Turn Left
it was several weeks before Jenny had recovered from her fright enough to want a new adventure. The Doctor was naturally hesitant, but Rose was his calming voice, as she pointed out that it wasn't just their child that needed to keep going. Donna and Lee were somewhat listless in their movements through the rooms of the transdimensional ship, not knowing how to help or how to keep themselves from interfering in the family's recovery. Rose had never been one to sit still, and she pointed out that the Doctor wasn't very good at it either.
He had noticed that his wife was beginning to act rather restless, and it seemed completely removed from the trauma they had just made it through. He found her in the console room one morning, curled up on the jump seat while staring at the time rotor with a pensive expression.
"Rose?"
She blinked and turned toward his voice. "Did you decide on our next stop, Doctor?"
He nodded as he moved to hug her. "Still worrying over Jenny?"
Rose shook her head. "No, just thinking ahead to what's set to happen soon. I can't help but be curious as to what's gonna happen to get us to where I know we're going to need to be. It's all very confusing."
He grinned teasingly. "You could tell me about it, and I can wonder with you."
His wife laughed and slapped at his arm. "Nice try, Time Lord. You know I can't do that, you stubborn man."
"Worth a shot," he laughed, nuzzling her neck. "I'm always here to help you shoulder the burden, my Rose, even if you can't share the details. We'll get through it."
"I know," she sighed. "I will always be grateful for your support, Doctor. I understand why you just gotta take the mick sometimes, though. This whole thing with watching over the timelines is exhaustin' ain't it?"
The Doctor laughed a bit. "At times. And then there are the times when I get to take you to a market on a planet that didn't open until almost 48 thousand years after you were born, and it's all great fun again."
"We're going to a market?" Donna's voice sounded from the entry. "Good, I haven't been shopping in a while."
Jenny, who had entered with her honorary aunt and uncle, ran to the console. "I want to land us!"
A bit of teaching, some laughter, and a bumpy landing later, Jenny and the Doctor were pulling Rose to a market stall full of machine parts that the blonde couldn't have identified if it had been a matter of life and death, while Donna and Lee held hands and perused a stall of less practical yet still undeniably alien wares. The five people spent hours puttering through the market planet, eating samples that the Doctor assured were safe for human consumption. The small group was having a much better time that they had on their previous trip. On Jenny's insistence they all had a beverage to try as one.
"You are going to love this," the Doctor grinned. "One, two, three -"
All five took a deep swallow and gained foamy mustaches, which cause Jenny and Donna to squeal in laughter.
"Daddy! This is lovely!" Jenny crowed. "Can we get the TARDIS to make this at home?"
Rose grinned at her daughter. "She's already analyzed what I tasted and said she can definitely make this for us."
The Doctor hugged his wife to his side. "I'm still a bit jealous of the way you connect with her now."
Rose teasingly stuck out her tongue. Lee and Donna laughed and exchanged a look before a nearby fruit stand caught their eyes. The Doctor began discussing the fruit and its planet of origin with the seller while Rose, Jenny, and Lee listened to the conversation with interest. Donna was more drawn to a booth just across the way selling lovely and vibrant scarves and drapes.
"You want to buy Shukina?" the vendor queried hopefully. "Or Peshwami? Most beautiful Peshwami in all of Shan Shen."
"No thanks," she responded politely, yet firmly. Donna would have bought them at the beginning of her travels, though now she was content to browse and only get the things she really loved.
A bit further on, though still within sight of the
"Tell your fortune, lady?" the fortune teller cajoled. "Your future predicted, your life foretold."
The redhead glanced back at her group, catching Lee's eye and exchanging somewhat shy grins and waves.
"Don't need it," she smiled.
"Don't you want to know - if you're going to be happy?" the peddler pressed.
Donna turned her smile to the woman and shook her head. "I'm happy right now, thanks. And I like to make my own fortune."
The fortune teller smiled back, as though sharing in Donna's happiness. "You've got red hair. Reading's free for red hair."
That brought out a laugh. "All right, then."
Donna allowed herself to be guided into the tent and took a seat opposite the woman. She held out her hand and the fortune teller caressed her palm.
"You're fascinating. Oh no, but you're good. I can see... a man… The most remarkable man. How did you meet him?"
"You saw him outside," Donna half teased. "Though we met in a library."
The peddler shook her head, almost frowning over Donna's hand. "No, not your love. The other man in your life. The Guardian of Time, consort of the goddess. How did you come to be with them?"
"You're supposed to tell me," the red haired woman said, becoming slightly wary.
"I see the future. Tell me the past. When did your lives cross?" the woman said in a soothing way with a friendly smile.
Telling herself to relax, Donna mused, "It's sort of complicated. I ended up in their spaceship on my wedding day."
"But what led you to that meeting?"
"All sorts of things," she replied, thinking back over her life leading up to meeting the Doctor and Rose. "But my job, I suppose. It was on Earth... this planet called Earth, miles away. But I had this job as a temp. I was a secretary at this place called H.C. Clements."
To Donna, it felt as though the world tilted, and she was suddenly back at the locksmiths, answering the phone in a typical work day. Then the world straightened and she was back in the tent. "Wha-? I'm sorry, there."
"It's the incense. Just er - breathe deep," the fortune teller said dismissively. "It can get a bit heady for some, but it helps to focus my inner eye. This job of yours - what choices led you there?"
Donna nodded, lapsing back into her memory. "There was a choice... six months before. The agency offered me this contract with H.C. Clements. But there was this other job. My mum knew this man…"
"Your life could have gone one way or the other," the fortune teller prodded her now, her tone growing intent as Donna lost herself more in her mind. "What made you decide?"
"I just did."
"But when was the moment? When did you choose?" The fortune teller was now almost harsh with her tone, but the woman before her was almost fully in a trance as she relived the memory of the day. "You turned left. But what if you turned right? What then?"
Donna gave herself a shake and tried to pull her hands away, but the peddler now held both firmly.
"Let go of my hands!"
"What if it changes? What if you go right? What if you could still go right?" she asked, near feverish.
"Stop it!" Donna insisted as she heard a clicking and felt a strange sensation on her back. She froze in fear. "What's that? What's on my back?"
If the fortune teller heard her, she was not inclined to answer as her eyes bore into Donna's. "Make the choice again, Donna Noble, and change your mind. Turn right."
Donna felt herself slipping back into her memory. "I'm turning…"
"Turn right. Turn right," her voice seemed to grow hoarse, yet there was a power in it that seemed to change the memory. "Turn right. Turn right and never meet that man. Turn right and change the world!"
As Donna's memories of her life changed inside the tent, Rose swayed at the stall and stumbled against Lee. His hand shot out to her arm to steady her and he frowned as he saw how pale she was.
"Rose, are you all right?" the Doctor asked her softly.
"Something… something is trying to change something…" she replied vaguely. "I… it's changing what we did."
Lee blinked in shock. "That can happen?"
The Doctor frowned, pulling Jenny to his side. "Yes, though it's never something pleasant that does it."
Inside Donna's mind there was a Christmas party, where she had informed her mates about her new promotion just before a massive star shaped web flew overhead, firing on the city of London. Despite herself, she ran toward the direction of the star.
She arrived in the chaos just as a tank fired on the star and destroyed it, and made her way through the crowd that had gathered at a barricade erected by soldiers.
She slipped a bit to one side as a uniformed man began ordering the crowd back.
"Trap 1 to Greyhound 15: what is your report? Over," she overheard and focused her attention on the soldier who answered the radio call.
"From the evidence, I'd say they managed to stop the creature. Some sort of red spider. Blew up the base underneath the barrier, flooded the whole thing. Over."
"And where are they now? Over."
"We found a male body, sir. No sign of a female. Over."
Across the way, Donna watched as a body was wheeled on a stretcher, covered in a red blanket, into an ambulance. She frowned, never having liked death.
"Is it him? Over," the voice on the radio asked.
"We think so. He just didn't make it out in time. No sign of Bad Wolf."
An arm clothed in a pinstriped suit fell uselessly over the side of the stretcher - a pale hand dropping a silver tube looking item into the road.
"The Doctor is dead. Must have happened too fast for him to regenerate. There is no evidence that the Wolf survived the ordeal."
"Escort the ambulance back to UNIT base."
Donna drew in a sad breath, staring forlornly at the covered stranger. She didn't know why she felt such a loss or why she keenly felt there should be two people where there was only one. A black man approached and stood at her side, looking as though he'd just run a great distance.
"What happened? What did they find?" he looked at her. "Sorry, did you hear if they found someone?"
She shook her head, at a loss for a moment. "I don't know. Um, bloke called the Doctor or something. And a missing female?"
"Missing?" he exclaimed, looking far more alarmed than the people tasked with dealing with the situation. "She can't just disappear. Where is the Doctor, why didn't he do something?"
She shook her head, laying a sympathetic hand on his arm. "They took him away. He's dead."
"Dead… no, that's no right. He can do this thing to escape that, she said."
"I'm sorry. Did you know them?" she asked. "I mean... they didn't say his name... it could be any doctor."
He ran a hand over the back of his neck, clearly confused. "This is not what I was hoping for. I mean, I came so far, right?"
"I'm sorry," she said again, not knowing what else she could tell him. "It could be anyone."
The young black man looked at her, then his gaze narrowed with the thoughtful look of one solving a complicated puzzle. "What's your name?
"Donna. And you?"
His eyes shifted to her shoulder, before he shook himself. "Oh, I was just… looking for a couple of my mates… but, don't this seem wrong? Never mucked it all up before like this. Sorry, what was it? Donna what?"
She scowled. "Why do you keep looking at my back?"
He shook his head and held up his hands. "Because there's not anything there."
"That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard of!" Donna cried in exasperation. She spun in a circle, trying to see what could be so odd about her back. "Staring at something that isn't there… if someone's taking the mick, I'll kill 'em!"
She glanced up but the man was just gone.
"What in the…?"
She was quickly distracted by one of her friends, who asked her to walk with her back to their cars. It was months later before she remembered the mysterious man. Her new boss had told her today he was going to have to let her go, and not one of her so called office mates would stick up for her. She'd told her family, her mum had been as frustrating as ever and her grandpa had been too caught up in the disappearance of the local hospital to really commiserate with her. Feeling rather alone, she had run out to a shop shortly after sunset and met him again.
The sudden flash that accompanied his appearance stopped her in her tracks as the man burst from the alleyway and into her path.
"Blimey!" she cried out. "Are you all right? What was that, fireworks or...?"
He rubbed his head and looked around. "Dunno! I was just walking along and... that's weird."
"Hold on, didn't we meet at Christmas? You were looking for the dead people, right?"
He frowned and looked her up and down before giving a half smile. "Yeah, I remember you. Donna, ain't it?"
"What was your name?"
"How are you doing? You're doing good...yeah?" he asked with a note of evasiveness to his tone. His eyes flicked to just above her right shoulder.
Donna caught the eye movement and glanced at her shoulder before looking back at him with frustration quickly mounting. "You're doing it again! Looking behind me. People keep on doing that - looking at my back."
He shook his head. "Who's been looking?"
"People in the street. Strangers. I just catch them, sometimes, staring at me... like they're looking at something," she rubbed her arms uncomfortably. "And then I get home and look and there's nothing there. See, look, now I'm doing it!"
The redhead swiped at her shoulder absently, as though brushing off lint or dust of some sort.
The man shook his head and looked away, up at the stars. "So what are you doing for Christmas?"
She gaped at him for a moment, then snapped, "What am I what?!"
"Christmas. Any plans?" he prompted.
"I don't know, that's ages away!" Donna half shouted at him, wanting to end the bizarre conversation. "Nothing much I suppose. Why?"
The man stuck his hands in his jacket pocket, as though barely able to force himself to stay entirely too casual. "Just... I think you should go somewhere over the hols. You and your family, say you don't stay in London, just... leave the City."
As Donna argued with the stranger in a world of might-have-been, a sharp prickling sensation stabbed at Rose's attention. She gasped and turned, half expecting someone to be standing directly behind her with a pin. Seeing nothing that could be identified as dangerous or immoral, she began trying to identify the whereabouts of her loved ones. The Doctor glanced at her lovingly, as he often did when she wasn't paying attention, but shifted his demeanor the instant he saw her frightened expression.
"What's wrong?" her husband asked.
"I don't… something feels distinctly wrong," she replied, still scanning the area for the source of the ominous feeling. "Where's Jenny?"
"I'm right here, mum!" their daughter chirped, holding a small motorized thing that she'd found at a stall. "Uncle Lee helped me buy this thing."
Lee smiled indulgently, following behind his 'niece'. "I probably shouldn't have, because I know she's going to take it apart, but I couldn't say no to those eyes."
The Doctor started to answer when a sudden wrongness assaulted him as well. He knew before he spoke that their daughter could also sense it, "What's this?"
Rose turned and looked up at him, nodding at his expression. "Yes, that's what I was just talking about. I don't know what that is, I've never felt anything like it before."
"Where's Donna?" their companion asked, worried.
Both the Time Lord and the Time Being (for lack of another name) clenched their jaws, as if in practised unison.
"I'm not sure," the Doctor answered. "But you can bet we're going to find her."
Donna and her mother and grandfather were in a lovely room and had just greeted the maid that brought them breakfast when the news caught the attention of Wilf and his daughter.
"We have interrupted your programme to bring you breaking news," the newscaster read, a hint of panic in his tone.
Sylvia tried to get her daughter's attention. "Have you seen this?"
"Because I thought, nice early breakfast and then we'll go for a walk. People always say at Christmas, 'oh, we all went for a walk'," The redhead babbled absently. "I've always wanted to do that."
The maid set the breakfast tray down, but caught sight of Donna, brushing her hair in the bathroom and not really paying attention to the goings on in the main room. For a moment, it seemed she couldn't speak for some bit of a shock.
"So, walk first, presents later, yeah?" Donna queried, coming out and looking at her other family members.
Neither so much as blinked or turned from the television, their faces awestruck.
"Donna, come and see," Sylvia implored softly.
The maid, who didn't speak English, half whispered, "Tienes algo en tu espalda."
Donna, who had never bothered to learn anything about other languages, had no idea what she was being told and raised a brow. "What?"
Oblivious to anything but what the television was saying, Sylvia motioned for her daughter to come over, "Donna, look at the telly."
The maid stepped toward her, her demeanor insistent. "Tienes algo en tu espalda!"
Ignoring her mother, the redhead looked baffled by the maid. "What does that mean? I don't know what you're saying."
"Donna, look at the TV!"
"Tienes algo en tu espalda!" the young Spanish woman cried, now pointing at Donna's back.
Donna turned to look, confused and almost seeing something. As she felt her back, the maid fled from their room in fear.
"For God's sake, Donna, don't just stand there - come and look!" Sylvia half shouted, finally gaining enough of her daughter's attention for Donna to move toward the television that was still reporting its outrageous story.
"It seems impossible, but this footage is live and genuine. The object is falling on Central London. Repeat: this is not a hoax. A replica of the Titanic has fallen out of the sky and it's heading for Buckingham Palace."
As they watched, it did indeed look to be a full size replica of the Titanic, hurtling toward the building that represented Queen and country.
"We're getting this footage from the Guinevere range of satellites."
"Is that... a film or something?" the woman asked weakly, watching the ship plummet.
"The Royal Air Force has declared anarchy-" the newscaster spoke as they all saw the bow of the ship crash through the palace just before the screen went to white, followed by a huge concussive blast that violently shook the entire hotel. When it stopped moving, Sylvia began flipping stations. "It's gone dead. All of them."
Donna shook her head, trying to find proof this was all some sick joke. "No, but the Titanic... well, don't be daft. Is that like a... sequel?"
Her grandfather stood at the window, staring toward their home with absolute horror. His eyes filled as he felt sick. "Oh... oh, God rest their souls."
The small family rushed outside, along with almost all the other occupants in the building, watching the simply massive mushroom cloud rise on the horizon where, not even a minute prior, London had stood.
"I was supposed to be out there selling papers," Wilf murmured in shock. "I should have been there, we all should. We'd be dead."
Sylvia shook her head, trying in vain to wrap her mind around what had happened. "That's everyone. Every single person we know. The whole City."
"It can't be," Donna murmured, thinking of the man who'd told her to get out of the city for Christmas. If he hadn't planted the idea in her head, she wouldn't have even entered the raffle that had gotten them this vacation.
"But it is, it's gone! London's gone!" her mother stated, her voice soft and trembling now as she clutched at her daughter's arm to ground herself.
Wilf wiped at his suddenly dry mouth and turned to meet his granddaughter's equally shocked eyes and spoke, "If you hadn't won that raffle…"
"Mum," Jenny shuddered, as though she'd been doused with cold water. "Why does everything feel so wrong?"
The Doctor lifted the little girl and rubbed a hand along one arm. "Because someone is messing with time," he answered, a deep frown on his face. "Someone is messing with our past, and that's why you can feel it."
Rose was tense, feeling the shifts in the time stream but not wanting to alarm her husband or daughter. "Lee," she said, shifting to the only fully human person in their group at the moment, "I'm going to need you to keep an eye on Jenny while the Doctor works toward taking care of this."
Lee was concerned, naturally, but he agreed without hesitation. He didn't need to voice his concerns, as the Doctor immediately voiced his own.
"Rose, what are you going to do?" the Time Lord asked anxiously. "We need to stay together until we find Donna."
Rose laid a hand on his arm and sighed. Her eyes flashed into unearthly gold and her voice resonated as she informed him sadly, "I must protect the timelines until you can correct the problem. There isn't another choice in this moment."
The Doctor clenched his jaw and considered what she'd said before nodding in acceptance. "Go quickly then, so you can come back."
The ethereal woman kissed her husband's cheek and stepped back. The consuming golden glow brightened to a blinding flash, drawing a few briefly curious stares as she winked out of sight. Lee let out a low whistle.
"Every - every time I think I'm getting u-u-u-used to this new life, there's something new happening."
The Doctor shot him a wry smirk. "I've done this for centuries now, Lee, and I would be lying if I said I was used to it. But you'll eventually come to expect the unexpected. Let's find Donna."
Donna, Wilfred and Sylvia were crowded around a small desk in a cramped office, speaking to an exhausted looking housing officer. The buzz of people talking and babies crying added to the sense of claustrophobia and chaos, and Donna, who had been trying to be calm, was beginning to panic.
She couldn't believe what the harried looking woman had just said. "Leeds? I'm not moving to Leeds!"
The woman had obviously heard people make similar declarations and had grown tired of arguing. After all, there was nothing that could change the decisions of the housing office. "It's Leeds - or you can wait in the hostel for another three months."
Sylvia sighed as she lamented, "All I want is a washing machine."
Donna pinched the bridge of her nose. "What about Glasgow? I heard there were jobs going in Glasgow."
The officer had enough, she herself wasn't happy with her living space either, and people who didn't understand that there were no choices left? "You can't pick and choose! We have the whole of Southern England flooded with radiation. Seven million people in need of relocation, and now France has closed its borders. So, it's Leeds - or nothing. Next!"
As she slammed the LEEDS stamp down, marking the stack of papers. The Nobles left in dejection, feeling as though they were being punished for surviving the blast.
Little did the uprooted family know that elsewhere, a blonde woman appeared in front of a group of soldiers, grinning cheekily as she saw a man addressing them with grim determination. She tapped on his shoulder, and the dark skinned man nearly jumped out of his shoes.
"Hiya Mick," Rose greeted with her signature tongue in teeth smile.
"Rose!" He whooped, lifting her in a bear hug. "I've been looking for you and the Doctor, but they said you were dead… and they had the TARDIS."
She sighed, glancing to where she had appeared first in what seemed to be an alternative timeline, the blue box of her home , and nodded. "I merged with what remained of my consciousness when I came through. I know what happened to us, but not you."
"It's a long story, babe, and we're in a hurry," Mickey answered, his happiness fading quickly.
"Then you're gonna have to talk fast."
As the Nobles exited the olive coloured army transport truck with other refugees that had been dropped in the neighbourhood, they could hear the soldier giving directions.
"The Daniels Family, billetted at number 15. Mr & Mrs Obego, billetted at number 31. Miss Contrane, you're in number 8. The Noble family billeted at number 29."
Donna followed dully when her grandfather picked up their cases and began heading for a house.
"That's us. Come on, off we go. Oh. All right?" he asked, forcing a cheerful tone.
On the stoop of the next house over stood a middle aged woman with a stern, disapproving expression. When Donna made eye contact, the woman's look went from disapproving to openly hostile. "Used to be a nice little family in number 29. They missed one mortgage payment - just one - they got booted out. All for you lot."
The red haired woman drew herself up a bit taller. She hadn't asked for any of this. In fact, she had even tried to argue against it! And she wasn't going to let some cow with a nasty attitude make her feel worse about the whole thing than she did already! She reflexively snapped, "Don't get all chippy with me, Vera Duckworth. Pop your clogs on and go and feed whippets."
Wilf tried to hide his smile that his granddaughter's spirit hadn't yet been crushed by this new world. "Sweetheart, come on. You're not going to make the world any better by shouting at it."
"I can try," she muttered, more than a bit sullenly.
Any further conversations were cut short by the door being flung open by a short Italian man with a beaming smile on his face as he greeted them with enthusiastic and rather loud exclamations. " Hey-ey-ey! Is a big house! Room for all. Welcome! In you come."
Donna frowned slightly. "I thought this was our house."
The man laughs and steps back to usher them inside. "Is many people's house! Is wonderful! In, in, in." He waved them along, herding them like cattle while he kept talking in his happy, booming voice. "We've been here for eight weeks already. Had a nice little paper shop in Shepherd's Bush - all gone now!"
Donna saw two little boys watching them from the stairs, and their enthusiastic host followed her line of sight. "So, upstairs, we have Merchandani family, seven of them. Good family. Good kids." He gestured to one of the boys with a dark warning gaze. "Except that one. You be careful of him." He held the dark look for maybe two heart beats before bursting out laughing and reaching out to ruffle the boy's hair. "Ah, that's a joking! Where's that smile, eh?" He chucked Donna under the chin as though she were a child and he a doting uncle before thumbing his own chest. "Rocco Colasanto. I'm here with my wife and her sister and her husband and their kids and her daughter's kids. We've got the front room. My mother, she's got the back room. She's old. You'll forgive. And this, this is you. This is your palace!"
Rocco gestured around the narrow kitchen, partitioned off by a curtain instead of a real door. Three small camp beds had been made up, stuffed into the remaining floor space practically one atop another. The Nobles, mostly Sylvia and her daughter, stared in shock.
Sylvia was the first to recover her wits, and looked at the man with understandable apprehension. "What do you mean, this is us?"
Rocco laughed and said, "You live here!"
Donna shook her head, the information not sinking in right away. "We're living in the kitchen?"
"You got camp-beds. You got the cooker, you keep warm, you got the fridge, you keep cool. Is good!" Rocco insisted, patting Wilfred on the back.
"What about the bathroom?" Sylvia asked, mortified that she was to share a house with other families.
The Italian man shook his head. "Nobody lives in the bathroom."
Donna felt so defeated, she didn't utter a single word during the exchange. She let the others discuss the arrangement and turned slightly to look out a window. She wasn't entirely sure why, but she felt as though something huge was missing from her life; and the loss was crushing her.
Rose and Mickey were listening to a report on the situation in America. With England decimated and barely above poverty level, the Adiposian nursery ships had seeded the states and the population had been drastically reduced.
"What the hell?" Mickey exploded.
His oldest friend shook her head. "It happened in London before, the Doctor and I stopped it with our friend Donna. You'd like her, Micks. Fierce and ginger and really gave the Doctor hell."
"Yeah, I saw 'er when I saw the Doctor had died."
The blonde turned to look at him with wide eyes. The sheer surprise in her expression had the nearby soldiers tense, ready for action.
"You saw Donna?"
He nodded, looking confused. "Didn't seem all that important at the time, she was just another woman on the street."
"Oh no Mickey, right now, she's the most important woman in the world. We gotta find her, and get her here."
Several weeks later, they were still searching, Mickey using his "hopper" to check out places they had leads. Donna, meanwhile, adjusted to her new life, and to sharing a house with the Colasanto family. In fact, when she went to make them quiet one evening, all three families ended up having a sing in the Colasantos' living space.
"I'm just a poor boy from a poor family, he's just a poor boy from a poor family, spare him his life from this monstrosity !" They all roared with laughter as they sang the instrumental bit, "Doo doo doo doo doo! Easy come, easy go, will you let me go? Bismillah! No-"
Their voices stumbled to a stop as the sound of gunshots rang outside in the street. They were all tensed, but Donna saw the same wary readiness in her grandfather and in Rocco as they stood and motioned to their families to stay quiet.
As the two men made their way to the front door together, the head of the Colasanto family instructed the other inhabitants in a quiet, urgent tone. "Stay here - everyone, stay!"
They opened the door and stepped out cautiously to see a man firing his sidearm at his Army issue transport - a van that was venting a very large amount of exhaust.
"Hey-ey-ey!" Rocco called out, knowing that the other inhabitants of the house were spilling into the street, despite being told to remain inside. "Firing at the car is not so good! You- you crazy or what?"
The young soldier looked over, clearly somewhat panicked. "It's this ATMOS thing, it won't stop! It's like gas, it's toxic."
Wilfred frowned at the vehicle. "Well, switch it off!"
"I have done, it's still going. It's every car. Every single ATMOS car, they've gone mad."
Donna frowned, looking around for another car and realizing that no one in this neighbourhood had a car anymore. Suddenly the young soldier's panicked look grew even more pronounced as he swung his weapon to point it at the woman.
"You, lady, turn around!" he shouted in a shaky voice.
Without any sort of hesitation, both Wilfred and Rocco automatically moved to block Donna protectively.
"Are you crazy, boy?" Rocco demanded, his voice revealing none of its usual joviality.
But the man wasn't having it. Whatever his reasoning, something had absolutely terrified him.
"Turn around!"
Wilfred pointed at the ground and spoke in a commanding tone that even his family hadn't heard before this moment. "Put the gun down!"
It seemed as though the man didn't even notice the rest of the people who had exited the home. His frightened eyes were glued to the redhead's back. "Turn around! Turn around!"
"Do what he says!" Sylvia urged, waving her hands at her daughter. "Turn around, now!"
"Turn around, now! Show me your back!"
Donna held up her hands, turning slowly as her mind raced with the people who had mentioned something on her back now. This was the first time someone had pointed a gun at her, and she was beginning to worry something really was there. Of course, the soldier saw nothing when she pivoted, and he finally lowered the ground - although his eyes did not lose the perturbed animalistic expression.
"Sorry... I thought I saw…"
Wilfred, still with the jarring militaristic bearing he'd had, marched to the soldier and pulled the firearm out of his now limp grip. "Call yourself a soldier? Pointing guns at innocent women?"
Donna said nothing, but she noticed a blue flash from around a corner and remembered that the strange man who'd warned her to be out of London when it was decimated had always seemed to be accompanied by a similar light.
"You're a disgrace. In my day, we would've had you court marshalled!" her grandfather continued berating the poor young man.
She didn't say anything, just silently walked away toward the flash. She wondered, if he was there, would the man have more warnings? Could there still be bad things happening? Was there anything left to befall the human race?
As she wandered away, she could hear her mother calling after; although there were no footsteps indicating anyone following her. "Donna? Where are you going? It's not safe at night! Donna! Donna!"
Donna rounded the corner, unsurprised to see the man from before. "Hello."
The pair walked to a nearby bench and sat, Donna staring at the stranger while he stared at the sky. "Never thought I'd say it, but we're lucky here there wasn't much petrol left in England. The rest of them… they're getting choked by the gas comin' out of those ATMOS things."
"Can't anyone stop it?" she asked him, her voice small and almost defeated.
His expression became tense and unhappy. "Yeah, they're trying right now, this little band of fighters... on board the Sontaran ship... she said it would be any second now…"
The dark sky burst into fire, burning away the noxious layer.
Donna gaped at the sky. "And that was...?"
"That was the Torchwood team," he replied grimly. "Gwen Cooper, Ianto Jones - they gave their lives. And Captain Jack Harkness has transported to the Sontaran home world. There's no-one left."
She bit her lip, unable to even speak in the company of his barely constrained fury. She could tell he hated the situation he was in, even if she didn't know what that situation was, exactly.
"This is all wrong!" he bit out heatedly. "They were supposed to be there - fixing all these things. The Titanic, the Adipose, ATMOS… the two of them were supposed to stop all that from screwing things up."
"The Doctor bloke? And his girlfriend?"
A corner of his mouth quirked upwards. "Wife, actually. You knew 'em once."
"Funny, I don't remember," she muttered skeptically. "Who are you?"
"I'm their friend, like you were."
Donna scoffed. "I never met him, and he's dead."
"Yeah," the man said with a bitter twist to his expression. "He died underneath the Thames on Christmas Eve, but you were meant to be there. He needed someone to stop him, and that was you. You made him leave. You saved his life. Without you, he died and she… gave up."
Donna flinched, and for a moment she was almost able to remember what had happened. Suddenly frightened by the possibility she surged to her feet.
"Stop it. I don't know what you're talking about, leave me alone!"
The man stood as well, frowning. "Something's coming, Donna. Something worse."
"The whole world is stinking. How can anything be worse than this?" she asked scornfully.
He shook his head. "Trust me. We need the Doctor and Rose more than ever. It ain't just this universe 'ere. Every single universe is in danger. It's coming, Donna. It's coming from across the stars and nothing can stop it. Nothing but the two of 'em fighting like always."
Donna felt tears pricking her eyes. "WHAT is?"
He visibly shuddered. "The nothing."
The answer set her off, irrational anger shooting through her. "Nothing?! Look here you. You want nothing to be afraid of? Be afraid of me. I'M nothing! WHAT am I gonna do to help? I'm nothing special. I mean, I'm- I'm not- I'm nothing special, I'm a temp. I'm not even that, I'm NOTHING."
Surprised by her outburst, the man gaped at her like a fish out of water. "You can't mean that!" he said, finally. "Donna Noble, you're the most important woman in the whole of creation."
A short, humourless laugh fell from her. "Oh, don't. Just…" Suddenly her disbelieving smile was gone, leaving her entire body limp. "Don't. I'm tired. I'm so... tired."
Feeling a heaviness that reached her very soul, Donna turned to head back to the crowded house.
"I need you to come with me, Donna."
She shoots him a look, the sass returning for a moment. "You might be a bit fit, mate, but you're not my type."
He laughed. "That's more like it."
She shook her head. "You like rejection? I've got plenty more."
"It ain't that. You haven't flirted with any men, have you? Not since that Christmas. Because you know this is all wrong, and you miss him…"
Donna turned more fully to stare incredulously at him. She hadn't mentioned that feeling to a single soul, not even her grandad. "Who told you that?"
"She did. And she said you would come with me, when you're ready."
"You'll have a long wait, then," she returned flippantly, as she turned to walk away again.
"Three weeks," he spoke confidently. "That's what she said. She also told me to ask if your grandad still has that telescope."
She pauses, glancing uneasily over her shoulder. "He never lets go of it."
He nodded, looking up at the sky. His voice sounded almost sad when he spoke again. "Three weeks time. But you've got to be certain. Because, when you come with me, Donna... sorry... really sorry, but... you're going to die."
She turned then to say something, but he met her gaze and disappeared then. She stood for a few more minutes, trying to decide if she imagined the whole thing or if it really happened.
The time passed, and that three week "grace period" passed in the blink of an eye. Donna lived her life as though the black man had never existed. She searched for a job everywhere she could, she fetched her family's rations, she spent time with those around her.
She was heartbroken when she learned that the Colasantos family was leaving their crowded house. When the transport came to take the family along with several other families in the neighbourhood that were transferring, Donna gave Rocco a tight hug, laughing with him as he spun her in a circle.
"And you! I'm going to miss you most of all, all flame-haired and firey," he told her, bussing her cheek just as her father had done when she was a child.
"Oh, but why do you have to go?" she sighed, her feet touching the ground once more.
"It's the new law! England for the English, et cetera," he answered, a forced laugh in his tone. "They can't send us home, the oceans are closed! They build labour camps."
Donna frowned. Something about the way both Rocco and her grandfather said this, it left a coldness in the pit of her stomach. "I know, but... labour doing what? There aren't any jobs."
Rocco hesitated for a brief moment, his expression showing fear for only the barest moment as he met Wilf's eyes over Donna's shoulder. Donna blinked and he was his typical jovial self.
"Sewing! Digging! Is good!" he laughed, kissing her cheeks enthusiastically. "Now, stop it before I kiss you too much." He kissed her again and moved to face Wilfred. "Wilfred. My Captain."
Donna watched as the slightly younger man saluted her granddad and the older man snapped to attention and sharply returned the salute. The look that passed between them was intense and serious. There was no smile on Rocco's face or in his eyes, and her family patriarch was solemn and deeply saddened. She felt the cold shiver of fear skuttle down her spine and settle into her stomach. Rocco nodded once, conveying something to the other man before turning and climbing onto the transport with the other foreigners from the area. Donna lifted her hand, but something made her hesitate.
"It'll be quiet with him gone. Still, we'll have more room," she said numbly.
Wilfred coughed, then spoke with a weak and shaking voice. "'Labour camps'. That's what they called them last time."
The simple statement gave her pause. She glanced at her granddad. "What do you mean?"
Her gaze returned to their friends in the transport vehicle and registered how they were clearly terrified, Rocco holding Mrs. Colosantos as she sobbed heavily.
"It's happening again," Wilf said, wiping a weary hand down his face.
"What is?" Donna asked him, suddenly confused as her mind simply refused to accept the evidence before her. She began moving toward the soldiers. "Excuse me? Excuse me, where are you taking them?" When she received no answer but the transport pulling away, she took off running; shouting after them. "Where are you going? Rocco, where are you going? Where are you going?" The vehicle turned a corner and was gone, Donna knew she'd never catch it but still shouted after it, "Where are you going?"
There was no answer, and her stomach turned with dread. Days later, she still wasn't certain what had happened to the Colosantos, and her granddad seemed to have become just a shell of his former self. Donna kept trying to find a position even with the army when she found no other employment. Each time she returned to the house, she found her mother deeper into the depression she'd sunk into. That day, Sylvia didn't even look at her daughter.
"I asked about jobs, with the army. They said I wasn't qualified," Donna told her anyway, trying to tell herself that the lack of reaction was normal. "You were right. You said I should have worked harder at school. I suppose I've always been a disappointment."
Dully, her mother muttered, "Yeah."
The redhead had been about to remove her coat, but that one word stopped her. The painful ache inside her magnified. There had to be someone out there who didn't think of her as a disappointment. Someone who would seek out her company, who believed she was capable of more than the hand she'd been dealt.
Well, someone other than just her granddad. She went out of the house and sought Wilf. She joined him at a little fire in a bucket. She rested against him, her exhaustion sinking to her bones. Wilf sipped a cup of tea, staring at his telescope.
"You know, we'd get a bit of cash if we sold this thing," he said, conversationally.
Her reaction surprised her with the sting of panic the suggestion brought. "Don't you dare! I always imagined, your old age... I'd have put a bit of money by, make you comfy. Never did. I'm just useless."
Though her tone degraded into a heavy, sad feeling, Donna was still surprised when there was no reply, except her granddad was busy staring through the telescope.
"You're supposed to say 'no, you're not'!" she said with broken humour.
Instead of responding, the older man frowned and murmured to himself. "Ah, it must be the alignment."
"What's wrong?" she asked, glad to let herself be distracted.
The man glanced at her, worriedly, and shook his head. "Well, I don't know - I mean, it can't be the lens. I was looking at Orion, the constellation of Orion- you take a look. And tell me, what can you see?"
She leaned to look. "Where?"
He pointed. "Well, up there in the sky!"
She looked, but found nothing. The now familiar feeling of something dreadful that her mind refused to accept settling around her as she beheld absolutely nothing through the lens.
"Well, I can't see anything, it's just... black."
Her grandad sound both annoyed and bewildered. "Well, I mean it's working! The telescope is working."
"Well... maybe it's the clouds," she offered lamely, despite knowing it couldn't be that.
"There's no clouds!" Wilf exclaimed, echoing her unspoken knowledge.
Donna shook her head, stubbornly refusing to accept what she had seen for herself. "Well, there must be!"
"There's not! It was there," the man insisted, gesturing to the sky. "An entire constellation."
She followed his gaze to the sky and is shocked to see more stars
As he points, the stars start to blink out as though someone is turning them off.
Wilfred pointed, drawing her attention to another area of the sky. "Look... look there…"
The stars were going out there as well; all over the sky, in fact, the stars were disappearing from every corner of the expanse.
"They're going out," the older man said, his voice wavering in his horror.. "Oh, my God, Donna! The stars are going out!"
She studied the sky for a few silent moments, her mind cycling through everything that she had learned. She wasn't surprised by the darkening skies. Really, at this point what could possibly shock her? But she knew this was the thing she needed to see to finally push her out of that place she had hidden herself.
As she stood and turned to leave, she heard herself say quietly, "I'm ready."
As she had somehow know he would be, the man she'd promised she would never accompany was there to take her to an adventure she hadn't wanted.
The pair climbed into a van labelled "UNIT", and Donna really felt she ought to know something about this UNIT organisation, but she couldn't think of what it could be. When they arrived at a warehouse (which could have been any warehouse, as far as Donna could tell), they headed inside. She noticed that the man she'd spoken to so many times walked almost like a soldier, but less rigidly. He was hyper-alert, always looking around, but confident. He was a man who knew who he was and how to wear the identity with authority.
Inside, they approached a curtain, and he started talking to her.
"You're gonna see her, now, Donna. We honestly don't know if you'll recognize her or not, but whatever you do, don't be afraid."
He reached out to push the curtain aside while the redhead scoffed.
"I ain't a bleeding child, mate, meeting new people doesn't scare-"
She wanted to finish her sentence. Really, she tried to keep talking but no sounds would come out. The woman she was seeing directly in front of her was glowing. Not like a lightbulb or anything she'd seen before, but like there was a golden fire burning within her that stretched and bent in the air just outside her body. The woman herself was pretty, but not in the way of supermodels or beauty queens, but more in the girl next door way. She was blonde, and young looking, but also there was a deep exhaustion in her eyes as she locked gazes with Donna and smiled as though having found someone she'd been searching for. Her gaze shifted to that point over her shoulder that others had glanced toward.
"Donna, finally," she said in a voice that had a strange throbbing quality. "You're so hard to find when you're being stubborn."
"Well, if your friend here had told me that a glow worm was waiting, I might have come sooner just to see it," the redhead quipped.
To her surprise, the blonde laughed, and looked to the black man as he approached her. "I told you she was funny. We've got everything set up."
"Just need me on the computer, eh?" he replied with a wink. "You still hate computers?"
She shrugged, gesturing to the circle of electrically charged mirrors that Donna hadn't noticed until that moment.
"I gave the instructions on that, didn't I?" the glowing woman challenged her friend.
"Please, I know the TARDIS told you what the parameters needed to be. I know you better than those soldiers do, after all."
The blonde stuck her tongue out before turning to a UNIT officer as she approached with a smart salute. "Ma'am."
Overhead, a speaker announced, "Loadstone testing now at 15.4. Repeat: 15.4."
The glowing woman waved a negligent hand. "I've told you, don't salute."
Donna realised she was in charge. Soldiers moved around in the recesses of the building, the officer (a captain, if Donna remembers what she's learned about military rank), and the strangely authoritative black man all deferred to her.
The captain sighed in frustration that she had clearly felt many times. "Well, if you're not going to tell us your names…"
"What, you don't know either?" Donna asked them in astonishment.
"Too many different realities," the black man who'd brought her to the warehouse said to the redhead. "She says that the wrong word in the wrong place can change an entire causal nexus."
With a sigh, the captain turned to her. "She talks like that. A lot. And you must be Miss Noble."
"Donna."
Offering her hand and giving a firm shake when it was taken, the officer nodded, "Captain Erisa Magambo. Thank you for this."
She shrugged, the familiar self deprecation rearing its ugly head as she mumbled, "I don't even know what I'm doing."
The man at the computer looked up as the glowing woman moved to press a hand and her forehead against the deep blue police box that seemed to haunt the building just to the side of the ring of mirrors. His expression became grim before he refocused on Captain Magambo. "Is it awake?"
"She," the woman corrected with a sigh.
Her companion closed his eyes for a moment before he opened them and reworded his query, "Is she awake?"
The captain phrased her reply carefully. "The TARDIS seems to be quiet today. Ticking over. Like we're waiting."
The glowing woman whispered something to the box that none of them could hear before turning back to the redhead. "Do you want to see her?"
"What's a police box?" Donna asked, still not understanding why she felt a kinship for the strange woman or the box.
"They rescued her from under the Thames. The first shift. Go on inside," the woman encouraged Donna.
The redhead gave a short, unhappy laugh, looking at the blue box. "What for?"
The blonde raised her hand and the the door opened, similar light spilling from the door. "Just go in!"
Donna shook her head but stepped through the door, gasping as she beheld the interior. The interior was huge and felt so familiar and so much like home - she wanted to stay inside, to run toward a hall she couldn't even see and search for the man who hovered at the edge of her mind. She walked back out, meeting the blonde woman's gaze with her own, so filled with confusion and longing that she even reached a hand toward the woman.
"I know, Donna. I wish I could explain it to you, but I can't until we get you out of this. The TARDIS was almost dead inside until I found her here. And then…" she took the other woman's hand in both of hers and for the first time in longer than she cared to think about, Donna felt a rush of hope.
"Babe, we've about reached resonance."
The blonde nodded at her companion. "When I take her, you need to get out or you'll get caught in the collapse."
He gave a crooked smirk. "Don't think I'll miss the party."
To Captain Magambo, she smiled almost apologetically and asked. "Can we get some coffee? I know Donna's probably needing some about now."
"How did you know?" the redhead asked in surprise. "How… please, I want to understand. If this is all so important, why did you want me here?"
"Because the Doctor chose you," the glowing woman replied simply. "He asked me if I agreed, but his choice is really all I needed to know. He's a Time Lord, the last of his kind. As you are our dear friend and companion."
"Me?" she choked out. "What are you lot doing with me?"
The blonde woman's smile was so bright that Donna had to look away.
"Because, Donna Noble, you are absolutely brilliant."
The heat that rushed into her cheeks at the simple statement surprised her. "Don't be stupid."
"Well, you are! It just takes the Doctor to show us that, simply by being with him."
The man at the computer looked back and made eye contact with her, giving her a grin of agreement. "He does it to all of us, even if we don't want to admit it. I felt it all the way back with the Slitheen, even if I was still jealous and too stubborn to admit it."
The blonde smiled fondly at the man before looking to the TARDIS. "He can't help it, he draws that quality out in people. Even before… I felt like I mattered, like I could make a difference out there."
"Were you and him...?" Donna asked.
The black man suddenly laughed.
"Shut it," the woman said immediately.
"Sorry, sorry," he continued chuckling.
"Ass," she muttered before refocusing on Donna. Her gaze immediately went over Donna's shoulder and she reached her hand out, expression suddenly darkening. "Do you want to see it?"
"No." She glanced over her own shoulder. "Go on, then."
Soon Donna was in the center of the mirrors, but they were now humming and hooked straight to the console of the TARDIS. The blonde stood next to her while Captain Magambo and the black man running the computer stayed outside the circle.
The glowing woman began to speak. "No one knows exactly how the TARDIS work, no matter what a certain Time Lord says. I can get her to help us though, she can pass the knowledge through me to allow us to show you the creature."
"It's a creature?" Donna asked in alarm.
"Just stand here."
Captain Magambo spoke, "Ma'am, you'll need to step out of the circle."
The blonde woman shook her head. "No, her power won't affect me. I'll stay with Donna, she doesn't care for being alone."
She didn't ask how she knew this time, she just smiled with a bit of fear and nodded, accepting the support.
"Your funeral," the captain muttered, having seen what happened to one of her subordinates who had volunteered as a test subject. The fire from the power had burned the man completely, not even ash left behind. She remembered how this woman had been angry, telling them how foolish they had been, but now she wanted to stay there? "Ready? And... activate."
The lights came on, and Donna screwed her eyes tightly closed. The faint humming became an almost deafening thrum.
"Open your eyes, Donna."
Donna hesitated. "Is it there?"
The response was not what she expected. It was soft, confused, and held an edge of anger that the former super-temp wasn't expecting. "Yeah- open your eyes. Look at it. Tell me if you know how it got there."
"I can't," the redhead whimpered.
"You've seen worse, Donna. Look."
Donna warily opened her green eyes, afraid to see what was there. When she finally beheld the thing that had caused so much turmoil in the past several months, she was so horrified by the massive black beetle that she would almost say she felt insulted that it had been there so long.
The glowing woman caught her arm as she tried to turn. "It's okay, it's okay, it's okay - calm down. Donna? Donna? Donna!"
She snapped her eyes up to meet the golden orbs. "Wha-?"
The blonde smiled encouragingly at her. "It isn't new, you know. It's been on you since that first change that was made."
"Change?" Donna repeated numbly, moving slightly to study the clicking beetle. It was large enough to cover most of her back, its head half buried in her hair. The beetle caused her no pain, but, she thought cantankerously, it wasn't doing her any good either. "What is it?"
"We don't know," the glowing woman admitted.
The redhead rolled her eyes and glared over at her, her tone saturated with both sarcasm and terror. "Oh. Thanks."
With a smirk, the blonde explained. "I should rather say that I don't know its name. I do know that it feeds off time. By - by changing time, by making someone's life take a different turn, like er... meetings never made... children never born... a life never loved. But with you, it's…" Trailing off, she shook her head and became lost in her thoughts for a moment.
Donna froze, her horror overtaking her features. "But I never did- anything important."
The black man barely covered his laughter with a rough cough, drawing a quelling look from his companion.
"What do you know that I don't?" Donna asked, her eyes staring meanly at him.
"Not helping," the woman sighed. "Look, I know you believe that you aren't important, Donna. We've been meaning to talk to you about that...later. One day, though, this thing on your back made you turn right instead of left."
The woman shook her head. "When was that?"
"Oh, you wouldn't remember. It was the most ordinary day in the world, but by turning right, you never met the Doctor and the whole world just changed around you."
Donna couldn't understand what was happening. She thought she understood parts of it, but she couldn't have heard correctly. "The world changed… around me? No… Can you get rid- of it?"
The blonde shook her head and raised her hands in an apologetic shrug. "I can't even touch it. It seems to be in a state of flux."
"But you can see it! You saw it even without the mirrors. I saw your face!"
The glowing woman nodded, her eyes closed. "I also tend to exist in a state of flux. I know that doesn't help much, but the Doctor would probably tell you that and leave it there."
"You liar!" The redhead burst out, suddenly furious. "You told me I was special! But it's not me! It's this thing! I'm just a host!"
The blonde lifted her hands and placed them on Donna's shoulders, drawing the woman close in a hug. "No, there's more than that. The readings are strange. It's... it's like reality's just bending round you."
"Because of this thing!"
The glowing woman pulled back and looked her in the eyes, her expression clearly asking Donna to believe her. "No, no! We're getting separate readings from you. And they've always been there, since the day you were born."
The captain leaned in, speaking to the man's ear. "This is not relevant to the mission."
"You've got to trust her, Captain," he replied with quiet confidence.
The woman in question looked around, decidedly distracted. "When I learned why you used the hopper, I thought it was just the Doctor we needed, but it's the both of them. The Doctor and Donna Noble. Together. To stop the stars from going out."
The redhead was shaking, unable to focus enough to follow the conversation. "Turn it off. Please."
The blonde looked up at her in surprise, then glanced to the mirrors. "Captain."
Magambo nodded smartly. "Power down."
The black man sprang into action, darting to the computer and immediately adjusting all the settings so that the whirring stopped and she could no longer see the parasite responsible for so much misery. The blonde wrapped an arm around Donna's shoulders.
"It's... it's still there, though. What can I do... to get rid of it?"
The black man rubbed his hands together as if he'd gotten the final piece of a puzzle. "You're going to travel in time."
An hour later, the man and Captain Magambo had helped Donna into a thick green coat with wires woven in and out over its surface while explaining what she needed to do. The glowing woman came out of the TARDIS and placed a hand on the doorway.
"The TARDIS has tracked down the moment of intervention," she told the three of them. "Monday the 25th, one minute past ten in the morning. Your car was on Little Sutton Street Ealing Road, but you turn right heading for Griffin's Parade. You need to turn left. That's the most important thing. You've got to go back and turn left. Have you got that, Donna? One minute past ten. Make yourself turn left, heading for the Chiswick Highroad."
Captain Magambo patted the redhead's shoulder. "Keep the jacket on at all times - it's insulation against temporal feedback. This will correspond to local time wherever you land," she continued, putting a watch on her wrist and a bottle of water in her hand. "This is to combat dehydration."
The man and the soldier led Donna back into the mirror circle.
"This is where we leave you," he said, almost flippantly, earning another look from his friend.
"I don't want to see that thing on my back!" Donna exclaimed.
The blonde shook her head. "No! The mirrors are just incidental."
The man grinned. "They bounce chronon energy back into the centre which we control and decide the destination. And you're going to tell himself I got it to work, right?"
"It's a time machine," Donna gaped in awe.
The woman grinned at her enthusiasm. "It's a time machine."
Captain Magambo sighed heavily. "If you could?"
The blonde smiled encouragingly and gestured for Donna to step in the circle.
"Powering up," the soldier barked, taking a step back.
The others in the room, other than the blonde, also took a step back as the lights snapped on and the whirring of the machine began anew.
"How do you know it's going to work?" Donna asked with a very slight tremble to her voice.
The block man shrugged. "Hmm? Oh... yeah, we don't. We're just guessing."
"I'm not guessing!" the blonde exclaimed. "The TARDIS says it will work. Just remember, when you get to the junction, change the car's direction by one minute past ten."
The redhead nodded, feeling the rush of excitement flutter in her stomach. "How do I do that?"
"It's up to you."
Donna closed her eyes and took a breath. "Well, I just have to... run up to myself and... have a good argument."
The man grinned. "I'd like to see that."
"Activate loadstone," Captain Magambo said with a stern voice.
"Good luck," the golden woman encourage as things began to warp.
The redhead nodded. "I'm ready!"
"One minute past ten," the man informed all present.
Donna looked at the three people watching her, a few tears in her eyes. "Because I understand, now. You said I was going to die, but you mean this whole world is going to blink out of existence."
The two nameless strangers looked at each other, neither seeming to want to comment on her statement.
"But that's not dying. Because a better world takes its place. The Doctor's world. And I'm still alive!" Donna grinned brightly. "That's right, isn't it? I don't die? If I change things, I don't die? That's... that's right, isn't it?"
Her smile faltered. Neither person could tell her what she wanted to hear. The man sighed heavily.
"I'm sorry," he told her, the regret in his eyes easy to identify.
"But I can't die! I've got a future! With the Doctor - you told me!"
The captain shouted out to her subordinates, "Activate!"
Donna felt as though she was being squeezed through a straw and spat against a wall, and suddenly she was gone. The glowing woman frowned and looked to her friend. "I'll go tell the Doctor what you told me, and get the beetle off my actual Donna. You're sure you'll be okay to be with her?"
He nodded, hugging her tightly, but briefly. "I'll see you again soon, babe."
She nodded and pressed a hand to his cheek. "Tell Mum that I'm okay."
Before he could respond, he disappeared into a cloud of gold, and she followed seconds later.
Rose's knees buckled as her consciousness slammed back into her. The Doctor caught her before she hit the ground. "Whoa, there."
Her eyes flashed as they fluttered open. "Fortune teller," she gasped.
Lee frowned in confusion and stared at her, while her husband began scanning the shops.
"There," he said, pointing at the tent that Donna had been coerced into just a few moments prior.
Rose pushed herself to her feet, waving off the Doctor's hands. she stalked to the vendor's entrance, the two men and her daughter following closely behind. As they entered the tent, their companion screamed out and a giant beetle fell to the dirt floor and flailed its legs. They saw the fortune teller staring at Donna in terror, crouched in a corner.
"Don't move," Rose snarled at the woman, her eyes still flashing and glowing gold. "Doctor, I'm not sure what that bug is, but I'm not about to let her get away with what she did to Donna."
The fortune teller was shaking her head, whimpering. "You were so strong. What are you? What will you be? What will you be?"
Lee crouched down and pulled Donna into his arms and she clings to him, relishing his hold as though she'd been gone for years - which to her mind was truth. Behind them, the Doctor and Jenny knelt, inspecting the beetle, looking up after a quick examination.
"It's one of the Trickster's Brigade. Changes a life in tiny little ways. Most times, the universe just compensates around it, but with you…" He winked at Donna, downright proud of how she unconsciously fought against the beetle's control. "Great big parallel world!"
She tried to smile back, but she was still fighting the nightmare she'd seen in her mind. "Hold on, you said parallel worlds are sealed off."
Rose blinked, her eyes rounding with surprise as something occurred to her. She turned back to the others, staring owlishly at her husband.
"They are. But you had one created around you. Funny thing is, it seems to be happening a lot. To you," the Time Lord avoided his wife's eyes for the moment.
"How do you mean?" Lee asked. "Is-is Donna in danger?"
"No!" The Doctor reassured the couple. "Well, The Library and then this…"
Donna and Lee's eyes met in one of those silent conversations that all people in close relationships seem to have.
He continued absently. "Sometimes I think there's way too much coincidence around you, Donna. We met you once. We met your grandfather. Then we met you again. In the whole wide universe, we met you for a second time. It's like something's binding us together."
Donna scoffed, her voice stronger now that she was feeling safe within Lee's arms. "Don't be so daft. I'm nothing special."
She had always believed this, had just assumed that it was a universally known fact; but she was a bit taken aback to take in the four looks of complete disbelief she was getting now.
Lee was the first to speak. "Don't you know how amazing you are?"
Jenny moved to her other side, hugging her aunt as hard as her young arms could manage. "Aunt Donna, you're super clever, and real observant! There's been lots of times that you saw what Mum and Dad missed!"
"Donna," the Doctor said seriously, but with a fond smile, "you really are brilliant."
"Even Mickey thought so," Rose said quietly, causing the Doctor's gaze to snap to hers, bewildered.
"Our Mickey?" he asked, completely unable to fathom why she would be talking about Mickey Smith who was trapped on the other side of the Void with the rest of Rose's family.
"Was that his name?" the redhead asked. "I thought… were you really there?"
Rose nodded, her whole body rigid with tension. "He was there, Doctor. He's been able to get between the worlds and he's been chronicling something distressing. Something is breaking down the walls of the void. He said he was looking for us because he got a message he shouldn't have gotten."
Donna gasped, "The words he told me when I was…?"
"What words?" the Doctor asked, his senses going into full alert.
Donna and Rose spoke the words together, "Bad Wolf."
The Time Lord fought down his panic, surging to his feet and rushing toward the door. He looked around the market wildly, joined by the others who saw the same sight he had. Those words were everywhere. Every sign in sight now read "Bad Wolf".
Rose grasped the Doctor's hand. "I guess I don't have to wonder much longer," she said softly to him.
"Mum?" Jenny asked, feeling scared because of her parents' reactions. "Why does everything say Bad Wolf?"
Rose looked down at her daughter. "We don't yet know, love."
"I think it's time we went to the TARDIS," the Doctor spoke in a tight voice.
When they arrived, the sign on the door also bore the words "Bad Wolf" and the Time Lord yanked the door open in a panic. Rose gasped as they found the console room awash in a distinctly uncomfortable shade of red. Donna was the last in, and closed the door behind them.
"I don't understand, Doctor," Lee asked curiously. "Why are these words everywhere? What exactly is Bad Wolf?"
The Doctor looked up, his eyes stricken as he gazed at his wife and thought back to what had happened to them the last time the words had haunted the pair.
"It's the end of the Universe."
A/N: Yes, I'm back. So sorry for my long absences between the last few chapters, but life kicked me in the teeth rather hard. I've ended a marriage, a career, had 2 surgeries, lost my dad, started a new job, started a new relationship and moved twice. I'm hopeful this won't be the case again, as I'm honestly exhausted.
