The road less travelled...

Title: The Two Doctors and Donna
Author: katherine_b
Rating: Intention: Fun
Summary: Having rewritten three special episodes, I thought it was time I tackled some classic!Who. This isn’t it…
Word Count: approx 5,000 words
Characters: Ten, Eleven, Donna Noble and a big mix-up…
A/N: Okay, so this isn’t serious (even if we might want it to be). This started off not being serious. However then Ten turned up and he is, as drakochi has now labelled him, an ‘angst maniac,’ so it got quite a bit more serious. What it still isn’t is in any way based on anything that could happen after The End of Time. It is, however, a sequel-of-sorts to my version of The Waters of Mars, but with Donna in it. Any references to things that may occur in The End of Time are purely my own supposition.

Oh, and tissues. Just to warn you ahead of time…

"I'm going to kill him," Donna mutters as she once more kicks at a nearby lump of Mars soil. "I really am. No, honestly. Kill him and then throw him out of the TARDIS into the vortex. No, wait, throw him out into the vortex and then kill him. But," she grinds her teeth in frustration, "I can't kill him if he's floating loose in the vortex, can I? Oh, bugger!"

Donna Noble leans back against the rock wall, tossing a stone from one gloved hand to another. Out of the corner of her eye, she can glimpse the remains of Bowie Base One, which are scattered across the remnants of the Gusev Crater, with the glacier now shattered into tiny particles of ice. Luckily for Donna, the lack of atmosphere on Mars means that the tiny pieces of nuclear wastage haven't managed to contaminate the entire planet and Donna has been able to avoid them, her suit giving her a warning if she's getting too close.

So she's been sitting here, trying not to go out of her mind with boredom, for the three days since the massive explosion. She's hungry and, what's worse, thirsty, but she knows better than to open her suit to drink anything, even if there wasn't that nasty side-effect of the virus in the ice.

However she's definitely going to kill the Doctor.

"Ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall," she begins drearily, tapping her helmet against the rock in time to the words.

"Oh, don't!" a voice remarks lightly inside her helmet. “Please, for Rassilon’s sake, anything but that!”

Donna manages to get to her feet with astonishing agility considering the bulkiness of her suit. She turns around to find a young man in an all-too-familiar orange suit and yellow helmet standing nearby.

His face lights up with a huge grin as his eyes fall on her face.

“Donna Noble!” he exclaims with a huge grin. “What are you doing here? I don’t remember us coming here together.”

“Us?” Donna shoots back. “I’ve never clapped eyes on you before in my life!”

“Of course you have!” he says cheerfully. “We saw all kinds of things together – Daleks, Vespiform, Sea Devils – oh, wait, no, that was Amy. Viperox then – no, that was Cassie and Jimmy…”

“Have you quite finished?” she demands. “I suppose you’re the Doctor then.”

“The one and only,” he replies with a grin. “But you still haven’t told me what you’re doing here! Wait,” his expression becomes serious in the blink of an eye, “you weren’t part of the Bowie Base One team, were you? No, no,” he waves his hands at her, “you couldn’t have been or I would have seen you there. Besides, you’d be too old…”

“Oi!” She glares at him, one hand propped on her hip while the other points accusingly at him. “If you are the Doctor, and I’m going to assume you’re a later regeneration, then you should know better than to make comments like that to me, mate.”

“Right, yes, sorry,” he says briskly. “So what are you doing there then? And where am I? The previous me or whoever brought you here?”

“No idea.” Donna shrugs, feeling suddenly more tired than she’s been for the past few days.

Perhaps he notices it, because he crosses the ground between them in two strides and slides his arm around her back.

“Come on,” he orders, sounding suddenly rather paternal. “TARDIS. Let’s get some water and food into you first and then we’ll work out what’s going on and where I am. He is. Whichever.”

Donna doesn’t bother to answer, finding that it’s suddenly an effort to move. She hasn't moved much over the past three days, ever since the TARDIS dematerialised almost beneath her hands. She was too afraid to leave the area in case the blue box came back and she was too far away to hear it. Then she also found that, while the suit she was wearing did a good job of insulation, the nights on Mars were so cold that she found curling up in a ball was a better idea than going for a stroll.

She doesn’t say a word as they cross the stretch of rocky ground, leaning more heavily on the Doctor’s arm the closer they get to those blue doors. She’s been unable to help being afraid that somehow the converted victims of the Flood would somehow have survived the nuclear blast and come to get her, but the relief of knowing that she’s finally safe, along with the weakness caused by lack of food and water, proves almost too much.

“Whoa, hold on, just a bit longer,” the Doctor orders as she sways against the wall of the TARDIS while he’s fishing for his key. “Come on then,” he tells her, a firm hand on her shoulder as he guides her inside.

However she stops dead at the sight of the interior, her eyes widening.

“Oh, you’ve changed it!”

“I didn’t change it,” the Doctor says as he ushers her through the passages to the kitchen, although she can detect a hint of tension in his voice. “It changed itself. It does that sometimes, when I become different from the man I was before.”

“So you aren’t like him then,” she mumbles as she drops thankfully into a chair and begins to remove her suit, unable to help the disappointment filling her.

“Well, look at me, Donna,” he retorts as he fills a glass and a jug with water and places them in front of her, stepping back as she picks up the glass and begins to drink greedily. “I look about sixteen! Nobody takes me seriously like this!”

“Personally, I would have said fifteen,” Donna teases as she fills up the empty glass and drains it almost at one gulp, watching as the Doctor removes his orange suit, revealing a long, thin body clad in a checked shirt and a bow-tie with dark blue pants and boots. Incongruous, but strangely fitting for the type of man she knows the Doctor to be.

“I looked old once,” he grumbles as he begins searching through the cupboard, presumably for something to eat. “I was respected! Listened to! Now, though…”

What Donna suspects will be a babbling list of his grievances is cut off by the sound of an alarm from the console room.

“Geronimo!” he exclaims gleefully as he scurries out of the room.

Donna shakes her head as she gulps down yet another glass of water, realising that the headache she’s been experiencing for the past few days has finally vanished. With a sigh of relief, she puts down the glass and stands up, stripping off the green suit, glancing at the orange suit draped over a chair, rolling her eyes as she thinks of the man who had been wearing it.

He might want to be taken seriously, but then he behaves in a thoroughly kiddish manner. No wonder he doesn’t feel like people respect him. However she can’t help thinking, as she gets up and crosses the kitchen to get more water, that he might well be quite scary if he was angry. That he could make use of Oncoming Storm mode in just the same way as her Doctor.

Who, as she turns around, is standing in the doorway, staring at her as if he can’t believe she’s there.

“Forgot something, did we?” she demands, her earlier fury with him returning in full force when it’s clear that he’s completely speechless. “I suppose I should be grateful that you bothered to come back for me at all!”

“You’re dead.”

His voice is soft, rough, similar to the way it was on Midnight, as if he hasn’t been using it for a while.

“If you wanted me to be dead, you should have stayed away a bit longer,” she retorts.

However, even as she speaks, she at last notices the physical change that he’s undergone since she last saw him, when she was begging him not to go back into Bowie Base One. It’s so dramatic and so unexpected that it takes her breath away.

There’s a deadness on his face, even as he gazes at her with a desperate, almost hungry, look in his eyes. He looks as exhausted as when he had staggered off the bus that rescued him and the other passengers on Midnight. His face is haggard and he looks indefinably older than when she saw him last. She can almost believe he’s trembling.

And, as he suddenly steps forward and sweeps her into his arms, which shake violently around her, she’s certain of it. His hearts are racing, throbbing pulses against her chest, and she can hear him breathing hard and fast in her ear.

“What is it?” she demands anxiously, even as she wraps her arms around his back.

“You died.” His voice is a mumble, but his arms only tighten around her as he speaks. “Back on Earth. Fifty years ago.”

Donna happens to be watching the other Doctor, who is peering into cupboard, probably looking for biscuits or something, but he clearly hears the words because she’s certain that she sees him shudder.

“Did I?” she demands, and the man in the checked shirt obviously realises that the question is meant for him because he gives a shrug, keeping his eyes averted.

“Not in my timeline,” he admits. “I did instead. That’s why I look like this and not like that,” he adds with a gesture at his own clothes, nodding at the other man as he speaks.

“I couldn’t save you.” The words are a harsh, broken whimper in her ear. “And if I hadn’t left you behind… hadn't been... so selfish...”

Donna starts as she feels a tiny damp spot on her neck. She’s never known the Doctor to cry before.

Lifting her hand, she gently strokes the back of his head, smoothing his hair, expecting him to let her go, as he did on Midnight when she reciprocated in this way. Instead he merely tightens his grip until she can barely breathe.

“It’s all right, Doctor,” she murmurs soothingly, her lips brushing his cheek, feeling his breath, broken and catching, warm on her neck. “I’m here. I’m alive. Whatever happened back there, I'm still here.”

“You died…”

“I’m here,” she repeats patiently, willing him to listen, desperate for him to take it in, for the tension in his frame to fade to show that he believes her. “I’m right here, with you, perfectly safe. No matter what might have happened there, I’m here now.”

For what seems like ages, she simply holds him, occasionally murmuring reassurance, although she doubts he’s listening to a word. Over his shoulder, she watches as the new Doctor bustles around the kitchen, although he does so in surprising silence, getting out biscuits and setting the battered old copper kettle to boil.

Finally the scent of tea and freshly baked chocolate and banana biscuits begins to fill the room and only then does Donna realize exactly how hungry she is. She feels herself wilt a little, but the Doctor doesn’t appear to have noticed and finally she gathers her remaining strength and straightens up again, pulling back slightly and resting her hands on his shoulders to draw him away from her.

He is staring blankly at the wall behind her and she watches him for a few seconds, waiting for him to blink, studying the darkness she can now glimpse behind the blankness of his brown eyes. She can’t help wondering just what horrors he must have experienced during the time she was stranded on Mars, and she can’t suppress a shudder at the thought of what he might have undergone.

Perhaps this somewhat unexpected movement attracts the Doctor’s attention. His reddened eyes suddenly snap up to her face and he studies her features as if he wants to imprint the memory of her on his mind.

After a few seconds, however, his eyes widen and then he frowns a little.

“You… look awful,” he says slowly, his voice cracking and faint.

“Three days sitting around on Mars with nothing to eat or drink will do that,” the other Doctor puts in at this point, pulling out a chair. “Bring her over here.”

Before Donna quite realises what’s going on, the Doctor’s arm is around her waist and she is being led in the direction of the table, his energy clearly revitalised in the act of having someone to care for.

Still, it isn’t in Donna Noble’s nature to put up with such things.

“Now, just wait a minute,” she is starting to protest when the younger-looking man presses a mug into her hands.

“Drink,” he orders, his eyes twinkling as if amused by her annoyance.

She glares at him, but the aroma from the steaming cup is too tempting to be resisted and she taste the contents before casting a wary eye at the man who is still standing nearby. The other Doctor has dropped into a chair opposite Donna where he can continue to stare at her as if still doubtful of her existence.

Even as she awaits the response of her wordless question, however, Donna can’t help but be amused at the fact that the man in the brown suit has picked up one of the biscuits and is nibbling on it. Clearly, even in moments like this, he still can’t resist anything with banana.

“Something to help with that dehydration,” the Doctor with the youthful appearance explains. “Nothing harmful, I promise. Should get you back to your usual self quicker than water.”

Donna arches an eyebrow at him in a way that makes him grin, but nevertheless continues to sip at the pale blue liquid in the mug, not wholly surprised at the speed with which she feels increasingly stronger. Finally, when her thirst is satisfied, she reaches for one of the biscuits and the second Doctor sits down beside her with a relieved look on his face, pouring out another mug of the tea, which he passes over the table to the other man.

“If you’re hungry, it’s worked,” he explains as Donna shoots him a questioning glance. “I won’t go into details about how…”

“Well, that’s a first,” she can’t help saying and the man opposite her musters a faint grin, even as the other Doctor rolls his eyes, jerking a thumb in the direction of his former self.

“Just because I don’t talk as much as I did when I was him!”

“Hey!” Finally the man Donna came to Mars with seems to snap to attention and glares at his future self. “What do you mean by that?!”

“Well, at least I let other people get a word in edgewise.”

“All evidence to the contrary.”

“Sometimes silence is golden.” The younger-looking man sits back in his chair and links his hands behind his head, his air of superiority obvious, particularly when matched with the smug expression on his face. “Anyone from any planet will tell you much more than then realize if you like them speak.”

“Great, I’ve turned into a manipulative bastard,” the brown-haired Doctor says with a snort.

“Oi!” Donna protests indignantly, but she’s ignored as the other Doctor stiffens in his seat.

“Better than that the angsty, moany, whiny git I was when I was you,” comes the immediate retort.

“Hey!” Donna slaps her hand on the table, but neither man takes any notice

“At least people took me seriously!”

“Rassilon only knows why!”

“Maybe because I don’t look ten years old!”

A sharp whistle cuts through the air and the two men, who at some point have leapt to their feet and are glaring furiously at one another, now glance in her direction, their expressions sheepish, although the man in brown is also rubbing his ears.

“I’d forgotten you could do that,” he groans.

“And I’ll do it again unless the two of you stop behaving like bickering children,” she warns. “I never thought I’d say this to a thousand-year-old Time Lord – but grow up! Both of you!”

“I’m not one thousand years old,” the older-looking man argues, while the other Doctor simply looks even more sheepish.

“You’re as near to it as makes no matter,” Donna snaps. “And don't change the subject! You!”

She turns suddenly and points at the Doctor wearing the brown suit, who actually flinches, although he manages to meet her clearly indignant gaze.

“Why did you come back to Mars?”

The Doctor's face falls and he stares at her, agony working across his features. “I... hoped,” he gets out at last.

“Hoped what?” she asks gently in the end, unable to maintain her annoyance when he looks so woebegone.

“Hoped you'd be there.” He swallows painfully, his voice soft with pain. “Hoped there was a way I hadn't lost you forever.”

“But I was still there!” Donna spreads her hands in demonstration, genuinely confused. “I don't understand how it all worked, how I could still be on Mars when you saw me die on Earth.”

“There was... a moment.” The Doctor passes his hand across his eyes. “And it was all my fault.”

“What moment?” she persists, knowing and unhappy that she's causing him pain, but needing to understand.

“It's called a temporal shift,” the Doctor explains with obvious discomfort as his future self remains silent, although he also looks uncomfortable. “It means time becomes unpredictable.”

“But you're a Time Lord,” she reminds him. “How can you not know what Time will do?”

“I don't know everything, Donna,” he replies quietly.

“First I've heard of it,” she retorts flippantly.

“I don't know what happens if I cause it.” He sighs, his eyes falling, guilt written all over him. “And I did. I wanted so much for something to happen that I ignored what might have happened.”

“What did you do?” she demands.

He sighs again, and for a moment, she wonders if he's about to tell her. In the end, though, he continues to speak.

“It was that moment when I walked away from you.” His gaze swings back to her, his eyes studying her face almost frantically. “When I went back into Bowie Base One. When I saved them.”

Donna feels the shock and horror that fills her at that instant. Over the days she had spent on Mars, she had wondered what happened to him and the TARDIS. She had finally decided that the Doctor had used Gadget to bring the TARDIS into the Base and used it to get away after he was unable to save the other humans on the planet. She had never even considered the possibility that he might go against the laws of time in that manner.

With the memory of the Doctor's mind in hers, she can understand at least something of the implications of his actions. She knows how terrible the change must have been to this fixed moment in time and feels an inner shudder as her eyes widen.

“You what?!”

The reply comes from the eleventh Doctor and Donna simultaneously, and the man in the brown suit swallows hard before glaring at his future self.

“Don’t be such a sanctimonious git,” he says warningly. “You did it, too!”

“I didn’t put Donna at risk,” comes the ready reply.

“Because you’d already wiped her memories and dumped her back in Chiswick with that bloody mother of hers and the whole ‘you can never mention me again’ thing,” he retorts smartly. “Great idea! Brilliant! Foolproof!”

“You what?” Donna demands again, turning to glare at the man in the bow tie. “How dare you?!”

That man skips with surprisingly agility behind his predecessor, clearly unnerved by the look on Donna’s face.

“I was doing it to save your life,” he offers meekly. “I couldn't find another way.”

“Well, clearly there was one,” she snaps, gesturing at her undead self.

“I suppose,” he mumbles awkwardly.

“I could suggest that you're not as clever as him,” she says cruelly, waving at the other man. “He managed it.”

“Actually,” the other Doctor puts in, “if you remember, you were the one who came up with the solution.”

Donna turns her glare on that man. “What do you mean by that? That you wouldn't have come up with it yourself?”

“I... don't know,” he mutters, his shoulders hunched, clearly awkward.

“So you really were considering it?” she demands. “I assumed it was just one of the many ideas I saw in your mind – not that you saw it as the only option!”

“Donna...”

“No!” She holds up a hand to silence him. “I'll discuss it with you later. For now,” she turns back to the man who is fiddling nervously with his bowtie, “I want to understand what happened to you. From the beginning. After you left me back in Chiswick. Why you came back here.”

“So much happened in between,” he protests. “It wasn't like it was only last week. It's been years of your time for me!”

“Why did you come back to Mars then?” She studies him, her head slightly tilted to one side, seeing the expression in his eyes and understanding that he is substantially older than the man beside him, even without the look of manifest gloom in her Doctor's eyes. “And why on that particular day if you weren't expecting me to be there?”

The Doctor sighs, running a hand through his hair. “The groups that funded the original expedition to Bowie Base One are planning another mission to see what's salvageable – and if there were any survivors from the explosion Adelaide set off. They don't believe the seriousness of the threat that the Flood poses, so I came to check it was safe.”

“You were going to face the Flood?” Donna demands incredulously. “Alone?”

“After the last time?” he snaps. “I'm not risking anyone else's lives ever again on this blasted planet, Donna! Not ever!”

“But when we were inside Bowie Base One,” she ventures somewhat hesitantly, “you talked so much about the crew being 'the first', so I assumed that meant humans would try to come back.”

“They will,” the other Doctor tells her. “Over and over again. And other races will try to use it as a springboard to invade Earth. But I'm going to try and find a way to neutralise the Flood.”

“Destroy them?” Donna queries. “Isn't that as bad as what the half-human version of him did to the Daleks?” she demands, nodding in the direction of the man in brown, who is leaning against the table, watching this conversation.

“The Flood isn't a race,” the older Time Lord contradicts her. “It's a virus. An infection. And it's an infection that needs to be wiped out before it tries to take over the Universe.

“And besides,” he goes on before she can interrupt, “there might have been other threats that we didn't have the chance to see and which nobody on Bowie Base One was aware of. I want to make sure nothing else interrupts human attempts to move beyond the Earth.”

Donna decides not to argue, but she can't help feeling that the events on Mars, for both Doctors, has changed something within them. They're a little less forgiving than they were before. It's a bit unnerving, but she supposes she'll get used to it in time.

“Explain something,” she says, turning to the man she knows best, who glances at her with a startled and somewhat wary expression.

“What is it?” he asks.

“I was on Earth,” she says hesitantly. “But it was a different timeline from his,” with a nod to the younger-looking man, “because he died in that one and not in yours. But I was still on Mars, too. How is that possible?”

“I can't be sure,” he admits, “but I think that, during that temporal shift, there was an alignment and convergence of various parallel existences. His,” with a wave at the other Doctor, “mine as it was, and maybe,” he chokes a little, “another where I didn't leave you behind.”

“So one version of me, with my memory wiped, was left behind in Chiswick,” she says, seeing colour flush the other man's face, “one version of me – died – and,” she hurries on, seeing the pain on her Doctor's face, “I was left behind.”

“Basically,” he agrees, nodding. “As near as I can come to it anyway.”

“So,” she says slowly, “is time... back to normal now?”

A somewhat bitter smile crosses the face of the man in the brown suit. “As far as time's concerned, Donna, there's no such thing as 'normal'. But the damage that we did to the timelines is slowly healing itself. Things aren't the same, of course. Well,” he adds, almost interrupting himself, “considering two people are here who shouldn't be, they couldn't be completely all right again, could they?”

“What does that mean though?” Donna leans weakly against the bench behind her, pinching the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger. “It's like – I've lost my Mum and Gramps. I don't have a Mum and Gramps that I belong to. If I go back to Earth in your timeline,” she nods at the later version of the Doctor, I could risk bumping into myself and triggering the memories you wiped. And if I go back to the version in your timeline,” she turns her attention to the man in the brown suit, “then I'll upset them because they'll be distressed enough by my death as it is.”

“There's more to it than that.” There is infinite pain in the Doctor's voice. “Yes, your mother wouldn't be able to cope with seeing you again, because she didn't just lose you that day.”

Donna feels his words like a punch in the gut, staring wordlessly at the Doctor, feeling her eyes fill with tears. He crosses the floor almost before she realises he's moved, taking her to him as the full implication of what he's saying sinks in and she turns her face to his chest, sobbing as his arms encircle her, holding her against him.

“I'm sorry,” he murmurs, the sound reverberating in his chest and echoing in her ears. “So sorry. I wish I didn't have to tell you. But it's important that you know the truth.”

She nods against his neck, feeling his lips pressed to her hair, the strength and support of his arms, and the safety she always feels around him.

And when she feels strong enough to hear it, she looks up to find him watching her, an expression of deep concern in his dark eyes.

“Tell me,” she gasps. “Tell me what happened. How he died.”

“He died a hero,” he whispers in her ear, smoothing her hair with a gentle hand. “Your granddad. Trying to end a battle between the Master and me. Trying to save the people that the Master took captive in an attempt to make me do what he wanted. And when you – the other version of you – saw that, I think you didn't care about your own safety anymore. You stepped in between us and...” he trails off before forcing the words out, “gave me the chance to defeat the Master and save Earth.”

She nods, trying to be reassured by his words, but there's still a hollow agony inside her that has been there ever since her father died. Since that day, she's lived in fear of losing the only other positive male role model from her family, who has trained her in the best elements of her personality.

But she suddenly feels terribly and achingly lost and alone. “So I don't belong anywhere.” She shudders at the thought, her voice sounding hollow. “I don't have anywhere I really fit.”

“You do.” His voice is soft with promise, and she looks up just in time to see him glance at the later version of himself, who nods as if understanding.

For an instant, Donna wonders if that means she's going to be handed over to this later version of the Doctor, and although he's saved her life, she can't help but be unhappy at the idea of starting all over again when she's lost so much.

The man holding her, however, seems to have picked up on her thoughts and is quick to correct her misapprehension.

“Not here,” he tells her. “Not with him. The timelines are already confused enough as it is, with the two of here. He's already moved on and he can never go back to Donna Noble because she can't remember who he is.”

There's a hollow sensation in the pit of her stomach as she thinks about everything that has happened as a result of that single moment in time where things changed so terrible. She's shattered at the thought that any version of herself has had to forget everything of that glorious time with the Doctor, but she has to be more upset at her own loss, at having lost the only home she's ever known.

She clings to the man holding her without realising what she's doing, lost and afraid as she looks up at him. Her voice is the faintest whisper, full of fear. “Then where do I belong?”

He speaks softly in her ears, his voice full of promise and his tone so passionate that a faint shudder travels down her spine. Her slight movement causes him to hold her even closer against him as he whispers, in a voice that is infinitely reassuring and full of love, “You belong with me.”