Fic: Pockets in Time Part 2
Title: Pockets in time (Part 2)
Author:
helloprilly
Characters: Ten/Donna
Rating: Teen
Word Count: 2244
Part 1
Something was burning.
Donna groaned as she tried to blink her eyes open, but the pounding in her head kept her from moving too quickly. She lay still trying to take stock of her injuries, the blinding headache and sense of motion even as she was laying still made her realize she most likely had a concussion at the very least.
She took a deep breath, willing the pounding of her head to subside as she systematically began to wiggle her fingers and toes. Her breath hitched with the pain that shot through her left thigh, but thankfully the pain quickly subsided into a dull throb.
“Alright, Donna. Quit stalling, time to move.”
Donna winced at the explosion of pain in her temples at the sound of her own voice, but that didn’t stop her from forcing her eyes open so that she could try to see if the Doctor was alright.
It worried her that he was so quiet in her mind, her mental fingers were fumbling against absolute emptiness and she worried that he had been injured far worse than she had been. First though, she had to get herself moving before she had any hope of finding and tending to the Doctor.
She was laying face down by one of the coral struts near the door of the Tardis, her body was sprawled at an inelegant angle along the side of the wall and her head was turned painfully back towards the control console.
The flashing of sparks lit the room at irregular intervals, but the console itself seemed to be largely intact though the time rotor was decidedly dim in its casing. The grating had buckled in several places and the contents of the compartments beneath were strewn haphazardly across the room, where they weren’t wedged in the holes of the grating.
Donna moved her gaze over the control room, trying to find the Doctor without any success. She blinked several times as there seemed to be glowing circles of varying sizes scattered across the room, a sure sign of that concussion she had been worried about.
She couldn’t quell the panic that was beginning to bubble deep in her stomach when she couldn’t find the Doctor, and the continued silence in her head was only making matters worse.
“Doctor?”
To Donna’s ears, her voice sounded rather weak and pathetic, but it was hard to get a proper breath with her body twisted against the wall like a pretzel. She forced her hands under her chest and carefully lifted herself away from the strut that she had been propped against, crying out softly at the pain that exploded through her head and side. She was definitely in rough shape, but the fact that she was able to move at all made her think that it wasn’t as bad as it could be.
Her hand rose to her head when the control room spun around her more violently now that she was sitting upright, the glowing circles seemed to be dancing across her vision in nauseating waves and they didn’t disappear no matter how much she blinked.
The Doctor was nowhere to be seen, and that place in her mind that she had long associated with him was still completely silent. Forcing herself to her feet, Donna was forced to hold on to the coral strut for support while the world began to violently whirl around her.
“DOCTOR??”
Donna’s voice was sounding more firm and slightly more panicked as she called out to the Doctor once more, but there was still no response from either the Time Lord or his ship.
Donna pushed herself away from her perch, her head lifting to gaze around the control room to try to see where the Doctor might have landed. She didn’t know what those circles were but she felt that she should avoid them just in case they weren’t hallucinations, and as she rounded the control console she felt her heart nearly drop through her feet at the sight before her.
The Doctor stood frozen with one arm outstretched, his mouth was open around a silent scream and his body was suspended several inches off the ground. His eyes looked to be dark pools of panic even as his hand looked to be trying to grab onto something.
Donna cried out when she saw the Doctor, tears instantly springing to her eyes when she saw the absolute terror that was etched across his face. She rushed across the control room, heedless of the pain that was screaming through her body and barely noticing the faint outline of a glowing circle around the Doctor and much of the control console before she ran smack into the barrier.
Donna screamed. She screamed louder than she thought was possible when she hit that barrier, her body began spasming in reaction to the energy that suddenly raced from head to toe. She could see the Doctor just ahead of her, but he may as well have been a million miles away before she felt her body repulsed and thrown back several feet.
White light exploded behind her eyes and Donna came to her senses half crouched on the floor, her head cradled in her hands as tears flowed freely down her face. She’d been right to avoid those circles, but she could see that some of them were moving sluggishly across the control room, one seemed to be half embedded in the wall of the Tardis while another drifted lazily through the air towards the corridor to their room.
She rose to her feet once more, her eyes locked on the Doctor’s tormented stare as she slowly made her way back to his side. As she got closer to the circle, she let her eyes trace its edges, not failing to notice that a large portion of the circle was also encompassing a portion of the time rotor and the control console. The Doctor looked to have a dark smudge on his cheek, but other than that mark he seemed to be completely fine. She took a deep breath as she came right up to the edge of the shimmering barrier, her breath ghosting lightly along its surface.
“Doctor, can you hear me?”
Donna reached out with everything she had towards the void in her mind, her fingers scrabbling desperately along its edges as she called out to him. He was standing less than a foot away from her, but he may as well have been halfway across the galaxy as both he and the Tardis remained totally silent.
She took a deep breath and reached out to touch the circle one more time, grimacing at the electric shock that seemed to race up her arm as she pushed her hand deeper into the circle. Her muscles started to cramp and the tingling quickly raced further up her arm as she pushed her hand closer to the Doctor. She actually managed to brush his outstretched hand before the electric shock exploded through her body and flung her back away from the circle once more.
Donna was more prepared for the shock this time, her feet were already braced against its repulsive force and her eyes remained glued to the Doctor’s the entire time. His expression didn’t change but when she managed to clear the stars from her eyes, she noticed that his hand had changed position and those outstretched fingers were now clenched tightly closed.
“I knew it! You are in there!” Donna felt elation surge through her body, momentarily blocking out the pain of her injuries and flooding her with a much needed rush of adrenaline. She raised her hand to her lips, nibbling thoughtfully on her thumb as she began to pace along the confines of the Doctor’s prison.
She couldn’t think of that circle in any other way, the Doctor seemed to be frozen in time and he was trapped inside a bubble of who knew what sort of energy and it was up to her to find a way to get him out.
“Come on, Donna, think! You know you can’t touch him, the minute you do you’re pushed away. How can I get him out of there?” Her pacing took her back and forth along the undamaged section of grating, the flaring of sparks had dimmed since she had opened her eyes but the controls were even more faint than they had been before and the lighting in the room was starting to fail as well. She didn’t have much time before she was plunged into total darkness and the Tardis would most likely begin to fall out of the vortex to crash who knew where.
She had to get the Doctor out of that bubble of energy quickly, because she truly had no idea what would happen once the last of the Tardis systems failed. She couldn’t let herself think about the damage that had been done to the old girl, that last panicked scream she had heard before she had been thrown across the console room couldn’t have been good.
Donna’s gaze raced around the control room, trying to find anything that she could use to help the Doctor when her eyes fell on the two mallets that usually hung on a hook under the console but were now tossed against the wall of the Tardis. She looked back at the Doctor for a moment, her lip quivering before she deftly picked her way across the broken grates of the control room and bent down to retrieve the heavier rubber mallet.
She couldn’t touch the Doctor without the energy from whatever that bubble was pushing her back, but what if she didn’t touch him? She had felt how much the energy had pushed back against her hand as she had reached out to the Doctor, what if she got enough momentum up to overcome that energy and managed to knock the Doctor clear out of the way?
Donna walked slowly back to the Doctor’s side, her eyes were pleading up into his blank gaze as she silently begged him to understand why she had to do what she was about to do.
“I’m sorry, Doctor. I don’t really have a choice and we both really need you right now.”
She tried to once more in vain to reach out to him with her mind, not really expecting anything to respond from that void that seemed to be growing larger by the second. She worried that she would be a gibbering mess soon if she didn’t manage to release him, and she couldn’t help but remember his words when he had spoken about the time that their link had been severed.
She could feel the fluttering of terror in her belly as her mind was now continuously scrabbling along the walls of silence in her mind, the panic that she couldn’t control even though she was standing there looking right at him. This was something that they were definitely going to need to work on if they managed to make it out of this situation in one piece. They couldn’t be falling to pieces every time something happened to suppress their bond and she certainly couldn’t risk him losing his sometimes tenuous control on the madness of the Time Lord Victorious if anything were to ever happen to her.
She couldn’t think about those future times now though, she had to act and she had to act quickly before the choice was taken from her.
Taking one final look at the Doctor as he stood frozen within a bubble of energy mere inches from her face, she licked her lips and whispered softly. “I’m sorry, Doctor.”
Donna hefted the mallet in her hands and reached back before swinging towards the barrier in front of her with all her might. Electricity once more shot up through her arms and raced through her chest into her head but it was like the electric current had fused her hands to the handle of the mallet. She couldn’t let go of the worn wood if she had tried.
She felt herself screaming as her entire body rung like a bell had been struck, the forward momentum of her swing felt like it was moving through a sea of jelly as her muscles strained for every bit of distance. She was staring wide eyed at the Doctor, absently tracking the progress of the mallet as it seemed to swim closer and closer to his body.
Donna’s head was spinning and the world was starting to go dim around her, she knew that she most likely wouldn’t have another chance to break the Doctor free and so with a final scream of effort she forced her spasming muscles to push that final millimeter to connect with the Doctor’s chest.
White light exploded through her head and the Doctor’s screaming voice suddenly filled her mind to near bursting. She looked up in time to see the Doctor be flung backwards out of the circle of light before her hands were forcibly ripped from the handle of the mallet and the world began to reel in response.
Thank god it worked…. Her mind whispered as she heard the Doctor’s voice crying out in dismay when she fell to the floor. The last thing she remembered was the brush of the Doctor’s hand across her cheek before the tingling after effects of electrical energy chased her back into the darkness.
Part 3
Author:
helloprilly
Characters: Ten/Donna
Rating: Teen
Word Count: 2244
Part 1
Something was burning.
Donna groaned as she tried to blink her eyes open, but the pounding in her head kept her from moving too quickly. She lay still trying to take stock of her injuries, the blinding headache and sense of motion even as she was laying still made her realize she most likely had a concussion at the very least.
She took a deep breath, willing the pounding of her head to subside as she systematically began to wiggle her fingers and toes. Her breath hitched with the pain that shot through her left thigh, but thankfully the pain quickly subsided into a dull throb.
“Alright, Donna. Quit stalling, time to move.”
Donna winced at the explosion of pain in her temples at the sound of her own voice, but that didn’t stop her from forcing her eyes open so that she could try to see if the Doctor was alright.
It worried her that he was so quiet in her mind, her mental fingers were fumbling against absolute emptiness and she worried that he had been injured far worse than she had been. First though, she had to get herself moving before she had any hope of finding and tending to the Doctor.
She was laying face down by one of the coral struts near the door of the Tardis, her body was sprawled at an inelegant angle along the side of the wall and her head was turned painfully back towards the control console.
The flashing of sparks lit the room at irregular intervals, but the console itself seemed to be largely intact though the time rotor was decidedly dim in its casing. The grating had buckled in several places and the contents of the compartments beneath were strewn haphazardly across the room, where they weren’t wedged in the holes of the grating.
Donna moved her gaze over the control room, trying to find the Doctor without any success. She blinked several times as there seemed to be glowing circles of varying sizes scattered across the room, a sure sign of that concussion she had been worried about.
She couldn’t quell the panic that was beginning to bubble deep in her stomach when she couldn’t find the Doctor, and the continued silence in her head was only making matters worse.
“Doctor?”
To Donna’s ears, her voice sounded rather weak and pathetic, but it was hard to get a proper breath with her body twisted against the wall like a pretzel. She forced her hands under her chest and carefully lifted herself away from the strut that she had been propped against, crying out softly at the pain that exploded through her head and side. She was definitely in rough shape, but the fact that she was able to move at all made her think that it wasn’t as bad as it could be.
Her hand rose to her head when the control room spun around her more violently now that she was sitting upright, the glowing circles seemed to be dancing across her vision in nauseating waves and they didn’t disappear no matter how much she blinked.
The Doctor was nowhere to be seen, and that place in her mind that she had long associated with him was still completely silent. Forcing herself to her feet, Donna was forced to hold on to the coral strut for support while the world began to violently whirl around her.
“DOCTOR??”
Donna’s voice was sounding more firm and slightly more panicked as she called out to the Doctor once more, but there was still no response from either the Time Lord or his ship.
Donna pushed herself away from her perch, her head lifting to gaze around the control room to try to see where the Doctor might have landed. She didn’t know what those circles were but she felt that she should avoid them just in case they weren’t hallucinations, and as she rounded the control console she felt her heart nearly drop through her feet at the sight before her.
The Doctor stood frozen with one arm outstretched, his mouth was open around a silent scream and his body was suspended several inches off the ground. His eyes looked to be dark pools of panic even as his hand looked to be trying to grab onto something.
Donna cried out when she saw the Doctor, tears instantly springing to her eyes when she saw the absolute terror that was etched across his face. She rushed across the control room, heedless of the pain that was screaming through her body and barely noticing the faint outline of a glowing circle around the Doctor and much of the control console before she ran smack into the barrier.
Donna screamed. She screamed louder than she thought was possible when she hit that barrier, her body began spasming in reaction to the energy that suddenly raced from head to toe. She could see the Doctor just ahead of her, but he may as well have been a million miles away before she felt her body repulsed and thrown back several feet.
White light exploded behind her eyes and Donna came to her senses half crouched on the floor, her head cradled in her hands as tears flowed freely down her face. She’d been right to avoid those circles, but she could see that some of them were moving sluggishly across the control room, one seemed to be half embedded in the wall of the Tardis while another drifted lazily through the air towards the corridor to their room.
She rose to her feet once more, her eyes locked on the Doctor’s tormented stare as she slowly made her way back to his side. As she got closer to the circle, she let her eyes trace its edges, not failing to notice that a large portion of the circle was also encompassing a portion of the time rotor and the control console. The Doctor looked to have a dark smudge on his cheek, but other than that mark he seemed to be completely fine. She took a deep breath as she came right up to the edge of the shimmering barrier, her breath ghosting lightly along its surface.
“Doctor, can you hear me?”
Donna reached out with everything she had towards the void in her mind, her fingers scrabbling desperately along its edges as she called out to him. He was standing less than a foot away from her, but he may as well have been halfway across the galaxy as both he and the Tardis remained totally silent.
She took a deep breath and reached out to touch the circle one more time, grimacing at the electric shock that seemed to race up her arm as she pushed her hand deeper into the circle. Her muscles started to cramp and the tingling quickly raced further up her arm as she pushed her hand closer to the Doctor. She actually managed to brush his outstretched hand before the electric shock exploded through her body and flung her back away from the circle once more.
Donna was more prepared for the shock this time, her feet were already braced against its repulsive force and her eyes remained glued to the Doctor’s the entire time. His expression didn’t change but when she managed to clear the stars from her eyes, she noticed that his hand had changed position and those outstretched fingers were now clenched tightly closed.
“I knew it! You are in there!” Donna felt elation surge through her body, momentarily blocking out the pain of her injuries and flooding her with a much needed rush of adrenaline. She raised her hand to her lips, nibbling thoughtfully on her thumb as she began to pace along the confines of the Doctor’s prison.
She couldn’t think of that circle in any other way, the Doctor seemed to be frozen in time and he was trapped inside a bubble of who knew what sort of energy and it was up to her to find a way to get him out.
“Come on, Donna, think! You know you can’t touch him, the minute you do you’re pushed away. How can I get him out of there?” Her pacing took her back and forth along the undamaged section of grating, the flaring of sparks had dimmed since she had opened her eyes but the controls were even more faint than they had been before and the lighting in the room was starting to fail as well. She didn’t have much time before she was plunged into total darkness and the Tardis would most likely begin to fall out of the vortex to crash who knew where.
She had to get the Doctor out of that bubble of energy quickly, because she truly had no idea what would happen once the last of the Tardis systems failed. She couldn’t let herself think about the damage that had been done to the old girl, that last panicked scream she had heard before she had been thrown across the console room couldn’t have been good.
Donna’s gaze raced around the control room, trying to find anything that she could use to help the Doctor when her eyes fell on the two mallets that usually hung on a hook under the console but were now tossed against the wall of the Tardis. She looked back at the Doctor for a moment, her lip quivering before she deftly picked her way across the broken grates of the control room and bent down to retrieve the heavier rubber mallet.
She couldn’t touch the Doctor without the energy from whatever that bubble was pushing her back, but what if she didn’t touch him? She had felt how much the energy had pushed back against her hand as she had reached out to the Doctor, what if she got enough momentum up to overcome that energy and managed to knock the Doctor clear out of the way?
Donna walked slowly back to the Doctor’s side, her eyes were pleading up into his blank gaze as she silently begged him to understand why she had to do what she was about to do.
“I’m sorry, Doctor. I don’t really have a choice and we both really need you right now.”
She tried to once more in vain to reach out to him with her mind, not really expecting anything to respond from that void that seemed to be growing larger by the second. She worried that she would be a gibbering mess soon if she didn’t manage to release him, and she couldn’t help but remember his words when he had spoken about the time that their link had been severed.
She could feel the fluttering of terror in her belly as her mind was now continuously scrabbling along the walls of silence in her mind, the panic that she couldn’t control even though she was standing there looking right at him. This was something that they were definitely going to need to work on if they managed to make it out of this situation in one piece. They couldn’t be falling to pieces every time something happened to suppress their bond and she certainly couldn’t risk him losing his sometimes tenuous control on the madness of the Time Lord Victorious if anything were to ever happen to her.
She couldn’t think about those future times now though, she had to act and she had to act quickly before the choice was taken from her.
Taking one final look at the Doctor as he stood frozen within a bubble of energy mere inches from her face, she licked her lips and whispered softly. “I’m sorry, Doctor.”
Donna hefted the mallet in her hands and reached back before swinging towards the barrier in front of her with all her might. Electricity once more shot up through her arms and raced through her chest into her head but it was like the electric current had fused her hands to the handle of the mallet. She couldn’t let go of the worn wood if she had tried.
She felt herself screaming as her entire body rung like a bell had been struck, the forward momentum of her swing felt like it was moving through a sea of jelly as her muscles strained for every bit of distance. She was staring wide eyed at the Doctor, absently tracking the progress of the mallet as it seemed to swim closer and closer to his body.
Donna’s head was spinning and the world was starting to go dim around her, she knew that she most likely wouldn’t have another chance to break the Doctor free and so with a final scream of effort she forced her spasming muscles to push that final millimeter to connect with the Doctor’s chest.
White light exploded through her head and the Doctor’s screaming voice suddenly filled her mind to near bursting. She looked up in time to see the Doctor be flung backwards out of the circle of light before her hands were forcibly ripped from the handle of the mallet and the world began to reel in response.
Thank god it worked…. Her mind whispered as she heard the Doctor’s voice crying out in dismay when she fell to the floor. The last thing she remembered was the brush of the Doctor’s hand across her cheek before the tingling after effects of electrical energy chased her back into the darkness.
Part 3