Thanks so much for the feedback on chapter 30! You guys are the best!

Most felt that Colin was totally justified in his anger toward the Doctor, even though it looked, for a while, like he'd maybe begun to fall under the Time Lord's spell. I think of Jackie Tyler asking the Doctor point blank, "Is my daughter safe?" and Francine insisting, "He's dangerous!" and begging Martha to walk away. Even Martha herself, "The Doctor's wonderful and he's brilliant, but he's like fire. Stand too close and people get burned."

But the best was Rory Williams, the ultimate outsider-insider, in the Doctor's world: "You know what's dangerous about you? It's not that you make people take risks... you make it so they don't want to let you down. You have no idea how dangerous you make people to themselves when you're around." Boom, right?

Anyway, Donna's still out there somewhere, Martha's still attached to the Doctor for better or for worse, so Colin's probably not going anywhere for a while. And maybe not just because he refuses to leave...

Enjoy!

THIRTY-ONE

Ten hours later, Martha Jones was in the console room with two men who, she was acutely aware, were more or less feuding. And she felt that impact so poignantly because one was the man she loved, and the other was a man whom she'd respected like a big brother, all her life. She felt like she was being forced to choose between two parts of herself.

Which was ridiculous, because it was not a matter of choosing, no matter what Colin said.

Though, it was difficult not try and take sides when both of them, at different points, had gone on a whinging tirade about the other.

"You can tell a lot about a person from how they act when the chips are down, Martha," the Doctor had lectured, climbing out of his suit, the night before. "Things are fine, but then, first sign of trouble, Colin's instinct is to try to find someone to blame, and begin to treat you like a child. I'm dangerous, and you need to leave me?"

"You're not wrong," she said, settling in against the headboard. "But neither is he. Except about the leaving part. Tried that, hated it."

"So… you think I'm dangerous?" he asked, staring at her a bit incredulously.

"Aren't you?"

He sighed, and then continued unbuttoning his shirt. "Yeah."

Just a little over a week before, Martha and Donna had had a heart-to-heart over the dangers of travelling and being involved with the Doctor. It was like that conversation foreshadowed everything that happened in the eight days following.

"Colin didn't sign up for any of this, and we have turned his worldview completely upside-down in the last day or two… and that's not even counting introducing him to Donna! He's human, and I think we should give him some time, and benefit of the doubt," she said. Then, she took a thoughtful pause, and continued, "Now, having said that, he clearly isn't giving you the benefit of the doubt. And, he could keep his mouth shut for a bit longer, and trust that I know what I'm doing, unless it becomes amply clear that I don't. Or that you don't."

The Doctor sighed, again. "He's a good guy, Martha."

"Believe it or not, he thinks you're a good guy too. It's just, travelling with you is like a knife-throwing act, and he obviously recognizes that."

"A knife throwing act, Martha?"

"An exercise in trust," she explained. "I mean, personally, I, as your lovely assistant, am ninety per-cent confident that you know what you're doing, and so is Donna. But the audience... they're gasping and biting their nails, and covering their faces because they're afraid you're going to drive a blade into one of our eyes, each time you throw. They haven't been through what we have. They don't know what we know."

The Doctor crawled into bed beside her, and just sat for a couple of minutes, thinking, staring at his hands. Then he said, "Okay, maybe it is a knife-throwing act, and I don't mind Colin thinking, or knowing, that. I'm just a bit bothered by how quickly he turned on me."

"Don't forget that on top of everything else, Doctor, he's a man in love," she said, softly. "Or at least a man very much in the beginning stages of love with a woman he met less than a week ago. He might have been able to hold it together, had Donna not…"

"Done what you almost did?" he asked, looking at her with pleading, sad, droopy eyes.

"Yeah," she whispered.

"What made you think I would have been able to hold it together any better than Colin?" he asked. "You can't say I'm in the beginning stages."

"What made you think I would have?" she countered. "Can't say I am either."

They were silent for about minute.

Then, "The bottom line is, the universe can do without me. Or even Donna. It can't do without you. That's why I almost did what I did, and why Donna did what she did."

"Oh, Martha," he groaned. "There's so much wrong with that statement."

And then, the two of them talked through the next two hours, and oddly, nothing they said led to sex. It was a first for them: retiring to the same bed, with sleep on their minds, without making a conscious decision to abstain from lovemaking.

Counterintuitively, it made Martha feel rather warm and cosy.

But, at eleven o'clock a.m. on the second of January, 1938, the cold had come back home to roost, right there in the TARDIS, with the Doctor and Colin not looking at each other, and Martha trying her best to seem affable toward both.

The Time Lord stood at his screen, feet apart, arms crossed over his chest, scrutinising the display as though a dear friend's life depended upon it.

"For God's sake, what're you doing?" Colin snapped, after watching him for a few minutes.

"Sssh," Martha warned, her cousin on her left.

"I'm trying to find Donna, oddly enough," the Doctor muttered back, definitely without shifting his eyes, and almost without moving his lips.

"I thought we were going to fly into the… vortex, or some such," Colin complained.

"We will," the Doctor answered. "But the vortex is infinite, so it might help if we had some idea of where she might have gone, and by the way, would you like to drive?"

"Oi," Martha now warned the man on her right. "Tone."

The Doctor and Colin both scowled, and Martha hung onto the console, and simply waited. She waited for the Doctor to say something, for him to tell her what was going to happen next, that Donna was okay, and that the solution was simple…

"Martha, Colin," he said, looking up at both of them. "This might get ugly."

"That's not what I was hoping to hear," she whined.

"Nor me," Colin agreed. "Ugly, how?"

The Doctor took a deep breath, and Martha could tell that he was holding back tears. "I'm getting signs of organic material in the vortex, finally, but no…" he gulped.

"No what?" Martha asked, already more or less knowing the answer.

"No signs of life," he said.

"What?" Colin shouted.

"There's no guarantee that what I'm picking up is her," the Doctor said. "It's not unheard-of for organic debris to work its way in…"

"Organic debris?" Colin was shouting again. "Is that what she is to you now?"

"No!"

"That's what you called her!"

The Doctor squinted his eyes. "I don't recall that bit."

"You said, it's not unheard of…"

"Colin!" Martha scolded. "Stop it! He's trying to be reassuring! You'd know that if you didn't have a giant bloody chip on your shoulder! The Doctor and I care about her as much as you do, and want her back as badly as you do. Each of us is doing everything that he or she can, to make sure that Donna Noble is very soon standing in this room, saying something cheeky and loud, because that's the only way that our little world will keep on turning. That is how we'll know that all is right with the universe again. So, stop being so damn tetchy! If you want to help, just belt up and wait for instructions!"

Colin wasn't particularly surprised to receive this lecture, so he simply sighed and held up his hands in disarmed stance, and moved a few more feet away from her.

After several tense, silent moments, the Doctor muttered, more to himself than anyone, "Okay… might as well start on the plane between 2008 and 1938…"

"So, we look for a gold sliver of time, like before?" Colin asked, rather timidly.

"No, I wish," said the Doctor. "Her falling into that hole erased the alternate timeline, so the timeline she was in is now just… reality. Which is actually a good thing, except for the fact that it now blends into the rest of reality."

"I have no idea what that means," Colin reported, shaking his head.

"It doesn't matter," the Doctor said. "The important thing to know is that there are no special gold veins in play here. It's all just big, fat, unadulterated vortex."

Martha found this a terrifying thought.

Suddenly, the TARDIS' high-pitched gears began to grind, and Martha and Colin both knew that they were moving through time. Though, the sound did not stop within ten seconds as it often does…

The Doctor said, "This might do it," and jogged down the ramp, chancing to open the door. Once again, both passengers could see that they were flying through the vortex… noise rushing, light flashing.

"Oh my God!" Colin shouted, as he stared out the door between the Doctor's head and the doorjamb. He ran down the ramp as well, and nearly pushed the Doctor overboard as he came to a skidding halt.

Martha, of course, wondered what he'd seen, so gathered at the portal between the other two. When she saw, she had to choke back a sob, and she breathed, "Oh my God," echoing her cousin.

Because, there was Donna, clear as day, flying through the vortex ahead of them, wearing the clothes in which they'd last seen her, green top, boots and all, and her hair blowing back like an explosion from her head. The TARDIS was following her at breakneck speed.

"Is she alive?" Colin managed to choke out. "I mean… she's not moving. Or is she? It's impossible to tell at this speed!"

"Only one way to find out," the Doctor said, running back up the ramp.

"What are you gonna do?" Colin asked, looking mightily worried.

"I'm going to try and catch her, of course."

The TARDIS' gears amped up, and became louder, then quieted again. Martha and Colin held on tight as the vessel dematerialised, then rematerialised, and when they did so, they could not see Donna, though the TARDIS was still moving. They seemed to be chasing nothing.

"Bollocks!" the Doctor shouted, before either Colin or Martha could ask where Donna had gone. "I missed! Well, if at first you don't succeed…" And with exposed, gritted teeth, he tried again, and the TARDIS' gears got loud, then soft, once more, and they rematerialised.

This time, they could see Donna, but she was a bit farther away than she had been before.

"What are you trying to do? Materialise around her?" asked Martha.

"Yeah," he confirmed. "But it's not like doing it in space, or on terra firma. This is the bloody vortex!"

And with that, he tried again. This time, the TARDIS turned over, jostling them all, and when they gained their bearings, they could see Donna now chasing them.

But before anyone could make that comment, they were jostled hard, a second time, and Martha and Colin were thrown off their feet. Donna had disappeared again.

"Doctor, what the hell?" Martha shouted.

"We're off-course! I'd programmed her to follow Donna, but once we got in front of her, the TARDIS got confused," he shouted back, at almost as dizzying a pace as the police box was flying. He patted the console. "It's all right old girl… let's just find her again, eh?"

"Find her again? To what end, exactly?" Colin asked, stalking up the ramp.

"What do you mean, to what end?" the Doctor fired back, distractedly.

"I mean, it doesn't seem like you have any fucking idea how to get her back!" Colin argued. "Sure, you can find her, but then what? We just keep chasing her and trying to rematerialise around her! It's like trying to catch champagne in a sieve!"

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"It's not working!" Colin shouted.

"I'll get it, Colin!" the Doctor insisted. "She's a moving target, on the most difficult plane in existence to navigate!"

"Well… Jesus Christ. How long can she survive in there?"

"I don't know," the Doctor said, beginning to panic a bit. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry… I just don't know."

Colin cursed under his breath, then fell into a contemplative, frightened silence, and began to pace back and forth.

After a few minutes, Martha took his arm in mid-pace, stopping him, and, gesturing at the Doctor, said, "You're acting like him. Are you gonna be all right?" She spoke as gently as she could, while still trying to talk over the sound of the whooshing vortex.

"This is all a lot to handle, you know? I mean…" he looked out the still-open door. "What the hell is the time vortex? How can any of this be real? How can he be real? Everything I've seen in the last two days seems impossible… and then some."

"I know," she sighed. "It's like baptism by fire, isn't it?"

"And then, to boot…" he said, and with that his eyes filled with tears. He blinked, and one or two fell down his cheeks.

"Oh, Colin," she said, resting her head against his arm.

"This is daft," he spat, wiping his tears away. "I've only known her for five days."

"It doesn't matter," she whispered, making eye-contact across the console with the Doctor. "If you feel, you feel – can't fault you for that. You should've seen me after five days with him."

Colin broke away from her, and approached the Time Lord. "How goes it, Doctor?"

"I'm close," the Doctor assured him. "We'll find her, Colin… in fact… ha! Got her!"

Martha and Colin both cast their eyes out the door again, as the TARDIS' gears did their thing, and surely enough, there was Donna, still flying at a million miles per hour, and yet eerily still.

With a mighty cry, both Time Lord and TARDIS tried their best one more time to catch the "organic debris" that was Donna Noble, otherwise lost in the vortex…

"Damn it!" the Doctor spat.

"Doctor…" Colin said, standing beside him at the console.

"And again!" said the Doctor, not hearing Colin at all.

One more time, the Doctor tried to materialise his vessel around Donna, and one more time, he failed.

"Doctor, can this thing go any faster?" asked Colin, grabbing onto the Doctor's arm with both hands, to get his attention.

"Yeah, why?"

"Can you fly it manually?"

"Yeah, why?" the Doctor repeated. Then it occurred to him why. His eyes went wide and he said to Colin, "Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no. Not a chance. I'm not losing you, too."

"Let me try!" Colin insisted, pulling away from the Doctor, and gesturing widely with his arms.

"Try what?" Martha shrieked. "Grabbing her while moving a zillion miles per hour through the bloody time vortex?"

"Yes!" her cousin shrieked back. "Call it plan B!"

"Are you completely mad?" she asked.

"Maybe! No madder than he is, with his teleportation or whatever. It's like at work... sometimes, in architecting, when the computer can't draw with the precision of a human being, you just gotta do it the old-fashioned way. The technology isn't working, so let's go analog. Eyeballs and manpower!"

"Colin, if you fall out…" the Doctor began.

"I'll be lost in the vortex, just like her," Colin said. "And you'll find me. Maybe you'll even get me back."

Martha's eyes were wide now, too. "Doctor, can it be done? Can you chase her down manually, get close enough that we can grab her?"

"You thought he was mad, a minute ago!" the Doctor reminded her.

"I know, but… he's right," she said. "What we're doing isn't working. And Doctor… it's Donna."

Looking back and forth between his trusted Companion and her cousin, the Doctor's brow began to bead, and he felt frantic. "I… I can try, but the odds…"

"I don't care," Colin declared. "If there's a chance, I want to do it. Full throttle, Doctor."

"Full throttle, until the precise moment comes to slow down, so we don't plow into her and damage her more than she's already been damaged!" the Doctor reminded him. "Plus… you've got no leverage, nothing anchoring you."

"So tie me to something," Colin said.

The Doctor sighed. Martha was looking at him, half-pleading, half amused. Either way, it was an expression imploring him to give Colin a chance.

Anyway, at this stage, he couldn't bear to try again to catch her in a rematerialisation, and miss again.

So, he dived underneath the console and tore up a floor panel. He jumped down into the area below, and Martha and Colin watched him root around through the semi-dark for something, they assumed, fairly specific.

A moment later, a long, thick rope was heaved out of the hole and onto the floor of the console room, and the Doctor then heaved himself ungracefully back out as well.

"A rope?" Martha asked.

"He said analog," the Doctor shrugged.

Colin seized the rope and began to fasten it around his waist.

"What do we attach him to?" Martha asked, seizing the other end.

"The base of the console," the Doctor said. "All the way round."

Martha walked the rope round the console twice, then began to tie a knot. She reckoned she'd let Colin inspect the knot himself, and tie it however he liked, since it was his life on the line.

As she watched, Colin actually fashioned himself a kind of harness, round his waist, over the shoulders and across his chest and back. The rope was plenty long, and he looked surprisingly secure.

"Where'd you learn to do that?" Martha asked him.

"Boy scouts," he shrugged.

"For what? Your Extreme Sports badge?"

Absently, he said, "Don't be daft. It was sailing." He then knelt and checked out the knot Martha had tied. He made an adjustment or two, then stood and said, "I'm ready."

The Doctor asked, "Are you sure?"

"I'm sure."

"This is madness, Colin."

"I couldn't agree more."

Martha squeezed her cousin's arm. "Please don't die," she whispered, then she kissed his cheek. "And thanks for getting her back for us."

Colin pulled her into a hug, then walked down the ramp resolutely toward the door. Quite a few yards of slack rope pooling behind him. Martha followed him down, and they could see Donna flying, still at an insane speed, about fifty yards ahead of the TARDIS.

He braced himself against the doorjamb, and the Doctor muttered, "Here goes nothing," and with that, the velocity of the TARDIS increased noticeably, and Martha gave a shout, as she grasped the nearest railing for dear life.

She turned her attention toward the woman in the vortex, who was now closer, but it was clear that they would have to speed up even more, in order to get close enough to catch her.

"More speed, Doctor!" she shouted. "She's still twenty yards out.

"Are you sure there's not enough rope?" the Doctor shouted back. "If I go any faster, and get any closer, I'm afraid I'll run into her and send her flying… break her whole body!"

"I can't tell how much rope there is!" she told him. "I can't…"

"Only one way to know!" Colin declared, then he leapt out the door, straight at Donna, without looking back.

The Doctor shouted in horror, watching, and also trying to navigate a high-speed vessel…

Martha screamed her cousin's name and leapt toward the door. Seeing this, both of the Doctor's hearts practically leapt into his throat.

But Martha's body came to a stop right at the precipice, and she was now grasping the rope with both hands.

"What's going on?" the Doctor shouted, trying to drive straight "Has he got her?"

"No!" Martha cried. "He's close! Oh, God, he's so close!"

She could hear her cousin's long, wailing voice, alternately screaming in terror and calling out Donna's name. She could see him swiping at Donna's hair, and missing.

"Doctor! You've got to give him a few more feet! Just a little more speed!"

"I can't! It's too risky! This thing wasn't built for speed, Martha!"

"You've got to! Just a bit more! We can't give up now!"

The Doctor cursed loudly, and Martha chanced to turn back and watch him. She saw him steel himself, brace his feet wider apart, try to regulate his very heavy breathing…

"I'm gonna give her a surge," the Doctor shouted. "It's the best I can do without ramping up to the next level of speed and risking all of our lives!"

"Okay!"

"Give me a moment to get the precision I need…"

Martha kept her eyes on Colin and Donna, but heard the Doctor moving, talking to the TARDIS, shouting at it, throwing switches, and then he said, "Forgive me for this… allons-y!"

"Colin, a surge is coming! Grab her!" Martha cried out. "Be ready!"

And the TARDIS gave a swell of gear-grinding, and it did not sound happy to do so, but for about four seconds, Martha could see that they were noticeably closer to Donna.

She saw Colin make a desperate, shrieking swipe at Donna, trying to catch her arm. He missed with his right.

"Shit!" she shouted.

He tried with his left…

And he had her!

"Oh my God! He has her!" she said, though she did not shout it, as she got to her feet and grasped the rope with both hands. She began to pull, but didn't make much progress.

The Doctor had not heard what she said, but he could see what she was doing, and he set the controls to slow the TARDIS to a reasonable speed. He ran down the ramp and took the rope out of her hands. He began to pull, and Colin and Donna began to move in closer.

Martha threw open the opposite door, and braced herself against the left-side doorjamb, and encouraged all involved to pull, hang on, be strong…

And when Donna's body was in reach, she grabbed on, and heaved backward, pulling Donna into the console room, heaped onto the floor. Colin soon followed, and he fell at Donna's side, turning her onto her back.

He took her face in his hands and began to shout at her in panic, "Donna? Donna? It's me! Can you hear me?"

Martha lurched over Donna's supine form, pushing Colin away. "You've got to give her some air, Colin," she scolded. "And give me room to work!"

He looked at her with total shock, seeing her for the first time in "doctor" mode. The Doctor leaned down, grabbed him by the arm, and helped him to his feet.

"Come on, give her a minute," he said.

They watched her pry open Donna's eyes to examine them, then check her jowls, and take her pulse…

After a minute, Martha sighed, sat back on her knees, looked up at the Doctor with tears in her eyes.

I hope your heart is pounding!

Don't be silent! Tell me what you're thinking...and thank you for reading!