Fading
Caroline and the Doctor had their arms linked together as they walked through the alien market place. They'd started out just holding hands but then Caroline had been shoved so he'd switched so that she was a bit closer to him and more protected. Donna was always looking at them as she walked, smiling.
They'd been different after Midnight. Really, they'd been different after the Library, but after there was a direct threat to the Doctor's life Caroline hadn't seemed to want to let him go. And he hadn't wanted to let go of Caroline either.
Most of the time they didn't notice it. They'd just be walking, like they had been originally here, and their hands would just drift together. And as long as no one mentioned it they never acknowledged it. Of course, there was a chance they noticed, but they had never let on where Donna could see, so she was leaning towards them not noticing.
Donna knew it was making both Caroline and the Doctor happier. The woman was a bit more talkative, even around alien threats, because the Doctor was there reminding her that someone was listening, someone else believed her opinions and her guesses were worth considering.
But Donna also remembered Martha's warning, about how the Doctor was dangerous. About what happened if you fell in love with the immortal time traveling alien…
It helped that she knew that the Doctor would never want to hurt Caroline. But he probably hadn't realized what he was doing, at least not yet. And Donna didn't know quite when she should bring it up to them, or at least to him.
The Doctor pulled Caroline with him to one of the stalls, letting him study the things there, tasting a bit of the alien food, and try to convince Caroline to try it, before they both turned around, still laughing. Donna had been looking at another of the stalls for a moment before they all regrouped, walking a bit further before the Doctor spotted someone offering some food and drinks.
"Oh, oh, ho," the Doctor said, grabbing all of them a cup of foaming liquid.
Donna laughed. "I'd rather have a water."
"You are going to love it." He grinned. "One, two, three!"
They all took a drink and laughed, all ending up with foaming mustaches.
"Lovely!" Donna took another sip as the other two wiped off their top lips, the trio continuing on.
They hadn't gotten far before the Doctor and Caroline went to examine a stall of alien fruits, the Doctor explaining what they each were and where they were from. That was the type of thing Caroline loved: learning about the different races. She loved science and studying and just learning, and a market place was the perfect place for it if you happened to be travelling with a Time Lord.
Donna, in turn, continued to wander everywhere else.
"You want to buy a shukina?" a saleswoman called to her as she passed. "Or peshmoni? Most beautiful peshmoni in all of Shan shen?"
Donna shook her head. "Er, no, thanks." She glanced at the pair to see the Doctor debating something with the shopkeeper and Caroline simultaneously listening and trying not to laugh because the Doctor hadn't quite gotten all of the foam off his lip.
"Tell your fortune, lady," a woman in a robe called. "The future predicted. Your life foretold."
"Oh, no thanks."
The woman frowned. "Don't you want to know if you're going to be happy?"
Donna shrugged. "I'm happy right now, thanks." She kept walking, but it was clear the fortune teller wasn't letting up.
"You've got red hair. The reading's free for red hair."
She glanced at the pair before nodding. "All right then." She followed the woman into a curtain of beads. The fortune teller paused at the entrance, looking around to ensure no one was looking at them, before ducking inside and bringing Donna to a table.
The woman ran her nails over Donna's palms. "Oh, you're fascinating. No, but you're good. I can see a…woman, a quiet woman. And…a man, the most remarkable man." The woman looked up at Donna. "How did you meet him?"
"You're supposed to tell me."
"I see the future. Tell me the past. When did your lives cross?"
Donna frowned, sighing. "It's sort of complicated. I ended up in a spaceship on my wedding day. Long story."
"But what led you to that meeting?"
"All sorts of things. 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 a place called HC Clements." Donna swayed as she could almost picture her last job perfectly, down to the smallest detail, like she was sitting there again. "Oh…sorry."
The fortune teller nodded. "It's the incense. Just breathe deep. This job of yours. What choices led you there?"
"There was a choice, six months before, because the Agency offered me this contract with HC Clements…" and she was back on the street, walking to her car with her mother "but there was this other job. My mum knew this man…"
"Your life could have gone one way or the other. What made you decide?"
Donna shook her head. "I just did."
"But when was the moment? When did you choose?" Donna was in the car, at an intersection, going left or right, she didn't know, because each was a different job and a different path. "You turned left. But what if you turned right? What then?"
Donna tried to pull her hands from the woman's grip, shaking slightly, but the woman was stronger then she'd expected. "Let go of my hands."
"What if it changes? What if you go right? What if you could still go right?"
"Stop it." And then she felt something land on her back, something clicking. "What's that? What's on my back? What is it? What…what's on my back?"
"Make the choice again, Donna Noble, and change your mind. Turn right."
"I'm turning…" Donna's attention was fading, and she was back in the car, back with her mother and the choice.
"Turn right. Turn right. Turn right! Turn right, and never meet that man. Turn right, and change the world!"
And Donna turned right.
|C-S|
This was wrong.
Everything was wrong.
Caroline Attwater stood before her parents' graves and knew that everything was wrong.
There were two timelines in her head. In both of them, the Thames was emptied to destroy a Christmas star. But now the hospital that went to the moon came back will one survivor instead of filled with suffocating, but alive, people.
And it wasn't a lot. She shouldn't have noticed it. But she did.
Caroline Attwater could feel it like an itch.
It felt like the world was collapsing with her every step, but it wasn't, she knew it wasn't.
But every other part of her told her that it was.
She didn't know what was wrong. She didn't know why it felt like she had two lives being shoved together inside her mind. But everything was wrong, she knew that. She just had no way to figure out what it was.
"Caroline!" she spun to see the boy running towards her, the one who had shown her the graveyard days before. "What are you doing here?"
"Mourning." But as she said it she knew that it wasn't right. She shouldn't be here anymore, she shouldn't be in Bath at Christmas. She was meant to be in London but the lawyers had taken longer than expected with her parents' belongings due to everything that had happened recently and she'd had to stay. And now she was in the wrong place, everything was in the wrong place.
"How are you feeling?"
She glanced back at the gravestones. "Sad." But she wasn't, and she was. She was both at the same time because she knew she should be sad, she was certain that she should be sad, but she didn't feel sad about this.
The boy nodded. She didn't know his name. "Mum wanted to know if you wanted to come over for Christmas dinner. She hates the thought of you being alone."
Caroline nodded. "That would be lovely, thank you."
"I'll see you then?"
She didn't know where he lived. "Yes, of course."
Then she was alone again, and that was how she was when the Titanic crashed into London.
Though she couldn't see it, she could feel it, because it wasn't right! Nothing about it was right! Everything was just wrong wrong wrong and she didn't know why or what she could do to fix it.
London was destroyed and Caroline knew that it wasn't supposed to happen.
She was supposed to be asleep in her home with friends frantically calling, and then she was supposed to go for a walk and see people vanish in the middle of the street and see a man in a blue box across the river. She was supposed to run into that man again and again.
But it wouldn't happen now. Because he was dead.
She didn't know how she knew it, but she did. She knew it with all of her heart. That wonderful man with the blue box was dead.
|C-S|
Later, in Leeds, Donna walked off to join the blonde woman who'd continued to appear wherever she was, looking for Donna. This time she walked up to the woman, nodding. "Hello."
"Hi." The woman turned and led Donna to a nearby park, the two sitting on a bench and staring at the sky, clouded with gas. In Bath, Caroline screamed that someone was supposed to be stopping this. "It's the ATMOS devices. We're lucky, it's not so bad here. Britain hasn't got that much petrol. But all over Europe, China, South Africa, they're getting choked by gas."
"Can't anyone stop it?"
The woman nodded. "Yeah, they're trying right now, this little band of fighters, on board the Sontaran ship. Any second now."
Above them, the sky burned, and in Bath Caroline cried.
"And that was?"
"That was the Torchwood team." The woman smiled sadly. "Gwen Cooper, Ianto Jones, they gave their lives. And Captain Jack Harkness has transported to the Sontaran home world. There's no one left."
"You're always wearing the same clothes," Donna said, looking the woman up and down. "Why won't you tell me your name?"
"None of this was meant to happen. There was a man, this wonderful man, and he stopped it. The Titanic, the Adipose, the ATMOS, he stopped them all from happening."
"That…Doctor?" Donna remembered the body she had seen when the Christmas star fell.
The woman nodded. "You knew him."
"Did I? When?"
"I think you dream about him sometimes. It's a man in a suit. Tall, thin man. Great hair." She sighed. "Some really great hair."
Donna just shook her head. "Who are you?"
"I was like you. I used to be you. You've traveled with him, Donna. You've traveled with the Doctor and a woman in a different world."
She shook her head again. "I never met him, and he's dead."
"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."
Donna saw herself in a wedding dress, standing among water and fire and listening to an alien die.
"Stop it," she said, though her voice was shaking and there were tears in her eyes. She stood and stepped away from the woman. "I don't know what you're talking about. Leave me alone!"
"Something's coming, Donna." The woman stood. "Something worse."
"The whole world is stinking. How can anything be worse than this?"
"Trust me. We need the Doctor more than ever. I've…I've been pulled across from a different universe because every single universe is in danger. It's coming, Donna. It's coming from across the stars and nothing can stop it."
"What is?"
"The darkness."
"Well, what do you keep telling me for? What am I supposed to do? 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."
But the woman just looked at her sadly. "Donna Noble, you're the most important woman in the whole of creation."
Donna just shook her head, laughing. "Oh, don't. Just don't. I'm tired. I'm so tired." She turned to walk away.
"I need you to come with me."
Donna looked over her shoulder, scoffing. "Yeah. Well, blonde hair might work on the men, but you ain't shifting me, lady."
The woman grinned. "That's more like it."
"I've got plenty more."
"Then you'll come with me, only when you want to."
"You'll have a long wait, then." Donna walked away.
"Not really. Just three weeks." She paused. "Tell me, does your grandfather still own that telescope?"
Donna turned around in shock. "He never lets go of it."
"Three weeks time. But you've got to be certain. Because when you come with me, Donna, sorry, so sorry, but you're going to die." And then the woman faded into nothingness.
|C-S|
Caroline felt like she was going mad.
She must be, that was the only explanation. She was crazy, and she supposed it was good that she was able to admit it.
Though, of course, if she was mad she wouldn't have realized it, she wouldn't have seen it.
But she had to be, she had to be completely and utterly mad.
Because she could barely focus on anything. Anytime she tried her mind just shouted at her that it was wrong, everything was wrong, and until she fixed it she wouldn't be able to see or do anything properly.
If the world hadn't been suffering because of various alien attacks, Caroline knew that she would have been sent to some hospital for treatment. But none of those were open now or, if they were, they weren't taking any more patients. The country didn't have the resources for it.
So she was left alone in Bath, huddling in alley ways and avoiding the soldiers, because she couldn't talk to anyone, she could barely move.
It felt like she was dying.
"Caroline?" She didn't look up, because opening her eyes was too painful. But she heard the woman stepping closer, slowly. "Caroline Attwater?" the woman touched her shoulder. "I'm here to help you."
Somehow, Caroline managed to shake her head.
"Will you let me help you?" She said nothing. "Everything is wrong, isn't it? You know something is wrong. I want to help you."
That time, Caroline nodded, and the woman helped her stand. She supported her to the street and into what Caroline vaguely recognized as a Land Rover.
She didn't pay attention to where they were going. All she could do was sit against the side of the car clutching her head. Eventually, the woman, who she'd been able to determine was blonde, began to rub her back.
Once the car stopped, the woman helped her out of the car and into a warehouse full of scientific equipment. They had a little medical section set up and Caroline was placed on one of the beds, allowed to lie back with her hands over her eyes. The woman stayed with her, a hand on Caroline's shoulder, when another woman walked up.
"Is this her?" the new woman asked. "Is this Caroline Attwater?"
"Yes."
The new woman stepped closer. "Caroline, I'm Captain Erisa Magambo. How are you feeling?"
"Where am I?"
"You're at the current UNIT headquarters." Caroline was able to take a few more breaths. "Do you know a man called the Doctor?"
It felt like there was a pause in her mind, as though all of the voices stopped for a moment. Just that name broke through everything and gave her one second where she could fully pay attention to anything but her own thoughts. And then, even though everything returned, even though everything was wrong again, she could speak now, louder than she had before.
"Who is he?"
"You traveled with him, in a different world, in the real world," the blonde woman explained.
"Where is he?"
"He's dead." Caroline knew it. She'd known it before she asked, but she'd been hoping it wasn't actually true. But now she knew, of course she had been right. She'd known she was right. She'd known he was dead. "But he's not supposed to be."
"Donna…"
Both women looked shocked that she knew the name. "How…"
"Where is she?"
"We're waiting for her now. She should be coming soon." The blonde woman frowned. "How do you know…"
Slowly, Caroline removed her hands from her eyes, staring at the blonde woman. "I know that this world is wrong and the timelines are messed up, and you're questioning how I know Donna's name?" her voice was shaking and she looked as mad as she felt, but the blonde woman and the captain listened.
|C-S|
Caroline stood beside Magambo, staring at the blue police box standing next to a semi-circle of mirrors. She hadn't stopped looking at it the moment she'd first spotted it, because there it was, the box that she was supposed to have seen across the river as it snowed down ashes.
The box that held the entire universe inside it.
They were waiting for the blonde woman, for she'd refused to share her name, and Donna to arrive. They'd nearly attempted to make Caroline stay sitting, as occasionally she would just collapse when everything became too much, but she wanted to be there to see Donna, to see them fix the timelines.
The blonde woman strode towards them, with Donna a few steps behind her. Caroline recognized Donna, and also didn't, because in one world she'd traveled with the woman and another they'd never met before.
"Loadstone testing now at 15.4," someone said over the speakers. "Repeat, 15.4."
Magambo saluted the woman and Donna as they approached. "Ma'am."
The blonde sighed. "I've told you, don't salute."
"Well, if you're not going to tell us your name…"
Donna looked at Magambo in surprise. "What, you don't know either?"
The blonde turned to a nearby computer and began typing. "I've crossed too many different realities. Trust me, the wrong word in the wrong place can change an entire casual nexus."
Magambo sighed. "She talks like that. A lot." She turned to Donna. "And you must be Miss Noble."
They shook hands. "Captain Erisa Magambo. Thank you for this."
Donna shook her head. "I don't even know what I'm doing." She turned to Caroline. "Hello."
Caroline, slowly, took her gaze from the TARDIS to stare, wide-eyed, at Donna. "Oh, my God," she breathed, looking at a point on Donna's shoulder, an action Donna was familiar with.
The blonde glanced at her, quickly straightening. "Is it awake?" she interrupted, keeping Caroline from saying too much just yet.
Magambo shook her head. "It seems to be quiet today. Ticking over. Like it's waiting."
"Do you want to see it?" the blonde asked Donna, stepping forward and gesturing to the box.
"What's a police box?"
"They salvaged it from underneath the Thames." The pair, with Caroline following behind them, reached the box. "Just go inside."
"What for?" Donna frowned.
"Just go in!"
Donna did as she was told. Caroline touched the side of the box, running her fingers down the wood grain. The blonde watched her.
Donna came out of the box, wide eyed, walked around it, and then went back in. She stared for a moment before turning and walking out again.
The blonde smiled. "What do you think?"
"Can I have a coffee?"
The blonde ordered a soldier to get it, and some water for Caroline, before all three of them stepped inside the blue box.
Instantly, Caroline knew something was wrong. The box was dying. The wonderful box that could show you the universe was dying, and it wasn't supposed to die. This wasn't what was supposed to happen.
"Time And Relative Dimension In Space," the blonde said as the soldier arrived with their drinks, though Caroline didn't drink any of her water. "This room used to shine with light. I think it's dying." Gently, she rubbed the console. "Still trying to help."
"And…and it belonged to the Doctor?" Donna frowned, glancing nervously at Caroline, who thankfully wasn't looking at her just then.
The blonde nodded. "He was a Time Lord. Last of his kind."
"But if he was so special, what was he doing with me?"
"He thought you were brilliant," Caroline breathed, remembering his words, remembering his trust and his courage and his kindness.
Donna shook her head. "Don't be stupid."
But the blonde nodded. "But you are. It just took the Doctor to show you that, simply by being with him. He did the same to me. To her." She nodded to Caroline. "To everyone he touches."
Donna paused, uncertain, watching the way the blonde looked to Caroline, the way she stared at the woman. "Were you and him…"
The blonde didn't answer. She just stepped forward, gently touching Donna's shoulder, staring at it like Caroline had. "Do you want to see it?"
"No." Donna shook her head, but Caroline turned and stared at it as well. "Go on, then."
The blonde guided Donna out of the machine and into the semi-circle of mirrors, leaving Caroline to stand on the edge, watching. "We don't know how the TARDIS works," the blonde explained, "but we've managed to scrape off the surface technology, enough to show you the creature."
Donna's eyes widened. "It's a creature?"
"Just stand here."
"Out of the circle, please," Magambo called.
The blonde nodded, stepping out. "Yes, ma'am." She left Donna standing there alone.
"Can't you stay with me?"
"Ready?" Magambo asked a nearby soldier. "And activate."
All of the lights came on and Donna shut her eyes against the brightness.
"Open your eyes, Donna," the blonde called, standing beside Caroline.
"Is it there?"
"Open your eyes. Look at it."
Donna only shook her head. "I can't."
"It's part of you, Donna. Look."
Slowly, Donna opened her eyes. And she could see it. She could see the creature Caroline could see on her back, the massive beetle clinging to her. She spun, trying to get it off, breathing hard.
"It's okay, it's okay, it's okay," the blonde called. "Calm down, Donna. Donna? Donna!" she finally stopped. "Okay."
"What is it?" Donna stared at the creature clinging to her back. She'd never noticed it. Why had she never noticed it before?"
The blonde shook her head. "We don't know."
"Oh, thanks."
"It feeds off time, 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…" she shook her head.
"But I never did anything important."
"Yeah, you did. One day that thing made you turn right instead of left."
"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."
"Can you get rid of it?"
The blonde shook her head. "No, I can't even touch it. It seems to be in a state of flux."
"What does that mean?"
"I don't know. It's the sort of thing the Doctor would say."
"You liar!" Donna stared to cry. "You told me I was special! But it's not me, it's this thing. I'm just a host!"
"No, there's more than that." The blonde was calm, and even Caroline was surprised. "The readings are strange. It's…it's like reality's just bending round you."
"Because of this thing!"
"No, no! We're getting separate readings from you. And they've always been there, since the day you were born."
Magambo turned to the blonde. "This is not relevant to the mission."
"I thought it was just the Doctor we needed, but it's both of you. The Doctor and Donna Noble, together, to stop the stars from going out." The blonde glanced at Caroline but said nothing more.
"Why? What can I do?" Donna paused, breathing heavily, looking at the creature on her back. "Turn it off, please."
"Captain."
Magambo nodded. "Power down."
Once it was off, the blonde walked towards Donna, touching her arm. The human was shaking. "It's still there, though. What can I do to get rid of it?"
"You're going to travel in time." She turned and nodded to a group of soldiers who stepped forward with a jacket made of wires, fitting it to Donna. Caroline stepped forward so that she was standing behind the blonde, unable to help her curiosity, even if her vision was swimming almost every second. "The TARDIS has tracked down the moment of intervention. Monday the 25th, one minute past ten in the morning. Your car was on Little Sutton Street leading to the Ealing Road, but you turned right heading towards Griffin's Parade. You need to turn left. That's the most important thing. You've got to go back, turn left. Have you got that, Donna? One minute past ten, make yourself turn left, heading for Chiswick Highroad."
"Keep the jacket on at all times," Magambo instructed. "It's insulation against temporal feedback. This will correspond to local time wherever you land." A scientist put a watch on her wrist, and Magambo held out a glass of water. "This is to combat dehydration."
Before Donna stepped away, Caroline grabbed her arm. She didn't say anything, there was nothing she could say. She could only stare at Donna and hope the woman understood how to fix everything, because someone needed to, she couldn't live in this world much longer.
She could feel everything breaking, the entire universe breaking. They needed the Doctor back.
Gently, the blonde pulled Caroline back from Donna, leading the woman back to the mirrors. "This is where we leave you."
Donna shook her head. "I don't want to see that thing on my back."
"No, the mirrors are just incidental. They bounce chronon energy back to the center which we control and decide the destination."
"It's a time machine!"
The blonde nodded. "It's a time machine."
"If you could?" Magambo said, nodding. Donna moved to the center of the mirrors and the blonde walked back to stand beside Caroline, the woman clutching a pocket watch. "Powering up."
"How do you know it's going to work?" Donna asked the blonde.
"Hmm? Oh yeah, we…we don't. We're just…we're just guessing."
Donna sighed. "Oh, brilliant."
"Just remember, when you get to the junction, change the car's direction by one minute past ten."
"How do I do that?"
She shrugged. "It's up to you."
"Well, I just have to run up to myself and…have a good argument."
The blonde laughed. "I'd like to see that."
"Activate loadstone."
"Good luck."
Donna nodded. "I'm ready!"
"One minute past ten."
"Because I understand now." Donna nodded again, clenching her fists. "You said I was going to die, but you mean this while world is going to blink out of existence. But that's not dying, because a better world takes its place. The Doctor's world. And I'm still alive. 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?"
But the blonde's face had fallen as Donna had spoken. "I'm sorry."
Donna's eyes were wide. "But I can't die. I've got a future. With the Doctor. You told me!"
"Activate!"
The lights grew blinding and there was a strong wind, spreading sparks from the TARDIS, the mirrors, the wires, and Donna.
At the same moment Caroline fell to her knees laughing.
|C-S|
When Donna screamed, it took the Doctor and Caroline a few seconds to figure out where she had actually gone. They followed the sound until they ran inside a small room, finding Donna sitting on a chair at a table, a large beetle on the ground next to her.
"Everything all right?" the Doctor asked, looking between Donna and the bug.
"Oh, God." Donna stood and hugged the Doctor tightly. Then she hugged Caroline, squeezing both of them, because they were all right, they were both all right, the Doctor wasn't dead and Caroline wasn't suffering and everything was all right again.
"What was that for?" the Doctor asked once she stepped back, laughing.
Donna couldn't say anything. She just hugged them again.
It took a few minutes before Donna was calm enough to try and explain everything that happened as best she could, though they very quickly realized that she barely remembered anything. It had all slipped away so quickly, before she'd been able to organize it enough to tell them.
The Doctor and Caroline crouched beside the beetle, poking it with a stick.
"I can't remember," Donna said, shaking her head. "It's slipping away. You know like when you try and think of a dream and it just sort of goes." She glanced at Caroline. The woman had been all right as Donna had calmed, but now she was frowning, rubbing her forehead.
"Just got lucky, this thing," the Doctor commented. "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 looked up. "Great big parallel world."
"Hold on. You said parallel words are sealed off."
He nodded. "They are. But you had one created around you." He frowned. "Funny thing is, seems to be happening a lot to you."
"How do you mean?"
"Well, the Library and then this."
Donna shrugged. "Just goes with the job, I suppose."
"Sometimes I think there's way too much coincidence around you, Donna." He narrowed his eyes. "I met you once, then I met your grandfather, then I met you again. In the whole wide universe, I met you for a second time. It's like something's binding us together." The Doctor glanced at Caroline and noticed, for the first time, that she was gripping her head. "What's wrong?"
She was frowning, staring at the beetle. "It was like the Library," she whispered. "Everything was wrong." She looked up at the Doctor. "Why do I remember it Doctor?"
His eyes widened. "How many times…the street," Christmas, on an Earth-bound journey from the Titanic, "the snow," across a river, she'd seen the box, "Adipose," she'd been the desk he had chosen, the person he'd picked randomly, "and then running," and it had been her street, the exact street she'd been walking down, that he'd run down. "Four times. The entire universe and four times…" Donna being twice was special enough, he'd full-on interacted with Donna twice, but Caroline had been there four times… "There's something connecting all of us."
Donna shook her head. "Don't be so daft. I'm nothing special."
"Yes, you are. You're brilliant."
"The stars are going out," Caroline whispered. Her memories, memories she wasn't supposed to have, were fading now, but she knew a bit. She knew that phrase, she'd heard that phrase.
Donna's eyes widened. "She said that."
"Who did?"
"That woman…she said the stars are going out."
The Doctor nodded, rubbing Caroline's back. "Yeah, but that world's gone."
"No, but she said it was all worlds. Every world. She said the darkness is coming, even here."
"Who was she?"
Donna shook her head. "I don't know."
"What did she look like?"
"She was blonde."
"What was her name?"
"I don't know!"
"Donna, what was her name?"
Donna stared at the Doctor, the last thing she'd heard coming back to her, the last thing the blonde woman had said to her as she lay dying. "But she told me to warn you. She said two words."
"What two words? What were they? What did she say?"
"Bad Wolf." The Doctor's eyes widened and he started shaking. "Well, what does it mean?"
The Doctor just stood and ran outside, his two companions turning and following him a second later. He turned in the middle of the street, staring, because everything said Bad Wolf now. They were surrounded by the phrase, even the TARDIS.
He ran inside and froze, because the TARDIS was bathed in red light, the cloister bell tolling.
"Doctor, what is it?" Caroline asked, the companions on either side of him. "What's Bad Wolf?"
"It's the end of the universe."
A/N: Poor Caroline. She just hasn't had fun these past few adventures.
Since Caroline couldn't feature into this episode much, as the original centered around Donna, I just made this whole episode one chapter.
Also, happy Halloween!
