Finding A Way Home - Sacrifices Part I
Title: Finding A Way Home - Sacrifices 1/3
Author: katherine_b
Rating: PG-13
Summary: The half-human Doctor faces a terrible choice.
Characters: Donna, the half-human Doctor and an alien threat
“Where are they?” Donna demands desperately, her fingers digging into the Doctor’s blue sleeve.
A bullet pings off the brickwork only a few metres away, sending up a small shower of masonry.
“There,” the Doctor whispers in her ear, pointing up into a nearby building, feeling as his single heart hammers against his ribs. “There’s at least three Dauthus on that level, and two on the one below.”
There’s a sudden explosion some distance away, which the man knows has been set off by the other Doctor as a diversion.
“It’s okay,” he murmurs in Donna’s ear as she tenses, knowing that she’s worrying about her husband. “He’s fine. I’d feel it otherwise.”
“There they go!” Donna exclaims in relief, although she manages to keep her voice low, as several figures leap out of the building, drifting to Earth, before solidifying and taking off in the direction of the blast.
“TARDIS,” the Doctor orders, grabbing her hand and pulling her out of their hiding place. “Before they come back!”
But just as they step out into the open, and before they can take off running, they’re brought up short as a Dauthus solidifies in front of them.
The Doctor instinctively steps in front of Donna, his arms spread to keep her behind him, doing his best to protect her. He knows that, if anything happens to her, she’ll lose the two tiny lives growing inside her.
Still, he can’t afford to waste time on those thoughts now.
“I can help you!” he pleads, taking a step forward, even as the enemy raises the gun in its hand.
“No,” the Dauthus replies, and fires.
There’s no pain at first, only terrible pressure in his chest that knocks the breath out of him, an echo of the shot Davros fired at him only a short time after he came into existence. Before he has a chance to let himself understand what just happened, he raises the sonic screwdriver and presses the button that compresses the Dauthus’ wavelength, crushing it out of existence instantly.
There’s an echo as every single other Dauthus is also annihilated.
No second chances. I’m that sort of a man.
He inhales, and the pain hits.
He presses his hand to the place where the bullet entered his chest, right where his heart would have been if he wasn’t half-human.
Donna grabs his shoulder and turns him to face her. He struggles to keep his feet and then looks up to see confusion and fear battling in her eyes.
“But…”
“Get the Doctor,” he gasps, fighting to control the blood that wants to pour out of the wound and trying to find a way to breathe that doesn’t hurt.
“No!”
“Donna…”
It’s so impossibly hard to glare at her when all he really wants right now, as his legs start to shake, is to collapse and let himself bleed to death in her arms. It would be fitting when it was her touch that brought him into being.
He can’t though.
He can’t do that to her. He can’t leave her with the burden of guilt that she couldn’t save him for the rest of her life.
“Please,” he gets out, although it sounds more like a groan.
“I’m not leaving you!” She grabs for his hand, but he takes a stumbling step away from her, finding a solid wall behind him and leaning gratefully against it.
“You can’t… help me,” he gasps, the words coming slowly.
And then he does something he never imagined he would have to.
He slowly raises the sonic screwdriver, pointing it at her, having to support his right hand with his left. His thumb is resting on the button, the setting that destroyed the Dauthus still active.
Donna won’t have a chance to regenerate if he’s forced to use it on her.
She stops dead, perhaps believing that he’s serious, staring at him with wide eyes.
“Go,” he repeats, his voice almost soundless, feeling as his mental grip on his body begins to falter and the first of the blood seeps out of the bullet wound, staining his white shirt deep red.
Whatever Donna sees in his face clearly frightens her. She takes a step back, and then another, before suddenly turning on her heel and running down the alley, screaming for the Doctor at the top of her lungs.
He drops his arms, letting the sonic fall from between his weak, shaking fingers and hearing it rattle onto the ground. He hopes the Time Lord will remember to collect it so that he can give it to River Song when they meet in the future.
His single heart starts to pulse harder, trying to pump the blood around his body, but struggling when so much of it is pouring out of the holes in his chest, front and back. He can feel his shirt clinging wetly to him, the blood starting to soak into his jacket. His tattered lung is whistling as it struggles to work despite the rips in it.
The shaking in his legs increases and he can’t keep himself upright any longer, his knees buckling as he slides to the ground.
He once more presses his hand to the wound, feeling the grim echo of the time when Donna’s hand was resting on the other side of his chest, identifying him as different from the other Doctor.
He can feel his responses slowing, becoming more sluggish, just like when he was using his energy to save Donna’s memories and her life.
He’s glad she left. He doesn’t want her there to see him dying.
It’s just that he never thought he’d die alone.
Oh, who is he fooling? He never let himself imagine dying at all.
It’s not what Time Lords do.
It’s what humans do.
And it’s his single, human heart that is beating irregularly now, desperately trying to keep him alive.
There’s dampness on his face, and he manages to tilt his head up, looking for the rain. It’s only as he finds himself gazing into a blue, cloudless sky that he realises he’s weeping.
It’s so different from last time, when he could accept death because he’d barely begun to live. Because he had no attachments to anything in this Universe. Because he was doing it to save Donna.
But he’s moved on now. His life has become something better, something valuable and valued.
He knows people will miss him.
The pain of lost opportunities is worse than the pain caused by the bullet. He’s not afraid of dying, but, as he rests his head back against the bricks and the tears slide out of his eyes, he’s mourning what he will never see or do again.
It’s similar to the grief he feels when he regenerates, but greater and more massive because it’s so final. No new eyes and new face this time. No hints of his current self peeping out.
Just nothing.
The greatest regret of all is that he will never have a chance to hold the two babies that are slowly growing inside Donna. He’s known about them - known them! - ever since they came into being. He knows what they will grow into, how they will look, and the way they will think and feel. It’s pure agony to know that he will never hear the actual voices he can hear in his mind, and even more so that they will never know him.
He wonders if they will be able to remember him.
Still, the thought occurs to him that, if it hadn’t been for his actions, they would never exist at all. They would have been lost when Donna regenerated.
As darkness creeps into the edges of his field of vision, he has to hold onto that as the only comfort he can find.
The sky in front of him begins to waver, the blue fading and the sunlight glistening gold. The pain increases, breathing impossible as his heart misses a beat and then two. Every limb is shaking uncontrollably, his head being battered against the bricks, and he tries to push himself away, but no part of his body obeys his mental orders now.
It’s almost a relief when the darkness finally swallows him up.
It’s over.
* * *
And this was made for the fic by eriknannie4evr:
Next Part
Author: katherine_b
Rating: PG-13
Summary: The half-human Doctor faces a terrible choice.
Characters: Donna, the half-human Doctor and an alien threat
“Where are they?” Donna demands desperately, her fingers digging into the Doctor’s blue sleeve.
A bullet pings off the brickwork only a few metres away, sending up a small shower of masonry.
“There,” the Doctor whispers in her ear, pointing up into a nearby building, feeling as his single heart hammers against his ribs. “There’s at least three Dauthus on that level, and two on the one below.”
There’s a sudden explosion some distance away, which the man knows has been set off by the other Doctor as a diversion.
“It’s okay,” he murmurs in Donna’s ear as she tenses, knowing that she’s worrying about her husband. “He’s fine. I’d feel it otherwise.”
“There they go!” Donna exclaims in relief, although she manages to keep her voice low, as several figures leap out of the building, drifting to Earth, before solidifying and taking off in the direction of the blast.
“TARDIS,” the Doctor orders, grabbing her hand and pulling her out of their hiding place. “Before they come back!”
But just as they step out into the open, and before they can take off running, they’re brought up short as a Dauthus solidifies in front of them.
The Doctor instinctively steps in front of Donna, his arms spread to keep her behind him, doing his best to protect her. He knows that, if anything happens to her, she’ll lose the two tiny lives growing inside her.
Still, he can’t afford to waste time on those thoughts now.
“I can help you!” he pleads, taking a step forward, even as the enemy raises the gun in its hand.
“No,” the Dauthus replies, and fires.
There’s no pain at first, only terrible pressure in his chest that knocks the breath out of him, an echo of the shot Davros fired at him only a short time after he came into existence. Before he has a chance to let himself understand what just happened, he raises the sonic screwdriver and presses the button that compresses the Dauthus’ wavelength, crushing it out of existence instantly.
There’s an echo as every single other Dauthus is also annihilated.
No second chances. I’m that sort of a man.
He inhales, and the pain hits.
He presses his hand to the place where the bullet entered his chest, right where his heart would have been if he wasn’t half-human.
Donna grabs his shoulder and turns him to face her. He struggles to keep his feet and then looks up to see confusion and fear battling in her eyes.
“But…”
“Get the Doctor,” he gasps, fighting to control the blood that wants to pour out of the wound and trying to find a way to breathe that doesn’t hurt.
“No!”
“Donna…”
It’s so impossibly hard to glare at her when all he really wants right now, as his legs start to shake, is to collapse and let himself bleed to death in her arms. It would be fitting when it was her touch that brought him into being.
He can’t though.
He can’t do that to her. He can’t leave her with the burden of guilt that she couldn’t save him for the rest of her life.
“Please,” he gets out, although it sounds more like a groan.
“I’m not leaving you!” She grabs for his hand, but he takes a stumbling step away from her, finding a solid wall behind him and leaning gratefully against it.
“You can’t… help me,” he gasps, the words coming slowly.
And then he does something he never imagined he would have to.
He slowly raises the sonic screwdriver, pointing it at her, having to support his right hand with his left. His thumb is resting on the button, the setting that destroyed the Dauthus still active.
Donna won’t have a chance to regenerate if he’s forced to use it on her.
She stops dead, perhaps believing that he’s serious, staring at him with wide eyes.
“Go,” he repeats, his voice almost soundless, feeling as his mental grip on his body begins to falter and the first of the blood seeps out of the bullet wound, staining his white shirt deep red.
Whatever Donna sees in his face clearly frightens her. She takes a step back, and then another, before suddenly turning on her heel and running down the alley, screaming for the Doctor at the top of her lungs.
He drops his arms, letting the sonic fall from between his weak, shaking fingers and hearing it rattle onto the ground. He hopes the Time Lord will remember to collect it so that he can give it to River Song when they meet in the future.
His single heart starts to pulse harder, trying to pump the blood around his body, but struggling when so much of it is pouring out of the holes in his chest, front and back. He can feel his shirt clinging wetly to him, the blood starting to soak into his jacket. His tattered lung is whistling as it struggles to work despite the rips in it.
The shaking in his legs increases and he can’t keep himself upright any longer, his knees buckling as he slides to the ground.
He once more presses his hand to the wound, feeling the grim echo of the time when Donna’s hand was resting on the other side of his chest, identifying him as different from the other Doctor.
He can feel his responses slowing, becoming more sluggish, just like when he was using his energy to save Donna’s memories and her life.
He’s glad she left. He doesn’t want her there to see him dying.
It’s just that he never thought he’d die alone.
Oh, who is he fooling? He never let himself imagine dying at all.
It’s not what Time Lords do.
It’s what humans do.
And it’s his single, human heart that is beating irregularly now, desperately trying to keep him alive.
There’s dampness on his face, and he manages to tilt his head up, looking for the rain. It’s only as he finds himself gazing into a blue, cloudless sky that he realises he’s weeping.
It’s so different from last time, when he could accept death because he’d barely begun to live. Because he had no attachments to anything in this Universe. Because he was doing it to save Donna.
But he’s moved on now. His life has become something better, something valuable and valued.
He knows people will miss him.
The pain of lost opportunities is worse than the pain caused by the bullet. He’s not afraid of dying, but, as he rests his head back against the bricks and the tears slide out of his eyes, he’s mourning what he will never see or do again.
It’s similar to the grief he feels when he regenerates, but greater and more massive because it’s so final. No new eyes and new face this time. No hints of his current self peeping out.
Just nothing.
The greatest regret of all is that he will never have a chance to hold the two babies that are slowly growing inside Donna. He’s known about them - known them! - ever since they came into being. He knows what they will grow into, how they will look, and the way they will think and feel. It’s pure agony to know that he will never hear the actual voices he can hear in his mind, and even more so that they will never know him.
He wonders if they will be able to remember him.
Still, the thought occurs to him that, if it hadn’t been for his actions, they would never exist at all. They would have been lost when Donna regenerated.
As darkness creeps into the edges of his field of vision, he has to hold onto that as the only comfort he can find.
The sky in front of him begins to waver, the blue fading and the sunlight glistening gold. The pain increases, breathing impossible as his heart misses a beat and then two. Every limb is shaking uncontrollably, his head being battered against the bricks, and he tries to push himself away, but no part of his body obeys his mental orders now.
It’s almost a relief when the darkness finally swallows him up.
It’s over.
* * *
And this was made for the fic by eriknannie4evr:
Next Part