Author's Notes: I do not own Doctor Who. Thanks for reading and following and reviewing. I hope you're enjoying it. This one's a bit shorter. Please let me know what you think because I would really love to hear from you and happy reading!

Donna and Rose helped the Doctor up off the street. Jack picked up Rose's gun and looked around the perimeter as he followed them.

The Doctor writhed and moaned in pain as Donna and Rose helped him into the TARDIS. He laid down on the metal grating. Rose was already in tears.

The Doctor looked to Donna. She took his hand. Her eyes were full of water. "It's going to be fine."

"Just step back," said Jack, putting the guns down. He helped Donna up first. Donna watched as he gave her a double take and there was an odd sniff of his nose. Something seemed to be dawning on him.

"Okay, Rose, come on," said Jack, pulling her up. "He's dying, you know what happens next."

"I just got here," Rose protested. "You can't go now, when I just found you again."

Donna couldn't help herself. "Do you really think that's the most pressing issue at the moment?!"

For better or worse, Rose ignored her because flames were already shooting from the Doctor. They watched as the Doctor's body erupted into a gold light. He was screaming. Somehow Donna hadn't expected it to be like this. When he explained to her about regeneration, he had left out the pain, though she couldn't really expect death to be painless, it just hurt her to see him suffer and she knew the baby felt it as well. Donna tried to brace herself for the arrival of a floppy haired man who would shout about Jammie Dodgers.

Then suddenly he moved to the jar that held his spare hand. The energy all went in the jar and he smiled back at them, no floppy hair or bow tie in sight.

"What did you do?," asked Donna.

"You see? Used the regeneration energy to heal myself, but as soon as that was done, I didn't need to change. I didn't want to, why would I?" He tweaked his tie and winked at Donna. "Look at me! So, to stop the energy going all the way, I siphoned off the rest into a handy bio-matching receptacle - namely, my hand. My hand, there. My handy spare hand."

Donna approached carefully. She then threw her arms around him.

Rose looked affronted having to wait her turn.

"Yeah, Rose," Jack whispered, "might want to chill out a little with the hugging."

"She's not!," Rose hissed.

Suddenly, the power cut out. The Doctor leapt to the console with Donna following him.

"They've got us. Power's gone... some kind of chronon loop!," said the Doctor.

The TARDIS lurched dangerously. Donna fell into Jack.

"Okay, there you go," said Jack setting her straight. The Doctor shot a look over. Jack put his hands up as if surrendering. "There's a Dalek ship at the center of this. They're calling it the Crucible. Guess that's our destination."

Donna looked at the Doctor. "You said these planets were like an engine. What's it for?"

"Rose! You've been in a parallel world, that world's running ahead of this universe, you've seen the future, what was it?"

"It's the darkness," said Rose.

"The stars were going out," added Donna.

"And they were just dying. Basically, we've been building this um... this travel machine, this... uh... Dimension Cannon, so I could... well, so I could..."

"What?," asked the Doctor.

"So I could come back!," she said with a smile, laughing.

Donna shot the Doctor a look. This wasn't going to go well, even if they lived. His expression of bewilderment seemed to signal an an agreement. She then caught a glance at Jack trying to not make eye contact with anyone.

Rose continued on, blissfully unaware. "Anyway, suddenly, it started to work. And the dimensions started to collapse. Not just in our world, not just in yours, but the whole of reality, even the Void was dead. Something is... destroying everything."

"In that parallel world, you said something about me," asked Donna.

"The Dimension Cannon could measure timelines, and it's... it's weird, Donna, but they all seem to converge on you."

"What do you mean on me?," asked Donna. She found her hand drifting to her stomach again.

The TARDIS computer beeped.

"Dalek Crucible," announced the Doctor. "All aboard."

The TARDIS landed with a crash. The Doctor looked at Donna.

"We'll have to go out because if we don't they'll come in here."

"You said nothing could get through those doors," said Rose.

"You've got extrapolator shielding," Jack argued.

"Last time we fought the Daleks, they were scavengers and hybrids and mad. But this is a fully fledged Dalek Empire at the height of its power. Experts at fighting TARDISes, they can do anything. Right now, that wood door is just... wood."

Donna thought she was going to be ill. The Doctor squeezed her hand. Then all she could hear was the deafening sound of a heartbeat as the others rattled on.

This wasn't right. This wasn't what was supposed to happen. She had a baby! A baby that hadn't even been born yet, they couldn't die...

The heartbeat grew louder and louder,

"Donna?" The Doctor took her by the shoulders. "Donna."

"Yeah," she said finally snapping back to face him.

"I'm sorry, there's nothing we can do."

Donna nodded. "I know."

She was feeling ill and the pounding of the heart continued as the Doctor turned towards the door.

"It was good, though, wasn't it?" He turned to Rose. "You were brilliant."

Rose beamed.

Then he turned to Jack.

"You were brilliant."

Then he turned to Donna and took her hand in his. "And you were so brilliant, Donna Noble. Thank you, for everything."

He still didn't know. The best bit. The worst bit. She smiled at him. "Yeah," she agreed. "You weren't so bad, either."

"Blimey," said the Doctor. He moved to face the door and found Donna not moving with him. "Donna?"

"I just need a moment," she said. "I'll be right there."

The Doctor nodded. Rose moved to follow him first, then Jack.

Donna's hand drifted down to her stomach. "I'm sorry, Zara."

Then it got worse.

Donna braced herself, walked to the door and it slammed shut in front of her.

"No, no, no." She started banging on the door. "Doctor! Doctor! I'd like to come out now!" She rattled the handle. "Doctor! What have you done?!"

She heard him on the other side, trying the door. "I haven't done anything!"

"Oi, I'm not staying behind!"

"No, no, no..." She heard him shouting at the Daleks. "What did you do?!"

"Doctor, please," Donna begged, tears forming. Whatever was going to happen, she wanted to be with him.

Donna couldn't hear the Daleks' side of the conversation. "Stop it!," said the Doctor. "Open the door and let her out!"

Then the TARDIS fell. Donna grasped onto the railings. She was crying now. She crawled beside the console as fires sprang up around her from the floor grating.

Then she could hear that heartbeat and turned to the jar with the Doctor's hand in it.

It was glowing.

She didn't know why but she reached for it. She gasped, shaking as the glass smashed.

Then she watched as the hand grew into her husband.

Which was just weird.

"It's you," said Donna.

"Oh, yes."

"You're naked."

"Come on, Donna. Time and a place," he said with a wink.

He reached up and hit a button on the console. Donna watched in confusion as he started putting on a blue pinstripe suit and t-shirt.

"All repaired! Lovely. Shh! No one knows we're here. Gotta keep quiet. Silent running, like on submarines when they can't even drop a spanner. Don't drop a spanner. I like blue, what do you think?"

"You are bonkers!," Donna hissed.

"You like the blue suit! I know you like the blue suit, you think I look sexier in it than the brown but you never say anything!," he hissed back. "Wait. Two way biological metacrisis. I grew out of you. I know everything you like. I know-"

Donna watched as his eyes drifted towards her stomach.

Not the argument she had been expecting. Mostly since she had been expecting to have it with the Doctor, not the version of him that had just grown out of his old hand.

"You didn't say anything!," he whispered.

"You were being emo!," she hissed back.

"You don't get to make that decision alone! You should have told me!," he hissed back. "You were going to leave!"

"Yeah, thank God I didn't do that! Look at all this fun!"

"Shh! Spanners!"

"Well, what do you want to do? Discuss baby names?! I'm pretty committed to Zara so there! Done discussing!"

"No! Not done! What about Pocahontas?!"

"No! I'm not calling my baby Pocahontas! Are you insane?!"

"It's a name!"

There was something on the TARDIS monitor. The Duplicate walked over.

"The twenty-seven planets, that's...Single-stream Z-Neutrinos compressed into...no. No way..."

"What is it?," asked Donna.

He looked up. "The end of the universe."

"Great. As long as we're being specific."

He began babbling and dashing around the TARDIS and building some sort of ray gun.

"So, what is this thing?

"It's our only hope. A Z-Neutrino biological inversion catalyzer."

"Yeah. Earth girl, remember?"

He continued screwing it together. "Davros said he built those Daleks out of himself. His genetic code runs through the entire race. If I can use this to lock the Crucible's transmission onto Davros himself..."

"It destroys the Daleks?"

"Biggest backfire in history."

"And that'll work?," asked Donna.

"We're about to find out." The Duplicate finished and kicked a TARDIS lever with his foot. "Ready! Maximum power!"

The TARDIS stopped. The Duplicate looked at Donna. "Stay in here!"

"But-"

The Duplicate was giving her the super serious Doctor look. "No arguments! Your job, your only job today is keeping her safe and that means staying in here!"

The Duplicate ran out onto the Dalek Crucible. Donna watched from behind the door as he ran towards Davros with the ray gun. Electricity flew from his finger and knocked him down. An invisible holding cell sprang up around him, but the gun was outside it.

Donna ran towards it and picked up the device. "Doctor! What do I do?!"

Then that same finger sprang forth and struck her with electricity. She flew backwards into a heap.

"Donna!," the Doctor shouted. "Donna, are you alright?"

That's where things got different.

A/N: Wonder what happens... Reviews are like if I got paid to write this. That's probably not happening...