Chapter Two

The corridor was deserted as everyone had been herded into the hall as the ceremony started. Donna followed the click-clacking of heels she heard coming from her left. Walking quickly, she almost missed the small pile of clothes that had been shoved to the side. Pausing, she nudged the pile with the toe of her shoe. Yep, definitely the page boy's.

Suddenly, a loud scuffle exploded around the corner. "Rose! Get the—" the voice cut off on a strangled cry. There was more sounds of struggling and then a mechanical sound of a device being used.

Heart pounding, Donna stumbled around the corner and was met with an amazing sight.

There was Rose to one side, digging madly in her purse while the Doctor had removed his glowing pen from his pocket (the source of the mechanical sound) and was aiming it at a three-tentacled creature, one tentacle seeming to serve as its head and the other two as its arms. The creature was backed into a corner, incongruently still wearing the black boots of the erstwhile pageboy.

The Doctor was wildly reaching with one hand towards Rose, his fingers making a grab for something she hadn't come up with yet. "Rose! The tentarecaveator!"

"Hang on, love. Al…most…got it!" She triumphantly removed a ring that was three times the size of her purse. She tossed it to her husband who caught it and moved his fingers across it which made the ring glow an eerie green color and start to expand. His face lit up with a widening grin and he turned to face the creature, only to have his smile fall off his face immediately.

The creature had gotten a tentacle unfrozen from whatever the Doctor was doing with his glow stick and had swiped at the man's legs, sending him to the floor. The glowing ring was knocked out of his grasp and he swiped at it, just missing as the creature got another tentacle around his leg. Flipping over, he touched some buttons his pen device, forehead screwed up in concentration despite the fact that he was currently being dragged across the floor towards a creature who showed a wicked row of teeth as a mouth.

Donna's eyes could barely keep up with the action as she saw Rose leap after the rolling ring (quite a feat in heels and a dress) while the Doctor's eyes widened in delight ("Oh you beautiful thing!") and he aimed it at the creature who let out a high-pitched pig-like squeal of pain and let go of the Doctor's legs in favor of covering the top of its head-tentacle.

"Doctor!" Rose called out and without him even glancing at her, he smoothly rolled out of the way as she tossed the now 2-meters in diameter ring around the still squealing creature. The ring dropped around it and stopped mid-waist, hovering above the ground. The squeals stopped abruptly as it seemed to realize it'd been trapped and it dropped its tentacles, its head moving back and forth as if examining the—what had he called it?—tentarecaveator.

It seemed to recognize it as it started struggling in earnest, tentacles flailing but it was useless as the ring suddenly flashed a bright green and then started contracting, lifting the helpless creature who was shrinking in size. Smaller and smaller the ring got and then once it had the tentacled thing about half a meter above ground, it started spinning, creating a sphere around it as it continued to shrink, the squeals that had erupted were suddenly cut off as the sphere shrunk to the size of a golf ball which the Doctor neatly caught in his hand. He held it up to the light, a goofy grin on his face. "Will you look at that, Rose? It's a tiny Tinandre. Bet that'd be hard to say five times fast." He glanced down at his wife, eyebrow raised.

She smiled widely at him. "Tiny Tinandre, tiny Tinandre, tiny Tinandre, tiny Tinandre, tiny Tinandre! Ha!" Her fist pumped the air.

He pocked the tiny Tinandre and grabbed her by the waist to give her an affectionate kiss. Breaking apart, another thought seemed to occur to him. "But where's its Juicer?"

"Its 'Juicer'?"

"Well, a Tinandre's only here because this is the happiest day of someone's life and it steals the emotional force created on such days as a sort of high to use or sell."

"So…basically, the Tinandre's a drug dealer?" Rose's voice was incredulous if not a little disappointed. From her vantage point behind, yet again, another potted plant, Donna could understand. After all that excitement, they had ended up just fighting a run-of-the-mill small-time criminal.

"Don't sound so let down! It's still intergalactic!" Donna shook her head the ridiculous attempt to cheer her up though it seemed to work as Rose's smile was back and she gave her husband a hug.

"Oh, please," Donna muttered under her breath, both amused and annoyed at how easily Rose gave in. The Doctor's head lifted as if he'd heard something and Donna mentally cursed. As he swung his head around, his eyes sweeping the hallway, Donna tentatively took a baby step back towards the turn in the corridor, hoping that she'd be able to inch herself around it before he saw her.

No such luck.

"Oi! You! With the bright and glaring hair!" His voice called out.

"Hey!" Donna's temper flared. "I resent that!"

The Doctor and Rose ran towards her, the glowing pen once more out and aimed at her. Donna raised her hands in surrender, not sure what he could do with it but also not really wanting to find out either.

The Doctor's eyes rounded in surprise. "Donna!"

Donna dropped her hands in shock. "Excuse me?"

He ignored her for the moment in favor of tugging on his wife's hand though she was right next to him and completely paying attention. "Look, Rose, it's a parallel!Donna!" He was positively delighted.

The woman's brown eyes glanced warmly at her and smiled back at him. "Yeah, she looks 'xactly the same!"

"I know!"

"Oi! 'She's' right here, you know!" Her hands had ended up on her hips. "And 'she' has no idea what you are talking about!"

"Oh yes, quite sorry!" He turned back to her and gestured at his wife who gave a friendly wave. "This is Rose and I'm the Doctor!"

"Yeah? And what's that to me? How do you know my name? What was that thing you people were just—just—dealing with?" Her arms crossed in consternation and she stared hard at the two. Their smiles didn't falter and she began to suspect that they were insane and she should've called for the guards right off.

Except, they had just masterfully (it seemed) dealt with a really scary sharp-toothed tentacled thing so maybe she should give them a chance to explain. Like, maybe two seconds.

"Weelll, it's a bit complicated but suffice it to say: we're travelers of time and space and we had a friend named Donna back in our home universe but due to a complicated series of events, I was formed from the hand of a Time Lord called the Doctor and was left here in this parallel universe to live out the rest of my human days with Rose because I, as both myself and the Doctor, truly love her. We've grown a TARDIS (that's my ship, you see) and had a family and were now ready for adventures. Rose here had missed the Royal Wedding in her home universe and had wanted to see the one here, so I'd obliged and we'd jumped on our ship and come to this time period to observe. Except I detected some odd readings in the vicinity of the Royal Couple so had devised a plan to get near them to sort it out and as a result we found out about the Tinandre and are now in pursuit of its Juicer!" He huffed the last bit out because he hadn't had a breath of air in his entire explanation. Rose's smile never faltered and Donna's mouth had opened in shock. Approximately a tenth of the data had actually filtered through.

"Anyhoo, you probably didn't get any of that but that's alright! Allonsy!" And with that he ran back down the hall towards the wedding hall, Rose in hand, leaving Donna's brain to catch up.

*.*

Author's Note: OK, only one more to go and my little short story will be complete! Yay!