The road less travelled...

Title: Touch of an Angel 2/3
Author: katherine_b
Rating: G
Summary: Donna thinks she may have found a silver lining in the darkest cloud.
A/N: Written for the third Travellers’ Tales with the prompt ‘dusk’.

Part II

Donna breathes – and groans in relief when there’s no pain.

The air is different, she notices at once. Cleaner. Less of the pollution that is so obvious in twenty-first century air. What’s far more important, though, is that Donna knows she would never have noticed it before the meta-crisis. Clearly whatever energy the Angels absorbed, they were unable to strip that knowledge away.

“Catch your breath,” a voice says suddenly from nearby, and Donna gasps, her eyes flying open to find a good-looking, dark-skinned young man leaning against the wall beside her. His eyes twinkle as he meets her gaze. “Don’t go swimming for half an hour,” he adds, before sliding down the wall to sit beside her.

“If you’re about to tell me time travel’s nasty without a capsule,” Donna says warningly, “I might have to slap you.”

The man chuckles and offers a hand for her to shake. “D.I. Shipton,” he says with a grin. “Billy to my friends.”

Donna accepts the handshake. “Donna Noble. Am I one of your friends?” she teases.

“Angel,” he replies, and as he strips off his coat, Donna’s eyebrows dart upwards.

“A little forward, aren’t we?” she demands. “Usually I get a man to buy me a drink before I let him use pet names, let alone start taking off his clothes!”

Billy laughs, doing his best to drape his jacket around her shoulders and she leans forward to let him do so. “I was talking about Weeping Angels,” he assures her. “Those statue things. Anyone touched by one of them is a friend of mine. They’re locked in some way, the Doctor told me, but they feed off energy and send people back in time.”

“Not for long,” Donna promises as she pulls his coat around her, unavoidably reminded of a certain rooftop in London thirty-four years in the future. “Not if what we set up works. The energy they absorbed from me should be enough to blow them to pieces.”

“Are you saying you’re explosive?” Billy teases, and Donna has to laugh.

“Not anymore.”

“I don’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed,” Billy says, before getting to his feet and offering her his hand. “Let’s get out of this weather.”

For the first time, Donna looks around enough and realises that it’s raining and that the wall she’s sitting against isn’t doing a very good job of protecting them. Her clothes are clinging damply to her and she knows her hair is going to be a terrible mess. It’s also getting dark, she sees. The sun is slipping beneath the horizon and the dusk is deepening. The lingering Time Lord parts in her mind give her an idea of date and place. 1973. Salford, an outer suburb of Manchester. The Angel has done a good job.

“I hadn’t even noticed,” she has to admit as she takes his hand and gets to her feet.

“I have that affect on people,” Billy jokes, his arm around her back as he hurries her down the street, supporting a strange device with his free hand which is hanging around his neck by a thick strap. Donna doesn’t have a chance to examine it thoroughly, although she has the feeling it’s vaguely familiar.

In spite of his best efforts, they are both soaked through by the time they arrive at what Billy tells her is the apartment the Doctor arranged for him.

“Why is it that I always meet women when they’re soaking wet?” Billy asks as he ushers her into the hallway of his home. “First Sally and now you, Donna.”

“That better be a rhetorical question,” Donna warns.

Billy chuckles as he closes the door behind them. “It is, yeah,” he agrees, before ducking into a nearby room and returning with two towels, one of which he tosses to her so that she can start drying her hair while he uses the second on his own short, dark hair.

Donna removes the coat Billy put around her and carefully hangs it up on the hook behind the door before turning to find that her impromptu host has temporarily vanished. He appears from a nearby room just as she’s about to call out to him, his arms full of clothes.

“These belong to a friend of mind,” he offers, holding them out. “She won’t mind you borrowing them until yours are dry.”

“Thanks.” Donna takes the clothes and walks past him into the room he’s just left, which turns out to be his bedroom. He grins and pulls the door nearly closed behind her. She listens as his footsteps become a little fainter and then drops the clothes on the bed and starts to remove her sodden attire.

“Sorry, no straighteners or curling irons here,” he apologises. “If I’d known you were coming, I’d have told the Doctor to make one up for you. He’s good at technology.”

“No!” Donna drops her arms as a thought strikes her and she spins around to face the door. “No, you can’t tell him!”

“How come?” Billy’s voice sounds closer, and Donna instinctively covers herself before looking up to make sure he’s not peeping at her.

“I mean,” he goes on, his voice becoming a little more distant again, “it’s not as if I could anyway. He’s been gone for ages. Just left me with that message for Sally. But don’t you think he’d want to know?”

Donna allows herself a moment of relief at the news that the Doctor and Martha have already been rescued from their unwanted trip back into the past. She knows how badly the timelines would be messed if she had happened to meet them.

“It’s complicated,” Donna admits as she pulls on the shirt. It fits. Just. Well, almost. Well, not really, she admits to herself as she looks down to see the buttons straining across her chest. Still, it’ll do until her clothes are dry.

“As in ‘wibbly wobbly timey wimey’ sort of complicated?” Billy asks, drawing her attention away from her appearance.

“Yeah,” she agrees with a grin. “Exactly.”

“Right then.” There’s a whistling noise. “Tea?”

“Thanks, that’d be lovely.”

Donna sighs and glances at herself in the mirror. She’s not looking her best, but she knows it’s better than the alternative. She shudders at the thought of being back in Chiswick, her memory of the Doctor and everything she achieved with him gone.

Still, she isn’t going to be able to work out what clue to leave him if she sits here in Billy Shipton’s apartmnent. Shaking her head, she removes her sodden pants and puts on the pair her host has dug out for her. These fit rather more comfortably than the top did and Donna gathers her wet clothes and the damp towel before leaving the room.

“Give them over here,” Billy says, and Donna realises that he’s talking about her armful of damp things.

“Hmm, so you rescue damsels in distress and hang up the washing?” she teases as she willingly hands them over. “Very impressive!”

“And I make tea – and I’m engaged,” he replies with a laugh, adding, “Sorry.”

“Nah, don’t be. I’m not much of a marriage girl,” Donna says with a sigh as she sits down on the couch and picks up the steaming cup of tea on the table in front of her. “Had a bad experience that turned me off.”

She sees him looking at her curiously and adds by way of explanation, “Giant spider.”

His eyebrows dart up and he nods slowly. “Was the Doctor involved?” he guesses, and she chuckles.

“Is it that obvious?”

“Well, once you’ve been thrown back forty years and he’s there to greet you,” he admits as he pours out tea for both of them, “you start to expect him to be there when anything weird happens.”

Donna glances at the box with an old-style phone attached sitting on the table. She can certainly recognise her Doctor’s slapdash handiwork in its construction.

“He left it with you?” she asks curiously.

Billy nods. “He said that, if one of the Angels was sending people back to this time, it was only fair to have someone here who could explain to them what was going on. I thought I might as well, at least until technology was at the level for me to leave the message with Sally about her DVDs.”

Donna glances at him sympathetically. Her knowledge of the Doctor’s memories means she’s aware of some of his feelings for the life he left behind. Therefore, when he gets up and walks away from the couch, ostensibly to get milk, she knows better than to say anything.

“Anyway,” he says when he comes back empty-handed, having already brought the milk over with the other tea things, “since you’re the first person who’s come along in the four years I’ve been here, it hasn’t exactly been taxing.”

“You started a proper life here then?” Donna suggests as she sips her tea. “Got a job and all. Girlfriend – no, you said fiancé, didn’t you?”

“Yup.” He nods, sitting back in his chair. “Working as a cop again, too. I’m still a DI here, but it’s a bit different here of course. Still, some of my colleagues have been pretty understanding – Gene, particularly. And Sam. Luckily they don’t ask many questions.”

Donna smiles at him rather sympathetically, but stays quiet, sipping her tea. Billy stares at the carpet for several long minutes before finally shaking himself out of his reverie. Still, there’s a sadness in his eyes that makes Donna feel incredibly sorry for him.

“You miss it,” she offers softly, thinking back to her own time and how long it’s been since she’s seen it.

“Don’t you?” he challenges, clearly unhappy at displaying weakness.

“I guess,” she admits, “if I didn’t think I could get back to it, I would, yeah. My family and all.”

Billy nods, a half-smile on his face. “That, too,” he agrees. “For me though,” he goes on, drinking his own tea, “it’s actually the technology I miss most, I think. Two years ‘till Betamax. Four years until colour TV!”

Donna has to smile a little. “Look on the bright side,” she suggests. “At least you’ll know what will have value in the years to come. Think of the collections of rare objects you can put together! You’ll make a fortune.”

The man gives a faint chuckle, looking a little more cheerful. “Very true,” he agrees.

Grateful to have made him happier, Donna turns the conversation to Billy’s meeting with the Doctor and Martha, explaining the timey-wimey aspect of things as best she can even as she begins considering just what message she can leave for the Doctor so that he knows where to come and get her.

* * *
Donna trudges along the narrow laneway and finally comes around a corner to look up at a house standing tall and proud on the other side of the gate.

“Wester Drumlins,” she sighs to herself. “Just as long as the Angels weren’t here this long ago...”

When she pushes the gate, it swings open with only the faintest creak. Donna makes her way up the path, seeing that the garden is neat and well cared-for. Clearly the house hasn’t yet been abandoned. She has to wonder just how the Angels will infiltrate the house and whether it will already be empty then or if they will remove the occupants in their own special way.

Suppressing a shudder, she keeps her eyes open for any suspicious-looking statues as she makes her way down the path, but the only pieces she can see are faintly hideous wrought-iron chairs and tables. Relieved, she approaches the house and peers in the windows.

Perhaps because it’s the middle of the day during the week, she can’t see anyone around. Still, that avoids any awkward questions, but she has to hesitate when she gets to the front door.

It’s standing ajar – and swings open with only the faintest creak when she touches it.

She fishes in her pocket and pulls out a spare piece of paper and a handy pencil, writing down the exact date and time, just in case.

And although she knows she shouldn’t, she looks around the garden carefully just to make sure she can’t glimpse a blue box and her own bright red hair through the foliage. That would be irrefutable proof that it had worked, and right now she would love that reassurance.

Tension builds inside her as she steps into the dimly lit depths of Wester Drumlins and closes the front door behind her.

She can’t help thinking about Billy as she makes her way along the hallway to find the stairs leading into the cellar.

He’d planned to come with her, wanted to ask the Doctor if there was a way he could pop back to the modern era to pick up a few things and say goodbye to some people, but an emergency call came from work. He’d asked her to wait, but since she knew the Doctor wouldn’t agree, no matter how hard he begged, and she also knew how unhappy that decision would make Billy, she’d left him an apologetic note and taken advantage of his absence.

And maybe he’d guessed what she had in mind because his goodbye had been very affectionate.

Donna hopes he’ll be happy.

The cellar is lit by a single bulb, and Donna can’t help wondering whether it’s the same one she saw half a century in the future. Well, she knows it won’t be the exact same light, of course, but she doubts if they’ll bother to rewire the room.

Still, something that old, there’s no point in using it to leave the Doctor a message to come and get her. Instead she looks around the room – and almost lets out a triumphant squawk at the sight of paint tins in the corner. In the nick of time, she remembers that she’s not meant to be here and stifles the sound with her hands over her mouth.

Donna digs around in the pocket of her jacket and pulls out a thick, black pen she borrowed from Billy. Crossing to the wall, she picks up a wire brush lying on top of the tins and scrubs the last flecks of dried paint flakes. Then, removing the cap, she holds it to the wall and hesitates.

At this moment, she wishes she’d moved closer to the wall with its flaking paint that she’d noticed while she was wrapping wire around one of the Angels. If she had, despite the paradox it might have caused, she would at least have known what to write to bring the Doctor to her here.

Sighing, she collects her thoughts and is about to write a detailed message when she changes her mind and simply puts “Right here, right now” and the numbers he needs to enter into the TARDIS. To prevent anyone else understanding it, she makes use of her knowledge of Gallifreyan, obtained during the meta-crisis.

“All right, Spaceman,” she sighs as she steps away from her message and picks up the brush to cover it with paint. “Come and get me.”

Once she’s finished, Donna finds herself a seat on a large pile of old sacks, having first spread out her brown leather jacket on them to keep away any dirt or creepy-crawlies. It’s one of the darker corners of the room, she realises only once she’s comfortable. Still, if everything works out, she shouldn’t be here for long. She rests her head back against the wall behind her and waits.

Next Part