Author's Note: I've watched the Martian far too many times and I wanted to inject a little Matt Damon's wonder into their visit. Everywhere I go, I'm the first man there... I know that is how I would feel if I ever made it to Mars and I tried to convey that sense here as well.
The threads of fate are drawing tight as the universe marches on. Enjoy!
"Donna, look at this!"
Donna looked up when her granddad's voice sounded over the speaker in her spacesuit, his arms waving frantically in order to bring her attention to whatever it was he had found buried in the Martian sand. The Doctor was bent down a little further beyond Wilf, his sonic screwdriver held in hand as he was studying something interesting in the sand.
Donna had been gazing up at the vast plateau that stretched over their heads and dominated the horizon, each end lost in the dusty haze that seemed to be endlessly swirling around the planet. Olympus Mons was the largest mountain on the planet and easily blocked out over half of the sky as it loomed over them and pierced the wispy clouds that seemed to be nothing more than a lighter patch of blue on the darker sky behind them.
Donna had never felt positively dwarfed by anything in her life, not even when she stood in Vesuvius' shadow and she knew that it was going to erupt in less than 24 hours, but she felt positively tiny in the shadow of this vast mountain.
She shook her head to clear her mind and turned to carefully make her way to her granddad's side. He'd laughed at the difference in the gravity between the Moon and Mars and after a few playful hops had decided to stick to simply walking along the red surface, his feet kicking up tiny little puffs of dust with each step.
Wilf was standing with a shiny black rock in his hand, his eyes sparkling with excitement when he held it out to her and waved eagerly up at the giant that brooded silently over them.
"Would you look at that, Donna?" he asked as he took her hand and dropped the rock into her upturned palm. He closed her fingers around the rock and pointed down at the little hole he'd excavated in the dust to where more rock was visible. "It's obsidian! Probably left over from the last eruption of that monster, but it isn't buried in tons of dirt like everything else seems to be. It's just sitting here right under the surface layer of dust waiting for us to find it."
"We're on the leeward side, Wilf. The wind here tends to scour everything clear and only a fine layer of dust can really collect here before the next sandstorm scours it clean."
The Doctor had returned to their side, his sonic screwdriver tucked back into the pocket in his spacesuit as he looked down at the rock clutched in Donna's hand.
"Oh that's a lovely specimen! Look at the strata line forming nearly perfect concentric circles." He took the rock in his hands and held it up towards the sky where the weak light of the sun just barely shined through the dark crystalline core. He pointed to the faint milky lines that formed around the edge of a few of the circles, his head turned towards Donna as he explained, "The lines are melted sand as the lava rolled along the ground and cooled before being pushed forward and reheated again as the flows continued from one eruption to the next. After a while, the flow would've eventually broken off and left the silica to form this perfect strata as the rock finally cooled."
Wilf was smiling as he looked at the Doctor, his eyes tracing the lines in the surface of the rock that the sunlight was just able to highlight with little sparkles of light.
"Olympus Mons is a shield volcano just like some of the volcanoes on earth, love, but it's the biggest volcano that we know of so far in the solar system, isn't it, Doctor?"
The Doctor smiled at Wilf and nodded before he carefully placed the obsidian back in the sand where Wilf had found it. "You're correct, Wilf, it's actually the largest volcano in the solar system, even the volcanoes on Titan and Io don't hold a candle to Olympus Mons. She's a young volcano and she still has a lot to say when it comes to reshaping Mars' surface."
Wilf looked down at the rock that the Doctor had placed back in the hole that he'd dug in the Martian soil, his fingers twitching momentarily before he felt the Doctor's hand clap him on the back with encouragement. "You know how sharp volcanic glass can be, Wilf. As beautiful a specimen as that is, I don't want to run the risk of you puncturing a hole in your suit when the Tardis is as far away as she is. There will be plenty of opportunity for you to collect souvenirs later in the trip."
Donna chuckled softly at the look of chagrin on her grandfather's face before she took a hold of his hand and let him lead her towards the base of the massive volcano. "Doctor, how often does this volcano erupt?"
The Doctor turned to look at Donna when he heard the trepidation in her voice, his mind reaching out to soothe her when he felt the little spike of fear at the mention of a massive volcano looming into the sky above them. "Don't worry, Donna. It's been millions of years since she last erupted, and she won't erupt again for about another thousand years. She's still a young volcano and will enter another very active phase at that time. A lot of the Martian colonies in this hemisphere will have to be abandoned due to that activity, but it will lead to a new phase of colonization once the activity subsides and the subsequent eruptions will also change Mars' atmosphere to such a degree that terraforming will finally be a viable option in the late thirty-eighth century."
Donna looked at the barren world around her, her eyes wide as she thought of that distant time in the future when the landscape would be transformed by human ingenuity into a living, breathing ecosystem.
"Oh that'd be a wonder to see, Doctor!" Wilf looked as if he too could see into that distant future.
The Doctor looked from Donna to Wilf and just laughed as he started walking back towards the Tardis, "Alright you two dreamers, let's get back to the Tardis. I promised you both a Martian sunset and there's no better view then twenty-five kilometres above us!"
Donna and Wilf hurried after the Doctor, their hands held tightly together in order to make sure that they kept their footing in the ever shifting powdery dust beneath them.
The Doctor kept up a stream of steady chatter as he led the way back to the Tardis, turning every now and then to make sure that they were keeping pace with him before he would then turn back around and continue walking.
Wilf was soon puffing and just as Donna was about to tell the Doctor to slow down a bit, the Tardis came into view through the swirling dust devils that seemed to endlessly wander the face of the planet. She felt her granddad's step quicken just that little bit more so that he could make it into the Tardis and rest for a moment against the corals just inside the door.
"Doctor, maybe we should rest for a little bit here. That last little bit seemed to have been a bit much for Gramps."
The Doctor looked up at Donna's words, the concern in her voice belied by the very real concern he could sense in her thoughts.
"Nonsense, sweetheart, I'm fine! Just not used to walking through all that powder. I just need a minute to catch my breath."
The Doctor reached out to the Tardis, his mind asking the Old Girl to run a scan on Wilf in order to check and see if maybe he was pushing the older man too fast.
The response was instantaneous and the Tardis assured him that other than a healthy dose of adrenaline and some minor aches and pains which were consistent with prolonged excitement, Wilf was otherwise alright and the trip to the top of Olympus Mons wouldn't be overly taxing for him.
"It's just a short hop to the top of the Volcano, Wilf and then we just need to step outside the doors and watch the sun set."
"Now you're talking, Doctor! Let's get this girl moving so that we don't miss the show!"
The Tardis blew warm air over Wilf, even though he couldn't feel it through his suit. Her pleasure at being referred to as a girl by one who had only been traveling with her thief for a few days was plain to both her pilots.
Donna ducked her head with a smile, her hand reaching out to hold her grandfather's while the Doctor scampered up to the control console and programmed in the coordinates for the top of the volcano.
The deck shuddered beneath their feet and the lights flashed and dimmed slightly, before the shuddering stopped once more and the doors swung silently open. There was nothing but a vast open sky in front of them, even the color of the dirt outside the doors seemed to be different, more of a rusty brown then a true red.
The Doctor was the first one out of the doors, followed quickly by Wilf and then by Donna.
"Blimey, would you look at that!"
Wilf had his hand held to his visor as he looked out over the plains below them, he felt that he could see halfway around the planet from this vantage point and he was thankful that the Tardis had set them down a good distance from the edge.
"I can't believe this view, Doctor, it's amazing."
The Doctor joined Wilf and Donna, unable to control the smile at the excitement he heard in both of their voices. He felt like he'd lost his joy of exploration over the centuries and as loss after loss had piled on top of him, he'd forgotten what it was to look at the world through fresh eyes. Even though it was a planet in their own backyard, the excitement that Donna and Wilf felt at being on a new world was refreshing and reminded him once more why he had run away from Gallifrey to wander the universe in the first place.
He took both their hands and turned them towards the western horizon where the sun was hanging low in the sky, the upper atmospheric dust was creating the distinctive white atmospheric rings that had been captured in the earliest images from Martian landers.
"The rings are real! I always thought they were because of the poor cameras on the early rovers."
"Oh the rings are quite real, Wilf. They're the result of dust thrown high into the upper atmosphere by the sandstorms that sometimes kick up around the planet." The Doctor paused when a strong gust tore across the mountaintop. "Speaking of sandstorms…"
The Doctor pointed to the massive black wall that was racing across the plains below, the clouds were billowing higher and higher while massive bolts of lightning were arcing along the leading edge.
"We wouldn't have seen that storm coming down where we were at the foot of the volcano, I'm glad that we decided to come up to see the sunset otherwise we could've easily been lost on our way back to the Tardis."
Donna gasped softly and squeezed the Doctor's hand tight, her head turning to Wilf who didn't seem to be worried in the slightest.
"It would've been fine, sweetheart. You and the Doctor would've gotten us back to the Tardis with that special mind trick that you two have. I'm not worried in the slightest, but I would like to watch the storm roll in if we could. The doors are only a few steps behind us and this may be the only time I ever get to experience a storm like that on another planet."
The Doctor laughed at the confidence in Wilf's voice but he felt that he couldn't deny him the request as the safety of the ship was literally only about ten paces behind them and so he pulled Donna into his arms and together they stood to watch the sun be slowly obliterated by the approach of the planet sized storm.
"Blimey, this stuff gets everywhere!"
Donna moodily shook some red Martian dust out of the throw that she kept over her chair in the reading nook in her room, her eyes rising just in time to catch the Doctor's smile as he made his way across their bedroom to her side.
"Well, it's because you were in such a hurry to change after we got back from Mars. You dragged a ton of the dust back in with you."
She hmphed softly in response to his comment before she gave up and tossed the throw towards a chute that had appeared to the side of her chair. "I didn't realize it had gotten all over the room though, I'll have to ask Ducky if she can help clean the last of it up."
The Doctor burst out laughing and pulled Donna into his arms, his eyes shining down into hers while he dropped a playful kiss to her parted lips. "I thought you wanted to keep things neat and tidy on your own, Donna. Asking the old girl to take care of the mess is cheating."
He waggled an eyebrow at her, the grin deepening when she blushed and stammered in response to his teasing, "Yes well, this is a little different. This dust is all over the place and gets into everything! It'd take me forever to clean it all out and she does do such a wonderful job! I just don't want to get into the habit of leaving everything lying about expecting her to always pick up after me." The last was said with a pointed finger into his chest, her eyes snapping up to his just in time to see the humor fade into chagrin.
"Alright, alright! No need to keep banging on about my housekeeping skills. After nine hundred years I think I'm capable of changing a few things to keep peace on the home front."
Donna laughed when she felt the surge of affection from the Tardis, the old girl adding her own teasing to the mix though she let the Doctor know that she would always look after him no matter what might happen. Donna looked towards the walls with a fond smile. "You're just an old softie where he's concerned, but don't worry I'll help you whip him into shape!"
"Oi!"
Donna looked back to the Doctor with a brow arched, her eyes dancing as she challenged, "Yes, Doctor?"
He grumbled under his breath and opened his mouth to retort when there was a soft knock on the door that interrupted them. "Doctor? Donna?"
"Come in, Gramps!"
Donna stepped easily out of the Doctor's arms as the door swung open and Wilf poked his head around the door. His eyes brightened when he saw them standing together on the other side of the room, his steps quicker than they had been a few hours earlier after they'd returned from the surface of Mars.
Donna could feel the change in the Doctor after he and her grandfather had talked together for hours, and he'd finally been able to let go of some of the pain that had been haunting him for far too long.
They'd spoken about many things in the Doctor's past, not just the events on Mars that had caused him to fall so spectacularly. He'd opened up about his actions during the Time War and had shared how the sense of hopelessness had finally come over him when he'd realized that the fall of Gallifrey was imminent and there had been no choice left to him other than to use the Moment.
There hadn't been enough time to find another option, and if Gallifrey fell then the entire universe was at stake. The time to act had come too fast and with the Daleks focusing all of their attention on the Time Lords, the Doctor knew that he would never have a better chance of finishing the war in one single, monumental blow.
Wilf had simply listened to the Doctor, letting him pour out all of the pain that he had been holding deep inside for so long. And the more Wilf listened, the more the Doctor talked until his throat was sore and he finally ran down the long list of ills that he had been beating himself with for centuries.
Wilf didn't judge him, he had simply asked the Doctor a single question, "Did you do the best that you could during all those times?"
The Doctor had been brought up short by Wilf's question, his eyes widening when he thought back to all the times that he'd had to make a terrible decision. He'd thought of the information he'd had on hand at the time and the people that he had surrounded himself with and he knew the answer to Wilf's question. "Yes, Wilf. I always did the best that I could."
"Then, Doctor, you're luckier than most. Just remember that when you've fallen off your horse."
They'd spent several hours more talking before Wilf had hesitantly brought up the possibility of a Mars walk, and the Doctor finally felt like he could step foot on the red planet without having a complete meltdown.
"I guess I was more enthusiastic than I'd realized out there on Mars, but your wonderful ship has fixed me up in a jiffy!" Wilf enthused. He was careful to not let them know how achy he'd been when they'd returned to the ship, because he didn't want to miss out on any possible adventures in the future.
When they'd gone their separate ways to freshen up, he'd found his tub filled to the brim with a steaming bubble bath that must have had some sort of pain numbing effects because it had soothed all the aches right from his body. He felt fifty years younger and ready to take on the universe again.
Donna frowned when she heard her grandad's words, her worried eyes looking at the Doctor as she asked, "Did you overdo it, Gramps? Perhaps we should take it easy for a few days so that you can rest a bit before our next adventure."
"Oh no, no, I'm just fine, sweetheart! No need to slow down on my account!"
Donna looked at her granddad with a frown on her lips, her expression clearly telling him that she wasn't convinced but Wilf just smiled and hugged her before turning his attention back to the Doctor. "So, Doctor, where are we going next?"
The Doctor looked from Donna to Wilf with a soft smile on his lips, his eyes not failing to catch the look of concern in Donna's eyes and so rather than suggest that they just barrel on to the next adventure he decided that a little caution might not necessarily be a bad thing. Wilf was definitely not up to their usual madcap pace and he didn't want to wear the man out when they were only a few days into their trip.
There was no reason that they had to rush from planet to planet, and really the Doctor was enjoying the time that they were spending just lounging around the Tardis. He had a few ideas about where he wanted to take Wilf next since they had done the tour of the inner planets of the solar system, but he had to admit that he wasn't ready to just hop to the next planet either after the emotional toll that the impromptu trip to Mars had taken on him.
"I was thinking that it'd be nice if we rest for the evening, Wilf and tomorrow how about I take you to see the diamond coral reefs of Kataa Flo Ko!"
Wilf's eyes went wide with the Doctor's suggestion, his arms squeezing Donna tight as he nodded enthusiastically. "An alien world finally! Oh ho, Doctor, you bet I'll be ready bright and early!"
Donna cocked her head when she heard the Doctor's suggestion, her mind flashing back to the incident with the Sontarans. "Isn't that one of the planets that you mentioned when you were trying to convince me to stay with you in the Tardis?"
Wilf looked at Donna with surprise, his head snapping back to the Doctor before he asked, "Hang on, you were going to leave off adventuring with him again? When was this?"
The Doctor looked sheepish at Donna's question and Wilf's subsequent exclamation, his mind snapping within Donna's when he saw the teasing look in her eyes. "Yeah, we don't need to go into that. It was all a misunderstanding."
Donna laughed, "You should've seen him Gramps. He was proper torn up! He was promising me this place called Cotter Polluni's World, and Kataa Flo what's it and some broken moon of something or other, but all I'd wanted was to pop home for a quick visit while he went off investigating the Atmos things."
Wilf's eyes lit up when she mentioned the first visit Donna had made back to them after she'd begun travelling with the Doctor again, his gaze flying back to the Doctor with a laugh, "She pulled your leg did she? My Donna's always good at that!"
The Doctor was trying hard not to look too embarrassed over the teasing, his mind flashing back to the blind panic that had gripped him when he'd thought that Donna had already had enough of travelling with him and she was ready to return home. He'd meant to show her all the wonders of the universe and instead he'd dragged her from one disaster to another where she'd been battered on all sides with destruction, slavery and sorrow.
His reaction to the thought of Donna leaving should have been his first clue that he felt more for her than he was willing to admit, but like so many other times in their relationship he'd just taken the reaction for granted and had continued barreling through the universe until he'd been slapped in the face with the reality of losing her.
Hey, Spaceman, we're together now. It doesn't matter what happened before or how we got here, because we're here now.
The Doctor looked to Donna with a grateful smile, the urge to pull her into his arms was nearly overpowering but Wilf was hugging her and so he settled for wrapping her thoughts in his and just sighing to the tips of his toes when she slid completely into his mind. I know, Donna. It doesn't mean that I'll just forget everything that went wrong before and how things nearly ended. I can't stand to lose you again, Donna. Not until you've lived a long and healthy life, and even then if I can find a way to cheat death then I will.
Donna looked slightly alarmed at his suggestion but her response was cut off when her granddad piped up, "Is this planet safe, Doctor or will we have to wear space suits for this trip too? I'd like to be able to move about without tubes and helmets a bit."
The Doctor looked like he welcomed the distraction, though the silence in his mind told him that Donna wasn't just going to let his last statement drop without mentioning it again later. He just flashed a smile in her direction before he motioned to Wilf so he could lead him over to the large sofa that sat before the flat screen television. "No, Wilf, you won't need a space suit! Kataa Flo Ko is an oceanic paradise that is nearly eighty percent water. The oceans have a high concentration of dissolved carbon in them and the microorganisms evolved to subsist on this carbon. Then they secrete an exoskeleton of sorts that allows them to attach to other organisms much like the coral on earth do until they form vast reefs that are literally made of diamonds. It's an amazing sight!"
Wilf's eyes were wide as he listened to the Doctor's description of the next planet on their list, his attention turning to the television when the screen turned on and displayed images of an idyllic ocean world beneath an azure sky. "Doctor it looks amazing! Are the people friendly?"
Donna smiled as her granddad was sucked right into the Doctor's storytelling and all thoughts of loss and destruction were banished from his mind as he regaled Wilf with tales of his previous visits to the planet.
She sat down on the sofa beside the Doctor and curled into his left side, listening to the rumble of his voice as he and Wilf talked late into the night about Kataa Flo Ko and several other planets that he wanted to take them to visit.
The next several days passed in relative quiet as the Doctor and Donna found excuse after excuse to linger in the Tardis in order to give Wilf some time to recuperate from his first two rapid fire planets. They wanted to draw out the enjoyment for the older man and so by tacit agreement, they both decided to take him exploring parts of the ship that even Donna had never visited.
He'd seen the history room, with its silent sentinels that stood guard over the last knowledge of the planet Gallifrey. He'd spent nearly a full day in that room, simply wandering from glyph to glyph as he finally understood a little better the enormity of the Doctor's loss.
He had been very quiet that evening, simply asking the Doctor questions about his home planet and things that were sure to elicit happy memories for the ancient alien. Donna had smiled as she'd watched her grandfather hang on his every word and ask more questions that led him to open up in ways that he'd never done before except to her.
They'd explored the arboretum even further and went into the special Gallifreyan gardens where the Time Lords most sacred plants were kept, though the Doctor had kept schtum on just what uses those plants served.
Donna looked strangely at the Doctor, her fingers lingering over a particularly luscious blue flower that seemed to vibrate against her fingers in a strange rhythm that felt almost like the quadruple beat of the Doctor's hearts. "Doctor, I thought you said that the Time Lords were beings of pure logic and knowledge, that they'd long since turned their backs on superstition and other lesser pursuits. Why would they still have sacred plants if they didn't believe in gods or other higher beings?"
The Doctor smiled at Donna, his fingers drifting over hers in a gentle caress as she cradled the blue flower and she gasped when she felt a powerful jolt right through her mind that originated from the tips of her fingers.
"This is why this plant and all the plants in here are sacred, Donna. They're all connected to each other in a way that is similar to the Nexus on Bellatrix, and they're used in some of the oldest Time Lord Ceremonies specifically because of the properties that they possess."
Donna's fingers twitched beneath the Doctor's, her eyes had flown to his and her breath had caught when she saw the faint flash of a golden fire between their fingers before it faded away.
"What are you talking about, sweetheart? It's a beautiful flower but I don't feel anything different about it from any of the others."
Wilf was bent over nearly double with his face pressed close to the gorgeous bloom, his eyes were closed while he inhaled the strange but alluring fragrance that the flower exuded.
"You wouldn't Wilf, it only has an effect on people with telepathic abilities. However when it's dried and mixed with several other blossoms in this part of the garden, it helps to open the mind of anyone in close proximity so that even non-telepaths can share in certain rituals and ceremonies."
"That's what you meant when you told Jack that there was a psychic element in your people's wedding ceremony."
The Doctor nodded even as he pulled her hand away from the blossom. "Exactly, Donna. They'll be able to see the bonds forming, just like you did when you first gained your sight on Bellatrix."
Wilf looked up at the Doctor, rooted to the spot for a moment when he saw the look that the barmy alien was giving his only granddaughter. He felt his heart full to near bursting because Donna was finally happy and loved, and that she had found such a man as the Doctor to be her partner in everything.
He wished more than ever that he could show Eileen how happy Donna had become and what she'd accomplished since she'd met the Doctor but he knew that wherever Eileen was, she was looking down on her granddaughter and smiling.
The Doctor pulled away from Donna with a start, his head turning to see Wilf looking at the both of them with a silly smile on his face and it was enough to cause the blood to rush to the Doctor's cheeks. "I'm sorry, Wilf. I tend to lose myself sometimes when I come to this part of the gardens, it reminds me of the ancient rites that the Time Lords had all but turned their backs on. It also reminds me of why I was such a renegade and never fit into Time Lord Society particularly well."
He laughed softly as he led the way out of the gardens and back towards the control room, his steps light and unhurried so that they could enjoy the moment just a little while longer.
"Why didn't you fit into Time Lord Society, Doctor?" Wilf asked, not knowing about the emotional minefield into which he had just blundered.
Donna squeezed the Doctor's hand tightly, but he merely reached over and patted her hand in order to let her know that everything was alright. I'm surprisingly at peace right now, Donna. I don't mind him asking.
The Doctor turned to look back at Wilf and said with a laugh, "I cared too much about taboo knowledge and forgotten lore. Oh and I interfered in other species business far too often for my own good. I guess you could say that I was a little bit of a troublemaker."
Wilf laughed at that admission, "Oh don't let Sylv ever hear you say that, Doctor! She'll never let it go otherwise!"
"Trust me, Gramps. That's one part of the Doctor's history that I will make sure Mum never finds out about! She has enough to hate him for as it is."
The Doctor sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck, silently agreeing with Donna's assessment of the situation with his mother-in-law. He felt that over time though, the two of them would continue to mend fences and the peace that was the exception would soon become the norm.
"Alright then you two, are you ready for the diamond coral reefs of Kataa Flo Ko?"
Donna watched the grin blossom on her granddad's lips, her mind reaching out to the Doctor with a warm brush of affection even as she nodded her agreement.
"What are you waiting for, Doctor? I know you've been stalling for a few days, but I'm ready to get my feet wet in an alien ocean!"
The Doctor laughed softly at the enthusiastic reaction from both Donna and Wilf and he carefully programmed the coordinates for Kataa Flo Ko in the late thirty-sixth century. It was the perfect time for visitors as it would be during their annual festival of lights and the reefs would be dazzling beneath the daytime sky.
He threw the lever home and as the ship dematerialized, there was a sudden shudder that nearly threw them all off their feet as the Time Rotor stuttered in its casing. The Doctor grabbed onto the rail that encircled the control console in order to stay on his feet, but Donna and Wilf were tossed against the railing.
Wilf cried out as his hip connected hard with the metal rail, but Donna was able to grab him before he went flying over it and ended up hurting himself in a nasty fall. She looked to the Doctor with as close a look to panic as he'd ever seen in her eyes, but all he could do was glance her way while he fought with the controls of the Tardis in an effort to stabilize the ship once more.
He didn't let himself think about the recent events they'd experienced when the transducer failed and the ship had nearly destroyed itself, and his fingers flew over the controls to try to see if the trouble was from another component failure.
The Tardis systems were all normal. Whatever it was came from outside the ship and it was pulling them through the time stream to an unknown time and destination.
"Hang on everybody, we may have a bit of a rough landing."
Donna made sure Wilf wrapped his arms tightly around the railing, before she braced herself for their landing. She winced as the materialization circuits fired, but other than a slight jolt through the ship, their landing didn't seem to be any different than any other landing they'd had before.
She looked up at the Doctor and could see that he was relieved that their landing hadn't been unnecessarily rough but there was an underlying thread of concern running through his thoughts.
"Well, that wasn't as bad as it could've been." Wilf's voice seemed to break the two of them out of their paralysis, and Donna immediately turned to him to see if he was alright.
"Where did you get hit, Gramps? Are you in a lot of pain?"
"Don't you worry about me, sweetheart. It's just a little bump on my hip, I've had worse before and it'll be fine in a tick."
Donna frowned and looked up at the Doctor, about to ask him for the medical kit when she was stopped by the look on his face.
"Doctor, what is it?"
He was staring at the monitors with a look of fear, his eyes turning to lock onto hers when the words of the augers suddenly began echoing through his mind.
"No, Doctor! No, not now! Not with my grandfather here!" Donna couldn't control the panic that was fast rising within her even as Wilf looked from her to the Doctor in confusion.
"What is it, sweetheart? Doctor? What's wrong?"
"No, no, no, NO!"
The Doctor raced down the gangway and threw the doors of the Tardis wide open, hoping that the instruments in the Tardis were just scrambled by her rough ride and that gleaming waters would lay on the other side.
Instead, beyond the doors lay a world that was burning beneath twin suns, the faint outline of a town was just visible through the haze that seemed to hang low to the ground.
He turned back to Donna and whispered, "That's not Kataa Flo Ko…"