Donna jumped as the aggressive banging resonated once more. This time, the door seemed to give a little. Had the Doctor said no one could enter the Tardis? That the spaceship could resist to the assault of Genghis Khan's fiercest warriors? Not feeling particularly reassured, Donna cringed and out of reflex, hid behind the central console as the next bang blew the door open.
"Doctor?! Show yourself, Doctor!" A grave voice thundered.
Maybe it was the authority of tyranny or maybe it was her grandpa's words to stand up to enemies, but at this command and despite her shaking legs, Donna slowly rose to her feet to pick a look at the invader while moving aside to mask the Doctor's cocooned body.
A tall man, a looking-angry tall man, a looking-angry-tall-man wearing a sort of a dark burgundy, made of velvet robe was standing in the Tardis' doorframe with all the arrogant standing of an old magistrate. What sort of bonker is this? Donna wondered as she noticed the metal gauntlet on his left hand. Half medieval knight and half Roman senator made for quite a curious mix.
Donna was searching her words when suddenly, the man stepped several feet forward, stopped right in front of her and pierced her with his icy blue gaze, his mouth slowly drawing a curved smile before anger twisted it again.
"How could you fall so low is a mystery, Doctor," he said with an unmistaken disdain. Or was it closer to plain disgust?
"I... I... I'm not the Doctor," Donna whispered, feeling the crushing weight of his condescending judgment compressing the oxygen in her lungs.
"Doctor! Show yourself at once!" he thundered again, glancing all around the control room, still not thinking to cast a look at the ground...
Her gaze shaking, Donna tried hard not to look at the defenseless form lying behind the console, a couple of feet to her right and that the man was bound to notice any second now, no matter how hard she wanted to avoid this to happen.
"I'm Donna, Donna Noble. And who are you?" she asked, forcing herself to engage the conversation in the feeble hope that she could buy the Doctor time to finish his synchronization and jump out of his cocoon, ready for the battle because, if there was one thing the man did not look like, it was friendly.
"Apes... still barely evolved I see." The man smirked again and shoved her aside violently enough to send her bounce against the guardrail.
Eyes wide opened with fear, she watched him kneel next to the Doctor.
"When will you learn, you stupid boy?" he muttered after taking a deep breath.
"Oh, I've learned, don't worry. Move away now."
Donna jumped again. She had not realized the Doctor-teenager was standing just a mere meter behind her, pointing his screwdriver to the man's chest.
"Then you should choose your weapon better if only to threaten me," the man replied, obviously not scared of the sonic tool.
"Humor me," the Doctor-teenager said, walking by Donna without casting a glance at her, something she appreciated because she could not help but feel embarrassed by his total lack of decency.
"I've always known this would happen to you again," the man muttered as he stood up, removed his coat and threw it to the Doctor-teenager who took it and put it on before scanning Donna with his screwdriver.
"Oh, haven't you? Really? What else have you known? Homo Sapiens with a trace of Neanderthal. Not entirely ape anymore. They developed language, you know, hundreds of different, sophisticated languages, well... I admit they're still simple enough to learn in a matter of hours. But they're certainly more evolved than apes. Much more interesting. Very smart. Well... smart enough. For now."
"Oi!" Donna cringed, feeling insulted though she was not sure why. It was not so easy to deny one's genetic ancestors after all. But who was that man? Oh no... she thought, realizing now that their eyes look too alike to be a coincidence. And the sarcastic tone they used to talk to each other... it reminded her of when she was talking to her mother! Arguing more exactly.
"Whatever pleases you," the man replied. "Now, what is a smart-enough ape doing in the Tardis? And please don't tell me you've been copulating with it."
Yeap! That was the kind of full of reproach, inappropriate question her mother could annoy her with.
"Wait a second. Is this man your father?" she asked the teenager-Doctor.
"See? Smart ape. And so what? What if I did? It is none of your business I reckon. And no, you can forget about it: I am not coming back. So! Now that you've brilliantly established that your time and space tag and chase skills are still the best in the universe, the door is there, help yourself out of my Tardis."
"Your Tardis?! You mean the one you stole."
"No. The one I will steal. I know, it's all a bit confusing, but I'm sure you can figure it out later when you'll be sitting in your presidential room, in your presidential armchair, in the middle of your presidential guard, your presidential counsel, and all the people your overinflated pride likes to surround itself with. Now, off you go. Hop! If you leave now you might be back in time for supper. You being the all-mighty President of the Time Lords, shouldn't be too difficult of a challenge. Right in your sleeve might I say, isn't it?"
"Don't use that tone with me! Who do you think you are? You little-"
"Doctor. I'm the Doctor. And you're the President. And she is the Smart Ape of Chiswick even if I'm not sure how I know this but I think it is the right name, Chiswick. Roll nicely on the tongue. But like it does matter where she comes from anyway? In another hand, it matters where you are about to go. I can give you a lift if you need. A couple of parsecs before dinner, nothing better to open the appetite!"
"You are talking nonsense."
"Am I? Oh my! what a surprise it is that it comes as a surprise for you! Me? Not making sense! Or are you too old now to remember? Because I do remember. Everything. Every minute, every second perfectly. These were your words: 'He is strong. Showing him the Time vortex two years earlier than it is the norm will make him stronger!' A presidential privilege! Even when everybody was warning you of the risks! You dismissed all of them with all your stupid arrogance. Strong you were, then strong enough to endure I was. Then guess what! You were wrong!"
"Oh, you really think that, don't you? You still really think that after all these years? And yet, you are the living proof that I was right."
"You were wrong, and you're still wrong."
"Then tell me, if you think so lowly of yourself, that you are so weak that you can only run away from your responsibilities. Tell me what will happen if I..."
The man let his words trail as he raised his gloved hand toward the teenager-Doctor who could not help but take a step back. Seeing a sudden genuine fear in his icy blue eyes washing away all the previous anger sent a wave of cold shivers running down Donna's spine.
"No, don't..." he whispered. "I cannot regenerate in this form, you know this. Nobody can!"
"Who talks about killing you?" the man asked as he suddenly lurched to his left and pulled the cocoon away from the Tardis' console, disconnecting it, severing the link in the most abrupt way.
The reaction was immediate: both the teenager-Doctor and the Tardis emitted the most terrible shriek Donna had yet to hear. She was certain blood was pouring out of her eyes and ears as she fell on her knees and watched through a blurry haze the teenager-Doctor vanish in a whitish glow while the Doctor's body in the cocoon started to convulse so badly it hopped out of the central platform.
"Ape from Chiswick he said, right? Then back to Chiswick, you go now!" The man exclaimed, pushing and pulling the console's levers.
"NO! WAIT! What..." did you do to the Doctor? Donna wanted to scream, but her voice got stuck in her throat as the Tardis' engine engaged and the control room started to swirl like the maddest spinning-top. Before long, she was seeing green and gray alternating at a terrible speed until her world fell into the darkest well and she knew nothing but her heart beating the fiercest drum in her chest.
Donna was persuaded that she was still falling when she slowly came back to her senses and wondered if the dark blotches she was seeing were people looking at her. They were talking, calling her... helping her? Maybe waiting for an ambulance?
"Doctor?..." she whispered as her sight became clearer. And clearer. And a little clearer.
"Four knights? Four knights in full battle armor? In Chiswick? What the..." she exclaimed as she heaved herself on her elbows, a move that prompted the quick apparition of four very pointed swords less than an inch from her face.
"You've got to be kidding me! DOCTOR!"