-Wedding Crashers-

Shower Scene

"I still don't understand this," said Shaun. Donna's family were disengaged from the other breakfast chats, coming down later. Mickey and Martha had since returned upstairs, while the others lingered and tried to find something interesting to do while they waited for the one o'clock ceremony. The Temple-Noble-Motts had just about finished eating but Donna was trying to drag out the meal as much as possible to avoid having to go find Ten. "The Doctor lives in our flat, doesn't he?"

"No, that's a different one," said Donna. Shaun and Tentoo had been getting along quite well, Tentoo able to answer many of Shaun's questions about life on the TARDIS and out among the stars whenever they arose. "The one who lives with us is a part-human clone of the one getting married today."

"Right… but they're both married to Rose?"

"Did they get a divorce?" Sylvia asked her.

"I… pfft. I have no idea," Donna admitted, "They're the same man."

"But you said they were different," said Shaun.

"They're different versions of the same man. I don't even know if this is a real wedding or if it's just for show. I haven't heard anyone talk about a wedding license. Besides, they originally got married in a different universe, so…"

"No one seems very excited about it," said Shaun, "People were a lot happier on our wedding day, and it wasn't anywhere near as fancy as this hotel."

"It's because they're being a complete nightmare," Donna explained.

"They're just nervous," said Wilf, eternally coming to the Doctor's defence. Donna liked the Doctor too, obviously, he was her best friend, and Tentoo was sort-of related to her, but she wasn't going to overlook how utterly insufferable both he and Rose were being. If Rose was even awake yet.

"He won't stop asking everybody about these vows, and she spent all day yesterday getting drunk because apparently the hen party Jack and I spent ages planning just wasn't good enough for her. She was pissed yesterday at ten in the morning. Ten. It's ridiculous. I'm surprised she didn't need her stomach pumped. And the day before her wedding? I just don't think it bodes well," she said. She had initially been supportive of Ten and Rose's plan to get married, but the extreme rush to get the actual wedding out of the way had had the entire thing a painful ordeal. Now she, and everybody else, just wanted it to be over. She'd rather attend Clara and Eleven's drunken Vegas wedding where they'd threatened the officiator with a plasma gun to get him to marry them, and then the Eleven accidentally punched her in the face.

"Will they actually go through with it?" Sylvia asked.

"Probably," Donna sighed, "They're definitely in love, and they'll be a lot better when they don't have this wedding to worry about anymore and they can get back to just travelling in the TARDIS. We just have to get through today first."

"How's your speech going?" Shaun slightly changed the question.

"You'll have to wait and see," she smirked, "A lot better than his vows, that's for sure."

"Did Amy help you with it?"

"She did, but then Jack and I had this great idea… I can't spoil," she said, though she was excited just thinking about it, "It'll probably be the highlight of the day, though. The karaoke could go either way."

"Well, that's something to look forward to," said Sylvia.

"I'm gonna go have a shower," Donna decided, "Get it out of the way before the Doctor can find me again…" She kissed Shaun as she stood up. "Do me a favour, if he comes looking for me, stall him. I need some peace and quiet."

"Will do," Shaun smiled, and Donna took her leave. She saw her family often enough – thanks to the portals – that she didn't feel too much need to spend the entire day with them. Although that was a vastly preferable alternative to the window. She was very much looking forward to the time it was going to take her to shower and get dressed properly into all her finery, which she was going to stretch out for as long as humanly possible to avoid the Doctor.

Luckily, she didn't run into anybody on her way upstairs as she returned to her room, her dress hanging up over the bathroom door. Donna breathed a sigh of relief when she finally got a moment to herself, not having to make conversation or listen to other people's conversations or try to ignore other people's conversations. Already the day was taking lumps out of her, and she hadn't even had a chance to start fretting about her speech that afternoon. She decided there that she was going to have a very indulgent shower, with as many free hotel toiletries as she could find. Going back and forth from the bedroom to the bathroom she made sure she had everything neatly arranged and ready, sorting out towels, clean tights, lying her dress out nicely at the foot of her bed and getting out her shoes.

Everything was going fine until Donna drew back the shower curtain (luckily before she'd had the chance to take off her clothes) and found herself face-to-face with a Dalek. The thing was elevated a little by fitting in the large bath, but it was dead at her eye-level, staring her down with its glowing, blue eyestalk. There was a very long pause. Donna stared at the Dalek, the Dalek stared at Donna, sitting there in the bath in her toilet. It easily became the weirdest thing that had ever happened to her.

"EXTERMINATE!" it screeched.

"Shit!" she shouted, dodging out of the way of its laser as quickly as possible. Behind her, the ceramic sink was blasted to pieces and Donna had fallen onto the toilet. The Dalek swivelled, still shouting, and Donna ducked again. A flickering, black-and-white image appeared in front of her: a portal to the next bedroom. Aiming to escape the Dalek she dove into it and found herself crashing into the carpet.

"What are you doing!?" somebody in the bed shouted at her. She scrambled to her feet and saw she'd just teleported in on River Song and the Ninth Doctor, still in bed. She squinted at them, thinking that maybe the Dalek was actually only the second weirdest thing that had ever happened to her, and this mishap had suddenly replaced it.

"So you two really are a couple?" she asked, glancing between them, closing the portal as quickly as she had opened it, "All this time, we've never really been sure… but you're a hologram, aren't you, so-"

"EXTERMINATE!" came a dulled voice through the wall.

"What!?" River shouted.

"Sorry!" said Donna, "I've just been attacked by a bloody Dalek hiding in my shower, is the thing! Didn't mean to disturb you, honestly!"

"A Dalek!?" the Doctor hastened to get out of bed, along with River.

"Yes!"

"In the shower!?"

"Yes!"

"But – why would it be in a shower!?"

"Funnily enough, I didn't get a chance to ask it!"

"EXTERMINATE!" The Dalek succeeded in shooting a hole in the wall, a blast of energy ripping the plaster and wallpaper to pieces.

"That's a Dalek!" the Doctor shouted.

"That's what I just bloody said!" Donna retorted, accidentally letting slip some of her super-screaming ability. Nine winced.

"ALRIGHT!" River shouted, "Get out of the way, it'll take it a minute to get through the wall." Donna peered through the hole and saw the Dalek levitating its way out of her bath.

"Do you have a plan!?" Donna asked her.

"Me have a plan!? It's your Dalek!"

"It is not my – I didn't bring it here! It's just in the shower! I don't know why it's-"

"We need to do something. Can't you portal it away?" the Doctor asked her.

"Not unless it goes through the portal willingly," she said, holding out her hand to conjure one in the bathroom. The Dalek shot another bolt through the wall, barely missing Donna's head. The hole was getting bigger. She held out her hand and attempted to create another portal but was shot at again. "Oh, bloody hell! What are we going to do!?"

"Uh, uh…" the Doctor frantically searched the room to find his leather jacket, thrown across a chair. He dug through the pockets until he discovered the sonic screwdriver.

"That's your best idea!?" Donna argued with him.

"Well, you're not being any help!" He aimed the screwdriver at the Dalek, but all he succeeded in doing was scrambling its speaker when it continued to wail about exterminating them. The lights on its head flashed wildly, but it wasn't prevented from shooting down the wall. Finally, it succeeded in making a gap big enough, floating over to try and ram what remained of the wall. Donna hurried over to the other side of the room as the Dalek approached.

"This is not happening! Not today!"

"Oh, for god's sake – the two of you are…" River shook her head while the Doctor and Donna both cowered, and then she disappeared.

"You can't just leave!" Donna shouted at thin-air where River had just been. "She just left! We should get Rose, she could just hit it."

"We can't get Rose," he said, "It's her wedding day."

"You don't think this puts a bit of a spanner in the works!? Let's just run away! Somebody else, with a more useful power, might be able to-"

The Dalek set down on the messy carpet, swivelled itself towards them both, at the exact moment River returned carrying a frankly outrageously sized gun of some description. Where she'd gotten that from Donna didn't have a clue, but whatever it was it made short work of the Dalek. A bright red ray exploded from the muzzle of the cannon and completely destroyed the Dalek's top half. It was obliterated in an instant, and Donna realised she'd been clinging onto Nine's arm. She let him go immediately, trying to regain composure.

"What did you do that for!?" he demanded of River – his girlfriend? Really? Donna still couldn't believe it. It was completely weird.

"Because it was going to kill everybody here," River talked to him like it was stupid.

"But – but – it-" the Doctor just stammered, pointing at the smouldering wreck of the Dalek. The tentacled creature inside had been rendered a pile of goop. It was definitely dead. The Doctor paused part way through trying to make River feel remorse for something she almost certainly felt no guilt over whatsoever and frowned, sniffing the air. "Can you taste that?"

"Can't taste anything, sweetie," said River. He looked at Donna, and she just shrugged.

"Tastes like a transmat… that must be how it got in."

"I didn't exactly think it came through the front door!" Donna argued with him, "It didn't check in at reception, did it!?"

"And even if it did," River added, "They wouldn't give it a key-card to a room that was already booked. That would be ridiculous."

"Yes," Donna nodded, "Ridiculous. Double-bookings just don't happen in hotels like this."

"So what did it want?" the Doctor mused.

"I think it wanted to exterminate us," said River sarcastically. "Obviously, it isn't a coincidence. It showed up here on the Doctor's wedding day, the Doctor marrying a woman who once killed millions of Daleks."

"And yet it arrived in my bathroom," said Donna.

"Maybe it got confused, or… wanted a wash?" River suggested.

"Great, well, I'm supposed to be going and helping the groom right now," Donna complained, "And I've got this mess to clear up. What if there's an invasion? Should I tell Rose? Maybe we should try and convince her to call the wedding off? What if there's a Dalek in every bathroom?"

She heard faint knocking from her own room, through the gaping hole in the wall and her ajar bathroom door.

"Donna?" the Tenth Doctor called.

"Oh my god, what are we going to do about this?" Donna said, waving a hand at the dead Dalek.

"We'll deal with it," said River, "There might only be one of them. You know how vain they are, they probably thought one was enough."

"Or maybe it just got lost?" Nine suggested, "Unlikely, I'll admit, but so was it turning up in your shower to begin with."

"Just… just let me get rid of him," said Donna, feeling like she'd been trapped in a corner.

"Be my guest," said River. Donna shook her head and went to climb back into her own room, through the hole, while River and Nine began arguing about her use of deadly weapons behind her. What had they been doing in the bed? Neither of them really slept and she was a hologram. She was dying to go and find Jack to gossip but first had to get rid of Ten. She closed the bathroom door to hide the wreckage and the gaping hole before hurrying over to answer as he banged on the door.

"Yes, what is it?" she said, opening it just a crack. He tried to push his way in but she blocked it with her foot.

"I was just looking for you."

"I was about to have a shower," she said.

"Can it wait?"

"Not unless you want to push back your bloody ceremony it can't," she said.

"I just – I've written these here, on this napkin," he held up a napkin covered in smudged, blotchy handwriting. Vows. She rolled her eyes. "Could you take a look at them?" She put her head in her hands for a moment.

"If you would just give me half an hour, and then I promise I'm all yours for the rest of the day," she took a deep breath and tried to stay calm, which frankly she thought she deserved a medal for under the circumstances, "Just go and wait in your room, I'll have a shower, get dressed, and then I promise I will help you come up with some vows you're happy with." She didn't think that would be too hard, or at least not as hard as he was making it out to be, nor did she think Rose was actually going to be fussy about them. So long as nobody mentioned Tentoo, it should be fine.

"Really? You will? Because everyone keeps shrugging me off! It's my wedding day!"

"I know," she assured him, "And I will, I just need to have my shower. Half an hour, to myself, okay? Please?"

"…Alright," he nodded, "I'll be in my room. But half an hour on the dot."

"Yes, yes," she nodded, waving him away, managing to close the door. She shook her head and then locked it from the inside, before quickly returning to Nine and River, who were still arguing. "Alright," she announced, "I've got him to leave, but can I please use your shower? Mine's a bit… you know."

"And you're leaving us with this Dalek?" Nine asked her.

"Well, what else are you gonna do this morning?" she asked, glancing between them. What did they do when they spent time together?

"Yes, alright, you can use the shower, and leave it with us. Just keep him out of our hair," said River, referring to Ten.

"I'll do my best."

AN: Sorry about the big lapses between chapters, I've still got a month until my 8000-word dissertation is done and dusted. And I've been paying more attention to Retrograde trying to write the crossover storyline with the Jodie Whittaker Doctor and Ryan, Yaz & Graham. And after that, they're going to go to the French Revolution and then I'm bringing back the god-awful Kandyman from the Seventh Doctor's era in what is shaping up to be a hilarious Halloween storyline. So, like, go and read Retrograde is my point, because this fic only has 20-something chapters left and the entire story is just continuing over there.