The road less travelled...

Title: Planet of the Dead and the Living 1/7
Author: katherine_b
Characters/Pairing: The Doctor (Ten), Donna, Lady Christina de Souza
Rating: G
Spoilers: Everything in Planet of the Dead and some things for NuWho S4.
A/N: Following on from my surprisingly popular The Next Doctor and Donna, I present my reworking of Planet of the Dead as if Donna was still travelling with the Doctor. You may need to reread that in order to remember how Donna and the Doctor saved her memories and what skills she has retained from her time as the DoctorDonna.

Please note that I am not including Christina’s adventures at the beginning of the episode before she meets the Doctor, so it really helps if you know what she was doing! Also there will be other bits from the episode (not just scenes including UNIT personnel and police at the tunnel) that may be missing or replaced. If you feel lost, please take a look at the transcript for Planet of the Dead.

Part I

It was late and dark in a small street in London.

It should have been quiet.

Unfortunately two people arguing loudly at a bus stop meant that it was anything but.

“Hey, it’s not my fault!”

“Hah! At least when I drive, we get where we’re supposed to be going!”

“Donna, you’ve driven once.” The Doctor sits sulkily on the bench and folds his arms over his chest. “Well, okay, twice.”

“Poosh,” she snaps. “Three times.”

“Ooh, I’d forgotten Poosh.” He grins, his sulks instantly forgotten. “That really was gorgeous, wasn’t it? And they loved you there! Well, they should really, considering you saved them from the Daleks.”

Donna sits down next to him, nudging him grumpily with her shoulder. “Maybe we should go back there, seeing as you loved it so much. Oh, I forgot. We can’t, can we, because we haven’t got the TARDIS!”

“Oi!” He glares at her. “This is not my fault!”

“Oh, really?” She shoots a sceptical glance at him. “Then whose fault is it?”

“The TARDIS did what she was meant to do – found the nearest source of gravity and headed for it. You should be grateful it was the Earth!”

“Yeah, it just means we’ve got to traipse around London looking for her.” Donna rolls her eyes. “I hate to tell you this, Doctor, but when I agreed to come with you…”

“You mean, when you tricked me into asking you.” He prods her with his elbow, grinning again. “I remember!”

“When I finally agreed,” she repeats slowly, as if to an idiot, “it wasn’t meant to be shuttling around London on the Tube. It was meant to be seeing the stars!”

“You can!” He waves a hand towards the sky, grinning widely. “There they are – billions of them!”

“You are just asking for a slap, aren’t you?”

He leans back, grinning smugly. “I thought it was rather funny actually.”

“You would.” She leaps to her feet, turns and glares at him, arms akimbo. “Look, it’s late, I’m tired and I just want to go to bed. It’s all right for you, Mr ‘I don’t need sleep’, but some of us do!”

The Doctor stands up and crosses the few feet to stop in front of her, placing his hands on her shoulders. “I’m sorry,” he tells her gently. “I know the past few days have been hard for you. Tell you what, we’ll get the next bus that comes, and if we don’t end up finding the TARDIS, then we’ll go to a hotel. Yes?”

“We could go to Chiswick,” she suggests, her eyes twinkling with a wicked light. “I can get a bed there and you wouldn’t have to pay for a room.”

He steps back, horror in his eyes. “We are not going to visit your mother!”

“Why not?” She arched an eyebrow as she glances at her watch. “Gramps would be up the hill now. Maybe we could use his telescope to find the TARDIS.”

“Donna, I know where the TARDIS is!” he tells her with an impatient glare.

“Oh, really?” She looks around. “Where then?”

He waves a hand in the general direction of behind them. “Somewhere – here. Around. Probably.”

“Hah!” She rolls her eyes. “Admit it, mate, you’ve got no idea. None at all. And,” she adds with a smirk, “you don’t know where the TARDIS is either.”

“Oi!”

She chuckles tiredly and then leans against him. “All right,” she agrees. “But this is your last shot, Time Boy.”

“Good.”

“And I’m driving when we do find her.”

“Hey!”

“Oh, come on!” She straightens up and prods him in the chest. “We haven’t got all night.”

“Fine.” He points at a place up the road where a red double-decker bus is pulling up to the kerb. “There. That one.”

“Then why are we standing here?” Donna asks, waving her hand at the bus stop next to them.

“Didn’t want you to get wet while we waited.” He takes her hand. “Avanti!”

“Bloody smart-alec,” she mutters, letting herself get dragged along. “And why,” she asks plaintively, a moment later, “do we seem to be going in the same direction as all those police cars?”

“Just lucky.” The Doctor shrugs. “Still, might be worth finding out what’s happening.”

“Oh, no you don’t!” Donna stops dead, pulling the Doctor to an abrupt halt. “We are finding the TARDIS, mate, not getting involved in some alien invasion!”

“It doesn’t have to be an alien invasion,” he protests, tugging her hand to get her to move. “Could just be – I don’t know – bank robbery?”

“Then we’re definitely not getting involved!” She moves alongside him and keeps pace with his strides towards the bus. “Just this once, let’s do what we came here for.”

“Where’s the fun in that?” he demands. “You should always dive feet-first into the unknown!”

“And that little philosophy of yours probably explains why your Converse look as if they could do with a good clean,” she says with a chuckle.

“I can’t believe you put my red ones through a washing cycle,” he complains for the twenty-fifth time.

“They stank!”

“They’ll shrink!”

“Nah!” She fishes in her pocket, watching as he does the same. “They’ll be fine.”

“They’d better be,” he warns her, before grinning at the bus driver as they step on board.

“Just in time, mate,” the driver tells him.

“Thanks,” he replies, swiping the leather folder across the oyster card scanner and watching as Donna does the same with the psychic paper the TARDIS created for her after that rather unfortunate misadventure on Laxtan.

He waits for her to sit down in the row behind a woman with long, black hair and then takes the seat beside her. Fishing in his pocket, he pulls out the remains of the chocolate egg Donna gave him earlier and offers it to her.

“Peace offering?”

“You daft git,” she retorts, but takes some nevertheless.

The Doctor leans forward over the seat and grins at the stranger in front of them.

“Hello,” he beams. “I’m the Doctor. This is Donna.” He offers her the gold-foil-wrapped egg. “Happy Easter!”

He fishes a particularly large piece out of the broken egg and eats with a happy sigh.

“Really,” he tells Donna, “wonderful invention, Easter. No other place in the universe has a holiday specifically devoted to chocolate.”

“Are you going to babble for the whole trip?” she demands, resting her head against the window and closing her eyes. “Just let me know when we're there, okay?”

“Funny thing is,” he says, not paying attention to this as he eats another piece of chocolate, “I don't usually do Easter. I can never find it. Always at a different time. Not like Christmas. Although,” he leans forward to the woman in front of him, as Donna clearly isn't about to provide him with an eager audience, “I remember the original,” he tells her with a secretive grin. “Between you and me, what really happened was...”

A sudden beep and vibration from the pocket of his coat cuts him off.

“Oh! Sorry,” he thrusts the egg at the dark-haired woman, “want to hold that for me? Actually,” he says as she takes it, “go on, have it, finish it. It's full of sugar and I'm determined to keep these teeth.”

“Remind me of that next time I give you a present, will you?” Donna demands, her eyes still closed. “And can you turn that bloody thing off? Some of us are trying to sleep here.”

“Ah,” the Doctor says as he finally manages to wriggle the rhondium particle detector out of his pocket. “Ooh,” he exclaims, nudging Donna, who opens an eye to glare at him. “We've got excitation,” he says in delight.

“You might have,” she snaps. “All I want is sleep.”

“But – no Donna, pay attention. I'm picking up something strange – very strange!”

“I know the feeling,” the woman in front mutters, and Donna splutters, but the Doctor merely shoots her a confused look.

“Rhondium particles,” he tells the brown-haired woman in satisfaction. “That's what I'm looking for. This thing detects them.” He flicks the unmoving object with his fingers. “Look, this should go round – the little dish there.”

“Then sonic it or something and shut it up,” Donna says.

“Right now, a way out would come in pretty handy,” says the other woman. “Can you detect me one of those?”

The Doctor pays no attention to the conversation between the couple across the aisle as, much to his delight, the device has finally begun to work.

“Ah, the little dish is going round now. Look, Donna!”

“Fascinating,” the other woman says drily, but the Doctor is more concerned at the speed of the device.

“And round,” he goes on anxiously, before jumping as the detector lets off a shower of sparks and smoke. “Ooh!”

“Excuse me, do you mind?” demands the blonde woman in the front row of seats, brushing her hand down her hair, against which several sparks have fallen.

“Sorry,” he says idly, not even listening to his own apology. “That was my little dish.”

“You've really got to come up with a more technical name for it,” Donna tells him, apparently giving up on sleep. “I mean, really, 'little dish'. Not at all high-tech, and that's not at all like you.”

“Yeah, thanks, Donna.” He gets up and begins walking towards the front of the bus, holding the detector out in front of him. The beeping increases in volume and pitch.

“Can't you turn that thing off?” the brunette woman demands impatiently.

The Doctor barely notices this complaint as he realises what the detector is telling him. He spins around and catches the dark-haired woman's eyes.

“What's your name?” he demands.

“Christina,” she tells him with a long-suffering sigh.

“Right.” He falls into the seat beside her, dropping the detector back into his pocket as he reaches out to grab the back of the seat across the other side of the bus. “Christina,” he warns, “hold on tight. Everyone,” he raises his voice, “hold on!”

Even as the words leave his mouth, he's thrown forward down the aisle. The air is filled with screams and yells as well as sparks and the smell of burning as sparks fly around the interior of the bus.

“The voices,” a woman suddenly exclaims in terror. “The voices! They're screaming!”

Windows smash as the Doctor finds himself thrown into the empty row in front of Christina. He looks up in time to see a figure tumble down the stairs from the upper level of the bus.

“What's going on?” the young man who appeared so suddenly demands.

Before anyone can answer, the interior of the bus is filled with an unnatural white light and the Doctor finds himself flung to the floor as the entire vehicle appears to be flung in a massive arc. Fresh screams fill the air...

And then there's silence.

The Doctor staggers to his feet, squinting into the bright light streaming in through the windows and staring out in confusion at the sight of yellow ground and blue sky out the front of the bus window.

He manages to open the door and steps out on to what he now sees is sand.

“End of the line,” he says as he steps down onto the soft, yielding ground. “Call it a hunch,” he remarks as he walks out along the side of the bus and looks up at Donna, who is peering at him through the space where a window had been, “but I think we've gone a little further than Brixton.”

* * *
“Another one of your brilliant observations, Sherlock,” Donna retorts as she clambers out of her seat and follows the others off the bus. “Got any actual helpful suggestions?” she calls.

She steps onto the ground and is surprised to find that she hasn't sunk into the sand. Then she remembers that she chose trainers over boots when she got dressed so many hours earlier and is momentarily grateful.

“So where are we?” she demands, following the Doctor several metres away from the other passengers. “Come on, galactic co-ordinates or something. At least a name!”

“No idea,” he admits with visible reluctance. “Lots of sand though.”

“Geez, you're on the ball today, aren't you?” she snaps, before turning to the other passengers.

“That's impossible,” the blonde woman is exclaiming as she looks around. “There are three suns! Three of 'em!”

And at that moment, Donna realises how quickly she's become accustomed to her life with the Doctor, because she hadn't noticed that undeniable fact about this place until someone else pointed it out.

“Like with all the planets up in the sky,” says the young man in the red t-shirt, and Donna feels the Doctor nudge her, seeing his eyebrows bob up and down as she smirks at him in return.

“But it was the Earth that moved back then, wasn't it?” the other young man who had been on the upper level of the bus retorts.

“Yes, it was,” Donna is beginning, but the boy in the red top speaks first.

“Oh man,” he says slowly. “We're on another world.”

The Doctor is grinning now, she realises as she looks up at him again, with that silly look he gets when the humans around him are awestruck by things.

“Oi,” she mutters as she elbows him. “It's not like you made this yourself, mate. No need to look so smug about it!”

“Oh, but I love this bit,” he replies. “The whole 'ooh, where are we and how did we get here?' palaver.”

“Yeah, I know, it's the only reason you drag us lot along,” she says drily. “Not much use to you otherwise, are we? In a minute, they'll notice that the bus is stuck and then it won't be nearly so much fun when everyone panics!”

And that's exactly what happens. The Doctor drifts away and is examining the sand as the bus driver finally states the blindingly self-evident.

“The wheels are stuck firm. They're never gonna budge.”

“Thank you, captain obvious,” Donna mutters, heading over to where the Doctor is talking to the brunette.

“Ready for any emergency,” that woman proclaims, fishing out a pair of sunglasses, and Donna hunts through the pockets of her coat – bigger on the inside – until she finds her own tinted glasses. It's a relief when she slides them on.

Meanwhile the Doctor removes his glasses and points the sonic screwdriver at them. The lenses immediately darken and he puts them on.

“And me,” he says to the other woman with a smirk.

“And what's your name?” she demands, apparently not fazed by his actions.

“I'm the Doctor,” he tells her, and Donna waits for the usual response. She isn't disappointed, although she's somewhat surprised by the form it takes.

“Name, not rank,” comes the retort.

“The Doctor.”

“Surname,” the other woman says, trying a different tack.

“The Doctor,” that man says carelessly as he examines the sand, rubbing it between his fingers.

“You're called the Doctor?”

“Yes,” he agrees, obviously pleased that she's got it at last. “I am.”

“That's not a name,” she complains. “That's a psychological condition.”

Donna chuckles at this, but the Doctor clearly hasn't heard. When he speaks, it's about the sand.

“Funny sort of sand, this. There's a trace of something else.” And then he dabs several particles onto his tongue before pulling a face. “Bleagh, bleagh, bleagh, bleagh, bleagh. Blah. Not good.”

“Well, it wouldn't be,” the other woman tells him almost mockingly. “It's sand.”

“No,” he says slowly, and Donna can detect the concern in his voice. “It tastes like...” And then he catches Donna's eye and stops himself, sighing as he pushes himself to his feet. “Never mind.”

But clearly the other woman has picked up on his concerns. “What is it?” she demands. “What's wrong?”

And when he remains silent, Donna steps over to him. “Doctor?” she prompts. “Tell us. What is it?”

Next Part