Author's Notes: I do not own Doctor Who, the Doctor and Donna. Thanks for the reads and reviews and follows and favorites. Keep them coming. Let me know what you think and happy reading!

Okay.

He had lost it.

The Doctor had become delusional. He was Russell Crowe in A Beautiful Mind just a lot skinnier, which made her Jennifer Connelly, just not as skinny. That Zero Room was probably covered in magazine clippings and he probably had theories about the Soviets working with the Daleks, which actually wouldn't be unexpected.

"Doctor?," Donna said softly.

"Hmm?"

"There aren't any other Time Lords," she said.

"Well, yes, that's what I thought-"

"That's what you thought?"

"But this psychic distress signal, it's coming from a planet that sits just on the edge of the universe."

"What? You missed it in your initial sweep of the universe?"

"It could be anything, Donna. Maybe they were unconscious-"

"Since the end of the Time War?"

"Maybe they were fob watched."

"Okay, the last time that happened to someone, that was the Master, right?," asked Donna.

He stiffened. "I'd rather not discuss that."

"Well, seeing as how it might be basically almost the same exact situation, I think we should discuss it. Do you have any other arch enemies I need to know about?"

"No, Donna," he said landing the TARDIS. He picked his coat up off the coral strut.

"Well, can we take something with us?," asked Donna.

"Like what?"

"Like a cricket bat!"

"You're being overly anxious."

"I'm being overly anxious? If this goes bad, I'm the one that ends up walking the Earth, so yeah, I'm a little concerned."

He didn't answer and walked out. Donna went back to the console and popped out the dematerialization circuit again.

"I am not walking the Earth, understood?," Donna said.

The TARDIS hummed in the affirmative. Donna followed the Doctor out.

They were in a pleasant green area, filled with all sorts of species. Everyone seemed excited, chatting anxiously in their native tongues.

"I can't understand them," Donna commented to the Doctor.

"TARDIS translation circuit is overwhelmed," said the Doctor.

"I don't see any Time Lords," said Donna.

"Not here," said the Doctor. "It's close, though."

Donna looked over. There was a waterfront and a dock. She noticed once in a while some of the aliens would look in that direction.

"They're waiting on something," said Donna. "What are they waiting on?"

The Doctor looked out towards the waterfront as they heard a foghorn. The attention of everyone standing and waiting turned towards the water as a great ship appeared.

"It's there," the Doctor said in disbelief.

"What? There's some random Time Lord out on that boat on this random planet?"

It was then Donna read the sign in front of the water.

The River Styx.

"No way," said Donna. She looked at the Doctor. "Do you see that?"

He looked to the sign. "The Styx?"

"In Greek mythology, that's what separates the Earth from the underworld, right? I mean, they don't mean the band."

"That's unusual."

"Unusual? We're not on Earth."

"It's a coincidence, Donna."

"Or that boat's full of zombies."

"Donna..."

"Oh, come on! Don't act like I'm being ridiculous! That would not be the strangest thing that had ever happened to us!"

"Donna, there's no such thing as zombies."

Donna threw her hands up. "Oh, God! Why did you say that? Here we go, zombie apocalypse!"

The boat docked. Donna and the Doctor watched as the ship unloaded its passengers. They each left and went to happily greet a group that had been waiting for them. The groups seemed so happy to see them. Really happy. There were tears. One woman fell to the ground in sobs of joy.

"You don't suppose..." said Donna. "I mean, it's the Styx and they're so happy to see them and... Doctor?"

Donna turned and realized that the Doctor wasn't paying her the slightest bit of attention. Not that she could blame him because someone else was coming off the boat, the final passenger. He was staring at her, eyes wide, Donna felt the fluttering in her stomach again.

She was beautiful, a waif-ish blonde with a kind smile. Her clothing looked like a gown out of the nineteen thirties, but Donna noticed a bracelet. It was the Seal of the Time Lords, she knew that much. She walked to the Doctor and they embraced.

"Doctor?," asked Donna.

The young woman spoke in Gallifreyan as she looked inquiringly at Donna.

"Donna, this is Mayantha."

"Your daughter?" She looked the girl up and down. "How is that possible? You said you watched her die."

"I don't know, Donna. It's a big universe."

"It's a big universe, that's what you've got?"

The woman again asked something in Gallifreyan.

"Why can't I understand her?," asked Donna.

"She doesn't speak English and the TARDIS doesn't translate Gallifreyan." The Doctor walked over. "You have to give us a moment, Donna. I have to explain what happened to her."

"You didn't tell her who I am?"

"No, I thought I'd touch on the destruction of our home world, everyone and everything she's ever known, that sort of thing, before I got to my personal life. Is that alright with you?"

"Why doesn't this seem strange to you?," asked Donna.

"Yes, I agree it's unusual-"

"Unusual! She's back from the dead!"

"This is my child, Donna. Do you think I wouldn't know my own child?"

"I don't know," said Donna. "This is the first time I've met anyone back from the dead!"

Donna looked. Mayantha was staring at them inquisitively.

"I have to talk to her," said the Doctor.

Donna watched as the Doctor took Mayantha to a bench and started speaking softly. The girl finally started sobbing and Donna felt badly about watching. She took a walk around.

It was a strange sort of place they had landed on. There was a hotel, lots of restaurants, everything gleaming like Disney World. Museums, shops, an amusement park and a heath where some of the visitors were having picnics.

Donna really wished she had been able to have the Doctor think this through, but he was buying into it, which was both different and scaring the hell out of her.

The first possibility was that the River Styx was real, the Ancient Greeks had been right and this was the place where the regular world met the afterlife.

Second, this was Solaris. Donna had never seen the original Russian Solaris, but rather the remake with George Clooney, which she had only agreed to because there was the promise of his bum and she had nothing better to do that night. Incidentally, George Clooney's bum was the only bit of the film she understood. She had tried to decode it over drinks afterward. Either the planet was God or George Clooney had been dead the entire film. She really wasn't sure how that had turned out.

The third was that this was all some sort of trick.

Yeah, it was probably a trick.

Donna walked back around to the waterfront where the TARDIS was parked. The Doctor was standing with his back against the door and staring at Mayantha as she sat in front of the water.

"Hey," said Donna.

The Doctor nodded at Mayantha. "She just needs time."

Donna nodded. "Right. Of course."

This was really the last thing that the Doctor needed, given the events of the past few days. She didn't want to see what would happen when this blew up. If things could get any uglier than they had recently, she was scared to find out.

The Doctor looked at her seriously. "That's my daughter, Donna."

"I just don't understand why-"

"Does it matter?"

"Yeah, I think it does."

"I don't really care how it happened, Donna."

"Does she know how it happened?"

"She remembers the attack by the Daleks and then she was here."

"Why did she send the distress signal?"

The Doctor paused. "I didn't ask."

"Do you think you ought to?"

"I'm here now and nothing's going to happen to her."

They realized Mayantha was looking back at them.

"Have you explained about us?," asked Donna.

"I hinted, Donna. It's a lot to take in."

Well, that was fair, Donna had to admit. Hi, honey, guess what? Your mum and brothers along with the rest of the planet are all dead, but it's alright because I married that nice ginger woman over there who is a different species, by the way, oh, and she doesn't speak the same language as you.

"I'm going to take her for a walk," said the Doctor.

"Right," said Donna. "I'm going to go in the TARDIS."

Donna walked back in. The carrier bags had mercifully disappeared, but Donna found a book on the console.

She looked up at the TARDIS. "What to Expect When You're Expecting a Time Baby? Are you kidding me?"

The TARDIS hummed innocently.

"Besides that, I don't want him seeing this sort of thing until his head's on straight and preferably when we're no longer visiting the underworld or Solaris or wherever the hell we are." Donna paused. "Wait. This is in English. You don't translate Gallifreyan, right?"

The TARDIS hummed.

"So why is this in English?" Donna opened the book and found a handwritten note in perfectly formed script. "Dear Donna, I think you'll be surprised to be getting this as I will have been gone for many years by now. I've instructed the TARDIS to give this to you when the time is right and since I know our husband won't bother teaching you Gallifreyan before he's gotten you pregnant- just because he does things like that, oh, you know- I've taken the liberty of translating it to English and adding some personal notes. Best wishes and all my love, the Oracle."

Donna was flummoxed.

"My first baby present and it's from my husband's dead wife," said Donna. "Still, not the weirdest thing that's happened today."

She took a look at the table of contents. "Let's see, trimesters, nutritional guidelines, morning sickness, that's got a whole section. Why am I not surprised? Pre-birth psychic connections."

Donna flipped to that. According to the book, the baby would be trying to form a psychic link with her, that was the fluttering she felt. The next level would be the Doctor and after that, would be any siblings.

She had felt the fluttering on the waterfront with the Doctor. The book said strong emotion could bring it on. Staring at Mayantha, though, she hadn't gotten anything. Shouldn't that have been worth some kind of strong emotion? Coming back from the dead and reuniting with her father?

That led Donna to one awful conclusion: it was a trick. Worse than that, she was going to have to figure out how before the Doctor's hearts got broken any worse.

A/N: Reviews are like if Godiva made a protein bar. Sorry, I run a lot. That would make me happy. Uh, reviews are like if Godiva made a protein bar and as you ate it you found an episode of Series 4 on Netflix you hadn't seen.