Doctor Who - 01 - Past Future Continuous

14. Time and Space

"Donna!"

She did not even slow down. The Doctor was in her every motion. In each hurried step, in deliberation with which she was moving levers, turning switches, shifting weird, almost organic dials. She should look silly in her stripy, green and yellow pyjamas, but, oddly, she didn't.

"Donna, what are you doing?"

She looked up for a moment from under the mess of hair falling over her forehead and cheeks, focusing absolutely lucid gaze on Jack.

"And what does it look like?" she asked sharply.

"Can you fly the TARDIS?" Jack knew he was about to attract another portion of spite, but was too upset to care. "On your own?"

"You wanna join?" she snorted.

"Can I?"

"No."

"Just tell me what you're doing?" Jack demanded.

"I'm trying to find a location..." She suddenly doubled in pain and pressed both hands to the console. "Location... location... Oh, my God, location..."

Using all her strength, she hit the panel with her fist. Something broke off and went clattering across the TARDIS's metal mesh floor.

"I just hope it wasn't anything important," said Ianto, seated below the pillar. "Like brakes or fuel pump. Or... I dunno... Geiger counter..."

"His location!" yelled Donna. "Don't have time! Don't have time! Don't have time! I can't talk! Pick it up!"

"Pick what...?"

A mobile phone fitted in a slot of the steering panel started ringing. Martha, standing nearest, shifted her gaze from Donna, to Harkness, to the phone and reached for it slowly.

"Tell him I'm sorry but I couldn't wait," said Donna struggling with some stubborn lever.

"Tell whom?" asked Jack.

"Gramps." There was pure irritation in Donna's voice. "Who did you think?"

Harkness looked pointedly at Martha, who shrugged and answered the phone.

"Hello? Yes. Yes, Mickey, yes, everything's fine," she said, answering a stream of abrupt questions from the other end of the line. "No, she said, she couldn't wait and she was very sorry... What? Umm, no, I don't think it's a good idea, not now... A tin dog? Mickey, who's calling you a tin dog?"

She turned towards the wall, whispering into the receiver:

"We couldn't stop her, Mickey. She... Yeah, I think we're looking for the Doctor, but when Donna is like that, everything's possible... I just don't know..."

"In about an hour," said Donna, casting a glance towards Martha. "Tell them to keep the surgery ready."

"In about an hour," repeated Martha, wide eyed, looking over her shoulder at the red haired woman. "And you're to keep the surgery ready."

She switched off the mobile and moved closer to Jack.

"Have you noticed that she answers questions before they are asked?" she whispered. "As if she were several seconds ahead, as if she was there sooner than the rest of us. Oh, I don't even have words to describe it. As if she was ahead in time."

Harkness shrugged his shoulders, more to relax his muscles than to express his disregard.

"Just trust her," he whispered back. "You've been onboard the Crucible. You saw what she could do."

"I haven't been on the Crucible," moaned Ianto miserably. "Was this thing that broke off...?"

"Sorry," said Donna. "Terrible take off. It's because of all those rifts. The Universe is testing adaptations. It's so no good."

"Better hold on to something," advised Jack. "I think I'm beginning to understand how..."

The TARDIS screamed. Amber light dimmed, replaced by greenish shade. Sparks exploded from the walls and from underneath the mesh floor. The ship jerked so violently that the passengers lost their footing. And they did not regain it again. Rumbling, vibrating, ancient mechanisms howling painfully, the TARDIS slid from the temporal orbit into the unearthly tunnel in time and space.

"I've got no time," Donna kept repeating, holding on to the steering panel. "I'vegotnotime-i'vegotnotime-i'vegotnotime..."