Archive of Our Own ^beta

Most days, Donna was surprised how mundane working for UNIT could be. When she took the job, she sort of figured it would be alien madness every week, at least. Like traveling with the Doctor but without all the mileage. Apparently, though, even when tasked with protecting the world from aliens, there were still budget meetings to be had and workplace conduct training seminars, data processing and IT issues and gossiping in the break room. Enough that she could nearly get bored, if it weren’t for the days in between—days like today—when the fate of the world rested on what they did next.

This time, the disruption came in the form of an intergalactic alien ship that had apparently veered wildly off-course and was now plunging headlong toward Earth. With the crew in hypersleep and the autopilot not responding, things were getting a bit tense in the control room.

“Can we override?” Kate Lethbridge-Stewart demanded, pacing restlessly in front of the screen at the front of the room showing the satellite view of the massive careening vessel. “Take remote control of it?”

“I’m doing my best to gain access…” Mel scowled at her screen in focus as she tapped at the controls. “Something keeps blocking me.”

“How long do we have?” Kate asked.

“At current speed, we should still have almost half an hour before it enters Earth’s atmosphere,” Shirley reported. “Hopefully plenty of room to redirect its course to pass well clear of us.”

Donna swallowed. They had fortunately spotted the ship while still at the edge of the solar system, but that still wasn’t a lot of time. Apparently a crash meant not just the deaths of the crew onboard, but a catastrophic explosion that could irradiate a significant area of wherever it hit on Earth. How many times had life-threatening events like this happened while she was obliviously living her average life? How close to destruction had her family come without her even realizing?

“I think I’ve got something here,” Mel said hopefully. “There’s a program preventing me from hacking into the flight computer. If I can disable that…”

She sat back suddenly, staring at the screen as her hands went still. “Donna, I think you should see this.”

Donna pushed up from her station, hurrying to lean over Mel’s shoulder. “You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

“What?!” Kate snapped. “What is it?!”

Donna sighed as Mel projected her computer feed to the main screen. “When I tried to access the program surrounding the flight computer, this popped up.”

They all looked up at the circular shapes rotating ominously on the main screen.

“It’s Gallifreyan,” Donna supplied.

“The Doctor’s language?” Shirley asked, puzzled. “Could it be a Time Lord ship?”

“Everything about the design says it’s just a normal crew transporter,” Mel said. “Nothing like anything Time Lord-related in our records.”

“So the real question is why is a Gallifreyan program keeping a ship on a fatal course with Earth?” Kate concluded.

Donna exchanged a look with Mel. “You try the new one, I’ll call ours.”

“Deal.”

Donna took out her phone, pulling up her contact list as Mel tried dialing the active Doctor. She waited as Mel sat, listening to the phone apparently ringing without reply.

Mel shook her head. “He’s out of range, one way or the other.”

“Figures.” Donna pressed the screen on her phone and let it dial.

He picked up on the first ring. “Donna. Everything all right?”

“Working to keep it that way. Listen, your other self isn’t in the area and we have a limited clock. Feel up to translating some Gallifreyan for us?”

She could almost feel him tense up on the other end of the line. “I’m on my way,” he said, tone deadly serious.

“How soon can you—” She broke off as she already heard the whirring of the TARDIS materializing behind her. “Right. Stupid question,” she muttered, hanging up and turning around.

The Doctor strode out before the TARDIS even finished settling, putting his glasses on as he stared at the message on the screen. “Where did you encounter this?”

“An alien passenger vessel on a collision course with Earth,” Kate explained, taking command of the situation again. “We attempted to remotely access the ship’s controls and this popped up.”

“Did it now?” the Doctor said, a dark tone to his voice that made Donna’s nerves prickle. “Someone’s put a temporal lock around the flight controls, frozen them in time to prevent anyone from changing them. To disable it, you need to put in a series of correct passcodes, essentially solve riddles or equations. Did anyone try to answer it yet?”

“Didn’t even realize it was a question,” Mel said. “I haven’t interacted with it since it popped up.”

“Good. Too many wrong answers and it will lock you out permanently.” He scratched his jaw, thinking. “How long do we have?”

“Twenty-five minutes now,” Shirley answered.

“Route the signal into the TARDIS. I can key in the answers there.”

“On it,” Mel replied.

Donna followed as the Doctor hurried back through the doors and up the ramp to the center console, completely focused on his mission. “How many tries do you get?”

“Depends on how the program’s set up.” He flipped a panel open on one of the console panels, revealing an elliptical keypad she didn’t think she’d ever seen before. “Could be the traditional three, maybe more if whoever put it there feels like toying with us longer.”

He aimed the sonic screwdriver over his shoulder, turning on the screens on the wall without looking.

“You think someone intentionally did this to mess with you?” she asked softly.

He looked at her over the console, eyes grimmer than she’d seen them in months. “No one but Time Lords should be able to make a time lock with a Gallifreyan passcode. That’s an extremely short list and none of the options are good.”

Donna stifled the anger growing in her chest as the Doctor went back to fiddling with the controls. This was supposed to be the other Doctor’s responsibility. This Doctor was supposed to be getting a break, not worrying about someone from his past coming to torment him again.

Kate, Mel, and Shirley were making their way into the TARDIS now too.

“I transferred the link to the TARDIS’s computer,” Mel said, coming to lean against one of the railings. “You should be able to see it on your screen now.”

“Good.” He hit a few buttons and the same screen of circular symbols appeared on the wall. The Doctor positioned himself over the domed keyboard and huffed a breath. “Here we go.”

He pressed a key and the array of symbols changed on the screen. His eyes flickered as he read rapidly, fingers clacking over the controls. Donna watched with fascination and a faint glimmer of familiarity, seeing how the keys assembled the curves and dots in the circular symbols of his responses. As he answered one, the ring of symbols on screen changed and he continued, keying in words and phrases for each new question it posed, until abruptly the screen went red with a scolding beep.

“What?” The Doctor frowned, staring at it in bafflement.

“Did it lock you out?” Shirley asked.

“No.” The Doctor read the screen. “I answered everything correctly, but apparently it wasn’t fast enough. Oh, someone’s definitely having a laugh with this. Not to worry,” he cracked his knuckles and wiggled his fingers over the keyboard. “Now I know what it wants.”

He started the program again, but this time a completely different set of symbols appeared on the screen. The Doctor gave a little noise of consternation, but raced to try to answer quickly. From the amount of red that flickered on the screen, Donna inferred he was doing even worse that time than the first.

As the system beeped an almost mocking rejection again and returned to the main screen with its countdown, the Doctor gave a frustrated huff, scratching his head. “It changed the questions. It randomizes them each time so you can’t memorize them and anticipate it.”

“Well, at least it’s still giving you three more tries, so you know it is toying with you,” Donna said sympathetically, trying to lighten his mood.

The Doctor froze. “How did--?” His head shot up to the screen, then whipped to her. His eyes widened with shock. “Donna, can you still read Gallifreyan?”

The excitement in his face burned her heart and she so hated to crush his hope, but she needed to temper his expectations back to reality. “Just bits and pieces,” she said, shaking her head. “Nothing fluent. Like…a language you took in school and never used again.” She waved a hand at the screen. “I get the basics, the dots and lines and things, but—”

The Doctor was grinning now, though, that look she knew too well. “Enough to take dictation?”

Donna squared her shoulders, aiming a finger at him. “No.”

He kept giving her the same mischievous look, though. “Fastest typist in London,” he cajoled, stepping back and gesturing to the keyboard. “Far better than I ever was.”

“On an English keyboard.” Donna crossed her arms determinedly. “In a language I speak.”

“You might still have the muscle memory,” he pressed, “and all you need’s the alphabet. I’ll read it and answer everything; all you’d have to do is type it up. Eh?” He arched his eyebrows at her, swinging back and forth expectantly with his tongue pressed behind his teeth in that way she knew that he knew typically broke through her resolve. Rose had started picking it up lately too, darn him.

Over his shoulder she saw Mel, Shirley, and Kate watching in various expressions of encouragement, curiosity, and barely concealed impatience. She knew they had all been intrigued by the stories about her time as the DoctorDonna. Apparently having a bit of a legend meant dealing with a bit of expectation now and then too.

Donna sighed, rolling her eyes. “Fine. But if we use up an attempt just for me to prove how rubbish my Time Lord is—”

“You’ll be great,” the Doctor rubbed her arms as he steered her into his place at the keyboard. “I believe in you.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she grumbled, but without actual anger. She focused on the circular symbols, arcs, dots, and lines of the keyboard. She wasn’t sure if it was intuition or memory, but she had to admit she could make sense of the logic behind how it was laid out. As she settled her hands onto the controls, doing a few practice keystrokes, she felt a pulse of warmth from the console, as if the TARDIS itself was reassuring her.

I’ll do my best, she thought back to the ship.

“Ready?” The Doctor asked, practically rocking on his heels.

“Good as,” she said, tossing her hair as she summoned a bit of bravado.

“Allons-y.” He gestured her to tap the controls.

Donna didn’t look at the screen, or the Doctor, or anything but the keyboard, focusing entirely on the symbols. It was surprisingly easy to slide back into the mindset of taking notes during meetings, getting out of her own way and keeping her mind from wandering. Her fingers did indeed seem to remember more than her brain did, flying over the keys without hesitation as the Doctor called out words to her. Her confidence stirred and she had to admit she felt a little thrill of excitement, like the old days.

Like being the DoctorDonna again…

She finished the last word with a little flourish and looked up, just to see the screen flash red again and the counter tick down to two attempts left.

“What?” the Doctor said. “What does it want now?!”

The confidence drained away again as quick as it had come and Donna stepped back from the keyboard as the heavy sense of ‘not enough’ settled back into its familiar grooves in her mind. She felt Mel step over and rub her back sympathetically. “Sorry, Doctor.”

“Hm?” He looked back, frowning. “No, you were perfect, Donna. The timing was spot on this time. But it says every answer was wrong.”

“So we’re going backward now?” Kate asked.

The Doctor tapped his foot, hands on his hips. “How long do we have left?”

Shirley checked her tablet. “Just under twelve minutes.”

Donna grimaced. Not much time. “Doctor, I know it’s dangerous to go back on your own timeline, but maybe we could take the TARDIS—"

“That’s it!” the Doctor cried, making Kate and Shirley jump. He raked his hands through his hair. “Oh, I’m thick! Thick, thick, thick!”

“What is it, Doctor?” Donna and Mel asked in exasperated unison.

“The TARDIS’s translation circuits!” The Doctor came around to another control panel on the console. “You’re hearing me in English. That’s the problem.” He pointed to the screen. “The answers are in Gallifreyan script, but they’re English words! That’s why they’re wrong!”

“Is there a way to get around the translator?” Mel asked.

“Simple,” the Doctor said. “I just stop having it translate for Donna.”

“Oi, remember how I said ‘not fluent’?” Donna protested.

“You don’t have to be,” the Doctor insisted. “You just need to hear me say the answers properly so you can transcribe them.”

Donna glanced back up at the screen with only two chances (and closer to ten minutes now) remaining. “All right, get on with it, then.”

He nodded, closed his eyes, then opened them again, looking at her. His lips moved, but instead of his familiar accent, she heard a melodic chorus of opposing tones that rocked her back a step, hands flying to her temples.

“Donna!” He switched back to terrified English, reaching toward her.

“I’m fine,” she assured him, steadying herself. Funny she could forget just how alien he was sometimes. “It’s just…It’s a lot to take in. But I’m okay.”

He nodded, then spoke again. This time she could hear some of the tones as words, though they overlapping so much she couldn’t parse them out, like trying to make out two conversations at once. Her expression must have showed how she was straining to follow, because the Doctor spoke more slowly then, until through the conflicting sounds she made out, “Donna, understand?”

“Yes!” she perked up, pointing. “I understood that!”

The Doctor brightened too, grinning widely. With exaggerated hand gestures and expressions, he said slowly and loudly, “Hear words, just type. No need meaning.”

Donna leveled a look at him. “Are you talking to me like a child?”

The Doctor rolled his eyes, switching back to English. “Look, in ten minutes I’ll tell the world how incredible you are for understanding even a fraction of a nearly-extinct polyphonic dialect, but right now…?” He gestured at the screen.

“Right, fine.” She took her post at the keyboard. “Lead on, Spaceman.”

“They’re like this on game nights too,” Mel was saying quietly to Kate. “You’d think they’d win every time, but—”

“Can we get a bit of hush?” the Doctor interrupted. “Please,” he added, more politely.

Donna took a deep breath and focused again. Now that she was prepared for it, the spoken Gallifreyan was a bit easier to follow, though she quickly realized a new problem. The words continued overlapping, two, sometimes three at a time, sometimes similar spellings, sometimes so different she wasn’t sure they could be the same word. She didn’t need to look at the screen to know how often it was pinging wrong answers, each failure breaking her concentration more, taking her longer to separate the words and pick one to hazard as a guess.

By the end, they got nearly every answer wrong and had taken too long to complete it.

The looming specter of the single remaining attempt sat heavily over them. Neither of them spoke, Donna leaning on the console, the Doctor facing away, head hanging too.

“What went wrong?” Mel ventured gently.

“I’m sorry,” Donna said.

“Not your fault,” the Doctor responded automatically, a common exchange between them, both ways, recently.

“Gallifreyan’s complicated,” Donna explained. “Everything he said had multiple meanings and could be spelled several ways. I didn’t know which was the right one to pick.”

“How do you work in a language like that?” Shirley asked.

“Oh, ‘cause English is clear-cut and phonetic,” the Doctor said sarcastically.

“Doctor,” Donna warned.

“I know. I’m sorry.” He paced away and suddenly kicked sharply at a railing.

Donna looked up, concerned. The TARDIS also seemed to warble uncertainly.

“Seven minutes, one more chance,” Kate said, looking between them. “What now, Doctor?”

He didn’t answer. Donna hated when he got like this.

“If we can’t undo the time lock, what’s the plan then?” Mel asked.

Kate sighed. “If necessary, we can attempt to destroy the ship before it enters atmosphere.”

“No,” Donna and the Doctor responded in sync.

His shoulders slumped in what looked too much like defeat and he turned around to face them again. “I have one more thing I can do. It would eliminate the semantic confusion and the delay between speech, processing, and response.”

“Well?” Kate prompted.

When he didn’t elaborate, Donna looked over and realized he was staring at her with that ridiculous kicked puppy look, the one of deep sadness and apology that sent a chill up her spine to this day.

“Oi, don’t give me that look,” she said, cutting off the growing dread with exasperation. “The Metacrisis is gone. You don’t have to worry about triggering any dangerous memories anymore. Spit it out.”

He continued looking at her with the same sorrowful expression. “I would have to join our minds and give you the answers psychically.”

Donna froze, straightening up slightly as a sudden, bone-deep fear crept through her. “Ah.”

“You can do that?” Shirley asked. “Is it dangerous?”

“It’s not supposed to be,” the Doctor said, eyes never leaving Donna’s. “But I violated that trust long ago. I can’t—” He cut himself off, striding over to the console to access the keyboard. “I’ll just have to be faster this time. I can do that. One more round.”

“Would it work with me instead?” Mel asked. Bless her for understanding Donna’s distress. “I know I’m not quite as fast—”

“You’re brilliant, Mel,” the Doctor said, shaking out his hands, “but without a base knowledge of and experience with Gallifreyan it won’t be fast enough.”

Donna took a shaky breath. “Doctor, it’s okay.”

“No, it’s not,” he said, desperation in his voice. “We don’t need to do that. I can just—”

She cut him off again, sharper now. “Six minutes, lives on the line. Quit trying to protect me, Doctor. I’m telling you, it’s all right.”

He looked up at her, so afraid, and Donna cursed the world for putting them in this position again. He was supposed to be resting and healing, not getting traumatized further. They both were.

But neither one of them could put themselves first when the stakes were real.

He accepted that, but still stepped closer, took her hand, held it to his chest, and stared into her eyes. “I promise. I won’t touch or change or take. Only give. Like with the Ood song. Just opening my mind to yours.”

She nodded, hoping he couldn’t hear the nervous racing of her heart. “I know. I trust you.”

It was a choice. Not as automatic as it would have been fifteen years ago, but the same decision that made her jump out of a moving taxi, trusting he would catch her. Because she knew how much the last time had destroyed him and he wouldn’t put either of them through that again if he could help it.

“Right, then,” he moved beside her as she took her position at the keyboard. “One last try. How long?”

“Five minutes,” Shirley called.

Cutting it close, always. Donna steadied herself, ready. Still, as the Doctor’s fingers brushed her temple, her body reacted, jerking away from him with a gasp.

He immediately backed off, hands up reassuringly. “I’m sor—"

Donna shook her head, feeling the clock ticking down to millions of deaths. She grabbed the Doctor’s wrist, pulling him back over. “Just a reflex. I’m fine. Get on with it!”

“Okay.”

She braced herself again, but this time he adjusted his position, resting his fingers very gently on her scalp instead of the side of her face. She appreciated the effort. Oddly, that little bit did help.

All nervousness was forgotten as she felt the Doctor’s mind open and flow into hers. She inhaled sharply, but in exhilaration rather than fear this time. Oh, she remembered this feeling, her mind filling with information beyond her experience, neurons speeding to keep up. Her head filled with music, like the Doctor’s spoken voice, but no longer contradictory and chaotic. It was harmonious. She realized she had heard this tune before, for years in her dreams, a half-forgotten song by the time she woke up that she couldn’t identify. All that time, it was his mental voice echoing in her suppressed memories.

The Doctor’s consciousness in the present sent an inquisitive tone and she gave him an affirmative thought in return. They activated the final attempt at the program and Donna let the Doctor’s mind guide her hands.

It was so easy, so familiar. Like those first moments of the Metacrisis, sending the planets home, moving in instinctive choreography with the Doctors. But this time, there was no strain or pressure. She didn’t have to try to contain the entirety of the Doctor’s mind, just let it pass through her as a conduit.

She had known brains could rewire themselves based on experiences. Even though the Time Lord mind had only been active in her head for a few hours before being blocked away, her neural pathways had forged new networks to accommodate the speed her thoughts had accelerated to. Muscle memory, the Doctor had said, and he wasn’t wrong. Now that her memories were back, Donna had been able to confirm her suspicions that her nervous system worked a bit differently since the Metacrisis. Muscles a bit more responsive, information processing a bit quicker, though not always syncing up correctly. It led to some interesting moments of clumsiness—including coffee spills—as her body didn’t always move as quickly as her brain expected it to, but nothing so dramatic as to be noticeable if she hadn’t started looking for it.

Those connections had atrophied over the fifteen years of dormancy, but not disappeared, and the Doctor’s mind rushed through them like rain filling long dry riverbeds. Time stretched, or at least her perception of it did, and she knew four minutes and seventeen seconds was more than enough to take care of things. Donna’s fingers danced across the keys and she could actually read the questions along with the Doctor as his brain conveyed the answers directly to her nerve endings, no longer slowed by the barrier of language.

The fourth dynasty of Kortan. The inverse coefficient of the influence of mavity on the temporal constant. Bynarrinberry. His eldest nephew. The sensation of stepping into cool water.

Donna watched the answers pass through, barely fast enough to process, but never overwhelming. It dawned on her as the Doctor adjusted the speed of his responses by a fraction of a rel that he was consciously making sure not to strain her synapses too much. While solving complicated challenge questions, he was also using part of his mind to monitor her well-being. A fond bemusement warmed her mind, no doubt conveying her appreciation to him as well.

Maybe it was because he was splitting his focus that way that he missed a detail on the last question. Donna felt the answer flow into her mind, but it wasn’t right. She jerked her hand from his control, causing a startled pulse in the back of her mind, and she changed the last symbol, rearranging the arcs and dots into a different configuration and hit to lock it in before the Doctor could change it back.

“Donna, what--?” the Doctor said, making her jump as he withdrew back to verbal communication, the connection fading from their minds.

The screen on the wall lit up green, though, and a triumphant fanfare played.

“You did it!” Mel cheered.

“Quick! You should be able to steer it away now,” the Doctor said, his hand moving from Donna’s head to her shoulder, unwilling to fully break contact even though he had ended the mental link.

“On it!” Mel started tapping at one of the stations on the TARDIS console.

Donna caught her breath, her thoughts slowing back to their usual pace, remembering how to operate in English words.

“Are you all right?” the Doctor asked intently.

“I might have carpal tunnel after all this typing today,” Donna said, shaking life back into her hands, “but otherwise, yeah, I’m fine.”

“What was that on the last question?” he asked. “You changed the answer.”

“Because you were trying to answer it literally,” she explained. “It could have been about the rotational period of a galaxy, but the symbol can also be written as part of a recipe for soup. Multiple meanings.”

“It was a joke,” he said along with her. He laughed, dropping his head back and looking up in disbelief. “I missed that completely.”

He looked back at her with that expression of wonder that still baffled her after all this time. “Donna Noble, you spotted a pun in High Gallifreyan.” He took her face in his hands and kissed her forehead. “Oh, you are brilliant!”

She basked in the praise, but shoved him off gently. “All right, we’re at work, you big softie.”

“Right.” He let go, bouncing off to the other side of the console. “Melanie! Let’s find a new route for these passengers to get back on track safely.”

“That was impressive work today, Donna,” Kate said, coming over with Shirley.

“Thank you,” Donna nodded, still feeling a little shaky as the adrenaline wore off. “Hopefully not something we have to deal with again, but very relieved it worked.”

“Are you really all right?” Shirley asked gently.

“I am.” She could tell a headache was starting to bloom, but just a normal one like from straining her eyes at a computer screen all day. Nothing some aspirin and a warm drink couldn’t handle. Nothing to get the Doctor worried over.

She looked over, watching him leaning beside Mel, charting flight paths, and realized she hadn’t flinched when he reached for her face that time.

She smiled. “I really am.”

OOO

With the crisis averted, everyone filed out to get back to their normal work. As they left, though, the Doctor lingered with Donna in the TARDIS doorway.

“You’re sure you don’t need any more help? I’m already here.”

“We’ll be fine, Doctor,” she said kindly. “Go home. You saved the world again. Get some rest.”

“You did just as much as me,” he asserted, leaning on the door jamb and beaming at her proudly. “DoctorDonna.”

“Well…” she allowed, preening slightly. Then she noticed the sparkle in his eyes. “Oh no, I know that look.”

“What look?” he asked.

“Like a little boy who came up with a secret code and can’t wait to use it with his friends. You’re going to be leaving notes in Gallifreyan around for me now, aren’t you?”

“Maybe,” he conceded, still smirking. “I mean, might as well stay in practice, right? Maybe even try Ancient High Gallifreyan.” His eyes widened. “Do you think Rose can read it too?”

“I don’t know.” She still didn’t know how much Rose truly remembered from carrying part of the Metacrisis for so long. However, she gave the Doctor a stern point. “But no asking her until after she’s done her homework. Otherwise that’s all you two will be talking about all night.”

She couldn’t begrudge him his excitement, though. How lonely must it be to be, presumably, the last person who spoke your native language in the universe, with no one to share that part of your culture with? If she could give him that part of his home, his people back, it was worth having some extra homework to do herself.

“Doctor, one more thing,” she said as he got ready to leave. She had to ask. “You didn’t think of the psychic link idea at the last second. You could have done that earlier and not cut it so close.”

He sobered, all trace of mirth fading from his features. “I could have,” he admitted. “But I had hoped it wouldn’t come to that.”

Her heart warmed as she thought of how, even with disaster looming, he had waited. He wouldn’t even attempt it without her consent and approval. “You did all that, risked millions of lives, because you didn’t want to make me uncomfortable?”

“Of course,” he answered, like it was the most natural thing in the world.

She smiled. “Thank you.”

“Thank you for trusting me,” he replied quietly.

She nodded, like it was the most natural thing in the world. “Of course.”

He straightened. “Well, I’d best let you get back to protecting the world.”

“Actually, could you do one thing for me?” she asked.

He perked up. He did love having purpose. “What do you need?”

“Could you pick up dinner from that Italian restaurant we like tonight? I figure, we saved the day; we deserve a nice dinner.”

He grinned. “Can’t argue with that. Lasagna and pasta primavera?”

“You read my mind.” She gave him a last hug. “See you at home.”

Donna returned to her work station with a sense of relief despite the non-life-threatening headache settling in behind her eyes. It felt good to be able to make jokes about that finally. That fear had been the last real barrier she still carried related to the Doctor, even with their conversations and apologies and arguments since he returned. Confronting it, turning it into something more positive, it finally let her start to lay that trauma to rest. And from the Doctor’s memories that she had been able to make out, she suspected it did him some good too.

There would be time now to wonder who, with a knowledge of Gallifreyan, had basically thrown a missile full of hostages at them with a puzzle that seemed designed for them to solve only by working together. But for the moment, at least, Donna had true peace of mind.