The road less travelled...

Title: The Next Doctor and Donna 4/7
Author: katherine_b
Characters/Pairing: The Doctor (Ten), Donna, the next Doctor, Rosita
Rating: G
Spoilers: Everything in The Next Doctor and some things for NuWho S4.

Part IV

Even when she’s almost half a mile away from the cemetery, Donna’s still running. The clanks of metallic legs are echoing in her ears, as are the screams of dying men. It brings back haunting nightmares of the massacre on the Oodsphere.

Finally, however, when she can run no more, she drops onto a nearby stone bench.

“Miss?”

It takes a moment for her realise that the voice is speaking to her.

“You all right, Miss?”

She looks up to find a young boy watching her and musters a breathless smile. “Yeah, thanks,” she gasps. “Just – out for a run.”

The young boy – Donna guesses that he can only about eight or nine – eyes her with his head on one side.

“If you’ll forgive me saying so, Miss,” he offers hesitantly, “the only time you see people running these days is when there’s those metal men about. And they don’t run for long.”

Donna grins. “You’re a smart lad,” she tells him.

“My teachers do tell me so, Miss,” he agrees composedly. “And my bandmaster, he thinks I’m clever.”

“Does he now?” Donna eyes the boy from head to toe, noticing that he’s quite well dressed and speaks well. “What instrument do you play then?”

“Well, in a manner of speaking, all of them,” comes the surprising reply. “But I like to sing best.”

She smiles. “What’s your name? I can’t just keep calling you ‘you’ all the time, can I? Very rude!”

He chuckles. “I’m Arthur, Miss. Arthur Sullivan.”

She stands up and curtseys. “A pleasure to meet you, Arthur Sullivan. I’m Donna Noble.”

He bows deeply from the waist, giggling all the while. “The pleasure is all mine,” he says, in obvious imitation of older men of his acquaintance.

She’s about to sit down again when she hears an echo of the stomping sound that she is already learning to associate with the Cybermen. Looking up, she catches a glimpse of a shadow moving in a nearby street and grabs Arthur’s arm, pulling him into the relative shelter of a nearby doorway.

They wait until the Cyberman has marched past before Donna turns Arthur to face her, seeing the terror in his eyes.

“Run,” she orders. “Run home and don’t stop. Promise?”

He gives her a nod and then scurries out of the doorway, heading down a narrow street, and then disappearing from her sight. She waits for a moment, listening for any sound that could betray the presence of other Cybermen, before sidling into the street. The church clock striking four covers the sound of her crunching footsteps on the snow and she heads down the darkening street at a brisk pace, the Doctor’s key slowly warming in her hand, her mind open to find him.

* * *
It’s dark by the time they approach a building where the other man has told the Doctor that he is living. Rosita darts out of the shadow to meet them as they come closer.

“Doctor! I thought you were dead!”

She throws her arms around him, and the Doctor has to smile. However the other man is clearly embarrassed by the display of affection.

“Oh, now then, Rosita, a little decorum.”

“But you've been gone for so long!” She turns to the Doctor. “He's always doing this! Leave me behind. Going frantic!”

The other man studies his shoes for a moment as the Doctor looks around before turning to Rosita.

“Have you seen Donna? Has she come here?”

“Ah, yes, your lady friend.” The other man looks around as if expecting to see her at any moment. “Is she here?”

“Haven’t see her,” Rosita says somewhat dismissively. “I’ve been here most of the afternoon.”

“What about the TARDIS?” the other Doctor asks.

“Oh, she's ready,” says Rosita eagerly, but waits for him to join her rather than leading the way. “Come on!”

The Doctor momentarily forgets his concern for Donna in his eagerness to see this version of the TARDIS. It will be the final determination of his theory about the supposed Doctor.

“I'm looking forward to this,” he murmurs as he follows them inside.

“You were right, though, Rosita,” the other man is saying as he enters the building. “The Reverend Fairchild's death was the work of the Cybermen.”

“And I can tell you why, if you’re interested,” says a voice from the doorway, and the Doctor spins around, a huge grin forming instantly on his face.

“Donna!” he exclaims in relief, wrapping her in a hug that is very similar to the one Rosita gave the other Doctor moments before. “Where have you been?” he demands, pulling back so he can look into her face.

“Running, mostly,” she says in her most careless tone, but he can see that her hair is wildly tousled and she’s still trying to catch her breath. “Bit of fun at the cemetery.”

“Anything I should know about?” he asks in a low voice, seeing that both the other man and Rosita are busy on the far side of the stables.

“Lots of Cybermen and those hairy things with masks,” she tells him as she drops onto a nearby packing case and begins recovering her breath. “And they killed most of the people at the funeral. The survivors went off with the Cybermen, but I had to leave before I could see where they went.”

“They didn’t catch you?”

“Does it look like it?” She tilts her head to one side and gives him a scornful look. “Do you think I’d be here if they had? It was ‘delete’ for me if they found me. But,” she gives him a teasing grin, “all that running with you’s made me quite fit so I got away. And thanks to your little trick with the key, I’m not sure whether they actually saw me.”

She removes the chain from around her neck and presses it into his hand. He gives her one last relieved hug and then lets her go. As she’s fixing her collar, however, she stares at the key for a moment before turning to him.

“Hold on, you said that would enhance the natural perception filter of the TARDIS. No one would see me unless I did a song-and-dance or something.”

“Yes.” He slides it into his pocket. “So?”

“So how did a little boy have a nice polite conversation with me while I was wearing it then?”

He leans against the wall and considers for a moment before looking up. “Young boy, was he? And bright?”

“Definitely. Younger than ten, at a guess. And very bright.” She eyes him. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

“That makes all the difference. Like with this.” He pulls out the psychic paper folder. “A really intelligent person – William Shakespeare, for instance – will literally see right through it. Won’t see any writing, the way most people do. The same thing with the key, to a certain extent. People like that always want to know more, so they go looking. Add to that the natural curiosity of a child, who hasn’t learned that there are some things he just shouldn’t see, and voila!”

She considers for a moment and then nods. “Make sense, I suppose. Bit unnerving now that I think about it though. He really shouldn’t have been able to see me. I don’t think the Cybermen could.”

“Which is exactly why I gave it to you,” he tells her, before turning away to look at his surroundings.

He’s rather surprised to find that they’re standing in a large, draughty stable. It’s even more of a shock to see that the room is filled with luggage. He turns to the other man, who has gone into one of the stalls and is wiping his face with a damp cloth.

“So - you live here?”

“A temporary base until we rout the enemy,” the other Doctor admits. “The TARDIS is magnificent, but it's hardly a home.”

The Doctor’s suspicions are only growing as he stands there. “And where's the TARDIS now?”

“In the yard.”

The Doctor eyes the packing case Donna is sitting on and then looks back at the other man. “Er, what's all this luggage?”

“Evidence. Property of Jackson Lake, the first man to be murdered.”

Even as the Doctor nods, becoming more certain now that he’s right, the other man turns to Rosita.

“Oh, but my new friend is a fighter, Rosita, much like myself. He faced the Cybermen with a cutlass.”

“A cutlass?” Donna demands incredulously, staring at him. “What, so guns are a no-no unless they’re made of plastic, but a whopping great sword is fine, then, is it?”

However the other man continues as if she had never spoken, strolling over to take a seat in front of the fire. “I'm not ashamed to say he was braver than I,” he admits.

The Doctor glances at Donna and touches his index finger to his lips before taking out the sonic screwdriver and beginning to scan the luggage.

“He was quite brilliant,” the other man is saying, when he suddenly cuts himself off and looks at the Doctor. “Are you whistling again?” he demands.

The Doctor drops the sonic screwdriver to his side as he spins around. “Yes,” he lies. “Yes, I am, yeah. Yep.”

The other man nods somewhat bemusedly, but the Doctor notices that Rosita is shooting suspicious glances at both himself and Donna. He mouths ‘shh’ at Rosita and then, with Donna’s help, removes the blanket covering one of the cases.

“That's another man's property,” Rosita protests softly.

“Well,” the Doctor says, “a dead man’s…”

And he glances over at the other man to see him staring into the fire, before looking back at her.

“How did you two meet then?”

“He saved my life. Late one night, by the Ostler's Wharf, this creature came out of the shadows. A man made of metal.” “Thought I was gonna die,” she goes on. “And then there he was. The Doctor.”

“Well,” Donna murmurs in his ear, “he certainly acts like the Doctor.”

He nods in agreement, but keeps his attention on Rosita, who is suddenly giving him a pleading look. “Can you help him, sir? He has such terrible dreams. Wakes at night in such a state of terror.”

“Oh, no, Rosita,” the other man interrupts, walking towards them. “With all the things a Time Lord has seen, everything he's lost, he must surely have bad dreams.”

“He must, yeah,” Donna agrees before the Doctor can stop her.

Before he can say anything in either agreement or denial, however, the Doctor’s hands brush cold metal and he pulls out the steel object.

“Ooh, now, look,” he announces. “Jackson Lake had an infostamp.”

“But how?” the other man demands. “Is that significant?”

The Doctor exchanges glances with Donna. He’s more than certain now, but he would like to see one more thing before announcing his discovery.

“Doctor,” he says slowly, “the answer to all this is in your TARDIS. Can I see it?”

The other man smiles. “Mr Smith, it would be my honour.”

And he leads the way out of the stables with Rosita at his side. Donna steps up next to him and takes his hand.

“He’s no more the Doctor than I am,” she murmurs.

“You’ve been closer to being the Doctor than he’ll ever be,” he retorts softly as they follow the others outside. “Let’s see his TARDIS first, though, Donna.”

And they catch up with the other two people in time to hear the other man announce proudly, “There she is! My transport through time and space. The TARDIS.”

The Doctor’s mouth works for a moment without sound as he stares up at the object in front of him before he manages to speak. “You've got a - balloon.”

“TARDIS,” the other man contradicts, spelling the word out. “T-A-R-D-I-S. It stands for Tethered Aerial Release Developed In Style. Do you see?”

The Doctor tugs at his left earlobe and is actually rather impressed. Certainly it’s not a proper TARDIS, but for anyone to have come up with something like this is more than most men could do.

“Well... I do now,” he admits in answer to the other man’s question. “I like it,” he announces, and sees the supposed Doctor’s face light up. “Good,” he goes on, approaching the massive balloon. “TARDIS. Yeah. Brilliant. Nice one. Is it inflated by gas?” He peers up at the mechanism. “Yeah?”

“We're adjacent to the Mutton Street gasworks,” the other man tells him. “I pay them a modest fee.” And then he claps the shoulder of a man standing beside the basket tethered to the balloon. “Good work, Jed.”

The Doctor’s eyes widen as the other man hands over a banknote of considerable value.

“You've got quite a bit of money.”

“Oh, you get nothing for nothing,” comes the casual reply. “How's that ripped panel, Jed?”

“All repaired,” replies Jed. “Should work a treat. Never know, maybe tonight's the night, Doctor. Imagine it.” He looks at the Doctor, an expression of longing on his face. “Seeing Christmas from above.”

“Well, not just yet, I think,” the other man says hurriedly. “One day I will ascend. One day soon.”

“You've never actually been up?” Donna offers gently.

It’s Rosita who answers. “He dreams of leaving, but never does.”

The so-called Doctor shakes his head. “I can depart, in the TARDIS, once London is safe. And finally, when I'm up there,” he glances at the Doctor, “think of it, John. Time and the space.”

“The perfect escape,” Donna says.

The Doctor nods at her before turning to the man he once believed to be a future version of himself. “Do you ever wonder what you're escaping from?” he asks.

The other man sighs a little. “With every moment,” he admits.

“Then,” the Doctor steps forward slightly, “do you want me to tell you? 'Cause I think I've worked it out now. How you became the Doctor. What do you think? Do you want to know?”

And perhaps it’s not surprising that, after such a tantalising remark, only a few minutes later, they’re settled around the fire in the stables. Rosita and the other ‘Doctor’ are facing the Doctor, with Donna sitting between the two men.

“The story begins with the Cybermen,” the man from Gallifrey says softly.

He can’t ignore the fact that this is going to be painful for the subject of his story and he watches him for a reaction. However he can also feel pain inside himself at the memories his story is conjuring up.

“A long time away, and not so far from here, the Cybermen were fought, and they were beaten, and they were sent into a howling wilderness called the Void. Locked inside forever more.”

He pauses for a moment, the memory of Rose’s scream echoing in his ears, and then glances at Donna as he continues, “But then a greater battle rose up.”

She nods, and he knows that she understands he’s referring to their fight against the Daleks, before he turns back to the other man.

“So great that everything inside the Void perished,” he goes on. “But as the walls of the world weakened, the last of the Cybermen must have fallen through the dimensions, back in time, to land here. And they found you.”

“I fought them,” the other man says. “I know that.” He’s silent for a long moment, before asking. “But what happened?”

The Doctor sighs and glances over his shoulder at the items in the room around them before replying. “At the same time another man came to London. Mr Jackson Lake. Plenty of luggage, money in his pocket, maybe coming to town for the winter season, I don't know. But he found the Cybermen, too. And just like you, exactly like you, he took hold of an infostamp.”

“But he's dead.” The man opposite him sits up straighter, not willing to understand the parallels being drawn. “Jackson Lake is dead,” he insists. “The Cybermen murdered him.”

“You said no body was ever found,” the Doctor reminds him. “And you kept all his suitcases, but you could never bring yourself to open them.”

The other man’s eyes travel over the assorted luggage and the Doctor waits until he is looking at him again before continuing.

“I told you the answer was in the fob watch.” He glances at the chain and then back up again. “Can I see?”

The one-time Doctor exchanges glances with Rosita before removing the object from his pocket and handing it over. The Doctor holds the cool metal item in his hand for a moment with the cover facing the object of his story, before turning it over.

The letters engraved on the back stand out sharply from the rest.

“JL,” he says softly. “The watch is Jackson Lake's.”

The man frowns deeply, even as a horrified look covers Rosita’s face.

“Jackson Lake,” she repeats, turning to the man beside her, “is you, sir?”

The man tries one more time to deny it. “But I'm the Doctor,” he says feebly.

The Doctor sighs. “You became the Doctor,” he tells him, “because the infostamp you picked up was a book about one particular man.”

Picking up the infostamp he found in Jackson Lake’s clothes, he activates it against the wall. Images tumble over each other – faces that he has been in the past.

“The Cybermen's database,” he says. “Stolen from the Daleks inside the Void, I'd say. But it's everything you could want to know about the Doctor.”

The last image of the Doctor as he appears now seems to linger on the wall.

“But that’s you,” says the other man in a bewildered tone.

“Time Lord, TARDIS, enemy of the Cybermen,” says the Doctor, clicking his tongue. “The one and the only.”

Donna nudges him with her elbow and frowns, nodding slightly in the direction of the other man, who looks as if he’s in extreme pain, tears pouring down his cheeks. The Doctor realises he was too flippant and tries to explain.

“You see, the infostamp must have backfired, streamed all that information about me right inside of your head.”

However the man opposite – Jackson Lake – has paid no attention. “I am nothing but a lie,” he murmurs sorrowfully.

“No, no, no, no, no,” the Doctor protests vigorously, leaning towards him, willing him to listen. “Infostamps are just facts and figures. All that bravery, saving Rosita, defending London Town, and the invention - building a TARDIS - that's all you.”

Jackson’s glance is full of rage and suspicion. “And what else?” he demands furiously. “Tell me what else.”

“Ah.” It’s Donna who speaks. “There's still something missing, isn't there?”

“I demand you tell me, sir!” Jackson sits bolt upright, his gaze travelling from the Doctor to Donna. “Or you, madam! Tell me what they took!”

The Doctor sighs again. “Sorry,” he says sadly. “Really, I am so sorry. But,” with a gesture to encompass the room, “that's an awful lot of luggage for one man.”

He pauses for a moment, but Jackson says nothing.

“’Cause an infostamp is plain technology,” he tries to explain. “It's not enough to make a man lose his mind. What you suffered is called a fugue. A fugue state. Where the mind just runs away, because it can't bear to look back. You wanted to become someone else because Jackson Lake had lost so much.”

There’s silence in the room after he stops talking. Donna’s hand, he notices, is on Jackson’s knee, stroking it gently.

And then church bells ring out, startling him.

“Midnight,” says Rosita, looking up. “Christmas Day.”

There’s a choking noise from the other man that sounds loud in the silence. “I remember,” he murmurs. “Oh, my God.” And then tears fill his eyes again. “Caroline. They killed my wife.” He sinks his face into his hands. “They killed her.”

Rosita leans over and gives him an awkward hug, and Donna’s hand is gently rubbing his back.

Before he can speak, however, a beeping noise fills the air. The Doctor looks down at the infostamp in his hand and sees that a faint blue light is streaming from the tip. He holds it to his ear, but the beeping is too loud to be coming from this single infostamp.

“Doctor?” Donna’s voice demands. “What is it?”

“There’s got to be more,” he tells her, and she joins him, hunting wildly through the cases until they finally come across the long leather belt full of metal cartridges.

“Ooh, you've found a whole cache of infostamps,” the Doctor tells Jackson.

“But what is it?” Rosita demands. “What's that noise?”

The Doctor stares for a moment before suddenly understanding. “Activation,” he shouts wildly. “Call to arms! The Cybermen are moving!”

And then, dropping the belt back into the case, he’s running out of the stable, listening for the beeping sound or the metallic crash of feet that will indicate the presence of Cybermen. However it’s the tramping of many pairs of human feet that attracts his attention first. He follows the sound and then hears a voice beside him.

“What? What is it? What's happening?”

He turns and sees Rosita. “Where’s Donna?” he demands.

“Oh, she stayed with the Doc – I mean, Jackson Lake,” she tells him, before pointing to the man at the end of the line walking past them. “But that's Mr. Cole. He's master of the Hounslow Street workhouse. Maybe,” she says hopefully, “he's taking them to prayers.”

“Oh, nothing as holy as that,” he assures her, before running up to the man. “Can you hear me? Hello? No?” He gazes at the earpods though narrowed eyes. “Mr. Cole, you seem to have something in your ear.” He fishes in his pocket for the sonic screwdriver. “Now, this might hurt a bit,” he begins, starting to withdraw it, “but if I can just...”

However a growl brings him up short and he looks around to find one of the shaggy beasts watching around a corner.

“Ah, they're on guard. Can't risk a fight, not with the children.”

“But where're they going?” Rosita asks.

“They all need a good whipping if you ask me,” says a young man, and the Doctor recognises Jed. “There's tons of them. I've just seen another lot coming down from the Ingleby workhouse, down Broadback Lane.”

“Where's that?” the Doctor demands.

Rosita grabs his arm. “This way!”

And they head off through the streets, only to come across another line of children all marching in the same direction as the first group.

“Dozens of 'em!” Rosita proclaims.

“What for?” the Doctor asks helplessly, knowing that Rosita will have no answers.

Next Part

Links to earlier parts: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3