The road less travelled...

Title: In Dreams 6/6
Author: katherine_b
Rating: PG
Summary: The Doctor has come in response to the summons he received. But the reason for him being called is not at all what he was expecting.


“It's too bad that all these things can only happen in my dreams. Only in dreams. In beautiful dreams.”

Part VI

As the Doctor steps out of the TARDIS, the Oodsphere looks little different, except that this time there is no snow falling from the sky, and he can’t help hearing that the song of freedom seems to have a slight note of unhappiness to it.

Or perhaps that’s just the echo of the emotion in his hearts.

An Ood is waiting for him once more, but there’s a difference this time. This Ood is cradling his hind-brain in his gloved hands, and the Doctor recognises the one-time Mr Halpen.

“Where’s Ood Sigma?” he demands as he slams the TARDIS door shut and strides across the snowy ground, the anger that had begun to build in him after he left Chiswick now coming out at the first target he finds.

“Please come with me,” the waiting Ood says calmly.

“I need to see Ood Sigma,” he snaps. “Now!”

“I shall take you to him,” Ood Halpen replies. “Follow me.”

Fuming, the Doctor follows the Ood’s footsteps. His rage had begun to boil as he slipped away from the Noble household unseen, and now, after the journey through space and time, he’s only just keeping himself in check. Anger and disappointment are at war within him, and he knows that much of it has come about from the way he gave in to his emotions with Donna in that dream world, but he’s also irate with Ood Sigma for encouraging him in what was clearly a pointless endeavour.

Ood Halpen stops at the mouth to a different cave from the one the Doctor went to on his last visit.

“You will find Ood Sigma here,” the Ood tells him.

Impatiently, the Doctor brushed past him into the dimly lit space, his eyes adjusting almost instantly – which allows him to see that the room is illuminated by half-burned candles, and that Ood Sigma’s body is lying on a raised platform.

He stops abruptly at the sight, understanding at once what it means.

We were too late. What do we do, do we bury him?

The Doctor knows that the Ood have their own rituals, and that Ood Sigma’s body will be taken to its final resting place in a few hours. He sighs ruefully, feeling as Ood Halpen moves to stand beside him.

“Ood Sigma asked me to give you a message, Doctor,” Ood Halpen tells him.

“Mmm?” The Doctor glances at him, wondering how much Ood Sigma knew of what was happening after the Doctor left the Oodsphere.

“He asks you to remember,” Ood Halpen says quietly, “that time can do more than you give it credit for, and also that an end is merely a beginning in disguise.”

The Doctor nods, but he doesn’t bother trying to understand the meaning of these cryptic statements in relation to either himself or the reason for his visit. Instead he looks back at where Ood Sigma’s body is lying, sensing as Ood Halpen unobtrusively leaves the room.

Left alone, the Doctor approaches the altar on which the body of Ood Sigma is lying. He can’t help remembering when Donna helped him to take care of Ood Delta Fifty.

This is the Doctor! Just what you need, a doctor. Couldn't be better, hey?

Except that Ood Sigma is beyond the reach of any doctor, even a Time Lord, and this Time Lord can only feel sorrow and a sense of guilt at his earlier, unreasonable anger. After all, the Ood have been protecting Donna in a way that the Doctor himself hasn’t managed. Ood Sigma was only doing what he felt was necessary, and if the Doctor had found some other way of saving Donna’s memories, they might both have been here now, instead of the Doctor being alone to mourn.

We go on. We live. We remember. What else can we do?

The irony of that statement is bitter enough to choke him. There’s no one left to remember but him. He will remember what Donna Noble achieved and what she became, and he will remember how Ood Sigma saved his people. He’s just so tired of being the only one left to remember. Of outliving everyone who was ever special to him. Of being the last.

An end is merely a beginning in disguise.

The words seem to drift into his mind, and he looks down almost suspiciously at the body of Ood Sigma, as if that person could open his eyes and once more speak to him. The Doctor notices that, as part of the purifying process, the translator ball has been removed. And yet he can’t help feeling that Ood Sigma is finding other ways to communicate.

He glances around at the dimly lit room, darkness increasing as the candles burn down, and he feels a throb of pain in his chest. In his dreams, the ones he couldn’t tell Ood Sigma about, he’s seen Donna like this. Cold and dead.

I said nothing of death.

When, he wonders as he turns back to Ood Sigma’s body, did he begin to think about Donna as dead? As beyond his reach, unable to be helped? And why did he allow himself to be subconsciously persuaded of that fact, when it was clear from their time in the dreamworld, and even afterwards, that she is anything but?

Time can do more than you give it credit for.

“Oh, yes!”

He pushes himself away from the altar, running for the entrance to the cave. As his feet crunch in the snow, he stops and looks back one final time at Ood Sigma, a grin spreading across his features, before he takes off for the TARDIS. The doors fly open of their own accord as he gets closer, as if his ship has sensed his approach and is doing everything she can to help.

As they fly through the vortex, the Doctor throws himself wildly around the console, almost as if, by doing so, he can hurry the TARDIS along. He can hear her creaking and groaning around him, almost like she’s pointing out that she’s doing the best she can. He gives her an affectionate pat, but it’s impossible for him to stay still until he knows whether his theory is right or not. His hearts are racing in his chest and his throat is dry as he lets his ship determine exactly when they will land, how much later than when he left Donna sleeping in bed, her mind once more wiped of her latest memories of him.

The materialisation sequence is still sounding through the room as he makes a leap for the doors, nearly falling over his own feet as he scrambles down the incline.

But with his fingers on the lock of the door, he finds himself hesitating. He isn’t sure why, but he realises he’s holding his breath, as if listening for sounds on the other side of the door that will tell him whether to go out there or not.

The only thing he can hear – and it’s something his mind detects, rather than his ears – is the TARDIS telling him not to be ridiculous and to get on with it.

Finally he plucks up his courage and seizes the handle and the lock, opening the two doors simultaneously.

His lower jaw sags and his eyes widen.

The ready way with words that is such a key part of this incarnation deserts him completely at the sight of Donna Noble standing several metres away, an expectant half-smile appearing on her face as her eyes meet his gaze. She’s healthy again, back to what she had been when she travelled with him, having regained the weight she lost during her period of depression. Her hair gleams in the sunlight, the ginger colour he loves and envies at its brightest in the summer sunshine. Her eyes are wide and full of life.

He can only drink in the sight of her.

Realising that he’s not going to speak any time soon, Donna rolls her eyes. Then she looks down and for the first time he realises that she’s holding something in her arms.

“I’m so sorry,” she tells whatever it is, releasing one hand to stroke the object, which he can’t make out because of the thick blanket around it. “But I must have been wrong when I told you that your Daddy talked whether you were actually listening or not…”

“What?” he exclaims in disbelief, taking a stumbling step forward that propels him out of the TARDIS and to within touching distance.

His eyes are fixed on the object in her arms, and he starts violently at the sight of a pair of dark brown eyes fixed unblinkingly on him in a round little face with a tuft of unruly brown hair on top of the infant’s head.

He stares for a moment, still shocked into silence, before the baby evidently tires of not being spoken to and closes its eyes. The movement wakes the Doctor out of his stunned state and he finally drags his gaze back up to Donna’s face.

She’s watching him, that half-smile on her face again, and perhaps the faintest hint of anxiety in her eyes.

Finally he’s able to speak, determined to erase that concern, but also with curiosity building in him at an astonishing rate.

“Donna,” he begins urgently, “what are you – I mean…?”

Even while his mouth is struggling to form incoherent half-sentences, however, his mind is working its usual million miles an hour, making sense of the scene facing him. It’s perfectly logical that, if their efforts in that dream-world enabled Donna to have recovered her memory, which her position in front of the TARDIS would indicate has happened, it’s only right that the other things that took place there would also have their natural consequences in reality. It’s just that this thought never occurred to him before now.

Now that he understands how this is possible, his brain is more willing to accept the evidence of his eyes and begins convincing him that it’s not just possible, but actual. And with that acknowledged, he can move even closer and take Donna’s free hand, squeezing her fingers and seeing as the worry on her face vanishes.

“Are you all right?” he can’t help asking somewhat anxiously. He doesn’t just mean the baby, but the obvious recovery of her memories as well as everything that happened to her after he left her behind yet again.

Her eyes travel to the TARDIS, lingering there with what he knows is affection, before turning back to him. “I am now. Although,” she goes on, a teasing note creeping into her voice, “I seem to recall that I owe you a slap.”

“Maybe more than one,” he agrees, his eyes travelling down to the wrapped bundle in her arms, “but not now.”

“No.” She moves the baby, the movement rousing the infant, which looks up so that its deep brown eyes meet matching ones, unspoken communication rushing between them, even if none of it is coherent yet. “Take him,” Donna urges, gently placing her child into his father’s arms. “Take your son.”

He almost panics – it’s been such a long time since he held a baby – but instinct kicks in and his long fingers supports its neck and back as he eases the infant into the crook of his elbow.

“What have you called him?” he asks, his arm curling around the boy as Donna’s head comes to rest on his shoulder. The warm familiarity of having her close to him makes him happier than he’s been in a long time, and the child in his arms only enhances that.

She brushes her fingers over the baby’s hair, which springs back as soon as the light pressure she applies is released.

“Adam,” she says fondly before looking up at him. “Because he’s the first. The first new Time Lord since the end of the Time War. I mean,” a slightly worried look comes into her eyes, “I know he’ll have a Gallifreyan name, but I didn’t want to wait until he could grow up to select it. I had to have something to call him…”

The Doctor rests the index finger of his free hand against her lips to quiet the nervous stream of words.

“It’s beautiful,” he assures her. “And perfect.”

She smiles, and he can see the glint of tears sparkling in her eyes, understanding her concerns about how he might feel. He slides his arm around her shoulders, their son cradled safely between them, the boy sleeping once more, clearly feeling secure in his father’s arms. The Doctor can feel the way the twin hearts are fluttering rapidly in the tiny chest, their beats echoing almost inaudibly in the back of his mind, strengthening the connection that he only now realises has always existed between them, as it always does between Time Lords. It’s just been such a long time since he last felt it that he forgot to pay attention.

He turns his attention back to Donna,

“How much do you remember?” he prompts softly.

“Everything.” She smiles, a somewhat shy expression in her eyes. “Even that dream world and what we, you know, did there.”

“Probably a good thing,” he says, pressing a kiss against her hair, “or you’d be left wondering exactly where this little miracle came from.”

“Yeah,” she agrees with a faint chuckle, her pinkie finger stroking Adam’s relaxed fist, peeking out of the blue and brown blanket. Then she looks up at him. “When you say ‘miracle,’” she begins hesitantly, “does that mean, outside the dream universe, it’s not possible for us to have children?”

“No.” He shakes his head. “Not after the meta-crisis. Because of that, there’s enough similarities between us that it’s possible in the real world, too.” He arches an eyebrow. “Not that I’m objecting, of course, but why?”

“I’m an only child,” she reminds him with a slight roll of her eyes. “And I really don’t want our son to grow up the same way.”

He’s surprised at how genuinely attractive that idea is. He knows that, the last time Donna Noble was in the TARDIS, he was quick to kill off even the vaguest idea of any attraction that might have taken root between them. He never allowed himself to think about her as anything other than a friend. Maybe that’s why he’s so surprised at how easy it is now for him to see her through different eyes, and he can only be delighted that she apparently feels the same way. Clearly the emotions that they experienced together in that dream-like world have come to the fore in both of them, and he couldn’t be happier.

“We-ell,” he says with a teasing smile, “I suppose we’ll have to see what we can do about that.”

She reaches up and brushes a kiss against his lips. He rubs a small circle on her shoulder with his thumb and murmurs against her mouth, “Come with me again.”

Donna’s arm around his back tightens. “You couldn’t get rid of me if you tried,” she returns, her voice a passionate whisper.

“I wouldn’t want to try,” he promises. “If I have any say in things, and apparently I do, then I swear I’m never losing you again.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” she retorts, and he sees that any faint concerns that might have been showing themselves on her face have now vanished. In fact, she looks as happy as she did on the day she saw him through the window at Adipose Industries.

“I bet you will.” He nods in the direction of the open doors of the TARDIS. “What are we waiting for then?”

A grin lights Donna’s face and she hugs him around the back one more time before letting go. She bends down to pick up a number of bags that he’s already noticed lying on the ground behind her. Then she turns toward the TARDIS and, without even a hesitation, steps over the threshold and into the bigger-on-the-inside blue box.

The Doctor tightens his hold on the boy in his arms and then glances back at the Noble residence. His eyes fall on two figures standing in the front window. Wilf beams at him, and even Sylvia manages a nod, although he can see the pain it’s causing her to watch her daughter and grandson leave. The Doctor briefly touches his finger to his forehead in a gesture of acknowledgement before following the mother of his son on board the TARDIS and closing the doors.