fic: children of time (5/14)
Title: Children of Time
Characters: Donna Noble, Martha Jones, Sarah Jane Smith, Jack Harkness and the Doctor.
Rating: PG
Summary: Following on from Journey's End...
Index Post
The Darkness
Donna opens her eyes and it’s still dark: perfectly, absolutely dark. There are no shadows, no nuances of light in the texture of the blackness. “Hello?” she tries, tentatively. “Is there anyone there?”
She can feel that she’s sitting down, and the chair is comfortable enough, but when she tries to move her arms there’s something cold and solid binding them down. She struggles then, really struggles and though her legs and body are free, there’s no way she’s shifting those metal cuffs. She yells, she screams, she panics. Eventually, she calms down and manages to take long, sobbing breaths as she presses her head back against the rest.
One of her fingers hurts. She flexes them, then makes a fist and realises she isn’t wearing any rings at all. It isn’t much pain, just a dull throb below her knuckle, but it’s weirdly comforting, reminding her that she’s alert and conscious. The dark’s disconcerting, but at least she’s not in one of those horrible tanks where you’re all shut in and floating on water and having to pay for it because the spa said it was good for your inner well-being or some stupid nonsense like that. She makes herself stop thinking of other things and concentrates on what’s around her.
She listens carefully, holding her breath, but the only sound she can hear is the beating of her own heart. She closes her eyes, thinking back to the last thing she remembers: UNIT HQ and that idiot soldier arguing with her, and then that woman knowing her name and that very pretty man running just behind her, ooh he was nice, and Donna wouldn’t have said no to a quick... the woman. Donna had seen her before, at her house, talking to her Gramps.
She feels a hot stab of betrayal somewhere in the back of her head. Surely if Gramps had known anything he’d have told her? He wouldn’t go sneaking around behind her back? If there’s something wrong with her, if she’s ill, or mad, or... her Gramps wouldn’t lie to her. He wouldn’t.
Maybe, she considers carefully, gently, because she doesn’t want to make it not true, this is all okay because it isn’t real; it’s one of my stupid dreams. She starts as another, very unpleasant thought occurs: maybe they shot her. Maybe one of those stupid, idiot soldiers actually shot her and she’s lying unconscious on the pavement right now, bleeding to death, and this is the best thing that her subconscious can come up with to protect her against the pain.
“This is not,” she says loudly, “the last thing I want to see before I die.”
Nothing happens. She sighs, forces herself to relax and closes her eyes. She drifts; she might’ve slept. But the next thing she hears is a prim, rather bored voice saying: “Your name is Donna Noble.”
Donna is alert instantly, eyes straining to catch any hint of luminescence. Nothing; only the dark.
“Yeah,” she says, “that’s right, who’re you?” She feels a flash of anger at herself for sounding so timid and raises her voice: “And what do you want?”
There’s a short silence, then, “Are you a native of this planet, Donna Noble?” The voice is female, crisp and clear. It’s coming from somewhere in front of her, high-up, maybe amplified through speakers. There’s no echo.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”she asks, annoyed. “What’re you trying to say?”
She thinks she might have heard a tired little sigh, and then, “Are you human?”
Donna leans forward, straining against those stupid cuffs, and shouts, “Of course I’m bloody human! What else could I be?”
The tone of the voice doesn’t change, though it speaks a little faster: “I’d think, given that your species has once again been given pretty explicit proof that it’s not the only intelligent form of life in the universe, and you understand of course that I use intelligent here in an extremely wide and somewhat inaccurate sense, that you might be able to answer that question for yourself.”
“Do I look like a Dalek to you?” Donna says, almost snarling at the darkness. She shivers a little as she says the word, and then rolls it around in her mind: Dalek. It frightens her, but of course it does, the things just came out of the sky and damn near killed everybody on the planet, and yet there’s something more, something missing, and she’s so close to knowing what it is. Dalek. Skaro.
Donna feels something cold and heavy plummet inside her. Stupid words, that’s all they are, stupid meaningless made-up words.
“I think,” says the voice, “that it would benefit both us if you were encouraged to give simple, straightforward answers. It would certainly make this go a lot quicker and would annoy me rather less.” There’s a pause. “This is going to hurt.”
“What do you-?” She cuts herself off with a gasp of pain as her whole body goes on fire, the burning courses through her arms and legs, her mouth, her eyes. She opens her mouth to scream but it comes out as a gargled choke. The heat is scorching, unbearable. She can feel her flesh turning crisp, peeling away from her bones, her insides twisting, congealing, blazing away and she’s still alive. She’s still conscious and she can feel it all and there’s no way out.
It stops. She can’t move. She can’t be alive, not when her body’s a smouldering husk.
“Nerve induction,” says the voice. “Very effective, I think you’ll find, and with no actual physical damage.”
There’s a long silence and Donna realises she’s still breathing, her heart’s still pumping. She flexes her fingers and they’re all there, all intact. But the memory of the pain’s pressing against the inside of her skull, and it’s real enough.
“You’re quite alright,” says the voice, “but I imagine there’ll be some lasting trauma if I repeat the process too often.”
“Don’t repeat it then,” says Donna, her voice faint, but audible.
“That would be my preference too,” says the voice, and there’s the faintest hint of humour there. “The pain will not diminish or become more bearable with repetition and you will not pass out. There will be a ten second burst if you do not answer my questions in a straightforward and honest manner. Do you understand?” There’s a pause. “This is the only warning I plan on giving you.”
“Yes,” mutters Donna, then loudly, “Yes, I understand.”
“Good. Now, are you human?”
“Of course I am,” she says irritably and holds her breath. Nothing happens and she feels the smallest sense of triumph at her tiny act of defiance.
“You were born in London? Your parents are Sylvia Mott and Geoff Noble?”
“Yes.”
“You met the Doctor on the day of your wedding to a Lance Bennett and were pulled into the TARDIS having been previously dosed with Huon particles?”
Donna shivers. She can feel the words creeping across her mind like spiders. “No,” she says, “no, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You sound uncertain,” says the voice, the threat evident.
“I’m not,” insists Donna. “I didn’t... I don’t remember, okay? I don’t remember what happened on my wedding day. I left him, or he left me, and I got really drunk and I just don’t remember. I don’t want to either.”
“I see,” says the voice, ice-cold. “Well, I’ll give you a little time to think about it.”
Nothing changes, but Donna feels alone again; the owner of the voice has departed. She doesn’t want to, because it’s stupid and doesn’t matter and was a long time ago, but she does end up thinking about that Christmas Eve and how it was all going to be perfect and brilliant and she’d be so very...
...terrified as she vanishes from the church and gets told by some skinny streak of nothing that this is his spaceship and he’s a Martian. Martian? Martians aren’t real, are they? Of course they’re not - she’s obviously trapped with a bloody lunatic and...
...she didn’t really love Lance at all and she could do better; she was clever and she was fun and all she needed was a bit more determination, a bit more dedication and she could really get somewhere.
“Huon particles,” repeats the voice and Donna gasps because she was somewhere else entirely and this strange dark room wasn’t supposed to be anything but some stupid dream.
“That’s not a question, is it?” she asks cautiously.
“No, just testing a theory. Your reaction was quite different this time.” There’s a sigh. “This really is extremely irritating. You weren’t expected at all, you see, but it would be sheer idiocy to dispose of you when your brain is...”
“What?” demands Donna. “What’s my brain doing? What’s wrong with me?”
“That,” says the voice crisply, “is precisely what I am trying to find out.”
Donna frowns, confused. “You’re trying to help me?”
“Don’t be absurd. You’re something new, that’s all, but it’s more than enough to keep you alive, for the time being.”
“Well, thanks a lot,” Donna murmurs, quietly enough that she hopes she can’t be heard.
“This is actually quite fascinating,” says the voice, “and sadly you won’t appreciate how, but let me tell you what my problem is. Who knows? It might jog that memory of yours free enough to provide me with some assistance, without causing the irreparable brain damage that seems certain if I...” She breaks off. “Now,” the voice continues, “I was searching for a very specific individual. An individual so specific that he’s the only one of his kind left in the whole universe.”
“Does this story have a happy ending?” asks Donna.
“If you’re going to deliberately try and annoy me, I am willing to risk the brain damage to get an answer,” the voice snaps.
“Sorry,” Donna mutters.
“This person,” the voice continues, “who calls himself the Doctor, is the only one of his kind left in the universe, and he has a particular affinity for Earth. Now, my search was keyed to a Time Lord, on that assumption, that he was the only one left. So imagine my surprise when my transmat doesn’t bring me the Doctor, but a human, an ordinary insignificant little human.”
“Thanks a lot.”
“Even better,” the voice goes on, “I find I haven’t made a mistake at all since the Time Lord consciousness is intact, and that your brain has suffered the theoretical trauma one would expect in a human - Time Lord metacrisis.”
Donna feels sick. She knows that someone’s talking, but it’s a faint background hum, so very far away and she doesn’t need to pay attention to it because she’s dizzy and afraid and there’s something very unreal about her thoughts right now, as though they don’t belong to her at all.
Something’s dripping in the back of her mind, and the drops are gold and shining and she knows with an absolute certainty that they’re important, so very, very important and that, sooner or later, they’re going to kill her.
There’s something on your back. She jerks, and it’s still dark and there is something pressing against her back that’s not the chair, just below her shoulder, a hand. “You had some sort of fit,” says the voice, the woman, standing just behind her. “I’ve made sure it doesn’t happen again.” There’s no sympathy in her voice, no concern, nothing but a cold clinical detachment. “How do you feel?”
“I don’t know,” says Donna. “There’s something wrong inside my head, isn’t there?”
“Yes,” she says.
“Can you make it stop?”
A pause, and Donna hears footsteps as the woman walks round her chair to stand in front of her. She wonders how she can see with no light. “Why?” she asks, genuinely curious, “would I want to do that?”
“Because it’s hurting me, isn’t it? It’s going to kill me!”
“I suppose it will, eventually. But then you’re hardly likely to survive a century anyway, so I really don’t see how it matters all that much when you die.” There’s no threat in her voice, no hate, only a mild sort of contempt and that makes it infinitely worse and Donna a lot angrier.
“It matters to me!” she snaps.
“I would numb your vocal cords,” the woman says easily, “but the verbal feedback has been mildly useful. Tell me what you think of the Doctor now?”
And he’s there, in her mind, as if he always has been (he always should have been) and she knows him, more intimately than she’s ever known anyone in her life and she can’t remember a thing about him.
“What’re you doing to me?” Donna asks, as calmly as she’s able.
“I had thought a gradual release might allow you to build up a tolerance, but I underestimated how incredibly primitive the human brain is, not to mention the fact that you creatures can’t even be bothered to learn how to use it correctly.” She gives an irritated sigh. “If there’s ever been an argument against allowing natural evolution to take place, it’s the human race.”
“So what’re you then?” She doesn’t really expect an answer.
There’s a snort that sounds almost like a laugh. “Stuck,” she says.
“Enough of this. This side-project is distracting you from what’s truly important.” The lights go on and Donna closes her eyes and shrinks away from the sudden brightness. That was a different voice, low, menacing, almost mechanical. She hears the woman mutter under her breath and march away from her.
When she’s able to open her eyes, Donna finds herself in a small, square room, the floors, walls and ceilings all a shining silver metal. At the far end, she can see the woman, neatly dressed and blonde, speaking to Davros.
Davros. Donna scrunches her eyes shut, tucking her chin into her chest. She can feel her head pounding, the beat of her heart so very loud in her ears. Another golden drop drips in amongst her thoughts, another memory she can just about capture, another step closer to death.
-
Under any other circumstances, finding Jack Harkness sitting down at the kitchen table talking to her son would be rather worrying, but right now it’s a blessed relief, managing to transform the horrible clammy feeling of shock and fear into a far more manageable anger.
He’s on his feet as soon as he sees her, saluting. She narrows her eyes. “There’s going to come a point, Captain, when that is not going to work anymore.”
“Ma’am?” he says, and Sarah closes her eyes for a long moment. Jack hasn’t done anything wrong, and there are more important things right now than worrying about how indiscreet he’s being to her son. Luke’s far more sensible than she ever was at that age, and she does trust him.
“Ms Smith,” Jack says, “are you alright? You’re shaking.” And then his arm is around her shoulders, and it’s nothing but warm and reassuring. He guides her to a seat and Luke’s pressing a glass of water into her hands, and she’s okay. She’s going to be okay. She drinks, slowly, and hears Jack in the bedroom exchanging a few brief words with Martha: something about Torchwood and searches and scanning for the Doctor and Donna disappearing.
But she’s alright now, and by the time Martha comes through, she’s all business, grim determination written into her expression. “What’s happened to Donna?” she asks and then sighs when the pair exchange a worried glance. “Whatever it is, I’m sure I can take it.”
“Gone,” says Martha. “She disappeared right in front of our eyes.”
“And my lot were picking up something searching the country in all the places the Doctor’s known to have been over the past couple of decades,” Jack explains.
“Except instead of finding the Doctor,” Martha says, “it found Donna, and now we’ve no idea where she is, who’s taken her or why.”
“Well, we’ve got another problem too,” Sarah tells them. The newspaper’s still on the table, so she flicks through to find the right page. “Take a look at this,” she tells them.
She waits until they’ve read the news report and are looking at her expectantly. “They aren’t jellyfish,” Sarah says, “they’re Daleks, not the casing obviously, but the actual Dalek creatures and there are thousands of them.”
“What’re they doing in the sea?” asks Martha.
“No idea,” says Sarah, as Jack flips his phone out. “There’s some good news though: most are dead, or look as though they’re dying.”
“Got to call in,” Jack tells them, “and apologise to Mickey. A lot.”
“I’d better call UNIT too,” Martha says.
“I’m going back to the castle,” says Sarah, standing up.
Martha covers her phone’s mouthpiece for a second. “Not by yourself you’re not,” she says. “Five minutes, okay? And then you can explain why.”
After Jack and Martha have finished their calls, Sarah has a very short argument with Luke and Clyde. “Absolutely not,” she insists, “you’ve both been in more than enough danger this week and you are staying here. Besides, someone has to make sure our John Doe is alright until UNIT gets here. But if something does happen, or he gets any worse, you call us at once, okay?” She pauses in the doorway, turns to look back at them. “And don’t either of you dare go anywhere near the beach. Those creatures may not look like much, but if there’s even one healthy one down there, it’s too dangerous. They move fast, and they go for your throat.” She looks from one boy to the other and is reasonably satisfied that they won’t do anything incredibly stupid.
As she drives back up to the castle, Martha next to her, Jack in the backseat, she explains why she’s insisted on going back: “It’s not just the secret door. There was something very odd about the housekeeper, you must know what I mean, eventually you get a knack for just noticing that something’s off, even if you don’t know exactly what it is. And by off, I mean alien.” She pauses for a long moment, and then gives a self-effacing laugh. “And I’m an idiot, I’m an utter idiot, she said humans.”
“I don’t understand,” says Martha.
“When I was rambling on about the history article I said had to do, and the housekeeper thought it was silly because there’d just been an alien invasion and no-one would want to read about old castles, she said tens of thousands of humans were dead, not people, humans. Who says that?”
“Aliens,” says Jack promptly.
“Exactly.”
“So,” says Martha, “we’ve got aliens in a castle, Daleks in the sea, Alan and Maria missing, Donna vanishing in front of our eyes and absolutely no sign of the Doctor.”
“Yup,” says Sarah Jane cheerfully, “it’s definitely one of those days.”
Characters: Donna Noble, Martha Jones, Sarah Jane Smith, Jack Harkness and the Doctor.
Rating: PG
Summary: Following on from Journey's End...
Index Post
The Darkness
Donna opens her eyes and it’s still dark: perfectly, absolutely dark. There are no shadows, no nuances of light in the texture of the blackness. “Hello?” she tries, tentatively. “Is there anyone there?”
She can feel that she’s sitting down, and the chair is comfortable enough, but when she tries to move her arms there’s something cold and solid binding them down. She struggles then, really struggles and though her legs and body are free, there’s no way she’s shifting those metal cuffs. She yells, she screams, she panics. Eventually, she calms down and manages to take long, sobbing breaths as she presses her head back against the rest.
One of her fingers hurts. She flexes them, then makes a fist and realises she isn’t wearing any rings at all. It isn’t much pain, just a dull throb below her knuckle, but it’s weirdly comforting, reminding her that she’s alert and conscious. The dark’s disconcerting, but at least she’s not in one of those horrible tanks where you’re all shut in and floating on water and having to pay for it because the spa said it was good for your inner well-being or some stupid nonsense like that. She makes herself stop thinking of other things and concentrates on what’s around her.
She listens carefully, holding her breath, but the only sound she can hear is the beating of her own heart. She closes her eyes, thinking back to the last thing she remembers: UNIT HQ and that idiot soldier arguing with her, and then that woman knowing her name and that very pretty man running just behind her, ooh he was nice, and Donna wouldn’t have said no to a quick... the woman. Donna had seen her before, at her house, talking to her Gramps.
She feels a hot stab of betrayal somewhere in the back of her head. Surely if Gramps had known anything he’d have told her? He wouldn’t go sneaking around behind her back? If there’s something wrong with her, if she’s ill, or mad, or... her Gramps wouldn’t lie to her. He wouldn’t.
Maybe, she considers carefully, gently, because she doesn’t want to make it not true, this is all okay because it isn’t real; it’s one of my stupid dreams. She starts as another, very unpleasant thought occurs: maybe they shot her. Maybe one of those stupid, idiot soldiers actually shot her and she’s lying unconscious on the pavement right now, bleeding to death, and this is the best thing that her subconscious can come up with to protect her against the pain.
“This is not,” she says loudly, “the last thing I want to see before I die.”
Nothing happens. She sighs, forces herself to relax and closes her eyes. She drifts; she might’ve slept. But the next thing she hears is a prim, rather bored voice saying: “Your name is Donna Noble.”
Donna is alert instantly, eyes straining to catch any hint of luminescence. Nothing; only the dark.
“Yeah,” she says, “that’s right, who’re you?” She feels a flash of anger at herself for sounding so timid and raises her voice: “And what do you want?”
There’s a short silence, then, “Are you a native of this planet, Donna Noble?” The voice is female, crisp and clear. It’s coming from somewhere in front of her, high-up, maybe amplified through speakers. There’s no echo.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”she asks, annoyed. “What’re you trying to say?”
She thinks she might have heard a tired little sigh, and then, “Are you human?”
Donna leans forward, straining against those stupid cuffs, and shouts, “Of course I’m bloody human! What else could I be?”
The tone of the voice doesn’t change, though it speaks a little faster: “I’d think, given that your species has once again been given pretty explicit proof that it’s not the only intelligent form of life in the universe, and you understand of course that I use intelligent here in an extremely wide and somewhat inaccurate sense, that you might be able to answer that question for yourself.”
“Do I look like a Dalek to you?” Donna says, almost snarling at the darkness. She shivers a little as she says the word, and then rolls it around in her mind: Dalek. It frightens her, but of course it does, the things just came out of the sky and damn near killed everybody on the planet, and yet there’s something more, something missing, and she’s so close to knowing what it is. Dalek. Skaro.
Donna feels something cold and heavy plummet inside her. Stupid words, that’s all they are, stupid meaningless made-up words.
“I think,” says the voice, “that it would benefit both us if you were encouraged to give simple, straightforward answers. It would certainly make this go a lot quicker and would annoy me rather less.” There’s a pause. “This is going to hurt.”
“What do you-?” She cuts herself off with a gasp of pain as her whole body goes on fire, the burning courses through her arms and legs, her mouth, her eyes. She opens her mouth to scream but it comes out as a gargled choke. The heat is scorching, unbearable. She can feel her flesh turning crisp, peeling away from her bones, her insides twisting, congealing, blazing away and she’s still alive. She’s still conscious and she can feel it all and there’s no way out.
It stops. She can’t move. She can’t be alive, not when her body’s a smouldering husk.
“Nerve induction,” says the voice. “Very effective, I think you’ll find, and with no actual physical damage.”
There’s a long silence and Donna realises she’s still breathing, her heart’s still pumping. She flexes her fingers and they’re all there, all intact. But the memory of the pain’s pressing against the inside of her skull, and it’s real enough.
“You’re quite alright,” says the voice, “but I imagine there’ll be some lasting trauma if I repeat the process too often.”
“Don’t repeat it then,” says Donna, her voice faint, but audible.
“That would be my preference too,” says the voice, and there’s the faintest hint of humour there. “The pain will not diminish or become more bearable with repetition and you will not pass out. There will be a ten second burst if you do not answer my questions in a straightforward and honest manner. Do you understand?” There’s a pause. “This is the only warning I plan on giving you.”
“Yes,” mutters Donna, then loudly, “Yes, I understand.”
“Good. Now, are you human?”
“Of course I am,” she says irritably and holds her breath. Nothing happens and she feels the smallest sense of triumph at her tiny act of defiance.
“You were born in London? Your parents are Sylvia Mott and Geoff Noble?”
“Yes.”
“You met the Doctor on the day of your wedding to a Lance Bennett and were pulled into the TARDIS having been previously dosed with Huon particles?”
Donna shivers. She can feel the words creeping across her mind like spiders. “No,” she says, “no, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You sound uncertain,” says the voice, the threat evident.
“I’m not,” insists Donna. “I didn’t... I don’t remember, okay? I don’t remember what happened on my wedding day. I left him, or he left me, and I got really drunk and I just don’t remember. I don’t want to either.”
“I see,” says the voice, ice-cold. “Well, I’ll give you a little time to think about it.”
Nothing changes, but Donna feels alone again; the owner of the voice has departed. She doesn’t want to, because it’s stupid and doesn’t matter and was a long time ago, but she does end up thinking about that Christmas Eve and how it was all going to be perfect and brilliant and she’d be so very...
...terrified as she vanishes from the church and gets told by some skinny streak of nothing that this is his spaceship and he’s a Martian. Martian? Martians aren’t real, are they? Of course they’re not - she’s obviously trapped with a bloody lunatic and...
...she didn’t really love Lance at all and she could do better; she was clever and she was fun and all she needed was a bit more determination, a bit more dedication and she could really get somewhere.
“Huon particles,” repeats the voice and Donna gasps because she was somewhere else entirely and this strange dark room wasn’t supposed to be anything but some stupid dream.
“That’s not a question, is it?” she asks cautiously.
“No, just testing a theory. Your reaction was quite different this time.” There’s a sigh. “This really is extremely irritating. You weren’t expected at all, you see, but it would be sheer idiocy to dispose of you when your brain is...”
“What?” demands Donna. “What’s my brain doing? What’s wrong with me?”
“That,” says the voice crisply, “is precisely what I am trying to find out.”
Donna frowns, confused. “You’re trying to help me?”
“Don’t be absurd. You’re something new, that’s all, but it’s more than enough to keep you alive, for the time being.”
“Well, thanks a lot,” Donna murmurs, quietly enough that she hopes she can’t be heard.
“This is actually quite fascinating,” says the voice, “and sadly you won’t appreciate how, but let me tell you what my problem is. Who knows? It might jog that memory of yours free enough to provide me with some assistance, without causing the irreparable brain damage that seems certain if I...” She breaks off. “Now,” the voice continues, “I was searching for a very specific individual. An individual so specific that he’s the only one of his kind left in the whole universe.”
“Does this story have a happy ending?” asks Donna.
“If you’re going to deliberately try and annoy me, I am willing to risk the brain damage to get an answer,” the voice snaps.
“Sorry,” Donna mutters.
“This person,” the voice continues, “who calls himself the Doctor, is the only one of his kind left in the universe, and he has a particular affinity for Earth. Now, my search was keyed to a Time Lord, on that assumption, that he was the only one left. So imagine my surprise when my transmat doesn’t bring me the Doctor, but a human, an ordinary insignificant little human.”
“Thanks a lot.”
“Even better,” the voice goes on, “I find I haven’t made a mistake at all since the Time Lord consciousness is intact, and that your brain has suffered the theoretical trauma one would expect in a human - Time Lord metacrisis.”
Donna feels sick. She knows that someone’s talking, but it’s a faint background hum, so very far away and she doesn’t need to pay attention to it because she’s dizzy and afraid and there’s something very unreal about her thoughts right now, as though they don’t belong to her at all.
Something’s dripping in the back of her mind, and the drops are gold and shining and she knows with an absolute certainty that they’re important, so very, very important and that, sooner or later, they’re going to kill her.
There’s something on your back. She jerks, and it’s still dark and there is something pressing against her back that’s not the chair, just below her shoulder, a hand. “You had some sort of fit,” says the voice, the woman, standing just behind her. “I’ve made sure it doesn’t happen again.” There’s no sympathy in her voice, no concern, nothing but a cold clinical detachment. “How do you feel?”
“I don’t know,” says Donna. “There’s something wrong inside my head, isn’t there?”
“Yes,” she says.
“Can you make it stop?”
A pause, and Donna hears footsteps as the woman walks round her chair to stand in front of her. She wonders how she can see with no light. “Why?” she asks, genuinely curious, “would I want to do that?”
“Because it’s hurting me, isn’t it? It’s going to kill me!”
“I suppose it will, eventually. But then you’re hardly likely to survive a century anyway, so I really don’t see how it matters all that much when you die.” There’s no threat in her voice, no hate, only a mild sort of contempt and that makes it infinitely worse and Donna a lot angrier.
“It matters to me!” she snaps.
“I would numb your vocal cords,” the woman says easily, “but the verbal feedback has been mildly useful. Tell me what you think of the Doctor now?”
And he’s there, in her mind, as if he always has been (he always should have been) and she knows him, more intimately than she’s ever known anyone in her life and she can’t remember a thing about him.
“What’re you doing to me?” Donna asks, as calmly as she’s able.
“I had thought a gradual release might allow you to build up a tolerance, but I underestimated how incredibly primitive the human brain is, not to mention the fact that you creatures can’t even be bothered to learn how to use it correctly.” She gives an irritated sigh. “If there’s ever been an argument against allowing natural evolution to take place, it’s the human race.”
“So what’re you then?” She doesn’t really expect an answer.
There’s a snort that sounds almost like a laugh. “Stuck,” she says.
“Enough of this. This side-project is distracting you from what’s truly important.” The lights go on and Donna closes her eyes and shrinks away from the sudden brightness. That was a different voice, low, menacing, almost mechanical. She hears the woman mutter under her breath and march away from her.
When she’s able to open her eyes, Donna finds herself in a small, square room, the floors, walls and ceilings all a shining silver metal. At the far end, she can see the woman, neatly dressed and blonde, speaking to Davros.
Davros. Donna scrunches her eyes shut, tucking her chin into her chest. She can feel her head pounding, the beat of her heart so very loud in her ears. Another golden drop drips in amongst her thoughts, another memory she can just about capture, another step closer to death.
-
Under any other circumstances, finding Jack Harkness sitting down at the kitchen table talking to her son would be rather worrying, but right now it’s a blessed relief, managing to transform the horrible clammy feeling of shock and fear into a far more manageable anger.
He’s on his feet as soon as he sees her, saluting. She narrows her eyes. “There’s going to come a point, Captain, when that is not going to work anymore.”
“Ma’am?” he says, and Sarah closes her eyes for a long moment. Jack hasn’t done anything wrong, and there are more important things right now than worrying about how indiscreet he’s being to her son. Luke’s far more sensible than she ever was at that age, and she does trust him.
“Ms Smith,” Jack says, “are you alright? You’re shaking.” And then his arm is around her shoulders, and it’s nothing but warm and reassuring. He guides her to a seat and Luke’s pressing a glass of water into her hands, and she’s okay. She’s going to be okay. She drinks, slowly, and hears Jack in the bedroom exchanging a few brief words with Martha: something about Torchwood and searches and scanning for the Doctor and Donna disappearing.
But she’s alright now, and by the time Martha comes through, she’s all business, grim determination written into her expression. “What’s happened to Donna?” she asks and then sighs when the pair exchange a worried glance. “Whatever it is, I’m sure I can take it.”
“Gone,” says Martha. “She disappeared right in front of our eyes.”
“And my lot were picking up something searching the country in all the places the Doctor’s known to have been over the past couple of decades,” Jack explains.
“Except instead of finding the Doctor,” Martha says, “it found Donna, and now we’ve no idea where she is, who’s taken her or why.”
“Well, we’ve got another problem too,” Sarah tells them. The newspaper’s still on the table, so she flicks through to find the right page. “Take a look at this,” she tells them.
She waits until they’ve read the news report and are looking at her expectantly. “They aren’t jellyfish,” Sarah says, “they’re Daleks, not the casing obviously, but the actual Dalek creatures and there are thousands of them.”
“What’re they doing in the sea?” asks Martha.
“No idea,” says Sarah, as Jack flips his phone out. “There’s some good news though: most are dead, or look as though they’re dying.”
“Got to call in,” Jack tells them, “and apologise to Mickey. A lot.”
“I’d better call UNIT too,” Martha says.
“I’m going back to the castle,” says Sarah, standing up.
Martha covers her phone’s mouthpiece for a second. “Not by yourself you’re not,” she says. “Five minutes, okay? And then you can explain why.”
After Jack and Martha have finished their calls, Sarah has a very short argument with Luke and Clyde. “Absolutely not,” she insists, “you’ve both been in more than enough danger this week and you are staying here. Besides, someone has to make sure our John Doe is alright until UNIT gets here. But if something does happen, or he gets any worse, you call us at once, okay?” She pauses in the doorway, turns to look back at them. “And don’t either of you dare go anywhere near the beach. Those creatures may not look like much, but if there’s even one healthy one down there, it’s too dangerous. They move fast, and they go for your throat.” She looks from one boy to the other and is reasonably satisfied that they won’t do anything incredibly stupid.
As she drives back up to the castle, Martha next to her, Jack in the backseat, she explains why she’s insisted on going back: “It’s not just the secret door. There was something very odd about the housekeeper, you must know what I mean, eventually you get a knack for just noticing that something’s off, even if you don’t know exactly what it is. And by off, I mean alien.” She pauses for a long moment, and then gives a self-effacing laugh. “And I’m an idiot, I’m an utter idiot, she said humans.”
“I don’t understand,” says Martha.
“When I was rambling on about the history article I said had to do, and the housekeeper thought it was silly because there’d just been an alien invasion and no-one would want to read about old castles, she said tens of thousands of humans were dead, not people, humans. Who says that?”
“Aliens,” says Jack promptly.
“Exactly.”
“So,” says Martha, “we’ve got aliens in a castle, Daleks in the sea, Alan and Maria missing, Donna vanishing in front of our eyes and absolutely no sign of the Doctor.”
“Yup,” says Sarah Jane cheerfully, “it’s definitely one of those days.”