Chapter Twenty-eight: A Needle in a Haystack
The TARDIS was quiet the next morning when Rose shuffled into the galley. She blinked a few times against the bright lights, a contrast from the dimly lit corridor. Then she smiled at the Doctor, who was waiting for her at the table with two cups of tea.
"Morning, love." He pulled her chair out for her, and Rose sat down beside him. "Do you have anything in mind you'd like to do today?"
Rose sipped at her tea for a moment, letting the caffeinated beverage wake her up before she answered. "I told Jenny that she and Donna could go through the records of every person who was teleported back to the Library," she told him. "Hopefully they'll find Lee."
The Doctor leaned back in his chair, holding his mug cradled between his hands. "I told Donna the same thing."
A hint of wounded pride caught Rose by surprise, and she studied the Doctor over the rim of her cup. His lower lip protruded in a pout, and after setting her tea down, she stretched up to catch it in a quick kiss.
The Doctor hummed his approval and placed his hand on the back of her head, adjusting the angle to deepen the kiss. Rose's initial intention had been to distract him, but she willingly opened her mouth beneath his and grabbed onto his lapel.
After a few delicious moments, he nipped at her bottom lip, then scraped his teeth over it as he pulled out of the kiss. "Mmm… I love you," he murmured, then pressed another quick kiss to her lips before letting her go.
Rose smiled. "I love you, too. But I'm curious… what did Donna say to you that ruffled your feathers?"
The TARDIS flashed the lights, which was her way of letting them know that Donna and Jenny would be there soon. The Doctor pushed back from the table and got up to start breakfast, and Rose waited patiently for him to answer her question.
He rummaged around in the pantry for a moment before returning with the flour and eggs in hand. "She didn't appreciate my attempt at encouraging her to find Lee."
Rose watched him as he started preparing Dutch babies. An idea was brewing in the back of her mind, and she posed it to him as a question while he cracked the eggs into a mixing bowl. "Just tell me this, love," she said. "Did you happen to mention Lance at all in your… encouragement?"
The Doctor stopped beating the eggs and milk, and looked at her over his shoulder. "Why would that make a difference?" he asked, which answered her question.
Rose sighed. "Because reminding people of past failures isn't generally considered encouraging," she said patiently.
He shook his head while he measured the flour. "But Lance wasn't a failure!" He snorted. "If anything, he was a lucky escape. I mean, she was lucky to escape him."
The Doctor's blindness to human insecurity was one of his most endearing, frustrating traits. He just… believed so deeply in the value of everyone he met that it seldom occurred to him that they might not believe as strongly in themselves.
"Yeah, I know that and you know that," Rose agreed. "But trust me when I say that's not how Donna sees it. And promise me you won't mention Lance to her again."
The Doctor frowned, but shrugged after a moment. It didn't make sense to him, but he trusted Rose's judgement, especially when it came to understanding people.
"I won't mention it again," he promised.
"Thank you." Rose stood up and refilled the kettle. "So, back to what we're going to do today, I really want to work on finding Lee."
The Doctor set his batter aside and used a hot mitt to pull out the pan that had been heating in the oven since just before Rose had joined him. He dropped butter into it, and a moment later, the fat was sizzling as it melted.
"Agreed."
Breakfast was in the oven with only a few minutes left on the timer when Jenny joined them, fresh-faced from the shower. "Morning, Dad!" She kissed him on the cheek, then hugged Rose. "Morning, Mum!"
The Doctor felt that tug at his hearts again. Three months after Jenny's arrival, he was starting to understand that it would never really go away. "Good morning, Jenny. Sleep well?"
Jenny nodded, sending her ponytail bouncing as she started her coffee in the French press. "Yeah, I was fine. I think the TARDIS made sure all the thoughts in my head were good ones, because I didn't even wake up once."
Rose arched an eyebrow in his direction, but the Doctor shook his head in answer to her question. Then the ship hummed, and the Doctor, Rose, and Jenny all exchanged a smile.
"What are you lot smiling about?" Donna grumbled as she entered the room. The crease in the middle of her forehead and the dark shadows under her eyes told the story of a very different night from Jenny's.
The TARDIS shrugged apologetically in the Doctor's mind in response to his query. He frowned, but unfortunately, he was all too familiar with trauma that ran too deep for even a telepathic ship to wipe the pain away without aftereffects.
What exactly happened to her in the Library's computer? He adjusted the question almost immediately. What exactly did she lose?
He remembered what he'd said to Mr. Lux about Cal's life in the computer—the perfect life. His stomach sank as he considered what Donna's perfect life might have been. How much of a life had the computer simulated for them?
Jenny pulled two mugs out of the cabinet and poured milk into one and sugar in the other. As soon as the coffee was done, she poured two cups and handed the milky one to Donna. "Here you go. Come on, let's sit down while Dad finishes breakfast."
Donna dropped into the chair beside Rose, then closed her eyes and breathed in the coffee aroma. While her eyes were shut, Jenny shot a pleading look at Rose.
Rose nodded, and when Donna opened her eyes and settled into her chair, she said, "So, we were talking about plans for the day before the two of you joined us."
Donna's long hair whipped around her head as she turned to look at her. "The Doctor told me we could look through all the information about the people who were in the Library looking for Lee."
Jenny twisted her body to look back at her dad, who was leaning back on the counter with his hands stuck in his pockets. "Exactly, Donna. I thought that as soon as we were done with breakfast, I'd transfer the files to a data pad so you could sit in the library and look through them. There should be pictures attached, which would make finding Lee easy peasy."
Jenny rested her chin on top of the chair back and wrapped her fingers around the rungs. "Do you have two data pads?" It hurt to see the hollow expression in Donna's eyes, and she wanted to help somehow. "I knew Lee too, so I could help look for him."
The Doctor nodded. "Absolutely. So we're agreed? After breakfast, we'll find Lee."
Some of Donna's exhaustion faded, replaced with gratitude that she had friends willing to take time out of their normal lives to look for a person who might not even exist. She nodded fervently in response to the Doctor's question, already imagining her reunion with Lee.
But of course, it wasn't that simple. When the Doctor opened the file directory where the TARDIS had saved all the information on the four thousand twenty-four people she'd pulled out of the Library mainframe, they discovered the data had been corrupted in transcription.
Donna pressed her lips into a thin line when row after row of computer code scrolled over the screen, instead of the set of pictures she'd expected. It looked like gibberish to her. "Well, that's it then. I guess I'm not finding Lee."
The Doctor had already bent over the keyboard and was working furiously. "I'm not giving up that easily, Donna Noble," he swore. "I promised you would be able to find Lee, and we're going to make sure that happens. It'll just be a little more difficult than what we thought, that's all."
"What are you doing, Doctor?" Rose asked.
"I'm going to run file recovery programs." He pushed his glasses up on his nose and peered at the monitor, then shook his head and started typing again. "It might take some time, but all the information is here, and between the TARDIS and me, we should be able to get it back."
Donna sighed. "Yeah, all right." She appreciated the Doctor's enthusiasm, but with every barrier that went up, she felt more like the universe was trying to tell her something.
Hang on. Why am I letting the universe have its way?
She straightened up. "Yeah, all right," she repeated, but this time, she felt hopeful instead of resigned. "I'm gonna go call Gramps. It's been a few weeks since I've talked to him. You come find me as soon as you've got something for us to look at."
oOoOoOo
It was almost supper-time when the Doctor knocked on her door. Donna flung it open and immediately doubled over in laughter when she saw his hair sticking up in a million directions.
"You look like a hedgehog!" she said.
He ran his hand through his hair, and as he did, she realised his messy look was an indicator of how much work he'd put into finding Lee for her. She could easily imagine him, sitting at a computer terminal for hours, raking his hands through his hair and tugging in exasperation when he couldn't get the data to cooperate.
Her laughter faded immediately. "Thank you, Doctor."
He tugged on his ear. "Don't thank me quite yet," he told her, sounding aggravated. "The data was far more corrupted than I'd anticipated, and it's taking forever to recover the files. However, I've gotten six hundred of them back. Jenny's waiting for you in the library with the tablets."
Donna felt her face tighten as her smile became strained, but she refused to take her frustration out on the Doctor. "Well, thanks anyway. Hopefully Lee is in that six hundred."
The Doctor blinked, then shook his head. "Donna, you don't think I'm giving up, do you? I'll start over again tomorrow, and I'll keep going for as long as it takes to recover all the files." He paused and looked at the ceiling for a moment before grinning at her. "Or until we find Lee, whichever comes first."
Donna's eyes widened and her mouth hung open. "Why would you go to that much effort, just to find someone who might be a figment of my imagination?"
"Because you deserve to be happy." He stuck his hands into his pockets and shrugged. "I'm just sorry I can't do more."
Donna recoiled slightly from the uncharacteristically sober expression on the Doctor's face. "What are you talking about?" she demanded.
He held her gaze steadily. "Donna… Jenny isn't my first child."
The seemingly random revelation threw Donna, and she felt her forehead creasing. "What?"
"I had kids before, on Gallifrey." He took a deep breath, puffing his cheeks out. "And I lost them all in the war. My whole family."
Donna was suddenly, horribly aware of where this conversation was going. She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at the Doctor. "I don't know what you're talking about, Spaceman," she said, but the words didn't have her usual edge.
He shook his head. "I know what it's like to lose a child, Donna. There's an emptiness in your eyes that I've seen before, in the mirror. And I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
Tears welled up in Donna's eyes. She'd been telling herself she didn't need to grieve, that Joshua and Ella weren't real, but they'd been real to her.
"Two," she gasped. "A son and a daughter. And they're gone now." She shook her head. "They never really existed."
The Doctor's eyes were dark with sympathy. "Oh, Donna."
He held his arms out, and she fell into them as her tears finally spilled over. Donna lost track of how much time passed as the Doctor held her while she cried, occasionally rambling brokenly about Ella's favourite colour or Joshua's love of dinosaurs.
And the whole time, the Doctor held her close, letting her tears soak through his brown suit jacket and even into his shirt. When her sobs finally slowed to sniffles, embarrassment washed over her and she pulled back, ready to deflect any criticism with sarcasm.
Instead, he smiled gently. "Feel better?"
Fresh tears sprung to her eyes at his kindness. She stared at the ceiling for a moment, willing them to stop. "A little."
"Good. Then I think Rose and Jenny have dinner ready for us, and after that, you and Jenny can look through the first batch of pictures."
"I'll be right there." Donna swiped at her eyes. "I need to clean my face before I join you."
The Doctor nodded and left her room, and Donna went into the ensuite to wipe off her ruined makeup. Her eyes were hot and scratchy from crying, so she left her face bare rather than try to conceal the puffiness.
Jenny and Rose didn't comment on it though, and by the time dinner was over, Donna's emotions felt a little less raw. She and Jenny settled in on the couch in the library, flipping through the pictures on the data pads.
Lee wasn't in either set of pictures. When they found the Doctor and Rose in the media room, he accepted the data pads back without question. "Same time tomorrow?" he asked as he tucked them into his pocket. "I reckon it'll take me most of the day to recover a decent number of pictures again."
"Yeah, sure," Donna agreed.
oOoOoOo
"I've got him!"
Donna tossed her data pad down on the couch next to her and scooted closer to Jenny to look over her shoulder. After a week with no luck, she almost didn't believe they'd found him… but there was Lee, smiling back at her.
Her hand was trembling when she reached for the device. "Oh, my God." Her head swam for a moment, and she tried to grasp that the search was over. "That's… that's him, that's really him. He's real!" She squealed and pulled Jenny into an ecstatic hug. "Thank you for not letting me give up."
Jenny laughed and hugged her back. "Of course he was real, Donna. Here, take it and go find Dad. I think he's in his work room."
Donna clutched the data pad tight as she left the library at a fast jog. They'd found Lee, and now they could go pick him up, and hopefully…
She shrugged. From what she remembered of her life in the computer, everything she'd told Lee about her life had been real. He'd gotten to know the real Donna, and he'd fallen in love with her. Hopefully the person she'd fallen in love with had been the real Lee, and they could fumble through a relationship in the real world as easily as they had in the virtual reality.
The door to the Doctor's workshop was ajar, and she pushed her way in without knocking. "We've found him!" She brandished the device.
The Doctor spun around from the tangled wires he'd been working on, a broad grin stretching across his face. "Brilliant!" he exclaimed. "Here, let me see where we're going."
He snatched the data pad from her and scrolled through the information on Lee. "Lee McAvoy. In the flesh. Or well, in a photograph, but soon to be in the flesh as soon as we…"
His voice trailed off, and he moved his finger up and down on the screen, scrolling through the information again. "Donna."
"Don't you say my name like that, Spaceman," Donna bit out. "You only say it like that when you're afraid I'm going to slap you."
The Doctor flinched. "Well… It's just… You found Lee, but there's no location listed."
"What."
He flipped the pad around so she could see the blank lines. "See?"
Donna flicked her finger over the screen, hoping she would find the missing information just slightly out of place, but there was nothing. "Well isn't that wizard," she muttered. "All right, what's next?"
The Doctor slid the data pad into his pocket. "Come on, let's get Rose and Jenny. Maybe if we all put our heads together, we can come up with something."
He stuck his hands in his pockets as he stalked through the TARDIS to the library. Rose was immediately aware of his rapidly cycling moods and sent him a wordless query.
It's this Donna and Lee situation. Could you meet us in the library? I'll explain it when we're all together, and maybe we can come up with a solution.
There was only one answer he could think of, but he was hoping Rose could come up with something faster and more… well, definite. He was almost positive Donna wouldn't like his suggestion.
Jenny blinked when her entire family entered the library at once. She put down the book she'd just picked up and scooted to the end of the couch so there was room for everyone.
Her dad stayed standing, pacing in front of the fireplace with a data pad in his hands. Jenny's hearts fell when she realised it must be the same one Donna had just run victoriously out of the room with. Now she was curled into the corner of the couch, trying to make herself as small as possible.
"What's wrong, Dad?"
He gestured with the data pad. "We still don't know where Lee is, that's what's wrong."
"What do you mean?" Rose asked. "I thought you found him."
"We found his picture," Donna corrected, cutting off the Doctor's explanation. "Just a picture, no other information."
Jenny let her head flop against the back of the couch. Why can't we catch a break? Just one, she begged the universe.
"Not even a name," the Doctor elaborated.
Donna shrugged and traced the pattern on the upholstery with her finger. "I guess that explains why that librarian I asked said there hadn't been anyone named Lee McAvoy in the Library that day."
"Wait a minute," Rose said. "I thought everyone in the fifty-first century had that bioscan chip. As soon as they used the Library's teleport, all the meta data on the chip should have been uploaded to the computer. That's where the pictures came from, right?"
The Doctor rocked back on his heels and nodded. "Right you are, Rose! Some people manage to delete the information off their chips, but that's not common. Typically, only people who want to be untraceable go to the effort."
Donna looked from the Doctor to Rose and back again. "Are you saying Lee might have been a spy?"
The Doctor tilted his head. "Possibly. Or he could have been a conspiracy theory nutter."
"He was not a nutter," Donna said fiercely.
The Doctor held up his hands. "Right, sorry. Ahh…" He shrugged. "Can anyone else think of reasons someone would delete all the information from their chip?"
"Some kind of government protection?" Jenny could vividly remember a number of movies they'd watched where the main character had been forced to give up everything about their past life to go on the run.
"Time Agent?" Rose suggested.
The Doctor's eyebrows rose. "Interesting possibility. I could see why agents doing certain kind of field work would need to have blank chips."
He pressed his tongue to the back of his teeth. "Of course, it's possible the data was simply so badly corrupted that none of my recovery tools could touch it. I'd expect to see strings of unreadable code instead of blank lines, but sometimes, who knows why computers do what they do."
"Look, does it really matter why his chip was blank?" Donna finally snapped. "No matter what the reason is, the result's the same, right? We can't find him."
Rose felt her face heat as she turned and looked at her friend. "I'm sorry, Donna. We got a little caught up in the mystery."
She snorted. "Of course you did. That's what you do."
"And we can find him," the Doctor broke in, before Donna could go off on another tirade or storm out of the room to hide how upset she was.
"Yeah, how's that going to work then?" Donna challenged. "We'll put up missing posters around the galaxy? 'Have you seen this man?'"
Rose shook her head, already following the Doctor's train of thought. "No, but the TARDIS can do a scan for him. She's got his DNA—Jenny and I saw him in the Library, so we know that he definitely was pulled out of the Library by the TARDIS. And with his DNA and the year, we can set up a scan."
Donna crossed her arms over her chest and narrowed her eyes. "And why didn't you just suggest that when the data was corrupt, instead of spending all this time rebuilding the files?"
The Doctor sighed and sat down in one of the arm chairs. "Because it will take time, Donna. If his chip had had the proper information on it, we would be there by now. Running a scan like this… even when we're able to narrow it to a year, it'll take a long time."
Donna wanted to scream and throw things, and she wanted to curl up in her bed and have a good cry. "How long?"
"Months, probably." He scratched at his cheek. "I was hoping Rose would have a better idea, but I think this is really our only option."
Donna heard the softest sound from the opposite end of the couch and knew that Jenny wasn't sure it was a good idea to keep looking for Lee. Even though she'd never said a word, Donna knew Jenny had qualms about the whole search in the first place.
And now it was going in a very different direction. It was one thing to spend a few evenings looking at pictures, hoping to find him. That wasn't really much effort to expend.
Leaving a search open for months meant dedicating a lot of emotional energy to it. Right now, if Lee rejected her, or if things just didn't work out between them, the hurt would be bearable. If she spent the next several months looking and things didn't go well…
Donna shuddered. She'd already lost one relationship after investing time and energy into it. Reason told her to walk away.
But reason didn't have memories of years spent reading the paper over Lee's shoulder, taking sips of his coffee. Or watching their children play together. Or waking up late on Sunday mornings with his strong body spooning her.
"Yeah, all right," Donna said. "Run the scan."
The Doctor held her gaze for a long moment, then he nodded. "All right. I'll go get it started right now."
Jenny stood at the same time. "I'll come with you, Dad."
When they were gone, Donna looked at Rose. "What would you do, if you were ever separated from the Doctor?"
The lights flickered, and Donna looked up at the ceiling before looking back at Rose. "Why do I get the feeling that isn't just a rhetorical question?"
Rose turned and crossed one leg under her knee. The TARDIS was thinking about Bad Wolf, but that hadn't been about being with the Doctor—it had been about wanting to keep him safe.
Krop Tor, though… "It's happened a few times." Rose ran her hand through her hair, quickly debating how much detail was really necessary to answer Donna's question. "We've been separated, and it seemed like there was no way we'd ever make it back to each other."
"You didn't give up."
Donna's words weren't a question, but Rose answered anyway. "Never. No matter how impossible it seems, I would never stop looking for him." Aborted timelines teased the edges of Rose's awareness. "Even if… even if I were trapped in a parallel universe, I would find a way to come home."
Donna bit her lip. "What if you'd been separated before you were together?" she asked. "I mean… if you were just friends, and something happened…"
Rose blinked a few times. She and the Doctor had never been just friends, so it was hard to think in those terms.
Then a memory resurfaced, one she hadn't thought about in years. The TARDIS disappearing from the alley after she'd turned down the Doctor's first offer to travel with him.
"I think… I would still try," she said slowly. "I know what you're thinking, Donna. You're afraid you'll find him and he won't want you. But think about it from his perspective. You're desperate to find him—imagine he wants to get back to you just as badly."
Rose had been instantly aware of her mistake, but she hadn't let herself wallow in regret. In the few seconds it had taken the Doctor to come back for her, she'd already formed a vague plan to start looking for him, somehow.
"Only he doesn't have a TARDIS," she continued, remembering how aware she'd been of the impossibility of the task. "He has no way to even begin looking for you." She reached out and took Donna's hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze. "It's scary to think about putting yourself out there like this, but imagine what it would feel like if you had no way of finding him."
Donna's eyes watered. "Yeah. Yeah, all right."
But she wasn't all right, and as Donna and Rose walked up to the console room to check in on the Doctor and Jenny, an idea built slowly in the back of her mind. Once the Doctor confirmed that the scan had been started, she took a deep breath.
"I want to go home." Her voice broke a little on the last word, and she swallowed back the lump in her throat. "I haven't seen my granddad in months. When I talked to him last week, he said Mum would be taking her annual weekend getaway with her ladies' group, leaving him alone at the house."
Sympathy burned in the Doctor's eyes, and she flinched away from it. "Just take me home, Spaceman."
He nodded and moved to the navigation controls. "Tell me when and where."
Donna dropped into the jump seat and slouched immediately, resting her head against the seat back. She told the Doctor where to find her grandfather, then watched, feeling strangely detached as he moved around the console, adjusting the controls. When he pulled the dematerialisation lever and the time rotor started moving, Donna stared at it.
The trip seemed to take longer than most of them, but finally, the ship landed. Donna looked at the door, then at the Doctor. "We're here?"
He stuck his hands in his jacket pockets and nodded. "We're exactly where you wanted to go."
Donna slid off the jump seat, then she looked at the Doctor with her lips pursed and arched an eyebrow. "And you're sure you got the date right? I'm not going to open the door and find out I've been gone for a year, am I?"
He pouted, and Rose giggled. "We're in 2009," she promised Donna. "Go on. We'll just stay right here, and when you're ready to travel again, you can come back."
When Donna reached the door, she pushed it open slowly, sticking only her head out. But as soon as she did, the door was wrenched out of her hands and familiar hands pulled her out of the TARDIS.
"Donna!" her granddad cheered. "You've come home for a visit, sweetheart!"
Donna rested her head on his shoulder and smiled in the direction of the telescope set up on the hill. "Yeah. I'm home."
