Ahhhh, sorry it's been so long! I have had exams, and it has sucked ):
In the time since I have updated, two rather über pieces of DW/TW/SJA news. First: David Tennant has a baby girl! With Georgia Moffat! Who plays… Jenny! Awk. Second: the wonderful Elisabeth Sladen has passed away :( R.I.P., you talented woman.
Disclaimer: "Doctor Who" isn't mine. Honestly. It's RTD's/Moffat's/the BBC's. Whoever owns it, s'not me. T_T
(THE OPENING PART OF THIS CHAPTER IS A CONTINUATION OF JENNY'S TRIP INTO DONNA'S HEAD, FROM – 21. Chapter 20 – JUST SO YOU KNOW! :D)
Remembering
Chapter 27
"I'm here to watch over Donna, Jack Harkness, Rose Tyler, you, and all else the Doctor is connected to," the mysterious voice replied, its soothing voice making Jenny feel suddenly tired, "You must leave Donna Noble's mind soon; the first mental connection is rough on a young Time Lady,"
"How did you know?" Jenny exclaimed. The voice tutted.
"I'm connected to you, remember? Through your father," it told her, "But first, I need to tell you the story of Donna Noble and her last adventure, and you must keep it to yourself. Torchwood may think it's top secret, but all walls have ears."
"Wait…" Jenny cut off the voice, shaking her head to clear it, "Why do you need to tell me? Why not go tell Jack, if you're connected to us all?"
"Because, you are the only person who can protect Donna," the voice exclaimed, "And her life is in more danger now then it ever has been, or ever will be."
Jenny was silent a moment, worried about the life of the woman she considered a mother. Finally, she uttered in a tiny voice, "Tell me everything."
There was a prolonged moment of silence, and Jenny – her mind foggy and sleepy – wondered if the voice had left her, or if it was a figment of her imagination. Then she felt a prod against her shoulder and she turned to come face to face with a woman. She was tall and slim, Jenny knew, but she was hard-pushed to describe her any other way – the woman had a face so exquisite that Jenny could not quite comprehend it. She was still young and naïve, and Jenny didn't think she had seen such beauty since her dad had helped create a new world on Messaline.
"Who are you?" Jenny asked, shaking her head in an attempt to clear it. The woman gave her a smile.
"I am a dear friend of Donna's, and the Doctor's," was the reply, "You will learn more when he returns to you,"
"Dad? Dad's returning?"
"Of course he will return! Give him time."
Jenny shook her head, "No, no. I'm sorry – we need him here now. There's that, that… oh, what's the word… signal, that signal that Torchwood want him to figure out. And, I need him, I miss him. And Donna, we need to know what happened to them…"
Jenny trailed off when she saw the woman's beautiful head shaking, "What is it?"
The stranger's sad eyes turned on Jenny, "You force this knowledge on her, try to make her remember, and think you are helping her – but you are in fact doing the opposite."
"The opposite?"
"The truth about how she has spent the last years of her life will kill her, Jenny."
Jenny gasped sharply, her mind suddenly awake and her mouth open in horror, "Kill her?"
The woman reached out and pressed her hands to Jenny's cheeks, and Jenny instantly felt all the tension and shock melt out of her limbs and her knees sagged slightly, her face turning into the woman's soft touch.
"Worry not, sweet one," came her lyrical voice, "She will heal, in time, and she will be able to know, in time. But it is not time yet, you must let it come naturally – let her change."
"Into what?"
"Sweet child… when Donna lost her memories, it was because she absorbed a Time Lord consciousness during her and the Doctor's final adventure. A Time Lord mind in a human body can never work, so the Doctor had to hide her memories and, therefore, hide the consciousness. It was to keep her safe,"
Jenny's eyes slid from the woman to the eerily glowing door behind her. The woman nodded, "Behind there lie a lifetime of wonderful memories and a consciousness that will kill her,"
"But she can't live without the memories," Jenny whimpered, "What she's doing now – temping, trailing through life without achieving her best – is that living?"
"Worry not, Jenny," the woman tutted, "The memories will return, once her body can accommodate the Time Lord mind. And that Donna – the temp, who trails through life without achieving her best – will die,"
The woman tightened her grip around Jenny, and Jenny felt herself relax so much that she could not even bring herself to panic at the mention of dying. Instead, she hummed gently and casually asked, "Die? Not literally, you mean?"
"Of course not. But there will be changes,"
"And that's what you meant by, 'let her change'?"
"Indeed. For now, let her sleep, let her change, and keep her safe from the members of Torchwood."
"Until when? How do I know when she's ready?"
Jenny could feel herself slipping into sleep when the woman brought her face close to hers and whispered, "When your father shows up, then she's ready,", before the Tardis kissed her and let Jenny return to consciousness.
Jenny stared, eyes wide, at Donna as the redhead's breathing slowly returned to normal. Everybody in the room was still and silent, save for Donna's gasps, when the Doctor suddenly let out a loud exclamation and fell back against the console, holding his head. Every eye in the room snapped to him, and Rose took his arm, worried.
"How is this possible?" the Doctor cried, his voice shriller than anybody had ever heard it.
"Doctor, what is it?" Jack demanded, preoccupied with Donna – his arms, of their own accord, had wrapped around her and held her close as she adjusted to her surroundings. Jack noticed that she was breathing slightly irregularly, and one of her hands was clutching at her shirt.
The Doctor didn't answer, and continued running his hands through his hair roughly, as though he would tug it all out.
"She should be dead. She should be dead!" the Doctor exclaimed finally. Donna scoffed from her position on the floor.
"Yeah, well, that's another thing you're wrong about," she mumbled. Donna's voice seemed to jar the Doctor out of his confusion and he stepped forward, reaching down and helping Donna to her feet as quickly as possible. Jack leapt up too and both he and Martha hovered nearby, arms poised to catch Donna if she fell. However, Donnas seemed perfectly balanced, and after a moment of wobbling and gripping onto the Doctor's coat, she stood on her own.
"How do you feel?" the Doctor asked, peering intently into her face.
"Fine." came the curt response.
"'Fine'? Just…'fine'?"
"Well, I don't really know how I'm supposed to feel!" Donna snapped, "You told me if I remembered anything, I'd die. But…"
"What creatures did we meet with Agatha Christie?"
"Vespiforms – the giant wasps."
"How did you stop the Daleks ending the universe?"
"Easy peasy! I closed all Z-Neutrino relay loops using an internalised synchronous back-feed reversal loop," Donna said smugly. She paused for a moment and commented, "In hindsight, probably not clever of the all-knowing Dalek race to have a button that could do that…"
"Too right," the Doctor chuckled, before reaching into his coat and producing the sonic screwdriver, pressing it on and pointing it at Donna. Donna rolled her eyes and spread her arms wide, knowing exactly what he wanted to do. The Doctor ran the screwdriver through the air in front of her, scanning her.
Other than the whirring of the screwdriver, the Tardis was silent. Wilf and Sylvia sat on the chair, holding each other tightly and watching the events unfolding intently. Ianto and Mickey were leant against the bars, both staring into space, while Jack and Martha kept their positions behind Donna, still ready for her to fall. Rose stood with Jenny and Gwen, occasionally exchanging glances with them and sharing terse smiles. The Doctor suddenly pulled the sonic screwdriver close to his face, studied it for a moment, and then modified the settings slightly and pointing it toward Donna's chest; it made a slight whirring sound, then beeped loudly, making everyone jump.
"It can't be," the Doctor muttered, glaring at his device. Donna smiled sympathetically, as if she had just figured out what the Doctor had.
"Martha," she said, turning around and, without waiting for a response from the young doctor, she slipped the stethoscope around her neck off and handed it to the Doctor. Quickly, the Doctor stuck it in his ears before pressing the little paddle first to the left side of Donna's chest, then to the other side. Then back to the left side, and again to the right.
"This is impossible," he exclaimed, "How…can you…?"
"I felt the respiratory bypass system kick in when I woke up," Donna informed him, pressing her trembling hand to her chest, "But a binary vascular system too? Doctor, how is this possible…?"
The Doctor didn't respond, a large grin splitting across his face, "Donna Noble, you are impossible."
"What's going on?" Sylvia asked, in a shaky voice, "What's happened?"
The Doctor spun around to face her, announced, "Your daughter is brilliant!", and then turned back to Donna and swept her into a hug, laughing and chanting "Brilliant!" as he did so. Donna clung to him, although she shot Jack a baffled look over the Time Lord's shoulder. Jack grinned at her, although he wasn't a hundred per cent sure what was happening.
"Dad, you may have to elaborate a little," Rose told him, touching his arm and effectively ending his celebrating.
"Oh, of course!" the Doctor exclaimed, pulling back and looking at Donna, "You must be a bit confused?"
"Well, duh!"
"Yep, that's because I'm brilliant. You're brilliant… but I'm more brilliant!" the Doctor beamed, stepping away and leaning against the Tardis console, crossing his ankles and rubbing his hands together. Had he been closer, Donna would have slapped him.
"You absorbed a whole Time Lord consciousness from the regeneration energy. All of that energy, a whole consciousness, it would have been impossible to pull out of your head when I erased your mind… so I didn't."
"You didn't?" Donna frowned.
"No. Your memories were less erased and more… hidden. Picture a row of doors; behind your doors are all the memories you have."
Jenny took a sharp intake of breath that went unnoticed from the people around her, as she pictured the white room inside Donna's mind, and the doors that hid Donna's childhood behind them.
"When I erased your mind, Donna, I took all your memories of our time together, and put them behind their own door. A different door, a door you couldn't easily unlock on your own…"
The glowing gold door at the end of the row danced before Jenny's eyes, the door that wouldn't open and was hot to the touch.
"When I put the memories behind this door, the consciousness went with them and was locked away in the deep recess of your mind. I thought that it would lie there, dormant, for the rest of your life. How wrong I was,"
Donna arched an eyebrow.
"The consciousness didn't sit in your mind as I expected. Now that I had hidden it and made it dormant, the consciousness had time to spread throughout your body, undetected, and prepare you to retain it and all your memories without burning up. It modified your body, Donna, so you could uphold a Time Lord brain. When I hid your memories, I didn't subdue it… I just gave it time." the Doctor said, "When it was active in your mind, there was no time to change your physiology, so it was going to kill you. But now your physiology is changed…"
"What do you mean her physiology is changed?" Jenny asked in a croaky voice.
"Time Lord," Donna said quietly, "Not a Time Lord brain in a human body, but a Time Lord brain in a Time Lord body."
"A Time Lady," the Doctor corrected, "The Gallifreyan energy stimulated her system to produce a more Gallifreyan system, like the respiratory bypass system and the second heart."
"You have two hearts?" Gwen exclaimed. Donna nodded, pressing her hand to her chest with a grimace, "And I'm still getting used to it,"
"That'll pass," the Doctor informed her fondly.
"Well, at least I know why I've been getting those chest pains," Donna conceded with a nod to her mother, "And the head pains…"
"Whenever you got too close to unlock that door, your brain reacted to protect you,"
A comfortable silence fell, as everybody absorbed this new development. This silence was broken with a thump, as Wilf fainted out of his chair.
