The road less travelled...

Title: Donna and the Waters of Mars 7/8
Author: katherine_b
Rating: PG
Summary: How would having Donna on Mars have changed things?

Part VII

“I’m going back,” he tells her.

“No.”

“Donna, I can save them!” And for an instant, he truly believes it.

“No!”

She’s begging, pleading with him, but it’s not what he wants her to do.

He wants her to stop him.

“I can go back there.”

“No, please!”

“I can get them out. Get them to safety.”

“Please,” she begs, “no!”

He turns away again, fixing his eyes on Bowie Base One, hearing the terrified panic of those inside echoing in his helmet.

“I can,” he says, suddenly more certain, perhaps because he can no longer see the look on Donna’s face, the expression in her eyes, and he can block the emotions coming from her, too.

“No.”

“There’s nothing to stop me,” he tells her, and as he takes a step forward, he hears her voice one last time, a faint, sad echo.

“No…”

Almost before he realises it, he’s at the doors of Bowie Base One, opening the airlock and removing his helmet once the pressure has stabilised before storming along the deserted corridors and striding into the room where the three survivors are cowering, letting his helmet fall to the floor and throwing an object he picked up along the way at the closest person.

“Mia, take this sealant, fix that leak! Yuri, open emergency oxygen. Adelaide,” he reaches down to pull the Captain to her feet, “don’t just sit there!”

The room becomes quieter once the hole is fixed and the sound of rushing air dies away.

“That’s better!” he declares proudly, looking around. “The dome’s still got integrity. Ten feet of steel combination, made in Liverpool. Magnificent workmanship!”

“It can’t be stopped!” Adelaide exclaims, and he can hear in her voice that she’s given up. “Don’t die with us!”

“No,” he snaps, suddenly angry that she would lose faith in him so readily, “’Cos someone told me just recently, they said I was going to die. They said ‘he will knock four times.’ And I think I know what that means, and it doesn’t mean right here, right now, ’cos I don’t hear anyone knocking, do you?”

Almost as if in reply, he hears a deep, dull thud, feelings his pulses race as he looks around to see Andy on the other side of the door. A second thud numbs him, but the third sends adrenalin coursing through him and he dives for the computer.

“Three knocks is all you’re getting!”

He flicks a switch and the door gleams with white power. Through the small pane of glass, he can see Andy shudder and twitch as the volts flow through him.

“Water and electricity – bad mix!” He turns it off and then looks around. “So what else have we got?”

“But there’s no way to fight them!” Adelaide says desperately

“Heat!” he exclaims triumphantly. They use water – we can use heat! Works against the ice warriors, works against the Flood. Turn up the environment controls and steam them!”

“But you said we die! For the future, for the human race!” Adelaide reminds him, trying to step between him and the controls, but he brushes her aside.

“Yes, but there are laws,” he agrees. “There are laws of time. Once upon a time there were people in charge of those laws, but they died. They all died.” His voices rises, a higher pitch in his ears, and he feels tremors flood through him as realisation strikes. “Do you know who that leaves? Me! It's taken me all these years to realise the laws of time are mine! And they will obey me!”

At the instant that he stops speaking, an explosion throws him to the floor and before he can get up, Adelaide has crossed the room to the other computer terminal.

“Environment controls are down. Sorry, Doctor, it looks like history’s got other ideas!”

“I’m not beaten yet,” he retorts angrily. “I’ll go outside! Thermic heat regulator!”

He scoops up his helmet, only to stare at it in dismayed horror as he realises that the screen has been smashed and it’s useless. Fury rising in him at the way time seems to want to thwart him, he looks around, throwing the helmet away.

“Not beaten, not beaten!” he insists in fury. And then he looks down at his own outfit and an idea strikes him. “You’ve got space suits. In the next section!”

He ducks out of the hallway, only to find his path blocked by a wall of water. For one wild moment, he considers running through it anyway, wondering if he can be affected by the Flood in the same way that humans are, but he’s retained just enough control to know that it would be stupid – suicidal – to test it.

“We’re not just fighting the Flood,” he announces angrily as he returns to the room. “We’re fighting time itself, and I’m gonna win!”

The computer nearby suddenly beeps and Yuri turns to it. “Something is happening to the glacier!”

“Think, think, think, think,” the Doctor orders as he runs his hands through his hair impatiently. “What have we got? Not enough oxygen.”

He tears the lid off a nearby container, hoping to see spare oxygen tanks, but throws it away in disgust as he recognises the contents. “Protein packs – useless! Glacier, glacier mints, minty, monty, molto bene, bonny, bish bash – aargh! Look, look, look at the room!” he orders himself and the others. “Section H – what’s in Section H?”

Everyone is staring at him, lost and confused, and it only makes him angrier.

“Anyone?!” he screams in frustration.

“Nothing,” Yuri says in the end. “It is just storage!”

“Storing what?” he snaps impatiently.

“I don’t know,” Yuri stammers. “The weather spikes, the robot, atom clamps…”

“Atom clamps?” the Doctor sneers as he begins opening cupboards. “Atom clamps! Who needs atom clamps?” he adds as his eyes fall on the contents. “I have a funny robot!”

He hauls the door bodily off its hinges to reveal the white object.

“Gadget-gadget.”

The Doctor fishes around in his pocket and finally finds his TARDIS key, fixing it into Gadget’s hand and then straightening up.

“You take that – good boy!”

“Gadget-gadget.”

Impatiently he hauls on the auto-response gloves and turns to the computer, activating Gadget, as part of the ceiling collapses nearby.

“Off we go then.”

“Gadget-gadget,” the robot says as if in reply as it begins to move.

Through the camera, the Doctor can see it slowly moving down the hall, through the wall of water, in the direction of the airlock.

“Come on, come on!” he demands impatiently.

And then the compute suddenly speaks. “Implementing Captain’s protocol.”

“Adelaide! What are you doing?” he demands suspiciously, angry that she would act without his permission, furious that she doesn’t seem to believe in his ability to save them.

“Action five?” Mia says desperately.

“If I have to fight you as well, then I will!” he warns the Captain.

“Nuclear device now active and primed,” the computer announces.

Even if Adelaide doesn’t believe in him, the Doctor has no doubt of his own success and finally sends Gadget on its way using the sonic screwdriver.

“Blast off!”

He can feel his frustration mount as the walls shudder.

“Faster!” he bellows.

An explosion shakes the room, and out of the corner of his eye, he sees as Adelaide is knocked to the floor, but his feet never move, as if he’s become invulnerable, invincible, too great to be affected by something that insignificant.

“Nuclear device entering final process,” the computer says calmly.

Behind him, he hears the rush of a fire extinguisher as Yuri puts out a blaze on the ceiling caused by one of the explosions.

On the screen in front of him, he directs Gadget to slide the key into the lock, unsurprised when it moves in so smoothly and turns easily.

Anything seems possible at this moment.

He almost feels as if there should be an appreciative audience around him, acknowledging his efforts, and he glares in annoyance at the others in the room, so distracted by their little problems that they can’t notice him, as Gadget trundles up to the console.

“And we’re in!” he announces triumphantly, looking down to see Adelaide staring at him from her position on the floor.

She shakes her head, but he merely grins at her, delighted to have proved her – the great Adelaide Brooke! – wrong.

He sets the TARDIS controls and can hear through the microphone the familiar sound of the dematerialisation sequence.

Stepping away from the computer, he moves triumphantly to the middle of the room, his eyes already picking up the faint flickering of the light where the TARDIS will appear, barely noticing the red numbers on the far screen counting down to the detonation of the nuclear device nearby.

The blue box appears and he throws open the doors, marching up the ramp, all but ignoring the other three as they reluctantly follow him inside. Adelaide tries to order the others to leave without her, but Yuri, for once ignoring her superiority of rank, refuses to enter the TARDIS unless she goes in ahead of him, and Mia threatens the same.

The door is closed, the TARDIS dematerialises, and the Doctor watches on the scanner as Bowie Base One explodes in a nuclear fireball, unable to wipe the grin off his face, the scent of victory all around him, in a way he’s never experienced before.

The power he is feeling at this moment almost takes his breath away, and he can’t help revelling in it.

He only realises once the TARDIS has arrived and he goes down to open the door that the three humans haven’t moved from their position at the top of the ramp.

Adelaide steps out of the TARDIS, her feet crunching in the snow on the ground.

Mia all but runs out, getting as far away from his ship as possible, cringing behind him as if she needs him to protect her.

And Yuri finally moves onto the street, his expression one of complete bewilderment.

The Doctor feels his annoyance and impatience growing.

“Isn’t anyone going to thank me?” he demands as he looks around, trying not to let his anger show.

The only sound comes from Gadget, which rolls out of the TARDIS and onto the street, its lights flashing one final time before dying. The Doctor eyes the robot for a moment before speaking.

“He’s lost his signal. Doesn’t know where he is.”

“That’s my house,” Adelaide says softly, her voice full of wonder.

The Doctor turns on them, looking from one to another, holding onto his temper only by a miracle. “Don’t you get it?” he demands. “This is the 21st of November, 2059. Same day – on Earth. And it’s snowing!” He looks up, his frown fading as flakes drift onto his skin, melting as they touch him. “I love snow.”

“What is that thing?” Mia demands suddenly, and he turns to see her pointing at the TARDIS, her eyes full of tears and her face wearing an expression of terror. “It’s… bigger… I mean… bigger on the inside.” She turns her gaze to him, and flinches at whatever she sees in his face. “Who the hell are you?”

When he doesn’t answer, she suddenly runs, her panicked breathing filling the otherwise silent street, only dying away as she turns a corner and disappears from sight. Yuri takes a step in her direction, before looking back at his captain.

“Look after her,” Adelaide orders.

“Yes, ma’am,” Yuri agrees, before taking off without so much as a final glance at the man who has saved his life.

It’s Captain Adelaide Brooke who steps towards him, her eyes fixed on the Time Lord’s face.

“You saved us?”

He grins, glad she’s got it at last. “Just think though,” he says smugly. “Your daughter and your daughter’s daughter – you can see them again.” He all but chuckles at the success of his actions. “Family reunion.”

“But I’m supposed to be dead,” she reminds him.

“Not anymore,” he contradicts, feeling the power flood through him all over again.

“But,” she speaks slowly, as if the words are hard, and he’s impatient with her obvious struggle, “Susan, my granddaughter – the person she’s supposed to become might never exist now.”

“Nah,” he says dismissively. “Captain Adelaide can inspire her face-to-face. Different details, but the story’s the same.”

“You can’t know that!” she says desperately. “And if my family changes,” she stares at him, “the whole of history could change!”

Why is it so hard for her to thank him? He’s so sick of this pathetic human justification!

“The future of the human race,” she goes on, “no one should have that much power!”

“Tough!”

That word reverberates inside him, but he doesn’t bother wasting time trying to remember who said it, where he’s heard it before, and why it causes a nagging anxiety in the back of his mind.

“You should have left us,” Adelaide reprimands him softly.

“Adelaide, I’ve done this sort of thing before,” he assures her, but assuring himself of it at the same moment. “In small waves, saved some little people. But never someone as important as you. Ooh,” he rejoices in his own success, “I’m good.”

“Little people?!” she snaps, become angry, which only increases his feeling of power, because it’s proof of how alive she is. “What, like Mia and Yuri?” she demands. “Who decides they’re so unimportant – you?”

“For a long time now,” he tells her coldly, keeping a tight hold on his simmering rage, “I thought I was just a survivor, but I’m not,” he vows to himself. “I’m the winner. That’s who I am. Time Lord Victorious,” he adds, remembering the distant legends of Gallifrey that spoke of such people.

“And there’s no one to stop you?” It isn’t a question, but he chooses to take it as such.

“No,” he tells her, speaking clearly and deliberately so that she can’t mistake him.

For an instant, he thinks he’s silenced her for good, but he should have known better because she continues to argue.

“This is wrong, Doctor,” she replies. “I don’t care who you are. The Time Lord Victorious is wrong.”

“That’s for me to decide,” he threatens, sick of this human trying to tell him what he can and can’t do.

He turns away, thankful not to have to see her face again.

“Now, you’d better get home,” he tells her, trying to speak pleasantly. “Oh, it’s all locked up. You’ve been away. Still, that’s easy.”

He fishes into his pocket for the sonic screwdriver and aims it at the front door, which swings open.

“All yours.”

She moves to go past him, walking tentatively, as if she’s afraid of him, as she should be.

“Is there anything you can’t do?” she asks.

“Not anymore.”

And he can’t help the thrill he feels through him, that glorious sense of power, as he watches her walking away, so alive. The sense of victory is almost overpowering, the knowledge that he’s beaten time, done what he’s wanted to do so often – finally won!

Her footsteps crunch on the snow as she goes up the steps and he turns back to the TARDIS, starting to muse on other places he can go, things he can change, lives – wonderful, brilliant, important lives – he can finally save.

Because nothing and no one can stop him now.

Next Part