Doctor Who Fan Fiction ❯ Donna and Ten - The Inbetweens and backstories ❯ Chapter Seventeen ( Chapter 17 )

Donna and the Doctor stood by the TARDIS and watched the bizarre little group, led by a jumping, squeaking little mechanical life form called Weiou (who'd clearly become so attached to his new specs that Donna suspected he'd be wearing them for ever), head off into the distance. In the valley below them was the biggest theme park she'd ever seen. From a long way off, they could hear the cheers and screams from a thousand mechanicals, all keen to find out what it was like to be a Squidgie.

 

`Is that the end of them, then - the Cult of Shining Darkness?' Donna asked. Being caught up in a galactic plot by a bunch of nutters to bring all the robots under their control, had not been her idea of taking a break.

 

`Shouldn't think so,' said the Doctor. `It's a state of mind more than an organisation. There'll be millions more like them out there. Thinking the same, mean-spirited, tiny minded thoughts. Scared of anything that's different, that they don't understand. And they'll always be there, ready to blame someone else for the state of the universe.'

 

Donna sighed and linked her arm through his. He looked at her. `You OK?'

 

Donna pulled a `maybe' face, gazing down into the valley. `You go through life, you know,' she said. `Thinking you're a good person. Well, maybe not always a good person. Sometimes just not a bad person. You get up every day, go to work or college or whatever,' she added. `You watch the telly, go on holiday. All that stuff. And you just assume it's the way it is. What your mum and dad tell you, what you see on the news, what you read in the papers. You don't question it, unless it's something about Posh's latest frock, or the Royals or what-have-you. You just, y'know, take it all in, thinking that anyone who thinks different is wrong.'

 

`Welllll,' said the Doctor slowly. `They usually are. Especially when you're a Ginger Goddess.'

 

Donna banged her head against his shoulder. He would never let her forget that; trying to convince a bunch of apes that she was their Goddess so that she could recover another one of those rusty truck wheels encrusted with fragments of diamanté. They had been parts of the cult's equipment to help them carry out their evil plan.

 

`Nah,' she said dismissively. `It's not all that, godhood.' She paused and breathed in the alien air of Pasquite, so full of strangeness that it almost hurt. `Travelling with you . . .' Donna stopped. `Travelling with you, seeing all this stuff, risking life and limb - it scares the willies out of me, you know that.'

 

The Doctor raised cautionary eyebrows. `We can always go home, you know. Back to Chiswick, back to temping, holidays in Egypt - although I'd recommend Mexico, by the way - back to normality . . .'

 

Donna smiled and shook her head. `Meeting all these robots - all these machines, all these aliens . . .' She paused. `What is “normal” anyway?'

 

The Doctor pointed to little group, a few hundred yards away: two machines, looking a bit like upright sunbeds, were walking along. On their shoulders were two kids - two Squidgie kids - laughing and squealing as the sunbeds leaned this way and that, pretending they were about to drop them.

 

`That's normal,' he said. `Just people, being people.'

 

They stood in silence for a while, watching Pasquite's yellow sun drift towards the horizon, listening to the noise, breathing in the smells of food and flowers and oil.

 

`People,' echoed Donna. `Just people.'

 

'Oi, don't start that again,' he said jokingly, remembering their time on Midnight.

 

'Oh, sorry!' suddenly realising what she'd just done. 'I wasn't thinkin' . . . well not about that anyway. I was thinkin' about what you said about goin' back to Chiswick.'

 

'Really?' he said worriedly. Had she had enough of the excitement and adventure?

 

She saw the look on his face. It was the same look that he'd given her at the Atmos factory. 'To visit. It must be coming up to anniversary of when Dad . . . Well, I'd just like to be there for Mum and Granddad.'

 

'When was it?'

 

'Fifteenth of May.'

 

'Okay then, in we go,' he said as he opened the door. 'We've got a date with the fifteenth of May.' He thought about what he'd just said. 'Actually, the fifteenth of May is already a date, but you know what I mean.'

 

 

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Firday, 15th May, 2009 .

 

Turnham Green Church .

 

Off Chsiwick High Road .

 

 

 

`Oi!'

 

A word / phrase / guttural noise, spluttered with a splash of indignation, a twist of sarcasm and a great gulp of volume. No matter how hard he tried, the Doctor couldn't help but sigh every time he heard it. Usually because the indignation, sarcasm and especially the volume were all aimed in his direction.

 

He sighed and turned back to face Donna Noble, Queen of the `Oi's. And she wasn't there. Just the TARDIS, parked between two council dumpsters. Quite neatly, if he said so himself.

 

 

 

 

`Sorry,' he said to the TARDIS door, then walked back and unlocked it, revealing Donna stood on the threshold.

 

`I assumed you were already outside.'

 

`Which bit of “I'm right behind you” didn't quite make sense, then?' Donna asked oh-so-politely, with a characteristic head wobble that actually meant she wasn't feeling all that polite at all. `Which bit of “wait for me” bypassed your hearing? Which section of “I'm just putting on something nice” vanished into the ether?'

 

There was no way for the Doctor to worm out of that one. So he just shrugged. `I said I was sorry.'

 

`“Sorry”?'

 

`Yeah, “sorry”. What else do you want?'

 

`Are you “sorry” that you didn't hear me? “Sorry” that you locked me inside your alien spaceship? Or “sorry” that you hadn't even noticed I wasn't with you?' Each time, Donna pinged the word `sorry' so it sounded like the least apologetic word in the English language and took on a whole new meaning that linguists could argue over the exact implication of for the next twelve centuries.

 

`No way I can win this,' the Doctor said, `so I'm just gonna let it go, all right?'

 

Donna opened her mouth to speak again, but the Doctor reached forward and put a finger on her lips. `Hush,' he said.

 

Donna hushed. And winked. `I win!'

 

And then she gave him that fantastic, amazing grin that she always did when she was teasing him - and he gave her that sigh that admitted he'd been caught out yet again. It was a game. A game that two friends who'd gone through so much together played instinctively with one another. Familiarity, friendship and fun. The three Fs that summed up the time shared by these two adventurers.

 

She slipped an arm around his and pulled him close. `So, what's the skinny, Skinny?'

 

The Doctor nodded towards Chiswick High Road and the hustle and bustle of the traffic, and quickly dragged her out onto the main street, ready to get lost in the crowds. Except there weren't any. Indeed, there weren't really very many people around at all, just a couple of kids on a skateboard on the opposite pavement and an old man walking his dog.

 

The Doctor raised his other hand. `Not raining,' he

 

`Well spotted, Sherlock,' said Donna. `Sunday?'

 

`You wanted Friday the fifteenth of May 2009, Donna. That's what I set the TARDIS for.'

 

Donna laughed. `In which case it's probably a Sunday in August 1972.'

 

The Doctor poked his head into a newsagent, smiling at the man behind the counter, who was listening to his MP3 player and ignoring his potential customer completely.

 

The Doctor looked at the nearest newspaper. `Friday 15th May 2009,' he confirmed to Donna.

 

`So where is everyone?'

 

`Maybe it's lunchtime,' the Doctor suggested. `Or maybe Chiswick's no longer the hub of society it was a month ago. Shall we walk to your place?'

 

`You're coming?'

 

The Doctor looked as though the thought of not going with Donna hadn't crossed his mind. `Oh. Umm. Well, I was going to.'

 

`Doctor, why are we here?'

 

`It's the first anniversary of your father's death.'

 

`And, grateful as I'm sure she is for you saving the world from the Sontarans, I'm not quite sure my mum's gonna be overjoyed to see you, today of all days.'

 

`Your granddad will.'

 

`Yeah? Good, take him out for a pint tonight in the Shepherd's Hut, but to start with I want to see them on my own.' Donna was still holding his hand, and she squeezed it gently. `You understand, don't you?'

 

He smiled. `Course I do. Wasn't thinking. Sorry.'

 

`Let's not start that up again, yeah?' Donna let go of his hand. `I'm gonna get some flowers and walk home. Why don't I meet you back here, this time, tomorrow?'

 

`Here. Tomorrow. Sold.' The Doctor winked at her and started walking off. `Nice flower shop on the corner thataway,' he called out. `Ask for Loretta and say I sent you.' He turned a corner and was gone.

 

Donna took a breath and walked in the direction he'd

pointed. A year ago. Today. Adipose. Pyroviles. Oods with brains in their hands. Even Sontaran probic vents, Hath and talking skeletons all seemed simple in comparison to what was going to happen this afternoon.

 

Because this afternoon Donna had to go back and be there for her mum and probably relive not just last year, but the days and weeks that had followed, funerals, telling people, memorials, notices in papers, sorting out the financial side of things, finding the will . . . None of it had been easy on Donna's mum. Hadn't been that easy on Donna, truth be told, and a year ago that would have been her overriding thought. Donna Noble, putting herself first.

 

But not now - just a short time with the Doctor had shown her that she wasn't the woman she had been then. And Granddad, poor Granddad, bringing back memories of Nan's passing, he'd bravely soldiered on for everyone else's sake, trying to sort out solicitors and funeral directors and suchlike.

 

Not that Mum had been weak or feeble - Sylvia Noble wasn't like that, and they'd been prepared for Dad's death, well, as much as you can be, but it still haunted her. She could see it in her mum's eyes; it was like someone had cut an arm and a leg off, and Mum just coped as best she could. Thirty-eight years they'd been married.

 

Donna sighed. `Miss you, Dad,' she said out loud as she came to a halt outside a laundrette called Loretta's. Her phone buzzed with a text message, and she read it.

 

UMMM. ACTUALLY MIGHT BE WRONG. LORETTA'S MIGHT NOT BE FLORIST. SORRY.

 

How did he do that? He didn't even have a mobile as far as Donna knew. That sonic screwdriver perhaps? Was there nothing it couldn't do? Shoving the phone back into her coat pocket, Donna decided she'd be better off heading towards Turnham Green. She knew there was a florist there. Men. Alien men. Useless, the lot of them.

 

 

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Four days, a few dead bodies, and the attempted take over of planet Earth by an ancient alien entity later.

 

 

`Doctor? How many other people did Madam Delphi use and then chuck away?' Donna asked, referring to the artificially intelligent computer interface of the Mandragora Helix.

 

`Mankind were just tools to the Helix, tools to be used and abandoned.'

 

`Like Netty?'

 

The Doctor visibly winced. Henrietta Goodhart was the lady friend of Donna's grandfather Wilf, and the Doctor had asked her if she would agree to be host to the Mandragora Helix when he shut down the computer that was hosting Madam Delphi.

 

It was another example of one of those choices he had to make where in reality, he had no choice. Netty suffered from second-stage Alzheimer's, and he hoped that once the Mandragora Helix was in her head, he could bombard it with questions that would diminish it's power as it tried to repair Netty's brain so that it could remember.

 

She had agreed because both Wilf and Donna believed in the Doctor and trusted him without question. And fortunately for Netty; and for the man who loved her; and for his granddaughter who loved them both, it had worked.

 

But it was most fortunate for the Doctor, who had used her as a tool to defeat the Helix. Had he been justified in risking her life? His plan had worked. But what if it hadn't?

 

Donna could see these thoughts reflected in the impassive mask he wore at times like this. `I'm sorry, that was below the belt.'

 

The Doctor looked at his friend. `But true . . . and honest. I had to take the risk, Donna. Once, I might've done it with less conscience.'

 

`My God,' Donna said in mock horror. `What have I done to you?'

 

The Doctor was serious. He took her hands in his. `Made me a better person.'

 

Donna pulled her hands away, resorting, as always, to her standard jokes. `Now then, don't touch what you can't afford, spaceman.'

 

They watched as Wilf and Netty started walking towards the main reception area of the hotel. `Let's get them back to your mum, eh?'

 

Donna nodded. `You coming too, then? I mean, you know what she's like.'

 

The Doctor nodded. `Yeah. An older version of her daughter.'

 

`Oi!' Donna laughed and linked arms with the Doctor.

 

`Come on, spaceman. You've stared down Sontarans, Pyroviles and the Fishmen of Kandalinga. I don't really think my mum's that scary.'

 

`You don't?'

 

`Nah. Unless it's Monday. Mondays, she gets one of her 'mares on. Is today Monday?'

 

`Today is indeed Monday.'

 

Donna hugged his arm a bit tighter. `My turn to protect you then, eh?'

 

 

Brookside Road .

 

Chiswick.

 

Friday, 22nd May, 2009 .

 

 

“What a difference a week makes” Donna thought as she watched the Doctor and her granddad enjoying tea on the back lawn, and she wasn't just thinking about how UNIT had taken care of everything and tidied up (well, in Britain at least).

 

When she had arrived last week, she'd had a row with her mother about how she was never there and never phoned or wrote. It was obviously something that Sylvia had been bottling up inside, and the anniversary of Geoff's death seemed to have popped her cork.

 

Now though, her mother seemed more at peace with herself and everyone else, including the Doctor! Even now, she was with Netty, trying on hats with alarmingly larger feathers and laughing at silly little things.

 

Donna wandered through the patio doors to hear a discussion in hushed tones about the Doctor's various adventures with `the outer space robot people', followed by uproariously raucous laughter.

 

`You'll have Mum wondering what you're talking about, and then the game's up,' she told them in hushed tones.

 

`Not gonna tell her the truth, then?' The Doctor raised an eyebrow at both of them. A quick look shot between grandfather and granddaughter, followed in unison by `Are you mad?'

 

`She'd definitely kill you this time,' Donna said.

 

`After killing me for keeping secrets,' Wilf agreed.

 

The Doctor shrugged and changed the subject. `So, tonight's little shindig. What time are you heading off?'

 

They were going to the Royal Planetary Society for Wilf's Naming Honour dinner. He had discovered the Mandragora Helix's heavenly body, and it had been named 7432MOTT, after him.

 

`WE are heading off at seven,' Donna said.

 

`Brilliant,' he said unenthusiastically. `I may need to nip back to the TARDIS to, um, change my suit.'

 

Donna shook her head. `You are staying right here, Sonny Jim.'

 

`Here?'

 

`Here.'

 

`No TARDIS? No suit?'

 

`No TARDIS, no suit, no emergency calls from Princess Leia suggesting you're her only hope.' Donna swept up the tea mugs. `More tea?'

 

The Doctor nodded sulkily, realising he'd be outmanoeuvred.

 

Sylvia emerged through the patio doors with a pile of pamphlets for the nursing homes, torn in half. She dropped them in front of Wilf. `I think Netty should move in here, with us.' She touched Wilf's cheek. `With you.'

 

Wilf stood up and hugged his daughter.

 

`No,' said Netty from behind them all, looking magnificent in her latest hat. `My mind is clearer now for the first time in ages. But I can't move in here, Sylvia.'

 

`Why not?' asked Wilf.

 

`Oh, you dear, sweet man,' Netty winked at him. `You make me so happy, but I'm not a fool. It'd be good to stay with you while I'm compos mentis. But if . . . when I slide again, you two aren't equipped to deal with me. The strain, the pressure, it's not fair on you. On either of you.'

 

She scooped up the ripped pamphlets. `If it's all right with you both, though, I could do with a lift to some of these, see if we can't find one we all like.'

 

Sylvia touched Netty's arm. `That's a huge decision,' she said. `Are you sure, because I wasn't just saying what I said to be nice. I think you should be here, part of the family.'

 

Netty looked at the Doctor. `What do you think, Doctor?'

 

The Doctor looked at Sylvia, then Donna, then Wilf. Then finally back at Netty. `I think, Henrietta Goodhart, that you are a wise, sensible, strong lady who knows her own mind better than we all realised and will do what's right.'

 

He swiped the tea mugs from Donna's hands. `And I'm not family, and I really want to bow out of this conversation gracefully, so I'll go and put the kettle on.'

 

He quickly walked back into the house, washed out the

mugs and filled the kettle, looking out of the kitchen window at the group in the garden and smiled to himself.

 

`Chicken,' said a quiet voice in the doorway.

 

`It's your mum and granddad's life, Donna,' he said. `Not anything to do with me. Families. So not my thing.'

 

Donna joined him by the sink, looking out of the window. `She seems so . . . in control now. So . . .'

 

`Normal?'

 

`Well, I might not have used that word exactly, but yeah.'

 

`It won't last.'

 

Donna didn't look at him. `Why not? Maybe storing all that Mandragora energy cleared her neural wotnots, sorted it all out.'

 

`It's at least second-stage Alzheimer's, Donna. That's decay,' he replied quietly. `It doesn't get better, it mostly gets worse. There's no miracle cure, I'm afraid, no magic solution for Netty. Her mind is a bit like a car windscreen. In some respects, the Mandragora Helix was the carwash, cleaning it up for a while. But it won't be long before all the dirt and insects and dust and scratches come back. I'm sorry.'

 

`It's so wrong.'

 

`Yup, it is. But life is never as convenient as we'd like. There's a million ailments, illnesses and diseases in the universe. If I believed something as malign as Mandragora could erase just one of them, I'd let it. I'd have allowed it to remain, doing some good. But there's never any miracle cures for things like that. Life's not like that. But it shouldn't stop people looking because one day, they will find an answer.'

 

`And that'd mean you were wrong.'

 

The Doctor laughed. `Yup. It happens sometimes. And sometimes I like it. I wish I could find a way to help her, but I can't.'

 

`What about Granddad?'

 

`He's a grown man. He's made a rational, adult decision to look after her for as long as he can. That makes Wilfred Mott a Very Good Man in my book.'

 

`Mine too.'

 

`Perhaps we should stay for a while; help Netty get settled in somewhere. You could spend some quality family time with your mum?'

 

Donna shook her head. `We're fine at the moment. Another week, we'd be under each other's feet, fighting, yelling, sniping.'

 

Through the window, out in the garden, they watched Sylvia and Netty going through the brochures.

 

`Where's that tea, then, eh?' said Wilf from behind the Doctor and Donna.

 

`Granddad,' Donna said suddenly. `Maybe I should put you and Mum first. Perhaps I should stick around, help you out with Netty.' She looked at the Doctor. `God knows, I'd miss you and all . . . that . . .' She pointed towards the sky. `But maybe it's time to grow up a bit.'

 

Wilf hugged Donna. `Sweetheart, what makes you happy?'

 

Without missing a beat, Donna looked at the Doctor.

 

`And you think I'd be happy knowing I was responsible for you giving all that up? Think Netty would?'

 

`But you and Mum, you need me . . .'

 

`Maybe, but we've managed OK for a while now. I'd rather know you were out there with the Doctor, doing to other planets and people what you did for Earth the other day.'

 

`And Netty?'

 

Wilf smiled sadly. `She's ill, and eventually she'll go. So will I, and your Mum. And none of us will have seen and done all the marvellous and thrilling things you have. All them memories you'll have. Netty's illness could take her in five years or next Thursday. She could also walk in front of the Number 18 to KewGardens. I won't let her illness, or our sadness at you not being around, stop you living the life you've chosen. Out there. With him.'

 

The Doctor put an arm around Donna. `I'll look after her.'

 

`Too right you will, mate, or there'll be trouble, remember?' Wilf switched the kettle off as it began to boil. `Listen, I promise - me, your mum and Netty - we'll still be here next time you visit. I'm not letting Netty go anywhere, someone's gotta keep me on the straight and narrow.'

 

Wilf began making the tea. `You're a smashing lady, Donna Noble,' he said. `And I'm proud to know you and love you.' He kissed her cheek. `Now, go call a cab, I'm not risking your mum's driving after she's had a couple of sherries tonight.'

 

He passed a mug of tea to them both, and raised his in a toast. `To family. And bonds that can never be broken.'