We Will Rise |2| The Ascension

Epilogue

"Are you all right?" Zoë asked Donna as she held her head.

"Yeah," she mumbled. "Just a headache."

"It'll pass," McKenzie told her. "If you'd had any more of his mind than you did, you'd have burned up already."

"And what about you?" the Doctor asked, nudging her gently. She swayed, and he put his arm around her waist to stop her falling.

"I'm fine," she told him, managing a smile. "We'll just have some rest before the next adventure is all."

"Yeah... about that..." Donna said, not meeting their eyes.

"Donna?" Zosia frowned.

"I think I'm going to go home. I've loved travelling you, and I'm not saying I don't want to see you lot again, but Martha was right. This stuff, it gets too much," Donna explained.

The Doctor looked at her, his eyes wide, yet understanding. "Right. Do you want to go home then?" She nodded, not speaking.

He helped McKenzie to the jump seat, then quickly piloted the TARDIS to the road Donna lived on. The five of them got out and crossed the road, grimacing at the rain. As she walked, McKenzie paled quickly, and by the time she got to the doorstep, she was swaying. "I don't feel so..." Her eyes rolled into the back of her head, and she fainted.

"Shit!" the Doctor cursed, catching her and lowering her to the floor. Donna knocked at her door urgently.

***

When Wilf came to the door, he was greeted with a numbing site. Donna, Zosia, Zoë, and the Doctor all crouched in the rain around McKenzie, who was a dead weight in her fiancé's arms. "Help me," the Doctor pleaded, sounding a lot more innocent than he usually did. Wilf opened the door wide, and let them all in.

***

"She and I, we took his mind into our heads. She got the most of it, that's why she's worse," Donna explained as they sat on the couch, McKenzie snuggled in the corner next to her fiancé with his trenchcoat around her for warmth. "But that's a Time Lord consciousness. All that knowledge, it's been fighting against us."

"But you'll both get better?" Wilf asked, worried.

"It'll take some time, a lot of rest," Zoë said, nodding. "But after a while, yeah. The knowledge will fade away, leaving them just as they were before."

"But there's something else, something more important," Zosia stated on impulse, squeezing her ginger friend's hand. "I just want you to know there are worlds out there, safe in the sky because of your daughter. That there are people living in the light, and singing songs of Donna Noble, a thousand million light years away. They will never forget her. And for one moment, one shining moment, she was the most important woman in the whole of creation."

"She still is," Sylvia protested. "She's my daughter."

"Then maybe you should tell her that once in a while," the Doctor said, speaking for the first time.

Donna blushed. "Thanks, guys."

Zoë smiled. "We're Avengers, Don. We look out for our own."

***

Later, the Di Angelos were stood back outside the house, the Doctor helping his fiancée to stand. "You'll have quite a bit of this," he told Wilf and Donna, nodding to the rain. "Atmospheric disturbance. Still, it'll pass. Everything does. Bye then, Wilfred, Donna."

"But what about you?" Donna asked. "What will you do now? All those friends of yours..."

"They've all got someone else," Zosia shrugged. "Still, that's okay. We have each other."

"I'll watch out for you lot," Wilf promised. "Every night, when it gets dark and the stars come out, I'll look up, I'll look up at the sky and think of the people who saved my granddaughter. The people who saved the stars."

McKenzie's lip trembled as she clung onto her fiancé. "Thank you." Slowly, the Di Angelos made their way back to the TARDIS, and both Wilf and Donna saluted them as the ship dematerialised.

~~~

And that's a wrap! The next book is called "Together We Run" and is live in the McKenzie Di Angelo reading list. Look for it on my page!

Hope you've enjoyed this book as much as I have - it really has been my pleasure. Thanks guys!