Title: A Red Midnight
Author: Heartwing
Summary: The Doctor convinces Donna to join him on the Crusader 50, a trip that leads to a rather different outcome than he had hoped for.
Disclaimer: All I own is series 4, a windup dalek, a keychain, a few books, a poster and a calender.
Author's Note: This is un-beta-ed and hasn't been Brit-picked. I tried my best, but my program only acknowledges American spellings. If I made any awful mistakes, please let me know.
I'm also fairly new to writing in this fandom, and this is my first big project in a while.
"Doctor, I said no!"
"Donnaaaa! It's a sapphire waterfall! A waterfall made of sapphires! This enormous jewel, size of a glacier, reaches the Cliffs of Oblivion, and then shatters into sapphires at the edge - they fall 100,000 feet into a crystal ravine!"
Donna smiled indulgently, glad that the Doctor couldn't see. She knew that if he prodded her a bit more she'd give in. "I bet you say that to all the girls."
"Oh, come on! They're boarding now! Donna, how often do you see a waterfall made of sapphires?" He whined at her, "Pleaaaaase, Donna! It's no fun alone."
Donna gave an exaggerated sigh, a smile spreading across her face. "Fine. But you owe me."
"A date? Dinner at that anti-gravity restaurant. With bibs."
Donna laughed. "How about a beach as well, since you're interrupting my sunbathing."
"It's a date."
Donna sat down next to the Doctor with a huff. "Couldn't have waited outside, could you spaceman?"
The Doctor opened his mouth, likely with an excuse, but the hostess standing nearby beat him to it. "Welcome to the Crusader 50. Here are the headphones for Channels 1 to 36, the modem link for 3D videogames, complimentary earplugs, complimentary slippers, complimentary juice pack, and complimentary peanuts. I must warn you some products may contain nuts."
"That'll be the peanuts." The Doctor explained to Donna, who was looking a little overwhelmed at all the complementary items being loaded onto her.
"Yea, I gathered that, spaceman."
"Enjoy your trip."
"Allons-y!" The hostess gave the Doctor a bland smile before moving on to the people behind them.
"So how exactly does this work? A waterfall of sapphires?" Donna asked the Doctor
"Well," The man behind them leaned forwards. The Doctor and Donna turned around to face them. "They call it a sapphire waterfall, but there's no such thing. Sapphire's an aluminum oxide, but the glacier is just a compound silica with iron pigmentation."
Donna blinked. "Erm-"
"Oh, I'm being rude! Hobbs, Professor Hobbs." The professor shook hands with them.
The woman next to them leaned forwards as well. "And I'm Dee Dee, Dee Dee Blasco."
"I'm the Doctor, hello!" He said with a large grin. "And this is Donna Noble."
Donna smiled. "Hello."
"This is my fourteenth time," The professor told them after they shook hands.
"Oh?" The Doctor asked. "It's our first."
The Hostess walked towards the front of the cabin. "Ladies and gentlemen and variations thereupon, welcome on board the Crusader 50, if you would fasten your seatbelts, we'll be leaving any moment. Doors!"
Donna watched as the doors automatically sealed. "That's fancy," she murmured to the Time Lord sitting next to her.
"Shields down!" The Hostess ordered and the window shades descended. "I'm afraid the view is shielded until we reach the Waterfall Palace. Also, a reminder, Midnight has no air, so please don't touch the exterior door seals. Fire exit at the rear, and should we need to use it... you first." Donna rolled her eyes as the Hostess laughed at her own joke. "Now I will hand you over to Driver Joe."
She stepped back as the intercom came on. "Driver Joe at the wheel! There's been a diamondfall at the Winter Witch Canyon, so we'll be taking a slight detour, as you'll see on the map." A map popped up on a screen. "The journey covers 500 kliks to the Multifaceted Coast, duration is estimated at four hours. Thank you for travelling with us, and as they used to say in the olden days, wagons roll!"
The Doctor grinned at Donna as the shuttle started moving. She rolled her eyes at him but smiled at his enthusiasm.
The Hostess stepped forwards again. "For your entertainment, we have the Music Channel playing retrovids of Earth Classics." She pushed a button on her remote and a screen appeared in front of everyone playing a music video. "Also, the latest artistic installation from Ludovico Klein." She pushed another button to start a hologram show. "Plus, for the youngsters, a rare treat - the Animation Archives." An old cartoon started on a projector screen. "Four hours of funtime! Enjoy!"
The Doctor and Donna looked around at the others as they were bombarded by all the sound. Donna met the gaze if the woman across the aisle, who rolled her eyes. Donna smirked and turned back to the Doctor. "Make it stop," she quietly begged him. He pulled out his sonic screwdriver and made it all shut down.
"Well, that's a mercy!" Professor Hobbs happily said.
"Much better, isn't it," Donna added.
The hostess frowned and pulled out her remote, trying to get it to work. "I do apologise, ladies and gentlemen and variations thereupon. We seem to have a failure of the Entertainment System." Donna and the woman smiled at each other.
"But what do we do?" asked a woman behind them.
"We've got four hours of this!" added her husband. "Four hours of just... sitting here?
The Doctor sat up excitedly and turned around to face them. "Tell you what! We'll have to talk to each other instead!" Donna and the Doctor smirked at each other as all the passengers looked surprised at that strange idea.
98 KLIKS LATER...
The Doctor and Donna were sitting next to the couple, Val and Biff, who were telling a story.
"So Biff said, 'I'm going swimming,'" Val started.
"Oh, I was all ready, trunks and everything! Nose plug!"
"He had this little nose plug, you should've seen him."
"And I went marching up to the lifeguard, and he was a Shamboni, you know, those big foreheads?"
"Great big forehead!" Val repeated, rather unnecessarily in Donna's opinion.
"And I said, where's the pool? And he said..."
"The pool is abstract!" Val and Biff said together.
"It wasn't a real pool!" Val added before bursting into laughter.
"It was a concept!"
"And you wore a nose plug!" Asked the Doctor.
"I was like this," Biff told him before pinching his nose. "Mmm...where's the pool?"
Everyone burst out laughing again, apart from Donna who really didn't get it, and the woman, who was sitting alone reading a book.
150 KLIKS LATER...
The Doctor and Dee Dee were in the galley, getting coffee.
"I'm just a second-year student," She told him, "but I wrote a paper on the Lost Moon of Poosh, Professor Hobbes read it, liked it, took me on as a researcher. Just for the holidays." She heasitated. "Well, I say researcher, most of the time he's got me fetching and carrying. But it's all good experience!"
"And did they ever find it?" The Doctor asked her, accepting the cup she offered.
Dee Dee looked confused. "Find what?"
"The Lost Moon of Poosh!"
Dee Dee giggled at him. "Oh no! Not yet!"
The Doctor smiled at her. "Well, maybe that'll be your great discovery, one day." He raised his cup. "Here's to Poosh!"
She raised hers as well. "To Poosh!"
209 KLIKS LATER
Donna and the woman, Sky, sat together eating their meal.
"No, we just travel together. Well we're sort of together, the Doctor and I. We're best friends, but sometimes… sometimes it almost seems like he wants more, but then his mood just turns around and he gets all silly again. What about you? Do you have anyone?"
Sky shook her head. "No, it's just me."
"Oh, I've tried that. Travelling on my own. I don't mind it. You get to do what you want, go anywhere. I prefer traveling with the Doctor though."
"I'm still getting used to it," Sky said. "I've found myself single rather recently, not by choice."
Donna nodded in understanding. She could relate. "What happened?"
"Oh, the usual," Sky told her. "She needed her own space, as they say. A different galaxy, in fact. I reckon that's enough space, don't you?"
"Yeah… I had a fiancé who left me for a giant spider."
Sky quickly changed the subject. "Oh, what's this, chicken or beef?"
Donna examined a piece on her fork. "I'm really not sure."