Hiraeth

by LiteratusAO3

The dust from the Battle of Canary Wharf has barely settled. The cities of Earth are in ruins. Team TARDIS is separated. Over the course of five months (and two years), they start dealing with what they've lost and make tentative steps towards reuniting. (Part three of The Earthly Child series. Set between season two and season three.)

14. Chapter 14

Chapter Fourteen

Something exploded over Donna's head. The burn of acrid smoke rushed down her lungs and a cough consumed her. She hit the hard grating on her hands and knees, her veil tangling in front of her face, and she heard Zoe and Jack yelling at each other, their words edging towards desperation and panic. The TARDIS hurtled across London, slipping in and out of the Vortex, a chaotic explosion of terror that wrapped around her three human passengers. Donna's foot slipped, the icy cold air of the Vortex covering her skin, and she dug her fingers into the holes of the grating, holding on for dear life. She didn't know what happened when someone fell into the Time Vortex but she wasn't ready to find out through personal experience.

"Hold on!" Zoe yelled as though Donna hadn't thought of it. "We're coming in for a rough one!"

"It's too fast, we're coming in too fast!" Jack exclaimed. "We're going to punch a hole in it!"

"Put everything we have into the shields!"

"If we break the TARDIS, I am not taking the fall for you," he shot back, knuckles white on the controls. "You can explain to the Doctor yourself!"

Zoe's response, if there was one, was lost to Donna as a screaming sound wailed around her. She was unable to breathe as the TARDIS plummeted at speeds that were incomprehensible, and then she was flying. Her fingers ached when they were wrenched free of the grating. She felt her body lift from the ground, her vision blurred by her veil and her hair, and she soared through the air and out of the front door. There was no time to panic that she was about to be swallowed whole by the Time Vortex because there was a sensation of a large hand cradling her body, guiding her, keeping her safe before she landed heavily in a cushion of thick snow, the TARDIS ten feet from her and smoking.

Donna gasped in a lungful of fresh, freezing cold air. The sky was blue through the light fall of snow and her mind was blank. Nothing entered her mind for a long, shivering moment before Zoe and Jack burst out of the TARDIS coughing, fire extinguishers in their hands, and her body let her know that she was in pain. Her hands screamed at her in agony, nails split and bleeding, and all the muscles in her body were sore from tensing them for what felt like hours. She breathed heavily, a sob working its way into her throat, too stunned to actually shed any tears though, and Zoe landed on her knees at her side. Hair bursting free of her bun, she looked wild and alien, but she was the only thing Donna knew and she drank in her appearance hungrily.

"Oh thank god," Zoe breathed, relief etched across her face. "I thought you were a goner for a second."

A low groan worked its way out of Donna's throat, her eyes dropping in a sticky blink.

"Yeah, I get that," she agreed, hands sliding over Donna's body, assessing her. "I don't think you've broken anything. Can you move?"

Donna groaned again and tried to move her toes. Her heels rubbed in the thick floor of snow and energy trickled into her sore body, working its way up her calves, knees, and thighs, before she moved her hands to slap weakly at Zoe. The action caused Zoe's shoulders to slacken further, a wonky smile making itself known, and her slim hand rested on Donna's cool forehead.

"You're okay," she said. "Come on, let's get you sitting up, yeah?"

Donna wasn't sure sitting up was the best idea but Zoe didn't give her a say in the matter. There was a difficult tangle of limbs and groans before Donna was upright, leaning heavily on Zoe, breathing hard. For the first time she was aware of the other person on the rooftop, his broad back to them as he sprayed the fire extinguisher indiscriminately into the TARDIS's console room. She supposed he was Zoe's boyfriend – the alien who the TARDIS belonged to – but she didn't care in that moment, content to lean her full weight on Zoe and try to remember who and where she was.

Who she was, that was easy. Her brain might have been temporarily scrambled in flight but it wasn't damaged. Where she was though was another matter.

Her stomach jerked with fear.

"Where are we?" Donna asked, her voice scraping across the roughness of her throat, the realisation she must have been screaming hitting her. "Is this Mars?"

Zoe rolled her eyes. "It's not Mars. We're still in London. Peckham."

Now that she had said it, Donna recognised the London architecture, the graffiti on the walls, and the shabby looking newsagent's that sat across from them. It was open, and a pair of dark eyes peered out from behind the window papered with advertisements for house shares, jobs, and items for sale. Using Zoe's shoulders to support her weight, Donna managed to get to her feet where the world swam and she nearly tipped over again, a strong arm keeping her on her feet.

"Careful there," Zoe said. "It'll wear off in a minute or two, I promise."

Donna wasn't sure about that, but she kept her arm around her shoulders, unwilling to let her crutch move away from her. "Is it always like that?"

"No," she admitted. "That was a particularly rough go of it. She doesn't do well on short trips like that, and actual flying? She kind of doesn't do a lot of it. She's much better at disappearing here and appearing there. How are you doing?"

"Like I'm going to be sick."

"I've got something for that." Donna looked up and found herself staring into the face of the most handsome man she had ever seen. Her mouth dropped open, and heat pounded through her when he smiled, offering her a tablet. "Swallow this, you'll feel better."

Unable to move to take it, rendered still and stunned by his attractiveness, Zoe took the tablet from him. She popped it from the blister pack and slid it into Donna's open mouth that closed automatically, a burst of sunshine orange exploding across her tongue. The nausea immediately eased, her mind cleared, and the soreness running throughout her muscles eased. She sucked harder, struggling to tear her eyes away from the man in front of her.

"Donna Noble, Jack Harkness," Zoe introduced, politely ignoring Donna's stunned surprise. "Jack, Donna."

"Hi," Jack smiled, and an embarrassing warble emerged from Donna's throat in response. She felt her skin heat, and his smile deepened, warm and kind, before he shrugged out of his coat and offered it to her. "Here, you'll freeze dressed like that."

When she made no move to take it, he draped it around her shoulders. Donna wondered if it was possible to spontaneously combust – or spontaneously orgasm. The blush in her cheeks threatened to burn her, and she remembered that she was a grown woman who had seen handsome men before. Clearing her throat only to briefly choke on the orange sweet, she shoved her arms through his coat and closed it about her.

"Thanks," Donna said, pleased that she sounded more or less like herself. "Where'd you come from?"

"The Boeshane Peninsula originally, but I fell in with Zoe and some others in World War Two," he answered. "We've been together ever since, right, Zo?"

Zoe looked up at the sky as though praying for divine intervention. "She meant where did you appear from just now? You weren't here earlier."

"Oh!" Another smile dimpled his face. "Zoe called me. She needed some help flying the TARDIS to rescue you, so I came along for the ride. Congratulations by the way."

Donna stared at him. "For what?"

"You're getting married, right?" He nodded at her wedding dress whose hem was wet with melted snow. "You look beautiful."

"Thanks." She tightened the coat further about her and sucked harder on the sweet in her mouth. "That wasn't the best rescue."

"You're safe, aren't you?" Zoe asked, pointedly. "Come on, let's get out of the cold. Is the café down the end still open?"

The question was directed to Jack who shrugged lightly. "I don't know. We don't live here any more. We're over at Rita's old place, and Rose is staying with Sarah Jane for the time being. The flat's been packed away."

Donna looked between them, noting the stiffness in Zoe's bearing as she nodded. She hooked her arm through Donna's and pulled her away from the TARDIS, the snow crunching under their feet as they turned their back on the miserable estate behind them. Donna wanted to ask questions but she also wanted to sit down as her legs felt like jelly, wobbling with each step she took. To their collective disappointment, the café was closed. Donna was about to sit down in the street to catch her breath when Zoe dragged them into a McDonald's five minutes away, the warmth washing over them, and Jack disappeared to the counter to get them something warm to drink.

"There we go," Zoe said, easing her into her sit. "Take the weight off for a second. How're you feeling now?"

"Better," she admitted, eyes on the clock behind the counter that had her heart thudding in disappointment. "Confused. Scared. Upset."

Zoe sat opposite her and lifted her hands to her hair, gathering it back up into a bun, eyes soft with sympathy. "We've missed it then?"

"Yeah," she sighed. "We're three hours late."

"I'm sorry," Zoe said, forearms resting on the table, fingers lightly linked together. "I know you can book another date but it's not the point, is it? You were going to be married today and now you have to wait. It's shit."

Donna nodded her head slowly, a delicate fear scraping at the inside of her chest: what if Lance wasn't willing to wait? What if he used this opportunity to leave her? She felt a thick knot of pain lodged itself in her throat, wishing Zoe would look at anything else but her, relieved when Jack reappeared and set a cup of something warm in front of her.

"I don't know what you like to drink but I thought a hot chocolate couldn't go wrong about now," he said, sliding into the table next to Zoe. "Got you a coffee."

Zoe cracked the lid and inhaled deeply. "Thanks. We missed her wedding. We've overshot by about three hours."

Jack winced. "Shit. We can't do anything with the TARDIS either. She's going to need a bit of time to recover. I'm pretty sure we blew apart the stabilising module with that trip. It's going to be difficult to replace."

"We'll figure it out," Zoe replied, face going through a range of emotions as she took a deep drink of her coffee that Donna thought was excessively large and risked burning her throat. "The main thing to think about though is why the Santas are back in town and what they want with Donna."

"How positive are we that they want Donna?" Jack asked. "What if it's you they want?"

Donna looked between them. "Why would they want her?"

"Because she's Zoe," he replied. "And wanting her but accidentally getting you makes more sense than pilot fish hunting you down. Zo, you said she appeared in the TARDIS mid-flight?"

"As far as I know," Zoe said. "I was minding my own business in the Time Vortex only to get whacked over the head with the mallet when I stepped into the console room. Found this one there getting ready to brain me again. We hadn't landed at all, and the TARDIS didn't know how she appeared either."

Donna sipped her hot chocolate, the warmth spreading through her, and she thought of her grandfather in the hospital. She wondered if he knew that she had disappeared, whether someone would have thought of telling him, and tears burned at the back of her eyes when she thought about worried he was going to be about her. He was already so sick that any additional worry was just going to make him worse, and she shifted in her seat, the sound of Zoe and Jack's conversation washing over her.

It was her wedding day.

For years she had dreamt of this day and when she woke up that morning it was to excitement brewing in her chest and a sense of relief that finally it was here. And now she was sitting in a McDonald's in Peckham drinking a bad hot chocolate in the company of two of the strangest people she had ever met. The urge to cry built itself up in her nose. She sniffed, head bowed over her hot chocolate, desperately trying not to sob in front of these strangers when a hand touched hers.

Zoe looked at her softly when she raised her head, voice filled with such tender kindness when she spoke that Donna wanted to crawl into her and fall asleep. "I'm sorry, we're talking a lot and not telling you anything. That must be annoying."

Her left shoulder lifted in a shrug. "It's all right."

"No, Zoe's right, we shouldn't be cutting you out of the conversation," Jack agreed. "Everything's more frightening when you don't know what's going on."

Their kindness threatened to shred her paper-thin control to confetti and tears did fall when Jack offered her a soft, white handkerchief that he pressed into her palm. She found herself crying quietly into it, shoulders shaking and heaving, all the emotions of the day washing over her until she felt drained and exhausted. At some point, Zoe had moved from her seat opposite her to drag a chair to her side, arms around her shoulders, murmuring soft words into her hair. It was only when she surfaced from her tears that she realised it was a lullaby, spoken quietly in French, and Donna leaned against her, eyes fixed on Jack's mascara stained handkerchief.

"I bloody knew Nerys hadn't used waterproof mascara," she complained, and Zoe laughed into her hair.

"Who's Nerys?" Jack asked, bewildered.

"A right proper cow, that's who," Donna replied, wiping her nose again. "Sorry. I didn't mean to –"

"No apologies needed," Zoe said, simply. She took the handkerchief from her and held her chin between two fingers, wiping away the mascara stains and cleaning her up with a gentle efficiency that Donna appreciated. "And don't worry about your make up. Jack always has an emergency kit on him for tear-related emergencies."

Donna looked at him. "You do?"

"You never know when you're going to need a touch up," Jack replied with a nod. "Best to be prepared for all eventualities."

"He's such a boy scout," Zoe whispered to Donna, the words drawing a faint smile onto her lips. "But he's actually right about always being prepared. It's come in handy once or twice, loath as I am to admit it."

Jack set a bottle of freshly purchased water on the table, and Donna wondered how long she had been crying for him to get up and wait in line without her realising it. "Drink this down. You're dehydrated and in a mild state of shock."

"What we were talking about was really us trying to figure out why these Santas want you," Zoe explained as Donna did as she was instructed, the water doing more for her than the hot chocolate. "Based on last year, we think they're pilot fish, which means they're working for someone else. Most likely, anyway."

"Last year?" Donna asked. "What happened then?"

Jack stared at her. "You know, the Sycorax with their big spaceship over London on Christmas Day?"

Donna vaguely remembered her grandfather talking about it, his excited voice pounding through the walls of the house on Christmas morning that I knew it! I knew there were aliens! But it had all felt like a massive joke to her that when the Prime Minister was forced to admit to the existence of aliens, she hadn't paid a lot of attention to it. She didn't see how it mattered at the end of the day. Her life didn't change. It wasn't as though aliens had introduced her to Lance or got her a decent job or a house that she could call her own, hating that she still rented as she approached forty. Not wanting to admit her disinterest to the two people who seemed to make their living in aliens, she shrugged.

"I was hungover."

"Must've been a hell of a hangover," Zoe noted, amused. "I've had days like that."

"Haven't we all?" Donna watched the two of them exchange a grin, jealous in a way that startled her: it wasn't as though she and Lance didn't have fun together but there was an easiness between Zoe and Jack that she didn't have with Lance, not yet anyway. "But the question still stands: how did get into the TARDIS?"

She shrugged again. "I don't know. I was just there."

"She said that before she appeared in the console room, she saw a golden haze," Zoe explained to him. "When you taken by the Daleks to the Game Station, was it like that?"

Jack shook his head, thoughtful. "No, it was all white, and I passed out afterwards, not sure how long for. But I don't think the Daleks are involved. If they were going to send something into the TARDIS, they'd send a bomb not Donna."

Panic flashed across Zoe's face, and her phone made a reappearance. "The Daleks did make a bomb once, shaped like a human. He was human, kind of, more of a cybernetic thing. He believed he was human right up until the Doctor punched him in the face."

"What?" Jack asked, startled, Donna's heart jackhammering in her chest. "When did this happen?"

"Night we met you," she said, frowning at her phone's screen. "While future me was with you, I was off dealing with the Daleks and a bomb."

Donna made a small sound in her throat and whatever question Jack wanted to ask immediately died on his lips, a focused look appearing on his face instead. "Well? What's the diagnosis?"

"Human," Zoe said, squeezing Donna's hand. "I'm sorry to worry you like that. I didn't think before I spoke. But you're fine. You're human. Flesh and blood just like me."

Donna wasn't sure being just like Zoe was something she wanted, not with what little she had seen of her life so far. "You sure?"

"Here." She held the phone in front of Donna and showed her the scans. "This tells me that you're made up of organic materials – that's your flesh and bones – and this column here lets me know in what components. Do you know about biology and chemistry?"

"No," Donna admitted. "Didn't like science much."

Zoe just nodded. "Basically, humans need eleven elements for life. They are oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium, phosphorus, and potassium – the big six that make up about 99% of us. And then we need sulphur, sodium, chlorine, and magnesium, but that's less than 1% of us. Some species are different: some need more oxygen, some need no oxygen. But humans, this is what we need and it's what you have. You're perfectly normal and human, I promise."

Donna understood only half of what Zoe said, relieved not by the words but by her tone and relaxed posture. She watched as the phone was pushed across the table to Jack, who picked it up and cast his eyes over it.

"So, if you're not alien and you're not a trap or a weapon, why were you pulled into the TARDIS?" Zoe looked at her thoughtfully. "I don't suppose there's been any Dalek trouble since the Battle of Canary Wharf, has there?"

"Nope," Jack answered for Donna who thought of the terrifying pepper pots that had laid such waste to the world, wondering how Zoe was able to speak about them without terror drenching her words. "It's been pretty quiet to be honest. A few issues here and there but more local trouble than anything deadly. UNIT's been taking care of it."

"Good, that's good," she said, reaching for her coffee and taking another large mouthful. "What about you, Donna? Tell us about yourself."

"Like what?" Donna asked, confused. "I'm no one special."

"Everyone's special," Jack replied with such conviction to his voice that she felt light headed and embarrassed. "But what is it you do? Do you work?"

"Unfortunately," she said with a sigh. "But I'm just a secretary. That's all. Boring administration work. I'm on contract at the moment, hoping to be made full time, but that's it."

Zoe listened with an attentiveness that threatened to be off putting. "Who do you work for?"

"Does it matter?"

"Maybe," she said. "I won't know until you tell me."

"I'm at H.C. Clements," Donna said, and, across the small table, Jack stiffened. "What? Is that important?"

"Unfortunately, I think it is," Jack said, eyes slicing towards Zoe. "H.C. Clements is – or was, I should say – the systems' security provider for Torchwood."

Donna leaned away from Zoe at the sudden change in her mood. Gone was the kind, friendly woman with a pleasant laugh and genial air and in her place was someone who crackled with fury. Anger rolled off her in waves, her face shifting from beautiful to terrifying as the cut of her cheekbones and the line of her jaw grew more pronounced in her fury. Donna wanted to move away from her and seek refuge in Jack's comforting bulk when the mood drained from her, warmth ticking back into the air around them as Zoe wrestled her emotions under control with visible effort.

"Is it?" Her two-word question cracked and broke, reminding Donna of what it was like to chew ice, and she shivered. "And exactly how closely are HC Clements and Torchwood related?"

"Torchwood was the parent company of H.C. Clements," Jack explained, and Donna was confused as to why he didn't seem bothered by the shift in Zoe's mood, why fear didn't make his skin pale and his fingers twitch. "There's nothing special about them. They just build security systems. Even though a lot of the Torchwood security is from them, an audit showed that they're just a normal company doing normal things."

Zoe scoffed. "And you believed that? Come on, Jack. Why hasn't this been checked out yet? It's been months since the Battle."

Donna caught the shifting expression on Jack's face, something less than pleasant beneath the smooth surface of his skin.

"Maybe it's because the world was left devastated by the attack, and it's been all we can do to keep things running while dealing with the injured, the dead, and the traumatised," Jack said with clipped pointedness that silenced Zoe's frustration and anger. "Some other things have taken precedence, which you would know if you'd have been here."

A frown furrowed on Zoe's forehead, hurt blooming in the thin lines around her eyes and mouth, and the two of them stared at each other with the weight of many unspoken things between them. Donna wanted to be anywhere else but there: even Mars would do in that moment, certain she couldn't get more uncomfortable than she was now.

"Should I give you two time to have a fight?" Donna asked. "I can pop to the bathroom."

"We're not having a fight," they said in unison.

"Seems like a fight," she muttered, looking away from them to a young woman with her baby, longing pinging inside her chest. She wanted to be gone. Her strength had returned to her body and she now wanted to be wherever Lance was, letting him hold her as she told him about the horror of her day. "Can we –?"

Jack's phone started to ring, interrupting her. Zoe busied herself with finishing her coffee as Donna pulled it from the pocket of his coat and handed it to him. He glanced at the screen, the corners of his mouth ticking up, pleased for a reason Donna didn't understand.

"It's Rose," he said.

Zoe choked on her coffee. "Don't tell her I'm here!"

Donna knew exactly what was going to happen before it did and, apparently, so did Zoe who was on her feet just as Jack's thumb answered the phone call. She grabbed Donna's hand and pulled her after her.

"Rosie, guess who I'm with?" Jack answered by way of greeting, his words lifting in volume to catch the back of Zoe as she made her way for the door, Donna pulled along in her wake. "Your sister."

The cold burst over them when they left the McDonald's and stood on the street. Donna was grateful for the heavy warmth of Jack's coat that kept the icy cold at bay, Zoe unlucky in the fact that she stood there in her jumper and trousers. The cold didn't seem to bother her though, more concerned with putting as much distance between them and Jack as possible, marching off down the street while keeping an eye out for a taxi.

"Don't like your sister?" Donna asked to the back of Zoe's head.

"I love her," Zoe replied, stepping out into the road again to stop a taxi in its tracks. "But it's complicated. Anyway, your family's going to be worried sick about you. We need to get you to them as soon as possible."

"What about Jack?" She asked, glancing over her shoulder to Jack who stood outside McDonald's, hand on his hip, staring pointedly at Zoe as he spoke on the phone. "Don't we need him?"

"He's a big boy," Zoe said, pushing her into the back of the taxi. "He'll catch up."

---

Rose stared at her reflection in Mickey's hallway mirror. Stone cold and unpleasantly sober, she looked pale and wan. Gone was her good humour from tearing Star Wars apart and drinking more wine that she supposed was appropriate for the middle of the day, even on Christmas Eve, but she wasn't working and she hadn't let her hair down in a long time. If she wasn't able to fully relax when she was with her friends and family, when was she to do so?

She swallowed hard against the nausea rising slowly in her throat, and she stepped away from the mirror and made her way up the stairs, quietly so as not to alert anyone to the fact that she wan't on the phone any more, and she stepped into Jack and Mickey's bathroom by cutting through their bedroom. Setting her phone on the side of the sink, she opened the medicine cabinet and sorted through the perfectly organised stock that Jack kept fresh and rotated every month. She found the sober-up patches she wanted and peeled it out of its wrapping, placing it beneath her ear. Next she found an anti-nausea sweet and sucked on it, feeling her control of her body return.

Zoe was back.

Zoe was back.

It seemed impossible that her hoping and wishing had materialised the sister she missed desperately but it had happened. She was back and with Jack having a coffee in McDonald's with a bride. Rose didn't understand the last bit. She had stopped listening after Jack told her that he was with Zoe, barely hearing his explanation of everything that had happened since he left the house three hours earlier for milk and wine, none of them noticing he was gone until Rose's phone started pinging with messages from UNIT.

She knew that she was going to see Zoe again. In all of her absence, Rose didn't doubt that a day would come when she was face to face with Zoe once more. The thought of her sister just dropping out of her life without a goodbye – and even with a goodbye – never even crossed her mind, so she thought she shouldn't be as shocked as she was. Yet some small dark part of her must have believed that Zoe was gone forever, that she was never going to see her again, because she was shaking like a leaf caught in a winter's breeze, and she had to sit down.

Sitting on the top of the closed toilet, she pressed her head between her knees and tried to gather the frayed pieces of herself tightly so that she didn't fall apart. There were too many conflicting emotions running riot through her: happiness, delight, excitement, despair, anger, frustration. They all battled for supremacy in her, and she wanted to scream at them to stop, to let her think, but there was no respite.

"Rose?" Lifting her head from between her knees, she looked up to find Mickey in the doorway, frowning down at her with obvious concern etched across his face. "Jesus, babe, what's wrong?"

She shook her head, struggling to find her words. "I called Jack."

"Is he okay?" Panic lanced across his features and the guilt she felt for making him feel that was a welcome respite from her own turmoil. "He hasn't been kidnapped again, has he?"

"No, he's fine," Rose said, swallowing. "He's with Zoe."

Mickey stared at her, the silence stretching tautly between them. When he spoke, his voice was rough. "What did you say?"

"He's with Zoe," she repeated. "She's back on Earth. She's in London right now."

He stepped in and closed the door behind him, shutting off all sounds of the news that now played on the TV downstairs, Sarah Jane and Trisha watching it with concern. Oxford Street was cordoned off, police tape stretched the length of it, and ambulances lined the streets as the paramedics tended to the injured in the blood-stained snow. The news anchors were already stirring up fear at the prospect of another alien attack, commenters wondering whether this was the start of a new Christmas tradition: Harriet had released a statement telling people not to panic, to allow UNIT to do their job without distraction, but there was a clamour for more.

He supposed he wasn't surprised Zoe was back in town considering the disaster hitting London.

"Does she have somethin' to do with what's goin' on?" Mickey asked, quietly.

"Jack says it's them robot Santas from last year," she explained, and Mickey had to cast his mind back as so much had happened between then and now that he struggled to remember the Sycorax right then. "They're goin' after this woman who just turned up in the TARDIS mid-flight. Neither of them know what's goin' on but they're stickin' with this woman until they do. He says he's goin' to make sure she's comin' for Christmas."

"The woman?"

"No, Zoe."

Mickey pressed his back against the door and slid down it until he was seated, knees pulled to his chest. He looked up at Rose, staring at her in silence. "The Doctor an' Jackie?"

Rose shook her head, pained. "She's alone."

"Oh." Disappointment rolled through him. "Guess it was a long shot, wasn't it?"

"If anyone could've done it though..." she trailed off and slid off the toilet sit, shifting until they were sat side by side against the door. "I don't know how I feel."

Mickey lifted his arm and tucked it around her, pulling her against his side. "Yeah, me too. I'm happy, but I'm also...I don't know."

"Yeah." Her sighed agreement warmed his shoulder. "I have to go in. UNIT's called at least five times an' Ianto's sent a message sayin' him an' the rest of the team are there. They want me to help co-ordinate things."

He nodded against the top of her head. "That's good. At least nothin' bad will happen with you in charge."

"Maybe," Rose murmured, sniffing. "Shit, I'm goin' to cry."

"Do it now," he told her, hand cupping the back of her head, his other arm stretching around her in a hug. "You won't have time for it in a bit."

A watery laugh spilled free of her mouth before she was crying into his chest. Every inch of her heart, every inch of her missed the Doctor and Jackie. She had truly, deeply believed that Zoe was going to achieve the impossible and to know that she was back on Earth without the ones that they were missing was like losing them all over again. She cried for their absence and she cried for the hurt Zoe had caused her by disappearing. Mostly she cried for herself and how hard everything was and how much she missed the simplicity of travelling through time and space with the people she loved the most in the world.

When she was done, Mickey helped her dry her face. He rummaged from the cupboard beneath the sink and removed Jack's expensive moisturiser that immediately cooled her red skin and helped her look as though she hadn't been sobbing her heart out. The doorbell rang, and she sniffed again, tying her hair back.

"That'll be UNIT," Rose said. "How do I look?"

"Beautiful," Mickey said, and she smiled. "Are you goin' to be okay?"

"Don't know," she admitted. "S'pose I have to be. Someone's got to make sure we don't fuck anythin' up, right?"

"Just like the Doctor," he said, getting to his feet awkwardly and helping her up as Trisha called up the stairs for Rose, letting her know there was someone waiting for her. "You'll be great. Make sure you come home, okay?"

"Like I'm missin' your cookin'," Rose told him, slipping her arms around his waist and hugging him tightly, smashing her face into his neck to drink in the comfort he offered her. "You want to come with?"

"Absolutely not," Mickey replied without any hesitation. "I'm leavin' the alien stuff to you an' Jack these days. I'll be here though, keepin' everythin' goin' for you. There'll be a glass of wine or a cup of tea waitin' for you when you're done."

She looked up at him. "I really love you."

He pressed a soft, lingering kiss to her forehead before releasing her and following her from the room. Trisha stood at the bottom of the stairs in conversation with Drew French, Sarah Jane holding herself up in the doorway and with a walking stick. All three of them looked up as Rose descended the stairs.

"Definitely alien then?" Sarah Jane asked.

Rose nodded. "Looks like it. I've got to head in. Mickey'll catch you up on what I know but, basically, Zoe's back."

Trisha twisted around, the large arc of her stomach sending her off balance to such a degree that Drew had to reach out and grab her arm. "She is? That's great news!"

"It is," Sarah Jane agreed, smiling. "We won't keep you though, Rose. Go, and good luck."

"Thanks," Rose said, letting Mickey help her into her coat, his lips brushing over her cheek in a kiss goodbye. She turned to Drew who looked down at her, faintly awkward smile on his mouth that she hoped would fade with enough time. "All right then, Drew. Let's go."

Stepping out into the cold and stealing herself against the danger ahead of her, Rose prayed that she was able to deal with whatever was waiting.

---

Zoe remembered her promise to Donna and stayed out of view of the videographer, though why the man was bothering to continue his work when the wedding hadn't happened, she didn't know. Instead of slipping onto the dance floor and having a twirl with Donna as requested, she leaned back against the bar and watched Donna's friends and family continue the party they started without her. It seemed a little gauche to have started the party when Donna was very clearly missing but since it wasn't Zoe's family, she kept her opinion on the matter to herself, sipping at the awful wine that was available at Donna's open bar. Every sip of it felt as though she was peeling away a new layer of her stomach lining, nose crinkling against her will.

"You don't have to drink that," Jack said as he appeared at her side. "Just have a Coke or something."

"I seem to remember you telling me that Coke was bad for me," Zoe said, angling her head to look at him, pleased didn't seem bothered by the fact she had ditched him outside McDonald's. "In fact, wasn't there a presentation involved?"

"There might have been," he agreed, signalling the bartender with two fingers, pointing at the whiskey bottle. "Rose is glad you're home. She wants me to let you know that you're coming for Christmas dinner whether you like it or not."

Zoe hummed into her wine. "Is that really what she said?"

"What she actually said isn't suitable for public conversation," he replied. "But she's serious about you staying for Christmas, as am I."

"I'm staying," she told him. "Once this is taken care of, you can all yell at me to your heart's content."

He took his whiskey with a smile and a small wink to the bartender who turned a beautiful shade of pink. Rather like Zoe's wine, the alcohol burnt unpleasantly on the way down and left a thin sheen of foul taste on his tongue.

"Don't," Jack said, quietly. She glanced at him. "You disappearing affected all of us, Zo. It hurt when you did that. You don't get to minimise our pain by joking about it."

She looked away from him and out over the dance floor. "Okay."

Zoe had never enjoyed being told that she was in the wrong. She wasn't sure anyone liked it but it seemed to burn at her more than it did other people. The Doctor was able to take it in his stride, delighted when it happened as it meant he got to learn something new about whatever culture he was visiting or whatever situation he was in; Zoe hated it because it meant that she had done something she wasn't supposed to, that she had stepped out of line, and it reminded her of all the people who had told her that she belonged in a small, narrow space where her gender, her class, and her skin colour confined her. It was instinctive to fight back against it, to snarl at whoever pushed back with her, and she forced herself to swallow that reaction down and remind herself that Jack didn't want to start a fight with her. He was Jack, and he only ever meant well.

"How was it here?" Jack asked when it became clear that she wasn't going to argue with him. "Were they happy to see her?"

Zoe breathed in deeply. "They were in the middle of a party when we turned up."

"I'm sorry, what?"

"They'd started the party without her," she said.

"While she was missing?" A muscle in Jack's jaw twitched, and he sipped his whiskey again. "Charming."

"You should've seen it," Zoe said with a grin. "She had them eating out the palm of her hand. Turned on the waterworks and everyone was suddenly falling over themselves to comfort her instead of demanding to know where she was and what nonsense she was going on about with aliens and me. It was a masterclass in crowd control."

Silence fell between them, and Zoe found herself lost in the memory of the last time she had gone dancing. It had been a long time ago, longer than she liked, back before she knew about the changes to her body and her lifespan. The Doctor had waited impatiently as she slept, sitting next to her on their bed dressed in his tuxedo, top hat on his lap, only to immediately pepper her with suggestions as to where they could go dancing when she opened her eyes. She knew it was after their visit to Ricky's universe but before Krop Tor. That period of time had shifted and blurred together, happiness and warmth filling her when she thought of it, and she had slipped into a dress and followed him out of the TARDIS and into the reception following the wedding of the Great Galactic Empress to her sixth husband. He had been in such a good mood that she was caught up in it, laughing as he twirled her about the dance floor, laughing harder when he pulled her behind long, thick curtains for a cheeky snog.

Watching the couples dance on the floor, her chest expanded with the ache of missing him, and as though sensing her mood, Jack settled next to her, their elbows knocking together.

"So," he began, "how was the Corsair?"

Zoe huffed a laugh. "Fine once he'd finished scaring the shit out of me. He was lying in wait on the TARDIS when I came back from getting something and completely knocked me on my ass before I realised anyone else was there. Between you, me, and the TARDIS, I think he enjoyed himself."

Jack was relieved that she didn't seem put out over the incident, speaking of the Corsair with her usual bemused fondness as though she wasn't entirely sure why she liked him only know that she did. "Is he around right now?"

"No," she replied. "I haven't seen him in six months."

"Six months." Jack swirled the dregs of his whiskey in his glass before downing it. "How long has it been for you then?"

Her throat moved in a swallow. "About two years."

Two years.

Jack didn't know what he wanted to do first: yell at her for leaving in the first place, cry because she had been alone for so long, or handcuff her to him so she couldn't take off without him again.

"Right," he finally said. "I take it you've got it out your system now?"

She looked up at him. "Get what out of my system?"

"Your anger."

Her face rippled with controlled emotion. He marvelled at that as there was a time, not too long ago for him, that she wouldn't have bothered controlling such an emotion. Zoe had always been prone to letting herself experience whatever it was that coursed through her body in a way that left her open to hurt. He had admired it about her, her vulnerability and her strength, but he also admired her new control, tracking how she forced her initial reaction back and how she waited until she was sure she could speak without letting her emotions get the better of her.

He recognised Yatta's handiwork in the effort.

"I wasn't angry," Zoe told him, "I was...I thought I could bring them home. I really, really thought I could do it. That's why I left."

"I believe you," Jack said. "But you can't tell me that you weren't angry at the universe, at everything. Not after what happened between you and Harriet."

Anger flashed across her face. "I don't want to talk about Harriet."

"Okay," he agreed. "How about Behrouz?"

Zoe set her glass down on the surface of the bar with a sharp, angry clack. "You do know what I was up to, don't you? Let me guess, you spoke with Behrouz?"

"I popped in for a visit to deal with some headaches," Jack replied, tapping the side of his temple. "You know how bad these get sometimes. He was a bit startled to see me, thought I'd joined up with you and panicked. I had a laptop thrown at my head."

She snorted. "Hope you ducked."

"Thankfully I did," he said. "What the hell happened with him?"

"Come on," she replied, looking at him, exasperated. "If you've spoken with him, you know what happened."

"I wouldn't mind hearing it from you," Jack said. "He's angry and I'm not sure he really likes you any more, which based on what you did isn't a huge surprise, but he did tell me everything you were doing."

"He's been quite talkative," Zoe noted. "You and the Corsair. He should start a podcast."

Jack frowned at her. "Don't act like your the guilty part here."

She pushed away from the bar and stared at him. "We could do a play-by-play of everything that I've fucked up over the last two years if you want, but is now really the best time? We've got a woman who appeared in the TARDIS and who the Santas are chasing. I don't think now's the right time to go through everything."

"I get the feeling it's never going to be the right time for you," Jack replied, pointedly, and she looked away, hurt and angry. "But you're right, now's not the time. Although, I do need to know, what happened to the huon energy? What did you do with it?"

Zoe knew that coming home meant facing questions she might not want to answer. In preparing for her return, she had gone over various questions and scenarios with Yatta in order to feel ready. She knew that Jack would ask the harder questions, the ones that cut closer to the bone and brought shame to the surface. Yet even with the sessions of preparation and role playing, hearing the question spoken in Jack's voice and looking into his face to see the faint disappointment that lingered in his eyes, she found herself wholly unprepared for the situation.

"The Corsair took care of it," she managed to say. "There's none left on the TARDIS."

He nodded and offered her a small balm to the wound his question had caused her. "It was a good idea."

"It was an idea," Zoe replied, bitterness aimed inwards. "I'm not sure it was a good one though."

Instead of disagreeing with her, he set his whiskey down and leaned against the bar properly, arms folded loosely across his chest. "Speaking of ideas, what do you have for what's going on?"

"I do have something, but I hope I'm wrong," Zoe said, and he tilted his head, listening. "Before he left me, the Corsair left this device on the TARDIS. I don't know if he made it or if it's just some tech he had on him, but it was to soak up all the huon energy from the TARDIS and the universe at large, I guess. You know, pick up everything I'd left behind and all. But I didn't remove it before I started the trip to Earth. I figured I'd deal with it later."

Jack's eyes sought Donna in the crowd, watching as she laughed when Lance dipped her. "You're suggesting that Donna had huon energy in her? Is that even possible?"

"Kind of, I suppose, but it just doesn't make sense," she replied, pleased to slip into the role of scientist and investigator, feeling herself on firmer ground with Jack as they resumed their familiar roles. "I accidentally dosed myself with huon energy when I was trying to make it work, and it hurt like an absolute bitch. Seriously, it was the worst. I thought I was going to die, and it was barely in me for minutes. Literally the second it touched my skin, I was in agony but Donna didn't mention any pain. She just said one second she was walking up the aisle and the next she was in the console room, but the TARDIS hasn't picked anything up from her."

"Wait a second." He tapped his fingers against his biceps. "Why wouldn't the TARDIS recognise huon energy? I know that the Time Lords were familiar with it so surely the sensors would pick it up, especially given your work with it."

Zoe felt a blush climb in her cheeks. "The Corsair stuck some child locks on the computer to keep me locked of anything huon energy related."

Jack glanced at her, surprised, before he laughed. "He did what?"

"I'm not trustworthy apparently, don't make a big deal of it," she said, mortification warming her all over her body. "It's only for huon energy, nothing else."

He struggled to stop his laughter. "Sorry, sorry, it's just – how many times has the Doctor threatened to do exactly that to us?"

"I'm aware of the irony," she said, dry as the desert. "Unfortunately I'm not able to unlock it without the Doctor, so that's going to be a fun conversation when he gets back."

"Rather you than me," he replied, and she rolled her eyes. "But since huon energy is so dangerous, Donna would've died by now if she had it inside her, right?"

"That's why I'm confused," Zoe said, glad to be back on topic. She searched the crowd and pointed. "See that guy with the camera? Reckon he caught her disappearing?"

Jack bobbed his head. "Might be worth a shot. Whatever happened may not show on the recording though. Not a camera like that."

Zoe reached for Jack's hand automatically only to pull back at the last second, uncertain whether he wanted to hold it on not. Warmth bloomed from her palm when he stopped her from pulling it back to her side, sliding their hands together, curling his fingers around hers and using his height to manoeuvre them through the crowd. Zoe scanned the press of people for Donna, happy to see that she had a glass of something bubbly in her hand and was laughing with a woman in a peach-coloured dress. It hadn't taken her long to shake off the fear that clung to her, throwing herself into her reception with gusto, making her for the wasted day in the best way she could.

"Hi there," Jack greeted the videographer with a charming smile. "I was hoping to ask you for a favour."

Zoe watched Jack masterfully flirt with the videographer so that within twenty seconds the three of them were stood around the camera to watch the replay of Donna's disappearance.

"You're not the first to ask to have a look," Alfie told them as he rewound the recording. "I've had everyone and their mothers coming up to have a look. They've been telling me to sell it to You've Been Framed but with all the alien stuff going on right now, I said the news. That's where the real money's at, you know? Besides, I'm not convinced she's still the same person when she was taken. I reckon she's a clone."

"That's a great theory. Do you mind if I –?"

Jack gestured at the camera and Alfie pressed it into his hands. He held it between them, and Zoe slipped her glasses on, watching as Donna made her way down the aisle on the arm of her proud father before gold started to spill out of her, wrapping her in a shroud, before she disappeared with a holding the camera in her hands, glasses on her face, watching Donna disappear.

"Whoa," Jack murmured, rewinding it as Zoe's stomach bottomed out. "Let's see that again."

"It's pretty clever, no doubt about that," Alfie told them with a head that bobbing in time to the music. "I was clapping when it was done."

"I've never seen anything like this," Jack said, quietly. "This is amazing."

"This is dangerous," Zoe whispered, wondering if she was going to have a Christmas where she didn't make a stupid mistake and bring danger down onto her home planet: first the Sycorax and now this? She was becoming reckless. "They look like huon particles. It's what I looked like when they were crowding me. The TARDIS took a recording so she could let me how stupid I was when I healed. The only difference is that the energy was coming into me, not out."

Jack turned his head to look at her, so close to his lips were a breath away from her forehead. "I don't know a lot about huon energy, only that you shouldn't have been messing around with it, so tell me: how bad is this?"

"On a scale of one to fuck-me-this-is-bad?" Zoe considered. "I'm pretty sure we're past fuck-me-this-is-bad and straight into pray-to-whatever-God-you-believe-in-for-help The human body cannot contain huon energy, at least not while it's active. So something is controlling this energy, it has to be. It was activated when I got close to Earth and the device sucked it out of Donna but that means it was in there to begin with. Something or someone put it there."

Jack pressed the camera back into Alfie's chest and thanked him distractedly, pulling Zoe towards a window so they had more privacy.

"Why would someone douse a human with inactive huon energy?" He asked. "Is there a benefit to that?"

"No, it's a pointless thing," Zoe said before pausing, head tilting to one side as a thought entered her mind. "Then again, I was able to activate the huon energy by funnelling them into dead planets. There was enough residue life behind on a planetary scale to activate them. I suppose if you don't have a dead planet to hand then maybe putting inactive particles into humans might work but I can't see why someone would choose to do that. Also, why would they let Donna walk around without someone watching her? It'd make more sense to do a New Earth thing and keep them in stasis."

Jack opened his mouth to reply only for her to keep talking, thinking out loud.

"Another thing is that there are very, very few people capable of using huon energy like this," she continued. "It's old, like really old. It comes from the Dark Ages of Gallifrey before they even had written records. Brax found snippets of information that he entered into the Archive that suggested Rassilon, Omega, and the Other got rid of it but these were written in the First Age, millennia after the fact."

"You're going too fast," Jack said, squeezing her hand. "But what I'm understanding is that if it really is huon energy that's in Donna – or was in Donna – then whoever is responsible is going to predate civilised Gallifrey?"

She blinked as though she hadn't realised that was true. "Yeah, I think so."

"Can you call the Corsair?" He asked. "Because if you can, now would be a great time to do that. We could really use a Time Lord about now."

She shook her head. "He's dropped off the map. He said he was going to come back and check on me but never did. I'm not surprised though, the War was being fought when he found me, he's probably busy or –"

She cut herself off, not wanting to speak his fate out loud.

"Right," he said, concerned. "We need to get Donna and call UNIT. Whatever happens, we're going to need some backup, and UNIT has the support we need, and – Zoe, are you even listening to me?"

"No," she said, honestly, staring out into the crowd. "What's going on over there?"

Jack followed her eyes and saw that there was a small crowd of delighted people gathered around the Christmas tree, watching the colourful, glittering baubles dance in the air around it. He kept his hand tightly locked on Zoe's as she took a step forward, curious and concerned, and he glanced out the window to confirm his fears.

"We've got company," he said, eyes fixed on the Santas. "Get Donna and get out her out of here."

Zoe turned on her heel to stare at him. "What the hell are you going to do?"

"I'm going to buy you some time," he said. "If I'm right, and I think I am, as soon as Donna is out of here, the Santas will leave as well. It's her they want, not anyone else."

"Good point," Zoe said. "You can track my phone?"

"As long as you're not blocking it any more," he said, and she nodded. He allowed himself a grin. "It's just like old times, isn't it?"

Zoe laughed, head tipped back, and he was delighted with himself before she slipped into the crowd to grab Donna. Jack stretched his arms and cracked his knuckles, looking forward to the challenge in front of him.

"Right then," he said, readying himself. "Let's see what you Santas can do."