"This is truly disgusting," Donna says, as they step through the TARDIS doors into the console room, both of them covered in head to toe vile green slime.
"I had no idea it was going to do that," the Doctor says apologetically.
"What, spew up all over us?"
He nods, "must have been some sort of natural defence mechanism."
"Right," Donna says tartly, "because we scared it; the nine-foot-tall alien whatsis with the horns and the fangs and the claws."
She doesn't know what to do with her hands. Afraid to touch anything on the console lest it become contaminated with slippery alien vomit, she stands with her arms extended by her sides, her fingers spread out stiffly in revulsion.
"Just because it was bigger than us doesn't necessarily mean it meant to attack us Donna," the Doctor says, stood in roughly the same position.
"Did a good job on you though," Donna says, indicating his slashed shoulder with a concerned tilt of the head. She shudders at the memory of that thing's huge head mere inches from her own.
They'd barely stepped out into the clearing when it had come out of nowhere and fallen upon her, its claws raking across the front of her jacket like daggers. Thank God she hadn't been wearing anything lighter, or it would have sliced her in two. As it was, the second blow would have surely done the job if the Doctor hadn't intervened, throwing himself between them.
"Thank you by the way," she says tentatively squeezing his dripping hand.
"Don't mention it," he says smiling warmly, returning the squeeze.
"What was that thing anyway?"
"No idea," he says, pulling a face at the green guck sloughing off of them and dripping through the metal grating into the floor.
"That's a first," Donna says.
"I'm not the Encyclopaedia Britannica: Intergalactic Edition," he says dryly, "besides, were you or were you not the one who said and I quote; "Oi, Spaceman! Let's go somewhere where you don't know everything for once."
"I don't sound like that," Donna says, wrinkling her nose at him. "God this stuff stinks!"
"Now that you mention it," the Doctor agrees.
"And, it's really starting to burn."
"Yeah, I thought that was just me," he says with a slight grimace.
"Seriously. Ow."
"Right, well let's try not to panic," he says calmly.
"Panic?" she cries sharply, "why would we panic? This stuff's not poisonous is it?"
"Uh,"
"Oh you're kidding me!" she cries, her eyes opening wide.
"More likely it's just some sort of digestive enzyme," the Doctor says. He takes Donna's slimy hand in his and swiftly leads them out of the console room and down one of the corridors.
"Oh is that all," Donna says, rolling her eyes. "So, what? We're being digested into puddles of goo so that thing can come back and lap us up, is that it?"
The Doctor seems to consider this as they reach the doors to their rooms, stood directly across from one another in the corridor. "Judging from the size of its teeth, I'd have to say it was more of a flesh ripper than a goo lapper actually," he says.
"Charming," Donna says, her nose wrinkling in distaste.
"We're not being digested Donna," the Doctor says, "the creature's stomach acid does seem to be a minor skin irritant though, so it's probably best to wash it off as soon as possible."
"Don't have to tell me twice Spaceman," Donna says, pushing her bedroom door open and rocketing inside.
She peels off her slimy clothes on her way to the bathroom, dropping them in a trail behind her. The shower is already running by the time she gets there, warm steam curling up beneath the curtain. Donna sends out silent thoughts of gratitude to the TARDIS as she steps inside and quickly rinses the stinging green glop from her body.
She studies her hands critically in the steaming water. Her skin looks sunburned, red and slightly inflamed. Minor skin irritant, he'd said. She frowns and tentatively touches her face, hoping that it won't peel. She'll never let him hear the end of it if it does.
Then she suddenly flashes back to the forest creature and the way the Doctor had thrown himself into its path to protect her. Her retinas still burn with the after image of that thing's banana claws piercing his shoulder and the look on his face as the breath had gone out of him. Donna shudders, thinking just this once she may cut him some slack.
A piercing drone, like the whine of a mosquito fills her head and Donna gasps when the shower turns suddenly slimy and viscous, dripping green goop onto her head. She shrieks and recoils to the far end of the tub, blinking in confusion at the perfectly normal, perfectly clear water flowing from the shower-head.
She lifts her hands, turning them slowly in the rising steam and tentatively running them through her wet hair. She's completely clean. There's no sign of green slime anywhere.
"What the hell?" she whispers, gingerly putting her hands through the misting water to turn off the taps.
She quickly towels off, a vague feeling of anxiety growing in the pit of her stomach. She shrugs into her bathrobe, her hands trembling as she lifts it from the peg on the back of the bathroom door. The mosquito whine returns with a vengeance, a loud painful hornet's nest inside her head. Donna screams, falling to her knees, clutching her throbbing head in her hands.
Unidentified slimy things, like huge gelatinous slugs slither towards her across the floor. Donna starts and scrambles away from them, fleeing into the bedroom. More slug things cover the walls, leaving trails of viscous slime behind as they slowly slither along.
It's some sort of invasion.
She shrieks when a crab-like thing skitters across her toes. "Doctor!" she screams, leaping onto the bed, her path to the door blocked by giant slugs and more crab-like things skittering across the floor.
Whining pain fills her head and she folds, collapsing onto the bed. Clammy sweat breaks out across her face. Her heart thuds against her ribs as if trying to flee her chest and the vague feeling of anxiety blooms into out and out dread.
There's a sort of animal-like scratching at the door and the hairs on the back of Donna's neck raise as her head snaps towards it. A keening howl erupts from the corridor and Donna screams when something huge and scaly and horrible bursts through the door. It's the creature from the forest, she realises with a sudden gasp of horror.
"D... Doc... Doctor..." she gasps breathlessly, like a child in the midst of a nightmare too paralysed by fear to cry out. Where is he? He'd told her that nothing could get past the TARDIS defences, but here she was face to face with a monster.
The constant buzzing drone inside her head increases in intensity and Donna screams, clutching her skull. Spider things skate across her skin. She convulses, slapping them away in a panic. The forest creature lunges at her and Donna falls backwards onto the bed, its sabre-like claws grasping urgently at her. She hauls back with one of her long legs and kicks the thing soundly in its toothy face until it falls backwards away from her.
She leaps to the floor, dodging giant alien arachnids on her way out the door.
"Doctor!" she cries, as she flees down the slug infested corridor into the console room. It's empty. Donna begins to fear the worst.
She risks a look over her shoulder. The forest creature has emerged from her room and is lumbering up the corridor towards her.
"Get away!" she cries, racing down the catwalk towards the TARDIS doors. Squidgy things with tentacles undulate along them. Donna whimpers as she grasps the handles, yanking on them with all her might, but the doors remain steadfastly closed.
"What are you doing?" she demands of the TARDIS, her eyes pleading with the roundel covered walls, "let me out!"
She desperately rattles the doors, blinking sweat from her eyes. The tentacled things brush her fingertips. Pain lances through her skull and she suddenly recoils from the doors as a torrent of thick green slime flows over them, pouring down like a waterfall and flowing out across the floor like a slimy green carpet.
Donna skips backwards up the catwalk and directly into the grasp of the waiting forest creature. She screams as the thing's banana clawed arms wrap around her, pinning her arms to her sides.
"No!" she shrieks, squirming and kicking in the creature's grip. She can feel its hot breath on the back of her neck as it growls gutturally in her ear.
She plants her feet in the spreading slime and propels herself backwards against the creature. She knocks it off balance and they both fall backwards, landing with a clang against the deck plating.
The creature's grip on her loosens and she manages to elbow it in what passes for its solar plexus, springing to her feet as it writhes on the floor. She races down the nearest corridor and ducks into the kitchen. Crab things skitter across the countertops and Donna sobs, the buzzing in her head making her flinch in pain.
She swallows and staggers into the room, her heart roaring in her ears like a clacking train. She hears the forest creature loping down the corridor and throws open the nearest drawer, grabbing the largest carving knife she can find. She slowly backs away from the doorway, trembling in horror whenever something slimy and unspeakable skitters across her bare feet.
The forest creature appears, filling the doorway with its scaly bulk. Donna pulls up short when her back hits the counter.
"Stay away!" she cries, brandishing the knife in a wide arc in front of her. The creature lingers in the doorway, warily watching her.
"Stay right where you are Sunshine!" Donna cries, trying to sound bold, though her violently trembling hands belie her tone, "I'm not afraid to use this!"
Stabbing pain erupts behind her eyes and Donna sobs breathlessly, her fingers feebly clenching and unclenching at her temples in agony. The forest creature growls and comes at her, but stops short when Donna slices through the air in front of it with the knife.
"W... What have you d... done to me you thing," Donna gasps raggedly, pain-filled tears streaming from her eyes, "and what have you done with the Doctor?"
It's a rhetorical question really. The last thing Donna expects is an answer, but to her shock the creature suddenly turns and plucks the writing pad and sharpie pen they use for the weekly grocery list off the counter. It scrawls something on the first page, then flips it over so Donna can read it.
I am the Doctor
"You..? What?" Donna gasps, her knees going suddenly weak.
The creature flips the page.
I'm the Doctor
Donna blinks sweat, staring in shock at the creature's unblinking reptilian eyes.
It flips another page on the pad.
Psychotropic venom
Another flip.
absorbed through the skin
Donna shudders. "The... the alien vomit?" she asks, raising a trembling hand to her aching head.
Yes
"It turned you into a monster?" Donna gasps, examining her own trembling hands in growing horror.
No you're
A quick flip to a clean page.
hallucinating
Donna stares at the creature, looking for any sign of the Doctor hidden in its monstrous form. There's nothing of him in the alien face staring back at her.
"I don't..." she says not sure what to think, her fingers crawling through her wet hair.
Put the knife down Donna
Donna stares at the words written on the pad in growing suspicion, her heart thudding like a runaway freight train in her ears.
Please
"How... how do I know this isn't some sort of trick?" she asks, clutching the knife more tightly in her clammy hand. "How do I know you won't just devour me as soon as I let it go?"
It's not a trick
The buzzing in her head drowns out everything else and Donna whimpers, wiping her aching forehead on the sleeve of her bathrobe.
"If you really are the Doctor," she gasps, her voice a strangled groan, "then prove it. Tell me something...something only he would know."
David Beckham is an alien
"Something personal you idiot!" Donna snaps. She's finding it increasingly difficult to breathe.
Right sorry
The Doctor/creature flips to a clean page.
The first time we met
Flip.
you told me I needed someone
Flip.
to stop me
Flip.
You were right Donna
Flip.
I needed
Flip.
I need
Flip.
you
The Doctor/creature regards her in silence for a moment.
Do you need more proof?
"I..." Donna says.
Because if you do
Flip.
I'll need to get another pad
Flip.
I'm running out of paper
It's him. It's the Doctor. The knife slips from Donna's nerveless fingers and clatters to the floor.
"Doctor," she whispers.
Close your eyes
"I'm afraid," Donna gasps, terrified despite what she now believes to be true. Her eyes waver between the Doctor/creature and the alien arachnids skittering throughout the room.
You can't trust your eyes
The Doctor/creature writes.
I need you to trust me
Donna slowly releases a long shuddering breath. "I do," she whispers, then closes her eyes.
She hears it... him moving towards her, her body tensing when she feels his fingers brushing her temples. She nearly collapses with relief, because they're definitely his fingers, cool and soothing against her hot skin. She covers his fingers with her own, her eyes nearly sliding open.
No, don't open your eyes Donna, the Doctor's voice says inside her head, but it's Donna's voice as well, the inner voice that guides her actions.
Her eyelids flutter for a moment, then slide shut again. That's it, the Doctor's/her voice soothes, banishing the relentless mosquito whine with quiet reassurance. Sleep now.
Donna sighs, her knees buckling as she collapses against him. His wiry arms enfold her as they both sink to the floor. Sleep Donna. Everything will be back to normal when you wake up. I promise.
Donna already knows.
~END~