The man crumpled, not as much as she would have liked, but still enough that his viselike grip on her windpipe loosened. She wriggled away, sorely tempted to kick him in the shins for good measure. Donna's mind whirled, debating whether the safer option was to just rejoin the fight downstairs. The pressure mounted in her head and she gasped, gripping her forehead. The more she thought, the greater the pain grew.
Then stop thinking! You never had a problem with that before!
But she wasn't playing house with a Time Lord mind before.
Someone had grabbed her shoulders. "What do you think you are doing, Donna Noble?" Lily was shouting. "You are going to get yourself killed!"
Donna growled, slapping her hands away. "And what? I'm safer in prison?"
"Lock her up and throw away the key." The green-eyed warden snarled.
Donna sneered back. "Like another helping, mate?"
"Enough of this." The boy snapped. His young voice carried the weight of wisdom and responsibility that an eight year old shouldn't have. When Donna had been eight, she was trying to see whether a dead pigeon would fit through her neighbor's mail slot. The boy tapped his wrist in an universal sign for move it. "We are all working to a schedule. Lilith, take the girl and get the supplies. I will meet you in the hangar. Captain, we need that map."
Donna glanced at the green-eyed man, surprised. Captain?
"In three." The Captain said. "Or you will be left behind."
"Aye." Said the boy.
"Yes." Said Lily.
Donna shrugged.
Donna trailed behind Lily as the other woman tore through the locker room after punching in the access code the Captain had given her. Lily glanced at the number emblazoned on Donna's overalls before thrusting a metal box at her. She sighed with relief as she spotted the vortex manipulator and strapped it to her wrist, just realizing exactly how naked she had felt without it.
Lily ignored her as she emptied other boxes before moving to another locker.
She examined the touchscreen combination lock before drawing back her fist and slamming it into the screen, shattering it in half.
"Holey moley," Donna breathed. Lily opened the locker before reaching in and drawing out a massive grey gun.
"You shoot?"
"At basketball or pool?" Donna asked warily. The other woman huffed to herself before slinging the rifle over her shoulder. She reached back into the locker and withdrew two long, wickedly curving blades. Donna bit her hand.
"You know how to use those?"
Lily flicked her wrist, leveling the blade at her neck.
"Want to find out?"
Donna snorted.
Once they had their weapons, Lily hustled Donna from the room, running. Lilith loped along in front of her with all the grace of a gazelle, while Donna puffed along. Time to start exercising.
The fight was still brawling below, and the next moment an alarm began wailing. Lily grimaced.
"They're onto us."
The hangar that Donna was led to was huge and stuffed with an amazing variety of spaceships, like it was a giant figurine collector's playpen. She stood there gawping before Lily grabbed her elbow.
The ship she was led to was black and sleek, but hardly elegant-looking. Scrambling up the open gangway and into the ship's hold, Lily led the way to the bridge.
The dark-haired boy was there, tapping away at the console. Donna spun around in a circle, trying to take in everything at once before staring out the plexiglass window that almost encircled the bridge, affording a 180 degree view.
As she wondered at the ship around her, the voices in her head were temporarily silenced.
"Now this is a space ship," She breathed.
Lily ignored her. "Where is the Captain?"
The boy didn't look up from his work.
"He still has one to go."
"He's cutting it fine," She grumbled.
"He always cuts it fine." The boy looked up, and Donna found herself skewered by his sharp gaze. "So, girl, who are you?"
Donna mentally regrouped for a moment.
"Not that I've got a problem with being called 'girl', coz I've long ago powered past those years, but I do have a name. Donna Noble. And I'm probably old enough to be yer mum."
The boy just smiled. "You would be surprised, Noble. What are you doing here?"
Donna shrugged. "Story of my life. Stuck my nose into the wrong thing."
The boy just cocked his head to the side, still with that strange little smile on his face. Donna scuffed her shoes.
"Oh, look, here he comes." Lily's voice was flat, but Donna could sense the relief. Donna stared down out of the bridge as the captain sprinted across the hangar.
There was a hitch in his stride that the Old Donna wouldn't have noticed. She blinked, and looked again, a feeling of familiarity stirring in her gut.
Familiarity originating from the Doctor's memories. The Doctor knew him, and something about it made him so sad.
A lance of pain spiked through her temple, and with a squeak she sank down into a chair.
"Donna?"
It was there in an instant. Burning. Searing. The roaring in her head was interminable, and Donna stared up at Lily through a sheen of tears.
"Help." She whispered. "Help-hel-he-"
It was starting again, and Donna wanted to scream. Lily's hands were clamped on her shoulders again, and Donna used the contact to try and centre herself.
Didn't work.
"Bay doors are open!" The Captain was breathless as he burst onto the bridge. "Go!"
It was only then that he noticed Donna. His eyes widened for a moment before his brow settled into lines of grim understanding.
"I don't know what's wrong with her!" Lily sounded astounded and frustrated that she had run into something that she couldn't conquer through brute force.
"I do." The captain elbowed Lily out of the way and took Donna's hands with a gentleness that belied the strength she had witnessed earlier. With a soft tug, he pulled her to her feet.
"Come with me."
Through the roaring of her mind, Donna was aware of the Captain leading her somewhere small and comfortable and silent. Her legs crumbled beneath her and she sank to the floor. The captain sat crosslegged opposite, reaching out to touch her temples like he was listening to the turmoil in her head. Tears rolled heedlessly down her cheeks, and Donna didn't bother to wipe them away.
The soft touch was so much like when the Doctor had cradled her head in his hands that Donna wanted to scream.
"You know what's going on." It wasn't a question.
"I am a human-Time Lord Metacrisis."
"You understand why." It wasn't a question.
Donna just stared unblinkingly at his face. Her world had narrowed to his green eyes and smooth voice. Her new Time Lord mind supplied the answer.
"Because my brain is too primitive to be able to process all the additional input."
"Yes and no." He said softly. "As an Earther, you do use the entirety of your brain, just not all at once. But the Metacrisis has turned on the entirety of your brain, and you simply don't have the memory space and processing power to sort through the information overload that your brain is picking through. You're trying to process everything at once. If you don't find a way to contain the input, your brain will overload."
"So I'm going to die." It was one thing to know it in her head, but it was another entirely to hear someone else say it out loud.
"Not necessarily." The captain gave a small smile and in that moment Donna was struck by how handsome he was when he wasn't in a snit. Or maybe he got good looking the moment he mentioned that there might be a way to get around having a brain meltdown. Like an emotional placebo effect.
"How?" She whispered.
"We need to slow and cap the flow of information." His fingers drew small circles on her temples. The raging in her head dimmed slightly as she focused on his touch. "This is a little trick I learned. I want you to imaging yourself in a safe place."
Donna's eyes drifted closed. Suddenly she was back in the TARDIS, in the labyrinth of corridors and the random doors leading to nowhere.
"See the Time Lord. He's standing there, in front of you."
He was there, the Doctor, hands outstretched and waiting to obliterate her mind.
"That Time Lord is all the memories and knowledge that is tearing you apart. Take them and lock them behind a door."
Donna was staring at the Doctor's mournful face, her resolve shaking.
"The door is made of you, that stubbornness and ass-blasted bullheadedness. Your resolve. You are strong. You can win. You will win.
"Now shut the door."
The Doctor just looked at her.
"You can love the Time Lord, but the Time Lord is killing you. Shut the door and lock it tight."
"Sorry." Donna whispered, before closing the door in the Doctor's face.
"You don't need him to be who you are."
The roaring and pain in her head was slowly subsiding to a dull throb. After a long moment, her eyes slid open.
The captain was still gently holding her head, his expression grave.
"You've got a little gold in your eyes." The words came unbidden. Donna could have kicked herself for the besotted note in her voice. She jerked herself back out of his hands, falling back on her butt.
"What did you do to me?" She demanded. Her head didn't hurt. It didn't hurt at all.
"I only helped." He flexed his fingers. "It was you that isolated the memory locales and stopped the processing." He gave her a stern look. "It's not permanent."
Donna let out a breath. "As long as it buys me time, I can figure out something."
He looked grim at her forced optimism. "The more you access the Time Lord's memories, the more your mental faculties will break down." He warned.
"Then I guess I'll have to rely on my Earth can-do spunk." Donna gave him a sheepish look. "Um, thanks. And sorry for the, ah, you know, kick in the jewels."
He gave a wry smile, and then Lily stuck her head around the door frame. Instead of the blue prison jumpsuit, she was now in loose pants, big boots and a breastplate of sorts. "I heard voices." She said. "Are you done?"
The captain eyed Donna sideways. "For now."
Donna's eyebrows rose. "Promises, promises." She said innocently. The captain's eyes narrowed at her.
The corner of Lily's mouth kicked up in a smirk. "We'll be there soon. The boys want a debriefing."
Donna cocked her head to the side. "That's what she said." Then it hit her. "What? Where are we? We've left the prison?"
Lily just looked at her. "You've been here for five days."
Donna's jaw dropped.
"All right." The Captain rose to his feet, a slight hitch in his lithe grace, making to follow Lily back to the bridge.
At the door he stopped, turning to look back at her.
"Are you coming?"
Donna grinned. She had no idea what the hell was going on, but had a sneaking suspicion it was going to be interesting to find out.
One day she was going to learn not to tempt fate.