Return to the Tardis
The lift doors finally reopened and the Doctor held Donna's hand. They got back along the mint-striped corridors and at last to the gym without seeing so much as one giant batwing.
Donna sensed someone behind them and tightened her grip on the Doctor's hand.
"Donna..."
"Yeah." They turned around together and looked back at the glittering sets of eyes peering at them from the doorway.
"Whatever you do ... don't run." He said quietly.
"Oh, no, they wouldn't really?"
"Well, did you try their cafeteria food? It has a deep frozen bouquet. You can hardly blame them."
Donna just shook her head at him and turned to their friends.
There was no sign these two had ever changed form. Matthew wore the same blue vest and his light blue shirt. Tonia still looked quite a lot like Rose with her perfectly arranged blonde hair and bright red vest.
"Matthew."
"Tonia."
"On behalf of the crew we thank you for helping us." Matthew bowed slightly.
"I think you did most of it yourselves." The Doctor replied soberly.
"No, well," Matthew folded his arms casually across his chest, "It's a first for us. We've never got back at them before."
"Them?" Donna repeated. "Bullies, you mean?"
Matthew shrugged uncomfortably. "Yes ..."
"It's a bit more than that, Donna." The Doctor deciphered quietly. "Krillitane are cannibals."
"You mean they eat their own kind!" Donna exclaimed with a horrified gasp.
"None of us on board this ship are Krillitane, Donna." Matthew responded sharply and cast a pointed glance at Tonia.
Tonia stepped forwards, her eyes regarding Donna thoughtfully. "Matthew told me your idea about the Astrometrics room." She giggled. "You're just as romantic as the Doctor is."
Donna raised her eyebrows and stared agape at Tonia for a moment before turning her surprise on the Doctor. "Romantic?" She smirked and turned back to Tonia. "Yeah, Tonia, I suppose we are." Donna replied cheerily. "It was really nice meeting you lot. Take care."
"You too, Donna," Matthew answered. "And please, consider distorting in on us again one day. We do consider you as friends."
"Thank you." The Doctor finally answered in a sober voice. "Perhaps, maybe we'll return again some day."
Donna glanced to him and grasped his hand. "Come on, we'd better get going." She waved at Tonia and Matthew and led the Doctor out of the gym and back to the Tardis.
They stepped through the door of the Police Box and back into their home. The Doctor headed straight to the console and started the dematerialisation procedure without saying another word. Despite feeling absolutely revolting with Cyberman entrails all over her Donna went and sat quietly down on the jump seat, watching the Doctor deep in his silent thoughts. Shortly the Tardis engine was pulsing steadily now as she operated in walrus mode and the Doctor still hadn't said anything.
"Alright," Donna sighed, fed up with the silence at last, "Out with it." Donna's concern couldn't keep out of her mouth anymore. "You're not normally this quiet, Doctor, what is it?"
"It's a daft notion really. Just ... seeing you hug Sadie made me think of it." He muttered, "That was back in early twenty first century earth. That's ages ago."
"What happened? So you fought the Krillitane back then." She shrugged, "What's the bit that bothers you exactly?"
"It was something Brother Lesser said to me. You know, before I had to ... blow him and his school up. He promised that the next time we met I'd join him. And today we sort of did join them: against the Cybermen."
"You know ..." Donna looked for the right words, "I don't think he needed to have some temporal insight to be able to say that."
"What then, lucky guess you reckon?"
"Instinct," Donna smiled, "Look, Krillitane are made up of how many species? They keep adding and adding, oh, pretty wings, oh, oh, what functional sharp teeth we must have a set of those."
Donna frowned for a moment, "you think if they'd stop conquering people then that other bit of instinct, you know; the whole 'joining' bit is going to fade away too? And they'd just stop conglomerating different races together?"
"Oh." The Doctor groaned, sinking onto his hands on the console. " 'I want your ears'! Blimey, it was an odd thing for her to say. It was odd all the way along." He shook his head. "I should've figured it all out much earlier instead of just when I had a Cyberman in my face threatening to blow us all up ..."
Donna suddenly had a nervous random thought pop into her head. "Oi, spaceman, sorry to interrupt but you don't think we got space plague from standing in all that blue coolant goo?" Donna interrupted, looking down at her blue streaked outfit in a bit of worry.
"I don't reckon, no, it's the biologics it affects. At any rate, there's still some Parrinium from the last visit to Exxilon in the medicine cabinet in case we need it. I'll just double check the Tardis' scans of us."
A few moments later after he'd checked his scans the Doctor looked up to Donna again with a smile on his face. "Peaceful Krillitane, eh? How about that? They must have finally met their species match. Fancy that."
"Peaceful Krillitane," Donna laughed, "and meddling Time Lords; after you I could believe anything is possible. Are you done scanning yet? Coz Time Lord or not you know how I feel about idly hanging around covered in gunk and entrails."
He smiled brightly at her. "You're all clear-."
"Good." She turned away from him and headed promptly for the internal door.
"-'Spacegirl'." He finished his sentence in a teasing voice.
Donna smiled to herself as the door slid shut between them. She certainly liked the sound of that.