Chapter 02
"No…I…" Sara couldn't think. Donna shouldn't be real. None of this should be… "I'm dreaming. I have to wake up. I have to."
"Excuse me?" Donna demanded. "I'm missing my own wedding and you're tellin' me it's all a dream? You…" She continued her tirade, but Sara ignored her. Why pay attention to a fragment in a dream? She had to wake up, so she could get back to her friend. Maybe she was unconscious in some hospital in London. Jessica would be alone and worried. She couldn't allow that to happen while she continued to dawdle in this twisted dream land.
Running to the door, she opened it, her breath nearly stolen from her at the vastness and multitude of colors of the vortex stretched out before her. She never imagined she could dream something so vivid with such great intensity. The show in itself was a poor substitute for this grand color scheme with all its twisting colors to infinity out before her. She could even smell a certain familiarity…the smell of… She didn't know. What did it matter? At the moment, what she needed desperately was to wake up right now. She started to step off the ship only at the last second for a pair of arms to wrap around her, yanking her back onboard.
She let out a shriek, struggling frantically. "No! Get off me! You're a dream! Fiction!" Her legs had no leverage as she was pulled nearly off the ground away from the door. With one hand keeping Sara pinned to his side, the man slammed the door that would have led to her fatal plunge.
Now he was faced with three mysterious, albeit extremely reluctant passengers who appeared in his TARDIS. His departure and grief for losing Rose had to be set aside for now. "Okay. Introductions! I'm the Doctor." He pulled out his sonic screwdriver as he was talking, scanning as soon as it was out of his pocket. This was not right. One woman was bad enough, especially with her loud yelling. Three was something else. While he was at it, a flick of his fingers deadlocked the doors. No more running outside to certain death.
The second to appear as well as being the second redhead, as still yet to be introduced, was again fingering her necklace. The Doctor wanted to pepper her with questions about where she had gotten it, but the girl looked confused, amused, and afraid. "You can see me…that's never happened before," she absently whispered.
He blinked and began to scan her with his sonic. "Yes, I can see you. I can hear you. I can smell you too, if you want to know. Very citrusy, honey with a hint of vanilla." In truth, she smelled like the Time Vortex itself. That sickly-sweet smell he associated with his TARDIS. "Now, your name?"
She blinked. "Nova."
"What about a last name? Where did you get that necklace, Nova?"
The redhead, barefoot and in her nightdress, was still very confused. "Morganson. My grandfather gave it to me a week ago. He said to never take it off."
The Doctor nodded absently to himself as he listened to the analysis of his sonic. The girl was swimming in artron radiation; her readings off the scale. It was permeating every cell of her body. He was surprised she was still upright and conscious. "How do you feel?" He half-demanded.
Nova raised an eyebrow at him and said slowly, "Fine." She stretched the word out into several syllables. "Shouldn't I be? What did your sonic say?"
"You're fine." She knew about his screwdriver without being told what it was. Another fact to store away about this one. She also looked like she didn't believe him.
He flipped said instrument in his hand and turned it on the third girl. Her readings were even worse! "How did you get on my TARDIS?" he demanded.
Nova shrugged. "I'm always here when I dream. Though this is the first time you've been able to see me. I always dream about you and your companions." Her face turned thoughtful as she looked at the third woman who had appeared on his ship. "Try running in a straight line. Whenever I do that, the world starts to dissolve a bit and I wake up. I hated the dreams about the War. Ran a lot then to get away."
The first woman, Donna Noble, huffed angrily at them. "Stop talking about dreams! My wedding is not a dream!" She glared at the Doctor. "Get me to the church, Martian! I supposed to be getting married!"
"We'll get you back in just a minute." He was scanning Donna at this point and shaking his head. The last female, still not introduced, bolted back to the door, yanking on it. Quickly he spoke over her, "There's no way humans can lock themselves onto the TARDIS and transport themselves inside. It must be…" He turned on all three, thinking quickly. There had to be something all three shared for all three to end up on his ship. His sonic picked up a high amount of radiation in both younger women but nothing was registering on Donna. "Impossible. Some sort of subatomic connection?" He was making one guess after another. Discarding at least five more than he was saying aloud as his sonic gave him more information. "Something in the temporal field? Maybe pulling you in alignment with the chronon shell?" He thought hard. "Maybe something macro-budding your DNA with the interior matrix. Maybe a genetic—"
A stinging slap hit him hard bringing him out of his theories as Donna glared at him and the Doctor rubbed his cheek, baffled. "What was that for?"
"Get me to church!" She shrieked.
"Right. I—" He clenched his jaw. He had been distracted and this hadn't been his only problem. The girl he had been restraining had just ran to the console.
Nova let out a gasp. "Wait!" She remembered some of the Doctor's days at the Time Lord Academy. She had been there with him, observing. Had explored the TARDIS extensively. She knew what the girl was about to do. A definitive click of the deadbolts being released resounded through the console room.
"I'm not staying here!" The brunette protested definitively. "I have to wake up." She was back at the door, pulling it open. "Jessica!" Once again, the Doctor dragged her away from the door while she kicked and screamed. A glow started to become apparent through the girl's body, resonating throughout her skin. The equipment around him started to spark. This was becoming really serious. Somehow, she had known how to un-deadlock his own ship. Along with the intense radiation she exuded, this was incredibly serious.
Swiftly, he pressed two fingers to her temple. "Just calm down." He said, his voice taking on a mesmerizing tone. "You're alright. Just relax and breathe." It was starting to work. He felt her struggles ease as the tension slipped out of her body. "That's it." He said encouragingly. The Doctor closed the doors again, glancing between the three passengers. Something would have to be done about that; especially if at least one knew that mechanism on his own ship, then probabilities suggested more than one knew.
"Now, what's your name?" His voice was calm.
Her response was dreamy. "Sara Thomas."
"Right. Good. That's very good." He had their names. It was a step forward. "Do you know how you got on board my ship?"
"No." Sara closed her eyes briefly and the Doctor sighed. If it wasn't one thing, it was three.
"Not a ship," she managed slowly.
"Pardon?" He said in confusion. Was she so disoriented, she was having trouble grasping reality?
"A show. A t.v. show. You're a fictional character. I just want to wake up. Find Jessica. She's alone at the Tower of London." Her voice became pleading, her eyes beginning to water. "Please let me wake up! Let me find her!"
Nova only looked at the new girl blankly. A show? What show? Weren't these her books? She had chronicled his life in painstaking detail. At one point, she thought perhaps maybe the girl, Sara, had perhaps dreamed her way aboard the TARDIS for the first time as compared to Nova's repeated trips but…but… No. It looked like where ever Sara was from, it was somewhere completely different.
The feeling of the TARDIS in Nova's mind. A measure of sympathy for them both but something else. She knew the Doctor had just said his painful farewell to the love of this his' life, Rose. Burning up a sun just to say goodbye. She remembered his tears. There was a feeling of innate dread. Burning up the remnants of a remaining, already decaying, demolished universe to say… She swallowed, shaking her head, looking at Sara.
Staring at the center of the console, Nova closed her eyes briefly, now wanting more avidly than ever to make the return journey back to her own bed. It wasn't working. She could still hear Sara's protests. Donna's indignant demanding screaming orders to take her back to her wedding.
The Doctor temporarily took the manual deadlock controls offline. Only his sonic could now open the door as he glanced at the monitor, typing in commands, running scans of the immediate environment. Suddenly, Nova saw his skin go a sickly shade of pale as he absently ran one hand through his hair, leaving it a baffling mess.
It can't be. The crack that had formed. The one he used to help boost his signal to communicate with his beloved Rose. The already dying universe for which he burned up the sun. The rhodium particles signature. Sara's signature was identical…
But Nova, different biosignature. The girl's plane of origin was different. There was no void matter. Was she from his universe? Why wouldn't his TARDIS pick up her signature before? It wasn't as if it was subtle!
He still had Donna on his hands but registered nothing remarkable about her. It was possible she had only been pulled into the TARDIS in the wake of the other two. Perhaps.
All at once, he decided he needed to get them to his medbay. He couldn't tell anything definitive until he had more data.
A plan already was forming in his mind. He entered the coordinates for Earth. Better to deal with that situation and get Donna back to the wedding she claimed to have been in the middle of. That also called for observation. It was still suspect how humans transported themselves onto his TARDIS when he could find nothing on his sonic attributing to the cause. If Donna had been just pulled along for the ride, then he should get rid of her first. Sara and Nova definitely needed his full attention. He glanced at Donna and nodded. "Where is this wedding?" That and the woman was extremely annoying with all the screaming at him! Another good reason to acquiesce to her demands.
"Saint Mary's, Hayden Road, Chiswick, London, England, Earth, the Solar System." Her voice grated in sarcasm. She glanced at a blouse hanging on a railing and pounced on it. "I knew it. I'm not the first and with these two here…." She decided that based on the girls' behavior, they must be fellow victims rather than participants in her kidnapping. "How many other women have you taken?" She shook the garment in his face as proof.
The Doctor looked grim as he tore the blouse back from her. They started to argue. Loudly.
Once again, Sara could only stare. If any of this was actually real, I probably would like Donna. She felt that intuitively. The Doctor seemed to even lose his patience, opening the door upon the familiar streets of Earth. Donna immediately bolted outside.
The Doctor started to turn back to Nova and Sara. "Now, I think I should get you two to—" He only released a groan as Sara didn't waste a moment but raced outside right after Donna. "Should've seen that coming," he muttered. Shoving his hands in the pocket of his coat, he gritted his teeth as Nova instantly started to call out after Donna and Sara, following after them. Only one thing to do now…
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Nova ran after the other two women. Having the Doctor looking at her was just so weird! Despite the fact that he was her friend, one-sided though that friendship was, it was decidedly uncomfortable to all of a sudden be participating in his adventures rather than simply observing. At least Sara wasn't known. Nova could ignore the facts adding up to not-a-dream if she wasn't watching him watch her. Scanning her with his screwdriver. Talking to her!
She thought it was a little odd that Donna and Sara didn't want to look at the TARDIS. Most companions did. They liked saying 'it's bigger on the inside'. But apparently Donna was intent on getting to her wedding. She smiled at Donna's half-yelled comment. "No stupid Martian is going to stop me from getting married. To hell with him and his weird box!" Oh, so she had looked at the TARDIS. "You two want to come?"
Nova shrugged in answer, but contradicted. "He's not from Mars, you know."
"What does it matter where he's from? I have to get to my wedding!"
The Doctor had run up, his hands in his pockets. "Haven't you got a mobile?" Donna went off on a rant about pockets, making Nova giggle. This was more like the observation-only she was used to. Sara was apparently taking Nova's advice; running in a straight line to wake herself up. Nova hoped it would work for the poor girl…but she was already a block away and Nova could still see her.
The redhead didn't want the brunette to be by herself…considering Sara had tried twice to wake up via suicide. So, she ran to catch up with her. She really didn't want the girl to be alone, just in case the running didn't work. Sometimes it didn't. She still remembered when she had accidently run toward the danger in one of her dreams that she had wanted to escape. It still made her shudder. That particular dream was one of the worst she had been forced to see.
"I have to find Jessica!" Sara yelled, waving down a black cab. "TAXI!"
Nova nodded her understanding. "Do you have money?" She waved at her outfit of bare feet and nightgown.
"Yeah. Tower of London quickly!" The two of them climbed in just as Nova heard the Doctor yelling out their names. She blinked, in the process of closing the door as she half leaned out of the car, and looked back at him questioningly. Suddenly, the vehicle surged forward and the door slammed shut with Newtonian force.
Nova squeaked in surprise, turning to see the driver dressed like Santa. "Oh dear…" she remembered when she had dreamed about Rose and the newly regenerated 10th Doctor getting chased by Santa robots. "…pilot fish. This isn't good. But why do they want us?" She asked softly, confused. This dream was so strange! The Doctor seeing her, talking to her, and now this?
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