The road less travelled...

Title: Donna and the Waters of Mars 5/8
Author: katherine_b
Rating: PG
Summary: How would having Donna on Mars have changed things?

Part V

They follow Adelaide into the infirmary to find Maggie in the same state as Andy and Tarak.

“Has that door got a Hardinger seal?” Adelaide demands.

It’s Ed who answers. “No, just basic.”

“Well, the moment she heads for the door,” Adelaide orders, “we evacuate, got that?”

There is a general silence that denotes acceptance and then, as the Doctor steps towards the glassed-in room, with Donna behind him, Ed turns to examine details on a nearby computer. “Pulse is low. Electrical activity in the brain seems to be going haywire.”

“Can she talk?” Adelaide demands with a glance at the nurse.

“I don’t know,” Yuri responds. “She was talking before we noted the change, but…”

“Maggie, can you hear me?” The Captain steps closer to the glass. “Do you know who I am? Your commanding officer, Captain Adelaide Brooke. Can you tell me what happened?”

The Doctor feels a faint thrill run through him as Maggie’s head turns towards in his direction and their eyes meet. He can tell that this conversion from human into something else is unable to understand English, or is at least unable rather than unwilling to reply in that language, and considering where they are, he has to wonder if other options might be more effective.

Maggie, is it? he asks, watching as her eyes widen at the sound of his voice and a light that he suspects is comprehension glows in their dark depths. Can you talk to me, Maggie? I’m the Doctor. I can help you.

“What language is that?” Ed demands sharply.

“Ancient North Martian,” he replies, never breaking eye contact with the infected woman.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Adelaide scoffs.

“It’s like she recognised it,” Ed suggests.

“Her eyes are different,” the Doctor points out, paying little attention to this byplay. “They’re clear, like she’s closer to human.”

“Not close enough for me,” Ed retorts, so softly that only the Doctor and perhaps Donna would have been able to make out the words.

The Time Lord turns to Adelaide, when it becomes clear Maggie isn’t about to speak. “Where d’you get your water from?”

“The ice field,” Adelaide tells him. “That’s why we chose the crater – we’re on top of an underground glacier.”

He nods, his mind working at its usual million miles a minute, putting the pieces together. “Tons of water. Marvellous.”

“Every single drop is filtered,” Yuri points out. “It’s clean, it’s safe.”

Donna’s voice is mocking as, out of the corner of his eye, the Doctor sees her nod at Maggie. “Looks like it, yeah.”

Ed continues to ponder aloud. “If something was frozen down there. A viral life form, held in the ice for all those years.”

“Look at her mouth,” the Doctor suggests, nodding at the woman on the other side of the glass. “It’s all blackened, like some sort of fission. This thing, whatever it is, doesn’t just hide in water, it creates water.” He looks back at Maggie to find her still staring at him. “Tell me what you want.”

“She was looking at the screen,” Yuri tells him. “At Earth. She wanted Earth. A world full of water.”

Suddenly Ed steps back, the abrupt movement drawing the Doctor’s attention.

“Captain, with me.”

The Doctor exchanges glances with Yuri and then Donna before stepping closer to the computer terminal so that he can attempt to pick up the conversation over the constant trickle of water running off Maggie’s body.

“I’m sorry,” Ed says coldly as Adelaide joins him, “but it’s an unknown infection and it’s spreading. That demands an action procedure one.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Adelaide demands almost incredulously.

“I think you need reminding,” comes the icy reply.

For a moment, Adelaide stares into nothing before she replies with a tired nod and a weary, “Yeah.”

Ed’s head lifts slightly at this clearly unexpected response. “At least I’m good for something.”

“Now and then,” Adelaide retorts.

“That’s almost a compliment,” Ed jokes, a tiny smile on his face. “Things must be serious.”

They exchange proper smiles and the Doctor feels the tension inside him grow as he steps towards them.

“Sorry, sorry,” he begins brusquely. “Action one, that means evacuation.”

Adelaide nods firmly. “We’re going home.”

The Doctor steps back, horror filling him, fighting within himself because he knows that evacuation is impossible in order for events here to take their required course, even as Adelaide lifts the comm. and begins to speak.

“This is Captain Brooke. I am declaring action one. Repeat, all crew members this is action one with immediate effect.”

A klaxon sounds through the building and the Doctor feels Donna’s hand come to rest on his arm.

“Evacuate the base,” Adelaide orders.

The Doctor backs out of the way, up against the wall of the glass chamber, Donna beside him. She speaks softly into his ear.

“Doctor, they can’t!” she reminds him. “Everything that happens here – so much depends on it.”

“You think I don’t know that?” he replies, seeing the same tension in her eyes that he imagines are probably in his own. “But you’re cursing these people to die…”

She swallows hard, her fingers giving his hand a convulsive grasp, and her gaze drops to the floor.

“Can you do that?” he prods, needing to know whether Donna is going to argue with him later at some critical moment, memories of Pompeii front and centre in his mind.

“Can you?” she challenges, meeting his gaze again.

“We have to.”

“But we’re still here,” she reminds him.

“I know.”

“Ed, fire up the shuttle,” Adelaide orders at this moment. “Go straight to ignition status.”

“Doing it now,” the man acknowledges, leaving the room at a run.

“What about Maggie?” Yuri demands.

“She stays behind,” Adelaide tells him. “We’ve got no way to contain her on board. Close this place down. I want the power directed to the shuttle.”

As the Captain moves in their direction, the Doctor drops Donna’s hand and crosses the floor in a few strides.

“Of course,” he begins, “the only problem is…”

“Thank you, Doctor,” comes the abrupt reply. “Your space suit will be returned and good luck to you.”

“The problem is,” he continues firmly, ignoring her interruption, “this thing is clever. It didn’t infect the birds or the insects in the bio-dome. It chose the humans. You were chosen. And I told you, Adelaide, water can wait. Tarak changed straight away, but when Maggie was infected, it stayed hidden inside her. No doubt so it could infiltrate the central dome.” He pauses for an instant. “Which means…”

Her eyes widen. “Any one of us could already be infected.” For a moment she stares at him before realisation hits. “We’ve all been drinking the same water.”

“And if you take that back to Earth…” he warns. “One drop. Just one drop.”

“But…” he can feel Adelaide beginning the same fight he and Donna are having within themselves, her lack of awareness of the future more than made up for by her desperate desire to survive, “we’re only presuming infection. If we can find out how this thing got through – when it got through…”

She suddenly steps away from him. “Yuri, continue with action one. I’m going to inspect the ice field.”

“Right,” the Doctor says briskly, turning to Donna, who moves to join him, “we should leave.”

“Yes,” she agrees, but makes no more movement towards the door than he is doing.

“Finally,” he says after a pause, “we should leave.”

“No point in us seeing the ice field,” she says, as if reading his thoughts, which he knows she probably is.

“No point at all,” he agrees.

“No,” she echoes.

They stare at each other, knowing that they are both struggling under the same burden, unable to say or do anything to release that tension. The Doctor tries to begin half-a-dozen sentences that will make them return to the TARDIS, tries to persuade himself that, if he grabbed Donna’s hand now and ran, they would get away.

And he knows they would.

But he can’t bring himself to do it.

And somehow there’s a huge release of tension as they turn, almost as one person, the same word breaking from them both as they run from the room.

“Adelaide!”

They run together along the hallway, finally catching up to Adelaide, who is running towards another of the domed building.

“All I’m saying is,” the Doctor says breathlessly as they catch up to her, “bikes! Little fold-away bikes. Don’t weigh a thing.”

“Or get Roman to build you a couple of segways,” Donna suggests. “That’d work.”

The Doctor meets Donna’s eye with a grin as they run beside Adelaide, remembering another tunnel on another world what seems like another lifetime ago.

“Here,” Adelaide says briskly, apparently ignoring their conversation as they step into another airlock and, a moment later, beyond that into what is clearly a maintenance area.

They come to a stop in front of a barrier, with a sheet of ice spread out in front of them that reminds the Doctor unavoidably of his previous visits to this place.

“They tell you legends of Mars from long ago,” he says softly. “The fine and noble race that built an empire out of snow. The ice warriors.”

Adelaide turns away sharply. “I haven’t got time for stories.”

“Perhaps they found something down there,” he suggests to Donna, who remains at his side. “They used their might and their wisdom…”

“…to freeze it?” she suggests. “And now it’s escaping.”

“Doctor,” Adelaide calls from the other side of the room, “we need to find any sort of change in the water process. We’ve got to date the infection.”

They join her at the computer and the Doctor begins trying to access the database.

“Access denied,” the computer tells him.

Undaunted, he continues, only realising a moment later that Adelaide is studying him.

“You don’t look like a coward,” she says softly as she returns to her work. “Either of you. But all you wanted to do is leave.” She shoots him another glance. “You know so much about us.”

“Well,” he says lightly, “you’re famous.”

“It’s like you know more…” she replies.

The Doctor glances at Donna for a moment, waiting for her to jump in, but when she remains silent, he knows she’s also struggling with what to say, how much to tell. He would love to tell Adelaide everything, but he knows he can’t in case it changes too much.

In the end, though, he compromises.

“This moment,” he begins, trying to maintain the pretence that he’s ordinary, without the knowledge of time and space that is so far beyond ordinary humans, “this precise moment in time, it’s like – I mean, it’s only a theory, what do I know, but, I think certain moments in time are fixed.” He pauses for a moment. “Tiny, precious moments. Anything else is in flux. Anything can happen. But those certain moments, they have to stand.”

There’s a moment of silence before he glances at the Captain.

“This base on Mars, with you, Adelaide Brooke – this is one vital moment. What happens here must always happen.”

“Which is what?” she demands, trying to cover her obvious fear.

“I don’t know,” he lies.

There’s another terrible, long moment of silence.

“I think,” he says with difficulty, “something wonderful happens. Something that started fifty years ago – isn’t that right?”

Now Adelaide turns to face him, her eyes wide with fear. “I’ve never told anyone that.”

“You told your daughter,” he reminds her. “And maybe, one day, she tells the story to her daughter. The day the Earth was stolen and moved across the Universe.” He glances at Donna before looking back at Adelaide. “ And you…”

She stares at him and he can read the confusion and uncertainty in her eyes. He can feel her growing understanding that he’s from a time beyond now, that he knows more than she ever can, and he can even sense her wonder at the thought that her life is important beyond what she’s achieving at this moment in time.

He can’t help wishing that there was a way for her to know just what she will go on to inspire.

“I saw the Daleks.” The words are soft, but he can tell she’s decided to tell them. “We looked up. The sky had changed. Everyone was running and screaming. And my father took hold of me…”

There’s a pause, and she’s clearly remembering that moment and fighting to stay in control, not to let the mask she has developed slip.

“I never saw him again,” she admits softly. “Nor my mother. They were never found. But out on the streets, there was panic and burning. I went to the window…”

He can see the images in his mind, his own memories of Earth when he and Donna came back, but also glimpses of that moment through the eyes of a young Adelaide Brooke.

“And there, in the sky,” she continues, her voice quiet, “I saw it, Doctor. And it saw me.” She pauses for a moment. “It stared at me. It looked right into me. And then…”

He watches tears form in her eyes.

“It simply went away.” She focuses on his face. “I knew, that night, I knew I would follow it.”

“For revenge?” Donna suggests.

Adelaide turns her gaze to the other woman, her voice full of simple confirmation. “What would be the point of that?”

The Doctor can’t help grinning, relieved that he hasn’t misjudged this woman, and seeing the same understanding that explained why she hadn’t shot Andy and Tarak when she had the chance.

“That’s what makes you remarkable,” he tells her. “And,” he can’t help adding, “that’s how you create history.”

“What d’you mean?” she demands.

He moves to face her. “Imagine it, Adelaide,” he suggests. “If you began a journey that takes the human race all the way out to the stars. It begins with you. And then your granddaughter – you inspire her! So that, in thirty years, Susie Fontana Brooke is the pilot of the first light speed ship to Proxima Centauri.”

His mind is full of pictures of Susan Brooke and her future in that new world.

“And everywhere,” he continues softly, “with her children and her children’s children forging away to the Dragon Star, the Celestial Belt of the Winter Queen, the Map of the Watersnag Wormholes. One day,” he smiles a little as this occurs to him, “a Brooke will even fall in love with a Tandonian prince, and that’s the start of a whole new species. But everything all starts with you, Adelaide. From fifty years ago to right here, today.” For a moment he pauses. “Imagine that. “

“Who are you?” Adelaide demands at last, the question he’s been waiting for, but she continues before he can try to come up with an answer. “Why are you telling me this?” And when he remains silent, “Doctor? Why tell me?”

He can only get out the last words as a faint whisper. “As consolation.”

Next Part