Escape Tactics

"Come on, Donna! Stay with me!" The Doctor shouted over his shoulder as the two of them barreled into the Tardis.

"Stay with me! Are you bloody serious? That's what I should be saying to you, you're the wounded one!" she argued, slamming the doors shut behind them. The Doctor sat on the jump-seat, leaning over his knees while clutching his shoulder. Donna turned around in time to see him in the moment. When he noticed she was watching, he straightened his back and quickly gathered himself.

"Not to worry, I'll be right as rain once I've slept. Now," he stood on his feet, the slightest bit unsteady, which Donna didn't fail to notice, "let's get out of here." He swung his hand down on a lever, and the entire room was suddenly tilting and vibrating beneath them.

The room pitched wildly, more than normal. Donna flailed her arms out for anything to grab hold of, and was enormously relieved she'd been standing near a coral column, or else she'd have collided with the grating for sure.

"I don't think that was the right one!" she hollered over to him angrily.

The Doctor scoffed as he sat bouncing on the jump-seat. "I know how to fly my own Tardis!"

"Could have fooled me." Donna muttered to herself.

"I heard that, Noble!" he grumbled as he futilely turned knobs and slammed buttons.

The Doctor bravely leaped over to the side of the console nearest Donna, and held onto the railing with a white-knuckle grasp as his body was pulled to the left and right. He studied a nearby screen.

"That's impossible! They installed a tracking signal!"

"Disable it!" Donna shouted over the ruckus from beside him, thoroughly frustrated. The Tardis groaned and creaked at the stress of trying to escape the signal while within the Vortex.

"I can't! Not without-" the Doctor stopped mid-sentence.

A particularly rough jolt landed them on their rears. They were both on their backs, and they could feel the tremors of their traveling all the way up and down their spines.

"Not without crashing." He finished, making tense eye contact with his fiery-haired companion. Her hair fell about her head in an untamed tangle of silky tresses. His own spiky hair had fallen a bit flat, and the edges trembled at the nature of their current transportation.

"We already seem to be doing that!" Donna pointed out.

"No, all of this turbulence is because of the hold the galactic troopers have on us. If we crash the Tardis, it might break the link. They might think we've been destroyed."

"Something tells me they probably won't be wrong." Donna remarked. "What if we do get destroyed? And what about the Tardis? Will she be alright?"

Part of the Doctor was deeply touched that she had thought to be concerned for his beloved ship, and he did know that Donna cared for her.

"She's been in tougher scrapes than this, and frankly, so have we." He reasoned. He stood up and held out his hand for her to take from the ground, holding onto the console behind him with his other.

"Are you with me, Donna?" he asked her, still holding his hand out.

"Always, Spaceman." She took his hand and he hoisted her to her feet.

He ran around the console, with Donna's hand in his, pressing, turning, and flipping all combination of buttons, levers, switches, and dials along the way.

"Hang on!" he yelled to her over the increasing fray, and grabbed her tight to his body with one arm. She held onto him, and soon the brunt of the crash and resulting explosion were all they knew. There was no time travel, no galactic troopers, no planet Earth or star-spattered skies; just loud noise, the sudden stop, the pain of landing, and the debris falling as the dust settled. Of all the times he crashed his space ship, this was one of the worst.

"Donna?" The Doctor spoke, but he couldn't hear his own voice. Somehow they'd landed on the floor in a heap, again.

He looked down at the top of her head, her face buried in his chest somewhere. "Donna, are you alright?"

She gave no answer, so he tried again, "Hey, can you hear me, Donna?"

His hearts were sinking.

"Donna?" He shook her a little this time, and she picked her face up.

"Is it over? Are we dead?" she asked, drowsy in a comical way, as if she'd been in bed for hours and slept through their latest brush with death. She began to cough as some of the smoke entered her lungs.

"We're not dead, I don't think. Take it easy." But she was already removing herself from his grasp and standing on her own feet.

"I'll get those, you see if they're still tailing us, yeah?" Donna motioned to the few small fires around the room, and left to fetch the fire extinguisher.

He noticed that the tracking signal had been disabled upon their less-than-gossamer landing.

"We're in the clear, Donna!" he cheered to her, turning around to find her snuffing out the last of the fires.

"Well that's good news, now how about you tend to your girl before she refuses to fix your cuppa."

The Doctor's mega-wat smile diminished severely. "Oh, Donna, I didn't think you were hurt. What's wrong?"

"Not me, you tart! The Tardis!" she swirled her fingers up at the ceiling.

"Right, of course."

"Then right after that you're putting us in the Vortex and getting some sleep, mister. I'll hear no counter-arguments, thank you very much." She said sternly. She turned away from him but quickly pivoted, "And one more thing," she added, facing him once more, "no more escape tactics like this one."

"You got it." the Doctor saluted, and Donna responded with a nod.

"Now if you'll pardon me, I'm off to take a hot shower. When you wake up I'll have something for you in the kitchen." The Doctor's eyes lit up at the promise of Donna's kitchen treats (they were always pleasing and delicious).

"Get to work, Martian."

"Yes, Donna." He said quietly with a smirk as she sauntered out of the room.

The Tardis was patched up, and would get a nice re-charge after a day or two in the Vortex. The Doctor rested for a few hours, and afterwards he was munching on a blueberry muffin, toasting a cuppa with Donna in the kitchen to another adventure had, and another near-death crisis averted.