The road less travelled...

Title: Finding A Way Home 3/4
Author: katherine_b
Rating: PG
Characters: The Doctor and the alternate Doctor
Disclaimer: If RTD and the Moff don’t want the spare Doctor, maybe I could have him?
Spoilers: Up to Journey’s End.
Summary: The Doctor is feeling lost and in pain…

MC hates having to give in to his human needs and sleep, hating most of all that he’s leaving the Doctor pacing the halls of the TARDIS. He finds himself imaging how he and Donna might co-ordinate their sleeping patterns so that the Doctor doesn’t have to be alone again.

Pain cuts deep at the realisation that there’s a long way to go before they can begin planning such mundane things as that.

The TARDIS has already laid out fresh clothes to replace those destroyed by the vortex.

The blue suit is draped over the chair beside the door that leads to the bathroom, the red chucks on the floor beneath the freshly washed clothing.

He spares the ship a fond pat before gathering everything together. A shower only takes a few moments, but he spends longer getting his hair just right.

The gel in the parallel universe wasn’t as good as that provided by the TARDIS.

The TARDIS…

He bounds along the hall, finding his progenitor in the kitchen. The Doctor is sitting in lonely grandeur at the head of the long kitchen table which, when MC had last seen it, had held a wide selection of alcohol with which the Children of Time had celebrated the return of Earth to its proper location.

The stark cleanliness of the room is an almost agonising contrast to the cheerful mess of people and objects that cluttered every available surface on that occasion. And the Time Lord sitting in the middle of the loneliness looks positively uncomfortable to be where he is.

The emotion that flashes across his face at the entrance of his doppelgänger might – just might! – be relief at the fact that he’s not alone anymore.

“The TARDIS!” MC exclaims, grateful that this body came with the respiratory bypass that leaves him breath to explain his idea.

“Yes, it is,” the Doctor says, sarcasm edging his tones. “Nice of you to have noticed.”

“No!” He glares in frustrated impatience at the Doctor, who arches an eyebrow, perhaps in amusement. “I mean – you took Donna’s memories away.”

The amusement vanishes in an instant and a dangerous light glitters in the Doctor’s dark eyes.

“I did,” he agrees through gritted teeth.

“You didn’t think that perhaps the TARDIS might have been able to help in some way that even you couldn’t?”

The Doctor’s jaw drops marginally and then MC sees him swallow hard as he closes his mouth with an audible click.

“I… there was no time,” he protests feebly.

A mass of accusations flood MC’s mind, but he suppresses all of them. He’s not entirely sure where that tactfulness comes from, as it’s not a trait of either Donna or the Doctor. Biting his tongue, however, he drops into the chair at the foot of the table and looks at the man sitting at the far end.

It’s like looking into a mirror.

Same body language, same gestures, and what feels like the same facial expressions.

When he was around Donna, he sounded and acted more like her.

Being around the Doctor, he, perhaps subconsciously, imitates him.

“Talk to me,” he orders softly. “Tell me what you did. Did you take it all away? Is it gone forever? Or are Donna’s memories just hidden away somewhere in that brilliant mind of hers?”

The Doctor’s eyes flash dangerously for a moment and MC knows that he doesn’t want to be questioned about his actions, but perhaps something in the other man’s face makes him hesitate and then, with a deep sigh, he gives in.

“No,” he admits softly. “It’s – there wasn’t time. She was – it all happened so fast. So much faster than I thought it would.”

“Do you want her back?”

“What?” The Doctor stares at him, confusion and betrayal written all over his face. “What sort of question is that?”

MC shrugs. “I thought you might have moved on, got over her – found someone else?”

He can’t help the way he makes that last point into a question because this is where the major difference between them is. The emotional side of him won’t let him forget – but he knows that’s what the Doctor has to do. Has always had to do.

The Doctor shakes his head. “You know,” he scolds lightly. “I don’t forget. I just – try to move on. Have to move on.”

“But you haven’t.”

The reply is a short, painful laugh. “How do you move on from someone like her? I’ve seen so many people since then, and some of them have wanted to come with me, but I couldn’t replace her.”

“No,” MC agrees softly, almost regretting having asked the question. “Of course you couldn’t.”

There’s a long period of silence in the kitchen before the Doctor shakes himself out of his reverie and looks up.

“Fine, so the TARDIS is the answer to everything,” he says, his tones mocking. “Want to tell me how we get Donna into the TARDIS when even the sight of it could be enough to spark her memories? And if that happens at the wrong time, I’m sure I don’t need to remind you, we could still lose her.”

MC is heartened by the use of the word ‘we’ and the fact that the Doctor seems to be willing, even eager, for them to work together. He thinks for a moment before an idea strikes him.

“Remember the one day Donna was homesick?” he asks. “After Pompeii. And the TARDIS changed that set of rooms so that it looked like the house she lived in when she was a little girl.”

A variety of expressions chase themselves across the Doctor’s face within the briefest of instances, before his eyes widen in realisation as he understands what MC is thinking.

“The chameleon circuit adapts itself to Donna’s room, she walks through the door, and we let the TARDIS do the rest!”

“Exactly.” MC arches an eyebrow. “That is, if you can actually fix the chameleon circuit…”

The Doctor’s face falls. “Donna – knew how to.” He lowers his eyes to the table for a moment before looking up again. “She told me,” he whispers painfully.

“Maybe she knew what would happen,” MC suggests. “Maybe it was a hint…”

“The TARDIS will break it again,” the Doctor cuts him off, and MC knows how close the Doctor is to losing control. Changing the subject is the only way he can stop himself from breaking down. “She always does,” he insists.

“Not right away,” MC argues. “Not if she knows we need it.”

“Then what are we waiting for?” the Doctor demands, leaping to his feet, MC not one whit behind him.

And when they arrive in the console room, the tool kit that the Doctor uses for his repairs is already lying open on the floor.

“Oh, you brilliant thing,” the Doctor croons as he sits down and removes the major panel that will allow him access to the circuitry.

“She wants Donna back as much as we do,” MC tells him, dropping to his knees so that he can hand over the various tools as the Doctor needs them.

“Yeah,” the Doctor replies as he disappears under the console.

They work as a perfect team. MC knows what the Doctor needs because it’s as if he can see under the console too. The only pause comes when MC, after weighing up the matter for a split second, offers his own sonic screwdriver instead of the Doctor’s.

“You’ve – changed it,” the Doctor says, appearing with surprising suddenness from under the console and holding the sonic screwdriver up to the light so that he can see it properly.

“Red settings,” MC says, unable to help the note of pride that creeps into his voice as he points out the new features. “And damper settings. User recognition ring. Fluid link. Wave amplifiers. Master function key to house the neural relay. Oh, and TARDIS remote return, although I’m not sure if that actually works because I couldn’t test it without the TARDIS.”

“Nice,” the Doctor is forced to admit, pressing the button that illuminates the red light at the tip – and almost burning a hole on the console as he does so. He switches it off with a guilty grin. “Oops!”

MC chuckles. “Hey, be nice to the TARDIS! At least until we’ve got Donna back, huh? Then we can break out the mallets again.”

“Yeah.” And the Doctor meets MC’s eyes with a steady gaze and, finally, a proper grin, before disappearing under the console once more.

A warm feeling in his chest at about the same place as his single heart, MC hands in the last few tools, returning to the others to their usual places in the kit – it’s the only thing in the TARDIS that the Doctor is meticulous about keeping in order.

“That’s it!” the Doctor announces, but then there’s a deep growl and he reappears from under the console with a concerned look on his face. “What was that?”

MC looks sheepish. “Me,” he admits, rubbing his stomach. “I think I’m hungry.”

The Doctor chuckles and pulls himself to his feet before offering a hand to his half-human twin. “Well, we should leave this for a while for the TARDIS to get used to, so let’s go and get something to silence that noise.”

MC grabs his hand and uses it to pull himself up. “You look like you could do with something yourself,” he suggests cheekily, although it’s an effort to avoid making reference to skinny streaks of nothing or rats as the memories of Donna’s words resurface with unnerving ease. “I think you’re thinner than me!”

“Well, I did all the hard work back there,” the Doctor says mockingly, jerking his head in the direction of the console as they leave the room. “So you’re cooking. Got any skills in that half-human head of yours?”

“Oh, now the truth comes out.” MC gives the Doctor a gentle slap on the arm, feeling his own skin prickle at the echo of the sensation. “That’s what you really think of me, is it?”

“Hey!” The Doctor rubs his arm, a hurt look on his face, although his eyes are dancing. “That’s not nice!”

“But insulting me is apparently,” MC retorts with a laugh, and he thinks it might be the first time he’s laughed properly since he and Donna watched everyone else drive the TARDIS and bring the Earth home.

“Oh, you’re fair game for anything,” the Doctor tells him, smirking as he enters the kitchen. “Get on with it then!”

Thus challenged, MC puts more effort into making a respectable meal that he’s done with cooking for a long time. What amuses him more than anything, though, is the way the Doctor can’t help interfering. Well, it’s amusing at first. Then it just becomes annoying, and he finally understands just why Donna always hated cooking with the Doctor around.

Four burnt fingers later and assorted Gallifreyan curses, as well as one smashed bottle of sauce, later and MC is holding the Doctor at the pointy end of a metal skewer, his sonic screwdriver in the other hand, equally threatening.

“If you don’t leave everything alone,” he warns, slowly and clearly, “you’ll get to find out just what those new settings on my sonic screwdriver do in the few half-seconds before you regenerate. Got it?”

“Bully,” the Doctor mutters. “And show-off,” he adds as MC turns back to his cooking.

“Yeah, well, I think we both know where I got those elements of my personality,” MC tells him over his shoulder.

The Doctor snorts indignantly, but MC is relieved to hear footsteps that suggest he’s leaving the room. He turns back to his work and, with judicious tasting, manages to make a meal that at least has the benefit of not being burnt and appears to be quite edible.

The speed with which the Doctor clears his plate suggests that MC’s assumptions both about the state of the meal and the length of time it’s been since the Doctor had a proper meal are correct. Within a shorter time than most people – particularly Donna – would have believed possible, the two Time Lords are staring at empty dishes.

“Not – bad,” the Doctor says slowly.

“Not bad?!” MC arches an eyebrow, speaking in wounded tones, lounging back in his chair. “Look who’s talking!”

“Hey, I can cook!”

“Well, you could a couple of regenerations ago,” MC admits. “But now…”

“Oh, go boil your head,” the Doctor retorts lazily. “You know full well that I can – but that, if I muck things up enough, someone else will do it for me.”

They both chuckle knowingly at the truth of that statement.

“Those poor, innocent companions,” MC says with a sly grin. “Thinking you want them along to show them the wonders of the Universe, when really you just want a good meal now and then.”

“Well, there’s a lot to be said for the wonders of the Universe, too,” the Doctor replies with a stifled yawn. “Washing up?”

“You’re looking at it.” MC waves a hand in the direction of the table between them. “The rest is done.”

“Oh, yes.” A sad look comes over the Doctor’s face. “I’d forgotten…”

They both fall silent, thinking of Donna’s habit of cleaning up as she goes along so that there’s not as much to do at the end of a meal. MC, at least, is also thinking about those other habits of Donna’s that are now part of his personality.

“Well, we might as well get it done,” MC says in the end, standing up and beginning to collect the plates. “Don’t want to upset the TARDIS.”

“True.” The Doctor gets to his feet and helps to clear the table.

The dishes are a joint effort, and MC shows off one of the new settings on his sonic screwdriver by instantly drying the dishes. As only one glass shatters, and it was quite old anyway, they both declare their satisfaction with the result.

And when they head back to the console room, they find it slowly changing appearance. The only recognisable feature is the console in the middle of the room.

“We are going to change it back later, aren’t we?” the Doctor demands.

“We’d better!” is all MC replies as he takes the place opposite the location where the Doctor usually stands. “Are you ready?”

“As I’ll ever be.” The Doctor begins entering co-ordinates. “Noble residence, Chiswick…” He suddenly looks up. “When?”

“You mean, how soon can we safely make it after you dropped her back home?” MC arches an eyebrow. “Why not that same night? That way any residual Time Lord consciousness you might have accidentally left behind won’t have had a chance to cause any problems that even the TARDIS can’t reverse.”

“All right.” The Doctor nods and then punches in a series of numbers.

The TARDIS gives a jolt, which evens out as MC flicks one of the switches. While the ride isn’t quite as smooth as it was when there were six people flying it, it’s a lot better than when the Doctor operates it by himself.

“Particularly as the TARDIS is still in the process of changing form,” the Doctor says at one point, even though neither of them have said anything about the journey prior to this.

By the time they arrive at their intended destination, the interior of the TARDIS is all but unrecognisable. They land with uncharacteristic silence and then the console vanishes, becoming just another object in a cluttered bedroom.

The Doctor is looking around with pain in his eyes at the pink walls and pine furniture.

“You’ve been here before,” MC says softly, knowingly.

“I brought her in here,” the Doctor replies, “the night…”

He stops, his face working with the same pain that MC can feel echo in himself. He crosses the room and places a gentle hand on the Doctor’s arm.

“This will work, Doctor,” he promises.

“Yeah,” the Doctor says, but with that strange smile he had worn when Donna reminded him that Rose was returning.

“You do want her back?” MC asks again, not because he believes that the answer will have changed, but because he wants the Doctor to believe it himself.

That man glances at him somewhat suspiciously before the uncertainty fades. He straightens, nods and exhales slowly.

“Thanks,” he says simply, and MC smiles.

But they both freeze as the doorhandle suddenly moves.

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