Tenth Doctor and Donna Noble.
Set between 5x11 « Midnight » and 5x12 « Turn Left. »
What if the psychic entity had caused the Doctor some damage?
Out of Sync
Synchronisation... Please Do not Disconnect...
Donna smiled as she repeated his words with the languorous voice of an actress in an old Italian movie: "Molto bene!"
"No," the Doctor replied, his eyes widening with... was it fear? No, it wasn't.
"Don't do that. Don't. Don't."
The Doctor's voice was calm as he repeated "Don't" once more. There was no obvious terror in his eyes either. But something indefinable in his expression or lack of it blocked Donna's breath, dried her throat, caused a cold shudder to run down her spine and twisted her guts into a painful knot. It was one of those rare moments when her wild personality wished she was only a tiny turtle so she could disappear inside the thickest carapace and remain hidden at the bottom of the deepest hole. Something truly terrible had happened to the indestructible man sitting across the table.
Gooseflesh spread on her arms as she scanned the luxurious palace around them, the glass cupula twenty meters above their head, the now dark blue but still sparkling sky. Was it safe to be inside? What if the entity, not aware of their presence until the accident, came after them now? Would the station be secure enough to keep it from penetrating?
"Let's go back to the Tardis," the Doctor said as if he was reading her mind. And maybe he was after all.
"Sure. Yes. Good idea. Let's get off this planet of diamonds," she replied, standing up. "Anyways, I was tired of resting next to this beautiful, crystalline pool. You tell me, who wants a pool when one can have beaches? They don't have beaches here? Safe beaches I mean."
"No."
She did not like it when he did not try to reassure her. She did not like to see his gaze lost in thin air. And above all, she did not like to see him still sitting on his chair. A part of her felt an urge to shake him up without ceremony. But for once, she did not listen to that part and sat back, tense and silent.
Maybe he was just exhausted and needed rest. A good night rest. Curiously, she did not remember having seen him sleep like her, poor and miserable human that she was. Eat, yes; sleep, never. She could make him a cup of tea. A good one. Her best one. Or a chicken soup? Donna wondered with concern, still expecting the Doctor to shake out of his lethargy and break into his usual energetic smile, leap to his feet and ask her where she wanted to go, listing at all speed a dozen possible destinations, describing them at the same time and the reason why they would have so much fun visiting each of them. That was why she liked him. His strong, buoyant personality never let his darker self take control of his mood for long.
In ten seconds? Donna hoped, on the look out for any sign... that did not come. One minute? She could give him a couple of minutes at least. Still no reaction.
"Okay, then, let's go somewhere with safe beaches. Hawaï. Have you gone to Hawaï?" she asked, making an effort to sound cheerful.
"Sharks. Volcanoes," the Doctor replied, still sitting, his gaze frozen on an invisible spot somewhere.
"Right. Okay. The Mediterranean sea then? What do you think about Greece? Greece is beautiful. I've always wanted to go visiting its thousands of small inlets in a sailing boat."
"I know."
"Of course you know. What do you know? Never mind. Greece is safe, isn't it? Perfectly safe. Tons of tourists each year, no deaths."
"Earthquakes. Occasionally."
"Occasionally, yep..." she repeated, absent-minded.
"Tsunami, once. Jellyfish, most of the time. Volcanoes."
"Right, Mr. Cheerful. Let's rule out the beaches. Beaches are boring anyway. Mountain then? The Alps."
"Avalanches."
All right. He was not going to make this easy. But she was not ready to give up yet and thought a change in strategy was in order.
"Why don't you tell me instead: is there a place you want to go? Or simply be?"
"The Tardis."
"Then the Tardis it is," Donna exclaimed, pushing her chair away as she stood up once more, a bit discountenanced by the utter lack of life in his voice. "Okay, let's go this... way, if I remember correctly," she added, pointing toward the large corridor by which they had arrived fifteen hours ago. An eternity.
This time, the Doctor joined her, even though he remained silent. But the silence was good for Donna, as long as they kept walking down the hallway toward their blue ship, and they were. Donna even felt a little more relaxed as they reached the junction leading toward the hangar bay where the Tardis was parked until she realized the Doctor had come to a halt ten meters ago.
"What? What is it? she asked, fear rising to see him stare with wide, shaking eyes at the ceiling and the ground and...
"Something's wrong," he said as he walked toward the glass wall on his right. Nothing could break it, not even a category five tornado or hurricane, whatever they called the storms ravaging the planet.
"Extonic storms," the Doctor whispered.
"Thanks. Oi! Wait! Are you reading my mind?"
"You were thinking too loud. Five-feet thick you said?"
"I didn't say that. But anyway, stop reading my mind! That's-"
"I can't help it... I'm sorry. Something's wrong, terribly wrong," he said, brushing the wall with a shaking hand and sheer terror in his eyes as if he was afraid it was about to shatter into a thousand pieces.
"My arm, Donna..."
"What?" she asked as he abruptly turned his face toward her, making her gasp. There was terror this time in his eyes. And his voice was shaking as he said:
"Why aren't you all yelling and panicking? You should be yelling and panicking!"
"I might if you don't tell me what's going on!"
"My arm? Didn't you see it go through?"
"Go through what?" she frowned, concern growing exponentially.
"The wall..." he whispered, turning panicked eyes toward her.
"What are you saying, Dumbo?! How could your arm pierce through a five-feet thick wall? Oi, com'on, let's go back to the Tardis," she said, extending a hand toward him.
"Don't touch me!" The doctor shouted as he jumped away from her, so loud and so aggressively that she froze in shock as he added: "There's no wall… no station..."
"What are you saying there's no wall? It's there! The station is all around us. All just there!" Donna said, feeling panic rising when her eyes fell on his arm. "Your hand is… glowing? Why is your hand glowing?»
"Oh no. No, nonononono..." the doctor whispered as he held it right in front of his face, turning it to observe it from every angle, eyes growing in - fear?
"Your hand? Is it okay? Mind you, you have a spare one in the trunk so... but why is it glowing white?"
"You see it white? I see it glowing yellow..."
"Does it matter white or yellow?"
"It does a great deal, to me," he said before muttering: "Why do I see it yellow?"
"Well, you were seeing your hand through the wall too and it wasn't I can assure you. I tell you it's glowing white."
"But why do I keep on seeing it yellow then?"
"I don't know," Donna shrugged as the Doctor suddenly craned his neck to look over her shoulder.
"Did you hear?"
"Hear what now?"
Oh no, thought Donna, don't tell me he's losing it!
"The Tardis is singing... and I'm glowing yellow..."
"White."
" Are you sure? How can you be certain?"
"What the hell is going on with you?! I tell you: your hand is glowing white."
"White. Right. Not yellow. Not yellow…" the Doctor muttered as he started to walk again, slowly at first, and faster.
Could the mysterious entity still be in him? Donna wondered as she ran after him, feeling an inch from a panic attack. In the distance, she could see that the white glow had reached his elbow. What if he had caught something? Like a virus, an extonic, lethal bacteria? Should he be allowed to leave the planet in this state? Should he be quarantined? Was she going to catch whatever it was? Was it already too late? And of course, they could not rule out this damned psychic, malevolent, self-aware entity making a return.
"Doctor!" She shouted, tears running down her eyes as she entered in the Tardis and found him hunkered down next to the panel at the bottom of the core's main station, his sonic screwdriver in his left, still normal hand. Was it the panel he had told her never to touch? The one that even he could not look at what was inside without suffering severe damage, possibly death?
"What are you doing?" She asked as a yellow beam was suddenly released and the doctor plunged his left, glowing white arm down to the elbow in it, a move that snatched him a cry of pain.
"Stop where you are! Do not come any closer, Donna! You can't watch into the time vortex. It would kill you."
"But won't it kill you too?"
"It might."
His jaws clenched, he used his sonic screwdriver to put the panel back in place as much as possible, cutting the light from the time vortex save for one beam.
"I need another panel... Donna! Unscrew whatever panel on the outer ring and bring it to me asap!"
After grabbing his sonic screwdriver, she looked around, set her mind on one, dislodged it from the wall, and turned around to come back toward him when he shouted:
"Close your eyes! Don't look at the light!"
Eyes closed, she moved toward the core of the Tardis and delivered the sheet of metal.
"Screwdriver, please."
Startled, she stretched a shaky hand to give him back his instrument.
"Thanks. Good. Now Donna, I need you to go to the station and pull the main lever but on my mark only because once the Tardis is activated, it cannot, must not be stopped."
"Right," she said, moving around to do what he said, eyes still closed. "Ahhh!" she cried as she tripped over the stasis chamber containing his cut hand and fall on her knees.
"Oh! You can open your eyes now." She heard him say. "Sorry."
She was about to blare a reproach when she saw him and gasped. His whole body was glowing white and it was creeping up his neck. He looked like someone about to drown, craning his neck to keep his mouth above the water line.
"What's happening to you? Are you all right?"
"Donna? Listen to me! I don't have much time and it's very important that you listen to me. In no circumstance, you must not allow me to remove my arm from the time vortex. In no circumstance, you must not allow me to switch down the Tardis. The Tardis knows the procedure and will automatically turn off when the synchronization will be finished.»
"What synchronization?"
"The entity… it was a powerful psychic one. The most powerful I've ever encountered. Possibly the most powerful in the universe."
"You mean more powerful than you?"
"Oh more, so much more… I fought it, Donna, with all my strength… but I was failing, getting weaker with every breath, I knew it was only a matter of time. So I… I did what I had to do."
"What? What did you do?"
"I took all the risks, and I messed up… I messed up with my synapses to block its progression… I removed some safeties and rearranged others… "
"Safeties? What safeties?"
"Medical ones…"
"What do you mean? That you're what? Simply ill?"
"I'm falling out of sync with myself, Donna. It's not a serious condition, most of the time at least. Happened to our youngsters every now and then before the Proclamation of Shadows."
"A childhood disease? Like mumps? But wait a second... is it like for humans, benign if you're a toddler but more dangerous if you're an adult?"
"A bit more complicated than that but kind of. Anyway, the Tardis knows how to put me back in order. All I have to do is to remain in physical contact with the time vortex and let the Tardis go through the procedure. That's one of the reasons why they were originally created, you know, before we needed them to be able to travel through space and time again. Hopefully I took one old enough to still have the protocol in its memory bank."
"And if it doesn't have this procedure?"
"Then it would have been a genuine pleasure meeting you, Donna Noble," the Doctor said with a sad smile.
"Oh no, please, don't say that. There must be another way? You are a doctor after all, there must be a doctor for Time Lords somewhere to help you,» Donna said, tears on her eyes.
"The only ones still alive who can help me won't feel inclined to do so. Donna, I need you to listen to me very carefully now. Once you have pulled up the lever, you need to monitor the main screen as if your life depended on it. Well, my life obviously. If the red flashing light on top of the console turns on, you need to pull down the right lever immediately and push the squared button beneath it at the same time. You don't have a second to react, Donna. You need to be quick or… »
"Or what?"
"Or we'll… let's not worry about this right now."
"Or what?" Donna insisted.
"We'll be bordered by an unpleasant party, and I'll be brought for trial."
"Trial? What do you risk?"
"Oh, nothing… Death penalty maybe. Surely it is still the death penalty."
"Death penalty? Why?!" Donna asked in shock.
"That was not a fight I could win with one arm tight in my back, Donna. My species is not called Time Lords for nothing, Donna… and it is not without reason that we were once the most feared in the whole universe."
"But what did you do?"
"Let's just say I also removed some legal safeties."
"Legal? You broke a law? But surely they can't condemn you to death while you were acting in self-defense! Could mitigating circumstances plead in your favor? »
"It's not the first one I break, Donna…"
"Oi! You're a recidivist then? Am I flying with a fugitive? I have a right to know before the intergalactic police come and knock at my door!"
"Donna! Please…» the doctor said, his lower lip glowing now, "I have less than a minute left of consciousness… after that, I'll be as defenseless as a newborn can be. Please, if you ever trusted me, help me! Pull… the… lever... now."
"Pull the lever up to activate, down if the red flash light... wait a second! If I do that, won't the Tardis shut down and stop the treatment or whatever it is? You said it shouldn't be interrupted!"
"As soon as the red light turns green, you can pull it up again. Hopefully, the Tardis will not have to start the procedure over again. Donna, now, please… the lever," the doctor whispered as the white glow suddenly engulfed his whole head.
Her single heart pounding fast in her chest, Donna activated the Tardis and covered her ears as the engine produced a terrible, high pitch, screeching sound.