Doors We Never Opened: Chapter 7

[the_magpye]

Title: Doors We Never Opened
Author: the_magpye
Rating: All ages
A/N: This started out as a oneshot, grew into a large oneshot, and then a slightly massive oneshot. So, it became chapters. Probably four or five, but that's a rough estimate. I have to send out apologies to momdaegmorgan for this being so late - belated Christmas wishes from me, Mrs Jenny! *hugs* But I hope you enjoy it, and fills the time before you start writing again - you know I have every confidence in you! ^.~ Thanks to rachelbeann for the advice! Feedback is much appreciated and earns hugs, especially since I've been impatient and not had this beta'd. ^^
Summary: Life went on, and on, and on, and Donna didn't notice its passing - mainly because she didn't have a job - a fact which her mum kindly reiterated to her in every other sentence she spoke, whether it be blatant or veiled with a dash of sarcasm. But when an opportunity comes along, she doesn't hesitate to grab it with both hands. Who knows where it could lead her...

Just to make it clear; THIS IS POST!S4, IN THE DOCTOR'S UNIVERSE.

Sorry for the delay - I did promise the chapter yesterday, but couldn't seem to get in the groove of things until tonight. I think this is my favourite chapter so far, as this is the one I've been working towards. Yes, it is overly confusing, and by the end you could possibly be slightly angry at me, but all will be explained! Promise. ^.~



'Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened into the rose-garden.' - T.S Eliot

&& PREVIOUS &&

'What we remember [...] we remember forever - permanent ghosts, stamped, inked, imprinted, eternally seen." - Cynthia Ozick

Donna couldn't see.

She was surrounded by a starless void; the darkness was total and unbroken, and she could almost feel her pupils striving for even the tiniest speck of light. But the effort was pointless. There was nothing - nothing she could see, smell, feel, hear, touch... her senses were totally obsolete, and god, she was scared.

Not that she would admit it any time soon, even in a dream.

So she shut her eyes, clenched her fists, and wished.

"Oof!"

Well. That was painful. From what she could tell with her eyes closed, she was flat on her back on the floor, arms and legs thrown out to the side and an uncomfortable ridged surface digging into the skin of her back.

At least it was better than nothing.

"You all right?"

It took a moment for the voice to filter through, but when it did, Donna scrambled to her feet. The sudden light burned her retinas and forced tears to pool in her open eyes, cascading down her cheeks in quiet rivers. She ignored them in favour of gaping at the woman in front of her, sat in a battered old chair to the side of what looked to be some sort of... round thing.

'Console...' The unbidden thought caught her off guard, and she shook her head minutely, trying to get her brain in order.

"Donna?"

She focused on the blonde - now standing, and much closer than she was before. A few silent moments passed, during which they had a minor staring contest, measuring each other up like wild animals, wary and careful.

It was during this time that Donna decided that these dreams were bloody annoying.

The thought was like a switch being thrown, and out poured all her thoughts, all her confusion and frustration until Donna could almost touch the feelings in the air, hanging in front of her, gold and insubstantial.

"Really, Rose, what is it with you appearing in my dreams recently? Y'know, I'd much prefer it if Lee were the starring figure, but no! You have to creep in and talk to me and say weird, unnerving things so I end up asking questions and worrying until I can't worry any more and eventually just stop asking. I'm fed up of not being curious! I'm not a robot, and I want some answers. Now!"

Her shoulders were heaving, hands shaking by her sides, and Donna watched her boss carefully, fierce and unrepentant. She didn't know where that outburst had sprung from, but she was so, so tired of all of the cryptic remarks, funny looks and whispers in the night.

This was a dream, and so it didn't matter what she said because, of course, it wasn't real.

Rose raised an eyebrow.

"Done?"

Her shoulders sagged, exhale loud against the background hum.

"Yep. But I'm sure I'll think of something else to say later, seeing as I've got as much time as I want to rant at you and whoever else turns up in this stupid dream."

The other eyebrow followed. Rose looked surprised, but her expression quickly reconciled itself into something more amused.

"Donna, this isn't a dream."

Blink.

"Eh? 'Course it is, how else am I here in... well, wherever we are." She waved a hand absently, encompassing the circular room and its odd, coral-like struts.

'TARDIS', the voice whispered.

Rose sighed, one hand coming up to rub her eyes.

"Ah, how to explain. All right - let's go for the direct approach."

The words were muttered quietly, more to herself than anyone else. The small action reminded Donna why she sometimes questioned the sanity of her boss. It was a very realistic dream, though, if Rose's general insanity had transferred from waking life to sleeping wonder. It'd taken on the smallest of details - the way she bit her lip when thinking about a problem, how she tapped her foot when she wasn't really concentrating. She must be more observant in the waking world than she thought, to remember these little things.

"Sorry Donna, but right now, on Earth, you've disappeared from your bed at home, and you're here, with me. Hopefully your mum and granddad won't wake up and find out, but..."

She smiled, but at the same time had the grace to look a little remorseful.

"If they do, it'll be worth it in the long run. Promise."

The first thought that came to mind was 'Oh my god, Rose has actually lost her marbles', closely followed by 'Bloody hell!'.
On second thought, though, she didn't know why she was worrying. This was all a creation of her sleeping mind, a story, a reflection of her unconscious desires...

... wasn't it?

Either that or she'd read one too many of her mum's psychology books, left over from her 'hippy phase' during the nineties. She always had been slow in keeping up with trends.

Rose was watching her face closely, but her attention was diverted by a sudden beeping, coming from the circular console in the centre of the room.

"About time it was ready!" she proclaimed, striding across the grating and grabbing an intricate piece of machinery, gently pulling away the wires that connected it to the... tube thingy.

'Time rotor.' The answer was helpfully provided. Donna told the voice to shove off.

"What is that?"

Rose grinned. "This, Donna Noble, is the explanation you were wanting."

"... go on..."

"Because you weren't always Donna the temp worker, Donna my PA, or even Donna Lee's girlfriend. You - you were a time traveller. You were the most important woman in all of creation. You saved the world."

Her smile got even wider, and those brown eyes lit up, bathed in the turquoise light of the rotor.

"You journeyed across the stars with the most brilliant man in the entire universe. You were his best mate. And you should see how much he's missed you." Tears began to glimmer, but Rose carried on speaking, filling the silence with words that somehow meant nothing and everything at the same time.

"Donna, you stopped him from thinking about his past, made him look to the future, laughed with him, cried with him, saved his life more times than even I can count..." she trailed off with a breathless laugh.

"You gave everything I would've wanted for him. But because you were so brilliant, because you stepped in and saved all of us from the apocalypse, he lost you. He lost you to your own sacrifice, and if I'd known when he left with you on that beach..." A shuddering breath.

"Urgh, I would've slapped him silly. Self-sacrificing, idiotic, wonderful man. Doesn't know what's best for him... never has done." For a moment, she looked vulnerable - small and pained, and oh so lonely.

"Probably never will. But that's why I love him, I 'spose." She brightened, dashing the tears away with the back of her hand.
"That doesn't matter at the moment. What matters is you, Donna Noble!"

It was at this point that Rose noticed that Donna was looking at her as if she'd just escaped from a mental asylum. The pause was a chance to speak, and the redhead grabbed it with both hands. And her teeth.

"You. Are. Bonkers! God, I must've put too much cheese in the soup. I should write this down when I wake up, write a novel or somethin'. I'd make a bucket-load if it got published. Hmm..."

The woman in question sighed and dropped her head, exasperated. She kept on turning the dome-like device over and over in her hands, restless and fidgety. The button on top gleamed, the colour the same as the glow of the rotor.

"You always were a stubborn one, Donna. I can see why he picked you as a friend. I guess the only way to prove this is to show you, right? Well, here goes nothing!"

She hit the button without warning, and the room turned gold before the blackness returned. Donna didn't even have time to scream.

&&&

There was a bride, in a dress, standing in the space she'd just left. And a man, with wild brown hair and wilder eyes, and the trace of tears on his cheeks.

"Tell me where I am. I demand you tell me right now - where am I?!"

He looked so bewildered it was comical.

Then there was a spider-woman, beneath the Thames, a treacherous fiance and fire and rage and water and:

"You can stop now!"

Anguish, and he disappeared from her life as if he were never there, though the mark of his presence stayed, a burning brand on her mind.

A time of nothingness, stagnant and unmoving. But after a while she realised her mistake, started searching for anything and everything alien, and eventually, in the place she least expected...

"Oh my God! I don't believe it! You've even got the same suit! ...Don't you ever change?

"Yeah, thanks Donna. Not right now."

Cue the running.

And the running continued, on and on, to the past and future and the present, too.
She remembered his words, in a cold street on the night that sealed her fate.

"I just want a mate."

"You're not matin' with me, sunshine!"

That was that, and off they went.

To Pompeii, a decision of the few over the many and a glimpse of his true nature, forged in fire and shaped by choices that should never, ever have to be made.

The Ood Sphere, the planet of slavery and salvation, the planet where she helped to make a difference in the grand scheme of the universe. Where Donna Noble was actually worth something.

Back home to Earth - the new clashing with the old while the world choked and the sky burned. It had been the right choice to go with him.

Messaline, an out of control TARDIS and a daughter called Jenny. Their fight against a pointless war, the ultimate sacrifice.

Britain, 1926: a murder, a mystery and Agatha Christie.

The Library with its living shadows, and a woman who knew too much for her own good. And Lee.

Midnight, a tale of human nature at its worst, and the time he cried.

Shan-Shen; fortune readings, distant memories and a warning sent across universes.

And Earth. Finally, Earth. A stolen Earth, the Daleks, Davros, the DoctorDonna...

The journey ended in the TARDIS, with his hands on her face, tears in her eyes and she was crying, oh, she was crying because she knew what he was going to do and didn't want it, hated it with every single fibre of her being, because that meant he would be alone and she would forget. She would forget everything, and go back to drifting, back to her aimless, pointless existence.

She wouldn't be Donna any more.

But now, she is Donna, because she is here and she is working for Rose and building a relationship with Lee, and...

And suddenly, the dreams make perfect sense. Because she remembers.

The scenery changes. The past adventures disappear, fading out and back into the familiar backdrop of the original dream.

She's in the TARDIS. He's in front of her, reaching for her temples.

It is the same as the times before, the times when she's woken up with a throbbing headache and confusion to match. But while it's the same, it's different too.

She knows where the memory comes from now.

She can move. She can see his face clearly, the features of the man who changed from a Martian who wrecked her wedding to her best friend faster than her little human heart could comprehend.
He is looking at her with such sorrow, such pain, and it isn't right. He's had enough of that in his lifetime, and if she lets it carry on, then she is in no place to call herself Donna Noble, let alone his friend.

So she reaches out and wipes away the tears, whispering that one magic word, the word that eluded her for so long, dancing tantalisingly out of reach of her grasping thoughts.

"Doctor."

He has only a few seconds to look surprised, before reality cracks and the darkness returns.

&&&

Donna found herself back in the TARDIS, staring at the impossible woman stood in front of her with new eyes.

"Oh..."

Rose quirked a grin, keeping her gaze on her as she set down the softly whirring device on the seat, the button now glowing a vibrant gold.

Donna said the only thing that came to mind at that particular moment. And it wasn't the obvious question, either.

"That stupid, STUPID man!!"

Her comment was enough to send Rose into snorting laughter, and it was too infectious to ignore. She crossed the room and pulled the woman into a hug, and they laughed together until they started to cry.

Eventually, though, they pulled themselves together, and Donna asked what she probably should've asked straight away. But since when had she ever followed the norm?

"All I have to say is: How the hell did you manage that? Oh, and what happened? Because from what I can remember, I should be dead right now. Y'know, Time Lord memories an' everythin'...oh. Hang on..."

She squinted, thinking hard.

"Wait. They're- They're gone! All the technical babble and Estuary accent and... and Time Lord-y stuff, I can't remember it! I've just got... the human memories. My memories of what happened. I know what we did, how we stopped Davros, but not how, not the science behind it..."

Her confusion quickly took its usual form.

"Rose. Explanations. Now, please? And how are you even here?"

The blonde chuckled, leaning against the console.

"I can't give you a full explanation - at least, not right this minute. Because my job of giving you your memories is done, this little pocket of Time is about to collapse. You'll probably end up in the office, at work. There'll be some... friends, there, who'll give you your answers."

Donna blinked.

"Again, in English."

Rose rolled her eyes, standing up straight.

"Okay, at the moment, we're standing in a place which exists outside of Time. In the Vortex, but not quite. All thanks to that little thing over there." She waved at the innocuous silver device. "Well, actually, thanks to our metacrisis Doctor, and me. Partly. Because 'the partner doesn't do temporal mechanics', according to him. Even though it was sort of my idea in the first place-"

Rose stopped, obviously taking Donna's hands-on-hips stance and tapping foot as an indication of her growing impatience. Correct.

"Hello, you said we didn't have much time? God, you've really spent too long with Himself if you babble this much!"

She laughed, but smiled fondly.

"Yeah... I could never spend too much time with him. Either of him. But anyway - because I've done what I came to do, the device's hold on this pocket of Time is broken, and it'll break down. So we have to leg it, sharpish."

"Well, come on then!"

"Except, I'm not coming with you."

"... what."

It wasn't even a question, just a flat statement. Rose shrugged, lips quirking ruefully.

"I'm going back to the parallel universe. The walls are thinner here, according to the expert. I can't stay yet. I've got him to look after, my family..." Her eyes grew sad, and Donna's fingers itched to grab her and pull her through, for her own good and for his.

The sadness was replaced with a wry smile.

"But you'll see me again, Donna Noble. You and the Doctor. Because I won't be staying locked away in that universe forever."

The grating beneath their feet began to rumble, the soft hum of the TARDIS being overwhelmed by the bone-deep sound. It was strong enough to make her teeth chatter.

"Now, time to go. All you need to do is shut your eyes, and I'll do the rest..." She trailed off, uncertain again, bending to pick up the sphere from the chair. It was almost blinding in its intensity now, energy pulsing through it and pushing against the glass surface of the button.

"Donna?"

She looked up at the questioning tone, and Rose gazed back, a little hesitant.

"Can you give him a message for me?"

Donna could feel her face softening.

"Of course."

Rose straightened her back, staring deep into her eyes as if she were examining her soul. Donna felt a shiver crawl up her spine.

"Tell him this: two words. Just two. Bad Wolf."

That was the last thing she expected.

"Rose what-"

She couldn't finish her sentence, as the rumbling drowned out her voice. But she could hear Rose, shouting over the noise.

"Shut your eyes, Donna!"

She did.

And the TARDIS control room dissolved around her.

&&&

She landed with a thud in the middle of her office, gasping for breath.

"Donna?"

Someone was kneeling beside her, a warm weight resting on her shoulder. She looked to it, and there was a dark skinned hand, a familiar ring glinting on the finger.

A memory flashed before her eyes.

"She's engaged, you prawn."

"Martha?"

The hand moved and was replaced by a pair of arms, hugging her fiercely.

"Donna? You remember? It worked?"

She was released, pulled to her feet, and two other figures moved into her line of vision, both achingly familiar and sporting massive grins.

"Mickey? And oh, Captain Jack, right?" Her smile was stretching her cheeks to breaking point, but she really didn't care in the slightest.

There were hugs all round, and soon enough she was crying again. She couldn't even use hormones as an excuse this time, although none of the others seemed to mind. Martha was close to tears herself. They stood and talked for a while, and Donna revelled in the feeling of completeness it provided.

Conversation soon turned to Rose.

Mickey laughed. "I don't know why we even doubted her. 'Course it worked. This is Rose we're talking about here! She gone back all right?"

Dazed, she nodded. "I think so. But she did mention an explanation...? That would be nice right about now. I have absolutely no idea what just happened, and it's bloody annoying. I'm clueless enough as it is!"

Martha steadied her, while Jack went and fished around the drawers of Rose's desk. "We don't have much more of an idea than you - she never really told us everything. But she said she'd explain everything to you, and you could explain to us-"

"Ah ha!"

Jack reappeared, clutching what looked like a smaller version of a vinyl disk, an old brown envelope and a piece of paper.

"Here we go. The disk is a hologram projector. Your answers are recorded on there, and all you need to do is press the button. Don't know what's in the envelope - you'll have to see for yourself. Although-"

That eye-twinkling, charming grin again, and she knew that if didn't love Lee so much her knees would be collapsing right now.

"I'll be expecting a phone call with the full story. All our contact details are on the paper."

She nodded, still overwhelmed. Jack was talking, and she was only half-listening, too embroiled in the memories that she'd been missing for so long.

"... but I'm guessing you want to go and spend Christmas morning with your family? If you hurry, you should make it - it's only one thirty, and your ride awaits outside. Torchwood parking passes really do come in handy, and it helps that the parking officer was hot."

Dawning realisation.

"Oh, bloody hell! It's Christmas! And my family and... crap."

"I thought so. C'mon, Miss Jones, Mr Smith, let's escort Miss Noble home. It's the least we can do - after all, you saved our sorry asses. And the world, too."

A trip downstairs later, and they were all crammed into the SUV, driving back to Chiswick. Donna sunk into her seat, absorbed in the banter between the Torchwood team.

Yes. Everything would be back to normal soon.
As soon as she had her explanations, found that bloody alien and gave him a piece of her mind.

A grin spread across her face, and she did nothing to stop it. Absolutely nothing.

Donna Noble was back.

&& NEXT &&