fic: children of time (1/14)
Because there isn't enough fix-it fic, obv. Ahem.
Title: Children of Time: Whatever Happened to Donna Noble?
Characters: Donna Noble, Martha Jones, Sarah Jane Smith, Jack Harkness and the Doctor.
Rating: PG
Summary: Following on from Journey's End...
Index Post
Whatever Happened to Donna Noble?
The world hasn’t ended, again. It’s been beaten, injured and the wounds will scar, but the Earth is still here and its people are still here and that’s enough. They’ll rebuild and they’ll survive. It’s what they do.
London’s in chaos, hit as badly as any other major population centre on the planet, but Sarah Jane sees none of it as she races home to her son. He’s safe, she knows he’s safe, but she can’t bring herself to believe it until she’s finally back in her house, standing in her attic and hugging him close. For a moment, all the terrors of the past day vanish.
“Mum?” says Luke, “Mum, I’m having some trouble breathing. Could you let me go? Please?”
Sarah kisses him on the forehead and stands back, looking at him, and she tries very hard not to let herself cry. She thinks of all she’s seen in the past twenty-four hours, all the people she’s met, and she thinks of him, calmly standing by Mr Smith as he offered K-9’s assistance to save them all. “I’m so proud of you, Luke,” she says, “so very proud. You were brilliant.”
He smiles and it’s all Sarah can do not to hug him again. “I guess we saved the world then,” he says.
“Oh, much more than that. Much more.” She closes her eyes a moment, briefly acknowledging how tired she is. She can’t remember the last time she slept, or ate. “I’ll tell you all about it too, just as soon as - where’s K-9?”
“He had to leave. He said to apologise to you and tell you that in his absence the gravitational stresses caused by the black hole were reaching critical levels and that you wouldn’t like it if you saved the universe and then it blew up because of him so he’d better go.”
Sarah shakes her head, a rueful gesture. “Oh, K-9.” She pats Luke’s shoulder, and strides over to Mr Smith. “Still, we’ve got a lot to do. The world’s got to put itself back together now and we are going to help. Mr Smith?”
“Welcome home, Sarah Jane.”
“Thank you, Mr Smith. Now, can you get me the phone numbers of Dr Martha Jones, the Torchwood Cardiff Hub, and Donna Noble please.”
“Sarah Jane, you have previously requested that I remind you that in the event of you requesting contact with Torchwood, I should assume that your mental faculties are-“
“Yes, yes, alright, Mr. Smith. Thank you. My mental faculties are just fine, but since he didn’t get anyone killed this time round, I would quite like to know that the good Captain made it home safely. Now get me those numbers.”
Downstairs, Sarah makes a pot of tea and gives herself an extra teaspoonful of sugar after she pours. Nothing like a bit of world-saving heroism to make you appreciate a good cuppa she thinks as she sinks into an armchair. She’s going to give herself an hour, two tops, and then it’s back to work. She smiles to herself, thinking of days long past when she worked in UNIT and never seemed to need any rest at all. She’s getting old, and she doesn’t like it one bit.
Luke rushes in, grinning. “Clyde’s alright,” he says. “The Daleks never went anywhere near his street. He’s coming over. Wants to know about everything that happened. I think he’s pretty upset he didn’t get in on more of the action.”
Sarah shoots him a stern look. “A lot of people died today, Luke.”
“I know. I’m sorry. He just meant... he doesn’t like to be left out of things.”
Sarah nods. “How’s Maria?”
“I’m not getting a signal when I call her phone. I’ll try again later.”
“She is a bit out of the way down in Cornwall. I’m sure she’s fine.”
“I hope so,” says Luke, then hesitates. “It’s just that communications haven’t been heavily disrupted. The Daleks were removing any resistance and gathering up large groups of humans, but they didn’t make any real effort to eliminate roads, mass transit systems or destroy non-military communications.”
“Well, when you call again, see if you can get Mr Smith to help with the signal.” Sarah downs the rest of her tea and stands up. “I’ve just got to make a few of my own now.”
The first number on Mr Smith’s list is for Donna, so that’s the one Sarah tries first. She doesn’t expect her to be there really. Certainly, when she last spoke to her, Donna intended to go on travelling with the Doctor, but she might have wanted to go home first, and check on her family.
There are three rings and then someone picks up. “Donna Noble.”
“Donna, it’s Sarah. I just wanted to check-in.”
“Who?” Her voice is high-pitched and rather sharper than what Sarah remembers. Maybe she didn’t find herself so lucky when the Doctor dropped her off. It’s a horrible thought, one Sarah pushes aside.
“Sarah Jane Smith,” she says, enunciating as clearly as she can. The connection sounds fine from her end, but there could easily be a bad reception on Donna’s.
“Do I know you then? We didn’t meet at Tracy’s did we? Cause I was out of my mind drunk that night.” There’s a laugh that makes Sarah twitch. “Don’t have a clue how I got home either.”
“No, Donna,” she says, trying not to sound condescending, “it’s Sarah Jane, the Doctor’s friend. We were talking a couple of hours ago, on the TARDIS, remember?”
There’s a long, awkward pause and Sarah feels something cold and clammy creeping up her back. “I think you’ve got a wrong number,” says Donna, her voice a lot quieter, “I haven’t been to the doctor for months and I’ve been at home all day.”
“I have not got the wrong number,” Sarah tells her, allowing a little anger to seep into her voice, “you’re Donna Noble and we just spent the past day fighting Daleks and saving the universe, and I don’t know what’s wrong here, but clearly something is and I intend to-”
“Daleks?” Her voice is almost a shriek now. “You’re as bad as the Bakers’ next door and I-”
Something muffles the sound at the other end of the phone and Sarah frowns as she listens intently, trying to make out what’s going on. She can hear voices, angry ones, but she can’t make out a word that’s being said. The next person that speaks to her is a man, and he’s very very angry, and, Sarah thinks, just a little scared. “I don’t know who you are,” he says, “and I don’t care but don’t you dare call here again. Leave Donna alone, alright? Leave. Her. Alone.”
He hangs up, not giving her any chance to reply. Sarah looks down at the receiver, biting her lip. There’s a mystery here, and she’ll be damned if she’s not going to solve it.
-
The Hub’s in a lot better shape than what Jack expected and, thank all the gods, Gwen and Ianto are both alive, and not even injured. “Tosh?” he says in disbelief as they explain what happened. He shakes his head. “That woman was something special.”
Gwen’s in the armoury taking care of the machine guns, while Ianto makes them all some coffee. Jack’s sitting at the head of the conference table, Mickey to his left, Martha to his left, and he’s pouring on as much charm as he can muster as he tries to persuade the latter to stay.
“UNIT needs me,” Martha insists. “Jack, the whole world’s shot to hell and everyone is looking at us to put it back together and explain what happened and why we couldn’t stop it. If we’re going to prevent nations breaking down, mass-riots, food shortages... there’s so much work to do and I’m a part of that. I can help, and I want to.”
“We need you too,” Jack says. “You can help here. Help us.”
“Cardiff has plenty of doctors.”
“None as good as you.”
“Jack...”
“Besides,” he says, planting his chin in his palm and widening his eyes innocently, “if you didn’t want to stay, what’re you still doing up here?”
She stares at the ceiling a moment and sighs. “Colonel Mace was pretty insistent that I take a day or two off. He seems to be under the impression I work too hard.”
Jack grins and exchanges a glance with Mickey. “Now where in the world could he have picked up a crazy idea like that?”
“It’s not funny, Jack,” she says as his expression begins to make her smile. “It’s not. Though he did say that if he saw me at UNIT HQ in the next twenty-four hours, he’d have me escorted from the premises at gunpoint.”
“Don’t let a little thing like that stop you,” says Mickey, leaning forwards over the table, “after all, I didn’t see the Doctor messing up your teleportation gizmo.” He pretends not to see Jack pulling a face at him.
“They’re making me give it back,” says Martha regretfully. “All I’ve wanted my whole life is my own jetpack, and this is the next best thing, and they’re making me give it back.”
“Don’t worry,” says Jack, “I’ll get the vortex manipulator working again, and I will give it to you, Martha Jones, if you would just consent to work with us.”
“I can’t, Jack. Really.”
“Trial basis.”
“How’s it going?” asks Ianto, bringing in the coffee, Gwen following behind with biscuits.
Jack holds up his hand. Forefinger and thumb an inch apart. “So close.”
“You wish,” says Martha with a casual roll of her eyes.
“Come on, Gwen,” says Jack, taking the coffee Ianto offers him, “how about using some of those fabulous feminine wiles of yours to convince the good doctor to stay on with us?”
Mickey raises an eyebrow, gives Jack a pointed look. “How come I wasn’t given any feminine wiles?”
“You got mine,” says Jack.
“He’s very feminine,” murmurs Ianto, over his coffee and not quite under his breath. He flushes slightly at the look he gets from Gwen. “When he wants to be. It’s very nice really. Expressive.”
“Martha,” says Gwen, expression deadly serious, “you have got to stay. I need someone sane to talk to around here.”
“Heh,” objects Mickey.
“New boy,” says Gwen. She looks at Martha again. “Please?”
“I’ll think about it, okay? I promise that I’ll think about it. Though I don’t know what Tom would think about me moving to Wales.”
“Heard anything from him yet?” asks Jack.
Martha shakes her head. “I’m not too worried. He was moving from village to village, well away from any major city, and even if he could get to a phone, I doubt he’d be able to get through just now. The international lines are still jammed.” As if on cue, her phone rings. She glances at the caller ID and flips it open. “Sarah?” she says, then aims a gentle kick at Jack’s shin as his eyebrows move in a remarkably suggestive way.
Ten minutes later, Martha hangs up the phone, all humour gone from her expression. “It’s Donna,” she tells them. “Something’s happened.”
-
Sarah feels ridiculous and faintly guilty. The world’s just suffered a catastrophe and she’s busy stalking a woman through a shopping centre. Though, thanks to her alien detector, she’s now certain that it really is Donna and that there is definitely something wrong with her memory. Her reporter’s instinct is driving her on while her conscience is busy reminding her that people are still dying and she could, she should, be using Mr Smith to facilitate communications or restore power or... or...
Donna’s searching through a rack of bright tops, oblivious to her watcher. Sarah finds it sort of comforting that, even after all that’s happened, a lot of shops have still managed to open today, business is being conducted, and life goes on. What she doesn’t like is that fact that Donna hasn’t just forgotten her, but that she seems wholly oblivious to the fact that anything out of the ordinary has happened at all. And all Sarah’s learnt from her observations so far is that Donna likes clothes in bright colours and answering her mobile in a very loud voice.
Sarah Jane has never been a particularly patient woman, and now is no exception. It takes only a few minutes more of watching Donna browse round the shop before she decides to march straight up to her and get right to the point.
“Hello,” she says with a fresh bright smile, “my name’s Sarah Jane Smith. We spoke earlier.”
Donna just stares at her, uncomprehending for a moment, but then realisation dawns. “Oh, god, you’re that crazy woman from the phone, aren’t you? What the hell do you think you’re doing? You were so not at Tracy’s, and I have no idea who you are and you think it’s okay to phone me up and ask mad questions? And now you’re stalking me, you are actually stalking me.” She pushes past Sarah, and heads for the nearest shop assistant.
“Donna, wait!”
“You stay away from me! I’m going to have shop security on you and then I’m calling the police. You just stay away from me, you hear!”
Sarah watches Donna walk away, never looking back. There’s a moment where she thinks, she hopes, she might have paused, but then she’s shouting at the shop assistant and Sarah thinks it’s time she made a hasty exit.
She walks home, lost in thought. Something had clearly happened to Donna since Sarah had said goodbye to the Doctor, and she's damned well going to find out what.
Title: Children of Time: Whatever Happened to Donna Noble?
Characters: Donna Noble, Martha Jones, Sarah Jane Smith, Jack Harkness and the Doctor.
Rating: PG
Summary: Following on from Journey's End...
Index Post
Whatever Happened to Donna Noble?
The world hasn’t ended, again. It’s been beaten, injured and the wounds will scar, but the Earth is still here and its people are still here and that’s enough. They’ll rebuild and they’ll survive. It’s what they do.
London’s in chaos, hit as badly as any other major population centre on the planet, but Sarah Jane sees none of it as she races home to her son. He’s safe, she knows he’s safe, but she can’t bring herself to believe it until she’s finally back in her house, standing in her attic and hugging him close. For a moment, all the terrors of the past day vanish.
“Mum?” says Luke, “Mum, I’m having some trouble breathing. Could you let me go? Please?”
Sarah kisses him on the forehead and stands back, looking at him, and she tries very hard not to let herself cry. She thinks of all she’s seen in the past twenty-four hours, all the people she’s met, and she thinks of him, calmly standing by Mr Smith as he offered K-9’s assistance to save them all. “I’m so proud of you, Luke,” she says, “so very proud. You were brilliant.”
He smiles and it’s all Sarah can do not to hug him again. “I guess we saved the world then,” he says.
“Oh, much more than that. Much more.” She closes her eyes a moment, briefly acknowledging how tired she is. She can’t remember the last time she slept, or ate. “I’ll tell you all about it too, just as soon as - where’s K-9?”
“He had to leave. He said to apologise to you and tell you that in his absence the gravitational stresses caused by the black hole were reaching critical levels and that you wouldn’t like it if you saved the universe and then it blew up because of him so he’d better go.”
Sarah shakes her head, a rueful gesture. “Oh, K-9.” She pats Luke’s shoulder, and strides over to Mr Smith. “Still, we’ve got a lot to do. The world’s got to put itself back together now and we are going to help. Mr Smith?”
“Welcome home, Sarah Jane.”
“Thank you, Mr Smith. Now, can you get me the phone numbers of Dr Martha Jones, the Torchwood Cardiff Hub, and Donna Noble please.”
“Sarah Jane, you have previously requested that I remind you that in the event of you requesting contact with Torchwood, I should assume that your mental faculties are-“
“Yes, yes, alright, Mr. Smith. Thank you. My mental faculties are just fine, but since he didn’t get anyone killed this time round, I would quite like to know that the good Captain made it home safely. Now get me those numbers.”
Downstairs, Sarah makes a pot of tea and gives herself an extra teaspoonful of sugar after she pours. Nothing like a bit of world-saving heroism to make you appreciate a good cuppa she thinks as she sinks into an armchair. She’s going to give herself an hour, two tops, and then it’s back to work. She smiles to herself, thinking of days long past when she worked in UNIT and never seemed to need any rest at all. She’s getting old, and she doesn’t like it one bit.
Luke rushes in, grinning. “Clyde’s alright,” he says. “The Daleks never went anywhere near his street. He’s coming over. Wants to know about everything that happened. I think he’s pretty upset he didn’t get in on more of the action.”
Sarah shoots him a stern look. “A lot of people died today, Luke.”
“I know. I’m sorry. He just meant... he doesn’t like to be left out of things.”
Sarah nods. “How’s Maria?”
“I’m not getting a signal when I call her phone. I’ll try again later.”
“She is a bit out of the way down in Cornwall. I’m sure she’s fine.”
“I hope so,” says Luke, then hesitates. “It’s just that communications haven’t been heavily disrupted. The Daleks were removing any resistance and gathering up large groups of humans, but they didn’t make any real effort to eliminate roads, mass transit systems or destroy non-military communications.”
“Well, when you call again, see if you can get Mr Smith to help with the signal.” Sarah downs the rest of her tea and stands up. “I’ve just got to make a few of my own now.”
The first number on Mr Smith’s list is for Donna, so that’s the one Sarah tries first. She doesn’t expect her to be there really. Certainly, when she last spoke to her, Donna intended to go on travelling with the Doctor, but she might have wanted to go home first, and check on her family.
There are three rings and then someone picks up. “Donna Noble.”
“Donna, it’s Sarah. I just wanted to check-in.”
“Who?” Her voice is high-pitched and rather sharper than what Sarah remembers. Maybe she didn’t find herself so lucky when the Doctor dropped her off. It’s a horrible thought, one Sarah pushes aside.
“Sarah Jane Smith,” she says, enunciating as clearly as she can. The connection sounds fine from her end, but there could easily be a bad reception on Donna’s.
“Do I know you then? We didn’t meet at Tracy’s did we? Cause I was out of my mind drunk that night.” There’s a laugh that makes Sarah twitch. “Don’t have a clue how I got home either.”
“No, Donna,” she says, trying not to sound condescending, “it’s Sarah Jane, the Doctor’s friend. We were talking a couple of hours ago, on the TARDIS, remember?”
There’s a long, awkward pause and Sarah feels something cold and clammy creeping up her back. “I think you’ve got a wrong number,” says Donna, her voice a lot quieter, “I haven’t been to the doctor for months and I’ve been at home all day.”
“I have not got the wrong number,” Sarah tells her, allowing a little anger to seep into her voice, “you’re Donna Noble and we just spent the past day fighting Daleks and saving the universe, and I don’t know what’s wrong here, but clearly something is and I intend to-”
“Daleks?” Her voice is almost a shriek now. “You’re as bad as the Bakers’ next door and I-”
Something muffles the sound at the other end of the phone and Sarah frowns as she listens intently, trying to make out what’s going on. She can hear voices, angry ones, but she can’t make out a word that’s being said. The next person that speaks to her is a man, and he’s very very angry, and, Sarah thinks, just a little scared. “I don’t know who you are,” he says, “and I don’t care but don’t you dare call here again. Leave Donna alone, alright? Leave. Her. Alone.”
He hangs up, not giving her any chance to reply. Sarah looks down at the receiver, biting her lip. There’s a mystery here, and she’ll be damned if she’s not going to solve it.
-
The Hub’s in a lot better shape than what Jack expected and, thank all the gods, Gwen and Ianto are both alive, and not even injured. “Tosh?” he says in disbelief as they explain what happened. He shakes his head. “That woman was something special.”
Gwen’s in the armoury taking care of the machine guns, while Ianto makes them all some coffee. Jack’s sitting at the head of the conference table, Mickey to his left, Martha to his left, and he’s pouring on as much charm as he can muster as he tries to persuade the latter to stay.
“UNIT needs me,” Martha insists. “Jack, the whole world’s shot to hell and everyone is looking at us to put it back together and explain what happened and why we couldn’t stop it. If we’re going to prevent nations breaking down, mass-riots, food shortages... there’s so much work to do and I’m a part of that. I can help, and I want to.”
“We need you too,” Jack says. “You can help here. Help us.”
“Cardiff has plenty of doctors.”
“None as good as you.”
“Jack...”
“Besides,” he says, planting his chin in his palm and widening his eyes innocently, “if you didn’t want to stay, what’re you still doing up here?”
She stares at the ceiling a moment and sighs. “Colonel Mace was pretty insistent that I take a day or two off. He seems to be under the impression I work too hard.”
Jack grins and exchanges a glance with Mickey. “Now where in the world could he have picked up a crazy idea like that?”
“It’s not funny, Jack,” she says as his expression begins to make her smile. “It’s not. Though he did say that if he saw me at UNIT HQ in the next twenty-four hours, he’d have me escorted from the premises at gunpoint.”
“Don’t let a little thing like that stop you,” says Mickey, leaning forwards over the table, “after all, I didn’t see the Doctor messing up your teleportation gizmo.” He pretends not to see Jack pulling a face at him.
“They’re making me give it back,” says Martha regretfully. “All I’ve wanted my whole life is my own jetpack, and this is the next best thing, and they’re making me give it back.”
“Don’t worry,” says Jack, “I’ll get the vortex manipulator working again, and I will give it to you, Martha Jones, if you would just consent to work with us.”
“I can’t, Jack. Really.”
“Trial basis.”
“How’s it going?” asks Ianto, bringing in the coffee, Gwen following behind with biscuits.
Jack holds up his hand. Forefinger and thumb an inch apart. “So close.”
“You wish,” says Martha with a casual roll of her eyes.
“Come on, Gwen,” says Jack, taking the coffee Ianto offers him, “how about using some of those fabulous feminine wiles of yours to convince the good doctor to stay on with us?”
Mickey raises an eyebrow, gives Jack a pointed look. “How come I wasn’t given any feminine wiles?”
“You got mine,” says Jack.
“He’s very feminine,” murmurs Ianto, over his coffee and not quite under his breath. He flushes slightly at the look he gets from Gwen. “When he wants to be. It’s very nice really. Expressive.”
“Martha,” says Gwen, expression deadly serious, “you have got to stay. I need someone sane to talk to around here.”
“Heh,” objects Mickey.
“New boy,” says Gwen. She looks at Martha again. “Please?”
“I’ll think about it, okay? I promise that I’ll think about it. Though I don’t know what Tom would think about me moving to Wales.”
“Heard anything from him yet?” asks Jack.
Martha shakes her head. “I’m not too worried. He was moving from village to village, well away from any major city, and even if he could get to a phone, I doubt he’d be able to get through just now. The international lines are still jammed.” As if on cue, her phone rings. She glances at the caller ID and flips it open. “Sarah?” she says, then aims a gentle kick at Jack’s shin as his eyebrows move in a remarkably suggestive way.
Ten minutes later, Martha hangs up the phone, all humour gone from her expression. “It’s Donna,” she tells them. “Something’s happened.”
-
Sarah feels ridiculous and faintly guilty. The world’s just suffered a catastrophe and she’s busy stalking a woman through a shopping centre. Though, thanks to her alien detector, she’s now certain that it really is Donna and that there is definitely something wrong with her memory. Her reporter’s instinct is driving her on while her conscience is busy reminding her that people are still dying and she could, she should, be using Mr Smith to facilitate communications or restore power or... or...
Donna’s searching through a rack of bright tops, oblivious to her watcher. Sarah finds it sort of comforting that, even after all that’s happened, a lot of shops have still managed to open today, business is being conducted, and life goes on. What she doesn’t like is that fact that Donna hasn’t just forgotten her, but that she seems wholly oblivious to the fact that anything out of the ordinary has happened at all. And all Sarah’s learnt from her observations so far is that Donna likes clothes in bright colours and answering her mobile in a very loud voice.
Sarah Jane has never been a particularly patient woman, and now is no exception. It takes only a few minutes more of watching Donna browse round the shop before she decides to march straight up to her and get right to the point.
“Hello,” she says with a fresh bright smile, “my name’s Sarah Jane Smith. We spoke earlier.”
Donna just stares at her, uncomprehending for a moment, but then realisation dawns. “Oh, god, you’re that crazy woman from the phone, aren’t you? What the hell do you think you’re doing? You were so not at Tracy’s, and I have no idea who you are and you think it’s okay to phone me up and ask mad questions? And now you’re stalking me, you are actually stalking me.” She pushes past Sarah, and heads for the nearest shop assistant.
“Donna, wait!”
“You stay away from me! I’m going to have shop security on you and then I’m calling the police. You just stay away from me, you hear!”
Sarah watches Donna walk away, never looking back. There’s a moment where she thinks, she hopes, she might have paused, but then she’s shouting at the shop assistant and Sarah thinks it’s time she made a hasty exit.
She walks home, lost in thought. Something had clearly happened to Donna since Sarah had said goodbye to the Doctor, and she's damned well going to find out what.