Doctor Who

Because Your Special

Perfect Time Lord Prison

They were dropped in a round white room with odd circular indents wider than dinner plates on the walls. It was so poorly lit that it took Donna a moment of searching to find the faint outline of a door on the far wall. Closer by, bolted to the wall, was a bed with a thin pristine white mattress.

"Oh my God." Donna stumbled to a corner to retch.

Vaguely, as she emptied her stomach, she heard James screaming that he wouldn't stand for this. Something about he was the Doctor and he'd stop them. Flashes of the sonic screwdriver's light came on and off in erratic spurts as he bleeped up and down the doorway. After a few minutes, he was still angry, standing with crossed arms and glaring bitterly at the door.

Donna realized he was powerless. He couldn't save her this time. They'd already made their last-stand on the beach.

James kicked the door a few times before going to sit, sulkily on the bed.

"Did that help?" Donna asked, tucking one arm across her chest and wiping at her mouth.

"It made me feel better, yeah. Well, except for my toes." He flipped his sonic in the air, rhythmically catching and releasing as he stared at the floor. "I should have tried combining Rehrollo's transmat scrambler with static type three…they were likely to have been compatible. It might have given us a few more minutes."

"With your sonic?"

"Yeah. Maybe if I'd tried a more inventive transmat scrambling technique…Of course, it wouldn't have helped much with that stupid pompous fez Doctor on their side—knowing all my moves…" He looked up, blue eyes earnest and sad, "I'm sorry."

"Me too." Donna wandered over to sit next to him. He took her hand in his, almost immediately. "It would have been nice to not be anything special or important. Just be the Doctor and Donna in the TARDIS… off to see the galaxy."

"Yeah. Did I mention I was going to ask you to travel with me? I'd been wanting to ask, hand you a key and all that stupidness, but the time—it never seemed right."

Donna laughed, a harsh empty sound, "That's what all this is about. Isn't it? Not the right time."

"Okay. Okay. Now is not the right time to make a pun about the right time."

"You daft martian."

"Get it?"

"I get it."

They sat in silence. Donna didn't want to look at the door. To just sit and wait for the woman to come and separate them…well, not forever, but for a very long time. And it would never be like this. They'd be together again…and it might be good, dazzling, brilliant and fun in the future. Maybe. But it would never be like this again.

It would never be James and Donna bickering like an old married couple—half-ready to kill each other—half-ready to fall in love.

"So…?" James turned, looking at her. Frowning, he spit on a finger and wiped at her face.

"Oi, stop that." She pushed his hands away.

"What happened to you?"

"I bit my tongue and threw up. Oh and I was kidnapped by mean "time fixers"."

"Gotta look after yourself." He squeezed her shoulder. "'cause, you know what? Looks like my Prince Charming license is being revoked in about…ten minutes."

"How do you figure ten minutes…?" Donna asked wearily.

"The woman said she'd wiped all the Doctor's minds—meaning that she's the most experienced telepath among these…people…and since it would take a Time Lord at least fifteen-minutes to time to wipe another Time Lord's mind clean…and…" he babbled on, very factually, using grand hand gestures, "…so it will take them about ten minutes on Ace because she's human. That's, of course, assuming that they didn't run into any issues processing those at the beach-party."

"Naturally." Donna replied flatly. She flopped backward on the bed. Suddenly she remembered what he'd said to her in the boat after he'd attacked Pinstripe Boyfriend. She didn't want them to part with the last meaningful thing he'd said to her was an insult. Donna turned to look at him. "Am I really obnoxious?"

"Oh yeah. Most irritating woman in at least four galaxies." He flopped next to her, propping himself up on one elbow and grinning goofily. "But then, again, so am I."

"Seriously, you? You're a woman?"

"Oi!"

"Oi!" Donna replied automatically, "Still, you're the Doctor. Savior of the Galaxy. Time Lord Wonderful. You? Obnoxious?"

"Have you not met my other incarnations?" He raised an eyebrow and pretended to look serious. "That reunion would have been murderous if the companions hadn't been there."

Donna chuckled and then sobered, her lips inching into a sad smile. "Poor Leela will never know she almost found true love."

"And Peri will forget the high-land…flingy-hands stompy-dance thing…"

"And Jo'll forget that the Doctor cheats at cards…"

"Counts cards."

"Still cheatin'…" Donna reached for James hand, winding her fingers through his, "And Ace's little crush on Cricket-Lord—"

"Cricket-Lord?" James cackled slightly. He shoved himself upright, shaking his head, and waggling a long finger at her. "You can't call me Cricket-Lord."

"Listen here, mate, if you are wearing tan and keep trying to start up cricket teams every five minutes, you have got to be called Cricket-Lord. It's like… I dunno, what the word is…inevitable."

Head resting against the wall behind them, James smiled softly down at her. Shadows flitted about his eyes and there was a sad and dark look in his gaze. "Inevitable."

Inevitable. Just like her losing all her memory of James and going back to her normal life of temping and trying to find true love when everything was against her. Even time itself, apparently. Donna thumped her head against the mattress, feeling the hard metal slab beneath.

"I don't want to talk about it…" Donna looked up, "You didn't happen to have some amazing plan to get us out, did you?"

"Nope. A perfect Time Lord prison." He pointed to the wall, "TARDIS-grade metal-infused coral. Now, you might be able to resonate through it by using multiple sonic devices all attuned at similar frequencies placed…there, there," the Doctor pointed haphazardly at various places along the wall, "and there…"

"But you've got only the one sonic screwdriver."

"Yeah." He sounded a little apologetic. The Doctor slinked down the wall, copying her position so that he was also lying on his back.

"How about bleeping the door?"

"Thing is…" James crossed his arms, "that the door's triple dead-locked."

"And it doesn't do "triple dead-locked"?"

"Nah. Doesn't even do just a single dead-locked. Doesn't even do wood."

"Useful gadget." Donna sighed.

"Oi! It is, it's very good at…reversing polarity of the neutron flow…and putting up cabinets and posters and loosening lids on pickle jars."

"So…this is it then." Donna tried to guess how much time they had left. Five minutes? Six? She twisted to look at James' wrist. It was empty with a slight pale shadow where his watch normally rubbed against his skin. Right, one usually didn't wear a watch while scuba-diving. She swallowed hard. "Okay, Time Lord, how much time do we have left?"

"I'm a Time Lord," He said, exasperatedly, his accent seeming more pronounced, "Not an alarm clock."

"I thought you could feel time passing and all that amazing stuff. What sort of lousy time-related alien are you?" She teased.

The Doctor rolled his eyes and made a soft derogatory comment about apes and humans. Shifting to lay on his side, facing Donna, he stared past her and then closed his eyes. His fingers twitched lightly and rhythmically like they were following the cue of a distant metronome. "Four minutes."

"Four minutes to say goodbye." Donna said softly. For the life of her, she couldn't think of anything profound to say. All of it was too mushy and "domestic". Phrases like, "I will never be the same again" and "You've changed my life" were all too true and too clichéd. Of course, pending a certain "date" with an old mind-wiping alien soldier, they would all mean nothing and never be remembered. Just like everything they'd done together. Everything she'd seen. Everywhere they'd went.

"Don't get all weepy." He warned, "I don't do well comforting people."

"I guess there's no point in saying goodbye though. Won't remember it." Donna paused, suddenly realizing what he'd just said, "Weepy? Oh, sunshine, I only cry over old boyfriends and really good X-factor episodes. Besides," Belying her words, she felt liquid squeezing out of the corner of her eyes, "my face is pretty much wrecked already without me getting all emotional."

"You know what, Donna?"

She blinked hard, wiping at her nose, "What?"

"You were fantastic." He smiled broadly, "I think we were even friends."

"Yeah." She smiled back, "Wow. That came out a bit fast…long time since I've had a best-mate. I mean a real one. Not a Nerys."

"Donna, can I ask you something stupid?"

Donna laughed, slicking her cold damp bangs out of her face. Looking down at him, she noticed that his face was earnest and his smile had gone. "Alright, sunshine, shoot."

"Okay, it's stupid. A really big stupid question. And since our brains are scheduled to be squash in three minutes, you can laugh all you like." He propped his head up with both hands beneath his head. "Did you love me—?"

"Seriously?" Donna shook her head, "You're always on me about flirting and telling me that Time Lords "don't do that" and now—at the last second—you want me to get all romantic?"

He rolled into a sitting position, crossing his arms and staring at the floor. "I know, I know. It's not that I want to snog or anything—"

Donna rubbed at her face, glancing at him sourly, "Thanks for nothing."

The Doctor turned to her, raising his eyebrows. His beautiful eyes flickered over her face. "You want to snog?"

"No…well, I don't know! You're the one that brought it up!"

The Doctor smiled. "So you love me?"

Donna punched him in the arm, forcing herself to a sitting position and staring at the door. She half-imagined she heard the footsteps of their captors.

"You love me. Right? Not the fantastic adventures and the genius of the Doctor."

"You are the Doctor, sunshine."

"My point is," He swept some hair from her forehead, smiling gently at her, "not just any version of me…just me."

"Why does it matter?" Donna's voice had grown soft. She realized she was leaning towards him, staring into his eyes. She blinked, withdrawing. If only she hadn't been vomiting a minute ago, she really would have snogged him.

"Because it's not fair that he gets both you and Rose."

"Who? Your replacement persona?" Donna's hand twitched, longing to slap him. But since they were moments away from being separated, and he wouldn't remember anyway, she tightened her jaw and glared at him. "So as long as I'm not head over heals with Pinstripe Doctor, my feelings barely matter! It doesn't matter if I love you at all, just as long as I don't love someone else!"

"Donna," He cupped her face in his hands, staring at her, "In a few minutes, your love will be the only thing that'll matter. You can erase memories, edit the facts. You can't change feelings."

Donna bit her bottom lip, feeling oddly feminine and weak, "Do you love me?"

With a grating, scraping sound, the door to their prison was unlocked and pushed aside. Stepping lightly inside, the old woman smiled at them. "I knew you were a couple."

The Doctor rose, standing protectively in front of Donna, his arms crossed. "'bout time you greet your guests! Quite rude, inviting us in and ignoring us! Didn't you parent's teach you the basics of hospitality?"

"I'm loomed," The woman said flatly, "like all of my siblings."

"Loomed?" Donna questioned, reaching to hold the Doctor's hand.

"Fully grown offspring created by a progenation device or, as known on Gallifrey, a loom." The Doctor kept his eyes on the old woman. "That why you're got no heart? Daddy issues?"

"You have no idea, Doctor." The woman pursed her lips, "No idea."

"Order some tea and we'll chat. I could do with a cuppa? How about you, Donna?"

The woman lifted a tiny object from her belt. The device was different from the transmatting object that she'd used on them earlier; this one circled around her hand in a glittering metal band and glowed a faint blue color.

"I'm sorry…" The woman said quietly, aiming the device at them with one eye shut, "…father."

A sparkle of electric blue current arched through the air and lanced into James's chest with a splash of light. His legs folded beneath him and the Doctor crumpled to the floor with a heavy thud. Donna felt his hand wrenched from hers as it followed his body to the floor.

"You've killed him!" Donna screamed.

The old woman stepped closer, the device glittering menacingly again, "How would that preserve the time line?"

"And…that's all that matters?" Donna tightened her hands into fists and stood straight. Preparing herself for her own fiery blue laser, she settled back on her bare feet. She thought of her final conversation with James, that her love might remain after her memories were ripped away. She hoped it was true.

"Today…? Yes." The woman activated her device and blue light flared around Donna.