Fic: And Then She Remembered
Title: And Then She Remembered
Author: misswitch
Pairings: none really
Characters: The Doctor, Donna, plus a cast of supporting characters
Rating: PG just to be on the safe side. (I think it’s G, but really, who knows these days.)
Summary: Donna remembers
Warnings: Spoilertastic for Journey’s End
Author’s Notes: It should be noted that I have played fast and loose with Classic Doctor Who cannon. I figured that if RTD can, so can I.
Much thanks to supermom20 for beating these ideas into submission with me, beadattitude for giving me the confidence to continue with the story and to sonicgirl2005 for the fastest beta I’ve ever experienced.
“Oi, watch it, you prawn!” Donna said, rubbing her side from where she’d been elbowed. As the words fell from her lips, she simultaneously suffered a sense of déjà vu and a splitting headache. Wincing, she rubbed her fingertips against her temple.
This had been happening more and more lately, caused by the most random things. Just the other day, she’d been blindsided with pain after teasing her grandfather about watching the skies for Martians.
It seemed that this had been building for months. At first, she had just rattled around feeling lost and empty without understanding why. Nothing had changed. Yet she couldn’t help but feel like she’d lost something… extraordinary.
She’d told her mum and granddad about it. Her mum had brushed it off as a flight of fancy, like some crush on a pop star she’d had when she was twelve. Her granddad had said nothing, just looked at her sadly, as if he knew something she didn’t. She often caught him looking at her like that now and had asked about it. He denied it, of course, but she worried that he was ill and didn’t want to tell her.
Nerys hadn’t been any help either. When she’d told Nerys about the feelings, she’d suggested that Donna was just missing Lance and that maybe she should’ve thought twice about leaving him at the altar.
Some best mate Nerys was, she thought. Taking Lance’s side instead of mine. Donna frowned. No, that’s wrong. Nerys isn’t my best mate, not really. She shook her head. Of course Nerys is my best mate, has been since high school. Yet, no matter how hard she tried, Donna couldn’t shake the feeling that this was wrong, that there was someone else who filled that position.
The headache behind her eyes began to pound as she tried to reconcile this contradiction. Digging through her purse, Donna found some aspirin and swallowed them dry as she hurried down the sidewalk to her destination. She was assailed by the familiar scent of books when she pushed through the double doors. The temp agency had found her a position working at a local library. It wasn’t much, but it would pay the bills. Besides, last time she’d worked in a library, she’d learned the Dewey Decimal System in two days flat. She was brilliant when it came to numbers.
She slapped a hand to her head as pain filled it, causing her to stumble. She felt a hand catch her by the arm before she fell and a far-off voice asked her if she needed a doctor.
Pain seared through Donna’s brain. Gasping, she fell to her knees. She could hear the kind Samaritan calling for help as they tried to keep her upright. She turned her unseeing eyes to them.
“The Doctor,” she gasped. “I need the Doctor.” Donna didn’t understand the difference between ‘a’ doctor and ‘the’ Doctor, she just knew it was vitally important. “Please get the Doctor,” she begged before everything went black.
Wilf paced uneasily outside of the hospital room as he waited for the doctor to come out with news. She was a pretty young thing, the doctor was, with her dark eyes and cocoa colored skin. He’d seen her before, on the computer the night the Daleks had invaded. Both he and Sylvia knew there was only one person, one Doctor, who could help Donna now. And this Dr. Jones was not him.
He pulled his mobile out of his pocket, checking the screen for any missed calls. There were none. He’d repeatedly called the number burned into his memory, leaving message after message for the Doctor to no avail.
“She’s resting as comfortably as we can make her.” Wilf turned at the young woman’s voice. Her eyes were sad as they met his. She nodded at the phone in his hand. “Any luck reaching the Doctor?” she asked. He shook his head sadly. Martha squeezed his hand sympathetically. “We’re all trying,” she assured him. “We’ll find him.”
Sylvia held Donna’s hand tightly as her daughter slept motionlessly. She looked up as her father came into the room, then back at Donna’s face.
“They said they had to keep her sedated,” she said dully. She gestured at the wires that connected Donna to various machines. “The memories have resurfaced, although how they can tell, I don’t know.” Sylvia’s words were bitter. “I told you that Doctor was nothing but trouble.”
“Now, now, my darling,” Wilf patted his daughter on the shoulder. “She’ll be alright.” His words sounded forced, but he was determined to maintain Donna’s belief in the Doctor.
Donna floated weightlessly in her own mind. Strange images surrounded her: a fiery volcano, a man in a long brown coat, a library, a blue box. Over and over, she kept returning to the man. She’d never seen him before, yet he was incredibly familiar at the same time.
She knew she was dying. He’d told her that the memories would kill her, this man she’d never met. He’d taken them away to save her, but somehow, they were still there, still too much for her mind to handle.
The Doctor burst through the TARDIS doors, slamming them shut behind him. Gasping for air, he pressed his back against them as the loud thumping of someone trying to break in echoed through the room.
“Best be off,” he said, tossing his jacket on one of the coral struts as he launched himself at the console. The thumping grew louder. “Yeah, best of luck with that,” he said to the would-be invaders. The Doctor fiddled with several switches and threw a lever. The TARDIS groaned and shuddered as it dematerialized, tossing the Doctor about like a rag doll. He flipped several switches and spun a dial, smoothing the flight.
Circling the console, he made some adjustments, fine-tuning the coordinates. The room was quiet except for the hum that was always present in the TARDIS. Uncomfortable in the presence of only himself, the Doctor stuck his hands awkwardly in his pockets. It had been almost a year since he’d had to wipe Donna’s mind of all traces of himself. Hardly the blink of an eye to a Time Lord, but probably the longest he’d ever been on his own. He simply hadn’t had the hearts to replace her with a new companion.
A low beeping sound jarred him out of his thoughts and caused him to look around in confusion. Thinking that it was the console, he gave it a couple of whacks with the mallet. When the beeping didn’t stop, he began to search the control panel for the source of the sound. It didn’t take him long to find it - Martha’s mobile. As he picked it up, the phone beeped again. Not a normal ring, but a series of beeps.
“Missed a call apparently,” he said, flipping the mobile open. “What?” he said in astonishment as he looked at the missed call count. One thousand four hundred thirty six. “What?” he repeated. Even as he began to scroll through the calls, almost all of them from the same number, the phone rang. “What?”
“Doctor, where the hell have you been?” Jack’s voice reverberated through the earpiece. “It’s Donna; you need to come right away.”
The Doctor didn’t bother with subtlety when he arrived on Earth. He rarely did, but this time even less than usual. The TARDIS materialized in the hospital lobby, next to a large potted plant. Several heads turned and stared when the blue wooden box made its appearance, several more as the Doctor threw open the doors and ran out, his coat flapping behind him.
“Donna Noble,” he demanded, skidding to a halt at the information kiosk. “What room is she in?”
“Just a moment, sir,” the elderly volunteer told him. She turned back to the person she’d been helping, tracing a route on a map of the hospital. Running his hands through his hair in frustration, the Doctor searched the lobby for something, anything that would give him the information he needed. Finally, he lunged over the counter and flipped the computer screen so that it faced him.
“Excuse me, sir,” the volunteer protested, “you can’t do that.” The Doctor ignored her, typing furiously, calling up Donna’s information.
“Where is this?” he asked, pointing to the information on the screen. The woman squinted at the screen.
“That’s on the sixth floor,” she said. The Doctor sprinted toward the elevators. “But you need special clearance for that floor,” the volunteer called after him. Ignoring her, the Doctor jabbed at the call button impatiently, pulling out the sonic screwdriver when the elevator didn’t arrive fast enough.
Finally, the doors opened, revealing several shocked passengers who’d just seen their lives flash before their eyes when the lift had plummeted at an alarming speed. They stumbled out of the elevator as the Doctor dashed inside, running the sonic screwdriver over the control panel. The doors snapped shut and the lift lurched upward. He took a step backward to keep his balance, but the screwdriver never wavered from the panel as he overrode the security protocols.
At the sixth floor, the doors sprung open and he ran out, much to the surprise of the UNIT soldiers who were standing guard. He flashed the psychic paper at them as he ran down the corridor toward the nurses’ station. Dodging doctors and nurses, he burst into Donna’s room at top speed and slid to a halt at the side of her bed, his sneakers squeaking on the linoleum floor. She was alone in the room, pale and motionless, connected to machines by tubes and wires. He glanced briefly at them as they beeped and hissed, before turning his attention to his former companion.
“Oh, Donna,” he said sympathetically. Leaning down, he brushed a strand of auburn hair back from her forehead. He slid his hand over her hair, toying with the ends. She’d cut it since he’d last seen her. There were other, subtle changes; dark circles under her eyes, stress lines around her mouth. She’d lost some weight, most likely from stress. It was clear that things hadn’t been easy for her. He took her hand in his and gave it a gentle squeeze. “I’m sorry. I am so, so sorry.”
After a moment, he slipped on his glasses and ran the sonic screwdriver over her face, scanning her brain. His face crinkled in confusion as he studied the readings.
“But that’s impossible,” he said. Giving the screwdriver a shake, he changed the settlings and scanned Donna again.
“Can you save her?” The Doctor spun around at the sound of a voice behind him.
“Martha!” he said in delight, enveloping her in a hug. He felt a surge of relief that she was taking care of Donna.
“Jack said he managed to reach you,” she said as they separated. She gave a wry smile. “He programmed the computer to redial the phone until you actually answered it.” She moved to one of the machines, tapping the screen to pull up a readout. “Her brain activity is off the charts, even sedated. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“It’s the Time Lord consciousness reasserting itself,” he said. The Doctor scratched vigorously at the back of his head. “But that’s impossible.” He took off his glasses and tucked them inside his jacket. “Those memories were wiped. Gone.” He ran his fingers through his hair in frustration. “This shouldn’t be happening.” He turned back to Martha. “What caused this?”
“We don’t know,” she said. “All we know is that she collapsed walking into a library.” Martha looked at him with sad eyes. “She asked for you. Begged the man who was helping her to get THE Doctor.” She nodded at the door. “Her family’s in the waiting room. They may be able to give you more information.”
Flinging the door open, the Doctor sprinted down the hall to the waiting area.
“Doctor, I knew you’d come.” Wilf rose from a couch when the Doctor came into sight. He gestured at another where Sylvia slept. “She didn’t think you’d come, but I told her. ‘Sylvia,’ I said, ‘the Doctor won’t abandon her. He’ll be here, you just wait and see.’ And here you are.”
“What happened?” the Doctor demanded.
“She just collapsed,” Wilf said. “They said she just grabbed her head and fell to her knees.” His eyes filled with tears.
“Wilf, listen to me,” the Doctor grabbed the old man by the shoulders and looked intently into his eyes. “Her memories have resurfaced. I need to know exactly what happened to cause this. Did anything unusual happen?” Wilf raised a shaking hand to his forehead as he thought.
“She started getting these headaches, I guess a few months ago,” he said finally. “We were sitting on the couch, looking at pictures. She was humoring me, she was, letting me reminisce about her grandmother.” Wilf smiled. “Delightful woman, God bless her. Full of spunk,” he said.
“Yes, yes, yes,” the Doctor said, “I’m sure she was. Donna…?”
“I was telling her how her grandmother had a birth defect, not that she ever let it stop her.” He tapped his chest. “Two hearts. Oddest thing, really.”
The Doctor went still at Wilf’s words.
“Did you say ‘two hearts’?” he asked with careful deliberation. Wilf nodded.
“Anyway, when I mentioned it, Donna got a terrible headache. It went away almost immediately,” he said quickly, “so I didn’t think anything of it.”
“But she kept getting them, didn’t she?”
“Yeah, little things would set her off. Odd things, like a documentary about Pompeii. Sylvia reckoned that it was a brain tumor or something. She figured it was some sort of space cancer.”
“Oh, yes, very positive,” the Doctor muttered to himself. “Tell me, Wilf,” he said, louder. “What was your wife’s name?”
“Ah, she was a marvelous woman, my Susan was.” Wilf’s eyes grew misty as he remembered his wife. “She was killed during the war. Air raid, you know.”
“You’re kidding,” the Doctor said, his eyes growing wide in disbelief. Caught up in his memories, Wilf didn’t notice the Doctor’s reaction.
“She hated statues,” he said. “Used have awful nightmares about them. Weeping angels, she called them.”
“Of course,” the Doctor exclaimed loudly, startling Wilf as he spun around in a circle. “That’s why the memories weren’t completely wiped. It wasn’t the Time Lord consciousness in her brain that was killing her. It was the existence of TWO Time Lord consciousnesses.” He dashed back to Donna’s room, Wilf trailing after him.
“I need you to wake her,” he told Martha, who was checking Donna’s vital signs. She looked up at him, horrified.
“But that will kill her,” she protested. The Doctor grabbed her arms.
“No. I didn’t understand what was happening when I tried to wipe the memories.” He dashed over to the EEG machine and ran the sonic screwdriver over the screen. “See!” he said, pointing. “Right there! Of course!” He spun around, his mind racing. “When I took the memories, I didn’t realize that they’d already been encoded by a deeper, preexisting Time Lord consciousness.”
Martha looked alarmed. “Are you telling me that Donna is a Time Lord? Like the Master?” The Doctor shook his head.
“Donna is only part Time Lord. She inherited it from her grandmother. It’s so diluted by human DNA that it’s hardly detectable.”
“You’re saying that my Susan was an alien, like you?” The Doctor and Martha spun around to look at Wilf who was standing in the doorway.
“Susan was my granddaughter,” the Doctor said, much to Martha and Wilf’s shock. “Well, not really,” he clarified. “We weren’t actually related. She was like family. She even called me Grandfather, but I was really just a friend of her family.” He looked at their confused faces. “Long story,” he said finally. He began to pace the small room.
“She must have been sent back in time by the Weeping Angels, creatures that live off potential energy,” he explained. “The air raid must have happened so fast that she was unable to regenerate.”
“The Weeping Angels?” Martha interjected. “Those creepy statue things that sent us back to 1969?” She shuddered. “They were horrible. Moon landing was brilliant though.”
“I should’ve seen it,” the Doctor said, mostly to himself. “It wasn’t just Dalek Caan drawing the timelines to her. It was her own Time Lord abilities.”
“Doctor, what does that mean?” Martha asked. Glee filled the Doctor’s face as he turned to her.
“Donna Noble has been saved.” He grinned in delight. “Right, Martha, I need you to discontinue the sedation. I need to have access to her conscious mind for this to work.”
“Doctor, are you sure?” Martha asked, her hands still on the IV. The Doctor grinned and winked at her.
“Oh, yes!”
As Martha disconnected the IV from Donna’s arm, he shucked off his duster and tossed it over a chair in the corner of the room. As he settled one side of Donna’s bed, Wilf stood on the other, clutching his granddaughter’s hand in his own. Martha scurried from the room and returned a few minutes later with a syringe filled with a clear liquid.
“This will neutralize the sedative,” she said as she injected the medication. They waited in silence for her to regain consciousness. The Doctor smiled as Donna began to wake, her eyes fluttering open.
“Hey, Spaceman,” she said, groggily. He helped her as she struggled to sit up.
“Hey, Earth girl.”
“My head’s killing me,” she complained, lifting a shaky hand to her temple.
“I know, I know,” he said sympathetically. “It’s my Time Lord consciousness at war with your own.”
“I hate it when you talk rubbish,” she grumbled. The Doctor grinned at her.
“I know you do.” He leaned forward. “Donna, I have to remove my consciousness from your mind.”
“Yeah, ‘cause that worked so well last time,” she said, scrunching her face in annoyance. She looked into the Doctor’s eyes. “I don’t want to be that person again. I was better with you,” she told him, unknowingly echoing Wilf’s words.
“See, I told you,” Wilf said, earning a quick smile from the Doctor before he returned his attention to her.
“This will be different,” his said. “But you’re not going to like it.”
“Because I liked the memory wipe so much better,” she asked sarcastically, sounding almost like her old self. The Doctor looked chagrined.
“When you touched my hand, it enabled the Human - Time Lord metacrisis, so I tried to remove everything Time Lord in your mind,” he explained. “The problem was that I tried to remove your Time Lord aspects as well, instead of only mine.”
Pulling her hand from Wilf’s, Donna clutched her head in pain. “Doctor!” she gasped. “Get to the point.”
“The point is,” the Doctor said quickly, “you’re not going to like the method I have to use to remove only my consciousness.”
The pain in Donna’s head was growing more intense. “Just get on with it,” she ordered.
She supposed she should’ve seen it coming. If it was in his head, it was in hers. However, she was in entirely too much pain to try and figure what he was about to do. So she was caught completely off guard when he leaned in and covered her lips with his. Her whole body stiffened with surprise, slowly relaxing as the pain in her head slowly drained away. After a moment, the Doctor pulled away and exhaled. Wilf watched in amazement as golden glowing light floated into the air.
“Detox,” he said jovially, grinning at the older man. The Doctor was so busy feeling pleased with himself that he didn’t see Donna’s hand until it was too late. “OW!” he yelped as she made contact with his shoulder. Rubbing it, he couldn’t help but be thankful she hadn’t slapped him in the face.
“You better watch it, Spaceman!” she ordered, her voice strong. “We’ll be having none of that nonsense.”
The Doctor grinned in delight. Once again, the universe had given him a joyous, priceless day.
The Doctor circled the TARDIS console, making minute adjustments to various instruments. He looked up as the doors swung open and Donna strode in. She was dressed in the dark suit she’d been wearing when he’d met her again at Adipose Industries.
“Everything all right?” he asked. Donna nodded, crossing the room until she was directly across from him, the console between them.
“Martha released me from medical care, Torchwood picked up the bill and Mum is decidedly unhappy about discovering she’s half alien.” The Doctor smirked.
“So, happy endings all round then,” he said, tongue in cheek. Donna smiled.
“It’s true then?” she asked. “I’m part Time Lord? Like you?”
“Well, not quite like me,” he said. “You have some Time Lord DNA, enough that with my consciousness removed, your brain was able to acclimate to any leftover information from the metacrisis.” Darting toward her, he scanned her with the sonic screwdriver. Donna slapped his hand away.
“Stop bleeping me!” she ordered, more teasing than angry. “Speak English!”
“You’re brain won’t implode,” he said simply. “How’s that?”
Donna nodded. “Much better.” She walked to the console and ran her fingers along the edge. “Although, it was nice being brilliant for a change.”
“Donna, you were always brilliant,” the Doctor said with heartfelt emotion. “Being the DoctorDonna only made you a different kind of brilliant.”
“Yeah, right,” she said, rolling her eyes in disbelief. “I’m brilliant.” She became very focused on the console so that he couldn’t see the tears welling up in her eyes.
“Of course you are,” he insisted, grabbing her by the arms. “I only travel with the best. And you, Donna Noble, are the best.”
Normally, she would’ve said something pithy and sarcastic, but the sincerity in his eyes stopped her.
“Thank you,” she said earnestly. The Doctor grinned at her, that manic smile he saved for moments of pure happiness, and pulled her into a tight hug.
“Oh, I’ve missed you,” he said gruffly. Donna hugged him back, his arms familiar and reassuring.
“Right, so, give us a lift home?” she asked after a moment, pulling away. She gestured at the TARDIS control room. “Granddad would just love to see all this.”
Disappointed, the Doctor shoved his hands into his pockets.
“Of course,” he agreed. “It’s the least I could do.”
“Then, I’ll just need a few minutes to pack a few things and we can be off,” she continued. The Doctor’s head whipped around to stare at her, his face a mask of joy. “What?” she asked, her voice teasing. “You still owe me a trip to the lightning skies of Cotter Palluni's World. You didn’t think you’d get out of it that so easily, did you?”
“Of course not,” the Doctor replied with a grin. “I wouldn’t dream of it.” Across the room, Donna returned his smile.
“Onward, then?” he asked. Donna nodded.
“Onward.”
Author: misswitch
Pairings: none really
Characters: The Doctor, Donna, plus a cast of supporting characters
Rating: PG just to be on the safe side. (I think it’s G, but really, who knows these days.)
Summary: Donna remembers
Warnings: Spoilertastic for Journey’s End
Author’s Notes: It should be noted that I have played fast and loose with Classic Doctor Who cannon. I figured that if RTD can, so can I.
Much thanks to supermom20 for beating these ideas into submission with me, beadattitude for giving me the confidence to continue with the story and to sonicgirl2005 for the fastest beta I’ve ever experienced.
“Oi, watch it, you prawn!” Donna said, rubbing her side from where she’d been elbowed. As the words fell from her lips, she simultaneously suffered a sense of déjà vu and a splitting headache. Wincing, she rubbed her fingertips against her temple.
This had been happening more and more lately, caused by the most random things. Just the other day, she’d been blindsided with pain after teasing her grandfather about watching the skies for Martians.
It seemed that this had been building for months. At first, she had just rattled around feeling lost and empty without understanding why. Nothing had changed. Yet she couldn’t help but feel like she’d lost something… extraordinary.
She’d told her mum and granddad about it. Her mum had brushed it off as a flight of fancy, like some crush on a pop star she’d had when she was twelve. Her granddad had said nothing, just looked at her sadly, as if he knew something she didn’t. She often caught him looking at her like that now and had asked about it. He denied it, of course, but she worried that he was ill and didn’t want to tell her.
Nerys hadn’t been any help either. When she’d told Nerys about the feelings, she’d suggested that Donna was just missing Lance and that maybe she should’ve thought twice about leaving him at the altar.
Some best mate Nerys was, she thought. Taking Lance’s side instead of mine. Donna frowned. No, that’s wrong. Nerys isn’t my best mate, not really. She shook her head. Of course Nerys is my best mate, has been since high school. Yet, no matter how hard she tried, Donna couldn’t shake the feeling that this was wrong, that there was someone else who filled that position.
The headache behind her eyes began to pound as she tried to reconcile this contradiction. Digging through her purse, Donna found some aspirin and swallowed them dry as she hurried down the sidewalk to her destination. She was assailed by the familiar scent of books when she pushed through the double doors. The temp agency had found her a position working at a local library. It wasn’t much, but it would pay the bills. Besides, last time she’d worked in a library, she’d learned the Dewey Decimal System in two days flat. She was brilliant when it came to numbers.
She slapped a hand to her head as pain filled it, causing her to stumble. She felt a hand catch her by the arm before she fell and a far-off voice asked her if she needed a doctor.
Pain seared through Donna’s brain. Gasping, she fell to her knees. She could hear the kind Samaritan calling for help as they tried to keep her upright. She turned her unseeing eyes to them.
“The Doctor,” she gasped. “I need the Doctor.” Donna didn’t understand the difference between ‘a’ doctor and ‘the’ Doctor, she just knew it was vitally important. “Please get the Doctor,” she begged before everything went black.
Wilf paced uneasily outside of the hospital room as he waited for the doctor to come out with news. She was a pretty young thing, the doctor was, with her dark eyes and cocoa colored skin. He’d seen her before, on the computer the night the Daleks had invaded. Both he and Sylvia knew there was only one person, one Doctor, who could help Donna now. And this Dr. Jones was not him.
He pulled his mobile out of his pocket, checking the screen for any missed calls. There were none. He’d repeatedly called the number burned into his memory, leaving message after message for the Doctor to no avail.
“She’s resting as comfortably as we can make her.” Wilf turned at the young woman’s voice. Her eyes were sad as they met his. She nodded at the phone in his hand. “Any luck reaching the Doctor?” she asked. He shook his head sadly. Martha squeezed his hand sympathetically. “We’re all trying,” she assured him. “We’ll find him.”
Sylvia held Donna’s hand tightly as her daughter slept motionlessly. She looked up as her father came into the room, then back at Donna’s face.
“They said they had to keep her sedated,” she said dully. She gestured at the wires that connected Donna to various machines. “The memories have resurfaced, although how they can tell, I don’t know.” Sylvia’s words were bitter. “I told you that Doctor was nothing but trouble.”
“Now, now, my darling,” Wilf patted his daughter on the shoulder. “She’ll be alright.” His words sounded forced, but he was determined to maintain Donna’s belief in the Doctor.
Donna floated weightlessly in her own mind. Strange images surrounded her: a fiery volcano, a man in a long brown coat, a library, a blue box. Over and over, she kept returning to the man. She’d never seen him before, yet he was incredibly familiar at the same time.
She knew she was dying. He’d told her that the memories would kill her, this man she’d never met. He’d taken them away to save her, but somehow, they were still there, still too much for her mind to handle.
The Doctor burst through the TARDIS doors, slamming them shut behind him. Gasping for air, he pressed his back against them as the loud thumping of someone trying to break in echoed through the room.
“Best be off,” he said, tossing his jacket on one of the coral struts as he launched himself at the console. The thumping grew louder. “Yeah, best of luck with that,” he said to the would-be invaders. The Doctor fiddled with several switches and threw a lever. The TARDIS groaned and shuddered as it dematerialized, tossing the Doctor about like a rag doll. He flipped several switches and spun a dial, smoothing the flight.
Circling the console, he made some adjustments, fine-tuning the coordinates. The room was quiet except for the hum that was always present in the TARDIS. Uncomfortable in the presence of only himself, the Doctor stuck his hands awkwardly in his pockets. It had been almost a year since he’d had to wipe Donna’s mind of all traces of himself. Hardly the blink of an eye to a Time Lord, but probably the longest he’d ever been on his own. He simply hadn’t had the hearts to replace her with a new companion.
A low beeping sound jarred him out of his thoughts and caused him to look around in confusion. Thinking that it was the console, he gave it a couple of whacks with the mallet. When the beeping didn’t stop, he began to search the control panel for the source of the sound. It didn’t take him long to find it - Martha’s mobile. As he picked it up, the phone beeped again. Not a normal ring, but a series of beeps.
“Missed a call apparently,” he said, flipping the mobile open. “What?” he said in astonishment as he looked at the missed call count. One thousand four hundred thirty six. “What?” he repeated. Even as he began to scroll through the calls, almost all of them from the same number, the phone rang. “What?”
“Doctor, where the hell have you been?” Jack’s voice reverberated through the earpiece. “It’s Donna; you need to come right away.”
The Doctor didn’t bother with subtlety when he arrived on Earth. He rarely did, but this time even less than usual. The TARDIS materialized in the hospital lobby, next to a large potted plant. Several heads turned and stared when the blue wooden box made its appearance, several more as the Doctor threw open the doors and ran out, his coat flapping behind him.
“Donna Noble,” he demanded, skidding to a halt at the information kiosk. “What room is she in?”
“Just a moment, sir,” the elderly volunteer told him. She turned back to the person she’d been helping, tracing a route on a map of the hospital. Running his hands through his hair in frustration, the Doctor searched the lobby for something, anything that would give him the information he needed. Finally, he lunged over the counter and flipped the computer screen so that it faced him.
“Excuse me, sir,” the volunteer protested, “you can’t do that.” The Doctor ignored her, typing furiously, calling up Donna’s information.
“Where is this?” he asked, pointing to the information on the screen. The woman squinted at the screen.
“That’s on the sixth floor,” she said. The Doctor sprinted toward the elevators. “But you need special clearance for that floor,” the volunteer called after him. Ignoring her, the Doctor jabbed at the call button impatiently, pulling out the sonic screwdriver when the elevator didn’t arrive fast enough.
Finally, the doors opened, revealing several shocked passengers who’d just seen their lives flash before their eyes when the lift had plummeted at an alarming speed. They stumbled out of the elevator as the Doctor dashed inside, running the sonic screwdriver over the control panel. The doors snapped shut and the lift lurched upward. He took a step backward to keep his balance, but the screwdriver never wavered from the panel as he overrode the security protocols.
At the sixth floor, the doors sprung open and he ran out, much to the surprise of the UNIT soldiers who were standing guard. He flashed the psychic paper at them as he ran down the corridor toward the nurses’ station. Dodging doctors and nurses, he burst into Donna’s room at top speed and slid to a halt at the side of her bed, his sneakers squeaking on the linoleum floor. She was alone in the room, pale and motionless, connected to machines by tubes and wires. He glanced briefly at them as they beeped and hissed, before turning his attention to his former companion.
“Oh, Donna,” he said sympathetically. Leaning down, he brushed a strand of auburn hair back from her forehead. He slid his hand over her hair, toying with the ends. She’d cut it since he’d last seen her. There were other, subtle changes; dark circles under her eyes, stress lines around her mouth. She’d lost some weight, most likely from stress. It was clear that things hadn’t been easy for her. He took her hand in his and gave it a gentle squeeze. “I’m sorry. I am so, so sorry.”
After a moment, he slipped on his glasses and ran the sonic screwdriver over her face, scanning her brain. His face crinkled in confusion as he studied the readings.
“But that’s impossible,” he said. Giving the screwdriver a shake, he changed the settlings and scanned Donna again.
“Can you save her?” The Doctor spun around at the sound of a voice behind him.
“Martha!” he said in delight, enveloping her in a hug. He felt a surge of relief that she was taking care of Donna.
“Jack said he managed to reach you,” she said as they separated. She gave a wry smile. “He programmed the computer to redial the phone until you actually answered it.” She moved to one of the machines, tapping the screen to pull up a readout. “Her brain activity is off the charts, even sedated. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“It’s the Time Lord consciousness reasserting itself,” he said. The Doctor scratched vigorously at the back of his head. “But that’s impossible.” He took off his glasses and tucked them inside his jacket. “Those memories were wiped. Gone.” He ran his fingers through his hair in frustration. “This shouldn’t be happening.” He turned back to Martha. “What caused this?”
“We don’t know,” she said. “All we know is that she collapsed walking into a library.” Martha looked at him with sad eyes. “She asked for you. Begged the man who was helping her to get THE Doctor.” She nodded at the door. “Her family’s in the waiting room. They may be able to give you more information.”
Flinging the door open, the Doctor sprinted down the hall to the waiting area.
“Doctor, I knew you’d come.” Wilf rose from a couch when the Doctor came into sight. He gestured at another where Sylvia slept. “She didn’t think you’d come, but I told her. ‘Sylvia,’ I said, ‘the Doctor won’t abandon her. He’ll be here, you just wait and see.’ And here you are.”
“What happened?” the Doctor demanded.
“She just collapsed,” Wilf said. “They said she just grabbed her head and fell to her knees.” His eyes filled with tears.
“Wilf, listen to me,” the Doctor grabbed the old man by the shoulders and looked intently into his eyes. “Her memories have resurfaced. I need to know exactly what happened to cause this. Did anything unusual happen?” Wilf raised a shaking hand to his forehead as he thought.
“She started getting these headaches, I guess a few months ago,” he said finally. “We were sitting on the couch, looking at pictures. She was humoring me, she was, letting me reminisce about her grandmother.” Wilf smiled. “Delightful woman, God bless her. Full of spunk,” he said.
“Yes, yes, yes,” the Doctor said, “I’m sure she was. Donna…?”
“I was telling her how her grandmother had a birth defect, not that she ever let it stop her.” He tapped his chest. “Two hearts. Oddest thing, really.”
The Doctor went still at Wilf’s words.
“Did you say ‘two hearts’?” he asked with careful deliberation. Wilf nodded.
“Anyway, when I mentioned it, Donna got a terrible headache. It went away almost immediately,” he said quickly, “so I didn’t think anything of it.”
“But she kept getting them, didn’t she?”
“Yeah, little things would set her off. Odd things, like a documentary about Pompeii. Sylvia reckoned that it was a brain tumor or something. She figured it was some sort of space cancer.”
“Oh, yes, very positive,” the Doctor muttered to himself. “Tell me, Wilf,” he said, louder. “What was your wife’s name?”
“Ah, she was a marvelous woman, my Susan was.” Wilf’s eyes grew misty as he remembered his wife. “She was killed during the war. Air raid, you know.”
“You’re kidding,” the Doctor said, his eyes growing wide in disbelief. Caught up in his memories, Wilf didn’t notice the Doctor’s reaction.
“She hated statues,” he said. “Used have awful nightmares about them. Weeping angels, she called them.”
“Of course,” the Doctor exclaimed loudly, startling Wilf as he spun around in a circle. “That’s why the memories weren’t completely wiped. It wasn’t the Time Lord consciousness in her brain that was killing her. It was the existence of TWO Time Lord consciousnesses.” He dashed back to Donna’s room, Wilf trailing after him.
“I need you to wake her,” he told Martha, who was checking Donna’s vital signs. She looked up at him, horrified.
“But that will kill her,” she protested. The Doctor grabbed her arms.
“No. I didn’t understand what was happening when I tried to wipe the memories.” He dashed over to the EEG machine and ran the sonic screwdriver over the screen. “See!” he said, pointing. “Right there! Of course!” He spun around, his mind racing. “When I took the memories, I didn’t realize that they’d already been encoded by a deeper, preexisting Time Lord consciousness.”
Martha looked alarmed. “Are you telling me that Donna is a Time Lord? Like the Master?” The Doctor shook his head.
“Donna is only part Time Lord. She inherited it from her grandmother. It’s so diluted by human DNA that it’s hardly detectable.”
“You’re saying that my Susan was an alien, like you?” The Doctor and Martha spun around to look at Wilf who was standing in the doorway.
“Susan was my granddaughter,” the Doctor said, much to Martha and Wilf’s shock. “Well, not really,” he clarified. “We weren’t actually related. She was like family. She even called me Grandfather, but I was really just a friend of her family.” He looked at their confused faces. “Long story,” he said finally. He began to pace the small room.
“She must have been sent back in time by the Weeping Angels, creatures that live off potential energy,” he explained. “The air raid must have happened so fast that she was unable to regenerate.”
“The Weeping Angels?” Martha interjected. “Those creepy statue things that sent us back to 1969?” She shuddered. “They were horrible. Moon landing was brilliant though.”
“I should’ve seen it,” the Doctor said, mostly to himself. “It wasn’t just Dalek Caan drawing the timelines to her. It was her own Time Lord abilities.”
“Doctor, what does that mean?” Martha asked. Glee filled the Doctor’s face as he turned to her.
“Donna Noble has been saved.” He grinned in delight. “Right, Martha, I need you to discontinue the sedation. I need to have access to her conscious mind for this to work.”
“Doctor, are you sure?” Martha asked, her hands still on the IV. The Doctor grinned and winked at her.
“Oh, yes!”
As Martha disconnected the IV from Donna’s arm, he shucked off his duster and tossed it over a chair in the corner of the room. As he settled one side of Donna’s bed, Wilf stood on the other, clutching his granddaughter’s hand in his own. Martha scurried from the room and returned a few minutes later with a syringe filled with a clear liquid.
“This will neutralize the sedative,” she said as she injected the medication. They waited in silence for her to regain consciousness. The Doctor smiled as Donna began to wake, her eyes fluttering open.
“Hey, Spaceman,” she said, groggily. He helped her as she struggled to sit up.
“Hey, Earth girl.”
“My head’s killing me,” she complained, lifting a shaky hand to her temple.
“I know, I know,” he said sympathetically. “It’s my Time Lord consciousness at war with your own.”
“I hate it when you talk rubbish,” she grumbled. The Doctor grinned at her.
“I know you do.” He leaned forward. “Donna, I have to remove my consciousness from your mind.”
“Yeah, ‘cause that worked so well last time,” she said, scrunching her face in annoyance. She looked into the Doctor’s eyes. “I don’t want to be that person again. I was better with you,” she told him, unknowingly echoing Wilf’s words.
“See, I told you,” Wilf said, earning a quick smile from the Doctor before he returned his attention to her.
“This will be different,” his said. “But you’re not going to like it.”
“Because I liked the memory wipe so much better,” she asked sarcastically, sounding almost like her old self. The Doctor looked chagrined.
“When you touched my hand, it enabled the Human - Time Lord metacrisis, so I tried to remove everything Time Lord in your mind,” he explained. “The problem was that I tried to remove your Time Lord aspects as well, instead of only mine.”
Pulling her hand from Wilf’s, Donna clutched her head in pain. “Doctor!” she gasped. “Get to the point.”
“The point is,” the Doctor said quickly, “you’re not going to like the method I have to use to remove only my consciousness.”
The pain in Donna’s head was growing more intense. “Just get on with it,” she ordered.
She supposed she should’ve seen it coming. If it was in his head, it was in hers. However, she was in entirely too much pain to try and figure what he was about to do. So she was caught completely off guard when he leaned in and covered her lips with his. Her whole body stiffened with surprise, slowly relaxing as the pain in her head slowly drained away. After a moment, the Doctor pulled away and exhaled. Wilf watched in amazement as golden glowing light floated into the air.
“Detox,” he said jovially, grinning at the older man. The Doctor was so busy feeling pleased with himself that he didn’t see Donna’s hand until it was too late. “OW!” he yelped as she made contact with his shoulder. Rubbing it, he couldn’t help but be thankful she hadn’t slapped him in the face.
“You better watch it, Spaceman!” she ordered, her voice strong. “We’ll be having none of that nonsense.”
The Doctor grinned in delight. Once again, the universe had given him a joyous, priceless day.
The Doctor circled the TARDIS console, making minute adjustments to various instruments. He looked up as the doors swung open and Donna strode in. She was dressed in the dark suit she’d been wearing when he’d met her again at Adipose Industries.
“Everything all right?” he asked. Donna nodded, crossing the room until she was directly across from him, the console between them.
“Martha released me from medical care, Torchwood picked up the bill and Mum is decidedly unhappy about discovering she’s half alien.” The Doctor smirked.
“So, happy endings all round then,” he said, tongue in cheek. Donna smiled.
“It’s true then?” she asked. “I’m part Time Lord? Like you?”
“Well, not quite like me,” he said. “You have some Time Lord DNA, enough that with my consciousness removed, your brain was able to acclimate to any leftover information from the metacrisis.” Darting toward her, he scanned her with the sonic screwdriver. Donna slapped his hand away.
“Stop bleeping me!” she ordered, more teasing than angry. “Speak English!”
“You’re brain won’t implode,” he said simply. “How’s that?”
Donna nodded. “Much better.” She walked to the console and ran her fingers along the edge. “Although, it was nice being brilliant for a change.”
“Donna, you were always brilliant,” the Doctor said with heartfelt emotion. “Being the DoctorDonna only made you a different kind of brilliant.”
“Yeah, right,” she said, rolling her eyes in disbelief. “I’m brilliant.” She became very focused on the console so that he couldn’t see the tears welling up in her eyes.
“Of course you are,” he insisted, grabbing her by the arms. “I only travel with the best. And you, Donna Noble, are the best.”
Normally, she would’ve said something pithy and sarcastic, but the sincerity in his eyes stopped her.
“Thank you,” she said earnestly. The Doctor grinned at her, that manic smile he saved for moments of pure happiness, and pulled her into a tight hug.
“Oh, I’ve missed you,” he said gruffly. Donna hugged him back, his arms familiar and reassuring.
“Right, so, give us a lift home?” she asked after a moment, pulling away. She gestured at the TARDIS control room. “Granddad would just love to see all this.”
Disappointed, the Doctor shoved his hands into his pockets.
“Of course,” he agreed. “It’s the least I could do.”
“Then, I’ll just need a few minutes to pack a few things and we can be off,” she continued. The Doctor’s head whipped around to stare at her, his face a mask of joy. “What?” she asked, her voice teasing. “You still owe me a trip to the lightning skies of Cotter Palluni's World. You didn’t think you’d get out of it that so easily, did you?”
“Of course not,” the Doctor replied with a grin. “I wouldn’t dream of it.” Across the room, Donna returned his smile.
“Onward, then?” he asked. Donna nodded.
“Onward.”