Chapter Two: Hallelujah
By the time they'd reached the mountains, the sun was setting and Donna could feel the air cool on the back of her neck as night began to fall. The dim, orange light that flickered across from the horizon seemed to fall through her hair, and rays of dark light wafted through the occasional gap in the long, ruby-coloured strands. She hurried to keep up with the Doctor's long steps, not wanting to have to walk back to the TARDIS in the dark. For the first leg of their journey, he'd been silent, striding along quickly with his shoulders squared and his eyes fixed immovably in front of him. After a while, however, he'd paused, and looked back at her as she'd tried to catch up. His eyes had held no apology, nor any sympathy, but he'd made eye contact, and Donna knew that was all she was going to get from him.
Donna knew only too well that making up with the Doctor wasn't like making up with anyone else. It wasn't like the aftermath of her fights with her mother, and for reasons other than they didn't spend the time afterwards planted in front of their favourite chick flicks as they painted each other's nails and gabbed about Donna's latest beau. Instead, with the Doctor there were invisible barriers that were never torn down, and emotional issues that went unaddressed. When one of them said something that hurt the other, instead of slowly bleeding out the wound, cleaning it, and patching it up, it would quickly switch from broken to healed, leaving Donna to wonder if either of them had ever been hurt in the first place. The difficulty of addressing each issue within their relationship made her human mind feel so confused, but she liked to think that she was on the right track, despite the fact that deep down, she knew the truth; the Doctor was a manipulator, and each sudden change of heart was his way of forcing her to think that there was nothing wrong.
Behind her, Donna felt a sudden warmth, and saw the dim world surrounding her begin to glow once more with sunlight. She turned, and squinted as a second sun slowly rose where the other had set, making the grassy plains shimmer brightly as they caught the morning light. "There's two suns," she whispered, more to herself than to anyone else
The Doctor nodded. "Beautiful, isn't it? That moment right then, when it got a bit gloomy, that's the closest it gets to nighttime here. The two suns move in opposite orbits; that's why it's rising where the last one set. They hold each other in perfect balance, never letting the planet fall into darkness."
"Bit like you." Donna whispered bitterly as memories of their conversation under the previous sun returned, and she regretted it the moment the words left her mouth. The Doctor frowned, and held her eyes for a moment. She looked down at her feet to avoid his stare. "Sorry."
He sniffed. "Sure." He continued walking, this time intertwining his fingers with hers and turning them both away from the sunrise as if he couldn't make himself look at it any more. Donna could tell that what she'd said had hit him, hard.
As the shining peaks drew closer than ever, Donna continued to look down at her feet to avoid staring at the Time Lord; watching as her pale toes slid smoothly across the light, brown soil in continual motion. When there was a light tap on her elbow however, she finally looked up. The sight she was met with made her jump for second, for it was as surprising as it was familiar.
Bright, fiery green eyes gazed back at her in bewilderment, and waves of crimson hair fell across a pale face as the wind continued to blow. Donna couldn't help but shiver, and her reflection did the same. But as she stared at the image of herself, which stared back with eyes that portrayed exactly what she felt, Donna couldn't help but feel the same wonder that she felt every time the Doctor showed her the unexpected.
They were at the foot of the mountains. She raised her eyes, leaning back on her feet as she peered up to where they peaked, gleaming in the sunlight and scratching the clear sky with blinding light. As she stared at it, taking in the nearly vertical wall in front of her that formed its base, it began to look less and less like a mountain, and more like a towering structure, gleaming and shimmering like some sort of bent skyscraper. After glancing back to where the Doctor stood, smiling knowingly and waiting for her reaction, she reached out carefully, and placed a hand on the cool, glistening material in front of her. She recognized it at once.
"It's glass!" Her reflection mouthed the same words back at her.
"Beautiful, isn't it?" When she nodded the Doctor continued to talk, eyes sparkling and he grinned widely, something he always did when he was excited by something. "Whole thing was created millions of years ago, back when this world was brand new. The planet was covered by layers upon layers of sand. Sort of like a silicon version of Earth's Ice Age. Imagine it; oceans of sand, stretching out as far as you can see...with waves as high as the sky forming every time the wind blows by, eventually sweeping it all away and leaving the planet ready to evolve." The Doctor paused for a moment, noticing the wistful look in Donna's eyes, and then sniffed to himself. "But it's not registering as it should be." He turned from the intrigued human and began walking around the mountain's edge, pulling out his sonic screwdriver and analyzing the glossy wall as he did so. "Someone's been here, and this whole structure's been hollowed out. Just need to find an entrance and we can figure out why."
Donna followed, still thinking of a vast planet covered in the same golden sand that was squished between her toes. She'd been holding on to his every word, and his description of this planet's past had her yearning to go there. She walked over and stood beside him, still gazing up at the one piece of evidence that had been left behind. "I wish we could have seen it."
He smiled, knowing exactly what she was talking about. "We can."
They had a time machine. Even after traveling with the Doctor for so long, the impossibility of their lives could still become a bit too much to comprehend, and when Donna was caught up with the wonder of the present, it could be difficult to remember that there was still more to come.
As if on cue, part of the glass wall in front of them slid open, emitting the high, ear-piercing screech of metal against metal as it did so. Donna quickly covered her ears as she watched their reflections slide away from them, leaving only the dark chasm that lay beyond the door. She looked back at the Doctor, who was staring into the darkness with an adventurous smile.
"Just not right now," he whispered.
"Okay," Donna murmured as they walked through the dark passageway, which looked like it had been roughly chiseled out with a blunt ax. "Not quite what I was expecting."
"I said it'd been hollowed out," said the Doctor, who was shining the way with a small flashlight he'd found in his pocket. "I just didn't say it'd been done really well." In the other hand he still held the sonic screwdriver, which he was using to track whatever signal had brought them here.
"Must've had a reason, right? I mean, you don't just dig tunnels through glass mountains and not make them nice looking because you got lazy. So, they were either in a big hurry, or they had a really, really big hangover." He raised an eyebrow at Donna, and she smirked. "Personal experience. Used to type memos for a living, remember? Y'know, back before you turned my life into a circus and told me you wanted to mate with me." The snort she got in reply was worth keeping a straight face for. Not that he could see her face in this light. Or at least, she didn't think he could.
"Eh-oh, over here." Donna trotted over to where the Doctor had paused, stumbling over the rough ground as she did so. The Doctor passed her his flashlight, and she shone it on what they were examining. Carved into the glass wall was a rectangular outline, and it was only once she'd realized what it was that the door slid to the side under the influence of the sonic screwdriver. The sound it made as it opened screeched through the glass hallways, like an agonized scream echoing through the darkness.
"Does it have to do that every time one of these opens?" Donna yelled over it, starting to become irritated at the horrible sound.
"Just friction as the glass panels push against each other.. Nothing to get all shaken up about. Plus, it's good for you, Donna. Now you know what it's like." He dodged her slap and ducked through the opening, grabbing her hand and pulling her along as he did so.
As they slipped through the entranceway Donna stumbled slightly; she'd expected to feel the bumpy texture of a roughly chiseled floor under her bare feet, but instead her toes pressed down on a smooth, cool surface. As they walked further in, there was a soft click, and the room was suddenly flooded with light, leaving the redhead blinking blindly in surprise before she clamped her eyes shut. After a few moments she slowly opened her eyes, letting the light seep through the cracks in her eyelids as she adjusted to the brightness, and realized why whoever had dug through the mountain hadn't bothered with the hallways.
They hadn't just entered a room. They'd entered the mountain itself. Before them lay an enormous and glittering hallway which had been cut into the heart of the mountain, with smooth walls, and a ceiling which rose high over their heads, spiraling upwards and inwards towards the summit. Scattered throughout the chamber were long, thin panels of glass, which rose out of the floor until they were about Donna's height; meaningless walls that didn't seem to have any purpose, but were easily well-spaced out in the large room that they filled.
Both human and Time Lord stood rooted to the spot, and when Donna looked over at the Doctor to see how she should gage her own reaction, he looked just as stunned as she felt. She gave a delighted laugh, and grinned in excitement. This was amazing; one of the most beautiful things she'd ever seen in her life. The mere massiveness of it, and the reason behind it's creation was enough to stump her. She turned back to examine the room once more, and jumped slightly when thousands of reflections moved at the same time, looking back at her from their places across the chamber.
Donna spoke first, giving another disbelieving laugh as she did so. "S-so um...where next?"
The Doctor snapped back from the entrancing site. "Right! Yes, of course." He looked down at his sonic screwdriver. "We're here."
"But...there's nothing here!" Donna was right; apart from the glass panels, the room was practically empty. "So what do we do, just wait for something to happen?"
The Doctor nodded at something in front of them. "Over there."
She looked, and after a moment or two of squinting, she realized what he'd pointed out to her. In the middle of the room, several of the same panels, this time slightly higher than the rest, had been placed side by side, and formed a tall, glass box. Against the glimmering whites of the rest of the mountain, it hadn't stood out, but now that the Doctor had drawn her attention to it, Donna could see it clearly. "What do you think it is?"
He shrugged. "No idea. But I'll bet my TARDIS that whatever brought us here is inside it." They began to walk towards the box, stepping around the glass walls that had previously obstructed their views, and Donna reached out to touch one.
"So that...box is a mystery, but do you know what these are for?"
The Doctor meanwhile, had reached the holding cell at the middle of the room, and was laying his hand on it's surface. "They're part of the system. Great big computer running through those things, all working as hard as they can to maintain whatever's in here." Still keeping his gaze focused on the glass prism in front of him, he pulled out his sonic screwdriver and aimed it at where she was standing.
All at once, every single panel around them began to glow with light, making the room shine even more, and each glass surface filled with colour as images bled on to them like paint. They weren't just a computer system. They were computer screens.
Donna turned away from the oblivious Time Lord, who probably knew what he'd done anyway, and stared at the screens. Each held a different image than the other, and she could barely make out what they meant. They were filled with various graphs and diagrams, none of which she understood. Some were varying slightly, and might have been measuring the temperature, or radiation levels or something, and another looked like a 3D plot of the box itself. But there was one screen in particular, which made her heart race slightly, and caused her to frantically call out for her best friend. "Doctor!"
He ran over instantly, pulling on his glasses to examine what she'd found, and she heard him inhale sharply. She placed a finger over the flickering screen. "Isn't that..." She trailed off when he nodded, and she gave an uncomfortable sigh.
The technology was odd, and the image in front of her was different than the one she was accustomed to, but she'd spent more than enough time in hospitals when her father was dying, and Donna Noble knew a heart monitor when she saw one.
She turned back to the box, staring at her reflection in it. "There's something...living in there."
"This isn't just a computer system," he replied. "They're monitoring something's heart beat, its temperature levels, growth patterns, you name it. This mountain's keeping something alive."
Donna's skin crawled as he grabbed her hand. She glanced back at the box, trying to imagine exactly what...or who it held, when the entire mountain was suddenly plunged into darkness. Every light disappeared, and the monitors all switched themselves off. Donna gave a startled scream and the Doctor quickly pulled her closer to him, squeezing her hand as he did so. "It's okay! Sh-sh-sh, Donna, it's all right. I'm here."
She gave one more soft yell, and then squeezed his hand once more, and fumbled around shakily until her hand met his lapel. She didn't let go. She could feel his fingers rubbing against her shoulder comfortingly, but couldn't even see him in the darkness. "Why-oh!"
The monitors quickly switched back on, and their screens emitted just enough of a soft, red light for her to make out the dim features of his face. He wasn't looking at her, but instead stared at the hundreds of images spread out around them, and she followed his shocked gaze. Every screen showed the same thing; strange circular images which twisted and shifted as they glowed, overlapping where they needed to and changing size from time to time as if to emphasize a point. More confused than anything else, Donna realized something. She recognized this. And from the look on his face, the Doctor did too. It took her a second, but after glancing at the writing and back to the Time Lord, Donna finally realized where she'd seen this before.
"That's the same stuff that appears on the TARDIS monitor!" The Doctor didn't look at her, so she continued. "That's your language isn't it, Doctor? Doctor?" She snapped her fingers in front of his nose in annoyance. "Spaceman!" He still didn't reply, but walked slowly towards the nearest monitor, hand slipping numbly from her shoulder as stared at it.
Donna continued to stand where she was, letting him read the message, and beginning to feel slightly frightened by the haunted look in his eyes. It was if he was miles away, and she could see the Oncoming Storm beginning to show. "Doctor?" she whispered, this time speaking in the soft voice she used whenever he needed her to try and understand. "What's going on?"
The monitors switched themselves off, and after a few seconds of darkness the light returned. The screens stayed blank, now causing the massive room to seem almost bland compared to the colourful atmosphere which had resonated through it only a few minutes ago. Donna tried again. "Doctor? Look, I know whatever's going on is serious, but could you please just tell me what's happening?"
"Not now, Donna!" he suddenly snapped, spinning around to face her, and she stared at him in shock. He ran a hand through his hair in frustration and muttered, "Sorry. I just...I just need you to be quiet for a second, okay? Just cooperate until we can get out of here and then..."
He shook his head and walked back towards the box, muttering to himself as he went, and Donna glared at the back of his head as he walked away from her. Cooperate? When didn't she cooperate with him? Sure, sometimes she'd be a bit loud, or say something that got on his nerves, but she'd follow this stupid alien to the ends of the Earth if he asked her. When he'd told her to cooperate, she'd instantly thought back to her days of babysitting, of crying children, who banged their legs against the floor and screamed when they didn't get their way. Was that really what he thought of her?
At this thought she started after him. "I'm not-" But she was cut off when the entire box shuddered, and the glass began to shift; their reflections sliding away from them once more as it became transparent, allowing them to see what it held inside.
Unlike the doorways leading into the mountain, it made little sound, just a gentle whirring noise, and what lay beyond it was not darkness. The room inside was filled with as much light as the outside, but was small and cramped in comparison. It was also empty, save a few wires which all ran towards the box's only other resident; a small, glass cot-like slab. Donna felt her blood run cold, and felt the Doctor stiffen beside her, because on the slab lay a body.
Not a corpse, but a young, sleeping girl, who looked like she might be in her late teens, or early twenties. She wore a thin, white shirt, and a matching pair of pants which reached down to her bare feet, and her long blonde hair was spread out around her head like a golden halo, with dark roots which contrasted heavily against the purity of the glass image. A small tube ran through her open lips, and her chest moved slowly, soundlessly drawing in deep breaths in her unconscious state. Around her various wires ran towards her limbs, disappearing where they met her pale skin.
"Who is she?" Donna figured that the Doctor would have learned what was going on from the foreign message he'd read, but when she looked up at him she recoiled slightly in shock. His lips were pressed together tightly and trembling slightly, as if he was having trouble breathing. His fists were clenched, knuckles quickly turning white as he stared through the glass with eyes that stormed and warred with impossible fury. Swallowing nervously, Donna reached out, not quite touching him, but reaching just enough to show him that she was still here. "Doctor."
At the sound of his name, he turned towards her, and that horrible, deadly look in his eyes vanished, replaced by one she was more familiar with; a look of complete and utter loneliness, like he was so lost, and didn't have a friend in the world. "Donna?"
He stepped forward tentatively, and it was out of pure instinct that Donna pulled him towards her. It occurred to her that usually she would have questioned him for acting like this, but for once he had turned to her for comfort, and this was better than how he'd been acting only a few moments ago. It had scared her. The alien wrapped his arms around her, and rested his head on her shoulder with all the emotion of someone who was about to make the most impossible journey. They stayed like that for a while, the only noise being the soft beep-beep of the machine sustaining that...girl, and his gentle sighs as he breathed deep into her shoulder.
Finally, he drew away and looked back towards the glass room, staring at in contemplation. This time, it wasn't anger or loneliness that clouded his eyes, but uncertainty, and a clear and undying fear, like someone teetering uneasily over the edge of a cliff, about to either fall or be saved. Donna bit her lip, unsure of what to think. It was so rare that she saw him express all the emotion she knew he was capable of, but as he passed from one mood to the next-from anger, to loneliness, to fear-a small seed of an idea was planted in her mind, and it grew with each second, causing her to become more and more certain as they stood there. It was like...
"You know her." Whether it was a question or a fact, Donna had no idea.
He looked back at her, and gave his head a quick shake. "No. Not her. We've never met."
"But then who is she? You know who she is, Doctor. That's what those screen things were saying, weren't they? Don't lie to me." She whispered the final sentence through gritted teeth, and he barely wasted time staring at her before he stepped forward and grabbed her arm, turning her to face the small room.
"That, Donna Noble, is a clone of Rose Tyler."
The answer was delivered in such an air of passiveness that Donna barely realized the significance of what he'd just told her, and it took her a while to piece the name together in her head. "Not...not your Rose?"
He didn't answer, and her mouth dropped open. She looked back to the girl, who looked so perfectly normal, right down to the peroxide-blonde hair someone had taken the trouble to dye for her.
"B-but...how did...? Why?"
He just sniffed, leaving yet another question unanswered. "Question is; what type? Most clones are merely physical, taking on the same dimensions as the original, but from the looks of it, this clone's been tampered with." At a startled look from his companion he continued. "All the personality traits, memories, quirks, everything. It's all been inserted right into its mind, and it's been programmed to awaken when all those," Here he gestured to the wires and tubes connected to her body. "Are unplugged."
"So she's exactly like Rose?" Donna exclaimed, already feeling the excitement beginning to bubble up inside of her. The Doctor couldn't have Rose, and while Donna had no idea what had happened to the girl to make her leave him, losing her had left him emotionally shattered, but this could be just what he needed to bring himself back from the brink of self destruction.
"You could say that, yes." The Doctor put his hands in his coat pockets, and gazed at the clone for a moment before taking Donna's hand once more and beginning to lead her away. "C'mon."
She pulled back. "Where are we going?"
"Back to the TARDIS," he replied, nodding his head towards the exit as if it were obvious.
"Without her?" There was a pause, and the Doctor stared at her apprehensively.
"We're not taking it, Donna."
"It? What the hell are you going on about, Spaceman?" Her voice was becoming louder now, and was beginning to verge on a yell.
"Donna, look I-"
He never got to finish his sentence. Suddenly, a high pitched scream echoed throughout the chamber, and the lights flickered rapidly. Donna gave a shriek and fell to the floor as the entire room began to shake under her feet, and as she watched all the screens began to flicker like the lights; that same foreign message being played over and over again on a loop as they turned on and off...
Somewhere amongst the confusion, she felt the Doctor pick her up and set her on her feet. "We need to go!" he screamed over the deafening wail. "This whole place is going to come down!" Around them shards of glass fell like giant blocks of ice, shattering into millions of glistening pieces as they hit the ground. He grabbed her and began to run towards the exit, but Donna pulled away from him once more.
"What about Rose?" She screamed, more out of anger and disbelief than to drown out the crash of shattering glass.
He stepped closer and placed his hands on her shaking shoulders. "Donna, I told you; that's not Rose."
"But it is!" She insisted. "You said so yourself! She's got all her memories and everything. You said so!"
"That doesn't make it her, Donna. Now come on, we need to go!"
"But she'll die in here!" Donna was screaming even louder than ever, still not able to believe that this was happening. This wasn't him; he never talked like this, and would never, ever think of leaving someone behind.
He looked back at her, eyes cold with anger, and said something that made her blood freeze in fury. "She never lived."
Donna stared at him for a second, and then turned to look back at the helpless body still lying in the small chamber. The glass surrounding Rose had cracked long ago, and the inside was beginning to fall apart. Long slivers of shattered glass continued to fall from the ceiling, and one landed near the clone's head, causing the redhead to whimper. She turned back to look at the Doctor once more, taking in the fire and determination that burnt behind his eyes. And then Donna made her decision.
She reluctantly turned from the Time Lord and sprinted towards the box, leaping through the cracked window as she did so and scratching her arm when what was left of the glass met with her bare skin. It didn't take her long to reach the body, but by the time she did the crashes were becoming louder and more frequent, and she knew she didn't have long.
"Okay..." Donna whispered uncertainly, madly wishing that Martha was here to tell her how to unhook the girl. But that doctor was even more absent than the other medical professional in vicinity, so she had to try and figure it out herself. Deciding to remove the most obvious piece of equipment first, she grabbed the tube running into the clone's mouth and slowly pulled it out, wincing at its length when she saw it at its full. For a moment afterwards the girl lying in front of her coughed hoarsely, and Donna felt a surge of hope, but then she became quiet again. Next, Donna went to remove the wires, and felt nauseous when she realized that they weren't stuck on like she'd imagined, but instead ran under Rose's skin and into her body. Each wire slid out easily enough, though, and when she was finally done, Donna began to feel the panic that most people would usually feel while inside a collapsing mountain.
"Wake up!" she shouted at Rose. "Please, just wake up!" The girl didn't move, and Donna attempted to lift her but, as light as Rose looked, Donna just wasn't strong enough. She glanced around at what was now left of the room for something she could place the blonde in, but couldn't find anything. Trying to ignore the continual scream that still filled the chamber, she bit back a sob, and grabbed the clone's arm for comfort, ignoring the small punctures where the wires had been inserted into Rose's skin as tears began streaming down her cheeks. A pane of glass landed next to her, and Donna let out a terrified scream.
Finally, with no other alternative, she looked back to where she'd come from. The Doctor stood completely still, oblivious to the large blocks of glass that continued to shatter around him. For a moment their eyes met over Rose's still body, and all of time seemed to stand still. And then, sobbing with fear as the world around her fell apart, Donna Noble screamed.
"HELP ME!" There was a pause, and then she tried again. "DOCTOR, HELP ME, PLEASE!" She gripped the girl's arm tighter and cried, lowering herself to the ground. Her ears filled of shrieks as glass pushed against glass, like thousands of the mountain's doors screaming through the darkness; coming for her.
A few more seconds passed, and then the Doctor moved forward, breaking into a run as he dodged the falling glass to get to her. Donna watched through hot tears, and then moved her attention towards the still-unconscious girl, frantically positioning her arms so that she'd be ready to be carrying when the Doctor arrived. A stab of relief shot through her when he finally leaped through the broken pane, and rushed towards them. He threw the small body over his shoulder carelessly, and Donna considered screaming at him to watch it, but decided against it when the roof of the box groaned, ready to come crashing down on them at any second. She felt the Doctor grab her arm, and didn't need him pulling her along to know she had to run as fast as she could. As they dashed out of the box, she heard a mighty smash as it collapsed in on itself, and gave a strangled sob of relief.
But it wasn't over yet. Across the chamber the small door they'd come through seemed further away than she'd remembered, and with each step Donna became surer that they weren't going to make it. But after what seemed like forever, the exit finally loomed before them, and Donna stumbled slightly as the Doctor pushed her through. The rough ground bit into her bare feet as they ran through the tunnel, both of them falling just as much as the other while cracks followed them along the crumbling ground.
When they finally reached the end, the Doctor dropped Donna's hand and began fumbling through his pocket for his sonic screwdriver, for the door leading outside was still shut firmly. When he finally found the device, he pointed it at the door, which let out one last, deafening scream and slid open. Donna ran through first, gasping and falling to her knees in exhaustion as her vision swam, but the Doctor pulled her back up again.
"Not yet!" When Donna turned around, she saw why they had to keep moving. The entire mountain was trembling, pieces falling off the outside as it shook, and it would fall any second. If they were near it when it finally collapsed...
She tried not to think about what would happen and forced her tired body onwards. For a few minutes they continued to run, and she tried not to cry out when golden soil found its way into the cuts on her feet. Suddenly, and unexpectedly, every scream and groan that was being emitted from the mountain stopped, and they turned in surprise, staring back at the massive structure.
For a few moments there was silence, and then the mountain gave one last moan, and the entire structure fell, crashed downwards with all the force and beauty of a dying god. Each peak vanished beneath a cloud of glass, and the mountain's dying screams filled the air as each piece of glass simultaneously fell apart.
The Doctor turned towards her with wild eyes. "Get down, Donna!" The human suddenly realized what had the Doctor so worried. A shimmering cloud of light was coming closer; a shock-wave of glass sent out by the mountain's collision with the ground. She gave a yell and turned from the sight, pushing her face into the Doctor's shoulder as he wrapped a protective arm around her.
When the wave of remains reached them, it was like a storm; ripping at every part of her as it blew past, trying to knock her to the ground and tear her to pieces, but the Doctor held her tight, drawing his coat around her and holding her in place. When it finally subsided, he loosened his grip on her and whispered breathlessly, "Donna, whatever you do, don't open your eyes."
"W-what?"
"The air's full of glass. Just...just keep them closed and I'll get you back to the TARDIS." When she nodded shakily, he added, "And try not to breath too deeply. Last thing you need is a lungful of glass."
Donna pressed a hand over her mouth and kept her eyes clamped shut. A sudden, panicked thought occurred to her. "Do you still have Rose?"
There was a pause. "Yeah." Not quite believing him, Donna opened one eye, and peered carefully through a crack in her fingers. All around them a white mist filled the air, sparkling with what was left of the sunlight it was blocking out. Even in death the mountain was beautiful. Next to her, Rose was still slung over the Doctor's shoulder, and Donna felt relieved, until she saw the Doctor's face.
The look in his eyes told her that what came next would not be easy. There was a flash of determination, of anger and annoyance, and so many other emotions she couldn't quite place. One thing she was sure of though, was that he wasn't happy about what he'd ended up saving. Because while that girl in his arms was both physically and mentally Rose, Donna could see that he didn't accept it, and wouldn't accept her back into his life. Not like this.
"I couldn't leave her," she whispered. He didn't answer. He didn't need to for her to know what he was thinking...
That deep down, while looking for adventure in the depths of a looking-glass mountain, all they'd found was another reflection.
Maybe there's a God above
And all I've ever learned from love
Was how to shoot at someone how outdrew you
And it's not a cry you can hear at night
It's not somebody who's seen the light
It's a cold and it's a broken
Hallelujah
~Hallelujah, Rufus Wainwright & Leonard Cohen