Disclaimer - As usual, I don't own a darned thing except what passes for a plot. The BBC owns everything else.
Chapter 2: Vignettes
AN: I knew I should never have marked this story as complete. Oh well. Surprise present for everyone who read and liked this story. More chapters to come...and yes, eventually we'll get to what happened for Stolen Earth/Journey's End. Just stop fidgeting and enjoy the... *ahem* ... journey. :)
Donna changed her mum by changing history just a little bit, so here's some vignettes to show that off. Runaway Bride, Partners in Crime, The Sontaran Stratagem and The Poison Sky.
Beta-love for tkelparis, and love to all my reviewers and readers! *mwah!*
Vignette 1 - The Runaway Bride - Oh Donna! What were you thinking?!
Donna stood there and watched the Doctor and his mad blue box vanish, then took a deep breath and walked into the house. "Mum, Dad, I'm home!"
"And what time's this?" Sylvia engulfed her daughter in a hug even as she was snapping at her, then drew back, startled. "Donna! You're soaking wet! And stinking! What happened?"
"Long story, Mum," Donna replied and gave her Dad a careful hug so's to not get him damp too. "Let me just get changed so I don't catch my death, and I'll tell you, all right?"
"Does it have anything to do with that odd star-shaped spaceship that the military blew up?" Geoffrey asked as his daughter started up the stairs. "It's been on the news. So has the mysterious draining and refilling of the Thames."
"Already?" Donna paused on the stair, startled. "Wow, that was fast. But yeah, it's got something to do with that. More to do with the Thames though. I'll be right back, promise." She then dashed up the stairs to the bathroom, only stopping to pick up a change of clothes from her room along the way.
Fifteen minutes later, and much cleaner and drier, Donna came back down in warm flannel pyjamas, thick socks, a heavy dressing gown and her old bunny slippers. And despite their curiosity, her parents wouldn't let her talk until she'd downed a good hot cuppa and at least a serving of dinner.
Then she told them everything over the rest of dinner. Lance. The Racnoss, and how it'd been using those Santas that the Doctor had shaken to bits. The discovery of the huon particle poisoning, and going back to see the beginning of the planet. Being captured, Lance dying...and the Doctor blowing holes in the flood barrier to drown the Racnoss.
"The look on his face...I've never seen anything like it," Donna shivered, remembering, and had a hot toddy pressed on her by her father. "Honestly, I think he'd have stood there until the place was flooded if I hadn't shouted at him."
Sylvia started at that, suddenly remembering the utterly mad minute from six months ago. "Donna...are you telling me you saved him from drowning? On Christmas Eve?"
Donna stared at her mum with a frown. "S'pose I did, yeah. Why?"
"Oh Donna, don't you remember? Six months ago, that utterly mad Twilight Zone moment before you took the job at H.C. Clements?"
"Oh. My. God. The Doctor's the daft bloke I was to save from drowning!" Donna's eyes were huge with the realisation.
"Yes he is. And now I want to know something, madam!" Sylvia scowled at her daughter. "Why didn't you at least invite him to dinner in thanks for saving your life?"
"But I did, Mum!" Donna threw her hands up in the air in exasperation. "He wouldn't come, daft twit." She sighed and looked at the remains of her second helping of dinner and debated whether she was ready for dessert yet. "S'pose he might've if I'd agreed to go travelling with him..."
"Why didn't you," her dad asked. "You've only been saying how you want to travel more often for ages now, and you said he does time and space as well as the planet. So why not?"
"Because he scared me half to death, all right? All those guns, all that danger...how he was like ice when that alien spider was wailing as her children drowned! He terrifies me, and that's his life, going from danger to danger! I don't think I could handle that!"
Sylvia sighed and shook her head, and Geoffrey patted his daughter's hand. "You'll regret it, Donna. Biggest adventure of all time, and you turned your back on it."
"I'm just a temp, Dad. I'm not made for handling being shot at, and aliens trying to eat me." Donna sighed, then made a half-smile as her mum brought out the pudding. "He did say, if he was lucky, he'd see me again. Guess I've got that to look forward to. And I'm gonna be magnificent, just like he said I should."
"You're magnificent already, Donna," Sylvia said firmly as she plated the plum pudding and set a slice in front of her daughter. "You're our daughter."
"No reason I can't be even more magnificent though, is there?" Donna smiled as her mum sat back down, then raised her hot toddy as the clock chimed midnight. "Happy Christmas, Mum, Dad," And Happy Christmas Doctor, wherever you are, she thought.
"Happy Christmas, lovey," they said in return.
Vignette 2 - Partners in Crime - Tea and Phone Calls
Donna opened the door and walked in, then sighed at the familiar "What time's this?" from her mum.
She hung her handbag by the door as she replied. "And how old am I?"
"Not old enough to use a phone, apparently," Sylvia said with a frown, then took another look at her daughter and ushered her straight into the kitchen for tea.
A bit later, she was cleaning up as Donna was working on her third cup. "I just wish you'd stop with the flitting from job to job with so much time unemployed between them! I mean, how long did that job with Health and Safety last? Two days?"
"Mum, you know what I'm doing. And I promised Dad as well as the Doctor that I'd be magnificent, and that's what I'm trying to do." Donna sighed and looked into her cup, regretting that they used bags instead of tea balls. Maybe tea leaves would give her a clue how to find the Doctor - the Internet wasn't helping!
"Yes, but investigating odd things looking for the Doctor doesn't put money in your pocket or food on the table." Sylvia sat down and took one of her daughter's hands. "I know you promised your dad you'd stop being silly and look for that daft alien to see if he'd give you another chance, but I worry about you. What are you going to do when I'm gone, and you're still looking?"
"Mum, I haven't even been looking six months. And I promise, if I don't find him by Monday next, I'll see about that secretarial job at your hospital and just look on weekends, all right? But I can't stop right now, Doctor or not. This Adipose thing is bigger than him...there's something wrong with it."
"What is it then, Donna?" Sylvia got a worried look on her face as she remembered something. "You know Suzette's on those pills - it's done wonders for her, she's raving about it."
"...the fat just walks away," Donna mumbled, looking pale. Then she stared at her mother with a determined fire. "Mum, you've got to get Suzette and whoever else you know that's on'em to stop taking those pills. What I saw tonight...I still don't believe it, but it happened, it really happened. One of their customers...oh God." She covered her mouth with her hand and closed her eyes. Poor Stacy Campbell.
"Oh my word," Sylvia said and squeezed her daughter's hand. "I'll talk to Suzette tomorrow. And don't look at me like that, it's the first chance I'll get - she's gone to bed by now."
"And probably taken today's pill too," Donna sighed and slumped a minute. "Well, talk to her soon's you can, all right?"
"I will. If you're going back to do more investigating at Adipose Industries tomorrow, I'll let you have the car even though it's my turn." Sylvia stood up and poured the remains of the tea into a thermos. "In case you need a quick getaway. Now here, take this up the hill to Dad."
"Course I will, Mum. And thanks for the car." Donna hugged her mum, then took the thermos and left the house.
The next evening, in the ladies' toilets, Donna growled as her phone rang. She ducked back into the stall she'd been hiding in and answered it with a hissed. "Not now!"
"But Donna, it's gone past six and I need the car!"
"I can't right now Mum, I'm busy," Donna whispered.
"Still on that Adipose thing? And why are you whispering?"
"Yes. And I'm in the ladies' loo at the moment, so shush!" Donna hissed
"But I need the car, and you need to come along to De Rossi's too, so you can explain to Suzette why she should stop with the pills!"
"I'll try to meet you there, all right?" The door to the toilets slammed open and Donna whispered, hidden in the echoes. "Got to go," and turned off her phone.
Much later, Donna called her mum while standing on the street. "It's me-"
"Yes of course it's you, Donna! My God, why didn't you tell me those pills made little fat people?!"
"Cos I saw it with my own eyes and still had trouble believing it. So how could I expect you to?" Donna asked, then asked another question. Or tried to. "Is Suzette..."
"She's fine. Lost a few more pounds with little fat people popping out of her, but she's fine. And that spaceship! Did you see it?"
"Yes Mum. It took all the little fat people away. Nursery ship, according to the Doctor." She grinned, delighted. "Yeah, I found him tonight, he was investigating the place too!"
"Should've known with the spaceship showing up that he'd be involved," Sylvia sniffed but her heart wasn't in it. "But what about the car? You've still got it - and the keys!"
"Yeah. Um, should I put them in a bin? I'm right by one, thirty feet from the corner on Brook Street, and the car's just around the corner from there. Could leave 'em in that bin."
"Oh, don't you dare! Anyone could get them before I got there and then where would we be? No, you just bring the car home, you hear me?"
"Mu-um, he's invited me to go with him again and I said yes! We're leaving as soon as I get back around the corner!" Donna whinged, and didn't notice a blonde staring at her as she turned and walked back to the corner of Brook Street.
"Well if you're not coming home with the car, you get him to do that time travel thing to this morning and mail the keys home first class. That way I can maybe get them by tomorrow's mail."
"Fine, I'll do that then. Love you Mum!" Donna made a kiss-noise, then grinned at the Doctor stood in the TARDIS door.
"Love you too, Donna. You be careful, and come back for visits if you can!"
"Will do!" She hung up and bounced into the TARDIS, where she surprised the Doctor by knowing exactly where she wanted to go. First to wave to her granddad, up on the hill. And then to the post office that morning, which confused him until she dangled the keys at him.
Vignette 3 - The Sontaran Stratagem - Hark at her, Michael Palin!
As Donna was lending Martha a hand setting up an impromptu medical station, a thought struck her and she asked. "Do you think I should warn my mum about the ATMOS in her car?"
"Better safe than sorry," Martha replied.
"I'll give her a call then," Donna said and rummaged for her phone, but stopped when Martha interrupted her.
"Donna. Do they know where you are? Your family, I mean, that you're travelling with the Doctor." Martha didn't want Donna to repeat her mistakes. Any of them.
"Where I am right this minute? No. Do they know I'm travelling with the Doctor? Yeah, couldn't keep that secret from them." She snorted in wry amusement. "Trust me, my mum could put the Spanish Inquisition to shame, and hiding this would just be too hard. And Granddad even waved us off the night I started travelling with that wonderful, barmy alien." Donna raised an eyebrow at Martha, then asked. "Why are you asking?"
"Oh," Martha was taken a bit aback at the casual way Donna just threw out that her family knew she was travelling with an alien. "Because I didn't tell my family. I kept it all soo secret, and it almost destroyed them. They ended up imprisoned, tortured...my Mum, my Dad, my sister."
"What?" Donna almost yelped, startled and dismayed. That skinny dumbo hadn't said anything about that with all the times he was telling her about Martha!
"It wasn't the Doctor's fault, but you need to be careful. Because you know the Doctor," Martha said, and hoped her warning would keep Donna from getting too hurt later on. "He's wonderful, he's brilliant, but he's like fire. Stand too close and people get burnt."
"Oookay," Donna said, slowly, wondering just what was going through Martha's mind. Was she joining the crowd of people they kept running into that thought she and that daft alien were together? Or was this was her indirect way of warning her off that Spaceman for her own good?
"You never told me he had a little blue box, Donna." Wilfred eyed his granddaughter over tea. "Knew he was alien, you'd said so. But see, you expect aliens in big saucer ships not little blue boxes."
Donna grinned. "It's bigger on the inside, trust me. It's like a really, really big house in there, almost. Well, alien house, but still."
"Yeah, but is it safe?" He put his hand on his granddaughter's and gave her a concerned look. "This Doctor...I know you were looking for him since your dear old Dad passed on...but are you safe with him?"
"Oh yeah," Donna replied with a big smile. "And he's amazing, Gramps. Just completely dazzling. And never tell him I said that...his head would swell as big as the house." She paused for a sip of tea, then continued. "But I'd trust him with my life."
"Hold up, thought that was my job!" He gave her a mock-offended look.
"You're still first," she gave him a fond smile, then looked up as her mother walked in.
"Hark at her, Michael Palin. You could call home more often, you know. Though the pictures have been lovely." Sylvia set the laundry down with a huff, then walked over to hug her daughter who she hadn't seen for ages. "Are you staying for tea? Only, I haven't got anything in. Been trying to keep your granddad on that macrobiotic diet, but he sneaks off and gets pork pies at the petrol station."
Wilfred opened his mouth to protest, but got cut off before he could get a word in.
"Don't deny it, Dad, I've seen the wrappers in the car. Oh, I don't miss a trick. Now then, Donna, since you're here, you can sit there and cut out those coupons while you tell us about where you've been. Every penny helps, and the new mortgage doesn't pay for itself. Dad, kettle on."
"Right, kettle on," Wilf said, then shared a fondly exasperated look with his granddaughter before he got up. Sylvia had her managing ways, but they both loved her enough to put up with them.
The Doctor was deep in examining the ATMOS attached to the tailpipe of Sylvia's car when Wilf came out of the house and bustled over.
"Is it him? Is it the Doctor?" He got a surprised look when the Doctor stood up, because he recognised the man. "Ah, it's you!"
"Who? Oh, it's you!" The Doctor smiled, surprised. This was a coincidence, wasn't it?
Donna looked from daft alien to her granddad and back. "What, have you two met before?"
"Yeah," Wilf nodded. "Christmas Eve. He disappeared right in front of me."
"And you never said?!" Donna's jaw dropped - oh, that was just so unfair! She could've found him months ago!
"Well, you'd never said what he looked like, did you?" He beamed and shook the Doctor's hand. "Wilf, sir. Wilfred Mott. Pleasure to meet you, sir."
"Nice to meet you properly, Wilf," The Doctor grinned at him, then raised an inquisitive eyebrow at Donna.
Who squirmed, then blurted out. "Well of course I told them all about it! They'd already seen the ship get blown up on the telly!"
"Whoa!" The Doctor nearly banged his head on the bonnet as spikes shot out of the part of the ATMOS device attached to the engine. "It's a temporal pocket! I knew there was something else in there, and there is. It's hidden just a second out of synch with real time!"
"But what's it hiding?" Donna asked, then sighed as she heard her mum walking over. Oh please Mum, not now!
"I don't know, men and their cars. Sometimes I think if I was a car...oh, it's you. Doctor what was it? No, Donna said it was just Doctor." Sylvia rolled her eyes as the lanky alien smiled at her.
"Yeah, that's me." He then went back to sonicing, because Sylvia wasn't being horrible to either himself or Donna. Quite a change from the reception, though that could be attributed to the worry and stress.
"What, have you met him as well?" Wilf asked his daughter, looking very surprised. "I met him just last Christmas, but no one told me what he looked like."
"Of course I've met him, Dad, he's the man from the wedding. When you were laid up with Spanish flu." She turned her attention back to the Doctor who was back under the bonnet. "I suppose it's too much to ask that there's no robots or anything weird, and you've just popped 'round for a nice quiet visit?"
The question was answered when the spikes started outgassing, and the Doctor leapt back, adjusting the sonic. "Get back!"
He aimed the sonic at the gas-spewing ATMOS part, adjusted the frequency once more, then relaxed when it spat sparks and stopped. "That'll stop it."
"Oh, now you've blown up the car!" Sylvia threw her hands in the air. "What'd it ever do to you, get built by aliens?"
"Oh, not now Mum!" Donna groaned. "It's the ATMOS been tinkered with, if I understand right anyway. Not the car."
"But what do aliens want with cleaning up the atmosphere?" Sylvia rolled her eyes and edged back toward the house, just in case the car really was next to blow up.
Vignette 4 - The Poison Sky - Go stop those bloody aliens, you hear me?
After Sylvia had come running back out with an axe and shattered the windscreen, the Doctor and Donna helped her Granddad crawl out of the car and over the bonnet.
"Thanks," Wilf said after he'd managed to catch his breath.
"Not a problem," the Doctor replied with a relieved smile, then his attention went to Donna talking to her mother.
"I can't believe you've got an axe!" Donna exclaimed, shocked.
"Burglars!" Sylvia snipped, then turned a gimlet-eye on the Doctor as he helped Wilf over to her. "You. That's aliens mucked about with every car on the planet, yes?"
"Every car that's got ATMOS," he agreed as Ross came back with an old cab.
"Then go stop them since that's what you do!" She turned to Donna and gave her a sad, knowing expression. "I suppose you're going with him, then?"
"Yeah Mum," Donna gave her mum a hug. "We'll be careful, promise."
"You two, get inside, try and seal off the doors and windows," the Doctor added as he followed Donna to the cab.
Of course neither Wilf nor Sylvia went inside till they'd seen Donna and the Doctor off, and as they finally entered the house, Wilf murmured. "Good luck."
"They'll need every ounce they can scrape up." Sylvia replied as she shut the door behind them and went to turn on the news.
Later, after she'd gotten separated from the Doctor because the TARDIS had been kidnapped, Donna dialled home with his mobile.
"Mum, is that you?"
"Course it is sweetheart. Where are you? You're not calling from your phone, what's happened?"
"I'm fine, just didn't think to use my own phone," Donna sniffed, then asked. "How are you and Granddad?"
"So is this some stranger's phone? And we're all right, for the world being poisoned with gas. Dad's sealed us in pretty well. Now how's the Doctor doing as far as fixing this mess?"
"Nah, it's the Doctor's phone." Donna shed a few tears of relief that her family were safe, then managed a shaky laugh. "I have no idea. Went back to his ship cos I was having trouble breathing, and next thing I know the aliens responsible kidnapped it. Now don't panic!" She paused to make sure her mum wasn't going to panic, and continued. "I'm safe as houses cos they can't get in. It's just...I know he's got a plan, I just don't know what it is."
"I almost wish I'd asked you to stay home instead of let you go with him..." There was the sound of a muffled sob, then it was her granddad on the phone instead.
"Sweetheart, I know the Doctor's working on this problem, but we've been watching the news...they're saying the whole of London...the whole world...it's all getting covered with this stuff. The scale of it, Donna...I mean, I know he's a brilliant alien, but he's just one man. How can one man stop all that?"
"I don't know yet, Gramps. But don't worry - I know him, and I know he's all over it. I swear his brain's the size of the planet," Donna managed a shaky smile as she heard him laugh.
"Thought you said that was his ego, sweetheart?"
"Nah, ego's the size of the house, remember?"
"Think you said something of the sort."
"Yeah. Well, I'd best get off the line. Hopefully he'll be calling one or the other phone anytime now. Either that or I'll figure out something to do to help him. Love you both!"
She hung up after getting reassurances that she was loved, then stared off into space while tears of frustration and worry prickled her eyes and wet her cheeks.
After it was all over, Donna was sat at table with her granddad, just talking until her mum walked in with the shopping.
"I suppose you'll be off soon," Sylvia sighed as she set the bags down. "I wish you'd stay, sweetheart. We never see you anymore."
"I thought you were all right with me travelling?" Donna asked, heart breaking just a little with her family's sadness.
"Well we are, mostly," Wilf said when his daughter sniffled. "We just miss you, sweetheart. I don't suppose you could talk himself into visiting more often, could you?"
"And without other aliens doing horrible things to the planet? I mean, we've barely seen you this visit, and before this it was just phone calls and pictures!" Sylvia bustled around the kitchen, beginning to unpack the shop.
"I'll see what I can do, Mum, Gramps. I promise." With that Donna stood, kissed her granddad on the top of his head, then hugged her mum before she left, with repeated reassurances to return.
"And she's off again, Dad," Sylvia said, trying not to cry.
"There, there my girl. Our little general promised, and when have you known her to break a promise?" He gave his daughter a watery smile and a hug.