Doctor Who - 01 - Past Future Continuous

16. Donna Noble and TARDIS

The moment turbulences stopped, Donna jumped up from the floor, hands pressed to her temples, tears in her eyes. She could not give up; not now. The whole universe rushed around her; no, all universes, all possible universes; but now she had to be Donna. Just Donna. Even if only for a moment, she had to damp down this horrible fire, consuming her from within. Even if just for a moment, even if just for a while.

(I burn, but I'm not consumed.)

She staggered and would have fallen but for Jack who supported her. Martha grabbed her other arm. With tremendous effort Donna drew up a scanner's screen.

"I can't see him," she muttered. "I don't know... I don't know... where..."

Harkness looked at the screen leaning above her shoulder; she could feel the warmth of his breath on her cheek.

"But there's nothing here," he said. "Nothing. Donna..."

"There!" Martha tapped upper right corner of the scanner with her finger. "Is this a ship? A rig?"

"Oooh, we have to get there!" Donna took in all the controls, suddenly so alien and incomprehensible. She reached to them knowing she would not make it without letting this horrible presence inside her brain speak up; without embracing a knowledge that poisoned her. And then, in the darkness of space, something flashed – a tiny blip of light amongst the stars, so easy to overlook, almost indefinable.

Donna just groaned, instantly knowing what (or who) was that shape, materialising out of nothing in the void of space. Her hands found correct levers before she even realised what she was doing (and anyway, she had no clue what she was doing and what was going on around her most of the time now.)

"YES!" She moved the last lever with a flourish, picked up a hammer from below the cockpit and whacked it into the steering panel.

"HA!"

The Doctor's body materialised next to the door.

The Doctor's body.

Donna lowered her hand and pushed away the certainty of failure a Time Lord's consciousness offered. She walked slowly towards the TARDIS's door.

The Doctor lay eagle-splayed on the floor. Sorrowful, really, as she once had said: 'too thin for words.' She had made a joke then – something about paper cuts. It didn't seem so funny anymore, now when he seemed so hopeless, so fragile. Dead.

No, it couldn't be. The TARDIS wouldn't fly, if the Doctor had died. If he died without Donna. Without both of them. But the TARDIS had been mistaken before; even she could get lost in the meanders of time and space, especially if time and space was full of cracks, paradoxes and anomalies. So the TARDIS had been appearing too early. Or too late. Too late.

Jack reached him first, grabbed him by his shoulders and lifted his limp body in a desperate hug.

"Doctor? Doctor?!"

There was no answer, and Jack's face contorted in pain, as he wrapped his arms around Doctor's slim shoulders. He started rocking, involuntary, as if he was soothing a baby having a nightmare. A dream of metal monsters, sliding softly across streets and lawns of ordinary human world, and shooting radioactive green rays of deadly energy.

Donna was next to reach the Doctor. Outrageous amount of running – she thought madly. But she did not run; she could hardly drag her feet. Nevertheless, she was out of breath and her face was sweaty. And her mind – blimey, her mind was absolutely brimming with thoughts, and ideas, and visions and voices. So, that is how you get mad. She couldn't bear it; she knew with terrible precision that she wouldn't last very long. She was burning like an electric arch, too bright to be gazed upon; too scary to be touched; deadly.