Because You're Special - Chapter 19
Doctor Who
Because Your Special
Crazed Old Man in a Cape & a Gentleman
Pouring gritty soap over her hands, she scrubbed the bacteria away from her palms, her wrists and her fingers. Her hands were so wrinkled and knotted at the joints, that she was faced with yet another reminder of her age. Sometimes, when she was in the thick of it-she almost forgot that there were only another dozen years or so left…if she obeyed Hark and took all her supplemental injections and stopped eating sweets.
"Sir?"
"Report." She turned to look at the baby-faced physician. Sweat droplets glistened above Hark's thick wild-looking eyebrows, and dark smudges of exhaustion were creased under each eye.
"All readings are normal and stabilized. He's ready for reintroduction." The doctor methodically untied the white metalform-fabric strips from around their "patient". Without missing a beat, he took a small short-bristled brush from his recovery tray and swiped at the man's light tan cricket suit, eyes searching for places the extraction team might have wrinkled or smudged. Satisfied, he placed a fresh piece of celery on the man's lapel.
"Don't forget to check him for bruises." She ordered quietly, turning back to dry her hands under a sanilight beam.
"Yes, sir."
She could hear Hark beginning his search, and the humming of the nanogenes as they flitted over the Doctor. Turning at the sound of the door opening, she watched her oldest friend enter, carrying a notepad with her people's symbol on the cover.
In her current and earth-appropriate, "humanized" form, Eve looked young. Even though her costume-a poor man's camouflage but effective-was that of a private school student complete with pleated plaid skirt, sweater and suit coat, Eve carried herself with the dignity of a scientist and historian. And even though the clothes were era-appropriate, clean and crisp, they had a faded and severe look to them. She wouldn't doubt that Eve had chosen the dark colors intentionally.
Pulling a tiny plaid bow from her auburn hair and dropping it into her pocket, Eve flipped to a page in her note-sheet. "The work is complete on the Doctor's followers. No complications?"
"None?"
"The Teagan woman gave Smitty a black eye." Eve replied matter-of-factly, "but they are in good health and ready for reintroduction."
Recalling the gold-hued nanogenes into their capsule, Hark nodded at the Doctor. "We are all set here, too."
She spoke into her communications device, ordering the reintroduction team to the med-labs, and wishing them success. Striding into the hall, she glanced at Eve-who had followed her with her customary soundless grace.
"…was there something else?"
"Nothing of a personal nature, if that is what you are insinuating," Eve replied evenly.
"If there were," she placed a hand on the shorter woman's arm, "I would listen, sister."
Eve meet her gaze without as much as blinking and patted the hand absent-mindedly. She used to be easily angered, wild and opinionated, but Eve's current form always seemed to have mysteries to keep and emotions to withhold. The long heart-to-heart-conversations with her advisor and friend had long become a thing of the past.
"I would be soulless not to have my concerns about this mission-and its cost. But I am a pragmatist." Eve consulted her notebook, "Dr. Sajan's prototype has completed testing. She's reviewing and compiling the data, getting second opinions-"
"Eve, I appreciate caution," especially in this delicate situation, she mentally added, "but does she have a time-frame? We can't play these "patch-up" games much longer."
"Sajan claims Polaris will be ready by evening."
"Polaris?"
Eve shrugged, snapping her notebook shut. "The North Star. Human sailors used it to keep them on course during ocean voyages. Ever imaginative, Sajan thought it appropriate."
"Maybe it is." She responded, thoughtfully, and shrugged back. "Continue with your surveillance teams, I will see if I can speed Polaris up."
As they parted, she found herself thinking of stars and destiny. Her musings halted when a hover-cart, covered with a sheet, turned into her path. The Doctor's face, youthful and handsome, was the only part of him visible. Serene. He looked serene. One would never know that it had taken three burly extraction team-members to strap him down so that she could alter his memories. She watched the reintroduction team push him past and thought that she should wash her hands again.
Finally dressed and feeling like a sane human being, Donna Noble strode through the tight-streets toward the coffee-shop. With proper clothes on and her purse, containing pepper-spray and her mobile, swinging from her shoulder, Donna felt a little safer. Checking both ways, she started across the street.
With a long blaring of an antiquated horn, a small old-fashioned luminescent yellow car whirled into her path. Donna barely had time to note that the driver was a crazed old-man in a cape before she had to race out of his path.
"Out of the way! Out of the way!" the white-haired mad-man shouted, steering wildly.
Wobbling on heels-why had she chosen heels?-Donna lunged for the sidewalk. A stranger reached out, grabbed her arms and pulled her to safety.
"Thanks," Donna breathed, clinging to the arms of her rescuer for support. She gulped in air, before straightening and glancing up at the stranger.
He was a handsome, gentle-looking man, dressed in some-sort of reenactment costume of a Victorian style. Slung over his body was a long leather satchel, and a fob-watch dangled from his vest pocket. His hair, sandy-brown curls, was crisply cut short. His friendly, kind blue eyes seemed familiar.
"I loved that car," His voice was smooth, low and gentle, "More…modern methods of transportation may be time-saving but I miss the feeling to wind in my face."
Donna extended her hand. "I'm Donna."
"Oh, it is a pleasure to meet you, Miss." He gently took her hand and kissed it. "You must be more careful. All manner of mad-man are about Barcelona at this time."
"I well know it. You like old cars then?"
"No, no, I don't. I miss liking old cars though." He smiled softly, "That particular model was an antiquated thing with a bad starter and an obnoxious color…but at one time, it was liberty when freedom was precious."
Figures, another mechanical-minded man who liked to hear himself talk. Donna shook her head slightly and checked herself over. She had a few light scrapes across her knees but they were not bleeding enough to ruin her skirt.
"Can you make it to that chair?" Her new friend asked, "I have some anti-septic in my bag."
Donna smirked, "What are you, a doctor?"
"Yes. Just call me the Doctor, if you don't mind."
"Oh. Fantastic." Donna scolded herself for not knowing better. And she thought she was getting better at recognizing the various incarnations of her Time Lord friend.
The new Doctor-the Gentleman-reached for her arm, taking it and gently leading her to one of the coffee place's out-door table and chair arrangements. As soon as Donna was seated, he knelt in front of her and began rummaging in his satchel before withdrawing a futuristic metal-tube and twisting at the bottom like it was lip-balm. A green-tinted slightly frothing ooze appeared at the top and he smiled up at her. "It is fearsome to look at but it will not hurt."
Donna looked into his eyes; so much like her Doctor's and found herself smiling back. "All right, Sunshine. I trust you."
He gently applied the cold, bubbling ooze to her scrapes by sweeping it gently over her knees. Magically, the wounds tingled lightly with a warming sensation, and then closed with light, new pink skin taking their place. "Nanogenes," The Gentleman explained, rising to sit opposite her.
"Huh." Donna brushed her fingers along her knees. She bet a bunch of Mum's in England would pay a lot of money to have all their kids scrapes healed so easily. "Thanks, Doctor."
"Always glad to be of service." He smiled and then grew sad. "Almost always."
"What can I get the lovely couple?" A young woman in a coffee-cup patterned apron appeared at their table with a note-pad and pencil in hand. "We have everything except espresso."
"We're not a couple," Donna frowned, "What kind of coffee shop doesn't have espresso?"
The waitress paused, "There was an incident…the espresso machine is down."
"What sort of incident, miss?" The Gentleman Doctor shifted forward in his chair, eyes widening with excitement. "Was anyone hurt?"
The waitress glanced around as if checking to see that her manager was out of sight and leaned toward them. "No one hurt but that's because we were lucky. I swear, that is the last time I let any teenage riff-raff into the kitchen-no matter who they're with-stupid kid plopped a homemade bomb into our machine."
"I see." He smiled impishly, "This young lady-she wouldn't have happened to be wearing a black jacket two sizes too big?"
"Exactly so. She and her friend-he said he was with the police and he did have the proper paper-work..."
"Yes, I imagine he did."
"Anyway, they said terrorists had been tampering back there and they had to take a look. But turns out, the only terrorist at Coffee Palace was the stupid kid. Robbie, he's my manager, he was furious."
"I can imagine. Well, I suppose, I won't be having the espresso. A plain coffee will be fine. Unless you have tea."
The waitress stared at him and shook her head. "Only chai tea."
"Then coffee."
"Me too. With sugar." Donna watched the girl go and then turned back to the Gentleman Doctor, smiling broadly at him from across the table, "Ace and the professor right? Saving the universe?"
The Doctor leaned toward her, returning the smile. "And how did you know that, Donna?"
"Oh, nitro-nine bombs, psychic paper…it could only be those two." Donna paused, "The Professor, is he a close incarnation to this one?"
Watching her carefully, he answered slowly. "The seventh, my immediate predecessor."
"So you're the eighth. It would be great to have you all numbered so I could keep track." Donna ruffled her hair, "I keep seeing you-all of you at different times-something about time-line tampering."
"I have noticed many of my other selves about the place."
"The one with the leather jacket and buzzed head-what's his number?"
The Gentleman Doctor frowned, "I am afraid I'm not familiar with that incarnation. Best not say any more about him. I like knowing the ending-but it isn't good for me."
Donna remembered that James hadn't wanted to know the future and she chalked the difference up to the modified personality of the different versions of the same person. For all of her experience with the Doctors, it was still amazing to her how diverse they were.
She settled back into her chair. "So, why did you think you were coming to Spain?"
"My TARDIS-you know what that is?"
Donna grinned, "Blue police-box, bigger on the inside with a big round control-board in the center?"
"That would be her. I input coordinates for London and ended up in Spain. I haven't the time to try again."
"A Time Lord without time, mite ironic."
"Yes. I suppose." The Eighth Doctor smiled faintly, his blue eyes very sad. "Why are you here?"
"Oh, scuba-diving. And, of course, my Doctor wanted to go to the Guild meeting…but we haven't done much in the way of a holiday-just trying to avoid…well, the other Doctors…and stop time from being wrong." Donna spoke confidently, as if she knew exactly what the right-time line was and what they were going to do to fix it, but she really had no idea. She was relying on James to do Time Lord stuff and save the day.
The coffee arrived, steaming out of thick ivory mugs with the tacky Coffee Palace logo on them. Donna noticed that hers was a paler brown than the Gentleman Doctors and sighed. Okay. Sugar and cream would do.
The waitress hovered over the Doctor's coffee, her eyes scanning down him. Donna thought she was smiling just a little too much. "Can I get you anything else?"
"This is perfect, thank you."
"Just let me know if you need…" the girl blinked, seeming to rack her brain for something a man with a plain black coffee might need, "…a refill."
"He's good thanks." Donna said sharply, nodding her head toward the building. "Blimey, you get that a lot?"
"Hmm?" The eighth Doctor looked up from his coffee, his top lip still resting on the mug. For some reason, Donna was reminded of an oblivious four-year-old boy. Although, with his beautiful eyes and handsome features, Donna could see why the waitress had seemed to be willing to neglect her other customers to just get a better look at him. Compared to James, this Doctor could have been a movie-star. Not that it mattered.
"…Donna?"
"Just chit-chatting." Donna lied. After sipping her own coffee, she grimaced. "For having a royal title, it's not the best coffee I've ever drank."
"Have you ever been to the coffee-fields of New New Earth? They have all the best blends from all over Old Earth and several alien varieties. Coffee-shops on every corner of New New Mexico city." He smiled, bouncing to his feet with that sudden restless energy that she recognized in James. He offered her his hand. "My TARDIS isn't far. Shall we get a real cup of coffee?"
And it was crazy. It was really crazy because, in spite of the absurdity of clambering into the space-ship of a strange alien and the fact that there was an important mystery about her own life to be solved, everything in Donna Noble wanted to leap out of that chair and take his hand. To just run headlong into the trip of a life-time and forget everything else.
"I can't." She said softly, squeezing the extended hand in a gentle consoling manner. "I don't want to drag half-a-dozen unwillingly, unknowing Doctors to a new location. And my Doctor might get jealous-although the man would never admit it. Besides, you said you have a busy schedule."
The Gentleman Doctor dropped back into his chair, staring disconsolately into his coffee. He looked like he sitting on death row, hopelessly waiting for a terrible end.
"Are you all right, Sunshine?"
"Sometimes, Donna, doing the right thing is hard." He smiled faintly, sipping at his coffee with grim determination to finish it. "I'll be fine."
"Whatever is next on your day-planner, it must not be as much fun as the coffee-fields of the future." She teased, but only received a half-hearted chuckle in return. "You look like you need a jammy dodger. A little sugar can always make things brighter."
"A very sound philosophy." He reached into his jacket pocket and tossed a battered paper-bag onto the table. "Jelly baby?"
Donna glanced around for the crazy-eyed hobo-man with the brown curls. He didn't seem to be present, but she had the suspicion that the mere mention of the candy might draw him in like a…well, like a Doctor to a Donna. Poor crazy bloke, he'd probably be a very nice Doctor in the daylight.
"No thanks."
"Do you mean to tell me that this coffee-shop doesn't sell espresso? What sort of lame place is this?" A high-pitched voice demanded in a Scottish accent. The tall leggy redhead from earlier-Amy, she thought was the name-had backed their waitress against a wall.
"Amy, Amy, she hasn't got any. There's no use…"
"Shut up, Rory. If I want your input, I'll ask for it, yeah?"
"Yeah." Her long-nosed husband nodded rather meekly. He was the same man Donna had seemed earlier in the hotel, standing with the shrimp. Donna thought he looked too-young to be married, but she knew that if she was ever lucky enough to have a good-looking bloke like that for a husband, she wouldn't tell him to shut-up. Or she would-she was always telling people off-but not as meanly as Amy did.
He stood uncomfortably by his wife, barely balancing a tray of very tall coffee-drinks and some sort of chocolate-studded scones. His wife, naturally, wasn't carrying as much as a napkin.
"Come along, Pond." Bow-Tie Boy exited the building with a skip on the last step, "We have our double-triple-quadruple chocolate mochas. We have no need for espresso."
Rory nodded. "You don't even like espresso, Amy."
"That is not the point." She turned on her husband, "I was in the mood for one."
"What's higher than a quadruple?" Bow-Tie Boy asked suddenly. He pointed both hands at the Gentleman Doctor, "Do you know?"
With an amused half-smile, the Eighth Doctor just shook his head.
"Well, whatever it is," Bow-tie Boy leaned his arms over the shoulders of the married couple-his companions, Donna guessed-and smiled broadly at the tray of drinks, "there is more chocolate than that in these concoctions. It helps disguise the bitter flavor of the coffee. I like me a good bit of chocolate."
"As much as fish-fingers and custard?" Amy teased.
"Yuck." Donna muttered, glancing at the Gentleman Doctor to get his reaction. He had tuned out the loud threesome and was staring into his drink again. He caught Donna's gaze on him and forced a smile and she felt like something was very wrong with him. She'd seen the Doctor jubilant and angry and even sulky, but not so sad before. "You sure, you're gonna be all right?"
"…not quite. Nothing can quite compare to one's first unique culinary creation." The tweed-jacketed Doctor pulled a chocolate-coffee drink from Rory's tray and began sipping it with a straw. Oddly, he tossed the straw out a second later and plopped in a new straw from his pocket. Between breathing-defying gulps of caffeine and sugar up the straw, the Doctor meandered away from the coffee-shop, "Come along, Ponds, we have quite a bit of leg-work to do."
Rory obediently trudged along, trying to keep the tall drinks from toppling now that the tray was unbalanced by the absence of the Doctor's beverage. "Amy, can you please take your drink?"
"No. I didn't order that. I wanted espresso."
"Amelia, he spent thousands of years waiting for you to come out of a box, the least you can do is take your drink. Besides, it's good. It's got chocolate in it."
"Fine. Anything for my boys."
Donna shook her head. Was she ever that young? That self-absorbed? Probably. Donna liked attention, she just had to shout to get it where as-apparently-Amy just had to flutter her eyelids.
"I must be going." The Eighth Doctor rose from his chair. His coffee was still half-finished.
Wondering if she should mention this fact, Donna stood and put a hand on his arm. "Nice to meet you. I'm sorry we couldn't have taken that trip…We would have had fun."
The Doctor covered Donna's hand with his own, his blue eyes staring down at her. "Yes, I think we would have."
Trying to cheer him up, Donna grinned. "Well, another time, perhaps? When you have more time, of course."
"I…" The Gentleman Doctor paused, "I am afraid that is unlikely. I have been called home, you see, as all of us off-world Time Lords have…and I don't think I will be at liberty to visit earth for quite a while."
Donna squeezed his arm, "Going home isn't supposed to make you sad, Sunshine."
"It's not just going home. I can tolerate the regular whining hypocrisy of my people… but you see, Donna, they've just declared war." He looked at some patch of meaningless sky, "Another great Time War."
"I'm sorry." Donna hadn't a clue what a Time War was but, from the way the very sound of it had crushed the Doctor's spirits, it must be very, very bad.
"No more adventures, no more wanderings. Just endless killing. I hate killing. I'm afraid I would make a terrible soldier." The Doctor was still staring at the sky. He shook himself and removed Donna's hand. "Duty calls. Farewell, Donna."
Donna watched him walk away, gracefully picking his way through the crowd, apologizing to tourists when he accidently stepped in their way. Suddenly, she remembered the snowy Christmas Eve she'd first met the Doctor, covered in the bloody rags of a Victorian uniform. Oh my god, that was how it had happened. A war, a horrible war had killed the sweet man she'd just had coffee with and given her James. Angry, confused James, born in the blood of his predecessor.
"Wait!" Donna shouted, shoving her way past the tourists. She pushed a woman's heavy shopping bags to the side as she scrambled to reach the Gentleman Doctor before he was gone forever. Panting as she caught up, Donna stumbled and he caught her.
"We really do have to stop meeting like this." He teased, gently drawing her out of the crowd of pedestrians and into the shadow of his police-box. When it wasn't parked in her hotel room, or landing frighteningly on her deck or filled with homicidal midgets, it really was a beautiful wooden blue box. Donna tore her gaze from the machine to its owner.
"Can I come?"
"I do not have time for pleasure trips. I must arrive in Gallifrey-"
"I mean to Gallifrey, you dunce. Can I come with you?"
"No."
Donna felt tears prickling in her eyes and blinked rapidly. She held the Doctor's hands in hers. They were white, uncalloused and completely unsuited for a soldier's work. "But it's not right. You being alone out there. Who's gonna look after you? Stop you from going too far?" Donna looked up at him, "I won't be any bother, Doctor. I am a very strong woman."
"Of that, I have no doubt." He grinned, putting a hand on her shoulder. "But this-I fear-is an adventure no one can share with me. I and my people must face the Daleks alone."
"But why?"
"Because it is why the Time Lord's exist. Because it's too dangerous for less advanced species."
"Oh thanks." Donna licked her lips, her heart-breaking for this Doctor. She could only imagine what war was like but that was enough to make her want to rescue him from it, or at least help him through it. "You said you liked knowing how things ended."
"I can't know the outcome of the-"
"I know that. I just…" Donna grabbed him, hugging him as tightly as Bow-Tie Boy had hugged her. She hoped it wasn't creepy to him, but she really didn't care. Sometimes, whether awkward or not, people in trouble just needed help. Or a hug. "I will see you again, Sunshine on the other side."
He pulled away, and opened the door to his TARDIS. With a final wave, he vanished and, with a whirring growl, the TARDIS bore him to hell.