Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who and never will. But I do own Charlene (The Protector) and any other characters that I create.
Author's Note: Now up to 40 reviews! Keep them coming!
If you haven't heard, the trailer for the Day of the Doctor is going to be shown on Saturday! I'm so excited about it! We've been waiting for this forever... at least those who didn't see it at Comic Con. I hope the trailer is was worth the wait. I'm sure it will be though!
Anyway, enjoy the chapter!
Edit: Now BETAed by Yhoretta :)
Charlene avoided the Doctor's eyes as they stood on either side of the cameraman, waiting for him to put in the tape of the almost wedding. She hated that she couldn't look at her friend without feeling sad, feeling as if she didn't matter to the Doctor any more. The one she loved was treating her badly and he wouldn't tell her why. It was frustrating to the point that she wanted to strangle the Doctor for making her feel this way. He was pushing her out and she hated it.
Why couldn't he just tell her the truth? It wasn't like she wouldn't understand or listen because she would. She would always be there for him. No matter what. She had promised herself that she wasn't going to go anywhere and she wasn't going to break that promise. Charlene sighed to herself as the cameraman spoke, snapping her out of her thoughts.
"I taped the whole thing," he said, popping in the tape. "They've all had a lock. They said, 'sell it to You've Been Framed.' I said 'more like the News'." He smirked, "Here we go." He played the video and the camera was zoomed in on Donna's face as she seemingly disintegrated into golden particles with a scream. Charlene's mouth dropped open. She'd recognize those particles anywhere…
"Impossible! Is that what I think it is?" she asked, snapping her head towards the Doctor, who was just as shocked as she was.
"Can't be!" He shook his head in disbelief before looking at the camera man. "Play it again."
"Clever, mind you! Good trick, I'll give her that. I was clapping." He played the tape again. It showed the same thing. There was no doubting it now.
"But… that looks like…Huon Particles!"
"That's because it is," Charlene said as the cameraman looked between them, confused.
"What's that?" he asked.
"That's impossible, that's ancient! Hueon energy doesn't exist any more, not for a billion years!"
Charlene nodded. "So old in fact…" she trailed off as her eyes suddenly drew to the ring/bio-damper the Doctor placed earlier on Donna's finger. She looked at the Doctor and he looked at her as they both exclaimed:
"It can't be hidden by a bio-damper!"
While the Doctor ran to the window as fast as she could, Charlene ran to Donna and grabbed her by the arm.
"Donna, we have to get to out of here!" she told her urgently.
The red head blinked at her in confusion, "what for?"
"Donna!" Charlene and Donna turned to see the Doctor running towards them and once he'd stopped he grabbed Donna by her other arm, earning an 'Oi' from the red head. "Donna, they've found you.
"And that's why we have to get out of here," Charlene added.
Donna's eyes widened. "But you said I was safe."
"We thought you were, honestly we did, but the bio-damper doesn't work," Charlene told her, giving her arm a squeeze before letting go of it. "We have to get everyone out of here because they will get hurt if they don't." She was being straight forward with Donna because if it was her, she would want them to be too.
Donna gulped as she glanced around. "Oh my God – it's all my family…"
"Out the back door!" The Doctor shouted as they ran, but they were confronted by two of the Santas. "Maybe not." And with that, they dashed back inside. The Doctor darted over to a window with Charlene and Donna right behind him. There were two other Santas outside and Donna looked nervous. Charlene took a hold of her hand and squeezed.
"We've trapped," the ginger said, returning the affection nervously. The Santas outside had some kind of remote control in their hands. But a control for what?
"Christmas trees," the Doctor declared.
Charlene followed his gaze to the tree in the middle of the room. She literally groaned out loud, remembering last year when that damn thing almost killed her mum, Rose, and Mickey.
"Christmas trees. Why does it always have to be Christmas trees?" Charlene asked, rolling her eyes exasperatedly.
"What do you mean?" Donna questioned confused. "What about Christmas trees?"
The Doctor was the one who answered, "they kill." Not wasting any time, he ran into the crowd.
"Get away from that tree!" he shouted.
Donna and Charlene followed behind him, shouting together. "Don't touch the trees!"
"Get away from the Christmas trees, everyone get away from them!"
"Listen to the Doctor!" Charlene yelled at the crowd as she helped Donna usher a group of little girls away from the Christmas trees.
"Out!" It was Donna's turn to yell as she whirled around to face her fiancé. "Lance, tell them!"
"Stay away from the trees!" he exclaimed helplessly.
"Stay away from the tree!" The Doctor shouted again.
"Oh, for God's sakes, the man's an idiot!" Donna's mother exclaimed over the loud noise, sounding much like Donna. "Why? What's a Christmas tree gonna…oh!" She trailed off, looking in the direction of the trees.
Charlene followed her gaze to see that the baubles floated away from the trees in some kind of weird dance. If she didn't know how deadly the trees were, she would have found this beautiful. Charlene went to stand next to the Doctor and she put the remote control in his pocket with him knowing as he looked at the baubles warily.
Everyone was chatting excitedly with one another as this occurred. But the excited chatter didn't last long as the baubles started dive-bombing around the room and causing small explosions. Screaming, everyone ran for cover. Charlene saw Donna and Lance under a table, hiding. From the corner of her eye, she saw a little girl about to get a hit by one of those things. Luckily, the girl wasn't far from her so Charlene was able to get over to the girl and covered the girl's body with hers. The girl trembled with fear and Charlene shushed her.
"Shh, everything's going to be fine," she told her, whispering soothingly in the girl's ear, who nodded against her chest, letting out a small whimper as the small explosions continued. It wasn't long until she heard the Doctor's voice and she lifted her head to see that the Doctor was up on the DJ's stand. As for the Santas, they were now inside and lined up on the opposite side.
"Oi! Santa!" he exclaimed, getting their attention. "Word of advice: if you're attacking a man with a sonic screwdriver," He held the sonic up to the microphone, "don't let him near the sound system."
The sonic made a horrible, high pitched screeching sound. Charlene covered the little girl's ears with her hands, but since she wasn't completely on top of the girl, the girl was able to turn her body and used her small hands to cover Charlene's ear. She smiled at the girl in thanks and the girl smiled a small one back. Finally the screeching sound stopped and Charlene got off of the girl, helping her to her feet. Holding onto the girl's hand, she looked around to see the Doctor over by the mechanics of the Santas who had fallen to pieces because of the screeching sound. Everyone was getting off the floor now and Donna ran over to Charlene and the girl, who had gone over to a little boy.
"Michael?" she said to the boy, concerned, touching his face. Then she did the same thing to the girl, naming her Connie.
Giving Connie's hand a squeeze, Charlene went over to the Doctor as he picked up one of the machines that the Santas had been using.
"Look at that," he said as Donna appeared next to Charlene. "Remote control for the decorations," he showed them the hand held device, "but there's a second remote control for the robots."
Charlene frowned as the Doctor examined one of the heads of the Santas. "So, they're not scavengers anymore? Someone must have taken possession of them, but who?"
Before the Doctor could answer that, Donna spoke up. "Never mind all that," she said. She turned her gaze to the Doctor. "You're a doctor – people have been hurt."
"Donna, he's not that kind of Doctor," Charlene told her offhandedly. She looked at the Doctor, "I don't think they wanted to kill Donna, because if they did, they would have tried harder to do so. I think they want her alive."
"Yes." The Doctor nodded thoughtfully, "I think so too." He picked up a bauble and tossed it to Charlene, "They're not active anymore."
"All I'm saying is that you could help."
But he wasn't paying attention to Donna as he brought the head to his ear, "Gotta think of the bigger picture…there's still a signal!" The Doctor took off and Charlene followed right behind him leaving Donna standing there.
Donna was about to follow the Doctor and Charlene but stopped at her mother's voice.
"Donna…"
She turned to her mum, who looked scared.
"Who are those two? "
Donna didn't have an answer for that. She didn't even know herself. There were actually no words to describe those two. After staring at her mum and Lance for a couple more seconds, she turned a heel and followed the Doctor and Charlene. She caught up to the two outside where they stood with the Doctor scanning the helmet with his sonic screwdriver and Charlene watched intensely.
"There's someone behind this, directing the robo-force," the Doctor finally said, still scanning the helmet, eyebrows furrowed.
"But why me?" Donna asked. "What have I done?"
"We have to find the controller first, Donna, before we can figure that out," Charlene answered, placing a hand on her shoulder.
"Oh!" The Doctor suddenly exclaimed as he raised the sonic in the air. "It's up there. Something in the sky." In unison, they all looked up as Lance appeared beside them, looking confused as to what they were all watching.
The Doctor pulled the helmet away from his ear, frowning.
"What?"
"I've lost the signal," the Doctor explained to Charlene as he turned towards Donna, "Donna – we've got to get to your office, H C Clements. I think that's where it all started." Then to Lance, "Lance – is it Lance? Can you give us a lift?"
"Great, thank you," Charlene said, not even waiting for Lance to answer as the Doctor darted off, also not waiting for an answer. The blonde darted off after the Doctor and Donna shared a look with her fiancé before she took off after the Doctor and Charlene, tugging Lance along by the hand.
It wasn't long until they arrived at the building and they all ran inside. Donna was in front as she was leading them to her office. Once there, the Doctor and Charlene went straight over to a computer. As Charlene turned it on, the Doctor said:
"This might just be just a locksmiths, but HC Clements was brought up twenty years ago by the Torchwood Institute."
Donna could see Charlene stiffen and her face darken at those words.
"Torchwood," she gritted out. "WhyTorchwood?"
The Doctor grabbed a hold of Charlene's hand, the first contact that Donna had ever seen them share, and squeezed it.
"I know," he told her quietly, thumb brushing across the back of her hand, causing the blonde to relax. Donna watched this, confused.
"Who are they?" she asked, spoiling the moment between Charlene and the Doctor, who broke contact with each other. Charlene averted her eyes as the Doctor answered the question.
"They were behind the battle of Canary Wharf."
Donna was still confused. The Doctor and Charlene seemed to get this as silence filled the air.
"Cyberman Invasion," Charlene said in a tone that seemed to say that she should know about this.
But it still left Donna confused as she looked at the blonde questioningly.
"London skies full of Daleks?" The Doctor tried again.
"Oh, I was in Spain," Donna finally said, pretending that she knew what they were talking about. That and she really did go to Spain.
"Um, Donna, they had Cybermen in Spain," Charlene told her.
"Scuba diving." Donna shrugged her shoulders.
"That big picture, Donna – you keep missing it." The Doctor ran over to another computer as Charlene stayed where she was. "Torchwood was destroyed, but HC Clements stayed in business. I think … someone else came in and took over," he whacked the computer, "the operation."
"But what do they want with me?"
The Doctor gave her his full attention, "Somehow you've been dosed with Huon energy. And that's a problem because Huon energy hasn't existed since the Dark times. The only place you'd find a Huon particle now is a remnant in the heart of the TARDIS. See? That's what happened."
Donna didn't see it and Charlene got that.
"What the Doctor is trying to say in the simplest term possible," she started off, going over to Donna and the Doctor. "Pretend that this is the TARDIS." She picked up a mug and showed it to Donna, "And pretend that this is you." Picking up a pencil this time, "The particles inside you activated and the two sets of particles magnetized like a magnet and BAM!" She shouted the 'BAM' part causing Donna and Lance to jump. She threw the pencil into the mug, "You got pulled into the TARDIS. Just like that."
"I'm a pencil inside a mug?" Donna asked weakly.
"Yes, you are." The Doctor was the one who answered her this time as he took the mug from Charlene and gave it a shake. "4H. Sums you up." He set the mug down and turned to Lance, "Lance? What was HC Clements working on? Anything top secret? Special operations? Do not enter?"
"I don't know," Lance said defensively. "I'm in charge of personnel. I wasn't project manager."
Charlene looked him over. "Good," she said bluntly. "You don't look like the manager type."
Lance looked insulted, but the blonde paid him no mind, going over to the Doctor, who was now paying attention to the computer. Donna gave her a fiancé a pat on the shoulder as the Doctor pointed and held the sonic to the screen where it instantly displayed the page he was looking for.
"Why the hell am I even explaining myself?" Lance asked, back to being defensive. "What the hell are we talking about?"
"They make keys, that's the point," the Doctor said. "And look at this…" He turned the computer for Lance and Donna to see. On the screen was a 3D plan of the building. "We're on the third floor."
Minutes later, they were waiting for the lift to come down to their floor.
"Underneath reception, there's a basement, yeah?" The doors of the lift opened up with a ping and the Doctor, along with Charlene stepped inside the lift.
"Oh would you look at that," Charlene stated, looking at the controls.
"What?" Donna wondered what the small blonde saw.
"Like the Doctor said, there's a basement underneath reception," Charlene said to her as she looked over at her. "But when you look on the controls, you can see that there is a button marked 'lower basement'…"
The Doctor continued, "There's a whole floor which doesn't exist on the official plans." He looked back at the controls, "So what's down there, then?"
"Are you telling me this building's got a secret floor?"
Charlene rolled her eyes, "No, he's showing you that there is a secret floor."
"It needs a key."
"I don't." The Doctor used the sonic on the lock before turning towards Lance and Donna, "Right then, thanks you two, we can handle this – see you later."
'Oh no, they didn't.' "No chance, Martians," Donna said stubbornly as she joined them on the lift. "You both keep saving my life, I ain't letting you two out of my sight."
Charlene laughed. "Wouldn't have it any other way, Donna." She winked at her and Donna smiled.
"Going down," the Doctor said, pushing the down button
Donna gave Lance a pointed look, "Lance."
"Maybe I should go to the police."
"Inside." Donna could see Charlene stifle a giggle as Lance jointed them in the lift meekly.
"To honour and obey?"
The doors to the lift closed and the lift descended.
As soon as the lift signalled that they were down at the lower basement, the Doctor stepped out with Charlene, Donna, and Lance right behind him. He looked around. They were standing in a long, dark corridor, and it was dimly lit with eerie green light.
"They definitely got the creepy basement part down," Charlene commented, looking around herself.
The Doctor couldn't but nod in agreement. It was rather creepy.
"Well, what goes on down here?"
"Let's find out," the Doctor said.
"Do you think Mr. Clements knows about this place?" Donna wondered out loud.
"Well, if he doesn't know about it, he definitely has something to do with what's going on," Charlene told Donna as something caught the Doctor's eye and he grinned to himself. Brilliant!
"Oh, look – transport," he said, nodding towards the thing he was looking at.
Charlene followed his gaze and gave him a look, but it was an amused one. "Really Doctor? Really?"
"Oh yes!" The Doctor grinned at her and she grinned back. And once again, it felt normal again.
There was only three electric scooters so Charlene had to be put behind the Doctor with her arms wrapped in a firm grip around his waist. It was somewhat awkward to be this close to the Doctor again because of the way he had been treating her, but he still got the feeling he always got with her before she regenerated. Another thing that reminded him that this was still his Charlene, causing him to once again feel guilty. Suddenly, the Doctor's thoughts were broken by laughter coming from where Donna was. He looked over at her and she was looking over at him and Charlene and Lance, laughing it up. Looking at Donna, the Doctor took to how comical they looked on this scooter and he found himself laughing along with Donna and it was soon joined in by Charlene while Lance watched on with a confused expression, not getting it.
They came up to a door which said, 'Torchwood – authorized personnel only' and the Doctor stopped his electric scooter. Donna and Lance did the same thing as he and Charlene went up to the door. The Doctor turned the wheel to open the door and he pulled it open to reveal a ladder. He peered upwards.
"Wait here," the Doctor told Lance and Donna. "Just need to get my bearings. Don't," he looked at them sternly, "do anything."
"No wandering off either," Charlene added as the Doctor started up the stairs and she grabbed onto the ladder.
"You two better come back," Donna told them with a pointed look.
The Doctor paused in his climbing to grin down at her. "You couldn't get rid of us if you tried."
Donna smiled. The Doctor made sure that Charlene was behind him before starting up the stairs again.
"Donna…"
She heard Lance's voice but she wasn't really paying attention to him as she watched the Doctor and Charlene climb up the ladder to make sure that they wouldn't fall.
"Have you thought about this? Properly? I mean it, this is serious! What the hell are we gonna do?"
"Oh, I thought July," Donna said offhandedly as she wasn't really listening to what he saying. She did hear what he said though. She smiled brightly at Lance before turning her attention back to the Doctor and Charlene. It wasn't long until they came back down and the Doctor jumped off the last rung on the stairs.
"Thames flood barrier!" he said as Charlene climbed the rest of the way down, brushing herself off. "Right on top of us. Torchwood snuck in and built this place underneath."
Donna looked at him surprised. "What, there's like a secret base hidden underneath a major London landmark?"
"I know! Unheard of."
"But it's very Torchwood," Charlene said darkly, a haunted look in her eyes.
"What did this Torchwood do to you?" Donna asked the blonde quietly as they headed over to this curtain.
Charlene stiffened up at the question. "In the battle of Canary Wharf," she said slowly, "my family died … my human family." She didn't say anything more than that and Donna didn't press her as she could tell that it was sore subject for her.
"Oh, look at this!" the Doctor exclaimed when they entered this laboratory, full of massive test tubes bubbling away and chemistry equipment. He looked around in amazement as he walked through it, "Stunning! Particle extrusion!"
"What does it do?" Donna asked curiously as Charlene took a look around herself.
"Particle extrusion. Hold on…" The Doctor darted over to one of the bubbling tubes and tapped it. "Brilliant. They've been manufacturing Huon particles. In case our people got rid of Huons, they unravelled the atomic structure."
"Our people?" Lance repeated, looking at Charlene and the Doctor. "Who are they? What company do they represent?"
"No one," Charlene answered from where she stood behind another one of the bubbling tubes, peering into curiously. "Just a couple of freelancers here." She moved out from behind the tube, "But back to the point, they're rebuilding the Huron particles by using the…" She trailed off, giving a pointed look to the Doctor.
Donna wondered it was for, but the Doctor seemed to get what she saying.
"The river!" he exclaimed. "They're using the river! Extruding them through a flat hydrogen base so they got the end result – Huon particles in liquid form."
"Something like this," Charlene said, as she picked up a small tube, full of Huron particles before tossing it to the Doctor, who caught it.
"And that's what inside me?" Donna asked, nodding towards the tube and wondering how she got the liquid inside of her.
Without words, the Doctor gently turned a knob at the top of the test tube, making the contents glow gold. Looking at herself, Donna found that she was glowing gold too and gaped down at herself.
"Oh, my God."
"Because the particles are inert – they need something living to catalyse inside and that's you," the Doctor told her, turning the tube off, and Donna stopped glowing. "Saturate the body and then… HA!" He shouted and the red head jumped out of her skin while Charlene didn't even flinch. The Doctor was enthusiastic to say the least as he continued speaking, really, really fast without even taking a breath, "The wedding! Yes, you're getting married, that's it! Best day of your life, walking down the aisle – oh, your body's a battleground! There's a chemical war inside! Adrenaline, acetylcholine, WHAM goes the endorphins, oh you're cooking! Yeah, you're like a walking oven! All pressure cooker, a microwave, all churning away, the particles reaches boiling point, SHAZAM!"
All Donna could think about as he made this speech was how excited he was about this, like he was actually enjoying what was going on. To say it was annoying would be a big understatement. Donna ended up slapping him for the second time that day.
"What did I do that time?" the Doctor questioned, indignantly, much like last time.
"Are you enjoying this?" Donna demanded. The Doctor relaxed, looking ashamed. She really couldn't help her heavy breathing as she walked towards the Doctor. "Right, just tell me – these particles are they dangerous? Am I safe?"
"Yes!"
But Donna didn't believe him and she was sure it showed on her face.
"No need to lie to the girl, Doctor," Charlene said, stepping beside the Doctor as she looked over at him before looking over at her seriously. "What do you want to know?"
"If your lot got rid of Huon particles…" Donna let out a shaky breath. "Why did they do it?"
"They did it because they were deadly."
At those words, Donna's heavy breathing seemed to get even heavier. "Oh, my God," she managed to say.
Charlene gripped her shoulders, well...as best as she could with her size. "Look at me," she told her and Donna forced herself to meet Charlene's serious brown eyes, "we are not going to let anything happen to you, Donna. We will figure this out and we will reverse what happened to you. We are not going to lose someone else."
Just then, there were crashes and bangs that seemed to come from all around them. The only thought that Donna had was… 'what the hell is going on?'
"Oh, she is long since lost." A creepy voice stated as one of the walls slid upwards to reveal a secret chamber with an enormous round hole in the floor. "I have waited so long, hibernating at the edge of the universe… until the secret heart was uncovered and called out to waken!"
Looking up, Donna saw that the walls of the chambers were lined up with the armed robots wearing black hoods. The Doctor and Charlene both peered down the hole.
"Someone's been digging… oh, veryTorchwood," the Doctor said.
Charlene nodded in agreement with yet another dark look on her face. "How far does it go down?"
"Down and down, all the way to the centre of the Earth!"
"You're kidding me," Charlene said in disbelief. "Why the hell would you do something like that for?"
Donna shuffled forward, wanting to help. "Dinosaurs?"
"What?" the Doctor looked at her confused.
"Dinosaurs?"
But he still looked confused. "What are you on about, dinosaurs?"
"She's talking about that film, 'Under the Earth'," Charlene told the Doctor before Donna could say anything. "It was about dinosaurs. She's trying to help."
"Well, that's not helping."
"Such a sweet couple."
The Doctor and Charlene ignored that bit, but they didn't deny it like Donna thought they would. Then she realized that maybe they were a couple. They acted like one. Even a blind man could see they were. Though they had been tense with each other, they stood rather close together, close enough in fact that they could hold hands if they wanted. Donna was broken out of her thoughts by the Doctor speaking.
"Only a mad man talks to think air and trust me, you don't want to make me mad," he said. "Where are you?"
"High in the sky, floating so high on Christmas Night."
"We didn't come all this way to talk on the intercom!" the Doctor exclaimed.
"Who are you with such command?"
"I'm the Doctor."
"Prepare you best medicines, doctor-man, for you will be sick at heart." Donna's eyes widened at the sight of this rather large spider-like creature appearing in the chamber, growing and snarling. What the hell?
TBC...
In...
Part 5 of the Runaway Bride...
I'm sorry that the episode is taking such a long time to finish. This is seriously a long episode to work through, but I'm managing, but I do have one more part to this episode so I hope you don't mind. Anyway, please leave reviews and tell me what you think!