Author's Note: Okay, like I said last time, I really should stop making guesses about the amount of chapters left in the future. The plan however is still the same we'll follow The Doctor in The Runaway bride (this starts in this chapter.) and then we'll follow Rose and her pregnancy. Only I decided to split The Runaway Bride into more chapters since it was getting a bit long, this chapter is the longest one yet. I don't know yet how much chapters The Runaway Bride is going to get but I suspect 3. I didn't put everything in this only the scenes that changed. Also tell me whether you want me to make a sequel to this, I'm probably going to do it anyway, I am already planning it. But knowing that people actually want it will probably make it come sooner since I got more ideas for other stories.

Disclaimer: Nope, I still don't own Doctor Who.

Beta: RiverSong98

4. The Runaway Bride - Part 1

The Doctor looked at the bride in shock, then he looked around to find an explanation as of why there was a bride in his TARDIS.

"You can't do that, I wasn't... we're in flight! That is physically impossible! How did... ?" he stutters.

"Tell me where I am. I demand you tell me right now where am I?" the bride commanded him.

The Doctor stared at the bride, he realised that he probably wasn't going to get rid of the bride anytime soon. Well, there went his plan of finding out whether Rose was pregnant and then crying until he had no tears left in their bedroom.

"Inside the TARDIS." he answers her question.

"The what?"

"The TARDIS."

"The what?"

"the TARDIS!" he snapped and turned to the console. He was so not in the mood of dealing with an angry ginger at the moment.

"The what?"

The Doctor took a deep breath and tried to calm himself, he was always very irritable when he was sad, but even he was shocked to find that he had lost control within a minute of questioning. Rose would've said that he was being rude and he would say that was him, rude and not ginger.

Ow Rose.

He could feel the tears burning in his eyes as he remembered the events of his regeneration. He quickly pulled his thoughts back to the bride that just had appeared in the TARDIS. He couldn't cry now! He had to sort her out. Besides, he didn't know her, for all he knew she was trying to steal the TARDIS or something, although she didn't act like she planned to be here. But either way, he didn't want to show weakness, that just wasn't him.

"It's called the TARDIS."

Donna looked at the strange man for a moment, she could see that he was trying to keep himself together. But she wrongly assumed that he was trying to contain his anger.

"That's not even a proper word. You're just saying things."

The man looked at her.

"How did you get in here?" He snapped again.

"Well, obviously, when you kidnapped me. Who was it? Who's paying you? Is it Nerys? Oh, my god, she's finally got me back. This has got Nerys written all over it." She was rigid now.

The Doctor looked at the bride, the confusion about her being here finally got him to forget his grief, for now at least.

"Who the hell is Nerys?"

"Your best friend." She answered as though it was obvious.

"Yeah, well last time I checked I don't have a friend named Nerys and I doubt that you know more about my friends than I do!" then he looked down at the dress. "Hold on, wait a minute... what're you dressed like that for?"

"I'm going ten pin bowling." She answers sarcastically, then she yells "What do you think, Dumbo? I was halfway up the aisle!"

The Doctor quickly thought about the ring in his breast pocket and how he wanted to tell Rose that he wanted to marry her, but now never would be able to do so. And of course, the first thing the universe had to give to him after losing her without her knowing that he wanted to marry her, was someone who was about to get married. He knew that he would've been in the same situation if he had told her, only her heart would've been more broken than it was now. Although he didn't think that possible, he couldn't imagine her looking more heartbroken on that beach. But he actually wanted her to know, despite not being able to ever marry her, at least she would've known how much she meant to him. He could feel tears burn in his eyes again, he gulped the pain away. He wondered how he was going to survive the day if he kept thinking about Rose like this.

"I've been waiting all my life for this." The red-headed bride pulled him out of his thoughts."I was just seconds away! And then you... I dunno, you drugged me or something!"

"I haven't done anything." Well, except saying goodbye to my Rose. He quickly shook his head out of his thoughts again. This really was going to be a long day.

"We're having the police on you! Me and my husband, as soon as he is my husband, we're gonna sue the living backside off ya!"

"What have I done?" The Doctor asked while he was operating the controls, trying to distract himself from his grief.

"You ruined my wedding!"

"Did I?" He looked up at her, thinking. "I doubt that I was just here busy, with things that didn't involve weddings." He paused a minute, thinking about Rose, again. He swallowed the lump that had formed away. "Well, at least not directly." he murmured softly, his voice cracked at the last word. He quickly turned back and concentrated on the controls. He hoped that she hadn't heard that and decided that he probably should stop talking now, or she would certainly hear it.

Donna looked at the man, she had heard what he said and wondered what he meant with that, he obviously hadn't meant for her to hear that. And she would've sworn that she had heard his voice crack. She briefly wondered what happened to him before she got her, but then she remembered that he had kidnapped her. She looked around the console room and noticed the door. Her way out! She rushed towards them.

"No, wait a minute! Wait a minute! Don't...!" she could hear him say urgently behind her, while she opened the door.

What!

The Doctor sighted at the sight of the shocked bride and walked slowly over to her.

"You're in space. Outer space. This is my... spaceship. She's called the TARDIS." He told her gently.

"How am I breathing?"

"The TARDIS is protecting us."

"Who are you?"

"I'm the Doctor. You?"

"Donna." The Doctor looked her up and down.

"Human?"

"Yeah. Is that optional?"

"Well, it is for me."

Donna glanced at him.

"You're an alien."

"Yeah."

They both stood in silence for a moment, until Donna shivered a bit.

"It's freezing with these doors open."

The Doctor slammed the doors shut in answer and darted back to the console, his grief temporary forgotten in favour of the mystery with the bride.

"But I don't understand it and I understand everything! This..." He turned back to Donna. "this can't happen! There is no way a Human being can lock itself onto the TARDIS and transport itself inside. It must be..."

He grabbed an ophthalmoscope and used it to look into Donna's eyes, while he started muttering an endless flow of techno-babble.

"Impossible. Some sort of subatomic connection? Something in the temporal field? Maybe something pulling you into alignment with the Chronon shell. Maybe something macro mining your DNA within the interior matrix. Maybe a genetic..."

He never got to finish that sentence as Donna slapped him hard.

"What was that for?" He asked indignantly.

"Get me to church!" She yelled as an answer.

"Right! Fine! I don't want you here anyway! Where is this wedding?" He asked while he dropped his instruments and went back to the controls.

"Saint Mary's, Hayden Road, Chiswick, London, England, Earth, the Solar System."

The Doctor looked up at her. "I do know how to find London, thank you very much. Been spending a fair amount of my time there." Especially with Rose. He quickly shook his head to clear the thoughts of Rose, he couldn't allow himself to think about her while he solved this mystery. he could do that afterwards

Donna huffed, she was missing her wedding, she had so been looking forward to this. She had wanted to get married and get children as long as she could remember and now that she was so close to fulfilling the first step of that, she got abducted by a flipping alien.

That's when she noticed a blouse hanging over one of the railings and snatched it up.

"I knew it. Acting all innocent." she said accusingly as she walked over to him with the shirt.

"I'm not the first, am I? How many women have you abducted?"

The Doctor looked up from the controls to find out what in the name of Rasilon she was talking about. Only to see Rose's shirt and feel his grief coming back ten times as strong. He needed all the strength he had to keep himself together and tried to answer her like nothing was wrong.

"That's my friend's." Despite his efforts, he failed to keep his voice from cracking.

Donna noticed this, and let her hands fall to her side. She realised that it was a sensitive topic and that she hadn't imagined his voice cracking earlier. But she had always been stubborn and despite the fact that she didn't know the man she was determined to find out as much as possible. She did however decide to be nice about it.

"If it's your friends, where is she, then?" she asked.

"She's gone." His voice all shaky now and he stopped fumbling with the controls. At this point he had no idea how he was still keeping himself together, well at least partly. His voice was the evidence of him failing at that and he could feel the tears burning behind his eyes and not for the first time this day. Oh, for the love of everything that's holy, please drop the topic.

But of course no such luck.

"Gone where?" She asked sympathetic now. The Doctor was trying everything within his powers to keep the tears from falling. He kept silent for a minute, trying to find his voice

"I lost her." He finally answered in a whisper, at this moment the truth hit home, even harder than before and the tears started to fall. He staggered back to the pilot seat and sat down slowly. He knew for certain that she had seen the tears, but he didn't care at this moment, he wouldn't be able to hide them anyway. He sat there a moment, trying to gather himself.

Donna hung the shirt back on the railing and sat down next to him. She saw that he was trying to keep himself from breaking down completely and she gathered that she better stopped asking for more information, or the man might actually break down.

Despite the fact that she was missing her wedding, she waited patiently until the man gathered himself. She knew that his loss had been very recent and apparently very painful and she knew that it wouldn't do him any good if she forced him to gather himself and bring her to the wedding.

Eventually, The Doctor managed to pull himself again by reminding himself that he needed to bring a bride to her wedding. He dried his tears and looked at Donna. He didn't bother to fake enthusiasm like he usually did when he was feeling sad, he just knew that at this point he wouldn't manage and besides she probably wouldn't buy it, she had already seen the truth.

"Right! Chiswick." He said without emotion as he stood up and walked back towards the controls and landed the TARDIS.

Well, to say that the day wasn't going very well for The Doctor would be an understatement. Starting off with a painful goodbye to the love of his lives, then less than 5 minutes later a bride shows up in his TARDIS, who keeps accusing him of abduction, he still had no clue as for how she appeared there. And she wasn't being very helpful in finding that out since she had been trying to get rid of him ever since she appeared. Okay, if he was being honest he was trying the same thing, but not because he wanted time to grief the loss of Rose, certainly not.

Okay, that was exactly the reason, but even with that reason, which wasn't a bad reason, he thought, he was trying to solve the mystery. Especially since said bride got kidnapped by the same robot Santas he encountered last year, in a taxi.

The Doctor knew that after he rescued her he couldn't leave her alone until he solved the mystery, but first things first.

Saving her.

He had steered the TARDIS towards the motorway to find the taxi. Now the difficult part was getting her to jump out of the taxi. He had a feeling that she wouldn't exactly feel up to it. He put the strings he had attached to the controls between his teeth and went towards the doors and opened them. He was greeted by Donna staring at him, with hands pressed against the window of the taxi.

"Open the door!" He yelled at her.

"Do you what?"

"Open the door!" He repeated.

"I can't, it's locked."

The Doctor grabbed his sonic and unlocked the door as an answer. After this, Donna opened the window.

"Santa's a robot." She told him unhelpfully.

"Donna, open the door."

"What for?"

"You've got to jump!"

The robot driver turned his head slightly after The Doctor said that.

"I'm not bleedin' jumping, I'm supposed to be getting married!"

The Doctor internally sighed at that, he was hoping that he was wrong with thinking that she wouldn't feel like jumping. No such luck.

At that moment the robot put his foot down and the taxi overtook the TARDIS. The Doctor pulled on the string to get back next to the taxi. This resulted in explosions from the console. The TARDIS banged on the roof of the car of a man and then pulled back in line with the taxi. He struggled to regain his balance, then he soniced the robot and disabled it.

"Listen to me, you've got to jump."

"I'm not jumping on a motorway." She answered stubbornly.

"Whatever that thing is, it needs you. And whatever it needs you for, it's not good." He added screaming. "Now, come on!"

"I'm in my wedding dress!" She yelled back.

"Yes! You look lovely! Come on!" He answered annoyed.

Donna finally opened the door and positioned herself ready to jump. The Doctor held out his arms so he could catch her.

"I can't do it." She said fearfully.

"Thrust me." The Doctor answered calmly.

"Is that what you said to her? Your friend? The one you lost? Did she trust you?"

The Doctor winced at that and felt the tears coming back, he quickly swallowed them to answer Donna and magically enough he managed to keep his voice normal.

"Yes, she did. And she is not dead. She is so alive, I just can't reach her. Now, jump!"

Donna finally jumped with a scream and landed on top of The Doctor in a heap on the floor. The doors slammed closed.

The Doctor looked up at Donna, who was catching her breath and preventing him from getting up.

"Could you... get off me?"

Donna looked at him, she had totally forgotten he was there as she was processing what just happened.

"Right, yeah sorry." She quickly got of him.

The Doctor quickly got up and landed the TARDIS on a roof. The Console was smoking heavily.

Donna quickly went out of the TARDIS, she still thought that the box was weird but it was better than getting abducted by a robot Santa. She looked at her watch and saw that it was just past half three. She had missed the wedding.

The Doctor coughed and spluttered as he was trying to extinguish the fire in the TARDIS from the door. When the fire was under control he joined her.

"The funny thing is, for a spaceship, she doesn't really do that much flying. We'd better give her a couple of hours." Then he noticed that Donna seemed deflated. "You all right?"

She shrugged. "Doesn't matter." The Doctor gulped.

"Did we miss it?"

"Yeah."

"Ah... well, you can always book another date..." he was trying cheer her up a bit.

"Course we can." She answered, still deflated.

"Still got the honeymoon." He tried again.

"It's just a holiday now." she corrected him, obvious not in the mood for cheering up.

"Yeah... yeah... sorry." He said giving up.

"It's not your fault."

"Oh, that's a change."

"Wish we had a time machine. Then we could go back and get it right."

The Doctor gulped at that, telling her that the TARDIS was a time machine had convinced Rose to come with him that very first time. He was so thankful for the fact that he thought of saying so, just in time. Although he wouldn't have broken his hearts if he hadn't. But better a broken heart than no heart at all. Although he was doubting it at this moment. For the umpteenth time that day he swallowed the lump in his throat away and answered her.

"Yeah." he didn't feel strong enough to try saying more.

Donna noticed that the man's thoughts had gone somewhere else and she suspected that they had gone back to that girl again. She was wondering whether she had said something that reminded him of her. She wanted to ask him but she knew that he might break down again and she didn't want to cause him more pain than he already had. So she just sat down on the edge of the roof.

The Doctor sighed, he needed to give her a bio-damper but the only bio-damper he had at this moment was the engagement ring he had for Rose. Of course, Donna's life was in danger, so it being the engagement ring for Rose shouldn't stop him from giving it to her, but still, just thinking about giving that ring to another woman than Rose hurt. He removed his jacket, draped it around her shoulders and sat down next to her.

"God, you're skinny. This wouldn't fit a rat."

He chuckled at that. "That's a new one." He sighted.

"What?"

"I... Those creatures can trace you. And well, I should give you a bio-damper. That should keep you hidden. But..." He trailed off, trying to find a way to say it.

"You don't have one?" He sighed once more.

"That's not exactly it." That's when he realised he still had the ring in his jacket he just gave her. brilliant!

"Then what is it?" Donna gathered by now that he didn't want to say it despite the fact that he had started saying it.

The Doctor sighed again.

"It's in my breast pocket." He said barely harder than a whisper, he knew that it wasn't an explanation but he was hoping that she could at least guess it partly.

Donna looked at him questioningly for a moment before she opened the breast pocket of his jacket and went through it. There was only one thing in there and she pulled it out. It was a ring, a beautiful ring dare she say it. It was gold and covered with little diamonds. She guessed that this was that bio-damping thing. She wondered what The Doctor's problem was about it. But then she realised that it was a little too beautiful to be just for protecting someone. What if the ring wasn't made to protect someone, but just a ring that also protected the person who was wearing it.

The ring means something to him.

That was the conclusion she eventually made, considering that he didn't want to give it, even if it was just temporary, to her and how beautiful it was. It looked a bit like an engagement ring. Donna stopped to ponder on that.

Why would the man carry a ring in his breast pocket and be hesitant to give it to her, just to protect her? Then she remembered that he evidently was grieving over someone and she was about 99% certain that it was about a girl.

Oh no!

She was so hoping that she was wrong about this. What if it didn't just look like an engagement ring, but in fact was an engagement ring!?

The Doctor looked mournfully at the ring, he hoped that she wouldn't guess what the ring was but at the same time he hoped that she did. He saw a look of realisation appear on her face, which told him that she had made a conclusion. He gulped and waited until she said something. What she said first wasn't exactly what he was expecting.

"It's a beautiful ring."

"Yeah." He for once didn't try to keep his voice normal, he had a feeling that he simply wouldn't be able to do so, this was a conversation he really didn't want to have at the moment, preferably never.

"It isn't made for being that damping thing that you mentioned, is it?"

"No. It's a bio-damper, but that isn't... wasn't its primary purpose." His voice was thick with emotion. The tears were treating to fall again and he knew that he wouldn't be able to keep them if this conversation would go on. But if he was going to give the ring to Donna, even only for a few hours to keep her save, she had to know what the original purpose of the ring was.

Donna looked him in the face and saw that he was just looking at the ring, she could see the tears in his eyes, but she had to ask it. And evidently, if he would give her this ring to protect her from those robot things, he wanted her to know the truth. By now she had realised that he had let her come to the conclusion by herself. Probably because he couldn't manage to say it without properly breaking down, he already looked like he was about to break down anyway. So she took a deep breath and voiced her suspicion.

"It was for her, wasn't it." She saw that his tears started to fall at that.

He just nodded. He didn't make an effort to stop the tears from falling and just sat there. He finally turned away from the ring and looked blankly at the city.

Donna sighed again, she felt so sorry for the man. He had saved her life, even though she had been mean to him the whole time. And she was certainly that she had caused him more grief that he already had, by the things she had said out of anger. But here he was, considering to lend her that ring to protect her. Even though it evidently broke his heart even more to do so. She had to confirm her suspicions, for his sake.

"Were you going to propose to her, weren't you?" She heard him taking a deep breath

"Yeah." He answered quietly his voice cracking.

The both sat in silence a moment. Until the Doctor spoke once more.

"You can wear it, for your safety. but... "He took a deep breath."I want it back in one piece ." Donna nodded at that

"I'll take good care of it." She put on the ring carefully and saw that The Doctor was drying his tears.

"So, come on then. Robot Santas, what are they for?" She decided to drop the topic ,for now at least.

"Ah, your basic robo-scavenger. The Father Christmas stuff is just a disguise. They're trying to blend in. I met them last Christmas." The Doctor answered he was glad with the change of topic.

"Why, what happened then?"

What! He looked at her.

"... Great big spaceship? Hovering over London? You didn't notice?" He asked in disbelief

"I had a bit of a hangover."

"A bit? Sounds more like the hangover of the century." Donna laughed at that.

"You might be a tiny bit right." The Doctor smiled at her and scanned the landscape.

He nodded in the direction of the Powell Estate.

"I spent Christmas Day just over there, the Powell Estate. With this... family. Well, my girlfriend's family, only we weren't together back then, we were just friends." His voice cracked again. "One of the best Christmases I've ever had. Despite the fact that I was sick for the better part of the day."

Well, apparently I am horrible at avoiding this topic, aren't I? He gulped again.

"Still... gone now."

"What did you have?"

"Hmm...?" He looked at her questioningly for a moment, when the penny dropped. "Oh, ehhmm. I used this alien body process to ehmm save my life but it went a bit wrong, it changed my body and it had trouble adjusting. Every time I use that process I need rest to cope with the side effects but that one was particularly nasty. I hadn't explained it to her, the process in itself and I changed, my character and my physical appearance. She didn't believe that I was still me. It really hurt seeing her look at me like that, no clue who I was. Well, it was partly my fault that I never explained it to her, but... I didn't expect that I would have to do it so soon, besides it was common knowledge among my people, so I didn't think about it. Happily, I could convince her that I was still me, didn't took me long, I managed to do it before I collapsed. After that, she was really worried about my health. Can't blame her. I felt horrible and I guess that I looked it too. But eventually, it was a brilliant Christmas." Somehow he managed to forget about his grief while telling the story, but he started to remember it again. "We never told her mother that we were.. ehhm... dating, she didn't approve of me, especially not in the beginning. I do think that she told her mother about it by now." he sighed.

"Who was she?"

"Her mother? Probably the scariest women I've ever met." He answered, knowing perfectly well that she meant Rose. "Rose, Rose is just... Rose. I don't know how to explain her, well she is beautiful, clever and just brilliant" He talked proudly about her.

"How did you met?"

"I blew up her job." He laughed at the memory. Donna just raised an eyebrow.

"You blew up... her job?" He nodded.

"Yeah, Henrik's about two years ago, just before the shop-window dummies started moving, it was connected by the way. I didn't just blow up the building because I could. I ran into her two more times and she saved my life. So, I asked her to come with me in the TARDIS."

"What happened?" Donna tried, he was talking about her now, maybe he would tell her what happened to the girl, she somehow didn't think that the girl had left voluntary

"Question is, what do camouflaged robot mercenaries want with you? And how did you get inside the TARDIS? I don't know..."

Donna was disappointed that he didn't answer the question but she understood that he didn't want to, so she let him.

He contemplated her. Donna sighed at this.

"What's your job?" He asked as he pulled the sonic screwdriver out of his jacket pocket.

"I'm a secretary."

The Doctor scanned her with the screwdriver.

"It's weird, I mean, you're not special, you're not powerful, you're not connected, you're not clever, you're not important."

Donna did her best not to make a hurtful comment at this and whacked the screwdriver aside.

"Stop bleeping me!"

The Doctor stopped at that and thought things over a bit.

"What kind of secretary?"

"I'm at HC Clements. It's where I met Lance. I was temping. I mean, it was all a bit posh really. I'd spent the last two years at a double glazing firm. Well, I thought. I'm never gonna fit in her." She paused remembering it. "And then he made me a coffee. I mean, that just doesn't happen. Nobody gets the secretaries a coffee. And Lance, he's the head of HR! He don't need to bother with me! But he was nice, he was funny. And it turns out he thought everyone else was really snotty too. So that's how it started, me and him, one cup of coffee. That was it."

"When was this?"

"Six months ago."

"Bit quick, to get married..."

"Well... he insisted." Somehow The Doctor doubted that.

"And he nagged... and he nagged me... and he just wore me down and then finally, I just gave in."

"What does HC Clements do?"

"Oh, security systems, you know... entry codes, ID cards, that sort of thing. If you ask me, it's a posh name for 'Locksmiths'."

"Keys..." The Doctor mused.

"Anyway, enough of my CV. Come on, it's time to face the consequences. Oh, this is gonna be so shaming. You can do the explaining, Martian-boy."

"Yeah. I'm not from Mars." Donna nodded at that.

The Doctor stood up and lend her a hand to help her up.

"Oh, I had this great big reception all planned. Everyone's gonna be heartbroken."