Title: Queen of the Winter Night 5/5
Author: Tess/
mihane_echoRating: Rated E for everyone
Word Count: 4066/31694
Pairing: Ten/Donna
Spoilers: Through 4.13 Journey's End
Summary: The Doctor is thrust back into an amnesiac Donna's path when an alien seeks sanctuary with her.
Disclaimer: The canon stuff belongs to the Beeb and I'm borrowing it to play with. Everything else I made up for my entertainment.
Author's Note: Okay, this has taken like ten thousand years, but here is the first story of my Sounds Like Destiny series, affectionately referred to as AU Series 5. This story replaces The Next Doctor as the Christmas story after Journey's End.
Author's Note 2: Thanks to my beta and good friend
lilianvaldemyer for her patience, support and frequent butt-kicking. More thanks than I have words for really. ily darling <3
Author's Note 3: Thank you everyone for reading and commenting! <3 I promise to get to all of them when I can, but for a quick blanket statement, thank you, thank you, thank you. AU S5 will return in The Past of Tomorrow... sometime in the near future. ;p
"DONNA!"
The Doctor dashed over to Donna's side with barely time to catch her, her dead weight in his arms dragging him down to his knees. Her head dropped back over his arm, her features pale and lifeless, and he shifted, supporting her neck in the crook of his elbow. His hand shook as he pulled strands of red hair off her face, felt her cheek with the backs of his long fingers.
"Donna! Donna, don't do this to me, don't you dare! Hang on, please, please, please." Frantically he snatched up the sonic screwdriver from where she'd dropped it and scanned her with it.
He blanched when he saw the result.
Wilf was hurrying towards them, his face white with worry, when a wobbly tremor shot violently beneath them, sending the old man to the ground. A segment of the ice plunged downward so quickly that the Doctor's stomach did a little flip; instinctively he cradled Donna closer to him.
The comet was disintegrating, the deeper levels of ice within the core breaking apart and collapsing, and shattering the outer shell as they did so. Great plates of ice were shoved high into the air as other sections were sucked underneath, reducted and crumbling. Chunks snapped free and pelted the area around them, smashing into soft grainy piles before vanishing.
Wilf jumped up again and jogged to Donna's side, stooping down to assess her. "Doctor, is she--"
"She's alive," he replied gruffly. He hooked his free arm under her knees and scooped her up, making sure he had her firmly before he tried to get to his feet. "We've got to get her home, now."
"Is she burning? Abies said she wouldn't survive-- Tell me she'll be all right!"
He didn't answer; losing Donna to death wasn't what he was afraid of now. She might have been unconscious but she was so alive, her pulse even and steady, her breathing normal. No, what had scared him was the scan of her mind.
All the new connections were shutting down.
Everything that tied her to the Time Lord consciousness, to her memories of him, was closing off again. The thought ran circles in his head, over and over, that Donna would once more look him in the eye and feel nothing, and with each lap he quickened his pace a little more. He had to get her home. If he could just get her home in time, get her back into that front room with Abies...
A tall bloke wearing spectacles and a backwards rucksack was milling around in the front of the TARDIS; his face went taut when he saw the Doctor holding Donna.
"What happened?" he demanded in broad Irish tones.
"Get inside," ordered the Doctor, brushing past him and into the timeship. He rushed up the ramp and deposited Donna carefully onto the jumpseat. With a quick glance up to make sure both of his other passengers were aboard, he released the brake.
The TARDIS dematerialised.
.
The hoarse warble of the time rotor eased to a stop. The Doctor had barely secured the brake before he went back to Donna and lifted her effortlessly into his arms. Wilf ran ahead of him, pulling open the doors so that the Doctor could bustle Donna out without stopping, and crashed smack dab into the cushy chair by the mantelpiece.
They had emerged directly into the front room of the Noble's house. Ophelia, sitting on the floor in front of Abies, stared open-mouthed as they appeared.
"Abies, Donna needs you!" The Doctor burst out just behind Wilf, manoeuvring between the chair and coffee table to the sofa. He set her down, eased her backwards as gently as he could. She never even stirred, sunk too deep into the ocean of her subconscious. Wretchedly he gazed at her, unable to tear his eyes away, hoping for the slightest flicker of her eyelids, something that would say she was aware. That she could hear him.
Abies hadn't replied. And there was no tell-tale burst of Bohemallad scent. He turned his head only slightly, his eyes still on Donna. "Abies, please!"
"Doctor..."
He turned with an impatient grimace to Wilf, wondering stupidly what could be more urgent than this. The old man had removed his red berry, his green eyes on Ophelia and the tree in the corner. He turned the other way, and then he saw. The vibrant green of Abies' needles had faded. The branches sagged, ever so slightly. The scent of the Bohemallad, previously so strong, was little more than a trace aroma.
Abies was dead.
Slowly, the Doctor stood up and went to the old tree, brushing his hand across a long sprig of needles. Then he dropped his chin to his chest, letting out a heavy breath. He felt hollow, as though all his energy had gone. So close. They had been so close.
"He died not long after the Noble one left," said Ophelia brokenly. "I only had time to... say goodbye."
Another death; always, he was surrounded by it. His hearts ached with regret for the death of the old Pinastran, for the grieving little Ophelia, but for Donna... It was so much more. It filled up his chest until he thought he might burst from the pain, sharp and tight and terrible. He turned his back to the room, struggling to regain his bearings. It wasn't just regret.
His heart was breaking all over again.
He ought to have known better, ought to have trusted his instincts, his own judgements. He'd said it himself, there was no way Abies on his own could modify her mind enough. There had been no reason to even hope.
But he had. He'd let himself taste that bittersweet tang, the flavours of expectation and tentative promise, a wish that could never come true because what was locked inside her was locked forever. There wasn't any coming back from it. He'd known that.
And still, somehow, it hurt worse this time.
You know why, a tiny part of him insisted. He sniffed and turned, blinking blearily at Wilf, who was watching him mournfully. He cleared his throat loudly. "I should go, before she wakes up."
The old man's face lightened. "She's not dying." Half surprised statement, half hopeful question.
The Doctor shook his head. "No, no. She's fine. She's just... She suppressed her memories, on her own." His thin face tightened, and he gestured at his own temples with two fingers. "That was what she was doing, right before she fell unconscious. She won't remember me anymore. Everything will be as it was."
Relieved, Wilf sank into the cushy chair. From his place against the wall, Dylan spoke up in his usual quiet way. "As it was? This happened before?"
"You can't ever mention what happened today," the Doctor told him pointedly, inexplicably annoyed with the other man. "No aliens. No strange occurrences. Anything like that could bring her memory back and she could die."
The silence was taken as understanding. After pausing for a long time, the Doctor finally looked up at Wilf. "May I say goodbye to her?"
The old man nodded, and beckoned to Ophelia, who stood up gracefully and followed him out of the room. Dylan lingered for a moment, glaring at the Doctor, before he too left.
Slowly, the Time Lord moved to his friend's side. Donna was peaceful in her sleep. Long tresses of hair had come loose from her bun and now framed her face like tongues of flame. Her chest rose and fell at a serene pace, perfectly healthy, perfectly normal.
His legs folded and he sank to the floor, his dark eyes wet. Slowly, taking his time to savour it, he slipped his fingers into her limp hand, let the orange nails curl into his palm. Her flimsy grip was so different than he remembered, so unlike how she used to squeeze his hand; it spread none of the same warmth through him now. She had always made him feel whole, unbroken for the first time since losing everything.
How had he ever mistaken this feeling for anything else?
He blew his breath out through his lips with a groan, bitterly bemused. "Oh, Donna Noble, if you could see me now. I'd never live it down." He smiled faintly, reached up with his other hand to smooth her hair. "Sarah told me not to give up. Easy to say when you don't have to live with the regret of the risks you didn't take. I should've realised a long time ago how I... And now it doesn't matter, because you can never know."
She stirred suddenly, her lips moving soundlessly. His throat closed up, his hearts pounding in his ears. For a while he just watched her sleep, his lovely Donna with her glass mind. He carved into his memory each tiny detail: the lollipop earrings she wore, the natural pout of her lips, the perfect autumn shade of her hair, the long lashes laying on her cheeks.
"I didn't want to admit it." The words came out of him involuntarily, as though he had no filter between feeling and speech. Pressing his lips together, the Doctor swallowed. "I thought it was better if I pretended I didn't... We always said we were just friends. But it's not better. I should've told you everyday, when I still had you."
He leaned close, his cheek brushing hers, his lips to her ear. He closed his eyes and whispered. "I love you, Donna."
"...nix."
He pulled back swiftly, startled. Her eyes were still closed, her expression calm, as though she hadn't said a word. He blinked. "What?"
Murmuring softly, Donna shifted onto her side, still fast asleep. Her voice, soft and dreamlike, came again. "Phoenix."
The Doctor didn't know what he had been hoping for. It wasn't as though she could hear him, and even if she could, he was nothing to her but a stranger. Again. But it felt good to finally say the words out loud.
He sniffed, and with a heavy sigh, pressed his lips to the backs of her fingers, just the slightest of touches. Then he got to his feet, reached down for the afghan at the end of the sofa, and draped it over her carefully. He smiled sadly down at the sleeping woman.
"Merry Christmas, Donna. Sleep well."
He turned on his heel and walked out of the room.
.
"Pharospratum at Pinastra, present day," announced the Doctor demurely.
The TARDIS settled with a low hum. From her place at the jumpseat, Ophelia Wode watched the Time Lord fiddle with some dials, his eyes downcast. After a moment he looked up. "Is there a particular reason you're not getting off and going home?"
"I was just thinking," she began nervously. "That you and I have something in common."
"Do we?" he replied, though by his tone, he didn't seem to be paying attention. Ophelia tipped her head empathetically, and stepped forward, resting her hands on the edge of the console.
"When you said you had done horrible things to save someone you loved, I felt like you understood me then. What I was trying to do. Even though it was wrong," she added quickly. He didn't react, and she continued. "And then when I saw you with the Noble one... And you said that it had happened before."
Now he looked up, his face dark. He still looked incredibly frightening; she supposed she would always be afraid of Time Lords. But, as simply a man, Ophelia could see his sadness now. And his loneliness. Her heart went out to him.
"How do you do it?" she asked quietly.
"Do what?"
"Live without her."
His eyes dropped back to the console, fingers still twirling one thing after another aimlessly. "It helps knowing she's alive," he said candidly. "Even if she can never remember me and I can't be with her anymore, just knowing she's safe makes all the difference."
"But she'll die one day," said Ophelia, still only in a quiet murmur. "Just like Abies-sa. Just like everything in the world."
"Oh!" The Doctor looked up, his eyebrows furrowed, and reached into his pocket. He dug through it for some time before he found what he was looking for. He slid around the console and, with some flourish, showed her the cone cradled in the palm of his hand.
A small, prickled, green cone.
Ophelia clapped her hands to her mouth with a cry.
"It was the last one left, hidden deep on one of his core branches," the Doctor explained. "The last generation of Abies of Pharospratum, the last of the Great Fir Bohema."
Her hands shaking, Ophelia reached out, and the Doctor placed the cone into the cup of her palms. She held it close to her chest, sheltering it carefully as though it were made of glass. When she looked up at him, her eyes shining with tears.
"Thank you."
His freckled face softened. "This is how you live without him. Tell them about their father, how he lived. Keep his memory alive. He'll live forever if you do that."
Ophelia nodded. Then, sighing heavily, she gestured with her head towards the door. "Do you want to come see? Pharospratum is beautiful this time of year. There's a magnificent growth of Giant Belleselia Ivy growing over the old lighthouse, and at dawn the trees breathe the Solstice Song."
The Doctor shifted uncomfortably, glancing towards the door and then back at her. "I... I'm not... I really shouldn't. When I met Abies, he told me that we had met before, when he was young. But that's not happened for me yet. That's my future. I can't go there now and hear about what happened, I might inadvertently change history."
Ophelia nodded. "Abies used to tell me stories about when he was young, when the Time Lords arrived. He said they were dark times." With a rueful look, she met his eyes. "I don't envy you having to go through that. I'll think of you when it happens."
He smiled slightly. "It's already happened."
She smiled too. "Time isn't as set in stone as that. But then you would know, wouldn't you, Time Lord?"
.
It was very late. Luke was already asleep, and Sarah Jane was holding on by a yawn. It would be Christmas morning soon, but she couldn't help waiting up. Rude of him really, to keep her waiting. But then, she had always waited.
She was at her desk, rugged up and half-asleep, when the sound came. Sitting up, she turned to look as the tall blue box settled on the upper step of her loft, whooshing softly. The door creaked open, and the Doctor's brown head stuck out.
"Did I wake you?" he wondered in hushed tones.
With a little cry Sarah Jane leapt up and rushed to him, throwing her arms around his waist; he stepped down out of the box onto the lower step and hugged her back. "I'm fine," he told her gently.
"It's been hours," she chastised him. "I was terribly worried. For all I knew, you had been killed destroying the comet."
He pressed his lips together sadly. "I'm sorry, Sarah."
She huffed out a sigh and then stepped back. "Well? What happened then? My transmission worked; I saw the comet disintegrating via Mr. Smith."
"Yeah," the Doctor said, shoving his hands into his pockets. "It was completely pulverised. But the Eiran fragments are strong enough to make it through the atmosphere, so you lot are going to get quite a bit of it in the next few weeks. Luckily, it should just look like snow."
"So Donna was right? The Queen had joined with the comet? She said there was a chance she hadn't, but she was mostly sure."
The Doctor nodded, and Sarah Jane saw the mask slide over his face again, blank and detached. She bit her lip. "Donna... Did she...?"
"No, she's alive," he said. "She ran out of time, and had to block her memories again."
She sagged visibly. "I'm so sorry. I know that you... how you feel about her."
"That I'm in love with her, you mean?"
Surprised by his candour, Sarah Jane's eyebrows rose into her hairline, and the Doctor forced a brief, mirthless smile. "I told her. Said it, out loud." His gaze dropped back to stare pointedly at the toe of his trainer, chewing the inside of his cheek. "Not that it matters, because she was asleep. She couldn't hear me and she doesn't remember who I am anyway."
"It matters," said Sarah Jane firmly. Her face lightened, and she smiled hopefully at him. "There's always a way, and if you love her... you can find it."
"I don't see how," he said softly, and he sounded more vulnerable than Sarah had ever heard him before. "I've spent months looking... There was a way that might've worked, if I'd thought about it at the time, but now... It's too late."
She placed her hand on his arm, squeezed it gently. "You can find it," she repeated. "If anyone can, it's you."
His shoulders dropped and he looked away. Then he groaned. "Well, I should get going. You need to sleep, otherwise Santa will never show up."
She laughed. "I have a son. I am Santa."
The Doctor grinned at her. "Mother Christmas," he teased, and Sarah shot him a look. Then she slipped her arms around his neck and hugged tight. He returned the embrace. "Merry Christmas, Sarah Jane."
"And you, Doctor."
He set her down and then climbed back up into the TARDIS. She gave him a warm smile. "Am I going to see you again?"
"Undoubtedly. You know I always turn up sooner or later."
"Usually later."
He grinned at the good-natured rib; the smile softened. "Goodbye, Sarah."
She nodded, folding her arms. "Goodbye, Doctor."
With a last nod, he shut the door. The whoosh of the engine filled the loft, and the timeship began to vanish. Moments later, it was gone.
.
The thunk of his rubber soles on the grated floor sounded heavier than usual as the Doctor circled the console. Off once more into the wild starry yonder. Places to go, people to meet, monsters to run from and/or defeat.
"Could be my slogan," he said to himself blandly.
He found himself once again forced to think of something else, anything but Donna. As supportive as Sarah had tried to be, he knew there was nothing he could do to bring Donna back.
And Abies had seemed so certain it was Donna, he thought. The two Time Lords who saved him in his youth, the Doctor and the Phoenix.
For a heartsbeat, everything in his head came to a complete, screeching halt.
Phoenix.
"Phoenix," he repeated aloud, his hearts racing. It was the last thing Donna had said to him. He slid the scanner round and tapped in a command. It came up with an encyclopaedia entry on the mythological phoenixes, as well as a race of aliens called Phoenixes; the Phoenix Nebula; the planetary system around Ankaa in the Phoenix constellation; and a notation on Time Lords themselves.
Disappointed, he sank back, leaning against the jumpseat. It had to mean something.
Or it could've been coincidence that he would meet another Time Lord known as the Phoenix, and Donna happened to be speaking in tongues.
Possible. But entirely unlikely.
"What the hell is Phoenix?" he groaned, rubbing his eyes. "Was it a code? A password? What?"
The TARDIS hummed helpfully, and there was a little chime as something came up on the scanner. He blinked at the screen. "Emergency Programme Phoenix," he read aloud. "I don't remember encoding that. Run it for me?"
In front of him, a hologram of Donna fizzled into view. She was two-dimensional and staticky, as if on an old television set. All of his hologram recordings were; the TARDIS's systems were rather outdated, after all. Donna was standing at the side of the console, wearing the brown leather jacket she'd worn on the Crucible, half a year ago.
"Right, is it on?" She seemed to be speaking to someone he couldn't see. "You're sure? Okay."
Then her eyes met his. Her tone started off matter-of-fact and concise. "Doctor, if you're watching this, I'm probably a gibbering idiot by now." Her eyebrows narrowed, and she planted her hands on her hips. "Actually, if you've got any sense you'll have put my memories into stasis before I reach that point, which I hope you do."
Her expression became solemn. "Thing is, I know what's going to happen to me. I know that human-Time Lord metacrises can't live for very long, and I know I’m going to forget everything and burn up if you don't block my mind. I hope it doesn't come to that. I hope I can tell you all this myself. But in case I don't get the chance..."
She held up a vial of blood. "This is a sample of the human Doctor's blood. I was only caught in the backlash, but he was born of you and me, and his genetics are perfect. So if you can use this as a template to modify my genes, enough that I can stabilise... Then I can stay."
The Doctor opened his mouth to say something. The hologram barrelled over him in a distinctly Donna-like fashion.
"I know you think your big brain has thought of this already, and you've probably already written it off as impossible. But you know as well as I do: sometimes you're wrong. All I want is for you to try. Don't give up on me, please. And don't say that my life isn't worth the risk of it going wrong. I know that's what you want to say, because that's what he said, the other Doctor. But my gramps used to tell me, 'Ships are safe in harbour, but that isn't what ships are for.'"
She smiled at him, that incandescently warm smile she got when she was really happy. "I might be safer if you take me home, tuck me up in my mundane life in Chiswick, but you and I both know that's not where I'm meant to be. I want to be with you."
The hologram hesitated, as Donna had hesitated at the time of recording; then, abruptly, she swayed slightly. Her hand went up to her head.
"It's already starting. What was I...?" She looked confused. Then she looked back up at him. "Right. Phoenix. I put the vial in here," she indicated a compartment in the console. Ordinarily a secret cubbyhole, he was unsure if she'd only learned of its existence because she had seen into his mind, or by some other means.
"I can't keep it, obviously, if I'm about to become Dory from Finding Nemo, and I didn't want anything to happen to it; we still have a lot of people on board and it could get misplaced. It'll be safe here, so long as you don't start cramming Mars Bars in there, like you do when you think I'm not looking."
She stifled a mischievous smile and he blushed involuntarily, reaching up to rub the back of his neck. A moment passed and Donna nodded.
"There we go. It's up to you now. Don't keep me waiting long, Spaceman."
The hologram disappeared.
The Doctor stared at where Donna had been standing, feeling rather like he'd gotten the slap she promised him. He leaned forward and opened up the tiny compartment in the TARDIS console. A vial, the size of his pinky finger, full of bright red blood slid up out of it. He took it, held it for a moment.
Then he started to laugh blithely, long and hard. This was the method he'd mentioned to Sarah Jane: all he'd needed was a sample of blood from his duplicate, but he hadn't been able to get it; he hadn't thought of it then.
But Donna had. All the weight in his heart, all the grief, suddenly lifted, plucked from him by Donna's message in a bottle. He felt like he could do anything.
Grinning, he looked down at the little vial sitting on his palm.
"Best get to work then! I've got to bring you home."
END
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