5x09: New Girls
5x09: New Girls
Donna's never going to get tired of this.
She crouches behind the overturned barrels, catching her breath as silently as possible while the guards rush past. Stupid sods. Other than them -- well, no, even with them -- she's quite fond of this planet. Asmidiske, sixty-first century, First Great and Bountiful Human Empire, brilliant. Donna straightens, shakes the dust out of her jacket, and turns calmly on her heel, grinning.
There are no Daleks on Amidiske, which is just as it should be. Last two planets weren't as they should be, though; she had to reverse-engineer an entire timeline, and the night after, she had awful nightmares. She dreamt she was trapped on Skaro and made to watch everyone she cared for exterminated, starting with Mum and Gramps, her dad, Lance all over again, Rose and Martha and Captain Jack, then people she'd never known but the Doctor had, and she woke shaking. Her TARDIS, in an inexpert still-learning way, did its best to soothe her mind, and after a bit had taken her without prompting to Amidiske, which means her wonderful ship is learning fast: Amidiske, far from being Dalek-infested, has so far offered up various and highly enjoyable entertainments in the form of a great lunch overlooking the river, an afternoon's wistful window-shopping, a quick dinner and drink at a club, and a good exciting chase.
In fact the guards were after Donna under the impression that she's smuggling Caphian dragon eggs. Donna still hasn't figured out why, although she has the vague suspicion it may have something to do with her figure, and therefore half a mind to go chasing the guards in turn to give them a good shouting at. She doesn't need to. Hands in her pockets and walking at a good wander, she heads back to the club.
She's never going to get tired of this, but she is starting to think that far from being the alien pervert Donna sometimes only mostly jokingly suspected the Doctor of being, he actually had the right idea. It's not like she has anyone to laugh over the egg-smuggling with. She didn't have any company but her TARDIS to calm her down after that nightmare. Donna wonders if just anyone will do, and knows at once that she's certainly not going back in that club to pick up some space boyfriend. She wonders even more briefly is she should go find the Doctor again; then she imagines the look on his face when he discovers she has a TARDIS, and knows she can't do that either. She sighs and walks right past the door to the club and down along the street back towards the river.
The best bit about having the Doctor's brain jammed up inside hers is, well, having a brilliant Time Lord brain. The worst bit is that she knows now what she looks like from the outside, which is both encouraging and very much otherwise. She isn't going to find a space boyfriend with her feminine wiles, that's certain. She reaches the bank of the river and leans on the energy rail overhanging it. The rail buzzes gently under her elbows. Anyway -- she smiles a little to herself -- she just needs a mate. Someone who won't mind a human Time Lord, for a start.
A couple of octopus things trundle past her, chatting animatedly. Donna watches them for a moment before turning back to the river and amending: someone a bit humanoid, too, that would be nice.
The octopus things seem to have the right idea, though; after a moment Donna pushes away from the railing and starts walking along the neat paved footpath that winds along following the river. Her TARDIS is up that way, anyway. She passes a crowd of teenage humanoids playing something with a vague resemblance to hacky-sack, and a little later passes the octopi again too; they're -- Donna's slightly horrified brain supplies the word canoodling, and she hurries on. Seems everyone else already has a space boyfriend.
Except a little further down the path, lit from beneath by the energy rail as she leans against it, is a lone girl. Early twenties if she's human, blonde hair. Funny thing is, she looks familiar, so with the faint tugging sense of coincidence pulling her in, which Donna's starting to recognise now, she goes over and leans casually on the rail a few feet away. Noticing her by virtue of the soft buzzing noises the rail makes, the girl looks over.
It's Jenny.
Donna grips the rail so hard it spits and crackles in protest. She becomes aware her mouth's open.
"Oh," Jenny says, and smiles. "Hello, Donna."
"Jenny," Donna manages. "Er. How --?"
Jenny's smile widens, her eyes crinkling at the corners with pleasure at her own cleverness. "Progenation machine, Time Lord biology -- I haven't quite figured it out myself yet. But I woke up again. How are you, Donna?" She says this last laughing a little, probably because Donna's still imitating a fish.
She has access to all the Doctor's complexities of love and terror for Jenny, but she just says, a bit blankly, "Good, I'm -- I'm good. What are you doing on Amidiske?"
"Oh," Jenny says, turning and rolling her shoulders back casually as she leans against the rail, facing away from the river now, "taking a bit of holiday. I've been traveling all over, you wouldn't believe. I talked a planet out of nuclear war! That was a few months ago. And I've had to do so much running, it's --"
"There she is!" comes a shout from the distance.
Donna looks up. "Oh, wonderful. I don't have any dragon eggs, you clowns!" She turns to Jenny. "You were saying about running?"
Jenny laughs. "Which way?"
"Through here," Donna says, "come on!" and sets off down the path, Jenny on her heels. The guards haven't broken out weapons yet, which is good, and up ahead Donna can see the little waterside kiosk with its closed sign; she grabs Jenny's elbow and veers towards it, ducking around the back and fumbling for the key.
"We're going to hide in here?" Jenny demands, but Donna has the door open by then and pulls Jenny into her TARDIS. "Oh," Jenny adds, and if Donna hadn't tactfully closed the door behind them she might have backed right back out. "Wow."
"My spaceship," Donna says, smiling. "It's a TARDIS. Time and relative dimensions in space. Guess what it does."
"It's bigger on the inside," Jenny says.
"Yeah. Yeah, that too." Donna wants to laugh, but instead she just walks up to the console and leans against it happily. "Come in properly, Jenny, go on. It also travels in time."
Jenny ventures forward, eyes wide, apparently attempting to look in every direction at once. "Because you and Dad are Time Lords," she says. A faint frown appears. She looks back at Donna. "Where is Dad?"
"'s a bit of a complicated story, really," Donna admits. "Tell you what. Let's go have a picnic somewhere brilliant, and we'll catch up. Mind leaving your spaceship behind?"
"If it travels in time, I can come back for it whenever I like," Jenny points out. "The picnic sounds lovely."
"Lovely," Donna echoes. She means to take Jenny somewhere really amazing, meteor showers on a beach at midnight or something, and is halfway through setting the coordinates before she realises how silly she's being and resets them for Chiswick, Earth, 2009, thankyouverymuch.
They emerge from a proper red phone booth with an out of order sign hanging in the window, just up the street from Donna's house. Jenny peers around curiously. Donna's pleased to notice she's still dressed sensibly, in boots and trousers and t-shirt, so she doesn't actually look out of place here on the residential street. "Welcome to Earth," Donna says. "My home planet. Not your dad's."
"So then you're not a --?" Jenny starts, and Donna says, "It's really, really complicated, and I haven't checked in on my family in a while now, so I thought -- let's all have the picnic together, and you can see what a proper family's like."
"All right," Jenny says, after due consideration. "I'd like that."
So Donna walks back to her small ordinary wonderful house, and on a whim rings the doorbell rather than just letting herself in. After a moment, the door opens. It's Mum. Right. She should have thought of that. Mum stares at her for a long moment, then says, in an odd voice with emotion Donna can't quite place, "Where have you been?"
"All over," Donna says, and doesn't know what else to say. "Hi, Mum."
They all stand there.
"Oh," Donna adds, "and this is Jenny," stepping aside to let Jenny forward. Jenny smiles and says, "Hello, Donna's mum," and Mum nods a bit and then calls, "Dad! It's Donna!"
Oh thank god.
Gramps comes to the door as fast as he can. "Donna!" he says, and gives her a great big hug, and when he's introduced to Jenny he shakes her hand with enthusiasm until she's grinning again. "Now," Gramps says, "what's this about then, eh, sweetheart?"
"I was wondering if you wanted to come on a picnic with me," Donna says, and takes a deep breath. "Space picnic. Somewhere out there." She looks at Mum. "I'd really love it."
"I'm not having a picnic with that Doctor," Mum says. "Not after what he did to you."
"Oh -- no, he's not here," Donna assures her quickly. "It'd just be us and Jenny." She avoids Jenny's questioning look at Mum's obvious dislike for the Doctor, and presses on, "I've got tea in thermoses, and sandwiches and biscuits, and -- Mum, please, let's go to some seashore where you can see three moons and the water looks like green glass. Please."
"How can you, if you don't have the Doctor along?" Mum demands.
"I'll show you," Donna says. "C'mon. Just over here."
Her strange little family -- she hasn't figured out yet whether Jenny counts -- follow her back to the phone booth TARDIS. "Here, is it like an upgrade?" Gramps asks, and Donna grins, says, "Oh yes it is." Jenny goes in, Gramps following, and despite Mum's look of outrage and astonishment at the idea of packing into a little space like that, Donna manages to get her inside too and is rewarded by Mum's expression changing swiftly to shocked wonder. "See?" Donna says softly.
Mum collects herself. "You said a beach, missy. Go on."
So Donna takes them to Ksora Six, a nature reserve and relatively minor jewel of the Seven Systems. They sit on a downy bluff overlooking the glass-green freshwater sea, two of the promised three moons hanging huge above them and another sliding up over the horizon. Jenny seems most interested in picking apart the various sandwiches and swapping bits of ingredients around between them, but both Gramps and Mum are insistent for the story, so Donna explains: the DoctorDonna, the Master ("just another Time Lord," she says, her one concession to a flat lie during the telling), Gallifrey, her own TARDIS. Jenny listens intently, sandwich forgotten, and starts asking her about Gallifrey and the Time War, which is when Donna starts hedging the answers again. It's not like Mum and Gramps really know what having the Doctor's brain means, because they don't know the Doctor and can't comprehend the millennium of memories, and on top of that she doesn't want them worrying about the War. Jenny catches onto this after a moment and starts in instead on asking questions about the hardboiled eggs, and what exactly a chicken is, then, which of course leads to questions about Jenny's upbringing. It's lucky Mum's seen Daleks and the like, or she might otherwise have made a scene; as is she looks disapproving but stays silent while Gramps listens raptly to the full story.
The third moon is fully risen now, with the sun a great fierce ball of light sinking into the sea to their left. A breeze picks up off the ocean, and Donna gets to her feet. "We'll need to get a move-on," she says. "Nights here the whole place practically freezes over. I'll drop you back at home, yeah?"
Mum, getting up, gives her a look. "And you're going to keep on running about outer space. How do you know your brain isn't going to burst?"
"I promise, Mum," Donna says. "I'll keep safe. Besides, I can't go back, be a temp again." She looks away. "You saw how miserable I was for those few months. I just -- I can't."
"I know," Mum admits, after a long silence. She opens her mouth, seems to think better of her next words, and heads back into Donna's TARDIS (still a red phone booth, to avoid confusing her family). After a moment Gramps shuffles up and pats Donna's arm before following.
"This is what families are like?" Jenny asks, helping Donna fold up the tablecloth.
"Sometimes," Donna answers, sighing.
She flies Mum and Gramps back home. Saying goodbye to them in the doorway of the TARDIS, she allows Gramps to lean in close and whisper, "Don't listen to Sylvia, sweetheart; go find him again. He'll want to know his Jenny's alive."
Donna smiles at him. "Course I will, Gramps. You take care."
"Stop in," Mum interjects. "Stop in sometimes, all right?"
"Sure," Donna says, and Mum surprises her by hugging her tight. She smiles into Mum's shoulder, hugs back, and stands in the door of her TARDIS, waving after them until they turn the corner. Then she shuts the door with a sigh of relief.
"They really care about you," Jenny observes, perched on one of the armchairs Donna has installed near the console. She stares at her hands for a bit. "Donna. If you've got Dad's brain now, what exactly does that make you to me? My mum? My sister? My also dad?"
"If you call me Mum or Dad you'll be in serious trouble," Donna says. "Grounding-serious trouble." Jenny giggles, and Donna goes on, "No, really, I suppose it makes us ... sisters, more than anything else. Bit of the Doctor in who we are." She goes up to the console. "Where to?"
"Dunno," Jenny says. "I mean, if we're looking for civilisations to save ..." She draws her knees up to her chest. "Tell me about the Time War. Properly this time."
So Donna sits down in the other armchair, and she explains. She explains the Daleks, as best she can, the War, how the Doctor's nearly the only Time Lord left now, and Jenny listens raptly. At one point she interrupts, "But I still don't understand why these Daleks are so much worse than anything else in the universe programmed to kill. What makes them the real threat?"
"Time," Donna says, and stops. She understands it, the structure and the danger there in her head, but only because she has the Doctor's understanding of time. "Okay," she says. "Imagine -- imagine a house of cards, yeah? Only not cards, imagine you've got a lot of little wood blocks or something, all holding each other up." Jenny nods. "Right. Now, each of these little wood blocks is a bit of time. Not that time's actually made up of discrete events, but ... There are certain events which are fixed in time, and some of them are in flux. Now, if you take an event in flux -- your event is one of those little wooden blocks, right -- you take it out, your little house stays standing. But if you take out one of the fixed events -- if you move it, or change it -- suddenly that little house is getting really wobbly."
"Oh," Jenny says, and frowns. "So if the little blocks are events, what's the house?"
"The universe." Donna gives Jenny a lopsided smile. "The whole of time and space."
"So if you pull out too many fixed events, the universe ... just collapses?"
"Right," Donna says. "You destroy too many fundamental bits, reality just starts crumbling. And that's what the Daleks were doing, Jenny. Destroying everything they came across, all sorts of civilisations that wouldn't even come into being cos they were killed before they had a chance. That's why the War was so dangerous, and that's why the Time Lords got involved. It was everyone's problem, and they couldn't stand by while it happened."
Jenny stays quiet for a long moment. "But now it's not over anymore."
"No." Donna already knows Jenny's next question, and adds, "But I'm one of the only people that knows, Jenny. When Dalek Caan threw himself back into the Time War, he broke through the timeline, but just a very little bit." The lopsided smile returns. "I got another analogy for you."
Jenny grins. "Go ahead."
"Right. So, you got some sort of big beach ball. Air inside, air outside. The air inside, that's the Time War, all locked away and not interacting with the world anymore. Air outside -- well. But along comes this one Dalek and sticks a little pinhole into the beach ball that's the time lock, and suddenly air can get in and out. That's me. I'm a bit of air, and I can live on either side. All the Doctor's lives that are on that side, if they come through to this one they can't tell all the other Time Lords are gone. But the one here -- the one that's your dad -- he can't sense the side that's in the lock, because he's outside it. My TARDIS knows where that little hole is, but his doesn't. And I don't know how the hole's supposed to be closed up again, because --"
"All the air inside the beach ball eventually gets out," Jenny guesses, nodding. "Have you got cosmic duct tape?"
Donna laughs. "Problem is," she says, "I think maybe I am the cosmic duct tape. Everything I've done -- well, it's taken me back into the timeline that's got the War. And that makes me think, maybe I've got to do something to change it."
"We," Jenny says unexpectedly.
"What?"
"Maybe we've got to do something to change it," Jenny repeats, with confidence this time. "If nothing that happens to you is a coincidence, why did you run into me again? You were there when I was born, and you just happen to be on the same planet as me a few years later -- Donna! I'm the Doctor's daughter from a timeline with no Time Lords left. I'm something new too."
"You might be on to something." Donna gets up, prodded to her feet by excitement. "It is a bit funny. I mean, you're born a soldier and you learn to be other things too, which is -- well, it's almost the opposite of every other Time Lord there is. And then you die but you come back, and you still don't know how you did that one."
"Right!" Jenny agrees, beaming. It fades. "But Donna, what's actually causing all this? I mean, you keep talking about coincidence like it's a pattern, so is it ... fate? Some sort of destiny?"
"No, it doesn't work like that." Donna sighs. "No weird analogies this time, I promise. Anything can be a fixed event, right, so something I have to do in the future -- it's fixed, and no matter what I do I'm going to get to it eventually. It doesn't mean I don't have free will. Just means Time does everything it possibly can to make things go they way they should, because they always have. Cos time's not a line, Jenny, it's just this big interconnected mess of stuff, and everything influences everything else and tries to pull it in the right direction, and ... am I making any sense?"
"I think so," Jenny says. "So you've got free will but you also have some sort of destiny."
"No, it --" Donna sighs again. "Well, it's close enough."
"So?" Jenny prompts after a moment. "What are we waiting for? Let's go to Gallifrey!"
"You really mean that, don't you?" Donna fiddles with one of the rings on her right hand for a moment. "Listen, Jenny, if you like we could phone the Doctor first. Let him know you're alive and all." She doesn't know if that's a smart idea -- she's worried enough about how he's coping with the Master, and giving him another shock is probably a bad plan -- but she does know Gramps is right, and it's the right thing to do.
"What if I'm in my teenage rebellion phase," Jenny says a bit slyly, "and I don't want Dad to know I'm off to mess around with his old wars?"
Donna snorts. "Well, when you put it like that ..."
"Besides," Jenny says, "he lives outside the beach ball, and we're about to go in."
"That just sounds silly," Donna protests. "God, drop the beach ball metaphor. In fact forget I ever even said the words 'beach ball'."
Jenny grins. "Got it. Now what are we waiting for?"
Nothing, Donna thinks. Somewhere out there her mother's worried for her; somewhere the Doctor has the Master in his TARDIS, and doesn't know that Jenny's alive. Somewhere Jack and Martha don't know the Master is back, and somewhere else Romana doesn't know how the Time War will end. Somewhere, she thinks with a trace of irony, there are worlds to save, and worlds beyond saving; somewhere else the tea's getting cold.
She looks up with a grin, throws the handbrake, and says, "Come on, Jenny. We've got work to do."
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