Author's note: Warning Donna whump in the beginning (not too graphic) and then some nice fluffiness afterwards. I was so not expecting the story with these two to take the turn it did but it warmed my heart to see the two of them working together and getting closer. I just LOVE them!

Donna groaned softly when she felt pain that was trying to split her skull, the pounding of agony did little to mask the emptiness that suddenly yawned wide open within her.

There was nothing there. The Doctor was completely gone from her mind. For the first time in what felt like an eternity, there was no warmth of his presence and the loss of that focus left her mind reeling.

She'd had the strangest sensation of floating and being buffeted by the winds of temporal disturbances as she'd lain unconscious. Her mind felt like it had been separated from her body and she'd floundered lost and alone while she screamed the Doctor's name into the abyss.

Donna jerked fully awake with a cry, her eyes blinking against the harsh white glare overhead. She tried to raise her hands and grunted when she felt that she was still restrained in whatever macabre facility she'd been taken to when she'd been knocked unconscious during the riot.

She tried to calm the pounding of her heart as she struggled to clear the fog that was determined to push her immediately back into unconsciousness where the pain wouldn't bother her anymore. She couldn't afford to pass out again, there was too much at stake and someone had stolen the Doctor from her.

Something had been said by the people that were holding her to send the Doctor's rage to new and dizzying heights, she'd been unable to focus through that fiery cauldron which the Doctor had quite happily allowed to overflow. She struggled to remember what the exact conversation was of the people who had come through the door, but she found that the words slipped through her fingers like water through a sieve.

There was a soft beeping in the room around her, but when Donna tried to move her head, she grunted at the breathless shock of pain that caused black specks to dance across her vision. The cool press of metal against her neck brought back the last few moments of consciousness and Donna suddenly began to struggle violently against her restraints.

"Oi! Let me go! You have no right to hold me like this. We only want to try to help you people!"

Donna waited with her heart pounding out a fearful rhythm, her mind trying to focus through the rush of adrenaline to see if there was any response to her shouting. Unlike the previous time she'd regained consciousness, there was no whisper of movement in the lab and Donna realized that she was alone.

She forced herself to calm down when she would've liked nothing more than to jerk uselessly against her restraints, her movements had caused the pain in her neck and head to spike when she'd accidentally moved the cool piece of metal against her neck.

She could just see down the front of her body and was able to focus through the pain to really take in her current circumstances unlike the previous time she'd regained consciousness. The restraints across her chest and legs were solid metal bands with some sort of padding on the inside to keep them from biting too painfully into who or whatever they were holding.

Donna snorted at that thought. How benevolent of her captors to be concerned with her comfort when they were holding her against her will. No matter how comfortable the restraints, they were still restraints and she was determined to find a way to escape.

Her wrists were held in smaller bands that kept them firmly planted to her side and she noticed that with a small amount of wiggling she could move her hands slightly within the bands. It was the sharp pain in her arm that reminded her of the strange device that was connected to her that seemed to be monitoring her vital signs and was also the source of the beeping.

She looked away from the tubes that were sticking out of the device because she knew that she'd go mad if she thought too hard on the red fluid that was being drawn out her body and pumped into the larger machine by her bedside. She had talked to the Doctor often enough about how aliens were treated on earth and how it was because of his very human looking appearance that he was able to move relatively easy through their rather xenophobic ranks. She'd never thought that she would be the subject of study and experimentation and she could barely think with the fear that suddenly spiked beyond her control.

"Focus, Donna. Don't worry about things you can't control; just focus on the things you can do." The sound of her own voice steadied her nerves and Donna returned to carefully shifting her hands within their bands in order to try to slip them free of their restraints. If she could just free them, then she knew that she could figure out a way to open the rest of her restraints and escape so that she could find the Doctor.

The sound of a door opening caused a soft groan of despair to bubble from Donna's lips, but she quickly stilled her hands so that her attempts to free herself wouldn't be noticed.

There was a brief rustle of sound in the room before the man she'd seen in the company of the woman from before stepped into her view. His eyes drifted down to her wrists with a knowing smirk, before he turned around and pressed a button on the panel beside the bed.

Donna cried out when she felt the pressure of her wrist restraints tighten even further. They weren't painful by any stretch, but the change in pressure removed any chance of her wiggling her hand free.

The man then spoke to her in a harsh voice, his eyes flashing as he tapped the device around her neck and looked at her with an expectant expression.

"What are you jabbering on about? I can't understand you!"

The man's features darkened when Donna spoke, his eyes tightening before he barked out a series of incomprehensible words. Donna looked at him like he was playing some sort of cruel joke on her.

"Why don't you speak so I can understand you? Your companion was talking to me just fine before she…" Donna's eyes widened as suddenly it all made sense. The device around her neck, whatever it was, had ripped the Doctor from her mind and had obviously ripped so much more. "The Tardis. You've taken the Tardis away from me! I can't understand anything you're saying because she's gone. If you'd just remove the thing from around my neck, then we'll be able to have a nice, normal conversation."

She tried to keep the sudden desperate hope from her words when she saw him pause for just a split second before shaking his head and answering her request with another spat of strange sounding words. At least the words sounded like some sort of humanoid tongue and weren't filled with harsh growls and clicks that she'd never have any hope of reproducing.

It was obvious though that he was angry at her continued attempts to speak in a language that he didn't understand when just a while earlier she'd been shouting at them with no issue. She could see the moment the man made a decision and he reached down towards the device around her neck.

Donna tried to lean away from his hand, but the restraints around her head prevented any movement. She could see the harsh reality in his gaze and even though she felt like she'd had a lobotomy, she didn't need her telepathy to know that he was about to hurt her again. "Oh no you don't! The Doctor will have your head for this, but he'll have to wait until I'm done with you! You better stop it right there, Buster!"

The man paused for a brief moment when he heard the fury and venom in Donna's tone, his hand hesitating so long that Donna was hopeful she'd managed to get through to him even though he couldn't understand a word she said.

There was a bark of words from behind him and Donna shrieked in despair when that broke his paralysis and he adjusted something on the device around her neck.

Donna was only briefly aware of the woman from before standing by the foot of her restraining bed, before her world exploded in pain once more and she mercifully blacked out.

"That ought to about finish it, son. I've done everything you've told me to do. Now what?"

Wilf sat next to an open panel in the console of Alec's wondrous ship, a strange looking spanner clutched in his hand while he waited for the next set of instructions from his great grandson.

Alec smiled at him before closing his eyes in that strange way that he had and appearing to once more completely zone out. Wilf sat expectantly while he watched Alec fade in the same way that he had come to associate with the Doctor's more alien moods.

Wilf's entire body was aching and his hands were on fire from all the work that he'd been doing under Alec's quiet instructions. He surreptitiously set the spanner aside and rubbed the inside of his hand, while he tried to ease some of the arthritic pain that had flared many hours ago.

He knew that Alec couldn't do the work that he had asked Wilf to do, otherwise he'd have completed the work days ago when he'd first arrived on this planet, but that didn't mean that the fiddly and sometimes strenuous repairs didn't leave Wilf hurting more than he'd like to admit.

He couldn't even be sure how much time had passed since they'd started working to try to fix up the ship for a few more flights, but there had been several pauses for meals and rest and Wilf thought that it must have been a few days.

It was strange how he couldn't keep track of time when he was in this ship, and that everything seemed to blur together so that he would work, help Alec to cook and sleep before getting back to work again. He was always guided by the soft whisper of his great grandson as he sat by the fire that they had going, while he was working on a few bits himself after Wilf had pulled them from the inside of the ship. Alec's fingers would deftly clean and fiddle with the part while Wilf worked on the next bit, before he replaced the cleaned part and began to work on the next.

They'd doused the fire after their last meal, a sign that Wilf took to mean that they were hopefully close to being done with the repairs.

He couldn't hide the fact that he was worried about Donna, Jenny and the Doctor and how after the initial contact with the Doctor, Alec had worriedly said that now the Doctor had vanished from his mind as well. It had given Wilf's actions a certain urgency and had helped him push through the fatigue that was even now screaming at him because he had stopped.

Alec's eyes snapped open and he smiled at his great grandfather, before he carefully reached for the strut that he'd been working on for the last hour. "The Tardis says she's as ready as she'll ever be, Gramps. Can you please help me get up?"

Wilf climbed to his feet, trying to stifle the groan that seemed to well uncontrollably from his lips before he made his way back to his grandson's side. He wasn't certain but it felt like the walls were glowing more strongly than they had been before, and he was able to see the pain that flashed across Alec's face before it was pushed behind a mask of stoic resolve. "Are you sure it's a good idea to move, son? Maybe I can try to do what needs to be done with you guiding me?"

Alec shook his head and carefully rolled onto his side, gasping at the pain that shot through his broken leg though he could tell that the Tardis was actually trying to take some of the pain from him so that he could function over the next few critical minutes. He looked up at the console with a silent thought of thanks to his infant ship, before he pushed himself up and grabbed a hold of Wilf's outstretched hand to haul himself to his feet.

He shoved the shattered strut that he'd been working on into his armpit, shifting his arm against the makeshift crutch to try to settle it as comfortably as he could against his side. "I'm sorry, I can't walk you through this next part, Gramps. I have to try to connect with both this ship and the Doctor's ship in order to once more enter the stream so that we can travel to where they're being held along the fastest route. Once we get there then the Doctor will be able to pilot her back to his ship and we can all finally rest."

Alec talked quickly in the hopes that Wilf wouldn't catch the fear and uncertainty that was bubbling up within him, his mind was reeling with the pain that blasted through his body and for a brief minute he knew that what he was considering was tantamount to suicide but they had no choice.

Both Tardises were convinced that his ship had been repaired enough to make a micro hop or two, but that was all that it was capable of accomplishing. He was in no condition to leave the Tardis to try to find his father or Donna and he was worried that Wilf would try to find them on his own. It was vital that he got this jump exactly right.

With his grandfather's help, he managed to hobble up to the control console where he could see the data that had begun to flow across the only remaining screen in the ship. She was terribly damaged but he knew that she would do her best to get him to where he needed to be so that they could all get help. She'd brought him this far, across the empty expanse of the void so that he could be reunited with his sister and his parents, she wasn't going to stop until they were all together and safe once again. If it meant giving the last of her life force to get her pilot to where he needed to go, the Tardis would give that last measure without hesitation.

Alec let his arm fall from around his grandfather's shoulder and gently stroked the battered control console, tears burning unexpectedly when he felt the dim flicker of warmth that met his fingers. He could feel the Doctor's Tardis imparting some last-minute calculations to his own ship; the surge of energy was so overpowering that he dropped his head with a barely stifled groan.

"What's wrong, Alec? I knew we shouldn't have moved you! There has to be a different way to do this, you're far too weak to be standing and trying to pilot this barmy ship!"

Alec looked down at his grandfather's worried face, the lines of concern were etched deep into his face and Alec knew that it was taking everything that Wilf had to not force him off his feet once more and take the risk of waiting for the Doctor to find them once again.

Alec knew that his family was in serious trouble though and it was highly unlikely that they'd be able to come back to them without some sort of outside interference. The fact that first Donna and then the Doctor had been torn from his mind told him that they were in far more danger than could be readily understood and if he could just get his Tardis to the Doctor then he'd be able to get them all the hell out of there.

"I'll be alright, Gramps. This is just the first time I've stood up in a while and it made me a little dizzy. We don't have any choice about this. I'll be fine for a short flight. I do want you to brace yourself with the railing though, this may be a rough ride and I don't want you to get hurt."

Wilf looked at Alec like he'd grown two heads, his own incredulous gaze drifting down to the makeshift crutch clutched against Alec's side before he muttered. "I most certainly will not! You're going to need someone to help you stand while you pilot her, and I'm not so old I can't stand through some rough seas."

Alec smiled at Wilf's brave words, his hand reaching up to grip Wilf's shoulder tight before he nodded in acceptance. He didn't have enough energy left to argue and truth be told, he would welcome the old man's comforting presence as he tried to coax his damaged ship once more into the stream.

"Okay then, I can't say I'm not grateful to have you here beside me but make sure to stand with your legs braced wide apart and use your free hand to hold to what's left of this rail around the console. She's going to do what she can as will the Doctor's Tardis to try to keep her flight as stable as possible, but there's no guarantee it won't get violent. If it does, please promise me to try to stay as safe as you possibly can."

Wilf nodded in acknowledgement of Alec's words, widening his stance as instructed before wrapping his hand tightly around the rail and reaching up to steady his grandson with his other arm. "I'm ready, son. Let's go find our family!"

Alec gazed down at Wilf for a moment longer before he reached out to both ships and let his mind merge into their expansive consciousness, the ancient touch of the Doctor's Tardis was counterbalanced by the youthful determination of his own ship and he knew that they would both make sure that the ship flew to where she was most needed.

"On the count of three. One." Alec reached down and flipped two switches, "Two." He then spun a dial and gripped the final lever tight before whispering, "Three," and then he slammed the lever home.

A deep groan echoed through the cavernous control room, before the floor beneath their feet shuddered and suddenly the world seemed to tilt sideways as the Tardis lurched into the time stream.

Wilf cried out when he felt the room tilt, but he didn't let go of his death grip on the rail or his grandson and he found that he was able to ride the rough vibrations just like he was riding on London public transit. He kept his eyes wide open as he watched Alec's hands dance over the controls in front of them, his movements jerky but certain as they tried to guide the battered ship to where she needed to go.

Alec couldn't spare Wilf any thought when he felt the old man's arm tighten around his waist, his mind was floundering with the influx of readings both from his Tardis and the Doctor's Tardis and he suddenly realized with dismay that he was still far too weak to be properly piloting a Tardis.

The ships had locked onto the Doctor's signature but the stream was slipping and Alec desperately tried to make the corrections to bring the ship back on course.

It felt like an eternity had passed when in reality only a few short seconds had elapsed as the ship careened through the vortex and the stream continually flexed out of Alec's control. He felt the warping of time and probability and knew that he had to bring his girl out of the vortex before she ripped herself apart.

With an anguished cry, Alec lifted the lever once more and set the materialization circuits to firing before he lost complete control of her flight. The ground jumped up to meet them and caused Wilf to stumble as he lost his footing before he knocked his side hard against the control console.

Alec cried out in agony when he felt the deck shifting under his feet and the sudden violent jerking caused his injured leg to bang against the hard grating. He dropped his crutch and grabbed onto the control console before he completely lost consciousness and risked injuring Wilf by dragging him down with him. Alec looked up when he felt the explosion of sensation from the Doctor's Tardis as she flooded his mind with relief.

Wait a minute, that couldn't be right!

Alec tried to push himself away from the control console, but he found that he was barely standing and if he tried to move then he was going to crash to the ground and possibly black out when his splint leg hit the deck along with him.

Wilf looked over at Alec, pushing himself away from the console with a groan when he'd felt like he was about to be snapped in two by the impact but the fact that they were both standing there and looked like they'd come through the flight relatively in one piece caused him to shout. "Hey hey, we made it! Let's get you settled and I'll go find that brilliant Doctor!"

Wilf reached up to wrap his arm around his grandson, his aged face lined with concern when he saw the confused look on Alec's face. "What's wrong?"

"I'm not sure, Gramps but I think we should be careful just barreling out of the Tardis before we can figure out where we've landed."

He gratefully accepted his grandfather's aid even though he knew that the elderly man had been hurt as well during their flight. He tried to hobble as much as he could without putting too much weight on the old man, but every movement sent pain shooting through his body and threatened him with blacking out.

There was a soft whisper of sensation in the back of Alec's mind and then he saw an opening appear in the side of his ship that made him shake his head in disbelief before he cried out in joy.

"They brought us home, Gramps!"

"Home?" Wilf looked up in confusion, his gaze caught by the opening in the side of the ship. "Your ship brought us back to Chiswick? But how are we going to help them from earth? I'm sure Sylvia would give those people the rough side of her temper for taking Donna, but how do we get back to them?"

Alec laughed softly as he tried to hurry towards the exit of his battered ship. "No, Gramps. They brought us back to the Doctor's Tardis. Look at that corridor out there, we've got to be close to the medical bay! Come on, I can patch us both up and then we can see about finding them."

Originally uncertain of where they had landed, Wilf hadn't recognized the view out of the side of the ship but when he heard his grandson's words, he gave a ragged cheer before he helped Alec hobble to the entrance and out into the dim space beyond.

The minute Alec and Wilf emerged from the ship, lights came up and they saw a bed and a stand with an impressive array of equipment laid out ready for use. Wilf felt Alec begin to tremble against him, the color had drained from his skin and he looked like he had lost the last bit of energy that he had. His arms trembled as he leaned against the bed, his mind spinning when he felt the flood of information from the Doctor's Tardis. His own Tardis exhaustedly brushed against his mind before he felt her begin to drift into a deep regeneration cycle that he knew would finally begin to repair her damaged systems.

The loss of the connection with his ship caused Alec's eyes to roll up into his head and he flopped face first down onto the bed in front of him.

"Come on, son, that can't be comfortable." Wilf wondered if there was some sort of control on the bed so that it could lower and he could get the rest of his grandson's lanky frame into bed without hurting him too much. No sooner had the thought crossed his mind, then the bed began to gently lower and shift. It looked like it was changing shape as well and Wilf stepped back with a startled cry when Alec's legs were practically scooped up by the magic bed. Alec was so deeply unconscious, that he only grumbled briefly at the motion against his injured leg before he settled down once more.

"Thank you for looking after him." Wilf felt strange talking aloud to an empty room, but he felt a warm burst of air blow over him before a screen suddenly appeared directly over his grandson's now recumbent form.

He took Alec's cold hand in his and squeezed it tight. "You'll be better now, son. The Doctor's ship will see you set right and then we'll be able to help them properly! Just rest now, you've earned it."

A chair appeared behind Wilf and he gratefully sank down into the plush cushions so that he could maintain his vigil at his great grandson's side.