Author's Notes: I do not own Doctor Who. Thanks for the reads and the follows. Hi, lurkers. Let me know what you think.

The money Alex had given Donna helped. She hadn't told her mum about it. She hadn't wanted to hear about it, what Sylvia thought she might be doing for it or what they should spend it on. She squirreled it away and used a little of it to buy Zara some extra food. Zara was still distraught that there we no bananas, but that was that.

Then one day, it was announced that all the foreign-born people had to leave the tenement. Donna was outside with Wilf and Zara saying farewell to the Colasantos and the Merchandanis.

"And you! So fiery with your red hair!," said Rocco. "I will miss you most!"

Rocco spun Donna around as she laughed. He turned to Zara. "No, Principessa, I will miss you most."

Zara stared up sadly.

"But why do you have to leave?," asked Donna.

"Is new law! England for the English! The oceans are closed so we can't go home! We go to labor camp, we work, is good."

"But there's no work," said Donna.

"Is good," Rocco insisted. He and Wilf exchanged salutes. Rocco turned to Zara. "Arrivederci, principessa."

"Arrivederci," Zara said sadly waving as Rocco joined his family on the truck.

"Labor camps," said Wilf. "That's what they called it last time."

Donna saw the tears in the family's eyes and the look of distress on their faces.

The truck drove away. Donna followed it. "Sorry, where are you taking them? Where are they going?"

"Mummy!," Zara called from down the street.

Donna sighed and hurried back towards Zara. "There. Mummy's not going anywhere."

Donna was again sitting across from Alex as Zara played next to her. No suit this time, but still soldiers waiting on him.

"What do you do that you have soldiers waiting on you whenever you want to pop by?," asked Donna.

"You know what I do."

Donna shook her head. "I don't think I do, though."

"How are things?," Alex asked, not answering her question.

"The house is quiet," said Donna. "They took the other families somewhere. I mean, they say labor camp, but there's no work-"

"Donna."

She looked up to see Alex staring at her sternly.

"Don't ask questions about that."

"What?"

"I mean it, it's for your own safety."

"What are you talking about?," asked Donna. "Do you know something?"

He took a long breath. "If I did know something, I couldn't tell you because of the Official Secrets Act and I wouldn't tell you because I don't want anything to happen to you."

"What are you saying?"

He took another moment and a sideways glance at the soldiers outside. "I can't say, but you should know I haven't got anything to do with it."

"But you know..."

"The world's gone to hell, Donna," said Alex. "Somewhere, somehow, something changed and now it's all hell."

Donna looked back at Zara, thinking about what the blonde had said. The Doctor was supposed to stop all this.

"Donna, would you consider moving to Edinburgh?"

She scoffed. "Do they have a nicer refugee camp?"

"No, not in a camp. I could set you up in a flat. You and your family."

"Why would you do that?," asked Donna.

He looked down. "Because you're my friend."

Donna couldn't get her mind off Alex's offer. The next morning she sat with her grandfather talking about it.

"I think he knows what's going on, where the Colasantos went, but he won't tell me. Or he can't."

Wilf was silent.

"I think he's in love with me," said Donna.

Wilf remained silent.

"That would be the answer to it all, wouldn't it? Alex has a posh job and he says he could set us up in a flat. We could move out of here. Zara could have a proper room of her own and go to school soon."

"Do you love him?"

Donna shrugged. "I like him. He's kind." She sighed.

"But?"

She shook her head. "I don't think I can love a man who could know where the Colasantos went and not do anything about it."

"We all have our own burdens, sweetheart."

Donna looked over at Zara speaking Italian to her dolls. Could she really justify not doing everything she could to get her daughter out of this? No matter what it meant? It wasn't as if there were some man waiting to pluck Donna from her life and make it brilliant.

Donna took Zara down to the clinic. She checked in and then sat in the chairs along with the other patients with a myriad of complaints. Zara jumped on a chair impatiently.

"Be careful, you," said Donna with a smile. "Don't want to get in an accident in the waiting room of the clinic. At the rate this queue is going, we'll still be another week."

Zara settled in Donna's lap and she cuddled against her. Donna kissed the top of her head.

"I love you, sweetheart," said Donna. "You're perfect, you know that?"

"Zara Noble!," an impatient voice called.

"Come on, sweetheart," said Donna, carrying her, following the nurse back to an exam room.

Donna took her clothes off and the nurse left, saying the doctor would be there soon.

"It's just an exam, sweetheart," said Donna. "You can finally get the rest of your inoculations. It shouldn't have taken this long, really, but now Mummy can let you play with other children without worrying about you catching something. That'll be nice, won't it?"

A man in a white coat entered. "Ms. Noble."

"We've been waiting hours," said Donna. "And it's freezing in here."

"Bloody refugees," said the doctor, "always think you ought to get more, don't you?"

"You had me undress her and then we had to wait," said Donna. "Are you trying to make her catch cold?"

The doctor looked at the chart. "Did you fill out this paperwork?"

"Yes."

"You didn't put down any illnesses," he said annoyed.

"I know," said Donna.

He looked more perturbed now. Donna caught Zara's glare at him. "She's never been ill? Not a cold, no flu?"

"No," said Donna. "Never."

The doctor looked at Zara. "She's not cold. You're right, the heat is off, but she's not bothered." He took out a thermometer and put it in her ear. It beeped. "How long has her temperature been this low?"

"She's always had a lower body temperature," said Donna.

The doctor took out his stethoscope. He put it over the right side of her chest, then moved to the left. His eyes widened in surprise.

"Just one moment," he stammered.

"But we're supposed to get inoculations," said Donna.

"I have to check something," he said leaving.

"Stupid man," said Donna. She looked at Zara. "Bloody NHS, that's the best we can do? I should have fought harder for Glasgow. Well, let's get you dressed. I'm not having you sit around naked while they get their act together."

Donna turned Zara around to face her as she pulled her shirt over her head.

"Don't worry, Zara. We aren't staying like this forever. I don't know how yet, but we won't be refugees forever. My brilliant daughter's not living her life like this." She sighed. Her mind went back to Alex's offer. "I guess I know what I have to do, don't I?"

Zara stared up at her blankly.

"That's okay," said Donna. "It's my problem. Not yours. Mummy's going to take care of everything."

"Ms. Noble?"

Donna turned to see the nurse had come back in.

"We have some more paperwork for you to fill out. Would you come with me?"

She looked at Zara. "Well, can't I do it here?"

"No, the doctor will be back in soon. Please come with me. It's just outside."

Donna kissed Zara. "I'll be right back."

The first form the nurse put down was normal. Then the next and the next and then a great huge stack.

"Look, I really need to get back to my baby," Donna said, putting down her pen. She got up and turned around to walk into a man with a lab coat.

"Ms. Noble, I'm Doctor McCoy, I have a few questions."

"I need to see my daughter-"

"Who's her father?"

"What? What does that matter?"

"Things will be a lot easier if you just tell us."

"I don't- I want to see my baby."

"When did she begin crawling? Walking? Making eye contact?"

Donna shook her head. "Four months, eight months, always. I've got to get to her-"

"Talking?"

"What does it matter?," asked Donna.

"We're just trying to get some background information."

"Mummy! Mummy!," she heard Zara call urgently.

"Let me get to her-"

The doctor stopped her, abruptly standing in front of her. That's when she heard the loudest, most blood curdling scream she had ever heard in her life. She shoved the doctor away and ran into two soldiers trying to hold her back. She watched as one of the woman soldiers in the red beret carried Zara away.

"Get out of my way!," Donna shouted. ""You better get the hell out of my way! What do you think you're doing with my baby? Where are you taking her? Zara!"

"Mummy!"

"Zara!" Donna managed to knock away one of the soldiers and dragged the other one along with her as she saw them putting Zara in the back of a Land Rover. "Zara!"

"Mummy!" The door shut. Zara's face was red and streaming with tears as she beat her tiny fists against the windows.

More soldiers arrived to drag Donna back at the Land Rover drove away, leaving Donna screaming and crying.

When she couldn't scream or cry or fight anymore, they let her go. She found it odd to be walking out alone.

"Your baby," a nurse whispered. "She had two hearts. That's why they took her away."

Donna made her way to a phone box, shoving people out of her way and dialed.

"Foreign Office Information Line."

"I need to speak to Alex Wroughton-"

"I'm sorry, he's in a meeting."

"This is Donna Noble! You get him out! This is an emergency!"

"Of course it is."

"Are you being cute, lady? Because I'm not in the mood!"

"Have you not seen the stars?"

Donna looked up.

The stars were going out. One by one, right in front of her.

She hung up the phone and turned around to see the blonde.

"I'm ready."

They were driven to a warehouse. Donna followed the blonde as she pushed a curtain aside and walked into what seemed to be a circle of mirrors with fairy lights.

A woman in a uniform saluted. "Ma'am."

"I told you," said the blonde. "Don't call me that."

"Well, if you're not going to tell us your name..."

"You don't know, either?," asked Donna.

"There's too many different realities. Trust me, the wrong word in the wrong place can change an entire causal nexus," said the blonde.

"She talks like that. A lot. And you must be Miss Noble."

"Donna," she said eyeing the uniform distrustfully.

The woman shook her hand. "Captain Erisa Magambo. Thank you for this."

"I don't even know what I'm doing."

"Is it awake?," the blonde asked.

"It seems to be quiet today. Ticking over. Like it's waiting."

Donna looked at the blue box attached to the apparatus.

"Do you want to see it?," asked the blonde. "Just go inside."

Donna walked in and couldn't believe what she was seeing. It was all wires and torn apart panels, but the box was bigger on the inside.

Yet she could believe it.

"Time And Relative Dimension In Space. This room used to shine with light. I think it's dying." She reached out and rubbed the console. "It's still trying to help."

"And... and she belonged to the Doctor?"

The blonde frowned at her. "Why do you say she?"

Donna had no idea. "I don't know. Ships are always she, right?"

"He was a Time Lord. Last of his kind."

"But if he's so special, what's he doing with me?"

"He thought you were brilliant."

"Don't be stupid."

"Well, you are! It just took the Doctor to show you that, simply by being with him. He did the same to me. To everyone he touches."

"Were you and him...?"

The blonde didn't answer and just gave a wan smile.

"My daughter. Do you know where they've taken her?"

"Taken her?"

"Three weeks, though, you said I'd be ready and they took her today and I'm ready."

"I didn't mean that. I'm sorry. I meant the stars."

Donna stiffened. "You want me to help, you get someone to tell me where she is."

"I'm sorry, Donna, but there's more important things than one little girl right now."

"Not to me!," Donna shouted.

All of a sudden, a huge spark came out of one of the ravaged panels of the phone box. The rota lit up for a second, then light vanished again.

"Why did they take her away?," the woman asked as she looked around the scattered innards of the phone box with suspicion.

"They said she has two hearts and they asked all sorts of questions-" Donna stopped. The woman looked as if she had just been punched in the gut. Something was dawning on her.

"What?," Donna demanded. "What did I say?"

"Nothing." She shook her head. "Nothing."

"No, I said she had two hearts and that seemed to mean something to you," Donna said.

The box hummed and sounded as if it was gasping for breath. The woman looked at Donna's back as if she was trying to change the subject.

That's when they put her in the circle of mirrors and showed her the giant black beetle on her back.

"What is it?," asked Donna.

"We don't know," said the woman.

"Oh, thanks," said Donna.

"It feeds off time. By changing time, by making someone's life take a different turn, like ... meetings never made... children never born... a life never loved. But with you, it's..."

"But I never did anything important."

"Yes, you did. One day that thing made you turn right instead of left."

"When was that?"

Donna had a flash. An elegant woman, eyes red from crying, telling her, "Turn left."

"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?," asked Donna.

"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."

Donna glared. "Do you really think I'm in the mood for jokes? You lied! You said I was special, but it's this thing! I'm just a host!"

"No, there's more than that. The readings are strange it's... it's like reality's just bending round you."

"Because of this thing!"

"No, we're getting separate readings from you. And they've always been there, since the day you were born."

Donna had a flash of the woman on the floor again, imploring her to turn left. She had another flash of an old woman in front of some water.

"You have come," she said. "The Most Important Woman in Creation."

Yet another flash of a man with floppy hair and a bow tie, giving her a ridiculous smile. "So many good days, Donna Noble. The Most Important Woman in the Universe."

The woman kept speaking. "I thought it was just the Doctor we needed, but it's the both of you. The Doctor and Donna Noble. Together. To stop the stars from going out."

Donna snapped back to reality. She looked at the beetle. "Turn it off."

The machinery powered down.

"It's still there, though," said Donna, "what do I do to get rid of it?"

"You're going to travel in time."

Before she knew it, Donna was in an enormous coat with wires.

The blonde started spouting instructions. "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 Ealing Road, but you turn right heading for Griffin's Parade. You need to turn left. That's the most important thing. You've got to go back and turn left. Have you got that, Donna? One minute past ten. Make yourself turn left, heading for the Chiswick High Road."

"Keep the jacket on at all times, it's insulation against temporal feedback," said the captain. "This will correspond to local time wherever you land."

They led her back in the circle.

"How do you know it's going to work?," asked Donna.

"Oh, uh, we're just guessing."

"Oh, great!," Donna shouted.

"Just remember, when you get to the junction, change the car's direction by one minute past ten."

"And what about Zara?"

"What?," asked the blonde.

"I do this and my baby, what happens to her?"

There was a long pause before the blonde answered. "I don't know."

Donna found herself on all fours on a street back in Chiswick. She got up and looked around. It was a normal day, such a blessedly normal day. She grinned and remembered she had to get moving.

"Hold on... but this is... I'm not... this is Sutton Court! I'm half a mile away!" She shouted at the sky. "I'm half a mile away! This is what happens when you build a time machine in a shed!"

She looked at the watch. It was 9:57.

"Oh, no. No, no, no!"

Donna realized she had no choice but to run for it.

She sprinted, gasping for breath. She looked at the watch. 9:59 and she still wasn't there.

She wasn't going to make it.

Even if blondie didn't know, she had one chance at setting things right and that was getting herself to turn left. That was the only way she was going to see Zara again. She knew it.

She looked at a blue lorry coming down the street. She knew herself and the one thing that could stop her going this way was the traffic going this direction.

She had to see Zara again.

Donna threw herself in front of the lorry.

Lying in the street, with bystanders and the lorry driver staring at her, she couldn't help but think it might have been a bad idea, wondering if this was what it felt like to have your neck broken.

Then she thought of Zara.

Then she remembered the man in the bow tie. "You are lucky and so am I. Your best days are all ahead of you. So many good days, Donna Noble. The Most Important Woman in the Universe."

She saw the blonde hovering over her. She whispered in her ear.

"Tell him this, two words..."

Donna screamed, bolting from the chair. She looked to see a giant beetle on the floor, twitching. She protectively covered her stomach, relieved to feel the baby moving again.

"What the hell is that?!," she shouted.

She looked over at the fortune teller, cowering. "You were so strong. What are you? What will you be?"

She scrambled out.

"Everything alright?"

Donna looked up to see the Doctor. "Oh, my God!" She ran to him, threw her arms around him and leaned up to kiss him.

"What was that for?," the Doctor asked smiling.

Donna froze. "I don't know."

Donna sat on a box, relieved to again feel the fluttering in her stomach, even if she didn't quite remember why. The Doctor started poking at the giant beetle with an incense stick.

"I can't remember. It's slipping away. You know like when you try and think of a dream and it just sort of... goes."

"It just got lucky, this thing. 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... great big parallel world!"

"Oh, yeah, that's what you love about me, my great big parallel worlds. Wait, you said parallel worlds are sealed off," said Donna.

"They should be. They are. But you had one created around you. Funny thing is, it seems to be happening a lot. To you."

"What?"

"Well, the Library. Now this. Sometimes I think there's way too much coincidence around you, Donna. I met you once. 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."

Donna then remembered the main thing that was binding them together at the moment. "Doctor, I have to tell you something-"

"Not that I would rather be bound to anyone else, because, let's face it, Donna, you are brilliant."

Donna then remembered. "She said that."

"Who did?"

"That woman. I can't remember."

"Well, she never existed now, sorry, did you just say you had to tell me something?"

"She said the stars were going out."

"That world never existed, Donna."

"No, but she said it was all worlds. Every world. She said the darkness is coming, even here."

"Who was she, Donna?"

Donna looked at the Doctor's intense gaze. She was trying to put it right in her head.

She suddenly felt stupid.

"It was Rose."

"Rose? How do you know it was Rose?"

"I saw her before when the Oracle took me through time. I just didn't put it together there... She said two words."

"Donna, what were they?"

She looked at the Doctor. "Bad Wolf."

The Doctor leapt up, grabbing Donna's hand. They ran out of the tent. Everywhere they looked were the words "Bad Wolf." They ran back in the TARDIS which was covered in a red light.

"Doctor, what is it? What's Bad Wolf?," asked Donna.

He turned and looked at her. "It's the end of the universe."

A/N: Yeah, cliffhanger. Sorry, no bad similes today. Anybody got any? Reviews would be awesome. Also, the man in the bow tie (Guess who) and the elegant woman are in The Letter R if you were wondering so read that if you want.