Chapter 3

Time Lords (or Ladies)

Donna could hear a steady beeping but her head ached so badly she could not bring herself to think of what caused the noise. Her mind would not clear and the feelings she'd been fighting for the past eight years, the feelings of loss and of the fogginess of her mind seemed to have spread to encompass the whole thing. She opened her blue eyes and stared with an immense concentration up at the ceiling of the hospital room. It was white, blank and for some reason that white blankness was helping her. She felt as though her heart was beating too rapidly, too erratically, and she took a few large breaths to slow it, returning her heart to a normal rhythm.

Something wasn't right about the air here. It seemed different than real air, somehow lightened and smoother. No particles of smog and car fumes were here. The disinfectant smell was missing too and Donna could feel her mind beginning to put the pieces together in an amazingly rapid thought process. This was no hospital. But then why was her grandfather holding her hand and looking so bloody worried? And if not a hospital than where?

Donna shifted and then closed her eyes feeling sick as her head felt as though it was going to explode.

Again, she though dubiously.

"Donna?"

Her grandfather's voice entered her thoughts stopping them where they were and she felt the clarity begin to fade again as black spots formed on the corners of her eyes. Something was changing, something very really and very…

Foreign she thought, but it was not the right word, No… the word was Alien!

She shifted again struggling to sit up, to reassure her Grandfather with one of her tight hugs and a light kiss to his bald head but something restrained her. Donna fought the hands that pressed on her shoulders but the person there was strong despite the gentle pressure he applied. She lifted her hands and smacked the offender's with a harsh blow that would have any normal person recoiling.

"Donna, I need you to relax,"

That voice, she knew that voice. It was so familiar and yet the name to go with it was so far from her memory. She strained into the recesses of her mind pulling from that foggy part of her brain recollections of grandeur that she had been unable to release before. Donna remembered a man, with brown hair that stuck up at odd angles and a trench coat of even lighter brown which, despite whatever conditions he faced, be it desert or glacier, sometimes both at the same time, he rarely took off. She remembered running, and obscenely large amount of running. But still no name came to her until she managed to land a blow on him that made him pull his hand away in pain.

"Ow!" the fully grown man complained like a four year-old child, "What'd you do that for?!"

Donna pushed herself up to look at him, spots dancing across her eyes as she struggled with consciousness and the black abyss that longed to pull her back into its slumber.

"What did I do that for?" she started and The Doctor seemed to realize he'd said the wrong thing. "What did I do THAT for?" she hit him again because taking her anger at losing six months of her life out on the man who had occupied them was rather cathartic, "You stupid wanker! You bloody, no good, lazy arsed, time travelling, Spaceman! You go on and on about know everything that happens in the universe. I spend six months suffering through your arrogance and then you have the audacity to ask what did I do THAT for?" Donna's blue eyes blazed with anger at him, "You have to be blooming daft to not know why I hit you."

"Donna…" The Doctor was apparently trying to mediate her reaction to her recollections.

"Oh don't you try that! You'll stand there an you'll hear me out Spaceman because I bloody a have something to say to you and nothing you try will stop me from saying it," Donna glared at him for a moment, breathing heavily to catch her breath and then she continued, force of her words lost slightly by the angry tears that had formed in her eyes and spilled down over her cheeks.

Wilfred Mott had seen the receiving end of his granddaughter's anger and once he was certain that she was alright, (and that her lungs and respiratory system were in full functioning order if not better,) he vacated the medical bay of the TARDIS to find his other red-headed relative.

"You took it all away. I begged you not to. I pleaded with you and you still took it!" she glowered, "I told you time and again that I never wanted to leave you, that my life was here as your companion, aboard the TARDIS, promised that I would never leave you …" she paused her breath hitching but Donna Noble held the tears at bay keeping the fire in her eyes blazing as brightly as her hair, "And you left me! You took my life and sent me back to be a temp for the remainder of my days. I suppose I was just a temp here too, just filling in until you could find someone better,"

"No Donna… No, that…" the Doctor's voice was quiet patient and yet his eyes were filled with guilt and he could scarcely look at the woman he'd hurt so badly.

"Shut it, Spaceman!" she growled dangerously and then noted that that seemed to stop him. For a moment she saw the burden in his eyes and considered yielding but then and new wash of anger overcame her, "I suppose you thought I was an easy fix, gullible, amiable, unintelligent. Well I have news for you, Spaceman," she said that last word mockingly, almost jeering at him.

Donna had stood herself now and was now leaning against the table with her hip while gesturing wildly with her hands. Her hands made the words all the more impressionable and painful and the ex-temp knew it. She was about to continue but stopped as the Doctor approached her and took hold of her shoulders.

"Donna Noble," his voice shook and she could tell he was angry and shaken by her accusations. Here was a man she had not thought it possible for herself to upset and yet he stood before her, hands gripping her shoulders as though he was afraid she would run away from him and never listen, as though he was afraid she would slip away, "you are the most brilliant, clever woman I have ever met. You always have been, just as you are now and you will always be. I would never use you, nor would I anyone else and you shame me by suggesting such a thing."

His grip tightened impossibly more until Donna felt as though her shoulders would break. She looked back at him, all that hurt, confusion, anger and frustration of the past eight years shining in her eyes behind a small wall of tears that threatened to over flow at any moment.

"Then why," she asked, bitterness flowing through her words, "Why did you ignore me when you knew I would rather die in my glory than return to my life as a temp not knowing anything had ever happened? Why would you do that?"

Donna saw she had struck the Doctor speechless. His lips moved but no words came out and her seemed to be struggling for the right phrase. She glowered at him, daring him to tell her a lie, daring him to speak a dishonest word. Instead the Doctor fixed his eyes on hers and found his word.

"Because, Donna Noble, I am selfish," he answered, "and because I am selfish, I couldn't live in a world where I knew I had let my own friend go mad and die, in a world where I had let such cruelty take over her and capture her. I could go on knowing that there was something I could have done." The Doctor's eyes were more honest than she remembered and Donna found her anger relenting despite the iron will she had against it.

Donna pursed her lips, trying to keep herself from letting out a sob that threatened to overcome her. The Doctor seemed to sense this and released her shoulders pulling her to him and enfolding her in the kind of tight hug they had often shared before his had taken her mind. Her first instinct was to pull away and find a place to cry herself but she couldn't do it. Burrying her head in his shoulder, she let herself cry, wrapping her arms around the man that had changed her life.

Catherine wandered the TARDIS, small hands wandering over the control panel and tapping a few buttons on the screen before the computer bleeped at her. The Doctor was at one of the seats in the control room observing her motions. The little girl, though he had yet to notice, was examining him. She knew he was a Time Lord, the last of his kind and yet, as she watched his ponderous gaze, she wondered if that was true anymore.

The six year-old wound a finger in her hair while walking the others along the rim of the controls considering them. Tentatively, she stretched a finger forward and pressed one of the buttons. The monitor spun around to face her showing her and image. She smiled and then pressed another few buttons and then three levers. Catherine stepped back to admire her handiwork as the TARDIS jumped into the Time Vortex, with a whir of its internal huon core. She smirked at the Doctor who had jumped up to stop her fiddling. The tall skinny man was thrown backward into his seat nearly flipping over the back of it.

She had not expected the sudden jolt and collapsed to the floor smashing her elbow on one of the hard grate panels. Catherine tried to hang on to the panel for the rest of the ride fighting the urge to stop balling at the stinging in her elbow. The TARDIS stopped after a few minutes and a dog materialized from seemingly nowhere, bounding toward the little girl. Catherine laughed the pain in her elbow forgotten for the time being, and in fact forgotten forever as the skin knitted flawlessly back together.

"That's Hubble," the Doctor commented and then looked up as he saw Luke and Jenny emerge from one of the upper dimension rooms.

"Where are we?" Jenny called out, "I thought you said we wouldn't be travelling for a while. You said you had some things to take care of."

The Doctor gazed at his daughter for a moment reluctantly noting that she held hands with Luke rather tightly and then nodded, "I hadn't planned on going anywhere, but it appears that you and I are not the only Time Lords left." He gestured at Catherine who ignored his statement entirely, "The question is, where did she come from, and how did I find her?"

"That's two questions Dad," Jenny bounded down the steps into the central control room, towing Luke with her, "Who is she?" the blonde girl asked.

Catherine looked up indignant for being spoken of in such a manner, "I can supply that information myself," Jenny appeared affronted, "My name is Catherine Martha Rose Temple-Noble." She snapped, "I'm from Chiswick."

The little girl watched the Doctor choke and sit down rather hard on the bench behind him. She raised an eyebrow at him fixing him with a stare that reminded him very much of her mother. It demanded and answer for his reaction. The others in the room watched this with a sort of awed fascination until Jenny's bright and optimistic outlook on life interrupted the silence.

"Is Donna you mother then?" she asked, dropping Luke's hand excitedly.

"Yes Donna's my mother's name. My daddy's name was Shaun but her died… two days ago," Catherine commented, "I don't really think he was my dad though. We had so little in common. I look so different than he did too." She turned to look at the Doctor, "Actually," she quipped, studying him, "You and I share some genetic markers."

The Doctor did a doubletake, pulling his sonic screwdriver from his pocket and beginning to scan her.

"I knew it!" Jenny fairly shouted, "I knew that you and Donna were together."

The Doctor looked first at Catherine and then at Jenny and wondered for a few momentous minutes if there was anyway, his blonde daughter was correct about the red-heads parentage. There wasn't a way he could think of; Donna and he had never been together in that sense. Possibly they had flirted occasionally but only in the sense of friendly teasing.

"No, no Jenny, we were never together,"

Catherine glared at him as he stepped closer with the sonic device. She didn't enjoy having the little blue light pointed in her face and certainly did not enjoy the speculatory glances the blonde girl gave her. She couldn't help but note that while the girl seemed excited the boy who had been at her side, and the Doctor did not. The boy appeared annoyed with the commotion as though it had awakened him from a very good dream and the Doctor appeared perplex.

"Oi!" Catherine yelled at him pulling the sonic from his hand, "Stop bleeping me!"

She watched the older Time Lord stumble back in surprise before stepping forward and taking the screwdriver from her.

"You really are you mother's daughter," her muttered as he walked over to the consol and transferred the information on the screwdriver to the TARDIS' computer, tapping a few buttons on the screen.

Jenny and Catherine crowded around him at the monitor waiting for the results to come back. The six year-old watched Jenny as the excitable teen bounced on her heels waiting for the answers. The Doctor stepped away from the monitor and sat down on the bench heavily, eyebrows knitted together in a look of consternation. Jenny leaned over to look at the screen and then shouted ha!

"You lied to me," she jeered dancing around the consol, "My own father trying to cover up that he father one of his companion's children." She laughed teasingly.

"No Jenny, I didn't lie to you," The Doctor replied, his arms crossed as he looked at Catherine.

"I'm not that interesting," The red-head replied, "But I am a Time Lord, or whatever you call a female Time Lord."

He nodded in response still considering the possibilities of how she came to be. She wasn't a clone; she was a perfect mix of his DNA and Donna's but what he couldn't fathom was how she came to be. Catherine watch him thinking trying to read through his eyes what he was so deeply wondering. Jenny interrupted her view, bending down and petting Hubble on the head before sitting in front of her.

The blonde held out her hand with a flourish, "I'm Generated Anomaly but you can call me Jenny. I suppose you're my sister."

Catherine smiled, taking her proffered hand, "Catherine Martha Rose Noble, but you can call me Catherine, or Katie, or even Kate if you want."

"It's a pleasure to meet you Catherine," Jenny replied and then she turned to Luke. For once the child prodigy was looking confused, "Well come one over, Luke. She just a girl; it's not like she bites."

Catherine grinned and then added to her statement, "Much." She snapped her teeth in emphasis.

Luke made his way over to them looking at the madly giggling Jenny. She appeared to be enjoying herself immensely and that was what bothered him. Every time Jenny enjoyed herself too much something would happen. Catherine stood and offered a hand to him.

He took it, "Luke Smith. I'm your sister's," Luke glanced at the Doctor for a moment before continuing, "companion." He finished as though it had not been what he was going to say in the first place.

Jenny sighed, "Luke he already knows, just drop it. It's not like he's punishing us," she glanced at her father for a moment, "He has no right to anyway." She added quietly with a smirk.

Suddenly the Doctor was up and out of his seat typing and recalibrating the TARDIS' computer. His fingers flew across the button on the consol in no reasonable order as he made seemingly random calculations.

"No," he breathed, "No that shouldn't have happened." The Doctor looked at his latest child for a moment and then back at the monitor, "That's IT!" excitement raced through him." He spun in a circle, running around to the other side of the controls and resetting the coordinates to Earth, "The energy from the genetic meta-crisis, was more than just a generator for the clone of me. Something in Donna must have triggered her hormones when my DNA entered her body and mind," he pressed a few more buttons with great gusto, "Oh this is bloody brilliant!" he turned to Catherine, "How long has your mother been home on Earth?"

"Eight years," she replied listening to his ramblings for once not understanding a word somebody was speaking. Looking at her older sister, she saw the girl was equally confused.

"Delayed implantation… like a bear? Surely not," The Doctor leaned down and looked at the monitor again, "OOOHH!" he started, shaking his head, "Something must have triggered the genetic response setting the process in motion." He grimaced and muttered, "I don't think that would be very proper to say but now I understand," he looked at Catherine ponderously again, "but if there was energy left over from the meta-crisis then… what else will happen?"

Catherine watched him fiddle with the buttons on the consol, punching in coordinates and flipping dials. Jenny joined him, Luke at her side. The six year-old retreated slightly, disarmed by the fact that she was, for once, among equals, and sat down on the grating along one of the walls. Hubble joined her, dropping his head into her lap with a solemn groan that made her smile. She ran her hands through the golden retriever's long shaggy coat absently as she realized what had just taken place.

From her vantage point on the floor, she didn't find the rocking of the TARDIS nearly so alarming as it had been the first time. The Doctor was at the controls and with the help of his daughter, they were steering it with an unmatched expertise. Catherine wondered if it was something she'd be able to do one day or whether it had more to do with their mentalities.

The Doctor watched Luke for a while after they had boarded the TARDIS. Sarah Jane's boy had had the usual reaction, acting as though the sky was falling when he realized that the vessel was larger on the inside than on the outside. Jenny on the other hand had seemed positively enthralled with the space, immediately dumping her shoulder bag on the padded bench and fleeing up the spindly flights of stairs presumably to find herself a room.

He wandered through the central control room staring at the monitor, wondering whether or not to make the voyage he'd put off for the last two years. The Doctor had always known that his longing for the primitive Earth would eventually bring him back to its surface but he had planned to take many years to reach that point. Martha, he might see again but he had lost too much there with the mortality of humans. No matter how many people he met it always came back to them, short and brief as they may be, he found the species to be of the best quality and filled with so much more emotion and life than others.

Spinning a few dials, he set the coordinates of time and location hoping to land somewhere where meeting someone he knew was of a low probability. Time hurdled by him as he hit the button on the controls, forcing him to grip tightly onto the rim of them. When they finally stopped spinning through time, he was certain that the other passengers would not be pleased with him. Luke even appeared sick, though a part of the Doctor, the protective, father part, felt he deserved the nausea.

Jenny's head peaked out over a railing high above him. She looked irate.

"What did you just do?" she hollered down at him.

"I moved us through time. We're on Earth," he answered and checked to make certain his sonic screwdriver was still in his pocket before he made his way to the door.

"Where are you going?" she called hurrying down the stairs.

The Doctor smiled at her for a moment and then said, with an ironic assurance to his voice, "To walk among the dust."

a/n- Well I realized that a lot of my writing just lends itself to Donna quotes. Personally that was one of my favorite lines in the whole series along with the, 'You're not falling, you're flying' line in the end of 'Voyage of the Damned' I also like the description of Gallifrey the Doctor makes.

Anyway, I'd love it if someone would tell me if this story is getting too angsty or not. I have an idea for it and frankly I'm surprised I haven't gotten there yet but hey who knows? This story may not be as romantic as I originally was going to make it. You see, despite my personal views, *cough* yeah Doctor/Donna *cough* I actually enjoy the dynamic friendship they share in the series.

I promise myself I wouldn't ask but review, Please, Please, Oh please! *nags you*

Agh again with the Donna quotes!

Tabitha of MoonAurora

P.S. This is what happens when your memory operates like a tape recorder.