Author's Notes: I do not own Doctor Who, the Duplicate Doctor or Donna. Anyway, I'm sorry for the delay in updates. I've been fighting a migraine for a few days so I'm trying to catch up. Thanks again for all the reads and reviews and follows and please let me know what you think of this one.
Donna was furious but maybe not surprised when she went upstairs to find that John was not in bed as promised. She could guess at where he was, probably digging up a grave in Bucklebury. She thought this was truly another instance in which they needed another car so she could follow him and slap him.
God, why was she so interested in slapping people lately? It was if she had slapped Ethan once and some switch had turned on inside her brain!
Before she could ponder this much more, she heard the front door open and hurried downstairs.
"Where did you go?," shouted Donna as she came downstairs.
She saw John and a new blonde she didn't recognize.
"John," she said.
"Donna, this is Mayantha."
"Hi," said Donna. She looked behind them. "Where did that armoire come from?"
"That's my ship," said Mayantha.
Donna looked again at the ornate wooden armoire that had blended in seamless with the rest of the furniture in the sitting room. "Your ship?"
"Right. Mayantha is a Time Lady, the eldest daughter of the Doctor of this universe. She's on a mission from the High Council of the Time Lords to dispose of the Master's body. I thought she could stay with us."
Donna shook her head. "She's your daughter?"
"No," said John.
"But she's like your daughter."
"I can stay somewhere else if it's too much trouble," said Mayantha. "I don't mind. Really."
"No," said Donna. "You'll be fine here. We have plenty of rooms. I'm just trying to work my head around it. Am I like her stepmother?"
"Well, yes and no, but then again, yes," said John.
"Parallel worlds are gingerbread houses," said Mayantha.
"I say that," said John.
Mayantha nodded and smiled. "Yes, that's where I got it."
Donna looked at Mayantha. "Okay, I've got two kids, though. They don't understand parallel universes."
"They don't?," asked Mayantha. She looked truly confused.
"Humans. They don't start explaining quantum mechanics until the university level," said John.
"They don't? That's awful. It was my favorite part of nursery school. And the cupcakes."
"You mean the blue ones with the goo?"
"Yes!"
John nodded, catching Donna's still puzzled countenance. "To Josh and Ella and anyone else, let's just say you're my niece here to visit."
"Okay. Uncle John."
Donna nodded, satisfied with the plan. "Suppose I'm Auntie Donna then. Right, let's go eat something."
Donna, John and Mayantha went to the kitchen. Mayantha explained about the mission from the High Council of the Time Lords, her family back on Gallifrey and as much as she could. She got up to fetch something and Donna leaned in to John.
"So, she's the counterpart of your daughter?"
"Yes," John said quietly.
"She's lovely."
"Yes," John agreed.
Mayantha returned and put a pill in John's hand.
"What's that?," asked Donna.
"It should take care of that gunshot wound," said Mayantha as she resumed her seat. "There's no need for you to just walk around injured like..."
"Like a human?," he asked.
Mayantha shrugged. John swallowed the pill and washed it down with some tea.
"Well, Mayantha, suppose you've had a long day," said Donna. "You must have travelled far."
"I suppose," she smiled.
"We had all better be off to bed, then," said Donna. "Some of us should have been in bed hours ago," she said frowning at John.
"Right, sorry."
Donna looked over at Mayantha again. "I'll show you to your room."
John woke up late the next morning, but felt a million times better than he had the day before. He found he didn't even need the cane anymore. He examined the spot where the gunshot wound had been in the bathroom mirror and found it was completely gone. Not even a scar. The staples from the incision were rising out of his skin on their own and he managed to finish pulling them out with a pair of tweezers.
He went downstairs and joined Donna, Josh and Ella in the kitchen with Mayantha. He could tell right away that Ella was quite taken with her, but more surprisingly she had managed to entrance Josh by telling a story about stopping a comet from hitting a colony on a small moon.
"But how do you stop a comet?," asked Josh.
Mayantha shrugged. "Easy."
"That can't be real, can it?," asked Josh.
"I don't know, Josh. Do you think it's real?" She looked up at John. "Good morning, Uncle."
"Good morning," John said, taking his seat.
"How did you sleep?," asked Donna.
"Very well." He looked at Mayantha. "I'm feeling much better today, thank you."
Donna looked at Mayantha. "What was that thing anyway?," she queried.
"Just one little pill, designed to speed up the healing process. Simple. We hardly ever use them, though. Mostly for companions."
"Companion?," asked Donna.
"Sometimes we take along a non-Time Lord on our travels," said Mayantha. "That person is usually referred to as a companion."
"Did your father have a lot?," John suddenly heard himself saying.
Mayantha nodded. "A fair number."
Before John could follow up, the doorbell rang. Ella leapt from her chair and went running towards it.
"What was that?," asked Mayantha.
"Oh, Lord," said Donna, "that's the wedding clothes. Ella is the flower girl and is dying to try on her dress again."
Josh groaned. "Do I have to try on that stupid outfit again?"
"Yes," said Donna.
"I already tried it at the shop!," he protested.
"You may have grown since then and besides, you don't look stupid. You look very handsome."
Josh groaned and stalked out of the room.
Donna sighed. "That's too bad. We had a good couple of hours there with Mayantha where he didn't so much as grumble."
"What's a Flower Girl?," asked Mayantha.
"Right," said John, "some humans in western cultures have small children in the ceremony as a symbol of fertility-"
"In this case it's literal, as they're mine," snorted Donna. Mayantha smiled at the joke.
"Anyway, the flower girl walks down the aisle tossing flower petals in path of the bride."
"Oh," said Mayantha.
"What are weddings like on Gallifrey?," asked Donna.
Mayantha thought. "A lot of telepathy, a lot of standing around, then bad food usually."
"You forgot the funny hats," said John.
"Right and funny hats."
Lisette entered. "The dresses are here."
"Thank you, Lisette." Donna stood up. "I had better go try mine on."
"May I see?," asked Mayantha.
"Sure. Come on," said Donna.
Mayantha sat on the edge of the bed in awe of the dress Donna had on. There was a huge skirt with layers of taffeta, which was Ella's preference not Donna's. There was a v-neck, she had surprised herself by choosing strapless, but there was a corset in the back to cinch in and pull things up where they needed to be. She looked in the mirror, surveying the look, trying to decide if anything was amiss.
"I've never seen anything like it," said Mayantha.
"No wedding dresses on Gallifrey?"
Mayantha shook her head. "Nothing this grand. And we wear red, nobody has a clue why and that is saying something."
"Well, white is supposed to symbolize purity, again a moot point."
"So, you were married before?"
"Yeah, God help me."
"Did he die?"
"No, we divorced."
Mayantha seemed surprised. "Oh, you can do that?"
Donna was even more surprised. "You can't?"
"We regenerate so if they let Time Lords divorce people would be doing it all the time and having weddings all the time."
"If I had to stay married to Ethan, I would have killed him."
Ella ran in with Lisette following her. She had on her dress, a tiered white affair with a pink sash.
"Ella, you look beautiful!," said Donna.
Mayantha nodded. "You're very pretty."
Ella spun around. "I have a tiara too! I'm going to have my hair up! Just like a princess!" She stopped spinning and looked at Mayantha. "Are you coming to the wedding?"
"I don't know," she answered, "I may have to go home before that."
"Well, if you are here, you're more than welcome to come. We would love to have you."
Mayantha smiled.
And then they heard an explosion in the distance.
Mayantha ran downstairs and to the front hallway. The door was ajar, she rushed out to the street where she saw John standing. There was a ship in the distance, hovering over the Senate Houses at Westminster, nicking Big Ben.
"Why can't they ever not hit Big Ben?," asked John. "Every time! I mean, it's a big clock, you'd think they'd see it!"
"Sontarans," she said.
"Yes," answered John. "Are they all still clones in this universe?"
"Yes." She paused. "This isn't their style, though. They should have landed ground troops by now."
They heard a loud sonic boom and another huge ship swooped in over their heads, firing at the Sontaran ship over Westminster. They looked at each other.
"Krillitane," they said in unison.
They ran back in the house just as Donna was coming down, pulling a top over her head, having changed out of the wedding gown. Ella and Josh weren't far behind her.
"John, what is it?"
"Is it aliens?," Josh asked brightly. "Are we being invaded?"
"Mummy..." cried Ella, throwing her arms around Donna's waist.
"Yes, it's aliens-" said John.
"That's so cool!," said Josh.
"And no we're not being invaded, not yet anyway," said John. "There are two species out there, fighting for salvage rights over the Master's body."
"With us stuck in the middle?," asked Donna. "Well, isn't that just brilliant?"
John's mobile rang.
"I suppose that's Pete Tyler asking you to save his ass," said Donna.
John looked. "That would be correct."
Donna nodded. "Okay, what do we do?"
"Stay indoors," said John. "Go down to the cellar and just wait there."
"And if some people with potato heads come in, don't fight them," added Mayantha.
"What?," asked Donna.
"John, can't we go with you?," asked Ella.
He knelt down to look her in the eye. "My Ella, you are going to be so much safer here. Do as your mother says, everything will be alright."
Mayantha spoke again. "And if you run into some people who look like bats, don't eat anything they fry."
"Okay, seriously, what?," asked Donna.
"Also, they eat people sometimes," added Mayantha.
"Oh, my God," said Donna.
"This is so wizard!," said Josh.
"I don't want to be eaten!," cried Ella, sobbing into Donna's hip.
John looked at Mayantha. "Okay, I think we can stop giving information now."
"Too much?," she asked.
"Yeah, a little."