![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
butterflyStory Title: A Most Noble Undertaking (4/6)
Series Title: part of the Realignment universe
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
butterfly
Summary: Some reunions are just meant to be.
Pairing: Doctor/Rose
Rating: PG-13.
Warning: AU after Doctor Who 3x13 - "Last of the Time Lords".
Part One; Part Two; Part Three
A Most Noble Undertaking
The Doctor let out a triumphant cry as he slotted the last component of the neutralization device into place.
“You're finally finished?” Donna asked.
“What do you mean, finally?” the Doctor asked, glancing over her. “If anyone else were in this room – not that they would be, naturally, but if they were – you wouldn't be looking at a completed static-radiation neutralizer right now, you'd be looking at a pile of parts and someone with no clue how to put them together into a working prototype.”
“Really?” Donna asked, checking her nails. What for, he couldn't even begin to guess, but it was a touch irritating. “Anyone else at all? There's not a single soul in the whole, wide universe who could even begin to make it?”
“Well, considering that I've not actually met every single person... even considering that... no. There isn't,” the Doctor said. “You have absolutely no comprehension of how complex this machine is and, quite frankly, your current science doesn't even have the vocabulary to properly explain it.”
“If our Earth science is so inferior, I can't imagine why you even bother to come here,” Donna snapped. “Unless it's to show off how much better you think you are.”
“Your mood wasn't this bad earlier,” the Doctor said.
“By earlier, would you mean eight hours ago?” Donna asked. “During which time, my raid on your kitchen resulted in one box of half-eaten biscuits and no milk?”
“You're the one afraid to go outside,” he said, waving toward the door. He might be feeling a bit on edge himself – the longer this took, the more certain it was that Rose would manage to find trouble. And, while he was fully confident in her ability to escape from danger under normal circumstances, she was still injured and might believe herself more ready to leap back into action than was actually the case.
“Well, you could just move the ship to a safer location, further away from Renova,” Donna told him, sitting down grumpily in the middle of the bench. “Then I could go and pick something up.”
“I already said 'no'.”
“You never said why.”
“I didn't realize it was necessary,” he said, biting off the words.
She glared at him with an entirely unwarranted amount of anger. He controlled the desire to sigh and went on to explain. “I made one jump from where Rose is to here... and that was following the radiation trail. Once we arrived here, that other radiation that's mixed in with the Huon particles began to interact with the TARDIS and her engines. Until we stop that machine, it's not safe to move her. She's overcharged. She could end up anywhere or anywhen. We could end up four years in the future or a dozen into the past or on the fifth moon of Mru Six during the Emerald Rebellion.”
“But... since we can travel in time... we could just go back, couldn't we?” she asked. The question itself was innocent enough, but her tone was ready to rip his arms off.
“What part of 'no' is unclear?” he asked, sharply. “We're not moving until the radiation's faded. There's no discussion on the matter. It's my ship. My rules.”
Donna stared at him for a moment, her arms crossed and her face looking fairly cross as well. Then, her expression softened.
“This is about Rose,” she said, with that perceptiveness that was, in turns, annoying or soothing. “You're afraid that you won't get back to her at the right time. That you'll miss out on even more of her life.”
Could he really be blamed for that?
He'd lost eight already. Eight of the very few years that he could have with Rose were simply gone and he could never, ever get them back. The human lifespan was laughably short, in ways that he'd never allowed himself to think about before... before Rose.
He swallowed hard and kept his voice even.
“It's... a concern,” he said. “It's a risk that I'm not willing to take.”
“All right,” she said, her anger simply gone now, and that... that sort of reaction from her was exactly what had made her such a comfort during those first lost hours after saying goodbye to Rose. “I can understand that. When are we going to... take care of the problem?”
“I'm monitoring the house,” he said, relieved to get back to the issue at hand. “Tracking the alien life signs. When they all indicate deep sleep, we'll break in.”
“What do you mean, aliens?” she asked. “There's only humans in there.”
The Doctor raised an eyebrow, leant back against the railing and waited for her to get it. She looked at him like he was mad, her face scrunching slightly in confusion.
The light dawned on her only a few moments later.
“Right,” she said. “You're not human. We're all aliens to you.”
“Yes, you are. You're also the most interesting aliens that I've encountered in my life, which should make you feel better, as I've met quite a few,” he said, quite sincerely. “So full of life and possibility. You survive so much horror and change. You never stop thinking and growing and evolving.”
“You really do like us that much,” Donna said. There was a bit of wonder in her voice.
“Is it such a surprise?” he asked. It wasn't as though he hid his affection for their species.
“Maybe. I don't know,” she said, looking away from him. “I look at the world... I remember what Lance said about me. He thought I was shallow but there's so many people in this world that are just like me... just like how I used to be.”
“Most humans are capable of rising to the moment,” he said, gently. “Some are capable of a greatness beyond anything I've seen in my own people. I told you about Rose and she is... so compassionate and brave and... brilliant in too many ways to categorize. And after I met you, I ran into this woman... Martha Jones... and she inspired an entire world to believe that they could make a miracle happen. Another friend of mine, Jack, was willing to give up his life so that I could work for a few more minutes on a way to stop a monster. There are so many names that I could tell you, Donna Noble, so many humans who have done great things. Don't underestimate yourselves.”
“What about your people?” she asked, glancing up to meet his gaze. Her eyes were very blue and clear and it felt like she could see things that he didn't particularly want her to know. “Were they really not able to be that wonderful? Because I've met you, Doctor, and I don't... don't take this the wrong way, but you're a very good man.”
“The wrong way?” he asked. Then he chuckled, so glad to have met a woman like this. Belief like Martha's was impressive and humbling and he couldn't have made it through the last year without her, but Donna's willingness to poke fun at him was rather... refreshing. “Don't take it as too much of a compliment?”
“Exactly. Because you're still blind and stupid and... reckless and scary and everything else that I said at Christmas before last,” she said. Yes, refreshing and occasionally painful. He did recall that she'd been rather unhappy with him at times, that Christmas. Perhaps he'd been a bit colder than he might have been, though he still stood by his choice. The Racnoss children would have completely devoured the Earth. “You're all of those things. But you help people. You helped me.”
“I didn't do anything,” he said.
“You saved my life.”
“You saved mine.”
“No, I didn't,” she said, shaking her head slightly. “When did I ever save your life?”
When I stood in front of the Racnoss Queen and wanted nothing more than to kill off the last of my cursed kind along with hers, he didn't say. When Rose was the only thought in my head and I wanted to die... not to regenerate, but to truly die... because I believed that I would never see her again and that belief was driving me mad.
“I'm just not a very good swimmer,” he said vaguely. She gave him an odd look and then, thankfully, dropped the subject.
“How much longer do we need to wait?” she asked him.
“Only one person still up and about,” he said, checking the screen.
“That'll be Emmanuel,” she said. “He stays up late on the computer.”
“Of course he does, good old Emmanuel,” the Doctor muttered, trying to remember if he'd heard that name earlier. That was just the sort of personal detail that Rose was so good at getting out of people. “Do you happen to know when he usually goes to sleep?”
“Sorry,” she said.
“Then we're stuck watching the monitor,” he said. He plopped himself down next to her on the bench and put up his legs, staring at the screen and waiting for that last signal to switch over. He glanced over at Donna – she was staring at the screen, too, with a bit of a distant look on her face. “What are you thinking?”
She startled a bit and shot him an uncertain look.
“Just... from the outside, my life hasn't looked much different since I met you,” she said. He narrowed his eyes thoughtfully and nodded at her to continue. She cleared her throat. “I took those vacations and they just weren't right. They didn't make me happy. So, I started looking for you. I went to temp at places where I'd found some hint of weird activity and I would check to see if there was any sign of you. To my mum, though, it looks the same as it's always done. She's just as after me to get a 'real job' as she ever was. And I don't... I changed so much when I met you, Doctor, and she can't see it.”
“Then she's not looking,” he said, reaching over and clasping Donna's hand with his own. She glanced up at him and there was a hint of a smile there, now.
She shifted a bit closer to him on the seat.
“So, Rose is back,” she said, and the Doctor raised an eyebrow, uncertain where she was going. “How'd it happen?”
“She found me,” he said. She looked into the Time Vortex and saw a way that she'd be able to get back to me in the future and laid a trail for herself, in both universes. I gave up on ever seeing her again but she never ever gave up on me. “She followed an alien lizard through a tunnel between the dimension she'd been trapped in and this one.”
“Oh,” Donna said. She sighed loudly and slumped down on the seat, her shoulder bumping up against his. With the kind of nonsensical behavior that was common in humans, she'd moved away from the part of the seat that had a headrest, yet she clearly wanted to rest her head. Rose didn't do that, exactly – she tended to lay her head down on the Doctor's shoulder instead, which he didn't object to – but she would forget to get her favorite shirt washed and then complain when it wasn't clean. Humans were so irrational at times. He should be used to it after all these years, but they still managed to surprise him. Perhaps that was why he was so fond of them. They were so full of odd little traits... Rose even more so than most.
“That's what she does,” he said, quietly, just thinking out loud now.
“Follows alien lizards?”
“Creates miracles,” he said. “Well, as close to a miracle as life ever gets.”
“You don't believe in God?” Donna asked and she even sounded surprised.
“You do?” he countered. “I showed you the formation of the Earth, Donna. There wasn't a god there. Just rock and the stuff of stars. There isn't some grand creator out there... there doesn't need to be.”
“You don't think that some things are meant to happen?” she asked.
“I don't have to think it,” he said. “I know. That's what it means to be a Time Lord, Donna. I know when something is meant to happen and I know when a situation is... open to change. I can feel it, inside. And it wasn't god who brought Rose back to me... it was Rose herself who did that.”
“Who brought Rose to you in the first place?” she asked.
“There may not be a god, but there is such a thing as good luck,” he said, softly. The light on the monitor shifted slightly. “And we're having some right now. Your Emmanuel is entering deep sleep.”
He hopped up and then turned to extend an arm to Donna.
“Shall we?” he asked. She stood up and took his arm, grinning.
“I'm always up for a spot of breaking-and-entering.”
Spending time with Donna was just as unexpectedly delightful this time as it had been the first – he'd wondered, once or twice during his time with Martha, if Donna really had managed to reach him, even through the bitter cold that had lived in his hearts after he'd said goodbye to Rose, or if his time with her had been some hallucination brought on by a grieving mind. It was a comfort to know for certain that she was real, this woman of fire and noise.
She also did surprisingly well at sneaking about – he hadn't noticed before, but she was wearing relatively sensible shoes. They had heels on them, but they were quiet on the streets and she'd probably be able to make it back to the TARDIS in them, even at a fairly fast clip.
When he popped the lock with the sonic, she looked suitable impressed with him and, together, they tiptoed into the Renova offices. Another quick pass with the sonic screwdriver disabled the alarm set-up and then he pulled out a small sensor that would be able to soundlessly track down the uncatalysed Huon particles a bit more easily. It vibrated in his hand and the two of them snuck down the hallway. There was a doorway to the right that seemed to be the correct one, so he resonated that open and they slipped inside.
“This is just his private office,” Donna whispered after they'd shut the door. “I didn't see anything weird-looking in here earlier.”
He followed the stronger direction of the vibration to the wall on the far side. “It's not in the room, Donna. This is just how we get there.”
“How do you mean?” she asked. “There's just the one door.”
“This wall has a secret door hidden in it,” he told her.
“Sounds like something out of James Bond, if you ask me,” she muttered.
“And me without my Bond girl,” the Doctor said, pressing his hand against the wall, checking for anything that felt off. He pulled out his sonic screwdriver to see if he could trip a switch that way, but it didn't work.
“Oi! If your Rose were here, she'd be well within her rights to give you a good smack for that,” Donna said, only realizing halfway through her sentence that she needed keep quiet. He glared at her for a moment and then waited to see if she'd alerted anyone to their presence. She shrugged apologetically and then made a rather complicated hand gesture that seemed to be implying that, somehow, this was all his fault anyway.
“It's true, though,” she continued, much more quietly. “You shouldn't have said that.”
“Why not?” he asked, reaching behind the filing cabinet to see if there was, by chance, a hidden switch attached to it. No such luck. “Aren't they generally... attractive and intelligent and... well, other sought-after traits?”
“They're punch lines, Doctor,” she said, softly.
“Are they really?” he asked. He went over to the bookshelf in the corner and started mucking around with the books to see if that would do anything. “What about Heviatia Kingsley? I thought she was a hell of a strong woman. No one would dare make light of her.”
“Who's Heviatia Kingsley?” Donna asked. The Doctor thought back for a moment and then he realized what the problem was.
“Oh! She's from a future revival of the movies, sorry,” he said. “Pretend I didn't say anything.”
“I'll do no such thing,” Donna said. “You've got me curious. Tell me about Heviatia.”
“Well, she meets Bond while he's on a mission – she's also a spy, but she's really looking for a way to get revenge for her sister's death,” the Doctor said, shifting the whole bookcase slightly to see if the answer was behind it. “You spend the whole first movie expecting them to fall into bed together, because the actors are simply magnetic together, but they just end up helping each other, instead, not even a kiss. The movie ends and you think that's the end of it. They didn't show her in the trailers for the next movie, kept her part completely under wraps, so it's complete surprise when-”
“Hey!” she whispered fiercely. “Stop giving the story away.”
“But you wanted to know what happened,” he protested.
“I just wanted to know enough to know if I wanted to know,” she told him. He blinked a few times before he made sense of that. “Now that I know, I just might ask you to take me to the future to catch a viewing.”
“There's no need for that,” he said. “It's available in the TARDIS.”
“Really?” she asked, sounding more impressed with that than she had with anything he'd told her before.
Well, she would be.
“Yes, really,” he said. “I've got the entire collection on the database. And any other movie you might want to watch.”
“Have you got-”
“Yes.”
“You don't know what I was going to say,” she complained.
“It doesn't matter,” he said. “I've got it. And a theatre-sized screen with the best possible sound, before you ask.”
“Blimey,” she said. “That ship of yours really is bigger on the inside.”
He chuckled, looking over to catch her eye – she was laughing, too, and the moment hung between them, the perfect sort of accord that he dimly remembered from somewhere in the past.
Romana, that was it. It was with Romana's second and fourth regenerations that he'd last felt this particular brand of teasing acceptance. And, standing here with Donna Noble, memories of Romana no longer ached and pulled at his thoughts. Not even the last one, of just before the final battle that had ended everything. What was it in Donna Noble that so keenly reminded him of his own people?
There was something about her, something familiar but new. He couldn't... he couldn't quite figure out what it was, though.
He shook his head to clear his thoughts and then turned back to the task of getting through the wall. It was probably nothing. It was the memory of the ancient Huon particles that had infused her the last time they'd met, or some other such nonsense, he was sure.
“I don't think there's a secret door,” Donna said. “You've been over every inch of that wall. If there were a secret door, you'd have found it.”
“Faulty logic,” the Doctor muttered, taking a step back and glaring at the wall. “I mentioned that the technology being used here was alien and advanced, well, so could be whatever might be hiding that door from us.”
“So, it's a smarter alien than you,” Donna said. “That probably means that we're in trouble.”
“The alien is not more intelligent than I am!” the Doctor protested, only realizing that he'd spoken too loudly when Donna's eyes widened in alarm and she shushed him frantically. “Sorry,” he said, probably more annoyed with himself than she was. “But my point stands.”
“It bothers you, me saying that.” Donna was making that face of hers again. The one that she made before she said something he didn't particularly want her to know. “I mean, it really bothers you.”
“It doesn't bother me,” the Doctor said. He yanked a few settings around on the sonic screwdriver, pulled out what Rose had once dubbed the 'tech-detector' and plugged the sonic into it. It buzzed softly and started glowing a pale green. “Ha! There is a door here; the problem is that it's controlled by something other than a manual release.”
He lifted up his chin and raised his eyebrows, waiting for her to admit that she'd been wrong.
He should know better by now.
“You still haven't found it,” she pointed out, instead of acknowledging that he was proving that he was right about the door in the first place. Time was, a man could make something shine and everyone was impressed. These days, though, just about everything was made to light up.
Nice as it was to see the human race evolve and grow, he rather missed the days when his companions didn't complain so much. Five or six lifetimes ago, they'd been so much more willing to appreciate him.
Though, now that he thought about it, they might have argued with him a bit back in the old days. Sarah Jane might have been outspoken a time or two. Or several. Then there had been Ace and her complete and total willfulness. And Tegan had been close to impossible most days. Always ready with a complaint, that was Tegan.
It had been the largest part of her charm. The TARDIS had been so much quieter after she'd gone.
Even Jo, who had started out hopeless but accommodating, had begun to question him more and more as time had gone by.
And Barbara had actually scolded him on occasion. Or possibly more frequently than that. Well, he could admit that he'd been something of a git back then – he'd only just broken free from his people and he'd still been rather troubled from everything that had happened with his wife and Koschei. He'd probably deserved some of Barbara's lectures, though certainly not all of them. No one could have possibly deserved all of Barbara's lectures.
Well, perhaps Ian had.
He'd always rather assumed that the two of them would eventually be a romantic pairing, though back when he'd first known them, he'd framed the thought in terms of whether or not the primitives had decided to get on with mating yet.
He did still wonder, sometimes, if they'd ever gotten around to it.
Though, in this current time, the pair of them were likely dead and gone anyway.
He shivered slightly and then glanced at Donna out of the corner of his eye. She appeared to be... going through the man's desk. Well, it couldn't hurt.
“Are you looking for anything in particular?” he asked, leaning up against the desk. He grinned when his words startled her out of her search and his smile only widened at the glare that she shot him.
“There might be some sort of... I don't know, remote control for the door,” she said. She sounded uncertain, not brash the way she normally was. He didn't know why, because it was an excellent idea.
“Brilliant,” he said, remembering to keep his voice down this time. “There could very well be. Have you found anything yet?”
“Keeping in mind that I don't know what an alien remote control would look like,” she said, a bit sharply. “Maybe some of this stuff.”
She'd collected four or five odd items – probably paperweights, but there was a chance. He detached the sonic and picked up the first piece that she'd indicated – it was a strangely-shaped coral, almost reminiscent of the TARDIS, but it was completely dead. A mock-up, a fake. Something that someone thought looked good. The resemblance might be coincidence or it might be related to the fact that he suspected that the Master had been the person to set all this up. Perhaps he'd kept tiny reminders of home in all of his outlying offices and it had been left here after he'd died.
He placed that back down and reached out what looked like a silver spanner – it sparked a bit when he brought it close to the screwdriver.
“Oh, this does something,” he said. “I don't think it's our remote, but it's definitely advanced.” He slipped it into his pocket and started to get the next item, but then Donna grabbed his wrist when he was half-way there. “What is it?”
“You just stole that,” she said.
“You took his files.”
“I was investigating,” Donna said, sounding indignant. “You just... decided that he shouldn't have that, so you took it. What gives you the right?”
“Time Lord,” the Doctor said. He wasn't sure what to do about Donna's hand. He could easily break free of her hold, but he didn't want to upset her any further. At least not until he figured out why she was so upset right now. “He isn't supposed to have it. Humans shouldn't have technology like this for another two-hundred years.”
“Why do you get to choose?” she asked. Oh, it was one of those sorts of arguments. “You don't know how he got it.”
“I don't need to,” the Doctor said. “He shouldn't have it.”
“How can you possibly know that?”
“Because I do,” he whispered back, fiercely. “Because it's in my head. I look at your world, Donna, and I see what belongs, what's certain, and what's subject to change. That's what being a Time Lord means. It means that I do know, absolutely, whether or not a item or a person or an event is supposed to be happening. I can see Time, I can see it ticking away, moment by moment. All that is, all that was, all that ever will be – it's all up here in my head. It never goes away.”
She stared at him for a moment – he didn't think she even realized that she was still holding his wrist. She seemed rather stunned by his rush of words and, frankly, so was he.
“I'm sorry,” she said, finally. “I didn't know. What...”
She glanced away from him for a moment, then looked back, her eyes dark and steady.
“What do you see when you look at me?” she asked, so softly.
“You're traveling along a good path,” he said. “I can see... time shifting under your skin, the way that it was meant to. You fit perfectly into your time and place, the way that you should, but you have a... flexibility as well. That's part of the reason that I asked you, back on Christmas, whether or not you'd like to come with me. You have a malleable enough time line that it could handle the vortex.”
“Some people can handle it,” Donna said. “And others can't?”
“Some people are so... fixed into their particular time that taking them into the past or future could prove ruinous. Not a guarantee, but the odds are not in their favor,” he said. Reinette, of course, had been like that, though he'd hoped to risk just one journey, to make up for everything that he couldn't give her.
“Famous people?” Donna asked.
“Not always,” he said. “There's no single category that they all fall into. I just... I look and I can see whether something is right or wrong, when it comes to time. It's not a judgement, Donna, it's just a fact.”
“I don't think that I like that,” she said.
“You don't have to.” He pulled his hand out from under her and she jumped slightly. He reached for small ceramic bowl and... he immediately felt why she'd picked it out, even though it looked like harmless bric-a-brac. It sung, a vibration of not-quite-electric energy zipping about just below the surface. He had a good feeling about this one. He swiped his thumb over the bottom, searching for the grooves that he was certain had to be... yes, right there. And all he needed to do was harmonize – he slid his thumb across the dips in the bowl and hummed low in his throat.
The device in his hand shivered and so did the wall, a rectangular portion of it fading away in response to the Pelahu energy cloak. He looked over at Donna and... there it was, astonishment tinged with wonder.
“I said there was a door,” the Doctor said, slipping the energy key into a pocket and strolling through the open entryway.
Ah, now this was more what he'd been expecting – this was an advanced laboratory dedicated to the science of longevity. The machine in the corner hissed softly and he went over to the nearest computer screen, pulling out the sonic screwdriver to speed the process up.
The research was... intriguing. It was definitely about making humans live longer. Now, that may have just been the hook, but the tell-tale signs of making the transfer possible for other species were missing. So, the question remained: why would he care about giving humans the ability to renew their cells and even, given this particular avenue of development, the chance at regeneration? Why would he have made that a goal?
“What were you up to?” the Doctor wondered.
“Doctor, didn't we have a plan?” Donna asked.
“Right, yes, of course,” the Doctor said, pulling neutralizer out. He strode over to the device – which really was beautifully put-together – and slid open a panel to reveal the delicate wiring underneath. He placed the neutralizer on top of the wires and activated it. There was a tiny spark and the smallest hint of smoke and... that was it, the neutralizer itself breaking apart and seeping into the wiring to become indistinguishable from the rest of the machine. The transmitter in the neutralizer would corrupt any local computer files regarding any of the information that it had just destroyed, so they only had to worry about possible paper blueprints.
“What the blazes is going on?”
It was that young man – Emmanuel, Donna had said his name was – still blinking from sleep. He hovering in the doorway and looking across the room with such a look of shock on his face – his father hadn't told him, then, about this room or what was really going on in this company.
“I saw a light,” Emmanuel said, sounding dazed. “And I said to myself, 'oi, that's not right, is it?' Because Da never has trouble sleeping. He's never up at night. That's always me.”
“You didn't say that he'd wake up again,” the Doctor said to Donna.
“He didn't tell me that bit,” she said.
“Ms. Noble?” Emmanuel asked, focusing on her and sounding less sleepy by the minute. “Didn't you get fired? And...” he turned toward the Doctor. “And you're that bloke from Health and Safety. John Smith, wasn't it? Is this... is this a violation? Are you working together?”
“Yes,” Donna said, with a glance toward the Doctor, who nodded quickly. “We are definitely working together. I was sent in to find out whether or not your company was violating procedure and protocol and, well...” she made a waving hand gesture that took in the whole of the room around them. “It's fairly obvious why I had to call my partner in to further assess the situation and take action, if need be.”
“And you're allowed to break into houses in the middle of the night?” he asked, a spark of suspicion forming in his eyes.
“Of course,” the Doctor said, heartily, coming over to pat Emmanuel heartily on the shoulder. Inexplicably, the boy blushed. “You seem like a stand-up sort of lad, and I'm sure that you want to give us your full cooperation.”
“I do?” he asked, sounding confused.
“It'll be what helps your dad the most, in the long run,” Donna added. “We're always willing to lower fines if the employees are willing to take corrective action.”
“You are?” he asked. He was staring at the Doctor's hand on his shoulder with the most baffled expression on his face, his cheeks still pink. “Oh, I guess that's all right, then. What...” he swallowed noisily. “What did you need?”
“Files,” the Doctor said. “Any sort of files about this very illegal project.”
“I've never been in this room before,” Emmanuel said.
“But you know how your dad thinks, don't you?” the Doctor asked, arching an eyebrow. Emmanuel nodded, a little shakily, his gaze moving from the Doctor's hand to his face.
“Right. Of course, I do,” he said.
“Well, then, help us look,” the Doctor said. He turned away from the boy and caught the most peculiar expression on Donna's face. He'd have to ask her about that later.
Emmanuel actually was of great help in locating the files, which was a bit of relief. Donna had turned what could have been a disaster into something of a benefit. It was clearly going to be a very good thing to have her along on the TARDIS. Rose was wonderful with people, naturally, but a little extra bit of help was always appreciated.
“What am I going to tell my dad?” Emmanuel asked, when the Doctor had stuffed the files into his coat – and he didn't miss Emmanuel's wide-eyed look at that, either.
“You don't need to tell him anything,” Donna said. “Just go back to sleep, knowing that you helped your father. Whatever his fines end up being, they'll be less harsh because you helped us.”
“Thank you,” the Doctor said, reaching out and shaking Emmanuel's hand warmly.
“Any time,” he said. Then he blushed again and rushed onward with a babbling stream of words. “I mean, not that I want my da to get into trouble again, obviously. But I'm glad that I helped you. The investigation, I mean. I'm glad that I helped the investigation. Not that I have anything against my da! I mean...”
His words faded away then. The Doctor nodded, slowly, and then carefully disengaged his hand from Emmanuel's.
Luckily, he seemed to be over his fit of embarrassment by the time that Donna was shaking his hand, so that was all right, then. He even saw them to the door, glancing over his shoulder every now and then – and he was quite surprised and awed when the Doctor put the energy field back up, too.
“That went quite well,” the Doctor said, as they made their way back to the TARDIS.
“Yeah, you even got yourself a little admirer,” Donna muttered.
“What?” the Doctor asked.
“Are you trying to tell me that you didn't notice?” Donna asked. “He was practically falling at your feet.”
“He was just being helpful,” the Doctor said.
“It's a wonder that you managed to end up in a relationship,” Donna said. “You really didn't notice that he thought you were pretty?”
“I'm not pretty,” the Doctor said, reaching up and straightening his tie. He wasn't. Pretty was... well, boys like Adam or Jack or Mickey. Little bits of fluff that were only good for making women coo and act out of character. He was handsome. And manly. Wait... did that mean... “Do you think that I'm attractive?”
“What?” Donna asked. She actually stopped cold right where she was, an expression of actual distaste forming on her face. “Absolutely not. God, you're as skinny as a lantern post. I'm amazed that you've got Rose. Oi, she's probably a twig, isn't she? I bet she is.”
“No, I'm fairly certain that she's a human woman,” the Doctor said, amused. “No more plant DNA in her than in any of the rest of you.”
“I get to meet her soon, don't I?” Donna asked, sounding appropriately delighted. “And then I'll tell you whether or not she's a stick.”
Stick, twig... skinny as a lantern post. Well, Donna might be disappointed to meet Rose – she was a bit thinner now than she used to be. But he wasn't sure where Donna had placed the line of 'too skinny', so who was to say?
He escorted Donna into the TARDIS and then checked the readings – all clear. The radiation had lifted, which meant that the neutralizer had done its job. He still had those files and he'd look through those later – he was convinced that 'S' stood for 'Saxon' but there was always the chance that there was a different dangerous alien out there who was endangering humans under the guise of helping them. And if that was the case, he needed to do something about it.
He might not be from Earth, but he'd willingly wear the mantle of being its champion.
Continue to part five.
Series Title: part of the Realignment universe
Author:
butterflySummary: Some reunions are just meant to be.
Pairing: Doctor/Rose
Rating: PG-13.
Warning: AU after Doctor Who 3x13 - "Last of the Time Lords".
Part One; Part Two; Part Three
The Doctor let out a triumphant cry as he slotted the last component of the neutralization device into place.
“You're finally finished?” Donna asked.
“What do you mean, finally?” the Doctor asked, glancing over her. “If anyone else were in this room – not that they would be, naturally, but if they were – you wouldn't be looking at a completed static-radiation neutralizer right now, you'd be looking at a pile of parts and someone with no clue how to put them together into a working prototype.”
“Really?” Donna asked, checking her nails. What for, he couldn't even begin to guess, but it was a touch irritating. “Anyone else at all? There's not a single soul in the whole, wide universe who could even begin to make it?”
“Well, considering that I've not actually met every single person... even considering that... no. There isn't,” the Doctor said. “You have absolutely no comprehension of how complex this machine is and, quite frankly, your current science doesn't even have the vocabulary to properly explain it.”
“If our Earth science is so inferior, I can't imagine why you even bother to come here,” Donna snapped. “Unless it's to show off how much better you think you are.”
“Your mood wasn't this bad earlier,” the Doctor said.
“By earlier, would you mean eight hours ago?” Donna asked. “During which time, my raid on your kitchen resulted in one box of half-eaten biscuits and no milk?”
“You're the one afraid to go outside,” he said, waving toward the door. He might be feeling a bit on edge himself – the longer this took, the more certain it was that Rose would manage to find trouble. And, while he was fully confident in her ability to escape from danger under normal circumstances, she was still injured and might believe herself more ready to leap back into action than was actually the case.
“Well, you could just move the ship to a safer location, further away from Renova,” Donna told him, sitting down grumpily in the middle of the bench. “Then I could go and pick something up.”
“I already said 'no'.”
“You never said why.”
“I didn't realize it was necessary,” he said, biting off the words.
She glared at him with an entirely unwarranted amount of anger. He controlled the desire to sigh and went on to explain. “I made one jump from where Rose is to here... and that was following the radiation trail. Once we arrived here, that other radiation that's mixed in with the Huon particles began to interact with the TARDIS and her engines. Until we stop that machine, it's not safe to move her. She's overcharged. She could end up anywhere or anywhen. We could end up four years in the future or a dozen into the past or on the fifth moon of Mru Six during the Emerald Rebellion.”
“But... since we can travel in time... we could just go back, couldn't we?” she asked. The question itself was innocent enough, but her tone was ready to rip his arms off.
“What part of 'no' is unclear?” he asked, sharply. “We're not moving until the radiation's faded. There's no discussion on the matter. It's my ship. My rules.”
Donna stared at him for a moment, her arms crossed and her face looking fairly cross as well. Then, her expression softened.
“This is about Rose,” she said, with that perceptiveness that was, in turns, annoying or soothing. “You're afraid that you won't get back to her at the right time. That you'll miss out on even more of her life.”
Could he really be blamed for that?
He'd lost eight already. Eight of the very few years that he could have with Rose were simply gone and he could never, ever get them back. The human lifespan was laughably short, in ways that he'd never allowed himself to think about before... before Rose.
He swallowed hard and kept his voice even.
“It's... a concern,” he said. “It's a risk that I'm not willing to take.”
“All right,” she said, her anger simply gone now, and that... that sort of reaction from her was exactly what had made her such a comfort during those first lost hours after saying goodbye to Rose. “I can understand that. When are we going to... take care of the problem?”
“I'm monitoring the house,” he said, relieved to get back to the issue at hand. “Tracking the alien life signs. When they all indicate deep sleep, we'll break in.”
“What do you mean, aliens?” she asked. “There's only humans in there.”
The Doctor raised an eyebrow, leant back against the railing and waited for her to get it. She looked at him like he was mad, her face scrunching slightly in confusion.
The light dawned on her only a few moments later.
“Right,” she said. “You're not human. We're all aliens to you.”
“Yes, you are. You're also the most interesting aliens that I've encountered in my life, which should make you feel better, as I've met quite a few,” he said, quite sincerely. “So full of life and possibility. You survive so much horror and change. You never stop thinking and growing and evolving.”
“You really do like us that much,” Donna said. There was a bit of wonder in her voice.
“Is it such a surprise?” he asked. It wasn't as though he hid his affection for their species.
“Maybe. I don't know,” she said, looking away from him. “I look at the world... I remember what Lance said about me. He thought I was shallow but there's so many people in this world that are just like me... just like how I used to be.”
“Most humans are capable of rising to the moment,” he said, gently. “Some are capable of a greatness beyond anything I've seen in my own people. I told you about Rose and she is... so compassionate and brave and... brilliant in too many ways to categorize. And after I met you, I ran into this woman... Martha Jones... and she inspired an entire world to believe that they could make a miracle happen. Another friend of mine, Jack, was willing to give up his life so that I could work for a few more minutes on a way to stop a monster. There are so many names that I could tell you, Donna Noble, so many humans who have done great things. Don't underestimate yourselves.”
“What about your people?” she asked, glancing up to meet his gaze. Her eyes were very blue and clear and it felt like she could see things that he didn't particularly want her to know. “Were they really not able to be that wonderful? Because I've met you, Doctor, and I don't... don't take this the wrong way, but you're a very good man.”
“The wrong way?” he asked. Then he chuckled, so glad to have met a woman like this. Belief like Martha's was impressive and humbling and he couldn't have made it through the last year without her, but Donna's willingness to poke fun at him was rather... refreshing. “Don't take it as too much of a compliment?”
“Exactly. Because you're still blind and stupid and... reckless and scary and everything else that I said at Christmas before last,” she said. Yes, refreshing and occasionally painful. He did recall that she'd been rather unhappy with him at times, that Christmas. Perhaps he'd been a bit colder than he might have been, though he still stood by his choice. The Racnoss children would have completely devoured the Earth. “You're all of those things. But you help people. You helped me.”
“I didn't do anything,” he said.
“You saved my life.”
“You saved mine.”
“No, I didn't,” she said, shaking her head slightly. “When did I ever save your life?”
When I stood in front of the Racnoss Queen and wanted nothing more than to kill off the last of my cursed kind along with hers, he didn't say. When Rose was the only thought in my head and I wanted to die... not to regenerate, but to truly die... because I believed that I would never see her again and that belief was driving me mad.
“I'm just not a very good swimmer,” he said vaguely. She gave him an odd look and then, thankfully, dropped the subject.
“How much longer do we need to wait?” she asked him.
“Only one person still up and about,” he said, checking the screen.
“That'll be Emmanuel,” she said. “He stays up late on the computer.”
“Of course he does, good old Emmanuel,” the Doctor muttered, trying to remember if he'd heard that name earlier. That was just the sort of personal detail that Rose was so good at getting out of people. “Do you happen to know when he usually goes to sleep?”
“Sorry,” she said.
“Then we're stuck watching the monitor,” he said. He plopped himself down next to her on the bench and put up his legs, staring at the screen and waiting for that last signal to switch over. He glanced over at Donna – she was staring at the screen, too, with a bit of a distant look on her face. “What are you thinking?”
She startled a bit and shot him an uncertain look.
“Just... from the outside, my life hasn't looked much different since I met you,” she said. He narrowed his eyes thoughtfully and nodded at her to continue. She cleared her throat. “I took those vacations and they just weren't right. They didn't make me happy. So, I started looking for you. I went to temp at places where I'd found some hint of weird activity and I would check to see if there was any sign of you. To my mum, though, it looks the same as it's always done. She's just as after me to get a 'real job' as she ever was. And I don't... I changed so much when I met you, Doctor, and she can't see it.”
“Then she's not looking,” he said, reaching over and clasping Donna's hand with his own. She glanced up at him and there was a hint of a smile there, now.
She shifted a bit closer to him on the seat.
“So, Rose is back,” she said, and the Doctor raised an eyebrow, uncertain where she was going. “How'd it happen?”
“She found me,” he said. She looked into the Time Vortex and saw a way that she'd be able to get back to me in the future and laid a trail for herself, in both universes. I gave up on ever seeing her again but she never ever gave up on me. “She followed an alien lizard through a tunnel between the dimension she'd been trapped in and this one.”
“Oh,” Donna said. She sighed loudly and slumped down on the seat, her shoulder bumping up against his. With the kind of nonsensical behavior that was common in humans, she'd moved away from the part of the seat that had a headrest, yet she clearly wanted to rest her head. Rose didn't do that, exactly – she tended to lay her head down on the Doctor's shoulder instead, which he didn't object to – but she would forget to get her favorite shirt washed and then complain when it wasn't clean. Humans were so irrational at times. He should be used to it after all these years, but they still managed to surprise him. Perhaps that was why he was so fond of them. They were so full of odd little traits... Rose even more so than most.
“That's what she does,” he said, quietly, just thinking out loud now.
“Follows alien lizards?”
“Creates miracles,” he said. “Well, as close to a miracle as life ever gets.”
“You don't believe in God?” Donna asked and she even sounded surprised.
“You do?” he countered. “I showed you the formation of the Earth, Donna. There wasn't a god there. Just rock and the stuff of stars. There isn't some grand creator out there... there doesn't need to be.”
“You don't think that some things are meant to happen?” she asked.
“I don't have to think it,” he said. “I know. That's what it means to be a Time Lord, Donna. I know when something is meant to happen and I know when a situation is... open to change. I can feel it, inside. And it wasn't god who brought Rose back to me... it was Rose herself who did that.”
“Who brought Rose to you in the first place?” she asked.
“There may not be a god, but there is such a thing as good luck,” he said, softly. The light on the monitor shifted slightly. “And we're having some right now. Your Emmanuel is entering deep sleep.”
He hopped up and then turned to extend an arm to Donna.
“Shall we?” he asked. She stood up and took his arm, grinning.
“I'm always up for a spot of breaking-and-entering.”
Spending time with Donna was just as unexpectedly delightful this time as it had been the first – he'd wondered, once or twice during his time with Martha, if Donna really had managed to reach him, even through the bitter cold that had lived in his hearts after he'd said goodbye to Rose, or if his time with her had been some hallucination brought on by a grieving mind. It was a comfort to know for certain that she was real, this woman of fire and noise.
She also did surprisingly well at sneaking about – he hadn't noticed before, but she was wearing relatively sensible shoes. They had heels on them, but they were quiet on the streets and she'd probably be able to make it back to the TARDIS in them, even at a fairly fast clip.
When he popped the lock with the sonic, she looked suitable impressed with him and, together, they tiptoed into the Renova offices. Another quick pass with the sonic screwdriver disabled the alarm set-up and then he pulled out a small sensor that would be able to soundlessly track down the uncatalysed Huon particles a bit more easily. It vibrated in his hand and the two of them snuck down the hallway. There was a doorway to the right that seemed to be the correct one, so he resonated that open and they slipped inside.
“This is just his private office,” Donna whispered after they'd shut the door. “I didn't see anything weird-looking in here earlier.”
He followed the stronger direction of the vibration to the wall on the far side. “It's not in the room, Donna. This is just how we get there.”
“How do you mean?” she asked. “There's just the one door.”
“This wall has a secret door hidden in it,” he told her.
“Sounds like something out of James Bond, if you ask me,” she muttered.
“And me without my Bond girl,” the Doctor said, pressing his hand against the wall, checking for anything that felt off. He pulled out his sonic screwdriver to see if he could trip a switch that way, but it didn't work.
“Oi! If your Rose were here, she'd be well within her rights to give you a good smack for that,” Donna said, only realizing halfway through her sentence that she needed keep quiet. He glared at her for a moment and then waited to see if she'd alerted anyone to their presence. She shrugged apologetically and then made a rather complicated hand gesture that seemed to be implying that, somehow, this was all his fault anyway.
“It's true, though,” she continued, much more quietly. “You shouldn't have said that.”
“Why not?” he asked, reaching behind the filing cabinet to see if there was, by chance, a hidden switch attached to it. No such luck. “Aren't they generally... attractive and intelligent and... well, other sought-after traits?”
“They're punch lines, Doctor,” she said, softly.
“Are they really?” he asked. He went over to the bookshelf in the corner and started mucking around with the books to see if that would do anything. “What about Heviatia Kingsley? I thought she was a hell of a strong woman. No one would dare make light of her.”
“Who's Heviatia Kingsley?” Donna asked. The Doctor thought back for a moment and then he realized what the problem was.
“Oh! She's from a future revival of the movies, sorry,” he said. “Pretend I didn't say anything.”
“I'll do no such thing,” Donna said. “You've got me curious. Tell me about Heviatia.”
“Well, she meets Bond while he's on a mission – she's also a spy, but she's really looking for a way to get revenge for her sister's death,” the Doctor said, shifting the whole bookcase slightly to see if the answer was behind it. “You spend the whole first movie expecting them to fall into bed together, because the actors are simply magnetic together, but they just end up helping each other, instead, not even a kiss. The movie ends and you think that's the end of it. They didn't show her in the trailers for the next movie, kept her part completely under wraps, so it's complete surprise when-”
“Hey!” she whispered fiercely. “Stop giving the story away.”
“But you wanted to know what happened,” he protested.
“I just wanted to know enough to know if I wanted to know,” she told him. He blinked a few times before he made sense of that. “Now that I know, I just might ask you to take me to the future to catch a viewing.”
“There's no need for that,” he said. “It's available in the TARDIS.”
“Really?” she asked, sounding more impressed with that than she had with anything he'd told her before.
Well, she would be.
“Yes, really,” he said. “I've got the entire collection on the database. And any other movie you might want to watch.”
“Have you got-”
“Yes.”
“You don't know what I was going to say,” she complained.
“It doesn't matter,” he said. “I've got it. And a theatre-sized screen with the best possible sound, before you ask.”
“Blimey,” she said. “That ship of yours really is bigger on the inside.”
He chuckled, looking over to catch her eye – she was laughing, too, and the moment hung between them, the perfect sort of accord that he dimly remembered from somewhere in the past.
Romana, that was it. It was with Romana's second and fourth regenerations that he'd last felt this particular brand of teasing acceptance. And, standing here with Donna Noble, memories of Romana no longer ached and pulled at his thoughts. Not even the last one, of just before the final battle that had ended everything. What was it in Donna Noble that so keenly reminded him of his own people?
There was something about her, something familiar but new. He couldn't... he couldn't quite figure out what it was, though.
He shook his head to clear his thoughts and then turned back to the task of getting through the wall. It was probably nothing. It was the memory of the ancient Huon particles that had infused her the last time they'd met, or some other such nonsense, he was sure.
“I don't think there's a secret door,” Donna said. “You've been over every inch of that wall. If there were a secret door, you'd have found it.”
“Faulty logic,” the Doctor muttered, taking a step back and glaring at the wall. “I mentioned that the technology being used here was alien and advanced, well, so could be whatever might be hiding that door from us.”
“So, it's a smarter alien than you,” Donna said. “That probably means that we're in trouble.”
“The alien is not more intelligent than I am!” the Doctor protested, only realizing that he'd spoken too loudly when Donna's eyes widened in alarm and she shushed him frantically. “Sorry,” he said, probably more annoyed with himself than she was. “But my point stands.”
“It bothers you, me saying that.” Donna was making that face of hers again. The one that she made before she said something he didn't particularly want her to know. “I mean, it really bothers you.”
“It doesn't bother me,” the Doctor said. He yanked a few settings around on the sonic screwdriver, pulled out what Rose had once dubbed the 'tech-detector' and plugged the sonic into it. It buzzed softly and started glowing a pale green. “Ha! There is a door here; the problem is that it's controlled by something other than a manual release.”
He lifted up his chin and raised his eyebrows, waiting for her to admit that she'd been wrong.
He should know better by now.
“You still haven't found it,” she pointed out, instead of acknowledging that he was proving that he was right about the door in the first place. Time was, a man could make something shine and everyone was impressed. These days, though, just about everything was made to light up.
Nice as it was to see the human race evolve and grow, he rather missed the days when his companions didn't complain so much. Five or six lifetimes ago, they'd been so much more willing to appreciate him.
Though, now that he thought about it, they might have argued with him a bit back in the old days. Sarah Jane might have been outspoken a time or two. Or several. Then there had been Ace and her complete and total willfulness. And Tegan had been close to impossible most days. Always ready with a complaint, that was Tegan.
It had been the largest part of her charm. The TARDIS had been so much quieter after she'd gone.
Even Jo, who had started out hopeless but accommodating, had begun to question him more and more as time had gone by.
And Barbara had actually scolded him on occasion. Or possibly more frequently than that. Well, he could admit that he'd been something of a git back then – he'd only just broken free from his people and he'd still been rather troubled from everything that had happened with his wife and Koschei. He'd probably deserved some of Barbara's lectures, though certainly not all of them. No one could have possibly deserved all of Barbara's lectures.
Well, perhaps Ian had.
He'd always rather assumed that the two of them would eventually be a romantic pairing, though back when he'd first known them, he'd framed the thought in terms of whether or not the primitives had decided to get on with mating yet.
He did still wonder, sometimes, if they'd ever gotten around to it.
Though, in this current time, the pair of them were likely dead and gone anyway.
He shivered slightly and then glanced at Donna out of the corner of his eye. She appeared to be... going through the man's desk. Well, it couldn't hurt.
“Are you looking for anything in particular?” he asked, leaning up against the desk. He grinned when his words startled her out of her search and his smile only widened at the glare that she shot him.
“There might be some sort of... I don't know, remote control for the door,” she said. She sounded uncertain, not brash the way she normally was. He didn't know why, because it was an excellent idea.
“Brilliant,” he said, remembering to keep his voice down this time. “There could very well be. Have you found anything yet?”
“Keeping in mind that I don't know what an alien remote control would look like,” she said, a bit sharply. “Maybe some of this stuff.”
She'd collected four or five odd items – probably paperweights, but there was a chance. He detached the sonic and picked up the first piece that she'd indicated – it was a strangely-shaped coral, almost reminiscent of the TARDIS, but it was completely dead. A mock-up, a fake. Something that someone thought looked good. The resemblance might be coincidence or it might be related to the fact that he suspected that the Master had been the person to set all this up. Perhaps he'd kept tiny reminders of home in all of his outlying offices and it had been left here after he'd died.
He placed that back down and reached out what looked like a silver spanner – it sparked a bit when he brought it close to the screwdriver.
“Oh, this does something,” he said. “I don't think it's our remote, but it's definitely advanced.” He slipped it into his pocket and started to get the next item, but then Donna grabbed his wrist when he was half-way there. “What is it?”
“You just stole that,” she said.
“You took his files.”
“I was investigating,” Donna said, sounding indignant. “You just... decided that he shouldn't have that, so you took it. What gives you the right?”
“Time Lord,” the Doctor said. He wasn't sure what to do about Donna's hand. He could easily break free of her hold, but he didn't want to upset her any further. At least not until he figured out why she was so upset right now. “He isn't supposed to have it. Humans shouldn't have technology like this for another two-hundred years.”
“Why do you get to choose?” she asked. Oh, it was one of those sorts of arguments. “You don't know how he got it.”
“I don't need to,” the Doctor said. “He shouldn't have it.”
“How can you possibly know that?”
“Because I do,” he whispered back, fiercely. “Because it's in my head. I look at your world, Donna, and I see what belongs, what's certain, and what's subject to change. That's what being a Time Lord means. It means that I do know, absolutely, whether or not a item or a person or an event is supposed to be happening. I can see Time, I can see it ticking away, moment by moment. All that is, all that was, all that ever will be – it's all up here in my head. It never goes away.”
She stared at him for a moment – he didn't think she even realized that she was still holding his wrist. She seemed rather stunned by his rush of words and, frankly, so was he.
“I'm sorry,” she said, finally. “I didn't know. What...”
She glanced away from him for a moment, then looked back, her eyes dark and steady.
“What do you see when you look at me?” she asked, so softly.
“You're traveling along a good path,” he said. “I can see... time shifting under your skin, the way that it was meant to. You fit perfectly into your time and place, the way that you should, but you have a... flexibility as well. That's part of the reason that I asked you, back on Christmas, whether or not you'd like to come with me. You have a malleable enough time line that it could handle the vortex.”
“Some people can handle it,” Donna said. “And others can't?”
“Some people are so... fixed into their particular time that taking them into the past or future could prove ruinous. Not a guarantee, but the odds are not in their favor,” he said. Reinette, of course, had been like that, though he'd hoped to risk just one journey, to make up for everything that he couldn't give her.
“Famous people?” Donna asked.
“Not always,” he said. “There's no single category that they all fall into. I just... I look and I can see whether something is right or wrong, when it comes to time. It's not a judgement, Donna, it's just a fact.”
“I don't think that I like that,” she said.
“You don't have to.” He pulled his hand out from under her and she jumped slightly. He reached for small ceramic bowl and... he immediately felt why she'd picked it out, even though it looked like harmless bric-a-brac. It sung, a vibration of not-quite-electric energy zipping about just below the surface. He had a good feeling about this one. He swiped his thumb over the bottom, searching for the grooves that he was certain had to be... yes, right there. And all he needed to do was harmonize – he slid his thumb across the dips in the bowl and hummed low in his throat.
The device in his hand shivered and so did the wall, a rectangular portion of it fading away in response to the Pelahu energy cloak. He looked over at Donna and... there it was, astonishment tinged with wonder.
“I said there was a door,” the Doctor said, slipping the energy key into a pocket and strolling through the open entryway.
Ah, now this was more what he'd been expecting – this was an advanced laboratory dedicated to the science of longevity. The machine in the corner hissed softly and he went over to the nearest computer screen, pulling out the sonic screwdriver to speed the process up.
The research was... intriguing. It was definitely about making humans live longer. Now, that may have just been the hook, but the tell-tale signs of making the transfer possible for other species were missing. So, the question remained: why would he care about giving humans the ability to renew their cells and even, given this particular avenue of development, the chance at regeneration? Why would he have made that a goal?
“What were you up to?” the Doctor wondered.
“Doctor, didn't we have a plan?” Donna asked.
“Right, yes, of course,” the Doctor said, pulling neutralizer out. He strode over to the device – which really was beautifully put-together – and slid open a panel to reveal the delicate wiring underneath. He placed the neutralizer on top of the wires and activated it. There was a tiny spark and the smallest hint of smoke and... that was it, the neutralizer itself breaking apart and seeping into the wiring to become indistinguishable from the rest of the machine. The transmitter in the neutralizer would corrupt any local computer files regarding any of the information that it had just destroyed, so they only had to worry about possible paper blueprints.
“What the blazes is going on?”
It was that young man – Emmanuel, Donna had said his name was – still blinking from sleep. He hovering in the doorway and looking across the room with such a look of shock on his face – his father hadn't told him, then, about this room or what was really going on in this company.
“I saw a light,” Emmanuel said, sounding dazed. “And I said to myself, 'oi, that's not right, is it?' Because Da never has trouble sleeping. He's never up at night. That's always me.”
“You didn't say that he'd wake up again,” the Doctor said to Donna.
“He didn't tell me that bit,” she said.
“Ms. Noble?” Emmanuel asked, focusing on her and sounding less sleepy by the minute. “Didn't you get fired? And...” he turned toward the Doctor. “And you're that bloke from Health and Safety. John Smith, wasn't it? Is this... is this a violation? Are you working together?”
“Yes,” Donna said, with a glance toward the Doctor, who nodded quickly. “We are definitely working together. I was sent in to find out whether or not your company was violating procedure and protocol and, well...” she made a waving hand gesture that took in the whole of the room around them. “It's fairly obvious why I had to call my partner in to further assess the situation and take action, if need be.”
“And you're allowed to break into houses in the middle of the night?” he asked, a spark of suspicion forming in his eyes.
“Of course,” the Doctor said, heartily, coming over to pat Emmanuel heartily on the shoulder. Inexplicably, the boy blushed. “You seem like a stand-up sort of lad, and I'm sure that you want to give us your full cooperation.”
“I do?” he asked, sounding confused.
“It'll be what helps your dad the most, in the long run,” Donna added. “We're always willing to lower fines if the employees are willing to take corrective action.”
“You are?” he asked. He was staring at the Doctor's hand on his shoulder with the most baffled expression on his face, his cheeks still pink. “Oh, I guess that's all right, then. What...” he swallowed noisily. “What did you need?”
“Files,” the Doctor said. “Any sort of files about this very illegal project.”
“I've never been in this room before,” Emmanuel said.
“But you know how your dad thinks, don't you?” the Doctor asked, arching an eyebrow. Emmanuel nodded, a little shakily, his gaze moving from the Doctor's hand to his face.
“Right. Of course, I do,” he said.
“Well, then, help us look,” the Doctor said. He turned away from the boy and caught the most peculiar expression on Donna's face. He'd have to ask her about that later.
Emmanuel actually was of great help in locating the files, which was a bit of relief. Donna had turned what could have been a disaster into something of a benefit. It was clearly going to be a very good thing to have her along on the TARDIS. Rose was wonderful with people, naturally, but a little extra bit of help was always appreciated.
“What am I going to tell my dad?” Emmanuel asked, when the Doctor had stuffed the files into his coat – and he didn't miss Emmanuel's wide-eyed look at that, either.
“You don't need to tell him anything,” Donna said. “Just go back to sleep, knowing that you helped your father. Whatever his fines end up being, they'll be less harsh because you helped us.”
“Thank you,” the Doctor said, reaching out and shaking Emmanuel's hand warmly.
“Any time,” he said. Then he blushed again and rushed onward with a babbling stream of words. “I mean, not that I want my da to get into trouble again, obviously. But I'm glad that I helped you. The investigation, I mean. I'm glad that I helped the investigation. Not that I have anything against my da! I mean...”
His words faded away then. The Doctor nodded, slowly, and then carefully disengaged his hand from Emmanuel's.
Luckily, he seemed to be over his fit of embarrassment by the time that Donna was shaking his hand, so that was all right, then. He even saw them to the door, glancing over his shoulder every now and then – and he was quite surprised and awed when the Doctor put the energy field back up, too.
“That went quite well,” the Doctor said, as they made their way back to the TARDIS.
“Yeah, you even got yourself a little admirer,” Donna muttered.
“What?” the Doctor asked.
“Are you trying to tell me that you didn't notice?” Donna asked. “He was practically falling at your feet.”
“He was just being helpful,” the Doctor said.
“It's a wonder that you managed to end up in a relationship,” Donna said. “You really didn't notice that he thought you were pretty?”
“I'm not pretty,” the Doctor said, reaching up and straightening his tie. He wasn't. Pretty was... well, boys like Adam or Jack or Mickey. Little bits of fluff that were only good for making women coo and act out of character. He was handsome. And manly. Wait... did that mean... “Do you think that I'm attractive?”
“What?” Donna asked. She actually stopped cold right where she was, an expression of actual distaste forming on her face. “Absolutely not. God, you're as skinny as a lantern post. I'm amazed that you've got Rose. Oi, she's probably a twig, isn't she? I bet she is.”
“No, I'm fairly certain that she's a human woman,” the Doctor said, amused. “No more plant DNA in her than in any of the rest of you.”
“I get to meet her soon, don't I?” Donna asked, sounding appropriately delighted. “And then I'll tell you whether or not she's a stick.”
Stick, twig... skinny as a lantern post. Well, Donna might be disappointed to meet Rose – she was a bit thinner now than she used to be. But he wasn't sure where Donna had placed the line of 'too skinny', so who was to say?
He escorted Donna into the TARDIS and then checked the readings – all clear. The radiation had lifted, which meant that the neutralizer had done its job. He still had those files and he'd look through those later – he was convinced that 'S' stood for 'Saxon' but there was always the chance that there was a different dangerous alien out there who was endangering humans under the guise of helping them. And if that was the case, he needed to do something about it.
He might not be from Earth, but he'd willingly wear the mantle of being its champion.
Continue to part five.