Request for Britpicking
One of the things that I have on my to do list this weekend is polish up Operation Awesome and get it on Teaspoon.
Except that when you're so unsure of the ending that you have votes taken on it, maybe it's not through being written yet. This morning, in a burst of very belated inspiration, I finally got the finale I want, and I'd like to get it Britpicked, please, before it goes to Teaspoon.
For those who need a refresher: when last we left our heroes, Donna had established herself a mighty fine life on Earth with just a little help from friends she didn't grasp she had. But all things end. This is what happened after her side of the story is finished.
An Epilogue in three parts: What Happened. And What Happened After That
EPILOGUE 1: 35 Years Later
Humans can live happily, but they can't live ever after.
Donna leaned against the window of the bus, looking not out at the scenery, but back on endings. Gramps had gone long ago. One of the last things he'd told her was that his greatest joy was seeing her so happy. Donna and Peter had funded an entire astronomy station in his name.
Mum had gone her own glum way too, eventually. Donna always wondered if it was wrong that she missed her grandfather more than her own mother. Sylvia had always been more of a horrible warning than a shining example.
Donna had tried to heed that warning, and had been as loving and supportive to Dakota as she could be. Little Dakota, long since grown up and moved away and working on her own family. Gramps had lived just long enough to see her pregnant for the first time, and he'd been fit to burst. "You tell that baby," he'd ordered cryptically. "You tell that baby all the stories I told you. Promise me!"
Dakota had laughed and promised. The first one was a girl, and they named her Donna. They hadn't named her after Dakota's real mother, but after her. Oh, it made her so proud! The next, a boy, always complained about being named Wilf instead of Peter, like his younger brother.
Peter… two years gone now, and she still missed him. For so long, when she was young, she had felt all alone, but until now she had never truly been on her own.
A flash of light caught the corner of her eye. That lorry was going far too fast! It wasn't going to stop in ti-
People were screaming. People were moaning. She was lying on the ground, trying to work out which one she was doing when two heads blotted out the sun. Jack? That couldn't be Jack, no, not her beautiful Jack, impossible, she hadn't seen him in years, and he didn't look a day older. And some skinny boy in a suit, holding a hypodermic.
"…sure this is going to work?" couldn't-be-Jack asked.
"Regenerations are triggered by the lindos hormone," the boy was babbling. "The metacrisis may have given her the rest of what she needs to regenerate if we can get enough lindos into her system. If we're wrong, it won't make a difference anyway." For a moment he looked into her eyes, and he looked so sorrowful that Donna would have raised a hand to him, but her arms weren't moving. "Your spine is broken," he said sadly. "I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry. But this might help." Over Donna's incoherent noises, he pushed the old-fashioned needle in just at the base of her neck.
For a long moment they all just stared at each other. Jack was patting her hand; she could see it but not feel it and that terrified her.
Then electricity arced across that hand and Jack flinched and dropped it and the boy got up and backed away, and it hurt, it hurt worse than the accident, it seemed like current was crawling across her skin and she was on fire from the inside out and she could feel it now, she could feel every fingernail and toenail ignite, and, and…
In the very last moment, she remembered everything.
EPILOGUE 2: Cardiff , 3005
Inside the TARDIS, a ginger-haired man in a denim jacket watched a young woman lowering the Chameleon Arch carefully over her dark, elaborately styled hair.
"Donna, are you sure?"
"It's been fun, Doctor, it has. Being Doctor-Donna again, I can't tell you what that's meant to me. But in the end, I'm only human. I had a wonderful life as a human. I'm ready to go back now."
"You're sure this will work?"
"I programmed it myself, of course it will work! Think I trust your Time Lord butterfingers near my brain again? I'm going to remember everything - my first life, my life here, everything - but I’m going to be human again."
He made a scoffing noise.
"Oi! Don't knock my species or I'll knock you!"
"Donna, what will I do without you?"
"Go and find Jack for a pity shag and a trip 'round Neptune." At his bereft expression, she softened. "Find someone new. You need that, Doctor. Not just a companion, but a new companion. Fresh point of view. Keeps you from going stagnant in here." She winked. "Besides, I'm about to keep Jack very busy."
"But so far in your future?"
"He's immortal. He'll be there. Left a message for him, didn't we?" Again, she became soothing at the look on his face. "I don't want to be too close to my own time. I died there. I don't want the temptation to find old friends, go to all the old familiar places. Jack 'n' me, we'll be fine. Keeping your knowledge, aren't I? We'll be fantastic." She'd been trying to keep a light tone, but suddenly the facade dropped. "Promise me," she insisted. "Give me your word you'll do what I asked."
"I..."
"I can't do it! You have to! PROMISE!"
He took a deep breath. "I give you my word. I promise. I'll do it." Another deep breath. "I hate goodbyes."
"Then don't say it." A half smile. "You'll know where I am if you need me to save the day again."
She threw the switch.
EPILOGUE 3: Here, There, and Everywhere
When the ginger-haired stranger stepped out of the police box, Wilf almost clubbed him with the telescope for stealing the Doctor's TARDIS. It took a lot of talking before he understood that this stranger with the new face and the new voice was still the old Doctor.
"Still saying thank you to me every night?" the new Doctor asked, as Wilf puttered about, packing up his little observatory.
"Yeah. She's happier now, but... it still doesn't seem right that she doesn't know what she did. Can you cure her? When she comes back from America?"
"She's gone to America?"
"Her very first trip! She's so excited. Promised to bring me back a real cowboy hat."
The new Doctor smiled. "She will, too." He held out his hand. "I made a promise to Donna, once. I promised to take you on a trip and show you something wonderful."
Wilf looked at the hand, and the temptingly open TARDIS door, and the telescope he was holding. "Do I... do I get to remember?"
"Yes." Wilf looked back up, and now the Doctor was staring intently at him. "It's important you remember."
Oh, there were such sights! Supernovas, meteor showers, the birth of planets! It was completely anticlimactic that the Doctor ended his short tour with a stopoff at Cardiff. Even when the Doctor said it was Cardiff in the far future. (Wilf had looked up, but no hovercars. What sort of a rubbish future still didn't have hovercars and jet packs?)
The TARDIS landed beside a huge building the Doctor said had once been the Millennium Centre, "although they tore it down for being a millennium too old at this point."
The Doctor took Wilf to a little park a shortish walk from their landing point. At the other end of the park, Wilf could have sworn he saw Jack Harkness, still in his flapping greatcoat, leading a dark-haired woman away by the hand. He would have said it was impossible, but with the Doctor, nothing seemed impossible. But when Wilf went to call to them, the Doctor shook his head. "We have to go and pick up something."
Another turn in the path, and the couple was out of sight. Instead, there was a family climbing around a rock.
"There's a broken watch here," a little boy said, reaching for it.
"That's mine." The Doctor held out his hand. As the boy went to pick it up, the cracked casing fell apart, spraying springs and things all over. Wilf and the boy helped the Doctor pick it up while the other children watched. Wilf wondered but didn't dare ask, so he was glad when one of the children did.
"Why did you break a watch?" The littlest girl had to pull her thumb out of her mouth to ask. Some things obviously would never change, future or not!
"A friend of mine broke it," the Doctor said absently, pouring the pieces into his pocket.
"Did you fight?"
"Linda!" the mother gasped, and that "don't cross the line" parental tone hadn't changed over the years either. "I'm so sorry. We're just here for a few days, visiting, and the weather was so nice I thought we'd take time out to enjoy it."
The Doctor smiled at the woman, but talked to the little girl. "It was hers to break," he said. "She said some times were over and should never come again." He looked at all the children staring at him and sighed. "I'm the one who's sorry," he told their mother, "We didn't mean to intrude."
"It's storytime," the littlest one said. "Would you like to hear a story?"
"Linda, the nice men don't..."
"I would." The Doctor plopped down on the rock and looked with such interest at the mother that she looked at Wilf and shrugged. He shrugged back and shoved the Doctor over.
The woman turned back to her brood. "What story do you want to hear?"
They chanted in unison, "Great-Great-Grandma! Great-Great-Grandma!"
The woman blushed a bit, peeping back at them. "We've got a family story. Complete rubbish of course, but it's been passed down for generations, because everybody likes to think that they're part of a family that saved the world."
Wilf couldn't resist himself. "My granddaughter did." The Doctor elbowed him, hard.
"So did my great-great-great-great-great grandma," said the little girl, counting off the greats on her fingers.
The woman blushed harder and started. Later, Wilf would wonder what shocked him more - the next thing she said, or feeling the Doctor stiffen beside him.
"Your great-great-great-great grandmother was named Donna. And do you know what Donna did?"
Three voices chorused, "SHE SAVED THE WORLD!"
"That's right! Once upon a time, there were evil, evil monsters named Daleks..."
The two men sat, stunned, after the little family left. Wilf didn't dare look at the strange Doctor beside him. Finally he offered, "I don't remember the bit with the dragons from Mars."
The Doctor snorted then and snapped back into life. "Apparently you are going to have a few things to say to Donna's daughter."
"Donna doesn't..." Wilf shut up. "Is this... is this like Dickens? Is it the future that's going to be or just the future that might be?"
The Doctor slid off the rock and held out his hand. "Going to be."
"Then it's going to be all right."
The Doctor smiled. "Yes. Yes it is."
Every night for the rest of his life, Wilf went out to his hill with his telescope. Sometimes he looked at the stars. Sometimes he told his new great-granddaughter stories and swore her to silence.
And sometimes he just sat looking up, thinking about a man who could change his whole body and a granddaughter who was part of that man and the elusive something about a dark-haired woman in the distance, walking out of a park.
On those nights he couldn't see the stars at all, for the proud, hopeful tears in his eyes.
Except that when you're so unsure of the ending that you have votes taken on it, maybe it's not through being written yet. This morning, in a burst of very belated inspiration, I finally got the finale I want, and I'd like to get it Britpicked, please, before it goes to Teaspoon.
For those who need a refresher: when last we left our heroes, Donna had established herself a mighty fine life on Earth with just a little help from friends she didn't grasp she had. But all things end. This is what happened after her side of the story is finished.
An Epilogue in three parts: What Happened. And What Happened After That
EPILOGUE 1: 35 Years Later
Humans can live happily, but they can't live ever after.
Donna leaned against the window of the bus, looking not out at the scenery, but back on endings. Gramps had gone long ago. One of the last things he'd told her was that his greatest joy was seeing her so happy. Donna and Peter had funded an entire astronomy station in his name.
Mum had gone her own glum way too, eventually. Donna always wondered if it was wrong that she missed her grandfather more than her own mother. Sylvia had always been more of a horrible warning than a shining example.
Donna had tried to heed that warning, and had been as loving and supportive to Dakota as she could be. Little Dakota, long since grown up and moved away and working on her own family. Gramps had lived just long enough to see her pregnant for the first time, and he'd been fit to burst. "You tell that baby," he'd ordered cryptically. "You tell that baby all the stories I told you. Promise me!"
Dakota had laughed and promised. The first one was a girl, and they named her Donna. They hadn't named her after Dakota's real mother, but after her. Oh, it made her so proud! The next, a boy, always complained about being named Wilf instead of Peter, like his younger brother.
Peter… two years gone now, and she still missed him. For so long, when she was young, she had felt all alone, but until now she had never truly been on her own.
A flash of light caught the corner of her eye. That lorry was going far too fast! It wasn't going to stop in ti-
People were screaming. People were moaning. She was lying on the ground, trying to work out which one she was doing when two heads blotted out the sun. Jack? That couldn't be Jack, no, not her beautiful Jack, impossible, she hadn't seen him in years, and he didn't look a day older. And some skinny boy in a suit, holding a hypodermic.
"…sure this is going to work?" couldn't-be-Jack asked.
"Regenerations are triggered by the lindos hormone," the boy was babbling. "The metacrisis may have given her the rest of what she needs to regenerate if we can get enough lindos into her system. If we're wrong, it won't make a difference anyway." For a moment he looked into her eyes, and he looked so sorrowful that Donna would have raised a hand to him, but her arms weren't moving. "Your spine is broken," he said sadly. "I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry. But this might help." Over Donna's incoherent noises, he pushed the old-fashioned needle in just at the base of her neck.
For a long moment they all just stared at each other. Jack was patting her hand; she could see it but not feel it and that terrified her.
Then electricity arced across that hand and Jack flinched and dropped it and the boy got up and backed away, and it hurt, it hurt worse than the accident, it seemed like current was crawling across her skin and she was on fire from the inside out and she could feel it now, she could feel every fingernail and toenail ignite, and, and…
In the very last moment, she remembered everything.
EPILOGUE 2: Cardiff , 3005
Inside the TARDIS, a ginger-haired man in a denim jacket watched a young woman lowering the Chameleon Arch carefully over her dark, elaborately styled hair.
"Donna, are you sure?"
"It's been fun, Doctor, it has. Being Doctor-Donna again, I can't tell you what that's meant to me. But in the end, I'm only human. I had a wonderful life as a human. I'm ready to go back now."
"You're sure this will work?"
"I programmed it myself, of course it will work! Think I trust your Time Lord butterfingers near my brain again? I'm going to remember everything - my first life, my life here, everything - but I’m going to be human again."
He made a scoffing noise.
"Oi! Don't knock my species or I'll knock you!"
"Donna, what will I do without you?"
"Go and find Jack for a pity shag and a trip 'round Neptune." At his bereft expression, she softened. "Find someone new. You need that, Doctor. Not just a companion, but a new companion. Fresh point of view. Keeps you from going stagnant in here." She winked. "Besides, I'm about to keep Jack very busy."
"But so far in your future?"
"He's immortal. He'll be there. Left a message for him, didn't we?" Again, she became soothing at the look on his face. "I don't want to be too close to my own time. I died there. I don't want the temptation to find old friends, go to all the old familiar places. Jack 'n' me, we'll be fine. Keeping your knowledge, aren't I? We'll be fantastic." She'd been trying to keep a light tone, but suddenly the facade dropped. "Promise me," she insisted. "Give me your word you'll do what I asked."
"I..."
"I can't do it! You have to! PROMISE!"
He took a deep breath. "I give you my word. I promise. I'll do it." Another deep breath. "I hate goodbyes."
"Then don't say it." A half smile. "You'll know where I am if you need me to save the day again."
She threw the switch.
EPILOGUE 3: Here, There, and Everywhere
When the ginger-haired stranger stepped out of the police box, Wilf almost clubbed him with the telescope for stealing the Doctor's TARDIS. It took a lot of talking before he understood that this stranger with the new face and the new voice was still the old Doctor.
"Still saying thank you to me every night?" the new Doctor asked, as Wilf puttered about, packing up his little observatory.
"Yeah. She's happier now, but... it still doesn't seem right that she doesn't know what she did. Can you cure her? When she comes back from America?"
"She's gone to America?"
"Her very first trip! She's so excited. Promised to bring me back a real cowboy hat."
The new Doctor smiled. "She will, too." He held out his hand. "I made a promise to Donna, once. I promised to take you on a trip and show you something wonderful."
Wilf looked at the hand, and the temptingly open TARDIS door, and the telescope he was holding. "Do I... do I get to remember?"
"Yes." Wilf looked back up, and now the Doctor was staring intently at him. "It's important you remember."
Oh, there were such sights! Supernovas, meteor showers, the birth of planets! It was completely anticlimactic that the Doctor ended his short tour with a stopoff at Cardiff. Even when the Doctor said it was Cardiff in the far future. (Wilf had looked up, but no hovercars. What sort of a rubbish future still didn't have hovercars and jet packs?)
The TARDIS landed beside a huge building the Doctor said had once been the Millennium Centre, "although they tore it down for being a millennium too old at this point."
The Doctor took Wilf to a little park a shortish walk from their landing point. At the other end of the park, Wilf could have sworn he saw Jack Harkness, still in his flapping greatcoat, leading a dark-haired woman away by the hand. He would have said it was impossible, but with the Doctor, nothing seemed impossible. But when Wilf went to call to them, the Doctor shook his head. "We have to go and pick up something."
Another turn in the path, and the couple was out of sight. Instead, there was a family climbing around a rock.
"There's a broken watch here," a little boy said, reaching for it.
"That's mine." The Doctor held out his hand. As the boy went to pick it up, the cracked casing fell apart, spraying springs and things all over. Wilf and the boy helped the Doctor pick it up while the other children watched. Wilf wondered but didn't dare ask, so he was glad when one of the children did.
"Why did you break a watch?" The littlest girl had to pull her thumb out of her mouth to ask. Some things obviously would never change, future or not!
"A friend of mine broke it," the Doctor said absently, pouring the pieces into his pocket.
"Did you fight?"
"Linda!" the mother gasped, and that "don't cross the line" parental tone hadn't changed over the years either. "I'm so sorry. We're just here for a few days, visiting, and the weather was so nice I thought we'd take time out to enjoy it."
The Doctor smiled at the woman, but talked to the little girl. "It was hers to break," he said. "She said some times were over and should never come again." He looked at all the children staring at him and sighed. "I'm the one who's sorry," he told their mother, "We didn't mean to intrude."
"It's storytime," the littlest one said. "Would you like to hear a story?"
"Linda, the nice men don't..."
"I would." The Doctor plopped down on the rock and looked with such interest at the mother that she looked at Wilf and shrugged. He shrugged back and shoved the Doctor over.
The woman turned back to her brood. "What story do you want to hear?"
They chanted in unison, "Great-Great-Grandma! Great-Great-Grandma!"
The woman blushed a bit, peeping back at them. "We've got a family story. Complete rubbish of course, but it's been passed down for generations, because everybody likes to think that they're part of a family that saved the world."
Wilf couldn't resist himself. "My granddaughter did." The Doctor elbowed him, hard.
"So did my great-great-great-great-great grandma," said the little girl, counting off the greats on her fingers.
The woman blushed harder and started. Later, Wilf would wonder what shocked him more - the next thing she said, or feeling the Doctor stiffen beside him.
"Your great-great-great-great grandmother was named Donna. And do you know what Donna did?"
Three voices chorused, "SHE SAVED THE WORLD!"
"That's right! Once upon a time, there were evil, evil monsters named Daleks..."
The two men sat, stunned, after the little family left. Wilf didn't dare look at the strange Doctor beside him. Finally he offered, "I don't remember the bit with the dragons from Mars."
The Doctor snorted then and snapped back into life. "Apparently you are going to have a few things to say to Donna's daughter."
"Donna doesn't..." Wilf shut up. "Is this... is this like Dickens? Is it the future that's going to be or just the future that might be?"
The Doctor slid off the rock and held out his hand. "Going to be."
"Then it's going to be all right."
The Doctor smiled. "Yes. Yes it is."
Every night for the rest of his life, Wilf went out to his hill with his telescope. Sometimes he looked at the stars. Sometimes he told his new great-granddaughter stories and swore her to silence.
And sometimes he just sat looking up, thinking about a man who could change his whole body and a granddaughter who was part of that man and the elusive something about a dark-haired woman in the distance, walking out of a park.
On those nights he couldn't see the stars at all, for the proud, hopeful tears in his eyes.