Best Mates
Disclaimer: I do not own anything about Doctor Who except a love of the show.
A/N: Just a little friendship fic. Hope you all enjoy it. :)
Wilfred Mott was enjoying the morning commute to his newsstand. The day was lovely, the bus had been on time and the night before he'd had a visit from his granddaughter Donna and the alien she traveled with. Oh the stories they told!
He got off the bus and started walking the half block to his destination when he heard a very familiar wheezing noise. Stopping and looking all around, he placed the sound as coming from the alley he'd just passed and hurried back to it just in time to see the TARDIS door fly open and the Doctor step out.
Catching sight of the old man, the Doctor waved and called out, "Wilf!" Hurrying out of the alley, he said, "So glad to see you again. Do you mind if I borrow you for a minute?" The Time Lord started leading him back to his space ship.
Wilf chuckled, "You just saw me last night, Doctor. What's this about?"
Looking slightly surprised, the Doctor asked, "Was it really? For us it's been a whole week, at least. Anyway, if you'll just come into the TARDIS for a moment, there's this thing I need your help with."
They were almost to the TARDIS when Wilf asked, "Where's Donna?"
The expression on the Doctor's face was full of guilt suddenly and he stuttered a bit before saying, "Now Wilf, there's no need to panic. I can explain everything."
Stopping short of actually entering the ship, Wilf's voice became worried, "Where is Donna?"
The Doctor looked down, his body language practically screaming embarrassment, "That's what I need your help with, you see. We were visiting a world called Vleetim in the Hubron system and I slightly miscalculated the era we landed in-."
Drawing himself up as much as he could, Wilf demanded, "Doctor, where is my granddaughter?"
"We violated one of their laws by holding hands in public. They said since it was our first offense, they'd let us off with a warning and demanded to see our marriage braids and we did our usual denial of being neither married nor a couple and that's when we found out that unmarried women over the age of 25 are taken by the priests as their concubines and Donna's hair color makes her especially attractive to the local priest who said because we didn't know their laws that I have a time limit to come pick you up so that you could give permission for the two of us to be married or she's his and I can't make the TARDIS materialize inside the monastery due to the type of stone they built it from because of the mineral conten-."
Wilf yelled, "Don't just stand there, jabbering. Let's go!" He hurried inside the TARDIS, so the Doctor was quick to follow.
The TARDIS materialized outside the town. The two exited and began quickly walking toward the largest of the buildings.
"Just say what I told you and everything will be all right, Wilf. And thank you for not punching me," the Doctor said with a smile.
Wilf started chuckling.
The Doctor joined in before saying, "We'd better stop this before we get anywhere near Donna. She is quite put out about the whole thing."
Getting himself back under control, the old man admitted, "I was just thinking that I'm sure you're relieved this isn't a matriarchal society instead."
The Doctor stumbled in mid step as he realized that would have meant dealing with Sylvia and his face took on an expression of horror. He swallowed hard, "Yes, there's that."
A servant escorted the two into the priest's audience chamber. They didn't have to wait long before the priest himself arrived.
He looked disappointed to see the Doctor back before the deadline. "Ah, Doctor. I hadn't expected to see you again this quickly. Your journey went well, I take it?"
The Doctor stepped forward, "This is Wilfred, Donna's grandfather, the patriarch of her family. I got lucky in that he'd decided to follow us and wasn't far behind."
The priest looked decidedly angry and rudely snapped, "Do you give consent for your granddaughter to be wed to this man?"
Wilf got a gleam of anger in his own eye, so added a bit to the script the Doctor gave him. "I don't know of any more honorable man than the Doctor and truly believe he will make a fine husband for my Donna. I hereby give my consent for them to be wed."
The Doctor's mouth dropped open in surprise and more than a little consternation, "I don't know quite what to say to that Wilf, except thank you, I guess."
The priest pasted on a fake smile, "Well that settles that, then. I'll have a servant take you to your granddaughter so the two of you can prepare while the acolytes help the Doctor." He whispered something into the ear of one servant while another came to stand next to Wilf.
The Doctor raised his hand, "Um, help me with what, exactly?"
The priest smiled like a crocodile, "Why to prepare for your wedding, of course."
Stunned, all the Doctor can say is, "Oh." Then, "Oh dear."
Wilf hurriedly spoke up, "Our people have certain traditions that must be upheld in a wedding ceremony. I'd prefer to go home amongst our own kind to perform the nuptials in our own way."
Eyes narrowed as if he suspected some sort of trickery, "If your tradition demands you perform the ceremony, I won't stop you, but it will also be done according to our traditions. Here is where the two transgressed and unless that wrong is righted in the sight of all who witnessed it, evil will be the result. I will not have evil in this parrish."
Loud bells began to toll at this point. It only lasted about 20 seconds and when the sound died out, two loud gongs echoed throughout the valley.
Unable to hold in his curiosity, the Doctor asked, "What was that?"
The priest looked smug, "That was the call for the congregation to come witness your marriage. You have two hours to make all of your preparations." He turned in a billow of robes and swept from the room.
"Wilf, you'll explain all this so that Donna won't hurt me, right?" The Doctor looked hopeful.
Looking extremely doubtful, he replied, "I'll try, but no promises, mate." He turned and followed the servant out of the room.
The Doctor began rubbing the side of his face and whined, "I'm gonna get slapped again for sure."
The door opened again and two young men in robes came in, carrying things to get the groom ready.
The Doctor sighed in resignation.
Wilf was led to an inner room and shown inside where he saw Donna pacing up and down in agitation. She turned at the creak of the hinges and yelled, "Gramps!" Running up and hugging him tightly, she pulled back and asked, "What are you doing here?"
Smiling at her, he answered, "The Doctor came to get me so that I could help you two out of the jam you'd gotten yourselves into. I must say I don't like the looks of that priest and his manners even less. The Doctor told me what the slime had planned for you if I didn't show up to give consent for the marriage between you and his Lordship and honestly I'm disappointed I wasn't given the time to fetch my gun!"
Donna shuddered even as she patted her grandfather's shoulder reassuringly, "He's creepy, that priest, but if he'd tried it there'd have been murder and make no mistake. Wait a minute, what's this about a marriage with the Doctor?"
Wilf explained the whole situation while they put on robes over their clothes. To say Donna wasn't happy about it all was an understatement, but he got her to promise not to blow up until they were back in the TARDIS and on their way home.
Going into the sanctuary, the two family members see the Doctor standing in the opposite doorway, the priest in the middle.
His smile wasn't as wide as usual, but Donna was still glad to see it and him and mumbled, "Daft Martian."
Wilf whispered, "Easy, Love."
Donna snorted quietly, but smiled, "I'll behave, Gramps. I promised, didn't I?"
Having been coached on the parts they were to play, the three move to their places in the center, the Doctor and Donna facing each other while Wilf stood next to the priest. The old man was trying hard to ignore the fact the entire town seemed to have turned out for his granddaughter's wedding.
The priest droned on with the town's traditional wedding vows, making the two repeat after him while their wrists were being painted with the wedding braids by acolytes.
When the priest was done, Wilf stepped up and threw in some vows from traditional marriage ceremonies on Earth, making the whole thing last even longer. The acolytes had to keep painting as long as vows were being exchanged, so the wedding braids got quite elaborate and detailed on the Doctor's left wrist, Donna's right. Once the vows were done, their hands and wrists were dipped into the same large bowl of oil. Once they came out, wide, white strips of cloth were used to bind their arms together at the elbow and instructed to hold hands with fingers interlocking so that the insides of their wrists were pressed together and their hands were also bound.
This position had the two standing closer together than they normally would and for so long that it made both of them uncomfortable, to the point they even blushed a little.
Wilf noticed this and had to hold in his amusement. Donna glaring at him would look bad.
Music starting up signaled that the new couple was to dance out of the church.
This triggered the Doctor's wide smile as he asked, "May I have this dance?"
Donna couldn't help but smile back, "Yes, you may." She laughed as he waltzed her out the doors and, with an entourage, the three were escorted to the edge of town where they were left to go on by themselves.
As soon as the TARDIS doors were closed, the bindings came off and so did the robes. Donna went straight to her room and into her bathroom to try and wash off the wedding braid, but discovered it wouldn't come off.
Walking back into the control room, Donna asked, "Well, Spaceman, what are we gonna do about these things? They won't wash off!"
The Doctor looked up from where he was doing something at the console, "Of course they won't come off. They have all the permanence of a tattoo, only without the needles. I thought we could think of them as friendship bracelets." His grin as he said it was as wide as his face, amusement simply oozed from him.
Wilf eased away, worried about a redheaded eruption, but breathed a sigh of relief with Donna's reaction.
She laughed, "You would! Who picked the colors, anyway?"
The Doctor looked at his own wrist with a small frown, "Don't you recognize them? Blue and green, the exact same shades as your eye color. I think they look very nice."
Wilf looked closer at Donna's wrist and up to her face, "He's right, they really are an exact match. Fancy that! But Doctor, don't you think that ceremony counted as the real thing?"
The doctor did his fish out of water impression for a moment.
"Oh no, you know better than that, Gramps! No, we're not a couple," Donna was quick to chime in.
"Just mates, we are. Best mates, that's us!" The Doctor's manic grin was back in place and he and Donna both laughed.
Wilf sighed in resignation. He still thought they made a cute couple, no matter how much they denied it.