The road less travelled...

Title: If You Knew Your Future… Chapter 10/12
Author: katherine_b
Characters/Pairing: The Doctor (Ten) and Donna
Rating: G
Spoilers: All of series four of NuWho
Summary: Donna wakes up to find herself in a world that is much too familiar.

Chapter X – Together Again

“Donna?”

“Oh, Lord, here we go again!” She rolls her eyes. “Anyone would think you’ve got a limited vocabulary, when really you’ve got the biggest gob in the Universe!”

“Oi!”

She chuckles. “That’s better. Have you really got nothing else to say to me?”

It’s obvious he’s recovering from his shock at the sight of her when he opens his arms for a hug. “I can’t believe it’s you,” he murmurs as she wraps her arms around him.

“Donna?”

This voice comes from behind her and she glances around to see another Doctor coming towards her, dressed in a grey suit, the brown one draped over his arm. It’s strange to see him in a different outfit, although she can’t help noticing, with a sense of mild irritation, that the new suit also has pinstripes.

Shaking her head, she pulls out of the brown-clad Doctor’s arms. She steps between them and stretches a hand out to each of the Time Lords.

“I probably don’t need to introduce you.”

Donna watches the grey-suited Doctor saunter up to them. “She was right.”

The other Doctor half-smiles. “Donna’s always right.”

“Yes,” his double agrees with a grin.

“So,” Donna says lightly, when this proves to be both the beginning and the end of the conversation, and the silence threatens to become awkward, “I can’t help but notice that the Universe hasn’t ended. Anyone want to try and explain how this is possible?”

“Well, it’s all sort of timey-wimey and complicated…”

Donna slaps him – the brown-suited Doctor – on the arm to shut him up, but can’t help laughing as both Doctors flinch.

“Was that sympathy,” she asks the other Doctor, “or did you actually feel it?”

“Meh.” He shrugs. “Bit of both.”

“Really?”

“No, of course not! Don’t be daft, Donna. We’re not mentally connected.”

“You’re the same person,” she argues, “so why wouldn’t you be?”

“Because if we were, I would have been able to find him before now.” He arches an eyebrow. “Assuming there’s another version of Donna out there somewhere, by your argument, you’d be able to feel her. Can you?”

“No,” Donna admits grudgingly. “Although – is there? Another me, I mean.” She spins on her heel to face the other Doctor, who has watched this interaction in silence. “What happened after everything? Was I – another version of me – still there? In the TARDIS? With you?”

He shakes his head, and she can suddenly see agony in his eyes. “You were gone as soon as I’d got control over those parts of your mind. I was alone on the floor of the TARDIS. It was like you were a figment of my imagination.”

He reaches out and hesitatingly takes her hand.

“That was when really I believed you,” he admits in a low voice, his thumb stroking the back of her hand. “For all that time before, like I told you before we got the Library, I thought perhaps you were imagining things. But then, when you were gone, I knew you’d gone back.” He nods at his grey-suited twin. “Back to him. It was the only possible explanation.”

“What did you do to Donna during the metacrisis?” his doppelganger asks curiously. “The same thing I tried? To remove all memory of me from her?”

“Donna asked me to. Begged me to.” His fingers tighten around her hand and she knows they’re both thinking of the last words she spoke to him. “But – I couldn’t. Because she knew what was happening, because we had those extra few seconds before it all came crashing down, I was able to rearrange things in her mind so that they, well, fitted better.”

“That was the difference then,” the other Doctor says, nodding as he rocks back on his heels, his hands deep in his pockets. “Changing that changed everything. Made time unstable. Returned Donna to me instead of keeping her with you.”

“That doesn’t explain how I got to you in the first place,” Donna remarks to the Doctor holding her hand.

“Oh, simple ripple in the fabric of time,” the man suggests, waving his free hand in the air in vague gestures. “Unstable instance, and with the variance between what he did to you and what I did, that would have been enough to move things around.”

“Makes me sound like a trinket being dusted on somebody’s mantel,” Donna grumbles.

Both Doctors laugh at this remarkable simile. However it’s the grey-suited Doctor who stops first, and he looks from the other version of himself to Donna.

“So,” he says slowly, “what now?”

Donna feels something sink into the pit of her stomach and the smile slides off her face. She can’t help understanding exactly what he means. Her future lies on one of two paths, with one of two Doctors, both of whom are standing in front of her. But the thought of trying to decide between them is impossible.

However, before she can speak, the man holding her hand turns to look at her. There’s a small smile on his face.

“Well, not quite,” he admits. “It’s just – there’s someone else.”

Donna eyes him up and down. “I see,” comes her grim retort. She arches an eyebrow, her expression stern “It didn’t take you long to replace me,” she says with a feeling akin to déjà vu.

“Hey, I searched for you for ages!” he exclaims indignantly, although he can’t meet her gaze and thus misses the teasing expression in her eyes. “I went back to all the places we visited together…”

“While we were going back to all the places I went before Donna came back, just in case you’d gone there,” the other Doctor says, before adding, with a knowing smile, “You do realize she’s teasing you, just like I presume she did during that time with the Sontarans? And, in all probability, about to call you a dumbo again.”

“Or an outer-space dunce,” agrees Donna with a broad grin, slapping the brown sleeve. “Of course I’d want you to move on, you prawn. I’d give you merry Hell if you hadn’t found someone else you could show off in front of. I just hope she hasn’t accepted any offers to have her fortune told while we’ve been having this chinwag,” she adds, “or you could have another Shan Shen on your hands.”

The other Doctor smiles reminiscently at this. “Nope,” he says, and he nods behind her.

Donna looks over her shoulder to see a young woman standing several hundred yards away, next to what she recognises as a corner of the TARDIS poking out around a market stall. Out of the corner of her eye, Donna sees a brown-suited arm wave vigorously. As the Doctor releases her hand, the girl begins making her way through the crowd towards them.

Before she can speak, the other Doctor steps up to stand beside her.

“Anna, this is Donna,” the Doctor says as soon as the newcomer joins them. “And this is – well, me.”

“A different version,” the other Doctor remarks not-so-helpfully. Donna elbows him in the ribs. “Ow! What was that for?”

“A slap would be too obvious,” she tells him, before turning to the other girl.

“The Doctor’s told me about you,” Anna says at once, her voice eager.

“I should hope so!” Donna exclaims, with a wink at the brown-suited man, who grins in reply. “And now you two Doctors can go and discuss whether the Universe is in any danger of ending with us all in one places like this, while I tell Anna all the things she should know about the dangers of travelling with a know-it-all Time Lord.”

“Says the DoctorDonna,” retorts the man whose hand is still pressed to his side, although he is no longer rubbing the place where she elbowed him. “Maybe we should warn her about you.”

“Tell you what,” says the other Doctor. “I’ll warn you about this instead – avoid Petra am Hakron for a while, eh? I’m – well, we’re – not too popular there right now.”

Donna giggles. “What did you do?”

“Nothing!” The look of indignation is all too familiar. “Well,” he adds sheepishly, “not much anyway. Just – meddled a bit. And now they’re keen to… well, just don’t go there for now.”

“Probably a good idea,” the man beside her agrees. “And if I were you, I’d stay away from Adipose 6. Donna tried to take one of the babies and…”

“It wanted to come!” Donna protests indignantly. “I can’t help it that I didn’t know about the adoption laws!”

“Good to know,” says the man in the brown suit. “Thanks.”

There’s another moment of silence before Donna suddenly steps forward and pulls the Doctor – the other Doctor – into a hug, gently digging her chin into the brown fabric on his shoulder. He wraps his arms around her and she can hear him sigh.

“Thank you,” she says sincerely, in a soft voice so that only he can hear. “Thank you for saving me. For everything.”

“Be magnificent, Donna Noble,” he whispers.

“I think I will, yeah,” she agrees. “Take care of yourself, Doctor. Hopefully I’ll see you again.”

“It’s a small universe,” he says as she pulls away. “I’m sure we’ll bump into each other at some point in our respective futures.”

“You’d better not have regenerated into some hideous, balding bloke in his mid-sixties when we do.”

“No promises.” He brushes a kiss against her cheek before letting her go. “You’ve got to let me have a little fun.”

Next Part

Links to previous parts: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 (the sad one) Part 4 (the really sad one) Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9