Blood pounded in August's ears, breath quick and vision unfocused as he held tightly onto Donna with one hand, the other gripping the console's edge. The control room had pitched to the right, vibrating intensely as the grating beneath them croaked and complained. Donna shouted something about how typical the interruption was, but August couldn't hear her clearly. His own thoughts reeling.
An hour ago, he would have called the world around him a pleasant daydream to have when he couldn't sleep, or work was slow, or he was visiting Dad and Gran near elections. But daydreams weren't supposed to rattle his bones like an old, wooden roller coaster. They didn't throw his stomach around like pizza dough or blow out his eardrums with bells and alarms as loud as foghorns. No. Daydreams were nice, simple, entertaining distractions from reality.
This, however… was not a daydream. And August found that, instead of feeling utterly terrified by the mere thought of being so far from home as he should have been, there was a sense of exhilaration bubbling at the prospect of an entirely new universe to explore.
The TARDIS groaned and popped. Soon, it was wrenching into an upright position, the time rotor rasping as the ship's auto-stabilisers settled everything back into place. Donna waited longer than needed to relax the grip she had on his sleeve and he released her in turn. His attention was then drawn to the hexagons lining the cavernous interior of the TARDIS as their blue-green light shifted, taking on a mauve hue.
'What was that?' he asked Donna, gasping for air. 'Did we crash into something?'
But she wasn't paying him any attention. Donna moved to the other side of the control room, leaning over that single piece of guard railing this TARDIS had, staring at the floor, feeling a bit useless. Tears were briming in her eyes, hands clasped together as she tried to maintain some semblance of composure. Too much had gone pear-shaped too quickly. She was overwhelmed and more than a little angry she hadn't realised the Doctor was no longer in the room earlier.
Meandering over to the coral strut left of her, August wished he'd come to a similar realisation before he'd had time to shout at her like the complete muppet he was. Dumbly, he'd assumed Donna was a cosplayer like him at first. Which didn't make complete sense, he knew, but it was the most logical conclusion he could draw given the circumstances. That idea had quickly unravelled into something that should have been utterly impossible, though. How was it that one moment he'd been at the convention centre with his mates, looking like himself, and now…?
Still having trouble wrapping his head around the concept, August brought the long boney fingers of his new hand up to his chin. It couldn't really be the Doctor's face he now bore. Could it?
His stubble was gone, replaced by a smooth, clean-shaven, angular jaw with sideburns leading up to a mess of perpetually mused hair. The brim of his nose had become narrower and slightly askew. His trouser legs, which he'd rolled up previously, now hung neatly down to his ankles as intended—appreciative of the five added inches to his height. The fat that hugged his stomach was also gone. There hadn't been much there before, mind, but this Doctor's body was so skinny compared to his own that he felt like a twig without it.
Still, August had doubts. It wasn't exactly normal to find yourself with another person's face. He had to be sure of what Donna had told him. Luckily, he knew of a fool proof test and moved his tie aside. He then pressed his palm against the left side of his chest, feeling for the low thump-thump of a heart. With adrenaline coursing through his veins, it was racing. He brought his hand over to the right side of his chest, next, biting his lip, wondering if he'd really feel anything there as well, and then—
Thump-thump.
A wave of nausea passed through August. He'd felt it plain as day! A second heart beating away in his chest! There was no doubting it now. Somehow, he'd come into possession of the Doctor's tenth body!
The nose was itching, so August sniffed and crossed his arms, brow furrowing as he leaned against the coral strut next to him, trying as casually as he could muster to decide how he felt about it…
You're a Time Lord now. Time Lords are cool. No, wrong Doctor. Ten would say it's brilliant and marvellous. Molto Bene. Bellissima. Meravigliosa and… you are definitely starting to panic!
Eventually, after a long moment of mental jousting, he decided Rose Tyler had put it best: just different.
Instantly the thought of Rose stung. Holly wasn't with him—August noticed that immediately. She'd been standing right beside him last he remembered. That gorgeous, rosy-cheeked face of hers had been positively glowing and he'd been unable to get his tongue untied from his nerves. She and Parady had to be wondering where he'd gone. Could he have vanished out of thin air just as Donna had from her wedding? Fallen through a hole in space-time? Disappeared like Marley's brother and Mrs Pepper had, August supposed. Could all this mean that some alien force was behind the disappearances? Images of Daleks, angels, devils, Sontarans, Zygons, and Martians came to mind (Parady's lumbering Cyberman suit suddenly didn't seem so amusing). Any number of them could be involved, but why? While August was here, what had happened to the Doctor? Where would he be? Back in Dalery? How far did this situation go? And what was that irritatingly loud beeping noise coming from the console?!
August looked across the control room to the nearest console panel and noticed a pulsing red diode hidden between two globes and an oblong wheel. He stared at it, then glanced over at Donna as if to ask her permission to mess.
She still had her back to him, so he took matters into his own hands and reached over to the diode, surreptitiously flicking the accompanying switch. The diode buzzed, turned green and the console monitor switched from the scrolling Gallifreyan text to a view of the cosmos and—
August's jaw dropped. 'Oh my God,' he said, breathlessly. 'That's a space station—a real, proper space station!'
Indeed it was. Sitting picturesquely among the stars was a ginormous, thick, white, metal pole surrounded by several wide, doughnut-shaped rings each attached to the centre piece by a series of tubes set equidistantly apart from one another. At the top end of the pole was a disk shape resembling two cymbals being pressed together with an antenna sticking out. A green light emanated from one of the middle rings along the pole, flickering in and out of sight.
The longer August stared at it, the more something unusual about the station became apparent: it was growing. No, he realised, not growing.
'Oh! The light!' August exclaimed, thumping himself on the forehead as he put two-and-two together. 'I bet it's a tractor beam of some sort, pulling the TARDIS in. Must be what gave us a good shove!'
'And you think that's a good thing, do you?' Donna's words snapped at August like the very angry claws of a Macra as she glared over her shoulder at him.
August sobered instantly, wondering to himself how he could be so giddy right now. There was such a mixed bag of emotions coursing through him that it was hard to concentrate on one at a time. He didn't think it was a good thing at all, actually. In fact, he figured it was probably the worst thing that could be happening right now given the last time someone tried to pick up the TARDIS with a space beam.
Although, technically that hadn't happened yet.
'Sorry,' he told Donna, finally. 'Just got caught up in the moment, s'all.'
'Right, so now that you've gotten it off your chest, do you mind telling me who the bleedin hell you are?!' Donna turned to face him fully as she spoke, her strong, commanding voice booming throughout the control room. August winced and clenched his teeth as the full fury of the red-head came crashing down on top of him. 'What have you done to the Doctor? Some sort of body snatching or shape-shifting or cloning or something? If I find out you've hurt him…'
August held up his hands placatingly, backing up into the jump seat as Donna raised hers in a less friendly manner. 'I'm August! August Keyes! I don't know where the Doctor's gone, I don't even know what I'm doing here at the moment, but I can promise you I'm a friend, so please just don't go and slap me again!' he told her, a hint of annoyance in his tone as he eyed her offending hand.
Donna lowered it, but by her expression, August could tell she wasn't entirely convinced. 'That's a very human name,' she said sceptically.
'Well, I am human…' he told her, then his tongue ran over his new molars and he added: 'Normally.'
'You're trying to tell me you're a friend of the Doctor's? Another… companion or something?' Donna's voice was rising again, but most of her flames seemed to have quelled leaving more sadness and confusion than anger. 'How'd you know about Agatha Christie, then? That's only just happened! How'd I know you're not secretly another one of those wasp things getting memories from another one of those whatsit necklaces! Or a con man! Some Outerspace con-man looking to make a quick buck off a beautiful woman and her scrawny alien friend! You won't be getting this TARDIS, I'll tell you!'
August, ignoring the majority of her rantings, rubbed at the back of his neck awkwardly. He didn't want to lie to the brilliant Donna Noble but knew the truth wouldn't be any easier for her to swallow. He needed her to trust him if he ever wanted to figure out a way home, he knew. But how could he explain it? 'Well, actually, Donna, where I come from your whole life is fiction. I dressed up as the Doctor for a sci-fi convention and my best mate was a Cyberman. We saw an Ood doing the tango with Boba Fett at one point.' Yes, that would sound very trustworthy and not at all mad up.
'It's complicated,' he decided to say.
'Well, uncomplicate it.'
Hearts pounding in his chest, August once again glanced at the console monitor. The space station took up the whole screen now. 'It's not that simple, Donna. And I don't think we have the time...'
But Donna wasn't having his excuses. She folded her arms, a look on her face August had seen levelled at the likes of Mister Halpen, Cobb, and Davros.
'Better start talking, then.'