![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Title: Finding A Way Home – Naming Names
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
katherine_b
Rating: G
Summary: Some important decisions have to be made.
Word Count: 3,225 words
Characters: Donna, two Tens and an Adipose. Sounds like a game of cards. Definitely trumps a full house.
A/N: It’s been such a long time since we had a new story in this ‘verse that, rather conveniently, Donna’s pregnancy has moved on quite a bit. This has also meant that I didn’t have to show her increasing limitation in activity, but that definitely didn’t have anything to do with my decision. Much. Oh, and hello again! Sorry it's been such a long time, but this series (and several others) is definitely back with a vengeance.
A/N 2: Written for the ninth Travellers Tale with the prompt ‘amateur’ and the twenty-third Travellers Tale with the prompt ‘impulse’.
The Doctor is dreaming – vivid dreams about being smothered, something heavy lying across his mouth and nose so that he can’t inhale. He struggles to get away, to see what is holding him down, but his eyes won’t open. With whatever it is across his mouth and nose, he can’t breathe, can’t taste, can’t talk.
Panic builds, his hearts racing, lungs starting to burn, and yet he still can’t move. Can’t get help. Can’t get away.
He fights to free himself, finally managing to make his arms move, and, acting on impulse, shoves viciously at the weight across his face.
There is a high-pitched ‘Whee!’ noise, and despite still being half-asleep, he knows there is a small, cream-coloured fatty form currently flying through the air of his bedroom.
This isn’t going to end well.
The man in bed is waiting for a dull thud, followed by whimpering, but instead he hears a soft ‘whoof’ and then delighted giggles. He cracks open one eye to find that the Adipose has landed on one of his pillows, which he’s pretty sure the TARDIS moved into position from the pile beside his bed to save the little ball of fat from being injured.
All three of the people on board have realised that the Time Lord must have messed up some of his programming when he adjusted the controls in the TARDIS to prevent the ship from trying to throw out the little guy, because there has never been so much mischief on board before, and they’re all well aware that one Adipose alone couldn’t have caused it all. But an Adipose with the aid of a sentient blue box that has clearly – deliberately or otherwise – been programmed to become fond of her unexpected passenger: that’s another matter.
The Adipose – they’re yet to find a name for him, even after all this time – is lying on his back on the pillow, which is the equivalent of a large mattress for someone his size. He is rolling from side to side, and the Doctor realises he’s trying to get up, but the lack of elbows or knees to provide leverage is proving a hindrance.
Frankly, considering how he was woken – the worst feelings prompted by the dream still linger in his memory – the temptation is too great.
Picking up a pillow from the pile, the Doctor weighs it in his hand for a moment before tossing it across the room.
It lands neatly across the little struggling body, covering him like the filling in a large, soft sandwich.
The pillow is still for a moment – clearly his attack hadn’t been foreseen – before it begins to twitch viciously. If the Doctor wasn’t aware that the Adipose has no lungs, he might have worried it would suffocate, but as it is, he knows that the lump of fat is simply unhappy at being unable to get out.
Finally his softer human side wins out and he gets up, crossing the few feet of carpet to pick up the top-most pillow.
“I told you,” he scolds as the Adipose stares at him, looking, if an Adipose can, just a wee bit guilty, “that if you did that again, you’d be in trouble. Well, I meant it!”
A little ‘ohh’ of disappointment escapes the small mouth and the tiny white lower lip curls into a pout.
“Yeah,” he goes on, struggling to stay mad, knowing it’s a futile effort, “then don’t do it again.”
The Adipose looks even more pitiful, giving a feeble kick of its legs, before the Doctor finally gives in and reaches down to offer the little guy a hand to help him get up.
Since the Time Lord refused to allow the Adipose into his and Donna’s room at night – not even the TARDIS will open the door – the bundle of fat has begun spending the intervening time with the other Doctor, and they’re pretty good mates by this time.
Still, that doesn’t mean the Doctor lets him get away with anything – particularly not a stunt like waking him up by lying over his face – so he isn’t about to apologise.
Giggling, the Adipose squirms as the Doctor carries him over to the bed and drops him onto it before turning to get pick up his clothes, which are draped over a nearby chair. “I’m going to have a shower,” he tells the little fellow, who is bouncing on the bed as if it’s a trampoline. “Try not to destroy my room in the interim, hmm?”
While the hot water pours over him and he scrubs his hair, he listens for any unexpected noise from his bedroom. Unfortunately the absence of such sounds isn’t particularly reassuring. In the end he rushes everything – except his hair, of course! – and hurries back into his room.
Strangely, everything is almost exactly as he left it.
Almost, but not quite.
His blankets aren’t lying the same way they were when he got out of bed, having flung one corner back. Instead they’ve been pulled up, rather unevenly, it has to be admitted, but at least they look something intended to resemble the way he likes his bed made. Two pillows lie at the head of the bed, rather than just the one that was there when he got up.
And a strange grunting, groaning noise draws his eyes to the floor next to his bed, where the other pillow seems to be moving on its own, twitching and wriggling, but slowly moving in an upwards direction.
The Doctor has to smile at the realisation of what’s happening.
“Very good,” he declares, and grins widely as the pillow begins to wobble in a particularly dangerous (for its little support) manner.
To save the bundle of fat from once more landing on his back, he picks up the pillow – but finds it has an unexpected additional weight as the Adipose hangs on and swings wildly in the air, squealing with either fear or glee, the Doctor isn’t sure which.
Laughing, the Doctor places the pillow carefully on the bed, where the Adipose gives a wriggle as if in thankfulness at being free of the weight.
“Thanks, little guy,” he says, about to sit on the bed, when the Adipose grabs the pillow again and tries to swing it at him.
Fortunately for the Doctor’s neatly coiffed hair, the laws of physics at play on the TARDIS (and most other places in the Universe) mean that the pillow barely moves three inches.
“Oh, really?” The Doctor arches an eyebrow, snatching one of the pillows up from the floor. “You want a pillow fight? You know who’s going to win that one, right?”
The Adipose gives him a single-fang grin and winks before tugging on the pillow again. He moves it a bit more this time, but still not enough, and the Doctor casts an eye around the room.
One of the doors is standing open, the one leading to the twins’ bedroom. He ducks in and grabs one of the pillows in the double pram, tossing it onto the bed for the Adipose, who snatches it up eagerly. The lively ball of fat gets a grip on the corner of the small pillow, but in trying to swing it, winds up swinging himself instead and the momentum he has built up carries him backwards. His little white feet kick uselessly in the air and he gives a pitiful yelp.
“Amateur,” the Doctor scolds, scooping him up into a standing position and dropping to his knees beside the bed so that they are almost on eye level. “Try it again – and don’t fall over this time!”
The Adipose giggles and plants his feet as solidly as he can on the mattress, swinging the pillow around his head so that it lightly butts against the Doctor’s arm. In return, the man bunches the pillow into his hand and leaves one corner poking out, with which he gently taps the Adipose, being well aware that a proper knock would send him flying.
Then the Doctor feels something soft thud against the back of his head and the surprise attack causes his face to bounce into the mattress. He’s rebounding when a solid lump of fat uses the back of his head as a convenient trampoline and, with a high-pitched ‘whee!’, bounds towards the Doctor’s unseen attacker.
“Don-na!” he complains, the Adipose’s reaction having told him all he needs to know. Having peeled his face off the bed for the second time, he is trying to fix his hair as he gets to his feet and turns around. “Do you mind?”
“Yeah, ‘cos a pillow fight between the two of you is really fair.” Donna rolls her eyes, the Adipose snuggled into her neck, its little arms making a vain attempt to hug her.
“What?” The Doctor waves the little pillow at her. “I was teaching him the rules! Besides, he started it!”
“And this is the wonderfully mature, calming influence you’re going to have on my children, is it?” she retorts, one hand resting on her swollen belly, which shows clearly that she is almost at thirty-eight weeks along in her pregnancy.
“Quite possibly,” he admits, tossing the remaining pillows onto the bed and coming to join her. “Still, that’s hardly my fault, is it?” he adds, nudging her affectionately with his elbow as he takes her hand. “I wasn’t the one falling in love with the Time Lord, was I now?”
Donna laughs and pulls a face. “Frankly, I’m not sure the Universe is ready for that!”
“Oh, I’m sure Jack amuses himself by imagining it every so often,” the man in blue tells her, and there’s a chuckle from behind them.
“Actually, I think Jack would only want to imagine such things if he was in the midst of it at the time,” the Time Lord suggests as he follows them into the library. “So let’s not go there.”
He plucks the Adipose from Donna’s neck and tosses it, rather in the manner of a rugby player, into the arms of the other Doctor, who had just sat down on one of the couches. As this is an almost daily occurrence, the Adipose lets out its usual squeaks of delight upon its safe landing and then slides down to the floor and skips out of the room.
“So, any further along in planning?” the man in the blue suit asks as he watches the other two settle on the couch opposite him, nodding at the pile of baby-naming books on the coffee table.
Donna rolls her eyes. “Considering you already know so much about them,” she remarks with some asperity, “I’m surprised you don’t know that, too!”
“Well, I know their proper names, but you do as well,” agrees the man in blue. “The question is what you’ll call them day-to-day. I mean, they’re your children so you should be making that decision, not me.”
“You’re just weaselling your way out of work again, aren’t you?” teases the Time Lord as he sits on the couch so that Donna can lie against him, her feet propped up on a cushion.
“Tell you what,” the other man replies, rolling his eyes. “When I have kids, I promise that I, and the mother of them, whoever she may be, will choose their names. You won’t have to help. All right?”
“You can’t argue with that,” Donna laughs, gently prodding her husband. Then she reaches over and picks up the piece of the paper with the long lists of names and frowns over them, her other hand idly rubbing her stomach. “For some reason, I thought this would get easier as the time got closer.”
“Nah, the pressure just increases,” the man in brown says as he plucks the page from her fingers and runs his eyes down it. “That said, this is ridiculously long. Isn’t there any way we could shorten it?”
“Tear off the bottom half?” suggests the half-human Doctor jokingly.
Deservedly, this fails to elicit even a look in response and he picks up a book, beginning to glance through it as the other two once more become immersed in the conversation that has now been going on for almost six months.
“Of course we can’t call her that.” Donna’s voice carries across his reading. “There’s no way Mum would forgive you if her granddaughter had a name she couldn’t pronounce.”
“Well, that one is an insult in four major galaxies,” the Time Lord replies, crossing out something. “We can’t call our son that! And if you knew the meaning of that one,” something else gets crossed off, “you’d never have written it.”
This goes on, as it invariably does, with other names being added to replace those taken off so that no real progress is being made.
Finally it all gets too much and the half-human Doctor drops his book and sits up. “Look,” he points out, “you aren’t getting anywhere. There’s an easier way!”
“Oh, really?” The other man arches an eyebrow and looks sceptical. “What’s that then?”
“Here.” He gets up and goes over to the writing table in the corner. Picking up two pieces of paper and two pens, he goes over and gives one each to Donna and the other Doctor before pointing to the empty couch, his words directed at the other man. “Go and sit over there.”
“What is this all about?” Donna demands as she wriggles into a comfortable position with a stifled groan.
“Solving this, once and for all.” He places another cushion under her feet and then turns so that he can look at both people at the same time. “Right, this should be pretty simple. Write down the boy and girl names – one each – you like best, and why. That will narrow it down to a possibility of two and unless I’m mistaken, that’s a very normal human number, which should placate Sylvia. If there’s no major objections for any reason, won’t that work?”
A long moment of silence follows this, with the Time Lord and Donna staring at each other, clearly trying to find flaws in the plan. At the end of several minutes, they shrug and take the caps off the pens, considering for some time before both writing. With almost rueful sighs, they hand the pages to the man standing between the two couches and once more exchange glances, rather nervous ones this time, as he begins to read the choice to himself.
A giggle breaks through the living room and then the half-human Doctor takes control of himself and clears his throat.
“So,” he begins, “girl’s name, since she’s going to come first.”
“Hey, you have to tell us whose suggestion it is,” protests the other man.
“No, I don’t,” contradicted the man in blue. “You’ll understand why in a moment. Now, as I was saying, the suggested girl’s name is Susan.”
He cocks an interested eye at the Time Lord, who is nodding, before going on to add, “because it’s Donna’s favourite girl’s name.”
The Doctor chokes and sits bolt upright, staring with wide eyes. “What?!” he splutters.
“I told you,” said the other man smugly, before explaining to Donna, “It’s also the name that he put down for a girl.”
“No way,” Donna protests. “Really? Why?”
“And more to the point,” her husband demands, “why didn’t you tell me how much you liked it as a name before?”
“I didn’t want you to feel pressured into using it, just because I liked it,” she retorts, before looking up at the Doctor standing nearby. “What was his reason for liking it?”
The half-human Doctor swallows before replying, “It’s the name of his – our – granddaughter, or at least the one she adopted when she left Gallifrey.”
“Oh.” Donna reaches out a hand for her husband, who gets up and sinks to the floor beside her, entwining their fingers before he looks at the other man.
“What about boy’s names?”
“Geoffrey,” he says, consulting the pages, “for Geoffrey Noble – that’s the Doctor’s suggestion, by the way. You worded it slightly differently.”
It’s Donna’s turn to gape at him before she turns to her husband. “But – why didn’t you tell me?!”
“Because you’re both idiots,” the half-human Doctor tells her as he crumples the sheets of paper and throws them at her. “All this time and neither of you have bothered actually asking the right questions! Hopeless, that’s what you are!”
He’s all ready to stalk out of the room and leave them to their sheepish realisations when the other man stops him, with a quiet, “Yes, we probably are.”
“Definitely,” Donna agrees, unfolding the pages, before looking up again. “Did you know before you came up with that idea?”
“I wondered,” admits the man in blue as he stretches himself out in an armchair. “I thought it was a bit odd that neither of those names appeared on your list. I thought about adding them myself, but I was certain you’d get there in the end. Clearly you couldn’t manage it yourselves.”
“Geoff and Sue?” Donna asks, glancing at her husband, who nods and places his hand on her belly.
“And Ella and Joshua as second names?” he offers rather hesitantly, and now it’s Donna’s turn to nod as she covers his fingers with hers.
“See?” the half-human Doctor tells them, attempting to cheer them up. “Easy, isn’t it?”
“Show-off,” the other Doctor grumbles, throwing a cushion at him. Then he turns back to his wife. “Well, now that that’s settled, I suppose we should make some final preparations. Are you really sure you want to have them on Earth? There’s much better technology...”
“Yes,” she agrees, placing a hand over his mouth, because if their first never-ending discussion has been about names, the second was about where the twins would be born. “I want to have them there if it’s at all possible. Modern-day Earth,” she persists. “Twenty-first century. Preferably early twenty-first century, so that I know exactly what I’m being poked and prodded with when the time comes.”
He folds his arms and pretends to sulk. “You’re no fun.”
“Doctor,” she says in her tone of infinite patience, “if you love me...”
“Ooh, emotional blackmail,” interrupts the half-human Doctor. “I love it when it gets to this stage!”
“Fine!” the man in brown explodes, throwing his hands in the air in a gesture of surrender. “Modern-day Earth it shall be. Tell you what, though,” he goes on, his eyes lighting up, “how about one last adventure in the TARDIS before it happens? See where we end up?”
“Somewhere safe,” Donna pleads. “In fact, somewhere close to my own time please, just in case. I’d hate to be stuck in the caveman era or something, and you don’t always have the best track-record for ending up where you planned, do you?”
Looking somewhat sheepish, the Doctor helps her to her feet and then exchanges glances with the other man, who is nodding in agreement with Donna’s plea. “Oh, all right,” he grumbles. “If you want to be all dull and boring, we’ll make it then.”
Donna reaches up and brushes her lips to his. “Thank you,” she murmurs against his mouth, and he relaxes. “Right then,” she goes on, breaking away, “let’s see what the Universe has in mind for this final fling, shall we?”
And, laughing, they head to the console room.
Living Memory
Author:
katherine_b Rating: G
Summary: Some important decisions have to be made.
Word Count: 3,225 words
Characters: Donna, two Tens and an Adipose. Sounds like a game of cards. Definitely trumps a full house.
A/N: It’s been such a long time since we had a new story in this ‘verse that, rather conveniently, Donna’s pregnancy has moved on quite a bit. This has also meant that I didn’t have to show her increasing limitation in activity, but that definitely didn’t have anything to do with my decision. Much. Oh, and hello again! Sorry it's been such a long time, but this series (and several others) is definitely back with a vengeance.
A/N 2: Written for the ninth Travellers Tale with the prompt ‘amateur’ and the twenty-third Travellers Tale with the prompt ‘impulse’.
The Doctor is dreaming – vivid dreams about being smothered, something heavy lying across his mouth and nose so that he can’t inhale. He struggles to get away, to see what is holding him down, but his eyes won’t open. With whatever it is across his mouth and nose, he can’t breathe, can’t taste, can’t talk.
Panic builds, his hearts racing, lungs starting to burn, and yet he still can’t move. Can’t get help. Can’t get away.
He fights to free himself, finally managing to make his arms move, and, acting on impulse, shoves viciously at the weight across his face.
There is a high-pitched ‘Whee!’ noise, and despite still being half-asleep, he knows there is a small, cream-coloured fatty form currently flying through the air of his bedroom.
This isn’t going to end well.
The man in bed is waiting for a dull thud, followed by whimpering, but instead he hears a soft ‘whoof’ and then delighted giggles. He cracks open one eye to find that the Adipose has landed on one of his pillows, which he’s pretty sure the TARDIS moved into position from the pile beside his bed to save the little ball of fat from being injured.
All three of the people on board have realised that the Time Lord must have messed up some of his programming when he adjusted the controls in the TARDIS to prevent the ship from trying to throw out the little guy, because there has never been so much mischief on board before, and they’re all well aware that one Adipose alone couldn’t have caused it all. But an Adipose with the aid of a sentient blue box that has clearly – deliberately or otherwise – been programmed to become fond of her unexpected passenger: that’s another matter.
The Adipose – they’re yet to find a name for him, even after all this time – is lying on his back on the pillow, which is the equivalent of a large mattress for someone his size. He is rolling from side to side, and the Doctor realises he’s trying to get up, but the lack of elbows or knees to provide leverage is proving a hindrance.
Frankly, considering how he was woken – the worst feelings prompted by the dream still linger in his memory – the temptation is too great.
Picking up a pillow from the pile, the Doctor weighs it in his hand for a moment before tossing it across the room.
It lands neatly across the little struggling body, covering him like the filling in a large, soft sandwich.
The pillow is still for a moment – clearly his attack hadn’t been foreseen – before it begins to twitch viciously. If the Doctor wasn’t aware that the Adipose has no lungs, he might have worried it would suffocate, but as it is, he knows that the lump of fat is simply unhappy at being unable to get out.
Finally his softer human side wins out and he gets up, crossing the few feet of carpet to pick up the top-most pillow.
“I told you,” he scolds as the Adipose stares at him, looking, if an Adipose can, just a wee bit guilty, “that if you did that again, you’d be in trouble. Well, I meant it!”
A little ‘ohh’ of disappointment escapes the small mouth and the tiny white lower lip curls into a pout.
“Yeah,” he goes on, struggling to stay mad, knowing it’s a futile effort, “then don’t do it again.”
The Adipose looks even more pitiful, giving a feeble kick of its legs, before the Doctor finally gives in and reaches down to offer the little guy a hand to help him get up.
Since the Time Lord refused to allow the Adipose into his and Donna’s room at night – not even the TARDIS will open the door – the bundle of fat has begun spending the intervening time with the other Doctor, and they’re pretty good mates by this time.
Still, that doesn’t mean the Doctor lets him get away with anything – particularly not a stunt like waking him up by lying over his face – so he isn’t about to apologise.
Giggling, the Adipose squirms as the Doctor carries him over to the bed and drops him onto it before turning to get pick up his clothes, which are draped over a nearby chair. “I’m going to have a shower,” he tells the little fellow, who is bouncing on the bed as if it’s a trampoline. “Try not to destroy my room in the interim, hmm?”
While the hot water pours over him and he scrubs his hair, he listens for any unexpected noise from his bedroom. Unfortunately the absence of such sounds isn’t particularly reassuring. In the end he rushes everything – except his hair, of course! – and hurries back into his room.
Strangely, everything is almost exactly as he left it.
Almost, but not quite.
His blankets aren’t lying the same way they were when he got out of bed, having flung one corner back. Instead they’ve been pulled up, rather unevenly, it has to be admitted, but at least they look something intended to resemble the way he likes his bed made. Two pillows lie at the head of the bed, rather than just the one that was there when he got up.
And a strange grunting, groaning noise draws his eyes to the floor next to his bed, where the other pillow seems to be moving on its own, twitching and wriggling, but slowly moving in an upwards direction.
The Doctor has to smile at the realisation of what’s happening.
“Very good,” he declares, and grins widely as the pillow begins to wobble in a particularly dangerous (for its little support) manner.
To save the bundle of fat from once more landing on his back, he picks up the pillow – but finds it has an unexpected additional weight as the Adipose hangs on and swings wildly in the air, squealing with either fear or glee, the Doctor isn’t sure which.
Laughing, the Doctor places the pillow carefully on the bed, where the Adipose gives a wriggle as if in thankfulness at being free of the weight.
“Thanks, little guy,” he says, about to sit on the bed, when the Adipose grabs the pillow again and tries to swing it at him.
Fortunately for the Doctor’s neatly coiffed hair, the laws of physics at play on the TARDIS (and most other places in the Universe) mean that the pillow barely moves three inches.
“Oh, really?” The Doctor arches an eyebrow, snatching one of the pillows up from the floor. “You want a pillow fight? You know who’s going to win that one, right?”
The Adipose gives him a single-fang grin and winks before tugging on the pillow again. He moves it a bit more this time, but still not enough, and the Doctor casts an eye around the room.
One of the doors is standing open, the one leading to the twins’ bedroom. He ducks in and grabs one of the pillows in the double pram, tossing it onto the bed for the Adipose, who snatches it up eagerly. The lively ball of fat gets a grip on the corner of the small pillow, but in trying to swing it, winds up swinging himself instead and the momentum he has built up carries him backwards. His little white feet kick uselessly in the air and he gives a pitiful yelp.
“Amateur,” the Doctor scolds, scooping him up into a standing position and dropping to his knees beside the bed so that they are almost on eye level. “Try it again – and don’t fall over this time!”
The Adipose giggles and plants his feet as solidly as he can on the mattress, swinging the pillow around his head so that it lightly butts against the Doctor’s arm. In return, the man bunches the pillow into his hand and leaves one corner poking out, with which he gently taps the Adipose, being well aware that a proper knock would send him flying.
Then the Doctor feels something soft thud against the back of his head and the surprise attack causes his face to bounce into the mattress. He’s rebounding when a solid lump of fat uses the back of his head as a convenient trampoline and, with a high-pitched ‘whee!’, bounds towards the Doctor’s unseen attacker.
“Don-na!” he complains, the Adipose’s reaction having told him all he needs to know. Having peeled his face off the bed for the second time, he is trying to fix his hair as he gets to his feet and turns around. “Do you mind?”
“Yeah, ‘cos a pillow fight between the two of you is really fair.” Donna rolls her eyes, the Adipose snuggled into her neck, its little arms making a vain attempt to hug her.
“What?” The Doctor waves the little pillow at her. “I was teaching him the rules! Besides, he started it!”
“And this is the wonderfully mature, calming influence you’re going to have on my children, is it?” she retorts, one hand resting on her swollen belly, which shows clearly that she is almost at thirty-eight weeks along in her pregnancy.
“Quite possibly,” he admits, tossing the remaining pillows onto the bed and coming to join her. “Still, that’s hardly my fault, is it?” he adds, nudging her affectionately with his elbow as he takes her hand. “I wasn’t the one falling in love with the Time Lord, was I now?”
Donna laughs and pulls a face. “Frankly, I’m not sure the Universe is ready for that!”
“Oh, I’m sure Jack amuses himself by imagining it every so often,” the man in blue tells her, and there’s a chuckle from behind them.
“Actually, I think Jack would only want to imagine such things if he was in the midst of it at the time,” the Time Lord suggests as he follows them into the library. “So let’s not go there.”
He plucks the Adipose from Donna’s neck and tosses it, rather in the manner of a rugby player, into the arms of the other Doctor, who had just sat down on one of the couches. As this is an almost daily occurrence, the Adipose lets out its usual squeaks of delight upon its safe landing and then slides down to the floor and skips out of the room.
“So, any further along in planning?” the man in the blue suit asks as he watches the other two settle on the couch opposite him, nodding at the pile of baby-naming books on the coffee table.
Donna rolls her eyes. “Considering you already know so much about them,” she remarks with some asperity, “I’m surprised you don’t know that, too!”
“Well, I know their proper names, but you do as well,” agrees the man in blue. “The question is what you’ll call them day-to-day. I mean, they’re your children so you should be making that decision, not me.”
“You’re just weaselling your way out of work again, aren’t you?” teases the Time Lord as he sits on the couch so that Donna can lie against him, her feet propped up on a cushion.
“Tell you what,” the other man replies, rolling his eyes. “When I have kids, I promise that I, and the mother of them, whoever she may be, will choose their names. You won’t have to help. All right?”
“You can’t argue with that,” Donna laughs, gently prodding her husband. Then she reaches over and picks up the piece of the paper with the long lists of names and frowns over them, her other hand idly rubbing her stomach. “For some reason, I thought this would get easier as the time got closer.”
“Nah, the pressure just increases,” the man in brown says as he plucks the page from her fingers and runs his eyes down it. “That said, this is ridiculously long. Isn’t there any way we could shorten it?”
“Tear off the bottom half?” suggests the half-human Doctor jokingly.
Deservedly, this fails to elicit even a look in response and he picks up a book, beginning to glance through it as the other two once more become immersed in the conversation that has now been going on for almost six months.
“Of course we can’t call her that.” Donna’s voice carries across his reading. “There’s no way Mum would forgive you if her granddaughter had a name she couldn’t pronounce.”
“Well, that one is an insult in four major galaxies,” the Time Lord replies, crossing out something. “We can’t call our son that! And if you knew the meaning of that one,” something else gets crossed off, “you’d never have written it.”
This goes on, as it invariably does, with other names being added to replace those taken off so that no real progress is being made.
Finally it all gets too much and the half-human Doctor drops his book and sits up. “Look,” he points out, “you aren’t getting anywhere. There’s an easier way!”
“Oh, really?” The other man arches an eyebrow and looks sceptical. “What’s that then?”
“Here.” He gets up and goes over to the writing table in the corner. Picking up two pieces of paper and two pens, he goes over and gives one each to Donna and the other Doctor before pointing to the empty couch, his words directed at the other man. “Go and sit over there.”
“What is this all about?” Donna demands as she wriggles into a comfortable position with a stifled groan.
“Solving this, once and for all.” He places another cushion under her feet and then turns so that he can look at both people at the same time. “Right, this should be pretty simple. Write down the boy and girl names – one each – you like best, and why. That will narrow it down to a possibility of two and unless I’m mistaken, that’s a very normal human number, which should placate Sylvia. If there’s no major objections for any reason, won’t that work?”
A long moment of silence follows this, with the Time Lord and Donna staring at each other, clearly trying to find flaws in the plan. At the end of several minutes, they shrug and take the caps off the pens, considering for some time before both writing. With almost rueful sighs, they hand the pages to the man standing between the two couches and once more exchange glances, rather nervous ones this time, as he begins to read the choice to himself.
A giggle breaks through the living room and then the half-human Doctor takes control of himself and clears his throat.
“So,” he begins, “girl’s name, since she’s going to come first.”
“Hey, you have to tell us whose suggestion it is,” protests the other man.
“No, I don’t,” contradicted the man in blue. “You’ll understand why in a moment. Now, as I was saying, the suggested girl’s name is Susan.”
He cocks an interested eye at the Time Lord, who is nodding, before going on to add, “because it’s Donna’s favourite girl’s name.”
The Doctor chokes and sits bolt upright, staring with wide eyes. “What?!” he splutters.
“I told you,” said the other man smugly, before explaining to Donna, “It’s also the name that he put down for a girl.”
“No way,” Donna protests. “Really? Why?”
“And more to the point,” her husband demands, “why didn’t you tell me how much you liked it as a name before?”
“I didn’t want you to feel pressured into using it, just because I liked it,” she retorts, before looking up at the Doctor standing nearby. “What was his reason for liking it?”
The half-human Doctor swallows before replying, “It’s the name of his – our – granddaughter, or at least the one she adopted when she left Gallifrey.”
“Oh.” Donna reaches out a hand for her husband, who gets up and sinks to the floor beside her, entwining their fingers before he looks at the other man.
“What about boy’s names?”
“Geoffrey,” he says, consulting the pages, “for Geoffrey Noble – that’s the Doctor’s suggestion, by the way. You worded it slightly differently.”
It’s Donna’s turn to gape at him before she turns to her husband. “But – why didn’t you tell me?!”
“Because you’re both idiots,” the half-human Doctor tells her as he crumples the sheets of paper and throws them at her. “All this time and neither of you have bothered actually asking the right questions! Hopeless, that’s what you are!”
He’s all ready to stalk out of the room and leave them to their sheepish realisations when the other man stops him, with a quiet, “Yes, we probably are.”
“Definitely,” Donna agrees, unfolding the pages, before looking up again. “Did you know before you came up with that idea?”
“I wondered,” admits the man in blue as he stretches himself out in an armchair. “I thought it was a bit odd that neither of those names appeared on your list. I thought about adding them myself, but I was certain you’d get there in the end. Clearly you couldn’t manage it yourselves.”
“Geoff and Sue?” Donna asks, glancing at her husband, who nods and places his hand on her belly.
“And Ella and Joshua as second names?” he offers rather hesitantly, and now it’s Donna’s turn to nod as she covers his fingers with hers.
“See?” the half-human Doctor tells them, attempting to cheer them up. “Easy, isn’t it?”
“Show-off,” the other Doctor grumbles, throwing a cushion at him. Then he turns back to his wife. “Well, now that that’s settled, I suppose we should make some final preparations. Are you really sure you want to have them on Earth? There’s much better technology...”
“Yes,” she agrees, placing a hand over his mouth, because if their first never-ending discussion has been about names, the second was about where the twins would be born. “I want to have them there if it’s at all possible. Modern-day Earth,” she persists. “Twenty-first century. Preferably early twenty-first century, so that I know exactly what I’m being poked and prodded with when the time comes.”
He folds his arms and pretends to sulk. “You’re no fun.”
“Doctor,” she says in her tone of infinite patience, “if you love me...”
“Ooh, emotional blackmail,” interrupts the half-human Doctor. “I love it when it gets to this stage!”
“Fine!” the man in brown explodes, throwing his hands in the air in a gesture of surrender. “Modern-day Earth it shall be. Tell you what, though,” he goes on, his eyes lighting up, “how about one last adventure in the TARDIS before it happens? See where we end up?”
“Somewhere safe,” Donna pleads. “In fact, somewhere close to my own time please, just in case. I’d hate to be stuck in the caveman era or something, and you don’t always have the best track-record for ending up where you planned, do you?”
Looking somewhat sheepish, the Doctor helps her to her feet and then exchanges glances with the other man, who is nodding in agreement with Donna’s plea. “Oh, all right,” he grumbles. “If you want to be all dull and boring, we’ll make it then.”
Donna reaches up and brushes her lips to his. “Thank you,” she murmurs against his mouth, and he relaxes. “Right then,” she goes on, breaking away, “let’s see what the Universe has in mind for this final fling, shall we?”
And, laughing, they head to the console room.
Living Memory
lazy