Because You're Special - Chapter 23
Doctor Who
Because Your Special
We are Not the Villains
Author's Note: For some reason, my formatting on this chapter is stupid. I got sick of fixing it by hand and gave up. Sorry.
"Ah. This rain…can you believe it? A nice holiday in Spain-literally
"Ah. This rain…can you believe it? A nice holiday in Spain-literally a holiday since its Christmas at this time and place-and gallons of
drizzly stuff." The Doctor sniffed, holding his umbrella for his companion to shelter under. "I feel like I should sing now. You know,
Gene Kelly style? What do you think about that Rose?"
"Gene Kelly?" Rose shivered in her bikini, tucking her towel closer around her.
"Rose Tyler," The Doctor said dramatically, guiding her underneath a porch of the hotel, "Next stop, 1952 Singing in the Rain premiere. You'll love it. It's got dancing, singing, monsters, chases, escapes, true love, miracles... Or was that Princess Bride?"
Rose laughed, that warm tinkling sound that always made him feel happy. "I don't remember any singing in the rain in Princess Bride?"
"Deleted scene. Everything is in the Princess Bride."
"Except for Time Lords."
The Doctor turned to see a woman standing in the rain. Water poured off her hair and face but she stood there, smiling and not flinching.
"Hello. I'm the Doctor. Can I help you?" The Doctor asked slowly. He eyed hercarefully, sensing something wrong. Sensing some sort of menace in the slight telepathic field that the woman was generating.
"So strange." The woman-well, a girl really-pulled a tacky plaid hairbow from her hair and tossed it in the mud at her feet. "I thought she'd be prettier."
"Hold on mate." Rose tugged the towel closer, "You try being gorgeous in a tsunami."
The Doctor shifted on his feet, glancing at Rose. "You're always… you know…"
"I'm always…what?"
"You know…anyway, getting to the point." He stepped closer to the strange girl. "What do you want?"
"The usual." The girl replied dryly and the Doctor didn't like her smile at all.
And he didn't like it up to the moment that he forgot seeing that smile in the first place.
"He said he'd wait for us to get back." Ace descended from the tabletop, looking at James. She glared at him, hands on hips, plastic rain-coat flapping in the wind. "Was this a test? One of your silly "figure-it-out" games?"
"No games." The Doctor said flatly, "And no footprints."
Donna looked up at him, "What?"
"Everyone traipsed here from the beach house, my fourth incarnation and Ian went for hamburgers…" he pointed at the various footprints that were swiftly being erased by the muddy water. "…Ace ran for her boombox…"
"You remember where everyone walked?" Ace crossed her arms, moving closer to them as the rain and wind lashed at them. "What's that prove?"
"But look…no new prints. They didn't move-not by conventional means." The Doctor flipped his sonic into the air, caught it and waved it wildly before checking it. "A transmat beam."
Donna frowned, "You mean like on Star Trek?"
"That's a transporter beam." Ace corrected. "Not a transmat beam."
"You're absolutely correct." A new voice, but familiar came from the rainy gloom. An indistinct figure, vaguely female, stood on a wooden landing above the picnic area. The old woman leveled something palm-sized and shiny at them. "Same concept though."
Ace screamed. She faded-her entire being just gone-in a sickly green glow.
"Ace!" Donna stood in shock, holding tight to James. She straightened and glared at the woman. "Where have you taken her!"
"She's safe." The woman called, stepping lightly down the steps. "She's been reunited with her Doctor."
"And where is he…? Oh, let me guess." The Doctor stared down at the woman, placing himself between Donna and the woman. "In your underwater TARDIS along with everyone else."
"Very astute, Doctor." The woman-Donna knew she'd seen her before but couldn't place where-shrugged and leveled her shiny-gadget at him, "But then again, that's the same conclusion your other-selves made without even having a proper look at my home."
Behind the crazy lady, for the first time, Donna could see shadowy outlines of other people. At least forty or sixty, dressed like cabbies, shop-girls, bell-boys, tourists and Spanish policemen. They spread across the beach like zombies in a horror-film, until she and the Doctor
were surrounded. The army was armed with space-age blasters and phasers
and rifle-things, although most were lowered or in holsters. Looking at
their grim, sorrowful faces, Donna noticed two things. One, whoever
they were-Time Lords or Daleks-they still were people with souls, hopes
and regrets-which, it seemed for many of them, this moment was
definitely regrettable. Second, they all looked familiar. Donna's eyes
kept focusing for a second on a face…almost identifying that person
before catching another familiar pair of eyes or nose or smile. "They
set us up," Donna whispered, nodding at one of them, "He was on the
plane… and she was our waitress…"
"How long have you been interfering?" James demanded.
"Don't
give me that look." The woman replied, unable to keep eye-contact with
the Doctor. She motioned to one of her minions. The minion, an auburn
haired young woman with a large aquiline nose and dressed like a private
school student, began to unpack a silver camera-tripod-like object from
an ordinary suitcase…that was bigger on the inside.
"What's that? A gun?" Donna whispered. "Do they mean to kill us?"
"Don't
be daft, Donna Noble." The woman sheathed her gadget in a pocket on her
belt. Her eyes were blue, familiar, soft and sad. "You are a fixed
point in time-to kill you would end the universe. Besides, I maybe a
soldier, but I don't have to kill."
"Who are you? Who are all of you?" The Doctor shouted. "What gives you the right…?"
"Excuse me, excuse me."
Donna
scanned the "army" and found a scrawny shape of a man in a thin cheap
blue rain-poncho with a vivid red cap on his head, weaving his way into
the open. He rubbed his hands down the plastic coat, and righted his fez
before adjusting his soggy bow-tie. Smiling boyishly in greeting, he
wrang his thin hands, "Hello all."
"Doctor?" Donna pointed, "It's Bow-tie Boy. The one that you hate."
"With
good reason. Traitor." If they hadn't been surrounded by an army of
aliens with guns, James would have charged across the mud and…done
something violent to his older self.
"Oh. Yes. Well, I can see how
this would look bad." Bow-tie Boy paused, fingers flickering, as he
scanned the area. It seemed he was only aware at this moment how this
might look to the other Doctor. "Yes. It might look a bit treacherous.
But you're young still," he smiled jubilantly, "so you can't possibly
know what's going on. And I can't explain-no point really-since you'll
forget it all just like with the others."
"Forget?" James narrowed
his eyes, "Forget what? That you went all "Valeyard" in your eleventh
regeneration and helped round up your younger-selves? That-that I'll not forget."
"You
will though." Bow-tie Boy tried to sound a little sad, a little
sympathetic, but underneath it Donna could see was the same grim
determination that was on the other Daleks-or Time Lords- faces. Bow-tie
Boy moved to stand over the "student" and the camera-thing.
James
stared his older incarnation down, shoulders tense, one hand fiddling
with his sonic screwdriver until its whining buzzing sound could be
heard over the wind and rain.
"It's just like you forgot meeting
Donna so many times in the past." Bow-Tie Boy added loudly, shrugging,
"Don't be sad about it. It's putting things to right. Fulfilling destiny
and all that…fun, good, wibbly-wobbly Time Lord stuff… that breaks your
hearts to do."
"The Doctors." Donna slipped her hand in James,
licking her bloody lips, "They only could sometimes remember me…and it's
because they'd been made to forget. They made them forget me."
The woman confirmed with a slight nod. "We are not
the villains, Doctor, as your older counterpart has discovered. There
is a very important event coming in Donna's life-in yours too-and for
the universe to go on-that event, it has to happen as it happened. Or will happen. It must all follow script. No ad-libbing allowed, I'm afraid."
"Me
and her….? Were just runaway actors in destiny's tour-de-force
performance." James held Donna's hand tight, the pressure reassuring
even as it was painful. "Everything we've been through…nothing more than
a mistake."
Donna breathed, "But it can't be."
"Shut up!"
Bow-tie Boy shouted. "I have enough guilt on these skinny shoulders to
fill the Medusa Cascade-so let's get this over with so I can run off
with Amy and Rory in my blue-box and forget it ever happened!"
Donna
felt like charging at him, throwing him down in the mud and slapping
some sense, some compassion, some common decency into this stupid cruel
Doctor. But without warning, she began to hysterically sob instead.
"You're gonna wipe my mind…and…and…you're not even look back You…you…"
There were so many curse words swirling in her head, her mouth froze as
she tried to choose one to scream at him.
James pulled Donna's
head into his chest, both arms encircling her, holding his pulsing
glowing sonic screwdriver protectively in front of them. Unwilling to
hide, even in James's arms, she took a few deep breaths and peeked out
to see what was happening.
Bow-tie Boy knelt to help the "student"
finishing building the evil gadget. His face was sad, but, like all the
faces around them, determined to see this through. And, whatever else
it may have been-treacherous, cunning, distant, mad-it was still the
Doctor's face. He was still the Doctor. Doing this to her. Taking away
everything.
Through his thin scuba-suit, Donna could hear his
hearts beating rapidly, feel the tension in James's body. He was holding
her a little too close, a little too hard. As if by keeping her close,
he could keep her-no matter what these people said. As he spoke, his
breath steamed and curled in the rain, "You wanna just answer me this-"
"It
won't matter in a few minutes, you'll get forget." Bow-tie Boy
sing-songed, his voice echoing inappropriately across the rain-soaked
beach. He glanced at the "student", sighing, "But he won't be satisfied
until he hears the master-scheme. Never is." He snapped a pole to the
tripod device. "This'll be just a minute. Then it will all be dry
clothes and off to see the universe for everyone…well, except for
Donna."
"…Why amplify the temporal anomalies? Why draw us to Donna in the first place?"
"Can't
you work that out for yourself, Time Lord?" The woman asked, a hint of a
girlish smile about her aged lips. She glanced down at where Bow-tie
Boy and the "student" were working. "You could save them the trouble."
"And go "gently into that good night"?"
Donna
looked up at James, standing brave and strong in the cold gray rain. He
had never looked more heroic. Even though, Donna had to admit, it
wasn't easy looking heroic in a skin-tight scuba-suit when you were
skinnier than a pencil. But he was though, he was her hero.
Please God, let him save her.
"Do you know me at all?" James scoffed, a cunning dark smile on his face.
"Indeed
I do." The woman's tone was suddenly weary. "I have wiped your mind
many times today. A tedious, nasty business. But, I think I know you
quite well."
"I am so thick." A slow creeping smile, one of
realization, spread across James's face. "Right then, you lot, you're
saving manpower!"
"They're making this easier…how?" Donna asked.
"Donna,
think!" He released her and placed his hands on her shoulders, staring
into her eyes. His smile was a bit maniac as the piece clicked into
place in his head. "You've got to stop the time-distortions, you've got
to stop the little meetings, the offers to rush Donna Noble away from
her ordinary life and show her the stars. But so many events-wrong
events, according to them-occurring throughout your lifetime. How are
you going to track down every doctor and erase their memories and make
sure you've gotten them all…?"
"They built a trap." Donna shivered, cold and disheartened, "To set all of you Doctors free."
"We
tried taking them out one-by-one," The woman began a solemn methodical
explanation, "but the time distortions were too strong. They kept being
drawn back to you, like a moth to the moss. But, courtesy of a temporal
anomaly amplification device-the Polaris-" The old woman smiled
as if the name meant something to her and then stared into Donna's eyes
again, "we could strengthen the distortions' pull until all of the
Doctors were drawn to one convenient location."
The old woman
waved at the area around them. "This little picnic, this reunion,
provided us with everyone we needed, all in the same place. Our
transmatter almost went down with the strain of instantaneously moving
all those people aboard our ship at the same time."
"And you'll
just drop them all off at their own TARDIS. They'll never know they met
me. Met each other." Donna's voice fell to a whisper. It sounded so
practical and sensible when the old woman explained and so frighteningly
nefarious when she repeated it.
The woman nodded. She lifted a small green-blue circuit, no bigger than an eraser from her belt, "Once we implant this at the base of your skull, you'll never see another Doctor again...until it begins decaying at the proper time, the right time."
"It's a safe, effective counteragent to all the temporal anomalies you've experienced." Bow-tie Boy added, placing a round glowing module on the tripod. "You'll be able to live your life normally until we're supposed to meet. It's ingenious really. Sort of like a little flood-dam that
will only open at the proper time."
"You want to wipe my mind, perform brain surgery on me and then dump me back in my nothing life. What about what I want?" Donna shook off James's hands and crossed her arms. "What about what I want, you bow-tie wearing skunk!"
Bow-tie Boy looked up, "What you want hardly matter when the universe is at stake."
"Good justifier of anything." James nodded sagely, "Used that one myself."
"Doctor!"
"I'm not saying I agree." He said defensively and looked down at her. He smiled that smile that made her feel like the universe was vast and anything was possible. "Donna Noble, run!"
Yeah. Destiny could get over herself. Donna bounded into action, following James as he barreled past some "tourists" like an American football player. Donna slapped at the hands that were trying to hold her back and kicked one of them in the shin. Darting out of their grasp, she reached for James hand. They'd run. They'd run and…
An ugly pale veil of green splashed up over Donna's vision and she felt her stomach twist upside down and inside out. Screaming, she clung to the Doctor's hand.