It had been over a day now, Sylvia had gone back to the house to get food for them all while the men stayed behind, still waiting. There was no way for them to estimate how long it would be, there was no way they could say that it would definitely work, it had never been tried on human-timelord metacrisis before, but the doctor knew it worked on both humans and timelords so he still had hope at this point.
"DOCTOR! WHAT THE HELL AM I DOING IN BED?!" That was the most relieved anybody had ever felt to hear Donna Noble scream, ever in the history of the universe. "OI, ANSWER ME SUNSHINE!" Thank god she's still my Donna. The Doctor thought, as he heard the shouts come nearer and footsteps get louder. As soon as she was inside the control room, the Doctor had hold of her in the tightest hug she had every received from him, What's happened? She thought. He only acts like this when he's extremely relieved or scared for our lives. He kept a tight hold of her, like he wanted to make sure she was actually there, he took in her smell, her perfume had always been overpowering and burned his nose but it seemed like a relaxing sensation now.
"Thank god you're alright! We were all so worried about you, at least you know who I am and where you are-" He was about to start in to one of his rants and Donna knew it so she had to cut him off.
"WHAT? Why would I not know who you are Doctor, has something happened? Where exactly are we, the last thing I remember is dropping Rose and you off in the parallel universe then you saying you were going to have to take me home, but I'm still here. How is that?" Donna asked confusedly, the Doctor just smiled, gazing in admiration at his fiery red-head.
"Donna? Donna, are you alright? Thank god you're awake, why didn't you come and get me Dad? For goodness sake, now come here you, you gave us all a right fright you did!" Sylvia ran in, just on cue, rambling about how worried she'd been and confusing Donna further.
"What on Earth has happened? Don't you dare make a witty remark spaceboy, just answer my question! And how come my mother and grandfather are on the bleeding TARDIS, are you mad?" Still the same old Donna, everybody in the room thought, still our Donna.
"Wait, you don't remember any of it? But that was four months of your life, you can't just have forgotten them, surely Doctor?" Sylvia asked, her thoughts still muddled in her head, looking for an explanation. "I don't understand."
"Are you telling me that I've lost my memory?" Everyone was trying to answer everybody else's questions but no-one was getting any answers, Donna was in need of lots of answers so she took charge like her typical self. "SHUT UP! We all want to know what's happened to me, most of all I do! The Doctor is most likely to know so I'm going to listen to him, unless you're a timelord, keep your lips sealed, got it?" All three of them went quiet and just looked at her, at least she was still their Donna, she always would be though, nothing could change that.
The Doctor began explaining everything, it took him a while to get everybody to understand but in the end he succeeded. He also had to explain the cure, well it wasn't exactly a cure but it did put an end to their troubles.
"It's regeneration energy. The meta-crisis made you half-timelord but you're regeneration cells were still dormant, they needed to be activated so you could regenerate. Now listen, you're only half timelord which means you only have one heart, but you still have about six lives, half a normal timelord." To Wilf and Sylvia - it had gone straight over their heads- it was a foreign language, but Donna understood every word. This meant that she really could stay with the Doctor forever, like she'd always dreamed of, now it would be forever for him too.
"You mean...?" Donna had to be sure, there was still a little bit of doubt, somewhere in the back of her mind. All he did was nod, and she hugged him like there was no tomorrow, nothing could pull them apart now. "Forever?"
"Forever." He reassured her, talking into those gorgeous red locks that he had come to love. Interrupting their moment of perfect silence, Sylvia wanted an explanation.
"Would you mind explaining that to us normal humans now?!"
This is going to be an awkward conversation, The Doctor and Donna both, as if telepathically, shared this thought.