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The Mystery of HC Clements.

The Doctor was not entirely certain about Earth rituals, but listening to everyone dancing and enjoying themselves while the wedding hadn't happened was telling in itself. Everyone seemed to be having a merry time when he and Donna walked inside.

A song was being boomed everywhere, "Does he ride a red-nosed reindeer, does he turn up on his sleigh? Do the fairies keep him sober for a day? So here it-, " but the song was shut off instantly when everyone realised Donna was standing there, resplendent in her wedding dress. The Doctor, standing right behind her, could tell from her tense shoulders she was not happy. He couldn't blame her.

"You had the reception without me?" Donna demanded. A tall dark-skinned man wearing a black blazer and a red cravat and matching waistcoat stepped forwards, a look in his eyes that was a genuine concern but it was spoilt by greedy delight. The Doctor disliked him at once. "Donna, what happened to you?" He demanded, and the Doctor grasped the lapels of his jacket, suspecting this man was the groom.

Something was not right about him. Donna ignored the question. "You had the reception without me?" She repeated, sounding angrier than before.

Hoping to defuse some of the anger and rid everyone of the sudden awkwardness that had begun to permeate the entire reception, the Doctor stepped forwards. "Hello, everyone. I am the Doctor, and I..…found Donna," he introduced himself, stumbling a little at the last part since he wasn't sure how he could mention the true circumstances of their meeting since they wouldn't believe it.

Personally right now the only thing the Time Lord wanted to do was to spend a few hours thinking about what he was going to do next. Donna turned around. "They had the reception without me."

The Doctor sighed, "Yes, I gathered that, my dear."

"Well, it was all paid for. Why not?" A young woman with blonde hair piled high on top demanded scornfully.

"Thank you, Nerys," Donna snapped scornfully. The Doctor raised an eyebrow, glancing curiously between the two women for a moment before he dismissed it. Perhaps their rivalry was a more diluted feud than the one he shared with his old friend, now rival, the Master.

An older woman stepped forwards, gazing at Donna critically. "Well, what were we supposed to do? I got your silly little message in the end. I'm on Earth? Very funny. What the hell happened? How did you do it? I mean, what's the trick, because I'd love to know."

Everyone began speaking at once, and the Doctor heard the tall dark-skinned man whom he was convinced was Lance say, "Where were you the whole time?" Everyone finally stopped talking and bombarding Donna with questions when the bride burst into tears. Everyone started showing more sympathy to Donna. But unseen to everyone aside from the Doctor, the Time Lord raised his eyes heavenwards when he caught the wink Donna sent him. Later on, everyone was dancing and singing together like nothing had happened as Lance and Donna are dancing together, all happy again.

The Doctor was sitting at the bar, watching the scene. He was unable to take his eyes off of the couple. Donna looked happy, but the Doctor was observant enough to see Lance was only putting up a facade which made him wonder if he had something to do with how his fiance had been sent to the TARDIS.

Lance did not look too happy while Donna was hugging him, in fact, the Doctor caught several annoyed looks from Lance directed in secret towards the redheaded woman, but the Doctor dismissed it while he lifted to the singing. It was likely Donna was squeezing him too tightly and weren't married or betrothed couples sometimes meant to be angry with their partners ordinarily, but there was something about Lance that the Doctor did not like.

Why had he looked at Donna with that greedy expression that managed to slip through the cracks of his concerned expression? The Doctor decided to keep an eye on him. "I have wandered, I have rambled, I have crossed this crowded sphere. And I've seen-," the singer continued with the song before the Doctor spotted a man nearby holding a device in his hand. The Doctor stared at it for a moment before he realised it was a mobile telephone. He had seen several of these devices in his visits to the 21st century; by this point, they were sophisticated enough to make a connection to the human internet.

That was when he got the idea.

The Doctor reached into his pocket and pulled out the small palm computer he had taken from Gallifrey before he had left the planet, and he slipped on his spectacles. Effortlessly connecting to the human internet, the Doctor checked for HC Clements.

"Oh, my girl, my girl, my precious girl, what is this man to do. So reel me in, my precious girl." It seemed Donna was right, HC Clements was nothing more than a manufacturer of keys and locks, but the Doctor continued to dig deeper, and he translated the Gallifreyan text on the screen the results of the search.

HC Clements, sole proprietor - Torchwood.

The Doctor frowned and he wrote in a new search. Torchwood was an institute founded by Queen Victoria in 1879, following the monarch's encounter with a werewolf (the Doctor wondered if the creature was a Lupine Wavelength Haemovariform), an encounter stopped by a man known as the Doctor (for a moment the Doctor was tempted to stop reading, wondering in horror if he was reading about his future since it was possible, but he forced himself to read and learn more, mentally prepared to stop or pause if he read of any hints of foreknowledge about events which hadn't happened), who was being escorted by a woman, although the details were too ambiguous about her for the Doctor to get a clear amount of detail of who she was, (the Doctor wondered if his future self, recalling how he as he was now was looking at the files on Torchwood had somehow persuaded Queen Victoria not to go into too much detail, which would hold up against the Laws of Time), however following the encounter and the advice Queen Victoria, shaken by the encounter with the werewolf and how close that she had come to being bitten so the virus the werewolf alien had contained within itself had learnt and seen for herself there were things beyond her realm of understanding.

And it had frightened her.

The Doctor could not blame her; from what she had discovered, the werewolf had plans of spreading its virus to her, creating an Empire of the Wolf, and the existence of hostile life forms out in the universe was confirmed to her.

The Queen, armed with this knowledge and with the advice she had received from this 'Doctor,' had decided to ensure the British Empire was prepared for the worst, and from there the Torchwood Institute was set up, aimed at defending the British Empire against the threat of extraterrestrials. One of the means Torchwood had at its disposal was the acquisition of alien technologies and knowledge for reverse engineering.

The Institute had a hard task of gathering alien technology, but thanks to the encounter with the werewolf their earlier operations soon gained momentum. At the same time, the Institute had the resources and the right minds behind it to develop technology to a higher degree, and in the 21st century, they had accumulated a large amount of knowledge, technology, resources and experience in dealing with the unknown, but what the Doctor could not grasp was how and why Donna had been sent into the TARDIS and where Torchwood came into this.

Was Torchwood behind what had happened to Donna, an innocent bystander whom they considered as expendable if it fell into their beliefs of 'the greater good'? Had they secretly been experimenting on her, and a group of aliens had discovered what Torchwood was up to, and they were trying to prevent it?

But if they were behind this situation what was their goal? Somehow he had a problem believing any secretive organisation would be so careless with any experiment and let it out. No, he was convinced something else was going on.

Thoughtfully while he listened to the song, the Doctor noticed a man with long curly hair recording the venue with a camera. The Doctor narrowed his eyes curiously, knowing enough of 21st-century technology to know the camera was sophisticated enough to pick up a great deal. The Doctor walked over to the cameraman. "Oh, I taped the whole thing," the cameraman said a few minutes later after the Doctor arrived and asked if he knew of Donna's disappearance from the church. "They've all had a look. They said sell it to You've Been Framed. I said, more like the News. Here we are," the man added when the footage was replayed.

The Doctor gaped in surprise when he saw Donna turn into glowing golden energy and the particles flew upwards and out of sight. She had been broken down into quantum potentialities and she had been shot through the Fourth Dimension, and she was caught in the TARDIS's interior dimension. Tapping his index finger thoughtfully against his lips, the Doctor tried to deny what he had just seen because he recognised the exact energy Donna had been transformed into.

Huon energy.

But how was that possible? Huon energy was Dark Time technology. The Ancient Races had used the technology for Huon power for virtually everything that anyone could think of. It was used for space flight since Huon particles allowed almost instantaneous travel through space because it was powerful enough to enable flight through hyperspace and it could manipulate tachyons and solitons to create warp fields. But the Time Lords used Huon particles for their earliest time travel technology. It was a crude mix of taranium and Huon energy.

However, Huon power was deadly, and the Time Lords had unravelled the atomic structure as a result. Many things changed for the universe during the Dark Times; in the early universe, the cosmos had almighty aliens prowling around beyond the understanding of the alien races of later centuries. But they were either driven into extinction or wiped from history by the Time Lords, who imposed order and change on the universe after seeing potential timelines unfurl.

But few races would ever miss Huon energy, because it was extremely dangerous, but even fewer races even knew of their existence in the universe now. The Time Lords had made sure of that, and those who did know of them would not be so stupid to use them.

They were too dangerous.

While the energy was powerful and had many properties that made them ideal for space or time travel, they needed an organic mass to catalyse for its full potential to be met, and it saturated anything living with deadly radiation that was very hard to cure. But without Huon particles, modern races would never have discovered other methods of powering up ships, starships, travelling through the universe, or travelling through time.

But there should not - could not be Huon particles; was this Torchwood institute behind the particles that the Doctor was now positive were saturating Donna's body? He was convinced it was so. It all made sense now he thought about it, how Donna had appeared in the TARDIS and why the Ship had been struggling when they arrived on Earth. While the Huon particles had been removed from the universe, the Time Lords had made sure the substance existed only as a remnant, a missing link, in the Heart of every single TARDIS in the universe.

That was how Donna had arrived in the TARDIS, he realised. The TARDIS was in roughly the same point in time and space Donna was in, and Huon particles had a magnetic attraction. It was no wonder she had entered the Ship. There was simply no way the defence mechanism could have stopped it. "I don't suppose you could play it again?" The Doctor inquired politely, shaking off his horror.

The cameraman did so. Same thing. Donna transformed into golden energy and disappeared off, and nobody knew where she had gone or what had happened. "Clever, mind. Good trick, I'll give her that. I was clapping."

"That was not a trick, I'm afraid young man," the Doctor replied sharply, "what happened to Donna is a very powerful and very dangerous….and the dampener I gave her won't stop them," he finished when his mind just received a very nasty thought.

"Stop who?" The Doctor ignored the cameraman and rushed as fast as he could outside, and he spotted something that made him stop in horror. The robot Santas were here.

If he needed any further proof of the presence of Huon particles present in Donna's body, he had it now. Huon particles within a body could not be blocked using conventional bio-dampener technology.

The Doctor looked around the reception, trying to find Donna. When he spotted her he rushed towards her, ignoring his ailing body, as he called out to her. "Donna!"

The redhead paused, sending him an annoyed look. Quickly so he wasn't the victim of her quick temper, the Doctor explained as quickly as he could. "Donna, they've found you. There's a group of those robot drones outside right now."

Donna's annoyance disappeared and was replaced by fear and worry. "But you said I was safe," she said almost accusingly.

"I'm afraid I made a mistake, my dear. The bio-damper doesn't work," the Doctor explained without going into too much detail. It would take too long to explain the full story of the Huon particles.

"We've got to get everyone out." Donna's fear only grew. "My God, it's all my family."

"We could go out through the back door!" Hurriedly leading Donna to the backdoor, ignoring the looks from everyone inside, the Doctor's mind raced as he tried to work out what he was going to do next. From his basic scans of the robots in the TARDIS when they'd taken Donna in that taxi, the robots were more advanced than contemporary Earth technology. But one look at the scans had given the Doctor a few ideas of how they could be dealt with should they meet them again in a hurry; indeed, when he had brought Donna to the reception, he had hoped to use the time to think through his next move before he discovered the truth.

Unfortunately, as they looked through the windows, they found there were other robot Santas right outside. "We're trapped."

The Doctor tapped his finger thoughtfully against his lip, his mind racing as he thought about the resources he had. He had his palm computer. He might be able to use it against the robots, but he wasn't sure how he could do that. It took him a moment, but he saw something that worried him. A robot was holding some kind of remote control. "That remote control device. They wouldn't be using that unless there was something in here they could use as a weapon," he said.

"A bomb?" Donna suggested as they both rushed back to the reception to try to get everyone out.

"No, it can't be. They need you for something, and they know you are here. They wouldn't want to kill you," the Doctor panted, getting back to the reception.

But they were too late.

The plastic baubles which had been hanging on the Christmas trees began floating off the trees. They started to zoom at the people and they exploded when they hit something like hand grenades. Everyone began to panic as they tried to dodge the exploding baubles. The Doctor and Donna were separated, and the Doctor lost sight of her despite his best efforts. He flung himself behind a massive sound device. He was annoyed with himself for not taking Donna as far away from here as possible, for not performing any more in-depth scans of the bride, but he had to admit he wouldn't have even thought to look for Huon particles.

The Doctor swore not to underestimate their opponent again. They not only had knowledge and access to one of the most dangerous energy sources in the universe, but they had made Donna Noble into a living receptacle of them. He had to protect her, and with that in mind, the Doctor cautiously lifted his head over the sound device and he saw all six of the robots lined up in front of him, all of them armed. Suddenly he looked down at the sound device thoughtfully, and he remembered the palm computer. If he could connect the two, he might generate a sonic pulse powerful enough to destroy them. The Doctor took out his palm computer and quickly made adjustments before he triggered it. There was no time to warn everyone in the reception about what he was doing, they would likely not understand it anyway.

The Doctor ground his teeth when the room shook with the violent sonic pulses, but one look at the robots made him smile and chortle in satisfaction when he saw they were falling to pieces, but he didn't stop until they really disintegrated, that was when he took away the palm computer. The Doctor stepped out from behind the desk, walked over to the nearest robot and picked up the head to examine it. Over his shoulder, the Doctor could hear the humans talking and taking stock of the attack. He didn't know what the consequences of the attack would be, but right now he didn't care.

"It's all right, Stan. You'll be all right. It's all over."

"Michael? Connie? Oh, Senita, do something useful," he heard Donna call before he heard Lance say almost masterfully, like a true actor, but something told the Doctor that Lance knew something about the robots.

"What is it? What were they?"

"Just stop wittering. Just help them," Donna snapped practically.

"I say, look at that. Remote control for the decorations, but there's a second remote control for the robots. They're not scavengers. I think someone's taken possession of them for some reason. The control mechanism is quite advanced, sophisticated," the Doctor commented as he examined the robot head and the control mechanism.

"Never mind all that. You're a doctor. People have been hurt," Donna said to him.

"I'm afraid I am not that type of Doctor but don't you see, Donna; they wanted you alive. Look," he held out one of the surviving baubles that hadn't exploded and showed it to her, "They're not active now." Donna tried again to get him to help the humans in the hall.

"All I'm saying, you could help."

"I'm afraid there are more important matters to attend to, my dear. And now," the Doctor turned to her sternly before she could even think of interrupting him. "There's still a signal to trace with this," he held up the head while the woman he had taken for Donna's mother came over, her face ashen and shaken, a far cry from the arrogantly dismissive way he had heard her earlier before the attack, "You have a choice, Donna; you can either stay here and wait for the next attack, or you can come with me and find out what is going on, and why, mm?"

With that, the Doctor walked out of the reception hall. Something told him Donna would follow since she was starting to see the situation was far deadlier than she had previously believed, but right now he wanted to get a fix on the source of the signal. But before he left, the Doctor heard Mrs Noble ask her daughter, "Donna, who is he? Who is that man?"

The Doctor just went outside, unsure what Donna would tell her mother, and truly not really caring. He stepped outside and, using the palm computer, he easily found the signal and thanks to the computer's connection to the TARDIS, he managed to track it to a point in orbit above the planet.

Sensing Donna coming to stand next to him, the Doctor turned to her with a solemn smile, "There's someone behind this, directing the roboforms. And they are right above us now." "But why is it me?" Donna demanded in frustration. "What have I done?"

"If we find the controller, we'll find that out, but I am certain you are just an innocent bystander to be used by somebody else," the Doctor smiled reassuringly at her. "It's up there. Something in the sky."

A loud siren interrupted them and stopped Donna from asking any more questions, and making the Doctor consider his options. He was certain there was a ship in orbit right now, but there was nothing that he could do about it right now. The TARDIS was an option, but with the vortex manipulator on the verge of being burnt out, he didn't want to go to the ship with Donna, only to find he couldn't get her back. But right now the Doctor wanted to investigate HC Clements, sure there was something there that would explain this mystery.

At that moment, the Doctor became convinced whoever was behind this knew that he had discovered too much because the robot's signal was shut off. The Doctor turned to Donna, only to find that she was near Lance. "I've lost the signal. Donna, we've got to get to your office. HC Clements. I think that's where it all started, and I believe there is something there that we could discover a great deal. Lance, yes, I believe your name is Lance, yes? Lance, can you take us there?" The Doctor asked without giving the humans a chance to make up their minds. Speed was essential.

X

After a very long journey because Donna didn't want to break the speed limit which made the Doctor wish he had done some work on the TARDIS so this kind of tedious joke that passed for human transport, the Doctor wondered how the humans could even consider what they had that got them from place to place could be considered efficient. The roads in the cities were so congested that it was not even funny.

The Doctor had visited Earth on and off over the last few years since he had left Gallifrey, but while he liked the trains the humans had, especially the London Underground and the earlier English railways pioneered by George Stephenson and the GWR, he didn't understand how human cars could be considered efficient. Didn't they realise that the more reliant they were on fossil fuels, the harder it would be for them to adapt?

Not once did the Doctor see a fusion bike, a solar sail, or solar panels on the cars themselves. Yes, while the Doctor did find himself admiring some models of car and motorcycle, he found many of them inefficient and primitive.

It seemed to take as long as it took for a Time Lord with a sedentary lifestyle to reach their Death Day by the time the Doctor, Lance and Donna to arrive at the HC Clements office - the Doctor had the feeling Lance was just as frustrated by Donna's slow driving - but when they arrived, at last, the Doctor was grateful for Lance's presence since they got into the offices. When they arrived in the office, the Doctor made a beeline towards one of the computers and started hacking it. His skill with computers in this incarnation was formidable, and it wasn't long before he managed to access the company's records, but it was taking him longer than he would have liked. Once more he pulled out his palm computer and tied it into the company computer to get into it.

"You two might believe HC Clements is a locksmith, but it isn't. I discovered earlier that H C Clements was brought up twenty-three years ago by the Torchwood Institute," the Doctor told Lance and Donna, and he lifted his gaze. He had expected something like a question, not two identical looks of confusion; Donna was not a surprise to the Doctor, but Lance was. He had expected Lance to at least show some kind of reaction. But no. the confusion that was in the dark-skinned man's eyes was genuine. It was interesting; he knew some things but not a great deal.

"Who are they?" Donna asked.

"I checked their history. They were founded a century ago by Queen Victoria to investigate and deal with unusual threats to Britain. From what I discovered, Torchwood has many laboratories and facilities, and there are businesses that work with them to provide them with the right resources for their operations. HC Clements is one of them."

"And they have something to do with what's going on? But what do they want with me? I'm just a temp," Donna protested. The Doctor decided to explain the problem to her. "Somehow you've been dosed with Huon energy. And that's a problem because Huon energy hasn't existed since the Dark Times. The only place you'd find a Huon particle now is a remnant in the heart of the TARDIS. Do you understand? That's what happened. When you were at the wedding, something happened to the particles that are saturating your body, and you were attracted like magnetic attraction to the remnant inside my ship."

"So what happened was an accident?" Donna asked.

"Yes, that is my theory. Lance? What was HC Clements working on? Anything top secret? Special operations? Were there any areas that you were not supposed to enter?" The Doctor asked Donna's so-called fiance to get some answers and to confirm his theories about the man while he turned back to the computers.

"I don't know, I'm in charge of personnel. I wasn't project manager," Lance replied before he realised what he was saying. "Why am I even explaining myself? What the hell are we talking about?" The Doctor nodded silently at the first part of the reply, already suspecting how Lance was involved in this plot. Lance was in charge of personnel, and if he was right, the man had welcomed Donna into the fold, and from what she had told him earlier, Lance had given her cups of coffee.

Something told him that was how Donna's body was saturated by Huon particles. At that moment, the Doctor let out a chuckle of satisfaction, congratulating himself when he managed to get the computer screen to work. It showed a plan of the building. "HC Clements. They make keys, that's the point. And look at this plan. We're on the third floor, and underneath reception, there's a basement, yes? Then why is it, when you look on the lift, there's a button marked lower basement? There's a whole floor that doesn't exist on the official plans. So what's down there, then, hmm?" The Doctor asked as if he were a schoolteacher posing a rhetorical and easy puzzle to a pair of schoolchildren.

Lance realised what the Doctor was doing, and he glared back at the physically older man. "Are you telling me this building's got a secret floor?"

"No, I'm showing you this building's got a secret floor. Come with me," the Doctor instructed and marched off towards the lift without giving them a chance to protest. Donna and Lance shared an exasperated look and followed after the Doctor. They found him standing in the lift, looking curiously at the floor buttons. Donna quickly saw the button for this extra floor and she quickly saw the problem. "It needs a key."

"I don't," the Doctor countered, and he pressed the palm computer and inputted a command. The Doctor turned to Lance and Donna, toying with the idea of leaving them up here. While he didn't care what happened to Lance, the Doctor did care about Donna. Did he really have the right to subject her to more danger?

"Donna, you don't have to come, you know?"

Donna scoffed angrily. "No chance, Martian. You're the man who keeps saving my life. I ain't letting you out of my sight." With that she stepped into the lift before turning expectantly towards Lance. "Lance?"

"Maybe I should go to the police."

"Inside." The trip down to the lower basement was silent, and when they arrived they found themselves in a concrete corridor that was lit in eerie green light. The Doctor looked around curiously, surprised there was nobody down here. He had expected, for a secretive organisation, Torchwood would have the security needed to prevent anyone from coming down. But apparently not. "Where are we? Well, what goes on down here?" Donna asked the Doctor expectantly.

For a moment the Doctor wondered the same thing. He found it hard to imagine Torchwood were only focusing on Huon particles, but while he could speculate he didn't know for certain. "Let's find out," he said practically, setting off and letting the humans hurry up to keep up with him.

"Do you think Mister Clements knows about this place?" Donna was still pressing for answers.

"The mysterious HC Clements? Oh yes I think he's part of it. He would likely have been present when Torchwood acquired his business, and he would have known about that button that needed a key in that lift. After some time walking, the trio arrived at a bulkhead door labelled Torchwood with Authorised personnel only sign stencilled onto the door. Ignoring the sign, the Doctor turned the wheel to open it to reveal a ladder.

The Doctor turned to the two humans. "Wait here, please. I just want to see where this leads to. Don't do anything."

"You'd better come back," Donna said.

The Doctor smiled at her. "I intend to," he said before he slowly climbed the ladder. As he climbed up the ladder, the Doctor heard Lance's voice. "Donna, have you thought about this? Properly? I mean, this is serious! What the hell are we going to do?"

But the Doctor was soon too high up to properly hear Donna's reply. In the end he climbed up to another sealed bulkhead door operated by a wheel. The Doctor took the wheel into his hands and started to turn it, cursing his failing body's lack of strength before he finally got it open and found that he was looking out of the Thames. After he stepped out into the daylight, the Doctor turned around in a circle while he tried to think about what would make Torchwood build a laboratory underneath a river. There were too many possibilities, and he realised he wasn't going to discover what they were, not from here. Slowly he went back down the ladder. "The Thames flood barrier is up there, right on top of us. Torchwood built this laboratory underneath for some reason," the Doctor announced to the two humans.

Donna stared at him in disbelieving confusion as she seemed to be struggling to understand the logic that Torchwood used. "What, there's like a secret base hidden underneath a major London landmark?"

"Yes, it seems so, my dear. Come on, we need to learn more," the Doctor said.

X

The trio found themselves in a large laboratory filled with bubbling tubes full of liquid that was bubbling upwards. The Doctor paused on the threshold as he looked around the laboratory complex.

"Oh, my!" He gaped in awe as he registered the scale of the laboratory. As he scanned the tubes after walking closely to examine them closely, the Doctor knew he was looking at a primitive plant for Huon particle production. But it was effective, but while the Doctor was horrified by what he was seeing since the fools behind this didn't understand the dangers behind Huon particles, he was amazed by the scale.

"My word, Donna, Lance, this is stunning!" The Doctor breathed. Considering the situation, he could not help but be in awe of the laboratory and he was impressed such a primitive species could produce them like this.

"What does it do?" Donna looked around uncomprehendingly while Lance stood there, but the Doctor kept his eyes on him. The human seemed to be pretending to be in awestruck shock, but the Doctor could see his suspicions about Lance were being confirmed. However he wasn't entirely sure if the human was responsible. The question brought the Doctor's attention back to Donna, and he took a moment to explain despite his awe. "This is particle extrusion. They've been manufacturing Huon particles. Impressive, considering how primitive the technology actually is, although I do not understand how they discovered the technology since very few people have even heard of them since my people unravelled the atomic structure."

"Your people? Who are they? What company do you represent?" Lance pounced on the Doctor's last words, making the Time Lord study him closely. There it was again, an expression to fool the unwary, but for someone who was already suspicious and good at reading and understanding basic body language and was capable of basic telepathy, the Doctor knew Lance was not asking those questions in a business sense, he was just playing a role in a theatre for Donna's sake, to trick her.

Lance knew about this laboratory.

He possibly knew Huon particles did not exist on Earth unless they were manufactured but whether he knew their alien history, the Doctor did not know. "I'm a freelancer," the Doctor explained dismissively so as not to tip off Lance to how he knew he wasn't what he seemed. "But the people who'd worked in this laboratory are rebuilding them. They've been using the river and extruding them through a flat hydrogen base so they've got the end result, Huon particles in liquid form. Beyond that, I honestly don't know how they discovered the substance."

While he had been speaking, the Doctor had picked up a small container filled with the same liquid. Donna pointed at the container. She didn't understand how dangerous Huon particles were, but she was getting the vibe they were really dangerous. "And that's what's inside me?" The Doctor turned a knob on top of the container, and the liquid glows gold.

So did Donna. The woman jumped like she was surrounded by a swarm of insects. "Oh, my God! I'm not gonna vanish like I did before, am I?" Donna yelped. "No, my dear. You won't disappear. The particles inside you were inert, they needed something living to catalyse inside and that's you. Now I understand what happened. Yes, its obvious now. Yes."

"What do you mean?" Donna demanded in exasperation.

"The wedding, of course. Your body would have been saturated in hormones and chemicals. Adrenaline, acetylcholine, endorphins. The mixture would have boiled inside of you like your body was a pressure cooker before the mixture was potent enough to activate the particles, and once they reached that point, they would have transformed you into hyperspatial potentialities, turning you from a real person into a possible one, and transporting you through space, and you would have been transported to my Ship where we first." Donna's mind raced as she tried to take in what the Doctor was telling her. "So, someone put those particles into me? But why?"

"I honestly don't know, Donna, but I'm starting to suspect whoever it was didn't expect or plan for you to be teleported out of that Church. Whoever did this was more than aware this facility existed beneath H.C Clements."

Donna shivered as she looked around the whole laboratory. This was not what she had expected to see on her wedding day. She had hoped to be at the hotel by now with Lance, not stuck in a laboratory where she was some kind of guinea pig. "Doctor, could this Torchwood place have poisoned me for some kind of experiment?" She voiced her fears.

The Doctor's aged and wrinkled face was genuinely sympathetic. "I'm afraid I don't have the answers for you, Donna; Torchwood was founded a century ago, and while I have only just heard of them myself, I do not see an organisation that has covered their tracks for a long time make such a blunder; what if their experiments were discovered and they stopped? Why would they give you the particles over a course of months, because your body would have needed a great deal of time to be saturated with them to travel such a long way to where we met? If they had wanted to perform such an experiment, they could have done it right here, under controlled conditions."

"I guess that seems fair," Donna mused thoughtfully, although she wasn't a scientist she could see the logic, but she still wondered if the Doctor might be wrong. At the same time she decided to lay all her cards on the table to get a decent bet of what was going on. "Right, just tell me. These particles, are they dangerous? Am I safe? Doctor, if your lot got rid of Huon particles, why did they do that?"

The Doctor's sigh was hardly encouraging for her already fraying nerves. "My people unravelled the atomic structure of the particles because they were deadly."

"Oh, my God," Donna was on the verge of panicking now. Quickly the Doctor moved to comfort her - absently, he noticed Lance keeping well out of the way, which only gave more credence to his suspicions. "I will help you, Donna. Whatever's been done to you, I'll reverse it. I will not let you die. I promise you that."

"Oh, she is long since lost," an unfamiliar female voice boomed out throughout the laboratory, startling the Doctor and Donna.

"Who is that?" The Doctor demanded before the wall in front of them slide upwards, to reveal a tiered hole descending into the earth. "Oh, my…," the Doctor gasped as he stepped cautiously towards the hole, gently pulling Donna with him so he could have a quick look. He was close enough to the hole to see it hadn't been tunnelled by drills or cutting machines, but by a highly powerful laser beam. "I have waited so long, hibernating at the edge of the universe until the secret heart was uncovered and called out to waken!" The female voice boomed, making Lance run away before black-robed robots appeared and aimed their guns at the Doctor and Donna.

The Doctor's mind raced as he tried to think of what he should say or do next. So far the mysteries were mounting up and up, and while he felt this alien female could answer some of the mysteries, the mystery of the hole was something that confused him.

He looked down again, "What is the purpose of this hole? I can tell it was drilled by laser, but how far down does it go?"

"Down and down, all the way to the centre of the Earth!"

"Why?" The Doctor asked, his confusion genuine. "Why would a clandestine organisation like this Torchwood drill a hole all the way down to the centre of the Earth?"

"Dinosaurs," Donna suggested, making the Doctor turn to her, bemused.

"I'm sorry, my dear, but what do dinosaurs have to do with it?"

"Dinosaurs?"

"Why are you sure dinosaurs are at the centre of the Earth?" The Doctor asked, hoping Donna got to the point of her rather insane suggestion.

"That film, Under the Earth, with dinosaurs," Donna tried to suggest, but the Doctor shook his head. "Trying to help."

"I'm afraid my dear that suggestion doesn't work; thank you, all the same, but I think the explanation is more practical, mmm?"

"Such an interesting couple," the female alien commented. More than happy to have a chance to demand answers from whoever was there, the Doctor glared at the ceiling, "Yes, and you are a very confusing individual. Why are there Huon particles in Donna? Where are you?"

"High in the sky. Floating so high on Christmas night."

The Doctor's glare deepened, "I didn't come all this way to talk on the intercom. You have answers to my questions. Show yourself!"

"Who are you with such command?"

"I am the Doctor," the Doctor replied.

The female cackled, "Prepare your best medicines, doctor man, for you will be sick at heart."

A bright flash of light indicated the teleport, and a red-skinned cross between a giant spider and a human woman with a crested head with smaller eyes appeared at the laboratory. Donna was looking on in confusion while the Doctor was looking on in surprise and in horror. "Oh, my. How can this be? A Racnoss? But that's impossible. You're one of the Racnoss?" The Doctor whispered in horror.

"Empress of the Racnoss," the Racnoss Empress declared proudly. "I find that hard to believe. If you're the Empress, where are the rest of the Racnoss?" The Doctor demanded before the realisation came to him. "Or, are you the only one? The only one in the Universe?"

"Such a sharp mind," the Racnoss Empress commented with a sharp-fanged smile. "The last of your kind," the Doctor whispered before he turned to Donna to explain. "The Racnoss come from the Dark Times of the universe, billions of years ago. The Dark Times were a chaotic time for the cosmos; the Laws of Physics were still forming, and many alien races rose to power much more quickly than they should have done otherwise. The Racnoss were only one of them. They are an omnivorous race, and they devoured whole planets."

The Empress was quick to defend her race. "Racnoss are born starving. Is that our fault?"

"No, my dear," the Doctor replied, glaring at the Racnoss, his mind going back to the Dark Time history classes that were compulsory at the Prydonian Academy. "However, you cannot deny your species wantonly massacred millions, although I don't know why I'm bothering to tell you about the disgusting habit of eating sentient beings."

Donna looked at him in horror as she caught the implication, "They eat people?"

"They did," the Doctor nodded in confirmation before he caught sight of something, "Donna, this HC Clements person, did he wear those black and white shoes?"

Surprised by the sudden twist, Donna nodded with a laugh as she remembered the times she and the others laughed at the man behind his back, "He did. We used to laugh. We used to call him the fat cat in spats." With a grim expression, the Doctor pointed to a pair of feet sticking out of the web across the ceiling, wearing black and white shoes. Donna gaped at it in horror, suddenly feeling bad for all the times she had mocked HC Clements, but she couldn't have known the pompous man would end up like this! "Oh, my God!"

The Empress was delighted by their horror. "Mmm. My Christmas dinner," she grinned mockingly

"But you shouldn't even exist. Millions of years ago, you see, the fledgling Empires went to war against the Racnoss, and they were wiped out," the Doctor explained for Donna's benefit as he remembered what he knew of that point of universal history.

The Dark Times had truly been a chaotic time in the universe, a version of the universe that was more unstable than it was today, a time where the laws of physics simply did not apply. In addition, there were many races that possessed almost mystical powers. The universe at that time had forces prowling through the forming galaxies waging wars on one another, races evolving and developing at such an accelerated rate that was now unheard of. Also, magic existed in a sense.

The Racnoss had merely been one of the races that had existed during that time, and they had been one of many races who had made use of Huon based energy, and in addition, they were one of the few races who used science and technology to drive their growth, and like the Great Old Ones, Daemons, the Gods of Ragnorok, the Nestene Consciousness, and the Jagoroth, they thrived until they created great empires. But they were monsters. They overran world after world, consuming everything they encountered on a scale that only the Great Vampires. But they were eventually wiped out when the Time Lords rose to power, bringing rationality to the universe and fixing the Laws of Physics so many of those races disappeared, or went into hibernation.

The Time Lords had been part of the Fledgling Empires, bringing their knowledge of time travel to bear on the Racnoss and the spider-like race was wiped out, or so the Doctor had assumed. "

Except for me," the Doctor was drawn back to reality by the Empress's statement, and he caught sight of Lance on the balcony above the Empress. He was making a shushing gesture.

Donna had caught on to what her fiance was doing, and she played along as best as she could. "But that's what I've got inside me, that Huon energy thing. Oi! Look at me, lady, I'm talking," Donna shouted when the Empress, apparently either bored or not really caring about what the long-term consequences of Huon exposure would do to her, looked away, but Donna quickly stopped her from seeing Lance sneaking up on her. "Where do I fit in? How comes I get all stacked up with these Huon particles? Look at me, you! Look me in the eye and tell me."

The Empress laughed, "The bride is so feisty."

Lance had found a fire axe.

Donna saw what her fiance had in his hands. "Yes, I am! And I don't know what you are, you big thing, but a spider's just a spider and an axe is an axe! Now, do it!"

Lance started to swing the axe. Sensing the move, the Empress turns and hissed at him. Lance suddenly laughed, and the Empress joined in. "That was a good one. Your face," Lance laughed, pointing at the equally amused Racnoss. "Lance is funny," the Empress observed.

Donna was confused. "What?"

The Doctor stepped forward solemnly, "I'm sorry, my dear. Lance has decided to drop his facade. I had suspected something like this." Donna stared at the Doctor in surprise, not getting the point. "Sorry for what? Suspected something like what? Lance, don't be so stupid! Get her!"

The Doctor sighed. This was not going to be easy, and as he watched Lance's face morph into one of pure contempt and disgust, he knew this was not going to be easy for Donna to accept. "God, she's thick. Months I've had to put up with her. Months. A woman who can't even point to Germany on a map."

Donna looked at the Doctor, horror and upset in her eyes, "I don't understand."

The Doctor wondered if Donna was deliberately trying to stop herself from getting hurt by trying not to think about what Lance was saying to her. "How did you meet him?" "In the office," Donna replied.

The Doctor saw something in her eyes, something like realisation but clearly, she wanted to deny the truth. This was going to be harder than he'd expected. "Yes, and he made you coffee," the Doctor explained, wondering how best he should explain this without causing Donna more pain; despite their rough meeting, he had genuinely come to like and care for her, and he did not want to see her hurt, not like this. It was so senseless, cruel.

"What?"

"Every day, I made you coffee," Lance pointed out, hoping she would take the hint.

The Doctor sighed again, realising that he would need to point out what Lance had done to her. "You had to be dosed with liquid particles over six months," he explained gently. Donna's breath hitched, and the Doctor could see that the realisation completely banished the barrier she had put there that stopped her from denying the truth. "He was poisoning me."

"Yes." The Doctor turned and glared up at Lance, contempt burning in his eyes. "It was all there in the job title. The Head of Human Resources. He met you on your first day, and he realised you were the perfect part of the plan, although I still don't understand why."

"This time, it's personnel," Lance chuckled.

"But, we were getting married," Donna pointed out, the hurt in her voice breaking through the Doctor's confusion about what Lance meant by his last statement, sure there was a joke there. But the heartbreak in Donna's voice stopped him from dwelling on it.

"Well, I couldn't risk you running off. I had to say yes. And then I was stuck with a woman who thinks the height of excitement is a new flavour Pringle. Oh, I had to sit there and listen to all that yap yap yap. Oh, Brad and Angelina. Is Posh pregnant? X-Factor, Atkins Diet, Feng Shui, split ends, text me, text me, text me. Dear God, the never-ending fountain of fat, stupid trivia. I deserve a medal," Lance finished from his hurtful rant, while Donna lowered her head, upset and deeply hurt by what the man she had thought she had loved and thought he had loved her back, truly thought of her.

"Is that what she's offered you? A medal? The Empress of the Racnoss? What are you to her, her consort?" The Doctor demanded.

"It's better than a night with her," Lance pointed at Donna.

Donna whispered, "But I love you."

Lance snorted in disgust at how easy it was to lead Donna Noble along. He had seen enough of her Homelife with her bitch of a mother to know she had enough insecurities to fill a bank vault. "That's what made it easy. And as for what the Empress has offered me…. Well, I discovered this laboratory. It had been abandoned for some time; I still don't know why, but as I explored this lab, the Empress appeared before me. At first, I was terrified, but we talked. In the end, we made a deal; I help her and in return, she takes me away from Earth so I can see the universe. What's the point of it all if the human race is nothing? That's what the Empress can give me, and she offered it to me, the chance to go out and explore. The chance to go out there. To see it. The size of it all. I think you understand that, don't you, Doctor?" Lance finished, gazing at the Doctor pointedly.

The Doctor met his look silently. He was surprised by how quickly, and how easily Lance had come to realise one of the reasons he had left Gallifrey in the first place. But at the same time, he knew this would end badly. The Empress had apparently grown curious of the Doctor as well. "Who is this little physician?" She asked Lance.

"I don't know. He came with Donna when she suddenly reappeared at the Reception, but I don't know where they met. He did mention a ship, though," Lance said.

"I did not detect anything in orbit, so it's likely a ship is somewhere on Earth," the Empress mused thoughtfully, believing Lance, "but that is something we can deal with later." The Doctor quickly cut in. The Racnoss would go mad when she discovered he was a Time Lord, and the last thing he wanted was for her to discover the TARDIS.

"Never mind that for now; there are still things I would like to discover. What, may I ask, is down here? The Racnoss are extinct and have been for billions of years. That's just the molten core of the Earth, isn't it?"

Lance grinned mockingly at the Empress. "I think he wants us to talk."

"I think so, too," the Empress shared his teasing attitude.

Lance's demeanour changed completely as he glared at the Doctor and Donna. "Well, tough! All we need is Donna."

The Doctor realised that the Empress and Lance were not going to give him any more clues. It was looking increasingly apparent he would need to burn the vortex manipulator he had in the TARDIS just to travel back into Earth's past to find out the clues. The only problem he had was wondering if the vortex manipulator would hold, but he would need to get them both back to the TARDIS, and there was no time. Wait, what about the Huon particles?….

The Empress's harsh shriek broke through his thoughts. "Kill this chattering little doctor man."

Donna quickly jumped forwards, stepping in front of the Doctor to defend him. So far the Doctor had been so good and he had helped her even if they hadn't met under the most ideal circumstances. "Don't you hurt him!"

The Doctor took her by the shoulders even as his mind caught onto a plan realised they had the perfect means of getting out. "No, no, Donna. It's all right."

"No, I won't let them."

"At arms!" The Empress called, and the robots pointed their weapons at the Doctor and Donna. "They won't hit the bride. They're such very good shots."

"I think you are forgetting something important, Empress, of the Racnoss," the Doctor declared. "The Huon particles in Donna activated because of a chemical reaction in her body, the particles activated in Donna and drew her inside my spaceship. But if you reverse it," the Doctor turned the knob on the canister, creating a glow, "and the spaceship comes to her." The Doctor caught the wide eyes on the Empress's twisted face; for all their arrogance, warlike nature, and their overriding hunger, the Racnoss were far from stupid; if there was just one species who understood the physics of Huon based power and its properties, it was the Racnoss.

"Fire!" She bellowed, but she was too late as the air around the Doctor and Donna darkened and then lightened as the walls of the Doctor's TARDIS appeared around them. Donna staggered as she found herself back in the TARDIS console room. The moment they were safely inside, the Doctor quickly headed for the console and he began setting the controls, and the TARDIS dematerialised.

"I believe I owe you the truth, Donna; you see, this is a time machine, and we need to find out what the Empress of the Racnoss is digging up. We will need to travel all the way to the beginning of Earth's history to see if something's buried at the planet's core. I believe, Donna, we're going further back than I've ever been before," the Doctor said, only to find Donna had not been listening, she was leaning against a wall, sobbing for what Lance had done to her.