preserved_ginger

Title: Donna
Rating: 12
Character(s): Donna Noble, Rose Tyler, The Doctor
Disclaimer: Regrettably, I am not the BBC.
Thanks to:

glory_jean for excellent beta-work and cheer-leading (thank you so much!)
Author's Note: Journey’s End. But not. The sequel to Doctor in The Doctor-Donna ’verse.
Summary: Can he, they, save Donna?

“I thought we could try the planet Felspoon next,” Donna says in a conversational tone completely at odds with the mood of the others around her. “Just ’cause. What a good name, ‘Felspoon’. Apparently, it’s got mountains that sway in the breeze.”

Rose is sure she doesn’t imagine the terrible sadness in the Doctor’s eyes – but how can this be bad? Donna talks on, oblivious to everything.

“Mountains that move. Can you imagine?”

Rose follows the Doctor’s eyes as he watches Donna twist a knob on the console unnecessarily.

“And how do you know that?”

His voice is quiet, tinged with something Rose cannot quite place. Fear? No. Sadness? Almost, but not quite; in any case, it’s very unlike him. On the other hand, is it just that she’s forgotten so much of what he’d been like in the years they’ve been apart; that she is misremembering? She decides to say nothing, but holds out a hand towards the Doctor, which he takes. She is surprised at how tightly he clings to her; a lifeline, perhaps?

“Because it’s in your head! And, if it’s in your head, it’s in mine.”

“And how does that feel?”

Again, Rose hears that odd sound in his voice. And she starts to think that maybe things aren’t going to be as straightforward as she'd hoped.

“Brilliant! Fantastic! Molto bene!” Donna’s enthusiastic response interrupts her train of thought. “Great bit of universe packed into my brain. You know, you could fix that chameleon circuit if you just try and hotbind in the fragment links and superseding the binary, binary, binary, binary, binary, binary, binary, binary, binary, binary, binary, binary, binary, binary, binary —”

Bloody hell, Rose thinks. Holy bloody hell. The Doctor’s grip on her hand is so tight it’s painful. She watches as Donna takes a deep breath.

“I’m fine!”

“Doctor?”

Rose’s voice wavers, betraying her unease. She feels him brush his thumb over her hand and briefly give it a tight squeeze before releasing it and straightening himself up from where he’s been sitting with her. His brow is furrowed as he looks at Donna and it occurs to Rose that she’s never seen him this way. Even when he’d appeared before her like a ghost, years ago in Norway, he’d never looked quite like this.

“Nah,” Donna continues blithely, either ignorant of the Doctor’s (and Rose’s) concern or merely pretending to be so, “never mind Felspoon. You know who I’d like to meet? Charlie Chaplin. I’ve heard he’s great, Charlie Chaplin. Shall we do that? Shall we go and see Charlie Chaplin?”

“Doctor?” Rose repeats her question, in a low voice for his ears alone. “What’s going on?”

“It’s the Metacrisis.” The Doctor’s voice is flat and his shoulders slumped. He looks defeated, although Rose has no intention of either telling him that or letting herself believe it. “There’s never been a Human-Time Lord Metacrisis before now – because there can’t be.”

She says nothing – for what can she say? – and simply strokes his arm in an attempt to bring him comfort. The noise of the console phone being taken off the hook brings their focus sharply back to Donna.

“Shall we?” Donna appears to think nothing of speaking into a phone with no-one at the other end to answer her. “Charlie Chaplin? Charlie Chester, Charlie Brown. No, he’s fiction, friction, fiction, fixen, mixen, rixten, Brixton —”

Donna gasps and doubles over as though she’s been winded from a punch in the stomach. Tired of being a passive observer, Rose goes to her and the Doctor isn’t far behind.

“Oh, my God,” Donna exclaims, holding on to her head.

“Do you know what’s happening?” the Doctor asks, urgently but quietly.

Donna’s answer comes reluctantly.

“Yeah.”

“There’s never been a Human-Time Lord Metacrisis before now,” the Doctor says to both women, his voice low. “And you know why.”

“Doctor?” Rose is confused, but he just shakes his head at her.

“Not now, Rose. Donna?”

She looks briefly at Rose, and she can see that Donna’s eyes are moist, as if she were about to weep. Then Donna turns to the Doctor, answering his question.

“Because there can’t be.” She turns away from both of them, then, pretending to be busy with the TARDIS controls. “I want to stay!”

“Donna, look at me.” Donna refuses to leave the controls. “Donna, look at me.”

Donna turns and, although she pretends at defiance, Rose can see how terrified she is.

“I was gonna be with you ... for ever.”

“I know.” The Doctor’s voice is gentle and so quiet that Rose can barely hear him even though she is a scarce few feet away.

“The rest of my life ... travelling, in the TARDIS ... the Doctor-Donna.”

The Doctor and Rose simply look at her – and, after a moment or two, she seems to realise what this means for her.

“No. Oh, my God ...”

“Can you help her, Doctor?” Rose can hear the panic in her own voice. She can only guess at how Donna must be feeling.

“She took my mind into her own head, Rose. But that’s a Time Lord consciousness. All that knowledge? It’s killing her.”

Rose blanches.

“But ... but she’ll get better, yes? She has you. You can do anything; you can make her better, yeah?”

The Doctor closes his eyes briefly and swallows audibly, before turning back to Donna.

“I’ll have to wipe your mind, completely,” he tells her in a voice choked with emotion. “Every trace of me, or you, Rose, or the TARDIS ... everything we did together, anywhere we went ... has to go.”

“No!”

Donna shakes her head, backing away from the Doctor, and Rose can see the tears start to spill from her eyes. He steps towards her, taking her by the shoulders.

“I can’t go back.” Donna is begging, now. “Don’t make me go back. Doctor – please. Please, don’t make me go back.”

“Donna. Oh, Donna Noble. I am so, so sorry. We’ve had the best of times. The best.”

And then Rose has an idea.

“Do you have to? Can’t you just ... I dunno, do some kind of mind-block or something? You’re the telepath around here; you should be able to figure out something so that she doesn’t have to lose her memories!”

The Doctor casts a brief glance at her, weighing up the options.

“Mind blocks? That’s not a bad idea. I wonder ...”

He looks back at Donna, places his fingers at her temples and closes his eyes.

“No. No, please! Please! No, No! No!”

Rose can’t bear to listen to her.

“It’ll be all right, Donna. I promise!” Donna, however, is too scared to listen.

“No!”

Then she falls in to the Doctor’s arms, unconscious but looking for all the world as if she is merely asleep. He catches her and holds her for a moment.

“Doctor?” Rose’s voice was very, very quiet.

“Help me carry her, Rose. We need to get her to the infirmary so I can check that there’s no other damage, that I have helped her and not just left her to die!”

The two of them carefully but quickly carry Donna from the console room to the infirmary, laying her down on the bed there. Rose stands beside her and watches over her, whilst the Doctor starts rushing around the room in his usual haphazard manner, collecting various machines and cables together and hooking Donna up to them.

Finally, after the whirlwind of activity, the Doctor moves to be near Rose where she stands watching Donna, his hands in his pockets. He winds his arms around Rose and pulls her close to him, unwilling to be far apart from her whilst seemingly trying to bring her comfort as she had done for him earlier.

“Doctor? Did it work?”

“I don’t know, Rose. I just don’t know.”

“So what do we do now?”

He tightens his grip around her waist.

“We wait. It’s all we can do.”