Sorry about the long wait, here's an almost double length chapter to make up for it. And it's plot heavy! (Yes, even with that title).
Just a warning. Something is going to feel very off this chapter. Trust me; read through until the end. Have I ever steered you wrong before? ;)
Steady as the Beating Drum
Chapter 8: Donna gets her swerve on
X
2009 (but also not)
Days on the Tardis invariably ended with Donna and the Doctor panting on the floor of the Tardis, sweaty and sore.
Birthdays were no exception.
"Really?!" Donna demanded, running a hand through her damp hair. "Why am I not even the slightest bit surprised? I can't take you anywhere.
"I dunno, I like to think we haven't gone stale," joked the equally moist Doctor. "Is this the part where you tell me we need to put the spice back into our marriage?"
"Please, you prawn. I am never boring," a breathless laugh. "But seriously, is that what we're doing now? Going along with people's idiocy?"
"Why fight the inevitable?" he took her hand and squeezed. "Because someone's inevitably going to think that I mean. Not because I'm irresistible or anything, although it has been said before-"
Donna snorted. "Don't hurt yourself there, Doctor."
"Vegas, Queen and a cult of humans infected with alien sex pollen. Just another day at the office, eh Donna?"
Running. There was an unbelievable amount of running involved. How had her life come to this?
"Yeah. By the way, I've got a bone to pick with you about all that."
Fine, so she'd ripped her dress when he'd slammed the Tardis doors to keep the sex-crazed lunatics out. But it was all for the greater good-! Oh. Oh no. She meant...
The Doctor sat up against the wall of the Tardis and ran a hand through his hair, giggling nervously. "Yeah? Didn't like your birthday gift?"
Donna joined him, leaning against his shoulder. "While it's probably the nicest thing that anyone's ever attempted to do for me, I have to ask; how exactly did getting Freddie Mercury to write a song about me turn into Fat Bottomed Girls."
Either way, he knew he was in trouble. So he just wiggled his eyebrows at her and put on his most mischievous and lascivious grin. "Well, you make my rockin' world go round."
"Shove off you."
2011 (The relative present…)
"Shove off Mickey, I'm trying to work something out here."
The Doctor unwound a wire from around what appeared to be a plunger box.
"Seriously, we have gotten nowhere in the past three days. You've just been walking circles around Cardiff, staring at your blippy thing. The only thing that's changed is the hernia I got from trying to get the bloody Tardis onto a dolly."
"It's not my fault you were too dim to use the fork lift."
"How was I supposed to know there was a bloody forklift in the bloody Tardis?!"
"'Kay Mickey, enough now." Sighed Martha whilst glaring up at the sky, begging some deity to smite her on the spot. Or to smite the Doctor. Apparently her husband regressed ten years in maturity when he was around.
"Thank you Martha."
"Do not thank me Doctor, I do it for my sanity, not yours. Now what do you need?"
He thrust the old timey wooden plunger into her hands. "Take this, I'll ring you in an emergency. Don't pick up, just push it."
"…It's not going to blow up the Tardis is it?" she glanced at the beloved blue box and bit her lip.
"No, it just looks like that. It'll generate a counter pulse, the exact radius of the chrono helix's field, cancelling it out. Wait no, hold on." He took the plunger from Martha and thrust it into Mickey's chest, knocking the wind out of him. "You take this. Martha, you're coming with me."
The couple exchanged a look and Martha shrugged. "Where are we going?"
"We're going to see what Uto-tech is hiding."
Donna examined her reflection critically. Her hair was down and fell in tousled, artful waves. Curling it had made her realize how long it had been since her last haircut. She honestly couldn't even remember. She wore a royal blue dress she found in the back of her cupboard and her makeup was minimal. She kept trying to smooth the fabric at her waist, as if pressing on it would press in her fat. She sucked her teeth in displeasure at the fit.
A glance at her watch told her she'd keep Maisie and Josh waiting if she kept on like that, so she let the matter drop.
Did I forget anything? She wondered, and grabbed her pills, just to be safe. It had been a while since she'd had a bad day, but you never know. It couldn't hurt, at least. She dry swallowed one with ease and put the rest in her clutch.
Out the door she flew, stopped only by a critical Sylvia's terse comments about the length of her hem.
"Mum. This isn't 1969 where not wearin' stocking's makes me the town tramp!" Donna argued through her frustration.
"No, getting married twice and neither sticking does!" Sylvia shouted back. Her eyes immediately bugged out at having mentioned the Lost Year. Capitals 'L', 'Y'.
But Donna was not in the mood to pick at her mother. "Look, I just want a nice dinner with my friends, can you for once just leave me be?!" she ended on a high note.
Sylvia opened her mouth but was interrupted by the doorbell.
"That's weird," Donna mumbled, "Thought I told Maisie to just give me a ring when she's outside."
The door swung open to reveal Josh standing on her doorstep, looking dapper in a dark blue suit.
"Hallo there Birthday Girl."
"Hi," replied Donna, uncomfortable with the prospect of him being seen by her mother. "Come on then."
He stood there with a big dumb grin on his face.
"What now?"
"Oh Donna, you look lovely," he complimented- shit eating grin still in place.
"That is well bad Josh, don't poke fun."
"I'm not!" he insisted, "shall we?"
Donna rolled her eyes and took his proffered arm. "Don't wait up!" she shouted into the house and tried not to acknowledge her mother's quickly approaching (the snoop!) footsteps.
As they approached his car Donna noticed that Maisie wasn't in the passenger side. "Where's the doctor?" she joked.
"Oh, she's just delayed a bit. She'll meet us at the restaurant," Josh assured her.
Maisie had actually arrived at the restaurant before them and greeted them with an enormous toothy smile and hugs. "Happy birthday Donna," she gushed.
Good ol' Maisie. Sweet, beautiful and who apparently gave a shit or two about Donna. Excellent judge of character, that one!
They took their seats and Josh immediately launched into a one man show of mockery; from making fun of the waiters uniforms, to the pretentious names for food ("It's just a posh way of saying chicken and mashed potatoes!") to the froo froo couples all around them.
"Shut it you prawn, the waiter's coming!" Donna reprimanded, not really minding all that much.
After their orders were taken the night picked up even more. Donna regaled them with stories of temping; all the ridiculous people she'd met, the strangest ways she'd been told her services were no longer needed ("And then they brought in a cake that said 'Thanks Dona' WITH ONE 'N'!"). Josh talked about travelling, old schoolmates, ("Utterly mad, he was! We would get into all sorts of trouble, skipping out on lessons to run around the Wastelands by ourselves."). Maisie smiled prettily and absorbed it all.
It was terrible of her, but for long stretches of time Donna forgot she was even there. It was so easy, with Donna sitting in the middle of the two at a square table and Josh dominated the conversation, gesticulating wildly and excitedly; describing adventures he'd been on, with his good mate John, but mostly alone… Donna had subconsciously turned completely to stare at him, her head supported by an elbow on the table. "Wow," she would whisper at the appropriate times. "You didn't!" she would gush at scandalous tellings.
Joshua was the most fascinating man she'd ever met. He was wild, ridiculous, and most of all familiar. He was so like the man in her dreams. He haunted her in the pleasant way that childhood friends do. You think of them when you least expect it and the warm breathlessness of nostalgia grips you for just a moment before you go about your day. When she met him, the connection had been almost instantaneous. People like that; the ones that know you right away… They don't come along everyday do they? And when you find them…
When you find them you what?
Nothing.
Donna suddenly felt very sick. The cheery grin turned to a lopsided frown. Josh wasn't hers. Josh was Maisie's. Sweet, successful, wonderful Maisie, who gave her a job and listened to her problems, who was probably the best friend she had in this solar system.
(Why did I think that? That's so specific, like I've got friends in another solar system; like the universe is bigger than here and now and it must be isn't it? Oritallmeansnothing. Oh god-)
Donna felt a foot run up her calf.
She stood up sharply, a curtain of hair obscuring her horrified face. She almost upended the table with her urgency. "I need the loo!" she shouted, too loudly and raced for the back of the restaurant.
Waiters rolled their eyes and groaned internally. Some people just didn't know how to act in public! And those friends of hers didn't even seem surprised. They just sat there with placid expressions. She must do it all the time.
In the bathroom Donna took in quick, harsh gulps of air. She stared her reflection down, daring her counterpart to contest the oncoming lecture. "You are not in love with that man. What do you think this is, Eastenders? You think he's going to leave Maisie for you! Fat, thick, ill Donna. Can't hold a marriage together for more than a minute and you think that is interested. Maisie is your friend. After everything she's done for you. Shame on you! Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!"
She could feel the panic attack coming on and reached for her purse, but her hands were shaking so hard that it spilled all over the floor. On her quaking hands and knees she scrambled to pick it all up.
There was a knock on the door.
"OCCUPADO!" she shrieked.
The knocking persisted, tapping out an awfully familiar rhythm…
"I SAID-"
The door opened and in stepped Josh. I could have sworn I locked that.
"This is the ladies!" she shouted, hands planted on her hips in an effort to seem menacing and not at all like she'd just been having the worst epiphany of her life.
"Yeah," he said, slightly breathless too. And in one swift move he was across the room and placing one hand on her lower back the other at the back of her neck.
And then he yanked.
They came together in a beautiful, calamitous collision. His clever tongue that could talk from dawn to dusk and vice versa danced with hers. He backed her up against the counter and all inhibitions and objection left her. She instinctually lifted herself onto the marble countertop to get a better angle and wrapped her legs around his waist as he sucked, nipped, licked and-
Oh.
It had been so so long.
Cardiff
They went in through the loading docks, slipping through just as a truck pulled away.
Martha took the lead, drawing her gun and peering around corners before running in quick spurts. The Doctor followed at a more languid pace. "Where are we trying to go?" she whispered. It echoed against the linoleum floors, but it didn't matter. There didn't seem to be anyone else in the building.
"Power source. Down below."
They took the lift to the first basement level and switched to the stairwell for the subsequent three sublevels. It seemed to just keep going on and on, deeper and deeper.
"What do you think's going on Doctor?"
"The Tardis kept bringing me here." And the Tardis always knows best. "So there must be something going on that's worth checking out."
"You're not usually so paranoid. Is that this regenerations thing?"
"Thing? What are you talking about? I don't have 'things'."
"You do, like that weird high pitched thing you used to do with your voice."
"I have never done any such thing."
"Sure Doctor."
They finally reached the deepest level, Martha held her gun, poised and nodded her head at the door, signaling to the Doctor that he should go first and she would cover him.
He rolled his eyes at her and nodded, "One, two, three."
With aplomb he waltzed through the door and loudly proclaimed, "Who's in charge here?"
Martha nearly slapped her forehead. The idiot. Guns were being drawn, threats were being shouted. Martha came out of her hiding place and fixed the man in the center (who seemed to be in charge) in her sights. "Okay, everybody calm down. Let's not be hasty about this."
The man in the center wore a nice tailored suit. He was very tall, had dark brown hair that stuck up in front and a long skinny face. He also seemed very familiar to Martha; as if they'd met before. He stood in front of a control panel that was connected to a glass dome, where a storm seemed to be brewing within. Purple clouds swirled and dissolved and reformed, like they were in a blender. Blue lightning forked across it in intervals.
"Listen," said the Doctor with his Negotiation Voice. "I've got someone set to dispel this whole thing the moment I give the signal. Tell me what's going on or I'll pull that trigger."
Was he… giving the weird underground mad scientists an out? What the-
"Oh my dear Doctor," proclaimed the man with a flourish. "You have been naïve. You don't even know that you've already lost, or rather; who you've already lost. "
The man's grin split across his face like a ripped seam, it was jagged, crazed, a little manic. And familiar.
"Say it," commanded the man. "You know how this goes. Say. My. Name."
The Doctor fell to his knees, knowing that all was wrong with the universe and finally, finally knowing why. "Master."