Author's note: This chapter was exhausting to write. It had so many iterations and none of them felt quite right until I finally listened to my beta and just sat down and started typing. The words just started flowing and they didn't stop... I'm sorry for the long delays and I can only hope that I'll be able to update more frequently but RT is not being kind to me right now and these characters are so much larger than life that they sometimes yell so loud I can't hear what they're saying. Thank you everyone for sticking through my long dry spells, and I hope you enjoy this latest installment... BMG, I love you girl! You're my sanity!
The Doctor winced at the sudden silence in his mind as he looked across the vaulted space in front of him, his eyes flashing first from the unlikely appearance of the Metacrisis Doctor and then to Jenny before darting to the only other entrance into the shattered control room. He looked to Donna and saw that she was looking straight ahead at his Duplicate, but he could tell by the tightening of the corner of her mouth that she wasn't happy.
"There's just the two of us, Dad. There was no one else when I first found Alec and the Tardis."
The Doctor jerked at Jenny's words, his racing hearts slowed as he realized that his world wasn't going to be completely ripped apart today. "No one else? What happened? She stayed in Pete's World? And who's Alec?"
Donna snorted at the Doctor's rapid fire questions, her gaze shifting from the Doctor to the Metacrisis Doctor before she shook her head and hurried across the cavernous space to his side. "Doctor, he's hurt. Why don't we see what we can do to help before badgering him with a million questions?"
The Metacrisis Doctor looked up at her, his blue eyes were dull with pain and it was obvious that he wasn't able to move very much though he tried to sit up straighter when she knelt by his side. The movement caused him to groan softly in pain before he fell back against his makeshift pillow and simply lay there looking up at her. "I can't believe you found us and you're really here!" He blinked his eyes several times, almost as if he was trying to convince himself that he wasn't dreaming once again.
Wilf looked at the Doctor, completely confused as to who this man was but he was obviously someone that the Doctor and Donna knew well. He walked across the space to Donna's side to see if he could do anything to help the man who was lying on the floor obviously suffering from some kind of illness or injury. "Hello, Alec, was it? I'm Wilfred Mott, Donna's grandfather. Where are you hurting, Son?"
Wilf was surprised when those blue eyes looked up at him with something akin to wonder, the gaze was disturbingly intense even as a lone tear slid down the strange man's cheek. "You're alive!"
Wilf rocked back on his heels, feeling his world beginning to spin as he listened to the strange man's words. "Of course I'm alive, Son. How else would I be?"
Donna looked up at the Doctor, trying hard to keep her thoughts as still as possible as she was trying to focus only on the Metacrisis Doctor and how they could best help him. She had felt a flash of bitterness when the Doctor's first question had been to ask after Rose, but it quickly faded when she'd felt the panic that had filled his mind at the thought of seeing his former companion again. He obviously had expected to have to deal with an overly emotional reunion, one that if his panicked thoughts were any clue, he hadn't looked forward to.
She wasn't sure how she was feeling right now, but she couldn't focus on her emotions when it was obvious that the Metacrisis Doctor was hurting and needed their help soon.
"What happened in Pete's world? Is this the cutting that I gave you? And why did you get to be ginger?" The Doctor finally closed the distance between them, his hearts pounding as the pieces of the puzzle from the augers were finally starting to fall into place. He could hear the prophecy begin echoing through his mind again, each word exploding through his consciousness until he thought he might go mad. Were Alec and Jenny the ones that the prophecy was referring to shattering fate's bonds to return? But how could finding the two of them be a bad thing? The Doctor was confused and off balance and it was a state in which he so rarely found himself that he was finding it difficult to focus on any one thought.
Alec just laughed weakly, his head turning to catch the Doctor's turbulent gaze just as his progenitor pulled the sonic screwdriver out of his pocket and started to scan his body. "I didn't exactly choose the body that I regenerated into, Doctor. It probably had something to do with Donna's influence more than anything."
"Hang on a minute, what did my Donna have to do with you being ginger?" Wilf leaned forward at the strange man's comment, his gaze darting to Donna's face just in time to see the color drain from her cheeks.
"Because he grew out of me." Donna said in a tiny voice, her eyes widening by slow increments when she remembered everything that had happened after the Metacrisis. The rush of memories overwhelmed her and she felt a part of her heart shatter when she realized what exactly he'd meant when he had said those words. "You're my son."
"Son? You had a son with the Doctor and didn't tell us?"
Donna shook her head at her grandfather's words, tongue moistening suddenly dry lips, she murmured, "It wasn't like that, Gramps. Well it was, sort of. It's all really complicated. He's the other half of the metacrisis. He grew out of the Doctor's severed hand."
She could tell by the look on Wilf's face that she was just making it worse, she looked back to the Doctor and Alec, pleading with them to try to help her explain what had happened to have him grow out of a severed body part.
"He grew out of the Doctor's hand? What, like a worm?" Wilf asked.
Alec laughed weakly when he heard Wilf's question, the words almost exactly what Donna had said when he'd first come into existence. "No, not at all like a worm, Wilf."
The Doctor paused in his scanning at Alec's comment, his gaze going distant when he remembered everything that had happened that had ultimately led up to the metacrisis. The memories were still painful and filled with so much regret that he found himself hesitant to recall them, but Wilf was struggling to understand and the Doctor found that he didn't want Wilf to think that he had just dumped Donna after they'd apparently had a child together without so much as a by your leave. He found that he desperately wanted Wilf's approval and the thought that Wilf might be disappointed or ashamed of him filled the Doctor with a peculiar sense of anguish.
"I'd been injured on Earth by a Dalek and I was about to regenerate, but I couldn't risk changing in the midst of a crisis so I channeled the excess energy into my severed hand. The energy then lay dormant waiting for a spark to ignite and Donna was the one who provided that spark."
Alec picked up the story when the Doctor fell silent, the Doctor's gaze going distant as he found himself reliving the terror that he'd felt when the Time Lord consciousness was first awakened in Donna's mind. "When Donna touched the case that contained the hand, I grew out of that hand but I also grew out of Donna's energy which combined with the Doctor's in the instant she made contact."
Wilf's eyes grew wider by slow degrees as the enormity of their story finally hit him. "I have a great grandson?!" He turned back to look at the man who was lying so injured on the ground in front of him, feeling the tears well up in his eyes as he sat down hard and repeated, "I have a great grandson."
The Doctor winced when he heard Wilf's words, his eyes turning to focus on Donna as he felt the memories of the Metacrisis nearly pull her under. Dropping the sonic in a rush, the Doctor turned to Donna and pulled her into his arms while his mind tried to make sense of the emotions that were racing through her mind. He was completely unprepared when she burst into tears.
"We left him behind before I ever even got to know him. Why did I agree to leave him behind? Why would I ever agree to that?"
Wilf looked up at Donna's words, feeling anger at her words as he looked at the Doctor and demanded, "Why did you leave him behind, Doctor? Where did you leave him?"
The Doctor was shaking his head even as he was comforting Donna, his eyes shifting down to Alec as the man struggled to sit up when Donna had burst into tears. "You need to lie still, I don't understand what's happened with how you were able to regenerate or even why you're languishing in regeneration sickness but you definitely shouldn't be moving right now."
Alec scowled up at the Doctor before he settled back against his pillow, jumping slightly when he felt Jenny lean over and place a cool compress against his forehead. He reached up and grabbed his sister's hand, his own emotions were fragmenting as he felt the bond between the three of them starting to flare back to life. He felt the sorrow that was pouring from Donna's mind and the Doctor's own regret at the decision that had left him stranded and alone in Pete's world. "She didn't abandon me, Jenny. She didn't want to leave me behind, and neither did he."
Jenny smiled at Alec, relieved by that revelation though it just made things even more confusing than before. "If they didn't want to leave you behind, then why did they?"
The Doctor pulled away from Donna and looked at Jenny, his own gaze was tortured when he looked back down at the man who had been his duplicate but then became so much more. "I'd discussed it with the DoctorDOnna and she said he needed to be left in Pete's world with Rose. She was the one who convinced me that Rose had to return with Jackie and that he should return with her. So that Rose could finally have a chance at happiness." His breath caught as he remembered how Donna had persuaded him that it was for the best, that his duplicate needed to find his own way and that he couldn't do that living in the Doctor's long shadow. She'd sounded so convincing and the Doctor had felt guilty enough about all the twists and turns that Rose's life had taken because of him that he hadn't really needed much convincing. He'd actually been thinking of a way to help Rose find happiness once she'd found him again on that dark London street, but everything had happened so fast and then the Metacrisis. It'd seemed like the perfect solution to give Rose the love that she'd jumped across dimensions to find.
"She wanted you in Pete's world for a reason, I just wasn't able to find out what that reason was before…"
"Before the end." Alec finished for him.
The Doctor looked at Alec and nodded softly, "So you felt what I had to do to save her?"
"Yeah, I felt what you had to do. It knocked me out for several days, and then there was only silence." Alec grunted in reply to the Doctor's question, his eyes squeezed shut when he remembered those first agonizing days after his bond with the Doctor and Donna had been forcibly severed. A screaming void had opened within him and had never been filled until this very moment when the three of them were in the same room together again.
Donna's eyes widened when she felt those memories flash through his mind, her lip quivered as she fought against the rush of tears and reached down to take Alec's other hand. "I'm so sorry you thought we abandoned you. I'm sorry that you were all alone in that other world with nothing and no one to call family."
"Who's this DoctorDonna that you mentioned, Doctor and why would she want you to leave Alec behind?" Wilf asked the Doctor with a confused frown, his thoughts were scattered as he was trying to follow the crazy conversation that seemed to jump from topic to topic. It was all so fantastic that he was finding it difficult to believe he wasn't dreaming. Donna had a son with the Doctor and they'd left him behind for some reason before the Doctor had brought Donna back to Chiswick without her memories.
The Doctor winced when he heard Wilf's question, his eyes flicking to Donna before he replied, "She was Donna during the metacrisis. She had all of my knowledge and power at her disposal, but I still can't understand why she would've wanted Alec to be left behind."
Wilf shook his head, even more confused than before the Doctor answered his question. "But if she was Donna, wouldn't that mean Donna…?"
"No, Gramps. She was a completely different entity than I am. She had knowledge and foresight that I couldn't hope to understand, and it was that knowledge that was ultimately killing her and killing me."
The Doctor frowned when he heard Donna's words, something tickling the back of his mind that he couldn't quite put his finger on but when he tried to focus on it, it skittered out of his reach.
Blowing out a frustrated breath when he couldn't make sense of the puzzle that Donna's Time Lord self had left behind, he turned back to Alec and asked, "What happened with Rose? You two were supposed to be happy and build a life together."
Alec laughed out loud at the Doctor's words, the sound cut off by a wince of pain as he felt exhaustion begin to drag at him once more. "I wasn't enough like you for Rose's taste, Doctor. I was too angry and too much like Donna in the end, though she tried to convince everyone else in Pete's world that I was a fraud and couldn't be trusted. At least she felt that way until she realized that I was about to regenerate and she was going to lose the only tie in the universe that she had left to you."
The Doctor frowned at Alec's words, shocked when he heard the absolute venom in those statements. "I don't understand. You were my duplicate and she'd seemed so happy to have the chance to finally grow old with me… er you." The Doctor's head cocked to the side as he looked once more at the completely different man lying in front of him. "For that matter, you weren't supposed to have the energy to regenerate. You only had a single heart, and now you've got two. What happened?"
Alec sighed softly, his eyes getting heavy as he replied, "Doctor, I don't know what happened. I only know that the Rose that we knew before Pete's world was dead and gone a long time before the events of the Crucible. You knew she punched holes through reality just so she could return to you, yet you ended up rewarding her. Then, you betrayed her when you returned her to Pete's world and I don't think she ever quite forgave you for that. But can we please talk about that later, Doctor?" Alec very carefully avoided answering the Doctor's last question, his own mind was still fuzzy with the details and the agony of his recent death wasn't something that he was particularly eager to revisit just yet.
He squeezed Jenny and Donna's hands even as he looked up at Wilf and smiled broadly at the feeling of acceptance that had been missing from his life for so many years. "You, Sylvia and Wilf had died in the other universe. Casualties of the second great Cyberman wars and I wanted to take a name that I knew you had always liked, Donna, since I refused to continue being called the Doctor. You'd always liked the name Alec, so I asked to be called Alec Noble."
Wilf sniffled loudly and leaned down to carefully hug his great grandson, "I'm so happy to finally meet you, Alec. So very, very happy that you've found your way back to us."
Donna smiled through her tears, nodding softly even as she looked back to see the Doctor was slowly coming to accept that his duplicate was actually their son. The hard edge of worry and anger was fading from his mind and he was opening his thoughts once more to both her and the Metacrisis Doctor, their minds linked together once more just like it had been aboard the Crucible and Alec was finally complete.
Donna blinked when the golden link suddenly flared into brilliant life between the three of them again before it grew to encompass both Jenny and Wilf. She still was uncertain what that link was but its sudden reappearance caused her heart to skip a beat.
The Doctor and Alec both jerked when they felt that flash of brilliance in Donna's mind, the golden strand undulating between the five of them before it finally faded away again. "That's what you've been seeing for the past year, Donna," The Doctor said excitedly. "You've been seeing Alec and Jenny moving through the universe, first towards each other and then finally guiding us to them. You were seeing our timelines finally all coming together again."
Jenny was crying openly, her mind was just barely brushing against the connection between Donna, Alec and the Doctor and she found that she wanted so much to be a part of their bond. She once more felt like an outsider and she was so tired of being alone. Her untrained mind tried to open up to the three of them, but she floundered and felt a stab of pain lance through her temples before she tried once more and finally gave up with a soft whimper of defeat.
The Doctor turned to look at Jenny when he heard her dejected whimper, his hearts constricting at the weak flutter of her mind against their bond before she subsided in defeat. He leaned over Alec's prone form to take her other hand into his, startling her when he entwined her fingers with his own. "Open your mind, Jenny. Just let the barriers down and I'll show you the way. You're part of our family too."
Wilf looked at the Doctor when he heard him speak to Jenny, a soft smile teasing the edge of his mouth when he saw them hold hands in order to complete the circle. "Does this make you my great granddaughter then?"
Donna laughed softly, her own gaze warm when she looked into Jenny's tortured gaze. "I'd love to have you for a daughter, Jenny, if you'll allow it."
Jenny only cried harder when she heard Donna's question, her hands shaking while she hesitantly let the barriers fall in her mind. Her eyes locked with her father's when he smiled into her weeping gaze, his mind gently reaching out to hers in order to guide it into the mind link that the rest of them had shared since the Crucible. Her entire body was suffused with a warm glow when she felt the warmth and love pouring from the three of them, all the rage and pain that had kept her running for over a century finally started to melt away when she tasted the word family.
"Donna… I've always thought of you as my mum, even back on Messaline though you said that you and the Doctor weren't like that." She laughed through her tears, her hands shaking uncontrollably in her father and brother's hands. "I always dreamed of finding you and Dad again, and finding you both together." She hiccoughed softly around the tears that were falling uncontrollably, her hands tightened convulsively around her dad's when she felt the dark places that he kept under very careful control.
He was looking at her, all the sorrow and loneliness that she had felt over the last century of her tortured life were echoed in her father. The depths of his pain and suffering were almost more than she could bear and she felt her father gently guide her away from those memories and back into the happier times that he and Donna had shared together.
"Oh ho, this is brilliant! Welcome to the family, Jenny! You and Alec can call me Gramps." Wilf sat up, wrapping his arms around his only granddaughter and feeling like the world was finally complete.
Alec chuckled softly at Wilf's words, blinking tiredly up at him before he whispered, "I've been dreaming of calling you Gramps for years."
The Doctor pulled his hands away from Donna and Jenny, wiping at his eyes with a soft laugh and picked up the sonic that he'd dropped so that he could continue scanning Alec. "How long have the two of you been here? You're not showing any signs of coming out of the regeneration sickness, Alec. In fact, according to my scans you seem to be destabilizing and getting worse."
Jenny gasped at her dad's words, her grip tightening around Alec's hand before she blurted out, "I knew he was getting worse, Dad. He's been sleeping more and more and the Tardis has been losing more power as well. I don't know, it's almost as if while she's getting weaker, she's taking him with her."
The Doctor frowned at Jenny's words, his hands fumbling his glasses on before he stood up and made his way over to the shattered control console. He gently patted the faintly glowing controls, his expression one of sorrow as he started to flip switches and turn a few dials to see if he could get her to bring any information up on the lone remaining screen. "Hello, girl, you've taken quite a beating haven't you, bringing Alec back to us. Why don't you let me see what I can do to help you."
There was a weak pulse of light in the corals directly over the Doctor's head before a soft groan echoed through the space around them. The Doctor smiled when he felt the tentative touch of the Tardis, surprised at how young the mind was that finally connected with him.
He closed his eyes and gripped what was left of the control console tightly, his mind opening to the ship and letting her connect with him and through him to her parent. There was a brief pause and then a blinding flash of pain that nearly drove the Doctor to his knees when the Tardis plunged into the Doctor's mind and connected with the young Tardis that was even now slipping further away.
"Doctor!" Donna cried out when she felt the blinding flash of pain from the Doctor before he quickly threw her out of his mind and suppressed their bond. Her hand flew to her forehead when she felt the yawning chasm open wide within her, but that didn't stop her from jumping to her feet and running to his side. "What's happening, Spaceman? Tell me what to do!"
The Doctor's head was thrown back and his eyes were open wide as his lips parted to let out a low cry of pain. His hands were clenched tightly against the controls before they began flying over the dials and levers seemingly at random, each touch echoed through the Tardis before he would move on to the next sequence.
Jenny came up beside Donna, her hands clenching uselessly at her side while she and Donna watched the Doctor move like a man possessed. "He blocked me out. He hasn't deliberately blocked me out for months, Jenny."
Jenny jerked when she heard Donna's words, her head turning back to watch her father while his hands continued to move faster and faster over the controls. "Maybe he didn't want to hurt you, Donna. He does look like he's in pain."
"But I could help him!"
"You couldn't help him, Donna. If anything, you might've become lost in the link between the three of them if you'd stayed." Alec's exhausted voice echoed up from where he was laying with Wilf keeping watch over him.
"The three of them?" she asked, confused.
"Yes, he's opened his mind so that my Tardis could connect with his Tardis and she's guiding his hands right now." He paused, his eyes sliding closed before he took a deep breath and smiled. "He's helping stabilize her until we can get her into a growth room back in his Tardis."
Donna sagged against Jenny when she heard Alec's words, her body shaking while the rush of adrenaline subsided. She looked at the Doctor's face as he continued to work on the Tardis controls, for the first time noticing the faint flickers in the walls growing in strength and frequency.
The Doctor suddenly gasped and collapsed against the remnants of the control console, his hands were shaking and he caught himself just before he hit the floor.
"Doctor!" Donna rushed to his side, her mind beating aside the barrier that he'd thrown up between them so that her thoughts were able to slide into his mind and feel the after effects of the link that he'd forged between the two Tardises. He flinched when he felt her mind moving in his, but it was because his mind was still on fire from the overload of information that he'd felt flowing through him into the young Tardis. He blinked his eyes open, trying hard to focus on Donna's worried blue eyes before he just let himself sit hard on the floor of the Tardis.
"Donna, I'm sorry I had to block you off so fast. I wasn't expecting the Tardis to do something like that without warning me first. She's usually more careful of links like that, especially when she knows you're connected to me."
Donna sighed softly before she pulled him into her arms and just held him close to her while his racing hearts finally started to slow down. She found she couldn't be angry at him when he explained the reason for his quick reaction, though she had felt like the world had fallen away from her with no warning. She just hugged him tightly and asked, "Will she make it, Doctor?"
Jenny came back up beside the two of them with a cup of lukewarm water, her eyes belying the very real concern she felt while she waited for the Doctor to answer Donna's soft question.
"Yes, Donna, she'll make it as long as we get her into the Tardis so that she can continue her maturation cycle properly. She's young, a lot younger than I first thought and should never have been able to make the crossing through the Void intact. It's a wonder she's survived this long."
He saw Jenny crouched not too far away from the two of them with a cup of water, her eyes were filled with worry while she listened to him talk with Donna. "Thank you, Jenny. That was completely unexpected."
She smiled when he reached out to take the cup of water, her fingers brushing his softly before she sat back on her heels and asked the question that had been bothering her for the last few days, "Would Alec have died if she did, Dad?"
Donna gasped softly at Jenny's question but was even more surprised when she felt the Doctor nod tiredly against her. "Yes, Jenny. The two of them are bonded much the same way I am with my Tardis, though their bond is unique in that he seems to be the reason that she crossed the threshold into sentience as early as she did. She was dying and she would definitely have taken him with her."
Jenny cried out softly, her hands flying to her mouth but the Doctor wasn't finished. "If we don't get her and Alec into the Tardis soon, then they both still may die."
Donna turned around when she heard her grandfather's soft cry, but it was the tired look on Alec's face that gave her pause. He was looking right at the both of them, his blue eyes were haggard and sunken but the gaze was piercing as he whispered, "She saved Pete's world, Doctor. She saved Pete's world and then made her way through the Void to this universe before finally crashing here because she followed Jenny's timeline."
The Doctor used the control console to pull himself to shaky feet, smiling softly as Donna rose with him and immediately draped his arm over her shoulder so that she could support him. He pulled her close against his side before he made way back to Alec's bedside and melted gratefully to the ground beside him.
"Why don't you tell me what happened in Pete's world, Alec? Or better yet, why don't you let me see it? It'll be easier for you if I do."
Alec looked at the Doctor with a look as close to panic as Jenny had ever seen, his eyes widened and he shook his head before he answered, "No, Doctor. I'm not ready to have you that far in my mind yet, there's too much there… too much that I haven't had a chance to sort through and I'm too tired to go into it much now."
The Doctor frowned when he heard Alec's words but nodded because he'd felt the connection that Alec had with his Tardis and he knew that the Tardis' own injuries were also draining on the small stores of energy that Alec had left. It was no wonder that he wasn't coming out of the regeneration sickness, all his energy was bleeding away into his Tardis and leaving him weaker by the day. The Doctor had never felt so powerless in his life, but he knew that he had to get Alec and the young Tardis to his ship or he was going to lose them both.
"Why don't you rest for a little bit, Alec, I'll start making dinner and when we've all eaten then maybe we can catch the Doctor, Donna and Wilf up on everything that's happened to bring the two of us together."
Alec threw a grateful look to Jenny before nodding tiredly, "That sounds like a great idea, and food always makes me feel better."
"Why don't you let Gramps and I help you, Jenny. Doctor, you and Alec rest while we work on dinner. We can catch up on everything later."
The Doctor's smile was faint when he heard Donna's suggestion, but he found that he didn't have the strength to disagree with her. He was absolutely exhausted after the exchange with the two Tardises and he was no closer to figuring out why they'd all ended up on this world that seemed to be scorched by time. He worried that Alec and Jenny were only a small part of the puzzle, and the bigger parts were just waiting for him when he least expected them.
Laying back against the ground beside Alec, he turned to look at his duplicate, surprised that the man's chest was already rising and falling in the steady rhythm of sleep. He wondered just how bad things had gotten in Pete's world that the young Tardis had had to save it, and what in the world had happened to convince Rose to stay behind.