I do not own Doctor Who.
Chapter Fourteen
John/Doctor ran through the throngs of costumers congregated in the hallways - he and Carnation, who ran behind him, clutching her high heels and looking extremely cross, were hot on the trail of whatever had shocked the Doctor.
"I don't understand," he muttered. "It shouldn't be a surprise, but..."
"What - what are we running around for now?" gasped Carnation. "Oh, I lost one of my shoes back there - I've only got one now - I'm awfully angry, those shoes were ridiculously expensive, more than I had - is it really this urgent? What about the Dalek thing? What is a Dalek?"
"I told you," the Doctor responded distractedly, halting in his tracks, much like he'd done several times during their frantic goose chase.
Carnation leaned against a wall, sides heaving, pushing a strand of pink hair out of her red and sweaty face. "No, you really haven't. Something you hate, obviously. First day on the job, and this happens, of course. I mean, I enjoy all this excitement, but it's honestly - " she didn't finish the sentence, gulping in a huge breath.
"Carnation - that was your name, right?" the Doctor asked, clarifying. Upon seeing the slightly offended look on her face, he hastily explained himself. "No, no, I do know you're name. It's just, a lot is going on at once. Not that that's nothing new. But. Well. Yes. That's my excuse. Anyway, Carnation, the Dalek that's here - do you see a Dalek?"
"Well, I don't know what a Dalek is, or what it looks like normally, but if that's what the thing is that I saw in the lobby, then yes I must see a Dalek," replied Carnation, huffing slightly. "Although you said it's a hologram, so perhaps it's not an actual Dalek. I'm very confused. I really don't know how anyone can travel with you, you're so confusing."
"One of my charms," the Doctor said, his attention back on his machine.
Carnation, despite the situation, still managed to giggle like a lovestruck teenage girl. "One of them," she agreed.
"But besides that, more importantly, what do you see? Describe the Dalek you saw," the Doctor requested. "While I try to figure out if this thing is actually working correctly, giving me results like this..." he added under his breath, referring to the device in his hands.
"Um, well," Carnation hesitated. "It looks like a salt shaker. It's actually kind of cute. If it wasn't running around yelling 'EXTERMINATE' all the time."
She blushed, embarrassed at calling the Dalek cute.
"It's definitely not," the Doctor decided, giving her an odd look. "It would be the opposite of cute if you knew what it did."
"Well, I don't know what it did," Carnation shot back.
He ignored her. "Come on. Got another signal."
And so the two took off running again.
Donna Noble wasn't fond of being told what to do, so a bit after the Doctor and River left, she got off of the floor, still a bit disoriented from everything. Her head burned, but the pain had subsided into a dull throb - still hurting, but not like it had been before. She could think straight and logically - and she knew things she hadn't known before. Centuries of knowledge amassed in her brain. She knew the Doctor's real name. She knew who River was, her whole history, being Melody Pond. She felt like she was the Doctor - she could remember a whole life growing up on Gallifrey, a life that she hadn't lived. And with all the Time Lord knowledge, her own memories of being Donna Noble ran along side it - but muted slightly, not as vivid, as if Donna Noble's existence was only a dream...
But she didn't find that important right at that moment.
What was important was figuring out what had happened to the Doctor and River - and also, importantly, Rory and Amy, and Martha, who had also mysteriously disappeared. They had existed. She was sure of it. Amy - she'd been a sassy Scottish redhead, and her husband had been Rory, or Geronimo as he'd been called by the Doctor, and he'd had an odd nose. And River was there daughter. She wasn't sure if she knew this because of the extensive Time Lord knowledge occupying her mind, or if the Ponds had mentioned this fact when she'd spoken with them.
"EXTERMINATE, EXTERMINATE," the voice of the Dalek reverberated on the shiny white bathroom tiles. Like the rest of Plexel, the bathrooms were spotless, modern, and efficient. "DOCTOR DONNA."
Another flash of pain stabbed at Donna, and she stumbled on her feet, clutching the stall door for support. An Ood appeared before her eyes, and she could hear it speaking, the translator in its hand lighting up yellow, and yet the words it was saying were unintelligible.
"I can't do this," she said, emptiness opening up inside her. "I thought I could. I thought I was safe. Why is it happening now? I was fine before. Oh my god. No. Please."
You know why it's happening now, a small voice spoke up. You weren't the Doctor Donna before, but now you are, and there's never been a Human-Time Lord metacrisis before, and you know exactly why.
Her mind swirled with a million thoughts, a million memories that weren't hers, a million facts that she didn't know before. But even among the archives of wisdom in her brain, she couldn't find the answer she was looking for.
The Eleventh Doctor, River by his side, stood in front of the Dalek.
"DOCTOR," the metallic voice said, emotionless.
"Yes, that's me," the Doctor said, his voice harsh. "You aren't a real Dalek, are you?"
"EXTERMINATE."
The imposing metal creature was scanned, and with a flourish, the Doctor examined his results.
"Just what I thought," he said, smiling grimly. "A holographic image. Now, why did these mysterious aliens send a holographic image down? They must know about the Doctor Donna, unless the usage of the phrase is totally coincidental, which is extremely unlikely."
"EXTERMINATE, EXTERMINATE," the Dalek demanded, seeming to almost shake with some kind of indignation. Its eyestalk moved almost wildly, as if it were starting to malfunction. "EXTRICATE. EXTRICATE."
"Why's it saying that?" River whispered in the Doctor's ear, looking over his shoulder as he pointed his sonic screwdriver at it.
"I'm not sure," the Doctor replied. "'Extricate.' These aliens want knowledge, right? So perhaps they mean to extract information, and this is a means to extricate knowledge, or perhaps it's too - " he broke off, clearly realizing something.
River looked at him, wide-eyed. "It's too what? It's too what, Doctor?" she asked. "What was that woman's name, your companion in the café? She disappeared about the time the Dalek showed up - are the aliens, whoever they are, using it to kidnap people?"
"I'm not sure about that either," the Doctor answered. "That's not what I was thinking - and besides, only one person has gone missing so far. Unless those waiters..."
The Dalek interrupted their conversation. "EXTERMINATE. EXTRICATE." It seemed to be having a battle with itself. It's head began to spin around in dizzying circles. "EXTERMI-EXTRI-EXTERMI-EXTRI-EXTERMINEXTRICATE."
Its weapon went off, shooting a blue ray of deadly energy out.
"It's not harmful," the Doctor reassured River. "It's not real."
He was promptly proved incorrect as an unfortunate passerby was hit by the bolt. Her body lit up blue, revealing a glowing image of her skeleton, before she burst to dust from the high voltage that had just hit her body. Shockingly, the hordes continued as if nothing had happened, and a woman had not just been vaporized on the spot.
The Doctor cleared his throat, adjusting his bowtie nervously. "Okay, I was perhaps that statement was untrue."
River gave him a tightlipped smile. "I believe you mean wrong."
"No!" he replied, looking genuinely offended. "I'm never wrong."
His wife rolled her eyes at him. "You'll find you're wrong about that."
"Stop flirting, you two," Donna's voice came from behind them. They might've jumped and turned around, but they were wary about the Dalek, whose head continued to spin around, utterly confused as to whether or not it was supposed to say exterminate or extricate.
"I thought I told you to stay - never mine." He looked resigned. "Nobody listens to me anymore."
Another blue ray lit up the space. Luckily, there was no casualty this time - it hit a wall, and sent it crumbling, but just as nobody had reacted to the woman's death, nobody passing by even spared a glance at the damaged wall.
"Alright, enough with this," the Doctor decided. "If this is a hologram, then I should be able to disrupt the feed."
"But if it's a hologram, then surely it's weapon is useless?" Donna said. "Not that you should get rid of it - better safe than sorry. But nobody's reacting to any of the damage it's caused, or - " she flinched as several more bolts, in rapid succession, were fired from the Dalek, blowing more people to dust and shattering a window. "So what if it's just a hologram, like the Dalek itself?"
"EXTERMINATE EXTRICATE EXTERMINATE EXTRICATE."
"I'm getting tired of saying this," the Doctor snapped, his screwdriver glowing blue, "but I don't know. And normally I do know. So stop making me feel stupid, because I'm not stupid."
"And you're not wrong," added River, watching as the Dalek hologram began to flicker as the connection was disrupted.
"EX-EX-EX-EX-EXTERMI-EX-EX-EX," it stuttered.
"OW!" the Doctor yelped, dropping his screwdriver to the ground and clutching his hand.
"What happened?" both Donna and River asked at the same time, looking extremely concerned.
The Dalek, which had been faded, suddenly became more solid. Its head stopped spinning. It fixed its glowing eyestalk on Donna. "THE DOCTOR DONNA HAS BEEN LOCATED. EXTRICATE. EXTRICATE!"
It began to move forward at an alarming speed, and though Donna and River tried to drag the Doctor away, he was very determined to save his screwdriver.
"It'll kill us!" River shouted, trying to force some sense into her husband. "What good will we be then?"
"DOCTOR DONNA, THE RUNAWAY BRIDE, THE MOST IMPORTANT WOMAN IN THE UNIVERSE," the Dalek blared.
Donna screamed. The pain. It was unbearable, horrible in the most awful way.
And as the Dalek bared down on her and the others, her vision flashing red, several thing happened at once. Perhaps she was hallucinating...
The Dalek's gun was at work again, aimed at River, and the Doctor was shouting something angry, and River was also shouting something, and everything was loud, and River was certainly going to die - but then someone else was there, pushing her out of the way, lighting up with blue energy as he took the blow for the curly-haired woman, and he was decidedly not bursting into dust, but falling to the ground.
And Donna was expecting the Dalek to shoot again when it saw its shot had not made its mark, but it was flickering, and then it disappeared, and then there was Carnation, cheering and saying something that sounded like, "I knew those shoes were good for something!" and the Doctor - her Doctor - standing there with a very surprised expression on his face, staring at her.
And someone else was saying very loudly, "Doctor, what in the universe just happened?" Donna was pretty sure that she didn't recognize the voice, but there wasn't much she could do, because her world was on fire, and everything was slipping from her control.
I am Donna. No, I am the Doctor, her thoughts whirled in confusion, and they accompanied her as her consciousness spiraled into black.
Author's Note: Well, I hope this chapter was enjoyable and believable, and didn't feel rushed. Oh, and Doctor Who theme. Dooooweeeeeoooooooo.
LuckyBuzzie: So sorry I didn't respond to your review last time! But I'm really glad to know that you're still enjoying this, and hopefully liked this chapter too. Glad you like the way I differentiate between the Doctors, too - I've been slacking off on that, but that's mostly because there's only been one Doctor per scene, but things will be changing! Thank you for reading and reviewing!
The Daleks' Advocate: So, I hoped this answered some of your questions, regarding the Dalek. I feel like I let some people down by having the Dalek just be a hologram, but I couldn't work having it actually be hiding someone - originally I planned to have Clara be in the Dalek, somehow, but it just didn't work. As for Amy and Rory, you'll find out about them later! ;) And it's not going to look much better for the Doctor and his companions, at least for a little while. MWAHAHA.
I suppose that's true, regarding the companion definition. However, I went with the 'is working with the Doctor' as the definition of a companion, and went ahead an allowed Carnation to see the Dalek all the others were seeing. I'm hoping that her 'companionship' will come into play later in this story. But I agree, and I can see what you mean with Clara.
Thank you for reading and reviewing! I really appreciate all your support.
seraphblades-and-wands: Thank you! It's good to know that last chapter was suspenseful enough! I'm afraid I can't say the same for this one, really. Your welcome, and I'm relieved to know that you're enjoying this story. And thanks for the cookies! They're tasty. Want some? :) Thank you for reading and reviewing!
WizardingWhovian: Hmm, what did happen to Amy and Rory? I'm going to explain what exactly happened with them in future chapters, and as for River's existence, I'll tell you this: they weren't exactly erased from time...it's more like they were never in the Doctor's timeline. Although, I suppose that brings up the question of how River could be born on the TARDIS. More will be revealed later! Expect some new introductions in the next chapter! I'm really excited and looking forward to writing that. Thank you for reading and reviewing!
Zerousy: Thank you. I'm glad you find this story interesting, and hope that it continues to keep your interest. Thank you for reading and reviewing!