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.16. Donna Noble and TARDIS

The moment turbulences stopped, Donna jumped up from the floor, hands pressed to her temples, tears in her eyes. She could not give up; not now. The whole universe rushed around her; no, all universes, all possible universes; but now she had to be Donna. Just Donna. Even if only for a moment, she had to damp down this horrible fire, consuming her from within. Even if just for a moment, even if just for a while.

(I burn, but I'm not consumed.)

She staggered and would have fallen but for Jack who supported her. Martha grabbed her other arm. With tremendous effort Donna drew up a scanner's screen.

"I can't see him," she muttered. "I don't know... I don't know... where..."

Harkness looked at the screen leaning above her shoulder; she could feel the warmth of his breath on her cheek.

"But there's nothing here," he said. "Nothing. Donna..."

"There!" Martha tapped upper right corner of the scanner with her finger. "Is this a ship? A rig?"

"Oooh, we have to get there!" Donna took in all the controls, suddenly so alien and incomprehensible. She reached to them knowing she would not make it without letting this horrible presence inside her brain speak up; without embracing knowledge, which poisoned her. And then, in the darkness of space something flashed – a tiny blip of light amongst the stars, so easy to overlook, almost indefinable.

Donna just groaned, instantly knowing what (or who) was that shape, materialising out of nothing in the void of space. Her hands found correct levers before she even realised what she was doing (and anyway, she had no clue what she was doing and what was going on around her most of the time now.)

"YES!" She moved last lever with a flourish, picked up a hammer from below the cockpit and whacked it into the steering panel.

"HA!"

The Doctor's body materialised next to the door.

The Doctor's body.

Donna lowered her hand and pushed away the certainty of failure a Time Lord's consciousness offered. She walked slowly towards the TARDIS's door.

The Doctor lay eagle-splayed on the floor. Sorrowful, really, as she once had said: 'too thin for words.' She had made a joke then – something about paper cuts. It didn't seem so funny anymore, now when he seemed so hopeless, so fragile. Dead.

No, it couldn't be. The TARDIS wouldn't fly, if the Doctor died. If he died without Donna. Without both of them. But the TARDIS had been mistaken before; even she could get lost in the meanders of time and space, especially if time and space was full of cracks, paradoxes and anomalies. So the TARDIS had been appearing too early. Or too late. Too late.

Jack reached him first, grabbed him by his shoulders and lifted his limp body in a desperate hug.

"Doctor? Doctor?!"

There was no answer, and Jack's face contorted in pain, as he wrapped his arms around Doctor's slim shoulders. He started rocking, involuntary, as if he was soothing a baby having a nightmare. A dream of metal monsters, sliding softly across streets and lawns of ordinary human world, and shooting radioactive green rays of deadly energy.

Donna was next to reach the Doctor. Outrageous amount of running – she thought madly. But she did not run; she could hardly drag her feet. Nevertheless, she was out of breath and her face was sweaty. And her mind – blimey, her mind was absolutely brimming with thoughts, and ideas, and visions and voices. So, that is how you get mad. She couldn't bear it; she knew with terrible precision that she wouldn't last very long. She was burning like an electric arch, too bright to be gazed upon; too scary to be touched; deadly.

Jack looked at her through tears; his cheeks were glossy and silver and his eyes reflected golden light of sparks bursting from the TARDIS's walls. He looked so pretty, so young, so heartbroken. His hands were stained with blood.

"We are too late, Donna."

"No, we are not. He's a Time Lord, and he can regenerate."

"But he's not doing it," Jack's voice broke up for a second but then he continued harshly. "He's not regenerating. Why?"

"How the hell shall I know?!"

Donna almost pushed him away. She wanted to take a closer look at the Doctor. What she didn't want was to be told, that he was dead already, and that their entire rescue mission was just a pitiful joke. The mission and her own life, burning now... burning bright... ferociously running towards the end.

"Let me see!"

Jack, ever so slowly, too slowly, opened his arms, and let the Doctor lie on the floor. He cautiously rested his head, and Donna noticed that the Doctor's eyes were slightly open. His large, deep, old eyes. Lustreless. Cold. Unmoving.

"Doctor? Doctor?! DOCTOR?!"

Oh, brilliant. There she was again – Donna Noble – shouting at the world. Does nothing really change? Was she still the same loud, silly woman who had met him a year and a half ago, dressed in that ugly wedding dress, anticipating the greatest adventure of her life, and pushed into another one – way grater? Was she still so pathetic? So weak? So stupid?

"Please..."

Her heart jumped as his eyelids fluttered suddenly. He opened and closed his mouth, wordlessly. And then his dark eyes looked at her, through her – still distant and unfocused. She could tell how far he already was, but she could also tell that he wasn't completely lost. She let out a loud sigh of relief, and as he tried to concentrate his eyes on her, she started to sob and tremble, repeating his name over, and over and over again. Jack put his hand on her shoulder. She grabbed his fingers and squeezed them so hard, he grimaced in pain.

Pupils of the Doctor's eyes were wide. They contracted slowly as he tried to recognize the people sitting on the floor next to him. He seemed tired even with this simple reflex action. He moved his head, opened his mouth again and whispered a breathy, almost inaudible word:

"D... Donna...?"

"It's me, Doctor! It's me! It's Donna!"

"Donna Noble...? My... Donna...?"

"Yes! Oh, yes! Yes, Doctor, it's me!"

"What... what... where...?"

"Shush, shush now, don't speak, shush.'

"Donna... You're not... It's not... What's going on?" He finally managed to focus his gaze on her, and now his eyes were wide with surprise and fear. "What are you doing here? Jack? What is she... Donna? You're not here. You can't be... Can't... Can't-youcan't-youcan't..."

"We need to take you closer to the light, Doctor." It was Martha's voice, quite calm and decisive. Doctor Jones, always able to come to grips with the situation. Donna looked up, and saw Martha standing behind her, hands on her hips, head cocked, twist of jet black hair jutting up from hurriedly made top-knot. "Jack, can you manage?"

"Sure."

And why shouldn't he? Donna thought that since their last meeting the Doctor lost the last of physicality, turning into some ghostly apparition. No weight, no meat on those bones, just messy hair falling over large, dark eyes, and a little spark of will that still kept him alive. Silently, she started crying again.

Jack lifted the Doctor with ease, as if he was carrying a baby. Metal mesh resounded under his heavy boots.

"There," Martha pointed to the floor next to the central column. She put Jack's coat there. "Put him down. There's no time."

"Out of time," said the Doctor quietly. "Me... a Time Lord... Just... how pathetic is that...?"

"Oh!" Martha unbuttoned the Doctor's suit and shirt and flinched at the sight of the wound in his chest. "Oh, that's... It's gonna be fine," she restrained herself almost immediately. "Doctor? It's gonna be just fine, you'll see."

"He pierced my heart," whispered the Doctor.

"You have another one." Martha gave him a weak smile while covering the wound with bandages, handed to her by Ianto.

The Doctor groaned, tautened and coughed. Blood appeared in corners of his mouth.

"But maybe you should... you know... regenerate," Martha suggested. Her chin was trembling. Although she tried to hide it, her face reflected hopelessness. She had looked the same before, when the Doctor had held dying Jenny in his arms.

"Yes." He coughed again and his eyes rolled under his eyelids.

"He's not strong enough!" called Donna, again accessing alien, burning memories. "All the energy... burned out... used up. He can't regenerate, oh, he won't be able to!"

"Donna,' Martha grabbed her hand with bloodstained fingers. "Can you do something?"

"Do... what? Donna? Do what?"

Ignoring the Doctor's urgent whispers, Donna kneeled down quickly, and put her hand over his icy forehead. She outstretched the other arm, until her fingers touched the alien metal of TARDIS's core covers. She closed her eyes.

"No," said the Doctor weakly. "Don't."

It rushed through her again, the gigantic wave, the vortex, time and space, all the maybes and iffs, endless possibilities, paradoxes and truths, beginnings and ends, fixed points and floating events, names and places, dates, deaths and sorrows, memories so ancient, they had no form, no vision, and precognitions of futures so distant, she could not grasp their meaning. And she was the Creator and the Destroyer, Love and Hate, Life and Death, she was Rose. And she was a Time Lord, with all the knowledge and all the pain. Timeless as the Universe. Powerful as a God. Burning in her tight flesh, burning with eternal flame of the time vortex, getting crazier by the minute, happy as she had never been before, sad to the extent she could never imagine. I am a Time Lord... Burn with me... And I divide them... It's gone, it's gone, it's gone, it's gone... Everything must die... Molto Bene... They always survive... Run... Every man is a sum of his memories... Bad Wolf... No, don't...

Donna's arms ignited with gold and orange blaze. After a while all her body was surrounded by unearthly light, swirling like an airy veil; strands of her hair floating around her face, as if she fell into a shaft of hot air. Her wide opened eyes were nothing but flame. Bright glow moved down her hand towards the Doctor, enclosing him in the radiant cocoon. Donna tilted her head, opened her mouth and started screaming, exhaling waves of golden light.

Jack rolled away and, half-lying on the floor, covered his eyes with his forearm. Gwen and Ianto cowered under the walls, completely blinded by the blaze flowing from the TARDIS's cockpit, through Donna and into the Doctor. Martha was the only one to keep presence of mind, or the only one brave enough to come closer, pneumatic syringe full of Amnesia clutched in her trembling hand.

"That's enough, sweetheart," she said gently, pressing the syringe to Donna's neck. "You've found him. That's enough."

She squeezed the trigged and contents of the Amnesia phial was injected straight into the other woman's carotid, almost instantly extinguishing golden light, interrupting the amazing energy transfusion, closing Donna's eyes and submerging her in a deep, unnatural sleep.