The road less travelled...

Title: Planet of the Dead and the Living 4/7
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.

Part IV

Donna watches the Doctor and Christina once more head up the dune. She still can't explain what's keeping her at the bus, only that she somehow feels she should stay here.

And then Carmen's voice speaks.

“So fast!” she says urgently. “And strong! They ride the storm. They are the storm!”

“How did you know about the storm?” Donna demands, before realising what a stupid question it is.

“But what are they?” Lou asks at the same moment

“They devour!” Carmen tells him.

“Is the Doctor in danger?” Donna demands at once, moving down the bus to sit in front of Carmen.

“We are all in danger,” comes the unsettling reply.

Donna looks around to discover that Angela has heard, and she can see the fear in the blonde woman's eyes.

“Why don't you, uh, keep trying to get the bus moving?” she tells the other woman. “The Doctor should be back soon.”

As Angela moves down the bus, Donna turns back to Carmen, only to find herself being scrutinised.

“You know things about him – the Doctor,” Carmen states.

“Well, yes,” she has to admit. “But – it's complicated.”

“You have shared minds,” she says calmly. “Where there is now one, there was once three.”

“Oh, very good,” Donna can't help remarking without a trace of sarcasm. “That really is impressive. Now you're starting to freak me out.”

“I speak truth,” says Carmen proudly.

“Well, yeah, but there's truth and then there's truth,” Donna protests.

“And there are two of you,” the psychic woman goes on. “One mind in two bodies.”

“You're a little out on that one,” Donna tells her. “It was once like that, but not anymore.”

“You miss it – that knowing.”

“Yeah, but I don't miss being dead.” Donna flings her hair back over her shoulders as she speaks flippantly. “Listen, since you know so much about me, how do I know the name Erisa Magambo? 'Cos it's driving me mad. I think I even know what she looks like, but I can't remember.”

“Parts of your life are not real,” Carmen says.

“Yeah, definitely not from there,” Donna retorts. “I remember the Library well enough and she wasn't from that world.”

“There was another world.” Carmen sits back in the seat, her expression anxious. “You were afraid there. But the events of that world are lost in shadow, almost as if they never were.”

“I told you...” Donna is beginning, when she remembers something.

Great big parallel world!

“That world!” She sinks her face into her hands. “I'd forgotten.”

“You didn't want to remember,” Carmen says gently, placing a hand on Donna's shoulder. “You wished to forget that death.”

“Yeah,” she admits, letting out a shaky sigh. “God, yeah.”

* * *
The Doctor watches as one of the Tritovores presses a button on the switch of their chest and attempts to look pleased as they explain what they're doing. If ever he didn't want to be scanned by a telepathic device, it's now.

“All right, good, yes. Hello,” he says as soon as he knows they're working. “That's their telepathic translator,” he tells the confused Christina, wishing not for the first time that he had the TARDIS, as it's much easier for the ship to provide translations than it is for him. “He can understand us,” he adds.

One of the Tritovores begins to talk about why they've been brought here, but the Doctor stops him with a thought at the look on Christina's face.

“Still sounds like gibberish to me,” she complains.

He nods at the Tritovores as they speak again. “That's what I said, he can understand us. Doesn't work the other way round! Now - 'You will suffer for your crimes. Et cetera. You have committed an act of violence against the Tritovore race.' Tritovores, they're called! Tritovores.”

She nods.

“You came here in the 200 to destroy us,” he goes on, before stopping. “Sorry, wh- what’s the 200?”

“It's the bus,” Christina tells him. “Number 200. They mean the bus.”

“Oh!” He suddenly understands what the Tritovores mean. “No, no, I think you're making the same mistake Christina did,” he protests. “I'm the Doctor, by the way, and this is Christina. The Honourable Lady Christina. At least,” he adds, remembering his own growing uncertainty about the woman beside him, “I hope she's honourable. Anyway,” he hurries on, “we got pulled through that wormhole. The 200 doesn't look like that normally. It's broken, just the same as you.”

There's a prolonged conversation between the Tritovores until he's relieved to see them lowering their weapons.

“What are they doing?” Christina demands suspiciously.

“They believe me,” he replies, sliding his hands into the pockets of his pants.

“What, simple as that?” she asks in clearly surprised tones.

“I've got a very honest face.”

He knows by looking at her that she doesn't buy that and finishes the explanation.

“And the translator says I'm telling the truth!” He sees her smirk and is quick to add, “Plus the face! Right!”

Leaving a speechless Christina behind, he vaults over several damaged pieces of the console and stops in front of the main energy cell.

“So, first thing's first. There's a very strange storm heading our way. Can you send out a probe?”

The answer disappoints him and he reluctantly translates it for Christina.

“Ooh, they've lost power. The crash knocked the mainline crystal grid out of sync. But,” he adds thoughtfully, “if we could get it back...”

The knob he's fighting with doesn't give, but he's learned a couple of tricks thanks to his cantankerous old ship and gives the machinery a swift kick. The device flares into life and he sees Christina grin out of the corner of his eye. He's also happy to take the Tritovores compliments.

“Why, thank you!” he says. “Yes I am! Frequently!” He can't help thinking how Donna would roll her eyes if she could hear him now and turns back to the task at hand. “Okey-doke! Let's launch that probe!”

Several minutes later, the probe is heading for the glittering storm, and the Doctor and Christina are sitting in front of the screen on the ship looking at the brilliant colours of the galaxy that is the home of their current location.

“The Scorpion Nebula,” he tells her. “We're on the other side of the Universe. Just what you wanted,” he adds with a grin, turning to Christina. “So far away. The planet of San Helios,” he adds as the star systems zoom in to show the planet itself.

“And that's us,” she says in awe. “We're on another world!”

He affects a careless tone. “We have been for quite a while!”

“I know,” she says. “But seeing it like that...”

“I know,” he agrees with a big grin. He never gets sick of this moment. “It's good, isn't it?”

“Wonderful!” she says breathlessly.

The Doctor listens as their hosts explain the reason for being here.

“The Tritovores were going to trade with San Helios,” he tells Christina. “Population of 100 billion. Plenty of waste matter for them to absorb.”

She pulls a face. “By waste matter, you mean...”

His next words are awkward. “They feed off what others leave behind from their – behind – if you see what I mean. Perfectly natural,” he goes on hurriedly. “They are flies!”

“Charming,” she says distastefully. “ Just remind me never to kiss them.”

The images on the screen change to show a bustling city with tall buildings and straight roads.

“San Helios city,” the Doctor tells her, having received this information from the Tritovores.

“That's amazing,” she breathes. “But - you've seen this sort of thing before, haven't you?”

“Thousands of times,” he admits carelessly.

He hears the suspicion in her voice and isn't overly surprised by her next question. “That lordship of yours. Lord of where exactly?”

“Of time,” he says evenly. “I come from a race of people called Time Lords.”

“You're an alien?” she asks in obvious surprise.

Strange, he would have expected her to be quicker on the uptake. For once, he really hadn't been trying to conceal it. Perhaps, after Midnight, he realised the value of being different, particularly in situations like this.

“Yeah,” he says, his eyes busy examining the images of San Helios. “But you don't have to kiss me either.”

She looks him up and down. “You look human.”

“You look Time Lord,” he tells her abruptly. “Anyway...”

She gets the hint and turns back to the screen. “So, if that's San Helios, all we need to do is find that city,” she suggests. “They can help us.”

The Doctor glances at the Tritovores, worried by something he's picking up from them. They oblige and change the view on the screen to reflect the images of the outside world as they know it.

“We're in the city right now,” he tells Christina.

“But it's sand!” she exclaims.

He's got to give her points for noticing.

“That first image,” she goes on. “The temples and things, what's that then? Ancient history?”

He looks over as the commander of the Tritovore ship speaks and is appalled by what he's hearing.

“The image was taken last year,” he admits reluctantly.

Christina's horror echoes his own. “It became a desert in one year?”

He picks up a handful of sand from the floor of the ship and lets it run through his fingers. He'd known there was always something wrong with this place, the taste of the sand and his own instincts told him that, but he never imagined anything like this!

“I said there was something in the sand,” he reminds her. “The city, the oceans, the mountains, the wildlife and a hundred billion people turned to sand. All those voices in Carmen's head,” he adds in a moment of realisation. “She's hearing them die!”

Ignoring Christina's exclamations of disgust – although he can't help thinking that Donna would share his anxieties rather than react in such a self-obsessed manner – he stares at the screen.

“Something destroyed the whole of San Helios.”

He starts at the sound of the phone ringing and answers it as quickly as he can.

“Malcolm, tell me the bad news.”

“Oh, you are clever,” Malcolm exclaims, and the Doctor can't tell if he's being sarcastic or serious. “It is bad news! It's the wormhole, Doctor, it's getting bigger! We've gone way past 100 bernards. I haven't invented a name for that!”

“How can it get bigger by itself?” the Doctor demands.

“Well, that's why I'm phoning,” Malcolm says almost piteously. “You'll work it out if I know you, sir.”

“Doctor,” it's the Captain's voice he hears now, “we estimate the circumference of your invisible wormhole is now four miles heading upward. I've grounded all flights above London. We can't risk anyone else falling through. “

“Ah,” he says briskly, despite being shocked by the size of it. “Good work, both of you.”

“But I have to know,” Erisa says. “Does that wormhole constitute a danger to this planet?”

A beeping in his ear distracts him as he's trying to come up with a clever lie to keep her calm.

“Ooh, sorry, call waiting,” he tells them in relief. “Gotta go!”

He presses the button to answer the other call.

“Yep?”

“Doctor, it's Nathan,” that man's voice tells him.

* * *
“It's all my fault,” Angela says tearfully as Nathan tries to explain to the Doctor what's going on.

“No, it's not,” Nathan tells her, as Barclay gives her arm a comforting rub. “Don't say that.”

“Why, what's happened?” comes the Doctor's anxious voice over the phone.

Nathan gets up from his seat and walks towards the front of the bus. Donna sits up against the far back seat and watches the distraught look on the young man's face as he speaks.

“We kept on turning the engine, but... we're out of petrol. Used all up. Even if we can get those wheels out, this bus – is never gonna move.”

There's silence on the other end, and Donna can feel the echo of a yawning sense of desperation that she knows is coming from the Doctor. She can't help wondering what else he's uncovered about their location, but she knows it can't be good.

“You promised you'd get us home,” Nathan says into the phone as Angela sobs. “Doctor,” he pleads urgently, “are you still there?”

There's a sudden alarm that comes through the phone and makes them all jump. In the urgency of the moment, Nathan's finger slips and he accidentally disconnects the call.

“No!” he says desperately, but Donna leaps to her feet before he can hit the redial button.

“Leave him,” she orders. “Nathan, don't call him. That alarm – something's happening. A thing,” she adds with growing certainty, “that will help us get out of here.”

“You don't know that,” Angela whimpers.

Donna moves down the aisle and bends down in front of the terrified woman.

“Angela,” she says softly, unconsciously echoing the Doctor, “look at me.”

There's silence on the bus and she knows that not just Angela but everyone is looking at her, hanging on every word.

“I've been with the Doctor when it seems like there's no escape,” she says slowly and clearly. “I've faced more enemies than you could image – fire gods and Sontarans and giant wasps and invisible flesh-eating particles and Daleks and more people with guns than I ever want to see again. And the Doctor has always managed to save me and everyone else.”

“But how can he this time?” Nathan asks desperately. “We can't go anywhere.”

“He will,” she says firmly. “He always finds a way.”

“He's not here though, is he?” Barclay argues, his fear showing itself in anger. “He's off somewhere else and we could die while he's there.”

“He won't let that happen.” She straightens up and meets the young man's gaze. “He never does.”

“You know him so closely,” Carmen says soothingly. “You know his thoughts.”

“I know his feelings,” she admits. “Sometimes anyway. There’s a difference.”

“How?” Lou demands.

“Long story. Ask me another time.” She closes her eyes and focuses. “And right now,” she says slowly, “he's happy. That might mean he's worked out a solution.”

And although she knows he hasn't, that his happiness is not tinged with relief but with a rush of adrenalin, she's not about to admit that and destroy their fragile hopes. She can hear a faint whooshing sound in her ears, but as she opens her eyes again, she realises that it's not coming from the Doctor.

Everyone is looking out of the window.

“Sounds like a storm,” Nathan says slowly.

“If it rains, we've got water,” Angela says almost desperately.

“No water,” Carmen says in tones that allow for no argument, although Donna wants to shake her for destroying the confidence she's been working so hard to build.

“All of it,” the psychic woman goes on, “dust! But the girl...” she adds.

“Don't ask, sweetheart,” Lou objects, a look of hopelessness settling onto his face. “What girl?”

“The girl,” Carmel repeats. “She will fly!”

Donna turns to the front of the bus and peers in the direction that the Doctor and Christina took. She can't help a wry smile.

You're gonna swing!

“Fly or swing?” Donna murmurs to herself with a chuckle. “Hope she doesn't crash into a wall.”

She takes one final look around the bus and then heads for the door.

“Where are you going?” Barclay demands at once.

“Out there.” She waves a hand to the desert surrounding them. “Just – stay here, all of you. I'm going to find the Doctor.”

And nobody even bothers to argue as she steps outside into the hot sun and begins to walk in the footsteps that the Doctor left behind.

Next Part