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Title: When Wishes Come True 4/8
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
katherine_b
Rating: G
Summary: The Doctor’s found someone who babbles as much as he does. Poor Donna.
Part III
“Oh, you are brilliant, you are,” the Doctor’s voice on the other end of the phone tells her.
“Shut up,” Donna shoots back impatiently. “Right. T with a line through it.”
“Gotta go,” the Doctor says suddenly, just as she’s about to ask him where she should start looking, and she feels as if her heart has dropped into her shoes. “Keep the line open!”
“But Doctor…”
The sound of the dial-tone on the other end tells her that he’s gone.
“Oh, my God,” she murmurs under her breath, glancing back at the door through which she’s just come. She’s got no way of knowing whether the Sonterrun – Sontaran! – she’s hit will wake up again, or if she’s killed it or something.
“I’ll kill him,” she decides, thinking of the Doctor, “just as soon as I’m safe. We’re safe,” she adds, remembering the TARDIS.
But the sound of heavy footsteps as she approaches the open doorway cuts off that train of thought. She peers around the wall, her heart thumping wildly in her chest, and inhales sharply at the sight of a line of Sontaran troops marching in her direction.
Her breath catching in her throat, she backs away, glancing wildly towards where she knows the TARDIS is, but she realises they’ll see her before she could get the door open. In any case, that the Sontaran might have woken up by now.
She looks down at the object in her hand, but before she can consider whether to turn it off or how to silence the ring, just in case the Doctor calls her again, the last of the long line of soldiers finally march past her.
As the hallway around her falls silent, Donna lets herself breathe again, but as she does so, something sharp prods her in the ribs.
“The lamp!” she mutters in relief, hauling it out of the bigger-on-the-inside pocket of the blue jacket the Doctor loaned her from his closet. Hauling it out, she tilts open the lid. “Genie,” she whispers into it, “I need you. But please don’t make a sound or they’ll find me!”
A blue mist seeps out of the spout of the lamp and gradually takes the form of the Genie, who has tape criss-crossed over his mouth.
“Hmmm mmm-mmm mmmm?” he demands, flinging his hands out in an evidently questioning gesture.
“We’re on the Sontaran ship,” she mutters between clenched teeth. “And if they hear us, they’ll come running and kills us. Well, me, probably, because I presume you can’t die. But it means you’ll be at their beck and call – and I don’t think you’ll like that too much, chum!”
“Mmm-mmm!” The Genie emphatically shakes his head. He peels off one corner of the tape. “Been there before,” he whispers confidingly. “It was horrible!”
“I need to make my first wish,” Donna tells him as he replaces the tape. “I need to find – what did the Doctor call it? – some feed thing to a teleport? I think he said something about an external feed? And a junction? Please!”
The tape vanishes with a soft pop. “An external junction feed to the teleport?” the Genie demands in his normal voice.
“Shh!” she hisses, panic filling her.
“Sorry!” The word is a whisper. “Right, that’s a genuine wish then. Hold on!”
He grabs her arm – she can’t help thinking that he’s the one doing the holding, rather than her – and the room whirls around her. The next moment, she’s set on her feet again and everything stabilises.
“This is where it should be,” the Genie tells her, his voice only slightly softer than normal. “But what did the Doctor say you had to look for?”
She looks around and spots a circular panel on the wall. “That,” she says, pointing at it. “Two Fs, back to back. But what do I do now?”
“Call the Doctor,” the Genie says, and disappears back into the lamp that Donna only now realises is still clutched in her hand.
“Thanks for nothing, Blue Boy,” she mumbles as she shoves the lamp back into her pocket and then activates the phone, finding the last call she received and pressing the green button to send the call.
Her heart leaps with relief when it’s answered on the first ring.
“Got it?” the Doctor’s voice demands.
“Yes,” she whispers as clearly as she can, terror still only just beneath the surface. “Now hurry up!”
“Take off the covering,” he orders. “All the blue switches inside, flick them up like a fusebox. And that should get the teleport working.”
“Right,” she agrees, but the sound from the other end is muffled and she guesses he’s put down the phone to do whatever he has to do at his end.
She tries to prize off the cover with her fingers, but only succeeds in breaking a nail.
“Ow!”
Besides, when she thinks about Sontaran hands, with those three fingers, she realises they would have to use a tool for their maintenance. Fishing in her pocket, she pulls out a nailfile and slides it under the cover, which pops off into her hands. She looks up at the panel of switches and sees that the lights are red, but that the switches have a blue covering on them.
Flicking them, the lights turn blue, and she hears the machine around her hum as lines of light turn on. Relieved, she picks up the phone.
“Doctor,” she whispers as loudly as she can to get his attention. “Blue switches done.”
Even as she’s waiting for him to speak, however, she once more hears those horrible heavy footsteps and turns to find a line of Sontarans in the room behind her.
“But they've found me!” she says feebly, hearing the sound of scuffling from the other end of the phone.
“Now!” comes the exclamation from the other end of the phone, and the strangest sensation fills her, just like when the Genie was flying her through the air.
She looks down to see her body solidify around her and then raises her head, the best sight she could imagine in front of her eyes.
“Have I ever told you how much I hate you?!” she exclaims as she takes two steps forward and all but falls into the Doctor’s arms.
* * *
It’s been an insane few days, battling Sontarans and Hath and mad Generals. As the Doctor carries a tray containing tea things into the library, he’s rather surprised that Donna is still awake.
“Oh, you’re a mind-reader,” she groans in obvious pleasure as she takes the cup he passes to her once he’s set the tray on the low table in front of the couch.
He chuckles and sits down beside her. “If you’re hungry, we can go somewhere for dinner.”
“What, and battle an alien invasion while we’re waiting for our drinks to arrive?” she demands in what he hopes is a rhetorical question. “If it’s all the same to you, I’d prefer a quiet night in, thanks. There’s got to be some food in those cupboards of yours, or maybe the TARDIS can provide something.”
“There’s biscuits,” he agrees, picking up one from the plate he brought in with the tea and waving it at her before he bites into it.
“I’m sure we can find something else,” she says dryly, sipping her tea.
“Probably,” he’s forced to agree, knowing from the hum in the back of his mind that the TARDIS is determined to make Donna happy.
There’s a long moment of silence, but it’s comfortable. It’s one of the things that the Doctor has found very appealing about Donna since she rejoined him – that he doesn’t always have to talk, but she’s willing to listen (or at least pretend to) when he does.
And then he sees Donna give a wriggle and she reaches into the pocket of the blue velvet jacket he loaned her, reaching inside and pulling out the Genie’s lamp, which she leans forward to place on the coffee table.
“Ow,” she says succinctly. “It was poking in to me.”
“Give it a rub,” the Doctor suggests with a grin. “You could get him to whip up a meal for us.”
“Has he got, like, a length of time where you can’t ask him for anything after a wish?” Donna asks.
“What, like a cooling-off period?” the Doctor teases. “The Queen of Shopping should know about those!”
She throws a cushion at him. Fortunately he’s drunk his tea, or he probably would have spilt it. As it is, he tucks the cushion beneath his head as she speaks again.
“I meant more like a recharging period after granting a wish.”
“No,” he says with a smile as he shakes his head, although he can’t deny the curiosity filling him at her remark. “Can I ask,” he begins hesitantly, “what you wished for?”
Donna looks suddenly uncomfortable. “Maybe it was a waste,” she admits, “but I had to find that teleport, and right after you told me not to hang up, a whole line of those Sontarans marched right past. I…” her voice shakes a little, betraying the terror she had felt at that moment, and the Doctor’s guilt at what he put her through only increases, “I couldn’t think of anything else to do!”
“That was brilliant!” he assures her. “Never even occurred to me, but it was the best thing you could have done!”
She glances at him anxiously. “You don’t think I wasted a wish then?”
“What use are three wishes if you’re not around to make use of them?” the Doctor prompts. “And you’ll make far better use of your wishes than a Sontaran would.”
“Very true!” a rather tinny voice says suddenly, and the lamp on the table rattles in a conspicuous manner.
“Oi, stop eavesdropping!” Donna scolds, picking up the lamp to lift the lid and glare at its inhabitant.
“Yes, ma’am,” the Genie’s voice replies instantly, and the Doctor chuckles.
“I should perhaps have mentioned that Genii are inveterate stickybeaks,” he says with a grin.
The lamp gives a sudden twitch and then a pink tongue protrudes from the end of the spout, sending a very definite raspberry in the Time Lord’s direction. The Doctor laughs again and stands up, offering a hand to Donna, who takes it and gets to her feet. They head into the kitchen to begin making dinner, leaving the lamp on the table in the empty room.
Next Part
Author:
katherine_b Rating: G
Summary: The Doctor’s found someone who babbles as much as he does. Poor Donna.
Part III
“Oh, you are brilliant, you are,” the Doctor’s voice on the other end of the phone tells her.
“Shut up,” Donna shoots back impatiently. “Right. T with a line through it.”
“Gotta go,” the Doctor says suddenly, just as she’s about to ask him where she should start looking, and she feels as if her heart has dropped into her shoes. “Keep the line open!”
“But Doctor…”
The sound of the dial-tone on the other end tells her that he’s gone.
“Oh, my God,” she murmurs under her breath, glancing back at the door through which she’s just come. She’s got no way of knowing whether the Sonterrun – Sontaran! – she’s hit will wake up again, or if she’s killed it or something.
“I’ll kill him,” she decides, thinking of the Doctor, “just as soon as I’m safe. We’re safe,” she adds, remembering the TARDIS.
But the sound of heavy footsteps as she approaches the open doorway cuts off that train of thought. She peers around the wall, her heart thumping wildly in her chest, and inhales sharply at the sight of a line of Sontaran troops marching in her direction.
Her breath catching in her throat, she backs away, glancing wildly towards where she knows the TARDIS is, but she realises they’ll see her before she could get the door open. In any case, that the Sontaran might have woken up by now.
She looks down at the object in her hand, but before she can consider whether to turn it off or how to silence the ring, just in case the Doctor calls her again, the last of the long line of soldiers finally march past her.
As the hallway around her falls silent, Donna lets herself breathe again, but as she does so, something sharp prods her in the ribs.
“The lamp!” she mutters in relief, hauling it out of the bigger-on-the-inside pocket of the blue jacket the Doctor loaned her from his closet. Hauling it out, she tilts open the lid. “Genie,” she whispers into it, “I need you. But please don’t make a sound or they’ll find me!”
A blue mist seeps out of the spout of the lamp and gradually takes the form of the Genie, who has tape criss-crossed over his mouth.
“Hmmm mmm-mmm mmmm?” he demands, flinging his hands out in an evidently questioning gesture.
“We’re on the Sontaran ship,” she mutters between clenched teeth. “And if they hear us, they’ll come running and kills us. Well, me, probably, because I presume you can’t die. But it means you’ll be at their beck and call – and I don’t think you’ll like that too much, chum!”
“Mmm-mmm!” The Genie emphatically shakes his head. He peels off one corner of the tape. “Been there before,” he whispers confidingly. “It was horrible!”
“I need to make my first wish,” Donna tells him as he replaces the tape. “I need to find – what did the Doctor call it? – some feed thing to a teleport? I think he said something about an external feed? And a junction? Please!”
The tape vanishes with a soft pop. “An external junction feed to the teleport?” the Genie demands in his normal voice.
“Shh!” she hisses, panic filling her.
“Sorry!” The word is a whisper. “Right, that’s a genuine wish then. Hold on!”
He grabs her arm – she can’t help thinking that he’s the one doing the holding, rather than her – and the room whirls around her. The next moment, she’s set on her feet again and everything stabilises.
“This is where it should be,” the Genie tells her, his voice only slightly softer than normal. “But what did the Doctor say you had to look for?”
She looks around and spots a circular panel on the wall. “That,” she says, pointing at it. “Two Fs, back to back. But what do I do now?”
“Call the Doctor,” the Genie says, and disappears back into the lamp that Donna only now realises is still clutched in her hand.
“Thanks for nothing, Blue Boy,” she mumbles as she shoves the lamp back into her pocket and then activates the phone, finding the last call she received and pressing the green button to send the call.
Her heart leaps with relief when it’s answered on the first ring.
“Got it?” the Doctor’s voice demands.
“Yes,” she whispers as clearly as she can, terror still only just beneath the surface. “Now hurry up!”
“Take off the covering,” he orders. “All the blue switches inside, flick them up like a fusebox. And that should get the teleport working.”
“Right,” she agrees, but the sound from the other end is muffled and she guesses he’s put down the phone to do whatever he has to do at his end.
She tries to prize off the cover with her fingers, but only succeeds in breaking a nail.
“Ow!”
Besides, when she thinks about Sontaran hands, with those three fingers, she realises they would have to use a tool for their maintenance. Fishing in her pocket, she pulls out a nailfile and slides it under the cover, which pops off into her hands. She looks up at the panel of switches and sees that the lights are red, but that the switches have a blue covering on them.
Flicking them, the lights turn blue, and she hears the machine around her hum as lines of light turn on. Relieved, she picks up the phone.
“Doctor,” she whispers as loudly as she can to get his attention. “Blue switches done.”
Even as she’s waiting for him to speak, however, she once more hears those horrible heavy footsteps and turns to find a line of Sontarans in the room behind her.
“But they've found me!” she says feebly, hearing the sound of scuffling from the other end of the phone.
“Now!” comes the exclamation from the other end of the phone, and the strangest sensation fills her, just like when the Genie was flying her through the air.
She looks down to see her body solidify around her and then raises her head, the best sight she could imagine in front of her eyes.
“Have I ever told you how much I hate you?!” she exclaims as she takes two steps forward and all but falls into the Doctor’s arms.
It’s been an insane few days, battling Sontarans and Hath and mad Generals. As the Doctor carries a tray containing tea things into the library, he’s rather surprised that Donna is still awake.
“Oh, you’re a mind-reader,” she groans in obvious pleasure as she takes the cup he passes to her once he’s set the tray on the low table in front of the couch.
He chuckles and sits down beside her. “If you’re hungry, we can go somewhere for dinner.”
“What, and battle an alien invasion while we’re waiting for our drinks to arrive?” she demands in what he hopes is a rhetorical question. “If it’s all the same to you, I’d prefer a quiet night in, thanks. There’s got to be some food in those cupboards of yours, or maybe the TARDIS can provide something.”
“There’s biscuits,” he agrees, picking up one from the plate he brought in with the tea and waving it at her before he bites into it.
“I’m sure we can find something else,” she says dryly, sipping her tea.
“Probably,” he’s forced to agree, knowing from the hum in the back of his mind that the TARDIS is determined to make Donna happy.
There’s a long moment of silence, but it’s comfortable. It’s one of the things that the Doctor has found very appealing about Donna since she rejoined him – that he doesn’t always have to talk, but she’s willing to listen (or at least pretend to) when he does.
And then he sees Donna give a wriggle and she reaches into the pocket of the blue velvet jacket he loaned her, reaching inside and pulling out the Genie’s lamp, which she leans forward to place on the coffee table.
“Ow,” she says succinctly. “It was poking in to me.”
“Give it a rub,” the Doctor suggests with a grin. “You could get him to whip up a meal for us.”
“Has he got, like, a length of time where you can’t ask him for anything after a wish?” Donna asks.
“What, like a cooling-off period?” the Doctor teases. “The Queen of Shopping should know about those!”
She throws a cushion at him. Fortunately he’s drunk his tea, or he probably would have spilt it. As it is, he tucks the cushion beneath his head as she speaks again.
“I meant more like a recharging period after granting a wish.”
“No,” he says with a smile as he shakes his head, although he can’t deny the curiosity filling him at her remark. “Can I ask,” he begins hesitantly, “what you wished for?”
Donna looks suddenly uncomfortable. “Maybe it was a waste,” she admits, “but I had to find that teleport, and right after you told me not to hang up, a whole line of those Sontarans marched right past. I…” her voice shakes a little, betraying the terror she had felt at that moment, and the Doctor’s guilt at what he put her through only increases, “I couldn’t think of anything else to do!”
“That was brilliant!” he assures her. “Never even occurred to me, but it was the best thing you could have done!”
She glances at him anxiously. “You don’t think I wasted a wish then?”
“What use are three wishes if you’re not around to make use of them?” the Doctor prompts. “And you’ll make far better use of your wishes than a Sontaran would.”
“Very true!” a rather tinny voice says suddenly, and the lamp on the table rattles in a conspicuous manner.
“Oi, stop eavesdropping!” Donna scolds, picking up the lamp to lift the lid and glare at its inhabitant.
“Yes, ma’am,” the Genie’s voice replies instantly, and the Doctor chuckles.
“I should perhaps have mentioned that Genii are inveterate stickybeaks,” he says with a grin.
The lamp gives a sudden twitch and then a pink tongue protrudes from the end of the spout, sending a very definite raspberry in the Time Lord’s direction. The Doctor laughs again and stands up, offering a hand to Donna, who takes it and gets to her feet. They head into the kitchen to begin making dinner, leaving the lamp on the table in the empty room.
Next Part
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