A/N: I changed the place in the last chapter where it said 'a lot of soldiers' to 'five soldiers' because I wanted it to be a bit more realistic. A horde of soldiers would have caught Donna in no time. Five wouldn't because three are guarding outside the doors and checking the rest of the building for security/electronic breaches. So, on to the story!

Part Three

Donna wanted to bang her head against a wall and shout very nasty things. But she knew she needed to keep a clear head, and she needed her mouth for rattling off arguments at ninety-miles-an-hour, since the Doctor wasn't up to it.

The soldier had twisted her arms around behind her and had then led her to a seat.

"Shoes, please," he said. They were handed to him, and Donna knew she had to act fast.

"So, since I'm about to be dancing for the rest of my life, tell me: why are you doing this? What's the point? I mean, besides the fact that it's mean and probably illegal, it's downright stupid as well! Oi! I'm not finished talking, mate! I deserve five minutes at least, right? I can't get away, so you might as well give me the reasons for what you're doing to me."

"Oh, shut up," the man said. "Figure it out for yourself, if you're so clever."

"Hang on then, I can do this. Let me think. If you want people dancing, then it's for either one of two reasons: one, someone really likes to party, or two, a dance hall that's failing needs to look like it's not failing. Am I right?"

"Hardly."

"All right then, hang on, it's coming to me! Oh, yes! You look like you're advanced with all your automation and guns and things, but you are actually worshipers of some ridiculous cult where people have to dance without stopping. Sort of like not letting a light go out, ever, or you get punished. So you make it where these people can't stop dancing, and when they fall over and die of exhaustion, well, you've got a new batch ready, am I right?"

The soldier frowned. "How did you figure that out?"

She shrugged carelessly. "I saw the little stone-idol-looking-thing sewn on your sleeve."

The man looked down. "Where?"

"Right there!" She jerked her arm out of the other soldier's grasp and gave him a punch to the nose. It made her fist sting, but she was gratified when his nose began to bleed. She hooked her foot behind his leg and sent him toppling, then raced back to the Doctor. He was sitting up and shaking his head.

"Doctor? Doctor! We need to go now! Hurry up!"

She took his arm and tried to haul him to his feet.

"All right, all right," he said, his words slightly slurred. "Just gimme a minute."
"We don't have a minute, Doctor!"

"You know the routine, Donna."

She looked at him in bewilderment, then realized what he meant. "OK, spaceboy. Get ready for a whopper!"

She turned around and saw the soldiers coming towards them. The one she had tripped still lay on the floor. She hoped she'd given him a nasty concussion. Giving her attention to the Doctor, she licked her lips and then kissed him more fervently than she had in Lady Eddison's house. He stumbled back, gasping for breath, and immediately fell down.

"It's fine. I'm fine. Don't worry … Donna! Behind you!"
"Oh, no you don't. Not this time," she muttered. She spun around as she had last time, but this time with both hands balled into fists. One connected with a soldier's face, the other with his gun. Ouch, that didn't feel so good. She made a grab for the gun, was punched in the stomach, and saw the Doctor ram into the man at the same time. Which was good, because right now she was gasping for breath.

The sound of punching and oophing echoed around the room, and suddenly a hand pulled her to her feet.

"Get with it, girl!" Hang on, she knew that voice. She looked up into her own eyes; there she was, standing right there in front of herself! "They're calling in reinforcements and sealing the building," her other self (who was wearing what appeared to be a pair of the Doctor's shoes) said. "You have to get the Doctor's screwdriver."

"Where is it?"

"It's in the leader's jacket. If you put it on setting 7a, it will shatter the neural pulses … oh, blast it all, it will … help. A lot. Just do it!"

"Why don't you?" Donna muttered.

"Because when I was you thirty minutes ago my future self was saying all of this! Go on!"

"Good," thought Donna. "In thirty minutes we'll be out of this mess. I can handle thirty minutes." And then, "Goodness, am I always that tetchy?"

She ran to the side of the still-prone leader and got the sonic screwdriver, then scrolled through the settings until she got to 7a, and pressed it for all she was worth. There was an extremely loud sound, like an explosion. The walls all burst open and wires and other electronic … things popped out, broken and hanging. The dancers all rocked back and forth and then lay on the ground in various states of exhaustion or unconsciousness.

When Donna looked back at the fray, she realized that there was a future Doctor there as well, wearing his long coat. He and future-Donna were just tying up the last two soldiers, while the now-Doctor was going around checking on people.

"Donna? You all right?" he called.

"Yes!" Both Donna's said at the same time. Future-Donna shrugged and mouthed 'It happened before' with a smile.

The now-Doctor put on his glasses and pulled a shoe off of someone. "Oh, now that's clever," he said. "It transmits pulses to the brain, like post-hypnotic suggestion. It starts out slow but intensifies quickly. I figured that already." He grinned. "And brilliant work, Donna! Absolutely brilliant! By the way, how did you figure it out?"

"I guess you're rubbing off on me, spaceman," she said. "More than I thought."

"Molto bene," he said.

"Say that again," said Donna.

"Molto bene." He smiled as she said it with him.

"Now, what about all these people?" she asked. "And what about those reinforcements?"

"Well, I've called in a hospital ship. Who knows how long some of them have been dancing? Hours? Days? It almost did me in after an hour."

"Oh, Doctor, I'm so sorry. I didn't know it was an hour."

"That's all right. As for the other soldiers, I sent off our future selves to deal with them. We'll find out what we did when it's our turn to be them."

"Ugh," said Donna. "We're going to have to come back here in the middle of that fight again."

"Yeah." The Doctor frowned. "Why in the world did I ever think it was a good idea to risk a giant paradox?"

"I guess we'll never know." She smiled and linked her arm in his. "Let's get back to the Tardis, shall we?"

"Yes, we need to clean up a few things, don't we?"

"Oh! I forgot to tell you," said Donna. "A future you has to go in and warn me against putting on the red shoes." She blushed a bit.

"Then why did you put them on?"

"I can't even begin to explain it to you, Doctor. Just do it, OK? It's probably the only thing that saved our lives, because otherwise I wouldn't have noticed anything until it was too late. By the way, why weren't you able to get the shoes off?"

"Well, when I noticed that something was transmitting to my brain, I didn't know what it was at first. So I was running back to you to see if you'd noticed anything strange. And then, by the time I had realized what was happening I was too far gone but I still tried to get back over to you. Because I didn't know at the time that it was just the red shoes. So the harder I tried to resist them, the stronger the pulses became. After that I don't remember anything until you took the shoes off. Thanks for that, by the way."

"Any time, Doctor." A rather sad look came over her face. "I used to love shoes. Now I think I'd be happy with a ratty old pair of slippers."

"Oh, I don't know. Just be more careful next time you feel extremely drawn towards shoes."
"But that's all the time!"
He grinned. "Same here!"

Finis

A/N: This is what you get when you think about Donna in a shoe store, and randomly also are thinking about the fairy tale of the little red shoes (rather a horrid tale, actually) and decide to make it into an adventure instead of just a fluffy one-shot where nothing really happens. Also, the timey-wimey stuff started out as just the Doctor playing time-tricks on Donna, until the red shoes came into my head. Anyways, I hope everyone enjoyed this! It was a lot of fun to write. Go to my profile to see more Doctor/Donna ONLY fics, and other fics as well! And comment if you like anything or have constructive criticism! I love to hear from people :D Thank you!