The road less travelled...

Title: Donna and the Waters of Mars 3/8
Author: katherine_b
Rating: PG
Summary: How would having Donna on Mars have changed things?

Part III

The Doctor gives a slight shake of his head and then frees himself from Donna’s hold as he steps forward again. “It’s been an honour!”

He dives at Yuri, who looks startled before finally offering his hand for the Doctor to shake.

“Seriously,” he goes on as he moves around the room, “a very great honour to meet you all. The Martian pioneers. Oh, thank you!”

The others – Mia, Steffi, Tarak and Ed – all look similarly taken-aback, or at least disturbed by his behaviour as he comes up to them. He studies each face, trying to burn the memory of them into his mind, knowing he will never see them again.

Only Roman has the presence of mind to hold up the gloves with which is controlling the robot and refuse to have his hands shaken.

The Doctor manages a faint, bitter smile as he raps the white object on the head instead.

“Gadget-gadget.”

He stops in front of the Captain and can’t help springing to a salute for what this woman has achieved, but more importantly, what will come about as a result of the things she will do in her final hours. “Thank you!” he says in a somewhat breathless voice before he moves back to join Donna.

However he stops short just as he gets to the door and turns back. “Where’s the other two?” he demands as his memory of their obituaries surface. “Hold on – Margaret Cain and Andrew Stone?”

Ed all but rolls his eyes as he walks over to the computer on the far side of the room and picks up a communications device. “Maggie,” he says into it, “if you want to meet the only new human being you’re going to see in the next five years, better come take a look.”

The Doctor waits for a reply by the female voice they heard before, but instead there’s a low, almost animalistic growl that sounds loud over the speakers in the room.

“What was that?” Mia demands anxiously.

“Oh,” the Doctor groans, taking Donna’s hand, “we should really go!”

However he doesn’t make a move towards Steffi and their suits. Instead he feels as if he can’t move, almost unable to bring himself to leave these doomed people behind.

Donna gives his fingers a gentle squeeze as if to remind him of her presence, waiting to see what he’s going to do, but he can only fix his eyes on the suddenly-frightened people on the other side of the room.

“This is central,” Ed snaps into the comm. “Bio-dome report immediately.”

Adelaide sits beside him at the computer. “Show me the bio-dome.”

Even from the far side of the room, they can see that the screen has remained disturbingly dark.

“What do you think it is, Doctor?” Donna asks almost soundlessly.

“I have no idea,” he’s forced to admit.

“But it’s happening,” she murmurs, and he knows she’s thinking about the fate of these people too. He can hear a faint tremor in her voice. “Right here, right now, just like before. Like always.”

“Oh, cameras are down,” Ed says in irritation at this point.

“Show me the exterior,” Adelaide orders.

The Doctor tightens his grip on Donna’s hand as they watch the lights die on the screen, as if someone is turning them off one by one. Once the image is completely dark, however, Adelaide springs to her feet.

“I’m going over.” And then she turns to the two people in the doorway. “Doctor, Donna, with me!”

“Yeah, I’m sorry,” the Doctor replies, crossing the room in a few strides and stopping in front of Steffi, reaching out for their suits. “Um, I – I’d love to help, but,” he begins to take the suits from her, “we’re leaving. Right now.”

“Take his space suit,” Adelaide orders, and Steffi whisks it away again. “Lock it up.” And then Adelaide turns to the empty-handed Doctor. “This started as soon as you arrived so you’re not going anywhere except with me.”

“We had nothing to do with it,” Donna protests, but the Doctor glances at her out of the corner of his eye to silence her and the others seem to ignore her objection entirely.

“Tarak,” Adelaide says, turning to the rest of the crew, “with us. Maggie and Andy could be hurt. Yuri, get us some torches. Ed, keep an eye on the biodome and report any changes immediately. Roman, we’ll need Gadget.”

“Gadget-gadget,” the robot puts in as if to take part in the conversation.

A few minutes later, the group is venturing down the darkened tunnel to the biodome, torches providing almost the only light, apart from the small emergency bulbs at floor level.

The Doctor remains silent as they begin to venture into the darkness, only keeping Donna close to him, his hand maintaining a firm grasp on hers in case of danger.

Suddenly Adelaide’s voice breaks the eerie half-darkness, and he can feel Donna start at the first sound.

“What’s so important about Mia’s age?” the Captain asks. “You said she’s only 27. What does that matter? What did you mean?”

“Oh,” the Doctor shakes his head, trying to keep his voice light, “I just opened my mouth and words came out. They never make much sense.”

“You’re telling me,” says the man following behind them.

“Thank you,” the Doctor says stiffly, “doctor.”

“Anytime,” comes the equally tense reply, “Doctor.”

“Gadget-gadget.”

The Doctor glances back over his shoulder in irritation. “I hate robots. Did I say?”

“Yeah.” Roman’s voice echoes out of the machine. “And he’s not too fond of you! What’s wrong with robots?”

“It’s not the robot,” the Doctor explains with an attempt at patience, “it’s just the people. Dressing them up, giving them silly voices, like you’re reducing them.”

The Doctor only just catches the sarcasm in the reply. “Yeah, friend of mine, she made her domestic robot look like a dog.”

He can only shrug in response. “Oh, well, dogs! That’s different.”

“But,” he can feel Roman warming up to his subject, “I adapted Gadget out of the worker drones. Those things are huge. They built this place when the shell was lowered down from orbit. Got a strength capacity of fifteen tonnes…”

“This channel is open for essential communications only,” Adelaide snaps, silencing the youthful, enthusiastic voice.

“Luke Rattigan,” Donna says softly and the Doctor nods. He, too, had been thinking of the young genius who gave his life to destroy the Sontarans.

“The benefits of a friendly environment,” he suggests in a low voice, before turning to the woman walking ahead of them. “I’ve read all that stuff about you, Captain Adelaide.” He pauses for a moment, studying the Captain’s profile in the dim light. “The one thing they never said – was it worth it? Emotionally?”

She glances at him before returning her gaze to the hallway in front of them. “We’ve got excellent results from the soil analysis.”

“No, but all of it!” he argues. “’Cos they say you sacrificed everything. Devoted your whole life to get here.”

There’s a brief, almost infinitesimal pause before she begins speaking, and the Doctor can feel her weighing up how much to tell him. “It’s been chaos back home,” she admits at last. “Forty long years. The climate, the ozone, the oil apocalypse. We almost reached extinction. And to fly above that… To stand on a world with no smoke – where the only straight line is the sunlight – yes, it’s worth it.”

He smiles, now understanding the notes he had read about this woman. Hard as iron on the outside, but with emotions that could echo his own or Donna’s – the desire to seek out new things, always to learn. “Ah,” he says in satisfaction, “that’s the Adelaide Brooke I always wanted to meet. The woman with starlight in her soul!”

For a moment, he wonders if she’s going to respond, but then she sees something snap to attention in her eyes and he glances in the same direction to see the shadow on the ground that has clearly already caught her gaze.

“What’s that?” she demands.

They start to run, while Gadget trundles after them, and the Doctor keeps Donna behind him as they come up to the body of a woman lying on the cement ground. He can’t see her face, but he can guess her identity and that suspicion is confirmed by Adelaide’s words.

“It’s Maggie!”

“Don’t touch her,” the Doctor warns, worried about what might have caused her to lose consciousness.

“I know the procedure!” Tarak snaps as he pulls on rubber gloves, leaning over the still form. “Maggie, can you hear me? It’s Tarak. It’s okay.”

He checks her before glancing at Adelaide, his tones relieved. “She’s still breathing.”

As he hunts for a pulse, the Doctor casts his eyes along the darkened hallway, looking urgently for any possible dangers.

“She’s alive!” Tarak exclaims at last, before pulling out his comm. “Yuri, I’ve got Margaret Caine. Head trauma. I need a full med pack.”

The response comes almost immediately from the young nurse. “I’ve got it! Med pack on its way.”

“There’s nothing here,” Donna murmurs from behind him. “We’d have seen anything that might be lurking in the direction we’ve come from, so where is it?”

“Back in the biodome?” the Doctor suggests. “Or up ahead somewhere we can’t see.”

“It was a straight passage and we can see the end of it,” Donna reminds him almost impatiently. “We’d be able to see something as solid as an animal or a person.”

“Then maybe Maggie got out and managed to shut it into the biodome, only to collapse here,” the Doctor replies.

“And the biodome is exactly where we’re headed to look for the other crew member – Andrew, wasn’t it?”

The Doctor nods, but is distracted by the arrival of Yuri and, somewhat surprisingly, Ed. When he sees the grim look Adelaide gives her second-in-command, he begins to believe there are tensions here he is only just beginning to understand.

“Don’t touch her,” he warns as Yuri drops the bag beside the unconscious woman. “Use the gloves!”

“Do what he says,” Tarak agrees, before looking up. “Get her to sick bay. Put her in isolation.”

“We’re going on to the bio-dome,” Adelaide puts in. “Tarak, with me. Yuri can take care of her. Ed,” her expression, if possible, becomes even more grim, “go back. Gadget, stand guard. Keep an eye on this area.”

The Doctor’s gaze flies to the second-in-command even before the robot can get out its usual “Gadget-gadget.”

“Captain, you’re going to need me,” Ed argues, and the Doctor sees Adelaide sigh as if she is used to this, but is unhappy about it nonetheless. “Andy’s the only other crew member out here. And if that wasn’t an accident,” at this, Yuri looks up, clearly startled by the suggestion, “then he’s gone wild.”

Adelaide’s reply is terse. “You’ve deserted your post,” she snaps. “Consider that an official warning. Now get back to work. Doctors! Donna!”

For an instant, the Doctor turns his gaze to Ed, reading the anger and envy in Ed’s eyes and understanding how difficult it must be for an authoritative figure like Edward Gold to be subordinate to an equally commanding woman like Adelaide Brooke.

He arches his eyebrows briefly in understanding at Ed and then, taking Donna with him, hurries after Adelaide and Tarak. They arrive at the airlock and Tarak has just begun to enter the necessary codes when the comm. units burst into life.

“Captain,” Steffi’s voice says, “that sound we heard from the bio-dome – I’ve run it through diagnostics. According to the computer, it’s… Andy.”

There’s a pause.

“It registers as the voiceprint of Andy Stone,” she repeats.

“Understood,” Adelaide says curtly. “Double-check thanks.”

“Air-pressure stabilised,” Tarak tells them.

The door swings open and Adelaide steps into the darkness. The Doctor follows her, with Donna close behind him and Tarak bringing up the rear.

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