Chapter 3: Pencil in a Cup
Donna sighed deeply as they took the stairs down to street level. "Oh, I had this great big reception all planned. Everyone's going to be heartbroken."
With money for the fare, it was easy to hire a cab to take them to the hotel Donna had booked for the reception. The three of them squeezed into the backseat, and the Doctor wrapped an arm around Rose and pulled her close.
Less than a week, huh?
He grinned and brushed his lips against her temple. Somewhere between, "There's me," and, "Better with two," he confirmed.
I thought you couldn't remember when you fell in love with me? She reached for the bond and the Doctor sighed when she gave him the telepathic equivalent of a soft kiss.
Oh, I wouldn't admit I was falling in love. I just knew I needed you with me.
"Oi!" Donna said, pulling them out of their reminiscing. "D'you mind not being quite so lovey dovey in front of the woman who just missed her own wedding?"
"Sorry, Donna," Rose said. She tried to pull away, but the Doctor kept her firmly by his side.
There's not enough room back here anyway, he told her when she shot him a look, and after a moment, she settled back against him.
Rose and Donna started talking, but the Doctor tuned them out and puzzled together the things they knew so far about Donna. Appeared out of nowhere inside the TARDIS console room while we were in flight. Works for a company that makes keys. Met her fiancé six months ago when he offered her coffee.
Those all fit together somehow, but he couldn't see how yet.
"You planning to stay in the cab all day, Doctor?" Rose asked, and he realised they'd stopped.
"No, no," he answered, handing the cabbie a few bills while he climbed out of the car.
"Oh, I'm not looking forward to this," Donna muttered as they approached the doors.
Noise reached the Doctor's ears, and he cocked his head. Ah, he told Rose. I don't think they're quite as broken up as she thinks they are.
And sure enough, when they stepped inside, the wedding guests were having a grand time, dancing and enjoying the food. He looked sideways at Donna, who'd quickly gone from shocked to angry, if the arms across her chest were any indication.
"You had the reception without me?"
A black man who'd been dancing with a tall, blonde woman turned and said, "Donna, what happened to you?"
"You had the reception without me?" she repeated, pausing for emphasis every other word in a way that made the man flinch.
The Doctor leaned forward and waved. "Hello. I'm the Doctor, and this is Rose."
"They had the reception without me," she told them.
"Yeah, looks like it," Rose agreed.
The blonde woman sneered, and the Doctor had a hunch this was Nerys. "Well, it was all paid for," she said snidely. "Why not?"
"Thank you, Nerys," Donna said, and he congratulated himself on his perception.
A middle-aged woman stepped to the front of the group. "Well, what were we supposed to do? I got your silly little message in the end. 'I'm on Earth?' Very funny. What the hell happened? How did you do it? I mean, what's the trick, because I'd love to know."
The entire party started talking at once, and the Doctor watched Donna out of the corner of his eye. She didn't seem to know who to look at, as they all hurled vaguely accusatory questions at her.
Based on who was asking what, the Doctor guessed the older woman was Donna's mother, and the man who'd been the first to speak must be Lance. Neither of them were being quite the pillars of support you'd expect.
The Doctor blinked when he heard a high-pitched sob from Donna. The sound stopped all the questions, and a moment later, Lance stepped forward and pulled her into a hug. Donna continued to cry, but she turned her head back to the Doctor and Rose and winked at them.
They smiled a little as the group burst into applause for the reunited couple. Soon, the party was back in full swing, but with Donna as the centre of attention as befitted a bride on her wedding day.
The Doctor turned to Rose and was immediately distracted by her tongue-touched smile. "So, do you still have the moves, Doctor?" she asked, swaying slightly to the music.
He took her hand and led her out onto the dance floor. "I think you're familiar with my moves by now."
Rose laughed when he waggled his eyebrows at her, then linked her hands around his neck. "Very familiar," she purred, then trailed her hands across his chest before spinning so she was facing away from him.
The Doctor put his hands on her hips and matched his steps to hers for a moment, enjoying the closeness of her body brushing against his. But seeing Donna again in his peripheral vision distracted him, and without being aware of it, he stopped moving.
Rose followed his train of thought easily and turned back to face him, her playful expression gone. "Did she really just appear on the TARDIS?"
"Out of thin air," he confirmed.
"So what are we going to do?" she asked.
The Doctor reluctantly led her off the dance floor. "Do you have your mobile?" When she handed it to him, he opened the browser and quickly typed H. C. Clements into the search box. After glancing around to make sure no one was watching, he pointed the sonic at the phone to tap into the TARDIS' search capabilities.
When the answer popped up on the screen, he set his jaw and turned the phone so Rose could see. H. C. Clements: Sole Prop. Torchwood. She let loose a few choice alien curses, and the Doctor nodded.
I couldn't agree more.
Torchwood had owned H. C. Clements up until its destruction six months ago, a timeline which conveniently coincided with the time Donna started working there.
But that's not all, Rose pointed out. There's still the question of how she got onto the TARDIS in the first place.
We need to see footage of the wedding. If I could see what it looked like when she disappeared from the church, I might have an idea of what caused it.
He looked around the reception and quickly found the person he was looking for: the wedding videographer, still at work. Hand in hand, he and Rose made their way around the dance floor, and soon they were standing next to him.
"Hello!" the Doctor said brightly. "We were just wondering if you caught the big moment on film."
"You mean when she—" The sallow faced youth twirled his finger in an upward spiral.
"Yeah," Rose said. "Because she said she was just… there one minute, and gone the next. But that can't be right, can it?"
He nodded enthusiastically. "That's exactly what happened! Here, I taped the whole thing." He pulled a tape out of his bag and put it back in the camera and fast forwarded through the wedding preliminaries. "They've all had a look. They said sell it to You've Been Framed. I said, more like the news. Here we are."
The Doctor and Rose watched tiny gold motes surround Donna as she walked down the aisle, finally carrying her upward out of the church.
"Can't be," they said in unison, then looked at each other in surprise.
"Play it again?" the Doctor asked.
The camera man willingly rewound. "Clever, mind. Good trick, I'll give her that. I was clapping."
They watched again, and Rose gasped a little. That's what it looked like when I left Pete's World, she told him.
The Doctor looked at her, then back at the screen. "But that looks like huon particles," he said, even though it couldn't be.
"What's that then?" the man asked, looking eagerly between the Doctor and the image of Donna disappearing.
"That's impossible." The Doctor took his glasses off and stared into space. "That's ancient. Huon energy doesn't exist anymore, not for billions of years. So old—" The implications caught up with him as he looked over at Donna, dancing with her fiancé with a fake wedding band on her hand. "—that it can't be hidden by a biodamper!"
"Stay here!"he told Rose, and dashed back to the foyer. Through the lobby windows, he could see two robo scavengers, slowly approaching the building.
We've got two Santas on their way, he told Rose, and if I'm right, they won't be able to tell if you or Donna are the target. Get Donna, and stay away from the windows. See if you can find an exit.
His mind was racing as he ran back to the ballroom. Rose and the TARDIS both had protested his plan to run tests on her, but if huon particles were what had brought her back, well, that explained a lot, actually. And if they were what had pulled Donna to the TARDIS… that was bad news for her.
"Donna!" She was in the middle of the room, arguing with Rose. "Donna, they've found you," he told her, grabbing one of her hands and one of Rose's as he scanned the room for an exit..
"But you said I was safe," Donna protested.
He turned back to her, shaking his head frantically. "The bio-damper doesn't work. We've got to get everyone out."
"There's a way out sign on the ceiling behind us," Rose said, and the Doctor turned and spotted it.
Donna froze. "My God, it's all my family."
"Out the back door!" The Doctor pulled her behind him, but there were robo scavengers coming in that way too. "Maybe not."
There was one more exit, inside the ballroom itself. But as the Doctor had suspected, the French doors were also being guarded.
"We're trapped," Donna said.
One of the robots raised a remote control, and the Doctor felt a spike of fear and recognition from Rose.
"Christmas trees," she said tensely.
"What about them?" Donna asked.
"They kill," the Doctor told her as they all ran back into the centre of the room. "Get away from the tree!" he yelled to the happy party-goers.
"Don't touch the trees!" Donna seconded, and he noted with some surprise that she'd finally stopped arguing with everything he said.
The Doctor, Rose, and Donna were able to herd the children away from the trees, but the adults didn't seem inclined to listen.
The mother of the bride stepped forward with an attitude that was clearly hereditary. "Oh, for God's sakes, the man's an idiot. Why? What harm's a Christmas tree gonna… Oh."
A smile crept onto her face, and the Doctor whirled toward the music he heard playing behind them. Decorations were floating off the trees, dancing in mid-air to the faint strains of classical music.
This is bad, Doctor, Rose said, and she was right. Now that the ornaments seemed to be some sort of novelty item, no one would take them seriously.
That is, no one took them seriously until the ornaments flew into the crowd, exploding into bits whenever they hit something. Then they panicked, diving out of the way, sending presents flying as they looked for places to hide.
The blinding flashes of light produced by the festive stun grenades incapacitated the humans. Trusting Rose to keep Donna safe, the Doctor ducked between people until he reached the sound system. He hid behind the DJ's station until it sounded like the worst of the explosions were over, then he stood up and stared down the robots lined up in front of the bar.
"Oi! Santa! Word of advice. If you're attacking a man with a sonic screwdriver—" He held the device up, then flipped a mic in his other hand and spoke into it. "—don't let him near the sound system."
He shoved the sonic into the sound deck, sending high pitched sonic waves throughout the room. The guests all covered their ears, but as robots, the Santas didn't have a chance. The sound waves shattered their masks to pieces, and as one, they collapsed to the floor.
As soon they were down, the Doctor pulled the sonic out of the deck and slid across the floor to the defunct robots, ignoring the stunned wedding guests who were coming out of hiding to survey the damage. He had a suspicion that these were something more than the ordinary pilot fish, and he was quickly proven correct.
"Look at that," he said, throwing the disembodied head up in the air and looking back at Rose and Donna before he caught it. "Remote control for the decorations," he said, holding it up, "but there's a second remote control for the robots. They're not scavengers anymore. I think someone's taken possession."
He turned it upside down and stared at the blinking light, indicating a signal was being transmitted to the Santa from an outside source.
"So not like last year?" Rose asked.
"Not like last year."
"Never mind all that," Donna interrupted. "You're a doctor. People have been hurt."
"Nah, they wanted you alive. Look." The Doctor picked up one of the ornaments and tossed it to Donna. "They're not active now."
"All the same, you could help."
"He is helping, Donna," Rose explained. "We need to stop whoever is behind this."
The Doctor leapt to his feet. "There's still a signal!"
Rose followed him when he ran outside to get away from the interference. You were worried when you recognised the huon particles, she told him. Even before you realised it meant the bio-damper wouldn't work.
He looked at her. It's bad for Donna, but not for you. I'll explain it later, but first…
He pointed the sonic at the head and watched it track the signal. "If we can just figure out where it's coming from…" he muttered as Donna joined them in the courtyard.
"Why does it want me?" she asked. "What have I done?"
"If we find the controller, we'll find that out." The sonic caught the signal, and he pointed it straight up at the sky. "Ooo! It's up there. Something in the sky."
He thumbed the controls on the sonic, trying to scan the vessel sending the signal to the robots, but instead, the signal disappeared altogether.
"What is it, Doctor?" Rose asked.
"Not sure. It's gone now, whatever it was."
Lance stuck his head outside, then rolled his eyes when he saw Donna. "Donna, your mum wants to know what you expect her to tell the hotel about the exploding Christmas decorations," he said.
The Doctor cut into the conversation without remorse. "I've lost the signal. Donna, we've got to get to your office. H. C. Clements. I think that's where it all started." He pivoted to her fiancé. "Lance! Is it Lance?" he asked Donna, only just realising that he'd never confirmed that assumption. She nodded, and the Doctor turned back to him. "Lance, can you give us a lift?"
oOoOoOoOo
If the cab had been tight, Lance's tiny import was even worse. Thankfully, Donna took the wheel and started nattering on to Lance about the things that had happened to her, leaving Rose and the Doctor to squeeze into the backseat.
Our kind of Christmas, Rose told him as she leaned her head against his shoulder.
This is only the second time we've had to fend off an alien invasion at Christmas, he protested.
Third, she corrected. Cardiff and Dickens, remember?
Dickens and ghosts and a gorgeous burgundy gown—the Doctor wasn't likely to forget. Oh. So, three for three… that does suggest a pattern.
Rose turned her face into his shoulder and giggled. Donna heard and glanced at them in the rearview mirror, a disgruntled expression on her face. "Oh, anyone would think you two were newlyweds, the way you keep hanging onto each other."
The Doctor rolled his eyes. "Donna, it's not like we have room to spread out."
"Yeah, because you'd let go of Blondie there if you didn't need to be practically sitting in each other's laps?"
The Doctor and Rose exchanged a mutually embarrassed glance, and Donna snorted. "That's what I thought." She pulled into the employee carpark, effectively ending the conversation. "Here we are then," she said, shutting off the motor.
"But why do you think our company has anything to do with what's happened to Donna?" Lance asked.
All four of them piled out of the car and ran inside. "To you lot this might just be a locksmiths, but H. C. Clements was brought up twenty three years ago by the Torchwood Institute." The Doctor found a terminal and he searched for clues that his theory correct. Torchwood had to be behind this, on some level.
"Who are they?" Donna asked.
"They were behind the Battle of Canary Wharf," Rose said.
Donna looked at them both blankly. "Cyberman invasion," the Doctor said, but she still didn't show any sign of recognition. "Skies over London full of Daleks?"
Finally she nodded, but then she said, "Oh, I was in Spain."
The Doctor felt his eyebrows reach his hairline. "They had Cybermen in Spain."
"Scuba diving," she said impatiently.
How could she have possibly missed an invasion? Rose asked.
I doubt any ghosts appeared over the water, the Doctor said. Still…
"That big picture, Donna. You keep on missing it." When the computer he was working on wouldn't give him the information he needed, he ran around the desk to another workstation. "Torchwood was destroyed, but H. C. Clements stayed in business. I think," he pounded on top of the monitor, "someone else came in and took over the operation."
"But what do they want with me?"
The Doctor straightened slowly. It was time to finally explain the huon particles, to both women. He looked over at his bond mate first and saw the curiosity and trepidation in her eyes.
"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." Comprehension dawned on Rose's face, and he gave her a slight nod. "See? That's what happened."
Donna frowned and shook her head, so he looked around the room and grabbed a mug. "Say that's the TARDIS. And that's you," he told her, holding up a pencil. "The particles inside you activated. The two sets of particles magnetised and whap." He dropped the pencil into the mug. "You were pulled inside the TARDIS."
Donna looked like she was going to be sick."I'm a pencil inside a mug?"
The Doctor rattled it around for effect. "Yes, you are. 4H. Sums you up."
Rose put a comforting hand on Donna's shoulder, and the Doctor went back to the computer, this time using the sonic on it to pull up the information he needed.
"Lance? What was H. C. Clements working on? Anything top secret? Special operations? Do not enter?"
"I don't know, I'm in charge of personnel. I wasn't project manager. Why am I even explaining myself? What the hell are we talking about?"
Lance's sudden defensiveness was overdone, and the Doctor frowned at the computer monitor. There wasn't any reason for Lance to be upset about the questions he was asking… unless he had something to hide.
"Calm down, mate," Rose said. "We're just trying to figure out what's going on here, that's all."
The Doctor finally pulled a plan of the building up on the computer. Five floors above reception and one basement… But in the lift, he'd seen a button for a lower basement.
"And look at this. We're on the third floor."
He pushed back from the desk and ran back to the lifts, calling one up. "Underneath reception, there's a basement, yes?" He and Rose stepped inside the glass box and looked at the rows of buttons. "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 asked.
Lance hadn't struck the Doctor as obtuse until now, and his suspicion grew. "No, I'm showing you this building's got a secret floor."
"It needs a key," Donna said.
"I don't," the Doctor countered, pointing the sonic as the button marked LB until it unlocked. "Right then. Thanks, you two. We can handle this. See you later."
Donna was shaking her head before he finished his sentence. "No chance, Martian. You're the ones who keeps saving my life." She stepped into the lift in front of Rose. "I ain't letting you out of my sight."
That left only Lance, and the Doctor was curious to see what he'd do. "Going down."
"Lance?" Donna said.
"Maybe I should go to the police."
The weaselly, hesitant look on Lance's face settled it in the Doctor's mind: the groom was definitely in on whatever was going on here.
"Inside," Donna said, jerking her thumb toward the Doctor.
Lance stepped inside, and the Doctor wondered if anyone else could see how resentful he was. "To honour and obey?"
"Tell me about it, mate."
"Oi," Donna exclaimed.
Rose took the Doctor's hand. So if the TARDIS used the huon particles to pull me back, why didn't I end up in the TARDIS, like Donna did?
Well, she had to bring you across the Void, and that took a lot of energy. Best she could do was put you someplace safe and make sure I didn't leave you there for too long.
That made sense, and it rang true with the slightly apologetic feeling she'd gotten from the TARDIS when she'd landed on Bad Wolf Bay.
Rose turned her attention back to what they were doing. So Lance…
The Doctor sighed and rubbed at the back of his neck. Yeah. Unless I'm wrong, he's neck deep in whatever's going on here.
D'you think he started dating Donna just to get close to her?
Probably.
Poor Donna.
The lift dinged, and they stepped out into a wide underground tunnel lit with eerie green lights. "Why do the bad guys always use mood lighting?" Rose asked, grinning when the Doctor choked back a laugh.
"Where are we?" Donna asked. "Well, what goes on down here?"
"Let's find out," the Doctor suggested.
Donna looked around the corridor. "Do you think Mr. Clements knows about this place?"
"The mysterious H. C. Clements?" the Doctor asked, still looking around to get his bearings. "I think he's part of it. Oh, look. Transport."
He jogged a few meters down the corridor and Rose laughed when she saw what he'd found—four Segways. The Doctor turned and walked backwards a few steps, winking at her. "You can't tell me you've never wanted to use one of these."
After taking a few minutes to figure out the controls, the four of them were rolling down the corridor, which was just barely wide enough. Rose shot sidelong glances at the Doctor and Donna, and when the other woman burst out laughing, she joined in. There was something so inherently ridiculous about the situation that she couldn't help it, and neither could the Doctor.
Lance, as usual, remained removed from the amusement. I really don't like him, Rose told the Doctor.
Don't blame you. He doesn't know how to have fun at all.
The Doctor braked in front of a heavy metal door, the wheels screeching a bit on the slick concrete. Rose glared at the discoloured sign on the door bearing the hated Torchwood logo.
It said authorised personnel only, but the Doctor was never one to obey signs. He cranked the wheel, getting the door to open. The only thing on the other side was a ladder, and Rose knew what was coming next.
"Wait here. Just need to get my bearings. Don't do anything," he ordered, pointing to the couple. "And don't wander off," he added, shooting a pointed look at Rose.
"You'd better come back," Donna said.
The Doctor's mouth twisted into a scowl. "D'you think I'd leave Rose behind?"
Despite knowing that probably wasn't the kind of reassurance Donna was looking for, Rose loved that it was his automatic answer.
The three of them stood at the bottom of the ladder, watching as he climbed up. Out of the corner of her eye, Rose noticed Lance shake his head and step back. Oh, what now?
"Donna, have you thought about this?" he asked. "Properly?" Donna was still watching the Doctor, so Lance grabbed her arm and shook it a little. "I mean, this is serious! What the hell are we going to do?"
Donna blinked at him, then smiled. "Oh, I thought July."
Rose coughed to hide her laughter. Donna kept missing the big picture, but seeing the look of consternation on Lance's face, she couldn't help but enjoy it this time.
The Doctor had finally reached the top of the ladder, and he turned the wheel on yet another hatch. Sunlight streamed into the tunnel, and Rose blinked a little at the sudden brightness.
Rose, you won't believe this, the Doctor said. He sent her a picture of what he was looking at, and Rose started laughing. This whole day was so them.
He slid back down the ladder and brushed his hands off. "Thames flood barrier, right on top of us," he told Lance and Donna. "Torchwood snuck in and built this place underneath."
Donna stared at him. "What, there's like a secret base hidden underneath a major London landmark?"
"Oh, I know. Unheard of," the Doctor managed to say with a straight face.
"Onwards, I think," he said, and they took the Segways again, not stopping until they reached a glass door once again bearing the Torchwood logo.
The sonic screwdriver got them in easily, and they filed into a laboratory filled with bubbling test tubes. The Doctor's eyes glowed with excitement. "Oo, look at this. Stunning!"
"What does it do?" Rose asked, following his gaze.
"Particle extrusion. Hold on." He darted over to another part of the lab and tapped the glass lightly with his knuckle, watching the bubbles for a moment. "Brilliant. They've been manufacturing huon particles. Course, my people got rid of huons. They unravel the atomic structure." He followed the apparatus to where the the liquid huon particles were released.
"Your people?" Lance asked suspiciously. "Who are they? What company do you represent?"
"Oh, we're freelancers," he said, gesturing to himself and Rose as he paced the room, looking for a sample. "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 held up a bottle filled with them, and Donna stared at it. "And that's what's inside me?"
The Doctor turned a knob on the container, and both the liquid and Donna glowed gold. "Oh, my God!" she said.
Rose stared at him, and he blinked. Well that's interesting… your eyes are glowing, Rose.
And you're sure this is safe for me?
He looked at her sombrely. It's the part of the TARDIS that's in you. It's what brought you back to me. And if you left it there when you were Bad Wolf, then it's safe.
Their entire conversation only took seconds, and then the Doctor turned back to Donna.
"Genius. Because the particles are inert, they need something living to catalyse inside and that's you. Saturate the body and then—"
His eyes widened in sudden comprehension. "Ha! The wedding!" He spun on his heels, a gleeful expression on his face. "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." He punched the air. "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!"
Rose's gaze had darted back and forth between his exuberant gestures and Donna's growing indignation during this spiel, so she wasn't at all surprised when the fiery bride slapped him across the face.
He shook off the sting and looked at her. "What did I do this time?"
"Are you enjoying this?" Donna demanded.
The Doctor's expression shuttered, and Rose realised he'd been rambling in hopes that he could distract Donna from how dangerous this was.
Donna took a deep breath and nodded once. "Right, just tell me. These particles, are they dangerous? Am I safe?"
The Doctor nodded quickly. "Yes."
You are a terrible liar, my love.
Donna looked at him disbelievingly. "Doctor, if your lot got rid of huon particles, why did they do that?"
All of the forced mania drained out of him. "Because they were deadly."
Donna heaved a few deep breaths. Rose quickly stepped up beside her and started rubbing soothing circles on her back, and the other woman smiled at her gratefully.
"Oh, my God," she muttered, shaking her head.
Can you fix it? Rose asked the Doctor.
When he nodded, she tugged on Donna's shoulder until they were face to face. "Donna, you're gonna be okay," she said earnestly. "The Doctor can fix this, and he will, because I've already lost enough people this week."
A crackling, hissing sound filled the room. "Oh, she is long since lost," a raspy voice said over a hidden comms system.
The wall in front of them slid up, and on the other side there was a hole—a drill shaft?—descending into the Earth.
"I have waited so long," the voice continued, "hibernating at the edge of the universe until the secret heart was uncovered and called out to waken!"
The Doctor looked around for the source of the voice, but instead, he saw eight more robots, dressed in black robes instead of the Santa camouflage and pointing guns at them. He shifted automatically to stand in front of Rose, but when it became clear they weren't actually going to be shot, he stepped forward to look down into the hole.
Lance is gone, Rose told him, and he nodded in acknowledgement.
"Someone's been digging." The sides were smooth, instead of scored like a normal drill shaft. "Oh, very Torchwood. Drilled by laser. How far down does it go?"
"Down and down, all the way to the centre of the Earth!"
"Really?" A furrow creased the Doctor's forehead. "Seriously? What for?" Somehow, that didn't sound like Torchwood. What could they find to advance the British Empire at the centre of the Earth?
"Dinosaurs," Donna stated firmly.
The Doctor blinked down at her. "What?"
"She's thinking of that old film, Doctor—Journey to the Centre of the Earth," Rose explained. "But I reckon it was something a bit more… well, mercenary. You said they wanted to end Britain's dependence on foreign oil."
The Doctor rocked back on his heels. "Right…" he drawled. "New oil or coal reserves, or geothermic energy."
"Such a sweet couple," the voice said.
The Doctor set his jaw. That mocking voice indicated a threat to Rose. "Only a madman talks to thin air," he said, starting to pace the room, "and trust me, you don't want to make me mad. Where are you?"
"High in the sky," she answered. "Floating so high on Christmas night."
"I didn't come all this way to talk on the intercom. Come on, let's have a look at you!"
"Who are you with such command?"
"I'm the Doctor," he declared with authority.
"Prepare your best medicines, doctor man, for you will be sick at heart."
The Doctor steeled himself for all kinds of alien lifeforms, but he wasn't prepared for the creature that beamed down into the drilling area. The body of a spider, with a humanoid torso and head.
"Racnoss?" he whispered. "But that's impossible. You're one of the Racnoss?" But the Racnoss were destroyed, he thought, staring at her in disbelief.
She bared her fangs. "Empress of the Racnoss."
"If you're the Empress, where's the rest of the Racnoss?" Looking at her blood-red body, the answer came to him as soon as he asked. "Or, are you the only one?"
She hissed in delight. "Such a sharp mind."
"That's it, the last of your kind." He glanced over at Rose and Donna, who were looking at the alien in revolted fascination. "The Racnoss 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?" she hissed belligerently.
Donna blinked and shook her head. "They eat people?"
The Doctor had been examining the web covering the entire ceiling. "H. C. Clements, did he wear those, those er, black and white shoes?"
"He did. We used to laugh." Donna grinned in remembered amusement. "We used to call him the fat cat in spats."
Her smile disappeared when the Doctor pointed to a pair of feet sticking out of the web, wearing the same shoes he'd just described.
"Oh, my God!" she exclaimed.
"Mmm. My Christmas dinner," the Racnoss said, clacking her teeth together.
Nausea welled up in the Doctor, and it took him a moment to realise it was coming from Rose. There was nothing he could do for her, and he really didn't want to to draw any more attention to her, so he focused on the Racnoss.
"You shouldn't even exist," he said, wrinkling his forehead. "Way back in history, the fledgling empires went to war against the Racnoss—they were wiped out."
"Except for me."
"But that's what I've got inside me, that huon energy thing."
The Doctor looked at Donna in confusion, wondering where her sudden subject change came from. Then he spotted Lance on the catwalk holding an ax, creeping toward the Empress, and he knew what Donna was thinking.
The Empress started to look in his direction, and Donna shouted at her. "Oi! Look at me, lady, I'm talking. Where do I fit in? How comes I get all stacked up with these huon particles? Look at me, you! Look me in the eye and tell me."
"The bride is so feisty," the Empress said gleefully.
Lance crept closer, and the Doctor frowned. What was the point in pretending to kill the Empress now?
He's playing with Donna, Rose told him.
But Donna still thought her fiancé was on her side, and why wouldn't she? "Yes, I am," she told the Empress proudly. "And I don't know what you are, you big thing," she said, gesturing vaguely, "but a spider's just a spider and an axe is an axe!" Donna looked straight at Lance. "Now, do it!"
He started to swing the axe, and for a moment, the Doctor wondered if he'd been wrong. The Empress turned her head and hissed at him, and then Lance lowered the axe, and they started laughing together.
"That was a good one. Your face," Lance told the Empress.
The Empress hissed and clacked her pincers in amusement. "Lance is funny."
Donna looked at Lance and the Racnoss. "What?"
"I'm sorry," the Doctor said quietly as Rose moved around to her other side.
"Sorry for what? Lance, don't be so stupid!" she shouted "Get her!"
All the laughter disappeared from Lance's face, replaced by derision. "God, she's thick. Months I've had to put up with her. Months. A woman who can't even point to Germany on a map."
Out of the corner of his eye, the Doctor saw Rose take a half step toward Lance, her hands clenched into fists at her sides. A quick succession of images over their bond told him why she was suddenly so angry on Donna's behalf: she was remembering all the times she'd been mocked and talked down to because of her lack of education.
You are brilliant, Rose, he told her.
She looked up at him, bright red spots on her cheeks. An' so's she.
Donna looked at the Doctor, her mouth working in confusion. "I don't understand."
"How did you meet him?" the Doctor asked.
"In the office."
Rose wrapped an arm around Donna's shoulders. "He made you coffee."
Donna looked from the Doctor to Rose and back again. "What?" she asked.
Lance tipped his chin down and glared at her. "Every day, I made you coffee," he said vindictively.
The Doctor sighed and turned toward Donna. "You had to be dosed with liquid particles over six months," he told her quietly.
Donna slumped against Rose. "He was poisoning me."
Her resigned acceptance sparked the Doctor's anger, and he looked up at the fake groom. "It was all there in the job title. The Head of Human Resources."
Lance's chin jutted out. "This time, it's personnel."
"But, we were getting married," Donna protested weakly.
"Well, I couldn't risk you running off," Lance sneered. "I had to say yes. And then I was stuck with a woman who thinks the height of excitement is a new flavour 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. I deserve a medal."
"You deserve a punch in the face!" Rose said fiercely.
Lance's gaze flicked up and down Rose. "And who's going to make sure I get it, Blondie? A chav from the estates?"
Rose took a step forward, and the Doctor grabbed her elbow to hold her back. "And what's she's offered you?" he asked Lance, trying to pull the conversation back to Donna and away from Rose. "The Empress of the Racnoss? What are you, her consort?"
Lance pointed at Donna. "It's better than a night with her," he replied, and even the Doctor winced at that insult.
"But I love you," Donna said, and the Doctor thought he saw tears glinting in her eyes.
Lance pressed his lips together in fake sympathy. "That's what made it easy."
Rose snarled at him, and a hint of fear finally entered Lance's eyes. He swallowed hard and turned back to the Doctor.
"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?"
The Empress hissed. "Who is this little physician?"
Lance nodded at Donna. "She said—Martian."
The Doctor quickly interrupted the conversation. It was the Time Lords who had destroyed the Racnoss, so he'd rather withhold that bit of information until absolutely necessary.
"Oh, I'm sort of homeless," he said truthfully. "But the point is, what's down here?" he asked, looking down into the shaft. "The Racnoss are extinct. What's going to help you four thousand miles down? That's just the molten core of the Earth, isn't it?"
Lance tilted his head and looked down at them. "I think he wants us to talk."
The Empress clicked and hissed. "I think so, too."
"Well, tough! All we need is Donna."
You've got a plan, right? Rose asked. The Doctor sent her a quick picture of what he was planning to do, and she pressed her lips together to hide her smile.
The Racnoss swayed back and forth on six of her eight legs. "Kill this chattering little doctor man and his friend."
To the Doctor's surprise, Donna stepped in front of him. "Don't you hurt him!"
"No, no, Donna," he said, moving her aside gently. "It's all right."
"No, I won't let them." She stayed close, which suited his plan, and at the Doctor's signal, Rose took another step toward him.
"At arms!" the Empress said, and her robots all pointed their guns at them.
"Ah, now. Except," the Doctor said, holding his hands up.
The Empress ignored him. "Take aim!"
"Well, I just want to point out the obvious."
"They won't hit the bride," she reassured him, a twisted smile on her face. "They're such very good shots."
"Just, just, just, just, just hold on. Hold on just a tick. Just a tiny little, just a little tick," he said, the words spilling out on top of each other. "If you think about it, the particles activated in Donna and drew her inside my spaceship." He pulled the container of liquid huon particles out of his pocket. "So reverse it, and the spaceship comes to her."