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A visit to Washington DC leads to the Doctor telling Donna the truth: he is the half-human hybrid destined to destroy Gallifrey and stand in its ruins. The Doctor proposes a Gallifreyan-style marriage to Donna, and she agrees. They plan for the future.
Chapter 12
In Which Time Lord Kisses Can Stop Time
The trip was a bit rough, as usual. This time, the Doctor asked Donna to help by holding a triangular black button and spinning a glittery dial. "I really ought to teach you how to fly her sometime!" Still crackling, the Doctor stretched his leg across the console to flip a switch with his white Converse.
Donna smiled. In that case, they'd have a third of the pilots they were supposed to rather than a sixth. "Yeah, you'd better."
They landed with a bump that jostled Donna into a typewriter. "To be clear, we're transporting the Americans in this? Just the two of us?"
"Yup." The Doctor leaned against the console. "I need the chance to tell them to let me know if they're treated poorly, and I want to get some ideas from them anyway. You humans are so good at finding patterns that aren't there that you're very useful in identifying obscure ones that are."
Donna bristled. "Oi! What's with the back-handed compliment?"
The Doctor blinked. Didn't he know how rude he was being? "It's just an analysis. You humans can be quick to blame curses and the supernatural for things you don't understand – you know the type I'm talking about, but then there are those who thought correctly that world governments have been covering up the existence of aliens."
Glaring at him, Donna crossed her arms. "So it's an accident when we make correct deductions?"
He winced. "No, sorry. Forget how I said that. Anyway, let's not leave the workers waiting outside any longer." He paused. "There might be cameras. You can stay in here if you want."
Donna checked her reflection in one of the screens. At least she wasn't wearing a robe that went horridly with her ginger. "It's fine. I'll come. Just don't expect me to talk to the press."
Grinning, he led them to the doors and opened them to blinding sunlight and a deafening cheers. They'd landed on a small court just off a long, cement walkway lined with green lawns, blooming trees with flowers at their bases, and lots and lots of pedestrians. "Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan," he whispered in Donna's ear. "President Erickson's alma mater."
The near side of the walkway was portioned off with a portable red velvet rope. About three dozen people with suitcases and construction uniforms lined up along it. But surrounding them, what a reception!
Green-and-gold banners welcomed them to campus. Off to the sides, colorful signs swore friendship or damnation to the Time Lords – quotes, catchphrases, and scriptoral verses supporting both opinions.
On the stairway to a green-striped building, fans had T-shirts, costumes, and books with the same two characters: a young, big-eared Time Lord with close-cropped hair; and a teenage girl with a wide mouth and hair dyed blonde except at the roots. Donna noticed titles like When Time Rose and A Lordly Love. There were even the two models for the book covers, wearing their costumes and waving at the new arrivals.
The Doctor chuckled, waving back to the models. "Christopher Eccleston," he whispered in Donna's ear. "He's here all the way from the UK. He made an impression on me in his future. Well, his history will have changed now that the average human knows about Time Lords, but I met him in the previous timeline. He got in my subconscious and was the model for my last body in fact."
Donna glanced at him. "Just an analysis here, but you Time Lords are so quick to shape yourselves after supermodels and people you admire. Did your people have a bad experience with other species not liking it? Is that why you lot were so closed off until now?"
The Doctor nodded. "Part of it, well, small part of it, but it's not really fair, is it? Our women can consciously influence what they look like to some degree – very few have perfect enough control to intentionally copy someone – but us males? We don't have any conscious sway over how we get our new looks."
He grinned. "Glad to see Chris is doing well. He might even be able to keep his modeling career this time around, now that he's apparently on the cover of a best-selling romance series. Well, he and his girlfriend, Rose Tyler."
Donna snorted. When Time Rose indeed.
The Doctor leaned closer to Donna's ear. "Not that it's a particularly realistic romance, mind you. Most Time Lords wouldn't risk going for another species." He smirked. "But kissing a human isn't so bad."
With no further warning, he pecked Donna's lips, causing the young women in the crowd to giggle and the young men to whistle. The prawn did it on purpose! Donna felt her face burning red as the Doctor pulled back, but he grinned instead of apologizing.
"Right." He took a step toward the workers. "Hello! I'm the Doctor. I'm looking for those of you with papers?"
The workers lined up, and with one glance at their background check results, the Doctor wrote something in the visa section of their passports in lieu of an insert. Several asked Donna questions as they loaded their luggage into, not the console room, but a lobby. "What's their planet like?" "Are Time Lords really as sexy as they say?" and "How are these things bigger on the inside?"
Donna couldn't answer all the questions, but she answered what she could. She herself was trying to figure out how the doors suddenly led to a spacious, white-rugged room with wooden floors, round coffee tables, and coral-print sofas and armchairs instead of to the console room. She was relieved to see luggage straps for each passenger and a seat belt for everyone.
Finally, the Doctor helped the last passenger heft an over-sized gray suitcase aboard, chatting away about watts and voltage. "Now that everyone's here, welcome to the TARDIS. We'll be leaving for Gallifrey immediately, so make yourselves comfortable while I get us underway. Donna, could you tell them a bit about the planet as seen from a human perspective?"
He could have told her in advance! Hmph. At least the group wasn't swimming in cameras. "Okay." She looked around at the passengers as the Doctor slipped into the corridors. "First thing you should know is flying in this thing can be as bumpy as a camel, so buckle up."
The Americans did, with all sorts of comments about flying first class, stupid YA romance novels, and bridges in Star Trek. Afterward, Donna was more than happy to tell them about hanging out with her Time Lord friends in the Citadel.
They had a lot of questions of course. A bunch of stupid misconceptions too, probably from that book series whose fans had greeted the TARDIS. "Can Time Lord kisses really stop time?"
Donna hadn't noticed that the Doctor was back until he spoke. "No. It would take something much more powerful than a kiss to do that." He was plopped back into a studded armchair, converses crossed on a coffee table. Really? That was the posture he used as Lord President of Gallifrey? Even Donna knew better, and she was a temp from Chiswick.
Perhaps he picked up on her disapproval because he pulled his feet off the table and sat up. "Not that it matters much. Most Time Lords are incapable of feeling that kind of urge."
The Americans looked at him as though just realizing he was an alien. One stocky guy with permanently wide eyes had his jaw dropped. "But then, where do little Time Lords come from?"
"From the Looms. They're machines that weave segments of our DNA together to make a toddler."
There were several raised brows among the workers and lots of chatter among themselves.
"I'm sorry," the Doctor said, loudly enough to make himself heard. "This must be very strange for you. Until recently, my ship and I would have been something straight out of your science fiction. I'm not sure what you make of our Looms. You can tell me. I won't be offended."
There was a niggling in Donna's mind. The Doctor wasn't using hypnosis on them, was he?
She unbuckled and went to squeeze into his armchair. "That's not hypnosis, is it?"
"Just enough to encourage them to relax and open up."
Their conversation ended with roaring laughter coming from the Americans. Donna thought she heard the words Vulcans and Romulans.
Then the Doctor joined in. "Yup. Vulcans with Looms. It's not a perfect summary of our snootiest class, but it is very good. So you're not weirded out by our reproduction? No horror stories running through your minds?"
"What's stopping your upper classes from making babies however they choose? The best athlete or the perfect scholar or whatever? No poor, enslaved, genetically inferior lower classes?"
The Doctor smiled. "That was almost the case billions of years ago, but we had good leaders at the time."
"So you're all clones?"
"No, not clones. Our babies get DNA from both parents, so our children are just normal children. There just happens to be a machine involved." The Doctor paused. "Well, and don't talk about this mind you, but occasionally there are children born organically. They're not clones either. Well, not unless they're an identical twin or something to start off, but those are natural clones. You humans have them too."
The permanently wide-eyed worker laughed. "That's true. We hardly ever think to count them as clones. But seriously, as long as the clones aren't programmed to never even question orders like kill all Jedi or something, they're fine."
That sparked a hot debate, but Donna got the impression that the Doctor was no longer listening. He'd gasped softly, and one of his hearts was pounding against her side. "Spaceman?"
"I think mental programming might be exactly what the High Council is planning. Those blueprints make sense now." He grabbed Donna's hand. "If they've Loomed enough Time Tots fully-grown like that, I may have to destroy Gallifrey to give the rest of my people a chance." He choked. "No more unaltered children."
Donna squeezed his hand. "Are your hearts broken?"
"Yeah."
She chuckled, but there was no humor in it. "I told you we could make it something good."
"Yeah. Yeah, you did." He hid his emotions under a mask, wiggling out from under Donna. He strode into the center of the debate. "Anyway, do you have any more concerns about our Looms? They're the primary reason we've recruited you for clean-up. No? Good. We'll be arriving in the city of Olyesti soon. I'll introduce you to the supervisor, Gawain – decent man – but for now, I've got to go land."
It didn't take him long to do so. The cloister bell was ringing before Donna knew it.
When they left the TARDIS this time, they were again greeted with cheers. However, there were again few boos mixed in and shouts of get off our planet, you amoral aliens!
The British workers were packed, ready to leave, but they were busy arguing with some Gallifreyans in heavy red armor. Crowds of red, white, black, and orange were drowning each other out, and pushing his way through was Gawain. "Lord President!"
Donna looked at her husband. "It's like we were actually expected."
He flinched. "Time Lords have the technology to detect a TARDIS before it materializes. It's gotten me in trouble before. Once I landed near the capitol on the day our retiring president was murdered."
Gawain broke through branches of arms and sprinted toward them. "Lord President! The High Council's made it worse, I'm afraid, and they've got a warrant out to bring you in for questioning."
"What?" The Doctor yanked at his hair. "It's been four days. How could they have made things any worse in that time?"
"They've sent guards from the Citadel to make sure no idiot attempts to repair the Looms on their own, the humans here have been harassed, and so have our own citizens! The government is blaming you. I've told Olyesti what I know of what's going on, but the Council still has some convinced. We've started fighting among ourselves." Gawain had all those words out so quickly that Donna wondered if Time Lords actually needed to breathe.
Behind her and the Doctor, the Americans were starting to disembark. The Doctor looked back at them. "Change of plans. You're going back to Earth for a bit. It's not safe here."
He called out to the British to join them, but the guards prevented them. One of the guards, a hulk with spring-coiled black hair leveled his gun at the workers. "The Doctor will surrender himself to interrogation in the Capital immediately, or we will start shooting hostages."
Shaking, the Doctor raised his hands. "Alright, I'm going. Just let me say goodbye to my wife."
The guard narrowed his eyes, but he nodded. "You have fifteen seconds."
Donna's breath caught in her throat. "Doctor-"
"Sh." He leaned forward and kissed her cheek. "Donna, I'm so sorry. I need you and Gawain to get everyone in the TARDIS to safety. Can you do that for me?"
No. She didn't know how to pilot a TARDIS or anything. "Doctor-"
"Time's up!" called the guard. He aimed his gun right at a human, Lance. There was a terrible high-pitched whine and Lance hit the pavement, motionless.
Tears streamed from Donna's eyes. The captives screamed. Olyesti's citizens jostled and shouted.
The Doctor raised his hands again. "Enough! I'm going, see? Just don't kill anyone else." His legs carried him toward the guards. Donna tried to follow him.
"No!" he shouted. "Stay here."
"You'd better be alive the next time I see you, Spaceman!"
He was nearly out of shouting range now. "No worries. I've still things to do, remember?"
A guard led him to a portable teleport and turned it on. One moment, the Doctor was there. The next, he was gone.
"He's done nothing, you thugs! And not even Lance deserved what you did to him. You're the ones in the wrong, and guess what? Me and my husband are going to press charges when all this is through. What is the maximum penalty on Gallifrey anyway?" Donna would have continued, but two wrinkled hands – stronger than she expected – pushed her to the ground.
She hadn't seen another of the guards raising a weapon her way, and now Gawain was crumpled on the ground, body glowing. "Get in the TARDIS!" he hissed at her.
Her eyes widened. She'd just cost someone a life. "I'm sorry. I don't know what I can do to make this up to you."
"IN!"
Next time:
"She thought she heard the Doctor calling her name. For a moment, she thought he was preparing her to join him in death."
Review incentive:
None. However, I've got a Doctor Who crossover coming up with my new fandom. For that story, I've decided to try my hand at writing a thriller, and I'm quite pleased with the results so far: I've set a new personal record for how many words I can write in one day. Because I'm excited and no one has found either of the references yet, I will give you some hints: the reference in Chiswick Mercy is in its final chapter, and the reference in this story is in Chapter 11. The first person to find one of these references - either here or on AO3 - and identify the fandom will have a chance to request bonus material. Offer expires when I start posting the crossover in at least four days.
Disclaimer:
Doctor Who is property of the BBC.
