Steady as the Beating Drum
Chapter 14: The Doctor and Donna's Somedays
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Before the Doctor returned to meet River on the beach in Utah, he took a tour of the universe to say goodbye to his friends. Over the course of his pilgrimage he often found that he was unable to actually speak to anyone. Some, like the Brigadier, he did not visit at all.
Not because he didn't want to, nor because he didn't love him. Often it was the dearest of his friends who seemed to have invisible wards placed against him.
He tried to avoid the people he'd failed, but sometimes failed even at that.
Rose was long gone, but in an exercise in remembrance he visited the London memorial for the lost and missing from the attacks that day, where hers and Jackie's names were etched alongside a hundred more.
He'd chickened out of knocking on Martha's door, but he'd glimpsed her with some tall, freckled man, a doctor, and had felt like that was enough.
He hesitated before visiting Donna (he would later, in a darker hour) but found himself pausing over the controls of the Tardis.
Because it didn't matter where in her timestream he landed, she would never know him. It would never be the kind of absolution he craved in his final hours.
For a long, sick moment he honestly considered visiting her grave. He had wanted to know how she turned out, if she'd been happy, before he went.
A thought held him back. 'What if I live?'
Like a miser he had been hoarding Donna's days for a later time. He had hoped against hope that in his travels he would one day trip over a solution to her excess Time Lord energy and all would be well. He put a pin in her, to be revisited in some regeneration down the line who was good and fast and clever enough to fix her.
He did not dare find out her fate and make it fixed. He didn't dare ruin the opportunity to save her. Potentially. Someday.
And now all his somedays were up.
And he still couldn't bear it.
It was 12:47 exactly when the Tardis tipped into the open rift, taking the Doctor and Mickey with it. It had to be, it was the only time the loop intersected with reality.
The plan was this:
Step 1) Use the Tardis to track Donna's exact coordinates
Step 2) The Doctor uses a vortex manipulator to fetch her and bring her to a secure location
Step 3) He will then reason with the most unreasonable human being on the face of planet Earth while-
Step 4) Mickey uses the Tardis to return to Martha, now that they knew the time differential between the loop and the rest of reality.
Step 5) Figure out what the hell to do about the Master at a later date.
Altogether not a terrible plan. It certainly had elements of a great plan but it was also reliant on an amnesiac Donna's cooperation so it had the makings of a not-so-great plan also.
He stood in the small 8x3 concrete cell in the basement of Torchwood institute opposite his fierce former companion.
She had the look of someone who would claw his eyes out of he went anywhere near her, so he allowed the eight feet of space that was likely saving his face from being gouged.
So he couldn't very well headbutt her and hand over his basic backstory like he had with Craig. Plus, who knew what damage the Master had already done.
And oh come on. She was trying to reason with him.
"I don't know why you're doing this," Donna said, hand splayed out in front of her still, as if putting up a force field. "Why can't you just let him be happy?"
The Doctor snorted and rolled his eyes. He began to page back and forth along the width of the cell.
"He just wants to be able to go home again. Surely that's something you want to? He just wants Gallifrey back."
She was reasoning with him! Reasoning. With him! Ha!
"And what do you imagine a Gallifrey made from his mind and memories will be like Donna?" He took a step in her direction. "Do you think it will be as it was? All those people, do you think he has perfect recollection of each? There were millions of us."
"Well I-"
"You imagined him to be infallible, he remembers every person he met in your travels, why not from home?" the Doctor's voice rose in volume and lowered in pitch until it was a growl. "The Doctor spent his life travelling the universe, he did not care enough to know his home as well."
"But it's a chance! They can be made real! That's what the machine does."
"The machine makes real what is in his mind. If he imagines them to be obedient, to love him, to be ruled by him… it will be so."
"He would never do that!"
The Doctor sighed, "Wouldn't I?"
"He is the best man that I know."
"He is not." The Doctor wanted nothing more than for Gallifrey to be made real again. But not this way. From his mind nor the Master's. People cannot be created whole from the mind of another. One man cannot know another person so perfectly that they can be imagined fully formed and as they were in life. They would only ever be a half version, fake and unreal as if they were made of clay. An impression, an image.
"Please," she begged even as the Doctor took a step towards her. "He will forgive you. He always does. Just take me back. I can bring back your home. It's all up here, in my head. I can bring you home. Just let me. Let him have this."
"No." Another step.
Donna would still defend the Doctor until her last breath, after everything. Even after everything he'd said, and what she was seeing. She would still protect him. It was flattering but it was also dangerous. The Donna that had been would still question him, would fight him tooth and nail, would have seen this as wrong. But she still loved him and worried for him and wanted to give him whatever he asked for. And that was dangerous.
The pair grew quiet.
Donna closed her eyes and leaned back against the concrete wall. The Doctor took this opportunity to come up beside her.
For a brief moment, the Doctor thought he heard the thrum of engines, but no. Donna was humming.
"What are you?"
"It's a song," she whispered, seeming confused herself. "I don't know why, but it's all I can think about."
Sing me a song of a lad that is gone,
Say, could that lad be I?
Merry of soul he sailed on a day
Over the sea to skye.
It echoed in her mind like a dormant memory. The song meant something to her. But what?
The Doctor tentatively tried to take her hand, but she yanked it away with force.
He just needed to touch her, to see what was clearly so very wrong with her mind. She wouldn't let him when she was like this.
"Get away from me," she pointed a finger right between his eyes and backed away towards the door, circling around him like prey.
There was a sudden bang and the door to the cell flew open.
"Martha, not yet-!" the Doctor began to say, but he stopped himself.
In the arch stood the Master.
"Doctor!" Donna cried happily.
And then they both saw it. He was holding a plasma blaster. It was so large that he needed both hands to hold it.
"Doctor," Donna said again, uneasily.
"Hello everybody!" he trilled. "Hate to break this up, but I think I've given you enough time to catch up."
"How did you find us?" demanded the Doctor.
"Oh, I've always known where you were," The Master replied cryptically with a wink. "Count on it."
"I don't understand," said the Doctor, "the point of all of this. Why now? How do you know so much? Why did it have to be Donna?"
"Well," he stressed, the way his other self always had, "It's always been Dear Donna hasn't it?" He hefted the plasma blaster up and looked down its sight. "Like I said. Not everything's about you."
"Doctor," Donna breathed and tentatively stepped forward. "What are you doing?"
"What does it look like?"
"You can't. This isn't how we do things. It's not right. We'll get him help, he's mad, he's dangerous but he deserves our help! He didn't hurt me Doctor, it's okay."
The Master gave no indication that he'd heard her. He merely smiled maniacally.
"Donna," the Doctor tried to council, "Stand back."
She did the opposite. She moved in front of him to stand between the two Time Lords.
Her red hair flipped around as she looked over her shoulder to look him in the eyes. Her smile was reassuring. What-
"Doctor, I won't let you hurt him."
"Why?" laughed the Master. "It's nothing to you. He took everything from you." And it wasn't even a lie.
"It doesn't matter now. I can't let you."
Give me again all that as there,
Give me the sun that shone!
Give me the eyes, give me the soul,
Give me the lad that's gone!
She shook her head. The song was growing louder in her ears. She knew it, but had never properly heard it before.
"I have to be here to stop you."
She was completely in front of the Doctor now, arms wrapped around him, as best she could with her back turned. She would be both of their shields if she must.
The Master cocked an eyebrow and smirked.
And then he pulled the trigger.
The force of the blast sent the pair of them flying backwards into the sell. The Doctor hit the concrete first, cushioning Donna's collision.
The Doctor looked down, horrified. She had fallen, cradled in his lap. Her fringe had fallen in her eyes and blood spurted from between her lips. Her hands were pressed against the gapping wound in her chest, singed at the edges. He could see her heart sputtering away.
The blast had gone right through her and into him. They were both going to die here, but only one of them could walk away after that.
"Oh, Rassilon, no."
He gathered her up in his arms and tried not to be sick all over the place.
She looked into his eyes with zero recognition. He didn't think he could handle this. Not yet. Not now. Not ever really, but never had come too soon.
His eyes shot up to meet the Master's, rage, brewing up an awful sickly storm of feral hatred.
The Master stood still in the doorway. He smirked and waved casually but made no move to finish them off. He was staying to watch.
Behind him there was movement. And two blasts of a different sort than what had felled them. They had gone right through each of his hearts.
The Master fell to the ground, unmoving. There was no sign of regeneration.
From the shadows of the antechamber emerged the woman who'd held the gun. She had dark skin and long black hair that fell in waves. She was tall, elegant and had a very serious face.
"Hi, Maisie. We haven't met," she said as introduction. Her voice was deep and soft. Without much thought, she tossed the ray gun over her shoulder and put her hands on her hips. "I'll-" she wavered for a moment, but seemed to steel herself in time. "I'll see you soon."
"Who the hell are you?!"
Maisie smiled sweetly, "I'm the Master." She nodded her chin at Donna, "Now might be a good time to tell her who you are."
"Wait!" he shouted. "Come back here! What in Rassilon's name is going on?!"
"Ta!" she trilled over her shoulder before returning from whence she came.
He supposed he could worry about her later.
Donna Noble's somedays were up after all. She deserved better than being a footnote in a mystery.
Gently, he placed a hand on her trembling cheek. He closed his eyes and willed her to see him.
He didn't give back her memories, there was no time to explain or cause her further pain. All she needed to know was that she wasn't alone.
Donna mustered her energy to place her hand on his. It shook violently with the effort.
"Goodbye Spaceman," she whispered weakly. "Guess I won't be getting an explanation now, will I?"
"No. I do not give you permission to die. I won't have it." When she spoke, it made it difficult for him to resign himself to goodbyes. He grasped in the panic for a plan.
"Doctor-"
"Shut up shut up shut up. Do you ever be quiet?"
"DID YOU JUST INTERRUPT ME WHILE I'M DYING, YOU TWIT!?" She screamed to the best of her hindered abilities.
Quickly regaining composure, Donna reached up and cupped his face between long pale fingers, the way he'd done to her, regenerations ago. "We had the best of times." With the hand not supporting her head and shoulders, he intertwined their fingers over his cheek. He turned his head to kiss her palm and returned it to its place; he was trying very hard not to shed any tears. He was praying.
"Donna, your best days are in front of you. I promise, your life is going to be amazing and wonderful. So many days ahead, and if you'd like, you could spend them with me. I promise, I'll be better. You're going to go on to save a hundred other worlds. I promise we're going to see everything, I promise we'll travel the universe forever, you and I. We just have to get to the Tardis."
Martha and Mickey didn't know there was a rush, but the Tardis might.
"You just have to hold on for a little longer. Just a little longer. You're going to be fine."
Donna suddenly felt a little heavier. Weight he'd gladly bear if he didn't know what it meant. "Come on! You can't just do that! You can't steal my words for your last. That's just stupid. So stupid. You are far too Donna to do that. You can't just leave that way." He spoke to her as if she could still hear him, as if there were a conversation to carry on. "I hope you're happy, that was very dramatic."
The Ood song, she thought, in her last moments. It's the song of the DoctorDonna. And it's ending.
Billow and breeze, islands and seas,
Mountains of rain and sun,
All that was good, all that was fair,
All that was me is gone.