Apella: thank you so much for stopping by again! I always appreciate your comments. I hope you enjoy this chapter!

andre-papushi: I'm glad you enjoyed the chapter! Here's to the next one and (hopefully) more enjoyment!

Word Count: 6,517

The first thing I was aware of was just how ridiculously cold it was. I could feel it down in my toes and in my fingertips, a bit in my face and neck where I was most exposed to it, and for a moment I was confused. Okay, more than a moment. My head felt like it was stuffed full of cotton and it ached like nothing else. And as I blinked up at the ceiling, some weird white and metal ceiling that didn't look all that familiar, I found myself wondering where in the hell I was and why I felt like I'd been through a trash compactor.

"Doctor?" It sounded familiar and far away, that voice. But soft. Sweet. Kind. "She's up."

And then he was there, brown and blue and his face all creased up with worry lines, and I remembered. I was on the Ood Sphere, I was with Donna and the Doctor. It was over. The Ood were finally free. In fact, I could hear their freedom song and it cut through the haze clearer than anything else was. It was beautiful.

"There you are, hey?" For a moment, I wasn't sure if I was dreaming because the Doctor was running his hands over my face with such tenderness that it couldn't be real, it just couldn't be. His eyes were shiny and his smile tight with some mix of concern and relief. That was all for me? "Gave us quite a scare."

I didn't even know what to say. My throat was so dry that it hurt. " 'm sorry," I rasped.

Donna came into view then with her hands reaching for mine. "Don't be daft. You've got nothin' t' be sorry for. You've got a concussion."

The Doctor nodded. "I was waitin' for you t' wake up so I could fix it."

That made me frown. Fix it? Like, make it go away? I wasn't aware that was something that could be done. Instead of any of those entirely valid questions, however, what I found myself saying was, "But you're not a medical doctor." And for some reason, that was the funniest thing I'd ever said. Funny enough for the Doctor to kiss the crown of my head and hold me tight while his entire torso shook. Even Donna joined in.

"We have a deal, you and I," he explained once his laughter had subsided. "You made me promise a long time ago. Never t' heal you without your consent."

"I haven't said that yet."

"Don't have to. I promised." He ducked his head a bit, possibly in an attempt to hide the sudden flush in his cheeks, but it was endearing, really. A more honest person might even say it was cute. I wouldn't have, though. "That and future Di would've given me a mouthful if I didn't, but that's... that's not, er, important."

Maybe not to him, but to me it was something. It was a little gem of information that settled in my chest alongside my heart.

Donna's elbow smacked hard into his arm as a grin cracked across her face. "You're whipped, Spaceman," she chuckled as if it were the obvious thing in the world, the most normal thing. Perhaps to her it was, but it was enough to make me blush.

He simply rolled his eyes. "Hush, you." And to me, a gentle, "May I?"

His hands had shifted so they hovered above my temples, far enough away for me to not feel threatened but close enough to imply his meaning. I didn't have the breath to answer verbally, so I nodded and gave him a tiny sliver of a smile. Yes. He couldn't hear me, but I directed the thought at him anyway. I trust you.

For some reason when he had said he was going to fix me, I thought he meant rummaging around in my mind a bit. In my foggy, post-slumber and mildly concussed state, it hadn't occurred to me what he'd actually meant - healing me, just like he'd said, only I'd been too oblivious to understand. He'd meant the golden glow of regeneration energy in his palms, he'd meant the sapping of his life force to support my own, the giving of himself without asking anything in return. Like he had in the aftermath of mine and Pastru's fight. And he'd also meant the unlocking of a door in the furthest reaches of my mind, the gentle nudge of his consciousness against mine as he reminded me that my memories were back and that I was safe to endure them once we reached the TARDIS.

There was a lot I wanted to say as I lay beneath him, my mind stitching itself back together and the fog clearing. I wanted to thank him, of course. I wanted to apologize for everything. I wanted to ask if I was going to be alright, if the Ood were alright. What had happened while I was out? Where would the Ood go? Hell, where were we going next? Would he be alright after spending part of his regeneration? Wouldn't he need that later? That was what all the stories had said and what I had always assumed.

"C'mon, up you get."

The world didn't spin so much as I was hauled to my feet. I actually felt steady standing on my own, I didn't feel sick or faint, I felt like myself. The Doctor, presumably, could sense all this as his fingers were still wrapped around mine from helping me up, but he didn't let go. He adjusted his grip so that he was holding onto me better, but he stayed. He'd been doing things like that more and more often since I met this incarnation.

"Is she alright now?"

"I'm okay, Donna."

The Doctor squeezed my hand and for a moment, I could feel his inner warmth radiating through me. "Right as rain now, aren't you?"

Yeah. Because of him. He'd saved me all over again.

"So, we can head back, then? To the TARDIS?"

The corner of the Doctor's eyes crinkled when he huffed a vague sort of laugh in response. "Yes, Donna, back to the TARDIS. Eager to get a shift on, are we?"

"Eager to be out of this cold and away from you lot and your canoodling, more like."

Canoodling. The Doctor does not, has never, and will never canoodle. That was what I had always figured. Canoodling was more my style. I've always been affectionate and eager to cling, to hug, to shower people in hand squeezes and little kisses and gentle touches. It's my way of showing that I care when my words couldn't measure up to the task. So of course I'd fixated on it the whole walk back to the TARDIS. I could afford to since the Doctor had stopped holding my hand as we exited the compound. To offer me his coat again. To keep me warm. To take care of me.

The Doctor was not supposed to canoodle, but I was quickly understanding that he probably only did so with me and I was trying really hard not to let it go to my head. That didn't necessarily mean that I was succeeding, though.

Donna, meanwhile, had surged a little bit ahead to chat with Ood Sigma while they walked. "Can I ask you somethin'?"

Ood Sigma inclined his head, slow and steady. "Of course."

"Are there any lady Ood or are you sort of like worms? Lop off a noodle and grow a new one?"

I had to bury my face in my hands to keep from bursting into laughter. How she found the guts to ask such ridiculous questions, I'd never know, but I loved it. It was endearing. And there was something about the way Ood Sigma tilted his head to show he was listening, those big eyes wide and waiting and patient. The fact that he'd stayed by my side for a moment before Halpen... Well. Funnily enough, it reminded me of the man at my side, the man who'd been at my side through this whole ordeal, always stalwart, never faltering.

"What're you thinkin' about?"

Can't hide from a Time Lord for very long. I smiled. "He reminds me of you."

That was obviously the last thing he'd expected. "What, Ood Sigma? Really? How?"

I shrugged. "The name. Like yours. Ood Sigma, Theta Sigma."

His intrigued expression turned soft. His smile wasn't particularly broad or bright, but there was a happiness to it that was impossible to ignore. He must have really liked the comparison.

"He's like a... an Ood Doctor. Doctor Ood."

And again with his eyes, ever seeking, always curious, fixed on me and only me for an eternity of a moment. "Was that a pun?" Oh good, he noticed. "A terrible, terrible pun?"

I chortled, I couldn't help it. "No, it was a good pun."

His hand swept up my arm and down my spine, drawing me closer as if I were under a spell and he was the one who'd cast it. We weren't walking anymore. It was just him and me and the snow. And his eyes flickering down to my mouth, his tongue darting out across the seam of his lips.

"Cheeky," he murmured. He leaned in just a hairsbreadth, lips parted, face alight with mischief and something tender, but the moment passed before I could linger in it. He blinked and it was all gone. "You're a real comedian, y'know that?"

Was he gonna...? There was a tingling in my lips still lingering from the mere thought of a possibility. Don't go there. "I try," I said aloud.

"What are you two yammerin' on about?" called Donna. She and Ood Sigma had made it to the top of the hill already, which wasn't too far ahead, but far enough away that it was obvious the Doctor and I had gotten distracted. "Get a move on!"

"Yes, ma'am," the Doctor huffed.

"Oi, watch it."

There stood the TARDIS, as brilliant and blue as she ever was, standing tall in the snow with a handful of Ood standing in a semi-circle around her. I could only guess that it was some kind of farewell party.

"Right then," said the Doctor, hands in his trousers as he considered Ood Sigma and his brethren. "The message has gone out. That song resonated across the galaxies. Everyone heard it, everyone knows. The rockets are bringin' them back. The Ood are coming home.

Ood Sigma nodded politely. "We thank you, DoctorDonna and Di, friends of Oodkind. And what of you now? Will you stay? There is room in the song for you."

That was a lovely thought. It would be an honor to join in with the Ood and fully experience their freedom song, the love and respect they had for each other and to know that they trusted us enough to let us join. But the Doctor didn't seem so interested. A pity, really.

I didn't miss the glance he sent my way as he tripped over his response, though. "Oh, I... I've sort of got a song of my own, thanks."

Ood Sigma blinked. "I think your song must end soon."

"Meaning?"

"Every song must end."

His time was almost up. Not yet, of course, but it was coming. Did he sense it like the Ood did, being that he was some form of telepathic? I wondered where I might be when it all went down, if I would still be by his side or not.

"Take this song with you," and he raised his hands to the sky as the Ood's voice rose with him, so vivid and vibrant that I swore I could almost see the music in the air.

"We will," said Donna.

"Always."

"And know this, DoctorDonna. You will never be forgotten. Our children will sing of the DoctorDonna, and our children's children, and the wind and the ice and the snow will carry your names forever."

A warm meal was just what the Doctor ordered - something with vegetables and meat that would fill my belly and reheat every part of me that had gone cold on the Ood Sphere - and for once, I didn't really care if I was consuming it as ravenously as a predator ripping into a carcass. I was starving and finally feeling well enough to do something about it. It also gave me a moment to think over what would come next in our travels because visiting the Ood had reminded me of everything yet to come in the story. There was Martha's return and River's death, the horror of Midnight, the Metacrisis and Rose and Donna's farewell. And once again, I was the only one who knew. I could look into Donna's eyes while she chowed down and I could see who she was, who she would be, and what she would lose, and I knew that I wasn't supposed to say a damn thing about any of it.

"I'm glad you're better," she said after we finished and she started cleaning up. "You've got some color back in you."

"That would be the stew."

The massive side-eye she sent my way was impossible to miss. "And tha' glowy stuff he used on you. Don't think I didn't see tha', whatever it was."

Right. She didn't really know what he was yet, did she? Did she even know what a Time Lord was other than being alien and skinny and possibly Martian? I looked down at my hands, eyeballing the place on my wrists where I knew the handcuffs had broken the skin only to find that it looked as it always did. Not a scratch or a scar in sight.

"That would be the regeneration energy."

The bowls were placed in the quaint little kitchen sink, a bit grungy like the rest of the interior, but cute all the same, and Donna returned to her seat with a frown and furrowed brow. "What's that, then? He's not like one of those weird fish, is he? The ones tha' glow when it's dark? Is that what Martians do? They glow?"

"Donna! He's not a fish!"

She threw her hands up all exasperated. "Well, I don't know! He could be. You'd know, wouldn't you, Mrs. Martian?"

There it was again. God, I couldn't escape it if I tried. Another joke, another prodding at the larger than life realization that I was in another universe, that my old life was gone, and that I was something to the Doctor that I had only ever entertained as a childish fantasy in my loneliest moments. Suddenly I didn't feel like laughing.

"What?" Her voice was softer then. "Did I say somethin' wrong?"

I shook my head. "No." Not really. It wasn't her fault. Even though I'd told her right before Pompeii that I wasn't the same Diana she'd encountered with the adipose, she seemed to be under the impression that I was as comfortable and intimately familiar with the Doctor and our relationship as that other me was. The one laid back atop the console with his lips on her throat. "It's just... What do you know about me, Donna?"

Any humor she'd been holding onto vanished in an instant. "What's tha' supposed t' mean? You're you."

"I mean where I'm from. Why I know things."

Her eyes shifted nervously. "...'Cause you're like 'im? A Time Lord?"

God, if only it were that simple. It would make more sense if I was. But - "No, I'm not. I'm human. I'm human, but I'm not from here."

"From Earth?"

I closed my eyes, I had to. I didn't want to think about how she'd look at me differently once I told her, or if she'd even understand it because in all honesty, I was still struggling to understand it myself. "I'm from another universe. Where things are different." I stopped to allow for questions, but there was only silence and I didn't want to stew in the silence, so I surged ahead. "Where I come from, Earth is the same and people are the same, but we don't have any aliens there. Not that we know of. So sci-fi is pretty popular. And we have lots of stories about aliens there, I'm sure you do too, but for us... Well, it's different because we have this T.V. show there and it talks about this guy who can time travel in a big blue box and we follow him all over the universe with his friends, like Rose and Martha and Jack an-and you." I very hesitantly opened one eye. Donna hadn't fainted yet, so that was a good sign. "It's called Doctor Who."

If I had been in Donna's shoes listening to a similar story, I'm sure I would've had a myriad of different reactions. Depending on how well I knew the person, I might laugh at them or solemnly nod and agree, I might ask them if they were feeling well because completely sane people do not spout shit like that. I almost expected her to be afraid of me. But I didn't know Donna very well, not well enough to guess that she would laugh so hard that she'd start crying.

"That's! That's a good one, love! You almost had me there."

This wasn't going anywhere close to how I'd expected it. "Donna, I'm serious."

But she just blew me a raspberry. "Please. You're havin' a laugh."

"I'm not."

"Doctor Who? Out of all the things they could of called it, they picked Doctor Who? Di." One perfect eyebrow arched in my direction. "C'mon. Seriously."

I found myself crossing my arms and frowning. This was getting ridiculous. "I'm being serious. I mean, I know it sounds ridiculous, but I'm not kidding. I am from another universe. That's how I know what's going to happen. Most of the time."

Donna leaned back a bit in her chair, copying my crossed arms and serious expression as she considered me. "Alright, then. Tell me where we're goin' next."

"Well, shit, I don't know!"

She waggled a finger in my direction. "Oi, don't start swearin' at me, Spacegirl. Just 'cause you don't know-"

"I don't know everything, Donna. We could be going anywhere the Doctor wants and I'd have no way of knowing. But I'm not joking. I'm trying to be serious with you here."

"Next episode, then, yeah? After we get back from commercial, where are we goin'?"

The nerve above my eye was starting to tick again. God, in what world did I think that this conversation would do anything but go poorly? Far be it from me to try and have a serious conversation with freaking Catherine Tate.

I stumbled awkwardly around the idea of a sentence for a few moments, trying desperately to stall her because there could be any number of audios, books, or comics detailing adventures and aliens between this episode and the next. But say I ignored all that. It had been so long since I'd been able to sit down and revisit the show properly that I was struggling to recall the specific order of it all.

"It's been a while for me, okay?" I made sure to preface my answer with all the cautions I could think of. "But I think you're back on Earth for a while. You meet Martha. And then... I think Jenny? Or is that after? No. No, wait, that's during and then after that-"

That was about the moment that the kitchen door went flying open and the Doctor stumbled in like he had just learned how to walk that morning. He looked panicked. "My ears were burnin'. Thought I heard someone tellin' people about their futures when they shouldn't be." Two pairs of eyes rolled in my direction. "Wouldn't happen t' know anythin' about that, would ya?"

As if the whole scenario wasn't embarrassing enough, I had to be caught red-handed. Hand fully in the cookie jar.

"Di?"

If the TARDIS were to eject me into a black hole, I would've been fine with it. I squeezed my eyes shut. "What?" I whined, my voice pitched up a bit entirely by accident but it only served to further solidify my guilt.

He chuckled, which was nice since it let me know he wasn't actually mad at me. That was good. Still embarrassing, though. Still made me feel like an idiot, out of place, forgetful, and a million other synonyms. "What've I told you about spoilers?" he asked. It was a tease, entirely playful.

My chin dropped down to my chest as I finally dared to open my eyes, although I wasn't ready to look at him yet. My entire face was still engulfed in flames. The toe of my shoe suddenly seemed to be the most interesting thing in the universe. "I wouldn't know," I mumbled, "but probably not to share them... I didn't mean to. I was just trying to prove I was telling the truth."

Donna's arm smacked him square in the chest. "She was tryin' t' say there's some show 'bout you on the telly. Doctor What's-it or somethin'. As if anyone'd make a show 'bout you!"

That was the courage boost I needed to finally catch his gaze. Not so much because I knew he'd stick up for me, but because I couldn't remember if he'd ever told me that he knew. How far back did I know him? How early on had I told him? Did it bother him? Did he even understand what it really meant? One look into his eyes told me everything I needed to know. I didn't even have to ask.

Donna was still cackling. She was approximating what the script might sound like and it was tickling her pink. "'Didjya just pitch up from Mars?'" That one was a fully chav accent and it was actually pretty good. And Donna couldn't stop laughing. "'Oh Doctor'," she sighed in the worst attempt at an American accent I'd ever heard. "'You big, hunky Martian boy.'"

"Oh God, Donna, stop!" I groaned. "Who's that even supposed to be? That's awful."

"I'm just sayin'. It's silly. The whole idea is silly. I wouldn't watch a show about the pair of you, I get enough nonsense just livin' it."

The Doctor made a big show of throwing his arm over his companion's shoulders, ducking his head low so he could whisper properly into her ear. He was grinning like a damn Cheshire cat, and he was being deliberately loud about it. "Why don't we just let her have her stories? If she wants t' fantasize about a charming, charismatic, handsome old time traveler, well then who are we t' stand in her way?"

Now wait a second. "I never said-"

"I bet he's got real nice sideburns. A jawline that the ancients might have carved into marble. He'd have t' have, wouldn't he? If he's meant t' be me, of course."

The absolute gall of that man! It was such a poor attempt at a joke, it almost wasn't funny. He was trying too hard. He was trying to be clever, trying to fluster me or tease me or any number of things. Then he winked and I suddenly found myself staring at a terribly fascinating speck of dirt on the wall behind his head.

"Must've forgotten to add his ego in somewhere along the way."

There was a beat where I thought maybe I'd crossed a line and gotten a bit too snarky, but it passed just as quickly when I saw the way the Doctor's eyes crinkled and his smile burst out across his face. He didn't have anything else to say for once, but I could see it in his laughter lines, in the ring around his pupils, in the easy way his body relaxed.

"You're disgustin', you are. The both of you." By then Donna's nose had fully wrinkled into disgust, but she was still smiling. Or at least trying not to. "I'm gonna go have a kip, you two do whatever it is tha' you do when I'm not around. Just wait til I leave the room, alright?"

I was shot back to the moments before Pompeii. The bare leg wrapped around his hip, the glide of his fingers up the inside of her thigh, that other me. That other, luckier me. The woman who could be me if Donna would just get out of the room and then- well, maybe he'd want to finish what he'd started, crowd me up against the table and- What the hell are you thinking?! You barely know this man and you're already daydreaming about him? Di! Get it together! I'd been single for far too long by then, is what I told myself. I'd been on my own for a little too long and I was starting to get desperate. Could I get any more embarrassing? What if I'd let my mind wander while he was holding my hand? If he'd reached out to hug me, maybe, or brush some of the hair out of my eyes-

No. No. I was getting carried away. What I really needed right then was some space to breathe and sit with my feelings, not more time with the very uncharming and unhandsome alien I was currently shacked up with. Who I definitely didn't have a crush on, had never had a crush on, and was totally not married to, would never be married to, would never even want to marry period, so why worry about it?

In fact, I was getting so carried away that I hardly noticed Donna's absence until the Doctor brought my attention to it. He drew me out of my head with a gentle clearing of his throat. "You alright?"

I sighed. "I'm fine."

"Looked a little lost in thought there."

"I was. Am. Just..." Ugh, the words were struggling to find themselves with his attention suddenly fixated on me. "There's a lot going on in here," I finally said with a gesture toward my brain.

The Doctor nodded. He seemed to understand what I was trying to say without me having to properly say it. "Get some rest," he suggested. "We'll go somewhere when you're both rested up."

"What about you?"

"Oh, I've got plenty t' do. Repairs and... stuff."

"Sounds pretty boring. You sure you won't go a little crazy waiting for us?"

"I'm sure," he chuckled. "G'on. I'll wake you when it's time."

My room, bare though it still was with not a single personal touch to speak of beyond the mezuzah and the door, was an incredibly welcoming sight after what had felt like a very long day. I wasn't particularly tired at first, though it didn't take me long to drift of into a hazy dream state. What little I did dream of was vague and difficult to recall once I woke up, but I could remember some of it - a red sky dotted with stars, a little boy dozing in a field, a woman with yellow glasses and hooped earrings. She was chasing after me, but could never quite catch up...

"Where's a place you've always wanted t' go? Anytime, anyplace, nothing's impossible, just search your imagination and all your wildest dreams and-."

There was a soft snap snap of Donna's fingers. "Planet of the hats!"

It's a shame that life doesn't come with comedic sound effects because a downward sliding scale would have matched the Doctor's startled expression perfectly. "You wha- Planet of the hats? I bring on you onboard the most magnificent time and spaceship in the universe and you want t' go t' the planet of the hats?"

"You said anywhere I wanted t' go. That's my choice!"

The Doctor grimaced as he scratched at his jaw. "Well, I was really tryin' t' ask Di, but-"

"Oh, I don't mind," I insisted. "I've never been to the planet of the hats. Maybe it could be fun?"

His tongue flipped up under his lip and over his teeth as he considered my vote. "You don't wanna head to, I dunno, ancient India? You... You want the planet of the hats instead? Really?"

My breath caught in my throat. "Wait, seriously?" If he was going to bring ancient India into it, then all bets were off. The planet of the hats could be visited any old time, but this was different! "Where in India?"

"Oh, you could go t' India any time you want," Donna groaned. "Hop on a plane and visit the Dalai Lama the next time we're back on Earth. But when are you ever gonna see the planet of the hats?"

I glanced over at the Doctor with some approximation of an 'are you hearing this, too?' expression, only to find that he was giving me almost exactly the same look. I just managed to hide my laugh under the guise of a cough, but it wasn't very convincing. By then, Donna had started fishing around in her pockets for something.

"Coin toss. Queenie's planet of the hats, millennium bridge 's India."

That seemed fair enough. But I still really, really wanted to go to India. "Whoever wins gets to go to their place first? And then after that we can go to the other one?"

"Of course."

... The planet of the hats was not what I had been expecting. The TARDIS itself had landed at the crest of a hill that overlooked a valley of waterfalls and rivers, more hills and mountains, with a shining city at the center of the landscape, just beyond the foot of our current hilltop. But it all looked off. The hills, even the one we stood on, were made of silk. Literal, actual silk. And there wasn't any grass in sight. Only a signpost fashioned out of an enormous sewing needle.

The Doctor had slipped on his glasses - brainy specs, as I knew he'd often called them, and something I pretended not to find at all amusing, charming, or even remotely cute - to better read it. "1,760 yards to the woolly mountains." That would be the mountains to the north, each peak a different shade. "Let's see, chiffon rivers, taffeta waterfalls- aha! 880 yards to the twill temples, fabric flower garden, and the Hat Stand. What d'you suppose that is?"

"Don't suppose it's tha' great bloomin' city down there, eh?"

The Doctor tucked his glasses back into his pocket. "Where the buildings are all shaped like hats? Can't be. Too obvious."

Donna simply waved him aside. "I dunno 'bout you, but I'm worried about how the hell we're gettin' down there."

"I'm not."

A flurry of brown and blue went zooming past me, bouncing against the cushion of the hillside as the fabric gave way under the Doctor's weight. He was laughing so hard and so loud that even as he sped downhill with his legs in the hair and entire body upside down, I could still hear him from the top. He was crazy.

"He's absolutely mad."

Apparently so was I.

It was exhilarating. The wind in my hair, my skirt rucking up a bit as I tumbled onto my side and rolled the rest of the way down, giggling and screeching until I was breathless and sliding from the silk landscape onto a stretch of polished marble. The Doctor was there to help me up, beaming like a giddy little boy while I rearranged myself into something a bit more presentable. Donna was close behind and quick on her feet with our help, and then we began exploring.

The marble walkway was a stretch of stone that led from the hill to the nearest building, a large hunk of the same marble carved into the shape of a Robin Hood cap. On either side of the building were two more posts with one sign each, the one on the left pointing the wall to the fabric flower garden and the one on the right pointing to the twill temples, but the Doctor chose instead to lead us to the door situated at the tip of the hat-building. The sign above it read:

"The Hat Stand - WELCOME"

The door slid open on its own as we approached, beckoning us inside. A series of windows had been inserted into the ceiling to allow the natural lighting to filter through and illuminate the rows upon rows of hats on display. There were religious hats and horseracing hats and beanies and baseball caps, every shape, size, and color imaginable, every fabric you could imagine, many of them I recognized from various Earth cultures but several that seemed like they would be better suited for a non-humanoid. And each hate came with its own little plaque that described its history.

"This is amazing," I breathed. "I've never seen anything like this."

The Doctor was as awestruck as I was. His head was tilted back as he studied the ceiling and windows, the sky above, his jaw agape. "Neither have I."

"Ah, welcome, welcome!" came a voice. It was a pleasant voice, not pitched too low or too high, and it was English. Hardly a surprise there, but the voice registered as very familiar the moment before its owner came ambling into view. "I was wondering when you would arrive."

She was... well, she was... I looked at the Doctor, then at Donna, and they both looked at me. The Doctor seemed to expect me to have an answer for his unspoken question, but there was no explanation I could possibly offer.

"Donna, what an honor to meet you," said the woman as she took Donna's hand.

I blinked. Blinked again. I was seeing things, surely. The wrinkles lined up around her eyes looked real enough, and the blonde highlights in her short cut hair too. Her eyes sparkled as realistically as anyone else's. And that voice, a voice that countless millions would recognize from movies and musicals. I'd always known her as Queen Clarisse Renaldi and Maria von Trapp. This time, though? I wasn't so sure.

"And Doctor," she continued as she turned to the Time Lord. "I've heard so much about you and your adventures."

His mouth shaped around the idea of a sentence, but no sound really came out. He let the woman shake his hand for a moment before finally managing to conjure up a thought. "Dame Julie Andrews?" It was somewhere between a question and an exclamation.

A devilish smile curled at the corners of her mouth. "She's an absolute riot, is she not? That's why I chose her." Then, not-Julie Andrews turned her attention to me and the mischievous little smile melted into a perfectly sincere one. I could see it in her eyes. "Diana. Can I call you Diana or would you prefer Di?"

"Hang on, what d'ya mean you 'chose her'?" asked Donna. "Are you not-?"

She nodded politely with that glimmer of mischief in her expression again. It wasn't exactly threatening, but I didn't feel at ease about it either. "My name is Pupil Tamesage. You may have heard of my sister, Iris Wildthyme. I understand she's quite popular in your universe, Diana." She winked in my direction. "Not as popular as you of course, Doctor. The franchise is named for you after all."

The Doctor was frowning. There was that infamous confused expression, all hair and wrinkled brows and an unvoiced "what" on his lips; all the awestruck joy from before was gone. His hand was wrapped around mine in an instant, fast and smooth enough to startle me, and then he was pulling me into him, moving his hand so it wrapped protectively around my shoulder.

"How d'you know about that?"

Pupil waved her hand dismissively. "Oh, it's nothing so sinister, Doctor. I'm a Clockwork of the Obverse, I know all sorts of things. Just like she does," she explained with a nod in my direction.

"And what's a Clockwork?"

"It's like a Time Lord, but better. No offense." Another wink to show she was teasing. "Surely you remember meeting Iris, Doctor? She talks about you all the time. She'd be absolutely giddy if she could see you now, how handsome you are! But that's neither here nor there, nor anywhere else for that matter. What I mean to say is, surely my sister told you about me?"

I could feel the Doctor's confusion and frustration radiating up my arm where our hands met. Hell, I only vaguely knew of Iris Wildthyme from the few deep dives I'd done on the Tardis wiki site, I didn't even know if the Doctor ever actually had met her or not. The only thing I did know was that Pupil Tamesage did not exist in my universe's version of the Doctor's world. But the implications of her and Iris' existence were enough to make my head feel like it was about to implode. The Iris Wildthyme character had been created as a parody of the Doctor and the Time Lords, acting as the Whoniverse's Deadpool and was most often portrayed by Katy Manning of Jo Grant fame. So if Iris existed, what did that mean? Was I suddenly appearing on TV screens everywhere as the Doctor's newest companion?

"I can see this is all a bit of a shock to you," Pupil remarked after Donna, the Doctor, and I fell silent. "Why don't we all have a chat over some tea? Hm?"

I decided to have a little bit of fun with this one. I always love a good, campy DW story that allows the characters to just be silly.