away will come back now won’t they?”
He gasped. “OH! Croën spores! Why didn’t I think of it before?”
“What?”
“The Croën spores! They isolate certain parts of the mind and shut them down - that’s how Hector was controlling people, yes?”
Donna nodded, trying not to let herself imagine what he was getting at in case she was wrong.
“The Lytaneans use them for medical treatment of mental disorders because you can suppress very specific mental matter, but I can use them to locate and deactivate the Time Lord consciousness in your mind!” he cried.
Her eyes grew very wide, and she pressed a hand to her mouth. “Do you really think you can do it?” she asked, fearful of having her hopes raised only to be dashed once more.
The Doctor raced over to the apparatus he had set up earlier. “Yes - I think I can! I’ve still got samples of the spores, which can be easily adapted for our purposes. And once the consciousness has been isolated and disabled, I can make the effects permanent with some… clever stuff. Just… trust me, it’ll work, I know it!”
He set to work in a frenzied manner, heating first one beaker of liquid and then another, and combining various mixtures. At a late stage in the process, he yanked out a tuft of his own hair and threw it into the solution.
“Time Lord DNA,” he explained when Donna gave him a very strange look. “So that the right part of your mind is targeted.”
At last it was ready. Still Donna refused to allow herself to believe that this was going to work. She had tried so hard to prepare herself for what had seemed the inevitable prospect of death - how could she now even entertain the idea that everything might be okay?
The Doctor filled a syringe with the liquid waiting in the test tube, a shimmering golden yellow substance that seemed to possess a luminance. With a promise that it would be quick, he inserted the needle into Donna’s arm.
Donna gasped. She could feel the liquid moving through her bloodstream, and it wasn’t a pleasant sensation. After about twenty seconds, her head began to throb so painfully that she could hardly see. Words and pictures flashed before her eyes at what felt like a million miles per hour, and she knew these were the contents of the Doctor’s mind. This is the end, she thought. It hasn’t worked, it’s coming back and I’m going to die! She felt like her head was at the point of bursting, and she clutched the Doctor’s arm tightly as she let out an agonising scream of pain.
And then, all at once, the sensation began to dissipate. Her mind cleared; her pulse stopped racing and her vision returned. The pain lessened until it disappeared entirely and she was left feeling shaken but nevertheless… alive.
The Doctor put his fingers to her temples and closed his eyes, and she knew he was inside her mind. He drew away, and a smile broke out across his face, illuminating his features.
“It’s gone!” he exclaimed, unable to quite believe it. “There’s just your mind in there now - it’s all fixed! Oh, I am so VERY good!”
Donna threw her arms around him and hugged him so fiercely he could barely breathe. He laughed out loud in sheer, dizzy relief, and she followed suit.
“I’m really going to be okay?” she asked, drawing back. There were tears of joy shining in her eyes this time.
“Yep,” he grinned happily. “Well… you’ll glow faintly for a couple of days. But apart from that, you’re completely back to normal. Not that you were particularly normal in the first place.”
“Oi, you!” she protested, whacking him playfully on the arm.
“No, I meant that in a good way!” he complained. “I mean you were never ordinary! Blimey, women! You try to give them a compliment and they always take it the wrong way.”
Donna was too happy to object to this, so she let it slide.
“So, what do you want to do now?” the Doctor asked eagerly. “New planets? The past? The future? I mean… that is, assuming you want to stay. You don’t have to, of course,” he said, looking worried.
“Hold your horses, Spaceman!” she cried, amused at his enthusiasm. “I’m going home.” His face fell. “Nope, not for good, don’t make that mistake again! No, I need to tell Mum and Gramps that I’m fine; they’ll be so worried. If you remember rightly, the last they knew I had a day left to live.”
He could have kicked himself at his thoughtlessness. “Of course, sorry, we’ll go there right away.”
“And then,” she continued. “I know exactly what I want to do.”
“Yes?”
“Sleep! For about a week! I’m knackered - I haven’t slept in over a day and I’m about ready to keel over with fatigue,” she said.
He laughed. “And then?”
“You can surprise me,” she told him. “Whole universe waiting for me!”
“Not bored of chasing the stars yet then? Not ready to give it up for a normal life?”
Donna beamed, and the Doctor’s hearts almost burst with joy at having her back again, his Donna, standing there in all her magnificence.
“Never.”
Next part
Author: lemon_pencil
Rating: G
Characters/Pairings: Ten, Donna, various others
Disclaimer: Rusty is fail, so I'm taking over. But they're not mine, I'm afraid.
Warnings/Spoilers: Series 4; Planet of the Dead.
Word Count: About 1,900
Summary: Donna wants to go on one last adventure before it's too late...
Author's Notes: This is the last real part in terms of plot, but there will be a short epilogue just as a follow up. I can hear you all shouting, 'No, please, no more!' ;) Well anyway, here we go...
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10
They were alone in the TARDIS at last. It had taken longer than expected to wrap things up at the warehouse and then to walk back to the TARDIS. They had said their goodbyes to Hector after taking him to his destination, and now finally it was just the two of them. It was approaching eight o’clock in the evening, but both the Doctor and Donna had been avoiding making any reference to the significance of the passing hours.
“Hold on a second,” said the Doctor. “Just one thing left to do. I need to make a quick phone call. Won’t be a minute,” he promised, grabbing Martha’s phone and dialling a number. After three rings, a voice answered.
“Unified Intelligence Taskforce,”
“I need to speak to Captain Magambo,” the Doctor requested at once. “Immediately. Tell her it’s the Doctor - but tell her the trouble’s already dealt with, I just need UNIT to finish things off.”
“Yes sir!”
The Doctor rolled his eyes, picturing the salute that had most likely accompanied this response.
“Doctor?” Captain Magambo’s voice had a slight note of trepidation.
“Captain. I need you to do something for me.”
There was an impatient sigh. “I suppose this is to do with these people who are acting strangely. Well, I can tell you now, we can’t understand it at all. I’ve had our scientists look into it, and they just haven’t been able to work it out.”
He cut in. “It’s okay, I’ve stopped the process - it was pollen, by the way - but I need you to broadcast how to cure the people who’ve been affected. They need cooling to about 35 degrees Celsius. Once the pollen is inside the human body, it can only withstand mild variation of temperature so the inducing of mild hypothermia should do it. That will kill off the spores, and the people affected should make a full recovery within a few days.” He quickly gave her the location of the warehouse where they had found the human test subjects. “Help those people as a matter of urgency.”
There was silence on the other end of the phone line for a moment, before the Captain spoke. “Right… yes.” He sensed she felt slightly miffed that the Doctor had managed to work it all out when her own scientists hadn’t had the slightest idea what was going on. “But what am I supposed to tell people, Doctor? I suppose it was some alien threat?”
“Yeah, and I don’t know! Use your imagination! The biofuel plants were susceptible to absorbing and amplifying radiation? Dangerous radiation that caused the strange effects?” he suggested.
“Yes, perhaps. We’ll see if we can think of anything better.” The Doctor strongly suspected that they wouldn’t, but held his tongue. “And… thanks.”
“No problem,” he said, and put the phone down.
Donna was rubbing her forehead. “The pain… it’s getting worse. Doctor, I need to get home before…”
The Doctor nodded. He flipped a switch on the console and adjusted a dial. “Chiswick. England.”
The rotor began to move up and down steadily, and for a few seconds they just stood staring at it silently. It was Donna who spoke first.
“Don’t think I’m going to make it to the allotted twenty four hours.” She tried to say this lightly, as though she was making a casual remark about the décor of the TARDIS, but it didn’t quite work.
He swallowed. “That was a rough estimate. And a lot has happened since yesterday evening. Your body will be tired out, which could speed up the degeneration process.”
She was staring down at the floor, not wanting to meet his eyes.
“Will you stay with me?” Her voice sounded small and afraid.
“Of course I will, Donna. To the… to the end.”
She fought back tears. “Thank you. For that and for letting me have one last chance to be of some use.”
“Oh Donna,” said the Doctor, wishing he knew what the best words were. “You’ve always been brilliant. I want you to know that. Please - you do believe me, don’t you?” She nodded, smiling tentatively. “And you’re so brave. Oh, people think I look death in the face all the time but I don’t. The weakness of the Time Lord: we’re too afraid of death. But you - you’re incredible, really, you are.”
Now she was crying, but she was past caring. “I don’t think I’ll be able to be brave when the time comes,” she said, choking on her words.
“It’s okay,” he said, his own voice thickening slightly with emotion. He came to hold her hand. “You and me… we’ve had some good times, haven’t we?”
“The best of times,” she quoted him, only just managing to get the words out, and he almost lost his composure at the expression. She saw the pain etched on his face. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to remind you of last time.”
He exhaled heavily. “Doing this all over again… it’s…” He broke off. Awful. Horrible. Too much to bear and I don’t think I can do it. He discarded all of these sentence endings, not wanting to burden her with his own personal turmoil when she had enough of her own to be dealing with.
“You’re my best friend,” was what he settled for eventually, biting his tongue hard to stop the tears. Pull yourself together, he scolded himself. She doesn’t need this.
“Likewise, spaceman,” she told him quietly, looking into those familiar and reassuring brown eyes of his. “God, look at us getting all soppy. I feel like I ought to slap you just to get some normality back.”
He marvelled at her courage once more. Here she was, close to death, and still able to joke about it. What was he going to do without her?
The TARDIS landed gently and Donna managed a weak smile. “I’m glad we helped those people though. Alice, especially; James will have his wife back again. All the thoughts and stuff that the spores took away - they’ll come back now?”
A look of amazement spread over the Doctor’s face all at once. “Say that again,” he said slowly.
She frowned. “I said, all the thoughts that the spores took away will come back now won’t they?”
He gasped. “OH! Croën spores! Why didn’t I think of it before?”
“What?”
“The Croën spores! They isolate certain parts of the mind and shut them down - that’s how Hector was controlling people, yes?”
Donna nodded, trying not to let herself imagine what he was getting at in case she was wrong.
“The Lytaneans use them for medical treatment of mental disorders because you can suppress very specific mental matter, but I can use them to locate and deactivate the Time Lord consciousness in your mind!” he cried.
Her eyes grew very wide, and she pressed a hand to her mouth. “Do you really think you can do it?” she asked, fearful of having her hopes raised only to be dashed once more.
The Doctor raced over to the apparatus he had set up earlier. “Yes - I think I can! I’ve still got samples of the spores, which can be easily adapted for our purposes. And once the consciousness has been isolated and disabled, I can make the effects permanent with some… clever stuff. Just… trust me, it’ll work, I know it!”
He set to work in a frenzied manner, heating first one beaker of liquid and then another, and combining various mixtures. At a late stage in the process, he yanked out a tuft of his own hair and threw it into the solution.
“Time Lord DNA,” he explained when Donna gave him a very strange look. “So that the right part of your mind is targeted.”
At last it was ready. Still Donna refused to allow herself to believe that this was going to work. She had tried so hard to prepare herself for what had seemed the inevitable prospect of death - how could she now even entertain the idea that everything might be okay?
The Doctor filled a syringe with the liquid waiting in the test tube, a shimmering golden yellow substance that seemed to possess a luminance. With a promise that it would be quick, he inserted the needle into Donna’s arm.
Donna gasped. She could feel the liquid moving through her bloodstream, and it wasn’t a pleasant sensation. After about twenty seconds, her head began to throb so painfully that she could hardly see. Words and pictures flashed before her eyes at what felt like a million miles per hour, and she knew these were the contents of the Doctor’s mind. This is the end, she thought. It hasn’t worked, it’s coming back and I’m going to die! She felt like her head was at the point of bursting, and she clutched the Doctor’s arm tightly as she let out an agonising scream of pain.
And then, all at once, the sensation began to dissipate. Her mind cleared; her pulse stopped racing and her vision returned. The pain lessened until it disappeared entirely and she was left feeling shaken but nevertheless… alive.
The Doctor put his fingers to her temples and closed his eyes, and she knew he was inside her mind. He drew away, and a smile broke out across his face, illuminating his features.
“It’s gone!” he exclaimed, unable to quite believe it. “There’s just your mind in there now - it’s all fixed! Oh, I am so VERY good!”
Donna threw her arms around him and hugged him so fiercely he could barely breathe. He laughed out loud in sheer, dizzy relief, and she followed suit.
“I’m really going to be okay?” she asked, drawing back. There were tears of joy shining in her eyes this time.
“Yep,” he grinned happily. “Well… you’ll glow faintly for a couple of days. But apart from that, you’re completely back to normal. Not that you were particularly normal in the first place.”
“Oi, you!” she protested, whacking him playfully on the arm.
“No, I meant that in a good way!” he complained. “I mean you were never ordinary! Blimey, women! You try to give them a compliment and they always take it the wrong way.”
Donna was too happy to object to this, so she let it slide.
“So, what do you want to do now?” the Doctor asked eagerly. “New planets? The past? The future? I mean… that is, assuming you want to stay. You don’t have to, of course,” he said, looking worried.
“Hold your horses, Spaceman!” she cried, amused at his enthusiasm. “I’m going home.” His face fell. “Nope, not for good, don’t make that mistake again! No, I need to tell Mum and Gramps that I’m fine; they’ll be so worried. If you remember rightly, the last they knew I had a day left to live.”
He could have kicked himself at his thoughtlessness. “Of course, sorry, we’ll go there right away.”
“And then,” she continued. “I know exactly what I want to do.”
“Yes?”
“Sleep! For about a week! I’m knackered - I haven’t slept in over a day and I’m about ready to keel over with fatigue,” she said.
He laughed. “And then?”
“You can surprise me,” she told him. “Whole universe waiting for me!”
“Not bored of chasing the stars yet then? Not ready to give it up for a normal life?”
Donna beamed, and the Doctor’s hearts almost burst with joy at having her back again, his Donna, standing there in all her magnificence.
“Never.”
Next part