Disclaimer: Me? Own anything but my own words? You've gone and gotten me confused with RTD, the Moff and the BBC again, haven't you? :D
Chapter 3 - Vignettes, part 2: Aftermaths
AN - This, and following vignettes, are all my beta's fault. Take a bow, tkelparis :D She's the one who wanted to see the other changes that would happen in the travelling, with a friendlier Sylvia who was in the know about the Doctor being an alien. But, even though there will have been changes, I am not rewriting episodes again, that's way too much work. So, voila - what they never showed us in the show at all, ever. Aftermaths, with changes (if there are any) described within.
Love to all my reviewers and readers! *mwah!*
Vignette 1 - The Doctor's Daughter - Aftermath
Warning - Have your tissue box ready for this one
"You know," Sylvia said, once she'd got her daughter and the Doctor sat at the table for tea. "When I said visit more often, I wasn't expecting less than two days later."
"Yeah, well we just had a whole lot of stuff happen, and I wanted to come see you," Donna said with a watery smile, and squeezed the Doctor's hand.
He gave Sylvia a wan smile and shook his head before Sylvia could start about his endangering her daughter. "Donna was safe, I'd never let anything happen to her. It's just...we were in the future, on a planet at war...and I gained and lost a daughter in the same day."
"Oh my word," Sylvia gasped as she fell into a chair. "How could that happen?"
The story didn't get told quite then, as Wilf ambled in from the allotment, so they'd had to exchange hugs and hellos with him...but finally, with several interjections for questions, they finally managed to tell Donna's family just what had happened when the TARDIS went a bit bonkers and took them to Messaline.
"...Jenny was so bright and shining and full of life, and then," The Doctor closed his eyes and drew in a shuddering breath even as he wondered in a corner of his mind why it was so easy to tell his suffering to Sylvia and Wilf. "Then the Human general was going to shoot me, and she threw herself in the way. She died in my arms," he finished and looked up with tears in his eyes as he murmured. "...lost all my children to war..."
"Oh my poor lad," Wilf murmured, and laid a hand on the Doctor's arm. "It's always hard to lose a child. Lost my oldest child, Sylvia's brother, to war. We didn't even get a body to bury - he'd stepped on a mine."
The Doctor put a hand on Wilf's in acknowledgement of their mutual suffering, then he was startled when Sylvia cleared her throat. "Donna had a brother once. For all of an hour - he was premature, and he tried, he really did. But he died, and I never even got to hold him." Sylvia's lips twisted in a bitter excuse for a smile. "Miscarried one before Donna, and two between her and her brother...never could get up the nerve to have my heart broken like that again after he died."
So that was why it was so easy to tell them, the Doctor thought as he glanced at Donna. They'd lost children too.
Donna smiled sadly and shook her head. "No, I don't have any children of my own that I lost. I'm just being sad for all of you." She wouldn't claim Jenny as her daughter, even though she'd already lost her heart to the dear girl by the time she died. Wasn't right to shove herself into that special family...she'd just disguise her grieving as being sympathetic.
"I..." the Doctor stopped to clear his throat, then carried on with a wobbly smile. "I think you're wrong, Donna. You were a mother to Jenny. She'd already imprinted on you that way, looking to you to explain things when Dad was being old and thick and trying...trying not to get hurt again."
"Oh," Donna's hand flew to her mouth, and there were tears welling up in her eyes. "I...I'd have loved to be her mother, Spaceman."
"We'll add her to the family memorial then," Sylvia said, then snapped when they all looked at her in shock. "What? You've said Jenny would have been Donna's daughter of the heart if she'd lived! That makes her family, and we don't let family be forgotten even if we never got the chance to know them!"
The Doctor couldn't speak through the tears and the lump in his throat, but his grateful smile said all that was needed.
And a few hours later, when all the crying had come to a temporary halt, he was given the great privilege of using his sonic screwdriver to add Jenny's name to the memorial stone they had, under the names of all the other Motts and Nobles lost before their time.
Vignette 2 - The Unicorn and the Wasp - Photos and Ponderings
"I'm glad this visit's a bit more cheerful than the last," Sylvia said as she brought over a plate of muffins.
"Yeah, well we did just meet Agatha Christie," Donna said with a grin. "And solved the mystery of her ten day disappearance, even."
"I'll bet himself was involved with that," Sylvia sniffed and sat across from her daughter.
"Well yeah, but there was another alien too. Giant wasp," Donna said, then bit into a muffin.
"A giant wasp?" Sylvia raised a sceptical eyebrow. "Oh Donna, I know how you are about stinging insects. Giant bee, giant wasp, giant ants, everything that can sting is giant to you...now, how big was it really?"
Donna swallowed, then waved her arm. "Never did get to measure it properly, but the stinger was as long as my forearm at least. It was flippin' enormous!"
"Oh my word," Sylvia said faintly, as her father and the Doctor came back from up the hill with a nice load of veg.
"Something wrong?" The Doctor came over to check on Sylvia and Donna, worried.
"Nah, was just telling her about the wasp when we met Agatha Christie, that's all." Donna quirked a smile. "Never did figure out, Spaceman - how big was it?"'
"The Vespiform? Oh, his body was about six feet long. I think, anyway." He crinkled his brow in thought. "We never did get to measure that particular one, too busy trying to keep him from re-enacting some of Agatha's mysteries."
"Aye-aye, sounds like storytime to me!" Wilf sat at table and looked up at the Doctor with a smile. "I mean, unless it was more horrible than Donna makes it sound."
"Nah, wasn't too bad actually," he replied with a grin. "I was just trying to remember where I put my camera. Got a few pictures this time."
"Donna's sent us some, from her travels." Sylvia said as she got up to bring more muffins and other edibles. "Pompeii, thankfully before the pair of you had to run from the volcano, that lovely snowy planet with the Cthulhu people-"
Donna interrupted her mum. "Ood, Mum, they're Ood. Not Cthulhu-people - they're lots nicer than that, really nice people."
"Ooh, been sneaking pictures behind my back, have you Miss Noble? How very cunning of you," he grinned and finally pulled out his camera. "But this time, you get to see what pictures I managed to take before it got too busy for the camera."
And for at least the next hour, they were busy showing and telling, though the Doctor did have to explain how he'd got the picture of the pair of them just before they'd gone for cocktails. Then he had to explain both bigger-on-the-inside pockets and the concept of having a pocket linked to the TARDIS to fetch and be rid of the tripod.
Then he and Donna traded off telling of how they'd met Agatha Christie at the garden party, and the first mysterious murder. Then Donna, glowering at the Doctor, told of her adventure searching rooms, and her first encounter with the Vespiform. And she showed her mum and granddad a picture of Agatha Christie she'd managed to sneak with her phone.
Finally they got to the part where he'd been poisoned, and neither of them said anything further for a good few minutes. Finally Sylvia broke the silence. "Oh it can't be horrible, you're here and alive, so obviously you managed to find an antidote or something."
The Doctor rubbed the back of his neck and made a moue of embarrassment. "We-ell, it was more complicated than that. See, because I'm not human, I can go through this procedure - detox is what it's called in English - and that's what I did. Ginger-beer, walnuts and anchovies, then a shock and I'm better."
Sylvia noticed her daughter blushing, and asked. "So, what kind of shock did you get, Doctor?"
He blushed as well, and mumbled. "donnakissedme."
"Sorry, I didn't quite hear that." Sylvia said, feeling both curious and mischievous for once.
"He said I kissed him, Mum. Cos that's what I did - biggest shock I could think of, kissing him," Donna snapped out, blushing furiously now.
"And why was that such a shock?" Wilf asked, head tilted to the side. He thought it would be lovely if they'd stop and take proper stock of each other and tried being more than friends.
"Because we're not like that," the Doctor replied, still blushing because he was remembering how nice the kiss was, through the anchovies, walnuts and fear for his life.
"No, no way, not like that at all," Donna confirmed, almost tripping over her words as she tried not to blurt out that she might actually like to try kissing the Doctor again, only without the walnuts and anchovies and ginger beer.
Sylvia and Wilf exchanged a look while the pair were babbling on about not being 'like that', and decided to save the two of them from protesting too much. "Well," Wilf said. "Now we've got that sorted, d'you feel up to finishing the story?"
"Might as well," Donna said, still blushing a trifle. "Anyway, after that mess in the kitchen, the Doctor set up a trap for the Vespiform at dinner, and that was the most peppery soup I've ever had, Spaceman."
"I needed the pipperine in the pepper to flush out the Vespiform. Shame it didn't work properly."
"Yeah, poor Roger." Donna sighed, then answered her mum's question about Roger, and they finished telling the story in a little less than half an hour. And had a mostly-enjoyable time of the rest of the visit.
Now if only her family would stop the teasing about that kiss...
Vignette 3 - The Library - Lost Chance?
AN: There's a big canon shift in this Aftermath. And a little one too, cos it always bugged the heck out of me that the future Doctor had stuck a neural relay in River's sonic screwdriver. Why do that when she had a neural relay already as part of her spacesuit? So to solve that annoying little itch in my head, I...well, you'll see. :D
The next time they popped around, it was a grey, rainy day. Sylvia thought the day matched their mood perfectly, and wondered to herself, as she fixed tomato soup and toasted-cheese sandwiches, if they'd done it a-purpose. Except it'd been a bright, sunny day when they'd come back and told about his lost daughter, so probably not.
And she did try to wait for them to start talking, she honestly did. But after they'd finished the soup and sandwiches and still hadn't said hardly a word, she took Donna's hand in hers and asked. "Sweetheart, what's wrong? What's happened this time?"
And that triggered a flood of words that neither she nor Wilf could find pause enough in to say anything, much less ask a question. All about how they'd taken a trip to a Library planet, how it was infested with invisible people-eating things, and how Donna and the Doctor had gotten separated because he'd been trying to keep her safe.
About that time, Donna paused, looking for words, and the Doctor had his eyes closed as he spoke. "I...I was gutted, when I saw her face on that Node. I don't think I actually had a clear thought until I got a glimpse of her when I found the signal interfering with the sonic." He made an attempt at a smile, but it was sad. "River Song, for all her confusing nature and seemingly backwards history to me, she's the one I owe my own life to. Got me moving, kept us all moving."
"But who is she?" Wilf asked, but then he knew it was the wrong question to ask, as that poor man's face got all closed-off. But they did both continue with the tale - Donna's little dream-life in the computer, and the Doctor with what was going on outside it.
And then the Doctor finally told them who River Song was. "She was my granddaughter," he said in a wobbly voice. "Told me she was the daughter of a son that wasn't yet born for me, and the daughter of a future companion. And then she sacrificed her life to save everyone."
"Oh, you poor man," Wilf murmured and squeezed the Doctor's shoulder.
"D'you want me to tell the rest of it, Doctor?" Donna squeezed his hand and gave him a sad smile.
After a moment, that included clearing his throat, the Doctor gave her a wan smile in return and shook his head. "No. No, I can manage. I may have mentioned that she had a sonic screwdriver that was wider than mine... it was after I got myself free of the handcuffs that I figured out why. See, the me in the future that gave her that screwdriver, he'd had her entire life to figure a few things out. So he gave her a sonic screwdriver large enough that I could finagle the neural relay into it. And I did, and I uploaded her into the computer."
"Oh my word," Sylvia gasped. "But...you'd just gone to all the danger of getting everyone out for the little girl's sake as well as to save all of them. Why'd you go and add stress to her again?"
"Because it wasn't a strain on her, not like all four-thousand odd people had been. And besides, she'd already scooped up the others. Proper Dave, Other Dave, Miss Evangelista, Anita...she'd uploaded from their neural relays and hadn't even remembered doing it until the others were brought out. So, in a sense, none of them died."
As Sylvia scoffed and Wilf looked puzzled, Donna smiled wryly and shook her head. "I was in that computer, I know. They can't ever come back out of the computer, but inside, in that virtual world it's just as real as can be. The only difference is that they'll never age. Which is a shame, especially for Charlotte being stuck as a little girl, but they'll go on forever until the Library itself dies."
"But still...you'll never see her again." Wilf said with a concerned look.
"Ah, but you're forgetting something, Wilf," The Doctor shook his head and sighed, then managed a small smile. "She was popping in from my future. I've got all of her growing up to live, yet. I'll see her again."
"He'll just grieve all over again when it's time to say goodbye and send her to the Library, I know him." Donna sighed and rested her head on the Doctor's shoulder. She wished she could be the one to give him that son... but it'd never work out. Besides, he had to like her that way, and as far as she could tell, he didn't.
"Yeah." At first it was a wan smile, but it got stronger. "Yeah, I've got a lot to look forward to with that wild grandchild of mine." He wished Donna liked him as more than friends - he'd love it if she was River's grandmother. But as far as he could tell, she didn't, so he'd just accept the priceless gift of her friendship and hope she'd change her mind eventually. Or help him find the right person to be River's grandmother, whichever it ended up being.
"I'll get more tea," Sylvia said, then raised an eyebrow. "Dad, get the plates and bowls."
"Right, right," he replied and collected the dishes as the Doctor's arm went around Donna.
On the other side of the kitchen, daughter looked at father and murmured, "I have the feeling Miss River Song is...or rather, will be part of the family, Dad."
"Oh?" Wilf put the plates in the sink and looked at his daughter.
"Look at them," Sylvia hissed. "Next trip back, I'm almost expecting her to have his ring on her finger!"
"Can't tell them that, though," he murmured with a soft smile. "They're still in denial right now... well, Donna is at least. He's got the clue, told all of us his feelings, just about."
"How can she still be so blind though? Especially with how blatant he was about it!"
"Afraid, I'll bet. Our Little General's had so much heartbreak she's stopped looking. It's going to take something huge to make her see what's right under her nose." Wilf sighed and shook his head as the kettle whistled.
"I just hope it's not a risk to either of their lives...and sometimes I wish I'd never let her go, Dad. It's so dangerous out there!" Sylvia fretted over the teapot as she added water and the infuser.
"Now sweetheart, Donna's grown. We can't keep her locked away, nor wrap her in cotton. Besides, life here on Earth's just as dangerous, what with terrorists and criminals and car crashes and even falling down the stairs wrong. Let her do what's making her shine, Sylvia."
"Oh all right, Dad. It's not like she's still a child to be sent to her room...not like she ever stayed, the little monkey." Sylvia snorted with wry amusement. "She'd do more than climb out the window to stay with him."
Wilf only chuckled as he got down a box of biscuits, and he followed Sylvia and the teapot back to the table, where they both politely ignored Donna and the Doctor untangling from their one-armed embrace.
A few hours later, as they were getting ready to leave, Wilf asked, "So, where are you and Donna going next?"
"Oh, we need a bit of a break from the adventures," the Doctor said with a smile. "I thought I'd take us to Midnight. It's a bit of a leisure planet, all sorts of spas and things."
Donna turned and stared at him in disbelief. "You? You're actually taking us to a spa planet?"
"Why not? Like I said, we could both use a bit of a break. Besides, Midnight's supposed to be made of diamonds." He grinned at her and offered her his arm. "Shall we?"
"Oh yes, let's!" Donna beamed up at him and took his arm. "We'll see you later, Mum, Gramps!"
"Have fun!" The pair left behind waved them off, then as Sylvia shut the door she sighed and murmured. "I hope it's a real break for them and nothing goes wrong."
"Now sweetheart," Wilf said. "What can go wrong on a spa planet?"
AN: Yes, I know, huge change to the DW timeline and River's history etc. But given the huge changes in the other vignettes, I couldn't very well pull another One Decision. And that wraps up the Aftermaths, too. Next up: Picking up from where the original chapter left off!