All right, my friends - finally, the story is winding down. I believe I can now confirm that this will be a thirty-five chapter story. That means, four more chapters, including this one!

Our lovely Colin just defied death and leapt into the Vortex to save Donna, but when they brought her aboard, she was unconscious and Martha was in tears. So let's see what happens with Donna...

But let's also explore some of our feelings about our unscrupulous pals at the Heimat Squad, who tried to do some mightily nasty things, shall we?

Enjoy!

THIRTY-TWO

After a long, agonising wait for Donna Noble to return to their midst, she was back in the TARDIS. Plucked from the terrifying, churning fabric of the time vortex by Colin Brownhill, whose investment in her, even by his own admission, seemed out-of-proportion for the time he had known her.

There she was, clear as you like, on the floor, on her back, totally unconscious.

Colin 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. "Her pulse is faint, and she's got severe concussion."

And then, Donna began to seize. On the up-side, they could see that she was alive. On the down-side, this was a very strong indicator that her recovery was going to be a hard row to hoe.

Her body shook like a leaf, and the Doctor knelt immediately and helped Martha turn Donna onto her side. The seizure played itself out, while her friends held her not-too-tightly, and her very new love interest watched in horror.

When it stopped, the console room was silent, except for the subtle hum of the TARDIS.

Martha looked at the Doctor, and broke the silence gently. "What d'you reckon? Abnormal electrical activity overstimulating the brain?"

"At the very least," he said, his eyes wide with disbelief. "She's been pounded on all sides by time. I know what that feels like."

"Can you prep the infirmary?" she asked.

"Yep," he said.

"Monitors, IVs, defibs on stand-by… the whole nine yards."

"I'm on it," he said, jogging toward the hallway, and disappearing.

"Shouldn't we get her to a real hospital?" Colin asked.

"The TARDIS' infirmary is fully-equipped," she said, stroking Donna's hand, rather sadly. "Beyond state-of-the-art."

"Still, shouldn't she be seen by a…"

"A doctor?" Martha asked. "Erm, hello?"

"Martha, I mean…"

"What? A real doctor?"

"I…" Colin began, seeming to stutter a bit.

"What do you think I've been doing? Just showing up at A&E in scrubs, because they're so stylish?"

"Okay. Fine."

"Colin, I know I'm your kid-cousin, or whatever, but…"

"I'm not doubting you," he said. "I would just feel more comfortable if we took her to a real hospital!"

Martha gaped at him for a moment, before something occurred to her. Her face fell. "Do you mean, away from him? From the Doctor? The one who got her into this situation in the first place?"

"Maybe."

"Colin, no one in the universe, not me, not any hospital, not even bloody Hippocrates, is better-suited to take care of her than he is. What physician do you think knows more?"

"It's not a question of knowing things…"

"Besides, let's say that you actually are the one who gets to make that decision (which you're not). We walk into an ED with a comatose, or semi-comatose, woman, seizing, with some sort of brain-injury… what do we say happened to her?"

Colin thought about this. "I don't know," he sighed.

"It's the first question they'll ask: what happened to her, and what was she doing when it happened? What do we tell them, the truth?" she asked, chuckling a bit. "Yeah right! So we wind up saying, we don't know what happened. And then, let's say they decide to give us the benefit of the doubt, that we actually don't know what happened to her (which they wouldn't do, because they'd be on-alert for violent behaviour or evidence of substance abuse on all of us), the next thing they'll do is give her an MRI. When it shows that the electrical activity in her brain is going haywire, off-the-charts for anything terrestrial, what will they do then?"

"No clue," he admitted.

"To be honest, I don't either," she said. "Call in neuro, do unnecessary surgery? Test her for a bunch of drugs, habits, and diseases we know are not the cause?"

"Okay, I get it."

"And if I tell them everything I know about her condition, they're going to wonder how I know it, so I'll have to tell them who I am. And the fact that I came in with a patient under suspicious conditions will be noted, and will follow me, and possibly haunt my career forever. If I hold back what I know, she could die, so why bother?"

"Fine, fine," he said. "You win. She stays here under the loving care of you and the Doctor!"

"Trust me, Colin, this is life with the Doctor, and it's better this way," Martha told him. "And if Donna could talk, she would agree with me."

He nodded then, because he knew it was true.

Colin carried Donna into the infirmary, where Martha undressed and changed her into a hospital gown, then administered medication, hoping to stabilise her blood pressure. Donna had been lost in the vortex for almost twenty-four hours, so Martha started a hydrating IV drip, and a feeding tube, then fitted her with an oxygen cannula. She and the Doctor got the heart and brain-wave monitors up and running, and connected Donna to them, to watch her vitals. The Doctor routed the information to the TARDIS console, so they could still problem-solve, and keep an eye on their precious charge.

"You can stand there all day and night if you want, Colin, but it won't do her any good," Martha said to her cousin, standing helplessly at the foot of Donna's bed.

"I can talk to her, can't I? Don't they say that coma patients can hear you?"

Martha conceded, "She's probably in toxic-metabolic encephalopathy, which means she may be able to hear you."

"I'll stay with her for a while, then," he said. "You go."

"I'll bring you some tea in a while."

"Okay."

"You're staring at the screen," she said. "Quelle surprise."

"We still have to deal with bloody General Kir, and Wilmer T. Simpleton," he said, low and discouraged.

"Well, yeah, but we knew that," Martha said.

"I know," he sighed, pulling his hand down over his face. He leaned back on the chair, and said "It's just… doesn't it seem like after all we've just been through, the crisis should be averted?"

She came up beside him and draped her arms around his shoulders. She kissed his temple. "Yes. But one crisis is averted: Donna's going to live."

He nodded. "Thank you for that."

"And London didn't get flattened," she added. "It'll be nice and intact when the Nazis come to bomb the hell out of it, isn't that great?"

"Fantastic."

"So… I know that we can't just track down Greene or even Kir and try to talk them out of this, stop it happening Marty McFly-style," Martha said.

"No, we can't," the Doctor agreed. "The Time Lords and the Heimat Squad, they'd just find others to do it."

"Right. I have no idea where that leaves us."

"It's like I said before, we'll have to intervene on a different level. With the Time Lords (which can't be done because they're time-locked) or the Heimat Squad."

"Can that be done?"

"Well, they're not time-locked, but they are bloody cretins," he sighed. "So who knows?"

"Any ideas, at least?" she asked.

He nodded, and paused, exhausted. Then said, "I've been thinking a lot about this room within the complex in the Kyriarch system where we were held. It's a lot like this one – some of the same instruments that the TARDIS has on her console are in that room, only arranged differently, because the objective is different."

"The room that the Time Lords built."

"Yep. From that room, they were able to truss up 1938 the way they did, and shove it into a capsule, and they could do it again and again. Well, anyone could, if they knew how to use the equipment. But no-one knows anymore, except for me."

"And you've been thinking about it, why?"

"Because I feel like it's the key to all of this," he said. "I could rig it up..."

When he trailed off, she muttered, "I say you go in there, and set the whole thing to blow up, and take all those bloody uniforms with it."

"Dr. Jones, you know that's not my style," he said. Then he frowned. "Nor yours. So what gives?"

She seemed to realise something just then, as her face registered confusion, then surprise. "Wow, yeah, that didn't really sound like me, did it?"

"No," he agreed, looking concerned.

"I guess I'm angrier than I realised."

"Because of the time-loop thing?"

"No…"

"Because of threatening you with…"

"Torture and gang rape?" she snapped.

He nodded knowingly.

"Yeah, that'll stick with you," she said tersely. Then she sighed. "The dust has settled a little bit, and I'm just now sort of realising what almost happened."

"I'd never have let…"

"I know that's what you think, but what if things hadn't shaken out the way they did? What if we hadn't had Agent Pym there, to set us free? You'd have been forced to show them how to basically imprison humanity for eternity, or…" She didn't finish her thought, but rather, gave a shudder, and willed away the images in her mind. "And you'd never let them imprison humanity."

"Fortunately, I don't have to make that decision now," he assured her, reaching out to take her hand. "I have to say, I knew Kir was a piece of work, but that was a special kind of heinous."

She nodded. "I asked Pym if Kir would actually be capable of following through, and he said he didn't know."

"He would be," the Doctor said.

"I think so too."

After a long, contemplative pause, the Doctor said, "I wonder what the real Galactic Council would do if they found out that Kir had used their good name to commit kidnaping, coercion, collusion to imprison a level-5 planet, tampering with temporal spheres and fibres, and abuse of power with intent to commit level-7 acts of cruelty on the Orlingus scale."

They looked at each other with a mixture of excitement and trepidation. "Should we find out?" Martha asked.

"In due time," the Doctor answered. "Meanwhile, I've got some of my own thoughts on the topic. And I do enjoy expounding."

Agent Pym had not left General Kir's side in an uncomfortably long time. This was only because he had been ordered not to be out of the General's sight. Otherwise, he'd have loved nothing more than to be, really, anywhere else.

When Kir and the transfer team had appeared at the Doctor's cell to escort him, by dual sharp steel collars, to the Time Lords' control room, and the Doctor was not there, Kir had turned to Pym and demanded to know what had happened.

"The Doctor must have escaped, sir!" Pym said, frantically, looking about. Funny thing was, even though he had been the one to give the Doctor the means to escape, his demeanour was not feigned. He was terrified of being found out, and he was searching the vicinity for hints that anyone was onto him.

The General cursed loudly. He then ordered the team down one floor to Martha Jones' cell.

She too, of course, was gone.

"Pym, what the hell is going on?" Kir asked.

"He's absconded," Pym said. "And obviously you know that for him, Dr. Jones' safety is a priority."

"Obviously," the General said, sardonically, with drooping eyes.

"I'm just saying, there would be no way he'd escape without taking her with."

Kir looked at him suspiciously. "You seem to have thought this through."

"It doesn't take that much thought, sir," Pym said. "How hard did you have to think, in order to know that threatening her would make him agree to reset the time loop?"

"Hm," the General grunted, still eyeing Pym. Then his tone changed, and he addressed the other three agents. "Team, search the premises, and put another ten agents on the task. Except for you, Pym. You're with me."

"All right, sir," Pym agreed. "Doing what?"

"I'm not sure yet," Kir said, before taking off down the hall, and up the stairs, with Pym in tow.

Since then, Pym had spent some time in Kir's office, watching the General make communiqués with beings all over the universe, trying to get a read on how the Doctor might have escaped, and/or what he might do next. The only consistent thing he'd been able to glean from this method is that the Doctor is resourceful, volatile, proud, and unpredictable.

"This is not what I wanted to hear," Kir said.

"I imagine it's not, sir."

"I was hoping to be able to determine an M.O."

"I suppose there's a reason the Doctor's been able to stay alive for so long," Pym commented. "No solid M.O. Just a lot of clever problem-solving, and using what's at-hand."

The General squinted at him. "Clever problem-solving? So you admire him, now?"

"One must respect an intellect of such... utility. The reason you were so keen to get him here, and you're so keen now to get him back, is that you need him. You need his brain. You need his skill. You need what he knows."

"Yeah, well, don't overstate it, Pym," Kir growled. "You're already on my list."

"Of course, sir."

"I imagine he'll have gone back to Earth," said Kir, after a contemplative pause.

"Perhaps," Pym said. "Though, if he thinks the Earth is headed for a big crash-and-burn, he might be trying to work remotely."

"Like from his TARDIS?"

"Maybe. Yes."

"Then he could be anywhere!"

"Yes, he could," Pym agreed, trying to hide his vindicated delight.

In addition, Pym had taken five or six meals with Kir (not eating the same things, of course, just eating by his side, almost as a prisoner might), and had waited unhappily while Kir played a long round of Princey Cups with his cronies. He'd waited even more unhappily while Kir had had a rather soulless sexual tryst with the beautiful, but cowed, wife of an inferior officer, then showered.

All in all, it had been a fairly disgusting couple of days.

Pym had not been asked to do anything, except… precisely nothing. He followed the General about, slept when the time came, ate when the time came, kept quiet unless spoken-to, and learned a lot more about General Kir than he'd ever wanted to. He'd not been allowed to be on his own, except to use the toilet, and even then, the room was inspected before he entered it, when he exited, and he was timed.

One morning, while Kir took a decadent breakfast and Pym was having dry bread with stale coffee, Pym asked, "Sir, may I ask you a question?"

"Are you going to ask what the hell I'm doing, keeping you around? I think you already know the answer to that."

"I understand that you're trying to suss out whether or not I'm responsible for the Doctor and Martha Jones' escapes," Pym admitted. "Or, you're trying to make sure that I don't do anything else untoward."

"That's right."

"But what are you hoping to accomplish? Are you waiting for some random confession? Are you learning the art of mind-reading?"

Kir seemed to look at him as though seeing him for the first time. "To be honest, I still don't know."

"Why don't you just dismiss me from the Squad? Fire me, and I'll get out of your hair."

"Because I don't trust you," the General answered. He leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms over his chest, and studied the agent. "I've never been a huge fan of your namby-pamby prisoner-care bullshit… though until now, I didn't think it would affect me, so I didn't mind if you went ahead with it. And, you were asked to convince the Doctor that this was all the work of the Galactic Council, so a certain measure of softness was in order. But now… I don't know…"

"Softness," Pym chuckled. "Interesting that you see anti-cruelty measures as softness."

"But then you seemed to embrace it with a gusto that I just don't understand."

"Then I'll help you understand: only barbarians embrace cruelty."

Kir got to his feet swiftly, angrily. Pym moved to do the same, but Kir, pushed him back down by the shoulder. The General took a deep breath and checked his temper. "You know, Agent Pym, I still have not heard you deny that you set the Doctor and Martha Jones free."

Pym sighed. "Would it make you feel better if I did?"

Again, Kir narrowed his eyes. "Actually, no. It doesn't matter."

"I didn't think it would."

Kir began to circle round the breakfast table. "What I can't work out, Pym, is whether you actually unlocked the Doctor's and/or Martha Jones' cell, and set them free, or whether your fucking anti-cruelty measures gave them an opening."

"So, you're saying, if we had perhaps knee-capped the Doctor and tortured Martha Jones as you threatened to do, they wouldn't have been physically able to escape, and you'd be happier?"

"I didn't say that."

You didn't have to, Pym thought.

Aloud, he said, "No, sir, you didn't."

"Bottom line is, I don't know what I'm going to do with you, Agent Pym. On the one hand, I'd like to have you executed. On the other hand, the time capsule has been detonated already, and 1938 on Earth is up and running again, so it doesn't seem as if the Doctor accomplished what he set out to anyway, and now we have another seventy years to procure him and Dr. Jones, and talk him into showing us how to do it again."

"Talk," Pym whispered.

"So perhaps your incompetence or insubordination, or whatever it was, did no harm. In which case… I still don't know what to do with you. Until I do, I'm not letting you out of my sight," Kir said, sitting back down, and taking another bite of his breakfast. "Speaking of which, just a warning, Myrilette and I will be getting together again this afternoon. Just after lunch, in fact."

"Myrilette? Sergeant Coff's wife?"

"Yes," Kir confirmed.

"Wonderful," Pym said flatly. "I guess Coff really wants that promotion."

"Indeed he does," chuckled Kir. "He's not going to get it, but we won't tell him that just yet."

"He's not?"

"That tosser? He's incompetent. His skull is filled with tapioca, and he's got no useful skills. His wife, however… she's got a useful skill or two. Maybe I'll promote her," the General joked, before giving a lascivious laugh.

"Great. So you can let him know he's stuck as a Sergeant, after you're finished using his wife."

"That's right. Problem with that?"

"Yes. But it's none of my business."

That was when Agent Oly, another member of the original transfer team, stuck his head into the room. "General Kir?"

"What is it? Why are you interrupting my breakfast?" the General practically whined.

"It's the machinery room."

"The machinery room?"

"Yes, sir," said Oly. "The one the Time Lords built."

"What about it?"

"There's a problem."

"What sort of problem?"

"I don't know," Oly told him nervously. "I've just been told there's a crisis, and you're needed."

"Damn it," Kir grunted, standing up grudgingly. "Come on, Pym."

The three men walked out of the General's quarters, and down long and winding hallways, until they reached the Gallifreyan control room, capable of packaging blocks of time into neat little, destructive, capsules.

But only with the proper know-how, of course.

And the only man in the universe with the proper know-how was there, Converse squeaking against the floor, as he moved about, pulling levers, adjusting dials, and pressing buttons.

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(Thanks for reading!)