A/N: Further proof that I should not be allowed anywhere near youtube...it does bad things to my brain! And sics plot bunnies on me! Oh well. I don't own Doctor Who (pity). Hope you enjoy my insane ramblings! Drop a line on the way out if you like, let me know what you think! Thanks for reading! Love xx Shezzi
The Doctor stood at the center console, his hearts heavy in his chest. They were all gone; back to their lives, or on to new ones. He saw, in his minds eye, Donna's face as she begged him not to take her memories, to not send her back to what she was. His eyes watered, and he wiped at them furiously. He had done the right thing, the only thing.
The TARDIS lurched suddenly, half a dozen alarms going off simultaneously. He ran around the console, trying to figure out what was going on, even as the TARDIS lurched and shook. It stopped with a bang, throwing him to the floor with the force of the impact.
"Hey, what was that all about?" he asked gently, stroking the console. She sent a pulse of urgency to him, and he raised an eyebrow. "Something important happening, eh? Well, let's have a look-see," he ran over to the door, opening it to survey the scenery. He was in the middle of a grassy plain, nothing particularly remarkable.
Then he smelt it. Rocket fuel, leaking into the air. He whirled, eyes searching the sky, and saw it. A rocket, limping through the sky, clearly trying to vent the fuel before crashing. Unable to do anything, he watched as it plowed into the ground, the sound of metal tearing renting the air.
Before he knew what he was doing, he was running, sure that whatever the TARDIS had brought him here for was in that ship. Wrapping his hands in his jacket, he forced the airlock open and ran in, coughing at the smoke that filled the tiny cabin. He cast around, searching for he knew not what.
He heard a faint groan, barely audible, from the other side of the room, and clambered over the broken wreckage, searching for the source. He caught a flash of blonde hair, and carefully shifted the torn metal to see what it was attached to.
His hearts stopped. "Jenny?" the name passed his lips as no more than a whisper.
The girl stirred, eyes opening a crack, then wider. "'Ello, Dad," she said, trying to smirk but breaking out in a fit of coughing instead. There was a large gash on the side of her head, bleeding sluggishly, and bruises were already causing her face to swell up.
"You…how…what…" forcing himself to put aside the questions, the Doctor concentrated on the here and now. "Hold on, I'm gonna get you out of here," he told her, brushing his hand gently against her cheek. "Just hold on!"
"I found you," she whispered, a smile drifting over her face.
"Yes, you did, and now I've got you, and I'm never letting you go again." The Doctor took a great, gasping breath. "I lost you once, I'm not losing you again!" He dug through the wreckage like a mad thing, carefully releasing her from her bindings. When she was free, he lifted her carefully in his arms, head curled against his chest, and ran towards the TARDIS. "Just hold on, all right? I'm taking you home."
"Home," she whispered, voice muffled against his coat.
"Jenny, stay with me! Don't go to sleep, Jenny," he told her urgently, running over the grassy hills, the distance to the TARDIS seeming so much further than it had ten minutes ago.
Rather than fumble for a key, he clicked his fingers, and the door swung open. He ran through the control room and into the infirmary, laying her carefully on the couch.
He stepped up beside her head, running careful fingers over her skull. He could find no damage beyond the gash and underlying lump, he turned his attention to the rest of her body. He ran gently probing hands down her neck, then over her arms. He felt her chest, sighing with relief to find all her ribs intact and resting both hands briefly to feel the double heartbeat. He pushed up the tank top she was wearing and ran careful hands over her abdomen, palpating gently.
He didn't find anything until he got to her right leg. When he ran his hands down her thigh she gasped, eyes opening wide in shock. She tried to sit, to get away from his hands.
"Hold still, hold still," he told her, pressing her gently back against the pillows. "You've had a nasty knock to the head and a broken leg. Doesn't look like anything else except bruises, so let's take care of that cut first, then the leg, yeah?"
"Okay," she replied, smiling slightly at him, still staring in the same way he knew he was; disbelief, joy and love all mixed up together.
Grabbing the dermal regenerator, he held it carefully above the gash, nodding slightly as the skin knitted together.
"So," he said slowly, as the bleeding stopped. "How are you alive exactly?"
"Dunno. Woke up, and I was fine. Well, except for breathing gold light every so often for a couple of hours." Jenny shrugged, uncertain.
"Oh, I'm an idiot! Just like me, just like I said! Perfectly, perfectly like me!" He pressed a kiss to her forehead, then grinned hugely at her. She looked just like he remembered, and his thoughts went briefly back to that moment, when she lay in his arms. "Now, let's take care of that leg!" he said, bouncing away and grabbing another instrument. He scanned the bone quickly to determine the type of fracture, then bit his lip.
"What?" asked Jenny, craning her head around to see his face.
"It needs to be set before I can mend it. I can give you some medicine, but by the time it kicks in, I could have already healed the bone. Also, we don't know what kind of allergies you might have. I mean, I know you'll be allergic to some things, but there are some medicines that may or may not have an adverse reaction…" he trailed off, realizing he was babbling.
"So, it's going to hurt," Jenny stated flatly. "Don't worry about it, Dad. Just do it, please?"
The Doctor cupped her cheek in his hand briefly, smiling tightly down at her, then moved down to stand beside her leg. He placed one hand on her pelvis, holding her down on the bed, and carefully slid the other under her knee. "On the count of three," he told her, meeting her eyes. "One, two…" he snapped the bone back into place, startling a stifled scream out of her, "Three."
"You're supposed to wait," she moaned, even as he grabbed the fracture repair device and held it over the injury, watching on the scanner as the bones knitted back together.
"You would have tensed up. It's easier like this," he told her, smiling sadly. "There we go, all better," he added a moment later. "Now, let's have a listen to those lungs," he said, pulling out his stethoscope.
Jenny, sitting up with his help, reached out and touched the familiar instrument. Suddenly she realized something was missing. "Where's Donna?" she asked lightly, glancing around as though expecting the redhead to waltz through the door at any moment and start picking on her dad.
"Donna…Donna had to go home," the Doctor told her softly, before settling the stethoscope on her chest. "Breathe in…deeper…breathe out. Again," he moved the stethoscope over her chest, nodding. "Little bit of smoke inhalation, nothing to worry about," he declared, smiling at her. "Now, just let me get you something for those bruises," he told her, then noticed something. Around her eye was bruised, but rather than the fresh blue and purple of the other bruises it was faded green and yellow.
"What's that?" he asked calmly, indicating it.
"Oh, nothing," she told him quickly, dropping her head slightly to try and hide it.
"Jenny," he said firmly, one hand taking her chin while the other reached into a nearby cupboard and withdrew a regenerative balm.
"It's nothing. I was working a job, they cottoned on to me, things got a bit rough before I was able to get out," she shrugged it off.
"A job? What sort of job?" asked the Doctor, now really worried.
"Well, not really a job at all, that would imply being paid. I stumbled onto a slave trading ring, and decided to do my civic duty," she told him, as he cool fingers smoothed the cream over her damaged skin.
"Slavers?" demanded the Doctor, horrified.
"Relax, Dad, it was perfectly safe," she told him, her tone casual.
"Clearly it wasn't. What if they decided that you were good slave material?"
"I wasn't exactly within their market. They liked to specialize – children from the ages of two to ten, no older, to be sold for pleasure." Her face was disgusted. "They hired me as a transporter…my first stop was the closest planet with a decent legal system and laws that would actually protect the kids. Thought that would be the end of it, that they could use the information I gave them to clean up the rest, but they said they needed more on the bosses, so they sent me back in; gave me money to maintain my cover as having sold the kids. But…I got sprung, somehow. That's how I ended up here; they damaged my engines as I was trying to escape." She shrugged her shoulder lightly.
"How long has it been for you?" asked the Doctor, curious.
"Only about eight months. You?"
"About the same," the Doctor said as he finished spreading the gel on her skin. "All done."
Jenny hopped down off the couch, stretching her leg out slightly, then the Doctor grabbed her in an enormous hug. "Rasillon, I thought I lost you! I thought you were dead!" he swung her around, laughing like a maniac. A thought suddenly occurred to him, and he dropped some of his rigorous mental shielding, which was kept up in a constant, semi-conscious effort to fool himself that there were other Time Lord minds out there that he would feel if he just stopped blocking them. He dropped the shields, and found her there, waiting for him. She rushed in and filled a hole he was constantly conscious of and always trying to ignore.
"Dad?" asked Jenny, a look of wonder on her face. "Is that you?"
The Doctor nodded, tears in his eyes.
"I've had this really weird feeling, for the longest time, that there was something missing…and now there isn't," whispered Jenny, her own eyes growing slightly cloudy.
The Doctor smiled, cupping her cheek in his hand. "Hungry?" he asked, and she nodded quickly.
"So, can we go and visit Donna?" asked Jenny hopefully.
"No," said the Doctor, shaking his head. "It's...complicated," he said slowly, as Jenny stared at him.
"What's complicated about it? You land the TARDIS, go knock on the door, say hello. Seems pretty simple...oh," she said, as she felt her father's pain through their connection. "What happened?"
The Doctor led the way to the kitchen without speaking, and Jenny waited for him to collect his thoughts. He pushed her into a seat at the kitchen table and started putting together tea and sandwiches, before sitting down opposite. He started to speak, and Jenny listened with rapt attention to his explanation of the events leading up to him being forced to wipe Donna's memories and leave her with her family. By the end of it, she had abandoned her seat on the other side of the table and was sitting next to him, chairs as close together as possible as she leant on his shoulder.
"I'm sorry, Dad," she whispered.
"Yeah, well, never mind. We can go and see Martha if you want," he told her. "I'll show you Earth. Best planet in the universe, in my humble opinion...all right, my very pompous, but highly well informed opinion."
Jenny laughed at him and pulled him to his feet. "All right then, you! Let's go see Martha."