I don't own Doctor Who.
Happy Christmas! For context, this is an alternate timeline where the First Doctor left Gallifrey and he left without Susan. But who better than to help him become the man the universe needs than Donna Noble herself?
Please let me know.
The First.
The Bride and the First.
Donna Noble felt butterflies in her stomach as she stood at the aisle, she looked fondly at her father, who was about to give her away to Lance; once she had swapped her arm's position; her dad had had his arm linked through her arm rather than the other way around, so not wanting to cause a scene, she swapped them over. "Sorry," Geoff muttered apologetically before the organ began to play and Donna sighed happily. The congregation stood up as she was escorted down the aisle. Just ahead, Donna could see her fiancé Lance, catch her eye from the front of the church and they smiled at one another in anticipation; Donna couldn't believe her luck; she had been looking for love for a very, very long time, and now she had found it.
Lance was so lovely, handsome and kind. He was the kind of man she had been wanting to have a relationship for a very long time, but she would never have even imagined that she would have a relationship based on someone offering her coffee.
One of the things she'd always enjoyed about temping was how it not only gave her such a wide degree of experience, she'd also made dozens of friends and she'd had boyfriends, but she had never found her Prince Charming. She supposed she was just lucky this time.
As Donna and Geoff began to walk slowly down the aisle, which elicited sounds of appreciation from friends and family alike - except Nerys, of course, who looks Donna up and down with a look of pure contempt.
Donna caught her expression from a distance, her eyes automatically seeking out her mother and Nerys (she was relieved to see her mother's smile, but Nery's sneer wasn't anything to write home about)
Donna inwardly shrugged her shoulders, deciding not to let Nerys get to her, but she hoped even she wasn't arrogant enough to think she could cause problems today; Nerys always loved getting a one up on Donna, but she hoped the blonde had some restraint for today. She and her father were about halfway down the aisle when Donna felt as if the entire world was starting to glow gold.
After watching Lance's eyes widen, it only took Donna a moment to notice that what was happening was wrong, but when she did, she screamed long and loud. She felt as if she were being stretched from the church aisle to….somewhere else; for a moment Donna thought she was seeing stars, planets, and what did you call them? The things with intense colours before she felt herself pass through something before she felt herself being squeezed into a white room with strange round shapes patterned along the walls that made her originally wonder if she was suddenly in a house designed by an interior design student with only a few years of experience working on the job, but what she could not work out was the strange table covered with controls and old fashioned gauges. Standing at one side of the strange object was an old man with swept back white hair with a hawklike expression wearing a black frock coat, a cravat and dark trousers that reminded her of a Victorian scientist or a solicitor.
The old man gazed at her with anger. "Who are you?" He demanded, his eyes scanning her, and she could see the curiosity in his eyes.
Donna looked around the strange white room with the old man, her frightened eyes trying to find a way out of this…whatever it was. "Who are you?"
The old man rubbed his chin thoughtfully, his initial anger fading a little bit. "I might ask you the same question, but more to the point, how did you get inside my ship, mm?"
Donna ignored the question. "Where am I?" When the old man opened his mouth, presumably to ask her another question, Donna let her voice rise with the anger of finding herself here instead of saying her vows to Lance, and she felt this old man was to blame. "What the hell is this place?"
The old man looked at her strangely for a moment, looking around the room and checking the strange console. He lifted his gaze again and sent her an annoyed, suspicious glare. "I think you will find I am the one asking the questions! We are in flight! It is physically impossible for you to be here! The TARDIS defence mechanism is too powerful How did—?"
Donna had had enough. She had been listening to the old man for a few moments, but nothing he was saying was making any sense too her. In flight? HA! Right now it was time to get some answers for a change, and she knew she would get them. "Tell me where I am," she snapped, using the same commanding tone she had perfected over the years. "I demand you tell me right now - where am I?"
The old man took a step back, sniffing haughtily while he clutched the lapels of his jacket. "My dear, you are inside the TARDIS."
"The what?" Donna shouted.
The old man's expression became stormy at the shout. "The TARDIS, and I must say I still have questions-."
"You have questions!?" Donna snapped back as she became increasingly angry and agitated. "I was in the church! I was going to get married when I saw a gold light surround me and I find myself here in….what did you call this place, the what?"
"The TARDIS!" The old man snapped back, genuinely frustrated as he turned to the console and he began fiddling with them; Donna didn't know what he was doing, but she was too angry and agitated to care if it was dangerous.
"The what?"
The old man stiffened with annoyance while he repeated what he had been saying for the past few minutes. "My dear, are you hard at hearing? This is my ship. It's called the TARDIS."
Donna scoffed angrily. "That's not even a proper word. You're just saying things."
"I assure you, my dear, I am not just as you put it so eloquently," the old man repeated her last spat remark with visible disdain, "saying things. Now answer my own question; How did you get in here?"
Donna went rigid with rage, although she was unsure what pissed her off the most, the old man mocking what she'd just said or this whole mess. "Well, obviously, when you kidnapped me. Who was it? Who's paying you? Is it Nerys? Oh, my God, she's finally got me back," Donna threw out her arms, "This has got Nerys written all over it."
Alright, so she didn't know how Nerys had done this, but ruining her wedding was right up her street. Deep down, as she gave it some thought although she wasn't thick enough to just let the old man see that she was starting to doubt her accusation. Never give them the satisfaction to know you knew they're not responsible, Donna had learnt the lesson a long, long time ago.
The old man was watching her rant in disbelief.
"I assure you, I have never met anyone known as Nerys? Is she a rival?"
Donna was too angry to hear everything he had just said. "Your best friend."
The old man took a deep breath. "My dear, I have just said I have never met this Nerys person. Also, may I ask why are you dressed in that white dress? Does it symbolise something?"
"I'm going ten pin bowling," Donna spat sarcastically before she shrieked, "Why do you think, Dumbo? And yes, this does symbolise something! This is a wedding dress, y'know, when a man and a woman get married. This dress is to commemorate the occasion!" She snapped mockingly, remembering how he'd mocked her in turn. Game set and match, "I was halfway up the aisle!"
The old man turned back to the console and he fiddled with the controls whilst Donna walked around, ranting. "I've been waiting all my life for this. I was just seconds away! And then you- I dunno, you drugged me or something!"
"I have not done anything!" The old man snapped, his voice rising as well to match her own. "I do not understand how you got inside my ship, nor do I know a way of getting you back."
But Donna was too angry to hear him. "We're having the police on you! Me and my husband - as soon as he is my husband - we're gonna sue the living backside off ya!"
The old man snorted. "I think that would be unlikely, my dear," he sniffed before he seemed to take notice of her. Donna was storming around the console room, trying to find a way out, but she kept a watch on the old man before she saw him nod to himself. "My dear, I think you need to brace yourself."
The old man's long fingers adjusted the console controls before the wall split in two just behind him. Donna took a step back for a second before she realised that the two halves of the wall were doors.
Donna rushed over to them, her mind shutting down with the instinct to flee. The old man followed her in alarm, shouting urgently, "No, wait a minute my dear! Stop! Wait a minute!"
But too late - Donna had already reached the doors and she found herself looking at the bright and admittedly beautiful sight of a swirling cloud of colours with the backdrop of space. Her mouth fell open slightly as she took it in. She pinched herself, wondering if she was sleeping and dreaming or hallucinating because there was no way this could be happening at all.
But it was.
She wasn't asleep.
She wasn't dreaming, and she certainly wasn't hallucinating. Donna was so taken by the spectacle and was looking around in shock that she didn't even hear the old man walking over to her before she heard his voice, now unusually gentle. "You are in space, orbiting the Crab Nebula. This is my... space-ship. It's called the 'TARDIS'."
"How am I breathing?" Donna found herself asking. She was partly ashamed of the question; they were in orbit above a supernova of all things, and here she was asking about how they were breathing.
But the old man didn't seem concerned or bothered about that question. In fact, now she was coming back from la-la land, Donna was becoming convinced the old man didn't know much about socialising. He just took the question onboard without question. "The TARDIS is protecting us."
Donna couldn't do anything more than accept that question. There wasn't really anything she could really add, but she wanted to know more. The sight of the Crab Nebula, she thought that was what the Doctor called it, had thrown her out of her rage. "Who are you?"
"I am the Doctor, my dear. And may I ask who you are?"
"Donna."
The old man - the Doctor - nodded, but he was looking her up and down; Donna tensed, and her hand prepared for a slap; now she had calmed down, she was starting to see that the Doctor was not a threat, but if he touched her she would give him a slap he would never forget. "Are you human? From Earth?" Donna was left surprised by the question. "Yeah. Is that optional?"
"It is for me."
Donna glanced around at him, startled by the implications of the reply, and she went over what he had said earlier, how he didn't seem to know what a wedding dress was although at the time she'd assumed he had some kind of dementia, but the supernova… humans didn't have ships that could travel fast into space like Luke Skywalker and the Millennium Falcon. That meant…. "You're an alien."
It was a statement.
The Doctor nodded solemnly. "I am."
Donna took a deep breath, wondering if she should be frightened before she glanced at the doors. "It's freezing with these doors open."
"Then let us go back inside the ship, my dear. I still have questions. There is no way a Human Being can lock itself onto the TARDIS and transport itself inside," the Doctor said thoughtfully as he pressed his knuckle to his hand. "I shall need to do some tests, my dear. I need to understand how this had happened.
Donna stiffened at the word tests, and her mind instantly flashed to all of those stories of alien abductions. Her mind conjured up an image of herself laying on some laboratory table where the Doctor was cutting her up while her dress was torn to pieces, ruined beyond comprehension while she screamed and begged him to let her go. Well she wasn't going to have that. She slapped him.
The force of the blow made the Doctor stagger back and spin in a circle - for one horrible moment, Donna remembered how old the Doctor actually was, but for a man who was so fragile, he recovered quickly. The Doctor glared at her indignantly. "What was that for?"
Donna yelled back at him. "Get me to the church!"
The Doctor took a deep breath and he went back to the console, rubbing his cheek absently from the blow. He began adjusting the controls, hoping that he could get his unwanted passenger away from him.
Author's Note - Will the Doctor be able to get Doctor to the Church, or will they wander lost through time and space?
