AN:
It is incredibly irresponsible of me to start another story when I've got so many WiP's, but I can't help myself. The plot bunny bit and I had to follow my muse.
I'm sorry the summary is so awful, but I don't want to give away the plot just yet. If you know me, you can guess what the pairings are going to be. I just don't want to spoil how I'm going to get there.
Until chapter 2, please read this and let me know what you think. (It's my first time writing Canon). Without further ado, chapter 1!
All he had wanted was a nice, quiet trip for a change. No running, no misunderstandings, no one trying to force him into wedlock - just him and Donna and a peaceful planet with a beach for relaxing on. That was all he had wanted. Honestly. Scout's honour - not that he was ever a scout, but still, the point remained. So, naturally, that was how he and Donna ended up here. Running for their lives through the corridors of a starship (the TARDIS had been in one of her uncooperative moods), while chased by a fleet of angry aliens. The Doctor skidded around a corner, blocking out the threatening diatribe of Donna somehow coming at him from all angles. Around another corner, down the corridor, avoiding the blaster bolts from behind, and there! Waiting just down the corridor, their salvation. A snap of his fingers opened the royal blue doors, he and Donna hurtling in like they were being chased by the very hounds of hell - not that far fetched, considering the consequences if they were caught by this particular faction of Judoon. While Donna slumped on the jumpseat, gasping for breath, the Doctor danced around the console, stabbing buttons, spinning things, and slamming levers almost faster than the eye could see. The urgency to his movements was encouraged by the wailing of the perimeter alarms; the mercenary Judoon platoon were almost at the junction to the TARDIS.
Donna recovered enough of her breath, and joined him by the monitor. They watched in almost silent horror as the Judoon marched endlessly down the corridor towards them. "Doctor" she said, almost too quietly for the brash Chiswick Super-temp. "Do something." The Doctor jumped into action, performing the usual routine to send them back into the relative safety of the Vortex. Nothing happened. The Doctor stood there, gaping almost gormlessly at the controls. It should have worked (he did everything normally, even the thing that emptied out the waste tanks on level seven), and yet the TARDIS hadn't dematerialised. When it finally occured to him (and he blamed the three other hostile planets they'd visited in the last twenty-four hours), the Doctor was stunned enough that he breathed it out loud.
"We can't leave."
"What do you mean we can't leave?!" Donna's shriek stabbed directly into his head. It was definitely overkill, considering that she was standing right beside him.
"The TARDIS won't take off" the Doctor snapped, reaching for the mallet. Maybe a good whacking would entice the Old Girl into cooperating. He was sure she left them stuck in these situations on purpose sometimes. The TARDIS shuddered and groaned, but remained firmly, almost stubbornly, in place. "What's the matter with you?" The Doctor wondered, stroking the coral of the console gently. His Old Girl wheezed and lit up her rotor apologetically. He didn't need a psychic link to understand what she was trying to tell him - they were stuck.
Ten minutes and all of the Doctor's best (and most impulsive) ideas later, they were still stuck. In fact, the Doctor would go so far as to say that their situation had actually worsened. The Judoon, instead of marching through the corridors in pursuit of them, were now hammering on the doors, demanding their immediate and unconditional surrender. Everything about their present circumstances was reminding him uncomfortably of Pompeii. Only this time, they had the silver lining of not having twenty thousand people's lives hanging in the balance. Donna slipped her hand into his, pulling him out of the abyss of guilt and grief thoughts of Pompeii always drove him into. It was the simplest thing to comfort; having a hand to hold as you cross the universe - even when that hand belonged to his brash best friend Donna, and not his beautiful pink and yellow Rose. "What are we going to do, Spaceman?" Donna asked, her attempt at levity falling flat for the both of them. She looked uncertain, not scared but worried. And that? That he was never going to let stand. He had gotten her into this mess, and it was his duty, his responsibility to get her out of it again.
"I'm gonna go out there, let my gob run away with me, and then try and find a way to disable whatever is stopping the Old Girl from taking off. When the coast is clear, she should be able to take you home, and then come and get me again." As soon as he finished speaking, the Doctor registered a pain spreading across his upper arm. Donna had hit him, again! "Oi! What was that for?!" His companion glared at him, outrage snapping in her hazel eyes.
"If you think that I'm going to let you go off and track down some outer space gismo with rhino boy still outside, you've got another thing coming!"
"It's not an outer space gismo, Donna" the Doctor sighed. Although he wasn't entirely sure why he even bothered at this point. For Donna, everything was an outer space something, unless they were safely back on Earth. Donna simply raised her eyebrow with crossed arms, silently daring him to tell her exactly what it was then. There, he floundered. "It's a- Well, it's a-"
"Yes?" Donna invited, her tone sarcastically all ears. The Doctor rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly, unwilling to admit that he had no idea exactly what it was. Fortunately, he didn't have to.
"They've enabled some sort of temporal dampening field" a gentle Welsh accent announced, sounding short of breath. The Doctor spun on his heels, blinking in amazement at the sight of Jack Harkness and a rather well-put together man almost bent double before the console. The Judoon thundering on the door had obviously drowned out the intruder materialisation alarm (the Doctor made a mental note to fix that, make it louder). "We weakened it a little, but our vortex manipulator can't break through."
"Which was when we latched on to your location. Hope you don't mind us hitching a ride."
"Jack?!" The Doctor felt his jaw drop open. And that was to say nothing about the way Donna was feasting on the sight of the fifty-first century human. "What are you doing here?"
"Long story" Jack gasped, flapping his hands at him. "Doc, Into Jones. Ianto, the Doctor. Now get us out of here!"
"How?!" The Doctor raised his hands suddenly, feeling about as thick as he ever had. "No. Shut up. I've got it. If I press this button here, and engage this tertiary system, theoretically we might get enough of a boost to break through the inertia of the dampening field." He glanced at Jack, waiting for the approbation of his genius plan. The Captain, for once, decided not to disappoint. He nodded and joined the Doctor at the console, abandoning his companion for the first time since they'd materialised in the TARDIS.
"Set the coordinates for the Rift; you can drop us home, and refuel at the same time."
It was a brilliant plan. Really it was. It even worked, momentarily. They got off the spaceship just fine, but it was when they tried to leave the vortex for Cardiff that things rapidly went south. If the Doctor was thinking clearly, he would have realised that this was really quite familiar, but given the circumstances, he could be forgiven for not recognising the similarities. The TARDIS jolted and shook, sending them toppling this way and that. Jack lurched into the jumpseat, Donna tumbled into the console, and the Doctor and Into slammed rather painfully into one another before ending up without any dignity on the TARDIS floor. If only that was the worst part, it would have been quite a normal occurrence. But, this was the Doctor, and nothing ever went the easy course with him. Around them, the TARDIS struggled to function, almost unable to resist the natural pull of the vortex. The lights flashed brilliantly, a sharp siren split the air.
The TARDIS darkened. The siren silenced. They fell.
Thank you for reading!
Please review to let me know whether or not to carry on!