The road less travelled...

Title: In Dreams – Living The Dream 2/3
Author: katherine_b
Rating: PG

But in dreams I can hear your name. And in dreams we will meet again.

Part II

After breakfast, the Doctor takes charge of his son while Donna indulges in one of the long, luxurious baths she enjoyed so much during her previous time on the TARDIS. Adam is energetic but quiet, although the Doctor suspects that will only last until he learns how to use his voice. Certainly having someone who acknowledges and attempts to understand his mental speech has enhanced the frequency with which Adam is trying to communicate in that manner.

“It’s all right,” the Doctor assures him as he dresses his freshly bathed son in suitably warm clothing considering where they’re going, sending calming thoughts at the same time. “Patience. You’ll get there in the end, I promise.”

“There’s something ironic about you, of all people, preaching patience,” Donna says lightly from behind him, and he turns to find her in the doorway, her arms full of the thick coat she had worn on her last visit to the Oodsphere.

He grins and then picks up Adam, carrying him over to Donna as the baby clutches at the lapel of his jacket and coos. “Ready to go?”

Donna casts an eye around the room with what the Doctor can tell is already a practiced gaze. “I suppose we don’t need to take anything much,” she admits.

“It’s all in here,” the Doctor assures her, patting the pocket of his jacket into which he has already packed everything he can think of his son or either of them needing. “And we won’t be gone long anyway.”

“Bit easier than carrying around the bags of stuff he usually needs,” Donna admits as she pulls on her coat before reaching out her hands for Adam. “Let me take him. You can’t hold him and drive the TARDIS.”

“You have no idea what I can do when I try,” he retorts, nevertheless yielding the boy into his mother’s arms.

She grins and takes his hand, Adam cradled in the crook of her other arm, as they leave the room and head along the corridor to the console room.

Donna secures Adam into a small, coral-coloured carrier hanging from a strut near the console. As the Doctor sends the TARDIS out of the vortex, the room shifts slightly and the seat rocks, causing the baby to give a giggle of delight. Donna laughs at the sound and then comes over to take the place at the console where she always stood – opposite the Doctor, ready to help if he needs her. The perfect partnership.

He grins at her and feels his hearts leap as she smiles back. “I missed you,” he says softly as the TARDIS approaches its destination.

“I should hope so,” she says, winking at him, although there’s a softness in her eyes that gives him a more serious response, too.

Laughing – and when was the last time he did that since leaving everyone behind on Earth after their adventures on the Crucible? – he brings the TARDIS in to land and then releases the straps around Adam and lifts him out of the capsule. Donna is waiting on the far side of the console and takes her son when the Doctor offers him, making a small crooning noise as she does so that brings a smile to the Time Lord’s face.

“I swear, Donna Noble,” he teases, “you’ve gone all soppy!”

She grins. “Well, just look at him!” she orders, peeling back the blanket around their son a little so that the Doctor is able to feast his eyes on the boy’s face. “How could I possibly help it? And,” she adds with a grin, “you’re pretty far gone yourself, chum. I heard you cooing all over him last night!”

“Guilty as charged,” he’s forced to admit, pressing a kiss to Adam’s cool forehead before reaching down to take Donna’s hand and nodding at the door. “Let’s go then, shall we?”

“Doctor.” She squeezes his fingers and he glances at her before opening the door, the serious tone of her voice making him hesitate. “It’s going to be okay,” she says softly, and he smiles, kissing her before finally opening the door and leading the way out onto the freshly fallen snow.

There is a small circle of Ood waiting for them, so that, were it not for Adam in Donna’s arms, the Doctor could almost believe that no time had passed since the two of them were last here. The Song of Freedom rings out glorious around them and the Doctor can’t help remembering those moments in the dream when that beauty had drowned out the sorrow of the Song of Captivity.

Then his eyes fall on Ood Sigma, standing inside the circle of other formerly captive and natural-born Ood.

“The DoctorDonna has returned, as was foretold,” Ood Sigma announces in a tone that might almost be triumphant. “And the song of the Doctor from Gallifrey, the last of the Time Lords, has also ended with the birth of a new generation.”

“Oh, that’s not fair,” the Doctor complains as he finally understands what the Ood had been saying all along. “You might have been a little more specific before!”

“It was a prophecy, Doctor,” Ood Sigma replies calmly. “And as I told you then, a prophecy can have many meanings.”

The Time Lord rolls his eyes, unable to help thinking that Ood Sigma sounds almost as smug – if that’s possible for an Ood – as when his plans for the fate of Mr Halpen were revealed.

“Come!” Ood Sigma announces, moving aside and gesturing along a faint path that leads to massive rock formations which, the Doctor notices for the first time, have been formed into massive towers and structures that he has no doubt are the new home of the Ood. “We shall honour our guests, who have done so much for Oodkind.”

“Nicer than being handcuffed to a pole,” Donna murmurs, and the Doctor grins.

“Or held at gunpoint,” he agrees as they are escorted along the path to the base of the massive stone structures. He eyes the gleaming spires that, in some ways, remind him of Gallifrey. And as they get closer, the awesome feat that has been achieved becomes even more obvious. “It’s magnificent!” he declares, almost breathless, as he glances at Ood Sigma. “This is what the Ood become without outside interference?”

“One can achieve many things,”

“But many working together, as the Ood do, can achieve so much more,” the Doctor assures him as they are ushered through a doorway that leads to a massive space with fires at intervals that warm the huge room.

“It is always easier to work with others than alone,” Ood Sigma says pointedly before leading the way through a high stone archway and into a room laid out in rows of tables.

“A little less enigmatic than before,” the Doctor grumbles quietly to Donna, who chuckles.

“Maybe he doesn’t want you to get the wrong idea again,” she retorts in a similarly soft tone.

He rolls his eyes, but he doesn’t actually have a response to this and can only follow the others over to the head of a long table. As the Ood take place around them, he dips his head to whisper in Donna’s ear, “The Ood don’t eat the same way we do. Don’t stare, whatever you do. They’re very particular about manners.”

Donna says nothing, merely squeezing his fingers in acknowledgement, and then turning as one of the Ood turns up with a small bed for Adam to lie in. She stares at the departing Ood before turning back to him.

“Was that…?”

“Mr Haplen,” he agrees with a nod, before gesturing at the cushion. “Put Adam down so that you can eat. He’ll be fine.”

Donna casts a somewhat wary look after the departing former head of Ood Operations and then gently places her son in the bed, covering him with the blanket the Doctor had wrapped around him before they left the TARDIS. The boy closes his eyes and falls asleep almost at once, and Donna casts a wary glance at the man beside her.

“What…?”

“It’s a basket the Ood use for their own offspring,” he explains. “It suppresses the babble of surrounding thoughts and emotions. I mean,” he waves his free hand in a gesture of demonstration at the room around them, “you’ve got more than a hundred people in here. You can hear the songs they’re singing, but it’s more than that. There’s a wave of individual thoughts coming from every single one of them. It was weak when the Circle suppressed the Ood brain, but now it’s clear to allow them all to communicate. There’s a sea of noise – as if you were standing in the middle of a busy railway station.”

“Can I hear it?” Donna demands.

He glances around the room and sees that everyone is occupied with the meals that are being served at the lower tables before nodding.

“It’s loud,” he warns, before reaching for her temples once more.

She gasps as the wave of sound hits her and recoils a short distance, but he maintains his hold and silences it again the next moment.

“That,” he says matter-of-factly as bowls of soup are placed in front of them, “is why our son is sleeping like, well, the baby he is at the moment. Because when he’s in that bed, he can only hear what you can hear now, rather than that cacophony.”

“I see,” she says rather faintly. Then she clearly regains control of herself and looks at him through slightly narrowed eyes. “Why did you take it away? I lasted longer with the song of captivity.”

“Because you were hearing other people’s thoughts,” he explains gently. “It’s easy for an untrained mind to get lost in trying to understand and follow all that, particularly in a room this size and with so many different minds here. Besides,” honestly compels him to add, “you might have asked me to take you home again.”

She slides her hands around his arm and squeezes hard. “I am home,” she whispers, pressing her cheek against his shoulder.

He gently frees himself so that he can slide his arm around her shoulders and presses a kiss to her hair. “I’m glad,” he murmurs, unable to fully express the emotions that are making his hearts race, but he vows to teach her the same things that he is going to teach their son so that he won’t have to try and put something as complicated as feelings into clunky words.

“Please,” Ood Sigma interrupts at this moment, “eat before your meal goes cold.”

The Doctor nods and gently releases Donna, nodding at the room as she straightens up and instinctively looks around for cutlery.

“Nothing like that here,” he murmurs as he cups his hands around the sides of the bowl. “They couldn’t use them. Just pick it up and drink like it’s a mug.”

“I thought you said they were sensitive about table manners,” she replies in an undertone.

“For them,” he points out, nodding around the room at where the Ood are drinking rather than eating their soup, “this is manners.”

“’Spose so,” she agrees, catching his eye, and she grins, picking up her bowl as he is doing. “Allons-y then?”

“Allons-y,” he agrees, and they lift their bowls and drink their soup.

Over the next few hours, once their meal is finished, they are entertained by a concert and a dance, as well as hearing one of the Elders tell the story of the Breaking of the Circle. It’s clearly become an important legend for these people and it’s true what he told Sylvia and Wilf – they do sing songs of the DoctorDonna. He can’t be surprised, though, only a little disappointed that Donna is so obviously embarrassed at the way her part in things is lauded.

And Adam, in his protective bed, has slept through it all, so now he’s wide awake and struggling like mad as Donna tries to wrap him securely in the blanket.

“Well, he definitely gets this from you,” she snaps at the Doctor as the boy wriggles frantically to get away.

“Let me try,” the Doctor suggests, taking the boy and tucking the blanket around him rather more loosely, but still closely enough that the cold air won’t bother him.

Adam gives one more cry of obvious exasperation before surrendering, although the Doctor can still tell that the boy is annoyed at the restriction of his freedom. He sends a mental message of reassurance that it won’t be for long and feels the irritation fade.

Once Adam is settled in his father’s arms, Ood Sigma gestures towards the entrance that leads outside.

“Time does not wait,” he reminds them.

But before they can follow his lead, hurried footsteps prompt the Doctor to glance back over his shoulder and he sees a young female Ood hurrying after them, the small bed in her arms.

“I have been instructed,” she says hurriedly, her shyness evident, “to present you with this as a gift. For this and future generations”

The Doctor, with an energetic baby in his arms, can’t do much, but Donna catches his eye and, at his tiny nod, steps forward with a smile. “Thank you so much,” she says, and the young Ood ducks her head in obvious embarrassment and delight at being spoken to.

“It will be much used and appreciated,” the Doctor adds, seeing the expression of thankfulness on Donna’s face as she takes the small bed.

He can understand her relief that Adam has a refuge from that rush of sound and confusion of thoughts that she glimpsed so briefly. He makes a mental note to explain how it’s possible for their child to learn how to push that to the back of his mind so that he can function.

For now, though, as they leave the buildings behind and venture out into the snow, he feels as Donna takes his arm and smiles at her. They follow Ood Sigma, who leads them back along the path to where the TARDIS is standing, a dark shadow against the white snow in the moonlight.

When he reaches it, Ood Sigma stops and turns to face them, and although the Doctor studies his features, he can make out no emotion of grief or regret in those huge, dark eyes.

“Happiness is written in your futures,” Ood Sigma says quietly. “The stars have foretold it.”

“You have had a great deal to do with it,” the Doctor reminds him.

“It would always have happened this way, Doctor,” he is assured. “Nothing I did changed any part of what has or will happen.”

“Well,” Donna’s voice contains a tremor, but even as the Doctor glances at her, she regains control of herself, “I wouldn’t say,” she goes on more strongly, “that getting a stubborn old Time Lord to change his mind is ‘nothing’.”

“Hey!” the insulted party protests indignantly.

Ood Sigma gives a sudden and surprising chuckle as the light from his translator ball casts a soft glow that matches that coming from the windows of the TARDIS. “I think, Time Lord,” he says gently, “that you have met your match.”

“Perhaps so,” he’s forced to agree, his eyes studying Donna’s features, which seem more beautiful than ever in the silvery light. “In more ways than one.”

For a moment he forgets the world around him in gazing at the mother of the child in his arms. It is only a quiet voice that draws him back to the present.

“Time does not wait.”

“No.” The Doctor turns back, reaching down for Donna’s hand, feeling as her fingers curl around his. “No,” he repeats, giving her hand a gentle squeeze before letting go, “we should go.”

“It is time,” Ood Sigma agrees.

Nodding at the TARDIS, the Doctor watches Donna push open the door, seeing as she glances back at the Ood for one last time before ducking inside. The Doctor follows her, but stops on the threshold and turns back to the silent figure standing in the snow, bathed by silvery moonlight, almost as if he’s already moved on.

“Safe journey,” he says soberly, wishing there was more he could say that would express everything he is feeling at this moment, and Ood Sigma bows his head a little in acknowledgement.

“And you,” the Ood replies softly.

“Thank you,” and after one last long shared look of comprehension, the Doctor closes the door of the TARDIS.

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