A/N:
This is my first Doctor Who fanfiction! I hope you enjoy it.
Have an awesome day!
~Jellybeans
He had just left the Library, he knew that he would never be able to forget those eyes. They looked at him with love right up until the moment that she brought the cables together and gave her life for him and for the 4,022 people, or rather 4, 023 if you include Donna, that were saved to the Library's database. How could she do it? Why would she do it? It was his job to protect others damn it! He couldn't save his own people but he could damn well save others. So why didn't she let him? Why would she think he was worth the sacrifice of her life? All he did was condemn people to death.
Who was she? Who was she to him? She knew his name. His NAME! How? He didn't tell his name to anyone. His first wife knew his name but other than her and the select few of the high ups on Gallifrey who were legally obliged to know no one knew his name. No one! It had been unspoken for centuries. So how the hell did this archeologist know his name? He didn't know her and Rassilon knows he mistreated her terribly but in the moment that she whispered his name into his ear he knew this woman would one day be one of the most important woman in his life – if not the most important woman. But how could she be? How could he stand to see her again after watching her die? After knowing that this was how it was going to end?
"Aghhhh!" The Doctor slammed his fist down on the console, hard. He shook his perfectly spiked hair in frustration as he glared at his time machine. Donna stood next to him watching him closely. They had been back in the TARDIS for a few weeks now after the incident in the Library and the Doctor still wasn't himself. Sure, he tried to hide it like he always did but she was his best mate and knew him better than that. She knew that the incident at the Library had affected him more that he would like to admit.
"What's wrong, Spaceman?" Usually she used that nickname when she was frustrated at him but this time the word conveyed her concern. She wanted him to know that she was here and that she was listening and that he could tell her what was bothering him.
"Who is… was she? Who is she to me, Donna? I have tried and tried to find out who that infernal woman is… was but she," the Doctor glared at the TARDIS again, "won't open the records for me. I try searching for anything else and I have all the information I could ever want. But try looking up 'River Song' and nothing! She won't give me a damned thing!" The Doctor slammed his fist down again. "Why Donna? Why can't I know? She died for me, she died for you and for the other 4,022 other people trapped in that computer. I just want to know who she is." The Doctor rubbed his face with his hand, looking over his fingers and then rubbing his jaw line with his knuckles.
"I think the answer is 'Spoilers,' Doctor." Donna said quietly trying to comfort her best friend as she lightly placed her hand on his arm repeating the word that the curly haired archeologist had said to him.
"I bloody hate that word already." The Doctor sighed.
Donna gave him a small smile, "How about we grab some tea?"
Hand in hand Donna and her spaceman walked through the corridors of the TARDIS making their way to one of the kitchens. The Old Girl hummed around them trying to comfort her Thief. The Doctor looked up in appreciation with a small smile curving his lips.
"There you go." Donna smiled at him and softly punched his arm in encouragement.
The hum of the TARDIS changed, it got deeper and louder until it seemed that the sound waves coming from the time and space machine were surrounding them and enveloping them, transporting them to another time and place. Soon the noise became too great and the Doctor and Donna were crouched on the floor with their hands over their ears and eyes squeezed shut against the pain and pressure that was pushing down on them. Then as suddenly as it had begun the noise stopped. Tentatively the two friends stood slowly opening their eyes.
"Are you ok, Old Girl?" The Doctor reached out his hand to caress the machine's wall but hesitated before his hand made contact. The wall was different, the corridor was different. What had happened?
"Doctor?" Donna's voice wavered slightly with fear and confusion at the change in environment. "What's going on?"
"I… I don't know." The Doctor mumbled as he whipped out his sonic screwdriver waving it around trying to analyze the situation.
"Are we on the TARDIS?" Donna asked as she watched the Doctor scowl at his sonic. "What did you do?" She slapped his arm in irritation.
He turned to look at her, "Nothing… I didn't do anything. It's still her though. It's still the TARDIS but everything looks different." He spun around on his converse trying to look in all directions at once. "I don't know what is going on." He mumbled almost to himself.
Donna grabbed his arm and started to drag him towards the nearest door. It was made of darkly stained wood with circular Gallifreyan inlayed into it. "If this is the TARDIS, Spaceman, then we should explore and see if we can find the answer." Donna said as she dragged him up to the door. He traced his fingers lightly over the TARDIS blue symbols. No one more than me. Always and completely.
The Doctor sighed as he reached for the doorknob. He slowly opened the door to reveal a bedroom.
Donna gasped as she looked around. In the middle stood a four-poster bed that was intricately carved. Two small bedside tables flanked the large queen-sized bed, on the top of one sat a strip of blue cloth that would be used for a bowtie. On the other rested a lipstick stained cup. Donna's eyebrows raised as she continued looking around the room, a dark wooden chest sat at the end of the bed and like the other wooden objects in the room it was also engraved but what surprised her the most was the lingerie that was flung on top of it, the black lace bra precariously balanced over a red fez that lay drunkenly on its side.
"I thought you said that this was the TARDIS." She whispered.
"It is." The Doctor whispered back, face scowling as he looked at the sonic again. "Maybe it's Harkness's room, but no, the Gallifreyan on the door….." He mumbled.
Donna and the Doctor spun around as they heard a door open. The door was one of two that were located on the other side of the room. As it slowly swung open the two friends could see a lean man in braces and a red bowtie gaping at them. Beyond him was a sprawling bathroom, Donna could see a large bathtub, shower, and sink. The latter had makeup and shaving supplies strewn in a haphazard fashion across the marble bench that enveloped it.
The man in the doorway shook his head, his floppy brown fringe waving across his eyes to settle on the right side of his face. "What are you doing in my bedroom?" He growled softly shutting the door to the bathroom behind him.
"This is your bedroom?" the spiky haired Doctor questioned in an untrusting tone.
"Yes, and no one should be able to find it, Sandshoes. The Old Girl is meant to keep it hidden."
"Old Girl?" The Doctor in the pinstriped suit gulped.
"Yes, my TARDIS."
"Your TARDIS?"
"Yes, my TARDIS! Must you repeat everything I say?" The floppy haired man with the large chin was getting irritated.
"Donna…."
"Yes, Doctor?"
"I don't mean to alarm you but this is me."
"Hello!" The other Doctor smiled and waved.
"What do you mean Spaceman?" the bowtie wearing Doctor's face fell as he heard the nickname fall from Donna's lips but she didn't see his crestfallen face as she was too busy glaring at her Doctor.
"Well," he said drawing the word out, "Time Lords have a way of cheating death. When we reach the point of death our body's release massive amounts of energy and every cell gets rewritten and a new man walks away." Sandshoes, as he was dubbed by the other man, said sadly. "And as I don't recognize this face I would say he is my future."
"Quite right! I am your next regeneration. But no need to be so morbid Sandshoes, regeneration isn't the death of one man and the new life of another. You are still here." He tapped his forehead with a smile.
"Sweetie…" a female voice floated out from behind the other door. Bowtie, as he shall be dubbed, jumped guiltily and Sandshoes gasped, he recognized that voice.
"Yes, River?" Bowtie's voice was hesitant.
"Should I wear the red dress or the blue one? The blue one is a bit more practical but you know what the red one does to you. Oh never mind, if I wear the red one we probably won't even get to the party." The voice chuckled deeply as Bowtie flushed red. "I am going to need help with the back of the dress so I'm just going to come out there."
"What? No! No, I will come in there. You're not dressed Rivah." Bowtie floundered as he rushed to the door.
"Of course I'm not dressed yet, that's what I need your help with."
"Stay there!" the new Doctor hissed to the two intruders as he walked into the room containing River and shut the door behind himself.
The younger Doctor and Donna looked at each other, "So that's you huh?"
"Yep."
They could hear the muffled voices through the wooden door. "You can't go out there River."
"And why not?"
"Because there are people out there."
"In our bedroom? Why the Heavens are their people in our bedroom?"
"I don't know, but one of them is me-"
"The mind races…"
"-and the other is Donna."
"Donna? Oh, Sweetie…."
Donna and her spaceman looked at each other as the voices fell silent. After a few minutes they started up again but this time they were softer and more hushed and the two friends couldn't make out the words any longer.
When the door opened again Bowtie was wearing a tweed jacket and looking the part of a mad professor. "We need to figure out how to get you back." He said sadly.
"Sweetie…" River walked up behind him placing her hand softly on Bowtie's shoulder. She was wearing a dark blue dress that hugged her curves and ended just above the ankles. "Perhaps we should go to the control room and see what's going on." she smiled up at him and he nodded softly looking so sad that Donna thought she might cry.
The two women exited the room first and as Sandshoes was about to follow Bowtie stopped him and whispered, "You just came from the library didn't you? It will get better, you will see her again. She is worth it, so, so worth it." he clapped his hand on the back of the other man's back and they stepped out of the room to join River and Donna.
The moment they stepped out of the room the great throbbing noise returned pushing all four of them to the ground. When it stopped Donna and the pinstripe wearing, spiky haired Doctor stood back in the corridor of their TARDIS with the new Doctor and River nowhere to be seen.
"How about we grab that tea now?" and with that Donna and her best friend walked into the kitchen.