Author's Note: As always, this is unbeta'd, so I do apologize for any mistakes. Thank-you to all of my followers, you're all awesome! I can't wait to hear your responses to this one! -AMouse
The Doctor had forced his way out of the tiny car the moment Lance had come to a full stop outside of the building; he'd begun stretching his knees and legs while he'd waited patiently for Lance and Donna to sidle up to him. "This might just be a locksmith's, but HC Clements was brought up twenty three years ago by the Torchwood Institute."
"Who are they?" Donna asked.
"They were behind the battle of Canary Wharf," the Doctor told her darkly. He thought he saw a spark of recognition in her eye but they'd gone blank now and she was lookin at him in confused silence.
"…Cyberman invasion… Skies over London full of Daleks?"
"Oh," she exclaims, he sighs in relief 'finally'. "I was in Spain."
"They had Cybermen in Spain," he pointed out.
"Scuba diving."
'For three months?!' He'd almost asked her before thinking better of it. "That big picture, Donna – you keep on missing it."
He starts darting from one computer to the next, whacking the monitor with an open palm, 'percussion maintenance,' he'd always told Rose.
"Torchwood was destroyed, but H C Clements stayed in business. I think... someone else came in and took over the operation."
"But what do they want with me?" Donna asked worriedly.
"Somehow you've been dosed with Huon energy. And that's a problem because Huon energy hasn't existed since the Dark times. The only place you'd find a Huon particle now is a remnant in the heart of the TARDIS ('And in Rose'). See? That's what happened. Say... that's the TARDIS—," the Doctor indicated an empty mug. "And that's you—," he picks up a pencil from the desk. "The particles inside you activated. The two sets of particles magnetized and WHAP! You were pulled inside the TARDIS," he concludes by tossing the pencil into the mug and swishing it around a bit.
"I'm a pencil inside a mug?"
The Doctor nodded in agreement. "Yes, you are. 4H. Sums you up. Lance? What was H C Clements working on? Anything top secret? Special operations? Do not enter?"
"I don't know!" Lance snaps defensively. The Doctor goes back to his investigation immediately, fiddling with his sonic screwdriver and paying little mind to anything else Lance says. "I'm in charge of personnel. I wasn't project manager. Why am I even explaining myself? What the hell are we talking about?"
"They make keys, that's the point. And look at this..." he gestures toward the screen where he's just brought a 3D layout of the building up on the monitor. "We're on the third floor."
Both bride and groom nod in acknowledgment, waiting for the point. "Underneath reception, there's a basement, yes? Then how come when you look on the lift, there's a button marked 'lower basement'? There's a whole floor which doesn't exist on the official plans. So what's down there, then?"
"Are you telling me this building's got a secret floor?" Lance was eyeing the Doctor as if he thought him insane.
"No," the Doctor replied in a drawling tone. "I'm showing you this building's got a secret floor."
"It needs a key." Donna pointed out.
"I don't!" He chirped happily, quickly sonicing the lock. "Right then, thanks you two, I can handle this… see you later."
"No chance, Martian. You're the man who keeps saving my life, I ain't letting you out of my sight."
The Doctor makes no argument. He's come to like the slap-happy ginger woman. Plus Rose isn't here to help him on this one; Donna Noble may need a little enlightenment on what goes on in the world around her, but in a moment of crisis she doesn't freeze up – it's an invaluable trait really. He smiles at her when she joins him by his side in the lift.
"Going down," he says.
"Lance?" Donna snaps.
"Maybe I should go to the police," he says hesitantly, making no move to join the other two in the elevator.
"Inside," she orders. His shoulders slump in defeat as he takes his place on the lift.
"To honor and obey?" The Doctor quips.
"Tell me about it, mate," he sighs.
"OI."
##############################################################################
"Where are we," she asked when they'd reached the secret basement. "Well, what goes on down here?"
Donna did not much like the look of the place. A long cement corridor continued so far in the distance that direction Donna could not see the end of it. What she could see was dank. There wasn't a picture or wall ornament to be seen, making the smallest noise ricochet off the walls, and she imagined the noise echoing for kilometers down the hall.
"Let's find out..." suggested the Doctor.
"Do you think Mr. Clements knows about this place?" She half whispered, not really seeing the point since the acoustics in this narrow room could pick up a pin drop.
"The mysterious HC Clements? I think he's part of it. Oh, look!" His eyes lit up in enthusiasm. "Transport."
Sequestered to the side of the room were four electric scooters, one of which they each commandeered. Still in her wedding gown and heels, Donna couldn't quantify her relief at not having to walk to the end of the long tunnel. Donna could only hope that the Spaceman wasn't relying too heavily on the element of surprise, because she couldn't hope to contain the nearly hysterical giggling bubbling up from her chest.
She had initially managed rather well, she thought. It was undoubtedly amusing for all of them to be riding scooters to the potentially dangerous situation. It wasn't until she had caught a quick glimpse at the Doctor's face that her resolve had crumbled. He'd been looking directly ahead, intense eyes, mouth set in a frown…on a Segway.
She looked down at her feet, trying to reign in her chuckling, when she remembered how she herself was dressed. She was a bride… on a Segway! Imagining how ridiculous the three of them must have looked, Donna broke into guffaws of laughter.
The Doctor spared her a quick questioningly glance and in a moment his inquisitive gaze meets hers, his face blooms into a full, toothy smile and then he is laughing too, both of them only becoming louder when Lance clearly doesn't understand why it's all so funny.
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When they come to a door with a large "T" and the words, "Torchwood – Authorized personnel only," the three abandon their scooters.
The Doctor immediately starts turning the wheel to open the door, behind which it a ladder.
"Wait here," he tells Donna and Lance. "Just need to get my bearings. Don't…do anything." He gives the woman a stern look, not trusting her by herself for long since in the short time he'd known her she had proven herself a strong competitor for Rose's 'jeopardy friendly' title.
He starts his climb up the ladder.
"You'd better come back," she calls up.
He chuckles softly. "I couldn't get rid of you if I tried."
When he reaches the apex of his climb the Doctor finds himself looking at the underside of a manhole; he opens it easily and climbs out into broad daylight, overlooking the Thames Flood barrier. Having satisfied his curiosity he begins his downward trek to relay his information and he and Donna marvel at the novelty of having a secret base hidden underneath a major landmark.
When the next room they enter is a well-stocked lab, the Doctor is all excitement. "Oh, look at this! Stunning! Particle extrusion," he enthuses as he toys with some of the equipment.
"What does it do," asks Donna.
"Particle extrusion. Hold on..." he trails off in his explanation when a set of bubbling tubes catches his eye. He runs over to them and starts tapping one. "Brilliant. They've been manufacturing Huon particles. In case, my people got rid of Huons, they unraveled the atomic structure."
Lance's head shot up in sudden attention. "Your people? Who are they? What company do you represent?"
"Oh, I'm a… freelancer," he tells Lance after a moment of floundering. Rose had once said the very same thing to a con-artist-turned-hero; her delivery had been better, but he didn't waste time focusing on it. "But this lot are rebuilding them. They've been using the river! Extruding them through a flat hydrogen base so they've got the end result—Huon particles in liquid form," he ends his lesson by picking up and shaking a small test tube full of the particles.
He carefully masks his face, he doesn't want to worry Donna; he doesn't think Lance would care much either way if he told them how much danger the woman was really in.
"And that's what's inside me," she pushed.
In answer, The Doctor turns a knob on the test tube, making the contents, and the bride, glow.
"Oh, my God," she panted in fear.
"Because the particles are inert - they need something living to catalyze inside and that's you. Saturate the body and then... HA!—The wedding! Yes, you're getting married, that's it! Best day of your life, walking down the aisle—oh, your body's a battleground! There's a chemical war inside! Adrenaline, acetylcholine, WHAM! go the endorphins, oh you're cooking! Yeah, you're like a walking oven! A pressure cooker, a microwave, all churning away, the particles reach boiling point, SHAZAM!—" His head is snapped to the side from the force of her slap. 'Still not as bad as Jackie.'
He was monumentally thankful now that Rose was not with him on this one. Seeing these huon particles, knowing they were active inside Donna just reminded him how precarious Rose's own situation was. More so than he'd realized. One a daily basis the human body synthesizes dozens of chemicals to keep it preforming at its healthiest. Unlike the body of a Time Lord or many of the other alien species that existed during the dark ages humans can't consciously control the chemicals their bodies produce.
He spends all of his time with her—he knows her…it's so easy to forget sometimes that's she's an alien.
The huon particles which had catalyzed within Donna's human body so easily were not half the number of the particles still inert inside Rose. Any one of the number of adventures since she'd essentially swallowed the time vortex could have been the one to spark the chemical reaction in her body that would catalyze the particles. Any intense burst of adrenaline or serotonin, or estrogen, any number of things could finally push her over the ledge she's balanced on. The huon particles would activate; he would lose her.
But to Donna he gave an annoyed, "What did I do this time?"
"Are you enjoying this?!" She snapped at him with quite a bit of animosity. His tense shoulders relaxed in apology. He hadn't been enjoying it at all, in fact. What she'd apparently interpreted as excitement had mostly been panic; he didn't tell her that though. No need to mention how much danger she was in – or that his loss of composure had stemmed primarily from his worry for another person entirely…
She stepped up to him again, her hands held out in supplication, "Right, just tell me—these particles, are they dangerous? Am I safe?"
"Yes," he says, too quickly.
"Doctor... if your lot got rid of Huon particles... why'd they do that?"
"Because they were deadly," he tells her.
"Oh, my God..." her voice is barely a whisper.
"I'll sort it out, Donna. Whatever's been done to you, I'll reverse it. I'm not about to lose someone else."
Their conversation is interrupted then by a female voice, speaking through a comm-link. At the same time tremors shake the floor beneath the trio's feet, a trap door in the center of the expansive room opens up to a cavernous hole.
His eyes glassy in terror, Lance made a quick, inconspicuous retreat from the room. He'd no sooner disappeared around a corner than black-hooded Santa robots piled into the room, and lined the walls.
The Doctor kept his face carefully blank. "How far down does it go?" he asked the voice, nodding at the hole. It had been excavated using a laser drill, he realized as he studied it. When the owner of the voice informed him it reached Earth's center he made no effort to hide his intrigue.
The Doctor was momentarily diverted by Donna's suggestion that there were dinosaurs at the center of the Earth. After a round of witty banter with her, instigated by her inability to make plausible suggestions with regards to the purpose of a hole carved out to Earth's core, the Doctor once again addressed the mysterious female, coaxing her out from the relative safety of her spaceship and into their presence.
"Who are you with such command," the owner of the voice wanted to know.
"I'm the Doctor."
"Prepare your best medicines, doctor-man, for you will be sick at heart."
Suddenly, standing before the Doctor and Donna stood a giant spider. At least ten feet tall, her eight legs and upper body was a deep scarlet, her underbelly was coal black – the alien hissed, displaying a set of sharp, pearly fangs.
Beside him, Donna let out a disgusted shriek even as he remained fixated on the creature.
"The Racnoss... but that's impossible, you're one of the Racnoss!"
"Empress," she called herself. But it's impossible, and the Doctor says as much – unless – "Are you the only one?" He asks.
"Such a sharp mind," compliments the Empress. The Doctor's eyes soften slightly; he is all too familiar with the devastation that comes with knowing one is the last of their kind.
"The Racnoss," he said, turning to Donna. "Come from the Dark Times, billions of years ago, billions. They were carnivores, omnivores, they devoured whole planets."
"Racnoss are born starving, is that our fault?"
"They eat people?" Donna's voice raised an octave.
Instead of answering her directly, the Doctor asks an obscure question about her bosses shoes, pointing in the direction of the ceiling when she answers in the affirmative, indicating a large web, where the unmoving ankles and shoes of HC Clements could just been seen sticking out from the rest of the tangled mass.
"Oh, my God," she gasps.
Her pale face whitens even further when the Empress confirms the long dead man as her "Christmas dinner," with an exaggerated 'Mm," and a boisterous cackle.
"You shouldn't even exist! Way back in history, the Fledgling Empires went to war against the Racnoss – they were wiped out."
"Except for me," claims the Empress.
Lance appears on the balcony above the Empress, axe held aloft. He motions Donna to keep quiet as he makes his way to the Racnoss, weapon at the ready. Donna attempts to keep the Empress's attention averted from Lance, yelling bitingly at the alien until her fiancé is right beside it and swinging the axe in a wide arc through the air – at the last moment the Empress turns to him and hisses – and he halts the axe's trajectory, both he and the Empress begin to laugh.
"That was a good one," he says to the Empress in between laughs. "Your face!"
"Lance is funny," she agrees.
Watching the proceeding from her place on the floor, Donna Noble lets out a confused "What?"
"I'm sorry," the Doctor whispers, his sad eyes glued to her face.
"Sorry for what? Lance, don't be so stupid! Get her!" Donna cries.
"God, she's thick," Lance tells the Empress, all the while locking eyes with Donna, his full of false pity, hers full of confusion. "Months I had to put up with her. Months. A woman who can't even point to Germany on a map."
"I don't understand," said Donna in a small voice. Still, she'd reacted to the growing resentment in his voice, flinched at his insult – there was still a small, defiant part of her that wanted to snap back that of course she could point to Germany on a map, but she remained quiet.
"How did you meet him?" The Doctor's voice was surprisingly gentle.
"In the office," she told him.
He nods his head. "He made you coffee."
It takes her a few moments to realize what the Doctor is saying to her, but realization comes, and Donna's heart hits the floor. "What?!"
"Every day," Lance cooed at her, slowly as if to an idiot. "I made you coffee."
The Doctor was studying Lance scathingly. "You had to be dosed with liquid particles over six months."
"He was poisoning me?" Lance had admitted it himself, but she wasn't ready to believe it, she wanted all of this to be some terrible joke.
"It was all there in the job title—the Head of Human Resources," the Doctor bit out.
"This time, it's personnel," Lance joked, he and the Racnoss broke into another round of laughter. The Doctor curled his lip in disgust.
"But," started Donna. "We were getting married."
"Well, I couldn't risk you running off. I had to say yes. And then I was stuck with a woman who thinks the height of excitement is a new flavor Pringle. Oh, I had to sit there and listen to all that 'yap yap yap'-"Oh, Brad and Angelina—Is Posh pregnant?" X Factor, Atkins Diet, Feng Shui, split ends, text me, text me, text me. Dear God, the never ending fountain of fat, stupid trivia," Lance's demeanor grew increasingly vile as he continued, oblivious, or perhaps altogether unconcerned with the growing hurt and confusion on Donna's face. After taking a moment to let his true opinion of her sink in, he looked down at her and in a moderate tone, told her, "I deserve a medal."
"Oh, is that what she's offered you? The Empress of the Racnoss? What are you? Her consort?"
"It's better than a night with her," Lance defended. The Doctor's face screwed up in revulsion. The idea that this ape thought Donna so dreadful he'd maliciously betray and hurt her is terrible…the idea that Lance might really rather a night as the consort of a giant spider over a night with a woman who loves him is pretty bad too.
"But I love you," Donna says despondently.
"That's what made it easy," he sneered at her. "It's like you said, Doctor—the big picture—what's the point of it all if the Human Race is nothing? That's what the Empress can give me. The chance to... go out there, to see it. The size of it all. I think you understand that, don't you, Doctor?"
Now the Empress's interest had left Donna and she'd focused on the Doctor. He allowed Lance and the Empress to believe he was a Martian for the time being, figuring it would better his chances of having his questions answered. Unfortunately for the Doctor, neither the Racnoss nor Lance was the typical megalomaniacal supervillain, and neither would reveal to him what lay at the center of the Earth.
In fact, it seemed his curiosity had only brought into question his usefulness to them – none, it seemed – the Empress ordered his death.
The Doctor was about to begin what would surely have been a very wordy explanation of why he was far more useful alive when Donna jumped in front of him, her arms spread wide. "Don't you hurt him," she yelled at the Racnoss and her ex-fiancé.
"No, no, it's all right," the Doctor warned her gently.
She looked over her shoulder at him and he saw the fear and determination mixed in her eyes. She reminded him in that moment of another scared human. A nineteen-year-old shop girl, shaking uncontrollably even as she disengaged herself from the grip of her even more terrified boyfriend; swinging herself from a rusty chain to save a complete stranger, and the rest of the world. "No, I won't let them!" Donna yelled.
"At arms!" The Empress commanded. The robots readied their weapons, aiming them in the direction of the Doctor and the still unmoved Donna.
"Ah, now. Except," says the Doctor.
The Empress ignores him. "Take aim!"
"Well, I just want to point out the obvious—"
"They won't hit the bride," the Empress interrupts. "They're such very good shots."
"Just—just—just—hold on, just a tick, just a tiny, just a little—tick. If you think about it, the particles activated in Donna and drew her inside my spaceship. So, reverse it... the spaceship comes to her," the Doctor's lecture comes to an end. In one swift succession he's fiddled with the tube of huon particles and both it and Donna have begun to glow. The TARDIS materializes even as the Empress yells "Fire!" The robot's bullets ricochet harmlessly off the wood of the police box as it solidifies around them.
"Off we go," cheers the Doctor as he darts to the console and pilots them away from the furious Racnoss.
Down the hall of the TARDIS and behind a set of solid cherry double doors, Rose Tyler sleeps soundly in her bed. Pale pink comforter and cream sheets blanketed around her, her blonde hair spilling out over pillows of the same pale color; no one but the TARDIS is present to notice the liquid gold seeping out from under her closed eye lids, or the dull golden sheen of her skin as the particles in her own body respond to the Doctor's fiddling with the test tube – and the TARDIS isn't telling.
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Safe in the TARDIS for the time being, the Doctor admits he'd lied about his spaceship. "Oh, you know what I said before about time machines? Well, I lied. And now we're gonna use it. We need to find out what the Empress of the Racnoss is digging up. If something's buried at the planet core, it must've been there since the beginning. That's just brilliant. Molto bene! I've always wanted to see this. Donna—we're going further back than I've ever been before."
In his exuberance, it took the Doctor until well after the conclusion of his speech to notice that his companion wasn't sharing in his excitement. On the other side of the room Donna Noble's shoulders were hunched and shaking, tears were running down her cheeks as she cried in silence.
For the second time, the Doctor was struck with the thought that this woman would make an exceptional companion. Donna Noble stood between a stranger and robots of guns. She kept her head when the rest of her family was frantic with terror, and faced with the fact that the man she loved had not only never loved her, but had resented and despised her—poisoned her even—Donna Noble had held back her tears in graceful pride; and only now that she was away from the source of her pain did she allow quiet tears to catch up to her.
He felt a deep connection to this woman whom he'd known for such a short period of time—one he couldn't explain. It was similar in strength, though not in essence to his connection with Rose. The Doctor felt a kinship with the redhead, already he was becoming familiar with her mind's unique buzzing of emotions on the periphery of his own.
Eventually the Doctor focuses back on piloting the old girl to their destination, respectfully turning away from Donna to give her as much privacy as could be afforded. Soon after he'd turned away he heard the shuffling of her dress and the scratch of fabric against fabric as she moved closer to him and sat herself on the jump seat.
When the TARDIS reached the coordinates he'd set he turned around to find a still morose, but more composed woman. "We've arrived... want to see?"
"I s'pose," she mutters.
The Doctor swivels around the monitor for them to view, but on the screen the universe looks small. He tells her so – hoping to cheer her up and distract her from her troubles the best way he knows how – tells her he thinks her way is best. He walks over to the TARDIS doors and waits for her there. "No human's ever seen this. You'll be the first."
"All I want to see is my bed," she says, but it's a lie and she moves to join him at the door.
"Donna Noble. Welcome to the creation of the Earth," he opens the doors with a swivel and Donna's mouth falls open at the sight.
Seeing from Donna's perspective makes the canvas before him newly beautiful. He narrates for her, so she can see what he sees too.
"We've gone back 4.6 billion years. There's no solar system, not yet. Only dust and rocks and gas. That's the Sun over there, brand new. Just beginning to burn."
"Where's the Earth?" Her voice is almost reverent.
"All around us... in the dust," he says. They both look around at the rocks and the dust. The macroscopic and microscopic particles that will one day fuse together to become Sol 3, or Earth. One day life will thrive on that planet, war will rage, and history will be made; and born from this dust, billions of years from now will be a fiery red head—she'll grow up and meet a mad man with a box and he will take her back in time to see the building blocks of her own creation.
"Puts the wedding in perspective. Lance was right. We're just... tiny."
"No, but that's what you do," the Doctor assures her genuinely. "The human race. Making sense out of chaos. Marking it out with weddings and Christmas and calendars. This whole process is beautiful," and it is, he thinks. His hand itches for Rose's; this is the kind of sight that would leave her speechless, but this beauty is fleeting and it never comes again. She does beautiful things every day, her whole species does. They decorate their entire planet every year in celebration – put twinkle lights on their trees, their homes, wrap garland around their porches. They sing songs and celebrate, and they take the time to remember their loved ones and be thankful for them. The dust before him wouldn't be half as spellbinding if he didn't know what creatures rose up from it. "But only if it's being observed."
"So, I came out of all this," Donna asks.
"Isn't that brilliant?"
She seems to be at a loss for words. 'It's so brilliant'—'it's so daunting'. "I think that's the Isle of Wight," she jokes instead, and they laugh.
"Eventually," the Doctor begins to tell her once the ensuing silence had grown too thick. "Gravity takes hold. Say, one big rock, heavier than the others, starts to pull other rocks towards it. All the dust and gas and elements get pulled in, everything, piling in until you get the..."
"Earth."
"But the question is... what was that first rock?"
##############################################################################
Donna spots it first, navigating its way through the debris that will become the earth. A Racnoss ship. As she looks on, the particles of gas and dust begin to gravitate toward the Racnoss, drawing closer to it and fusing together—exactly as the Doctor predicted. They didn't bury something there, he told her, they hid themselves from the war; they became the first rock.
Suddenly the TARDIS gives a violent jolt, both Donna and the Doctor are just spared being knocked to the floor.
"What was that," Donna asks him.
"Trouble," he slams the door shut as the TARDIS continues to jostle them.
"Remember that little trick I pulled," he tells her when she wants to know what's happening. "—particles pulling particles. It works in reverse—they're pulling us back!"
"Well, can't you stop it? Hasn't it got a handbrake? Can't you reverse or warp or beam or something?"
"Backseat driver. Oh! Wait a minute," he pulls out a piece of metal from underneath the console. "The extrapolator! Can't stop us, but it should give us a good bump!"
They land with a thud about 200 yards to the right and they take off in the direction of the Thames flood barrier entrance. Out of breath and frightened, Donna isn't too happy to hear he's making the plan up as he goes, but doesn't push the matter, instead asking him why it was necessary to poison her with huon particles in the first place.
Unfortunately before the Doctor can finish explaining it to her, she's grabbed from behind by a robot. It covers her mouth with its hand and drags her away as she struggles – the Doctor's continued explanation getting lost as the distance between them grows.
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He isn't sure exactly how long she'd been gone before he'd realized it… he does know he needs to get his gob under control. He'd already had an inkling of where she'd been taken, so when he heard her scream Lance's name he'd been close by. He put on an extra burst of speed.
Lance was nowhere in sight, and Donna was tied in the Racnoss web on the ceiling, positioned directly over the hole in the Earth—it wasn't hard to conclude that he'd fallen.
His robot disguise hadn't fooled the Empress, but he hadn't really thought it would. Pulling out his sonic screwdriver he aimed it at the webbing holding Donna in place and strategically weakened it.
"I'm gonna fall," Donna screeched as the webbing fell away from her body slightly. The individual stands continued to snap as her body weighed them down.
"You're gonna swing," he told her.
No sooner had he gotten the words out than the web gave way and Donna, holding tight to the remaining strands, swung over the hole in the direction of the Doctor's outstretched arms.
"I've got ya," he assures her. She missed his arms entirely and swung into the wall directly under him. "...Oh. Sorry."
"Thanks for nothing," she snaps at him from where her body had sprawled out on the floor.
"The doctor-man amuses me," the Empress chuckled.
The Doctor was not amused, however. He hadn't seen Donna hit the wall with a light 'thunk' and then slide down the web to the floor. He'd seen Rose pounded into the wall with enough force to shatter half of her body. He'd seen her drop like dead weight to the ground and heard her whimpering in pain for ten full minutes before she finally gave up the fight to remain conscious. He'd seen her try and fail to lift her head and look him in the eye before her eyes had closed, when she'd stopped whimpered and forced out a barely comprehensible "it'll be okay." He'd thought she'd been saying good-bye.
All day he'd been reminded of Rose and the fact that she wasn't at his side. He'd been at intervals thankful and despondent. Now he was furious. Rose was lying alone and injured in her bed on the TARDIS and he wanted to be there. She needed him there. Instead he was here with a heartbroken red-head who'd just seen her cruel fiancé fall to his death, and a monstrous alien who found amusement in inflicting pain upon others. For just a moment he wanted her to understand that pain…but he was the Doctor. He would give her a chance. Otherwise, how could he ever face Rose when this was over.
"Empress of the Racnoss—I give you one last chance. I can find you a planet. I can find you a place in the universe to coexist. Take that offer and end this now."
"These men are so funny," she laughed.
The Doctor wanted to be a good man—he knew how this would end, but even hating the sadistic creature as he did, he found no pleasure in the path before him. "What's your answer?"
"Oh, I'm afraid I have to decline," the Empress cackles.
"What happens next is your own doing," he says softly; he doesn't know who he's talking to—the Empress or himself.
Using a remote he'd pulled from his trans-dimensional coat pockets he deactivates the Empress's robot army. They stop in their tracks and their limbs go limp.
"Robo-forms are not necessary," hisses the Empress. "My children may feast on Martian flesh."
"Oh, but I'm not from Mars."
"Then where?"
"My home planet is far away and long-since gone. But its name lives on. Gallifrey."
The Empress hisses and rears back in anger and fear. "They murdered the Racnoss!"
"I warned you. You did this," he tells her. From his pocket he pulls out a fist full of baubles, throwing them into the air as the Empress screams, "No! No! Don't! No!"
They scatter in different directions, some circling the Empress, some colliding with wall and pipes, causing tiny explosions that allow water to rush into the room. The rush of water from the Thames quickly escalates into a flood and the Racnoss Empress watches on, wailing as water pours into the chamber and down the hole, drowning her children.
The Doctor watches on in stoic silence. He saw no alternative; the Empress would not leave peacefully and he could not save the human race if the Racnoss survived. So he forces himself to watch the destruction he's caused. The infant Racnoss had died innocents, and even knowing that left alive they wouldn't have remained so did nothing to help his hatred of himself in that moment. He almost felt as if the water soaking his hair and clothes, running down his face and arms, and dripping off his fingers could be blood and looking down, he nearly gagged when the liquid turned out to be water after all—his hands were clean—the notion that his hands could ever be clean was so ridiculous it was disgusting to him.
His senses filled with the mournful sobs of the Racnoss crying, "My children, my children…" She was truly the last of her kind now; she had witnessed the slaughter of the last of her kind – her own children.
Somewhere below him Donna was telling him he could stop. Didn't she understand? He could never stop, no matter how much he may want to. It was his burden for the rest of time to keep the universe in balance. He saved entire civilizations but with every victory it seemed he further damaged himself.
His only respite from the never-ending responsibility was the woman waiting for him at home. He belonged to her almost as much as he belonged to the universe and while she could never be his, he would never not return to her.
"Come on," he yelled at Donna over the rushing water. "Time I got you out!"
Matching their strides, they ran together up the stairs. Behind them the Empress had transported back to her ship. The remaining huon energy was gone and she was defenseless, by the time the Doctor and Donna have climbed up the ladder and made it to the surface, the Racnoss ship had been shot out of the sky.
"Just... there's one problem," Donna tells him, all seriousness.
"What's that," the Doctor wonders in concern.
"We've drained the Thames," she exclaims. After a moment they both burst into slightly hysterical laughter. Once they've calmed down they make their way back to the TARDIS and the Doctor begins piloting Donna home.
##############################################################################
The TARDIS materializes right across the road from Donna's home. She and the Doctor step out onto the street and he gives the old girl's wood a loving pat.
"There we go. Told you she'd be all right. She can survive anything."
"More than I've done," she mutters. The Doctor gives her a cursory scan with his sonic before giving her a clean bill of health. No more huon particles; no damage from temporarily hosting them.
"Yeah, but apart from that," she tells him. "I missed my wedding, lost my job and became a widow on the same day… Sort of."
"I couldn't save him," he apologizes.
"He deserved it," she says emotionlessly. Her face deflates in sadness when the Doctor raises an eyebrow at her. "No, he didn't."
She looks back at her house, from the window her parents could be seen, embracing each other. "I'd better get inside. They'll be worried."
"Best Christmas present they could have—Oh, no, I forgot—you hate Christmas."
"Yes, I do."
He smiles cheerily. "Even if it snows?"
Reaching a hand into the TARDIS and tweaking with a few buttons, a spray of water vapor erupts like a geyser from the top of the TARDIS, expanding into the atmosphere. Almost immediately snowflakes begin to float down lazily from the sky.
He watches Donna tilt her head face to the sky in wonder. "I can't believe you did that!"
"Oh, basic atmospheric excitation," he says with false modesty.
When she looks back at him he's grinning widely at her. She returns his smile. "Merry Christmas," she says.
"And you. So... what will you do with yourself now?"
"Not getting married for starters. And I'm not gonna temp anymore. I dunno—travel. See a bit more of planet Earth. Walk in the dust. Just... go out there and do something."
"Well, you could always..." he trails off. He never knows why, just who—and he'd love for her to come with him. Admittedly, he realizes this may not be the best time to ask. Donna has just had a major shock, Rose is hurt and still weeks away from recovery. 'But if not now, when?'
"What," she asks him.
"Come with me?"
She smiles at him but shakes her head. "No."
"Okay," he replies too quickly. He'd been expecting it, but he'd be lying to himself if he said it hadn't stung.
"I can't..."
"No, that's fine," he shrugs.
"No, but really—everything we did today... do you live your life like that?"
"...Not all the time." They both know he's lying, and not very well.
"I think you do. And I couldn't."
"But you've seen it out there. It's beautiful!"
"And it's terrible. That place was flooding and burning and they were dying and you were stood there like... I don't know... a stranger," he didn't feel as though he was being judged by her. Perhaps she'd known he'd had no choice; perhaps she'd seen the anguish his actions had caused him. She wasn't telling him this to add to his guilt, and that just made it all the worse. "And then you made it snow—I mean, you scare me to death!"
He was speechless for a time. "…Well then."
"Tell you what I will do though—Christmas dinner… Oh, come on."
"I don't do that sort of thing," he told her.
"You did it last year, you said so. And you might as well because Mum always cooks enough for twenty."
"Oh, all right then. But you go first, better warn them. And... don't say I'm a Martian," he motions to the TARDIS. "I just have to check on my friend and park her properly, she might drift off to the Middle Ages. I'll see you in a minute."
He closes the TARDIS door and he's just about to dematerialize her when Donna shouts his name. "Blimey, you can shout," he tells her with his head stuck out the door.
"Am I ever gonna see you again?"
He smiles widely at her and finds that he truly hopes so. "If I'm lucky."
"Just… promise me one thing… hold on that friend of yours."
Her request confuses him, he tips his head to the side. "Why?"
"Because you need someone. Because sometimes, I think you need someone to stop you."
"Yeah," he says.
He knows he owes his life to Donna tonight, but she was only half right. It had been the promise of Rose Tyler waiting for him that had finally triggered his survival instincts. He needs more than just any someone to stop him.
A heavy silence had fallen over the duo whilst the Doctor had been immersed in his thoughts. "Thanks then, Donna—good luck. And just... be magnificent."
She smiles at him, gives a happy laugh. "I think I will, yeah."
With a parting smile he retreats back into the TARDIS. She calls his name again before he's taken so much as a single a step away from the door.
"Oh, what is it now," he feigns exasperation.
"That friend of yours... what's her name?"
His throat feels heavy suddenly. He hadn't even realized it but through the entire day he'd never once said her name aloud.
"Her name is Rose."
##############################################################################
He closes the door for the last time, instead of dematerializing her, he sends the old girl shooting straight into the air like a rocket; one more thing for Donna to remember him by. Once he's high in the sky he sends the old girl into the Vortex to recover.
He stumbles down the hallway to the kitchen and grabs the last three bananas, eating them on the way to his bedroom and tossing the peels thoughtlessly onto the grating in turn, as he finishes them.
In his room he shucks off his sopping wet suit and hops in the shower for a quick rinse off. He puts on Howard's jim jam bottoms, a white vest shirt and navy cardigan, before slipping his feet in to the banana slippers Rose had gotten him last year as a late Christmas present. He leaves the door to his bedroom ajar behind him as he crosses the corridor to where the cherry oak doors of Rose's room had always been, since the night Adam had come aboard.
Giving the door a single knock, he waited five seconds for a response and then turned the knob and walked right in.
She was still asleep, her vitals were strong and she had more color in her cheeks than when he'd seen her last. He scanned her with his screwdriver but the results told him nothing he hadn't already ascertained from the machines monitoring her.
Satisfied for the time being, he sat down in the plush grey chair next her bed, shimmied around a bit until he'd made himself comfortable, and propped his banana-encased feet up on the edge of her bed, right next to hers.
By the time his damp hair hit the head rest, he was already asleep.