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The shot had been aimed at the Doctor. He closed his eyes and prepared for the end. It didn’t come.
Thunk.
The Doctor opened his eyes and saw a body hit the floor. Donna’s body. “NO!” He scrambled towards her and dropped forcefully to his knees. He was vaguely aware of security forces in the background restraining someone. He didn’t care. What did it matter? His world was ending.
“That hurt,” Donna said, sounding surprised. “Ow.” She was flat on the ground, her eyes having taken on a glassy look.
He cupped her face in his hand and tried to get her to look at him. Her eyes were unfocused and her face was ashen. Horrified, he noticed that a large red splotch was soaking its way through her shirt. “Donna, I’m right here.”
“Oh my God, Mum!” Rose ran up, having finished with her part in prepping the ships for evacuation. She doubled over, hands on her stomach. “MUM!”
Out of his peripheral vision, he saw that the security forces had subdued the shooter. One member of the security forces started running towards the Doctor and Rose—medical unit, no doubt—but the Doctor knew they wouldn’t reach Donna in time. It had to be him and Rose.
“Rose!” the Doctor bellowed, “I need the med pod, now!” He hated yelling, and he hated yelling at Rose most of all, but there wasn’t time. Not if they wanted to save Donna.
Rose instantly shot up and sprinted the few meters to where the 31st-century med pod was lying on the ground. It was small, barely the size of a briefcase, but it was exactly what they needed. One of the doctors or nurses must have dropped it during the evacuation to the transports.
The Doctor’s hands were covered in blood—Donna’s blood. He was stemming the tide as much as he could, but he needed nanobots from the med pod if he had any chance of saving her life. Her wound was deep, but the nanobots were advanced. They could disinfect and suture a wound in under fifteen seconds. But they couldn’t bring someone back to life. “Stay with me Donna,” he mumbled.
“Doctor . . .” Donna’s eyes were closing and her voice was small. “It’s okay.”
“Doctor, I’m here!” Rose dropped down to her knees and slammed open the med pod. “Oh my God, Mum. Oh my God!”
The Doctor could tell Rose was on the verge of hyperventilating. “Rose, I’m sorry, but I can’t move my hands, not until the nanobots are ready. You have to do it. Rose, I’m so, so sorry.” Hands shaking from adrenaline and fear, Rose started prepping the nanobots, which were transferred from a central hub by a thin, silvery rope. “Good, Rose, good. Just connect those two wires there. You’ve got it.”
They were both sweating profusely, and the Doctor felt like he might pass out. He felt awful putting Rose in this scenario, but there was no other way. “Ok, now just place it on Donna’s skin. Yes, right there.” Rose guided the silver wires to the wound. The wire vibrated, indicating the nanobots were moving.
The Doctor yanked his hands away from Donna’s body. He was reluctant to, but he knew if she had any chance of surviving he had to get out of the way and let the nanobots do their work. He couldn’t see them, but he knew they were there. He just had to hope. But hope was dangerous.
Rose was sobbing as she grabbed Donna’s hand. Blood from the wound had gotten over Rose’s hands as well. It was a gruesome sight. The Doctor took Donna’s other hand and pinned it to his chest. Together, they sat there, two sentries warding against the inevitable.
The security guard, the one the Doctor assumed had medical training, finally arrived. “Nanobots,” a female voice said. “Good.” She nodded at the Doctor and Rose. “Good work. I’m sorry I didn’t get here sooner.” The Doctor nodded his head. It was all he could manage. It was quiet as they all waited.
Donna was pale and barely conscious. “Rose,” she said, her head tilting toward her daughter. “You’ll be okay. The Doctor will take care of you.”
“We’ll take care of you too, Mum. You’ll be just fine. Me and the Doctor will see to it.” Rose was fully sobbing.
“You’re so brilliant, darling,” Donna said. “Just remember that.” She turned her head towards the Doctor. “You’ll stay, right? With her?”
“Of course, Donna. I’m not going anywhere. But don’t you worry, you’re going to be just fine. You’re not going anywhere either. It’s just like Rose said.” By this time his voice had taken on a hysterical quality. He felt Donna’s hand squeeze his where they were intertwined on his chest, right between his hearts. That’s where she always was. Where she always would be. He wanted to pull Donna into his arms and kiss the side of her mouth, her ear, and whisper his name over and over again so that only she could hear it. Why hadn’t he done that every day they had been together? He let out a wrenching cry, head tilted back towards the heavens. He still held both Rose and Donna’s hands tightly.
“Doctor . . . S’okay.” Even in death she was looking out her him.
“Don’t talk. Just wait, Donna. The nanobots are working.”
“I think . . . this might be . . . end. Me . . . You.” Her voice trailed off as she went unconscious from blood loss. The Doctor could tell that she was breathing, but barely.
“No,” he whisper-cried. “No, please no. Not again. Donna, stay. You have to stay.” He was completely worn out.
For a few moments, there was nothing but the noise of nanobots doing their work. All Rose and the Doctor could do was wait. The seconds were some of the most painful the Doctor had ever experienced.
In the background, he could hear the ships getting ready to launch.
The whirring of the nanobots stopped. Rose inhaled. The Doctor squeezed Donna’s hand as tight as he could. Her chest was still. It didn’t move. Rose wailed and the Doctor screamed, tears streaming down both their faces.
The Doctor would take care of Rose, of course he would. She was one of the most precious things in the world to him. But he wanted nothing more than to do that with Donna by his side. But if she was really gone, then his most sacred act to the woman he loved would be to take care of her daughter and make sure she was safe. Don’t be gone, he thought.
Donna’s eyes flew open and she came awake with a gasp.
The Doctor and Rose both let out sounds somewhere between relief and disbelief. Neither of them had let go of Donna’s hands.
“What?” Donna looked around. Her voice was shaky and she was still deathly pale, but she was alive. The Doctor risked looking at her wound and saw that it was cleaned and stitched shut. “What happened?”
“Oh my God, Mum,” Rose cried happily. “I was so scared.”
“I’m fine love, just a little sore. And tired. Doctor?” She turned her head to look at him, no doubt still trying to orient herself and remember what had happened.
But the Doctor was already moving. He let go of Donna’s hand now that he knew she was alive. She would be fine.
In another life, the Doctor had been known as the Oncoming Storm. At first the name had haunted him, a relic of the Time War and the things he’d had to do. But then, eventually, that version of him had snapped. He’d lost too many people, and the Oncoming Storm was something he came to relish. And now, just like then, there was no one to stop him. It was the first time in this regeneration he had felt it stirring. And it felt good. Rage was so easy when he could justify it.
He walked past the medical security guard who had approached them and casually lifted her gun from her holster, moving away swiftly before she could realize what had happened.
He saw the security guards loading the man who had shot Donna onto one of the ships. Clearly, they had been watching what happened with Donna. Now that she was safe, they seemed to remember that they had a prisoner to detain.
The Doctor recognized him, and several things fell into place at once. That man had been trying to prevent the evacuation. And when he had failed to stop it, he had turned his weapon on the Doctor in vengeance.
Now the Oncoming Storm would have its day. It wasn’t a person. It wasn’t even a Time Lord. It was a force of nature. All the dark places of the universe made manifest. “Turn him around,” the Doctor said, lifting the gun and pointing it straight at the perpetrator.
The two guards holding the man turned, and their eyes went wide. “Sir,” a guard said, “please put the weapon down. This man is no longer a threat.”
“He is to me.” The security guards froze, clearly unsure what to do to deescalate the situation. What did you do when the man who was helping you turned on you?
“Don’t make us draw our weapons,” the other guard said.
“You wouldn’t make it in time,” he growled. Donna was alive. So what if he died? She would be fine without him. The part of his brain that wasn’t the Oncoming Storm protested this, but he shoved it down, down, down.
“There it is,” the man who had tried to kill him drawled. It was the first time the Doctor had heard him speak, having only witnessed his evil acts from afar. Despite his restraints, the man seemed completely in control. “I see it now. The killer. You can’t hide from me, Doctor. You’re just as bad as I am.”
The Doctor walked forward and held the gun to the man’s temples. “You tried to take the woman I love from me. That is not a safe place to stand.” He clicked the safety off.
“Doctor, stop.” Someone was talking but he couldn’t hear them, didn’t want to. The man just smiled, like he’d somehow won anyway. All he had to do was pull the trigger. “Doctor!” That voice. It was familiar. “DOCTOR! STOP!”
The ferocity of the yell stopped him short and brought him back to his senses. He turned around and saw who had yelled. There sat Rose Noble, still kneeling next to her half-conscious mother. It was her who had cried out.
He dropped the gun. The security guards started shuffling him away, prisoner in tow. They gave the Doctor’s nasty looks as they did so. They apparently didn’t know what to do with the man who had helped saved their society who had then turned a weapon back on them. It seemed they wanted to get away from him, which, the Doctor mused, was fair. He was surprised they didn’t try to court-marshal him.
The Doctor lowered his head in shame. He remembered the last time someone had saved him like this. In two separate lives, the Doctor had been saved by the goodness of a Noble woman. Once under the Thames. And now once on a distant planet far from Earth.
He walked back to Donna and Rose as the ships finally started to depart. Now it was just them and a trek back to the TARDIS.
Donna was starting to sit up. The Doctor wasn’t sure how much she had seen.
“I saw that,” she said, immediately answering that question.
He lowered his eyes in shame. “I’m so sorry,” he said, not to Donna, but to Rose. He met her eyes. “I . . . Thank you. For stopping me. I . . . There aren’t words enough for me to apologize. You never should have seen that.”
Rose’s gaze was determined and forgiving, which he did not deserve. He realized that at eighteen she was well and truly his equal, just like her mother. “You stopped,” she said. “That’s what matters.”
He wanted to say something but just nodded, tears in his eyes. “Thank you,” he finally got out.
Slowly, the two of them helped Donna to her feet. Her clothes were covered in dried blood, but she could stand, and seemed to be regaining color to her face by the minute.
“Rose,” Donna said, placing her hand on her daughter’s shoulder. “Thank you so much for saving us. Both of us.”
Rose smiled. The three of them walked back to the TARDIS.
Later, once they were back in London, Donna sent Rose back into the house with a promise that she and the Doctor would be there in just a moment. Rose had eyed the two of them curiously, but had left without complaint.
The Doctor did everything he could not to meet Donna’s eyes. He messed with all the dials and switches on the TARDIS he could find. If they were suddenly to be sucked into a black hole, he didn’t think he would mind.
“Doctor.” Donna stood next to the Doctor by the console.
“Hmm?” He attempted nonchalance.
“Doctor.” She reached out and cupped his cheek, gently turning his head to look at her.
He broke down immediately upon looking at her, trying to wipe the tears from his eyes with his hands to hide both his shame and his sadness. But he should have known that with Donna there was no hiding.
She let him cry, and then she tilted his head up again to look at her. “You’re covered in blood,” she said. The Doctor noted that she was still so pale. It reminded him of how close they had come.
“So are you.” Silence. “Donna . . . Why did you do that?” He brought his hands to his face for another bout of tears. “You almost died. Why?”
It was silly question, and he knew it. That’s just what they did for one another. He would have done the same for her, or Rose, no questions asked. But he so wished that she hadn’t had to.
Donna put her hands to his chest. She ran her hands up over his shoulders to hold them steady. “You know why.”
He nodded. “Will you forgive me?” he whispered. “For what I almost did?”
“It’s Rose whose forgiveness you need. And Doctor, she already gave it to you.”
He sniffed. “She shouldn’t have had to give it.”
“Yeah, well, tough. You should talk to her more about it, but I know she forgives you.” Donna leaned over the TARDIS console, now not looking at him. “Life with you is never simple, you know? Wasn’t simple the first time we travelled, and it isn’t now. It wasn’t even simple when I didn’t remember you.” She turned to look at him. “That’s how it always is with you. Dazzling and dangerous. But I wouldn’t trade it, and I know that for a fact, because I’ve seen the other side of it. I know exactly what life without you is like.”
“I came home to you,” he whispered, like it was a secret he only could share with her. “Because you taught me what it was to be good. And you make me feel safe, even when the world is ending. Donna, when I almost . . . shot that man, I—”
“I heard you,” Donna said, cutting him off. “You were quite loud.”
He wanted to smile, but felt like his face might break in two. “I heard you, too,” he said. “When you thought you were dying.”
“Well,” Donna said with her typical directness, “I’m not dying now.” She lightly grasped his shoulders. She was too kind, he didn’t deserve this. He was going to pass out and die, weighed down by his shame even in the face of Donna’s love. “Thank you, Doctor, for showing me that I’m worth coming home for.”
“Donna, I don’t deserve this. Your kindness. All of it.” He was going to collapse at any second.
“Hush, none of that.” Her hands went to his face. “None of that now. Not after everything we’ve been through. I see you. Don’t hide. Please. For me.”
How could he ever be worthy of her. Still, in spite of it all, he began to pull himself from the darkness. Always with Donna’s help. “I want . . . Always you.” His hands went around her waist, but he still had room to tangle a hand in her hair.
“Good,” Donna said. “Good. Yes.”
He brought his lips to her neck in desperate, gentle kisses. Slowly, he inched his lips higher up. He caught the edge of her mouth, and then they were together completely.
“I know . . .” Donna nipped at his mouth. “What . . .” She was trying to speak and kiss him at the same time. “Tell me. I want to know.”
He moved his lips to her ear. For a moment he just kissed her there repeatedly, tongue gliding over where his mouth kissed. He whispered it so only she could here.
Again and again and again.