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Thanks for the reviews, cheri1 and nathanrdotca!!!!
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In case any of you were wondering, the idea I borrowed from cheri1 was that of Donna and the Chameleon Arch. So, again, major kudos to cheri1!
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Chapter 3: The Restoration of Donna Noble
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Donna... Human… Time Lord brain… He, the Doctor had once been a human, with his true Time Lord self kept inside a fob watch, and it was all thanks to the Chameleon Arch…
The Doctor gasped. The Chameleon Arch!! Could it possibly work? Could the Chameleon Arch possibly heal Donna?? Suddenly, the Doctor was full of a wild and wonderful feeling of the most joyous hope imaginable. He stood up, bring Donna's now unconscious form with him. Then, he brought her over to where it hung, ready, waiting to be used.
Here we go, thought the Doctor, and he hooked Donna up to the Chameleon Arch.
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He knew it was a desperate attempt, but he sincerely hoped that there was a possibility it might work. It had to. Otherwise, he wouldn't be able to live with himself. In his hopes with the Chameleon Arch, the Doctor hoped that it would heal Donna completely. Well, not completely. He knew he would never be able to heal Donna completely of her Time Lord brain; rather, what he was wishing for was for Donna to heal- that is, to keep her human self, yet also heal so that she would be able to keep her Time Lord brain. So, in essence, she would be a human being with a fully functional alien brain; the smartest human being the world has known.
The Doctor finished hooking Donna up to the Chameleon Arch, twiddled a few dials, and went over to turn the switch on. The Chameleon Arch showed the usual signs of working: a slight buzzing sound, electricity to be seen moving from the different strategic points, and the person connected to the arch, being shaken slightly due to the Arch itself; for, whenever the Chameleon Arch was turning someone into someone else, it started vibrating. The Doctor remembered this from when he had been attached to it, back when he traveled with Martha. He also remembered the pain it caused, the pain he felt as his very biological sense of being was changed, every one of his cells, changed; and it nearly broke him to know that Donna was now experiencing the same pain. Although, he hoped that, since she was going to retain her human self but with a new improved brain, that Donna wouldn't experience as much of the pain as he, the Doctor had.
Unfortunately, almost as soon as the Doctor had flipped the on switch, the Chameleon Arch began to malfunction. Sure, it did display its usual signs of working properly, but suddenly, that all began to change.
Smoke started pouring from the Chameleon Arch and it began shaking to a lethal degree, even moreso than when the Doctor had been on it. Even though Donna was unconscious, it was clear to the Doctor that she was still feeling a great amount pain. The Doctor's hearts nearly broke at this, and he let out a shout of panic as the Chameleon Arch began shaking even more. No. No no NO!! This couldn't be happening! The Chameleon Arch was never supposed to malfunction! Absolutely never! Oh, what was the Doctor to do?! He hurriedly went to the switch board to try and turn it off, but to no avail; everything seemed to be stuck, glued in place. Even the sonic screwdriver didn't make a difference.
Weird noises could now be heard, amongst the smoke and shaking of the Arch; strange noises, almost as of metal grinding against metal. The Doctor dashed to where Donna was and tried to detach the Chameleon Arch, but to his dismay, he was unsuccessful. This was NOT good. If Donna died as a result of this… No, he would not think those thoughts… he would find a way to make it all stop; he knew he would, he would make sure he did. And then, suddenly, almost miraculously, as if the Chameleon Arch had been listening to the Doctor's thoughts, everything stopped and both the Arch and Donna became as still as death.
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She was tired, oh so tired. Her head and entire body ached, as if it had gone through the very fires of hell itself, bashed and battered along the way. This was definitely not the best Donna had ever felt, to put it lightly. As Donna slowly returned to consciousness, she slowly began to realize where she was. But where was that? All she knew now was that she seemed to be lying in bed, and a comfortable one at that. A warm blanket was covering her, for Donna could feel it. She seemed also to be dressed in something that felt like pyjamas, but how had that happened? Donna seemed to remember wearing…well, not pyjamas, but clothes for her temping job at the fashion agency.
What on Earth had happened? How did she get here, wherever she was? The last thing Donna remembered was seeing that man, John Smith… no, that wasn't who he was… The last thing she remember was seeing… who?... the Doctor! She had brushed past him and seen the TARDIS! And then suddenly, all memories of the Doctor had come rushing back into her mind, rushing, as if a lorry truck had slammed into her going at full speed. And then… she didn't remember much of what happened after that. She remembered the Doctor leading her into the TARDIS, but after that, it had all gone black.
So how did she get here, wherever here was? Donna slowly raised her left arm and placed her hand over her face; she did the same with her right hand and arm. With her hands she rubbed sleep from her eyes (how she could have sleep in her eyes if she had only been unconscious, is what she'd like to know, but no matter) and brushed hair from her face. Then, she was startled by a voice speaking, from her right-hand side.
"How are you feeling?"
Donna turned her head and saw the Doctor. He was sitting in a wicker chair by her bedside, looking at her with some concern.
"Doctor?" Donna tried to get up into a sitting position.
"No, don't sit up just yet; you need as much rest right now as you can get," said the Doctor.
"But what happened?" Donna asked. If she couldn't get into a sitting position, she could at least turn on her side so that she could face the Doctor, and that is exactly what she did.
"I'll explain that in a moment," said the Doctor. "First, I want to know how are you feeling?"
"I'm…fine, I guess," said Donna.
"No aches or pains?"
"Well, it feels like my head's been banged up against a brick wall and my body feels like something heavy ran over it."
"I guessed that you would," said the Doctor.
"Why?" asked Donna. She was confused; what could the Doctor mean by that? "What happened? Where am I?"
Even as she said it, she took a glance around the room. The walls were all made of what appeared to be some kind of metallic wood and the floor was covered in carpet the color or an evening sky. Donna now saw that the pyjamas she was wearing were a deep royal purple. The bed she was lying it was a modern-looking one with four posts, one for each corner. She was covered in a thick, warm comforter the color of dark red wine, and with a set design of leaves embroidered all over. Her head rested on two pillows covered in white pillowcases, the same color as the sheets underneath the comforter. There was a nightstand on both sides of the bed; the one on the left hand side had a vase with a single orange flower. The nightstand to her right held two glasses of water and a bowl of what appeared to be soup. It was in front of this nightstand the Doctor sat, in the wicker chair. He had a damp washcloth in one hand.
"What's the cloth for?" Donna asked.
"For your forehead," the Doctor replied. "You were burning up, and I used this to help cool you down."
"Oh." There was a pause, then Donna asked, once more, "Where am I?"
"You're in the TARDIS," said the Doctor.
"But how did I get here?"
"Don't you remember?" the Doctor asked.
"I remember you dragging me into the console room, but that's about it," said Donna.
"That's because you blacked out," said the Doctor.
"Gee, you think?" came the sarcastic reply.
The Doctor ignored her. He continued. "When you saw the TARDIS, all the memories of myself that I wiped from your mind came back; and, since no human can ever have a Time Lord brain, all that knowledge you were remembering was beginning to literally burn you up. You were dying."
"But I'm not dead," interjected Donna.
"Quite obviously," said the Doctor. He held up a hand to quiet Donna, who was about to make an indignant reply. "You're not dead because, out of desperation to stop you from burning up, I hooked you up to the Chameleon Arch. I assume you know-"
"Of course I know what the Chameleon Arch is," said Donna waspishly. "I'm not a stupid ape. And anyway, I thought the Chameleon Arch was only supposed to change a Time Lord into a human?"
"It can do more than just that to a Time Lord," said the Doctor. "But no matter; like I said, I was desperate and, since you already had a Time Lord brain, I figured it wouldn't harm you to use it. By hooking you up to the Arch, I hoped to heal you. And by "heal" I don't mean take away your Time Lord brain. I mean that, I hoped that it would heal you in the sense that it would keep you from burning up and dying; that it would restore you, in essence. In other words, it would make it so that your humanity was kept and your Time Lord mind preserved: the restoration of Donna Noble. A human being with a Time Lord brain, a human who could withstand all that vast and great knowledge and not burn up."
"So that's what it did, yeah? I'm still human, but with a mind like yours?" Donna laughed. "Like the smartest human on Earth?"
"Not exactly," said the Doctor with some hesitation.
"What?" said Donna, now looking dangerous.
"No, no! That's not what I meant!!" said the Doctor. "You are smart! But you're…not exactly human."
Donna gasped and sat up, despite the Doctor not wanting her too. "WHAT???" she shouted. "What do you mean, I'm not human?? Like you're one to talk, space boy!!"
"That's not what I mean!" He groaned and ruffled his hair. "Donna…"
"Then what did you mean?" When the Doctor hesitated, Donna added, "Speak up, space man."
The Doctor picked up one of the glasses of water and took a sip. Placing the glass back down, he said, "I mean that, almost right after I switched on the Chameleon Arch, it started to malfunction. I tried to stop it, to turn it off, but nothing I did worked. Finally, the Arch did shut down, on its own. You were so still, I was afraid you'd died. So I checked for a pulse, which, thank the vortex I found. But you were still unconscious, so I unhooked you from the Chameleon Arch and brought you to the TARDIS's medical bay, a large room with two smaller rooms attached, full of the most sophisticated medical equipment in the entire universe. My original intent, as you now know, was to preserve your human-ness, yet make it so that you would be able to live with a Time Lord mind without burning up. But, since the Chameleon Arch had malfunctioned, I wanted to take you to the med bay to make sure you were all right, too see how the malfunction had affected you, and, of course, to make sure that there wasn't any damage."
"Was there any damage?" asked Donna.
"No."
"Well, that's good then, isn't it? I'm still human, but I have a Time Lord mind."
The Doctor ignored her. "No damage was to be detected. So the next thing I did was to be sure what, exactly, the Chameleon Arch malfunction had done to you and how it affected you. I did a few tests, drew some blood, took some biological samples from your cells, things like that…things that would be done on any visit to a family doctor." The Doctor sighed, took a deep breath, and continued. "I had to wait a bit for the full results, but once I had them, they were…well, not exactly what I had expected, to understate it."
Donna was breathing slowly. It was easy to see that she was slightly scared and, let's face it, who wouldn't be, if they were in her place?
"What were the results?" she said, in almost a whisper.
"I realized that, due to the malfunction, you weren't just any human with a Time Lord mind."
"What do you mean?" said Donna.
The Doctor looked at her. "Donna, it turned you into a Time Lord."
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