Oncoming Storms - Prompt 165.4 - First line prompt
"I knew the Doctor couldn't be dead because--"
"Hold on a mo', who said I was dead?!" the Doctor suddenly cried, completely interrupting her narrative for the what felt like the umpteenth time in the past twenty minutes alone.
Donna frowned and threw him a quick look that said, "Belt up, will you?". She then donned a fake smile, chuckling as she returned her attentions back to their guest. "Like I was saying," she said in a pleasant, saccharine-y way, "I knew that great dumbo couldn't be dead because he started to groan something about how he really ought to stop falling from high places, or something like that. I was a little more concerned about the fact he had just fallen from the roof of a four-storey building at the time to really pay attention to what he was saying."
She could practically feel those eyes of his on her and she sighed. "Yes, sorry if I missed a revelation you had upon hitting your head. I'll be sure to stop and listen to every word before coming to see if you're all right next time."
"No, no, no, it's not that." She knew at once it was a big fat lie. "And anyway, that'd be very Doc Brown of me, and believe you me, that's where I draw the line!"
An eyebrow raised ever so slightly on her face. "You say that like you hadn't narrowly missed being struck with lightning." Silence hung in the air for a brief moment before she added, "You haven't been, have you?"
"Better that than being shot by an angry van full of armed Libyans," he retorted, avoiding the question.
She gave a shrug of her shoulders and returned her attentions to her guest. "Sorry, this must be really confusing for you, but I promise there's a point. Anyway, after I checked on the Doctor and ascertained he hadn't truly died, he and I tried to--"
But she was interrupted again before she could even get to what she felt was the best part of the story. This time, the Doctor stood suddenly, knocking his chair over with a loud clatter on the floor. "I'm sorry," he said loudly, looking around the room at the small blinking devices recording their session, "but I can't do this. I can't stand one more minute of this rubbish!" He began to strip out of the pinstripe suit, buttons popping and flying as he clawed the suit coat apart.
"Erm, come on, Doctor," she said, hurriedly moving over to him, giving both their guest and the blinking devices in the corners a nervous, furtive glance. "Stop it!" she hissed under her breath. Her hand grabbed his shoulder, preventing him from completely removing the coat, and she squeezed as hard as she could. "You're going to blow it!"
"Oh, stuff it, you stupid cow!" he growled, twisting out of her grip. But when he spoke that time, his voice had a funny dual quality to it. One layer that sounded just like the Doctor's, and another much deeper one. "Look at her!" he cried, pointing at their guest. "She's not buying the story. And really, what kind of character is this "Doctor" anyway? Who the hell speaks like that?! Who references a stupid old film so flippantly? He doesn't even answer questions you asked. Did you notice? I had everything I could do to suppress my impulse to give a reply of some kind. And he's so bloody rude! I don't know how anyone gets on with him, the bastard," he said pointedly at the guest," and to make his point, he made quick work of the voice modulator chip stuck to his throat. It left an angry, red patch where it had been; it wasn't meant to be torn away like that.
Or so the guest surmised from the situation. If she were honest with herself, she was torn between being absolutely disgusted at the pair who had been talking to her for the past hour and being positively angry that he had never mentioned just how awful those trousers looked on her, especially with those shoes. Though now that she thought about it, had it been an hour? She couldn't tell properly, not with the drugs still in her system to some degree. It felt like it, anyway.
No, that was a lie. What she really felt like doing right then was giving that bimbo who had stolen her face a good slap round the face for doing what she did to her and the Doctor. And for wearing her hair like that! She looked like an absolute wreck--or rather her doppelgänger did. She had a feeling she didn't look that good either, but at least she had a reason.
"Donna" looked positively beside herself, her face reddening with fury as her partner continued to strip himself of the suit as though it was the most disgusting thing in the known universe. "Stop it, stop it! We were so close!" In her fury, the doppelgänger stamped her foot and burst into tears.
"Oh yeah? I don't care any longer. This was a stupid plan to begin with! And what did we get out of it? We killed the one man I've hero-worshipped for most of my life all for...for what?!" He threw down the suit coat in disgust, spitting on it.
Suddenly, a voice rang out over a hidden tannoy system. The real Donna's eyes lit up and she began to thrash about in the chair she was in, ignoring the renewed pain from the ugly, bleeding wounds on her wrists and ankles. She tried to work the gag out of her mouth, but had no luck. It was secured just tight enough around her head that she couldn't budge it a millimetre.
"Oi!" the voice said indignantly. "I'll have you know that's a very good coat you've ruined just now! And there's nothing wrong with referencing that film. It's a classic! Even if it does have several flaws in the time mechanics and the flux capacitor would never work in a practical scenario, not unless you wanted to a one-stop only ticket."
"Doctor!" shouted the two doppelgängers almost in unison--though "the Doctor" said it out of relief, and "Donna" out of utter fear. "Donna" tried to clutch to "the Doctor" but he swatted her away.
"Yup, that's me!" he said, and a visual screen on the wall lit up, showing the room adjacent to the one they were in. The real Doctor stood there, a mixture of victory and something else Donna never really liked to see on her friend's face--but in this situation, she certainly understood his anger. "The real McCoy, well, technically it's "MacKay", but I think you've got the idea by now.
"Oh yes, and how did that one line go?" he asked, leaning forward toward the glass. His dark eyes winked at Donna for a brief second before he turned his piercing gaze at the two cowering at the opposite end of the room. "Ah! I remember. 'I knew the Doctor couldn't be dead because...?' Well, the real answer is--"
Muse: Donna Noble
Word count: 1195