Aug. 4th, 2010 03:16 am
Dance Along the Light of Day (1/6)
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savvyliterateTitle: Dance Along the Light of Day
Series: Doctor Who
Characters/Pairings: Ten/Rose, Donna, others
Disclaimer: Some dialogue in this chapter comes from the script to "Turn Left" and I certainly didn't write that. Other than that, all standard disclaimers apply.
Rating: PG-13
Summary: On Christmas Eve, standing in a tattered wedding gown with her life just as destroyed as her clothes, Donna Noble looked the Doctor in the eye and said, "Yes." At that moment, the universe changed.
Author's Notes: This fic came to me when I heard the song "Drops of Jupiter" by Train. It feels like a piece that the Doctor is narrating about Rose's growth in the parallel universe and a subsequent return to her own world. In addition, I always wanted to explore how the Doctor would have been different if Donna had been with him in series 3.
July 2008
Shan Shen
Donna Noble felt like she was standing on the set of a movie and watching the strangest drama unfold. The Doctor, no two of him, surrounded a blonde-haired woman as they stood on the middle of the beach in bloody Norway of all places. Rose Tyler, her brain told her, and somehow she knew that all along. Her head pounded and memories that she knew weren’t her own crowded her brain. She wanted to grab her aching head and scream. She wanted to muscle her way into the scene before her because something was wrong, wrong, wrong and they shouldn’t be here.
This isn’t right, her fiber of her being screamed at her. Do something! Fix it!
Can’t you see I’m trying? Donna silently ordered her subconscious, but before she could come up with some plan, she was jerked away.
With a gasp and a scream, Donna leaped from her chair as a loud screech sounded, then something hit the floor with a loud smack. Ignoring the fortune teller, she stared dumbfounded at the beetle writhing on the floor. Incense wafted through the air, the small nearly overpowering. The shock combined with the scent made her feel light-headed, but she stood her ground.
"What the hell is that?" Donna demanded, her gaze lifting to meet her savior's.
"This thing?" The Doctor nudged the beetle with his toe as he pushed aside the beaded curtain and stepped fully into the small hut. He crouched, giving the beetle a curious glance and a light poke with one end of the sonic screwdriver. "It's one of the Trickster's Brigade. Changes a life in tiny little ways. I imagine this woman's taken you for quite a ride, Donna."
Donna whirled, ready to tear the fortune teller limb from limb, but only found the woman curled into a ball on the floor.
"What are you?" The woman managed, her terrified eyes flickering between the Doctor and Donna.
"Look here, you sorry excuse for a ..." Donna took two steps toward her, but the Doctor caught her arm.
"I think she's learned her lesson, Donna," the Doctor said quietly, cutting off her tirade. "Let's take this," he hefted the beetle and tucked it under one arm, "and head back to the TARDIS."
As they headed out of the tent, the fortune teller slowly uncurled herself and rose to her feet. "You ...," she intoned, lifting a shaking finger to point at the Doctor. "You are haunted by the bad wolf."
The Doctor didn't break stride, but Donna saw his shoulders stiffen.
"The bad wolf follows you," the fortune teller continued, her voice stronger. "To all the worlds, the bad wolf lurks in your shadow."
"Bad wolf?" Donna questioned, but the Doctor didn't say anything as they disappeared into the crowd. Questions burned on the tip of her tongue, but she sensed the agitation coming him. The phrase itself tugged at the back of her mind, like they'd had a version of this conversation before.
They entered the TARDIS and headed to the infirmary, where the Doctor left the beetle on the examination table. Donna stared at it as he rummaged in a cabinet. "Is it safe to leave that thing out?"
"Yeah," he said as he poked through pill bottles, pulling out a few to study the labels. "That thing's harmless now. One use and that's all they're good for. You defeated it, you know."
"I didn't do anything!"
"Sure, you did." The Doctor's eyes lit up as he found what he was looking for and handed a brown bottle to Donna. "You were doing a pretty good job overcoming it on your own. Just added a bit of sonic and presto!"
"So, then, what's this for?" Donna shook the bottle in his face.
The Doctor gave her a sympathetic look. "The monster headache that's going to hit right about ... now."
As if on cue, Donna suddenly felt like a million elephants had trampled across her skull. With a moan, she clutched her head and crumpled. The Doctor quickly caught her, eased her onto the examination table and helped her take two of the pills. "Well, had the beetle fallen off on its own, you wouldn't have the headache, but ..."
"Now you tell me, you skinny Martian," Donna grumbled and the Doctor grinned.
"Naptime for you, Donna Noble!" he announced. "And when you wake up, any place you want to go! How about ice cream on Sigma 7?"
"Sounds lovely," she murmured as the pills started to take effect. Faint memories swirled in her head of two Doctors and a woman on a beach and the fortune teller's voice rang in her ears. "Doctor," she said, catching his sleeve and tugging until he was looking at her. "Bad wolf. The bad wolf haunts you. It means something, doesn’t it?"
His eyes darkened. "It's nothing. Go to sleep, Donna."
"It's Rose, isn't it? I sort of remember from when the beetle was on me. Bad wolf and the end of the universe.” Her eyes fluttered shut, but she still mumbled. "Two of you standing on a beach in Norway. The DoctorDonna. Rose is coming back and isn't that good ... It’s like girl we saw, that River Song, she also told you 'bad wolf' …"
"It's an alternate reality," he soothed her. "Just a dream now."
The Doctor stayed with her until she slept, then headed back to the console room. He stood, staring at the console, hands buried deep in his pockets as the words "bad wolf" rumbled around in his head, drowning out other concerns, other memories. Because he needed something to do, or else he'd think too much, he bounded to the console. He spent the next few hours checking scanners, making brief stops, just to make sure that everything was okay in the universe.
For the most part, everything was. No multi-verse threats out there that he could see, not even a big skirmish beyond the 17th Civil War on Clom and the Doctor really had no desire to get involved in that particular mess at this time.
After that, there was nothing really left to do. He wandered to the library, but no book held his interest. Five hundred million channels and nothing good on television, and if he dared watch Coronation Street without Donna, he’d never hear the end of it. Donna slept away in the infirmary and she'd be under another few hours, and he was utterly bored. Closing his eyes, willing away the image of a familiar blonde human, he dozed lightly. Actually, it was more of a nap. Except, he insisted constantly, Time Lords didn't nap. Regardless, he was shaken from his sleep when he felt the TARDIS settle around him as it landed.
"Doctor?" He heard Donna in the console room and, rubbing the sleep from his eyes to hide the fact that he wasn't napping, headed toward her. She had the TARDIS door open and was staring at whatever lay outside. "What is this place?" she asked.
The Doctor peered over his shoulder, blinked, then pushed past Donna. He spun around slowly, the smells and sight both comforting and haunting at the same time. Aged brick buildings covered in graffiti and rickety wire stairs surrounded them. Children played in the alleys and neighbors gossiped on the terrace while hanging laundry. "This is the Powell Estate," he said, then hurried to find a newspaper.
"Powell Estate? Why are we at a council estate?" Donna followed.
"I didn't bring us here, the TARDIS did." The Doctor spotted a copy of the Times atop a rubbish bin and grabbed it. "2008," he said, then scanned the area again, eyes wide and panicked, feeling his hearts slam against his ribcage. "It's 2008."
"Yeah?" Donna tried to study the paper for herself, but the Doctor immediately began to pace away from her.
"Christmas Eve you joined me, Christmas Eve 2007," the Doctor rambled and tossed the paper at Donna so he could tug at his hair. She just as quickly chucked it back in the bin. "It's been how long for you? Relatively speaking?"
"Uh ...," Donna tried to do the math, "six months? Seven? Don't think it's been a year. I'd have to check the log Gramps gave me, but it's on the TARDIS ..."
But the Doctor had stopped listening. "The Battle of Canary Wharf was July 2007. According to the paper, it’s July 2008. One year to the day that the battle happened, it’s even on the front page. Imagine that, celebration of an alien attack on the front page of the news. How far your world has come, Donna."
Donna was frantically trying to keep pace with the Doctor. "I don't get it. What does a council estate happen to do with Canary Wharf?"
The Doctor froze. Then he was off, running toward the TARDIS as if the fires of hell were licking at his heels. "Doctor!" Donna yelled, and followed him, noticing just briefly, the faded spray painted "BAD WOLF" on the brick wall behind the TARDIS. She'd barely made it, for the TARDIS dematerialized just seconds after the door slammed behind her.
"Doctor!" Donna roared she found herself pitched across the console room. She grabbed hold of the captain's chair and hung on for dear life. "If you don't tell me what's going on right now, I swear I am going to find something in that lab of yours to make you sleep, then I'm going to cut up your ties and shave you bald!"
The Doctor ignored her. Well, rather, he didn't hear her at all. The rising panic and hope warred within him as he threw a lever and the TARDIS landed once more. He prayed he was reading her right. He threw the door open and dashed out.
Donna followed and found herself in a large, empty room with white walls and two levers. The rage drained as she took in the stark scene. She fought the urge to hug herself. The place seemed so still, quiet, and filled with grief.
The Doctor stood at the wall, running his fingers lightly along the paint. Donna softly approached him, trying to fit the pieces together in her mind. "Canary Wharf," she murmured, then she remembered the bits and pieces that the Doctor had revealed over the past few months. "Rose. This is where Rose disappeared, isn't it?"
His Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed. "Yeah," he said after a moment.
Donna took a deep breath, then laced her fingers with the Doctor's. She was relieved when he squeezed back hard. "Doctor," she said, "maybe we should go back to the TARDIS. Rose is gone, and you’ve accepted it, remember?”
"'Rose is coming back.' That's what you said," he clarified. "'Rose is coming back, and isn't that good?'" He glanced down at her. "Your parallel world, Donna, the one on Shan Shen a few hours ago. You met Rose in there, didn’t you?"
"I did?" Donna frowned, tried to remember, but even the faint memories had retreated into her mind. "I don't remember."
"Why would you meet Rose Tyler?" he wondered aloud. "What would cause you to say all that?"
"Why wouldn't I meet her?" she retorted. "You said yourself it was a parallel universe. I could have been anywhere."
He grasped her upper arms. "A universe that revolved around one thing you changed. Think, Donna, what was the thing you changed?"
"I don't know, I don't remember."
He shook her slightly. "Donna, try!"
Donna pressed her hands to her temples, trying to force the memories out. "I can't. It's like it never happened. I don't know what I could have possibly changed to result in meeting ..."
She never finished as a sudden punch of air sent her to the ground - or more accurately, flying into the Doctor. He had no choice but to catch her, and they landed in a tangled heap of limbs. After a couple moments of confusion and one "don't you dare put your hands there, sunshine!" they managed to pull apart and get their bearings back.
“What happened?” Donna gasped and looked over the Doctor’s shoulder to see a crumpled form on the ground a few feet away from them. “Doctor!”
He pushed himself up, over, and saw her. Her clothes were torn, and the exposed skin was bloody and crusted with dirt. But, there was no mistaking the halo of blonde hair or the face. Forgetting Donna completely, he scrambled over the floor to crouch next to her. He gingerly rolled her so she was flat on her back, his breathing harsh as he breathed her name. “Rose,” he managed.
She didn’t respond and the Doctor feared the worst. He pressed two fingers to her throat and her pulse fluttered against them. Hands shaking, he pulled his sonic from his pocket as Donna joined them.
Before he could do anything, Rose’s eyes opened. She glanced at Donna for a moment, and then her gaze fell on him. And she smiled - that brilliant, brilliant smile full of optimism, love, Bad Wolf and the eternal mysteries of time, and her tongue caught between her teeth. “Hello,” she whispered.
Series: Doctor Who
Characters/Pairings: Ten/Rose, Donna, others
Disclaimer: Some dialogue in this chapter comes from the script to "Turn Left" and I certainly didn't write that. Other than that, all standard disclaimers apply.
Rating: PG-13
Summary: On Christmas Eve, standing in a tattered wedding gown with her life just as destroyed as her clothes, Donna Noble looked the Doctor in the eye and said, "Yes." At that moment, the universe changed.
Author's Notes: This fic came to me when I heard the song "Drops of Jupiter" by Train. It feels like a piece that the Doctor is narrating about Rose's growth in the parallel universe and a subsequent return to her own world. In addition, I always wanted to explore how the Doctor would have been different if Donna had been with him in series 3.
Shan Shen
Donna Noble felt like she was standing on the set of a movie and watching the strangest drama unfold. The Doctor, no two of him, surrounded a blonde-haired woman as they stood on the middle of the beach in bloody Norway of all places. Rose Tyler, her brain told her, and somehow she knew that all along. Her head pounded and memories that she knew weren’t her own crowded her brain. She wanted to grab her aching head and scream. She wanted to muscle her way into the scene before her because something was wrong, wrong, wrong and they shouldn’t be here.
This isn’t right, her fiber of her being screamed at her. Do something! Fix it!
Can’t you see I’m trying? Donna silently ordered her subconscious, but before she could come up with some plan, she was jerked away.
With a gasp and a scream, Donna leaped from her chair as a loud screech sounded, then something hit the floor with a loud smack. Ignoring the fortune teller, she stared dumbfounded at the beetle writhing on the floor. Incense wafted through the air, the small nearly overpowering. The shock combined with the scent made her feel light-headed, but she stood her ground.
"What the hell is that?" Donna demanded, her gaze lifting to meet her savior's.
"This thing?" The Doctor nudged the beetle with his toe as he pushed aside the beaded curtain and stepped fully into the small hut. He crouched, giving the beetle a curious glance and a light poke with one end of the sonic screwdriver. "It's one of the Trickster's Brigade. Changes a life in tiny little ways. I imagine this woman's taken you for quite a ride, Donna."
Donna whirled, ready to tear the fortune teller limb from limb, but only found the woman curled into a ball on the floor.
"What are you?" The woman managed, her terrified eyes flickering between the Doctor and Donna.
"Look here, you sorry excuse for a ..." Donna took two steps toward her, but the Doctor caught her arm.
"I think she's learned her lesson, Donna," the Doctor said quietly, cutting off her tirade. "Let's take this," he hefted the beetle and tucked it under one arm, "and head back to the TARDIS."
As they headed out of the tent, the fortune teller slowly uncurled herself and rose to her feet. "You ...," she intoned, lifting a shaking finger to point at the Doctor. "You are haunted by the bad wolf."
The Doctor didn't break stride, but Donna saw his shoulders stiffen.
"The bad wolf follows you," the fortune teller continued, her voice stronger. "To all the worlds, the bad wolf lurks in your shadow."
"Bad wolf?" Donna questioned, but the Doctor didn't say anything as they disappeared into the crowd. Questions burned on the tip of her tongue, but she sensed the agitation coming him. The phrase itself tugged at the back of her mind, like they'd had a version of this conversation before.
They entered the TARDIS and headed to the infirmary, where the Doctor left the beetle on the examination table. Donna stared at it as he rummaged in a cabinet. "Is it safe to leave that thing out?"
"Yeah," he said as he poked through pill bottles, pulling out a few to study the labels. "That thing's harmless now. One use and that's all they're good for. You defeated it, you know."
"I didn't do anything!"
"Sure, you did." The Doctor's eyes lit up as he found what he was looking for and handed a brown bottle to Donna. "You were doing a pretty good job overcoming it on your own. Just added a bit of sonic and presto!"
"So, then, what's this for?" Donna shook the bottle in his face.
The Doctor gave her a sympathetic look. "The monster headache that's going to hit right about ... now."
As if on cue, Donna suddenly felt like a million elephants had trampled across her skull. With a moan, she clutched her head and crumpled. The Doctor quickly caught her, eased her onto the examination table and helped her take two of the pills. "Well, had the beetle fallen off on its own, you wouldn't have the headache, but ..."
"Now you tell me, you skinny Martian," Donna grumbled and the Doctor grinned.
"Naptime for you, Donna Noble!" he announced. "And when you wake up, any place you want to go! How about ice cream on Sigma 7?"
"Sounds lovely," she murmured as the pills started to take effect. Faint memories swirled in her head of two Doctors and a woman on a beach and the fortune teller's voice rang in her ears. "Doctor," she said, catching his sleeve and tugging until he was looking at her. "Bad wolf. The bad wolf haunts you. It means something, doesn’t it?"
His eyes darkened. "It's nothing. Go to sleep, Donna."
"It's Rose, isn't it? I sort of remember from when the beetle was on me. Bad wolf and the end of the universe.” Her eyes fluttered shut, but she still mumbled. "Two of you standing on a beach in Norway. The DoctorDonna. Rose is coming back and isn't that good ... It’s like girl we saw, that River Song, she also told you 'bad wolf' …"
"It's an alternate reality," he soothed her. "Just a dream now."
The Doctor stayed with her until she slept, then headed back to the console room. He stood, staring at the console, hands buried deep in his pockets as the words "bad wolf" rumbled around in his head, drowning out other concerns, other memories. Because he needed something to do, or else he'd think too much, he bounded to the console. He spent the next few hours checking scanners, making brief stops, just to make sure that everything was okay in the universe.
For the most part, everything was. No multi-verse threats out there that he could see, not even a big skirmish beyond the 17th Civil War on Clom and the Doctor really had no desire to get involved in that particular mess at this time.
After that, there was nothing really left to do. He wandered to the library, but no book held his interest. Five hundred million channels and nothing good on television, and if he dared watch Coronation Street without Donna, he’d never hear the end of it. Donna slept away in the infirmary and she'd be under another few hours, and he was utterly bored. Closing his eyes, willing away the image of a familiar blonde human, he dozed lightly. Actually, it was more of a nap. Except, he insisted constantly, Time Lords didn't nap. Regardless, he was shaken from his sleep when he felt the TARDIS settle around him as it landed.
"Doctor?" He heard Donna in the console room and, rubbing the sleep from his eyes to hide the fact that he wasn't napping, headed toward her. She had the TARDIS door open and was staring at whatever lay outside. "What is this place?" she asked.
The Doctor peered over his shoulder, blinked, then pushed past Donna. He spun around slowly, the smells and sight both comforting and haunting at the same time. Aged brick buildings covered in graffiti and rickety wire stairs surrounded them. Children played in the alleys and neighbors gossiped on the terrace while hanging laundry. "This is the Powell Estate," he said, then hurried to find a newspaper.
"Powell Estate? Why are we at a council estate?" Donna followed.
"I didn't bring us here, the TARDIS did." The Doctor spotted a copy of the Times atop a rubbish bin and grabbed it. "2008," he said, then scanned the area again, eyes wide and panicked, feeling his hearts slam against his ribcage. "It's 2008."
"Yeah?" Donna tried to study the paper for herself, but the Doctor immediately began to pace away from her.
"Christmas Eve you joined me, Christmas Eve 2007," the Doctor rambled and tossed the paper at Donna so he could tug at his hair. She just as quickly chucked it back in the bin. "It's been how long for you? Relatively speaking?"
"Uh ...," Donna tried to do the math, "six months? Seven? Don't think it's been a year. I'd have to check the log Gramps gave me, but it's on the TARDIS ..."
But the Doctor had stopped listening. "The Battle of Canary Wharf was July 2007. According to the paper, it’s July 2008. One year to the day that the battle happened, it’s even on the front page. Imagine that, celebration of an alien attack on the front page of the news. How far your world has come, Donna."
Donna was frantically trying to keep pace with the Doctor. "I don't get it. What does a council estate happen to do with Canary Wharf?"
The Doctor froze. Then he was off, running toward the TARDIS as if the fires of hell were licking at his heels. "Doctor!" Donna yelled, and followed him, noticing just briefly, the faded spray painted "BAD WOLF" on the brick wall behind the TARDIS. She'd barely made it, for the TARDIS dematerialized just seconds after the door slammed behind her.
"Doctor!" Donna roared she found herself pitched across the console room. She grabbed hold of the captain's chair and hung on for dear life. "If you don't tell me what's going on right now, I swear I am going to find something in that lab of yours to make you sleep, then I'm going to cut up your ties and shave you bald!"
The Doctor ignored her. Well, rather, he didn't hear her at all. The rising panic and hope warred within him as he threw a lever and the TARDIS landed once more. He prayed he was reading her right. He threw the door open and dashed out.
Donna followed and found herself in a large, empty room with white walls and two levers. The rage drained as she took in the stark scene. She fought the urge to hug herself. The place seemed so still, quiet, and filled with grief.
The Doctor stood at the wall, running his fingers lightly along the paint. Donna softly approached him, trying to fit the pieces together in her mind. "Canary Wharf," she murmured, then she remembered the bits and pieces that the Doctor had revealed over the past few months. "Rose. This is where Rose disappeared, isn't it?"
His Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed. "Yeah," he said after a moment.
Donna took a deep breath, then laced her fingers with the Doctor's. She was relieved when he squeezed back hard. "Doctor," she said, "maybe we should go back to the TARDIS. Rose is gone, and you’ve accepted it, remember?”
"'Rose is coming back.' That's what you said," he clarified. "'Rose is coming back, and isn't that good?'" He glanced down at her. "Your parallel world, Donna, the one on Shan Shen a few hours ago. You met Rose in there, didn’t you?"
"I did?" Donna frowned, tried to remember, but even the faint memories had retreated into her mind. "I don't remember."
"Why would you meet Rose Tyler?" he wondered aloud. "What would cause you to say all that?"
"Why wouldn't I meet her?" she retorted. "You said yourself it was a parallel universe. I could have been anywhere."
He grasped her upper arms. "A universe that revolved around one thing you changed. Think, Donna, what was the thing you changed?"
"I don't know, I don't remember."
He shook her slightly. "Donna, try!"
Donna pressed her hands to her temples, trying to force the memories out. "I can't. It's like it never happened. I don't know what I could have possibly changed to result in meeting ..."
She never finished as a sudden punch of air sent her to the ground - or more accurately, flying into the Doctor. He had no choice but to catch her, and they landed in a tangled heap of limbs. After a couple moments of confusion and one "don't you dare put your hands there, sunshine!" they managed to pull apart and get their bearings back.
“What happened?” Donna gasped and looked over the Doctor’s shoulder to see a crumpled form on the ground a few feet away from them. “Doctor!”
He pushed himself up, over, and saw her. Her clothes were torn, and the exposed skin was bloody and crusted with dirt. But, there was no mistaking the halo of blonde hair or the face. Forgetting Donna completely, he scrambled over the floor to crouch next to her. He gingerly rolled her so she was flat on her back, his breathing harsh as he breathed her name. “Rose,” he managed.
She didn’t respond and the Doctor feared the worst. He pressed two fingers to her throat and her pulse fluttered against them. Hands shaking, he pulled his sonic from his pocket as Donna joined them.
Before he could do anything, Rose’s eyes opened. She glanced at Donna for a moment, and then her gaze fell on him. And she smiled - that brilliant, brilliant smile full of optimism, love, Bad Wolf and the eternal mysteries of time, and her tongue caught between her teeth. “Hello,” she whispered.