I've got four reviewers who review almost every chapter I update. I'm sure they know who they are so thank you. They help incredibly. And to everyone else who reviews, I thank you again. There's a storm brewing and the location is Donna Noble's house. Please, enjoy!
Why is There a Hole in My Heart?
"Donna?" a hushed whisper asked.
Visibly jumping, Donna glanced up at the house and grinned as her mum ran over to her with a relieved smile.
"Hey mum," Donna mumbled, embracing her.
"Oh Donna! I thought you wouldn't ever come back. I was so afraid that the Master would hurt you," Sylvia commented, brushing away a strand of red from Donna's face.
"Him hurting me? Oh please. If anything, I think I hurt him more," Donna admitted, remembering all the scratching she'd done down his back. The throbbing in between her legs awoke hungrily at the thought.
"The Doctor is here!"
"Yeah, I know. Mum, this is going to sound incredibly mental...like one of your soaps-."
"Donna, listen. I have something very important to tell you. Something that I want you to think about before you jump back into time traveling with the Doctor."
"What are you going on about mu-?"
"Donna, please. Listen. Last night, when the Doctor and your gramps were talking, I listened in on their conversation," Sylvia relayed. "They were talking about your memory loss and gramps asked whether the Doctor had another way of going about your memories. Whether he actually had to have erased them."
"And?" Donna asked, trembling suddenly as her heartbeat picked up.
"There was another way."
The cold indifference of the words took awhile for Donna to properly ingest.
"What?" she then replied, a deadly fire making its way to her voice.
"You were a choice, Donna. Because if the Doctor hadn't erased your memories then he would have died. Regener-something or other."
"Regenerated," she answered back, steadily watching her mum with shaking blue eyes.
"Yes," Sylvia shouted in remembrance, "and if he had regenerated, then his next regeneration wouldn't have gone to look for the Master. He would only have gotten back to what was important which was saving the world. He explained it so strangely...that every regeneration has their own personality even as they retain all previous memories. But the Doctor didn't want to leave and he wanted to keep on searching for the Master, so he erased your memories."
Surprisingly, Donna managed to keep both of her feet firmly on the ground. There was no uneasy balance or anything...yet.
"How would me having kept my memories, killed him?" Donna found herself venting, anger she promised wouldn't surface, suddenly lacing her vocal chords.
And here came the feelings of betrayal and hurt and utter indignity. There went the respect and friendship Donna thought she and the Doctor shared.
"Because if I didn't take away your memories, I would have had to absorb the Time Lord essence in you. Too much of the essence would have killed me, since it was tainted already with your human DNA," the Doctor steadily finished, standing tall on the top step in front of the door.
"So you would have rather made sure that I regressed back into the innate Donna I was before I met you, then risk your life to save everything we'd experienced together?" Donna asked, her voice strangely void of all emotion.
The Doctor stared down at her with a shamed expression on his face. A few times, he opened his lips to say something consoling but none of it would be the truth.
"Yes," the Doctor admitted as he took a few steps forward.
Wiping away the stray tear that grazed down her eye, Donna lifted her head bravely to look at the Doctor.
"Well, Doctor," Donna laughed, "guess what?"
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The Master will admit that it'd been awhile since he'd last used any teleportation devices. Usually he either stayed inside the house or journeyed through the empty streets on the abandoned block. The teleporter device was only for emergencies. This fact became incredibly prominent when forgetting to check the fuses within the two year old device, the Master found himself teleporting INSIDE the Noble house instead of the real destination he wanted, fifty feet outside the home. So it did not come in total surprise when within seconds, he was tackled to the ground by a half naked Captain Jack Harkness.
"Stay down you filth," came the steely American voice into his ear.
Martha who had been beside him, folded a shocked hand over her mouth. In front of her was the man who still lingered in her nightmares and she didn't exactly know how to handle this sudden invasion.
"Martha, fetch me some rope, please," Jack demanded, keeping his knee firmly on the Master's back.
That couldn't have gone any worse than if I had opened the door and greeted them all with a wave, the Master grimaced frustratingly as Jack dug his knee further into his back.
Martha returned with white rope that Jack roughly tied the Master's hands with. He didn't use a simple knot but the more complicated ones that he'd normally reserve for the particularly out of control alien creatures they'd encounter at Torchwood. And he was anything but gentle.
"Where's the Doctor?" Martha asked.
Jack was about to reply when he noticed that the front door was slightly ajar at the end of the hallway. Half of the Doctor could be seen standing outside, not moving his lips but simply listening.
"Move it," Jack angrily commanded.
"Ooo, ooo. Touchy. What's gotten inside of the freak's trousers now? Actually, from what I've heard, what hasn't gotten inside of the freak's trousers?" the Master maliciously spat then accepted the brutal punch that Jack delivered, with a victorious smile.
His body was pushed toward the entrance where the Doctor stood on the step, oblivious to their presence behind him.
Jack was about to open his mouth when Martha had shushed him, ears perking up at the conversation that was going on below the Doctor.
The three inhabitants all listened to Sylvia's warning and then Donna's confusion. They all witnessed the discussion of how the Doctor always had another option for Donna besides erasing her memories. At that, Martha could only think how cruel once again, the Doctor had treated Donna. Jack was thinking along the same thoughts while the Master was absorbing this information with rapid speed, surprised to find that Donna had only gotten her memories back a day ago.
When the Doctor intervened into the conversation and affirmed Donna's beliefs, all three of the occupants behind him had felt completely different emotions. Martha was in an unrelenting sympathy towards her friend, only wishing that the hurt she was sure was in Donna's eyes now, could disappear suddenly. Jack on the other hand, tried to give reason to the Doctor's actions. He didn't just do things so blindly, so cruelly. Jack had really wanted to meet the redhead companion. But all attempts died when he heard the dead emotion in Donna's voice.
The Master? His was perhaps the most surprising. He felt an incredible anger consume him, but not at Donna. No, at the Doctor. While he did understand that the Doctor erased the human's mind in order to continue his journey searching for himself, which infuriated the Time Lord also because there he went on again, assuming he could save him, the true anger formed unexpectedly at the betrayal the Doctor had placed upon Donna. He didn't know where it had come from or how it had formed, but he had actually felt a strange sadness for her. It didn't last an overly long time but when it came, the emotion fueling it was titanic.
None of them inside could hear Donna's last words however as the sound of a gun being loaded, met everybody's ears, including those on the Noble front porch step.
Mickey stood with the gun, Wilf behind him.
"What's going on in there?" Sylvia shrieked as she ran up the steps and then gasped at the blond Time Lord who was the recipient of the pointed gun.
"Mickey, I want you to lower the gun, alright?" the Doctor carefully spoke, suddenly stepping back inside of the house.
Everyone seemed to ignore the redhead who stood brokenly on the side walk.
He...he didn't need to have taken my memories. He could have had me remember. I would have helped him, the new him. I would have helped him find Harry. If only he would have...
Another tear made its way grudgingly down her cheek, but after that, Donna promised no more. No more tears because they'd been expelled with her experience last night. But god did it sting a fierce one inside her heart though. Like the Doctor controlled the rotation of a knife and while it had stayed dull and unused, with every one of the Doctor's actions, the knife drove itself in with a renewed sharpness.
Donna admitted freely, it hurt like hell to be undervalued as a human being. To have the Doctor believe that everything she'd done, everywhere she'd traveled, all the people she'd helped, couldn't be outweighed in the end by his desire to find his friend and stay in his current body. That none of it really mattered.
And the funny thing was that it wasn't the other Time Lord's fault. She remembered Harry telling her that he didn't care whether the Doctor found him or not. That was two lost years she could have spent, traveling with the Doctor and bettering not just her life, but others around her.
"I'm going to kill him once and for all," Mickey promised, steadying his finger over the trigger.
The Master simply smiled, closing his eyes in bliss.
"Damn it Mickey, put down the gun. I'll take care of him," the Doctor instructed.
"Do you ever wake up with the one you love screaming in terror or begging in her sleep, not to die? Do you Doctor? Well that's what happens nearly every night that I'm with Martha. That kind of pain isn't something that goes away. But at least I can make her dreams safe by doing this," Mickey grounded out.
"Did you ever think that maybe the problem was you?" the Master suggested calmly, smile still lighting his face.
"Shut it," came four unanimous cries.
One from Jack, one from Martha and one from the Doctor.
The fourth one however, came from directly behind him and the Master opened his eyes in response to the familiar voice.
Donna stood there, her blue eyes transformed into rigid, sapphire crystals. Her mouth was set in a determined, pissed off line and she stood tall with her hands on her hip and attitude resonating off of her in waves.
"Mickey is it? Yeah, put down the gun, now," Donna ordered, taking a step in between Jack and the Doctor.
"Listen, I've got to-."
"If you don't put it down, you'll have to shoot me too," Donna sternly replied back, giving Jack a soft smile before intruding in between him and Harry who was actually the Master but as I reminded you back in chapter 10, if they were to meet again, the name tag would be shifted. Honestly, it'd just be easier if Donna learned the Master's...I mean Harry's real name. Ugh!
Mickey lowered the gun once he caught the danger lurking inside of Donna's irises.
"Alright, now we're all going to have a small chat in the living room in a little while. Jack, you go and get cleaned up. I may have always imagined what you would look like with a shirt off, but unfortunately mate, this isn't the time. And trust me, I never thought I'd hear myself saying that either. Mickey, you go calm down. We've got some liquor in the cabinet closest to the fridge. Oh don't think I didn't know about it mum. You've been only hiding it from yourself. Martha, could you and mum go upstairs and search my room for some sort of transistor. The cell phone you gave me is busted and I'm gonna see if I can fix it. Gramps...excellent to see you! Doctor," Donna acknowledged, letting a heavy breath out, "put Mr. Saxon somewhere where he can't escape. The last thing I want to spend doing today is cleaning up blood stains."
For a moment, everyone in the room stayed still as if the demands were having trouble being interpreted.
"NOW!" Donna yelled, throwing her hands up encouragingly.
In a second, the whole house flung into motion as Martha and Sylvia raced upstairs, Mickey headed straight to the kitchen, Jack ventured back to the nearest bathroom where he'd been getting ready, but not before throwing Donna a flirtatious smile. Beside her, the Doctor tried to make eye contact with Donna but she merely stared at her gramps who waited for Donna's commands to be followed by the Doctor.
"Feisty," Harry had managed to whisper into Donna's ear before the Doctor finally pulled him away.
Once the Time Lord's breath had disappeared from her neck, Donna lunged herself at her gramps.
"Oh Donna, dear, I didn't want you to have learned it that way. You know the Doctor had to make a difficult decision."
Smiling, Donna laughed at her gramps. He would follow the Doctor to the end of the world, and then back again. Maybe he should have been the Doctor's companion.
"It's alright gramps. I think the Doctor had his mind made up as soon as he found out Harry was alive," Donna spoke.
"Why do you call him Harry?" her gramps asked, a soft smile of confusion beaming his lips.
"I dunno. The "Master" seems so...silly. Like a name a child makes up. Besides, do you really like calling him the "Master"? Not very appealing if you're trying not to be afraid of him."
"Too true, love. We'd thought you were going to be in grave danger. Martha had mentioned that you were going to find the Mas-I mean, Harry. She wouldn't explain why though. Did you do it then Donna, did you search for him? You must have as he appeared here just as your mum saw you outside."
"Yeah, I did," was all Donna said.
Realizing that those were going to be her only words, Wilf simply hugged his granddaughter tighter to him, relieved at her safety.
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"How wonderful it is to see you again, Doctor. I've heard that you've been tearing apart universes to find me. And apparently your companion's mind," Harry chided as he was pushed down into a chair.
No reply came from the Doctor who was busy with his sonic screwdriver, trying to mend the rope around the chair instead of just around the Time Lord's bound wrists.
"You want to know a secret Doctor?" Harry asked.
The Doctor only pressed a set of buttons, successfully binding the Time Lord to the chair.
"It's got to do with your companion. Or former companion, as she informed me," Harry mockingly jeered.
"Will you shut it? I've got enough problems to deal with and as much as it'll hurt your gigantic ego, you're not a major priority right now," the Doctor bit out harshly, dashing out of the room to find Donna.
Harry grinned happily. Oh he had never seen the Doctor so worked up before, especially over a companion.
This is going to be fun.
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"Is this it?" Martha asked, pressing the black object into Donna's hand.
Glancing at it, Donna nodded her head in approval.
"Donna, I had no idea you had engineering skills," Sylvia approved.
"I don't. Just had to add in that part cause I was on a roll. But I'm sure gramps, you can fiddle around with it. I'd hate to give it back broken," Donna answered to Martha.
"Oh, no problem. Although, I thought it was only the part that the Doctor installed which was damaged. The whole phone's got problems now?"
Donna hid her guilty smile as she remembered just exactly what had happened to the cell phone in her pocket. It'd been given a good kick during some salacious nighttime activities.
"Yeah. Dunno, must have affected the whole system or something. Listen, I'm going to go shower. I wreak of god knows what," Donna stated.
"Donna-."
"Not now Doctor. I'm heading to the bathroom," she heatedly replied, throwing a hand into his face as she strolled past him.
He only stood still in his spot, her words giving off the exact feeling of disgust he knew he deserved.
"Donna! I heard you're in need of a bathroom," Jack commented, springing out of the bathroom adjacent to the kitchen.
"Again Jack, not the time. But I truly appreciate your gesture. Maybe one day I'll fall down, break my hip and you can be there to take me into as many showers as you want. For now, just keep a look out on Saxon in the kitchen," Donna replied, strumming her thumb across Jack's cheek once.
Jack smiled happily, shuffling his way into the kitchen.
By the time everyone's duties had been done and Donna had hopped into the shortest shower of her life in which she allowed stubborn, straying tears to dive into the drain, the mood in the house was electrifying to say the least.
There was Martha and Mickey sitting on the furthest table away from the captured Time Lord, holding each others hands quietly. Jack stood nearest to the bound Time Lord, kicking at the chair legs every so often to annoy the blond man. Sylvia stood alongside Donna while Wilf gravitated in his usual place near the Doctor who'd tried to keep on catching Donna's eye, but was hazardously denounced by Sylvia's hostile glare.
"Alright, so now that we're all gathered about, I've got something to say," Donna announced, her eyes accidentally strolling toward Harry's who gazed back at her with a suggestive interest.
The occupants of the room all perked up at her voice and then flung expectant stares toward the Doctor.
"Something's happened to me, besides the memory return I mean. I can...I have these strange abilities that I can't quite describe. They were nothing like the ones I had when I was the DoctorDonna. They seem more...unbelievable perhaps. Even a bit like magic. Like stuff you hear in fairy tales," Donna explained, taking a few steps forward before finally connecting her eyes with the Doctor's interested brown ones.
"Such as what?" he asked.
He was all business now, his scientific mind taking over the sorrow that laid earlier in his eyes.
"Premonitions. I found Martha by just thinking about her and then listening to the conversation she was having with her mum. They discussed that they were going to a certain store and when I went there, the premonition or whatever it was, proved to be true. It's also happened when I thought of you, Doctor and your friend," Donna indicated, tilting her head toward the Time Lord. "Although, his situation was odd because instead of seeing his face, I only had the sound of drums to guide me. They began unimaginably soft until I followed them and they increased in volume gradually until I found him."
The Doctor's face turned into one of bafflement. Harry rolled his eyes at the Doctor's dramatic action, but inside, was just as confused. No one in their species had the ability to do that. Moreover, he realized that she'd been lying. She had seeked him out that night. For what reason, Harry found himself wanting desperately to know.
"But that's not all. I um," Donna stated, nervousness attacking her hands all of a sudden, "when I found Saxon and when he was asleep, I placed my hand on his forehead and a strange gold light ejected itself out of my fingers and into his head. It happened for about two minutes before it stopped. I dunno if it did anything."
This admission had a monumental effect on the residents of the home.
"Why would you ever touch that monster?" Sylvia shouted in aghastment.
"Golden light? Is that normal, Doctor?" Wilf asked, bewilderment striking his old features.
"Well, depends on what you define normal," the Doctor admitted, digging his hands deeply into his pockets.
Donna couldn't look at the Doctor for more than a few minutes at a time. If she did...well she was afraid that Harry wouldn't be the Doctor's biggest problem. Speaking of Harry, Donna turned her head toward him to see how he was taking all of this but she only beheld a shivering glare thrown her way.
Why wasn't he happy? Well, Harry was more embarrassed with the thought that she had witnessed him having one of his nightmares then the fact that she had actually touched him while he wasn't aware of it. He knew she probably got concerned at his actions, whatever it was that he had been doing while asleep and decided to try and be noble about them. How ironic. So it was safe to say that Harry wasn't too pleased that she'd actually saved him from the drums. He had been hoping that maybe she'd done something else or maybe the Doctor had given her something to give to him to relieve them. But no. It was her, a human, and that was humiliating because that only formed a bigger respect for her. She knew who he was and still, she tried to help him. How utterly stupid and brave.
"The only thing I can truly recommend is to figure out how you got your memories back in the first place. It's too exponential to think of all the different ways you could have gotten your abilities. If we find out how, that will narrow down the what," the Doctor proclaimed.
"But?" Donna noted, observing the Doctor's suddenly hesitant face.
"But I can't say that we're all going to like the results. Whether these abilities will be permanent, it isn't clear. Why your memories were given back to you? I imagine that wasn't by accident. In fact, Donna I really hate to say this-."
"Then don't," Sylvia cut in before Donna had a chance to say something.
"You think that if we don't find out anything, you want to erase my memories again?" Donna concluded evenly.
The Doctor nodded his head and the room's reaction was instantaneous.
"No," came from Martha and Jack while Mickey nodded his head in agreement.
Sylvia placed a protective hand over Donna's frame but Donna kindly shrugged it off.
Wilf wanted to agree with the others but he had such a large respect for the Doctor so he was only torn with looking between his granddaughter and the Doctor.
"It's up to me to make the difficult decisions sometimes," the Doctor reminded everyone.
"For god's sake, she just got them back. You know she's got a happier life with them. Do not take away my daughter's memories just because of your inability to solve a mystery," Sylvia courageously objected.
Donna gave her mum and appreciative look, shocked at the true power of those words. However, the biggest surprise was that she wasn't slapping the Doctor a fierce one across the cheek right now. She knew as soon as she'd started describing her abilities, the abnormalcy of them would make the Doctor nervous. But to actually hear him agree that it might be in his best decision to erase her memories again, still made her vibrate in anger.
Yet, she told herself to hold on to the last of her patience for the man. She knew it was a lot less than he deserved because the pain he implemented again, was still prominent inside of her. But, she wanted to give him the benefit if the doubt. Because once she let loose her frustrations, the whole room would be involved with them and she didn't quite want to lay all of that out on her friends, especially on Martha and Jack.
"We do not know the side effects of these abilities. Sure it's been easy going now, but what will happen if she continues to use them? Certainly something worse than her head exploding."
"But that didn't happen either, did it Doctor?" Sylvia answered back.
"Quiet! Now, I think it's in Donna's best interest to decide what to do. How about it Donna? Do you want to figure out how you got your memories back or do you want to have them erased again?" Martha suggested calmly.
The Doctor stared unblinkingly at Martha and then back at Donna. This time, Donna made full eye contact with the Doctor and cringed slightly at the man she saw back. He was in full Doctor mode, but it was much colder. He actually believed that he knew what he was doing. That there was no alternative. She knew why he wanted to erase her memories now. It was because he couldn't stand her giving him the cold shoulder. Or looking at him like she just wanted to murder him.
It was that weakness that she picked out in the Doctor that truly made her happy knowing that they would never share that in common. She would always approach things, even the unpleasant ones instead of trying to ruin somebody else's life in order to keep her own.
"Doctor...remember how I was saying that I had something to tell you, back out there on the porch?"
The Doctor nodded his head, the intensity slightly lowering from his eyes and his true self creeping back.
"Well, I was good and pissed at you, right? After I woke up with my memories back yesterday morning. Wanted to find you and just...beat the living daylights out of you. Because guess what I'm going to admit, something that you won't? It hurt. The pain was utterly mindblowing, no pun intended. I loved you Doctor, as a best mate. And then you just dug into my heart as casually as one digs a hole into concrete. The tolerant part of me kept on telling me that you had no other choice, that this was the only alternative. You were saving me from death. But I knew that was a lie. There's always another way with you. Even now, knowing why you'd taken away my memories, the tolerant part of me keeps on wanting to say that you truly only want to help your friend. But guess what Doctor? I'm through with being tolerant," Donna ordered back.
"Donna, I'm truly sorry. I am. I hurt too when you were gone. But you've got to understand how important it was that I found the Master."
"Stop right there Doctor. What would you have done if you had found him? Cart him around in your Tardis? Try to keep him from being evil? Because there's something you don't know about him, that I do. And it only took me one night to learn it," Donna commanded, taking a short step away from her mum.
"And what's that?" the Doctor testily asked.
"That the last thing he wants," Donna commented back, fire back inside her vocal chords, "is to be restrained."
It was the look that she had gave him that truly spoke measures. The crystal blue in her eyes had melted into a ravaged cyan, with the events of last night, dancing a victorious dance. Staring back at the Doctor's confused features, she watched the steel brown in his eyes turn into a puddle of mud. Then understanding daunted and for some reason, Donna couldn't have been more relieved.
"You didn't," was his whispered retort. He was beyond angry.
"Yeah, actually I did. Tracked down Harry in my head, found him in an old house, let him know I wasn't one to be pushed around, seduced him like you WOULDN'T believe, and shagged him good and fair. And you know what Doctor? I looked up at the ceiling as he sent me over the edge and said your name like I'd never said it before. When I woke up the next morning, I only felt something that'd been strangely distant from me. Peace. I felt complete and utter peace," Donna commented back louder, ignoring the shocked gasps coming from inside the room.
It was like their arguement held the two in their own separate world with everyone else gone. Just the two of them staring each other down in a life or death situation.
She didn't have much time to understand the look that had suddenly possessed the Doctor's eyes as all reason left him. Before she knew it, his arms were around her and his lips mashed into hers with so much force that Donna couldn't properly think. His lips were invasive and jealous, striding to wipe away the words she'd just spoken. Fighting their own battle, his teeth were itching to join into the feeble struggle.
That is, before Donna pushed the Doctor's face from her and smacked him across the face with such power that the red print of her smack stayed painfully clear on his cheek.
"Don't you EVER do that again," Donna grounded out dangerously.
With that, she pushed past the Doctor whose face had erupted in horror after realizing what exactly he'd just done, past the table where Mickey and Martha were both standing at in shock, and past the refrigerator. Her hand shot out to grab the bottle of vodka that Mickey had been drinking from, and then Donna slammed the door, heading to a part of the house where she could promptly lock herself in and drink away all the guilt that was threatening to surface again.
No one in the kitchen tried to stop her. No one in the kitchen could really do anything except stand in shock.
Yeah...so I gave Donna a lot more patience than she might actually have but I'd like to think that she'd really think over her situation before just lunging a full out attack at the Doctor. Hope you enjoyed that. Let me know what you're thinking in a review :)
