Fic/One-shot: You
Title: You
Author: Rei
Rating: PG
Genre: general, friendship, fluff
Characters: Doctor-Donna, Shaun, Wilf, Sylvia, OC (Phillip), Ten
Summary: Another post EoT fic, ignoring the regeneration once more. Donna remembers and makes a choice.
Warning: It doesn’t end the way all of us want it to end. But it ends happily! ish.
Spoilers: EoT.
Words: 3349
Disclaimer: “Does it need saying?”
A/N: After this I promise to write JEdenialfics. I must find my inner denial first. xD Written in between homework & sleep. Much thanks to monkeysrule13 for helping me when my muse was absent.
She remembered. She remembered everything. It all rushed into her head and for whatever reason she did not know, she didn’t implode. It wasn’t until a while that she realized that faint noise that started so long ago was a growing second heartbeat.
There were so many things she could do now, but she didn’t know what. The biggest question in her life was that. The second biggest was how she felt about it.
The both of them still have a mental connection, she and the Doctor. It’s faint, but she can feel him there. She can’t tell whether he’s alright or “alright." She wonders if he can feel her and if he knows if she’s alright or “alright”, too, because honestly, she doesn’t know either.
Donna can’t sleep tonight. There are too many things going on in her brain. She holds little Phillip’s hand as he sleeps soundly between her and Shaun, who was also fast asleep. She doesn’t want to tell them what’s happened. Not now, and not ever, really. Could they forgive her if they found out?
Donna snaps out of her thoughts when Phillip suddenly cringes awake with half-opened eyes. He starts to whimper tiny cries and Donna immediately takes him over her arm and makes hushing sounds and hums softly to comfort him.
He opens his teary light blue eyes as she wipes them off his in-between-Donna-and-Shaun complexion and strokes his curly black hair.
“There there, Phillie, what’s the matter?” she asks quietly.
“I had a nightmare, ma,” he sniffles and Donna holds him closer to her.
“Oh, my poor baby… It’s alright now, sweetie, it was just a nightmare.” She rests her cheek atop his head and he continues to sob softly.
“You were leaving, ma, you were going to go away forever,” he muffles into her embrace and it seems to slice Donna’s hearts into fours.
“Nonsense, Phillie, I’m never going to leave. Mummy will always be here, forever, I promise. Okay?”
“Okay.” He hiccups and rubs his eyes.
Shaun stirs awake from the small commotion. “What’s wrong?”
“Phillip had a nightmare,” Donna answers, rubbing her hand on Phillie’s small arm. Shaun props up his elbow on the pillow and supports his head with his hands.
“You look like you had a little one of your own,” he says, referring to Donna’s glassy eyes.
“What? Oh.” She blinks the tears away as she ducks her head to wipe them off with the arm under Phillip. Shaun says nothing more but leans over to give her a small peck in comfort and pats Phillip’s back softly.
“Now go to sleep, the two of you,” Donna commands but with a gentle smile. Phillip rolls off onto his back, his arms now around Donna’s arm.
“Alright,” Shaun says as he props his head back down on his pillow. “You okay now, squirt?”
“Yes, daddy.”
“Goodnight then, we love you.”
“Love you, dad, ma.” With that Phillip closes his eyes and doesn’t open them until morning.
“I love you, Donna,” Shaun says because he feels like she needs to be reminded.
“Okay Shaun, we all love each other here,” she jests with a genuine smile and Shaun shakes his head but while laughing softly.
“You should stop playing owl and sleep too, love.”
“Wish I could,” Donna says. She takes hold of his hand and they fold right over Phillip’s belly. “I wish I could.”
She realizes that night that she isn’t just Donna anymore. She’s a wife and mother and her family needs her as much as the universe did so long ago.
Shaun has taken Phillip to his preschool and Donna is visiting Sylvia and Wilf like she did at least five times a week. Donna cooks lunch for them this time. She normally doesn’t; she wasn’t really the chef of the year. Today however, proved different, and all are impressed with her sudden advanced culinary skills.
Sylvia stares at Donna as they all eat and she notices only a few moments later. “What?” she says with a mouthful of lasagna.
“Did you spend all night watching Good Food or something?”
“You think my food is good?” Donna suppresses her smile with another forkful.
“Course, dear,” Wilf says he eats. “Where’d you learn how to cook like this?”
She freezes for a little. She never did learn how. “Umm,” she begins her cover. “I’ve been practicing, yeah. You know Phillie and Shaun, always hungry and what not.”
That was believable enough.
But then the telly breaks and Donna knows exactly how to fix it. She knows every answer to all the questions on Jeopardy. She’s completed five of Sylvia’s crossword puzzle books within a few hours. Surely it wasn’t spectacularly freaky, but it arose suspicion.
“How’d you become so smart?” Sylvia asked as Donna was idly filling out the fourth book.
“Hm? Oh. Are you insinuating that I was never smart?”
“You were always a bright one,” she says to remove offense. “But you couldn’t even change a plug!”
“You want to bet, mum?” Donna says with a playful smirk.
“Now don’t get clever with me, what’s really going on?”
Donna’s expression became serious as she looks down at the puzzles, half consciously writing.
Donna’s mobile rings and she is silently relieved that it’s Shaun.
“Yeah, hon?” She answers as she flips her phone open.
“Donna,” he sounds frantic.
“Shaun what’s wrong?” Her brow furrows and Sylvia leans in closer in concern.
He doesn’t answer for a while, as if he’s debating whether he should say it or not.
“Shaun!”
“It’s Phillip,” he stammers. “Or, the whole building, really-I can’t get in, and there’s this… I shouldn’t have called-“
“No, none of that. I’ll be there in a moment.” Donna closes the phone and immediately heads for the door.
“What is it? What happened?” Sylvia goes after her.
“My son’s in trouble, and I’m not sure what kind of trouble but I’m pretty sure it’s not the trouble that I can just sit through a lecture from his teacher to fix.” Donna grabs her coat and purse from the hanger by the door.
Sylvia grabs her by the arm, stopping her, because she knows exactly what trouble it is and she has the Doctor’s warning from so long ago in mind.
“Donna, the police will handle it, surely-“
“No,” she says firmly. “I have to go.”
“You don’t!”
Donna stares into her mother’s worried eyes and takes a deep breath. “Mum,” she says calmly and places her hands on both sides of her upper arms. “Trust me this one time.”
Sylvia looks at her with a confused look and Donna begins again.
“If this were happening to any other place, I would stay. I would trust you when you’d say someone else would handle it-cause I know exactly who would. But that is my son and the children of many other people in there and that’s where this nonsense gets personal. You hear me, mum?”
She nods, speechless and Donna gives her a broken smile before she runs out the door. Sylvia stands in her place and Wilf comes out to find her there.
“What was all that commotion? Where’s Donna gone?”
“Gone mad.”
“Donna!” Shaun says as he sees her get out of her car and runs to him. She would say something to him, but her attention was on the thin layer of electric blue surrounding the school building. There are helicopters and police cars surrounding the building, their sirens blinking furiously.
She steps forward to closely examine.
“Don’t go any closer,” Shaun warns. “An officer got zapped trying to bolt through the door.”
Donna bites her lip. “It runs on electric waves… it doesn’t generate it, it absorbs it, so…”
Shaun looks at her with a puzzled look. “What?”
“We need to cut the power,” she says as she faces him. “Someone cut the power!” She turns around to shout at the police. Unheard, she groans with frustration and looks up at the forcefield.
“How do I flippin do this-“
No longer than a second, the blue faded away and the lights on every street went off. She looks back behind her and sees the confused faces of everyone-this was not any of their doing.
Then she felt someone else’s thoughts and feelings pushing into her mind, louder and louder.
“Can’t be…”
Her thoughts were interrupted as she saw Phillip, hitting his palm against the window.
“Phillip!” Donna runs to the door but stops in her tracks when she realizes that the power is slowly going back up. “Oh no you don’t!”
She quickly bolts through the door in time, and is sealed inside the building.
“Donna!” Shaun calls as he runs in front of the blue field with his hands pulling at his hair. “Oh, you’ve gone insane!”
“Love you, too, hon!” She calls from inside. “Now…”
She looks around and immediately whips around when she spots Phillip, the only person in the room, who runs up to her and she kneels down to embrace him tightly.
“Oh, Phillie! Darling, are you alright? It’s okay, mummy’s here.” She sighs in big relief as she nearly suffocates him.
Phillip holds on for dear life, almost shaking. “Help them.”
Donna pulls away to face him as she holds his upper arm and smoothes away his hair. “Where are they? The other kids? And how are you down here?”
“I got away,” he simply says. Donna smiles and ruffles the top of his hair.
“You’re a clever one, I wonder why…” she says the last bit to herself sarcastically. “You stay right here, okay, Phillie? Right here. You do not move one inch unless you absolutely have to. Talk to daddy through the door or something. I’ll be back.”
She stands up and he tugs at her hand. “You’re a hero, ma!”
“Not yet I’m not,” she flashes a cheeky grin and runs off.
Donna looks around the playground, finds no one and nothing, then heads to the other few classrooms.
“This is an insanely small place,” she says to herself. “Where in the world would they be-“
She sees a gaping hole in the floor of the hallway. “Of course.” She carefully examines it and lets herself down, letting out a rather French-ish laugh.
She drops in a crouching position to find a dimly lit, hallowed place. The children are bunched together like herds while the authorities and teachers are separated in a different corner. The kids are crying and shaking with fear, clinging on to each other and praying to be saved. Beady-eyed creatures with rough and scaly yellow skin turn to her, about to jump at her.
“Whoa whoa whoa there, hold on! What do you think you’re doing?” Donna warns with a mischievous look that makes them stop in their motion.
“Mrs. Temple-Noble?” Phillip’s teacher calls from the corner.
“’Sup, dear,” she casually greets with a wink.
“And just who are you.” The leader of the yellow pack asks with contempt and irritation, making it sound not so much like a question.
“Oh no, I believe the question is who are you!” Donna walks past them with her hands behind her back and they watch her.
“You don’t belong here,” she turns to face them again. “So I believe you are the ones who need explanation-don’t tell me though! Let’s see… In this lighting you bunch look like walking rotten cheese, or a horrible cross between Slitheen, fish, and bananas. And…” Donna takes a swift wipe at one of their arms with her fingers and presses it to the tip of her tongue. “You sure taste like bananas. Or sugar, rather.”
Donna walks around and notices that there is machinery around the walls. “What’s this for? Hm?” She pats at the wall. “Pretty fancy, innit? Looks to me you’ve got yourself a carbohydrate extractor. But why would you need this? Cause you, my yellow alien friends, are Ozarians, and you feed on nothing else but carbs and sugar in its already digested form! I pity your digestive systems, those frail things.
“And all these children, I assume, are the ones you plan to suck all the blooming energy out of, and I see why, really, why you’d want these hyperactive little’uns. Humans are in fact the only source of your eatery within a zip across space. The question right now is, why haven’t you done it yet?”
“We are sparing you and them for later.”
“Ahah! Some blarney that is, don’t give me that. It’s cause this extractor-it rhymes with X-factor, just noticed-isn’t ready to be used on such a large amount of people, in fact it wasn’t meant to be used on living organisms! Sick bastards. And yes, I do realize that I am helping you by successfully having myself stalled with all this talking, but oh, you Ozarians you, you picked the wrong place to have this nonsense in. If you think I’m letting you suck the life out of these kids, you’ve got so much more coming.”
Donna turns to the machine and presses a series of buttons, causing a grumble within the walls and the lights flickered.
The Ozarians hissed and screeched, and the leader roared a retreats. They disintegrate into the air and Donna smirks, confident that they won’t be back-at least not for a while.
The ground starts to rumble and shake and she hears cracks on the surface.
“Ohh, God,” she starts to panic. “Should have thought this through-“
The adults come over to the children as they gather.
“Mrs. Temple-Noble,” one of the calls to her. “How do we get out?”
Donna bites her lips and looks at the narrow hole above them. How fast can each of them escape through a narrow bloody hole? Not fast enough.
The room starts to crumble and the children shriek and Donna curses to herself. She looks around and sees that they’re connected to a sewer, and on the far right there is a ladder to the surface.
“Everyone, to that sewer ladder, right there! Go!”
One by one they climb the ladder, going a little faster after every sudden rumble and crack.
A little girl at the back is left behind and Donna doesn’t notice until a few moments later. Her leg is injured and before Donna can run after her, the ceiling cracks and is about to crash down.
“Just hold on!” She shouts, but then a man in a brown suit comes to the girl’s side and helps her up into his arms.
He notices Donna and they both freeze in their places, staring at one another.
“Doctor,” she whispers. She feels her hearts pounding vigorously, and she stands paralyzed. Tears well up in her eyes and she doesn’t know exactly what she should feel, or what it is that she is feeling.
The crack above them is opened further and the both of them escape in their separate directions before the entire building falls a level lower.
Donna crawls out of the sewer hole and Shaun helps her up. Around them are the children running to their parents, going home and celebrating a safe escape.
“Where’s Phillip?” He asks her.
“Phillip!” Donna’s eyes widen as she turns back to the building. “Was he still in there?”
The building had completely collapsed; the room Phillip was in was under bricks and tiles. Donna darts to go back but Shaun holds her back.
“Shaun!” She begins to rebuke but then turns to where he’s looking.
There’s a sound in the air, and she knows that sound. She knows it too well. The wind gusts past them and they block their eyes as a blue police box materializes from a distance. The door opens and it’s Phillip who peeks his head out and then rushes when he sees Donna and Shaun.
“Oh thank God,” Donna cries as she kneels to Phillip’s tight hug. She kisses his head multiple times, brushes away the stray dust in his air, and sighs ultimate relief.
The Doctor comes out with the little girl in his arms and hands her to her mother, who runs to them across the street. Donna stands and looks, her focus on him as Phillip lets go of her to reunite with his father. The Doctor stands there in front of the TARDIS, his hands in his pocket, smiling at Donna.
Should she slap him or hug him? Oh the decisions.
She walks towards him shyly, playing with the cuff of her sleeve.
“Hey,” he greets.
“Hey.” She nearly chokes of her mixed emotions, nostalgic. “Thanks,” she stumbles. “For saving Phillip.”
The Doctor sniffs and rubs under his nose with his finger. “I’d have come earlier to stop the Ozarians, but I found your little squirt and got distracted,” he confesses. “But it looks to me you handled it perfectly.”
Donna smiles shyly. “Yeah.”
“So you remember.”
“Yeah.”
The Doctor doesn’t say anything, but rolls his tongue on the inside of his cheek, searching for words.
“I’d be angry with you,” she says and he looks intently at her. “You know, for stealing my mind and dumping me back home.” She looks down and wipes off a tear on her sleeve.
“But you know, Doctor, it’s okay now,” she tries not to sniffle. “Because I’ve other things to do now, and I’ve other things to live for. For now at least, cause well, I’ve got a whole series of other lives ahead of me. It’d be a shame to not spend one of mine with them. Or maybe not, cause there’s a slight chance Philip may be a timeboy, too…
“And yeah, I won’t be running fifteen miles a day saving the planet, but that’s alright, Doctor, because I save the world everyday. I save the world just by telling my boy and Shaun I love them, by not forgetting to turn off the stove every morning, by throwing some of that lottery money to some other bloke who needs to feed his family, by being me … the simple things, you know? Every single day.”
Donna swallows and her voice is getting shakier by the second. The Doctor looks at her with a bittersweet smile and spares her from having to talk anymore by stepping forward to hug her and she immediately wraps her arms over his shoulders like she used to do so many times before.
“Donna, oh Donna,” he says fondly as he enjoys her warmth, feeling a void be filled. He kisses the top of her head with an enthusiastic ‘muah!’ “You’re brilliant.”
She sighs a smile as she lets her tears trail down her face. “Yeah.”
He lets of her and holds her by the shoulders, looking into her blue eyes. Donna was the most amazing person he has ever met by far, and yes, it was going to be dreadful without her, but the knowledge that she was going to be happy was enough for him. That’s all that mattered, with a friendship like theirs.
“Find me sometime?” He offers.
“Maybe,” she grins and laughs as he gives her another hug.
“You be a good little Time Lord, alright?”
“Maybe.” Donna gives him a light smack on the shoulder and he winces mockingly.
He reaches for her hand, feeling it one last time in a wordless goodbye, with things that needn’t be said but are already known, then goes back aboard the TARDIS.
She has the strangest feeling in her chest, as if she’s both euphoric yet sad to the most extreme measures. The TARDIS engines sound again and the wind gusts as the blue box fades from her presence.
Phillip walks beside his mother with Shaun following and tugs at her hand. “Who was that, mummy?”
Donna stares off into the distance with only a small quirk. “That was the Doctor, sweetie.”
“Hm? Why? You’re not sick are you?” His eyes glint with worry.
“No,” she laughs as she looks down at him. “I’m well. So, perfectly well. C’mon you two.”
Donna grabs the hands of her two boys and turns to walk back home.
END.
Author: Rei
Rating: PG
Genre: general, friendship, fluff
Characters: Doctor-Donna, Shaun, Wilf, Sylvia, OC (Phillip), Ten
Summary: Another post EoT fic, ignoring the regeneration once more. Donna remembers and makes a choice.
Warning: It doesn’t end the way all of us want it to end. But it ends happily! ish.
Spoilers: EoT.
Words: 3349
Disclaimer: “Does it need saying?”
A/N: After this I promise to write JEdenialfics. I must find my inner denial first. xD Written in between homework & sleep. Much thanks to monkeysrule13 for helping me when my muse was absent.
She remembered. She remembered everything. It all rushed into her head and for whatever reason she did not know, she didn’t implode. It wasn’t until a while that she realized that faint noise that started so long ago was a growing second heartbeat.
There were so many things she could do now, but she didn’t know what. The biggest question in her life was that. The second biggest was how she felt about it.
The both of them still have a mental connection, she and the Doctor. It’s faint, but she can feel him there. She can’t tell whether he’s alright or “alright." She wonders if he can feel her and if he knows if she’s alright or “alright”, too, because honestly, she doesn’t know either.
Donna can’t sleep tonight. There are too many things going on in her brain. She holds little Phillip’s hand as he sleeps soundly between her and Shaun, who was also fast asleep. She doesn’t want to tell them what’s happened. Not now, and not ever, really. Could they forgive her if they found out?
Donna snaps out of her thoughts when Phillip suddenly cringes awake with half-opened eyes. He starts to whimper tiny cries and Donna immediately takes him over her arm and makes hushing sounds and hums softly to comfort him.
He opens his teary light blue eyes as she wipes them off his in-between-Donna-and-Shaun complexion and strokes his curly black hair.
“There there, Phillie, what’s the matter?” she asks quietly.
“I had a nightmare, ma,” he sniffles and Donna holds him closer to her.
“Oh, my poor baby… It’s alright now, sweetie, it was just a nightmare.” She rests her cheek atop his head and he continues to sob softly.
“You were leaving, ma, you were going to go away forever,” he muffles into her embrace and it seems to slice Donna’s hearts into fours.
“Nonsense, Phillie, I’m never going to leave. Mummy will always be here, forever, I promise. Okay?”
“Okay.” He hiccups and rubs his eyes.
Shaun stirs awake from the small commotion. “What’s wrong?”
“Phillip had a nightmare,” Donna answers, rubbing her hand on Phillie’s small arm. Shaun props up his elbow on the pillow and supports his head with his hands.
“You look like you had a little one of your own,” he says, referring to Donna’s glassy eyes.
“What? Oh.” She blinks the tears away as she ducks her head to wipe them off with the arm under Phillip. Shaun says nothing more but leans over to give her a small peck in comfort and pats Phillip’s back softly.
“Now go to sleep, the two of you,” Donna commands but with a gentle smile. Phillip rolls off onto his back, his arms now around Donna’s arm.
“Alright,” Shaun says as he props his head back down on his pillow. “You okay now, squirt?”
“Yes, daddy.”
“Goodnight then, we love you.”
“Love you, dad, ma.” With that Phillip closes his eyes and doesn’t open them until morning.
“I love you, Donna,” Shaun says because he feels like she needs to be reminded.
“Okay Shaun, we all love each other here,” she jests with a genuine smile and Shaun shakes his head but while laughing softly.
“You should stop playing owl and sleep too, love.”
“Wish I could,” Donna says. She takes hold of his hand and they fold right over Phillip’s belly. “I wish I could.”
She realizes that night that she isn’t just Donna anymore. She’s a wife and mother and her family needs her as much as the universe did so long ago.
Shaun has taken Phillip to his preschool and Donna is visiting Sylvia and Wilf like she did at least five times a week. Donna cooks lunch for them this time. She normally doesn’t; she wasn’t really the chef of the year. Today however, proved different, and all are impressed with her sudden advanced culinary skills.
Sylvia stares at Donna as they all eat and she notices only a few moments later. “What?” she says with a mouthful of lasagna.
“Did you spend all night watching Good Food or something?”
“You think my food is good?” Donna suppresses her smile with another forkful.
“Course, dear,” Wilf says he eats. “Where’d you learn how to cook like this?”
She freezes for a little. She never did learn how. “Umm,” she begins her cover. “I’ve been practicing, yeah. You know Phillie and Shaun, always hungry and what not.”
That was believable enough.
But then the telly breaks and Donna knows exactly how to fix it. She knows every answer to all the questions on Jeopardy. She’s completed five of Sylvia’s crossword puzzle books within a few hours. Surely it wasn’t spectacularly freaky, but it arose suspicion.
“How’d you become so smart?” Sylvia asked as Donna was idly filling out the fourth book.
“Hm? Oh. Are you insinuating that I was never smart?”
“You were always a bright one,” she says to remove offense. “But you couldn’t even change a plug!”
“You want to bet, mum?” Donna says with a playful smirk.
“Now don’t get clever with me, what’s really going on?”
Donna’s expression became serious as she looks down at the puzzles, half consciously writing.
Donna’s mobile rings and she is silently relieved that it’s Shaun.
“Yeah, hon?” She answers as she flips her phone open.
“Donna,” he sounds frantic.
“Shaun what’s wrong?” Her brow furrows and Sylvia leans in closer in concern.
He doesn’t answer for a while, as if he’s debating whether he should say it or not.
“Shaun!”
“It’s Phillip,” he stammers. “Or, the whole building, really-I can’t get in, and there’s this… I shouldn’t have called-“
“No, none of that. I’ll be there in a moment.” Donna closes the phone and immediately heads for the door.
“What is it? What happened?” Sylvia goes after her.
“My son’s in trouble, and I’m not sure what kind of trouble but I’m pretty sure it’s not the trouble that I can just sit through a lecture from his teacher to fix.” Donna grabs her coat and purse from the hanger by the door.
Sylvia grabs her by the arm, stopping her, because she knows exactly what trouble it is and she has the Doctor’s warning from so long ago in mind.
“Donna, the police will handle it, surely-“
“No,” she says firmly. “I have to go.”
“You don’t!”
Donna stares into her mother’s worried eyes and takes a deep breath. “Mum,” she says calmly and places her hands on both sides of her upper arms. “Trust me this one time.”
Sylvia looks at her with a confused look and Donna begins again.
“If this were happening to any other place, I would stay. I would trust you when you’d say someone else would handle it-cause I know exactly who would. But that is my son and the children of many other people in there and that’s where this nonsense gets personal. You hear me, mum?”
She nods, speechless and Donna gives her a broken smile before she runs out the door. Sylvia stands in her place and Wilf comes out to find her there.
“What was all that commotion? Where’s Donna gone?”
“Gone mad.”
“Donna!” Shaun says as he sees her get out of her car and runs to him. She would say something to him, but her attention was on the thin layer of electric blue surrounding the school building. There are helicopters and police cars surrounding the building, their sirens blinking furiously.
She steps forward to closely examine.
“Don’t go any closer,” Shaun warns. “An officer got zapped trying to bolt through the door.”
Donna bites her lip. “It runs on electric waves… it doesn’t generate it, it absorbs it, so…”
Shaun looks at her with a puzzled look. “What?”
“We need to cut the power,” she says as she faces him. “Someone cut the power!” She turns around to shout at the police. Unheard, she groans with frustration and looks up at the forcefield.
“How do I flippin do this-“
No longer than a second, the blue faded away and the lights on every street went off. She looks back behind her and sees the confused faces of everyone-this was not any of their doing.
Then she felt someone else’s thoughts and feelings pushing into her mind, louder and louder.
“Can’t be…”
Her thoughts were interrupted as she saw Phillip, hitting his palm against the window.
“Phillip!” Donna runs to the door but stops in her tracks when she realizes that the power is slowly going back up. “Oh no you don’t!”
She quickly bolts through the door in time, and is sealed inside the building.
“Donna!” Shaun calls as he runs in front of the blue field with his hands pulling at his hair. “Oh, you’ve gone insane!”
“Love you, too, hon!” She calls from inside. “Now…”
She looks around and immediately whips around when she spots Phillip, the only person in the room, who runs up to her and she kneels down to embrace him tightly.
“Oh, Phillie! Darling, are you alright? It’s okay, mummy’s here.” She sighs in big relief as she nearly suffocates him.
Phillip holds on for dear life, almost shaking. “Help them.”
Donna pulls away to face him as she holds his upper arm and smoothes away his hair. “Where are they? The other kids? And how are you down here?”
“I got away,” he simply says. Donna smiles and ruffles the top of his hair.
“You’re a clever one, I wonder why…” she says the last bit to herself sarcastically. “You stay right here, okay, Phillie? Right here. You do not move one inch unless you absolutely have to. Talk to daddy through the door or something. I’ll be back.”
She stands up and he tugs at her hand. “You’re a hero, ma!”
“Not yet I’m not,” she flashes a cheeky grin and runs off.
Donna looks around the playground, finds no one and nothing, then heads to the other few classrooms.
“This is an insanely small place,” she says to herself. “Where in the world would they be-“
She sees a gaping hole in the floor of the hallway. “Of course.” She carefully examines it and lets herself down, letting out a rather French-ish laugh.
She drops in a crouching position to find a dimly lit, hallowed place. The children are bunched together like herds while the authorities and teachers are separated in a different corner. The kids are crying and shaking with fear, clinging on to each other and praying to be saved. Beady-eyed creatures with rough and scaly yellow skin turn to her, about to jump at her.
“Whoa whoa whoa there, hold on! What do you think you’re doing?” Donna warns with a mischievous look that makes them stop in their motion.
“Mrs. Temple-Noble?” Phillip’s teacher calls from the corner.
“’Sup, dear,” she casually greets with a wink.
“And just who are you.” The leader of the yellow pack asks with contempt and irritation, making it sound not so much like a question.
“Oh no, I believe the question is who are you!” Donna walks past them with her hands behind her back and they watch her.
“You don’t belong here,” she turns to face them again. “So I believe you are the ones who need explanation-don’t tell me though! Let’s see… In this lighting you bunch look like walking rotten cheese, or a horrible cross between Slitheen, fish, and bananas. And…” Donna takes a swift wipe at one of their arms with her fingers and presses it to the tip of her tongue. “You sure taste like bananas. Or sugar, rather.”
Donna walks around and notices that there is machinery around the walls. “What’s this for? Hm?” She pats at the wall. “Pretty fancy, innit? Looks to me you’ve got yourself a carbohydrate extractor. But why would you need this? Cause you, my yellow alien friends, are Ozarians, and you feed on nothing else but carbs and sugar in its already digested form! I pity your digestive systems, those frail things.
“And all these children, I assume, are the ones you plan to suck all the blooming energy out of, and I see why, really, why you’d want these hyperactive little’uns. Humans are in fact the only source of your eatery within a zip across space. The question right now is, why haven’t you done it yet?”
“We are sparing you and them for later.”
“Ahah! Some blarney that is, don’t give me that. It’s cause this extractor-it rhymes with X-factor, just noticed-isn’t ready to be used on such a large amount of people, in fact it wasn’t meant to be used on living organisms! Sick bastards. And yes, I do realize that I am helping you by successfully having myself stalled with all this talking, but oh, you Ozarians you, you picked the wrong place to have this nonsense in. If you think I’m letting you suck the life out of these kids, you’ve got so much more coming.”
Donna turns to the machine and presses a series of buttons, causing a grumble within the walls and the lights flickered.
The Ozarians hissed and screeched, and the leader roared a retreats. They disintegrate into the air and Donna smirks, confident that they won’t be back-at least not for a while.
The ground starts to rumble and shake and she hears cracks on the surface.
“Ohh, God,” she starts to panic. “Should have thought this through-“
The adults come over to the children as they gather.
“Mrs. Temple-Noble,” one of the calls to her. “How do we get out?”
Donna bites her lips and looks at the narrow hole above them. How fast can each of them escape through a narrow bloody hole? Not fast enough.
The room starts to crumble and the children shriek and Donna curses to herself. She looks around and sees that they’re connected to a sewer, and on the far right there is a ladder to the surface.
“Everyone, to that sewer ladder, right there! Go!”
One by one they climb the ladder, going a little faster after every sudden rumble and crack.
A little girl at the back is left behind and Donna doesn’t notice until a few moments later. Her leg is injured and before Donna can run after her, the ceiling cracks and is about to crash down.
“Just hold on!” She shouts, but then a man in a brown suit comes to the girl’s side and helps her up into his arms.
He notices Donna and they both freeze in their places, staring at one another.
“Doctor,” she whispers. She feels her hearts pounding vigorously, and she stands paralyzed. Tears well up in her eyes and she doesn’t know exactly what she should feel, or what it is that she is feeling.
The crack above them is opened further and the both of them escape in their separate directions before the entire building falls a level lower.
Donna crawls out of the sewer hole and Shaun helps her up. Around them are the children running to their parents, going home and celebrating a safe escape.
“Where’s Phillip?” He asks her.
“Phillip!” Donna’s eyes widen as she turns back to the building. “Was he still in there?”
The building had completely collapsed; the room Phillip was in was under bricks and tiles. Donna darts to go back but Shaun holds her back.
“Shaun!” She begins to rebuke but then turns to where he’s looking.
There’s a sound in the air, and she knows that sound. She knows it too well. The wind gusts past them and they block their eyes as a blue police box materializes from a distance. The door opens and it’s Phillip who peeks his head out and then rushes when he sees Donna and Shaun.
“Oh thank God,” Donna cries as she kneels to Phillip’s tight hug. She kisses his head multiple times, brushes away the stray dust in his air, and sighs ultimate relief.
The Doctor comes out with the little girl in his arms and hands her to her mother, who runs to them across the street. Donna stands and looks, her focus on him as Phillip lets go of her to reunite with his father. The Doctor stands there in front of the TARDIS, his hands in his pocket, smiling at Donna.
Should she slap him or hug him? Oh the decisions.
She walks towards him shyly, playing with the cuff of her sleeve.
“Hey,” he greets.
“Hey.” She nearly chokes of her mixed emotions, nostalgic. “Thanks,” she stumbles. “For saving Phillip.”
The Doctor sniffs and rubs under his nose with his finger. “I’d have come earlier to stop the Ozarians, but I found your little squirt and got distracted,” he confesses. “But it looks to me you handled it perfectly.”
Donna smiles shyly. “Yeah.”
“So you remember.”
“Yeah.”
The Doctor doesn’t say anything, but rolls his tongue on the inside of his cheek, searching for words.
“I’d be angry with you,” she says and he looks intently at her. “You know, for stealing my mind and dumping me back home.” She looks down and wipes off a tear on her sleeve.
“But you know, Doctor, it’s okay now,” she tries not to sniffle. “Because I’ve other things to do now, and I’ve other things to live for. For now at least, cause well, I’ve got a whole series of other lives ahead of me. It’d be a shame to not spend one of mine with them. Or maybe not, cause there’s a slight chance Philip may be a timeboy, too…
“And yeah, I won’t be running fifteen miles a day saving the planet, but that’s alright, Doctor, because I save the world everyday. I save the world just by telling my boy and Shaun I love them, by not forgetting to turn off the stove every morning, by throwing some of that lottery money to some other bloke who needs to feed his family, by being me … the simple things, you know? Every single day.”
Donna swallows and her voice is getting shakier by the second. The Doctor looks at her with a bittersweet smile and spares her from having to talk anymore by stepping forward to hug her and she immediately wraps her arms over his shoulders like she used to do so many times before.
“Donna, oh Donna,” he says fondly as he enjoys her warmth, feeling a void be filled. He kisses the top of her head with an enthusiastic ‘muah!’ “You’re brilliant.”
She sighs a smile as she lets her tears trail down her face. “Yeah.”
He lets of her and holds her by the shoulders, looking into her blue eyes. Donna was the most amazing person he has ever met by far, and yes, it was going to be dreadful without her, but the knowledge that she was going to be happy was enough for him. That’s all that mattered, with a friendship like theirs.
“Find me sometime?” He offers.
“Maybe,” she grins and laughs as he gives her another hug.
“You be a good little Time Lord, alright?”
“Maybe.” Donna gives him a light smack on the shoulder and he winces mockingly.
He reaches for her hand, feeling it one last time in a wordless goodbye, with things that needn’t be said but are already known, then goes back aboard the TARDIS.
She has the strangest feeling in her chest, as if she’s both euphoric yet sad to the most extreme measures. The TARDIS engines sound again and the wind gusts as the blue box fades from her presence.
Phillip walks beside his mother with Shaun following and tugs at her hand. “Who was that, mummy?”
Donna stares off into the distance with only a small quirk. “That was the Doctor, sweetie.”
“Hm? Why? You’re not sick are you?” His eyes glint with worry.
“No,” she laughs as she looks down at him. “I’m well. So, perfectly well. C’mon you two.”
Donna grabs the hands of her two boys and turns to walk back home.
END.