The Doctor felt cold fear crawl up his spine. He gasped and gathered Donna up in his arms, his eyes roaming the inside of the carrier, knowing from the sinking feeling in his chest that she was right: they were still very much in danger. And for all of his sweeping in to rescue her, it was her ability to read people that had just saved them both.
He watched the soldiers talking amongst themselves, their eyes occasionally sliding to the woman he clutched to him. How could he have been so blind? It had taken several false starts and a kingdom of bribes just to get on the planet, and he had been surprised at how much easier things had gone once he arrived. They had catered to his every 'whim', including the critical one: bringing him the "pleasure slave" he desired.
He might have been on higher alert if he had been able to think about anything else but Donna once he finally laid eyes on her. His own arrogance had taken over, he supposed, thinking they were doing his bidding. Stupid stupid stupid. He would have smacked his forehead but nothing and no one could make him loosen his hold on the woman in his arms.
He settled for a small sniff instead. Not wanting to set off their suspicions he carefully schooled his face back to a calm demeanor. Then he took a breath and looked to Donna, who for all of her talk and bluster she was just barely coherent. Looking around the carrier again he knew the time had come for the last resort. He just wasn't sure she would survive what he would have to put her through.
"Donna, do you feel strong enough to travel?" He tried to keep his tone light but the way her eyes locked on to his face he knew it had not come out that way.
She pulled back and looked at him with disbelief and frustration. He felt warmth fill his hearts as he recognized such trademark Donna scorn, and it helped offset his fear at how pale she looked. Even though she couldn't hold on to the idea of him all this time in captivity, she had never let go of Iherself./I She was so strong it never ceased to amaze him.
"I don't know if you noticed, Doctor, but we are already traveling. Unless you have the TARDIS hidden in those magic pockets I think we are going to have to figure out how to survive this ride."
He could hear the mounting panic underneath her incredulous tone and he tried to hush her gently. Not taking his eyes off of the soldiers in the carrier, his fingers slid down her wrist to her pulse, counting each heartbeat, still erratic and dangerously fast.
"I can't go back again." Her face crumpled from indignant to frightened without any warning and a single tear fell from the corner of her eye.
"Oh Donna. Don't worry, I will get us out of here, I just need to make sure you are strong enough to travel… I won't lose you again. Never again."
The Doctor cradled her to him again and crooned softly in her ear, and even though it broke his hearts to see the woman he loved so unusually openly fragile, gladness overwhelmed him at finally being able to give her the comfort she needed – and that he needed to give her.
Rocking her gently he felt her tears dampen his shirt. He was the only man she ever allowed to see her cry, even from the first day they had met, although her efforts to hide her tears from him then had just tugged at his heartstrings all the more.
From the second he had laid eyes on her on that grimy factory floor it had taken all of his willpower to remain calm and not go running to her right then, all he wanted to do was take her into his arms and never let go. To have her pull away from him instead, in fear and disgust, her eyes accusing him of taking her to use her body for his own ends…it made his gut twist. And if he was honest with himself, her rejection of him had sent his mind into a tailspin ever since. Nothing was right with the universe if she didn't know him, without her trust in him he hadn't been able to think straight until he got it back.
It was one of the accusations he resented most no matter where he encountered it, that he was abducting human women for his own pleasure. His mind traveled back again to the first day they had met, Donna brought on board the TARDIS against her will, frightened and shouty. Her eyes had held a glimmer of terror that was painfully clear to him no matter how much she tried to hide it behind brave bluster or otherwise deny it to herself. And just as he had on that first day, he had been desperate to take away her fear of him.
He knew that was simply her way of coping, of trying to have control over a situation that would have sent most girls cowering in a corner screaming if he had tried to examine them. When he had come at her with his instruments, trying to solve the mystery of how this bride had shown up in the console room, Donna had just given him a resounding slap instead, which had brought him up short and helped him realize how much she was scared after all. After that he had kept a respectful distance and shoved his hands in his pockets when he neared her.
He ihated/i the thought of any woman being afraid that he would hurt her, and for Donna to feel that way about him, after everything they had been through together, everything they had become, it was too much to bear. They had grown so close, it felt like not being able to trust himself.
He held her even closer, running his hands over her and feeling very grateful that she would let him, because right now the urge to protect her, to possess her body again like it was his own, was spiraling out of his control. She was his, he was hers, that was just how it Iwas/i.
It had not occurred to him to take into account how relatively brief a time they had been together on a more intimate level before she had been taken, because the emotion and closeness had been building between them so strongly for so long before that. But when he forced himself to remember how short that time had been it made heartbreaking sense that she had not incorporated him into the parts of herself she clung to during the hell she had been through. How like her to doubt the reality that someone loved her, loved her completely and without reserve, and to trust that he would find her, no matter what.
The Doctor murmured nonsense sounds of comfort, hoping desperately that he wasn't scaring her as he nonetheless was unable to stop himself from dropping reflexive kisses into her hair. He tried to reassure himself that she would stop him if he was making her uncomfortable; even last night, after everything she had been through, she was still threatening to 'kick his skinny ass out the door'. He smiled inwardly at the memory, steeling himself that if she had survived this far she could survive one final journey to get them home, safe, sound and together.
When she was breathing evenly again he worked his arm between them, using her body to shield them from prying eyes, and hoisted his foot up on the bench, sliding his trouser leg up just enough to show a bulky contraption strapped to his ankle.
"This will get us out of here, Donna, but it is a rough way to travel. I need you to be able to stand and hold on to me very tightly."
She met his worried gaze with a questioning look and a dubious sniff.
"It's a vortex manipulator," he continued. "Well, same idea anyway. It's of my own design, bit simpler, well, more circuitous microcircuitry, but not really any vortex arc feedback—"
She cut off his rambling explanation. "You said those things are too dangerous."
"Welllll, it is more limited than an actual vortex manipulator, so a bit safer although still a bumpy ride, ahum." He paused for a nervous grin as he tried to reassure her, or maybe it was himself he was hoping to convince. "More of a homing device really, but it should do the trick and get us back to the TARDIS, tout suite I might add. I… I was worried they would not let me on the planet to get you, this was my backup plan."
He felt her shiver in his embrace, and she turned slightly, still leaning into him, her eyes looking over the carrier like a caged animal. With a sigh, she locked eyes with him again and nodded.
"Whatever we need to do to get off this death trap, then. This wasn't your plan B, though, was it? If you had this all along then why even bother with the slave trading business?"
"Yes. Wellllll…." He scratched his head.
Her mouth set, and her determination to sniff out the truth behind his words filled his heart with pride. He exhaled in a rush.
"Traveling this way is very hard on a body and you have to be able to hold on very tightly, or at least let me hold our bodies together, and since you didn't want me to touch you..."
"Oh." She looked down for a moment, worrying at her lip again. "Well, why didn't you grab me and get us out of there?"
"You were… you thought I was there to… I..."
He cupped her cheek and she met his eyes again. He gave her a look that he hoped communicated how much it would have cost him to have to do something like that to her when he had already frightened her so badly.
He sniffed disconsolately and busied himself with unrolling his trouser leg then setting his foot back on the ground.
"There's more to it, anyway, Donna. We can't risk this much of a shock to your system with your heart already under too much strain. We need to get it slowed down before we can leave."
She licked dry lips. "I'm not sure I can do anything about that," she admitted.
He paused for a moment and softly stroked her hair. "I can help, but I need access your mind."
He spoke tenderly, sympathetically, but was not surprised when she started to tremble again. He slowly rubbed her forearms trying to avoid her cuts and bruises.
"Donna, landfall is almost here, we will have to make our move soon."
Donna leaned into him and turned around in his lap a little, her hands on his chest anchoring her to him. They both watched as the soldiers on the transport milled around, looking more and more impatient as time wore on.
Something in her expression shifted, seeming to give way and he studied her face, more worried than ever about her state of mind. Then she closed her eyes.
"I can hear their voices like they are disconnected from their bodies."
The note of panic in her words frightened him all the more. He put his hand over her wrist and felt her heart race dangerously fast, so without ceremony he pulled her into his lap and wrapped her legs around his waist. Her eyes flew open and went wide. His hearts sank as she tensed and tried to pull away.
"I'm not going to hurt you, I promise, but I need to get the best hold on you that I can."
His words seemed to reach her, as with visible effort she stopped struggling and watched him uncertainly. The Doctor reached deep into his pockets for the length of twine he had made sure to bring with him.
"Every time I open my eyes, it's like they are moving closer. Are they coming closer? Doctor?" Her voice wobbled and she gripped his shirt with all her might.
He wrapped the rope around them threading it through their clothes and looping it around even arms and legs, wrists and ankles, sensing all the while that his actions were attracting the soldiers' attention.
One of them, the closest one, leered at them, and called out to Donna provocatively. "If he's giving you a hard time, whore, we'll be more than happy to make things more fun for y—"
The Doctor replied swiftly, viciousness in his tone. "Close your mouth, soldier. I will remind you that you are in violation of your military law by taking the liberty of speaking with my property. I will not tolerate incursions into my territory. You open your mouth again and I will be in my full rights as the deed holder to come over there and cut out your throat."
The consequence he posed was dire enough that all the soldiers quickly averted their eyes, and the offending soldier skulked off far across the room. That his threats had worked so well indicated to the Doctor that they were probably safe until docking, and if he was guessing correctly, the soldiers would then move in and take Donna from him until he gave over the coordinates of the ore. He doubted that she would live much longer after that happened, neither of them would.
Once satisfied that he had stalled their advances, for now at least, he brought his eyes to the woman who would give him a piece of her mind if she had been able to understand his words that referred to her as something he had purchased. She was watching the men still, her shaking hands pressing against his body for unconscious stability. He dropped his voice.
"Please, just trust me, Donna."
Her blue eyes searched his and he could see her control slipping, could see the fear starting to take over. But she also put up no objections to his hands running over her body as he used the cord to connect them as thoroughly as he could. She kept looking up at him, only flinching once when he wrapped the rope around her torso.
"I don't even want to know what you are doing, do I?" she asked ruefully and he could see it in her eyes as she struggled to keep still for him as he threaded the rope under her arms one final time then began to tighten the cord, bringing their bodies together.
"I'll hold you as close as I can, Donna, but I am not going to risk losing you. This way even if we both let go we'll still make it through together."
She turned wide eyes to him again and something caught in his throat to see her so scared and yet so determined. He had missed her so much he could barely breathe at his happiness at having in her in his arms again, where she belonged.
Whatever she remembered of what had been happening between them before she was taken from him, or didn't remember, for now he just wanted, needed, to keep her close and never let her out of his sight again. There was nothing that had been taken from them that they couldn't rebuild. He hoped.
She nodded briskly suddenly. "Do it, then."
"Close your eyes, okay? I'm not going to do anything invasive, just think about your breathing, listen to my words, you are safe with me, I won't hurt you. I am the Doctor, I am going to get you out of here, and we are going to get back to the TARDIS, together."
She nodded again. His voice had become deep and hypnotic, his hands slowly moving up to her face until he was gently holding her head. She winced and stifled a whimper when his mind found hers.
"Just relax, you are safe, I am here," he soothed.
He brushed against her consciousness, very softly, letting her acclimatize to the sensations.
But for the Doctor the shock of being one with her in this way almost caused him to reel back. When he had first opened her mind to hear the Ood song there was a symphony of colors, the brilliance that she hid from the world was startlingly open inside her mind, evocative of so many dancing lights, red and blue and gold. He remembered it with clarity, and every time since then that she allowed him inside her beauty had stunned him, and he loved simply drifting in her essence.
Now he found her mind was a desert of drab and dark colors. The last year had leached away so much of her vibrancy. She was remarkable to have survived this long at all, but the toll it had taken was clear in this bleak landscape.
Taking a breath and getting his bearings he could see a light still shining in the farthest corner of her mind, grimly determined, albeit exiled to the part of her brain that mostly processed dreams. This small candle flickering in a starless night was all that was holding back the monsters that hid in the dark.
He wrapped himself around that fragile oasis and guarded it, using all of himself to manifest the light, to reflect and incense it to burn brighter. He showed her herself as he knew her and loved her, how she breathed life into him, the wonder, the confidence, the faith he had in her, he warmed her like oxygen to a flame, directly into the core of her.
At the same time he dulled the pain he could feel echoing inside her body. He could feel her gasp against him and stabilized her mind within his own in response, carefully keeping her suspended and unaware.
Then he opened his eyes, not surprised to find tears running freely down her face now. She didn't even seem to know she was crying anymore, she was obviously emotionally spent.
With a jolt he realized he had been inside her mind for longer than he had intended, and that the carrier had slowed significantly, preparing to dock. His eyes moved to take in the men in the room, and his blood ran cold to see how close they were, how aggressive their stance had become.
His hand fumbled to his ankle, putting in the activation code as quickly as he could. He tightened his hold on Donna, feeling her ribs under his hands as he prayed this would work and that she was strong enough to survive. Even as he pressed the buttons men advanced on them, one of their hands falling heavily on Donna's shoulder, another one grabbing at her leg where it was wrapped around his waist.
iHold on, Donna, just hold on./i
The last sounds he heard before he hit the switch were the angry yelling voices of the guards, the sound of ripping of fabric, then nothing.