Doctor Who Fan Fiction ❯ Donna and Ten - The Inbetweens and backstories ❯ Chapter Eleven ( Chapter 11 )

'The streets are half empty, people still aren't driving,' Sylvia said as she came into the kitchen and put the shopping on the worktop. 'There's kids on bikes all over the place. It's wonderful.' Donna smiled at her mum as she spoke. She was seeing something positive from the Atmos affair.

 

'Unpack that lot, I'm going to see if Suzette's all right,' she said as she went out the kitchen door.

 

'I won't tell her,' Wilf said in a conspiratorial tone. 'Best not . . . just keep it as our little secret, eh?'

 

'Yeah,' Donna whispered.

 

'And you go with him . . . that wonderful Doctor.' He started to get emotional. 'You go and see the stars . . . and then bring a bit of them back for your old Gramps.'

 

Donna smiled and nodded, before standing up and hugging him, and giving him a loving kiss on the top of his head.

 

'Love you,' she said, squeezing his shoulder and walking down the hallway to the front door. She walked across the road to where the TARDIS was parked, the same place it had parked when the Doctor had first brought her home on that eventful Christmas.

 

'How were they?' Martha asked as Donna walked up the ramp.

 

'Oh, same old stuff,' she said, wiping a tear from her cheek. 'They're fine . . . So, you going to come with us? We're not exactly short of space.'

 

'Oh, I have missed all this, but, you know,' she said looking up at the time rotor. 'I'm good here, back at home. And I'm better for having been away.'

 

She held her left hand up, showing her engagement ring. 'Besides, someone needs me. Never mind the universe, I've got a great big world of my own now,' she said excitedly, heading for the ramp.

 

Before she could put a foot on the ramp, the door slammed shut on its own and the time rotor started to pump up and down, throwing everyone around.

 

The Doctor grabbed the monitor to see what was happening. 'What . . .? What?'

 

'Doctor, don't you dare!' Martha called out.

 

'No, no, no. I didn't touch anything . . . We're in flight, it's not me.'

 

'Where are we going?' Donna shouted.

 

'I don't know . . . It's out of control!'

 

'Doctor, just listen to me. You take me home. Take me home right now!' Martha demanded.

 

'What the hell's it doing?' Donna asked.

 

'The control's not working,' he said, as he fell against the jump seat. He noticed that his `spare' hand was bubbling away in the jar under the console. "That's odd", he thought to himself.

 

'I don't know where we're going, but my old hand's very excited about it.'

 

'I thought that was just some freaky alien thing. You telling me it's yours?' Donna said in disbelief.

 

'Well,' he said as he hung on to the console.

 

'It got cut off. He grew a new one,' Martha explained.

 

'You are completely . . . impossible.'

 

'Not impossible . . . just a bit unlikely,' he said as the console exploded, throwing the ladies to the floor, and the Doctor onto the jump seat. They breathed heavily, as they watched the time rotor slowly cease, bringing peace and tranquillity to the TARDIS once more.

 

The Doctor jumped up and ran around the console, down the ramp, and out the door. The ladies climbed to their feet and ran after him.

 

'Why would the TARDIS bring us here, then?' he asked, as he stepped out into a large tunnel full of junk.

 

'Oh, I love this bit,' Martha said.

 

'I thought you wanted to go home,' Donna reminded her.

 

'I know, but all the same . . . it's that feeling you get,' she said excitedly.

 

'Like you swallowed a hamster?'

 

`Like you swallowed a hamster?' the Doctor and Martha thought to themselves. What kind of comparison was that? Before they could pursue that line of thought, they were rudely interrupted.

 

'Don't move! Stay where you are! Drop your weapons,' one of three men said who were running in their direction, pointing rifles at them.

 

They raised their hands. 'We're unarmed. Look, no weapons, never any weapons. We're safe,' the Doctor said hurriedly.

 

'Look at their hands. They're clean,' another man said.

 

'All right, process them. Him first.'

 

Two soldiers shouldered their rifles and grabbed the Doctor's arms.

 

'Oi, oi. What's wrong with clean hands?' he asked.

 

'What's going on?' Martha asked them.

 

The Doctor had his right arm pushed into a hole in a drum-like machine.

 

'Leave him alone,' Donna shouted at them.

 

'Something tells me this isn't about to check my blood pressure. Argh!'

 

'What are you doing to him?' Donna asked.

 

'Everyone gets processed,' the leader of the small group told them.

 

'It's taken a tissue sample,' the Doctor informed them. 'Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow. And extrapolated it. Some kind of accelerator?'

 

The machine released his arm, and he pulled it free, examining the back of his hand, where he saw a graze, and a hint of blood.

 

'Are you alright?' Martha asked, as she examined his hand to see if it needed any medical attention.

 

He ignored Martha's question, he was distracted by an upright glass and metal cylinder that had a blue light inside it.

 

'What on earth? That's just . . .'

 

A pair of glass and metal doors opened and a figure stepped out from the steam of the brightly lit interior. She was a skinny blonde woman in combat boots, trousers, and a khaki T-shirt.

 

'Arm yourself,' the group leader said, and handed her a rifle.

 

'Where did she come from?' Martha asked.

 

'From me,' the Doctor said as he watched her prep the weapon. He couldn't take his eyes off her, that face was SO familiar, and he hadn't seen it for centuries.

 

'From you?' Donna asked. 'How? Who is she?'

 

'Well . . . she's, well . . . she's my daughter.'

 

'Hello, Dad.'

 

 

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He had dared to dream . . . again. What he could have achieved with his daughter by his side. Okay, when he thought about it, she was more like a loom cousin, but she was his family, and she was beautiful, and he had so many plans.

 

[`Jenny, be strong now. You need to hold on, do you hear me . . .? We've got things to do, you and me, hey? Hey . . .? We can go anywhere . . . Everywhere . . . You choose.']

 

[`That sounds good,'] she had smiled.

 

[`You're my daughter, and we've only just got started . . . You're going to be great . . . You're going to be more than great . . . You're going to be amazing . . . You hear me? Jenny?']

 

And then, like the rest of his family before her, she died . . . in his arms. They had left her on a makeshift altar, where the citizens of that new world would perform a ceremony which would build the foundation of a new society, one based on peace, understanding, and forgiveness. The funeral of a young woman, who gave her short life, to save the life of her father, a man who had every right to kill her murderer, but who never would.

 

'So how was it that we ended up here then?' Donna asked the quiet, reflective Time Lord, who was leaning against a coral strut by the console. He was watching his spare hand bubbling in the jar.

 

'Jenny,' he said distractedly. 'Jenny was the reason for the TARDIS bringing us here . . . it just got here too soon.' He took a breath and moved to sit on the jump seat. 'Which then created Jenny in the first place . . . Paradox.. an endless paradox.' He looked at Martha, who was trying to keep it together for his sake. 'Time to go home.'

 

'Yeah . . . home.'

 

He stood and leaned over the console, activating the time rotor, and setting the coordinates for Martha's street. The two women looked at each other silently, each one knowing that the other was worried for their lonely, grieving companion.

 

After a few minutes, they heard the familiar bump as the TARDIS landed, and the Doctor started to shut down the console. Donna and Martha walked down the ramp, and stepped outside, onto a street of terraced houses.

 

'This is my stop,' Martha said with a smile; it was good to be home.

 

'Are you sure about this?' Donna asked as they strolled towards Martha's house.

 

'Yeah, positive,' she said, getting all emotional. 'I can't do this any more. You'll be the same one day.'

 

'Not me, never . . . How could I ever go back to normal life after seeing all this?' Donna looked back to see the Doctor closing the door of the TARDIS and walk towards them. 'I'm going to travel with that man for ever.'

 

Martha smiled at her and they fell into a hug. 'Good luck,' she said.

 

'And you,' Donna replied, releasing the hug and letting Martha and the Doctor walk on to her house.

 

'We're making a habit of this,' he said lightheartedly.

 

'Yeah, and you'd think it'd get easier . . . All those things you've been ready to die for. I thought for a moment there you'd finally found something worth living for.'

 

'Oh . . . there's always something worth living for, Martha.'

 

They stood, smiling at each other, but she became tearful and pulled him desperately into a hug. She released the hug and took a cleansing breath, strengthening her resolve. 'Bye, Doctor.'

 

'Goodbye . . . Doctor Jones.'

 

She nodded, and watched him turn around to walk back to the TARDIS with Donna. Had she made the right choice? She looked at the ring on her finger and smiled, of course she had. With a smile on her face she looked up at her house and went inside.

 

'D'yer think you'll ever see her again?' Donna asked as he put the key in the lock.

 

He looked back down the street to Martha's house. 'Who knows . . . I've still got her phone, and she does work for UNIT.'

He pushed the door open for Donna, and followed her inside. Donna walked up the ramp to the console and turned to wait for the Doctor to reach her, a concerned look on her face. "Oh-oh", he thought to himself; "what now?"

 

She gently reached for his hand and held it. 'Are you alright though?' she asked quietly. 'I mean, gainin' and losing a daughter, all in one day . . . that's pretty hard to take. I remember when my dad died . . . there were so many things I wanted to say to him.' She had a sad smile on her face as she thought about it. 'Goodbye bein' the main one.'

 

'I'm fine,' he said as he activated the console with his free hand. He saw the look of uncertainty on her face. 'Honestly. I won't deny that it hurts . . . but I met her . . . I even made her,' he said as he started the time rotor. 'But I think we are all richer for having known her, and we won't forget her, will we?'

 

'Too right we won't, she was bloody amazin', and come to think of it, so were you, I don't think I would have been so forgivin' of General Cobb.'

 

'Oh I think you would Donna Noble. You know when something isn't right, and killing someone in anger, for revenge . . . well, that's never going to be right,' he said, smiling kindly at her.

 

'You always try to see the best in people, don't you . . . always lookin' on the bright side of life?'

 

He put his hands in his pockets and leaned against the console. 'If I didn't, I don't think I would carry on.' Then a smile spread across his face, the sadness filed away in that alien brain of his. 'I've just had an idea of where we can go next.' His smile turned into a grin, his enthusiasm became infectious.

 

'Where are we goin',' she asked with a smile of her own.

 

'Matmata, Tunisia, October 1978.' He set the coordinates on the console and waggled his eyebrows at her. 'We're going to look on the bright side of life.'

 

He went and changed from his blue suit, back to his traditional brown pinstripe suit, with a dark blue T-shirt under the jacket. Donna came back to the console room wearing a white, sleeveless top and white, denim trousers, ready for the sun. He landed the TARDIS, and shut down the console, before walking down the ramp with Donna.

 

'Blimey, it's hot here!' Donna exclaimed as she stepped onto the dry dusty ground. She looked around, and saw a white castellated wall that wouldn't have been out of place in a film about the crusades. Hang on, were those Roman soldiers over there.

 

'Oi, I thought you said 1978, not AD 78,' she said, thinking he'd got it wrong again.

 

'It is 1978, and if you look over there.' He nodded behind her. 'You'll see the film crew.'

 

'What film crew?' she asked, turning around. 'Hang on; are those people on those wooden crosses?'

 

'Yep. Graham Chapman, Eric Idle, Michael Palin, and the rest.'

 

'Monty Python! Oh my God, this is Life of Brian,' she said open mouthed.

 

'Yeah, fancy being an extra in the crowd? They were on such a small budget that they recruited locals and holidaymakers as extras.'

 

'Wha', can we? It won't cause one of those paradox things will it?'

 

'Nah, it wouldn't be the first time I've been an extra in a film,' he said, thinking of when he and Rose had watched the mini's go by them in the Italian Job.

 

'What did you say?' Donna asked, not sure that she'd heard him right.

 

He ignored her question and grabbed her hand, leading her towards the costume tent. 'Come on, let's get into costume and we can sing the song at the end of the film.'

 

They left the tent with, tourists and locals, wearing robes and headdresses over their clothes. They were directed up the hill to the crosses, by a man with a clipboard and walkie-talkie, who gave them a rundown of what was going on.

 

'Cheer up Brian,' Eric Idle started. 'You know what they say . . . Some things in life are bad . . .' He started the introduction to the song, and soon got to the chorus.

 

Donna and the Doctor looked at each other, laughed, and started to sing. 'Always look on the bright side of life.' Wit-woo, wit-woo, wit-woo-wit-woo-wit-woo, they whistled, which was hard when they were grinning so much.

 

'Thank you everyone, that's a wrap,' Terry Jones called through a loudhailer. Every one cheered and burst into applause.

 

'Aaargh, I can't believe we just did that, it was . . . brilliant!' Donna said, laughing. 'Will it cause a paradox thing if I tell people I'm in it now?'

 

'Nah, why would it?' he said. 'Think about it, from this moment on, you've always been in it, you just never knew it.'

 

Her eyes went wide in amazement, and then she had a wicked smile. 'So . . . y'know how the Python crew play all the different parts in their films?' she said thoughtfully.

 

'Yeah?' he replied cautiously.

 

'Well, what about if we got in all the crowd scenes, could we do that, y'know, go back to the start of filmin'.'

 

The Doctor frowned at her, and then a grin spread across his face. 'Alright, go on then, you're on.' He waggled his eyebrows and they ran back to the TARDIS.

 

They spent a week in Tunisia, jumping from the sixteenth of September to the twelfth of November nineteen seventy eight, getting themselves in every crowd scene in the film.

 

'You wait 'til I tell Gramps about this, we love this film, we used to do all the dialogue between us,' she told him as they walked back to the costume tent.

 

'Talking of Gramps, it's his birthday soon; I'll have to buy him a card and a present.'

 

'Oh, I know this place that does brilliant greetings cards,' he said enthusiastically, as he took the robe off over his head, and then he frowned. 'Mind you, the last two times I've been there, it got a bit complicated.'

 

Donna gave a single laugh. 'Hah! When are things ever not complicated when you're around?' She said as she took her robe off.

'Fair comment, come on then, let's go and get Gramps a card.'