Big thanks for comments. If my weird English is not putting you off - enjoy:) There's more to come.

.8. The Journal of Impossible Things

"You travelled with the Doctor!"

"It doesn't mean I can fly the TARDIS!"

"You still have got the key!"

"And I did let you in, remember? You held the controls as well and I was under impression you knew what you were doing! Why does it have to be my fault?"

"I knew what I was doing!"

"Me too!"

"But I can't remember why I was doing it!"

"Neither do I!"

"You try to be so clever, all of you," said Mickey, getting in between Jack and Martha. "But none of you have any idea what had happened then. Rose said one day that the Doctor was... eerm... a part of the ship, so to say, and when the Doctor was broken... I mean ill... we couldn't understand the Sycorax's speech, even though she should have translated it all the time... in our heads. Take away the Doctor, and TARDIS is just a wooden box... Slightly bigger on the inside. But just a box."

"Rose had managed to return to the Game Station." With some difficulty Jack turned his flaming gaze from the face of excited Martha. "As far as I'm aware, against the Doctor's will. She had flown the TARDIS. How did she do that?"

"Rose..." Mickey hesitated slightly. "Rose looked into the TARDIS's heart. She asked TARDIS to take her to the Doctor."

"I have been asking her to do that for the last twenty-four hours," grumbled Martha. "I'm asking, and I'm threatening, I'm pleading and I'm imploring. At times I'm begging."

All three of them turned towards the blue police box placed in the middle of the underground hall in the Torchwood Hub. The box stood innocently, buzzing quietly, just above the auditory threshold.

"Maybe we are all overreacting."

Jack looked towards Gwen, standing further back, with a scanner pointed towards the TARDIS.

"Maybe we're overreacting," repeated Gwen. "Maybe he's fine. Maybe he found that man's body and decided to play a detective. And now he wonders what the hell happened to his ship."

"We are not overreacting." Jack pushed his fists into the trousers' pockets and marched towards the hall's exit so quickly that the others had to run to keep up.

"Does Ianto have any leads?"

"Traces of alien DNA. We don't have it in our database," gasped Gwen. "Lacerated wounds, caused by fangs, maybe claws. Or an alien weapon, based not on metal but on biological compounds."

"As what, a wooden knife?" asked Mickey uncertainly.

"Or bone," replied Gwen. "In any case, it was not made of any known material. But my bet is on claws. Nevertheless..."

"We are not overreacting," repeated Jack, entering the main Hub's hall, the one with a central pillar of the mirror sculpture supporting the high ceiling. "We have an abandoned ship and a corpse. We have traces of an alien DNA. And something else."

"What?"

"Would you care to follow me to my office, Miss Jones? And you, Mickey."

"What about us?" Ianto stuck his neck out of the line of his computer screens. "We would not follow you to the office?"

Jack looked at him pointedly.

"No," murmured Ianto. "I s'pose not. Torchwood is off the quest list."

Gwen raised her eyebrows.

"Bloody Time and Space Travellers Circle," she hissed. "The elite."

"At least you know how your ex-workmates must feel," summarised Ianto calmly.

"But it was us who were stuck frozen in the time bubble, with the Dalek pointing the gun at us." Gwen shook her shoulders. "Always frozen in the time bubble... Jack!"

"Fine, c'mon." Jack leaned over the stair's railing. "You may as well join us. It won't be a secret anymore, anyway."

"What?" asked Gwen, but Ianto was already speeding towards the office.

"What won't be a secret?" she repeated, entering the office. Jack, standing behind his cluttered desk with his hands resting on its work surface, raised a tired gaze.

"Donna Noble," he said quietly. Martha and Mickey shifted uncomfortably; Martha folded her arms.

"Is something wrong with Donna? Is she missing as well? What happened?" Gwen moved a chair and sat down on the opposite side of the desk. "What is the secret?"

"For a brief time Donna Noble shared the awareness of the Time Lord," said Jack. "Through the same process that created the Second Doctor, Donna was given the knowledge beyond the powers of the human brain. Donna Noble saved the Universe. DoctorDonna."

For a moment there was silence.

"Is it even possible?" Ianto spoke at least.

"Apparently not quite." Jack moved a hand across his face and heavily sat down behind the desk. "Human brain cannot sustain such knowledge. Donna couldn't keep that awareness... and live. The Doctor removed all her memories; Donna cannot remember him, their travels or the events on the Crucible. She cannot remember who she had become because of the Doctor. If she remembers, even for a while, her mind will burn. If she remembers – she'll die."

"That's... terrible," said Gwen after a long silence. "I can't understand half of what you've said, but it... it's... terrible..."

"How could he..." began Ianto.

"It was the only solution. The only way out. The only way to save her."

"I'd rather die. It's worse... It's like Alzheimer's... Were I to forget you..."

Ianto blushed suddenly, and Gwen smiled at him compassionately.

Jack took a deep breath, reached into the desk's drawer and took out a plastic covered notebook printed in large pink and yellow flowers.

"Martha, I think you'll recognise this," he said.

"Hmm?"

Jack pushed the notebook across the work surface. Surprised, Martha picked it up and thumbed through its pages. Mickey, Gwen and Ianto watched tensely as Martha's face started to change. Her eyes widened, colour crept on her cheeks. After a while she exhaled loudly.

"O, God. O, my God!"

"What is it?" asked Mickey.

"It is Donna's notebook. It was sent to me by Wilfred Mott, her Grandfather. He was alarmed, and not without a reason. This is where she has been writing down her dreams."

"A dream diary?" repeated Ianto.

Martha lowered the notebook on the work surface, so that everybody could see, in the circle of light cast by a desk lamp, Donna's elegant, clear handwriting. And drawn in the middle of the page, between the lines, the blue police box.

"You've seen something like that," said Jack.

"Yes." Martha turned a couple of pages. The exploding volcano. A creature holding a ball in its hand – with eyes coloured red. The sonic screwdriver. Rows of library bookshelves, hid in the shadow of inked lines. The markings which used to appear on the TARDIS's scanner. The ship's centre – a crystal column. The Doctor's face. The Doctor's faces. Repeated over and over again on consecutive pages.

"Yes. I have seen something similar. When the Doctor had used the Chameleon Arch to hide from the Family of Blood. He had forgotten he used to be a Time Lord, he reprogrammed his body and brain, and became human. But he had those dreams. He kept a dream journal. Just like this one."

"Does that mean she remembers?" Mickey became alarmed.

"They were just dreams," protested Martha. "He didn't believe them. He thought they were creations of his vivid imagination. He wouldn't believe even when I confronted him with the evidence. Only when the fob watch was opened..."

"Donna never used the Chameleon Arch," interrupted Jack. "And she does not think these dreams are creations of a vivid imagination. Wilfred claims that she's confused and terrified. She suspects, she's loosing her mind."

"O, my God," whispered Gwen.

"She may lose much more than just her mind," added Jack.