Hope you enjoy the Donna whump!
Terranoya
Terranoya… It was the name of the game. To Donna, it sounded like a combination of terror and paranoia, and though the Doctor assured her that wasn't possible, as the Tekorians had no understanding of the English language, it seemed a lot like that to her as she stood in line.
Across the sandy arena, she could see him pressed up against the black bars. He was standing isolated from the others in an attempt to make it easier for her to find him. Not everyone sharing the space with him knew someone on the other side; they were lucky, because it was worse to know. He was calling her name, telling her to run, telling her that it would be alright. He apologized relentlessly with his eyes. She couldn't hear any of it over the loud din of the crowd anyway, excitedly cheering for the colors of the teams entering the space and standing in the center of the arena. Red, blue, black, and silver were the colors of their uniforms. This was undoubtedly a popular sport on Tekkas.
It had changed considerably according to the Doctor; it was taking on a much more violent and dangerous theme. They had come to the planet Tekkas to discover and observe just how out of line things had grown to be, but nothing could have prepared them for the way this turned out.
The teams all carried long poles with electrical tasers at the end. They held the poles in the air like trophies and pulled the triggers a few times for fun, to energize the already rambunctious crowd. Sparks flew from the tips in shades that matched the colors of their team apparel. They lined up in a formation that resembled a barricade between the players who were preparing to run, and the players who waited on the other side, behind the bars of the long rectangular cell. The objective was whoever's team tagged the most people, the most times, would win.
A disembodied voice blared over the speakers, announcing the start of the festivities. The audience periodically roared with applause. Donna looked around at the people beside her. There were hundreds of them. An air of tension spread over the atmosphere, and her fellow contestants crouched into position, preparing to bolt when the cue was given. She wanted to help them, even by wishing them luck or making teams among them, but there wasn't time for any of that, and she wouldn't be able to communicate with them anyway.
She looked across to the Doctor again, and took a deep, shuddering breath. She followed suit of everyone else, and lowered herself to the ground, bending at the knees. One knee ghosted against the surface of the gritty dirt beneath her, and both her palms touched the floor. Her eyes and focus rested squarely on her best friend. She knew she wouldn't be able to escape a few shocks, there were simply too many of them. Just get to him, that's all you have to do. Don't stop running, just make it to the Doctor. Make it to the Doctor. Make it to the Doctor.
The Doctor's fingers are clasped around the iron bars in a tight grasp. He is panting with nerves, wishing beyond all hope that Donna was in his place and he could take hers. None of the others near him were worried, they got lucky this time around, all they had to do was hold onto the poor players who actually made it across. Holding onto to someone behind the bars was considered a complete, finished run. It was a thrilling rarity, as more than half of the players fell unconscious (or worse) by the time the game was over.
The buzzer sounds and she bolts. The Doctor can see flashes of her ginger hair, glimpses of her legs pounding against the ground, thighs and calves pumping hard. Her arms sailed like piston rods on a train as they crossed in front of her body. He catches her expression when the first jolt of electricity scorches her. He can hear the scream.
It's a blizzard of fury and chaos once the buzzer sounds. People run in all directions. She just runs straight, which she soon realizes was the obvious choice, and probably a mistake. It isn't long before the first probe bites into her with sharp tendrils of white hot fire, causing her to holler involuntarily against the assault on her flesh.
Some players band together and run across desperately like a school of fish in the ocean. Others simply run. She can't see all of the teams around her as she channels all of her being into reaching the Doctor. Even though she can't see them near her, she certainly feels the tasers when the team members tag her. She bumped straight into someone, and was about to apologize, but she looked in horror at the person dressed in red, who quickly jabbed the pole straight at her chest. She doubled over but didn't waste too much time, she had to keep moving. She felt like they were all cattle running away from being branded though there was no way to escape.
How long had it been? Already she was having to jump over bodies as they dropped. She took a moment to look around but it was useless - she couldn't distinguish the men on teams from the people trying to reach the other side.
When she was halfway across, she could hear the same voice echoing some sort of announcement. The crowd cheered ravenously, and it caused her heart to sink into the pit of her stomach. Suddenly, there was a new noise, some kind of mechanical whirring. She could see spheres rolling on the ground and tripping the people in front of her. Were they motorized? She didn't know how they were controlled or how they were steered, if there were tiny drivers inside or if they were made of some unknown space energy. She jumped over one as it headed straight for her feet, but as her feet planted back down on the ground, another sphere whizzed by and caught her ankle. She landed hard on the dirt.
"Get up, Donna!" She could surprisingly hear the Doctor calling her, which meant she must be closer to the other side than she thought. As she looked up to see how much further she had to go, she felt the tasers bite into the backs of her legs. She hissed through her teeth and scrambled to get away, trying to stand, but they wouldn't stop. People dressed in red, blue, black, and silver swarmed near her and they all took advantage of her being on the ground in such a vulnerable state.
She rolled herself over and started kicking at them. some of them left instantly, but the ones who were there since she first fell were determined to take her out of the game altogether. They kept up their attack and stabbed her all over with their poles. One of the team players dressed in black jabbed her right in the belly, and didn't relent. As he continued to hold the taser in place, an agonized scream ripped itself from deep in her throat though she tried to make no sound at all. She didn't want to give this bastard the satisfaction.
"Donna!" the Doctor shouted helplessly from the bars ten feet away from her. Her fingers are digging into the dirt as the waves of pain continue to roll through her to the core. She can feel the blackness seep in from the corners of her eyes.
"Donna, come on! Get up! Listen to my voice, Donna! Please don't give up!"
She growled in frustration, letting the noise tear itself from her mouth. She slung a handful of dirt at her aggressor, causing him to stumble backwards. She crawls over onto her hands and knees and makes some progress. Finally she stands and limps towards the Doctor's waiting arms and encouraging words.
"Almost there. Almost there. Almost there." She chants quietly to herself.
She huffs in relief when she collapses into the Doctor's arms through the bars. He wraps his arms around her tightly, gathering her as close to him as he could to protect her and show that she made the run and was no longer someone to attack. She was breathing heavily and holding onto the Doctor with as much strength as she had left.
"I've got you, it's okay." He soothes her, stroking his thumb across her back as he refuses to relinquish his grip. They are both low to the ground, Donna unable to stand.
A couple of nasty players who she kicked at before run by and take cheap shots. She cries out and whimpers, her body tensing at the contact.
"That's not allowed, you're breaking the rules!" the Doctor hollers, but they seem to laugh as they run back away. A new wave comes towards them, four of them with tasers ready. Her fingers curl into the fabric of his coat as she prepares for it, and buries her face. He realizes this is just for fun – the game is over now and the zaps they're inflicting are just for kicks, no points are being awarded now. The Doctor pushes away some of the poles before they connect with her body, and yowls as some of them mistakenly send shocks through him.
Finally the swooping stops and the sound of the tasers dissipate. She's resting her forehead against his through the bars now, the game truly at its end.
An employee comes to let the people behind bars free. "I'm not leaving her." he tells the employee when he approaches him – he's the last one in the cell.
"If she's alive you can go out like everyone else and enter the arena to get her." he says monotonously, and steps back.
Donna takes it upon herself to retract her body from the Doctor's arms and stands on shaky legs.
"I'll be right here." She says, and the Doctor runs out of the cell. Not more than a minute goes by and he is running towards her.
"Come on, let's get the hell out of here. Can you walk?" He asks her.
"Just about." She answers softly.
"Alright, lean on me." He delicately takes her weight against him, and helps her back to the Tardis, limping all the while.
"Are you alright?" she asks him. "I heard you yell before when I wasn't looking."
"Yeah, I'll be fine. They got me a couple times when they were aiming for you. Donna, I'm so sorry."
"It's okay, Doctor, I'll be fine, too. Just promise we'll figure out a way to shut that horrible event down. Nobody should have to endure that. I don't care how popular a sport it is or how much revenue it generates."
"We will, Donna. I promise." He looks down at the ground but a splotch of color catches his eye and alarm springs back to life.
"You're bleeding." He reaches out to her stomach and brushes her shirt out of the way, but before he can get a good look, she winces and shrinks back from his touch.
"Don't" is all she manages through gritted teeth.
"I'm taking a look at that when we get home." He says softly but demanding. He knows her too well; she always tries to patch herself up rather than letting him help.
She doesn't argue with him this time, which makes him nervous.
In the medical bay, he gingerly sits her down on a lounge chair, knowing that to scoot up on a medical bed would probably hurt too much.
"Okay, first thing's first." He says aloud, opening up a cabinet. He walks over to her with a tube of ointment. "You're going to have to let me examine your abdomen, but for now hold this down on it to make sure the bleeding's stopped." He hands her a folded cloth. "As long as there aren't any others as severe as that one, you can apply this handy dandy gem to all the other wounds. They'll heal within three days, completely, 100%, as if they weren't even there. Molto bene." He says, handing her the unmarked bottle.
"It has no name." she remarked.
"I know, I invented it, haven't thought of a title, though." He glances at her stomach. "You're not pressing down, Donna."
"That's because it hurts, Dumbo."
He quirks his mouth and crouches beside the chair, hovering his hand over the hem of her shirt. "Can I?"
"Yeah."
He lifts the fabric of her shirt and folds it back. The taser had been onto her skin so long that it not only opened a wound that bled, but it burned her flesh, and then burned what was burned already. It was red, ugly, angry, and it pained his hearts that it was causing his Donna so much pain. He wondered how she was able to walk all that way with his arm around her waist.
"Well?" she asked worriedly, as he had been lost in thought gazing down at the damage. "Will I live?"
"Of course, Donna." He stood up to retrieve a hypospray, and paused when he noticed her apprehension. "You won't feel it. It'll be like a rush of cool air." He said before administering the numbing agent just above her hip bone.
Once the sensation was over, Donna couldn't feel his hands as he wiped away the dry blood. "I can do that, you know."
"I know you can, you're brilliant after all, but letting me help you makes me feel better, which is why I know you're going to let me this time." The Doctor said honestly, and Donna returned his sad, guilty look. He finished cleaning the wound, applying a generous amount of ointment before adhering a bandage to her stomach. "There. You'll be good as new in no time."
He slides over an ottoman and places her ankle on top of it. "What are you doing?" she asks angrily as the movement sends ripples of pain up her leg. She involuntarily yanks her foot away but he holds onto it. "Doctor."
He waits before he answers her, pressing and turning her ankle experimentally, yet with the utmost gentility and care. "It's sprained, Donna. I have to wrap it." He takes care of it within five minutes.
She sighed, standing with the Doctor's help to test out his handiwork. "Not bad."
"I'm glad you approve." He smiled. "Since we'll be staying in for the next few days until you're wounds are healed, how about we order in and put on the telly?"
"Alright then, but I'm picking. We're having sushi tonight, no arguments." She said with finality.
The Doctor's expression flattened. "I'll get four orders of harumaki. What do you want, salmon avocado roll as usual?"
"You're only going to eat spring rolls?"
"You know how I feel about sushi."
"But it's delicious!"
"Not to this Time Lord."
Forty-five minutes later:
"Of all the weird things you eat on other planets – hang on, of all the things you make me eat on other planets, and you won't eat sushi? There are some things about you I'll never understand." Donna admonished. She dipped a piece of salmon sushi into the soy sauce with her chopsticks, and popped the scrumptious morsel into her mouth.
The Doctor eyed her suspiciously as he stabbed a piece of (fully cooked) orange-glazed chicken. "I could say the same about you, Noble."
"Will you just try one piece?" Donna begged after swallowing.
The Doctor quirked an eyebrow at her, chewing on a bite of harumaki.
"Please? Just one, come on." she begged again, this time adding her best puppy-dog-eyes impersonation. She nudged her plate across the table towards him.
The Doctor took one piece and squished it between his fingers, looking very unenthused and very unimpressed.
"Oh, don't play with it, you numpty! Come on," she raised a piece to her mouth, "One, two, three." She counted off, and they both ate their sushi at the same time.
She thoroughly enjoyed watching his face expression range from disgusted, to complacent, to surprised, to happy. "Wow! Can I… can I have another one?"
She burst into laughter at his question, but it didn't last long, as the action caused tremendous pain to flare up from her bandaged wound. She winced greatly.
"Donna?" He stood up immediately but she held her hand up to stop him.
"Fine, I'm fine." But the Doctor could read her like a book; she was struggling.
"Hang on, Donna."
He returned to the table with a hypospray. "Lean back in your chair for me. That's it." When she obliged, he raised her shirt and lowered the hem of her pants slightly, administering another dose of numbing medication above her hip to take away the pain.
He stroked his thumb over the point of application to soothe the skin though he knew it wasn't painful. "Better?" he asked her after a few moments.
"Yes, thank you. Sorry, Spaceman."
"Don't do that, Donna. There's no need." He offered her a small smile, and she returned it, before sitting properly again in her chair.
"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Donna asked playfully, hoping to sway the mood that had taken over the room.
"Mmm… calling to order more sushi?"
Donna chuckled carefully, "No, silly. I was thinking ice cream and telly."
"Only if we can have sushi for breakfast."
"People don't eat sushi for breakfast, Doctor." she pointed out, looking at him strangely.
"We can be the first! Haven't you always wanted to start a trend, Donna?"
"No, and I don't think sushi for breakfast is where I would begin anyway. However, don't let me stop you. If you want to have sushi for breakfast, I think you should have it, just as long as I get to sit next to you and say 'I told you so' in your ear." She finished slyly, with a smug smile gently tugging at the corners of her mouth.
"If that's all I have to let you do so I can eat sushi, where do I sign?" he jokingly replied. Donna rolled her eyes.
"Don't think just because I can't chase your arse down the hall doesn't mean I won't enlist the help of the Old Girl to help me."
The Doctor sobered up quickly - he knew there was almost nothing the Tardis wouldn't do for Donna.
"Two scoops of cookies and cream, coming right up."
