Steady as the Beating Drum
Chapter 12: The Tardis does Donna a favor
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"You're kidding me right?" Mickey grasped his wife's shoulders and pleaded with the puppy pout that he knew made her laugh. "It's that easy?"
"Apparently," she shrugged and leaned her head on his shoulder. "As far as adventures go, this one hasn't been terribly eventful. Doctor, next time you wanna head to Omega-12, the universe's biggest safari or whatever, let us know?"
"How did you know about that?" asked the Doctor, so perplexed that he pulled out of his reverie.
"I was only joking, Omega-12 is the universe's biggest safari?"
"Well, it's very large. And you can go on a domesticated housecat safari. If not, there's always the rodents."
Martha pouted this time, "Sometimes the universe stinks."
They were in Martha and Mickey's flat, waiting for the day to end. The Doctor looked incongruous sitting at their kitchen table, tapping his fingers and toes to an annoying, unheard beat.
"Doctor, do you realize what you're doing?" asked Martha.
He knocked four times.
Looking aghast, he flexed his fingers and glared as if to scold the digits. "Don't you do that!" he shouted at the palm of his hand.
"Oh no, the Doctor's lost it." Mickey shook his head, "No wait, that implies he was once sane."
Martha sighed for the umpteenth time that night and took the Doctor's hand in hers. "It's going to be alright Doctor, I swear."
"Yeah," her husband chimed in, "It'll be fine. And I've met Donna, the Master's the one who should be scared."
Well… she was very shouty. But the Doctor knew that despite everything that Donna was, and probably still is, the Master had already succeeded. She didn't even know he was coming. Was it lucky he'd found her? Just in time to be too late.
Donna hadn't seen the Doctor coming. Who could predict a pretty, skinny alien walking into their life? Or was abducting her from her life the more apt description?
She bit down on the inside of her cheek to stifle the grin. "So are you gonna keep travelling even after Gallifrey's back or do you think you'll want to stay a bit?"
The Master smirked, "I think my wife might chain me up in the yard for the first little while." He remembered her threatening that exact thing when the Doctor had missed the birth of their third son. She had been a formidable lady. And he'd respected her, even as they got on less and less as years went by. "I have a habit of slithering out of things."
Donna all but grinned. "Will I get to meet her?" She took his hands and tried not to spook the poor idiot. He used to be so bad at sharing. Time had fixed him, it seemed.
"Oh no, 'course not. No human has ever set foot on Gallifrey," at her stricken expression he backpedaled. "But I'll visit, of course. It's just that the missus has never been one for travelling."
An awkward silence settled between them like a vast chasm.
"Alright then Alien Boy," she clapped her hands together and rolled her shoulders. "Let's get started."
"Ready when you are, Donna."
Long fingers pressed gently into her temples and his warm palms cupped her cheeks.
She felt so safe.
They made eye contact.
He's the best friend she has in the world.
She could feel the cold mist of his presence in her mind. It felt like a sieve of sand was being pored into her head, slow, sinking, drowning.
She would do anything for him.
And suddenly she knew Gallifrey. She had travelled the dusty wastes, walked the smooth stone streets beneath the towering glass city. She knew its' people; logical and weary with the weight of all the knowledge of the universe on their strangely adorned shoulders. Gallifrey was a sea of red robes and ancient eyes.
It was beautiful.
"BETTER PLAN!" the Doctor suddenly leapt up from the table and dashed for the door. "Mickey, get the forklift! We're moving the Tardis."
"Again?!" Mickey grabbed the keys and followed him out of the flat at a sprint.
Martha heard shouting and emerged from the kitchen with a cuppa and concerned expression- Which became equally steaming when she realized the pair of them had left her behind.
Donna awoke from her daydream to the excited smile of a mad Time Lord, inches from her face. "I understand why you miss it to much."
She felt as if she were floating. For the first time, drowning was not her default. Her mind was at rest- full of the Doctor and Gallifrey.
The Master said a Gallifreyan word she could not intellectually understand, but that resonated with meaning, deep in her soul. It elicited a nostalgic sort of pain, sweet and tearful, like remembering a time when you were happy. She didn't know that those feelings reached out to him like psychic tendrils, fishing-lines caught in a current.
He laughed a giddy, maniacal laugh and danced around the room. "Brilliant!" he shouted, "Absolutely brilliant. Oh I am goooood." Donna laughed a more subdued giggle, right along with him. "Thank you Donna Noble!"
It only took a moment. Less than a second.
Strong arms wrapped around her middle, pulling her back against a hard chest. Her breath left her in a whoosh. In her narrowing field of vision she could see the man she thought was the Doctor, not looking the least bit surprised. His face was blank and his mouth opened to say, "Master."
And then she disappeared into the vortex, whisked away in a blink.
"I'll do it. Martha can stay behind in the loop."
"What, big strong men go out to do the dangerous stuff? Is that how we work now?"
"No," her dearly beloved huffed and rolled his eyes in exasperation, "because I can drive the damn fork lift."
Martha made a face like she had sucked on a lemon. "You'll be careful though."
"Course I will," he pecked her lips and squeezed her arms, mindful of the impatient Doctor tapping his foot, a few feet away. "You'll keep your mobile on, yeah?"
"Sure."
"You ready?" the Doctor asked, approaching them at the end of the private moment.
"As I'll ever be. You're sure it'll work?"
As sure as he could be.
Because the Doctor had not found Donna Noble that cool late-summer morning. He hadn't consciously looked for his former companion in years- a few centuries at least.
But when had he ever found Donna on purpose?
Once, a long time ago, she'd suddenly appeared aboard his ship.
Once, in a whole other life, they investigated the same strange happenings.
He'd believed that the universe was doing everything in its power to bring them together; he'd thought it was destiny manipulating impossible odds.
He'd been so so wrong.
It had been the Tardis all along.
Two years ago in Donna's personal timeline, amidst the chaos of replacing the stolen earth, the DoctorDonna stole away deep into the Tardis.
Far past the Doctor's room, Martha, Jack, Rose and finally hers, was another console. The Doctor had explained to her, when she'd stumbled upon it, that no room, once created, ever disappeared from the ship. And that once he regenerated the old control room was shuffled off into the ether.
She stood there now, breathing deeply and trying to commune with the Old Girl herself. She'd seen the Doctor do it countless times- just close his eyes and speak to their shared psyche. Donna willed her to listen now, if only-
The anxious woman was startled out of her trance by the Doctor- or rather, his Duplicate.
"Donna." The newly minted human being stepped forward with his arms open.
"Woah there, Earthboy," she smiled ruefully in spite of herself. "Better keep those hands to yourself."
"You know what's going to happen don't you?" And once again Donna was struck by how much he looked like her. He was mimicking that uncertain way she stood when she was nervous; one hip cocked out and arms crossed over his chest and shoulders hunched up to his ears.
"Yeah, got your big ol' Time Lord brain. I know what you know."
"You sure we're talking about the same thing because sometimes-"
"Weeeell," she stressed in that jolly way of his, "I'd like to think we can stay on the same page for more than a moment at a time now. Otherwise it's just not worth it."
The Duplicate's eyes grew dark, his tone sharp. "It's not. Nothing is worth this."
"Don't you worry about me. I've got it all figured out. I can think of things the two of you would never have dreamed of! Remember?"
He saw right through her, just like the original. "Do you think I'm stupid?"
"Weeeeell…"
"This isn't the time for a joke!"
"It never is, that's never stopped you before."
"Stopped him."
"You're right."
Awkward silence pervaded the space.
"I know you love him," the human Doctor confided with guilty countenance. "Just as you have his memories from before his hand was cut off, I have yours up until the second you made me. I feel what you feel."
"And I feel what the two of you do," sighed sad old Donna, "I feel how much he loved Rose."
"He's going to leave me with her," he said with a hitch in his voice, "Isn't that great?" Sarcasm suited the human no better than the alien.
"Oh sweetheart, of course it is." She reassured him.
"It is! I hope it is, I- I just want to make her happy…" he trailed off, "but I'm not the Doctor." Some of Donna's insecurity leaked through the cracks in his voice.
"No, you're not," declared Donna forcefully. "You've got a little of me in there too. And a little of something new. You're your own man. Don't you f-f-forget it." It wasn't the metacrisis that made the woman stutter, it was the hitches in her breath, which she could no longer keep at bay. Donna hugged herself as tightly as she could, trying to remain calm.
And the Duplicate didn't have enough of her in him, to know how to comfort her.
Hysteria simmered under the surface, while tears streamed down her face. The glow of the Tardis' mainstay stabilizer units warmed her face with the Old Girl's comforting heat. "Don't," she gasped up at the ceiling, sniffing back panicky sobs. "Please don't let him forget me."
The Doctor's Duplicate watched in misery as his very best friend begged the ship for mercy.
"I know it's so selfish, but I know him. I know-… I know-!" She approached the console and began pressing buttons and pulling levers, seemingly at random. A device much like a periscope came down from the ceiling. She laid her hand on the glass scanner that peered into infinity and then kissed it, fogging up the lens.
"Just," she whispered into the dusty air, "make sure he finds me, whenever he needs me. And I do mean whenever, missy. He needs me to stop him sometimes. And if there's no one else, if he's on his own, just bring him to me please. So even if I've forgotten, he'll remember. I know what's going to happen. And I also know what matters most."
That he's happy.
There was a hum, like a cheerful cat purring in front of a fire.
The Tardis would honour the woman who made her Doctor feel safe.
Donna had programmed the Tardis to always find her, when he needed it. Little did she realize that the Tardis, which transcended space and time, existed all at once- and had thus honoured her request long before she'd made it.
It was her own programming that zapped her from her wedding.
It was her own pull that brought them together in the office that day.
It was this failsafe that brought him to her now.
And the Doctor thought, maybe the Tardis brought him to Donna when she needed him too.
In all of time and space the Tardis has always been able to bring he and Donna together. And she'd have to do it again now.
a/n: This was a very difficult chapter to write. I went back and forth with how I wanted to build up to the climax of the story and settled on this. The logistics are a little weird, so hopefully nobody's confused!
Thanks so much for reading, your reviews are wonderful and so motivational! I love reading and responding to them.
Have a good week everybody, and happy Easter to those celebrating (and happy time and a half to everybody who's working retail, like me!)
(Edit: I'm a moron who forgot to put the holiday that she's actually freaking celebrating. HAPPY PASSOVER TO ALL MY JEWISH PEEPS!)
(Edit 2: I have been informed that peeps are small candy easter birdies... I have no rebuttal)