AN: This is going to be a weird fic. I can feel it. Besides the fact that I wrote this while listening to NASA recordings of planetary noise and Ingrid Michealson songs "Everybody" and "The Chain". I'm sure I'm not the only one who thought about Donna during Season 5, especially when The Doctor talked to Amy about how nothing is ever really forgotten so long as there is something to remind us. And Donna, despite having her head forcibly shoved back under the metaphorical sand, lives on Earth during the 21st Century where all the action is happening and if there's one thing I've noticed about her is that she has a need to pick at things until she understands them. And the DoctorDonna is an entity on par with Bad Wolf. Things are very likely to start breaking right along with those cracks in the universe.

So here's me and the DoctorDonna poking at things until they break. Fic takes place slightly after "Journey's End" and will meander it's way through canon. Most of the main plot was inspired by a very disturbing dream I had about the Time War and just what the Doctor did to Gallifrey and the effects that is still being seen into the future.

It seems that I have been held

In some dreaming state

A tourist in the waking world

Never quite awake

~"Blinding" Florence+The Machines

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The hill she was standing on was just one of many hills which rolled ever upwards until they hit the mountain range that seemed to go on forever. The grass was long and thick and rustled against her knees, but made no sound. There was a forest at the start of the mountains that crowded up almost into the snow cap.

It was all very peaceful and quiet. It felt as if she had been standing there forever and maybe she had. There was no light source to mark the passage of time and nothing to mark the season. As far as she knew it had always been like that and always would be with no beginning or end. An eternal summer at the peak of perfection.

There was something horribly wrong with it all. The silence. The grass. The trees. The mountains. The sky. It was all wrong. All of it.

There should have been the sound of wind through the grass, the distant rustle of the trees. There should have been bird song or at least insect noises. But there was nothing. She couldn't even hear herself breathing.

The sky was a sickly shade of orange, the kind of color you saw before a storm, as if nature was going to be violently sick all over everything. The trees were a shining metallic color that reflected everything around them. As the trees swayed the leaves turned into a dizzying array of flickering light that was too chaotic to be beautiful. Rather headache inducing actually. The grass was the color of drying blood, and went from deep red to a rusty brown.

The mountains were just mountains though so she concentrated mostly on that and steadfastly ignored everything else for as long as she could. It was an appallingly short amount of time (time? What was time here?) before she was heartily dissatisfied.

There was still something wrong with the mountains though. They were absurdly big. Granted she had never seen a mountain (had she? It had been so cold and the parka so warm. He had laughed at her. Who had?) and she probably never would (the mountains were made of diamond he said, but that's just silly, there was no such thing... was there?). She had never left England (walked barefoot through Egypt she did. No she didn't, watching too many documentaries on the telly missus.). But even despite that there was still something terribly wrong about those mountains.

No. Not the mountains. The horizon where the sky met those mountains. There was a strange line that curved over those mountains, like there was something there. Something round like a snow globe. Something unnatural that reflected the light strangely.

It was all wrong. Why was everything so horribly wrong? She looked down and even then it took her a moment to realize.

The grass wasn't bending to a silent breeze it was bent. Frozen in that moment when the wind touched it.

Everything was still in that moment. As if the entire planet was holding it's breath, had always been holding it's breath, would hold it's breath forever. Trapped always inside a perfect moment.

"This is wrong." She said out loud, and even her voice seemed to fall flat, the sound refusing to carry. Her hands went up to grasp the sides of her head, her fingers tangling in her hair to yank distractedly. The gesture was strangely familiar as if she spent a good deal of time in this pose. Even that felt wrong.

"It's wrong, it's all wrong, why is it wrong?!" She repeated, her voice raising in volume with her fear and confusion.

"It's because the planet is dead." The voice behind her was so familiar her heart ached. The fear and confusion washed away on a tidal wave of love and concern and exasperation and worry. She spun around to face him, skinny, ridiculous, fabulous man! She'd missed him so much she couldn't stand it!

She had barely gotten more than a glimpse of wild hair and dizzying brown eyes and a thin, tired face (he's not eating, he's not sleeping and his eyes, oh my god what have you done to yourself?!).

Her eyes snapped open. The room was dark except for the city lights streaming through the blinds of her window. Shaun snored away next to her, the sound both grating and comforting at once.

She blinked, wondering why she had woken up so abruptly. She blinked again and realized that her cheeks were wet. She breathed in slowly and the sound was shaky and surprisingly loud. Her chest ached, she was so sad.

Wait... Why was she sad..?

She wiped her eyes and stared at her damp fingertips in confusion.

Why was she crying..?

"I miss you!" She hissed, angry suddenly, so very angry and so very sad and she missed him so very much. The moment the words left her lips there was a strange sound, like singing only more grating, like the wind (like the planets, like the galaxy, like the universe) and there was a moment where she was so light-headed all she saw was white (and gold, so gold, like the heart of the sun and gold dust and starlight).

Wait...

Miss?

Miss who..?