Chapter Text
The Doctor came to a stop atop a pile of rubble. It made a strange sort of sense for the Master to end up in a scrapyard. Of course he’d wash up in a place full of lost and broken things—no one was more lost or broken than him. Though after everything on Mars...
No. This wasn’t the time for navel-gazing.
His eyes flicked over the landscape. Still no physical sign of him. Just that nauseating sense of his presence. The Doctor took a deep breath and let it out again. He’d never be ready to face his old friend again, no matter how long he waited. No sense putting it off any longer.
His eyes flickered shut. The Doctor finally reached out, brimming with unease. Master...
Sure enough, the Master responded: Doctor. It’s about time.
Less expectedly, someone else replied too.
...Hello? What...who are you?
The Doctor’s jaw dropped. Donna?! Panic bloomed in his mind. No—no, it couldn’t be—not after what he did, not after he lost her—
Who’s this? Though the Doctor couldn’t see him, he knew the exact predatory smile slithering onto his old foe’s face. A companion...dearly missed. And with an aptitude for psychic communion? This I have to see.
Without hesitation, the Doctor bolted for the TARDIS. The Master wouldn’t get anywhere near Donna—not if he had any say in the matter.
A sulky-looking teenager with several facial piercings levelled a dead-inside stare from behind the counter.
Sylvia sniffed and turned down the nearest aisle, making a beeline for the coolers.
How was she meant to make mashed potatoes without butter?! Her lip curled. Over her dead body would she use margarine for them—Christmas was hardly the time for calorie-counting.
Ridiculous of Donna, using it up on toast of all things—and only now did she confess to taking the spare brick back to her flat last week, too! Now Sylvia was left to twist in the wind on a day when all the proper shops were shut. Bloody irresponsible, it was. And to think she’d almost let her take charge of Christmas dinner this year!
She stalked along the refrigerated shelves. There was the milk, the tiny cartons of criminally overpriced cream, the tubs of yoghurt and sour cream...
Sylvia stopped just short of running into a lady wearing a shockingly white suit. “Excuse me.” She narrowly missed growling those words.
The woman smiled. “You are excused.” She folded her hands in front of her and didn’t shift an inch.
Sylvia stared in disbelief. The stranger only smiled wider. “...Excuse me,” she said again.
Her eyebrows rose. “In a hurry?”
Was she joking? Every second she was stuck in this stalemate ticked away in the back of her mind. “Yes,” Sylvia spat. “Obviously! Now, if I could just get by...”
The woman didn’t seem to hear a word.
“Are you dense?” Sylvia was going to have a bloody coronary if this twit didn’t figure herself out. “I need to get past!”
“What’s past is prologue,” the woman serenely stated.
“What?” The word was sharp enough to cut.
“What’s past is prologue,” she said again. “And time grows short. In fact, time might be a thing of the past all too soon.”
Sylvia eyed her with some trepidation. All in white like that—had this madwoman recently escaped a hospital? Perhaps she’d stolen some doctor’s clothes? Or was she simply on her way to a party?
Either way, she wasn’t exactly dressed for the winter weather.
“...Isn’t that nice for you. I won’t keep you from your, erm, engagement, since you're running late. But if I can just squeeze by—?”
“I won’t keep you long. I’m sure you’re eager to get back to your daughter.”
She puffed up at once. “What the hell do you know about my daughter?!” Oh, god—her mind leapt to that wretched man. He was always in a suit, too—was she one of his kind? Did he send her? Was she just as dangerous?
A sad smile curved the woman’s lips. “Not nearly as much as you, I’m sure. But of children...it always seems to be the lot of mothers to carry someone else’s burdens.”
“...I suppose,” Sylvia warily allowed. Memories flashed before her— a much younger Donna loading her handbag with particularly shiny pebbles at the beach—Geoff, too, secreting a bauble or six too cumbersome for his pockets—and some foggier recollections, too, of Dad sheepishly asking her exasperated mother to fit another whatsit in her handbag...
Sylvia renewed her glare.
“...Never mind that. Would you mind getting out of my way, now? I need to get home before my daughter overcooks the potatoes!”
The woman opened her mouth to say something else—
“Are you alright, ma’am?”
Sylvia spun on the spot to find that teenager hovering behind her. “Yes! Course I’m fine! Or I will be, once she gets out of the way.” She jerked a furious thumb behind her.
The perforated teenager glanced over her shoulder. “Er...sorry, but—who are you talking about?”
“What?” Sylvia looked back—
The aisle was empty, like the woman was never there.
The TARDIS spiralled off course yet again.
“Stop that!”
The Doctor ignored her grumbling. The Old Girl was just being difficult—landing near the Noble home should’ve been easy! It was just Chiswick, after all. If only she’d follow his lead for once.
“Stop juddering like that!” Another piercing groan echoed. “Stop it! There isn’t a bloody time eddy!” He gave the stubborn old thing a sharp smack with the mallet.
Her engines growled a bit louder. He growled back, flicking the aesthetics gauge unnecessarily hard. At long last the TARDIS landed with a disgruntled thump.
“Finally!” The Doctor ran without even checking the monitor.
When he burst outside, he skidded to a halt. “The sun...oh, we’ve skipped a few hours.” The Doctor scowled up at the sky. “Stupid, stupid—!”
A smug hum behind him sent his eyes rolling to the back of his head.
“Alright, so I was wrong,” he muttered sourly, “Don’t go saying ‘I told you so.’ It’s petty. What matters is Donna—if she’s not alright...”
The Doctor steeled himself to face the house. Just then a familiar car pulled up—right, that was Sylvia. Her familiar bony frame headed to the door, muttering direly to herself.
He took advantage of her distraction to dash over the road. Once safely by the house, he skirted the window...but he could only put off looking for so long.
The Doctor took a breath and peered through the glass. Beyond the rather lovely poinsettias, he caught a glimpse of a freshly jacketless Sylvia stalking down the hallway with two bricks of butter...and then there was Donna, talking a mile a minute as always, accompanying her back to the kitchen.
The Doctor braced himself to run, to duck, something—she mustn’t see him, she mustn’t—but luckily Donna carried on with her day, completely oblivious to his presence.
She...
She was fine. Completely fine.
“How—?” The Doctor clapped a hand over his mouth. How could Donna be fine? It was impossible!
Any thought of him, of anything to do with their travels should have sparked something. Psychic contact of all things should have connected to her lost memories. The time he touched her mind on the Oodsphere, that last time in the TARDIS, or some other memory of his—
Hang on, no—there was one way she could have survived. The defense mechanism he gave her could have been triggered to bleed off the excess energy. Though...no, it couldn’t have been. A sudden release like that would’ve been felt...and not just by him, either.
The Doctor abruptly frowned. Thanks to that time eddy, the Master had gained a massive head start.
Why wasn’t he here?
The Master revelled in sensation.
The icy breeze in his hair—the deafening roar of humanity in his ears—the smells! The rank curiosity of gawkers dying to know why he was running down the pavement; the stink of primitive engines combusting fuel, filling the air and coating every surface; the stench of the rich bloated restaurants; the filthy fat rats and rot and reek making his mouth water—
He refocused with difficulty. The time to slake his hunger would come...though not until he found this delicious little curiosity of the Doctor’s.
A curiosity was precisely what this ‘Donna Noble’ was. It was nothing new for that pathetic twit to care for his little pets—sentiment was his perpetual weakness, and the Master relied on it many times before—but this time he was utterly consumed by panic the moment she’d responded. The intensity was new. The Doctor had leapt into action the moment he’d hinted at a threat, ready to dive between them, ready to take whatever blow the Master aimed at his precious pet.
He’d always known the Doctor had issues. This just further illustrated them. Depending on a mayfly species like humanity was terribly foolish—the Doctor was bound to go mad when his favourite little soap bubble popped, like they all eventually would.
Something stopped him on the edge of the pavement. The Master cocked his head and took a deep sniff. The coordinates he’d gleaned from his ancient enemy were much further west. In Chiswick, wherever that was in this ghastly city. Yet there was something...he slowly turned on his heel.
There—there it was again! A stray thread of her voice echoed to the north.
Hm...perhaps she just wasn’t at home? He sniffed again. No. No, it wasn’t...this voice wasn’t quite the same as the presence he felt before. The Master reached out—yes, that bit of psychically-susceptible fluff was definitely westward, just as the Doctor’d assumed.
That scrap of consciousness wordlessly spoke again. There was something...something compelling about the call.
His grin stretched wide enough to hurt. The Doctor expected him to race for the finish line...but there might be more than one way to win.
No luck finding him. Wilfred Mott scowled down at paper patterned with cheery snowmen.
Well, that wasn’t strictly true—there’d been a blue box sighting yesterday, a box that might’ve been the police box his granddaughter once called home. And June’s sister’s neighbour had even spotted the Doctor himself!
His whole platoon had just failed to pin him down. They’d spread out through that area by the warehouses to ask everyone they saw if they’d spotted a tall man with sticky-uppy hair. No one had. One older fella mentioned a strange bloke in a dark jumper rushing off, but that couldn’t be him. Not once had Wilf seen the Doctor out of that stripey suit, let alone in a jumper.
An urgency he couldn’t quite explain still writhed in his gut, but there was nothing more he could’ve done yesterday other than wander around London alone. Minnie, Ollie, and the rest had all had plans to celebrate the season, and Wilf’s joints were complaining of the walk anyway...
All that, and Sylvia might've actually murdered him if he hadn’t come home on Christmas Eve.
At least he got his gifts wrapped last night. That wasn’t nothing, Wilf told himself yet again. Getting set for the holiday with his family was...well, it didn’t feel as important as the ominous dreams, but making sure Donna felt cared for was surely what the Doctor would want.
He sighed. Right, well, best get these under the tree before Shaun came round. Wilf picked up the stack of gaily-wrapped parcels and turned to leave.
That strange woman from the church stood not three feet away.
“What—?” All his gifts tumbled to the floor. The heaviest landed on his toe. “Ow!”
She stepped forward, calm as ever. “At ease, Wilfred. The time is not yet here.”
“What’re you doing here?” he demanded. Donna—Donna was downstairs. His fists clenched. “How’d you get inside? If you hurt my Donna...”
The woman smiled, though there was an edge of sadness. One of her hands fiddled with something on her wrist. “Donna is fine—she will be fine. She’ll be...brilliant.”
Wilf’s glare shifted closer to a stare. She...she sounded like...him.
“Events are moving even faster than they ought,” the woman continued. “You, Wilfred, can see clearly when most cannot. Today an old soldier must stand ready.”
“I’m not a soldier,” he protested at once. “Not any more, not these many years.” And glad of it, too. Wilf swallowed hard. “I did my duty, to be sure, but—”
“You may yet do your duty.”
Wilf gaped at her. “How? Why?”
The woman stepped closer still. “Arms may yet need to be taken up,” she intoned. Something about her eyes held him in place. “You must rush in where others fear to tread.”
“Me?” he asked incredulously. “I must be armed? I must rush in?”
Her shoulders came up in an elegant shrug.
“But—but the Doctor—”
“You mustn’t tell the Doctor of this.” Wilfred opened his mouth to argue, but she didn’t pause to let him. “His life may yet be saved, but only if you tell him nothing.”
“His life?” he yelped. “Is he alright? Surely he’s not ill!”
“You must not tell him,” was all the woman said in reply.
He pressed his mouth into a thin line. Keeping secrets never sat well with him, even when it was arguably for the best. Though if the Doctor’s life was at stake...
Downstairs the front door opened and shut. His eyes flicked toward the voices of his daughter and granddaughter.
When he looked back up, Wilf somehow wasn’t surprised to find the woman gone.
The Doctor was dithering—that was the only word for it. Unfortunately, scoffing at his own ridiculousness didn’t resolve his indecision.
He needed to check on Donna properly. He had to make sure she would be alright, that brushing against her mind didn’t upset the delicate balance he’d barely managed to create in the first place. It was the only responsible thing to do, under the circumstances—of that much he was certain. The risk, though...
If the Doctor reached out on that level, there was every chance that the Master could reach her too. That sickening presence still lingered on the outskirts of his awareness, churning with unstable glee somewhere north-east of Donna’s home. He was genuinely unsure why the Master wasn’t drawn here long before him—why he hadn’t found his old friend in the middle of shredding Donna’s consciousness...
Was it worth tempting fate further than he already had?
The Doctor grimaced. He was back where he began: terrified he’d ruin everything, and still uncertain what to do.
Well, whatever he ended up doing, a better idea of what he was getting into couldn’t hurt. The Doctor braced himself and took a careful step closer to the window. Bending slowly, he peeked inside...
...Directly into Sylvia Noble’s eyes, framed by bright red poinsettias. The Doctor’s jaw dropped at the same instant as hers. He staggered back a step—he should run, sprint for the safety of the TARDIS—
Never again would he underestimate Sylvia’s land-speed capacity when her daughter was in danger. The door whipped open and slammed shut in one fluid motion. Sylvia stalked straight for him, steaming slightly in the winter air. “You!” she hissed.
The Doctor tried for a pleasant smile. “Hello, Sylvia.”
Her glare only deepened. “What the hell are you doing in my garden? Peeping into my bloody windows—are you trying to get my daughter killed? On Christmas?!” She crushed a handful of wilted red leaves in her fist.
“Course not!” he protested at once. “I’d never do that! It’s not my fault that—”
The Doctor stopped himself, but it was already too late.
Sylvia blanched. “Oh, god,” she breathed, “What alien nightmare’s coming for us this time?”
By the fourth storage unit, the Master’s grin had fully transformed into a scowl.
The thread of her voice led him into this maze of concrete corridors, sure enough, but it was far too weak to consistently cry out. That fragment faded to nothing over and over again, making it incredibly difficult to pinpoint the source in this labyrinth of human rubbish.
The Master seized a spindly chair and smashed it to splinters against the wall. It relieved a mere fraction of his building irritation.
Infinite boxes of inane junk waited behind every single door. Tearing it apart had been satisfying at the beginning. But it turned out that wanton destruction lost its appeal after hours of wandering. There were only so many ways to smash dusty china before he felt like he was repeating himself.
He tore open another box, more from boredom than belief it might hold what he was seeking. Paper....nothing but paper. His lip curled. Humans—they were obsessed with the stuff.
His head turned sharply. There—there it was again! That almost inaudible whisper brushed against his psyche. He stuck out his tongue for a taste...delicious.
On his way out the door, the Master knocked the paper to the floor as a parting gift for whatever menial ape discovered it. He chased that wisp of something down the concrete corridor, up and around to the next, around one more corner and—!
He nearly smacked face-first into another locked door.
A quick burst of power shattered the lock. The Master wrenched it open. That whisper came again, now with a strong whiff of that now-familiar energy—yes. This was it.
A wild cackle echoed down the corridor as he tore open a dusty box labelled ‘DONNA’S THINGS.’
“Sylvia—”
“I can’t believe you’d come anywhere near her!” Sylvia heaved with fury. “After all those dire warnings—irresponsible, that’s what it is! Hypocritical, too!”
“Sylvia, please—”
“Please, what?” She jabbed a sharp finger at his throat. “Please shut up? Is that it?”
“No!” The Doctor glared back at her. “Just—neither of us want Donna to catch me here, right? Shouting isn’t going to help, it’ll just attract attention!”
Her nostrils flared. Thankfully Sylvia followed him further from the window anyway.
The Doctor dragged a hand through his hair with a sigh. How did this day keep getting worse? “...Look, Sylvia, I’m just here to check on her. Make sure she’s alright. That’s all, I swear.”
Sylvia’s eyes narrowed. “No, that can’t be all,” she contradicted. “You said ‘it wasn’t your fault.’ What wasn’t your fault? And you didn’t deny that something bad's happening, either!”
His mouth worked silently. “I—er—it’s...”
She crossed her arms. “I’m not stirring an inch until you explain.” If she was anything like her daughter, he knew that was true.
“...Sylvia? Are you outside?”
The Doctor’s eyes rolled into the back of his head—of course Wilf would come to check on his daughter. It was just his luck.
“...Doctor?!”
When he looked up, Wilf stood gaping in the doorway. “Hiya.” The Doctor waved weakly.
“Oh, Doctor—I’ve been looking for you!” He hustled down the front steps, beaming. “How’d you know to come find me?”
“What?” The Doctor took his own turn gaping. “You were looking for me? How? Where?”
“Oh, all over London. Had the old crowd out searching for you and your blue box—”
“You were looking for him?!” Sylvia screeched. The Doctor darted a cautious glance her way—she was flushed purple with betrayal. “You wanted him to come? To put Donna in danger?”
“No!” Wilf interposed himself between them. He was more than a little grateful for the distance. She may not have slapped him yet, but he didn’t trust her restraint to last. “I wasn’t going to bring him home. Honest, I wasn’t.”
The Doctor tried not to feel hurt.
“Then why do this? Why call him here?”
“He, er, didn’t,” the Doctor awkwardly offered. “I was just, um. In the area, so to speak.”
Her glare snapped back to him at once. The Doctor suppressed a flinch. “And why was that, again? Something gone wrong with the cars again? Or maybe it’s more of those Dalek things, back to finish the job.”
“No, it’s—it’s neither of those.” He tried not to grimace.
“But it’s dangerous.” It wasn’t a question.
“Well...”
“Deadly?” The question came from Wilf. The Doctor looked his way, frowning. There was a strange sort of dread in his eyes.
“…Maybe,” he allowed. “But not for Donna. Never for Donna.”
“How can you guarantee that?” Sylvia demanded.
“I won’t let it.” Iron resolve rang in his voice.
Donna gave a bit of potato an experimental stab. The fork went through with next-to-no effort on her part, so she turned down the heat.
She’d go ahead with the mashing, but after the scene earlier...best not to risk catching more flak from Mum today. Not after covering for Gramps using up the butter. Mum was always on him about too much on his toast. Sparing him that was a solid back-up Christmas gift, in case Gramps wasn’t keen on that book.
...How long had Mum been gone? She checked her watch with a frown. Leaning into the hallway, Donna called, “Mum? You alright?”
No response came.
“Mum?”
Still no response.
Donna cracked open the oven. The turkey was still crackling away, and the veg was still roasting on the rack below it. Should be safe enough to check on her.
“Mum?” She ventured down the hall. “Seriously, you alright in there?” Was she in the toilet?
When her knuckles touched the door, it swung open with a creak. There was no sign of her.
“She didn’t tell me she was playing hide and seek,” Donna muttered to herself. Ready or not, here she came.
A flicker of motion caught her eye.
Donna stuck her head into the lounge to get a better look through the front window. There was Mum, standing outside with no jacket for some reason and jabbing her bony finger at some poor sod. Hopefully it wasn’t Mr. Milton from up the road again—if Donna told her once, she told her a thousand times that he really did just want to admire the flowers in the window.
Donna casually leaned out the front door. “Oi, Mum, it’s brass monkeys out here! Are you really going to shout at poor Mr. Milton on Christmas D—? Oh!”
She stared at the man bearing the brunt of her mother’s temper. His face was awfully familiar. “...Is that—it’s John Smith, isn’t it?”
John looked more petrified than she’d expect, even if he was against a wall with Mum at his throat. “...Yep. Hello again.” Behind him Gramps anxiously wrung his hands. He also wasn't wearing a jacket—he must be freezing!
“Right.” Donna thought back for a moment. “...Been a good while, hasn’t it?”
“Yep.”
Donna levelled a raised eyebrow at him. Bit rude, wasn’t he? “Don’t you know any other words?”
“Yep.” John shook himself, immediately blurting out, “Er, I mean, yes—yes, I do.”
Her mouth twitched. “Oh, good. Next you’ll manage a coherent sentence.”
His grin was blindingly bright—but only until Mum elbowed him hard in the gut.
“Mum!” Donna squawked, rushing down the steps. “What the hell’re you doing?! This isn’t a bloody cage match!” She laid a gentle hand on his back. “Are you alright?”
John waved her off. “M’alright, Donna, don’t worry,” he wheezed. “M’always alright—”
He cut himself off, but it was already far too late.
The Doctor dove to catch her before he properly registered what was happening. Her eyes had rolled right up into her head and then she was limp, completely limp in his arms.
Over them Sylvia was in a flap, impotently screeching “What have you done?!” like he wasn’t already beating himself over the head with that same question. His mind raced equally with terror and possibilities.
“Donna? Sweetheart?” Wilf bent to touch his granddaughter’s shoulder with a shaking hand, but there was nothing he could do. It was all on the Doctor now.
He rested her head on his shoulder and touched her temple.
Horror consumed him—all the spaces which should have been empty, bereft of any reminders of their travels, were anything but.
Donna’s mind teemed with thoughts and impressions and memories of creatures and machines and worlds far beyond her own. They burned through her synapses with impossible speed—he winced, feeling the searing pain at her temples as if it was his own. It surged hotter and hotter and hotter and hotter—
The Doctor spread himself as thin as he could to soak up all that heat. Slowly...gradually...the pain seeped away. Donna’s poor singed consciousness settled into blissful nothingness as the blaze died down to mere embers.
Again the Doctor gritted his teeth and rebuilt the painful wall that separated her selves. Brick by brick he hid Donna from herself once more.
“Doctor? Doctor—are you alright?”
He blinked wearily up at Wilf’s concerned face. When had he turned to such an odd angle? “Hmm?”
“You almost went sideways, and Donna with you!”
The Doctor blinked for a moment before the words connected in his brain. Right, Wilf was propping them up now.
Donna nearly slid off of his shoulder when he straightened, but he caught her just in time. “Sorry, Wilf, Sylvia. I just...I had to stop it. Took more out of me than I thought.”
“How?” Sylvia demanded. “You couldn’t fix it before. What changed?”
“Still can’t,” the Doctor corrected. He shifted Donna slightly—she’d wake with a wicked crick in her neck if they didn’t move her soon. “I just...mopped up the spill, is all.”
“Why not all of it?”
The Doctor did his best not to glare. He was fairly sure he’d failed as he ground out, “Oh, just death. Could technically absorb all the energy, I suppose...but I’d be a bit too busy burning out my own nervous system to keep an eye on Donna.”
The strained silence between them lasted nearly a minute. It was ended by a shrill ring somewhere around his sternum. The Doctor shifted uncomfortably. There was no way to easily get to his pocket and keep Donna balanced. “Er, Wilf, would you mind getting my mobile?”
“Aye aye!”
The trial and error of directing Wilf to the correct pocket had him squirming under Donna’s warm weight.
“You have a mobile?” Disbelief dripped from Sylvia’s words.
“Yep.” He popped the ‘P’ specifically to irritate her. The audible grinding of her teeth indicated his success.
“Ah, here we are!” Wilf finally slithered his mobile out of his jacket. He flipped the phone open and held it to his ear.
The Doctor mouthed his thanks. “Hello?”
“Am I speaking to the Doctor?”
The Doctor’s lips thinned. Oh, great—hearing from UNIT was never good. Would be nice if they rang about a picnic once in a while. “Yes, speaking.”
“Sir, this is Chief Scientific Officer Foulkes of UNIT—”
“Yes, excellent,” the Doctor interrupted. “Sorry, I’m just—sort of got my hands full right now. What’s wrong?”
There was a long moment of silence. He could precisely imagine the military sigh this Foulkes person covered the receiver to hide. “...Understood. Sir, there’s been an incident with a person who strongly resembles former Prime Minister Harold Saxon.”
“...Course there has,” the Doctor sighed. He wished he could pinch the bridge of his nose. “Tell me.”
Foulkes summarised the state of things rather quickly and efficiently. No wonder they were promoted to CSO.
The Doctor’s eyebrows nearly flew off his face, they went so high. “Let me get this straight—you’ve somehow got the most dangerous being on the planet into custody?” How the hell did they manage that? And why was the Master in some storage facility in the first place?
Foulkes confirmed that yes, that did seem to be the case.
“...Right. Well, I’ll be right there.” The Doctor nodded to Wilf, and he promptly snapped the phone shut. His mind was already racing sixteen steps ahead—first to UNIT headquarters, get the Master to spill his plans, and then off to find that man the Ood showed him, whoever he was... “I’ll just get Donna inside. She should stay asleep for another hour or so, easy. I’ll come back to check on her once I’ve sorted out—”
“You really think we’re going to just let you fly off like that?” Sylvia demanded.
The Doctor blinked up at her, halfway through getting to his feet. Donna’s legs dangled over one arm. “Er...” He looked to Wilf for support.
He shifted awkwardly from foot to foot. “...Be fair. You did say ‘the most dangerous being on Earth,’” Wilf said, a little apologetically.
“You can’t just leave Donna unprotected! What if whatever it is gets loose?” Sylvia’s breathing grew concerningly laboured.
He looked down at Donna’s pale face, pillowed on his arm. There was nothing else for it.
“...Right. Onto the TARDIS, then.”
“What?”
The Doctor strode off toward his ship without another word. Behind him Wilf put up a valiant effort at calming his daughter.
“—Must be safe if he’s taking her there...”
“But on his spaceship? Seriously, Dad—”
He turned back to face them. Donna’s cheek lolled against his lapel. “Sylvia, I can’t just leave her here. You’re absolutely right, she won’t be safe unprotected in the house...but I have to go sort it. I can’t just stay here.”
“But what if she wakes up?” Sylvia wrung her hands. “What if she sees all your, your Martian things and remembers while you’re busy?”
It wasn’t an unfair question. “Good point,” the Doctor allowed, thinking furiously. “...I have a stasis field that can protect her. It’s a medical device—it’s meant to keep a patient unconscious long enough to prepare for complicated procedures.”
“And it’s safe?”
Every second that passed strained his nerves a degree tighter, but Sylvia had to be certain. Only by convincing her could Donna be protected.
“I promise.”
Sylvia eyed him suspiciously. The Doctor looked directly at her—no avoidance, no evasion, just showing how seriously he took this responsibility.
“...Alright. Let me get my handbag.”